Greetings Fellow Avatars!
Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:
- Play Release 33 Now!
- Summer Telethon of the Avatar Part 2 Results
- $10 Million Gift: Virtue Cloak
- Swamp Island POT Templates
- Lot Deed Raffle
- Breathe Emotes, Smoke Emotes, Pets, and Fancy Clothes
- Upcoming Events
- Richard Garriott at Dragon Con
- Dawn of New Britannia Community Trailer Contest Results
- Community Resources – Players Helping Players
- Job Openings (4)
- Recommended Projects to Back
Play Release 33 Now!
Release 33 successfully launched yesterday, August 25, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, and logging in and checking out the new changes! There’s lots of new content to explore, including:
- New uncloned scenes including Port Graff and Estgard
- New User Experience Polish, including a reworked Bloodriver
- New NPC Behaviors and Polish in Ardoris and Spite
- More Random Encounters (dragon!)
- Lot Deed Raffle
- Portable Aether Vibration Amplifier World Starting Gift
- Lots of new emotes
- Summer Telethon Part 1 Rewards
…and much more
Check out the Release 33 Instructions update for detailed information about all the new content.
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 33!
If you have not backed the game yet, you will need to register and login at www.shroudoftheavatar.com, select the “Get Early Access!” button in the right side-bar, and purchase one of our game access bundles. Game Early Access is also available on Steam Early Access.
Release 33 Player Instructions
Release 33 Known Issues
Summer Telethon of the Avatar Part 2 Results
Our Summer Telethon of the Avatar Part 2 was a huge success! In fact, it was our biggest telethon to-date! We achieved all our original Stretch Goal Rewards and even had to create new ones! A heartfelt thank you from the entire Dev Team to all of you, our backers, that have contributed to the development funding of Shroud of the Avatar! Monday’s Telethon was yet another example of your amazing support and contributions! The total as of Midnight, August 22nd, was a staggering:
** $200,000 **
As promised, Telethon Funding Stretch Goal Rewards will be rewarded to any backers that pledged a minimum of $5 from the start of the telethon, until Midnight August 22 (Spending Store Credit to make $5 minimum purchase does not apply). These rewards should show up on your account page within the next several weeks and will begin showing up in the game over the next few releases starting with Release 34.
- Achieved! $10,000: /aeroplane emote
Achieved! $25,000: ? and ! Hats- Achieved! $35,000: Aeronaut Outfit
- Achieved! $50,000: Accordion musical instrument
- Achieved! $65,000: Mini Automaton Pet
- Achieved! $80,000: Baby Clockwork Dragon Pet
- Achieved! $100,000: /camera emote with Tin Type Camera (takes tin type black & white screenshots)
- Achieved! $130,000: Clockwork Armor (helmet has built in radio)
- Achieved! $150,000: Flaming Bagpipes (musical instrument) with Metal and Leather Kilt
- Achieved! $175,000: Weather Changing Clockwork Umbrella
- Achieved! $200,000: /firedance emote with Leather Outfits
We had deep dives, answered questions, danced, sang, did shots, spun the Wheel of Fortune & Doom, had flash sales, went behind the scenes, and handed out tons of prizes including:
- Store Credits
- Town Lot Property Deeds
- Obsidian Tower Village Home
- Star Citizen Aeronaut Helmet Starter Bundle
- Cloaks, Juggle, Musical Instruments, Pets, Prosperity Tool, Kobold, and other bundles
- Rare Lord British relics
- Special Challenge Coins
- Shroud of the Avatar t-shirts
- Sword of Midras audiobook AND hardcover copies!
- Razer Gear
Missed participating in the telethon event? Watch the entire stream on YouTube :
Warning: Telethon is Rated PG-13 for Alcoholic Content
$10 Million Gift to All Backers
On Monday August 22 during our Summer Telethon, we achieved the amazing milestone of $10 Million raised. As an expression of our gratitude to all of you who helped make this happen, anyone who has ever given us any money as of midnight August 22, 2016 will receive the Enchanted Virtue Cloak. It will begin appearing on your account page sometime during Release 33 and it will appear in game as soon as Release 34.
The Enchanted Virtue Cloak gives off light that changes color based on your current virtue; whether it is trending towards good or evil. The intensity of the light increases as your character’s level increases (Producer or Adventurer).
Thank you community! It is because of YOU Shroud of the Avatar was able to reach $10 Million in funding. Your generosity is humbling!
Virtue Cloak by Shroud of the Avatar
Swamp Island POT Templates
The Swamp Islands are the newest templates for the Player Owned Towns. These new templates are lowland islands covered in swampy terrain. We offer two versions, a normal version and one that has an Obsidian Style spiked wall surrounding the large island. While this is based on the original Island template, the terrain has been lowered to better represent a swampy area. This also has the nice byproduct of creating much more flat space for building placement! In fact, this template is only rivaled by the Grassland templates and Inland Forest (a modified Grassland) in available space for building.
We are planning on making walled versions of the other island templates in R34. For R33, the Swamp Island templates are only available as options in the POT submission form. In R34, these templates will begin showing up for those that select it for their Dynamic POT and as one of the example POTs in Hometown.
Lot Deed Raffle
For those backers who do not own property yet, this is your opportunity to become a land owner! As mentioned in the Release 33 Instructions, we have begun the distribution of in-game Lot Deeds via Raffles. The raffles will be monthly and for this first month’s raffle we will be handing out 75 Place Anywhere Deeds and 600 Player Owned Town Deeds. Raffle Tickets can be purchased from Home Decoration merchants in various locations throughout the game.
The drawings will be held toward the end of this Release and winners will be announced shortly thereafter. Deeds will be delivered in Release 34.
Breathe Emotes, Smoke Emotes, Pets, and Fancy Clothes
Lots of new stuff available in the Add-On Store! Check these out:
Upcoming Events
2016.08.26 – Syndcon 2016
2016.09.02 – Richard “Lord British Garriott at DragonCon 2016
2016.09.09 – Release 33 Post-Mortem Hangout
2016.09.21 – Austin Games Conference
2016.09.29 – Release 34
2016.10.27 – Release 35
2016.11.04 – SotACon
2016.11.17 – Release 36
2016.12.15 – Release 37
Community Activities
Visit the official Community Calendar to see the great lineup of activities our amazing community has planned for this weekend! And be sure to check out this month’s Release Events thread in the SotA forums for additional events.
Event of the Week – All Player Towns Gathering Release 33
The All Player Towns Gathering is a time for many Player Owned and Run Towns to meet to talk about town development, diplomacy, and ideas. All towns and people are invited to attend. This is your chance to meet other town leaders, citizens, and adventurers. We will have some plenary topics followed by workshop sessions. Sunday, August 28, 2016 at 1 PM Central US Time in PaxLair, Novia, New Britannia, East of Brittany at mouth of Brisach River (see map)
![20160825PaxLairAllTownsGatheringCourt[1]](http://d2sx9mrt4zumaq.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/20160825PaxLairAllTownsGatheringCourt1.jpg)
Richard “Lord British” Garriott at Dragon Con!
Richard Garriott will be attending Dragon Con from Friday to Sunday this coming September 2-4, 2016! He will be available at certain times for autographs, as well as on a number of exciting panels you won’t want to miss.
Some of the events and panels Richard will be on:
- Commercial Space Is Busting Out Everywhere!
- Shroud of the Avatar – Q&A
- Craft Your Own Automation
- Stuff Podcast – LIVE!
- New Britannia Round Table
- Celebrity Gaming with Pathfinder!
- A Hour With Lord British
- Mars in 10 Years! Can Elon Get It Done?
Get Richard’s complete schedule here!
‘Dawn of New Britannia’ Trailer Contest Results!
Wow! We had an outstanding community trailer contest this month. All submissions were truly fantastic and a pleasure to watch. Our team struggled mightily in narrowing it down to only three winners, as each entry was done well and were quite unique from each other. In fact, the debate over first and second place continued until the very last moment!
Well done participants! We present to the community the winners of the contest:
1st Place goes to Ember for ‘New Britannia Awaits’:
2nd Place goes to Net for ‘Experience Shroud of the Avatar’:
3rd Place goes to Selene for ‘Welcome to New Britannia!’:
You can view all entries in the contest in a playlist at youtube.com/portalarium. Note that the order of the trailers in the playlist is not in order of those we selected, except for the top 3 winners placed at the top of the list.
Congrats again to the winners, and to all that created a beautiful Shroud of the Avatar trailer for the community! For more about the contest, visit the Contest Announcement Article.
Community Resources – Players Helping Players
- The official SotA New Player Welcome Forum and the Player Created Resources Forum have the best player created resources for Shroud of the Avatar, whether it’s a Player Written Guide, a Video Walk-through, or a Wiki-type Website.
Visit the official Community Resources page for a complete listing of all things community.
Job Openings (4)
World Builder/Level Designers (2)
We currently have an opening for 2 junior-level to senior-level World Builder/Level Designers with artistic skills for Shroud of the Avatar to build out scenes (these positions are less focused on game play elements). Qualifications for “ideal candidates” are:
- Minimum 2 years industry experience for junior-level (preferably on a shipped game)
- Minimum 5 years industry experience for senior-level (minimum of at least 1 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
- BONUS: Ability to model and texture in 3D art tools
Quality Assurance
We currently have an opening for an entry-level Quality Assurance agent for Shroud of the Avatar. Qualifications for the “ideal candidate” are:
- Avid game player
- Experience with RPGs and MMOs
- Willingness to also do Customer Service tasks as needed
- Desire to expand into other areas of game development long term
- BONUS: Experience with Quality Assurance
Programmer
We currently have an opening for a Programmer for Shroud of the Avatar. Qualifications for the “ideal candidate” are:
- Minimum 2 years industry experience
- Strong C#/C++ skills
- Database development experience
- Awesome debugging skills
- Windows programming experience
- Network programming experience
- Extensive Multi-threaded programming experience
- Ability to work in unstructured, non-hierarchical environment
- Strong software architecture skills
- BONUS SKILLS (any one or more of these):
- Minimum 5 years industry experience (minimum of at least 1 shipped game)
- Unity development experience
- Mac development
- Avid game player
- Web development experience (C#, PHP, ASP.NET, XML/web services, JavaScript)
- UNIX experience
- MMO game development experience
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).
Recommended Projects to Back
Torment: Tides of Numenera is a single-player, isometric role-playing game set in the world of Monte Cook’s new tabletop RPG setting, Numenera. Torment is striving to create a rich role-playing experience that explores similar deep, personal themes.
Backer Shipping Addresses
In preparation for shipping backers’ physical pledge rewards later this year, we have added Shipping Address fields to your Account Profile page. To enter your shipping address, log in to the SotA website, select “Account” in top right corner, then select “Edit Profile” located in top left corner, beneath your Avatar image.
A reminder to be sure that support@portalarium.com is unblocked from your e-mail account!
Oh Lord,
I’ve been waiting for a swamp island! Can’t wait to see it
Thank you Devs!
For the Breathe pack, what if you already purchased and claimed Breathe Fire? Had the pack existed, I would have bought that instead. Any chance of refunding the $5 from Breathe Fire so it can be applied to pack?
That would be nice but what if I already bought the pack?
I wish I could at least teach someone the “extra” breathefire emote.
Too bad that I already have a good job because it would probably be fun to work at Portalarium.
Would be nice if I could move town crier in my POT close to the wagon. Forest Biome’s town crier is waaaay off the spawning point…
Help, I was away for the telethon, I would gladly contribute to the telethon, is there a away I can contribute still ? If I had not been away I would have joined in!