Avatar’s Update #281: Release 54 Next Week, and Zombie Children in Release 55!

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

Zombie Children

When the undead rise the young will rise along with the old. While they might not have the reach of an adult zombie they make up for it in stealthiness and in making you hesitate before you strike, a hesitation that might cost you your life. Zombie Children will begin appearing in select locations in Release 55.

Heraldry Items (cont.)

This week we added Boots & Gloves to Heraldry Armor to round out your armor sets.

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

Heraldry Armor Boots & Gloves: When we first created the Heraldry Armor, we only created Chest and Leggings to support the display of tabards. The idea was that players could use boots and gloves from other armor sets to round out the look but players rightly noted that none of the boots and gloves from other armor sets matched perfectly, so Fletcher “Scathana” Kinnear has created matching boots and gloves for the Heraldry Armor. These will be added to the store armor sets and will be automatically delivered to those of you who already purchased the armor as well as those of you who received heraldry as part of your pledge rewards.

Heraldry Plate Gloves:

Heraldry Plate Boots:

Heraldry Chain Gloves:

Heraldry Chain Boots:

Heraldry Leather Gloves:

Heraldry Leather Boots:

Cloth Heraldry Gloves:

Cloth Heraldry Boots:

Meanwhile players continue to post pics of their heraldry in the thread they started a few weeks ago and the results are still wonderful!We also started a new thread to help players with heraldry creation.

Here are some of the latest player pictures:

Release 54 Livestream

Another release livestream is upon us! The Release 54 Livestream is set for June 4, just a few days after Release 54 goes live on May 31 next week.

All Avatars from around the world are welcomed to join us in the livestream activities. We will be doing deep dives, answering questions, having sales, handing out prizes, and tracking towards stretch goals. In honor of spring time here in the north, this event’s stretch goals are entirely tropical themed!

LIVESTREAM SCHEDULE (Central Time Zone)

Monthly livestreams are on Twitch and include answers to your gameplay questions, world building tours, prize giveaways, sales on items, and more! Here is the schedule:

3PM: Introductions and Q&A
3:45PM: Deep Dive 1: PVP
4:30PM: World Building Tour: New Scenes & Quests
5:30PM: Deep Dive 2: Heraldry
6:15PM: Q&A Continues
7PM: Ending Announcements

NEW! STRETCH GOALS (Tropical Themed!)

As a special bonus, we are offering funding rewards to any player that makes a minimum purchase of $5 during a twelve hour window during the day of the livestream, on June 4 from 12:00 PM to 11:59 PM CDT (June 4 17:00 to June 5 05:00 UTC). Our theme for this livestream is Tropical in honor of the summer season starting!

Reference Image From:
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa

All purchases during the twelve hour window will count towards the stretch goals, not just the four hours of the livestream!

$10K: /rainbow
$20K: /wardance & /hula
$30K: Leaf Backpack
$40K: Palapa
$50K: Polynesian Dress with Tropical Flower Crown
$65K: Polynesian Axe & Spear
$80K: Large Tiki Heads with Flames
$90K: Polynesian Bow plus two other Weapons
$100K: Polynesian Daemon Themed Armor with Full Helm

*Please keep in mind that stretch goal rewards take time to develop and will most likely not be available until Release 56 at the earliest. We will keep you updated!

CHEER ON THE DEVS

StarrDancing For every $2,500 contributed, all devs on camera have to dance, sing, or perform some other act of amazement.

NEW! 12 HOURS OF SALES:

Additionally, we will be having twelve hours of sales around the livestream from 12:00 PM to 11:59 PM CDT (June 4 17:00 to June 5 05:00 UTC)! All of the following items in the below categories will be on sale at approx. 20% off for the entire 12 hours. As noted above all purchases during the twelve hours will count towards the stretch goals!

Viking Bundles
Obsidian Bundles
Kobold Bundles
Elven Bundles
Shogun Bundles
Make a Difference
Home Decorations
Outdoor Decorations
Lot Deeds, POT Upgrades, Homes and Basements
Pets and Music
Emotes and Fireworks
Dyes, and Patterns

WIN THESE GREAT PRIZES!

In-game items!
Bank Upgrades
COTOs
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 questions containing:

More than 3 questions in total (post all three in a single reply)
Bugs or other problems best posted in the bug forums
“When is this coming” 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 the forums for this purpose.

A Final Thought: We see a LOT of repeat questions. Please consider reviewing one of the other missed question posts, previous monthly livestreams, livestream transcripts, and/or reading our Post Episode 1 plan post before posting a question. Your question might have already been answered.

Watch @ShroudofAvatar updates throughout the day of the livestream. See you on Twitch!

Release 54 on the QA Server

An early version of R54 went live on the QA server last week along with an early version of the R54 post for review and feedback. R54 is full of new content most of which is now on the QA server for early testing. We could really use everyone’s help to test all of this amazing content before it goes live!

Performance Improvements
Scene Rebuilds: Westend (town), Shaminian Hills, Upper Tears
New User Experience Polish: More Hints
Companion Behavior & Abilities Polish
Scene Polish: Brittany NPC Convos, Wandering Merchant Encounter, Ravensmoor Revamp
Virtue Effects for Gear
Side Quests: Companion Gear, Emotes, Soltown Sewers
Heraldry Items: Chest, Basement Hatch, Standing Banners, Gloves, Boots
Recipes: Bathtubs, Elven Lights, Crate, Barrel, Cloak, Recorder
Housing & Decorations: Storefront Homes, Basement Inns, Basement Hatches, Standing Banners
User Interface Polish: Containers in Containers, Field of View
New Plunderer Skeletons
R52 Livestream Items: Obsidian Order!
and more!

Testing on QA makes you eligible for Testing Incentive Rewards including gold crowns, the Ant Farm, Antennae, Bug Cloak and Paintings.

Release 54 Dance Party

Another monthly release and another monthly dance party! Lux Sanctuary (a POT due East of Nightshade Pass) is hosting.

Our very own DJ Darkstarr will once again be spinning tunes with two sets for Avatars to groove to. The first set is at 2 PM CDT (19:00 UTC) and the second set is at 6 PM CDT (23:00 UTC).

Portalarium is Hiring: Web Developer

We currently have an opening for a Web Developer for Shroud of the Avatar. Qualifications for the ideal candidate are:

Minimum 5 years industry experience
*nix experience (OpenBSD or Linux)
CSS
Web development experience (PHP, web services, JavaScript)
Relational database architecture experience (MySql preferred)
Server deployment and cluster orchestration (virtual and/or dedicated machines)
Server load balancing, traffic prioritization, etc.
Extensive experience with server security
Strong debugging skills
Ability to work in unstructured, non-hierarchical environment
BONUS SKILLS (any one or more of these):
- NoSQL experience
- Strong C#/C++ skills
- Windows programming experience
- ASP.NET
- Mac development
- MMO game development experience
- Minimum of at least 1 shipped game

If you’d like to join the Portalarium Tribe working on the ground-breaking Shroud of the Avatar game, please submit your resume to jobs@portalarium.com. Provide links to your work (if possible), including gameplay, video footage, and document forms (images, maps, and event descriptions).

Weekend Flash Sale: Pets & Fur

In Release 53 we added Animal Skin Rugs that can be crafted from the heads and skins of animals. To honor those noble beasts who will sacrifice themselves for these decorations we are putting all pets and any items with fur on sale this weekend!

Visit the Main Store to view more items! Also, you’ll want to explore the game in detail for many more craftable items available!

Upcoming Events Calendar

May 31, 2018 – Release 54
June 1, 2018 – R54 Dance Party: Lux Sanctuary
June 4, 2018 – R54 Livestream: Tropical Themed
June 28, 2018 – Release 55
July 6, 2018 – R55 Livestream: Lord British’s Birthday!
July 26, 2018 – Release 56
Aug 10 – 11, 2018 – Syndcon
Aug 21 – 25, 2018 – Gamescom
Aug 30, 2018 – Release 57
Aug 30 – Sept 3 – Dragon Con
Sept 27, 2018 – Release 58
Oct 11-13, 2018 – SOTACON Austin 2018
Oct 25, 2018 – Release 59
Nov 15, 2018 – Release 60
Dec 13, 2018 – Release 61

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: Rauchbier Platz

Welcome to another Community Spotlight! These spotlights are dedicated entirely to community content, usually about a player town and presented by a single individual or an entire guild.

For this week’s spotlight, we toured the player owned town of Rauchbier Platz. It is a town nested within Central Brittany that is dedicated to the art of brewing beer. In anticipation of brewing being added to the game, the governor of Rauchbier Platz, Hannah Alpenglow, provides a tour of this snowy festival town.

As told by Hannah Alpenglow:

Greetings, Avatars! Welcome to Rauchbier Platz – please, enjoy a mug of our finest beer while we walk through town. Rauchbier Platz was founded by my late husband and I in 517 PC to help establish our beer brewing business here in New Britannia. The main area of town is set up a bit like a civic square that one might find in Bavaria, as we wanted to bring a bit of our homeland to this world. Rauchbier Platz roughly translates to ‘Smoked Beer Place’ and is meant to be a happy, laid back town where one can enjoy time with friends old and new.

[Read More…]

Livestream: Westend & Store Housing

Another content packed Community Livestream this past Friday! We kicked off the livestream with Bob Cooksey and Michael Hutchinson to show off the upcoming store housing, and then Esteben “SorcerousSteve” Zaldivar showed off the new seaside scene of Westend!

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

The 4th Annual Soldier’s Memorial Ball – May 26

The 4rd Annual Soldier’s Memorial Ball is an event to honor those of the armed services and will be hosted this year at Caer Dracwych and featuring the sound of Avatar’s Radio.

This is a formal event (please dress appropriately) and will be held twice during the day from 9:00a – 10:30am and again from 13:00p – 14:30p CST/NBT

Details in the forums!

AERIE Fund – Community Cause – Primal Nature – June 2018

Join AERIE Fund as we support Conservation International in their mission to build a healthier, more prosperous and more productive planet. For more than 30 years, Conservation International (CI) has been protecting nature for the benefit of all.

1. Pledge Your Support – offer financial support while earning fun digital and physical thank you gifts (no gifting option available).

2. Host and Attend In-Game Community Events – the only thing more fun than playing for a cause, is playing for a cause with your friends, guildies, and gaming groups. Sign up for a fundraiser/awareness event and we’ll help you promote it!

3. Stream for a Cause! – Streamers help promote our event on your streams. Download the Streamer’s Resource Package (includes banners, graphics, links and buttons)!

Details in the forums!

Win a $50 Gift Card to RelicsbyRild.com!

Enter today (and every day this May!) for a chance to win a $50 gift card to @relicsbyrild to snag some sweet, sweet Shroud of the Avatar merchandise!

Relicsbyrild.com is an entirely community run website and service. See what else they offer players!

Recommended Project to Support – Sybil

Zeolite Studios is working on a retro-style 3D platformer and action adventure called Sybil. In Sybil, you help Naira quest for six Virtue Stones, tomes of ancient knowledge which also happen to help bind Crystal Golems which are sworn to protect the Virtue Stones. If the Virtue Stones are not in the correct binding pattern, the Crystal Golems will run amuck and destroy nearby human habitations. You might also find an Obsidian Orb or 2.

Sybil is available now on Itch.io at http://zeolitestudios.itch.io/sybil for $5 (pay what you want to support the project) and will be coming to Steam soon. The team is also live streaming art development at http://twitch.tv/graham3d

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.

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