Hey everyone, its been a while. Some of you I’ve spoken with over the years, others not so much, but its been nice to see some of you again after all this time. I've had my head down reacquainting myself with the game for the last few weeks, but I’d like to take a few moments to talk about the Majic Realm and to say hi. Some of you were kids when I first met you, and its been pretty cool to see some of you back and playing with your own kids.

When Kris spoke to me many months ago about putting the Realm back up for nostalgia, I confess I didn’t have a lot of interest in the idea. It isn’t that I didn’t want to see the Realm return, I just had no desire to spend a lot of effort just to have people play the old game for a few weeks and then pull the plug and bury it once and for all. What interested me was in crafting a new and improved Majic Realm - building on the foundation we’d started so long ago, and taking it to its potential.

I’ve spent the last 25 years since the Realm shut down working as a professional game designer. Narrative design, combat design, economy design, live operations, community design, systems design, player dynamics, multiplayer design, level & world design, UI design, UX design, and much more on every platform from Handheld and Mobile to PC and Console. During those years, I thought about the Realm often. Many times, my designs for other games were informed by, or built upon the humble foundations of what I’d learned working on this game.

Have you ever thought back on something you did long ago and thought to yourself, ”if I knew then what I know now…”? Well, I have. In fact, on and off, I‘ve spent decades imagining ways I could improve this game. Things I would have done differently if I’d had the chance.

To say that we envision adding new areas, raids and world bosses, expansive spell systems, portals to alternate realities, much greater depth for character creation and customization, deep crafting systems, faction wars, alternate professions, a self-balancing economy, procedural quests, naval adventures, a mobile client, and addressing a great many underlying flaws in the original design would barely be scratching the surface.

In short, we have some epic plans for where to take this game, but it isn’t going to happen overnight. There will also be some short term pain to achieve the long term gain. I.e. expanding existing systems will sometimes force a re-balance of what’s already there. As an example, if we were to add ranged weapons to the game, we wouldn’t be able to do that without affecting how current melee and spell attacks work.

So what does this mean for the game we all know and love? It means the winds of change are blowing through the Realm. We’re looking to grow the game in ways that few of us could have imagined 25 years ago, but we want to do so in a way that respects the original game while being careful not to destroy the majic that made it special. This growth, by necessity, will come with some upheaval, and being realistic, not everyone will be happy about every change, but the goal is to create a better, richer, and more entertaining experience overall.

I hope all of you are as excited about the future of the Majic Realm as we are. I also hope to speak to many of you individually about your thoughts on the existing game and ways it can be made better. Your feedback is a vital part of the process, because as much as it’s a labor of love for us, we’re ultimately building it for all of you.

We’ll be setting up regular discord chats going forward, please join them and tell us about your personal experiences with the game, both positive and negative. We’d really like to hear from you.

Grud