Avatars,
Thank you for being a loyal backer and follower of Shroud of the Avatar. Release 43 access for all Early Access backers begins this Thursday, June 29, at 10:30 AM US Central Daylight Time (15:30 UTC).
Release 43 contains both a huge amount of new content and a major improvement in performance that will generally improve everything about playing the game (and I do not exaggerate). Framerates have been improved in every scene, doubled in some! This really will make playing the game feel so much better in every way. Additionally, one of our biggest and most complicated scenes ever, Blood River Outskirts, goes live this release. Three scenes got completely rebuilt and four more scenes got major polish passes. Finally, we are expanding the mail system to allow player-to-player mail as well as expanding and balancing the Offline Economy!
On top of all this new content, we also launched our SeedInvest Crowd Equity campaign to raise funds for our commercial launch later this year. Speaking of later this year… stay tuned tomorrow for our Q3 Schedule Update to find out what we will be working on for the next three releases!
Performance: The programming team spent three weeks focusing most of their efforts on improving performance. We looked at every aspect of how we run the game to find everything that could be changed to improve performance. We are happy to report that we made significant progress! Frame rate is getting very close to where we want it to be, and is now almost double where it was previously (our long term goal is 30 fps on minimum spec. computers playing in Ardoris). Load times are also better, but there is still more work to be done.
Story: The Path of the Oracle continues to expand greatly with two more Colossus scenes: Sequanna Colossus & Boreas Colossus. We have also improved the Path of Truth by adding Blood River Outskirts, which is the zone that new users are sent to directly after Blood River Massacre. This scene makes extensive use of the Factions system introduced in Release 42. We are also now directing players to move back and forth between the three paths so that their level stays on pace with the challenge of each path. Additionally, several scenes were rebuilt, polished or expanded, including Celestis, Libris Ruins, Graff Gem Mines, Isle of Storms, and Crypt of the Avatar.
[img=https://d2sx9mrt4zumaq.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/sequanna_colossus_05-625x342.jpg][/img]
Offline Economy: Merchants in Offline Mode now have a different “Buy Price” for player-crafted items than merchants in Online Mode. This allows players to sell crafted goods for a profit to NPC merchants in Offline Mode. Additionally, Merchants in offline mode now have an additional stock list that will eventually include all items from the Add-On Store, Pledges, Bundles, etc. In Release 43 many of those items are now listed for sale and more will be added over time.
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.
[ 2017-06-28 19:43:15 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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