Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

• Upcoming SotA Release Schedule Update
• Dysborg Ruins
• The Making of Paladis Shardfall
• Kobold Architecture
• Player Owned Towns: Grasslands Template
• Recap of Wondrous Winter Telethon of the Avatar!

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ANNOUNCEMENT: SotA Release Schedule Update

Portalarium is working diligently on the remaining schedule for 2016. They plan to provide us with an update before the end of January. This will include the date of the final full character wipe as well as the start days and times for final lot selection. Since we now know the final wipe is coming this year. We need to be patient because this will bring a major change to the game from both a development standpoint but also a user standpoint.  Just because they will no longer wipe characters anymore, doesn’t mean some data wont be reset or deleted.  It just means our true character development as players can finally begin.  They will still have flags to turn on and off and things that will be tweaked, added, changed, etc. This also doesn’t mean that all the systems are developed and that we will be in Alpha.

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Dysborg Ruins

The Dysborg Ruins, located in northwest Novia, near the mouth of the Tears River, will be featured in an upcoming Release. Level Designer Richard Matey shared these work-in-progress images:

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The Making of Paladis Shardfall

[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Esteben “SorcerousSteve” Zaldivar]

Hey guys, its SorcerousSteve here with a teaser shot of the upcoming Paladis Shardfall!

The Paladis Shardfall is located in North Paladis at the confluence of where the Fortus River and the Sanctus River meet. Ominous obsidian shards float above the crater, site of a great cataclysm that happened long ago, now overrun with alien life.

Stay tuned for more…

Esteben Zaldivar
Level Designer

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Kobold Architecture

The kobolds of Novia are a unique race. Not a construct of the Obsidians like the elves or the trolls, the kobolds emerged after the Cataclysm from their underground cities – how they survived the disaster, and what horrors they went through in the aftermath, only they could say, and they will not.

The kobolds are a fiercely proud race, and a deeply honorable one. Yet in the brief time that humans and kobolds existed at peace, humans treated the kobolds poorly. No human has ever been able to learn the kobold language, so kobolds learned the speech of man, and were mocked for doing so poorly. They gave the knowledge of their technology and industry freely – for the kobolds were always superior engineers and craftsmen – and were mocked for not holding out for a better price. They were mocked and beaten for being smaller than humans, but their society was always more united than any human one.

And finally, from that unity, the kobolds, as one, decided that humans could not be trusted to share Novia. And ever since, the Knights of Norgard, the first and only line of defense of humanity against the new threat, have never, ever mocked kobolds again…

– From the Journals of Arabella

As Richard Matey worked on North Varisalla Foothills he wanted to indicate a Kobold presence that was more permanent than just a camp, so we needed more Kobold architecture than just some tents that we see in other places. So Bob Cooksey has begun building out our kobold architectural set, starting with the building shown below. Kobold architecture is characterized by liberal use of finished metals and stitched leather. Future releases will see more buildings and walls in the kobold style as we prepare to build Skrekk Cavern, which is the capital of the Kingdom of Korabar, the King of the Kobolds.

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Player Owned Towns: Grasslands Template

Michael Hutchison shared the following work-in-progress images for the Grasslands Player Owned Town template:

In the above image, the blue outlined areas represent contiguous flat space, while each of the large rectangles within would represent a city lot sized area. Many of those are doubled up as if to show keep lots – this is really just supposed to help give perspective on how large each flat area is. There are a few town and village areas shown – again, just to show what might be able to fit there.

All told, the potential flat space in the Grassland template is in excess of 183,600 square meters!

Here is a cool panoramic video that Michael made of the Grasslands template, from the perspective of one of the bridges near the center of the map:

https://youtu.be/hR64BqXFxw0

 

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The Wondrous Winter Telethon of the Avatar!

The dev team had a fun-filled, information-packed, fund-raising, shot-guzzling Winter Telethon of the Avatar this past Monday, January 11th, from 10am to 10pm CST! Below are the two videos.  Because the videos are so long and at times in fact would wear a person out to watch (took me the whole week of watching in bursts to finally get through all of it).  I will be having a second post from me with my

(Warning: Telethon videos are Rated PG-13 for Alcoholic Content)