Shroud of the Avatar – Update of the Avatar #132

by GolemDragon · July 3, 2015

Greetings Friends and Fellow Avatars!

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

Q3 2015 Schedule Update
Architecture of the Obsidians!
Very Large Creatures: Trolls
Remix of the Avatar
New Outdoor Fountain Decorations
Thou hast been invited to the Release 19 Postmortem!

Q3 2015 Schedule Update

[A SotA Public Forum post by Starr Long]

Greetings Avatars,

As we have stated previously, our goal is to once-per-quarter post an updated schedule for our monthly releases. Even though these goals will likely change somewhat as we react to feedback, we feel it is important to provide you an updated roadmap periodically.

Our goal continues to be to deliver our backers content each and every month so that we can get feedback and use it to iterate improvements. This continues to benefit the game, with additional game features like jumping and swimming, and improvements to systems including crafting, conversations, and combat. Meeting that monthly goal is our highest priority, but we require flexibility in our deliverables in order to meet that goal. As you have seen in previous releases, sometimes we push things out, but we also often pull new things in.

As always, all dates, durations, and deliverables are subject to change as we adjust our designs based on direct feedback from you, our backers.

RELEASE 20, July 30, 2015

Full Wipe: We are going to make some fundamental changes to item architecture that require us to do a full wipe for Release 20. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please note that if you have been waiting to melt down add-ons, this is your chance to do so as long as you do NOT login once R20 goes live (which automatically claims the items and prevents melt down).

Combat Pets & Taming: We will expand pet functionality to include the ability to tame some creatures and have them help you in combat.

Encounter Revamp: Random encounters are being reworked to be more engaging experiences, not just ambush scenarios. Additionally, roving encounters (patrolling creatures) will now appear on the overworld map and can be engaged (pulling you into a scene) or avoided if you wish to sneak past.

Player Owned Vendors: Players will now be able to place a Vendor on their property to sell goods.

Spells & Skills: We will continue to make a pass through the skill trees and add new skills, balance existing skills, and replace less useful skills.

Maps: We will continue to polish scenes along the Perennial Coast by converting to dynamic spawning and adding additional content like night-time spawners. We will also be adding a few new scenes; including the Crags Foothills (where players can enter the Etceter Crag Mines) and Desolate Hills.

Player Owned Towns: We will launch our island template and the first city using that template will be the Duchy of Dara Brae.

Creatures: We intend to introduce the Troll as our first very large creature and we hope to make the combat experience much different than would be found with normal sized opponents.

Crafting: Tailors and Alchemists will be able to begin crafting Taming Collars. Additionally, weapons and shields will now display material colors from crafting.

Player Made Books: This feature will continue to expand with the addition of Printing (making copies of books) as well as the ability to use Player Made Books as decorations.

RELEASE 21, August 27, 2015:

Crafting: Crafting skills will start to come online, and be used during crafting to modify results. Additionally, players will now have the ability to salvage items for materials and components.

Combat: The cover system will be introduced and will modify attack and defense values when you (or your target) are behind cover.

Maps: Perennial Coast polish will continue and new scenes will come online that expand the story, including the desert town of Desolis and the Chamber of Souls dungeon beneath it.

Emote “Teaching”: Emotes will now be teachable to other players. Some emotes (like the ones tied to pledges) will only be teachable by the original owner. Teaching will be done via secure trading.

Player Owned Towns: We will continue to expand the number of templates and introduce a new Player Owned Town to the game.

Creatures: Dragons will begin appearing in Novia! Burninating will begin. All hail Trogdor, the Burninator!

Localization: We will begin crowdsourcing the translation of the game into various languages.

Weather: Weather will make a first appearance with rain and snow linked to seasonal changes.

Spells & Skills: More new spells, skills, and combos will come online.

Control Points: These scenes will now pull you into them automatically if held by enemies

RELEASE 22, September 25, 2015

Maps: More polish passes will be made in scenes beyond the Perennial Coast, including the shardfalls and the Graff Gem Mines. We will also continue to expand the story with new scenes including the town of Etceter and the dungeon of Artifice.

Housing: Property ownership will now incur regular fees (unless you are using a tax free deed from a pledge). If the fees are not paid, the player will lose their claim, and their possessions (including the house and decorations) will be moved to their bank.

Creatures: Our creature list will continue to expand with Chaos Demons and Wisps.

Guild Warfare: Guilds will now be able to declare war on each other.

Musical Instruments: Players can play music in the game with a variety of instruments.

Fishing: Players can begin catching fish in the game.

Crafting: Crafting Table quality, location, and calendar will begin to factor into crafting results.

Player Owned Towns: We will continue to expand the number of templates and introduce at least one new Player Owned Town to the game.

We continue to be incredibly thankful for the support we receive from this amazing community. While the funding you provide makes all of this possible, it pales in comparison with the faith you have in us, the feedback you provide us, and the content you are making for everyone to enjoy. We are humbly grateful, and we cannot wait to see you again in New Britannia!

Before I go, I wanted to include an excerpt from my original post about our Early Release Schedule that is important to set the framework for our ongoing schedule:

As a crowd funded and crowd sourced project, we feel it is incredibly important that we provide our backers with information and access well before game studios would normally do so in a traditional development model. Traditionally, the players are given information and access only after the development team has already decided exactly how things will be done, and at times, even after it has already been implemented. By the time the public normally has access to the product, there is usually no time to meaningfully react to the public feedback.

Shroud of the Avatar is different than the traditional model, as we intend to offer our backers extremely early access to information and even the game itself. With that said, we also want to be very careful that we only provide access to portions of the game when they are ready for a wider range of feedback. If we can play it internally and we know it is not ready, then there is nothing to be gained by having a wider audience come to the same conclusion. In fact, it could be quite damaging to do so.

Our strategy over the next few months is to provide you with focused and iterative releases of content. Your feedback during these releases will be critical to making the final product the best it can be, and we appreciate that you are all so willing to devote your time to helping us. With each release, we will have specific tests we will ask you all to make. As we get closer, we will send instructions on how to download, install, report bugs, etc. After each release we will review the results and reevaluate the plan including the duration of availability of each release. Please note that game data will be wiped periodically during early access.

It is important to note that all dates, durations, and deliverables are subject to change.

Sincerely,
Starr Long
Executive Producer
Shroud of the Avatar

Architecture of the Obsidians!

[A Dev+ Forum Post by Scottie Jones]

As we begin to build out areas of our game referenced in the Blade of the Avatar novel it becomes important to define general style themes for some of the most influential past cultures depicted in the storyline. One such culture was that of the corrupt and powerful Obsidians who existed at the height of their influence over 200 years before the present day of Shroud’s game fiction. Some of you may have already seen the imposing structure of the Tower of the Shuttered Eye, created by Andy Cortez, found at the heart of the Veiled Swamp. The brooding look of this edifice became the touchstone for Obsidian architecture in general, and is influencing the look of a family of additional pieces being made.

The first of these are a set of larger structures being created to allow for the placement of imposing walls, towers, and gates, and will eventually contain ruined versions of these as well as other similar structures, dwellings, and building elements. Seen out of context here, you can get an idea of how these individual element might be combined in a variety of interesting ways, but the real test is how they might look in an actual scene map.

Here I’ve temporarily placed these pieces on the same scene as the Tower of the Shuttered Eye as an example of how the architectural style carries over. Each of the towers you see can be accessed by an iron door on one side with a ladder leading to the parapets above.

From the top you can get an indication of the versatility of the set, which allows a three-way intersection of walls. Here too you can see the trapdoor at the top of the tower, as well as the circular dais that can either be used as handy stairs in this case, or as a platform for smaller objects that will eventually be a part of this set, such as altars, obelisks, and thrones.

I’ll be glad to show you more as they come online!

Enjoy!

Scottie ^_^

Very Large Creatures: Trolls

As mentioned in the Q3 schedule above, Portalarium intend to introduce the Troll as our first very large creature. They also hope to make the combat experience with very large creatures different than what will be found with normal sized opponents. For the Troll they are working on huge area of effect attacks that include striking the ground for nearby attackers and throwing boulders for distant enemies.

They began the modeling process this week and Geoff Mellon provided these WIP images to show the current direction:

Remix of the Avatar

From development team member, Zack Sheppard (programmer…and musician too, it would seem):

“This is a remix of the intro theme that plays at the splash screen. Richard gave me his permission to use samples of his voice in the song and I got to work right away. I intentionally chose the Drum and Bass genre just to be in a completely different space than all of the music in Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, as well as to challenge myself.” – Zack

New Outdoor Fountain Decorations

Dress up your yard with these beautiful spilling fountains, now available in the Add-On Store!

Cinereous Stone 2-Tier Outdoor Pedestal Fountain

Isabelline Stone 2-Tier Outdoor Fountain

Thou hast been invited to the Release 19 Postmortem!

Please join Thursday, July 9th at 3:00 PM Central (20:00 GMT) for the next Hangout of the Avatar! Richard, Starr, and Chris will be chatting about Release 19 and looking ahead to Release 20. And, of course, FireLotus will be taking your questions and feedback live in the chat-room and also in advance in the original comments section.*

They 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. And, some very special guests will be joining to close the show. As always, the link to the hangout will be included directly in the original post before the hangout begins.