Release 24 Instructions

[A SotA Public Forum post by Starr Long]

Greetings Avatars,

Please read this entire message, as well as the linked instructions and known issues.

Thank you for being a loyal backer and follower of Shroud of the Avatar. Release 24 access for all backers at First Responder level and above begins this Thursday, November 19, at 10:30 AM US Central Time (16:30 UTC).

Has it really been two years and twenty four releases? Were we really so crazy as to let our backers in before we had all the features in place, much less the content? Have we really been able to work together as a community of backers and developers to make something this special? It is a big resounding YES to all of those questions, and we have each of you to thank for it. Thank you for being patient with us as we try this new way to make games. Thank you for allowing us to take more time, and yes, spend more money. Thank you for letting us make some mistakes and then letting us try to correct them. Thank you for letting us balance fulfilling our kickstarter and pledge promises against making changes we all feel will make a better game. Thank you for understanding when at times we have had to make some painful compromises. Most of all, thank you for being here with us.

Release 24 was supposed to be a short release where we didn’t add very much content and we focused almost entirely on fixing bugs, polishing content, and optimizing performance. As you will see below, that is not really what happened. Instead we ended up delivering a lot of new content and delaying most of the polish and performance work we had originally planned. A big part of why we did this was because we started working on our Alpha Punch List while we were finishing R23. This list of course contained all the systems and pledge rewards we wanted to have complete by Alpha, and was mainly fed from our Kickstarter goals. Once we had that list, we looked at what items we could get in place quickly and realized there were a few that could happen as soon as R24; including Localization, more Story Maps, Guild Housing, Clockwork Pets, Talking Mirror, and extensions to the Weather System.

This just opened the floodgates, and R24 quickly became a tide of new content with multiple new scenes, a Pickpocket skill for the Subterfuge combat tree, more musical instruments, Mystery Boxes, snowball throwing, NPC renaming (pets, vendors, etc.), and more feminine clothing options. We are incredibly excited to share all this new content with you, but we do know that we still have a lot of performance and polish to do before we are ready to launch next year. In the meantime, however, enjoy the new content and give us your feedback!

Yet again I want to express a huge amount of gratitude to our Dev+ backers who tested all of the below on the QA server and uncovered lots of bugs. They also provided editorial feedback on this post, so they are a big reason that this post actually matches what is in the game and that it is easy to read.

While we are getting closer to launch, we are still in a constant state of change, and we do not yet have in-game systems to inform players of these changes, or to share ways to help them to explore new content and systems. This means we rely entirely on this message, and the linked instructions and known issues to convey the current game state. We regularly have to answer questions or filter bug reports because some players elect not to read this valuable information. By taking a few moments to read through this information, a great deal of our time and efforts can be redirected to focus on new “unanswered” questions, and addressing critical issues impacting each release. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to review this post, and for all the truly valuable feedback you continue to provide.

Also, remember that while we are providing new content with each release, our community is working overtime to make new events for you to enjoy. So, be sure to check out a couple of the Community Events Calendars run by our community members (via in-game book or the player run websites Avatars Circle Community Events and Events of the Avatars calendar).

Without further ado, here are the R24 deliverables.

Key:

• Plain Text: The original plan for the Release deliverables. We intentionally preserve the original text so that our backers can compare plan versus actuals.
• Italics: Extra notes and new deliverables
• Strikethrough: These are items that did not make the release

RELEASE 24, November 19, 2015:

• Polish and Performance: We will work to improve overall polish and performance in the game. We will focus not only on improving frame rate, but also lowering load times. We may also spend some time on usability issues. This will be the main focus of Release 24 so content delivery will be smaller than a “normal release”.
  • Performance / Polish Delayed: While we did some polish tasks and a few optimizations we chose to focus most of the release on new content and features. We definitely know that we still need more polish and performance but we chose not to focus on it just yet for all the reasons mentioned above.
• Story: The story continues to expand with the control point of Hilt and the dungeons beneath that contain the only known forge capable of forging with Obsidian. Additionally, a handful of new towns will appear beyond the Perennial Coast that include story quests.
  • Hilt Interior Delayed: We decided to spend more time polishing Nightshade Pass which caused a delay on work on the underground area of Hilt.
  • Nightshade Pass (aka Hilt exterior): Within the Blackblade Mountains, between South Paladis to the west and Midmaer to the east, is the narrow cleft of Nightshade Pass. At its center the winding pass opens up into a bowl-shaped canyon in which rests a shimmering lake fed by icy water flowing down from glaciers hidden higher in the mountains to the north. On the south end of this valley can be seen the tall volcanic mountain of Hilt that gives this region its name. According to legend, before the Fall of the shards of the shattered moon, there was a great battle between the Gods of Man and the Avatars. It raged all across the face of the world. One of the Avatars saw that they could not win and so, rather than fight the gods, he plunged his blade into the world, desiring to kill that thing which the gods loved most; their creation. The edge of the sword tore through the fertile lands of the world, opening a great and terrible wound which became known as Hellfire Rift. It was here, then, that the gods in their wrath stopped the Avatar and cast him back into the Abyss from which he came. But the damage had been done and the gods, in their wisdom, left the hilt of the blade exposed until such time as some legendary hero from some other legend were to come along and heal the world. That’s what that southernmost peak is supposed to be; the hilt. It’s on the north end of the canyon, however, that the area’s most interesting feature can be found. Built over two hundred years ago by the Obsidian general Karpasic (during the time depicted in Blade of the Avatar), the fortress at Hilt was created as a conceit for the glory of the Obsidian military power (which didn’t please the Cabal of the Obsidian Sorcerers). Furthermore, according to legend it was where the military discovered, deep below the earth, the wondrous obsidian forges. During its time, however, the excuse of its building was to further fortify and secure Nightshade Pass itself, since enemy armies could not easily travel through the valley pass without using the bridged ford located between the lower walls of the fortress, exposing them to fire from soldiers and mages stationed on the battlements above.
  • Etceter: The city of Etceter borders the Bay of Storms, and is the largest settlement in the Quel region. Etceter is unique in that it is a city run by Satyrs. Though often hostile to humans when encountered in the world, the Satyrs in Etceter have found a more lucrative path; that of trade and commerce, specifically facilitating the travel of pilgrims to Xenos and the legendary citadel of Artifice. In Etceter, Satyrs (and their Faun slaves) and humans live and work together. It is not always an easy coexistence, but it is an often profitable one for many make their way to this port.
  • Mariah Overlook: Nestled in the Mariah Mountains, Mariah Overlook once hosted an entertainers’ commune, with actors, singers, animal trainers, clowns, and more. The shows were frequent and diverse. Each year, tens of thousands of visitors enjoyed the region’s nightly improvisations, weekly shows, monthly extravaganzas, and the annual Mummers’ Festival…but no longer. Now, the Mummers’ Parade is a ghost of its former glory. Brutal Satyrs now patrol the aged streets, the cages that were once home to trained animals now imprison slaves waiting to be sold to the highest bidders, and wild beasts slaughter any visitor to the once-grand Amphitheater.
  • Brittany Outlander Graveyard: The Avatars now flooding the land are not the first Outlanders who have visited Novia. An earlier wave of Outlanders appeared in Novia, but did not share the immortality of the current visitors. When they eventually met their demise, they were interred in this massive graveyard on the outskirts of Brittany where most had made their homes. Most Outlanders were buried in this separate graveyard from other Novians due to the inherent distrust most Novians harbor towards Outlanders. In a future release, these gravestones will contain the names that Ancestor and above backers choose to represent their “ancestors”, but for now these gravestones are blank.
  • Polish
    • Northern Grunvald Barrens: Points of interest polish
    • Ardoris: Placed Ardoris Lighthouse in the bay
• Localization: We will begin crowdsourcing the translation of the game into various languages.
  • Crowdsourcing: We have begun localization leader selection from volunteers in the community and translation has begun, for German, French and Spanish, via the Get Localization Website.
  • Language Option: You can now select which language you want to play the game in through the Options screen. For now, since most content has not been translated, this will have no effect.
• Weather: More types of weather will come online, like snow. Weather will also be linked to seasonal changes, vary based on location (it won’t snow in the desert generally), though it will have some randomness.
  • Weather: Until now weather was tied to a specific time and day (Monday mornings). Now, weather varies constantly and has seasonal tendencies. Summer and Autumn are generally drier while Autumn and Winter are generally windier. Weather also varies based on location, so snowy scenes will have the same variable weather but precipitation will show up as snow instead of rain. Here are the currently supported types of weather:
    • Clear
    • Light clouds
    • Heavy clouds
    • Light precipitation
    • Heavy precipitation
    • Storm
  • Wind Direction / Intensity: Wind will now change direction and intensity, varying between Calm, Light, and Heavy.
• Combat: We continued to make various balance adjustments to combat and added new skills. Many of the changes made are focused on making combat faster and more dangerous for both PVE and PVP, especially at higher levels.
  • Pickpocket: This is a new high tier skill in the Subterfuge school of combat. The user doesn’t have to be in stealth but it can help and takes several seconds to execute. If the pickpocket attempt is successful, then the thief is able to obtain items via the same rule system as Ransom (except the thief’s name is hidden). If unsuccessful, nothing happens. If the thief is caught in the act, then he is stunned for an extended period. To catch a pickpocket, all you have to do is target the thief while he or she is in the act. The thief and victim must both be flagged for PVP, or inside an Open PVP zone, or in guilds at war with each other (the latter will come online with Guild Warfare).
  • Undead Immunities: Undead are now immune to spells and skills that rely on living targets (Rend, Drain Life, etc.).
  • Smelling Salts: Will now only clear 5 seconds worth of stun. This change was made due to the addition of some long duration stuns, like the one applied when a thief is caught in the act!
  • Combat Skills: Previously combat skills were exclusively using the base weapon skill level for the to-hit roll and the actual skill level of the skill for the effectiveness and damage. Since many players were immediately leveling up their base weapon skills with auto-attack, this gave the illusion that the base attack skills were significantly more effective than the actual skills! Going forward, for both to-hit roll and the effectiveness, it will use the average of level of the associate base weapon skill and the specific skill. So if you have a Rend of 20 and a Bladed skill of 80 it will have a to-hit and damage roll based on a skill value of (80+20/)2=50.
  • Attunement: Attunement will now show a much larger effect. Previously having 100 more attunement than your target would generate about 50% greater results. For R24, this will now generate 125% greater results!
  • Root: The chance to break root by using jump has been increased and is now based on the strength of the victim.
  • Healing Grace: Has increased from a cost of 8 to 11 focus. Additionally, the cast time has moved from 2 seconds to 3 seconds and the spell can be interrupted by damage during the first 1.5 seconds of casting. This is a very powerful and efficient healing spell and as such, should require some concentration to execute!
  • Critical Hits: For melee attacks, the damage from a critical attack has been increased by 25%. For magic, both the chance to get a critical effect and the damage have been increased by 50%.
  • Break Weapon: For several releases, break weapon was incorrectly calculating the amount of debuff it would apply. For players who managed to get the skill above 40, it would actually make the victim do negative damage! This has now been fixed.
  • Thrust: Damage was increased by 25% and the attack shortened to 1 second. Note, the animation is longer than 1 second but you can start your next action with the animation playing and transition directly into the next action.
  • Chain Lightning: Now stuns as it is supposed to.
  • Sigil Fixes: We started fixing various issues with Sigil placement and size (these appear when spells are cast).
  • Ransom Proofing: Items obtained through quests, add on store purchase, and pledge purchase are no longer available as ransom loot in PVP.
  • Tamed Creature Resurrection Timer: this has been increased from 1 minute to 5 minutes.
• New Water: We are continuing to implement and troubleshoot the new water system. For R24, scenes that use the new water system now have edge foam. Additionally, we are using Owl’s Head to experiment with using the system for rivers (versus just oceans). Finally, walking and swimming through water now creates splashes which will be improved over time.
• New Musical Instruments: Players can now add Flute, Tabor Drum and Harp to their musical performance repertoire. There are two versions of each; one crafted in game and one for purchase in the Add On Store. Please note that all sound banks for our instruments are first pass and will be reviewed for possible improvements at a later date (like all our sound effects).
• Creatures: Our menagerie of creatures continues to grow with a mix of pledge rewards, add on store, in-game, and holiday themes.
  • Clockwork Dogs: These steam piston driven canines will now follow their masters or watch their masters’ homes. In addition to the brass pledge reward version there is an Add On Store steel version.
  • Clockwork Cats: These steam piston driven felines will now follow their masters or wander their masters’ homes. In addition to the steel pledge reward there is an Add On Store brass version.
  • Horses and Foals: Herds of Palomino, Bay, and Blanket horses (along with their foals) have been spotted in Novia, and some have even begun to try to tame these wild creatures. Additionally, the three foals from the Mounts Stretch Goal (Buckskin, Black, and White) are now available in game for those who purchase them.
  • Donkey Foal: The baby donkey from the Pack Animals Stretch Goal is now available in game for those who purchase them.
  • White Turkey: In celebration of the fall holidays, White Turkey pets are available for purchase in the Add On Store.
  • White Reindeer: In celebration of the winter holidays, White Reindeer pets are available for purchase in the Add On Store.
  • Doe: Stags are no longer alone in Novia; now that their female counterparts have begun to appear.
• Mystery Boxes: We have implemented a new class of items that generate items based on intervals and time of year. While some of these items have been available as home decorations this is the first release that they will function.
  • Cornucopia & 2015 Cornucopia: In celebration of the Fall holidays, we introduced one of these two years ago to the Add On Store. This year we created a more ornate version for sale in the Add On Store. These items generate a random edible item or ingredient per Earth day (food, fruit, berries, mushrooms, flour, egg, etc.). During the Fall and holiday seasons, there is a percentage chance of other kinds of items being generated.
  • Artisans Box of Plenty: This Royal Artisan pledge reward will generate a random resource or reagent once per Earth week (Earth time).
  • Snowball Box & 2015 Snowball Box: In celebration of the Winter holidays, we introduced one of these two years ago to the Add On Store and simultaneously gave it to all Adventurer pledges. This year we created a more ornate version for sale in the Add On Store. These magical boxes of 50 snowballs regenerate annually during the Earth holiday season. Avatars who have the Snowball box can now use the snowballs obtained from it to throw snowballs at others. Please note that throwing snowballs is not an emote.
• NPC Renaming: Avatars can now rename Player Owned Town NPCs, Vendors, Servants, Pets, and Tamed Creatures.
• Crafting: While our main focus has been on architectural changes and recipe creation tools we managed to make a few additions to the system.
  • Founder Artisan Tools: We now have versions of these indestructible Artisan tools with the Founder symbol. Please note that we do not yet have the “Pick One of Many” feature so for now we are awarding all of these at the lowest pledge they are accessible (this goes for Benefactor versions too).
  • Crafting Table Properties: Crafting tables can now have properties (quality, location, and calendar) associated with them that factor into crafting results. For R24, only quality will be implemented. For now, crafting tables currently placed in the world will be the lowest quality, but over time expect to see this vary based on size of the location (i.e. tables in Ardoris will be higher level than tables in Soltown).
  • Founder Expert Crafting Stations: These high level crafting stations increase crafting results and are decorated with banners emblazoned with the Founder symbol. Please note that we do not yet have the “Pick One of Many” feature so for now we are awarding all of these at the lowest pledge they are accessible.
  • Recipe Difficulty: We made a pass through weapon, armor, and enchantment recipes to assign varying difficulties to them. Expect a more thorough difficulty pass through the recipes in R25/R26.
  • Fishing and Time of Day: Time of day influences the results of fishing. In the mornings, the chance to catch fish is highest. The evening also gets a bonus to catch fish, but not as great as the morning. Afternoon and night have the normal baseline fish chances.
  • Loot Polish: We did a quick pass on loot and added reagents to enemy mages and feathers to chickens and phoenixes
• Emotes: We added a handful of new emotes.
  • Lord British Salute: This reward is now available to all players who pledged at least $5 during the End of Summer Telethon of the Avatar, because the minimum of $25,000 was raised. The animation consists of the Avatar tracing the serpent sign on their chest followed by a nod of the head.
  • Taunt: Any resemblances between this emote and the classic “Nanny nanny boo-boo” motions are purely coincidence…
  • Kiss: Using this emote will cause the avatar to lean in slightly and pucker their lips.
• Noble’s Magical Discourse Orb: This Lord Pledge reward magical device grants the owner access to a chat channel that includes all Lord and above pledge holders as well as all of the Developers.
• Home Decorations: We added another round of decorations to the game, including some holiday themed items.
  • Tuning for Aether Vibration: These technological wonders that are able to beam sounds from Earth to Novia now can be tuned to various stations. They are pre-tuned to Avatar’s Radio and NBNN’s Radio Free Britannia; but players can add any stream they wish. We also made the “crackle” audio effect an option that can be disabled.
  • Talking Mirror: This Baron pledge reward can now be placed in your home. Conversations can be had with it as well. Please note that since the talking mirror is technically an NPC, it cannot be dragged around like other decorations. It must be returned to your inventory first via right click.
  • Castle Wall Set: The large walls seen around Duke and Castle Lots (as well as places like Owl’s Head city center) are now available as a placed set (like other fences and walls). Dukes and Lords of the Manor pledges come with a set large enough to surround their lots. A different variation can be purchased as a set big enough to surround a Town Lot in the Add On Store. Like other walls and fences, these can be placed in Player Owned Towns as well.
  • Hot Air Balloon: Avatars can climb in the basket of these wondrous devices to get spectacular views of the surroundings; available for purchase in the Add On Store.
  • 2015 Yule Trees: These unique holiday trees can be purchased in three sizes: normal, tabletop, and giant.
  • Yule Tree Tabletop: The original Yule Tree from 2013/14 is now available for purchase in tabletop size.
  • 2015 Menorah: This unique menorah is available for purchase in the Add On Store.
  • 2015 Holiday Wreath: This lovely wall decoration is available for purchase in the Add On Store.
  • Shroud of the Avatar Wax Cylinders Soundtrack, Volume 1: Twenty Shroud of the Avatar songs on wax cylinders are available for purchase in the Add On Store as an “album.” These can be played on Phonographs in the game.
  • Ancestor Tombstone: This pledge reward can now be placed as a decoration. Eventually this will include a name of the player’s choosing representing their “ancestor”
• Player Homes: Polish and bug fixes were done to various homes. We also expanded the permissions system to include Guilds.
  • Guild Chapter Houses: Players can now flag their home a Guild Chapter House via the House Permissions menu. If you flag your home as a Chapter House, then all officers of your guild are automatically flagged as Trustees, regular members of your guild are flagged Kindred.
  • Mantles: Just in time for the holidays, mantles can now be decorated in homes with built in fireplaces (Row Homes, Rustic Three-Story, etc.)
  • Adobe Homes: Roofs can now be decorated.
  • Bug Fixes
    • Lord Waterfront Houseboat
    • Lord of the Manor Keep
    • Twin Spire Manor
    • Airship
    • Wood & Plaster Two-Story w/Great Hall
    • Wood & Plaster Two-Story w/ Balcony
    • Wood & Plaster Three Story Open Plan
• Clothing: We created several new clothing items, including various Bodices as part of our effort to offer more feminine options.
  • 2015 Yule Hat: This plain dyeable version of the Yule hat is available in the Add On Store.
  • Satin Bodices: A Satin Bodice and Panty can now be crafted in game by tailors. Additionally skirted bodices, long gloves, and lace ankle boots are available for purchase in the Add On Store.
  • Yule Velvet Bodice: In celebration of the winter holidays, players can now purchase from the Add On Store a red velvet and fur lined skirted bodice, long gloves, and ankle boots.
  • Bonnet: This plain dyeable version of the Grand Tour hat is available in the Add On Store
• Grand Tour 24: As with each release, we will have a Grand Tour. Completing this quest is the ONLY way to gain this rare reward. The “hat” for this release is a Bonnet to go with our Thanksgiving theme for the month.
• Dynamic Player Owned Towns: We added another round of dynamic Player Owned Towns to the game. We also fixed issues, converted biomes and upgraded sizes of several POTs. Here’s a complete list of all changes as well as POT location maps for Novia and Hidden Vale:

So, now that it is clear what you can expect, we should also be as clear about what you should NOT expect:

• Performance: We have only done rudimentary optimizations, and we do not yet have a full suite of performance fallbacks (LODs, etc.). This means the game will be quite slow on older machines, and due to memory usage, and might be unstable in certain conditions (like densely decorated areas). With each release, we will be doing further optimizations and adding to our fallbacks to improve performance.
• Crafting: The crafting system is in the game as a framework, but is still missing some key components like a full suite of Refining/Production Skills, quality levels for tools/crafting tables, Agriculture, and breadth/depth of recipes.
• Game Loop: Release 24 is a further iteration on our rudimentary game loop, but is still missing some key components. Expect this to expand with each subsequent release, but it won’t be truly complete until we hit Beta next year.
• Advanced Player Housing: There are some advanced features for player housing, including advanced permissions (ex. renting) and ceiling decorations that are not yet integrated. Expect to see these appear in future releases.
• Visual Quality: Efforts to improve visual quality are ongoing. We will continue to iterate on these until we have highly competitive visuals.
• Pledge Rewards: Pledge Rewards that have been built and have tech to support them are in the game; all other rewards are awaiting either content creation or tech support (ex. vendors).
• Persistence: As part of development, we will need to periodically wipe data including characters, property, etc. As we near official launch the frequency should decrease, but there will definitely be a wipe right before launch. So consider everything gained during early access temporary.

Here are links to instructions and known issues. Thank you again for your continued support. This is truly the most amazing community we have ever worked with, and we are proud to be on this journey with you.

Sincerely,
Starr Long
aka Darkstarr
Executive Producer

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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 24!

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.

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Release 24 Player Instructions

Release 24 Known Issues

Patch Notes