Updates

RizeUp Gaming’s 4th Annual Multiple Sclerosis Charity Drive, June 17-19

June 15, 2016

[The following excerpt is from a RizeUp Gaming Twitch Channel Subscriber Letter]

We are excitedly preparing for our June charity: the Fourth Annual Multiple Sclerosis Society Charity Drive hosted live on the channel the 17th through 19th. Look forward to seeing our everyday streamers in addition to a few of our newest members recruited to the stream team. Long-time supporter, Indie, will be casting from the channel Saturday, June 18th, at 10am PDT. RizeUp Owner, Firecrow, will be casting the same day at 8pm PDT.

All streams during the marathon will have special donation incentives to make donating to the MS Society Charity a little more interesting as we attempt to reach our $1000 goal. Prizes for this marathon include two Steelseries headsets, one 60-day Minecraft server hosted by WTGHosting, artwork by artists in our community, and Steam game code packs. We will be giving out Steam game codes when we reach certain follower, subscriber, and donation increments to viewers in chat and through the RizeUp Twitter.

Make sure to come by the channel and show off your sub emotes while we raise money for MS.

https://www.twitch.tv/rizeupgaming

Donate to RizeUp Gaming’s National MS Society Charity Drive here!

#StrongerThanMS

Update of the Avatar #180 – 2016.06.10: Pre-Order Sword of Midras Novel, HoBLotH III Recap, Phoenix Republic’s Royal Warrant, Confluence Chamber, Xounts SotA Special, and More!

June 10, 2016

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

Pre-Order Now: The Sword of Midras SotA Novel for Hardcover, Kindle, Nook and Audiobook

The Sword of Midras, by Tracy Hickman and Richard Garriott, is a revised and expanded version of the Blade of the Avatar novel (originally included in pledge rewards through May 31, 2015). The expanded The Sword of Midras includes four additional chapters not seen in the pledge reward version of Blade of the Avatar, extending and elaborating on key elements of the story.

The release date is June 21, 2016 by Tor Books. The Hardcover, Kindle, and Nook, versions are available for pre-order now at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Release date for the unabridged audiobook version is July 12, 2016 with pre-orders available now at Audible.com.

Portalarium Attends HoBLotH III

June 9, 2016

Last week was amazing in Austin for both Portalarium and the SotA community! Many on our team had the pleasure of attending HoBLotH III, which stands for Hearth of Britannia: Lifeblood of the Hearth. The event generated a huge amount of activity for over five days at Castleton Village near the office.

Dancing, storytelling, and LARPing quests and contests occurred throughout each day with many events extending well into the evenings. Tuesday was the official kick-off day with the real fun beginning on Wednesday with a bunch of quests that included testing one’s knowledge of Britannia, a scavenger hunt, fishing, and fighting for valor in LARP combat!

COMMUNITY EVENTS

Update of the Avatar #179 – 2016.06.03: R30 Postmortem, Brittany Wharfs, Unity Onsite, Gold Crowns Clarifications, Viking Un-Bundles, and More!

June 3, 2016

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 30 Postmortem

Our first Postmortem with our new Community Manager, Berek, at the helm went great! Richard, Starr, Chris, Scott, Gina, and Matt chatted about Release 30 and provided a sneak peek at Release 31. A greadt deal of time was spent on the durability changes and the Gold Crowns of the Obsidians, and Berek fielded lots of questions and feedback from the original post and live in the chat-room; including the new Discord chat server! We gave out lots of prizes including store credits, an ISS challenge coin from Richard’s trip to space, 2 Shroud of the Avatar T-shirts, and even some new Viking items! Darkstarr even modeled his garb for the HOBLOTH 3 event going on down the road at Castleton. Chris then followed up with an AMA in Discord, where he answered a ton of questions that were later posted to the forums here.

And a good time with the community and great feedback were not the only things the team took away from the hangout. One of the things this Post Mortem helped us realize was that many of the questions posted were repeated requests for information about when certain features are going to be coming online. We noted that, though many of those questions could be answered by reading the Final Wipe & Lot Selection post, the information was not as easily accessible as it could be. So, we pulled the basic Road Map out of that post, updated it, and made it it’s own post.

Update of the Avatar #178 – 2016.05.27: Play R30 Now, Hospitaller Stations, R30 Postmortem Invite, Gold COTO, Tax Free POT Lot Bundles, and More!

May 27, 2016

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

Play Release 30 Now!

Release 30 Instructions

May 25, 2016

[A SotA Public Forum post by Starr 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 30 access for all backers at First Responder level and above begins this Thursday, May 26, at 10:30 AM US Central Daylight Time (15:30 UTC).

The pace of change as we approach Final Wipe and Lot Selection continues to accelerate as we make our final few, but quite impactful changes and additions to Shroud of the Avatar. Release 30 is full of these important changes, and includes large additions to the story, reworkings of the crafting system, and refinements of the new targeting mechanics we introduced in R29.

The statue of Grannus in front of the crumbling Valhold Castle

Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 30 Postmortem

May 24, 2016

Join us Wednesday, June 1st at 3:00 PM Central (20:00 GMT) for our monthly Hangout of the Avatar! Richard, Starr, and Chris will be chatting about Release 30 and looking ahead to Release 31, as well as starting to talk about the impeding R32!

In an exciting twist to the normal flow of the livestream, the new community manager, Mathew “Berek” Anderson, is set to spice things up by not only taking your questions and feedback live in the chat-room and also in advance right here in the comments section, but will be on the livestream in the office with Starr and Chris!*

We will be giving out some really awesome prizes during the livestream. All you have to do to qualify for one is to come hang out with us in the IRC chatroom during the broadcast. Be sure to join us throughout the livestream for multiple chances to win cool Shroud of the Avatar swag!

Watch here at 3pm CST on Wednesday, June 1st:

*Please keep in mind that questions and feedback related to this release’s specific topics will be given priority and really verbose questions may be skipped, as they can be a challenge to shorten and summarize live on the air. In brief… please keep your questions… brief.

Only one post submission allowed! If you have multiple questions (please keep it to 5 or less), place them into that one post. This will allow us to get to as many players as possible. Thank you!

Update of the Avatar #177 – 2016.05.20: New Community Manager, Duke Roundtable Recap, Female Avatar Revamp, and More!

May 20, 2016

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

New Female Avatar

[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Kevin “Uglyfist” Wells]

Hello again everyone. First, I want to give many thanks to the community for the flattering and constructive feedback from my last post about the male avatar update. It was a great experience and totally made the work feel worth it with all the positive feedback.

It’s player character polish debut time again, and I’m very excited to say that the female avatar has been updated. Much like the male avatar update, I started from scratch and built and integrated the character over a two-release period.

With this update, the idea was to take what we had, and without completely changing the aesthetic, remake the art in a way that improves the quality but doesn’t completely change the look and feel with which players are already so familiar. Basically, the goal was to keep the female avatar looking as she was before, but with more polish and bit of a push toward an athletic look.

Also, as with the male avatar update, I have to give thanks to Matt Schmitz and Fletcher Kinnear for helping me get this new character working well with animations and all the many equippables.

I hope you guys love it and I can’t wait to hear back from everybody.

Update of the Avatar #176 – 2016.05.13: Final Pledge Expirations Parts 1 & 2, Elad’s Lighthouse, Brittany Fields, Revamped Headgear, and More!

May 13, 2016

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

**** UPDATE: Summer 2016 Expirations ****
The Halls of Artifice (A Work In Progress)
The Making of Brittany Fields
Elad’s Lighthouse
Revamped Headgear
The Bear, the Bare, and the Maiden, Faire (a Community Event)
Balloon PoT Connections
Silver Serpent Pendant Available in a Variety of Metals
Community Resources – Players Helping Players
In-game Community Events
Upcoming Events
Backer Shipping Addresses
Recommended Projects to Back

**** UPDATE: Summer 2016 Expirations ****

In order to give our backers the opportunity to upgrade their pledges once they’ve experienced the game post-wipe (see Final Wipe and Lot Selection milestone), we have decided to split the Summer 2016 Expiration Event into Two Parts!

Summer 2016 Expiration Event, Part 1

At Midnight CDT (5:00 UTC) on July 27, 2016, we are expiring the homes and basements from the Ancestor, Edelmann, Knight Marshal, Lord Marshal, Duke, and Lord of the Manor 2 pledges. We are also expiring new Player Owned Towns (upgrades of existing POTs will continue to be available). All other rewards (including tax free property deeds) that are currently available in the remaining pledges will continue to be available. The final wipe of all game data will also occur at Midnight CDT (5:00 UTC) on July 27th. To commemorate this momentous milestone, we are holding a 12-hour Summer Telethon Part 1, starting at 12:00 pm CDT (17:00 UTC) and running right up to the Final Wipe at Midnight CDT (5:00 UTC).

Summer 2016 Expiration Event, Part 2

At Midnight CDT (5:00 UTC) on August 22, 2016, we are expiring ALL remaining pledges, including: Adventurer, Founder, Royal Artisan, Explorer, Ancestor, Edelmann, Knight Marshal, Lord Marshal, Duke, and Lord of the Manor 2. To commemorate the final expiration of all remaining pledges, we are holding a 12-hour Summer Telethon Part 2, starting at 12:00 pm CDT (17:00 UTC) and running right up to the Final Pledge Expirations at Midnight CDT (5:00 UTC).

Update of the Avatar #175 – 2016.05.06: Spring Telethon Results, Making of Valhold, Halls of Artifice, Brittany Fields, Merchant Outfit Revamp, and More!

May 6, 2016

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

The Making of Valhold (Castle Interior)
The Halls of Artifice (A Work In Progress)
The Making of Brittany Fields
Merchant Outfit Revamp + Fortified Cloth Gloves & Boots
The Spring Festival of the Avatar Telethon Results
Shroud In The News: Richard Garriott and Personal Rapid Transport
Summer 2016 Expirations
New Kobold Furniture, Pavers, Streelamps, and Gazebo
In-game Community Events
Upcoming Events
Backer Shipping Addresses
Recommended Projects to Back

The Making of Valhold (Castle Interior)

This is the continuing update on the progress on Valhold. Valhold is scheduled to go live in Release 30.

[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Richard “RrMatey” Matey]

Hey guys, I have returned to Valhold after creating the Crypt of the Avatar scene. So the last thing that needs to be completed for Valhold is the interior of the palace. This section of the game is a solo instance and will change depending on the story points of the game. So here are some screenshots of the interior.