Updates

Avatar’s Update #298: Final Friday for R57 Stretch Goals, R58 on QA, & Player Books Livestream

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

Game Development

News Announcements

Community Updates

Fishing Phase 2 Updates: Lava Fishing Rod

Fishing Phase 2 is going to include some amazing expansions to the fishing system and we outlined these during the Release 57 livestream. The wildest expansion we mentioned was the addition of Lava as a water type you can fish in! This week we are unveiling the first Lava fishing rod made by our very own Scott “Scottie” Jones! Lava fishing was invented by Kobolds to catch the rare flaming fish, lava eels and other hot trophies. Lava fishing rods are made out of materials that won’t melt in lava like high grade tempered steel, carbon, and diamond.

Here’s a list of some of what Fishing Phase 2 includes and will be appearing over the course of Q4 this year:

  • 4 Different Water Types: Fresh, Salt, Fetid (Swamp, Dungeon, Sewer), and LAVA!!!!
  • More Fish: New fish types to go with the new water types including more rare and fantastical fish (rainbow trout that have actual rainbow coloring).
  • More Loot: We will add more random loot to fishing.
  • Different Bait and Lure Types: Different lures/baits work better/worse with different water types and for catching different fish. Gems are the only lure that works in Lava.
  • Bait as Active Skill: To use all the different bait types this will now become an active skill, much like seeds are the active skill in Agriculture
  • Trophy Data: You will now have a chance to catch a “trophy fish” that will have extra data on it including information like Weight, Who Caught, When Caught, etc.
  • More Recipes: More recipes using the new fish introduced as well as new recipes using original fish.
  • Group and Social Bonuses: Randomly selected Player Owned Towns with water will get a short fishing bonus. We will also be introducing an experience bonus for fishing while grouped.

Read more…


Community Livestream – Player Made Books (Sept 21)

Last week we were unable to do our weekly livestream due to an internet outage but we will be back this week for another content packed weekly Community Livestream this Friday September 21 at 4 PM CDT on Twitch!

This week we are going to talk about Player Made Books! Joaquin “Wizardsmoke” Del Canto and Scott “Scottie” Jones will be showing you how to make and publish a player made book as well as how to make copies of it using the Printing Press. We will also show off other player customized writing items and uses for them like notes with mail, Bulletin Boards with Flyers, and more!

Remember every Friday of the release all purchases from noon to midnight count towards the Release 57 Stretch Goals which are dungeon themed in honor of the upcoming Player Made Dungeon feature which is previewing in Release 57 and going live in Q4! We have already hit four of them, and last week we were only $1000 short of hitting a fifth one!

  • ACHIEVED $10K: /rolldice
  • ACHIEVED $25K: Flame Trap Decorations (non-harmful)
  • ACHIEVED $35K: Candle Helm
  • ACHIEVED $50K: Spike Trap & Arrow Trap Decorations (non-harmful)
  • $65K: Unique Dungeon Entrance Eternal Pattern
  • $80K: Torture Set: Torture Chair, Torture Table, Rack
  • $90K: Key Themed Weapon Set: Sword, Mace, Polearm
  • $100K: Unique Dungeon Room Blueprint

As usual we will be giving out prizes at 4:15 and 4:45! To be eligible all you need to do is either make any purchase in the store or log into the game and type “Roll the dice” in the chat window (no purchase necessary).

Watch on Twitch this Friday at 4 PM CDT!

Read more…


Avatar’s Update #297: Collector’s Boxes Shipping Phase 2 & Weekend Music Sale

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

News Announcements

Community Updates

Collector’s Boxes Shipping Phase 2 (and printed book update)

As of three weeks ago almost 4000 Collector’s Boxes shipped out to eligible backers (Explorer level and above) who supported us during the initial Kickstarter campaign or through our website prior to January 4, 2016! The good news is that these have been arriving as planned! The not so good news is about 700+ of you have yet to receive your boxes. We expect all of these initial 4000 boxes, or what we have been calling internally, Phase 1, to arrive no later than September 21, 2018. Read more…


Community Livestream – Player Made Books (Sept 14)

Another content packed weekly Community Livestream is this Friday September 14 at 4 PM CDT on Twitch!

This week we are going to talk about Player Made Books! Joaquin “Wizardsmoke” Del Canto and Scott “Scottie” Jones will be showing you how to make and publish a player made book as well as how to make copies of it using the Printing Press. We will also show off other player customized writing items and uses for them like notes with mail, Bulletin Boards with Flyers, and more!

Remember every Friday of the release all purchases from noon to midnight count towards the Release 57 Stretch Goals which are dungeon themed in honor of the upcoming Player Made Dungeon feature which is previewing in Release 57 and going live in Q4! We have already hit four of them!

  • ACHIEVED $10K: /rolldice
  • ACHIEVED $25K: Flame Trap Decorations (non-harmful)
  • ACHIEVED $35K: Candle Helm
  • ACHIEVED $50K: Spike Trap & Arrow Trap Decorations (non-harmful)
  • $65K: Unique Dungeon Entrance Eternal Pattern
  • $80K: Torture Set: Torture Chair, Torture Table, Rack
  • $90K: Key Themed Weapon Set: Sword, Mace, Polearm
  • $100K: Unique Dungeon Room Blueprint

As usual we will be giving out prizes at 4:15 and 4:45! To be eligible all you need to do is either make any purchase in the store or log into the game and type “Roll the dice” in the chat window (no purchase necessary).

Watch on Twitch this Friday at 4 PM CDT!

Read more…


Avatar’s Update #296: R57 Livestream Today, Commission Free Vendors & Expert Crafting Stations For Sale, & Spooky Items Return!

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

Game Development

News Announcements

Community Updates

Release 55 Livestream(s) Items (cont.)

The Release 55 Livestream(s) items were all Lord British themed in honor of his birthday which falls on July 4th. In honor of his birthday the items either have the silver serpent or the Lord British full crest on them. They are also themed around things that Lord British loves like fireworks, space, and magic! Almost all of the items went live in Release 57. This week we are revealing the The Silver Serpent Wand made by our very own Scott “Scottie” Jones! This final R55 item will go live in Release 58.

Lord British Silver Serpent Wand:

Read more…


Avatar’s Update #295: Play R57 Now! Collector’s Boxes Shipping & Arriving!

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

Game Development

News Announcements

Community Updates

Play Release 57 Now!

Release 57 successfully launched yesterday, August 30, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, and logging in to check out the changes! There’s lots of new content to explore, including:

Read more…


Release 57 Livestream – Sept 7, 2018 (Dungeon Themed)

The Release 57 Livestream is set for Friday September 7! All Avatars from around the world are welcome to join us in the livestream activities. We will be doing deep dives, answering questions, having sales, handing out prizes, and tracking towards stretch goals. In honor of the upcoming Player Made Dungeons feature the theme for this livestream is Dungeons which are previewing in Release 57 and will go live as soon as Q4!

LIVESTREAM SCHEDULE (Central Time Zone)

Monthly livestreams are on Twitch and include answers to your gameplay questions, world building tours, prize giveaways, sales on items, and more! Here is the schedule:

  • 3PM: Introductions
  • 3:30PM: Deep Dive 1: Player Made Dungeons
  • 4:30PM: Q&A
  • 5:30PM: Deep Dive 2: Fishing
  • 6:30PM: Q&A
  • 7PM: Ending Announcements

Read more…


Release 57 Instructions

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

Avatars,

Please read this entire message, as well as the linked Player Guide and Known Issues.

Release 57 of Shroud of the Avatar goes live this Thursday, August 30, at 10:30 AM US Central Daylight Time (15:30 UTC).

Release 57 is the second release in which we focused on the current iteration of our Top 10 Priorities (from Q3 2018 post). We continued to make great progress on Systems and User Interface Polish with a specific focus on improving Quality of Life. We also continue to fix huge numbers of bugs.

Quality of Life Improvements: This was the main focus of Release 57. Our goal here was to improve moment to moment and daily gameplay. Siege skipping, Control Point skipping, Global banks, removed NPC slowdowns, double XP as the new normal, reduced Roving encounter awareness and other similar changes should all make very noticeable improvements to every Avatars play experience by removing continual inconveniences and slow-downs. Read more…


Community Livestream – Tier Markers (Aug 31)

Another content packed weekly Community Livestream is this Friday August 31 at 4 PM CDT on Twitch!

This week we are going to talk about Tier Markers. Keith “Sannio” Quinn and Travis “Vas Corp Por” Koleski will be explaining how we label each scene with a Tier Marker to indicate the level of challenge of that scene. They will be using our existing scenes like Hallowed Plains to illustrate how the system works and highlight some of our recent changes to the system including the addition of the “+” to indicate varying degrees of challenge and the addition of Tiers 6-10 (was previously only 1-5) to better indicate higher levels of challenge for our top level players.

In exciting news this Friday is the first Friday where all purchases from noon to midnight count towards the Release 57 Stretch Goals which are dungeon themed in honor of the upcoming Player Made Dungeon feature which is previewing in Release 57 and going live in Q4!

  • $10K: /rolldice
  • $25K: Flame Trap Decorations (non-harmful)
  • $35K: Candle Helm
  • $50K: Spike Trap & Arrow Trap Decorations (non-harmful)
  • $65K: Unique Dungeon Entrance Eternal Pattern
  • $80K: Torture Set: Torture Chair, Torture Table, Rack
  • $90K: Key Themed Weapon Set: Sword, Mace, Polearm
  • $100K: Unique Dungeon Room Blueprint

As usual we will be giving out prizes at 4:15 and 4:45! To be eligible all you need to do is either make any purchase in the store or log into the game and type “Roll the dice” in the chat window (no purchase necessary).

Watch on Twitch this Friday at 4 PM CDT!

Read more…


Avatar’s Update #294: Dyeable Decorations, R55 Livestream Items, R57 on QA

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

Game Development

News Announcements

Community Updates

Dyeable Decorations (starting in R57!)

We now have technology and user interface support to allow the use of dyes to change the colors of decorations including banners, beds, couches, sofas, and more! We have begun updating our game assets to accept dyes. This will take time as each asset has to be modified individually. Our plan is to maintain a careful balance between craftable items and store items in this effort. For now we are focusing on cloth items but we plan to expand to leather, and possibly wood as well. In Release 57 many Banners (including Heraldy Banners), Canvas Furniture, Fine Red Upholstered Furniture, and Fine White & Gold Upholstered Furniture will support dyes. Above you can see an assortment of the those furniture pieces dyed. Below is what the Fine Red Upholstered Long Couch looks like with a variety of dyes applied to it. 

Read more…