UPDATE! Livestream has concluded. You can now watch the recording on YouTube here:
Original Announcement:
Join us Tuesday, December 20th at 3:00 PM Central (21:00 UTC) on Twitch for our monthly Hangout of the Avatar! The team will be chatting about the upcoming Release 37, the recent holiday events, and looking ahead to what’s going on in the next year!
As always, we will be giving out rare Lord British artifacts of immense power and glory, and answering your latest questions. For a chance to win an artifact, or to speak your voice on the latest game changes, be in Discord chat during the livestream. There will be multiple chances to win throughout the broadcast!
Once you get a chance to check out Release 37, or have questions that apply regardless of release, post your questions in the comments section below. Only one post submission allowed, and keep questions to 3 or less. This will allow us to get to as many individual players’ questions as possible.
Questions and feedback related to this release’s specific topics will be given priority and really verbose questions may be skipped, as they can be a challenge to shorten and summarize live on the air. In brief… please keep your questions… brief.
Follow @ShroudofAvatar to keep updated on the latest SotA livestreams and game news!
In regards to the global cooldown associated with switching between “War Mode” and “Normal Mode”.
Can we please remove the timer reset for the action of stacking spells.
Ex: After going into War Mode and it takes X time before I can switch out of War Mode. If you cast certain spells it resets the cooldown timer. Currently the timer also resets if you stack spells.
Stacking spells and then leaving “War Mode” has no advantage that I can think of and should not cause the timer to reset.
Question 1: Will you please make Obsidian thrones, like those found in Desolis, available for players to make or purchase (in large quantities)?
Question 2: Can you please consider making more options to make items that do not have the Lord British or Darkstarr symbols. You guys are great, but my character isn’t aligned with either of you so any items with your symbols immediately become less usable by me. This includes the ethiical hedonism symbol as well.
Question 3: Since control points appear to be highly suseptable to farming exploits, will you please consider making them more about travel and less about XP and Loot? For example, making them important for players to open up regions but not very important to camp for giant XP gains and loot farming?
Question 1-3: Any plans regarding performance optimization for Mac game client?
Question 1: Could you please confirm that brewery will be ready to test by R28?
Question 2: Is there anyway we can get our POT renamed without having wiped every thing? I am willing to pay $25 to unlock or pay the amount to upgrade next time if I can do the rename seamlessly.
Question 3: Will there be any kinda of smoke indicator for adventure zones, perhaps at least for active PVP activities or death if people are so afraid to be found by gankers?
First Question : Can you address the changes and or balances to resources in the upcoming release and future releases, and any metrics to show how some of these selective player instances are affecting the others both negatively and positively. Also, there have been many changes and or balances that seem like punishments in the eyes of some in the community, can you please discuss how they’ll benefit fun, which some might argue is diminishing, in the long run?
Second Question : Is there any chance you can implement a broader spectrum of control point levels? Maybe Introducing some for lower adventurer levels to be able to use? I wouldn’t mind seeing a 1, 2, 3, and 4 skull adventure level control points added with difficulty scaled down so people at those levels could use them. Also could you make the chests for those points be centralized on the point and be for the people doing the control point so they could realistically loot them while clearing the waves?
Third Question : Can you talk about any new fun mechanics you might be adding down the road? I for one would love to see repeatable quests added for crafters to random locations to craft items for npc’s for rewards, maybe titles or recipe variants and some extra crafter experience. It’d go a long way to taking some of what you may see as excessive marketplace items out of the equation restoring some balance to said market.
question 1: Can you please make it so we can remove entries in the quest journal? I have a few stuck in my journal because I did something out of order in the quest line or not removed after turning it in, I am ocd and this is super annoying.
question 2: what do you think about this idea for crafting skill decay you could have some items that you have to poor some of your skill point in to making, that would make these items unable to be mass produced it would also make not trying to master all crafting skills valuable because you would have more points to spend on making these items.
First Question : Is there a fix for stealth skills pertaining to, the skill will often not work unless you re-log?
Second Question : Detecting Stealth-ed people has always been easy by spamming G and hovering your cursor around. Is there any addressing this some time this release? Currently we may auto attack with bows or magic skills at max range, on stealther’s we do not see.
Question 1 : Is the enchantment recipe/skill going to be fixed? ( No more message such as: “This recipe requires a ?Bugged? of 30 or higher” ). I think a vast majority of us are having this message, and enchanting looks like a skill you need to work on a lot, so as soon as you guys can get it fixed, we’ll all be very happy.
Question 2 : Is the Elyssian Illumination skill also going to be fixed? ( less opaque and hopefully, visually convivial ). Some players do not want the other players to use this skill at all because it is just ‘blinding’ and not really helpful in the end..
1) Will you consider adding a feature, where we can trade in one addon store item for another of equal value? In this particular instance, I would like the option to trade my wall lights for the obsidian ones without having to sell the old ones to other players first and incur paypal fees. You could possibly add a gold fee or something for the trades.
2) Will all cloned scenes retain the same basis they are now? ie will all ‘polished’ town scenes end up feeling like reskinned paxlairs and all combat scenes feel like the same 3-4 basic layouts with different foliage, or will we see completely redone scenes with new, and hopefully interesting, designs?
Q1: You recently lauded to giving us better tools and systems to aid for easier buying and selling in game (e.g.: heatmaps). Would you elaborate on where your thoughts are at (IWLYB) and how this benefits buyers and sellers?
*aluded
Are we still going to get more character verses the environment things like sleeping in beds give resting bonuses and more to eating and drinking in Sota like not eating may give starvation effects and drinking too much causes drunkenness and negative debuffs that can be countered or temp relief ?
Like hangover recipe that you could craft. I know we do have some eating that is helpful for combat atm but I’m hoping for more.
Will we see any adjustment to Adventure Level providing hp, focus, etc in the future? Currently it takes away from the tactics, skill and gear focus of combat and gives an advantage to raw level. Maybe a cap on level that provides these stats?
Could we see deck synergies where if we stick to a few specific skill trees in a deck a bonus could be applied to make that deck more efficient to help folks specialize?
Will the beautiful new blooming cherry trees in Ardoris be available in the add-on store?
Q1: My PoT has been asking for Over-sized cherry tree for a while now.
Now that Ardoris cherry trees are implemented, would this be good time to contact portalarium for a Giant cherry tree (will pay in vouchers) ?
Will traveling through the fog or the pretty flower patches on the Overland Map cause any effect to our Avatar?
re: selling dyed items :
Q. Will there be a way to visually tell that an item listed on a vendor has been dyed?
I think that people browsing the long lists of items should be able to easily see the difference between a normal crafted item and the same one with a dye applied (without holding “ctrl” key) . Either the objects preview art could show the color (probably too difficult?) or the name appends the dyed color (possiblly do-able?)
ex.
Cloth Shirt [dark yellow]
Fustian cloth gloves [light blue]
1. Can we get a “Hide Helmet” Option? I want to see my beautiful face!
2. Can we get a Shield rework? Make “Deflect” passiv or a give us an passiv “Crit Evasion”
3. Why are there so many items like Armor/Weapons and Weapon Racks in game placed but we cant place them as Deko? Dont want my Epic placed, just a normal Plate Armor, a Longsword or some Ingots.
On your third question: This has been a long time ask, and the development team fully intends to (and has from the beginning) provide methods by which our arms, armor, hats, et cetera might be displayed. It just hasn’t bubbled up close enough to the top of the priority list to be implemented yet. Many more important things to do first.
1. Can the NPC merchant who sells seeds be available to POT owners for placement?
2. Can we have an option to remove the dye from an item and restore it to the default?
3. Could healers click a health bar on the list of party members for targeting?
On your first question. This was answered in the most recent telethon. The Farming Supply Merchant is to be made available in Q1 of 2017. So, we should have them by the end of March.
+1 on the third item. I’ve long wondered why this wasn’t available.
Question: Does the proposed POT Town Siege Experiment include any provision for the POT to opt out of these sieges?
At one point the erection of a Moon Tower was to confer this protection.
Question: Could a Watermill be added to the list of Upcoming Water Homes?
Bonus points if there were clockwise and widdershins versions.
Question: Could we get Flowering Shrubs, Trees, and ’tiles’ of flowers in various colors added to the game and Add-On Store?
Inspired by the Floral Meadow POT Template and the request from the most recent telethon to add Birch Trees as an additional available option.
1. Even though the keep walls issue was “settled” eons ago, I for one was not part the player pool that vote on keeping the walls. How many signatures do I need to garner to request for a recount on this issue?
2. Currently, water lots cannot be placed on the dock of forest, desert swamp 1, 1a template. Is there a timeline to correcting this?
At the moment, agriculture is a large time sink. Gathering water takes about 10 seconds per bucket or you spend gold. Plants have to be watered on a variety schedules to get the max yield. Miss one watering and you get minimum yield. Even at max yield, you don’t get enough seeds to replant. So, you have to buy seeds.
1) When do you expect to complete another run though agriculture?
2) Can you reduce the time sink of agriculture by adding an auto-water solution? e.g. placing a wind power generator next to a well waters all plants on schedule.
3) Can yields be adjusted to be more proportional the amount of work involved? e.g. single water yields 25% of the max yield and a seed, etc up to full yield and a 2nd seed.
Thank you
When will you be adding more bandwidth?
There doesn’t seem to be any time I can play anymore where I am not disconnected due to network congestion.
I would maybe post in the tech forums about this .. I run a couple machines as test located in North America and your location and connection may be your issue. Not saying you do not have an issue, but I have not personally seen this as a wide complaint posting in the tech area may find some folks able to help ya. Just a suggestion.
Q: In future telethons would you be willing to introduce gameplay mechanics as stretch goals instead of fluff only items?
Q: Water harvesting is pretty time consuming (and my E key is already starting to show some wear and tear). Is it possible to add an interface that can allow a player to select up to a certain amount of buckets to gather (e.g. 20 buckets)? (Note: the gathering animation can still play for each bucket).
Q: How can I unbind keys? (The R key for combos really gets in the way especially if my finger accidentally hits it while I’m using number keys for setting up my combos).
#2 Plus 1 on that .. I suggested awhile back that the size of the fountain should allow us to gather xxxx number of buckets of water based on it .. aka a cinerous should provide a smaller amount than the large fountain, charity store so many player made well so many etc .. #buckets based on size of fountain. The argument was made that it made it play to win, but with the LARGE fountain being player made I find this not so.
Any news about armor resistance vs weapon types?
1: Will there be a way to place any kind of container in our houses in the future? Like Small bags and such.
2: Can we have a way to make our writings in Books and Papers to be labled “Anonymous” instead of displaying the actual authors name?
Is there any way we can get the missed telethon items i didnt know about
1. I know you were planning on looking at wands and staves again sometime in the future for both their function and appearance. There may not be news on this yet with all the other projects that needed to be done first but my Necromancer is standing by with her staff hoping.
2. Epic Cloth Armor – I would like my girlish figure back please. It might also be worth losing the pouches on the back of the belt; they clip through cloaks.
3. Most of the housing and lots when the game is released that will be both available and affordable will be Village or smaller. I would like to see smaller scale versions of items like light fixtures and fountains. Many of the ones we have are beautiful – but too large in scale for those buildings and lots. If the hope is to have players craft and/or spend money at the store the new players will not be buying size extra huge for city and town homes.
#2 +1 on the clipping through cloaks maybe post on bug forums with a screenshot!. If you don’t do it I can if ya like let me know.
Can we have Pot teleporters would be nice to be able to set a few of these up, make finding events and get togethers easier to find.
Why does the underground biome keep getting the short end of the stick, difficult to see rock is actually a town, no population/activity indicators, linked marker is a grate,low light in the pot and very few bright lights allowed in pot. I really feel like the effort into the undergroud biome is lacking and would like to see much love headed this way.
Please talk about the state of high end content currently or will be in the game soon, The control points, The rise, new stuff. Anything new on the way for higher level players like t6 zones?
1) When do you think new creatures will come online, and will there be Ultima-ish creatures such as Ettins, Headlesses, Cyclops, Reapers, etc.?
2) Will enterable things other then townes and adventure maps ever appear on the world map? E.g. towers, light houses (with the cool light house effect from Ultima 5), castles, dungeons, caves, etc. I know there’s some mines and towers, but I want more. Especially, more dungeons and caves.
3) Would it be possible and is there any plans to change the look of harvestable trees. E.g. when will pine trees look like pine trees, maple trees look like maple trees, etc.? Also, will any new wood types be added such as cherry, oak, etc.?
Will there ever be a stability / sanity check on the OS X and Linux clients before pushing out releases and patches? R37 is slower to load on OS X than R36, and it’s stability was bad to start and has been getting worse with the last two patches (522 / 523). Is there any test done on non-Windows clients before pushing these out? I could not at all recommend that an OS X or Linux user adopt SotA at its current state.
Bonus question: Would it be possible to give players a digital notebook, so we can take notes digitally instead of using pencil and paper?
Cool Idea, we can do it in books but once you save it .. you cannot add further to the book … perhaps special books that can be continually added to, until they reach their max number of characters… I would love this for making scorecards for the golf course lol .. I love this idea.
1. Is the future of fishing still the same as you described last year in Update of the Avatar #141 (R22) ?
2. Will you ever implement an API for modders to use?
3. Do you think you will ever adjust droprates for any of the items? If we want to f.x. record all the drops we get and try to get an average percentage and not get said data ruined by changes in the droprate.
Can you confirm that the main quests (love, truth,courage) will be “reset” on official launch? I think many people (including me) are wary of trying these as they are essential quests and they want to be able to play through them perfectly and in an unbroken state. If we can do them again on official launch that would be perfect.
First, will nested POTs count toward the hosting POT Blessing bonus for population when the Blessing go live?
Second, how many people do you expect a POT to have before it receives full blessings?
Third, I don’t have a third question so I’ll just say Happy Holidays!
Question 1
In Release 36 it was proposed to have allied Guilds which in my head meant a combined chat channel for alliances. To me it meant a small guild that was part of Phoenix Republic could use in game tools to communicate with our allies rather than relying on Discord a 3rd party tool with no way to expand font sizes other than get a bigger 2nd monitor or run up to the screen to read chat. Discord has no disability settings for those needing glasses to read the font sizes lol. It was delayed in R36 but not mentioned again. What are the exact plans for this and how long is the delay expected to be?
Question 2
Development time was spent to have overland indicators for POT with overland access,(number of pads occupied-smoke/lights) but the fact remains that there are sub POTs who paid the same price if not more for their POTs and cannot show their activity. What plans if any, are there for roadsigns and data to support these types of investments or will their equal money be non-displayed for those POTs who did not get overland access but work just as hard if not harder than their representative entry points? AKA Non Overland POTs with no representation with the same taxation LOL!
Question 3—bit of a statement but question on if you have plans
With Holiday schedules there have been quicker sprints for release, which means only a week or so for DEV+ to test, the problem is that the patch notes goals or the actual patch with at least part of this implemented arrives too late for the community to truly test. Once we are past the holidays have you thought of ways to get this information on what to test by the community faster and a a base patch out faster to the community.
I feel hard pressed to test the new things and can only mindlessly do old things to find what got broken, when the next real patch may have addressed it. It feels like spinning wheels with no focal points. I do understand the need to check for things broken as by products but it makes focus testing harder .. If that is the plan, please educate the DEV+ community on this that this is your wish before releasing the projected patch notes. Set expectations please.
Hi Lace,
Could you please clarify Question 1? We’re trying to understand how to phrase it on the postmortem. Thanks!
Looking to identify what the guild ally aspect will be is it a chat channel and then when your goal is now to implement it since pushed back from R36 as delayed .. does that help?
Can you explain decay based on the 12 hour thing, I assume it means the only decay ill possibly lose is the decay I accumulated in the last 12 hours. So if I made a billion xp and then hung arround Owls head for 12 hours I should have 0 decay?
1. Can we see some concepts/early versions of the new Quest UI? This may be the most important thing you can do to, please make it great.
2. What are your plans for uncloning player vendors? Right now they are the most seen NPC in the game, so really need some variety. How about using the automotons? At least then it would make sense for them to look the same.
3. Please put the short spiky hair back in. You “upgraded” it to a totally different hairstyle, but if you still have the old files put them both in! Why remove good content? Plus, Viola spent 5 of my COTO’s on that and now has a haircut she didn’t want.
1. When placing Castle Wall pieces, Stone Fencing and Building Blocks, there is a small amount of allowed overlap which makes for a nice seamless appearance. Would it be possible to increase that overlap allowance to say 15 – 20%? This would give us more flexibility with the structures we create on our lots without increasing the item count significantly.
2. How about a pair of hotkeys that we could toggle to lock either the X or Y axis when re-positioning placed deco items? For example; I often have an object almost where I want it, but it just needs to be moved a little to the left or right and when I move it, I end up bringing it forward or pushing it back.
Thank you all for your hard work on this awesome game!
Question 1: Why does pick pocketing a practice dummy cause you to lose virtue? In combat PVP, if I return the items garnered from my “kill(s)” I don’t lose virtue, but it’s not the same with pick pocketing. Even if I return the items I still lose virtue. Moreover, what if I am pick pocketing a thug, ruffian or even a Dragon? I lose virtue doing that, but not by killing them and then looting them? Lemme tell ya, it takes A LOT of courage sneaking up to pick pocket a dragon. Just ask my man Bilbo Baggins!
Question 2: The implementation of lock picking in dungeons sounds fantastic. Will this cause us to take a virtue hit as well? Also, will we be able to pick locks on player houses eventually?
Question 1: For those of us who are super passionate about SotA and want to help the game succeed but lack a disposable income, is there any other way that we can help? One example I could provide is that bands used to have Street Teams that allowed fans to help promote new albums and shows.
Question 2. What are your thoughts on implementing a program where you turn in gold and resources for special items?
Q1: When will you increase the party size to allow parties >8 people?
Q2: Will you adjust the (currently very high) difficulty of the vauban pass to the difficulty of all other control points during the uncloning?
Q3: Could you please reconsider using instanced NPCs to help telling a story? (e.g. NPC dying, NPCs changing home, NPCs having different behaviour/visuals – all depending on your actions as Avatar…as performed very well at ESO!)
Dear SotA-Team
1. Because of a mistake I didn’t used my Alienware Starter Pledge. Is it possible to transfer not used pledges to Shop Credits?
But it is one of the famous thing, an Avatar is good for. It would be a unique thing, which we find in no other roleplaying game…
2. Are there plans for a functional overlandmap with “Markers” on it, giving further information about the game (progress). For example:
By mouse over Ardoris I could see:
Inhabitants: XXX, Leader: Siranto/Khasi, Buildings: xxx, Quests accepted: X, solved: X,
Open Quest: Meet Min Liang in the Tower of Shuttered Eyes.
It would be good to link locations with Journal Entries (and the other way).
[I wrote a few Suggestions with the main theme: RED LINE and the possibility to build Chapters like
Path of Love, Path of …]
3. What would you think about (more) Skills/Spells of Peace (May be the path of peace too?)
Spells like Stun or Mesmerize …
I mean: Why have I always to kill enemies to receive exp.? Why not earn exp. by giving a creature here/his life (maybe at 2%-10% of Health they fall conscious/stunned/to knee and need a minute to recover (and health should recover very slow, if you were so near at death…) before starting again to attack). To give compassion and mercy is at own risk
Like the Beatles said: “give peace a chance!”
Thank you for all your work and the time answering our questions
Q1: When will we have new ranks and options for guilds permissions?
Q2: When are bard skills coming?
Q3: Will we have any raid with cool bosses in the future?