Hey all,

As part of the ongoing effort to clean up this game, Monday, March 2nd, I will be going through and deleting items that are non-unique. The item inventory is a complete mess, and the design team is making an effort to clean it up. Any non-unique items currently in player inventores WILL NOT BE DELETED, as thise items are already in the game. All I'm doing is deleting the item from the data base to prevent more items of that type from dropping. Keep in mind that if you fixed price sell or otherwise delete an effected item, that item will, in turn, be lost. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

~Ravenhide

Hey there, players.


I know its been a while since you've heard anything from us, but really, there hasn't been much to report on recently. However, I noticed something in the town crier that prompted me to make a short announcement concerning it.

That being said, one of the things we are currently working on are making group unique items that are actually... group unique. Items that are unique to the group are intended to be best-in-slot items-- meaning, in other words, the best gear in the game. Its why these items are flagged as one per group. However, there have been several instances where players will ignore group unique items in favor of hero unique items that are actually better. Naturally, this is not what should have been originally intended when group unique items were first created, so we're fixing that.

As I noted in the town crier, Shining Guard is one such group unique item. Before, this sword was decently good for Paladins and Knights, but other hero unique swords could often eclipse it by offering more useful stats. So Shining Guard was brought more in line with how we felt group unique items should be. And as I'm sure you've noticed, the weapon offers a bonus to a skill for a class not yet in the game. This is completely intentional, but not entirely. While we did want it to offer that skill bonus, we didn't realize at the time that it would tip players off about the new class itself. So no, its not a bug, nor a new item, but merely an old unique reworked a bit.

And to nip a few further questions before they spawn, you can expect other group unique items to receive tweaks to make them feel like the best gear you can obtain. Its an exhaustive process, but if you suddenly find some of your gear to be more effective, now you'll know why. Unfortunately, there are too many group unique items in the game to list all of the adjustments, so you'll just have to discover them for yourself. Until next time, players.


~Ravenhide

Hey, everyone!


It has come to my attention that there are a lot of bugs going around lately. Stuff like the double shot healing bug, Blunderbuss attacks always missing, double shot dealing crushing instead of piercing...

Rest assured, the design team is doing our best to find and eliminate these quickly. Some of these skills and even items have not been touched since Aberon, at least, and we have no clue why they're going all crazy now. All I can ask is that you bear with us and continue to help us track these issues down. Thank you.


~Ravenhide

• In an effort to make the skill as accessible and useful as minor rune magery and greater rune magery, reinforced smithing now provides a much bigger bonus to melee skills and has been expanded to include more melee based skills. In addition, the level requirements of all anvil have been decreased in an effort to make the anvils themselves more accessible.
  

Please keep in mind that other racial skills will be undergoing an overhaul to make them all a little more meaningful. They will not be left out.

Hello, community.


I'm not sure how many of you have noticed, but there are several of our number rapidly approaching the 40th level. The development team is hard at work improving what we can, but it is now time for me to come to you all for a question.


Right now, we have two options moving forward. The developers can continue to make long due fixes to certain things already in place and add a couple of new things to breath life into the game. This is probably the shortest option, and the easiest. Once we're done with our changes, we can reset DV or create a brand new world, and start getting new players into the game. This option would take anywhere between 2-3 months, depending on how many are at 40 by that time period. Or, the second option: the team can instead literally gut the game and make it so radically different it won't appear to be the same game at first. This, of course, is the longest option. We're talking, a year, year and a half or more. Everything already in place will be examined, determined if its fine as is or if it could use an improvement, and then changed.

In my own opinion, option A is the best bet. We can make small fixes that need done, reset DV or create a new world, and then start getting new players to play. While our community enjoys the changes that have been wrought, the development team would have ample time to radically change the game for a future world. While the community and new players level to 40 again on a more balanced world, the team would have a year or more to get the a world ready with the SUPER new changes.


What do you all think? Right now, the only remaining players we have are those who are entirely too dedicated to the game to just give it up. We have had all of two new players since DV opened (talking about you, PowerPlay and Ironhide), and if we don't do something soon, .net is simply going to die. I refuse to let that happen, but I'd like your opinion on which option you would prefer.