Improvements to the spell-choosing AI mean it now surveys multiple damage spells and picks the highest found of the five spells surveyed each round of combat, improving the deadliness of caster classes in combat. Also, the duel outcome and whether or not it was recorded are now shown at the end of a duel.

A list of the recent duel victories and defeats now shows on the main page of every character. Also, if you're sending mail, it will now auto-complete on your friends' names for the recipient.

Tired of bragging about your duel victories without the proof? Now, duels between two significantly even characters are recorded in the character News section, as well as a running tally of Duel Victories on the main character summary page. If you pick on small fry with your high level character, it won't be recorded-- unless the pip-squeak manages to beat you! Coming soon: the ability to forward the play-by-play content of a duel in mails or to blog posts.

Apparently higher level characters were being robbed of increased resistance when dueling lower level characters (it seems Snape was having high spell resistances against whelp HarryPotter-- go figure!). Also, some instant effect spells were not actually causing damage. This has finally been remedied.

A new interactive help guide now shows at the top of the page when you make a new character to help you learn your way around. The steps don't have to be followed in order, and it disappears when done. There is the small caveat that the character duel page still needs an update adding a section of random characters near your level to duel, but that should be fixed soon.

Combat AI has been given a boost, meaning characters are less likely to choose inappropriate spells, and melee classes will now use their weapon, saving mana for later healing.   Critical strike chances have been reduced to more reasonable levels.   Those frightful Paladins are now more balanced, though still incredibly hard to kill.

Spells were rebuilt to improve balance and address the overly low mana cost affecting most spells, especially healing spells.   Certain classes may be bit overpowered-- this should at least address part of that.

Several combat improvements were made. Spell damage reporting has been significantly improved, characters now pick more of their spells to use in battle, more intelligence was added for picking spells to avoid casting inappropriate spells (such as resistance buffs when nearly dead), and damage is no longer over-resisted.

Several IE interface bugs were also fixed which were causing drop-down menus not to update. IE 6 is still extremely slow compared to Firefox due to the flyover text features, but that is mostly due to it being outdated.

Official Beta testing is now under way! If you previously had an Alpha account, then it still exists, even if your characters don't so you can login as usual. We did save mugshots of your characters here.

If you're new, just make a character and explore!   If you've played World of Warcraft, then WTF will be immediately familiar to you-- except without the grinding. Enjoy seeing your character go off and do all that work for you!

WTF is more fun than ever, especially with the new combat system. Many improvements are planned for it, to increase clarity and allow for challenges and throw-downs!

Pre-Beta testing is now under way, and if you previously had Alpha characters, then, unfortunately those characters no longer exist due to the large number of changes required to support multiple realms.

Caveat: This world is currently in flux and not yet finalized. You can make a character now, but it will probably get blown away.

In World news, Weng-Fu-Liang is now not just Level 50, but one level past that and retirement. Congratulations. Actually, you shouldn't be able to level that fast for later levels, so the experience required for levels needs to be readjusted.

The FAQ has been updated to describe shopping and quest bonuses.

The World reference page has been updated to actually provide content on the jump page. The skills page now lists which character classes can use each skill.

Unfortunately, despite at least 3 requests, it is too expensive resource-wise and complexity-wise to show for comparison your currently equipped items for a particular type when shopping (as WoW and MS do). This is a web client, not a fat client.

Thanks to everyone who has signed up to play! On the first day a duo of Necromancers took the lead as e--- rocketed to Level 16, while Salmon was close behind at Level 13.