Shroud of the Avatar – Update of the Avatar #141

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Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

  • New Single-Player Scene: Blood River Massacre
  • Fishing in Release 22 (Finally!)
  • Musical Instruments
  • Thou Art Invited to Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 21 Postmortem
  • $52,500 Raised During End of Summer Telethon
  • 59 Day Countdown for Fall Reward & Sale Expirations

New Single-Player Scene: Blood River Massacre

Wars often begin through misunderstanding. The Vertas Elves, descendants of the warrior elves crafted by the Obsidians 200 years ago, seek now only to live in peace. But the men who border them remember the wrath the elves unleashed on their people, and do not soon forget. In this new single-player scene — the opening of the Path of Truth — the avatar discovers the aftermath of what will soon become known as the Blood River Massacre. Can a war between two races be averted?

As you can see from the following images, level designer Esteben “Steve” Zaldivar captured the sense of the bloody, smokey aftermath of the massacre:

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Fishing in Release 22 (Finally!)

Dallas cannot wait for players to start fishing in Release 22! The goal with fishing is to give players that same feeling they had fishing in Ultima Online. For R22, the dev team are working on getting the basic functionality working in game that can be built upon in later releases. In R22, Fishing will work in any area where the water is deep enough to swim. For now, all water is the same (no salt vs. freshwater) and shallow water (swamps) cannot be fished in, but water types and associated fish types will get added in later releases.

To fish, you need bait in your inventory and your fishing pole equipped (each cast uses 1 bait). You then use your “Cast” ability to send the bait/hook/bobber to a selected target in the water (similar to how we target spells like Fireball). As soon as you cast your line, a timer starts and while that timer runs you have a chance to catch a fish (or maybe a boot!). If the timer runs out before you catch anything you have to recast. In R22 there will be three fish types and at least one cooking recipe for each (as well as Butchery recipes to clean and filet the fish).

Long term, we will have tons of features. Seasonality and time of day differences (dusk/dawn best times) will become important when you fish. Location will start to matter, as well as when they add different water types and associated fish types (catfish in the swamp), as well as hot spots where visible schools of fish increase your fishing chances. They also plan to factor in timing and reflexes so that watching your bobber and using your “Reel” skill will factor into your fish catching.

Competitive fishing and bragging rights will come into play when we add Trophy data to the fish you catch (which will record the size of each fish caught), and when they begin to add rare and elusive fish to be caught and mounted for display.

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Musical Instruments

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Rick “Chaox” Holtrop is pretty pumped about musical instruments making it into Release 22. Here’s what he had to say:

One of the most exciting features coming in Release 22 (most especially for a roleplayer like myself) are Musical Instruments that all backers will be able to play in the game.

Many of us here have long enjoyed the musical instruments available to players in games like “Lord of the Rings Online”. For that game in particular, the ability to not only play freeform but also play music from predefined files was a giant step forward in the ability to become a true bard.

In “Shroud of the Avatar”, when a player has an instrument that can be carried, they will equip that instrument into their character paperdoll to define that instrument as ‘selected’. They may then at any time type “/play” to have their avatar pull the instrument out and be at the ready for freeform playing of the instrument. Using simple keypresses along the number row (1-8) and just two modifier keys (SHIFT and ALT), the player will have access to a full two octaves of notes, sharps and flats included. As a matter of course, all instruments will sound like the instrument they represent (a horn sounds like a horn, a cowbell sounds like a cowbell, and so forth).

Players can also type “/play ” to automatically play a song that they have loaded onto their local machine. There is a directory within the installation of the game where players can put files to make that happen. These files are generally known as ABC files, but we are also supporting the MML file type. Special thanks to community member, Eniko, who developed the ABC and MML code library that we are using in SotA. Eniko made the code library free (MIT licensed) to give back to the community. There’s more information about her code library on her forum post here. Eniko is also a game developer and has a game called MidBoss that is soon to be available on Steam [check out the details below in Recommended Games to Back].

Possibly one of the most exciting features within the entire Musical Instruments system is the ability for a group of players to have synchronous group play. Avatars can join a party of like-minded friends, choose the song from their machine’s loaded files to be synchronized to the group, and then the party leader will begin the playing for all members. In the game “Lord of the Rings Online” this was done to great effect – we hope to have some great performances in our world that can match that high bar.

While we plan to have many instruments available for players, as we launch Release 22 we plan to have two ready for everyone – the lute and the piano. This will allow us to begin proving out both types of instruments; equipped and stationary. It is within those two types that we will add much more over the coming releases leading up to launch. (We have quite the list of planned instruments, and we hope to see many of these in-game: drums, flutes, cellos, harmonicas, bagpipes, vuvuzelas, triangles, and more!)

I hope you’re as excited about this new system as I am! We’ve known this was coming since our Kickstarter times, and recently our Senior Programmer Justin “OneAndOnly” Gilbert began to give it his all. His hard work with the community to make this happen in a timely and precise manner was integral in bringing this game system to life. And speaking of community, Holt Ironfell and the Bards of Poet’s Circle plan to adapt some of their music that has been licensed for Shroud of the Avatar to ABC or MML format for bundling with the game!

I’ve been chomping at the bit to run around our world and play some of my favourite old RPG music for those who want to sit with me for a few moments and enjoy. I’ll see you at my local Circle of Stones in-game soon!

Rick “Chaox” Holtrop

Thou Art Invited to Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 21 Postmortem

Please join the dev team Thursday, September 10th at 3:00 PM Central (20:00 GMT) for the next Hangout of the Avatar! Richard, Starr, and Chris will be chatting about Release 21 and giving you a sneak peek at Release 22. And, of course, FireLotus will be taking your questions and feedback live in the chat-room and also in advance in the OP comments section.*

They will be giving out some really awesome prizes during the 90 minute extended Hangout, and all you have to do to qualify for one is to come hang out with us in the IRC chatroom during the broadcast.  As always, the link to the hangout will be posted in the OP directly before the hangout begins.

*Please keep in mind that questions and feedback related to Release 21 specific topics will be given priority and really verbose questions may be skipped, as they can be a challenge to shorten and summarize live on the air. In brief… please keep your questions… brief.

$52,500 Raised During End of Summer Telethon

August 31st marked the end of our Summer Bonus promotion and first Pledge Expiration event! To commemorate, Portalarium held a 12-Hour End-of-Summer Telethon that included hourly prizes as well as three Big Prizes – Patron, Ancestor, and Lord Pledges! Congratulations to the Big Prize winners:

  • Acred – Patron Pledge
  • xog – Ancestor Pledge
  • SeleneNoctua – Lord Pledge

As a special bonus, at the beginning of the telethon they announced Telethon Funding Stretch Goal Rewards to any backer that pledged a minimum of $5 from 10am thru Midnight CST August 31, 2015. We are happy to say that all three of the Telethon Funding Stretch Goal Rewards were achieved:

  • Achieved!  $10,000 – Gossamer Cloak
  • Achieved!  $25,000 – Lord British emote & Darklamp
  • Achieved!  $50,000 – Nightmare “Mount” (flaming black coconuts that leave a trail of smoke plus black horse head mask with red flaming eyes)

Lot of great material was discussed during the telethon. In case you missed it, here are the videos:

Warning: Telethon video is Rated PG-13 for Alcoholic Content

Geoff Mellon got busy on the Darklamp telethon reward, and provided this work-in-progress image:

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59 Day Countdown for Fall Reward & Sale Expirations

As we approach the last quarter of 2015, and major milestones such as Alpha and Beta are looming ever closer on the horizon, here are the Fall Reward Expirations that occurs at Midnight CST, November 2, 2015. This  includes the following reward expirations:

The expiration of the Waterfront homes and lots will work exactly the same as the cutoffs did in the End of Summer Expirations, meaning all pledges at or above Citizen level prior to November 2, 2015 will continue to receive the waterfront reward for their pledge as they upgrade. For example, if you are Citizen with a waterfront cabana and you upgrade to a Knight, you will receive the waterfront lighthouse reward.

Please know that these expirations DO NOT affect any backers that already have these pledge rewards. If you already got ’em, then you get to keep ’em! These expirations only affect new backers, or existing backers that have not upgraded to the specified pledge tiers before the expiration date.

[NOTE: Payment plans started toward a pledge tier with expiring rewards (or higher) prior to Midnight CST, November 2, 2015 will not be affected by these expirations]

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