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October 2021 Edition

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The Harvest Festival Approaches!

Later this month, the Harvest Festival will once again take place on T2T! This year will feature the Crypt with some fun new features, as well as some other new additions coded by our dedicated team of Ainur volunteers.

For those unfamiliar, the Crypt is T2T's take on a Battle Royale style of game. Players enter without any equipment and try to recover enough gear to take down all of their opponents. The area is full of overpowered gear, NPCs, and traps with all sorts of interesting things to find. Death doesn't count, and the last one standing wins!

The festival will open during the reboot that Halloween (October 31) falls in, and will remain open until the reboot U.S. Thanksgiving (November 27) occurs during.

We hope to see everyone join us during this month-long annual event!

Welcome New Ainur

We would like to warmly welcome three new ainur who have graduated newbie and taken their place in the ranks of Valinor since the last newsletter went out. Ilmare and Feanor have joined Lungorthin as recent graduates, and they have been busy working on the Harvest Festival and fixing bugs since finishing their newbie projects.

Welcome to the Great Song!

Battleground Results Recap

The Mirkwood Battleground “Battle Under the Trees” has taken place nine times since going live for the first time on September 3. Here are some fun stats from what has happened in those battles.

Reminder: the Mirkwood Battleground requires no outside gear and death while playing does not impact your actual character, so log in and check it out! The Mirkwood battleground opens once per uptime, between one and two days after reboot. You can see when it will next open in the sign-up rooms at Rhosgobel and Dol Guldur. Also, the sixth person to mudmail Osse after receiving this newsletter will have their choice from a grab bag of fun prizes.

J. R. R. Tolkien Interview from 1964

Staerek recently shared a link on the T2T Discord to an audio interview with Tolkien himself from 1964, in which he talks about the origins of Middle-earth and his reasons for writing his stories. It is a very nice listen, if you haven’t already.

J.R.R. Tolkien 1964 interview (Subtitles)

Recent Updates and Additions

Here are some of the recent updates on T2T since the last newsletter.

10/04/21 - Ilmare: The cozy little town of Archet in West Arda has a glassblower who has been seeing an uptick in business. She can buy old bottles and jars, and melt them down to use in her creations. She has also been talking about how delightful it is to catch fireflies nearby.

10/02/21 - Osse: The Shire town of Frogmorton can now be entered by players over the level limit (5), so that they can do the quest one time if they have never done it before.

09/29/21 - Vildoran: Battleground updates: 1. Fixed several bugs with rangers/charm; 2. Fixed a lot of gaps with civilians/minions using the armour sets; 3. Sniffers can now hunt when using cloth or leather; 4. Rangers can hunt when wearing the leather armour; 5. You can now use 'info' on armour set pieces; 6. Added two additional bows; 7. Upgraded the elm shortbow; 8. Lots of other random bugfixes.

09/25/21 - Lungorthin: A small number of wargs which previously could not be skinned now yield pelts. Players who come across any that still cannot be skinned are welcome to idea report them.

09/19/21 - Osse: Players with 'accessibility' turned on will now receive a version of the auction list that is more easily understood using a screenreader.

09/18/21 - Osse: The 'warscape' command now defaults to brief mode for users with accessibility turned on, and also presents its information in a more descriptive way better compatible with screenreaders.

09/17/21 - Osse: A certain treasure room in Michel Delving will now be less deadly for our younger players.

09/17/21 - Lungorthin: The quest involving Thrain's final resting place no longer accidentally kills unwary players who happen to stumble into the area a moment before the mountain collapses.

09/15/21 - Osse: The 'score', 'skills' and 'tradeskills' command will now include commas after values for players with the ‘accessibility' setting turned on, so that screenreaders will pause appropriately, making the audible version easier to understand.

09/13/21 - Osse: Players level 9 and below can now get information about their current location by using 'find me' or 'find <myname>' at a cost of 5 EP.

09/12/21 - Osse: The Ivy Tavern quest in Hobbiton will no longer be as potentially deadly for our younger adventurers.

09/11/21 - Lungorthin: Aldin, the sole smith in Bree, wouldn't mind if young adventurers helped him with a minor task... and doing so would likely yield a useful reward. Do check in with Aldin again, once the reward has been obtained, he just might have another trick or two up his sleeve.

Comm Tidbits - That’s A Moray

^ (OOC) Osse: When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's amore!
<and so it begins>
^ (OOC) Osse: When something bites your knee as you stand in the sea, that's a moray.
^ (OOC) Zelindo: When its jaws open wide and there's more jaws inside, that's a moray
^ (OOC) Reyzer: when you check DNA, so no child support you’ll pay, that’s a Maury!
^ (OOC) Voron: When you hunt in the woods and your life is so good...that's Orome
^ (OOC) Zelindo: When you run freebies and get swords in MT, that's a Mori!
^ (OOC) Osse: When you go for a pack, then you're dead on your back, that's Mordor, eh?
<groan>

Patreon Reminder

The best way to show your support for T2T on an ongoing basis is by becoming a patron via our Patreon! We count on the revenue from your monthly pledges to pay for hosting and related registration fees, server upgrades, as well as careful paid advertising to help grow the MUD. Even $1 a month helps, so please consider joining if you haven’t already… AND THANK YOU!