Shroud of the Avatar – Update of the Avatar #89

by GolemDragon · September 5, 2014

Evening Fellow Avatars!

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

PAX vs Dragoncon: And the Winner is…
Chris Spears R9 Perspective
New Developer+ Asset Pack
Pledge Rewards: Clockwork Pets
Pen of the Avatar: Character Armor Variations
SotA Forum Rule Changes

And the Winner is…

In celebration of the PAX and Dragoncon conventions last weekend, the team re-opened Release 9 for the duration of those conventions. In the spirit of friendly rivalry, they renamed the opposing teams in the PvP Castle Arena to PAX and Dragoncon.

The combat was intense, with some really awesome combatants on both sides. PAX is the larger of the two conventions based on number of attendees, so you might expect PAX to have the advantage. But that’s not how it turned out. Dragon-con put some serious hurt on PAX and was the undisputed winner with 34 wins to PAX’s 14 wins!

Congratulations to all the Dragon-con combatants!

Chris Spears R9 Perspective

Chris was busy at the Shroud of the Avatar booth at PAX last week so his forum post was delayed. Here are a few excerpts from his in-depth forum post:

So…[spell] reagents was a hot topic both internally and externally…For release 9 we knew people would only have a limited time in game. This means that if we had gone with any of the “Requires Reagents” options then many players would just simply not be able to use magic at all. Those who did want to use magic would have to spend significant time gathering reagents or earning gold to buy reagents. For people unfamiliar with Ultima, this would likely be a confusing and scary experience without an in-game tutorial ready to welcome them…

So based on the short play window and lack of tutorial, we decided that requiring reagents would be a bad idea for this release and probably R10 as well. We ended up going with a mix of elements. We made tier 1 and 2 spells not require reagents and then made tier 3+ spells have reagents but just cost significantly more and fizzle more if you didn’t have them. I know some people raged against this in the forums but I still believe this was the right balance for a weekend release…

A global cooldown was added to everything and for many it made combat painful. Those of us that move fast in combat, discard fast, roll through the cards fast, were not happy campers during R9…We have already fixed this for release 10. We also fixed a bunch of the other annoying little stuff like not being able to drink potions while moving and the weapon range issue that was making it look like you attacked but didn’t do damage and vice versa. Also, making it so you can hotkey swap between decks and deck swapping will work as it should with time and focus cost. Not sure we’ll have 100% of the skills finished for release 10 but I can promise that combat will be a better experience for everyone…

So, as longtime readers know, we have been very open that the client was still very hackable as most everything was trusted and we’ve just been slowly moving logic from the master client to the server…

Release 9 was the first time all inventory and bags were on the server and all trading logic was handled server side. For release 10, all vendor logic will be on the server and their data will be stored on the scene server and not the instance server! So what does that mean? That means that the items the vendor has will be constant across all instances. Switching to single player online will no longer let you get around this. On the positive side, you’ll be able to see what other people have sold soon which should help. Also, we’ll probably speed up the rate at which vendors get their deliveries…

Also for release 10, crafting logic should be on the server instead of the master. Shouldn’t matter to most but it is just another one of the security holes that has to be moved to the server to avoid dupes and exploits. This also opens up the option for us to have secret recipes on the server that don’t exist on the client in any way…

[Read the rest of this post in the forums]

New Developer+ Asset Pack

For me, one of the reasons I targeted a Dev+ level pledge was the unity assets. Having used the Unreal Engine myself in past endeavors and projects, learning a new platform was an exciting thought. The access to SotA assets to play around with making scenes has been a joy. This month Chris Spears added another set for us to download.

[From a Dev+ forum post by Chris Spears]

Since we missed getting you guys something for August, I made this one double sized. This asset pack includes both the leather and cloth armor sets for both male and female!

Each one is split by body part so you can just use the chest or gloves if desired. Due to some dependencies I had to remove the skin shader so the skin is just using bump diffuse.

Enjoy!

If you missed the previous Asset Packs, Dev+ members can download them here:

Pledge Rewards: Clockwork Pets

The Royal Artisan, Explorer, and Patron pledge tier basic rewards includes your choice of one of three non-combat, clockwork pets: cat, dog, or raven! Here are the Clockwork Cat and Clockwork Dog pets:

Pen of the Avatar: Character Armor Variations

Here is the latest episode of Pen of the Avatar, Stephen Daniele’s behind the scenes video of Shroud of the Avatar concept art creation. Each episode airs live, with viewers providing immediate feedback and posing questions.

This episode was about creating new looks for armor and clothing. Stephen discussed shape psychology and incorporated viewers ideas into his designs.

We also had the joy of seeing the results of , Scott Jennings aka Lum the Mad, challenging Stephen to take the ALS “Ice Bucket” Challenge, which Stephen did live on the show!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vxPg538O1E?feature=oembed]

SotA Forum Rule Changes

Today, FireLotus added another post to the SotA Forum Rules thread. Two changes were made as of today along with a tweak. Nice changes, in my opinion, but one in particular that came far too late to change how I use the SotA forums. Her post was:

Two changes were made to the forum rules today, along with some slight reorganization. The following rule was added, and the final sentence was moved to it from the Spam rule:

Badger Not thy Kingdom:
Harassment or bullying of any type is not welcome in this community. We are here to encourage a collaborative spirit, not to shut it down by repeatedly invalidating others opinions or feedback. Consistently strong-arming others into the same discussion, or repeatedly posting the same ideas/opinions in multiple threads/forums also falls under this category and should be avoided.

Also, the number of links one is allowed to have in a Forum Signature was increased to ONE or TWO.

Based upon my own asking around the community, the link limitation being increased to two is a great change. There are some community members, myself included, who work with more then one SotA related site or organization that this would be an advantage to have.

The change in regards to more actively responding to harassment and bullying on the forums is wonderful. However, the fact that they are only addressing it now and not sooner does not change some SotA Community members’ decisions to not post most of their thoughts or opinions on the game.

Upcoming Events

2014.09.25 – Release 10 Access
2014.10.01 – Monthly Video Hangout: R10 & R11 Discussion
2014.10.23 – Release 11 Access
2014.10.24 – SotA at Captivate
2014.10.29 – Monthly Video Hangout: R11 & R12 Discussion
2014.11.14 – Duke & Lord of the Manor VIP Design Roundtable with Lord British and Portalarium Studio Tour
2014.11.15 – HoBLotH II: Legends of the Hearth
2014.11.20 – Release 12 Access
2014.11.26 – Monthly Video Hangout: R12 & R13 Discussion
2014.12.18 – Release 13 Access