Release 3 successfully launched yesterday, February 20, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, logging in, and exploring the new content! I covered some this is another post earlier today.

To Review, In this release Potalarium added multiplayer mode, allowing players to see each other and interact through an enhanced chat system, friend list, and emotes. There is a new village to explore, Braemar. There more crafting enhancements as well as merchants where you can sell your crafted goods. Also included are several new songs created by the community via The Bards of Poets’ Circle.

SotA community member, The Mad Hermit, has been making videos throughout th pre alpha tests and here is yet another one to help give you a great overview of Release 3 yet again.

We also got some wonderful art updates today on in game items for players as well as artwork of monsters that we will be able to fight.  Check out the Shroud of the Avatar Add-On store for a new non-combat pet and a new Prosperity Item as well.

All backers at the Citizen, Edelmann, Knight, Lord, Baron, Duke, and Lord of the Manor pledge tiers, will receive a special Benefactor, Founder, or Royal Founder plaque as a digital, in-game decoration for your home.

It just wouldn’t be a Lord British game unless there were musical instruments you could actually play! Included in the basic rewards of the Citizen pledge tier is this unique, in-game, musical piano for your home!

With Portalarium already working on Release 4 tasks, whose main focus is, of course, combat. The character art team is busily creating monsters to fight, and the skeletons were one of the first to be completed. Shown below, are three basic types: Mage, Fighter, and Archer (along with variations of each). Each type will take advantage of different AI behaviors we are building for R4 including: ranged fighting, melee fighting, offensive magic, support/defensive magic, summoning, etc.

Mages

Fighters

Archers

As someone who does art and enjoys modeling as well. These skeletons look awesome. It makes me all the more exited for R4 come March.  Lastly, I want to leave everyone with a snippet of the new chapter of the Blade of the Avatar, written by Tracy Hickman & Richard Garriott!

If you are an Early Founder, or you purchased BotA in the Add-On Store, then you will find a download link for the current installment of the novel on your personal SotA account page (log into SotA website and click on “Account” in the top-right corner).

Here is a brief excerpt of the latest installment (illustration by Denis Loubet):

Chapter 10: Councils

Baroness Gianna Baden–Fox closed her eyes in frustration. This effectively blocked the sight of the arguing factions but, unfortunately, did nothing to alleviate the assault on her ears from the increasingly vitriolic arguments that were being flung in attack and counterattack from all sides of the Hall. The Baroness opened her eyes once more and tried to take in the turmoil at the center of her keep.

It was too much, and her anger, that beast within her over which she always held tight control, could be restrained no longer. The Baroness stood suddenly from her chair at the end of the audience hall, raised her ornate staff of office and jabbed its metallic tip violently against the stones at her feet.

The sound shot through the rhetoric, cutting a brief silence in the space of which her words could be heard.

“There will be order in my hall!” The words of the Baroness were a statement of fact whose very tone dared anyone to challenge its absolute reality. “The sovereigns and ambassadors who have come to counsel will conduct themselves with courtesy within my hall. Those who cannot will find their accommodations moved to my stockade. There you may shout at each other all you like; I will not hear you and will sleep all the sounder for it. So, my most honored and esteemed guests, you will all sit down, or by the Storm Gods, I will have you removed from my hall.”

Download your copy of the latest installment of BotA to read the rest of this exciting chapter!