Greetings Fellow Avatars!
Here’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:
- Play Release 10 Now and Get Your Cavalier’s Hat
- Release 10 In-game Community Events
- Chris Spears’ Video Guide to Release 10
- SotA Quick Reference Card by Stile Teckel
- SotA Greenlit for Steam in Record Time
- Navigator Pledge Reward: Novia Map Atlas
- Citizen Pledge Reward: Windmill Power Generator
- Lord British and Blackthorn Celebrate UO’s 17th Anniversary
- Galactic Inquiry Interview Part 2: Lord British Talks Space!
- Pen of the Avatar
- Alienware Sponsors $20 Pledge Upgrade Coupon
- Upcoming Events
Play Release 10 Now and Get Your Cavalier’s Hat
Release 10 successfully launched yesterday, September 26, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, logging in, and checking out the new changes! Lots of new content to check out, including:
- Combat/PvP: Challenge anyone to a duel anywhere, spectator mode in arenas, auto-deck and starting deck revamp, universal cool-down abolished, hot swap decks during combat, new combat visual effects
- New/Improved Scenes: Ardoris Castle areas are open, Oracle Confirmatory enhanced, New Vertas Pass, plains/hills/road scenes polished
- Challenge Dungeon: New dungeon that gets increasingly difficult the deeper in (your gonna need help with this one!). Located near the starting point in Braemar (rumor has it this dungeon may be the path to Lich Mountain).
- Creatures: Lich Mage & Lich Archer (below Owl’s Head and Kingsport), New AI Agro System, New Slime behaviors, etc.
- Overworld: The Overworld map has become a real scene with your avatar animating on it and navigable with WASD keys.
- Character Customization: Modify cheeks/jaw, much improved hair, bigger beards.
- Summoned Pet Commands: Attack, dismiss, stay, follow, teleport (to owner), defensive, aggressive, passive
- …and more!
The Grand Tour Quest
Starting with R10, we have a new type of quest, called the Grand Tour. You can talk to any Tour Guide (one is near where new players appear, in Braemar) to begin the quest. Visiting all the Tour Guides (who are stationed near the new content introduced with that release) will earn a reward for your account (for R10, a Cavalier’s Hat). This reward can only be unlocked during that release (did someone say rares?), so be sure to complete the Grand Tour before the release is over!
Community member (The Mad Hermit) created a How-To Video Guide describing how to complete the Grand Tour and get your Cavalier’s Hat:
Release 10 In-game Community Events
Our amazing community has another great lineup of in-game events planned for Release 10. If you missed out on these player events during the previous Releases, we highly recommend you check some of them out this weekend. Here is the latest schedule of player events from the Avatar’s Circle Community Events calendar (http://avatarscircle.com/community-events/):
Friday, September 26
2:00pm CST – DJ FireLotus Release 10 Party / Bday party, at Port Phoenix (Holtrot)
4:00pm CST – PaxLair Gathering – Valemark Entrance
8:00pm CST – PvP Tournament – Order of Vengeance (details)
Saturday, September 27
9:00am CST – PaxLair Working Hours – host Winfield, PaxLair – Valemark
10:30am CST – Irish Ceili at Dara Brae, The Celtic Holdfast (Story time and dancing) (NorthShire)
12:00pm CST – Welcome Quest starts in Dara Brae (NorthShire) (details)
12:00pm CST – Bear Tavern Brawl 1v1 (details)
3:00pm CST – Bear Tavern Brawl 2v2 (details)
5:00pm CST – Storytelling event at Port Phoenix (Holtrot)
8:00pm CST – PvP Tournament – Order of Vengeance (details)
Sunday, September 28
8:00am CST – PaxLair Meeting – Valemark
9:30am CST – PaxLair Trial
1:00pm CST – The Power of Chaos (Church of the Dark Star, PaxLair – Valemark)
2:00pm CST – All Player Towns Gathering (PaxLair – Valemark)
7:00pm CST – PaxLair Meeting – Valemark
8:00pm CST – PvP Tournament – Order of Vengeance (details)
Chris Spears’ Video Guide to Release 10
Check out this video guide that Chris Spears put together to help you get the most out of your Release 10 experience!
SotA Quick Reference Card by Stile Teckel
Community Member Sir Stile Teckel created a very handy Quick Reference Card for SotA, including some great game resource links. He put this together for Release 9 but most of the game controls stayed the same for Release 10:
[Here’s the link to the original, 2-page document]
SotA Greenlit for Steam in Record Time
In less than 3 days after we entered SotA in Steam’s Greenlight process, we were approved! That was one of the fastest (if not the fastest) Greenlight approval times that we’ve heard of! And we owe it to many of you for jumping on to Steam and voting ‘Yes’ for us! By the time we were Greenlit we had 84% ‘Yes’ votes:
We’ve already started planning the Steam integration process, so if all goes well you might find Release 11 available on the Steam Early Access platform as an alternative to our normal Release distribution!
Navigator Pledge Reward: Novia Map Atlas
Included in the rewards for the Navigator Pledge is the Novia Map Atlas, a special item that holds all of the minimaps in a single compendium without having to first collect them in-game.
Citizen Pledge Reward: Windmill Power Generator
This Wind Power home decoration is one of the basic rewards of the Citizen Pledge:
Lord British and Blackthorn Celebrate UO’s 17th Anniversary
Starr Long, who was known as Lord Blackthorn during his Ultima Online days, reprised his role as Blackthorn in Ultima Online last night. He was joined by Richard Garriott who brought Lord British back to UO for the first time in many years. While Lord British has been away many things have changed in Britannia including the crowning of Blackthorn who is now known as King Blackthorn!
British and Blackthorn of course resumed their friendly rivalry as soon as they appeared in the throne room. During their banter Minax showed up and made many a threat before she was chased sway by King Blackthorn and the guards (or so they thought!). She returned and this time she brought Exodus with her who then proceeded to slay just about every citizen in the castle! They eventually beat Exodus and during the celebrations the infamous Rainz was about and British had Minax dispatch him as revenge for the slaying many years ago during UO Beta.
Thanks to community member Duke Gréagóir for sharing the above image and video of the event
Galactic Inquiry Interview Part 2: Lord British Talks Space!
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]
Upcoming Events
NOW – Release 10 Access
2014.10.01 – Monthly Video Hangout: R10 & R11 Discussion
2014.10.07 – Stephen Daniele’s Pen of the Avatar: Character Armor Variations Part 2!
2014.10.09 – NAAEE Conference
2014.10.23 – Release 11 Access
2014.10.24 – SotA at Captivate
2014.10.29 – Monthly Video Hangout: R11 & R12 Discussion
2014.11.03 – SotA at GDC Next
2014.11.14 – Duke & Lord of the Manor VIP Design Roundtable with Lord British and Portalarium Studio Tour
2014.11.15 – HoBLotH II: Legends of the Hearth
2014.11.20 – Release 12 Access
2014.11.26 – Monthly Video Hangout: R12 & R13 Discussion
2014.12.18 – Release 13 Access
The wind Generator is very interesting!
Wow, that spotlight was unexpected! That’s Portalarium team, nice way to brighten my Friday! Ill also be updating that this weekend with any R10 updates
Great update! Congrats on the greenlight, the atlas and windmill look quite spiffy, and the quick ref card has proven very helpful. Thanks Stile!
My virtual self would like the virtual Atlas, virtually now.
Keep up the great work!
I want a R/L swag copy of the Atalas! I might have to make one after release…