Updates

Community Livestream – Music System

Another content packed weekly Community Livestream is this Friday at 4pm CT on Twitch!

Our weekly livestream in April where we showed off the music system was very popular so we are doing it again this week with even more details to show off! Travis “Vas Corp Por” Koleski will be on to play some instruments and walk you through how you can create sheet music by converting MIDI to ABC files, how music can be acquired from other players, how to use the radios and phonographs, how to use emotes to dance along with the music, and how to get your pets to dance too!

Watch on Twitch this Friday at 4pm CT! Also join the community’s Discord chat to ask questions about what’s presented:

 

 

 

Read more…


Avatar’s Update #287: Episode 2 Stretch Goals, Rewards Program, R55 Livestream Results

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

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

Episode 2 Stretch-Goal Store

As revealed in the Release 55 Livestream we have launched the Stretch Goal store for Episode 2! These are stretch goals with rewards that can be used in the game now (or at least very soon)! When you purchase the item you will get it as an in-game reward immediately (or very soon if the item is still in progress), even if the stretch-goal is not met. These rewards are completely unique. They will not be sold in the add-on store, in-game nor as a bundle item. Once the stretch-goal is met we will begin work on the functionality for Episode 2 and all the items purchased would gain some function related to the goal when Episode 2 launches. For instance the foal from the Mounts stretch goal would grow into a horse that you could then ride. Each goal will have a progress bar underneath tracking the progress. General philosophy is that these items cost slightly more than equivalent items because they are linked to stretch goals. Read more…


Avatar’s Update #286: Play Release 55 Now!

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


Play Release 55 Now!

Release 55 successfully launched yesterday, June 28, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, and logging in to check out the changes! There’s lots of new content to explore, including:

Read more…


Q3 Schedule Update

[From a forum post by Starr “Darkstarr” Long]

Greetings Avatars,

As we have stated previously, we intend to publish quarterly schedule updates detailing our monthly releases and those monthly releases will continue just as before, on the last Thursday of each month. Even though the goals outlined in these schedules are likely to change somewhat as we react to feedback, we feel it is important to periodically provide you with an updated roadmap.

Our priority continues to be to deliver new content to our players regularly, so that you can give us feedback that will help us iteratively improve Shroud of the Avatar. This collaborative process continues to benefit the game, and often results in sweeping changes such as the recent balance passes to combat. As you have seen in previous releases, the flexibility inherent to this process means that we sometimes push things out, but we also often pull new things in. Read more…


Release 55 Instructions

[From a forum post by Starr “Darkstarr” Long]

Avatars,

Please read this entire message, as well as the linked Player Guide and Known Issues.

Release 55 is our third release since launching out of Early Access. As promised, we are continuing our cadence of monthly releases, just as before. Release 55 of Shroud of the Avatar goes live this Thursday, June 28, at 10:30 AM US Central Daylight Time (15:30 UTC).

Release 55 is the third, and final, release in which we focused on the current iteration of our Top 10 Priorities (from Q2 2018 post). We were able to address most of the items on that list in some fashion. We made strong progress on performance, physical goods, improved reward cycle, user interface polish, player direction and story polish. We will be spending more time on enemy behaviors and repeatable content in the next release and in Q3. Read more…


Community Livestream – Brewing!

Another content packed Community Livestream is coming this Friday! We will be kicking off the livestream with news from Starr “Darkstarr” Long and special guest Chris “Atos” Spears. Then Brandon “Bzus” Cotton, Joaquin “Wizardsmoke” Del Canto, and Sarah “Serafina” Dworken will be on to show off the new Brewing system that is going live in Release 55!

Watch on Twitch this Friday at 4pm CT! Also join the community’s Discord chat to ask questions about what’s presented:

PRIZE UPDATE: Enter for a chance to win a signed cloth map by either logging into the game and typing “Happy birthday LB” into chat OR by purchasing any item from our store during the livestream!

Are You a Livestreamer?

Get this exclusive in-game Streamer Camera for being a veteran of our Livestreamer Program!


Release 55 Livestream – July 6, 2018 (Lord British’s Birthday Themed!)

Another release livestream is upon us! The Release 55 Livestream is set for July 6, just a couple of days after Lord British’s birthday!

All Avatars from around the world are welcome 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 our sovereign’s day of birth, this event’s stretch goals are all Lord British 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
  • 3:30PM: Deep Dive 1: Episode 2 Sneak Peek!
  • 4:30PM: World Building Tour: East Vauban Foothills, Norgard Fens, Encounters
  • 5:30PM: Deep Dive 2: Combat & Obsidian Trials (w/ Scottie!)
  • 6:30PM: Q&A
  • 7PM: Ending Announcements

Read more…


Avatar’s Update #285: Obsidian Trials, Atavists of Purity, Double XP Weekends, & R55 on QA

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

The Making of The Obsidian Trials

We are polishing various aspects of our combat and PVP systems in preparation for the upcoming Castle Defense Scenarios feature. This includes making areas of PVP engagement where no ransom items drop, where grouping rules can be controlled (on/off), having death remove you from the scene until the scene restarts, new currencies/merchants/rewards for PVP scenarios, and better overall physical spaces for PVP. To that end we have created a combat area where we can iterate on these systems over the next several releases called The Obsidian Trials. It will be where we implement, test, and polish various systems to improve and enhance our combat and PVP systems so that they can be expanded to support Castle Defense. In Release 55 we have built the space and implemented new death mechanics, blocked grouping, and removed ransoms. In the next few releases we will be adding boundaries that change the size of the play space, win/loss conditions, timer resets, and a new PVP currency that can be spent on rewards like titles, components, consumables, emotes, and patterns.

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

Here are some early screenshots of the new Obsidian Trial zone. A subterranean pit of sheer obsidian hosts a deadly, 32-player PVP free for all!

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Community Livestream – Q&A with Lord British, Darkstarr & Atos + Obsidian Trials

Another content packed Community Livestream is coming this Friday! We will be kicking off the livestream with a Q&A of some of the questions we missed from the Release 54 Livestreams + live questions from Discord. Then Travis “Vas Corp Por” Koleski and Sarah “Serafina” Dworken will be on to showing off the new Obsidian Trials PVP map!

Watch on Twitch this Friday at 4pm CT! Also join the community’s Discord chat to ask questions about what’s presented:

 

Are You a Livestreamer?

Get this exclusive in-game Streamer Camera for being a veteran of our Livestreamer Program!


Avatar’s Update #284: The Making of East Vauban Foothills

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

The Making of East Vauban Foothills

This hilly area is northeast of Vauban pass in the Drachvald region. It was previously a Tier 3 area but is being upgraded to a Tier 5 area for Release 55. The increase in difficulty of this scene is part of a longer term effort where we will be increasing the difficulty of several scenes to better match the surrounding scenes and the character’s progress along the associated story paths that bring you near those scenes. Undead have overrun a village here and Ebon Dawn Cultists are taking advantage of the resulting chaos.

[From a A Dev+ Forum Post by Chris “Sea Wolf” Wolf]

Hey folks! I have a few screenshots to share of my current progress on East Vauban Foothills. In this scene, an Ebon Dawn mage has converted the population of a small village into zombies, and is performing experiments on them to see if their humanity can be restored.

Cavern Scout Camp

Read more…