As for me... I'm still in PS, but much less than before. I've been playing for over a year, and I have seen little significant improvement from when I started.
Magic: 14 months ago, the only spells anybody used were Life Infusion, Missile, and Arrow. Today, the only spells anybody uses are the same three. Some spells still crash some players.
Monsters: No new monsters have been added in that time. No new monster animations or skins have been added.
Stability: In the last three days, the monsters have been "Impervious to Attack" almost constantly.
Dueling: About the same as before. Magic mostly useless in duels. Run around and hope your one-hit kill weapon hits before your opponent's one-hit kill weapon does.
Skills: Other than crafting, what skills have been added? None that I can think of.
Character skins and animations: Some models can now sit and wave. Others cannot. Most models now have basic skins for armor. Combat animations are still the same: practically non-existent.
Character models: None added in 14 months. Still no male or female lemur. No female dermorian, diaboli, xacha, or ylian (I think they all use the ynnwn model?) Probably others that I haven't listed.
Sounds: Monsters still make no sounds. No roaring ulbers, groaning grendols or chattering clackers. No weapon sounds in battle.
Thieving skills: Not implemented, as far as I can tell.
Movement: Side-stepping is now at slug-speed.
Controls: Mostly arrow keys. Does any other modern 3D game use arrow keys for primary movement?! I haven't seen any since Tomb Raider for DOS.
Mac support: There was no official Mac version for 3.017. The new 3.018 version is unusable on Intel-based Macs.
Text window: The Chat tab was removed from the Text window months ago. This is nothing by a huge hindrance to RP. Ever tried to do RP in the arena? It's practically impossible. The Chat tab should come back and be on by default, if Planeshift is intended as a primarily RP game.
Game Masters:
In my opinion, they are a hindrance more often than a help. Example: At a wedding a few weeks ago, my friend was trying to get there (at the volcano). She got almost there right after it started, but became stuck in a glitch in the map... her toe caught between two rocks. Unsticking didn't work. Relogging didn't work. I asked a GM to please move her a few feet so she would be unstuck. "Sorry, we can't do that unless /die doesn't work." Thanks a lot... Because of this small request being refused, my friend missed the whole wedding, as it was over by the time she died and made her way back to the location.
In my experience, trying to play a character that is evil (in character) often ends up in threats of banishment from GMs. I received numerous complaints from two GMs during the Dwarvesbane war, and was threatened with disbanding of my guild, because a handful of people couldn't separate RP from real life evil. Yet most of the dwarves that I "tormented" IC were secretly my friends OOC. The Dwarvesbane war was enjoyed by everyone on both sides, particularly the dwarves we fought against, yet GMs were nothing but a hindrance.
If Planeshift is intended to be an RP game, then RP should be encouraged. What is RP without bad guys for the good guys to fight?
Add all these factors together, and that is why I rarely play Planeshift anymore. In 14 months, I have seen little improvement, and several things broken.
-Drahlian
