More cool stuff to share with you this update, including Geoff Mellon’s revamping of the male avatar outfit, Bren Wilson putting some moves on the avatar attacks, the Edelmann House Poll, Tracy Hickman’s awesome Sojourner Tales Kickstarter campaign, and changes to how project updates are being shared.
Bren Wilson (animator) has been hard at work adding more animations to our latest male avatar! Here is a video of his new axe attack animation:
Greetings Fellow Avatars! Welcome to the Village Home Edition of Update of the Avatar! We’ve been working on several village-level homes, including the homes that are part of the Benefactor and Founder Citizen Pledge rewards. Please keep in mind that these homes are still “works-in-progress” and are being modified and tweaked as we receive feedback. So please, log in to our forums and let us know your opinions!
Let’s start our Parade of Homes with one of our most affordable village homes, which will be available to all players, backers and non-backers alike. It is a single room, single story dwelling, that we currently refer to as the Shingle-Roof Village Home:
Here is an interior shot of the Shingle-Roof village home, without any decorations:
There are very few serious gamers out there who have not heard of Stratics! But what some may not know is that Stratics was born from a desire to give Ultima Online players a central hub to gather around so they could share information and their passion for all things UO. Over 15 years later, Shroud of the Avatar is happy to have the chance to forge a strong relationship with Stratics early in our development, and look forward to the road ahead.
I had a chance to chat with BenK, Associate Editor for Stratics: Shroud of the Avatar recently, and here is what he had to say about Stratics, past and present.
“Stratics is a fifteen-year-old network of gaming websites united by a vibrant community of players, developers, and staff members. Founded in 1997, Stratics is the oldest, continually-operating MMO fansite on the Internet. Since then, we have endeavored “to serve the player and assist the developer in constructing tomorrow’s fantasy, while facilitating the optimal gaming environment today.” To this end, Stratics has partnered with major game publishers throughout the years; most recently Portalarium. Further, we are committed to providing news, guides, community advancement, and other valuable services for the titles and communities that we represent.
Stratics’ Publishing Division publishes fansite news, strategy guides, and statistics for several great MMOs, including Shroud of the Avatar (SotA). The publishing division is currently being renovated, beginning with a complete re-imagining and redesign of Stratics.com and its subsidiary portals (stay tuned—it will be beautiful!). This division has also welcomed new senior leadership in recent days, including Kirthag, Stratics’ new Editor-in-Chief, and BenK (aka Caramon), who recently assumed leadership of SotA-related publishing as the Associate Editor for SotA.
Stratics has a lot of exciting changes ahead, but everything that it does is motivated by a singular objective: to create opportunities for players and developers to share their passionate love for gaming. This has been our mission since our launch in 1997 and it remains our mission as we prepare to celebrate our sixteenth anniversary.”
And as mentioned in the broadcast, here is a copy of Stephen’s Photoshop Brushes.
This Saturday, Rustic Dragon of The Hearth of Britannia will be holding a 24-hour telethon to raise awareness and funds for his favorite up and coming game, Shroud of the Avatar! If you haven’t heard about it yet, watch this short video and find out more!
There will be loads of special guests (including Lord British himself) tons of fun activities, and all sorts of prizes. We here at Portalarium were so excited by all the festivities that we even decided to offer participants a special in game item in honor of the event; a specially designed Hearth of Britannia house decoration available to anyone who pledges $25 or more during the Telethon. We’ll even add your $25 pledge to your current SotA pledge if you already have one! Just visit our Add On Store during the event and select the “Hearth of Britannia Telethon Pledge & Mystery Decoration” option at the bottom of the page!
Be sure to check out The Hearth of Britannia’s schedule of events and get ready for a 24 hours of merriment with your host, Rustic Dragon!
Spend a magical afternoon with SotA’s Chris Spears as he explores the Magic System this afternoon on Hangout of the Avatar. The hangout will begin at 4 pm CST today, August 22nd.
This will be another focused, 30 minute Hangout, so I will primarily be taking your pre-submitted MAGIC related questions via Google Hangout at #LBSotA_Hangout. For those with an aversion to Google, you can also submit your question on the comments section below.
Stephen Daniele is back for today’s Pen of the Avatar! Join us at 3 pm CST, August 20th as we explore YOUR ideas for Point of Interest (POI) environments. As always, I’ll have the link for you 15 minutes prior to broadcast.
