A hearty thank you to everyone who participated in the Town Hall
meetings and topical forums held this week. I know that despite my best
efforts to accommodate a diverse set of times, not everyone was able to
attend. I hope the logs on the forums will be helpful to you, but I also
wanted to provide a wrap-up of the topics we discussed.

My biggest goal for the first part of 2017 is bringing Aetolians with
common ground closer together and those on opposite sides of the global
spectrum further apart. Reducing idling and keeping citymates in contact
with one another gives us better opportunities for spontaneous roleplay
and makes cities feel more alive. Polarizing the tethers even further
generates roleplay-authentic conflict.

We're in the final testing phase for our upcoming new class release,
Wayfarers! The Cabalist revamp is also under heavy development.
Classleads will resume mid-January and once again follow a quarterly
schedule. The War System is not lost! We're focusing the design and
preparing to make final decisions about its implementation.

Most eventful was our Leadership meeting, in which the game's player
leaders and I discussed a wide array of topics. With the addition of the
Leader channel to help organization leaders interface with me and one
another more directly, I hope to give leaders the opportunity to plan
and coordinate roleplay events and get immediate feedback on policy
questions. I also narrowed the purpose of OrgRequests going forward, to
focus on small additions that impact the daily lives of organization
members.

The relationship between cities and guilds generated the most
controversy, as I affirmed my goal of bringing the organizations closer
together and officially bringing guilds under the umbrellas of their
associated cities. There are still a few details to work out, and I got
lots of helpful player feedback about desires and fears on the subject.
One certainty is the introduction of city novicehood, wherein new
players are supported by the city as a whole rather than their
individual guild, which may struggle to support all timezones despite
being active and fun. We will also be removing guildranks above GR5 and
shifting to a dynamic, guildmaster-driven system in which guildmasters
create ranks and assign members at will. This will enable the
continuation of existing progression systems while also giving
guildmasters who wish to do something different the flexibility to build
the leadership structure that suits their goals.

If you don't currently browse Aetolia's forums (forums.aetolia.com), I
highly encourage you to do so in 2017. It's where I'll be soliciting
player feedback most often, and it's a great way to chime in on issues
important to you or your character. Overall, it's a pretty friendly
place, and I'm not afraid to moderate to keep it that way. Give it a
shot!

I'm looking forward to a productive year, Aetolia. Your passion for the
game has come out in force this week, and I can't wait to channel it
into more and better things. Happy new year.

Penned by my hand on Tisday, the 18th of Chakros, in the year 463 MA.