Release 23

October 29, 2015

We continued the work of the last few releases on massive changes to combat in an effort to make it more balanced, playable, and interesting. The biggest change is an entirely new combat tree that players have been asking for; Subterfuge! This tree will eventually encompass a well rounded set of rogue-ish skills that mixes new skills (Poison Weapon) along with moving skills from other trees (Silent Movement). We also did a complete rebalance and recalculation of how armor works and completely revamped how resistances work with something we call Attunement. Finally, we continued to expand my favorite magic tree: Chaos!

Woodsman types will be pleased to see expansions of Fishing and Taming. Taming has been restructured to support having an array of tamed creatures at your disposal. This also paves the way for an economy to be built up around the buying and selling of tamed creatures. Fishing has new skills and fishing hotspots along with improved visuals.

All the work with Fishing caused us to look at our current water more than we wanted to and it made us realize that we really, really needed to upgrade it. For this release, we started experimenting with a new system and implemented it in a few island scenes. We hope to move completely over to this new system eventually. We also upgraded to Unity 5.2 which fixes a bunch of very ugly visual issues.

Player homes and towns will certainly be more interesting now that players can finally place their servants, house pets, and town NPCs (guards, merchants, bankers, etc.). Players can also spice up their homes with interactive objects like the phonograph (which now plays wax cylinders of game music) and teletypes (which plays Richard’s very first game).

Last but not least, story continues to leap forward with another single player starting scene, more scenes in the truth and courage quest lines, and the addition of the enslaved fauns (along with their parasitic/symbiotic relationship to their Satyr masters).

• Full Wipe: We are going to make some fundamental changes to item architecture that require us to do a full wipe for Release 23. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please note that if you have been waiting to melt down add-ons, this is your chance to do so as long as you do NOT login once R23 goes live (which automatically claims the items and prevents melt down).

• Full Wipe (except social): We wiped all player data including inventory and housing. Social information (friends and guilds) will remain intact. If you have Add On Store items you wish to convert to credit, then do so on the Shroud of the Avatar website after the wipe. Remember to do it before you login to the game server since that will make all add on store items 'claimed in game’. Also please note that if you upgraded a property owning pledge since the last wipe, you ended up with extra lot deeds which will have now been wiped (lot deeds do not stack). Your current deed amount should now match your purchases.
• Experience bonus: As with past releases, players will get an experience bonus based on their achievements in the previous release cycle. To speed things along for players, that bonus is now quadruple experience earn rate instead of double. This means until you reach the same level of experience you had in past releases, you will earn base experience + 300% extra experience!

• Halloween Content: Prepare for an explosion of spooky stuff! Masks, decorations, statues, potions, makeup... the works!

• Wearables: In addition to the Witch Hat from R22, we created a ton of new spooky wearables, including some in game craftable versions.

• Plague Doctor Masks
• Bear Mask (full)
• Bear Helm (craftable)
• Wolf Mask (full)
• Wolf Helm (craftable)
• 2 Jack-O-Lantern Masks
• 2 Zombie Masks
• Headless Mask
• 6 Day of the Dead Masks
• Grim Reaper Mask

• Decorations: In addition to the Skeletons, Spiders, and Crypt from R22, we created a ton of new spooky decorations, including some in game craftable versions.

• 7 Jack-O-Lanterns
• 6 Spider Web Wall Decorations
• Grim Reaper Statue
• Fancy Skull Candle
• Skull Candle

• Potions and Makeup Delayed: We had originally wanted the Day of the Dead, Zombie, Headless, and Jack O’ Lantern masks to be potions/makeup that would wear off after a certain amount of time, but we had to delay work on the tech support for this so we could focus more effort on solving some animation blending issues (see below).

• Servants and House Pets: Players can now place servants and pets in their home. Servants will have conversations and pets will do their own business (note that peeing on rugs is a stretch goal).

• Servants and House Pets: These are now placeable in your home. In order to maintain performance they will only be active when the owner is present. (Long term, they will be active when any player is on the property.)

• Spells & Skills: We will continue to make a pass through the skill trees and add new skills, balance existing skills, and replace less useful skills.

• Subterfuge Skill Tree (Combat): Players have been asking for a skill tree of rogue skills. The new Subterfuge tree is comprised of new skills and appropriate skills relocated from other combat schools where they made less sense.

• Distract (new): Draws most creatures to a specified location.
• Sap (new): Stunning attack that can only be used from behind the target and does not break stealth.
• Engage (new): Quickly closes to melee range and attacks.
• Poison Weapon (new): Adds poison damage to a melee weapon for short amount of time. Requires a poison potion as a reagent.
• Relocated from other Trees:

• Camouflage: previously in light armor.
• Silent Movement: previously in light armor.
• Sneak Attack: previously in light armor.
• Trip: previously in tactics.
• Train Dexterity: previously in tactics.
• Armor Weak Points: previously in polearms.

• Other New Skills:

• Chaos Bolt (Chaos): Ranged attack that does one random effect including Fire Damage, Ice Damage, Slow Effect, Stun, Damage Avoidance Debuff, etc.
• Chaotic Step (Chaos): Teleport caster to a random nearby location. Has a small chance for that location to be floating in the air (resulting in some fall damage).
• Chaotic Feedback (Chaos): Buff that increases glyph draw speed, cast times and and lock times but also causes damage whenever focus is used or glyphs are discarded! This is a truly powerful spell in the right hands!
• Torpid Torment (Chaos): Curses the target with a debuff that does damage to the victim when they exert themselves in any way (use focus).
• Shield of Air (Air): Consumes focus to block damage.
• Shield Preservation (Shields): Reduces durability loss for equipped shields.

• Damage Types/Resistances: These are now directly tied to magic schools versus the previous more generalized damage types. (See Attunement below for more information.)
• Attunement: As part of the above, each magic school now has an innate skill called Attunement that increases the affinity for that magic school while increasing the vulnerability in the opposing school. For example, if you have a high attunement to Fire magic then you are more vulnerable to Water magic. Also, the attunement of both the caster and the target are used in calculating the effect of magic. For example, if both the caster and the target have high Life attunement, then the target is healed for much more than normal. NOTE: This has not yet been propagated to NPCs.
• Armor Balance: Armor calculations now use all parts of the armor, not just chest. We also adjusted the values of all the armor so there is a better progression/balance moving from cloth to leather to chain to plate. This was done by normalizing the Damage Resistance of the armor types to be much closer (and lower) and increasing the Damage Avoidance of the heavier armor types. Damage Avoidance causes more hits to be glancing blows.
• Temporary PVP Flagging: Avatars who have not enabled open PvP may now initiate attacks against open PvP Avatars. This requires selecting an open PvP Avatar, using a single target offensive glyph on them, and confirming your choice. Doing so forfeits the Oracle’s protection until you leave the scene, allowing any other Avatar to attack and slay you and claim your ransom. Note that using healing (or other beneficial glyphs) on open PvP avatars in your party will also flag you for open PvP for the duration of the scene.
• Heal Spells (Life, Water): Now have a much tighter range of values to make them more predictable and easier to balance.
• Obsidian Chips: This is a new reagent that all Chaos spells require. It can be found on Obsidian Golems and Flesh Flayers in Shard Falls as well as on many “mini-boss” type monsters. While it doesn’t always use an obsidian chip, most forms of chaos magic will now require that you have one to cast it!
• Riposte (Blades): Now buffs Damage Avoidance instead of Damage Resistance.
• Ignite Weapon (Fire): Now works for all melee weapons.
• Resurrect (Life): This spell can now work outside a party with a confirmation dialog.
• Corpse Explosion (Death): This spell is now an area of effect spell so you no longer need to target corpses in the middle of combat.
• Dazzling Rays (Sun): This spell is now an area of effect spell
• Buff Dismissal: We did a big pass through all buffs to make them dismissable via right click
• False Fall Damage: We hope we have fixed this finally so no more dying from tripping on a pebble
• Free Attack Charge Up VFX: Powering up your free attack now has a visual effect.
• Improved Ground Targeting Visual: The visual we use for targeting (Fireball, Fishing, etc.) is now a sigil and no longer a plain green disk.

• Taming: Taming will expand with new skills and will now allow players to have more than one tamed creature in their inventory. Players will also now be able to trade and sell tamed creatures.

• Focus Reduction vs. Drain: Summoned pets now reduce total focus versus constantly draining your focus.
• Multiple Tamed Creatures: Players can now tame multiple creatures. Each creature is now associated with a specific whistle that must be equipped in order to summon that particular creature when you use the Summon taming skill. The Summoning Whistles loaded with a tamed animal can also be traded to other players. NOTE: You can still only have one pet active at a time.
• Summoning Whistle as Necklace: To support the above, Summoning Whistles are now worn around the neck as a necklace.
• Perma Death for Tamed Creatures: Tamed creatures that die and are not resurrected (using the Resurrect spell from Life Magic) will be permanently dead. This should help drive the market for tamed creatures while also balancing the fact that you can now have multiple pets in your inventory.
• Taming Collar Recovery: This new taming skill increases the chance that you will recover a taming collar when you fail to tame a creature.
• Barnyard Taming: Pigs and horses can now be tamed.
• Royal Artisan Creature Taming Call: This pledge reward from the Royal Artisan pledge is now functional in the game and summons a tamed Chest Mimic!

• Story: More polish passes will be made on existing maps for balance and story support. We will also continue to expand the story with new scenes including the town of Etceter and Highvale Village, a single player experience that is the starting map for the Courage quest line (and the final starting map of three).

• Etceter Delayed: We completed the world building phase but we did not have time to add the NPCs
• Tutorial Updates: Highvale, Bloodriver, and Solace Bridge now have updated tutorials to match the three starting builds.
• Battle of Highvale (single-player): This marks the third starting map and sends you on the Courage quest line. Highvale is a fortified garrison located just south of Resolute, nestled between mountainous peaks and surrounded by wooded pine. Tensions have been on the rise as recent expansions by the Paladins of Resolute into the northern ends of the Forsaken Vale have not gone unnoticed by the Verdantis Elves. In a retaliatory raid, the Verdantis Elves mounted an all-out siege on the garrison in defense, with both sides suffering heavy casualties.
• Highvale: This is the multiplayer version of Highvale that you return to later in the game.
• Jaanaford: Jaanaford is a small riverfront town on the southern side of Paladis, just east of Longfall. The town sees a few fauns sent by their satyr overlords to trade with the local humans for fish and crafted goods. The local inn is popular among travellers, but overall it's a quiet place and prefers to stay that way.
• Vertas: The settlement of Vertas is new, much like the elves who live within. Unlike many of their number, the elves of Vertas seek to come to terms both with humans and their own past. Avatars that visit Vertas will find that the elves have much in common with them, and seek to learn as much from outlanders as they can. In return, perhaps they can help the Avatar’s own progress along the Path of Truth… NOTE: Not all NPCs and quests are implemented in this town yet.
• Difficulty Tier Markers: Some of you may have noticed a few outdoor scenes now have a spike with skulls next to their exit archways, but maybe you didn't. No one can blame you, they're pretty unobtrusive. If you did see them, you may have blown them off thinking they were simply decorations, but you'd be wrong, my friend! Those skulls are "tier markers" and they indicate the difficulty of nearby enemies; the more skulls on the spike, the more challenging the enemies. Only a few maps have these right now, and not every map will get them, but more and more will get these skulls over time.
• Polish: Polish passes were made on various scenes including:

• West Perennial Trail: Improvements to Bear Cave, Wolf Cave, Wolf Den and Shrine areas.
• Restless Woods: Improvements to Eastern Burrows, Silent Ruins, Infested Ruins, and Fallen Fortress.
• Chillblain’s Compendium (aka Challenge Dungeon): Reworked the difficulty ramp (and made it harder, too). Removed some problematic NPCs and replaced them with others.
• Epitaph: Another creature spawning pass was made.
• Soltown: There are now street signs in Soltown.

• Player Owned Towns: We will add an additional template for the Underground biome and we will add the ability for Dynamic Town owners to place the various NPCs they chose (Guards, shopkeepers, etc.).

• NPC Placement: POT owners that have dynamic POTs can now place the various NPCs that come with their town. For now, we are giving male and female versions of each NPC that the owner can choose. We hope to expand this further to include other customization choices like skin tone, custom naming, movement options (e.g. stay here, patrol, etc.), and the ability to add conversations.
• Underground Biome Template: POT owners now have a new biome and template to choose from. These massive underground caverns can support towns as big as a metropolis and the tallest structures (yes, including the airships). The template includes underground lakes and luminescent mushrooms (instead of trees and grass). We also created a new overworld icon for the entrance to these towns.
• New Dynamic POTs and PoT changes: We added another round of dynamic Player Owned Towns to the game. We also fixed issues, converted biomes and upgraded sizes of several POTs. Here’s a complete list of all changes as well as POT location maps for Novia and Hidden Vale.

• Crafting: More Refining and Production skills will come online. Additionally Crafting Table quality, location, and calendar will begin to factor into crafting results. We will also create more armor, weapon, and cooking recipes

• Crafting Architecture Rework: We are mostly finished with a complete overhaul of the crafting architecture that will facilitate hundreds of thousands of item possibilities in the crafting system. The new architecture greatly expands what we can do with materials and the attributes that result from their use in crafting. Unfortunately, this work delayed much of what we had planned for the release.
• Refining/Production Skills, Crafting Table Attributes, and New Armor/Weapon Recipes Delayed: Due to the work above we had to delay these items.
• Success Change in Recipe Book: Recipes will now display your chance of success based on your skill level. Note that currently all crafting recipes are the base difficulty level so you will quickly get to 99% success rate with as little as 40 in any given skill. We will slowly start adding difficulty ratings to recipes over the next few releases.
• New Harvesting Nodes: Two new harvesting nodes have been added to the game.

• Pumpkin Patches
• Granite Nodes

• New Recipes: New recipes have been added to game for cooking and decorative items.

• Pumpkin Pie
• Pumpkin Soup
• Bear Mask (partial)
• Wolf Mask (partial)
• Wooden Phonograph
• Jack O’ Lantern
• Skull Candle
• Poison

• Shardfall & Control Point Resources: We have greatly increased the resource yields in these areas.
• Fishing: We added a new fishing skill and improved the visuals.

• Bait Recovery: Increases the chance that worms will not be consumed when an attempt to fish fails.
• Casting Range: How far you can cast your line is now tied to the level of your base Fishing skill. As it goes up you can cast farther.
• Line & Bobber Visuals: You can now see the line and bobber when fishing.
• Fishing Hot Spots: There are now fishing hot spots in various maps that have higher fishing yields. Currently, all fishing hotspots are identical and they only exist in deep, swimmable water. They can be identified by a small visual effect (currently sparkles on the surface of the water). In the future there will be a range of visuals, including schools of fish, that indicate hot spots. Casting your fishing line into a hot spot will improve one's chances at fishing up better loot. The closer your bobber is to the center of the hotspot, the greater your chances at better loot. Additional fishing hotspots will be added over time.

• Creatures: The enslaved Fauns will start appearing alongside their masters the Satyrs.

• Fauns: The enslaved race of Fauns makes their appearance in R23 along with specific behaviors (see below) that are emblematic of the symbiotic relationship they have with their masters the Satyrs. “In every army there are those who lead, and those who are led. The brutal nature of the Obsidians only amplified this simple truth. Thus was the existence of the race known as Fauns, engineered to be slaves for their more aggressive masters, the satyrs; a pairing which has persisted to this day through a bond few understand. Yet there are rumors of a faun who has broken his chains… rumors which fauns whisper among themselves when left unsupervised.”
• Satyr/Faun Behaviors: Satyrs now only appear in the game accompanied by their slaves, the Fauns. Fauns will support their Satyr masters in combat and in some cases even fight for them. Fauns have a calming effect on the otherwise chaotic Satyrs. If the Satyrs become separated from their Fauns, they go berserk and attack all other characters (including each other potentially). Conversely, when Fauns are separated from their Satyr masters they stop all aggression and attempt to flee. This presents some interesting tactical choices the players can make when encountering these groups.
• Horse: We added an entire range of animations to the Horse, including combat animations.
• Barn Owl: The pet reward for Citizen Founders is now available in the game.

• Master / Apprentice System: Adventuring with a player who has achieved Grand Mastery in a skill will increase the rate that you advance that same skill.

• Grandmaster/Apprentice System: Achieving a level of 100 or more in a skill makes an Avatar a Grandmaster in that skill. Anyone in a party with a Grandmaster will advance in the skill(s) the Grandmaster has mastered much more quickly. The Grandmaster’s party members must still have learned the mastered skill and have set that skill to “Training” in the skills tab to gain any benefit. Active skills only benefit from this system when used. Adventuring in a party with a Fireball Grandmaster will only help advance your Fireball skill more quickly if you actually cast the spell. Note that Grandmastery does not affect how quickly you earn experience, just how quickly experience from the appropriate pool is consumed to advance the Grandmastered skill.

• Lunar Rifts: The four lunar rifts now change destinations based on the calendar.
• Weather Status: Current weather status is now displayed on the date/time line below the compass.
• Razer Chroma 4.8: We have upgraded to the latest version of Razer Chroma and expanded to support all current Chroma devices. You can learn more about Chroma here. Remember to turn on “Peripheral Lighting” in your Video Options menu.

• Integration: As a reminder, here is how we have integrated Chroma device output into the game state (health), combat (combos), and hints:

• White = Non-combat mode.
• Blue = NPC Conversation Mode and Crafting.
• Green = Combat mode full health.
• Yellow = Combat mode taking damage.
• Red = Combat mode, near death.
• No lights = Dead.
• Dancing = Flashing colors.
• Combos = Corresponding numbers light up of spells that can be combined together (only on keyboards).
• Hints = Corresponding keys related to the system light up to teach players which keys do what (only on keyboards).

• Supported Devices:

• Blackwidow Chroma
• Blackwidow Chroma TE
• Firefly
• Mamba TE
• Death Adder Chroma
• Kraken 7.1 Chroma
• Tartarus Chroma
• Orbweaver Chroma

• Teletype and DND1: The Teletype decoration can now be used to play Richard Garriott’s very first game that he wrote in high school for a teletype machine. The game was ported to Unity by Richard Flemming, winner of Lord British's Royal Challenge (see Update #78 for more details of the DND1 Contest).
• Phonograph and Wax Cylinders: Phonographs can now be used with Wax Cylinders to play music in the game. There are three phonographs in game including the pledge reward at the now expired Navigator pledge, a craftable version, and the Ornate Metal version in the add on store.
• Player Homes: We did a bug fixing and polish pass on several player homes. We also added several new decorations.

• Bug Fixes / Polish:

• Citizen Founder
• Citizen Benefactor
• Edelmann Benefactor
• Edelmann Founder
• Adobe Two Story
• Adobe Brick Two Story Keep
• Barn Two Story
• Lord Founder Houseboat
• Baron Benefactor
• Baron Founder
• Duke Founder
• Lord of the Manor Keep
• Twin Spire Manor

• Dark Rough Stone Blocks:' At the players request we created an Add On Store only variation of the building blocks set that is visually distinct from the in game craftable version.
• Hot Tubs: We added two fancier hot tubs to the game. In a future release, we are also going to give players the ability to turn the water on/off.

• Ornate Tile Hot Tub
• Ornate Wooden Hot Tub

• Phonographs: We created 2 additional phonographs for the game to coincide with making the phonograph functional. We also added 2 types of Wax Cylinders in the game that can be used to play music on the Phonographs and placed as decorations.

• Ornate Metal Phonograph
• Wooden Phonograph
• Wax Cylinder
• Ornate Wax Cylinder

• Table Top Decorations: Players started a thread requesting smaller versions of some of our decorations that could be placed on shelves and tables. Here is the first set of these that we shrunk:

• Skeletons
• Oracle Statue Head
• Grim Reaper Statue
• Chess Set
• Dragon Statue

• Musical Instruments: Various improvements and additions were made including:

• Playing while Seated: You may now play handheld instruments (ex. Lutes) while seated.
• Variations: At the players request, we created Add On Store only variations of the two current musical instruments that are visually distinct from the in-game craftable versions.

• Cordovan Lute
• Umber Upright Piano

• Interactive Spider Eggs and Webs: We have started a pass through the game to make all spider eggs and webs interactive. While several scenes have these new dynamic variations, there are still some that still have the static versions.

• Spider Eggs: Players who walk to close to these destructible eggs will cause them to hatch.
• Spider Webs: Players who try walking through these destructible webs will get stuck (rooted) and call spiders to their location.

• Stats on Health/Focus Bars: Players now have the option to display numbers on top of the bars.
• Guilds: We made a couple of quality of life improvements to Guilds.

• Removed Right Click "Leave the guild": At players’ request, we have removed this option from the right-click menu (you can still access it via the Social menu). This change should greatly reduce accidental departures from guilds.
• Guild Message: Guild Officers can add a message that is viewable by guild members in the Guild tab of the Social interface

• Necklaces: We enabled the necklace slot in R23 to support the taming changes listed above. To coincide with this, we added the 2 necklaces from the Add On Store. Please note that at this time jewelry does not display on the avatar, only in the slots on the character sheet.

• Lord British Silver Serpent
• Ankh of Virtue

• New Water Experiment: We have added a new water system called Ceto in Hometown to test. It has some promising features but does not support multiple levels of water, nor does it support rivers/streams.
• Unity 5.2 Upgrade: We upgraded to one of the most recent versions of Unity which fixed a variety of issues including:

• Light shining through objects.
• Light on terrain showing up as big squares.
• No shadows on terrain in most situations.

• Localization Preparation: We have successfully modified all the text locations in the game to make them translatable and we have uploaded all current text to the Get Localization Website. As soon as next week we will begin organizing the crowd sourced localization process for the following languages (more will be added later):

• German
• French
• Spanish
• Italian
• Portuguese

• Moved Offices: With the help of our players from the BMC, PaxLair, Clan of the Wolf, Order of Drunken Elders, and The Phoenix Republic, we moved our entire office in just one Saturday morning. After a long Sunday, we were able to start Monday with a functioning internal network and were therefore mostly uninterrupted from our R23 work.
• Grand Tour 23: As with each release, we will have a Grand Tour. Completing this quest is the ONLY way to gain this rare reward. The “hat” for this release is a Plague Doctor mask to go with our spooky theme for the month.

So, now that it is clear what you can expect, we should also be as clear about what you should NOT expect:

• 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, and 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 a full suite of Refining/Production Skills, quality levels for tools/crafting tables, Agriculture, and breadth/depth of recipes.
• Game Loop: Release 23 is a further iteration on our rudimentary game loop, but is still missing some key components. Expect this to expand with each subsequent release, but it won’t be truly complete until we hit Beta next year.
• Advanced Player Housing: There are some advanced features for player housing, including advanced permissions (ex. renting), guild housing 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. We will continue to iterate on these until we have highly competitive visuals.
• Pledge Rewards: Pledge Rewards that have been built and have tech to support them are in the game; all other rewards are awaiting either content creation or tech support (ex. vendors).
• Persistence: As part of development, we will need to periodically wipe data including characters, property, etc. As we near official launch the frequency should decrease, but there will definitely be a wipe right before launch. So consider everything gained during early access temporary.

Additional Information

• Release 23 Instructions
• Release 23 Known Issues
• Quick Reference Card

See Also

• Release Dates
• Release 22
• Release 24
• Release 25