And she was floating, hovering above her bed. She could not turn her head, which was bound like the rest of her body, but she was several paces from her vaulted stone ceiling, and she could see the torch flames on the wall lapping up the warm night air as soft breezes blew in through the open tower windows.

In a back corner of her mind, behind the rage and fear as she fought against her unseen tormentor, she wondered what the dream meant. Yet another example of the icy rage she felt toward Martine? Her continued attempts to deal with the shock of almost losing her son? Her previous resentment towards Asheron, as she had had to cope with these problems alone? All of these, perhaps.

Still reeling from this attack, the people were dealt another blow when mages were jolted awake in the dark of night, clutching their heads in pain. Throughout the ley lines of magical force deep in the planet, a vast fluctuation was felt. Reports trickled in that the magical Essences, those forces that aided the people in learning higher magics, were destroyed, and the rings where they stood smashed. To their dismay, the recovered mages discovered that their magics were not as powerful as they had once been. They were able, though, to take some solace in the fact that this fluctuation caused their magics to last much longer than they had previously.

Realizing what a blow this was to the Isparians, Asheron shared knowledge on how to create magical foci with the Arcanum. These bulky packs contained the essence of the magical schools known to the Isparians. With these in hand, along with Prismatic Tapers and Scarabs, Isparians could cast their spells without the other components they had used since their arrival on Dereth. Asheron also shared a means to record scrolls so that all those skilled in the various schools could understand them, not just lore scholars. Scriveners quickly set up shop in the various towns selling scrolls for purchase.

Amidst these events, the exploration of Dereth continues. Rumors return of an ancient Empyrean construct unlike any seen before, containing artifacts of an unknown purpose. Parties have begun gathering to find this construct and pull what secrets they can from it.

Following is a list of the most interesting additions made to the game with this update. However, please note that not everything has been included--that would spoil the fun of finding out all manner of things added or changed! As usual, though, the town criers, barkeeps, and scribes may know the latest news. Also, the trades of crafting and selling are always in flux, so changes to prices and features are not always listed here in their entirety.

Highlights Include:

• More Cottages and Villas can be found for purchase.
• Find your Fellowship leader more easily.
• New magic foci can be used in place of traditional spell components.
• Tedious magical research has been removed and replaced by easily-read scrolls.
• More things to make your home uniquely you!

Many people have asked us, “Why now?” After two and a half years of relatively few game system changes, why would Turbine and Microsoft embark upon a path of such major changes? Our determination to make these changes ultimately has to do with our desire to see Asheron's Call thrive for a long time to come. Each major change that we make comes from our strong belief that the specific change will enhance the fun of the game for the vast majority of our players.

We could have decided to play it safe and make only a few changes, to introduce small amounts of content designed to placate our existing subscriber base until the ship of Asheron's Call 2, to allow (and so encourage) AC to pass away in time for AC2.

Obviously, we chose a different path. And we're not stopping with this month's magic changes! Next month, in addition to the first stage of the Tinkering system, we will be making significant changes to the Transfer spell system. Transfer spells, such as Drain Health, will be altered substantially in July. (Look for more details to be posted before the July Event). And in the following months, look for continued tweaks to melee weapons, including addressing the Triple-Strike Dagger issue.

Yes, we know that change can be scary and sometimes painful in the short-term, but we also know that change is necessary for long-term growth and happiness. We are striving to make sure that any time we make major changes that reduce an ability of a given class or skill, we also offer new benefits to that class or skill.

So why didn't we make some of these changes a year ago? Although it was easy to see, in some cases, that things were not working as well as they should, it was more difficult to come up with solutions that we and the players would be happy with. Over the past eight months, we developed a strong vision and consensus on what problems needed to be addressed and how to address them. You are seeing the fruits of those efforts now.

We're excited about the world that Asheron's Call is coming to represent, and we hope you are, too.

Long live Asheron's Call!

Housing
This month we're releasing another 150 Cottages and 50 Villas. While we are not releasing any Residential Quarters at this time, we are planning to release 500 RQs in July (in addition to more Cottages, Villas, and even new Mansions!). We're putting out 500 RQs instead of 1,000 so that we can better monitor the impact of the RQs on the servers in July. Depending on the data, we will decide how many more RQs will be released in the upcoming months

We also implemented 100 total hooks for Mansions this month, each one of them usable by the monarch owner. There are no plans to revisit hooks for any of the landscape dwellings at this time.

As for future housing improvements, the server performance issues related to RQs a few months ago have caused us to shelve our plans for incremental storage, at least temporarily. Once we are assured that the worlds can support enough housing for all our players, we may revisit the idea of allowing players to purchase increased storage for their landscape dwelling.

However, we are still planning to implement the ability for characters to “use” items on hooks, which would allow a number of neat features, such as the ability to place permanent “portals” in one's home. Look for the start of this feature in the next several months.

Miscellaneous Changes

• We're always happy when we can implement new allegiance and fellowship improvements. We hope the @allegiance info tool and the increased uses of the allegiance broadcasts help monarchs manage their allegiances more productively. We're also pleased with the new triangle radar shape for fellowship leaders. After being frustrated for a long time by the inability of a large group to easily follow a leader on the landscape, we hit upon this simple yet effective solution. We hope you enjoy it.
• We fixed a number of longstanding and irritating bugs this month. Two of the biggest were the “vendors not buying back their own trade notes” and “characters logging back into the world and occasionally discovering that all their items had lost all their mana” problems. Our solution to the vendor issue was to make all vendors able to purchase all trade notes, regardless of what trade notes they sell. As we mentioned in the Dev Notes, the “items losing mana” issue was extremely difficult to track down and reproduce, so please report any instances if you see it happen again.
• Money, money, money. After analyzing the current state of the pyreal economy and factoring in new changes such as the updated magic system, we decided to increase the stack size of the pyreal to 10,000. We think this change will help improve the liquidity of the pyreal, especially at such a time when the pyreal may have its greatest value.
• Superb Mana Stones. One change we wanted to make sure to introduce whenever we implemented the new, extended buff times was a new, high-mana mana stone. The Superb Mana Stone has a reservoir of 2,000 mana, and can be found at many mage shops throughout Dereth.

• @filter recall command. While we knew that some players would eventually learn to ignore the spammy text messages from the numerous recall options available today, we wanted to give players stronger relief from the incessant barrage should they desire. (As one of our grandfathers always says, “Back in my day, we didn't have all this newfangled `recallin'' all over the dang place. We had to walk back to Serac Vault, in the snow, uphill. Both ways!”)
• Bronze weapons. We apologize for not telling people in advance about the sudden change to the Bronze trophies making them no-give. This had been planned as a one-month-only change, and we are glad to change them back to their natural state this month.
• Hollow Weapons/Racial Weapons. For July, we will be making some minor tweaks to unarmed weapons, staves, and hollows (including some of the racial weapons). While the racial weapons still will not have the effectiveness of their non-racial counterparts, or of the current Triple-Strike Dagger, they will receive some bonuses. It remains true that the four non-racial weapons, sword, axe, mace, and spear, should be considered the “better” class of weapons in the game. However, we do recognize that the current state of non-dagger racials needs some improvement, and we hope to implement that in July.
• Fast-casting exploits. We're working hard to get a fix for this in either July or August.

While we have mentioned more Treasure system changes (affecting both armor and weapons) for the last two months, we unfortunately have had to postpone these changes due to our focusing on the Magic and Tinkering systems. We really think July will see at least some of these changes; August for sure!

And while it will be hard for us to rival the suspense and excitement building in our current storyline, we will discuss two top-secret issues in our next Letter to the Players. People have suspected one of the issues for a long time, but the other is something that almost no one ever knew?

See you next month!

--The AC Team

Please note: Before we get into the specific changes, we want to again remind players that with the June Event, you will no longer be able to trade Level 6 scrolls in for Level 7 spells. After the June Event, the only use for level 6 scrolls will be to learn level 6 spells.

On to the summary:

How Players Cast Spells
Players will no longer need the typical array of components in order to cast spells. Instead, they will need three separate ingredients:

• A Focus of a given school. Foci will be “Spell Backpacks” that take up a pack slot. Foci do not have a double function as a storage pack; players will be unable to store anything in their Foci. There will be different Foci for War, Life, Creature, and Item magic. These Foci will be available through new vendors in each of the towns, and new characters that elect to train or specialize in a given magic school will start the game with the appropriate foci. Foci cannot “burn” and cannot be sold, traded or dropped, although they can be given to Town Criers.
• A Scarab corresponding to the level of the spell you wish to cast. This has not changed from the old system, i.e., you still need Lead, Iron, Copper, Silver, Gold, Pyreal, and Platinum Scarabs to cast spells of the appropriate level. The burn rate and cost of these Scarabs has not changed.
• In addition to a Scarab, you will also need a new component, the Prismatic Taper. The Prismatic Taper is a necessary ingredient for all spells and will have a more frequent burn rate than the Scarabs. The higher level of a spell you cast, the more chances you will have to burn multiple Prismatic Tapers per spell.
• Finally, some rare spells that previously required unique components, such as Diamond Scarabs and Chorizite potions, will still require those items in addition to the components listed above.

What are the costs and burdens of the Foci and Prismatic Tapers?

• The costs of the Foci are 25,000 pyreals. They weigh 400 burden units.
• The costs of the Prismatic Tapers are slightly less than the cost of regular tapers (the specific cost depends on which vendor you purchase them from). They weigh 6 burden units. They have a maximum stack count of 250. At this time there is no Prismatic Taper Pea, but we may add this in a future Event.

How Players Learn Spells
With the June Event, players can no longer learn spells by researching them in the old fashion. Instead, players must purchase and use scrolls for each spell they wish to learn. You must have a certain skill level in the spell skill of the spell you wish to learn. The required skill levels are the following:

• Level 2: 0 skill
• Level 3: 50 skill
• Level 4: 100 skill
• Level 5: 150 skill
• Level 6: 200 skill

These scrolls will be available for all spells of level 1-6 that exist in the game, most of them through vendors placed in various cities and towns throughout Dereth. A few spells, such as Recall to Sanctuary and Recall to Aerlinthe, will be available through quests that deliver the appropriate scroll.

For level 7 and certain specialty spells, these scrolls will be available only through Steel Chests found in random locations throughout the Direlands. (The Reinforced Steel Chests are being removed from the game in the June Event, since vendors now sell all of the scrolls that could be found in those chests.)

Note that we have removed all self-debuff scrolls from the vendors.

What scrolls are available? Where and how much do they cost?
Following is a list of the price of each level of scroll. See the end of this document for a detailed list of which scrolls are available through vendors, as well as which scrolls are available through the Steel Chests.

• Level 1 scrolls: 50 pyreals each
• Level 2 scrolls: 250 pyreals each
• Level 3 scrolls: 1000 pyreals each
• Level 4 scrolls: 5000 pyreals each
• Level 5 scrolls: 10000 pyreals each
• Level 6 scrolls: 50000 pyreals each
• Level 7 scrolls: Found in Steel Chests and certain other places.

The Removal of Spell Economy
As we designed and planned these changes to the magic system in Asheron's Call, we often discussed the risk that we were taking with the most powerful and flexible game system in AC, and making it one of the easiest and simplest to use as well. In a game where a character using magic is much more powerful than a character who isn't, and where most vestiges of tedium and needless complexity have been removed from the magic system, and where enchantments at the highest level of power last an hour, why would anyone not have a magic-casting character in AC?

That scenario is not our goal for AC, and we have spent a lot of time and effort over the past six months to improve and strengthen the gameplay choices of those players who, for whatever reason, wanted to adopt a low- or no-magic approach to Asheron's Call.

In order to ensure that the various character templates and play styles remained balanced, we have decided to remove all Spell Economy bonuses, whether positive or negative, from spells in AC. Mages who cast spells will no longer receive any type of global economy effect or duration bonus, nor will they suffer under any economy penalty (such as when they cast a particular spell too often in a short period of time).

While we know this change will result in the loss of power for some characters, we feel that the advantages of the new magic system, in addition to the new enchantment durations, outweigh the disadvantage of the lack of economy bonuses. We also feel that the lack of a spell economy allows players to have a consistent sense of where their skill level lies, as opposed to the current fluctuations which leave some players upset and frustrated when spell economy bonuses affect as small a range as 5 points of skill.

We did not come to this choice easily, but we ultimately felt it was the best path to take to ensure the viability of all types of characters in Asheron's Call.

Changes to Spell Book Sorting
Previously, spells in your spell book were sorted alphabetically--which worked well enough for most spells, but made finding oddly named spells more difficult. With the June Event, we have changed how spells in your spell book are arranged in order to make it easier to find the spell you are looking for.

Spells will first be sorted by the school of magic to which they belong, in this order: Creature, Item, Life, and War. Within each school, spells will then be sorted by their effect, so that all spells that increase the Focus of the caster, for instance, will be grouped together. Finally, within the effect grouping, spells will be sorted by their relative power--that is, by level.

We hope in the near future to have a more elective spell sorting system, in which players have some control over the parameters of how they sort their spells. Until that time, however, we feel this system is an improvement over the previous one.

Detailed List of Scrolls to be Sold by Vendors

• Most of these scrolls will appear on the vendors in all levels 1-6. Some War and Item spells will only appear at certain levels 3 and above.
• Spells that aren't listed as having a “self” or “other” version are generally debuffs, which are automatically assumed to target “other.”

• ArmorOther
• ArmorSelf
• HarmOther
• HealOther
• HealSelf
• Imperil
• ManaDrain
• RevitalizeOther
• RevitalizeSelf
• Enfeeble
• AcidProtectionOther
• AcidProtectionSelf
• AcidVulnerabilityOther
• BladeProtectionOther
• BladeProtectionSelf
• BladeVulnerabilityOther
• BludgeonProtectionOther
• BludgeonProtectionSelf
• BludgeonVulnerabilityOther
• ColdProtectionOther
• ColdProtectionSelf
• ColdVulnerabilityOther
• FireProtectionOther
• FireProtectionSelf
• FireVulnerabilityOther
• LightningProtectionOther
• LightningProtectionSelf
• LightningVulnerabilityOther
• PierceProtectionOther
• PierceProtectionSelf
• PierceVulnerabilityOther
• Exhaustion
• Fester
• ManaDepletion
• ManaRenewalOther
• ManaRenewalSelf
• RegenerateOther
• RegenerateSelf
• RejuvenateOther
• RejuvenateSelf
• DrainHealth
• DrainMana
• DrainStamina
• HealthtoMana
• HealthtoManaSelf
• HealthtoStamina
• HealthtoStaminaSelf
• InfuseHealth
• InfuseMana
• InfuseStamina
• ManatoHealth
• ManatoHealthSelf
• ManatoStamina
• ManatoStaminaSelf
• StaminatoHealth
• StaminatoHealthSelf
• StaminatoMana
• StaminatoManaSelf

• AcidBane
• AcidLure
• BladeBane
• BladeLure
• BloodDrinker
• BloodLoather
• BludgeonBane
• BludgeonLure
• Brittlemail
• Defender
• FlameBane
• FlameLure
• FrostBane
• FrostLure
• HeartSeeker
• HideValue
• Impenetrability
• LeadenWeapon
• LightningBane
• LightningLure
• LureBlade
• PiercingBane
• PiercingLure
• StrengthenLock
• SwiftKiller
• TrueValue
• TurnBlade
• WeakenLock
• LifeStoneRecall1
• LifestoneTie1
• PortalRecall
• PortalTie1
• PortalTie2
• PortalTieRecall1
• PortalTieRecall2
• SummonPortal1
• SummonSecondPortal1

• AcidStreak
• AcidStream
• FlameBolt
• FlameStreak
• ForceBolt
• ForceStreak
• FrostBolt
• FrostStreak
• LightningBolt
• LightningStreak
• ShockWave
• ShockwaveStreak
• WhirlingBlade
• WhirlingBladeStreak
• AcidBlast
• AcidVolley
• BladeBlast
• BladeVolley
• ShockVolley
• ShockBlast
• FlameBlast
• FlameVolley
• ForceBlast
• ForceVolley
• FrostBlast
• FrostVolley
• LightingVolley
• LightningBlast

• Bafflement
• Clumsiness
• CoordinationOther
• CoordinationSelf
• EnduranceOther
• EnduranceSelf
• Feeblemind
• FocusOther
• FocusSelf
• Frailty
• QuicknessOther
• QuicknessSelf
• Slowness
• StrengthOther
• StrengthSelf
• WeaknessOther
• WillpowerOther
• WillpowerSelf
• AlchemyIneptitude
• AlchemyMasteryOther
• AlchemyMasterySelf
• ArcaneBenightedness
• ArcaneEnlightenmentOther
• ArcaneEnlightenmentSelf
• ArmorExpertiseOther
• ArmorExpertiseSelf
• ArmorIgnorance
• AxeIneptitudeOther
• AxeMasteryOther
• AxeMasterySelf
• BowIneptitude
• BowMasteryOther
• BowMasterySelf
• CookingIneptitude
• CookingMasteryOther
• CookingMasterySelf
• CreatureEnchantmentIneptitude
• CreatureEnchantmentOther
• CreatureEnchantmentSelf
• CrossbowIneptitude
• CrossbowMasteryOther
• CrossbowMasterySelf
• DaggerIneptitudeOther
• DaggerMasteryOther
• DaggerMasterySelf
• DeceptionIneptitude
• DeceptionMasteryOther
• DeceptionMasterySelf
• DefenselessnessOther
• Faithlessness
• FealtyOther
• FealtySelf
• FletchingIneptitude
• FletchingMasteryOther
• FletchingMasterySelf
• HealingIneptitude
• HealingMasteryOther
• HealingMasterySelf
• ImpregnabilityOther
• ImpregnabilitySelf
• InvulnerabilityOther
• InvulnerabilitySelf
• ItemEnchantmentIneptitude
• ItemEnchantmentMasteryOther
• ItemEnchantmentMasterySelf
• ItemExpertiseOther
• ItemExpertiseSelf
• ItemIgnorance
• JumpIneptitude
• JumpMasteryOther
• JumpMasterySelf
• LeadenFeet
• LeadershipIneptitude
• LeadershipMasteryOther
• LeadershipMasterySelf
• LifeMagicIneptitude
• LifeMagicMasteryOther
• LifeMagicMasterySelf
• LockpickIneptitude
• LockpickMasteryOther
• LockpickMasterySelf
• MaceIneptitudeOther
• MaceMasteryOther
• MaceMasterySelf
• MagicItemExpertiseOther
• MagicItemExpertiseSelf
• MagicItemIgnorance
• MagicYieldOther
• ManaConvertMasteryOther
• ManaConvertMasterySelf
• ManaIneptitude
• MonsterAttunementOther
• MonsterAttunementSelf
• MonsterUnfamiliarity
• PersonAttunementOther
• PersonAttunementSelf
• PersonUnfamiliarity
• ResistMagicOther
• ResistMagicSelf
• SpearIneptitude
• SpearMasteryOther
• SpearMasterySelf
• SprintOther
• SprintSelf
• StaffIneptitude
• StaffMasteryOther
• StaffMasterySelf
• SwordIneptitude
• SwordMasteryOther
• SwordMasterySelf
• ThrownIneptitude
• ThrownMasteryOther
• ThrownMasterySelf
• UnarmedIneptitude
• UnarmedMasteryOther
• UnarmedMasterySelf
• VulnerabilityOther
• WarMagicIneptitude
• WarMagicMasteryOther
• WarMagicMasterySelf
• WeaponExpertiseOther
• WeaponExpertiseSelf
• WeaponIgnorance

• Level 7 spells

• DispelCreatureNeutralOther1
• DispelCreatureNeutralOther2
• DispelCreatureNeutralOther3
• DispelCreatureNeutralOther4
• DispelCreatureNeutralOther5
• DispelCreatureNeutralOther6
• DispelCreatureNeutralSelf1
• DispelCreatureNeutralSelf2
• DispelCreatureNeutralSelf3
• DispelCreatureNeutralSelf4
• DispelCreatureNeutralSelf5
• DispelCreatureNeutralSelf6
• DispelItemNeutralOther1
• DispelItemNeutralOther2
• DispelItemNeutralOther3
• DispelItemNeutralOther4
• DispelItemNeutralOther5
• DispelItemNeutralOther6
• DispelLifeNeutralOther1
• DispelLifeNeutralOther2
• DispelLifeNeutralOther3
• DispelLifeNeutralOther4
• DispelLifeNeutralOther5
• DispelLifeNeutralOther6
• DispelLifeNeutralSelf1
• DispelLifeNeutralSelf2
• DispelLifeNeutralSelf3
• DispelLifeNeutralSelf4
• DispelLifeNeutralSelf5
• DispelLifeNeutralSelf6
• AcidRing
• BladeRing
• FlameRing
• ForceRing
• FrostRing
• LightningRing
• ShockwaveRing
• AcidWall
• BladeWall
• FlameWall
• ForceWall
• FrostWall
• LightningWall
• ShockwaveWall

• 150 Cottages and 50 Villas have been added to the game.
• There is now a separate panel for negative magical enchantments (the original enchantment panel now lists only positive magical enchantments). Both panels are in the far right upper corner.
• @allegiance info is a new monarch-only command. Typing @allegiance info <charactername> (for a character in that monarch's allegiance) will display the following: the full name and title of the character, the full name and title of the character's patron, and the full name and title of each of the character's vassals. This command can only be used once every 30 seconds.
• The number of allegiance broadcasts the allegiance speaker can make per day has been raised from 3 to 10. In addition, monarchs may now assign speaker status to someone even if they are not currently online.
• The leader of a Fellowship now shows up as a triangle dot on radar.
• You can now use the @filter command to filter out recall messages. See @help filter for more details.

• All vendors now accept all trade notes.
• Pyreals now stack to a maximum of 10,000. In July we will introduce three additional trade notes into the game.
• Mansions now have 100 hooks in them, all of them usable.
• Neutral Balm's burden has been reduced from 135 to 65 and is now available in more vendor locations.
• The Select Self key now works to have a targeted action actually work on oneself. For example, a player can use a healing kit and then the Select Self key to heal oneself.
• You now have a number of UI panels and character options that you can bind to a keyboard map.
• A new mana stone, the Superb Mana Stone, can be found at some mage vendors. In addition, many more mage vendors now carry High and Great Mana Stones.
• All Bronze trophy items are now givable and droppable again.
• New characters who start with a magic school will start with the correct focus, 5 Lead Scarabs, and 25 Prismatic Tapers. New characters who start with additional magic schools will receive additional foci, but not additional scarabs or tapers.
• The time it takes to read and learn a spell from a scroll has been reduced to roughly one second.
• When a character attempts to use a mana stone to drain mana from an item, there will now be a confirmation check even if the item does not contain any mana.
• Isparian Bows, Crossbows, and Atlatls are now unenchantable.
• The Isparian Modifying Tool is now unbreakable. The stones, however, will break each time you put them in an Isparian weapon.
• The Arcane Lore difficulty on Gorgets with Nuhmudira's Boon has been altered. The new difficulty levels are Red (High) = 180, Blue (Mid) = 150, and Green (Low) = 120.
• Isparian Daggers now have the correct damage range. Perfect Isparian Daggers have a maximum damage of 8, Superb 7, Good 6, and Quality 5.
• You now get 3 Wood, Copper, or Obsidian Keys when you successfully carve Wood, Copper, or Obsidian Hearts.
• We made a few changes to the Tenkkardun Foundry to reduce the viability of combat macroing in that location.
• Last month we introduced a bug which prevented users from playing if they were using a machine running Win95a. This should be fixed now.
• We believe we have fixed the bug where, occasionally, a character logging into the world would find that their items had lost all mana. This was a difficult bug to reproduce, and we would appreciate any reports if players experience this bug in the future.
• There was a bug with the Fellowship panel last month that kept it from updating properly. This should be fixed now.
• The bug where a character quits a fellowship and the character keeps attempting to assess a person in the fellowship has been fixed.
• We fixed a bug where the cursor appeared as an hourglass on the Fellowship panel before a player actually created the fellowship.
• There were a few bugs with the XP-sharing code for certain fellowships involving players over level 50. These have been fixed.
• There was a bug where you could exploit a vendor by selling healing kits with less than full uses, then buying them back cheaply at full uses. This has been fixed.
• For Creature Mastery scrolls, you will need to ID and read the description to determine if it's a Self or Other scroll. Self and Other do not appear in the title of the scroll. This will be fixed in July.

• The Invoker now displays the correct inscription.
• The portal to the Arcanum Research Facility now has a level restriction prohibiting those characters under level 20.
• Ciandra decided to reverse her impromptu sex-change operation, and now looks like a woman.
• When using a mana stone on yourself, you will receive a message letting you know when all your items are full.
• All non-used hooks now become visible whenever a house is abandoned.
• Players can no longer open the doors to the inside of the statues from the outside, unless they use the correct key.
• Statue Portal dungeons are now no-recall, no-tie, and no-summon.
• The Isparian Dagger model has been changed.
• The experience point total for a few statue creatures has been reduced.