Greetings Fellow Istarians!

As everyone is aware, the developers have been working tirelessly to bring the players new and improved housing developments across Istaria. Originally we were hoping for all of our resizing to be done and released as of August 5th. Unfortunately it is taking a little longer than we had originally planned.

Our goal, once resizing is completed, is to release the newly resized plots on Blight 1 week before releasing them on Chaos and Order. This will give everyone a chance to see what changes have been made and pick out the plots they will want to bid on. This will also allow the developers some time to make sure there are no issues with the release. Auctions will begin once the plots are released to the live shards. We will announce in advance when plots will be made available to both Blight and the live shards. This also means that Guilds have an extended time period to submit requests for the Guild Community drawings. Those drawings will begin around the time auctions start and Guild masters and members will be able to take a look at the communities on Blight before making a decision. (Please submit your requests to support.istaria.com under the section Plots and Lairs)

I have heard some concerns about which plots are being resized, why some plots show condemned, and why players can't purchase plots that are "For Sale: Community". Let me help to clarify these points.

It is our goal to resize every small plot in every community (both Guild and non-guild) if possible. This will result in some small plots being deleted in order to allow room for others to be expanded. In many communities this may result in a smaller amount of plots, but those individual plots will be larger.

This brings us to plots that are showing 'condemned'. Plots that are unowned on all 3 shards are generally marked 'condemned'. This is a flag for the developers that says "If you have to delete a plot, this one is OK to delete!". Not all 40x40 (or smaller) plots have been marked as 'condemned', but that does not mean they will not be resized. This may also account for larger than 40x40 plots showing as condemned. Most of these 'unowned on all 3 shards' plots have had the condemned status applied to them. Sometimes our systems skipped over a plot that is unowned on all 3 shards or a player sold a plot after reclaims making that plot unowned on all 3 shards and it will still show as "For Sale: Community". Don't worry! The developers have an eye out for those as well.

Finally, for the past 2 weeks we have locked out the purchasing of any plots that are 'For Sale:Community' or condemned. This allows the developers to know they have a certain amount of available plots to change, without the status of these plots changing daily (they do not want a plot unowned one day to be deleted or changed and put to live the next day when it has been purchased at some point during the process). Players are still able to sell plots directly from one player to another. Players are still able to sell their plots to the community. However, plots sold to the community should then fall under the restriction of not being purchased until we release this hold. This hold will be released once resizing is completed and the new plots are put to live.

For further discussion, or any questions and concerns I have not answered, please take a look at the New Plot Reclamation Policy Discussion found here http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=18947

We thank you for all of your understanding in our process to make Istaria more enjoyable each day.

- Amarië AncalÃ**mon
Community Manager