From last week’s Update of the Avatar #214:

The Rhun Ruins are one of the six ruined cities found in Novia that date back to the period in Novian history in which the Obsidian Order rose to power. (As described in the Sword of Midras prequel novel by Tracy Hickman and Richard Garriott). The exact history of some of these cities has been lost to time, but it is rumored that some of them may have been abandoned even before the rise of the Obsidians. Rhun was a city devoted to Compassion but has since been overrun with the undead. It is located in the Drachvald region in the northeast of Novia.

Rhun started as a clone of the Dysborg Ruins, but is getting completely rebuilt this release to have a unique layout and visuals. We are expressly focusing on being sure the map has interesting setups for PVP conflict, with plenty of space for hiding, escaping, ambushing, and skirmishing.

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From last week’s Update of the Avatar #212:

Underneath Blood Bay, far from the prying eyes of the Oracle, top Kobold researchers work in the Kobold Research Underground Laboratories; aka K’rul. In this vast underground facility, Kobolds work to harness Obisidian shards, build ever larger and more dangerous automatons, and craft mysterious weapons. Like Blood Bay, K’rul is an Open PVP zone but it also has a lot of PVE opportunities with top tier Kobolds and automatons to battle with, as well as dangerous technological traps and puzzles to contend with.

Our goal is to have a first iteration of this dungeon live in the game for Release 39.

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

K’RUL progress screenshots

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From last week’s Update of the Avatar #211:

North Drachvald Spur is located in the Sirens mountains in the Drachvald region in the northeastern section of Novia. It started as a clone of the Whiteguard Foothills and is getting rebuilt to go live as a new scene in Release 39.

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

Hey folks, today I will be sharing some screenshots from the uncloning of North Drachvald Spur. The area is home to a group of bandits who have been ambushing supply convoys using rock slides. The area will also feature the remnants of an abandoned mine, and a mysterious watchtower.

The terrain has also been reshaped to feature a ridge line of mountains to the east, which are present in the overworld map. The biome has been swapped for one inspired by the mountains of the pacific northwest United States.

Inspiration (Mt Rainier Washington)

The New Road

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From last week’s Update of the Avatar #211:

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]

And here we are folks,…the final post for Xenos before it goes live in the next build! We’re working feverishly on this (as you can tell by the hour of this post), and hope that you’ll enjoy what we have to offer…

Everything I had yearned to include in the scene has now been placed somewhere on the map, and at this point all that is left for me to do is proliferate them to all the various places they may go, and finish some final touch-up details on the landscape painting and foliage placement as decoration across the map… You’ll see examples of pretty much everything in the images of this last and largest post… We’ll begin and end near the city center, where you can see the festive area of the Forum. Beyond it you can catch a peek at the newest addition to replace a building that I had been struggling to figure out how to handle… Instead I used a suggestion from the Mad Hatter pertaining to a wonderful asset available on the Unity Store, which ended up perfectly fitting the theme of the scene, and tied in wonderfully to elements of the fiction pertaining to the mysterious Titan Boreus.We’ll see that building up close at the end of the post, but for now, let’s make use of the handy gondolas that I’ve placed at various locations throughout the scene… Initially, each will have two boats; one which will allow you to visit another gondola dock around the bay, and the second which will return to the one you just came from. Eventually, however, our plan is to have a single boat there which will take you to any of the locations on that scene map by merely choosing one from an entire list! Grand convenience!

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