Changes you should know about
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1.  Cross-training has changed BIG time.  Look at section V of 'help
    newbie' for details.  Basically it is out of the hands of the
    guildmasters.  Visit the Adventurer's Guild across from the mine
    shop.
    
2.  Everyone's castle has been reduced to a single room containing all
    their stuff (except runes which were in other rooms, which have
    been destroyed).  I have installed cheap locks on ALL chests and
    safes which were previously unlocked and I have locked all of
    them.  The owner of the lock (ie, who has to go to market square
    and get the key) is the same person who owns the castle).
      For ONE WEEK (until June 6), all lock-picking and trap-
    disarming skills will BE DISABLED.  You have that long to rebuild
    your castle...reinstall doors, etc.
    
3.  Minor changes have been made to several guilds in an attempt to
    make them more balanced.  Fighters have some new skills,
    enchanters should be able to pull off soloing on a good day, etc.
    My apologies to Thalior, but due to some reasons which became
    apparrent as I began to code it, I was unable to implement
    aspected magic for the war-priests.  I have added a buttload of
    new spells though.  All pure spell users have some new skills
    which help in spell casting.  Arch-magi get these skills at
    REALLY low level, making them effective spellcasters from level 1.
    Sword-magi have a few new spells.  AND, just becuz I haven't
    mentioned your guild doesnt mean you didnt get some revisions.
    
4.  This one is IMPORTANT.  We have upgraded to a new driver (v21.6),
    and the good news is, the mud will run significantly faster, there
    will be reduced lag prior to reboot, and, among other things, that
    annoying 'no exits' bug should be gone for good.  However, the bad
    news is that there were alot of changes in the new version that
    caused a ton of compatibility issues.  It was these issues that
    kept me from making as many changes as I would have liked.
    Basically I am asking you to keep your eyes peeled for weird bugs.
    Most can probably be resolved easily, but I need to know about
    them.  If you see a bug somewhere that WASN'T there before, MAIL
    me.  I'll let you in on a secret...the 'bug' command is so
    overused that we never read the reports.  Soon I may try to divide
    it up to make it easier to manage.
    
5.  I regret that we dont have that many new areas, but but many
    wizzes have made significant progress in theirs.  After examining
    what we have learned from Beta, we concluded that coding high-
    level areas will be a ton of work, but we are up to the challenge.
    There will be places where 20th level and above players can gain
    bunches of experience, but I will warn you now, partying will be a
    REQUIREMENT or else you will eat it.  The exp rewards will be
    worth it though.
    
6.  In order to add an incentive to party, a 'cooperative exp bonus'
    been implemented.  The closer your party is to equal level (all
    players in the party are of same level), and the bigger your party
    is, the bigger exp bonus you gain.
    
7.  I am sorry about this, but most everyone's mine has been destroyed
    and most everyone's inn room has expired.  Yes, that means you
    lost all the stuff you had in an inn.  If you lost a ton of stuff,
    let me know (or one of the arches) and we will give you 100
    mithril to help you get back on your feet.  THIS SUM IS NON-
    NEGOTIABLE!  I realize some of you may have gotten dorked by this
    one, but I shall invoke the old "it was beta-test and you are
    lucky we didnt delete your character completely" excuse.
    
8.  Now that we are out of beta testing, a lot of things have changed.
    We will reimburse for serious bugs, but by the same token, if we
    catch you exploiting a beneficial bug without reporting it, you
    will be deleted without question.  Also, game balance is now an
    issue for the arches.  We welcome input, but realize that we now
    reserve the right to judge whether or not we are going to listen
    to you.  During beta test, we recognized the fact that no mud
    comes out perfectly balanced the first time, but we have heard
    your input and we have made changes based on your recommendations.
    
9.  Player killing has changed slightly.  Now if you kill a plyer that
    is more than 3 levels below you, you will LOSE exp!  This is to
    prevent newbie slaughter and to make sanctioned player killing
    more interesting, ie, give lower level Nightblades some business
    :).  A 20th level player killing a 1st level player will lose over
    100k, so dont be surprised.  This loss is instantaneous and does
    not go through the exp buffer.  Note this doesn't mean that we
    necessarily disapprove of a high level player killing a low level
    player, or we would have made it impossible (we can do that, you
    know...we ARE arches).  We just want to make sure a 20th level
    player has a REALLY good reason to kill a 1st level player, not
    just taking his/her newbie money.
    
10. A few changes have been made to combat.  First, if you are using a
    weapon for which your skill is greater than 100%, you may gain
    bonuses while in combat (extra attacks, more damage, etc...).
    Second, high-level critical hits are MUCH harder to attain.  Low
    level criticals still happen with the same frequency, but if you
    want an awesome critical, you will have to work at it.  Greater
    than 100% skill can also help here.
    
