Developer's Desk: December (Holiday Edition!)

From the Developers Desk: December 2008 Edition (Holiday Edition!)


Greetings Fellow Citizens of Istaria,

As the year comes to an end our excitement soars at the coming prospects of 2009. If this is your first year with us we welcome you out to our holiday celebrations. Help the community kick off the festivities while visiting our Gnomekindle Winter Wonderland. Enjoy some adventuring with Mayor and Mrs. Clause, Yukon, or Hermey the Misfit. Sit and share a cup of hot chocolate with your nearest and dearest while learning about how Gnomekindle came to Istaria. Or, if you're more of the partying type, throw on some Holiday Pants and sing songs in the snow with friends from all around!

We are very proud to announce the winners of this year's Winter Festival contest. With so many wonderful submissions it was hard to decide on a winner, so you may come across some honorable mentions at Gnomekindle.
The winners of the 2008 Winter Festival Contest are:
* Hearth and Home (A short story contest): "The Frosting Off the Cake" by Sonea.
* Songs and Poems (A song and poetry writing contest) : "The Kindle Song" and "The Kindle Gift" by Sephiranoth.
* Holiday Clothing (A design new "holiday" themed shorts contest): Snow Time by BlackNite.
* Banners (A design a special banner contest): Snowflakes Galore by Gengel.
* Murals (A design a special dragon mura contestl): Wink of Winter's Dusk by Xaraki.
Interested in browsing other submissions for this years festival? Keep an eye out for downloadable goods exhibiting the talent of your fellow players!

The team at Virtrium LLC will also be celebrating the holidays with their friends and families and will be resuming normal operations after the new year (by then we will have all of the reindeer shaped cookies and egg nog out of our systems!). Please be patient as it may take our support team extra time to respond to submitted tickets.

The development team continues to work on the much anticipated Blighted Labyrinth. The storyline, quests, and monsters you'll find inside are falling in to place as the excitement grows. In previous editions of the Developer's Desk we've touched on subjects such as poisons and treasure chests and even introduced some new characters that will help you on your journey. Keep an eye on the informative player-made sites http://istaria.wikia.com and http://www.bristugo.com/ as we may be releasing some new information on the monsters you'll encounter within the Labyrinth.

Have you ever been wandering through the vivid lands of Istaria and thought to yourself how fun it would be to lend a hand designing something for your fellow players to enjoy? Well you're in luck! Virtrium LLC has immediate openings for game intern artists looking to gain hands on experience in developing video game art. Apply today for an intern position and help bring new artistic light to Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted. http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dcv3hb6k_148qnphd6cf

Maybe artwork isn't your forte? That's ok! We're always looking for new quest ideas from our players. Pick up your pen and paper (or keyboard) and let your creativity take others on an adventure. Take a look at our Quest Submissions Guidelines on the forums for more information. http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...ad.php?t=17887

Whether you're up to your britches in snow or stringing lights on a cactus this year we wish you a wonderful holiday season and look forward to adventuring together into 2009.

Amarie Ancalimon and the Virtrium Team

Please visit our forums to discuss this month's Developer's Desk:
http://community.istaria.com/forum/s...884#post210884