Dear community,We hope you enjoy the new screens and new content in this week’s Focus Group update!Because the GUI and AI systems are so interconnected we have been unable to inject pieces of Awakening into live for earlier partial releases. The focus group has been enduring several really tough testing sessions using both old and new user interface, which has made things very difficult - so many thanks to the focus group for working through strenuous circumstances.We are happy to report that we have now removed nearly the entire old interface and have most the new systems in place. Development progress in the UI department of Awakening is now rapid and close to conclusion.In terms of performance, the focus group has confirmed not only an improved overall frame-rate in the game, due to new interfaces (and the old removed), but that the new user interface is also very responsive. Gone are the laggy and strange behaviors of the old interface! Some systems which rely heavily on GUI interactions, such as magic, are much more responsive. The game both looks and feels totally new thanks these changes.Next week we will move into finalizing this system; we are approaching the end game for one of our last remaining key components. The focus group has been most helpful in catching a lot of bugs and helping us to make rapid and solid progress.The AI system is being tweaked, especially the AI behavior in dungeons and smaller spaces. This, along with some creature stat balancing and player skill testing, means we’re into the final phase of the AI systems as well. We have not been able to spend as much time we would like to on air and water creatures; we didn’t expect to have them in at all for Awakening, but we got them almost for free due to another system we built. We are going to make sure these work well enough to include during the upcoming test phases!The dyes system is close to being finished and has turned out to be far more dynamic than we initially thought possible. We are now going through the colors which the players can discover; we want to make sure that the color style fits our world.To dye an item, first collect ingreients from around the world. Different ingredients, whether a plant, coal, or just about anything else, can have different pigments for dyes. These ingredients can then be mixed into a vial using the alchemy potion-making process. The vial icon will reflect the pigment of the potion if it was to be used as a dye, so you can get a rough idea of what the potion is made of simply by its color.Once you have your colored potion, you can now add it to your dye tub. A dye tub will typically start with clear water, but as you add your potions it will mix the color in the tub. You can combine as many potions/dyes of any color you like to create your end result color in the dye tub. For example, mixing a strong red dye with a weaker green dye will produce brown. Add another color, and your new color will be a combination of those.The dye tub is used to dye various types of gear. At this point, only soft parts are able to be dyed with this system and not plate types; however, most clothes and leather/soft parts on armor can currently be changed.With Awakening players can learn two new skills: tailoring and dyes. There won’t be a huge collection of cloth types to craft with Awakening, but this will grow over time.Alchemy will get a real boost with Awakening. You will be able to craft your own vials and NPCs will no longer sell potions or vials. A good glassblower will be able to craft minor, medium, major and grand potions as well as perhaps make them exceptional. Exceptional vials are able to hold even more units.As you know by now this dynamic system does not allow us to stack vials with content in them since they can’t be mixed. Bigger vials will work a bit like stacked potions, empty bottles will be stackable, and we plan to add a keg for alchemists where they can store large quantities; we’ll have to wait a little while for this feature.The bag system is now finished and on the test server, but it has some minor restrictions right now. You will be able to use bags in your inventory, chests, banks, etc. You won’t be able to sell a bag with items in it to an NPC/vendor. You will be able to sell/trade a bag with items in it directly to a player via person to person trade, but not place that bag on a player vendor for sale (but don’t worry, the player vendor interface is not as restrictive as it is on the live server currently). Right now we have also set maximum banked items to 200 items (including shed bank). This works as a global cap. Each chest in a house will be increased to 100 items per chest. This is something we may change during Awakening release if needed, but it is important for technical reasons that we keep the amount down in bank storage.Right now we are filling the world with new content. We have created a ton of stuff: new skills, gear, special moves and items to be discovered in different ways. Treasure chests are spread out across the world in various locations. Some can be lock-picked, and some of them just require the correct key. New elements are being added under water allowing a greater use of water skills.Be sure to visit the town criers to get an update on what’s going on in the world and for latest events.PLEASE NOTE!One important update regarding alchemy potions in the game: we have tried to find a suitable solution for converting or using the old big heal potions in our game. We simply can’t find a solution which allows keeping them as they are in the game today, nor allowing them to be sold or converted into empty vials due to it ruining the balance of the alchemy profession. This is also because the old potions simply don’t follow the current potion healing system.This means that there is a big chance that those potions are going to be useless when Awakening goes live. We want to inform everyone about this before the release of Awakening so they are to be considered traded/used at your own risk while they work as they do on live. When Awakening arrives they are not going to work as they do now, nor will you be able to sell them to NPCs.We are not going to have many more updates between now and the release of Awakening. We are however going to give one large last update regarding some of the Awakening content and the “new age” coming to Nave.