Update of the Avatar #129 – 2015.06.12: Zombies! Oh, and $10 for $10 Bonus, E3, Solace Forest, Public Cache Chests, Console Radio, Kobold Masks, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

• Zombies!
• $10 for $10 Summer Bonus
• SotA at E3 Next Week
• Solace Forest
• Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 18 Postmortem
• Player Created Quests
• Public Cache Chests
• Time Lapse Video of New Britannia’s Celestial Bodies
• Aether Vibration Amplifier Console
• Kobold Masks
• World Builder/Level Designer and VFX Artist Job Openings
• In-game Community Weekend Events
• Sign Up for the Bear Tavern – War of 5 Armies!
• Vengeance: Quests
• The Bard’s Tale IV Kickstarter
• Receiving Pledge Rewards and Add-On Items
• Changes to Store Credit Conversions
• Steam Access Keys Available for All Backers
• Word of Mouth Marketing
• How to Cancel Monthly Layaway Payment Plans
• Upcoming Events

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Zombies!

Character artists Geoff Mellon and Kevin Wells and animator Bren Wilson really nailed it with these awesome zombies!

The ranks of the undead armies have swelled of late with the addition of hordes of zombies. These reanimated corpses move slowly but they carry a foul zombie plague that can only be cured with magic spells or potions. The zombie plague is spread through vicious clawing attacks and a noxious cloud that explodes out of destroyed zombies. Anyone killed by a zombie or anyone who dies from the zombie plague creates another zombie that must be destroyed.

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$10 for $10 Summer Bonus

To help everyone get their summer off to a great start, we’re having a $10 for $10 Summer Bonus Promotion! If you make any single purchase of $10 or more on the SotA website between 3pm CDT June 11 and 10 am CDT June 27 we will make a one-time deposit of an extra $10 into your Store Credit! Happy Summer!

[NOTE: The $10 for $10 offer can be exercised only once during the promotion period.
$10 Store Credit should show up in your account within 24 hours of a qualifying purchase]

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SotA at E3 Next Week

Both Starr Long and Richard Garriott will be showing off Shroud of the Avatar at E3 next week. We’ll be at the Razer booth: 4800 West Hall! Come by and sign up for free access to the opening weekend of Release 20 and other prizes!

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Solace Forest

Abe, Hutch, and other members of the level design team have been prepping the new Solace Forest scene for Release 19. Here are a few sample pics:

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Hangout of the Avatar: Release 18 Postmortem

We had a great Hangout of the Avatar yesterday, with Richard, Starr, and Chris chatting about Release 18 and looking ahead to Release 19. FireLotus was fielding lots of juicy questions live from the chat-room as well as in advance from the OP comments section, and several cool prizes were randomly given out to those attending the hangout! In case you missed it, here’s the video:

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Player Created Quests

Greetings Avatars,

Many months ago, I began to see the amazing creativity of our community in the creation of quests. They were hacked in by players despite little intentional support from us to make this easy or powerful. Until now, live players had to stand in real-time to be the waypoints along any quest line. Likewise live players had to take or give any items or be the obstacles along any quest path. We began to explore ways we could create tools to help increase the ease and power of such community created events. Our goal is to allow players to craft deeper quests directly into the game world itself, to be able to leave clues in the world 24/7, and to have treasure (and ultimately protection of those treasures) that do not demand 24/7 live players to be ever present.

In R19, we are releasing the 1st features along this path. Writable books & notes and chest permissions open a broad new pallet for community quest making. Imagine for example, a community purposefully spreading a rumor about the local grave digger and his sinister nocturnal activities… players could write and leave notes in the graveyard they created in their town, describing how this grave digger bargained for body parts of deceased pets in graveyards in allied towns graveyards, or a specific person’s home. Sequences of notes could be placed such that false leads abound, and only carefully following the trail from the start will lead through the correct sequence. Finally when the ultimate destination is found, a new cache chest could be placed (which allows all visitors to take anything out of or put anything into it). The creators of this quest could stock that chest with pet call whistles that summon the supposedly restored pet. Pets that the gravedigger may have brought back to life!

All of these notes and cache chests must be left on a player owned lot at the moment and all “treasure” left in the cache chest must be stocked by the owners as well, but I believe this is an important first step in creating tools for powerful player created quests.

Good luck in your quest building, I look forward to experiencing and celebrating some of the best ones created in each release!

– Lord British

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Public Cache Chest

This public cache chest will be available at in-game vendors in Release 19. It operates just like other containers on your lot, only this one allows any player to take items from it, or put items in it (but they cannot move or take the chest). Fill it with any items that you want to make available to visitors. Great for player created quests where you may want to leave quest clues or loot for questors to discover.

 

Ornate Public Cache Chest

This ornate public cache chest is only available in the Add-On Store:

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Time Lapse Video of New Britannia’s Celestial Bodies

Starting with Release 18, the sky above New Britannia became filled with a full system of celestial mechanics, including 10 orbital bodies and a constellation-filled star field. All of these move independently and will generate phases, eclipses and multiple alignment events. These are all tied to a calendar that has a direct ratio to actual Earth time. Our long term plan is to use all of this data in game play. For example, there may be certain attributes that can only be added to crafted items when Deceit is in the constellation of Chaos. Please note that for now, this new sky only appears when you are in the overworld. Over the next few releases we will propagate the sky to all the other scenes.

Our thanks to community member AvatarAcid for posting a time-lapse video in the SotA forums of The Sky of New Britannia!

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Aether Vibration Amplifier Console

For all of you that love listening to Avatars Radio in-game, Bob Cooksey crafted this stylish floor model version of the Aether Vibration Amplifier, now available in the Add-On Store!

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Kobold Masks

For those of you that have always wanted to wander around New Britannia disguised as a Kobold (and you know who you are), well now you can with these realistically modeled Kobold masks available in the Add-On Store!

Kobold Mask

 

Kobold Fighter Mask

 

Kobold Archer Mask

 

Kobold Mage Mask

 

Kobold Mask 4-Pack

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World Builder/Level Designer and VFX Artist Job Openings

We currently have openings for junior-level to senior-level World Builder/Level Designers for Shroud of the Avatar. Qualifications for the “ideal candidate” are:

• Minimum 2 years industry experience for junior-level (preferably on a shipped game)
• Unity3D proficiency
• Scripting ability
• Experience building, texturing, and decorating natural, terrain based exterior environments
• An artistic eye for detail, with strong scene compositional skills

We also have an opening for VFX artist with the following “ideal” qualifications:

• Minimum 3 years experience as VFX artist for games
• Unity3D proficiency
• FX scripting and ability to create custom FX shaders
• Artistic and technical particle effect skills

If you’d like to join the Portalarium Tribe working on the ground-breaking Shroud of the Avatar, please submit your resume to jobs@portalarium.com. Provide links to your work (if possible), including actual game play, videos footage, and document form (images, maps, and event descriptions).

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In-game Weekend Community Events

Our amazing community has another great lineup of in-game events planned for this weekend. Here is the latest schedule of player events from the Avatar’s Circle Community Events calendar and the Events of the Avatars community calendar:

Recurring Events

• Player Town: Vengeance – Quests!
  • A Runic Scroll was found in Vengeance describing a quest for one and all (details).
• The R18 Unreliable Travel Guide
  • The Unreliable Travel Guide is not an event, but a a collection of hilarious short stories published by two drunken layabouts who have nothing better to do than try to derive a dishonest income from newly arrived avatars. (Created at the SotA Writing Round Table)
• Happy Hour Wednesdays (Wednesdays, 8pm CST)
  • Otherwise known as “Spend Stryker’s Gold” – Stryker will open a bar tab at one of the local Novia taverns for an hour or so for drinks, stories, news, critique of the arts, dancing, and otherwise unplanned mayhem. Zone /Stryker Sparhawk or watch this thread for locations each week!
• Novian Academy: The Philosophy of Order (Fridays, 5:00pm CST)
  • Join Kazyn Phoenixfyre on a weekly discussion on the philosophy of Order and their interconnection to the virtues (PaxLair, /zone Kazyn Phoenixfyre)
• Vengeance Tournaments
  • These tournaments will insure there is a PVP event EVERY NIGHT in Shroud of the Avatar  (details)
• R17-R18 Deco Contest – PUB CRAWL!
  • The theme for this contest is some kind of drinking establishment! Prizes to the top three winners!  (details)
• Daily Breakfast Club – 12am CST (London UK); 6am CST (Central US); 3pm CST (Sydney Australia)
  • Breakfast Clubs offer a time when people from around different time zones can gather. (Wody’s Pub, Paxlair)
• Shardfall Madness PVP – Everyone fights it out in a royal rumble (Fridays, 6pm CST; Verdantis Shardfall, Novia or  /zone harry underworld; details)
• Phoenix Republic Open Mic Night (Thursdays, 7pm CST)
  • Come hang out in Wody’s Bar. Have a story or a song, Maybe want to do some stand up? Every Thursday the audience will vote on the winner of the weekly prize (PaxLair, Wody’s Bar, /zone Kazyn Phoenixfyre or Jack Knyfe)
• Beach Party by BMC (Fridays at 9pm CST)
  • Come join the BMC for dancing and fun at the Beach (/zone River Beauchamp or Wind Silverrmoon)
• Challenge Dungeon Run (Fridays at 7pm CST)
  • This is a self-host event, meet at the Braemar Cemetery and organize into groups to take on the infamous Chillblain’s Compendium of Pain & Suffering!

Saturday, June 13

• 9:00am CST PaxLair Working Hours
  • PaxLair town and community “working hours” are for anyone interested in PaxLair. (/zone Winfield)
• 11:00am CST Church of the Dark Star – Saturday Service
  • Join Lady Amber Raine, High Priestess of the Church of the Dark Star along with Kazyn Phoenixfyre of the Church of the Sun, as they bring another thought provoking service.(PaxLair,; details)
• 12:00am CST Welcome Quest R18.5
  • Welcome Quest showcases many of the Player-owned and Player-ran towns in New Britannia. Come for unique events in each town. We rotate towns between each Welcome Quest. To join in just “/zone Dara Brae” and you will be transported to the event. (Details)
• 2:00pm CST Port Phoenix Storytelling Event
  • Join Kazyn Phoenixfyre and others as we gather around and share stories, poems, songs and other verses. (/zone kazyn phoenixfyre)
• 2:30pm CST 4B Maze Event – 1st Anniversay
  • No not 4B celebrates the anniversary, the maze itself does. R6 was the birth of the first maze in New Britannia. (PaxLair, central lot by Moon Tower)
• 3:00 MagicSweeper!
  • Come join our biweekly game of MagicSweeper – SotA’s premire game show! In this gameshow you can compete against avatars of all kinds with new trivia topics each game! Win gold, great items or even add-on store prizes! (/zone Kazyn Phoenixfyre)
• 5:00pm CST By Royal Warrant: Vengeance Tournament!
  • Join Order of Vengeance as they host a player vs player tournament! This will be either a 1v1, 3v3, or FFA tournament. The winner always gets a prize! (/zone Violation to join)

Sunday, June 14

• 6:30am CST Explore Novia with royalsexy (PaxLair Moon Tower, /zone royalsexy)
• 10:00am CST Phoenix Republic Town Hall/Working Hours
  • A Gathering of members of the Phoenix Republic to cover important topic areas of the month. (PaxLair, /zone Kazyn Phoenixfyre or Jack Knyfe)
• 12:00am CST Novian Academy: Roleplay Courses by Luka Melehan (Fridays, 6:00pm CST)
• • Join Luka Melehan as she teaches an ongoing course on Roleplay! In this course, you can learn how to get accustomed to roleplaying in New Britannia and participte in future roleplay events. (PaxLair, /zone Luka Melahan, details)
• 3:00pm CST Gustball
  • Two teams are pitted against each other by using Gust to a “gustball” (aka avatar) around the field and into your opponent’s goal. (PaxLair, /zone The Ball, details)
• 5:00pm CST BMC Grid Iron Feast and Registration (details)
• 5:30pm CST BMC Gladiator’s Grid-Iron (details)
  • The BMC is proud to present the nastiest, the foulest, the most feared arena in all of New Britannia! The Grid-Iron is equipped with a pit-style arena, locker rooms, a VIP round-table, betting & vendor booths, and all the blood-sport you can handle.
• 7:00pm CST PaxLair Meeting (PaxLair, /zone Winfield)
  • Come see what PaxLair is up to in Novia and other town areas! Many people also attend from towns and guilds for a bit of a weekly wrap-up and what’s happening. Good discussions!
• 8:00pm CST Fishing with Winfield (some lake or pond, /zone Winfield)
  • Come sit with Winfield on a log or rock to hear some fish tales or tell your own. Chat about anything from the moons to the earth worms. Spend a relaxing day in nature near a stream or lake — bring insect repellent or a sword.

Be sure and check out the Release 18 Events thread in the SotA forums for additional events that may not be included here.

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Sign Up for the Bear Tavern – War of 5 Armies!

Saturday, June 20, 2015
10am-11am Central (Austin, TX)

War has broken out on the island of Brave Coast. Pick a side and join the fray!

• Step 1: Select a team (Red, Yellow, Green, Brown or Blue). Max 8 members per team.
• Step 2: Post in this thread your in-game name and the color team you would like to join. Once in-game name is verified, it will be added to the team.
• Step 3: Show up at the event, party with your team. Each team will select one of their members as King, and will share the name of their King with the other teams.
• Step 4: After gathering and reviewing rules, we will take the boat to Brave Coast and the 5 teams will be disbursed. Kings must stay on land in the zone for the duration of the event.
• Step 5: WAR! Kill the other team’s kings.

[Sign up on the Bear Tavern – War of 5 Armies! Release 18 Event Forum Post]

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Vengeance: Quests

There are three hidden player quests in Vengeance for Release 18. If you say the correct keywords to Violation he will start you on these quests. Completing the first quest will gateway you into the next two. After you complete the second quest you are rewarded with 5,000g. If you are able to complete the third quest you get an additional 2,500g.

The Vengeance quests are designed to be done in order. Currently there is a note that has been placed in the forums and on the Vengeance website to help people get started. That note is written in Runic so you may need some help deciphering it.

Thus far, only one courageous Avatar has completed all three of the quests, Bambino LudoVate! Congratulations Bambino! Community member Rhannu is nipping at his heels with two quests down and only one remaining! As of the latest report, even Lord British himself has only completed one of the quests, along with Jiirc Overshoes, Sean Silverfoot, Edward Newgate, William Serenite, DavenRock, Parallel, Turin, Ghost Heretic, Grave GodsHammer, Minerva, Winfield, and Amber Raine!

Bambino shared his victory screenshot in the Release 18 Screenshot Gallery:

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The Bard’s Tale IV Kickstarter

We know that many of you loved The Bard’s Tale games as much as we did, so we want to make sure you know about their Kickstarter campaign. As our long-time friend and colleague at inXile, Brian Fargo, commented:

As you may know, it marks the 30th anniversary of The Bard’s Tale, the game that started my career in game development in earnest. And now, we want to bring back The Bard’s Tale IV with the power of the crowd once again…The original game has a special place in my heart and fans have shown me time and again they still love the dungeon crawl genre and want more. With your help, I can finally make this long-awaited true sequel to the original The Bard’s Tale trilogy, bringing you that sense of discovery with challenging dungeons and devious puzzles that you loved and cursed all at once.

We’re very excited about the revival of the dungeon crawler genre that Bard’s Tale IV is helping to drive. As described by inXile, it is a single-player, party-based cRPG with dynamic phase-based combat, challenging puzzles and riddles, and a game set to beautiful Gaelic music, where the Bard’s songs and melodies affect gameplay.

Pretty cool stuff, right? If you’re as excited as we are to see one of the most amazing RPG series live again, then head over to inXile’s Bard’s Tale IV Kickstarter campaign and pledge your support!

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Receiving Pledge Rewards and Add-On Items

Go to any bank to claim your Add-On items and Pledge rewards. There is a banker NPC in every map where there is player housing because when you switch houses or unclaim a lot, all the decorations will go to your bank. In most locations the Town Crier is now also a banker.

Banks are local only. You can see your items in other bank locations (they appear in location tabs), but you can only access the items in the bank you are currently at. Pledge rewards are an exception to this and can be accessed from any location.

[NOTE: there are some Add-On and Pledge reward items that have not been built yet so you may notice some of your items not showing up in your bank. If you delete your character, all equipped and inventory items, including pledge reward items, will be deleted and cannot be recovered until the next wipe]

Player Bank Upgrades

Your bank inventory size can easily be upgraded with in-game gold, with the price in gold increasing the larger your bank gets. For those that need/want really big banks faster, we’ve added a Bank Upgrade to the Add-On Store. Currently, each Bank Upgrade adds 10 more slots to your bank inventory, but that number is subject to change based on game balancing needs.

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Changes to Store Credit Conversions

If you wish to convert any of your purchased Add-On items to Store Credit, you will need to do so before logging into Shroud of the Avatar.

The instant you log into the game all of your available Pledge reward items and available Add-On items will be flagged as “claimed” and deposited in your in-game bank. Once the Add-On items are “claimed” they cannot be converted to Store Credit until the next wipe (which is currently unpredictable). After you’ve logged into SotA, the “Convert to Credits” button on your account page will be deactivated for all those items available in the game, so if you had any plans to sell back some of your Add-On items, make sure you do it before you log into the game!

We intend to change the claiming process in an upcoming Release so that items are not automatically claimed when logging in, but will require you to actively claim them in your bank before they can be used.

If you purchase any new Add-On items, or upgrade your Pledge tier, those new items and upgraded rewards will automatically appear in your in-game bank the next time you log into the game (providing those items are available in the game).

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Steam Access Keys Available for All SotA Backers

SotA successfully launched on Steam Early Access on November 24, and we’ve made Steam Access Keys available to all our backers as part of their basic pledge rewards! Once you’ve redeemed your Steam Access Key you’ll have the option of playing SotA either with the Steam client or the regular game client (or both).

Click here for instructions to redeem your Steam access key and installing the Steam SotA client…

If you play SotA on Steam you can collect the SotA Trading Cards! Collect a full set of SotA trading cards to earn SotA badges, profile backgrounds, and emoticons that help you customize your profile and show off your Shroud of the Avatar gameplay. Check out Steam’s trading card FAQ for more information.

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Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Our goal is to make Shroud of the Avatar the best game we can for you, our backers, and the best way we can do that is by growing our community of backers through the power of word-of-mouth marketing. That’s where we could use your help! With essentially no marketing budget, we rely on things like press coverage and friend-to-friend networking on platforms such as Facebook and Steam. Here’s how you can help us with your word-of-mouth efforts:

If You Like SotA then Like Us On Facebook

Facebook can be a powerful word-of-mouth marketing tool at very little cost, but only if we can reach a large enough network of Facebook users. You can help us to reach a larger Facebook audience simply by going to the Shroud of the Avatar Facebook page and clicking on the “Like” button. If every one of our 50k+ backers gave us a “Like” the marketing reach of our Facebook posts would be incredible!

If You Like SotA then Write Us a Positive Steam Review

One of the most important word-of-mouth tools on the massive Steam platform is their user reviews. Many Steam users rely on a game’s Steam reviews to help them decide if they want to play a game or not. If you feel positive about SotA, or feel positive about what SotA may become, even if you have concerns and issues, then please jump over to our Steam Store Page and give us a positive review (and feel free to include your concerns and issues in that review as well)!

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How to Cancel Monthly Layaway Payment Plans and What In-Game Rewards to Expect

Remember that Pledge payment plans are not canceled automatically after reaching the desired pledge. You must manually cancel your monthly payment plan, which can be done at anytime on your SotA Account page. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause, but it is a result of how recurring billing functions with PayPal, Amazon, and Stripe (our credit card service).

If you are on a monthly payment plan, the rewards you receive in-game may not reflect the final pledge tier you are making payments toward, but will reflect the rewards for the current pledge tier that your cumulative monthly payments have reached (your current pledge tier is shown on your Account page on the SotA website).

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Upcoming Events

2015.06.16 – SotA at E3 with Razer
2015.06.25 – Release 19
2015.07.25 – SotA at Classic Game Fest 2015
2015.07.30 – Release 20
2015.08.27 – Release 21
2015.08.28 – SotA at Syndcon
2015.09.04 – SotA at Dragon Con
2015.09.24 – Release 22
2015.10.29 – Release 23