Hey guys,

I've gone through and done some big changes to exploration, and how it
works on our end. This will require a bit of a lengthy explanation so
bear with me for now.

Previously, when exploring the lands in order to increase your
exploration rank, only every third room in the game would be added
towards your total. Any other room held no bearing if you explored it or
not. This was done at the time for memory and disk storage concerns, as
the hardware of the time didn't have the capacity of today.

In the new system however, all rooms within the game are explorable.
Once you enter a room, it will be marked off and that's all you need to
do. However, not all rooms will count towards your exploration rank
despite all rooms being explorable.

Here's a list of what does not count:
* All Buildings, Castles, Guildhalls, and Havens.
* Dens or tents.
* Special maze rooms such as the plantation, which have a
unique MAP output.
* Unreleased areas and newbie areas.
* All rooms on the Plane of Creation.

The reason for this is two-fold. Should those rooms change their
exploration validity towards your rank, they will be either deducted or
added to your score. This prevents really old players from having
inflated exploration ranks due to removed areas from past years, and
lets newer players have a chance at ranking high. For example those of
you who never got to fight upon Kerrithrim's body under the old system
will never get the exploration points for exploring it as it is no
longer possible.

The second reason is simple. We want to create new mechanics that
revolve around your exploration of areas. The first mechanic that'll be
using this is the new PATH SEARCH function I have created. As long as
you have previously explored a room, you can PATH SEARCH <room title>
and receive the vNum for it to use in tandem with PATH FIND.

Those of you that previously had high explorer ratings are probably
going to bite your knuckles a bit, but with these changes, only the
rooms that counted under the previous system will be marked off as
explored for you. All the rooms in between will need to be re-explored
in order for you to gain the benefits from them.

This conversion will occur when you log in, otherwise for the mean time
everyone has had their exploration rating set to zero. If you're reading
this from inside the game, it's most like already been done for you!

As Neoma was our 1st placed explorer under the old system, I have
granted her the fame of being #1 in explorers. Huge congratulations to
her! Once 30 days pass by, I will enable the line to be claimed by
anyone similar to the experience rankings.

That's all that needs to be said, enjoy the new system! Let me know if
you encounter any problems.

Penned by my hand on Tisday, the 15th of Khepary, in the year 455 MA.