Update of the Avatar #117 – 2015.03.20: SotA Community App, More 2015 Top Lists, SotA at SXSW, Help Name SotA’s Streets, UO Postmortem Keynote, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

• SotA Community App for iOS and Android
• SotA on More 2015 Most Anticipated Lists
• SotA at SXSW
• Lord British and Lord Blackthorn Keynote CGF2015: Ultima Online Post Mortem
• Help Name SotA’s Streets
• Abe’s Overworld Work-in-Progress
• Player Owned Town Price Changes
• Player Bank Upgrades
• In-game Community Weekend Events
• Kickstarter Shout-Outs
• Receiving Pledge Rewards and Add-On Items
• Changes to Store Credit Conversions
• Steam Access Keys Available for All Backers
• How to Cancel Monthly Layaway Payment Plans
• This Week In The News
• Upcoming Events

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SotA Community App for iOS and Android

Wow! We were blown away when we learned of this new SotA Community App, built by community members, for community members! Here’s an excerpt from Matterio’s forum post for the iOS version:

FEATURES & USE

Avatars Radio
Click the on and off button to access the radio stream. This version of the App is compatible with bluetooth. You need to turn off any other radio application, i.e. Pandora for the stream to be heard on a paired bluetooth radio. The volume does reset itself when you exit the App. Be aware when you touch the volume as it may increase the volume. The radio is directly linked to a shoutcast stream. We will want to get feedback on the quality of the stream. Any disconnections, crashes, locks, etc. Be sure to click the link at the very bottom to test the functionality and don’t forget to support them!

News
The news feature is pulling RSS feeds from a few select sites. We plan to expand the amount of sites in the future. For now, basic functionality is key. Upon clicking a news link, it will open a browser window. You can pinch and swipe to manipulate the web window.

IRC
The IRC scene will bring you to a Kiwi IRC menu. At this time, you won’t be able to log in with your registered name. You can authenticate after logging in unregistered. You are by default directed to #sota. You may need to adjust the IRC window by pinching the screen to fit the window.

Calendar
The calendar is drawing from one source at the moment. This function uses the Google calendar integration. You can select an event and see more details within the post event. You can add the event to your calendar if you are a Google subscriber. We do have future plans to integrate with iOS default calendar.

Wiki – Future release

Maps – Future release

Known Issues – iPad may present misaligned graphics.

I want to thank everyone on the team who put in countless hours to make this App possible. This App’s intent is to bring the community closer by integrating the various utilities and solutions into one App. More features will be introduced in future releases.

THE TEAM
Matterio: iOS
Belgeran: iOS/Android
Umbrae: Android
Bubonic: Graphics

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If you’d like to help alpha-test the SotA Community App, then go to these links for further information:

Android: http://tinyurl.com/lqvbqkf

iOS: http://tinyurl.com/qe78vze

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SotA on More 2015 Most Anticipated Lists

SotA was included in a couple more Most Anticipated game lists for 2015 from MMORPG and GamingBolt! Check ’em out:

The List: Top 10 Most Anticipated MMO Releases of 2015

“It appears that we are entering a new era of MMOs, where developers can’t simply rely on the tried and true principles that have gotten them to where they are today. In 2015, it’s a year about diversity and reaching new audiences – and here are our most anticipated releases in the MMO world for 2015.”

#8 – Shroud of the Avatar: Ultima. Richard Garriott. Hardcore. Old-school. If any of those things sound familiar or intriguing to you, then this is a game you should already be excited about. Shroud of the Avatar was originally funded at almost twice its $1 Million target back in April of 2013, so the game is finally starting to come together. With a major focus on immersion and engaging stories, it has the makings to be one of the next big ones that people will play for years. The hype has died down recently and it’s been in an alpha state for quite some time, otherwise it would be higher on the list.

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Most Anticipated MMOs And MMORPGs of 2015

“If you’re looking for epic adventures, brawlers or some shooters with friends and gamers all over then you may want to look into these select video games. Set to release in 2015 with an open-beta or full release, here are the top MMO and MMORPG based video games.”

Shroud of the Avatar: An upcoming spiritual successor to the Ultima Series, development studio Portalarium will be releasing Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues. This is an upcoming fantasy role-playing video game that will offer five episodic content with unique virtue based stories…Little information is released about the overall story but it will be supported by the Blade of the Avatar novel. While players will have to pay a one time fee for each episode, there is an option to enjoy the game fully offline otherwise there will be two multiplayer modes for friends or completely open-world online gameplay.

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SotA at SXSW

Austin is pretty insane right now with the massive SXSW going on all week. Richard Garriott and Tracy Hickman helped kickoff SXSW activities last weekend with their interactive panel moderated by Starr Long entitled Linear versus Nonlinear Narrative in Video Games.

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Lord British and Lord Blackthorn Keynote CGF2015: Ultima Online Postmortem

Richard and Starr will be presenting an Ultima Online Posmortem as the keynote for Classic Game Fest 2015. These two veterans of the game industry will be reflecting on the challenges they faced from early UO development to maintaining the game well after its launch. Come learn how a combination of insane ambition and idealistic cluelessness can sometimes result in creating something that changes people’s lives and the course of an industry.

Now in its 8th year, CLASSIC GAME FEST has become one of the largest retro video game conventions in the country. The last event featured more than 25,000 square feet of retro gaming awesomeness and attracted over 4,500 enthusiastic attendees from all over Texas and around the world. Come celebrate the biggest retro video game convention in Texas during 2 days of exciting classic video games, retro game tournaments, costume contests, live video game music, and more! See you July 25–26, 2015 in Austin, Texas!

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Help Name SotA’s Streets

During last week’s video Hangout of the Avatar, Starr and team discussed the need for street names in SotA. We’re going to need lots of street names, so community member, Lollie, started a street-naming thread in the forums:

So in this thread we’re going to think up a whole bunch of street names – imagine that you’re coming up with names for all the streets in Ardoris, or in Owl’s Head or Kingsport, or Braemar, Holtrot, Northshire, Southmarsh, Greystone, Port Mirren…etc. So a whole huge range of names would be needed, for all the different kinds of areas. Probably thousands of street names will be needed, by the time we get to the mainland. We could help save the devs time if we can provide a quick and ready list of names to pick from…

Sounds like a cool idea! Once we’ve added the tech for street signs, Lord British and team will review all the community suggestions, and if we find names we can use, then we’ll put them in the game! So head on over to Lollie’s post and add your favorite street names to the growing list!

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Spectral Mines Entrance

Abe took a break from the Overworld map this week and cranked out this new entrance to the Spectral Mines. Pretty cool looking, Abe!

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Player Owned Town Price Changes

Last week we shared Starr Long’s forum post that discussed the scope and design for Player Owned Towns. If you’ve been thinking about getting your own Player Owned Town, then you might want to take advantage of the current price, because the price for all Player Owned Towns will be increasing approximately 20% starting May 1, 2015.

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Player Bank Upgrades

Your bank inventory size can easily be upgraded with in-game gold, with the price in gold increasing the larger your bank gets. For those that need/want really big banks faster, we’ve added a Bank Upgrade to the Add-On Store. Currently, each Bank Upgrade adds 10 more slots to your bank inventory, but that number is subject to change based on game balancing needs.

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In-game Weekend Community Events

Our amazing community has another great lineup of in-game events planned for this weekend. Here is the latest schedule of player events from the Avatar’s Circle Community Events calendar and the Events of the Avatars community calendar:

Saturday, March 21
9:00am CST – PaxLair Working Hours – Host Winfield (Valemark)
10:00am CST – Valemark Days R15 – A Festival of Events (Valemark; details)
11:00am CST – Church of the Dark Star – Saturday Service – Topic: Ignorance is Bliss (Or is it?) (PaxLair, Valemark; details)
3:00pm CST – Gladiators Conquest – [Warriors Only] – 1v1 Double Elimination – Prizes! (Braemar @ Assassins Arena or “/zone Bambino LudoVate”; details)
9:00pm CST – Ostara Ball – The BMC’s First Annual Spring Equinox Ball (Look for person in Braemar for zoning info; details)

Sunday, March 22
6:30am CST – Explore Novia with royalsexy (Owl’s Head entrance)
11:00am CST – Registration for 4B PvP Tournament – 1v1 Ranged Double Elimination – Prizes! (Brave Coast Ranged Arena – town lot on the highest hill, or “/zone Net”; see screenshot of arena below; details)
12:00pm CST – 4B PvP Tournament – 1v1 Ranged Double Elimination – Prizes! (Brave Coast Ranged Arena – town lot on the highest hill, or “/zone Net”; see screenshot of arena below; details)
5:00pm CST – Phoenix Republic Town Hall (“/zone Kazyn Phoenixfyre” or “/zone Jack Knyfe”)
5:00pm CST – BMC Grid Iron Feast and Registration (details)
6:00pm CST – BMC First Blood at Grid-Iron (details)
7:00pm CST – PaxLair Meeting (Valemark, or “/zone Winfield”)
8:00pm CST – Fishing with Winfield (some lake or pond, “/zone Winfield”)
9:00pm CST – Beach Party by BMC (details TBD)

Be sure and check out the Release 15 Events thread in the SotA forums for additional events that may not be included here.

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Community member Bambino coordinated the Shardfall Madness PvP Event that was held this past Wednesday, March 18th. This was described as an Open PvP event where everyone fights it out in a royal rumble to see who the ultimate death dealer is! Congratulations to Jacob Canaan and Mimner who tied for first place with 17 kills each! Check out the free-for-all madness in this highlights video that Bambino put together:

Bambino is also coordinating the Gladiators Conquest – 1v1 Double Elimination PvP Tournament being held Saturday, March 21st at 3pm CST at the Assassin’s Arena in Braemar. More information here…

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Release 15 Decoration Contest

Every release the community plans a Decoration Contest to celebrate all the amazing work people are doing. Entries will be judged on originality, detail, completeness, and a whole bunch of things you have done to make your lot and/or building unique. The deadline to get your entry in for R15 was yesterday, and judging is starting today. There are twenty-one participants this month and Community member Lollie is coordinating a tour of the entries so check out her forum post for the tour schedule as well as where the winners will be announced.

Here is one of the entries, by Net and Gaelis Trajan, a PvP Arena constructed for Net’s 4B PvP Tournament being held Sunday, March 22, at 12:00pm CST (more tournament details here):

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Only 6 Days Left to Get Your R15 Grand Tour Quest Reward

Better hurry if you want to add the Silver Jester Carnival Mask to your collection because the R15 Grand Tour Quest ends in just 6 more days (March 26) when we launch Release 16. If you need help getting your R15 Silver Jester Carnival Mask reward, then check out The Mad Hermit’s video guide to completing the R15 Grand Tour Quest:

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Kickstarter Shout-Outs

Crowfall Kickstarter Campaign in Final Days!

Only 5 days left in the Crowfall Kickstarter campaign! It’s been a wild ride these past few weeks for Gordon, Todd, and all our Crowfall friends! They’ve accomplished some great milestones, including reaching their funding goal in only 3 days, crossing the $1 Million mark in 10 days, reaching #18 on Kickstarter’s list of most funded video games, and being the most funded video game project in the last 12 months! Whew! Way to go guys!

Crowfall is within a hair of reaching their $1.3 Million Stretch Goal which includes Mounts and Caravans!  Check out their Kickstarter page and if you like what you see then help them build Crowfall with your pledge! But you better hurry! There’s only 5 days left to get in on all the exclusive rewards that will only be available to Kickstarter backers!

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Resurrected SSI Kickstarts Seven Dragon Saga

Back in the day, the name Strategic Simulations Inc (SSI) was synonymous with some of the best strategy games and RPGs, such as the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons computer game series! Several of the SSI alumni have joined forces again to form Tactical Simulations Interactive (TSI), and are Kickstarting their first game, Seven Dragon Saga (SDS)! Several of us at Portalarium cut our teeth on games built by these guys back in the 80’s. If anyone knows how to create a solid RPG, this team does! We’re such fan boys that we joined forces with TSI to offer a digital reward for backers of both games! Those that back SDS at the $55 Emperor’s Own tier and SotA at the $55 Immortal Adventurer tier, will receive the Dragonshroud Blade in SDS and the Dragon Sigil Cloak in SotA.

Check out the Seven Dragon Saga Kickstarter site and if you like what you see then pledge your support!

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Descent: Underground

As described on their Kickstarter site, Eric “Wingman” Peterson and team are bringing back six-degrees-of-freedom combat by blasting 90’s action game favorite, Descent, into the 21st Century with current-generation gaming technology. Descent: Underground is more than a graphics upgrade. Get ready for multiple types of customizable ships! Prepare for upgradable weapons and sensors with richly-detailed tech trees. Brace yourself for destructible voxel maps with new power-ups and mod tools to make your own maps and more!

They are 11 days into their campaign and already at 40% funded, so checkout their Kickstarter site and if you like what you see then pledge your support!

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Receiving Pledge Rewards and Add-On Items

Go to any bank to claim your Add-On items and Pledge rewards. There is a banker NPC in every map where there is player housing because when you switch houses or unclaim a lot, all the decorations will go to your bank. In most locations the Town Crier is now also a banker.

Banks are local only. You can see your items in other bank locations (they appear in location tabs), but you can only access the items in the bank you are currently at. Pledge rewards are an exception to this and can be accessed from any location.

[NOTE: there are some Add-On and Pledge reward items that have not been built yet so you may notice some of your items not showing up in your bank. If you delete your character, all equipped and inventory items, including pledge reward items, will be deleted and cannot be recovered until the next wipe]

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Changes to Store Credit Conversions

If you wish to convert any of your purchased Add-On items to Store Credit, you will need to do so before logging into Shroud of the Avatar.

The instant you log into the game all of your available Pledge reward items and available Add-On items will be flagged as “claimed” and deposited in your in-game bank. Once the Add-On items are “claimed” they cannot be converted to Store Credit until the next wipe (which is currently unpredictable). After you’ve logged into SotA, the “Convert to Credits” button on your account page will be deactivated for all those items available in the game, so if you had any plans to sell back some of your Add-On items, make sure you do it before you log into the game!

We intend to change the claiming process in an upcoming Release so that items are not automatically claimed when logging in, but will require you to actively claim them in your bank before they can be used.

If you purchase any new Add-On items, or upgrade your Pledge tier, those new items and upgraded rewards will automatically appear in your in-game bank the next time you log into the game (providing those items are available in the game).

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Steam Access Keys Available for All SotA Backers

SotA successfully launched on Steam Early Access on November 24, and we’ve made Steam Access Keys available to all our backers as part of their basic pledge rewards! Once you’ve redeemed your Steam Access Key you’ll have the option of playing SotA either with the Steam client or the regular game client (or both).

Click here for instructions to redeem your Steam access key and installing the Steam SotA client…

If you play SotA on Steam you can collect the SotA Trading Cards! Collect a full set of SotA trading cards to earn SotA badges, profile backgrounds, and emoticons that help you customize your profile and show off your Shroud of the Avatar gameplay. Check out Steam’s trading card FAQ for more information.

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Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Our goal is to make Shroud of the Avatar the best game we can for you, our backers, and the best way we can do that is by growing our community of backers through the power of word-of-mouth marketing. That’s where we could use your help! With essentially no marketing budget, we rely on things like press coverage and friend-to-friend networking on platforms such as Facebook and Steam. Here’s how you can help us with your word-of-mouth efforts:

If You Like SotA then Like Us On Facebook

Current Facebook Likes: 5,653 (-24 from last week; actually, we gained 33 new Likes but Facebook deleted a lot of inactive/misused accounts across their entire membership which subtracted 57 of our total Likes)

Facebook can be a powerful word-of-mouth marketing tool at very little cost, but only if we can reach a large enough network of Facebook users. You can help us to reach a larger Facebook audience simply by going to the Shroud of the Avatar Facebook page and clicking on the “Like” button. If every one of our 50k backers gave us a “Like” the marketing reach of our Facebook posts would be incredible!

If You Like SotA then Write Us a Positive Steam Review

Current Positive Steam Reviews: 319 (+7 from last report)

One of the most important word-of-mouth tools on the massive Steam platform is their user reviews. Many Steam users rely on a game’s Steam reviews to help them decide if they want to play a game or not. If you feel positive about SotA, or feel positive about what SotA may become, even if you have concerns and issues, then please jump over to our Steam Store Page and give us a positive review (and feel free to include your concerns and issues in that review as well)!

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How to Cancel Monthly Layaway Payment Plans and What In-Game Rewards to Expect

Remember that Pledge payment plans are not canceled automatically after reaching the desired pledge. You must manually cancel your monthly payment plan, which can be done at anytime on your SotA Account page. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause, but it is a result of how recurring billing functions with PayPal, Amazon, and Stripe (our credit card service).

If you are on a monthly payment plan, the rewards you receive in-game may not reflect the final pledge tier you are making payments toward, but will reflect the rewards for the current pledge tier that your cumulative monthly payments have reached (your current pledge tier is shown on your Account page on the SotA website).

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This Week In the News

March 7 – MassivelyOP: PAX EAST 2015 – A Chat with SotA’s Richard Garriott

March 16 – MassivelyOP: Shroud of the Avatar Tops $6 Million in Crowdfunding

March 16 – MMORPG: Top 10 Most Anticipated MMO Releases of 2015

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Upcoming Events

2015.03.26 – Release 16
2015.04.03 – Duke & LotM VIP Design Roundtable w/Lord British and Portalarium Studio Tour
2015.04.23 – Release 17
2015.05.21 – Release 18
2015.06.16 – SotA at E3
2015.06.25 – Release 19
2015.06.25 – SotA at Classic Game Fest 2015