Release 36

November 17, 2016
Release 36 access for all backers at First Responder level and above begins this Thursday, November 17, at 10:30 AM US Central Standard Time (16:30 UTC).



Short Release: Normally our release cycle lasts approximately four weeks, giving us 3 weeks of development time and 1 week of polish before the release goes live on the last Thursday of the month. However, November and December have the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays which requires us to do our release earlier in those months. That only gives us 2 weeks of development time and 1 week of polish before we release.

Major System Changes: We are making a lot of major changes to how the game works this release. Many of these changes are related to game balance, some are about making the game have a better pacing and reward cycle, while others are about making it so that greater effort and greater specialization will equal greater reward. In Combat, changes like the addition of Resistances aim to encourage players to vary the skills and spells that they use in order to maximize their effectiveness in various situations. In Crafting, changes to Discovery and the addition of Teachability is a first step towards making specialization in crafting more meaningful. Some of these changes are being tried as experiments (noted below). Through playtesting and feedback, we will determine whether we will keep them in the game and/or what tweaks we will make to these changes. We understand that some of these changes will be controversial, but we firmly believe they will make the game more healthy in the long term. A deeper dive into the reasons behind many of these changes can be found in a forum post made by Chris Spears.

Story and Scene Polish: Graff Island, Elad’s Lighthouse, and Midras Ruins were all rebuilt this release to have unique visuals. Midras Ruins was specifically rebuilt to be a more interesting space for PVP. The Path of Love continued to get polish and in R36, the focus was on the playability of Malice and Spite with continued attention on Ardoris.

Yet again, I want to express a huge amount of gratitude to our Dev+ backers who tested all of the items below on the QA server and uncovered lots of bugs. They also provided editorial feedback on this post. They are a big reason that this post actually matches what is in the game, and that it is easy to read.

While we are getting closer to launch, we are still in a constant state of change. We do not yet have all of the in-game systems needed to inform players about these changes, and to help them to explore new content and systems. This means we rely mostly on this message, and the linked instructions and known issues to convey the current game state. We regularly have to answer questions or filter bug reports because some players elect not to read this valuable information.

By taking a few moments to read through this information, a great deal of our time and efforts can be redirected to focus on new “unanswered” questions, and addressing critical issues impacting each release. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to review this post, and for all the truly valuable feedback you continue to provide.

Also, remember that while we are providing new content with each release, our community is working overtime to make new events for you to enjoy. Be sure to check out a couple of the event calendars run by our community members (via in-game book or the player run websites: Avatars Circle and Events of the Avatars). You can also get the latest official events on the Main Website.

Without further ado, here is a list of what you can expect to see in Release 36.

Key:
 * Plain Text: The original plan for the Release deliverables. We intentionally preserve the original text so that our backers can compare plan versus actual.
 * Italics: Extra notes and new deliverables.
 * Strikethrough: These are items that did not make the release (but are still planned).

RELEASE 36, November 17, 2016


 * Story: Path of Love polish will continue but primary focus will begin shifting to the Path of Courage with special attention on Estgard. We also hope to have the new PVP area begin coming online with the town area first.
 * Path of Courage & Estgard Polish Delayed: We chose to focus our efforts on continued work on the Path of Love before moving on to Courage.
 * Blood Bay (PvP) Delayed: We chose to give Graff Island more time for polish and while work has started on Blood Bay, this new scene won’t be ready for live until Release 37 at the earliest.
 * Graff Island: Graff Island is located in the Drachvald region in the Northeast region of Novia. Located across from Port Graff in the Spindrift Bay, this community is central to the gem trade of the region. It includes a factory that sculpts the gems for socketing into weapons, armor and other goods, as well as the home of the Graff family with their sprawling mansion. Originally a cloned scene based on our PRT/POT Forest 01 base template (aka “the PaxLair template”), it was rebuilt in Release 36 with completely different terrain and foliage types, along with adding the Graff family mansion and the Graff Gem Factory.
 * [[Image:Graff-Island-12.jpg|500px]]
 * Elad’s Lighthouse: Elad’s Lighthouse is also located in Spindrift Bay directly across the water from Brittany. It is home to Elad, who retired to the island after an illustrious career as Lord British’s shipbuilder and lighthouse builder. As with many of our scenes, Elad’s Lighthouse started as a cloned scene based on our PRT/POT Forest 01 base template (aka “the PaxLair template”). It always had the unique feature of Elad’s Lighthouse, which will continue to be a prominent feature. However, it now also has unique terrain featuring dramatic cliffsides, a dockyard, lumber mill, and many other unique changes.
 * [[Image:Elads-Lighthouse-2.jpg|500px]]
 * Midras Ruins: The Midras Ruins are one of the six ruined cities found in Novia that date back to the period in Novian history in which the Obsidian Order rose to power (as described in the Sword of Midras prequel novel by Tracy Hickman and Richard Garriott). The exact history of some of these cities has been lost to time, but it is rumored that some of them may have been abandoned before the rise of the Obsidians. Midras in particular is significant because it is the location of the Crypt of the Avatar. Note that all six of the ruins are Open-PvP zones. Midras started as a clone of the Opalis Ruins, but was completely rebuilt this release to have a unique layout and visuals. We especially focused on making sure the map had interesting setups for PvP conflict with plenty of space for hiding, escaping, ambushing, and skirmishing.
 * [[Image:Midras4.jpg|500px]]
 * Malice and Spite Polish: These scenes got some playability polish for moving the player through the plot. Spite will be getting some additional polish to the city itself (propping, NPC behaviors, etc.) in a future release. Malice will also get some additional polish with unique NPCs (Samael and Sequanna) and some additional functionality for Sequanna’s prison.
 * Ardoris Polish: We continued polish work on the City of Love. We did additional decoration improvements across the scene, particularly around NPC buildings like the Tailor and Carpentry Shops. We also did continued polish on NPC conversations and behaviors, including more work on the diversity of the lovers.
 * East Perennial Trail: We tuned this map to be much more friendly to new players while also improving the general polish level of the map; including adding discoveries, propping, more storycraft, etc.
 * Brightbone Pass and Superstition Canyon: We modified the terrain in the center of these maps (Superstition Canyon is a clone of Brightbone Pass) to fix exploits related to players being able to attack enemies without being harmed themselves. Also, NPCs in all Control Point scenes should be be smarter about retaking their Control Points.
 * Aerie NPC Behaviors: We did another pass through Aerie adding additional schedules and behaviors.
 * Non-Tradeable & Quest Items Bankable: Items that are not tradeable (like Quest Items) can now be placed in your Bank. Note that they are still not able to be placed in other containers (chests on your lot for instance) to prevent exploitive workarounds to the no-trade flag.


 * Combat: We plan to refactor how Damage Types and Resistances work to better balance different weapon types, spell schools, and creature types against each other. This will also improve the variety of crafted items.
 * Magic Damage Types & Resistances: Starting in R36, there is now a more formal resistance system in place for players and creatures. Currently players can mostly gain resistances through gear, but skills and spells will appear in future releases to allow players to expand their resistances. The simplest way to describe how resistances work is to say they are Defensive Attunement. So if you have 50 Death Magic Resistance, that will counter the extra damage that a caster would get from having 50 Attunement. Finally, players who don’t want to use magic can have a way to resist casters! Creatures now also have Resistances. For simple, natural creatures, like bears and spiders, they will have a small amount of Resistance to all magic but generally be fairly easy to affect. Many of the more magical creatures have some very high Magic Resistances to specific schools. This means that if you were a player that only used a very limited set of skills on everything, you are likely going to have to change your strategy when fighting some creature types. As an example, Fire Elementals are almost completely immune to fire, and moderately resistant to all other types of magic except for water magic, which they have no resistances to. There are also a few creatures that are just highly resistant to most magic and will be difficult to kill now without the help of a weapon. For those who rely heavily on magic, this will make the game more challenging. There will probably be things you used to be able to kill that you can no longer kill. This is expected and just know that all other casters will be facing the same challenges.
 * Control Point Behavior Fix: We fixed a bug that was preventing the NPCs from trying to retake the Control Points.
 * 40 Meter Requirement for XP Gain (Experiment): We have constrained Experience Point gain so that you must be within 40 meters of other members of your party. Previously, you just had to be in the same zone and this was being used as an exploit where low level characters would wait at the entrance of a zone while high-level players would farm the area to level the low-level character safely.
 * Breaking Attempts Roots/Stuns/etc. Use Focus: Attempting to break a Root/Stun/etc. by jumping now uses focus, even if not successful. Previously, it would only use focus upon success. This increases the importance of skills that resist these effects.
 * Stack Limits on Effects: Support was added to limit the number of effects on targets. Most effects like Firebolt, Fireball, Rend, and others will have a max of 3 concurrent effects. This means 3 per spell/skill; not total. So, a player could have 3 Rends and 3 Firebolt DOTs on a target at once. Repeat castings of spells will remove the oldest effect first.
 * Defensive Stance: This stance has been changed from a flat Damage Resist modifier to a percentage bonus to the effect of worn armor. Players in quality plate or chain will likely see a slightly larger effect than before but those in cloth and leather will be greatly diminished.
 * Fizzle Chance Increased: The amount of fizzle added by Armor when casting Air, Death, and Fire spells was increased slightly. The multiplier for armor penalty in most spells in those schools went up by either 0.1 or 0.2. This means that your armor has a base 30% fizzle, your fizzle chance for those schools went up by 3% or 6%. This was done to help differentiate light and heavy armor a bit more.
 * Spell Casting Interruption Increased: In R35, the only interruptions were from stuns and knock down effects. In R36, most spells have a casting window which is shown on screen. During that window, hits can interrupt spell casting. NOTE: This does NOT increase the time to execute a spell
 * Decay Increased: For the next few releases, we will be increasing the maximum accumulated decay incrementally. For R36, the max accumulated decay is 12 hours. For example, if a player has around a million total experience, a death after 12 or more hours of not dying will result in around a loss of 1250 xp. The lost xp will be deducted from skills not set to maintain or train. If skills are set to maintain or train, the lost xp will be deducted from their pooled experience first.
 * Targeting Cycling Improved: We fixed a major issue in the target cycling code. Previously, it appeared to be picking the worst possible target first and then the best target second. This has now been addressed and the logic improved for picking stuff close to you over distant stuff.
 * Beneficial Targeting Improved: When in a party and using beneficial spells(like healing or buffs), if there is no hard target set, then the caster will be the target. If you wish to cast on a party member other than yourself, you must now select them by clicking on them or using the F2–F8 keys to select them. We know that Healing Targeting can still use more work, but this is at least a much needed great first step forward.
 * Immolation: The range has been shortened by 20%. In future releases, this spell will likely become a damage shield that hits people who are in melee with the caster instead of a traveling AOE spell.
 * Shield of Air: No longer stacks with other shield spells.
 * Flurry: No longer stacks with Reckless Stance or Berserker Stance.


 * Banish Undead: Range has been reduced from 30m to 20m.
 * NPC Health Adjustments: NPCs that are caster types have had their health reduced dramatically and damage output increased. Melee types have had their health increased. The goal is to give players an incentive to go after casters and archers first.
 * Glancing Blow: Duration has been increased by a factor of 3X.
 * PVP XP Bonus (Experiment): For this release, we’re trying a few experimental changes to see how they impact various metrics. Players that are flagged as PVP and in Multiplayer mode will receive a 25% bonus to earned experience. We know this is controversial, but we want to try it and see how it impacts PVP participation.


 * Player Towns & Player Housing: Towns with player housing will now dynamically update their icon on the Overworld based on various data, including number of claimed lots and online population. Additionally we will continue to expand the Dynamic POT Tool set. Also Obsidian homes for the Obsidian bundles will come online. Finally, updates to Dynamic Player-Owned Towns that have locked submission forms will appear in the game.
 * Dynamic POT Tools Delayed: Work on the Overworld Population Indicator took up the entire release and did not leave room to work on any additional tools for Dynamic POTs.
 * Obsidian Homes Delayed: We chose to respond to player requests for the Greenhouse Rowhouses and Pristine Gothic Mansion before starting work on the Obsidian homes.
 * POT Overworld Population Indicators: The visuals of a POT on the Overworld will now update based on how many lots have been claimed relative to the size of the town, starting with a simple foundation and working up to the full set of buildings we have been using up until now. Additionally, we will show smoke in the chimneys and lights in the windows to indicate if there are players online in the town.
 * [[Image:Overworld-Population-Indicators.jpg|500px]]
 * Exits to the Overworld Added to all POT Entrance Locations: When we added the ability for POT owners to choose different Entrance locations in R35, owners requested the ability to have those Entrance areas also include exits to the overworld. In R36, we have added wagon or boat teleporters to the overworld at all POT scene Entrances, including ones near the center of each town.
 * Exits to the Overworld Added to all PRT Centers: Teleporter boats have been added near the center of all PRT scenes. These boats provide quick exits to the overworld.
 * PRT Removal: After a careful re-analysis of our current housing needs, and in anticipation of new maps coming online that include additional housing (ex. Blood Bay), we have removed (at least for now) the following 4 PRTs that had no claimed lots in them:
 * Coral Cove
 * Bakkevoll
 * Grimmdalur
 * Horngap


 * POT Flags: We made the following items placeable as decorations in Player Owned Towns:
 * All Tents (Elven, Knights, etc.)
 * Stage
 * Podium
 * Bleachers
 * Stage Stairs
 * Kobold Radiant Energy Coil & Capacitor
 * House Polish / Bug Fixes:
 * Wood & Plaster Homes (replaced rough yellow wooden shutters with nicer shutters)
 * Gothic Mansion
 * Baron Benefactor
 * Elven Tree Tower
 * Viking Great Hall
 * Viking 3 Story Stronghold
 * Viking Row Houses
 * Elven City Home
 * R35 Lot Deed Raffle Drawing and Winners: The drawings for our Third Lot Deed Raffle will be held on November 17, 2016 and winners will be announced shortly thereafter. Deeds will be delivered in Release 36.
 * Place Anywhere Deeds (20):
 * Row: 10
 * Village: 6
 * Town: 3
 * City: 1
 * Player Owned Town Deeds (150):
 * Row: 80
 * Village: 40
 * Town: 20
 * City: 10
 * R36 Lot Deed Raffle Tickets: This will be the Fourth Lot Deed Raffle. As always Raffle tickets can be purchased with in game gold. For this raffle we are changing the rules so that each person can only win a single deed of each type (maximum of one place anywhere and one POT).
 * Place Anywhere Deeds (20):
 * Row: 10
 * Village: 6
 * Town: 3
 * City: 1
 * Player Owned Town Deeds (150):
 * Row: 80
 * Village: 40
 * Town: 20
 * City: 10


 * Make A Difference:
 * Ornate Outhouse: We created this throne fit for royalty for the Water.org and United Nations World Toilet Day.
 * Add-On Store:
 * Resurrection Decorations: These are fully functional resurrection locations that can be placed on lots and in POTs. There is one in the traditional Ankh shape and a new one that has a Chaos symbol that will resurrect the player in a random location.
 * Pristine Gothic Mansion (Village Home): This is what the Gothic Mansion looked like before everything went horribly wrong and you murdered all those poor people…
 * [[Image:SotA_Pristine_Gothic_Mansion.jpg|500px]]
 * Ornate Greenhouse 4-story Rowhouse: All those high-falutin neighbors with their giant fancy yards and big greenhouses are now not the only ones with fast growing skills. The glass roof on this four story rowhouse gives the greenhouse agriculture grow bonus to the top floor!
 * Gift Boxes (3): If you want to provide gifts without the distractions of Yule themed decorations these Gift boxes are for you!
 * Add-On Store Holiday Content:
 * [[Image:SotA_2016_Winter_Holiday_Indoor_Scene.jpg|500px]]
 * 2016 Menorah: Light the candles to celebrate the holidays with the 2016 version
 * 2016 Snow Family (4): Everyone’s favorite water crystal family is back again with new faces and new outfits! Novian magic somehow keeps Snow Mom, Dad, Daughter, and Son from melting even when placed so very close to the fire…
 * 2016 Yule Stockings (3): Yule be sorry that you didn’t buy the small, medium, and large stockings that can hang from shelves, mantles, or any other flat surface. Stuff them full of presents for all the girls and boys (or coal if their virtue is low).
 * 2016 Yule Trees (4): Gather round the 2016 silvery Yule trees to celebrate the holidays. You can choose from sizes ranging from Tabletop to Gigantic.
 * 2016 Yule Gift Boxes (3): What could be inside these Yule themed holiday containers? A puppy? A pair of wings? A lot deed? NOTE: ability to shake presents to figure out contents is not a currently supported feature
 * 2016 Yule Wreaths: These beautiful wreaths are a lovely addition to any home. For 2016, we created them in 3 different sizes. Interestingly, due to a programming glitch when these items are placed on doors, Watchers are sent into a fatal loop. Thus, the Oracle has altered physics to prevent their placement on doors.
 * Ice Building Blocks: These holiday recurring items can be used to build wintry-looking structures.
 * [[Image:SotA_ice-building-blocks.jpg|500px]]
 * New POTs/POT Changes:
 * Bastion’s Point: Converted to Forest 01b.
 * Baubbleshire: Upgraded to Hamlet.
 * Bladewyke: Upgraded to Crossroads Village.
 * Caelestis Canton: Upgraded to Hamlet.
 * Crossroads: Upgraded to Metropolis.
 * Dragon’s Fall: Converted to Forest 01c.
 * Formosa: Interconnection (with Elad’s Lighthouse, changed nested interconnection to within Brittany Wharfs).
 * Grumpie Hermit’s Hide-a-way: Converted to Island 01a.
 * Knightmare Falls: Renamed (formerly Portus Mori). Converted to Forest 01c. Ownership changed. Changed location. Removed interconnection (with Bloodstone).
 * Moonglade: Renamed (formerly Advenire). Ownership changed. Upgraded to City.
 * Nido dell’Aquila: Interconnection (with Elad’s Lighthouse).
 * Owl Sky City: Converted to Forest 01b.
 * Praga: Converted to Forest 01b. Interconnections (with Brittany Wharfs, Brittany Alleys, Brittany Fields).
 * Reliquary: New addition.
 * Reverie: Upgraded to Crossroads Village.
 * Salisbury Plains: Renamed (formerly Traders Hill). Converted to Grasslands. Rotated to Left. Ownership changed. Changed location.
 * Shadow’s Rest: Converted to Forest 01c. Upgraded to Village.
 * Thapae Mizellmist: Interconnections (with Central Brittany, Brittany Fields, Brittany Wharfs, Brittany Alleys).
 * White Hart on Abundis: Removed interconnection (with Bakkevoll).
 * [[Image:R36Map_of_Novia_POT.jpg|500px]]


 * Crafting: Crafting will be refactored to include the new Damage Types and Resistances. We will also add more Enchantments and Masterwork modifiers, including some related to Celestial Mechanics.
 * Celestial Mechanics Delayed: We chose to focus on doing the data pass on Teachable Recipes instead of working on getting recipes connected to Celestial Mechanics.
 * Recipe Discoverability Limited (Experiment): Discoverability on Recipes is no longer universal to all recipes. Currently we have removed Discoverability from all but the lowest-level recipes. This, along with Teachability, is part of a larger effort to reward specialization and advancement in crafting by having different levels of rarity in the recipes. We will not be removing any recipes that players already have. Those will be grandfathered in. Please note that this an initial pass on which recipes should or should not have Discoverability. If there are any recipes you feel should have remained discoverable (and therefore also Teachable) then please feel free to provide us that feedback and we will consider it. Note that by limiting recipes this way and not making them universally available we can start to increase the value and power of components and items.
 * Teachable Recipes: The lowest level and most common recipes can now be taught to other players, and even be re-taught. The next tier of recipes can be taught but not re-taught. However, some rarer recipes (like Bone Armor) are not teachable nor re-teachable. This is part of a larger effort to reward specialization and advancement in crafting by having different levels of rarity in the recipes. We will not be removing any recipes that players already have. Those will be grandfathered in. However recipes that you currently own that are not discoverable cannot be taught without being repurchased.
 * Ward Gems: Gems can now be cut into Ward Gems which offer Resistances to magic damage types (see Resistances above). These are socketed just like Attunement based Gems, so you now can choose if you want to increase Attunement (offense) or Resistance (defense) when you add a Gem to an item.
 * Full Durability Repair Scaling Effectiveness (Experiment): As part of our commitment to having a Player Driven Economy, we want there to be a real possibility of items wearing out while balancing that with an understanding that for very rare items (+16 crafted gear), players want a way to preserve them. In order to support both, we introduced repair with Gold Crowns several releases ago. The cost to repair the maximum durabilty was only a single Gold Crown, however, and an item could be repaired infinitely. This lead to a stagnation in demand once players got an “ideal” piece of gear. For R36, we are going to experiment with scaling down the repair effectiveness based on the number of times you have repaired the item. Every repair of maximum durability still only costs 1 COTO but how much it fixes declines each time. The first repair is 100%, then 66%, then 50%, then 40%, then 33% and so on. By the 20th repair, it only fixes 10 to the maximum durabilty.
 * Clothing Removed from Merchants: We have removed all the following Clothing Items from merchants and turned them into recipes.
 * Wizard’s Hat
 * Cloak
 * Red Dress
 * Fancy Cloth Merchant Boots
 * Fancy Cloth Merchant Gloves
 * Fancy Cloth Merchant Pants
 * Fancy Cloth Merchant Shirt
 * Cloth Merchant Shirt
 * Cloth Merchant Skirt
 * Full Body Merchant Outfit* (note: this was NOT made into a recipe because it duplicates the pants and shirt)
 * Wells and Fountain Fixes: Fixed several issues with gathering water from wells and fountains including the ability for more than just the POT owner to gather, making sure all wells and fountains have the water gather flag set properly, and making sure Avatars can path properly to them.
 * Unique Names: All items in the Recipe Book now have unique names, main offenders were rugs and chairs.
 * Potted Topiaries: The potted crafted topiaries are now flagged for POT placement.
 * Obsidian Armor: Fixed color to be the correct Obsidian Black.
 * New Plants: More plants have been added to Agriculture.
 * Grape Vine
 * Coconut Palm
 * New Recipes:
 * Greenhouse 4 Story Row House: All those high-falutin neighbors with their giant fancy yards and big greenhouses are now not the only ones with fast growing skills. The glass roof on this craftable four story rowhouse gives the greenhouse agriculture grow bonus to the top floor!
 * Gustball Field: No longer will you need to slave away building a Gustball Field from component parts! This craftable field includes the field, goals, and referee stand. It can be placed in a POT, on a Town lot, or even in an interior (provided you can find a house or basement with a large enough open space).
 * [[Image:gustball.jpg|500px]]
 * Yule Wreath: This beautiful wreath is a lovely addition to any home. Interestingly, due to a programming glitch when these items are placed on doors, Watchers are sent into a fatal loop. Thus, the Oracle has altered physics to prevent their placement on doors.
 * Yule Stocking: This craftable container can be hung from any flat surface (mantle, shelf, etc.)
 * Gift Box: What could be inside this craftable container? A puppy? A pair of wings? A lot deed? NOTE: ability to shake presents to figure out contents is not a currently supported feature


 * Character: We will begin work polishing the Kobolds and updating them to better reflect their lore (much of the technology in Novia can be attributed to them). We will also work on the Testing Incentives Program Wearables and Summer Telethon items.
 * Kobolds, Testing Incentives, and Summer Telethon Items Delayed: The work on Shogun Siranto, Priestess Khasi, and Hair Polish caused us to have to delay work on the Kobolds, Testing Incentive Items, and Summer Telethon Items.
 * Hair Polish: We completed a polish pass through the current hair styles to update them to current shaders, improve the meshes, and include transparency layers. We will begin to increase the variety of hairstyles over time.
 * Shogun Siranto and High Priestess Khasi: These two NPCs represent the first region-specific clothing in Ardoris. Their clothing is still in progress and will have some further progress in R37. Shogun Siranto’s royal regalia is meant to convey the image of a mountain while Khasi’s robes (and a headdress still in development) will eventually invoke the imagery of wind.
 * Looking at the Ground fix: We fixed a bug with Avatar head tracking that made it so that much of the time everyone appeared to be looking at the ground.
 * Summer Telethon Part 2 Firedance emote: After getting feedback about the original animation, we added a crossover move to the firedance emote that comes with the firedance stretch-goal reward from the Summer Telethon. We also made that crossover move its own emote (/firedancecross) and gave that to telethon purchasers.

sota-con-gauntlet-cloak
 * /fan emote: This emote is now properly set to be teachable (you can Claim Rewards at the bank to upgrade a previously un-teachable version)
 * Custom Clasped Gauntlet Cloaks: The first sets of Customized versions of the cloaks are starting to be delivered to the following event backers:
 * Britannian Mining Company 2016 Convention
 * Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary
 * SotA Con East 2016
 * Add On Store:
 * Emotes: /firedancewheel and /firedancespin: Watch me spin around with fire! Now watch me wheel my arms around with fire! Oh no! I’m sorry everything is on fire now! Quick harvest some water from the well! NOTE: lighting things on fire with fire dancing and then putting those things out with buckets of water from the well is not a currently supported feature
 * 2016 Snow Man Mask: Look at me! I’m a snow man! Hee! Hee!


 * Social: Guilds will now be able to form alliances with each other and we will be introducing a new default guild for all new players called the Outlander Guild.
 * Guild Alliances Delayed: We were unable to finalize the details of the design for this system in time for implementation in R36.
 * Outlander Guild Cancelled: After listening to player feedback on this proposal coupled with internal deliberation, we are cancelling this feature. We will consider other ways to assist new players, but this will not be the solution.


 * Auto Stacking Fixed: Items will once again auto stack with similar items when placed in containers including banks, inventory, chests, etc.
 * Gold Giveaway on QA Server: To assist with testing we are giving out random daily amounts of gold on the QA server.
 * Bank and Journal Performance: We sped up how quickly the Bank and Journal interfaces load when being opened.
 * Data File Locations: Players now have the ability to set a new location for Data Files (save games, options, music files, etc.). As part of this we also the screenshot save location has been moved to your Pictures\SotA folder (varies by operating system). This was changed to resolve some OSX issues and will likely make it easier for users to find their screenshots. NOTE: We do not yet have the ability to migrate existing files however.

Additional Information

 * Release 36 Instructions
 * Release 36 Known Issues
 * Quick Reference Card