Category Archives: Update of the Avatar

Update of the Avatar ~ 7/23/13: The Making of a Moondial and Keeping the Beat!

July 23, 2013

As reported in Update #32, in celebration of Starr Long joining the SotA Dev Team, we are memorializing his Darkstarr online persona with some cool, in-game stuff! This special update showcases some of those items!

The Darkstarr Moondial!

The Darkstarr Moondial is an in-game, home and yard decoration that will track the heavens both day and night! A very useful invention when planning strategies in-game, as this device lets you explore the mists of Revelations and Prophesy, unveiling astronomical events and revealing bits of lore to astute adventurers. The Darkstarr Moondial is included as a reward at the Citizen level pledge.

Our concept artist, Stephen Daniele (aka caravaggiosWolf on the forums), started a thread in the Community Announcements area of the Forums, tracking the work-in-progress of the moondial. It is a popular thread, already at 6 pages long and growing!

Shroud of the Avatar 3 Month Demo

July 10, 2013

Note: For the sake of brevity in the Demo, travel shortcuts were used to expedite our movement from area to area. Also, combat, lighting and SFX are still in a prototype stage and not fully implemented in this demonstration.

Update of the Avatar ~ Starr Long Joins Shroud of the Avatar Team, SotA Demo at RTX 2013 & Limited DarkStarr Rewards!

July 5, 2013

We are extremely excited to announce that Starr Long (known to some of you by his online personas of Lord Blackthorn or Darkstarr) is joining the Shroud of the Avatar team! Here is the full press release that was issued today:

Starr Long Joins Shroud of the Avatar Development Team at Portalarium

Starr to team with Richard Garriott on crowd sourced game; Duo collaborating for the first time on fantasy RPG genre since Ultima Online

AUSTIN, Texas, July 5, 2013 — The last time Starr Long and Richard Garriott teamed up to create a fantasy role playing game (RPG) was 1997. That game, Ultima Online, quickly became the first commercially successful massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) and many credit the duo with reinventing the RPG with that ground breaking product. Now Garriott and Long are preparing for yet another collaboration to reinvent the genre, this time on Portalarium’s™ Shroud of the Avatar™ PC based game. Starr Long was announced today as the project’s executive producer.