We have decided to give Nord a day off to join the protests against the proposed SOPA/PIPA legislation.

SOPA was drafted to provide legal means to restrict access to certain web sites in order to prevent online piracy. However, the bill could also be used to arbitrarily shut down web sites and social media networks considered to be hosting, or linking to, undesired content.

Nord will be online again at 5am Nord Time (8am PST). In the meantime we suggest you all enjoy some quality IRL time with your loved ones.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! Today we are happy to congratulate Binaspets and Zardoz555 who have entered into holy online matrimony in Nord. The ceremony was held yesterday in Toppie1′s garden where the lovely couple was greeted by a select gathering of 15 guests, all dressed up in their fancymost avatar outfits, bringing virtual wedding cakes, treasure chests, flowers and other in-game gifts for the newlyweds.

Binaspets and Zardoz555 is a real-life couple who first met in Nord where they fell in love. We wish the bride and groom a most prosperous and loving future together, until server downtime do you part.

In addition to the features I wrote about in my last post we’re about to introduce a new weather chest. The weather chest contains either Sunshine, Rain or Lightning but you never know what’s inside until you open it.

The weather chest is available for purchase from level 80 and requires the VIP badge but some chests can be found in nature as well. This way anyone can use weather bonuses, even players who don’t play Nord on Facebook.

Another change we’ve made is to move the weather bonuses from the badge tab into the circle menu. So if you want to use sunshine, rain or lightning you simply click on yourself and then click the weather you like.

If you look closely at the picture to the right you will notice that the weather buttons are placed a little bit outside of the circle menu. This is the new way circle menu actions will be grouped together now.

For example, if you want to select a dance move you first click on the dance button in the circle and then the different dance moves will appear just outside the circle, near the dance button. It’s tricky to explain in writing but I promise you it’ll be much easier than what you’re used to now.

We hope to start QA testing these new features this weekend and if all goes as planned the update will be released in mid-December. In the meantime we have a lot of code to write and coffee to drink. Stay tuned!