Avatar’s Update #255: Armor of Truth Full Set

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

Game Development

News Announcements

Community Updates

Armor of Truth Full Set

Several weeks ago we showed off the first pieces (helms and chest pieces) of the armors of the three principles of Truth, Love, and Courage. Two weeks ago we showed you the full sets of the Courage and Love Armors.

[A Dev+ Forum Post by Starr “Darkstarr” Long]

The helms and chest pieces went live in Release 48 as part of quests in the Outskirts (helms) and the new mines (chest pieces). Starting in Release 49 the remaining pieces of the armor (gloves, leggings, and boots) will start to appear as rewards for other quests. 

Cloth Armor of Truth Full Set:

The Making of East Longfall Wetland

As mentioned previously we have been focusing many of our scene rebuilds (aka “un-clones”) on the lower tier scenes near the cities along the paths of Truth and Courage. These are all Tier 1 – 3 scenes that players encounter near the beginnings of their play experience. In addition to being rebuilt, we are also adding side quests to them.

In Release 49 one of these scenes is East Longfall Wetland (the companion scene to South Longfall Wetland). It is a swampy Tier 1 area directly east of Aerie in the Longfall region.

[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Travis “Vas Corp Por” Koleski]

Hello adventurers! Here’s some early progress shots of work being done on East Longfall Wetland. It will be a Tier 2 Adventure Scene for newer adventurers around the area of Aerie.

Hope you enjoyed our progress! More coming soon!

Norgard Barbarians

Greetings Avatars,

In the wilderness of the Verdantis and Norgard regions hordes of barbarians and cannibals hold sway and terrorize the inhabitants. Occupied with their fruitless war with the Kobolds the Norgard nobility and military do little to keep the barbarian raids under control, only protecting the largest cities.

The barbarian clans each identify with an animal totem and the Dragon clan is the most fearsome.

In Release 49 we will be updating the existing placeholder NPCs with this custom art.

Barbarian Clans:
Stag Clan:
Wolf Clan:
 
Boar Clan:
 
Bear Clan:
 
Dragon Clan:

 

New Maps Added: Blood River Outskirts & Solace Bridge Outskirts

In Release 48 we moved over to our own version of what was formerly known as SotA Map for the in game map system which you can view on our website here. It is now hosted on Amazon Web Services so it loads much faster than before. Since it is a web service currently, and not part of the game client, we can push updates as frequently as we like without having to do a patch. This week we began adding new maps including Blood River Outskirts and Solace Bridge Outskirts.

2017 Spooky Items & Crown Bonus Extended to Dec. 1

[A Dev+ Forum Post by Starr “Darkstarr” Long]

In celebration of Black Friday we are extending the expiration of our assortment of spooky items and the Cyber Monday Crown Bonus to Friday December 1 to coincide with our Release 48 Postmortem Telethon!

Note these were originally scheduled to expire on Monday November 27.

The Spooky Items expiring on December 1 include:

Seasonal: Spooky 2017: Rare

Seasonal: Spooky 2017: Value Pack

Seasonal: Spooky 2017: Recurring

The Cyber Monday Crown Bonus expiring December 1 rewards all purchases of $15 or more with a bonus of Gold Crowns.

Here is the exact award chart (NOTE: Dollar amounts between tiers will be awarded the Gold Crown amount of the tier below it. E.g., Spending $100 will get you 10 Gold Crowns.):

  • $15      =       2 Gold Crown
  • $35      =       5 Gold Crowns
  • $70      =     10 Gold Crowns
  • $165    =     25 Gold Crowns
  • $325    =     50 Gold Crowns
  • $665    =   100 Gold Crowns
  • $1665  =   250 Gold Crowns
  • $3325  =   500 Gold Crowns
  • $5000  =   750 Gold Crowns
  • $6665  = 1000 Gold Crowns

The above will be awarded for all new purchases (including bundles, bundle upgrades, add-on items, player owned town upgrades, and Make a Difference items) between 10:30 AM September 28, 2017 and Midnight CST, December 1 November 27, 2017 (6:00 UTC, December 2 November 28, 2017). NOTE: This will not count for purchases made with store credit.

[NOTE: The crown bonus is calculated every day for all purchases within the previous 24 hours and then added to your account]

Original post here.

R47 Postmortem Missed Questions

We had almost 14 pages of questions left unanswered after the R47 Postmortem! With assistance from the team we were able to get to those questions and we posted them to the forums Monday.

Here are the questions that we did not have time to get to during the R47 Postmortem. I tried my best to answer these (with help from the rest of the team) but some we just don’t have details yet to provide. I probably won’t have time to do any follow ups to these. The community did a great job assisting us this telethon to make sure we didn’t miss a single question.

Sorry for the extreme delay on getting these answered but since R48 was a mid-month release due to Thanksgiving we did not have time to get to these at our usual pace. Thank you for your patience!

Please note I deleted a bunch of duplicated questions and also deleted any questions that we answered with the Q4 or with the release of R48. Also note that we are generally going to stop answering questions about “when?” as those are answered by our quarterly schedule posts and any other answers are going to be either “No ETA” or “soon” or “will update with the next quarterly post”.

Cryodacry: I’ve noticed that more Group centric items have been added to the game with regards to Agro. This appears that Structured group content is going to be refined. If so what is going to be done to make NPC’s more tankable (double crit instant kill). Currently High tier NPC’s can two shot any character in the game. This is not a fun mechanic and does not encourage people to start tanking especially at the high levels due to XP loss.
Chris: There will always be some creatures that will be able to 2 shot crit kill players but those should be only the most powerful. Over the last few releases I have been balancing (AKA nerfing) some aspects of player defenses to make combat a bit faster BUT no similar balancing has been done on creatures. Also, to some extent we’ve been using creature damage as a crutch to make them challenging instead of adding new abilities and behaviors. By the time we go live, I hope to have more balance and more behaviors to make them interesting without most of them being 2 hit crit kills with no counter.

Cryodacry: Torc’dal’s crafting components are really cool. Can the drop rate of the weapons or the salvage rate of handles be drastically increased. I am sitting on 5 Mace heads and 2 axe blades but only achieved 1 handle. Reasoning for this would be for the fact that both Polearm and Mace use the Handles. The other option would be to make Torc’doll drop a weapon every kill.
The handles offer very high bonuses so we want to keep them rare.

Bella Bones: Can we have an icon that pops up when someone has stolen something from us?
Great idea!

Nuclear: Can we have Top Player killer leaderboard from chris during telethon?
Chris: Abso-freakin’-lutely! 

Ancev: Can we get a filter or some other method to determine which gear is associated with our decks? This way I can easily figure out which gear I can take out of my inventory without causing a problem?
Yes

Baron Drocis Fondorlatos: Can we please get logs on doors? (Who opens, who closes?)
We absolutely want to do this but it’s not as simple as it sounds which is why we have not done it yet. Do we just track interaction? So Bob opens the door. What about people who walk through it? Well, now we’ve got to track where the door volume trigger is, which is new data per door. We also need to track which way is in vs. out and have 2 more triggers to detect that. Now we need to make changes per house since doors don’t have a specific front/back and some open in and some open out. And that is just the list of tasks we came up with from a hallway discussion about it. Actual implementation would probably expose even more tasks.

Jyskall: How much kids are born in since the project is running? (kids of team members)
At least 4 of our current team, 5 if we count some of our past team members.

Lazarus Long: Can we PLEASE Lock, LOCKED Glyphs!!!! Lock them in place so they do not move if your mouse moves while charging glyphs
We absolutely need to fix this.

[Read More…]

Reminder: Release 48 Postmortem Telethon – Dec. 1

Greetings Avatars,

The next Postmortem Telethon, for Release 48, is already fast approaching! The winter season has fully set in and we’re celebrating with holiday stretch goal items ready to be achieved. This telethon is on December 1!

The R48 telethon is going to mark a new format for some items. We will be somewhat going back to briefer Deep Dives. Also, we will be focusing more on related questions to those Deep Dives. Please see below on what questions we will and will not be taking.

LIVESTREAM SCHEDULE (Central Time Zone)

Telethons are livestreamed on Twitch and include answers to your gameplay questions, world building tours, prize giveaways, sales on items, and more! See what we have planned below beginning at 3:00 PM CT on December 1:

  • 3:00PM: Introductions and Postmortem Q&A
  • 3:45PM: Deep Dive 1: Advanced Combat, Skills, Leveling
  • 4:30PM: World Building Tour
  • 5:30PM: Deep Dive 2: Economy, Crafting, Artifacts, Loot
  • 6:15PM: Postmortem Q&A Continues
  • 7:00PM: Ending Announcements
There are NO expirations this telethon. Schedule is subject to change. Check back here before the livestream begins!

STRETCH GOALS (Frosty Themed!)

As a special bonus, we are offering funding rewards to any backer that pledges a minimum of $5 for twelve hours during the day of the telethon, on December 1 from 12:00 PM to 11:59 PM CT (Spending Store Credit to make $5 minimum purchase does not apply) .

NOTE: While the livestream ends at 7pm CT, everyone will have until 11:59 PM CT to spend $5 to get the stretch goals. We will announce the final total on the following day.

  • $10K: Icicles Pattern Cloak
  • $25K: Ice Hot Tub
  • $35K: Ice Elemental Statue with icy effects
  • $50K: Ice Sword & Ice Shield
  • $65K: Ice Crown, Ice & Snow Themed Gown, and Ice Wand
  • $80K: Ice Dragon Statue with icy effects

CHEER ON THE DEVS!

StarrDancingFor every $2,500 donated, all developers on camera have to either dance, sing, or perform some other act of amazement.

Additionally, we will be spinning the Wheel of Fortune! The wheel will have 12 different categories of sales plus the Lord British and Darkstarr wildcards where they get to choose any category! Each time a category comes up it will go on sale at approx. 20% off for 1 hour.

WHEEL OF FORTUNE FLASH SALES:

WIN THESE GREAT PRIZES!

  • Frosty goodies!
  • Bank Upgrades
  • COTOs
  • Store Credit
  • RelicsbyRild.com merchandise
  • and a bunch of items we will announce on the livestream!

We will be giving prizes away on an hourly basis with many being given away multiple times. If you wish to win prizes during the event, be in Discord chat! We will be active on Twitch and YouTube chats as well, but they will not be our portal for prize giveaways.

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS!

We will be answering questions throughout the livestream, so submit them in the comments section of the original post or on Discord chat during the event.

Please do NOT post:

  • More than 3 questions in total
  • Bugs or other problems best posted in the bug forums
  • “When is this coming”, “Why isn’t this in the game yet”, or anything related to schedule (for those answers please refer to our quarterly updates or our post release plans)
  • Questions with more than a couple of sentences. Please keep them brief! We will likely understand the context of your interest, so just ask the question and we’ll be able to respond.

For bug reports and extra idea suggestions, please use forums for this purpose.

Keep an eye on @ShroudofAvatar for updates before, during, and after the livestream. See you on Twitch at 3:00 PM CT on December 1!

Survey: Your Shroud of the Avatar General Experience

We invite you to participate in another survey we’ve created with support from our partner, Travian Games, to help us better understand your overall Shroud of the Avatar and gamer experiences.

Check your email inbox for “Your Feedback on Shroud of the Avatar” from us to complete the survey!

Please fill out the survey by November 27, 2017.

As a thank you for providing your feedback, we will award all completed survey accounts 1 COTO, and include your account in the chance to win one of the following great prizes:

  • Elven Elite Archer Armor
  • Sigil Fur Cloak Pack
  • Lord British Shield
  • Darkstarr Shield
  • Viking 3-Story Stronghold Town Home
  • Village Tax Free Bundle of choice (First Level only)

This prize list is specific to this survey. If you’ve participated in other surveys, you will be entered into a separate prize pool for that survey. In future weekly updates you can expect to see a more broad survey being introduced beyond this Gameplay specific one.

We thank you very much for your valuable feedback!

BrightLocker’s Crowd Equity Campaign Shroud of the Avatar Perks

We are providing BrightLocker’s crowd equity campaign on StartEngine with some special in-game Shroud of the Avatar items! Support BrightLocker and you can receive the following bundle, along with many of their other offered Perks:

  • Shroud of the Avatar Game Access
  • Golden Viking 1-Story Village Home
  • Tax Free Player Owned Town Village Lot Deed

Golden Viking 1-Story Village Home (this is NOT the same as the one for SeedInvest)

Tax Free Player Owned Town Village Lot Deed

BrightLocker is a revolutionary platform that enables gamers to connect with their favorite developers and gain exclusive access and interaction as they make upcoming games.

At present, BrightLocker has over a dozen games hosted on the platform. Gamers receive exclusive content, such as unique in-game items, physical rewards and more whilst also enjoying revolutionary and unique studio interaction. This interaction comes in all varieties, from forum chats with developers to livestreams of games while they’re being made.

Visit the official BrightLocker campaign page to learn more on how their unique platform works.

Community Wellness with the Meretz Fitness App


Get the Meretz App

We strongly believe in promoting well-being in each and every member of the community, and their extended network of family, friends, and associates. We are partnering with Meretz, a free and unique way to transform your physical activity into virtual fitness currency. They are hooking in Shroud of the Avatar to their app so we can get you in-game rewards for using it!

To help promote awareness and recognition of wellness behavior and events, we came up with the Wellness Cloak, similar in concept to the Clasped Gauntlets Cloak for community events. For joining the effort, users of the Meretz app will get this Wellness Cloak that you can wear in-game as a symbol of your wellness goals.


You can redeem Meretz Points for in-game Obsidian Potions. There are currently 7 potion options:

  • Potion of Capacity: Increases carrying capacity
  • Potion of Conservation: Reduces reagent use chance
  • Potion of Expedience: Swift gathering on all gathering skills
  • Potion of Precision: Increases Meticulous Collection to all gathering skills
  • Potion of Preservation: Reduces armor and weapon damage
  • Potion of Reclamation: Increases Salvage and Repair to all production skills
  • Potion of Stamina: Decreases focus use from sprinting

How it works:

  • Download the Meretz app
  • Connect to Apple Health, Google Fit, or Fitbit
  • Earn Meretz Points for being active
  • Connect Meretz to Shroud – get the free exclusive Meretz Cloak!
  • Use your points to buy Shroud potions and other game items

Other Meretz related in-game wellness items are being considered, so stay tuned for future updates!

Harvest Weekend Sale

It is the time of year that the crops are harvested and we celebrate that harvest. In Germany they celebrate with Oktoberfest, here in the United States we celebrate with Thanksgiving. To celebrate the harvest time of year we are having a harvest sale of all our Fall and Oktoberfest items as well as our Greenhouses!

Get a look at the items on sale below. You can also view each individually in the Add-On Store:

*Some items may be rounded to 20% sale price by a few fractions of a percent.

New Free Trial Begins! Runs thru Dec. 13

Our Free Trial tests continue with the latest running run from Nov. 22 to Dec. 13. As with our previous tests, this one will let us continue to gather data about uptake, drop-off, conversions, etc. These tests are invaluable for us in order to improve the New User Experience and the Free Trial System.

Free Trial access allows you to play the entire game in any of the Online modes with a few key differences in game play. You will be able to explore hundreds of scenes, talk with thousands of players, adventure through the opening quests, and gain experience and skills as you get used to the world of New Britannia!

Join us in New Britannia for free this weekend!

Livestream: Artifacts & Virtue Gear

We just set live Release 48 and with this latest game build we have another round of content for players! Updates to two of those areas are Artifacts and Enchantments, and Virtue Gear.

Artifacts can now be enchanted and masterworked, but must also be repaired using ancient essences that can only be salvaged from other artifacts. We also have been adding unique components that can be salvaged from gear found on enemies. In addition to the virtue-themed decorations introduced in earlier releases (Virtue Banners), we have also begun creating virtue-themed gear that players can earn by completing quests in the game. The first six of these are chest pieces and helms with the symbols of the three principles on them.

For this livestream, we brought back Chris “Atos” Spears to talk about the Artifact system, along with Brandon “Bzus” Cotton to talk about the enchanting of Artifacts, and then Fletcher Kinnear showed us some of the Virtue Gear he has been working on.

For more livestreams and gameplay videos, be sure to subscribe to www.youtube.com/portalarium

Upcoming Events Calendar

Nov 22 – Dec 13, 2017 – Free Trial
Dec 1, 2017 – R48 Postmortem Telethon
Dec 1 – Crown Bonus Ends & Spooky 2017 Items Expire
Dec 14, 2017 – Release 49
Dec 20  – Jan 24, 2018 –  Free Trial
Jan 8, 2018 – R49 Postmortem Telethon
Jan 12, 2018 – Portalarium Grand Holiday Party
Mar 9 – 18, 2018 – SXSW
Mar 21 – 23, 2018 – GDC

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.

Spotlight: New Fawn – Player Owned Town

Today’s spotlight is about a very old town, one that was around before the days of the sundering. Long before the world was re-made into the lands of Novia and Hidden Vale, this town had many names. It was often called Fawn and sometimes “The City of the Sea”. It was originally a beautiful place to visit and honor a great many people.

Since those times, the town has grown, but many parts have kept the ways of the past. You can still find the followers of Love in one of the town’s three boroughs, along with followers of Virtue and Chaos. Smiths do not hide their exotic armor and weapons anymore, but actively promote their skills. All who live here now come willingly and with hope to see the town eventually grow to be a major seaport.

Let us take a tour of the crossroads sized town of New Fawn. My name is Warrior B’Patrick and I will guide you. I was elected governor 36 years ago as noted in the records of this land. I had no experience leading a town, but I care deeply for all creatures and so the residents of New Fawn deemed me worthy of the title. Since that day New Fawn has grown into the city you see upon visiting.

New Fawn is located in the Naryad Channel and can be reached from the town of Harvest using a boat at the docks, or reached via our sister town of Hollaim using a wagon near the stables. There is a note on the town’s bulletin boards with instructions.

[Read More…]

AERIE Fund Dev Crafting Competition & Charity Auction

[A Forum Post by Thexedor Markhamm]

MASTER OF THE FORGE
Developer Crafted Item Charity Auction:

Our friends at Portalarium have generously offered up their time to craft some epic gear to support AERIE Fund in our continued works in New Britannia.

This 1st annual Master of the Forge competition showcases their creativity and skill at the crafting tables, and let’s you take home a unique piece of their vision. These collections are filled with one-of-a-kind relics that’ll destroy on the battlefield and/or shine in your trophy cases.

The Developer Crafting Process:

Like us, the Devs have to spend hours (and in some cases: days) crafting these items. There’s no cheat mode when it comes to masterworking, enchanting, and/or creating exceptional items. They blow up stuff at the same pace and frequency we do. They do have access to unlimited resources, which helps with the time (they have a game to launch, after all!). None of the items are given stats beyond what a player could achieve with available crafting skills. And…

IMPORTANT NOTE:
Based upon community feedback, Dev crafting skills have been locked between 100-120 to ensure these items are not imbalanced or unobtainable by player crafters.

Here’s a sample of the quality and awesomeness of these items:

[​IMG]

[​IMG]

Learn more and get involved by catching up on the contest details in the forums!

Contest: The Avatar’s Guide to Knowledge and Virtue

Do you have in-depth knowledge on a feature in the game that new players should know more about? Would you call yourself an expert in a particular field of gameplay? This is your chance to create a valuable how-to video that can be shown to the entire community (and help grow your channel as well!)

The ‘Avatar’s Guide to Knowledge and Virtue’ video contest kicks off today. You have from Nov. 17, 2017 to Jan. 15, 2018 to design a walkthrough video for all New Britannians to use as a resource for making their way successfully in the game.

When you have a video to submit, please post it in this thread. You are allowed to edit your posts up until the submission deadline on Jan. 15, 2018 at 11:59 PM CT (Jan. 16 at 5:59 AM UTC). We will be posting all final videos on Portalarium’s YouTube channel in a Playlist after the contest ends.

Below are the details of the contest, including what you can win!

[Read More…]

Party: Portalarium Studio Grand Holiday Party – Jan. 12

Let it be known far and wide that a Grand Holiday Party will be held at the Portalarium Studios and in Shroud of the Avatar on Friday, January 12, 2018 at 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM Central Standard Time (US)(2300 UTC to 0400 UTC).

We are going to have a lot of fun and activities for people attending in Austin AND also all those online from around the world:

  • Meet the Developers
  • Plenty of Drinks and Food
  • White elephant gift exchange
  • Games, Storytelling and Jokes
  • Live in-game party in Shroud of the Avatar
  • Video live stream
  • Live music
  • Twitch streaming
  • Audio streaming
  • Discord chat

Visit the discussion forums for details on this community hosted party!

Resources – Players Helping Players

SotA_NewPlayerWelcome_Forum

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.

Project to Support – Town of Salem’s The Savior of Salem

The Savior of Salem is a simple, easy to learn, multiplayer RPG dungeon crawling card game. You fight monsters, grow your mob, work with and backstab other players in order to be the first player to overpower the Coven and become the hero of the Town.

Created by BlankMediaGames (a fellow Austin developer), the company that brought you Town of Salem, the popular online game that got its start on Kickstarter. BlankMediaGames has had 3 successful Kickstarters in the past, including the hugely popular Town of Salem – The Card Game that had almost 10,000 backers.

You can play the online game for free here: www.blankmediagames.com/TownOfSalem/

Backer Shipping Addresses

SotA_ShippingAddressIn preparation for shipping backers’ physical pledge rewards around the game’s launch period, on your Account Page, please 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!



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