Real quick update! We're extremely busy right now on the next snapshot, which will include a major overhaul of South Serbule as well as a new community activity.
Say Goodbye to South Serbule ...
... And hello to the new Serbule Lowlands!
New players often think that "South Serbule" is a location on the Serbule map -- as in, "the southern part of the Serbule zone." On the one hand, that's easy to fix: somebody tells them it's an entirely different place, and voila, no more problem. But on the other hand, it's a newbie zone, and there's already a tremendous amount for newbies to learn. I don't want to add more confusion for no reason.
But on the THIRD hand, the lore dictates that the area is part of the duchy of Serbule -- lands historically ruled by the Duke of Serbule -- and that fact will be important in the future! So I'm hoping that "Serbule Lowlands" sounds enough like a different place while still being obviously related to Serbule.
(And if you have other name suggestions, now's the time to share them!)
New Landscape, New Stuff
The name change is just a small detail in the overall revision of the area. We've remade the map from scratch to focus on the interesting things going on in the Serbule Lowlands: a full-on ranalon invasion force has set up camp near the big lakes; in response, the goblins of Sedgewick Forest have barricaded the road into their lands to keep the ranalon out.
In the meantime, there are farmers and other mostly-innocent people trying to make a living from the land -- and having a very hard time of it, since the fighting has basically cut off all trade. (Good thing players will be coming along to help them!)
Mix in some politics, some spiders, and some mysteriously abandoned locales, shake well, and we'll see what we can make of it.
Or rather, we'll see what you make of it -- because we're going to need a lot of playtesting for this one. The Serbule "revamp" was just an art revision, but this revamp leaves very little unchanged.
The Other Way To Leave Anagoge
There's a dungeon on Anagoge (the newbie island). It's surprisingly long for a newbie dungeon, and then you get to the bottom, and ... nothing happens, so you have to walk all the way back out. That's because it's unfinished!
The end of that dungeon is supposed to lead you out to South Serbule -- or rather, the Serbule Lowlands. (This new name is going to take some practice.) That connection is finally being added, giving newbies a second way off the island. Parts of Serbule Lowlands will be newbie-centric content, similar to what's in Serbule now (such as cooking recipes, vendors, etc.).
It'll probably take some iteration and feedback to make this new newbie-exit work well. There are so many little things that need to be learned, discovered, or unlocked, that it's very hard to make sure newbies find them all!
I expect having a second way to start your character will help a lot when there's more players, because not everybody will be driven to the exact same dungeons or to kill the same beasts at the same time. It also means that newbies will be learning slightly different sets of skills at first, so they can help each other more. Plus it's always nice to have different content to experience when starting an alt character.
Plus... Poetry Readings!
Another feature that's ready for the next snapshot is poetry recitals. Bards need levels in Poetry Appreciation in order to level, but poetry books are hard to come by. The answer? Recitals!
You start by finding a poetry book. But instead of reading it privately to yourself, you go to a poetry podium. (There's one in the Serbule tavern.) From there, you can "recite" your poem, which gives you and everybody nearby some Poetry Appreciation XP, plus the buffs that go along with that poetry book.
So what poems do the players actually see? Well, I wasn't about to write poems for all the poetry books in the game... that's your job! The person doing the recital will be prompted to provide a short poem in the style of the book (such as "Nature", "Funny", or "Inspirational"). This poem is shown to everybody nearby (within about 40 meters), and they're asked to indicate if it's actually a poem (or if you just entered junk), and whether they liked it or not. You then receive their aggregated reviews.
The poem and the reviews don't affect how much XP you earn -- that part is just for fun. But I think the sort of people who are interested in being a bard are also the sort of people who might be willing to look up their favorite poem and paste it in, or to write some poems of their own -- dirty limericks count!
[srand points out: you are still limited by the Code of Conduct, of course. So no racist limericks, please.]
The interesting thing about poetry recitals is that the reciter doesn't earn as much Poetry Appreciation XP as if they'd just read the book quietly -- only 33% of normal XP, in fact. But everyone nearby ALSO gets that 33%. So if a few people reciprocate and read you their poems in return, you'll all easily earn more Poetry Appreciation XP than if you'd just read your own books by yourselves.
But if you need a little bit more incentive, reciting poems also earns you Oratory XP. The more people that hear your recital, the more Oratory XP you earn, so you'll want to cajole people into gathering 'round to hear your recital! (Raising the Oratory skill gives synergy levels in skills like Bard.)
I like these sorts of "community" mechanics. It'll probably require some tweaking and iteration, though, so we'll gather feedback and see how it goes.
Other Stuff Too
The next snapshot also has a bunch of other changes, including improvements to many existing food recipes, various treasure mods changed or added, a bunch of bugs fixed, and some new crafting recipes to discover. I'll cover those changes in more detail when the update is ready.
There's a lot of work left to finish for Serbule Lowlands, so I'm not sure when the snapshot build will be ready. I'd say odds are slim -- but not zero -- that it'll be ready this week. More likely it'll be ready in a week and a half, or thereabouts. We'll keep you posted!
