Recap: Developer Chat 5/31/13 with Screenshots (FOCUS ON HOUSING, ADVENTURE)

Recap of the 5/31 developer chat with with Lord British, B, Bill, Chris, Mike, FireLotus. This includes the major points from the video. As always, I am human and can mishear or misinterpret, so I encourage all to watch the videos.

If you notice anything here that is wrong, please contact me. Thanks!

Video Link: <a href="http://youtu.be/Ws0XtcrkC8o">http://youtu.be/Ws0XtcrkC8o</a>


- Talked about doubling the map size and cleaning up the overland map, and getting the cloth map ready.

- They talked again about how they are now co-mingling village/town/city (V/T/C) plots, for example there might be an affluent area of a town that holds city level houses. Villages will be mostly village (small) lots. Cities will be mostly city (large) lots. The icon on the map will show the town type, but V/T/C lots can show up in any type of town.

- Even in a village lot, there will be a range of house sizes that will fit in the lot. If you want significantly ?grander,? then yes you will need to upgrade your lot size.

- Hilly Village Concept: Central township with shops, NPCs, etc. The brown, silver, gold lots are small, medium and large lots. A few waterfront properties. Three entrances to village.

<a href="http://forsakenvirtues.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/hillyvillageconcept.jpg">Hilly Village Prototype Screenshot 1</a>
<a href="http://forsakenvirtues.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/hillyvillageconcept2.jpg">Hilly Village Prototype Screenshot 2</a>
<a href="http://forsakenvirtues.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/hillyvillageconcept3.jpg">Hilly Village Prototype Screenshot 3</a>
<a href="http://forsakenvirtues.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/hillyvillageconcept4.jpg">Hilly Village Prototype Screenshot 4</a>



- Prototypical Town. Shows lots of each different size, waterfront lots, logical flow. Upper right corner might be the city lots with fortified wall. Middle section would have town lots and services. The outskirts are village level lots. They are still mapping out scales and distances. The gray boxes just designate the lot sizes for the prototype. They are still in the process of moving beyond the prototype artwork from the original demo.
Prototypical Town

<a href="http://forsakenvirtues.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/prototypicaltown.jpg">Prototypical Town Screenshot 1</a>
<a href="http://forsakenvirtues.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/prototypicaltown2.jpg">Prototypical Town Screenshot 2</a>


- With all layouts, they want make sure they function as a city, but also to make sure they have gameplay mechanics to handle sieges by the ?dark forces.?

- They are trying to make sure that for all lot sizes, they have themes that are available to all the different lot sizes and are scaled up or down. So a village level would have a single wizard tower structure, while a town or city will have more of a wizard ?complex? of multiple towers. This means that if you are a knight, you can keep your special knight house reward even if you someday upgrade from village to town/city.

<a href="http://forsakenvirtues.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/lordhouses.jpg">Lord Houses - CONCEPT PROTOTYPE Screenshot</a>


- They will be adding a lot of different styles of housing including non-traditional.

<a href="http://forsakenvirtues.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/nontraditionalhouses.jpg">House Concepts - WORK IN PROGRESS, SUBJECT TO CHANGE - Screenshot</a>


- For village houses, it typically means one main room/living area. Town level will have at least 2 living areas, and city dwellings will be mansion size. You will have a wide variety of theme options (e.g., knight, druid, specialty housing)


<a href="http://forsakenvirtues.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/entrylevelfarmhouse.jpg">Entry Level Farmer?s House Screenshot</a>


- LB thinks every V/T/C should have a ?secret area of interest? to discover and explore. The catacombs will be accessible from a number of V/T/c.

- They want to ?visually brand? the V/T/Cs so you know where you are and they will be uniquely designed.

- Your vendor is visible in every instance and every player will see it (and your home.)

- If you have a rent-free deed, you will keep the rent-free status even if you upgrade to a bigger lot size later.

- They probably won?t allow public use of your crafting stations in your house, but its still under discussion (you can assign friends that can use it.) One of the benefits of towns/cities is the public stations and they do not want to diminish that.

- There will be many houses to choose from, but you will not be able to customize floor plans in episode 1. Maybe in later episodes.

- They are still deciding if house kindred can change house decor.

- Decorating and crafting are topics they?d like to discuss in near-future hangouts.

- Adventure scenario: each instance will likely last no less than 5 minutes for a tiny one, and no more than an hour for a large one. They should have combat, puzzles, story advancement, some secrets you may not find on your first try to give you a reason to come back again. The amount of combat and puzzles will vary between the scenarios and some may be built entirely towards one over the other.

- They showed an instance example of a lich?s keep and surrounding vale. Players enter through the bottom into ?spider forest.? Abandoned village with some skeletons and other enemy types, graveyard. Drawbridge will have a puzzle to solve to open, or you can find another way to get to the keep like a secret cavern, and a few different ways to get into the keep. Then epic battle with lich!

<a href="http://forsakenvirtues.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/lichvale.jpg">Lich?s Vale Screenshot</a>


- The dev forums are coming soon, just working out final bugs, and then they will send out notices to eligible people.

- Payment plans are in testing.

- When a dev is playing, they are not sure yet how they will be visible to all players in all instances. They may be able to host instances themselves for special events, which can hold more players.

- A player asked: How do you invite someone to be a friend if you can only see your friends in the game? You will see more than just your friends. Beyond your friends that are in the instance, there will also be many other people in the instance (friends of friends, and then strangers that share your level/interest, etc).

- Expectation is that character appearance will be changeable after character creation.

- Getting drunk will probably not actually give buffs (but you can roleplay as such)? like real life!

- They will get some mod tools in for episode 1 due to the $2.25M stretch goal. They will update stretch goals soon.

- Next demo will be shown at Rooster Teeth Expo in July.

 

Thank you B for the shout out to our efforts on the SotA Minecraft Server, the project is coming along well and we'll be working on the BIG map this weekend and on. Still looking for volunteers to get in on this amazing experience early!

Find all the details here: http://holtironfell.blogspot.ca/2013/05/the-shroud-of-avatar-minecraft-server.html

Interested parties contact holt.ironfell@gmail.com

Looking forward to hearing from any of you ready to help set up one of the most memorable pre-release experiences of the Shroud of the Avatar world for the Community to enjoy.

~Holt Ironfell
Grandmaster Bard of Poets' Circle

 

Thank you Dame Lori for a great recap! I made sure to publish it to the SotA Facebook group (Shroud of the Avatar is the group name, come join us!).

Also very interesting idea Holt! I definitely would not be on the build team as I am a bit embarrassed to admit this, but I have zero experience with mine craft. Embarrassed because I am usually versed somewhat in all things gaming. However please be sure to post an update when things are ready for more of a play mode and ill try it out! Also made sure to give you a link on the caverns website and posted the info and link for people in a few places.

-Stile
Guild Leader of Caverns, Dungeons, and Beyond
www.thecaverns.net

 

Thanks Lori! I will be sure to publish this on my church website, the Religion of LB! Also I'll forward a link to my local paper and tack it up on the employment board at my favorite place, Wal-Mart.....

 

Thanks for the recap, Dame Lori. I am traveling and so not always able to watch the videos.

 

thanks a lot for the Recap. Just watching the Devchat now =)