Custom Avatar Head now Lord Forged Items

@DarkStarr

How about a statue of our Avatars? However, can I have my name on it? The reward was for us to have an item of us the player not LB or Darkstarr. Please bear with me.

I.E. (decoration)Statue of Duke William Serenite
Take a 3d graphic of our characters, paint them stone and add our name to it. The name doesn't need to be visible, it can be a mouse over name.

Or we can use a basic female and male Avatar model in battle armor with our names and titles on them with a mouse over. That way the countenance doesnt matter much as their faces are covered or partly covered. Skin color is also moot so that makes it easier.

I think the second choice is easily doable. The statue's name can even be entered by the players themselves. Just need two types of statues that can be modified like a street sign. So when moused over they have a description of the players name and what ever else can fit on it. So I want to see if I can ask for a basic male Avatar statue with my name on it or the ability to add a custom wording like a street sign.

We dont have any statue rewards, something nice to decorate the castle. Can this be an option for us? Then you can have two versions. One for add one store and one with a golden hue for the Dukes and LOTM.

Players entering Dukes and Duchesses houses would see a rare statue with a mouse over and possibly a name and some historical facts/RP to give the nobles family house some role play flavor.

 

@DarkStarr @Lord British

That is an excellent idea!!! I was trying to figure out what the actual dollar cost is so I could find something already in game in addition to the already offered deco substitution given to us, but this would be unique to me. If the cost was a few hundred dollars per head, then maybe an additional Tax Free Lot Deed, since it wouldn't cost them anything to create. Could be a POT only deed, but the statue idea is something I like. Not tabletop size though, that is too small. We need the size like the Ancients Sets or bigger. Make this happen!!!

Edit: It should also be labeled "Created by Lord British" or "Created by Darkstarr".

 

As someone who upgraded after the custom head expired this was the reward that I was disappointed to miss out on. I was thinking about sourcing a stripped account that had the reward intact, now I'm glad I hadn't as the replacements are considerably less appealing though some of the player suggests are interesting.

 

@Duke William of Serenite

That's cool and all, but I was hoping for a general sculpting feature that would be accessible to players and not be confined to a reward.

 

I have that covered.

and i quote
"We dont have any statue rewards, something nice to decorate the castle. Can this be an option for us? Then you can have two versions. One for add one store and one with a golden hue for the Dukes and LOTM."

I will probably want more statues for my home or town. Why not honor the knights and workers of the town with a statue they can buy in the add on sure. I think its a win win for everyone.

 

Oh golden statues

You know what would actually be cool for you guys? A statue of stone or marble like any other but where some specific features, like the crown in particular, are made out of gold.

Anyway I hope when we do get sculpting we can also make things like busts and so on, and also base the full statues on emotes and the like.

 

@Duke William of Serenite

ie. stone statues with gold features,

 

Thanks for pulling those threads out of the archives. Has it really been 3.5 YEARS that they kicked the can on this? I always wondered *why* they asked for submissions and then never started work on them. Oh well. Too late now.

I was concerned when they had the duke heads as a lower priority on this thread:

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...kstarter-stretch-goals-and-other-items.97389/

Priority 3:

• Fyndoro's Tablet of Finding
• Puzzle Box
• Theater System
• Castle Defense Scenarios / Castle Types / Castle Merchants
• Shipping Lanes aka Boat Schedules, Random Boat Encounter Scenes
• Heraldry aka Custom Family Crests for players and Guilds
• Custom Duke/LotM Heads
• PDF of Design Docs
• Custom Static POTs
• NEW: "The Lost Vale": A new mini-adventure centered around a lost valley previously hidden to players, now visible only during special astronomical alignments. NOTE:This will be a location and a quest within the Hidden Vale that is only accessible during the above mentioned alignments. Also note we are not going to use the name "Lost Vale" because it was a cancelled add on to Ultima 8.

I was concerned when they said they were going to outsource the heads in this thread from 6-months ago:

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/q1-2018-schedule-update.106312/

• Custom Duke/LotM Heads: We did not adequately prepare for how excited backers would be to upgrade to this incredibly high pledge level so we have contracted with an outside vendor to fulfill this reward, hence the delay. However we have every confidence in the delivery of these by the end of 2018.

Now I am just concerned.

I think we can all agree, at least if you love the game, that we all got more than we ever imagined! And I am so very thankful for that. I not only got a game to play, but a community to spend time with, grow with, laugh with and share with. Plenty of people work tirelessly on behalf of the community and do all they can to put out the word about Shroud. The Devs work tirelessly to even make Shroud!

By the same token, the last week has been rough. People we care about lost their jobs and now we have things like this happening.

My bottom line is this: it goes to credibility and trust. I have seen this type of change up before and I have accepted that it's part of *agile* development. Things change! Things can be in flux! You dream big and then reality sets in! I get all that. But when the message changes constantly, as it has in this particular situation over a nearly 4 year period, it's really hard to trust the message anymore. Doesn't mean I won't trust anymore, it just makes it harder to do it.

 

Uff. I wonder, how Portalarium manages to surprise me again. Unfortunately not in a way I would value, and yes, I lost a lot of trust in the promises given by Portalarium over the years too.

I was really looking towards this reward as well.
And I agree with others here in the thread, that I see the compensation as somewhat inadequate. An announced discussion with proposals in Dev+ forum or via E-Mail/PM would have been the way to go, but this style is more like "eat or die", as we would say in Germany.

Some ideas have been given - a TF city PA deed to place one of our ships would have been a replacement of value for the reward, which would show how serious the issue is seen.

I could imagine also a companion style pair of bodyguards (with title Bodyguard of Duke XXX), whom you can name yourself, who carry a spear with a pennant with color and crest of your choice and help you fighting or have one or both of them guarding your home.

But weapons/armor? I still run around in my pledge/store armor, because I do not find the time to really play the game besides some presentation/RPG and a bit moving stuff within the house. Still easy prey to almost any mob. So how would I even determine, what I could use, and how useful it would be in the future? (Eventually, if it would be an eternal pattern, which makes the item applied not losing durability, keeping the other special properties mentioned and returns to the owner if lost (the eternal pattern, not the item), this would be flexible and valuable enough.

Deco? As long as we cannot even place deco on wall tiles, I would not need just another deco item. (Well other's may, as the thread did show - wishes and preferences are not always the same.)

*Salute*
Olahorand
The Rebel Duke

 

given that in the past these items have been made by devs in off-hours on evenings and weekends, it seems like they're trying to replace something that costs billable hours with their personal hours, which is... nice of them.

 

Without sounding mean.....it’s irrelevant.

As someone (along with many others on this forum I’m sure) who has been involved in start up businesss, you work until the job is done and if that means 16 hours, 7 days a week then that is what you do. The golden rule to success? Treat your customers with absolute respect, manage expectations carefully and ALWAYS ultimately deliver what has been promised and purchased.

Lose the trust of your customers, then the last one out can switch off the light.

 

oh, you don't sound mean, just like a guy who will use any comment as a jump-off point to grind his axe. i didn't say that what they were offering was in any way adequate, merely worthy of note. e for effort, both for them and for you.

 

So this is the confusing part, so in just a couple months ago they stated a company was contracted to complete this feature. So what happened or was this a lie? The OP in this thread stated that the cost was too much for outside contract, would take up too much internal staff time and resources and the performance on the system was too much no matter which way they went. Breaking a promise is one thing, but lies are another level of distrust.

Not to get off topic, but I want to point out the distrustful path this company has been on the past few months. For the Launch, Darkstarr stated in th Q1 2018 Schedule Update that the game would officially launch with R52 and two items were listed as a priority for launch. One was the Custom Static POT’s, which is now not available recently. The other was all Pledge items available in Offline Mode for purchase with in game gold. I have not checked ALL the NPC vendors yet, because there are so many to check, but not all the pledge rewards are available. (See thread link below)

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/q1-2018-schedule-update.106312/

So with launch in R52 I waited until R53 to see if the pledge items would be there in R53. I couldn’t find them. So I asked Darkstarr if they were located if I missed them or did they make it in. He responded that they didn’t make in.
( see thread kink below).

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/release-53-instructions.121435/page-3

Now R54 is live and R55 coming next week and still missing items in Offline Mode. Where are they? Just more unfulfilled promises or is he hiding something and hoping nobody will notice?

Just getting to the point of anger with everything. I want answers, bugs fixed and what’s missing before I drop another cent on this game!!!

 

We should get an item that isn't so common. British and Darkstar items have long ago lost their uniqueness as quite a few were given away. The plaque is nice, but we need something really unique as many upgraded to these levels for the very unique reward of a custom avatar head. We should also be compensated for the long delay involved.

Definitely nothing requiring any more than a trivial amount of development time. Perhaps an account locked founder city deed so we can place a house boat? Get creative.

 

If the powers that be want an easy-to-implement solution that is likely to please people, then tax free lots are certainly a good start. You won't please everyone, but it's a reasonable compromise all things considered. Perhaps with a re-skinned building to add the uniqueness factor? That would vastly reduce the manpower while ensuring that you're keeping some of your top-tier backers happy. Not quite as unique as a custom statue (I dearly love this idea) but it's getting there. A city building, one suitably grand would probably do the trick.

 

You forgot this one

 

Hmm, a real working life size bobble head of our own avatar??? Now that would be cool idea.

 

Speaking for myself, this would be adequate compensation

 

Actually the custom head wasn’t that interesting to me and I might never have used that option just like the possibility of participation in live streams or the dev-office-tour.
Personally I would suggest that everyone is getting more options to adjust their avatars. Maybe a poll for duke+ could be an option to let them describe what elements are missing to create the “custom avatar head that looks like RL" by themselves and implement at least some of these missing facial elements. That way not just duke+ but everyone would have the possibility to make the avatar look (more or less) alike to our real-life selves. I think that would be the closest possibility to the original goal without involving too much money and/or dev time.

If that is not possible I think we do not have to rush things. E.g. if we get additional tech in new episodes the duke+ could get a more proper reward over time...so to say the devs will try to create in each episode one additional item/mechanic/whatever that avatars will get if they reached Duke-pledge-status. E.g. Duke+ of KS-era would get one reward (e.g. the by a dev handcrafted deco/weapon/armor), in EP2 all new and old Duke+ pledges would get a new Duke-episode-reward,…
In the end being a KS-Duke+ you would this way get 5 items, being a EP2-Duke+ you would get 4 items, … as some kind of early bird-mechanic.

 

Given how far 3d print is and that it is quite easy to use 3d models as template not that complicated.