Category Archives: Update of the Avatar

Update of the Avatar #228 – 2017.05.19: Ornate Moondial Video, Making of Sequanna Colossus, Blood Bay Puzzles & Treasure, Our Community, Flash Sales, Free Trial, Event Calendar, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

Moondial Effects First Look Video

As a recap, we recently did some re-ordering of the celestial bodies in the heavens. There are now more game systems directly tied to the positions of these celestial bodies. Due to these changes, Richard “Lord British” Garriott has decreed that we update our orreries to not only accurately reflect these new sequences, but also add the constellations in an outer ring.

Here is a video of the Ornate version of the Moondial that we talked about in last week’s update. This moondial version will go in the Add On Store and will come in a variety of sizes ranging from tabletop to a giant version that you can walk under! These versions are due to make an appearance in Release 42:

Read more…


Update of the Avatar #227 – 2017.05.12: New Free Trial Begins, Black Sun Game Publishing Partnership, Oracle Update, R41 Postmortem Recap, Localization Update, Flash Sales, Community Events, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

The Making of Oracle Colossus

SPOILERS: Now that all three paths (Truth, Love, and Courage) are playable we have begun work on the Finale part of the plot, aka The Path of the Oracle. One of the crucial scenes of that path is the Oracle Colossus. This is of course the famous depiction of the Oracle from the concept painting by Stephen Daniele inspired by passages from The Sword of Midras prequel novel by Tracy Hickman. This scene was built as a placeholder and is now being polished into a final state.

We hope to have the Oracle Colossus ready for Release 42 or 43.

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

Here are some early shots of progress on the Oracle Colossus area.

I, explorer Earl Greyhot, arrive at the site of the Oracle Colossus, where a previous expedition from the University of Britannia dissapeared under dubious circumstances.

Read more…


Update of the Avatar #226 – 2017.05.05: Telethon Weapons Update, Bloodriver Outskirts Update, Free Trial Test #3, Music Weekend Flash Sale, Lord British Interviews, Community Events, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

The Making of Bloodriver Outskirts (update)

SPOILERS: Players following the Path of Truth encounter the Elven village of Bloodriver massacred by vigilantes from Aerie. The elves have fled for their lives into the forests upriver and invaded the home of an Elven hermit who dwells in a ruin deep in the forest. They have set traps to protect themselves from the vigilantes who have pursued them here and are harassing them still. Elven soldiers from Vertas are arriving from the north to protect them while Aerie soldiers are streaming in from the south east to try and stop all out war between the humans and elves. We hope to have this scene live in Release 43.

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

Hey guys! SorcerousSteve here to give you another update on Bloodriver Outskirts!
As the map approaches its polish phase I’ll be preparing for spawning!

An ancient abandoned temple Pyramid deep within the forest.

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Update of the Avatar #225 – 2017.04.28: Play R41 Now, Moondial Madness, The Oracle, Outskirts Updates, Community Livestream, Raffle Winners, City+ Property Flash Sale, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

Play Release 41 Now!Release 41 successfully launched yesterday, April 27, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, and logging in to check out the changes! There’s lots of new content to explore, including:

Read more…


Update of the Avatar #224 – 2017.04.21: The Oracle and Grannus, Telethon Weapons, New Outskirts, The Fall (update), Join the Localization Team, Trophy Contest, New Flash Sales, HoBLotH IV, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

The Oracle and Grannus

As we are moving through the final sections of the story we are working on the characters you will interact with at critical parts of your paths. In Release 37 we added Priestess of the Wind Khasi and Shogun Siranto. In Release 41 we will be adding the Titan Grannus, currently ruler of the Norgard people. Titan Grannus is one of the pivotal characters you will encounter along the Path of Courage. He wears Viking inspired royal armor with the yellow highlights thought to keep Kobolds at bay. In Release 43 we will be adding the Oracle who watches all. This week we posted progress on these two characters.

[A Dev+ Forum Post by Fletcher “SkullMuncher34” Kinnear]

Hello all! So we’re finally creating the Oracle as an in-game NPC. Not the automatons or the outpost oracles, but the one true ORACLE. This is where we will post screenshots and works in progress as we get her ready for an upcoming release. Cheers!

Read more…


Update of the Avatar #223 – 2017.04.14: R40 Postmortem Recap, Solace Bridge Outskirts Update, Autism Awareness Month, Patterns Flash Sale, New Job Openings, Community Events, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

The Making of Solace Bridge Outskirts (update)

For several years now our backers have been providing us feedback that the first few hours of our game have several major issues. Those issues include too many loading screens, scenes that are too small, and starting towns that include player housing / vendors. As we shift our focus to improving the New User Experience (NUE), and as we are able to measure new player progress through events like our recent free trial, we realize that we must address these issues sooner versus later.

As we announced during the Spring Telethon, our solution to this is to add three new maps to the game that we are calling “Outskirts”. These scenes will be very close to the three starting scenes and players will go directly there after finishing those starting scenes. Outskirts will be very large scenes, similar in scope to some of our recent big scenes like Blood Bay. This will allow them to be large enough that players can base themselves in a single scene for adventuring, resupply for their first couple of hours without having to go through multiple scene loads, or having to use the Overworld. Each scene will have a small outpost that will include some shopkeepers, trainers, crafting stations, and a few quest givers (and no player housing!). The scenes will also include plenty of adventuring areas (forests, ruins, bandit camps, etc.).

Our first Outskirts scene is Solace Bridge Outskirts. It is downriver from Solace Bridge where the Solace River meets the ocean. The small army that was defeated at Solace Bridge has retreated here and sent on the villager refugees to Soltown. They have made camp in a ruined tower overlooking the swampy shoreline. However they are not getting to rest in their retreat for a nearby bandit camp is preying on them, stealing supplies. Plus across the river lie the ruins of an ancient village infested with the very undead they just retreated from! We hope to have this scene live in Release 41 or 42.

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

Update to The Ruined Village & Graveyard

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Update of the Avatar #222 – 2017.04.07: Free Trial Test 2 Begins, R40 Postmortem, Summer Telethon, Weapons Flash Sale, Job Openings, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

The Making of Solace Bridge Outskirts (update)

For several years now our backers have been providing us feedback that the first few hours of our game have several major issues. Those issues include too many loading screens, scenes that are too small, and starting towns that include player housing / vendors. As we shift our focus to improving the New User Experience (NUE), and as we are able to measure new player progress through events like our recent free trial, we realize that we must address these issues sooner versus later.

As we announced during the Spring Telethon, our solution to this is to add three new maps to the game that we are calling “Outskirts”. These scenes will be very close to the three starting scenes and players will go directly there after finishing those starting scenes. Outskirts will be very large scenes, similar in scope to some of our recent big scenes like Blood Bay. This will allow them to be large enough that players can base themselves in a single scene for adventuring, resupply for their first couple of hours without having to go through multiple scene loads, or having to use the Overworld. Each scene will have a small outpost that will include some shopkeepers, trainers, crafting stations, and a few quest givers (and no player housing!). The scenes will also include plenty of adventuring areas (forests, ruins, bandit camps, etc.).

Our first Outskirts scene is Solace Bridge Outskirts. It is downriver from Solace Bridge where the Solace River meets the ocean. The small army that was defeated at Solace Bridge has retreated here and sent on the villager refugees to Soltown. They have made camp in a ruined tower overlooking the swampy shoreline. However they are not getting to rest in their retreat for a nearby bandit camp is preying on them, stealing supplies. Plus across the river lie the ruins of an ancient village infested with the very undead they just retreated from! We hope to have this scene live in Release 41 or 42.

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

An update:

Farmland Area Read more…


Update of the Avatar #221 – 2017.03.31: Play R40 Now, Q2 2017 Schedule, Free Trial Test 2, Verdantis Mines Update, Patterns Flash Sale, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

Play Release 40 Now!

Release 40 successfully launched yesterday, March 30, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, and logging in to check out the changes! There’s lots of new content to explore, including:

Read more…


Update of the Avatar #220 – 2017.03.24: New Vile Weapons, The Making of Verdantis Mines and Other Scenes, Easter Flash Sale, Community Livestream, Player Town Spotlight, and more!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

The Vile Weapons of the Obsidian Cabalists

The Obisidian Cabalists will begin appearing in Town Sieges in Release 40. Each Obsidian Cabalist wields a unique artifact weapon made from Obsidian and bearing their anti-virtue symbol. Players who defeat Cabalists have a chance to find these weapons on their corpses as loot (along with hoods, robes, and plate boots). We made sure that each weapon type (including a shield) was represented so that players would have a chance to get a weapon of the type they favored.

Read more…


Update of the Avatar #219 – 2017.03.17: Making of Kas Ruins, Spring Telethon Recording, Decorations Flash Sale, World Water Day, and more!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

The Making of Kas Ruins

The Kas Ruins are one of the six ruined cities found in Novia that date back to the period in Novian history in which the Obsidian Order rose to power. (As described in the Sword of Midras prequel novel by Tracy Hickman and Richard Garriott). The exact history of some of these cities has been lost to time, but it is rumored that some of them may have been abandoned even before the rise of the Obsidians. Kas is the site of the ruins of an ancient Paladin fort high atop a mountainside. At the foot of the mountain is an abandoned village with a small graveyard. The entire area has become overrun by the undead.

Kas started as a clone of the Opalis Ruins, but is getting completely rebuilt this release to have a unique layout and visuals. Like all the other Ruins and Shardfalls, this is an Open PVP area so we are expressly focusing on being sure the map has interesting setups for PVP conflict, with plenty of space for hiding, escaping, ambushing, and skirmishing. Our goal is to have Kas Ruins go live in Release 41 or 42. Read more…