Shroud of the Avatar: Founder Duke Island House, Town and City Lots Available
As per usual, the most recent Update of the Avatar posted to the Shroud of the Avatar website reveals yet another player house model. This time, it’s the Founder Duke Island Castle. And as befits its name, it’s a hefty piece of real estate, albeit somewhat implausibly situated:
The roof deck is rather expansive, and the interior is of course quote voluminous:
Additionally, Portalarium have made some adjustments to the Founder Knight Home. In addition to overhauling — and cleaning up — the exterior and increasing the size of the crenelations, they have added a second balcony to the house, made the entrance rather more grand, and opened up the interior rather significantly.
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- Old and busted.
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- New hotness!
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- Old and busted.
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- New hotness!
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- New interior!
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- See? New!
Finally, Portalarium have put several Town and City housing lots up for sale. Here’s a look at the lots in question, with a generic building placed in each to give a sense of scale:
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- Town lot
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- City lot
Both lot types are available on sale for 50% off for the next little while. Town lots (there are 100 available) regularly retail for $900 (and thus can be obtained, at present, for $450). City lots (of which there are a mere 50 available), meanwhile, regularly retain for a rather steep $2,100, so being able to grab them for $1,050 at present is…well, certainly less painful to the wallet. There has been some interesting discussion about the new lots on the Ultima Dragons Facebook group.
Impressive, and I like how they’re incrementally improving assets; great strategy. How much people are paying for real estate is a bit crazy, though. I guess when you got it you got to flaunt it somehow.
I do have a question about ancient and medieval architectural strategy though. I’ve noticed that a lot of RPGs (from the earliest of DQ’s and Ultimas up to modern ones like TES IV/V) have large expanses of stone ceilings and upper-level flooring. I’m not an architect, but have some understanding about how masonry structures are supported, particularly with regard to spans.
For vertical structures such as walls the stones’ positions are staggered to maximize friction between individual stones so that each structural member reinforces the next in the event of lateral force, leading to an “all or nothing” strategy of structural integrity. Basically either the entire wall falls or the entire wall stands. Interspersing perpendicular joints expands the theory to a second axis, adding even greater stability. Stone and concrete have extraordinary compressive strength, so gravity has little effect when they’re stacked.
Lateral or horizontal stone structures however are much more difficult to reinforce, as gravity is acting at 90 degrees from their point of greatest strength and at the perfect angle to capitalize on their inherent weakness. Modern construction uses steel reinforced concrete sections supported by regularly-spaced pylons, but the ancients didn’t know about rebar and developed other solutions such as vaulted arches and buttresses.
My point is that for these structures (in SotA) to really feel right they need to address such basic things. Even large expanses of wooden flooring need regularly-spaced support columns unless more elegant measures are taken. Stone flooring and ceilings demand even greater attention. While most players of course won’t be aware of the physics of structures built from thousands of stones, they’ve probably seen enough movies and gone on enough European vacations to know something is wrong. Portalarium should consider this angle an opportunity rather than a burden.
I am a mech eng by training, and that stone roof stood out like a sore thumb to me also. I think it is safe to say, based on most of their previous assets, that the art team is… unburdened by reality.
BTW, most of the architecture i remember from tes v was pretty good.
Huh, that is interesting. Would you be able/willing at some point in the future to act as a consultant for architectural questions that may arise with respect to the game I’m working on? You’d get added to the game credits at the very least. Mostly the questions would be about the appropriate use of the various arch and vault types, if wood and stone were combined structurally for stone block buildings and things like that. Do you have a historical background at all or do you just know modern techniques? Sanctimonia’s based on fourteenth century Europe, though it’s not a strict interpretation.