Category Archives: Update of the Avatar

Update of the Avatar #214 – 2017.02.10: City Kobolds, Item Reshaping, Upper Fortus, Rhun Ruins, K’rul Crawl, Kobold Flash Sale, Alienware Steam Giveaway, and More!

February 10, 2017

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

City Kobolds and Kobold Chests

In Release 39, we began work on what we are calling our City Kobolds. These are the Kobolds that live in Skrekk and other places like K’rul. They are much more advanced than anyone else in Novia and the source of almost all of the technology that you see in the game, including clockwork creatures and aether vibration amplifiers. City Kobolds use advanced armor and weaponry including chainswords, electric axes, gas guns, electric blunderbusses, grenades, etc.

In some cases, City Kobolds are friendly to players (depending on story elements) and there are rumors of City Kobold Merchants who sell rare Kobold technology to players. The other Kobolds players have interacted with until now have been what we call Village Kobolds, and will remain what players encounter in outdoor zones and small Kobold habitations. In Release 39, you will be able to find our first round of City Kobolds in K’rul. In Release 40 we will be updating Skrekk with City Kobold, including a new unique visual for King Kobarr.

Update of the Avatar #213 – 2017.02.03: The Making of Upper Fortus, Rhun Ruins, & K’rul, R38 Postmortem, IronMaiden’s Chemo Relief Telethon, Water Decorations, and More!

February 3, 2017

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

The Making of Upper Fortus

The Fortus River runs south-to-north through a large canyon in the North Paladis region near the Sanctus Spine Control Point. Kobolds have established a mining facility here using steam to soften the terrain. Bandits have a camp nearby and have been raiding the shipments of ore and therefore, the Kobolds have been ramping up their defenses of the mining facility. Expect strong resistance when trying to raid the Kobold mining camp; and the bandits are not going to be too friendly either!

This scene started as a clone of North Varisalla Foothills but is being completely rebuilt for a live date hopefully in Release 40.

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

I have a few screenshots of progress being made on Upper Fortus.

The Southern Canyon/ Upper Fortus Falls

Update of the Avatar #212 – 2017.01.27: Play Release 38 Now!, Valentine’s Goodies, Making of K’rul, R37 Deed Raffle Winners, Perennial Polish, and More!

January 27, 2017

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

Play Release 38 Now!

Release 38 successfully launched yesterday, January 26, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, and logging in to check out the changes! There’s lots of new content to explore, including:

Update of the Avatar #211 – 2017.01.20: R38 Character Work, North Drachvald Spur, Xenos Polish, K’rul, Offline Character Preservation, LB’s Game Critic Legend Award, and More!

January 20, 2017

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

Release 38 Character Work

Release 38 character work has been split between Perennial Coast outfits for the citizenry, telethon rewards, and Shogun Bundle items. Fletcher “SkullMuncher34” Kinnear posted some of his work to Sketchfab and the Silver variant of the Clockwork Armor was recognized as a Staff Pick!

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

Hello and greetings all! Fletcher here, aka Skullmuncher34

I’ve been working on a TON of new content for R38 and I wanted to give you guys a preview.

I’ve spent some time catching up on Telethon content with Ice Bagpipes, Ice Wings, and Clockwork Armor.

[A really cool feature of the Clockwork Armor is the helmet has a built-in Aether Vibration Device so you can tune into your favorite radio stations! The following Copper Clockwork Armor is a telethon reward for the Summer Telethon Part 2 – Editor]

Update of the Avatar #210 – 2017.01.13: IronMaiden’s Chemo Relief Fund, New NPC Conversation Mode, Keys & Locks Update, Spring Telethon, Origin PC Steam Promo, and More!

January 13, 2017

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

New NPC Conversation Window

In Release 38, we are updating the conversation window used for interacting with NPCs to make it both more immersive and easier to use. For immersion, we are hiding almost all of the other interface elements, including all other chat and the hotbar. We are also placing the chat in the very middle of the screen where you are looking at the NPC in order to keep you focused on the interaction. We have also tried to keep the interface itself to as minimal as possible with very few borders and as much transparency in the elements as we can.

Update of the Avatar #209 – 2017.01.06: SotA Voted #1 Crowdfunded Game 2016, Canyon Siege, Brookside, Perennial Coast, Blood Bay, and More!

January 6, 2017

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

The Making of the Canyon Siege Encounter

Periodically, NPC towns come under siege by the Obsidian Cabalists. The timing, duration, and location of these sieges is driven by Celestial Mechanics. When you attempt to enter a town under siege, you will first enter the Town Siege scene where the enemy has made camp outside the town and is fighting the town defenders. You can choose to join the battle and end the siege early or work your way around the perimeter, perhaps encountering only some scouting parties. The first iteration of this feature (and one map) went live in Release 37. In Release 38, we are adding another map based on bridge spanning a canyon.

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

Hey folks, today I’m going to share what I’ve been working on this week. These are some screenshots of the upcoming Canyon Bridge Siege Map. In this scenario, enemies have seized a deteriorated bridge which was previously under construction, and have set up a war camp from which they can lay siege to a nearby town.

The Bridge

Update of the Avatar #208 – 2016.12.23: Q1-17 Schedule, Brookside, Perennial Polish, Blood Bay, Water Homes, Shogun Items, New Emotes, Floral POT, and More!

December 23, 2016

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

[From a forum post by Starr “Darkstarr” Long]

Q1 2017 Schedule Update

Greetings Avatars,

As we have stated previously, we intend to publish quarterly schedule updates for our monthly releases. Even though the goals outlined in these schedules are likely to change somewhat as we react to feedback, we feel it is important to periodically provide you with an updated roadmap.

Our priority continues to be to deliver new content to our backers each and every month so that you can give us feedback that will help us iteratively improve Shroud of the Avatar. This collaborative process continues to benefit the game, and often results in sweeping changes such as the switch over to use-based advancement. As you have seen in previous releases, the flexibility inherent to this process means that we sometimes push things out, but we also often pull new things in.

For the first quarter of 2017 we will be putting the finishing touches on the Path of Love while moving on to the Paths of Courage and Truth. We will continue to expand Crafting with the additions of molds for visual variations as well as polishing Agriculture and Fishing. Combat will continue to be balanced and will be expanded to include cover as well as a refactor of ammunition. The user interface will get several polish passes including refactoring of the conversation system and tutorial as well as an overall improvement to visuals and usability. We will also continue to give each region a visually distinct appearance, from the Shogunate beauty of the Perennial Coast to the Viking starkness of Norgard and Verdantis.

Update of the Avatar #207 – 2016.12.16: Play R37 Now!, Vauban Pass, LB on Exploding Dice, Raffle Winners, Numinous Gleann Spotlight, and More!

December 16, 2016

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

Play Release 37 Now!

Release 37 successfully launched yesterday, December 15, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, and logging in to check out the changes! There’s lots of new content to explore, including:

Release 37 Instructions

December 14, 2016

[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 37 access for all Early Access backers begins this Thursday, December 15, at 10:30 AM US Central Standard Time (16:30 UTC).

Performance: It has been far too many releases since we focused on issues related to performance, so we made the hard decision to push out some work on features in order to focus most of our programming team on performance. We have made a wide swath of changes that have improved just about every aspect of performance, including install size, load times, frame rate, and stability. We still have much work to do, and large cities with lots of characters and decorations can still cause some machines to struggle. Read more…

Update of the Avatar #206 – 2016.12.09: Ardoris Polish, Making of Blood Bay, Community Spotlight – Aldwater Player Town, Obsidian Bundles, and More!

December 9, 2016

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

Ardoris Polish

In Release 37, we are spending time on polishing the visuals for Ardoris and making them more distinct from the rest of the game. We had already given Ardoris a vaguely Asian theme but we wanted to push that further, so we purchased an Asian-themed asset pack from the Unity Asset store to provide us with additional assets for this purpose. Over the course of Release 37 and Release 38, we are going to propagate those assets (along with the new character assets we are building) throughout the Perennial Coast region to give that entire region its own distinct visual identity. You can expect to see similar treatment to start appearing in adventure scenes, other NPC towns, and PRTs over the next several releases.

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

Hey guys, SorcerousSteve here giving you a sneak peek at the visual improvements made to Ardoris this R37.

One of the major new alterations to the scene has been the addition of roads leading out to the East and West resembling those present on the overworld map. Alongside this new Asian architecture/foliage has been added to the scene in key areas.