[From a forum post by Starr “Darkstarr” Long]

Avatars,

Please read this entire message, as well as the linked Player Guide and Known Issues.

Release 58 of Shroud of the Avatar goes live this Thursday, September 27, at 10:30 AM US Central Daylight Time (15:30 UTC).

Release 58 is the final release in which we focused on the current iteration of our Top 10 Priorities (from Q3 2018 post). The good news is we made some progress on fishing, we got tameable Wyverns in the game, performance has improved again, bugs were fixed, and more decorations are dyeable. Unfortunately we were not able to make as much progress as we hoped.

As many of you might have noticed via our standup notes, we have been coordinating moving to a new office for a couple of months now. We were going to originally move slowly over a two week period with internet and network overlapping at both offices but our internet provider at our old office decided to disable our internet 2.5 weeks early! This forced us to initiate our move quite suddenly, right before lockdown, and of course disrupted our plans considerably for R58 as you will see below.

But, be not dismayed, Avatars! Q4 will see us caught up on fishing and other delays! Stand fast with us and ye shall be rewarded yet!

Wyverns: These dragonkin are generally smaller than their full-size cousins and the smaller versions can be tamed. Rumors abound that the Dragon clan of the Norgard Barbarians has tamed some wyverns to help waylay travelers in the northwest, so beware if you encounter them! Read more…

Another content packed weekly Community Livestream is this Friday September 28 at 4 PM CDT on Twitch!

This week we are going to talk about Taming! Chris “Atos” Spears and Brandon “Bzus” Cotton will be showing you how to tame creatures in the game. We will show you how the system works from crafting taming collars, through taming a creature, to summoning the creature to fight for you. We will be using some of the latest high tier tameable creatures like the Wyverns and Obsidian Bears to demonstrate.

In exciting news this Friday is the first Friday where all purchases from noon to midnight count towards the Release 58 Stretch Goals (link to R58 livestream coming soon!) which are dragon themed in honor of the Wyverns which are going live in Release 58!

• ACHIEVED $10K: Dragon Egg Decorations
• $25K: /breathefirespiral
• $35K: Dragon Skin Rugs (2 colors)
• $50K: Dragon Dungeon Entrance Pattern
• $65K: Dragon Bow & Dragon Plate Helm
• $80K: Dragon Sword & Dragon Polearm
• $90K: Dragon Mask Set (multiple color variants) with smoke VFX
• $100K: Unique Dungeon Dragon Encounter Room

As usual we will be giving out prizes at 4:15 and 4:45! To be eligible all you need to do is either make any purchase in the store or log into the game and type “Light it up” in the chat window (no purchase necessary).

Watch on Twitch this Friday at 4 PM CDT!

Read more…

Last week we were unable to do our weekly livestream due to an internet outage but we will be back this week for another content packed weekly Community Livestream this Friday September 21 at 4 PM CDT on Twitch!

This week we are going to talk about Player Made Books! Joaquin “Wizardsmoke” Del Canto and Scott “Scottie” Jones will be showing you how to make and publish a player made book as well as how to make copies of it using the Printing Press. We will also show off other player customized writing items and uses for them like notes with mail, Bulletin Boards with Flyers, and more!

Remember every Friday of the release all purchases from noon to midnight count towards the Release 57 Stretch Goals which are dungeon themed in honor of the upcoming Player Made Dungeon feature which is previewing in Release 57 and going live in Q4! We have already hit four of them, and last week we were only $1000 short of hitting a fifth one!

• ACHIEVED $10K: /rolldice
• ACHIEVED $25K: Flame Trap Decorations (non-harmful)
• ACHIEVED $35K: Candle Helm
• ACHIEVED $50K: Spike Trap & Arrow Trap Decorations (non-harmful)
• $65K: Unique Dungeon Entrance Eternal Pattern
• $80K: Torture Set: Torture Chair, Torture Table, Rack
• $90K: Key Themed Weapon Set: Sword, Mace, Polearm
• $100K: Unique Dungeon Room Blueprint

As usual we will be giving out prizes at 4:15 and 4:45! To be eligible all you need to do is either make any purchase in the store or log into the game and type “Roll the dice” in the chat window (no purchase necessary).

Watch on Twitch this Friday at 4 PM CDT!

Read more…

Another content packed weekly Community Livestream is this Friday September 14 at 4 PM CDT on Twitch!

This week we are going to talk about Player Made Books! Joaquin “Wizardsmoke” Del Canto and Scott “Scottie” Jones will be showing you how to make and publish a player made book as well as how to make copies of it using the Printing Press. We will also show off other player customized writing items and uses for them like notes with mail, Bulletin Boards with Flyers, and more!

Remember every Friday of the release all purchases from noon to midnight count towards the Release 57 Stretch Goals which are dungeon themed in honor of the upcoming Player Made Dungeon feature which is previewing in Release 57 and going live in Q4! We have already hit four of them!

• ACHIEVED $10K: /rolldice
• ACHIEVED $25K: Flame Trap Decorations (non-harmful)
• ACHIEVED $35K: Candle Helm
• ACHIEVED $50K: Spike Trap & Arrow Trap Decorations (non-harmful)
• $65K: Unique Dungeon Entrance Eternal Pattern
• $80K: Torture Set: Torture Chair, Torture Table, Rack
• $90K: Key Themed Weapon Set: Sword, Mace, Polearm
• $100K: Unique Dungeon Room Blueprint

As usual we will be giving out prizes at 4:15 and 4:45! To be eligible all you need to do is either make any purchase in the store or log into the game and type “Roll the dice” in the chat window (no purchase necessary).

Watch on Twitch this Friday at 4 PM CDT!

Read more…

The Release 57 Livestream is set for Friday September 7! All Avatars from around the world are welcome to join us in the livestream activities. We will be doing deep dives, answering questions, having sales, handing out prizes, and tracking towards stretch goals. In honor of the upcoming Player Made Dungeons feature the theme for this livestream is Dungeons which are previewing in Release 57 and will go live as soon as Q4!

LIVESTREAM SCHEDULE (Central Time Zone)

Monthly livestreams are on Twitch and include answers to your gameplay questions, world building tours, prize giveaways, sales on items, and more! Here is the schedule:

• 3PM: Introductions
• 3:30PM: Deep Dive 1: Player Made Dungeons
• 4:30PM: Q&A
• 5:30PM: Deep Dive 2: Fishing
• 6:30PM: Q&A
• 7PM: Ending Announcements

Read more…

[From a forum post by Starr “Darkstarr” Long]

Avatars,

Please read this entire message, as well as the linked Player Guide and Known Issues.

Release 57 of Shroud of the Avatar goes live this Thursday, August 30, at 10:30 AM US Central Daylight Time (15:30 UTC).

Release 57 is the second release in which we focused on the current iteration of our Top 10 Priorities (from Q3 2018 post). We continued to make great progress on Systems and User Interface Polish with a specific focus on improving Quality of Life. We also continue to fix huge numbers of bugs.

Quality of Life Improvements: This was the main focus of Release 57. Our goal here was to improve moment to moment and daily gameplay. Siege skipping, Control Point skipping, Global banks, removed NPC slowdowns, double XP as the new normal, reduced Roving encounter awareness and other similar changes should all make very noticeable improvements to every Avatars play experience by removing continual inconveniences and slow-downs. Read more…