Updates

Update of the Avatar #222 – 2017.04.07: Free Trial Test 2 Begins, R40 Postmortem, Summer Telethon, Weapons Flash Sale, Job Openings, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

The Making of Solace Bridge Outskirts (update)

For several years now our backers have been providing us feedback that the first few hours of our game have several major issues. Those issues include too many loading screens, scenes that are too small, and starting towns that include player housing / vendors. As we shift our focus to improving the New User Experience (NUE), and as we are able to measure new player progress through events like our recent free trial, we realize that we must address these issues sooner versus later.

As we announced during the Spring Telethon, our solution to this is to add three new maps to the game that we are calling “Outskirts”. These scenes will be very close to the three starting scenes and players will go directly there after finishing those starting scenes. Outskirts will be very large scenes, similar in scope to some of our recent big scenes like Blood Bay. This will allow them to be large enough that players can base themselves in a single scene for adventuring, resupply for their first couple of hours without having to go through multiple scene loads, or having to use the Overworld. Each scene will have a small outpost that will include some shopkeepers, trainers, crafting stations, and a few quest givers (and no player housing!). The scenes will also include plenty of adventuring areas (forests, ruins, bandit camps, etc.).

Our first Outskirts scene is Solace Bridge Outskirts. It is downriver from Solace Bridge where the Solace River meets the ocean. The small army that was defeated at Solace Bridge has retreated here and sent on the villager refugees to Soltown. They have made camp in a ruined tower overlooking the swampy shoreline. However they are not getting to rest in their retreat for a nearby bandit camp is preying on them, stealing supplies. Plus across the river lie the ruins of an ancient village infested with the very undead they just retreated from! We hope to have this scene live in Release 41 or 42.

[A Dev+ Forum Post by Travis “Vas Corp Por” Koleski]

An update:

Farmland Area Read more…


Community of the Avatar – The Making of Verdantis Mines

Community of the Avatar

Join us this Friday at 4pm CT for another Community of the Avatar livestream!

Chris “Sea Wolf” Wolf (World Builder/Level Designer on the team) is back to show you live the Making of Verdantis Mines, a new uncloned scene he’s working on.

Verdantis Mines are in the northern tip of the Mariah Mountains in the Verdantis region which can be found in the northwest of Novia. The elves of the region have been mining these mountains for many years and recently they broke through to an ancient underground city full of rich ore nodes and other treasures. It is also full of undead and in its deepest places Fire and Earth Elementals.

Verdantis Mines started as a clone of Graff Gem Mines but is being completely rebuilt and will hopefully go live in Release 41 or 42.

Ask your questions (up to 3 in one post please) in the Comments section below, or wait until the livestream and post them in chat! Also be on Discord chat to win some great in-game prizes we’ll be giving away!

The fun begins live on Twitch this Friday!


Free Trial Test #2 Begins Today!

We are excited to open up our second test of the Free Trial System! This latest trial begins now and will end on April 10. If you know anyone who would try the game for free, please send them to the Download Page. These tests are invaluable for us in order to improve the New User Experience (NUE) and the Free Trial System itself.

Free Trial access during the game’s current Early Access period allows you to play the entire game in any of the Online modes with a few key differences in game play:

  • Free Trial Current Time Period: April 6-10, 2017
  • The term (Visitor) is appended to your Character Name
  • Cannot give items to other players via Trade
  • Cannot purchase nor sell items via Player Vendors nor Public Vendors
  • No ownership of property nor use of lot signs
  • Cannot interact with public chests
  • Cannot move/interact with items on a plot even if they are given permissions
  • Cannot flag as Open PVP
  • Cannot gain nor do they create any ransom items when they kill or are killed in PVP (in Open PVP zones)
  • Character data may be deleted after Free Trial period is over if character is not upgraded to a paid account
  • Items purchased in the Add On Store cannot be accessed after the Free Trial Period is over unless you purchase Game Access
  • Cannot play in Offline Mode

You can still explore hundreds of scenes, talk with thousands of players, adventure through the opening quests, and gain experience and skills as you get used to the world of New Britannia! If you wish to continue playing after the free trial concludes, you can obtain an Early Access account here.

For those in the Free Trial, we would love your feedback! We have opened up of our Release 40 Feedback Forums. If you have a constructive comment about this release that will help the game to improve, please post it there. You can also say hello in the New Player Forum!

Have fun, and thanks for trying out Shroud of the Avatar in Early Access!


Announcing the Summer Telethon 2017 Part 1!

Avatars! Get ready to soak up the summer sun with us. Today, we’re announcing the Summer Telethon 2017 Part 1! Telethons are livestreamed on Twitch and include a complete schedule of developer Deep Dives, answers to your gameplay questions, community activities, prize giveaways, sales on items, and more! See what’s all included below…

Summer “Hot Air” Expirations Sale Begins!

Read more…


Hangout of the Avatar ~ Release 40 Postmortem

We have been extremely happy with the community’s reaction to Release 40 so far, and want to hear more of your valuable feedback! Join us Tuesday, April 11th at 3:00 PM Central (20:00 UTC) on Twitch for our monthly Hangout of the Avatar. We will be answering your questions and looking ahead at what’s on the development schedule in Q2 2017!

Once you get a chance to check out Release 40, post your questions in the comments section below. Only one post submission per player allowed, and keep questions to 3 or less. This will allow us to get to as many questions as possible.

As always, we will be giving out rare artifacts of immense power and glory. 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!

Follow @ShroudofAvatar to keep updated as the postmortem approaches!


TRAMMUCCA Lot Selection Sequence ;)

Starr_avatar

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

Greetings Avatars,

For those of you too young to remember this April Fool’s prank (yes this is a joke) was based on the infamous split of Ultima Online into two worlds: Felucca and Trammel in the Renaissance Expansion.

Again this was an April Fool’s joke. We will NOT be doing a land wipe, nor another landrush, nor will we be dividing the land between PVP, and non-PVP. Just wanted that to be crystal clear.


Connectivity Issues April 1, 2017 (Saturday Morning)

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

Apparently the gods do not like April Fools pranks and decided to punish us.

At approximately midnight CDT one of our servers at our data center experienced a catastrophic hardware failure. Players inside the game could remain connected as long as they did not change scenes but anyone changing scenes would lose connection and anyone trying to log in to the game could not.

As of 7:50 AM CDT we were able to temporarily resolve the issue and the servers can be reached again. We were (and are) dealing with a hardware error that we haven’t fully identified, yet, but were able to resume service nevertheless, for now. We’ll continue looking into it, with hopefully no additional downtime. We might need to replace a machine, though, which would come with a short maintenance downtime, in case of. In that case, we’ll announce it ahead of time.

We apologize for the inconvenience this caused anyone.


Connectivity Problems / Game Servers Unreachable [RESOLVED]

We are currently experiencing some issues with our data center, not allowing to connect to the game. Existing connections seem to be unaffected. We are in contact with the data center to address this, as quickly as possible.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

Update (7:50 CDT): Servers can be reached again. We were (and are) dealing with a hardware error that we haven’t fully identified, yet, but were able to resume service nevertheless, for now. We’ll continue looking into it, with hopefully no additional downtime. We might need to replace a machine, though, which would come with a short maintenance downtime, in case of. In that case, we’ll announce it ahead of time.


Update of the Avatar #221 – 2017.03.31: Play R40 Now, Q2 2017 Schedule, Free Trial Test 2, Verdantis Mines Update, Patterns Flash Sale, and More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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

Play Release 40 Now!

Release 40 successfully launched yesterday, March 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…


Q2 2017 Schedule Update

Starr_avatar

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

Greetings Avatars,

As we have stated previously, we intend to publish quarterly schedule updates for our monthly releases. Even though the goals outlined in these schedules are likely to change somewhat as we react to feedback, we feel it is important to periodically provide you with an updated roadmap.

Our priority continues to be to deliver new content to our backers each and every month so that you can give us feedback that will help us iteratively improve Shroud of the Avatar. This collaborative process continues to benefit the game, and often results in sweeping changes such as the upcoming addition of the Outskirts scenes. As you have seen in previous releases, the flexibility inherent to this process means that we sometimes push things out, but we also often pull new things in.

New User Experience (NUE): A large priority for the second quarter is going to be improving the new user experience. For several years now, our backers have been providing us feedback that the first few hours of our game have several major issues. Those issues include too many loading screens, scenes that are too small, overloading the user with too many options, and starting towns that include player housing/vendors. As we shift our focus to improving the New User Experience, and as we are able to measure new player progress during events such as our recent free trial, we realize that we must address these issues sooner rather than later. Read more…