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Staff Account, Cubs, Absences

Hello everyone, hope everybody is off to a great start on their summers. We want to thank everybody for holding through with us during these past couple of weeks, and we're pleased to say that RoW is going to continue on to see its second birthday (July!). We had a lot of great suggestions given to us as to how to improve the site, and we're discussing those currently. Until then, there are a few announcements that the administration wants to share with you, and they're quite important, so please read carefully.

First, to help unify the staff team and to prevent the possibility of mixed messages being sent to members, the administration is requesting that all site questions, comments, suggestions be sent to the Spirit of Wildwood account as opposed to individual staff members. This will help us make sure that we are all on the same page when it comes to answering questions and where things are going IC. If you do PM an individual administrator in regards to an important question regarding the game, you will receive a response from the staff account. For your convenience, the Staff Account has been linked to at the top of the staff page.

Second, a friendly reminder that the four litters in Relic Lore will soon be playable. Applications for the cubs will be accepted the day that they can be played (one month after their birth). At that time, it will be determined if some cubs will have perished due to lack of a player. There are a few that are still in need, so if you are interested, go check out the Adoption page.

Finally, a note about the increasing number of absent notice messages that have been appearing in the Member Chat area. This isn't a problem, persay, it's great that you want to keep the rest of the site informed about your whereabouts, but please remember, posting in that forum to say you are absent does not put you on the absent log. Every member has the capability to put themselves on absence by filling out the short form here, please don't leave it to your administrators to do it for you. Along these lines, our weekly activity check will resume next Sunday, June 17th, so make sure you've posted at least once or you'll have to rejoin.

I would like all members to please take the time to read and respond to my discussion thread regarding RoW's future in the two cents forum. Thank you.

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Another Rule Change

Hey guys! I know it seems we're tweaking a lot of rules and aspects of the game, but we feel these are necessary changes. I promise we have a lot of fun things in store for you all in the next few weeks — we're just plugging away at it slowly! Until then, please take note of the following rule amendment below:

- A member on the game may only play one lead character.

This is a rule amendment we feel is necessary, as lead characters are required to be more active and in turn should be a player's main character. We want to keep the game fair for everyone, and the way we have established breeding rights, etc, it is only fair to allow other members to have their chance at creating a pack rather than one person having multiple.

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Cub Arrival

May is upon us, and that of course means that the lovely cub litters of Relic Lore are due to be born any day! The first of the four litters was brought into the world today, so feel free to go lurk the birthing thread and give it lots of loves! Over the next two weeks, the other three litters will be born. The staff would like to extend a friendly reminder that the cubs are not playable until they are a month old (starting from the start date of the birth thread), so will not be accepted into the game (just to avoid any temptation to post early!).

Also, we also want to hint that we have several big events coming for June & July to celebrate RoW's second birthday. We hope that will make up for some of your administration's scarcity as of late, as the three of us also struggle with the end of the year hassles and schedules. Along those lines, I just want to bring to attention that I will be out of the country from May 27th-June 2nd, so will be unable to handle any maintenance requests, bug errors, or post. So if there are any fixes or changes that need addressed soon, please try and let me know before the 20th so I have ample time to take care of it. Thanks!

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All the News!

This is a long news post, so grab a drink and a snack and settle in for the ride!

First, we would like to point out a new rule that has been added to the game. We are now requiring that players wait two weeks after being accepted to post an application for a new character. This reasoning behind this is that we want new players to have a chance to get comfortable with the RoW community and make sure that they can handle writing the quality posts that we expect here. While we certainly don't mind the quantity, we don't want to the quality to suffer as a result of it. This rule does not apply to a player rejoining with multiple characters that had been removed due to an activity check - though if this is the case, then perhaps reconsider how many characters you think you can handle?

Second, there are a ton of updates regarding Random Events. We have some new ones this week, so be sure to check those out. You'll also notice an addition to the page; a listing of the Random Events from the past 3 months so that you can go back and remember what crazy events have come to Relic Lore. To help make Random Events stand out more, they have been given their own page on the Thread Listening page. The way that threads appear on that listing is when the topic creator selects "Random Event" as the topic subject (as opposed to All Welcome, Private, etc.). So be sure to check your threads appropriately so they'll appear on the listing. If your character has participated in a random event thread and that thread is not listed, please comment on this newspost with the topic so that we can add it. Also, we are always open to more ideas on events, so please let us know if you have any ideas!

Third, a few reminders. Lone wolves are encouraged to join a pack as soon as possible, so if your character has been living on their own for a while, start pushing them in the direction of a pack territory. Also, voting for April "Of the Months" ends on April 30th, so be sure to go Vote. Also, a due date has been added for applications for cubs! All applications must be in by April 30th so that parents may announce players for their cubs on May 1st.

Fourth, the word of the day problem has been fixed. Yay!

Fifth, help your staff keep the site updated! Be sure you are properly archiving threads (when they reach a conclusion) and reporting any of your dead threads so that they can be put into the incomplete archives. Also, we want to make use of RoW Timeline! So if you have an event or thread that you think is important, please let us know in the Maintenance thread so that we can update the timeline.

Finally, your staff team has been hard at work on two projects that we hope to release soon. One of which is a new fighting structure to help keep fights fair and organized. If you have any suggestions on the matter, please let us know. The second project is the upcoming Board Wide Plot that will change our lovely Forest of Relic Lore forever.

As always, your staff loves you very much, and we want to encourage you guys to keep up all the great work you're doing. <3

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Rule Changes

Happy weekend, everybody! This announcement is in regards to a few rule changes that go into effect as of today. From this point onward, players with multiple characters are now allowed to have more than one adult character in the same pack. However, there are restrictions to this:

- If a player plays Character A & Character B, and Character A is founding a pack, Character B cannot count as one of the four adults required to start a pack.
- A player may make minor references to their other character, such as "Character A saw Character B moving through the bushes". However, any large interaction, including speaking to one another, must take place in separate posts, one per character.
- A player may not claim Life Points for a thread whose only participants are their own characters (this applies to any situation where a player has multiple characters in the same thread). You may claim Life Points if there is another character, that is not your own, present in the thread as well.

We are also adding a rule that we hope will make everybody's life simpler when it comes to archiving threads. If the thread is following a posting order, it is the responsibility of the person who would have come next (if the thread had continued) to archive the thread. This way, it prevents the mistake of a participant ending a thread early when their RP partner might have been working on a reply. That said, when in doubt of whether or not a thread is "finished" don't hesitate to PM the person/people you're RPing with!

Along those same lines, a friendly reminder that in order to claim Life Points, the thread must have reached an IC conclusion and be at least 10 posts in length.

Finally, we want to mention that we are currently discussing the implementation of a fighting system to help limit confusion when it comes to RPing fights. Until the kinks have been worked out, please don't hesitate to PM a staff member for their input if things are becoming confusing in your fight thread.

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Cubs, Random Events, & Easter

There are a lot of updates to make this Sunday, so bear with us everyone! First off, we just want to say thank you for the continuing activity, it's absolutely phenomenal. We made our last update regarding the 10,000th post on April 8th. It now the 15th, and we're already up to over 10,400. You guys are incredible! Keep up the good work!

The first big piece of news is in regards to the Cub Adoptions '12. All four packs on RoW were able to conceive, and we are bringing those little bundles of joy to you today! Many of them are still in need of loving players to take them over starting in June, so if you're interested in picking up one of RoW's newest members, head on over to the adoption thread and check it out.

Second, there are a new set of Random Events up for your pleasure. Remember, you get Life Points for participating in those Random Event threads, so take advantage of them!

Finally, the staff would like to say congratulations to Fenrir and Tyrant for completing this year's Easter Egg hunt. You are now free to collect and OOC reward icon in the maintenance thread. For those of you who are curious to the location of the eggs, you can find those here. Thanks to everybody who participated, and we hope you enjoyed it!

And, just for kicks, this is a heads up that there is a new Board Wide Plot in development. Be on the look out for informational threads regarding that in the near future!

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Happy Easter & 10,000 Posts!

Oh my goodness! It would seem the Easter bunny has hopped on through RoW and left a bunch of hidden eggs for everyone to find! And boy, does he know how to hide an egg. ;)

There are a total of 10 eggs hidden anywhere on the site! Make sure when you find an egg to hover over it and write down the letter. Collect and unscramble all 10 letters to find the secret phrase. Once you have the phrase, PM Corinna's to see if you were right!

Everyone who can find all 10 eggs and unscramble the letters to the correct phrase will receive an icon credential for their OoC profile for the 2012 hunt! There are only a few simple rules: don't ruin the surprise for others and post information on the site, and have fun!

Early last week, Chels made RoW's 10,000th post! As a reward for this wonderful achievement, Chel's character Volkan's personal skin is being featured as the default RoW Skin. Congratulations, not only to Chels, but to the rest of the site. The amount of effort you guys put into your posts is incredible, and I can't wait until we reach our next big landmark!

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Random Events - 4/1

Hey everyone! I hope you all enjoyed our last set of Random Events. If you missed out on what those were, no worries, I'm working on an archive so we can remenesce about them later. But, it's been two weeks since those were posted, so head on over to the Random Events page and check out what's happening in Relic Lore now!

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Poison Path

After much anticipation, it seems Rhysis has taken a mate and together have forged RoW's fourth pack, Poison Path! Located in the Lost Lake on the dangerous mountain, this is RoW's darkest pack yet. If you are interested in having one of your characters join, the leaders of PP (Rhysis and Naira) encourage any questions, whether through PM or here.

Also, don't forget about our three other packs! We highly encourage all lone wolves to take a look at their options and consider joining a pack; you'll gain more life points and will have the ability to interact more directly with others!