Category Archives: Update of the Avatar

Play Release 144!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 144 goes live November 25th at 10:30 AM CST.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 144 (R144), we offer a small army.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

Datacenter Changes, Ultra Rares, and Some of What’s Ahead

The Ultra Rare sales event is over. We will be delivering the bonus items shortly. They were to go out starting on the 17th, but since the Doll Cabinets were not ready, we held them back. The cabinet tech is mostly done and I will be working on them immediately after R144 has been deployed (and possibly after some sleep.)

The schedule got thrown off due to the work to implement new servers in our Austin datacenter. There’s a longer story for this, which I will certainly be sharing the details of in Discord during the Release Deployment we host in the #Developer Events voice channel, while I spin tunes and update the servers.

A little more work needs to be done in the first phase: once completed, the QA server will be the first player-facing server to see the performance benefits. This will allow us to test before migrating some of the more critical services to the new hardware.

Once fully implemented, we will be reducing our physical server footprint from eleven to seven, with one additional server that will be eliminated before the end of the year. During Q1, we will be making further hardware changes to update the remaining outdated servers.

I am continuing to work on outstanding content. As soon as things are ready, I will patch them into the game. This includes Lava Room (and other) Player Dungeon Spawns, the Lava Lake room, the LOTI Basement, and the Well adventure dungeon scene.

In 2026, we expect to see new mobs, the Eighth Level of Hell, EP2 questlines, and a lead-in to EP3, and we will continue to clean up the issues that affect many aspects of the game’s performance.

With Q1 of 2026, I will start work to migrate the project the current Unity Long Term Support (LTS) version (currently 6.00.) This process will require a migration to 2019, then 2020, etc. up to the LTS version. After that, we will look to keep SotA within the supported version lifecycle of Unity on the most current LTS release (we may lag behind a release depending on what API changes are put in place and how much work there will be to update the game code to work properly under the new versions.)

We will always remain at least one full release behind the generally available version. Especially for a game with as large a code base and age as SotA, the more time that passes, the more retro-fitting will be required.

– Ravalox

 

Release 144 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 144 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! Polish, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R145 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 144!

Read more…


Play Release 143!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 143 goes live October 27th at 10:30 AM CDT.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 143 (R143), we offer items meant to display people and …not people.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

Doll Display Prisons Cases and Ultra-Rares

It’s that time again! We have a new set of Ultra-Rare items that we will be giving to players who purchase a 10K or 6K COTO pack on the website from October 27th through November 6th.

Receive a Haunted Jackalope Doll with each purchase of a 10K COTO pack and get a Haunted Voodoo Doll with each purchase of a 6K COTO pack. The bonus items will arrive closer to Release 144. To qualify, be sure to make your purchases before the end of November 6th!

What’s that? Wish there was a way to safely display all these haunted dolls? Glad you asked! Our craftspeople have painstakingly created a set of Doll Display Cabinets for just this purpose!

There will be two versions: a Macabre Doll Display Case (a case as dark as the dolls it is intended to house!) and a Fancy Display Case made from the finest wood in Novia. These cases have protections to ensure that those haunted rascals fail any attempt to escape: they will be using the fishtank tech, allowing the player to place any one of the in-game dolls for display.

As we add more dolls to the game, players will be able to use these cabinets to proudly show off which ones they have (haunted or otherwise.) The exact set of features will be detailed when they are released: Xolavar has been tasked with installing the final bells and whistles mainly to strengthen the wards, but also to provide some interesting features.

The Doll Display Cases have arrived just in time too! I believe we have corrected audio issues with the seven pre-existing haunted dolls as well as improved their triggers and grab-ability. Some of the haunted dolls may have different sounds and/or animations as well. Who’s to say?

You have other things to display? There is a third (unlocked) display case that will allow for placement of whatever can be fit into the case. All three of these Display Cases will be in the Crown Store after the sale event is over and should be present in time for when the bonus items arrive via in-game mail.

NOTE: Though the Display Cases are NOT Ultra-Rares, we will be including another bonus item in this round: every Ultra-Rare Doll will be delivered with a Macabre Doll Display Case!

 

Infrastructure as well as Patching, Patching, and More Patching

This month Unity advised that there was an exploit found that affected any applications built on Unity 2017.1 or later. Unity created a patching tool and advised that if developers used certain commandline options or changed the path of certain directories within the build, then they needed to rebuild all of their software and publish a patch.

Even though Shroud of the Avatar has not utilized any of the methods or commandline options that Unity has identified as putting Unity applications at risk, we have incorporated the patcher into our build environment. We have directly patched our Unity build servers and, even so, we are still running the patcher to verify that the files affected are marked as already patched during the builds.

The patch utility has been updated by Unity a number of times in the last 20+ days, twice in the last 10 days alone, and we have updated our patcher to stay current and ensure that if the patch ever needs to be updated that our build process will handle it automatically. If there’s interest in going down the rabbit hole, here is a link to the document outlining when the issue was discovered.

These things always happen when we have lots of stuff planned. We were scheduled to migrate two servers to a new machine in the Austin datacenter but this was held off to ensure that we didn’t have any additional risk while we altered the build processes and continued to develop for the month. We are currently planning to deploy the new server next week with a few of the roles that we use to develop and maintain the game. We will schedule a maintenance window to migrate anything intrusive to the game. (Watch the forums and the in-game message of the day for more information when we establish our timeframe.)

If all goes well, this will be one of multiple server migrations we will need to do over the coming months. Each will likely require downtime to allow for a smooth cutover. The new equipment and software will be staged ahead of time. We will migrate non-production aspects first (like the QA server) to allow for some burn-in.

We have been working diligently to get to this point and we plan to continue into 2026 with more hardware and software updates!

– Ravalox

 

Release 143 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 143 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! Polish, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R144 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 143!

Read more…


Play Release 142!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 142 goes live September 29th at 10:30 AM CDT.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 142 (R142), we offer ghosts and goblets.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

Sam Who?

Samhain is upon us! For most all of the team this is our favourite time of the year! Well, maybe next to the egg hunt when we get to murder players, or April Fool’s day… Samhain is an ancient Celtic festival which was a pagan holiday celebrating the end of the harvest season and the Celtic New Year. Over the eons it has become Halloween as celebrated today.

There are some really gruesome cool things in this release! I have my favourites, but I am very curious to see what you all think is the best!

This month was a rough one for me. I finally caught Covid and was forced to take a week off to rest. Even after that I was a bit foggy for the next week. This means I didn’t get to stream as much as I wanted this month, and I lost the head start I got on all the things for R142 and R143. Even with that, we got a lot done, and are continuing on into October with a bunch more stuff.

The Blackblade Player Dungeon Room got updates this month. I had this great idea to fix a long-standing issue of people getting burned by lava when they were nowhere near it by creating a mesh that conformed to the lava pools themselves. I did a work stream on this and it looked like it was going to work really well. Sadly I found at the very end that the mesh could not be set as a trigger unless it was set to be convex. Which effectively changed the mesh back into a box collider, which would still set players aflame from a far.

In the end I found that I could use a mixture of Spheres and Cylinders to better hug the edges of the various pools. (I also found that other adjustments needed to be made to better manage the layers required for Lava Fishing (or any fishing to be honest). While I was there I adjusted the “swim height” so the character does not look like they are wading in the lava. I will backfill these fixes into the other lava grotto rooms that have curvy pool edges.

The Blackblade room is also the first room that I have put a mesh deco surface method in place. Usually, we attach a script box colliders to cover the areas we estimate that players should decorate on. The Blackblade room (and the upcoming Lava Lake room) are so large and have so many meshes that is makes more sense to optimize and create decoration meshes.

This means instead of what easily could have been 20 scripts running for Deco, we will have three; floor, wall, and ceiling. I am sure that there will need to be adjustments to some of the surfaces to increase usability along with further reduction of the number of mesh quads. This is similar to what I was trying to accomplish with the lava damage areas (and is the new method we are using for decorations in the new houses we are making).

Still on my list to get done before we shift into the end of the year (planning for 2026, infrastructure stuff, and coding) are the (massive) Lava Lake room, spawning versions of all the lava grotto rooms, and getting ‘the Well’ dungeon in place (at least for beta).

Looking forward to streaming a bunch this month and seeing you all there!

– Ravalox

 

Make a Difference!

We have a section of the cash shop on our website with items that represent various charities. Catnip Games donates 20% of the net purchase price of these items to the designated charities. We have collected over $50,000 for various charities including Water.org, Autism Awareness, Breast Cancer, Movember, Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals, and Doctors Without Borders.

At player request, we are adding a new Glowing Magic Mug into the Breast Cancer section this month to help support the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. The mug pictured here honors those we have lost.

Most of us know or know of someone affected by breast cancer: not only those diagnosed but also their families, friends, and communities. Supporting the effort to cure and prevent breast cancer is something we can all do.

By supporting the fight against breast cancer, we honor the stories of survivors, remember those we have lost, and protect generations to come. Each donation, each voice raised in awareness, and each moment spent spreading knowledge makes a difference. We hope this brings us closer to a world where breast cancer can be prevented, treated, and ultimately cured.

 

Release 142 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 142 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! Polish, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R143 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 142!

Read more…


Play Release 141!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 141 goes live August 28th at 4:00 PM CDT.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 141 (R141), we offer schoolbooks or hooky.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

Ravalox’s R141 Update

Release was originally scheduled for Monday August 25th but, due to the amount of content we have been working on, and due to Murphy’s Law causing a flood I had to deal with, we delayed release until Thursday. Not all of the content got done in time, but we will continue to wrap up the items not in the game yet. I have been livestreaming my work over the last few weeks, twice in the last week alone, showing the progress and providing details on the development of the rooms and some info on the game overall. Please be sure to check out our YouTube Channel or on Twitch to see the videos.

This release we continued to work on lava-related content. With the deployment of R141, we will have a good number of player dungeon fixes and additions, though some of these are not yet released. One of the rooms, called “Lava Lake”, is nearly finished but the amount of development time has pretty much paralleled creation of a new zone due to its massive size. We were close, but didn’t pass our internal quality checks and therefore was not even ready for a beta test run on the QA server. The Lava Lake room is the largest player dungeon room we have ever produced, with nine connections (with at least another being added as an expansion later).

We will continue work to finalize the content on the schedule and plan to publish a QA build with testing directives as soon as possible. I also plan to continue streaming work as often as I can.

Still yet to come: New player dungeon spawning rooms, new spawns for player dungeons, new houses, new adventure dungeons (Birch Island), and an Episode 2 zone.

We will be livestreaming on Friday at 4pm CT with more details. Hope to see you there!

– Ravalox

 

Release 141 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 141 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! Polish, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R142 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 141!

Read more…


Play Release 140!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 140 goes live July 28th at 10:30 AM CDT.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 140 (R140), we offer fun in the sun and in the dungeon.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

Lava Month

From the depths an ancient horror is coming, where the blood of the planet itself rises to swallow everything in its path… or it’s just a really warm place to fish, who knows?

Did you know that New Britannia has been around for a very long time? This world has been known by other names in the distant mists of time, some of which are not to be spoken lest the wrath of figures still powerful may appear and wreak havoc.

There is evidence that long ago, before the moons collided and even prior to Lord British, there was a civilization that thrived and met some cataclysm even more devastating than the Shardfall events over seven hundred years ago. Just look at the mysterious lava rooms recently uncovered: some of them appear to have been used to farm the prehistoric lava fish that have become such popular prey as of late. There are rooms that may have been used to generate power beyond even what the kobolds can imagine, and others still that are undisturbed natural caverns. It’s the semi-natural ones that have the masters of every skill school arguing. Most appear to have been broken into and modified with enormous ancient pieces of volcanic stone to make what appears to be places of meditation, study, possibly even ritual spaces for sacrifices, or maybe they just used them for sunless tanning. We may never know, though there have been some respected folks who swear they have seen things. Things they will not describe.

…but we don’t believe in things like that, right?

In honor of the hot winds of August, we will be rolling out a bunch of new lava rooms throughout release 140. Coming in the middle of the month we have an enormous lava room based on the Mine Cart Foyer. This room is HUGE: more square meters than Blackblade Pass. A room this large is bound to attract attention; I understand that there have been reports of Fire Elementals appearing in the new rooms and some say they have even been sighted in some of the older ones too!

There’s a little more work to do on the rooms so they are even better than the Lava Fishing Grotto we made a few months ago: the pictures here are of work in progress.

Be on the lookout!

– Ravalox

 

Bug Brigade’s 5th Anniversary Party

Please join us for a party celebrating the 5th anniversary of the Bug Brigade, hosted by the Bug Moderators Ravalox, Alley Oop, Echondas, Flair Minamoto, and Justyn! The party will start Saturday August 16th at 2PM NBT on the Bug Brigade’s Houseboat at its location in Brekken Bay off Hunters’ Island, indicated in the image on the right. We will have a live DJ spinning tunes while the party-goers dance, play party games, and more! You never know what might happen!

 

Release 140 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 140 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! Polish, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R141 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 140!

Read more…


Play Release 139!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 139 goes live June 30th at 10:30 AM CDT.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 139 (R139), we offer the essence of fire.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

Principles and Chaos

It’s that time of year again! Lord British’s birthday is upon us and with it comes reflection on the timeless Principles that shape our world. To celebrate, we’re thrilled to unveil the latest entry in our Ultra Rare series, this time themed around the powerful forces of the Principles and Chaos!

From June 30th through July 11th, when you purchase and claim a qualifying COTO pack in-game, you’ll receive an exclusive set of bonus items (to be delivered by the end of Release 139) crafted to let you proudly display your dedication to the Principles… or your embrace of Chaos!

10K COTO Pack Bonus

A majestic set of standing banners: one bearing the emblem of the Principles, the other adorned with the symbol of Chaos. Perfect for framing your grand hall or courtyard.

6K COTO Pack Bonus

A striking pair of wall flags — one for the Principles and one for Chaos — to bring a touch of virtue (or anarchy!) to your castle walls or cozy home.

All banners and flags gently sway in the breeze, adding life and movement to your lot or Player-Owned Town. Whether you choose to honor the Principles, Chaos, or both, these beautifully crafted decorations will let your guests know exactly where your allegiances lie.

These items are part of our Ultra Rare Series; once this promotion ends, they will never be available again.

Every COTO pack purchase not only rewards you with these limited-edition items but also directly supports the continued growth and development of Shroud of the Avatar. In our recent livestreams, we’ve shared deeper insights into the exciting future of the game; be sure to check out this month’s and next month’s Release Notes for more details on what’s to come.

To qualify, the COTOs must be claimed by logging into the game (online) while the special offer is in place, which is through July 11th, the end of the sales and bonuses period for the release.

Proclaim your principles. Embrace the chaos. Celebrate with us!

 

New Release Deployment Schedule

During last month’s livestream, we shared lots of details about our ongoing efforts to stabilize and modernize our infrastructure as well as our roadmap for the rest of this year, and even dropped a few hints about what’s coming next year.

One important topic we covered was the impact of our current monthly release schedule on development. Every month, the team must pause active work during ‘lockdown’ to publish a release, which limits the time we have to create and refine new content.

To address this, we’re planning to transition to a quarterly major build schedule, while still deploying critical fixes and smaller updates monthly—or more frequently if needed. Here’s what we’re working towards:

Proposed Deployment Schedule

  • Weekly server maintenance on Mondays (start time TBD)
  • Minor patch deployments on Mondays, as required
  • Release deployments on the last Monday of the scheduled release month (currently still every month, with plans to move to quarterly major releases)
  • Developer Release Livestreams to follow on the Friday after each Release (unless a holiday or other conflict arises)

We’d also like to host occasional weekend livestreams and spontaneous work streams when possible!

Why the Change?

Historically, releases were deployed on Thursdays to get new Alpha/Beta content into players’ hands right before the weekend, maximizing early feedback. While this made sense during early development, it’s riskier in a live production environment, since any major issue rolling into the weekend can’t be quickly addressed.

Industry best practice is to schedule updates and maintenance on lower-traffic days, minimizing disruption and allowing the team to respond to issues quickly. Following this, we’ve officially moved the monthly release deployment event to the last Monday of each month. This is just the first phase of aligning our deployment process with our long-term goals.

Infrastructure & Next Steps

Alongside these scheduling changes, we’re actively working on updating and modernizing hardware and virtualizing servers where possible to improve reliability and scalability. We’ll share more details about these improvements, and what’s next, during our upcoming livestream on July 11th.

Thank you for your support and patience as we refine our release process. Together, we’re building a more stable and efficient foundation for the future of Shroud of the Avatar!

 

Streaming Bundle Inventory Management

As part of the streaming program, each participating streamer should maintain an inventory of up to 50 bundles to give away to their viewers, in accordance with program rules.

We have been monitoring bundle counts and noticed that some streamers currently hold over 400 bundles on their accounts. Please remember: streamers are not allowed to open the giveaway bundles provided by SotA Staff, they should be giving out bundles when they stream and not retaining more than 50 bundles at any time.

Moving forward, we will be strictly enforcing these rules and will only deliver bundles to qualifying streamers whose accounts are within the allowed limit. We understand that participating streamers may also watch other streams and occasionally win bundles themselves. In such cases, bundles received from other players or streamers must be opened upon delivery.

If a participating streamer’s account holds more than 50 bundles, SotA Staff will not deliver additional bundles until the inventory has been reduced. If you win a bundle, open the bundle!

To keep the system fair and manageable for everyone, if these backlogs are not cleared, we may implement an expiration policy on excess bundles.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation in helping keep the streaming program balanced and fun for all!

 

Release 139 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 139 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! Polish, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R140 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 139!

Read more…


Play Release 138!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 138 goes live May 30th at 10:30 AM CDT.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 138 (R138), we offer three renovations.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

New Britannia Housing Renewal Project

Earlier this month, Scottie and I streamed a developer work session of over five hours on Twitch. This month, we have completed the cleanup of the Wood and Plaster Row House set (2-, 3-, and 4-story models). This model rowhouse is the default house that appears on a row lot and is the basis for a number of other row models.

In addition to fixing all of the known visual issues and stuck spots that have been reported, Scottie found hundreds of polygons and faces that were hidden within walls, taking up extra draw time and GPU memory. He also found thousands of disconnected vertices, which cause the game engine to try to calculate their purpose and draw requirements on the fly during game play.

I have rebuilt the prefabs, organizing the objects and building a proper Level of Detail (LOD) implementation, and optimized the textures to enhance their appearance in game.

We now have a good baseline to work from to create a set of new row houses, while still continuing to repair the existing ones. This is one of our longer projects but, when done, the results will really enhance the game experience. More updates to come in the coming releases!

– Ravalox

 

Release 138 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 138 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! Polish, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R139 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 138!

Read more…


Play Release 137!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 137 goes live April 25th at 10:30 AM CDT.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 137 (R137), we offer a warm spring glow.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

Birch Island Progress Update

As always, I have been juggling a bunch of hats and keeping the fires to a low simmer while still working to develop new content. Active players and players attending the livestreams or reading our release notes/newsletters are already aware that, even though we aim to add content to the game on a quarterly basis, we have been consistently adding new items, recipes, pets, spawners, and player dungeon rooms and components every month. Last month during our 4.5-hour deep-dive Twitch livestream, I detailed a number of ongoing efforts we have to update graphics, improve performance and move us forward to where we will be on track to deliver more in-depth content. If you haven’t seen the video yet, please check it out on Twitch or on Youtube. There is a ton of great info on house bug fixes, new houses, and dungeon features and bugs being eradicated. Content will continue to be developed and released as we complete new items and features. Major content (like episodic and new areas like Birch Island) will take a bit longer to produce with the team being the size it is currently.

I will be making adjustments to the visuals of Birch Island on the Novia map to align the island more accurately with the appearance of its inspiration. Currently, I have removed the bridge from mainland Novia to the island since I need to change the geometry. Once that is done, players will be free to walk around on the new part of that overworld. Birch Island is, of course, a reference to Oak Island in northeast Canada, specifically the Money Pit, where two men discovered evidence of a shaft in the late 1700’s. The story of Oak Island first interested me in the 1970’s when “In Search Of” did an episode on the story.

In our version, Birch Island, there will be three locations of interest:

  • The Money Pit itself, based on the demo dungeon Eighth Level of Hell that appeared randomly on the Novia map in December during our anniversary celebrations.
  • The Nolan Manor, a homestead on the island, where players will be able to go to access merchant services and pick up side quests as well as hear lore and rumors from the NPCs.
  • The Well, a cave-based dungeon not as large or difficult as the Money Pit, but that will certainly be worth visiting as we intend to bring back some old ‘friends’ that early supporters of SotA will likely recognize.

These dungeons will have interconnections to the Novian underworld and to each other, keeping with the standard ruleset of having adventure dungeons on each continent connect to each other, allowing the player to travel across the map while in the underworld.

The Well will be of modest difficulty but should attract spelunkers of all levels for the new layout and (planned) re-emergence of an old mob type. The Well will likely be the first area opened to players on Birch Island, with the Money Pit following next.

The final area on the island will be the homestead and is planned to allow the player to explore the various points of interest around the island.

I look forward to putting the Well on the QA server soon so players can provide feedback and help squish bugs before we go live with the new content.

– Ravalox

 

Release 137 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 137 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! Polish, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R138 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 137!

Read more…


Play Release 136!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 136 goes live March 27th at 10:30 AM CDT.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 136 (R136), we offer rabbit-hunting and/or chaos.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

Embrace the Chaos – Limited-Time Ultra-Rare Chaos Sword & Shield!

Spring is a time of renewal and rebirth, but in Shroud of the Avatar, it’s also a time of Chaos! To honor this wild and unpredictable force, we are unveiling two ultra-rare items: the Chaos Sword and the Chaos Shield. These exclusive items were meticulously crafted by none other than Scottie, the legendary artisan of New Britannia. One glance at these weapons of Chaos and you’ll know they embody its essence.

Featuring a mesmerizing rotating Chaos symbol (when equipped), the Chaos Shield is a true spectacle to behold. With intimidating visual effects (when equipped), the Chaos Sword will strike fear into the hearts of your foes. Both pulse even when innocuously placed as deco.

These items are part of our Ultra Rare Series; once this promotion ends, they will never be available again.

How to claim your chaos rewards? From March 27th through April 6th, you can obtain these exclusive items as bonus rewards:

Receive one Chaos Sword for every 10K COTO pack purchased and claimed in-game.

Receive one Chaos Shield for every 6K COTO pack purchased and claimed in-game.

There’s no limit to how many you can earn; each eligible COTO pack grants you another chaos-infused reward! NOTE: To qualify, the COTOs must be claimed by logging into the game (online) while the special offer is in place, which is through April 6th, the end of the sales and bonuses period for the release.

 

Join the Annual Easter Egg Hunt!

Each year, the Dev Team host our annual Egg Hunt. This year will be our 5th Annual Egg Hunt event in game! Join Laney and the Dev Team for any of the one-hour event windows on Saturday, April 12th in Mount Midir:

We have scheduled the event in such a way as to allow Avatars from all over the world to be able to participate, so grab your jump potions, your collection of Frogkin rings and your Boom Bunny fighting gear and come join in the egg hunting fun!

 

The Dungeon Project Update

This month we put out a non-spawning version of the player dungeon troll room. This room was suggested by Hemnu Lightbringer because there are few rooms large enough to accommodate the large version of the player-placeable lava pools. The new version is craftable and there is a discoverable recipe (as usual) to convert from the spawning version to non-spawning and vice-versa. The lantern present in the original room has been removed but a deco surface has been added at the top of the rear stalagmite as well as a surface on the rock shelf above. The floor and walls should all be able to accept decorations; in addition, the ceiling has been configured for ceiling decorations. I tested and confirmed that all three lava pool sizes can be placed in various directions and, on a side note with reference to the lava pools, we have noted a significant improvement in their operation since they were all rebuilt. Please continue to report any issues seen with these items in the existing bug thread.

Last month, I intended to release a breakaway wall T-intersection hallway. It was delayed until this month due to some interesting bugs found in the original. I found that the mesh used for the breakaway wall had seven vertices that were not ‘welded’ and occupied the same space as other vertices. This can cause the renderer to go into an infinite loop. It was also discovered that a change was made in 2015 to the texture setup that caused the walls to appear shiny and deformed to look like another type of brick. It is suspected that this was not reported by players since it was an obvious clue as to where the wall section was that could be knocked down. This dungeon piece is currently used in virtually all of the game’s adventure zone dungeons and used to connect the dungeons together to create the continental underworld, so correcting these issues was important.

Now that this piece is available to players, I will be working on the three levels of difficulty I have mentioned in the past. Secret doors, breakaway walls, and similar hidden mechanisms in dungeons should have an easy (novice), standard (intermediate), and hard (expert) version. The existing breakaway wall will likely be considered the intermediate difficulty. Players should see new pieces come out soon with these difficulty variations.

I have been spending a lot of time cleaning up inconsistencies. This month, in addition to releasing these two rooms, I have updated a number of the rooms to correct player placement issues. This includes implementing a standard for where the placement collision goes and rebuilding the ‘crossed hammers’ interactive. As I progress through the entire inventory of rooms already built, functionality should improve.

Laney has been working diligently to populate an internal spreadsheet that will help me work through the issues, missing rooms, and organize new room deployment better going forward. The first visible player dungeon kit-wide change will be a standardization of the dungeon piece (room) naming. Even before this is put in place, I have identified another issue that has been present for some time: many of the dungeon room pieces have duplicate IDs. This may be the cause of certain types of bugs such as hammers not showing or spawns not appearing. Though I can’t say for sure what number of bugs will be corrected when I fix them, I can say that performance should improve.

– Ravalox

 

Release 136 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 136 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! R136 is a polish month. Content, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R137 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 136!

Read more…


Play Release 135!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 135 goes live February 27th at 10:30 AM CST.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 135 (R135), we offer space to stretch your oars.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

Keep and Castle Full Water Lots

This month we have added the last two missing lot markers for Player Owned Towns (POTs); a full water keep lot marker and a full water castle deed lot marker. Governors and Stewards who have a POT can now offer a full range of water lot sizes to their residents.

There are two different types of water lots: a standard water lot which must be placed on a valid shoreline and full water lots which are placed entirely in water. When a full water lot marker is placed, it will create a dock with a lot marker on it and will allow for the placing of homes that are intended to be in the water when claimed. These POT full water markers cannot create an island when the lot is claimed.

The full water keep marker will fit in the lake of grasslands and forest 02 biomes. In swamp biomes (aside from out to sea), it will place, but there’s land encroaching on the edges.

The full water castle marker will fit in the lake of forest 01 and snowy mountains biomes. In mountain and underground biomes, it will place, but there’s land encroaching on the edges.

The existing keep and castle lots (that CAN become islands) that are baked into the POT templates with larger bodies of water cannot be removed. Future POT templates will not have the baked-in convertible water lots, to make room for more placement flexibility.

These markers are available in the in-game Crown Store for 30 COTOs each.

 

Release 135 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 135 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! R135 is a polish month. Content, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R136 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 135!

Read more…