R45 Instructions

[See the forum post to join in the discussion of this update!]

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 45 access for all Early Access backers begins this Thursday, August 31, at 10:30 AM US Central Daylight Time (15:30 UTC).

Release 45 is our first release after reaching the Story Complete milestone last release. We are now able to focus on polishing the game experience. This release, we have rebuilt multiple scenes, added more quests, polished the user interface, and continued to balance combat.

Scene Polish: Once again, a huge amount of work went into worldbuilding and scene polish this release. One of the main towns along the Path of Truth is Etceter. We took time in Release 45 to polish this town to better align it with its description in The Sword of Midras, as well as with the Greco/Roman styles of the nearby city of Xenos. Additionally, we rebuilt three scenes: Longfall Woods, Middle Downs, and South Broken Road.  Over the next several releases, we will continue rebuilding scenes along the Paths of Truth and Courage.

Quest Polish and Side Quests: In addition to scene polish, we also spent significant time polishing quests along the Paths of Truth and Courage, as well as creating more side quests along those paths. Avatars who have obtained the Dread Artifacts can now sacrifice themselves at each Titan Colossus in order to obtain the Dread Reagents that power those artifacts. The new side quests this release include a repeatable Courage activity, but we can’t talk about it because of the first rule of… wait, I’ve already said too much.

User Interface Polish: We were able to polish various aspects of the user interface, as well as implement major new features such as the ability to separate chat into multiple windows! We also implemented the first iteration of Discord integration which, while still only rudimentary, is already quite powerful! Additionally, we added a “Private Property” tooltip to help prevent accidental thefts, improved tooltips for equipment that indicates the type of pattern that can be applied, autocomplete for the “/w” whisper command (a player suggestion), and a host of other improvements.

Perforce Meltdown: We completed all of these new features, new content, and polish despite losing almost an entire week of work when the server that runs our source control completely failed. Source control is how we maintain versions of all of our data and code. This allows us to share content with each other (we check items out and then check them back in when we are done), and also allows us to revert to previous revisions if something goes wrong. Our instance of Perforce (that is the software that we use for source control) was corrupted due to some defective hardware on the computer that it was running on. It took a week to get it back and running, and we lost a lot of our revision history. In the end, we were able to get back almost everything and make our release on time as always, with only a few items not making the release because of this issue.

I want to express a huge amount of gratitude to our backers who tested all of the items below on the QA server and uncovered lots of bugs. They also provided editorial feedback on this post. 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. We do not yet have all of the in-game systems needed to inform players about these changes, and to help them to explore new content and systems. This means we rely mostly 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 also working overtime to make new events for you to enjoy. Be sure to check out when there are player-run events in one of the calendars (via in-game book or the player-run website: Avatars Circle). You can also get the latest official events on the Main Website.

Without further ado, here is a list of what you can expect to see in Release 45.

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 (but are still planned).

RELEASE 45, August 31, 2017

• Story: Highvale Outskirts, a new scene that players start in after the Battle of Highvale Village, will come online for the first time. We will also focus on adding sidequests and polish to the Paths of Truth and Courage. Finally some adventure scenes in the northwest regions of Novia will be rebuilt from scratch, including Longfall Woods.
  • Etceter: Originally, Etceter was cloned from Kingsport. While we made significant changes to the scene to make it unique, we still felt it needed more polish. It also needed more obvious visual references to the historical locations mentioned in “The Sword of Midras” (the prequel novel written by Tracy Hickman and Richard Garriott). Additionally, after building Xenos, we established a characteristic Greco-Roman style for that region of the world, and we wanted to propagate that look to nearby towns. For instance, Aerie now has a “Little Xenos” neighborhood. Since Etceter is the main port that takes you to Xenos, it only makes sense that it would have some strong influences from that style. We completed these goals for Etceter in R45.
    
  • Longfall Woods: Longfall Woods is a heavily forested Tier 2 area near Aerie in the Longfall region. Part of our focus of the next few releases is on building the lower tier scenes near the cities along the paths of Truth and Courage. Up until this point, most of these scenes have been clones of other scenes, but they will now be replaced with completely original scenes.
    
  • Middle Downs: Middle Downs is a hilly Tier 1 scene near the mountains with a network of burial mounds and an abandoned village. It is also part of our efforts mentioned above to build out the lower-tier scenes along the paths of Truth and Courage. It is located in the South Paladis Region.
    
  • South Broken Road: South Broken Road is a Tier 2 scene composed of a winding road through the mountains, filled with various encounters including plunderers and undead. Like Middle Downs above, South Broken Road is also part of our efforts to build out the lower tier scenes along the paths of Truth and Courage. It is located in the South Paladis Region.
    
  • Truth and Courage Side Quests: We have begun adding side quests to the Paths of Truth and Courage. One example added in Release 45 is a quest to “Save Mildryd” that sends you to Middle Downs. We also added a repeatable activity related to Courage in Resolute and Aerie… but we cannot talk about it because of its first rule.
  • Siege Encounters and Courage: SPOILER: Now, everyone who receives credit for killing an Obsidian Cabalist will also receive an amount of Courage Virtue.
  • Sacrifice for Dread Reagents: SPOILERS: Players can now visit the three Titan Colossi and visit an Oracle Automaton to sacrifice themselves (i.e. invoke the death decay penalties) and thus gain the Dread Reagents needed to power the Dread Artifacts. Please note that due to the power of these artifacts, only one reagent (of any type) can be obtained from these automatons at a time.
  • Sequanna: The Titan of Love now properly displays the visual effects of the Heart of Sorrows while she has it equipped.
  • Malice: We reconstructed the skeleton/barrier puzzle using the new interactive system and updated the clue letter to reference gems instead of letters. More work on improving Malice is scheduled for R46.
  • Solace Bridge: We adjusted the location of the starter bow to make it easier to find for new players.
  • Lighting: We polished the default color gradients that control various scene lighting elements (such as fog color), so they have a more natural looking response to the sunlight throughout the day-to-night cycle.
  • Insects around Lanterns: We polished the visual effects that simulate insects around lanterns.
  • Ardoris Palace Guards: The guards at the gates no longer require a password to advance through the gates if players had previously visited the opposing palace. The gate switches now act identically to other gates throughout the game.
  • Nightshade Pass: We reduced the difficulty of some enemies near the entrances for this scene to accommodate easier access to the opposite side. The difficulty of enemies at Hilt Fortress remains unchanged.
  • Stealing Fines Lowered: We have lowered the fines considerably for stealing until such time as we have better visual clues and we have ways to escalate the fines for repeat offenses. Previously the fines were 100 times the value of the item plus 100 gold. For now they are simply the value of the item plus 100 gold.
  • Scene Fixes: We went through tons of scenes in the game fixing major and minor bugs including conversations, stuck spots, floating assets, missing assets, bad NPC patrols, inaccessible ore nodes, missing collision, audio issues, falling through the world, tree issues, etc. The list includes:
    • Aerie
    • Aldwater
    • Ardoris
    • Battle of Highvale
    • Battle of Solace Bridge
    • Blood Bay
    • Blood River
    • Blood River Massacre
    • Blood River Outskirts
    • Boreas Colossus
    • Brittany Estates
    • Brittany Fields
    • Brittany Sewers
    • Brookside
    • Celestis
    • Crypt of the Avatar
    • East Perennial Trail
    • Etceter
    • Ferig’s Battle Camp
    • Grannus Colossus
    • Hills Siege
    • Isle of Storms
    • Jaanaford
    • Kiln
    • Kingsport
    • Kingsroad
    • K’rul
    • Middle Downs
    • Necropolis
    • Necropolis Barrens
    • Nightshade Pass
    • North Brightbone Woods
    • Novia Overworld
    • Owl’s Head
    • Owl’s Head Sewers
    • Penmawr Island
    • Resolute
    • Rhun Ruins
    • Sanctus Spine
    • Sequanna Colossus
    • Solace Bridge
    • Solace Bridge Outskirts
    • Solania
    • Soltown
    • South Fetid Swamp
    • Superstition Canyon
    • The Necropolis
    • Valhold
    • Valhold Palace
    • West Perennial Trail
    • Westend
    • Wyrmsands
  • Highvale Outskirts Delayed: Highvale Outskirts has been built, all of the basic spawning is complete, and some of the side quests are also in. However, due to the Perforce meltdown, we did not have the time to get the main quest lines complete so we are holding this scene until next release (R46).
  • Quest Reset Delayed: We are holding the Quest Reset function until Release 46 because Highvale Outskirts has been delayed, there are not yet enough side quests along the Truth and Courage paths, and the quest item deletion functionality is just now being completed and we want more internal testing time on that particular feature.
• Performance: Significant focus will continue to be made on performance improvements, including stability, framerate, memory, and load times.
  • Trophy Heads: We moved the trophy heads to be their own set of textures. Previously even though you would only see the head for the trophy we had to load the texture for the entire creature into memory. This was adding as much as 200MB to every city map which hurt performance and increased load times.
  • Duplicate Shaders: We believe we finally tracked down some of the issues with both hitching and load times. While this fix likely won’t make the initial release, we hope to have it one of the early patches. This fix will improve level load times as well as greatly reduce in game hitching.
  • Optimized Tree and Grass Removal: Tree and grass removal system for city maps was optimized. This was impacting both initial load times and the performance of the game while the properties were streamed in.
  • Optimized Interactive GameObject Startup Logic:  In large scenes, several seconds were being spent on startup logic for doors, torches, chests, and barrels.  These have been greatly improved.
  • Growing Memory Improvements: While by no means is it completely fixed, the memory growth in the game should be noticeably better as our efforts to remove any run time memory allocations continue. More than a dozen more run time allocations were squashed but still lots of work left to do here.
  • Performance: Due to lost time to the Perforce meltdown, we did not get as much performance work done for R45 as expected. While there will be measurable improvements, only 1-2 man weeks of effort was spent on it. Performance improvements in high stress situations (high player/creature counts) and also in load times remain a top priority and we expect to make significant improvements in the coming releases.
• Single-Player Offline Combat Balance: We will adjust and balance combat for play in offline mode with companions.
  • Boss Creature Health: The difficulty of creatures with health greater than 2000 hit points is now significantly scaled down. NOTE: This was just one tweak made for Offline Combat Balance. We plan to make several more before launch.
  • Single-Player Offline Combat Balance Delayed: While we were able to adjust the upper end of gameplay with higher end creatures (sub-bosses and bosses) we were unable to implement some of the other features we were hoping to like stronger companions due to the issues with Perforce mentioned above.
• Player Housing: Players will be able to claim property in Blood Bay, in our first Open PVP housing area. Additionally, updates to Dynamic Player-Owned Towns that have locked submission forms will appear in the game.
  • Cloaks as Decoration: Over 50 cloaks can now be placed as wall decorations. When turning the cloaks into decorations we were inspired by the traditional method in which the Japanese hang kimonos on bamboo.
  • Tenant ID on Items:  Items placed by lot tenants will now display the owning tenant’s name in the mouseover tooltip for that item. This will reduce confusion created by anonymous tenant items on lots that had multiple tenants.
  • Shogun Crafting Pavilion Homes: When we rebuilt the town of Celestis we also rebuilt the crafting area and made a custom crafting pavilion in the Shogun style. Players loved it and requested that we make a player version of it so we did! The Single Story Shogun Crafting Pavilion is craftable and the Ornate Two-Story Shogun Crafting Pavilion can be found in the Add-On Store. Note that these have to be homes (not decorations) so that pathfinding to crafting stations will work properly.
    
  • Pirate Galleon Town Homes: Players love the city-sized Pirate Galleons, but not everyone has a city-sized lot to put them on. Players requested that we make smaller versions for town-sized lots, and so we did! This is the first boat-style water home since the Lord Houseboat that is smaller than city-sized. There is also a drydocked version that can be placed on a land lot. Both versions can be purchased in the Add-On Store in Release 45.
    
  • More Inns: With the launch of the Tenant and Door permissions systems we have started creating buildings specifically tailored to facilitating renting rooms. Each Inn features a ground level floor with a large common room and a single private room (suitable for a kitchen or innkeeper’s room) as well as 3 upper floors that each have 5 rooms (for a total of 15 rentable rooms). The first two we created were in the Wooden & Plaster and Viking styles. For Release 45 we have begun creating additional Inns in a variety of other styles. All of these can be purchased in the Add-On Store.
    • Elven Inn (Village): The Elven Inn has the characteristic ornate wooden carvings and curved rooflines of similar Elven architecture.
      
    • Obsidian Inn (Village): The Obsidian Inn displays the dark stone, menacing spikes, and rooftop deck of Obsidian architecture.
      
  • Number Decorations: With the addition of the aforementioned Inns players have been requesting ways to identify the individual rooms in these buildings, so we have created individual number decorations that can be placed above or adjacent to each room (or be used for any other decorative purpose, like addresses). The Wooden Numbers can be crafted and the Ornate Metal Numbers can be purchased from the Add-On Store.
    
  • Clocks: We have added 8 clocks to the game, including grandfather clocks, mantle clocks, and wall clocks. All of the clocks have working hands that are aligned to New Britannian time. They can be found in the Add-On Store. Note that in Release 46 we will be adding 6 craftable versions.
    
    
  • Etched Glass Top Burled Wood Furniture Collection: This collection of 12 glass and wood pieces of furniture features 9 unique items including multiple kinds of chairs and tables. This version can be purchased in the Add-On Store. Note that in Release 46 we will be adding a similar version of this style furniture that can be crafted.
    
  • Sigil Tapestries: These three large tapestries represent the three schools of Combat, Magic and Crafting. They can be purchased in the Add-On Store in R45 and will be available on Crown Merchants in R46.
    
  • Removal of Preplaced Keep and Castle Lot Walls: We have removed all of the preplaced walls on Keep and Castle sized lots in all towns across New Britannia. This will provide owners of these lots much more flexibility in choosing which wall types they want to place (if they want walls at all). As a reminder, all Duke and Lord of the Manor pledges come with a complete set of wall pieces. For more information about this change and why it was made please refer to this post.
  • Wall and Fence Culling: We have fixed an issue that was causing placed walls and fences on player lots to disappear much earlier than the houses. Now they should both stay visible at the same distance.
  • POT Overworld Population Indicator: Fixed an issue where these were incorrectly indicating the current number of occupied lots in a Player Owned Town.
  • Inventory Subcontainers Permissions Display: Containers within containers now properly display permission levels.
  • Sheet Music on Utility Bar while at Piano: Fixed an issue where sheet music could not be used from the Utility Bar to play music while sitting at a Piano.
  • Destination Lot Marker on Compass: Fixed an issue where the marker on the compass for the lot you were going to was not clearing when you changed scenes.
  • House and Furniture Fixes: Fixed various issues with homes and furniture including places where decorations could not be placed, where stairs could not be climbed without jumping, where furniture could not be used, etc. The list includes:
    • Dry Docked Pirate Galleon (City Home)
    • Dry Docked Shogun Ship (City Home)
    • Duke Benefactor (City Home)
    • Elven Four-Story (City Home)
    • Elven Hill (Village Home)
    • Elven Tree (Town Home)
    • Gothic Mansion Three-Story (Village Home)
    • Grand City Chateau (City Home)
    • Greenhouse Four-Story (Row Home)
    • Kobold Four-Story Great Hall (City Home)
    • Lord Founder (Town Water Home)
    • Obsidian Tower (Town Home)
    • Ornate Greenhouse Four-Story (Row Home)
    • Pirate Galleon (City Water Home)
    • Pristine Gothic Mansion (Town Home)
    • Shogun Five-Story (City Home)
    • Shogun Ship (City Water Home)
    • Viking Three-Story Stronghold (Town Home)
    • Viking Two-Story w/ Dual Balconies (Village Home)
    • Wood & Plaster Four-Story (Row Home)
    • Wood & Plaster Two-Story (Row Home)
    • Village Stone 5-Story Basement
    • Birdbath
    • Sickle
    • Bleachers: were invisible
    • Corner Castle Wall Pieces: Fixed issue where they would break when rotated 45 degrees
    • Moon Tower (POT)
    • Iron Wall Lamp
    • Iron Chandelier
    • Obsidian Wall Light
    • Fire Elemental Statue
    • Bec de Corbin
    • Broad Hand Axe
    • Elder Elven Armor Boots
    • Norgard Spear
    • Autumn Fairy Dress
    • Party Hat
    • Chainsword
    • Elven Elite Archer Quiver
    • Round Shield
  • R44 Lot Deed Raffle Tickets: The drawings will be held on August 31, 2017 and winners will be announced shortly thereafter. Deeds will be delivered in Release 45.
    • Place Anywhere Deeds (10):
      • Row: 5
      • Village: 3
      • Town: 1
      • City: 1
    • Player Owned Town Deeds (10):
      • Row: 5
      • Village: 3
      • Town: 1
      • City: 1
  • R45 Lot Deed Raffle Tickets: Raffle tickets can be purchased with in game gold from home merchants. Each person can only win a single deed of each type (maximum of one place anywhere and one POT). The drawing and winners will be in R46.
    • Place Anywhere Deeds (10):
      • Row: 5
      • Village: 3
      • Town: 1
      • City: 1
    • Player Owned Town Deeds (10):
      • Row: 5
      • Village: 3
      • Town: 1
      • City: 1
  • New and Updated Dynamic POTs:
    • Allaman: Upgraded to Metropolis.
    • Arcadia: Renamed (formerly Brewood). Converted to Grasslands 01a. Ownership changed. Changed location. Upgraded to Village.
    • Braeside Castle: Upgraded to Hamlet
    • Faubourg d’Avallon: Renamed (formerly Avallon). Upgraded to Hamlet. Interconnections (with Isle of Xee and Styx).
    • Isle of Ghosts: Upgraded to Crossroads Village
    • Jade Valley: Rotated to Default. Upgraded to Metropolis. Interconnection (with Nesoskia)
    • Justice Hold: Upgraded to Village
    • Lake Cusabo: Upgraded to Metropolis
    • Memphomai: Converted to Swamp island 01a. Rotated to Right. Upgraded to Village. Changed location.
    • Nidhoggr Mountains: Upgraded to Hamlet.
    • Painted Caves: Upgraded to Hamlet.
    • Salisbury Plains: Upgraded to Hamlet.
    • Sequanna’s Peace: Upgraded to Village.
    • Stormsong Vale: Upgraded to City.
    • Ullr Ridge: Upgraded to Crossroads Village.
    • Vale St. Julie: Converted to Mountains 01. Rotated to 180.
    • Veritas Sanctuary: Renamed (formerly Welcome Center). Converted to Swamp 01a. Ownership Changed. Upgraded to Town.

    
    

  • Blood Bay Housing Delayed: Work on Perforce recovery and support for the Localized Installer delayed our work on Blood Bay Housing.
• Combat: We will continue to polish visual effects related to combat, and we will continue work on overall combat balance.
  • Creature Flee Behavior: We continue to polish how creatures use the flee mechanic. Last release we changed the numbers associated with frequency. This release we have made changes to how enemies find a position and how they move out of player range. These changes should make fleeing much less intrusive and destructive to the play experience.
  • Spell VFX Polish: We continued polishing the visual effects for various magic spells, including the following:
    • Chaos Bolt
    • Confusion
    • Dazzling Rays
    • Gust
    • Moon Beams
    • Vanish
  • “Powering Up” Locked Skills: Pressing and holding or clicking and holding a locked skill will charge it up and give same results as stacking.
  • Insufficient Focus Highlight: The Focus Bar now flashes when attempting to use a skill without the correct amount of focus.
  • Words of Power: When you cast a spell you now say the associated words of power in the chat window.
  • Healing Blast Icon: Healing Blast now has a unique icon
  • Ghosts and Death Magic: Ghosts are now highly resistant to Death Magic (although not immune).
  • Obsidian Golems: These creatures now generate a field that nullifies magic; use alternate strategies involving combat skills and weapons to defeat them.
  • Melee Combat Animation Polish: We have begun polishing the animations for Melee Combat, especially to address how these animations look while the Avatar is moving. For Release 45, this includes the animations for the following:
    • 2-Handed Bludgeon:
      • Crushing Blow
      • Break Armor
      • Break Weapon
      • Knock Back
      • Knock Down
      • Ground Pound
    • 1-Handed Polearm & 2-Handed Polearm:
      • Puncture
      • Push
      • Pull
      • Skewer
      • Spinning Attack
      • Leg Sweep
  • “Enemy out of Range” Issue: We fixed an issue where enemies could not be hit resulting in the infamous “Enemy out of Range” message. NOTE: We actually patched this late in R44.
  • Armor Switching Buff Issue: You are no longer able to switch armor types and retain the previous armor type’s buff.
  • DOTs Cannot Be Dodged: Damage-Over-Time (DOT) effects can no longer be dodged.
  • Reticle Visibility: Fixed an issue where the reticle would sometimes remain visible while dead, leading to confusion about what things were interactive while dead (hint: nothing but ankhs!).
  • Acrobatics: Fixed description to match skill effect.
  • Crystal Sword: Added more information to tooltip to better describe damage output
  • Movement Animations after Attacking: Fixed an issue where the lower body would not transition to running when moving after starting certain skills.
  • PvP XP Bonus: Fixed bug where PVP bonus was being granted in Solo/Party Zones
  • Stacking Cooldown Issue: Fixed issue where Skill Stacking via press-hold would break if pressed while in cooldown
  • Quad Slash: Updated to hit up to two targets per swing instead of just one.
  • Pugilism: New skill in the Subterfuge tree that increases damage in hand-to-hand. Players should not expect this to replace their trusty sword but with a good strength and skill, players can dish out some significant damage.
  • No Decay In City Scenes: Deaths in city scenes should no longer trigger any decay losses.

• Character: At least one new creature will appear in the game as well as several new weapons.

• • New Avatar Eyes: We replaced the player avatar eyes with more polished and more realistic looking eyes that better convey the look of a lens and iris.
  • Norgard Citizens, Merchants, Royals: In Release 44, we added Norgard Guards to scenes in the Norgard and Verdantis regions. In Release 45, we have updated the rest of the NPCs in those regions to match the Viking theme. This includes citizens, commoners, merchants, and royalty.
    
  • Norgard Barbarians: Human enemy NPCs in the Norgard and Verdantis regions have had their visuals updated to match the Viking theme of the area. Note that this is a first pass and we expect to expand the variety of these visuals further in R46.
  • Scepter of Dread: We polished the model and texture of this Dread artifact.
  • Offhand Items and Use Animation: Offhand items like torches now stay in your hand when you interact with items like loot, chests, etc. This is especially helpful with torches.
  • Level-Up VFX Polish: We polished the visual effects that play when you level up a skill.
  • New Clothing:
    • Party Hat (recipe)
    • Miner’s Hat
    • Ornate Doublet
    • Ornate Buckled Cross Hatched Gambeson
      
  • Community Cloaks: We created two cloaks to support community events this release:
    • Syndcon 2017 Community Cloak
    • Hatter’s Party 2017 Community Cloak
      
  • Pet Emotes: We created a new set of emotes for all pets. Sitting happens by default whenever your pet is idle, but can also be commanded from the Right-Click menu. Dancing is a command that can be purchased from the Add-On Store.
  • Daily Experience Award Moved: By request, we have moved the daily pooled experience award so that it is now awarded by the Oracle as part of her virtue test. This change was made to get the timing the same as the gold reward the Oracle offers however after reviewing this change the time required to get to and from the Oracle to gain the reward was offsetting the value of the reward too much so we are going to change this back to getting rewarded at login for Release 46. Please accept our apologies for the change back and forth on this. Another change that was made was that we have removed Crafting Experience from the reward because at this time crafting experience does not decay. This makes a daily crafting experience bonus too unbalancing for the current game by making it too easy to level crafting skills with no actual crafting effort.
  • Bug Fixes:
    • Shiny Chickens: Fixed highly reflective texture on the chickens.
    • Torch of Jerik VFX: Fixed issue where the VFX would turn off when leaving the scene.
    • Moon Tower VFX: Fixed an issue where the VFX on the POT Moon Towers would only appear if you moved them.
    • Walking and Playing: Fixed an issue where avatars would not return to Idle animations after walking with a musical instrument
    • Cloak/Cloth Fixes: Fixed bug with cloak length in paperdoll and disabled cloth simulation while swimming. Also fixed issues with displaying items with cloth simulation in paperdoll.
    • Nameplates: Fixed an issue so these are no longer visible through walls.
    • Heart of Sorrows: Fixed bug where the VFX would disappear.
    • Stealth and Light Enchants: Stealth now disables attached lights from equipment.
  • Tree Creature Delayed: While we have made significant progress on the Tree Creature we have decided to hold it for another release so we can keep working on animations and behaviors so that it feels more polished than it currently is.
• Crafting: More recipes and more patterns in gear that is dropped from enemies will appear in game.
  • Gear Type Tooltips: We have added much more specific tooltips to a bunch of different items in the game to assist with crafting. For instance, Clockwork Armor instead of just saying “Heavy Armor” it will now say “Plate.” These new tooltips effect the following equipped items:
    • Heavy Armor: Plate, Chainmail
    • Light Armor: Cloth, Leather
    • Ranged Weapons: Longbow, Shortbow, Crossbow
    • Polearms: Spears, Halberds, etc.
    • Bludgeons: Axes, Maces, Wands, Staves, Hammers
    • Blades: Daggers, Short Swords, Longswords
    • Shields: Light (Bucklers), Medium (Targe, Round), Heavy (Heater, Rectangle, Heavy Round)
    • Helmets: Universal, Plate, Chain, Cloth, Leather, Bone, etc.
  • Merchant Recipe Tooltips: Recipes now display the skill requirement whether or not you have learned the recipe. We also adjusted the teachability on the tooltip to be more accurate.
  • Plants: Plants sold by merchants (some that are used in crafting) now have different unique names.
  • Recipes:
    • Miner’s Helmet
    • Wooden Numbers
    • Party Hat
    • Shogun Crafting Pavilion
    • Crystal Sword Replica: You can now use the hilt from your destroyed Crystal Sword after using it to slay a mighty boss (dragon, troll, etc) to make a Crystal Sword replica that you can use as a decoration in your home. Since Crystal Swords are incredibly powerful they are flagged for no-trade and therefore cannot be placed as decorations so the replica is a way for players to show off their sword after using it.
  • Gear Patterns:
    • Rotten Armor Eternal Pattern
  • Adjusted scrap recipes: Reduced scraps required for Leather from Scraps. Slightly increased fuel for Spool of Cotton Thread from Scraps. Slightly increased fuel and scraps for Timber from Scraps.
  • Agriculture on Blocks: Fixed issue where growing crops on blocks indoors caused a higher growth rate.

• User Interface Polish: Time will be spent polishing the user interface. This will include the ability to separate chat tabs into separate windows.
  • Multiple Chat Windows: You can now create multiple independent windows in the game client for chat.
  • Discord Integration: We have done an initial pass at integrating Discord into the game. If you have a Discord account you can now access it by clicking the cog within a tab and clicking the Discord button. This will bring up a login where you may enter your Discord email address and password (NOTE: this will not work if you have two factor authentication enabled on your Discord account). Once logged in you will be presented with a list of Channels that you can subscribe to via a checkbox. Chat messages from subscribed channels will show up in your chat tab. To send text to a specific Discord channel you must first specify your channel target via “/d ServerName:ChannelName,” which will set the chat tab’s target to the desired Discord channel (works similarly to whisper). Alternatively, click on the word balloon icon to the left of the text input field, select a Discord channel, and begin chatting—your text will be sent to the channel you selected. The available channels will include any Discord channels that the selected tab is subscribed to.
  • Chat Tab Reordering: You can now freely reorder chat tabs by clicking and dragging them.
  • “Offscreen” Tasks on Compass: These now stay on your compass at either the extreme left or right.
  • Autocomplete for /w: While typing /w and part of a name, pressing the TAB key will automatically finish the name for you when there is only one valid option. This will work for names in your Guild, in your Friends list, and anyone who you whispered or whispered you in the current session.
  • Player Level Tooltip: Adventurer and Producer level are now displayed in a tooltip when hovering over the character’s name in the character sheet.
  • Lowered NPC Chat Window: The NPC chat window has been moved closer to the bottom of the screen during conversations with NPCs.
  • Window Interactions Versus Free Attack: Left-clicking to close a context menu will no longer initiate a free attack. Clicking into the game window to give it focus will no longer initiate a free attack.
  • Vendor Sales in Chat: When we added vendor sales being logged in the mail system we removed them from being logged in chat, but many players were using chat to automatically log their sales. At the request of these players, we have reinstated vendor sales being logged in chat. Note that they also still get logged in mail.
  • XP and Gold Earned Popup Text: Now when completing a quest, gold and experience received will be reported in the form of a popup screen message in addition to being reported in chat.
  • “Private Property” Tooltip: Items that are owned by NPCs now have a “Private Property” tooltip
• Lord British Birthday Telethon Items: We have completed all but one of the stretch goal rewards from the Lord British Birthday telethon! For everyone who is eligible the following items should appear in your bank for claiming in Release 45. You can see if you are eligible in your Account page on the Special Rewards tab it says “Lord British Birthday Bash Telethon Rewards”. NOTE: We plan to complete the Magical Pet Broom in R46.
  • Silver Fireworks Replenishing Box
  • Lord British Moondial
  • Lord British Helmet
  • Lord British Throne
  • Tuxedo
  • /birdtrick
  • /flowerwand
  • /mouthcoil (was formerly known as /endlessclothtrick)
• Localization Support:
  • New Font: We have switched to a new font for the main game that offers better support for Cyrillic characters. NOTE: This does not affect player-made books.
  • Localized Installer: The installer now has the ability to be localized and will look at your system settings when choosing the default language.

Now that it is clear what to expect, we should also be as clear about what you should NOT expect:

• Stability: Stability should be much better than previous releases now that we have upgraded to Unity 5.6.
• Performance: Due to lost time to the Perforce meltdown, we did not get as much performance work done for R45 as expected. While there will be measurable improvements, only 1-2 man weeks of effort was spent on it. Performance improvements in high stress situations (high player/creature counts) and also in load times remain a top priority and we expect to make significant improvements in the coming releases.
• Game Loop: Release 45 is a further iteration on our game loop, but is still missing a few key components and some balance. Expect this to expand with each subsequent release.
• 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. You can find an updated list of these items in the known issues.
• Delayed Content and Features: As mentioned above, some features scheduled for this release did not make it (and in each case we explained why). In some cases items from previous releases move into the next release but often they will move further out, either into the next quarter, or even farther.
• Story Additions: The main storyline is now complete, but many aspects surrounding the main storyline are incomplete. Various side-quests and opportunities to gain or lose virtue are yet to be added. Content of this nature will be continually added and improved upon, even beyond the commercial launch of Shroud of the Avatar.

As Lord British often says: “80% of the quality of a game goes in during the last 20% of the development.” We are in that final 20% right now. Be warned that this is a time of great change, but also a time of great improvement! In addition to completing the last few deliverables, the important work ahead of us is refining and tuning the feel of the game. If you are not yet “feeling it,” don’t be alarmed! It is perfectly normal that during this phase of development we are just now getting to the point that we can start delivering that feeling—so stay tuned!

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