Good Morning and Happy Thanksgiving to my American Friends, Peers, and Fellow Avatars!  Dallas snuck in this week’s Update of the Avatar last night while I was out having a Thanksgiving Eve dinner with some friends since I wont get to see some of them until New Years.  Of course, I am more then happy to post about it this lovely morning, so it all works out. Not alot was added, but it is always good to add more details as they are given to us.

• SotA Successfully Launches on Steam Early Access
• New Scene: Graff Gem Mines
• Cyber Monday 12 Hour Telethon
• In-game Community Weekend Events
• Recruitment Bonus and Alienware Pledge Upgrade Promotions End
• Upcoming Events

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SotA Successfully Launches on Steam Early Access

What an exciting week it’s been, starting with the Release 12 Weekend and immediately followed by the successful launch of SotA on Steam Early Access! We’ve had a great response on Steam, currently rated as “Very Positive” across 52 player reviews! During the first 24 hours we even climbed as high as #11 on the Steam Top Sellers chart (for all Steam products).

Thanks to all our veteran community members that have put in extra effort to warmly greet the flood of new Steam players, providing a welcome atmosphere and guidance when needed!

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New Scene: Graff Gem Mines

The Graff Gem Mines can be found in the farthest Northeast corner of Novia. Graff himself founded these rich mines long ago, and they have proven to be the most productive mines of the largest and most valuable gems ever known. Recently however, the difficulties with undead in the region have, hopefully, lead to their temporary abandonment. Rumors of Kobolds moving in to claim the mine’s wealth have recently been heard. Here are a few new images of the Graff Gem Mine entrances:

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Cyber Monday 12 Hour Telethon

Please join us Monday, December 1st at 10:00 AM CST (16:00 GMT) for our Cyber Monday 12 Hour Telethon celebrating our Steam Early Access launch and raising over $5 Million from our amazing backers! Richard, Starr, Chris, and the rest of our team, as well as various community members will be live on air throughout the day, hanging out and answering questions. As usual, I’ll be taking your questions and feedback live in the chat-room and also in advance,  (please post your Telethon comments/questions on the original post).

Schedule (tentative): All times and content are subject to change

• 10:00: Welcome, R12 Post Mortem & R13 Preview
• 11:00: Meet the Devs & Office Tour
• 12:00: Community Spot: Music
• 13:00: Deep Dive: Story & Single Player
• 14:00: Deep Dive: Crafting & Economy
• 15:00: Community Spot: In Game Events
• 16:00: Deep Dive: Player Owned Towns Templates
• 17:00: Deep Dive: Combat, PVP, & Death
• 18:00: Dev Team Table Top Gaming Session
• 19:00: Community Spot: Awarding of Orders of New Britannian Empire and Royal Warrants
• 21:00: Community Spot: Hearth of Britannia

Hourly Prizes: If you are registered on our website (no purchase required) you will be eligible to receive one of the many prizes we will be giving away every hour including: 

• Plantronics Headsets / Earbuds (1 per hour, 12 total)
• $100 Store Credits (1 per hour, 12 total)
• Release 13 (December 18) Opening Weekend Access Keys (10 per hour, 120 total)
• Alienware Desktop Grandprize for the the final hour

I’ll have the link to the broadcast posted Monday shortly before we’re set to go live, and a new link every 4 hours when we change the broadcast feed..  See you then!

– Lady Firelotus

[Click here to post your questions/comments for the Telethon]

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Release 12 In-game Community Events

The amazing community has another great lineup of in-game events planned for Release 12 this weekend. If you missed out on these player events during the previous Releases,  check some of them out this weekend. Here is the latest schedule of player events from the Avatar’s Circle Community Events calendar (http://avatarscircle.com/community-events/):

Thursday, November 27
2:00am CST – Explore Novia with royalsexy (Braemer cemetery)

Friday, November 28
10:00pm CST – Dungeon Run – Braemar Cemetery
7:00pm CST – Dungeon Run – Braemar Cemetery

Saturday, November 29
9:00am CST – PaxLair Working Hours – Host Winfield (in Valemark)
1:00pm CST – Church of the Dark Star – Power of Chaos – The Hunger of Coveting (PaxLair, Valemark)
4:00 pm CST – Riya’s Birthday Bash (/zone Net , /zone Riya or /zone Amber Raine to attend!)
6:00 pm CST – PvP Tournament – 2×2 Double Elimination (at the Brave Coast or “/zone Duke Violation”; signup at http://challonge.com/OoVr12t3)

Sunday, November 30
5:30am CST – Explore Novia with royalsexy (Braemer cemetery)
12:00am CST – Bear Tavern Brawl R12
3:00pm CST – Guild Meet and Greet (at Castle Lot in Owl’s Head; open to all; sponsored by The Order of Drunken Elders)
6:00pm CST – Community Tag (Kingsport, details)
7:00pm CST – PaxLair Meeting – (in Valemark or /zone Winfield PaxLair)

You will also find the “Release 12 Events” book in your in-game inventory, providing a list of the community events provided by the Avatar’s Circle Community Events calendar. Here are some sample in-game images from the Events book:

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Recruitment Bonus and Alienware Pledge Upgrade Promotions End

The Recruitment Bonus program that we started in August 2013 will be coming to an end after this Black Friday Weekend (12:00 am CST December 2, 2014). If you know anyone that’s been sitting on the fence about pledging their support to Shroud of the Avatar you have 6 more days to convince them to pledge and specify you as their referral so you can get your $25 Friend Referral pledge upgrade bonus. The recruitment bonus only applies to pledges purchased on the SotA website and does not apply to Steam purchases (click here for more details).

We’d like to extend a special thanks and deep appreciation to Alienware for the 9 months they sponsored their $20 SotA Pledge Upgrade coupon! We had planned to announce that the program would conclude at the end of Black Friday Weekend, but compliance with Steam policies regarding pricing mandated we act sooner, so we removed the promotion yesterday, November 25th.

Alienware’s powerful gaming rigs are a perfect match for Shroud of the Avatar and we still have plenty of Alienware promotions in the works, including giving away an Alienware desktop during our Cyber Monday Telethon, December 1! Alienware will also be sponsoring 1000 Free R13 Weekend Access passes so stay tuned for details in an upcoming update.

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Upcoming Events

2014.11.24 – SotA launches on Steam Early Access
2014.11.27 – SotA at Dreamhack (Sweden)
2014.12.01 – Cyber Monday, $5M & Steam Early Access All Day Telethon
2014.12.18 – Release 13 Access
2015.01.22 – Release 14 Access
2015.02.19 – Release 15 Access
2015.03.13 – SotA at SXSW Interactive
2015.03.26 – Release 16 Access