HI All,

After playing around with the different light, dark and natural buckets I found it was very limited on the number of different characters in the same class you could create. So I decided to go a different route by removing all allegiances and all classes for their tie ins to skills. This will give players the greatest flexability to define there characters. There are also some other changes around these removals:

• The number of max skills a player can acheive is changing. This is nessecary to attempt to balance having a completely open skill set. The game will determine your max skills by dividing your current level by 13 and adding 3. So in other words every 13 levels you will be able to have another skill. You can continue to change your skilsl around in the same manner as you have been. Since the maximum skills has changed, your skill set will automatically be reduced when you login if you are past the new maximum. You will have an opportunity to adjust your skills. (Note: Skill progress will be maintained but skills will become latent and usable if not selected)
• Good NPCs can no longer be attacked however some NPC creatures have been updated to be neutral so they can be attacked by all players. (These include Fairies, Griffins, Mushroom spawn from faries and a few others).
• All players are considered neutral themselves. Neutral players can have both skill sets that were previously identified as good or evil.
• Since there are no more evil players, players will no longer end up at the pitt of hell if you would die instead you will end up at heaven's gate.
• Dark Priests are essentially vendors of the dark arts now. They can also continue to refill all players Spirit Points. (Along with Druids and Reverends)
• Prior aggressive good/evil spells can be cast on all enemies now rather than having to be of the opposite allegiance. Evil/Good enchanted weapons can now be equipped by all players...
• Evil towns are being adjusted to be good areas instead.
• Since there are no more classes Merchant class skills are also available to all players.
• Classes still exist on character creation to offer assistance to new players by automatically selecting skills for them that would be appropriate for the type of character they want to play.
• Expect some implementation of rules and restrictions around utilization of certain skills sometime in the future. I want to see how well the new system works prior to looking at any restrictions

I am nearing ready for release, I would expect it to be done in the next couple of weeks. 

I have also been asked by some players if we can do a holiday item this year so I will see if I can put a new one together for that :-)

Merry Christmas All!

I will post back on release in the next week or two.

Chris The Avatar

Happy Fall everyone,

I have begun preliminary work on replacing the allegiance system. The allegiance system had originally been intended to influence where your character can go, which quests you can get, which npcs/pcs you fight and which skills your character can learn. While it was very ambitious it also was complicated for players to really understand and participate in quests/exploring with other players if they picked a different allegiance. It was also a considerable amount of work to implement new features because some features required consideration from all three allegiances. The new system will implement a single allegiance for all players, divide skills into three areas and create a more open pvp environment on the pvp server. Players may choose to have a given skill discipline in one of the following four areas:

• Natural (Examples of skills to fall in area: Druidry, Summoning...)
• Dark (Examples of skills to fall in area: Necromancy, Black Magic...)
• Light (Examples of skills to fall in area: Prayer, White Magic...)

Skills that are neutral today will continue to stay neutral for the most part though a couple may be moved into the Natural skill set.

There is a lot of code to rework so its going to take some time but I think simplification of these systems will save time in the future when implementing new features in the future. I will have more information once I am further along. 

As promised I have released the new update this evening. if there are any issues with the new update please let me know at support@fantasyrealmonline.com. Below is a list of changes that were listed on the original post a week ago:

• Fantasy Realm Online will now have better resolution compatibility for high resolution in windows 10
• Yellow Tint on login screen for Intel based video cards has been fixed.
• Players will no longer be able to push their away through NPCs, this will make combat more challenging.This was originally put in because of PvP but there isnt much of that going on anymore.
• The Giant's Tomb quest has been finished. A special weapon is the prize for defeating the Undead Spirit Giant King. The quest is one part but should be fairly challenging.
• Mountain images in most of the overworld and a good portion of the underworld has been completed. The new mountain images should be much more appealing to the eye.
• I will be switching containers back to the original style in the game, its in better flavor of what I actually intended for the game. I realize it requires players to organize their belongings but I think its more flavorful. If I receive strong backlash we can revisit this.