So the total for the recent snow for us was 31 inches, and now they're saying 5-10 more inches this Thursday. Man. Gotta love those snow days =) Well, on to the news.

There's a new Necromancer Leveling Guide by Mafiasgrim, Aetius has a new guide for those stealthers with tankish tendancies - Combat Nightshades, and Solmundr has a new Shadowblade guide, explaining the different spec layouts. But, kinda on the important side are two things I wanted to talk about this week.

First off - the Herald got redesigned (that's right, it finally looks good), and a bunch of stuff has been added. Most notably, the Class Pages, and the Slash Command Documentation. The class pages follow a layout you're probably familiar with if you're reading this site (though I still have a bit more info), and the slash command documentation is of course something everyone's been waiting for. The reason this is so important, is becuase this information that was missing for so long was the reason I began this site, almost two years ago...

The second important announcement affects all MMORPG players. Back to the days of the original Nintendo, gamers have had print references and magazines (Nintendo Power), and even though MMORPGs have been around, by my estimate, for about 8 years, we've never had a magazine to call our own. Well, with the success of the first issue of MOG Magazine, they got a publisher, and are now "our" monthly magazine. Some people have Golf Digest, others get Better Homes and Gardens... we get MOG Magazine. MOG Magazine has everything you'd expect from a normal magazine - previews, interviews, reviews, columns, shiny graphics... but also things that we're not used to seeing, like tips on where to find the best info online, website reviews, and more of the things that matter to us - online junkies. And these guys are thick, beefy magazines - they remind me more of a Prima Guide that doesn't suck, than a magazine. So... go sign up for a subscription. You'll enjoy it. You have to... I mean... when was the last time I advertized something that sucked? =)

   As I write this, there are 6-8 inches of snow outside my door, and the weather channel is saying we might get up to 20 inches! That's gotta be some sort of record in Delaware, as we haven't seen more than a foot since I was in high school. Seemed like a good time to throw out an update =)
       Pharoah from Guardians of Valor has a new guide for us - Crafting for Profit: Salvaging and Trinketing, which is geared towards, you guessed it, players who want to find the most economical way to level a crafter so they can make money through crafting. Thanks to Cap'N Bry and his ridiculously cool Midgard Bestiary, I was able to get all the trainer names and locs for the Bonedancer and Savage, and all the SI Midgardian Trainers. If he can get Hibernia and Albion up and working like Midgard, he'll have the best bestiary on the 'net, so keep checking it! There's a new Enchanter Guide up by the Enchanter TL Lhotho, and there's a new Paladin website called Templar of Excalibur. Lastly, our good friend Nick Yee has been busy again!! The second issue of the Deadalus Project is available, as well as a new survey for MMORPG players. I encourage everyone to take this survey - every participant gets us one step closer to helping Nick provide real answers to the questions that we, MMORPG players, ask every day.

   A lil' news lubbin' for the holiday... Whyrl & Kaber updated their Ranger guide to a great new website, up to date for version 1.60, and Hendrick updated his Mercenary Guide for us, the same way - a shiny new website =) There's a new French & English item database site for Midgard called The Library. It has over 2,000 Midgard items, so check it out.
       Lastly, I was rooting through my e-mails, and was wondering... where have ya'll gone? I'm down about 75% in the volume of e-mails I was recieving 2-3 months ago. Not that there's been a lot to talk about, but I haven't received any info submissions in a while. I was thinking maybe everyone just didn't know what I needed, so here's a short list:
       Level Titles for the Necromancer, Bonedancer, Savage
       Trainer Names & Locs for the SI Classes and Areas
       Official book descriptions for Disciple, Temple of Arawn, and Path of Affinity
              (So I don't have a SI manual... so sue me).
       I'm always looking for guides and submissions for the FAQ, and remember, you can always visit the Help Page to get a good feeling for what stuff I'm always looking for.

   I updated the Savage page today - adding Protect I, Evade IV, and Advanced Evade to their abilities list. Phrogz dropped me an e-mail letting me know that his DAoC MapScroller v2 has been released, and that v2 includes not only all of the SI Maps, but a bunch of new features as well. Phrogz asks that everyone help out a little filling the maps with captions, for the benefit of everyone. The other interesting thing this week is that the Camelot Seer introduced a new log tool for when you do lottoes. Basically, you can run DAoC in windowed mode, grab your log (refer to my links page for real-time log parsers), copy and paste into the Seer's form, and it will compare rolls, and verify characters against the Herald's character database, and tell you who won the roll. This is great for when people of the wrong level or class try to interfere with lottoes.