Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

• Spring 2016 Pledge Expirations
• Kobold Themed Areas
• SotAMap.com

58 Day Countdown to Spring 2016 Pledge Expirations!

As we march toward the Final Wipe and Lot Selection milestone this summer, the dev team are expiring seven of the seventeen remaining pledges during the Spring 2016 Pledge Expiration Event, which will occur at 10:30 AM CST, May 2, 2016 (following the next wipe for Release 29). The remaining ten pledges, as well as new Player Owned Towns, will be expired during the Summer 2016 Expiration Event.

Spring 2016 Pledge Expirations

The following pledges will no longer be available for purchase or upgrade after May 2, 2016:

• Immortal Adventurer
• Virtual Collector
• Collector
• ** Navigator [originally expired August 31, 2015 for backers below Patron level]
• ** Developer [originally expired August 31, 2015 for backers below Patron level]
• Citizen
• Knight
• Lord
• Baron 1/2/3

The Spring 2016 expirations DO NOT affect any backers that are already entitled to these rewards as listed in the pledge description at the time you pledged or upgraded. These expirations only affect new backers, or existing backers that have not upgraded to the specified pledge tiers before the expiration date.

(NOTE:  At this stage of development, receiving an item in-game does not automatically mean that you are entitled to that item long-term. A “bug” in the item delivery system could result in an item being awarded incorrectly. Or, sometimes a user is granted in-game rewards they are not entitled to when they upgrade in-between data wipes. For example, property deed rewards do not stack as you upgrade, as stated in the pledge descriptions. But as you upgrade your pledge you are temporarily allowed to keep previously owned property deeds in-game and receive the additional property deed from the upgrade. We then delete those older property deeds at the next data wipe).

(NOTE: Any payment plans started for one of the expiring pledges, or higher, prior to 10:30 am CST, May 2, 2016 will not be affected by these expirations)

The following is a list of the rewards contained in those pledges that are permanently expiring (definitions of “Benefactor,” “Founder,” and “Royal Founder” can be found here):

• Immortal Adventurer
  • 17 Rewards Expiring
  • Benefactor Rewards
    • Benefactor Cloak
    • Star Citizen Vanduul Polearm: Benefactor Edition
    • Immortality Fruit
    • Early Skill Access
    • Ankh of Virtue Necklace (Digital)
    • “The Story of Mondain in the World of Sosaria” (Digital)
    • Akallabeth D&D Campaign (Digital)
    • Exclusive “Adventurer” Title
    • 30 Bank Slots
  • Founder Rewards
    • Founder Cloak
    • Royal Elderberry
    • Last Name Early
    • Star Citizen Vanduul Polearm: Founder Edition
    • Exclusive “Immortal Adventurer” Title
    • Teachable Emote: Flex
    • 40 Bank Slots
  • Royal Founder Rewards
    • 50 Bank Slots
• Virtual Collector
  • 16 Rewards Expiring
  • Benefactor Rewards
    • Puzzle Box
    • Non-Combat Pet
    • Runic Translation Print (Digital)
    • PDF Artbook (Digital)
    • Soundtrack (Digital)
    • Iolo’s Lute
    • Exclusive “Archivist” Title
    • 60 Bank Slots
  • Founder Rewards
    • Indestructible Artisan’s Tool
    • Starter Founder Armor
    • Framed Cover Art (digital)
    • Exclusive “Royal Archivist” Title
    • Teachable Emote: Chicken Taunt
    • 110 Bank Slots
  • Royal Founder Rewards
    • Royal Founder Starter Armor
    • 200 Bank Slots
• Collector
  • 6 Rewards Expiring
  • Benefactor Rewards
    • Exclusive “Curator” Title
    • 80 Bank Slots
  • Founder Rewards
    • Exclusive “Royal Curator” Title
    • Teachable Emote: Face Slap
    • 130 Bank Slots
  • Royal Founder Rewards
    • 230 Bank Slots
• ** Navigator
  • 12 Rewards Expiring
  • Benefactor Rewards
    • Novia Map Atlas
    • Tax Free Row Deed
    • * 3-Story Row House
    • * 1-Story Row Basement
    • Phonograph
    • Exclusive “Navigator” Title
    • 110 Bank Slots
  • Founder Rewards
    • Exclusive “Royal Navigator” Title
    • Teachable Emote: Tai Chi
    • 170 Bank Slots
  • Royal Founder Rewards
    • 270 Bank Slots
• ** Developer
  • 15 Rewards Expiring
  • Benefactor Rewards
    • [Note: Dev+ Forum Access will not be expired. Backers who already have the Developer Pledge tier or higher will continue to enjoy Dev+ Forum access. With the Expiration of the Developer and Citizen Pledge Tiers, Dev+ Forum Access will be added to the Edelmann Pledge Tier]
    • Tax Free Row Deed
    • * 4-Story Row House
    • * 2-Story Row Basement
    • Design Documents
    • Unity Asset Pack
    • Tinkerer Certificate House Decoration
    • Wireless Device
    • Exclusive “Tinkerer” Title
    • 120 Bank Slots
  • Founder Rewards
    • Name in Credits
    • Design an NPC
    • Exclusive “Royal Tinkerer” Title
    • Teachable Emote: Shadow Boxing
    • 190 Bank Slots
  • Royal Founder Rewards
    • 290 Bank Slots
• Citizen
  • 19 Rewards Expiring
  • Benefactor Rewards
    • Tax Free Village Deed
    • Vendor
    • * Exclusive Benefactor Citizen Home
    • * 1-Story Village Basement
    • Wind Power Decoration
    • Piano
    • Reagent Plant
    • Benefactor Plaque
    • Exclusive “Citizen” Title
    • 140 Bank Slots
  • Founder Rewards
    • * Exclusive Founder Citizen Home
    • * Waterfront Cabana
    • Exclusive Pet
    • Founder Plaque
    • Exclusive “Noble Citizen” Title
    • Teachable Emote: Jig Dance
    • 220 Bank Slots
  • Royal Founder Rewards
    • Royal Founder Plaque
    • 320 Bank Slots
• Knight
  • 22 Rewards Expiring
  • Benefactor Rewards
    • Tax Free Village Deed
    • Vendor
    • * Exclusive Benefactor Knight Home
    • * 2-Story Village Basement
    • Benefactor Knight’s Round Table
    • Sword of Ba’Heer
    • Additional Reagent Plant
    • Knight’s Cloak
    • Benefactor Plaque
    • Exclusive “Sir/Dame” and “Knight” Title
    • 170 Bank Slots
  • Founder Rewards
    • * Exclusive Founder Knight Home
    • * Waterfront Lighthouse
    • House Servant
    • Founder Expert Crafting Station
    • Founder Knight’s Round Table
    • Founder Plaque
    • Exclusive “Sir/Dame” and “Knight Commander” Title
    • Teachable Emote: Throat Cut
    • 250 Bank Slots
  • Royal Founder Rewards
    • Royal Founder Plaque
    • 380 Bank Slots
• Lord
  • 28 Rewards Expiring
  • Benefactor Rewards
    • Tax Free Town Deed
    • Tax Free Row Deed
    • Vendor
    • * Exclusive Benefactor Lord’s Home
    • * 3-Story Town Basement
    • * 5-Story Row Basement
    • Lord’s Cloak
    • Noble’s Magical Discourse Orb
    • All Three Reagent Plants
    • Royal Sceptre
    • Royal Orb
    • Benefactor Lord Throne
    • Benefactor Plaque
    • Five Indestructible Benefactor Artisan’s Tools
    • Four Benefactor Expert Crafting Stations
    • Exclusive “Baron” Title
    • 200 Bank Slots
  • Founder Rewards
    • * Exclusive Founder Lord Home
    • * Waterfront Houseboat
    • Servant
    • Five Indestructible Founder Artisan’s Tools
    • Two Founder Expert Crafting Stations
    • Founder Lord Throne
    • House Pet: Lynx
    • Founder Plaque
    • Exclusive “High Baron” and “Lord” Title
    • Teacheable Emote: Take Oath
    • 320 Bank Slots
  • Royal Founder Rewards
    • Royal Founder Plaque
    • 450 Bank Slots
• Baron 1/2/3
  • 25 Rewards Expiring
  • Benefactor Rewards
    • Tax Free City Deed
    • Tax Free Village Deed
    • Baron’s Cloak
    • Talking Mirror
    • Vendor
    • * Exclusive Benefactor Baron Home
    • * 2-Story City Basement
    • Benefactor Baron’s Bed
    • Benefactor Plaque
    • Exclusive “Viscount” Title
    • 400 Bank Slots
  • Founder Rewards
    • Founder Baron Crown
    • * Exclusive Founder Baron Home
    • * Waterfront Frigate (Baron 1)
    • * Waterfront Galleon (Baron 2/3)
    • Servant
    • Founder Baron’s Bed
    • Baron’s Imp
    • Founder Plaque
    • Exclusive “Earl” and “Baron” Title
    • Teachable Emote: Knighting (Baron 1)
    • Teachable Emote: Royal Salutation (Baron 2/3)
    • 500 Bank Slots
  • Royal Founder Rewards
    • Royal Founder Plaque
    • 600 Bank Slots

* This item will no longer be included in the home and basement stacking that was available to pledges that were at Ancestor or above by the Summer 2015 Expiration Event on August 31, 2015.

** All the Navigator and Developer rewards that are still available to backers that were at Patron or Ancestor tier by the Summer 2015 Expiration Event on August 31, 2015 will no longer be available if those Patrons or Ancestors upgrade their pledge after May 2, 2016. If you already have the Navigator and/or Developer rewards you will keep them if you continue to upgrade your pledge.

Kobold Themed Areas

[A Dev+ Forum Post by Scottie Jones]

Since several of our world-builders are starting to touch upon areas where kobolds dwell (including the major Skrekk scene, by Richard Matey), I’ve been asked to take a momentary break to throw together some ideas and solutions for building out zones with a rich kobold “theme” to them… In order to do this I’ve started with taking some of the spaces already created by Richard on the Skrekk map, bringing them into an underground test map of mine, conveniently switching out some materials, creating new materials, adding some cool existing elements created by Bob Cooksey, pulling in elements we use for our various energy gadgets, revamping others already made in an earlier pass, and even building a few new ones! The result is an underground set of areas with a completely new “feel” to them, which we intend to use as a way of defining the look and feel of all kobold areas in the game…

The first area is a great suspended stone walkway, assembled by Richard Matey using a variety of pieces. This section on my example map passes through a large, long cavern filled with the giant glowing mushrooms that the kobolds cultivate for decorative lighting as well as food. I’ve placed dark water below to see how that feels, although Richard chose to leave his open on his map, suspended above a stony crevice.

Just beyond this is a passage carved by kobold miners, and supported with smaller version of the palisades Bob Cooksey designed for the kobold areas. We decided that kobolds lace their underground passages with mine-cart tracks to allow them to easily transport goods from one area to the other.

Down the right passage of that intersection is a small chamber I built to showcase the idea of underground kobold hydroponics! Kobolds delight in supplementing their diets with fresh-grown fungi harvested from fertile cave planters such as these, which bask in the lambent glow of crystals charged by aetheric capacitor globes. In this chamber they also pump out water from a natural cave spring to feed their steam-driven technology throughout their cavern home… These visuals contain more evidence of my scavenging of other juicy resources created by Bob for the kobold architecture he’s working on, such as the make-shift fence elements, and the inverted dome in the ceiling. These types of elements, seen again and again, help define the “language” of the visuals associated with the kobolds.

If we go back to the intersection and continue down the path away from the suspended walkway, we’ll come upon another type of chamber, this time made from more of my typical dungeon pieces used to create rooms. With some simple material switch-outs, the addition of Bob Cooksey’s cool kobold fences and lamps, and the steam/sewer pipes I made, this room suddenly feels significantly different from our standard dungeon fare.

To the left you can see a distillation device Bob made, showcased inside his rendition of a kobold gazebo which I placed as an inset into the wall to create an indoor upraised platform and metal canopy (to keep water from the steam-pipes from dripping on the delicate machinery, of course! ^_^). Above, on the ceiling and in the wall, huge fans help circulate the air in these tunnels and chambers to keep it fresh. Here, again, we see evidence of the hydroponics which allow the ornamental glowing fungi to flourish. Kobolds aren’t as uncivilized as they may first appear!

In another corner of the chamber is more evidence of kobold technology, both clockwork and aetheric. A primary drive assembly for the fans on this end of the room is dimly illuminated by one of the gas-light wall-sconces, and just beyond that is an aetheric energy coil with two attendant, freshly-charged, portable aetheric capacitors.

And now, as I delve deeper into the ideas for the expanded Kobold set vision, I take a pass at mocking up an area of their inner kingdom. What you saw before were merely side passages and smaller chambers used for various functions as they dug deep into their surrounding environment. At the core of their territory can be found vast caverns which they have chosen as the sites for their towns and cities. Above their warren-like avenues, filled with pedestrians and merchants, many citizens dwell in balcony and rooftop homes, or operate taverns and other public meeting places. Beneath these are the passages and chambers that service the rabble below.

These areas you see are merely me throwing together ideas to help the other world-builders gain inspiration when creating their areas… I haven’t actually been assigned any Kobold-based zones to build… These things from this post are all located in one of my test maps that I use to build collective sets of props such as these, and to test the ideas for themed areas I’ve been asked to help out with (and of course to look at items I’ve built in an environment that mimics underground map settings). None of this is on an actual game-map that will ever get spawned with NPCs or populated with objects other than what is built into the pieces that other world-builders can use to copy and paste into their own maps, which is what Richard Matey is doing with all of this stuff… If he takes this stuff I’ve made “as is” and then lays them out in his actual game map, then eventually you will see all the stuff you’re missing when you encounter them on his map…

As an aside, it’s important to point out, that even on the real game maps I build as an artist I only lay out the terrain, architecture, and sometimes generic backdrop props… It takes a Designer/World-builder with the expanded experience necessary to take the map from my hands and populate it with all the NPCs and interactive items the map should have… This is their area of expertise, and comes later, after my exclusively “art expertise-related” tasks are complete… My responsibilities are creative inspiration, environment art creation and visual polish, and whatever setup for basic functionality I can handle,… and the rest of the actual deep functionality and NPC implementation are in the capable hands of our Design team… At a deeper level still, our Programming team of experienced coders handles not only the front end of the base code that integrates the engine and off-the-shelf tech we use with all the in-house custom stuff they write just for us, but they also handle hooking up the tech that makes all the stuff done by the artists and the designers work together on the back end, once our tasks are done… All of this seemingly crazy, frenetic activity is carefully managed by our Team Leads (who head up the Art, Design, and Programming teams), who in turn collaborate with our Producers and other upper management who make sure our schedules match up, and the right people are set to the right tasks… It’s all very complex and amazing, and it requires all our varied skill sets to make this whole thing happen as smoothly as it does…

As part of the process of designing the look and functionality of these areas, I’ve also been tasked to make some Kobold-specific furniture! Since Kobolds are kinda’ short, the furniture needed to have a “squat and stumpy” sort of feel to it, while still having lots of the rugged-yet-decorative iron-work details (like I created for the crafting-station forge)… Here’s a scene containing all seven pieces of furniture I created, placed inside one of Bob’s Kobold houses.

Enjoy!

Scottie ^_^

SotAMap.com

The dev team continue to be blown away by the amazing work that community member Jakub White has done mapping the world of New Britannia at SotAMap.com! This map allows you to pan the camera out for a global view of the map, or incrementally zoom in until you make out the finest details of the Overworld map of Novia and The Hidden Vale. The following image shows a closeup of the southeast quadrant of Novia, where you can see the starting town of Soltown as well as the Player Owned Town of Hometown. Hometown is a sort of “Parade of Homes” that is decorated by members of the community to showcase every home in every pledge tier that has home rewards, as well as the homes in the Add-On Store:

Jakub is developing tools to allow the owners of Player Owned Towns to provide detailed maps of their towns, fully integrated into SotAMap.com. Here is a SotAMap.com map of the current version of Hometown in Release 27, utilizing the new Grasslands template:

Zooming into the bottom of the Hometown map, you can see the incredible level of detail possible with SotAMap.com:

Jakub generously provides SotAMap.com free of charge (thank you Jakub!!!). If you find it as useful as I do as well as many other Avatars, you might want to help Jakub out by donating toward the cost of map development and server maintenance: