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Unknown Shores will be going offline for a few months, starting from the 1st of July. We will be working on much needed fixes to our management style and the available content on the server. Shores has been up continuously since its launch in 2018, weathering tumultuous episodes that other servers would have closed under. Thus, it has accumulated many issues that need cleaning up both mechanically and story wise. We have chosen to go through this temporary shutdown in order to give us time to do more than apply some band-aids. During this downtime we’ll be working with temporary extra staff on revamps and additions to our islands for people to explore and roleplay in, as well as adding to and changing existing content to come out with the 7.3.5 update. As stated before; we're not just looking to place band-aids over old wounds, we are looking to remedy them and seek to give you, the players, the experience that you deserve. We will also seek to begin the highly suggested advertising campaign, create a brand new website, a new wiki board, and revise the role of the forums we currently have. We aim to keep the community informed with regular updates, showcasing the new systems being coded, teasers for the new areas to explore and the new opportunities that players will have available to them. We recognise that the server has been a daunting experience for new players and we seek to mitigate these issues by the time the server relaunches. We want this to be a community that welcomes both veterans and fresh faces to our story. We’re also looking to hire more people to have a larger staff pool when we reopen, so if you’re interested, do contact us! We look forward to welcoming you all back again soon and look forward to giving you our first progress report in the coming weeks!

Hey, everyone. We just wanted to update you guys on some fundamental changes We’ll be making to the Story team here. Recently, Varen and I had a discussion about Shores and reoccurring issues the server has been having. We came to the conclusion that one big issue is how the server presents itself, versus how it runs when you get in-game. In other words, the server presents itself as a sandbox, but when players get in-game they experience a setting where Keepers are required for a significant amount of your progress. It is our intention to correct this discrepancy, and part of this correction will take place in the form of a restructuring of the story team. Moving forward, Keepers and Dungeon Masters will be replaced and redefined with the new roles of Loremaster and Dungeon Maker, respectively. While the exact details of these roles are still being fleshed out, we'd like to give you a preview of how they will work. As it currently stands, Dungeon Masters are very much what you would expect. In the style of a Tabletop RPG, a Dungeon Master creates campaigns or series of events and conducts it to a conclusion. Similarly, Dungeon Makers are exactly what you would expect from the name. Dungeon Makers will be granted access to a set of tools that allow them to create dungeons and exploration based areas for players to find and experience without the need of Keepers or staff oversight. Random encounters, puzzles, dungeons, and other quests are all a part of what Dungeon Makers will be able to create for their fellow players. These can be one off events, such as an encampment of bandits that, once cleared, will stay cleared. Alternatively, this could be a repeatable thing such as a dungeon full of Virmen. There is a lot of potential and flexibility in the tools Varen has made for us. The content we will be rolling out with the 7.3.5 update will showcase some of what these tools can do. This system is not without its flaws. You won't be able to interact with these dungeons as you would a Keeper led event. We acknowledge these flaws and at present, do not intend on ending staff led events altogether. Rather, this is an important step that will allow us to move towards a more sustainable model for the Doldrums. One focused on exploration, adventure, and true player control over the world. As we work to provide more content for the players, we hope that we can lessen player dependence on the limited staff that we have, while keeping things fresh and interesting.