Among recent bug fixes are some to fishing that were allowing people to duel sharks on deck without the rational consequences of such an act, and some really insane combat glitches that led to people dealing huge damage with fisticuffs and having really unbalanced combat pools like willpower, fatigue, and so on.
So, now you should both be very afraid of sharks and perfectly cleared to engage in friendly brawls. Hopefully. :)
The other big bug fix is that when your petitions or issues were resolved, you weren't getting any mail. It was the same for character application rejections. Since recently we rejected a swathe of character applications, and the applicants probably did not get any news about that, I'm going to post the message we used for those rejections here:
Hey there! We noticed your character sheet hasn't really been customized to include any original details for them. We're in alpha and only permit one character per account at this time, so we want to make sure you have the chance to make the character you truly want! While you're welcome to use the auto-generated fields for inspiration or the bulk of your starting story, you should put some thought into why your character is on the ship going to al-Sabiyyah, and maybe give them just a few little personal quirks that you can roleplay from. Story is the most important aspect of Song of Avaria, so giving a little more thought to your character will help you get the most out of the game. Thanks!
If your application did get rejected on this basis, all it means is that if you RESUME the application from in-game, or click NEW CHARACTER from the website, you'll be given the option to resume the character generation process with the same character you had before. We did this with characters that seemed to be rather wholly auto-generated, so if you're not attached to this character, you're also welcome to just start a new one. Part of our decision for this is that it seems like as soon as an auto-generated character gets in-game, they start to realize that they want to change their character and do things differently. Once someone's already in the 'real world' of the game, it can be difficult and time-consuming to do this, especially with large sheet re-imagination. And often this character may have already made relationships and story developments that include other characters, so putting them back into the chargen process will cause everyone involved to glitch out until I meticulously fix each one. So, please take your time in character generation and make a character that you will be happy to play.
For this reason as well, I've resolved all the current petitions that have to do with character sheet changes, and we won't be switching skills and stats around anymore for characters who have already been playing so far. It's okay to realize before your character is approved that maybe you actually want a different skill spread, but once you have been on the ship and performed story acts relevant to your skillset, it doesn't make sense to change things. So, this is our new general policy going forward regarding sheet changes once you're in the world.
Last note: RPT is still on for 3PM EST this Saturday, hope to see you there.
