Surrounded by many mountains lies a vale, the independent archduchy of Sakanrel, including a small town no adventurer hasn't been to yet, as all newcomers begin their journey in the holy temple, where Abraham the monk will guide everybody through his first steps. Despite the rather small size of the town, it contains many useful buildings, among these the residence of Archduke Reginald II., the rulor. His son, heir apparent Gregor, is currently not to be found on the island - just like his mother.



Not only does the town contain many shops, but as these require merchants who run them, also many inhabitants in help of with numerous tasks. The town features a considerably big tavern - "The Aust Inn" - which is run by the bartender Austin who is looking forward to provide everybody with food and alcohol. Besides him, a jeweler, a blacksmith, an armorer, a fletcher, a banker, a butcher and an alchemist are serving anyone capable of paying. South of the town is a small bridge leading to an area only the noblest may access. If I remember right, somewhere in that area, dwarves are having a dwelling.

The name of the town, which is equal to the name of the whole island, descends from one of the legendary mages who were the deciding factor in the Massive Zezenian War. The flag colors are said to be just the one Sakanrel's robe had. As Sakanrel was a celebrated hero when returning after the war, the people wanted to have him as their leader, but as he was far more of a mobile adventurer than of a rulor, he refused and announced his best friend, Zurobap, who is the grandfather of the Reginald, as the leader.

There's not much to say about the relationships of the town and the island as it was Sakanrel's deepest wish to never have the town influence or take side in any way. Most likely was this his wish because he witnessed and felt the war more than most others and wanted to prevent anything comparable to it. Therefore, the duchy of Sakanrel is completely neutral to any other kingdom or race, be it mankind or orcs. Ever since, all rulors of Sakanrel have maintained great relationships with other leaders such as the High Circle Of Shamans. Because of that, it is not unlikely that the neutrality of Sakanrel shall remain forever. Many people question themselves where the glorious Sakanrel might be nowadays, in case he is still alive, but after all, probably nobody knows.

The opponents on the island are no match for most adventurers, but for greenhorns they can be lethal. To the west of the Zurobap River, a river splitting the main part of the island in two halves, most foes are rather poor, meaning the stronger ones reside east of the river. The river can only be crossed by the Tlaremish mountain (an orknie has been seen on top not too long ago, they say!) or by a small bridge north of it. On the eastern border of the sea is a small but dangerous orc settlement in which many beginners have found their end. Be careful not to end there!


(I hereby apologize for any mistakes, I didn't really get to spellcheck it, if anybody notices something, feel free to let me know and I'll take care of it)


Since we're having a delay on the update and the test server, I think it would be just fair to not only provide you with a large text piece but also with a few words about the update. First of all, I want to apologize again for the delay as I'm responsible for it but on the other hand I have say that I can't really do anything against it. I know it must really be hard for you players but it's probably at least half as hard for me wanting to do something but being incapable of doing so.

My country sadly has the rather questionable obligation called "civil service" (you can also go to the army but then we'd be far from an update right now) for everybody having to work for a starvation wage 9 months long without any way around it. Not only does this completely limit me in my time as I am already losing full 10 hours just with work, it also affects the sleeping time, which I even already minimized, and as a result leaves me with almost no free time left to do anything. If you refuse to do your civil/military service you'll be forced to a large payment and might eventually even end up in prison - sadly also no option.

I can't really estimate how long it will take until we can finally have the promised test server but I don't really want to promise anything and then I'll end up not being able to keep it because I just don't possess enough time to go for it. I wouldn't even be bothered to write this at this time when I have to wake up in around 4 hours just to work 10 hours again but I at least want you to know what's going on and why we're in the situation we currently are at. Trust me it's really a pain if you're full of ideas of what to add to the game and how to improve it and in the end you're far from getting something done because you just don't have the time unless you want to completely stop sleeping which is probably not a great option either. I'd be lying if I had to gave you an exact date out right now but I at least want to let you know that we've neither given up on the game and still want only one thing which is improving the game and making it better all the time, be it with new graphics, new features, new quests, more stories, more monsters or anything else that we consider an improvement to the game.

Enough of the complaining, you deserve some more information for your patience;

Generally, I've personally been really annoyed by the constant war interference of low level characters, macro fishers and people who only create chars to show destructive behaviour. All these 3 problems will be solved by this update which will introduce Sakanrel as a new beginner town. This also has the advantage that in the new town, we have all of our best sprites gathered and will also provide many quests. This way, we also hope for more players to stay with Zezenia longer and not leave after the first hour of playing. Crossbows will not be available on the beginner island, which will be completely non-pvp, but everybody will already have his vocation there.

So far so good, we of course, as in every update, edited a large number of sprites and added many new ones as well, optimized the code and did general bug fixes. Also, with this update, we will show you our completely new outfit system which grants you way more possibilities and will allow really many different outfit combinations. 2 of these outfits will be premium only, as well as several "parts", not to spoil too much ;)

As said, the starter area now overwent a complete overhaul and since there's not really much update with the main area, we'll do the same we did to the main area that we did with the newbie area - many quests, new and many sprites and generally more content, however, sadly, it will take a while.

So what's left for this update?

To give an overview on the current progress, I can say that all new/edited graphics are already drawn and done but I noticed a small problem with a few of them which will need an edit - luckily not much work at all.

Also, we modified the strength of many beginner monsters in order to make it more reasonable. Before, for example, monsters that would logically be far weaker than others (orc < wolf) are now reasonably sorted in strength and experience. This is already done and will need no further work.

The NPCs on the newbie area are already planned but need to be coded (K-Zodron can do that as soon as he got enough info from me, so not a too big problem, same for the quests.) - This is still in progress.

The map is, I'd say, around 75% done. As I get further help on mapping now this will hopefully also go quicker than now.



Alright, I hope I gave you enough information now and never forget that I and the whole Zezenia Staff wants the update just as bad as you do - even though we're no professionals, one day we might be, troubles like that will then be gone forever. Thank you for your patience!

YAYAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
gogogo!







ahh.. damn the newbie arena

omg cool hyuga , a beginer island x B !! no more cheats in war ; D
hope have a teaser of new outfits too : p
and't don't worry , all of us can pay your civil service ; ) !!!!

You didn't mention about new training system yet. Is it going to be implemented for the next release?

Just make the best out of it and let it not get to you, I guess you understand that already, but I wouldn't want to see you too stressed to work on it.

The story was nice, and I'm really looking forward to the new outfits and to the items. =)

niiiiice!!

to the south - dwarves
to the east - orcs

this city will be probally near caerfa :DDD

Sincerely Hyuga, this is not the time to recruit new people to the staff?
At least one event to test if there are people ready for it :3

Awesome story! :)
I am looking forward to the update!!

It`s better than I thought. Well done, I prefer to wait a bit and get an awesome update than too early release.

Great work Hyuga, hope this works out soon. :)