First off, the updates:

The Race restrictions have been lifted. Race will now have no bearing on what type of character you can play.

HOWEVER, in their place the class system has returned. For information about how it is currently scheduled to work, please read the manual page here.
For those who are interested in the reasoning behind this system, please read the two posts directly under here. For discussion, there's a thread up in bugs and suggestions.
This system is NOT completed currently, and will be finished over the next 24-48 hours along with the next round of fixes/updates.

Now, for updates on the situation as a whole. Currently we have around 80% of the big bugs fixed, with the final few I want to get done including blacksmithing, housing, and NPCs, both loot and their strengths.

Once those big things are done, unless anything drastically new has been found, we will do the final rollback for this month. We will also release the new client/patcher combo on that day. So expect to see the rollback in around the next 4 days or so.

The beta month will officially end exactly 1 month from the post opening it, July 9th. At this time I do not believe any extension will be required, so that is still a hard limit. Normal shard operation and fun will resume then, as well as the new recruitment drive.

Alright.

First off, I want to apologize to everyone who's about to get really pissy about their race abilities changing completely on them. I also would like to apologize to those who may find classes more restrictive, or have a severe dislike for their newfound lack of armor proficiencies. I tried to limit the changes to what i could with the old system, since it was the best option we had for maintaining close to the "status-quo" of the old systems while balancing it. So now we're going to try the second option of the race/class system balances, and see which works better.

The original system(4+ years ago) for nonhuman characters had two different balancing systems. A race system and a class system. The race system's restrictions were half completed, half nonworking. The class system was mostly never finished, as well as restricting each race to a certain job. Vampires were warriors, Frost elves were crafters, etc.

After many days of discussion with broadband weeks ago over what to do and the best way to go about finishing these incomplete systems, two possible alternatives were discussed to balance things out.

The first option was to reduce each race to it's primary class, and keep/supplement their current abilities, while adding in the restrictions they were supposed to have originally.

The second option was to completely redesign each race's abilities and make them more general purpose, and make classes a race-agnostic system. Each class would inherit the weapon/armor proficiencies it was supposed to have originally, along with a new armor proficiency penalty, since the old -int system was not a very balanced trade, 25 int for 1/8th damage sometimes on mages.

Knowing how much players hate change, I got broadband to agree to trying the first option first, since it would let players keep their current races and character builds, for the most part. However players really disliked this due to the limited class races, and even more so hated having to change their race to match un-orthodox builds. This i appreciate, and so we discussed for most of this weekend over the best way to implement the second option to avoid the issues with the first, while still bringing in the balance that has been missing for the past few years.

Just so everyone knows, Bob and myself have been debating furiously over these numbers and while things might not yet be perfect, we feel things are going in the appropriate direction.

While some of you may have to change your playstyles, and I do apologize for that, ultimately we feel this updated class system will be a benefit to the upcoming onslaught of new players.

Additionally we have taken things as painless as possible with the ability to change classes upon first logon.

Once again remember we are still in this beta period for another week or so, so please continue to offer insight and comments on what you feel is and isn't working so we can properly balance it before we go public again.

Thanks for your understanding and believe me, through these pains greatness will embark.

Thanks for the work and news update Broadband and GM Bob.

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Ultima avatar: The Famed JIZABOZ,GWAR Guildmeister

So will we be rolling back to before the last changes were made? Or do i have to get staff to bring up the skills that were taken away with the last changes?

roll back to right before they initiated beta.

im not staff.
but im pretty sure you can count on that at least

Meh, I'm going to have to do a lot of work to the monsters...

Logged into the new beta for the first time tonight. DEFNINTELY saw the improvements to the new engine. BIG props. The whole client seems a lot more robust and stable. From an admin/gm perspective the new menus are REALLY nice. From the player perspective there are a lot of new things that seem to be enhanced. I wonder how much of it's working or not. We'll see, but some of this stuff wasn't even there before. The lighting seems nicer. Looked around and found a lot of the custom NPCs we had built still need work. I'm sure that why BB sent me the new client to motivate me to spend some time scripting for Obs again.

I think wtih the new engine I definitely could do that for sure. Major props to all the hard work Bob and BB put into getting Obs to where it is today in this tough migration.

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Victor F. Laurence
aka GM CyberVic, Livistos, Soriathus, etc.
Read my blog "Enthusiam" at
http://www.victorlaurence.com

So when will we get the oppurtunity to choose these classes because i just logged on to my wood elf and nothing has changed?

I believe it will be after the roll back, at the end of beta.

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Nash - Warrior (LoV)
Nashmith - Blacksmith (StoneD)
Nashtamer - Tamer (TLC)
Nash Fisher - Fisherman

Well ok but from his post i thought he said it was already implemented.

Well I was hoping to hear any big discussion of any glaring flaws with it before I implemented it, and I've been relatively surprised at the lack of discussino on it, which i want to assume means everyone likes it, but i doubt that's the case. I even put it off for a day or two to give people a chance to look it over, think about it, and get their thoughts in.

I've heard a few things pointed out so far, mostly in pms to me, and i'll try to rebalance it a bit to consider those, but barring nothing else it seems this is the system we will stick with as people aren't up in arms against it.

well i thought the first proposal was better tbh but if you know me you know i will be happy with anything because i play for fun not to win.


one thing is for sure it is going to be very interesting and probably cool checking out all the diff stuff.

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LOV FOR LIFE

Thanks for all your hard work Bob and BB. Ive talked with you on Aim and I can tell how busy you are. Just like to say thanks

P.S. To what Good Ol Drizzt said, Yea i think alot of players forgot to play for fun and not to win.

the in game messaging i dont think works,, thats just a note LOL cuz i sat there and played with it a bit a few days ago

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king of the run on sentence.