Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 34 Postmortem


Join us Tuesday, October 11th at 3:00 PM Central (20:00 UTC) for our monthly Hangout of the Avatar! The team will be chatting about Release 34 and looking ahead to Release 35.

As always, we will be giving out rare Lord British artifacts of immense power and glory, and answering your latest questions. For a chance to win an artifact, or to speak your voice on the latest game changes, be in Discord chat during the livestream. There will be multiple chances to win throughout the broadcast!

UPDATE! Livestream has concluded. You can now watch the archived recording on YouTube here:

Tweet with us @ShroudofAvatar to keep updated on the latest SotA livestreams and game news!



49 Comments


  1. Rufus D`AsperdiRufus D`Asperdi

    Question: What will be the official method for submitting art for the Family Crest Founder Virtual Collector pledge reward?
    Question: How will the Family Crests be registered and communicated to Portalarium?
    Question: Can one of the Craftable Items on which one might display their Family Crests be something very like the Battle Banners (at least in concept) that might have someone’s personal arms placed on it rather than the Lord British arms?


  2. GrimaceGrimace

    Thank you for the new emotes.

    QUESTION: What is the best way for us to suggest/vote on new emotes?

    Suggestion: /grimace


  3. VermifugeVermifuge

    As always, thanks for all the hard work every member of the team puts into making this project become reality. I’m sure it’s not appreciated but the reliable build schedules and detailed patch nots (with upcoming features) are above and beyond what most other crowd funded games share.

    QUESTION: Shouldn’t there be a distinction between backer status (Such as a Royal Founder, founder or backer) VS. Your title? These should be two different statuses. If, for example new titles come along (governor for example) Shouldn’t I should still be able to display my Royal Founder status though it’s gold color.

    QUESTION: It would be nice to have an in game event candor

    QUESTION: When / Can we craft displays for weapons and armor sets? (for display in the home)


  4. GraveDncerGraveDncer

    Question: Can you explain why the focus regen was reduced? Shouldn’t food be used to buff, not get us back to 100% regen. Now we have to spend more time and gold when the grind and economy is already in rough shape.


  5. Winter DragonWinter Dragon

    Question: “to win prizes, be in Discord or IRC chat” – is this true?
    No need to use Discord – I do not like discord at all (I hate it, hate it, hate it), prefer IRC by far ?

    1. BerekBerek Post author

      Hi Winter Dragon,

      Yes, this is true. Please note that the chat overall is mirrored on IRC, so if you just want to participate in chat, you can continue to use IRC.

      If you have any concerns with using Discord, please let us know! Maybe we can help you there.


  6. XeethraxXeethrax

    Question: Uber asset pack status?
    Question: There’s a disconcerting lack of pvp content mentioned in the roadmap for Q4. Are there things left out of the post for some reason, or is it simply not a priority?

    1. Rufus D`AsperdiRufus D`Asperdi

      Release 36: We also hope to have the new PVP area begin coming online with the town area first.
      The new “Buccaneer’s Den” … a PvP NPC City

      Release 37: We will also continue expansion of the new PVP area with the addition of the dungeons area.
      Expansion of the city to provide PvP Dungeons beneath.

      This is a disconcerting lack of PvP Content?

      1. XeethraxXeethrax

        That would be okay if the problem was lack of areas to pvp in. The main problem is lack of incentive to pvp or enter pvp zones and general difficulty of finding pvp. Please don’t say obsidian chips.

      2. BerekBerek Post author

        Rufus, the extra jab at the end is not needed :). It was a perfectly legitimate question.


  7. yobtaryobtar

    For the town crier gold quest. Could we possibly get a book that would track what towns we have been too. That checked off the town as we went. People would treat it like an achievement and help keep track of what town’s we have been to.

    1. Browncoat JaysonBrowncoat Jayson

      Or, you know, add an achievement. There has been a distinct lack of Steam achievements added.

      Question: When will the next round of Steam Achievements and cards be added?


  8. coder1024coder1024

    Question: Can you please change the format of CurrentPlayerData.txt so that it matches the output of the /loc command? i.e. includes area name and map name in addition to XYZ? With the same format as /loc it would make it easier for mapping tools to locate the player on the right map in the world.


  9. Theleb K`aarnaTheleb K`aarna

    Question: You have previously mentioned that we will be able to take add-on bought armor for example and somehow get molds of it and craft without the indestructible part of course, any more details on this? timeline etc?


  10. Edenworldsaga

    Question: I purchased The /juggle torches emote but it doesn’t cast any realistic fire light (seemingly no light at all) unlike the the juggle wisps. Any plans to kick up this emote a notch?

    Question: When will the “light” enchantment be available like the light property available on knight cloaks?

    Question: Will the beer brewed from the Edelmann beer recipe carry a special buff?


  11. Govenor RuinGovenor Ruin

    1) is it still the plan to be able to display armor sets on stands?

    2) lots of those npc towns have empty city/keep/town lots, any chance on breaking some of those down to more usable row/village lots.

    3) I love the concept of the bone armor, the concern from a single player stand point is that it requires a group to farm these. Will these be farmable solo?


  12. VaclavVaclav

    Please add feature to be-able to swap out a placed deed with another deed,
    Ability to swap out a tax-free deed with a taxable deed, or a taxable deed with a tax-free deed, without needing to un-claim the lot and loosing/reverting all the deco work, please please…


  13. TydesTydes

    Question: It’s wonderful that we can use containers to sort items in our own inventory. However this type of sorting is limited to our inventory due to the restriction of placing containers with items, in other containers.

    Could we place certain bags/backpacks as deco items/containers? This would allow us to finally sort our items and start to provide supply bags for friends/guild members.


    1. VaclavVaclav

      Preferable a key that targets the closest enemy and another key that cycles through the target-able enemies in range of your attacks in order of closest to furthest.. also want an assist key that will target the enemy your friendly/focus target is targeting

      1. FrostIIFrostII

        +1
        Absolutely ! Target needs to begin at the one in your face and move out, not the other way around.



  14. Browncoat JaysonBrowncoat Jayson

    Question: Would you please provide an option to remove the cross-hair and still see what is targeted? Formerly, there was a “selection strength” that outlined the target in red, but this was removed. The cross-hair really throws me out of the game. Cross-hairs belong in shooters, not RPGs.

    Question: Can you please not force combat mode when a monster attacks us. Right now, our combat deck loads but we still are not in combat-mode, and have to manually unsheathe our weapon. I’d rather that not happen until I choose to attack, since the glyphs are not usable anyway. You can also provide an option to draw your weapon when you are attacked, for anyone who might want this behavior, but its detrimental in many cases.


  15. VaclavVaclav

    Would you please make ground targeting skills target-able centered with the camera in both 3rd and first person and in both cursor and x-hair modes, instead of with the mouse pointer, it is very counter-intuitive, difficult for me to physically need to click skill, move both mouse and camera, then click skill again, interaction with with game would be much more smooth, and combat would be much less clunky, if the camera was the targeting system for ground target spells and not the mouse… an example of a game that has done this is Guild Wars 2…
    please and thank you


  16. Raven SwiftbowRaven Swiftbow

    Question – What do the different colors around combat glyphs mean? I know that green means a glyph can be combined with another glyph that has a green border, But sometimes I see borders in other colors – what do they mean? Thanks!



  17. Nolove 0369Nolove 0369

    Q. Can we address the issue with the high spawn rates inside mines. Its not that hard to surive and fight off the spawn, Its just allmost imposable to mine in a mine, do to being interupted and spending all night fight instead of mining.

    Q. Now that we just removed the 4x skill points applied, will you be looking at adjusting any of the material cost for crafting reciepies. The amount of materials need to level up are now way over board.


  18. Baron Drocis FondorlatosBaron Drocis Fondorlatos

    Here is my one question, for Richard and Lum:

    Can there be virtue without anti-virtue, more so must there be a balance between the two for either to exist? And will that be reflected in the game? I’m not an advocate of anti-virtue and would like to see it removed as much as possible in the real world. But I wonder if that’s possible. It seems that without darkness there can be no light.

    1. Baron Drocis FondorlatosBaron Drocis Fondorlatos

      Related follow-up question: Will there be the presence of neutrality between good and evil (virtue and anti-virtue)? Will that be reflected in the game? For example, will there be a place for players that feel there should always be a balance between the two?


  19. VaclavVaclav

    Would you please increase the scroll-out distance of the camera from the character in instances, like 3 times more than it currently is, like as far as the zoom out is in over-world, and allow camera to zoom all the way in when in over-world, also have the camera zoom set by the player not be reset by obstacles, yes we need camera collision with obstacles, but in nearly every instance the camera collision resets or changes the zoom set by the player, the camera does not go back to the setting of the player once the obstacle is no longer affecting it, and we must again adjust the camera to our liking, instead of the camera going back to our setting automatically, this is extremely tedious and annoying…

    please and thank you



  20. KambriusKambrius

    I know I asked this of Richard in Twitter, but want to know Starr’s and Chris’ opinions and if it’s good enough for #Jiraland.

    Q: Will mobs ever begin to deplete their own focus pools when using magic/specials? Can their regen be tied to running away mechanics? It is extremely difficult to kill things that can heal or be healed indefinitely.

    Q: Any plans for players to introduce player-created scenes to assist player-made quests in the future similar to Star Trek Onlne’s Foundry system with Dev guidelines(it can be “pay-to-place” with price point gradations depending upon whether the scene takes place in a clone of a POI or placed as an original POI) and options for players to tip the content creators?

    @Berek

    Q: Your book is slated for release in 2017, is it aimed at a specific age group? Have discussions with your colleagues contributed any to it or towards SotA for that matter?

    1. BerekBerek Post author

      A question for me, yay!! Thank you Kambrius.

      No specific age group, though anyone under 14 or so may have a more difficult time reading it. A couple on the team have read it over, and Richard contributed a quote to it.

      Looking forward to your review! :)


  21. Juzzie

    With all of the population concerns, would you consider lowering the cost of row houses on the store just until the world is full?


  22. KoldarKoldar

    Question 1: Could we please get /stats to read out *nicely* in game again? Having to run third-party applications to view game state feels like I just pulled up to 1997 in my wayback machine.

    Question 2: Can you provide those details on how to receive the specific rewards outlined in the TIP (testing incentive program)? I remember seeing the one about playing a 4 hour minimum, although I’m not sure how I receive confirmation that you have recorded my time.

    Question 3: What are the results of the TIP? How many people qualified for rewards on both QA and Live?

    Thank you!


  23. LuffyLuffy

    Question 1: Is the black arrow archer quest broken? Spamming the highlighted keywords to Rolf the Guard failed to accused him, with the note at the tower and having spoken to Tanya, Simone, Samuel and Cugel.


  24. Widsith [MGT]

    1) R34 has been a step backwards in stability, particularly for those on Linux and OS X, who have the client hang up more times than not when entering complex, populated scenes in MPO. Apparently the problem is deep in the bowels of Unity. What is being done at Port and at Unity to correct this before the next major release?

    2) This is far from the first time that the alternate clients have been released in an unstable, marginally playable state while the Windows client is ‘good enough’. The same seems to hold for Unity itself. Is there in fact a QA hurdle for the alternate clients before a release or patch goes out? What is it, and is it the same as for Windows?


  25. Schneider DragonFangSchneider DragonFang

    I just would like to say thank you for helping me relive my most favorite moments from UO. Shroud of the Avatar is truly the Spiritual Succesor to UO.

    That having been said in the previous hangout i had my question of how many POT towns had chosen to go with a static build, and surprisingly it’s not really a huge number. But nonetheless here are my questions.
    Q1. When will the team working on Static POT builds begin doing their work, have you the dev team sat down and mapped out a time frame when this will begin?

    Q2. Can we have new functionality added in regarding Skulls obtained in pvp, for crafting purposes other than candles? I for one would love to drink from the skulls of my enemy.

    Q3. Will you ever increase the current decoration placement limits on each individual POT size? Or are POT owners only choice is to upgrade to a higher tier. Maybe introduce an store add-on for POT owners that can allow them to increase deco limits similar to how players do for bank slots.


  26. Jon bJon b

    Only one question. Is there any plan to create more weapons for each melee skill tree in the near future?

Comments are closed.