Updates

Play Release 110!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 110 goes live January 26th at 10:30 AM CST.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 110 (R110), we offer a roadmap for 2023, a couple of new craftables, and more new event trophies.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

State of the Game and Roadmap for 2023

The Road Ahead: A rider with a red cloak at the beginning of a winding road through a meadow

Happy New Year and welcome to 2023! This past year has certainly been a roller coaster for many of us, and Shroud of the Avatar (SotA) is looking forward to a much better new year.

In 2022, we added lots of Episode 2 content, including Grusk, Grusk Factory, Vikland, and Vikland’s Obsidian Valley adventure areas. We’ve also made many improvements, including offering many new items in our in-game store, removing the Heritage (“account bound”) flag from all store items, and adding a new Emote Hotbar to the UI. On our website, we’ve restored our “Make a Difference” Store — 20% of any purchase from our website charity store will be donated to the charity associated with each category. Shroud of the Avatar supports Water.org, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Breast Cancer, Movember, Children’s Miracle Network of Hospitals, and Doctors Without Borders. Our “Make a Difference” Store can be found here.

Continue reading in the forums

 

New Lava-Fishing Trophies

To add to last month’s treasure-hunting trophies, Ravalox has made a shiny new set of trophies for lava-fishing contests! Details on requesting them for your events are here. (Thanks, Diablotine!)

Different smoking lava fish spinning above pedestals topped with gold, silver, and bronze

 

Release 110 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 110 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! R110 is a content month, but some of the content was snuck in early last month with Vikland’s Obsidian Valley. Polish, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R111 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 110!

Read more…


Play Release 109!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 109 goes live December 15th at 10:30 AM CST.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 109 (R109), we offer a hidden Obsidian valley behind a maze of tunnels in Vikland.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

Explore Vikland’s Obsidian Valley!

Hagen’s personal tragedy has left a mystery: the most intrepid Avatars exploring Vikland can now solve the puzzle of the Obsidian Cave and venture into the tunnels beyond the locked door. The most clever and resilient ones will make their way completely through the catacombs and enter into a mysterious Obsidian Valley.

Elevator in the tunnels under Vikland

 

A View Across the Obsidian Valley

 

New Treasure-Hunting Trophies

Ravalox has made a shiny new set of trophies for treasure-hunting contests! Details on requesting them for your events are here.

Differently-colored treasure chests spinning on pedestals

 

Release 109 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 109 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! R109 is a polish month. Content, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R110 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 109!

Read more…


Play Release 108!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 108 goes live November 17th at 10:30 AM CDT.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 108 (R108), we offer a way to get rid of premium items you don’t want and a better way to dance in celebration after.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

Place Emotes in the Hotbar!

The noncombat hotbar filled with color-coded emote icons

Emotes can now be placed in the non-combat hotbar. An icon has been created for each of 278 emotes and, if the player has tooltips enabled, each emote’s name will appear when hovering over the icon. Each has color-coded curtains to help differentiate similar ones by group:

  • Red – Story/Main game/Seasonal/Quest
  • Yellow – Telethon/Crown Purchase
  • Blue – Pledge
  • Countach Pink – Make a Difference
  • Green – Meretz
  • Grey – Obsidian Trials
  • Gold – Seedinvest
  • Purple – Unique/Limited-time
  • Iridescent Pink – Ultra-special

A dedicated (optional) emote bar is on the way in a future release.

 

Discard Unwanted Items Into Garbage Bins!

Almost all items, including ones normally restricted from deletion, can be removed from the game using this new item. NOTE: Quest Items cannot be deleted, even this way.

To use the garbage bin, drag the item to be deleted onto the bin. Only one item at a time may be deleted and there is a confirmation pop-up box for each.

These are publicly available: they have been added to many NPC scenes (listed in detail in the patch notes below).

If you wish to purchase your own from the Crown Store, it can be placed on either a player lot or on POT land (POT placement requires Steward or Governor access).

Garbage Bin

 

Release 108 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 108 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! R108 is a polish month. Polish, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R109 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 108!

Read more…


Play Release 107!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 107 goes live October 28th at 10:30 AM CDT.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 107 (R107), Vikland is open to Outlander visitors!

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

Visit Vikland!

Vikland along the shore

The west coast of Slangemagge hosts the small barbarian village of Vikland. This beautiful tier-8+ shore with outlying islands, at the edge of a lush tropical forest, is a lovely area for a day trip for Outlanders with Episode 2 access!

The village proper hosts a community known for sailing to and trading with local settlements along the coast and across the Drullasund. They (and their war bears) do seem to get the better end of these deals! These earthy people are known for their colorful decor and some saber-toothed tiger trophies have been spotted gracing their walls; perhaps these fearsome beasts can be found nearby! The village does not have significant facilities for guests, but they can act as a base camp and supply you with a good picnic to carry to the long beaches and scenic outcroppings in the area.

Visitors with an archaeological bent may be interested to know that centuries ago, the forces of the Obsidian Eye established an outpost in the area. It was eventually abandoned and lost to history, but remnants can still be found north of the village and inland.

 

Release 107 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 107 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! R107 is a content month. Polish, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R108 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 107!

Read more…


R106 Outage and Recovery Process

What Happened?

When we deployed R106 on the morning of September 29th, we found that there was underlying database corruption. We worked diligently for the next week identifying the issues and attempting to recover the database. During this time we worked on a number of past iterations restored from our backups. After seven days of work we were still unable to achieve stability and made the very difficult choice to restore a database backup saved prior to releasing R105. The type of restore is known as a ‘Rollback’. This means that any and all progress gained from the point of the restored backup will have been lost. This also means that new characters created will no longer exist.

What’s my impact?

A rollback is like using a time machine. When the Live game server was restored and brought on-line, all progress, stats, etc. are as they were on August 24th at 8am CT. This impacts the following in addition to other aspects of your character’s status:

  • New Characters: If you created a new character during this window it will be missing, please re-create the character and reach out to support for assistance in having any earned XP reallocated to your XP Pool.
  • XP and Gold: We were able to extract information from the most current backup, which allowed us to restore player account XP levels. We are investigating what we can do to restore player account gold.
  • Skills: XP has been placed on your account in the XP pool. We are unable to restore XP to specific skills, so any skill level changes to your character will need to be re-trained.
  • COTOS/Website Purchases: Any COTOs or store items purchased from 8/24 – 9/29 and throughout the outage will be (re) delivered via the Rewards Chest in game.
  • Houses/Lots: If you claimed a lot or placed a house during the period of time the rollback covers, you will need to reclaim.
  • POTs: IF you upgraded or purchased a New POT during the time frame, we are working to re-apply the new or upgraded town to the game.
    NOTE: We cannot restore decoration work done on lots or in POTs.
  • Taxes/House expiration timer: We have suspended the eviction timer and will keep that in place until at least November 18th. During this time we will be working to clear the back taxes on affected lots. If the deed was obtained prior to 8/24 @ 0800 CT then the deed should be where it was previously: in your bank, Inventory, or storage.
    NOTE: Weare suspending the eviction timer until Nov 18th, not suspending taxes. The daily increment for lot taxes will continue as normal. The extension of the timer allows us to have time to clear the back taxes on lots without having lots fall. After your back taxes are cleared, you should start populating tax credit funds as normal. If you have paid off your back taxes instead of waiting for the scripted back tax purge, please reach out to support to have those funds refunded (we’ll verify the amount in the server logs).

Rewards?

Please note that Subscriber and Login rewards have been re-delivered as part of the R106 bundles. Due to the game’s structure we cannot re-deliver R105 and R106 rewards separately, so the Releases have been combined into one bundle. Some additional items have been added to the October Login Rewards.

What’s next?

We have a Livestream scheduled for Friday October 14th @ 4pm CT to go into more detail surrounding the issues and the recovery efforts, as well as the changes we are making to ensure this will never occur again. As noted above there are still aspects we are working on to make accounts as whole as possible. We will discuss all of this in detail on the livestream, along with other aspects that have impacted the players.

Did you buy items with COTOS in the Crown store during the timeframe we rolled back over? Though the COTOS will still be in your account, and any COTOS purchased in September will also automatically be delivered to you via the Rewards Chest. We understand that some of the items were purchased when they were on sale, or were available during a Vault or seasonal cycle making it near impossible to re-purchase them. We will be announcing our plans on how we will assist in allowing players to re-obtain these items during the Friday stream!

Thank you for being so patient during this calamity!


Play Release 106!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 106 goes live September 29th at 10:30 AM CDT.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 106 (R106), we offer bug fixes, the deactivation of the Heritage flag (for real this time), and a small upcoming scene preview.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

Vikland Preview

Sannio has shared a nice assortment of views of Vikland in progress, which is looking much more complete and should be available on QA for player testing soon in this release.

Barbarian village in Vikland

Pirate shipwreck in Vikland

Banana trees in Vikland

Bunker entrance in Vikland

Obsidian docks in Vikland

Obsidian statues in Vikland

 

Release 106 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 106 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! R106 is a polish month. Content, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R107 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 106!

Read more…


Play Release 105!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 105 goes live August 25th at 10:30 AM CDT.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 105 (R105), we offer bug fixes, the deactivation of the Heritage flag, and a small upcoming scene preview.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

Vikland Preview

Sannio’s upcoming scene in progress, Vikland, is apparently a small village of barbarians. I’ve heard they’re raiders who ransack other communities up and down the west coast of Slangemagge, but there’s nothing worrisome here in the village or in the hills further inland.

Vikland in Progress

 

Heritage Flag Deactivation

Heritage IconYes, the rumors are true! Due to overwhelming community request, we are disabling the Heritage flag on all items purchased in the Crown Store. This applies to items bought in the past and items currently listed in the store. This change is planned to be put in place with a patch on Friday, September 2nd.

What is Heritage? Items currently marked with the Heritage flag are bound to the account that purchased the item. In the store this is indicated by the lion icon and the item names showing green, indicating that they cannot be traded (unless packaged for trade with Crowns.)

We are overriding the effects of Heritage items so they may once again be tradeable. Feel free to gift all your friends with fancy outhouses! RMT (Real Money Transactions) are still not supported by Shroud of the Avatar, in so far as Support will not assist in any issue arising from a player to player RMT trade, and RMT advertisements should not be made on any of the official SotA social channels (Discord, Forums, in-game chat, etc.) We recommend using one of the existing (or maybe even a new) player-run website/forum for RMT trades.

 

Release 105 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 105 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! R105 is a polish month. Content, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R106 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 105!

Read more…


Play Release 104!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 104 goes live July 28th at 10:30 AM CDT.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 104 (R104), we offer a host of bug fixes and a couple of notes from our developers.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

Unity 2021 Upgrade Status

We’ve been working hard to get Unity to the current 2021 LTS version and it’s finally completed and coming! After this release is out, we are going to put the new version on QA for players to test for the next month. Why are we waiting another release? Because we want to get things right. A lot of things have changed in Unity since 2018 and here are a few things to expect:

  • Better overall performance
  • The newest hardware and software will be better-supported
  • Terrain shaders have been updated and are faster. Some terrain settings have been refined to increase performance. These two changes in performance should affect RTX card users that previously had problems while looking at certain parts of the terrain after playing a while.
  • Shader changes to use D3D11 more efficiently
  • Loading time between scenes should have decreased by a few seconds
  • We now have access to better tools to expand the game with greater visual effects, like shader graph and the new terrains tool
  • The Unity 2021 editor is way more performant than the 2018 one, which is very good for us devs!

On a sad note, this new update to Unity took so much of our time this release that other planned projects were completely on hold for the month, but don’t despair: the best is yet to come!

With this said, we are hoping to see you in QA to test this with us!

– Devilcult

 

Ravalox’s Upcoming Plans

With Unity 2021 going to the QA testing phase, I will be concentrating on the long-overdue Lord of the Isle outstanding deliverables including the basement and working with Richard to hasten the silver rings to completion (based on his schedule, of course.) I will also be working on player dungeon bugs and, if all goes well, new rooms. Finally, I will also be getting back to working on the missing scene maps.

As we head into Q4, I want to coordinate with Devilcult in expanding the Lua API to better support players who want to coordinate events and run contests. This effort may include a basic Lua Add-on event sign-up tool that can be used as a springboard for our community Lua scripters. This is still at the drawing-board stage, so be patient while we make things better!

As we continue to sweep the website and improve the functionality some exciting changes will be coming including the elimination of the new-player paywall meant to prevent spammers from accessing the forums. Changes need to be made in the way accounts are created to implement this, so please be patient as we update the structure.

– Ravalox

 

Read more…


Play Release 103!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 103 goes live June 30th at 10:30 AM CDT.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 103 (R103), we offer a new underground scene, Grusk Factory, and the return of the Make a Difference store.

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

New Scene: Grusk Factory

The lobby of Grusk Factory

Grusk is a bustling community tended by countless automatons in a variety of roles. The continuous demand for them, locally as well as for export, is met by the underground Grusk Factory: the largest clockwork manufacturing facility in the world! Business is booming and new caverns are being bored even now to expand the growing workspace.

Unfortunately, the Factory has suspended tours during its blasting operations for the safety of the crew. Outlanders with Episode 2 access attempting to tour the Factory will be treated as intruders. Should you and your party plan a self-guided visit to this tier 8+ scene from the Factory yard in Grusk, be aware: with so many moving parts, there’s bound to be some dangers. Visitors to the Factory should wear suitable protective gear and be mindful of tricky hazards. Finally, engineers crawling back from the newest tunnels have babbled about unspeakable horrors! …but such things would be in the newest tunnels, far from the production floors any Avatar would be interested in seeing.

 

The Return of the Make a Difference Store

Charity items are returning to the web store starting July 1st (the first day of the year’s third quarter). Each quarter, 20% of the proceeds from these items will be donated to the relevant charities. The few charity items that were in the in-game Crown store have been moved to the web store. When it’s active, the store can be reached here.

Wishing Well and Juggle Pink Lights

 

List of Make a Difference store items:

Autism Awareness Charity
  • Blue Standing Torches
  • Epic Puzzle Tree
  • Juggle Blue Torches Emote
  • Puzzle 4-Pack
  • Puzzle Package
  • Puzzle Pattern Cloak
  • Puzzle Piece Blue Floor Lantern
  • Puzzle Piece Blue Wall Sconce
  • Puzzle Tree 6-Pack
  • Puzzle Tree Cloak
  • Tabletop Puzzle Tree 3-Pack

Breast Cancer Charity
  • Countach Package
  • Countach Phonograph
  • Countach Pink Dye 12-Pack
  • Countach Wax Cylinders
  • Countach: An Album Cover
  • Juggle Pink Lights Emote
  • Pink Dual Wax Cylinder Phonograph with Emotes
  • Pink Electric Katana (to be added in the near future)
  • Pink Electric Katana Pattern Pack (to be added in the near future)
  • Pink Electric Sword
  • Pink Electric Sword Pattern Pack
  • Shooter Jennings Heraldry Art

Children & Family Charities
  • Doctor’s Outfit
  • Doctor’s Outfit Pattern Pack
  • Exodus by Helen Garriott
  • Hospital Decorations Set
  • Hospital Mega Set
  • Hospital Sign 9-Pack
  • Hospital Wearables Set
  • Nurse’s Outfit
  • Nurse’s Outfit Pattern Pack
  • Ornate Head Bandage
  • Ornate Head Bandage Pattern Pack
  • Ornate Hospital Bed
  • Ornate Hospital Cloth Room Dividers
  • Ornate Hospital Gown
  • Ornate Hospital Gown Pattern Pack
  • Ornate IV Stand
  • Ornate Surgical Tray with Instruments
  • Ornate Wheelchair
  • Skylab Dish by Helen Garriott

Movember
  • Moustache Cloak
  • Moustache Helm
  • Moustache Helm Pattern Pack
  • Moustache Shield
  • Moustache Shield Pattern Pack

Nature Charity
  • Earth Magic Cloak
  • Reaper Sapling

Safe Water and Sanitation Charity
  • Kobold Indoor Toilet
  • Ornate Outhouse
  • Rain Emote
  • Water Magic Cloak
  • Water Package
  • Water.org Charity Mega Set
  • Water.Org Fur Collared Cloak
  • Water.Org Glowing Mug
  • Wishing Well

 

Release 103 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 103 in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! R103 is a content month. Polish, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R104 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 103!

Read more…


Play Release 102!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 102 goes live May 26th at 10:30 AM CDT.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 102 (R102), we offer expanded character customization!

For those wishing to participate in any community activities, upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the Player Guide and Known Issues for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.

News Announcements

Community Updates

 

New Character Customization Options

Make Your Mark!

A basic set of face and body markings (tattoos, scars, freckles, etc.) has been added to character creation, with a greatly expanded set (including new hair colors) available at the New You Salons in Central Britanny (uphill northwest from the docks, on the left before the fountain) and Ardoris (behind the magic shop at the docks).

When previewing markings, be sure to spin yourself around! Many options have components on upper and lower torso, upper and lower arms, back, or sides and back of head that may be hidden by some hairstyles. You’ll now be shown without clothing in the mirror, so body art will be clearly visible. Placement and coloring for each are fixed.

A random button was also recently added to the character design interface, which can produce some startling results with the new options available!

There is also a new “Load” button in the interface: when you finish creating or modifying a character, the settings you chose will be exported to a text file on your computer that can be imported when you return to New You, whether with the same character or another, if you wish to match customizations exactly across multiple characters. Only the basic appearance and morph features from character creation can be reloaded this way, not options exclusive to the New You Salons.

(As always, if you pay to enter New You and leave by canceling and discarding your changes instead of finishing, the salon manager will remember that you have a credit and allow you to re-enter without additional payment.)

Face in New You mirror with purple hair and face and body tattoos

 

Release 102 Patch Notes

Below are a list of the updates that are live as of Release 102 (R102) in the game of Shroud of the Avatar! R102 is a polish, improvements, and bug fixes month. Content, additional improvements, and bug fixes are inbound for R103 next month. We hope you enjoy the changes that are live today as of Release 102!

Read more…