Difference between revisions of "The Age of Exiles"

Revision as of 00:02, 8 August 2008

news display inform 591 <analytics uacct="UA-3466433-3" ></analytics>

GOTTI'S LANDING

After word of what had occured at Shadowkeep had reached the other denizens of the Realm, a swarm of events occured simultaneously. Set aside the nature's majestic displays of a Catalysm thorought the Realm - there was pillaging, desperate battles, incredibly heroic deeds, sheer panic, cries of valiant defense, a finding of temporary shelter - a clash of life, life trying to expand, survive and eventually take its place; each to their own ends.

A brutal removal of a whole city and its lands was no small feat, what had caused this was unclear, yet there was speculation whether this was the Keep's demise, a complete destruction or a salvation, solution to an unforeseen occurence. Only those left within would know, if they were alive, still.

However, shortly after this, Archwizards, wizards and other high mages of arcane talents were spotted travelling hastily within the kingdoms, teleporting through dimension doors, hurling through the world in fiery chariots and by activating ancient gates, hard at work. Everywhere they went, barriers, shelters and enormous spherelike shields rose all about the Realms, protecting life and the Realm's most valuable artifacts. But just then the world began sinking, swirling into the depths of the Oceans...swallowing everything.

They had all been there. The lord of seafaring, Melemkor had been there, the high archwizard Gore had been there, it was rumoured that Lord Shadowstring had been there, even the youngling wizard Noctur, amongst countless others, Favorit, Malar, Grimsh, Qazar, Merri, Souc,.. - they had all been there.

Still, it was not enough. The City of Bat fell, plunging down into the depths, forever swalloved by the Seas.

Mortals had scrambled towards whatever galleons, frigates, makeshift rafts, even logs they could possibly embark upon. The seafare had been a struggle in which no spell or skill was left unused, exhausting even the mightiest of druids and tiring the strongest of cavaliers.

Finally land was found, far, far on the eastern ends of the known world. Then the winds had ceased. It was almost peaceful now.

...

You stand upon a shore, where lush, populated plains and forests surround the vicinity. Now as an exile, relying on the gratitude and hospitability of the inhabitants of this new land, Laenor some call it, you must find your place within the Realm once again.

As the bards had been singing their continuous, rejuvenating ballads, profound relief had spread within the travellers upon the sighting of land. Many had instantly claimed it was the bardic knowledge and art that finally led you to safety; the old and wise said it was the spirit of Aarugotti which was watching over them protectively, guiding them, sparing them all.

A smile spread to a ghostly figure's lips. His children were abroad.

His work, for now, was done.

== news display inform 600 <analytics uacct="UA-3466433-3" ></analytics> == Greetings and Salutations,

I am writing to provide you all with an update on how things are shaping up in this strange new world. Naturally, such drastic changes spark a large variety of emotions, positive and negative; please just keep in mind that BatMUD has always been a game that goes through evolutionary stages, and thus new abilities are gained and old ones lost. With that said, let's take a look at some of the changes that have occured in the last month:

• A couple of new areas have appeared.
• Many guilds have established representatives on each continent in order to make training easier. This will not happen for all guilds, but by the end of the next couple of weeks, most should be done.
• Minerals/animals have been fixed, so that they show up on the proper terrains.
• 65-70% of the extant player cities have been anchored onto the new maps.
• Player city portals have been upgraded slightly, with some more upgrades planned for the near future.
• Almost all events have been updated to take place properly in the new world (no more magic eater lurking in old BatCity). In addition, some events will now take place randomly amongst the major cities/continents.
• Rangers have obtained new travelling abilities to allow them to cross the map more readily.
• EP costs for terrains are finally not restricted to integer values. This is best seen by travelling on roads, which have a terrain cost of ~0.2ep/square now.
• Bugs in the ress spells have been fixed; there are also plans to make the spell more 'healing friendly' (i.e. you can visit your resser briefly, then return to your original continent).
• Travelling the ferries has been made significantly cheaper, and commands introduced to make it easier to travel to your destination.
• Many areas have been fixed to report their overworld locations correctly (note that you can use some nav spells such as 'go' inside of an area where you couldn't before). There are still many areas that are problematic, but ~95% should work correctly, and we'll get to the others as quickly as we can.
• Travel is much more mount-friendly.
• Back stories and artistic representations of the continents are appearing on Bat's website.
• Newbie posts have become fully operational again (please let newbies know that they can even travel between continents with these devices!).

Some upcoming projects that I will go ahead and mention:

• The return of an old, old area and a new "island"
• More guild trainers.
• Inns shall begin appearing very soon, much as was suggested by a recent news post.
• New stables.
• Improved player city interaction (long term).
• Ship tuning, NPC ships, fixing related merchant quests
• We have a nice new weather server, with some potentially fun effects. As we get more settled on the new maps, you may see these showing up more dramatically.