No, this is not an introduction to a new soap opera.

As some of you may have noticed, town of Dortlewall has appeared on Laenor.
Dwarves, those crafty little people, have decided in their great wisdom to
open the mining village of Dortlewall to selected few adventurers. It is going
to be a part of the new and improved newbie experience, and open to all
audiences after a short period of testing.

The village of Dortlewall is located on Laenor, some way north of Tyr Farwyn.
Just follow the road signs. The village itself consists of two major elements:
The tutorial and the crystite mines.

The tutorial is just that - a tutorial to batmud. It will give you information
in the form of tutorial pages, while following a story taking place in
Dortlewall. Some of you might be getting tutorial pages soon from a few
triggered events, so, don't be alarmed. If you want to do the tutorial, find a
tutorial portal from Dortlewall and enter it.

The crystite mines are a new newbie area, with plenty of monsters to kill and
a quest to solve, with another quest in planning. These mines are a sort of
training area for new people. The mines are level limited to level 40, so you
probably need to reincarnate to get in.

Also, we are introducing a new quest-like system, called story. For the
moment, there is only one story available, namely 'The Rogues and the Reeve',
but we're hoping there will be more in the future. This particular story takes
place right after the tutorial, but it should be fully comprehensible even
without the hassle of going through the tutorial. If this got you curious,
find Dawnmist the Dryad from Dortlewall and ask for more info on story.

Stories are supposed to give a bigger picture to adventuring. There is a new
command, called 'story', to view and interact with the stories you are
progressing on. Reading 'help story' might be a good idea.

This project would not have been a success without help from a few other
people: Nosunrise has been a big help, as has Darol. Ggr was also involved, so
give a big hand to all of them.

-- Heidel

PS: Short version: not open for public yet. I might take a few trustworthy
testers more, inquire. There will be an inform post when the place is open for
all.