Developer's Desk May

If you've ever had one of those months where you look at the calendar in the middle of the month thinking it's the first week or so - only to “discover” half the week has gone by, you'll understand why this month's Developer's Desk email is coming to you today. We've had a jam packed month of April that was so full it spilled right over in to May without us even really noticing that the date changed!

Probably the single biggest piece of news for many players is that Unity Transfers are now not only available, but the all the “first round” of transfers is complete! Both Chaos and Order have seen many new friends come to join their community, and “old” friends who'd moved over to the US shards before have characters they thought long lost back. We'd ask that you continue to spread the word to those you know who once played on Unity. We've done what we can by sharing news items out to the press, and sending emails where we could, but we know that not everyone has heard this news yet.

Inside the development office we've been excited at all the new faces who have been making an appearance in Istaria to check out the changes in our world. We're seeing players return on a daily basis, and some brand new faces as well. I'd like to take the time to thank those in the community who have been working to spread the news items we share with their gamer friends. As most of you have already heard, one of the changes we made was to rename the game - and hopefully this has made it a bit easier to talk about. It's taken some getting used to in the office to stop saying “Horizons” and start saying “Istaria”, and “Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted” is still quite a mouthful, but hopefully with time we'll all form a new habit. And we've found it much easier when talking about the game to our own friends to say “The game is called Istaria. Check it out at istaria.com”.

Of course, when the name changed, the logo and art work for the game also had to change. Just today I announced that we're accepting player created art and screen shots to be used as load screens when players log in. What we'd like to have are different images that players could pick and choose from to decide which they like best. If you are interested in contributing to this, you can find more information on our forums. http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...d.php?p=182636


As I said, it's been a busy month. Unity transfers, name change and new art work are far from all we've done. In mid-April we rolled out a patch to our live shards which fixed a number of bugs and introduced a few content changes. We wanted to patch to live as soon as testing was complete in order to fix some issues that had gone live the month before with the Confectioner revamp, so didn't take as much time to add new content as we have in other patches.

In late April we sent a patch to Blight that added a few new quests, but the highlight of the patch was the cargo disk revamp which we'd started talking about a few months ago. Player feedback on the improved (faster) cargo disks has been positive, but there have been a few “kinks” to work out before we're ready to take this to live. With Delta 139 we also rolled out changes to one of the spawn regions players had reported as having a problem with mobs despawning before they could be killed or looted. This test change proved the theory as to why this bug was happening, so players will be pleased to know that within the next delta or two all spawn regions with “disappearing mobs” should be fixed.

For details on recent changes, visit our community website at http://community.istaria.com/.

This month we'll be updating the game's client to include new features that have been in testing for a while now. Some of the changes include hatchling dragons ability to glide off high places, a bug fix for cargo disks which would “haunt” players after they'd been unequipped, and a new feature that allows players to cycle through the nearest enemy or friend using text commands.

In the “frequently asked questions” department, players are wondering when Plot Reclaims will begin. While I don't have an exact date as of yet, I can tell you that we are getting close. We want to “get it right” when we reclaim plots, and take the time to fix issues that players have raised with having many plots in the world too small to be useful, as well as giving everyone an opportunity to bid fairly on the plot of their choice. Once we've worked out an update detail list of plot reclaim, we'll make an official announcement. You can help us prepare for this by making sure the email address associated with your account is up to date, and asking your guildmates and friends to do the same.

Later this month look for us to kick off a new contest that will run through the first part of the summer. We have some other summer surprises planned that will keep you in cool - in air conditioned computer rooms - playing Istaria while the temperature outside heats up.

From everyone at Virtrium, we'd like to say thank you for making the first quarter of the year a great one. Until next month....

Enjoy Istaria,

-Amarie

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