[dohtml]

Activity Check & RE Schedule

Just to give everybody an update, Activity Checks and Random Events will now run on the 1st and 15th of every month. Users who have not made a post in those 15 days will be removed. You can keep track of how many posts you've made for each account by looking at the OOC sidebar and your OOC profile in your accounts. Users are automatically removed by the script, so please bare with us if there are some issues with it as it runs for the first time tomorrow (for instance, if you accidentally get removed, it isn't a big deal, we can rerank you with no trouble). Thanks for your patience everyone!

[dohtml]

Breeding Season Registration

Anyone who has plans for their character to breed/have cubs this season will need to register their character here. Sign-up closes March 28 and any breeding threads must be completed by April 1 to qualify.

[dohtml]

New Pack, Breeding Season and More!

To start off this round of updates, we wanted to give a delayed (so sorry guys!) congratulations to Jen and Lightning for the creation of Secret Woodlands! ICly founded by characters Nina and Sloane, this newly formed pack is short of no drama as Nina searches for her mate, Koda, and Sloane awaits for his own love, Narime to turn two years old.

We would also like to extend congratulations to both Namara and TABs, who were the winners of the new year's resolution, wolf style! contest. To celebrate, Switch has kindly made a beautiful skin depicting both characters! If anyone else enjoyed our last post prompt contest.. (or wants to try one out!) there is still time to sign up for our valentine's day post prompt! Registrations close February 14.

Also.. it looks like the search for Rissa has revealed a new land for everyone to love enjoy. Given the land is completely fresh, we ask that any wolves who stumble upon it within the next week or so have done so be either a). tracking the scent of the wolves who had partaken in the expedition or b). have heard from someone else of it's existence/location. Who knows what else will be discovered now that the passage is open over the mountains.. Though I hear the inhabitants on that side aren't overly welcoming. ;)

Finally, the biggest part of this update! RoW's upcoming breeding season!

Breeding season in Relic Lore begins March 1 and ends on the 31. That means any wolves with the intention to breed must do so within this time frame.
Did you guys notice how I said 'wolves' and not just 'leaders'...? This year, the staff have gotten together to attempt a different way of keeping breeding season special.. but more open to all of our members! This has been suggested to us by our member base, and we wanted to give it a try! What does this mean, exactly? Any character on RoW can breed this year! Given the below guidelines are followed, of course.


Maximum Number of Pups in a Litter
Lead Couple (both pack leaders) - 4 pups
Leader (only one is leader) - 3 pups
Subordinates - 2 pups
Lone Wolves - 2 pups


Adoption Process
All pups must be adopted by the time it is ready to come out of the den (3 weeks after their birth). The players of pups are responsible for keeping them active. If a pup is removed during an activity check and not reactivated during the following 2 weeks, it will die. Also, a pup that is a lone wolf will need to battle the constant LP deduction.. failure to do so will also result in the death of the pup.


Who can breed?
- Any wolf over the age of 2 is able to breed.
- Pack leaders set the breeding rules in their pack. If a pack leader enforces a no-breeding rule for subordinates, then subordinates who disregard these rules will face the consequences that is set by their leader.


Additional Information
- Two individual characters have the chance to either mate or breed. Breeding results in cubs, mating does not. Those who want to breed with the goal of reproducing will need to respond to the breeding thread signups.
- Two lone wolves who successfully raise two cubs to 1 year of age will create a pack. This will substitute the amount of Life Points required by the potential lead wolves in the 'Pack' category.. however, the lone wolves must still meet the other requirements (though two cubs turned yearling will count as pack members).


Sign up's for those with the intention of breeding will happen within the next week! We suggest you begin to make your plans for the upcoming season, as it's just right around the corner! ;)

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that yes, your post counts are wrong. Yes, I'm aware. Yes, I am working on the problem. You can continue to post as normal and the posts will be recounted once I've fixed the issue.

Thanks!

[dohtml]

Fighting, LP, Packs, ++

Happy New Year, everyone! We have quite a few updates to make, so please bear with me for this rather long announcement!

First, we would like to bring your attention to the new Fighting System created and written by {Kiche_player}. This fighting system is the default for RoW, which means any and all fights that come up that do not have a predetermined outcome agreed upon by the involved players will default to this system. To request that a staff member roll the dice for each round of the fight, please make a topic in Wolf Central, labeled as "Fight Requests" and post the information asked for here. To make doing the math easy, you can now view your fight stats from your profile, as well as a full fight stats table that shows you where we're getting the numbers from. At this point, all the errors (minus one involving having multiple entries for speed/strength/stamina), should be fixed, so if any of the numbers don't add up, please let us know!

While you're looking at the profile, you'll notice that there are three new profile fields under the appearance section: height, weight, and length. So go ahead and fill those fields in, remembering to look at our wolf appearance information to get the correct dimensions.

In the past two weeks, there's been quite a bit of discussion regarding LP and some clarifications/modifications we've made to the system. Here's a quick summary, though detailed information can be found in the Life Point guide. There are still a few other LP issues currently in discussion, so once those have been determined, we will let you know.

- In order to count for LP, all threads must have at least 10 posts and be completed (unless the LP table specifically says otherwise).

- Wolves who joined RoW before the LP system was put into place can retroactively claim points for the wolves that they've met. However, the threads cannot be counted for LP.

- Leaders are now able to claim +10 points for every three joining threads that they participate in where they accept or reject a lone wolf.

- "Recruiting a new pack member" means meeting a lone wolf away from a pack's territory and bringing them back with you to join. Meeting them on the borders and then calling for the leaders to come and accept them does not count.

Next, we want to clarify an issue regarding rank challenges vs. demonstrating rank. Wolves typically act their ranks the vast majority of the time - they're very conscious about head and tail position around their pack mates. If a higher ranking wolf "submits" in the sense that they allow themselves to slip and do not act their rank, they can lose it to the lower ranking wolf. An example scenario is below to explain what we mean by this.

Wolf A is a II. Wolf B is a III.
Wolf B holds their head/tail higher than Wolf A; maybe snarls a bit. But doesn't all out challenge them for their rank.
Wolf A does not reassert their dominance; either they retreat or just "give in".
Wolf B would become II and Wolf A III.

If this scenario happens, we're asking that the thread be reported in Maintenance so the staff can adjust the ranks accordingly. This doesn't happen often, but we want to make a point of reminding every one that the ranks are supposed to be dynamic - just because a leader is not there or an event was not a full out rank challenge does mean that that it doesn't count.

We would like to congratulate {Triell_player} on being selected to play {Ripplefang} for the duration of the BWP. Speaking of the AW wolves - if you are currently participating in a thread relating to the BWP, we want to know about it! Reply to this thread with the link so we can keep our Library updated!

There's more than rapid wolves roaming the mountain these days! Last week, RoW welcomed it's latest pack - Nomad's Pass. Founded by Naira and Rhysis, the pack has certainly been stirring up some drama in the Mountain. Be careful visiting though, one of RoW's helpful eagles informed me that the Nomad's Pass wolves bite.

Speaking of packs, we'd like to let the site know that we're currently discussing some adjustments to the rules. We wanted to clarify the issue regarding the lead pair; as the rules have not been updated in some time to reflect what has actually been allowed in practice. We are also introducing some new requirements for leaders, but those will be announced in an upcoming announcement once all decisions have been made.

Finally, we have two contests we'd like to bring to your attention. First, we're bringing back our Post Prompts challenges. We've got a whole set for the upcoming year, and what better way to begin than by accomplishing some New Year's resolutions? Check it out and sign up! Secondly, we have our advertising contest. Contribute to RoW and write an ad that will be used to attract new members to the site!

I think that's everything for the moment. As always, if you have any comments, questions, or suggestions, let us know!

[dohtml]

Bug Reports, Account Settings, Aniwaya Woods

We've officially been on the new MyBB board for 5 days, and the staff has to say that we're seriously impressed. Not only with everyone's activity, but with the great attitude everybody has had about the move. We know it hasn't been the most painless of transitions, but we're working on it, we promise! Keep up the great work and continue to post your errors/something seems off in the Bug Reports thread.

Looking in to some bugs, we realized that there was an error with transferring account settings. We would encourage everyone to visit the board settings section in the UCP and check to see if all the correct options are checked. Can't see avatars or signatures? Getting encrypted PM notifications? It's probably because the correct options aren't being checked here.

Since we are only two days away from the New Year, we want to encourage everybody to go vote for your December OTMs'.

Finally, the staff would like to announce the new players of Aniwaya Woods - the pack created for our board wide plot, Where the Wild Things Are. Congratulations to, Sarah who will be playing Slimtail, Becuffin who will be playing Slyscar, and Thea who will be playing Dapplefur. However, it seems that poor Ripplefang is still without a player! We will be accepting applications for her until January 2nd, after which we will be deciding a player. We would encourage everybody to apply, even if you applied for one of the other three. Aniwaya Woods players, you will receive a PM shortly with the information to your accounts and additional instructions. Congratulations!

On behalf of all the RoW Staff, we'd like to wish you a safe and Happy New Year! We can't wait to see what 2013 will bring to RoW. =)

[dohtml]

[dohtml]

Planned Downtime - Board Move

That's right, everybody! The time has come for RoW to make it's switch to myBB. This announcement has very important information that is critical for everyone to read and understand so the transition can be as smooth as possible. To cause the least amount of disruption, we are going to be doing the move in phases. The IPB board will be turned offline on Christmas Eve to complete the move. We will reopen on Christmas Day on the new board. Please allow for some flexibility for the phases; we're giving time estimations (EST) so that everyone can be prepared, but they could change depending on the staff's schedules. We will do our best to keep to this schedule, however.

The staff would like to thank everybody for their patience with the process of moving the board. In order to have it done in time for Christmas, we've been focusing on moving the content we currently have. We do have new features and ideas that are in the works, but they will implemented in the next couple of weeks, along with the BWP. We will be putting up a Bug Testing Thread specifically to keep track of bugs, and we will also be taking suggestions/improvements. We've worked quite hard on the board, and we hope you all like it. If you have any questions about anything, don't hesitate to PM me or reply to this news thread.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

[dohtml]

LP Removal for Recruitment

Just a quick note to everyone -- it came to our attention that some users had an incorrect amount of Life Points given to them for 'Recruiting a member.' These LP were removed from the user accounts and we extend our apologies to anyone this may inconvenience.

For future reference, points may only be claimed for recruiting a pack member if the character is extended an invitation to join a pack, not by simply accepting them. If an LW seeks the pack out on their own it will not count.

We ask that any members who know they have claimed points for this and it does not meet our requirements to please PM the SoW account so we can adjust accordingly. Again, our apologies for the confusion and we thank you for understanding!

[dohtml]

RP Etiquette Reminders, New Staff

First off, the Row staff would like to wish everybody a happy end of the semester (for our school kiddies) and a happy holidays to everybody. We're looking forward to the upcoming Holiday season. Our BWP will get getting underway and the board move will be completed to MyBB. There are also a few IC developments that could result in new packs being formed, so definitely a lot to keep up with on RoW in the next couple of weeks.

As RoW continues to grow, the administration made the decision to promote long-time member, SIKI to a moderator position. Along with Switch, Grey, and Fenrir, she will help in moderating the board, answering questions, and in general just doing our bidding helping to keep things running smoothly. Congratulations, Siki, it's well deserved!

Second, the staff would like to highlight the Role Play Tips Guide. We've noticed increasingly shorter posts or ones that are resorting to the same flashbacks over and over; we'd encourage everybody to take a look at the guide and refresh themselves on some ways to enhance your posts to make them more engaging to write and for others to respond too.

The staff would also like to remind everyone about the understood rules of roleplay, certain rules of etiquette that we expect to be followed even if they are not explicitly said. Chief among these is metagaming, or taking OOC knowledge and putting it into IC. Just because you read a thread where Wolf A was hanging out with Wolf B, that does not mean that Wolf C knows about it. We're pointing this particular issue out because we've received some complaints with people assuming that their characters know something that it would not be possible for them to know, and as a result, carefully planned plots are being disrupted. If you're at all unsure about what it would be reasonable for your character to know or not know, please be courteous to your other writers and send them a PM asking. We hate to hear about ruined plots because somebody assumed too much, and once it gets written into the roleplay, it isn't really possible to take it back. We'd like to hope that these instances of metagaming are not intentional, but we're hoping that with this reminder, we will all be more aware of it and try and keep the separation between OOC knowledge and IC knowledge.