Shroud of the Avatar – Update of the Avatar #145
Greetings Fellow Avatars!
Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:
- New Single Player Scene: Highvale Village Battle
- The Fortress at Hilt in Nightshade Pass – Part 2
- Invitation To Combat/Skills/Spells Video Chat
- Invitation to Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 22 Postmortem
- Jack-o-Lantern 6-Pack
- Grim Reaper Statue
- Spider Web 6-Pack
New Single Player Scene: Highvale Village Battle
Esteben “Steve” Zaldivar (level designer) is working on a new single player scene for R23 called Highvale Village Battle.
The Highvale Village is a fortified garrison located just south of Resolute, nestled between mountainous peaks and surrounded by wooded pine. Tensions have been on the rise as recent expansions by the Paladins of Resolute into the northern ends of the Forsaken Vale have not gone unnoticed by the Verdantis Elves. In a retaliatory raid, the Verdantis Elves mounted an all-out siege on the garrison in defense, with both sides suffering heavy casualties.
In this new single-player scene, the avatar will step foot on the recent battle grounds of the aftermath of the attack. When the smoke clears, and the dust settles, who will lay claim to the village of Highvale?
The Fortress at Hilt in Nightshade Pass – Part 2
[Continuation of A Dev+ Forum Post by Scottie Jones]
OK! Here we have a bit more progress in “Phase II” of the Hilt outdoor map… Now that I’ve sculpted the terrain and painted it generally to my tastes, I’ve moved on to hand-placement and painting of grass, trees, bushes, rocks, and huge boulders,…which is what this world-building phase is all about! Once again, I’ll start off with an image seen from the view of someone entering through the pass from the west, and gazing down into the natural bowl of the valley itself. You can see the lush vegetation near and far now filling what was once bare terrain, as lower-altitude deciduous trees, ferns and grasses give way to hardier conifers and higher-altitude shrubs… Boulders and rock-faces protrude from steeper angles and merge with the terrain with the help of attendant flora and smaller stones.
Looking back the way we came you can start to appreciate the amount of added flora necessary to create the feeling I generally associate with my trips to Colorado and to the mountains around where I once lived in the southern Ozarks. If you compare this image to some of the earlier screenshots of the same bleak slopes, you’ll get a sense of the kind of time it takes to get a scene like this looking right (thanks to Hutch for being generous with his pro-tips on flora placement).
Approaching the lower entrance of the fortress walls, and the first of the switchback ramps leading upward, you can see one of the waterfalls now in place draining from the cascade winding its way down through the fortress walls from the upper slopes. Tucked away in the shadowed recesses of the cleft to its left, just beyond a gnarled old tree, are some crumbling ruins of a tower built long after the sturdier, more ancient ruins of the fortress itself.
As I work my way through the building process of this map, my goal is to create a number of “beautiful corners” and other scenic areas for players to discover as they travel. In this next image we get an even closer view of that same cleft at the base of Hilt, as I make my way up the first switch-back ramp and into the fortress proper… The bridge you see is one of the few places travelers could have forded the deep, cold stream flowing into the lake, putting them easily in range of attack from the terraced walls above.
There’s still a ways to go with this map, and since it’s my first “from scratch” outdoor scene made in Unity for the game, I’m sure I’ll be taking a bit more time than I’d like. But honestly, it’s a learning process, and one that will greatly benefit any future outdoor maps put on my plate….
Enjoy the progress for now… More to come later!
Scottie ^_^
Invitation To Combat/Skills/Spells Video Chat
[From a public form post by Chris Spears]
Tuesday, October 6th at 4PM Central time.
There is really just too much stuff to talk about in our usual monthly postmortem video chat. Time for me to do a long overdue video chat where I answer your combat/skill/spell questions. Since I have the attention span of a hamster, I’m only going to answer questions posted in this thread or on the post I’ll make on the front page. I too easily get lost when I try to answer live chat stuff and then I just end up looking like an idiot.
Ask me about skills, use based math, chaos magic, balance, PVP, or whatever you want. Don’t ask me about crafting stuff as I expect we’ll have a big talk on that next release! I’ll do at least 60 minutes but longer if there are still questions that need answering!
See you next week and I’m looking forward to your questions! Post them here!
– Chris “Dippy Dragon” Spears
Invitation to Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 22 Postmortem
Drop your fishing pole, put up your lute, and please join the dev team Thursday, October 8th at 3:00 PM Central (20:00 GMT) for the next Hangout of the Avatar! Richard, Starr, and Chris will be chatting about the highlights of Release 22 and giving everyone a sneak peek at what to expect for Release 23. And, of course, FireLotus will be taking your questions and feedback live in the chat-room and also in advance right here in the OP comments section.*
The team 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 provided in the OP directly before the hangout begins.
*Please keep in mind that questions and feedback related to Release 22 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.
Jack-o-Lantern 6-Pack
Just in time for Halloween is this 6-pack of spooky, glowing Jack-o-Lanterns, available in the Add-On Store until November 30, 2015.
Grim Reaper Statue
Decorate your yard or home with this special Halloween Edition Grim Reaper Statue, available in the Add-On Store until November 30, 2015.
Spider Web 6-Pack
Dress up your basement, cemetery, or even your front room (if you are so inclined) with this set of spider web wall and floor decorations. Includes three different sizes each of the wall and floor spider webs. Available now in the Add-On Store.
