Aelyria Update 1
Update Notes :: February 23, 2008
During the past six months, Aelyria has undergone a massive transformation of our web site, our programs and processes, and our community systems. Aelyria has officially concluded Beta, and entered into full production. Our Alpha and Beta process was a six month procedure that started last August and oversaw a massive transformation of our web site, from a difficult-to-use and security-hole-ridden Drupal clone, to a comprehensive, state of the art, next-generation Web 2.0 gaming community site, complete with diverse
site sections, countless innovative new
site features, and tools and resources to connect our players with one another and their creative energies. This patch is officially branded a "Game Update", and from now on, you can expect our updates to contain enhancements and improvements to two broad areas of Aelyria: our web site, and our community. Read on for more!
Site Updates
I have performed upgrades to our forums software and our
Gallery software. You should notice major speed boosts to both, as well as many bug fixes, feature enhancements, and task progression. Additionally, much of our site has had its documentation significantly overhauled. Check out the specific items below for more details on each.
New Codex
The
old Compendium has officially been retired, and fully migrated to our new
Codex of Lore. Players will be able to access the new Lore Codex by clicking on the "Lore" button at the top of all pages. The Lore forums are populated with our published Compendium articles, which anyone can discuss and edit by using our
Worldforge. Our Creative Team will work with you to make your ideas a reality in Aelyria; be sure to check out the great work we have published there.
New Help, Site Hubs
The "Help" button now points to an actual, useful
Help Hub. The Help Hub contains useful information for new players, including links to an accelerated Quick Start, all of our game documentation in a single, easy-to-use page, and, of course, links to our Codex. The Codex is actually dynamically generated; each topic page serves as a site-hub, or portal, on that content.
1. Topic Overview
Lore in Aelyria is organized by major subject matter area, or topic. At the top center of each Lore hub, you will find a brief overview of the topic as well as links to any primers, the Lorebook forum containing all published entries in the Codex on that topic, and the Worldforge forum where community members can design and develop ideas and concepts in the topic.
2. Site Navigation
The familiar site navigation panel will enable you to access any other hub or help page in our site easily and conveniently.
3. Codex Navigation
You can visit any of the Help hubs, Lore pages, or detailed knowledge resources, by clicking on any of these links.
4. Featured Poll
There is a unique poll for each Lore topic. Feel free to weigh in and cast your vote, or join in the conversation!
5. Latest Publications
Any recently published articles in the Lore forum are displayed here, with the newest ones up top.
6. Recent Discussions
When users discuss designing and developing this particular topic, the latest posts are listed here for easy reference.
New BBCode - Thumb
| Sneak Peak at the Map of Freeport |
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I have added a new bbcode to Aelyria --
[thumb]. With thumb, you can add thumbnails to your posts. Thumbnails are loaded as the entire picture, but resized by the browser to a maximum of 300 pixels in width. When a user clicks on the thumbnail, the entire picture opens in a new browser. This is useful for displaying charts, maps, or graphs in-line with your posts, without disrupting the flow of your story or article. It is a pretty standard convention in most wikis, and I am pleased to add it to Aelyria. To see it in action, take a look at the thumbnail I just added to the right here; this is a map from the upcoming Companions Adventure,
Pirates of Aelyria.
Content and Wiki Updates
Over the past three weeks, I have been focusing pretty much exclusively on organizing our documentation and transitioning everything over from our old Compendium to the new Codex of Lore. As a part of this process, I have also accessed the Aelyria Archives (containing data from 1996-1999), our old Compendium (2002-2005), our old Wiki (2003-2005), and our current Compendium (2006-2007). So much content has been added, it would be ridiculous to go through all of it, but here is a snapshot:
New Maps of Aelyria
For the first time in nearly ten years, we have
new maps of Aelyria. Check out the new
Geography section of our Lore forum for extremely detailed, high-resolution maps. These maps were built using five sources of data over a full week of concentrated work at 16-hour days; they are labors of love. The maps depict as many locations as possible, from the most detailed cities and towns, to the villages and hamlets referenced in role playing. I used the following sources:
- The Old Map, as Revised in 2005/2006, on the Gallery.
- The Realmcraft Forums, Location Writeups
- The Aelyria Archives, circa 1989 to 1996.
- Aelyria Compendium Materials, circa 1996 to Present.
- Role playing storylines, as searched and cross-referenced.
Clearly, there will be modifications that need to be made to the map to reflect new locations, or changed locations, not adequately represented. In those cases, we will be regularly updating the maps based upon conversations with our community members, and input and feedback from our role players and creative writers. In the meantime, please take a look at the maps and familiarize yourself with your surroundings. In the days and weeks to come, I will be populating our new
Gazetteer with information about these locations, essentially porting my research over into tangible form for everyone to read.
New FAQs
We have a new detailed
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page. Check it out by clicking the "FAQ" link in the navigation bar on the top of dynamic pages. There are detailed sub-FAQs for our
site features and our
site sections.
New Feature: Conversations
The upgrade to our forums software introduces a new feature: Conversations, a means by which visitor messages posted between two users on each others' profile pages can be viewed in a unified form. Look for the "View Conversation" link on visitor messages to use this feature.
Game Updates
Aelyria as a game has undergone some major improvements in our documentation. Check out our new
Game forum, which you can also access by clicking the "Help" button at the top of any and all pages. We have gone to great lengths to simplify our documents so that they are straight-forward, easy-to-understand, but also comprehensive and authoritative documents. I wanted to throw the spotlight on a couple of exciting changes.
Change: Moderators and Player Characters
Aelyria's moderation system sets the industry standard for excellence in massive play by post role playing; our moderators are entrusted with the comprehensive stewardship of a location in our world - their own piece of Aelyria - that they get to cultivate and transform into an engaging environment for our players. I have always believed that happy moderators make happy players, and happy players make happy moderators. We strive to provide a fulfilling experience for our moderators and players alike, so I am announcing a change that we have gradually been introducing.
Over the past two months, the Leadership Team and Unified Directorate have been quietly piloting a significant change to our rules by inviting select game masters and assistant game masters to bring their player characters into their cities under certain terms and conditions. We have found that this has been highly successful - moderators and players alike have seen these characters play fairly, transparently, and out in the open. The rule change is now official and has been rolled out to all of our moderators and game team members, as documented in the
Moderation Manual, page 5:
Quote:
You are permitted to have your character in your city; however, any changes to your character's knowledge, skills, abilities, or possessions should be moderated by another moderator, such as an assistant game master or a duly authorized peer moderator.
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Dying, Death, and Beyond
For a few weeks, the Directorate has been engaging in brainstorming and discussions around building mechanics for Character Death. For many players, when their characters die, they will eagerly create a new character and step right back into playing. This is not for everyone, however, as some players grow extremely attached to their characters. For these players, I am pleased to announce the new
Rules on Character Death, which includes playing as a ghost, haunting, the afterlife, and even resurrection and rebirth. In the next few days, I will be activating the new Planes Beyond for Dead Characters so that they can continue their adventures and meet exciting new challenges and pursue incredible new opportunities. Death is just the beginning.
Announcing: Companions Adventures
I am very pleased to also announce the long-awaited return of
Adventures for our Companions. Adventures are exclusive, Companions-only opportunities at playing optional side-storylines outside of the mainstream of Aelyria, and they offer Companions with a unique opportunity to experience exclusive premium content. I am planning two major Companions adventures for the first half of this year, and we have already unveiled the first of these to be released this Summer:
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Phew! There's a lot up there to digest, so I'll take this moment to thank you, our players, for sticking through with us. The redesign of our site and the migration of our content enables us to reach a major milestone for Aelyria, one that has been in the works since August. Next week, I will be transitioning full-time into Moderation, and making that the direct focus of my full-time work here in Aelyria. I am excited about our forthcoming advertising for Aelyria across the Internet, and the redesign has been focused at making our game easy for new players and rewarding for our veteran gamers.
Please feel free to share your questions, thoughts, and comments, and I will be glad to respond to any and all of them.
Best regards,
Juan
Aelyria Update 1
I've been working pretty much full-time with our Directors and Teams for the past month on making this a reality for our community, and I am grateful that our users are finding value in these new resources. I'm still tinkering with ways to make them more prominent - especially the Help Hub, and our Codex Portals, which I think can be really useful one-stop shops for information.
