Shroud of the Avatar – Update of the Avatar #158
Greetings Fellow Avatars!
Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:
- The Making of Sanctus Spine
- The Wondrous Winter Telethon of the Avatar!
- Community Sponsored Portalarium Holiday Party
- Grannus, The Titan of Courage
The Making of Sanctus Spine
[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Esteben “SorcerousSteve” Zaldivar]
Hey guys, once again this is SorcerousSteve chiming in and today I will be giving you a sneak peak at the upcoming Sanctus Spine, my first map of 2016! The Sanctus Spine is located on the mountainous border of where South Paladis meets North Paladis.
Inspiration for the Sanctus Spine has been drawn from the Karakoram Range in Pakistan. Home to some of the tallest peaks in the world (K2/Trango).
(In-engine)
In crafting the Sanctus Spine, I wanted to push the boundary of mountains that we’ve made so far.
Utilizing the new Gaia Terrain Tool has allowed me to create more detailed geographical features, shown above are the results. These may very well be some of the highest peaks in Novia, yet.
The Control Point itself inside the fortress waiting to be spawned by the Shroud of the Avatar spawn team.
See you next time!
Esteben Zaldivar
Level Designer
The Wondrous Winter Telethon of the Avatar!
It has been a truly amazing and humbling Holiday Season! With Alpha Testing on the horizon,the SOTA community continues to grow and the eight million dollar mark in fundraising is fast approaching. To celebrate, the dev team will be hosting an all-day, Wondrous Winter Telethon on Monday January 11, from 10:00 AM to 10:00 PM Central Time (16:00 UTC to 04:00 UTC).
Here is a tentative schedule of events:
10:00 am CST: Welcome! Meet the Devs/Office Tour
11:00 am CST: R25 Post Mortem
You can pre-post your R25 Post Mortem questions in the OP comments section!**12:30 am CST: ONBE and Royal Warrant awards
1:00 pm CST: Lunch with the Team! Tabletop Gaming Session & IRC Q&A/AMA session with the Devs!
2:30 pm CST: Deep Dive: Combat, Spells, Skills
4:00 pm CST: Deep Dive: Gear Crafting & Economy; Kickoff the Community Sponsored Portalarium Holiday Party
5:00 pm CST: Deep Dive: Agriculture & Food
6:00 pm CST: Scenes and Story
7:30 pm CST: Deep Dive: Player Housing and Player Owned Towns
9:00 pm CST: Deep Dive: PVP & Guild Warfare
10:00 pm CST: Goodbyes and Thank Yous with everyone still standing!
And, because it would not be a proper Telethon of the Avatar without merriment and spirits, there will of course be shots. Past Telethons have taught everyone, however, that too much of a good thing can make the following workday…. well, unpleasant. So participating Dev Team members will once again be taking 1 Shot/Sip for every $2500 of new money raised during the telethon!
The Wondrous Winter Telethon of the Avatar will include deep dives, lots of prize giveaways* (like coins, t-shirts, store credits, even pledges!), and even some surprises, so you don’t want to miss a moment of it!
* There will be some really awesome prizes awarded during the telethon, but you have to be present in the IRC chatroom to qualify for each drawing.
**Please keep in mind that questions and feedback related to each segment 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.
Community Sponsored Portalarium Holiday Party
When local SotA community members learned that Portalarium does not spend backer funding on holiday parties, they asked if they could sponsor a holiday party for us (yep, the same group that decorated the Portalarium office for the holidays). Many thought it would be great to hold the party during the telethon, allowing backers from around the world to view the televised event, and even participate remotely!
The party will start at 4:00 pm CST Monday, January 11, and run thru 8:00 pm. In addition to our Telethon Google Hangout, the party will be Twitch streamed by Lazarus with NBNN and EclipseMaiden of RizeUp Gaming. There will also be a Backers Merry Christmas compilation video coordinated by Amber Raine of Avatars Radio, and a simultaneous in-game party at the player owned town of SilverHold, located in Elysium in the southwest corner of Novia:
[Check out Kacey’s forum post for more details about the Portalarium Holiday Party]
Grannus, The Titan of Courage
“After the moons collided and civilization fell, three great and powerful leaders rose to become the Titans of Truth, Love and Courage, the surviving principles of the times before the fall. Great are they, and great are the monuments built to them. While the Titans themselves may no longer exist, we are still inspired by colossal statues in their likeness, occasionally found throughout New Britannia.” – Lord British
The above image shows Stephen Daniele’s original concept art for Grannus, the Titan of Courage (rightmost image). Andy Cortez shared the below work-in-progress images of Grannus, expected for Release 26 on January 28th:
