Last month we celebrated Saint Patrick's Day and the Spring Equinox with the Spring Festival 2019 event!  Players had a great time, and circumstances throughout the event led us to discover some bugs to fix and inspired us to code some additional building tools to make events and death marches in the future run more smoothly.

Code updates in March include:
- A new level 33 necromancer skill 'soulsmith'. Necromancers adept at the gemcutting skill can learn to add soulstones to crafted jewelry as if they were gemstones. High-level soulstones are difficult to mount, but result in more powerful jewelry.
- Rune-based channel casting options - these changes allows mages to add blasting damage to spells, focus them into cutting beams, increase the cast level and more, at the cost of additional mana. Help pages now show if a spell can be channel cast.
- Lapidary, leathercraft, woodcraft and bonecraft check can now be used on crafted items to determine what additions can be added to them. A 'check' option has been add to 'metalurgy enhance' for check what enhancements can be used on objects.
- The 'climb' command has been deprecated. Players will automatically use their climb skill when moving through climb-only exits.
- Small tweaks to luck to make luck checks more internally consistent.
- The option of adding more details to heraldic symbols, such as them being wreathed in flame or covered with armor.

In March we released the third and final Tower of Learning on the east side of Dragon Tooth.

There are three areas that we should have finished within the next two months:
- the Valley of the Sacerdotes, a level 41 area on Crepuscula
- the Heliacal Moors, a level 42 area on Diurnus
- the Pool of Radiance, another level 42 area on Diurnus

Expect more refinement in crafting skills coming up in the next couple of months.

We are once again working toward making naval combat and trade a reality.  It is our hope to have naval encounters ready some time in May and naval trade ready before the summer event in June.

Watch for Easter Eggs when foraging this month: now with improved colors!

For more information can be found at our April Youtube audio presentation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_uQITu4mBo

-Shadowfax