Shroud of the Avatar – Update of the Avatar #88

by GolemDragon · August 29, 2014

Greetings Friends and Avatars!

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

Release 9 Re-Opens Aug 29 – Sep 1 for PAX versus Dragoncon
Release 9 Perspectives & Release 10 Preview
Release 9 Player Events
Expanded Duke Waterfront Lot
Lord Rewards: Royal Scepter and Royal Orb
Galactic Inquiry: Starr Long Talks Persistant Worlds [full interview]
Pen of the Avatar: Character Armor Variations
Alienware Sponsors $20 Pledge Upgrade Coupon
Upcoming Events

This combat from earlier today was a draw between PAX and Dragoncon (no thanks to me with my zero kills!)

Release 9 Re-Opens Aug 29 – Sep 1 for PAX versus Dragoncon

In celebration of the PAX and Dragoncon conventions this weekend, the team are excited to announce that Release 9 is re-opening from 10:30 am CST Aug 29 thru 10:30 am CST Sep 1. Richard Garriott and Starr Long are representing SotA at Dragoncon while Chris Spears, Brandon Cotton, and Finn Staber are representing SotA at PAX. In the spirit of friendly rivalry, we’ve temporarily renamed the opposing teams in the PvP Castle Arena to PAX and Dragoncon. So, log into the game, make your way over to the PvP Castle Arena (at the starting point in Braemar), and join the side of your favorite convention. We’ll report which convention was the overall winner in next week’s update!

Here is an updated version of the SotA Trailer that we prepared for PAX and Dragoncon:

Please join us now in playing this Special PAX versus Dragoncon Edition of Release 9!

If you have not backed the game yet, you will need to register and login at www.shroudoftheavatar.com, select the “Pledge or Send Gift!” button in the right side-bar, and purchase a pledge at the $45 Adventurer level or above. For a limited time, you can get the Adventurer pledge for only $25 with the Alienware Pledge Upgrade Coupon (see details below).

Release 9 Installation and Player Instructions

Release 9 Known Issues

Release 9 Perspectives & Release 10 Preview

During this week’s Hangout of the Avatar, Richard, Starr, and Chris chatted about Release 9, recounting their favorite moments, reflecting on R9 Team PvP and the latest additions to the SotA combat experience, while also looking ahead to Release 10.

[A Public Forum post by Starr Long]

Greetings Avatars,

Release 9 was another large push forward on combat with over 50 new skills and a new PVP Team Mode. We were able to get a lot more data on combat, balance, and skills. Obviously we have a lot left to do to get balanced, but the framework is solid to work from so we are pleased with the progress.

As always, the community continued to create some incredible events like the PVP tournaments, Welcome Quests, theatre productions, mazes, and a host of other activities big and small. Again the foundation you are building shows what an incredible community we have with this game. Congratulations to all of you for that.

R10’s main purpose is stabilization, performance, polish and testing. Additionally some tasks that were pushed from R9 will get worked on. We will post a Q4 schedule update sometime after the beginning of R10.

RELEASE 10, September 25 – 28 2014:

Stability: Updates to item architecture, characters, and other systems will hopefully improve stability and prevent characters from getting into bad states that prevent logging in or loading maps.

PVP: The Team PVP arena and possibly the Open Team Arena will be modified to support spectators.

Combat Skills: Players now will start with a default deck equipped that is the sum total of your “spent” skill points. You can modify this deck simply by adjusting your skill points, no need to open the deck building interface. Additionally a few more combos and a small handful of new skills will be available.

Magic School Naming: Magic school names are changing to more thematic names:

Thaumaturgy (Life Magic)

Necromancy (Death Magic)

Atenism (Sun Magic)

Lunaism (Moon Magic)

Gaiaism (Earth Magic)

Theurgy (Air Magic)

Tempestry (Water Magic)

Sorcery (Fire Magic)

Omnipotence (Focus)

Scenes: The Ardoris Castle areas will open up to make that city complete. We are also going to experiment with a Challenge Level to test scaling difficulty for combat against AI.

Creatures: An updated version of the wolf and our first dog (the Rottweiler) will appear in the game.

Crafting: Adjustments will be made so that characters who were scaled up or down during character creation will animate properly with crafting tables. We will also add another round of visual effects to tables that do not yet have any (Milling, Carpentry, etc.)

Overworld as a Real Scene: The Overworld map will move to a real scene. This will allow us to easily add features like animating avatars, full user interface access, etc.

Visual Effects Polish: We are going to work on various environmental effects (smoke, steam, falling leaves, etc.) to get them working better with lighting.

Character Customization: At least one new facial feature will come online. Additionally an update to how we handle hair and facial hair will add layers, transparency, and animations.

Release 9 is dead! Long live Release 10!

Sincerely,
Darkstarr aka Starr Long

[Read the rest of this post in the forums]

Release 9 Player Events

We’d like to extend a very special thanks to the members of PaxLair, Vengeance, The Bear Tavern, Celtic Holdfast, and others that put great effort into coordinating and hosting some amazing in-game events during R9! Your player events helped make R9 a richer, more engaging experience for all of us! Check out the great screen shots and videos of those player events at the following links:

PaxLair Attractions in R9 – Must See Places in Valemark!

Release 9 Welcome Quest Retrospective

The Bear Tavern Brawl R9 2v2 Tournament – Congratulations to the team of Espada & Abydos for winning the first Bear Tavern Brawl 2v2 PvP Tournament.

The Amazing Mazes – if you haven’t tried the PaxLair Maze then be sure and check it out this weekend. And combat in the PvP Maze Arena is especially exciting. Check out this video:

Vengeance PvP Tournaments – Congratulations to the winners of the Vengeance PvP Tournaments: Espada, Hedbert CDD, and Duke Violation. Here’s a great PvP compilation video Duke Violation put together, and includes some awesome combat tips:

Release 9 Screenshot Gallery – SotA players posted some amazing shots from R9! Here are a few samples:

Umm, we got a bit carried away with the birds in R9:

PaxLair wins the prize for the most people in one hot tub:

Expanded Duke Waterfront Lot

Here are images of the Duke Waterfront Lot (included in the Duke Pledge Reward) expanded to the recently introduced larger Keep Lot (double the original City Lot size). The first image shows the Duke Island Castle, now placed much farther off shore, accessible by small boats docked on the mainland. Then there are front and back closeups of the Island, and the final image shows a Galleon docked on the Duke’s waterfront lot:

Lord Rewards: Royal Scepter and Royal Orb

Help out a friend with this Royal Scepter and Royal Orb, included in the Lord Pledge rewards. The Royal Scepter grants the player the ability to reduce the rent of any lot deed by 50% for one month, and the Royal Orb grants the player the ability to reduce the rent of any vendor by 50% for one month. These items can only be used once per month.

Galactic Inquiry: Starr Long Talks MMORPGs and Persistant Worlds [full interview]

Pen of the Avatar: Character Armor Variations

If you’ve never seen an episode of Pen of the Avatar, Stephen Daniele’s behind the scenes videos of Shroud of the Avatar concept art creation, then now’s a great time to check one out! The upcoming episode airs live at 12:00 pm CST, September 2nd, and will be about creating new looks for armor and clothing. Firelotus be taking your feedback and questions in the chat room as Stephen talks about shape psychology and incorporates ~your~ ideas into his designs. So, if you care about what you wear, you will definitely want to be there!

The master of the conversation system, Scott Jennings aka Lum the Mad, has challenged Stephen to take the ALS “Ice Bucket” Challenge. The challenge has been accepted and will air live on the show!

Alienware Sponsors $20 Pledge Upgrade Coupon

Alienware’s powerful gaming rigs are a perfect match for Shroud of the Avatar! To show their support, Alienware is sponsoring $20 SotA Pledge Upgrade Coupons to members of their Alienware Arena community!

These coupons can be used to start a SotA pledge account (for new backers), or to add $20 to an existing pledge account. If, for example, you have a $90 Royal Artisan Pledge, you can use the Alienware coupon to bump you up to a $110 Virtual Collector Pledge.

Pretty sweet deal, right? So, hurry over to the Alienware Arena website and get your $20 Pledge Upgrade Coupon now!

[NOTE: Only one Alienware Pledge Upgrade Coupon can be used per account. Coupon does not apply to Add-On Store items]

Upcoming Events

Dragoncon kicked off today and we have a packed schedule, including:

August 29
- 10:00 AM: Videogames Keynote: Technology Trends for Videogames (Starr Long)
- 11:30 AM: World Design – Video Game vs Table Top Panel (Richard)
- 1:00 PM: Games People Play Panel (Starr)
- 7:00 PM: Benefits of Commercial Space – From Grade Schools to Asteroid Mining (Richard)
August 30
- 11:30 AM: Crowdfunding Video Games Panel (Richard)
- 11:30 AM: “Why did they do THAT?” Panel (Starr)
- 1:00 PM: The Politics of Space (Richard)
- 8:30 PM: Profitable Commercial Space Exploration is Upon Us (Richard)
August 31
- 11:30 AM: Linear & Interactive Narrative with Tracy Hickman & Richard Garriott (Starr Long moderates)
- 4:00 PM: VIP Design Roundtable as part of the basic rewards for the Duke pledge tier and above (Starr, Richard, Tracy)
September 1
- 10:00 AM: Q&A with Richard Garriott
- 1:00 PM: Shroud of the Avatar Presentation (Starr & Richard)