In general, pretty happy with the update.
Lots of QoL updates: Stacking fertilizer bottles, storage sorting/more access to storage, new icons for items (very happy that tailoring threads got a whole set of new icons). I'm a big fan of unique icons for items because it helps with mnemonics once you learn them all.
The casino is a pretty big area. I did one careful run through where I pinned useful NPCs and made some notes. I also found the employee exit to a separate area (not saying where to preserve the mystery) and scrambled round the rock barricade until I could get out to the area proper. The rocks clip badly and it's hard to tell when you're making forward progress, until you just kind of fall "out" onto the ground. It reminds me of that high cliff in Kur that does the same thing (the rocks and snow drifts clip/turn invisible and you can fall off the cliff and die). The code that controls the camera angles with rocks/snow piles either needs a _lot_ of work, or maybe they shouldn't be used (if it's the sort of thing that can't feasibly be fixed).
I tried both the new mini-games. I'm not good at candy crush so I'll just say I'm not the target for it. The blinking hints were nice just so I could finish a couple rounds. Thank you for that tiny bit of hand-holding. The dice MUD/RPG game looks interesting. I killed two mobs and backed out with my loot so I could explore the casino some more, but I intend to go back to it.
I haven't unlocked any hidden storage with NPCs. I found one NPC who gave me a few slots at neutral and I found the mantis who sells storage slots for casino coins and bought one slot for 2 coins, just to test it out.
I ran around and accepted a bunch of quests from the NPCs. I'll take me a few days to finish those off, and I expect there will be some extra quests after those. Once I finish the easier quests I'll start giving favor gifts. It looks like there's a fairly resource-intensive favor grind ahead of me, but that's fine. I have a good stockpile of resources and I can always farm more.
In general I liked the layout. I remember thinking the flow around the map was pretty good. I liked the references to the mantises trying to appeal to the humanoid mammals, and I kinda felt bad for the gardening mantis who said they'd hurt him if we asked extra questions about gardening. Good "Gorgon-ey" humor around the place. The textures were nice.
I was very glad to see that there was a portal to visit dangerous areas, and the casino itself was self-contained and "safe".
The big negative for me: I don't see it being a place I'll want to use as a hub instead of Serbule Keep. Serbule is very compact. It has a day/night cycle and nature sounds. The well makes a very obvious hangout spot as it's central to the town and is surrounded by vendors. People running through the keep from any direction can find the well easily as there's good line-of-sight around it. And, I like being in the middle of new players. I like seeing players run around in mismatched armor and seeing newbie questions in the local chat. Every time I take a break from the game and log back in to find people playing music and curing illnesses at the well it brightens my mood.
Citan has made comments about spreading stuff out to reduce botting and other undesirable behavior, so I understand why he created a large-ish map for the casino, but I find the size an overall negative for a home base. I feel very isolated and alone in the casino. There's no "obvious" gathering point. There's too many walls and not enough ambient noise. I think it looks a lot more polished and professional than Serbule Keep, but Serbule is still more convenient.
For an alternate home base, I find Rahu has a better layout than the Casino. I think it never really took off as a new home base because it used to require running across several dangerous maps (before the sewer portal), while you could get to Serbule Keep by dying. Things have changed a bit now with the 8-hour portals but I think the habits are pretty ingrained for established players.
I'd like to see Rahu get some milk cows.
I'm going to miss the 25% xp bonus. Thanks for running it.