We've identified and resolved an issue with Fishing where the chance to reel a General Loot item was successful but the dice-roll to select an item was unsuccessful, causing the fisher not to reel anything in. This should also improve conditions for special Fishing events like Icefishing, Britain Moat, and Holiday Fishing. We've deployed a hotfix for this, so if you are currently Fishing, prior to this note, please log out and back in to receive the update. Thanks for your patience while we investigated and resolved this, and happy fishing!

Santa Claus now sells 'Crystal of Windemere' that can be used to start the Winter Invasion spawn! This requires at least 4 unique players to activate and has a 24 hour time limit once activated. This spawn will not be announced server-wide while active.

Reminder: All holiday activities will be coming to an end soon, on Jan 9th! The Winter Holiday Decoration Contest deadline is Jan 12th & Santa Claus will remain available until February 1st.

Note: Battleships & Cannon Warfare features will not be immediately available as we work on completing them

World Changes:

• Extended and connected waterways in all subregions, adding boating access across the world, with the exception of regions that are still under development
  • Removed the need for Server Boundary walls placed around Britain & Minoc sea
  • Three harbors/waterways share boundaries with neighboring regions, now designated as mixed-subregions. Barriers with two gateways have been placed at their entrances, allowing you to choose which region to sail into. Keep in mind: you can only exit a boat to land within your current region; you'll receive an error message if you attempt an invalid exit
• Added world-wrapping when driving a boat into the world boundary, ensuring a seamless world (e.g., driving west of Yew brings you east of Moonglow)
• Conducted a comprehensive audit of the entire world to address gaps in water regions
• Introduced new subregion to cover the southern water expanse called "South Sea"
  • Established a South Sea Market protected docks area
  • Boats will be automatically moved nearby if they are parked at the South Sea Market for too long
• Bucc's Den smaller Arena island has been re-combined with the larger Bucc's Den island, and the Arena has been moved to the Arena Hub in Green Acres; this smaller island will now be accessible by boat and may be used for housing or more in the near future

Boating:

• Numerous performance optimizations
• Improved AI for monsters in/around water
• Fixed lag caused by water monsters attacking players on boats
• Introduced storage and weight limits based on ship type
• Added a "Retrieve Boat" option accessible from the Shipwright
• Added a Compass HUD and boat-facing direction to the Boat Controls window
• Introduced Interactive Boat Teleporters, which can be activated by saying "cross" or double-clicking them while aboard a boat
• Characters will now be faced in the direction the boat is traveling when the boat moves, helping with visualizing the current direction on the mini-map
• Eliminated character freeze during boat movement
• Introduced new commands:
  • navigate: Initiates navigation toward a set waypoint
  • set waypoint: Allows the skipper to auto-navigate toward a specified destination when using the command "set waypoint [coordinates]"
  • move towards: Enables targeting a position for the boat to move toward

In preparation for the upcoming Battleships & Cannon Warfare:

• Crafting workbenches are now containers. To update your existing workbenches, simply re-deed and re-place them. Materials can now be crafted from inside the workbench or directly from your backpack

Fishing & SOS:

• SOS destinations now exclusively exist in Deep Water locations; prepare your boat

We've added a Lights Control menu to the Pre-lit trees that can be opened by double-clicking the tree, offering Alternating, Blinking & Solid Color choices

Hotfix: If this menu does not appear for you, please log out and back in to receive the hotfix; double-clicking should now work for house owners, co-owners & guildmates

Xmas Bonuses:

• increased chances for Fishing Lottery Token
• added some Christmas items to moat fishing loot chances
• added Christmas Lottery Box to Lottery Token Vendor

The Christmas lottery official is now stationed outside Britain Bank! Three winners will be drawn on January 15th, and prizes will remain a surprise until the drawing. Raffle tickets to enter the lottery can be found on Paragons.

• Christmas Paragons now have a chance to drop some of the items available from Santa
• The following Winter Weapons & Shield, with an icy appearance, have been added as a loot possibility to Frostfang the Ravager and Christmas Paragons:
  • Winter Sword
  • Winter Spear
  • Winter Axe & 2-Handed Axe
  • Winter Mace
  • Winter Shield

Santa Vendor:

• The Winter Weapons & Shield listed above have been added as an option to buy from Santa
• The Fishing Icepick has been added as an option to buy from Santa
• Evergreen & Snowy Tree Deeds have been added as options to buy from Santa

Carpet Stretcher enhancements:

• The carpet stretcher can now make adjustments to Cloth, to use as a floor covering
• Releasing a re-sized object will cause it to be reset to it's normal size
• The carpet stretcher now has a "Copy" button that allows users to copy size adjustments from one object to another

The Faction Town Stones in Skara Brae & Cove have had their sigil status reset & we've implemented a fix to make sure that the sigil state does not get stuck again in the future for any town stones.

• Increased amount of candy received for participating in Snowball Fights (100 for winner, 25 for losers)
• Adding Windemere invasion spawn with candy drops + new winter boss that will drop some Xmas items
• Adding a new Christmas Sword that includes an AOE Snowball Flurry ability that requires Stamina and also has a cooldown
• Adding option to buy Glacial Staff & Christmas Sword on Santa Vendor
• Glacial Staff & Christmas sword can also be obtained as drops on Ice Fiends, Ice Wyrms (elf camps only) and the new Frostfang winter boss in Windemere
• Adding many items to Santa Vendor's buy list, so Santa will buy some of the more common items for a small amount of candy

Christmas activities:

• Some elves have been kidnapped from Santa's Workshop by the wintery monsters of Dagger Isle, help save the elves by seeking out the monster camps throughout Dagger Isle (Windemere)
• Collect Elf Food by killing the monsters, smashing open the gift boxes they have stolen, and by rescuing the prisoner Elves and leading them back to Santa's Workshop
• Santa will be rewarding players for helping to rescue Elves & keeping them fed, for gifts in exchange for Elf Food
• Santa can be reached by going to Windemere and using the Cellar Door teleporter that leads to Santa's Workshop
• Christmas Paragons will be spawning throughout, whom will spawn a Gift Box at their position when being killed which may contain Elf Food
• Ice Fishing provides chances at obtaining Elf Food
• Completing Snowball Fights will also grant Elf Food
• New Addition: Glacial Staff (with 3 spells included), drops rarely on Ice Fiends (spawns in Ice Dungeon) and Ice Wyrms (found occasionally at Elf Prison Camps)

Login Handout: Make sure to login starting on Christmas Eve, through Jan 1st to receive a gift, on your account, from Santa!

Garnet Dyetubs: Available for a limited time on Donation Vendors starting on December 25th until January 9th

Necromancy Vendor: Available for a limited time from now until Jan 9th the Ethereal Undead Reindeer Statue

Planned additions:

• Bazaar
• Quest(s)
• Invasion(s)
• Boss encounter requiring special task to cause damage (ex: snowball, snow cannon, glacial staff, etc)
• New assets & more activities as time permits

Stale Elf Food: Prior year's Elf Food will now show as 'Stale' but can be turned into the Cleaning Up Britannia trash can for points, which can be exchanged for fresh Elf Food at the 'Cleaning Up Britannia: Holiday' vendor

Pictures: We have started a forum thread here where we will be posting pictures of the items available as time permits

Original Snowball Notes: https://shardsofbritannia.com/news/snowball-fights

Snowball fight updates:

• Snowball fights now spawn Elves, that can throw snowballs, when there are less than 6 player participants
• Players can be knocked out by the NPCs that will count against their Death stats
• Players can knock out the NPCs in the snowball fight to gain kills
• The amount of elves to spawn will be determined by the amount of players less than 6 (for example: if there's 2 players then 4 elves will spawn, if there's 4 players then 2 elves will spawn, if there's 10 players then no elves will spawn)
• Snowball Fights still require at least 2 players to complete; games will be interrupted if there are not enough participants at any point during the game, with no winner declared
• Giant Rolling Snowballs will now provide a chance to create a Snowball in players' backpack when running them over
• Health Regen has been turned off for mobiles inside the Snowball Fight Arena (healing via Temporary Health Potions is the only allowed source for healing)
• Spirit Speak has been disabled inside of the Snowball Fight Arena
• Added overhead combat speech for Misses & Dodges when throwing snowballs for better clarity to nearby observers
• Improved giant rolling snowball Smash animation timing
• REMINDER: Don't forget to use the Snowball Cannons when you know your target is half-life! This will be sure to take them out and home-in on targets in the projected path (aim carefully)

Halloween Costumes have been re-enabled indefinitely by popular demand, and we've also fixed an issue where if you tried to use a costume out-of-season it would cause your character to get stuck as Polymorphed

• Faction coin chests have been re-enabled

• Cloaks of invisibility have been reintroduced to the faction coin vendor.

• Billy Bob, the pig farmer, offers a quest for any brave warriors willing to help. You can find him in Yew.

Patch notes for the PvP changes and bug fixes implemented:

• Season's refresh adjustment.
• Hearthlight Torch buff persistence while zoning.
• Bug fix: Tents crafted correctly in groups.
• Bug fix: weapon equipped while holding a spell.
• Ranged weapons require weapon delay to fire after equip.
• Bug Fix: Faction death occasionally resulting in MurderCount.

Work in Progress / Experimental Changes:

• Faction Events Team buff: This feature is still in development and requires further refinement. More information on this in soon.

Please keep sharing your thoughts, and thanks for being part of Shards of Britannia!

Turkey Cannons have been added as a for-sale object on the Thanksgiving Vendors, these can be used in conjunction with the Turkey Ammo that will drop on Turkeys (plain turkey, enraged turkey, and turkey boss)

Mr. Gobbles, the turkey boss, has been witnessed complaining about the recent Thanksgiving activities and may show up in town to express his ingratitude, he may be hostile watch out!

UPDATE: Mr Gobbles the Turkey Boss has been spotted outside of Britain in Paws. Bring your turkey cannons and turkey ammo, this will be the best way to damage him. Good luck!

We're deploying the following minor hotfixes:

• fixed issue with vendor prompts not appearing in some cases
• fixed issue with pet broker not working in some cases
• increased Thanksgiving Quest timeout duration from 8hr to 72hr (was intended to be set to 72hr originally, sorry!)

• Greetings, valiant adventurers!

It is with great excitement that we announce the arrival of the long-awaited 4-year veteran rewards, now available for all esteemed veterans! Engage in the festivities by using /vetreward in-game to explore these exclusive offerings: behold 3 stunning new ethereal mounts and the mesmerizing shadow dragon dye.