Happy Holidays!

Be good, be safe, and have fun!

The holiday season is upon us, and however you celebrate, we hope you do it safely. As our way of saying "thank you" we are also currently running a 10% bonus sale on all credit purchases. Just buy whatever amount of credits you wish between now and the end of the sale and you'll automatically get 10% extra, free!

2005
This year saw Iron Realms doing some exciting (for us at least!) new things to make Iron Realms into a stronger presence and make all of our games better for you guys. We created the Iron Realms portal to present a unified front to the world, we replaced the producer of Aetolia (which I apologize for not doing sooner), and it's now doing better than ever. I know I'm really excited about the upcoming werewolf system there. Lusternia, which was very new at the start of 2005, is now an established world with solid in-game cultures. We also began development, finally, on Midkemia Online, our next text MUD, based on the Riftwar books by Raymond E. Feist. We introduced Nexus, giving you guys a free and reasonably pretty client that is quite usable, if not up to the scripting excellence of Zmud yet. We implemented a new web-based building project management system that should help our great builders create better areas more efficiently. And of course, we started up this newsletter!

I considered, briefly, summarizing all the changes made in the Iron Realms worlds during 2005, but the newsletter just doesn't have room for that much! If you'd like to find out, just check out the News sections on the individual game sites, which you can reach from the links on the left.

Voting
I wanted to talk for a minute about how important voting for us is. Topmudsites is one of the most cost-effective ways to get publicity for our games. Publicity means new players, and without new players, MUDs stagnate and die. Then, we all lose.

There is now, or soon will be, a system in every game that allows you to type config voting on. Having this on will allow the MUD to remind you can vote again (and have it count) by sending you a reminder message every half an hour. Once you vote, you won't see those reminders again for 13 hours. There is also a message that gets sent to everybody in the game twice a day, but if you've turned VOTING ON, you will be able to just ignore that message. Anyway, I know voting can be kind of a pain, but it's really helpful to all of our worlds. So please, if you appreciate being able to play without a subscription fee or if you just want to say 'thanks', vote and vote regularly with config voting on to help you remember. If you want to vote right now, just go to www.<game you play>.com/vote and click on the confirmation message.

Closing Thoughts
Finally, I think it's important, since this is a holiday newsletter, to talk for a minute about those less fortunate than us. Between the tsunami at the end of 2004, Hurricane Katrina, and the Pakistan earthquake, you're probably a little tired of hearing about tragedy. A lot of people still need your help though. Please, if you're able, visit the Red Cross's site and donate. Help is particularly needed in Pakistan. Winter is here, and hundreds of thousands of people are still homeless and living outdoors from the disaster.

Just so I don't end on a slightly depressing note, let me once again wish you all Happy Holidays! May there be punch and pie in every home. Most of us will be taking a couple days off this weekend, but I promise you that we will be back at work as soon as possible, trying to give you the best experience we're capable of.

Sincerely,

Matt Mihály
CEO, Iron Realms Entertainment