Jack T. Lamplighter

This will be the third Lot Deed Raffle. Raffles will be held monthly and may have multiple winners for each lot size (numbers will vary each month). For this raffle (and future raffles), we are scaling back the number of deeds so that we can pace them out to better match current availability and the speed at which town owners are making lots available.

There are two raffles, one for each lot type:

• Place Anywhere Deeds (20):
  • Row: 10
  • Village: 6
  • Town: 3
  • City: 1...

Tickets for Release 35 Lot Deed Raffle

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Hello everyone! Here is the news of the week! Hope you are enjoying Release 35!!!

• Play Release 35 Now!
• R34 Lot Deed Raffle Winners
• The Making of Elad’s Lighthouse (cont)
• The Making of Graff Island (cont)
• Game System Changes for R35
• 31-Day Countdown to Expirations and Fall into Winter Telethon
• Winter Holiday Goodies, Elven Bundles, Magical Dyes, Halloween Sale, and More!
• Get Your 15% Black Friday Bonus Now!
• Upcoming Events
• Community Resources – Players Helping Players
• Recommended Projects to Back

The post Echoes From the Caverns 10-28-16 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 35 Now!
• R34 Lot Deed Raffle Winners
• The Making of Elad’s Lighthouse (cont)
• The Making of Graff Island (cont)
• Game System Changes for R35
• 31-Day Countdown to Expirations and Fall into Winter Telethon
• Winter Holiday Goodies, Elven Bundles, Magical Dyes, Halloween Sale, and More!
• Get Your 15% Black Friday Bonus Now!
• Upcoming Events
• Community Resources – Players Helping Players
• Recommended Projects to Back

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Play Release 35 Now!

Release 35 successfully launched yesterday, October 27, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, and logging in to check out the changes! There’s lots of new content to explore, including:

• Roving Encounters
• Ardoris Polish
• Harvest Rebuilt
• Tower of the Shuttered Eye Polish
• 25 New Cooking Recipes
• Water Gathering for Planting
• Fall Content
• R34 Lot Deed Raffle Winners
• Start Point Selection for Dynamic POTs
• New NPC Faces

…and much more

Check out the Release 35 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 Release 35!

If you have not backed the game, you will need to register and login at www.shroudoftheavatar.com, select the “Get Early Access!” button in the right side-bar, and purchase one of our game access bundles. Game Early Access is also available on Steam Early Access.

Release 35 Player Instructions

Release 35 Known Issue

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Release 34 Lot Deed Raffle Winners

Yesterday we had the drawing for our second Lot Deed Raffle and we awarded 675 lot deeds to lucky winners who bought tickets. Winners can claim their deed simply by logging into the game and claiming rewards at any bank. As a reminder, here is the breakdown of how many deeds of each type and size we awarded:

Place Anywhere Deeds (75):

• Row: 40
• Village: 20
• Town: 10
• City: 5

City Winners:

• Asulgund
• Brian Parris
• fireSpHere FluffyWhale
• Gideon Thrax
• Lorelei Huntington

Player Owned Town Deeds (600):

• Row: 320
• Village: 160
• Town: 80
• City: 40

City Winners:

• Alex Kidd
• Boedy Arc
• Brian Skelton
• Deiter VomPasker
• Dingle
• Eternal Knightmen
• FrankDTank
• Frederick Glasgow
• Ginger Sporran
• Iain
• Kal
• Kvasir Viator
• Lomyr Edain
• Luca Xante
• Magic
• Messiah
• Modu FoeSlayer
• Nunes
• Paul Scar
• Paul Sirdalus
• Peter VonPickledPepper
• Rada Torment
• Reflet Desombres
• Ribald Hornpipe
• Ritter Runkel
• Roycestein Kaelstrom
• Rufus D’Asperdi
• Shinzar Rabenflug
• Stryker Sparhawk
• Svenya
• Taki
• Titania Xylia
• Two Socks
• Vintage Tangstra
• William Brodie
• Yinki Starter
• Ylva Rasa

For a complete list of all winners, please see this post.

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The Making of Elad’s Lighthouse (cont.)

Elad’s Lighthouse is located in Spindrift Bay directly across the water from Brittany. It is home to Elad, who retired to the island after an illustrious career as Lord British’s shipbuilder and lighthouse builder. As with many of our scenes, Elad’s Lighthouse started as a cloned scene using one of our PRT / POT templates based off of the Forest 01 base template (aka PaxLair). However, it always had the unique feature of Elad’s Lighthouse which will continue to be a prominent feature. Now though, it will have unique terrain featuring dramatic cliffsides, a dockyard, lumbermill, and many other unique changes.

Note that when we un-clone these scenes, we do NOT change lot placements. We only make cosmetic changes of building styles, terrain, and foliage. One of our new worldbuilders Chris started work on Elad’s this release and we hope to have it live in the game in its newly uncloned state in Release 36.

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

Sea Wolf here with a few more screenshots of Elad’s Lighthouse. Let me know what you think!

The New Waterfall

The River

Exit

The Docks/Market

Lowlands Countryside

Chris Wolf
Level Designer

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The Making of Graff Island (cont.)

Another update on Graff Island! Graff Island is located in the Drachvald region. It is in the northernmost reaches of Spindrift Bay across from Port Graff and is central to the gem trade of the region. It is the site of a factory that sculpts the gems into weapons, armor and other goods. It is also the home of the Graff family and their sprawling mansion. Note that when we un-clone these scenes we do NOT change lot placements. We only make cosmetic changes of building styles, terrain, and foliage. In the case of Graff Island, we are replacing the terrain and foliage, adding the Graff family mansion and the Graff Gem Factory. One of our new worldbuilders, Travis, started work on it this release and we hope to have it live in the game in its newly uncloned state in Release 36.

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

Another Update!

Edge of Graff Market area

Graff Manor grounds

Leaving town and heading south, pastoral windbreaks

Thanks for following the updates!

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Game System Changes for R35

As part of our continued commitment to explain Game System changes Chris posted details about the changes we made in R35 including Encumbrance, Decay, and Interrupts.

[From a Forum Post by Chris Spears]

Greetings avatars! Last release I promised I would document the reasons behind major changes in future releases. Prepare yourself for my usual wall of text! As always, my dream is that players don’t think about the details of exactly what is happening and just play the game but for those who insist on seeing behind the curtain, here you go and enjoy!

So first up, Decay has now been enabled but with tighter limits on how much it can accumulate. I’ve written many pages on the why and how of decay in the past but since there are probably some new readers out there, I’ll give a shorter summary.

What is decay? When players die they will lose a tiny fraction of the experience off of all their skills. The current maximum that can be lost in a single death is 0.04% of the experience applied. Not 4% but 0.04% or 0.0004 times the amount that has been applied to the pool. So if you had a skill that was at 80, you would lose around 82 experience points off the skill. If the skill was at 100, you would lose around 500 experience points. Doesn’t sound like much, but that amount is lost off every adventurer skill. Also, the penalty is roughly 0.0001 per hour so dying multiple times in rapid succession isn’t extremely punishing. Currently we have the max accumulation set at 0.0004

If you have the skill set to maintain or train, then the experience will be pulled from your pooled experience assuming you have any. This is part of why, last release, the application rate of experience from the pool was reduced. That change made it so players would generally have more experience in their pools to help buffer versus decay so they would be less likely see skills lose levels on a death.

Why have decay? There are several reasons to have decay. First, death should not feel trivial, even for an Avatar. Second, when we decided to switch to a use based skill system we had to make some decisions on how to limit players. We could have gone with hard cap for max number of skill points like UO, but few people were fond of hard caps and it didn’t really make sense with our larger skill sets and more complex combat systems. We had to have someway to limit players progress so everyone doesn’t end up with 150 skills at GM.

So instead of just making it so players couldn’t progress any more as they banged against hard caps, we chose to go with a system of gentle decay. The decay is small but, since it is based on a percentage of a player’s total experience, over time they will get to a point where they are earning and losing roughly the same amount.

So next up is the change to shield spells so they no longer stack. For those unaware, in previous releases players could and would stack 5+ shield spells all the time. The results dwarfed the effectiveness of armor and made the best tanks in the game people wearing cloth armor. The spells affected are Shield of Crystal, Death Shield, Immolation, and Shield of Ice. Shield of Air couldn’t be made exclusive just yet due to how our channel systems currently works, but it will be on that list next release.

During this change, I also addressed some balance issues in Earth magic. The shield spells in each group were supposed to also grant an attunement bonus and in Earth magic, Earth’s Embrace actually had the bonus. I correct that and also re-evaluated the HP bonus on Shield of Crystal and bumped it up significantly to get it more inline with the target of it adding 20% extra health for players. Those sad to lose the bonus on Earth’s Embrace should still be happy because Earth’s Embrace can still stack with any shield spell. Also, Earth casters can now gain attunement without losing move speed.

On to the next major change… Interruptions! The existing interruption system was actually placeholder code. When you got hit while casting some spells, it did a random 1 to 100 and, if that was less than the damage you took, you were interrupted! This didn’t scale in any way. That meant that low level players rarely got interrupted and high levels frequently got interrupted. Players with 80 hit points who took 50 hit points in a single shot had a 50% chance to get interrupted and players who had 600 hit points who took 50 hit points would have the exact same 50% chance!

The new system now scales the interrupt chance based on the player’s max hit points. There is also now a skill that decreases the player’s chance to be interrupted. This Release, interruptions will probably happen at about the same rate as in the past or possibly a little less — BUT two new changes will go in for R36 that will likely increase the number of interrupts.

First, a new value was added to all spells/skills that determines how likely they are to interrupt. This was added for this release, but only a few skills had it set. The idea being that some effects interrupt more and others less. Second, the window where spells can be interrupted is currently small to non-existent for most spells. These will be tuned in R36. I would have tuned them for R35, but I wanted to give players a chance to level up the concentration skill.

Last major game system change for this release was encumbrance! This is a change we tried to make many times but always ran into situations where it might end up leaving someone permanently stranded. The old system would slow you to a walk speed at most, no matter how much you carried. It also used focus, but that focus burn didn’t scale with weight. The result was carrying 2X or carrying 2000X your encumbrance limit had the same result. Worse yet, there was a bug that made it so running out of focus didn’t stop your movement.

So with R35, the lower end of movement speed will be much slower than a walk. It will though so just being 2X over will probably move faster than before but slowing down to a crawl at higher levels. Focus use will also scale based on how overloaded they are. Finally, players who are overloaded and out of focus will not be able to move and have to wait to catch their breath a bit.

This change was important for realism, local economies, and to block botting. There were players who were carrying 10,000+ weight in ore out of mines at a time without breaking a sweat.

Sorry if there are any typos or unfinished thoughts in this wall of text but I’ve been typing on this while multitasking! Thanks for reading and now I’m off to fix some bugs!

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31-Day Countdown to Expirations and Fall into Winter Telethon

Only 31 days until our Fall into Winter Telethon and your last chance to purchase a bunch of items that are expiring!

At 11:59 PM CDT (4:59 UTC) on November 28, 2016, we are expiring the following content / features:

• House Stacking in Bundles (only 1 House per Bundle going forward)
• Adobe 2-Story with Upper Deck Village Home
• Adobe 2-Story with Patio & Balcony Village Home
• Adobe 2-Story Village Home
• Adobe Brick 2-Story with Roof Access Village Home
• All Kobold Masks (some will still be exclusively available in Kobold Bundles)
• All Prosperity Tool Packs (will still be available as part of Bundles)
• Wax Cylinder Soundtrack Vol 1
• Battle Banner
• 2016 Jack O Lanterns
• 2016 Jack O Lantern Mask
• 2016 Jack O Lantern Mask with Glow
• 2016 Grim Reaper Statue
• 2016 Grim Reaper Mask
• 2016 Rotten Armor
• 2016 Rotten Flesh Cloak
• /juggleseveredheads
• /jugglezombieheads
• /jugglejackolanterns
• 2016 Spooky Soundtrack

At noon on that same day, we are starting a 12 hour telethon that will include an array of fun activities and engaging content, many of which you can directly participate in with us in-game! We are also giving away a ton of fabulous prizes*, and as always we will be having stretch goals that based on how much players spend during the telethon (see below).

As usual, your questions will be answered throughout the event. You can pre-post your questions in the article’s comments section (linked here), or post questions during the telethon in Discord chat.*

As a special bonus, we are offering Telethon Funding Stretch Goal Rewards to any backer that pledges a minimum of $5 from the start of the telethon, until Midnight (Spending Store Credit to make $5 minimum purchase does not apply). The Fall Into Winter Telethon of the Avatar Funding Stretch Goal Rewards are:

• $10K: /rainautumnleaves
• $25K: Autumn Leaf Crown (increases length of /rainautumnleaves emote)
• $35K: Autumn Fairy Leaf Dress + Autumn Leaf Wings
• $50K: Pet Squirrel
• $65K and beyond: Secret Winter items!

Did you see what was unlocked in the last telethon? This one is going to be even bigger!

Cheer on the Devs!

For every $2,500 donated, all developers on camera have to either dance, sing, or drink a shot of alcohol.

Additionally, we will be spinning the Wheel of Fortune & Doom! The wheel will have 14 items at any given time, but dozens of total prizes ultimately will be given away! This includes developers that, if selected, have to either dance, sing, or drink a shot of alcohol.

As the wheel is spun, what is selected will be replaced by something else. Details list of wheel items coming soon. Items already selected will be removed for a time (some may not come back onto the wheel for the rest of the telethon. Keep in mind that some of these may never come up, so cross your fingers for your preferred item!

Watch The Telethon on Twitch! or YouTube! The final recording will be archived on YouTube after the event as well. See you on the livestream chat at Noon this coming November 28th!

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Winter Holiday Goodies, Elven Bundles, Magical Dyes, Halloween Sale, and More!

Winter Holiday Goodies

For those of you that like to start celebrating the Winter Holidays early, we’ve added a few Winter Holiday themed items to the Add-On Store:

New Elven Bundles

We’ve completed our line of Elven-themed bundles with the inclusion of the new Village Keep, Town, and City bundles:

Magical Dyes

Created by the Obsidian Alchemists, these magical dyes will add a hypnotizing effect to many styles of clothing, distracting your enemies long enough to take the kill. And they’re also a big hit at disco dance parties!

 

New Add-Ons

 

Halloween Sale

In celebration of the spooky holiday, we are putting all our 2016 Spooky Value Packs on sale through Halloween, October 31st!

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Get Your 15% Black Friday Bonus Now!

For the past two years we’ve extended our Black Friday Promotion to give you up to 8 weeks to take advantage of our Black Friday 15% Bonus, and we’re doing it again this year! Here are the details:

For all new purchases (including bundles, bundle upgrades, add-on items, player owned town upgrades, and Make a Difference items) between Midnight CDT October 6, 2016 (5:00 UTC, October 7, 2016) and Midnight CST, November 28, 2016 (6:00 UTC, November 29, 2016), we will add an additional 15% bonus to your Store Credit! You can use your Store Credit toward additional purchases (which includes bundles, bundle upgrades, add-on items, and player owned town upgrades).

[NOTE: The 15% bonus is calculated every day at 1:00 pm CT for any purchases within the previous 24 hours and added to your Store Credit account; Store Credit cannot be applied toward the purchase of Make a Difference items]

You can use the 15% Bonus to save on your next purchase! For example, if you have the $45 Elven Starter Bundle and really want to upgrade to the $90 Elven Tool Bundle, you would normally pay the extra $45 for the upgrade. But using the 15% bonus you can immediately save $5. To do so, you would first purchase $40 worth of Store Credit Gift Coupons (via PayPal, Amazon, Bitcoin, or credit card; excluding existing Store Credit) then use the “Convert to Credits” option on your account page to transform the Store Credit Gift Coupons into Store Credit. Within 24 hours an additional $6 bonus ($40 x 15%) would be applied to your Store Credit account, bringing it up to $46. You would then use $45 of your Store Credit to upgrade to the $90 Elven Tool Bundle.

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Upcoming Events

Nov 4-6, 2016 – SotA Con Fan Convention
Nov 10, 2016 – R35 Postmortem
Nov 17, 2016 – Release 36
Nov 21, 2016 – Courtesy Automatic Claiming of Rewards
Nov 28, 2016 – Fall into Winter Telethon and Expirations (House Stacking in Bundles, etc.)
Dec 15, 2016 – Release 37
Dec 20, 2016 – R37 Postmortem
Jan 26, 2017 – Release 38

Community Activities

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.

Howl-O-Scream

Howl-O-Scream is a community led Halloween costume decorating contest! Anyone can dress up and participate in the event, which begins in-game at 1pm CDT in Rift’s End player owned town. Get ready to get spooked and have a great time this coming weekend!

Complete event schedule posted in the forums.

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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.

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Recommended Projects to Back (2)

SotA Con East 2016  

Special Cross Promotion: Anyone who backs both Shroud of the Avatar (at a level with Game Access) and SotA Con East 2016 ($25+) will get a special custom Clasped Gauntlets Cloak in Blue and Yellow that says “SotA Con East 2016”.

Portalarium is excited to participate in the first ever community organized convention for Shroud of the Avatar – SotA Con East 2016! SotA developers and players alike will be gathering together for a casual for a casual weekend filled with exciting activities, engaging panel discussions, and of course plenty of gameplay sessions.

SotA Con East runs from November 4-6, 2016 in Baltimore Inner Harbor, Maryland. Registration is still open, so get your tickets by visiting the official event site links below!

SotA Con is entirely planned and funded by the players, for the players and developers. This once again shows how our passionate and dedicated players are creating exciting opportunities for the rest of the community, and succeeding magnificently.

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Wasteland 3

Our friends over at inXile have launched a crowdfunding campaign for Wasteland 3, a party-based role-playing game with story reactivity and strategic combat! The game features a deep and engaging story utilizing a newly-revamped dialog tree system from the writers of Torment: Tides of Numenera!

By including vehicles, environmental dangers, and a revamped, more fluid action system, inXile is evolving on Wasteland 2’s deep tactical turn-based combat and unique encounter design. Play by yourself or with a friend in story-driven synchronous or asynchronous multiplayer. Choices open up (or close off) mission opportunities, areas to explore, story arcs, and lots of other content.

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Backer Shipping Addresses

In preparation for shipping backers’ physical pledge rewards later this year, we have added Shipping Address fields to your Account Profile page. To enter your shipping address, log in to the SotA website, select “Account” in top right corner, then select “Edit Profile” located in top left corner, beneath your Avatar image.

A reminder to be sure that support@portalarium.com is unblocked from your e-mail account!

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We have finally put together a regular livestream program focused exclusively on the community!

'Community of the Avatar' with Berek debuts today at 4pm CDT on Twitch and will warm up with a kick-off a few minutes of the end of Fire Lotus's dance party. We will take you on a tour of the latest spotlight, Jade Valley (where the dance party is schedule), then bring on Esteban to talk...

The debut of Community of the Avatar - Oct. 28th at 4pm CDT

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Earlier today we had the drawing for our second Lot Deed Raffle and awarded 675 lot deeds to lucky winners. There were two raffles, one for each lot type:

• Place Anywhere Deeds: 75 Total
  • Row: 40
  • Village: 20
  • Town: 10
  • City: 5
• Player Owned Town Deeds: 600 Total
  • Row: 320
  • Village: 160
  • Town: 80
  • City: 40

Raffle tickets grant the holder a chance to win deeds of any size (Row, Village, Town, or City). Raffles will...

Release 34 Lot Deed Raffle Winners

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Earlier today we had the drawing for our second Lot Deed Raffle and awarded 675 lot deeds to lucky winners. There were two raffles, one for each lot type:

• Place Anywhere Deeds: 75 Total
  • Row: 40
  • Village: 20
  • Town: 10
  • City: 5
• Player Owned Town Deeds: 600 Total
  • Row: 320
  • Village: 160
  • Town: 80
  • City: 40

Raffle tickets grant the holder a chance to win deeds of any size (Row, Village, Town, or City). Raffles will be held monthly and we will have multiple winners for each lot size (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.

Below is a complete list of the winners for the Release 34 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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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 35 access for all backers at First Responder level and above begins this Thursday,...

Release 35 Instructions

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Hello everyone, this is Asclepius, with the next exciting instalment in
The story of Kobold Skrek’Kex
Written by Kobold Skrek’Kex
Background music by Smartsound

Chapter 3
Skrek’Kex nervously paced the living room in his dwelling. Heading out to search for a dragon! And all because he had wanted to eat a tiiiny slice of pumpkin pie – it was really unfair. His stomach rumbled in agreement. Well, a kobold must do what a kobold must do. And although kobold expeditions had the tendency to end deadly and in general were rather uncomfortable affairs, there were positive aspects about them, too. First and foremost, redeeming himself in the eyes of the fearless leader. It also held a certain allure to the cunning kobold, to go where not many kobolds had ventured before. There were so many secrets to learn, tricks to be played, things to be borrowed… If he played this just right, he’d be greatly rewarded and forever held in veneration. Skrek’Kex vivid imagination showed him himself, riding on a huge spider-beast, followed by a trail of obedient human slaves carrying chests of loot, back into the Caverns of Skrekk. He saw himself riding along the narrow cavern corridors, lined with kobolds all aah-ing and ooh-ing in deep respect for the dauntless explorer. He held a huge iridescent dragon scale, craftily made into a kobold-sized shield for the Grakkhaz, which had been gifted to him by the dragon as a sign of their alliance. The dragon he had been able to persuade into alliance with the kobolds in exchange for the incessant devotions of his worshippers, the dragon whose voice he would operate from now on.

A loud knock startled Skrek’Kex from his day dreams. “Yeeesssh?” he asked. Without further ado Zap’Hex entered. Skrek’Kex bowed deeply before the old magician, partly out of reverence for the wise kobold and partly ingrained after years of attending his teachings – and beatings. And promptly the older kobold hit Skrek’Kex on his head with his pine staff. Stunned Skrek’Kex fell onto his bottom “Yoouch…” rubbing his head with one hand and holding the other up protectively he cautiously looked up at the elderly kobold. Zap’Hex narrowed his eyes and hissed “You fool! What in Kurtulmak’s name possesses you to these follies? I know you are not stupid, but sometimes..!” Shaking his head and sighing the elderly kobold sat down onto a kobold bench. “I was of a mind to just let the Grakkhaz know what it was *really* you brought him there.” The old mage harrumphed and hmphed some more, shaking his head. “Kex… I hope one day you will learn the wisdom of looking ahead before acting.” Skrek’Kex, silently, thought to himself that this was an unfair assessment. He had looked ahead – there had been pie to be had. In his opinion Zap’Hex truly and foolishly undervalued a good meal.

“Anyways” Zap’Hex continued after the silence had lasted for a while “I have not come to lecture you again on this, but I have come to make sure you leave prepared. Do not underestimate the task ahead of you. Even though the Grakkhaz is going to send a sizable exploration party, dragons are moody and erratic even at their best. And there will be more than just dragons. Here in Norgard we know the neighboring hooman tribes, we know their follies and their weaknesses, we know where they camp and where they hunt. But the mainland hooman tribes are different and mostly unknown to us. It has been in my grandfathers-grandfathers days we last sent an exploration party this far. To be honest, it might be too ambitious a task to survive, but the esteem our tribe could garner if we only had a dragon to worship… With the hoomans hunting them the dragons have become careful and most Elder Dragons have removed themselves to more remote places neither us nor the hoomans can easily reach. The foolish younger ones which still hunt close to the hooman lands mostly don’t grow old and are not worth worshipping. This Elder Dragon, if the tales are true, is of exceptional wisdom and might. If we can ally us to him…”

Tapping the end of his wand to the floor the elder kobold again shook his head. “Well, it is no use to talk of things that could be. As I said, unknown perils and dangers wait where you are going, and even though you will not go alone, I advise you to enlist more help. Do you remember the summoning lessons?” Skrek’Kex nodded eagerly. He had often summoned a lesser imp to employ as a distraction for the cook at school. Useful little devils, but also quite a bit unreliable and gluttonous, which had lastly lead to some painful quarrels over the spoils of their deeds and to Skrek’Kex deciding it wasn’t worth it.

“I have brought you a book.” Carefully the old mage unwrapped a large, worn volume from the shielding envelope he had carried it in. ‘Liber Magni de Incantationibus’ was written in large, dark red letters onto the cover. The binding felt smooth and cold to Skrek’Kex touch as he gingerly took the volume. Carefully he used his index claw to turn the pages, filled with mythical incantations and diagrams. The book had to be very old judging from the brittle state of the paper, it was also missing some parts here and there, some pages were singed or unreadable because some liquids had been spilled and left dark red stains onto them.

“I trust you to choose a companion for the travel that will be of use to you. Unfortunately, the book is enchanted in a way that makes it impossible to copy. Many pages are too damaged to safely summon from them, I know. Most of the lesser demons though can still safely be summoned and will be a valuable aid in your travels as they will be able to hold watch over you even when you get tired or spy on the hoomans for you, even when you would be easily spotted. Keep in mind though, that every deal has it’s price.”, the old mage spoke. “You can have Eeza’bel return the book to me when you are finished”. Without further ado the old mage turned and left Skrek’Kex, who had been all too fascinated to listen, alone. Here was a page about Belgior, a demon prince, and how to prepare the needed sacrifice to ensure his indulgence, here a page on a species of flying demons, used in earlier wars as spies and to drop cursed fire on the enemy. He’d show the Grakkhaz and Zap’Hex that he was worthy, he would honor them and then impress the dragon, too, with his powerful demon minion!

Swiftly he turned to prepare everything. He had chosen a fearful eight legged demon beast with the head of a hawk and the body of a snake. He’d be able to ride it and scout for the explorers, with it’s eight clawed legs it should also be a great asset in battle! Even the name – Baal’Awk the Abominable – would make his foes cower in fear! Carefully, sticking his tongue out of the side of his draconian snout, Skrek’Kex set a circle of salt to bind and protect himself from the demon so he could make a pact with him. Looking through his vials he found one with a fire elementals ‘blood’, dried to a powdery substance with which he drew a pentagram and a circle inside the circle of salt. As seen on the instructional diagram he placed 5 candles at the points of the star that had been cast during a new moon. Whetting his claw and turning the page he continued the instructions. Curious, the page felt thicker than the last one underneath his scaly hands… but he disregarded that and continued. Finally he was ready to speak the ritualistic words that would summon the demon and bind it to obedience. Beginning with “Te accerso magnum daemonem. Adiuro vos nomine Hastur et Belial… Per robur aquae et ignis, tenentur. Audite!” he continued on with the lengthy incantation, calling on old bonds and times forgotten. Soon, the room grew darker and a sulfurous smell manifested. Excitedly the small kobold continued his endeavors, his incantations continuing louder, his voice urgent. He hesitated for a moment at a passage about harvest and crops, but then decided that it was probably all right and continued. And suddenly, with a wailing sounds, and in a dark grey-purplish cloud a red eyed, black feathered turkey manifested. “AWWWWK!” it crowed. And again “AWWWK!!” picking at the herbs thrown into the pentagram for the incantation.

Skrek’Kex was baffled. What had gone wrong..? He was about to step through the salt-barrier when suddenly he remembered a lesson about a demon who had tricked his summoner to just do so and then had devoured the careless fool. Ah, surely it must be a mighty demon, to think of such a plot, to disguise himself as a harmless turkey, genius! “Youse bound by me now, no eating Skrek’Kex!” he ascertained and spoke the ritualistic words to bind the demon to him. The demon/turkey again just awwwk’ed, maybe a bit more content because of the twig with thyme he had found. Skrek’Kex spoke the correct words to banish all unbound demons before destroying the barrier and nodded, pleased with himself, when the turkey/demon did not vanish. He had successfully bound a mighty demon! Tapping his foot impatiently he waited for the demon to reveal his true form. But he did not change. Instead the turkey/demon kept pecking at some left over scraps of food he had found close to the table, eyeing Skrek’Kex with a certain intelligence from his red, wary, beady eyes. Certainly, very convincing turkey behavior. “Well, we’se will speak some other time.” the kobold finally conceded “Have your way, maybe it is even clever to not let the others know…” he mused. “We will leave for the mainland in the morning.”

The post The Story of Kobold Skrek’Kex – chapter 3 – by Kobold Skrek’kex – narrated by Asclepius appeared first on Echoes from the Caverns.

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This week’s community spotlight features the Player Owned Town, Jade Valley! The upcoming Release 35 dance party (which starts this Friday at 2pm CDT) will also be hosted in Jade Valley. We will be livestreaming the last half hour or so of the dance party, leading into a new livestream event that officially begins at 4pm.

As told from a visit to the town by your community wood elf druid, Berek, Jade Valley is a unique town with many opportunities for new and experienced players to find a reason to visit. Close to Port Phoenix and several other player owned towns on the east side of the isle of Elysium, I saw a great many things across Jade Valley that drove me to write this spotlight.

Here is what I witnessed:

Jade Valley is very easy to find with many distractions to appease your adventurous spirit along the way. As I neared the town, nestled along the Twins Foothills in the southwest of Novia, the howl of the wind from the mountains threatened to rip off my cloak. Fortunately, as I approached the town’s entrance, the valley tamed the winds down to a nice breeze.

Mal Hari the town Govenor greeted me upon entering. He escorted me to the outdoor bar area, which had an amazing view of the coast. A group of fishing vessels were anchored there, bobbing up and down as the occasional wind gust came along.

As we walked, I asked Governor Mal Hari…

Why was Jade Valley founded?

Initially, Jade Valley was a place for my friends and family to live. As I began to decorate the town, I realized that I had so much stuff and plenty of space that I could share. To find people who could contribute to the town, I started a guild (the Jade Dragons), which has grown immensely, and now includes several player owned towns (together known as the Jade Empire). Jade Valley is the Capitol of the empire, and is a place where avatars can share the public amenities and the generosity of the townsfolk.

Who is welcome to reside in Jade Valley?

Everyone is welcome (Jade Valley is a PvE area). You do not need to be a guild member to live in town. There are already so many great people living here, including PVPers, roleplayers, crafters, grinders, casual players, etc. As the governor, I have strived to create a great town that can bring players together. Our town was founded on the principle of being friendly and respectful to each other. So as long as you are friendly to your fellow player, Jade Valley may be the place for you.

Tell us about your residents of Jade Valley?

I can’t say enough praise about the players living here. I feel rather lucky that they have chosen to settle in Jade Valley because they have created a strong sense of community and helped build the town through selfless cooperation. There is every type of player here and they are all very helpful to each other. At almost any time of the day, you can find someone from Jade Valley online crafting, heading out on adventures, or sitting around the Jade Tavern.

What are the unique areas of Jade Valley?

Jade Valley has a well organized central area with a shopping market, a crafting pavilion, the Jade Tavern, a gustball field, and an amphitheater. The market has a 1-stop shopping plaza with 8 player vendors and 6 NPC vendors selling almost everything you need. The crafting pavilion has every expert crafting station for public use. The Jade Tavern is an outdoor bar where you can stop in for a drink. The Tavern also has a stage for musical performances! The large outdoor amphitheater is a perfect venue to host community events including plays, meetings, and concerts.

Underneath Jade Valley is the Jade Caverns (a PVP zone), where 4 v 4 PVP events will be hosted. We also have some of the best fishing around!

Jade Valley (and the rest of the Jade Empire) is part of a grand alliance called the Phoenix Republic, which is a growing coalition currently consisting of 6 guilds and 15 cities. This alliance has extended the strong sense of community to locations and players throughout SotA.

What is the future of Jade Valley?

The future of our little piece of New Britannia is bright! With so many great people living, shopping, crafting, and playing here, we are sure to grow both as a place of commerce and a place of fun. There is plenty of space still available for the town to grow, so we are confident that as the larger game community grows, so to will our town.

If interested in becoming part of the Jade Valley community, message Mal Hari in the community forums to show your interest.

We will be touring towns and talking with guilds and other groups, all of which are open to be spotlighted on coming tours brought to you by Berek, your community wood elf druid.

Do you have a Player Owned Town, guild, or other type of group that makes available great things for the community? Let us know! We would like to include your establishment in an upcoming spotlight. Just send Berek a brief proposal of what you have to present!

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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 35 access for all backers at First Responder level and above begins this Thursday, October 27, at 10:30 AM US Central Daylight Time (15:30 UTC).

Path of Love Polish

With Release 35, we have continued polishing the Path of Love storyline. Ardoris continues to be our main focus with lots of fixes, polish, and additions to the city and the quests leading from it. In particular, the Tower of Shuttered Eye is no longer a side quest, and has been fully incorporated into the main Path of Love storyline. It has also been better balanced to match the players expected levels at that point in the story. While we did make progress on the region specific clothing for Perennial Coast, even getting new NPC faces for several characters including Min Liang Tan, the region clothing will not appear in game until Release 36.

Roving Encounters

When we first unveiled Shroud of the Avatar in our Kickstarter, we showed Roving Encounters on the Overworld with flying Dragons and rolling gypsy wagons. We have finally returned to that original vision! No longer are encounters on the Overworld map hidden as random surprises over which you have no control. Now, the encounters are actual creatures that move about, and that you can choose to either engage or avoid.

Food and Water

With Release 34, we did a major overhaul to the cooking system, and we are continuing that with more recipes with higher level effects. We have also added the ability to gather water, and planters now indicate whether the plants have been watered or not. Finally, we have added more plants to agriculture which, when combined with water gathering and more gathered ingredients, makes cooking a much more self-sufficient profession than the previous implementation in which it relied much more on purchased ingredients.

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. So, 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, and we do not yet have all the in-game systems to inform players of these changes, or to share ways 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 35.

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 35, October 27, 2016

• Story: The Path of Love will continue to be polished with a focus on the Tower of the Shuttered Eye along with continued work on Ardoris. We will also continue polish on the Path of Courage.
  • Tower of the Shuttered Eye: This entire storyline has been reworked to be better balanced based on where the player will be level wise along the Path of Love. In addition, this is now a required step for players on the Path of Love, so that new players do not attempt to run straight from Soltown to Necropolis. Many issues with the scene have been fixed (although there is no longer free treasure at the top) and in general this should be a much more appropriate area for adventurers from low to medium skill levels. Lastly, we have created a unique NPC face for the chief antagonist of this quest, Min Liang Tan (see New Unique NPC faces below).
  • Ardoris Polish: We continued polish work on the City of Love. We did additional decoration improvements across the scene, particularly around NPC buildings such as the Guard Barracks, PVP Arena, Peladjar Inn, Tavern, and much more. Many visual effects were added, including insects and schools of fish, and a number of NPC behaviors were further improved as well including a morning gathering for Tai Chi. We have polished the Black Arrow side quest, in which the Avatar must track down a soulless serial killer who is stalking and killing the children of Ardoris. There is also a new side quest involving the special “bonds” of a relationship; visit the very… focused Zangoff the Blacksmith to start this new quest. Additionally we polished many of the conversations (typos, missing keywords, journal entry errors, etc.).
  • Brittany Sewers: Some of you already know that there’s something evil going on deep in the heart of the Brittany Sewers. Without spoiling too much for those of you who haven’t been there, I think it’s safe to reveal that there have been a handful of high-level enemies in a central room, and one of them has a key that gives you access to their treasure room. Some of this is changing with Release 35. For more discussion about these changes you can join the Dev+ discussion started by Keith “Sannio” Quinn here.
    • The fight is now a wave-based battle instead of a crowd of enemies. Kill all enemies in a wave to start the next one. Defeat all waves to achieve victory. (The number of waves may change in the future.)
    • Once the fight starts, an open gate before the boss fight will close and not re-open until the players in the boss fight win or die. (This means no more reinforcements allowed after the fight begins.)
    • The “treasure key” is going away. Now, the treasure room gate will unlock only after every enemy of every wave is defeated. (This means you can’t get the treasure key once and then skip past the boss fight in future visits.)
  • Harvest: Harvest is located in the Verdantis region in the Northwest region of Novia. Originally a cloned scene using one of our PRT/POT templates based off of the Forest 01 base template (aka the “PaxLair template”), it was rebuilt in Release 35 to show the plot specific elements of the Norgard occupation and to display a heavily agrarian theme.
  • Novia Overworld: We’ve made a pass through the Novia Overworld to ensure there were roadways connecting all NPC towns and Player Run Towns (those towns not on the storyline, mainly occupied by players).
  • Celestial Mechanics Bugs Fixed: Our resident Outlander Astronomer, Bowen Bloodgood, documented several broken aspects of our Celestial System. We spent time correcting many of those issues so that our Celestial Mechanics should now work as intended. Sadly, this means it will now be 22,000 years before we will see a perfect alignment of all the heavenly bodies.
  • Better Directions: When asking NPCs such as guards for directions, they will not only tell you where something or someone is if they know, but also unlock the Point of Interest on your compass. We’ve added many points of interest (such as the Soltown Catacombs in Soltown) which NPCs will give directions to as well. For R35, the following towns will have the ability to ask NPCs for directions to points of interest: Aerie, Ardoris, Braemar, Desolis, Etceter, Kingsport, Solania, and Soltown. Support for the following towns will be added in future patches: Jaanaford, Kiln, Owl’s Head, Resolute, Spite, Valhold, Vertas, and Xenos.
  • Oracle Clock Watchers: After listening to forum feedback, we have modified the Oracle’s Virtue test from the old reset at 24 hours from your last virtue test to instead reset at midnight game server time (US Eastern time).
  • Resolute NPC Behaviors: We did a pass through Resolute adding schedules and behaviors.
  • Brittany Central NPC Behaviors: We did a pass through Central Brittany adding schedules and behaviors.
  • Anti-Theft Behaviors: Many more buildings across the game now have the Anti-Theft behaviors built in due to some nested pre-fab work done by Sannio. This means the NPCs in buildings are now more likely to notice you taking things and chastise you for it.
  • NPC Torches: NPCs now have the ability to wield a torch at night. Guards in some towns, like Ardoris, will start using this if they are patrolling at night.
• Multiplayer Combat Balance: A pass will be made through combat skills, creature stats, player stats, advancement rates, zone difficulties, and other values for continued balance of multiplayer combat. We may also create additional skills, spells, and combos.
  • Adventuring Skill Decay: Skills will now decay. This is triggered when you die. Right now this accumulates a maximum of 4 hours worth of decay. NOTE: For now this only applies to Adventuring Skills, Crafting Skills do not yet decay. Skills set to train or maintain will spend XPs out of your experience pool before actually removing experience from the skill.
  • Encumbrance: Encumbrance has now been made more realistic in its behavior. Previously, players could carry any amount and still move at a decent speed. Focus would slowly drain away at a constant rate, but running out of focus would not prevent movement. In addition to not being very realistic, this behavior was also enabling some unwanted behaviors such as players mining for hours on end without the need to ever go back to town. Also, this was making it trivial to transport any amount of goods across the world with little effort. Starting in R35, encumbrance will slow the player and use focus fairly proportionally with the amount they are overloaded. Carrying twice the amount you’re supposed to will cut your movement speed in half and drain focus at a slow rate. Carry ten times the amount you should will make you move around a tenth your usual speed and also use ten times as much focus. There is a lower cap to how slow players can move but focus costs continue to rise. Additionally, running out of focus will now prevent movement until the player has a chance to rest and regain some focus. It is advised that players who are carrying an extreme amount of goods stop by a bank or their house and unload some extra weight before the patch. Otherwise, players might be in for a long slow crawl home the day after the patch! The exact math behind this will no doubt receive some further tuning based on feedback but be aware this is intended to inconvenience players who are trying to perform what would normally be considered impossible feats of carrying far more than was intended.  In any scene with player housing, the speed penalty will be applied but not the focus loss to make carrying very heavy loads within town scenes less painful. You can join the forum discussion here.
  • Interrupts: We have added new interruption logic for spell casting where it is calculated based on a formula related to effective damage versus health. You can read more here.
    • MAX(MIN(((EffectiveDamage/health)* 200%), 5%), 80%)
  • Concentration: This is a new innate skill in the Focus Magic School that decreases the chance that you will be interrupted while casting.
  • Soothing Rain VFX: We toned down the opacity of these visuals to reduce the impact on the view of the caster.
  • Earthquake VFX: We toned down the screen shake effect of Earthquake due to feedback that it was making some players feel ill.
  • Targeting Breaks at Range: Selected targets will be lost once they reach max range.  
  • Weapon Durability:  The rate at which weapons are damaged by combat has been reduced by 50%.
  • Elysian Illumination: No longer usable from the non-combat bar.
  • Spell Stacking: A number of spells were able to be stacked.  Shield of Crystal, Death Shield, Immolation, Shield of Ice will now overwrite each other.  Shield of Air currently can still be stacked but for R36 it will also no longer stack.
  • Spellbinder’s Stance: Like other stances, spellbinder’s stance is no longer usable from the non-combat bar.
  • Shield of Crystal: The hit point bonus of shield of Crystal has been doubled and it now grants Earth Attunement bonus.
  • Earth’s Embrace: No longer grants attunement bonus.
• Player Towns & Player Housing:  POT Owners will now be able to select from a set of start points for their town. Also, new housing content will appear; including new Elven homes for the Elven bundles and Testing Incentive Program decorations. Finally, updates to Dynamic Player-Owned Towns that have locked submission forms will appear in the game.
  • Inactivity Timer for Tax Free Lots (delayed from R34): Until now, all Tax Free Lots defaulted to the base amount of 4 months of time allowed for inactivity before the lot would revert to being unowned — and all contents sent to the owner’s bank. With Release 35, that 4 month time still applies to all backers who purchase the game through bundles or Steam, but if you purchased the game via a pledge then your Inactivity Timer now scales based on your Pledge Level (see below). Resetting the inactivity timer can be done by the owner simply by entering the lot, but co-owners, trustees, etc. can only reset the Inactivity Timer through an interaction of some kind, like moving a decoration. Simply entering the lot by one of these co-owners will not reset the Inactivity Timer. Note that taxed lot claims are unchanged and still get their timer from paying taxes.
    • Default*: 4 Months (*includes Ancestor, Navigator, Developer, & all Bundles)
    • Citizen: 5 Months
    • Edelmann: 6 Months
    • Knight: 7 Months
    • Knight Marshal: 8 Months
    • Lord: 9 Months
    • Lord Marshal: 10 Months
    • Baron, Baron 2, Baron 3: 11 Months
    • Duke: 12 Months
    • Lord of the Manor, Lord of the Manor 2: 13 Months
  • Start Point Selection for Dynamic POTs: Owners of Dynamic Player-Owned Towns will now be able to use an in-game tool to pick which start point they want players to appear at when they first come into the scene. The choice will be from a list of pre-placed options and will include some locations along the edge of the scene as well as a few near the center of the scene. Note that, for POTs flagged for Open PvP, there will still be some randomization of the exact location to deter camping.
  • Placeable Dynamic POT Town Crier: Dynamic POT Town Owners can now place an additional Town Crier wherever they wish. Note: the default Town Crier(s) will always remain where they are.
  • Darkstarr Moondial: This has been updated to match the celestial bodies and mechanics of the Novian system. Scott “Scottie” Jones posted about the update process in Dev+ recently here.
  • Multi-Home Deeds: Deeds now have the ability to represent more than one home. This is to help with bundles that grant more than one home (left and right alcove row homes for example). This affects the following homes which now appear as a single deed (versus a “pick one of many” reward):
    • Elven Two-Story w/ Alcove (Row Homes)
    • Elven Three-Story w/ Alcove (Row Homes)
    • Elven Four-Story w/ Alcove (Row Homes)
    • Kobold Two-Story w/ Alcove (Row Homes)
    • Kobold Three-Story w/ Alcove (Row Homes)
    • Kobold Four-Story w/ Alcove (Row Homes)
    • Stucco Two-Story w/ Alcove (Row Homes)
    • Stucco Three-Story w/ Alcove (Row Homes)
    • Stucco Four-Story w/ Alcove (Row Homes)
    • Elven Homes (Village): Includes Elven Peaked-Roof Home (Village) & Elven Home (Village)
  • Elven Crown Merchant:
    • Elven Globe Home: This unique village-sized home is a glass globe encased in the branches of a tree. While the curved glass walls cannot be decorated, they do provide the growth benefits of a greenhouse! This is available from the new Elven Crown merchant in Vertas.
    • Medium Elven Tent: When all your Elven stuff just won’t fit in that small tent… (Small Elven Tent is crafted, Medium Elven Tent is Crown Merchant, Large Elven Tent is Bundle).
  • Add-On Store:
    • 2016 Cornucopia: Once again, in celebration of the Fall holidays, we have created another cornucopia for sale in the Add-On Store. When activated, these items generate a random edible item or ingredient per Earth day (food, fruit, berries, mushrooms, flour, egg, etc.). During the Fall and holiday seasons, there is a percentage chance of other kinds of items being generated.
    • Ornate Scarecrow: Protect your valuable crops from those ravaging flocks of birds! Apparently, this more lifelike appearance is more menacing to our feathered enemies. NOTE: Birds eating crops is not an actual feature in the game, at least not yet.
    • Music Sign: There is a new sign for those who specialize in music related businesses.
  • R34 Lot Deed Raffle: The drawings for our Second Lot Deed Raffle will be held on October 27, 2016 and winners will be announced shortly thereafter. Deeds will be delivered in Release 35. As a reminder, this Raffle included not only tickets that could be purchased in game but also included free tickets to non-property holders who owned the game at the beginning of Release 34 (September 29, 2016).
    • Place Anywhere Deeds (75):
      • Row: 40
      • Village: 20
      • Town: 10
      • City: 5
    • Player Owned Town Deeds (600):
      • Row: 320
      • Village: 160
      • Town: 80
      • City: 40
  • R35 Lot Deed Raffle: This will be the third Lot Deed Raffle. For this raffle (and future raffles), we are scaling back the number of deeds so that we can pace them out to better match current availability and the speed at which town owners are making lots available.
    • Place Anywhere Deeds (20):
      • Row: 10
      • Village: 6
      • Town: 3
      • City: 1
    • Player Owned Town Deeds (150):
      • Row: 80
      • Village: 40
      • Town: 20
      • City: 10
  • New POTs/POT Changes
    • Amour and Serenus: Converted to Forest 01b.
    • Astoria: Converted to Mountains 01. Rotated to 180.
    • Baubbleshire: New addition.
    • Beregost: Interconnection (with Kingsport).
    • Bladewyke: Changed location. Interconnection (with Taenby Landing). Upgraded to Village.
    • Caladruin: Upgraded to Village.
    • Crossroads: New addition.
    • Grumpie Hermit’s Hide-a-way: Converted to Swamp Island 01a. Interconnection (with Brekken Bay). Upgraded to Village.
    • Leoni d’Amore: Converted to Desert 01b.
    • Moonshire Downs: Upgraded to Metropolis.
    • New Britannian Market: Converted to Forest 01c. Interconnections (with Brittany Fields, Brittany Estates, and Brittany Alleys).
    • Nido dell’Aquila: Converted to Island 01a. Interconnections (changed nested interconnection to within Brittany Wharfs, added Central Brittany and Brittany Alleys). Upgraded to Hamlet.
    • Raven’s Head: Converted to Forest 01b.
    • Recluse: Converted to Forest 01a.
    • Saint Haley: Converted to Tropical Island 01a.
    • Serpent’s Watch: Upgraded to Town.
    • Solitude: Renamed (formerly Jaxton). Ownership changed. Converted to Swamp 01a.
    • Styx: Renamed (formerly Arx Draconis Aerie). Ownership changed. Converted to Island 01a. Changed location. Interconnections (added Xenos, removed Arx Draconis Lowlands and Port Arx Draconis).
    • Tempest Reef: Converted to Island 01a. Changed location (minor). Upgraded to Hamlet.
    • Temples of Syrinx: Converted to Tropical Island 01a. Rotated to Left. Changed nested interconnection to within Desolis.
    • Tenebrae: New addition (nested in Aerie).
    • Thapae Mizellmist: Converted to Tropical Island 01. Rotated to Left. Changed nested interconnection to within Brittany Estates.
    • Toad Town: Renamed (formerly Tarakan). Converted to Swamp Island 01a.
    • Trysull: Converted to Forest 01b. Changed location.
    • Vale Halla: Renamed (formerly Vale Halla (Frost Valley)). Ownership changed. Upgraded to Crossroads Village. Nested interconnection changed to within Brittany Wharfs. Interconnections (kept Central Brittany, added Elad’s Lighthouse).
      
• Offline Reward Delivery: Reward delivery for Offline Mode will become available to players using this mode to play.
  • Offline Reward Delivery Delayed: Due to the delayed work on the Inactivity Timer and patching we had to do on Release 34, this work was unfortunately delayed.
• Roving Encounters: Potential encounters (wandering merchants, monsters, etc.) will appear on the overworld for players to engage (or avoid).
  • Roving Encounters: Shroud of the Avatar already has random encounters — you’ll be walking across the Novia or Hidden Vale overworld maps and, without warning, you’ll be teleported into a small encounter scene. We like the idea of running into unexpected threats on the overworld, but the “without warning” part is less than ideal…so, as of Release 35, we’re changing how random encounters are triggered. You won’t be blindly caught by a Random Encounter anymore. We’re replacing that part of the encounter system with new overworld enemies who will trigger encounters when you get too close. These overworld enemies will be similar to the ones you’ve battled countless times in adventure scenes, except they can’t be engaged in actual combat. Instead, if you approach too close to the new overworld enemies and they see you, they’ll run at you. If they get next to you, you’ll be pulled into the encounter associated with them. For example, bandits will pull you into bandit encounters, while wolves pull you into a scene full of wolves. Once you see the enemy, you can walk around it to avoid the encounter or run toward it to force the encounter. If the enemy has already spotted you and you’re quick, you can try to run away before the enemy catches up and keep the encounter from ever triggering. Both overworld maps have encounters scattered about. They might be wandering in the woods, meandering along a shoreline, or patrolling along a road. Initially, we’ll be adding in common encounters like wolves, bandits, and undead. Over time, dragon encounters will return and we’ll include other rare situations like merchants. Please note this means we have removed ALL the random encounters that were previously placed in the game.
• Crafting: Cooking, Food, and Agriculture will be the focus of Release 35, with one of the major goals being the reduction in reliance on purchasing ingredients from NPC merchants to cook food. This means increasing the number of plants in Agriculture and polishing Agriculture itself; including the addition of features like water harvesting. We also hope to add Alcohol recipes and Teachable Recipes. Finally, the visual effect for items that have been Enchanted or Masterworked will be redone.
  • Alcohol and Teachable Recipes Delayed: Unfortunately, R34 Patches forced us to have to choose between Agriculture or Alcohol and Recipe Teaching and as much as we wanted to get the booze flowing and the recipes teaching, we chose to improve Agriculture.
  • Water Harvesting: The Novian Mercantile Guild’s monopoly on Bucketed Water has been broken! For now, citizens are free to gather unlimited water from wells and fountains. Get it while it lasts! Water Harvesting will expand to include other sources, including lakes and rivers (with unlimited refill), however some water sources such as rain barrels, wells, and fountains will have refill-over-time tech added. When that tech comes online it will govern how much water can be gathered from rain barrels, wells and fountains over a certain amount of time and how quickly they will refill.
  • Plants Watered Indication: The appearance of the dirt in your planters will now change to indicate if your plant is ready to be watered or not. If the dirt is lighter and matte (i.e. dry looking) the plant needs to be watered. If the dirt is dark and glossy (i.e. wet looking) then it is not ready to be watered.
  • Polished Enchanted Visual Effect: We have significantly toned down this visual effect and changed the color to be a bluish white (versus yellow).
  • New Plants for Agriculture: In order to ensure that almost all ingredients for cooking can be gathered or grown (at least after purchasing seeds), we have added more plants to Agriculture.
    
    • Lemons Tree
    • Bananas Tree
    • Tomato Vines
    • Onions
    • Pepper Plant
    • Wheat
    • Lettuce
    • Potatoes
    • Carrots
    • Tea Plant
    • Grape Vines
  • Other Cooking Ingredient Sources: We have also added nuts to tree harvests, mushrooms to gathering, and insured that all meats can be field dressed from animals. At this point, there are only a very few outstanding ingredients that still have to be purchased, milk for example.
  • New Recipes:
    • Scarecrow: Flocks of ravenous feathered fiends are out to deprive you of your hard earned crops! You must defend yourself! NOTE: Birds eating crops is not an actual feature in the game, at least not yet.
    • Water Well: This new craftable version of the well allows you to gather water for watering your plants.
    • Umbrella: Protect yourself from the elements with this wondrous device! Device not guaranteed to improve singing and dancing skills in the rain.
    • Hand Fan: Keep yourself cool during the sweltering summer months with this equippable device. You will need to learn the /fan emote from players who obtained it during the First Summer Telethon.
    • Small Elven Tent: This is of course the cutest of the Elven Tents. (Small Elven Tent is crafted, Medium Elven Tent is Crown Merchant, Large Elven Tent is Bundle).
    • Crocodile Trophy Head: We have added another trophy for you to mount on your wall.
  • Higher Tier Cooking Recipes: In Release 34, we revamped the Cooking system to introduce Tiered Recipes with the effects generated by consuming the food being based on the amount and types of ingredients. There are 6 tiers (0–5). In Release 34, we only had Tiers 0–2, which only affected Health and Focus Regen rates. In Release 35, we are adding 25 new Cooking Recipes all the way up to Tier 5 which make Fantastical and Special Foods that give more magical effects and can last much, much longer (but may also have negative effects).
    • Tier 1:
      • Duration: 40-60 min
      • Effects: + Health/Focus Regen
      • Fish Stew
      • Mutton Potpie
      • Oyster Potpie
      • Chicken Potpie
      • Beef Potpie
    • Tier 2:
      • Duration: 1 Hour
      • Effects:
        • ++ Health/Focus Regen
        • + Attribute (Str/Dex/Int)
      • Rabbit Stew
      • Venison Stew
      • Garlic Chicken
  • Tier 3:
    • Duration: 2 Hours
    • Effects:
      • +++ Health/Focus Regen
      • ++ Attribute (Str/Dex/Int)
      • + Attribute (Str/Dex/Int)
    • Bear Steak and Potatoes
    • Wolf and Lamb Chops
    • Crocodile Skewers
    • Grilled Corpion Tail
    • Corpion Claw Potato Salad
    • Spider Legs with Garlic Butter
    • Spider Soup
  • Tier 4:
    • Duration: 4 Hours
    • Effects:
      • ++++ Health/Focus Regen
      • ++++ Attribute (Str/Dex/Int)
      • + or – Attribute (Str/Dex/Int)
    • Bear Surprise
    • Wolf Surprise
    • Venison Surprise
    • Obsidian Bear Stew
    • Obsidian Wolf Chops
    • Obsidian Venison Loaf
  • Tier 5:
    • Duration: 4-8 Hours
    • Effects:
      • +++ Health/Focus Regen
      • +++ Attribute (Str/Dex/Int)
      • + Attunement
      • – Attunement
      • — Attribute
    • Spicy Phoenix Bites
    • Daemon Tea
    • Dragon Stew
    • Troll Spare Ribs
• Character: Ardoris will be the first city where we begin adding region specific clothing (Japanese themed) for the residents, including unique armor for guards, clothing for citizens, and regalia for royalty. Work will also continue on Summer Telethon items, including Flaming Bagpipes and Firedancing.
  • Ardoris Clothing Delayed: We chose to take longer with the concepting phase, so these are not yet ready for deployment in the game.
  • New Unique NPC Faces: We have begun to expand the number of unique faces for our NPCs. You will start to see more variety over the next several releases. Min Liang Tan, Edvard, Samael and Kardan Marbane all look different/unique now.
    • Clasped Gauntlets Cloaks: We believe very strongly that community events that extend into the real world are very important and we have always worked hard to support them. We have been considering for a long time now how players who attend these real world events can display their attendance inside the game. With all that in mind, we came up with the Clasped Gauntlets Cloak! Any Shroud of the Avatar community event, of any size, is eligible to receive a cloak for each attendee. The organizer will need to submit a request for approval and then once approved provide a list of backers who attended. Large events can request a customized version of the cloak with a unique color scheme and a custom name.
    • CNBE Titles: Backers who have been chaotic enough to earn a Chaos medal from Darkstarr will now start receiving their titles in the game. Darkstarr is so chaotic that he decided to turn Chaotic into a noun! The official title is: Chaotic of New Britannian Empire.
    • /whisper: This new emote can be learned from Lucille, the wife of Zangoff the Blacksmith in Ardoris (a new NPC added this release). Ask her what you can do to help and then continue the conversation.
    • Summer Telethon 1 Reward:
      • Virtue Hand Fan: We originally created a plain straw fan to go with the /fan emote but we have now replaced that with this more ornate version which players will receive in addition to the original plain fan (which is now craftable).
    • Summer Telethon Part 2 Rewards:
      • /camera & tintype camera: Kobolds continue to amaze and astonish with feats of technological wonder. Their latest contraption allows the user to capture memories in black and white with a boxy like contraption called a “tintype camera”.
      • Flaming Bagpipes & Leather Kilts: An enterprising Outlander convinced some Kobold tinkers to “improve” her bagpipes with flame jets! After a few unwelcome burns she upgraded her kilt to a leather version for protection from the heat and flames.
      • Weather Changing Clockwork Umbrella: The renowned Kobold scientist ZKrikkk Zezla has long theorized that the correct amount of static aetheric manipulation could induce more likelihood of precipitation. Most Kobolds dismissed his experiments as complete wastes of time but Outlanders have been buying up his Weather Changing Umbrellas in record numbers and we have been seeing a record increase in rainfall this year. Coincidence?
      • Firedancing Outfit, Poi, & /firedance: What is better than dancing? Dancing with fire of course!
  • Add-On Store Items
    • Ornate Umbrella: Everyone knows that prettier umbrellas from the Add On Store keep you drier!
    • Ornate Bagpipe: Do flames shooting out of your bagpipe scare you? Or is the crafted bagpipe just too boring for you? Well this ornate bagpipe from the Add On Store is the answer for you! Rumor has it that the Kobolds continue to make clever musical instruments with annoying sounds to drive humans mad but I think it is this is obviously not true. What would they have us believe next? That yellow doesn’t scare Kobolds? 
    • Glowing Dye (8 Colors): These dyes from the Add On Store (and Obsidian Alchemists) add a glowing effect to your clothing. Available in Black, White, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Purple.
    • Pulsing Glowing Dye (8 Colors): These dyes from the Add On Store (and Obsidian Alchemists) add a pulsing glowing effect to your clothing. Available in Black, White, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Purple.
    • Sparkling Dye (8 Colors): These dyes from the Add On Store (and Obsidian Alchemists) add a sparkling effect to your clothing. Available in Black, White, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, and Purple.
    • Ornate Hand Fans (4): Do you need to be fancy when you cool yourself during those sweltering Novian summers? Then you must have one of these Ornate Fans from the Add On Store. Please note that while you can freely equip these fans, you will need to learn the /fan emote from someone who purchased it during the Summer Telethon Part 1 if you don’t already have it.Ornate Feather Fan
      • Ornate Gothic Fan
      • Ornate Norgard Fan
      • Ornate Triskelion Fan
    • 2016 Speckled Turkey: This uniquely feathered turkey will quickly endear you with his lively gobbles.
• Guild Registrars: There was previously only a single Guild Registrar in the entire game, located in Owl’s Head. There are now multiple Guild Registrars in over 35 locations in the game.
• Gold Crown Merchants: We are expanding the number of Gold Crown merchants in the game and also increasing the goods they sell to include many more items from the Add-On Store. We are also going to add one or two items each release that can only be purchased in game with Crowns. For R35, the Elven Globe Home and Medium Elven Tent are the Gold Crown Exclusives that are being added (note they are not currently time limited). We have also created a new web page that lists all the things that you can spend Gold Crowns on in the game.
  • Elven Crown Home Merchant: This merchant is located in the town of Vertas and sells all the Elven homes and all the Add-On Store items that appear in the Elven Bundles as well as a few exclusive items including the Elven Globe Home and the Medium Elven Tent.
  • Viking Crown Home Merchant: This merchant is located in the town of Harvest and sells all the Viking homes and all the Add-On Store items that appear in the Viking Bundles.
  • Obsidian Alchemists: We have added Fireworks (4 different assortments) and various dyes (including all the new magical dyes) to the Obsidian Alchemists to increase their inventory beyond the Obsidian Potions.
• Testing Incentive Program: The first round of insect-themed items from the Testing Incentives program are complete and will start to be delivered to testers who have earned them.
  • Corpion Chair: Don’t fear the cushion of its deadly comfort! This is for the top tier of QA server testing.
  • Ant Farm: Look closely and you can see the ants crawling around in it. Don’t break it!
  • Bug Paintings: A set of three Classical still life paintings featuring insects.
  • Gold Crowns: 5 Gold Crowns for 4+ hours of testing on the QA Server.
  • Titles: Various titles for various levels of contribution.
• Audio:
  • Continuous Music: While fixing a bug with the Portable Aether Vibration Device (aka the headphones) we were able to make it so that the music in the game will remain playing even through scene loads.
  • Musical Instruments: Updated the sound files for almost all of the musical instruments.
    • Tabor Drums: new tom sounds and updated samples
    • Accordion
    • Flute
    • Harp
    • Lute
    • Piano
    • Bagpipe: still needs droning sound for sustained notes.
  • Pickup/Drop: All items should have a pickup and drop sound variation.
  • Crossbow and Bows: New sounds have been added to these weapon types.
  • Sheathe and Unsheathe: All weapons should have generic sounds for sheathe and unsheathe.
  • Weapon Misses: All weapons should have miss sounds now.
  • Hit Sounds: Blood VFX has SFX with it (so hit sounds should play).
  • Novia Overworld: Updated the town beach SFX.
• Elven Bundles: We have completed the Elven line of bundles with the addition of the Elven Village Keep, Elven Town, and Elven City Bundles
  • Elven Village Keep Bundle: This Elven Village Keep Bundle features a village sized keep with four trees anchoring the corners. The canopies of those four trees also form the platforms of the four towers at the corners of the keep.
    • Ornate Elven Longsword: This uniquely Elven-forged longsword is a starting level weapon.
  • Elven Town Tree Home Bundle: The Elven Town Tree Home Bundle features a town sized collection of rooms built above the ground on platforms centered on a large tree.
    • Large Elven Tent: Part of the Elven Town and Elven City bundle. (Small Elven Tent is crafted, Medium Elven Tent is Crown Merchant, Large Elven Tent is Bundle).
    • Golden Dragonfly: This golden-hued variation of the dragonfly pet is part of the Elven Town bundle.
    • Ornate Elven Bow: This uniquely Elven-carved Longbow has a vaguely insectile appearance and comes with the Elven Town bundle.
  • Elven City Home: The largest of the Elven homes has a spiral staircase winding through the middle around a tree trunk.
    • Black Stag: This black-furred variation of the stag also has a much larger rack of antlers than our regular stag. It is part of the Elven City bundle.

So, now that it is clear what you can expect, we should also be as clear about what you should NOT expect:

• Stability: The latest version of Unity that we updated to for Release 29 introduced some stability issues but most of those have been resolved. However there seems to be 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 have begun performance optimizations (LODs) as well as a first round of performance fallback routines via a Performance Manager. However we still have some work to do, particularly for older machines. Additionally, the latest version of Unity we are using has some performance issues and memory leaks that we are working closely with them to resolve. Please be patient with us as we work through these issues. With each release, we will be doing further optimizations and adding more fallbacks to improve performance.
• Game Loop: Release 35 is a further iteration on our game loop, but is still missing some key components. 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

 

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[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Keith “Sannio” Quinn]

Shroud of the Avatar already has random encounters–you’ll be walking across the Novia or Hidden Vale overworld maps and, without warning, you’ll be teleported into a small encounter scene. We like the idea of running into unexpected threats on the overworld, but the “without warning” part is less than ideal… So, as of Release 35, we’re changing how random encounters are triggered.

You won’t be blindly caught by a Random Encounter anymore. We’re replacing that part of the encounter system with new overworld enemies who will trigger encounters when you get too close. These overworld enemies will be similar to the ones you’ve battled countless times in adventure scenes, except they can’t be engaged in combat. Instead, if you approach too close to the new overworld enemies and they see you, they’ll run at you. If they get next to you, you’ll be pulled into the encounter associated with them. For example, bandits will pull you into bandit encounters while wolves pull you into a scene full of wolves. Once you see the enemy, you can walk around it to avoid the encounter or run toward it to force the encounter. If the enemy has already spotted you and you’re quick, you can try to run away before the enemy catches up and keep the encounter from ever triggering.

Both overworld maps have encounters scattered about. They might be wandering in the woods, meandering along a shoreline, or patrolling along a road. Initially, we’ll be adding in common encounters like wolves, bandits, and undead. Over time, dragon encounters will return and we’ll include other rare situations like merchants.

Keith Quinn
Level Designer

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Hello everyone! Here is the news of the week!

• Roving Encounters
• The Making of Elad’s Lighthouse
• The Making of Harvest (cont)
• The Making of Graff Island (cont)
• Critical Hit Change (R34) and Upcoming Interrupt Change (R35)
• Encumbrance Changes (R35)
• Gold Crown Merchants Update
• Recent Bans for Botting and Exploiting
• Get Your 15% Black Friday Bonus Now!
• Upcoming Events
• Community Resources – Players Helping Players
• Recommended Projects to Back

The post Echoes From the Caverns 10-21-16 appeared first on Echoes from the Caverns.

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Encumbrance has now been made more realistic in its behavior. Previously, players could carry any amount and still move at a decent speed. Focus would slowly drain away at a constant rate but running out of focus would not prevent movement. In addition to not being very realistic, this behavior was also enabling some unwanted behaviors such as players mining for hours on end without the need to ever go back to town. Also, this was making it trivial to transport any amount of goods across the...

Encumbrance Changes (R35)

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Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

• Roving Encounters
• The Making of Elad’s Lighthouse
• The Making of Harvest (cont)
• The Making of Graff Island (cont)
• Critical Hit Change (R34) and Upcoming Interrupt Change (R35)
• Encumbrance Changes (R35)
• Gold Crown Merchants Update
• Recent Bans for Botting and Exploiting
• Get Your 15% Black Friday Bonus Now!
• Upcoming Events
• Community Resources – Players Helping Players
• Recommended Projects to Back

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Roving Encounters

[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Keith “Sannio” Quinn]

Shroud of the Avatar already has random encounters–you’ll be walking across the Novia or Hidden Vale overworld maps and, without warning, you’ll be teleported into a small encounter scene. We like the idea of running into unexpected threats on the overworld, but the “without warning” part is less than ideal… So, as of Release 35, we’re changing how random encounters are triggered.

You won’t be blindly caught by a Random Encounter anymore. We’re replacing that part of the encounter system with new overworld enemies who will trigger encounters when you get too close. These overworld enemies will be similar to the ones you’ve battled countless times in adventure scenes, except they can’t be engaged in combat. Instead, if you approach too close to the new overworld enemies and they see you, they’ll run at you. If they get next to you, you’ll be pulled into the encounter associated with them. For example, bandits will pull you into bandit encounters while wolves pull you into a scene full of wolves. Once you see the enemy, you can walk around it to avoid the encounter or run toward it to force the encounter. If the enemy has already spotted you and you’re quick, you can try to run away before the enemy catches up and keep the encounter from ever triggering.

Both overworld maps have encounters scattered about. They might be wandering in the woods, meandering along a shoreline, or patrolling along a road. Initially, we’ll be adding in common encounters like wolves, bandits, and undead. Over time, dragon encounters will return and we’ll include other rare situations like merchants.

Keith Quinn
Level Designer

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The Making of Elad’s Lighthouse

Elad’s Lighthouse is located in Spindrift Bay directly across the water from Brittany. It is home to Elad, who retired to the island after an illustrious career as Lord British’s shipbuilder and lighthouse builder. As with many of our scenes, Elad’s Lighthouse started as a cloned scene using one of our PRT / POT templates based off of the Forest 01 base template (aka PaxLair). However, it always had the unique feature of Elad’s Lighthouse which will continue to be a prominent feature. Now though, it will have unique terrain featuring dramatic cliffsides, a dockyard, lumbermill, and many other unique changes.

Note that when we un-clone these scenes we do NOT change lot placements. We only make cosmetic changes of building styles, terrain, and foliage. One of our new worldbuilders Chris started work on Elad’s this release and we hope to have it live in the game in its newly uncloned state in Release 36.

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

Hey folks. I’m Chris Wolf, aka Sea Wolf, and I’m one of the new world builders for SotA. Today I’m sharing some screenshots of the Elad’s Lighthouse update, which is still a work in progress.

The new visuals are inspired by the Irish Cliffs of Moher and the Irish countryside. The update will include, but not be limited to, a new shipyard, a log mill, a new town layout for the NPC buildings and shops, and the ruins of an abandoned church.

Check out the screen shots and give me feedback! If you own a player home in this area, let me know what you think, and what I can do to improve your experience.

The Coast

The Shipyard

The Town

Chris Wolf
Level Designer

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The Making of Harvest (Unclone)

Harvest was a cloned scene using one of our PRT / POT templates based off of the Forest 01 base template (aka PaxLair). It is located in the Verdantis region in the Northwest region of Novia. It is getting rebuilt in Release 35 to show the plot specific elements of the Norgard occupation and also getting a heavily agrarian theme.

Note that when we un-clone these scenes we do NOT change lot placements. We only make cosmetic changes of building styles, terrain, and foliage.

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

Hello guys, as we finalize work on Harvest for R35 here is another sneak peek!

Player housing lots in Harvest.

Jord Gorge in Harvest

Dare to cross this tightrope across the divide or fall onto the precipice!

Harvest Cemetery

City defense construction just outside Harvest.

Stables located outside the Harvest Fort.

Stay tuned for next time!

Esteben Zaldivar
Level Designer

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The Making of Graff Island

Another update on Graff Island! Graff Island is located in the Drachvald region. It is in the northernmost reaches of Spindrift Bay across from Port Graff and is central to the gem trade of the region. It is the site of a factory that sculpts the gems into weapons, armor and other goods. It is also the home of the Graff family and their sprawling mansion. Note that when we un-clone these scenes we do NOT change lot placements. We only make cosmetic changes of building styles, terrain, and foliage. In the case of Graff Island, we are replacing the terrain and foliage, adding the Graff family mansion and the Graff Gem Factory. One of our new worldbuilders, Travis, started work on it this release and we hope to have it live in the game in its newly uncloned state in Release 36.

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

Graff Manor (Tower on the left = private gem stash (to control the gem market of course))

Graff Trade Docks (a little North up the coast from the residential docks)

Graff Island Pavilion (Crafting and trade pavilion with a patio tavern)

That’s all for now, going back to it.
I really hope you guys like it when it goes live!

Travis Koleski
Level Designer

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Critical Hit Change (R34) and Upcoming Interrupt Change (R35)

In Release 34, we made some major changes to the ways we calculate Critical Hit Chances and we only provided cursory explanations. At the request of players, Chris provided a much more detailed explanation yesterday and also gave a preview of an upcoming change on how Interrupts will work starting in Release 35. Please accept our apologies for not explaining the change to Critical Hits sooner and more thoroughly. We will do our best to explain these changes sooner and in more detail going forward.

[From a Forum Post by Chris Spears]

Greetings Avatars! Last release some fixes went in that frustrated a number of people. I clarified what changed in replies to a few angry threads, but never posted a full summary for the masses so I thought I should give a brain dump on what changed and why. In the future, I will try to be more open on these changes and explain the what as well as the why to prevent confusion.

So the short version is that the math for critical hits was completely wrong and had to be fixed. It didn’t become clear until mid R33 what was up because players hadn’t crafted enough critical bonus gear to make the problem obvious. When I first got reports of players who got critical hits on every single attack, I dismissed it at first as people just exaggerating. Later in R33, a few people posted screenshots of them getting critical hits 10x in a row and I investigated.

So the problem became obvious once people starting getting tons of good gear. Instead of crit gear giving a bonus percentage of the crit chance, it was simply being added to the crit chance. So, if you had a 20 strength and crafted something with a +10% bonus to strength, you would immediately recognize that you would get an extra 2 strength. It becomes much less obvious when you have a 10% crit chance and get a +20% bonus. Is the outcome 12% or 30%?

Well, the way it was actually implemented was it was simply adding it — which was not intended. The result was you could pretty easily craft crit gear that would raise you over 100% crit chance. Yes, I knew people were going to be upset when I fixed, that but it never occurred to me that people would think that it was by design that players should be able to exceed 100% crit chance and not only hit every single attack but also get a critical hit. Not only did it make every hit a critical hit, but it also removed the target’s ability to parry, dodge, block, or get a glancing blow.

So, my bad for not making a big post on this in a public space and I’ll try to do better in relaying major bug fixes and changes in the future. Also, so players better understand critical hits, here is the math for them:

(BaseWeaponCritChance + VitalPointsBonus+ArmorWeakPointsBonus+DexterityCritBonus) * (100%+EquipmentCriticalBonus) * FromBehindBonus

BaseWeaponCritChance = The natural crit percentage of the weapon which is listed on the weapon
VitalPoints and ArmorWeakPointsBonus = The two skills that currently increase crit chance
DexCritBonus = Dexterity/1000 for ranged weapons and Dexterity/2000 for melee weapons
EquipmentCriticalBonus = All the bonuses from gear added together
FromBehindBonus = 1 if in the front arc of a target and 2 if in the back arc

So for an example, I’m using a longsword with 13% base crit chance, have an 80 in vital points (5%) and armor weak spots(5%), a 60 dex(60/2000 = 3%), and a total of +44% crit chance from my gear, the math is:

(13+5+5+3)*(100%+44%) = 37.4% crit chance from the front and 74.8% from behind.

Due to the bad math of just adding and them all, this would have been over 70% crit chance from the front and 140% from behind.

This is a pretty extreme case as sword are heavily crit based and that is a pretty good crit bonus from gear. Most players will probably end up more in the 10-20% range under the new system.

So that was the big change from last release. There are a couple of big changes coming up this release but possibly the biggest is a change to how casting interruptions work. Here is the next thing players can start yelling at me about.

So at some point this release I was asked, “How do interruptions work?” and my response was… uh, I don’t know! So I immediately looked into it and to my horror discovered this code (modified to make it more clear to non-coders) that was unchanged for 2+ years:

//TODO: Placeholder chance
if ( Random(0 to 100) less than DamageTaken )
{
InterruptSpellCasting
}

So basically, whenever a player was hit it picked a number from 0 to 100 and if the amount of damage was more than that number, your spell got interrupted.

While incredibly simple, this is fairly silly in a number of ways. The biggest issue is that it doesn’t scale in any way. So a level 10 caster with 60 hit points get hits for 50 points in one shot, a massive nearly death dealing blow, and he has a 50% chance to fizzle his spell. Meanwhile, a level 80 caster with 500 hit points gets a fairly average hit from a hardened skeleton that does 50 points and barely moves his health bar but still has a 50% chance of interrupting him. Also, there is nothing the player can do to influence this chance.

So, the new system isn’t super complicated but might change a bit over time. First thing, there is a new skill in the focus branch called “Concentration”. This grants the player additional protection to being interrupted. The new math is roughly as follows:

When damage is applied to a player, they completely ignore hits up to 1/100th of their max health PLUS 1/10th their concentration skill. So if you have 250 health and 65 concentration skill, any hit that does less than 250/100 + 65/10 = 9 points is completely ignored. This works by effectively subtracting that 9 points from the damage for the purpose of interrupting.

So in the above example, if you were hit from 7 points, 7-9 = -2 effective damage for interrupting and nothing happens. If you got hit for 34 points, then the effective damage would be 34-9 = 25 damage.

So if any damage gets by your base interruption protection, your chance of getting interrupted is:

MAX( MIN( ( ( EffectiveDamage/health)* 200% ), 5%), 80%)

So, your chance to get interrupted is 5% or twice the percentage of your health you took, whichever is greater but with a max chance of 80%.

So in in the above example with a 34 point hit on someone with 65 concentration and 250 hps, 25 got by the interruption defense. 25/250 *200% = 20% interruption chance

If the same target had been hit for 150, then the math would be 150-9 = 141 effective damage, 141/250 *200% =112.8%. In this case the 80% max chance would be used. While that sounds extreme, remember that until this release, that would have been a 141% chance to be interrupted no matter what your health or skills were.

The exact math for this might change slightly but that is the current implementation. I’ll try to let people know if it changes in the future!

Again, my apologies for not clarifying the critical hit fix sooner. I’ll do a better job of relating big changes before the release goes live in the future.

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Encumbrance Changes (R35)

Encumbrance has now been made more realistic in its behavior. Previously, players could carry any amount and still move at a decent speed. Focus would slowly drain away at a constant rate, but running out of focus would not prevent movement. In addition to not being very realistic, this behavior was also enabling some unwanted behaviors such as players mining for hours on end without the need to ever go back to town. Also, this was making it trivial to transport any amount of goods across the world with little effort.

Starting in R35, encumbrance will slow the player and use focus fairly proportionally with the amount the are overloaded. Carrying twice the amount you’re supposed to will cut your movement speed in half and drain focus at a slow rate. Carrying ten times the amount you should will make you move around a tenth your usual speed and also use ten times as much focus. There is a lower cap to how slow players can move, but focus costs continue to rise. Additionally, running out of focus will now prevent movement until the player has a chance to rest and regain some focus.

It is advised that players who are carrying an extreme amount of goods stop by a bank or their house and unload some extra weight before the patch. Otherwise, players might be in for a long slow crawl home the day after the patch! The exact math behind this will no doubt receive some further tuning based on feedback, but be aware this is intended to inconvenience players who are trying to perform what would normally be considered impossible feats of carrying far more than was intended.

NOTE: These encumbrance rules do not apply when you are in towns.

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Gold Crown Merchants Update

[From a Forum Post by Mathew “Berek” Anderson]

For Release 35 we are expanding the number of Gold Crown merchants in the game and also increasing the goods they sell to include many more items from the Add-On Store. We are also going to add one or two items each release that can only be purchased in game with Crowns. For R35, the Elven Globe Home and Medium Elven Tent will be those items only purchasable for Gold Crown Exclusives that are being added. We are also creating a new web page that will list all the things that you can spend Gold Crowns on in the game.

• Elven Crown Home Merchant: This merchant will be located in the town of Vertas and will sell all the Elven homes and all the Add-On Store items that appear in the Elven Bundles (except Bundle exclusives like the Elven Wardrobes and the pets)  as well as a few exclusive items including the Elven Globe Homeand the Medium Elven Tent.
• Viking Crown Home Merchant: This merchant will be located in the town of Harvest and will sell all the Viking homes and all the Add-On Store items that appear in the Viking Bundles (except Bundle exclusives like the Viking Chests and the pets).
• Obsidian Alchemists: We will also be adding Fireworks (4 different assortments) and various dyes (including all the new magical dyes) to the Obsidian Alchemists to increase their inventory beyond the Obsidian Potions.

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Recent Bans for Botting and Exploiting

[From a Forum Post by Mathew “Berek” Anderson]

As some of you may have seen in our recent Standup notes, we have been busy working on tracking down a string of botting and exploiting activities. The activity pursued by these players accounted for almost 20% of the total wealth of the game and, if left unchecked, could have seriously damaged the economy. All activities were confirmed to be macros or bots using exploitable activity like mines where creatures were not respawning or nodes that instantly respawned.

Fortunately, we have been able to fix all of these exploitable areas and we have also put more tools in place to make it easier for us to detect these kinds of activities and deal with them much faster going forward.

We permanently banned over 30 accounts and gave 30 day suspensions to several others. Those who only received 30 day suspensions had their characters deleted (and all their goods except for items purchased with real dollars) to remove any gains they may have received from the exploits and/or botting.

Please note that any macroing or botting related to resource gathering can result in a suspension or permanent ban. We do not differentiate between “attended” and “unattended”. Additionally, you are responsible for your account and your machine. It is irrelevant if your relative, roommate, spouse, child, parent, etc. did the actual botting because we have no way to confirm that. If your machine / account is confirmed to be botting you will be suspended and/or banned, period.

If you witness or suspect someone botting / exploiting or if you are concerned that your own actions may be subject to a suspension or ban then please send an email to support@portalarium.com.

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Get Your 15% Black Friday Bonus Now!

For the past two years we’ve extended our Black Friday Promotion to give you up to 8 weeks to take advantage of our Black Friday 15% Bonus, and we’re doing it again this year! Here are the details:

For all new purchases (including bundles, bundle upgrades, add-on items, player owned town upgrades, and Make a Difference items) between Midnight CDT October 6, 2016 (5:00 UTC, October 7, 2016) and Midnight CST, November 28, 2016 (6:00 UTC, November 29, 2016), we will add an additional 15% bonus to your Store Credit! You can use your Store Credit toward additional purchases (which includes bundles, bundle upgrades, add-on items, and player owned town upgrades).

[NOTE: The 15% bonus is calculated every day at 1:00 pm CT for any purchases within the previous 24 hours and added to your Store Credit account; Store Credit cannot be applied toward the purchase of Make a Difference items]

You can use the 15% Bonus to save on your next purchase! For example, if you have the $45 Elven Starter Bundle and really want to upgrade to the $90 Elven Tool Bundle, you would normally pay the extra $45 for the upgrade. But using the 15% bonus you can immediately save $5. To do so, you would first purchase $40 worth of Store Credit Gift Coupons (via PayPal, Amazon, Bitcoin, or credit card; excluding existing Store Credit) then use the “Convert to Credits” option on your account page to transform the Store Credit Gift Coupons into Store Credit. Within 24 hours an additional $6 bonus ($40 x 15%) would be applied to your Store Credit account, bringing it up to $46. You would then use $45 of your Store Credit to upgrade to the $90 Elven Tool Bundle.

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Upcoming Events

Oct 21, 2016 – Pending Gifts of Pledges assigned to purchasers account
Oct 27, 2016 – Release 35
Nov 4-6, 2016 – SotA Con Fan Convention
Nov 10, 2016 – R35 Postmortem
Nov 17, 2016 – Release 36
Nov 21, 2016 – Courtesy Automatic Claiming of Rewards
Nov 28, 2016 – Fall into Winter Telethon and Expirations (House Stacking in Bundles, etc.)
Dec 15, 2016 – Release 37
Dec 20, 2016 – R37 Postmortem
Jan 26, 2017 – Release 38

Community Activities

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.

New Britannia Breast Cancer Awareness Bi-Athalon

The second running of the New Britannia Breast Cancer Awareness Bi-Athalon will be taking place on Saturday October 22nd at 1pm NBT with starting point in Diamond Fields which can be accessed via the first boat on the left on the docks in Port Phoenix. This year our race will be dedicated to community member Lacey who recently passed due to breast cancer.

The race route will include 7 stops in various NPC towns and POT towns across the overland map. A race handout will detail the names of the property owner whose lot you need to locate and retrieve the checkpoint flyer from the public chest on that lot, along with some pointers on locating it.

Race Rules and a list of Sponsors can be found here.

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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.

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Recommended Projects to Back (2)

SotA Con East 2016  

Special Cross Promotion: Anyone who backs both Shroud of the Avatar (at a level with Game Access) and SotA Con East 2016 ($25+) will get a special custom Clasped Gauntlets Cloak in Blue and Yellow that says “SotA Con East 2016”.

Hotel Booking Deadline Today! You have until midnight tonight to book the special hotel rate at the convention hotel after which rates go up and room availability will not be guaranteed.

Portalarium is excited to participate in the first ever community organized convention for Shroud of the Avatar – SotA Con East 2016! SotA developers and players alike will be gathering together for a casual for a casual weekend filled with exciting activities, engaging panel discussions, and of course plenty of gameplay sessions.

SotA Con East runs from November 4-6, 2016 in Baltimore Inner Harbor, Maryland. Registration is still open, so get your tickets by visiting the official event site links below!

SotA Con is entirely planned and funded by the players, for the players and developers. This once again shows how our passionate and dedicated players are creating exciting opportunities for the rest of the community, and succeeding magnificently.

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Wasteland 3

Our friends over at inXile have launched a crowdfunding campaign for Wasteland 3, a party-based role-playing game with story reactivity and strategic combat! The game features a deep and engaging story utilizing a newly-revamped dialog tree system from the writers of Torment: Tides of Numenera!

By including vehicles, environmental dangers, and a revamped, more fluid action system, inXile is evolving on Wasteland 2’s deep tactical turn-based combat and unique encounter design. Play by yourself or with a friend in story-driven synchronous or asynchronous multiplayer. Choices open up (or close off) mission opportunities, areas to explore, story arcs, and lots of other content.

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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!

Save

Save

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As some of you may have seen in our recent Standup Notes, we have been busy working on tracking down a string of botting and exploiting activities. The activity pursued by these players accounted for almost 20% of the total wealth of the game and if left unchecked could have seriously damaged the economy. All activities were confirmed to be macros or bots using exploitable activity like mines where creatures were not respawning or nodes that instantly respawned.

Fortunately we have been...

Recent Bans for Botting and Exploiting

View the full article

For Release 35, we are expanding the number of Gold Crown merchants in the game and also increasing the goods they sell to include many more items from the Add-On Store. We are also going to add one or two items each future release that can only be purchased in game with Crowns. For R35, the Elven Globe Home and Medium Elven Tent will be those items only purchasable for Gold Crown Exclusives that are being added.

• Elven Crown Home Merchant: This merchant will be located in the town of Vertas and will sell all the Elven homes and all the Add-On Store items that appear in the Elven Bundles as well as a few exclusive items including the Elven Globe Home, Medium Elven Tent, and the recipe for the Small Elven Tent (this is for gold).
• Viking Crown Home Merchant: This merchant will be located in the town of Harvest and will sell all the Viking homes and all the Add-On Store items that appear in the Viking Bundles.
• Obsidian Alchemists: We will also be adding Fireworks (4 different assortments) and various dyes (including all the new magical dyes) to the Obsidian Alchemists to increase their inventory beyond the Obsidian Potions.

We are also creating a new web page that will list all the things that you can spend Gold Crowns on in the game, as well as locations of merchants. Stay tuned for that page to be revealed!

View the full article

For Release 35, we are expanding the number of Gold Crown merchants in the game and also increasing the goods they sell to include many more items from the Add-On Store. We are also going to add one or two items each future release that can only be purchased in game with Crowns. For R35, the Elven Globe Home and Medium Elven Tent will be those items only purchasable for Gold Crown Exclusives that are being added.

• Elven Crown Home Merchant: This merchant will be located in...

Gold Crown Merchants Update

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The Making of Harvest

Harvest was a cloned scene using one of our PRT / POT templates based off of the Forest 01 base template (aka PaxLair). It is located in the Verdantis region in the Northwest region of Novia. It is getting rebuilt in Release 35 to show the plot specific elements of the Norgard occupation and also getting a heavily agrarian theme.

Note that when we un-clone these scenes we do NOT change lot placements. We only make cosmetic changes of building styles, terrain, and foliage.

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

Hey guys, SorcerousSteve here to give you an update on Harvest!

Harvest is located across the channel from Estgard. It is an area primarily focused on agriculture nestled along a red/yellow countryside that has recently come under occupation from Norgard forces. As an occupied town it has taken on some of the symbolism behind the color yellow and Norse influence of its Norgard conquerors.

Inspiration for Harvest was obtained from the Autumn Season and Upstate New York (Letchworth).

Leaf covered trails cut through a forest of red and yellow.

Fields of corn just outside of Harvest. Shout out to artist Reid Rollo for his great work on this Scarecrow!

As an occupied town, Harvest has developed some trench defenses surrounding it, alongside a fort to maintain order.

NPC Town Center

South City Gate.

Wheat Fields as far as the eye can see.

Apple Orchards in the foreground while the Harvest Wind Farm can be seen off in the distance.

Terrace farming along the river.

Alongside being big on agriculture, Harvest also prides itself on fishing along the Norgard Channel.

Level Designer
Esteben Zaldivar

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The Making of Graff Island

Graff Island is located in the Drachvald region. It is in the northernmost reaches of Spindrift Bay across from Port Graff and is central to the gem trade of the region. It is the site of a factory that sculpts the gems into weapons, armor and other goods. It is also the home of the Graff family and their sprawling mansion. One of our new worldbuilders Travis started work on it this release and we hope to have it live in the game in its newly uncloned state in Release 36.

Note that when we un-clone these scenes we do NOT change lot placements. We only make cosmetic changes of building styles, terrain, and foliage. In the case of Graff Island we are replacing the terrain and foliage, adding the Graff family mansion and the Graff Gem Factory.

[A Dev+ Forum Post by Travis “CorpPor” Koleski]

Hi everyone! Travis here. I’m a new world builder here on SotA, and I’ve been working on the Graff Island map. Here’s a couple of screenshots of how Graff Island is shaping up:

The Cliffs of Graff (to the left is the bay looking towards Port Graff)

High in the hills of Graff Island

More updates to these two scenes in the next Update of the Avatar post #199, due out this Friday, October 21st!

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Hello everyone, this is Asclepius, with the next exciting chapter of
The Story of Kobold Skrek’Kex
Written by Kobold Skrek’Kex

Background music by Smartsound

Chapter 2

Skrek’Kex was unable to wind out of the vice like grip of the much bigger Kobold and whimpered a little. What had started as a fool proof plan was certainly not going as he had expected! The great hall they had entered was dimly illuminated by torches. It was decorated in classic Kobold, lots of metal and red velvet dominating the scene. In the middle of the great hall on a dragon bone throne sat a huge Kobold scaled in a sickly green and yellow. He was not only very tall for a Kobold but also possessed immense girth which his studded leather jerkin and pants struggled to contain. On his clawed fingers he wore bejewelled golden rings in abundance, and his head was adorned by a large bear head, the teeth having been replaced by craftily cut rubies.

As Skrek’Kex and his escort entered, the great Grakkazh was busy whacking a Kobold in a purple and orange jester’s dress on the head with a turkey drumstick. “Nooo!” he bellowed at the jester “Grakkazh not like! NOT FUNNY AT ALL!!”. The jester ducked and whimpered “Me’se sorry for not pleasing Great Grakkhaz! Njoghgrok can do another trick, please!” The Grakhkazh had meanwhile noticed Skrek’Kex and eyed him with disdain. With a dismissive gesture towards the jester, who gladly and hurriedly left the room, he turned toward the guard “Why you bring trash in my hall, Kraz’Boom?” suddenly his eyes narrowed “HAS HE DONE SOMETHING TO MY PRECIOUS BARBELED DRAGONFISH?!” he shouted, and before having ended the sentence the Grakkhaz, with an astonishing speed for a Kobold his size, had jumped up and violently knocked the dinner table in front of him over so that the plates and tumblers on the table flew across the room.

“No, oh your magnificent Dreadfulness!” Skrek’Kex hastily squeaked while he cowered in anticipation of another violent outburst. “Skrek’Kex would never touch holy fish! Accident with holy fish last time was a very bad misunderstanding, Skrek’Kex swear!” after the dreaded beating had not happened yet Skrek’Kex relaxed a little and, from his cowering position, looked up at the Grakkhaz who now stood in front of him, tapping his claws impatiently against the shaft of his huge spiked mace. “So?” the Grakkhaz asked. Skrek’Kex nodded hastily “Me’se bring important and troubling news from the hoomaz! Facing grave dangers, all for the good of the tribe, Skrek’Kex has managed to acquire this from the stores of a mighty wizard. Me thinks the hoomaz are planning to attack!” he explained and eagerly presented the Grakkhaz with the crumpled paper.

Impatiently the Grakkhaz snatched the paper from Skrek’Kex outstretched claw. Turning it up and down and left and right he harrumphed a few times meaningfully. Although the Grakkhaz was far from stupid, he had never learned to read anything but basic Kobold. There was always one of the skinny brainy types around to do his bidding in exchange for a non-beating after all! After a few more acknowledging grunts the Grakkhaz felt he had shown enough that he understood the importance of the document and bellowed “Zap’Hex! To me!” And only a few moments later a small gnarled Kobold in purple and golden robes with an intricate feathered headdress walking with the help of a silver cane entered the hall from a door in the back. “Yes, your Maleficience?” he asked “Do you have need of my services?” With a grunt the Grakkhaz shoved the even more crumpled paper towards the court magician. Zap’Hex gingerly tried to smooth the paper out and with his index claw pushed his wire frame glasses up a bit. Relaxing a little at the sight of his old mentor Skrek’Kex couldn’t help but notice that unfortunately none of the pie crusts, that had been left over and now lay strewn across the floor, had landed close enough for him to try to stealthily pocket them.

After a while Zap’Hex sighed and shot a meaningful glance at Skrek’Kex who in turn managed at least to look a *little* embarassed. Zap’Hex of course was not fooled by Skrek’Kex’ story, he had studied the humans and their customs for decades and promptly and adequately had decided the note was meaningless. Still, he decided against telling the Grakkhaz of Skrek’Kex blatant lie. Skrek’Kex was a nuisance, a liar and a thief (even more than most Kobolds) but he had his talents.

Zap’Hex had taken on Skrek’Kex as a student in the past until he had been forced to expel him from the courses because he wouldn’t stop “borrowing” the chickens, kept at school for some of the nastier experiments, to roast them and sell them to the other students during lunch breaks, he was also caught multiple times selling the other students’ alchemical copper pots on the market, when he could get his claws on them, and even drawing in his fellow students book so they would get their incantations wrong resulting in some nasty accidents with demonic surprises. Still, he had been talented as only another handful he had trained, if he had only seen the long term benefits of refraining from immediately breaking all the rules so he could learn the skills to break much more later… but Skrek’Kex had never been one for long-term-goals.

The Grakkhaz, whose attention had been fixed on Zap’Hex, failed to notice the quick exchange of looks and impatiently asked Zap’Hex “What do you make of it? What are the hoomanz up to?” Zap’Hex weighed his answer carefully “Well, this is certainly a *fascinating* document here, but in regards of an attack plan, I… can’t be sure. I think it prudent to send out a group to investigate.” The Grakkhaz nodded his agreement “We will send Zod’Utgrakhz, Drab’Farkh, Bang’Grakh and Slit’zhok” turning towards a guard he motioned him with his hand “Notify them they are to gather intelligence, Skrek’Kex will lead them to where-” Zap’Hex coughed, interrupting the Grakhhaz mid-sentence, bowing his head slightly in apology “As for Skrek’Kex I have another proposal, if the Great One would care to listen to his humble advisor?”

Although not pleased the Grakkhaz motioned the old court mage to continue “I have heard rumors of an Elder Dragon close to the human settlement of Serenite. As Skrek’Kex is quite adept at human customs and language and also skilled in the magical arts I want to send him and a handful of trusted Kobolds to investigate there if the rumors are true. An Elder Dragon our tribe could serve would be great news to all.” With a fanatic glint in his eyes the Grakkhaz nodded agreement. “An Elder Dragon! By Gaknulak, this – if true – is great news!” turning to Skrek’Kex “You will head out immediately after everything is prepared.” Skrek’Kex could only nod. It was an honor to be sent out to search for or pledge allegiance to a dragon – if only they weren’t always so hungry. Skrek’Kex hoped he Grakkhaz would send enough Kobolds with him so the odds of being eaten would be low…

The post The Story of Kobold Skrek’Kex 2 – by Kobold Skrek’Kex – narrated by Asclepius appeared first on Echoes from the Caverns.

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The third Player Owned Town spotlight kicks off with Serenite! We will be touring many communities and talking with their guilds and other groups in this series, all of which are open to be spotlighted on coming tours brought to you by Berek, your community wood elf druid.

Close to Desolis, I saw a great many things in Serenite that drove me to write this spotlight. Here is what I witnessed:

As I neared this oasis in the desert, along the coast of Grunvald, the searing heat of the desert made my plate mail feel like a pressure cooker. Serenite is very easy to find. It is the first community on the road when crossing the east reach gap just up the coast from Soltown. If you are standing in Brittany, just head toward the desert and look for the coast.

William the Governor greeted me upon entering Serenite. He escorted me to his modest but still impressive castle for a drink, as the desert heat had parched my thirst. Castle Serenite is nestled atop a hill overlooking the town.

The temperature in the region was warm but humid, a true oasis in the desert:

As we walked, I asked Governor William…

I’m intrigued by Serenite’s history. How did it get founded?

Serenite was once the port town for Desolis. When the dragons arrived and took over the area, the residents of the port town left it abandoned. We arrived looking to claim the lands and were greeted with creatures of all foul sorts. The Obsidian shards had a warped nature in very strange ways. It eventually took the combined effort of three Dukes and their armies to take the lands back from the chaos that had taken root in this part of Grunvald.

Being so close to obsidian shards, the residents are natural sorcerers and magic comes to them easily. The stones have also warped the minds of some of its residents. There is a legend of Kazgaroth, a once powerful Obsidian sorcerer that speaks of how the arch magus used these shards to control or possess others to do his will.

Who is welcome to Serenite?

Now Serenite has been rebuilt and is once again a thriving merchant port town on the eastern Grunvald shores. Our town welcomes any and all who want to be part of our community, be they adventures, miners, crafters, elves, kobolds and everything in between

Our army is always looking for strong bodied knights to defend our lands, as the area is plagued with dragons will prove challenging for even the most seasoned avatars.

With ease of access to four mines and a skip away from Brittany, Serenite’s location is favorable to both adventurer and merchants wanting to fill their pockets with gold.

Tell us about the residents?

The residents of Serenite are all from different paths. The highborn are the noble family and are part of the crown that governs. Because our town welcomes people from all walks of life, we are polytheistic, where our residents worship different deities. Some worship the Titans, while others worship the Oracle. We have a growing community of elves who worship nature, and our recent arrivals consist of an expeditionary force of Kobolds who worship the Dragon.

We all share love for our home and fellow Serenite’s, which is the virtue that binds us. We all seek council with the Oracle who helps guide us all along our paths.

What is the future of Serenite?

We are in the process of restoring peace to the lands of Grunvald. Our Army has laid claim over the Grunvald Shardfall and has been patrolling the lands with our most seasoned warriors. We have been able to best the dragons and ensure fealty for any trespassers caught. Those who do not swear allegiance to Serenite are put to the sword.

Serenite was and continues to be a merchant town and is a known trade hub for Novia. We are also getting ready for a grand opening event, where we will be giving away store credits and having all sorts of events and fun activities for avatars to enjoy. It is our desire to give back to the community that enticed us to reside here in Novia, with our fellow avatars.

What are the unique areas of Serenite?

Serenite is primarily a roleplay community. Our roleplay activity like holding court is a tradition that we have designed to entice players to take on responsibilities and be rewarded titles and be recognized for their efforts.

House Serenite, which is the clan that governs the town, has a vassal system which allows players who also own player owned towns to build up the area and associated guild. These governors are given total authority over their lands and can recruit and give titles to their own houses. This system is designed to help the governors trying to get some wind in their sails. Once said town owner gain enough residents and or house members, they have the option to become a “Major House” and form their own guild.

From then on they become a separate allied guild. While they are vassals and or major houses, they have access to the guild forums and TeamSpeak channels. Once they become a separate entity, they also have the option to create their own guild pages and or have their own chat software.

Anyone seeking to attach their town to Serenite simply needs to enter Serenite and roleplay the encounter with an officer and seek to speak to Duke William.

There is also the option of roleplaying a highborn and taking the Serenite last name. Highborn are in line to rule with the crown and scepter. The roleplay between highborn could and does get messy as the siblings wrestle to gain favor in the Duke’s eye over future control of Serenite. Those who show the virtues that our town embodies, will one day gain control of the land and guild.

Serenite Army also has a ranking system and members of the clan can gain knight status by defeating an opponent in a hostile situation, whether by open PvP or in a sanctioned tournament. Once you gain knight status, a warrior can continue to climb the ladders and further their station within the army. The most decorated knights gain special perks from our crafters, and are rewarded purses for winning in the tournaments. PvP is not mandated, indeed, many of our community do not get involved with PvP, but our army has many great players that would be happy to teach anyone interested in learning.

Last but not least, we have our Oracle temple, which was built by our Master Mason Jonah Hayes. The Oracle has blessed him with the knowledge of the Titans and and he has become a master of stone. Sheriff Shimizu Kitoku is the interior designer.

More About Serenite

Clan Website: HouseSerenite.enjin.com

If interested in becoming part of the Serenite community, message them on their guild forums or one of their High Council below:

• Vox Aquila
• Qwark Graeme
• William Serenite

Do you have a Player Owned Town, Guild, or group that accomplishes and makes available great things for other players? Let us know! We would like to include your group in an upcoming spotlight. Just send Berek a brief proposal of what you have to show!

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Per last week's update, effective immediately, any ownership transfers of a Player Owned Town on an account with claimed rewards will NOT include Rewards: Lot Markers, NPCs, NPC Buildings, Add On Store Homes, Broadcast Phonograph, Wax Cylinders, etc. Rewards will have to be traded in-game between seller and purchaser. This makes them work identically to pledges, bundles, etc.

We have made this policy change because of the different states that POTs can be in and how some owners have...

Policy Change: POT Ownership Transfers

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We are very excited to announce that Starr “Darkstarr” Long will be joining Richard “Lord British” Garriott and other Origin Veterans at the Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary Bash! 

This is the final week of their Kickstarter and as a reminder we are running a special cross promotion where anyonewho backs both Shroud of the Avatar (at a level with Game Access)  and the Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary ($30 Recommended) will get a special custom Clasped Gauntlets Cloak in Blue and Silver that says “Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary”.

The Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary event is February 25-27, 2017 at Disneyland, in Anaheim, California, USA.

Join the Ultima Dragons as they celebrate twenty-five years of one of the oldest online fan-created gaming clubs! More than just a party, the Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary Bash is a celebration of an entire online culture. We were one of the first communities to emerge from the early Internet, and our roots go even further back! It is this beginning, as a gaming club of Prodigy, that we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of today. Many factions of Ultima fans formed there in 1992, but only the Ultima Dragons survived.

“We’re going to Disneyland!” This decision was as random as the UDIC itself. We’re bringing together Dragons from all over the world, many of whom are friends but have never met in person before, at the Happiest Place on Earth. The party will be kid-friendly, and all Dragons, their friends and family, and fans of the Ultima Dragons are invited. Those who have made the games we’re fans of have also been fans of US for almost as long as we’ve been around, so we’re inviting everyone who worked for Origin Systems or who currently works for Portalarium, the company currently making Shroud of the Avatar, the Ultimas’ spiritual successor.

To that end we’re renting a “Fellowship Hall” in the Disneyland Hotel for the weekend of February 25th and 26th. You’ll get to meet Origin Systems veterans Richard Garriott, Denis Loubet, Dr. Cat, and Starr Long, play games with Dragons and by Dragons, try out various Ultima games, and participate in some Ultima-inspired activities.

Some of the backer tiers include the following events:

Hanging out in line with Dr. Cat and going on a ride with him (this will assure you at least an hour of one-on-one time to hear his stories, which are well worth it!)

Receiving a handmade fibercraft item which could be a sweater, shawl or custom item, but everyone at the party will help create it by picking colors of the Virtues that Auora will spin into yarn and then knit or crochet.

Having your own original, custom Dragon portrait painted by Denis Loubet. Akin to his DrawMyCharacter (which is currently on hiatus), this will be a DrawMyDragon just for us. You will get the original piece of art drawn by his hand.

And of course, getting to throw a pie at Lord British.

Join us at the Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary Bash!

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Hello everyone! Here is the news of the week!

• Darkstarr Joins Lord British for the Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary Event
• The Making of Harvest (Unclone)
• CThe Making of Graff Island (Unclone)
• Darkstarr Moondial Update
• POT Spotlight: Silverhold
• Portalarium Office Gets Decorated!
• R34 Postmortem Recap
• Policy Change: POT Ownership Transfers
• New Aeronaut Value Packs
• Get Your 15% Black Friday Bonus Now!
• Upcoming Events
• Community Resources – Players Helping Players
• Job Openings (1)
• Recommended Projects to Back

The post Echoes From the Caverns 10-14-16 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:

• Darkstarr Joins Lord British for the Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary Event
• The Making of Harvest (Unclone)
• The Making of Graff Island (Unclone)
• Darkstarr Moondial Update
• POT Spotlight: Silverhold
• Portalarium Office Gets Decorated!
• R34 Postmortem Recap
• Policy Change: POT Ownership Transfers
• New Aeronaut Value Packs
• Get Your 15% Black Friday Bonus Now!
• Upcoming Events
• Community Resources – Players Helping Players
• Job Openings (1)
• Recommended Projects to Back

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Darkstarr Joins Lord British for the Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary

We are very excited to announce that Starr “Darkstarr” Long will be joining Richard “Lord British” Garriott and other Origin Veterans at the Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary Bash! 
This is the final week of their Kickstarter and as a reminder we are running a special cross promotion where anyonewho backs both Shroud of the Avatar (at a level with Game Access)  and the Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary ($30 Recommended) will get a special custom Clasped Gauntlets Cloak in Blue and Silver that says “Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary”.

The Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary event is February 25-27, 2017 at Disneyland, in Anaheim, California, USA.

Join the Ultima Dragons as they celebrate twenty-five years of one of the oldest online fan-created gaming clubs! More than just a party, the Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary Bash is a celebration of an entire online culture. We were one of the first communities to emerge from the early Internet, and our roots go even further back! It is this beginning, as a gaming club of Prodigy, that we are celebrating the 25th anniversary of today. Many factions of Ultima fans formed there in 1992, but only the Ultima Dragons survived.

“We’re going to Disneyland!” This decision was as random as the UDIC itself. We’re bringing together Dragons from all over the world, many of whom are friends but have never met in person before, at the Happiest Place on Earth. The party will be kid-friendly, and all Dragons, their friends and family, and fans of the Ultima Dragons are invited. Those who have made the games we’re fans of have also been fans of US for almost as long as we’ve been around, so we’re inviting everyone who worked for Origin Systems or who currently works for Portalarium, the company currently making Shroud of the Avatar, the Ultimas’ spiritual successor.

To that end we’re renting a “Fellowship Hall” in the Disneyland Hotel for the weekend of February 25th and 26th. You’ll get to meet Origin Systems veterans Richard Garriott, Denis Loubet, Dr. Cat, and Starr Long, play games with Dragons and by Dragons, try out various Ultima games, and participate in some Ultima-inspired activities.

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The Making of Harvest (Unclone)

Harvest was a cloned scene using one of our PRT / POT templates based off of the Forest 01 base template (aka PaxLair). It is located in the Verdantis region in the Northwest region of Novia. It is getting rebuilt in Release 35 to show the plot specific elements of the Norgard occupation and also getting a heavily agrarian theme.

Note that when we un-clone these scenes we do NOT change lot placements. We only make cosmetic changes of building styles, terrain, and foliage.

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

Hey guys, SorcerousSteve here to give you an update on Harvest!

Harvest is located across the channel from Estgard. It is an area primarily focused on agriculture nestled along a red/yellow countryside that has recently come under occupation from Norgard forces. As an occupied town it has taken on some of the symbolism behind the color yellow and Norse influence of its Norgard conquerors.

Inspiration for Harvest was obtained from the Autumn Season and Upstate New York (Letchworth).

Leaf covered trails cut through a forest of red and yellow.

Fields of corn just outside of Harvest. Shout out to artist Reid Rollo for his great work on this Scarecrow!

As an occupied town, Harvest has developed some trench defenses surrounding it, alongside a fort to maintain order.

NPC Town Center

South City Gate.

Wheat Fields as far as the eye can see.

Apple Orchards in the foreground while the Harvest Wind Farm can be seen off in the distance.

Terrace farming along the river.

Alongside being big on agriculture, Harvest also prides itself on fishing along the Norgard Channel.

Level Designer
Esteben Zaldivar

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The Making of Graff Island (Unclone)

Graff Island is located in the Drachvald region. It is in the northernmost reaches of Spindrift Bay across from Port Graff and is central to the gem trade of the region. It is the site of a factory that sculpts the gems into weapons, armor and other goods. It is also the home of the Graff family and their sprawling mansion. One of our new worldbuilders Travis started work on it this release and we hope to have it live in the game in its newly uncloned state in Release 36.

Note that when we un-clone these scenes we do NOT change lot placements. We only make cosmetic changes of building styles, terrain, and foliage. In the case of Graff Island we are replacing the terrain and foliage, adding the Graff family mansion and the Graff Gem Factory.

[A Dev+ Forum Post by Travis “CorpPor” Koleski]

Hi everyone! Travis here. I’m a new world builder here on SotA, and I’ve been working on the Graff Island map. Here’s a couple of screenshots of how Graff Island is shaping up:

The Cliffs of Graff (to the left is the bay looking towards Port Graff)

High in the hills of Graff Island

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Update to the Darkstarr Moondial

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

Long ago Stephen Daniele created numerous sketches for a special type of orrery we were wanting to offer called the Darkstarr Moondial… Back then, though Richard and Starr both really loved the idea of this kind of cool decoration, we hadn’t yet had the chance to fully develop our cosmology and astronomy, and so we had Bob create a beautiful placeholder based on Stephen’s concept art, knowing we’d eventually have to go back and change the final 3-D art to match what our sky-scape would become.

Now that we have finally nailed down the basics of what heavenly bodies exist for our world, and essentially how we want them to move, the time has come to update our old efforts to reflect them! Not only was I able to take Bob’s excellent work and maintain it as a basis, but I was also able to update the material and textures a bit to take the most advantage of some of the recent improvements in the Unity shaders! Here’s what the updated Darkstarr Moondial orrery now looks like!

The earlier version had only three lunar bodies moving around Novia, not including the sun and the shattered moon…so we had complete orbital rings rotating around the old Novia sphere in wildly different directions that didn’t even match the actual orbital plane of rotation around the planet… Now I’ve added all eight of the additional heavenly bodies representing the “anti-virtuous acts”, and they all rotate correctly around Novia along the same broad orbital plane as the sun… The great serpent now rises up through the empty path that the lost moon that shattered our greater moon once traveled. (I’ll add as an addendum here that I’m currently unsure whether this will actually replace the old Moondial version, or whether it will be merely offered as an option for those that would like to have an updated, astronomically accurate model… Some folks might want theirs to remain the way it was, and Portalarium Management will need to decide how they’d like to handle this… ^_^)

The off-kilter crescent-shaped circular arcs piercing the moons are at varying angles compared to the greater orbital plane, and though they don’t describe the actual path of the moons around Novia (since all the moons have now been established as rotating upon the same orbital plane around Novia as the sun does) the arcs DO whimsically represent the fact that each of those rotating bodies has its own individual axis around which it spins in place as it orbits, and that axis is offset from the angle of the greater orbital plane by a factor of degrees (unique to each moon). Those arcs pierce perpendicularly through those various different lunar axes. For the sake of this moving model (as with our actual sky-dome), each of the moons orbits at a different speed (which might eventually match the actual speed of the real moons in-game), which causes the offset arcs to create beautiful, constantly varying configurations that one could imagine describe the greater firmament and its hidden constellations in some arcane manner. Here you can see the moons all having rotated a bit at different speeds, exposing different patterns while still remaining on the single orbital plane.

Eventually Finn will be tasked with trying to match the speed of the actual heavenly bodies in-game, so that special conjunctions and lunar locations can be recognized and enjoyed even if it’s broad daylight! Though I must admit, I really like the look of it animating more swiftly as it is now, so that it looks like a beautiful piece of slowly swirling kinetic sculpture…. Perhaps there will be the option of either having it move at fast speed, or reconfigure to show the actual lunar locations at their current speed, merely by clicking on the orrery itself! I’ll suggest it and see what they say!…

Anyway,…enjoy! I stayed late getting this done because I’m off to ACL Fest tomorrow!

Have a great weekend!

Scottie ^_^

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POT Spotlight: Silverhold

The second Player Owned Town spotlight kicks off with Silverhold! We will be touring towns and talking with guilds and other groups, all of which are open to be spotlighted on coming tours brought to you by Berek, your community wood elf druid. Near Port Phoenix, I saw a great many things in Silverhold that drove me to write this spotlight. Here is what I witnessed:

As I neared Silverhold, nestled in the higher elevations of Elysium, snow flurries began to fall around me. I realized this would be my first visit to a snow covered area of Novia. I did not prepare and bring a coat, but I managed.

There was no mild winter weather here either; the white powdery stuff lay thick on the ground as the Town Crier greeted me upon entering the town. Clearly seeing I was new to the area, he suggested I visit the warmth of Silverhold keep. Governor Asher Silvarian enjoyed personally greeting newcomers to the town. I decided to take up this offer and headed up the trail toward monolithic stone structures in the distance.

Half way up the trail I was challenged by a guard, and a large ominous looking guard tower. After stating my reason for coming this long way to Silverhold, I was allowed to pass with an obvious look of suspicion and apprehension. I knew I best be on my best behavior here, these military types are no-nonsense.

Upon arriving at the keep, I was Ushered onto the grounds and greeted by Governor Silvarian himself. Though initially apprehensive of how I might be welcomed, the Governor was quite amiable. A short exchange of pleasantries lead to a bit of a discussion and an offer of a tour of Silverhold itself. Governor Silvarian offered to tour Silverhold with him as we discussed the town, it’s features, history, and plans for the future. I gladly accepted.

As we walked, I asked Governor Silvarian…

Why was Silverhold founded?

SilverHold is an ancient citadel left over from the Obsidian Imperial Era of the Phoenix Republic. This keep has long been the backbone of the first line defense for the Republic. It’s main service to the Old Empire, and now the Republic, has been that of protection against overland invasion from West Elysium via the southern shores of Elysium Bay. As such, it may be found situated at the eastern end of the Republic on the vast Isle of Elysium in the most southwestern reaches of the Novian continent.

Who is welcome to reside in Silverhold?

A contingent of elite soldiers is garrisoned in SilverHold to act as the initial defense of the Southern Elysian Shore Pass, and served as its initial inhabitants. However, things have changed over time. This once obscure frontier post, has grown in size and importance due to the migration of military families members moving to be with their loved ones stationed in Silverhold on extended tours. Add to this number, merchants seeking to benefit from the guaranteed coin which inevitably follows any large garrisoned group of soldiers, to civilians seeking to establish residence in what is considered one of the most beautiful, and coldest, areas of Elysium.

With two very productive mines in the area and a beautiful woodlands nearby, miners, smiths, millers and fletchers are bound to have a good time of it while residing in Silverhold. Tailors may have a tougher time of it but with a greenhouse or two, a tidy profit could be forthcoming even in this snowy environment!

If you seek adventure and perhaps a future in the expansion of Republic influence through military means when necessary, Silverhold can also hold a promising future for you!

Tell us about the residents of Silverhold?

The Silvarian Clan, the ruling family of SIlverHold for most of it’s extensive history, still occupies and governs this fortress stronghold. The current Sovereign, Duke Asher Silvarian, is known as a firm but fair ruler with a firm sense of justice which he tempers with wisdom of elected and appointed counsel and with compassion. While many responsibilities fill his plate, the well being of Silverhold and it’s citizens are and will always remain his top priority.

Silverhold is also home to the Army of the Phoenix Republic. The Army’s general, Alexander John, has his Headquarters within the citadel walls itself. Jenny Phoenixphyre, wife of the leader of the Republic, Kazyn Phoenixphyre, boasts a fine winter getaway residence in Silverhold as well. Founding members of the Silverhold Guard, Swaan Greene and his brother Esolde are of honorable mention as residence and close advisors to the Governor.

Sadly, even with these and other established names, recent wars which embroiled the Republic have left the ranks of Silverhold depleted. Thusly, there are ample openings for new citizens and recruits alike in Silverhold! Let this be a call to arms, your Republic Needs You! Know also, while membership in the Republic is not necessary, Silverhold residents may rely the good members of the Phoenix Republic for friendship and comradery. Phoenix republic members are numerous and can be found adventuring, crafting, and gathering online 24/7.

What is the future of Silverhold?

The future of Silverhold is currently aligned with the Republic. The garrison there is pledged to the Republic and it’s defense. This pledge, however, has not left Governor Asher Silvarian without ambitions of his own. He sees a bright future for Silverhold and a key role for the town in the future of Novian geopolitics as well as becoming a strong source of industrial production and supply for the many warriors and adventurers of Novia.

For those seeking political office, Silverhold has a fairly democratic form of government, with both elected and appointed positions (District, Judicial, and legislative leadership) available to members of the citizenry… (Active roles in government are encouraged as this will truly be a player’s town; player run, player driven, and player developed.)

What are the unique features of Silverhold?

Within Silverhold there are many features and attractions both in its various districts and the lands surrounding the province itself. Here are a few of those districts:

District of Silverhold Proper

Full service Expert Crafting Stations are available along with several convenient merchant services here in the town center. Within the citadel walls, you will find the THE RUINS, a banquet hall where not all dinners live through dinner. This is an outdoor dinner setting boasting a ‘Front Row for All’ entertainment venue specifically tailored for live combat events. Crunch that char broiled set of ribs to the sound of breaking bones and smell of roasting flesh!

For those seeking a more leisurely evening, there is the Chilly Dog, a fine tavern providing the atmosphere of the old style pub found once in our lost lands of Sosaria.

The Heights

Merchant Services are available here! Visit the provincial capitol building, formally named ‘Silvarian Keep’ but most citizens just call it Silverhold’. Tour the living quarters of Duke Asher Silvarian and attend one of the events nights at his personal subterranean arena, ‘The Pit’.

Three other districts are in the planning stages and open for viewing: Lakeside, The Woodlands, and The Tundra.

Silverhold Surroundings

The lands surrounding Silverhold are rich with resources. Nearby are the The Crag Mines (Gold, Iron and Copper) and The Elysium Mines (Silver). Extreme caution is advised! Timber is in abundance in the Whispering woods, though venturing out alone is not encouraged. Contact your local garrison for an escort!

The densely populated and popular destination city of Xenos is located just a stone’s throw west along the coast from Silverhold. Far to the West are the unknown wonders and possible dangers of Artifice! Explore at your own risk! Across the Bay and accessible via a short sea-bound voyage, are the beautiful cities of Aerie and Etceter.

Elysium Bay is also home to many favorite fishing spots. Come find yours!

Do you have a Player Owned Town, Guild, or group that accomplishes and makes available great things for other players? Let us know! We would like to include your group in an upcoming spotlight. Just send Berek a brief proposal of what you have to show!

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Portalarium Office Gets Decorated!

Kacey Cupcakes led a determined horde of devoted backers including Winfield, Jack Frost, and the EVL Guild who were in town for their first annual guild meeting to decorate the Portalarium offices for Halloween. As you can see by these few pictures, they did an amazing job! You can see more pictures on the Shroud of the Avatar Facebook page (leave us a like while you are there!).

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R34 Postmortem Recap

Our Release 34 Postmortem was this past Tuesday and we answered a ton of questions and gave away lots of in-game prizes including color changing dyes and juggling zombie heads!

While we did not have time to answer all the questions, Starr Long and Chris Spears got on the forums afterwards and answered all the questions that were missed

Here’s the video for those who missed it:

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Policy Change: POT Ownership Transfers

Effective immediately, any ownership transfers of a Player Owned Town on an account with claimed rewards will NOT include Rewards: Lot Markers, NPCs, NPC Buildings, Add On Store Homes, Broadcast Phonograph, Wax Cylinders, etc. Rewards will have to be traded in-game between seller and purchaser. This makes them work identically to pledges, bundles, etc. We have made this policy change because of the different states that POTs can be in and how some owners have already claimed those rewards and then used, transferred, or sold them. Thus, players were taking advantage of the system to create duplicate items. Additionally these transfers require a $50 POT transfer fee.

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New Aeronaut Value Packs

Check out the new Aeronaut value packs, available now in the Add-On Store!

Aeronaut Weareable Pack

Turn heads and impress your friends wearing this value pack of aeronaut-themed items, including the Black & Chrome Ornate Aeronaut Outfit (jacket, leggings, gloves, & boots), Ornate Black Leather Aeronaut Helmet, and the Kobold Clockwork Wings.

Aeronaut Hot Air Balloon Pack

Dress in style while riding in your hot air balloon with this value pack of aeronaut-themed items, including the Hot Air Balloon, Black & Chrome Ornate Aeronaut Outfit (jacket, leggings, gloves, & boots), Ornate Black Leather Aeronaut Helmet, and the Kobold Clockwork Wings.

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Get Your 15% Black Friday Bonus Now!

For the past two years we’ve extended our Black Friday Promotion to give you up to 8 weeks to take advantage of our Black Friday 15% Bonus, and we’re doing it again this year! Here are the details:

For all new purchases (including bundles, bundle upgrades, add-on items, player owned town upgrades, and Make a Difference items) between Midnight CDT October 6, 2016 (5:00 UTC, October 7, 2016) and Midnight CST, November 28, 2016 (6:00 UTC, November 29, 2016), we will add an additional 15% bonus to your Store Credit! You can use your Store Credit toward additional purchases (which includes bundles, bundle upgrades, add-on items, and player owned town upgrades).

[NOTE: The 15% bonus is calculated every day at 1:00 pm CT for any purchases within the previous 24 hours and added to your Store Credit account; Store Credit cannot be applied toward the purchase of Make a Difference items]

You can use the 15% Bonus to save on your next purchase! For example, if you have the $45 Elven Starter Bundle and really want to upgrade to the $90 Elven Tool Bundle, you would normally pay the extra $45 for the upgrade. But using the 15% bonus you can immediately save $5. To do so, you would first purchase $40 worth of Store Credit Gift Coupons (via PayPal, Amazon, Bitcoin, or credit card; excluding existing Store Credit) then use the “Convert to Credits” option on your account page to transform the Store Credit Gift Coupons into Store Credit. Within 24 hours an additional $6 bonus ($40 x 15%) would be applied to your Store Credit account, bringing it up to $46. You would then use $45 of your Store Credit to upgrade to the $90 Elven Tool Bundle.

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Upcoming Events

Oct 21, 2016 – Pending Gifts of Pledges assigned to purchasers account
Oct 27, 2016 – Release 35
Nov 4-6, 2016 – SotA Con Fan Convention
Nov 10, 2016 – R35 Postmortem
Nov 17, 2016 – Release 36
Nov 21, 2016 – Courtesy Automatic Claiming of Rewards
Nov 28, 2016 – Fall into Winter Telethon and Expirations (House Stacking in Bundles, etc.)
Dec 15, 2016 – Release 37
Dec 20, 2016 – R37 Postmortem
Jan 26, 2017 – Release 38

Community Activities

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.

Event of the Week – Westend Fight Club (WFC)

If you’re in the neighborhood, feelin’ feisty, or just loking to hone your PvP; come on over to Westend on Sundays at 3pm NBT. I’ll be hosting casual pick-up fights in a relaxed no-loot environment on a city lot designed to be a PvP playground. This is a non-PvP zone so participants and spectators can feel secure until they choose to pick an opponent and enter the fence…

Join the Fight Club!

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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.

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Job Openings (1)

Programmer

We currently have an opening for a Programmer for Shroud of the Avatar. Qualifications for the “ideal candidate” are:

• Minimum 2 years industry experience
• Strong C#/C++ skills
• Database development experience
• Awesome debugging skills
• Windows programming experience
• Network programming experience
• Extensive Multi-threaded programming experience
• Ability to work in unstructured, non-hierarchical environment
• Strong software architecture skills
• BONUS SKILLS (any one or more of these):
  • Minimum 5 years industry experience (minimum of at least 1 shipped game)
  • Unity development experience
  • Mac development
  • Avid game player
  • Web development experience (C#, PHP, ASP.NET, XML/web services, JavaScript)
  • UNIX experience
  • MMO game development experience

If you’d like to join the Portalarium Tribe working on the ground-breaking Shroud of the Avatar, please submit your resume to jobs@portalarium.com. Provide links to your work (if possible), including actual game play, videos footage, and document form (images, maps, and event descriptions).

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Recommended Projects to Back

Wasteland 3

Our friends over at inXile have launched a crowdfunding campaign for Wasteland 3, a party-based role-playing game with complex story reactivity and strategic combat! The game features a deep and engaging story utilizing a newly-revamped dialog tree system from the celebrated writers of Torment: Tides of Numenera!

By including vehicles, environmental dangers, and a revamped, more fluid action system, inXile is evolving on Wasteland 2’s deep tactical turn-based combat and unique encounter design. Play by yourself or with a friend in story-driven synchronous or asynchronous multiplayer. Choices open up (or close off) mission opportunities, areas to explore, story arcs, and lots of other content.

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SotA Con East 2016  

Special Cross Promotion: Anyone who backs both Shroud of the Avatar (at a level with Game Access) and SotA Con East 2016 ($25+) will get a special custom Clasped Gauntlets Cloak in Blue and Yellow that says “SotA Con East 2016”.

Hotel Booking Deadline October 21: You have until October 21 to book the special hotel rate at the convention hotel after which rates go up and room availability will not be guaranteed.

Portalarium is excited to participate in the first ever community organized convention for Shroud of the Avatar – SotA Con East 2016! SotA developers and players alike will be gathering together for a casual for a casual weekend filled with exciting activities, engaging panel discussions, and of course plenty of gameplay sessions.

SotA Con East runs from November 4-6, 2016 in Baltimore Inner Harbor, Maryland. Registration is still open, so get your tickets by visiting the official event site links below!

SotA Con is entirely planned and funded by the players, for the players and developers. This once again shows how our passionate and dedicated players are creating exciting opportunities for the rest of the community, and succeeding magnificently.

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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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If you have been disconnected from the game, you may receive one of the following error messages. These messages can help determine what action you need to take to reconnect to the game.


User Connection Errors

These indicate you are having networking issues unrelated to Shroud of the Avatar. Please check with your ISP or check your firewall or router settings to get yourself back online.


- CICADA: Your connection was closed/blocked by a firewall or router or ISP.

- IVYTOWER: Your...

Experiencing connection issues? Check out this handy guide!

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