Avatars,
Thank you for being a loyal backer of Shroud of the Avatar. Release 42 access for all Early Access backers begins this Thursday, May 25, at 10:30 AM US Central Daylight Time (15:30 UTC).
Release 42 (R42) is another significant step forward in progress with a staggering amount of new content as well as a ton of balance and polish. The Path of the Oracle is finally revealed, along with the Oracle herself, starter scenes have seen an amazing amount of polish, more gear can be placed as decorations, Mail is seeing its first iteration, many weapon decorations are now able to be placed on both walls and floors, combat got lots of balancing including additional functionality for Locked Decks and adjustments to Experience Decay, and enemies have been beefed up with new abilities and smarter behaviors!
The Path of the Oracle: For intrepid Avatars that have succeeded in the Paths of Love, Truth, and Courage, an audience can be sought with the Oracle herself. What awaits as you approach her throne in the heart of Brittany? R42 will set the Avatar upon the final path to untangle the meaning of the Dire Prophecies and discover the Avatar’s purpose in New Britannia.
Starting Scene Polish: We have continued to focus on steady improvements to the new user experience by polishing the three primary starter scenes: Battle of Solace Bridge, Blood River Massacre, and Battle of Highvale. Players exploring these scenes for the first time will experience significant improvements to quest flow, task management, NPC behaviors, Points of Interest, and enemy encounters.
Decoration Additions and Improvements: We have expanded the list of available decorations this release to include nearly 120 pieces of gear that can now be placed as decorations. This includes all Chain, Plate, Bone, Clockwork, and Founder’s Heavy Armor sets as well as many equipable offhand items and miscellaneous cloth gear missed in R41. Additionally, many weapon decorations can now be placed on BOTH walls and floors, rather than just one or the other. We are also introducing Ceiling decorations in the form of chandeliers and hanging light decorations. We are excited to see how players will use this improved flexibility to decorate their homes in a variety of new and interesting ways!
Mail: It’s finally here! After countless feature requests, we’re excited to show off the initial iteration of our Mail system. With Release 42, players will be able to receive mail notifications based on vendor transactions. When a vendor item is sold, expired, or removed, players will receive mail that notifies them of the event. The mail will also include the proceeds or refund from the transaction. Mail can be accessed at mailboxes, which are located at all banks throughout New Britannia. Mailboxes can also be crafted and placed at your house. Work is ongoing to eventually allow players to send mail to each other in future iterations.
Combat Balance: Significant improvements were made to combat systems in R42. Locked Decks now support the successive use of the same skill/spell based on the number of available glyphs determined by skill level. This will be balanced with the addition of a new Locked Deck “Heat” system, which will build up after rapid use of the same skill and cause increased focus consumption. Noteworthy changes have also been made to Experience Decay and Boss Loot tables.
Enemy AI: A lot of work this release has gone into fleshing out enemy AI behaviors, as well as arming enemies with new abilities. Most mages will now have an increased arsenal of spells, including roots, buffs, debuffs, and teleportation. Additionally, enemies will no longer stand idly by as their friends are attacked or killed. Most NPCs will now properly react, panic, and investigate the area of the kill and actively search for the aggressor.
Click here for the complete Instructions and Game Update Notes.
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 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.
[ 2017-05-25 03:33:15 CET ] [ Original post ]
- Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues Linux Depot [13.28 G]
SUMMARY:
Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues is a new type of third person fantasy RPG that combines a single player narrative with a sandbox MMO. It is being created by a team that includes: Richard "Lord British" Garriott the creator of the Ultima series, Starr Long the original Director of Ultima Online, and Tracy Hickman the author of the beloved Dragonlance Novels and Dungeons & Dragons modules.
- Episodic Content: Shroud of the Avatar will consist of five episodes that will tell a series of virtue based stories created by Richard Garriott and Tracy Hickman. All supported by a series of prequel novels starting with Blade of the Avatar. Forsaken Virtues is the first episode (this is what you are purchasing access to).
- Single Player Offline Mode: Players will adventure through over 40 hours of story 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.
- Selective Multiplayer Modes: If you want to go through the story online you can play with everyone in a single world with three different online modes (Single Player, Friends, and Open).
- Classless Character System: Vast customization options with hundreds of skills and spells in over 20 different skill trees.
- Skillful Combat: A new way to prepare and fight in an RPG by building custom decks of skills and dynamically activating them in combat.
- PVP: Consensual with Open PVP flags, zones, and Guild Warfare.
- Player Housing: Non instanced, finite, and embedded in the world with multiple group living options.
- Player Driven Economy: Deep crafting system where the best items are made by players and player items are the main source of loot found in the game.
- Pay Once to Play: No subscription fees. Each episode (released approximately annually) is a one time fee and everything in the game can be purchased with in game gold that can be earned (except for some exclusive backer rewards).
- Social: Full Guild System, Highly Active Community and Player Owned Towns.
- Crowd Sourced & Funded: Support the project by contributing content (and receive compensation) or by pledging (and receive exclusive rewards).
- Open Development: Players help shape the game by giving feedback on monthly early access releases, videos, weekly updates, blog postings, forums, chat, etc.
DEVELOPMENT ROADMAP
Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues is currently in pre-alpha so there are a lot of features and content still to be built. Even the current content needs polish and balance. On the third week of every month we release a major update to the game that includes new features, new content, and bug fixes. We update the schedule for these on a quarterly basis with a final update for each release the day before it goes live.
Current Version
- Housing: Purchase property and a wide variety of buildings to place there. These can be customized with hundreds of items (paintings, crafting stations, chairs, tables, food, plants, fountains, statues, lights, etc.). Players can also set permissions that allow them to share this property with other players. Higher level pledges begin the game with property and house deeds. (Find out more at www.shroudoftheavatar.com)
- Crafting: Gather and refine resources to craft a wide variety of objects including weapons, armor, potions, food, and furniture.
- Player Trading: Trade with each other for items or gold.
- PVP (Duels and Zones): Fight other players in Open PVP zones of the map or 1 on 1 duels in any location.
- Dual Scale Map: Explore the world by walking across a map (aka The Overworld) like old school RPGs with random and roving encounters mixed among named points of interest.
- Combat and Magic Skills: We have over 100 skills in a wide variety of combat and magic schools including Blades, Fire, Water, Life, Polearms, Shields, etc.
- Multiple Online Modes: Play how you want in one of two modes: Single Player Online or Open Multiplayer Online.
- Character Customization: Customize your character's facial features, hair style, hair color, facial hair, skin tone, and gender. Also express yourself with a vast array of different gear that when equipped shows on your character. (cloaks, armor, weapons, hats, tools, torches, etc.)
- AI Behaviors: Archers will try to maintain distance, warriors will try to surround you, Liches will summon skeletal allies, and villagers will turn on lights when night falls.
- Advancement: As you gain experience fighting and questing you gain levels which give you skill points that you can use with a trainer to purchase new skills or to raise your attributes.
- Hint System: Each time you attempt something for the first time a hint will appear with basic instructions (this can be disabled in options)
- Fully Interactive World: Every attempt is made to make the world respond to you. All the lights you see can be turned on and off, doors can be opened/closed/locked/unlocked, objects can be taken from shelves/tables/etc.
- Dynamic Lighting: Time of day changes as you play along with all light sources casting light in a realistic fashion.
- Summoned Allies: Certain schools of magic can summon allies including Ice Elementals, Fire Elementals, Liches, and Skeletons.
- Control Points: Grab control of Vertas Pass and see how long you can hold it against ever increasing waves of Dark Elves.
- Emotes: Express yourself with a wide variety of emotes including dances, bows, laughs, bows, yawns, etc.
- Guilds: You can form or join a guild
- Banks: Store all your gear and loot when it gets too heavy to carry around.
- Character tied to Pledge: All versions of the game (aka pledges) come with special rewards (gear, houses, titles, emotes, etc.).
- Player Owned Towns: Players can purchase and customize from templates their very own town.
- Player Vendors: You will be able to set up NPC vendors to sell the goods you have crafted or found adventuring.
- Player Made Books: Write your own book in the game and pay in game gold to have it published widely.
- Dye-able Gear: Customize your gear by changing the colors.
- Crowd Sourcing Create content for the game (music, sound effects, and art) and be paid for it.
Future Updates
- Story: A rich narrative that presents you with complex moral choices will come online closer to launch.
- More Scenes: Many additional scenes will come online including cities, dungeons, deserts, arctic areas, swamps, fortifications, battlegrounds, etc.
- Performance: Continued optimizations as well as sophisticated fallback routines will greatly improve performance.
- More Magic & Combat Skills: More skills will be coming including the Chaos Magic School.
- Localization: Support for multiple languages.
- More Creatures: More creatures along with multiple variations and new behaviors.
We estimate reaching a Beta version with all features and content sometime in the first half of 2016. All features and plans listed here are subject to change. We may modify, add or remove features as we see fit during the development process.
Website for more information: www.shroudoftheavatar.com
- OS: Ubuntu 12.04 or newer officially but most linux flavors supported
- Processor: Quad Core 2.4 GHz or fasterMemory: 12 GB RAM
- Memory: 12 GB RAM
- Graphics: DirectX 11 Compatible NVIDIA 960 / AMD 560Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 30 GB available space
- OS: Ubuntu 12.04 or newer officially but most linux flavors supported
- Processor: Quad Core Processor 2.8GHz or fasterMemory: 16 GB RAM
- Memory: 16 GB RAM
- Graphics: DirectX 11 Compatible NVIDIA GTX 1070 / ATI Radeon HD 5870Network: Broadband Internet connection
- Storage: 30 GB available spaceAdditional Notes: Performance significantly improved with an SSD
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