Updates

Avatar’s Update #422: Play Release 87 Now! Crafting System Changes! Food & Drink Revamp! Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Significant changes to the Crafting System have been implemented! Players can now enjoy increased success and exceptional chances during crafting! The recently announced food and drink changes are live as of Release 87. Every food and drink consumable now has a specific purpose and each is scaled and balanced with all foods and drinks available. Also, 23 additional food recipes will arrive to the game for Release 88. 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 Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Crafting System Changes!

Crafters of New Britannia, take heed! Significant changes to crafting have occurred which will change the frequency of exceptional/critical results! Some of the upcoming changes to salvage are also explained below:

  • Crafting success chance maximum has increased from 95% to 100%.
  • Exceptional/Critical chance maximum has increased from 33% to 50%.
  • Grandmasters now receive a bonus to Exceptional/Critical chance! This means having skills above 100 will continue to add to Exceptional/Critical chances up to the new maximum of 50% even when your base success chance has already maxed at 100%.
  • One decimal point of precision is now displayed for each percentage.
  • A variety of engraving kits have received stat improvements which will provide increased success chances to some crafting skills such as Agriculture, Alchemy, Butchery, Cooking, Smelting, Tanning, Textiles, and Fishing.
  • Background work for improving salvage has begun, although these changes are not yet ready for player consumption. Players can expect GREATLY improved component “drop rates” from salvage in the future, though the gold values of components received from salvage will be reduced proportionally. Once this work is completed, more details will be revealed. These changes will enable subsequent development work such as increasing the number of items that can be salvaged, and improving what components are obtained when artifacts are salvaged. The aforementioned salvage changes will be tentatively applied throughout R88 and R89.

We hope you enjoy these crafting improvement items. Many more changes to crafting are inbound throughout the year, so keep your crafting tools at the ready, Avatars!

Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

The weekly Community Livestream is Friday, February 26th at 4PM CT on Twitch! Join Chris “Atos” Spears and other members of the development team for a community 1-hour livestream!

To enter the prize drawings, type “love is in the air” into any in-game chat channel OR make a purchase on the website Add-On store. Please submit questions into Twitch Chat by inserting !question at the beginning of your text. Watch on Twitch, Friday at 4 PM CT!

Atos and other members of the Shroud of the Avatar development team go live very frequently on twitch.tv/shroudoftheavatar — be sure to get these channels on follow for notifications so you can join us right as we go live! Also, if you’ve missed our latest streams, check out our archive of content at our YouTube Channel. Like! Follow! Subscribe! Prizes!!!




Don’t forget to also join the Shroud of the Avatar team and community over at all our social media venues:

Support the Family of CatherineRose!

Avatars! CatherineRose, a beloved member of our community, is going through troubling challenges as one of her family members is battling cancer. If you are able to, please lend their family support during these trying times. Even if you are not able to provide monetary assistance, providing well-wishes, thoughts, and prayers go a long way towards helping a family through such hardships.

An auction run by the Aerie Fund is underway! Interested players can bid upon a Lord of the Isle Bundle in this forum thread. For more information about the auction fundraiser, please also see this thread. All proceeds will go towards the GoFundMe fundraiser supporting Wendy Barry’s fight with cancer.

Also, Thradia with The Avatar Express, has posted information on the forums about portions of this fundraiser. Please see this forum thread for more details.

Weekly Update & Release Cycle Changes!

Through the years, Shroud of the Avatar has maintained an incredibly ambitious Weekly Update and Monthly Release schedule. Now, with 87 Releases behind us, ALL of which were published on-time, the development team has decided to greatly change how we provide game update information to players in an effort to free up more developer time for tasks which improve the game itself.

In the past, the team size was much larger, and therefore more members were available to work administrative tasks such as customer support, community management, and providing game update information. Now that each developer is also capable of working on in-game improvements, content, and bug fixes, we’re changing how we provide information to the players to free up developer time for additional game development.

With this in mind, these are some of the changes players can expect going forward:

  • Weekly Updates: We no longer will be providing Weekly Updates. Most, if not all of the new game content advertised in these updates were previews of what was to arrive in the upcoming Release, which would later be duplicated in the monthly Release Notes. Even though players can expect occasional singular articles to be published throughout the month as the need arises, large amounts of developer time will become available for higher priority tasks that impact actual gameplay since we are not spending time providing duplicated information.
  • Monthly Releases: Our monthly release schedule will continue, however we’ll be alternating what is provided by utilizing what we refer to as a “tick-tock” concept. The upcoming release for R88 will be a “tick” and primarily feature game polish, fixes, and improvements, while the following release will be a “tock” and feature more new game content. The polish month (tick) will feature highly abbreviated Release Notes, while the content month (tock) will feature more robust Release Notes similar to what has been provided up to this day.
  • Patch Notes: To help players visualize what has changed in the game, improvements have been made to our methods for providing updates to the Patch Notes page. Since our work submittals already feature an internal requirement to describe the submittal, an automated method has been devised to export this data into a document that we can routinely paste into the page. As we continue to enhance this process, expect the notes to improve as the developers become accustomed to formatting their submittal descriptions in a more visually appealing and informative fashion.
  • Community Events: Traditionally, we’ve spotlighted community events in our Weekly and Release Updates, which will be discontinued after this edition of the Release Notes. In the future, if we spot any new events posted by players in the event forums, we will instead post information about these events directly into the Upcoming Events page as we spot them shortly after the event ad was created by the player.
  • Crown Store Articles: In the future, all New Store Addition articles will forecast the upcoming store items for the entire upcoming month. The current Vault items will no longer be advertised since the process is fully randomized and automatically occurs on a weekly basis. However, if players would like to see a full list of what could appear in the Vault throughout the year, we’ve recently provided this listing which will be updated as new items are added to the Vault rotation.
  • Stream Schedule: NO CHANGES! We’ll continue to provide the Community Livestreams on our Twitch Channel on a weekly basis (sometimes more often), and we hope these streams continue to improve as we enhance our methods of sharing information.

By freeing up this additional time, we very much hope players enjoy the increased amount of content, fixes, and improvements arriving in the future. We will continue to make improvements to this new version of information sharing, and we’re happy to take feedback at any time about the information we share. So much more to come, Avatars!

Food & Drink Revamp!

For the virtual food and drink lovers in Shroud of the Avatar, a robust update to food and drink buffs has arrived! Through the years and prior to the introduction of the food channel system, many food and drink recipes have entered into the game, much of which did not feature significantly unique purposes or stats, or as the game progressed and players became more powerful, many of the low level foods quickly lost purpose. Eventually, players only expressed interest in a small portion of the food and drink recipes available. Well, all that has changed, gourmets of New Britannia! A revamp of nearly all food and drink buffs has arrived for Release 87!

With this update, an extensive effort has been made to provide a unique and specific purpose to every food recipe. Taking full advantage of the food buff channel system, buffs will now be completely related and balanced to how many buff slots the consumed food occupies. Standardized buff durations will be implemented based upon the slots occupied, and standardized regeneration rates will also be provided across the spectrum. Many buff categories will have at least 3 versions of the buff in amounts relative to the slots occupied, while other buff categories might only have a single offering.

For buff durations, most foods now feature either 1-hour, 2-hour, or 4-hour durations based upon the slots they occupy. Some older, powerful foods (e.g. Dragon Stew, Troll Spare Ribs, and Spicy Phoenix Bites) may deviate from this change and retain their larger durations. Food buffs will occupy one or more slots within the corresponding channel: 1-slot foods (other than starter foods) will last up to 1 hour, 2-slot foods will last 2 hours, and 3-slot foods will last 4 hours (to provide a bit of extra duration for those looking forward to a longer play session). Having useful and scaled buffs attached to 1-channel and 2-channel foods will provide players expecting a shorter play session far more options in which foods they ingest

Similarly, regeneration rates will be greatly standardized. A variety of foods are now categorized as defensive, and provide regeneration rates benefiting health over focus, while other foods are categorized as offensive and benefit focus regeneration more so than health regeneration. Of course, players can mix and match their food intake to provide any variation of buff balancing, so there is no requirement for a player to eat all defensive foods or all offensive foods. Mixing and matching is certainly allowable and encouraged.

6 foods are now also provided that feature increased regen rates as their primary function, so if players would prefer higher amounts of regeneration, they’ll have 1, 2, and 3 slot foods of both offensive and defensive varieties to incorporate into their buff choices.

With standardized concepts in mind, players will likely only need to consider the unique stats the food provides when shopping or crafting, since regeneration and flat rate health and focus provisions are uniform based upon the number of slots the consumable utilizes.

In the same fashion, each food now provides standardized amounts of additional health and focus. Defensive foods provide +25, +50, or +75 additional health depending upon the slots occupied, and offensive foods provide those same numbers to focus based upon the slots occupied. Also, 6 foods provide additional amounts of health and focus as their primary purpose, with 3 for health and 3 for focus being available and to scale with the number of slots occupied.

Players have also come to know that a significant number of crafted foods were also available as loot or can be purchased at an NPC food merchant. All of these items have been removed from merchants and loot to ensure crafting or trade between players is the sole source for every crafted food.

Starter foods have been notoriously useless since their buff durations were so miniscule (1 to 15 minute buffs usually), and their buffs provided little meaning to gameplay. Now, 8 starter foods have been identified and balanced so that all occupy 1 slot, and each feature the standardized regeneration rates and flat rate health or focus typically provided by 1 slot foods, however the durations for starter foods were only increased to 30 minutes.

Players will find these starter foods readily available in loot, for sale on NPC merchants, or even distributed as world decorations which can be stolen, but these 8 starter foods will not be crafted. However, all 8 starter foods will eventually be introduced into crafting as crafting components, so even higher level players can find them beneficial to utilize. Most will recognize the 8 starter foods as common items already available in-game:

  • Lemon Bun
  • Short Bread Loaf
  • Slim Bread Loaf
  • Braided Bread Loaf
  • Bread Loaf
  • Roll
  • Sugar Cookies
  • Wheat Bun

As foods were shifted into standardized categories, many “holes” were identified in regards to what buffs are available in the food system across the spectrum. To fill these “holes,” approximately 23 additional food recipes will be introduced to the game for Release 88 on March 25th.

All of these recipes will focus on using underutilized crafting components, and with these recipes only in prototype, there’s still plenty of time for players to provide input on recipe names and ingredients. The proposed names for the upcoming new recipes are as follows, and the names should provide players a significant hint as to what underutilized component will gain new purpose:

  • Black Cutworm Cupcake
  • Bone Broth
  • Cinnamon Cake
  • Coelacanth Chips
  • Corpion Cake
  • Dragon Egg Omelet
  • Emerald Ash Egg Roll
  • Entrails and Eggs
  • Hemlock and Ham
  • Ichthyosaur Fried Ice Cream
  • Lard Bread
  • Nut Butter and Ooze Sandwich
  • Oozy Omelet
  • Phoenix Fingers
  • Pickled Plant Pollen
  • Plesiosaurus Pie
  • Pop Crackle Candy
  • Shadow Slaw
  • Shadow Snacks
  • Shark Jerky
  • Spiced Tea
  • Tarpon Tart
  • Trilobite Chomps

Food and drinks with crafting and gathering buffs are now greatly expanded, with no changes being provided to 1 Year Whiskey, 2 Year Whiskey, or 7 Year Whiskey. New buffs available across such recipes are as follows:

  • Decorated Cake Slice: +50% Cooking Production Time Bonus
  • Baked Pacu: +5 Fishing Range, 2.5% Bait Recovery, +10 Fishing Skills
  • 25 Year Whiskey: +3% Meticulous Mining Chance
  • Harvest Wheat Bear: +3% Meticulous Foraging Chance
  • Obsidian Bacon: +3% Meticulous Field Dressing Chance
  • Squirrel Stew: +3% Meticulous Forestry Chance

For pet foods, only one change is inbound which is for Fishy Nibblers. Formerly it provided an adventure level buff which is not useful for pet applications, and will instead provide an additional 250 Health to a pet. Also a pesky bug where the food could apply the buff to the character with no pet summoned has been fixed.

Utility foods are also being introduced which either provide additional carry capacity or skill learning bonuses. The foods will be distributed throughout loot, the crafting system, and many can be obtained from a replenishing confections platter periodically available in the Crown Store Vault. Also, the confections platter can now be utilized monthly to receive 4 of these items. These initial utility foods will be as follows:

  • Bacon (Crafted, +25% Encumbrance Carry Capacity)
  • Decorated Cupcake (3% Grey Bundles or Replenishing Confections Platter, +25% Skill Learn Bonus)
  • Elderberry Cream Cheese Sugar Drops (10% Yellow Bundles or Replenishing Confections Platter, +25% Skill Learn Bonus)
  • Petit Fours (25% Blue Bundles or Replenishing Confections Platter, +25% Skill Learn Bonus)
  • Thumbprint Cookies (100% Orange Bundles or Replenishing Confections Platter, +25% Skill Learn Bonus)
  • Slice of Lord British Birthday Cake (Looted in Lord British’s Castle, +100% Skill Learn Bonus)

Very close attention will be paid to the scarcity of components for all food and drink recipes. We realize some of the components are obtained from exceptionally rare drops such as dragon eggs, phoenix talons, sharks, and rare lava fish, but a “feed the village” concept will be utilized when players craft food recipes containing scarce resources. The scarcer the components, the output for the recipes will be increased proportionally. For example, fishing a shark out of salt water is very rare, but, when you do? You’ll be able to “feed the village” in a sense and make many food items to utilize or trade.

Maintaining the scarcity of the drops will still allow trophies and other rare items to keep their value, while providing a modicum of excitement knowing these drops will also provide very significant food output at a crafting table. Balancing of these outputs may take some time to normalize through future game patches, but ultimately we hope they settle upon output levels which makes the food or drink very viable for routine and affordable use. Players can expect scarcity adjustments to go live on R88, with perhaps some patching in during R87.

There were a small number of food and drink items which provided magical resistance bonuses directed at a particular school of magic. These buffs will no longer be available with food or drink consumption, and will instead be provided by various potions being introduced into the alchemy system sometime in the future.

With development time during 2021 being strongly focused upon balance and fixes, this initial work in the food system is only the beginning. Players can expect similar work to address imbalances in other game systems, with uniformity and standardization concepts to be applied throughout. Ultimately, when each side system is balanced, subsequent efforts for balancing can be appropriately applied to the skill trees themselves knowing that all side systems feature an already balanced array of available buffs and categories.

Also, we realize some players could be significantly inconvenienced when their favorite foods or drinks have been adjusted to provide different buffs amounts, durations, regeneration rates, health, focus, slot numbers, or even a shift into an entirely new buff category. We implore with the community to please understand the importance of these balancing efforts and to work with us by providing constructive feedback and suggestions.

For those wishing to participate in feedback for the upcoming changes, please do so in this forum post. Please understand that all adjustment passes are not yet complete, the potential changes to recipe difficulty or output are not complete, and the team is very interested in hearing feedback from the community.

We hope players come to enjoy the expanded food buff system. Our efforts aim to provide an improved crafting, gathering, and buff selection experience while also affording a much larger breadth of useful food and drink recipes throughout the game. More balance efforts will be introduced in coming months, so stay tuned!

Additional Game Updates!

Below are a list of additional game updates that are live as of R87. This list is generated from an automated process which captures description information from our routine work submittals. We’ll be working to improve the formatting of these descriptions in the future, but using this automated process allows for us to truly capture every change as well as saving considerable amount of developer time. Please be patient with us as we work to improve this process.

  • Fixed an issue with fireplace recipes
  • Adjust drops  for T10 and T15 reagent resource nodes
  • Adjusted gathering chances and added GM bonus
  • Refined gems and jewels may now be fractured
  • Damage sources that do less than 1 point of damage will no longer break stealth
  • Sap will now require a melee weapon (not ranged)
  • Auto attacks will no longer target a stealthed player. Active attacks/spells will have a greatly reduced attack angle and distance
  • Scenes may now show custom backgrounds for the load screen
  • The Breach will now have more air elementals that spawn faster
  • Vrul will no longer be attacked by undead
  • POT Lightbringer Isle: Added new metropolis north of Brittany
  • POT Greymorn: Added new POT northwest of Brittany
  • POT Haven Ridge: Upgraded to Crossroads Village from Village
  • POT Jagged Hold: Changed biome to Forest 01b and upgraded to Municipality
  • Blood Bay: Players that can survive at the top of either volcano may find it possible to do some lava fishing
  • Overworld Boats: Added better LODs to some boats used in the overworld scenes
  • Kobold Expeditionary Camp: Improved some kobold commander responses and improved how a related task archives itself
  • Well of Aldur: Updated the reset settings for a treasure chest
  • Well of Aldur: Added a minor jumping puzzle
  • Ardoris: Improved the logic for the Students of Virtue quest. Added compass markers
  • Grunvald Shardfall: Adjusted NavMesh data to improve how NPCs move through the scene
  • Northwest Blackblade Mountains: Jumping into the well that leads to Bunker C will auto-teleport the player to that location
  • Hills Encounter: Created a new “dragon” scenario that can appear on all three overworlds
  • Owl’s Head: Updated some logic for the quest from Morgan to discredit Myra. Added compass markers
  • Shaminian Hills: Adjusted temple architecture to block players from squeezing through certain tight holes
  • South Majestic Forest: Updated stairs on Preben’s house to better accommodate NPC walking
  • Spectral Mines: Fixed an issue that prevented an ore node from being mined
  • Middle Downs: Fixed a stuck spot on a mound
  • Eastmarch: Fixed typos in responses from the devotional caretakers
  • South Hinterlands: Fixed a rug that was poking through a wall
  • Well of Aldur: Fixed an issue with missing collision on a wall
  • Tanglemire: Updated tiered resource nodes (cotton, garlic, trees, ore, and mandrake) to ensure they are all tier 10
  • Maple Trees and Pine Trees: Adjusted the LODs to stop a “split” from appearing at close distance
  • Ruined Keep: Adjusted a section of the terrain where trolls were having navigation issues
  • Wynton’s Folly: Players selecting the East Entrance option when entering from Hidden Vale will now arrive at the correct location
  • Obsidian Keep Tops: Updated the collision at the top of these custom prefabs
  • Snowy Tundra Encounter: Added a floating crystal node to the ground
  • Well of Aldur: Fixed several collision issues. Blocked off a “stuck spot”
  • Soltown: Improved the method of archiving the “Tell Abigail About Charlotte” task when talking with Abigail
  • Bunker C: Fixed a stuck spot in the lava pool
  • Solania Catacombs: In the daemon chamber, added teleporters that are active only when the wave battle is not ongoing
  • Highvale Outskirts: Updated some of the doors in the monastery. Updated some of Esmeralda’s responses
  • Jaanaford: Players will now “unlock” Thibodeaux’s name when she shares it with them
  • Novia: Added a compass marker at Kiln for the “Ask About Bonesteel in Kiln” task
  • Brookside: Players entering from the lunar rift will now unlock the town crier compass marker
  • The ONBE title will now include a Dame option
  • Fishy Nibblers no longer applies to the character when a tamed pet is not available
  • Adjusted Confections Platter to monthly
  • Slice of LB Birthday Cake no longer labelled as Premium nor No Trade since being introduced to loot at LB’s Castle, but will have a chance to drop in PvP
  • Improved tooltip descriptions for Shrines by adding mention of attunement bonuses provided
  • Fixed typo in Citrine (Unrefined Gemstone) display name.
  • Increased spider eye drop amount T8 through T15 spiders
  • Disabled Shrine size scaling. Enlarged buff fields for each Shrine and recentered so rotating Shrines does not affect availability of buff field
  • All 3 of the new off-hand artifacts (15 items Common to Epic) now properly display female characters
  • Significantly increased drop rates of taming artifacts on destroyer animals
  • Added an additional loot table for destroyer animals to have increased amounts of hides, suet, and entrails
  • Heart Heraldry Shield pattern should now properly apply to items
  • Improved loot drops for Envy Bow and Quiver
  • Reworked visuals for the Ankh of Sacrifice and Ankh of Wala fto include the new shrine visual effects
  • Added a small chance to get the Shrine of Gaiaism recipe to Sand Elementals
  • Well of Aldur: Added splash screen to load scene info
  • Well of Aldur: Some improvements to unreleased nested scene.
  • Jotungrund: Creating and improving unreleased showy expanse scene.

Read more…


Avatar’s Update #421: Food & Drink Revamp & Balancing Inbound! Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Food and drink changes are inbound for Release 87, hungry adventurers! Expect every food and drink consumable to have a specific purpose and each to be scaled and balanced with all foods and drinks available. 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 Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Food & Drink Revamp & Balancing Inbound!

For the virtual food and drink lovers in Shroud of the Avatar, a robust update to food and drink buffs is inbound! Through the years and prior to the introduction of the food channel system, many food and drink recipes have entered into the game, much of which did not feature significantly unique purposes or stats, or as the game progressed and players became more powerful, many of the low level foods quickly lost purpose. Eventually, players only expressed interest in a small portion of the food and drink recipes available. Well, all that is about to change, gourmets of New Britannia! A revamp of nearly all food and drink buffs will arrive on February 25th for Release 87!

With this update, an extensive effort has been made to provide a unique and specific purpose to every food recipe. Taking full advantage of the food buff channel system, buffs will now be completely related and balanced to how many buff slots the consumed food occupies. Standardized buff durations will be implemented based upon the slots occupied, and standardized regeneration rates will also be provided across the spectrum. Many buff categories will have at least 3 versions of the buff in amounts relative to the slots occupied, while other buff categories might only have a single offering.

For buff durations, other than some deviations in regards to some of the older powerful foods such as Dragon Stew, Troll Spare Ribs, and Spicy Phoenix Bites, almost all foods will feature either 1, 2 or 4 hour durations based upon the slots they occupy. 1 slot foods will last 1 hour, and 2 slot foods will last 2 hours. 3 slot foods will last 4 hours to provide a bit of extra duration for those looking forward to a longer play session. Having useful and scaled buffs attached to 1 and 2 channel foods will provide players expecting a shorter play session far more options in which foods they imbibe.

Similarly, regeneration rates will be greatly standardized. A variety of foods are now categorized as defensive, and provide regeneration rates benefiting health over focus, while other foods are categorized as offensive and benefit focus regeneration more so than health regeneration. Of course, players can mix and match their food intake to provide any variation of buff balancing, so there is no requirement for a player to eat all defensive foods or all offensive foods. Mixing and matching is certainly allowable and encouraged.

6 foods will also be provided that feature increased regen rates as their primary function, so if players would prefer higher amounts of regeneration, they’ll have 1, 2, and 3 slot foods of both offensive and defensive varieties to incorporate into their buff choices.

With standardized concepts in mind, players will likely only need to consider the unique stats the food provides when shopping or crafting, since regeneration and flat rate health and focus provisions are uniform based upon the number of slots the consumable utilizes.

In the same fashion, each food will provide standardized amounts of additional health and focus. Defensive foods will provide +25, +50, or +75 additional health depending upon the slots occupied, and offensive foods will provide those same numbers to focus based upon the slots occupied. Also, 6 foods will provide additional amounts of health and focus as their primary purpose, with 3 for health and 3 for focus being available and to scale with the number of slots occupied.

Players have also come to know that a significant number of crafted foods were also available as loot or can be purchased at an NPC food merchant. All of these items will be removed from merchants and loot to ensure crafting or trade between players is the sole source for every crafted food.

Starter foods have been notoriously useless since their buff durations were so miniscule (1 to 15 minute buffs usually), and their buffs provided little meaning to gameplay. Now, 8 starter foods have been identified and balanced so that all occupy 1 slot, and each will feature the standardized regeneration rates and flat rate health or focus typically provided by 1 slot foods, however the durations for starter foods were only increased to 30 minutes.

Players will find these starter foods readily available in loot, for sale on NPC merchants, or even distributed as world decorations which can be stolen, but these 8 starter foods will not be crafted. However, all 8 starter foods will eventually be introduced into crafting as crafting components, so even higher level players can find them beneficial to utilize. Most will recognize the 8 starter foods as common items already available in-game:

  • Lemon Bun
  • Short Bread Loaf
  • Slim Bread Loaf
  • Braided Bread Loaf
  • Bread Loaf
  • Roll
  • Sugar Cookies
  • Wheat Bun

As foods were shifted into standardized categories, many “holes” were identified in regards to what buffs are available in the food system across the spectrum of slots and categories. To fill these “holes”, approximately 23 additional food recipes will be introduced to the game for Release 88 on March 25th.

All of these recipes will focus on using underutilized crafting components, and with these recipes only in prototype, there’s still plenty of time for players to provide input on recipe names and components. The proposed names for the upcoming new recipes are as follows, and the names should provide players a significant hint as to what underutilized component will gain new purpose:

  • Black Cutworm Cupcake
  • Bone Broth
  • Cinnamon Cake
  • Coelacanth Chips
  • Corpion Cake
  • Corpion Cutlets
  • Dragon Egg Omelet
  • Emerald Ash Egg Roll
  • Entrails and Eggs
  • Hemlock and Ham
  • Ichthyosaur Ice Cream
  • Lard Bread
  • Nut Butter and Ooze Sandwich
  • Oozy Omelet
  • Phoenix Fingers
  • Pickled Plant Pollen
  • Plesiosaurus Pie
  • Shadow Slaw
  • Shadow Snacks
  • Sharkfin Soup
  • Tarpon Tart
  • Trilobite Chomps
  • Turkey and Sinew Chewies

Food and drinks with crafting and gathering buffs are to be greatly expanded, with no changes being provided to 1 Year Whiskey, 2 Year Whiskey, or 7 Year Whiskey. New buffs becoming available in R87 across such recipes are as follows:

  • Decorated Cake Slice: +50% Cooking Production Time Bonus
  • Baked Pacu: +5 Fishing Range, 2.5% Bait Recovery, +10 Fishing Skills
  • 25 Year Whiskey: +3% Meticulous Mining Chance
  • Harvest Wheat Bear: +3% Meticulous Foraging Chance
  • Obsidian Bacon: +3% Meticulous Field Dressing Chance
  • Squirrel Stew: +3% Meticulous Forestry Chance

For pet foods, only one change is inbound which is for Fishy Nibblers. Formerly it provided an adventure level buff which is not useful for pet applications, and will instead provide an additional 250 Health to a pet.

Utility foods are also being introduced which either provide additional carry capacity or skill learning bonuses. The foods will be distributed throughout loot, the crafting system, and many can be obtained from a replenishing confections platter periodically available in the Crown Store Vault. These initial utility foods will be as follows:

  • Bacon (Crafted, +25% Encumbrance Carry Capacity)
  • Decorated Cupcake (3% Grey Bundles or Replenishing Confections Platter, +25% Skill Learn Bonus)
  • Elderberry Cream Cheese Sugar Drops (10% Yellow Bundles or Replenishing Confections Platter, +25% Skill Learn Bonus)
  • Petit Fours (25% Blue Bundles or Replenishing Confections Platter, +25% Skill Learn Bonus)
  • Thumbprint Cookies (100% Orange Bundles or Replenishing Confections Platter, +25% Skill Learn Bonus)
  • Slice of Lord British Birthday Cake (Looted in Lord British’s Castle, +100% Skill Learn Bonus)

Very close attention will be paid to the scarcity of components for all food and drink recipes. We realize some of the components are obtained from exceptionally rare drops such as dragon eggs, phoenix talons, sharks, and rare lava fish, but a “feed the village” concept will be utilized when players craft food recipes containing scarce resources. The scarcer the components, the output for the recipes will be increased proportionally. For example, fishing a shark out of salt water is very rare, but, when you do? You’ll be able to “feed the village” in a sense and make many food items to utilize or trade.

Maintaining the scarcity of the drops will still allow trophies and other rare items to keep their value, while providing a modicum of excitement knowing these drops will also provide very significant food output at a crafting table. Balancing of these outputs may take some time to normalize through future game patches, but ultimately we hope they settle upon output levels which makes the food or drink very viable for routine and affordable use.

There were a small number of food and drink items which provided magical resistance bonuses directed at a particular school of magic. These buffs will no longer be available with food or drink consumption, and will instead be provided by various potions being introduced into the alchemy system sometime in the future.

With development time during 2021 being strongly focused upon balance and fixes, this initial work in the food system is only the beginning. Players can expect similar work to address imbalances in other game systems, with uniformity and standardization concepts to be applied throughout. Ultimately, when each side system is balanced, subsequent efforts for balancing can be appropriately applied to the skill trees themselves knowing that all side systems feature an already balanced array of available buffs and categories.

Also, we realize some players could be significantly inconvenienced when their favorite foods or drinks have been adjusted to provide different buffs amounts, durations, regeneration rates, health, focus, slot numbers, or even a shift into an entirely new buff category. We implore with the community to please understand the importance of these balancing efforts and to work with us by providing constructive feedback and suggestions.

For those wishing to participate in feedback for the upcoming changes, please do so in this forum post. Please understand that all adjustment passes are not yet complete, the potential changes to recipe difficulty or output are not complete, and the team is very interested in hearing feedback from the community.

We hope players come to enjoy the expanded food buff system. Our efforts aim to provide an improved crafting, gathering, and buff selection experience while also affording a much larger breadth of useful food and drink recipes throughout the game. More balance efforts will be introduced in coming months, so stay tuned!

Read more…


Avatar’s Update #420: Community Recognition Program Returns! Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

The time has come, Avatars! So many fantastic community members have shined in the past year, many of which have never received recognition for their hard work and dedication. Well, now the recognition program is back! 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 Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Community Recognition Program Returns!

Greetings Avatars! This is a very important week in New Britannia. For many years, the developers of Shroud of the Avatar have routinely awarded titles, plaques, and medals to outstanding community members in a way to thank them for their hard work and dedication. This program has lapsed this past year, but now it is back!

Lord British and the Royal Court of New Britannia will be presenting awards to various recipients during today’s Friday Livestream. Wash that troll blood off your hands, put on your ceremony finery and meet us at Arabella’s Castle at 4PM CT if you would like to attend within the game. Also, please join us today for the Friday, February 12th Livestream at 4PM CT on Twitch to congratulate new award recipients as we broadcast the ceremony.

For those that are unfamiliar with the program, here is a breakdown of the 3 awards to be routinely provided to exceptional community members and organizations:

  • Order of the New Britannia Empire (ONBE): The ONBE is awarded to individual community members of Shroud of the Avatar. Lord British bestows this medal upon stellar community members for their positive contributions to the game and community. The community nominates these outstanding individuals for their efforts within a wide variety of supportive activities such as: creation of player resources, community leadership, new player support, and much more! Recipients of the ONBE are awarded the Knight of New Britannia title, an actual medal to wear outside of the game, and a digital version of the medal to display within the game.
  • DarkStarr Medallion of Chaos (Chaos Medal): This award is given by DarkStarr to “chaotic members” of the Shroud of the Avatar community. Unlike its virtuous counterpart, this award is given chaotically to community members whom DarkStarr deems worthy at in-game events. As one would expect, there are no rules or guidelines in how Darkstarr determines the recipients, but we assure you, with the chaotic forces at his disposal, he puts much consideration and effort into selecting the recipients most deserving. Recipients of the Chaos Medal are awarded the Chaotic of New Britannia title, an actual medal to wear outside the game, and a digital version of the medal to display within the game.
  • Royal Warrant: The Royal Warrant is awarded to outstanding community groups for their positive contributions to the game and community. Players nominate these outstanding groups for their collective contributions to projects, group activities, community events, and more. Recipients of the Royal Warrant are awarded an actual plaque to display outside of the game, and a digital version is also provided to display within the game.

More information will be released about the recognition program in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

Read more…


Avatar’s Update #419: Upcoming Developer Community Events! Latest New Q&A Friday Livestream!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

The developers of Shroud of the Avatar will be making some changes to the fishing tourney events which we have held weekly for the past 40 weeks, and we’ll be introducing 2 additional developer community event concepts. Lots of fun and prizes inbound! 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 Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Upcoming Developer Community Events!

During the next 3 weeks there will be major changes to the Weekly Catnip Games Fishing Tourney, and we will be adding two additional events in hopes to capture interest of a wider player base. What? Not everyone loves fishing? Hard to believe, but worry not non-anglers of New Britannia! Two additional event varieties will be coming soon to a Community Events page near you.

  • Monthly Screenshot & Video Contest: A new screenshot and video contest will be fully announced during the upcoming week which will feature a large number of valuable prizes. The focus will be for players to submit creative or informative screenshots and videos of content introduced to the game during the latest 3 monthly releases.
    • Videos must be of 720p quality or greater and posted on a popular social media outlet, and images must be in 1920×1080 resolution and hide the UI. All submissions must be embedded into responses in an upcoming forum thread which will appear in the community events and screenshot forums early next week (where we’ll also be taking feedback about the contest).
    • The full contest details will be posted in the forums next week. The event will officially start on the day of Release 87, and initial subject matter considered must feature R87, R86, or R85 content items.
    • The prizes will be as follows:
      • 1st Place Video: Player-Owned Town Town Lot Deed
      • 2nd Place Video: Player-Owned Town Village Lot Deed
      • 3rd Place Video: Player-Owned Town Row Lot Deed
      • 1st Place Screenshot: Player-Owned Town Town Lot Deed
      • 2nd Place Screenshot: Player-Owned Town Village Lot Deed
      • 3rd Place Screenshot: Player-Owned Town Row Lot Deed
    • Winning entries will be posted throughout our media venues, and each winner will also receive a Master of the Arts in-game title. As long as submissions feature content of the 3 spotlighted releases, they will be considered during each month they remain eligible.
  • Monthly Rare Item Bounties: In 2 weeks, we will announce a new bounty type event which encourage players of Shroud of the Avatar to seek rare drops throughout two designated scenes which will be identified monthly. One scene will be PvP and coincide with the fishing tourney PvP location. The other scene will be PvE and differ from the fishing locations.
    • All prize decisions are still being finalized, but will be appealing enough to attract players to these scenes. For the developers, these item bounty events will be very informative and could provide valuable insight into leaderboard improvements in the future. Also, as players adventure in these scenes, we will be attempting to provide targeted loot improvements to the spotlighted scenes based upon player feedback.
    • The event details will be posted in the forums prior to R87 so players can prepare, and the official start date of this event series will be on the day of Release 87. Also, Master of Collections and Master of Mayhem titles will be provided to the PvE and PvP winners, respectively. More details to come, Avatars!
  • Catnip Games Fishing Tourney Changes: To be fully announced on the day of Release 87 (February 25th), the fishing event will be changing to a monthly format. We’ll be increasing the number of scenes in which the event will take place, and the prizes will be adjusted. We will continue with the weekly tourney as designed until release day, but full details about the upcoming changes will begin to appear early in this forum thread so players, governors, and stewards can prepare. Please post suggestions in the same thread, and they will be taken into consideration.

We look forward to your feedback as we release the details for each event in the coming weeks. The commencement of these events on the day of Release 87 should provide an additional and interesting mix of community activities available to players going forward.

Also, we’re likely to discontinue the provision of participation trophies for such events and use this developer time for loot improvements and bug fixes. Instead, we will deliver rewards to random non-winners so even players with small amounts of available time to participate will still have a significant chance to win something. To encourage more spin-off events, we will be offering a larger variety of trophies to event holders upon request (each trophy available will be announced as well), so that they may distribute them to participants of their spin-off contest according to their unique rule sets.

Get your fishing poles, weapons, and cameras ready, Avatars! So much more is coming your way in 2021, so stay tuned!

Read more…


Avatar’s Update #418: Play Release 86 Now! New Adventure Scene: The Well of Aldur! New Gear Pattern Flexibility & So Much More!!! Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

To herald in 2021, the first release of the new year brings players of Shroud of the Avatar a robust offering of wonderful new content items, decorations, and other game updates. A new adventure scene has been been added, an extensive revamp of how gear patterns function is now live, a new decoration type that buffs players with magical attunement is now available, dragon eggs now drop as loot which can be crafted into Baby Dragon Conversationalists, and Public Cache Chests have received additional variations! 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 Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

New Adventure Scene: The Well of Aldur!

New Britannians! A mystical and mysterious adventure scene is now live and available to players of Shroud of the Avatar. “The Well of Aldur” is a scene for Episode 2 Access holders which features a variety of activities to challenge even the most stalwart of Avatars! World builders List Rostov and Sannio both worked hard on this wondrously ethereal adventure scene, which is now available! Sannio has shared a small teaser for what to expect:

“High above the mountain peaks of Mistrendur floats the crumbling remains of a civilization whose origins are lost to time. Only the greatest adventurers will decipher the secrets, survive the threats, and discover the true nature of the Well of Aldur.”

Players can expect a variety of challenges, including crystal-powered sky-movers, jumping puzzles, and wave battles. One of the wave battles includes new mechanics and new unique loot for the scene. And beware, engaging in combat upon one of the platforms within the scene could draw out Suutak, Master of Tempests! May the Virtues guide thee on your adventures within… The Well of Aldur!

Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

The weekly Community Livestream is Friday, January 29th at 4PM CT on Twitch! Join Chris “Atos” Spears and other members of the development team for a community 1 hour livestream!

To enter the prize drawings, type “2021 is gonna rock” into any in-game chat channel OR make a purchase on the website add-on store. Please submit questions into Twitch Chat by inserting !question at the beginning of your text. Watch on Twitch, Friday at 4 PM CT!

Atos and other members of the Shroud of the Avatar development team go live very frequently on twitch.tv/shroudoftheavatar — be sure to get these channels on follow for notifications so you can join us right as we go live! Also, if you’ve missed our latest streams, check out our archive of content at our YouTube Channel. Like! Follow! Subscribe! Prizes!!!




Don’t forget to also join the Shroud of the Avatar team and community over at all our social media venues:

Upcoming Gear Patterns Flexibility!

Gear Patterns in Shroud of the Avatar, up to this point, have been considerably restrictive in how players could apply them to gear. For instance, a 1-Handed Longsword Pattern would only apply to other 1-Handed Longswords, or a cloth helm pattern would only apply to a cloth helm. The list goes on, but this list will get considerably less complicated going forward! As of Release 86, gear patterns are now much less restrictive!

  • Category Restrictions Simplified: Below is a list of categories which will remain. Any item within that category will accept a pattern from another item within the same category.
    • Bludgeon 1-Handed
    • Bludgeon 2-Handed
    • Blades 1-Handed
    • Blades 2-Handed
    • Polearm 1-Handed
    • Polearm 2-Handed
    • Bows
    • Crossbows
    • Shields
    • Head Slot
    • Back Slot
    • Chest Slot
    • Gloves Slot
    • Legs Slot
    • Feet Slot
  • Artifacts: Most of these elusive treasures scattered through out the realms will now accept all patterns available within the same gear slot. For instance, an artifact chest piece will accept ANY pattern for a chest piece.

Also, with many visuals for off-hand items already available, and 3 more off-hand artifacts having just been introduced for R86 with the new Shrines of Attunement, expect some off-hand item patterns on the horizon as well! We hope players enjoy this extra flexibility with gear patterns. We will be introducing many more patterns in the future, so expect additional options for character customization shortly.

Shrines of Attunement!

Avatars! With the unveiling of The Well of Aldur, an entirely new statue type has been discovered throughout New Britannia–Shrines of Attunement! These powerful and crafted statues utilize 9 related off-hand artifacts to craft (3 of which have been introduced with this release), which provide 3-day attunement buffs for any character which steps into their aura. These buffs are on their own separate buff channel, and 2 buffs can be simultaneously utilized. Significant loot improvements have resulted, and more use has been made for a variety of underutilized crafting components or loot drop locations. The 9 required off-hand artifacts to craft these shrines have either been created as new, received visual effect enhancements, increased loot drop chances, and/or received significant stat bonus adjustments. Here’s a breakdown of the artifact updates:

  • Ankh of Wala (Sun Magic, Atenism): This odd little artifact appears as a golden ankh. Why the powers of Atenism were infused into a golden symbol for life magic? That is a story for another time. Users of the Ankh of Wala can expect some improved visuals. This item’s attunement power has been significantly reduced yet still provides more attunement than many of its off-hand brethren. Also, the reagent consumption penalties have been removed, and fizzle reduction has been added. Drop rates for this artifact have been increased, and players have the best chances to receive one by defeating a phoenix (which also drop talons more frequently now).
  • Heart of Vrul (Chaos Magic): The Heart of Vrul is an intriguing artifact that drops from Daemons and can be used on its own or crafted into the Warlock’s Chain. Now, players can use the Heart of Vrul to craft the Shrine of Chaos, and it has received visual touch-ups utilizing Chaos Magic visual effects.
  • Gaia’s Heart (Earth Magic, Gaiaism): This artifact, glowing green with the powers of earth magic, now drops more frequently, received a bug fix (common attunement was equal to uncommon attunement, now scales), and no longer provides a negative attunement penalty to Air Magic. This item has not received an appearance update.
  • Aether Orb (Moon Magic, Lunaism): The Aether Orb has been an extremely rare artifact, most readily obtainable during the seasonal coming of the comet when the aether creatures reenter our realm. The magical buffs on this item tie it in directly with Moon and Water magic, but slight adjustments have been made to increase the amount of moon magic attunement provided, and the featured water magic attunement has been slightly decreased to provide more significance to the Frozen Tear of Titans. Drop rates for the Aether Orb have been increased, especially amongst the applicable aether creatures, and rumor has spread that Shadow creatures now have a chance to drop common versions of this artifact. This item has received visual enhancements, and also a bug fix has ensured the epic versions scale for attack speed. The epic version now features 15% Attack Speed, instead of 12.5%, which was already featured on the legendary version.
  • Anapa’s Favor – NEW! (Death Magic, Necromancy): This new off-hand artifact has stunning visuals and drops from a large variety of lich casters or bosses. Anapa’s Favor provides death magic attunement, intelligence, and fizzle reduction. Upgrade recipes are discoverable, but can also be found in Grey Supply Bundles.
  • Vexlyn’s Spark – NEW! (Fire Magic, Sorcery): This new ominous looking Fire Magic artifact has been added to Lord British’s Castle and Xvara (Fire Boss) loot tables. Fire elementals throughout the lands also have small chances to drop this artifact. Vexlyn’s Spark provides fire magic attunement, intelligence, and fizzle reduction. Upgrade recipes are discoverable, but can also be found in Grey Supply Bundles.
  • Frozen Tear of Titans (Water Magic, Tempestry): This artifact has received improved visuals, and the negative fire magic attunement penalty has been removed. The artifact now also features ice and water elemental power bonuses to make the summoned creatures in that school more appealing. Expect to find this artifact more frequently, and even common versions have a chance to drop amongst water and ice elementals throughout the lands.
  • Ankh of Sacrifice (Life Magic, Thaumaturgy): The Ankh of Sacrifice has received visual improvements, and the reagent consumption penalties have been removed. Also, a fizzle reduction bonus has been added. The amount of life magic attunement has been reduced, but is still far greater than many of it’s off-hand artifact brethren featuring attunement bonuses. Drop rates for this artifact have been increased, especially in regards to common versions, and elven mages now have a chance to drop Ankhs of Sacrifice.
  • Suutak’s Bluster – NEW! (Air Magic, Theurgy): This spectacular orb of air magic has been discovered in The Well of Aldur, the new adventure scene introduced this release! The Well of Aldur features the greatest chances to receive common, uncommon, and rare versions of this artifact. Air elementals throughout the lands have also received small chances to drop common versions of this artifact. Suutak’s Bluster provides air magic attunement, intelligence, and fizzle reduction. Upgrade recipes are discoverable, but can also be found in Grey Supply Bundles.

Each shrine can be crafted at a blacksmithing station, and the recipes drop at locations indicated in the list below. Each recipe features common components between them (such as Ancient Essences, Bronze Ingots, and the rare version of the related artifacts), but underutilized ingredients have also been added to each recipe. These recipes are considered to be highly difficult, so expect some significant effort involved to obtain all the elusive components required to craft them. These shrines can be placed as property or Player-Owned Town decoration, the buffs last for 3 days each, and 2 different shrine buffs can be utilized simultaneously. Here are more details about the 9 Shrines of Attunement:

  • Shrine of Atenism (+15 Sun Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires a Phoenix Talon and Atenism Gems. The non-teachable shrine recipe drops from the phoenix.
  • Shrine of Chaos (+15 Chaos Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires Ground Daemon Hoof and Obsidian Chips. The non-teachable shrine recipe drops from Daemons.
  • Shrine of Gaiaism (+15 Earth Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires Pure Elemental Sand and Gaiaism Gems. The non-teachable shrine recipe drops from earth, sand, and lava elementals.
  • Shrine of Lunaism (+15 Moon Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires Shadow Essences and Lunaism Gems. The non-teachable shrine recipe drops from Shadow Creatures.
  • Shrine of Necromancy (+15 Death Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires a Dragon Skull and Necromancy Gems. The non-teachable shrine recipe drops from Lich bosses.
  • Shrine of Sorcery (+15 Fire Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires a Red Dragon Egg and Sorcery Gems. The non-teachable shrine recipe drops in Lord British’s Castle.
  • Shrine of Tempestry (+15 Water Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires an uncommon Ring of Water and Tempestry Gems. The non-teachable shrine recipe drops from water elementals in The Well of Aldur.
  • Shrine of Thaumaturgy (+15 Life Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires an uncommon Ring of Life and Thaumaturgy Gems. The non-teachable shrine recipe can be found in destructible crates.
  • Shrine of Theurgy (+15 Air Magic Attunement): The crafting recipe for this shrine also requires an uncommon Ring of Air and Theurgy Gems. The non-teachable shrine recipe can be found in The Well of Aldur.

As more artifacts roll out into the world of New Britannia, crafters amongst the ranks of Avatars might have some concerns about lessening the significance of crafted items. Rest assured, plans to allow more artifacts to be broken down into components (such as Torq’Dawl’s Basher and Slicer) are still very much in planning, and underutilized gathered/looted components will continue to be featured in upcoming recipes to add to their value.

We hope you enjoy the new Shrines of Attunement! Keep an eye out for a plethora of new crafting recipes in the future, providing love to all aspects of loot, gear slot/type, and gatherers. Also, masters of Combat and Strategy skills won’t be left out! Similar concepts for buffing skills in these trees through use of shrine type decorations will make their way into the game in the future.

Weather Control Devices Incoming!

Work is well underway to provide governors and stewards a means to alter the weather and even biome of their Player-Owned Town (POT). The new tech is finished, and the related decoration items are being created which utilize this feature. The existing Moontower decoration will be the first to receive this tech, a change which will patch in shortly after release, with many more weather altering decoration items to follow. Many of these devices will be premium store items, but players can definitely expect some weather varieties to be altered from looted and/or crafted items.

Dragon Eggs & Baby Dragon Conversationalists!

New loot items have been added to all the loot tables for chromatic dragons — dragon eggs! These rare drops from each dragon work nicely as decorations, but can also be taken to your alchemy table to hatch the egg. Upon success, these rare eggs are converted into Baby Dragon Conversationalists! These conversationalists can be scaled in size from 0.5 to 1.3 to help players depict a larger age range between their hatchlings.

  • Conversationalist, Black Baby Dragon
  • Conversationalist, Blue Baby Dragon
  • Conversationalist, Green Baby Dragon
  • Conversationalist, Orange Baby Dragon
  • Conversationalist, Purple Baby Dragon
  • Conversationalist, Red Baby Dragon
  • Conversationalist, White Baby Dragon
  • Conversationalist, Yellow Baby Dragon

For more information on how to “craft” these conversationalists, players must first seek Kaiser, the NPC located near the entrance of Ulfheim. Kaiser can provide a book of knowledge which describes nuances for each recipe and provides hints to where players can obtain each recipe.

As we continue to expand the free offerings of conversationalists in the game, we hope players continue to enjoy the ever growing variety afforded to the conversation system. So many more conversationalists will be added in the future, so get your stories ready, Avatars!

Public Cache Chest Varieties!

Many players of Shroud of the Avatar utilize in-game decorations in their towns and properties to tell a story or to enhance their in-game events. Public Cache Chests have always been a fantastic resource for sharing inventory items with other players, but unfortunately have been limited to two very large chests, which does not suit all needs for public cache containers. Besides simple storage, here’s a list of some of the common uses for these chests we’ve witnessed in years past:

  • Sharing Gear & Resources
  • Player-Created Treasure Hunting Events
  • Player-Created Quest Rewards
  • Contest Entry Collections & Prize Distribution

Although there are likely many other creative uses for public cache containers, we hope to expand the appeal of these items by offering a much larger variety in sizes and appearances. Here are some of the future updates for public access containers, some of which arrived today with Release 86:

  • Immersive Varieties: 3 varieties of corpse/coffin containers are now available as of Release 86 to aid players with storytelling in our wondrous yet dangerous world of New Britannia! The dead villager versions are looted from many creatures which could easily swallow a villager whole, and the coffin variety is crafted.
  • Crafted Varieties: The above mentioned coffin is the first crafted public cache container, with many more to follow in the releases ahead! A new “wildflower” quest that results in the player getting a coffin recipe has been added to Spindelskog.
  • Smaller Varieties: There will be a variety of small public cache containers which will certainly take less shelf space, but these smaller varieties will also add a significant improvement to player-created treasure hunting ventures. Those large original cache chests are simply too easy to spot from a distance for treasure hunting and player quests!
  • Fancy Premium Varieties: Most definitely we’ll have more varieties of these items on the Crown Store, which will feature larger storage space as well as ornate or special qualities.

As we continue to expand our offerings for how players share gear and resources with other players, we hope to improve the overall guild, player quest, and inventory sharing experiences throughout the community.

Read more…


Avatar’s Update #417: Public Cache Chest Varieties Incoming! Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Many players of Shroud of the Avatar utilize Public Cache Chests as a means to provide other players easy access to resources, loot, prizes, and even player quest rewards. In Release 86, the first batch of new public cache containers are set to arrive! 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 Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Public Cache Chest Varieties Incoming!

Many players of Shroud of the Avatar utilize in-game decorations in their towns and properties to tell a story or to enhance their in-game events. Public Cache Chests have always been a fantastic resource for sharing inventory items with other players, but unfortunately have been limited to two very large chests in appearance, which does not suit all needs for such items. Besides simple storage, here’s a list of some of the common uses for these chests we’ve witnessed in years past:

  • Sharing Gear & Resources
  • Player-Created Treasure Hunting Events
  • Player-Created Quest Rewards
  • Contest Entry Collections & Prize Distribution

Albeit there are likely many other creative uses for public cache containers, we hope to expand the appeal of these items by offering a much larger variety in sizes and appearances. Here are some of the future updates for public access containers, some of which will arrive as early as Release 86 on January 28th:

  • Immersive Varieties: 3 varieties of corpse/coffin containers will arrive on R86 to aid players with storytelling in our wondrous yet dangerous world of New Britannia!
  • Crafted Varieties: The above mentioned coffin will be the first crafted public cache container, with many more to follow in the releases ahead!
  • Smaller Varieties: There will be a variety of small public cache containers which will certainly take less shelf space, but these smaller varieties will also add a significant improvement to player-created treasure hunting ventures. Those large original cache chests are simply too easy to spot for treasure hunting and player quests!
  • Fancy Premium Varieties: Most definitely we’ll have more varieties of these items on the Crown Store, which will feature larger storage space as well as ornate or special qualities.

As we continue to expand our offerings for how players share gear and resources with other players, we hope to improve the overall guild, player quest, and inventory sharing experiences throughout the community. So much more is on the horizon, Avatars! Stay tuned!

Read more…


Avatar’s Update #416: Upcoming Gear Patterns Flexibility! Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Gear Patterns in Shroud of the Avatar will receive a plethora of adjustments, Avatars! Expect them to become far more flexible with Release 86! Be sure to also review the Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Upcoming Gear Patterns Flexibility!

Gear Patterns in Shroud of the Avatar, up to this point, have been considerably restrictive in how players could apply them to gear. For instance, a 1-Handed Longsword Pattern would only apply to other 1-Handed Longswords, or a cloth helm pattern would only apply to a cloth helm. The list goes on, but this list will get considerably less complicated going forward! These changes should arrive in Release 86 or soon after!

  • Category Restrictions Simplified: Below is a list of categories which will remain. Any item within that category will accept a pattern from the same category.
    • Bludgeon 1-Handed
    • Bludgeon 2-Handed
    • Blades 1-Handed
    • Blades 2-Handed
    • Polearm 1-Handed
    • Polearm 2-Handed
    • Bows
    • Crossbows
    • Shields
    • Head Slot
    • Back Slot
    • Chest Slot
    • Gloves Slot
    • Legs Slot
    • Feet Slot
  • Artifacts: These elusive treasures scattered through out the realms will soon accept all patterns available within the same gear slot. For instance, an artifact chest piece will accept ANY pattern for a chest piece.

With many visuals for off-hand items already available, with even more coming very soon (hint hint), expect some off-hand item patterns on the horizon as well! We hope players enjoy this extra flexibility with gear patterns. We will be introducing many more patterns in the future, so expect additional options for character customization shortly.

Developers continue to work hard to bring new features, content, and fixes to reveal on January 28th for Release 86! Of the new or improved items coming to players, development is still on schedule to launch the new “Well of Aldur” adventure scene. Corpses and coffin decorations are inbound, some to be found as loot, some to be crafted at your Carpentry tables! Also, at least 8 new crafted conversationalists are coming, which feature 8 related decoration items and crafting recipes! New crafted and premium scroll decorations are coming to offer players more variety in publishing their great literary works! And most certainly a slew of new Quality of Life improvements will also be in the mix. Release 86 is going to be a great one, Avatars, so don’t miss out!

Read more…


Avatar’s Update #415: Homes & Lord of the Isle Bundle Sales Continue! Latest News Q&A Friday Livestream!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Lord of the Isle Bundles and Player Homes remain on sale for a limited time! 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 Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Homes & Lord of the Isle Bundle Sales Continue!

In continued celebration of the holidays, the following sales have been extended! Homes will continue to be on sale until January 11th, and The Lord of the Isle (LOTI) Bundles (9-16) will remain on sale until the end of the month. Upon reaching the end of the month, all LOTI bundles will be removed from the webstore and will no longer be offered.

In the future, players can expect new bundle offerings of much smaller varieties. Plans to create these bundles are already underway, so stay tuned!

In the coming weeks, developers will continue working hard to bring new features, content, and fixes to reveal on January 28th for Release 86! Of the new or improved items coming to players, development is still on schedule to launch the new “Well of Aldur” adventure scene. Also, at least 8 new crafted conversationalists are coming, which feature 8 related decoration items and crafting recipes! New crafted and premium scroll decorations are coming to offer players more variety in publishing their great literary works! And most certainly a slew of new Quality of Life improvements will also be in the mix. Release 86 is going to be a great one, Avatars, so don’t miss out!

Read more…


Avatar’s Update #414: Happy New Year, Avatars! New Store Additions! New Vault Round!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

As many within community and the development team take a break during the holidays, we wish everyone a happy, safe, and restful time! 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 Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Happy New Year, Avatars!

Happy New Year, Avatars! While the development team continues to spend some extra time with loved ones, we hope the new year brings everyone much happiness. The team is anxious to dive back to regular hours on Monday morning fully charged to bring you all great content and improvements for 2021! We’ll be back on track to provide weekly development updates starting next Friday as well.

We hope everyone stays healthy and safe during their celebrations, and for those that don’t have balmy winters, stay warm! Happy Holidays, Avatars!

NOTE: We mistakenly only submitted sale prices to 80 of the store homes. As a result, we’ll be submitting a patch shortly to add the discounts to the remaining 40 or so homes that got missed, AND we’ll be extending the home sales an additional week as a result.

UPDATE, LORD OF THE ISLE (LOTI) BUNDLES (9-16): Don’t miss out if you were on the fence about becoming a LOTI supporter — LOTI bundles 9-16 are on sale for 25% Off!

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Avatar’s Update #413: Season’s Greetings from the Development Team!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

As many within community and the development team take a break during the holidays, we wish everyone a happy, safe, and restful time! 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 Players Guide and Known Issues list for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes. Now, let’s see what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

News Announcements

Community Updates

Season’s Greetings from the Development Team!

Season’s Greetings, Avatars! As the development team spends some extra time with family and friends, we wanted to express our deepest appreciation and admiration for the community. So many of you have done so many wonderful things for each other as well as the development team, and because of this amazing community, we’re continually inspired and motivated to forge ahead and provide new content, features, and improvements.

Through your support and love for project, as well as your dedicated efforts to help us improve the game, we believe each and every year ahead, Shroud of the Avatar will improve and become home to more and more players throughout the world. Please take some time this holiday season to express your thanks and appreciation to your fellow community members, family, and friends. We hope you all have a happy holiday season. Stay safe! Stay warm! And be on the lookout for those that might just need a little extra holiday cheer to brighten their day. Happy Holidays, Avatars!

For those that missed the Christmas caroling from two of our most famous New Britannians, Maxine (Lead Vocals) and Chris Spears (Back-Up Vocals), no worries! Here’s the video from yesterday’s caroling event:


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