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

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:

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.

New Store Additions: Circling Dragons, String Lights, Ambient Sounds, & Holiday Items!

Many new store items are coming your way in the month ahead! Keep an eye out each week as the following items become available in the Crown Store:

Available today on February 25th, these ceiling string lights count as 2 light sources:

  • Ceiling Blue Paper Lantern String 3-Pack
  • Ceiling Red Paper Lantern String 3-Pack
  • Ceiling White Paper Lantern String 3-Pack
  • Ceiling Yellow Paper Lantern String 3-Pack

Becoming available on March 5th, this platter provides 4 Skill Learning Speed food items per month:

  • Replenishing Confections Platter

Becoming available on March 12th, these dragons are Player-Owned Town (POT) decorations only and count as 5 decoration items each:

  • Circling Black Dragon 3-Pack
  • Circling Blue Dragon 3-Pack
  • Circling Green Dragon 3-Pack
  • Circling Orange Dragon 3-Pack
  • Circling Purple Dragon 3-Pack
  • Circling Red Dragon 3-Pack
  • Circling White Dragon 3-Pack
  • Circling Yellow Dragon 3-Pack

Becoming available on March 19th, these ambient sound items can only be placed in a basement or dungeon:

  • Ambient Sound 3-Pack: Cave Sounds 1
  • Ambient Sound 3-Pack: Cave Sounds 2
  • Ambient Sound 3-Pack: Cave Sounds 3

Last week, 3 varieties of flowerbeds became available on the store. Some may recognize the Flax Flowerbed which is finally making its store debut, and it was formerly called Flowerbed A. Happy gardening, Avatars!

  • Sunflower Flowerbed
  • Anemone Flowerbed
  • Flax Flowerbed

Also, with Valentine’s Day upon us, a large variety of holiday items have returned to the store. Some will appear in the Vault throughout the coming weeks, and others will be available on the store until March 7th!

  • Breathe Hearts Emote
  • 2016 Cupid Ensemble
  • 2016 Cupid Heart Cloak
  • Blank Valentine’s Day 2016 Card 5-Pack
  • 2016 Valentine Hearts Cloak
  • Blank Valentine’s Day 2017 Card 5-Pack
  • Valentine’s Day Gift Boxes 2017 3-Pack
  • Valentine’s Day Gift Boxes 2018 3-Pack
  • Blank Valentine’s Day 2019 Card 5-Pack
  • Valentine’s Day Gift Boxes 2019 3-Pack
  • Double Smoke Heart Emote
  • Smoke Heart Emote
  • Triple Smoke Heart Emote
  • Heart Hot Tub
  • Heart-Shaped Spear
  • Heart Top Hat
  • Heart-Shaped Footstool

With the Spring Equinox celebration coming shortly, even more holiday items will become available on March 26th. These rare spring items will remain on the store until May 3rd!

  • Bunny Ears & Slippers Set
  • Decorative Dyeable Egg Pack
  • Flower Crown
  • Flower Emote
  • Flowerleap Emote
  • Lepus Mask 2017
  • Lepus Mask 2018
  • Rabbit Tailed Bodice Ensemble
  • Replenishing Confetti Eggs Basket 2016
  • Replenishing Confetti Eggs Basket 2017
  • Replenishing Confetti Eggs Basket 2018
  • Replenishing Confetti Eggs Basket 2019
  • Silver & Gold Lepus Mask
  • Spring Fountain w/ Floating Candles
  • White Lepus Mask

With the recent changes to the frequency of update publications, we will no longer be providing details each week about what’s arrived in the Crown Store Vault, but we have prepared a forum post showing all possible items which could appear throughout the year!

March Login Reward: Ceiling Green Paper Lantern String 3-Pack!

Don’t miss out! Log in during the month of March, and you’ll receive a Ceiling Green Paper Lantern String 3-Pack! These string lights count as 2 lights each and are a fantastic way to show your seasonal spirit during St. Patrick’s Day celebrations!

Release 87 Rewards Program Login Items: Starrbot Emote, Smoke Chaos Emote, Plumed Plate Helm!

Avatars! Rewards Program login items for Release 87 are simply fantastic this round — you don’t want to miss out on these! Reward Program members must login during Release 87 to receive these login items:

  • Plumed Plate Helm (Features 2 Dye Layers)
  • Starrbot Emote
  • Smoke Chaos Emote

The Shroud of the Avatar Rewards Program lets you earn the best rate on purchasing Crowns, AND receive monthly reward items! For the low price of $9 USD per month you will receive the following:

  • 900 Crowns of the Obsidians every month
  • Monthly Login Reward Items (about 3 per month)
  • Exclusive Title every 3 months
    • 3 Months: Keeper of the Faith
    • 6 Months: Keeper of the Word
    • 9 Months: Keeper of the Vow
    • 12 Months: Keeper of the Flame
    • 15 Months: Keeper of the Oath
    • 18 Months: Keeper of the Pledge
  • Pick any Dye 12-Pack every 6 months
  • Pick any three of the 7 Obsidian Potions every month, including:
    • Potion of Capacity: Increases carrying capacity
    • Potion of Conservation: Reduces reagent use chance
    • Potion of Expedience: Swift gathering on all gathering skills
    • Potion of Precision: Increases Meticulous Collection to all gathering skills
    • Potion of Preservation: Reduces armor and weapon damage
    • Potion of Reclamation: Increases Salvage and Repair to all production skills

Updates to the Streamer Rewards Program!

Several months ago, a program was proposed for the Streamers of Shroud of the Avatar. The ultimate goal being to showcase Shroud of the Avatar while giving SotA streamers a reward for their efforts. The program is currently in Phase I, with Phase II technology currently being discussed and worked internally. So, let’s talk Phase I!

Phase I:
Streamers who wish to be included in the Streamer Program must contact Laney via in-game mail or in a private message on the forums with their Character Name and Twitch Channel information. If you have already signed up for the program in the past, fear not, you’re on the list, and you don’t need to reapply.

  • Streaming Rewards Program participants must adhere to our Terms of Service (TOS) and Community Rules while Streaming Shroud of the Avatar.
  • Streaming Rewards Program participants must stream at least 10 hours of Shroud of the Avatar ACTIVE game play to remain in the program with reward accrual.

Streamers will receive a one-time digital reward of in-game items after meeting the program’s requirements: Streamer’s Cloak, Streamer’s Camera, and a brand-new LIVESTREAMING title. Future incremental rewards will occur at 6-month intervals. (More information to come).

Rules:

  • To qualify for Streamer Rewards, each streamer must continue to meet the minimum requirements for 60 days after application.
  • To accrue additional rewards, Streamers must stream SotA a minimum of 10 hours per month, tallied on the 1st day of each month, to remain in the program.
  • Streamers must be actively playing the game during their streams. Being away from the keyboard (AFK) for short periods is acceptable. If Twitch indicates the streamer is playing SotA but they are streaming other content or a timeout/login screen, they risk being removed from the program.

Items of Note:

  • SotAbot: Streamers in the program will be included in the SotAbot StreamPop function, appearing in the player-streaming channel in Discord.
  • Graphics & Overlays: An optional “Streamers Kit” is available to the participating streamers as well as all players of Shroud of the Avatar, which includes graphics, overlays and other material.

Watch the forums for more information, coming soon, regarding Titles, future rewards and for info on Phase II of the program. We love our Streamers, so get out to Twitch and follow them, watch them, and support them!

Bug Brigade & Testing Directives!

The Bug Brigade was established to improve how the community and the development team work together to improve the game. Since the Brigade’s inception, the program has gone through a number of changes and was eventually placed on hold. The stability of the game is as important to the development team as it is to the players, therefore the program was revamped and was recently relaunched.

The Brigade has been up and running for two months now, and the volunteers are getting into a good rhythm for verifying and submitting bugs to the developers. If you have reported a bug that has not yet been addressed, please be patient while the backlog is being worked. The Brigade is working diligently to cleanup the backlog of bug reports posted by players on the forums.

As was recently announced on a Twitter post by Chris “Atos” Spears, the upcoming development time for Release 84 will be primarily spent working many of the verified bugs which have been submitted to the team by the Bug Brigade. This focused effort on bug fixes would not be possible without the recent efforts of the Bug Brigade. Please take the time to thank these bug hunting aficionados when you encounter them in your travels!

In turn, the development team would like to express a big thank you to the Bug Hunters! These community members are doing a fantastic job bringing so many bug reports to the team, and they’re doing it in a way which makes the process smooth and efficient. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Already, much improvement has been noticed by the development team, and we’re so very excited to see the program successfully back in action!

The development team would also like to thank all of those who took time out to participate in the QA Testing Directive for the upcoming Mount System. Thanks to your hard work and dedication, many issues and bugs were identified and fixed prior to the system going to the Live Server! Keep up the great work! For those that wish to participate in future bug hunting endeavors, please check the forums regularly for upcoming QA Testing Directives.

Also, the Bug Brigade would like to welcome its newest Bug Moderator, Echondas! Please congratulate him the next time you see him in-game or on the forums. This new member expands the Bug Moderator team to: Alley Oop, Echondas, and Justyn. Thank you Moderators! Your efforts are highly valued by the development team!

Don’t forget, the Bug Brigade is open to all players in good standing, and the bug rewards are back! And they are SWEET! They will be awarded on a monthly progression basis with only minimal requirements to qualify. The available rewards to receive in progression via qualifying participation are as follows:

  1. Antennae Head Gear and Forum Title 1: “Bug Hunter”
  2. Single Ant Cloak
  3. Lady Bug Backpack
  4. Bug Painting A and In-Game Title 2: “Associate of Aphids”
  5. Ant Farm
  6. Insect Leg Table
  7. Many Ants Cloak and In-Game Title 3: “Bachelor of Beetles”
  8. Bug Painting B
  9. Bug Sprayer
  10. Bug Painting C and In-Game Title 4: “Master of Moths”
  11. Butterfly Chair
  12. Corpion Chair (Pictured Below)
  13. Yellow Fireflies VFX and In-Game Title 5: “Doctor of Dragonflies”
  14. Hacked Oracle Flyer
  15. Giant Blue Butterfly Pet
  16. Butterfly Mask
  17. Dragonfly pet
  18. Fairy Wings
  19. Monarch Butterfly Pet
  20. Dragonfly Wings
  21. Hacked Oracle Crawler
  22. Blue Butterfly VFX
  23. Orange Fireflies VFX
  24. Orange Butterfly VFX

If you’ve come to think of Shroud of the Avatar as your home, signup and help make New Britannia a better place to live! To learn more about joining the Bug Brigade, please read the announcement thread by Ravolox in the main Bug/Feedback forums.

Upcoming Release Dates

Be sure to check out the Upcoming Events page for spotlighted events plus links to various areas to post or find events on our forums. The upcoming 2021 Release Schedule is as follows:

  • Release 88 (Polish) – Mar 25
  • Release 89 (Content) – Apr 29
  • Release 90 (Polish) – May 27
  • Release 91 (Content) – Jun 24

Community Updates & Resources

Greetings event holders and event attendees! So many fun and exciting events are available in the upcoming weeks. Be sure to get out there and participate, make some new friends, perhaps make some great emote, recipe, or gear trades, or get some adventuring and role-playing into your mix! Here are spotlighted events or updated community resources that we’ve noticed popping up lately on the official forums:

  • Catnip Games Weekly Fishing Tourney: Greetings Anglers! The monthly Catnip Games Fishing Tourney is live! Join in on the fun! SO many prizes available for the anglers of New Britannia!
  • Catnip Games Monthly Screenshot/Video Contest: Avatars! For those of you skilled with the camera or screenshot key binding, a monthly screenshot and video contest is underway which features 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.
  • Catnip Games Monthly Treasure Hunting Contest: Want to go hunting for rare items? Want to see if you can beat other players in this quest for treasure? Well join in on the monthly treasure hunting contest, Avatars!
  • SotA Event Calendar: Event participants, take heed! Thoryk Omara has done a wondrous job creating a community event calendar which is available to all players of Shroud of the Avatar. Please make an effort to support this new calendar. The more resources players have at their disposable for event notifications, the better!
  • Royal Masked Ball: Avatars! A royal masked ball is to be held at the castle in the Player-Owned Town of Ironhall on March 5th at 6PM CT. All are welcome!
  • Horror Stories I: Asclepius has done it again, Avatars! The DJ extraordinaire has created yet another amazing oration of Shroud of the Avatar fan fiction, this time a work written by Fetid SirDidy. Check this out as well as other fantastical orations at TheCaverns.Net!
  • The Ebon Viper – Book II: Blaquerogue has shared another chapter of Ebon Viper’s fictional journey throughout New Britannia. Give it a read and Blaquerogue a thank you for sharing another great literary work!
  • SOTAPrices.com: Join Shawn in his latest endeavor to create a price hunting application and website for Shroud of the Avatar merchants and shoppers!
  • Darkstarr’s Birthday at Forkswerth Bobservatory: If you’d like to see a wonderfully decorated observatory, and party it up like there is no tomorrow with the Virtue/Avatars Radio crew, head on over to Lake Cusabo on February 26th from 8PM CT to Midnight or tune in on Virtue/Avatars Radio… or both!
  • Islands of Wonders Monthly Fishing Contest: Don’t miss out on more prizes with this monthly fishing contest in Isle of Wonders! Good luck, Anglers!
  • Great Gormandizing Gustation: Hungry? Wanna win prizes? Well, just how much in-game food can you imbibe, Avatars? Sorgin Txakal wants to know! If you’d like to participate with in-game eating contests, this is the forum thread for you!
  • RHEC Traveling Pop Up Fishing Contest: Keep an eye out in universe and trade chat this weekend! Asmodi M’hul will be announcing at least one pop up fishing contest for those anglers out there anxious for extra prizes and fun! Don’t miss out!
  • Beran’s Reach Auction: Ladies and gentlemen! The Citizens of Beran’s Reach welcome you the weekly auctions! The auctions are about bringing together people from all corners of the community, with the Beran’s Reach market being the perfect place to do so!

Here are some fantastic resources for tracking down community events or posting your own events. Become involved! Create! Explore! Make friends! But most of all, have fun!

  • One-Time Community Events Forum: Sometimes events happen only a single time, so you’ll not want to miss out on these events as they occur. Check out the forums routinely to spot these!
  • Recurring Community Events Forum: Some events occur on weekly or monthly schedules which are a great way to routinely meet up with friends and to make new ones. Be sure to check this forum frequently for new events or time changes to existing ones.
  • Player Radio Station Forum: If you want to check out the latest and greatest from our in-game radio stations, go to the radio stations forum! If you’re a DJ, be sure to advertise your time slot and venue in this forum.
  • Player Livestreams & Videos Forum: If you’re searching for a Shroud Streamer to watch, head on over to the streamer forum! If you are a live streamer for Shroud of the Avatar, be sure to advertise your Shroud stream by posting in this forum.
  • Town Directory Forum: Want to find a town to live in or get your town listed in the directory, head over to the forums and check it out!
  • Guild Directory Forum: Looking for a guild or want to get yours posted in the guild directory? Head on over to the forums and check it out!
  • Fire Lotus Tavern: This wondrous role-playing and story writing forum is the spot to be if you love fan fiction and role-play.
  • Community Resources:  Looking for links to community and official resources for Shroud of the Avatar? Well look no further. On this page you’ll find links to a plethora of helpful resources created by the dev team or the community.

SO many options to stay tuned-in with fellow community members. Please take advantage of all these wonderful options. Happy adventures, Avatars!

Project to Support: Amanita’s Adventures

Comic lovers of New Britannia! Rosemary Price has published a variety of Shroud of the Avatar themed comics which are available on Amazon! These highly entertaining works are a must have for any collector. So far, 5 comics are listed as available for digital download:

  • Amanita’s Adventures: The Pig
  • Amanita’s Adventures: Sword of Oliver
  • Amanita’s Adventures: Steve
  • Amanita’s Adventures: Red Ruby
  • Amanita’s Adventures: Billy

Please give Rosemary a.k.a. Amanita Phalloides a big show of appreciation for her hard work and dedication to the community. Happy reading, Avatars!

Project to Support: Shard RPG

Shard Studios invites you to enter the fantastic world Dárdünah, the vast shard of a shattered realm, as presented in the colorful pages of the SHARD RPG! Many years in the making, this system allows players to choose from a wide variety of animal people who are the main cast of the many adventures this otherworldly setting offers. Skyships glide through shimmering clouds past majestic crystal peaks. Giant insects prowl alien jungles or lurk in the sparkling emerald seas. Warriors with blades of diamond and amber duel across crimson sands. And mystics chant in shadowy chambers as their spirits wander abroad.

  • Intro Sheet: For a quick glimpse into the world of Dárdünah, be sure to download the intro pdf! It’s packed with great information and features beautiful artwork, not unlike the artwork found throughout the many pages of this gaming system’s gorgeously designed manuals.
  • Core System Manuals: It’s easier than ever to delve into Dárdünah, World of the False Dawn, with the Core Books Bundle! If you’ve never had the opportunity to experience this unique gaming system and setting, now’s your chance! This bundle includes two beautifully illustrated, full-color, hardcover books: the original Basic Compendium and the Magic and Martial Arts book! They contain everything you need to begin your adventures, and include instructions for the ritual magic and martial arts combat systems. These manuals also include 90 new Animal Templates upon which to base your character!
  • Other Shard RPG Products: So many more manuals and gaming materials are available! Everything an avid tabletop role-player and game master needs to delve into the world of Dárdünah!

So if you’re ready to experience a gaming world like no other, check out what Shard Studios has created for tabletop role-players on the Shard RPG official website! You’ll most certainly be immersed and amazed by the offerings of the Shard RPG!

Project to Support: Shadow of Valhalla

Shadow of Valhalla is a visceral physics-based VR combat game with dynamic RPG elements, set within an ancient realm of Viking lore and mystic powers! Early Access beta includes “endless horde mode” featuring a variety of enemies with progressive difficulty. Also, players can discover many magic spells to unlock! So much more is coming!

Finn Staber with Chicken Waffle, will join the Shroud of the Avatar team on Twitch during their Friday the 28th livestream to showoff this new Early Access game! Also, here is a teaser video on YouTube:


The development team is working hard to create additional environments and new quests! Shadow of Valhalla is available on Steam as Early Access. Additional features coming to the game:

  • More Enemies!
  • More Environments!
  • More Magic Spells!
  • RPG Quests!
  • Weapon Forging and Crafting!
  • Much, much more!

If you would like to learn more about Shadow of Valhalla, be sure to stop by the main webpage for the game as more news becomes available!

Project to Support: Dragon Fight

Darkstarr has also been hard at work with the team for Dragon Fight VR which recently went live on Steam! Dragon Fight VR is an internal experiment to capture the “essence” of a dragon fight, the classic penultimate experience of every fantasy story. We wanted to create a short visceral, realistic experience stripped of user interface, lobbies, scores, levels, and other visual intrusions that might distract. There were some key elements of fighting a dragon that we wanted to capture and we felt VR was uniquely qualified to convey:

  • Face to face with a large scale hostile creature trying to kill you
  • Using a sword and a shield
  • Fire!
  • Nowhere to run!

This started out as an internal experiment to learn some things about VR’s capabilities, be reductionist in our designs, etc. We felt that the experiment was successful enough to release as a free experience to share. Enjoy! Available for free on Steam!

Project to Support: Avatar Express

[Forum post by Vladamir Begemot]

I’m pleased to report that The Avatar Express is clacking away furiously. News is being delivered and we have established systems to deliver it directly to your brain. You can use one of those systems by following us on Twitter at @avatar_express. Even more reliable due to its fully automated nature is joining us on the Discord server. News items are posted there via RSS. Or you can subscribe to RSS directly on the site.

If you run an event, quests, etc, please consider helping out by self reporting. The Shroud community is big, and many things are happening that are never seen by others. With 10k monthly users, we would need a full time staff to track down everything that is happening.

You can fill out the contributor form, message @that_shawn_guy here or post in the Discord server that you would like to help. There is no commitment once signed up, you can post as much or little as you like.

Writing up your own events has several benefits beyond the immediate exposure. It serves as a record for others to see the history of New Britannia as we create it, in an attractive format. Publishing in the Express also has a higher chance than the forums of being seen by search engines and random readers, thus bringing more eyeballs and new players to the game.

It will even make posting in the forums easier! You can upload images to your news item, and then link to those images in your forum post. No more need for 3rd party image hosts!

So if you have something going on in your guild or town, or want to be a Reporter, Cartographer or Historian, please join us!

Resources: Players Helping Players

SotA_NewPlayerWelcome_Forum

The official SotA New Player Welcome Forum and the Player Created Resources Forum have the best player created resources for Shroud of the Avatar, whether it’s a Player Written Guide, a Video Walk-through, or a Wiki-type Website.

Visit the official Community Resources page for a complete listing of all things community.