Updates

Update of the Avatar #242 – 2017.25.08: Crooked Shank and Norgard Garments (cont.), Magic Tricks!, R45 Telethon, Free Trial Ends Aug. 30, Hiring Web Dev, Elven Flash Sale, Contest Winners, and More!

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

Making of Crooked Shank (cont.)

We are focusing the next few releases on building the lower tier scenes near the cities along the paths of Truth and Courage. Most of these scenes have been clones of other scenes and will now be replaced with completely original scenes. In Release 46 one of these scenes being updated will be Crooked Shank which is a mountainous area in the Verdantis region.

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

Down the road, out of town:

The Mayor of Crooked Shank’s office:

Read more…


‘Welcome to New Britannia’ Trailer Contest Winners!

Wow! We had another outstanding community trailer contest. All the trailers were truly fantastic and a pleasure to watch with each presenting the game in true splendor. Our team struggled mightily in narrowing down who won, as each entry was quite unique.

The winning entrees are presented today in two separate categories (Full Length and 30 Seconds):
  

Full Length Trailer:

1st Place goes to Antrax for ‘Welcome to New Britannia’:

Antrax receives: $1,000 Store Credit, an in-game title, and a thank you letter from Lord British
  

Read more…


Community Livestream – South Broken Road

Get ready Avatars, this is going to be quite a fun Friday livestream! We kick it off with an introduction of our new Sound Designer, showing off a surprise art piece from our Character Artist, Fletcher Kinnear, and then announcing the winners of the Community Trailer Contest!

After the contest winners are announced, Travis “Vas Corp Por” Koleski will show you his polish work on South Broken Road, a Tier 2 scene comprised of a winding road through the mountains and full of various encounters, including plunderers and undead.

For more about South Broken Road, check out Travis’s recent Dev+ blog update in the forums. Not a Dev+ member? You can either get access through Bundles in the store, or check out excerpts of his blog on any of the Weekly Updates.

The fun begins on Twitch this Friday at 4pm CT. Also join the community watching on Discord chat to ask questions about this scene:


Community Spotlight: Arx Draconis Player Town

This week’s Player Owned Town spotlight has us traveling to Arx Draconis to visit this beautiful island town, conveniently located in central Novia. Described as a large, walled, fortress city with a castle in the middle that’s perched upon a mountain. Arx Draconis is the home of The Syndicate (www.LLTS.org).

Hundreds of members from The Syndicate visited our studio in Austin earlier this month, giving us a unique chance to talk to them about their in-game adventures! We found out that for over 21 years of its existence, The Syndicate has been featured in two books, listed in the Guinness World Record as the longest lived guild, and mentioned in SotA’s story and lore.

Read on as The Syndicate takes you on a tour of their town in Novia…

Read more…


Update of the Avatar #241 – 2017.18.08: Making of Crooked Shank, Norgard Garments, R44 Questions, Free Trial 5 Continues, Hiring Web Developer, Rent Flash Sale, Community Spotlight, and More!

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

Making of Crooked Shank

We are focusing the next few releases on building the lower tier scenes near the cities along the paths of Truth and Courage. Most of these scenes have been clones of other scenes and will now be replaced with completely original scenes. In Release 46 one of these scenes being updated will be Crooked Shank which is a mountainous area in the Verdantis region.

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

Whilst looking for an elven village in Forgotten Vale, I seemed to have misread my map, and stumbled upon a quaint human settlement tucked along a bend in the road. The locals kept their neighborhood very well tended, and while not excessively talkative, they were happy to point me to locations of note within their tidy little town.

This welcoming arch marked the entrance to the main, winding avenue through what the locals dubbed ‘Crooked Shank’. There seemed to be a lot of planting and construction, and truth be told, I could not really tell how old the town was. Read more…


Community Livestream – Exploring Longfall Woods

Chris “Sea-Wolf” Wolf is coming back on the livestream this Friday to show you more of his latest design work! We will be kicking off the stream with Sea-Wolf driving the master build machine around the nearly complete polish work of Longfall Woods.

We are focusing the next few releases on building the lower tier scenes near the cities along the paths of Truth and Courage. Most of these scenes have been clones of other scenes and will now be replaced with completely original scenes. In Release 45 one of these scenes is Longfall Woods which is a heavily forested area near Aerie in the Longfall region.

For more about Longfall Woods, check out Sea-Wolf’s recent Dev+ blog update in the forums. Not a Dev+ member? You can either get access through Bundles in the store, or check out excerpts of his blog on any of the Weekly Updates.

The fun begins on Twitch this Friday at 4pm CT. Also join the community watching on Discord chat to ask questions about this scene:


Community Spotlight – Lake Cusabo Player Town

This week’s Player Owned Town spotlight has me, ‘Berek’ as I go by in the community, travelling to Lake Cusabo to visit this beautiful area in northern Novia.

After a hectic few weeks of work and outside activities, I realized that it’d been quite some time since I’d had a full day to relax and wind down from the travails of daily life. I made my way north from Central Brittany, past Brekken Bay, and onward toward the Serpent Spine foothills. As the road turned west, I arrived at the town of Lake Cusabo.

Upon entering the town, I was immediately greeted with the scent of fresh pine and the cool brush of a lovely breeze. Lake Cusabo sits high in the mountains, and the great majesty of the views from atop these mountains took my breath away.

Read more…


Update of the Avatar #240 – 2017.11.08: Making of Longfall Woods and South Paladis, Post Ep. 1 Plan, R44 Telethon Results, Kickstarter Rewards Update, Free Trial 5 Begins, Community Events, and More!

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

The Latest Game Progress

News Announcements

Community Updates

Making of Longfall Woods

We are focusing the next few releases on building the lower tier scenes near the cities along the paths of Truth and Courage. Most of these scenes have been clones of other scenes and will now be replaced with completely original scenes. In Release 45 one of these scenes is Longfall Woods which is a heavily forested area near Aerie in the Longfall region.

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

Hey folks, today I’ll be sharing some screenshots of Longfall Woods, which is an adventure scene near Blood River. These dark woods draw inspiration from mythical forests such as Fangorn Forest from Lord of the Rings, or The Forbidden Forest from Harry Potter. In the scene, you can find a camp of vigilantes, a spider den, some haunted ruins, and a survivalist family of elves who have been hiding from the vigilantes.

The Woods

Read more…


Free Trial Test #5 – August 9-30th

We are excited to announce the latest test of our Free Trial system! These tests are invaluable for us in order to improve the New User Experience and the Free Trial System itself.

If you know anyone who may want to try the game for free, please send them to the Download Page.

Free Trial access during the game’s current Early Access period allows you to play the entire game in any of the Online modes with a few key differences in game play:

  • Free Trial Current Time Period: August 9-30th, 2017
  • The term (Visitor) is appended to your Character Name
  • Cannot give items to other players via Trade
  • Cannot purchase nor sell items via Player Vendors nor Public Vendors
  • No ownership of property nor use of lot signs
  • Cannot interact with public chests
  • Cannot move/interact with items on a plot even if they are given permissions
  • Cannot flag as Open PVP
  • Cannot gain nor do they create any ransom items when they kill or are killed in PVP (in Open PVP zones)
  • Character data may be deleted after Free Trial period is over if character is not upgraded to a paid account
  • Items purchased in the Add On Store cannot be accessed after the Free Trial Period is over unless you purchase Game Access
  • Cannot play in Offline Mode
  • Can only start on the Path of Love

You can still 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! If you wish to continue playing after the free trial concludes, you can obtain an Early Access account here.

For when you get started in the Free Trial, we would love your feedback! We have opened up of our Release Feedback Forums. If you have a constructive comment about this release that will help the game to improve, please post it there. You can also say hello in the New Player Forum!

Have fun, and thanks for checking out Shroud of the Avatar in Early Access!


Release 44 Postmortem Mini-Telethon

** $67,500 **

Telethon Funds Raised



Telethon Stretch Goal Rewards:

  • ACHIEVED! $10,000: Oracle Eye Sparklers
  • ACHIEVED! $25,000: Oracle Eye Mirror: Home decoration with the Oracle Eye on top
  • ACHIEVED! $35,000: Oracle Eye Helmet: Fencing Mask with Oracle Eye painted on mesh like the Obsidian Cabalist masks
  • ACHIEVED! $50,000: Oracle Eye Throne
  • ACHIEVED! $65,000: Oracle Cable “Wings” + /juggleoracleeyes

Greetings Avatars,

Traditionally our Telethons have been held quarterly and lasted 12 hours (and in some extreme cases 24 hours!). While these lengthy telethons allowed us to cover a very wide range of subjects, they also led to a bit of meandering at the end due to fatigue (and maybe a bit of overindulgence). Recently we had a much shorter telethon (6 hours) for Lord British’s birthday, discovering that we spent more time answering questions and remained much more focused and alert. Your response was also quite positive in both pledges and feedback after the telethon!

So, starting with Release 44, we are going to experiment with extended Postmortems that are also Mini-Telethons. This will increase the frequency of our telethons to monthly but also keep them short (4 hours). We are confident that this will both allow us to focus more time on development while at the same time provide a higher frequency of direct interaction with you, our community.

Since this is a shorter telethon we want to make sure as many people can participate in the stretch goals. We are going to extend the amount of time that your purchases can be eligible for the stretch goals to be 12 hours from 12:00 PM CDT to Midnight. NOTE: We will still stop tracking towards stretch goals at the end of the telethon at 7:00 PM CDT, but everyone will have another 5 hours to spend $5 to get the stretch goals.

We hope you find this change an improvement! Now, onward to this telethon’s details!

TELETHON 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 3pm CT on August 7: Read more…