Category Archives: Update of the Avatar

Update of the Avatar #199 – 2016.10.21: Roving Encounters, Elad’s Lighthouse, Harvest, & Graff Island, Critical Hit Balancing, Gold Crown Merchants, and More!


Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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


Roving Encounters

[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Keith “Sannio” Quinn]

Shroud of the Avatar already has random encounters–you’ll be walking across the Novia or Hidden Vale overworld maps and, without warning, you’ll be teleported into a small encounter scene. We like the idea of running into unexpected threats on the overworld, but the “without warning” part is less than ideal… So, as of Release 35, we’re changing how random encounters are triggered.

You won’t be blindly caught by a Random Encounter anymore. We’re replacing that part of the encounter system with new overworld enemies who will trigger encounters when you get too close. These overworld enemies will be similar to the ones you’ve battled countless times in adventure scenes, except they can’t be engaged in combat. Instead, if you approach too close to the new overworld enemies and they see you, they’ll run at you. If they get next to you, you’ll be pulled into the encounter associated with them. For example, bandits will pull you into bandit encounters while wolves pull you into a scene full of wolves. Once you see the enemy, you can walk around it to avoid the encounter or run toward it to force the encounter. If the enemy has already spotted you and you’re quick, you can try to run away before the enemy catches up and keep the encounter from ever triggering.

Both overworld maps have encounters scattered about. They might be wandering in the woods, meandering along a shoreline, or patrolling along a road. Initially, we’ll be adding in common encounters like wolves, bandits, and undead. Over time, dragon encounters will return and we’ll include other rare situations like merchants.

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Update of the Avatar #198 – 2016.10.14: Darkstarr & Lord British at Ultima Dragon 25th Anniversary, Harvest & Graff Island Revisted, Silverhold POT Spotlight, R34 Postmortem, and More!


Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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


Darkstarr Joins Lord British for the Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversaryudic-party

Lord of the Manor Event-111
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We are very excited to announce that Starr “Darkstarr” Long will be joining Richard “Lord British” Garriott and other Origin Veterans at the Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary Bash! 
This is the final week of their Kickstarter and as a reminder we are running a special cross promotion where anyonewho backs both Shroud of the Avatar (at a level with Game Access)  and the Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary ($30 Recommended) will get a special custom Clasped Gauntlets Cloak in Blue and Silver that says “Ultima Dragons 25th Anniversary”.

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Update of the Avatar #197 – 2016.10.07: 15% Black Friday Bonus!, Breast Cancer Charity, House Deco Contest, Community Cloaks, 12 New POT Templates, and More!


Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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


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Get Your 15% Black Friday Bonus Starting Now!

For the past two years we’ve extended our Black Friday Promotion to give you up to 8 weeks to take advantage of our Black Friday 15% Bonus, and we’re doing it again this year! Here are the details:

For all new purchases (including bundles, bundle upgrades, add-on items, player owned town upgrades, and Make a Difference items) between Midnight CDT October 6, 2016 (5:00 UTC, October 7, 2016) and Midnight CST, November 28, 2016 (6:00 UTC, November 29, 2016), we will add an additional 15% bonus to your Store Credit! You can use your Store Credit toward additional purchases (which includes bundles, bundle upgrades, add-on items, and player owned town upgrades).

[NOTE: The 15% bonus is calculated every day at 1:00 pm CT for any purchases within the previous 24 hours and added to your Store Credit account; Store Credit cannot be applied toward the purchase of Make a Difference items]

You can use the 15% Bonus to save on your next purchase! For example, if you have the $45 Elven Starter Bundle and really want to upgrade to the $90 Elven Tool Bundle, you would normally pay the extra $45 for the upgrade. But using the 15% bonus you can immediately save $5. To do so, you would first purchase $40 worth of Store Credit Gift Coupons (via PayPal, Amazon, Bitcoin, or credit card; excluding existing Store Credit) then use the “Convert to Credits” option on your account page to transform the Store Credit Gift Coupons into Store Credit. Within 24 hours an additional $6 bonus ($40 x 15%) would be applied to your Store Credit account, bringing it up to $46. You would then use $45 of your Store Credit to upgrade to the $90 Elven Tool Bundle.

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Update of the Avatar #196 – 2016.09.30: Play R34 Now, Q4 Schedule, R33 Lot Raffle Winners, R34 Postmortem, Telethon, Inside Portalarium, and More!


Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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


Play Release 34 Now!

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Release 34 successfully launched yesterday, September 29, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, and logging in to check out the changes! There’s lots of new content to explore, including:

  • Necropolis Polishbone-armor-helmet
  • Estgard Polish
  • Bone Armor
  • Cooking and Food Expansions
  • Halloween Content
  • Daily Oracle Confessions
  • R33 Lot Deed Raffle Winners
  • R34 Free Lot Deed Raffle Tickets for Non Property Ownersport_opoortunity_strike_subterfuge_icon
  • Over 45 new Crafting Recipes
  • New Combat Skills and Spells
  • New Musical Instruments
  • New Emotes

…and much more

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Update of the Avatar #195 – 2016.09.23: The Passing of Lacey, More Estgard Polish, Hometown Returns, Spotlight: Bastion’s Point


Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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


The Passing of Lacey

By now, many of you may have heard that one of our community members Lacey has passed after fighting a long, brave battle against breast cancer. Lacey was an incredible contributor to our community and was well known for her amazing decorating. We all benefited from her tremendous skills which she shared with us in projects like Hometown and the setup for the Devs vs. Players PVP match for the Spring Telethon.

You can see in this screenshot from the PVP match that Daxxe Diggler shared just how many people she impacted:devsvsplayerseventlaceydeco

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Update of the Avatar #194 – 2016.09.16: Estgard Polish, Lord British Attending SotA Con, Halloween Content, Austin Game Conference, R33 Postmortem Recap, and More!


Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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


Estgard Polish

Estgard is on the island of Norgard and is part of the Path of Courage. It is a cloned scene using one of our PRT / POT templates based off of the Forest 01 base template (aka PaxLair). In Release 33, we did an initial rebuild (aka “un-cloning”) of that scene where we added a plot specific perimeter wall and a handful of other visual changes to have it more closely match the Viking like style of the island of Norgard. In Release 34, we are polishing that rebuild to bring it up to our visual standards. When we start focusing on the Courage Path in a future release, it will also get an NPC polish pass. In Update 192, SorcerousSteve gave you a preview of these changes and this week he is giving you another update on the upcoming improvements. WARNING: Plot spoilers below.

Note that when we un-clone these scenes we do NOT change lot placements. We only make cosmetic changes of building styles, terrain, and foliage.

[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Esteben “SorcerousSteve” Zaldivar]

REVISITING ESTGARD

Hey guys, SorcerousSteve here to give you an update on Estgard! A few weeks ago we got to see a preview on the upcoming Estgard, we’ll continue that this week with a look inside the city walls. Estgard is a densely overgrown town located in Southeast Norgard along the Naryad Channel, it is a densely overgrown area constantly ravished by Kobold attacks.

The ongoing war between humans and Kobolds in this area has put people on the edge, so much that they believe that yellow will ward off the Kobolds and protect them.estgard5

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Update of the Avatar #193 – 2016.09.09: Tropical Island POT, Economy Balancing, Testing Incentives Program, Sales Policy Update, and More!


Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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


Tropical Island POT Polish

When we launched the Tropical Island Player Owned Town Template in Release 30 back in May, we were moving quickly to get it launched and in the hands of our POT owners. It was based on the Island 01 template and was a simple swap of tree type mostly without really any other major changes. Owners who chose this template were understandably underwhelmed by this variation so we decided that we needed to take another pass at this Island.

Hutch has been working this Release to improve the island and has made a host of improvements. He started by choosing a few different base terrain textures, ones that lend themselves better to a tropical environment. He then chose some additional terrain grasses and ran a process to apply them to the map in order to cover areas that were bare of grass before. He also added some more tree varieties to the map to improve variety and height differences and spread these more thoroughly throughout the map. The biggest changes, however, are an overall increase in foliage density throughout the island to create a more tropical jungle look and the addition of flat beach areas suitable for house placement.

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Update of the Avatar #191 – 2016.08.26: Play Release 33 Now!, Summer Telethon Results, $10M Backer Gift, Lot Deed Raffle, Swamp Island POT, and More!


Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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


Play Release 33 Now!

SotA_StarCitizen_Airship_City_Home

Release 33 successfully launched yesterday, August 25, with thousands of backers downloading, patching, and logging in and checking out the new changes! There’s lots of new content to explore, including:

  • New uncloned scenes including Port Graff and Estgard
  • New User Experience Polish, including a reworked Bloodriver
  • New NPC Behaviors and Polish in Ardoris and Spite
  • More Random Encounters (dragon!)
  • Lot Deed Raffle
  • Portable Aether Vibration Amplifier World Starting Gift
  • Lots of new emotes
  • Summer Telethon Part 1 Rewards

…and much more

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Update of the Avatar #190 – 2016.08.19: Final 3 Days for 15% Bonus & All Pledge Expirations!, Monday Telethon, NPC Submissions, Land Rush Update, and More!


Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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


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Final 3 Days for 15% Bonus & All Pledge Expirations!

As we march toward the conclusion of the Great Land Rush, we are preparing for Part 2 of our Summer 2016 Expiration Event and the end of the 15% Summer Bonus Promotion!

Summer 2016 Expiration Event, Part 2

  • At Midnight CDT on August 22 (5:00 UTC August 23), 2016, we are expiring ALL remaining pledges, including: Adventurer, Founder, Royal Artisan, Explorer, Ancestor, Edelmann, Knight Marshal, Lord Marshal, Duke, and Lord of the Manor 2. To commemorate the final expiration of all remaining pledges, we are holding a 12-hour Summer Telethon Part 2, starting at 12:00 pm CDT (17:00 UTC) and running right up to the Final Pledge Expirations at Midnight CDT August 22 (5:00 UTC August 23).

Get Your 15% Summer Bonus!

If you were thinking of purchasing (or upgrading) a pledge or Player Owned Town before they expire, then now’s a great time to do it! For all new purchases (including pledges, pledge upgrades, add-on items, player owned towns and upgrades, Make a Difference items, and service vouchers) between 12:00 am CDT June 24, 2016 and Midnight CDT August 22 (5:00 UTC August 23) , 2016, we’ll add an additional 15% bonus to your Store Credit!

BETTER HURRY, ONLY 3 DAYS LEFT! Read more…


Update of the Avatar #189 – 2016.08.12: Port Graff Revisited, Summer Telethon Part 2, Land Rush Update, Password Change Request, Static POT Policy, Community Trailer Contest, and More!


Greetings Fellow Avatars!

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


Port Graff Revisited

Port Graff is a cloned scene based on Kingsport. It is getting rebuilt this release and will go live with Release 33. Note that when we un-clone these scenes we do NOT change lot placements. We only make cosmetic changes of building styles, terrain, and foliage. In the case of Port Graff, it is getting a plot specific additions related to the gem trade between the Graff Gem Mines and Graff Island along with a host of other visual changes.

[From a Dev+ Forum Post by Esteben “SorcerousSteve” Zaldivar]

Hey guys, Sorcerous Steve here to give you a sneak peak at the uncloning process for Port Graff!

Port Graff started out as a Kingsport Clone and has undergone major renovations for its R33 release.

Port Graff is located on the western coast of Drachvald and serves as a docking point for the valuable gems coming from the Graff Gem Mines. The gems make their way to Port Graff via cart and are placed on boats for their transport to Graff Island where they are sculpted and added to weaponry and jewelry.

Carts filled with gems enter the Port Graff checkpoint. Port Graff is a mining port town heavy on trade with an abundance of guards protecting valuable shipments of gems.Port Graff 1

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