The last post should have given everyone an idea of the broad and ambitious

direction of Avalon in the coming year. We now have some early estimates of

release.

NEW ENGINE, NEW SERVER: before or on Sunday, 23rd April (St George's Day)

We have finally put together a number of patches and integrity checks on

Avalon's good ol' Hourglass engine. It will be the way we greet our new

server, too. Most of the changes to the engine may not be glamorous, but bring

a tremendous amount of stability and allow us to move forward more quickly in

fixing the remaining issues in the land. More interesting features will happen

naturally as we proceed.

MAJOR CHANGE TO LESSONS AND TRINKETS: expected April to May 2017

For a while, the means of obtaining lessons and the worth of each lesson have

been rising in frequency, without a counterbalance, and trinkets appear as a

far distant luxury. The wedge between mortals must now be closed, to bring

together the value of both sides and accommodate those with and without time.

We are presently working on a new model that benefits those who are active or

casual. Parts of the new model include: removing passive lesson gain and

rewarding regular involvement; making all skills including Farming and Labours

learnable; rewarding regularity with daily login bonuses; and (maybe) reviving

SLEEPLEARN as offline lesson gain.

Likewise, ways to progress quicker are being reassessed: trinkets,

subscriptions, micro purchasing, procurement, and lesson cards. All are to be

streamlined beside lesson gain / worth according to a new measure of time and

effort to progress. More details will follow with the final release. We

encourage feedback on what you feel something should be worth before we

announce the new prices and rates of progress.

Some parts of these changes will filter through earlier, in a manner that will

make learning take much longer by simply idling or being unadventurous. Casual

and active mortals, however, will find themselves at a huge advantage. For

those poor on time or simply impatient, much will become more affordable and

bite-sized throughout April and May. Keep your ears out for further news on

this area.

ACCOUNT DASHBOARD: by Sunday 16th April

Soon, REGISTER and SUBSCRIBE will be replaced with a URL and a new account

system will be born. It will not hold much further interest for many of you

besides how to login to Avalon using Umbra/2 later and linking characters into

a single email / social account without repeatedly entering passwords. For

customers of Avalon, it is where you will securely enter details, control

subscriptions, and list past purchases. PURCHASE in realm will remain the same

and Umbra/2 will make that entire process even easier with a nice interface.

UMBRA/2: Private Testing expected after Monday 17th April

We are now moving quickly forward on the new Umbra/2 client. The first private

tests will include linking characters to a single account, social sign up,

single sign on, playing Avalon over SSL, customer detail entry in the client,

and some simple character information. The speed of it will of course be the

biggest test. Those of you who are picked out will know. Please do not harass

for an invite. There will be a public beta later.

We will continue to keep you up to date on the latest. Look out this weekend

for some of the latest changes.

Cornelius, the all-consuming

Written and shown unedited exactly as rendered by text based game bulletin board on Avalon Online RPG and by my hand on the 15th of Cloudburst, in the year 1425.