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Announce News Post #2492

Aetolia: 2015 and beyond

Written by: Razmael, the Synthesist
Date: Sunday, January 3rd, 2016
Addressed to: Everyone


Hi folks,

As we head into a brand new year, I wanted to give you all a quick look at our major plans and ambitions for 2016. But first, I want to take a look back at 2015 and mention some of the bigger things that we accomplished throughout the year.

We expanded on the Foci conflict system with the release of Major Foci, which provides a grander scale of battle than lesser with colossal eld bosses to battle, putting rewards other than ylem at stake. We also saw the release of the Manipulation research tree, which unlocks ways for players to use their ylem reserves for powerful effects. Along with four class liaison rounds over the year bringing various skill updates, there were updates to the Mage classes, the Monk class, the Indorani class, and an overhaul of the Praenomen class. Let's also not forget the facelift given to the Sect of Blades that improved on the system's original concepts. To top off all these combat changes, we also released an overhaul of the server-side Firstaid curing system, bringing it into competitive levels, as well as the new Fluidcache, which stores all your curing liquids in a similar fashion to herbs in your regular cache.

The War of Night was a big event we ran this year and left permanent changes upon the world. The cities of Enorian and Delos were destroyed, both later to be rebuilt better than before; the flow of time changed forever in Aetolia as days became four times longer; and two new Goddesses made their presence felt. Unrelated events also saw the release of our first major region of the Albedos continent, the Dramedo Peninsula, with plenty to explore and do. On the continent of Sapience we released the Three Widows mountain range, rivalling the Dramedo in scope and content. These two regions combined have added almost 2,000 new rooms to the game. A glimpse of the massive Dehkay Plateau was also seen when a portion of the region was opened up during a political summit and festival. Other areas we released include the Shattered Vortex, a large open PK bashing area; three new villages; Mandre's tower; and more!

A new crafting talent was added to the game, Tambourier, for building percussion instruments. Ylem mines were released for each of the cities. These are a daily solo instance with a variety of quests that players can do to generate ylem for their city and net some experience and gold for themselves. The Fishing skill was also released this year and has proven to be a huge bite. And what goes better with Fishing than a brand new weather system! Rewritten from the ground up, the new weather system has a finer degree of realism, with plenty of new effects to experience.

However that's enough of the past, let's list what our main goals for 2016 are:
- Another new crafting Talent coming out very soon.
- War system is still our biggest focus. We plan to release this in several distinct parts to both get the content out quicker, as well as making it easier for us to balance and fine-tune the system after release.
- A release for our second region on Albedos: The Red Quarter.
- We'll be adding more areas to Sapience as well, including some new end-game bashing zones.
- An overhaul of bashing and introducing new mechanics for it.
- At least one new class (!!).
- Updates for the Sentinel class.
- An overhaul for the Cabalist class.
- We'll also be running class liaison rounds each quarter again.
- Our background story involving the elder Albedos Gods will continue to progress, as tensions rise between the two Pantheons.

Just to reiterate, these are just our main goals. We will be still be releasing other content such as new areas, events, and crafting updates. But our focus as we head into 2016 will be directed at what I've listed above.

Penned by my hand on Kinsday, the 16th of Severin, in the year 456 MA.


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