Jack T. Lamplighter
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Posts posted by Jack T. Lamplighter
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Chain Lightning's fizzle rate was set incorrectly for the last few releases. Someone pointed out that it was easier to cast chain lightning that lightning and I informed them that they were wrong as each tier adds 15% fizzle rate. They sent me a screen shot and I looked at the data. Sure enough, fizzle rate for it had been cleared at some point.
Warning players now so they can start adjusting their R40 plan to account for the extra fizzle. It will be exactly 15% harder to cast than...
Chain Lightning Fizzle rate in R40 -
Greetings Avatars,
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 to their local bank 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...
Storing and/or Moving a Decorated Lot or Basement via the Property Manager (aka Magic Movers) -
Greetings Avatars,
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 to their local bank 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.”
We added detailed instructions for how to use this new feature in the Player Instructions document as well and those are reprinted in full here in this post.
Storing and/or Moving a Decorated Lot or Basement
You can use the Property Manager window to store a fully-decorated lot or basement and unpack it to either that same lot or another empty lot of the same size that you have claimed in that same scene.
You can access the Property Manager window from the Stained Glass menu icon, the Lot Deeds options menu, or from any lot sign in any scene. The left side of the window shows your available slots and their current storage status. Each player has 5 storage slots. The right side of the Property Manager window shows all of your claimed lots. Each lot includes the name of the deed used to claim the lot, the location of the lot, and the size of the lot. Each lot also has two slots: one for the primary contents of your lot (including the house), and one for the basement and its contents.
Hovering over a slot will display a tooltip that includes an item count. If the number of items placed on a lot changes, click the “Refresh” option in the top-right of the Property Manager window to ensure the item count is up-to-date.
Packing the Contents of a Lot or Basement into Storage: To store the contents of a lot or basement, drag a the contents from one of the slots into any “(Empty Storage)” slot in the left side of the Property Manager window.
The storage is immediate and includes all decorations within that slot.
If you drag a storage icon to an occupied slot, you will simultaneously move your new lot into storage and unpack everything from the slot to your lot. You can also swap live and stored basements in the same way.
Unpacking a Stored Lot or Basement: To unpack a stored lot or basement, drag the stored item from a storage slot in the left side of the Property Manager window into an empty slot in the right side of the window.
A stored lot can only be unpacked on a lot that is in the same town in which the lot was originally stored. Also, the stored lot must be of the same size as the lot that it is being unpacked onto.
A stored basement can only be unpacked on a lot that is in the same town in which the basement was originally stored. Also, the stored basement cannot be larger than the lot that it is being unpacked onto.
Once unpacked, the contents of the unpacked lot or basement will become immediately available. Also, any decorations that were packed up with that lot or basement when it was stored will reappear in their original locations at the time that they were stored.
Note that you can only unpack one lot or basement every five minutes. An unpacking cooldown timer will appear at the top of your Property Manager window when you unpack a stored lot or basement.
Renaming a Lot or Basement within the Property Manager: Each lot and basement listed in your Property Manager window will have a default name, but you can rename them at any time. To rename a lot or basement, right-click on it’s icon in the Property Manager window, fill in the new name, and click “Submit.” You can also use the “Set to Default” option to rename the lot or basement to its default name. You can also rename stored lots and basements.
Sending Stored Lots and Basements to Your Bank: You have the option to send all of the contents of a storage slot to your bank. To do so, right-click on a storage slot and select the “Send to Bank” option.
Unclaiming a Lot: Unclaiming a lot does not move a lot or basement into a Property Manager storage slot. Rather, unclaiming a lot moves all associated items into your bank.
Storage Slots are Tied to Your Account: It’s important to note that Property Manager storage slots are connected to your game account and not to a specific character. This means that, for example, if you store a lot, delete your character, and create a new character, that new character will have immediate access to the lot that was placed into storage.
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Greetings Avatars,
Just like in Release 38 during Release 39, the Offline Mode save game format is changing to support new and upcoming gameplay features.
Here’s what you need to do in order to preserve your Offline Mode save games and characters:- Patch your game client to Release 39.
- Load each saved game and then re-save. This will convert...
R39 Offline Data Format Change - Character Preservation Notice -
Hello everyone! Here is the news of the week. Hope you are enjoying Release 39!:
- Play Release 39 Now!
- The Making of Serpent’s Spine Mines
- The Making of The Fall
- Ignite Weapon Polish
- NPC submissions requested for Estgard
- R38 Lot Deed Raffle Winners
- Spring Telethon and Expirations Reminder
- Homes and Basements Weekend Flash Sale
- Origin PC Steam Key Bundle
- Alienware Steam Key Giveaway
- R39 Offline Data Format Change – Character Preservation Notice
- Spring 2017 Crafter’s Competition
- Community Livestream – Crawling to K’rul
- Upcoming Events
- Community Resources – Players Helping Players
- Recommended Projects to Back
The post Echoes From the Caverns 02/24/17 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:
- Play Release 39 Now!
- The Making of Serpent’s Spine Mines
- The Making of The Fall
- Ignite Weapon Polish
- NPC submissions requested for Estgard
- R38 Lot Deed Raffle Winners
- Spring Telethon and Expirations Reminder
- Homes and Basements Weekend Flash Sale
- Origin PC Steam Key Bundle
- Alienware Steam Key Giveaway
- R39 Offline Data Format Change – Character Preservation Notice
- Spring 2017 Crafter’s Competition
- Community Livestream – Crawling to K’rul
- Upcoming Events
- Community Resources – Players Helping Players
- Recommended Projects to Back
Play Release 39 Now!
Release 39 successfully launched yesterday, February 23, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, and logging in to check out the changes! There’s lots of new content to explore, including:
- Path of Courage Polish
- Quest Discovery & Navigation Improvements
- K’rul Dungeon
- K’rawl Dungeon
- North Drachvald Spur Adventure Scene
- Upper Fortus Adventure Scene
- Tier 6+ Enemy Additions
- Traps and Interactions Additions
- Decorated Lot/Decorated Basement Moving & Saving (aka Magic Movers)
- Town Blessings
- Combat Cover
- “Utility” Bar
- New Poisons
- City Kobolds
- Attack Clockwork Creatures
- Mushroom Monsters
- New Weapons
- Patterns System to re-skin gear
- New Recipes
- R38 Lot Deed Raffle Winners
…and much more
Check out the Release 39 Instructions update for detailed information about all the new content.
We need all your help with testing the new patches, putting more stress on our multiplayer servers, and testing the new game content, so please join us in playing this Release!
If you have not backed the game yet, go to www.shroudoftheavatar.com and click the “Play Now” button. Game Early Access is also available on Steam Early Access.
Release 39 Player Instructions
Release 39 Known Issues
The Making of Serpent’s Spine Mines
The Serpent’s Spine Mines are located in the northern end of the Serpent’s Spine mountain range in the North Paladis region of Novia. Kobolds have ranged farther west than normal to exploit the rich ore veins and crystal deposits in this vast mine. This will be one of our most vertically oriented mines to date with a large central chamber featuring deep vertical shafts, elevators, and mine carts.
This scene started as a clone of Graff Gem Mines but is being completely rebuilt for a live date hopefully in Release 41.
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Chris “Sea Wolf” Wolf]
Hey folks, today I’ll be sharing a sneak peak of my overhaul of Serpent’s Spine Mines. The new look is inspired by Goblin Town from the Hobbit, The Cave of Crystal Giants in Mexico, and the second Death Star from Return of the Jedi. ( yes, you read that right ). I’ve only been working on this for about a week, so all of the screenshots represent a work in progress. I’ll add some updated screenshots as I get closer to wrapping this scene up. Enjoy!
The Cavern
The Chasm
The Kobold Work Camp
The Making of The Fall
No one is quite sure who built this mysterious dungeon beneath Blood Bay, but it is filled with an incredible array of dangers, and rewards. The Fall gets its name from the giant vertical open space that defines the middle of dungeon with crisscrossing bridges and elevators. This dungeon is an Open PVP area, so enter at your own risk! We hope to have this live in Release 40 or 41.
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Travis “Vas Corp Por” Koleski]
Here’s some early shots of progress on the PvP Dungeon located beneath Blood Bay:
Thanks for following the thread! More soon.
Ignite Weapon Polish
As mentioned in the Release 39 Instructions, we polished the Ignite Weapon visual effects and our Senior Technical Artist / VFX Artist Damon Waldrip provided us a short video of the inflammatory goodness! Note you can read about Damon, who is our newest team member, here.
NPC submissions requested for Estgard
[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Scott “Lum” Jennings]Thank you for your continuing support of Shroud of the Avatar! This month, we’re seeking entries for inhabitants of the village of Estgard!
Estgard is the port of entry to the kingdom of Norgard, which is very much consumed with a war with the kobolds of Skrekk (spoiler: the humans are losing the war). Estgard especially believes that they are safe by flying yellow banners through the town, believing the kobolds see it as a symbol of surrender. This is not a happy place – but it may be an interesting one, esepcially with your help!
Note that Estgard is not the only town we will be seeking submissions from for R40. If you do NOT want your backer NPC to be in Estgard, you may want to wait. I will update this thread if we are running low on submissions – generally we are OK on duplicate submissions for characters who don’t get adopted (such as guards) but if you absolutely have a character who should be in a given city (such as Brittany) you should wait until we advertise for that city.
First, some brief notes:- Estgard is one of our “uncloning” scenes, where we go back post-final wipe and fill out unique content for each village and city. Thus, the NPCs are already in the game, but we can change appearance (to a degree, as seen below), gender, etc. to suit your request. If you want to pick a specific NPC (for example, one near your own house) we will do our best to accommodate you but may not be able to. Note that this process is just to make Estgard NPCs different – Estgard has already had a physical uncloning pass and its layout is basically final for release. We are backfilling NPCs that should have backstories at this point.
- NPC visual customization, as you may have noticed, is still at a very early stage in development. Right now for the backers who want to be added to Estgard, we cannot offer any visual customization options beyond our standard gallery of NPC models. If you would like to have input over the visual customization of your NPC, you can wait for further releases when we can offer this. We will also allow a one-time visual re-customization once customization has been added if you would like to add your NPC now.
- Response to this will be on a first-come first-served basis for each call for responses. If your NPC doesn’t appear in Estgard, feel free to respond again in future posts. We have quite a few towns and cities to populate!
- We are allowing people who have already submitted NPCs to submit their ideas for Estgard as well if they like, but people who have not yet submitted an NPC will take priority over those who have.
- When responding, please list a first and second choice for profession.
- NPCs for Estgard must be human. No kobolds, please.
Still with us? Great! Here’s what we need this month:
(Counts updated 2/22 8:00p Central)
- 14 guards (these are Knights of Norgard, and must be in character for them – please talk to guards in Resolute if you are unfamiliar with the background of Knights of Norgard).
- 1 innkeeper
- 1 waiter/waitress
- 1 crafting merchant
- 1 housing decorations merchant
- 1 housing deeds merchant
- 1 blacksmith
- 1 alchemy supplies merchant
- 1 combat trainer
- 1 crafting trainer
- 1 banker
- 1 town crier
- 1 public vendor
- 1 guild registrar
If you’d like to have your namesake be a resident of Estgard please respond via private message on this forum to me (Lum) using the following format:
- NPC name:
- NPC gender:
- NPC profession (first choice):
- NPC profession (second choice):
- NPC background (optional): A paragraph on whom your NPC is, how they would respond to nosy outlanders poking about their business, what brings them to Estgard (or keeps them there), or anything else you’d like to add. We reserve the right to edit and/or reject any background that does not fit the lore and setting of the game.
Please specify in your submission that this NPC is for Estgard.
We will respond if: your NPC is used; if it is rejected for whatever reason (such as an inappropriate name); if a supplied background is inappropriate, or if your NPC missed the cutoff for this release.
Thanks for your support, and see you in Estgard!
R38 Lot Deed Raffle Winners
The latest Lot Deed Raffle was drawn with 50 lot deeds awarded to lucky winners. There were two raffles, one for each lot type:
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Place Anywhere Deeds: 10 Total
- Row: 5
- Village: 3
- Town: 1
- City: 1
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Player Owned Town Deeds: 40 Total
- Row: 20
- Village: 12
- Town: 6
- City: 2
Raffle tickets grant the holder a chance to win deeds of any size (Row, Village, Town, or City). Raffles will be held monthly (total deed numbers will vary each month). Place-Anywhere Deed raffle tickets are more expensive but will have fewer deeds in each raffle than POT raffle tickets, which are more affordable and will have many more deeds in each raffle. This means your chances to win a POT deed are much greater.
This is the latest raffle where we limited winners to one deed per raffle type. Winners can claim their deed(s) simply by logging into the game and claiming rewards at any bank. A reminder that you may have received multiple deeds to claim if you received tickets for a guild or other group.
If you wish to review all of your account rewards outside of the game, you can do so by going to the Account menu on the main website and then selecting the ‘Special Rewards’ tab in the page menu.
Click here for a list of the winners.
Spring Telethon Update: Schedule and New Expirations
Reminder that our Spring Telethon is only two weeks away! We will be streaming for 12 hours with deep dives into game systems and answering your questions. We will be giving out tons of prizes, there will be lots of flash sales, and items will be expiring! Additionally anyone spending at least $5 during the telethon will receive the Spring themed stretch goals:
- $10,000: /flowerleap emote (leap into the air and throw flowers)
- $25,000: Butterfly Mask
- $35,000: Stained Glass Hand Lantern
- $50,000: Floral Pattern Stained Glass Oil Table Lamp (3 Pack)
- $65,000: White Flowered Topiary Creature Statues (3 Pack of Dragon, Bear, Satyr)
- $80,000: Leaf Shield and Leaf Spear
- $100,000: Large Spring Themed Fountain with Floating Candles
- $130,000: Shield of Thorns and Thorn Sword
- and more to be revealed if we hit these goals…
Schedule: This week we updated the post with the schedule for the Telethon.
- 12:00 PM: Welcome to the Spring Telethon of the Avatar 2017!
- 12:30 PM: R39 Postmortem (Chris, Richard, Starr)
- 2:00 PM: Player Housing & Player Owned Towns Deep Dive (Starr, Hutch, Bob Cooksey)
- 3:00 PM: World Building Tours (Esteben, C-Wolf, Keith, Dan)
- 4:30 PM: Story Deep Dive (Lum, Richard)
- 5:30 PM: ONBE Awards
- 6:00 PM: Community Hour
- 7:00 PM: Crafting & Economy Deep Dive (Chris, Starr, B, Richard)
- 8:00 PM: Boss Fight (Chris, Richard, Starr)
- 8:30 PM: Combat & PVP Deep Dive (Chris, Starr, B, Richard)
- 10:00 PM: Symbols: The Making of the Devotionals and Anti-Virtue Symbols (Scottie, Richard)
- 11:00 PM: Q&A / Wrap-up (Chris, Starr, Richard)
Expirations: We decided to extend the expiration deadlines of the 2017 Valentines content and the Fireworks Mystery Box to coincide with the Telethon.
Homes and Basements Weekend Flash Sale
In celebration of Magic Movers coming online, we are having a 20% off weekend flash sale on all Homes and Basements, representing over 60 items!
Here is a complete list of all the Homes and Basements you will find on sale this weekend:
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Ornate Greenhouse 4-Story Row House
- Wood & Plaster 4-Story with Balcony Row House
- Viking 4-Story Row House
- Blue Tile Roof 4-Story with Balcony Row House
- Kobold 3-Story with Right Alcove Row House
- Kobold 3-Story with Left Alcove Row House
- Row Stone 5-Story Basement
- Row Stone & Timber 5-Story Basement
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Shogun 1-Story Village Home
- Shogun 3-Story Keep Village Home
- Shogun Lighthouse Village Water Home
- Rustic 3-Story Village Water Home
- Obsidian Tower Village Water Home
- Viking Village Water Home
- Adobe with Roof Access Village Home
- Adobe 2-Story with 3-Level Terrace Village Home
- Rustic 3-Story Village Home
- Wood & Plaster 3-Story Village Home
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Viking 1-Story Village Home
- Viking 2-Story Stronghold Village Home
- Viking 2-Story Village Home with Dual Balconies
- Kobold 2-Story with Rooftop Deck Village Home (digital)
- Stone 2-Story Round Tower Village Home
- Elven Village Home
- Elven Peaked-Roof Village Home
- Obsidian Tower Village Home
- Wood & Stone 2-Story Guard Tower Village Home
- Stone 2-Story Keep w/Corner Turret Village Home
- Kobold 3-Story Tower Village Home
- Kobold Dual Spire Village Home
- Kobold Dwelling Village Home
- Gothic Mansion 3-Story with Widow’s Walk Village Home
- Pristine Gothic Mansion 3-Story with Widow’s Walk Village Home
- Village Stone 5-Story Basement
- Village Mine 5-Story Basement
- Village Stone & Timber Split-Level 5-Story Basement
- Village Stone Arena Basement
- Elven 3-Story with Dual Cabanas Town Water Home
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Obsidian Tower Town Water Home
- Viking 3-Story Stronghold Town Home
- Rustic 2-Story with Loft Town Home
- Stone 2-Story Keep w/Courtyard Town Home
- Obsidian Tower Town Home
- Kobold 3-Story with Open Deck Town Home
- Pristine Gothic Mansion Town Water Home
- Town Stone 5-Story Basement
- Town Stone & Timber Split-Level 5-Story Basement
- Town Stone Arena Basement
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Pirate Galleon City Water Home
- Pirate Galleon Dry Dock City Home
- Viking Great Hall City Home
- Kobold 4-Story Great Hall City Home
- Adobe Brick 2-Story Keep w/Courtyard City Home
- Airship City Home
- Star Citizen Airship City Home
- City Stone 5-Story Basement
- City Stone & Timber Split-Level 5-Story Basement
- City Stone Arena Basement
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Keep Stone 5-Story Basement
- Keep Stone & Timber Split-Level 5-Story Basement
- Keep Stone Arena Basement
- Castle Stone 5-Story Basement
- Castle Stone & Timber Split-Level 5-Story Basement
- Castle Stone Arena Basement
*Basements are listed in their own tab in the Store here.
Origin PC Steam Key Bundle
As we announced in Update #210, we have started a new partnership with Origin PC. We, of course, love the name of their company. We also found out that their community manager and one of their founders are huge Ultima Online fans! Our very own Richard Garriott uses Origin PCs for his desktop and laptop computers, so this partnership is a mutual admiration party. In Richard’s own words:
“I have been a hard core PC developer and gamer since the beginning, including when I was making some of my earliest games for Origin Systems. Origin games, like Ultima and Wing Commander, always pushed the envelope on what gaming machines were capable of. And to develop them, I knew I needed the best gaming hardware available. The same holds true for my current game, Shroud of the Avatar; a spiritual successor to Ultima which is in now in development at Portalarium.
So, about a year ago, I went looking for the best game system available to me, and I bought my first Origin PC. I was incredibly impressed! Everything from the ordering process through the delivery was top notch, and performance is that of a clearly superior machine. I was indeed so impressed, I now use Origin computers for both my home and office desktops and, of course, have an Origin laptop for when I travel. I could not be happier with these machines, and the great service at Origin PC!”
Our latest promotion with Origin PC is their “Share the Love” February bundle where, when you purchase select desktops or any 10-Series laptop, you get an Early Access Steam Key for Shroud of the Avatar (and other goodies). If you have friends who have been wanting to try Shroud and are looking for a great new computer, send them to the promotion here.
Alienware Steam Key Giveaway
If Alienware’s powerful gaming rigs are your preferred hardware, we have teamed up with Alienware Arena to give away Shroud of the Avatar Early Access Steam keys to Alienware Arena members.This week they have opened the promotion up to Level 4+ members (it was previously only available to Level 6+ members). You can learn more by clicking here.
R39 Offline Data Format Change – Character Preservation Notice
Greetings Avatars,
Just like in Release 38 during Release 39, the Offline Mode save game format is changing to support new and upcoming gameplay features.
Here’s what you need to do in order to preserve your Offline Mode save games and characters:
- Patch your game client to Release 39.
- Load each saved game and then re-save. This will convert your save file into the latest format.
If you do not convert your saved games during Release 39, your saved games (from releases prior to R39) may not load in releases after Release 39. In other words we cannot guarantee the ability to load pre-R39 saves after R39.
Our sincere apologies if this change causes any disruption in your gameplay. We always make every attempt to avoid having to make these kinds of requirements of our players when we make changes like this. After very careful consideration, we’ve deemed this change, and the accompanying requirement, as necessary. Please note that this change will not affect the online game or characters in any way.
As a reminder, Release 39 starts on February 23 and runs through March 29.
Please let us know if you have any questions on this update!
Thanks,
DarkstarrPlease let us know if you have any questions on this update!
Spring 2017 Crafter’s Competition
Fire up those kilns and ready your hammers! The Spring 2017 Crafter’s Competition has begun! This first event will be a Gear Design Contest with other events, possibly quarterly, kicking off throughout the year.
In the last contest segment we had you capture a fight with a boss monster in the game. To survive such an intensive fight, a great deal of armor and powerful weaponry must be wielded! In this follow-up contest, we want you to design the most powerful weapons and armor you can muster.
As we receive submissions, they will be announced on Twitter and Facebook with eventually a gallery of all submissions on Facebook. If we get enough of them, we may make this a regular quarterly crafting event!
Community of the Avatar Livestream – Crawling to K’rul
Explore a newly released dungeon with us from last week’s community livestream! We’re going to adventure through K’rul and a secret connecting tunnel called K’rawl, including hopping on a fun minecart ride through the tunnel!
Livestream starts at 5:17 into the video and should autoplay at this starting point:
Follow the game on Twitter at www.twitter.com/shroudofavatar for news of the next livestream!
Upcoming Events
Feb 25, 2017 – Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary Event
Feb 28, 2017 – GDC Community Management Summit: Care and Feeding of Wild Fansites
Mar 9, 2017 – Spring Telethon of the Avatar 2017
Mar 17, 2017 – SXSW Gaming: Is Video Game Early Access Too Early?
Mar 30, 2017 – Release 40
Apr 27, 2017 – Release 41
May 25, 2017 – Release 42
June 29, 2017 – Release 43Visit 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.
Event of the Week: Release 39 Welcome Quest!
By Royal Warrant, we present to you the Welcome Quest! You are invited to join the Welcome Quest in Release 39. It will be held on Saturday, February 25 2017 starting at 12pm (noon) central time/new britannian time and lasting an hour. It is added on the Avatar’s Circle community calendar for easy time zone conversion. Plus it is in your in-game Events book.
Greagoir Pendragon will be active 30 minutes before the event and during the event. This time we are traveling to Insulam de Nocte! Located in Spindrift Bay on the island where Elad’s Lighthouse it located. You can teleport to Greagoir Pendragon.
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
Torment: Tides of Numenera is the thematic successor to Planescape: Torment, one of the most critically acclaimed role-playing games of all time. Immerse yourself in a single-player, isometric, story-driven RPG set in Monte Cook’s Numenera universe. What does one life matter? Find your answer.
The game had a successful Kickstareter and is now due to launch this coming February 28th, 2017. It is currently available to play on Steam Early Access. It can preordered for PS4 and Xbox One here.
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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Avatars,
Please read this entire message, as well as the linked instructions and known issues.
Thank you for being a loyal backer and follower of Shroud of the Avatar. Release 39 access for all Early Access backers begins this Thursday, February 23, at 10:30 AM US...
Release 39 Instructions -
The Oracle is not responding if already placed since R39 has gone live. If you pick it up and put it back down that seems to fix the issue and she will begin responding again.
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There is a bug that causes you to lose your Eternal Pattern when attempting to Reshape. Until you hear from us that this issue is resolved DO NOT use Eternal Patterns!
If you have lost an Eternal Pattern due to this bug please submit a support ticket to support@portalarium.com and we will replace it as soon as we can. -
There is a bug that causes you to lose your Eternal Pattern when attempting to Reshape. Until you hear from us that this issue is resolved DO NOT use Eternal Patterns!
If you have lost an Eternal Pattern due to this bug please submit a support ticket to support@portalarium.com and we will replace it as soon as we can.
UPDATE: 8:20 PM 2/23/17 This is now fixed
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The latest Lot Deed Raffle was drawn with 50 lot deeds awarded to the following lucky winners. There were two raffles, one for each lot type:
-
Place Anywhere Deeds: 10 Total
- Row: 5
- Village: 3
- Town: 1
- City: 1
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Player Owned Town Deeds: 40 Total
- Row: 20
- Village: 12
- Town: 6
- City: 2
Release 38 Lot Deed Raffle Winners and R39 Raffle Details -
Place Anywhere Deeds: 10 Total
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The latest Lot Deed Raffle was drawn with 50 lot deeds awarded to the following lucky winners. There were two raffles, one for each lot type:
-
Place Anywhere Deeds: 10 Total
- Row: 5
- Village: 3
- Town: 1
- City: 1
-
Player Owned Town Deeds: 40 Total
- Row: 20
- Village: 12
- Town: 6
- City: 2
Raffle tickets grant the holder a chance to win deeds of any size (Row, Village, Town, or City). Raffles will be held monthly (total deed numbers will vary each month). Place-Anywhere Deed raffle tickets are more expensive but will have fewer deeds in each raffle than POT raffle tickets, which are more affordable and will have many more deeds in each raffle. This means your chances to win a POT deed are much greater.
This is another raffle where we limited winners to one deed per raffle type. Visit the forums to read more about this recent change.
Below is a complete list of the winners for this release’s raffle. Winners can claim their deed(s) simply by logging into the game and claiming rewards at any bank. A reminder that you may have received multiple deeds to claim if you received tickets for a guild or other group.
If you wish to review all of your account rewards outside of the game, you can do so by going to the Account menu on the main website and then selecting the ‘Special Rewards’ tab in the page menu.
Listed below are the winners:
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Place Anywhere Deeds: 10 Total
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Hello everyone, this is Asclepius, with the final instalment of this wonderful story from Andartianna. It is entitled
Harvest of the Shattered Moon
Background music by SmartsoundChapter 9, “Promise, Prison, and Pennyvise”
Iron Marshall and Blight Mister finished off the rest of the skeletons and the party cleared the way to the top floor of the tower. The top floor was filled with all sorts of torture devices, chains, and other horrors. Zazeriz saw Boniface slumped over, hung from chains, in one of the corners. Zazeriz raced over to Boniface and was struck with a Death Ray. She quickly repaired the damage with Healing Touch, but stopped where she stood. A deep booming voice rang throughout the hall. “Servant, have you brought the bonesteel dagger you promised me?”“Demonic spirit of Saul the Damned, I will do nothing for you. I have burned your mark and extinguished your fell blue flames. You will free Boniface and leave me and my companions in peace or step forward and be destroyed by our hands.” Zazeriz said.
“Small words from an insignificant being. I, however, sense that you have brought the bonesteel dagger with you. I will relieve you of the dagger and your bodies of their flesh and put your skeletons into a prison for all eternity as my slaves.” Saul the Damned said.
The blue light near Boniface began to intensify and an undead mage appeared. He immediately began resurrecting the skeletons that lay around him; each of their creaking brittle bones reforming into hideous abominations. Saul the Damned’s army of skeletons began attacking Zazeriz and her companions. As Zazeriz cast healing spells over her companions, she noticed that each of the skeletons that fell were quickly revived by Saul the Damned.
Zazeriz began searching for a way to prevent the skeletons from reviving. When a close one fell next to her, she quickly dug through its bones searching for whatever items kept it under the control of Saul the Damned. After Zazeriz removed all the items from the skeleton, the bones no longer revived. Zazeriz called out to her companions, “Quickly! Loot every corpse that falls. Take all their items. This prevents them from resurrecting.”
Iron Maiden dashed forward as another skeleton fell and grabbed all the items on its body. The rest of Zazeriz’ party quickly followed suit and within a short time Saul the Damned was all alone. Now the entire party focused all their attacks onto Saul the Damned, which quickly crushed his health. Pennyvise surged forward to crush Saul the Damned’s last health point, but the skeleton mage exploded into blue flames before Pennyvise could hit him. Saul the Damned’s ominous voice rang throughout the hall. “You have defeated me this time, but I will have my revenge should you ever be foolish enough to enter the Artifice.”
Chapter 10, “Saul, Scroll, and Surprise. “
Saul the Damned’s fire vanished from the room and Zazeriz rushed over to Boniface. She reached into her pouch and took out a health potion then slowly dropped it into Boniface’s mouth. Boniface shook with terror for a moment then opened her eyes and saw Zazeriz standing in front of her.“Ugg those health potions are so sweet. I don’t know how people can drink them.” Boniface said with a half smile.
Zazeriz stifled a laugh then quickly broke the chains that held Boniface to the wall and carefully helped Boniface cross the room. Iron Marshall stepped forward and lifted Boniface into his arms and helped carry her out of the Shuttered Eye Tower.
After about a week of recovering in Ardoris, Boniface was ready to travel back to Ecteter. She was able to stand long enough to use a recall scroll to teleport back to Ecteter. Zazeriz stayed in with Boniface for a few days making sure that she was cared for. Snip-snip visited frequently, and after a short while, Boniface seemed to be almost back to normal. She sat at the long table in the main floor of the Bilge and Barnacle Tavern and stared at Zazeriz. “What is going to happen now?”
“I believe that Organized Chaos, myself included, have decided to enter the Artifice and track down the person responsible for the Blood River Massacre. It seems that their breach has now interfered with both of our lives. I also want to know what the Bonesteel dagger has to do with the Tower of the Shuttered Eye, and the only way I’m going to get answers is to enter the Artifice. I have a surprise for you if you will allow me to give it to you.” Zazeriz said.
“Oh? What sort of surprise?” Boniface asked.
“Follow me and I will show you.” Zazeriz said.
“All right. Lead on.” Boniface said.
Zazeriz led Boniface out into the outskirts of the city of Ecteter where they had been celebrating the harvest festival before Boniface was captured. Waiting on the hillside above the city beside a giant burning bonfire were all the members of Organized Chaos. They all cheered as Boniface walked next to the bonfire.
“Boniface, we know that you were a little occupied with recovering after your ordeal, so we took the liberty of entering your beer into this year’s best in Novia competition of beers.” Blight Mister said, lifting a giant golden stein trophy. “We are happy to say that you won the competition for all of Novia, and here is your trophy.”
Boniface gave an exasperated cry of joy and took the giant golden stein trophy into her arms, hugging it closely to her chest. All of Organized Chaos cheered her on and enjoyed many barrels of beer. As the moon crossed overhead, Zazeriz pondered the future, wondering where hellish fury would find her next and how she would defeat it.
The End for now……
The post Harvest of the Shattered Moon 4 – by Andartianna – narrated by Asclepius appeared first on Echoes from the Caverns.
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[From a forum post by Starr “Darkstarr” Long]
Avatars,
Please read this entire message, as well as the linked instructions and known issues.
Thank you for being a loyal backer and follower of Shroud of the Avatar. Release 39 access for all Early Access backers begins this Thursday, February 23, at 10:30 AM US Central Standard Time (15:30 UTC).
Despite February being a short month and therefore Release 39 being a short release, we have a ton of new content in this release; including more story, new scenes, and major new systems such as Patterns, Town Blessings, and Magic Movers!
Scenes and Story: We continue to make progress on the story this release by focusing on the Path of Courage, which is fast approaching the polish level of the Path of Love. We have also placed significant emphasis on realizing the vision of the Kobolds and their technological gifts. This presents itself in Release 39 in the form of the City Kobolds, the dungeons of K’rul and K’rawl, and a menagerie of Clockwork Attack Creatures. Additionally, we polished the fire visuals in all three of the starting scenes to what we consider competitive standards. Finally, we have begun adding pockets of Tier 6-10 enemies to 5 Skull scenes in the game (such as Deep Ravenswood) to provide greater challenge to higher level players.
Patterns: The crafting system has had a major expansion with the addition of the Patterns system. This system allows players to visually reshape weapons and armor by using patterns that can be salvaged from rare loot or purchased in the Add On Store.Town Blessings and Magic Movers: Player housing became much more interesting in Release 39 with these two major improvements. Town Blessing Devotionals can now be placed by town owners and they each bestow a different set of buffs (one combat and one crafting related). Magic Movers now allow players to store fully decorated houses and basements for retrieval later. You can even move them between owned lots, of the same size, in the same scene.
Combat Cover and Utility Bar: Combat also improves this release with cover now decreasing the amount of damage you take in combat. We have also made the non-combat bar stay visible during combat to facilitate use of consumable items during combat. This should give players who actively use potions and foods an effective alternative to placing consumables in their deck.
Yet again, I want to express a huge amount of gratitude to our Dev+ backers who tested all of the items below on the QA server and uncovered lots of bugs. They also provided editorial feedback on this post. They are a big reason that this post actually matches what is in the game, and that it is easy to read.
While we are getting closer to launch, we are still in a constant state of change. We do not yet have all of the in-game systems needed to inform players about these changes, and to help them to explore new content and systems. This means we rely mostly on this message, and the linked instructions and known issues to convey the current game state. We regularly have to answer questions or filter bug reports because some players elect not to read this valuable information.
By taking a few moments to read through this information, a great deal of our time and efforts can be redirected to focus on new “unanswered” questions, and addressing critical issues impacting each release. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to review this post, and for all the truly valuable feedback you continue to provide.
Also, remember that while we are providing new content with each release, our community is working overtime to make new events for you to enjoy. Be sure to check out a couple of the event calendars run by our community members (via in-game book or the player-run websites: Avatars Circle and Events of the Avatars). You can also get the latest official events on the Main Website.
Without further ado, here is a list of what you can expect to see in Release 39.
Key:
- Plain Text: The original plan for the Release deliverables. We intentionally preserve the original text so that our backers can compare plan versus actuals.
- Italics: Extra notes and new deliverables.
- Strikethrough: These are items that did not make the release (but are still planned).
RELEASE 39, February 23, 2017
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Story: We will continue polishing the Path of Courage with emphasis on moving the player smoothly through this part of the story. We will also be adding another Siege Encounter map and un-cloning the Rhun Ruins.
- Path of Courage Polish: Various changes were made to the Path of Courage, including new NPC conversations in Valhold, proper journal/task support for the ending sequence, and experience rewards for finishing the Path of Courage commensurate to the Path of Love.
- Blood River Polish: Various changes elaborating on the massacre that happened here, along with better tutorial support for new users. Additionally, players are no longer sent to Soltown after the sequence is complete. Support for sidequests in Aerie and Vertas similar to Soltown and Ardoris will come in future releases, but for now we continue to recommend new players begin with the Path of Love for the best experience.
- Quest Discovery & Navigation Improvements: We are working on improving the ability to find characters who have quests and/or who you have active tasks to complete for quests. Characters who have quests for you, or who have current active tasks, will now have a blue glow. The character’s glow will turn off once you complete all quests assigned to it. Additionally, as long as you are on a quest for a character, they will appear as a Point of Interest on your compass. These will be options you can turn off if you wish to continue to play “old school.” We lovingly call this system “Totally not an !”.
- NPC Conversation Interface Improvements: Work continues on polish and bug fixes. This release we focused on the order of keyword sorting (so that once you use a keyword it sorts to the back of the list) and added pagination (so that you can step through longer text without having to scroll back using a “More..” prompt).
- Journal Improvements: If a quest sends you into an area that requires combat (such as a dungeon or hostile area), the journal entry will warn you if the difficulty of the area is more than you can currently handle. As your skills grow in power, the evaluation in your journal will change. This is not exact, but should warn avatars a bit too eager to head to their certain doom. We will be adding many combat-related tasks going forward and this will help you be aware of which are currently appropriate for your character.
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K’rul: Underneath Blood Bay, far from the prying eyes of the Oracle, top Kobold researchers work in the Kobold Research Underground Laboratories: a.k.a. K’rul. In this vast underground facility, Kobolds build ever larger and more dangerous automatons and craft mysterious weapons. K’rul will be filled with top tier Kobolds and automatons to battle, as well as dangerous technological traps and puzzles.
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K’rawl: This long tunnel system connects Skrekk to K’rul and consists of long tracks and mine carts that can be ridden! However, regular checkpoints by Kobold sentries and traps make traversing this underground quite risky. So that groups can travel the K’rawl to K’rul, Skrekk can now be entered by parties. (The Path of Courage instance of Skrekk remains limited to solo players.)
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North Drachvald Spur: North Drachvald Spur is located near the Sirens mountains in the Drachvald region in the northeastern section of Novia. It started as a clone of the Whiteguard Foothills and got completely rebuilt as a new scene for Release 39. The area is home to a group of bandits who have been ambushing supply convoys using rock slides. The area will also feature the remnants of an abandoned mine and a mysterious watchtower. The rock slides take advantage of our new traps technology. SPOILERS: Combat in the center of the main bandit headquarters has a good chance of drawing out enemies which are more challenging than the rest of the area!
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Upper Fortus: The Fortus River runs south-to-north through a large canyon in the North Paladis region to the east of the Sanctus Spine Control Point. Kobolds have established a mining facility here using steam to soften the terrain. Bandits have a camp nearby and have been raiding the shipments of ore and therefore, the Kobolds have been ramping up their defenses of the mining facility. Expect strong resistance when trying to raid the Kobold mining camp; and the bandits are not going to be too friendly either! This scene started as a clone of North Varisalla Foothills but has been completely rebuilt for Release 39.
- Fire Visuals in Starting Scenes: We upgraded and replaced all the fire visual effects in the three starting scenes (Blood River, Highvale, and Solace Bridge) to what we consider competitive standards.
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Perennial Coast Improvements:
- Architecture/Flora: In Release 38, we missed a few scenes along the Perennial Coast in our pass to update the flora and architecture to match the new Asian influence we first showed in Ardoris during Release 37. In some cases it was as simple as missing flora (bamboo) in swamp scenes, but in other cases we missed entire scenes like the PRT Aldwater. Some of these missing scenes have been addressed in R39 and more will be addressed in R40.
- NPC Appearances: In Release 38, there were still some NPCs in Perennial Coast scenes that did not yet have regionally-appropriate appearances. As of this release, all NPCs in these scenes are properly attired, and feature some brand new outfits. These include citizen/farmer clothing with variants for commoners and shopkeepers, as well as a wider variety of kimonos for use by the region’s upper class.
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Tier 6+ Additions: Inspired by the Liches in Deep Ravenswood we are going to be adding pockets of higher level enemies (Tier 6-10) to all 5 Skull (aka Tier 5) maps. Some of these will always be present but some will only be there when triggered by an event or interaction (like lighting a signal fire). Each release we will add these to a few maps until all Tier 5 maps have been covered.
- Ulfheim: The fiercest of the Northern Barbarians have firmly established Ulfheim as their home. Find them at Urdhalla near the center of this territory.
- Sequanna Colossus: A supreme Lich Lord and his undead guards are striking fear in nearby areas.
- Necropolis Barrens: Rumors abound that at night insanely wicked spiders appear to wreak havoc on the unwary who dare tread here. Their domain is now thick with the webs they use to capture their prey.
- Verdantis Shardfall: An elite squad of Elves has set up headquarters on an island off the coast.
- Chaos Bosses: Several new chaos focused Bosses have been added to the Ruins and Shardfalls. Because they are chaotic, they are also quite rare because they show up when they feel like it…
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Traps and Interactions Additions: With Release 38 we added new traps and interactive functionality to the game, including moving platforms, pressure plates, flame jets, arrow shooters, gas fields, etc. Going forward we will be adding this functionality to existing maps each release until they have been propagated across the entire game. We will be also expanding the functionality of our existing interactions and/or adding new ones each release.
- Moving Platform via Switch: Moving platforms can now be started and stopped via a switch. The first example of this is the elevator in Upper Fortus.
- Exploding Barrels: We now have exploding barrels that can be used for various purposes, including traps. In R39, you can see them used in North Drachvald Spur to trigger the landslide.
- Landslide: This new trap unleashes a tide of rocks down a mountainside on unwary players. In R39, you can see it in North Drachvald Spur
- Electric Damage Field: This new damaging field can be seen in K’rul.
- South Fetid Swamp and North Fetid Swamp: We added fetid pools in these scenes that are poisonous.
- South Longfall Wetland: There is an area of “quickmud” here that slows players down much like quicksand.
- Resolute Sewers: We added a fire arrow trap to the bandit treasure room, triggered when you open the door.
- Soltown Sewers: Firespout traps were added within the “trash fire” area.
- Solania Catacombs: A compound fire arrow trap lies in wait within one of the corridors of this scene.
- Kingsport Sewers: We added a series of flame spout traps to a hallway, along with a note indicating how to pass through unscathed.
- Upper Fortus: Super-heated steam leaks from several pipes in the Kobold area. Look for valves that can turn some of the leaks on and off.
- Hate Encounter: A new encounter along the Path of Love has been added to Ardoris. A run-down homestead shelters a nasty collection of people, spreading their message of hate from the outskirts of the City of Love.
- Siege Conversation Improvements: The Guard you encounter in the siege scenes who instructs you to destroy the catapults now warns you that this is only for the strongest of adventurers and also speaks of the side path alternative that is only lightly guarded.
- Brittany Neighborhood Connections: In each Brittany neighborhood scene, we swapped out all the individual wagon and balloon teleporters to Novia for list teleporters which provide direct access to all other Brittany neighborhood scenes as well as Novia.
- Brittany Castle: The castle interior is now heavily defended with the addition of many guards.
- Ardoris Palaces: These now have custom thrones instead of the using pledge reward thrones.
- Canyon Siege: This “Hills Siege” was actually added in Release 38.
- Rhun Delayed: While we completed the world building of Rhun Ruins, that completion did not happen until close to the end of the release. This would not have given us much time to do all the NPC placement and resource spawning, so we decided to wait until Release 40 to push this to live.
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Scene Bug Fixes: We went through tons of scenes in the game fixing major and minor bugs including stuck spots, floating assets, missing assets, missing sound effects, bad NPC patrols, inaccessible ore nodes, missing collision, missing/misplaced Resurrection Ankhs, falling through the world, etc.
- Aerie
- Approach to the Shuttered Eye
- Ardoris
- Blood Bay
- Brittany Central
- Brittany Estates
- Brittany Fields
- Brittany Graveyard
- Brittany Sewers
- Brittany Wharfs
- Brookside
- Celestis
- Deep Ravenswood
- East Perennial Trail
- Elad’s Lighthouse
- Elysium Mines
- Estgard
- Etceter
- Forest Siege
- Greymark Forest
- Harvest
- Hills Siege
- Isle of Storms
- Kiln
- Kiln Cistern
- Nightshade Pass
- North Celestial Wetlands
- Northwest Blackblade Mountains
- Novia Overworld
- Owl’s Head Sewers
- Paladis Passage
- Ravensmoor
- Resolute
- Restless Woods
- Rhun Ruins
- Ruined Keep
- Sanctus Spine
- Sequanna Colossus
- Solania
- Soltown
- South Brightbone Woods
- Southern Grunvald Barrens
- Spectral Mines
- Spite
- The Epitaph
- Valhold
- Valhold Palace
- Vertas
- Vertas Pass
- Wynton’s Folly
- Xenos
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Player Housing: The ability to rent rooms in a player home will start to become available to homeowners. Additionally, the Shogun bundles will come online as we continue to expand our water placeable houses and our Shogun line of houses. We will begin the work necessary to make player equipment placeable as decorations. Also, containers will begin to have limits on how many items can be placed inside them. Finally, updates to Dynamic Player-Owned Towns that have locked submission forms will appear in the game.
- Decorated Lot/Decorated Basement Moving & Saving (aka Magic Movers): Players can now save a fully decorated lot or basement to their local bank 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.
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Town Blessings: Owners of Player Towns now have the ability to place 11 different Devotionals to the 8 Virtues and 3 Principles in their towns. Each Devotional offers a different blessing and the power of the blessing is based on how many people live in the town. To receive a blessing you merely need to stand near a Devotional that has been placed in a POT or NPC town. Players can only have two blessings active at any time so visiting a Devotional while other blessings are active will overwrite the oldest blessing. These Devotionals also attract the attention of the Cabalists and there is a chance that your town will come under siege if you have them placed (starting in R40). These devotionals will also appear in NPC towns starting in R40. Please note that these Devotionals are new decorations and not the original items tentatively planned to be associated with Blessings (Hooded Statue, Titan Statues, Dragon Bones, etc.). All town owners will receive these new devotionals as rewards and the original items can continue to be used as purely decorative items. You will need to claim rewards at a bank to receive these rewards. Here is a list of the base level Devotionals that are included with each POT and the associated blessings:
- Truth: Intelligence Buff
- Love: Dexterity Buff
- Courage: Strength Buff
- Humility: Magic Resistance Buff and Fishing Bait Recovery Buff
- Honesty: Focus Buff and Alchemy Buff
- Justice: Fizzle Reduction and Cooking Buff
- Honor: Focus Regeneration Buff and Agriculture Buff
- Spirituality: Adventuring Level Buff and Fishing Level Buff
- Compassion: Dodge Buff and Tailoring Buff
- Sacrifice: Health Regeneration Buff and Carpentry Buff
- Valor: Health Buff and Blacksmith Buff
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- Placeable Handheld Musical Instruments: For our first foray into making handheld player items decorations, we picked handheld musical instruments because they are a nice small subset of items to experiment with as we work our way through the system. This means players can now place lutes, harps, flutes, and tabor drums as floor decorations. In subsequent releases, we will continue to expand this until eventually all handheld items will be placeable as decorations.
- Shogun Homes: We have added built in lighting to all of these homes.
- Cobblestone and Rough Stone Roadway Pavers: Town owners requested pavers in much longer lengths for making roads in their towns and provided a suggested template of 16 different pieces representing a variety of shapes (curves, crossways, wedges, etc.). The long pieces are 8 times longer than a regular paver, so should allow for making roads without using too much of a town’s decoration limits. For Release 39 there are two variations; Rough Stone (in-game craftable) and Cobblestone (add-on store).
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Shogun Castle Wall Set: As part of our Perennial Coast improvements we created a new Castle / Town wall set based on the Asian assets. For R39, we have made that wall set into a player decoration set available in the Add-On Store.
- Ornate Steel Chest: While iterating on the creation of the Kobold Chests (see below) we created this Ornate Steel Chest available in the Add-On Store.
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Greco-Roman Statuary: Players really enjoyed seeing all the Greco-Roman statuary in Xenos when we uncloned it in R38, so in R39 we have made all of that statuary available as player decorations. This represents over 40 new pieces!
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Craftable:
- Ruined Stone Arch
- Three Nudes Wall Carving
- Woman Bust Sculpture
- Carved Tombstone with Two Women
- Archaic Boy Statue
- Grey Marble Bench
- Doric Column
- Small Doric Column
- Doric Column Pedestal
- Composite Column
- Small Composite Column
- Man’s Head Statue on Pedestal
- Ancient General Head Statue on Pedestal
- Woman’s Head Statue on Pedestal
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Add-On Store:
- Ancient Wall Sculptures Pack (Receiving of Wheat Sheaves Relief, Reclining Figure Relief, Reclining Figure Relief)
- Horse Statue
- Giant Horse Statue
- Carved Decorative Fountain
- Ionic Columns Set (Ionic Column, Ionic Column Pedestal, Ionic Pedestal, Small Ionic Column)
- Corinthian Columns Set (Corinthian Column, Corinthian Column Pedestal, Corinthian Pedestal, Small Corinthian Column)
- Ancients Statue Set (General Statue, General with Sword and Spear Statue, Headless Woman Statue, Nude Man Statue, Philosopher Statue)
- Smaller Ancients Statue Set (Bust of Child, Woman’s Torso Statue, Man’s Torso Statue, Matriarch Bust, Patriarch Bust)
- Ancient Vase
- Reclining Statues Set (Reclining Man Statue, Reclining with Lion Statue, Reclining Woman Statue)
- Nobles Statue Set (Explorer Statue, Feasting Nobleman Statue, Huntress Statue, Nobleman Statue, Nobleman with Cornucopia Statue)
- Tan Marble Bench
- Sphinx Statues Pack
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Craftable:
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Tabletop Stone Statues: We have created tabletop versions of all the existing stone statues including the Bear, Kobold, Elemental, etc. to the Add-On Store
- Tabletop Trees: Inspired by our recent foray into Asian themes along the Perennial Coast, we have created tabletop versions of all of our Add-On Store trees and plants that are reminiscent of Japanese Bonsai.
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Giant Trees: We have taken the technique we used to create the “Yew” tree to create giant variants of all our Add-On Store trees.
- Concept Art Rugs: Caravaggio’s Wolf, the Crown Art Merchant in Ardoris, now carries rugs made of the Shroud concept art.
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Water Decorations: We added the ability to place decorations on water in R38 and we are slowly adding more decorations that use this new technology.
- Ornate Water Platform & Water Platform: These floating wooden platforms are perfect for adding useable area to your water lot. The Floating Platform can be crafted in-game and the Ornate Floating Platform can be purchased from the Add-On Store.
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Ornate Water Post & Rope Fence Set and Water Post & Rope Fence Set: This fence kit gives players with water lots the ability to fence off their lot. The ornate version can be purchased from the Add-On Store and the regular version can be crafted in-game.
- Kobold Chest & Ornate Kobold Chest: We did an audit on the contents of all our bundles and realized that the Kobold bundles were the only bundles that did not have chests! So we are fixed this in Release 39. The Kobold 2-Story Row House Tax Free Player Owned Town Lot Bundle now has a Kobold Metal Chest in it and the Kobold Village Home Tax Free Player Owned Town Lot Bundle now has an Ornate Kobold Metal Chest in it. You will need to claim rewards at a bank to receive these rewards.
- Teletype Animations: The avatar now animates typing on the keys when using the Teletype. The Teletype also animates with turning gears and rotating paper.
- Container Limits: This was actually completed in Release 38.
- Shogun Bundles and Water Homes: We actually completed all of the Shogun Bundles and Water Homes in Release 38.
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Home Bugfixes:
- Elven 4-Story Rowhouse
- Ornate Greenhouse 4-Story Rowhouse
- Kobold Dwelling Village Home
- Viking 2-Story Stronghold
- Lord of the Manor Twin Spires Manor
- Pristine Gothic Mansion Water Home
- Shogun 5-Story City Home
- Lord Founder Town Home
- Wizard’s Tower
- Small Old Keep
- Shogun Lighthouse
- Baron Frigate
- Lord Benefactor Town Home
- Grand City Chateau
- Obsidian 4-Story Rowhouse
- Knight Founder Village Keep
- Wood & Plaster 2-Story w/ Front Porch Town Home
- Garden Shed
- Longboat
- Room Renting Delayed: In order to get room renting working properly, we had to entirely refactor how we store and save items in player homes. This in turn led us to realize that we should work on the ability to save a decorated home (and eventually move it) before we do Room Rentals, so we have chosen to delay Room Renting for now.
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R38 Lot Deed Raffle Tickets: The drawings for our Sixth Lot Deed Raffle will be held on February 23, 2017 and winners will be announced shortly thereafter. Deeds will be delivered in Release 39.
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Place Anywhere Deeds (10):
- Row: 5
- Village: 3
- Town: 1
- City: 1
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Player Owned Town Deeds (40):
- Row: 20
- Village: 12
- Town: 6
- City: 2
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Place Anywhere Deeds (10):
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R39 Lot Deed Raffle Tickets: This will be the Seventh Lot Deed Raffle. For this raffle we again dropped the numbers lower to better match current demand and pace remaining stock. As always, Raffle tickets can be purchased with in game gold. As with R38, each person can only win a single deed of each type (maximum of one place anywhere and one POT). The drawing and winners will be in R40.
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Place Anywhere Deeds (10):
- Row: 5
- Village: 3
- Town: 1
- City: 1
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Player Owned Town Deeds (20):
- Row: 10
- Village: 6
- Town: 2
- City: 2
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Place Anywhere Deeds (10):
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New and Updated Dynamic POTs: Note that we stopped processing POT changes involving template swaps about halfway through the release because we hope to leverage the Magic Movers system in R40 to preserve residents homes during those changes. Our apologies to those of you who we had already processed (we didn’t have a way to go back) and a thank you to those of you who are patient while you wait for the upcoming feature.
- Bay Lunaire: Adjusted interconnection boat locations.
- Brittany Fort: Renamed (formerly Tear). Converted to Swamp 01. Ownership changed. Rotated to “Left”. Changed location. Interconnection (with Brittany Fields). Set to non PvP.
- Festival: Upgraded to Hamlet.
- Kahli: Interconnection (with Braemar).
- Neath: Changed location. Interconnection (with New Britannian Market).
- Oceania: Interconnection (with Ardoris).
- Oracle Oasis: Upgraded to Hamlet.
- Painted Caves: Ownership changed. Interconnection (with Ardoris). Set to non PvP.
- Rift’s End: Changed location. Interconnections (with Northwood and Blood Bay).
- Shangri La: Renamed (formerly Warehouse City).
- Silverston: Ownership changed.
- Sionann: Converted to Forest 02. Nested interconnection changed to within Kiln.
- Vale Halla: Interconnection (with Bay Lunaire).
- Verat Chaos: Upgraded to Village.
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Combat: The cover system will be introduced and will modify attack and defense values when you (or your target) are behind cover. We will also be refactoring how ammunition works for ranged weapons so that we can have a greater variety of ranged weapons and introduce different types of ammunition, including the ability to craft those ammunition types.
- Combat Cover: Being behind cover now decreases the amount of damage taken in combat. Cover is considered any object that blocks, or partially blocks direct line of sight between you and a target.
- “Utility” Bar: The non-combat bar will now stay visible during combat and consumable items in that bar can be used from that bar. This should allow players who actively use potions and foods a much better alternative than allocating space in their deck. Consumables used from this bar will have the same cool down values that the combat bar uses. Note that we are experimenting with allowing a few spells we consider “utility” spells to be useable from here as well. For now these include Summoning Spells, Light, Night Vision and Resurrection.
- Moving While Fighting Animations: We rebuilt the animation rig to better support animations for combat while moving. This should make animations during combat look much, much better.
- Weapon Trails Polish: We did polish pass on the visual effects associated with weapon trails (the swipes left behind as a weapon swings through the air).
- Ignite Weapon Effect Polish: We performed a major visual upgrade to the visual effects for Ignite Weapons. Your flaming sword has never looked more incredible than now!
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Poison Refactor: The Poison Weapon skill is now a passive skill. Additionally, there are now multiple poison types with different effects that can all be crafted.
- Stinging Poison: Weaker than existing poison, DOT.
- Deadly Poison: On par with existing poison, DOT.
- Numbing Poison: Dexterity debuff.
- Corpion Poison: Instant damage, strong damage.
- Paralyzing Spider Venom Poison: Instant damage, mild damage plus attack speed debuff.
- Chaotic Corruption Poison: Random effect per hit like Chaos bolt.
- Festering Death Poison: Greater Poison effect PLUS heal debuff.
- Resurrection Timer: When players die, a timer now appears on screen to show how long before automatic resurrection will be triggered.
- Catapults and Engineers: Catapults in Sieges are now attended by a team of Tier 8 engineers and guards who defend and operate the catapult. Only when three waves of engineers are killed will the catapult cease firing. Additionally, killing those engineers has a chance to yield a recipe for a tabletop catapult decoration and lots of lumber as loot. Note that killing the engineers is now what triggers the appearance of the liches, not destroying the catapults.
- More Artifacts: More than 30 new artifacts have been added to the game, along with the first epic artifact! We wouldn’t want to spoil it for you by telling you what they are, however…
- Obsidian Book of Unlearning Tooltip: These items now have a tooltip that explains how to use them to unlearn skills and therefore free up the experience spent on them.
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Icon for Spawn-In Protection: A buff icon now appears on your character when they have the temporary immunity when first appearing in a scene.
- Air Elementals: Air Elementals are now immune to the Air magic spell Gust (as they should be!).
- Damage Interrupts Eating: If you take damage while eating, it will now interrupt your consumption and you will have to resume eating again.
- Push (Polearms): Fixed tooltip to show that the skill hits two targets by default.
- Knockdown and Break Armor (Bludgeon): These two skills now have a unique animations when using a 2-handed bludgeon.
- Pets Generate Threat on Owner: Tamed/Summoned Pet attacks now apply threat to the pet’s owner. This makes it increasingly difficult for a pet to exclusively hold threat/aggro on enemies permanently, and they will now refocus upon the pet’s owner over the course of combat.
- Heal modifier: Can increase or decrease the effect of regeneration and healing effects, but not life drains. In R39, players will see this as a new effect on some poisons and a few skills. Very important in PVP for block healing effects for players. Also key in boss fights where DPS vs regen rate can be challenging.
- Locked Combat Skills Timer: Locked Combat Skills now only take 1/4th the cooldown time when combat is started.
- Unlocked skills now have a proper cooldown time: In most cases, this time is 2X the locked cooldown time. These skills will still be usable at 2.5X faster than the normal cooldown speed. This change will likely only be noticeable by a small number of people who were speeding through small decks very quickly.
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Slow Effects Refactored: Slow effects on Ice related spells received a significant math overhaul.
- The base value was reduced. Due to changes in maximum attainable attunement through gear, the maximum achievable slow value could reach 99% and result in creatures being paralyzed for the duration of the spell.
- Creatures with exceptionally high strength can now break out of the ice more quickly.
- The movement slow effects only affects targets when they are on the ground.
- Puncture, Skewer, and Rend: These skills all now include a healing/regen debuff that is placed on the target that slows/blocks healing.
- Belts: These are now their own type of gear and should show up as such in tooltips.
- Earth’s Embrace: The math for this spell’s movement slowing effect has been reworked to be based on the square root of strength. This makes it more tolerable for lower level players and prevents super powerful players from actually getting a movement buff from it.
- Ghost Corpion: This creature is now properly flagged as an Undead creature, so spells like Banish Undead will now work as expected.
- Water Elementals: They are no longer immune to fire damage.
- Ammunition Refactor Delayed: Work on other systems including Cover, Patterns, Poison, and Blessings caused us to have to delay work on Ammunition.
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Character: We will begin work polishing the Kobolds and updating them to better reflect their lore, which attributes much of the technology in Novia to them. We will also begin introducing the first of the Obsidian Cabalists. Lastly, ducks will be winging their way into the hearts, minds, and yes, bellies of Novians.
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City Kobolds: In Release 39. we have begun working on what we are calling our “City Kobolds.” These are the Kobolds that live in Skrekk and other places like K’rul. They are much more advanced than anyone else in Novia, and the source of almost all of the technology that you see in the game; including clockwork creatures and aether vibration amplifiers. City Kobolds use advanced armor and weaponry including chainswords, electric axes, gas guns, electric blunderbusses, grenades, etc. In some cases, City Kobolds are friendly to players (depending on story elements) and there are rumors of City Kobold Merchants who sell rare Kobold technology to players. The other Kobolds players have interacted with until now have been what we now call Village Kobolds, and will remain what players encounter in outdoor zones and small Kobold habitations. In Release 39, you will be able to find our first round of City Kobolds in K’rul. In Release 40, we will be updating Skrekk with City Kobolds, including a new unique visual for King Korabar.
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Kobold Gunner: Specializes in ranged weapons like the Electric Blunderbuss. Note that we don’t have guns working yet, so they may wield more traditional weapons until R40.
- Kobold Brawler: A melee specialist who wields electric axes, chainswords, and steam hammers. Not all of these weapons are complete yet so they may wield more traditional weapons until R40.
- Kobold Grenadier: A chemicals and explosives specialist who deals with grenades, flamethrowers, and gas guns. Note that we don’t have guns working yet, so they may wield more traditional weapons until R40.
- Kobold Merchant: A friendly Kobold who will allow players to purchase goods.
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Kobold Gunner: Specializes in ranged weapons like the Electric Blunderbuss. Note that we don’t have guns working yet, so they may wield more traditional weapons until R40.
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Attack Clockworks: The City Kobolds defend their territories fiercely and part of their defenses are an army of Clockwork beasts. Players have already seen some of these in previous releases including the Shock Monkey and Clockwork Dragon. In R39, the Clockwork menagerie expands to include Attack and size variants of some of our existing Clockwork beasts. The Clockwork Attack Dogs and Cats (which are the size of mountain lions) are used by Kobold guard patrols to knockdown and tear up trespassers. The Clockwork Attack Ravens have confusion fields that make fighting them especially challenging. We have also introduced giant versions of the Shock Monkey that have stomp and throw attacks, as well as a scaled-down version of the Clockwork Dragon that works well within interior spaces. Finally, there are giant versions of the Oracle Flyers and Oracle Crawlers that shock and stun players who try to fight them.
- Clockwork Attack Dog: These fierce creatures are used by Kobold guard patrols to charge after trespassers, knocking them down and then using their sharp claws that rend to bleed them out.
- Clockwork Attack Cat: These stealthy mountain lion-sized beasts are used by Kobold guard patrols to trip up and then rend enemies.
- Clockwork Attack Raven: These flyers have confusion fields that make fighting them especially challenging.
- Assassin Automaton: Using stealth these will sneak up on unwary Outlanders then shock them and rend them.
- Giant Shock Monkeys: These larger versions of the shock monkeys have stomp and throw attacks.
- Giant Hacked Oracle Flyers and Crawlers: These larger versions of the Oracle watchers shock and stun players who try to fight them.
- Clockwork Wyvern: This is a scaled down version of the Clockwork Dragon that works better in interior spaces.
- Mushroom Monsters: These fungal creatures have weak melee attacks that are mostly annoying until they get in large groups. However, if you kill them, they can unleash devastation with clouds of noxious spores that poison and confuse opponents.
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Wealthy Merchant Outfit: Wealthy merchants in Novia will be wearing this new outfit, and it is also available for purchase in the Add-On Store as an Outfit (and in a Pattern Pack).
- Epic Cloth Armor (Female): The chest piece on the female version of Epic Cloth has been modified to be more formfitting.
- Kobold Chain Sword: This fearsome clockwork sword tears enemies apart with sharp teeth that are rapidly pulled along the length of the weapon. It is wielded in game by Kobold Brawlers in K’rul and K’rawl (and soon to be Skrekk in R40).
- Norgard Lucerne Hammer: This awesome 2-handed polearm can be found on high level enemies in the northwestern regions of Novia.
- Norgard Spatha: This deadly 1-handed blade can be found on high level enemies in the northwestern regions of Novia.
- Satyr Bardiche: This fearsome 2-handed polearm can be found on high level Satyrs.
- Vile Falchion: This wicked 1-handed blade can be found on high level Undead.
- Katana: High level human enemies along the Perennial coast wield these curved 2-handed swords.
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Ornate Flamberge: This beautiful 2-handed sword is available until March 9 as a weapon and as a Pattern Pack in the Add-On Store.
- Ornate Basket Hilt Broadsword: This gorgeous 1-handed heavy blade is available as a weapon and as a Pattern Pack in the Add-On Store.
- Ornate Satyr Bardiche: This wicked 2-handed polearm favored by satyrs is available as a weapon and as a Pattern Pack in the Add-On Store.
- Ornate Elven Mage Staff: This beautifully carved 2-handed staff is available as a weapon and as a Pattern Pack in the Add-On Store.
- Ornate Dagger: This deadly and wonderfully crafted little blade is available as a weapon and as a Pattern Pack in the Add-On Store.
- Autoplay /read emotes: When players are reading a book or a note, we now automatically play the /readpaper or /readbook emote.
- /boo renamed to /scare: We are in the process of creating a new emote for /boo to be used when expressing your displeasure with a bad performance, so we had to rename the original emote which is intended for scaring folks.
- Obsidian Cabalists Delayed: We have actually finished the art for the Cabalists, but we wanted to take more time to develop their fighting behaviors and artifacts that they wield — so we are holding them until Release 40.
- Ducks Delayed: We chose to take some extra time with the Kobolds and Cabalists instead of spending time on the Ducks.
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City Kobolds: In Release 39. we have begun working on what we are calling our “City Kobolds.” These are the Kobolds that live in Skrekk and other places like K’rul. They are much more advanced than anyone else in Novia, and the source of almost all of the technology that you see in the game; including clockwork creatures and aether vibration amplifiers. City Kobolds use advanced armor and weaponry including chainswords, electric axes, gas guns, electric blunderbusses, grenades, etc. In some cases, City Kobolds are friendly to players (depending on story elements) and there are rumors of City Kobold Merchants who sell rare Kobold technology to players. The other Kobolds players have interacted with until now have been what we now call Village Kobolds, and will remain what players encounter in outdoor zones and small Kobold habitations. In Release 39, you will be able to find our first round of City Kobolds in K’rul. In Release 40, we will be updating Skrekk with City Kobolds, including a new unique visual for King Korabar.
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Crafting: We will be expanding the crafting system to include molds “Patterns” that can be used to create visual variants for weapons and armor (Elven, Norgard, Obsidian, Kobold). We will also be refactoring the Agriculture interface and expanding functionality to include new skills like batch planting.
- Patterns: This system will allow players to change the visual appearance of many items in the game while preserving the functionality and data associated with the item the pattern is being applied to. In the case of a weapon, that means that it will still retain all of its stats, including damage range, durability, enchantments, etc., even though it looks different. Patterns are used to reshape existing pieces of gear in much the same way you would enchant that gear at a crafting station. To do this, take a weapon or a piece of armor to the appropriate station (ex. Longbow to a carpentry station) and then use a pattern to reshape that item into something visually different. Patterns can be obtained through purchase and from inside the game. You can read more about how the system works here; including Eternal Patterns (patterns salvaged from Add On Store gear). NOTE: We originally considered using the word “molds” for this system but since we were already using molds in the crafting system, and molds are really only applicable to metal and ceramic items (not cloth nor wood), we felt it would be confusing. Hence our choice to use the new term “Patterns” which is applicable to all material types.
- Crafting 2-Handed Axe: The 2-Handed axe created from crafting was accidentally pointing to the Founders 2-handed axe. This has been fixed.
- Potion Recipes 3X: Potion recipes will all now require the same reagents, but with 3 empty flasks instead of 1. Logically, they will now yield 3 potions per batch.
- Royal Purple Dye Recipe: This was mistakenly released as a teachable recipe. It is now a non-teachable recipe and has been removed from everyone except those who learned it from the original item.
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New Patterns: This is the first patch of patterns to be added to the game. You can expect this to expand greatly over the next several releases.
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Add On Store: The following list includes a mix of Eternal Patterns and Pattern Packs. Items that are exclusive to Bundles only receive Eternal Patterns.
- Ardoris Guard Armor (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
- Ardoris Priestess Robe (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
- Ardoris Shogun Armor (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
- Black Clockwork Armor (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
- Copper Clockwork Armor (Eternal Pattern)
- Darkstarr Shield (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
- Elven Elder Archer Armor (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
- Elven Elder Fighter Armor (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
- Elven Elder Mage Robe (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
- Lord British Shield (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
- Ornate Basket Hilt Broadsword (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
- Ornate Dagger (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
- Ornate Elven Longbow (Eternal Pattern)
- Ornate Elven Longsword (Eternal Pattern)
- Ornate Elven Mage Staff (Eternal Pattern & Pattern Pack)
- Ornate Flamberge (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
- Ornate Katana (Eternal Pattern)
- Ornate Satyr Bardiche (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
- Ornate Vile Halberd (Eternal Pattern)
- Ornate Vile Mace (Eternal Pattern)
- Silver Clockwork Armor (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
- Steel Clockwork Armor (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
- Viking Brynhildr Shield (Eternal Pattern)
- Viking Guor Shield (Eternal Pattern)
- Viking Helm (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
- Viking Tyr Shield (Eternal Pattern)
- Wealthy Medieval Merchant Outfit (Eternal & Pattern Pack)
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In-Game: These are obtained by salvaging these weapons that are looted from NPCs in the game.
- Kobold Hammer
- Kobold Chain Sword
- Elven Woodwind Longbow
- Katana
- Lich Axe
- Norgard Great Axe
- Norgard Lucerne Hammer (2H Polearm)
- Norgard Spatha
- Norgard Spear
- Satyr Axe
- Satyr Bardiche
- Vile Chekan (1H Hammer)
- Vile Falchion
- Vile Halberd
- Vile Mace
- Vile Shortsword
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Add On Store: The following list includes a mix of Eternal Patterns and Pattern Packs. Items that are exclusive to Bundles only receive Eternal Patterns.
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New Recipes:
- Water Platform
- Water Post & Rope Fence
- Desktop Catapult
- Rough Stone Roadway Pavers
- Stinging Poison
- Deadly Poison
- Numbing Poison
- Corpion Poison
- Paralyzing Spider Venom Poison
- Chaotic Corruption Poison
- Festering Death Poison
- Ruined Stone Arch
- Three Nudes Wall Carving
- Woman’s Bust Sculpture
- Carved Tombstone with Two Women
- Archaic Boy Statue
- Grey Marble Bench
- Doric Column
- Small Doric Column
- Doric Column Pedestal
- Composite Column
- Small Composite Column
- Man’s Head Statue on Pedestal
- Ancient General Head Statue on Pedestal
- Woman’s Head Statue on Pedestal
- Agriculture Polish Delayed: Work on the Magic Movers and other tasks delayed work on Agriculture polish.
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User Interface Polish:
- Character Deletion Confirmation: To delete a character you now have to type the name of the character. This was added to help prevent accidental character deletion.
- Save Game Loaded Message: When you load a saved game, you now receive a message that says “Saved Game Now Loaded!”
- Hide Grandmaster: There is now an option to hide your Grandmaster skill status from other players.
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Audio: The focus for Release 39 was on Combat and Magic. All Combat and Magic sounds have been edited and polished to make the sound effects during combat more fluid and natural.
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Weapons: All “swoosh”, “Hit”, “Unsheath-Sheath”, “parry”, block” , and “miss” sounds for all weapons.
- Spears
- Bows
- Staffs
- Short/ Long Swords
- Axes / 2H Axes
- Mace
- Daggers
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Combat Skills: All Combat Skills have new sound effects.
- Blades
- Light / Heavy Armor
- Shield
- Ranged
- Subterfuge
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Spells: All Spells have new sound effects.
- Air
- Water
- Fire
- Moon
- Light
- Focus
- Earth
- Death
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Creatures: New sound effects and/or vocalizations were created for the following creatures:
- Kobolds: Kobolds have new vocals
- Clockwork Cats
- Automaton
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Weapons: All “swoosh”, “Hit”, “Unsheath-Sheath”, “parry”, block” , and “miss” sounds for all weapons.
So, now that it is clear what you can expect, we should also be as clear about what you should NOT expect:
- Stability: Stability should be similar to Release 38 (after all the patches). However, there still seems to be the one remaining major issue with Unity and AMD A8 integrated graphics chipsets used in laptops that make the game unplayable (this affects other games using Unity as well). Unity is aware of the problem and working on a fix but we do not have an ETA from them on this.
- Performance: We plan to make steady improvements each release until the game is running smoothly on minimum spec machines in big cities. However we did not make time in Release 39 for any significant performance improvements so performance remains unchanged since last release.
- Game Loop: Release 39 is a further iteration on our game loop, but is still missing a few key components and balance. Expect this to expand with each subsequent release.
- Visual Quality: Efforts to improve visual quality are ongoing. We will continue to iterate on these until we have highly competitive visuals.
- Pledge Rewards: Pledge Rewards that have been built and have tech to support them are in the game; all other rewards are awaiting either content creation or tech support. You can find an updated list of these items in known issues.
Here are links to instructions and known issues. Thank you again for your continued support. This is truly the most amazing community we have ever worked with, and we are proud to be on this journey with you.
Sincerely,
Starr Long
aka Darkstarr
Executive Producer -
Greetings Avatars,
In Release 39 the first iteration of Town Blessing will be going live. Owners of Player Towns will have the ability to place 11 different Devotionals to the 8 Virtues and 3 Principles in their towns.
Each Devotional offers a different blessing and the power of the blessing is based on how many people live in the town. To receive a blessing you merely need to stand near a Devotional that has been placed in a POT (or NPC town). Players can only have one blessing active at...
Town Blessings Update -
![[IMG]](http:////d2sx9mrt4zumaq.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/spring_2017_crafting_contest_v3.jpg)
This thread is for submissions and direct responses to submissions to the Crafter's Competition Contest ONLY. Please post questions in the Announcement Thread.
No go melt some iron or chop down some wood and see what happens! -
Hello everyone! Here is the news of the week:
- Clockwork Attack!
- Town Blessings Update
- The Making of Rhun Ruins
- The Making of K’rawl
- Spring Telethon and Expirations Reminder
- Clockwork Pets & Shogun Bundle / Decorations
- Weekend Flash Sale
- Origin PC Steam Key Bundle
- Alienware Steam Key Giveaway: Lowered to Level 4
- R38 Offline Data Format Change – Character Preservation Notice
- Spring 2017 Crafter’s Competition
- Boss Battle of the Avatar – Screenshot Contest Winners
- Community Livestream – Exploring Rhun Ruins
- Doug’s (IronMaiden) Chemo Relief Fund
- Upcoming Events
- Community Resources – Players Helping Players
- Recommended Projects to Back
The post Echoes From the Caverns 02-17-17 appeared first on Echoes from the Caverns.
-
Greetings Avatars!
Royal Bard FireLotus here, and I'm looking for a few good characters... Well, character names to be more accurate. I am in the process of creating some "guest list" registers for the various Inns that pepper the countryside of Novia (and Hidden Vale). The guest books are ready, the only thing I'm missing are some names.
So, if you would like your name listed in one of the registers, just let me know right here in this post.
And now, for the not-fun stuff...
ToS...
Novian Turn Down Service... Avatars wanted. -
In celebration of the new nasty clockwork beasts coming online, we are having a 20% off weekend flash sale on all clockwork pets! Additionally as part of our Perennial Coast improvements we created a new Castle / Town wall set based on the Asian assets.
We just finished turning that into a player decoration kit called the Shogun Castle Wall Set which we have added as a “coming soon” item to...
Weekend Flash Sale! Clockwork Pets and Shogun Bundles / Decorations -
Fire up those kilns and ready your hammers! The Spring 2017 Crafter's Competition has begun! This first event will be a Gear Design Contest with other events, possibly quarterly, kicking off throughout the year.
In the last contest segment we had you capture a fight with a boss monster in the game. To survive such an intensive fight, a great deal of armor and powerful weaponry...
Spring 2017 Crafter's Competition - Gear Design Contest -
Greetings Fellow Avatars!
Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:
- Clockwork Attack!
- Town Blessings Update
- The Making of Rhun Ruins
- The Making of K’rawl
- Spring Telethon and Expirations Reminder
- Clockwork Pets & Shogun Bundle / Decorations
- Weekend Flash Sale
- Origin PC Steam Key Bundle
- Alienware Steam Key Giveaway: Lowered to Level 4
- R38 Offline Data Format Change – Character Preservation Notice
- Spring 2017 Crafter’s Competition
- Boss Battle of the Avatar – Screenshot Contest Winners
- Community Livestream – Exploring Rhun Ruins
- Doug’s (IronMaiden) Chemo Relief Fund
- Upcoming Events
- Community Resources – Players Helping Players
- Recommended Projects to Back
Clockwork Attack!
The City Kobolds defend their territories fiercely, and part of their defenses are an army of Clockwork beasts. Players have already seen some of these in previous releases including the Shock Monkey and Clockwork Dragon. In R39, the Clockwork menagerie expands to include Attack and size variants of some of our existing Clockwork beasts. The Clockwork Attack Dogs and Cats (who are mountain lion sized) are used by Kobold guard patrols to knockdown and tear up trespassers. The Clockwork Attack Ravens have confusion fields that make fighting them especially challenging. We will also introduce giant versions of the Shock Monkey that have stomp and throw attacks as well as a scaled down version of the Clockwork Dragon that works for interior spaces. Finally, there will be giant versions of the Oracle Flyers and Oracle Crawlers that shock and stun players who try to fight them.
In celebration of these new nasty clockwork beasts, all clockwork pets are on sale this weekend for 20% (see below for details).
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Kevin “UglyFist” Wells]
Hey everybody!
So, we’ve made some baddies out of our clockwork pets. These are definitely not pets. We’ve made them bigger, badder, and way deadly. These clockwork creatures are designed to take as much blood from you as they can with their razor sharp claws, teeth, spikes, and a bad attitude. The idea was to make them dark and stealthy. The models may be updated a bit here and there before I call them finished – but as they are, they are already bad news.
Check these guys out…
Town Blessings Update
[From a forum post by Starr “Darkstarr” Long]
Greetings Avatars,
In Release 39, the first iteration of Town Blessings will be going live. Owners of Player Towns will have the ability to place 11 different Devotionals to the 8 Virtues and 3 Principles in their towns.
Each Devotional offers a different blessing and the power of the blessing is based on how many people live in the town. To receive a blessing you merely need to stand near a Devotional that has been placed in a POT (or NPC town). Players can only have one blessing active at any time, so visiting a Devotional while another blessing is active will overwrite the current blessing. These Devotionals also attract the attention of the Cabalists and there is a chance that your town will come under siege if you have them placed (this will come online in R40).
Here is a list of the base level Devotionals that are included with each POT and the associated blessings (each one listed is a placeable decoration, see pictures):
- Truth: Intelligence Buff
- Love: Dexterity Buff
- Courage: Strength Buff
- Humility: Magic Resistance Buff and Fishing Bait Recovery Buff
- Honesty: Focus Buff and Alchemy Buff
- Justice: Fizzle Reduction and Cooking Buff
- Honor: Focus Regeneration Buff and Agriculture Buff
- Spirituality: Adventuring Level Buff and Fishing Level Buff
- Compassion: Dodge Buff and Tailoring Buff
- Sacrifice: Health Regeneration Buff and Carpentry Buff
- Valor: Health Buff and Blacksmith Buff
Devotionals are considered NPC buildings, so are therefore limited by the number of NPC buildings your town can support. Those NPC Building limits per town are:
- Holdfast: 1
- Hamlet: 2
- Village: 3
- Crossroads Village: 4
- Town: 6
- City: 10
- Metropolis: 15
These devotionals will also appear in NPC towns starting in R40. Please note that these Devotionals are new decorations and not the original items tentatively planned to be associated with Blessings (Hooded Statue, Titan Statues, Dragon Bones, etc.). All town owners will receive these new devotionals as rewards and the original items can continue to be used as NPC Buildings. You will need to claim rewards at a bank to receive these rewards.
Here are all the Devotional symbols:
Truth
Love
Courage
Humility
Honesty
Justice
Honor
Spirituality
Compassion
Sacrifice
Valor
The Making of Rhun Ruins
The Rhun Ruins are one of the six ruined cities found in Novia that date back to the period in Novian history in which the Obsidian Order rose to power. (As described in the Sword of Midras prequel novel by Tracy Hickman and Richard Garriott). The exact history of some of these cities has been lost to time, but it is rumored that some of them may have been abandoned even before the rise of the Obsidians. Rhun was a city devoted to Compassion but has since been overrun with the undead. It is located in the Drachvald region in the northeast of Novia.
Rhun started as a clone of the Dysborg Ruins, but is getting completely rebuilt this release to have a unique layout and visuals. We are expressly focusing on being sure the map has interesting setups for PVP conflict, with plenty of space for hiding, escaping, ambushing, and skirmishing.
[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Esteben “SorcerousSteve” Zaldivar]
Hey guys! SorcerousSteve here to give you the final update on the Rhun Ruins!
I spent this past week really detailing the map, adding plenty of traps, and making sure all the POI areas were in place and aligned with the team’s vision.Panoramic view of the east side of the Rhun Ruins.
Certain areas of Rhun have been overgrown with Alien life.
A giant hole can be seen here where one of the floating islands ripped its landmass off the ground tearing with it an entire plaza area.
The rugged coastline of Rhun, on the far left we can see a lone watch tower with some scaffolding that will allow players to board the floating island circulating the map.
An ancient castle sits on the treacherous rugged cliffs, filled with traps and hazards few dare to wander inside.
Hope you guys look forward to visiting Rhun in R40!
Esteben Zaldivar
Level Designer
The Making of K’rawl
The underground Kobold lab called K’rul is connected to the Kobold capital city of Skrekk through a long shipping tunnel called K’rawl that includes moving mine carts (including a jump)! Our goal is to have a first iteration of this dungeon live in the game for Release 39.
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Travis “Vas Corp Por” Koleski]
An update:
Spring Telethon Reminder (and Last Chance Exclusives)
Reminder that our Spring Telethon is only three weeks away! We will be streaming for 12 hours with deep dives into game systems and answering your questions. We will be giving out tons of prizes, there will be lots of flash sales, and items will be expiring! Additionally anyone spending at least $5 during the telethon will receive the Spring themed stretch goals:
- $10,000: /flowerleap emote (leap into the air and throw flowers)
- $25,000: Butterfly Mask
- $35,000: Stained Glass Hand Lantern
- $50,000: Floral Pattern Stained Glass Oil Table Lamp (3 Pack)
- $65,000: White Flowered Topiary Creature Statues (3 Pack of Dragon, Bear, Satyr)
- $80,000: Leaf Shield and Leaf Spear
- $100,000: Large Spring Themed Fountain with Floating Candles
- $130,000: Shield of Thorns and Thorn Sword
- and more to be revealed if we hit these goals…
Clockwork Pets and Shogun Bundles / Decorations Weekend Flash Sale
In celebration of the new nasty clockwork beasts coming online, we are having a 20% off weekend flash sale on all clockwork pets! Additionally as part of our Perennial Coast improvements we created a new Castle / Town wall set based on the Asian assets.
We just finished turning that into a player decoration kit called the Shogun Castle Wall Set which we have added as a “coming soon” item to the Add On Store. In celebration of this addition, we are having a 20% off weekend flash sale on the Shogun Bundles and all Shogun Decorations.
Here is a complete list of all the Clockwork Pet, Shogun Bundle, and Shogun Decoration items you will find on sale this weekend:
- Blackened Metal Baby Clockwork Dragon
- Silver Baby Clockwork Dragon
- Silver Clockwork Monkey
- Silver Mini Automaton
- Brass Clockwork Cat
- Silver Clockwork Dog
- Brass Clockwork Raven
- Shogun Starter Bundle
- Shogun Weapon & Armor Bundle
- Shogun Mandarin Duck Bundle
- Shogun Tool Bundle
- Shogun Tool & Potion Bundle
- Shogun 2-Story Row Tax Free Bundle
- Shogun 3-Story Row Tax Free Bundle
- Shogun 4-Story Row Tax Free Bundle
- Shogun Village Tax Free Bundle
- Shogun Village Keep Tax Free Bundle
- Shogun Town Tax Free Bundle
- Shogun City Tax Free Bundle
- Shogun Castle Wall Set
- Large Guardian Lion Statue
- Giant Guardian Lion Statue
- Bamboo Tree 6-Pack
- Potted Bamboo Tree 3-Pack
- Ornate Shogun Room Divider 3-Pack
- Shogun Wall Light 3-Pack
- Shogun Streetlamp 6-Pack
Origin PC Steam Key Bundle
As we announced in Update #210, we have started a new partnership with Origin PC. We, of course, love the name of their company. We also found out that their community manager and one of their founders are huge Ultima Online fans! Our very own Richard Garriott uses Origin PCs for his desktop and laptop computers, so this partnership is a mutual admiration party. In Richard’s own words:
“I have been a hard core PC developer and gamer since the beginning, including when I was making some of my earliest games for Origin Systems. Origin games, like Ultima and Wing Commander, always pushed the envelope on what gaming machines were capable of. And to develop them, I knew I needed the best gaming hardware available. The same holds true for my current game, Shroud of the Avatar; a spiritual successor to Ultima which is in now in development at Portalarium.
So, about a year ago, I went looking for the best game system available to me, and I bought my first Origin PC. I was incredibly impressed! Everything from the ordering process through the delivery was top notch, and performance is that of a clearly superior machine. I was indeed so impressed, I now use Origin computers for both my home and office desktops and, of course, have an Origin laptop for when I travel. I could not be happier with these machines, and the great service at Origin PC!”
Our latest promotion with Origin PC is their “Share the Love” February bundle where, when you purchase select desktops or any 10-Series laptop, you get an Early Access Steam Key for Shroud of the Avatar (and other goodies). If you have friends who have been wanting to try Shroud and are looking for a great new computer, send them to the promotion here.
Alienware Steam Key Giveaway: Lowered to Level 4
If Alienware’s powerful gaming rigs are your preferred hardware, we have teamed up with Alienware Arena to give away Shroud of the Avatar Early Access Steam keys to Alienware Arena members.This week they have opened the promotion up to Level 4+ members (it was previously only available to Level 6+ members). You can learn more by clicking here.
R38 Offline Data Format Change – Character Preservation Notice
For Release 38, the Offline Mode save game format is changing to support new and upcoming gameplay features.
Here’s what you need to do in order to preserve your Offline Mode save games and characters:
- Patch your game client to Release 38.
- Load each saved game and then re-save. This will convert your save file into the latest format.
If you do not convert your saved games during Release 38, your saved games (from releases prior to R38) may not load in releases after Release 38. In other words, we cannot guarantee the ability to load pre-R38 saves after R38.
Our sincere apologies if this change causes any disruption in your gameplay. We always make every attempt to avoid having to make these kinds of requirements of our players when we make changes like this. After very careful consideration, we’ve deemed this change, and the accompanying requirement, as necessary. Please note that this change will not affect the online game or characters in any way.
As a reminder, Release 38 started on January 26 and runs through February 22.
Please let us know if you have any questions on this update!
Spring 2017 Crafter’s Competition
Fire up those kilns and ready your hammers! The Spring 2017 Crafter’s Competition has begun! This first event will be a Gear Design Contest with other events, possibly quarterly, kicking off throughout the year.
In the last contest segment we had you capture a fight with a boss monster in the game. To survive such an intensive fight, a great deal of armor and powerful weaponry must be wielded! In this follow-up contest, we want you to design the most powerful weapons and armor you can muster.
As we receive submissions, they will be announced on Twitter and Facebook with eventually a gallery of all submissions on Facebook. If we get enough of them, we may make this a regular quarterly crafting event!
Boss Battle of the Avatar – Screenshot Contest Winners
And the winners are in! Congrats to the following participants:
Community of the Avatar Livestream – Exploring Rhun Ruins
Follow the game on Twitter at www.twitter.com/shroudofavatar for news of the next livestream!
Doug’s (Iron Maiden) Chemo Relief Fund Update
The Auction of Iron Maiden’s holdings begins Monday February 20. Sunday is the deadline to receive the cloak and to qualify to participate in the auction.
Update on funding from community member Thexedor Markhamm:
The total funding raised to date is: $21,370 (GoFundMe total) + $2473.67 (Dev item Auction) = $23,843.67
$1,156.33 to go to hit our 25k fundraising goal. Deadline: Sunday 2/19/17
So…if you wanna see my head shaved (and I know you do) we need to push just little further. Share the word, donate on your friends’ behalf, or increase your donation amount (remember: $100 in total donations gains you an invite to the Iron Maiden Holdings Auction – and all donations stack). And, if you’re a new donor – join the coolest gaming community outreach initiative in history: $25 or more gets you the sweetest cloak in-game to date: the IMCRF cloak.
So, who’s with me? Can we do it? I bet we can.
A very special thanks to @DarkStarr @Lord British and @matpsch for donating crafted goods. As you can see – it made a HUGE IMPACT.
Update on Doug:
I spoke with Doug at length the last few days as we moved hundreds of items from his 7 accounts to prepare for the auction. We normally don’t discuss the negative stuff, but I did ask him today where he was physically and emotionally. I’ll share with you what I can (and is appropriate).
1. Doug was blown away by the telethon. Made so many new friends that night, and really felt both humbled and honored that so many of us care. We were all, until 30 days ago, strangers, and now we are all part of community striving to make a difference.
2. Doug, who had not played much (until recently) is reinvigorated and excited to keep playing with us (don’t worry, I am making sure he maintains an account, a lot, and some special holdings) to continue his adventure in NB. One of my favorite quotes from him came while he watched his first-ever gustball tourney at the telethon:
“This gust ball thing..I LIKE IT.”
2. Doug is undergoing rigorous chemotherapy. He is positive and upbeat about it, saying that the chemo itself is ‘not so bad.’ However, he has lost 50 pounds since December due to his liquid-only diet. He’s looking forward a better diet and to stop losing weight so rapidly.
3. The good news is that Iron Maiden is responding well to treatments and may be moved to a more nutritious liquid diet soon. Right now he can only eat broth and Ensure drinks. If things keep improving he will be able to blend up heartier soup and even enjoy some ice cream. He hasn’t had any sort of ‘real’ food (besides broth and Ensure) since 12/23 – two days before last Christmas. Talk about a hard adjustment.
4. Emotionally and mentally Doug is tough and sharp. He’s determined to beat the beast. He draws energy and inspiration from his grand kids and sees them often. He is also heartened by our community and our effort to help. He told me that “no matter what happens” this sort of charitable activism needs continue in SoTA.
D@*n right it does, @IronMaiden.
And, it will.Here’s to keeping Doug in our thoughts and hearts! Our support further bolsters his spirit (and our own).
Original announcement from community member Thexedor Markhamm. For more information or to make a donation, visit the GoFundMe campaign or the community forum conversation.
Avatars who pledge $25 or more to the GoFundMe campaign will receive an exclusive, rare, cloak in-game. The cloak is one of our community even Clasped Gauntlet cloaks custom-colored in blue, purple and silver, and carries the unique name: Iron Maiden’s Chemo Relief Fund.
Upcoming Events
Feb 23, 2017 – Release 39
Feb 25, 2017 – Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary Event
Feb 28, 2017 – GDC Community Management Summit: Care and Feeding of Wild Fansites
Mar 9, 2017 – Spring Telethon of the Avatar 2017
Mar 17, 2017 – SXSW Gaming: Is Video Game Early Access Too Early?
Mar 30, 2017 – Release 40
Apr 27, 2017 – Release 41
May 25, 2017 – Release 42
June 29, 2017 – Release 43Visit 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.
Event of the Week: Prism Presents a Grandmaster Tutoring Event in Diamond Fields
We invite all grandmaster Crafters to come and share their knowledge to new and would be grandmasters. If more grandmasters donate their time then even more can be mentored. You must bring your own materials to this event. There are merchants very near by the crafting pavilion in Diamond Fields but prices may increase due to turn out. A banker is also near buy so you can shuttle in your raw materials and squirrel them away ahead of time for the event.
You can teleport to Lace Delamorte, or zone into Port Phoenix and take the first boat on the left to Diamond Fields. Hope to see you there!
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
Eric “Wingman” Peterson and team are bringing back six-degrees-of-freedom combat by blasting 90’s action game favorite, Descent, into the 21st Century with current-generation gaming technology. Descent: Underground is more than a graphics upgrade. Get ready for multiple types of customizable ships! Prepare for upgradable weapons and sensors with richly-detailed tech trees. Brace yourself for destructible voxel maps with new power-ups and mod tools to make your own maps and more!
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 the next instalment of this wonderful story from Andartianna. It is entitled
Harvest of the Shattered Moon
Background music by SmartsoundChapter 6, “Books, Braziers, and Blight”
Zazeriz headed past the bank and waved at Blackmoor as she passed by the guild register building. Up in the top floor of the combat training building, Parker was usually standing over a book. Today his book was Library Fragments XI. Parker was always dressed in refined armor with gold medallions across his chest. He was a good half a head taller than Zazeriz is. Zazeriz sat on a bench nearby him, and as he finished talking to another person, he turned to Zazeriz, who was sitting patiently waiting for him.“Good afternoon, Dr. Zazeriz. It has been quite some time since you have last visited with me. I hope all is well with you.” Parker said.
“I am personally doing well, however one of my close friends has been taken to the Tower of the Shuttered Eye. I was hoping that you might have some insights into the undead entities that lurk there.” Zazeriz said.
“That is indeed a foul place. Many an adventurer has gone and not returned. From what I have heard, the spirit that lurks there is called Saul the Damned. I believe he is what is left of a failed necromantic experiment. If you are planning on invading the inner sanctum of this demon, I would suggest you bring several companions with you. I have heard rumor that you can weaken Saul the Damned by using either Douse or Soothing Rain on the various braziers of fire that are linked to his power.” Parker said.
“That is a very good insight. I will certainly attempt to Douse the braziers within the Tower of the Shuttered Eye. Are there any other spells you would recommend using while facing the fell beings within the tower?” Zazeriz asked.
“Banish Undead is always an excellent spell to use. Fire will also burn the bones of the undead. I have something else that may assist you in your goal.” Parker reached into his pocket and pulled out a large diamond. “Diamonds can be used to augment your gear and enhance your life attunement. You may take this one. Perhaps your guild has a way to add others.” Parker said.
“I thank you for your help. You have always been a good friend and a gifted master trainer of life. I hope to speak with you again soon. Take care.” Zazeriz said.
Parker nodded and Zazeriz headed back down into the city of Ardoris. Zazeriz moved to the center of the city where a giant statue of a woman had been erected. Gathered nearby were many members of Organized Chaos. Blight Mister stepped forward and said, “We have all gathered and are ready to assist you. Shall we head out of Ardoris immediately?”
“Yes. I have completed talking with Parker. He gave me some insights into the Tower of the Shuttered Eye. We must target the fire braziers throughout the tower to weaken the malevolent spirit who dwells there.” Zazeriz said.
“Alright. Everyone form up and let’s head out.” Blight Master said.
Chapter 7, “Path, Party, and Pointed.”
The path from Ardoris to the Tower of the Shuttered Eye was not very far. You could follow the shore line due east and end up at the gates to the tower within a few short hours. Swampland covers most of the terrain, so you have to carefully make your way around it to reach the tower. The Tower of the Shuttered Eye sticks out as a violent mass of stone on the very corner of the continent Novia. It has three distinct tiers or levels and slightly leans toward the left as if sinking into the swamps that surround it.Zazeriz’ companions gathered around her as they neared the Tower of the Shuttered Eye. Swamps filled the area to the left, but an old beaten path wound directly to the right toward the entrance of the tower. Almost immediately, fell skeletons began attacking the party. Zazeriz waved her hands, calling for Soothing Rain to gather around her. The rain fell on her companions healing them as they jumped forward to meet the enemy. Blight Mister’s arrows soared across the sky shattering the bones of the first skeleton. Iron Marshal ran and Shield Bashed and a second archer fell into dust. As a third archer began hacking away at her companions, Zazeriz entered a Spellbinder Stance to quickly call for the healing powers of life to maintain her companion’s health. As the fight continued, Zazeriz raised her arms into the air to cast Banish Undead, slamming the skeletons with white light. They shuddered with the energy of the spell and collapsed into dust. Zazeriz and her companions quickly moved toward the entrance of the tower. Zombies began slinking toward them slowly. One by one they cleared the grounds of any evil undead. Finally the tower stood before them. Its massive banner of three snakes twirling in a circle. The serpentine figure colored green towered over a massive glyph like eye that rose above the door. The party pulled the door open walking within the first hall. The entrance hall to the Tower of the Shuttered Eye was like a crypt with spiderwebs covering the ceilings and the walls.
As the party opened the second door entering into the next chamber of the Tower of the Shuttered Eye, the room seemed mysteriously quiet for such an evil place. On the floor just inside the entrance was a dead body with a note. The note said,
“Must get out. Must get out. Horrible. Horrible.”
The poor man must have been tortured by the demons within the tower. Blue braziers flittervesd all around the first floor. On first inspection, Zazeriz could not imagine dousing all these flames, but she attempted to do so, slowly making her way around what appeared to be a giant long forgotten library. Various statues hung in the corners, one being of Anapa Lord of Death. The blue flames began to fade under Zazeris’ spell and the room dimmed, becoming darker. Zazeriz pointed to the rooms along the sides of the walls to have her companions begin searching for Boniface in the tower. While finding Boniface on the first floor was unlikely, they may encounter other prisoners of the tower. They would attempt to free as many as possible.
While her companions were searching the first floor, Zazeriz took the time to look through some of the books on the various shelf. One entitled “The Sorcerer’s Daughter” caught her eye. The author talked about bad dreams, faceless attackers, and dreams that seemed similar to the nightmares Zazeriz was experiencing. As Zazeriz neared one of the five-sided spike braziers, her left pouch began getting extremely hot. She took the pouch at her side and opened it up and found the piece of skin she had cut off glowing bright blue, almost burning her hand through her gloves. Before Zazeriz doused the flame in the brazier, she felt compelled to destroy the piece of skin so she threw it into the brazier. A flash of light lit up the entire room and all the braziers went out. Now in extreme darkness, Zazeriz cast Light on all of her companions. The side chambers were all empty except for some sleeping skeletons which jumped up to attack her companions. They easily dispatched the skeletons. Zazeriz walked across the main hall and felt the urge to sit in the gothic chair near the stairwell. She had the feeling that one could wait at the evil entity’s pleasure to enter the tower, but Zazeriz would wait no longer.
Chapter 8, “Iron Marshall, Illumination, and Iron Maiden”
Iron Marshall moved toward the stairwell and Zazeriz followed closely behind him and cast the spells Enlightenment, Strength of Earth, and Air’s Embrace, to enhance his attributes. Iron Marshall surged forward in a defensive stance as a slime began sliding down the stairs toward the party. The rest of the party attacked with their full strength to kill the slime before it could overpower Iron Marshall’s strength. Within moments, bubbles appeared on the slime and it stopped moving.The rest of Zazeriz’s party grouped around her and they all walked slowly up the stairwell to the next landing. As they walked through the room, skeleton bodies littered the floor. Within moments of the party crossing the scattered skeletons, the necromantic energies surged around them and the party was attacked on both sides. Zazeriz cast Elysian Illumination, which healed the party around her and damaged the skeletons. Blight Mister launched Multi-shot into the nearest skeleton, shattering the bones into dust. A second skeleton lunged at Iron Maiden, who was standing behind Zazeriz. She turned quickly and cast the Spell of Gust, which knocked the skeleton away. This gave Iron Marshall enough time to Shield Bash the skeleton into a nearby wall.
Once the landing was clear, Zazeriz looked over her companions to make sure no one was badly hurt. She then reapplied her spell enhancements to all party members, and they moved forward up the next flight of stairs. Now that they knew the skeletons on the floor would rise, the party was more wary at each pile of bones. The strength and courage of Zazeriz’ companions was unmatched and soon they cleared floor after floor and made their way higher into the tower. Each landing where they were rooms they check them carefully for any living souls trapped within the towers, but none had survived so far. Finally, as they reached the top of the tower, the amount of fell creatures increased exponentially, and soon waves of skeletons were slamming into Zazeriz’ party’s defenses.
Blight Mister let out a battle cry, and began shooting everything around him. Iron Maiden began reinforcing the party with extra heals and slamming Searing Rays of sun onto the enemies around her. Pennyvise went into a dive next to Iron Maiden, catching a sword about to hit her. He then surged forward parrying the skeleton’s attacks. Another skeleton went after Iron Maiden and she blasted it with a gust of wind, stunning it until Pennyvise Taunted the skeleton to attack him. As the skeleton’s back was turned, Zazeriz cast Banish Undead and the skeleton fell into Pennyvise’s Shield Bash and the rays of light struck it from behind shattering it into dust.
The post Harvest of the Shattered Moon 3 – by Andartianna – narrated by Asclepius appeared first on Echoes from the Caverns.
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Fire up those kilns and ready your hammers! The Spring 2017 Crafter’s Competition has begun! This first event will be a Gear Design Contest with other events, possibly quarterly, kicking off throughout the year.
In the last contest segment we had you capture a fight with a boss monster in the game. To survive such an intensive fight, a great deal of armor and powerful weaponry must be wielded! In this follow-up contest, we want you to design the most powerful weapons and armor you can muster.
As we receive submissions, they will be announced on Twitter and Facebook with eventually a gallery of all submissions on Facebook. If we get enough of them, we may make this a regular quarterly crafting event!
GEAR SET MUST INCLUDE…- Crafted Weapon
- Crafted Offhand Equippable if 1-Handed weapon chosen above (ex. Shield, another 1-handed weapon, etc.)
- Crafted Complete Armor Set (Helmet, Gloves, Chest, Legs, Boots)
- Cloaks and accessories optional
SHOW YOUR WORK!
To confirm your crafty crafting skills, we require a submission with the following screenshots:
- Close-up of each item showing detailed stats and the maker’s mark (you can cut/paste each of the item shots into a collage that fits within a properly sized complete image, or if you don’t know how to do this, submit them individually as a list group for easy reference)
- Distance shot of the item/itemset with UI and you shouting in chat “Spring is in the air!”
- Distance shot of the item/itemset with NO UI in a combat/action setting (make it look good with you front and center of any action and backdrop!)
SCREENSHOT QUALITY
- Resolution: Minimum of 1920×1080, and always in 16:9 aspect ratio (you can trim if necessary).
- Quality: Use in-game settings to their maximum, no post-screenshot alterations allowed.
WINNERS & PRIZES
All screenshots must be placed in a single response posted here. Deadline to submit is 11:59pm CT end of the day on Tuesday, March 7th. Only one submission per individual or group!
Include in your submission the following items:
- All screenshots with the requirements above
- A 200 words or less introduction of you and your crafting experience
Prizes will be awarded on a tier basis. 1st place will be awarded $100 in store credit, $50 for 2nd place, and $25 for two runner-ups. Winners will be announced at the start of the Spring Telethon on March 9th around 12:30pm CT.
Have fun crafting!
RULES & GUIDELINES
Since this is a value based contest, a committee of judges will be formed at Portalarium, and any tie breakers will be resolved by the committee. Any disputes or disagreements in the community on who ultimately won will NOT be tolerated as an open discussion in the forums, but sent a private e-mail to support@portalarium.com. Anyone attempting to subvert the contest in any way is subject to an immediate suspension and/or disqualification from the contest.
Inappropriate/Vulgar submissions are prohibited and will also result in immediate disqualification.
Submissions containing any of the following are considered inappropriate:
- Sexual content or references
- Disparaging race/gender/group of people
- Drug/alcohol abuse
- Death/suicide of persons real or fake
- Graphical bugs
- Depicting the state of the game in a negative manner
NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. ONE ENTRY PER PERSON, PLEASE SEE COMPLETE RULES FOR OTHER RESTRICTIONS. THIS IS A SKILL-BASED CONTEST. VOID WHERE PROHIBITED BY LAW. AFFIDAVIT OF ELIGIBILITY / RELEASE OF LIABILITY / PRIZE ACCEPTANCE AGREEMENT MAY BE REQUIRED.
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Greetings Avatars,
In Release 39 the first iteration of Town Blessings will be going live. Owners of Player Towns will have the ability to place 11 different Devotionals to the 8 Virtues and 3 Principles in their towns.
Each Devotional offers a different blessing and the power of the blessing is based on how many people live in the town. To receive a blessing you merely need to stand near a Devotional that has been placed in a POT (or NPC town). Players can only have one blessing active at any time so visiting a Devotional while another blessing is active will overwrite the current blessing. These Devotionals also attract the attention of the Cabalists and there is a chance that your town will come under siege if you have them placed (this will come online in R40).
Here is a list of the base level Devotionals that are included with each POT and the associated blessings (each one listed is a placeable decoration, see pictures):
- Truth: Intelligence Buff
- Love: Dexterity Buff
- Courage: Strength Buff
- Humility: Magic Resistance Buff and Fishing Bait Recovery Buff
- Honesty: Focus Buff and Alchemy Buff
- Justice: Fizzle Reduction and Cooking Buff
- Honor: Focus Regeneration Buff and Agriculture Buff
- Spirituality: Adventuring Level Buff and Fishing Level Buff
- Compassion: Dodge Buff and Tailoring Buff
- Sacrifice: Health Regeneration Buff and Carpentry Buff
- Valor: Health Buff and Blacksmith Buff
Devotionals are considered NPC buildings so are therefore limited by the number of NPC buildings your town can support. Those NPC Building limits per town are:
- Holdfast: 1
- Hamlet: 2
- Village: 3
- Crossroads Village: 4
- Town: 6
- City: 10
- Metropolis: 15
These devotionals will also appear in NPC towns starting in R40. Please note that these Devotionals are new decorations and not the original items tentatively planned to be associated with Blessings (Hooded Statue, Titan Statues, Dragon Bones, etc.). All town owners will receive these new devotionals as rewards and the original items can continue to be used as NPC Buildings. You will need to claim rewards at a bank to receive these rewards.
Here are all the Devotional symbols:
Truth
Love
Courage
Humility
Honesty
Justice
Honor
Spirituality
Compassion
Sacrifice
Valor
What do you think of these blessings? Let us know in the forums!
SOTA NewsUpdate of the Avatar #217 – 2017.03.03: The Obsidian Cabalists, Free Trial Test, Spring Telethon Next Week, King Korabar, Underground Vaults, Patterns Weekend Flash Sale, and More!
in Portalarium News Feed
Posted · Report reply
Greetings Fellow Avatars!
Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:
The Obsidian Cabalists (SPOILERS)
The Obsidian Cabalists are ancient sorcerers of the Obsidian Order who have prolonged their lives through twisted use of magic. These horrible entities worship the eight anti-virtues and seek to fulfill the Dire Prophecies by laying siege to the towns of Novia. Starting with Release 40 they will be found in Town Sieges wielding unique vile artifacts that players who are able to defeat them may be able to loot. Those artifacts include unique hoods and weapons for each cabalist as well as the robes. Below is the list of the Cabalists and their (current) powers. Please note that these powers may change during implementation.
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Kevin “UglyFist” Wells]
Hey all. I just finished working on our Obsidian Cabalists. They were so fun to make. There are eight of these dark enemies: Dolus, Temna, Nefario, Nefas, Avara, Indigno, Corpus, and Fastus. You can tell them apart by their masks which reflect their anti-virtues. They are also intimidating – I was tasked with making them stand as tall as our liches float, so they’re very big and looming.
I also broke up the Cabalist’s mask and hooded robe into wearable parts for players. When integrated, you’ll be able to take the hood and mask for a head wearable – as well as the dark ragged robe for a full-body wearable. I hope you guys like them.
This a turn-around of the art – the mask here is of Dolus:
Player-wearable hood with the mask of Nefas:
Here’s the Sketchfab of the Player Wearable
Free Trial Test: March 3 – 9
We are excited to announce a test of our Free Trial system starting today, March 3, and running through the Spring Telethon next week on March 9. If you know anyone who would like to try the game for free, then send them to the 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.
Storing and/or Moving a Decorated Lot or Basement via the Property Manager (aka Magic Movers)
Greetings Avatars,
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.”
We added detailed instructions for how to use this new feature in the Player Instructions document as well and those are reprinted in full here in this post.
Storing and/or Moving a Decorated Lot or Basement
You can use the Property Manager window to store a fully-decorated lot or basement and unpack it to either that same lot or another empty lot of the same size that you have claimed in that same scene.
You can access the Property Manager window from the Stained Glass menu icon, the Lot Deeds options menu, or from any lot sign in any scene. The left side of the window shows your available slots and their current storage status. Each player has 5 storage slots. The right side of the Property Manager window shows all of your claimed lots. Each lot includes the name of the deed used to claim the lot, the location of the lot, and the size of the lot. Each lot also has two slots: one for the primary contents of your lot (including the house), and one for the basement and its contents.
Hovering over a slot will display a tooltip that includes an item count. If the number of items placed on a lot changes, click the “Refresh” option in the top-right of the Property Manager window to ensure the item count is up-to-date.
Packing the Contents of a Lot or Basement into Storage: To store the contents of a lot or basement, drag a the contents from one of the slots into any “(Empty Storage)” slot in the left side of the Property Manager window.
The storage is immediate and includes all decorations within that slot.
If you drag a storage icon to an occupied slot, you will simultaneously move your new lot into storage and unpack everything from the slot to your lot. You can also swap live and stored basements in the same way.
Unpacking a Stored Lot or Basement: To unpack a stored lot or basement, drag the stored item from a storage slot in the left side of the Property Manager window into an empty slot in the right side of the window.
A stored lot can only be unpacked on a lot that is in the same town in which the lot was originally stored. Also, the stored lot must be of the same size as the lot that it is being unpacked onto.
A stored basement can only be unpacked on a lot that is in the same town in which the basement was originally stored. Also, the stored basement cannot be larger than the lot that it is being unpacked onto.
Once unpacked, the contents of the unpacked lot or basement will become immediately available. Also, any decorations that were packed up with that lot or basement when it was stored will reappear in their original locations at the time that they were stored.
Note that you can only unpack one lot or basement every five minutes. An unpacking cooldown timer will appear at the top of your Property Manager window when you unpack a stored lot or basement.
Renaming a Lot or Basement within the Property Manager: Each lot and basement listed in your Property Manager window will have a default name, but you can rename them at any time. To rename a lot or basement, right-click on it’s icon in the Property Manager window, fill in the new name, and click “Submit.” You can also use the “Set to Default” option to rename the lot or basement to its default name. You can also rename stored lots and basements.
Sending Stored Lots and Basements to Your Bank: You have the option to send all of the contents of a storage slot to your bank. To do so, right-click on a storage slot and select the “Send to Bank” option.
Unclaiming a Lot: Unclaiming a lot does not move a lot or basement into a Property Manager storage slot. Rather, unclaiming a lot moves all associated items into your bank.
Storage Slots are Tied to Your Account: It’s important to note that Property Manager storage slots are connected to your game account and not to a specific character. This means that, for example, if you store a lot, delete your character, and create a new character, that new character will have immediate access to the lot that was placed into storage.
King Korabar
In Release 39, we began work on what we are calling our City Kobolds. These are the Kobolds that live in Skrekk and other places like K’rul. They are much more advanced than anyone else in Novia and the source of almost all of the technology that you see in the game, including clockwork creatures and aether vibration amplifiers. City Kobolds use advanced armor and weaponry including chainswords, electric axes, gas guns, electric blunderbusses, grenades, etc.
In some cases, City Kobolds are friendly to players (depending on story elements) and there are rumors of City Kobold Merchants who sell rare Kobold technology to players. The other Kobolds players have interacted with until now have been what we call Village Kobolds, and will remain what players encounter in outdoor zones and small Kobold habitations. In Release 39, we added our first round of City Kobolds to K’rul and K’rawl. In Release 40 we will be updating Skrekk with City Kobolds, including a new unique visual for their ruler, King Korabar, which you can see below for the first time.
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Fletcher “SkullMuncher34” Kinnear]
We now have King Korabar!
The Making of Underground Vaults (SPOILERS)
There are six ruined cities found in Novia that date back to the period in Novian history in which the Obsidian Order rose to power. (These were first described in the “Sword of Midras” prequel novel, by Tracy Hickman and Richard Garriott). The exact history of some of these cities has been lost to time, but it is rumored that some of them may have been abandoned even before the rise of the Obsidians. These ruins include Opalis, Libris, Rhun, Midris, Kas, and Dysborg. Deep beneath these ruins lie Underground Vaults that rumors hint are somehow linked to the Dire Prophecies. Rumor also has it that the vaults are not only connected to the ruins above but also the vast underground network of dungeons and sewers that crisscrosses Novia below. Esteben “SorcerousSteve” Zaldivar is building these rooms now and some of them may go live in Release 40.
[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Esteben “SorcerousSteve” Zaldivar]
Hey guys! SorcerousSteve here to give you an update on some of my latest work! Early this release I got tasked with building 6 underground rooms that are set to be located under each of the ancient ruins.
What secrets will these underground rooms hold? What will the avatar come to learn? Find out in a future release!
Midras Vault: Sunlight can be seen seeping in to the lush and overgrown Midras Vault.
Kas Vault: Inspiration for this vault crypt came from the Terracotta Army in China.
Dysborg Vault: Some vaults are flooded, like this one located in Dysborg along the Naryad Channel.
Opalis Vault: As Opalis was once ruled by the Titans, this Vault exudes a great level of wealth.
Rhun Vault
Libris Vault: This vault is a lot more cavernous filled with stalactites and stalagmites!
In addition to being six underground rooms to be located under the six ruined cities all these areas will have connections to the Underground system.
Below is one of my favorite shots from working on these vaults, thought i’d include it as a bonus pic.
See you next time!
Esteben Zaldivar
Level Designer
The Making of Serpent’s Spine Mines
The Serpent’s Spine Mines are located in the northern end of the Serpent’s Spine mountain range in the North Paladis region of Novia. Kobolds have ranged farther west than normal to exploit the rich ore veins and crystal deposits in this vast mine. This will be one of our most vertically oriented mines to date with a large central chamber featuring deep vertical shafts, elevators, and mine carts.
This scene started as a clone of Graff Gem Mines but is being completely rebuilt for a live date hopefully in Release 41.
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Chris “Sea Wolf” Wolf]
I have a few updated screenshots of Serpent’s Spine Mines this week! Enjoy!
For the cavern, I made the scene darker overall to fix some shadow distance issues, I increase the number of crystals while also making them a little smaller, and I added more vines.
The chasm is a central hub of many underground scenes.
The Kobold barracks is home to the miners and soldiers who work here.
Chris Wolf
Level Designer
The Making of The Fall
No one is quite sure who built this mysterious dungeon beneath Blood Bay, but it is filled with an incredible array of dangers, and rewards. The Fall gets its name from the giant vertical open space that defines the middle of dungeon with crisscrossing bridges and elevators. This dungeon is an Open PVP area, so enter at your own risk! We hope to have this live in Release 40 or 41.
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Travis “Vas Corp Por” Koleski]
Fighting (PvP) is allowed, but not encouraged at the Rock Bottom Lounge, located within The Fall.
[A Dev+ Forum Post by Travis “Vas Corp Por” Koleski]
An update:
Thanks for following the updates!
Spring Telethon Next Week!
Reminder that our Spring Telethon is next week! We will be streaming for 12 hours with deep dives into game systems and answering your questions. We will be giving out tons of prizes, there will be lots of flash sales, and items will be expiring! Additionally anyone spending at least $5 during the telethon will receive the Spring themed stretch goals:
Schedule: This week we updated the post with the schedule for the Telethon.
Expirations: We decided to extend the expiration deadlines of the 2017 Valentines content and the Fireworks Mystery Box to coincide with the Telethon.
Patterns Weekend Flash Sale
In celebration of the new Patterns and Reshaping system coming online in Release 39, we are having a 20% off weekend flash sale on all Pattern Packs and all items that currently have Eternal Patterns, representing over 35 items!
Here is a complete list of all the Pattern Packs and Gear with Eternal Patterns you will find on sale this weekend:
Origin PC Steam Key Bundle
As we announced in Update #210, we have started a new partnership with Origin PC. We, of course, love the name of their company. We also found out that their community manager and one of their founders are huge Ultima Online fans! Our very own Richard Garriott uses Origin PCs for his desktop and laptop computers, so this partnership is a mutual admiration party. In Richard’s own words:
“I have been a hard core PC developer and gamer since the beginning, including when I was making some of my earliest games for Origin Systems. Origin games, like Ultima and Wing Commander, always pushed the envelope on what gaming machines were capable of. And to develop them, I knew I needed the best gaming hardware available. The same holds true for my current game, Shroud of the Avatar; a spiritual successor to Ultima which is in now in development at Portalarium.
So, about a year ago, I went looking for the best game system available to me, and I bought my first Origin PC. I was incredibly impressed! Everything from the ordering process through the delivery was top notch, and performance is that of a clearly superior machine. I was indeed so impressed, I now use Origin computers for both my home and office desktops and, of course, have an Origin laptop for when I travel. I could not be happier with these machines, and the great service at Origin PC!”
Our latest promotion with Origin PC is their “Share the Love” February bundle where, when you purchase select desktops or any 10-Series laptop, you get an Early Access Steam Key for Shroud of the Avatar (and other goodies). If you have friends who have been wanting to try Shroud and are looking for a great new computer, send them to the promotion here.
R39 Offline Data Format Change – Character Preservation Notice
Greetings Avatars,
Just like in Release 38 during Release 39, the Offline Mode save game format is changing to support new and upcoming gameplay features.
Here’s what you need to do in order to preserve your Offline Mode save games and characters:
If you do not convert your saved games during Release 39, your saved games (from releases prior to R39) may not load in releases after Release 39. In other words we cannot guarantee the ability to load pre-R39 saves after R39.
Our sincere apologies if this change causes any disruption in your gameplay. We always make every attempt to avoid having to make these kinds of requirements of our players when we make changes like this. After very careful consideration, we’ve deemed this change, and the accompanying requirement, as necessary. Please note that this change will not affect the online game or characters in any way.
As a reminder, Release 39 starts on February 23 and runs through March 29.
Please let us know if you have any questions on this update!
Thanks,
Darkstarr
Please let us know if you have any questions on this update!
Spring 2017 Crafter’s Competition
Fire up those kilns and ready your hammers! The Spring 2017 Crafter’s Competition has begun! This first event will be a Gear Design Contest with other events, possibly quarterly, kicking off throughout the year.
In the last contest segment we had you capture a fight with a boss monster in the game. To survive such an intensive fight, a great deal of armor and powerful weaponry must be wielded! In this follow-up contest, we want you to design the most powerful weapons and armor you can muster.
As we receive submissions, they will be announced on Twitter and Facebook with eventually a gallery of all submissions on Facebook. If we get enough of them, we may make this a regular quarterly crafting event!
[Read More…]
Upcoming Events
Mar 9, 2017 – Spring Telethon of the Avatar 2017
Mar 17, 2017 – SXSW Gaming: Is Video Game Early Access Too Early?
Mar 30, 2017 – Release 40
Apr 27, 2017 – Release 41
May 25, 2017 – Release 42
June 29, 2017 – Release 43
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.
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
Underworld: Ascendant
Far more than a dungeon crawl, Underworld Ascendant is a next-generation sequel to the legendary fantasy RPG’s Ultima Underworld & Ultima Underworld 2. It not only modernizes the series’ visuals and user interface to take full advantage of the today’s powerful PC’s, it innovates in bold new ways.
Backer Shipping Addresses
A reminder to be sure that support@portalarium.com is unblocked from your e-mail account!
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