Update 0_27 8/14/05

All 400 + external areas have been modified so that heartbeat scripts that spawn generic encounters, humanoid and animal, are only run when a player is in the area. Which at the moment means the maximum number of HB scripts that can be running at one time is 43. We've seen a decent drop in CPU usage because of this.

6 newbie areas were added just north of Noisington along with one quest. Adventurers are desperately needed to help deal with the bugbear problem in Noisington.

Cep was updated to 1.52.

Spawns were changed in the 4 levels of chaos as well as some small modifications to the boss on the 4th level.

Those merchants who I have seen leaving their respective stores have been fixed. If anyone notices any others please post in bugs.

After analyzing our network usage we have identified the backups causing our greatest lag, which occurred from midnight to around 2am EST. Those backups have been rescheduled to 3am EST. We felt this would most likely be the least active time on the server going forward. There may still be some noticeable lag during other backups, specifically between 12pm and 1pm, but so far I haven't noticed a problem.