Greetings Friends! Here are the important updates from Portalarium. Enjoy!

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

• The Making of the Canyon Siege Encounter
• The Making of Brookside
• Perennial Coast Improvements (cont)
• Xenos Polish
• The Making of Blood Bay

The Making of the Canyon Siege Encounter

Periodically, NPC towns come under siege by the Obsidian Cabalists. The timing, duration, and location of these sieges is driven by Celestial Mechanics. When you attempt to enter a town under siege, you will first enter the Town Siege scene where the enemy has made camp outside the town and is fighting the town defenders. You can choose to join the battle and end the siege early or work your way around the perimeter, perhaps encountering only some scouting parties. The first iteration of this feature (and one map) went live in Release 37. In Release 38, the devs are adding another map based on bridge spanning a canyon.

[A Dev+ Forum Post by Chris “Sea Wolf” Wolf]

Hey folks, today I’m going to share what I’ve been working on this week. These are some screenshots of the upcoming Canyon Bridge Siege Map. In this scenario, enemies have seized a deteriorated bridge which was previously under construction, and have set up a war camp from which they can lay siege to a nearby town.

The Bridge

The Enemy Camp

The Foreman’s Shed

The River

As always, feedback is welcomed.

~Chris Wolf
Level Designer

The Making of Brookside

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

Hey guys! SorcerousSteve here once again to give you an update on the town of Brookside!

An abandoned manor, once a luxurious estate, now lies in ruins; a remnant of the undead overrun.

Wretched Man’s Bog
A foul smelling, dank, wet bog located to the North of Brookside.

Abandoned buildings litter the outskirts of Brookside, past signs of the undead overrun. Meanwhile, wheat fields and wind turbines show signs of a town rebuilding and struggling to move forward.

For those of you wishing to live in a spooky foggy atmosphere, where the fear of the undead overrun looms close, the town of Brookside is the perfect place for you!

Brookside Town Center, covered in fog.

Stay tuned for Brookside… coming this R38!

Esteben Zaldivar
Level Designer

Perennial Coast Improvements (cont)

[A Dev+ Forum Post by Chris “Sea Wolf” Wolf]

Here are a few addition screenshots of some of the adventure zones in The Perennial Coast.

Xenos Polish

Right before we went persistent, we uncloned Xenos and made some modifications to it for specific plot points. However, we were not satisfied with the level of polish, so we are revisiting this scene and doing a polish pass this release. We hope to have this pass complete by Release 38. Xenos is on the island of Elysium, southwest of Novia, and is a critical juncture on the Path of Truth. This is the third update we have posted so far on this map.

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

Hello again!

That holiday break made it seem like it’s been forever since I last posted. Let’s take a look at some recent Xenos progress, shall we?

As we enter into the central city neighborhoods from West Bay road, you can already see how my “urban renewal” project is shaping up. Though surrounded by housing lots ahead and to the right, there’s still plenty of room for decorative foliage, tall junipers, and statuary to demarcate areas of interest such as this crossroads, which spills out onto the newly developed west dock-side shoreline. This city has been a port-of-call for well over two thousand years or so, since long before the Fall of the shattered moon, and remnants of the grand stone docks built in antiquity are still in heavy use, as you will note! My goal for all such areas was to conjure both the grit and the beauty of the ancient populated Greco-Roman shores of our Earth’s Aegean Sea. The water we are currently using certainly helps create that illusion. As you’ll notice, here and there where it seemed appropriate, I’ve dotted various areas with some of the new decorative pieces we’ve purchased and adapted for this region. I’m sure you’ll see them migrate to other parts of the world as well!

I’ve also begun to give a bit of love to the Elysian Heights neighborhood area on the hill overlooking downtown. The Overlook Point with its grand colonnade now has a new fountain feature, and the yards bordering the nearby housing lots have been manicured a bit to show that the city builders have an eye for the fine aesthetics they believe will please the elite who choose to make their homes there. Here too the older ruins, while being cleaned up of rubble and debris, have been allowed to remain, accenting the gracefully tall trees and colorful flowering plants. Statues from several ages of Xenos’ culture gaze down upon its joyful residents and visitors alike, and one can always expect to find a beautiful old rotunda or small formal garden tucked away here and there.

Heading back down to the area of the Forum of the Lottery again, you’ll note a few improvements here as well! The somewhat barren area beyond the main gate has now been fully fleshed out with winding pathways, a variety of flora, and various objects of art. These paths lead directly into the central part of the downtown district and through the Forum’s seating area itself, which has seen a few additions as well to help drive home the opulent and festive nature of the proceedings held there, and for which hopeful visitors have traveled so far to see.

The hour is late, and it’s time for me to journey home for the night, so I’ll leave you with this last evening’s image of night-time as it settles over the west road leading down from the Heights and toward the Elysian Plains. There will be, perhaps one more set of these previews before the final details are done, and the whole scene is ready to go into the update! Hopefully you will be pleased when this city transforms before your very eyes!

Farewell for now,…and good night, my friends!

Scottie ^_^

The Making of Blood Bay (cont.)

[A Dev+ Forum Post by Travis “Vas Corp Por” Koleski]

Blood Bay update! I added a couple dungeon entrances, worked on the volcano VFX (lava flow rivers are still works in process, so they are not shown), and some other miscellaneous Points of Interest.

Kobold Dungeon Entrance

The Fall Dungeon Entrance

‘Virtuous’ side of town. Nothing like a good drink while you watch a filthy pirate hang.

Updated Volcano plume

Zeppelin Dock

Thanks for following the thread! I know there’s a lot of questions about how housing works exactly. When there’s a definitive answer I’m free to share — I promise I will!