Summer Event Time!

I'll start with mechanics, for those of you who just skim over this and then ask questions in msg after:

The Aureliana Forest is now Open PK.
The Ophidian Ruins are now Open PK.

Watch your pathfinding!

HELP MISSIONS will have most of the information you need to interact with what's going on. Each faction has a mission board somewhere in their respective village, which are NOT on the list of open-pk areas.

Mitrine: Passing a private stable adorned with four banners.
Ophidians: The southern gate of Rock Bottom.
Imps: A dusty path off the highway. (Vellis!)

Shops have been slapped together in the villages around the boards. Don't blame the citizens for the shoddy state, they weren't prepared for war.

Now then, for those of you who read:

This Summer+ we'll be focusing on the war between the Ophidian Empire, the Mitrine, and the Holy Impire. Most of the combat will be focused in the Aureliana Forest and Ophidian Ruins. Each faction has a mission board somewhere in their respective village. Every howling, you will receive two mission allowances, and the mission boards will randomly create three missions from four categories: PvP, PvE, Crafting, and Gathering. You may have a total of 10 allowances + accepted missions at any given time. That means that you can accept missions whenever, cram doing all 10 over the weekend, and build allowances back up over the next week.

Missions will reward gold and tokens for faction specific shops. These shops, at first, will just have little items and stuff to aide in missions, but keep an eye out for relics and other interesting things as the event gears up.

As to why?

Missions are tracked with a great deal of detail. Completions, who completed them, what was turned in, etc. Roughly every month or so, we will establish which faction is 'winning' and progress the story accordingly. This is very much up to you as players to determine. I know what I would prefer to happen, but that will only occur if no one takes part... and we've gone out of our way to include every playstyle we could. What will the factions do? A lot of that is dependent upon RP. Convince the Pixies to overrun the Imps, w/e, if Imps are ahead at the bell we'll decide the story there. Use the forums if you think your playstyle hasn't been included in the current list of missions, we're happy to make more.

This is just the beginning! I think you'll have a great time with the games and things we introduce as this continues. There are a few mission types that have been held in reserve for storyline sections, as well as sorts of mini-arena games that take place in the Ophidian Ruins that haven't been done before. There's a lot of room for Aetolia to be changed on some large scales here. From geography, to villages, to cities, races, etc. We are also using this as a means to test out all sorts of warlike systems, like terrain capture, NPC warriors, those sorts of things.

That's pretty much it for the OOC explanation. Hit up the forums thread from this announce post if you have questions or ideas.
-T

PS. They're going to break. I tested the heck out of them, but sure, they'll break.

Penned by my hand on Quensday, the 6th of Haernos, in the year 473 MA.
Discuss this post on our forums:
http://forums.aetolia.com/discussion/2884/announce-post-2850-im-on-a-mission-from-god