Greetings one and all...

Good morning folks,

So me and the wife have jumped in with both feet and are having a fantastic time learning everything we can about this game, we both went with ancestor accounts, mainly for the free land/house and the 3 toons.

Were both around 30ish advent levels now and 15ish prod levels and up until now we have been having a ball fighting/harvesting and such and exploring to no end, we saw where Paxlair was yesterday and even though I personally dont get the point of a player owned towns it was gorgeous none the less, btw what I dont get is whats the point besides maybe a RP standpoint? are they going to allow a portals in the biggest towns?

So here comes the question parts and observations part:

1. The game is no where near complete right? I have seen the schedules for different updates and such but there is a massive gap in playable content right now, easily 2/3 of the map isnt even populated with anything right now, it seems like the gaming community is under the impression this is going to full release this year, least from what ive seen.

2. Is there something we are missing? we have seen dungeons and such but are exp supposed to cap around 1-2k ish per mob as you get to a certain point and you just farm them all the way to max level? what is max level btw? or is that still in the air?

3. Gathering and crafting are not even fully implemented yet but at least for gathering its fun as heck, crafting while just a shell of itself as im understanding is abysmal to say the least, hopefully its upcoming changes will greatly improve it, the idea of the massive qty's needed to make something that vendors sell almost the exact same for less is truly disheartening, main question here where do these recipies sell from? we have seen the Owls head ones but for some others we cant find at all, the wiki just seems to list the recipies and not say where there purchased.

4. We understand that thousands of folks have pledged to this game, we also understand its in a testing phase but dang where are all the people at? we have logged alot of hours this past week and weekend and barely ever see 1-2 people, funny enough alot of them wearing the BMC guild tag where are all the people hanging out and testing or are there any?

5. Traveling, I see the horses on the stretch goal list and I gotta say hopefully this comes through no matter what, even though the map is what I would consider extremely small on the overland part compared to other mmorpgs running everywhere is going to be a HUGE turnoff for folks, is there more then the one set of portals betweens owls/soltown bridge? I read or watched somewhere that the portal was supposed to change destinations but ive waited and never seen it do it any idea why?

6. Non player owned towns, smaller ones specifically any idea why no row lots? the appeal of being packed in like sardines in Ardoris isnt all that appealing and im sure places like player owned towns will have waiting lists 9 miles long already and im assuming they would have to be the max level towns to even allow rows themselves.

7. Hehe ok whose idea was it that ghosts were balanced? using strategy me and the wife have been able to handle quite a bit, but these buggers are insane, 1 we can barely do at a time, 2 or more forget it, its run or die time and since you cant barely even see them its usually die.

8. Lack of Info on housing, can anyone tell me how many items a chest and hold can hold and if there actually secure? I know there are public chests for folks to get things out of but are chests inside a locked house secure? and if so how many chests/items can a house hold? I havnt been able to find anything on this.


I know its alot to question but frankly the search function on the forums arent the best and finding answers that arent outdated in those searches is also a problem. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you

 

Welcome on board

 

1. Game is no where near complete nope. It is still in Pre-Alpha stage for awhile. Good thing is there are lots of work on a regular basis, so game is going in the good way.
I do not think so it will be released this year. Too early.

2. Experience and levels do not show the final gameplay. It is now a mere design that will be polished upon releases.

3. I don't do crafting/gathering yet

4. People tend to test alot when release is coming. But they don't remain alot in the game few weeks after. There will be a new release in few days, so you will be able to see players

5. In my personal opinion horses stretch goal is a joke. I do not think we will ever reach this goal. But sooner or later they will implement them into game. We need mounts

6. Don't know.

7. Nothing is balanced. It is just design for the moment.

8. Don't know.

See you

 

Greetings and congratulations

 

Welcome Halic and wife!

SotA is yet in pre-Alpha and 30. July gives a wipe and then comes Release 20.

 

#8. All chests are automatically locked from everyone else but the owner

Except

The public cache chest. This guy's access it set to all. Like a geochest or a mailbox.

Number of items? Lots. I have not reached a limit yet and put maybe 150 items in one.


Just to add. You can lock the houses doors which would prevent anyone from accessing any chest inside, even public cache chests.

Btw. welcome!!!!

 

This game is mostly about decorating houses, tbh.

 

3. For now Owl's Head is the only place to get ALL the recipes. Most of the numbers right now are just place holders.. that includes pricing. Keeping in mind that not only have most of the crafting skills not yet been implemented.. but all those components you can only get from vendors right now? Those will all be harvestable as well.

4: Keep an eye on the community calendars for scheduled events. People usually show up for those. You just have to know where to look.

5: While none of the stretch goals are likely to hit their mark.. they will all eventually make it into the game. It's just making the goal will get them in sooner.

6: Due to the space available for each player owned town type.. many of them will include row housing. Also the smaller "player run" towns you see scattered about are almost certainly place holders themselves. They all use the same template right now just so they could be put into game to provide housing. I believe we should expect many of those to change as well.

7: Ghosts scare me!

8: Item limits on houses depend on the lot size. I don't know the actual numbers though.. yes chests are secure.

 

Welcome!

There are many reasons why people choose to live in a POT, but one good reason that might appeal to you is that by reserving a spot in a POT, you know where you will be living and don't have to worry about participating in the "land rush" when the game is released. This is especially interesting for friends (or spouses) who want to live next to one another or in the same neighborhood in order to easily share resources.

4. There are few people online now because we are expecting a complete game wipe on July 30. That shouldn't dampen your motivation to explore the world as it is right now, but many people who have been playing for a long time are taking a break while waiting for Release 20. The testing for R19 has really run its course. Instead, those with access are already testing the upcoming release 20 on the QA server.
You see a lot of BMC members because as far as I know BMC is the largest guild in the game now with over 500 members.

 

Hi and welcome Halic! I'll just try to add to the good advice you've already had.

Yes the game is nowhere near complete.The mechanics are going in, much detail will come later. The map is gradually being filled in; about 6 releases ago (give or take) we only had the Hidden Vale to play on. It's a progressive process. It is a hope (nothing more) that full release might happen around the end of the year. But we wait and see

ALL numbers XP, prices for goods, materials etc are placeholder. The first priority is to get the mechanic into the game and make sure it basically works. All values - of everything - will be more sensible once the team has a chance to polish things and before the game is released. Max level - unknown. Some of the community have reached level 100 - a truly awesome achievement. I have a suspicion that once the game goes live experience gain will be much slower.

Gathering is sort of OK - you can put points into it - but refining and manufacturing has not been touched yet. Safe to say that it works in a rudimentary fashion. Again, big changes are coming, and quantities of material etc will change radically. At the moment recipes can be purchased from the guys in Owls Head, in the store just behind the skills trainer.

Yes as has been said, this is a testing phase. Expect to see lots of people in the first week, tapering off later. There is a full wipe happening for release 20, so understandably people don't do a lot of decoration etc knowing it's all going to disappear.

Horses - yes, much desired, along with ships that actually sail. With a team of (about) 35, they are fully stretched trying to get essential content into the game. All of that will come sometime - possibly between Episode 1 and Episode 2. When they have the time, money and resources to do it. There will be portals in the final iteration - like maybe two more than now - but that again we have to wait on.

Towns - already well answered

Ghosts - yes they are tough Although at level 59 and with an appropriate build I eat them for breakfast

Quantities for chests and houses - not sure. But yes, if you have a chest in your house no-one else can mess with it (unless you specifically include them as "kindred" in your lot permissions. And that includes your property in the house.

Have fun!

 

Welcome to SotA

 

As others have said, the game we currently see is far from complete, release was originally slated for last year I believe then pushed back to the end of this year and will be pushed back further, although it's possible alpha testing will be announced in the next few months (we are currently in 'pre-alpha'). Some pledges and pledge rewards are to be removed in August in anticipation of this.
Regarding the map, I understand some areas will remain closed off at first and only become available in later episodes (of which there are 5) - not everything will be available in episode 1.

You can discover new recipes by trial and error, even with no recipes in your book, just keep adding different combinations of materials to the crafting station and if they will make an item, the 'Craft' button lights up. Best strategy is buy 1 or 2 recipes of each 'type' e.g. chain armour, bladed weapon, spear etc and make slight changes to discover other variants yourself; for instance, daggers and longswords and 2-handed swords are all variants of the same recipe, just need a different mold and different number of ingots to make the blade.

The portal used to cycle between locations when new areas were tested, before the mainland was developed, as there was no way to access them from the overland map, so that stopped a while ago

Balanced can still be difficult so far it seems like ghosts are the super-monster to be avoided, although giant monsters should start appearing soon which might suddenly make ghosts seem a bit tame...

Welcome to SotA!

 

BTW I do want again to thank you all, these replies have been excellent, this seems to be a really excellent community of folks

 

Welcome Halic and wife to Shrouds. How nice that you are experiencing this adventure together. I often times hear guys say they wish there wives or significant others would be interested, so you are very fortunate. So I will chime in also regarding not seeing many people you have heard the scoop already. August 30 should show you many many other players. I try to stick with the game the whole release playing here and there to make sure Ive explored all the new areas and seen new things. Like in Grunvald Barrons if you jump up on a rock there is a skeleton with a letter. It would be easy to miss. In another place I picked up a key and talked to an NPC unknowingly who needed it. She or he I forgot said hey you found my key. We should be seeing more and more of that. So little content is in the game right now. There will be clues lying around so it will be fun knowing that fact. There will be more wearables and more interactive items, content and everything. Lots of exciting times a head.

Anyway so we will get fishing in R22 which will be a big deal to give us more to do, well heres hoping. Also this release is the first iteration of taming and dont mistake any of the systems you see, prices, etc as correct they will change as others mentioned to balance it out. So we play with what we have and then give our thoughts on them and new thoughts and ideas are great.

Combat is being worked on a lot so expect changes for the next releases.

I listened to a interview with Darkstarr and he mentioned that there would be about 3 moon rifts located on the Novia map. So travel will be there we just dont know how often we can use it and all the details yet.

The stretch goals as mentioned will come into the game when they get to them. The high price tag doesnt mean they won't come in game but really theres not time for them, but someone could perhaps be brought in to help with that price tag, so in case they funded they would be added now or sooner , otherwise they will come in when they get to them. Probably not until Episode one since the Devs are swamped with things to do before then.

I know what you mean about Player owned towns. When I first heard about them I was like no way, why would we need them, but now I know. So Richard Garriott is making a game where they will as much as possible provide us with tools to create extra content and things to do in the game. The game of course will have wonderful deep and interesting content on its own, but we also will be able to create quests if we want and use our geo-cache chests writing clues on parchment or books, or writing rules, also placing rewards in there. So Player Owned towns cropping up will eventually have themes. I will be in a town called Wizards Rest for example and it will have a Wizardly theme to it in a snowy biome. also we'd love ice fishing, but we don't know what the ultimate rules with be as the game develops past Episode one. Some towns are having a PVP theme. Player owned vendors are coming in next release so visiting towns will be interesting to see what they have and are about. Not as fun always at the moment since so much is not in yet or fully functioning yet.

yes Ghosts are tough, well for me too. I dont have any death magic which helps to counter their life steal. It is not a bad thing to have some tough creatures though. The Earth elementals also kill me. I can kill them usually with another person, but I struggle on my own and I am level 56 right now.

Ok sorry to go on and on. Hopefully you got your Kobald masks, if not just ask. Again I'm glad you both joined us. I am majoria in the game if you friend me, send me a whisper sometime. I'd be happy to help if I can. **cheers**

*edited to correct typos*

 

welcome!! from what i gather we haven't even seen the tip of the ice berg.

 

when does release 20 start, btw? I couldnt seem to find it on the blog.

 

July 30. You will find the Q3 schedule here: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/q3-2015-schedule-update.33004/

 

From me, too, a very heartfelt welcome!

Everything has been said, and it was mentioned that some of the pledge rewards are going to go away and some stacking is going to be removed. As this is going to reduce income it seems to me that Alpha is coming this year. Beta maybe, depending on how well the Alpha goes. Full release? Not likely this year. Then again, a full release in time for christmas gifts might be a good idea. Who knows?
It does not matter though. We do have a great game to play with and it is only getting better.

Enjoy the game and see you out there in the wild!