Second, the changes have turned out to be bigger than I had originally planned or anticipated. Combined with a baby on the way, it has made this take a lot longer than I had planned. It also means that despite my original plan, when the new version launches, it will be another reset. You will keep your experience and level (you'll level up immediately when you migrate your character). You will lose all your items (but you'll be given a little more than their value in gems...more on that later).

This will be the last reset, no matter what. I'm not going through it again. Any changes from this version will be changes that will not require migrating data, period. Most of what comes will be new content, not new code.

Some of the biggest changes:

• The conversion to jQuery is done. It really leans up the client code.

• Item management is WAAAAY simpler now. You can carry any number of any item. Click on an item in your inventory to equip, click on equipment to remove it. No loot system, no container, no fence bag (stolen items just become inventory).

• Money is gone. That's right, no more bits...why would the post-apocalyptic wastes have currency? It's a barter system where the closest thing to currency is gems (a good, portable form of wealth). I can do some really neat stuff within the barter system, which I can talk about more later.

• The way objects (items, maps, actors, etc.) are stored is completely, utterly changed. It makes maintenance a lot easier on me and gives me more flexibility.

• I found and fixed some significant memory leaks in the old code. The game runs a lot better now.

• Chat is back to being a sidebar, but is handled much more cleanly. Tooltips also display in the sidebar instead of bouncing around the screen.

There's a lot more, and there are new maps, quests, and people to deal with too. And don't forget Skills.