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January 2022 Newsletter

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THE FOLLOWING:

Many changes that are happening are happening in order to make way for future gifts and events within the group. We understand the member base’s frustrations at slow changes and wait times, but setting up events does take time so we urge all members to hold this in mind when expressing their thoughts. Complaints are not suggestions; please make sure any future suggestions offer solutions that will ultimately benefit the group as a whole and that do not bring down any individual members.

Updates & Announcements

System Openings & Closures

  • The following systems/activities are OPEN on DeviantART:
    • General Submissions (ie, Foal Prompts, Art not affiliated with any Activity like Hunting)
    • Quests (Art)
    • References
    • Monthly Quests
    • Cursus Honorum
    • Hunts
      *Can not be rolled on the forum
  • The following systems/activities are OPEN on the Forums:
    • Quests Scavenger Hunts and Quest Confirmations
    • Bank and Bank Related Items
    • Owner Transfers and Deceasing
    • Design Plaque Updates*
      *Only plaques missing a design (EXAMPLE) or updating already approved designs not including skinchangers and hornchangers
    • Highlord Hub*
      *Only for applying Highlord gifts
    • Cursus Honorum
    • Crafting
  • Unless otherwise stated, (ie. Announced in the Discord), the rest of the systems/activities are CLOSED.
    • Our Team is hard at work at trying to detach ourselves from DeviantART which means that with our current resources, some systems have to be put on the back burner while we try to prepare for our future as an ARPG. We hope in the months to come that we can share some of the exciting things we have in store! We thank everyone for their patience and understanding as we iron out the kinks and try to make sure that once we open a system, everything will run smoothly without any more need for adjustments.

General Announcements

  • Please welcome some new admins to the EB Admin Team! Altair, ComplacentFool, and Chocolatesparerib are some new faces to the team completely, and espclyheinous is a re-skinned member of the admin team, formerly known as Ren! We are excited to have these new admin representatives! They will be starting as trainees with us January 1st, 2022.
  • Some old items may be getting description (and meaning) glow ups! Please keep an eye out! Some items once thought of as junk might soon be important. 😉 Remember Fade’s proverb: Save your bait!
  • If you would like to see all the changes that are occuring this month, please checkout the Changelog. This page updates every Friday with all the changes that were made that week, we are in the process of fixing, or the issues we are aware of. Please checkout it out in case any issues you may have had has already been addressed. This also will let you know when a certain system has been updated.  If you would like to preview previous month’s changelogs, you can find it under Archives with the category of Fade’s Changelog. LINK
    • December 2021 Changelog took a break, but it will be back up this month!
  • The Suggestion Box is open for all members to drop their ideas, comments, and suggestions in. The Suggestion Box will remain Anonymous to other users, but it is a requirement and courtesy to list your DeviantART screen name for the admin team. The Suggestion Box will be checked once weekly for the admin team to discuss.
  • There are lots of new changes around the website and maybe some hints at what might be next. We strongly suggest getting reacquainted with the new website and poking around to see what might be hiding! Who knows you might find something quite interesting……..

System Updates - New Systems and Reworks

  • Cursus Honorum: New System. This is a new system intended to help give bonuses to different aspects of gameplay! Please be patient with any bumps that may come along with this as it connects many systems together! Check it out HERE
    • Notice: With the introduction of new systems and the reworking of others, some of the bonuses may be subject to change to better fit the system. Overall, they will remain with about the same kind of affect but the percentages or what they exactly affect may change. This will be announced. 
    • Hunting and Hunting Ranks: With this new system, Hunting Ranks became absorbed under Bestiarius. There is no difference in bonuses between these two besides Big Game Hunts (which will be discussed later).
      If you would like your Equus Ballator to keep the bonus they had at their approved hunting rank, you may. You just need to transfer them over to Bestarius. If you transfer them over, it will NOT count towards your allotted Cursus Honorum. HOWEVER, if you decide you want to continue to level your Ballator in Bestiarius, then it will count towards their allotted amount of Cursus Honorum class(es). If you would like to go back through and do the lessons that you skipped with your Ballator, you may, however you will not be able to claim prizes for those previous levels. You may only claim prizes for the next levels.
      To Transfer Your Ballator Over to Besiarius please fill out the Level Confirmation Form.
      For the Cursus Honorum Tracker link, please link to a something proving your Ballator’s Hunting Rank that was previously confirmed. This may be a comment on Deviantart, a hunt that was approved (located on their hunting tracker), or a thread on the forums. Anything that can prove that your ballator was ranked up in the hunting system will be accepted.
      For prizes being claimed, please put “n/a”
      Medial = Level 1
      Elitist = Level 2
      Venator = Level 3
  • Crafting: Reworked. Crafting has had a recent overhaul to seperate it with hunting and align it with this new system. Now, crafting is not limited by rank. Anyone can craft anything! However, now some items difficulties  come with a failure rate, meaning that your Ballator may fail to craft the item and thus you lose the items you used to craft. Check more of it out at HERE
  • Hunting System: Being Reworked. Along with having absorbed Hunting Ranks into Cursus Honorum, there are several other small things we noticed that made hunting difficult to comprhend and needed fixing.
    • Big Game HuntsOriginally this required a high amount of effort to get into and it felt just like repeating the same hunt over and over again. There are plans to still make it accessible to all (not just Bestiarius) with some caveats that will be announced once that is finished up. The gameplay will be updated to make it more interesting as well.
    • Hunting Roller: The hunting Roller is going to get updated to make sure that all percentages listed are accurate and make sure the items are accurately affecting outcomes.
    • Hunting Requirements for Regions. As it is now this is a little complicated for members and admins alike. We are discussing possibilities to improve this. 
    • Increasing Prey. Along with this, we plan on increasing the type and number of prey that people are able to hunt.
  • Breeding Roller: Being Updated. The breeding roller is being reworked to include new mutations and new breeding items.
  • Designing: Being Updated. As we transfer mutations and design information, we are fixing anything that doesn’t make sense and adding as much examples as we can. We hope to make things as simple as possible.
    • Design Review: As most people are aware, designs were originally reviewed by one design admin or a design admin in training and a design admin. We have been experimenting with a new way of reviewing designs this past year and going forward we will continue this way: one design will have 3 design admins to review it to ensure nothing is missed and that designs isn’t based upon one admin’s design opinion. With this going forward, it will make design reviews more fair but also take longer.
  • Highlord Hub: Being Reworked. In attempts to make pledging, offering, and piety more understandable, we are slowly looking at ways to improve the Highlord Hub. Adding Gifts will be unaffected with this change (except for the fact that they will not be adding piety).

The Monthly Quest

Ballator of the Month

Your Equus Ballator Admin Team

Interested in joining the admin team? Please click HERE.