SotA raised $333k in March, making it the highest crowdfunding month to date for the project (not counting the initial Kickstarter month of April 2013)!  All additional funds we raise are applied to the development of the game, allowing us to expand the size of the team (which has grown to 31 members), and increase the amount of content and features.

One of the features we all wished we had enough time and budget for was the addition of mounts in Episode 1, but it just isn’t in the cards. However, we have raised enough funds to give all backers the next best thing: coconuts that sound like horses when banged together! You even get to pantomime trotting around like a horse while you bang them!

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Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

• Come Play Release 4 Now!
• SotA’s One-Year Anniversary Events
• Star Citizen Crossbow and Vanduul Polearm
• Expert Crafting Stations
• Brindle Greyhound Pet
• Rustic 3-Story Village Home
• Town and City Lot Homes
• Blade of the Avatar Novel: Chapter 15
• Alienware R5 Weekend Access Keys and $20 Pledge Upgrade Coupons
• Upcoming Events
• This Week In The News
• Only 10 Days Remain to Purchase/Upgrade/Gift Founder Pledges

Come Play Release 4 Now!

Release 4 successfully launched yesterday, March 27, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, logging in, and exploring the new content!

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Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

• Founder Teachable Emotes
• Founder Lord House Servant
• Golden Eagle Pet
• Blade of the Avatar Novel: Chapter 14
• Alienware R5 Weekend Access Keys and $20 Pledge Upgrade Coupons
• Upcoming Events
• This Week In The News
• Only 17 Days Remain to Purchase/Upgrade/Gift Founder Pledges

Founder Teachable Emotes

Get ready to show off (and teach) your unique emote, included in the Founder rewards of every pledge tier! Here are five of those emotes:

Immortal Adventurer: Muscular Flex Emote

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Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

• Alienware Sponsors 1000 Release 5 Weekend Access Keys
• SotA’s One-Year Anniversary Events
• Lord of the Manor Castle Lot
• Founder Baron 2 & 3 Waterfront Galleon
• Lord’s Throne
• Founder Lord Lynx Pet
• Town Stone Arena Basement
• Blade of the Avatar Novel: Chapter 13
• Upcoming Events
• Only 24 Days Remain to Purchase/Upgrade/Gift Founder Pledges

Alienware Sponsors 1000 Release 5 Weekend Access Keys

Every week for four weeks, starting March 24th, 250 members of the Alienware Arena Shroud of the Avatar Group will receive Weekend Access Keys to SotA Release 5, scheduled for April 24-27.

Giveaway Periods:

• March 24 – 30
• March 31 – April 6
• April 7 – 13
• April 14 – 20

250 members of the Alienware Arena Shroud of the Avatar Group will be able to gain weekend access to SotA’s Release 5 during each giveaway period. For more details, jump on over to the Alieware Arena site and make sure you’re registered in their Shroud of the Avatar Group!

[Note: Weekend Access Keys are non-transferable; Make sure that your SotA account uses the same email address as your Alienware Arena account in order to utilize the Weekend Access Keys]

Alienware Sponsors $20 Pledge Upgrade Coupon

Alienware’s powerful gaming rigs are a perfect match for Shroud of the Avatar! To show their support, Alienware is sponsoring $20 SotA Pledge Upgrade Coupons to members of their Alienware Arena community!

These coupons can be used to start a SotA pledge account (for new backers), or to add $20 to an existing pledge account. If, for example, you have a $90 Royal Artisan Pledge, you can use the Alienware coupon to bump you up to a $110 Virtual Collector Pledge.

Pretty sweet deal, right? So, hurry over to the Alienware Arena website and get your $20 Pledge Upgrade Coupon now!

[NOTE: Only one Alienware Pledge Upgrade Coupon can be used per account. Coupon does not apply to Add-On Store items]

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Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

• Post-Mortem: Dev+ Party on the Baron’s Frigate
• PvP & Death: Current Thinking Megapost
• Knight’s Round Table
• Founder Knight House Servant
• Patron Domesday Certificate
• Black Cat Pet
• Blade of the Avatar Novel: Chapter 12
• Alienware Sponsors $20 Pledge Upgrade
• Upcoming Events
• This Week In The News
• Only 31 Days Remain to Purchase/Upgrade/Gift Founder Pledges

Post-Mortem: Dev+ Party on the Baron’s Frigate

Last week we invited Dev+ backers to join us for a one-hour, online party on the Baron’s new frigate in Kingsport to test performance enhancements the team’s been working on since Release 3. Here’s what Chris Spears (Technical Director) had to say about the results:

Thanks to all Dev+ backers who took part in the impromptu performance test!  While performance was better, there were a number of huge finds that came up by getting real players in the game that we will be addressing before doing another performance test, likely next week!  The biggest items impacting frame rate were a bad error function that happened when one player’s network view got out of sync somehow, name plates being handled VERY poorly, footstep sounds being played far too much and in a costly manner, animations being played for things that weren’t visible, and no cap on the number torches that cast shadows!  These were all things that didn’t come up in our personal testing that quickly become horrible problems with lots of players present. We’ll get these and other issues fixed and do another test sometime in the next week or so! Thanks again!

[Check out Chris’ Performance Test Results conversation in the Dev+ forums (Dev+ forum access available to backers at the Developer Pledge level, or above).]

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Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

• Alienware Sponsors $20 Pledge Upgrade
• Early Access Schedule Update: Releases 4 – 7
• Release 3 Perspectives
• PvP Current Thinking
• Combat-Ready Elves!
• Blade of the Avatar Novel: Chapter 11
• Founder Baron Waterfront Frigate
• Benefactor Edelmann Automaton
• Benefactor Edelmann Great Dane Pet
• Founder Citizen Owl Pet
• Cleaver of Prosperity
• Dev+ Party on the Baron’s Frigate: Post R3 Performance Test
• Upcoming Events
• Only 38 Days Remain to Purchase/Upgrade/Gift Founder Pledges

Alienware Sponsors $20 Pledge Upgrade Coupon

Alienware’s powerful gaming rigs are a perfect match for Shroud of the Avatar! To show their support, Alienware is sponsoring $20 SotA Pledge Upgrade Coupons to members of their Alienware Arena community!

These coupons can be used to start a SotA pledge account (for new backers), or to add $20 to an existing pledge account. If, for example, you have a $90 Royal Artisan Pledge, you can use the Alienware coupon to bump you up to a $110 Virtual Collector Pledge.

Pretty sweet deal, right? So, hurry over to the Alienware Arena website and get your $20 Pledge Upgrade Coupon now!

[NOTE: Only one Alienware Pledge Upgrade Coupon can be used per account. Coupon does not apply to Add-On Store items]

Early Access Schedule Update: Releases 4 – 7

[A forum post by Starr Long]

It has been an incredible journey so far has it not? When we first proposed this monthly release schedule back in November of last year we were hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. As Chris Spears, our Tech Director, likes to say we were “doing it wrong but in the best way.” Not only were we giving access to players earlier than most any game but we were also committing to definite dates of releases every month with detailed lists of deliverables! Were we crazy? I am pleased to say that our faith in this community was rewarded and you completely understood what we were doing and were able to give constructive and valuable feedback.

Our goal continues to be to deliver our backers content each and every month so that we can get feedback and react to it. This has already paid off with additional game features like jumping and swimming as well as improvements to systems like crafting and conversations. Meeting that monthly goal is our highest priority but we require flexibility in our deliverables to meet that goal. As you have seen in previous releases sometimes we push things out but we also often pull new things in.

[Join the Early Release conversation in the public forums]

Q1-2014 Release

• Release 4: March 27 – 30, 2014

Q2-2014 Release

• Release 5, April 24 – 27, 2014
• Release 6, May 22 – 25, 2014
• Release 7, June 26 – 29, 2014

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Happy Valentine’s Day Fellow Avatars!

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

• Hearts of Britannia Valentine’s Poetry Reading!
• Extra, Extra Early R3 Test Results
• Founder Lord Waterfront Houseboat
• Blade of the Avatar Novel: Chapter 9
• Hearth of Britannia Cabinet of Virtues
• Tanning Knife of Prosperity
• The 6-More Pack of Prosperity
• Stretch Goals: Lord British vs. Darkstarr
• Last Week for the Pantheon Kickstarter Special Cross-Game Cloak
• New Events Page
• Only 52 Days Remain to Purchase/Upgrade/Gift Founder Pledges

Hearts of Britannia Valentine’s Poetry Reading!

All the poetry submissions are in, and today, Valentine’s Day, the winners are being decided by Dame Lori, Sir Dom, Lord British, Firelotus, Stephen and Starr!

The winners will be announced and poems narrated by Holt on a special Live Hangout on February 15th. A Roast shall take place afterward where entertaining anonymous runner-ups are also narrated. The Hangout/Poetry Reading will begin at 7 pm CST, Saturday, February 15th. The hangout link will be announced 15-30 minutes ahead of time.

All winning entries will be bound into an in-game book which can be found in-game. The top winners of the Lord British and Darkstarr poems will receive the in-game Darkstarr or Lord British cloaks. We will also create a video of Richard, Starr, Gina, and Stephen reading the winning poems that were written to them.

MAY THE BEST POETS WIN LUV 4 ALL TIME!
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Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

• Blade of the Avatar Novel: Chapter 8
• Stretch Goals: Lord British vs. Darkstarr
• Upcoming Duke and LoM Events
• Star Citizen Vanduul Polearm
• Royal Founders: Recognizing our Original Backers
• Ancestor Tombstone
• Developer Tinkerer Certificate
• Pets at Founder Tier: Option to get all 3?
• Knight’s Lighthouse Animation
• Cubit Measure of Prosperity
• Website Upgrades: Pledge Page & Campaign Statistics Page
• Pantheon Kickstarter Special Cross-Game Cloak
• “Hearts of Britannia” Valentine’s Poetry Competition!
• Only 59 Days Remain to Purchase/Upgrade/Gift Founder Pledges

Blade of the Avatar Novel: Chapter 8

The latest installment of the serialized SotA novel, Blade of the Avatar (BotA), written by Tracy Hickman & Richard Garriott, is now available for download! If you are an Early Founder, or you purchased BotA in the Add-On Store, then you will find a download link for the current installment of the novel on your personal SotA account page (log into SotA website and click on “Account” in the top-right corner).  If you are a Kickstarter backer you’ll need to have your Kickstarter account linked to the SotA website (click here for instructions to link your Kickstarter account).

Here is a brief excerpt of the latest installment (illustration by Denis Loubet):

Chapter 8: Hilt

Evard Dirae, Craftmaster of the Cabal of Obsidians, rode his horse through the last and grandest of the gates of the fortress at Hilt. The challenge which the guards tried to voice at his approach died on their lips, each falling silent at the passage of a sorcerer.

Evard kept his cold, pale green eyes forward as he passed into the upper courts of Hilt. He did not need to look back down over the multiple concourses that formed the fortress. He had taken them all in with mounting anger as he rode up the various switchbacks, passing through each gate with increasing disdain. Now, as he passed through the final gate, he felt entirely too familiar with the grand structure and, so far as he was concerned, the true reasons for its existence were all too evident.

What had once been a small mountain bowl nestled above a steep, stony canyon, was now an unfortunately crowded construction site. A grand tower keep, far more impressive than practical, was nearly complete toward the front of the bowl just behind the still incomplete defensive curtainwall. The five cascades from the surrounding peaks contributed to the deep glacier lake at the back of the bowl. This, in turn, emptied into the swift moving river that plunged through a gap in the curtainwall and down its restricting channel over the concourses below. In every other otherwise reasonably dry spot, buildings of various size and designs were evident in every conceivable state of incompleteness. Some were cleared ground only, whose foundations had barely been laid out. Others had their walls partially completed with stone pillars standing free, either in their intended place or on their side. A very few others appear to be nearly complete, only lacking in a few finishing details such as a roof or doorway. The shod hooves of Evard’s horse rattled against the newly laid cobblestone paths which wound between the structures.

Such a pointless waste, Evard thought. A monumental conceit that served no real purpose…

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