hello.
I'm Jongok Ahn, producer of THRONE AND LIBERTY.

The siege has ended safely. Fierce battles were fought on all 10 servers, three servers succeeded in defending the castle, and seven servers were won by the siege side and the castle changed hands. We're curious to know how it felt for those who participated. We were very nervous to see what would happen after all that had happened. It was a bit like cheering at the Asian Cup. (Go, servers!)

We'd love to hear your thoughts on how you enjoyed the TL siege. We won't let all of the bitterness go to waste, and we'll use it as a springboard to create even better content.

Today I'd like to talk to you about the new PvP content that will be coming after the siege, and the direction we're taking with it. We've been listening closely to your discussions since our last letter, where we talked about our direction for PvE. First of all, as you may have guessed, there will be a big change in the direction of TL's future content creation, but we promise you that it won't be a PvP vacuum. Before we can talk about PvP in the future, we need to talk about how we designed the current content and how we plan to change it.

Previously, PvE and PvP coexisted in the form of sharing the same content and regions. This was possible because TL's unique rotation system allows the nature of areas and content to change over time, and we felt that giving users the option to choose whether they want to PvP or not while maintaining the unique character of each area was the best way to keep the open-field feel.

However, this sharing of content between PvE and PvP seems to have put users in an unintended grey area: PvP players felt very restricted, while PvE players reported unwanted competitive stress, and the difference in rewards between high-level zone events and bosses sometimes forced them to make unwanted content choices. To compensate for our mutual shortcomings, we're reversing our previous direction and looking to build future content in a way that separates content and user behaviour by personality. If growth through PvE is an essential element, it's essential that PvP remains strictly a choice for users and guilds.

That's why we've been working on a number of improvements to our PvE content that I mentioned in my last letter. You've seen the improvements we've made to the new PvE content, which has been separated from competitive elements, and now we'd like to talk about how this separation will shape PvP in TL going forward.

One of our biggest concerns with current PvP content is the influence of alliances. Even guild- and party-centric PvP content is becoming more of a war between giant alliances, which means that PvP wins and losses are based on the faction structure of the server, rather than creating variables. Guilds that are part of an alliance but don't have a lot of influence tend to die before they have enough resources to grow, and guilds that aren't part of an alliance face high barriers to entry into content.

Of course, we recognise that the alliance structure of guilds is part of the appeal of PvP in TL. We will continue to focus on maintaining and developing large-scale PvP content such as sieges and tax collections, which require diplomacy and unity between guilds. However, we realised that if we continue to wait for the current situation where all PvP content boils down to large alliances, we may miss the golden opportunity to revitalise the content.

We're planning a major overhaul to guild-based PvP, centred around the Origin/Dimensional Stone Capture Stones. The biggest change is that guilds will be limited to one defending and one attacking side. Previously, Capture the Flag battles would activate all Capture Stones into a conflict zone at the same time, and anyone entering the zone would be able to join the war. This allowed more guilds in a coalition to gain an advantage in difficult situations, or to share airlift to make defence easier. However, with the new "Declaration Method", it will be a one-on-one battle between the guild that owns the Capture Stone and the guild that declares war. Without the support of an alliance, it's up to the unity of the guilds to win.

Under the new declaration method, a guild that does not own a Capturing Stone will have to choose up to three Capturing Stones (subject to change) to attack during the declaration period. If multiple guilds declare a Capturing Stone at the same time, the guild with the higher Guild Rank will be prioritised. As this is a head-to-head matchup between guilds fighting under the same conditions, we're looking forward to seeing more innovative and diverse strategies.

Of course, we still need to finalise the detailed rules. We're exploring all possibilities to ensure that the rules are fair, without allowing guilds to intervene in combat in non-combat ways, such as blocking paths even if they're not participating in PvP, colluding to maintain ownership without fighting each other, or allowing a guild to monopolise a single capstone. We'll keep you posted on the finalised "declaration method" rules as we finalise them.

Another change to the Capstone is the introduction of the Interserver, a multi-server system that extends beyond your own server, where guilds holding Capstones can enter the Interserver space by interacting with Origin/Dimension Stones. Here, guilds will meet up with guilds from other servers with the same Occupation Stones, and will be able to engage in conflict events with all other guilds as enemies. Origin Stones host Guild Territory Events, while Dimension Stones host Fieldboss Events.

All Interserver PvP will be guild-only, with no alliances, just like the Capture the Flag events on each server, and the matches between servers will rotate between periods. Content will occur once per week, and we expect the first Interserver PvP to be released in March.

Additionally, we'll be expanding Interserver PvP beyond guilds to alliances. You'll be able to experience the largest cross-server sieges in the first half of the year, including up to four friendly guilds and even mercenaries handpicked from your server.

We believe that in order to prevent guild-scale competition from becoming stagnant, we need to open up the battlefield beyond the server. We're looking forward to introducing new battles that are different from the long, drawn-out intra-server sieges, and that will bring the tension and fun of single-player battles.

While our guild-driven PvP content is designed to level the playing field and increase the tension and frequency of competition by expanding the battlegrounds, the current direction of Field PvP is a low-huddle. While the Interserver provides guilds with new PvP goals and motivations, we plan to modify Field PvP in a way that keeps the fun of partying and soloing alive.

First up: Contested Territory Events. We're planning a major overhaul of Territory Events to bring back the fun of solo PvP. The main direction we're taking is a shift towards faction warfare.

Players will be randomly assigned to a faction when they enter a Contested Territory event. Faction placement is independent of guild, and depending on team assignments, you may be pitted against players from your own guild. Names and guild markings will be obscured to prevent players from identifying each other during the event. Users will fight for their own victory against non-Guild teams according to the rules of the regional event. The winning team will be rewarded with superior rewards and will also be rewarded based on individual contributions.

We're hoping that the change to faction warfare will create more variability within local events and allow weaker guilds and solo players to enjoy PvP content without feeling overwhelmed. There are still a few details to iron out, such as communication between factions and how parties are matched, but we're well on our way. At the rate we're going, you'll be seeing the new Conflict Zones event in April.

We're also opening up the Arena. TL's Arena is a deathmatch arena where players face off against each other, and we're planning a variety of modes including 2v2, 3v3, and 6v6. We'll be offering deathmatch first, but we're leaving the door open for more formats to evolve. We're targeting June for our first public release. That's a long way off, but we're making every effort to improve the underlying systems. As we get closer, we'll be back with more details.

As an aside, since our last letter, we've had a lot of questions about why not all fieldbosses are instanced, and whether peace mode is easier to get rewards from. We're keeping conflict fieldbosses the way they are now, but reasonably increasing the chance and number of items they drop. Basically, we're going to keep the current system where PvP is slightly more rewarding than PvE for the same content. This is not a policy of encouraging PvP, we simply believe that it is a much harder and more challenging difficulty level than PvE on an objective basis. However, for PvP-only content in areas that are inaccessible or segregated from PvE users, we want to remove direct growth factors from rewards, such as honour or tax-related rewards, in the interest of equity.

With these two long letters, we've outlined our development direction and challenges for the coming year, and we'd love to hear how you've received them and what you think. Please leave your feedback in the community, on the Talk to TL message board, or wherever else you feel comfortable, and I'll do my best to find and read it.

Along with the direction I've outlined, I'd also like to share some of my current concerns.

TL has been a project with a lot of inflection points, and while we've been able to make quick adjustments because of the work we've been doing since CBT, we've also had a lot of problems along the way. This isn't to deny the progress we've made, it's just a story of our own introspection on the way to becoming a better game. We've made mistakes, big and small, as we've moved forward on a tight schedule, some of which you may not understand.

It's our policy and goal to continue to react quickly and improve. However, we've come to realise that we need to find a compromise between speed and quality for your enjoyment. That's not to say that we're going to stop updating because we need to do maintenance - we'll continue to work on the content tweaks and additions I mentioned in both letters to keep your experience fresh, and we're already working on them. There are some things that are a little bit longer term. We're looking for opportunities to talk about those in the near future.

However, we want to focus on improving the foundational content of the game first and foremost so that we don't repeat the mistakes we've made in the past with new content, new areas, and new challenges. As a result, we're pushing back the opening of the new areas we originally announced a little bit, so that we can bring them to you over the summer. I hope you'll forgive me for my determination that we can't make the mistake of adding more content without defining the core fun of the game. We apologise for the unpleasant news.

We will continue to pack content into Rathlan and Stoneguard that you'll enjoy, and we'll do our best to keep TL moving forward.

It's been two months since we launched. We'd like to take this opportunity to express our sincere gratitude to all of you who have been and are still with us since the beginning. We look forward to living up to your expectations.

Thank you as always.