Update of the Avatar #39 – 09/13/13: Knight’s Home, Village Property Deeds, and the Unity Scene Jam!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Welcome to another edition of Update of the Avatar! We know it’s only been a couple days since the last update, but we have some cool stuff to share and are too excited to wait! As a continuation of our Parade of Homes we initiated with the Village Home Edition in Update #37, we are showcasing the Founder Knight Village Home, as well as the availability of a limited quantity of Village Lot Property Deeds in the Add-On Store! We also have the latest news about the Shroud of the Avatar Unity Scene Jam!

Founder Knight Village Home

Here is our unique, upscale, Founder Knight Village home, only available to Founders (included as a reward in the Knight level pledge). A two-story dwelling, with a split-level roof deck:

Here is the entry-level floor, with modest decorations:

This is the second floor loft with a bedroom entrance in the rear:

Also located on the second floor is the bedroom:

And finally, we have the roof-deck, perfect for entertaining guests, setting up a crafting station, or just relaxing with a cold mug of ale after the day’s jousting festivities:

Here is a side-by-side shot of the Knight Village Home, Viking Village Home (available in the Add-On Store), and the Shingle-Roof Village Home:

This is an overhead view showing how the Knight, Viking, and Shingle-Roof village homes fit within a village lot:

And here is a side-by-side comparison of the floor plans to give you an idea of the size of the Knight Village Home:

We’ll showcase the Benefactor Knight Village Home in an upcoming update. It will be similar in scale to the Founder Knight Village Home, with variations in layout and external appearance.

NOTE: “Founders” are backers that pledged any amount by May 20, 2013,
and “Benefactors” are backers that pledged after May 20, 2013.

200 Village Property Deeds Available in Add-On Store

We have added 200 Village Lot Property Deeds to the Add-On Store at an introductory price of $150 (a 25% discount off the regular $200 price)!

Village lots are located in almost every village, town, and city across New Britannia. The Village Property Deed in the Add-On Store includes the Shingle-Roof Village Home, shown here next to an empty village lot:

At 20 x 30 meters, there is ample room for a variety of homes, including the spacious Knight Village Home and Viking Village Home!

There are many benefits to being a property owner in SotA, including:

• Having a permanent residence, a place to put down roots, to hang your helmet, to decorate to your taste, to invite your friends over to hang out.
• Provides a location for you to have a vendor to sell your wares.
• Provides a location to set up private crafting stations, saving you the trouble of visiting public crafting stations to produce your wares.
• Plant your own gardens to grow whatever you need.
• Dramatically increases your storage space. Your house can be filled with decorations, and you can place chests at your house to expand your backpack inventory.

There is only a finite amount of land in SotA, and the available property deeds are going fast. If you purchase your Village Lot Property Deed through the Add-On Store, you will have lot placement priority over everyone else that waits until SotA launches before they purchase a property deed.

Village Lot Property Deeds purchased through the Add-On Store will have an in game currency tax that must be paid monthly or the lot reverts to being for sale and the Lot Deed is returned to the owner. Backers at Citizen level and above receive a tax exempt Lot Deed. All lot deeds are transferable between players.

First priority will be given to backers for lot choice. The order will be determined by amount of pledge. Backers will be given an exclusive window to choose their lots. Each backer can choose exactly one lot during the window. The next window will be given to those who purchase lots from the Add On Store. After that window lot choice will be open to all players

Shroud of the Avatar Unity Scene Jam!

The Shroud of the Avatar has been involving fans in the creation of the game since the start of the project. Now we’re giving you a chance to contribute in a whole different way! On September 20th at 6PM CST (UTC-6), we are kicking off the first in a series of Shroud of the Avatar Unity Scene Jams!

Before we dive into the details of what it is, let me tell you why you should keep reading. The overall winner receives:
• Unity Pro License – $1500 value
• Oculus Rift – $300 value
• Shroud of the Avatar Baron Pledge – $3000 value
• UnityVS 1.2 License – $249 value
• Alienware Grab Bag (Backpack, mouse, keyboard, headset) – $350 value

Now that we have your attention, here is how the contest will work!

Starting on September 20th and then every other weekend for the next 6 weeks, we will be doing 48 hour Shroud Scene Jams! On every other Friday at 6PM CST (UTC-6) we will announce the scene challenge details with documentation and a video message from members of the team. You then have 48 hours to create the scene in Unity and upload it Sunday night. We’ll announce the weekly winner the following Friday.

Weekly winners receive:
• Shroud of the Avatar KNIGHT Level Pledge ($800 value! Can be divided into smaller pledge tiers for multi-person teams)
• Game box will be signed by the entire dev team
• Shroud of the Avatar T-Shirt

The Friday after the final weekend of the contest, November 8th, we will announce the overall grand prize winner! Grand prize winner will be based on the single best scene of the entire competition!

Starting times for the 48 hour jams:
• September 20, 6PM CST (UTC-6)
• October 4, 6pm CST (UTC-6)
• October 18, 6PM CST (UTC-6)
• November 1, 6PM CST (UTC-6)

At the start of each game jam we will reveal the secret scene challenge and the details! This will likely be done in the form of a document, a video, and some specific assets to help you get started. The secret scene challenge will vary each week and could be anything from Richard describing one of his ideas for a scene to a piece of concept art.

Scenes will be judged by Richard and the team based on quality, creativity, how closely it matches the announced challenge, and how closely it resembles something that would feel right at home in Shroud of the Avatar!

We’re mostly focused on the construction and architecture of the scene and less concerned with implementation aspects. A well built and well lit scene with text describing the details should be all that is needed. Implementing various features will obviously help us visualize some aspects of the scene and might sway our decisions but we’ll likely have to re-implement them to match our systems.

Rules:

1. Team efforts are welcome! We only have one set of prizes but if we use your work in the final game we will include each person in the credits
2. We’ll provide some assets with each jam but you can also use any assets which we can easily license. Unity store assets, free or purchased are fine. We’ll have a section in our submission process for you to list what assets were used in the creation of your piece so we can purchase them if we decide to use your piece. Custom created art is also fine as long as you are willing to grant us a free license to distribute the art with Shroud of the Avatar.
3. The final submission must be in the form of a Unity Package, run in Unity 4, and the upload must be started by 6PM on the Sunday after the start of the jam. We’ll include a document detailing how to turn a scene into a Unity Package. It might sound scary but it is really just a couple of clicks!
4. Any version of Unity is fine. The free version will work fine. You can use an older version of Unity if you choose to but we’ll only be testing the assets we distribute on Unity 4 and we’ll expect all submissions to work on Unity 4.

Please Link Your Kickstarter Account!

Stay on top of all the latest game development news by registering on our website, www.shroudoftheavatar.com. If you have not already done so, please be sure to Link your Kickstarter Account, so we can ensure that you receive all of your backer rewards as soon as they are ready to roll out!

[This edition of Update of the Avatar written by Dallas Snell, COO/Co-Founder, Portalarium]