WARNING: THIS GAME IS EARLY ACCESS. PLEASE DO NOT PURCHASE IT UNLESS YOU WANT TO ACTIVELY SUPPORT DEVELOPMENT OF THE GAME VIA CROWD FUNDING, BUG TESTING, AND FEEDBACK. PLEASE ONLY PURCHASE IF YOU ARE ALSO PREPARED TO HANDLE PERIODIC WIPES, SERIOUS ISSUES AND INCOMPLETE CONTENT. PLEASE READ THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS PRIOR TO PURCHASE, MANY OF WHICH WARN YOU OF THE CURRENT UNFINISHED STATE OF THE GAME.



Greetings Avatars,

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

Thank you for being a loyal backer and follower of Shroud of the Avatar. Release 34 access for all backers begins this Thursday, September 29, at 10:30 AM US Central Daylight Time (15:30 UTC).

Release 34 is our first chance since persistence to really analyze our current set of data and begin to execute major steps towards balancing and polishing Combat and the Economy. Additionally Crafting got a major expansion with 45 new recipes, including our first recipe built from difficult to obtain rares (Bone Armor) and a refactor of how food works that makes it much more relevant to game play.

Economic Balance:As described in my forum post, we are making several changes to provide more gold to casual players. Those changes include Daily Oracle Confessions (500 gold), increased experience and gold rewards for Path of Love Quests, Outlander Tracking Program (100 gold per town), Mail Quests expansion, and First Bind Point reward.

Combat Balance and New Skills: also received a lot of attention, with over 20 balance changes related to skills, taming, health / focus regen rates, and critical hits. We also added several new skills including new healing skills outside of Life Magic and new reactive skills.



Bone Armor: Bone Armor, a new type of armor, is crafted at a Tailoring table from bones refined at a Carpentry station (the first armor to involve Carpentry). It has the attributes of Heavy Armor (high Damage Avoidance) but it is actually classified as Light Armor, so when Masterworked, your modifiers will be Light Armor modifiers and your skills used with it will be Light Armor skills. It also has very high durability, making it ideal for Enchanting and Masterworking. However, the bones needed to craft it are exceedingly difficult to acquire. In addition to the normal Tailoring, Carpentry, and Smithing ingredients (leather, cloth, thread, wax, metal etc.) Bone Armor requires parts from Dragons, Phoenixes, Demons, and Tier 5 Skeletons.



Cooking and Food: We are finally making the eating of Food relevant to gameplay. Health and Focus regeneration have been slowed down (see Combat section below) and now eating Food is the primary way to increase those rates. We have also made it so food (and other consumables like Potions) can be used from inventory via double-click or right-click while you are not in combat. They no longer have to be used from the shortcut bar. In fact, food is no longer part of the deck system at all. We have also expanded the types of foods you can eat to include raw foods like fruit, not just prepared foods. These raw foods will offer very small, short buffs. Finally, foods will now be tiered in their effects based on the amount and types of ingredients. There are 6 tiers. In Release 34, we still only have Tiers 0–2, but we are planning to expand into the higher tiers in future releases. Normal Food will affect Health and Focus Regen rates while Fantastical and Special Foods will give more magical effects (but may also have negative effects).

Path of Love Polish: We continue to polish the Path of Love to bring it up to the level of a Lord British experience. In Release 34, our main focus was on the Necropolis where we added an NPC at the entrance of the Necropolis Barrens to warn newer players to keep to the road. Said road now goes from the entrance of the Necropolis Barrens to the Necropolis itself and is properly marked, and safer than traveling through the other parts of the Barrens. We also added a new spirit named Lacey (after our fallen community member) to the entrance of the Necropolis. The spirit talker you hired in Ardoris will now accompany you through the Necropolis and fight alongside you (note: not all spirit talkers are created equal) and warn you if you veer into dangerous areas. The difficulty of some of the monsters has been toned down (the terror of the poison spiders will live on in memory). Additionally, the ending is clearer as to what is expected to happen next, and the player can exit if they wish directly into the next part of the story. We also continued polishing Ardoris as well.



Halloween: Of course I have to mention our favorite time of the year: Halloween! We had to make sure that the game was filled with enough spooky content this year so we went over the top! The scary items range from ghostly pets to gross emotes, to ghastly costumes, all the way up to a Gothic (aka Haunted) Mansion!



Estgard (Unclone Polish): Estgard is on the island of Norgard and is part of the Path of Courage. Outlanders must pass through Estgard on their way to Valhold. Estgard was another cloned scene using one of our PRT/POT templates based off of the Forest 01 base template (aka “the PaxLair template”). In Release 33, we did an initial rebuild (aka "uncloning") of that scene where we added a plot-specific perimeter wall and a handful of other visual changes to have it more closely match the Viking like style of the island of Norgard. In Release 34, we did a more thorough rebuild of the area to bring it up to our visual standards. When we start focusing on the Courage Path in a future release, it will also get an NPC polish pass. NOTE: When we unclone scenes we do NOT change locations of player lots, NPC buildings, or entrances. We only make cosmetic changes of building styles, terrain, and foliage.



R33 Lot Deed Raffle Winners: The drawing will be held right before R34 goes live and we will announce the winners on Friday September 30 in Update 196 for the 675 Lot Deeds.

R34 Lot Deed Raffle: R34 will be our second Lot Deed Raffle and there will be another 675 Lot Deeds available. Raffle tickets will again be available for purchase. However in addition for those backers who do not yet own property, we are going to automatically enter you into both Raffles in Release 34! Anyone who has game access to Shroud of the Avatar, but does NOT yet own property at the beginning of Release 34 (September 29, 2016), will automatically be given a gift of 1 Raffle Ticket of each type to the R34 Raffle. To claim your tickets, simply login to the game, go to the nearest bank and claim your rewards. The drawings will be held on October 27, 2016 and winners will be announced shortly thereafter. Deeds will be delivered in Release 35.

And much more including more recipes, emotes, gear, pets, etc.! Click here for the complete R34 Instructions

[And did we mention that you should read the negative reviews that warn you about the unfinished state of this game before you purchase? Don't buy this game until you read them!]