Shroud of the Avatar – Update of the Avatar #197

by GolemDragon · Published October 10, 2016 · Updated October 10, 2016

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

Fancy Hand Fans

For the Summer Telethon of the Avatar Part 1 the dev teams created a /fan emote along with a fan you could hold in your hand. They recently had Scott “Scottie” Jones create some more fans along with a unique fan for the telethon reward. All of these fans can be equipped and displayed and if you also want to use the /fan emote you can learn it from anyone who got it during the telethon since it is teachable.

[A Dev+ Forum Post by Scott “Scottie” Jones]

Hello once again! ^_^

As a fun little side task I was asked to expand upon the idea of the rustic, rigid woven-reed hand fan I created earlier. You’ll eventually see this simple, craft-able version in-game once you are able to use the fan emote. It looks like this!

To add to the hand-fan selection by way of even fancier versions you can purchase in the Add-On Store, I was tasked with creating four new versions made of obviously richer materials. When considering what to make, I also had to consider the kinds of limitations we have concerning the “effect” these fans could have… We chose rigid fans for the initial designs because they are easier to implement, as opposed to fans made of materials that look like they should easily bend or that look like they should animate through an articulated “opening up” event (like folding fans would do).

Additionally, I wanted to begin considering the “theme” of these fans based on our in-game cultural regions. Fans popular throughout or own world’s history often came to be recognized as valuable and coveted because they came from remote and exotic locales. I wanted to create a similar feel for our world’s items, whenever possible, and so I chatted a bit with Keith to see if I could decide on at least four cultural paradigms to pattern these new fans from. For instance, this first set of fans pictured below might have been created in the regions of Elysium (for the gilded peacock feather fan) and the Perennial Coast (for the more “Asian influenced” fan that could have been made by a craftsperson in Ardoris).

Likewise, the two fans pictured below might have been made in the region of Norgard (for the fan on the left), and in the areas of either Midmaer or Regalis (for the one on the right with the more “Gothic” medieval European feel)… At some point I’d love to apply the same cultural logic for a variety of our other areas so that as we create more and more items from specific places, we have a general “template” of cultural designs that we might be inspired to apply… Imagine an area with the flavor of the Moorish culture, for instance!

What makes this fun (to me at least) is the idea that in-game merchants might then begin to promote the value of items in one land as being more “exotic and valuable” when sold in another land… And of course, being able to speak of items in this way lends to more interesting tales of travel and adventure if you return from such outings with interesting looking goods from far away shores…

Lastly, allow me to unveil the look of the fan that will be going to those who helped us reach the “Fan Emote” goal for the Summer Telethon! It is of a similar rustic design (based on the basic straw fan geometry), but with a darkly-painted interior adorned with a striking silver weave over its tan base! We decided to grace it with the symbol of Virtue (Ethical Hedonism), featured prominently on each side. Here’s what it looks like!

Those who received the fan emote through the telethon will have access to both this special “Virtue” fan as well as the basic rustic straw version (seen at the beginning o f the post), and can teach this emote to others in-game. Those they teach (and any taught from then on) will be able to craft the basic rustic straw fan for themselves in turn, once that recipe is made available… Fun!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this quick post. Have a wonderful weekend!

Scottie ^_^

12 New POT Templates Now Available

As mentioned in the Release 34 Instructions, the dev teams have created several new POT templates including Walled variations of the Island and Tropical Island POT templates as well as Stone Dock variations of the Forest and Desert templates. Those templates (including all 3 directional variations of the Island templates as well as the cobblestone variants of the Coastal templates) are now finally available in the POT submission form. They also added these to the POT Temlates page.

Island 01a (Walled):

Tropical Island 01a (Walled):

Forest 01b (Stone Docks w/Cobblestones):

Forest 01c (Stone Docks):

Desert 01b (Stone Docks w/Cobblestones):

Desert 01c (Stone Docks):

They also updated the Tropical Island overhead shots on the Submission form and on the Templates page since these look different since the polish pass.