Welcome to PlaneShift.

I assume that was your first connection? Don\'t worry. The long load time you experienced will only occur once. It happens when the client thinks it needs to reconfigure it\'s files on certain machines.
As for the chat window, this is where it starts as default. You can move the box around by clicking and dragging one of the borders, or resize it by clicking and dragging the bottom-right corner.
Lastly, I expect you joined the server at a bad time. Although it is not \'lag\', per say, the slowdown seems to occur to everyone at the same time, when it happens in certain areas. The Plaza, where you first spawn, is usually quite a \'laggy\' place. Look around the Technical forum for other posts concerning game performance, or lag, and see if any of the suggestions there help you.
Good luck. Hope to see you soon.
