Hello fellow Avatars! Over the weekend, Starr Long posted the schedule for Releases 20 through 22.

Greetings Avatars,

As we have stated previously, our goal is to once-per-quarter post an updated schedule for our monthly releases. Even though these goals will likely change somewhat as we react to feedback, we feel it is important to provide you an updated roadmap periodically.

Our goal continues to be to deliver our backers content each and every month so that we can get feedback and use it to iterate improvements. This continues to benefit the game, with additional game features like jumping and swimming, and improvements to systems including crafting, conversations, and combat. Meeting that monthly goal is our highest priority, but we require flexibility in our deliverables in order to meet that goal. As you have seen in previous releases, sometimes we push things out, but we also often pull new things in.

As always, all dates, durations, and deliverables are subject to change as we adjust our designs based on direct feedback from you, our backers.

RELEASE 20, July 30, 2015

• Full Wipe: We are going to make some fundamental changes to item architecture that require us to do a full wipe for Release 20. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please note that if you have been waiting to melt down add-ons, this is your chance to do so as long as you do NOT login once R20 goes live (which automatically claims the items and prevents melt down).
• Combat Pets & Taming: We will expand pet functionality to include the ability to tame some creatures and have them help you in combat.
• Encounter Revamp: Random encounters are being reworked to be more engaging experiences, not just ambush scenarios. Additionally, roving encounters (patrolling creatures) will now appear on the overworld map and can be engaged (pulling you into a scene) or avoided if you wish to sneak past.
• Player Owned Vendors: Players will now be able to place a Vendor on their property to sell goods.
• Spells & Skills: We will continue to make a pass through the skill trees and add new skills, balance existing skills, and replace less useful skills.
• Maps: We will continue to polish scenes along the Perennial Coast by converting to dynamic spawning and adding additional content like night-time spawners. We will also be adding a few new scenes; including the Crags Foothills (where players can enter the Etceter Crag Mines) and Desolate Hills.
• Player Owned Towns: We will launch our island template and the first city using that template will be the Duchy of Dara Brae.
• Creatures: We intend to introduce the Troll as our first very large creature and we hope to make the combat experience much different than would be found with normal sized opponents.
• Crafting: Tailors and Alchemists will be able to begin crafting Taming Collars. Additionally, weapons and shields will now display material colors from crafting.
• Player Made Books: This feature will continue to expand with the addition of Printing (making copies of books) as well as the ability to use Player Made Books as decorations.

RELEASE 21, August 27, 2015:

• Crafting: Crafting skills will start to come online, and be used during crafting to modify results. Additionally, players will now have the ability to salvage items for materials and components.
• Combat: The cover system will be introduced and will modify attack and defense values when you (or your target) are behind cover.
• Maps: Perennial Coast polish will continue and new scenes will come online that expand the story, including the desert town of Desolis and the Chamber of Souls dungeon beneath it.
• Emote “Teaching”: Emotes will now be teachable to other players. Some emotes (like the ones tied to pledges) will only be teachable by the original owner. Teaching will be done via secure trading.
• Player Owned Towns: We will continue to expand the number of templates and introduce a new Player Owned Town to the game.
• Creatures: Dragons will begin appearing in Novia! Burninating will begin. All hail Trogdor, the Burninator!
• Localization: We will begin crowdsourcing the translation of the game into various languages.
• Weather: Weather will make a first appearance with rain and snow linked to seasonal changes.
• Spells & Skills: More new spells, skills, and combos will come online.
• Control Points: These scenes will now pull you into them automatically if held by enemies

RELEASE 22, September 25, 2015

• Maps: More polish passes will be made in scenes beyond the Perennial Coast, including the shardfalls and the Graff Gem Mines. We will also continue to expand the story with new scenes including the town of Etceter and the dungeon of Artifice.
• Housing: Property ownership will now incur regular fees (unless you are using a tax free deed from a pledge). If the fees are not paid, the player will lose their claim, and their possessions (including the house and decorations) will be moved to their bank.
• Creatures: Our creature list will continue to expand with Chaos Demons and Wisps.
• Guild Warfare: Guilds will now be able to declare war on each other.
• Musical Instruments: Players can play music in the game with a variety of instruments.
• Fishing: Players can begin catching fish in the game.
• Crafting: Crafting Table quality, location, and calendar will begin to factor into crafting results.
• Player Owned Towns: We will continue to expand the number of templates and introduce at least one new Player Owned Town to the game.

We continue to be incredibly thankful for the support we receive from this amazing community. While the funding you provide makes all of this possible, it pales in comparison with the faith you have in us, the feedback you provide us, and the content you are making for everyone to enjoy. We are humbly grateful, and we cannot wait to see you again in New Britannia!

Before I go, I wanted to include an excerpt from my original post about our Early Release Schedule that is important to set the framework for our ongoing schedule:

As a crowd funded and crowd sourced project, we feel it is incredibly important that we provide our backers with information and access well before game studios would normally do so in a traditional development model. Traditionally, the players are given information and access only after the development team has already decided exactly how things will be done, and at times, even after it has already been implemented. By the time the public normally has access to the product, there is usually no time to meaningfully react to the public feedback.

Shroud of the Avatar is different than the traditional model, as we intend to offer our backers extremely early access to information and even the game itself. With that said, we also want to be very careful that we only provide access to portions of the game when they are ready for a wider range of feedback. If we can play it internally and we know it is not ready, then there is nothing to be gained by having a wider audience come to the same conclusion. In fact, it could be quite damaging to do so.

Our strategy over the next few months is to provide you with focused and iterative releases of content. Your feedback during these releases will be critical to making the final product the best it can be, and we appreciate that you are all so willing to devote your time to helping us. With each release, we will have specific tests we will ask you all to make. As we get closer, we will send instructions on how to download, install, report bugs, etc. After each release we will review the results and reevaluate the plan including the duration of availability of each release. Please note that game data will be wiped periodically during early access.

It is important to note that all dates, durations, and deliverables are subject to change.

Sincerely,
Starr Long
Executive Producer
Shroud of the Avatar

Although much of what is currently scheduled was originally planned for prior releases, there are a number of new items in the mix as well. Weather effects and crafting enhancements have been something I’ve been watching for a long time, while guild wars and fishing will provide additional activities for the community, which already host dozens of events throughout each release.

Remember, you can always see the calendar of Upcoming Events on the Shroud of the Avatar website. And, if you are not already a backer, you can create an account on the Pledge Store, or through Steam.