Jack T. Lamplighter
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Posts posted by Jack T. Lamplighter
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We will be kicking off this week’s Community Livestream by giving players an in-depth look at how the Property Manager helps you move your home and lot belongings (a.k.a. Magic Movers) works by visiting Hometown and trying the feature out!
As mentioned in the Release 39 Instructions, we added a really powerful new feature to Player Housing where:
“Players can now save a fully decorated lot or basement and reload it later onto that same lot or onto a different lot in that same scene (as long as that lot is the same size). Players will start with 5 slots and, in future releases, will be able to purchase more for Gold Crowns. In a future release, we will expand this feature to allow movement of a fully decorated lot/basement between separate scenes for an, as yet, undetermined cost.”
Details for how to use this new feature can also be found in the Player Instructions document. Darkstarr also posted a detailed explanation in the forums.
The fun begins on Twitch this Friday at 4pm CT! Also join the community watching on Discord chat to ask your questions about the Property Manager.
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Hello everyone, this is Asclepius, with the conclusion of this wonderful story from Andartianna, entitled
Odd Tidings From The Bear Tavern: A Court House
Background music by SmartsoundChapter 6, “Cats, Clues, Corp Por”
Upon entering K’rul, Sara and Dr. Zazeriz began quickly preparing themselves for battle. The Kobolds within are highly aggressive and ready for attack. Sara quickly moved to the front to defend Dr. Zazeriz, and they slowly moved into the caverns. Upon entering, they travelled to the left and found mechanized cats and Kobolds, which fiercely attacked them. They quickly opened up a hatch to a lower level, and found themselves in a deeper level of K’rul. Sara swung her sword at some watchers, which seemed to be ignoring commands from the Oracle, and dispatched them. The next room was filled with a purple mist that confused anyone that walked through it. Moving to the next room, they were met with a torrent of steam which burned through layers of their clothing.Dr. Zazeriz quickly cast heal spells as they made their way to the right. Inside the next room, an electrical machine targeted people giving damage and focus loss per second. Moving on, Sara and Dr. Zazeriz found themselves in a hall with poisonous gas, which choked anyone who walked through it. Sara quickly leveled an automated assassin and a kobold brawler who were blocking their path.
Dr. Zazeriz quickly looked around the tunnels for any clues that might lead them to the location of the factories of the clockwork dragon. Upon entering the next room, they discovered it was a giant electrical room that blocked focus and tried to block their path. They turned left and then left again and entered a large room of very hot steam, which once again burned their clothing. Sara quickly dispatched the mechanical ravens which were hiding in the room. Another turn to the right brought them in a red mist room, the gas of which seemed to be poisonous. Each of the gasses, they figured out, could be turned off with valves scattered throughout the K’rul hallways.
They turned right and then right again, and entered a hall filled with Kobold Grenadiers and Kobold Brawlers. After dispatching them, they came up to a higher level and found a mine cart track which the Kobolds were probably using for transporting mining equipment and other supplies. As they made their way into an open space, they found beta monkeys standing around. After the last one died, they stood still for a moment to look around. Sara and Dr. Zazeriz could hear odd machine sounds coming from the left. They turned to the left to see what it was. There was a wide hallway and door with blood all over the floor and walls. It was apparent that something had died repeatedly trying to get out of the room.
Inside, the room was filled with spikes that would go up and down, which were triggered randomly by Kobolds who were in the room above. As they entered the room, they spotted a mage standing over a pile of dead Shock Monkey Gold bodies. Shock Monkey Gold are fearsome mechanical monsters that stun anyone who comes near them.
Sara waved at the mage standing in the center of the room. “Hail, Corp Por. How fare thee this fine day?” Sara asked.
“I am very well, thank you. These Kobolds continuously send Shock Monkey Gold constructs at me to test their machines.” Corp Por said.
“Have you seen if they construct clockwork dragons here?” Sara asked.
“I believe they do. I have seen a room with a clockwork dragon deep in the bowels of K’rul. If you go back and take a right and head deeper into the mines, you’ll be able to see the room below the clockwork construction zone.” Corp Por said.
“Thanks, Corp Por. We’ll see you around.” Sara said.
Chapter 7 “Scouting, Sara, Selected.”
Sara and Dr. Zazeriz began scouting the rest of K’rul. They found the location where the clockwork dragons were being constructed, and also a cavern filled with a Kobold city. After they had thoroughly mapped the entirety of K’rul, they headed out and made a camp on a hill overlooking Blood Bay.“Thank you for helping me map the area of K’rul. We will have to come back on some other occasions and see if we can deconstruct some of the Kobold’s technology.” Sara said.
“Deconstruct, huh? You mean deconstruct by hitting it with a sword?” Dr. Zazeriz asked with a chuckle.
“That does seem like the best way to deconstruct Kobold technology. Now that we know K’rul, we can come back later.” Sara said.
“Alright, I’m going to teleport back to Beran’s Reach. Hopefully, they have come to a decision.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
“I will stay here and scout more of Blood Bay.” Sara said.
“Take care of yourself, Sara. If you need me, you know how to find me.” Dr. Zazeriz said, then teleported back to Beran’s Reach.
Dr. Zazeriz walked into the sleeping quarters provided by the courthouse, and just as she was going to sit down and rest after the three-day journey, a knock on the door made her get back up on her feet. Dr. Zazeriz walked back to the door and opened it up. Astor Ceberus was standing outside.
“Greetings, Governor Zazeriz. I am happy to say that the reviewers have made their decision.” Astor Ceberus said.
“Oh? Do tell.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
“Congratulations! You have been selected to be a magistrate for the courthouse of Beran’s Reach. You now have access to storage and space within the courthouse that will help you perform your duties as a magistrate. We also will provide you with the robes of a magistrate.” Astor Ceberus said.
“Thank you, Astor. I look forward to helping the court of Beran’s Reach adjudicate the laws of Novia.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
The post Odd Tidings 3 – by Andartianna – narrated by Asclepius appeared first on Echoes from the Caverns.
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Written by Berek, your Wood Elf Community Manager…
When I came on board to Portalarium early last year, I was already a dedicated Shroud of the Avatar (SotA) player and guild member, eagerly checking out the content in-game as it was added each release. The community’s excitement up to that point had seeped deep into my veins, compelling me to see how I could join the team to help the community move to new heights.From the very first day at the office, I quickly realized there was so much more to discover with the community than I originally thought. I saw huge potential as I learned more about how each of you contributes content and feedback. From player-created resources on various community-led websites to a ton of in-game activities and real life meetups, I also quickly realized I was going to need the community’s help to succeed at this role!
In my years working with communities, I have seen few as passionate and determined as what we have for Shroud of the Avatar. A sense of belonging and camaraderie is imbued in all corners of the community. Many of the players come from as far back as the Ultima days (circa 1981-1999 including Ultima Online to the present day). Everyone should be proud of what has been built up to this point!
Little did we all know how exciting and wild of a ride it was indeed going to be in just this past year, eh? Let’s take a look back and see what’s changed!
DEVELOPER REACHOUT
Since Shroud of the Avatar is a crowdfunded project, our team has much more leeway to discuss gameplay changes than most other studios. Many engaging initiatives have been created to quickly gather gameplay feedback and figure out what game mechanics may need a review. If most of you are smiling after playing through the latest Release content, then we’ve done something right.
Developer Blog Posts…To communicate all of the changes that we collaborate on with the community, and those that are added on short notice, a significant portion of the team writes up forum blogs and weekly updates. Here are some of those contributors:
Richard “Lord British” Garriott, CEO, Creative Director, and Founder of Portalarium, really needs no introduction. Richard’s focus for daily development of the game is on story and quest development with Scott Jennings. He also helps steer the ship at-large on general design ideas and strategy. Most importantly, Richard is frequently in-game and meeting new players as they adventure through New Britannia! 
As always, Starr “Darkstarr” Long, Executive Producer, writes the most updates through the Quarterly Update and Weekly Update posts, and the many discussions and feedback reports the community submits in the forums. He also is determined to answer every single question from the Postmortem Livestreams, even if it takes days to personally write responses in a list later posted in the forums. Does this man sleep?! I don’t know… 
Just this month we’ve seen Chris Spears, Technical Director, supercharge his activity in the forums with a daily update on his work tasks. He also spends a great deal of time posting answers to the community around your combat design questions, and recently has teamed up with community member, Duke Violation, to livestream about the many changes he’s made to the game since the previous release. This man definitely doesn’t sleep! 
Scott “Lum” Jennings, Senior Designer/Programmer, also has been writing his own developer blog that’s been gaining a great deal of attention. Story and quests are a key driver of fun in the game, and Lum has appreciated the input the community has sent over since he started his blog, even down to players helping to choose an NPC’s name! From the world builders, quest writers, to character artists, we release dozens of screenshots of upcoming content on a weekly basis. Visit the game’s YouTube page for a quick glance at a highlight of some of the developers that have been on various livestreams from the past year. Here is a quick glance at the latest livestream as of May 12, 2017:
Weekly Update Newsletters
From the very beginning of the game’s development, we set a commitment to put out monthly content releases and weekly updates around those releases. These updates have expanded in coverage over the last couple of years to include so much more than the latest patch notes or release details. In fact, they are now considered the central authority to all news around the game.
If you get your news from nowhere else, you can be confident in getting it through the weekly updates. They include the usual key release information, as well as new scene progress and screenshots, reminders of important upcoming events, weekend flash sales, telethon reward details, local event announcements, and spotlights on community events and activities.
Let us know which of the following initiatives you look forward to seeing more of!
Release Postmortem Q&As
What does postmortem even mean? Definition by Oxford English Dictionary:
“An examination of a dead body to determine the cause of death.”
Wait, that’s not the right definition! Here it is:
“An analysis or discussion of an event held soon after it has occurred…”
After a monthly release goes out (usually the last Thursday of the month), we announce a livestream a week or so afterward to talk about that release and what the community liked or disliked about the release. When the announcement for the livestream is made, we include an opportunity for every player to ask their questions in the comments section. We then answer those questions on the livestream and in the forums for all to read.
In previous postmortems before the last year, we had more of a mix of activities on the livestream. Now we’ve dedicated postmortems solely to your questions, leaving other content for the community streams on Fridays, as well as the great 12-hour telethon events every quarter (more about those below!).
Testing Incentives Program, Localization, and Customer Support
Our team is small because we are a crowdfunded project supported entirely by the community. Because of the need to be extra considerate with how we spend our time and money, we rely heavily on the incredible work and contributions of our community to provide the development feedback and support necessary to create amazing and polished content.There are several significant channels of communication that filter your feedback and support requests directly to the team. The first channel centers on our Quality Assurance (QA) department, led by Rhys “Attenwood” Romero. This department receives and handles reported flaws and feedback on the game and the latest release. Do you feel combat is imbalanced or some skills are overpowered? Did you fall through the ground into an endless abyss? We have QA handle initial investigation and issue submission to inform the rest of the team what is going on so they can patch the game as necessary.
In order to grasp all that is going right (or wrong) with the game in any particular release, we need your support in submitting bugs and feedback to us before a release goes live. This is where the Testing Incentives Program comes into play (literally). For players that have Dev+ group access, you can help this program by testing upcoming releases! Visit the forums for details on the program.
In addition to the Testing Incentives Program, we also have our community-based Localization team. They help to translate the game into multiple languages including German, Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese. If you are fluent in these languages and would like to contribute, please see the Join the Localization Team announcement. This effort is critical to ensuring the game launches to as wide of an audience as possible.
We are also excited to announce our partnership with Black Sun Game Publishing. They will be working closely with our team to localize the game into Russian and further expand SotA’s reach.
Also passionate about responding to player concerns is our dedicated customer support team led by Sarah “Serafina” Dworken. She manages the numerous support ticket requests that come in on a daily basis. Everything from account support to player owned town change needs are submitted to the support portal.Sarah is also actively in the forums with Rhys and Andrea “Lexie” Vinyard on responding to your bug reports and gameplay feedback. Say hi when you see them post!
Community Livestreams
One of our on-going goals is to ensure we expand video content. Last year we made the switch to Twitch and started plotting new initiatives like the Community Livestreams. In the past we relied upon YouTube, but knew we were leaving out a much larger base of our community. Other platforms are still being considered, though right now we want to focus on Twitch.
Usually occurring on Fridays, the Community Livestreams are filled with news about the activities over the past week and upcoming weekend, an appearance by Starr about recent development news, and then the rest of the hour has a developer or two showing off some new cool piece of upcoming game content they are working on. I also toss out various in-game prizes, and even a tricky trivia question or three.
Be sure to join us on Twitch every Friday at 4pm CT! Subscribe to twitch.tv/shroudoftheavatar to get notified when we are on-air, including when we host streams from the community! Also be sure to join the community’s Discord chat room for 24/7 live gameplay discussions.
Quarterly Telethons
As mentioned earlier, telethons are our more wild and wacky livestreams where anything can happen throughout the broadcast. Expect the unexpected! Telethons occur roughly on a quarterly basis, or about four times per year and usually around seasonal events.
While telethons are about helping to further push the project forward monetarily, they are much more than that. Telethons include 12-hours of “Deep Dive” developer discussions and sneak peeks of upcoming content, prize giveaways, community hours and in-game events, and special promotions. Even community members are invited to the office to help with the event on stage!
The next telethon coming up is the Summer Telethon Part 1 on May 31st. For this event, we have a special set of stretch goal prizes planned!
Contests and Events
My favorite of all initiatives are the regular in-game contests and events we run. While the community drives so many more events than we could hope to put on ourselves, we try to run at least something on a monthly basis.
In fact, as of this article being released, the Magnificent Trophy Room Contest is currently in full swing. Since Shroud of the Avatar has a complete housing system with a complete decoration capabilities, we’ve run several contest around player own homes and towns.
Here is a selection of screenshots from the contest submissions we’ve received so far:
Do you have a contest or event idea that we can run or help kick off? Let us know by contacting me in the forums!
COMMUNITY REACHOUT
Even More Contests and Events!We can put out contests, events, and other fun shenanigans all day long, but then we’d get no work done on the game itself! That’s no good. So, we do whatever we can to encourage and support the community’s own events.
“What, where, and when are these community events? I want to participate!” you might be asking.
Well, they all are gathered in two calendars that are led by the community; AvatarsCircle.com and SotAEvents.com. We also mirror these events on our own calendar on the main website.
It may be the games I’ve worked on or have played in the past, but I have seen no other game community of this size put on as many events. There are monthly release dance parties to show off character outfits, treasure hunts, crafting competitions, PvP arenas, and even fishing tournaments! I virtually (pun intended) guarantee you will find these community driven events worth attending.
Livestreamers
Just this past week I had a chat with over a dozen new livestreamers that have begun exploring New Britannia and streaming their adventures on Twitch. We have shows like NBNN (New Britannian News Network), MarkeeDragon, Kabalyero that will stream daily news, crafters who give you tours of the many secret mine nodes hidden deep within cave scenes, decorators who ask for design tips on Discord, to hardcore PvPers who show off their combat prowess… sometimes against the devs themselves!
If you livestream the game, even just occasionally every release or so, let us know! We are working on a calendar of streamers and wish to include your channel. The calendar will give you a chance to become a leading voice in the community!
If you are not a livestreamer but wish to be updated on what is being streamed, check who is live via the game’s directory page on Twitch. Refresh the page regularly to see the latest streamers.
Community Spotlights
Community spotlights are weekly tour article of a Player Owned Town, guild, or a current or upcoming player event. While spotlights are organized and written by myself, they are entirely about the community. Spotlights exist to promote player owned towns, show off what a guild has accomplished, what events are coming up, or any other opportunity we can think of to get the word out about what’s happening in-game.
There is such an endless amount of player content to explore, I would be running these spotlights on a daily basis if I had enough witty commentary to throw into a daily article!
Community Resources“What are some of the organizations and content the community comes up with?” Glad you asked!
Below is just a taste of those found on the main website’s Community Resources page. If we missed any here or on the page linked above, please let me know!
Avatars Radio
Rocking your socks off from the town of Radio City with the Terrestrial and New Britannian bards together under one roof through the power of the Moon Towers. Check out their daily program of amazing DJs.Fine Arts of the Forsaken Virtues
Do you have a deep passion for Beauty / Skills / Technique / Uniqueness / and just all the characteristics that make Art so fantastic? Do you want to help bring some of the great community artist’s work into our virtual world? If this fits you… please let Mad Hatter know!NBNN
NBNN is New Britannia’s premier video streaming news network. This community effort mobilizes streamers into a global endeavor of promotion for the greater Shroud of the Avatar community. Whether it be the latest news or a revealing interview, NBNN never fails to surprise!Role-Players of the Avatar (RPOTA)
Role-Players of the Avatar is a social environment where you will find a creative outlet for story writing and adventure creation. We are a community which feeds your desire to be someone else… a crazed barbarian, a cunning scoundrel, maybe a quirky wizard or perhaps a mysterious assassin.SotA Wiki
A premier source of information for all New Britannians! This site is being actively updated, so if there isn’t something you need, let the wiki organizers know!SotAMap.com
This amazing map allows you to pan the camera out for a global view of the map of New Britannia, or incrementally zoom in until you make out the finest details of the Overworld map of Novia and The Hidden Vale. And more of the town maps are being added every month!SotAHelp.org
SotAHelp.org is a player support site run by a team of volunteers, or Hospitallers, dedicated to improving the new player experience within Shroud of the Avatar. Can’t find a Hospitaller in-game? Then go to SotaHelp.Org where you can ask questions offline or schedule an in-game meetup.Wake Up New Britannia
Wake Up New Britannia is Novia’s FIRST morning show and brings you news, interviews, games, prizes, and MORE every Saturday Morning. Check out their website to catch up on interviews with community members. Each week we run a mixture of regular segments for the community which are both entertaining and informative as well as speciality spots such as our Lord British’s Birthday Game!Need a quick how-to guide? SotACrafter.com, SotACraft.com, and SotA Tutorials are all great resources aimed at new players and/or those with a crafting interest.
Many other resources are listed on the main Community Resources page, official forums, and on other sites easily found in the community!
The Hospitallers
Artwork from community member LeostormIf you wish to help new players get started in New Britannia, there is no better open group than the Hospitallers. While this organization is community led and developer supported, there is no single designated leader driving efforts. It is not a guild. There are no overarching rules or guidelines for being a Hospitaller, other than being an upstanding member of the community who genuinely wishes to help others have fun in the game.
How do you join the Hospitallers? It’s easy… if you have a game account, you already have joined! Simply toggle the Hospitaller title on your character and start greeting new players. Say hello as well to fellow tagged Hospitallers as you see them in the game. You are also invited to attend the weekly Sunday Hospitaller meetups on Discord.
IN-PERSON EVENTS
The game world is where both developers and the community can call home. Of course there is the real world and it is not immune to our collective invasion either! Many in-person events occur regularly throughout the year. In fact, there are a bunch of events coming up this Fall!
If you want to meet other community members and celebrate your game successes together at a shared table, then come attend any of the following events:
- Dragon Con (September 1-4, 2017 – Atlanta)
- SotA Con (October 13-15, 2017 – Austin)
- HoBLotH IV (November 9-12, 2017 – Austin)
Guilds and other groups gather all over the world on a regular basis. You can start your own in-person event or meetup at any time! Especially if you are able to create one in the Austin area, some of the developers may attend. If we cannot, we are still happy to tweet about the event to help get the word out.
Other more spontaneous events have occurred in the past as well. Take a look at how kind the community was in decorating our office last year for both Halloween and the year-end holidays. We even celebrated Halloween with a team costume contest!
Other photos of office shenanigans available on Facebook and through our Weekly Updates.
LOOKING FORWARD
The journey to completing Episode 1 and then onward to an official Launch can’t happen without all of you. Join the discussion in the forums, on Discord, and on the game’s social channels. The game’s future depends on your involvement! We are excited to be working on so many initiatives this year and into the next, and hope you can join us on this amazing journey.
New Britannia awaits, Avatars!
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Recording now on YouTube! Check out the new Inn design as we talk about how renting is going to work:
P.S. There is an Easter Egg about half way through as we streamed... -
From last week’s Update #227, and picking up from the first mention of changes to the Moondials, a Moondial Madness update from Scott “Scottie” Jones!
Recently we did some re-ordering of the celestial bodies in the heavens. Additionally there are now more game systems directly tied to the positions of these celestial bodies. For instance Town Sieges are directly tied to these. Due to these changes Richard “Lord British” Garriott has decreed that we update our orreries to not only accurately reflect these new sequences but also add the constellations in an outer ring. The first pass is to update the Darkstarr Moondial that players already own. We also created a new Silver Darkstarr Moondial that will only be available through our Referral program when that comes back online. Other variants that look very different from the Darkstarr versions will then be created including a craftable version (more mechanical in nature) and an Ornate version for the Add On Store that will come in a variety of sizes ranging from table top to a giant version that you can walk under!
The updated Darkstarr Moondial is live in Release 41. Stay tuned for updates on when the other versions will become available.
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Scott “Scottie” Jones]
OK!!! After having the chance to consider and discuss the feedback, I was able to talk with Starr and Richard, and the decision was made to scale the constellation placards down by 15% further! After testing this by going into the game, hitting “V” a few times to go into first-person mode, and trying to read the runes at the new scale, it seems it’s still possible to make out the words, which is really all we were trying to maintain… This is the “normal” way they’ll be seen with the character near them for size comparison…
…And here are two images of them up close and in first person… Thanks so much for the input, everyone… You should see those changes in the next build Monday morning! I think that the shrinking of the constellation size has helped make these symbols less “overbearing” than they were before…. More of a delicate statement, if you will… ^_^Craftable Moondial:
Ornate Moondial:
As I move forward with the new Moondial versions, allow me to show you the current state of the Craftable version (top) and the Ornate version (bottom)… The Craftable version is essentially complete, as far as the model goes, but I’m in the middle of changing out all of its materials so that it will eventually look like it’s made of all sorts of variants, instead of just gold and silver… For instance, the constellation placards will look like they’re wooden cutouts covered in copper trim to strengthen the edge and provide more punch to the inner symbol visual…(as compared to the darker wood “background”)… But now you can finally see the beginning of my ideas for the visual style of the Ornate Moondial, with its magical aetheric projections, and its glowing mechanical bits forming a new base…
I’m hoping to get Justin to help me apply the cool shimmery effect he was ably to create for the constellation overlay in the sky-dome itself (when you use either the astrolabe or any moondial), since that will help create an understanding that it’s the same magic/aetheric tech that’s allowing you to see it… It is this Ornate Moondial design that will be used for the various sizes I discussed earlier, from the small table-top version to place on a desk in your player-house, to the gigantic ones that fill a Village Lot or Keep Lot size, which will look something like this (though perhaps with a few more “glowy-bits” as part of the rest of the materials too… I kind of like the idea of some dimly-illuminant designs on the upper and under-sides of the solar ring, and possibly on some of moons themselves)!
As I mentioned earlier, I haven’t had the chance to scale them perfectly yet, but this gives you a good idea of how impressive they might feel when placed on your property or in the village square of a player-owned town! As opposed to the chaotic look of the Darkstarr Moondial, the orderly and upright graceful arcs that pass through the center of each moon help one’s eye determine their alignment between the glowing sector borders. It will be possible to walk beneath them to view the coolness from inside the aetheric, projected constellation image, and see up-close the location of the moons as they follow their glowing orbital paths through the sectors of the sky, clearly delineated by the longitudinal lines of the heavenly sphere…
I took a stroll up onto the balcony ledge of a nearby building to take a gander at what it might look like from a small distance, resting at some town center… I really think this will make for an impressive sight when viewed by those living within viewing distance, seen from some high castle balcony, or glanced at when visiting adjacent, multi-story pubs and shops…especially at night when the glowing projections will shine the brightest!
As these get closer to being done,…I’ll share some final images a bit later on!
Hopefully you’re enjoying the progress!
Scottie ^_^
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Hello everyone! Here is the news of the week!
- The Making of Oracle Colossus
- Moondial Madness (updates)
- R41 Postmortem Recap
- Free Trial Test 3 Live Now!
- Partnership with Black Sun Game Publishing
- Localization Progress Update
- Public Stats API
- Furniture, Statues, & Pets Weekend Flash Sale
- Upcoming Events Calendar
- Trophy Room Contest Continues!
- Community Project: AERIE Fund is Ready to Serve
- Community Resources – Players Helping Players
- Recommended Project to Back – Star Citizen (Offers Bundle)
The post Echoes from the Caverns 05-12-17 appeared first on Echoes from the Caverns.
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Greetings Fellow Avatars!
Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:
- The Making of Oracle Colossus
- Moondial Madness (updates)
- R41 Postmortem Recap
- Free Trial Test 3 Live Now!
- Partnership with Black Sun Game Publishing
- Localization Progress Update
- Public Stats API
- Furniture, Statues, & Pets Weekend Flash Sale
- Upcoming Events Calendar
- Trophy Room Contest Continues!
- Community Project: AERIE Fund is Ready to Serve
- Community Resources – Players Helping Players
- Recommended Project to Back – Star Citizen (Offers Bundle)
The Making of Oracle Colossus
SPOILERS: Now that all three paths (Truth, Love, and Courage) are playable we have begun work on the Finale part of the plot, aka The Path of the Oracle. One of the crucial scenes of that path is the Oracle Colossus. This is of course the famous depiction of the Oracle from the concept painting by Stephen Daniele inspired by passages from The Sword of Midras prequel novel by Tracy Hickman. This scene was built as a placeholder and is now being polished into a final state.
We hope to have the Oracle Colossus ready for Release 42 or 43.
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Travis “Vas Corp Por” Koleski]
Here are some early shots of progress on the Oracle Colossus area.
I, explorer Earl Greyhot, arrive at the site of the Oracle Colossus, where a previous expedition from the University of Britannia dissapeared under dubious circumstances.
I’ve discovered a mysterious magical dais, perhaps related to the magic elements.
The ruins have proven most inhospitable, but I have prevailed over the traps and puzzles so far.
..And there she is..
Thanks for following our progress!
Moondial Madness (updates)
Recently we did some re-ordering of the celestial bodies in the heavens. Additionally there are now more game systems directly tied to the positions of these celestial bodies. For instance Town Sieges are directly tied to these. Due to these changes Richard “Lord British” Garriott has decreed that we update our orreries to not only accurately reflect these new sequences but also add the constellations in an outer ring. The first pass is to update the Darkstarr Moondial that players already own. We also created a new Silver Darkstarr Moondial that will only be available through our Referral program when that comes back online. Other variants that look very different from the Darkstarr versions will then be created including a craftable version (more mechanical in nature) and an Ornate version for the Add On Store that will come in a variety of sizes ranging from table top to a giant version that you can walk under!
The updated Darkstarr Moondial is live in Release 41. Stay tuned for updates on when the other versions will become available.
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Scott “Scottie” Jones]
OK!!! After having the chance to consider and discuss the feedback, I was able to talk with Starr and Richard, and the decision was made to scale the constellation placards down by 15% further! After testing this by going into the game, hitting “V” a few times to go into first-person mode, and trying to read the runes at the new scale, it seems it’s still possible to make out the words, which is really all we were trying to maintain… This is the “normal” way they’ll be seen with the character near them for size comparison…
…And here are two images of them up close and in first person… Thanks so much for the input, everyone… You should see those changes in the next build Monday morning! I think that the shrinking of the constellation size has helped make these symbols less “overbearing” than they were before…. More of a delicate statement, if you will… ^_^
Craftable Moondial:
Ornate Moondial:
As I move forward with the new Moondial versions, allow me to show you the current state of the Craftable version (top) and the Ornate version (bottom)… The Craftable version is essentially complete, as far as the model goes, but I’m in the middle of changing out all of its materials so that it will eventually look like it’s made of all sorts of variants, instead of just gold and silver… For instance, the constellation placards will look like they’re wooden cutouts covered in copper trim to strengthen the edge and provide more punch to the inner symbol visual…(as compared to the darker wood “background”)… But now you can finally see the beginning of my ideas for the visual style of the Ornate Moondial, with its magical aetheric projections, and its glowing mechanical bits forming a new base…
I’m hoping to get Justin to help me apply the cool shimmery effect he was ably to create for the constellation overlay in the sky-dome itself (when you use either the astrolabe or any moondial), since that will help create an understanding that it’s the same magic/aetheric tech that’s allowing you to see it… It is this Ornate Moondial design that will be used for the various sizes I discussed earlier, from the small table-top version to place on a desk in your player-house, to the gigantic ones that fill a Village Lot or Keep Lot size, which will look something like this (though perhaps with a few more “glowy-bits” as part of the rest of the materials too… I kind of like the idea of some dimly-illuminant designs on the upper and under-sides of the solar ring, and possibly on some of moons themselves)!
As I mentioned earlier, I haven’t had the chance to scale them perfectly yet, but this gives you a good idea of how impressive they might feel when placed on your property or in the village square of a player-owned town! As opposed to the chaotic look of the Darkstarr Moondial, the orderly and upright graceful arcs that pass through the center of each moon help one’s eye determine their alignment between the glowing sector borders. It will be possible to walk beneath them to view the coolness from inside the aetheric, projected constellation image, and see up-close the location of the moons as they follow their glowing orbital paths through the sectors of the sky, clearly delineated by the longitudinal lines of the heavenly sphere…
I took a stroll up onto the balcony ledge of a nearby building to take a gander at what it might look like from a small distance, resting at some town center… I really think this will make for an impressive sight when viewed by those living within viewing distance, seen from some high castle balcony, or glanced at when visiting adjacent, multi-story pubs and shops…especially at night when the glowing projections will shine the brightest!
As these get closer to being done,…I’ll share some final images a bit later on!
Hopefully you’re enjoying the progress!
Scottie ^_^
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Scott “Scottie” Jones]
So here we are again, with me having finished everything on my side for all four differently-sized versions of the Ornate Moondial. Beyond this point I hand them all off to both a Programmer as well as a VFX Artist who will be bringing these beauties to completion in the next steps! We’ll see these eventually be able to not only track the proper locations for all the celestial bodies, but additionally be place-able as decorations on tables, inside large chambers, on home lots, and in various locations around player-owned towns! On top of that, we’ll get to see the addition of particle effects such as various aetheric energy static expulsions (such as those on the power generators seen elsewhere in the game), starry sparkles here and there, and a wavering effect for the constellations themselves! In the image below you can see them laid out on my underground test map I’ve created, and displayed in little vignettes from smallest to largest, left to right!
I needed to work on a number of details to finish these up, only a few of which are evident in these images (since most of my changes and fixes are “under the hood” for the sake of poly-count, efficiency, functionality, prefab and materials set-up, and resource juggling in Unity). The things you might be able to notice that I touched by looking at these images are the quality level of the base device itself (which received added polys to make sure the “energy bands” are nice and crisp looking), the addition of glowing engravings on the upper and under-side of the wider “sun ring”, and the placement of a red light-source that animates with the Sundered Moon to artfully represent the molten core within its shattered surface as it orbits our world.
Moving on to my outdoor test map, I’ve placed both a Village Lot (to the right) and a Keep Lot (to the left) to give you an idea of how massive the two largest of the Ornate Moondials actually are! The enormous dragon statue can be seen for size comparison, and far down below on the lower right you can just barely glimpse both the “room-sized” version, as well as the wee-little “tabletop-sized” version. ^_^ Each of these four versions increases dramatically in size from the smallest to the largest, as you can easily see here!
Switching now to a night sky, you can get an even greater sense of their grand effect when seen from a first-person, ground-level perspective. Imagine these nestled in between fortress walls and player houses, or even being the center-piece of an exciting celebration in a town square, or a night market hosted within someone’s walled keep!
And, of course, getting up close and personal with the base of the mechanism itself, you can see the impressive scale of the largest version, and just how easily a celestial-themed dinner party could be held within the embrace of the constellational sphere itself! I just love how all of these different sizes look in comparison to one another, and hopefully you can imagine the effect even the smallest ones will have when seen displayed in some cozy den or study surrounded by other hand-picked furnishings and decorative curiosities… I, myself, have never found the time to lay claim to a house somewhere for the sake of “nesting”, but seeing these finally get finished is making me want to start experimenting with interior décor on my own!
Hopefully you’ve enjoyed my part of this process. At some future point, once the rest of the effects and functionality have fallen into place, Berek and I will capture a bit of video showing the final results in action! As always, thanks so much for your generous support and kind encouragement!
Scottie ^_^
R41 Postmortem Recap
Our R41 Postmortem was this past Monday. We answered a ton of questions and gave away lots of in-game prizes, including Wood Duck pets, Gold Crowns, and even a signed copy of Richard’s book Explore/Create!
While we did not have time to answer all the questions, Starr “Darkstarr” Long got on the forums afterward and answered the remaining questions here.
The livestream recording for those who missed the postmortem:
Free Trial Test 3 Live Now!
The third test of our Free Trial system is live now and runs through May 31. This will be the longest test so far of the system so that we can gather even more data about uptake, drop-off, conversions, etc. If you know anyone who would like to try the game for free, then send them to the download page. These tests are invaluable for us in order to improve the New User Experience and the Free Trial System itself.
Free Trial access 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: May 10 – May 31, 2017
- The term (Visitor) is appended to their 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 those in the Free Trial, we would love your feedback! We have opened up of our Release 41 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 trying out Shroud of the Avatar in Early Access!
Partnership with Black Sun Game Publishing
Portalarium is partnering with Black Sun Game Publishing to bring Shroud of the Avatar to Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Baltic States!“We are extremely pleased to announce this deal with Black Sun Game Publishing,” said Portalarium CEO Richard Garriott. “We have a large and growing fan base in Russia and the surrounding countries. The Black Sun team is experienced and enthusiastic. They know their regional gaming community well and are ideally suited to bring Shroud of the Avatar to a very eager fan base.”
“It is a great honor for us to work with Richard Garriott, a legend of the games industry, and his team,” exclaimed Black Sun CEO Alex Yarovit. “There are many fans of his games, especially the Ultima series in Russia, the CIS, and the Baltic States. Shroud of the Avatar takes a lot of Richard’s hallmark RPG design principals and brings them up to date in a modern MMO and single player experience. We are looking forward to working further with Lord British and providing his newest creation to all Russian-speaking players. New Britannia beckons!”
Read the complete press release announcement here.
Localization Progress Update
With Release 41 we restarted Localization of Shroud of the Avatar using the Zanata platform. Our amazing team of community volunteers are steadily translating the game into Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Portuguese and we are now almost 34% translated. German is currently in the lead at over 43% with French right behind them at over 37%.
If you are interested in assisting with the translation efforts (and earning rewards) please review this forum post by Attenwod.
Public Stats API
[A Forum Post by Robert “Undone” Thompson]
As many of you know, we log a great deal of data for internal analysis. For a few releases now we’ve been promising to make some of that data available to the public. But before we could make that happen a pipeline had to be developed to automatically sanitize the data of any sensitive information. All of the infrastructure is finally in place and we’re ready to open it up to the public.
HOWEVER, you should first understand what this API is, and what it is not. @Chris summed it up nicely in a recent post on his work blog:
Chris said:
This is not intended for the average user to use. Instead, this is a big data box for fan or guild oriented websites to pull from to expose various data. …but again, this is not for casual users but rather experiences web and/or coding guy
This API is an elasticsearch endpoint that currently contains location-based events from the past 30 days (less than that at the time of writing as we only started recording public data about a week ago). There are many ways one can pull data from elasticsearch and all of them will require some scripting knowledge. You cannot simply go to a webpage and pull down an excel spreadsheet worth of data (we leave that up to the community).
Now you may be asking yourself how does my Avatar show up in these events? If you remember back a few releases (R40?) I added a mysterious option under your nameplate’s context menu that reads “Show name in public stats”:
The purpose of this toggle is to allow your Avatar’s name to be shown in the log entries accessible from this API. By default everyone is marked as anonymous; if you want to opt-in and have your name shown you must actively select this option in game. This toggle is not retroactive – meaning that for any past events where you were marked anonymous you will remain anonymous. The bottom line is: your Avatar’s name is only anonymized at the time of the event.
For those of you still around and interested in exploring the available data the API endpoint can be found at the following address: http://www.shroudoftheavatar.com:9200
I’ve also put together a small repository of example scripts to help you get started which can be found here.
DISCLAIMER: This is an experiment in sharing. We reserve the right to change our data retention time or disable the public endpoint completely.
Furniture, Statues, & Pets Weekend Flash Sale
In Release 40 we added a new pet: the wonderfully cute Wood Duck. In Release 41 we added the Fine Red and Fine White & Gold Upholstered Furniture Sets and we also added a lot of statues including Topiary statues, Titan statues, Lich statues and tabletop versions of Greco-Roman statues. To celebrate we are putting all pets, seating furniture, and statues on sale this weekend for 20% off. This represents one of our biggest weekend flash sales yet! Keep the pets off the furniture!
Here is a list of the pets, seating furniture, and statues that you will find on sale this weekend:
- Wood Duck (digital)
- Silver Baby Clockwork Dragon (digital)
- Blackened Metal Baby Clockwork Dragon (digital)
- White Squirrel (digital)
- Black Squirrel (digital)
- Silver Clockwork Monkey (digital)
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Silver Mini Automaton (digital)
- Golden Eagle (digital)
- White Raven (digital)
- Brass Clockwork Cat (digital)
- Silver Clockwork Dog (digital)
- Grey Great Dane (digital)
- Brass Clockwork Raven (digital)
- Black Cat (digital)
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Ghost Dog (digital)
- Ghost Cat (digital)
- Ghost Raven (digital)
- Fine Red Upholstered Furniture Set (digital)
- Fine White and Gold Upholstered Furniture Set (digital)
- Vintage Red Velvet with Nailheads Furniture Set (digital)
- Vintage Blue Velvet with Nailheads Furniture Set (digital)
- Fine Oak Furniture Set (digital)
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Kobold Red Velvet with Nailheads Bench (digital)
- Tan Marble Bench (digital)
- Kobold Red Velvet with Nailheads Chair (digital)
- Topiary Statue Pack (digital)
- Topiary Bear Statue (digital)
- Topiary Satyr Statue (digital)
- Topiary Elemental Statue (digital)
- Topiary Kobold Statue (digital)
- Topiary Zombie Statue (digital)
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Topiary Golem Statue (digital)
- Topiary Village Dragon Statue (digital)
- Topiary Town Dragon Statue (digital)
- Topiary City Dragon Statue (digital)
- Topiary Keep Dragon Statue (digital)
- Titan Statue 3-Pack (digital)
- Titan of Courage Statue (digital)
- Titan of Love Statue (digital)
- Titan of Truth Statue (digital)
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Lich Statue (digital)
- Giant Lich Statue (digital)
- Ancients Tabletop Set (digital)
- Nobles Tabletop Set (digital)
- Reclining Tabletop Statues Set (digital)
- Ancients Set (digital)
- Nobles Set (digital)
- Reclining Statues Set (digital)
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Giant Guardian Lion Statue (digital)
- Large Guardian Lion Statue (digital)
- Stone Creature Statue 6-Pack (digital)
- Stone Bear Statue (digital)
- Stone Satyr Statue (digital)
- Stone Elemental Statue (digital)
- Stone Kobold Statue (digital)
- Stone Zombie Statue (digital)
- Stone Golem Statue (digital)
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Stone Dragon Statue Village Size (digital)
- Stone Dragon Statue Town Size (digital)
- Stone Dragon Statue City Size (digital)
- Stone Dragon Statue Keep Size (digital)
- Horse Statue (digital)
- Giant Horse Statue (digital)
- Smaller Ancients Set (digital)
- Sphinx Bookend Statues (digital)
- Tabletop Creature Statue Pack (digital)
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Tabletop Satyr Statue (digital)
- Tabletop Elemental Statue (digital)
- Tabletop Kobold Statue (digital)
- Tabletop Zombie Statue (digital)
- Tabletop Golem Statue (digital)
- Tabletop Bear Statue (digital)
- Tabletop Lich Statue (digital)
- Tabletop Titan of Courage Statue (digital)
- Tabletop Titan of Love Statue (digital)
- Tabletop Titan of Truth Statue (digital)
- Tabletop Oracle Statue Head (digital)
- Tabletop Stone Dragon Statue (digital)
- Tabletop Grim Reaper Statue (digital)
Upcoming Events Calendar
May 10 – 31, 2017 – Free Trial 3
May 25, 2017 – Release 42
May 31, 2017 – Summer Telethon Part 1
June 29, 2017 – Release 43
July 27, 2017 – Release 44
Aug 10 – 14, 2017 – Syndcon (Austin)
Aug 31, 2017 – Release 45
Sept 1 – 4, 2017 – Dragon Con
Sept 22 – 23, 2017 – Ultima Online 20th Anniversary Party
Sept 28, 2017 – Release 46
Oct 13 – 15, 2017 – SotA Con 2017 (Austin)
Oct 26, 2017 – Release 47
Nov 9-12, 2017 – HoBLoTH IVVisit the official Community Calendar to see the great lineup of activities our amazing community has planned for this weekend! And be sure to check out this month’s Release Events thread in the SotA forums for additional events.
Trophy Room Contest
Get your houses ready for the most intense contest yet this year! Over the next several weeks, you will have the fun opportunity to show off your hunting heroism, crafting coordination, and trophy triumphs in this new three part contest kicking off today.
PART 1: Hunt down a creature, kill another player (to get their skull), or catch a fish!
PART 2: Craft the trophy from that creature (human skulls come as-is, no preparation needed…)
PART 3: Display your trophy triumphs in a single room of a house you have access too!
As we receive contest submissions, they will be announced in the forums and on social with eventually a gallery of all submissions put together.
Community Project of the Week – AERIE Fund is Ready to Serve
Aerie Fund helps gamers overcome catastrophic hardships. Here is how they do this, and how you can help:
- We provide funds and facilitate fundraising efforts for vetted gamers who need help during a catastrophic hardship (financial, medical, and natural disaster).
- We promote awareness and raise funds for other 501c3 organizations centered around issues gamers care about (i.e., cyber-bullying).
- We work with developers and gaming communities to build fun, inclusive, and cause-centered gaming experienced.
- We promote social interaction and apolitical activism to bring awareness to compelling (and important) causes that directly impact gamer lives.
“We hope that AERIE Fund will serve all of the Avatars in New Britannia for many years to come. Please visit our site, stay in the loop (follow us), give feedback, and support our efforts when you can. Let’s set the gold standard for gaming communities out there, and show the world how SoTA rolls.” – Thexedor Marhamm
Community Resources – Players Helping Players
The official SotA New Player Welcome Forum and the Player Created Resources Forum have the best player created resources for Shroud of the Avatar, whether it’s a Player Written Guide, a Video Walk-through, or a Wiki-type Website.
Visit the official Community Resources page for a complete listing of all things community.
Recommended Project to Back – Star Citizen (Offer Bundles)
We’ve got two cross-promotion bundles on sales through now until the end of the Summer Telethon on May 31st! These bundles have items from the game, Star Citizen, developed by Cloud Imperium Games.
Star Citizen Aeronaut Helmet Starter Bundle
You get in Shroud of the Avatar a Star Citizen Aeronaut Helmet! The Cloud Imperium Sky Navy equips its daring Aeronauts with these helmets that include the latest in Kobold Aether Vibration technology, allowing the user to tune into radio stations.
You get in Star Citizen a Mustang Alpha! Inspired by Consolidated Outland CEO Silas Koerner’s cutting edge vision, the Mustang Alpha is a sleek, stylish spacecraft that uses ultralight alloys to push power ratios to the limits, albeit sometimes unsafely. And now, with the optional Cargo Carrier, you can have the Alpha’s advantages without sacrificing carrying capacity.
Star Citizen Airship City Home Bundle
You get in Shroud of the Avatar a Star Citizen Airship City Home! The Cloud Imperium Sky Navy has recently decommissioned 150 of their armor clad airships and lucky Outlanders can purchase them to use as homes on their City Lots. These float above a city lot, providing ample living area while preserving almost 100% of yard space!
You get in Star Citizen a Cutlass Black Starship! Drake Interplanetary claims that the Cutlass Black is a low-cost, easy-to-maintain solution for local in-system militia units. The larger-than-average cargo hold, RIO seat and dedicated tractor mount are, the company literature insists, for facilitating search and rescue operations.
Backer Shipping Addresses
In preparation for shipping backers’ physical pledge rewards later this year, we have added Shipping Address fields to your Account Profile page. To enter your shipping address, log in to the SotA website, select “Account” in top right corner, then select “Edit Profile” located in top left corner, beneath your Avatar image.A reminder to be sure that support@portalarium.com is unblocked from your e-mail account!
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We will be kicking off this week’s Community Livestream by giving players a first look at the upcoming Wood and Plaster Village Inn Player Home!
While room renting will work in any player home, the layout of the Wood and Plaster Village Inn is specifically optimized for renting out rooms to other players. We hope to have the Inn and Room Renting live in Release 43.
After the tour of the Inn, we have Damon Waldrip ready to talk about the visual effects in the finale sequence of the Titan Grannus story character that went into the game in Release 41. If there is any time remaining in the hour, we also have Fletcher Kinnear ready to show off the Oracle, which is due for appearance in Release 43.
The fun begins on Twitch this Friday at 4pm CT! Also join the community watching on Discord chat to ask your questions about Room Renting, the Inn, Titan Grannus, and the Oracle.
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Avatars,
We've had some challenges ensuring stability when supporting all of the DirectX (DX) features that the game employs. A key roadblock is supporting legacy versions of DX.
Because these problems continue to hinder development, starting in Release 42, we will be discontinuing support for DX 9. DX 11 will continue to be the core version. We are also looking into the possibility of eventually DX 12 support.
This update most likely will not affect any of you. If you have a system that...
DirectX 9 support ending at Release 42 -
Here are the questions that we did not have time to get to. I tried my best to answer these (with some help from Chris and others) but some we just don't have details yet to provide. I will try my best to follow up but please understand I probably won't have time to do any follow ups to these.
Jakobijan: Can we have the ability to Un-Socket weapon if it was done after enchanting (or at least changing attunement)?
We can consider the ability to unsocket...
R41 Post Mortem Missed Questions -
Hello everyone, this is Asclepius, with the continuation of this wonderful story from Andartianna, entitled
Odd Tidings From The Bear Tavern: A Court House
Background music by SmartsoundChapter 4, “Office, Overhead, Otherwise.”
Dr. Zazeriz got up and left the office where the interviews had occurred and walked back downstairs. Clarke was waiting behind the desk. “Good day, Governor Zazeriz. I hope the interview process has been pleasant for you so far.” said Clarke.“It was an interesting interview. I was told there are rooms where I can stay while waiting for the first round of interviews to complete.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
“Yes, Governor. There are rooms available in two row houses nearby the court. I will put them on your map so that you may find them more easily. As soon as I get any news, I will let you know immediately.” Clarke said.
“Thank you, Clarke. I will go and rest for now.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
Dr. Zazeriz exited the courthouse at Beran’s Reach and headed to the row houses that Clarke had indicated. She entered the row house on the left and found the fires blazing hot inside of it. It was a simple enough place; sparsely decorated but appropriate for visiting dignitaries. Dr. Zazeriz climbed to the roof of the row house and found some outside seating. She sat down by a blazing fireplace, and Falkes flew in and landed from overhead.
“Hello, Falkes. I hope you are having a pleasant day.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
Falkes cooed affectionately.
“Nothing suspicious I hope.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
Falkes shook his head indicating that there were no issues, then looked over to the fireplace.
“Go ahead. You can sit in the fireplace.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
Falkes screeched approvingly and hopped into the fireplace and sat on the burning logs. Dr. Zazeriz watched as the snow fell late into the evening.
After two days of waiting, Clarke knocked on Dr. Zazeriz’ door and said, “Governor Zazeriz. I have a message for you from the magistrate reviewers.”
Dr. Zazeriz opened the door. “Thank you, Clarke. I will take that message from you.”
Clarke handed Dr. Zazeriz the message and then walked away after saying goodbye. Dr. Zazeriz unrolled the message and began reading it.
“Governor Andartianna Zazeriz,
We are honored to tell you that you have been selected to proceed with the second round of interviews. We have scheduled you to meet the reviewers at 3 p.m. today. If you are unable to attend at that time, please let us know. Otherwise, we will see you then.
Signed
Astor Cerberus, Clerk of the Courthouse of Beran’s Reach”Chapter 5, “Wrong, Want, Where.”
The day, while waiting for the reviewers to come to a decision, went slowly. Dr. Zazeriz was beginning to think that it would take more than a few days to complete their work. A loud knock on the door got Dr. Zazeriz’ attention. She went to the door to see who was there. Dr. Zazeriz was expecting to see one of the clerks standing outside of the door, but when the door opened, Sara Dreygon was standing outside.“Sara? Is something wrong?” Dr. Zazeriz asked.
“What? Do you think if I show up something has to be wrong?” Sara Dreygon asked.
“Well, I don’t know if it’s always wrong, but you certainly like to chase things that want to eat us.” Dr. Zazeriz replied laughing.
“I won’t argue that point with you. I do, however, need your help.” Sara Dreygon said.
“Alright. How can I assist you?” Dr. Zazeriz asked.
“You know that clockwork dragon that attacked our cities? I think I found where they are constructed. It’s a place in Blood Bay called K’rul.” Sara Dreygon said.
“Ah, yes. The ship to Blood Bay is nearby. Let me leave a note for Astor telling him I am leaving to assist you while waiting for the reviewers’ answers.” Dr. Zazeriz said. She quickly wrote a note for Astor, and then followed Sara out of Beran’s Reach.
“Do you know a quick route through Blood Bay to K’rul?” Dr. Zazeriz asked.
“Yes. We take the ship to Smuggler’s Hold. The landing point is close to the entrance of K’rul.” Sara said.
“Is this going to be a scouting mission or are you looking for something in particular.” Dr. Zazeriz asked.
“It’s going to be more of a scouting mission. I hope to find out what the Kobolds are doing in K’rul and if they are constructing clockwork dragons there.” Sara said.
“Alright. I’ll throw on my heavy armor. I’m sure we are going to be taking a lot of hits.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
“The ship to Blood Bay is just to the east of Beran’s Reach. At the docks, you can instruct the ship captain to take you to Smuggler’s Hold.” Sara said
Once in Smuggler’s Hold, Sara and Dr. Zazeriz headed southwest into some sand hills. There are torches leading to the path to K’rul, which ends up being north along the ridgeline. There are many gases, quicksand, and volcanoes dumping lava that can impede a traveler’s walk to K’rul.
“You also have to be on the lookout for outlanders that want to attack you, Sara said. If you continue north by northwest, you will end up in a lava field. Carefully walk around it and you will see a giant mechanized building, which marks the entrance to the Kobold’s lair of K’rul.”The post Odd Tidings 2 – by Andartianna – narrated by Asclepius appeared first on Echoes from the Caverns.
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We are excited to announce a test of our Free Trial system starting today, May 10th, and running through the Summer Telethon on May 31. If you know anyone who would like to try the game for free, please send them to the Trial Download page.
Free Trial access allows you to play the entire game in any of the Online modes with a few key differences in game play listed below:- The term (Visitor) is appended to your Character...
Free Trial Test #3 Live Now! -
We are excited to announce the third test of our Free Trial system, running live now through May 31! This will be the longest test so far of the system so that we can gather even more data on uptake, drop-off, conversions, etc.
If you know anyone who would like to try the game for free, then send them to the download page. These tests are invaluable for us in order to improve the New User Experience and the Free Trial System itself.
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: May 10-31, 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 those in the Free Trial, we would love your feedback! We have opened up of our Release 41 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 trying out Shroud of the Avatar in Early Access!
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Press Release AUSTIN, Texas, May 10, 2017:
Portalarium®, an Austin-based game developer, today announced the completion of a deal with Black Sun Game Publishing in Moscow, to publish and operate Shroud of the Avatar™: Forsaken Virtues in Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and the Baltic States. Shroud of the Avatar is the spiritual successor to the hugely successful Ultima series of fantasy role-playing games created by legendary game designer Richard Garriott. The game is one of the largest crowd funded games ever, with more than $11.3 million raised since early 2013.
Shroud combines a single-player narrative story with a sandbox massively multiplayer online (MMO) experience. The production team includes Executive Producer Starr Long, who along with Garriott helped produce the groundbreaking Ultima Online MMO and New York Times bestselling author Tracy Hickman, who wrote the popular Dragonlance fantasy novels.
“We are extremely pleased to announce this deal with Black Sun Game Publishing,” said Portalarium CEO Richard Garriott. “We have a large and growing fan base in Russia and the surrounding countries. The Black Sun team is experienced and enthusiastic. They know their regional gaming community well and are ideally suited to bring Shroud of the Avatar to a very eager fan base.”
“It is a great honor for us to work with Richard Garriott, a legend of the games industry, and his team,” exclaimed Black Sun CEO Alex Yarovit. “There are many fans of his games, especially the Ultima series in Russia, the CIS, and the Baltic States. Shroud of the Avatar takes a lot of Richard’s hallmark RPG design principals and brings them up to date in a modern MMO and single player experience. We are looking forward to working further with Lord British and providing his newest creation to all Russian-speaking players. New Britannia beckons!”
Shroud of the Avatar’s crowdfunded campaign began in 2013. It remains in early access but it continues to generate monthly content updates to its backers. The game has now reached 41 straight months of continuous play without a single server crash. Currently with more than $11.3 million in crowd funding, Shroud is the second highest fully crowd funded game ever.About Portalarium
Portalarium headquarters is in Austin, Texas. The company was co-founded by legendary game developer Richard Garriott, who created Ultima, one of the longest running and most successful fantasy role playing game series ever. The company is currently developing its next game, the crowd funded Shroud of the Avatar. In addition to backers with financial contributions, the SotA community may also participate with art, sound, music and even design participation in the main game. This a game created for the community and with the community.
About Black Sun Game Publishing
Black Sun Game Publishing (BSGP) is a Russian video game publisher that was established in 2014. The company develops and publishes only high-quality and interesting projects in Russia, the CIS countries, and China. BSGP’s top priority is to work with games that are unique to the industry and that can be called works of art on PCs and mobile platforms. BSGP also plans to tap into the console market.
Company website: http://bs-gp.com/
Russian game website: http://sota-game.com/
Press release can also be found on Gamasutra.
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Hello everyone! On my own this week, here is the exciting news from Shroud!
- The Making of Bloodriver Outskirts (update)
- Spring Telethon Weapons Update: Thorn Mace, Staff, Wand, and 2 Handed Sword
- Free Trial Test 3: May 10 – 31
- In the News: Getting2Alpha, Pong to Pokemon Exhibit, UbiTalks
- Summer Telethon 2017 Part 1 Update
- Music Weekend Flash Sale
- Join the Localization Team!
- Community Livestream: The Outskirts, Part 1
- Upcoming Events Calendar
- Trophy Room Contest
- Community Event: RPOTA Writing Contest
- Community Spotlight: Novia Market
- Community Resources – Players Helping Players
- Recommended Project to Back – Torment: Tides of Numenera
The post Echoes from the Caverns 05-05-17 appeared first on Echoes from the Caverns.
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Greetings Fellow Avatars!
Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:
- The Making of Bloodriver Outskirts (update)
- Spring Telethon Weapons Update: Thorn Mace, Staff, Wand, and 2 Handed Sword
- Free Trial Test 3: May 10 – 31
- In the News: Getting2Alpha, Pong to Pokemon Exhibit, UbiTalks
- Summer Telethon 2017 Part 1 Update
- Music Weekend Flash Sale
- Join the Localization Team!
- Community Livestream: The Outskirts, Part 1
- Upcoming Events Calendar
- Trophy Room Contest
- Community Event: RPOTA Writing Contest
- Community Spotlight: Novia Market
- Community Resources – Players Helping Players
- Recommended Project to Back – Torment: Tides of Numenera
The Making of Bloodriver Outskirts (update)
SPOILERS: Players following the Path of Truth encounter the Elven village of Bloodriver massacred by vigilantes from Aerie. The elves have fled for their lives into the forests upriver and invaded the home of an Elven hermit who dwells in a ruin deep in the forest. They have set traps to protect themselves from the vigilantes who have pursued them here and are harassing them still. Elven soldiers from Vertas are arriving from the north to protect them while Aerie soldiers are streaming in from the south east to try and stop all out war between the humans and elves. We hope to have this scene live in Release 43.
[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Esteben “SorcerousSteve” Zaldivar]
Hey guys! SorcerousSteve here to give you another update on Bloodriver Outskirts!
As the map approaches its polish phase I’ll be preparing for spawning!An ancient abandoned temple Pyramid deep within the forest.
The Bloodriver as it flows through the Bloodriver Forest.
Waterfalls dot the lush cliff forested region.
A road heading North cuts through a forest clearing where the dense vegetation gives way to a patch of dead trees
A free-soul nature loving automaton has chosen to make his home in this abandoned cave of the Bloodriver Forest.
Forest Spider Lair…
Spring Telethon Weapons Update: Thorn Mace, Staff, Wand, and 2-Handed Sword
Fletcher Kinnear has just completed the final Spring Telethon weapons: The Thorn Mace, Thorn Staff, Thorn Wand, and Thorn 2-Handed Sword. As a reminder these were the stretch goals from our Spring Telethon 2017 for $150K. As always anyone who spent $5 or more during the telethon will be receiving these in Release 42.
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Fletcher “SkullMuncher34” Kinnear]
Greetings everyone! Here’s an update on the other thorn weapons for the upcoming release!
We have a Thorn Mace, Thorn Staff, Thorn Wand, and a Two-Handed Thorn Sword!
Free Trial Test 3: May 10 – 31
We are excited to announce our third test of our Free Trial system May 10 – 31. This will be the longest test so far of the system so that we can gather even more data about uptake, dropoff, conversions, etc. If you know anyone who would like to try the game for free, then send them to the download page. These tests are invaluable for us in order to improve the New User Experience and the Free Trial System itself.
Free Trial access 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: May 10 – May 31, 2017
- The term (Visitor) is appended to their 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
In the News: Getting2Alpha, Pong to Pokemon Exhibit, UbiTalks
Getting2Alpha: Amy Jo Kim over at Getting2Alpha interviewed Richard “Lord British” Garriott for her podcast to talk about “Systems Thinking & Meaningful Challenges”
Richard Garriott is a pioneering game designer, gifted world-builder second-generation astronaut, arctic explorer – and ever-inspiring creative force. I first met Richard when I was teaching online community design at Stanford; half my class was in the Beta for Ultima Online, and I jumped in enthusiastically to learn the ropes. I ended up working with Richard, Raph Koster and their amazing crew of developers through the launch & growth of that early graphic MMO. Like many great game designers, Richard is a sophisticated systems thinker who sees the world through a unique lens that’s on full display in this far-ranging & fascinating conversation.Pong to Pokemon Exhibit: Richard Garriott and Starr Long helped advise the Bullock Texas History Museum on their upcoming exhibit “Pong to Pokemon: The Evolution of Electronic Gaming”. Richard also donated a substantial amount of his personal collection to the exhibit. Starr also connected the museum to John Romero who also donated to the exhibit. John Keefer over at Shack News covered the delivery of John’s goods with the article: “Museum Takes Possession of Original Doom Memorabilia Under Guard.”
Richard Garriott, aka Lord British, who created the Ultima series of games and is now working on Shroud of the Avatar MMO, donated quite a bit of memorabilia as well. “I am and always have been a huge pack rat,” he said via email. “I have kept every note, every disk, every bit of hardware or materials I/we have used in making games.” Among the items he will be sharing with the exhibit are a teletype and operational Apple II running Akalabeth, which Garriott designed in 1980. He also has included Ultima in his items, from original artwork of all the covers and illustrations from the Ultima games to the design documents from them as well. He said he also loaned “non-game items that inspired aspects of the work, though I suspect they may not have room for it.”
UbiTalks: Ubisoft invited Richard Garriott to guest lecture at their studio in Quebec City for their series UbiTalks which they generously broadcast live on Facebook. Richard spoke about his history in the game industry starting from the beginning all the way through Ultima, Origin, and now Shroud of the Avatar.
Summer Telethon 2017 Part 1 Update
Our Summer Telethon is only a few weeks away and we have been steadily working on the stretch goal items. This week we unveil the Flame Scimitar and Miner’s Helmet! The Miner’s Helmet will have an open flame in the front and will project a spotlight.
As a reminder any backer that pledges a minimum of $5 from the start of the telethon, until Midnight (Spending store Credit to make $5 minimum purchase does not apply) will receive all these items if we reach these funding levels during the telethon. The Summer Telethon 2017 Part 1 Funding Stretch Goal Rewards are:
- $10,000: /smokevirtue: blow the virtue symbol in smoke from a pipe!
- $25,000: Balloons: a small cluster of balloons held in your hand. These particular balloons are black with a silver virtue symbol.
- $35,000: Miner’s Helmet with flame on top (generates light)
- $50,000: Flame Pattern Stained Glass Oil Table Lamp (3 Pack)
- $65,000: Fire Elemental Statue with flame effects
- $80,000: Flame Shaped Shield and Scimitar
Additionally we wanted to remind everyone that at the end of the telethon we are expiring all the Aeronaut items from the Add On Store.
- Black & Chrome Ornate Aeronaut Outfit Pattern Pack (digital)
- Black & Chrome Ornate Aeronaut Outfit (digital)
- Ornate Black Leather Aeronaut Helmet (digital)
- Ornate Black Leather Aeronaut Helmet Pattern Pack (digital)
- Aeronaut Wearable Pack (digital)
- Aeronaut Hot Air Balloon Pack (digital)
- Hot Air Balloon (digital)
- Airship City Home (digital)
- Star Citizen Aeronaut Helmet Starter Bundle (digital) 15 of 250 remain
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Star Citizen Airship City Home (digital) 87 of 150 remain
Note that those two Star Citizen items are limited number items and only 15 of the Star Citizen Aeronaut Helmet Starter Bundles remain!
Music Weekend Flash Sale
In Release 40 and 41 we added three new instruments: the Kettle Drum (R40), the Large Harp (R40), and Lord British’s favorite: the Harpsichord (R41)! In R40 we also added the Ballet Outfit with Ballet Emotes that is perfect to dance with while someone plays these instruments.
To celebrate we are putting all music related items on sale this weekend for 20% off.
Here is a complete list of the music related items that you will find on sale this weekend:
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Ornate Red & Gold Filigree Harpsichord (digital)
- Ballet Outfit with Ballet Emotes (digital)
- Ornate Kettle Drum (digital)
- Large Ornate Cordovan Harp (digital)
- Ornate Marching Band Shirt & Hat (digital)
- Cordovan Maple Inlaid Drum (digital)
- Cordovan Harp (digital)
- Cordovan Lute (digital)
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Cordovan Flute (digital)
- Umber Upright Piano (digital)
- 5-Piece One-Man Band (digital)
- Cordovan Ornate Street Organ (digital)
- Umber Ornate Accordion (digital)
- Ornate Bagpipes (digital)
- Shroud of the Avatar Soundtrack Volume 2 – Wax Cylinders (digital)
- Shroud of the Avatar Soundtrack Volume 3 – Wax Cylinders (digital)
- Ornate Metal Phonograph (digital)
- Aether Vibration Amplifier Console (digital)
- Ornate Automated 16-Cylinder Phonograph (digital)
- Automated 8-Cylinder Phonograph (digital)
Join the Localization Team
[From a forum post by Attenwood]
Welcome!
Thank you for your interest in helping our team localize Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues!
We are reestablishing development support translating our game to Russian, Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Portuguese languages! In order to meet the vast translation needs of our project, we return to you, our amazing community, in search of qualified volunteers with a passion for seeing our project reach many more players!
Joining the Localization Team
As we get started rebuilding our teams and community, all potential applicants will be required to send an email to rromero@portalarium.com with a subject of “Localization Application: [Username]” from the email address tied to your Shroud of the Avatar Account. Applications from emails not associated with an SotA Account will not be accepted.
The content of the email should include the following information:
- Your forum Username (preferred) or desired Username
- Your desired translation Language (We currently support localization volunteers for Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Portuguese)
- Any notes/comments on experience or interest in volunteering.
As our localization teams restructure, we will eventually start to work through and rely on the support of our Localization Leads for community outreach, and reviewing candidates before applications are accepted.
Getting Started
Once your application is accepted you will be contacted through both email and Private Message on our forums with introductions, instructions, and details for how to get started translating.
An account will be created for you on our internal Localization server using the Zanata platform. Your account will automatically have privileges set to immediately dive into translating text strings for your selected Language Group.
We highly encourage applicants to engage with other Localizers, especially those that are members of the same language team. They will be invaluable resources to help answer questions and address issues going forward.
In addition to your private Zanata Localization account, your SotA account will have forum permissions applied that will allow you to have access to the Localization Team subforums where community discussion and translation/text/content bug reporting can be submitted, and feature requests and concerns made.
Further details will be provided in the application acceptance message.
Translation Incentives
In recent months we introduced as part of our Bug Reporting effort the Testing Incentives Program to provide rewards for players that provide valuable ongoing support to the growth and quality of our project. We would like to provide similar incentives here!
Unique Titles: By dedicating your time to Localizing our Project, whether it be translating directly, submitting bugs, or assisting in reviewing and fixing content/keyword errors, you will receive the unique in-game title of “Scribe” reserved for the great writers or New Britannia.
Volunteers that have provided significant contribution to Project Localization will be rewarded with the highest honor of “Royal Scrivener” and will be recognized for their outstanding work and dedication.
COTO: As with the Testing Incentives Program, volunteers that have contributed significantly in Localization over the course of a Release cycle for will be rewarded 5 Gold Crowns of the Obsidians.
We want to reiterate that these are volunteer roles and that incentives are provided as appreciation (not payment) for the time and work submitted. The real worth and reward from this process is a localized game that better brings broad communities together.
Visit the main announcement post for additional details and a terms of use update.
Community Livestream: The Outskirts, Part 1
What we’re about to show you is going to take two livestreams! For Part 1, we will brought back Travis “Vas Corp Por” Koleski to show off the now live Solace Bridge Outskirts. Then Chris “Seawolf” Wolf and Damien “Puuk” Foletto showed a sneak peek of the upcoming Highvale Outskirts scene.
As we announced during the Spring Telethon, we are adding three new maps to the game that we are calling “Outskirts”. These scenes will be very close to the three starting scenes and players will go directly there after finishing those starting scenes. Outskirts will be very large scenes, similar in scope to some of our recent big scenes like Blood Bay. This will allow them to be large enough that players can base themselves in a single scene for adventuring, resupply for their first couple of hours without having to go through multiple scene loads, or having to use the Overworld.
One month from now (don’t worry, we will have livestreams in the interim), we will be talking about all three Outskirts scenes, including Bloodriver Outskirts!
Subscribe to www.youtube.com/portalarium to watch other videos and livestream recordings!
Upcoming Events Calendar
May 8, 2017 – R41 Postmortem Livestream
May 17 – 31, 2017 – Free Trial 3
May 25, 2017 – Release 42
May 31, 2017 – Summer Telethon Part 1
June 29, 2017 – Release 43
July 27, 2017 – Release 44
Aug 10 – 14, 2017 – Syndcon (Austin)
Aug 31, 2017 – Release 45
Sept 1 – 4, 2017 – Dragon Con
Sept 22 – 23, 2017 – Ultima Online 20th Anniversary Party
Sept 28, 2017 – Release 46
Oct 13 – 15, 2017 – SotA Con 2017 (Austin)
Oct 26, 2017 – Release 47
Nov 9-12, 2017 – HoBLoTH IVVisit the official Community Calendar to see the great lineup of activities our amazing community has planned for this weekend! And be sure to check out this month’s Release Events thread in the SotA forums for additional events.
Trophy Room Contest
Get your houses ready for the most intense contest yet this year! Over the next several weeks, you will have the fun opportunity to show off your hunting heroism, crafting coordination, and trophy triumphs in this new three part contest kicking off today.
PART 1: Hunt down a creature, kill another player (to get their skull), or catch a fish!
PART 2: Craft the trophy from that creature (human skulls come as-is, no preparation needed…)
PART 3: Display your trophy triumphs in a single room of a house you have access too!
As we receive contest submissions, they will be announced in the forums and on social with eventually a gallery of all submissions put together.
Community Events of the Week – RPOTA Writing Contest
Hear ye! Hear ye! Biographers, Historians, Diplomats, Journalists, Story Writers, Quest Designers, Videographers and Musicians! RPOTA.COM is in dire need of your amazing talents! Role-Players of the Avatar is hosting a monthly contest to award those most famous with their quill, camera, piano or lute! Simply have your creations submitted by midnight of the last day of every month to be eligible for that month’s contest! See Elgarion for (details)
Community Spotlight: Novia Market
This week’s Player Owned Town spotlight has me, ‘Berek’ as I go by in the community, travelling to the center of New Britannia to visit the bustling trade town of Novia Market.Many of the fair towns in New Britannia have built a strong, steady popularity and long history. By contrast, I had heard rumblings of a young upstart of a community of 50+ merchant residents which seemingly had popped out of nowhere, in the southern hinterlands of Brittany called Novia Market.
I had seen flyers for Novia Market proclaiming each and every Sunday as a “promo day”, and it piqued my interest enough to start a short pilgrimage to the town. Upon reaching the entrance to the town, I was struck by two things: the hustle and bustle of the community, and an odd couple of gentlemen laying wait to greet me beside the town crier and banker at the entrance.
Community Resources – Players Helping Players
The official SotA New Player Welcome Forum and the Player Created Resources Forum have the best player created resources for Shroud of the Avatar, whether it’s a Player Written Guide, a Video Walk-through, or a Wiki-type Website.
Visit the official Community Resources page for a complete listing of all things community.
Recommended Project to Back – Torment: Tides of Numenera
The thematic successor of Planescape: Torment, Torment: Tides of Numenera is a single-player, isometric role-playing game, set in Monte Cook’s Numenera, and with original team members like Chris Avellone, Colin McComb and Mark Morgan involved, inXile is looking to deliver a deep story-driven experience reminiscent of the original Torment.If you haven’t already backed Torment: Tides of Numenera, then check it out, now available on Steam!
Backer Shipping Addresses
In preparation for shipping backers’ physical pledge rewards later this year, we have added Shipping Address fields to your Account Profile page. To enter your shipping address, log in to the SotA website, select “Account” in top right corner, then select “Edit Profile” located in top left corner, beneath your Avatar image.A reminder to be sure that support@portalarium.com is unblocked from your e-mail account!
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Hello everyone, this is Asclepius, with a wonderful story from Andartianna, entitled
Odd Tidings From The Bear Tavern: A Court House
Background music by SmartsoundChapter 1, “Familiar, Fairly, Falkes.”
Beer and Banter. Bears they be.
A peaceful world for all to see.
A courthouse grand for laws to teach.
Erected now in Beran’s Reach.
They the Magisters of lawful sight
Call out the failures with voice of might.
Sentence villains for justice please
For law is fact based, not endless pleas.A loud knock on the door to Dr. Zazeriz’ bed chambers shook her awake out of a deep sleep. Dr. Zazeriz yawned for a moment. Who could possibly be knocking at this hour of the day? The Pub of Extraordinary Thoughts was always open to allow scholars to read and drink, but Dr. Zazeriz’ private chambers were always off limits.
Dr. Zazeriz yawned once more and said, “Who is it?”
“Begging your pardon, governor, but a notice from the Courthouse of Beran’s Reach has arrived for you. I thought it might be important so I brought it right up.” Said Glenda the bar keep who kept the pub running while Dr. Zazeriz was away.
“Very good, Glenda. Please place it on my powder table. I will come and take a look.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
“Yes, Governor.” Said Glenda, who placed the notice on Dr. Zazeriz’ powder table then walked down to the bar.
Dr. Zazeriz slowly got up out of bed and walked out to her dressing room. The cold stone floor felt oddly refreshing on her feet as she walked. She enjoyed carpets on the floor as well, but there was something special about feeling the smooth natural stone on her feet. Dr. Zazeriz opened up her wardrobe and began pulling on her clothes. Depending on the message, she might have to change them again, but for now she put on her normal daily wear clothes.
Dr. Zazeriz walked over to her powder table and picked up the letter Glenda had left for her. It was addressed simply with Governor Andartianna Zazeriz on the cover. The paper was, however, very ornate with a golden bear paw seal on the back. Dr. Zazeriz had visited Beran’s Reach on many occasions while traveling, so she was familiar with the people of that city. She opened the letter and began to read it.
“Most Honorable Governor Andartianna Zazeriz,
You have been nominated by the votes of your peers to become a magistrate of the Courthouse of Beran’s Reach. If you accept this nomination, we invite you to visit Beran’s Reach to begin the confirmation hearings where a group of distinguished leaders from across Novia will evaluate the core of who you are and your abilities to judge fairly and impartially as a magistrate. Please address replies to the Clerk of the Courthouse of Beran’s Reach.
Signed
Astor Cerberus
Clerk of the Courthouse of Beran’s Reach”Dr. Zazeriz rolled up the note after reading it once more through. It occurred to her that it was very peculiar that a courthouse had been constructed in Beran’s Reach. She had visited the courthouse on a few occasions while traveling the area. What was interesting was that the entire city of Beran’s Reach had been built around the comradery of the Bear Tavern, which is at the heart of the city. That the tavern had spawned a courthouse would take some research for historical context for Dr. Zazeriz to understand its creation.
Dr. Zazeriz wrote an acceptance letter, then waved her arm and summoned Falkes. The phoenix stared up at Dr. Zazeriz with reproachful eyes.
“Don’t look at me with complaining eyes. I sealed the letter in a fireproof container.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
Falkes squawked loudly and looked at the floor.
“Yes, I know it’s far and covered with snow. I’m sure you can fly over the mountains north and catch a down draft into Beran’s Reach. I will head out shortly thereafter and meet you in the city.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
Falkes bowed his head, and Dr. Zazeriz handed the fireproof letter container to his outstretched talon. Falkes then shuffled down the hall and flew out a door.
Chapter 2, “Courthouse, Chuckled, Clarke.”
A short while after Falkes had left, Dr. Zazeriz gathered the needed supplies for the short trek to the mountain fortress of Beran’s Reach. She was eager to receive more information about the process of selecting magistrates and the creation of a more unified law system across Novia. Dr. Zazeriz could have waited for a reply from the Court to be returned before leaving for Beran’s Reach, but since she preferred to be out traveling rather than ruminating within her city’s walls, she left Verat Chaos and headed north.
Beran’s Reach was not a long journey from Verat Chaos. A winding path north of Central Brittany led up to the mountain stronghold. Halfway to the city, Falkes flew down and landed next to Dr. Zazeriz. He held out a talon with a scroll held in it.
“Excellent work, Falkes. That was faster than even I thought you could make it. Would you like a Fire Field to relax in while I read the letter?” Dr. Zazeriz asked.
Falkes cooed happily and flew over to a nearby rock. Dr. Zazeriz cast Fire Field, and the circle of fire surrounded Falkes, who then relaxed and nestled down to the rock for a nap. Dr. Zazeriz opened up the fire proof scroll case and read the enclosed letter.
“Most Honorable Governor Andartianna Zazeriz,
We are pleased that you have accepted the nomination to the courthouse at Beran’s Reach. At your earliest convenience you may travel to Beran’s Reach and we can begin the process.
Signed
Astor Cerberus, Clerk of the Courthouse of Beran’s Reach”“Thank you, Falkes. It looks like I’ll be heading on my way. You may follow if inclined or return to Verat Chaos.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
Falkes opened one eye, then closed it and went back to warming himself by the fire.
“Or you can just sit at the Fire Field until it goes out.” Dr. Zazeriz chuckled.
Dr. Zazeriz continued her trek north. After about ten minutes, Falkes came into view overhead circling in the distance. As Dr. Zazeriz climbed the hills outside of Beran’s Reach, she could see that Falkes was waiting on the walls of the city. Dr. Zazeriz finished climbing the hill and entered the gates of Beran’s Reach. White snow was falling around, which seemed to continuously blanket the city in frost. As she neared the Bear Tavern, Dr. Zazeriz saw Clarke waiting by the entrance.
“Greetings, Clarke. I don’t normally see you outside the courthouse. Are you still clerking for the court?” Dr. Zazeriz asked.
“Governor Zazeriz. You are exactly the person I was looking to see.” Clarke said.
“Oh? Do tell.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
“I was asked by Astor Cerberus to wait for your arrival and direct you to your interview.” Clarke said.
“Thank you, Clarke. I appreciate you waiting for me.” Dr. Zazeriz replied.
“Your meeting will be held in the courthouse on the second floor in meeting room A, which is on the left side. The people who will be reviewing you will be wearing masks to conceal their identities so that the judgment will be more impartial.” Clarke said.
“Thank you, Clarke. Is there any other information I need to know?” Dr. Zazeriz said.
“I do not believe so. I will walk you to the courthouse and then Astor Cerberus will take you into the room. He is not one of the people grading you. However, he is the clerk who is overseeing the proceedings.” Clarke said.
“Excellent. Lead the way, Clarke.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
Clark led the way out of the central city off to the north to where the courthouse was located. He did not talk, but simply walked in silence. When they got to the front of the courthouse, Clarke directed Dr. Zazeriz to enter the building as he would be attending to other nominees who were travelling to the city as well. Dr. Zazeriz thanked Clarke and entered the courthouse.
Chapter 3, “Inviting, Immediately, Intimidating. “
Dr. Zazeriz entered the courthouse and, as always, found the entrance hall to be grand and inviting. Astor Cerberus was waiting at the front desk.
“Governor Zazeriz, welcome to the courthouse at Beran’s Reach. I am Astor Cerberus, and it is my pleasure to help with the nomination process. The counsel of nobility and leaders of Novia are waiting in the room upstairs. They will be asking you a series of questions. They will not reply directly to you, but will listen to your answers and then ask follow-up scenarios. Once this process is completed, the leaders selecting the magistrates of the courthouse of Beran’s Reach will grade you and other nominated applicants and decide who is worthy to become a magister of the courthouse of Beran’s Reach.” Astor Cerberus said.
“Thank you, Astor. Is this something we can start immediately, or do I need to wait for another applicant to complete?” Dr. Zazeriz asked.
“The reviewers are not currently with an application, so they may see you immediately if you are ready.” Astor Cerberus said.
“I am ready. Please lead the way.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
Astor led Dr. Zazeriz up to the second floor. He then had her wait in the hall outside the meeting room while he went through the door into the room. Through the door Dr. Zazeriz could hear muffled voices talking to each other. She waited patiently, and in about five minutes, Astor returned to the hall.
“The reviewers are ready for you. There are several of them sitting around the room. As Clarke should have told you, their identities have been concealed so that they receive no pressure in the choice they are about to make. You’ll be asked a series of questions. There are no wrong answers, so answer as truthfully and thoughtfully as you can. When you are ready, simply walk through the door and take a seat.” Astor Cerberus said.
“Thank you, Astor.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
Dr. Zazeriz walked toward the meeting room door. She was not nervous at all. Having faced dragons and deamons, a room full of bureaucrats was not at all intimidating. The room was not particularly large. A round table was on the right side and the various leaders were in chairs around it. There was a blue chair by the fire. Dr. Zazeriz walked over to the chair and took a seat. The people around the table all turned towards her.
“Greetings, Governor Zazeriz. We have heard many wonderful things about you. We are so glad that you accepted the nomination to be considered for a position as a magistrate. We will begin this interview process by asking you some questions. If you are ready, you can begin,” one of the reviewers said.
“Thank you, and thank you to all the reviewers who are helping in this process. You may proceed with the questions.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
A woman’s voice chimed in from one of the reviewers. “We are going to begin by telling you a scenario and then asking you questions about it.
“This is the first scenario:
“It is your day to take the bench and a new case is to be heard this morning. As you are reading over the documents, you hear the door open as the claimants begin to enter the courtroom. First is the defendant, Dinsoo of the Moongate Travelers. You have heard of him as an upstanding citizen of New Britannia; always looking out for others and putting every effort in to help whenever and whomever they may, newcomer and old alike.
“Next to enter the courtroom is the plaintiff, Baron Drocis F. of Rats Nest. He is also known throughout the land, but you have heard of him in other circles for quite a different reason. He’s outspoken to the point that some see him as argumentative and taking pleasure in causing disruption.
“Reading over the case before you as you prepare to hear arguments, you have questions of legitimacy flooding your mind. The charge is as follows: Baron Drocis has charged Dinsoo with biting him in an attempt to eat him.
“As everyone rises to be sworn in you take your seat.”
One of the other reviewers then chimed in. “Now that you have heard the scenario, here are the questions we would like you to answer. How do you feel about seeing these two enter your courtroom and whom do you rule in favor of and why?”
Dr. Zazeriz thought for a moment, and then replied, “On the first question, I have no specific prejudices towards either party. Regardless of how good or bad a person seems to society as a whole, the facts of the case are the only things that matter. I would need to look for motive such as what caused the defendant to bite the plaintiff. Were there mitigating circumstances? What is the law regarding biting and eating a person? The only reason I would question legitimacy would be if an action is not against the law, does not have any evidence to support the charges, or does not have standing to sue as in a third party person who was not involved. In these cases, the defendant could move for a dismissal and I would agree. On the second question, with the limited information that has been provided, I could not rule for either party. I would need a lot more details. Being a magistrate, you can’t really assume anything. I can’t assume that biting is against the law in a specific area. It is entirely possible the parties were engaged in an open combat situation where biting would be acceptable. Likewise, the charge of cannibalism is also not illegal everywhere. There are cultures where eating dead relatives is considered an honor for both the dead and the living as they become part of each other.”
“Thank you, Governor Zazeriz, for answering our questions. We will review your answers over the next few days and, if you are selected to continue the interview process, we will summon you again. You may wait in rooms provided in Beran’s Reach.” One of the reviewers said.
“Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing from you.” Dr. Zazeriz said.
The post Odd Tidings 1 – by Andartianna – narrated by Asclepius appeared first on Echoes from the Caverns.
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This week’s Player Owned Town spotlight has me, ‘Berek’ as I go by in the community, travelling to the center of New Britannia to visit the bustling trade town of Novia Market.Many of the fair towns in New Britannia have built a strong, steady popularity and long history. By contrast, I had heard rumblings of a young upstart of a community of 50+ merchant residents which...
Community Spotlight: Novia Market - Player Owned Town -
This week’s Player Owned Town spotlight has me, ‘Berek’ as I go by in the community, travelling to the center of New Britannia to visit the bustling trade town of Novia Market.Many of the fair towns in New Britannia have built a strong, steady popularity and long history. By contrast, I had heard rumblings of a young upstart of a community of 50+ merchant residents which seemingly had popped out of nowhere, in the southern hinterlands of Brittany called Novia Market.
I had seen flyers for Novia Market proclaiming each and every Sunday as a “promo day”, and it piqued my interest enough to start a short pilgrimage to the town. Upon reaching the entrance to the town, I was struck by two things: the hustle and bustle of the community, and an odd couple of gentlemen laying wait to greet me beside the town crier and banker at the entrance.
Novia Market’s EntranceOn one side, Bamboozle was an immaculately dressed fellow with a passionate gleam in his eye and a pile of architectural drawings under one arm. On the other side, Benjamin Hroth was a little more sloppy of a chap with a clipboard, ledgers, abacus, and an organizational tome in tow. Both welcomed me heartily with loud voices that carried a long distance.
They explained that while Novia Market, or “NoMa” as they insisted on calling it, broke ground only two Britannian years ago, it had been planned for at least four more years. The community was inspired by a single guiding principle, as Ben put it: “NoMa is all about an easy and fair purchasing experience for New Britannians.” Bamboozle reiterated this, describing many overpriced merchants throughout the land that felt out of touch with the growing population of new Outlanders arriving from the Isle of Storms: “It was time to build a community dedicated to the buyer.”
Ben first guided me to a small alley just west of the entrance to town, which he called “Promo Alley.” He explained that Promo Alley was inspired by Lace Delamorte’s town of Diamond Fields, which featured a highly efficient town center for crafters. “Lace was so generous with her time in organizing events like a mentorship program for craftspeople. Even as an amateur craftsman like myself, it’s amazing to see how well Lace understands the perspective of a crafter, as the entire town center is built for crafters by crafters.”
Promo Alley EntranceBen then explained that, likewise, Promo Alley was designed for buyers. “We delivered a business plan to several prominent and fair sellers who deserved a larger limelight for their works. We use the principles of simplicity, curation, and promotion to ensure Promo Alley provides everyday low prices for Twelve Novian categories, but also regular “promotions” or low priced limited quantity sales each and every Sunday around the clock.” I asked what Ben meant about sales around the clock and he explained that Outlanders had certain “time zones” they were attuned to, and NoMa was dedicated to reach buyers from any time zone.
Promo Alley: Armor, Ore, Wood, Farmed Goods and Regs, and Promo Vendor at end of alleywayI was a little amazed; Ben was talking about hosting these promos each and every week on Sundays, and around the clock – how could he do it? Ben answered that he was blessed with an excellent team in Promo Alley. “Buyers need to be able to count on us to provide these promos near religiously every Sunday, for them to be effective and help spread good word of mouth of our community in NoMa throughout every time zone. We don’t know of any other regular New Britannian event available across every time zone. I couldn’t do it alone, but we have a great team of merchants who are excited to bring them every week in Promo Alley!”
I walked into Promo Alley with Bamboozle and Ben, and noted each of the Twelve vendors lining the side of the alley, including: Crafting Supplies by Illiott, Scrolls and Potions by Kron Caledon, Weapons by Robyn Hood, Armor by Adam Crow, Ore by Grizelda TheHag, Wood by Elrond KingOfElves, Farmed Goods and Reagents by Thexedor Markhamm, Food and Drink by By Tor, Artifacts and Loot by DevilCult and Rares by Bamboozle.
What struck me was that signage for each category of Novian goods was clearly marked, they were all conveniently located in one place, and a great team was at work working together to keep each category well stocked.
Ben explained Promo Alley is a cross-guild, cross-city, cross-continent effort: “My guild is Spoon’s Lux Rifthikers, and Bamboozle is in the Havoc guild. We have a great sampling from PRISM, Moongate Travellers, Lunar Dragons, Serenite, Night Walkers, and some unguilded members as well. Some of us lay resident in Spite, Diamond Fields, Beregost, Serenite, Dawn’s Keep, Owl’s Head, Lux Sanctuary, and Kiln. What we have in common is a dedication to bringing the best prices for buyers everywhere!”
Promo Alley: Food and Drink, Weapons, Scrolls and Potions, Artifacts, and Crafted GoodsIt was very convenient to window shop and see all that they had to offer. At the end of the alley was where the crowd this Sunday was gathering. I could not believe the prices being posted there. The crowd was responding with the excitement and bustle of trade! I instinctively reached into my purse to grab a few of the deals…
A sampling of Sunday’s waresBen concluded as we walked out of Promo Alley: “After arriving here from the Isle of Storms, I was struck by how difficult it was to afford gathered resources and crafted pieces from more faraway locations. It made life discouraging, and I wanted to bring changes for our new visitors. NoMa is dedicated to making newcomers welcome to engaging the economy as a buyer. It’s all about bringing good value to Novia!”
Overhead shot of Promo Alley in early morning as vendors put out their wares.At this point, Bamboozle lit up, interrupting with “It’s not all about the good values, Ben. We not only do good, we make it look good too!” as we walked into a beautiful town square to the south of Promo Alley. Bamboozle explained that besides Promo Alley that Ben managed, the rest of NoMa was called “NoMa Village” where the residents made their home. Bamboozle danced around pointing out all the features of this first town square, calling it the NoMa Village development.
NoMa Village, South of Promo Alley“Each of the NoMa Village developments are town squares built to create an easy vendor browsing experience – just follow the straight paths – as well as convenient living for our residents, for example the Oracle Confirmatory located near the entrance, automated merchants close to houses in one area, crafting merchants near the crafting square in NoMa Village I, and so on.” Bamboozle also pointed out that in two short Britannian years, forty-three vendors had moved in among the three NoMa Village developments.
NoMa Village I Town SquareNoMa Village looked immaculate from the beige marble pavers, to the ornate street lamp, to the wonderfully decorated squares. “Lord British himself remarked that NoMa was a beautiful place!”
NoMa Village I – Founder Crafting Stations in Town Square (Infernal crafting in foreground)A stylish stage in the center of NoMa Village I adorned a full deck of instruments for musical interludes. Around the square were many row houses and village lots, and the theme of commerce and fair pricing were common among each vendor at each lot.
NoMa Village I – Sound StageSouth of NoMa Village I was NoMa Village II, the second square. Bamboozle explained that NoMa’s instant popularity for residency meant a second development could be raised quickly. In the center of this town square was the beginning of an arena, and an unusual looking building. Furtively, Ben pointed out that there was rumor of a gambling den being built as well.
NoMa Village II – ResidentsSouth of NoMa Village II was NoMa Village III. Bamboozle reflected about the town having recently undergone such a surge in population that it was upgraded with a third town square. Plans had already begun to build out a fourth square north of Promo Alley too.
With interest piqued around Lord British’s comment, and a possibility Shamino might move in, I started wondering aloud if I could open up a shop in NoMa. Bamboozle smiled widely; “We just broke ground and are accepting new merchants to move into our next development north of Promo Alley. All are welcome to apply via a message to me!”
After the tour of NoMa, Bamboozle and Ben thanked me for coming to their marketplace. Clearly, it was a town that had many ambitious ideas in-store for Novian commerce. I made a mental note to return later to watch the progress, and marked my Sunday calendar every week to make a quick trip for bargain hunting!
There are so many towns to explore throughout New Britannia. If you are interested in becoming a part of the Novia Market community, feel free to contact Bamboozle in the forums with any questions you have!
Do you have a town, guild, or other group we can spotlight? Message Berek with the details!
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From last week’s Update of the Avatar #225, we just put live in Release 41 an update to the Darkstarr Moondial! Have a look at all that we changed around the game’s moondials:
Recently we did some re-ordering of the celestial bodies in the heavens. Additionally there are now more game systems directly tied to the positions of these celestial bodies. For instance Town Sieges are directly tied to these. Due to these changes Richard “Lord British” Garriott has decreed that we update our orreries to not only accurately reflect these new sequences but also add the constellations in an outer ring. The first pass is to update the Darkstarr Moondial that players already own. We also created a new Silver Darkstarr Moondial that will only be available through our Referral program when that comes back online. Other variants that look very different from the Darkstarr versions will then be created including a craftable version (more mechanical in nature) and an Ornate version for the Add On Store that will come in a variety of sizes ranging from table top to a giant version that you can walk under!
The updated Darkstarr Moondial is live in Release 41. Stay tuned for updates on when the other versions will become available.
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Scott “Scottie” Jones]
Yes indeed,…it’s that time again! Time for Richard to request that I add to the existing Darkstarr Moondial once more, due not only to the change in the recent order of the moons in the night sky, but also due to some slight changes in the magical constellation overlay and background stars that exists in the sky-dome itself!
Much like last time, when changes were made to the original Moondial to account for us getting much closer to our actual in-game sky and all its celestial bodies,…this time, with our system incorporating not only the correct moon order, but also the ideology and actual timing of the attacks of the Cabalists and their unholy minions, the Moondials themselves (which Richard always wanted to be functionally-accurate tools of celestial observation) needed to change once again to reflect our most recent updates…
The magical constellation overlay seen when using either the Astrolabe or the Moondials changed only slightly, with me “cleaning up” the lines a bit to organize the night sky into 12 “sectors” roughly in the middle of which each constellation can be found (with the outliers being Chaos and the Principals interlocking circles, which are not currently factored into the attacks of the Cabalists, and are bisected by a line between two sectors)… By gazing into a clear night sky when these items are invoked, you can now easily see the sector line demarcations stretching from one axis of the celestial dome to the other, with the constellations hovering between them either above or below the galactic swath. The three middle horizontal lines pass through the two outlier constellations, with the central horizontal line describing the path of the galactic swath itself. Here’s a portion you can see below.
What this means, as far as the Darkstarr Moondial is concerned, is the addition of an extra ring around the outside to which are attached iconic versions of the primary constellations (mimicking the Devotional depictions, of course), and the alignment of their “sectors” as compared to the various moons in orbit around our world…. One then uses the Moondial more easily and accurately now by merely standing beside the Moondial facing the planet at its center, visually aligning yourself with the constellation representing a Devotional within the town you’re interested in, and seeing which moons fall within that sector slice that angles in from the sector edges on either side of the constellation toward the center of the world… The Cabalists representing the antivirtues of those moons should be attacking any city bearing that particular Devotional at that time… In the example below you can see that towns hosting a Devotional of Honor are being currently attacked by Avara while Dolus prepares to withdraw his minions, and Nefas is readying his forces in vicious support that is soon to come!
In addition to upgrading the Darkstarr Moondial in this way, I was also tasked to create a variation on it which is a silver version held aloft by a hand of bluish-purple marble. I’m not sure how this will become available, but I enjoy its alternate color scheme… While I like the gold/bronze warmth of the original, blue and silver are some of my favorite color combinations!
And lastly, having created these, I was asked to begin work on two other versions of the Moondials. I’m quite excited by these, because one is a version you’ll be able to craft yourself, made out of materials such as brass, copper, silver, wood, and various mechanical parts and pieces (recipe yet to be determined), and the other is meant to be an “ornate” version you can purchase which will come in four sizes (tabletop, “room”-sized like the ones above, Village Lot sized, and Keep Lot sized)… The exact scale of these has yet to be determined.
Below you can see them in their beginning stages as compared to the existing Darkstarr version. The Craftable Moodial (lower left), will eventually be seen as made from multiple materials as described above, and has a “naturally-mechanical” look to it, with no magically-floating elements, and sports a slightly tilted “cage-dome” representing the tilted axis of the world itself as roughly compared to the abstractly-depicted rotational plane of the moon and suns. The discs bearing the supports that hold up each of the celestial elements rotate independently upon the base column. The central Moondial is the beginnings of the “Ornate” version, which will appear in the four sizes mentioned, and unlike the others can be walked beneath when large enough. It showcases cool, glowing “Aetheric Energy” elements that typify some of the more arcane/technological devices in our game, such as the orbital rings of the moons, and the magically-projected celestial dome that surrounds the construct as a whole in which the constellations can be seen.
I hope you all enjoy these so far. Stay tuned, and I’ll update this thread with more images and progress descriptions as I keep working on them!
Take care everyone!
Scottie ^_^
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![[IMG]](https://d2sx9mrt4zumaq.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/r41_postmortem_livestream.jpg)
Here's another great chance to ask questions about the game directly to the devs! This release's Postmortem Livestream has been set for next Monday, May 8th at 3pm CT on Twitch:
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=71805
Please ask your questions in the Comments section in the article linked above. We can't wait to hear what has been a key interest to you since R41 went live! -
Do you livestream on Twitch or another platform, or record your gameplay sessions and toss them up on YouTube afterward? List them in our upcoming livestream calendar!
Over the past few weeks, we've been putting together a community calendar of livestreamers. This calendar will show tentative dates and times that your favorite livestreamers or YouTubers are expected to be playing the game or posting video updates.
There are dozens of active weekly livestreamers that we know about, but...
Calling all livestreamers! -
We have been extremely happy with the community’s reaction to Release 41 so far, and want to hear more of your valuable feedback. Join us Monday, May 8th at 3:00 PM Central (20:00 UTC) on Twitch for this month’s R41 Postmortem Livestream!
Once you get a chance to check out Release 41, post your questions in the comments section below. Only one post submission per player allowed, and keep questions to 3 or less. This will allow us to get to as many questions as possible.
As always, we will be giving out rare artifacts of immense power and glory. For a chance to win an artifact, or to speak your voice on the latest game changes, please be in Discord chat during the livestream. There will be multiple chances to win throughout the broadcast.
Follow @ShroudofAvatar to keep updated as the postmortem approaches!
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As of midday Saturday April 29 we discovered that the data on the server that contains the information for everyone's Journals (quests, tasks, etc) is not loading properly. This means your Journal is suddenly blank and you cannot progress through your quests.
Our deepest apologies that this has happened and we are working as fast as we can to address it.
UPDATE (8 PM): Patch #599 implemented to fix blank journal issue. New song file issue with Patch #599 not allowing some songs to play,...
FIXED: Blank Journal Issue (quests, tasks, etc.) Blocking Quest Progress (updated)
When I came on board to Portalarium early last year, I was already a dedicated Shroud of the Avatar (SotA) player and guild member, eagerly checking out the content in-game as it was added each release. The community’s excitement up to that point had seeped deep into my veins, compelling me to see how I could join the team to help the community move to new heights.
Also passionate about responding to player concerns is our dedicated customer support team led by Sarah “Serafina” Dworken. She manages the numerous support ticket requests that come in on a daily basis. Everything from account support to player owned town change needs are submitted to the support portal.
SOTA NewsUpdate of the Avatar #228 – 2017.05.19: Ornate Moondial Video, Making of Sequanna Colossus, Blood Bay Puzzles & Treasure, Our Community, Flash Sales, Free Trial, Event Calendar, and More!
in Portalarium News Feed
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Greetings Fellow Avatars!
Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:
Moondial Effects First Look Video
As a recap, we recently did some re-ordering of the celestial bodies in the heavens. There are now more game systems directly tied to the positions of these celestial bodies. Due to these changes, Richard “Lord British” Garriott has decreed that we update our orreries to not only accurately reflect these new sequences, but also add the constellations in an outer ring.
Here is a video of the Ornate version of the Moondial that we talked about in last week’s update. This moondial version will go in the Add On Store and will come in a variety of sizes ranging from tabletop to a giant version that you can walk under! These versions are due to make an appearance in Release 42:
With the completion of the last details of the models, the textures, and the core functionality, it was finally the time to take the Ornate Moondials to the next level! Utilizing the skills of Justin to allow us to include new additions to our particle shader, as well as the talents of Damon to bring numerous VFX online, we’ve given these assets a final makeover and last-minute polish pass that really creates a stunning impression. Once you have a chance to approach one of these works of art, you’ll be able to witness first-hand the way these new VFX work together!
All in all, I’m overjoyed by the effort and outcome of the Ornate Moondials. They’ll certainly leave an impression, whether they end up as a small work of functional art displayed on a decorative den table, or whether they tower over you as you visit someone’s majestic keep!
Learn more about my Moondial work here.
Scott “Scottie” Jones
Senior Environment Artist
The Making of Sequanna Colossus (Unclone)
SPOILERS: Now that all three paths (Truth, Love, and Courage) are playable we have begun work on the Finale part of the plot, aka The Path of the Oracle. We have begun work on the Sequanna Colossus scene that the Oracle sends you to at a point along the quest line. This scene was built as a placeholder and is now being polished into a final state.
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Chris “Sea Wolf” Wolf]
Blood Bay Puzzles & Treasure
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Travis “Vas Corp Por” Koleski]
Explorer extraordinaire, Earl Greyhot reporting from the field once again. My latest trek brought me to the fabled Blood Bay, where I heard tale that a once famous pirate captain had left a trail of clues leading to his forgotten treasure.
I could not puzzle out the function of these ruins found along the northern beachhead. HAH, did you catch my jest?
I nearly broke my leg ascending this odd ruined structure.
I thought I had found the treasure in an old pirate hideout, but alas, found only more clues.
I decided to seek out the Pirate King’s vessel for any useful information. The HMS Peaches was in a good state despite its abandonment.
What is booty compared to the unforgettable adventure that brought me to it? I think these pirate relics will find a home in the University’s museum.
Article: A Community Like No Other
Written by Berek, your Wood Elf Community Manager…
From the very first day at the office, I quickly realized there was so much more to discover with the community than I originally thought. I saw huge potential as I learned more about how each of you contributes content and feedback. From player-created resources on various community-led websites to a ton of in-game activities and real life meetups, I also quickly realized I was going to need the community’s help to succeed at this role!
In my years working with communities, I have seen few as passionate and determined as what we have for Shroud of the Avatar. A sense of belonging and camaraderie is imbued in all corners of the community. Many of the players come from as far back as the Ultima days (circa 1981-1999 including Ultima Online to the present day). Everyone should be proud of what has been built up to this point!
Little did we all know how exciting and wild of a ride it was indeed going to be in just this past year, eh? Let’s take a look back and see what’s changed!
[Read More…]
Free Trial Test 3 Continues!
The third test of our Free Trial system is live now and runs through May 31. This will be the longest test so far of the system so that we can gather even more data about uptake, drop-off, conversions, etc. If you know anyone who would like to try the game for free, then send them to the download page. These tests are invaluable for us in order to improve the New User Experience and the Free Trial System itself.
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 those in the Free Trial, we would love your feedback! We have opened up of our Release 41 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 trying out Shroud of the Avatar in Early Access!
Summer Telethon 2017 Part 1
Avatars, get ready to soak up the summer sun with us! The upcoming Summer Telethon is nearly here. Telethons are livestreamed on Twitch and include a complete schedule of developer Deep Dives, answers to your gameplay questions, community activities, prize giveaways, sales on items, and more! See what’s all included below…
Summer “Hot Air” Expirations Sale Begins!
In honor of the waves of hot air that will be blowing over us this summer we are expiring all of our hot air Aeronaut items. At Midnight CST, May 31, 2017 (5:00 UTC, June 1, 2017), we are expiring the following content from the Add On Store (and the in-game Crown Merchants). This means that these items will no longer be available at all after this date.
Before the following items expire for good, we have put them on sale at approx. 20% off. Check out what’s now on sale:
Help us to achieve the following goals during this next event!
As a special bonus, we are offering Telethon Funding Stretch Goal Rewards to any backer that pledges a minimum of $5 from the start of the telethon, until Midnight (Spending Store Credit to make $5 minimum purchase does not apply). The Summer Telethon 2017 Part 1 Funding Stretch Goal Rewards are:
Did you see what was unlocked in the last telethon? This one might be even bigger!
Cheer on the Devs!
Additionally, we will be spinning the Wheel of Fortune! The wheel will have 14 items at any given time, but dozens of sales will happen! Each time an item comes up it will go on sale for approx. 20% off for 1 hour.
As the wheel is spun, what is selected will be replaced by something else. Items already selected will be removed for a time (some may not come back onto the wheel for the rest of the telethon). Keep in mind that some of these may never come up, so cross your fingers for your preferred item!
Wheel of Fortune Flash Sales:
Telethon Schedule*
* Schedule subject to change. Check back here before the telethon to for final schedule.
Win These Great Prizes!
We will be giving prizes away on an hourly basis with many being given away multiple times. If you wish to win prizes during the Telethon event, be in Discord chat! We will be active on Twitch and YouTube chats as well, but they will not be our portal for prize giveaways.
Watch The Telethon on Twitch and the final recording will be archived on YouTube! after the event as well. Please be aware that if we have any connection problems, YouTube will be the first service to be dropped from the stream.
Submit your questions! We will be answering questions throughout the telethon so submit them in the comments section of the original post (see here) or through Discord during the Telethon. Please keep in mind that questions and feedback related to each segment 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. When you submit your questions in the Comments section of the original post (see here), please keep it to 3 total questions max!
Localization Progress Update
With Release 41 we restarted Localization of Shroud of the Avatar using the Zanata platform. Our amazing team of community volunteers are steadily translating the game into Spanish, French, Italian, German, and Portuguese and we are now almost 34% translated. German is currently in the lead at over 43% with French right behind them at over 37%.
If you are interested in assisting with the translation efforts (and earning rewards) please review this forum post by Attenwod.
Weapons, Shields, & Helmets Weekend Flash Sale
To celebrate the upcoming Release 42 next week, we are putting several weapons, shields, and helmets on sale this weekend for 20% off! Gather your gear, Avatar, and adventure forth into New Britannia this weekend!
Here is a list of the items on sale:
Upcoming Events Calendar
May 10 – 31, 2017 – Free Trial 3
May 25, 2017 – Release 42
May 31, 2017 – Summer Telethon Part 1
June 29, 2017 – Release 43
July 27, 2017 – Release 44
Aug 10 – 14, 2017 – Syndcon (Austin)
Aug 31, 2017 – Release 45
Sept 1 – 4, 2017 – Dragon Con
Sept 22 – 23, 2017 – Ultima Online 20th Anniversary Party
Sept 28, 2017 – Release 46
Oct 13 – 15, 2017 – SotA Con 2017 (Austin)
Oct 26, 2017 – Release 47
Nov 9-12, 2017 – HoBLoTH IV
Visit the official Community Calendar to see the great lineup of activities our amazing community has planned for this weekend! And be sure to check out this month’s Release Events thread in the SotA forums for additional events.
Trophy Room Contest Nearly Over!
Get your houses ready for the most intense contest yet this year! Over the next several weeks, you will have the fun opportunity to show off your hunting heroism, crafting coordination, and trophy triumphs in this new three part contest kicking off today.
PART 1: Hunt down a creature, kill another player (to get their skull), or catch a fish!
PART 2: Craft the trophy from that creature (human skulls come as-is, no preparation needed…)
PART 3: Display your trophy triumphs in a single room of a house you have access too!
As we receive contest submissions, they will be announced in the forums and on social with eventually a gallery of all submissions put together.
[Read More…]
Community Project of the Week – Prism Presents a Grandmaster Tutoring Event
To become a famous GM, visit the announcement for this event in the forums!
Community Resources – Players Helping Players
The official SotA New Player Welcome Forum and the Player Created Resources Forum have the best player created resources for Shroud of the Avatar, whether it’s a Player Written Guide, a Video Walk-through, or a Wiki-type Website.
Visit the official Community Resources page for a complete listing of all things community.
Recommended Projects to Back – Crowfall
In this Throne War Simulator, characters are persistent but the campaign worlds are not, thanks to voxel technology which enables fully-destructible settings. A seamless blend of an MMO with a large-scale strategy game, players are immortal champions, traveling between realms to fight in an eternal War of the Gods.
Backer Shipping Addresses
A reminder to be sure that support@portalarium.com is unblocked from your e-mail account!
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