Starr Long has posted the instructions for Release 29 of Shroud of the Avatar, which just happens to begin today:

Thank you for being a loyal backer and follower of Shroud of the Avatar. Release 29 access for all backers at First Responder level and above begins this Thursday, April 28, at 10:30 AM US Central Daylight Time (15:30 UTC).

As we move ever closer to Final Wipe and Lot Selection, we are rapidly expanding the content and feature set of Shroud of the Avatar. We are also critically appraising our feature set and making sure each and every feature is as it should be for those critical events of Release 32. With those thoughts in mind, we looked at a few key aspects of the game related to housing, crafting, and targeting and made some important changes in Release 29. These changes were not easy, nor were they without controversy, but we believe they are changes that need to be made for the long term health of the project.

The biggest and most obvious change is to targeting which now uses a reticle in the center of the screen and makes interaction modal. Hitting the TAB key or invoking any interface window will cause the game to play almost exactly as before but this is still a VERY big change. For a while now, we have tried to avoid making our game modal. To date, we have solved that by requiring mouselook by holding down the right mouse button. This means that you can always have a cursor but it makes targeting hard, especially for ranged combat, and means you have to constantly hold down a mouse button (which players complain hurts them after playing for long times). Additionally, most modern 3D games use free mouselook and use a modal interface to bring up a cursor for interactions, inventory, etc. So with R29, we decided to make the plunge and moved our game to be Reticle Targeting based and Modal. Please note that you do NOT have to keep the reticle on directly top of the target to hit it. Once you have a target identified you just need to have them in your forward arc and in range to hit them. You do NOT need to have the reticle always on top of the target. We are NOT a shooter. We know that many of you have concerns about this change, and rest assured we are listening. We fully intend to support the play style our loyal backers have become accustomed to while expanding the abilities of the game. We are aware of and looking at solutions for those of you with physical challenges we have not yet solved and those of you who want more mouse-centric options. Please be patient while we work through this which may take more than one release.

The next big change was related to land and housing. Since the addition of Player-Owned Towns (POTs), the amount of “potential” available land has greatly increased and therefore a potential demand for more lot deeds has been created. However that land is only potential, not guaranteed, until the owner puts down lot markers and unlocks the lots. So we still have to be very careful in how we add deeds to the game to make sure those who purchase deeds have a place to use them. So we are adding POT-Only Lot Deeds. As normal Lot Deeds sell out in-game (and in the Add-On Store), Portalarium will sell limited quantities of POT-only Lot Deeds in the game (and in the Add-On Store). These deeds can only be used inside Player-Owned Towns. These will only be sold in the lot sizes that sell out, and will be sold for the exact same price as normal lot deeds. NOTE: At this time that means we have only introduced Village and City sized POT-only Lot Deeds (but only in the Add-On Store since lots are not currently being limited in-game). As with everything with the game, we will carefully monitor the situation and if there is ever a significant shortage of lot deeds and a surplus of land we will release more as needed.

Finally we looked at Crafting, specifically using crafting stations in List Mode, and came to the conclusion that we could add Recipes to the Station interface and therefore remove the need to have the Recipe Book displayed while crafting in List Mode. This should let player explore the new expansions to Alchemy with Tool Engraving and Enchantments much more easily.

Of course, in addition to the above we added a lot of other things including almost 40 more scenes including  the Crypt of the Avatar and the central part of the sprawling capital of Novia; Brittany. The Love Storyline is now playable from start to finish, and many more NPCs have unique stories to tell you. We are testing out Lot Selection Sequencing for the first time in 30 minute windows, and to support that, we added and expanded the number of available housing lots a thousandfold by adding new POTs, new Player-Run Towns (PRTs), and expanding the size of some NPC towns by replacing their source scenes.

Yet again, I want to express a huge amount of gratitude to our Dev+ backers who tested all of the items below on the QA server and uncovered lots of bugs. They also provided editorial feedback on this post. So, they are a big reason that this post actually matches what is in the game, and that it is easy to read.

While we are getting closer to launch, we are still in a constant state of change, and we do not yet have in-game systems to inform players of these changes, or to share ways to help them to explore new content and systems. This means we rely entirely on this message, and the linked instructionsand known issues to convey the current game state. We regularly have to answer questions or filter bug reports because some players elect not to read this valuable information. By taking a few moments to read through this information, a great deal of our time and efforts can be redirected to focus on new “unanswered” questions, and addressing critical issues impacting each release. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to review this post, and for all the truly valuable feedback you continue to provide.

The most controversial change, which Long discusses above, has to be the implementation of a new reticle targeting and mouselook mode in the game, which seems to have a number of players up in arms. Some additional details on that system appear in the Release 29 change notes accompanying the instructions; have a read:

New Reticle Targeting/Free Mouselook Mode: For a while now, we have tried to avoid making our game modal. To date, we have solved that by requiring mouselook by holding down the right mouse button. This means that you can always have a cursor but it makes targeting hard, especially for ranged combat, and means you have to constantly hold down a mouse button (which players complain hurts them after playing for long times). Additionally most modern 3D games use free mouselook and use a modal interface to bring up a cursor for interactions, inventory, etc. So with R29, we decided to make the plunge and moved our game to be Reticle Targeting based. Please note that you do NOT have to keep the reticle on directly top of the target to hit it. Once you have a target identified you just need to have them in your forward arc and in range to hit them. You do NOT need to have the reticle always on top of the target. We are NOT a shooter. We are continuing to iterate on this new method and we are fully aware it is not quite there yet. We are aware of and looking at solutions for those of you with physical challenges we have not yet solved and those of you who want more mouse-centric options. Please be patient while we work through this which may take more than one release.

• Interaction is now based on aiming a dynamic reticle at the center of the screen.
  • White reticle indicates nothing selected.
  • Blue Circle reticle indicates a friendly NPC
  • Red X reticle indicates a hostile target in-combat.
  • Green Circle reticle indicates a lootable object.
• There are now two modes of interaction: default Targeting Mode and Interaction Mode (cursor).
• Use TAB to manually toggle between the two interaction modes.
• Bringing up any UI window (ex. inventory) automatically brings up a cursor.
• Targeting mode is the default state for combat. Entering combat mode will automatically put you in Targeting mode.
• Housing/Deco system still relies on Interaction/Cursor mode.
• World Items can still be looted via aim and click, but click-drag looting can only happen in Cursor mode.
  • Interactive world items (books, candles) can be looted by using ALT-click.

I haven’t yet had the chance to try out these particular changes; I’ll offer my impressions once an opportunity to do so presents itself.

You can find complete change notes accompanying Starr’s post; briefer, high-level change notes can be found on the Release 29 calendar entry here.