For gamers who remember the Ultima series and those who had the opportunity to play in the legendary Ultima Online, this may interest you!
Do note the game is split into 5 episodes, the current entry Adventurer pledge USD45 grants only the first episode. If you want all 5 episodes, you'll want the Explorer - all digital pledge is USD135. This game is not for everyone because it doesn't have alot of bling bling, not about gear, has no classes or power-leveling. It is more about adventuring and exploring together old school in the style of UO, EQ1 or SWG. It has a very strong crafting system, very in-depth skill tress, no classes, will have pets to tame, will have player housing, reagents for spells etc.
If you are interested in pledging, please PM me as we can help you get the Early Backer Rewards. Otherwise you'll only get Benefactor rewards.
Journey to the world of Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, a computer role playing game created by Lord British (aka Richard Garriott), creator of the genre defining Ultima series of computer games, Starr Long, director of Ultima Online, and Tracy Hickman, author of the Dragonlance series. It combines rich story, like those of the single player Ultimas, with deep and varied multiplayer experiences, like Ultima Online.
Players will adventure in an interactive world where their choices have consequences, ethical paradoxes give them pause, and they play a vital part in weaving their own story into the immersive world and lore surrounding them. Play options will include solo, friends only, or open multiplayer via the Selective Multiplayer system. Players can specialize in a wide range of combat and non-combat skills, provided by a robust, classless skill system, and full-featured crafting and housing mechanics.
Shroud is crowd funded and that allows the developers to work directly for, and with, the player, versus working for a large publishing corporation. Shroud is also crowd sourced so players can submit Unity compatible content (art, sfx, music, world building, etc). Once submitted content is approved the submitter can choose to be compensated in real or virtual currency.
Built using the Unity Game Engine, Shroud of the Avatar will support Win/Mac/Linux for official launch at the end of 2014. Backers gain early access at the end of 2013.
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SotA FAQ
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some screenshots from the latest alpha build.
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/ind...ng-skills.3937/
Ok skills discussion thread that used to be in Dev+ forum is now public. Do read up.
Sigil cloaks
more details here:
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=33594#more-33594
those interested in the installer music, please look at the first post. i'm not going to share the direct link. so enjoy
https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/ind...246/#post-81838
Chapter 5 of the serialized SotA novel written by Tracy Hickman & Richard Garriott.
Reveal of the Founder Edelmann Waterfront Cabana
New weapons & equipment:
more from: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=34088#more-34088
Dev Hangout Recap: Multiplayer in Shroud of the Avatar - Forsaken Virtues - Shroud of the Avatar
New Stretch Goal:
If they hit $3.25M, Richard and Starr with fence in puffy shirts.
Bonuses:
1) If they get to $3.25 by R3 (Feb. 20) – there will be a cheesy training montage video with Rustic (Joseph) showing Starr how to fence.
2) If they make it to $3.3M by R3, the loser of the fencing match will jump in the cold lake next to Richard’s property.
Q&A- Matchmaking
1)* Will I be able to filter out one individual?
You can block someone’s text, but not block them from view.
2) How does friending work?
Similar to Google+.. You can add someone to your friends list.* They will get a notice that you did so.* Then they can add you if they wish.
This style may result in people you don’t like tracking you, so they need to experiment with this.
3)* Can we change the criteria for sorting the matchmaking?
They will be building algorithms over time as they get players feedback and test results.* It is not planned to allow players to adjust parameters.
4) Can I whitelist/blacklist players, guilds, factions, etc. from purchasing from my vendor?
They like the idea of allowing* you to only sell to certain groups.* They may add this after E1.
5) Can I set a strangers-only mode?
They like this idea, and Chris gives a “why would you want to do that?” example of acting out your cross dress fantasies over by the docks…* LOL
6) How can we locate other players in multiplayer mode?
They plan to allow seeing locations of people on your social list.* If they are in a non-adventuring area like a town, they would consider allowing you the option to go into their instance.
7)* What factors go into matching in OPO?
They are working through this.* Factors can be:* How long has the instance been open or what is the party’s distance into the dungeon?* (they wont let more people in at some point.)* Other factors include friends, guildmates, kindred,* have you traded before, have you completed a quest together, etc.
8) What is the planned handing of Friends Mode when you don’t share friends?
You will see friends of friends if your shared friend is there.* Statistically it should be uncommon for a long string of “friends of friends” to show up.
Q&A- Parties, Guilds, More
1) How will joining your friends in a scenario in progress work?
You will join at entrance – you can’t appear where they are.* In some cases the map will have respawned and you will have to fight your way through to your party.* There might be a summon player spell.
2) How will your party chat with NPCs?* Will we overhear other player NPC conversations?
They are still discussing and they will be taking feedback from players.* There is a problem with players overhearing spoilers, so they may whisper back spoiler/quest stuff.
3)* How will multiplayer mode prevent/permit other players from joining your private scenarios?
Some plot relevant scenes will be private, and some adventuring spaces will be public.* This is scene dependent.
4)* How will loot be split in multiplayer?
“As fairly as they can make it happen.”
They are considering all ways of this from free-for-all, to tagging, to most damage…* probably not entitlement (everyone gets loot.)* It’s easy for them to change tech-wise, so they will test it out.
5) Multiplayer aspects of house ownership?
Multiple levels of house permissions:
- Closed – only you can get on property
- Kindred – can do what you can do on the property except sell/switch house structure. They can decorate, place vendor, craft.
- Guildmates – set permission so guildmates can come to property but they can’t necessarily change things.
- Friends – friends can come to property, use crafting but can’t decorate.
- Open, public – players can come to property and use crafting station but can not modify your home/possessions.
- Guild property – property of guild, the guild become like kindred – not the same as specific guild structures, which will be discussed after R4.
6) When will we get to hear more about guild housing?
After R4.
7) Will guildmates have priority sorting in multiplayer?*
Yes and they may sort ahead of friends.
8) What about the population limit in a hex when it comes to guild wars?
They recommend doing large scale guild battles in multiple areas.* They will know more about the number limits around R3/R4.
[insert comment from Lord British about the UO drunken naked vomiting mobs of UO]
9) How many players can use crafting table at once?
Concerns are visual (standing on top of each other, etc) but they don’t plan on having limits on public stations because of griefing potential.
10) Will characters have trading ability?
There will be secure person to person trading.
11)* How will offensive players be dealt with in game?
You can ignore another player (remove their speech).* There will be a support staff handling reports.* They are discussing a karma system.
12) The results of moving from peer to peer to Portalarium hosted servers?
Too many problems with peer to peer.* Port hosted = more security, privacy, tracking suspicious activity.* It does introduce a little more lag and they are working on this.
13) In game voice chat?* Will there filters, tabs for text chat?
Standard chat channels, filters, such as chat from friends, guild, local, crafting results,* catch-all.
For E1 they are not planning integrated voice chat.
14)* How will harvesting resources be handled in multiplayer?* Is it personal, competitive, go in your own instance?* Will there be more resources in OPO?
Instance is randomly seeded with resources.* Once you are harvesting a node, you won’t be competing for that node.* You may be competing with other people on the same map to get to each node.
If there are more players, more nodes may show up on map, or may have more resources.* If theres a PVP flag there may be some competition.* There will likely be an increase in the chance of rare resources in challenging areas (be it challenging PVE or PVP)
15) Will there be more mob spawns in OPO to account for extra people?
Depends on the zone.* Some spaces will have a pre-defined number/difficulty.* Others may change dynamically.
16) Can we drop items on the ground?* Can people use them?* What permissions to use/pick up?
Richard thinks there are roleplay reasons to work through the problems associated with allowing item placement in public areas.
Starr’s thoughts- Currently, if it’s your house property, you can place items anywhere on the property.* In public spaces, there are issues like bypassing secure trade (scamming).* Creating black holes by putting too many objects in one spot.* People trapping you with furniture.
They can solve these issues, but it takes work and time.
Chris’ thoughts – allows for emergent behavior so they will likely compromise.* They want to retain emergent behavior but limit griefing.
17) How can complex story be built into a multiplayer game?
Richard acknowledges the difficulty of this, and is striving for a mix of your own individual accomplishments, and other times when it is not necessary to feel like you are the one sole hero.
Q&A- Submitted during the $3M Celebration
1) Any more scene jams planned?
They want to, but they have been busy with releases.* After R4.
LB is expecting to take contributions for music and art.* Will provide guidance soon.
2) How will death be handled, loot on death, blessed items?
Anything that is part of your pledge rewards or any add-on store item would be immune to loot in a pvp situation.
The rules about looting are still being worked out.* They have an idea about taking some items from body, but victim can pay ransom to get items back.
3)* How will guild properties be obtained?
- declaring your own house open to the guild
- an actual guild hall that have requirements to obtain (details post R4)
4) Will guild houses be of unique types?
Yes there will be guild exclusive buildings.
5)* Does game client make use of hyperthreading?
Yes
6) Will any responsibilites be required of players with titles?* eg. if you are a knight, are you required to defend the town?
They like these ideas, not for E1.
7)* Rogue skills?
Nothing to share yet, working on it.
8)* Death penalty?
No details yet.* Goal: death has consequence- be it a course run, cost, experience hit… without being overly brutal.
9) How do you balance the economy when some players take risks in OPO PVP and others don’t?
One way is to put the rare resources in the challenging areas, but they emphasized that the reward of PVP is the PVP play and challenge itself.
10) Where is the line drawn between RPing evil or being bannable?
Judgment call by support staff.* Are you within the TOS?* No harassment, no racial slurs, etc.
11) Can you combine spells and combat skills?
There is nothing that limits them technically from making these combos.* So, yes.
12) Can you elaborate on how I can help with assets?
Busy through R4, they will get to this after R4.
There is a spreadsheet with Unity assets they are looking for in the Dev Depot.
13) Can you strategically hide behind objects to avoid ranged attacks?
Yes, they can do that (it’s not in the schedule though)
Instant direct spells will not be avoidable once cast.* You may be able to avoid some damage from fireballs and such by movement.
from: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/ind...y-meeting.7156/
looks like MP is coming along nicely.
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https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/ind...l-backers.7234/With the recent influx of New Founders, we feel it is important to differentiate all the original backers who, during our brief Kickstarter campaign, championed our team and our project. It was their efforts and generosity that allowed the Shroud of the Avatar project to happen! To that end, we will be recognizing our original backers (those who backed us before May 20, 2013) with the title Royal Founder. We will also be creating a set of Royal Founder items that include the Founder symbol with a white color scheme (instead of the blue color scheme). These rewards are in addition to all the other Founder rewards and are associated with the same tiers (i.e. Shield for Adventurers/First Responders/Second Responders, Cloak for Immortal Adventurer, etc.).
The list of Royal Founder items includes:
Cloak
Shield
4 Starter Armors
2 Melee Weapons
Tunic
2 Ranged Weapons
Plaque
Taming Horn
Crystal Sword
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devs just shared that being rude to NPCs now has consequences....
more @ http://www.tentonhammer.com/features/inter...h-tracy-hickmanRicoxg: Mr. Hickman, it?s a real pleasure to meet you. I?d like to start by asking about the genesis of Blade of the Avatar and how this collaboration with Richard Garriott came about.
Tracy Hickman: Richard and I have actually known each other since the mid-80s. We met at DragonCon all those years ago and have been friends since. I?d played Ultima and was a big fan of his and it turns out that he?d read a couple of my books and was a fan of mine. So when I heard Richard was doing Shroud of the Avatar, I called right away to tell him I was glad to hear he was doing something new and asked if there was anything I could do to help.
The more we got to talking about it, the more we realized that my schedule really gave me an opportunity to work on the project, and Richard was pretty excited to have my help on the story. We?d realized that finally after all these years, we might have an opportunity to collaborate on something. Then when he asked if I?d like to help create the story, I said that I?d love to.
Definitely a must read for SotA players
more @ http://www.tentonhammer.com/features/inter...igin-of-speciesAs I pointed out in my recent interview with Tracy Hickman, some fantastic information was dropped in my lap that I felt would make an excellent article. Tracy let me in on the back-story for magic in Shroud of the Avatar, as well as the origin of the non-human races in the new game. I immediately fired off a note to Richard Garriott to ask if I could use the new information. He not only agreed, but spent some time on a call to give me additional information on the subject.
Fans of the game will be interested in what comes next because this is information that hasn’t been released anywhere else yet, but I’d like to specifically capture the attention of those who aren’t following the game as closely yet. The way history is being handled in SotA and the thoughtfulness behind the meta-human species in Shroud are indicative of professional game development taken to the point where it becomes art. Yes, I am a fan of the work that’s being done here, but hopefully I’m about to demonstrate for you why this is something worthy of your fanaticism.
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https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=35430
re’s what we have for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:
Hearts of Britannia Valentine’s Poetry Reading!
Extra, Extra Early R3 Test Results
Founder Lord Waterfront Houseboat
Blade of the Avatar Novel: Chapter 9
Hearth of Britannia Cabinet of Virtues
Tanning Knife of Prosperity
The 6-More Pack of Prosperity
Stretch Goals: Lord British vs. Darkstarr
Last Week for the Pantheon Kickstarter Special Cross-Game Cloak
New Events Page
Only 52 Days Remain to Purchase/Upgrade/Gift Founder Pledges
Only 52 Days Remain to Purchase/Upgrade/Gift Founder Pledges
Until the promotion ends on April 7th, 2014, Founder backers will be able to purchase and/or gift additional Founder pledges containing all the original Founder rewards, as well as upgrade any of their pledges at original Kickstarter prices. After April 7th, prices for upgrades, gifts, and purchases will increase to Benefactor prices and no new Founder pledges can be created. Don’t miss out!
For those who remember the Ultima games or ever yearned for UO, EQ or even SWG to return, please contact a known Founder to assist if you are interested to be a Founder in SotA.
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