Updates

The Making of Rhun Ruins

February 7, 2017

The Rhun Ruins are one of the six ruined cities found in Novia that date back to the period in Novian history in which the Obsidian Order rose to power. (As described in the Sword of Midras prequel novel by Tracy Hickman and Richard Garriott). The exact history of some of these cities has been lost to time, but it is rumored that some of them may have been abandoned even before the rise of the Obsidians. Rhun was a city devoted to Compassion but has since been overrun with the undead. It is located in the Drachvald region in the northeast of Novia.

Rhun started as a clone of the Dysborg Ruins, but is getting completely rebuilt this release to have a unique layout and visuals. We are expressly focusing on being sure the map has interesting setups for PVP conflict, with plenty of space for hiding, escaping, ambushing, and skirmishing.

[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Esteben “SorcerousSteve” Zaldivar]

Hey guys! SorcerousSteve here with a sneak peek of the Rhun Ruins! Currently a work in progress, the Rhun Ruins are located on the eastern coast of Drachvald. Once a City of Compassion, its fascination with Obsidian became so high that it brought about its own demise.

Update of the Avatar #213 – 2017.02.03: The Making of Upper Fortus, Rhun Ruins, & K’rul, R38 Postmortem, IronMaiden’s Chemo Relief Telethon, Water Decorations, and More!

February 3, 2017

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

The Making of Upper Fortus

The Fortus River runs south-to-north through a large canyon in the North Paladis region near the Sanctus Spine Control Point. Kobolds have established a mining facility here using steam to soften the terrain. Bandits have a camp nearby and have been raiding the shipments of ore and therefore, the Kobolds have been ramping up their defenses of the mining facility. Expect strong resistance when trying to raid the Kobold mining camp; and the bandits are not going to be too friendly either!

This scene started as a clone of North Varisalla Foothills but is being completely rebuilt for a live date hopefully in Release 40.

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

I have a few screenshots of progress being made on Upper Fortus.

The Southern Canyon/ Upper Fortus Falls

Community of the Avatar – Exploring Blood Bay

February 2, 2017

Join us this Friday at 4pm CT for another Community of the Avatar livestream!

A special guest, Keith Quinn (World Builder/Level Designer on the team), will be taking us on a tour of the very dangerous scene of Blood Bay! If we don’t immediately fall prey to the dragon rumored to be lurking somewhere in the mountains, we may get a chance to show off some new screenshots of K’rul, an upcoming Blood Bay dungeon set to go live in Release 39.

The fun begins live on Twitch tomorrow!

The Making of K’rul

January 31, 2017

From last week’s Update of the Avatar #212:

Underneath Blood Bay, far from the prying eyes of the Oracle, top Kobold researchers work in the Kobold Research Underground Laboratories; aka K’rul. In this vast underground facility, Kobolds work to harness Obisidian shards, build ever larger and more dangerous automatons, and craft mysterious weapons. Like Blood Bay, K’rul is an Open PVP zone but it also has a lot of PVE opportunities with top tier Kobolds and automatons to battle with, as well as dangerous technological traps and puzzles to contend with.

Our goal is to have a first iteration of this dungeon live in the game for Release 39.

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

K’RUL progress screenshots

Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 38 Postmortem

January 30, 2017

Other videos on YouTube at www.youtube.com/portalarium

Update of the Avatar #212 – 2017.01.27: Play Release 38 Now!, Valentine’s Goodies, Making of K’rul, R37 Deed Raffle Winners, Perennial Polish, and More!

January 27, 2017

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

Play Release 38 Now!

Release 38 successfully launched yesterday, January 26, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, and logging in to check out the changes! There’s lots of new content to explore, including:

Release 37 Lot Deed Raffle Winners

January 26, 2017

The latest Lot Deed Raffle was drawn with 85 lot deeds awarded to the following lucky winners. There were two raffles, one for each lot type:

Place Anywhere Deeds: 10 Total
- Row: 5
- Village: 3
- Town: 1
- City: 1
Player Owned Town Deeds: 75 Total
- Row: 40
- Village: 20
- Town: 10
- City: 5

Raffle tickets grant the holder a chance to win deeds of any size (Row, Village, Town, or City). Raffles will be held monthly (total deed numbers will vary each month). Place-Anywhere Deed raffle tickets are more expensive but will have fewer deeds in each raffle than POT raffle tickets, which are more affordable and will have many more deeds in each raffle. This means your chances to win a POT deed are much greater.

This is another raffle where we limited winners to one deed per raffle type. Visit the forums to read more about this recent change.

Below is a complete list of the winners for this release’s raffle. Winners can claim their deed(s) simply by logging into the game and claiming rewards at any bank. A reminder that you may have received multiple deeds to claim if you received tickets for a guild or other group.

If you wish to review all of your account rewards outside of the game, you can do so by going to the Account menu on the main website and then selecting the ‘Special Rewards’ tab in the page menu.

Listed below are the winners:

Release 38 Instructions

January 25, 2017

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

Greetings Avatars,

Please read this entire message, as well as the linked instructions and known issues.

Thank you for being a loyal backer and follower of Shroud of the Avatar. Release 38 access for all Early Access backers begins this Thursday, January 26, at 10:30 AM US Central Standard Time (15:30 UTC).

Release 38 is one of our larger releases because some of the work was started before the holiday break and some of the content has been worked on for several releases (Xenos, Blood Bay, Scaled Crafting).

The Making of North Drachvald Spur

January 24, 2017

From last week’s Update of the Avatar #211:

North Drachvald Spur is located in the Sirens mountains in the Drachvald region in the northeastern section of Novia. It started as a clone of the Whiteguard Foothills and is getting rebuilt to go live as a new scene in Release 39.

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

Hey folks, today I will be sharing some screenshots from the uncloning of North Drachvald Spur. The area is home to a group of bandits who have been ambushing supply convoys using rock slides. The area will also feature the remnants of an abandoned mine, and a mysterious watchtower.

The terrain has also been reshaped to feature a ridge line of mountains to the east, which are present in the overworld map. The biome has been swapped for one inspired by the mountains of the pacific northwest United States.

Inspiration (Mt Rainier Washington)

The New Road

Xenos Polish for Release 38

January 23, 2017

From last week’s Update of the Avatar #211:

Right before we went persistent, we uncloned Xenos and made some modifications to it for specific plot points. However, we were not satisfied with the level of polish, so we are revisiting this scene and doing a polish pass this release. We hope to have this pass complete by Release 38. Xenos is on the island of Elysium, southwest of Novia, and is a critical juncture on the Path of Truth. This is the third update we have posted so far on this map.

[A Dev+ Forum Post by Scott “Scottie” Jones]

And here we are folks,…the final post for Xenos before it goes live in the next build! We’re working feverishly on this (as you can tell by the hour of this post), and hope that you’ll enjoy what we have to offer…

Everything I had yearned to include in the scene has now been placed somewhere on the map, and at this point all that is left for me to do is proliferate them to all the various places they may go, and finish some final touch-up details on the landscape painting and foliage placement as decoration across the map… You’ll see examples of pretty much everything in the images of this last and largest post… We’ll begin and end near the city center, where you can see the festive area of the Forum. Beyond it you can catch a peek at the newest addition to replace a building that I had been struggling to figure out how to handle… Instead I used a suggestion from the Mad Hatter pertaining to a wonderful asset available on the Unity Store, which ended up perfectly fitting the theme of the scene, and tied in wonderfully to elements of the fiction pertaining to the mysterious Titan Boreus.We’ll see that building up close at the end of the post, but for now, let’s make use of the handy gondolas that I’ve placed at various locations throughout the scene… Initially, each will have two boats; one which will allow you to visit another gondola dock around the bay, and the second which will return to the one you just came from. Eventually, however, our plan is to have a single boat there which will take you to any of the locations on that scene map by merely choosing one from an entire list! Grand convenience!