Category Archives: Update of the Avatar

Avatar’s Update #424: Play Release 89 Now! Obsidian Panopticon Revealed! The Rise Expanded! Crafted Gear & Artifact Updates! UI Improvements! Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

April 29, 2021

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Another amazing game release has arrived, Avatars! Head to Mistrendur and enter the Obsidian Panopticon, a brand new adventure scene added for Episode 2 Access holders! Also, The Rise adventure scene has been expanded significantly. Players will discover amazing new challenges whilst delving deeper into this sinister labyrinth! Artifact changes and balance have begun, and crafted gear items have received their initial round of improvements in an ongoing series of changes to increase the appeal of crafted gear! So many fixes and UI improvements are live, Avatars! For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

The Obsidian Panopticon Revealed!

Ready your weapons, and gather your spell components, Avatars! The Obsidian Panopticon has been discovered deep within the icy reaches of Mistrendur upon the easternmost island of Slangehodde. Available to Episode 2 Access holders, this ancient prison controlled by the Obsidian Elves of Mistrendur contains unspeakable dangers. Will you and your companions attempt to brave this newly-discovered location?

“Ruthless elves who still worship the Obsidian Eye dominate the eastern region of Mistrendur. Most of those who oppose them are slaughtered without mercy, but a ‘lucky’ few find themselves imprisoned in the elves’ Obsidian Panopticon. Hanging within a bleak, frigid canyon and surrounded by a frozen wasteland, the panopticon offers inmates only one way to escape: death.”

The Obsidian Panopticon is another fantastic addition to the ever-growing library of available Episode 2 content. As the year unfolds, more and more locations will be revealed, and more Episode 2 story elements and quests will be added to the game. In the coming weeks, additional loot items will become available in this new scene, to include new recipes for Imbued Gems which attach to crafted gear gem sockets.

We hope you enjoy this new adventure scene. So much more new content is on the horizon, so stay tuned!

Release 89 Patch Notes!

Below are a list of updates that are live as of Release 89 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! In our tick-tock development cycle, this is a new content, improvement and bug fixes month (a tock), with a slew of additional improvements and bug fixes inbound for R90. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 89!

Crafting, Decoration, Gear, & Consumable Changes:

New durability standards have been applied to all newly created gear, whether it be an upgraded artifact or a purely crafted gear item. These new standards are a result of adding in the 50 durability formerly offered with exceptional crafts directly into the base durability values of each item.
- Artifacts now feature slightly lower durability standards than crafted gear and will degrade about 10% more quickly.
- Any newly crafted item, newly looted item, or newly combined artifact will feature the durability and durability damage multipliers as indicated below:
  - Artifacts:
    - Helm – 130
    - Chest – 200
    - Gloves – 130
    - Legs – 175
    - Boots – 130
    - Belt – 150
    - Back – 150
    - Ring – 130
    - Necklace – 130
    - 1H Melee – 150
    - 2H Melee – 220
    - Bows/Crossbow – 200
    - Shield – 150
    - Off-Hand – 150
    - Durability Damage Multiplier, Plate – 2.7
    - Durability Damage Multiplier, Chain – 1.8
    - Durability Damage Multiplier, Leather – 1.3
    - Durability Damage Multiplier, Others – 0.9
  - Crafted Gear:
    - Helm – 145
    - Chest – 220
    - Gloves – 145
    - Legs – 200
    - Boots – 145
    - Belt – 165
    - Back – 165
    - Ring – 145
    - Necklace – 145
    - 1H Melee – 165
    - 2H Melee – 240
    - Bows/Crossbow – 220
    - Shield – 165
    - Off-Hand – 165
    - Durability Damage Multiplier, Plate – 3
    - Durability Damage Multiplier, Chain – 2
    - Durability Damage Multiplier, Leather – 1.5
    - Durability Damage Multiplier, Others – 1
  - Bone Armor:
    - Helm – 150
    - Chest – 250
    - Gloves – 150
    - Legs – 210
    - Boots – 150
Exceptional crafting results now provide the following bonuses instead of +50 durability:
- Weapons with critical/exceptional success now receive +2.5% (1-Handed) or +5% (2-Handed) bonus to Weapon Durability Effectiveness.
- Armor and miscellaneous gear items with critical/exceptional success now receive +1% bonus to Armor Durability Effectiveness.
- Shields with critical/exceptional success now receive +5% bonus to Shield Durability Effectiveness.
Adjustments were made to base stats of crafted weapons to provide more uniformity across weapons within the same category. Also, crafted items received various stat increases to to become more competitive with artifact weaponry. In an upcoming continuation of balance work for artifacts to be revealed in R90 and R91, many artifact weaponry base values will diminish slightly.
All existing artifacts that have tiers (Common through Legendary only) already present in player inventories and storage, are now considered “Legacy” artifacts. Their tooltip descriptions indicate instructions on how these items can be utilized going forward.
- Legacy artifact tooltip descriptions are as follows: “This is a legacy version of this artifact, but it can still be equipped as is. To use this artifact in upgrade recipes, it must be salvaged to receive a low durability variant of the newer artifact version. That low durability variant can be used in upgrade recipes, and it can also be salvaged for Ancient Essences.”
- The reason there are new versions of the same artifact (as well as all crafted gear items), is because if 50 durability was added to gear items already present in the game which had previously received an old exceptional bonus would receive an EXTRA 50 durability. And since artifacts are used in recipes to upgrade, to allow the crafting system to recognize matching artifacts for upgrade recipes, first the old Legacy artifacts must be converted to the new versions so the recipes can recognize that matching artifacts were in fact provided to the crafting table.
- Old versions of Epic artifacts were not added to this Legacy salvage concept since they are not utilized in upgrade recipes. They will still salvage into essences as expected.
Non-tiered artifacts such as Cabalist Hoods and Cabalist Weaponry, as well as items such as the Torch of Jerik, still feature the same salvage results as before and have yet been tiered. So if players wish to hold off salvaging these a bit longer, you’ll soon be able to combine them or salvage for components, but no new salvage results for these items were added.
Artifact upgrade recipes now require Ancient Essences. Common to Uncommon requires 1. Uncommon to Rare requires 2. Rare to Legendary requires 4. Legendary to Epic requires 6.
Rare, Legendary, and Epic Artifacts now yield fewer essences when salvaged.
Artifact Balance (Initial):
- Attunement values for Rings of Attunement have all been reduced, yet they’ve received an extra 30 durability due to the new standardized durability values.
- The Attunement bonuses for the Ring of the Deep Woods have been realigned, and the penalty resistance reductions have been adjusted to mirror the bonuses within the opposite schools of magic.
- Vexlyn’s Ember of Conflagration now has a reduced attunement bonus, the Intelligence bonus is now scaled with tier, the fizzle reduction has been normalized with wands, and the penalties have been reduced.
- Thunder Branch now has a reduced attunement bonus, the intelligence bonus is now scaled with tier, the fizzle reduction has been normalized with wands, the Earth Attunement penalty has been reduced, and a Magic Glyph Focus Cost penalty (identical to the newly reduced Vexlyn’s Wand penalty) has been added.
- Wand of Static Discharge and Wand of Undying Embers have had their penalties removed. The Fire Speed Bonus has been removed from the Wand of Undying Embers.
- 9 Off-Hand items have been balanced to feature attunement and summon improvements only, though the Ankh of Sacrifice has retained its focus regeneration since there is no life summon ability available. Attunement amounts for all 9 Off-Hand items have been reduced.
- The Ankh of Sacrifice and the Ankh of Wala have been converted to Off-Hand items and now only function in left hand slot. Both received large reductions in attunement bonuses to balance with their Off-Hand brethren and to prep for upcoming skill tree balance work.
- Acara Shield’s Air Stun Effectiveness now scales with tier.
Mundane items such as Rusty Spatulas, Beakers, Flasks, Jars, Ceramic Bowls, Paintings, Maps etc. can now be salvaged:
- Quartz Chunk has been renamed to Quartz and added to many glass item salvage results. Quartz will be utilized in upcoming new recipes.
- All mundane items now feature a tooltip description to indicate the uses for the item. An example would be, “This item can be sold, used as a decoration, or salvaged at a carpentry station for wood scraps, canvas fabric, or various other items.”
- Mundane loot items have all received slightly increased gold values in case players still wish to sell these items, regardless of the salvage improvements.
- Some mundane items available on NPC merchants have either been removed from merchants or have had their purchase prices increased to discourage mass purchase/salvaging of NPC merchant items.
- A new crafting material known as “Bone Powder” has been added to the game which will be utilized in many upcoming recipe additions to the game. Bone Powder is obtained by salvaging various bones which drop as loot.
- Many mundane items have had their names changed to better describe their appearance, to help differentiate them with other mundane items, and to provide more flexibility in how these items can be utilized for salvage or upcoming improvements to their purpose. An example of this would be, “Green Spice Jar” was renamed to “Jar of Green Powder” which affords more flexibility in salvage results since “powder” is less specific than “spice.”
- Many mundane items missing from loot have been added to lower tier loot tables.
- Several additional mundane items never before available to players have been added to lower tier loot tables.
- Salvaging mundane items that are stolen yield slightly lower primary results, and a have a much smaller chance to provide special rare results. For instance, a stolen Green Cloth Bolt will provide 1-2 fabric scrap as it’s primary result, with a much less chance to provide items like threads and actual bolts of cloth, while the looted version provides 1-3 fabric scrap as its primary result and has a considerably higher chance to provide special salvaging results.
- Gold and Silver Goblets now provide many more gold and silver scraps. Stolen versions of these goblets provide significantly less gold and silver scraps, but they are still worthwhile to steal if you happen to pass by one.
- A small number of mundane items, primarily mugs, cups, and goblets, have been reassigned to mundane item salvage tables. This means these items now have a small chance to also provide interesting rare results when salvaged.
- Small Ball of Clay has been added to the game and drops from salvage results for ceramic/pottery type items. A recipe will soon be added to the game which will allow these balls of clay to be combined into clay blocks. Additional uses for clay will be added to the game in future.
- Many maps have been removed from bookseller merchants, but Imps now have a very significant chance to drop all maps. These are the maps that were recently added to crafting recipes to create framed versions. These maps now also have salvage options for wood pulp, with more interesting salvage results to come in the future.
- Here is a list of all the mundane items that were addressed in this round of salvage love:
  - Beaker
  - Beaker Tongs
  - Black Striped Cloth Spool
  - Blue Cloth Spool
  - Boiler Glass
  - Bowl of Black Powder
  - Bowl of Orange Powder
  - Bowl of Red Powder
  - Bowl of Yellow Powder
  - Brown Cylindrical Jug
  - Brown Rounded Jug
  - Bucket
  - Candle in Bulb Base
  - Ceramic Cup
  - Ceramic Goblet
  - Ceramic Mug
  - Ceramic Pitcher
  - Ceramic Plate
  - Chamberstick Candle
  - Clear Pyramid Bottle
  - Condenser
  - Conical Flask
  - Diamond Cloth Bolt
  - Digging Shovel
  - Dirty Cutting Board
  - Dirty Rolling Pin
  - Dirty Wooden Spoon
  - Dotted Cloth Spool
  - Dragon Claw
  - Dragon Jawbone
  - Dragon Leg Bone
  - Dragon Rib
  - Dragonbone Throne
  - Empty Ceramic Jug
  - Empty Ruined Sack
  - Empty Test Tube Rack
  - Filled Beaker
  - Filled Boiler Glass
  - Filled Condenser
  - Filled Flask
  - Filled Glass Bottle With Stand
  - Filled Pyramid Bottle
  - Filled Round Bottle
  - Filled Small Square Bottle
  - Filled Test Tube
  - Filled Test Tube Rack
  - Flat Shovel
  - Flimsy Hoe
  - Green Cloth Bolt
  - Green Striped Cloth Spool
  - Jar of Green Powder
  - Jar of Orange Powder
  - Jar of Red Powder
  - Jar of White Powder
  - Large Ceramic Bowl
  - Large Flat Shovel
  - Large Pewter Bowl
  - Large Square Bottle
  - Maps (All 26 versions)
  - Mosaic of the Avatar
  - Oil Lamp Burner
  - Painting (Butcher Shop)
  - Painting (Ladies in Waiting)
  - Painting (Lakeside Sunrise)
  - Painting (Pastoral Village)
  - Painting (Portrait of a Gentleman)
  - Painting (Portrait of a Lady)
  - Pewter Cup
  - Pewter Jug
  - Pewter Mug
  - Pewter Pitcher
  - Pewter Plate
  - Pitchfork
  - Plow
  - Portrait of Envy Angel
  - Pristine Skeleton Rib Cage
  - Pyramid Bottle
  - Rectangular Bottle
  - Red Cloth Bolt
  - Round Bottle
  - Round Flask
  - Rusty Bowl
  - Rusty Deep Pan
  - Rusty Fork
  - Rusty Kettle
  - Rusty Knife
  - Rusty Ladle
  - Rusty Mug
  - Rusty Pan
  - Rusty Plate
  - Rusty Spatula
  - Rusty Spoon
  - Scale
  - Scythe
  - Short Ceramic Vase
  - Skeleton Hib Bone
  - Small Clear Square Bottle
  - Small Knife
  - Small Odd Skull
  - Small Round Flask
  - Small Square Bottle
  - Small Square Jar (Green)
  - Small Square Jar (Red)
  - Small Square Jar (White)
  - Small Square Jar (Yellow)
  - Square Jar (Black)
  - Square Jar (Blue)
  - Square Jar (Brown)
  - Square Jar (Yellow)
  - Square Shovel
  - Striped Cloth Bolt
  - Tabletop Candelabra
  - Tall Ceramic Vase
  - Test Tube
  - Test Tube With Cork
  - Trowel
  - Wood Bowl
  - Wood Plate
  - Wood Serving Bowl
  - Wood Serving Plate
  - Wooden Mug
  - Yoke
Planting and watering only consumes a bucket of water 10% of the time.
Crafted belts can now be enchanted and masterworked.
Jar of Yeast Culture has been renamed to Yeast.
Animal Bones have been removed from NPC merchants.
The Belt of Control has received an improved tooltip description.
The Fine Oak Furniture Set can now be placed upon castle walls and blocks or other decorations which allow it.
Ancient Xenossian Plate Chest Armor is no longer tagged as “medium” armor. It has been changed to “heavy” as intended so heavy armor skills will function in conjunction while wearing it.
The Cherry Blossom Dress pattern can now be applied to chest slot items, and it can now be placed as POT decoration.
Uncommon Staff of Xen now properly indicates the tier in the display name.
Rare Spurred Boots no longer provide a double focus bonus and properly apply 70 focus.
Legendary Spurred Boots now properly provide the Mounted Sprint Speed bonus like the other tiers.
Uncommon Spider Silk Belt now indicates the tier in the display name for this artifact.
The female Shogun chest armor has been adjusted around neck/upper chest to mitigate stretching.
Closed a gap in the neck on female Shogun and Dark Shogun chest armor pieces.
Fixed an LOD issue with Saddle & Bags with Stand.
All hot tubs can now be placed as POT decorations.
Improved the store entry descriptions for string lights to indicate they will most likely need to be scaled down in size to fit in row-sized homes.
Spring Fountain with Floating Candles once again has candles that light up.
Renamed dungeon transition pieces for Stone Dungeon to Ancient Stone so the blueprint, the recipe, and the item match in nomenclature.
Tooltip descriptions were added to all seeds to aid players with determining watering and harvest times.
Crafting Stations and Printing Presses can now be placed upon other items such as castle walls.
The Faerie Belt is now properly flagged as a premium non-artifact item.
Mounts can now be used from the inventory even if locked.

User Interface Changes:

The town lot listings window can now be assigned a hotkey and can be opened without visiting the town crier.
The town lot listing window now features a column for house name (right-click your home’s icon in Property Manager to rename) and also indicates if the lot has a basement and dungeon placed. Displaying the custom names for homes should allow players to better advertise what is featured on their lot when other players view the lot listing window.
The journal now features search functionality to filter for active and completed tasks. Also, sound and display issues have been fixed for the journal.
The recipe book now features search functionality to filter for recipes.
The quest turn-in interface now automatically filters for the quest item required.
The /quit command now opens the quit menu.
A large number of in-game maps have been improved.
The non-combat bar can now have hotkeys assigned for in-combat use.
The Deco Palette can now have a hotkey assigned.
Culling of interior decorations in player houses can now be controlled more effectively in the options menu to aid with performance improvement.
By holding a new hotkey, Ctrl-W, players will see which planting beds require watering.
The Party User Interface has been significantly optimized.
The Quest Task List UI has been lowered slightly to no longer interfere with the display of pet buffs.
Buffs for party members will no longer show unless they are targeted. This should offer a modest performance improvement in busy party combat situations

Player Economy, Rewards & Loot Changes:

All loot tables have been updated to ensure any creature, quest, or bundle providing an artifact, provides the new versions of the artifacts with updated durability.
Shadow Bears and Shadow Wolves now have a small chance to drop the artifact spirit helm for their species.
The Helm of the Wolf Spirit now only drops from high tier wolves, with the Destroyers having the most chance.
The Helm of the Bear Spirit now only drops from high tier bears, with the Destroyers having the most chance.
The Helm of the Stag Spirit now only drops on T10 stags such as the Noble Stag in Tanglemire.
Destroyer boars no longer drop the Bear, Wolf, or Stag Spirit Helms, but they have a significantly higher chance to drop the non-species specific taming artifacts.
Ghost Corpion loot in mass spawn areas has been reduced, but single spawn Ghost Corpion loot has been improved.
Many Episode 2 creatures have received experience reward reductions.
Major repairs now require 250 Crowns of the Obsidian instead of 100. This change was to encourage players to replace armor more commonly and to use the Major Repair feature less often.
Fishing bait recovery now features a soft cap. Gains beyond a certain level will still yield some benefits but will never reach 100%.
Public vendors now allow 50 items per player.

Combat, Skills & Balance Changes:

The shield tree has a new passive skill, Ranged Defense. This skill will make shields significantly more effective against non-magical ranged attacks.
Experience attenuation no longer applies to characters below adventure level 110.
Combat block and parry are no longer capped at 75 and instead scale more slowly above that value.
Most taming skills will advance more slowly, though they will not require more experience to level.
Torpid Torment will now be used by many higher level enemy casters.
The base skill in the subterfuge tree, Distract, will now start at level 40.
A large variety of creatures now feature increased crowd control resistances.
More creatures are now considered “hovering” which enables more resistance or even immunity to certain types of crowd control.
More skills respect creature “hovering” to including Disabling Shot, Hamstring, Knockdown, Leg Sweep, and Trip.
Many Episode 2 creatures have been reduced in power.
Ghosts have gained several new abilities and also will move faster as they get closer to death.
Spiders now have several ranged attacks and their webs now scale in strength with their level.
Night Vision now has improved visuals.
Draw Speed now features a soft cap.
The Root spell can now dispel Shield of Air.
Voice Training now has a unique icon.
Obsidian Trials has been temporarily set to a Adventure Level and skill cap of 100.

World, Quests, and Miscellaneous Changes:

The Rise Expanded: A new mysterious addition to The Rise has appeared. Little is known of the new area. Time to explore, adventurers!
Guild and Player-Owned Town (POT) messages of the day now last for 1 year.
Certain houses, such as glass storefront homes or pavilions, are not affected by interior decoration culling.
As a performance improvement, tooltips no longer attempt to refresh each frame if the mouse has not been moved.
Jaanaford: The “secret cow” now has a unique name and doesn’t have the same one as the cow in Owl’s Head.
Brittany Estates: Added a mailbox to the south bank.
Crypt of the Avatar: Improved how Eris recognizes when the player has the “Report from the Council of Might” in her responses.
Soltown: Improved how Bentley’s “Return Key to Bentley” task archives itself.
Crooked Shank: Improved how the journal tasks archive while investigating the mystery of Crooked Shank.
Soltown: Geof now has a compass marker for when a player is bringing him an iron blade. Geof’s journal entry for an iron blade has been improved.
Mistrendur: Added access to the Obsidian Panopticon.
Solace Bridge Outskirts: Adjusted some props to allow for better access to a quest-related ghost.
Soltown: Updated some of Jeanne’s responses about her missing necklace.
Novia: Added a quest marker to the Northwest Blackblade Mountains entry for Avatars seeking the Bunker C Jelly in Bunker C.
Mysterious Swamp: Updated the path grid to better accommodate the giant monkey automatons.
Novia: Added highlighting for the Macsen quest to the Longfall Woods compass marker.
Blood River Outskirts: Updated logic, journals, and compass markers for Gus the automaton’s “Corruption Junction” anti-druid quest.
Blood River Outskirts: Stag spawns have been improved.
Brittany Fields: Added a washer woman to a small house near the water.
Etceter: Added a compass marker at the Bank of Etceter.
Lamech’s Bazaar and South Midmaer Way: 3 ankhs were added to the airship.
Etceter: The housing decorations merchant should no longer rush to close the bank door when it’s left open.
Ferig’s Battle Camp: Improved Lord Ferig’s logic to help advance the “Free Sir Patrick” / “Speak with Lord Ferig” follow-up task.
Solace Bridge Outskirts: Updated the compass marker data for Kinsey to ensure that the “Kinsey Needs Your Help” marker stops appearing at the proper time.
Lord British’s Castle: Moved several spawn points for NPCs that were reported spawning within walls.
Soltown: Improved logic in Abigail’s responses when talking about Charlotte. Also, improved Abigail’s recollection of the events at the start of the Battle of Solace Bridge.
Blackblade Foothills: Fixed an issue where NPCs couldn’t fully walk across two bridges.
Ardoris: Fixed typos in the keywords of Fiona FitzOwen.
Braemar: Changed the “Bank and Town Crier” compass marker to “Town Crier” and gave the bank it’s own compass marker.
Ardoris: Fixed an issue where several bottles were z-fighting with a table surface.
Troll’s Bridge: Removed the special “random encounter” message when entering this scene and when the friendly NPCs that sometimes arrive after defeating the trolls.
Blood River Outskirts: Avatars that learn the name of Zosimus will still see his trainer title.
Spite: Shimzu now properly rewards Avatars who offer him a burial coffin before getting his quest to get one.
Noreach: Added additional “safety” feature to Sigrunn’s tasks to speak to other NPCs, to help ensure they clear properly.
South Drachvald Spur now features an in-game map.
Added Player Memorial Obelisk to Brittany Graveyard.
Gravestones in Brittany Graveyard are now less blurry.
An NPC building roof in Kingsport should no longer distort with camera movement.
The mount animation no longer plays twice when dismounting.
Player Vendors that have become “stale” will no longer sit down.
Necropolis Barrens: Fixed an issue that blocked some players from completing Davropos’s daily “dead body” turn-in.
Necropolis Barrens: Players who already have a “dead body” when talking to Davropos about dead bodies for the first time will now get a reward if they accept his quest at that time.
Necropolis Barrens: Fixed an issue where Davropos would give the wrong journal entry when offering the “dead bodies” quest for the first time.
Well of Aldur: Fixed an issue with two transcribed letters which featured duplicate content. Both now have unique content.
Braemar: Updated Bridget Helvig’s responses to help ensure she only gives out her banner reward once.
Well of Aldur: Fixed a stuck spot that was between two fallen pillars.
Owl’s Head: Created a new version of Farmhouse Ale (same basic stats as generic ale) and connected this new version Farmhouse Ale to Morton’s “quest” to obtain a drink.
Object loading has been modified to improve loading performance of decorations in player towns.
Spectral Mines: Added “piles of gore” to the Arch Lapin cave to provide additional means for players to obtain the bones required for the Arch Lapin quest.
Highvale Outskirts: Fixed an issue where a large boulder was blocking access to some tunnels.

Player-Owned Town Changes:

Lightbringer Isle: Upgraded to Gigalopolis.
Merri’s Hideaway: Changed biome to Island 01 and moved to near Xenos in Novia.
Mossrest: Added new Hamlet along the road south of Etceter.
Nauvoo: Added new City near Solace Bridge Outskirts.
Nivenshire: Upgraded to Municipality.
Wakoku: Upgraded to Crossroads Village.

Avatar’s Update #423: Play Release 88 Now! New Quests! New Food & Fish Varieties! Fixes & More! Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

March 25, 2021

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

So many changes, fixes, and improvements have happened in the game this round, Avatars! Loot improvements! New crafting recipes! New fish! Fixes, fixes, fixes! Head on into the game and experience it for yourself! For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Release 88 Patch Notes!

Below are a list of updates that are live as of Release 88 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! In our tick-tock development cycle, this is primarily an improvements and bug fixes month (a tick), with some new content coming your way for R89. This round has an AMAZING amount of changes! For new content, some new crafting recipes have been added that should give players many more things to gather, loot, craft, and sell between players. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 88!

Crafting, Decoration, Gear, & Consumable Changes:

Added 12 “Young” versions of the ultra rare trophy fish to the game and added them to the fishing loot tables. These young versions are still considerably rare but players will be able to fish these with far greater frequency comparatively to their ultra rare and full-size versions.These new versions can be placed as deco but do not scale nor have trophy data and will appear as 25% the size of the smallest trophy version. These can be processed at the at the butchering station using the same butchering recipes their larger versions use.Their addition to the game will allow for less ridiculous amounts of fillets needed if only the ultra rare versions continued exist without their young cousins. These young versions will still provide a large number of fillets in conjunction with the “feed the village” concept based upon the scarcity of the young fish, which typically vary between 1% and 3% catch rates (far more common that the ultra-rare versions that can be converted to trophies.)Mundane fish catches were reduced in frequency slightly to accommodate the addition of these fish, and trophy version fish chances were in no way changed. In Release 89 and 90, players can expect these young fish to be convertible to a small trophy, but size scaling is not a consideration. Future plans to provide Drying Rack and Fish Pile decorations are in the works!The 12 fish types receiving a new Young Fish variety are as follows:
- Alligator Gar
- Dunkleosteus
- Ichthyosaurus
- Marlin
- Mosasaurus
- Pike
- Plesiosaurus
- Sailfish
- Shark
- Sturgeon
- Swordfish
- Tarpon
Added 23 new food recipes to food recipe NPC merchants which focus upon use of underutilized ingredients. The food spreadsheet has been updated and will continue to be updated as food changes occur in the future.
As an example, the Broiled Mackerel recipe adjusted to only require 1 fillet with 4 meals created instead of 2 and 2. Other low rarity trophy fish recipes were also adjusted in similar ways to increase their food recipe’s output.
Added identifiers to the display names to every fish carcass to aid players in searching/filtering for fish in their inventories. Identifiers are either Lava Fish, Freshwater Fish, Saltwater Fish, or Fetid Water Fish. If just “Fish” was used as the identifier, then it can be fished in multiple water types. Also, the weights for each fish variant have been adjusted so that players can sort by relative weight and have SOME indication as to size comparisons, but these numbers are just estimates within the length ranges to provide SOME additional help with sorting. Future improvements could arrive at a later date in that regard.
Exceptionals received slight tweaks, and tech has been implemented so future recipes can be tagged as grandmaster recipes. More details to come!
Craftable belts have been added to the game!
The Epic Lead Gauntlets had worse stats than the legendary, which has now been fixed.
The Epic Quiver of Jealousy stats were worse than lower level versions. This has been fixed.
Edelmann bird bath is once again functional.
The Cowbell of Reaping will no longer show effects that are zero.
Pets once again work in basements!
Fish Masks now correctly disappear when a character uses a stealth ability.
The Round Heraldry Shield now correctly accepts dye
Fixed blue flame sconce and floor lamps so that they properly illuminate.
The Aether Orb can now be enchanted.
The Belt of Control has received an updated description in its tooltip.
Fixed the level of detail for the moon magic shrine.
Fixed a crafting and gathering error which appeared when the success chance was higher than 90%.
Fishing rods no longer disappear when hiding a helm or cloak.
The initial spawn points for the circling dragons have been improved. They should no longer initially spawn in the distance.
Animal spawner decorations such as the carrots or bowls no longer float in the air.
The Practice Dummy can now be placed as a Player-Owned Town decoration and “should” be usable by everyone even if the owner is not present.
Perennial Coast Dragon Mask eternal pattern can now be applied to helm slot items.
The new plumed helm pattern can now be applied to other helmets.
Updated the store entry name for Plumed Plate Helm to Ancient Xenossian Plumed Plate Helm
The inebriation effects from all alcohols was reduced to 15 seconds from 5 minutes due to player complaints of disorientation, but a generic red wine remains on NPC food merchants, and a generic ale was created and added for NPC food merchants that still retains the full 5 minute effect for those that wish to party it up.
Farmhouse Ale, which provides a dexterity bonus, was removed from NPC merchants and its name was changed to Satyr Spirits and added to Satyr Archer loot tables.
White Table Wine, which provides a spell critical bonus, was removed from NPC merchants and its name was changed to Kobold Spirits and added to Kobold caster loot tables.
1 Year Whiskey, which provides agriculture bonuses, was removed from NPC merchants and its name was changed to Elven Brandy and added to all elf loot tables.
Trout has also been removed from NPC merchants like all other common fish. NPC fisherman and fish stall merchants now also sell 4 decorative fish.
The red and swirly decoration fish have been fixed and no longer appear sunken into the ground.
Mutton Stew has been removed from all NPC merchants and now is only available through crafting.
All 3 varieties of tavern, innkeeper and barmaid now sell the generic red wine, the generic ale, as well as the 7 bread type starter foods (which are used in several of the new cooking recipes as well as the bread ingredient).
Base Damage Resistance for Epic Plate Gauntlets adjusted to 5 from 2.
Large, Medium, and Small Ruins now accept decorations upon many surface areas.
The 5 paintings used for turn-in on the positive and negative virtue quest lines have been removed from merchants in anticipation of improved rewards for these quests.
Corrected the display name of Pristine Skeleton Rib Cage.
The Faerie Belt is now marked as Premium and Protect from Ransom since it is a store item.
Improved tooltip item description to all 6 public cache container types to indicate public cache permission settings on these items allow any player to take items from these containers.
Decorated Cupcake now shows on eating progress bar and on buff icon tooltip instead of Dyeable Cupcake.
Bass with Peppers now shows on eating progress bar and on buff icon tooltip instead of Sauteed Bass.
Salt Cured Obsidian Pork renamed to Salt Cured Obsidian Boar to match the name of the recipe.
Corrected Darkstarr Fried Oysters to use 3 flood slots instead of 1.
Obsidian Bacon Recipe is no longer teachable.
Salt Cured Obsidian Boar recipe has been added to cooking recipe merchants.

Player Economy & Loot Changes:

Deed limits for all NPC towns have been lifted. Previously players were limited to 3 lots in any non-Player-Owned Town per account, now players may settle anywhere as often as they like!
Wyvern Haunches have been lowered in gold value.
Many of the low tier purple wyverns at Wyvern’s Roost in the Well of Aldur have had their loot amounts reduced. High tier purple wyverns and all white wyverns remain unchanged.
The Troll Toenails daily quest starting in Tenebris Harbor now also rewards 3 servings of Kobold Spirits.
The Rune Bag daily quest in Yew now also rewards 3 servings of Elven Brandy.
The Thick Animal Hide daily in Highvale Outskirts now also rewards 3 servings of Satyr Spirits.
The Ghost Corpion now has a significant chance to drop a Common Focus Battery Artifact, and Ancient Essence, and a decent amount of Corpse Wax.
Drop chances for crocodile carcasses has been significantly increased on T5 versions.
Hemlock Borer now has lowered gold value, but now drops from T1 through T4 pine trees, and T8 and above nodes have increased drop chances for this item.
Emerald Ash Borers now have lowered gold value, but have been added to loot tables for T1 to T4 maple trees and increased drop rates from high tier maple trees.
Black Cutworm now has lowered gold value, but increased drop rates from Cotton Bushes, with higher drops present on high tier nodes. Beetle Carapace also now has an increased drop chance on high tier Cotton Bushes.
Significantly increased chances for Common Heart’s of Vrul to drop in Daemon loot tables.
Increased chances for Common, Uncommon, and even Rare drops of Anapa’s favor across the lich loot tables, with guaranteed chances for at least a common version on the Lich bosses such as the bosses in the Ruins of Ravensmoor.
The recipe and blueprint for “Transition Stone Dungeon to Ancient Stone” have been moved to the Bookseller vendor. Also the recipe for “Tomb Dungeon Entrance” has been moved to the bookseller. Now all dungeon recipes that can be purchased with gold from NPC Merchants should be available on the bookseller merchant.
Brown Cap Mushrooms and Cinammon Bark purchase prices from NPC merchants have been doubled. Possible removal from merchants will come with R89, likely accompanied by an increase in drop rates from their various loot sources.
18 produce items used in recipes yet grown via agriculture have had their NPC Merchant prices doubled and sale to NPC Merchants prices halved. In R89, all 18 of these items will be removed entirely from NPC merchants to encourage more agriculture use.
Changed Artifact values to be 125, 500, 2000, 8000, and 16000 based upon being Common, Uncommon, Rare, Legendary, and Epic. Players will notice almost all Commons lowering in value significantly, and a good portion of Uncommons have dropped in value while others have increased in value. Lowered gold value of crafted artifact components as well, such as the rods and troll belt pieces, but increasing drop rates of these crafted artifact components was also implemented.
Adjustments were made to artifact rarity especially in regards to the Common tier of artifacts. Future balance for all artifacts will be occurring throughout the next 2 releases, which will include a variety of power reductions and power increases. These changes will be accompanied by additional work related to how exceptionals function in crafting, new crafting components based from artifact salvage, new crafting components that are purely crafted from base resources, potential adjustments to many crafting components, and potential adjustments to the bonuses provided by the creation of the purely crafted base item (such as the initial weapon or piece of armor). The changes to the artifact drop rates and locations are as follows:
- Increased gem fragment drops on Envy Angel’s wisps, and add a slight chance for the Savage Sash of Swiftness to drop from them, and a larger chance for the common version of the Ring of the Deep Woods to drop.
- The Common Pirate Tricorn Hat of the Cap’n now has a much improved drop rate on the pirate captain in Tartarus, with a small chance to drop an uncommon or rare instead.
- Increased drop rates for the Envy Bow on Envy Angel. Also, she now has a much better chance to drop a common quiver, with a small chance for it to be an uncommon or rare version.
- Added the Common Ring of the Frogkin as an additional reward for completing the repeatable Ecology Researcher quest.
- Added Common Ring of Life as an additional reward to Hyun’s daily in Necropolis Barrens.
- Added the Common Ring of Cat’s Grace to the daily quest in Ardoris (5 Paintings) with Caravaggios Wolf as an additional reward.
- Added the following Common version artifacts to the 4 dailies in Lord British’s Castle: Ring of Jones, Belt of the Brutal Butcher, Belt of the Patient Harvester, and Ring of Chrysopoeia.
- Added Common Necklace of Civility as an additional reward for completing the repeatable Pilgrim Untimely Demise quest.
- Added Common Ring of Death to as an additional reward to the Arch Lapin Bones daily quest.
- Added Common Belt of the Ox as an additional reward to the Tanglemire Missing Bones daily.
- Added Common Ring of Water to water and ice elemental loot tables, with increased drop chances for higher tier mobs.
- Common Daemon Trident has been added to Daemon loot tables. They now have a much larger chance to drop the common version of the trident, though an uncommon or rare version could drop instead at a much lower rate.
- Common version of the Shield of the Wicked King has been added to all Cabalist loot tables, with a significant chance to drop.
- Added Common Shard of Night as a slight drop chance in the 9 hidden chests in Hilt Fortress. Also added a common version of this artifact as an additional daily reward to Skarde’s runestone daily in Spindelskog.
- Added Common Ancient Two-Handed Sword to loot tables of Kobold fighters, with higher tiers having improved drop rates.
- The Spider Queen in Spectral Peaks now has a greatly increased chance to drop a Staff of Xen, with a Common, Uncommon, or Rare version being possible.
- Added Common Two-Handed Mace of Unsummoning to Satyr fighter loot tables, will increasing chances with higher tiers. Also added this common version of the artifact to the “Repair the Spirit Wheel” daily in Tanglemire as an additional reward.
- Added Common Crossbow of Accuracy to Kaiser’s dragon tooth daily in Ulfheim as an additional reward.
- Added Common Shield of Attraction to loot tables of non-pirate skeleton warriors, with higher tiers having increased chances to drop. Also added this common artifact to daily rewards for turning in the siege encounter Arcane Catalysts daily.
- Added Common Vexlyn’s Ember of Conflagaration as an additional rare drop amongst Cabalist loot.
- Added Common Thunder Branch to Air Elemental loot tables, with higher tiers receiving increased chances.
- Added chance for Common Wand of Undying Embers to drop from Xavara and T15 Fire Elementals.
- Added Common Wand of Static Discharge to pirate caster loot tables, with higher tier receiving increased chances.
- Added Common Sword of Speed to Ebon Dawn melee loot, with higher tiers having increased chances. Also, the repeatable Bounty quest available in roaming encounters now offers a common version of this artifact as an additional reward.
- Added Common Cutlass of the Swashbuckler to higher tier melee pirates loot tables, with the higher tiers having improved chances. Also, the Broochash criminal-requested shakedown daily quest now provides the common cutlass as a daily reward.
- Added Common Thimble of Evelyn to Elven Archer loot tables, with higher tiers having a greater chance. Also added this ring to the daily rewards for the Sven the Hunter/Animal Hide daily in Highvale Outskirts.
- Added Common Ring of Sun to Phoenix loot tables to drop at a significant rate. Also, a Phoenix will now always drop 1-2 talons. Also, the drop rates for the Ankh of Wala on the Phoenix have been increased, and a small chance to receive an uncommon and rare instead have been added.
- Added Common Maple Band to plant creature loot tables (primarily PvP zone creatures). Also added this ring to Reaper loot tables at a smaller chance. Also, 1 of these rings can be obtained daily by completing a daily quest in Yew where Pendro wants a Boundless Forest Rune Bag.
- Added Common Pax Ring as a reward for the Tenebris Harbor Troll Toenail daily quest.
- Added Common Ring of the Mouse to all Faun loot tables, with higher tiers having an increased chanced. Also, the daily quest in Ardoris (5 Paintings) with Stephanie Broadmeadow will award a Common Ring of the Mouse each day.
- Increased drop rate of Common Ring of the Obsidian on tier 15 fire elemental bosses, now also with lesser chances for an uncommon or rare instead. Also, added a slight drop chance for this ring amongst the 9 hidden chests throughout Hilt Fortress.
- Added Common Ring of the Moon to Shadow animal loot tables. Also added this ring to the daily rewards in Elder Bodil’s quest in Tanglemire which takes players to Spindelskog.
- Added Common Ring of Life to Destructible Crate loot tables, and added one as an additional reward to Esmerelda’s tea leaf daily in Highvale Outskirts.
- Common Ring of the Lich Kind added to loot tables for Lich casters, higher tiers having better chances. Most lich boss casters have a good chance for a common, with a slight chance for an uncommon. Corrected display names for the upgrade recipes for this ring.
- Common Ring of the Gambler added to loot tables for all tiers of melee pirates with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Ring of Frogkin added to loot tables for all tiers of fungus creatures with increased drop rates on higher tiers. Green ones have a slightly elevated chance. The high tier ones in PvP zones have the best chance.
- Common Ring of Fire added to loot tables for all tiers of Fire Elementals and Xavara with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Ring of Earth added to loot tables for all tiers of Sand, Earth, and Lava Elementals with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Ring of the Deep Woods added to loot tables for all tiers of Wisps.
- Common Ring of Death added to loot tables for all tiers of Skeleton casters with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Ring of the Cuttlekin added to loot tables for all tiers of Barrel Mimic with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Ring of Jones added to loot tables for commoner corpses, barrels, and sacks.
- Common Ring of Chrysopoeia added to loot tables of all tiers of Kobold Grenadier with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Ring of Cat’s Grace added to loot tables for all tiers of Clockwork Cats with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Ring of Brittle Brawn added to loot tables of all tiers of Obsidian Golems with increased drop rates on higher tiers. Also, additional Obsidian Chips now drop from Obsidian Golems.
- Common Wayland’s Loop added to loot tables of all tiers of Kobold melee (non-brawlers) with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Ring of Air added to loot tables of all tiers of air elementals with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common and Rare Lavalliere of the Lagomorph has been added to the Death Bunny Loot table. Each kill will always provide 1 version of the artifact, with a small perccent chance the version will be uncommon or rare.
- Common Focus Battery Necklace added to ghost loot tables, with increased chances given to higher tier ghosts. Also, T5 and above ghosts will drop increasingly additional amounts of Corpse Wax. Also, T5 and above ghosts now have a small chance to drop an ancient essence.
- Common Necklace of Civility now has a small chance to drop in destructible crates and guard corpses. Also, the Adventure Level Buff has been removed and replaced with +50, +100, +150, +200, +250 health and focus for Common through Epic.
- Common Necklace of Common Precision added to loot tables of all tiers of pirate archers with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Halberd of the Sun added to loot tables of all tiers of melee bandits (to include Red Sash), which are T5 and below. Any bandits using a Bandit Leader loot table receive a significantly higher chance to drop a the common as well.
- Adventure scene mountain trolls can now drop Common versions of The Ring of an Unknown BMC Member at a significant rate, and the uncommon version will drop slightly more often.
- Common and Uncommon Zombie Skin Belt drops more regularly from the high tier zombies such as the slow walking ones in Tartarus. Common Zombie Skin Belts now also have a slight chance to drop from all zombies. The Creepy Dolly now drops more regularly from zombie children.
- Common Spider Silk Belt has 100% chance to drop from the Spider Queen in Spectral Peaks with small chances for an Uncommon or Rare. All other T15 spiders have a small chance to also drop the common Spider Silk Belt. Venom, Spider Silk, Eyes, Legs now have increased drop rates on high tier spiders.
- Common Savage Sash of Swiftness added to low tier Wisp Loot tables to drop at slight chance. Increased chances for Savage Sash of Swiftness to drop from high tier Wisps in Tartarus.
- Common Slipshod Shooter’s Sash added to loot tables of all tiers of Ebon Dawn Archers with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Sage’s Sash added to loot tables of all tiers of Elven casters with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Belt of the Patient Harvester added to loot tables of all tiers of Fauns with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Belt of the Ox added to loot tables of all tiers of Kobold Brawler with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Belt of the Brutal Butcher added to loot tables of all tiers of Barbarian Archers with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Gauntlets of Lead added to loot tables of all tiers of Satyr Warriors with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Supple Gloves of Riding added to loot tables of all tiers of Nightmares and Unicorns with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Spurred Boots added to loot tables of all tiers of Nightmares and Unicorns with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Common Ring of Wisdom added to loot tables of all tiers of Satyr casters with increased drop rates on higher tiers.
- Ringmaster’s Vest removed from the single Lich Archer loot table it was available in, and added to the loot tables of all Destroyer animals at a larger drop rate.
- Added all rod pieces for Staff of Death to all Lich caster loot tables, with varying chance based upon tier of Lich. Rod 1 was removed from Daemon loot tables. Rod pieces also drop from 3 varieties of supply bundles (Yellow, Blue, Orange), which have not been adjusted.
- Glowing Belt Buckle and Strip of Thick Troll Skin removed from Reaper loot tables, added to all troll loot tables at various drops rates depending upon the tier of the troll.
- Added all rod pieces for Staff of Anarchy to Daemon loot tables. Rod 1 was already available on T15 Daemons, which has received an increased drop rate in line with the other additions. Rod pieces also drop from 3 varieties of supply bundles (Yellow, Blue, Orange), which have not been adjusted.

Combat, Skills & Balance Changes:

The formula for calculating melee damage has been changed to use a bit more skill and stats for the calculation and a bit less weapon damage.
Savage Sonata has had it’s critical hit effects tuned down. All bard skills are at 100% experience return on unlearning.
Backing our the focus regen changes for shield of air for now
Ring of fire cast time has increased by 0.5 seconds
Fireball cast time has increased by 0.5 seconds
Base focus cost increased from 12 to 15 for multishot
Shield of Air adjustment to reduce dex effect. Previously the calculation was based on Skill Level + dex/5. This is now based on Skill Level + dex/6. Shield of air will get a major refactor in R89
Damage in PVP is now on a slight curve. Hits up to 50 points will do slightly more than previous releases and hits over 50 will do slightly less.
The math for how much focus a skill costs based on skill level and effect has been increased slightly. This will only be noticeable in the 100+ range
The bonus from Fire Proof and Blue Blooded have been doubled
The speed at which free attacks charge has been made slightly faster but the extra damage each tick adds has been decreased slightly. The expected result is roughly the same DPS but with a lower max hit.
All Ranged Combat, Fire Magic, Bard, Air Magic skills allow for 100% XP return during the month of Release 88.
Combat movement speed has been reduced slightly.
Atonal Aria, Ice Field, Immolation, and Ring of Fire can no longer critically hit on the first tick of their damage-over-time effect.
Psalm of Stagnation now uses the correct icon.
Psalm of Stagnation no longer has a chance to fizzle.

World, Quests, and Miscellaneous Changes:

The oceans and lakes of Novia are no longer Green. By player request, we’ll work on decorations for governors to place to let them change their water color. We’re behind on providing the weather changing decorations for Player-Owned Towns, but those should hopefully arrive in R89.
Owlshead: NPC’s have been moved away from player lots so they harass players less while their at home.
Fall damage has been adjusted to be far more forgiving especially for new players.
Level of Detail for the Lord British throne has been adjusted so it doesn’t vanish at an inappropriate distance.
A large number of the log errors in towns have been fixed to help improve performance and stability.
A version of dungeon stairs now has the proper material applied.
Collision on stairs in the Lost Vale have been fixed.
The leaderboards have been fixed again!
With the introduction of ambient sound effect decorations, the Crown Store is now capable of providing audio previews of these items.
Hidden Vale: Removed access to POT The Fields of Misery from old location near West Ravenswood.
Fixed a stuck spot in The Crags.
Norgard Fens: Fixed an issue where a tree was floating above the ground.
Lost Vale: Adjusted the collision for stairs near the center of the scene.
Mysterious Swamp: Fixed an issue where the tier marker ribbons weren’t attached to the spikes.
Sequanna Colossus: Corrected oversized and undersized ore nodes.
Taenby Landing and all PRTs: Added discoverable entrances for all PRTs.
Spite: Added a daily repeatable quest that allows players to turn in the “Burial Coffin” item for 3 Elixirs of Potency, a new unique potion only offered in this questline which provide 5% increased consumable effects.
Necropolis Barrens: As a daily “quest,” Davropos the master trainer will request a dead body from experienced avatars or those who already have a dead body in their inventory. This quest provides 3 Elixirs of Longevity, a new unique potion only offered in this questline which provides 15% increased consumable duration.
Blood River Outskirts: Updated text in the “Deliver Evidence to Bearfield” and “Give Phineas the Warrant” (formerly “Serve the Warrant”) journal entries.
Solace Bridge Outskirts: Updated some of Kinsey’s responses to better account for her giving players the “Caregiver” title. Added a couple of climbable vines along the river.
Solace Bridge Outskirts: Update the method by which the “Kinsey Needs Your Help” task auto-archives if the task remains lingering after completing.
Ardoris: Fixed an issue with Damai’s responses that was causing a build error.
Norgard Fens: Adjusted a rock to remove a stuck spot.
Northwest Blackblade Mountains: Removed collision from the dangling “glow worms” prop and re-generated the path grid.
Ardoris: Fixed a typo in Damai’s respones.
Music: Added additional background music selections to several scenes.
Solace Bridge Outskirts: Adjusted one of the exit archways to avoid blocking players who were trying to exit from some directions.
Malice: Added safeguards in Malice to prevent players within the wrong quest stage from advancing prematurely and blocking their progress in the main storylines.
Highvale Outskirts: Reduced the size of Phineas Drumplemouth’s walking path to be closer to his tent. Updated his early “hello” response to mention the “help” and “elf” keywords.
Battle of Highvale: Added a safety feature to help ensure the “Find Word of Nena’s Charges” task archives even if the task lingers after completion.
Soltown: Added a “safety” fix to Edwin’s “hello” response to help remove the “Create a Leather Helm” task if it lingers after completion.
Seasonal Monsters: Envy Angel has been deactivated (in Necropolis Barrens) while the Arch Lapin has been activated (in Spectral Mines).
Owl’s Head: Updated Myra’s special responses that occur if you badmouth her fish to better auto-archive the tasks related to her brother.
Tanglemire: Fixed an issue where the “Deliver Wildflower” compass marker wasn’t appearing at Frida at the correct stage of the related quest.
Soltown: Improved how Edwin the Tanner manages his crafting tutorial tasks.
Well of Aldur: Moved 3 floating Aldurite Crystal formations to ground level. Updated the ambient wind sound effects.
Tanglemire: Fixed an issue where some watery areas were too deep; all “shallow water” areas now share a consistent depth.
Ruins of Ravensmoor: Updated the recommended tier for the “Find Roedberk’s Sarcophagus” task from 8 to 10.
Ulfheim: Made adjustments to allow wave battles to reset when they aren’t engaged with any players
Well of Aldur: Improved the safety feature for the “Get Professor Another Amulet” and “Deliver Amulets to Aeronaut?” tasks to help them auto-archive when appropriate.
Elysium Mines: Adjusted a wooden barricade to allow players to walk through its large hole. Also, blocked a stuck-spot to one side of that barricade.
Verdantis Mines: Fixed an issue with a silver ore node that couldn’t be mined.
Daily Quest Rewards: Internal adjustment of daily quests has been implemented to make future work on these quest rewards more efficient.
Lamech’s Bazaar: Fixed an issue where the difficulty teleporter wagon wouldn’t always display the alternate difficulty versions of the scene.
Well of Aldur: Moved a treasure chest that was sunk into the ground to ground level.
Sequanna Colossus: Fixed the collision on the statue of Sequanna and NPCs should no longer walk through its base.
Ardoris: Fixed a typo in the journal for the shady art dealer.
South Boundless Forest: Fixed a data mismatch which had Visna’s barks referring to herself as “himself.”
Well of Aldur: Fixed an issue where the “Te amo in aeternum” amulet of testimony was linked to the incorrect content.
Soltown: Added Hee-Jin Jun, a player vendor NPC, to the center of town.
Initial updates to Brittany Graveyard has been implemented to create a Player Memorial Cemetery, with more updates to follow.
Bug Brigade in-game titles have been adjusted for syntax.
North Midmaer Way: An unreachable copper node has been fixed.
Added and assigned a unique load screen to the Episode 2 Lord British’s Castle scene.
Created a Crown Store sub-category for dungeon (adventure design) tagged store items in Recently Added so any new items with the Dungeon parent tag will show up in Recently Added as appropriate, such as the new sound effect player dungeon items.
Added a note in each store entry for circling dragons to indicate they do not effectively function in cavern style Player-Owned Towns due to the altitude of flight.
Lowered prices of the Ornate Public Cache Chest, the Resurrection Ankh, and the Resurrection Chaos items in the crown store.
Added War Dance Emote to Crown Store Vault rotation.
All dye store descriptions were updated to remove unnecessary verbiage from the web store transfer, and an explanation of how dyes function was added.

Player-Owned Town Changes:

POT Silverdale Estates: Renamed from Obsidian Market and biome changed to Grassland 01a from Forest 01c.
POT Haven Ridge: Upgraded to Town from Crossroads Village.
POT Lightbringer Isle: Upgraded to a Megalopolis.
POT Victory Peaks: Added new Hamlet to Mistrendur, in the southeastern mountains of the western island.
POT Freyr’s Town: Added new hamlet southeast of Brittany.
POT Ironhall: Upgraded to Town from Crossroads Village.
POT The Fields of Misery: Upgraded to City from Village. Moved to south shore of Hidden Vale, near Ravensmoor.

Avatar’s Update #422: Play Release 87 Now! Crafting System Changes! Food & Drink Revamp! Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

February 25, 2021

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Significant changes to the Crafting System have been implemented! Players can now enjoy increased success and exceptional chances during crafting! The recently announced food and drink changes are live as of Release 87. Every food and drink consumable now has a specific purpose and each is scaled and balanced with all foods and drinks available. Also, 23 additional food recipes will arrive to the game for Release 88. For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Crafting System Changes!

Crafters of New Britannia, take heed! Significant changes to crafting have occurred which will change the frequency of exceptional/critical results! Some of the upcoming changes to salvage are also explained below:

Crafting success chance maximum has increased from 95% to 100%.
Exceptional/Critical chance maximum has increased from 33% to 50%.
Grandmasters now receive a bonus to Exceptional/Critical chance! This means having skills above 100 will continue to add to Exceptional/Critical chances up to the new maximum of 50% even when your base success chance has already maxed at 100%.
One decimal point of precision is now displayed for each percentage.
A variety of engraving kits have received stat improvements which will provide increased success chances to some crafting skills such as Agriculture, Alchemy, Butchery, Cooking, Smelting, Tanning, Textiles, and Fishing.
Background work for improving salvage has begun, although these changes are not yet ready for player consumption. Players can expect GREATLY improved component “drop rates” from salvage in the future, though the gold values of components received from salvage will be reduced proportionally. Once this work is completed, more details will be revealed. These changes will enable subsequent development work such as increasing the number of items that can be salvaged, and improving what components are obtained when artifacts are salvaged. The aforementioned salvage changes will be tentatively applied throughout R88 and R89.

We hope you enjoy these crafting improvement items. Many more changes to crafting are inbound throughout the year, so keep your crafting tools at the ready, Avatars!

Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

The weekly Community Livestream is Friday, February 26th at 4PM CT on Twitch! Join Chris “Atos” Spears and other members of the development team for a community 1-hour livestream!

To enter the prize drawings, type “love is in the air” into any in-game chat channel OR make a purchase on the website Add-On store. Please submit questions into Twitch Chat by inserting !question at the beginning of your text. Watch on Twitch, Friday at 4 PM CT!

Atos and other members of the Shroud of the Avatar development team go live very frequently on twitch.tv/shroudoftheavatar — be sure to get these channels on follow for notifications so you can join us right as we go live! Also, if you’ve missed our latest streams, check out our archive of content at our YouTube Channel. Like! Follow! Subscribe! Prizes!!!

Don’t forget to also join the Shroud of the Avatar team and community over at all our social media venues:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShroudoftheAvatar/
Catnip Games Twitter: https://twitter.com/catnipgames
Shroud of the Avatar Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShroudofAvatar
Shroud of the Avatar Discord: https://discord.gg/GuBXakQ

Support the Family of CatherineRose!

Avatars! CatherineRose, a beloved member of our community, is going through troubling challenges as one of her family members is battling cancer. If you are able to, please lend their family support during these trying times. Even if you are not able to provide monetary assistance, providing well-wishes, thoughts, and prayers go a long way towards helping a family through such hardships.

An auction run by the Aerie Fund is underway! Interested players can bid upon a Lord of the Isle Bundle in this forum thread. For more information about the auction fundraiser, please also see this thread. All proceeds will go towards the GoFundMe fundraiser supporting Wendy Barry’s fight with cancer.

Also, Thradia with The Avatar Express, has posted information on the forums about portions of this fundraiser. Please see this forum thread for more details.

Weekly Update & Release Cycle Changes!

Through the years, Shroud of the Avatar has maintained an incredibly ambitious Weekly Update and Monthly Release schedule. Now, with 87 Releases behind us, ALL of which were published on-time, the development team has decided to greatly change how we provide game update information to players in an effort to free up more developer time for tasks which improve the game itself.

In the past, the team size was much larger, and therefore more members were available to work administrative tasks such as customer support, community management, and providing game update information. Now that each developer is also capable of working on in-game improvements, content, and bug fixes, we’re changing how we provide information to the players to free up developer time for additional game development.

With this in mind, these are some of the changes players can expect going forward:

Weekly Updates: We no longer will be providing Weekly Updates. Most, if not all of the new game content advertised in these updates were previews of what was to arrive in the upcoming Release, which would later be duplicated in the monthly Release Notes. Even though players can expect occasional singular articles to be published throughout the month as the need arises, large amounts of developer time will become available for higher priority tasks that impact actual gameplay since we are not spending time providing duplicated information.
Monthly Releases: Our monthly release schedule will continue, however we’ll be alternating what is provided by utilizing what we refer to as a “tick-tock” concept. The upcoming release for R88 will be a “tick” and primarily feature game polish, fixes, and improvements, while the following release will be a “tock” and feature more new game content. The polish month (tick) will feature highly abbreviated Release Notes, while the content month (tock) will feature more robust Release Notes similar to what has been provided up to this day.
Patch Notes: To help players visualize what has changed in the game, improvements have been made to our methods for providing updates to the Patch Notes page. Since our work submittals already feature an internal requirement to describe the submittal, an automated method has been devised to export this data into a document that we can routinely paste into the page. As we continue to enhance this process, expect the notes to improve as the developers become accustomed to formatting their submittal descriptions in a more visually appealing and informative fashion.
Community Events: Traditionally, we’ve spotlighted community events in our Weekly and Release Updates, which will be discontinued after this edition of the Release Notes. In the future, if we spot any new events posted by players in the event forums, we will instead post information about these events directly into the Upcoming Events page as we spot them shortly after the event ad was created by the player.
Crown Store Articles: In the future, all New Store Addition articles will forecast the upcoming store items for the entire upcoming month. The current Vault items will no longer be advertised since the process is fully randomized and automatically occurs on a weekly basis. However, if players would like to see a full list of what could appear in the Vault throughout the year, we’ve recently provided this listing which will be updated as new items are added to the Vault rotation.
Stream Schedule: NO CHANGES! We’ll continue to provide the Community Livestreams on our Twitch Channel on a weekly basis (sometimes more often), and we hope these streams continue to improve as we enhance our methods of sharing information.

By freeing up this additional time, we very much hope players enjoy the increased amount of content, fixes, and improvements arriving in the future. We will continue to make improvements to this new version of information sharing, and we’re happy to take feedback at any time about the information we share. So much more to come, Avatars!

Food & Drink Revamp!

For the virtual food and drink lovers in Shroud of the Avatar, a robust update to food and drink buffs has arrived! Through the years and prior to the introduction of the food channel system, many food and drink recipes have entered into the game, much of which did not feature significantly unique purposes or stats, or as the game progressed and players became more powerful, many of the low level foods quickly lost purpose. Eventually, players only expressed interest in a small portion of the food and drink recipes available. Well, all that has changed, gourmets of New Britannia! A revamp of nearly all food and drink buffs has arrived for Release 87!

With this update, an extensive effort has been made to provide a unique and specific purpose to every food recipe. Taking full advantage of the food buff channel system, buffs will now be completely related and balanced to how many buff slots the consumed food occupies. Standardized buff durations will be implemented based upon the slots occupied, and standardized regeneration rates will also be provided across the spectrum. Many buff categories will have at least 3 versions of the buff in amounts relative to the slots occupied, while other buff categories might only have a single offering.

For buff durations, most foods now feature either 1-hour, 2-hour, or 4-hour durations based upon the slots they occupy. Some older, powerful foods (e.g. Dragon Stew, Troll Spare Ribs, and Spicy Phoenix Bites) may deviate from this change and retain their larger durations. Food buffs will occupy one or more slots within the corresponding channel: 1-slot foods (other than starter foods) will last up to 1 hour, 2-slot foods will last 2 hours, and 3-slot foods will last 4 hours (to provide a bit of extra duration for those looking forward to a longer play session). Having useful and scaled buffs attached to 1-channel and 2-channel foods will provide players expecting a shorter play session far more options in which foods they ingest

Similarly, regeneration rates will be greatly standardized. A variety of foods are now categorized as defensive, and provide regeneration rates benefiting health over focus, while other foods are categorized as offensive and benefit focus regeneration more so than health regeneration. Of course, players can mix and match their food intake to provide any variation of buff balancing, so there is no requirement for a player to eat all defensive foods or all offensive foods. Mixing and matching is certainly allowable and encouraged.

6 foods are now also provided that feature increased regen rates as their primary function, so if players would prefer higher amounts of regeneration, they’ll have 1, 2, and 3 slot foods of both offensive and defensive varieties to incorporate into their buff choices.

With standardized concepts in mind, players will likely only need to consider the unique stats the food provides when shopping or crafting, since regeneration and flat rate health and focus provisions are uniform based upon the number of slots the consumable utilizes.

In the same fashion, each food now provides standardized amounts of additional health and focus. Defensive foods provide +25, +50, or +75 additional health depending upon the slots occupied, and offensive foods provide those same numbers to focus based upon the slots occupied. Also, 6 foods provide additional amounts of health and focus as their primary purpose, with 3 for health and 3 for focus being available and to scale with the number of slots occupied.

Players have also come to know that a significant number of crafted foods were also available as loot or can be purchased at an NPC food merchant. All of these items have been removed from merchants and loot to ensure crafting or trade between players is the sole source for every crafted food.

Starter foods have been notoriously useless since their buff durations were so miniscule (1 to 15 minute buffs usually), and their buffs provided little meaning to gameplay. Now, 8 starter foods have been identified and balanced so that all occupy 1 slot, and each feature the standardized regeneration rates and flat rate health or focus typically provided by 1 slot foods, however the durations for starter foods were only increased to 30 minutes.

Players will find these starter foods readily available in loot, for sale on NPC merchants, or even distributed as world decorations which can be stolen, but these 8 starter foods will not be crafted. However, all 8 starter foods will eventually be introduced into crafting as crafting components, so even higher level players can find them beneficial to utilize. Most will recognize the 8 starter foods as common items already available in-game:

Lemon Bun
Short Bread Loaf
Slim Bread Loaf
Braided Bread Loaf
Bread Loaf
Roll
Sugar Cookies
Wheat Bun

As foods were shifted into standardized categories, many “holes” were identified in regards to what buffs are available in the food system across the spectrum. To fill these “holes,” approximately 23 additional food recipes will be introduced to the game for Release 88 on March 25th.

All of these recipes will focus on using underutilized crafting components, and with these recipes only in prototype, there’s still plenty of time for players to provide input on recipe names and ingredients. The proposed names for the upcoming new recipes are as follows, and the names should provide players a significant hint as to what underutilized component will gain new purpose:

Black Cutworm Cupcake
Bone Broth
Cinnamon Cake
Coelacanth Chips
Corpion Cake
Dragon Egg Omelet
Emerald Ash Egg Roll
Entrails and Eggs
Hemlock and Ham
Ichthyosaur Fried Ice Cream
Lard Bread
Nut Butter and Ooze Sandwich
Oozy Omelet
Phoenix Fingers
Pickled Plant Pollen
Plesiosaurus Pie
Pop Crackle Candy
Shadow Slaw
Shadow Snacks
Shark Jerky
Spiced Tea
Tarpon Tart
Trilobite Chomps

Food and drinks with crafting and gathering buffs are now greatly expanded, with no changes being provided to 1 Year Whiskey, 2 Year Whiskey, or 7 Year Whiskey. New buffs available across such recipes are as follows:

Decorated Cake Slice: +50% Cooking Production Time Bonus
Baked Pacu: +5 Fishing Range, 2.5% Bait Recovery, +10 Fishing Skills
25 Year Whiskey: +3% Meticulous Mining Chance
Harvest Wheat Bear: +3% Meticulous Foraging Chance
Obsidian Bacon: +3% Meticulous Field Dressing Chance
Squirrel Stew: +3% Meticulous Forestry Chance

For pet foods, only one change is inbound which is for Fishy Nibblers. Formerly it provided an adventure level buff which is not useful for pet applications, and will instead provide an additional 250 Health to a pet. Also a pesky bug where the food could apply the buff to the character with no pet summoned has been fixed.

Utility foods are also being introduced which either provide additional carry capacity or skill learning bonuses. The foods will be distributed throughout loot, the crafting system, and many can be obtained from a replenishing confections platter periodically available in the Crown Store Vault. Also, the confections platter can now be utilized monthly to receive 4 of these items. These initial utility foods will be as follows:

Bacon (Crafted, +25% Encumbrance Carry Capacity)
Decorated Cupcake (3% Grey Bundles or Replenishing Confections Platter, +25% Skill Learn Bonus)
Elderberry Cream Cheese Sugar Drops (10% Yellow Bundles or Replenishing Confections Platter, +25% Skill Learn Bonus)
Petit Fours (25% Blue Bundles or Replenishing Confections Platter, +25% Skill Learn Bonus)
Thumbprint Cookies (100% Orange Bundles or Replenishing Confections Platter, +25% Skill Learn Bonus)
Slice of Lord British Birthday Cake (Looted in Lord British’s Castle, +100% Skill Learn Bonus)

Very close attention will be paid to the scarcity of components for all food and drink recipes. We realize some of the components are obtained from exceptionally rare drops such as dragon eggs, phoenix talons, sharks, and rare lava fish, but a “feed the village” concept will be utilized when players craft food recipes containing scarce resources. The scarcer the components, the output for the recipes will be increased proportionally. For example, fishing a shark out of salt water is very rare, but, when you do? You’ll be able to “feed the village” in a sense and make many food items to utilize or trade.

Maintaining the scarcity of the drops will still allow trophies and other rare items to keep their value, while providing a modicum of excitement knowing these drops will also provide very significant food output at a crafting table. Balancing of these outputs may take some time to normalize through future game patches, but ultimately we hope they settle upon output levels which makes the food or drink very viable for routine and affordable use. Players can expect scarcity adjustments to go live on R88, with perhaps some patching in during R87.

There were a small number of food and drink items which provided magical resistance bonuses directed at a particular school of magic. These buffs will no longer be available with food or drink consumption, and will instead be provided by various potions being introduced into the alchemy system sometime in the future.

With development time during 2021 being strongly focused upon balance and fixes, this initial work in the food system is only the beginning. Players can expect similar work to address imbalances in other game systems, with uniformity and standardization concepts to be applied throughout. Ultimately, when each side system is balanced, subsequent efforts for balancing can be appropriately applied to the skill trees themselves knowing that all side systems feature an already balanced array of available buffs and categories.

Also, we realize some players could be significantly inconvenienced when their favorite foods or drinks have been adjusted to provide different buffs amounts, durations, regeneration rates, health, focus, slot numbers, or even a shift into an entirely new buff category. We implore with the community to please understand the importance of these balancing efforts and to work with us by providing constructive feedback and suggestions.

For those wishing to participate in feedback for the upcoming changes, please do so in this forum post. Please understand that all adjustment passes are not yet complete, the potential changes to recipe difficulty or output are not complete, and the team is very interested in hearing feedback from the community.

We hope players come to enjoy the expanded food buff system. Our efforts aim to provide an improved crafting, gathering, and buff selection experience while also affording a much larger breadth of useful food and drink recipes throughout the game. More balance efforts will be introduced in coming months, so stay tuned!

Additional Game Updates!

Below are a list of additional game updates that are live as of R87. This list is generated from an automated process which captures description information from our routine work submittals. We’ll be working to improve the formatting of these descriptions in the future, but using this automated process allows for us to truly capture every change as well as saving considerable amount of developer time. Please be patient with us as we work to improve this process.

Fixed an issue with fireplace recipes
Adjust drops for T10 and T15 reagent resource nodes
Adjusted gathering chances and added GM bonus
Refined gems and jewels may now be fractured
Damage sources that do less than 1 point of damage will no longer break stealth
Sap will now require a melee weapon (not ranged)
Auto attacks will no longer target a stealthed player. Active attacks/spells will have a greatly reduced attack angle and distance
Scenes may now show custom backgrounds for the load screen
The Breach will now have more air elementals that spawn faster
Vrul will no longer be attacked by undead
POT Lightbringer Isle: Added new metropolis north of Brittany
POT Greymorn: Added new POT northwest of Brittany
POT Haven Ridge: Upgraded to Crossroads Village from Village
POT Jagged Hold: Changed biome to Forest 01b and upgraded to Municipality
Blood Bay: Players that can survive at the top of either volcano may find it possible to do some lava fishing
Overworld Boats: Added better LODs to some boats used in the overworld scenes
Kobold Expeditionary Camp: Improved some kobold commander responses and improved how a related task archives itself
Well of Aldur: Updated the reset settings for a treasure chest
Well of Aldur: Added a minor jumping puzzle
Ardoris: Improved the logic for the Students of Virtue quest. Added compass markers
Grunvald Shardfall: Adjusted NavMesh data to improve how NPCs move through the scene
Northwest Blackblade Mountains: Jumping into the well that leads to Bunker C will auto-teleport the player to that location
Hills Encounter: Created a new “dragon” scenario that can appear on all three overworlds
Owl’s Head: Updated some logic for the quest from Morgan to discredit Myra. Added compass markers
Shaminian Hills: Adjusted temple architecture to block players from squeezing through certain tight holes
South Majestic Forest: Updated stairs on Preben’s house to better accommodate NPC walking
Spectral Mines: Fixed an issue that prevented an ore node from being mined
Middle Downs: Fixed a stuck spot on a mound
Eastmarch: Fixed typos in responses from the devotional caretakers
South Hinterlands: Fixed a rug that was poking through a wall
Well of Aldur: Fixed an issue with missing collision on a wall
Tanglemire: Updated tiered resource nodes (cotton, garlic, trees, ore, and mandrake) to ensure they are all tier 10
Maple Trees and Pine Trees: Adjusted the LODs to stop a “split” from appearing at close distance
Ruined Keep: Adjusted a section of the terrain where trolls were having navigation issues
Wynton’s Folly: Players selecting the East Entrance option when entering from Hidden Vale will now arrive at the correct location
Obsidian Keep Tops: Updated the collision at the top of these custom prefabs
Snowy Tundra Encounter: Added a floating crystal node to the ground
Well of Aldur: Fixed several collision issues. Blocked off a “stuck spot”
Soltown: Improved the method of archiving the “Tell Abigail About Charlotte” task when talking with Abigail
Bunker C: Fixed a stuck spot in the lava pool
Solania Catacombs: In the daemon chamber, added teleporters that are active only when the wave battle is not ongoing
Highvale Outskirts: Updated some of the doors in the monastery. Updated some of Esmeralda’s responses
Jaanaford: Players will now “unlock” Thibodeaux’s name when she shares it with them
Novia: Added a compass marker at Kiln for the “Ask About Bonesteel in Kiln” task
Brookside: Players entering from the lunar rift will now unlock the town crier compass marker
The ONBE title will now include a Dame option
Fishy Nibblers no longer applies to the character when a tamed pet is not available
Adjusted Confections Platter to monthly
Slice of LB Birthday Cake no longer labelled as Premium nor No Trade since being introduced to loot at LB’s Castle, but will have a chance to drop in PvP
Improved tooltip descriptions for Shrines by adding mention of attunement bonuses provided
Fixed typo in Citrine (Unrefined Gemstone) display name.
Increased spider eye drop amount T8 through T15 spiders
Disabled Shrine size scaling. Enlarged buff fields for each Shrine and recentered so rotating Shrines does not affect availability of buff field
All 3 of the new off-hand artifacts (15 items Common to Epic) now properly display female characters
Significantly increased drop rates of taming artifacts on destroyer animals
Added an additional loot table for destroyer animals to have increased amounts of hides, suet, and entrails
Heart Heraldry Shield pattern should now properly apply to items
Improved loot drops for Envy Bow and Quiver
Reworked visuals for the Ankh of Sacrifice and Ankh of Wala fto include the new shrine visual effects
Added a small chance to get the Shrine of Gaiaism recipe to Sand Elementals
Well of Aldur: Added splash screen to load scene info
Well of Aldur: Some improvements to unreleased nested scene.
Jotungrund: Creating and improving unreleased showy expanse scene.

Avatar’s Update #421: Food & Drink Revamp & Balancing Inbound! Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

February 19, 2021

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Food and drink changes are inbound for Release 87, hungry adventurers! Expect every food and drink consumable to have a specific purpose and each to be scaled and balanced with all foods and drinks available. For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Food & Drink Revamp & Balancing Inbound!

For the virtual food and drink lovers in Shroud of the Avatar, a robust update to food and drink buffs is inbound! Through the years and prior to the introduction of the food channel system, many food and drink recipes have entered into the game, much of which did not feature significantly unique purposes or stats, or as the game progressed and players became more powerful, many of the low level foods quickly lost purpose. Eventually, players only expressed interest in a small portion of the food and drink recipes available. Well, all that is about to change, gourmets of New Britannia! A revamp of nearly all food and drink buffs will arrive on February 25th for Release 87!

For buff durations, other than some deviations in regards to some of the older powerful foods such as Dragon Stew, Troll Spare Ribs, and Spicy Phoenix Bites, almost all foods will feature either 1, 2 or 4 hour durations based upon the slots they occupy. 1 slot foods will last 1 hour, and 2 slot foods will last 2 hours. 3 slot foods will last 4 hours to provide a bit of extra duration for those looking forward to a longer play session. Having useful and scaled buffs attached to 1 and 2 channel foods will provide players expecting a shorter play session far more options in which foods they imbibe.

6 foods will also be provided that feature increased regen rates as their primary function, so if players would prefer higher amounts of regeneration, they’ll have 1, 2, and 3 slot foods of both offensive and defensive varieties to incorporate into their buff choices.

In the same fashion, each food will provide standardized amounts of additional health and focus. Defensive foods will provide +25, +50, or +75 additional health depending upon the slots occupied, and offensive foods will provide those same numbers to focus based upon the slots occupied. Also, 6 foods will provide additional amounts of health and focus as their primary purpose, with 3 for health and 3 for focus being available and to scale with the number of slots occupied.

Players have also come to know that a significant number of crafted foods were also available as loot or can be purchased at an NPC food merchant. All of these items will be removed from merchants and loot to ensure crafting or trade between players is the sole source for every crafted food.

Starter foods have been notoriously useless since their buff durations were so miniscule (1 to 15 minute buffs usually), and their buffs provided little meaning to gameplay. Now, 8 starter foods have been identified and balanced so that all occupy 1 slot, and each will feature the standardized regeneration rates and flat rate health or focus typically provided by 1 slot foods, however the durations for starter foods were only increased to 30 minutes.

Lemon Bun
Short Bread Loaf
Slim Bread Loaf
Braided Bread Loaf
Bread Loaf
Roll
Sugar Cookies
Wheat Bun

As foods were shifted into standardized categories, many “holes” were identified in regards to what buffs are available in the food system across the spectrum of slots and categories. To fill these “holes”, approximately 23 additional food recipes will be introduced to the game for Release 88 on March 25th.

All of these recipes will focus on using underutilized crafting components, and with these recipes only in prototype, there’s still plenty of time for players to provide input on recipe names and components. The proposed names for the upcoming new recipes are as follows, and the names should provide players a significant hint as to what underutilized component will gain new purpose:

Black Cutworm Cupcake
Bone Broth
Cinnamon Cake
Coelacanth Chips
Corpion Cake
Corpion Cutlets
Dragon Egg Omelet
Emerald Ash Egg Roll
Entrails and Eggs
Hemlock and Ham
Ichthyosaur Ice Cream
Lard Bread
Nut Butter and Ooze Sandwich
Oozy Omelet
Phoenix Fingers
Pickled Plant Pollen
Plesiosaurus Pie
Shadow Slaw
Shadow Snacks
Sharkfin Soup
Tarpon Tart
Trilobite Chomps
Turkey and Sinew Chewies

Food and drinks with crafting and gathering buffs are to be greatly expanded, with no changes being provided to 1 Year Whiskey, 2 Year Whiskey, or 7 Year Whiskey. New buffs becoming available in R87 across such recipes are as follows:

Decorated Cake Slice: +50% Cooking Production Time Bonus
Baked Pacu: +5 Fishing Range, 2.5% Bait Recovery, +10 Fishing Skills
25 Year Whiskey: +3% Meticulous Mining Chance
Harvest Wheat Bear: +3% Meticulous Foraging Chance
Obsidian Bacon: +3% Meticulous Field Dressing Chance
Squirrel Stew: +3% Meticulous Forestry Chance

Bacon (Crafted, +25% Encumbrance Carry Capacity)
Decorated Cupcake (3% Grey Bundles or Replenishing Confections Platter, +25% Skill Learn Bonus)
Elderberry Cream Cheese Sugar Drops (10% Yellow Bundles or Replenishing Confections Platter, +25% Skill Learn Bonus)
Petit Fours (25% Blue Bundles or Replenishing Confections Platter, +25% Skill Learn Bonus)
Thumbprint Cookies (100% Orange Bundles or Replenishing Confections Platter, +25% Skill Learn Bonus)
Slice of Lord British Birthday Cake (Looted in Lord British’s Castle, +100% Skill Learn Bonus)

Avatar’s Update #420: Community Recognition Program Returns! Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

February 12, 2021

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

The time has come, Avatars! So many fantastic community members have shined in the past year, many of which have never received recognition for their hard work and dedication. Well, now the recognition program is back! For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Community Recognition Program Returns!

Greetings Avatars! This is a very important week in New Britannia. For many years, the developers of Shroud of the Avatar have routinely awarded titles, plaques, and medals to outstanding community members in a way to thank them for their hard work and dedication. This program has lapsed this past year, but now it is back!

Lord British and the Royal Court of New Britannia will be presenting awards to various recipients during today’s Friday Livestream. Wash that troll blood off your hands, put on your ceremony finery and meet us at Arabella’s Castle at 4PM CT if you would like to attend within the game. Also, please join us today for the Friday, February 12th Livestream at 4PM CT on Twitch to congratulate new award recipients as we broadcast the ceremony.

For those that are unfamiliar with the program, here is a breakdown of the 3 awards to be routinely provided to exceptional community members and organizations:

Order of the New Britannia Empire (ONBE): The ONBE is awarded to individual community members of Shroud of the Avatar. Lord British bestows this medal upon stellar community members for their positive contributions to the game and community. The community nominates these outstanding individuals for their efforts within a wide variety of supportive activities such as: creation of player resources, community leadership, new player support, and much more! Recipients of the ONBE are awarded the Knight of New Britannia title, an actual medal to wear outside of the game, and a digital version of the medal to display within the game.
DarkStarr Medallion of Chaos (Chaos Medal): This award is given by DarkStarr to “chaotic members” of the Shroud of the Avatar community. Unlike its virtuous counterpart, this award is given chaotically to community members whom DarkStarr deems worthy at in-game events. As one would expect, there are no rules or guidelines in how Darkstarr determines the recipients, but we assure you, with the chaotic forces at his disposal, he puts much consideration and effort into selecting the recipients most deserving. Recipients of the Chaos Medal are awarded the Chaotic of New Britannia title, an actual medal to wear outside the game, and a digital version of the medal to display within the game.
Royal Warrant: The Royal Warrant is awarded to outstanding community groups for their positive contributions to the game and community. Players nominate these outstanding groups for their collective contributions to projects, group activities, community events, and more. Recipients of the Royal Warrant are awarded an actual plaque to display outside of the game, and a digital version is also provided to display within the game.

More information will be released about the recognition program in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

Avatar’s Update #419: Upcoming Developer Community Events! Latest New Q&A Friday Livestream!

February 5, 2021

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

The developers of Shroud of the Avatar will be making some changes to the fishing tourney events which we have held weekly for the past 40 weeks, and we’ll be introducing 2 additional developer community event concepts. Lots of fun and prizes inbound! For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Upcoming Developer Community Events!

During the next 3 weeks there will be major changes to the Weekly Catnip Games Fishing Tourney, and we will be adding two additional events in hopes to capture interest of a wider player base. What? Not everyone loves fishing? Hard to believe, but worry not non-anglers of New Britannia! Two additional event varieties will be coming soon to a Community Events page near you.

Monthly Screenshot & Video Contest: A new screenshot and video contest will be fully announced during the upcoming week which will feature a large number of valuable prizes. The focus will be for players to submit creative or informative screenshots and videos of content introduced to the game during the latest 3 monthly releases.
- Videos must be of 720p quality or greater and posted on a popular social media outlet, and images must be in 1920×1080 resolution and hide the UI. All submissions must be embedded into responses in an upcoming forum thread which will appear in the community events and screenshot forums early next week (where we’ll also be taking feedback about the contest).
- The full contest details will be posted in the forums next week. The event will officially start on the day of Release 87, and initial subject matter considered must feature R87, R86, or R85 content items.
- The prizes will be as follows:
  - 1st Place Video: Player-Owned Town Town Lot Deed
  - 2nd Place Video: Player-Owned Town Village Lot Deed
  - 3rd Place Video: Player-Owned Town Row Lot Deed
  - 1st Place Screenshot: Player-Owned Town Town Lot Deed
  - 2nd Place Screenshot: Player-Owned Town Village Lot Deed
  - 3rd Place Screenshot: Player-Owned Town Row Lot Deed
- Winning entries will be posted throughout our media venues, and each winner will also receive a Master of the Arts in-game title. As long as submissions feature content of the 3 spotlighted releases, they will be considered during each month they remain eligible.
Monthly Rare Item Bounties: In 2 weeks, we will announce a new bounty type event which encourage players of Shroud of the Avatar to seek rare drops throughout two designated scenes which will be identified monthly. One scene will be PvP and coincide with the fishing tourney PvP location. The other scene will be PvE and differ from the fishing locations.
- All prize decisions are still being finalized, but will be appealing enough to attract players to these scenes. For the developers, these item bounty events will be very informative and could provide valuable insight into leaderboard improvements in the future. Also, as players adventure in these scenes, we will be attempting to provide targeted loot improvements to the spotlighted scenes based upon player feedback.
- The event details will be posted in the forums prior to R87 so players can prepare, and the official start date of this event series will be on the day of Release 87. Also, Master of Collections and Master of Mayhem titles will be provided to the PvE and PvP winners, respectively. More details to come, Avatars!
Catnip Games Fishing Tourney Changes: To be fully announced on the day of Release 87 (February 25th), the fishing event will be changing to a monthly format. We’ll be increasing the number of scenes in which the event will take place, and the prizes will be adjusted. We will continue with the weekly tourney as designed until release day, but full details about the upcoming changes will begin to appear early in this forum thread so players, governors, and stewards can prepare. Please post suggestions in the same thread, and they will be taken into consideration.

We look forward to your feedback as we release the details for each event in the coming weeks. The commencement of these events on the day of Release 87 should provide an additional and interesting mix of community activities available to players going forward.

Also, we’re likely to discontinue the provision of participation trophies for such events and use this developer time for loot improvements and bug fixes. Instead, we will deliver rewards to random non-winners so even players with small amounts of available time to participate will still have a significant chance to win something. To encourage more spin-off events, we will be offering a larger variety of trophies to event holders upon request (each trophy available will be announced as well), so that they may distribute them to participants of their spin-off contest according to their unique rule sets.

Get your fishing poles, weapons, and cameras ready, Avatars! So much more is coming your way in 2021, so stay tuned!

Avatar’s Update #418: Play Release 86 Now! New Adventure Scene: The Well of Aldur! New Gear Pattern Flexibility & So Much More!!! Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

January 28, 2021

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

To herald in 2021, the first release of the new year brings players of Shroud of the Avatar a robust offering of wonderful new content items, decorations, and other game updates. A new adventure scene has been been added, an extensive revamp of how gear patterns function is now live, a new decoration type that buffs players with magical attunement is now available, dragon eggs now drop as loot which can be crafted into Baby Dragon Conversationalists, and Public Cache Chests have received additional variations! For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

New Adventure Scene: The Well of Aldur!

New Britannians! A mystical and mysterious adventure scene is now live and available to players of Shroud of the Avatar. “The Well of Aldur” is a scene for Episode 2 Access holders which features a variety of activities to challenge even the most stalwart of Avatars! World builders List Rostov and Sannio both worked hard on this wondrously ethereal adventure scene, which is now available! Sannio has shared a small teaser for what to expect:

“High above the mountain peaks of Mistrendur floats the crumbling remains of a civilization whose origins are lost to time. Only the greatest adventurers will decipher the secrets, survive the threats, and discover the true nature of the Well of Aldur.”

Players can expect a variety of challenges, including crystal-powered sky-movers, jumping puzzles, and wave battles. One of the wave battles includes new mechanics and new unique loot for the scene. And beware, engaging in combat upon one of the platforms within the scene could draw out Suutak, Master of Tempests! May the Virtues guide thee on your adventures within… The Well of Aldur!

Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

The weekly Community Livestream is Friday, January 29th at 4PM CT on Twitch! Join Chris “Atos” Spears and other members of the development team for a community 1 hour livestream!

To enter the prize drawings, type “2021 is gonna rock” into any in-game chat channel OR make a purchase on the website add-on store. Please submit questions into Twitch Chat by inserting !question at the beginning of your text. Watch on Twitch, Friday at 4 PM CT!

Don’t forget to also join the Shroud of the Avatar team and community over at all our social media venues:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ShroudoftheAvatar/
Catnip Games Twitter: https://twitter.com/catnipgames
Shroud of the Avatar Twitter: https://twitter.com/ShroudofAvatar
Shroud of the Avatar Discord: https://discord.gg/GuBXakQ

Upcoming Gear Patterns Flexibility!

Gear Patterns in Shroud of the Avatar, up to this point, have been considerably restrictive in how players could apply them to gear. For instance, a 1-Handed Longsword Pattern would only apply to other 1-Handed Longswords, or a cloth helm pattern would only apply to a cloth helm. The list goes on, but this list will get considerably less complicated going forward! As of Release 86, gear patterns are now much less restrictive!

Category Restrictions Simplified: Below is a list of categories which will remain. Any item within that category will accept a pattern from another item within the same category.
- Bludgeon 1-Handed
- Bludgeon 2-Handed
- Blades 1-Handed
- Blades 2-Handed
- Polearm 1-Handed
- Polearm 2-Handed
- Bows
- Crossbows
- Shields
- Head Slot
- Back Slot
- Chest Slot
- Gloves Slot
- Legs Slot
- Feet Slot
Artifacts: Most of these elusive treasures scattered through out the realms will now accept all patterns available within the same gear slot. For instance, an artifact chest piece will accept ANY pattern for a chest piece.

Also, with many visuals for off-hand items already available, and 3 more off-hand artifacts having just been introduced for R86 with the new Shrines of Attunement, expect some off-hand item patterns on the horizon as well! We hope players enjoy this extra flexibility with gear patterns. We will be introducing many more patterns in the future, so expect additional options for character customization shortly.

Shrines of Attunement!

Avatars! With the unveiling of The Well of Aldur, an entirely new statue type has been discovered throughout New Britannia–Shrines of Attunement! These powerful and crafted statues utilize 9 related off-hand artifacts to craft (3 of which have been introduced with this release), which provide 3-day attunement buffs for any character which steps into their aura. These buffs are on their own separate buff channel, and 2 buffs can be simultaneously utilized. Significant loot improvements have resulted, and more use has been made for a variety of underutilized crafting components or loot drop locations. The 9 required off-hand artifacts to craft these shrines have either been created as new, received visual effect enhancements, increased loot drop chances, and/or received significant stat bonus adjustments. Here’s a breakdown of the artifact updates:

Ankh of Wala (Sun Magic, Atenism): This odd little artifact appears as a golden ankh. Why the powers of Atenism were infused into a golden symbol for life magic? That is a story for another time. Users of the Ankh of Wala can expect some improved visuals. This item’s attunement power has been significantly reduced yet still provides more attunement than many of its off-hand brethren. Also, the reagent consumption penalties have been removed, and fizzle reduction has been added. Drop rates for this artifact have been increased, and players have the best chances to receive one by defeating a phoenix (which also drop talons more frequently now).
Heart of Vrul (Chaos Magic): The Heart of Vrul is an intriguing artifact that drops from Daemons and can be used on its own or crafted into the Warlock’s Chain. Now, players can use the Heart of Vrul to craft the Shrine of Chaos, and it has received visual touch-ups utilizing Chaos Magic visual effects.
Gaia’s Heart (Earth Magic, Gaiaism): This artifact, glowing green with the powers of earth magic, now drops more frequently, received a bug fix (common attunement was equal to uncommon attunement, now scales), and no longer provides a negative attunement penalty to Air Magic. This item has not received an appearance update.
Aether Orb (Moon Magic, Lunaism): The Aether Orb has been an extremely rare artifact, most readily obtainable during the seasonal coming of the comet when the aether creatures reenter our realm. The magical buffs on this item tie it in directly with Moon and Water magic, but slight adjustments have been made to increase the amount of moon magic attunement provided, and the featured water magic attunement has been slightly decreased to provide more significance to the Frozen Tear of Titans. Drop rates for the Aether Orb have been increased, especially amongst the applicable aether creatures, and rumor has spread that Shadow creatures now have a chance to drop common versions of this artifact. This item has received visual enhancements, and also a bug fix has ensured the epic versions scale for attack speed. The epic version now features 15% Attack Speed, instead of 12.5%, which was already featured on the legendary version.
Anapa’s Favor – NEW! (Death Magic, Necromancy): This new off-hand artifact has stunning visuals and drops from a large variety of lich casters or bosses. Anapa’s Favor provides death magic attunement, intelligence, and fizzle reduction. Upgrade recipes are discoverable, but can also be found in Grey Supply Bundles.
Vexlyn’s Spark – NEW! (Fire Magic, Sorcery): This new ominous looking Fire Magic artifact has been added to Lord British’s Castle and Xvara (Fire Boss) loot tables. Fire elementals throughout the lands also have small chances to drop this artifact. Vexlyn’s Spark provides fire magic attunement, intelligence, and fizzle reduction. Upgrade recipes are discoverable, but can also be found in Grey Supply Bundles.
Frozen Tear of Titans (Water Magic, Tempestry): This artifact has received improved visuals, and the negative fire magic attunement penalty has been removed. The artifact now also features ice and water elemental power bonuses to make the summoned creatures in that school more appealing. Expect to find this artifact more frequently, and even common versions have a chance to drop amongst water and ice elementals throughout the lands.
Ankh of Sacrifice (Life Magic, Thaumaturgy): The Ankh of Sacrifice has received visual improvements, and the reagent consumption penalties have been removed. Also, a fizzle reduction bonus has been added. The amount of life magic attunement has been reduced, but is still far greater than many of it’s off-hand artifact brethren featuring attunement bonuses. Drop rates for this artifact have been increased, especially in regards to common versions, and elven mages now have a chance to drop Ankhs of Sacrifice.
Suutak’s Bluster – NEW! (Air Magic, Theurgy): This spectacular orb of air magic has been discovered in The Well of Aldur, the new adventure scene introduced this release! The Well of Aldur features the greatest chances to receive common, uncommon, and rare versions of this artifact. Air elementals throughout the lands have also received small chances to drop common versions of this artifact. Suutak’s Bluster provides air magic attunement, intelligence, and fizzle reduction. Upgrade recipes are discoverable, but can also be found in Grey Supply Bundles.

Each shrine can be crafted at a blacksmithing station, and the recipes drop at locations indicated in the list below. Each recipe features common components between them (such as Ancient Essences, Bronze Ingots, and the rare version of the related artifacts), but underutilized ingredients have also been added to each recipe. These recipes are considered to be highly difficult, so expect some significant effort involved to obtain all the elusive components required to craft them. These shrines can be placed as property or Player-Owned Town decoration, the buffs last for 3 days each, and 2 different shrine buffs can be utilized simultaneously. Here are more details about the 9 Shrines of Attunement:

Shrine of Atenism (+15 Sun Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires a Phoenix Talon and Atenism Gems. The non-teachable shrine recipe drops from the phoenix.
Shrine of Chaos (+15 Chaos Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires Ground Daemon Hoof and Obsidian Chips. The non-teachable shrine recipe drops from Daemons.
Shrine of Gaiaism (+15 Earth Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires Pure Elemental Sand and Gaiaism Gems. The non-teachable shrine recipe drops from earth, sand, and lava elementals.
Shrine of Lunaism (+15 Moon Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires Shadow Essences and Lunaism Gems. The non-teachable shrine recipe drops from Shadow Creatures.
Shrine of Necromancy (+15 Death Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires a Dragon Skull and Necromancy Gems. The non-teachable shrine recipe drops from Lich bosses.
Shrine of Sorcery (+15 Fire Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires a Red Dragon Egg and Sorcery Gems. The non-teachable shrine recipe drops in Lord British’s Castle.
Shrine of Tempestry (+15 Water Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires an uncommon Ring of Water and Tempestry Gems. The non-teachable shrine recipe drops from water elementals in The Well of Aldur.
Shrine of Thaumaturgy (+15 Life Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires an uncommon Ring of Life and Thaumaturgy Gems. The non-teachable shrine recipe can be found in destructible crates.
Shrine of Theurgy (+15 Air Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires an uncommon Ring of Air and Theurgy Gems. The non-teachable shrine recipe can be found in The Well of Aldur.

As more artifacts roll out into the world of New Britannia, crafters amongst the ranks of Avatars might have some concerns about lessening the significance of crafted items. Rest assured, plans to allow more artifacts to be broken down into components (such as Torq’Dawl’s Basher and Slicer) are still very much in planning, and underutilized gathered/looted components will continue to be featured in upcoming recipes to add to their value.

We hope you enjoy the new Shrines of Attunement! Keep an eye out for a plethora of new crafting recipes in the future, providing love to all aspects of loot, gear slot/type, and gatherers. Also, masters of Combat and Strategy skills won’t be left out! Similar concepts for buffing skills in these trees through use of shrine type decorations will make their way into the game in the future.

Weather Control Devices Incoming!

Work is well underway to provide governors and stewards a means to alter the weather and even biome of their Player-Owned Town (POT). The new tech is finished, and the related decoration items are being created which utilize this feature. The existing Moontower decoration will be the first to receive this tech, a change which will patch in shortly after release, with many more weather altering decoration items to follow. Many of these devices will be premium store items, but players can definitely expect some weather varieties to be altered from looted and/or crafted items.

Dragon Eggs & Baby Dragon Conversationalists!

New loot items have been added to all the loot tables for chromatic dragons — dragon eggs! These rare drops from each dragon work nicely as decorations, but can also be taken to your alchemy table to hatch the egg. Upon success, these rare eggs are converted into Baby Dragon Conversationalists! These conversationalists can be scaled in size from 0.5 to 1.3 to help players depict a larger age range between their hatchlings.

Conversationalist, Black Baby Dragon
Conversationalist, Blue Baby Dragon
Conversationalist, Green Baby Dragon
Conversationalist, Orange Baby Dragon
Conversationalist, Purple Baby Dragon
Conversationalist, Red Baby Dragon
Conversationalist, White Baby Dragon
Conversationalist, Yellow Baby Dragon

For more information on how to “craft” these conversationalists, players must first seek Kaiser, the NPC located near the entrance of Ulfheim. Kaiser can provide a book of knowledge which describes nuances for each recipe and provides hints to where players can obtain each recipe.

As we continue to expand the free offerings of conversationalists in the game, we hope players continue to enjoy the ever growing variety afforded to the conversation system. So many more conversationalists will be added in the future, so get your stories ready, Avatars!

Public Cache Chest Varieties!

Many players of Shroud of the Avatar utilize in-game decorations in their towns and properties to tell a story or to enhance their in-game events. Public Cache Chests have always been a fantastic resource for sharing inventory items with other players, but unfortunately have been limited to two very large chests, which does not suit all needs for public cache containers. Besides simple storage, here’s a list of some of the common uses for these chests we’ve witnessed in years past:

Sharing Gear & Resources
Player-Created Treasure Hunting Events
Player-Created Quest Rewards
Contest Entry Collections & Prize Distribution

Although there are likely many other creative uses for public cache containers, we hope to expand the appeal of these items by offering a much larger variety in sizes and appearances. Here are some of the future updates for public access containers, some of which arrived today with Release 86:

Immersive Varieties: 3 varieties of corpse/coffin containers are now available as of Release 86 to aid players with storytelling in our wondrous yet dangerous world of New Britannia! The dead villager versions are looted from many creatures which could easily swallow a villager whole, and the coffin variety is crafted.
Crafted Varieties: The above mentioned coffin is the first crafted public cache container, with many more to follow in the releases ahead! A new “wildflower” quest that results in the player getting a coffin recipe has been added to Spindelskog.
Smaller Varieties: There will be a variety of small public cache containers which will certainly take less shelf space, but these smaller varieties will also add a significant improvement to player-created treasure hunting ventures. Those large original cache chests are simply too easy to spot from a distance for treasure hunting and player quests!
Fancy Premium Varieties: Most definitely we’ll have more varieties of these items on the Crown Store, which will feature larger storage space as well as ornate or special qualities.

As we continue to expand our offerings for how players share gear and resources with other players, we hope to improve the overall guild, player quest, and inventory sharing experiences throughout the community.

Avatar’s Update #417: Public Cache Chest Varieties Incoming! Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

January 22, 2021

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Many players of Shroud of the Avatar utilize Public Cache Chests as a means to provide other players easy access to resources, loot, prizes, and even player quest rewards. In Release 86, the first batch of new public cache containers are set to arrive! For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Public Cache Chest Varieties Incoming!

Many players of Shroud of the Avatar utilize in-game decorations in their towns and properties to tell a story or to enhance their in-game events. Public Cache Chests have always been a fantastic resource for sharing inventory items with other players, but unfortunately have been limited to two very large chests in appearance, which does not suit all needs for such items. Besides simple storage, here’s a list of some of the common uses for these chests we’ve witnessed in years past:

Sharing Gear & Resources
Player-Created Treasure Hunting Events
Player-Created Quest Rewards
Contest Entry Collections & Prize Distribution

Albeit there are likely many other creative uses for public cache containers, we hope to expand the appeal of these items by offering a much larger variety in sizes and appearances. Here are some of the future updates for public access containers, some of which will arrive as early as Release 86 on January 28th:

Immersive Varieties: 3 varieties of corpse/coffin containers will arrive on R86 to aid players with storytelling in our wondrous yet dangerous world of New Britannia!
Crafted Varieties: The above mentioned coffin will be the first crafted public cache container, with many more to follow in the releases ahead!
Smaller Varieties: There will be a variety of small public cache containers which will certainly take less shelf space, but these smaller varieties will also add a significant improvement to player-created treasure hunting ventures. Those large original cache chests are simply too easy to spot for treasure hunting and player quests!
Fancy Premium Varieties: Most definitely we’ll have more varieties of these items on the Crown Store, which will feature larger storage space as well as ornate or special qualities.

Avatar’s Update #416: Upcoming Gear Patterns Flexibility! Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

January 15, 2021

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Gear Patterns in Shroud of the Avatar will receive a plethora of adjustments, Avatars! Expect them to become far more flexible with Release 86! Be sure to also review the Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Upcoming Gear Patterns Flexibility!

Gear Patterns in Shroud of the Avatar, up to this point, have been considerably restrictive in how players could apply them to gear. For instance, a 1-Handed Longsword Pattern would only apply to other 1-Handed Longswords, or a cloth helm pattern would only apply to a cloth helm. The list goes on, but this list will get considerably less complicated going forward! These changes should arrive in Release 86 or soon after!

Category Restrictions Simplified: Below is a list of categories which will remain. Any item within that category will accept a pattern from the same category.
- Bludgeon 1-Handed
- Bludgeon 2-Handed
- Blades 1-Handed
- Blades 2-Handed
- Polearm 1-Handed
- Polearm 2-Handed
- Bows
- Crossbows
- Shields
- Head Slot
- Back Slot
- Chest Slot
- Gloves Slot
- Legs Slot
- Feet Slot
Artifacts: These elusive treasures scattered through out the realms will soon accept all patterns available within the same gear slot. For instance, an artifact chest piece will accept ANY pattern for a chest piece.

With many visuals for off-hand items already available, with even more coming very soon (hint hint), expect some off-hand item patterns on the horizon as well! We hope players enjoy this extra flexibility with gear patterns. We will be introducing many more patterns in the future, so expect additional options for character customization shortly.

Developers continue to work hard to bring new features, content, and fixes to reveal on January 28th for Release 86! Of the new or improved items coming to players, development is still on schedule to launch the new “Well of Aldur” adventure scene. Corpses and coffin decorations are inbound, some to be found as loot, some to be crafted at your Carpentry tables! Also, at least 8 new crafted conversationalists are coming, which feature 8 related decoration items and crafting recipes! New crafted and premium scroll decorations are coming to offer players more variety in publishing their great literary works! And most certainly a slew of new Quality of Life improvements will also be in the mix. Release 86 is going to be a great one, Avatars, so don’t miss out!

Avatar’s Update #415: Homes & Lord of the Isle Bundle Sales Continue! Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

January 8, 2021

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Lord of the Isle Bundles and Player Homes remain on sale for a limited time! For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Homes & Lord of the Isle Bundle Sales Continue!

In continued celebration of the holidays, the following sales have been extended! Homes will continue to be on sale until January 11th, and The Lord of the Isle (LOTI) Bundles (9-16) will remain on sale until the end of the month. Upon reaching the end of the month, all LOTI bundles will be removed from the webstore and will no longer be offered.

Crown Store Homes 25% Off!
Lord of the Isle Bundles (9-16) 25% Off!

In the future, players can expect new bundle offerings of much smaller varieties. Plans to create these bundles are already underway, so stay tuned!

In the coming weeks, developers will continue working hard to bring new features, content, and fixes to reveal on January 28th for Release 86! Of the new or improved items coming to players, development is still on schedule to launch the new “Well of Aldur” adventure scene. Also, at least 8 new crafted conversationalists are coming, which feature 8 related decoration items and crafting recipes! New crafted and premium scroll decorations are coming to offer players more variety in publishing their great literary works! And most certainly a slew of new Quality of Life improvements will also be in the mix. Release 86 is going to be a great one, Avatars, so don’t miss out!