As you know, Tasos as well as some other team members have been in Korea for the past week. From what we hear, all is going well on that front and we eagerly await their return.

On to our update for today, the team is working on various tasks, most of which we have discussed, either briefly or in some detail. On the graphics engine side, there are some tweaks and fixes to new and existing shaders and some extra environment control parameters that will ensure even more locations with unique looks. Also our artists are working on new spell visual effects, modeling of the new weapons and animations for brushed up monsters. The world builders are finishing up the training area while also working on dungeons and general world building tasks. The point system and village control system are well under way and we are very eager to present both of them to you. We will do so as soon as possible.

This past week quite a bit of work has been done on crafting and especially the number crunching side of it. There has been a lot of tweaking, re-balancing and adjusting of numbers related to crafting and so the whole process has changed quite a bit.

Specifically, crafting a specific item will only get you so far. Once your skill level has increased beyond a specific number, you will need to switch to a higher tier recipe to continue skilling up.

Failures are also handled in a different way. While the failure rate has been increased a bit, the closer you are to a recipe not giving you skill gains, the more likely you are to succeed in crafting that recipe. Additionally, failing will not mean that you lose all of your materials every time, but there will be a chance to loose all, some or no materials at all.

To give you an example of all of the above, a weaponsmith starting at skill level 1 will be able to create, among many other items, a Crude Militant Greataxe. This is a rank 0 Greataxe of the Militant style. As his skill increases, he will be failing less and less and at skill level 25 he will have an almost guaranteed success at crafting this item as well as all other items of this rank. Once he hits 25 he will need to switch to a rank 1 recipe to continue increasing his skill.

As far as crafting skills go, all skills now have a mastery equivalent and a few new crafting skills have been introduced. Shields will be created with the Shield crafting skills and the same goes for staffs which now are created with the Staff crafting skill. Also, tailoring only produces cloth items like robes and bags as medium armors have been moved to the new leatherworking profession.

Tools for crafting no longer exist. You can craft any item by having the required materials on you and using the appropriate crafting station.

All these changes are aimed at making crafting a more logical procedure that is also more straight forward and properly balanced.