MMORPG.com managed to get an early preview of Shroud of the Avatar’s upcoming pre-alpha test release, colloquially known as Release 8. The major focus of this release is PvP, so the game’s combat system is what captures the focus of the first part of the article. If you’ve tried any of the previous Shroud of the Avatar releases, you’ll already have an idea of what the combat system is like.

If not…

You build a deck based off of the skills you currently have by dragging runes from your skill UI to the deck UI, and then you equip the deck you want to use. That already implies that you’ll have multiple decks developed for a range of flexibility and a recent dev post says decks can be tied to specific armor, so there’s a win right there to my mind. When you engage in combat, your task bar will begin to populate with runes from your deck. You have a set amount of time to use each one, or it’ll be pulled from your bar. There’s already a system in to warn you the rune is about to be pulled, and which should be clear when you see runes start to slip down out of the task bar.

…

One of the things the folks at Portalarium have set as a standard for themselves in making Shroud of the Avatar, is this idea that things should be easy to get into and hard to master. The new combat system really demonstrates their adherence to that ideal, because while it is a very easy system to understand, there is a much deeper complexity laying beneath the surface. They’ve tied the runes to the skill system in a couple interesting ways.

First and most obviously, you need to have the skill to have the rune, so there’s a direct link between what you can do in combat and what skills you’ve worked on aquiring. As you work your way up the skill tree, you also have the option to stop and put extra points in a skill you already own. This allows you to get up to four extra runes for that ability.

However, Release 8 isn’t only about PvP, and when the article discusses some of the other new features, it makes the release sound rather more interesting…especially in this description of the new location that will be included for us to check out:

When you’re not engaged in mortal combat, there are few better places to recover your sanity than the Venetian-inspired city of Ardoris, which can be accessed via the Lunar Rifts. The new row housing options are on display in the new city, as well as some new cultural elements. They weren’t quite done with the city when I stopped in for a look, but there was more than enough completed to get a feel for it. Asian-influenced houses crowd the canals and waterways, aqueducts cross the city to carry fresh water in from the surrounding mountains, and all set in accents of blue. It combines to give the city a real exotic flair that separates it from the more traditional fantasy feel of Owls Head and Kingsport.

As well, on the second page, there is some recollection of feature that Richard Garriott mentioned, to the article’s author, wanting to include in the game:

…Richard wants to implement food in the game, which they’d already planned on, but he wants to put a twist on it. After some reading and research, Richard says he realized that most food falls into three categories, mostly equal in a balanced meal once the water removed. By weight, the average human diet is mostly a third each of carbohydrates, fats, and protein. That’s not exactly accurate, but it’s close enough to use as a rule in the game.

Thus, Richard wants to give in-game food stats that equate to each of those categories, and have each impact different components of the game. Body and strength related attributes would depend on eating a healthy amount of protein, for instance. For mind activity, you might need more fast-burning carbs instead. The result should be that food isn’t something you periodically shovel into your character’s mouth to meet a generic requirement. You’ll want to find the best and most balanced food possible, which makes player-run kitchens and restaurants a little more likely.

I’m of two minds about this.

On the one hand, in terms of role playing and world simulation, the inclusion of this system would be a pretty significant — and immersive — feature (although one wonders how well it would play out in the single-player mode, where player-run kitchens won’t be a factor). But on the other hand, done wrong, it would be an even more frustrating version of the food systems of the first few Ultima games…or in Ultima 7, for that matter. Can you imagine if Dupre, in addition to never shutting up about being hungry, gradually lost his strength and combat prowess if all you fed him was bread? Yes, it’s somewhat more realistic…but there’s a fine line between realism and having to keep track of a Weight Watchers program for your entire party.