OFFICIAL MERIDIAN 59 NEWSLETTER	February 15, 2002

	Another week behind us and the game’s release is just around the corner. I believe my brother’s quote was “holy crap” as it dawned on us how close our target date is. The client will be sent with the artwork to the CD manufacturer early next week. Shortly after that, the CDs will be shipped out and players will be back in their real home world in their favorite online game. Here’s this week’s news.
	Testing update Client testing has gone very well and we’re coming to a close on this phase of testing. We want to thank the testers that have worked with so far on this phase. We understand that it’s very hard to play a PvP oriented game without being able to attack another player without consent. However, this has helped everyone focus on the text, graphics, sounds, levels, and other client bugs that needed to be caught and corrected. Once the game has been sent to the CD manufacturer early next week we’ll open up the game to another phase of testing. This segment will focus more on PvP, gameplay, and balance. We’ll be inviting approximately another five hundred testers from our forums and mailing list to join us in this phase. It is important to note that we’ll be deleting all character data at the start of this phase. We're deleting characters for two reasons. First, some characters were altered or given special items to test for client testing. Boosted characters would, of course, affect any playability testing we wished to do. This and the time the first phase testers have had to build would also put the new players at a great disadvantage. Second, we are running out of space to put spells. Due to the way the system works, spells require a specific identification number, and we're running out of numbers. Therefore, we have to change some of these numbers, which would break characters. We could spend time working on a fix, but we feel our time is better spent fixing real bugs rather than trying to preserve beta characters. This phase of testing is sure to be fun! We’ll be adding players rapidly and moving to full stress testing at an incredible rate, so please, don’t be discouraged if you aren’t invited in the very next group. Plus, with the commercial release so close, everyone will be playing again soon.
	Help name the release! Although we had originally considered naming this release simply "Meridian 59", we have decided that a chapter name should be included for the sake of discussion of versions. For example, it's much easer to say "Vale of Sorrow" was so much better than "Renaissance" than it would be to say "the NDS release". So with that in mind we brainstormed some ideas. We decided that for the first time, the players should name the release. Read about the choices and vote in the poll for the one you like the best.
	Brian's Bug Bashing Added Spectral Mummies as a monster. They're newbie type monsters, a bit below Zombies in the hierarchy of monsters. Fixed Reveal to work on spell items like potions, scrolls, etc. Rings must now be identified or revealed. Exceptions are Wedding Rings and Signet Rings. Raised resistance provided by rings of resistances by almost double. Lowered reagent cost for Reveal down to 3 Orc Teeth from 5. Added text to disciples robe's description stating which school they are dedicated to. Changed the amount of time quest engine considers a "recent" failure to 4 hours (was previously 8 hours). This should help people that fail at disciples quests get another chance sooner. Rebalanced reagents on spells to be more uniform. Reagents now have "meanings" within a spell school. Final amount of reagents needed and reagent availability need to be subject to playtesting. Reduced the weight of Orc Teeth. Adjusted the treasure tables to make reagent drops a bit different to compensate for spell changes. Changed the amount of Entroot Berries dropped in the game to be about double. Hid Dragonfly Eyes on a mainland NPC. Added Firesand as a conditional sale item on a mainland NPC. Must ask for "bags of firesand". Added Necklace of Jala. Isn't 100% finished yet, but it will allow people to use it as an instrument and not take up their hands. Eventually want to make it so that the caster can potentially keep Jala spells going while fighting.

Source: Near Death Studios - Info@NearDeathStudios.com