The Gist Of It

A long time coming, this is. It’s time for everyone to pull up their knickers and cinch their belts tight because Aeon’s heading in for a clean slate.

We’re sure that brings ominous winds to those who have been here long enough to know what ‘change’ means in the past. So we’ll get to the nitty-gritty of the situation and be as point blank as possible. Gather ’round, for it is story time.

Aeon’s been running for a long time, and has it’s ups and downs. This is normal for any server but what makes the Aeon community unique to other RO servers is it’s ability to survive the ‘gaming ages’. We’ve done well to thrive (even if sometimes it’s either feast or famine) in the past, but to insure we continue to do so we’ve come to an important decision.

Many of you anticipated the Redesign, which is not an abandoned project. However, progress is slow due to the fact that this is very much like a job and the staff does not have the time to dedicate to it as a job. Therefore while still in the works, it’s far from a presentable state to the community and needs time to germinate. A lot more time than initially anticipated, and unfortunately the stagnant nature of the current community cannot survive that wait. So it comes down to many well-timed things that fall into place.

Many people will agree (though not all which we expect and understand) that Aeon is overdue for the dreaded reset. Meaning, a complete server wipe, a fresh start and a fresh atmosphere. But instead of dreading it, try to welcome it and realize that this IS for the best for the community. How, you might ask?

A Few Of The Expected Changes

*Everyone starts from square one. Meaning, no leeching since there’s no one to leech from. No high level gear on low level characters since… no one has any. We all get to work together on our characters in a gameplay aspect. This will not only encourage us, the standing community, to work together… but it also means new players won’t be so discouraged by a playerbase with it’s financial and high level character claws sunk into a server. In the end, in spite of saying goodbye to what you have now, it truly is a win/win situation. This honestly has potential to be a LOT of fun for us all, as we have enjoyed making low level characters together to level in the past!

*A new story to sink your teeth into. That’s right, along with our characters comes a complete history wipe. We’ve had some good times, no lies. We’ve made a lot of good creative memories with our story telling but it is time to say goodbye to the old and invite the new in. With the new story (a work in progress) one can expect a more active presence of deities, flexibility on character races and a few advancements in technology for a more diverse atmosphere.

*No more erratas… for the most part. Your eyes do not deceive you. We trust that you and other players will be responsible enough not to do irresponsible things with your characters. We hope you have the sense not to make magic-using assassins who fling alchemist bombs and are impossible to hit, ever. We hope you understand balance by now, and dynamic roleplay is better than ‘play-to-win’. Just because we’ve lightened up (largely) on the errata system it’s not a free pass to be abusive. None of the staff, current and new, appreciate people making other players uncomfortable and situations like this will be met critically. So develop your character with a handful of wisdom and a pinch of caution.

For the ‘most part’ - what we mean by that is you STILL need an errata for leadership, political power, insane funds, or control of NPC’s. We’ll generate a basic list at some point, but a good rule of thumb is ‘if you’re not sure’ then you should ask a GM or Moderator. Being the headmaster of a school, part of the Juno Senate, a High Priest of a faith, or other positions of obvious ‘power’ still need approval. However, the new ‘errata’ is also a work in progress and hope to have something presentable to you all soon enough.

In the end, it is up to YOU guys to keep things this way. If you want to keep a relaxed position on erratas afloat, that’s going to be your responsibility. What we mean by that is you need to think twice before you do something in roleplay that could potentially jeopardize this for everyone else. You’re not carrying your own fate on your shoulders, but that of the server. Things could be handled case by case, but in the event of a wide scale problem, we’ll again implement a wide scale response. So character create with that in mind.

*Essential guideline and rule edits. There will be a rehaul of our current rules and guidelines. A few examples will include allowing for more flexibility with guns with the mindset that this is fantasy and in fantasy you very well can dodge bullets or your armor can stop them dead in their tracks. We won’t be allowing automatics, so don’t ask. The new firearm guideline is still a work in progress so please don’t inquire just yet. Another example is a lift on the no Angel/Demon ban. Now, it’s up to you to be responsible about that as well. Some of you may have been here for the old build, but a majority have not. Don’t think you can command immediate respect and fear by waltzing in and declaring you’re a Grand Demon. Respect, fear, and other factors are built through persistent roleplay, not from sheer character idea. These are not the only things to be affected, but rather just a couple of examples of what we have in mind.

New Roleplay Moderators

With this reset, we’re also happy to announce we’ll be adding two new Roleplay Moderators to our team, welcoming Miakoda and Dove back into Aeon and into these positions at the time of the reset. What does this mean for you? More plot, more staff to help you with your Roleplay needs and ideas, and all around a more dynamic community. More people to help you, and to help the staff as well as we pilot into a new frontier of AeonRO. We hope that you all learn from our collective example to work together and flourish into a fun-loving creative community once more. It’s what we all want for you, and hope to provide that with our efforts.

Miakoda and Dove will become a driving force of Roleplay in AeonRO, and they’re both eager to introduce the community to their ideas and stories. All five RP Moderators (Gizmo, Sicarius and Mandy included), will do our best to work with you, the community, on your RP concerns and have high hopes for the future of our server.

The new setting is still a work in progress but we’re open to reasonable ideas, if you have them. Try to think of things that are a wide benefit, and nothing too self-serving. Character ideas aren’t on our plate right now so much as working out fundamentals. When we have something to show - trust us, you’ll be the first to know! Heh heh. However, rest assured we are working diligently to bring something together that will appeal to everyone, with flexible lore for players to add their own ideas and creative spins.

Now, What About Gameplay?

All our custom content will remain. Celestials, Marks, Prestiges, Dungeons: they all stay. We do not intend to let things stagnate either, and will do our best to try and keep things interesting. Granted this takes time and meticulous work but with patience we hope to bring more ‘new’ things around when time allows. Expect changes to server rates, but we intend to keep things like our massive party bonus to encourage everyone to work together. If you have concerns with the gameplay aspect post-reset, direct your concerns to Laggy.

Aside from rate adjustments- expect gameplay to be very much the same with the promise of potential new content in the future.

Not to mention, in a month we can expect a new SVN update. What does that entail? New items (extremely…broken items) new mobs, new maps, new stuff all together. We’re sure you’re all as excited about that as we are.

When Can We Expect These Shenanigans To Happen?

They’re already happening, as we speak. As mentioned before, we’ve started right away on working on new things from a Roleplay aspect, and currently we’re waiting to do an SVN update to bring more content to you. As it stands, we’re anticipating this change to be a conservative estimate of two months of work. Maybe sooner.

With all that said, let’s all look forward to an awesome near-future experience in AeonRO, and hope everyone anticipates this with as enthusiasm as the staff, old and new.

-The Aeon Team