Hello! Welcome back to another edition of my blog postings!

In the 2 weeks since the last post, not a lot happened, but they were all the more significant for it.

For starters, I am noticing a marked improvement in how people are interacting with eachother, to the point where the overall tone is much more constructive. Keep that up 🙂

Another thing that happened as a result of my previous post, was that the Elves may finally have a theme song! While I applaud their efforts (albeit being very late to the party), ultimately the classic Dwarf tunes rule supreme!

In fact, the Elves haven’t even formally decided on what they want! Here are their choices – let Satsuki know which best represents them:
Elf theme choice 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvpRIHDnquY Elf theme choice 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVYVw4GmSJE Elf theme choice 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9Uz1icjwrM

The Palais du Rhin in all its completed glory

Meanwhile, in another feat of Dwarven engineering, our palace was completed! While I would’ve wanted to see the roof shape differently, unfortunately the corner blocks for half slope roofs weren’t complete in time for the meteor showdown.

Speaking of which – yesterday saw the destruction of the meteor! To those attending – thank you for making this all possible – we wouldn’t have been able to do this without your continuing contribution!

Say goodbye to the meteor!

Moving on to today, where our server’s brain was upgraded quite substantially – from a mid-range Ryzen 5 2400G to a high-end Ryzen 9 3900x, which should prove to be a beast for speedy terrain generation, quicker/smoother server bootup times, smoother terrain loading in, as well as handling more concurrent players!

Under the hood, it will also allow me to swoop in on the server in case of a crash or other unfortunate events while at work or otherwise not near the server.

With that out of the way, on towards more future-oriented content – ideas I have to make our community of players more close-knit and working together on multiple levels.

Specifically, I am looking at featuring one player per new blog post as player of the week. Said player is to be featured on a to-be-created webpage, celebrating their achievement/contribution to the server that week. Note that while I’ll strive for being impartial in said decision, it’s entirely possible for me (or any member of Staff) to overlook something. Do let us know so that we can correct our mistakes and learn from them 🙂

On a less regular basis, I’d like to conduct small informal interviews with willing vic- *ahem* I mean players to get to know the person  behind the name a little better. Should be interesting at the very least!

On a more personal note, I will not be returning as a world leader with the upcoming 8.2 reboot. I’ll still be actively playing, picking up Engineer for a refreshing change, however much like 8.1, I’ll be taking more of a backseat approach, in order to have others share in the limelight and renew the focus on the players, as it is you guys that breathe life into the server and make it into what it is. Not fancy palaces, nor fancy well-operating economic systems, nor competing towns, but a healthy, active, collaborative community is what makes or breaks us in the long run.

Therefore, once the server launches on the new map next Saturday, August 17 at 6pm CEST (10am EDT), there will be general elections for world leader. As world leader, it will fall upon you to unite us under a common banner, be it glorious Dwarf or sniveling Elf, as we build up our new town together in our pursuit of defeating the meteor.

Onwards!

An overview of our new capital, which is expected to last until 9.0 releases