Shroud Of The Avatar - Shit Went Persistent

So the link you sent doesn't work Flight, can you resend it?

Anomander Rake_sl said:

So the link you sent doesn't work Flight, can you resend it?

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Resent mate. Nothing to worry about, just their site getting hammered. Lots of people ponying up at the last minute by the looks.

Sorry but one last thing, it looks like there is a +/- button for "recruits" on my account page that I might have clicked earlier that shows +1 "founder" with a $70 total, but when I click the "-" button it goes back down to adventurer at the adventurer level.

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No worries. The +/- is the recruitment bonus. You can click it up to 1 because I've gifted the $25 bonus I receive for recruiting you to you.

If it was still showing $70 before I resent the gift then it looks as though you've got lucky and will get that amount added twice

Yamikazo_sl said:

What are min system specs?

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"Shroud of the Avatar can be played on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux platforms. Hardware requirements have not been decided as the game is still in development."


It uses Unity is all I can tell you Yamikazo, sorry.


Again I don't know if it helps at all but this these links shows some graphics :

Why does SotA not look like this? | Shroud of the Avatar Forum

Media | Shroud of the Avatar




edit : Holy shit ! Look at those Lighthouse interior screenies. /hugs Knight tier

Alright awesome, that worked...this is what it looks like now:



I will just need to contact them to merge

Anomander Rake_sl said:

I will just need to contact them to merge

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If info you sent me was correct - and you only had $5 pledged on that account before - it's added the $40 to the initial pledge (now at Royal Artisan) and then listed it separately at the bottom. But yeah you look in good shape, just need to get them to append the [F]ounder status onto your Artisan pledge.

I had pledged $45 originally, which is wrapped up under the Royal Artisan amount. Sent the email, now just to wait and see when they can get to it. Thanks again Flight, I much prefer going through a forum friend than a stranger, no matter how reputable. I appreciate you taking the time to help us all out

Flight_sl said:

"Shroud of the Avatar can be played on Windows, Mac OS, and Linux platforms. Hardware requirements have not been decided as the game is still in development."

It uses Unity is all I can tell you Yamikazo, sorry.

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Yeah, that's all I was able to find as well. Graphics could be optimized WoW style (run on any computer made since 1995), or require more heavy-duty stuff (like ESO as an example? I haven't checked their stuff lately). "Minimum" graphics and "high" graphics in a game can make a big difference, or not. Wasn't sure if there was any info from Alpha that folks had shared that I wasn't seeing.

$15 is a "Why the hell not" price, but not if it won't run on my computer.

*********************************************OFFER ENDED********************************************* *****



That's all folks !

Anomander Rake_sl said:

I had pledged $45 originally, which is wrapped up under the Royal Artisan amount. Sent the email, now just to wait and see when they can get to it. Thanks again Flight, I much prefer going through a forum friend than a stranger, no matter how reputable. I appreciate you taking the time to help us all out

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Any time mate, glad to help. All it meant for me was that they got a little more of my money sooner than I'd planned (I'm paing for the Knight tier monthly)



If anyone's interested they're part way through a 12 hour interactive chat and presentation :


CHAT :Chat | Shroud of the Avatar(click on chat under community atShroud of the Avatarif that link doesn't work)

LIVE WEB CAM :One Year Anniversary Celebration Part I - YouTube

SCHEDULE :Upcoming Live Dev Cam Hangouts! | Page 4 | Shroud of the Avatar Forum

Vvoid_sl said:

Have they even mentioned anything about guilds yet? I realize it is still early, but I was wondering if they had. Back in UO my friends and I made our own little guild just so we could have a silly name above our heads, but I only know of one friend that is actually going to be playing this right now, so a Rerolled guild would be cool to at least consider if there is enough interest.

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Noticed this which was s stretch goal:




Also they spoke on one of the Dev Chats about how individuals and guilds can have their own coat of arms, which they can sketch out and give to crafters to put on armor etc



Also found the following info amongst the FAQ in answer to the MMO/RPG question posed earlier :





From the Kickstarter :

Shroud of the Avatar is the "spiritual successor" to Richard's previous work in the FRP genre. Our primary objectives are to tell a story even more compelling than Ultimas IV-VII, create a virtual world more interactive than Ultima VII, develop deep rich multi-player capabilities beyond combat akin to Ultima Online, and offer a bold new approach to integrate them with "Selective Multi-Player




I raised the question in tonights dev chat and was told it's going to be very much akin to UO.

Backed this last week thanks to the information here. I was reading their upcoming events, one of them was:

- Allow Backer Access to SotA Release 4.x from Morning to Midnight on April 7th

Can't seem to find any information in the forums regarding this, anyone know anything about it?

EDIT: Nvm, looks like they just sent out an email with instructions on how to access release 4.x

Abefroman_sl said:

I'm only speaking for myself but the original description of the game didn't even sound like a MMO. Did something change that has made this more of a traditional mmo? I'm not a fuddy duddy that says WoW isn't a MMO because of all the instancing and stuff like that so I'm really curious if something has changed or my reading comprehension was fail.

Do items I get from solo mode and co-op mode carry over to the persistent mmo mode?

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So as I outlined above it's an MMO a la UO but they're also releasing five RPG 'chapters' - one a year over the next five years - set within the MMO.

It's the first game implementing this idea of 'an RPG series set within an MMO' and you're right they could do a better job of communicating how that works.

Let's consider the log in GUI for a second :




As you can see you can choose to play solo - but you can further choose to play solo online or offline. Solo offline is a game discrete from the MMO. Solo Online means you are effectively playing in your own version of the world for a while and when you choose you can decide to sync your progress with the online world. While you're playing solo you'll still see all the shops and buildings owned by other players and you're building/vendors will still exist in the MP version.

In short you can have a character that flips between solo online and multiplayer online but solo offline characters exist permanently outside the MMO.


This article from a year ago does a decent job of explaining that starting from the Garriott video :

Richard Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar: What's the big idea? Eurogamer.net


And yes, he's also clear that there will be challenges raised by hackers due to this solo offline play feature.

Flight_sl said:

So as I outlined above it's an MMO a la UO but they're also releasing five RPG 'chapters' - one a year over the next five years - set within the MMO.

It's the first game implementing this idea of 'an RPG series set within an MMO' and you're right they could do a better job of communicating how that works.

Let's consider the log in GUI for a second :

As you can see you can choose to play solo - but you can further choose to play solo online or offline. Solo offline is a game discrete from the MMO. Solo Online means you are effectively playing in your own version of the world for a while and when you choose you can decide to sync your progress with the online world. While you're playing solo you'll still see all the shops and buildings owned by other players and you're building/vendors will still exist in the MP version.

In short you can have a character that flips between solo online and multiplayer online but solo offline characters exist permanently outside the MMO.


This article from a year ago does a decent job of explaining that starting from the Garriott video :

Richard Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar: What's the big idea? Eurogamer.net


And yes, he's also clear that there will be challenges raised by hackers due to this solo offline play feature.

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Reading everything you describe makes me wonder how you can start that post with "it's an MMO a la UO" ... anything past the first dozen or so words sounds nothing like UO =x

And dont take that as hating on the game - a few posts earlier someone (maybe even you) quoted a post from their forums saying they are a new kind of multiplayer experience and that's spot on imo. This and SC and probably other upcoming games are a hybrid of single/multiplayer and online multiplayer that focuses more on your persistant character and what you're doing, who you are playing with, and less on providing a persistant, "always on" world. It's more "opt in" and less "deal with it" which is generally prefered by gamers these days but certainly a different experience.

I am almost glad that I never played UO (waited for Everquest to be released instead) because I would undoubtedly be burdened by nostalgia about how UO played. I understand that they are trying to incorporate a lot of the freedom and features that UO had, and I find that very interesting. But I am sure a lot of things are different (like the MP aspect) and other details will be plain missing. For some that will be a dealbreaker, I know there are folks on the forums that are really vocal about typical UO features. For instance, there is a debate going on about how you break barrels a la Diablo in this game, while in UO you just opened them, and could use them as containers and such.

For me, it all looks refreshingly "Old School" but without feeling tied down by "how it should be". The multiplayer mode is very new, will have to wait how it plays, I think it will depend somewhat on the Overland Map implementation.

If I see a new guy on the forum ask "does this game play like UO" I would hesitate to say yes, and I did not ev en play UO. UO top/down view with continuous exploration is quit a bit different then 3D avatars in hub/scene type gameplay.

Mr Creed_sl said:

Reading everything you describe makes me wonder how you can start that post with "it's an MMO a la UO" ... anything past the first dozen or so words sounds nothing like UO =x

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As I said, I raised the question in the dev chat and their answer was as I've described. To be fair I did say in the last post that they've done a poor job of communicating the MMO aspects.


Treesong is right in that the major disconnect is the overland map; it's essentially a gui for fast travel across what we might think of as 'zones' - but can also hold various types of instance, it's just that those zones aren't static. If you choose to enter one of these zones then many will have people in them.

It's an evolving, persistent virtual world. It's a sandbox that also has rich storied RPGs set in it. Many of the zones are instanced but it's a single world where your buildings and vendors exist in all instances.

I agree that right now I don't like the overland map, but the opportunities are intriguing. It's new and untried. And I guess we don't necessarily like new ideas when we expect things to be done a certain way.



I'd suggest there are all sorts of subsets of people who imagine different things when you talk about what made UO great. For some it's full loot PvP. For some it's the opportunity to grief any poor schmuck you come along. For me and others it's a rich sandbox world with opportunities to live and play in that world in a different way than you might in other MMOs/RPGs. One of Garriotts favorite stories is about a guy playing a Fisherman who chased off an adventurer who tried to give him some free 'phat l3wt' because he was just a fisherman who had no use for armor and weapons.

If you're of the griefer variety then I suspect you're out of luck.

If you're into PvP then they've been clear that there will be major aspects of the game for PvPers both solo and guilds - though it will be consentual.

I fall into the last category. The sandbox guy. The RPG is just a bonus.

This is cool. Competition to remake Garriotts earliest - and simplest - RPG code. Reward of a $550 pledge to SoTA and a couple of $165 runner up pledge rewards :

Richard GarriottD #1 Contest! | Shroud of the Avatar

Nice contest. I'm very tempted to try my luck at this.

Shroud of the Avatar Release 5 Instructions



Thank you to our loyal backers of Shroud of the Avatar. Release 5 access for all backers at First Responder level and above, and those with Weekend Access Passes, begins this Thursday, April 24 at 10:30 AM Central Time. Release 5 access will end on Sunday, April 27 at 10:00 PM Central Time. Starting today, you can begin installing and patching (see instructions below), but login will not be enabled until Thursday morning.

We are happy to report that we were able to add a bunch of new content and features, while iterating on existing ones. However those deliverables didn?t quite end up matching our original goals. The sheer scope of getting skills working, while also responding to R4 feedback, made us radically shift focus for Release 5. Below are the original R5 deliverables, along with some extra notes and new deliverables in italics.


RELEASE 5, April 24 - 27, 2014:
?Combat and Magic Skills: Finally you will no longer be confined to auto attack now that a wide array of combat and magic skills will be at your disposal. To let you test out a wide variety of these skills we will give you a bunch of skill points to allocate up and down as you wish. This allocation of points will automatically build your deck. Skills can be locked in your toolbar or left unlocked so they can be used in combos during combat. ?35 (of 171) Skills: Here is the skill list for R5. Most of these are in a very simple first state so some of them are missing secondary effects, like movement (Trip, Tumble, etc.), speed (Ice Fist), etc. ?Blades: ?Thrust
?Double Thrust ("double swipe")
?Whirling Blades

?Bludgeon: ?Crushing Blow
?Knockback

?Heavy Armor: ?Defensive Stance
?Inner Strength

?Light Armor: ?Dodge
?Tumble

?Medium Armor: ?Glancing Blow
?Trip

?Polearms: ?Push
?Puncture

?Ranged: ?Aimed Shot
?Disabling Shot
?Piercing Shot

?Shield: ?Deflect
?Shield Bash

?Air: ?Gust
?Discharge
?Lightning

?Death: ?Death Touch
?Death Ray
?Corpse Explosion

?Earth: ?Stone Fist
?Root

?Fire: ?Flame Fist
?Fireball

?Life: ?Heal Self
?Healing Ray
?Purify
?Resurrection

?Sun: ?Light
?Searing Ray

?Water: ?Ice Fist



?Linear Lighting Model: As part of an ongoing effort to improve our visuals we have have switched from gamma lighting to linear lighting. This makes a lot of the details in our textures more visible but it has required us to touch every shader, texture, lighting setting, etc. in the game. Note that this is still a work in progress.
?Add On Store Conversion (website): Our backers now have the ability to convert their add on store purchases into credits that can either be applied to their pledge or used for other add on purchases (this feature available on website only).
?Weekend Access Keys (Login): We added functionality to support weekend access to potential backers
?Journal: Results of conversations with the characters in our world will now appear in your Journal. This should aid questing tremendously without going as far as exclamation points overhead.
?Crafting: We have increased the number of starting recipes to give players a wider array of recipes so that discovery can be more intuitive.
?Compass: Navigating through our scenes can be quite challenging so we have added an on screen compass to help guide you around
?Overland Map Polish: We continued iterating on the overland map. We added panning and zooming, animating objects (waves, windmills, etc.) and visibility of your party members
?Combat Floaties: For those of you craving more information about what exactly is happening in combat we have added combat numbers that appear overhead during combat if you have Names Overhead toggled (via the N key)
?Health Bars: Discerning status from the health dot alongside the name in R4 did not work for many of you so we have moved to a more traditional health bar
?New Creatures:
- Chest Mimic
- Skeleton Archer
- Satyr Mage
- Satyr Archer
?Traditional Combat Shortcut Bar: While we are still heavily committed to card style combat we quickly realized when playtesting this very early version that we don?t yet have enough supporting features (deck building, skill locking, etc) in place to make it fun.
?AFK Mode: When you type /afk or you are idle for a while your character will sit on the ground and [AFK] will be appended to the character name
?New Vale Scenes: We shifted focus to more Vale scenes so we could create a more complete area of the game (replacing placeholder maps) versus proceeding to the main map. Player Housing: We have added 12 new player houses (4 Rustic, 6 Wood & Plaster, 2 Duke Castles) and as mentioned above we increased the number of locations that players can place houses to a total of 13. That raises the number of lots to around 600. With that change we have decided that for R5 we will no longer impose a time limit on ownership. ?Kingsport Sewers: An intense adventure area under Kingsport infested with the undead!
?Standard Scenes: No more placeholders!
- Road through the forest
- Road through the grassland
- Road through the hills
- Grassland
?Player Forest Village Variation 2: We used this plus Forest Village 1 to create a total of 10 Player Towns on the Vale

?Player Housing: We have added 12 new player houses (4 Rustic, 6 Wood & Plaster, 2 Duke Castles) and as mentioned above we increased the number of locations that players can place houses to a total of 13. That raises the number of lots to around 600. With that change we have decided that for R5 we will no longer impose a time limit on ownership.
?Death System: OooOoooOOOOooo! Death will now turn you into a ghost. Current thinking about the death system will be shared at a later date.
?Main Continent Scenes: Finally players will get to see their first maps on the main continent including a city that is part of the story, adventuring areas, and a player town.
?Interactive Areas: Don?t you wish you could move that chair in the tavern to have a better view of the front door? Public areas like taverns will now be flagged as interactive areas. This will allow more freedom in those spaces by allowing the moving but not taking of items.
?AI Behaviors: NPCs will now start to have schedules and change behavior according to the time. This will include things like going around turning on the lights around town as the sun goes down. NPCs will also now react to players taking and breaking stuff so watch out when you try to steal that loaf of bread!
?Books: Books will no longer just be decorative objects! Read lovely poems and stories written by our very own community in the game. Try to collect them all!

So now that it is clear what you can expect, we should also be as clear about what you should not expect:
?Combat: Combat does not yet include random dealing, decks, combos, or advancement.
?Performance: We have only done rudimentary optimizations and we do not yet have a full suite of performance fallbacks (LODs, etc.). This means the game will be quite slow on older machines, and due to memory usage, might be unstable in certain conditions (like densely decorated areas). With each release we will be doing further optimizations and adding to our fallbacks to improve performance.
?Crafting: The crafting system is in the game as a framework, but is still missing some key components like repair, events, and enhancement. Skill checks are also not in yet, so results are always 100% successful. Long term, the percentage chance to make items will depend on a myriad of variables and can result in a variety of results including: making the item desired, making a simpler version of the item that will need to be enhanced, or making a damaged version of the item that needs repair.
?Game Loop: Release 5 is a further iteration on our rudimentary game loop, but it is still very bare bones. Expect this to expand with each subsequent release but it won?t be truly complete until we hit Beta later this year
?Advanced Player Housing: There are some advanced features for player housing, including waterfront properties, basements, home exterior decorations, and ceiling decorations that are not yet integrated. Expect to see these appear in future releases.
?Visual Quality: Efforts to improve visual quality are ongoing. This started last release with increases to our art staff (especially in animation) and continued this release with the switch to linear lighting. Next steps include looking at different shaders we can composite (relief, detail, etc.), adding more triangles to meshes to catch light better (like the flat dungeon walls) , replacing animations that came with purchased assets (wolves, bears, etc.), revisiting avatar mesh proportions, skin shaders, hair, etc.

Here are links to instructions and known issues. Thank you again for your continued support. This is truly the most amazing community we have ever worked with and we are proud to be on this journey with you.

Sincerely,
Starr Long
aka Darkstarr
Executive Producer

Downloading right meow.

Might stream a bit tomorrow night EST, probably friday.

Edit:
ahahahahaha the login screen music is so nostalgically cheesy. I love it.