Hail, Dreamers.
We are thrilled to announce an exciting new chapter for our community. Our goal is to preserve the essence of Shards of Dalaya while addressing past challenges and embracing opportunities for innovation. We remain committed to maintaining the core elements that made Shards of Dalaya, and Winter’s Roar before it, special to us all. Our development team has come together with the shared vision that the best way forward is with a new server. Today, we proudly introduce the ‘Dalaya’ server.
About six months ago, we began seriously discussing launching a new server. Our decision to start anew stemmed from the challenges we faced with the old server, particularly a lack of support from the lead administrator. That situation made it difficult to maintain and impossible to update the server, leading several team members to pause their work.
Plans took shape: permission was obtained from the server owner to salvage what we could, a server was purchased, and development began in earnest this spring. Returning development staff includes Cole, Duke, Grinkles, Fuwok, Immac, Marza, and myself, with others joining us to offer their amazing support, guidance and potential contributions in the future.
One important decision we need to share upfront is that we will not transfer any existing player characters or accounts to Dalaya. A complete wipe allows us to update outdated mechanics without causing a massive loss of character power to existing characters. By starting fresh, we are able to make bold changes that will allow us to continue to expand the world with new content long into the future.
We are hard at work adding new content, focusing on improving the new player experience and extending the end-game. Here are some of the exciting updates you can look forward to at launch:
- Several new low-level zones to explore (including a custom zone!)
- A new custom level 65 zone
- An old raid zone converted into a six-man dungeon
- New race/class combinations to experience
- Ikisith zone renovation and main quest refactoring
- Using Rain of Fear 2 client (ongoing transition)
- Completed implementation of discipline system
- Improved class balance
We’re excited to share all of this and more very soon. Keep an eye out for teasers in the coming weeks, followed by detailed patch notes next month!
The Dalaya server won’t be possible without the dedicated community we’ve been honored to serve over the years. We invite you all to join us on this journey and look forward to the adventures that still await in the world of Dalaya.
Our release date is set for September 27th. We look forward to this adventure, we hope you’ll join us!
Much Love, The Dalaya Development Team