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Planned Downtime

This is a heads up to everyone that tomorrow, Saturday, November 24th, RoW will experience some short downtime as we switch servers. This is different from the board move to myBB, so don't get your hopes up, though we are steadily making progress on that as well and hope to have the board completed by Christmas time. We will be transferring from www.dreamhost.com to our own private server, and to avoid losing data, we will be turning the board offline for the duration of the server switch. It might take longer for individuals to regain access to RoW after the switch is done due to DNS propagation, but it should be working no later than Sunday evening. If it isn't working by Sunday evening, please email Shadow at shadow@midnightfable.com.

Thanks for the patience, everyone. We're hoping that with the switch to the faster server, RoW's runtime will increase dramatically and should put an end to long load times.

Completed

If you can see this, you are on the new server! Posting is permitted.

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Pumpkin Hunt Winners

Halloween's long over, but we haven't yet announced our Pumpkin Hunt Winners of 2012! (Sorry guys!) It was a large word this year, but congratulations to those who got it: Monster Mash!

In previous years, we would reward a small pumpkin icon in your player credentials and give you a hearty cyber thump on the back.. We're getting rid of the player credential system however and introducing something new in the next few months: player points.

If we were slick, we would just tell you to wait and be surprised by how many you'll get, and what you can do with them because we want you to wait for the new board.. but we can't lie. We're still working out the system, how many players should earn for what, and what you can trade or earn with these points. So! Once we know, we will PM the winners of the contest and make sure you get your player points for this activity.. and we're sure you'll find something you want to do with them. ;)

So without further ado, congratulations to all of our spooky halloween winners: Namara, Vami, Kydnt, Fenrir and Sarah!

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Happy Halloween!

It's really hard to believe Halloween is here once more -- apparently no one told that to Sandy, but we want to wish everyone a Happy Halloween despite the raging storm and hope you all stay safe. <3

RoW is celebrating its third Halloween with a stunning skin made by Sarah! Initially, we wanted to have the skin used for the new site, but unfortunately, we're still not ready for the move.. and we could not waste such a gorgeous skin. :) Thank you Sarah!

The new board is still being worked on. We have a few things that need tweaking still and are working to ensure the new board is up to everyone's standards. We'll be ready for the move before you know it!

Also.. does anyone else see those strange little pumpkins hiding around the site..? If you hover over them, they seem to give you a letter.. To those who happen to find all eleven scattered around the site, make sure to unscramble the letters for the Halloween word and PM it to the Spirit of Wildwood account. There might be some 'Player Points' in store for you.. our upcoming OOC Reward system. :)

Happy hunting, guys!

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OTMs, SR, CRC, Staff

Wow, guys. It's really hard to believe it's October already! Soon we'll be getting ready for our annual pumpkin hunt. ;)

First we'd like to congratulate September's OTM's! There was a lot of ties, so we had to hold a second poll to narrow down our results! Congratulations to Elettra for being September's Wolf of the Month and to Vami & Kashikoi for being September's Member(s) of the month.

We would also like to note that Copper Rock Creek currently has no Leaders. Ruiko and Aeylen have gathered their family and left Relic Lore. Pack members may ICly figure out what they will do -- challenge for leadership, disband the pack, etc. However, members only have one week to figure out their plan; this has been a long time coming! The only reason we are asking for this to happen ICly rather than bump up the next highest ranked wolves is because it has been expressed by a member under the next highest rank that they would like to take responsibility for the pack. As this has happened before our new leadership requirements (please read below), we wanted to continue with this original plan.

Finally, we want to mention a few rules that we will be changing. Activity checks will only happen once every two weeks now rather than once a week. We have noticed that the Absence Log system is being abused -- people are placing their character's up for scarcity, and for months on end, etc. This is not how the system is to work: absences should be no longer than two/three weeks, and very recently this has become a problem. All absences that were for over three weeks have been removed from the log, and will not be accepted. We understood fully the need for real life over RP, and will always tyr to be lenient with this.. however, we feel if you are going to be away for more than three weeks, it might be a good idea to consider removing yourself from the game temporarily. We hope that relaxing the activity requirements will help with this, though. Activity checks were skipped last weekend and will be held this weekend.

On the note of activity requirements, we have also noticed abuse in the amount of characters people are signing up with. Everyone is welcome to sign up with as many characters as they like. However, if you are on the absence log (and if we notice you on the log on and off quite frequently.. ex: once every few weeks, etc) you will not be able to join with new characters. Also, if you are removed for inactivity twice in a row (twice every four weeks) you will not be able to re-join with all of your characters immediately. You will be able to join with one, and then wait the alloted time period before we accept another, etc.

In regards to our poll about possible Leadership changes, we have taken everybody's opinions and thoughts on the matter and have decided that if a Leader becomes inactive/gets removed/leaves, then the next highest ranked wolf of that gender will be bumped up in place. Challenges can still occur.

Finally, on a more positive note! The new board is still being worked on, and Fenrir has been an amazing help moving over content so far. We have a huge list of 'things to do' for this, but it's slowly getting worked through. We are determined to try to get this move completed before the end of the month, so here's hoping!

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OTMs, SR, CRC, Staff

You guys have had a really fantastic month, breaking the 15,000 post mark. We have more characters running around Relic Lore more than ever, and the staff would like to assure you that we are working as hard and as quickly as we can on getting your rewards ready for you. Keep up the great work guys, and remember that we appreciate all of your patience during this transitional period as we work on moving the board over to myBB.

Thank you to everybody who offered some really great suggestions about moving to myBB. That survey will remain open, so if you have any more comments or suggestions, please don't hesitate to post there or send Rachel or I a PM and let us know what you're thinking. We want to make RoW the best it can be for our members, so anything at all is free game. As of right now, all accounts up to Phineas have been moved over, but when we move for real, RoW will have to close for a day or so just so we can get everything moved and not miss any updates that members will make to their profiles. We also have the method for moving posts and threads over, so have no worries there either.

While we think it has been assumed for a while, Rachel and I would like to announced that Tara will no longer be at RoW as neither a player nor an administrator. She was an integral part of the RoW community, and we all will certainly wish her the best.

With Tara's leaving the game, that leaves a bit of a problem for the wolves of Swift River. If all SR wolves could please direct their attention to their common room, it would be greatly appreciated. We also want to highlight the announcement made a few weeks ago in the plot board that Copper Rock Creek will be disbanding. If there is a plot currently in the works to keep the pack alive, Rachel and I would appreciate a PM being sent to the Staff Account informing us of the plans no later than October 1st. This is to help us with the process of moving the board - we have to do a fair bit of extra work for packs, and we don't want to waste our time if the pack is going to be disbanded.

We would like to draw your attention to the Wolf Central forum and highlight a poll that we have put up regarding a potential change to leadership requirements. That poll will also close on October 1st.

Finally, we would like to announce the winners of the August OTM revote poll. Bryony and Kydnt were voted as members of the month and Borden was voted Wolf of the Month. The board index will change to reflect these revotes. Don't forget to vote for your September OTMs here.

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MyBB Survey, Staff, & Leaders

Two weeks after RoW's birthday and you guys continue to amaze us with your incredible activity. Almost 200 posts in two weeks is insane, and we hope that everybody can keep up the pace as we all start returning from our summer breaks and vacations. Kicking off the start of the school year, the staff would like to welcome Fenrir player of Ice and Aiyana, to the staff team as a moderator. She has been a fantastic idea-giver and even in the few days since her addition to the staff, has been working quite hard to keep the board clean and tidy. On the in character side of things, we would like to congratulate Tlarx, who has ousted Kegan from the leadership position of Poison Path to lead beside Athena.

Second, we revealed in our birthday announcement that RoW will be making the switch to MyBB. This will give us a modern forum software with a whole new host of mods and plugins that are actively being updated. The switch is going to take some time, but since we are, in a sense, starting over, the staff wanted to get your opinions on features you like/dislike/want so they can be incorporated appropriately.

I'd like to note this first:
- All topics, posts, life points, accounts, gossip, loved threads, etc will be transferred. So there is no need to fret about losing any of that information in the move, we're moving it for you!

Questions!
What is your favorite feature on RoW? Why?

What is your least favorite feature? Why?

What do you think of the layout of the forum?

If you could change anything about the layout, what would you change?

The new board will give users the ability to add articles to the Library. Do you think you will write an article?

Some of you might know of the Account Switching mod that MyBB has (which is very similar to the one Shadow created for us here). Are there any aspects to the account switcher that you don't like, wish you could add?

If you could add or modify one of our existing features, what would you add/change?

The staff has talked about proposing some kind of default IC agreement between leaders and pack members when a character goes on absence, such as a character saying to a leader "Hey, I'm leaving." Do you think this default agreement would be helpful for characters played by people who leave on an extended absence? Other thoughts about how to deal with this issue are welcome!

We will be introducing Player Points as a way to reward OOC achievements made on the board. We have a few prizes in mind, but what are some ideas you have?

Do you have any ideas on how Life Points could be used in a practical sense for the characters of RoW beyond for use in fights or hunts?

Any other comments, thoughts, suggestions, would be greatly appreciated!

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Happy 2nd Birthday, RoW!

And what a year it has been! RoW has been through a lot since July 29th, 2011, and none of it would have been possible without the love and support of our member base. This birthday is in celebration of you, your characters, and your incredible ability to bring this fictional world to life and make it your creation. To help celebrate this historic occasion, Kydnt was kind enough to provide a birthday skin. She did a marvelous job and everybody should shower her with gratitude and kittens! Now hold on to your hats, we've got a lot to announce in celebration!

First off, you can check out the results of the Yearbook Voting. This includes a yearly summary for both OOC and IC. However, a lot more events and development happened than what is listed there, so if you've got something you would like to add to the yearly summary, please just let us know! To highlight, in this last year, RoW has written 9483 posts in 753topics, had 238 accounts created, and claimed 82,186 Life Points. This past year our top posters were, Switch with 740 posts, becuffin with 675 posts, and Lightning with 509 posts. To say we had a successful year is an absolute understatement!

This year, three new packs were created, fueled by the influx in Relic Lore's population. There was the threat of war to contend with this spring, but the wolves of Relic Lore weathered the storm and have used the summer to flourish within their packs. But all of that is about to change...

The staff would like to announce our next official board wide plot: Where the Wild Things Are. This board wide plot will be gradually revealed over the next few weeks, but keep an eye out! So far, Serpent's Pass has served as a formidable barrier between Relic Lore and what lays beyond. But this summer, it seems that barrier is going to be broken. So what does this mean for you and your characters? It means that there will be new lands to explore, and with new lands, come new challenges. More information will be coming shortly, but don't be surprised if things start to get a bit wild around here.

Finally, the biggest announcement for our members and one that we hopefully will be received with great relief. For the past two months, the staff has been working hard at transferring RoW to new board software (myBB). This will help solve the loading and downtime issues that we've been having and will allow us to use newly created modifications and plugins. So if you've noticed a lack of updates to this board recently, this is why! We've worked it so that the move should be hassle free - no accounts will need to be created, posts moved, etc. All of that will be moving with us. However, to help us prepare, please make personal backups of your private messages, profiles, and any posts you really like. While we're positive the move will go smoothly, we don't want to take any chances with your hard work. We will announce when we're planning to do the move, as it will require an hour or two of downtime to make sure all data is backed up and up-to-date on the new board, but we wanted to let you guys know where your staff's energy and focus has been lately!

As a community, we have been through an enormous amount this past year. Many of you were not here last summer and have joined as some point between then and now, but that hardly matters. Every player here is a valued part of our community. Every character has an impact, and every development makes the story of Relic Lore even richer and complex, and we absolutely love it. The staff could not have asked for a better member base, and we can't wait to see what you guys are able to achieve in the upcoming year.

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RoW Yearbook Voting

Happy July, everyone! We're happy to say that RoW is moving along quite beautifully, the summer heat only fueling the creative juices of our players. You guys are doing a fantastic job, and we can't wait to see how you and your characters continue to grow and develop.

On July 29th, RoW turns two years old! That is absolutely incredible and humbling all at the same time. Your staff has a lot planned and have been working around the clock to make sure that you guys receive some wonderful birthday surprises. We have our upcoming Board Wide Plot, which is going to shake things up in our peaceful forest, as well as some new OOC enhancements to our community. In order to pull all of this off, though, your staff needs some help!

We previously asked for a list of superlatives and ideas about what you would like to see published in the RoW Yearbook. Below are a list of all the areas you can nominate winners for. Not only do we have superlatives, but we also have favorite threads, quotes, and RoW's version of Prom King/Queen. We are asking that all votes be sent to the Spirit of Wildwood account with the message title of "Yearbook Voting". In order to get the Yearbook compiled in time, we would like all submissions to be in by July 22nd, which gives you over a week to consider who you would like to honor this year. All members, old and new, are encouraged to participate!

Superlative Categories:
Most improved wolf:
Most timid/shy wolf:
Most arrogant wolf:
Best 'damsel in distress' (doesn't have to be female!):
Most likely to achieve/maintain their ultimate goal:
Pack most likely to survive a natural disaster:
Cub most likely to lead a pack:
Cutest couple:
Most patient/tolerant wolf:
Most chivalrous wolf:
Biggest vocabulary:

Submit your Favorite Thread from the past year:
Submit your favorite Quote from the past year:

Leader Titles:
Protective, Intelligent, Regal, Dominating, Spirited, Strict, Forgiving, Reserved, Goofy, Dramatic

If you have any questions or last minute suggestions, please don't be afraid to let us know. Thanks!

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Birthday Celebrations & OtMs'

First of all, congratulations everyone! This last week, RoW hit an IC post count of 13,000 and it continues to rise. That's absolutely fantastic, and we can't wait until we hit our next big mile marker.

Second, your staff team needs some help in preparing for RoW's upcoming birthday celebrations. It was brought up a few times that we should create a RoW yearbook with superlatives that our members can vote on. These can range from anything to "Who is the silliest character in RoW?" to "Who thinks he has the most power?". If you have any ideas for a set of superlatives that you'd like to be able to nominate and vote for, please let us know by responding to this newspost. Likewise, if there are any other specific things you would like to see in the Yearbook, post here and let us know. This is a collection of memories that this community has formed over the past year, and we'd like to remember as much as we can.

Finally, a friendly reminder that June OtMs' will be posted on July 1st, so if you haven't, head on over to the Nomination Page to vote for who you think should receive this honor.

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Willow Ridge

After serving Grizzly Hollow loyally for almost a year, Elettra Archer decided to break away to start a pack of her own. The process has not been easy, but she has finally found enough supporters to lay claim to Willow Ridge, a secluded area in Drooping Willows. The pack is currently recruiting for new members, so if you're a lone wolf, be sure to track down Elettra.

As always, we highly encourage all lone wolves to start looking at joining one of the five packs in Relic Lore. You'll gain more life points and be able to interact with a wider range of wolves!