Updates

Update of the Avatar #145 – 2015.10.02: 15% Black Friday Bonus, New Single Player Scene, Fortress at Hilt, Combat Chat, Jack-O-Lanterns, Grim Reaper, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

  • Get Your 15% Black Friday Bonus Starting Now!
  • New Single Player Scene: Highvale Village Battle
  • The Fortress at Hilt in Nightshade Pass – Part 2
  • Invitation To Combat/Skills/Spells Video Chat
  • Invitation to Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 22 Postmortem
  • Release 23 Grand Tour Quest Reward: Plague Doctor Mask
  • Jack-o-Lantern 6-Pack
  • Grim Reaper Statue
  • Spider Web 6-Pack
  • New Lute and Piano
  • 31 Day Countdown for Fall Reward & Sale Expirations
  • Auto-Canceling Monthly Layaway Payment Plans
  • In-game Community Weekend Events
  • Upcoming Events
  • Recommended Games to Back

Get Your 15% Black Friday Bonus Starting Now!

Last year we extended our Black Friday Promotion to give you 8 weeks to take advantage of our Black Friday 15% Bonus, and we’re doing it again this year! This is especially helpful for backers that intend to pledge or upgrade prior to the Fall Reward & Sale Expiration Event ! Here are the details:

For all new purchases (including pledges, pledge upgrades, add-on items, player owned towns, player owned town upgrades, stretch goal items, and Make a Difference items) between 12:00 am CST October 2, 2015 and 12:00 am CST December 1, 2015, we will add an additional 15% bonus to your Store Credit! You can use your Store Credit toward additional purchases (which includes pledges, pledge upgrades, add-on items, player owned towns, and player owned town upgrades).

[NOTE: The 15% bonus is calculated every day at 1:00 pm CST for any purchases within the previous 24 hours and added to your Store Credit account; Any monthly payments paid during the promotion period also receive the 15% bonus; Store Credit cannot be applied toward the purchase of stretch goal or make a difference items]

You can use the 15% Bonus to save on your next purchase! For example, if you have the $45 Adventurer pledge and really want to upgrade to the $90 Royal Artisan pledge, you would normally pay the extra $45 for the upgrade. But using the 15% bonus you can immediately save $5. To do so, you would first purchase $40 worth of Store Credit Gift Coupons (via PayPal, Amazon, Bitcoin, or credit card; excluding existing Store Credit) then use the “Convert to Credits” option on your account page to transform the Store Credit Gift Coupons into Store Credit. Within 24 hours an additional $6 bonus ($40 x 15%) would be applied to your Store Credit account, bringing it up to $46. You would then use $45 of your Store Credit to upgrade to the $90 Royal Artisan pledge.

Read more…


Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 22 Postmortem

Greetings Avatars!

Drop your fishing pole, put up your lute, and please join us Thursday, October 8th at 3:00 PM Central (20:00 GMT) for our next Hangout of the Avatar! Richard, Starr, and Chris will be chatting about the highlights of Release 22 and giving everyone a sneak peek at what to expect for Release 23. And, of course, FireLotus will be taking your questions and feedback live in the chat-room and also in advance right here in the comments section.*

concert

We will be giving out some really awesome prizes during the 90 minute extended Hangout, and all you have to do to qualify for one is to come hang out with us in the IRC chatroom during the broadcast. As always, the link to the hangout will be posted here directly before the hangout begins.

*Please keep in mind that questions and feedback related to Release 22 specific topics will be given priority and really verbose questions may be skipped, as they can be a challenge to shorten and summarize live on the air. In brief… please keep your questions… brief. ;)


Update of the Avatar #144 – 2015.09.25: Play Release 22 Now!, Q4 Schedule, Autism Awareness, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

  • Play Release 22 Now!
  • FireLotus Release 22 Dance Party!
  • R22 Patch Notes
  • Release 22 Screenshot Gallery: Fishing
  • Jakup White’s Map of the World
  • Wanted: Athanil of Bear Tavern
  • Q4 2015 Schedule Update
  • Tavern Rap by Briar Vesper
  • Rough Stone Building Blocks
  • Autism Awareness Charity Events
  • SpeedTree Contributes Autism Awareness Puzzle Tree
  • Stone Crypt
  • Elven Homes
  • 38 Day Countdown for Fall Reward & Sale Expirations
  • Auto-Canceling Monthly Layaway Payment Plans
  • In-game Community Weekend Events
  • This Week In The News
  • Upcoming Events
  • Recommended Games to Back

Play Release 22 Now!

SotA_Dragon3

Release 22 successfully launched yesterday, September 24, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, logging in, and checking out the new changes! Lots of new content to explore, including:

  • Dragons!
  • Fishing!
  • Music! Includes playble Lutes, Pianos, and Synchronized Group Play.
  • New Scenes including Isle of Storms, Blood River Massacre and Blood River Settlement
  • New Elven homes, Dragon Statues, Stone Building Blocks, and new Decorations, including skeletons, spiders, & crypt
  • New Crafting Recipes, including building blocks, fishing poles, lute, piano, coconut bra, trophy fish, gravestones, etc.
  • Many new Player Owned Towns
  • Emote Teaching
  • New Skills and Combat Balanced
  • …and more!

Read more…


Release 22 Instructions

[A SotA Public Forum post by Starr Long]

Darkstarr

Greetings Avatars,

Please read this entire message, as well as the linked instructions and known issues.

Thank you for being a loyal backer and follower of Shroud of the Avatar. Release 22 access for all backers at First Responder level and above (as well as DragonCon attendees) begins this Thursday, September 24, at 10:30 AM Central Time (16:30 UTC).

Release 22 feels like a turning point for us. We are starting to gain real momentum on being able to tell the story through new scenes added each release. SotA_IslandofStorms_1This release in particular is important for the story because one of those new scenes is the Isle of Storms—our homage to the beloved starting experiences of Ultimas, where questions answered determine your starting path. We are also expanding the breadth of our sandbox experience with new ways for players to engage with the world (fishing) and each other (musical instruments and emote teaching). This expansion in two axes is exemplary of the kind of game we are trying to make, while at the same time very illustrative of how challenging it is to do so.

We also continue to remain dedicated to being responsive to all of your feedback and our analysis of gameplay data. We will continue to make iterative changes to the game to make it better, even if it costs us time. In Release 21, that dedication led us to move to a use-based advancement system. In Release 22, we finish the bulk of the work to complete that change-over. Going forward, we can now balance the game based completely on use-based advancement; no more lingering hidden player levels to hinder this progress. That responsiveness also led us to pull in PVP Loot and Ransom this release, because we felt that the PVP experience was not even close to where it needed to be and it had been too many releases since we had expanded PVP play in any meaningful way.

SotA_Dragon1Release 22 also brings us to the culmination of this entire quarter’s creature work. Many of you may remember that we first began with the Troll in Release 20, trying to see how big we could make creatures and how different we could make the experience of fighting large-scale enemies. This led us to solve technical challenges, like them turning around properly and their head tracking their current target, which in-turn led us to solve turning and head tracking. It also brought us cool features like trajectory-based knockback, allowing these big creatures to knock us off tall things (to better soften us up before eating). In Release 21, we started solving problems around combat with flying creatures with the Phoenix. Now we come to Release 22, where all that learning combines into our largest and most complex creature yet… the Dragon! We still have more polish on these large creatures to get them to the quality standard we all want, but they are already inspiring to see and fight.

We also were finally able to make some time for a round of optimizations that have greatly increased performance in our worst areas. Some say Ardoris is even playable! We plan to get even more performance improvements in Release 23, when we hope to upgrade to a newer version of Unity 5. Speaking of Release 23, tomorrow I will be posting our Fourth Quarter Schedule Update as usual. It will show the roadmap for the next three releases after Release 22 so everyone can see how we plan to finish out 2015 (spoiler: we don’t finish the game).

I want to express a huge amount of gratitude to our Dev+ backers who tested all of the below on the QA server and found lots of bugs. They also provided editorial feedback on this post so they are a big reason that this post actually matches what is in the game and that it is easy to read.

While we are getting closer to launch, we are still in a constant state of change, and we do not yet have in-game systems to inform players of these changes, or to share ways to help them to explore new content and systems. This means we rely entirely on this message, and the linked instructions and known issues to convey the current game state. SotA_R22_PlayerEvents_bookWe regularly have to answer questions or filter bug reports because some players elect not to read this valuable information. By taking a few moments to read through this information, a great deal of our time and efforts can be redirected to focus on new “unanswered” questions, and addressing critical issues impacting each release. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to review this post, and for all the truly valuable feedback you continue to provide.

Also, remember that while we are providing new content with each release, our community is working overtime to make new events for you to enjoy. So, be sure to check out a couple of the Community Events Calendars run by our community members (via in-game book or the player run websites Avatars Circle Community Events and Events of the Avatars calendar).

Without further ado, here are the R22 deliverables.

Read more…


Update of the Avatar #143 – 2015.09.18: Island of Storms, Autism Charity, Blood River, Fauns, Fishing Trophies, R22 Quest Reward, Halloween Goodies, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

  • Island of Storms
  • Blood River Settlement
  • Very Large Creatures: Dragons
  • Fauns
  • Craftable Fishing Trophies
  • Release 22 Grand Tour Quest Reward: Steampunk Goggles
  • Autism Awareness Charity Drive
  • Dyeable Witch Hat
  • Spider Wall Decorations
  • 45 Day Countdown for Fall Reward & Sale Expirations
  • Auto-Canceling Monthly Layaway Payment Plans
  • In-game Community Weekend Events
  • Upcoming Events
  • Recommended Games to Back

SotA_IslandofStorms_1

Island of Storms

Long ago incredible magical forces crafted this island on shards of the shattered moons where it still floats high above New Britannia. Arabella greets new avatars coming from Earth and guides them with a series of questions that will determine which path they start down: Truth, Love, or Courage. These paths not only determine which plot thread you begin with, they also determine what your starting abilities are and what equipment you have. Building this scene required some new solutions for terrain to allow us to show the island floating in space.

Read more…


Update of the Avatar #142 – 2015.09.11: Hilt Fortress, Autism Awareness Drive, Jam Sessions, Nightmare “Mount”, Skeleton & Dragon Decos, Monthly Layaway Extension, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

  • The Fortress at Hilt in Nightshade Pass
  • Autism Awareness Charity Drive
  • Musical Jam Session
  • Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 21 Postmortem
  • Finn Staber at Unite 2015
  • Nightmare “Mount” Telethon Reward
  • Ornate Brass Darklamp
  • Skeleton Decorations
  • Stone Dragon Statue Decorations
  • 52 Day Countdown for Fall Reward & Sale Expirations
  • Monthly Layaway Payment Plan Extension
  • In-game Community Weekend Events
  • This Week In the News
  • Upcoming Events
  • Recommended Games to Back

The Fortress at Hilt in Nightshade Pass

SotA_Hilt_U142_9

[A Dev+ Forum Post by Scottie Jones]

Within the Blackblade Mountains, between South Paladis to the west and Midmaer to the east, is the narrow cleft of Nightshade Pass. At its center the winding pass opens up into a bowl-shaped canyon in which rests a shimmering lake fed by icy water flowing down from glaciers hidden higher in the mountains to the north. On the south end of this valley can be seen the tall volcanic mountain of Hilt that gives this region its name.

According to legend, before the Fall of the shards of the shattered moon, there was a great battle between the Gods of Man and the Avatars. It raged all across the face of the world. One of the Avatars saw that they could not win and so, rather than fight the gods, he plunged his blade into the world, desiring to kill that thing which the gods loved most; their creation. The edge of the sword tore through the fertile lands of the world, opening a great and terrible wound which became known as Hellfire Rift. It was here, then, that the gods in their wrath stopped the Avatar and cast him back into the Abyss from which he came. But the damage had been done and the gods, in their wisdom, left the hilt of the blade exposed until such time as some legendary hero from some other legend were to come along and heal the world. That’s what that southernmost peak is supposed to be; the hilt.

Read more…


Update of the Avatar #141 – 2015.09.04: Blood River Massacre, Fishing, Musical Instruments, Telethon Stretch Goals, Fall Reward Expirations, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

  • New Single-Player Scene: Blood River Massacre
  • Fishing in Release 22 (Finally!)
  • Musical Instruments
  • Thou Art Invited to Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 21 Postmortem
  • $52,500 Raised During End of Summer Telethon
  • 59 Day Countdown for Fall Reward & Sale Expirations
  • Auto-Canceling Monthly Layaway Payment Plans
  • In-game Community Weekend Events
  • Upcoming Events
  • Recommended Games to Back

New Single-Player Scene: Blood River Massacre

Wars often begin through misunderstanding. The Vertas Elves, descendants of the warrior elves crafted by the Obsidians 200 years ago, seek now only to live in peace. But the men who border them remember the wrath the elves unleashed on their people, and do not soon forget. In this new single-player scene — the opening of the Path of Truth — the avatar discovers the aftermath of what will soon become known as the Blood River Massacre. Can a war between two races be averted?

As you can see from the following images, level designer Esteben “Steve” Zaldivar captured the sense of the bloody, smokey aftermath of the massacre:

SotA_BloodRiverMassacre1

Read more…


Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 21 Postmortem

Greetings and Salutations!

Please join us Thursday, September 10th at 3:00 PM Central (20:00 GMT) for our next Hangout of the Avatar! Richard, Starr, and Chris will be chatting about Release 21 and giving you a sneak peek at Release 22. And, of course, FireLotus will be taking your questions and feedback live in the chat-room and also in advance right here in the comments section.*

We will be giving out some really awesome prizes during the 90 minute extended Hangout, and all you have to do to qualify for one is to come hang out with us in the IRC chatroom during the broadcast.  As always, the link to the hangout will be posted here directly before the hangout begins.

gustball

*Please keep in mind that questions and feedback related to Release 21 specific topics will be given priority and really verbose questions may be skipped, as they can be a challenge to shorten and summarize live on the air. In brief… please keep your questions… brief. ;)


Update of the Avatar #140 – 2015.08.28: SotA Included in Syndicate’s Guinness World Record, Play R21 Now!, New Team Members, End-of-Summer Telethon, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

  • Syndicate Includes Shroud of the Avatar in Guinness World Record
  • Player Owned Towns: The Syndicate’s Arx Draconis
  • Play Release 21 Now!
  • R21 Patch Notes
  • New Dev Team Members
  • Very Large Creatures: Dragons (Work-in-Progress)
  • Highlights of New Use Based System
  • New Pledge Rewards
  • End-of-Summer Telethon In Just 3 Days
  • 3 Day Countdown for 10% Summer Bonus & Reward Expirations
  • Streetlamp Decos
  • New Dyeable Hats
  • Koldar’s Trading Card Giveaway
  • In-game Community Weekend Events
  • Upcoming Events
  • Recommended Games to Back

GuinessRecords_logo

The Syndicate Includes Shroud of the Avatar in Guinness World Record

We can’t begin to describe how excited, and honored, we were when Sean Stalzer, head of The Syndicate Guild, informed us that they had their Guinness World Record updated to include Shroud of the Avatar! Here’s an excerpt from the Official Guinness World Record website:

First founded in February 1996, The Syndicate had been active for 19 years 170 days, as of 20 July 2015. The Syndicate prefers to only take part in a limited number of games at any time and is currently focused on Ultima Online, World of Warcraft and Shroud of the Avatar. Additionally, they have been prominent in titles such as Star Wars: The Old Republic and EverQuest. The guild is known for its motto “Long Live The Syndicate”, often abbreviated to “LLTS”.

Their site can be seen here: http://www.llts.org/

Our deepest heartfelt thanks to Sean and the entire Syndicate for including Shroud of the Avatar in their prestigious world record!

LLTS!

Read more…


End of Summer Telethon of the Avatar!

August 31 marks the end of our Summer Bonus promotion and to commemorate the event, we are holding a 12-Hour End-of-Summer Telethon, from 10am CST to 10pm CST, August 31, 2015! We are giving away hourly prizes during the telethon, as well as three Big Prizes, including a Patron, Ancestor, and Lord Pledge!

$52,500: Current Telethon Funds Raised
(in $2500/shot increments)

As a special bonus, we are offering Telethon Funding Stretch Goal Rewards to any backer that pledges a minimum of $5 during the telethon until Midnight August 31, 2015 (Store Credit to make $5 minimum purchase does not apply). The Telethon Funding Stretch Goal Rewards are:

  • Achieved!  $10,000 – Gossamer Cloak
  • Achieved!  $25,000 – Lord British emote & Darklamp
  • Achieved!  $50,000 – Nightmare “Mount” (flaming black coconuts that leave a trail of smoke plus black horse head mask with red flaming eyes)

Warning: Telethon video is Rated PG-13 for Alcoholic Content
(might get upgraded to Rated-R depending on rate of pledges)


Here is the full schedule of events:

  • 10:00 am CST: Welcome! – Meet the Devs / Office Tour – Who: Starr, Richard, Chris, Dallas – Prizes: Patron Pledge, Store Credit
  • 11:00 am CST: Gustball: Devs vs. Players – Host: Lazarus – Prizes: SotA Coin, Store Credit
  • 12:00 pm CST: Deep Dive 1: Story – Who: Tracy, Richard, Lum, Gina – Host: Lumpdizzle – Prizes: SotA Coin, Store Credit
  • 1:00 pm CST: Community 1: Guilds – Who: Gina, BMC, Phoenix Republic, Beran League, Syndicate, Tantulus, etc. +Ken & Joaquin – Host: Amber Raine – Prizes: Poster, Store Credit
  • 2:00 pm CST: Deep Dive 2: Player Property / Player Owned Towns – Who: Ken, Hutch, Starr, Rick, Mathew N., Bob, Andy – Host: Duke violation – Prizes: SotA Coin, Store Credit
  • 3:00 pm CST: Dev Tabletop board game play session – Who: Rick, Ken, Joaquin – Prizes: SotA Coin, Store Credit
  • 4:00 pm CST: Deep Dive 3: Crafting / Economy – Who: Jeff, B, Chris, Starr, Richard – Host: HogwinHD
    Prizes: Ancestor Pledge, Store Credit
  • 5:00 pm CST: Community 2: Streamers and Charity – Who: Gina, Wrath, Dallas – Host: Eclipse Maiden – Prizes: SotA Coin, Store Credit
  • 6:00 pm CST: Deep Dive 4: Combat / Creatures – Who: B, Chris, Geoff, Bren, Erik, Starr – Host: TBD – Prizes: Poster, Store Credit
  • 7:00 pm CST: Deep Dive 5: PVP, Guild Warfare – Who: B, Chris, Starr – Host: Jack Frost – Prizes: SotA Coin, Store Credit
  • 8:00 pm CST: PVP Fights in game: Devs vs. Players – Host: Beetlebear / Ambushed – Prizes: SotA Coin, Store Credit
  • 9:00 pm CST: Community 3: Music / Radio / Theatre – Who: Gina, Holt, Amber, Shooter, Stile, Starr, Richard, Chris – Host: Legendary Neurotoxin/ Lolinia – Prizes: Poster, Store Credit
  • 10:00 pm CST: Goodbyes and Thank Yous – Who: Starr, Richard, Chris, Gina, Dallas – Prizes: Lord Pledge, Store Credit

And, yes, there will be shots. However, we learned our lesson in the last Hangout of the Avatar, and in order to delay the possible appearance of Drunk[insert dev name here], we’ve modified the drinking rules such that participating Dev Team members will take 1 Shot/Sip for every $2500 raised during the telethon!