A Look at the New Class Changes
by Xaaxacus

On Sunday, April 27, a groundbreaking event occurred in the world of Medievia. For the first time in over 12 years, a massive revamp of the game's 4 classes was implemented, headed primarily by Fayla and Melquiades. When the announcement was made, the players braced for the impact, wondering just what the impending restart would bring.

The game restarted, coming online after a few seconds with the new code accessible to players. The price of dragon crystals shot through the roof, as everyone ran around the game searching for multiclass trainers. Even after dozens of DCs were offered and all the new skills and spells were practiced, the game didn't even begin to settle down. Great, the features are in; now we just had to figure out what to make of it.

Poring over the help files gave us a general idea what to expect, but we knew that we wouldn't really know what to expect until we tried everything out firsthand. Although some of the abilities are fairly straightforward, the details of others are still shrouded in mystery. One of the most controversial changes was to an existing mage spell, malediction, which now requires a focus item such as a wand or magical stone. An interesting twist is that different focus stones appear to have different strengths, with the most powerful requiring artifacts from fearsome zones to construct.

Alchemy, a new means to create potent toxins and potions, was also newly added to casters' repertoire. If a player purchases a certain magical jar and fills it with the right combination of herbs and reagents, a highly useful item will be brought into existence. To my knowledge, at least two recipes have been discovered thus far, with many more undoubtedly on the way as players try new combinations. Luckily, the 13 components are easily accessible to everyone, found in the wilderness around the continent in favorable climates.

The effect of the rest of the changes has yet to be fully seen. Stakes, zone runs, and player vs. player combat will be radically changed, as well as the balance of classes. It's safe to say that those working on the project succeeded in their primary goal: diversifying the classes and making them more unique. If used properly, abilities like muffle and ambush could turn the tide of battle in just about any situation, adding new options for large and small scale combat.

Amazingly, though we were warned to expect several crashes and restarts to fix problems throughout the day, not a single crash occurred in the hours that followed. I think we can all agree that the coders did an outstanding job with this project - now we'll just have to see where it leaves us!