Greetings Fellow Avatars! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas weekend. To “jump right into it”, here is what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

Making of Yew

The Elven city of Yew has been shielded from outsiders by a nearly constants shroud of fog that only clears during certain alignments of the heavenly bodies. The city itself is full of wonderful Elven architecture and because of the natural foggy defenses has never been fortified. Yew is currently a clone of Jaanaford but is being rebuilt for Release 50.

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

Hey guys! SorcerousSteve here to give you a sneak peek on my latest map!

For Release 50 I have been hard at work on uncloning the town of Yew. Located in North Paladis the town of Yew will be shrouded along its perimeter with a dense fog. In designing Yew we wanted the town to be built around these giant hero trees, and from these trees we created a town that had its structures built around them, giving life to a new elven town…

From the ground level a system of bridges connects the outside areas of the town to the center gazebo, while a system of elevators and stairs takes you up into the canopy where elevated platforms support elven homes.

At nighttime Yew comes to life in a wonderful display of color.

Small little streams which feed from a nearby spring crisscross the lower level of the town of Yew.

A dash of light tears through the canopy of the Yew trees, our volumetric lighting at work.

Another direct shot of the center of town this time during the day, in the background the giant town tree towers above all.

See you next time!
Happy Holidays!

Esteben “SorcerousSteve” Zaldivar
World Builder

Map System Updates

Kory “Rok Yrikk” Kirk has started a thread where the devs will be posting new Map features and content as they come online, along with the instructions on how to use them. The devs will be doing this because updates and features will often go live out of sequence with the releases because the map is a web service. The biggest step forward this week is integration of the account system with the Map system which now allows for Personal Points of Interest and Player Owned Town Updates.

[From a Forum Post by Kory “Rok Yrikk” Kirk]

The online version of the map can be found here.

Or you can navigate to it from our navbar on the home page Media -> Maps

Map Features:
The map is accessible online and also in game. The in-game map has different features than the online map.

Browser:
Map Search

• The search bar is found in the top left.
• If you start typing in the search bar it will show results that match.
• Any Point of Interest that resides within the current map can be searched.

User login

• You need to log in to your ShroudoftheAvatar.com account in order to access some features of the map.
• A login shortcut can be found on every page of shroudoftheavatar.com, and it is on the top right of the map.

Personal POI Placement

• Anyone who is logged in can place Personal Points of Interests.
• Enable editing on the map by clicking the menu that says “Edit:Off” and Selecting “On.”
• Select the Personal POI Placement tool on the toolbar in the bottom left corner
• Select an icon that you want to represent your POI.
• Click on the map where you want your POI.
• Click on the POI to bring up the edit screen.
• Now you should be able to see your Personal POI with information!
• Player Owned Town Updates
  • If you own a POT that is on the map, you should be able to modify that POT.
  • Navigate to your POT’s map in the web browser.
  • Log in with your shroudoftheavatar.com account that owns the POT.
  • Enable editing
  • You should see 5 new tools come up on your toolbar
    
    • Point Of Interest Placement
    • Label Placement
    • 3 Building placement tools.
  • The POI Placement allows you to put icons that everyone can see, with descriptions. These are searchable.
  • The Label placement allows you to put Text on the map.
  • The building placement allows you to put Images of buildings on your map.
  • To update or delete any existing items, simply click the item in Edit mode, and you will be given options on the right side bar.

In Game:
Character Tracking

• The map in-game will automatically change when you change scenes, in addition there is a marker that indicates the player’s position and direction.

Wild Boars

[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Starr “Darkstarr” Long]

For a while now we have had Wild Boars in our backlog as a wild creature that we need to expand our bestiary. However it has always been the victim of other priorities until we started making our Norgard Barbarian Clans which are each based on an animal. Each clan wears a headdress based on their totem animal; be it stag, bear, wolf, boar, or dragon. Each clan got an awesome animal hat, except the poor Boar Clan! Without any Wild Boars in the game they were forced to wear a simple leather hat. Poor Boar Clan! Well this would not stand!

Norgard Barbarian Clans: Everyone has a Proper Hat, Except the poor Boar Clan

Therefore in Release 50 our bestiary is expanding again to include Wild Boars! These beasts will attack with a ferocious charge that can knockdown and then they will tear with their sharp tusks to bleed out those who encroach on their forest territory. There will be Elder and Obsidian visual variations in addition to the base version. This of course means we will also have a Boar Hat and the Boar Clan will finally get a proper hat!

Wild Boar

 

Elder Boar

 

Obsidian Boar

 

Boar Hat