January saw a few new features, most noticeable was the Digging skill and shovel. Although this might not seem like much of a feature, it paves the way for other interesting features such as planting of fruit to grow trees, and digging of traps.
February and March see quite a few island birthdays. This time last year over 1800 people signed up in these two months and over 200 of them are still playing.
Many people woke up to find that things had been made backwards. The direction buttons on the map and everyone's names were reversed leading to much confusion for the day!
The Easter weekend had the bunnies returning, but this time they'd left a number of Easter Eggs lying around the island before they turned into man-eaters! Easter Eggs held a number of surprises including gold coins, and it's possible you might still find a few with traders or buried in holes.
By popular request, the ability to drop multiple items in a single click has been added. This saves boring repetition (and IP hits) when trying to drop many unwanted items.
Quite a few new skills were added including several for spirits to use, a couple more in the language tree (write/speak foreign language) and shaman characters can now summon and torment spirits, forcing them to wail or scream.
Backpacks are now produced by the traders from time to time. If there isn't one in stock, you can either stick around for a while or try asking if someone has one to trade.
In an attempt to assist new players there is now a tutorial that is automatically activated on any newly signed up characters. The tutorial guides you through finding the medical hut, weapons hut and trading post, searching for some useful items, and trading for other items. Signed up for a while already but still not sure how to play? Just drop us some feedback and we can enable the tutorial on your character.
Halloween once again saw zombified animals and werewolves. Some intrepid explorers also suceeded in finding pumpkins in the jungle which could then be carved into jack o'lanterns. These had the rather useful effect of scaring spirits away when waved around.
Bats from the caves and tunnels under the island were disturbed and started spreading throughout the jungle. Now they can be found all across Shartak.
All players must agree to the Terms of Use in order to continue playing Shartak. Unless you're doing something you shouldn't, it probably won't affect you.
The grotto south of the mountain is once again populated with a few elves and Santa, together with many people from all camps.
Voting on features resulted in a huge demand for being able to give items other than gold coins to each other. This feature was introduced just in time for people to give each other Christmas presents.
We've reached the end of the 2007 newsletter. Thank you for reading and if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me through this feedback page, on the official forum or even hop on IRC and have a chat on #Shartak.