Creating Adventure - Q3 2026

Words of Wyrom

The Wyrom

We're halfway through Q3, but SimuCon stole a lot of the spotlight when it comes to what is inside the Creating Adventure article. Twitch removed our VODs, but we were able to save everything and put it on YouTube. It is on our official YouTube channel. The breakdown for the GemStone IV side is the GS4 Development Panel, Mounts Panel, troubleshooting panel, and Saga's introduction. A lot of this already made it on the wiki or was shared as a document on Discord. If you haven't caught up on all that, I highly recommend watching the videos or reading through our Discord announcements.

That all said, let's hop into the updates.

Staffing Updates

I recently made a comment on Discord about no longer being the Product Manager. This is true. I have moved on to a new role with Simutronics as Executive Producer. I have mentioned it over the years, but the Product Manager role was never a good fit for what I actually did. For many years it was more like a lead GameMaster, and when there was a shift, it still didn't align perfectly.

The Assistant Product Managers were always more than just assistants, so we have shifted them all to Product Leads over each area of our game, which make up the teams. Estild is our Development Lead, overseeing combat, magic, and game balance. Thandiwe is our World Event Lead, overseeing our towns, communities, and lore. Isten is our Player Experience Lead, overseeing our new player experience, quality control, and bug management. Tivvy is our Production Lead, overseeing our Customer Service GameMasters, GameHost Program, and taking on a lot of day-to-day operations that I once did.

Most of this is a formality, as we're all still doing what we've been doing, but it's a little clearer that the Product Leads are all over specific areas of the game. They run their individual teams and their areas. For me, if you see me as Wyrom, I am working like a GameMaster. The other half of my work is with team coordination, resource allocation, and working with our onsite staff. The switch is to focus more on higher quality and a strong creative vision for GemStone IV.

Email Updates

We need to plan some updates with our play.net forwarding. Right now, it's a massive spam relay and we're getting in all sorts of trouble with the volume of email that gets passed on. We have a plan in the works that will be a bit seamless (we hope) where that email will only be able to receive email from an active account, but you MUST update your email in your play.net account settings. We have learned that many people have not done this. Whether you're returning and still have your XxAolxX email or your account has changed hands, you should make sure your email is accurate for what you use today.

Billing Updates

If you haven't heard the news, Chris in Billing is retiring this year. You can check out the thread on Discord. At the end of the month, the phone to call billing will be shut off. We will continue to have billing at simutronics.com, which can be found in the EMAIL command.

Customer Service GameMasters

The Customer Service GameMaster (CSGM) role is performing exceptionally well. This part-time contract position is designed as a pilot program to support operations with always having a familiar face handing referrals. The group has been working together, alongside Tivvy and myself for day-to-day shifts.

SAGA

If you missed the beta launch of Saga, it is a brand new client to play GemStone IV and DragonRealms. It is a modernized approach to playing our games. Be sure to check our official page on Saga on play.net. You can also follow the discussion on Discord.

Future of CLAIM

We are going to move away from using CLAIM when it comes to events. The CLAIM system was built with the idea of modular rewards that would change per usage for different occasions. When it comes to events, they're all the same, so it's not the best use of the system. CLAIM will continue to exist when it comes to special offers, game crashes, and hopefully some additional usage in the near future.

The NPC that exchanges event entries at the events will be the new home for event offerings. You'll be able to interact with the NPC for the free stuff each event and the silver offerings. It will not be live for this Duskruin due to a small hiccup in the process, but we will be moving toward it with Ebon Gate and beyond.

Reintroducing a New Roleplay Award System

The reason for the delay is I've been evaluating our current RPA system that has really just become an exp award system. It doesn't feel like we're really rewarding roleplay anymore, and even before using exp orbs more often, the majority of usage were just people expecting to be part of the rollout of RPAs during roleplay events, world events, or paid events.

In September, my goal is to have a new system housed in the ROLEPLAY verb that will allow players to bank points that redeem them from a list of rewards. You will still be able to use points to produce exp orbs, and the point system is completely balanced around the exp orb valuation in terms of earned experience points. But you will be able to purchase other things with points.

The reason for the delay in CLAIM is you will be able to convert your exp orbs for the time being into points, so if you want to hang onto your orbs to convert them when the system goes live, you can. The RPA System is not designed around the power player, so outside exp orbs it will have more of a roleplay focus or include things from the SimuCoin Store that you can earn the points to spend vs having to purchase them.

Things like the ascension milestone are all accounted for with the switch over, so nothing is changing there. Details on this will come September after Duskruin concludes. Until then, you're free to visit the wild speculation thread! Just keep it tame, this is a positive change.