ANNOUNCE NEWS #1 Date: 12/19/2009 at 6:54 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Welcome! Welcome to Midkemia Online! I am really thrilled to welcome everyone here for open beta. It's been a long road for the staff of MKO and myself, and we are incredibly excited to be able to share this world with you. We really pushed hard to get the game open for you, so it's a little rough around the edges (especially at first, as those who logged in right away can tell you!). Part of open beta is that we will be constantly working on fixing things that are broken, reworking and refining things that aren't quite right, and adding a bunch of new features and skills along the way. Our combat system has been written from the ground up, as well as many other features of Midkemia. It offers a unique, totally new, and challenging experience for both old-time MUD veterans and also those of you who are fans of Ray Feist's fantastic world and are just playing a text-based game for the first time. Over the next few weeks, I can announce that we already have plans for new skillsets to go into place! We will be releasing Enchantment over the next few days for Magicians, and the general Tradeskills of Tailoring, Cooking, and Smithing will join the fray shortly after that! I'm looking forward to all the action, adventure, and roleplaying that will unfold over the next few weeks and beyond, and thanks for being a part of that! - JT Penned by my hand on the 23rd of Wochem, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #2 Date: 12/20/2009 at 5:05 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: New Fighting Skill: Flee Hey everyone, I have heard a lot of feedback from you about how hard it can be to flee from combat before you get the Disengage skill in Fighting. It's especially tough if another NPC joins in on your fight, or you hit the wrong thing. To help that, I've added in a new skill in Fighting that is available to everyone: flee. It is meant as a last resort, and relying on it in PK will probably just result in you getting your butt kicked, and the lag on it builds up pretty quickly, so use it judiciously. It should help you out against NPCs, though. We've already made a number of other adjustments to mob respawn rates, difficulty, and the effectiveness of basic bashing skills to make things a little more gentle for you. Have fun! Penned by my hand on the 25th of Wochem, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #3 Date: 12/20/2009 at 6:00 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Holy Orders Some of the Gods have had their followers erect shrines in scattered locations. This might be interesting news for the Priests among you, especially... Penned by my hand on the 25th of Wochem, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #4 Date: 12/20/2009 at 23:14 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: PK In Newbie Areas I have made it impossible to attack a newbie in the 2 lowest level newbie areas: Eggerson and the Frontier. A newbie is someone who is under level 20. Just a reminder that killing newbies wantonly is frowned upon (and also gains you nothing)! Penned by my hand on the 26th of Wochem, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #5 Date: 12/21/2009 at 2:32 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Happy Holidays! It's the holiday season, and to celebrate Ironbeard the Magnanimous is visiting Midkemia! The mirthful and often well-liquored dwarf will be randomly distributing presents to lucky Midkemians throughout the next few weeks. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 27th of Wochem, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #6 Date: 12/21/2009 at 7:27 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Guild Elections Open! Elections for Guildmasters of the Guilds are now open! These will be expedited elections to seat the leaders, so they will close much faster than a normal election would. You can change your vote after you have cast it as many times as you wish, and only the last vote you cast will count. Guildmasters will be working with Guild Patrons to develop a formal leadership structure for the Guild as well. You may have noticed that cities have different Minister positions, and the same system of flexbility allows Guilds to have different offices from each other. Each will be unique and tailored to the roleplay of the Guild. Elections for City Council members are NOT open yet, but they will be coming before too long as well. Good luck and good voting! Penned by my hand on the 27th of Wochem, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #7 Date: 12/22/2009 at 0:46 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Gold Bug Abuse It is a little disheartening to have to write this so soon after opening, but we have had a pretty major bug exploit by a couple of malicious players. Many of you noticed that your money was disappearing, and this was due to the sneaky efforts of 2 players in particular who discovered a way to pick up gold from anywhere. There were a few others who used this exploit questionably as well, but I am going to give them the benefit of the doubt that it was an honest mistake. Part of beta testing is faithfully reporting bugs or exploits that are found. Abusing them will simply lead to discovery and banning. Our records are extensive, and it's really not that hard to spot abuse. These 2 players, Tkionyl and Ebonas, have been permanently banned from Midkemia. I have given everyone else 2 gold sovereigns in compensation for the frustration that this caused. Penned by my hand on the 28th of Wochem, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #8 Date: 12/22/2009 at 18:47 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Changing Class and Stat Resets In the spirit of early beta testing, quitting your class only costs 2% of the total lessons invested in the class (this is mostly due to rounding inaccuracies in the lesson->skillpoint->lesson conversion), rather than the normal 50% for non-novices. So feel free to play around with different classes. For the same reason, the normal learning delay and text remains disabled for now, so you can trans your abilities pretty quickly. Also, as of a few minutes after I write this post, everyone will be able to RESET STATS freely for about the next week or so. Play around with different combinations, find one that works for you. After this ability is removed, everyone will still have 1 additional free stat reset. Penned by my hand on the 30th of Wochem, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #9 Date: 12/24/2009 at 9:13 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: New Soldier Skill: Bloodthirst There is a new Soldier skill relatively low in the Warcraft skillset: Bloodthirst. Penned by my hand on the 34th of Wochem, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #10 Date: 12/29/2009 at 22:02 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Call for Guides! We're looking for experienced players to volunteer as Guides for Midkemia Online! Guides are unique characters (Carpo, Thallo, and Auxesia) who exist solely to help newbies acclimate to Midkemia. Joining our world for the first time can be a challenging and daunting experience, and Guides step forward to help answer questions and orient newbies on their first steps. If you are interested in volunteering, please send an email to support@midkemiaonline.com with the following: - The subject "Guide Application" - Your real-life name - Your character(s) - Any experience that recommends you as a potential Guide - Why you want to be a Guide Guides must be willing to commit an average of 3 hours per week Guiding, to help ensure that Guides are available for newbies when they have questions. We expect to start sending responses in about a week, so get those applications in! Penned by my hand on Mid-Winter, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #11 Date: 12/30/2009 at 1:29 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: ATS Payment Methods and PayPal This is for those of you who had questions about using ATS as a method of payment to buy credits. If you are not one of these people, just skip this post! ATS is what the other IRE games have set up to accept payments. I've just spoken with Jeremy, the president of IRE, and Midkemia will *not* be getting ATS set up to accept payments. This means we will only be accepting payments through PayPal. The reason for this is pretty simple: PayPal accepts a wider variety of debit/credit cards than ATS, so our players are better served by using PayPal. Note that PayPal does accept one-time credit/debit card purchases, similar to ATS, without using or setting up a standard account. Penned by my hand on Mid-Winter, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #12 Date: 1/1/2010 at 3:27 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Sale Extension By popular request, our 25% credit sale has been extended until January 15th! Huzzah! For those who weren't able to take advantage of the sale before the holiday season, now's your time to get an additional 25% extra credits with any credit purchase (so if you purchase 1000 credits, you'll receive 1250). Happy New Year's! Penned by my hand on the 5th of Nuna, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #13 Date: 1/2/2010 at 4:32 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Org Help Files Organizational help files are now available. - CHELP (Cities) - GHELP (Guilds) - OHELP (Holy Orders) Penned by my hand on the 7th of Nuna, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #14 Date: 1/4/2010 at 0:54 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Mac Mordain Cadal The ancient and cursed dwarven mines of Mac Mordain Cadal have been rediscovered by intrepid adventurers! Plumb the depths for new treasure and adventures, but beware the many dangers that lurk in the deep, dark places of the earth. Penned by my hand on the 11th of Nuna, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #15 Date: 1/4/2010 at 20:49 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Spellshield and Combat Updates - Arcana has a new skill: Spellshield. - Arcana Ice Spikes has had its balance/telegraph times slightly shortened Additionally, some changes have been made to combat to help make it more manageable and consistent: - Fleeing now allows you to exit combat more quickly. - The threshold for taking damage against your health while your endurance is low has been lowered from 20% to 5%. Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Agaeis, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #16 Date: 1/4/2010 at 21:25 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: City Elections ...are now open! The syntax is CONTEST VACANT AS OF Here are the positions: Elvandar: Elder Krondor: Court Baron Sar-Sargoth: Praetor The top 5 winners of each election will be appointed to a seat. Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Agaeis, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #17 Date: 1/5/2010 at 23:56 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Free Lessons! We're running a new promotion for the month of January: free lessons for playing! If you spend 10 minutes or more logged in as your character each day, you will receive 6 free lessons! You don't need to do anything else at all! Just keep playing, and you will receive those 6 lessons each day, throughout the entire month! The day resets at midnight GMT for the purposes of the free lessons. That's a pretty sweet deal for time you're already spending enjoying Midkemia! Enjoy, and I hope to see you around! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Agaeis, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #18 Date: 1/9/2010 at 22:10 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Contesting and Elections Hey all, It is my policy that punishing a person (i.e., city/guild disfavor, city/guild exiling, etc.) for contesting in an election is not appropriate. Everyone who can run in an election is welcome to run. The reason we have elections, and not simply god-appointed leaders, is so that everyone can participate in the politics of the game. Please help me make sure it stays this way! Penned by my hand on the 13th of Agaeis, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #19 Date: 1/9/2010 at 23:08 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: City Council Run-Off Elections Congrats to our new council members! We've had ties for the 5th council seat in all 3 cities, so special run-off elections have been opened. They will be open for about 36 hours only, so vote right away! Penned by my hand on the 13th of Agaeis, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #20 Date: 1/14/2010 at 19:48 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Stat Resets and Class Changes Alas, all good things must come to an end. The free stat resets and class changes will come to a close at the end of the month. At the end of that time, everyone in the game will be granted an additional free stat reset. Penned by my hand on the 23rd of Agaeis, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #21 Date: 1/20/2010 at 19:20 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Enemy Statuses I have pardoned everyone from their enemying by NPC-controlled organizations, due to the inaccurate loyalties that were so widespread. I think we've gotten all (or almost all) of them removed, so you shouldn't get enemied for killing seagulls and the like. Penned by my hand on the 37th of Agaeis, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #22 Date: 1/23/2010 at 2:36 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Guides! It was a long and difficult process, but we've made decisions on the first round of Guides for Midkemia. Those of you who were selected should have received an in-game message informing you about it. Everyone who applied should have received an email acknowledging your application. There were about 50 applicants and almost all of them were excellent, so it was really a difficult choice to make. Thanks to everyone for their interest in helping out our newbies! Penned by my hand on the 5th of Yamiev, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #23 Date: 1/23/2010 at 21:57 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: 500 credit contest! We're going to have a drawing for 500 free credits on January 31st from among the fans of our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/IronRealms Just beecome a fan to get entered in the contest! Penned by my hand on the 6th of Yamiev, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #24 Date: 1/27/2010 at 4:39 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Scroll of Linguistic Forgetfulness The Scroll of Linguistic Forgetfulness is now for sale in our artifact store (simply type ARTIFACT WARES to see the list). Using this scroll by doing RESET LANGUAGES will cause you to forget any languages you have learned that are not your primary language(s), and consume the artifact in the process. At this time, this only includes Kingdom humans who have learned a second language. You are then free to pick another language to learn. Note that the languages you can learn are dependent upon your city, so those human renegades in Sar-Sargoth will be able to learn a language appropriate to that city. Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Dzanin, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #25 Date: 1/31/2010 at 3:40 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Great Hunt test run! The Great Hunt has been called, and hunters from across Midkemia assemble to test their skills and wits against each other! This event will last throughout the weekend, and end Monday morning (Pacific time). - Type GREATHUNT SCORE to see the scores. - You increase your score by killing NPCs. - There are credit prizes! ...if your score is greater than 100, you get 5 credits! ...if your score is greater than 1000, you get 15 credits! ...if your score is greater than 2500, you get 30 credits! And lastly, the first place winner will get 100 credits! Good hunting! Penned by my hand on the 11th of Dzanin, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #26 Date: 2/1/2010 at 0:56 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Login Lessons and Free Skillset Changes Alas, February is here, and the 6 free lessons for logging in and the free skillset changes have ended. But, we have some exciting stuff come up for February, which I will announce a bit later today! Stay tuned! Penned by my hand on the 13th of Dzanin, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #27 Date: 2/1/2010 at 19:43 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: TMS Voting Reset TopMudSites voting has reset! We ended in 11th place, which isn't too bad for our first run! We were a scant 5 votes behind 10th though, so let's knock those suckers out of our way this time around! This voting helps us bring in new players for the MUD: mostly veteran MUD players that are familiar with text-based games. These are the kinds of newbies that are generally really great and enjoyable to have around. Remember to CONFIG VOTING PROMPT for an easy reminder. Penned by my hand on the 15th of Dzanin, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #28 Date: 2/1/2010 at 20:39 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Great Hunt results The Great Hunt has ended! Quilana has won the hunt, and earned 100 credits. Narcissus came in 2nd place, and won 50 credits. Deminix took third, and received 25 credits. Congratulations to everyone who participated! Penned by my hand on the 15th of Dzanin, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #29 Date: 2/2/2010 at 22:08 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Critical Hits After some thought, I've updated our critical hit system to have the multiple tiers that you were asking for. The overall likelihood of critical hits is much more level based than before, as well. Penned by my hand on the 17th of Dzanin, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #30 Date: 2/2/2010 at 22:22 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: February Events: Double XP Thursday, Vials! Hey gang, As you know, we had free lessons throughout January just for logging in. Here's what we're doing for February: - Double XP Thursdays. Yup, you read that correctly. You'll gain double XP on every Thursday this month! - If you log in for 21 days during February, at the end of the month you'll receive a special gift: a unique healing potion! This potion, when sipped, will allow your endurance to regenerate at an increased rate for a short time afterwards. It has a limited number of sips, though, so use them wisely! We had an even higher number of players active during January than December, so let's see if we can't beat that again for February! Penned by my hand on the 17th of Dzanin, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #31 Date: 2/5/2010 at 20:44 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Free Stat Reset Whoops! I forgot to give everyone their free stat reset at the end of January. You should have it now. Penned by my hand on the 23rd of Dzanin, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #32 Date: 2/10/2010 at 19:08 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: MudGamers Hey all, There's a cool site for MUD gamers called: http://mudgamers.com We just listed Midkemia on this site, and it would rock if you would sign up and rate us (5 stars please!). There's no voting like with TopMudSites, but you can do a one-time rating of the game. This is a place we haven't had any presence before, so getting the word out and new players checking us out is always awesome. New friends, allies, foes, or minions for you! Here's the link: http://mudgamers.com/2010/02/10/midkemia-online/ Penned by my hand on the 34th of Dzanin, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #33 Date: 2/10/2010 at 20:23 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Death Timer I have lowered the time you need to wait in the Halls of Death from 5 minutes to 2 minutes from PvP deaths (this includes getting killed by city guards, as well). If you're in the Halls at the time of this announcement, you'll still have to wait out however much time you have remaining. Hopefully this will still preserve the intent of the required waiting period, which is both for you to cool down a bit, and also to give the attacker(s) time to complete whatever objective they are aiming for. It should also make combat a little more fast-paced, with less downtime. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 34th of Dzanin, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #34 Date: 2/10/2010 at 21:00 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: City Guards Guards should be a little bit more responsive to enemies now, especially if they enter your room and after they kill someone. Be warned! Also, aggressive NPCs should aggro slightly less quickly when they enter your room. There is an element of randomness here, so that won't always hold true, however. Penned by my hand on the 34th of Dzanin, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #35 Date: 2/12/2010 at 23:56 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: The Festival of Banapis The Festival of Banapis is nearly upon us! This is the first day of the new year, when Midkemians around the globe celebrate their birthdays and the day is devoted to feasting and celebration. HELP BANAPIS explains a little bit about the festival. In celebration of our first Banapis ever, some novelty and collector's items are now for sale in shops scattered across Midkemia. It's up to you to discover them all! As an aside, several players have asked me about preserving these items, and we will do so. Just see HELP ITEM CUSTOMIZATION for details. Happy Banapis! Penned by my hand on the 39th of Dzanin, in the year 5. ANNOUNCE NEWS #36 Date: 2/15/2010 at 18:06 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Valentine's Day Massacre! We held the inaugural elimination-style Bloodbath event (See HELP BLOODBATH) yesterday, and it was a very close match. In the end, Lilin was victorious, with Aeonex coming in second. Congratulations! Shortly thereafter, Lilin began having strange visions, and was led deep within Mac Mordain Cadal, where she uncovered an ancient blade inside a crumbling chest. Who can say what it will portend for the future? A strange firedrake was also seen passing out candy, hmm... Penned by my hand on the 5th of Kimia, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #37 Date: 2/15/2010 at 18:49 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Sedia Tunnels A new area, geared towards low-level players, the Sedia Tunnels, has opened! It is complete with a bevy of quests designed to introduce new players to the mythos and history of Midkemia, as well as teach and reinforce basic game commands. It has a new exit from the Hall of Worlds, replacing the Imp Caves, which is a bit too high level for newbies anyway. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 5th of Kimia, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #38 Date: 2/15/2010 at 19:58 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: IRE Show! Jeremy, IRE's President, ran a quick Q&A session this morning. He may do some more of these in the future, in which case I will try to announce it ahead of time so people can plan to be there. Here is the stream: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ireshow Penned by my hand on the 5th of Kimia, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #39 Date: 2/20/2010 at 23:22 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Crafting! Crafting is here! The first trade skill to be released is Smithing. This allows forging weapons, shields, crossbows, leather armor, and plate armor. It also allows repairing damaged equipment, and a few other minor bonuses for the Smith. To learn Smithing, one needs to travel to the Crafter's Guild in Hawk's Hollow and BUY SMITHING LICENSE from the Master of the Guild. Buying a Smithing license will teach you the Smithing trade skill, which you can improve at any class trainer, or from the Master of the Guild. Additionally, buying a Smithing license will certify you as a member of the Crafter's Guild, and you will receive a private design book to store your new crafting designs. This book is valuable, so hang on to it! It is required to do any crafting, and also allows you to store private designs for your own personal use (as opposed to public designs, which anyone can craft). If you lose the design book, you will have to BUY DESIGN BOOK from the Master of the Guild, and it will cost you! Crafting has added a couple of new features to the game: item health, and stealing private designs (you can also share them with friends). These are both suspended for the moment while people get a feel for how crafting works. Item health will show up on items that you PROBE. Items are damaged as they are used, which is currently working, but the associated decrease in usefulness (i.e., armor mitigation or weapon damage) is currently suspended. So, keep an eye on that item health to get a feel for how quickly it will degrade before the actual effects go in. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 16th of Kimia, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #40 Date: 2/21/2010 at 0:27 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Vaults There is a new skill in Vigilance: Vaults. Penned by my hand on the 16th of Kimia, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #41 Date: 2/21/2010 at 23:47 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Critical Hit Artifacts I've just released 4 new artifacts: Critical Hit Jewels. These artifacts, when invested in a crafted item that you are wielding or wearing, will increase both your chance of getting critical hits *AND* your chance of scoring harder hitting criticals. Please note that the bonuses from these artifacts do not stack, so buying 2 Icy Jewels does you no good (or an Icy and Fire Jewel, or any other combination thereof). Please note that these artifacts only work for the owner. Icy Jewel of Striking : 100 credits: An extra 1/100 critical hits. Fire Jewel of Striking : 200 credits: An extra 2/100 critical hits. Blood Jewel of Striking : 600 credits: An extra 4/100 critical hits. Stygian Jewel of Striking : 1200 credits: An extra 6/100 critical hits. You can check out the ARTIFACT WARES to see these artifacts. Penned by my hand on the 1st of Rodec, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #42 Date: 2/22/2010 at 19:38 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Charm of Celerity and Artifact Recall There's a new artifact for sale: the Charm of Celerity. This allows you to move one additional room per second before receiving the "too hasty" message. Also, owners of invested artifacts may ARTIFACT RECALL to destroy the item they have invested the power into, and allowing them to invest it into a new item. Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Rodec, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #43 Date: 2/25/2010 at 8:48 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Great Hunt! Once again, a Great Hunt has been called across all of the Iron Realms for the last weekend of February, with credit rewards aplenty for all. The Hunt will last from Friday, February 26 at 4pm PST to Sunday, February 28 at 4pm PST. During this Great Hunt, you will also enjoy DOUBLE experience! Here's how it works: for every NPC/mobile/denizen you slay during this time, you will gain points. The number of points range from 1-10 depending on the level of the denizen. You will receive bound credits at certain level thresholds: 5 at 100 points, 10 at 1000 points, and 15 at 2500 points. Use the command GREATHUNT to see your score and the status of the top 10 players. Furthermore, at the end of the Hunt, the top ten hunters with the highest scores will receive unbound credit prizes in these amounts: 1st place: 500 credits 2nd & 3rd place: 250 credits each 4th - 10th place: 100 credits each Good luck and start preparing, Hunters! Penned by my hand on the 8th of Rodec, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #44 Date: 2/25/2010 at 19:31 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Credit Page Updates Our credit page has been updated: http://www.midkemiaonline.com/credits.php Additionally, we've added a $4.99 credit package, and increased the number of credits you get for the $9.99 and $19.99 packages. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 9th of Rodec, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #45 Date: 2/28/2010 at 7:48 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Thaumaturgy Thaumaturgy is here! All Magicians have been refunded the full investment of their lessons in Arcana to distribute between the two skillsets as they want. So that you can better choose how you want to allocate your lessons, here are the full AB listings for the two skillsets: You know the following abilities in Thaumaturgy: Stormlance Call forth lightning, the furious lance of the storm. Water Conjure pure, undiluted and refreshing water. Levitate Hover above the ground, safe from falling. Windweave Shape a protective cloak of air. Chill That's cold. Incinerate The destructive power of fire. Magelock Freeze a door or container solid, locking it. Ignite Light insolent fools who dare oppose you on fire. Flood The torrential rains shall heed your call. Shadows Shroud your location in shadows. Firewall Raise a wall of burning flame to block exits. Freeze Winter's chill descends at your beckon. Earthbind Bind your victim in a prison of stone. Ice Spikes Shards of ice launched as deadly as any spear. Stillwater Still waters of death. Earthquake Show them fear in a handful of dust. Gale Fling an enemy away with a powerful blast of air. Stormfury Harness the devastating fury of the storm. Pyroclasm Hurl blistering balls of blue, arcane fire. Kelton's Knives Call down a rain of fiery knives around you. Shatter Break a target's frozen limbs. Immolate Make it hot. To read more about an ability, type AB THAUMATURGY . You know the following abilities in Arcana: Scry Gaze upon another from afar through the waters. Sleep Invoke a magical slumber upon another. Mirror Image Weave an illusory image of yourself. Illusion Conjure subtle and deceptive glamors. Dementia It's all in your mind. Spellshield Shield yourself with raw cosmic magic. Warding Conjure a ward against eavesdropping. Riftsense Study the magical residue left by Rifts. Counterspell Quickly interrupt another's magical incantations. Instability Destabilize matter. Cripple Incapacitate an opponent, nullifying their defenses. Invisibility Bend light to turn completely invisible. Disorient Distort an enemy's sense of direction. Compulsion Weave a manipulative web of compulsion. Divert Divert a rift to the emptiness of the void. Arcane Power Fill yourself with arcane power. Teleport Will yourself towards another location. Timewarp Slow the very flow of time in your surroundings. Singularity Create an all-consuming singularity of magic. Anachronize Divert the flow of time to decimate foes. Undoing Compel an enemy to his own undoing. Supernova Unleash incredible force from a dying singularity. Rift Create Rifts that traverse space-time itself. To read more about an ability, type AB ARCANA . Penned by my hand on the 14th of Rodec, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #46 Date: 3/1/2010 at 2:18 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: The Great Hunt Results The Great Hunt has ended! Here are the top ten scoring players: Rank Name Kills --------------------------------- 1. Anders 34499 2. Volyen 14312 3. Saithe 10625 4. Radakail 7690 5. Kais 6702 6. Aritaelis 6482 7. Aeonex 6089 8. Kalidas 6037 9. Volshek 5473 10. Nekaun 5388 Congraulations to each of you! Additionally, when I spoke to the other IRE Producers, it appeared as though some of them were awarding more credits to the winners, so I have matched our rewards to theirs. This means, if you scored above 10th place and below 1st, your reward will be substantially higher than expected: it descends in 50-credit increments from the 500 that Anders won (so 450 for Volyen, 400 for Saithe, etc.). Penned by my hand on the 1st of Staphron, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #47 Date: 3/2/2010 at 8:33 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: March Madness! We've got some very exciting events coming up in March! If you log in each day, for 10 minutes that day, you will receive 1 bound credit! It's a great way to earn free credits for simply playing a game you already love! Additionally, we'll be continuing Double XP Thursdays, which were a big hit in February. And, finally, for those who can't play much on Thursdays, we'll be having a Double XP Weekend at the end of the month: March 26th-28th. Have fun, and a great March playing Midkemia! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Staphron, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #48 Date: 3/2/2010 at 17:15 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: TopMudSites Voting Reset! TMS voting has reset! We were only in 14th/15th place last month, which was pretty bad. We should definitely be up in the top 10! Please consider voting for MKO (config voting prompt for a reminder) if you have enjoyed the new changes we've released last month: Smithing, Thaumaturgy, Artifacts, Bloodbaths, Double XP, Endurance vials, and the Valheru sword. TMS remains one of the best ways for us to bring in experienced MUD players. Thanks! Penned by my hand on the 5th of Staphron, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #49 Date: 3/2/2010 at 18:04 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Nexus Client The much-belated Nexus Client is here! You can connect here: http://www.midkemiaonline.com/nexus/ There is an issue with resizing the font size due to some technical problems with the way the art is set up. Our artist is working on resolving these issues (which may take some time, depending on how quickly he addresses it), but otherwise the client should be good to go. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 5th of Staphron, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #50 Date: 3/4/2010 at 0:34 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Mail Post Offices have been released! You can now send, and receive, mail at post offices. To get a letter, simply REQUEST LETTER at a post office, which can also hold up to five items. You will have to SEAL the letter before you can send it. Then you MAIL TO . The recipient will receive the letter the next time he or she is in their home city. If they are impatient and don't want to wait for the couriers in their home city, then they can RETRIEVE MAIL at any post office. Cityless players will always have to retrieve their mail. Note that with this change, I have made it so that you cannot send messages to players with whom you do not share a common language. Letters are not subject to any language restrictions or barriers. As a reminder, using mail to send items to your alts is a violation of help seconds. Please don't do this! Penned by my hand on the 7th of Staphron, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #50 Date: 3/4/2010 at 0:34 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Mail Post Offices have been released! You can now send, and receive, mail at post offices. To get a letter, simply REQUEST LETTER at a post office, which can also hold up to five items. You will have to SEAL the letter before you can send it. Then you MAIL TO . The recipient will receive the letter the next time he or she is in their home city. If they are impatient and don't want to wait for the couriers in their home city, then they can RETRIEVE MAIL at any post office. Cityless players will always have to retrieve their mail. Note that with this change, I have made it so that you cannot send messages to players with whom you do not share a common language. Letters are not subject to any language restrictions or barriers. As a reminder, using mail to send items to your alts is a violation of help seconds. Please don't do this! Penned by my hand on the 7th of Staphron, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #51 Date: 3/4/2010 at 1:26 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Divert and Distort Arcana Divert has been replaced with Distort. The skill in its original incarnation was causing a few too many problems - notably in causing XP loss via misadventure deaths. Distort is actually more useful for Magicians, beyond the amusement of watching for silly newbies to wander into your Rift without looking at it first. Penned by my hand on the 8th of Staphron, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #52 Date: 3/6/2010 at 1:51 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Village Pardons and Bribery There is now an unscrupulous Magistrate in Port Natal with a wide variety of contracts, and he is willing to accept bribes in order to grant you pardons to NPC-controlled villages. The cost of the bribe is dependent on your level, and is rather expensive. The syntax is detailed by typing BRIBE. Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Natinica, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #53 Date: 3/8/2010 at 21:35 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Selfishness There's a new skill in Fighting: Selfishness. This prevents you from giving items away or dropping them, so it blocks many forms of theft. Note that it doesn't block rifling in Subtlety, but direct commands to give things away (such as a Priest's Divine Commands or a Magician's Compulsions) will fail. Penned by my hand on the 8th of Natinica, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #54 Date: 3/10/2010 at 19:06 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Nexus Updates We've made some updates to Nexus to help fix some of the issues with resizing the screen (you should be able to maximize it properly now). We'll be making a few more updates over the next few days to get it to work a little more smoothly as well, and make the text a little larger when you first start it. Penned by my hand on the 12th of Natinica, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #55 Date: 3/12/2010 at 22:55 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Ustream with Jeremy Saunders and Facebook Contest On Monday, March 15th and 2 PM Pacific, Jeremy Saunders (President of Iron Realms) will be hosting a Ustream video chat to talk a little bit about what Iron Realms is working on, and also for a Q&A session with viewers. Please join me there! The URL for the Ustream address is: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-iron-realms-show Also, we're holding a drawing from among our Facebook page fans on March 31st, and the winning fan will receive 500 credits in the game of your choice. You can become a fan here: http://www.facebook.com/IronRealms Penned by my hand on the 5th of Wochem, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #56 Date: 3/16/2010 at 21:23 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Screencasts Hey gang, I realized today that some of you are probably not aware of this, but Iron Realms has been creating some screencasts that explain basic functionality of our (and other) clients: how to set up an alias, a trigger, a macro, etc. They are mainly geared towards players without much scripting knowledge, but if you're also interested in more advanced topics for these, let me know and I will pass that along. Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/user/IronRealms Penned by my hand on the 14th of Wochem, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #57 Date: 3/16/2010 at 22:20 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Skill Learning If you are not a guild, or are a guild novice, you can now learn class skills beyond Master if you are a mentor. This allows experienced players to change classes and improve their skills without being in a guild. However! Remember that guildless and cityless players are generally discouraged, and may not have full access to certain benefits or game features (including access to tutors). This is intentional, since Midkemia Online is a multiplayer and social game and we want to facilitate and encourage group dynamics. Penned by my hand on the 14th of Wochem, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #58 Date: 3/17/2010 at 18:44 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Celebration of Luck! Today, throughout the day, we will be having various games celebrating Luck & Chance, as we honor Ruthia. We'll be hosting several different clover hunts, and some bars are selling new and interesting items in celebration of the holiday as well. Also, tonight at the stroke of midnight, we will be holding a Bloodbath, with a special prize for the winner that you won't want to miss! Cheers! Penned by my hand on the 16th of Wochem, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #59 Date: 3/18/2010 at 22:13 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Tailoring! Tailoring is here! You learn it from Shordan von Harkenwold in the same way that you learn Smithing: BUY TAILORING LICENSE. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 18th of Wochem, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #60 Date: 3/19/2010 at 1:48 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Player Owned Shops Now that we have Smithing and Tailoring, we now have Player-Owned Shops as well! Chancellors in the cities will find that they have a number of new privs to interact with these shops, including assigning ownership. It's up to you to distribute the shops how you see fit! Each city has 5 shops that can be owned by players, so spaces are limited. Shopowners, you'll want to note the SHOP and PRICE commands, which will allow you to interact with your shop (including entering/exiting the stockroom and paying taxes), and pricing your wares. Note that stockrooms cannot be accessed by anyone except the shop owner (indeed, the exits to them have been removed entirely). Logging out in a stockroom will cause you to login in the shop proper, so theft from stockrooms should be a non-issue. Happy shopping! Penned by my hand on the 18th of Wochem, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #61 Date: 3/19/2010 at 2:39 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Item Decay I have adjusted item decay across the board. Whereas before it was calculated based on Midkemian months, it is now a value based on Midkemian days (roughly 12 real-life hours). This value is more consistent because Midkemian months can vary so wildly - from 1 to 40. This will allow you to gauge the usefulness of your equipment better. I have adjusted all crafted items to have their decay time increased due to this new system of decay. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 18th of Wochem, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #62 Date: 3/19/2010 at 3:25 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Sharing Crafts You can now share your private craft designs with others: CRAFT SHARE <#> The recipient needs to ACCEPT or DECLINE the offer, and must have space in his or her design book and have the appropriate crafting skill necessary to create the item. Also, please note that anyone you share your private sketches with can also share them with others. So if I share my craft with Banath, he can then turn around and share it with Guis-wan and Lims-Kragma. Keep that in mind if you want a design to remain personal. Penned by my hand on the 19th of Wochem, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #63 Date: 3/19/2010 at 23:50 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Lesson Packages We're offer a special, limited time Tax Season sale for all those tax refunds you're (hopefully) getting! I'm really excited about this, because it's a great deal for you. You can now purchase lessons (instead of only credits) directly from our website! The deal on these is really spectacular, and great for those of you who have been eyeing those new trade skills. Here are the benefits of purchasing lessons this way: - It will make your character permanent, just like you'd purchased credits - The lessons don't count towards the 1000 conversion bonus credits - The 2000 lesson package is the equivalent of $0.18 per credit, which is MUCH cheaper than any of our credit packages (the cheapest of which is $0.29 per credit). - The 2000 lesson package is even a better deal than getting the conversion bonus credits AND a 25% sale. Basically you are getting way more lessons than if you buy credits with the same amount of money. This sale is going to run through April 18th, after which we won't be selling the lesson packages any more, so take advantage of it while you can. There is a link on the credit page to get to the lesson packages, but here is the direct link as well: http://midkemiaonline.com/credits.php?page=lessons Penned by my hand on the 20th of Wochem, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #64 Date: 3/20/2010 at 22:05 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Crafting Help Files Crafting help files have been updated with more information for your perusing pleasure. See HELP CRAFTING, HELP DESIGNING, and HELP DESIGN COMMS. I will also lump in a notice that there was a bug in armor where it was counting items in your inventory as being worn for purposes of calculating defense. This is no longer the case! Penned by my hand on the 22nd of Wochem, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #65 Date: 3/20/2010 at 22:21 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Defenses and Defending All of the basic defenses (dodge, parry, jump, block, duck) are now 25% less effective on an absolute scale against the non-optimal attack type. The sliding scale of effectiveness still exists, but it was simply too powerful, and made defending too easy (and offenses too inconsistent). So, whereas before Splash looked something like this: Attack Category: Splash Accuracy(%) Parry 25 Dodge 75 Jump 95 Duck 50 Block 0 ...it now looks like this: Attack Category: Splash Accuracy(%) Parry 0 Dodge 50 Jump 95 Duck 25 Block 0 This means that you are less likely to defend with the wrong type of defense across the board, and there are now two (instead of one) defenses that will always fail against an attack category. Penned by my hand on the 22nd of Wochem, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #66 Date: 3/25/2010 at 16:30 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Double XP Weekend! We're going to continue this Thursday's Double XP day into and throughout the entire weekend! This should allow those of you who normally can't log much playing time during the week to take advantage of the double XP (and those addicts among us to continue our bashing frenzy)! The double XP will end on Sunday night at midnight GMT. That's four complete days of double XP gain! Can we go that long without sleep? Tempting to find out... Penned by my hand on the 33rd of Wochem, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #67 Date: 3/27/2010 at 1:17 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Server Move We're going to be moving our servers to a new datacenter, which hopefully will reduce some of the lag we have been experiencing. Currently, our servers are located here in lovely San Francisco, which is unfortunately a very congested Internet traffic hub. The new servers are located in Chicago, and preliminary testing shows that it will be a faster and cleaner connection. As a result of this, we will have a short period of downtime while we migrate to the new servers. The downtime will be on Monday, March 29th at 7:00 GMT (which is midnight PST). We expect that the downtime could last up to 3 hours, but we could be online again before then. Penned by my hand on the 36th of Wochem, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #68 Date: 3/27/2010 at 16:23 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Lesson Packages There was a slight bump in our new lesson processing, and while almost everyone has received their lessons, a few people who bought $9.99 (250 lesson) and $19.99 (500 lesson) lesson packages may not have yet received theirs. If you are one of these people, please email jeremy@ironrealms.com and we'll get that resolved right away! Sorry about the inconvenience for anyone affected! Penned by my hand on the 37th of Wochem, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #69 Date: 3/27/2010 at 20:38 From: Astraea, Lady of Justice To : Everyone Subj: RP and the Newsboards While we don't have a formal policy on posting logs in news posts, they are generally fairly jarring and don't support an immersive environment. We would like to ask you, whenever possible, to avoid posting logs to public/city/guild/order newsboards to help us maintain a stellar RP atmosphere. It's much preferred to simply summarize the information in a more concise, written form in your own words. We realize that it's easy to fall into the trap of accepting logs as solid evidence of something happening, but just remember that logs are simple text and easily fabricated or doctored, so their value as "evidence" is pretty bad in the first place. In short, please help us avoid posting logs! Penned by my hand on the 38th of Wochem, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #70 Date: 3/31/2010 at 19:05 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Facebook Drawing Remember that we are doing the Facebook Fan Drawing today for free credits! If you're aren't a fan of Iron Realms on Facebook, you still have a chance to join! The link is: http://www.facebook.com/IronRealms Penned by my hand on Mid-Winter, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #71 Date: 3/31/2010 at 22:57 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Artifact Upgrades You can now upgrade your artifacts easily in-game! The syntax is: ARTIFACT UPGRADE <#> TO For example, if I have an Icy Jewel of Striking (with an ID number of 2) in ARTIFACT LIST, and I want to upgrade to a Fire Jewel of Striking, I would type: ARTIFACT UPGRADE 2 TO CRITICAL_2 Doing this by itself will tell you how much it would cost, and ask you to confirm it before actually going through with the upgrade, so feel free to check it out to see how much various upgrades would cost you. Here's how this helps you: *unlike* trading in artifacts, upgrading doesn't cause you to lose credits on the value of the artifact. When you trade-in an artifact, you normally only get 2/3rds of the credits back, but when you upgrade, the full price you paid will be counted towards the price of the upgrade. In my example of upgrading from critical_1 (100 credits) to critical_2 (200 credits), the upgrade cost is only 100 bound credits. This makes it easy for you to start off with a lower-tier artifact, and upgrade it at no risk to you later on if you decide you like it! Penned by my hand on Mid-Winter, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #72 Date: 4/1/2010 at 20:14 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Reviewing! As part of our ongoing efforts to integrate ourselves more fully into the modern, hip world of social networking, we are now allowing you to review other players. This system is a combination of award-winning and premier review sites like Yelp and also the like system that has been so popular and loved on Facebook. Additionally, since we are ground-breakers here at MKO, we are allowing you to dislike as well. Take that, dirty Facebook hippies! The syntax is simple: REVIEW You can see the reviews of a person in their honors, and also in your score you can see how often you have been reviewed. Additionally, you may: REVIEW If you have MXP enabled, you can also just click the link that pops up when you honors sometime, to make it super easy to use this great new networking feature. If you find you have accidentally written a review, or think a review of you is unfair (it probably isn't!), you can: REVIEW DELETE Since popularity is an important metric in your reputation, you can also see how "liked" you are in Midkemia by other players as part of the aggregate data that is compiled from your reviewed. Great for deciding if you want to run for that GM or Council seat! Count your friends and enemies! Likes and dislikes are, of course, anonymous to protect the privacy of other players. We will be expanding this system in the weeks to come to include things like access to channels (CT, GT, market) etc. instead of the oudated RolePoints system. Think Radakail and Anders are shouting too much? Get your friends to gang up on them and strip their shouting privs! This kind of self-policing is exciting and I can't wait to implement it! Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Nuna, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #73 Date: 4/2/2010 at 1:43 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Snubbing Alas, our poor review system had to be disabled for technical reasons. Perhaps in the future, when a few issues have been resolved, we can return to this amazing social networking idea. We had over 11,000 reviews when it had to be disabled, so it certainly has a lot of popularity! However, in its place I offer you snubbing! Yes, you can snub people who you never want to hear from again (hopefully your list isn't terribly long!). The commands are: SNUB UNSNUB And to remove everyone from your snubbed list, either: SNUB CLEAR, or UNSNUB ALL Typing SNUB by itself will show you a list of those you have snubbed. Generally speaking, you won't hear communication from those you have snubbed (barring non-targeted, non-custom emotes). Please use this only as a last resort if you absolutely never want to communicate with someone again. Snubbing someone lightly or frivolously can damage the roleplaying environment, since it makes you unable to roleplay with that person! Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Nuna, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #74 Date: 4/2/2010 at 3:43 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Societies Societies are here! These are highly customizatable player-created organizations. You can form a society with 50 gold sovereigns in Kingdom currency at the Society Administration Headquarters in Yabon, by doing FORM SOCIETY NAMED | The scroll HELP SOCIETIES will tell you all about the commands for these organizations. (Please note that society newsboards, dues, and a few other miscellaneous features are not yet ready, but will be released over the weekend!) Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Nuna, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #75 Date: 4/2/2010 at 5:33 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: TopMudSites Voting TMS Voting has reset! Please vote for MKO! We were up to #15 last month, which is an improvement but much further below where we could (and should) be! Remember that you can vote once every 12 hours, at: http://www.midkemiaonline.com/vote Thanks! Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Nuna, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #76 Date: 4/2/2010 at 17:15 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: April Promotions We're running a few exciting promotions for April (and some of you have already read about them in the newsletter), but here they are: - The lesson package sale is continuing through April 18th. - If you log in for 21 days in April, you'll receive a voucher for a free language to learn. Always wanted to learn Goblin, Tsurani, or Keshian? Here's your chance! You can type LOGINDAYS to see how many days you've logged in this month. - Every Tuesday in April we're going to have Iron Ticket Tuesdays! You'll earn tickets by killing NPCs and completing quests, and each Tuesday at midnight GMT there will be a drawing for credit prizes from among all the players who earned tickets that day. - April 22-25th we'll be having an event to celebrate Earth Day. Cheers! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Nuna, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #77 Date: 4/3/2010 at 22:03 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: UStream with Jeremy Saunders, and Twitter Contest! We're going to run a Twitter contest throughout the month of April. Every Sunday, one random user will win 250 credits! To enter to win, just tweet why you love Iron Realms games (or Midkemia, more specifically!) @ironrealms. For example: I love @IronRealms because Midkemia is the best game ever! Additionally, Jeremy Saunders (the President of IRE, my boss!) will be hosting a UStream live video chat at 21:00 GMT (2 PM Pacific) on Tuesday, April 6th! Bring your general IRE questions, and he will get you up to date on all the IRE things that we are working on. The address for that is http://www.ustream.tv/channel/the-iron-realms-show Cheers! Penned by my hand on the 7th of Nuna, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #78 Date: 4/5/2010 at 20:24 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Society Slot Permits You can now buy society slot permits to expand the number of societies you can join beyond 10. The syntax is BUY SOCIETYSLOT PERMIT, which you can do from anywhere. Cheers! Penned by my hand on the 11th of Nuna, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #79 Date: 4/6/2010 at 0:08 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: The Iron Lottery! Yes, it's our first Tuesday in April, and that means the Iron Lottery is here! Type LOTTERIES to see the lottery. You'll find that throughout the day you gain Iron Tickets from killing denizens and completing quests. You can exchange these Iron Tickets for tickets in the actual lottery by going to the Lottery Office in Port Natal and doing LOTTERY EXCHANGE IRON TICKET. At the end of the day (midnight GMT), the lottery will close and the winners will be picked! Good luck, and thanks for playing and continuing to help make Midkemia great! Penned by my hand on the 11th of Nuna, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #80 Date: 4/7/2010 at 2:08 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: First Iron Lottery Winners! Congratulations to all the winners of our first Iron Ticket Tuesday! The winners of the lottery are: Prizes: 1. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 768, owned by Kais (claimed) 2. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 1987, owned by Mallaidh (claimed) 3. 150 Credits. Winning ticket: 2077, owned by Atlas (claimed) 4. 200 Credits. Winning ticket: 318, owned by Radakail (claimed) 5. 250 Credits. Winning ticket: 1382, owned by Atlas (claimed) 6. 300 Credits. Winning ticket: 703, owned by Talbot (claimed) 7. 350 Credits. Winning ticket: 1774, owned by Elora (claimed) 8. 400 Credits. Winning ticket: 1501, owned by Kharn (claimed) 9. 450 Credits. Winning ticket: 2108, owned by Kalidas (claimed) 10. 500 Credits. Winning ticket: 342, owned by Elora (claimed) We'll see you all again next Tuesday for another Iron Lottery! Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Agaeis, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #81 Date: 4/9/2010 at 18:38 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Server Maintenance Today Last minute notice, but our server host is doing some emergency maintenance today on one of their edge routers, which could cause latency and maybe disconnections for about 5 minutes. The expected maintenance period is from 14:00 to 16:00 CST (that's 12:00 - 14:00 Pacific). Penned by my hand on the 8th of Agaeis, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #82 Date: 4/13/2010 at 2:01 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Tickets and the Lottery Hey all, I've changed Iron Tickets so that they will decay after 4 Midkemian days. This means that they will only be good for the current week's lottery! Any previous unused tickets have not been made to decay, but all tickets that drop from here on out will. This change was made to prevent stockpiling tickets for the final lottery, so each lottery has a clean slate and is more fair to everyone. Note also that the credit prizes from the lottery are in bound credits, so pooling tickets to split the prize isn't possible (I had a few people ask about this). You _can_ buy and sell Iron Tickets from other players though, up until they are traded in for official lottery tickets. Cheers! Penned by my hand on the 16th of Agaeis, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #83 Date: 4/15/2010 at 17:32 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Gone on Vacation I'm leaving tomorrow morning for vacation, and I'll be unavailable from Friday through Wednesday. I'll be back on Thursday. I'll be exploring the souks, red-walled medina, riads, and other atmosphere of Marrakesh. (Can you tell I'm already excited?) I'll post some pictures when I get back. In the interim, Jeremy will still be around to deal with any pressing credit-related issues, so fear not. And, of course, our wonderful volunteer staff will still be on hand to fix bugs, address problems, and keep the game as lively as ever. However, anything that requires my attention specifically and isn't an emergency may go unresolved until Thursday when I get back from Morocco. Cheers! Penned by my hand on the 21st of Agaeis, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #84 Date: 4/23/2010 at 22:07 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Language Slots There is a new artifact: BUY LANGUAGESLOT PERMIT It costs 150 bound credits, and permanently increases the number of languages you can learn by 1. Similarly to societyslot permits, the language permits can't be traded in. Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Yamiev, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #85 Date: 5/3/2010 at 16:51 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: TMS Voting! Yes, it's a new month and voting has reset! Last month we really killed it, landing the #6 spot, which brings in a lot of experienced MUD traffic for Midkemia (i.e., newbies that are already familiar with how MUDs work). Hopefully we can keep that up for this month. Thank you for supporting MKO! This is really the best online community I've seen around, and it's thanks to you! Penned by my hand on the 13th of Dzanin, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #86 Date: 5/3/2010 at 16:56 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Moving! I just moved, and it will be until Wednesday when my Internet access is properly set up (damn Comcast *grumble grumble*). Until then, I'm working from cafes and so responses to emails that are sent during non-daytime hours in the US may take until the next morning for me to see. Sorry about the inconvenience! Penned by my hand on the 13th of Dzanin, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #87 Date: 5/3/2010 at 17:36 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: May Promotion Extravaganza! April has come to a close, and with it the opportunity to learn a new language (although you can still buy new language slot permits via BUY LANGUAGESLOT PERMIT). However, May is here and we're really going wild this month! - Every Tuesday is Double XP Day! - Every Thursday is Divine Favor Day! Everyone will have the blessings of yours truly, which will temporarily increase your skills and stats, grant you some resistance to damage, and make it so you don't need to eat or sleep! - Every day is FREE LESSON day! You'll gain 6 lessons each day just for logging in and playing for 10 minutes! This is our way of saying thanks for playing Midkemia, and we hope to have a lot more in store for you this month! Penned by my hand on the 13th of Dzanin, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #88 Date: 5/4/2010 at 0:10 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Artifacts! A number of new artifacts are here! Stat-enhancing artifacts are available in levels 1-4 for all of the core statistics. Here is how much they increase your stats: Level 1: +5 Level 2: +10 Level 3: +20 Level 4: +30 Additionally, we have 3 other interesting artifacts useful for those looking to hoard items: - Banath's Lesser Vault: Doubles the size of your Vault (350 credits) - Banath's Greater Vault: Quadruples the size of your Vault (500 credits) - Mark of Dimensional Capacity: This artifact can only be imbued into a pack, pouch, or satchel, and increases the capacity of the container to hold 100 items (packs normally hold 50), makes it not decay, and makes the pack/pouch/satchel reset into your inventory periodically. (100 credits) Some of you have also wondered about artifact packages! Yes, we are going to offer them! I'm working on them as I write this! Look for them tomorrow, and expect them to include some great savings on artifacts (perhaps as well as some new artifacts!). Remember to check ARTIFACT WARES to buy any of these great new artifacts! Cheers! Penned by my hand on the 13th of Dzanin, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #89 Date: 5/4/2010 at 23:09 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Double XP Artifacts and Artifact Packages! There is a new artifact: - the Orb of Wild Experience. (30 credits) This artifact must be activated via ARTIFACT ACTIVATE and will grant the owner double XP gain for the next 24 RL hours from the time it's activated. Doing this will consume the artifact, and offline time is counted against the 24 hours, so save it for a rainy day when you want to bash your heart out! Please note this artifact does not stack with double XP days, or game-wide XP bonuses! ARTIFACT PACKAGES ----------------- There are now artifact packages available on the website on our credits page (the direct link is: http://www.midkemiaonline.com/credits.php?page=artifacts) You can buy existing artifacts directly in special packages here, at a huge discount! Right now, there are 2 packages available: - A stat reset for $19.99 (60% savings!) - 5 Orbs of Wild Experience for $39.99 (54% savings!) I'll be adding in more packages over the next few days, so stay tuned to the announce posts! Penned by my hand on the 16th of Dzanin, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #90 Date: 5/5/2010 at 22:10 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Call for Celani Applications I'm looking to accept a few new Celani to join the Gods in the Celestial City! Celani are volunteers who help run Midkemia Online and assist the Gods in their duties, roleplay, and events. Celani who succeed well in our team may eventually have the opportunity to join the Pantheon as a God. See HELP PROMOTIONS for the full details on being a Celani. How to Apply ------------ 1- Read HELP CELANI and HELP PROMOTIONS in full. These are things that you will need to know before you apply. 2- Due to the legal obligations of this position, we require all applicants to be 18 years of age or older. We prefer experienced and mature candidates with at least 500 hours of playtime under their belt. 3- Send a plain-text email to jt@midkemiaonline.com with the following information: - Your real name. - Your real age. - Your regular occupation and employer (if you're a student, let us know what school you attend, and what you major in). - Your characters in Midkemia Online, and a brief list of their accomplishments. - What hours you are usually online (in GMT). - A brief paragraph on why you wish to become a Celani, and why you think we should consider you for the position. - Two flawless room descriptions of 80+ words each. You must follow Midkemia's writing guidelines, which are listed at the bottom of HELP MORTAL BUILDERS and HELP BUILDING GUIDELINES. Deadlines --------- Applications must be received by 00:00GMT on Friday, 14th of May. We will be holding interviews for these positions starting Monday, 17th of May. Penned by my hand on the 18th of Dzanin, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #91 Date: 5/12/2010 at 18:07 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Fencing Overhaul Preview I've posted a preview of the Fencing changes that I'm making on the forums: http://forums.midkemiaonline.com/index.php?showtopic=1159 Feel free to read and offer your feedback! Penned by my hand on the 33rd of Dzanin, in the year 6. ANNOUNCE NEWS #92 Date: 5/17/2010 at 23:07 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Celani Applications Closed! The deadline for Celani application has passed! We received a lot of interest and many people were qualified, but we can only take on a few. I'll be getting in touch with those of you in-game who we have selected for a further interview. It was a very difficult decision to narrow down, so don't be discouraged if you weren't selected this time around! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Kimia, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #93 Date: 5/23/2010 at 22:15 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Double XP Weekend - Moved! The Double XP Weekend for MKO has been moved to next weekend! Sorry about any confusion! It'll start on Friday the 28th and last through Sunday the 30th! Penned by my hand on the 17th of Kimia, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #94 Date: 5/25/2010 at 23:37 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Fencing Overhaul Fencing has been overhauled! Yes, this change has been a long time in coming. Fencing was the first skill coded in Midkemia, long before I took over the reigns as Producer. It was an interesting design, but reflected an outdated combat system based around "soft" afflictions and attacks that felt slow and a little clunky, and thus was replaced. However, Fencing was never updated and so still reflected this design philosophy that fits poorly into combat in Midkemia right now. Beyond that, many of the skill were simply poorly or hastily coded for an early combat demonstration, and never worked as intended. With these changes, I have attempted to preserve the interesting features of Fencing, including balance chasing and the focus on speed, while removing some of the automation (the Combo system is gone entirely) and introducing new afflictions and useful synergies between the skills. I think you will enjoy the overall result. In addition, the Attack Category of many Fencing attacks have been changed. This is because they were overwhelmingly of the Slash and Stab categories (every skill except 1 fell into these two categories), making Fencing attacks extremely predictable and easy to defend against. They are now spread across a wider variety of Attack Categories. Many skill messages have been updated or changed, as they were rather bland, and the combat code has been updated to bring them into line with other attack skills. Anyone using automated defense systems will need to update their triggers accordingly! Now, onto the meat of the changes: - Combo has been removed. - Chop has been removed. - A new skill, Fleche, has been added in place of Chop. Fleche does weak damage and gives the Bleeding affliction, which stacks up to 5 times and causes periodic damage. - A new skill, Beguile, has been added in place of Combo. Beguile, subject to certain restrictions, gives the Disloyalty affliction, which turns the victim's minions against him or her. - Thrust no longer causes Bleeding. - The damage of bleeding has been increased, and will now damage health (and kill the victim) if the victim has no more endurance. - Recovery has been changed: It will now set up a standard Parry defense, at no cost, after a successful Thrust if you have no other defense active. - Hamstring has been changed: the Hamstring affliction increases all defensive equilibrium costs of the victim. - Puncture's Guile cost has been reduced to 10. - Puncture now only strips 1 defense on a successful attack (and none if missed/blocked). - Puncture now has a telegraph. - Wristflick has been changed: It now gives Clumsiness, which decreases the target's accuracy with all attacks. - Backslice has been changed: It now gives Cut Tendons, which increases all balance costs of the victim. - Riposte has been changed: After a successful Parry or Dodge, the Rogue's next skill telegraph is automatically faster if executed within a few seconds. - Pommel: The Dizziness affliction should no longer behave erratically. - Pommel: The Dizziness affliction now reduces the chance to dodge by 20% instead of 25%, but stacks up to 2 times. - Beat now has a telegraph, and an increased balance cost. - Beat now causes equilibrium loss for the victim instead of balance loss, and the duration has been increased. - Flourish no longer does damage. - Flourish is now faster than before. - Inquartata and Precision have been switched in the AB list. - Inquartata is now possible to execute after any type of successful defense. - Inquartata now strips the target's current defense if successful. - Inquartata has a reduced balance cost. Type MORE to continue reading. (77% shown) ANNOUNCE NEWS #95 Date: 5/25/2010 at 23:46 From: Jeremy To : Everyone Subj: Become Elite Greets folks! Over the past few months we have been working furiously to provide all of our players with new ways to improve your characters. From login lessons, lesson packages, double XP days, and artifact packages, we have been working hard to find new ways to enhance your character experience and personal enjoyment from our games. Continuing this trend, we have decided to release another way for you to quickly earn credits and lessons as inexpensively as possible. For the next 30 days we will be experimenting with Iron Elite Memberships. These memberships are by far, the absolute best way to get lessons and credits at the lowest prices. This is substantially better than normal credit prices and the fabled lesson packages. Be sure to read HELP ELITE for all the details, but in short ALL your characters can earn daily lessons, monthly credits, XP bonuses, a permanent 10% sale bonus (cumulative with any other sale bonus we run), and more. These elite memberships are an insane (and I do mean insane) deal. Check out HELP ELITE for details on exactly what you will get. Hopefully combined with our lesson and artifact packages, this will help those of you that are a little short on cash in these tough times, but are dying to advance faster on your characters. One more thing, as this is something we have never done before, we may or may not continue selling these memberships after the end of June. However, we will continue to honor the membership for as long as anyone is a member, even if we decide not to bring the program back after this trial period. If you have any questions feel free to email me at jeremy@ironrealms.com. Thanks! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Rodec, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #96 Date: 5/26/2010 at 15:49 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Elite Membership Credits There's a little confusion about this, so here's how the credits work: CREDIT REPORT - shows you how many credits you have to distribute (along with your xp bonus, etc). CREDIT MEMBERSHIP TRANSFER - transfer credits to the character you are currently playing from your elite membership pool. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 5th of Rodec, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #97 Date: 5/27/2010 at 21:34 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: AB Lists and Skill Ranks You can now AB FULL to see a list of all abilities that appear within a given skillset. Any abilities you do not yet know will appear in purple/magenta. Similarly, if you do AB on an ability which you do not yet know, you will be told how much you need to learn into that skillset in order to gain that skill. For example, doing AB FIGHTING OVERDRIVE, if you don't have the skill, will inform you that it requires 50% into Mythical to learn. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 8th of Rodec, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #98 Date: 5/29/2010 at 23:58 From: Jeremy To : Everyone Subj: Memberships Lessons Seems we had a little bug with lessons being given out to all the characters that had memberships. I have fixed the bug and I am pretty sure I have credited everyone with their missing lessons. If I missed you, don't send a message, send me an email at jeremy@ironrealms.com. Thanks! Penned by my hand on the 12th of Rodec, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #99 Date: 6/1/2010 at 0:30 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Memorial Day! Happy Memorial Day! Now that what has hopefully been a beautiful day is drawing to a close, we'll be having 50% increase experience gain for the next 24 hours to celebrate! Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Staphron, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #100 Date: 6/3/2010 at 3:04 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: June: Free Credits, Iron Lottery Mondays, Double XP Fridays We've got some exciting things going on throughout the month of June! - Every day you log in, you will receive a free credit! - Every Monday is Iron Ticket Monday, meaning tickets will drop from NPCs that you kill, and be earned from quests, for a special lottery with prizes ranging from 10 credits to 100 credits! - Every Friday is Double XP Friday! Cheers and thanks for playing Midkemia and continuing to make the game great! Penned by my hand on the 6th of Staphron, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #100 Date: 6/3/2010 at 3:04 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: June: Free Credits, Iron Lottery Mondays, Double XP Fridays We've got some exciting things going on throughout the month of June! - Every day you log in, you will receive a free credit! - Every Monday is Iron Ticket Monday, meaning tickets will drop from NPCs that you kill, and be earned from quests, for a special lottery with prizes ranging from 10 credits to 100 credits! - Every Friday is Double XP Friday! Cheers and thanks for playing Midkemia and continuing to make the game great! Penned by my hand on the 6th of Staphron, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #101 Date: 6/3/2010 at 23:08 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: The Hall of Worlds As was revealed by Pug of Crydee to Anders Alduous today, those rare individuals who reach the level Lord of Planes (level 100) are able to tap into the power within themselves to use the strange doorways located across the lands to access the Hall of Worlds. The Hall of Worlds allows access to many locations across the lands, allowing near-instantaneous travel between these locations, although lingering there can be dangerous to one's health. It, however, does not permit access to cities where one is an enemy. To use the Hall of World's doorways, one can: TRANSVERSE Penned by my hand on the 8th of Staphron, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #102 Date: 6/5/2010 at 3:05 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Double XP Weekend! This weekend is our makeup weekend for Double XP! All weekend long, you'll earn Double XP! Happy hunting! Penned by my hand on the 1st of Natinica, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #103 Date: 6/7/2010 at 8:06 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Orders, Shrines, and Powers Holy Order have been more fully implemented, along with shrines, shrine powers, and a unique personal blessing system that offers some interesting buffs. See HELP SHRINES for the full details. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 6th of Natinica, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #104 Date: 6/7/2010 at 19:04 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Recent NPC Health Change There is a little bit of confusion about the recent NPC health change, so let me explain a little bit about it. NPC health was inadvertantly much lower than it was supposed to be, due to a bug. The damage players deal to NPCs was exactly where it should be. This led to situations where players were killing level 170 NPCs in 3 (non-critical) hits. This is a significant change, so it's understandable that some players are a little dismayed that things are now more difficult to kill. Because of that, I have made a few changes: - The group XP bonus of Harvest Boon has been increased - The way XP is split in small groups is more rewarding to small (2-4 player) groups. I encourage you to group if NPCs are too difficult. - The difficulty of Mac Mordain Cadal has been reduced. The NPCs there were much, much too high level, but this was unnoticed because of the NPC health problem. Penned by my hand on the 7th of Natinica, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #105 Date: 6/9/2010 at 18:50 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Ticket Lottery Winners Here are this week's Iron Ticket Lottery winners: Prizes: 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 10140, owned by Jubelee 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 9892, owned by Jubelee 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 10227, owned by Ainsley 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 10624, owned by Rehirege 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 10755, owned by Jubelee 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 10018, owned by Ainsley 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 11051, owned by Atlas 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 10339, owned by Marc 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 10470, owned by Janatris 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 10136, owned by Jubelee Congratulations, especially to Jubelee! Penned by my hand on the 11th of Natinica, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #106 Date: 6/12/2010 at 20:33 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Highcastle I'm very pleased to announce the release of Highcastle! Highcastle is a fortress that lies on the border of the High Wold and the Teeth of the World, and is one of the three Border Baronies that have traditionally belonged to the Kingdom of the Isles. However, Highcastle is also a capturable fortress, and each city can try to claim control over Highcastle. The city that controls Highcastle receives a 10% damage bonus against NPCs/denizens. While Highcastle is controlled, it will spawn NPCs each game day that are aggressive to anyone except the organization that controls Highcastle, so be warned when visiting if you are not a member of the city that controls it. To control Highcastle, a city must first build up its siege efforts. Each city has a new Siege General that resides within the city (or in Highcastle if the city controls it). The generals are: - Baron Baldwin de la Troville of Krondor - General Gurgeros of Sar-Sargoth - Commander Felian Whisperwind of Elvandar The Siege Generals will accept heads of city enemies, money, and the corpses of non-sentient beasts to help further the siege effort of the city. These is a maximum amount each game day that the city can build up its siege effort, and it will take a number of days before a city can normally initiate a siege. However, for now I have made it so that each city has the supplies to initiate 1 siege. When Highcastle is besieged, only members of the attacking and defending city can stay within Highcastle. Members of other cities will be automatically removed from the area and deposited outside. The attacking city has a few hours to try and claim control of Highcastle. If the time runs out, or runs low enough that it is impossible to win, then the defending city will be declared the victors. If the defending city reaches the winning score, they will also be declared the victors in that case. To build up points towards capturing Highcastle, a city must try to control the three flags that spawn randomly within Highcastle. These flags can be picked up, and then you can PLANT them within Highcastle to claim them for your city, at which point they will begin to increase your city's score. An enemy player can UPROOT the flag and then plant it to claim it for his or her city. Walking out of Highcastle with a flag will cause it to respawn in the castle. During the battle, NPCs may periodically spawn at controlled flags to assist their city, and will attack any member of the other city on sight. After a siege, Highcastle is immune to siege again for 5 real life days, so there is some cooldown period between battles. Additionally, the controlling city can determine an 8-hour period each real-life day during which Highcastle is immune to siege. Use this to help prevent the castle being attacked when nobody is around to defend it. To do this, anyone who can summon guards can CITY SIEGE FORTIFY and it will set the hour to the current hour. It takes 24 real-life hours to go into effect though, so you can't switch it right before a battle. Anyone who is city rank 4 or above can initiate a siege battle by doing CITY SIEGE INITIATE. You can also check the CITY SIEGE STATUS to see how far along your siege effort it. Note that it must be 100% complete to intiate a battle, and doing so will reset it to 0. Members of the attacking city must walk to Highcastle, but members of the defending city can CITY SIEGE TRANSPORT from their home city in order to hitch a ride to the battle. Short Summary ------------- - HELP HIGHCASTLE shows its current status - The controlling city gets +10% damage vs. NPCs - Do the Siege Generals' quests to build up the siege effort - CITY SIEGE INITIATE when the siege effort is complete to attack - CITY SIEGE STATUS shows the current siege effort - CITY SIEGE TRANSPORT to transport yourself to the battle from your city, if you are a defender - CITY SIEGE FORTIFY will set the 8-hour immunity period for Highcastle, but takes 24 hours to go into effect - UPROOT to uproot a planted flag - PLANT to claim a flag for your city Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 6th of Wochem, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #107 Date: 6/12/2010 at 23:08 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Bandages There is a new skill in Tailoring: Bandages Penned by my hand on the 6th of Wochem, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #108 Date: 6/15/2010 at 0:01 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Lottery Winners Here are this week's Iron Lottery winners! Congratulations! 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 11633, owned by Deminix 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 12438, owned by Marc 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 12050, owned by Atlas 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 11926, owned by Zylo 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 11997, owned by Atlas 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 12208, owned by Jubelee 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 12622, owned by Joal 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 12391, owned by Jerry 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 12707, owned by Zylo 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 11610, owned by Krim Penned by my hand on the 10th of Wochem, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #109 Date: 6/23/2010 at 3:28 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Lottery Winners! Here are this week's Iron Lottery winners! 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 13057, owned by Zylo (claimed) 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 13646, owned by Silvost (claimed) 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 12915, owned by Renatta (claimed) 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 13067, owned by Zylo (claimed) 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 13773, owned by Marc (claimed) 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 14122, owned by Deminix (claimed) 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 13708, owned by Joal (claimed) 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 13041, owned by Joal (claimed) 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 14305, owned by Shlean (claimed) 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 13212, owned by Zylo (claimed) Congratulations! Penned by my hand on the 28th of Wochem, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #110 Date: 6/25/2010 at 1:07 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Great Hunt Hunters, prepare yourselves for our next GREAT HUNT! Running from the 26th - 27th of June, we'll have a monumental celebration of slaughter as players carve their way through the denizen hordes and battle to out-wit, out-last and out-hunt their way to a mountain of credit prizes! This hunt, however, we're changing things up a little! We're splitting up the competitors based on level, with the following brackets: - Under level 50 - Level 50 - 98 - Level 99+ Prizes for each bracket are as follows: 1st. 200cr 2nd. 175cr 3rd. 150cr 4th. 125cr 5th. 100cr 6th. 75cr 7th. 50cr 8th. 25cr 9th. 10cr 10th. 5cr Penned by my hand on the 32nd of Wochem, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #111 Date: 6/25/2010 at 22:15 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Health and Endurance I am considering consolidating Health and Endurance into a single stat (Health). I've created a forum topic here that explains more about the issue and has a poll for you to weigh in and vote. Check it out and give your opinion: http://forums.midkemiaonline.com/index.php?showtopic=1256 Penned by my hand on the 34th of Wochem, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #112 Date: 6/26/2010 at 0:24 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: The Great Hunt has been called! A Great Hunt to honor the Red-jawed Hunter, Guis-wan, has been called across the four corners of the globe! All kills made during the Great Hunt honor the fearsome God of the Hunt, and points are awarded based on the difficulty of the creature slain. At the end of the weekend, the greatest hunters shall be rewarded! Remember, we have broken apart the Great Hunt into three tiers this time: - Level 99+ - Level 50 - 98 - Under Level 50 Each tier shall have its own winners and receive credit prizes. Prizes for each bracket are as follows: 1st. 200cr 2nd. 175cr 3rd. 150cr 4th. 125cr 5th. 100cr 6th. 75cr 7th. 50cr 8th. 25cr 9th. 10cr 10th. 5cr Additionally, everyone who scores at least 100 points will receive 10 bound credits! This ancient and honored festival is a great opportunity to earn mountains of rewards. During the Great Hunt, everyone will also enjoy double experience gained from all monsters killed and quests completed. All hail the Red-jawed Hunter! Penned by my hand on the 34th of Wochem, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #113 Date: 6/26/2010 at 19:25 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Lesson Packages Lesson packages are back for the rest of this month and the month of July! We're offering heavily discounted lesson packages directly from our website at: http://www.midkemiaonline.com/credits.php?page=lessons Don't forget that if you're an Iron Elite member (HELP ELITE), you get a 10% bonus to lessons purchased. That 2000 lesson package (2200 lessons if you're Elite) is an absolute steal. These lesson packages will be available until the end of the day on July 31st. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 36th of Wochem, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #114 Date: 6/27/2010 at 20:20 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Great Hunt extended! I'm extending the Great Hunt (and double experience) for another 24 hours, in honor of Meacham, Kulgan, and other like-minded persons celebrating this weekend. Happy hunting! Penned by my hand on the 38th of Wochem, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #115 Date: 7/1/2010 at 1:02 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: July Promotions We've got a few really great promotions running for the month of July! - Every 10 minutes you spend logged into Midkemia, you will earn 1 lesson, up to 10 lessons per day. You can do this on as many characters as you like. - Every Tuesday is Artifact Drop Tuesday! Temporary artifacts will drop from random denizens, that you can use for the day. - Every Thursday (starting today) is Critical Hit Thursday! Everyone gains the bonus of a level 4 critical strike artifact for the day (stacking with any critical strike artifact you have). Remember that we have a great sale going on with our lesson packages right now which you can purchase here: http://www.midkemiaonline.com/credits.php?page=lessons Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 45th of Wochem, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #116 Date: 7/1/2010 at 10:10 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Novice Titles Guildmasters can now set default novice prefixes and suffixes. See your GUILD PRIVS for the exact syntax. Penned by my hand on Mid-Winter, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #117 Date: 7/8/2010 at 19:21 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Health and Endurance Change I've made a major change to Health and Endurance today, so read this post carefully! This change will make combat simpler to understand, and eliminate some of the redundancy involved with Endurance. Additionally, it will give Endurance an important role in controlling movement. Endurance now only controls your ability to move, and certain other utility abilities (like sneaking, premonition, etc.). It is no longer damaged by attacks. Your Endurance pools are drastically reduced as a consequence. Endurance is now determined only by your level and Dexterity - Constitution no longer plays any role. Instead, only Health is damaged by attacks! Health is determined solely by your level and Constitution. Any abilities that affected Endurance regen previously will now affect Health regen instead (Overdrive, Revitalization, Rally, etc.). In addition, I have made some other changes to help support this transition: - Magic regeneration while Spellshield is active has been changed (but not nerfed!). Instead of regenning 10% of your Willpower every second, you will instead regen 100% of your Willpower every 10 seconds. This means every point invested in Willpower is meaningful, rather than only every 10 points mattering. - Warcraft abilities that required Endurance still require Endurance rather than switching over to Health. The amount required has been adjusted to reflect new Endurance pools. - Warcraft's Last Stand ability has had the Endurance requirement removed, and is instead on a 2 minute cooldown. The duration of the Last Stand effect has been reduced to 20 seconds from 60. This is a very big change, so I'll be keeping an eye on it over the next week. Additionally, everyone has been given a free stat reset, and you may reset your stats freely for the next week. I will post 24 hours before I disable the free stat resets. Penned by my hand on the 5th of Agaeis, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #118 Date: 7/8/2010 at 21:01 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Timeline Thanks to Ashurmannus, we now have a helpful timeline of events in Midkemia leading up to the Darkness at Sethanon and our present day. See HELP TIMELINE to read it (be warned: it contains book spoilers!) Penned by my hand on the 5th of Agaeis, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #119 Date: 7/19/2010 at 20:13 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Auctions! We are auctioning off 16 amazing prizes over the next 7 days! See HELP AUCTIONS for information about these auctions and how to bid. Penned by my hand on the 29th of Agaeis, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #120 Date: 7/23/2010 at 18:00 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Crydee A lot of life has come to Crydee lately, with the Duke and his wife preparing for a banquet. With all the commotion going on in the town and castle, there are a number of new quests to be had! Penned by my hand on the 1st of Yamiev, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #121 Date: 7/25/2010 at 22:51 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: UStream with Jeremy Saunders Hey all, On Monday the 26th at 21:00 GMT (2PM PST), Jeremy Saunders, President of Iron Realms Entertainment (our parent company), is hosting a UStream live video chat to talk about our games, and what you can look forward to for the future. Feel free to tune in and check it out, and come with questions and comments! http://www.ironrealms.com/ustream (He won't be able to answer most questions specific to MKO gameplay or mechanics, so make sure your questions are IRE-wide or more broadly applicable to all our games or company.) Penned by my hand on the 6th of Yamiev, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #122 Date: 7/30/2010 at 20:16 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Realms Contest! Iron Realms is currently running a contest to celebrate the launch of the new website. For those of you who have not had a chance to check it out, head over to http://www.ironrealms.com today! Iron Realms is offering 100 credits to the ten best testimonials submitted before August 1st. Of course, we want to see a Midkemian take home the prize! For more details, please see http://www.ironrealms.com/news/100-game-credits-100-free Penned by my hand on the 5th of Dzanin, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #123 Date: 7/31/2010 at 18:28 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Last Day For Lessons! Today is the last day for lesson packages! If you still want to buy lessons directly, this is your last chance (probably for the year)! http://www.ironrealms.com/news/last-day-lessons Penned by my hand on the 7th of Dzanin, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #124 Date: 8/3/2010 at 19:37 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: 20% Credit Sale! Iron Realms' birthday is coming up, and so we're celebrating with a crazy 20% BONUS on all credit purchases made via the website, from now through September 15th! This means if you buy 500 credits, you'll get 600! If you buy 1000, you'll get 1200 instead! Also, this bonus is *cumulative* with the Iron Elite membership bonus, meaning Iron Elite members will get 30% more credits! Throughout August, we're also going to have TRUEFAVOR WEDNESDAYS, where everyone will benefit from the effects of a Truefavor (from yours truly!). On top of that, we're going to have a DOUBLE XP WEEKEND from the 27th - 29th of August! Penned by my hand on the 14th of Dzanin, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #125 Date: 8/9/2010 at 23:06 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Sparkplay Media and Concerns About IRE I've been hearing that there are some concerns about the demise of Sparkplay Media (the company behind the MMO Earth Eternal) and how that affects us at IRE, so I'll take a few moments to elaborate a little bit. For those unfamiliar, Sparkplay Media was a spin-off of IRE founded by Matt Mihaly, the former President and founder of IRE (Sarapis on Achaea), and Chris Kohnert, the former CTO of IRE (Aeyr on Achaea). They were working on the unfortunately unsuccessful MMO Earth Eternal. The two companies (Sparkplay and IRE) are totally separate businesses that have no effect or dependence on one another. The only official link between the two is that they had the same founders. Earth Eternal was unfortunately simply not able to attract players fast enough to outpace the costs of development and maintaining the game (hosting a graphical MMO on that scale is staggeringly expensive), and had a significant amount of debt due to the venture capital investments the game had received. So, they are closing their doors this week or sometime next week. You can read more about it here: http://www.eartheternal.com/news/Announcements/some-bad-news *** Let me state unequivocally that this has absolutely NO EFFECT on IRE or Midkemia Online whatsoever! *** Obviously I am really sad to see Sparkplay die off, as Matt is a personal friend and I've had the opportunity to see the development of Earth Eternal behind the scenes since before it launched into the earliest testing. I know this feeling is shared by many of IRE's players and staff who have had the opportunity to get to know Matt and Chris and how awesome they are. On a happier note, this has been one of the best years so far for IRE in a long time, both financially and (perhaps more importantly) in terms of the number of players on our games. All of our games, including Midkemia Online, are doing really well. On a personal level, seeing what's happened to Sparkplay in the highly competitive gaming market has really made me appreciate our players much more. So I say to you: thank you for continuing to play MKO and make this a really great game! Penned by my hand on the 27th of Dzanin, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #126 Date: 8/11/2010 at 18:02 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Prepaid Game Card Scams There is apparently a company out there "selling" game cards for IRE game credits. This is a scam! The only legitimate way to purchase credits is directly from our website. Penned by my hand on the 31st of Dzanin, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #127 Date: 8/12/2010 at 0:08 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Free Stat Resets Ending Monday! It's been quite some time since the initial stat changes, so I'm going to end the free stat resets on Monday, August 16th. Penned by my hand on the 32nd of Dzanin, in the year 7. ANNOUNCE NEWS #128 Date: 8/17/2010 at 17:52 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Banapis Pets I've received a lot of questions about this, but the special Banapis pets can't be made resetting or otherwise customized. They are only temporary and very mortal, so take good care of them! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Kimia, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #129 Date: 8/20/2010 at 3:57 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: IRE Meet! Hey all, As of today I'm out of town at the IRE meet in sunny (or rainy, actually) Florida! I may be slow to respond to emails and messages until Monday afternoon when I get back to California. As a reminder, there will be a UStream with all the IRE Producers at 3PM EST (12PM PST, 19:00 GMT). Check it out at: http://www.ironrealms.com/ustream Penned by my hand on the 10th of Kimia, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #130 Date: 8/20/2010 at 21:17 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: UStream Ack, I forgot to mention the UStream is on Sunday! Penned by my hand on the 11th of Kimia, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #131 Date: 8/22/2010 at 20:15 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Scripting Forum Per popular request at the UStream, I've added a Scripting subforum to our Combat forums. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 16th of Kimia, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #132 Date: 8/24/2010 at 19:08 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: City Comm Shops City comm shops are now open! The Trade Minister and his or her aides will see the appropriate privileges in CITY PRIVS. Those with the appropriate privs (Council members, the Trade Minister, a few othes) can also read the REVLOG of the city. Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Rodec, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #133 Date: 8/24/2010 at 19:50 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Treasurer The Treasurer now has the following privs: FUNDS CITY ALLOCATE FROM TO Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Rodec, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #134 Date: 8/25/2010 at 21:23 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Riding The Riding skill has been released! This is, unlike other skills, a mini-skill that can only be learned to the rank of Gifted (at least for now!). You can buy mounts in each of the player cities, and there is at least one mount shop found elsewhere in the world that has a rather rare mount. Each city also has a unique, high-level mount that can only be purchased in that city. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Rodec, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #135 Date: 8/27/2010 at 2:59 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Double XP Weekend! Double XP Weekend has begun! You will earn double XP for any experience you gain throughout the weekend! Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 7th of Rodec, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #136 Date: 8/27/2010 at 17:37 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: New Artifacts! Several new artifacts have been released, which augment your offensive prowess! See them in HELP ARTIFACTS and ARTIFACT WARES. Weapon Runes (INVESTED) - These runes can only be invested in swords, mauls, and fencing blades, and increase the damage dealt by those weapons and your chance to hit an enemy with brute and speed source attacks. War Rune of the Potent Duelist : 350 credits : +5% damage, +2% hit. War Rune of the Puissant Knight : 700 credits : +10% damage, +5% hit. War Rune of Tith-Onanka's Champion : 1400 credits : +15% damage, +10% hit. Dagger Runes (INVESTED) - These runes can only be invested in daggers and poniards, and increase the damage dealt by Backstab and Ambush. Dark Rune of the Hidden Blade : 350 credits : +5% damage. Dark Rune of the Assassin : 700 credits : +10% damage. Dark Rune of the Nighthawk : 1400 credits : +15% damage. Warhammer Sigils (INVESTED) - These sigils can only be invested in warhammers, and increase the damage dealt and chance to hit with faith-source attacks. Holy Sigil of Divinity : 350 credits : +5% damage, +2% hit. Holy Sigil of Ascendance : 700 credits : +10% damage, +5% hit. Holy Sigil of the Matrix : 1400 credits : +15% damage, +10% hit. Magic Talismans (INVESTED) - These talismans increase the damage dealt and chance to hit of your magic-source attacks. Talisman of Arcane Power : 350 credits : +5% damage, +2% hit. Talisman of Mystic Might : 700 credits : +10% damage, +5% hit. Talisman of Esoteric Authority : 1400 credits : +15% damage, +10% hit. Penned by my hand on the 8th of Rodec, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #137 Date: 9/1/2010 at 6:01 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: TMS Voting has reset! TopMudSites voting has reset! We didn't do as well last month as we've done previously, so let's try to get MKO back up into the top 10 where we belong! Thanks for voting! http://www.midkemiaonline.com/vote Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Staphron, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #138 Date: 9/3/2010 at 2:39 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: September Promotions August has come to a close, and with the new month come some new promotions! - Every Tuesday in September will be Critical Hit Tuesday! - Every Friday is Iron Ticket Friday! (See HELP LOTTERIES) - To celebrate the birthday of Iron Realms Entertainment, Ironbeard the Magnanimous will be visiting lucky players and handing out gifts from September 9th through September 12th! - And last, but not least, a Double XP Great Hunt starting 0:01 Saturday, September 25th until 23:59 Sunday, September 26th! The top 10 winners in each bracket will receive credit prizes! And remember that we have a huge 20% credit bonus on all purchases that is ongoing through the 15th of September! Buy 1000 credits and get 1200, buy 2000 and get 2400, etc. With our new artifacts, it's a great time to take advantage of the sale! Cheers, and thanks for playing Midkemia Online and continuing to make it the best MUD out there. Penned by my hand on the 7th of Staphron, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #139 Date: 9/3/2010 at 21:29 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: New Artifacts More new artifacts are here! I've rushed to release these while the 20% credit sale is still ongoing for the next two weeks, until September 15th, so you can take advantage of it. Unlike our last batch of offensively-inclined artifacts, this group is largely defensive in nature. Here's what's new in ARTIFACT WARES: Rune of Ruthia's Alacrity: 800 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact reduces the natural endurance cost of movement, down to a minimum of 1 movement per room. It does not effect abilities that increase your movement cost, such as notice and sneak (those additional costs cannot be reduced). Great Rune of Negation: 500 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact reduces damage from magical sources by 15%. Great Rune of Absorption: 500 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact reduces damage from brute and speed sources by 15%. Great Rune of Disbelief: 500 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact reduces damage from faith sources by 15%. Rune of Unmoveable Mass: 400 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact gives you a 50% chance to resist summoning. Wand of Reflections: 800 credits - This artifact allows you to REFLECT once per hour, granting you a few reflections that will absorb attacks made against you. These reflections are destroyed by aggressive actions. Veil of the Sphinx: 2000 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact renders you undetectable by all methods of magical scrying, unless the scryer also owns a Veil of the Sphinx. Emblem of Surging Life: 350 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact increases your maximum health by 5%. Emblem of the Burning Heart: 700 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact increases your maximum health by 10%. Emblem of Effulgent Vitality: 1400 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact increases your maximum health by 15%. Arms of Mytharian Clout: 500 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact increases the amount healed by the Overdrive ability by 10%. Arms of Rytharian Vigor: 1000 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact increases the amount healed by the Overdrive ability by 20%. Arms of Ishapian Life: 2000 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact increases the amount healed by the Overdrive ability by 30%. Mark of Verdant Clarity: 250 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact increases your maximum endurance by 5%. Mark of Aglaranna's Blessing: 500 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact increases your maximum endurance by 10%. Mark of the Earthmother's Grace: 1000 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact increases your maximum endurance by 15%. Cipher of Vernal Haste: 850 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact increases your defensive equilibrium recovery speed by 15%. Rune of Sustenance: 600 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact eliminates the need to naturally eat and sleep. That is, you will no longer gain hunger or tiredness over time. Rune of Quickening: 300 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact allows you to walk normally with one broken leg. Assassin's Unseen Mark: 750 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact conceals your name on deathsight when you kill another player. Penned by my hand on the 9th of Staphron, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #140 Date: 9/4/2010 at 0:59 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Lottery Results Here are the results from this week's Iron Lottery: Prizes: 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 17698, owned by Lilah (claimed) 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 17002, owned by Renatta (claimed) 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 16915, owned by Roma (claimed) 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 17393, owned by Renatta (claimed) 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 16764, owned by Vidar (claimed) 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 17338, owned by Tora (claimed) 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 17097, owned by Lilah (claimed) 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 16758, owned by Roma (claimed) 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 17536, owned by Renatta (claimed) 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 16796, owned by Lilah (claimed) Congrats to all our winners, especially Lilah! Penned by my hand on the 9th of Staphron, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #141 Date: 9/11/2010 at 19:20 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Lottery Winners Congratulations to this week's Iron Lottery winners! 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 18654, owned by Jerrick (claimed) 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 18215, owned by Nartiq (claimed) 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 18587, owned by Agravain (claimed) 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 17764, owned by Jarrul (claimed) 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 19034, owned by Alterus (claimed) 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 19254, owned by Zylo (claimed) 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 18286, owned by Akaxi (claimed) 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 18042, owned by Malinx (claimed) 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 18942, owned by Vykkaros (claimed) 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 18377, owned by Tora (claimed) Penned by my hand on the 4th of Wochem, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #142 Date: 9/14/2010 at 19:06 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: IRE Survey We're looking for some feedback! Help us out by logging into the IRE site (with your MKO character info) and taking an easy online survey here: http://www.ironrealms.com/content/ire-game-survey After completing the survey, you'll receive 5 bound credits on the character you are logged in on the IRE site as! Penned by my hand on the 11th of Wochem, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #143 Date: 9/15/2010 at 20:07 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Credit Sale Ending! As a reminder, the 20% credit sale ends today! Get in those last minute purchases to get 20% bonus credits (30% for Iron Elite members)! Penned by my hand on the 13th of Wochem, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #144 Date: 9/15/2010 at 23:52 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Lag We had a spout of really terrible lag today thanks to a bug (many of you were likely lagged out of the game entirely). Since this was mea culpa, I've activated a 50% XP bonus for the next 24 hours. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 13th of Wochem, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #145 Date: 9/16/2010 at 21:14 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Skill Preview: Demonology As you may know, we've been hard at work on the tertiary class skills for each of Midkemia's classes. I'm pleased to announce that the Demonology skill for Magicians is completed! However, we are going to attempt to release these skills all at once, so no class has an unfair advantage over another by virtue of a third skill - especially as these skills will introduce a number of new afflictions, and make it easier to afflict victims as well. In light of that, we will also be providing basic skills for everyone to cure some afflictions in combat when these skills are released, subject to a hefty adrenaline cost so that preventing the afflictions in the first place is always preferable. However, here is a preview of the skills that will be available to Magicians who study Demonology: You know the following abilities in Demonology: Summoning Circle - Draw a summoning circle in your own blood. Sacrificial Athame - Summon a sacrificial athame to perform rituals. Imp - Summon a cunning imp from the Demon Realm. Dark Pact - Form a dark pact with a demon, making it your thrall. Banish - Banish a foul demon from whence it came. Binding - Attempt to bind a demon in place. Blood Feast - Your thrall feasts upon the blood of the fallen. Dark Messenger - Command your imp to deliver your messages. Demon Tongue - Speak the cruel language of demons. Darkhound - Summon a baleful darkhound from the Demon Realm. Scabies - A horrifying skin infection from a wicked bite. Howl of Terror - Unleash a terrifying howl that causes fear. Curse of Tongues - Curse your victim to speak in tongues. Wild Hunt - Call the Wild Hunt at the head of your pack. Witchsight - Pierce the veils of the physical world. Succubus - Summon a seductive succubus to beguile enemies. Master Summoner - Become a Master Warlock, lording over demons. Shadowcloak - Veil your imp from prying eyes. Seduce - Seduce your enemies through the Dark Arts. Demon Gate - Open a gateway to the Fifth Circle of Hell. Nightmare - Sweet dreams are made of these... Black Augury - Read the portents from your imp's entrails. Blood Harvest - Harvest precious heartstones from fallen demons. Necrotic Plague - Send a plague to wither flesh and hearts. Soul Link - Entwine your soul with that of your thrall. Battle Demon - Summon a powerful battle demon to your side. Sacrifice - Sacrifice a thrall and bathe in their blood. Lurker - Conjure a hidden demon to lurk in wait for enemies. Blood Command - Command your thrall from afar. Soul Trap - Trap the soul of a demon within a magic charm. Torture - Inflict unspeakable torment upon another. Demon Lord - Summon a terrifying Demon Lord. To read more about an ability, type AB DEMONOLOGY . Feel free to discuss it here: http://forums.midkemiaonline.com/index.php?showtopic=1463 Penned by my hand on the 15th of Wochem, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #146 Date: 9/22/2010 at 18:02 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Survey Results Here are the results of the survey: How likely is it that you would recommend our text games to a friend or colleague? (0:Not Likely, 10:Very Likely) - 7.92 Rate the following activities (0:Hate It, 5:Its Okay, 10:Love It): Collecting Items - 6.48 Crafting - 7.03 Exploring the World - 8.28 Killing Monsters (NPC's) - 6.85 Player Politics - 6.97 Player vs. Player Combat - 6.59 Questing - 7.19 Role Playing - 8.92 Trading - 7.04 You can read the results from the other games here (and post comments about ours/theirs, if you want): http://www.ironrealms.com/news/text-game-survey-results Thanks to everyone who participated! Penned by my hand on the 28th of Wochem, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #147 Date: 9/23/2010 at 2:11 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Expanded Emoting Emoting (via the EMOTE command) has been expanded, replacing the former $NAME syntax with a broader application: POSSESSIVE EMOTING ------------------ Add an 's after "emote" will make the name possessive. EMOTE 's head turns toward the statue. becomes Ishap's head turns toward the statue. TARGETTED EMOTING ----------------- Emoting uses a simple language, which can be used to refer other characters and objects around you. To make it a bit easier to understand, we have provided a table. Symbol Reference Target sees ^john John you ^john_him him/her you ^john_he he/she you ^john_his his/her your ^john's John's your Example: EMOTE turns to ^silban, reaching out and shaking ^silban_his hand, smiling widely. What is seen by Silban: Ishap turns to you, reaching out and shaking your hand, smiling widely. What is seen by Everyone: Ishap turns to Silban, reaching out and shaking her hand, smiling widely. Penned by my hand on the 29th of Wochem, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #148 Date: 9/23/2010 at 17:50 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: New Say Types I've added many new say types that can be used in conversation. They work identically to SAY. - Scream - Whine - Mutter - Snarl - Sing - Think - Chant - Whisper - Hiss - Growl - Muse With these changes, Subtlety's Whisper skill has also changed. It's no longer a passive defense, but instead prevents any anything you whisper from being overheard by an eavesdropper. Penned by my hand on the 30th of Wochem, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #149 Date: 9/23/2010 at 23:09 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Rumors of the Nighthawks... Rumors of the legendary Nighthawks always persist, and it appears these rumors and fables have collected in a mysterious new scroll: HELP NIGHTHAWKS. Penned by my hand on the 31st of Wochem, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #150 Date: 9/24/2010 at 21:10 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Esteem and Credibility There have been some changes to credibility. Rather than being an extremely credible character, everyone is by default merely a credible character. To progress beyond this base level of credibility, you must earn the esteem of your peers for your roleplaying ability. You can EXPRESS ESTEEM FOR if you have a good roleplaying encounter with him or her, which will raise his or her credibility. Credibility will always move towards the base level over time. See HELP CREDIBILITY for the full details. Penned by my hand on the 33rd of Wochem, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #150 Date: 9/24/2010 at 21:10 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Esteem and Credibility There have been some changes to credibility. Rather than being an extremely credible character, everyone is by default merely a credible character. To progress beyond this base level of credibility, you must earn the esteem of your peers for your roleplaying ability. You can EXPRESS ESTEEM FOR if you have a good roleplaying encounter with him or her, which will raise his or her credibility. Credibility will always move towards the base level over time. See HELP CREDIBILITY for the full details. Penned by my hand on the 33rd of Wochem, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #151 Date: 9/24/2010 at 23:06 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: September Credit Sale Extended! The September 20% credit sale has returned for a last-minute re-appearance! It will run from today through October 15th! Cheers! Penned by my hand on the 33rd of Wochem, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #152 Date: 9/25/2010 at 0:01 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Lottery Here are the winner of the last Iron Lottery in September: Prizes: 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 21604, owned by Ugralitan (claimed) 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 20911, owned by Renatta (claimed) 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 21066, owned by Krim (claimed) 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 22106, owned by Arashi (claimed) 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 22255, owned by Janatris (claimed) 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 21596, owned by Jarlian (claimed) 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 21096, owned by Krim (claimed) 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 22098, owned by Arashi (claimed) 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 21250, owned by Narcissus (claimed) 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 22073, owned by Ashurmannus (claimed) Congrats to all! Penned by my hand on the 33rd of Wochem, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #153 Date: 9/25/2010 at 0:51 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Great Hunt! The Great Hunt has been called across Midkemia, with hunters rallying in honor of Guis-wan, the Red-jawed Hunter! The Great Hunt, accompanied by double experience, will last through Sunday! The following credit prizes will be awarded to the winners in each tier: 1st. 500 credits 2nd. 450 credits 3rd. 400 credits 4th. 350 credits 5th. 300 credits 6th. 250 credits 7th. 200 credits 8th. 150 credits 9th. 100 credits 10th. 50 credits Additionally, every Hunter who earns at least 100 points will receive 5 bound credits. Those who earn 1000 will receive 10 credits, and those who earn 2500 will receive 15. Good hunting! Penned by my hand on the 33rd of Wochem, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #154 Date: 9/27/2010 at 4:02 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Great Hunt Winners Congratulations to the winners of this month's Great Hunt! ****************************[ TOP TEN (Level 99+) ]**************************** Rank Name Kills ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Atlas 3846 2. Radakail 1711 3. Roma 1136 4. Marc 1 ******************************************************************************* **************************[ TOP TEN (Level 50 - 98) ]************************** Rank Name Kills ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Grin 15508 2. Ugralitan 13927 3. Agravain 10314 4. Eve 9502 5. Krim 8804 6. Narcissus 8375 7. Vasilisa 5534 8. Zylo 5471 9. Vidar 5363 10. Janatris 5111 ******************************************************************************* *************************[ TOP TEN (Under Level 50) ]************************** Rank Name Kills ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Hodur 4238 2. Olbiad 3558 3. Sypadia 2548 4. Crispin 2509 5. Dobbas 2389 6. Crispinian 1261 7. Mardosi 1156 8. Ranai 1061 9. Kvoth 882 10. Rasoc 459 ******************************************************************************* Penned by my hand on the 38th of Wochem, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #155 Date: 9/29/2010 at 23:18 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Pokiir! Pokiir, the famed Keshian card game, has spread throughout Triagia and come to the Kingdom and all lands northward at last! After a fierce game of chance with Ruthia, the City of Sar-Sargoth won itself a free gambling casino! Congratulations! Elvandar and Krondor are eligible to purchase a pokiir casino for 20 gold sovereigns. The city leader can contact either their patron or me directly to facilitate this. See HELP POKIIR and HELP POKIIR RULES for details about the game. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 44th of Wochem, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #156 Date: 9/30/2010 at 19:07 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Guide Call We're looking for experienced players to volunteer as Guides for Midkemia Online! Guides are unique characters (Carpo, Thallo, and Auxesia) who exist solely to help newbies acclimate to Midkemia. Joining our world for the first time can be a challenging and daunting experience, and Guides step forward to help answer questions and orient newbies on their first steps. If you are interested in volunteering, please send an email to guides@midkemiaonline.com with the following: - The subject "Guide Application" - Your real-life name - Your character(s) - Any experience that recommends you as a potential Guide - Why you want to be a Guide Guides must be willing to commit an average of 3 hours per week Guiding, to help ensure that Guides are available for newbies when they have questions. We expect to start sending responses in about a week, so get those applications in! Penned by my hand on Mid-Winter, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #157 Date: 9/30/2010 at 22:28 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Pokiir Type: Draw In addition to straight pokiir games, you can now play draw games, which include a phase where you discard any number of your cards for new ones from the deck. To do this, the head of the pokiir game does POKIIR CHOOSE TYPE DRAW. To discard cards, you may: POKIIR DISCARD [1-5] [...] Note that the number indicates the position of the card(s) you are discarding. So POKIIR DISCARD 2 would discard the card in the 2nd position in your hand, starting from the left. POKIIR DISCARD 4 5 would discard the last two cards in your hand. Additionally, pokiir games may be configured to automatically deal once all players sitting at the table have anted. To enable this, the head of the pokiir game does POKIIR CHOOSE OPTION AUTODEAL. A few bugs with how points for hands are calculated have also been fixed, so a pair will no longer beat three of a kind. Cheers! Penned by my hand on Mid-Winter, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #158 Date: 10/1/2010 at 21:37 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Pokiir: Flop Rules There is a new game type for pokiir: Flop. This is a game type with the rules of Texas Hold 'Em, for those who are more familiar with that name for Flop Pokiir. Additionally, there is a time limit on each round, after which you will automatically fold. In an unrelated change, city leaders are no longer immune to direct electoral challenges for their council seat. Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Nuna, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #159 Date: 10/5/2010 at 17:37 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: October Promotions We're pleased to announce that the first of our weekly XP contests is  underway! Over the month of October, we'll be running 4 of these  promotions, with the winner of each week's contest walking away with 100 credits! Each participant who gains more than the base threshold will  win 5 credits as well.  You can check your current score, as well as the overall rankings with  WEEKRANK and WEEKRANKS respectively.  We're also running a login lessons promotion, with one lesson being  awarded for every 10 minutes you're logged in each day (up to a maximum  of 10 per character, per day).  We hope you enjoy these IRE-wide promotions, which promise to make October action-packed!  Penned by my hand on the 11th of Nuna, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #160 Date: 10/15/2010 at 21:21 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Credit Sale Has Ended! Alas, all good things must come to an end, and the 20% credit sale has ended! Penned by my hand on the 22nd of Agaeis, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #161 Date: 10/16/2010 at 1:25 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: October Artifact Packages! Now through October 31st, we are running an exciting new promotion: artifact packages! With the influx of new artifacts in Midkemia Online, this is the perfect time to take advantage of the great savings we're offering with these packages, which range from 40% to 60%! Yes, that's over _half off_ the cost of buying the artifacts through credits in some cases, which is a complete steal. Additionally, one of the packages in particular offers someting I know a lot of crafters have been asking about for awhile, so read them carefully. Here are the packages we are offering on our site: Name : Orb of Statistical Renewal Price : $19.99 Description : An Orb of Statistical Renewal allows you to reset your core statistics (strength, dex, con, etc.) so you can re-distribute the points. Useful for changing your current stat setup, or switching to a new class entirely! Savings: 60%! Name : Roo's Cartel Charter Price : $24.99 Description : Found in the possession of every cartel and company magnate that does business at Barret's Coffee House, Roo's Cartel Charter contains 5 society slots, increasing the number of society memberships you may hold beyond the normal maximum. Savings: 60% Name : Design Book of the Guildmaster Price : $24.99 Description : The personal design book of Shordan von Harkenwold, the Guildmaster of the Crafter's Guild, is sought after by any serious craftsman or craftswoman! It contains 5 design book slots, each of which increases the number of pages in your design book by 10. This means you will be able to hold 50 additional designs in your book! Name : Cache of Wild Experience Price : $39.99 Description : The Cache of Wild Experience contains 5 Orbs of Wild Experience, each of which grant double XP gain for 24 hours from the time they are used. This equals 5 full days of double XP! Savings: 53%! Name : Histories of the Prince's Court Price : $59.99 Description : The complete histories of the Prince's Court in Krondor, which is respected for its diplomatic ties and influence with the nations abroad, including Great Kesh, Queg, the Free Cities, and the others. This package contains 2 language slots, allowing the sage purchaser to study 2 additional languages. Essential for any aspiring diplomat or ambassador, or just those looking to travel to exotic lands. Savings: 60% Name : Merchant Prince's Hoard Price : $99.99 Description : Perfect for any merchant or adventurer looking to hoard his or her stash, this package contains Banath's Lesser Vault (doubles vault size) and a Mark of Dimensional Capacity (makes a backpack permanent, resetting to its owner, and doubles its size). Savings: 60% Name : Tomas' War Chest Price : $149.99 Description : The War Chest of Tomas Megarson, Prince-Consort of Aglaranna and War Leader of Elvandar, includes a Minor Rune of Strength (+5 strength) and a War Rune of the Potent Duelist (+5% physical damage from that weapon). Essential for any Soldier on the march! Savings: 40% Name : Jimmy's Hidden Cache Price : $149.99 Description : Uncovered somewhere in the sewers of Krondor, Jimmy's Hidden Cache contains a Minor Rune of Dexterity (+5 dexterity) and a Dark Rune of the Hidden Blade (+5% backstab and ambush damage). This cache is the envy of any Rogue looking to travel the dodgy path or traverse the Thieves Highway. Savings: 40% Name : Father Tully's Ark of Relics Type MORE to continue reading. (68% shown) ANNOUNCE NEWS #162 Date: 10/27/2010 at 19:51 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Game Time To better facilitate events involving day and night, the length of Midkemian days has been reduced from 10.95 real-life hours to 3 real-life hours. The decay time remaining on all items has been quadrupled as a result, and all new items you will craft have been adjusted as well. To tell how many days of usefulness are remaining in an item, simply divide the Midkemian days by 8. Elections have likewise been extended to 32 days from the date of opening, which is 4 real-life days. Penned by my hand on the 1st of Dzanin, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #163 Date: 10/27/2010 at 21:49 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Referendums Cities and Guilds can now create referendums, for those officers with the authority to do so. Type REFERENDUM for the syntaxes. Penned by my hand on the 1st of Dzanin, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #164 Date: 10/29/2010 at 0:26 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Blackwood Hollow The eerie mists over the Dimwood have temporarily parted to reveal Blackwood Hollow, a haunted village nestled in that dark forest. Do you dare step foot into the village and try to unravel the mystery of what plagues it? Blackwood Hollow will only be available throughout this weekend, after which the fog shall enclose the cursed town until next year. Happy Halloween! Penned by my hand on the 10th of Dzanin, in the year 8. ANNOUNCE NEWS #165 Date: 11/2/2010 at 22:47 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Blackwood Hollow Blackwood Hollow has been consumed again in the eerie, cursed fog that hangs perpetually over the village, not to be seen again until next year. We hope you enjoyed the holiday area, and look forward to seeing it (and what may be new or different in it) next year! Penned by my hand on the 9th of Kimia, in the year 9. ANNOUNCE NEWS #166 Date: 11/5/2010 at 16:47 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: November Promos! November is here, and with it come new promotions! - The artifact package sale is being extended through November 15th. - Each day you log in, you'll receive a free bound credit. - Every Tuesday is Double XP! - Every Thursday you will benefit from a free Divine Truefavor. Cheers, and thanks for playing Midkemia! Penned by my hand on the 13th of Rodec, in the year 9. ANNOUNCE NEWS #167 Date: 11/5/2010 at 16:49 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: TMS Voting TopMudSites voting has reset! Please remember to vote for us every 13 hours, especially with all the exciting new things that have been going in lately: http://www.midkemiaonline.com/vote Remember that you can CONFIG VOTING PROMPT to get a reminder whenever it's time to vote. Thanks for voting! Penned by my hand on the 13th of Rodec, in the year 9. ANNOUNCE NEWS #168 Date: 11/8/2010 at 22:38 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Blackjack Blackjack is also now available for cities to purchase as an addition to their gambling dens, to complement Pokiir tables. City Leaders should speak with their Patrons to purchase this upgrade, for 100 gold sovereigns. Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Wochem, in the year 9. ANNOUNCE NEWS #169 Date: 11/9/2010 at 17:32 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Meet Ishap! Hey all, I'm going to hold an OOC Town Hall-style meeting this Thursday, November 11th, at 4 PM Pacific time (12 AM GMT) and lasting until, at maximum, 6 PM Pacific time. Everyone is welcome to attend and ask questions, solicit feedback, etc. Hope to see you there! Penned by my hand on the 9th of Wochem, in the year 9. ANNOUNCE NEWS #170 Date: 11/13/2010 at 1:29 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Chess (Shah) Chess, also known as shah on Kelewan, is now available! City Leaders may purchase chess/shah tables for their cities for 50 gold sovereigns from their Patrons. (Unlike gambling, chess/shah generates no revenue for cities, hence the lower price than gambling options.) Penned by my hand on the 35th of Wochem, in the year 9. ANNOUNCE NEWS #171 Date: 11/15/2010 at 7:09 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Artifact Sale Ending! Just a reminder that our artifact package sale is ending today! Now is your last chance to snatch up these packages, which are some of our best deals, and also some rare items (including the Designbook of the Guildmaster for all those crafters out there!) Here is the link to the artifact package page: http://www.midkemiaonline.com/credits.php?page=artifacts Penned by my hand on the 7th of Nuna, in the year 9. ANNOUNCE NEWS #172 Date: 11/15/2010 at 7:13 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Town Hall Meeting log For everyone who missed the Town Hall meeting or couldn't make it, there is a log of it on our forums here: http://forums.midkemiaonline.com/index.php?showtopic=1567 Thanks to Atlas for logging, and everyone who participated and asked questions! It was great talking to everyone! Penned by my hand on the 7th of Nuna, in the year 9. ANNOUNCE NEWS #173 Date: 11/16/2010 at 9:41 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Crafting Updates Craft quality has been changed. No longer will all weapons (and, eventually, armor) be the same quality. Instead, the various properties of the commodities used to craft the weapon or armor affects the quality of the crafted item. To accommodate this, a lot of changes have gone in regarding weapons. Weapon Stats ------------ Foremost, the internal weapon stats themselves have changed. They are now: - Damage: Affects the physical damage done by the weapon. - Precision: Affects the chance the weapon has to hit through defenses. - Speed: Affects the telegraph length and balance cost of the weapon skill. Each stat can vary from 1 to 250. 100 is considered the median value, at which the stat performs at its baseline levels. Values below 100 are low and may negatively impact your performance, values above 100 are high and will positively impact your performance. Craft Quality ------------- The quality of a craft is determined foremost by the item's inherent base properties (see weapon classes below). However, it is also determined in large part by the quality of the commodities you use to craft that item. Each commodity has an internal "quality" value that ranges from 1 to 100, and determines the overall quality of the commodity. The commodity derives a number of points from its overall quality, which are then randomly split between its constituent properties. The commodities you use to craft a weapon are just as important as the weapon class itself in determining its properties. Commodity Properties -------------------- Commodities have a number of properties that are shared with "similar" sets of commodities. These properties have an affect on the quality of the item. If a commodity is used that does not have one of these properties, it does nothing to increase the overall quality of the item. Metal-like commodities (steel, iron, platinum and silver) share the following properties: - Malleability (affects Speed and Armor) - Toughness (affects Precision and Dampening) - Tensile Strength (affects Damage) Stone or wood-like commodities (wood, marble, and gold) share the following properties: - Elasticity (affects Speed and Armor) - Workability (affects Precision and Dampening) - Hardness (affects Damage) Cloth-like commodities (cloth, silk, fur, leather, and rope) share the following properties: - Durability (affects Speed and Armor) - Softness (affects Precision and Dampening) - Pliability (affects Damage) You can SEARCH your Vault to examine the commodities you have stored, and search for commodities meeting specific quality requirements, making it easy to find the commodities that meet your needs for without manually going through all of them. As an example, if you wanted to find your steel with malleability at or below 42, you could: SEARCH VAULT FOR COMM steel WITH malleability <= 42 After finding commodities that match your requirements, you can VOUT COMM <#> to remove that specific commodity from your Vault, allowing you to easily tailor your crafting to meet specific requirements for quality or any other desired properties. Weapon Classes -------------- Additionally, we are introducing a number of new weapons, and redesigning the existing weapon classes. In general, two-handed weapons are superior to their one-handed cousins, although you will have to forfeit the use of a shield with a two-handed weapon. The choice between blunt and cutting damage is a personal one, and each cutting weapon has a blunt damage equivalent. Rogues are still limited to the one-handed cutting weapons for their Fencing skills, and Priests must still wield warhammers for their Righteousness abilities. Here are the new weapon classes, and their relative strengths: One-Handed ---------- - Longswords: Good damage, low precision and speed - Rapiers: Good precision, low damage and speed - Sabers: Good speed, low damage and precision Type MORE to continue reading. (54% shown) ANNOUNCE NEWS #174 Date: 11/19/2010 at 18:18 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Holiday Credit & Lesson Sale! The holidays are rapidly approaching, and I'm pleased to announce Midkemia is having a 20% holiday sale on both credits AND lessons! And yes, this sale stacks with the 10% bonus from Iron Elite memberships, granting a total 30% bonus lessons or credits for our Elite members! What this means is: - If you purchased 200 credits, you would get 240. - If you purchased 1000 credits, you would get 1200! The same goes for lessons. The sale will run through January 1st, so take advantage of it now! Penned by my hand on the 32nd of Agaeis, in the year 9. ANNOUNCE NEWS #175 Date: 11/23/2010 at 19:40 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Upcoming Great Hunt and Double XP! Once again, a Great Hunt has been called across all of the Iron Realms! It will run from Thursday, November 25 through Sunday, November 27. During this Great Hunt, you will also enjoy double experience!  Here's how it works: for every NPC/mobile/denizen you slay during this time, you will gain points. The number of points range from 1-10 depending on the level of the denizen. You will receive bound credits at certain level thresholds: 5 at 100 points, 10 at 1000 points, and 15 at 2500 points. Use the command GREATHUNT to see your score and the status of the top 10 players.  Furthermore, at the end of the Hunt, the top ten hunters with the highest scores will receive bound credit prizes in these amounts:  1st place: 500 credits 2nd place: 450 credits  3rd place: 400 credits 4th place: 350 credits 5th place: 300 credits 6th place: 250 credits 7th place: 200 credits 8th place: 150 credits 9th place: 100 credits 10th place: 50 credits As with the last Great Hunt, we will be doing three tiers of hunters: the top Level 100+, the top 10 Level 61-99, and the top 10 Level 60 and below. Yes, that means we will be giving away 30 credit prizes -- that's over 8k credits total! Penned by my hand on the 16th of Dzanin, in the year 9. ANNOUNCE NEWS #176 Date: 11/29/2010 at 7:06 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Great Hunt Winners! Congratulations to our Great Hunt winners! Here are the winning scores: ****************************[ TOP TEN (Level 99+) ]**************************** Rank Name Kills ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Radakail 11953 2. Roma 5657 3. Atlas 143 4. Marc 1 ******************************************************************************* **************************[ TOP TEN (Level 60 - 98) ]************************** Rank Name Kills ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Zylo 28651 2. Narcissus 24050 3. Lilah 21473 4. Elelas 19639 5. Malinx 18801 6. Janatris 14311 7. Krim 13814 8. Ugralitan 12747 9. Grin 12678 10. Agravain 8788 ******************************************************************************* *************************[ TOP TEN (Under Level 60) ]************************** Rank Name Kills ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Kiral 8734 2. Voluntur 7777 3. Ledez 7075 4. Loressa 5076 5. Paradox 4047 6. Virgil 3789 7. Kay 3772 8. Yurii 3561 9. Naeth 2865 10. Dysse 2084 ******************************************************************************* Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Rodec, in the year 10. ANNOUNCE NEWS #177 Date: 11/30/2010 at 4:01 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Fishing! See HELP FISHING! You'll find rods, bait, and Herman Pequod (the renowned fisherman) right off the road in the Central Hills. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 9th of Rodec, in the year 10. ANNOUNCE NEWS #178 Date: 12/1/2010 at 17:47 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: December Promotions! The last month of the year is upon us, and we're running some fun holiday promotions! - Log in for 21 days in December, and you will receive a holiday stocking, packed with goodies! You'll be able to pull minor helpful items from the stocking every in-game year! - Every Tuesday is Iron Ticket Tuesday. Earn iron tickets from killing npcs/denizens/mobs and doing quests, which you can exchange at the Port Natal lottery office for entries in lotteries for free credits! - Every Thursday is Critical Hit Thursday. Enjoy a greatly increased critical hit chance for the entire day. And remember, we're still running our huge holiday 20% credit & lesson sale through the end of the month. Penned by my hand on the 6th of Staphron, in the year 10. ANNOUNCE NEWS #179 Date: 12/6/2010 at 21:56 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Directions and Paths A new feature has been added to help players get around Midkemia and explore common locations in the land. For most players, the best way to make use of this is by typing DIR, DIRS, DIRECTION or DIRECTIONS. You will see a list of useful locations in your current area, and can enter DIR to automatically walk to that location. If you have MXP enabled, you can simply click on that location to walk there. There is also a DIRS GLOBAL list that lists global locations around Midkemia, as well as useful newbie locations if you are a newbie. For those who are more advanced, you can use PATH FIND to try to map out a path to your destination. The destination can be one of three things: 1. A room ID number (you see these when you type MAP - i.e., v6249 is a room with ID number 6249). 2. A mutual ally's name. 3. A direction landmark, as from the DIR command. Note: Your mutual ally must be visible to you and reachable if you are trying to reach an ally. A mutual ally is someone who has allied you, as well as you having allied him or her in return. Once you have marked out a path, you can PATH GO to go there. You can STOP at any time to stop moving to your destination. Summary: DIR - View local locations DIR GLOBAL - View global locations DIR - Walk to a location PATH FIND - Find a route PATH GO - Start walking STOP - Stop walking Penned by my hand on the 26th of Wochem, in the year 10. ANNOUNCE NEWS #180 Date: 12/15/2010 at 2:04 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Lottery Winners! Here are this week's Iron Lottery winners: Prizes: 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 25064, owned by Kiral (claimed) 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 24351, owned by Kiral (claimed) 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 25179, owned by Akaxi (claimed) 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 24872, owned by Tora (claimed) 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 25100, owned by Akaxi (claimed) 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 24961, owned by Olbiad (claimed) 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 24838, owned by Iphimedia (claimed) 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 24825, owned by Akaxi (claimed) 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 25421, owned by Kiral (claimed) 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 25161, owned by Radakail (claimed) Congrats, especially to Kiral and Akaxi! Penned by my hand on the 34th of Agaeis, in the year 10. ANNOUNCE NEWS #181 Date: 12/15/2010 at 7:09 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Skill Preview: Performance I've posted a preview of the Performance skillset for Rogues on our forums here: http://forums.midkemiaonline.com/index.php?showtopic=1627 Penned by my hand on the 36th of Agaeis, in the year 10. ANNOUNCE NEWS #182 Date: 12/21/2010 at 0:19 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Stockings! Now that some players are starting to receive your commemorative festive stockings for logging in 21 days in December, let me announce that, once per year, you may PULL ITEM FROM STOCKING to pull out a special prize. This prize can be comms, a random drink, or (more rarely) gold or experience. Perceptive players will notice that the other IRE games also allow you to pull items from your stocking once per year, but that their years pass more quickly than ours. Worry not! Our rewards are commensurately greater so that the benefit is equivalent. Penned by my hand on the 33rd of Dzanin, in the year 10. ANNOUNCE NEWS #183 Date: 12/21/2010 at 9:19 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: New Artifact: Gem of Transmutation There is a new artifact for sale: Gem of Transmutation: 1000 credits (short name: "transmutation") - This artifact allows you to reset your stats once per real life day, by doing RESET STATS. It's worth noting that you can upgrade a single-use stat reset Orb of Statistical Renewal (but not the free stat reset you get as a newbie) to this artifact. Penned by my hand on the 36th of Dzanin, in the year 10. ANNOUNCE NEWS #184 Date: 12/21/2010 at 9:58 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: City Patrols You may have noticed new Royal Krondorian Lancer patrols on the highways outside of Krondor. These patrols are loyal to Krondor, and will attack enemies of the city on sight, yelling that they have engaged the enemy in the local area. These are part of a new test-run feature of patrols designed to keep org-affiliatied territory a little bit safer (but certainly not entirely safe!) for citizens. These soldiers: - Attack enemies on sight - Yell for help in the local area when engaging enemies - Wander their home area looking for city enemies - Do NOT call for help over the city channel - Do NOT appear in the city logs when killed - Will automatically enemy anyone who kills them - Do not cost Krondor any upkeep Elvandar and Sar-Sargoth will be getting similar patrols in the next few days. Cheers! Penned by my hand on the 36th of Dzanin, in the year 10. ANNOUNCE NEWS #185 Date: 12/21/2010 at 20:30 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Divine Grace All players who complete the resurrection sequence (not those who are resurrected by Priests or other similar skills) are now afforded 5 minutes of Divine Grace. Divine Grace protects you from being attacked by other players, but also prevents you from attacking either players or mobs/denizens, and from entering enemy territory, until you RENOUNCE GRACE (or it expires after 5 minutes). In a somewhat related change, the commands to reject your mentor or protege are now also RENOUNCE MENTOR and RENOUNCE PROTEGE instead of reject, so that it is not possible to accidentally dissolve this relationship when you are attempting to reject compulsion or other forced control over your character. Cheers! Penned by my hand on Banapis, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #186 Date: 12/22/2010 at 18:27 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Lottery Winners Congratulations to our Iron Lottery winners for this week! Prizes: 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 26865, owned by Murkistad (claimed) 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 26439, owned by Janatris (claimed) 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 26877, owned by Amethyst (claimed) 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 26531, owned by Wselwulf (claimed) 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 26768, owned by Aae (claimed) 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 25790, owned by Ashra (claimed) 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 26384, owned by Olbiad (claimed) 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 26845, owned by Akaxi (claimed) 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 25994, owned by Wselwulf (claimed) 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 26551, owned by Aelryl (claimed) Penned by my hand on the 7th of Kimia, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #187 Date: 12/29/2010 at 0:08 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Lottery Winners! The winners of our final Iron Lottery for December are: Prizes: 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 27913, owned by Wselwulf (claimed) 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 28240, owned by Vahir (claimed) 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 27955, owned by Krim (claimed) 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 27696, owned by Olbiad (claimed) 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 28184, owned by Renatta (claimed) 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 27603, owned by Roma (claimed) 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 27947, owned by Krim (claimed) 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 27303, owned by Akaxi (claimed) 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 27269, owned by Ugralitan (claimed) 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 28553, owned by Vahir (claimed) Congrats to Vahir and all the others! Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Wochem, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #188 Date: 12/29/2010 at 23:22 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Riding: Escape There is a new skill in Riding: Escape. It is learned at the rank of Expert, and thus you can now learn Riding up to that rank. This skill will help prevent losing loyal mounts in battle. Penned by my hand on the 10th of Wochem, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #189 Date: 12/30/2010 at 3:13 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Skill Preview: Thanatology A skill preview of the Thanatology skillset, which will be learned by Priests of Lims-Kragma, has been posted on our forums. Check it out here: http://forums.midkemiaonline.com/index.php?showtopic=1655 Penned by my hand on the 11th of Wochem, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #190 Date: 12/30/2010 at 5:21 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Happy New Year's! New Year's is coming up, and Ishap is heading off to Los Angeles for some vacation! I'll be gone from December 30th through January 2nd, so anything needing my attention will have to wait until I get back on the 3rd. Debaucherous pictures to follow? Hmm, we'll see... Penned by my hand on the 12th of Wochem, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #191 Date: 1/2/2011 at 19:37 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: January Promotions! A new year is upon us, and it marks a year since MKO first opened its doors to players! I want to thank everyone who has helped to make MKO such a great place, and especially those who have been playing since day 1. January promises to be a very exciting month, with a lot of progress being made on new features! We're also running some great promotions: -- We are extending our 20% CREDIT & LESSON BONUS SALE until January 14th! Buy 1000 credits and get 1200, buy 2000 lessons and get 2400! -- Every day you can earn 6 FREE LESSONS for simply logging in and playing for 10 minutes. You can earn these lessons on each character! -- We are running Weekly Experience Contests! These will start every Monday at midnight GMT (Sunday evening in the US) and run for an entire week. These contests award bound credits to both participants and the winner! Here's how to win free credits: - If you earn 1,000,000 points, you'll win 5 bound credits. - If you win, you'll get 100 bound credits and an honors line. Cheers! Penned by my hand on the 40th of Wochem, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #192 Date: 1/4/2011 at 0:35 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Obfuscate and Dual Wield Obfuscate has been removed from the Arms skillset, and Terminate is now the transcendent skill. In the place of Terminate at 67% Mythical, you will now learn Dual Wield instead. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Nuna, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #193 Date: 1/4/2011 at 4:23 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Skill Preview: Brutality A skill preview of the Brutality skillset for Soldiers has been posted on the forums. Check it out here: http://forums.midkemiaonline.com/index.php?showtopic=1662 Penned by my hand on the 5th of Nuna, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #194 Date: 1/4/2011 at 22:47 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Master Keizo Master Keizo, an Isalani monk, has appeared in Port Natal and is teaching players about reiki, the art of spiritual curing. Be sure to check it out! Penned by my hand on the 11th of Nuna, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #195 Date: 1/5/2011 at 2:02 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Specializations Specializations are here! There are 4 new skillsets available to players: - Performance for Rogues - Demonology for Magicians - Brutality for Soldiers - Thanatology for Priests of Lims-Kragma See HELP SPECIALIZATIONS to learn how these work, and Bards will also want to read HELP PERFORMANCE. There is also a new skill in Smithing: Instruments. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 1st of Agaeis, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #196 Date: 1/5/2011 at 22:01 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Afflictions and Curing HELP CURELIST has been added for your reading pleasure. Penned by my hand on the 8th of Agaeis, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #197 Date: 1/7/2011 at 1:30 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Storytelling There is a new skill in Performance that didn't make it in time for the release: Storytelling Penned by my hand on the 17th of Agaeis, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #198 Date: 1/8/2011 at 3:28 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Skill Preview: Pyromania I've posted a preview of the Pyromania skillset, the specialization for Priests of Prandur, on our forums: http://forums.midkemiaonline.com/index.php?showtopic=1677 Penned by my hand on the 26th of Agaeis, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #199 Date: 1/10/2011 at 8:53 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Pyromania Pyromania is now available to Priests of Prandur. It is taught by Boldizar, the priest in Tyr-Sog. Enjoy, and try not to burn everything down! Penned by my hand on the 7th of Yamiev, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #200 Date: 1/13/2011 at 0:30 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Fishing Update The way Fishing works has been updated: - You now have a skill rank in Fishing, which appears in your AB list under Trade Skills, and also when you simply type FISH or FISHING by itself. - Fishing rewards experience in the skill of Fishing, which increases your proficiency with reeling in 3 areas: 1.) the distance you reel, 2.) the speed at which you can reel, and 3.) the endurance cost of reeling. - You can only increase your skill in Fishing up to an invisible limit each RL day. - You will gain 10 bound credits and an increasingly massive amount of XP for each new skill rank you gain in Fishing. - At Transcedent, you will gain a special honors line. - Fishing while you are below your daily skill increase limit will reward vastly more experience than it usually does (scaling exponentially with your level range). - A bug was inadvertantly draining twice as much endurance from reeling as it should have been. This has been fixed. - The rate at which fish repopulate has been reduced. - Fishing should now properly recognize fishing poles wielded in your off-hand. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 17th of Dzanin, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #200 Date: 1/13/2011 at 0:30 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Fishing Update The way Fishing works has been updated: - You now have a skill rank in Fishing, which appears in your AB list under Trade Skills, and also when you simply type FISH or FISHING by itself. - Fishing rewards experience in the skill of Fishing, which increases your proficiency with reeling in 3 areas: 1.) the distance you reel, 2.) the speed at which you can reel, and 3.) the endurance cost of reeling. - You can only increase your skill in Fishing up to an invisible limit each RL day. - You will gain 10 bound credits and an increasingly massive amount of XP for each new skill rank you gain in Fishing. - At Transcedent, you will gain a special honors line. - Fishing while you are below your daily skill increase limit will reward vastly more experience than it usually does (scaling exponentially with your level range). - A bug was inadvertantly draining twice as much endurance from reeling as it should have been. This has been fixed. - The rate at which fish repopulate has been reduced. - Fishing should now properly recognize fishing poles wielded in your off-hand. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 17th of Dzanin, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #201 Date: 1/14/2011 at 9:53 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Happy Birthday... To Me! Well, it's that time of year again, and I am officially getting older. The only proper way to commemorate the momentous event is by inciting the slaughter of thousands of unsuspecting creatures. So to celebrate, I am turning on a 25% XP bonus all weekend! (I may also be slow to respond to messages and emails and/or hungover) Penned by my hand on the 28th of Dzanin, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #202 Date: 1/14/2011 at 23:06 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: January Credit Sale Extended! In exciting news, we are extending the Credit & Lesson sale until the end of the month, January 31st! Take advantage of the holiday sale to stock up for artifacts, or to learn one of the 6 new skillsets we've released! Also coming up: a Double XP Weekend from 0 GMT (4 PM PST) Saturday, January 29th to 23:35 GMT (3:59 PM PST) Sunday, January 30th to close out the month with a bang! And this Monday (Jan 17th), we're having a UStream with Jeremy Saunders at 22:00 GMT (2 PM PST). Check in to chat with the President of Iron Realms about what's going on with us on the corporate level. Thanks for playing, and enjoy!! Penned by my hand on the 32nd of Dzanin, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #203 Date: 1/15/2011 at 1:44 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Alchemy There is a new Trade Skill available: Alchemy! You can learn it from Shordan von Harkenwold at the Crafter's Guild headquarters in Hawk's Hollow. Alchemy allows you to harvest herbs and brew them into poisons. In related news, there is a new skill in Fencing: Envenimer, and a new skill in Warcraft: Immunity. Your skill in Fighting also now grants you some passive protection against the possibility of being poisoned. Penned by my hand on the 33rd of Dzanin, in the year 11. ANNOUNCE NEWS #204 Date: 1/24/2011 at 7:29 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Emporium of Wonders The Emporium of Wonders is now open in Port Natal, selling interesting and rare goods in Ishapian tokens. The shopkeeper Taka will tell you a little about the goods, but there are vases that fill with flowers, bottles of that refill with alcohol, pipes that allow you to smoke, a book that only the owner can write in, and a few more! You can check the DIRS in Port Natal to reach the shop. Penned by my hand on the 12th of Wochem, in the year 12. ANNOUNCE NEWS #205 Date: 1/27/2011 at 0:02 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Forum Rules Our forum rules have been updated. Please make sure to read them here: http://forums.midkemiaonline.com/index.php?act=boardrules Penned by my hand on the 33rd of Wochem, in the year 12. ANNOUNCE NEWS #206 Date: 1/27/2011 at 1:56 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Test Run: Mob Affliction(s) As part of a test-run to make mob combat a little more varied and interesting, I have added in a framework for mob afflictions. Currently, only the Thaumaturgy skill IGNITE works against mobs. As a result, Thaumaturgy IMMOLATE also works against mobs. There are some restrictions on it: - You need to be in the room with the mob in order for the mob to take damage (leaving the room will extinguish the affliction). - The mob needs to be fighting someone in order for the mob to take damage (interrupting combat somehow and hanging out in the room with the mob will extinguish the affliction). - You need to be online in order for the mob to take damage (logging off or disconnecting will extinguish the affliction). A few notes on strategy as well: It is not in your best interest to simply spam ignite + immolate (as I'm sure you will discover). Two stormlances are better damage. However, letting ignite tic down and then using immolate before it expires will result in better overall damage, since immolate has higher damage than stormlance. Also, immolate vs. mobs respects the health level of mobs, so is an effective finisher. This, along with eldritch barrage, should make Magician bashing pretty diverse. Enjoy! (In an unrelated change, siege status progress will no longer appear in your city logs if the progress is 0) Penned by my hand on the 34th of Wochem, in the year 12. ANNOUNCE NEWS #207 Date: 1/27/2011 at 2:56 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Mob Afflictions: Fleche The Fencing skill Fleche now works against mobiles, giving a bleeding affliction. It is worth noting that mob afflictions also have a chance to be critical strikes, meaning that it also grants additional chances to use inquartata in addition to damage. Cheers! Penned by my hand on the 34th of Wochem, in the year 12. ANNOUNCE NEWS #208 Date: 1/27/2011 at 8:07 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Mob Affliction(s): Part III - Revenge of the Priests - Righteousness Heresy now works against mobs, and the damage bonus Heresy gives has been increased from 15% to 30%. - There is a new skill in Righteousness, Holy Sword, that is useful against both mobs and players. Manage your faith wisely! Penned by my hand on the 36th of Wochem, in the year 12. ANNOUNCE NEWS #209 Date: 1/29/2011 at 21:38 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Double XP Weekend! Just a reminder that this is a Double XP Weekend! Enjoy double XP all weekend long! Penned by my hand on the 11th of Nuna, in the year 12. ANNOUNCE NEWS #210 Date: 1/30/2011 at 23:22 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Credit & Lesson Sale Ends TOMORROW! Just a reminder that our 20% credit and lesson sale ends TOMORROW! If you are thinking about any last-minute purchases, be sure to get them now! Penned by my hand on the 8th of Agaeis, in the year 12. ANNOUNCE NEWS #211 Date: 2/6/2011 at 2:39 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: February Promotions! We're running some exciting promos for February! -- Every day you log in, you will receive 1 FREE CREDIT! -- Every Wednesday is Artifact Drop Wednesday, where killing mobs grants you a chance to earn free temporary artifacts! (The drops are totally random!) We're also running an Ishapian Token sale through February! -- Enter SHOWREWARDS to see the rewards you can earn. Note that they are CUMULATIVE! We will also be releasing new wares for the Token Shop over the month, so stock up early! Penned by my hand on the 9th of Dzanin, in the year 12. ANNOUNCE NEWS #212 Date: 2/6/2011 at 2:42 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Vacation! I am leaving for vacation for a week (7 days) starting today! I'll be out of the country and totally unavailable via email or message. Don't be alarmed, though! The Gods are still here and things will be running smoothly. It does mean that anything that requires my attention (and I know a few of you are waiting for a reply from me regarding a few things) will have to wait until I get back next Sunday. My deep apologies for the wait, but I've just been swamped and am literally about to run out the door to catch my flight as I write this! See you all in a week! Penned by my hand on the 9th of Dzanin, in the year 12. ANNOUNCE NEWS #213 Date: 2/19/2011 at 2:31 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Player Estates! I'm very excited to announce a new feature. Are you ready for it? - Player Estates are here! See HELP ESTATES to learn about building your very own estate, and customizing it in any way you like. Fancy a wizard's tower? An imposing keep? Your very own quarter of the city? A macabre dungeon? It's all possible! The only limit is your (perhaps twisted) imagination. There are estate entrances in Krondor, Elvandar, Sar-Sargoth, Port Natal, and Caldara for now. There may be more to come! Best of all, estates are funded almost entirely with gold! In the future we'll be releasing some room upgrades for credits, so look for that in the coming weeks! Penned by my hand on the 17th of Wochem, in the year 13. ANNOUNCE NEWS #214 Date: 2/21/2011 at 22:15 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Forum Upgrade We've upgraded our forums to a more recent version of the forum software, which will help us combat some of the flood of spam we've been seeing lately. Not only are there better tools to prevent spambots from posting at all, but there are better admin and moderator tools for easily seeing reported spam and removing it. Cheers all around! This does mean that we've had to change the forum skins, since the old versions are not compatible. The new skin is pretty sweet, and I've also taken the opportunity to re-arrange some of the forums, and add in 2 new forum categories: a Help! section for questions and answers that should be especially useful for new and returning players, and a Humor section for sharing anything in that vein. Check them out! http://forums.midkemiaonline.com Penned by my hand on the 39th of Wochem, in the year 13. ANNOUNCE NEWS #215 Date: 2/22/2011 at 19:26 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: House Upgrade Bug There was an unintended bug with purchasing house upgrades for credits, where it was adding credits instead of subtracting them. I have removed the credits received (plus the actual cost of the upgrades) from everyone who purchased these upgrades, so don't be alarmed if you have received a message about your credits being adjusted. The bug is now fixed! Penned by my hand on Mid-Winter, in the year 13. ANNOUNCE NEWS #216 Date: 2/22/2011 at 22:27 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Ads We now have a system (no doubt familiar to some of you) to create ads. See HELP ADS for details. You can enter ADS to see the current ads, or AD to create a new ad for some product or service you wish to sell. Penned by my hand on the 1st of Nuna, in the year 13. ANNOUNCE NEWS #217 Date: 2/24/2011 at 5:06 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Theft I've coded in a few restrictions on theft, but first a definition of theft: 1.) Rifle, and 2.) Forcing a player to give away or drop items, and 3.) Forcing a player to put items into a container or onto an object that is not in his/her inventory. There are new limits on theft, such that it is only possible for one player to steal from another player once within a given (relatively short) time frame. It is also no longer possible to steal multiple items at once (i.e., forcing a player to "drop 5 vial". Furthermore, it is no longer possible to steal from newbies at all. Theft adds a lot to MKO in that it creates drama and danger in an action/fantasy-oriented world, so it will always be possible. However, clearing out another player of their entire inventory is far, far too crippling to be permitted to continue. In an unrelated change, it is now possible for Rogues with the skill Envenimer in Fencing to envenom their crossbows. Cheers! Penned by my hand on the 11th of Nuna, in the year 13. ANNOUNCE NEWS #218 Date: 2/28/2011 at 9:09 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Village Reputation There is a new system to control village enemy statuses in a more granulated way, as well as to affect how sentient denizens may react to you. See HELP REPUTATION to learn about this system. You can type REPUTATION or REP to see your current reputation with various groups. Note that you won't be enemied to a denizen village for killing a single NPC anymore. Instead it will decrease your reputation with that village. If you fall to Hated, you will become enemied. None of the villages currently allow you to rise beyond Neutral by doing quests, but look for this to be used more in the future, and possibly retroactively added to existing quests where it makes sense. Penned by my hand on the 34th of Agaeis, in the year 13. ANNOUNCE NEWS #219 Date: 3/4/2011 at 21:52 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Tattoos There is a new Trade Skill available to everyone: Tattoos! This skill allows you to ink tattoos on your body parts, or the body parts of other players, using dried magical inks now available in shops within all the major cities. You can TOUCH the tattoos to elicit a variety of effects, depending on the tattoo. In particular, the tattoo effects offer: - A way for low-level players to access curing abilities (overdrive and the foci skills) without learning Fighting. - Many of the additional defenses that players have been asking for on the forums. - Some other fun ones too! In addition, if you can't find a tattoo artist, you can travel to Zun and seek out Giorgio Bachetta, who will ink tattoos for rather high prices. See HELP TATTOOS for the full information. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 22nd of Dzanin, in the year 13. ANNOUNCE NEWS #220 Date: 3/4/2011 at 22:51 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Ustream: Friday March 11, 4 Pacific I will be hosting a live UStream video chat on Friday, March 11th at 4 PM Pacific (0:00 GMT), a week from today. Tune in at http://www.ironrealms.com/ustream to chat and ask your questions! Penned by my hand on the 22nd of Dzanin, in the year 13. ANNOUNCE NEWS #221 Date: 3/7/2011 at 21:51 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Combat Update A long-standing feature of combat has been that beginning an attack against a player or mob would drop your current defense. This was a legacy of the original combat design that was never finished, and was left largely untouched since then. It added a unique flow to combat among more skilled players, in terms of stacking your attacks and defenses to optimize your attacks and try to put your enemy on the defensive. The downside was that it nullified the point of having telegraphs in the first place: responding intelligently to incoming attacks, while simultaneously maintaining an offense. In light of that, this feature has been removed. To preserve the flow of combat and the skill level required, while making it more intuitive, we hade made the following changes: - Defenses now last only 1 second after they are put up. - The base equilibrium cost of defending has been reduced from 3 seconds to 2 seconds. - There is now a 1% adrenaline cost associated with defending. - You will no longer regenerate adrenaline outside of combat if you are off-equilibrium. - Writhe and contort now writhe you out of ALL forms of entanglement that may be stacked on you, instead of just one. This means you will have to pay attention to when you are attacked, predict when the incoming blow will land, and put up your defense shortly before then. At a base 2 second equilibrium cost, you will be able to block the next incoming attack (assuming good timing), even if you defend at the last second. The low adrenaline cost ensures that you don't constantly spam defenses without regard to incoming attacks, meaning that your defending decisions need to be intelligent and fast-paced. This is a pretty big change, so we will be monitoring it carefully, but I am confident it will make combat more intuitive, maintain the flow and skill involved in high-tier combat, and also make when and what to defend a more intelligent decision. I'm looking forward to seeing the battles to come! Penned by my hand on the 6th of Kimia, in the year 14. ANNOUNCE NEWS #222 Date: 3/18/2011 at 2:19 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Lottery Winners Congrats to this week's Iron Lottery winners: Prizes: 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 30608, owned by Rykelle (claimed) 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 30220, owned by Xerak (claimed) 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 30130, owned by Malinx (claimed) 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 31110, owned by Valdar (claimed) 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 30269, owned by Jarrul (claimed) 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 30399, owned by Valdar (claimed) 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 30881, owned by Vanon (claimed) 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 30547, owned by Velsi (claimed) 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 30462, owned by Malinx (claimed) 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 30277, owned by Jarrul (claimed) Penned by my hand on the 32nd of Wochem, in the year 14. ANNOUNCE NEWS #223 Date: 3/18/2011 at 2:53 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Copy/Paste in Nexus Greetings! Those of you who are using our Nexus client may have ran into a problem that is causing copying and pasting text from/to the Nexus window to not work at all. This issue is caused by a change in the latest version of Java (Java 6 Update 24), and we are working on resolving the problem. Two work-arounds for this problem are currently available: - You can install an older version of Java. This is not recommended due to security fixes in the latest version, but it will resolve this issue. - You can use an experimental Nexus version located at http://www.midkemiaonline.com/nexusnew - this version is able to copy/paste normally, and you can also copy text from the main window directly, without going through a separate window. Unlike the standard version, this one requires direct access to your computer - you will be prompted to give permission for that. The experimental version is otherwise identical to the standard one. Penned by my hand on the 32nd of Wochem, in the year 14. ANNOUNCE NEWS #224 Date: 3/20/2011 at 23:10 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Killian's Lucky Clovers & Newbies In a moment of total insanity, I realized that I forgot to post what the reward for this month's login promotion is: Killian's Lucky Clover (as some of you have already noticed since you received yours!) You can RIP LEAF OFF CLOVER to gain a critical hit bonus for the next 24 hours, and the lucky clover has 4 leaves. You can only use your own clovers, so I must disappoint any eager thieves or would-be merchants. Happy hunting! ===================================== On an unrelated note, there has been some question about newbies getting involved in conflict/griefing. Specifically, as it relates to established players getting involved in conflict on newbie / lowbie alts, and engaging in behavior that would normally get their ass kicked on their main characters, but they can get away with doing on those newbies because they don't have a lot invested in the character. Our policy is that we may get involved and administratively punish your _main_ character, even if it is a legitimate conflict, if we think that you are abusing the throw-away status of newbie/lowbie alts to avoid the consequences of those actions. A good example of this is getting in an argument with a citymate, and then stealing their mounts and dumping them somewhere you know they will get killed or stolen. Even if you are in a legitimate dispute with that player, you should never engage in any kind of griefing or harassing behavior while on a newbie. It's not exactly fair to punish your main character for things other characters have done (even ICly), but we won't tolerate griefing with newbies at all. Penned by my hand on the 9th of Nuna, in the year 14. ANNOUNCE NEWS #225 Date: 3/24/2011 at 18:55 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Lims-Kragma Unfortunately, due to private matters, I have had to let Lims-Kragma go this morning. She will no longer be an active god, and those orgs she patroned and her Order should plan accordingly. Penned by my hand on the 29th of Agaeis, in the year 14. ANNOUNCE NEWS #226 Date: 3/28/2011 at 20:20 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Auctions Auctions are here! These auctions will be open for roughly 7 RL days (168 hours, and there is no zero hour), and most are for credits, offering rare and unusual items not seen anywhere else. Unlike previous auctions, bidding on any of these items in the last 2 hours before an auction closes will result in the auction being extended to 2 hours, to prevent any last-minute hijinks. Here's what we're offering: Tsurani Transportation Orb -------------------------- A Tsurani transportation orb can be touched to teleport the owner to a room with 8 portals leading to various locations across Midkemia. The exits will be determined by the owner after winning the auction. (City enemies won't be able to enter city portals.) Scrying Orb ----------- Crafted by the famous Althafain of Carse, this scrying orb allows the owner to gaze into it and scry the general location (area name) of another person. Storage Trunk ------------- The Storage Trunk is a special traveling trunk that can hold up to 100 items as though they were in a shop stockroom, meaning items that wouldn't decay in a stockroom won't decay while inside this portable and stylish chest. Custom Pet ---------- The lucky winner will receive a non-combat companion pet. The pet's appearance and reactions will be determined by the winner. Personal Shop ------------- The winner of this auction will be able to set up a personal shop outside of the major cities of Midkemia, in any location he or she chooses. This shop is permanently exempt from taxes. Race Change ----------- Born in the wrong body? No problem! The winner of this auction will be eligible for a one-time, irreversible race and species change. Custom Appearance ----------------- The winner of this auction will be able to customize his or her default appearance on look (subject to approval!), instead of appearing as "Ishap, the Matrix is standing here." Custom Estate Deed ------------------ Win a 10-room estate that will be erected in any location (subject to approval!) that the winner wishes. Unlike other estates, this estate will have a standard entrance (in one of the standard directions) with a physical key and lock. The Estate may be expanded and otherwise treated as a normal estate. Portable Alembic ---------------- This portable alembic allows amalgamating deadly poisons on-the-fly. Perfect for any assassin! Custom Emote ------------ A custom emote of your choosing (subject to approval), usable only by yourself. (Though you can make it public if you wish.) Auctions for Gold ----------------- - 2 Killian's Lucky Clovers are also being auctioned off for gold instead of credits, in case you missed out on your chance to snag one in the recent login days promotion (or you want another one!). Penned by my hand on the 13th of Dzanin, in the year 14. ANNOUNCE NEWS #227 Date: 3/30/2011 at 3:31 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Skill Preview: Shadoweaving A skill preview of Shadoweaving has been posted on our forums, check it out: http://forums.midkemiaonline.com/index.php?/topic/1905-skill-preview-shadoweaving/ Penned by my hand on the 23rd of Dzanin, in the year 14. ANNOUNCE NEWS #228 Date: 4/1/2011 at 0:58 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Lottery: 31 March Here are the results of our last Iron Lottery in March: Prizes: 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 33612, owned by Jytoni (claimed) 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 33017, owned by Vanon (claimed) 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 32674, owned by Renatta (claimed) 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 32743, owned by Roma (claimed) 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 32538, owned by Jarrul (claimed) 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 33608, owned by Jarrul (claimed) 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 33471, owned by Valdar (claimed) 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 32853, owned by Yudi (claimed) 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 33002, owned by Skuugat (claimed) 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 33513, owned by Valdar (claimed) Congrats to Valdar and the other winners! Penned by my hand on the 38th of Dzanin, in the year 14. ANNOUNCE NEWS #229 Date: 4/1/2011 at 17:20 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: TMS Voting TopMudSites voting has reset! This is a simple and easy way to help promote Midkemia, taking only a few seconds every day. Last month we did pretty poorly, so I'm hoping this month we can do a lot better! Please remember to vote every 12 hours at: http://www.midkemiaonline.com/vote Or CONFIG VOTING PROMPT to get a helpful reminder whenever it's time to vote. Thanks! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Kimia, in the year 15. ANNOUNCE NEWS #230 Date: 4/9/2011 at 1:08 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Forums Our forums are down, don't panic if you see something that says your account has been suspended - it has not. We've contacted our hosting provider, and hopefully they will be back up soon. Penned by my hand on the 7th of Wochem, in the year 15. ANNOUNCE NEWS #231 Date: 4/12/2011 at 2:07 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Shadoweaving With the return of Banath's Priests from the Shadow Realm, the skillset of Shadoweaving can now be learned by those Priests in his Order. See HELP SPECIALIZATIONS for a reminder on learning specializations. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 32nd of Wochem, in the year 15. ANNOUNCE NEWS #232 Date: 4/13/2011 at 23:52 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Digg & Free Credits Check out this Iron Realms article about how to earn FREE CREDITS for taking about 5 minutes to help us promote our articles on Digg: http://www.ironrealms.com/iron-realms-diggs-articles Penned by my hand on the 1st of Nuna, in the year 15. ANNOUNCE NEWS #233 Date: 4/16/2011 at 1:11 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Lesson Sale Through April 30th! We're running a Lesson Sale for the next two weeks, through April 30th! There will be absolutely no extensions of this sale, so be sure to get in any lesson purchases before the cut-off date. Remember that lesson packages allow you to purchase lessons at a ratio that is better than buying an equivalent number of credits and converting them, so if you are thinking about switching classes or transing one of your new skillsets, then this is definitely something to take advantage of! Here is the link to directly buy lessons: http://www.midkemiaonline.com/credits.php?page=lessons Penned by my hand on the 6th of Agaeis, in the year 15. ANNOUNCE NEWS #234 Date: 4/18/2011 at 20:26 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Memories and Multiclassing I am very, very pleased to announce the multiclassing is now possible! Read HELP MEMORIES for information about multiclassing, and how to store and retrieve your memories. Note that we are offering 3 new artifacts to help speed up the lesson retrieval process, and that also eliminates the lesson cost associated with storing and retrieving memories. See HELP ARTIFACTS MISC to learn about these memory orbs. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 29th of Agaeis, in the year 15. ANNOUNCE NEWS #235 Date: 4/18/2011 at 21:29 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Multiclass and the Stat System After some initial feedback, I made a change and I want to note that the multiclass system stores your current stats whenever you store your class (NOT your specialization). This allows you to store a different stat setup for every class you store. It is easier to explain in practice, so here is an example: - Silban is a Magician with 200 int and 200 wil. She stores her class. - Silban becomes a Rogue. She still has 200 int and 200 wil. - Silban resets her stats, and decides to invest in 200 dex and 200 con. - Silban stores the Rogue class, and retrieves her Magician memories. She now has 200 int and 200 wil. - Silban stores the Magician class, and retrieves her Rogue memories. She now has 200 dex and 200 con. Penned by my hand on the 29th of Agaeis, in the year 15. ANNOUNCE NEWS #236 Date: 4/22/2011 at 2:44 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Great Hunt! A Great Hunt has commence this weekend, offering double XP to everyone and credits to the top hunters! The Hunt to honor the Bayer After Moons will last through Sunday evening. Good hunting! Penned by my hand on the 7th of Dzanin, in the year 15. ANNOUNCE NEWS #237 Date: 4/22/2011 at 18:32 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: The Nighthawks The Nighthawks are not really being used as much as they should be for vengeance against players that are much stronger than you are, so I've made some changes to make it more accessible to everyone. Taking out vengeance against another player no longer requires doing the Night Altar quest as a pre-requisite. Doing the quest will reduce the cost of the contract by 50%, however. The cost of contracts across the board have also been reduced. Additionally, the XP loss of being killed by an NPC Nighthawk has been reinstated, though it is less than a normal mob death. However, the rate at which mob Nighthawks spawn and attack players is now also much less frequent. Penned by my hand on the 12th of Dzanin, in the year 15. ANNOUNCE NEWS #238 Date: 4/26/2011 at 1:00 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Lesson Sale Ending April 30th! Just a reminder that our lesson sale is ending Saturday, April 30th! With the introduction of Memory Magicians and multiclassing, this is a great opportunity to check out another class at a very discounted rate. Penned by my hand on the 38th of Dzanin, in the year 15. ANNOUNCE NEWS #239 Date: 4/26/2011 at 19:23 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Digg I've put up a new helpfile to explain how Digging articles works: HELP DIGG. Check it out, there's some easy ways to earn a few free credits! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Kimia, in the year 16. ANNOUNCE NEWS #240 Date: 4/28/2011 at 6:33 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Veilgarden The area Veilgarden is now available for exploration and questing in the Yabon Forest. The Battle will not be available until tomorrow, and will be owned by Elvandar by default. Enjoy for now! Penned by my hand on the 16th of Kimia, in the year 16. ANNOUNCE NEWS #241 Date: 4/29/2011 at 1:13 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Veilgarden (Part II) Veilgarden is now open for siege! In addition, I have added a "momentum" counter to the Chalice-bearer. The points scored per second by holding the Chalice go up the longer the Chalice is held by any one person. If the Chalice changes hands or is dropped, the momentum counter is reset. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Rodec, in the year 16. ANNOUNCE NEWS #242 Date: 5/1/2011 at 1:15 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Alter Ego Extravaganza! The lesson sale has ended, but this month we're doing an entirely new promotion that I'm really excited about: the Alter Ego Extravaganza! Whenever you purchase credits on your main character, you will gain an additional 50% of that purchase as "alt credits," which appear on your CREDIT REPORT. These bound credits cannot be used on your main character, but instead can be transferred to any new character created on or after May 1st! To transfer these credits, go to: http://www.ironrealms.com/altpromo The best part is that these alt credits can be used on ANY Iron Realms game, not just Midkemia Online! Or, any credits you purchase on another game can be used to create a new character on Midkemia Online with those alt credits. You're basically getting 150% of your purchase, and you can create a new character to play around with on top of it too! Or, if you don't need or want the credits for yourself, you can recruit a friend and hook them up with those credits. Maybe there's someone who's interested in MKO but hasn't made the plunge, or maybe you have a friend on another game you've been wanting to drag over here but who's been hesitant about purchasing credits. Now's the chance to bring them over to play with you! On top of that, we're also running Critical Hit Wednesdays this month! Cheers! Penned by my hand on the 5th of Staphron, in the year 16. ANNOUNCE NEWS #243 Date: 5/4/2011 at 0:17 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Elvandar and Sar-Sargoth City Exits One additional exit each has been added to Elvandar and Sar-Sargoth, to bring them more in-line with Krondor. Penned by my hand on the 7th of Wochem, in the year 16. ANNOUNCE NEWS #244 Date: 5/7/2011 at 2:10 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: New Artifact: Tsurani Shield Rune There is a new artifact in the artifact shop: the Tsurani Shield Rune. Tsurani Shield Rune: 500 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact gives you a 10% chance to avoid attacks from enemy players as if you had dodged the attack, and a 15% chance to completely mitigate the damage from an enemy mob/denizen attack. Use ARTIFACT BUY SHIELDING to purchase this artifact! Penned by my hand on the 31st of Wochem, in the year 16. ANNOUNCE NEWS #245 Date: 5/11/2011 at 20:45 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Ithilian Defile A rockslide in the Northlands has revealed the Ithilian Defile, a series of twisting canyons beyond the Thunderhell Steppes that wend westwards towards the Great Northern Mountains. Moredhel pilgrims will find this makes Lake Moraelin quite a bit more distant, and more in line with where it should be according to the official map. Penned by my hand on the 12th of Agaeis, in the year 16. ANNOUNCE NEWS #246 Date: 5/14/2011 at 2:08 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Tasks There is a new system of Newbie Tasks available to newbies to help orient them around Midkemia after exiting the introduction. TASKS will display them, and each awards some gold or xp upon completion. You may also do TASKS to see which tasks a player (such as a newbie) has complete to help guide him or her along. Penned by my hand on the 30th of Agaeis, in the year 16. ANNOUNCE NEWS #247 Date: 5/16/2011 at 15:14 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: 2 Week Present Promotion! For the next 2 weeks only, simultaneously with our Alt Promo (which, if you recall, gives an insane +50% bound credits to use on new alts on any IRE game, MKO included), we're running a special Present Promotion! How it works is that you get 1 free present for every 100 credits you make in a single purchase, and you always get at least 1 present with each purchase (even if you only purchase 10 credits). What's in a present? It's completely random goodies, which can span a few huge of options: gold, comms, lessons, other items, and rarely even artifacts! The present promo is only running until the end of the month, so take major advantage of this and our alt credit promo! Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Dzanin, in the year 16. ANNOUNCE NEWS #248 Date: 5/16/2011 at 20:06 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Age Age is now something that is selected at creation, and the range is variable based on your race (i.e., edhel start out much older than humans, etc.). All existing characters can, one time only, AGESET to set their current age. Since players could use age and birthdate before to see who was around on the first day that Midkemia was open, but this isn't going to be accurate anymore, I've added a special honors line to everyone who was created on our first day (December 19th, 2009) to commemorate those first players. Cheers! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Dzanin, in the year 16. ANNOUNCE NEWS #249 Date: 5/18/2011 at 1:56 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Age Reset Due to a bug with ages, we've had to reset everyone's ages. On the plus side, this means if you messed up the first time around, you can pick the proper age. I've gotten a few questions about the Edhel ages too, so bear in mind that 100 for an Edhel is still an adolescent (and barely one at that). 18 to 30 is considered a child, so you will almost certainly want to update to a more fitting age. Penned by my hand on the 14th of Dzanin, in the year 16. ANNOUNCE NEWS #250 Date: 5/24/2011 at 0:39 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Duels and Dueling You may now CHALLENGE other players in your location to a formal duel to defend your honor, show some ungrateful cur his rightful place, or simply engage in a spirited practice session. Duels last 5 minutes, though the 5 minutes does not decrement while either of the duelists is engaged in combat. If neither duelist is slain after the time expires, the duel ends in a draw. If one of the duelists slays the other, the duel is declared in that duelist's favor. The other duelist is not slain, and no War Points, essence, nor experience are gained or lost by either duelist. You may also DUELWHO or SPARWHO to see other persons seeking a sparring partner. Doing so will place you on the sparring list. You may SPARON or SPAROFF to remove yourself from this listing, respectively. Happy dueling! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Rodec, in the year 17. ANNOUNCE NEWS #250 Date: 5/24/2011 at 0:39 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Duels and Dueling You may now CHALLENGE other players in your location to a formal duel to defend your honor, show some ungrateful cur his rightful place, or simply engage in a spirited practice session. Duels last 5 minutes, though the 5 minutes does not decrement while either of the duelists is engaged in combat. If neither duelist is slain after the time expires, the duel ends in a draw. If one of the duelists slays the other, the duel is declared in that duelist's favor. The other duelist is not slain, and no War Points, essence, nor experience are gained or lost by either duelist. You may also DUELWHO or SPARWHO to see other persons seeking a sparring partner. Doing so will place you on the sparring list. You may SPARON or SPAROFF to remove yourself from this listing, respectively. Happy dueling! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Rodec, in the year 17. ANNOUNCE NEWS #251 Date: 5/24/2011 at 19:38 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Give us your development feedback I've started a thread on the forums asking for your ideas on development and what you'd like to see us working on: http://forums.midkemiaonline.com/index.php?/topic/1995-june-what-would-you-like-us-to-work-on If you don't normally visit the forums, be sure to check it out. Penned by my hand on the 10th of Rodec, in the year 17. ANNOUNCE NEWS #252 Date: 5/26/2011 at 21:56 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Stats, Redux! Stats have been reset for everyone in order to accomodate some changes. Primarily these changes affect Magicians and Priests, but they do also impact Soldiers and Rogues to a lesser degree. BE SURE TO READ HELP STATS BEFORE REALLOCATING YOUR STATS! In summary, this allows Magicians and Priests to have stats that vary similarly to Soldier and Rogue weapon quality: affecting damage, speed and precision. Instead of a physical weapon, it's your stats that matter, however. Note that strength, in this sense, reflects your strength of personality rather than your muscular strength. Rogues, also be aware that Strength is now your primary damage statistic, not Dexterity. A new effect based on Willpower has been added for everyone, as well: it now affects the rate at which you gain fleelag for fleeing. The amount of health Constitution grants has been adjusted downwards, especially at high values. In order to help you get a sense of the changes and what they mean for you, everyone has free stat resets through the weekend. They will end midnight GMT on Sunday. Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Natinica, in the year 17. ANNOUNCE NEWS #253 Date: 5/28/2011 at 0:16 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Memory Day Weekend Happy Memorial Day Weekend! I've enabled a 50% XP bonus all weekend (stacking with XP orbs). Have fun! Penned by my hand on the 10th of Natinica, in the year 17. ANNOUNCE NEWS #254 Date: 6/1/2011 at 1:02 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: June Promotions Summer is here at last! WOOHOO!! May has ended, and with it the Alt-Credit and Giftbag promotions we were offering. However, June brings some exciting new things for you: - Artifact packages are back on sale! This is your chance to pick up one of our artifact combinations at ridiculously low prices - head on over to http://www.midkemiaonline.com/credits.php to check them out! - The Wheel of Chance has appeared in a small cave just outside the village of Lan. You can SPIN WHEEL once per day for a random prize, ranging from gold, to lessons, to credits! - Every Thursday in June is Double XP! Penned by my hand on the 31st of Wochem, in the year 17. ANNOUNCE NEWS #255 Date: 6/3/2011 at 0:43 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Horse Renting You can now rent horses in most stables that also sell horses, for a fraction of the cost of buying a horse. See HELP RIDING for details. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on Mid-Winter, in the year 17. ANNOUNCE NEWS #256 Date: 6/7/2011 at 21:26 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Thievery The Thief specialization, which grants the Thievery skillset, is now available to all Rogues! This specialization is taught by a retired thief hidden somewhere on the Far Coast. Be aware that many of the skills function much better for members of the Mockers guild (and which skill do are indicated in the AB files). Additionally, I've added a new transcendent skill to Fencing, moving Bladebarrier down in the skillset: Coup de Grace. Penned by my hand on the 28th of Agaeis, in the year 17. ANNOUNCE NEWS #257 Date: 6/8/2011 at 19:35 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Free Stat Resets Ending! Free stat resets are going to end on Friday at 0:00 GMT (that's Thursday afternoon for US players). Everyone will receive 1 additional free stat reset at that point. Penned by my hand on the 36th of Agaeis, in the year 17. ANNOUNCE NEWS #258 Date: 6/10/2011 at 0:45 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Free Stat Resets Have Ended ...just as the title says, free stat resets have ended. Everyone has been given 1 additional free stat reset. Penned by my hand on the 8th of Yamiev, in the year 17. ANNOUNCE NEWS #259 Date: 6/16/2011 at 1:00 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Ithilian Defile As the Events news indicates, there is a new challenge in the Ithilian Defile for small groups of players. As with Nomatsu, the Strike Leader of the Kotai, this new challenge drops a selection of random loot, including one very rare and special item. Any who would claim this item should be aware that it will decay while in a stockroom, so it is best put to use rather than stored away. Penned by my hand on the 5th of Kimia, in the year 18. ANNOUNCE NEWS #260 Date: 6/16/2011 at 18:55 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Ire-Communities Forum Link We're going to discontinue using the ire-communities forum address. The only way to access the forums will be the standard address: forums.midkemiaonline.com Be sure to update your bookmarks if you are still using the old link! Penned by my hand on the 11th of Kimia, in the year 18. ANNOUNCE NEWS #261 Date: 6/21/2011 at 0:26 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Unused Forum Accounts In order to help combat some of the "bandwidth exceeded" issues we've seen on our forums lately, I've deleted about 11,000 accounts that have zero posts, or are flagged as banned or spammers. The bandwidth issues are caused by spam accounts, and hopefully this will help to address some of that. It is, however, entirely possible that a few valid accounts that have never posted were deleted. If that is the case, my apologies! You will need to re-register, however. Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Natinica, in the year 18. ANNOUNCE NEWS #262 Date: 6/21/2011 at 5:47 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Trolls and Riding The mighty and proud troll race no longer has any need for the pathetic mounts of the inferior small ones that surround them, and shall henceforth roam the lands on foot. As part of this change: - Trolls have increased maximum endurance, and increased endurance regeneration - Trolls have been refunded all lessons invested into the Riding skillset, and can no longer learn Riding Penned by my hand on the 4th of Natinica, in the year 18. ANNOUNCE NEWS #263 Date: 6/25/2011 at 2:02 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Skill Preview: Bloodlore I've posted a preview of the Bloodlore skillset, learned by Priests of Guis-wan, on the forums: http://forums.midkemiaonline.com/index.php?/topic/2042-skill-preview-bloodlore/ Penned by my hand on the 22nd of Wochem, in the year 18. ANNOUNCE NEWS #264 Date: 7/1/2011 at 2:42 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: MKO +1 Hey all, With the release of Google's new Google+ social network, and the +1 button on search, it'd be really awesome if you would take a minute to search for Midkemia on Google, and then +1 both our site and our forums (they are the 2nd and 3rd results, respectively). It'll show your appreciation of the game and all the hard work that goes into it, and help us get some word of mouth out there for new players already interested in Midkemia, who are likely to be people that care about the lore in the first place. Thanks in advance, I really appreciate it! Penned by my hand on the 14th of Agaeis, in the year 18. ANNOUNCE NEWS #265 Date: 7/1/2011 at 5:25 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Midkemia Lore Wiki We now have a lore wiki on our site: http://wiki.midkemiaonline.com/Main_Page Anyone who has played 300+ hours can edit the wiki (with the exception of the landing page). This wiki should be for everything related to the Riftwar Cycle in general, not just Midkemia Online - though feel free to include things related to MKO as well. A warning that silly edits (i.e., creating joke pages about players) or defacing the wiki will result in not only loss of the ability to edit the wiki, but in-game punishments for your character as well. Every edit is permanently recorded. Go wild with adding whatever else you want, with the exception of quest solutions or wholesale copying of hidden features. If something is hidden in the game, it shouldn't be on the wiki, such as a list of Mockers members. If something is specific to Midkemia Online, and not the canon in general, then please note so on its wiki page. Have fun, lore-fiends! Penned by my hand on the 14th of Agaeis, in the year 18. ANNOUNCE NEWS #266 Date: 7/1/2011 at 6:15 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: TMS Voting Reset TMS voting has reset, so please consider voting and voting often for Midkemia: http://www.midkemiaonline.com/vote And remember to CONFIG VOTING PROMPT for an easy reminder of when it's time to vote. Penned by my hand on the 15th of Agaeis, in the year 18. ANNOUNCE NEWS #267 Date: 7/2/2011 at 17:09 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Happy 4th! Happy 4th of July! I've turned on a 50% XP bonus (cumulative with XP Orbs) for the remainder of the weekend! Enjoy the holiday! Penned by my hand on the 26th of Agaeis, in the year 18. ANNOUNCE NEWS #268 Date: 7/5/2011 at 23:47 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Divine Patrons Divine Patron positions have been removed from cities and guild. They did not fit the Midkemian lore well for most of the established organizations (save Krondor), and Gods were becoming to be seen in some cases as aligned with a particular mortal organization rather than their specific realm. City and guild leaders can still contact a personal patron or chosen god for anything that is patron-related. Or, in some cases, it may be done through mobs instead, dependent upon whatever the admins in question decide is more appropriate. The role of Gods remains otherwise unchanged! Penned by my hand on the 5th of Dzanin, in the year 18. ANNOUNCE NEWS #269 Date: 7/8/2011 at 0:00 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Lottery Results Congrats to this week's Iron Lottery winners: Prizes: 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 34917, owned by Mallaidh (claimed) 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 35037, owned by Zorn (claimed) 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 34957, owned by Zeph (claimed) 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 34044, owned by Olbiad (claimed) 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 34912, owned by Avash (claimed) 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 34651, owned by Vilnearo (claimed) 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 34190, owned by Elaisa (claimed) 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 34335, owned by Olbiad (claimed) 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 35106, owned by Avash (claimed) 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 34690, owned by Olbiad (claimed) Penned by my hand on the 21st of Dzanin, in the year 18. ANNOUNCE NEWS #270 Date: 7/11/2011 at 17:21 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: IRE +1 Hey folks! Anyone up for a FULL WEEK of Double XP? We are currently running a super simple, one click promotion, on the Iron Realms website to help get new people pulsing into Midkemia. While I already posted about the +1 in the Midkemia site, we're also trying to promote +1 on the Iron Realms site itself. Sooo, to get a week of Double XP, we just need everyone, including your mothers, brothers, and girlfriends to click on that little button on the top of www.IronRealms.com. Once we get to 1000 clicks, we will do a massive double XP week! 7 full days of bashing fun! So get clicking and help get those newbies into the game! Thanks a lot everyone. Penned by my hand on the 10th of Kimia, in the year 19. ANNOUNCE NEWS #271 Date: 7/15/2011 at 4:24 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Lottery Winners Congrats to this week's Iron Lottery winners: Prizes: 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 35542, owned by Avash (claimed) 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 35312, owned by Llandyr (claimed) 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 35590, owned by Avash (claimed) 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 35895, owned by Grin (claimed) 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 35844, owned by Grin (claimed) 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 35997, owned by Grin (claimed) 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 36010, owned by Grin (claimed) 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 35489, owned by Ugralitan (claimed) 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 35323, owned by Roma (claimed) 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 35979, owned by Celain (claimed) Penned by my hand on the 5th of Staphron, in the year 19. ANNOUNCE NEWS #272 Date: 7/24/2011 at 21:56 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Lottery A belated congrats to this week's Iron Lottery winners: Prizes: 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 36778, owned by Olbiad (claimed) 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 36264, owned by Celain (claimed) 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 37092, owned by Valdar (claimed) 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 37129, owned by Valdar (claimed) 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 36560, owned by Alsenya (claimed) 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 36679, owned by Elaisa (claimed) 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 37065, owned by Valdar (claimed) 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 36319, owned by Hawke (claimed) 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 36917, owned by Celain (claimed) 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 36535, owned by Roma (claimed) Penned by my hand on the 4th of Agaeis, in the year 19. ANNOUNCE NEWS #273 Date: 7/29/2011 at 1:55 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Lottery Winners Congrats to the last winners of the July Iron Lotteries: Prizes: 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 38049, owned by Khyvar (claimed) 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 38822, owned by Ashra (claimed) 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 37600, owned by Hawke (claimed) 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 37746, owned by Kaitia (claimed) 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 37715, owned by Kaitia (claimed) 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 37578, owned by Hawke (claimed) 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 38749, owned by Srilyx (claimed) 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 38068, owned by Khyvar (claimed) 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 38275, owned by Dysse (claimed) 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 37866, owned by Narcissus (claimed) Penned by my hand on the 37th of Agaeis, in the year 19. ANNOUNCE NEWS #274 Date: 8/2/2011 at 20:16 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Preview: Private Craft Design Update I've posted a preview of the updates we have planned for the private crafting designs, and the current limit of 50, on the forums: http://forums.midkemiaonline.com/index.php?/topic/2092-preview-crafting-designs-update/ Penned by my hand on the 27th of Dzanin, in the year 19. ANNOUNCE NEWS #275 Date: 8/5/2011 at 17:54 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: August Promotions July has come and passed, but with the new month bring exciting new promotions! * Login lessons: Gain 1 lesson for every 10 minutes you're logged in, up to a total of 10 lessons per day. * Weekly rankings: Each week in August, we're running ranked contests, with credit prizes for the winners. Type WEEKRANK to see your score. August 1 - 7: General experience (Quests/Denizens etc.) August 8 - 14: Quest reward experience. August 15 - 22: Denizen kills. August 23 - 30: Denizen kill experience. * Lesson Packages: Visit our website for the chance to pick up bulk lessons at an extremely discounted rate. Penned by my hand on the 10th of Kimia, in the year 20. ANNOUNCE NEWS #276 Date: 8/5/2011 at 17:56 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: IRE Meet This weekend myself and other Gods are descending upon a hapless city for the annual Iron Realms gods-meet! This means that some correspondence may take longer than usual to answer, so please be patient if there is anything that requires my response. Of course, sadly not all gods are able to make it to the meet, so don't fear: many will still be around and taking care of business as usual. Penned by my hand on the 10th of Kimia, in the year 20. ANNOUNCE NEWS #277 Date: 8/11/2011 at 21:22 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Out of Town I'll be out of town this weekend, with limited computer access. If you are waiting on a reply to an email or a message, it is unlikely I will get to it before Monday. Thanks for your patience! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Wochem, in the year 20. ANNOUNCE NEWS #278 Date: 8/18/2011 at 18:58 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: New Artifact: Rune of Vernal Blasting A new artifact has been added to the artifact shop, to help you rake in the rewards from this critical hits: Rune of Vernal Blasting: 200 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact restores 1% of your maximum health, 1% of your maximum magic, 1 guile, and 1 faith every time you roll a critical hit. This includes those abilities outside of critical strikes vs. mobs that have some special effect on a critical strike chance, such as eldritch barrage's chance to strike a second player. Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Agaeis, in the year 20. ANNOUNCE NEWS #279 Date: 8/23/2011 at 0:48 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: New Artifact: Eye of Cosmic Perception I've added a new artifact to give a little bit of extra info on someone that is trying to scry you: Eye of Cosmic Perception: 300 credits (INVESTED) - This artifact allows you to see who has scried you, or used a similar ability, when your foreboding defense is triggered. NOTE: this artifact requires foreboding to be active to function. Penned by my hand on the 36th of Agaeis, in the year 20. ANNOUNCE NEWS #280 Date: 8/23/2011 at 16:35 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Estate Upgrades Estates can now be upgraded with a variety of fun features! You just ESTATE BUY ROOM UPGRADE , using the one-word name of the upgrade, and it will instantly be added to the current estate room you are standing in. In addition, titling or describing a room that has not been previously described will no longer charge you the standard titling and describing fees: the first customization is completely free. Here are the available upgrades, also listed in HELP ESTATE UPGRADES: An Alchemist's Alembic (name: alembic): 500 credits - Constructs a permanent alembic in the estate room A Blacksmith's Forge (name: forge): 500 credits - Constructs a permanent forge in the estate room A Tailor's Workbench (name: workbench): 500 credits - Constructs a permanent tailor's workbench in the estate room A Chess Board (name: chess): 150 credits - Constructs a permanent chess board in the estate room A Blackjack Table (name: blackjack): 150 credits - Constructs a permanent blackjack table in the estate room A Pokiir Table (name: pokiir): 150 credits - Constructs a permanent pokiir table in the estate room A News Room (name: news): 300 credits - Turns the room into a news room A Post Office (name: postoffice): 300 credits - Turns the room into a post office Outdoors Room (name: outdoors): 50 credits - Makes the room outdoors - This replaces the indoors upgrade Indoors Room (name: indoors): 50 credits - Makes the room indoors - This replaces the outdoors upgrade Forest Room (name: forest): 50 credits - Makes the room into a forest location - This replaces garden and freshwater upgrades - Herbs do not grow in this location Garden Room (name: garden): 50 credits - Makes the room into a garden location - This replaces forest and freshwater upgrades Freshwater Room (name: freshwater): 50 credits - Makes the room into a freshwater location - This replaces garden and forest upgrades - Herbs and fish do not grow in this location Have fun customizing your estates! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Yamiev, in the year 20. ANNOUNCE NEWS #281 Date: 8/27/2011 at 0:00 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Double XP Weekend! This weekend is a Double XP Weekend! Enjoy a 100% XP Bonus on all activities! The event will run through Sunday at Midnight GMT. Happy hunting! Penned by my hand on the 19th of Dzanin, in the year 20. ANNOUNCE NEWS #282 Date: 8/29/2011 at 23:10 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: New Nexus Client A new version of the Nexus client has been loaded! The client is located at: http://www.midkemiaonline.com/nexusnew New features: - Problems with disappearing settings should be resolved now (hopefully) - Trigger matching is faster now and related bugs have been fixed - Regular expression triggers are now supported - An option to automatically anchor a trigger has been added (this causes the trigger to only match entire lines, without having to enter the {<} and {>} tokens) - Timers are now available, allowing periodic execution of a command - New scripting commands: #timer #deltimer - Timestamps (if you hover the mouse above a line, the timestamp will appear in a tooltip) - Session logging including timestamps - simply enable it in client settings and enter the desired directory, and the client will log all output, creating a new file each day Important: if you login to the stable version after having used the beta one, all settings that are not supported by the old version will be removed - this includes timers, logging configuration, and settings related to regular expression support Any problems should be reported to nexus-bugs@ironrealms.com Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Kimia, in the year 21. ANNOUNCE NEWS #283 Date: 8/30/2011 at 5:33 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Lesson Sale Ending! As a reminder, the lesson sale is ending in 2 days! Penned by my hand on the 5th of Kimia, in the year 21. ANNOUNCE NEWS #284 Date: 8/30/2011 at 18:32 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Appraising I've expanded the Vigilance ability Appraise, used to unearth resource nodes, with a new ability to appraise the entire area. This requires a surveying tool (sold in the general shops in all major cities) and will allow you to detect your general distance and direction to the nearest resource node in your local area. Think of it as a fun game of hot-and-cold. In an unrelated change, you can now AB TATTOOS (any tattoo) and see the full AB to learn what the tattoo does and how to use it. This does not work for any other skillset. Happy resource hunting! Penned by my hand on the 10th of Kimia, in the year 21. ANNOUNCE NEWS #285 Date: 8/31/2011 at 4:10 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Crafting Updates I have implemented a number of substantial changes to crafting after reviewing the player feedback about our crafting system. Thank you to everyone to contributed constructive and helpful feedback, especially our crafters! This is the first phase of the updates, and includes updates to the crafting system itself. The second phase will include an update to the review and approval process of designs involving the Crafter's Guild that will allow interested crafters to help review designs, in order to help expediate the process. This phase is currently undergoing development and testing. Without further ado, here are the updates to crafting: - You now gain experience for crafting items, based upon the quality of the item you have crafted and scaling to your level - You are no longer limited to 50 private designs. You can have an unlimited number of private designs. - 2 silver per Midkemian year will be assessed to all your private designs that are not sealed (see below for information about sealing designs). - If you fail to pay the upkeep on a private design for 3 consecutive Midkemian years, you will lose your rights to that pattern. If another crafter also has rights to the design (meaning that you have shared it), then it will remain private. If no other crafters have private rights to the design, the design will become public. If the design is a sketch, it will be destroyed rather than made public. - *** THESE FEES ARE NOT YET ACTIVE UNTIL THE NEXT MIDKEMIAN YEAR *** - You can CRAFT PAY UPKEEP FOR <#> to pay for the upkeep on an individual pattern, or CRAFT PAY UPKEEP FOR ALL to attempt to pay the upkeep on all outstanding dues for your private patterns. - You may designate a preferred bank from which funds will attempt to be automatically drawn to pay for your upkeep dues, by doing SET PREFERRED BANK HERE while standing at a bank at which you have an active account. You may SET PREFERRED BANK NOWHERE to clear your preferred bank. You will be informed if you do not have the funds to pay the upkeep. - You can now CRAFT SEAL and CRAFT UNSEAL your private designs to make them exempt from private design upkeep. All your current private designs have been sealed by default. - If you had a Design Book of the Guildmaster that increased your private design slots prior to this update, those increased private design pages have been converted into an increased number of private designs that you may seal. - You can now CRAFT DISOWN a private design to remove it from your private designs list. At the end of the Midkemian year, if no other crafters have rights to it, it will become a public design. Disowning a design is permanent. - Sharing a design now costs 2 silver for the crafter who accepts the offer to share the design. - It is no longer possible to submit a craft that shares a description with another craft, to prevent crafters from plagiarizing each others' designs. - CRAFT LIST DESIGNBOOK has had its output updated to provide more accurate and useful information. - Requesting a new sketch costs half as much as before - Resubmitting a rejected sketch costs half as much as before - Making a sketch private costs 25% as much as before Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 13th of Kimia, in the year 21. ANNOUNCE NEWS #286 Date: 9/1/2011 at 5:40 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: September Promotions Fall is getting into swing now that September is upon us, and that means a new month of promotions to help get you into the spirit! - We are running a massive 25% sale on credits this month. This means if you purchase 1000 credits, you will receive 1250, or if you purchase 2000 you will receive 2500, etc. This bonus is cumulative with any Iron Elite credit bonus you may have. - Every Tuesday is an artifact-drop day, where killing mobs gives you a random chance to receive a temporary artifact that will decay shortly thereafter. - Every Thursday is Divine Favor day, where you will have a temporary truefavor from myself. - You can earn a free Bound Credit every day on each of your characters by simply playing for 10 minutes as that character. That's a lot going on, so enjoy September MKO-style! Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Rodec, in the year 21. ANNOUNCE NEWS #287 Date: 9/2/2011 at 1:27 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Extra September Promotion As I promised, since the weekly challenge competitions encountered some trouble during August, we're having a special MKO-only promotion during September: Treasure Hunts! Every Saturday in September, you can use the new surveying tools and appraising to unearth buried treasure, in addition to the regular commodity nodes and experience caches. Unearthing buried treasure will award you 1 bound credit. Your first dig will always unearth buried treasure, and any subsequent digs also have a chance to unearth buried treasure! Go wild, and rake in the free bound credits! Dig sites will also spawn at an increased rate during the Treasure Hunt promotion, so you'll have a better chance at finding treasure. Time to get your tomb-plundering hats on! Penned by my hand on the 10th of Rodec, in the year 21. ANNOUNCE NEWS #288 Date: 9/7/2011 at 17:09 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Realms Anniversary! It's the anniversary of Iron Realms Entertainment, our parent company, and as a result, Ironbeard the Magnanimous will be visiting adventurers and delivering random gifts for the next several days! Penned by my hand on the 18th of Wochem, in the year 21. ANNOUNCE NEWS #289 Date: 9/19/2011 at 19:50 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Call for Celani Applications I'm looking to accept a few new Celani to join the Gods in the Celestial City! Celani are volunteers who help run Midkemia Online and assist the Gods in their duties, roleplay, and events. Celani who succeed well in our team may eventually have the opportunity to join the Pantheon as a God. See HELP PROMOTIONS for the full details on being a Celani. How to Apply ------------ 1- Read HELP CELANI and HELP PROMOTIONS in full. These are things that you will need to know before you apply. 2- Due to the legal obligations of this position, we require all applicants to be 18 years of age or older. We prefer experienced and mature candidates with at least 500 hours of playtime under their belt. 3- Send a plain-text email to jt@midkemiaonline.com with the following information: - Your real name. - Your real age. - Your regular occupation and employer (if you're a student, let us know what school you attend, and what you major in). - Your characters in Midkemia Online, and a brief list of their accomplishments. - What hours you are usually online (in GMT). - A brief paragraph on why you wish to become a Celani, and why you think we should consider you for the position. - Two flawless room descriptions of 80+ words each. You must follow Midkemia's writing guidelines, which are listed at the bottom of HELP MORTAL BUILDERS and HELP BUILDING GUIDELINES. Deadlines --------- Applications must be received by 00:00GMT on Friday, 30th of September. We will be holding interviews for these positions starting Monday, 3rd of October. Penned by my hand on the 10th of Dzanin, in the year 21. ANNOUNCE NEWS #290 Date: 9/20/2011 at 21:55 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Politics I've added a new command: POLITICS This will allow you to see the rough valuation of the activity of all the cities and guilds. The higher the score, the more active your city or guild is. This is a good estimate of how healthy your organization is, relative to other organizations. The "Member Score" and "Novice Score" values for guilds are absolute values: the more active your guild, the higher the score. The "Total Score" and "Cultural Activity" scores are relative: they will slide up and down based on your org's activity as compared to other orgs (guild v. guild and city v. city). A very useful tool for anyone interested in knowing how their city and guild are performing! These metrics will become active after midnight GMT tonight, and update each day based on that day's and the previous week's activity. Penned by my hand on the 18th of Dzanin, in the year 21. ANNOUNCE NEWS #291 Date: 9/21/2011 at 17:11 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: New Default Nexus The new version of the Nexus client, formerly accessed at www.midkemiaonline.com/nexusnew, is now the default client that you will use when playing via www.midkemiaonline.com/nexus. It includes many improvements over the older version, and while we think we have eliminated most of the bugs, there is always the possibility that a few slipped through the cracks. If you find any bugs with the client, do *not* bug them in-game (our coding time does not work on the Nexus client, and cannot address them). Instead, email nexus-bugs@ironrealms.com Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 25th of Dzanin, in the year 21. ANNOUNCE NEWS #292 Date: 9/28/2011 at 6:24 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: IronRealms.com +1 We've reached 500 Google +1s on the IronRealms.com website, so we've unlocked a full week of double XP! Have fun bashing! Penned by my hand on the 4th of Staphron, in the year 22. ANNOUNCE NEWS #293 Date: 9/28/2011 at 21:58 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Skill Preview: Psionics I've posted a preview of the forthcoming Psionics skillset on the forums. Check it out here: http://forums.midkemiaonline.com/index.php?/topic/2198-skill-preview-psionics/ Penned by my hand on the 9th of Staphron, in the year 22. ANNOUNCE NEWS #294 Date: 10/1/2011 at 18:08 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: October Ishapian Token Sale During October, we are running a tiered Ishapian Token sale, allowing you to purchase unique and novel items from the Emporium of Extraordinary Wonders in Port Natal. See HELP TOKENS to learn more about this. How it works is that once you have reached certain thresholds of total credits purchased for the month, you will receive increasingly large groups of Ishapian Tokens. The bonuses are cumulative, and one-time only. Here are the tiers: 100 credits: 1 Ishapian Token 300 credits: 2 Ishapian Tokens 500 credits: 2 Ishapian Tokens 1000 credits: 5 Ishapian Tokens 2000 credits: 10 Ishapian Tokens You can type SHOWREWARDS to see your current level of rewards that you have unlocked. Penned by my hand on the 10th of Wochem, in the year 22. ANNOUNCE NEWS #295 Date: 10/1/2011 at 22:05 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Election Fraud I've heard some disturbing accusations of election fraud in the most recent election for Michlistus' Praetor seat in Sar-Sargoth -- namely that he or his supporters abused alts to win the election unfairly. I take this kind of accusation very seriously, and so I have investigated it thoroughly. In the end, I only found 2 cases of alt-voting, and both were for Gorvai, who lost the election. One of those was a clear-cut case of abuse, and that player has been warned. The other was two very active and involved alts in the city, which seems less abusive, but I have warned that player as well. I also reviewed votes by less-active characters, and the outcome would have been the same even had those votes (the great majority of which appeared legitimate) been discounted. So, I can very safely say that the election was not tainted or won unfairly. However, just to be extra-careful and alleviate some of the concerns about this in the future, I have made it so that characters created after an election has started cannot vote in that election. This did *not* happen in this election, but there seem to been perennial suspicions about it happening, so I thought it was best to rule it out entirely. This is on top of the already existing playing-time requirements to vote in an election. As always, if there are suspicions of vote-fraud in an election, the best recourse is to file an issue so it can be investigated. The wrong thing to do is to spread rumors that cheating is going on. It only takes a single command to run a very comprehensive and thorough review of an election for fraud, and it's easy to spot any kind of abuse, which we will not tolerate. Penned by my hand on the 11th of Wochem, in the year 22. ANNOUNCE NEWS #296 Date: 10/3/2011 at 9:32 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Control Points and Caldara I'm excited to introduce a new mini-conflict system, designed to provide on-demand conflict and localized bonuses. Currently, you can capture the village of Caldara for your city, which will grant a 5% experience bonus while bashing in the Mac Mordain Cadal. See HELP CONTROL POINTS and HELP CALDARA to learn more about this new system. Happy conquering! Penned by my hand on the 23rd of Wochem, in the year 22. ANNOUNCE NEWS #297 Date: 10/3/2011 at 18:30 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Stardock Isle Now that Stardock Isle has been enveloped in a swirling tempest, the renegade magician that once provided transport to the Isle - for a fee - has ventured to Stardock Town to investigate what has occurred. He offers a quest that can be completed once each day, and if you complete it 20 times during October, you will receive a unique, small artifact item. I have also added a new path around Krondor so the other cities can more easily access Stardock Town. It leads through the Calastius Mountains to the east of Krondor, and from the east of Krondor down to the Royal Highway leading south from the city. Penned by my hand on the 26th of Wochem, in the year 22. ANNOUNCE NEWS #298 Date: 10/3/2011 at 23:02 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Control Point: Port Natal Port Natal can now be influenced through control points as well. It will tithe a small portion of its commodity production to the city that holds influence. Penned by my hand on the 28th of Wochem, in the year 22. ANNOUNCE NEWS #299 Date: 10/4/2011 at 3:41 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Control Points Harlech and Loriel now have capturable control points as well. Penned by my hand on the 29th of Wochem, in the year 22. ANNOUNCE NEWS #300 Date: 10/6/2011 at 0:44 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Double XP has ended Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and so has Double XP. Remember to +1 the IronRealms.com website if you haven't already, as there will be another Double XP week when we hit 1,000 +1s! Penned by my hand on the 44th of Wochem, in the year 22. ANNOUNCE NEWS #300 Date: 10/6/2011 at 0:44 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Double XP has ended Sadly, all good things must come to an end, and so has Double XP. Remember to +1 the IronRealms.com website if you haven't already, as there will be another Double XP week when we hit 1,000 +1s! Penned by my hand on the 44th of Wochem, in the year 22. ANNOUNCE NEWS #301 Date: 10/8/2011 at 0:17 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Hush Hush is now a capturable area. Unlike the other areas, it is slightly different in that capturing it requires slaying an NPC captain stationed there, that is loyal to the controlling city. Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Agaeis, in the year 22. ANNOUNCE NEWS #302 Date: 10/11/2011 at 5:28 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Soldiers In order to bring the number of Soldier abilities up to par with other classes, 9 new abilities have been added: Abilities added to Arms: - Enervating Jab - Rupture - Mutilating Hack - Enfeeble - Wildstrike Abilities added to Warcraft: - Tenacity - Champion of War - Determination - Shattering Blows In addition, the order of several Arms skills (notably Sunder Armor) has changed. It is also worth noting that the Cut Tendons affliction now stacks up to 3 times. I have also updated HELP AFFLICTIONS with the two new afflictions introduced by this update. Penned by my hand on the 29th of Agaeis, in the year 22. ANNOUNCE NEWS #303 Date: 10/13/2011 at 0:06 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Medal of Expanded Memory There is a new artifact, the Medal of Expanded Memory (shortname: listsize). It costs 50 credits, and increases the number of allies and enemies you may have by 10. Penned by my hand on the 6th of Yamiev, in the year 22. ANNOUNCE NEWS #304 Date: 10/21/2011 at 18:23 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Crash! Sorry about the crash! It was some faulty code I uploaded. Since it was my fault, I am turning on a 50% XP bonus for the next 24 hours. Have fun! Penned by my hand on the 7th of Rodec, in the year 23. ANNOUNCE NEWS #305 Date: 10/25/2011 at 16:41 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Blackwood Hollow That witching time of year is upon us again, and with it, the mists in the Dimwood have parted to reveal the haunted village of Blackwood Hollow. Blackwood Hollow has new quests and things to explore this year, in addition to last year's favorites, and will remain open until the 1st of November. I also want to point out that there is an honors line to be had in the area that nobody managed to earn last year. Perhaps someone this year will be the first! Penned by my hand on the 1st of Wochem, in the year 23. ANNOUNCE NEWS #306 Date: 10/28/2011 at 17:55 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Psionics Preview As an early Halloween treat, I have updated the Psionics preview on the forums with the full AB files of the next two skills beyond Mindblast and Mind Meld in Psionics. Check it out: http://forums.midkemiaonline.com/index.php?/topic/2198-skill-preview-psionics/ Penned by my hand on the 25th of Wochem, in the year 23. ANNOUNCE NEWS #307 Date: 10/29/2011 at 2:19 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Happy Halloween, Episode II: The Pumpkins Strike Back The witch of Blackwood Hollow, fed up with attempts by Midkemians to interfere in her plots yet again, has unleashed her horrible sorcery to animate the pumpkins of the Hollow and set them loose upon Midkemia! The pumpkins, fed up with long years of being made into pie by the wealthiest 1% of Midkemians, have decided to occupy Midkemia (and they're not taking no for an answer)! These pumpkins are worth double the experience of a normal creature, and also have a nasty habit of multiplying. Watch for the tell-tale maniacal shrieks that herald the appearance of these dreadful pumpkins. Penned by my hand on the 28th of Wochem, in the year 23. ANNOUNCE NEWS #308 Date: 10/29/2011 at 23:28 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Exploration Ranking Update I've investigated the bug with resetting exploration rankings, and I have some good news and some bad news. First, the bad news: I have discovered what caused it, and I have corrected the problem to make sure it never happens again. What happened is that I stumbled across some old, harmless code that we have never used before. It allows gods to log their daily activity to keep track of what they are doing, and was written in the pre-Ishap era of Midkemia. It looked harmless enough, and I was testing it out to see if it might be useful for our team (Note: This is a bad idea on the production server). What I did not realize is that it was written poorly and did not respect the tree structure of our database file system in which it stored these logs. When I cleared the activity log, rather than clearing my log, it wiped out the entire directory in which these logs reside. It also happens to be the directory where exploration information is stored, along with some other files that are not relevant to players. It took a few days to link the two together since exploration data is not updated until a player logs in and starts wandering around. So next I went to grab a backup copy of the data to try to restore those specific exploration files that had been lost. It turns out that the backups of this particular data had not been stored properly, also since the pre-Ishap era. It is pretty much the perform storm of bad things to happen. What it ultimately means it that the exploration data is non-recoverable. Players will simply have to re-explore the world to restore their exploration ranking (though as a minor upshot you will gain that exploration experience over again as well). So, what happens next? That is a good question, and also where I have some good news. First, I have to apologize that this occurred. It won't happen again since the offending code has been corrected, and we are always very, very careful when implementing any code that deals with the database file structure itself. Ultimately it is my fault since I ran the command that wiped the data. Second, I have ensured that the backups are now properly storing this information, so that in the unlikely event that it were to ever happen again, it would be restorable. Third, I know that it is a big hit for those players who had painstakingly explored every hidden nook and cranny across Midkemia. Because of that, I have implemented a new, permanent reward for players who achieve the rank of Midkemian Riftwalker. The reward is very good, related to exploration, and will come enclosed in a letter from the Fellowship of Explorers congratulating you on your achievement when you next return to your home city (you can go to a post office and retrieve your mail if you don't want to wait). I will leave the reward a mystery for now, since uncovering what is new or hidden is part of the fun of exploration, but I am sure you will enjoy it. Please email me if you have any questions or concerns about this update (though I will not be able to restore anyone's explorer rank). Again, I really apologize, but I hope you will find the new reward for Riftwalker exciting and worthwhile! Penned by my hand on the 35th of Wochem, in the year 23. ANNOUNCE NEWS #309 Date: 11/1/2011 at 1:03 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Histories and Backgrounds Histories and Backgrounds are now able to be written and viewed, as per HELP HISTORY, just in time for NaNoWriMo. Happy writing! Penned by my hand on the 6th of Nuna, in the year 23. ANNOUNCE NEWS #310 Date: 11/2/2011 at 17:57 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: November Promotions A new month is upon us, and it brings new promotions! Nov 1 - 30: A free spin upon the Wheel of Chance each day, awarding random prizes! Nov 1 - 15: Each credit purchase is accompanied by a free random present from Ironbeard! You will get 1 present for every 100 credits you purchase, though you will always receive at least one. Nov 5 - 20: We are going to run an artifact auction, starting on November 5th! Stay tuned for the exciting items to be auctioned! Penned by my hand on the 8th of Agaeis, in the year 23. ANNOUNCE NEWS #311 Date: 11/2/2011 at 18:16 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Support Emails Hey all, It looks like in the transition to the new email hosting service (we moved over to Gmail), support emails were not always forwarded properly. I have replied to a few of them, but if you have not heard from support regarding something that is still oustanding, re-email and I will be sure it is resolved. Thanks! Penned by my hand on the 8th of Agaeis, in the year 23. ANNOUNCE NEWS #312 Date: 11/13/2011 at 19:56 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Downtime for RAM Upgrade We will have about an hour of downtime tonight, between 11pm and midnight PST, for a scheduled RAM upgrade to try and address some of the lag that occurs when we perform our hourly backups. Penned by my hand on the 9th of Kimia, in the year 24. ANNOUNCE NEWS #313 Date: 11/14/2011 at 9:26 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: RAM Upgrade Complete The RAM upgrade was completed tonight, and it does look like it has made a difference in the time it takes to perform backups, so hopefully it will lead to a more enjoyable and less-laggy Midkemia! Penned by my hand on the 13th of Kimia, in the year 24. ANNOUNCE NEWS #314 Date: 11/18/2011 at 5:57 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Stardock, Psionics, and Arcana The Academy at Stardock is now open to new members! There is a ferry from Stardock Town that travels to and from the Academy, and members can seek out the Keeper of Initiates to join. Be aware before you rush out to join that Stardock's progression system is unlike any other guild, and is more RP and quest-centric than most guilds. The role of a new student in particular is very low on the totem pole, and comes with a number of restrictions. With this, the Psionics skillset is now also available to Magicians! It is taught by the Keeper of Initiates in Stardock. The skill is open to all Magicians, but members of Stardock are more adept at using it. In addition, as part of the event leading up to the release of Stardock, a new skill has been added to Arcana: Warp Sense. This skill, and the randomly forming warps, are a permanent new feature of Arcana. I leave it up to you to theorize about the nature of the warps and what causes them to form! Penned by my hand on the 1st of Natinica, in the year 24. ANNOUNCE NEWS #315 Date: 11/24/2011 at 0:13 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Great Hunt and Double XP! In celebration of Thanksgiving, when most of our US players have the long weekend off, we are running a Great Hunt all weekend, with hunters roaming the lands in honor of the Red-Jawed Hunter and claiming credit prizes! It will run from right now (Thursday GMT) until 23:59 GMT Sunday night! And to top it off, there will be DOUBLE XP during the entire Great Hunt! Happy Thanksgiving, and happy hunting! Penned by my hand on the 35th of Wochem, in the year 24. ANNOUNCE NEWS #316 Date: 11/28/2011 at 17:32 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Great Hunt Winners! Congrats to the Great Hunt winners from this weekend, who took home a bevy of credit prizes! Here are the final rankings: ****************************[ TOP TEN (Level 99+) ]**************************** Rank Name Kills ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Ugralitan 22988 2. Radakail 21950 3. Lilah 14040 4. Grin 12556 5. Narcissus 8197 6. Janatris 7668 7. Arashi 5133 8. Aritaelis 4531 9. Roma 3720 10. Ashra 568 ******************************************************************************* **************************[ TOP TEN (Level 60 - 98) ]************************** Rank Name Kills ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Uhntis 30000 2. Ran 22223 3. Olbiad 21464 4. Azlee 19328 5. Rykelle 13730 6. Leviath 12230 7. Vilnearo 11818 8. Murkistad 10035 9. Hawke 8645 10. Savil 7100 ******************************************************************************* *************************[ TOP TEN (Under Level 60) ]************************** Rank Name Kills ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. Fudkin 4120 2. Aneurin 2727 3. Brandis 2299 4. Aldo 1763 5. Stalaenaya 1632 6. Selin 1195 7. Shanie 951 8. Nasreen 719 9. Dras 411 10. Calais 334 ******************************************************************************* Penned by my hand on the 16th of Agaeis, in the year 24. ANNOUNCE NEWS #317 Date: 12/2/2011 at 17:17 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: 30% Winter Credit Sale! I am excited to announce that we are running a HUGE 30% CREDIT SALE throughout the month of December, just in time for the holidays! That is an unprecedented and huge discount on credits! For example, - if you buy 100 credits, you get 130 - if you buy 500 credits, you get 650 - if you buy 1000 credits, you get 1300 - if you buy 2000 credits, you get 2600 That's a crazy amount of extra credits and bang for your buck. And there's one more thing as well. You have probably noticed that we are running a 21-day login promotion through the month. Log in for 21 days in December, and you will receive three free holiday giftbags, which contain totally random presents, ranging from a few copper to the most expensive artifacts out there. So be sure to log in! Penned by my hand on the 11th of Yamiev, in the year 24. ANNOUNCE NEWS #318 Date: 12/3/2011 at 20:33 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Test of the New Forums Hey all, We are testing out our new forums here: http://staging.midkemiaonline.com/forum Please check them out and offer your feedback. There is a thread on those forums for your comments: http://staging.midkemiaonline.com/forum/help-test-and-post-bugs-suggestions-here Thanks! Penned by my hand on the 9th of Dzanin, in the year 24. ANNOUNCE NEWS #319 Date: 12/18/2011 at 20:38 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Red Cross Donation In the spirit of holiday giving, I'm pleased to announce that we are donating 10% of all our revenue, including from both stand-alone credit purchases and membership renewals, from now until the 30th of December to the Red Cross. Happy holidays! Penned by my hand on the 34th of Wochem, in the year 25. ANNOUNCE NEWS #320 Date: 12/24/2011 at 2:29 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Forums Just as an update, we are waiting on the forum hosting company to get the forums back up and running. I assume they are a little slow due to the holidays. In the meantime, this is a good opportunity to check out the new test version of the forums on our website: http://drupal.midkemiaonline.com/forum Penned by my hand on the 19th of Agaeis, in the year 25. ANNOUNCE NEWS #321 Date: 12/29/2011 at 5:02 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: December Login Reward Item I've been talking to a few players, and it's been pointed out to me that the other Iron Realms games have awarded a significantly better reward for the December Login Days item than we have. To this end, I have decided that we will change our item to better match the other games. Everyone who has already won the Login Days reward will receive this new item on top of any reward you have already received. The new item is a permanent, resetting Riftkey, which can be used to activate the new Rift machines that are located in all of the player cities. Activating the riftkey, by doing ACTIVATE RIFTKEY, will open a Rift to the Mac Mordain Cadal. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 11th of Dzanin, in the year 25. ANNOUNCE NEWS #322 Date: 12/29/2011 at 22:51 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Ishap's On Vacation! Hey all, I will be out of town on vacation for the next week. I'll most likely be unable to answer any emails or messages since I will be trying to escape civilization, and internet access will be spotty or non-existent. If something needs my attention, it will probably have to wait until I get back. But never fear, the rest of the Gods will still be here to handle any regular issues and keep things running smoothly until I get back. See you in a week! Penned by my hand on the 17th of Dzanin, in the year 25. ANNOUNCE NEWS #323 Date: 1/1/2012 at 1:27 From: Kaxiya To : Everyone Subj: Happy New Year! As 2012 begins, we have a couple special announcements for you! The winter credit sale is continuing until January 15 - a 30% bonus to all purchases! Remember, Iron Elite members get an additional 10% bonus on top of that! We also have a special login promotion throughout January that gives you the opportunity to earn up to double experience! Every day that you log in, you get a small bonus to your experience gain for that day. This effect builds each additional day as follows: Day 1: 10% bonus Day 2: 20% bonus Day 3: 30% bonus Day 4: 40% bonus Day 5: 50% bonus Day 6: 75% bonus Day 7: 100% bonus At the end of the 7th day (or if you miss a day), you'll restart at Day 1, with 10%. Be sure to log in daily to maximize your bonus! Enjoy, and have a very happy new year! Penned by my hand on the 34th of Dzanin, in the year 25. ANNOUNCE NEWS #324 Date: 1/13/2012 at 17:17 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Credit Sale Ending! As a reminder, our huge credit sale is ending in 2 days! This is your last chance to get in on the 30% bonus credits (40% if you are an Iron Elite member)! If you haven't taken advantage of the sale yet, be sure to do so before January 15th, when it will end. Penned by my hand on the 40th of Wochem, in the year 26. ANNOUNCE NEWS #325 Date: 1/15/2012 at 2:03 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Birthday XP! Today's my birthday, so to celebrate I'm turning on double XP for the next 24 hours! Midkemia Online is a huge part of my life, and so are you! I hope you continue to enjoy playing as much as I enjoy creating it. Penned by my hand on the 5th of Nuna, in the year 26. ANNOUNCE NEWS #326 Date: 1/20/2012 at 23:41 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Lesson Sale! Midkemia is running a short Lesson Sale through the end of January! We're offering special lesson packages that give better rates than buying credits and converting them into lessons, making them perfect for learning your class abilities or picking up a new specialization thanks to a memory magician. You can find the lesson packages under the credit section of the website. Penned by my hand on the 5th of Yamiev, in the year 26. ANNOUNCE NEWS #327 Date: 1/23/2012 at 3:04 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Coaches There are now coaches in all the player cities, as well as in all of the conquerable villages, with the exception of Caldara. A coach allows travel (similar to a ferry) between other coach stops, but with a few limitations: you can only travel to coach stops that your city owns, or that are neutral (currently, there are no neutral coach stops). Being enemied to a village will also prevent you from using their coach stop or traveling to it, and you cannot travel to player cities other than your own (though you may use their coach stop to leave the city if you are not a city enemy). Hopefully it should make roving about the land a little bit easier for those players who don't enjoy long horse rides or begging magicians for a Rift. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 11th of Dzanin, in the year 26. ANNOUNCE NEWS #328 Date: 1/24/2012 at 0:20 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Realms Internship Opportunity Iron Realms Internships and Volunteer Positions We are currently looking for people interested in internship or volunteer positions, working on the Iron Realms websites and game clients. As these positions are voluntary, previous working experience is not required, but will allow you to get experience for a games company. However, we cannot train you in the basics of the following positions. You would be working directly with Jeremy Saunders and a team of 3 to 4 people. If you are interested please read the descriptions below, and send an email to jeremy@ironrealms.com with your name, experience, and what IRE game you are currently playing. Positions: Web Developer ------------- We are looking for one or more people with experience with CSS/HTML to help maintain, develop, and improve the main IRE and individual game sites. This mainly revolves around working with the current themes in place on all the IRE websites, in addition to updating the Aetolia and Imperian websites. This also includes a mobile theme that will be shared across the IRE sites. Drupal, PHP, and Javascript experience is a big bonus. Flash Developer --------------- We are looking for someone with experience working with Flash to make significant improvements to our Flash Client. Java Developer -------------- We are looking for someone who has experience with Java and can handle making significant improvements to our current Nexus client. If you are interested, email jeremy@ironrealms.com with your name, experience, and your game/character name. Penned by my hand on the 18th of Dzanin, in the year 26. ANNOUNCE NEWS #329 Date: 1/26/2012 at 6:03 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Drupal Forum While our forums are temporarily down, remember that we have the test forums on the Drupal site that are still up: http://drupal.midkemiaonline.com/forum Penned by my hand on the 36th of Dzanin, in the year 26. ANNOUNCE NEWS #330 Date: 2/1/2012 at 0:27 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: February Promotions We're going to keep 2012 going strong with some new promotions for February! First off, I'm excited to announce that the Lesson Sale is being extended through February 15th! You can keep stocking up on those lessons for use at the memory magician, for learning a new trade skill or specialization, or simply rounding out your existing skills. You can check out the lesson packages here: http://www.midkemiaonline.com/credits.php?page=lessons - Tuesdays are Iron Lottery Tuesdays, where mobs will randomly drop tickest, and gaining XP in quests may also award you tickets. - Thursdays are Critical Hit Days, where you gain the benefit of increased critical hits, stacking with any critical hit artifacts you may own. - We are going to have a special Valentine's Day promotion from February 13th - 17th, but I'm going to wait until we're closer to the holiday to announce all the details. Happy February, and thanks for playing! Penned by my hand on the 9th of Staphron, in the year 27. ANNOUNCE NEWS #331 Date: 2/1/2012 at 6:54 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: A Crown Imperilled Subforum I've added a new subforum to the forums for the new Feist book: A Crown Imperilled. Please try to limit any discussion regarding the new book to this forum so as to avoid spoilers on the rest of the forums (especially since it's only been released in certain countries right now). Penned by my hand on the 1st of Natinica, in the year 27. ANNOUNCE NEWS #332 Date: 2/11/2012 at 21:21 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Clothing Layers, OrgHelp Directories We're proud to announce today the introduction of several new features to Midkemia! The following can be found covered in greater depth in the new HELP CLOTHING scroll: - All clothing now occupies a position including both a layer and a location. This allows wearing of multiple, stacking clothing for those really dislike the winter's chill! - This intuitive mode of stacking clothing allows us to introduce item durability now, with greater precision than was previously possible. Each attack on your person will target either a specific portion of your body or a random portion if none is specificed. This attack will damage any item in that slot, stopping at the first sign of armor. For example, if you are wearing a robe over a set of plate armor with a tunic beneath, only the robe and breastplate will lose durability. A proofed robe, for Priests and Magicians, counts as armor. - You can now GL/GLANCE to see only their race, what they are wearing, and wielding. If you wish to see all of this and their description - the L command remains available. - Under the CONFIG options you now have the ability to turn LISTPEOPLE to shorten the appearence of players in the room. A room with five players may appear something like: Ishap, Nalar, Banath, Guis-wan and Astalon are here. Note: In actuality, Gods are not affected by the conncatenation and will appear in the room as per usual, regardless of the setting. Along with this, an entirely unrelated feature has been added to organizational help known as 'help folders'. More information can be found in HELP ORGHELP but a following is a summary of the changes: - You can now create help folders, which must have at least one scroll in them at all times. - You cannot create folders within folders. - You may set permissions for a folder such that its contents can only be viewed by those who meet the requirements, with seperate permissions for those who can edit the content. - The creation of folders, even if they are covered by editing permissions, still requires the organizational permission to edit scrolls. This is different per organization. - If a folder's contents cannot be viewed, the folder will still be displayed, though coloured differently. - A list of the following options are available for permissions: council, leader, positions, aides to positions, specific ranks, and rank groups. Penned by my hand on the 17th of Agaeis, in the year 27. ANNOUNCE NEWS #333 Date: 2/11/2012 at 23:53 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Writs and Nighthawks Today we're releasing some big, under-the-hood changes to the functionality of our Nighthawk system. You will now be able to modify your writ, requesting punishments that, if the writ is successful, will result in maluses to the target - ranging from aesthetic disfigurement to the equivalent of a disfavor. Note that these will scale the cost of the writ, making it more expensive if you do not have a fair reason (in Mother Night's eyes) to be taking it out! HELP VENGEANCE explains this in greater detail. And with this, there have been some changes to the functionality of Nighthawks, including the removal of NPC Nighthawks. What the changes are will be left for the unfortunate to discover. Penned by my hand on the 17th of Agaeis, in the year 27. ANNOUNCE NEWS #334 Date: 2/12/2012 at 3:46 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Lottery Winners Congrats to this week's Iron Lottery winners: Prizes: 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 39002, owned by Althaea (claimed) 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 39702, owned by Rapsody (claimed) 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 39377, owned by Saithe (claimed) 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 39778, owned by Tora (claimed) 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 39607, owned by Savil (claimed) 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 39006, owned by Fudkin (claimed) 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 40068, owned by Hawke (claimed) 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 40704, owned by Ceralin (claimed) 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 39197, owned by Ceralin (claimed) 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 39308, owned by Ceile (claimed) Penned by my hand on the 19th of Agaeis, in the year 27. ANNOUNCE NEWS #335 Date: 2/16/2012 at 2:15 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Iron Lottery Winners Congrats to this week's Iron Lottery winners: 1. 10 Credits. Winning ticket: 42549, owned by Melody (claimed) 2. 20 Credits. Winning ticket: 41284, owned by Malapardis (claimed) 3. 30 Credits. Winning ticket: 42101, owned by Roma (claimed) 4. 40 Credits. Winning ticket: 41248, owned by Barathrum (claimed) 5. 50 Credits. Winning ticket: 41671, owned by Hawke (claimed) 6. 60 Credits. Winning ticket: 41725, owned by Roma (claimed) 7. 70 Credits. Winning ticket: 41996, owned by Erwing (claimed) 8. 80 Credits. Winning ticket: 41304, owned by Dobbas (claimed) 9. 90 Credits. Winning ticket: 41529, owned by Macalla (claimed) 10. 100 Credits. Winning ticket: 42104, owned by Roma (claimed) Penned by my hand on the 2nd of Dzanin, in the year 27. ANNOUNCE NEWS #336 Date: 3/6/2012 at 14:51 From: Adrasteia, Administrator of the Guides To : Everyone Subj: Call for Guides! We're looking for experienced players to volunteer as Guides for Midkemia Online! Guides are unique characters (Carpo, Thallo, and Auxesia) who exist solely to help newbies acclimate to Midkemia. Joining our world for the first time can be a challenging and daunting experience. Guides step forward to help answer questions and orient newbies on their first steps. In order to be a guide: - You must be at least level 50 - You must have a total of 300 RL playing hours If you are interested in volunteering, please send an email to guides@midkemiaonline.com with the following: - The subject "Guide Application" - Your real-life name - Your character(s) - Any experience that recommends you as a potential Guide - Why you want to be a Guide Guides must be willing to commit an average of 3 hours per week Guiding, to help ensure that Guides are available for newbies when they have questions. We expect to start sending responses in about a week, so get those applications in! Adrasteia, Administrator of the Guides Penned by my hand on the 6th of Agaeis, in the year 28. ANNOUNCE NEWS #337 Date: 3/8/2012 at 2:25 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Skill Preview: Swordmastery I have posted a preview of a forthcoming skillset, Swordmastery, on the forums. Check it out here: http://www.midkemiaonline.com/forum/skill-preview-swordmastery Penned by my hand on the 18th of Agaeis, in the year 28. ANNOUNCE NEWS #338 Date: 3/12/2012 at 15:21 From: Adrasteia, Administrator of the Guides To : Everyone Subj: Guide applications now closed! Guide applications have now been closed. We received a large number of qualified applications but unfortunately, can only accept a small number at this time. Thank you for your interest! Penned by my hand on the 6th of Dzanin, in the year 28. ANNOUNCE NEWS #339 Date: 3/13/2012 at 21:37 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Caches of Ruthia's Bounty As you are no doubt aware, we are currently running a direct artifact sale on the website (www.midkemiaonline.com/Credits). We have added Caches of Ruthia's Bounty, whose contents are completely randomized, for $4.99. When opened, the contents can include gold, credits, vanity pets, mounts, stat resets, curestones that restore all health and heal all afflictions when touched, and any artifact in the game - among other things. You will always get something in every Cache, but as to what it is - that is the providence of Ruthia Herself! (Perhaps prayers to her improve your chances of getting something amazing? Perhaps not? Who can say!) You can buy the Caches in batches of 1, 15, or 30. Be aware, if you are intending to buy several, that you are limited by our payment processor to roughly 1 purchase an hour as a fraud protection measure, so buying in batches is your best bet (not least of which is because you get more for your money that way). These Caches will only be available until the end of the month, so good luck! Penned by my hand on the 16th of Dzanin, in the year 28. ANNOUNCE NEWS #340 Date: 3/19/2012 at 17:29 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Downtime We had a brief bit of downtime today while we upgraded to a new version of Rapture. It unexpectedly occurred earlier than planned, so I apologize that it was not announced in advance. This version brings no new visible changes (yet), but provides necessary support for backend systems still under development. Penned by my hand on the 5th of Rodec, in the year 29. ANNOUNCE NEWS #341 Date: 3/20/2012 at 21:30 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Token Shop Updates I have added a few fun new items to the Token Shop in Port Natal: o Banath's silk thread (5 tokens): This thread allows you to SEW WITH , and will make it so that only you can open the container. The silk thread is consumed in the process. o Manuscript of Voice Training (10 tokens): This manuscript allows you to VOICETRAIN your voice to set an accent that appears whenever you speak. The manuscript is consumed in the process. You can VOICETRAIN CLEAR ACCENT at any time to remove your accent, but this is a permanent change. The accent is subject to Admin review, who may revoke the accent at any time with no reimbursement if it is deemed inappropriate or if the grammar is terrible, so double-check before setting your accent. Using the VOICECRAFT SET command will show you how the accent will look before prompting you to confirm the change. o Charm of Ishapian Grace (5 tokens): This charm allows you to AGESET once to permanently change your age to any age allowed by your race. The charm is consumed in the process. o A dragon-engraved cannister of fireworks (1 token): This cannister of fireworks can be shot (SHOOT) or fired (FIRE) to create a display of fireworks seen by everyone in the world. Don't get caught in the blast! The fireworks are consumed when shot. I have also significantly reduced the prices on all currently existing items in the shop. We will be adding several more fun, new items to the shop next month, so look forward to that! Penned by my hand on the 14th of Rodec, in the year 29. ANNOUNCE NEWS #342 Date: 3/21/2012 at 17:16 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Artisanal and Bardic Contests Starting In April I'm pleased to finally announce that we are going to start up the Bardic and Artisanal Contests in April, now that the long-promised website redesign is done! I'm giving you a little bit of early notice to get those creative juices flowing. For those who do not know what the Bardic and Artisanal Contests are: every month, you can submit a piece of original artwork, and a piece of original poetry or prose on the website to be judged by an independent panel of administrators. A winner and a runner-up will be selected, occasionally along with a few meritorious mentions. The winner will receive credits, along with an honors line indicating his or her rank in the Artisanal or Bardic Council. This rank increases over time the more one wins. A few notes on judging: Midkemia Online is a fantasy world, but we don't want to see generic fantasy pieces. We are most receptive to those pieces that really emphasize the unique story, world and people in the mythos (both lore-wise and game-wise). An obligatory note on plagiarism: It is forbidden, and it is easy to catch. If we discover that your entry is plagiarized, all of your characters will be permanently shrubbed with zero chance of appeal. This is true whether we discover it right away, or six months or two years later. In short: don't do it. We want to see YOUR work and creativity, not someone else's. I will post more details about submitting works for these contests when April starts. Cheers! Penned by my hand on the 5th of Staphron, in the year 29. ANNOUNCE NEWS #343 Date: 3/21/2012 at 18:09 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Referendum: Ruthia's Caches I have opened a short referendum on one of the items in Ruthia's Caches (referendum 1). Please offer your input! Thanks! Penned by my hand on the 6th of Staphron, in the year 29. ANNOUNCE NEWS #344 Date: 3/21/2012 at 20:38 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Red Cross Donation Thanks to everyone who purchased credits during December! In all, we managed to raise about $4600 for the Red Cross across all the Iron Realms games! Penned by my hand on the 6th of Staphron, in the year 29. ANNOUNCE NEWS #345 Date: 3/22/2012 at 17:01 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Caches of Ruthia's Bounty (Update) I've removed the non-stacking stat reset from the Caches of Ruthia's Bounty and replace it with 5 credits, since the results of the referendum were about 1-to-1 in favor of removing it, but half of those not in favor were undecided/indifferent. Penned by my hand on the 3rd of Natinica, in the year 29. ANNOUNCE NEWS #346 Date: 3/29/2012 at 10:35 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Order Overhaul We have completely overhauled how Holy Orders work, making them into more autonomous organizations that better reflect the lore of Midkemia Online, as well as provide a lot of exciting new options for roleplaying and conflict between Orders. The most exciting part of this change is that Orders are now player-created organizations! Any group of players can get together and decide to form a Cult to venerate one of the Gods. You will need at least 5 players committed to joining the Cult to create a successful Cult. Cults are largely powerless organizations, and have no Order powers, no shrines, no access to the Priest tertiary skillset of the Order, and can only gain essence by converting denizens to their God (more on this below). They must develop a philosophy for the worship of their God, as well as gain essence and members. There is a daily upkeep cost for the Cult, and any Cult that loses all its essence or its members will be dissolved. When they are ready, they can beseech the God to make them into a fully-fledged Sect (what all the current Orders are). If the philosophy of the Cult is deemed appropriate and sufficient, and they have met the other requirements, they will be granted this boon. It is important to note that we are looking for a high standard of roleplay and lore from the Cult, and that the Cult's philosophy is sufficiently distinct from any other Sects. This grants access to normal Order privileges, which can be unlocked by spending essence. Sects still have a daily upkeep, and if all their essence is lost then they will revert into a meager Cult. We have also introduced a couple of new, really cool features to Order with this change: - You can non-violently convert mobs to your God, awarding you experience and communion, in a short logic puzzle mini-game. CONVERT will show you how to do this. Be warned that failing will result in XP/communion loss, though not as much as success awards. The Faith skillset has a new skill, Holy Missionary, that grants Priests a minor advantage in this game. - Offering at shrines, and converting mobs, grants Communion, which appears in your GODFEELINGS. You can BESEECH FAVOR to automatically be granted a divine favor from your Deity, the strength of which is based on your Communion. You no longer need to wait for your God to dole out favors, and each God's awards for offerings are now the same, so there's no inequality between Orders. Gods may still dole out favors/disfavors in the normal course of roleplaying, of course. - All Sects and Cults are now democratic! Yes, your Cult or Sect may now continue even if your Deity has slipped into inactivity or has decided to hide their presence from mortals for a time. The level of direct influence your Deity may wish to exert over your Sect or Cult is entirely up to that God, but the Order Head is always elected democratically. The Order Head may customize the powers available at any given rank in an Order. - In a similar vein, while a God may still directly appoint persons to a specific Order rank, rank is now primarily gained and lost by earning the favor or disfavor of other Order members. The strength of the favor or disfavor is dependent upon the Order rank of the person doing the favoring, and costs Communion. - Orders may now construct their own temples, provided they have enough essence. Many commands have changed, and please refer to HELP ORDERS, HELP CULTS, HELP SECTS, and HELP COMMUNION for information about these changes. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 45th of Wochem, in the year 29. ANNOUNCE NEWS #347 Date: 3/30/2012 at 20:41 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Org Tell History I've added a log that tracks the last 10 org-tells made on any given org channel. The command to access it is HISTORY . Note that for secret orgs, you must have the "secrets" priv in order to read the log. Currently, this does not track "extra" channels like GNT and GTS. I am thinking GTS should purposefully be excluded since it's the secret channel, but if anyone feels that GNT should be added to the history, start up a forum thread and we'll see how other players feel. Penned by my hand on the 10th of Nuna, in the year 29. ANNOUNCE NEWS #348 Date: 4/1/2012 at 18:23 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: New PK Rules We've had a lot of problems with our lax PK rules lately, and it's left some players understandably frustrated by being too vague. This can lead to players feel like they are dealing with an unpredictable issues system, and they are never sure whether their PK is "ok" or "not ok". A player who is attacked is also never exactly sure what they should do, or how they should write an issue to get the problem resolved. We have heard you loud and clear! In order to help clear up the confusion, I have thoroughly updated HELP PK to detail more clearly what is and is not allowed. I think this will address all the criticisms we hear about our PK rules, and I am really happy with the work we have done on it. This will be our new guidelines for PK going forward. It applies to all PK, including Siege Battlegrounds and village capturing. Please read it thoroughly and ensure you memorize the rules (I personally recommend printing off a copy to keep by your computer at all times as a handy and easy reference) before you engage in PK. Penned by my hand on the 15th of Agaeis, in the year 29. ANNOUNCE NEWS #349 Date: 4/2/2012 at 23:53 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: New Flash and HTML5 Client Testing We are working on a new version of our Flash client, and also on a completely new HTML5 client (I have played around with it a little bit, and it is pretty nice!) We are looking for help testing these two new clients. Note that the HTML5 client is not yet skinned, so it will look pretty plain. CLIENT LOCATIONS ---------------- Flash is here: http://www.ironrealms.com/flash/test/ire.html HTML5 is here: http://client.midkemiaonline.com Please test them and send in your feedback! PROVIDING FEEDBACK ------------------ HTML5: There is a feedback link in the top right of the client. Flash: Mail info to flash@ironrealms.com Please report everything and anything that you can break, you do not like layout wise, the functions poorly, etc. For things that break please include directions on how to break it. Penned by my hand on the 24th of Agaeis, in the year 29. ANNOUNCE NEWS #350 Date: 4/3/2012 at 1:25 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: April Promotions Now that we've kicked April off with our exciting new PK rules (OK, so maybe they were an April Fool's Joke, and the real PK rules are back), we're running a new set of promotions for April! First, we're going to extend the Caches of Ruthia's Bounty sale through the 15th of the month! We are also running a 21-day LOGINDAYS promotions for the month, that will reward you with 3 Ishapian Tokens. As you may remember, these are now tradeable to other players, and we have added new items to the Token Shop (with more on the way). We're also scheduling a Great Hunt, with the associated credit prizes and double experience, for the weekend of April 29th and 30th! Penned by my hand on the 25th of Agaeis, in the year 29. ANNOUNCE NEWS #351 Date: 4/11/2012 at 17:19 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Artisanal and Bardic Contests Just a reminder that since it's April, we are running our first-ever Bardic and Artisanal contests! HELP ARTBARD explains how to submit entries into this contest and the rewards, as well as the rules of the contest. You can submit your entries, or view entries, here on the web: http://www.midkemiaonline.com/artbard I'm looking forward to seeing the creativity and works of our players! Penned by my hand on the 6th of Kimia, in the year 30. ANNOUNCE NEWS #352 Date: 4/20/2012 at 16:55 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Auctions Just a reminder that new AUCTIONS are here! We are auctioning off an assortment of entirely new artifacts this time around! None of these have been seen before, and some may never be offered again! The auctions will remain open for a little under two weeks, so be sure to get your bets in. HELP AUCTIONS explains how to bid on auctions. Penned by my hand on the 23rd of Wochem, in the year 30. ANNOUNCE NEWS #353 Date: 4/22/2012 at 22:42 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Artisanal and Bardic Reminder Just a reminder that there are only 8 more days to submit entries into our first-ever Artisanal and Bardic contests! Also remember that if you have created a "draft" piece, you need to officially submit it before it's entered into the contest. I'm looking forward to seeing all the entries! Penned by my hand on the 41st of Wochem, in the year 30. ANNOUNCE NEWS #354 Date: 4/26/2012 at 1:00 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: New Token Wares New Token wares have been added to the Emporium of Wonders in Port Natal! In addition, we have added HELP TOKEN SHOP, which lists the wares and their effects. Here are the new items: - Dwarven Mining Rune: You can ATTACH RUNE TO to grant that mining pick the chance to produce two commodities instead of one when mining a resource node. - Goblin Felling Rune: You can ATTACH RUNE TO to grant that ax the chance to produce two commodities instead of one when chopping a resource node. - Herdmaster's Horn: With a herdmaster's horn in your inventory, if you use the whistle skill in Riding, your whistle will recall all your loyal mounts and pets from anywhere in Midkemia, rather than only your mounts in the same area. This destroys the horn. - Killian's Collar of Blessing: You can ATTACH COLLAR TO to protect that mount, once, from death. If you have set a home stable, your mount will flee back to its home stable instead of being killed. This consumes the collar. - Quicksilver Fishing Pole: This fishing pole, in addition to resetting to you, allows you to catch fish more easily. - Scythe of Silban: This scythe, when wielded, gives you a chance to find additional herbs when harvesting. - Supplicant's Blade: A divinely-blessed blade that lets you OFFER corpses from anywhere in the world to your Patron God. You must be in a Sect to use this blade, and the essence gained is less than normal (though your communion remains unchanged), so visiting a shrine is still preferable. Penned by my hand on the 9th of Agaeis, in the year 30. ANNOUNCE NEWS #355 Date: 4/28/2012 at 0:16 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: The Great Hunt Begins! The Great Hunt for this weekend has begun! You will enjoy double experience all weekend long, and have the chance to compete against other Midkemians for credit prizes for the top hunters! The Hunt will run for 2 days, ending Sunday at midnight GMT. See HELP GREAT HUNT for more information. Happy Hunting! Penned by my hand on the 24th of Agaeis, in the year 30. ANNOUNCE NEWS #356 Date: 5/1/2012 at 21:59 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: May Promotion - Artifact Lotteries! May is upon us, and with it come special artifact lotteries! We will have 1 lottery every week, running through Sunday of each week. You can purchase tickets with your coin in Port Natal for 1 gold, and enter for a chance to receive one of several pretty damn amazing prizes. There are 10 prizes, with the top prize being especially spectacular. In addition, when you buy a ticket you will gain either an xp or critical strike bonus of 15%, completely at random. This time does count down while you are offline, but these two bonuses can be maintained simultaneously, and each stacks up to 10 hours of playing time. LOTTERY INFO 1 has the full details, and this week's top prize is both a Great Rune of Constitution and Arms of Ishapian Life, both of which are 2,000 credit artifacts and will boost your health and overdrives considerably (or, if you don't want or need them, just trade them in for the 66% credit tradein value). Good luck! Penned by my hand on the 8th of Dzanin, in the year 30. ANNOUNCE NEWS #357 Date: 5/4/2012 at 2:23 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Swordmastery Swordmastery has been released for the Soldiers of the Queen's Guard! See Events #12 for details. Be aware that this skillset requires cooperation between the Spellweavers and the Queen's Guard to unlock its full potential, and so anyone outside of Elvandar who learns it should not expect it to be nearly as potent. Penned by my hand on the 25th of Dzanin, in the year 30. ANNOUNCE NEWS #358 Date: 5/7/2012 at 18:36 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: 1st Artifact Lottery Winners! Congrats to the winners of this week's Artifact Lottery, and especially to Erwing, who win the grand prize! Prizes: 1. Vigor. Great Rune of Constitution and Arms of Ishapian Life. Winning ticket: 603, owned by Erwing 2. Memory-orb. A Golden Memory-Orb. Winning ticket: 66, owned by Malinx 3. Perception. An Eye of Cosmic Perception. Winning ticket: 343, owned by Roma 4. Blasting. Rune of Vernal Blasting. Winning ticket: 305, owned by Wselwulf 5. Scythe. Scythe of Silban (Token item) Winning ticket: 621, owned by Dobbas 6. Supplicant-blade. Supplicant's Blade (Token item) Winning ticket: 52, owned by Bakstabba 7. Voice-training. Manual of Voice Training (Token item) Winning ticket: 576, owned by Akaxi 8. Killians-collar. Collar of Killian's Blessing (Token item) Winning ticket: 244, owned by Avla 9. Fireworks. 3 Cannisters of Fireworks (Token items) Winning ticket: 752, owned by Grin 10. Pipe. A Dragon-Engraved Pipe (Token item) Winning ticket: 665, owned by Roma Penned by my hand on the 14th of Kimia, in the year 31. ANNOUNCE NEWS #359 Date: 5/10/2012 at 16:55 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Artifact Lottery The weekly Artifact Lottery is here, and the grand prize this week is a permanent denizen somewhere in Midkemia who is part of your family, and will react to you and mention you when greeted. Solidify that legacy forever! There are also a number of other useful and exciting prizes. See LOTTERY 2 to read about them! And, don't forget that buying tickets in this lottery grants you either an XP bonus or a Critical Hit bonus, both of which stack up to 10 hours of playing time. Penned by my hand on the 5th of Staphron, in the year 31. ANNOUNCE NEWS #360 Date: 5/13/2012 at 20:32 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Happy Mother's Day Since it's Mother's Day today, you can enter MOTHERSROCK and receive a complimentary 25 bound credits! Be sure to call your mother and thank her! Penned by my hand on the 8th of Wochem, in the year 31. ANNOUNCE NEWS #361 Date: 5/14/2012 at 22:31 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Thievery Pickpocketing This is in an Announce post rather than a patchnote because it affects all players, and normally I would not go into so much mechanical detail, so please read and be aware: Thievery's Pickpocketing skill has been expanded to allow stealing items as well as coins from other players, to make Thieves legitimate thieves. It has also been mostly re-written functionally, which I will explain below. In addition, Subtlety's Snoop now works against other players (SNOOP ). Here is how Pickpocketing works, for those who are not Thieves and wish to defend themselves: - It is now on an invisible telegraph, similar to how backstab works. It is no longer instant. - It now works in banks. - The amount of coins sold now has a minimum threshold, which is 10 silver, before it starts to become randomized as to how many coins are stolen. - Stealing items triggers the theft cooldown, and all the associated mechanics. Stealing coins does not, as has been the case. - Pickpocketing attempts clear Deepshroud. - The Thief's chance of success is based on his or her skill in Thievery, modified by 1.) whether the Thief is a Mocker, and 2.) whether the victim is carrying the Thief's Thieves' Mark. - The victim's chance of detecting the attempt is no longer based on the victim's skill in Vigilance, since this can be punishing to new(er) players who have not learned a lot of Vigilance. Instead, you have a base chance to detect that was equivalent to Transcendent Vigilance before this change. This base chance is completely negated if you have stupidity. Be aware that Thieves can whisper stupidity to you. This base chance can be improved (essentially doubled) by having Notice active, which is independent of the effects of stupidity. Be aware that Thieves can strip defenses from you. Beyond that, a Pickpocketing attempt will always fail if you are selfish. Be aware that, again, Thieves can strip defenses from you. - The victim always has a chance, increased by Notice, to detect that they have been the victim of a pickpocketing, even if the attempt is successful. If so, they will not know who pickpocketed them, or what was taken, but they will immediately know that it happened. Hopefully this should provide a fun balance between thievery being meaningful and accessible for Thieves, but also defendable and not too rampant. Enjoy! Penned by my hand on the 16th of Wochem, in the year 31. ANNOUNCE NEWS #362 Date: 5/15/2012 at 18:21 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Artifact Lottery #2 Results Congrats to this week's winners, especially to Renatta! Prizes: 1. Denizen. A permanent denizen will be created somewhere in Midkemia who is part of your in-game family, reacts warmly to your character, and will mention you and your family when greeted. Winning ticket: 959, owned by Renatta 2. Society. Win a new society and a societyslot. Winning ticket: 1009, owned by Tora 3. Scholar. Earn knowledge of all currently available mortal languages (excluding special languages such as Valheru). Winning ticket: 879, owned by Grin 4. Striking. Win an Icy Jewel of Striking, which increases your critical hit chance. Winning ticket: 1212, owned by Narcissus 5. Assassin. Win an Assassin's Unseen Mark, which hides your deathsights. Winning ticket: 960, owned by Renatta Penned by my hand on the 23rd of Wochem, in the year 31. ANNOUNCE NEWS #363 Date: 5/17/2012 at 1:16 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Giftbags! As a surprise this month, for the rest of May we are running our Giftbag Promotion! With every purchase, you will receive 1 Giftbag containing an assortment of random goodies, including potentially artifacts, for every 100 credits you purchase. You will always receive at least 1 Giftbag with each purchase. Good luck, and remember to vote for Midkemia! Penned by my hand on the 33rd of Wochem, in the year 31. ANNOUNCE NEWS #364 Date: 5/25/2012 at 17:03 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Weekly Lottery! The final Weekly Lottery is now open, and will remain open until the end of the month! The grand prize is a custom, 10-room estate located in a racially-appropriate village, with a denizen butler, a custom entrance and exit, and a public shop! Take a look at LOTTERY 4 for details of the other prizes as well. Remember that buying tickets in Port Natal grants a temporary XP or Critical Hit boost! Penned by my hand on the 9th of Yamiev, in the year 31. ANNOUNCE NEWS #365 Date: 6/1/2012 at 0:10 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: June Promotions June is now upon us, so the giftbag credit sale has ended! We're introducing tiered credit sale rewards for the month of June, however! Type CREDITSALE to see your current credits purchased, and which of these cumulative rewards you have earned. At 100 credits: 1 Ishapian token At 300 credits: 2 Ishapian tokens At 500 credits: 2 Ishapian tokens At 1000 credits: 5 Ishapian tokens At 2000 credits: 10 Ishapian tokens In addition: - Tuesdays are Double XP days, - Thursdays are Artifact Drop days! Enjoy these great promotions throughout the month! Penned by my hand on the 8th of Kimia, in the year 32. ANNOUNCE NEWS #366 Date: 6/1/2012 at 2:12 From: Ishap, the Matrix To : Everyone Subj: Final Artifact Lottery Results Congratulations to Radakail, who won the grand prize in the final Artifact Lottery, and also to Aritaelis for her several wins! Here are the results in full: Prizes: 1. Estate. A unique 10-room estate, located in a racially-appropriate village, with a butler denizen and special, custom entrance and exit, and public shop. Winning ticket: 2589, owned by Radakail 2. Critical. An Icy Jewel of Striking. Winning ticket: 2537, owned by Wselwulf 3. Constitution. A Minor Rune of Constitution. Winning ticket: 2787, owned by Aritaelis 4. Vault. Banath's Lesser Vault. Winning ticket: 2988, owned by Aritaelis 5. Health. An Emblem of Surging Life. Winning ticket: 3045, owned by Vanna 6. Xp. An Orb of Wild Experience. Winning ticket: 2487, owned by Grin 7. Xp2. An Orb of Wild Experience. Winning ticket: 3096, owned by Tahni 8. Xp3. An Orb of Wild Experience. Winning ticket: 2413, owned by Aritaelis 9. Xp4. An Orb of Wild Experience. Winning ticket: 2521, owned by Nomi 10. Xp5. An Orb of Wild Experience. Winning ticket: 2443, owned by Aritaelis Penned by my hand on the 9th of Kimia, in the year 32.