Shroud of the Avatar – Update of the Avatar #120

by GolemDragon · April 10, 2015

Greetings Friends and Fellow Avatars!

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

Duke & LotM VIP Design Roundtable and Lady British’s Easter Event
Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 16 Postmortem
Street Names in Release 17
In-game Community Weekend Events
Community In-Game Videos
Elven House in a Hill Stretch Goal Item
New Hat Variations

Duke & LotM VIP Design Roundtable and Lady British’s Easter Event

We hosted our largest group to-date of Dukes and Lord of the Manors this past Friday for the VIP Design Roundtable and Portalarium Studio Tour (part of the Duke and LotM pledge rewards).

Design discussions started early and didn’t stop until near sundown! Many of the VIP’s extended their stay so they could participate in Lady British’s Easter Event the following day. Here are a few pics from the weekend events:

Lord of the Manor Kailef being awarded the Order of the New Britannia Empire medal, in honor of his amazing musical contributions to SotA and work with the Bards of the Poets’ Circle

Duke The Mad Hermit being awarded the Order of the New Britannia Empire medal, in honor of his incredible video contributions to SotA (yes, that is Lord “Batman” British and Starr “Mardi Gras” Long)

And speaking of the Mad Hermit’s video contributions, here is a videolog of his Pilgrimage to Portalarium to attend the VIP Roundtable and Studio Tour:

The VIP’s and a few SotA Dev Team members at Lady British’s Easter Event

Lord “Batman” British and Lady “Wonder Woman” British Rescuing Baby “Spiderman” British from Godzilla (What does any of this have to do with Easter? We’re not sure…)

Dallas “Gorn” Snell getting bucked off his Rody Race Horse

Rick “Chaox” Holtrop enjoying a confetti egg being cracked on his sunburnt scalp

Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 16 Postmortem

During this week’s Hangout of the Avatar, Richard, Starr, and Chris chatted about Release 16, recounting their favorite moments, answering questions from the community, giving out prizes to those that attended, while also looking ahead to Release 17. You can check it here if you weren’t able to attend:

Street Names in Release 17

Rick Holtrop has been working to integrate street names into Release 17. He shared these comments about his street-naming work-flow:

The steps I’ve been going through to get Street Signs and Street Names into the game have involved:

Identify cities to have roads named

Create a simple map of streets from in-game map (or Unity top-down view)

Number streets in any order

Create spreadsheet with city name and road number

Track each type of road (major, minor, waterfront, number or player properties, etc.)

Edit each city and place road signs at appropriate or desired location

We have different signs designed by Andy Cortez that define small-to-large roads

Compile list of possible names, including approved suggestions from the community

Name each road by referencing the spreadsheet or directly walking the streets in-game, or both

The names are tracked on the spreadsheet and added to signs as a tooltip

Strangely enough, you will notice that the actual naming of the roads is about the last thing to happen. The planning and tracking of this process actually takes the most time, and is what I am best suited for. (Rows and columns in spreadsheets, and simple drawings on graph paper, this is what I live for).

When Starr and Richard first discussed the need for street names in a recent Dev Hangout, community member Lollie started a street-naming thread in the forums that rapidly grew with street name suggestions! Rick needed help wrestling the numerous suggestions into a manageable list for Richard to review, so Scott Jennings (Lum) created a follow up forum post requesting that members only submit their top three street name choices. Rick has been compiling those submissions for Richard to review, and adding the approved names to his street name master list for eventual inclusion in the game.

Here are a few samples of the various signs that Andy has been working on:

In-game Weekend Community Events

Our amazing community has another great lineup of in-game events planned for this weekend. Here is the latest schedule of player events from the Avatar’s Circle Community Events calendar and the Events of the Avatars community calendar:

Saturday, April 11
9:00am CST – PaxLair Working Hours (PoT Test Ideas) – Host Winfield (Valemark; details)
9:00am CST – (Postponed to R17) New Britannia Theatre Troupe Presents – Aurum Berries (Theater in Greystone; details)
11:00am CST – Church of the Dark Star – Saturday Service – Topic: “Darkness My Old Friend” (PaxLair, Valemark; details)
12:00am CST – Welcome Quest in R16.5 (Northshire, Hidden Vale or “/zone Dara Brae”; details)
2:00pm CST – Vengeance 1v1 PvP – BARE KNUCKLE BRAWL! (“/zone Sciamano Malus” or “/zone Duke Violation”; details)
3:00pm CST – Novian Academy – Citizenship 100 Course – Covers the basics of character building, Weapon/armor choices, travel points/community sites/groups to know (“/zone Kazyn Phoenixfyre”; details)
6:00pm CST – Gust Fest – 1v1 Double Elimination & FFA (Tower of the Shuttered Eye, “/zone Bambino LudoVate”; details)

Sunday, April 12
6:30am CST – Explore Novia with royalsexy (Owl’s Head entrance)
2:00pm CST – Bear Tavern Brawl R16 (The Brave Coast, “/zone Archaon Avenguard” or “/zone Balec deCani”; details)
3:00pm CST – Phoenix Republic Town Hall (“/zone Kazyn Phoenixfyre” or “/zone Jack Knyfe”)
5:00pm CST – BMC Grid Iron Feast and Registration (details)
6:00pm CST – BMC First Blood at Grid-Iron (details)
7:00pm CST – PaxLair Meeting (Valemark, or “/zone Winfield”)
8:00pm CST – Fishing with Winfield (some lake or pond, “/zone Winfield”)
9:00pm CST – Beach Party by BMC (details TBD)

Be sure and check out the Release 16 Events thread in the SotA forums for additional events that may not be included here.

Community In-Game Videos

The community has posted some amazing screenshots and videos in the Release 16 Screenshot Gallery. Here are a couple of outstanding videos from that thread:

Dancing with the Oracle – By Arianna

I Dreamed a Dream – by Myrcello

Elven House in a Hill Stretch Goal Item

The team have completed the Elven House in a Hill that is included in the Elves as Playable Race Stretch Goal. Those of you that purchased this item should receive it in-game when Release 17 launches on April 30.