Greetings fellow Istarians,

As mentioned in this month's Developer's Desk, we are beginning plot auctions starting Tuesday, October 7th.

As you may recall, the last many weeks have been spent giving Istaria's smaller plots a face lift, resulting in many more large plots in the world - greater than 1600m^2 in size. Please note that we did not make changes to lairs with this last set of deltas, only plots.

As many of you already know, plot auctions began today after maintenance. You will be able to place bids on plots that are up for auction. The bidding process will be conducted as a blind auction, meaning players will see the Imperial price as well as how many players have bid on it, but the highest bid will not be displayed. Players are only allowed to bid as much as they currently have in coin on a single plot and must be within that community to place a bid. You may bid on multiple plots as your coin will not be taken until an auction is won. A minimum bid must match the Imperial price. Should multiple players bid the same amount on a plot, the first bid entered will win. Auctions will end starting on October 15th. Approximate ending times for auctions in specific communities can be found Auction Ending Times . If you're going to place many bids, please pay attention to the order in which auctions end- if you are technically the winner of an auction, but you don't have enough coin (because you won another auction or spent it elsewhere), the plot will fall to the next highest bidder.

Guild community submissions will be awarded starting Wednesday, October 8th. Guild communities and sub-plots will not go up for auction as they are awarded by drawing. The request to be placed in the guild community drawing must be submitted by the Guild Master, or acting Guild Master. For more information on how to submit this request and what should be included in the request please visit our Reclamation information page. We will continue to accept requests until October 14th and will award the remaining Guild community winners on October 14th.

You may now be asking "what happens after auctions?" On the final day of auctions, any plots that were not purchased in auctions, as well as any guild communities that remain unowned, will be put up for sale at the base Imperial price. These plots will may be available for purchase on a "first come, first served" basis. So, don't fret if you didn't win that plot in -South March- you were eyeballing all week, as there will be many more to choose from after auctions.

Before you excitedly rush to the login page in your search for luxuriously resized plots, there is something you will need to do in order to make these plots appear on your screen. If you have not done so already, please follow these steps to clear your world cache in order to bring the new Istaria to your home computer.

If you have any questions about auctions please visit the community forum board here.

We greatly appreciate all of the help and patience from our players and invite you to enjoy your day in a new and always exciting Istaria.

- Amarië AncalÃ**mon
Istaria Community Manager