Update of the Avatar #140 – 2015.08.28: SotA Included in Syndicate’s Guinness World Record, Play R21 Now!, New Team Members, End-of-Summer Telethon, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

• Syndicate Includes Shroud of the Avatar in Guinness World Record
• Player Owned Towns: The Syndicate’s Arx Draconis
• Play Release 21 Now!
• R21 Patch Notes
• New Dev Team Members
• Very Large Creatures: Dragons (Work-in-Progress)
• Highlights of New Use Based System
• New Pledge Rewards
• End-of-Summer Telethon In Just 3 Days
• 3 Day Countdown for 10% Summer Bonus & Reward Expirations
• Streetlamp Decos
• New Dyeable Hats
• Koldar’s Trading Card Giveaway
• In-game Community Weekend Events
• Upcoming Events
• Recommended Games to Back

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The Syndicate Includes Shroud of the Avatar in Guinness World Record

We can’t begin to describe how excited, and honored, we were when Sean Stalzer, head of The Syndicate Guild, informed us that they had their Guinness World Record updated to include Shroud of the Avatar! Here’s an excerpt from the Official Guinness World Record website:

First founded in February 1996, The Syndicate had been active for 19 years 170 days, as of 20 July 2015. The Syndicate prefers to only take part in a limited number of games at any time and is currently focused on Ultima Online, World of Warcraft and Shroud of the Avatar. Additionally, they have been prominent in titles such as Star Wars: The Old Republic and EverQuest. The guild is known for its motto “Long Live The Syndicate”, often abbreviated to “LLTS”.

Their site can be seen here: http://www.llts.org/

Our deepest heartfelt thanks to Sean and the entire Syndicate for including Shroud of the Avatar in their prestigious world record!

LLTS!

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Player Owned Towns: The Syndicate’s Arx Draconis

And speaking of The Syndicate, their capital town, Arx Draconis, is our newest static Player Owned Town to come online. A large fortress with a Dragon statue centerpiece, it uses the island template and is located off Spindrift Island on the north side of Bay of Storms.

LLTS!

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Play Release 21 Now!

Release 21 successfully launched yesterday, August 27, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, logging in, and checking out the new changes! Lots of new content to explore, including:

• New Use Based Skill System
• 38 new Player Owned Towns, including the Syndicate’s Arx Draconis
• Snowy Mountain Template and NPC Homes Added to Dynamic Lot Placement Tool for Player Owned Towns
• New Creatures, including Boss Phoenix and Under Dwellers
• Scene Polishing and new underground scene, The Epitaph
• Crafting Skills Coming Online
• …and more!

Check out the Release 21 Instructions update for detailed information about all the new R21 content.

The Grand Tour Quest
Just as in our last several releases, we’ve included a Grand Tour Quest designed to guide you through all the new content. You will be able to get the Highwayman Hat by completing the Release 21 Grand Tour Quest. This reward can only be unlocked during Release 21 (did someone say rares?), so be sure to log in soon and talk to all the Tour Guides!

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We need all your help with testing the new patches, putting more stress on our multiplayer servers, and testing the new game content, so please join us in playing Release 21!

If you have not backed the game yet, you will need to register and login at www.shroudoftheavatar.com, select the “Pledge or Send Gift!” button in the right side-bar, and purchase a pledge at the $45 Adventurer level or above. The basic Adventurer level pledge is also available on Steam Early Access.

Release 21 Player Instructions

Release 21 Known Issues

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Avatars Radio FireLotus Release 21 Party hosted at Darkstarr’s Queen of Chaos Airship, currently located in Hometown.

Check out more screenshots in the Release 21 Screenshot Gallery.

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R21 Patch Notes

Thanks to all our community members that jumped right into this Release and started reporting bugs. We’ve already fixed quite a few of them and pushed out several patches. Click here for the most up-to-date Patch Notes.

August 28, 2015   6:00PM

Build Number 315: 

Fixes:

• Fix for null exception in combat code.
• Removing the entrance to Dragon caves from the sewers as the dragon caves have been removed…for now!
• Tap soul was not giving focus, now changed to give a fixed amount of focus and then reduce damage based on level
• Myra in Owl’s Head now correctly responds to all standard variations of “goodbye”
• Fixes for mail delivery quest/tasks
• Distraught after seeing so much death and suffering around it, the tour guide in Wynton’s Folly has moved to a very slightly safer spot
• The Oracle is no longer silent about your progress along the path of virtues.
• Small build process improvement
• Fixing issue with being unable to loot some kobolds
• Added log message for teleporters that point to invalid scenes and skipping going to black screen
• Reverting creature speeds to R20 values
• Baron Benefactor City home bugs fixed
• Hopefully fixed getting stuck in a certain spot in The Epitaph
• Clicking noise whenever walking around fixed
• Fix initial zoom for camera
• Since we can no longer salvage an item with 0 value, then it is ok to give back a low value item upon a bad roll. Salvage dice rolls resulting in a 0 value result will be adjusted to 1 to give back a very small value instead of nothing
• White Hart Player Owned Town, changed template from Forest to Alpine
• Obsidian Town Tower doors updated
• Malus Player Owned Town, changed to PvP
• Vengeance Player Owned Town, reactivated exits
• Anomalous graphics on woodworking crafting table possible fix
• Snowy Mountain Player Owned Town, added collision wall
• New skies in more Novia maps
• Bag mode now has tooltips! Yay!
• Bodan Koren in Braemar once again giving a reward for killing wolfpack leaders
• Toned down the difficulty of entrance crocs in The Epitaph, they shouldn’t be the toughest creatures in the place!
• Addressed environmental lighting issues in Grunvald and Verdantis Shardfall maps
• Set troll pathing surfaces – removing playlots, water, etc…
• Rat’s Nest exit changed to nearby shoreline in Norgard
• All pets take damage when they should now
• Queen of Chaos visual bug fixes
• Player Owned Town NPC buildings, added signs to the Weapon Shop and Bank
• Citizen Benefactor Village home bugs fixed
• Iron Gate Player Owned Town, added new town into Novia
• Wizard’s Rest Player Owned Town data updated.
• Performance drain fixed, no longer updating tiny radio at distance of more than 20
• Prevent damage from unreachable targets
• Prevent experience gain for using combos without hitting anything
• Ornate Wood Streetlamp has a working light
• Serpent’s Watch Player Owned Town, moved floating town to ground level (but it still inaccessible, will be addressed in a future patch.)
• Fixed taming focus drain to be less than non-combat focus regen-fixed issue with taming effect subtracting base regen-set value to 0.4 focus per tick
• Removed Grunvald Shardfall access from incorrect hexes
• Ornate Iron Streetlamp has a working light
• Blackrock Cove Player Owned Town information updated.
• Don’t apply experience for interrupted skill
• Allow player lots surfaces for gustballing
• [Enter] key opens chat after rebind

Known Issues:

• We do not yet officially support Windows 10. If you have upgraded to Windows 10 you may experience instability
• Flame Fist DoT effect expires too quickly
• Verdantis Shardfall light and sky settings are wrong
• Adding a Gem to a weapon will break crafting, forcing a relog
• Fireball DoT does not work
• Lighting and fog levels are still being tuned to work with the new weather system, expect anomalies
• Weather has not been propagated to all scenes yet so there may be mismatches
• Zooming into First Person camera leaves floating hair in view
• Two-handed swords cannot be crafted
• Round Rugs cannot be placed
• Some skills have not been fully adjusted to work properly with the new use based system
• Phoenix flight movements are not working correctly in some cases
• Sound effects are not always playing properly
• Players in the same scene will sometimes be invisible to each other, usually leaving the scene and returning will fix
• Death and Resurrection do not work properly in the team arena
• Crafting Recipe book is not opening when you use a crafting station
• Water lots in Dynamic Player Owned Towns can currently only be placed along shorelines, not on docks
• If you upgrade from a property owning pledge between data wipes you will receive extra lot deeds.
• Troll does not have all visual effects
• Not all Player Owned Towns in the list are in the game yet
• Some objects and NPCs in game are missing textures and show up bright pink
• Time is not in synchronized between scenes that have the new sky vs. the old sky
• Red crystal nodes in Etceter Crag Mines are all yielding blue crystals.
• If your video drivers are out of date characters will appear as if they are covered in triangles.
• Some cities are experiencing performance spikes
• Some assets create flash bulb like sparks on screen
• Many pledge, add on, and stretch goal items have not yet been built and/or do not yet have tech support. These will not be complete until later this year
• The update to Unity 5 caused a host of general texture and lighting related issues, and not all of these have been resolved.
• Distant tree billboards may have a white outline that is especially noticeable at night, and some trees may shimmer with white at night.
• Skin tone will sometimes not match properly on different parts of the body
• Unity 5 engine bug: Terrain is not accepting shadow casting lights and terrain lighting shows up on grid vs. radius
• ALT key can no longer be bound. This was necessary to re-enable quick self cast with ALT
• Unity 5 Engine Bug: Objects in the foreground sort incorrectly against objects in the distance like trees and the horizon

[Complete Patch Notes…]

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New Dev Team Members

Please join us in welcoming Matthew Nowacki and Michael Dameron to the SotA Dev Team!

Matthew Nowacki joined Portalarium a few weeks ago as a World Builder/Level Designer. Born and raised in Austin, Texas, Matthew has wanted to make games since he received a Game Boy for his 11^th birthday. He attended college at Texas State University in San Marcos, TX, where he studied Computer Science and Japanese. In 2010, he entered the game industry as an Associate Designer at Junction Point Studios, working on Disney Epic Mickey 1 & 2 through 2013. After the studio’s closure, he switched tracks from design to programming and joined Hellfire Games, an independent studio in Austin specializing in games and apps for PlayStation platforms.  Most recently, he completed a 9-month stint at UT Austin’s new post-baccalaureate leadership and management program, the Denius-Sams Gaming Academy. When Matthew isn’t designing game systems and levels, he enjoys going to the symphony, playing  fantasy football, and watching arthouse films.

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Michael Dameron joined the Portalarium Tribe a few months ago as a Quality Assurance Tester and Customer Service Account Specialist. He is a recent Game Design graduate from ACC’s Game Development Institute, and Lead Designer on the 1st place team in the 2014 Captivate Conference’s student game competition. While completing his degree he interned at Virtuix as a technical designer aiding electrical engineers in the development of the Omni. Upon completion of his internship, Michael worked as an independent Unity Developer for Chaotic Moon Studios here in Austin programming an interactive motion sensing experience and UI for a mobile app.

When Michael is not working, he spends time with his wife, preparing for their first child.

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Very Large Creatures: Dragons (Work-in-Progress)

Here is the latest work-in-progress image of our next Very Large Creature: Dragons (for Release 22), by Geoff Mellon (character artist), Kevin Wells (character artist), and Bren Wilson (animator):

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Highlights of New Use Based System

[Excerpt from a Public Forum Post by Chris “Dippy Dragon” Spears]

Last week I made a few posts to the Dev plus forums for feedback on the use based systems. As we get closer to release 21 [now launched] I wanted to share these with everyone. First I’ll go with the stuff for people who don’t care about the math and just want to play:

• You only have to train a skill once now to unlock it which will give you a 1 in the skill
• Skills can be set to train or not train on the upper left corner of the skill in the tree
• A small green bar on the bottom of each skill shows current progression on the current skill point
• Using an active skill set to train will slowly increase the skill
• Passive skills that are set to train will increase slowly as related active skills are used
• Players will be able to artificially train skills by using them in pointless ways but these gains will be rapidly diminishing until the player goes and uses the skills in real world settings
• In game terms we refer to skill level 40 as competent, 80 as master, and 100+ as grandmaster
• Skills will very slowly decay over the period of a month or more real time so you should not stop training a skill until you have a bit of a buffer on the level you want to keep
• Most skills require a 10 skill level in the parent skill before they can be trained
• Those who leveled more in R20 will find that they more quickly learn skills to a higher level than those who did not level up in R20
• For those who play with deck mode, glyphs are gained at 1,10,20,40, and 80

Now for those that aren’t afraid of the details:

• Underneath the covers, experience is still earned from adventuring and goes into a pool. A tiny percentage is applied to skills when they are used. Without earning exps, this pool will empty out over time
• For R21 only, that experience pool is set to the amount of experience players earned in R20
• Passives divide experience gained among all related passives set to train so they will level slower if all are set to train
• Most skills increase in effectiveness based on square root curve. So a 100 vs a 50 is not 100% more effective but rather 41% more effective.
• Parent skills that decay below the minimum level will auto train back up to the min level
• Decay is currently set to lose 1 full point every 40 days of accumulated loss
• Decay is only applied on death or skill advancement
• Decay only accumulates up to a maximum of 2 days worth of loss
• Behind the scenes there are still player levels but they are only used as a small modifier on hp and focus pools and for modifying attack chances on NPCs that are significantly higher level
• The curve for experience is exponential so every 10 points more than doubles the exps needed. So going from 90 -100 is more effort than 1-90
• No matter how powerful a target is or how many defensive skills they have, players will always have a chance equal to their critical hit chance to land a regular hit

This was obviously a HUGE switch for us to make so not everything is quite in place for this release. The following are some future features we plan on adding but are not in R21:

• In future releases there will be ways to stop decay (likely through the Oracle)
• Through the use of special crafted books, grandmasters will be able to create books that will let others use them and learn a skill up to a certain point
• Achievements and titles will be added for those who reach Grandmaster status
• Grouping with a player with grandmaster skills will allow party members to more quickly advance in those skills
• We are considering exposing more of the numbers behind the scenes
• Trainers will allow players to get a lesson in a skill that will give the player a buff that increases training speed in a specific skill for some amount of time
• Not all skills will be available at all trainers and prices will be adjusted to be more varied
• Some skills will not yet scale with skill level in R21

Chris “Dippy Dragon” Spears

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New Pledge Rewards

On August 22, our amazing community of backers pushed our total development funding to over $7 million! As far as we can tell from publicly available data, this makes Shroud of the Avatar the second highest crowdfunded video game ever (yeah, Star Citizen, at $88 million, is a very, very distant #1).

We roll every nickle we receive into the development of the game, and this amazing funding support from our community has allowed us to expand the scope and quality of SotA far beyond what we ever imagined! We can never thank you enough for the opportunity you have given us to build this game. As a small token of our appreciation for reaching the $7M milestone, we’ve added the following items to the pledge rewards:

First Responder/Adventurer Pledge: Plain White Mask (dyeable)

Immortal Adventurer Pledge: Striped Cloak (dyeable)

Founder Pledge: Checkered Cloak (dyeable)

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End-of-Summer Telethon In Just 3 Days

This Monday, August 31, marks the end of our Summer Bonus promotion and to commemorate the event, we are holding a 12-Hour End-of-Summer Telethon, from 10am CST to 10pm CST, August 31, 2015! We are giving away hourly prizes during the telethon, as well as three Big Prizes, including a Patron, Ancestor, and Lord Pledge!

There will be hourly events, most of which will be hosted by twitch broadcasters, Avatars Radio DJs, or leading community members. Events will include Meet the Devs, Devs vs Players In-game Gustball Match, Feature Deep Dives, Devs vs Players In-game PVP Match, and more! Here is the full schedule of events:

• 10:00 am CST: Welcome! – Meet the Devs / Office Tour – Who: Starr, Richard, Chris, Dallas – Prizes: Patron Pledge, Store Credit
• 11:00 am CST: Gustball: Devs vs. Players – Host: Lazarus – Prizes: SotA Coin, Store Credit
• 12:00 pm CST: Deep Dive 1: Story – Who: Tracy, Richard, Lum, Gina – Host: Lumpdizzle – Prizes: SotA Coin, Store Credit
• 1:00 pm CST: Community 1: Guilds – Who: Gina, BMC, Phoenix Republic, Beran League, Syndicate, Tantulus, etc. +Ken & Joaquin – Host: Amber Raine – Prizes: Poster, Store Credit
• 2:00 pm CST: Deep Dive 2: Player Property / Player Owned Towns – Who: Ken, Hutch, Starr, Rick, Mathew N., Bob, Andy – Host: Duke violation – Prizes: SotA Coin, Store Credit
• 3:00 pm CST: Sojourner Tales play session – Who: Rick, Ken, Joaquin, Scotty – Prizes: SotA Coin, Store Credit
• 4:00 pm CST: Deep Dive 3: Crafting / Economy – Who: Jeff, B, Chris, Starr, Richard – Host: HogwinHD
  Prizes: Ancestor Pledge, Store Credit
• 5:00 pm CST: Community 2: Streamers and Charity – Who: Gina, Wrath, Dallas – Host: Eclipse Maiden – Prizes: SotA Coin, Store Credit
• 6:00 pm CST: Deep Dive 4: Combat / Creatures – Who: B, Chris, Geoff, Bren, Erik, Starr – Host: TBD – Prizes: Poster, Store Credit
• 7:00 pm CST: Deep Dive 5: PVP, Guild Warfare – Who: B, Chris, Starr – Host: Jack Frost – Prizes: SotA Coin, Store Credit
• 8:00 pm CST: PVP Fights in game: Devs vs. Players – Host: Beetlebear / Ambushed – Prizes: SotA Coin, Store Credit
• 9:00 pm CST: Community 3: Music / Radio / Theatre – Who: Gina, Holt, Amber, Shooter, Stile, Starr, Richard, Chris – Host: Legendary Neurotoxin/ Lolinia – Prizes: Poster, Store Credit
• 10:00 pm CST: Goodbyes and Thank Yous – Who: Starr, Richard, Chris, Gina, Dallas – Prizes: Lord Pledge, Store Credit

And, yes, there will be shots. However, we learned our lesson in the last Hangout of the Avatar, and in order to delay the possible appearance of Drunk[insert dev name here], we’ve modified the drinking rules such that participating Dev Team members will take 1 Shot/Sip for every $2500 raised during the telethon!

[Video Link for 12-Hour End-of-Summer Telethon Posted Here When Available]

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3 Day Countdown for 10% Summer Bonus & Reward Expirations

If you were thinking of pledging your support to the development of Shroud of the Avatar, upgrading your existing pledge, or purchasing/upgrading a Player Owned Town, now’s a great time to do it! We are offering a 10% Summer Pledge/Town Bonus! Starting at 10am CST, July 10 and running through Midnight CST, August 31, 2015, you will receive an additional 10% bonus added to your Store Credit for any pledge purchases/upgrades, or Player Owned Town purchases/upgrades (including monthly pledge or town payment plans).

(NOTE: The 10% Bonus will be applied to your Store Credit within 24 hours of your purchase; 10% Bonus is for Pledges and Player Owned Town purchases/upgrades/payment plans only and does not apply to Add-On, Stretch Goal, or Make a Difference Store purchases; Existing Store Credit applied toward a purchase does not qualify for the 10% Bonus)

Additionally, as we enter the last half of 2015, and major milestones such as Alpha and Beta are looming closer on the horizon, we will be announcing a series of expiration events regarding pledges, rewards, and related services. The first expiration event coincides with the end of our 10% Summer Bonus promotion at Midnight CST, August 31, 2015. These expirations include:

• Select Pledges (including their specific rewards):
  • $220 Patron Pledge
  • $375 Navigator Pledge
  • $450 Developer Pledge
• Darkstarr rewards, including Darkstarr emote (all tiers), cloak (Founder tier), metronome (Virtual Collector tier), and moondial (Citizen tier)
• Signed physical goods (Patron pledge and above)
• Home and basement stacking (Ancestor pledge and above)
• Secondary lots (Lord pledge and above)
• Player Owned Towns with Overland Map Access

Please know that these expirations DO NOT affect any backers that already have these rewards. If you already got ’em, then you get to keep ’em! These expirations only affect new backers, or existing backers that have not upgraded to the specified pledge tiers before the expiration date.

[NOTE: Any payment plans started for the specified pledge tiers (Patron, Ancestor, & Lord) or above prior to Midnight CST, August 31, 2015 will not be affected by these expirations]

[Click here for more details…]

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Streetlamp Decos

Light up your property or Player Owned Town with these ornate streetlamps, available now in the Add-On Store.

Ornate Wooden Streetlamp

Ornate Iron Streetlamp

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New Dyeable Hats

We’ve added a couple of new dyeable hats to the Add-On Store, as well as updating previous Add-On Store hats to make them dyeable as well!

Brown Highwayman Hat

Brown Chaperon Hat

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Koldar’s Trading Card Giveaway

In conjunction with our 10% Summer Bonus promotion (that is drawing to a close in 3 short days), community member, and forum moderator, Koldor, is generously giving away 28 MtG Shield of Avatar trading cards signed by Lord British! Check out his forum post for how to qualify: Giveaway – Celebrate the Summer Bonus!

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In-game Weekend Community Events

Our amazing community has another great lineup of in-game events planned for this weekend. Special thanks to community member SpookyJenny (aka Jenny Phoenixfyre in-game) for her help in compiling the latest schedule of player events from the Avatar’s Circle Community Events calendar and the Events of the Avatars community calendar:

Recurring Events

• Release 20 Deco Contest – Shops & Markets
  • This event has been extended! Get your entries in by September 21st, and judging will begin on September 25th. Your entry should be some kind of shop/bazaar/market/black market/trading post/harbor. Having a Vendor isn’t requirement. There will be prizes! Click here to enter the contest.
• The R21 Unreliable Travel Guide
  • The Unreliable Travel Guide, created at the SotA Writing Round Table, 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. (details)
• Avatars Radio (Daily Programming)
  • Welcome New Britannians to Avatars Radio – Radio of the Avatars. Rocking your socks off from the town of Radio City with the Terrestrial and New Britannian bards together under one roof through the power of the Moon Towers.  Check out their daily program of amazing DJs:  http://avatarsradio.info/schedule.php
• NBNN Lunch with Lazarus (Daily, 12pm CST)
  • Join Lazarus every weekday for the daily goings on in SOTA. Calendar updates, relevant issues happening in the days news, chat about upcoming events and general information. Feel free to call in or join us in team speak and tell us WHAT YOU THINK. http://www.twitch.tv/nbnnnews
• Daily War Time PVP Event (Daily, 6pm CST – 11pm CST)
  • Invitation to all guilds, PK hunters, PVP’rs or players interested in PVP training to come to Chaos Crossroads (Located at the crossroads outside of Kingsport on the road to Owl’s Head). PVP Event rules: None! Use whatever spells you want, kill in mobs or solo, group with new allies and defend your territory, lure newbies into the town and wack them! (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)
• Gladiator Wars (Mondays, 7pm CST)
  • A call to all fighters PVE and PVP! Would you like to participate in the “Gladiator Wars” PvP Tournaments? Registration starts at 6pm CST. (details)
• “The Tavern Respite” RP Event (Mondays, 8pm CST)
  • The tavern door opens before you, and the scent of pipe and stew waft outwards with a wall of warmth from the hearth. Join in with the patrons of the Bear Tavern as they share tales of their adventures amid endless mugs of ale, legs of mutton, and merriment unbounded (details)!
• Challenge Dungeon Run (Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 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!
• PaxLair Working Hours – Host Sean Silverfoot (Tuesdays, 2pm)
  • PaxLair town and community “working hours” are for anyone interested in PaxLair. We will be in New Britannia doing things as a town when many people can work together. Sean Silverfoot hosts this working period. / zone Sean Silverfoot
• Novian Academy – New Citizen Help Hours (Tuesdays, 6pm CST)
  • /zone Kazyn Phoenixfyre of Novian Academy in Soltown as they provide guidance to those new to the world of New Britannia.
• Phoenix Republic Weekly Correspondents Dinner (Wednesdayas, 7pm CST)
  • Join the Phoenix Republic and all of our friends and allies in a weekly dinner and working hour (Port Phoenix Capital Building)
• 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!
• Storytime with royalsexy (Thursdays, 7am CST)
  • Join royalsexy in Radio City for stories and chats. /zone royalsexy or hike aaaaalll the way to Radio City to join in. Also live on Avatars Radio http://avatarsradio.info
• Vengeance Madness (Fridays, 7pm CST)
  • This is an Open PvP event where everyone fights it out in a royal rumble to see who the ultimate death dealer is! (City of Vengeance; /zone Bambino LudoVate)
• Phoenix Republic – Military Drills – Control Points (Thursdays & Fridays, 7pm CST)
  • Join the Phoenix Republic as we send our weekly foray into the control points, dungeons and other of the most dangerous locales. Each week we will depart to a different PVE locale to help train our combatants. Contact Kazyn Phoenixfyre for more info!
• Novian Academy – The Philosophy of Order (Fridays, 5pm CST)
  • Weekly discussion on the philosophy of Order and their interconnection to the virtues. Learn how to overcome the misconceptions of order and chaos and instead learn about the realities behind the creation of both the Order philosophy and the virtues. (/zone Kazyn Phoenixfyre)

Saturday, August 29

• 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)
• 12:00pm CST Welcome Quest R21
  • By Royal Warrant, we present to you the Welcome Quest! The Welcome Quest is a quest for all people to see many towns and establishments. It is created as a way for people to visit many player-ran locations. To join in just “/zone Dara Brae” and you will transported to our starting city of Avenguard.
• 7:00pm CST Port Phoenix: Gustball Challenge Matches
  • Come on out to Port Phoenix to join the republic in a series of 1v1 and 2v2 Gustball matches! Each match is played first to four points wins! (Port Phoenix, Firehawk Field, or /zone Kazyn Phoenixfyre)
• 8:00pm CST Vengeance 1v1 Tournament
  • The longest running Player vs Player tournament in Shroud of the Avatar. (City of Vengeance)

Sunday, August 30

• 6:30am CST Explore Novia with royalsexy (PaxLair Moon Tower, /zone royalsexy)
• 8:30am CST PaxLair Meeting
  • 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! (PaxLair, /zone Winfield)
• 11:00am CST Phoenix Republic Town Hall/Working Hours
  • A Gathering of members of the Phoenix Republic to cover important topic areas of the month. (Republic Town Hall, Port Phoenix, /zone Kazyn Phoenixfyre or Jack Knyfe)
• 3:00pm CST Gustball
  • Two teams are pitted against each other in a sporting event not dissimilar from soccer, football, and basketball. The object of the game is to Gust a Gustball around the field and into your opponent’s goal (/zone Bambino Ludovate, details)
• 5:00pm CST BMC Grid Iron Feast and Registration
  • Register to compete in the BMC Gridiron and mingle with other participants and spectators before the big fight! (Blackrock Point on Novia near Etceter Crag Mines, details)
• 5:30pm CST BMC Gladiator’s Grid-Iron
  • 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. (Blackrock Point on Novia near Etceter Crag Mines, details)
• 7:00pm CST PaxLair Meeting
  • 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!  (PaxLair, /zone Winfield)
• 8:00pm CST Fishing with 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.  (some lake or pond, /zone Winfield)

Be sure and check out the Release 21 Events thread in the SotA forums for additional events that may not be included here.

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Upcoming Events

2015.08.28 – SotA at Syndcon
2015.09.04 – SotA at Dragon Con
2015.09.24 – Release 22
2015.10.29 – Release 23

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Recommended Games to Back

Divinity: Original Sin II

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is the sequel to the critically acclaimed Divinity: Original Sin, winner of over 150 Game of the Year awards and nominations. Winner of GameSpot’s “PC Game of The Year 2014”.

A single- and multiplayer top-down, party-based role-playing game with pen & paper RPG-like levels of freedom. It features turn-based combat, a strong focus on systematic gameplay and a well-grounded narrative. Currently in development for PC in English with subtitles available in German, French, and Russian.