Join us for another Community of the Avatar livestream! We will be touring Hometown, as well as bringing onto the show a special guest to talk about all the homes available in the game.
Head on over to Hometown after the Fire Lotus Dance Party if you want to meet us! Community manager Berek will be leading the tour. The fun begins live on Twitch at 4pm CT this Friday!
Periodically, NPC towns will come under siege by the Obsidian Cabalists. The timing, duration, and location of these sieges will be 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.
We hope to have the first iteration of this feature and one map live in Release 37.
[A Dev+ Forum Posts by Chris “Sea Wolf” Wolf and Keith “Sannio” Quinn]
Hey folks, Sea-Wolf here with some screenshots for the new forest siege encounters!
The Entrance
Congratulations winners of the ‘Homes of New Britannia’ House Decorating Contest! We had over 60 participants and some truly amazing home entries. As we toured each one, we smiled, laughed, and even cried (in a good way!) at some of the decorating themes. Well done by all!
As we announced, the winners were organized by themes. We had one change and that was the removal of the Steampunk theme, since no one decorated their house in this way. To replace it, we added another “All-around well decorated” winner, since we had so many entries for that category.
And the winners are…
Location: Owl’s Head (124.8, 72.0, 109.4)
Read more…
Join us Thursday, November 10th at 3:00 PM Central (21:00 UTC) for our monthly Hangout of the Avatar! The team will be chatting about Release 35 and looking ahead to the Fall into Winter telethon later in the month!
As always, we will be giving out rare Lord British artifacts of immense power and glory, and answering your latest questions. For a chance to win an artifact, or to speak your voice on the latest game changes, be in Discord chat during the livestream. There will be multiple chances to win throughout the broadcast!
UPDATE! Livestream has concluded. You can now watch the archived recording on YouTube here:
This week’s community spotlight features the Player Owned Town, Beran’s Reach! Each week we tour towns and talk with guilds and other groups, all of which are open to be spotlighted on coming tours brought to you by Berek, your community wood elf druid.
Here is what I witnessed while I roamed this holiday themed town:
On a high peak dominating the environs of Central Sanctus, the walled Metropolis of Beran’s Reach takes a commanding position in the wilds north of Regalis. For many who live within the northern realms, ‘the Reach’ has become synonymous with sanctuary from the great dangers that lurk within the moors and forests, both men and beast alike. It is, perhaps, with no degree of relief that my caravan rounded corner to reveal the stark, imposing walls and turrets that mark the outskirts of the settlement-proper.
After being ushered in by grim-faced guards, I must admit that I was taken aback by the splendor of a bustling settlement, a far cry from from the wilderness beyond.
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Scott “Scottie” Jones]
Awhile back, when I was working on the fireplace sets, we had a discussion pertaining to the possibility of Yuletide Season stockings that could be hung from the mantels… I know this wasn’t the first time this subject had come up, but until that moment we hadn’t really had the chance to dig into the tech enough to attempt to create this kind of container for the sake of “hanging” from small surfaces and other deco objects… The folks here seemed to like the idea, and many of you seemed excited by it too, so guess what I had the chance to work on this week! Here’s the four initial stockings in Max… On the far right is the basic, rustic craft-able Yuletide stocking (at least for this year) based on the crochet stocking actually made for me by my mother long ago, and to its left you can see the Yule 2016 Large, Medium, and Small versions, which are all a part of the same visual “family” of stockings that will be available in the Add-On Store for this year’s Yule… I’ve already found a number of other “looks” that have inspired me for later types, and which I’ve set aside for years to come,…but these you see here will be the exclusive set for 2016!
This week’s community spotlight features the Player Owned Town, Bay Lunaire!
As told from a visit to the town by your community wood elf druid, Berek, Bay Lunaire is nested off of the docks in Central Brittany. The location is perfect for quick access to trade in some of the busiest areas in Novia, and to Kingsport from Central Brittany. Once you are in the town, it’s a breeze to get to all of Brittany’s neighborhoods with a quick boat ride from the docks.
Here is what I witnessed while I roamed this beautiful town that shares so much of the life that nearby Brittany has to offer:
As part of Portalarium’s founding purpose to promote good will and make a positive difference in the world, we have partnered with members of our community to contribute directly to charities as well as support charitable giving. It started a year and a half ago, when Wrath Phoenix approached the SotA team on behalf of RizeUp Gaming to participate in their inaugural Water.org charity drive and telethon. This event served to remind us of our founding purpose and inspire us to create our first Make A Difference charity items.
Throughout the past eighteen months, we have continued to participate in other community-driven charity events, either through promotion or with Make A Difference charity items. We wish we could do more, as this speaks to the core of our principles and values. As time and funding permit, we intend to expand our community-based charity participation over the months and years ahead.
And to that end, our next effort, in collaboration with Water.org, is centered on World Toilet Day. The UN has declared November 19th as World Toilet Day, with the mission statement of: “The aim of World Toilet Day is to raise awareness about the people in the world who don’t have access to a toilet, despite the fact that it is a human right to have clean water and sanitation.“
Water.org is a committed partner of World Toilet Day, as evident by their statement: “It’s time everyone everywhere has access to a toilet. Today 2.4 billion people don’t have one so they spend hours of their day searching for a safe place to go. Water.org gives people the tools they need to fund their own sanitation solutions because we believe it’s time for toilets for all.”
Water.org is celebrating #toilets4all the week of November 14th-19th. To help support the cause, we have created the Make A Difference Ornate Outhouse charity item! Not only is it a throne fit for royalty, but by purchasing this item, you are helping to make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate than ourselves.
Make a Difference: Charitable Giving Report
Beginning with that inaugural Water.org charity drive in collaboration with Rize Up Gaming in May 2015, here is the latest information on how the combined charitable efforts of Portalarium and the Shroud of the Avatar community have performed over the past eighteen months.
Portalarium created digital, in-game charity items for Shroud of the Avatar as a channel through which our community of backers can contribute to causes they support. For each of these Make a Difference charity items purchased, Portalarium will donate up to 50% of its share of the purchase price to the designated charity (see each item for percent contribution). By purchasing these items you get to have fun with them in Shroud of the Avatar, as well as make a difference in the lives of those less fortunate than ourselves. To date, backers have enabled us to contribute an amazing $27,335 to the combined charities of Water.org, Autism Awareness (NAA & NAS), Breast Cancer Research Foundation, and various Blood Charities (see details below).
Thank you, Avatars, for being so virtuous!
![logo[1]](http://d2sx9mrt4zumaq.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/logo1.png){kind=logo}
To date, we have donated $12,389 to Water.org, from contributions by our generous backers through purchases of the Wishing Well, Water Cloak, and /rain emote. Water.org is a nonprofit organization that has transformed hundreds of communities in Africa, South Asia, and Central America by providing access to safe water and sanitation. You can learn more about the projects your donation helps support here.
Breast Cancer Research Foundation
Starting with an amazingly generous donation by Shooter Jennings of his recently released album, Countach (and related items), we have managed to donate an incredible $5,807 to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation (BCRF) through community purchases of the Countach Wax Cylinders, Countach Pink Dye, Countach Album Cover, Countach Phonograph, and most recently the Juggle Pink Lights emote for Breast Cancer awareness month. BCRF is an organization that works to achieve prevention, and a cure for breast cancer in our lifetime, by providing critical funding for innovative clinical and translational research at leading medical centers worldwide, and increasing public awareness about good breast health.
Autism Awareness
In another collaborative effort involving RizeUp Gaming and Game4Autism, our generous community has raised $4,846 through purchases of the Puzzle Pattern Cloak, Puzzle Tree Cloak, and Puzzle Tree Make A Difference charity items. We split these donations equally between the following two organizations:
The National Autism Association, headquarted in Portsmouth, RI, whose mission statement is “…to respond to the most urgent needs of the autism community, providing real help and hope so that all affected can reach their full potential.” The National Autism Association is a parent-run 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Founded in 2003, NAA is a parent-run advocacy organization and the leading voice on urgent issues related to severe autism, regressive autism, autism safety, autism abuse, and crisis prevention.
The National Autistic Society is the leading UK charity for people on the autism spectrum (including Asperger syndrome) and their families. They provide information, support and pioneering services, and campaign for a better world for people with autism.
Blood Charities
Through the sales of the Lord British and Darkstarr Blood Reliquary Bundles we have donated $4,293 to a host of blood related charities, including:
In addition to our Make a Difference store, we periodically support other fundraising efforts, like Movember, Extra Life, and community-driven events.
Extra Life: Last year our incredible community organized a 24 hour streamathon with a ton of events as part of Extra Life (an event that unites thousands of players around the world in a 24 hour gaming marathon to support Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals). Community members including Browncoat Jayson, Amber Raine, the RizeUp Gaming crew, Lazarus Long, and Kazyn Phoenixfire all streamed the entire 24 hours and raised $832. Unfortunately due to the proximity of SotA Con and Release 35 we were unable to organize an event this year but we will be back for 2017!
RizeUp Gaming: Rize Up Gaming (www.twitch.tv/rizeupgaming) was founded in September 2012 with the intentions of curbing bullying, sexism, gender discrimination, and hate speech on all gaming platforms. Their goal is to promote fun gaming without negativity. Rize Up Gaming uses a staff of streamers to keep their channel running and to fundraise for many different charities throughout the year. As mentioned above, we collaborated with RizeUp Gaming for our first Make A Difference event, their inaugural Water.org Charity Drive. In addition to the Water.org and Autism Awareness charity drives, RizeUp Gaming has also collaborated with the Shroud of the Avatar community on the following charity drives (to name just a few):
Earlier today we had the drawing for our second Lot Deed Raffle and awarded 675 lot deeds to lucky winners. There were two raffles, one for each lot type:
Raffle tickets grant the holder a chance to win deeds of any size (Row, Village, Town, or City). Raffles will be held monthly and we will have multiple winners for each lot size (numbers will vary each month). Place-Anywhere Deed raffle tickets are more expensive but will have fewer deeds in each raffle than POT raffle tickets, which are more affordable and will have many more deeds in each raffle. This means your chances to win a POT deed are much greater.
Below is a complete list of the winners for the Release 34 raffle. Winners can claim their deed(s) simply by logging into the game and claiming rewards at any bank. A reminder that you may have received multiple deeds to claim if you received tickets for a guild or other group.
If you wish to review all of your account rewards outside of the game, you can do so by going to the Account menu on the main website and then selecting the ‘Special Rewards’ tab in the page menu.
Listed below are the winners:
This week’s community spotlight features the Player Owned Town, Jade Valley! The upcoming Release 35 dance party (which starts this Friday at 2pm CDT) will also be hosted in Jade Valley. We will be livestreaming the last half hour or so of the dance party, leading into a new livestream event that officially begins at 4pm.
As told from a visit to the town by your community wood elf druid, Berek, Jade Valley is a unique town with many opportunities for new and experienced players to find a reason to visit. Close to Port Phoenix and several other player owned towns on the east side of the isle of Elysium, I saw a great many things across Jade Valley that drove me to write this spotlight.
Here is what I witnessed:
Jade Valley is very easy to find with many distractions to appease your adventurous spirit along the way. As I neared the town, nestled along the Twins Foothills in the southwest of Novia, the howl of the wind from the mountains threatened to rip off my cloak. Fortunately, as I approached the town’s entrance, the valley tamed the winds down to a nice breeze.
Mal Hari the town Govenor greeted me upon entering. He escorted me to the outdoor bar area, which had an amazing view of the coast. A group of fishing vessels were anchored there, bobbing up and down as the occasional wind gust came along.
As we walked, I asked Governor Mal Hari…
