Avatars,



Release 61 of Shroud of the Avatar goes live this Thursday, December 13, at 10:30 AM US Central Time (15:30 UTC). “What? Already?” you might ask. As noted in our Q4 2018 post “The last two releases of the year (Nov/R60 and Dec/R61) will be very early in their respective months so that they are released well ahead of the US winter holidays (Thanksgiving and Christmas).”

Release 61 is the final release in which we focused on the current iteration of our Top 10 Priorities (from Q4 2018 post). We made progress on several of these priorities including various quality of life fixes (automatic redemption of rewards & teleport to zone), bug fixes, seasonal content (Krampus!), more Fishing Phase 2 (lava fishing, lava fish, fishing skills), and more rooms for Player-Made Dungeons.

There is a ton of new content going live this release including:

Fishing Phase 2: Fishing Phase 2 launched in Release 59 and was expanded in Release 60. In Release 61 we continued that expansion with the final “water” type: Lava! Yes that is correct, you can now fish in molten rock using a Lava Fishing Rod and lures crafted from gems as bait. We have also expanded the fishing skill tree to add skills related to all of the water types (including lava) and we added new recipes for the rare fish.



Quality of Life ImprovementsWAs part of our ongoing mission to improve the moment to moment life of every player we made a couple of improvements in Release 61. Instead of being limited to teleporting to your lot or a single town crier you now automatically collect the entrance locations of most scenes you visit and can use a new teleport scroll to revisit those scenes whenever you wish. We also streamlined the types of Obsidian Crowns into a single type: Gold Crowns to make purchasing of crown items easier. Additionally we have introduced a way to completely respec your character with a Book of Tabula Rasa which we are giving as a free gift to all players who login for Release 61!

Krampus: The Krampus is the latest in our seasonal recurring bosses and takes advantage of the new “nearby power” boss behavior, so be sure to pay attention to his gang of “naughty brat” zombie children before trying to take him down! We recommend not confronting this vile monster before first going to the castle in Central Brittany and getting more information about him from Kinga or Ronin. Mention “Krampus” to either and get a quest that will send you to his home in East Sanctus Forest. But don’t forget North Paladis can be a dangerous region: watch out for a roving encounter full of his naughty brats who’ll ambush you before you reach the home of the Krampus!



Bug Fixing: We dedicated a significant portion of the release to working solely on fixing bugs and reducing our overall bug count. We addressed over 150 issues including fixes to various scenes (typos, stuck spots, etc.), crafting fixes, combat fixes, and various user interface fixes.



and much, much more!

For all the details, please read the entire R61 Instructions and Updates Notes post, as well as the linked Instructions and Known Issues within the post to ensure a smooth update to your game client.

Have fun exploring New Britannia!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Highlights of this week's update include:

• Release 61 on QA
  
• Player Made Dungeon Tour Today
  
• In the News: Shroud as Parkinson's Therapy
  
• Crown Migration for Release 61
  
• 50% Item Fridays & 20% Crown Weekends Holiday Sales
  
• Winter 2018 Items Appear
  
• Winter Recurring Items Return!
  
• Automatic Redemption of Rewards Release 62
  
• Upgrading Bundles with Crowns (ends 12/21)
  
• Elven, Obsidian, & Shogun Expirations
  
• Shroud of the Avatar Boxed Editions $40 off Holiday Sale!
  
• Release 60 Livestream (YouTube)
  
• Shroud of the Avatar Rewards Program
  
• Weekend Sale: Winter
  
• Upcoming Events Calendar
  
• Community Event: Advent Calendar 2018
  
• Community Event: Boogie Nights Christmas Style
  
• Community Event: Daily Yule-Market at Dracheninsel
  
• Community Event: Grinch's December Pacu Fishing Adventure
  
• Community Event: 3rd Annual Holiday Party for All!
  
• Community Event: Novia Market R60 Grandmaster Bundles
  
• Community Event: Novia Market 1st Annual Yuletide Giveaway
  
• Community Event: Welcome Quest Release 60
  
• Meretz: Win a Replenishing Fireworks Mega Set
  
• Project to Support: Underworld Ascendant
  
• Project to Support: Lore Finder
  
• Resources: Players Helping Players

For all the details, please read the entire Update

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Highlights of this week's update include:

• Release 60 Livestream Today (Cornucopia)
  
• Viking & Kobold Expirations (Last Day!)
  
• Spooky Expirations (Last Day!)
  
• Crown Migration for Release 61
  
• 50% Item Fridays & 20% Crown Weekends Holiday Sales
  
• Winter 2018 Items Appear
  
• Winter Recurring Items Return!
  
• Automatic Redemption of Rewards Release 61
  
• Upgrading Bundles with Crowns (ends 12/21)
  
• Elven, Obsidian, & Shogun Expirations
  
• Shroud of the Avatar Boxed Editions $40 off Holiday Sale!
  
• Shroud of the Avatar Rewards Program
  
• Weekend Sale: Patterns
  
• Upcoming Events Calendar
  
• Community Event: Grinch's December Pacu Fishing Adventure
  
• Community Event: 3rd Annual Holiday Party for All!
  
• Community Event: Novia Market R60 Grandmaster Bundles
  
• Community Event: Novia Market 1st Annual Yuletide Giveaway
  
• Community Event: Welcome Quest Release 60
  
• Community Event: The Stone Dragon Player Quest
  
• Meretz: Win a Replenishing Fireworks Mega Set
  
• Project to Support: Underworld Ascendant
  
• Project to Support: Moustache of the Avatar
  
• Project to Support: Lore Finder
  
• Resources: Players Helping Players

For all the details, please read the entire Update

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Highlights of this week's update include:

• Black Friday Sale!
  
• Viking & Kobold Expirations (1 week left!)
  
• Release 60 Livestream Nov 30 (Cornucopia)
  
• Winter 2018 Items Appear
  
• Winter Recurring Items Return!
  
• Automatic Redemption of Rewards Release 61
  
• Upgrading Bundles with Crowns (ends 12/21)
  
• Elven, Obsidian, & Shogun Expirations
  
• Shroud of the Avatar Boxed Editions $40 off Holiday Sale!
  
• Beach Party & Fishing Contest Livestream (YouTube)
  
• Shroud of the Avatar Rewards Program
  
• Upcoming Events Calendar
  
• Community Event: Titanforge's Monster Catch Fishing Tournament!
  
• Community Event: Welcome Quest Release 60
  
• Community Event: The Stone Dragon Player Quest
  
• Meretz: Win a Circle of Stones Rift Dungeon Entrance
  
• Project to Support: Underworld Ascendant
  
• Project to Support: Lore Finder
  
• Project to Support: Moustache of the Avatar

For all the details, please read the entire Update

November 21, 2018

Build Number 877 11:30 AM

Updates

• Elemental and magic resist potions can now be added to combat bar.
• Fix "Poison potion" reduced reagent use from subterfuge specialization.
• Fix issue with Death Shield duration with Specialization.
• Fix Cash register player vendor nameplates.
• Fixed an issue where Magic Cancellation Field would incorrectly calculate attunement.
• Fixed an issue with resource node highlighting for survey skill.
• Northwest Blackblade Mountains - put Darkstarr corpions back in.
• Fix bug that prevented picking up items via drag-and-drop in some cases.
• Solace Bridge: fix issues with water.
• Battle of Highvale: Updated some combat-related tutorial text to be skillset-agnostic.
• Battle of Solace Bridge: Updated some combat-related tutorial text to be skillset-agnostic.
• Brittany Fields - adjusted LOD settings on a bridge.
• Ardoris: Emma the barmaid now has a response for "love."
• Red Stone Dungeon - deleted erroneous geometry.
• Fixes for various Unity warnings caused by switch to Unity 2018.2.
• Sunless Barrens - extended water trigger to encompass entire seaside.
• Aerie: The "Open Arms" now uses weapon shop decorations (instead of blacksmith decorations). Henry Steel's occupation is "weaponsmith" (instead of "blacksmith") but his inventory remains the same.
• Solace Bridge: The quest from Emily in Soltown to find evidence of Quincy's fate can now be continued in both the Battle of Solace Bridge ("before") and Solace Bridge ("after") versions of the scene.
• Matchmaking and multiplayer mode switching improvements

Known Issues

• Crashes may occur when running the game in MacOS Mojave. A workaround is to launch the game with -force-glcore (which can be added to the Launch Arguments box in the launcher options)
• Elysian Illumination no longer damages undead, and has a broken range for applying heals.
• Party/Companion nameplates can be visually obscured if enough buffs are added for icons to wrap to three rows.
• Visual quest indicators may be missing from compass. Adding the data to support them is an ongoing design process.
• Pets cannot follow players onto moving platforms.
• If an item’s name is in Runic, its flag as “Private Property” will also appear in Runic.
• Players with Tenant permissions on a Lot cannot place their own Player Vendors.
• Some decorations placed in basements may shift through walls and end up in inaccessible locations.
• Players may be unable to interact with objects via double-click if their framerate is poor. A workaround is to use the “E” interaction key.
• Some spell VFX do not play properly
• Some textures may look incorrect due to optimizations (white, black, pink, low resolution, pixelated, etc.)
• Water lots in Dynamic Player Owned Towns cannot be placed on docks.
• Some pledge, add on, and stretch goal items have not yet been built and/or do not yet have tech support.
• Some virus programs with outdated libraries may attempt to quarantine essential game files, mistakenly identifying them as threats. This can have significant effects, including the client not starting at all. We recommend keeping antivirus programs updated frequently as they address problems. Workarounds include reinstalling and launching the client with the aggressive antivirus software disabled, or whitelisting the game directory in the antivirus list of exceptions.

November 20, 2018

Build Number 876 10:45AM

Updates

• Quantity sliders should now only validate values once the input field is deselected.
• Frostgeist skulls can now be placed on tables and exterior floors.
• AOE spells no longer apply damage multiple times if other people are in the same instance.
• Previously inaccessible ore nodes in Elysium Mines, Etceter Crag Mines, Graff Gem Mines, and Plains Encounter are now accessible.
• Clearing task "Drag Potion of Health into Hotbar" has been improved.
• Ore node in Lost Whitegard Silver Mine is now easier to access.
• Text related to banks and control points have been updated in New Player Handbook.
• Using the boat to teleport to Brittany Fields from Brittany Fort will now place you on the docks of that scene.
• Emily in Soltown no longer produces an error with the keyword “Quincy”, along with other errors fixed in her quest.
• Stan Clark in Soltown no longer produces errors in his "how to sing" response.
• More decoration surfaces are added for the marble dungeon rooms.
• Berit in South Drachvald Spur no longer produces errors with his “lucky leather” response.

Known Issues

• Crashes may occur when running the game in MacOS Mojave. A workaround is to launch the game with -force-glcore (which can be added to the Launch Arguments box in the launcher options)
• Elysian Illumination no longer damages undead, and has a broken range for applying heals.
• Party/Companion nameplates can be visually obscured if enough buffs are added for icons to wrap to three rows.
• Visual quest indicators may be missing from compass. Adding the data to support them is an ongoing design process.
• Pets cannot follow players onto moving platforms.
• If an item’s name is in Runic, its flag as “Private Property” will also appear in Runic.
• Players with Tenant permissions on a Lot cannot place their own Player Vendors.
• Some decorations placed in basements may shift through walls and end up in inaccessible locations.
• Players may be unable to interact with objects via double-click if their framerate is poor. A workaround is to use the “E” interaction key.
• Some spell VFX do not play properly
• Some textures may look incorrect due to optimizations (white, black, pink, low resolution, pixelated, etc.)
• Water lots in Dynamic Player Owned Towns cannot be placed on docks.
• Some pledge, add on, and stretch goal items have not yet been built and/or do not yet have tech support.
• Some virus programs with outdated libraries may attempt to quarantine essential game files, mistakenly identifying them as threats. This can have significant effects, including the client not starting at all. We recommend keeping antivirus programs updated frequently as they address problems. Workarounds include reinstalling and launching the client with the aggressive antivirus software disabled, or whitelisting the game directory in the antivirus list of exceptions.

Build Number 871 5:30PM

Updates

• Improvements made to player and monster synchronization.

Known Issues

• Crashes may occur when running the game in MacOS Mojave. A workaround is to launch the game with -force-glcore (which can be added to the Launch Arguments box in the launcher options)
• Elysian Illumination no longer damages undead, and has a broken range for applying heals.
• Party/Companion nameplates can be visually obscured if enough buffs are added for icons to wrap to three rows.
• Visual quest indicators may be missing from compass. Adding the data to support them is an ongoing design process.
• Pets cannot follow players onto moving platforms.
• If an item’s name is in Runic, its flag as “Private Property” will also appear in Runic.
• Players with Tenant permissions on a Lot cannot place their own Player Vendors.
• Some decorations placed in basements may shift through walls and end up in inaccessible locations.
• Players may be unable to interact with objects via double-click if their framerate is poor. A workaround is to use the “E” interaction key.
• Some spell VFX do not play properly
• Some textures may look incorrect due to optimizations (white, black, pink, low resolution, pixelated, etc.)
• Water lots in Dynamic Player Owned Towns cannot be placed on docks.
• Some pledge, add on, and stretch goal items have not yet been built and/or do not yet have tech support.
• Some virus programs with outdated libraries may attempt to quarantine essential game files, mistakenly identifying them as threats. This can have significant effects, including the client not starting at all. We recommend keeping antivirus programs updated frequently as they address problems. Workarounds include reinstalling and launching the client with the aggressive antivirus software disabled, or whitelisting the game directory in the antivirus list of exceptions.

Build Number 870 10:00AM

Updates

• Rope ladders on Baron Frigate and Galleon homes function again to reach crow's nests.
• The “Talk to Mischievous Child” task in Isle of Storms can now be cleared in all cases.
• Removed the automatic goodbye from Anais's responses about gear in Isle of Storms.
• The “Enter the Lunar Rift” task in Isle of Storms can now be cleared in all cases.
• Fixed an issue where some recipes were not on some recipe book categories.
• FitzOwen Legacy Leather Helm now matches the rest of the FitzOwen armor.
• Dragon Egg Decorations can now be rotated vertically
• Party mode instancing issues have been resolved.
• Added fish trophies for Pacu and Tarpon.
• Mushroom death-cloud VFX improvements.
• Fixed party nameplates being pink.
• Fixed missing vendor nameplates.

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Highlights of this week's update include:

• Play Release 60 Now!
  
• Beach Party & Fishing ContestLivestream Today!
  
• Release 60 Livestream Nov 30 (Cornucopia)
  
• Winter 2018 Items Appear
  
• Winter Recurring Items Return!
  
• Automatic Redemption of Rewards Release 61
  
• Upgrading Bundles with Crowns (ends 12/21)
  
• 50% Item Fridays & 20% Crown Weekends Holiday Sales
  
• Elven, Obsidian, & Shogun Expirations
  
• Viking & Kobold Expirations
  
• Shroud of the Avatar Boxed Editions $40 off Holiday Sale!
  
• Sandbox Roleplay Livestream (YouTube)
  
• Shroud of the Avatar Rewards Program
  
• Weekend Flash Sale: Harvest
  
• Upcoming Events Calendar
  
• Community Event: Release 60 Dance Party
  
• Community Event: Welcome Quest Release 60
  
• Community Event: The Stone Dragon Player Quest
  
• Meretz: Win a Circle of Stones Rift Dungeon Entrance
  
• Project to Support: Underworld Ascendant
  
• Project to Support: Dragons & Dragonkin - The Coloring Book!
  
• Project to Support: Moustache of the Avatar

For all the details, please read the entire Update

Build Number 869 6:15PM

Updates

• Decorations can now be hung from ceilings in Stone Two Story Keep.
• Marlin's journal can now be placed on surfaces such as tabletops.
• Fixed stairs collision on Kobold Two Story Alcove Row homes.
• Skull Staff can now be placed as a decoration.
• Root spell VFX no longer appears all black.
• Moustache Shields and Heraldry Shields can now be rotated vertically when placed on flat surfaces.
• 2016 Yule Trees now sway in the wind.
• Play Dead emote no longer T-poses the character.
• Increased resource drop for Granite nodes.
• There is no longer a naked character model in the Forest Siege scene.
• Fixed party member names missing from the Party UI.
• Fixed a typo in the data for Gus's conversation in Blood River Outskirts.
• Moved two fishing hotspots in Fishing Expedition because they were previously inaccessible.
• Fixed an issue with some skill-use positions being incorrect.
• Fixed floating boxes in Spectral Peaks.
• Fixing bad water in Spectral Peaks.
• Reduced lights in caves of Spectral Peaks.
• Added glow to red spiders.
• Added a boat in Novia at the docks of Fortus End.
• Added a safety feature in Highvale to clear Nena's tasks from the Battle of Highvale if she was never given her child's note.
• Fixed an issue in Isle of Storms where NPCs were moving through some of the stone walls.
• The “bait recovery” portion of the Humility devotional buff is now persistent.
• The magical barrier in Malice can now be opened both by looting the 3 skeletons or already having the 3 gems in your inventory.
• Fixed an issue in Solania Catacombs where some players weren't able to access the chest in the Grand Hall.
• Oracle tip no longer gives outdated information.
• Bundles purchased from crown merchants now note that they do not include Episode 2 access.

Known Issues

• Elysian Illumination no longer damages undead, and has a broken range for applying heals.
• Party/Companion nameplates can be visually obscured if enough buffs are added for icons to wrap to three rows.
• Visual quest indicators may be missing from compass. Adding the data to support them is an ongoing design process.
• Pets cannot follow players onto moving platforms.
• If an item’s name is in Runic, its flag as “Private Property” will also appear in Runic.
• Players with Tenant permissions on a Lot cannot place their own Player Vendors.
• Some decorations placed in basements may shift through walls and end up in inaccessible locations.
• Players may be unable to interact with objects via double-click if their framerate is poor. A workaround is to use the “E” interaction key.
• Some spell VFX do not play properly
• Some textures may look incorrect due to optimizations (white, black, pink, low resolution, pixelated, etc.)
• Water lots in Dynamic Player Owned Towns cannot be placed on docks.
• Some pledge, add on, and stretch goal items have not yet been built and/or do not yet have tech support.
• Some virus programs with outdated libraries may attempt to quarantine essential game files, mistakenly identifying them as threats. This can have significant effects, including the client not starting at all. We recommend keeping antivirus programs updated frequently as they address problems. Workarounds include reinstalling and launching the client with the aggressive antivirus software disabled, or whitelisting the game directory in the antivirus list of exceptions.

Avatars,



Release 60 of Shroud of the Avatar goes live this Thursday, Nov 15, at 10:30 AM US Central Time (15:30 UTC).

There is a ton of new content going live this release including:

Fishing Phase 2: Fishing Phase 2 launched in Release 59 and in Release 60 we continue to expand it with a new Fishing Expedition scene, a rotating fishing bonus for Player-Owned Towns, fishing while sitting, recipes for the new common and uncommon fish, and fishing holes in the Snowy Mountains Player-Owned Town templates.



Quality of Life ImprovementsWe increased salvage rates for patterns and components as well as dramatically increased the drop rate for player made items in loot. There is also now a shopping interface that allows you to purchase a selected set of gold crown items from anywhere in the game. Additionally, we performed a much needed balance pass on Bludgeons.

Bug Fixing: We dedicated a significant portion of the release to working solely on fixing bugs and reducing our overall bug count. We addressed over 85 issues with over 75 of them highlighted in the google spreadsheet, including fixes to various scenes (typos, stuck spots, etc.), crafting fixes, combat fixes, and various user interface fixes. NOTE: We have purposely not shown issues related to exploits, security, and customer service issues.

Spectral Peaks T10+: For R60, Spectral Peaks received several major updates. This scene should run more smoothly now and with improved visuals. Additionally, the previous inhabitants of this scene have fled and been replaced by some of the most challenging creatures to be found in all of Novia. This scene is for brave adventurers only and has an entirely new boss fight in what were the abandoned mines. All of these changes have resulted in the scene being upgraded to a Tier 10+ scene!

2018 Winter Rare Items: In Release 60 we have added a ton of 2018 Winter Rare Items to the Add-On Store that will only be available until February 1, 2019 (and will then expire forever). This year we added functionality to the Menorahs where they now light the correct number of candles per day during Hanukkah (note this is retroactive for all Menorahs).



and much, much more!

For all the details, please read the entire R60 Instructions and Updates Notes post, as well as the linked Instructions and Known Issues within the post to ensure a smooth update to your game client.

Have fun exploring New Britannia!