Wow, what an interesting day in DDO-land....

First up, Update 6.1 was released today to all of the U.S. servers (sorry Europeans, hope you get it soon)!  The patch went fine (although read below).  First thing people noticed was a different look to the sky in Stormreach.  Instead of sun, clouds and rain, the world took on a darker, more ominous look:



Here's another look from the bridge to the marketplace tent:



But that's not all!  A strange symbol has appeared on the ground past the entrance to the Soulgate (aka-the path to the Catacombs in the Marketplace):





AND - some strange lights have been appearing throughout Stormreach.  DDOcast listener and fellow Sarlonian VonBek was kind enough to send in a report with some pics:

"The lights are visible when logging into the game, if your character location has a good vantage point. Plan to be in the proximity of a described location, you may need to watch quickly as they fade rapidly after login. When you see the lights, they coalesce, sometimes displaying a black particle cloud at the start of an appearance. The lights seem primarily white; they lack the color effect of the "disco lights" accompanying a Djinn Dance Invitation. The lights appear to sit in specific neighborhoods, or at intersections of neighborhoods."

- The First one I noticed,  I found at Jesters Haunt, under the arch between the Rusty Nail and the Auction House.

- Next came the one by the ground marking sigil at Souls Gate near the Catacombs

- One appears to the north of the Market Tent, between the Tent, and Falconers Spire, attop an arch lintel.

- Another seems to appear just south of Falconer's Spire, off the railing from the upper platform.This COULD be the same object as the one on the ground, with skewed vertical location do to the characters elevation at login. It's hard for me to tell.

- Next, one manifests at the north end of Silversmith Road North, just south of the fountain outsid House Denieth.

- Finally, one appears at the west end of Silversmith Road South, between Lordsmarch Bank, and the Twelve, atop a fallen, half buried pillar.

"It was fun to play roving shutterbug to track these down! I've not searched the wards of the Houses, yet." - VonBek

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Thanks VonBek for sending that in!  I hadn't noticed when I logged into Sarlona to check things out. 

There's another fun part of the anniversary that I haven't mentioned yet as well:  Wish Cakes!  Yup, a version of wish is in the game now.  Everyone will see a Wish Cake when they log into the game, provided they opened an account prior to today.  When you activate the cake, you get a bunch of options from a Djinn - some (very) funny, some really nice.  Things like a +1 inherant stat bonus of your choice, or a rain of tasty ham!  Fun stuff. 

Thing is, it appears that the cakes have caused a bit of a problem, as they've been known to spawn a ton of Djinns.  Quarion writes on the ddo.com boards:

"All worlds will be brought offline on Thursday, February 28th, for a hotfix between 11am and 1pm EST.
We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience!"

Oops!  Anyway, it's actually pretty cool.  You can also cast some offensive spells in public areas, which, combined with everything listed above, has many of us thinking there's a seige of Stormreach in the works!  How cool would that be. 

Anyway, here's DDO's +Sir Lawrence's take on it all, written today on the ddo.com boards:

"Hail Citizens of Stormreach!

It has been brought to our attention that foul weather has been persisting in the region, and citizens have expressed concern that this may delay or cancel the Stormreach Rebirth Celebration. There have also been rumors that something is amiss in the city, which also may threaten the party. Please be assured that the Coin Lords have taken every precaution to ensure the party will take place as planned. Extra security will be on hand to assist citizens, thanks to the support of the Twelve. Citizens may now enjoy their cakes as promised, and should still plan on attending the celebration party on Sul, Therendor 2nd (Sunday, March 2nd). This will be a celebration never to be forgotten, and we hope to see you there!"

Stay tuned!  I'll be posting up all of the coolness throughout the celebration, so come back to ddocast.com and check things out!

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One last thing before I call it a night here:  Two players have used the Djinn 'issue' to say thanks in a really cool way to the people who make DDO.  Berryman and Optaio from Thelanis spent some time today with a bunch of Djinns to write out a birthday greeting to Turbine!  Took a while to make it look like this:



Which, from above, can be seen as this!



How cool is that?!?!  Here's a LINK to a thread about it on ddo.com.  Give 'em some kudos! 

Jerry