Release 15 Instructions

Greetings Avatars,

Thank you to our loyal backers of Shroud of the Avatar. Release 15 access for all backers at First Responder level and above begins this Thursday, February 26 at 10:30 AM Central Time (16:30 UTC).

Please read this entire message, as well as the linked instructions and known issues.

This far from launch, we are in a constant state of change and we do not yet have in-game systems to inform players of these changes, or to share ways to help them to explore new content and systems. This means we rely entirely on this message, and the linked instructions and known issues to convey the current game state. We regularly have to answer questions or filter bug reports because players elect not to read this valuable information. By taking a few moments to read through this information, a great deal of our time and efforts can be redirected to focus on new “unanswered” questions, and addressing critical issues impacting each release. We greatly appreciate you taking the time to review this post, and for all the truly valuable feedback you continue to provide.

We are very excited that Release 15 represents our first release using Unity 5, the latest version of the Unity engine. Unity 5 provides us with both improved performance opportunities and graphical upgrades that will allow us to iteratively and dramatically improve the visual presentation of Shroud of the Avatar. As we have said before, our goal is to make sure Shroud is as visually compelling as we have time to make it. However, whenever we have to make a choice between simulation (turning lights on/off, picking up items from the world, NPC schedules, etc.) and visuals, we will ALWAYS choose the simulation.

Moving to Unity 5 requires us to redo and retouch just about every graphical asset in the game; including textures, camera rigs, and lighting setups. Since this is such a large endeavor, our goal this release was basically, “Please make it at least look as good as it did in Unity 4.” We believe we accomplished this goal, however there might be a few errors still in the build, including missing textures (will show up as bright pink) or incorrect shaders (which can just make things look “wrong”). There may also be some scenes that still need lighting adjustments as well. In some cases, though, we believe the game is already looking much better. For instance, with Unity 5 we are now doing some post process edge shadows that really make the geometry pop.

The scale of the Unity 5 migration has required us to move out a few more deliverables than normal (see below), but we feel confident that it will be well worth any temporary delay we are experiencing. Despite that, we feel the work we did get into this release has moved the gameplay forward yet again, with major new items like Stealth and Crafting Advancement.

Please note that the patch for this release will be particularly large.

Also, remember that while we are providing new content with each release, our community is working overtime to make new events for you to enjoy, so be sure to check out a couple of the Community Events Calendars run by our community members (via in game book or the player run websites Avatars Circle Community Events and Events of the Avatars calendar).

Without further ado, here are the R15 deliverables.

Key:

• Plain Text: The original plan for the Release deliverables. We intentionally preserve the original text so that our backers can compare plan versus actuals.
• Italics: Extra notes and new deliverables
• Strikethrough: These are items that did not make the release

RELEASE 15, February 26, 2015:

• Maps: We will continue to expand the mainland scenes to include Resolute, Xenos, Desolace Town, The Necropolis, and the Verdantis Shardfall.
  • 39 Scenes: This release we started focusing more of the team on world building, and the results have been fantastic with 39 scenes coming online in Release 15. These scenes are a mix of completely new maps and variants of existing maps.
  • Perennial Coast: Starting with this release, we are going to focus our efforts on expanding the Novia mainland by region. For Release 15, this focus was on the Perennial Coast along the southeast tip of Novia. This region includes notable places like Solace Bridge, Ardoris, and the Tower of the Shuttered Eye. For Release 15, we feel like this region is more than 75% complete and should be completed in Release 16.
  • Resolute, Xenos and Desolace Rescheduled: These locations were not located along the Perennial Coast, so we pushed them out to future releases where they will better fit.
  • Necropolis Delayed: The Necropolis will be our first purely story driven single player scene. This is a fairly large and complex space, so we were only able to complete about 75% of the world building.
  • Verdantis Shardfall: This is the only new scene in Release 15 that is not located in the Perennial Coast, but we felt strongly that we wanted another Shardfall map, and we wanted one with a striking visual difference from Grunvald. This led us to Verdantis, which is a Shardfall on a swampy island off the northwest coast of Novia. The swamp has flooded most of the crater and the surrounding marshy forests are prime for harvesting both resources and other players (this is an Open PVP zone, after all).
  • Solania: The small town of Solania is the sole means for accessing the mysterious lake island town of Celestis. Solania is located on a high point in the Celestial Swamp that lines the southern shore of Celestial Lake, so getting there can be quite dangerous.
  • 9 New Adventure Scenes: The Perennial Coast is filled with places to adventure and gather resources. Many of these are based on previous maps but some, like Restless Woods, are almost unrecognizable as variants of existing maps. Our goal, over time, is to make sure that each of our adventure scenes are very visually distinct. In Release 15 ,these new scenes include:
    • Restless Woods
    • West Perennial Trail
    • North Celestial Wetlands
    • South Celestial Wetlands
    • West Veiled Swamp
    • East Veiled Swamp
    • Solace Woods
    • South Brightbone Woods
    • North Brightbone Woods.
  • 25 Player Forest Towns: Using the templates from the Vale (Valemark, Holtrot, etc.) we added 25 Player Towns to the Perennial Coast. While visually similar, these versions include a City Lot for larger structures. For launch, some of these towns will be replaced with Player Owned Towns.
  • Spectral Mines: Long ago, an effort was made to mine the Spectral Peaks but miners stumbled upon some ancient crypts full of undead. The miners abandoned the unstarted mines, but the Order of the Ebon Dawn have since taken over and seek to resurrect the ancient power of the Obsidians.
  • Soltown: This sleepy little town in the Brightbone Woods is one of the few civilized places in this area where players can resupply or base themselves out of.
  • Blackblade Pass South: This is the southern entrance to Blackblade Pass which runs underneath the Blackblade Lava rift. While not a map on the Perennial Coast, we plan to move North and East in upcoming releases so this map preps us for that.
• Spells & Skills: Sun and Moon Magic will expand to include more spells. The combat school of Shields will also expand, and more combos will be added to the game.
  • New Spells and Skills: We were able to add 11 new spells and skills to the game, including expansions to Moon and Sun magic that represent our first iteration of Stealth in the game! While these are all fully functional in game, many of them do not yet have Visual Effects (a side effect of moving more people to maps and the Unity 5 transition).
  • Time of Day and Location: Spells and Skills can now have varying effect based on time of day and/or location. Sun and Moon magic take the most advantage of this, but we will expand this over time.
  • Moon: Moon magic is about misdirection through confusion and stealth. Moon magic is more powerful at night and underground where the duration of effects is increased.
    • Night Vision: Buff that allows the caster to see in the dark.
    • Celestial Blessing: Buff that increases resistance to magic.
    • Animal Charm: Debuff that mesmerizes an animal target.
    • Moon Beams: Debuff that mesmerizes up to three targets in an area of effect.
    • Vanish: Buff that makes the caster enter stealth while standing still.
    • Shadow Form: Buff that allows the caster to remain in stealth while moving.
    • Night Step: Caster teleports to selected target. During the night the caster always ends up behind the target.
  • Sun:
    • Blind: Debuff that reduces the attack accuracy of the target.
    • Reveal Hidden: Reveals all hidden targets in an area around the caster.
    • Dazzling Rays: Debuff that mesmerizes up to three targets in an area of effect. Duration increases during the day.
  • Shields
    • Charge: The shield wielder runs forward into a target and smashes them with their shield, doing some damage and potentially stunning the target.
  • Balance Changes: We made a set of changes to combat math and individual spells / skills to better balance their effectiveness.
    • Regeneration Rates Reduced: Health and Focus regen rates are now at a quarter which increases the importance of stances, potions, buffs, etc.
    • Water Elemental: Starting hit points moved to 175 from 125 so they stay out longer which is critical for a support pet, in fact they now last longer than any other summoned creature.
    • Soothing Rain: Focus cost reduced to 14 from 20 and heal amount increased 25%.
    • Absorb Impacts: Duration of this buff has been doubled.
    • Healing Grace: Doubled the duration, increased the amount of healing and reduced the agro amount for this heal over time spell.
    • Healing Burst: Cast time and lock time cut in half and increased effect by 50% while reducing agro.
    • Berserker Stance: Increased Strength buff to 30 from 20.
• Housing: Property ownership will now incur regular fees (unless you are using a tax free deed from a pledge). If the fees are not paid, the player will lose their claim, and their possessions (including the house and decorations) will be moved to their bank.
  • Property Upkeep Delayed: Unity 5 work required us to push this to a later date.
  • Basements: We added 6 more basements to the game including the three Arena basements from the add on store and the Keep sized basement for Dukes.
  • House & Basement Deed Security: These deeds now work exactly like lot deeds, so when they are used they are removed from your inventory until unclaimed. This closes the loophole where a house deed could be used by multiple players.
• Crafting: Crafting skills will start to come online, and be used during crafting to modify results.
  • Crafting Advancement: Doing crafting activities including Gathering, Refining, and Producing will generate Crafting Experience and Crafting Levels. At each level, the player will receive skill points that they can invest in the various Crafting Skill Trees. Adventuring advancement also awards a few crafting skill points. For Release 15, those points can only be invested in Gathering Skills.
  • Gathering Duration and Interruption: We have begun introducing system changes to crafting to facilitate crafting skills. Gathering now has a variable duration and success rate that can be influenced by skills and tools. Gathering can also now be interrupted by combat, movement, etc.
  • Crafting Skills: We have our first set of 20 crafting skills in the game. For Release 15, we focused on the Gathering skill trees. We will expand into Refining and Production in future releases. Each of the 5 Gathering skill trees has the following skills:
    • Survey: Increases survey distance that you can see nodes.
    • Swift Gathering: Decreases the time it takes to gather resources.
    • Skillful Harvest: Increases success chance of gathering resources from nodes.
    • Meticulous Collection: Gives the gatherer the chance to find more resources in a given node by giving them a chance upon completion of gathering to not destroy the node.
• Creatures: Our creature list will continue to expand with the Fauns, the Phoenix and Wisps.
  • New Creatures Delayed: All new creatures were slain by the Unity 5 transition monster.

• Combat: Stealth mechanics will begin to appear.
  • Stealth: Our first iteration of Stealth is now in the game. For now, it is only part of Moon Magic, but in the next few releases it will be found in some Light Armor skills. For now, Stealth works by decreasing the aggro radius of creatures so they won’t notice the player (until hopefully it’s too late for them!). For players, stealthed characters are almost entirely invisible, but carefully observant players might notice the visual effect. However, we intend for that effect to be almost impossible to notice when things are dark (at night or underground).
  • Ambush Mode: Enemies now have the ability to enter an ambush state. For Release 15, you will see it for the first time in some of the skeletons you encounter. So beware, that skeleton lying on the ground may actually be a Skeletal Warrior just waiting to kill you. The AI can enter and exit this state, so you will see creatures not just get up from this mode, but you will also see them enter this mode by lying down.
  • Auto Attack Animation Variations: Animations for auto attacks now pull from a library of multiple animations for each weapon to create more visual variety. Previously, the same animation were repeated over and over.
• Customization: Clothing and Armor will now be dyeable.
  • Dyes Delayed: Due to the Unity 5 transition, we were unable to complete preparing the wearables for color customization, but we have begun the process. We are also taking the opportunity to create many more visual variations of existing armor that will be used by the crafting system to visually represent the base effects of the materials that have been introduced.
  • Male Character Rework: We have started a complete rework of the male character, including a new shader for the skin, higher resolution / more detailed textures, eyelashes, new face sculpt / skin, and detail maps for the skin.
  • Character Improvements: We did several general improvements to both the male and female characters, including new eyes that show more depth and natural iris color and adjustments to all the facial sliders. Also, eyebrows now change color with the color of the hair (at least for the male character).
• Overworld: Roving encounters (patrolling creatures) will now appear on the overworld map and can be engaged (pulling you into a scene) or avoided if you wish to sneak past. We will also have the first pass of the Novia map.
  • Roving Encounters Delayed: All roving encounters have been gobbled up by the Unity 5 transition monster. Until that beast is slain, the map will be sadly devoid of these.
  • Novia Overworld: For the first time players can walk around on Novia, and it is gorgeous! For Release 15, players will be confined to the Perennial Coast but we plan to open up more of the map each Release going forward. Please note that this is our first pass, so relative scale between landmarks may be off (ex. player towns vs. Ardoris). Novia is accessible by simply walking out of Ardoris or Solace Bridge, and those of you who wish to avoid Novia can stay on the Vale by opting to use the Lunar Rift).
  • Players Visible: Other players, not just party members are now visible on the Overworld map.
• Player Titles: Players will now be able to display their title in the game.
  • Player Titles Delayed: We decided to delay this in favor of Vendors (see below).
• Emote “Teaching”: Emotes will now be teachable to other players. Some emotes (like the ones tied to pledges) will only be teachable by the original owner. For now, “teaching” will be trading a consumable item that adds the emote via secure trade.
  • Emote “Teaching” Delayed: We decided to delay this in favor of Vendors (see below).
• Vendors: Players can now give player made items to NPC vendors in several major locations for resale. Players can set the price they wish for the item, and if the item does not sell within 7 days, they will receive 50% of the standard game value for the item. These vendors will have a per player and overall total limit to how many items they will sell at any given time. Note that Player Owned Vendors will not have these time nor item limits, but they are also not yet available in the game. In Release 15, you can find Vendors in Owl’s Head, Kingsport, Solania, and Ardoris
• Pledge / Add On Pets: We have added pet calls for most of the Pledge, Referral Bonus, and Add On Store Pets (except birds). Servants are included in this Release, but they do not yet have any functionality beyond simple follow commands. Likewise, all these pets are non-combat currently. Please note that we do not yet have they “choose 1 of 3 pets” technology so each tier will just have one of the two available assigned to them. The list added in R15 includes:
  • Pledge Rewards:
    • Siamese Cat
    • Greyhound
    • Great Dane
    • Knight Servant
    • Lynx
    • Lord Marshal Automaton Servant
    • Baron Servant
    • Imp
  • Add Ons:
    • Black Cat
    • Turkey
    • Reindeer
  • Referral:
    • Rottweiler
• Light Source on Pledge Items: Some pledge reward items include a permanent light source. We added these light sources to those items in this release, including the following:
  • Sword of the Ba’Heer
  • Knight Cloak
  • Knight Marshal Winged Helm
  • Lord Cloak
  • Lord Marshal Coronated Helm
  • Duke Cloak
• NPC Schedule Example: Abela the Barmaid in Braemar is our first example of an actual NPC Schedule. She varies her routine based on time of day and will go home at night. This is very much a proof of concept, and we will expand greatly on this moving forward.
• Bank Upgrades: Bank size is now linked to pledges and can be increased with gold in the game.
• Add On / Pledge Reward Duplication: R15 introduced new or modified pledge rewards and Add On items. In order for players to receive them, we have to reset everyone’s reward / add on data. This means that if you created a character in R14 you will have two of every reward / add on item (except for lot deeds) in R15. We know this will fill up banks for some of you, but we did this so we could avoid doing a character wipe.
• Grand Tour 15: As with each release, we will have a grand tour that will take players through the new scenes and scenes that have changed the most. Completing this quest is the ONLY way to gain this rare reward. The hat for this release is a Silver Jester Carnival Mask that we hope you will all enjoy.

So, now that it is clear what you can expect, we should also be as clear about what you should not expect:

• Performance: We have only done rudimentary optimizations, and we do not yet have a full suite of performance fallbacks (LODs, etc.). This means the game will be quite slow on older machines, and due to memory usage, and might be unstable in certain conditions (like densely decorated areas). With each release, we will be doing further optimizations and adding to our fallbacks to improve performance.
• Crafting: The crafting system is in the game as a framework, but is still missing some key components like events. Skill checks are only in for Gathering, so results are always 100% successful for Refining and Production. Long term, the percentage chance to make items will depend on a myriad of variables and can result in a variety of results including: making the item desired, making a simpler version of the item that will need to be enhanced, or making a damaged version of the item that needs repair.
• Game Loop: Release 15 is a further iteration on our rudimentary game loop, but is still missing some key components like Crafting Skills for Refining and Production. Expect this to expand with each subsequent release, but it won’t be truly complete until we hit Beta later this year.
• Advanced Player Housing: There are some advanced features for player housing, including advanced permissions and ceiling decorations that are not yet integrated. Expect to see these appear in future releases.
• Visual Quality: Efforts to improve visual quality are ongoing. We will continue to iterate on these until we have highly competitive visuals
• Pledge Rewards: Pledge Rewards that have been built and have tech to support them are in the game; all other rewards are awaiting either content creation or tech support (ex. vendors).
• Persistence: As part of development we will need to periodically wipe data including characters, property, etc. As we near official launch the frequency should decrease but there will definitely be a wipe right before launch. So consider everything gained during early access temporary.

Here are links to instructions and known issues. Thank you again for your continued support. This is truly the most amazing community we have ever worked with, and we are proud to be on this journey with you.

Sincerely,
Starr Long
aka Darkstarr
Executive Producer

 

All kinds of awesomeness this release - so many new systems on top of the migration to Unity 5. Overland map looks beautiful (devtest server).

I do hope in the future that pets we have not summoned can be parked at home to wander. Love being able to summon a pet now though - just having them follow me around makes me feel all warm inside.

 

Great job being able to port everything to U5 and still make the expected release date, I'm sure that alone was a mammoth task.

Also 39 Scenes in this release plus all the other additions like the introduction of the Novia map is just awesome!

Looking forward to Thursday, that's for sure

 

Thank you for this news!

 

That is a lot of scenes...

 

Wow, where to start? Amazing list of features for this release. Well done Devs!

Question about Sun vs Moon spells in terms of stealth.

If aMoon spell can "hide" you, and a sun spell can "reveal" you, then doesnt that make sun spells inherently more powerful than moon spells?

Moon spells dont have any ability to "dispel" or "counteract" the effects of Sun spells, therefore it seems that Sun spells are "stronger" than moon spells so to speak since they are able to do this.

Just wondering

 

Can't wait to play with Moon.

 

This is the old "Detect Hidden" vs. "Hiding/Stealth" balance. An ability to reveal does one thing: reveals hidden characters/mobs. It provides no other bonus than that, and from what I recall, it's an active ability. This means that not only does someone have to invest points into the ability, but has to be conscious of using it; otherwise the stealther can still get the jump on them.

While this Reveal spell ("Wis Quas!") serves one distinct purpose, Stealth/Hiding serves many:

1. Escaping danger or avoiding detection from dangerous parties, be it NPC or player.

2. Spying and reconnaissance.

3. Setting up ambushes, be it NPC or player.

4. Safely going AFK (potentially).

Moon doesn't need a special buff to diffuse the reveal ability. This is coming from someone who fully intends to employ stealth (ran a Stealther more-or-less since it was introduced over a decade ago in UO and in pretty much every game since).

 

Wow thats alot of stuff.

 

for those who haven't tested the QA server and don't know yet... there are more than enough spaces for homes. no joke. Also looks rather good for the humble stuff they said in their release notes. Anybody who has backed this game should be quite pleased, because when all is said and done this game should be quite successful.

 

so strike through property upkeep costs?

Looking forward to the crafting stuff.

Also... "but we did this so we could avoid doing a character wipe."

Thank yoU!!!

 

That's a cool system, so long as you can't Tab-target stealthers and you can't potentially click them from far off (which I don't see as a problem since you can't click far off mobs as it is). ArcheAge had a cool system where they had a transparent image of them sneaking around if you were close enough to them. I think you also had to face that direction, but could be wrong. Something along those lines is actually pretty engaging; being straight up invisible, running around with a cloaking device is silly and takes the skill out of the ability. It also allows people to actively look and find stealthers if the stealther isn't careful about concealing themselves.

Thanks for the insight, Chris.

 

For me staying tab-targetable is a huge problem. It totally swings the unbalance back the other way. What we're doing is making it so every player has to be paranoid now. Every player has to hit tab over and over again as their "active defense".

I think spells and skills like Vanish, Mirror Image, and Blink should all break tab targetting when they're initially cast. Then tab targeting should work after that. In the case of Blink, it just makes the player stay focused. In the case of mirror image it forces them to determine what image they want to fight. In the case of vanish the player has to stand still for it to work, so there inherent balance there already. You can use Reveal (and there should be another skill on the combat tree that does this too) to find stealthed characters. Also, I don't have a problem with players clicking manually on players that are stealthed, that just means they didn't pick a good place to hide.

In the case of shadow form, where you can then move while stealthed, I think the balance is still there, but players should have to click on you to break your stealth. My biggest problem being the automatic reveal by spamming tab.

 

Stealth is a very complex topic. I always find it silly when people just become invisible while sneaking. They are on an open field with no cover in sight during the brightest day, sneak and suddenly become invisible. And monsters, NPCs and other people simply don't see them even if they are right in front of them. This is just stupid.
I know it is hard to implement a good stealth system that is also somewhat realistic but if I had to choose I would rather have a stealth system in which people do not become invisible and can be seen if they don't watch out for cover. A stealth system could make footsteps inaudible and maybe help the player jump behind a cover very quickly but if there is no cover, then sneaking people should just be seen normally. At night, people could become a bit harder to spot - if they wear dark clothes...

 

I like your definition of Live.

 

It would be cool / interesting if the tesla towers and windmill generators interfered with stealth and some other magical abilities. Basically rendering them useless or less-useful in towns which have such devices. It would also make such devices more desirable (more than the obvious electrical generating abilities).

It would also add a modicum of "safety" for PvPers in town.

 

Starr said that you'd be able to see some visual cue of stealthers, at least during the day. I'm thinking something like PlanetSide 2 cloaking where there's a clear distortion if you look carefully for it. If so, abilities like Moon's Night Vision or even Sun's Light will potentially illuminate an area enough that you can more easily spot those figures running around stealthed. I just hope, if it does function as I described, that staying still (day or night) will make you nearly invisible altogether, and only become more obvious as you move around.

Side note: it was pretty cool watching bushes and limbs sway as stealthers stalked through swamps in ArcheAge, like raptors on the prowl. You knew it was about to go down.

 

I hate that too. I know we're trying to simulate a stealth "like" effect, but I'd appreciate any added complexity we can offer. When I was trying it out yesterday for the first time on the QA server I noticed my sword looked like it wasn't steatlthed but my body was. I think this might be a good reason to use a short sword or a dagger (maybe they add more to your stealth skill and larger weapons take away more?) Just a thought.

 

"If you change the house on your lot or unclaim your lot entirely, all decorations will be routed to the nearest bank. The bank will accept these items even if doing so would overload the item or weight limit, but you will not be able to bank new items until you clear sufficient space or weight."

Just to clarify, is this to the bank nearest to your current location? Or to the lot you just gave up. Please let it be the former. If I give up a lot in town A to move to town B, I'd rather not have to make 10 trips to the town A bank to get my stuff...


"If an item expires without being purchased the Public Vendor will remove the item and credit you half the item’s value, collectable from the nearest bank. That is half the value listed on the item, not half the price you were selling the item for. Note that the item itself will not be returned and should be considered gone."

The option for 1/2 value or return to nearest bank (if there is room) would be nice...