Atlantic Roleplay Community Boards

[Cear Dallben ZOG]

---

Not only do we have Ultima Forever comming. Lord British himself is bringing us to a new britannia.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/portalarium/shroud-of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues-0
http://ultimacodex.com/2013/03/lord-british-presents-shroud-of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues/
_________________

U6Online|| Welcome to Blackrock||Sunrise, Isle of the Avatar||Automatic Roleplay

[Andrew]

---

I'll be there.

[Hugh Bracken]

---

I have been hanging out over there since around the time of the original posts in this thread. It is a soup sandwich with some twists and turns. Portalarium announced some shifts in the last two weeks that are a departure from Richard Garriott's original vision when he started pitching and later crowd funding Shroud of the Avatar. Divisions in the community include Ultima vs Ultima Online (i.e. single player vs "MMO"), PvP vs PvE, and purists vs revisionists (my phrasing for people who prefer the original vision and/or mock ups vs hose who appreciate the changes hat have been made in development). None of this is to suggest that the end product will not a game worth playing but just to suggest that it is a bit chaotic. Unless I missed it, there is no formal announcement of a new release date target but it seems to have slid into early 2015 at this point.

The five "Episodes" (i.e. the game and four planned expansions) are single player. There has not been a lot discussed about this aspect of Shroud of the Avatar. The "MMO" part is actually what is being called Selective Multiplayer Online (SMO) as you can play by yourself in the sandbox, play with your friends in the sandbox, or play in the sandbox with everyone else who wants to play with everyone in the sandbox. There was a social networking component discussed in the original vision but it has not been discussed in great detail but it seems like you will give access to Facebook, Google+, Twitter, etc and Shroud of the Avatar will use that to determine what characters you see in Friends Mode or something like that.

Skills are broken down into three circles so far: Combat (three martial, one ranged, three armor, and one shield tree), Magic (nine trees), and Crafting (5 gathering, 5 refining, and 5 production trees). So far, Combat and Magic skill points come from the same pool and Crafting skills points should be in their own pool. There shouldn't be crafting mules in Shroud of the Avatar. Combat is a card system where you set your initial cards up before entering into combat and then they rotate as you use exposed cards (i.e. abilities). The card system has not been tested as of yet (some low level abilities have been tested). The combat testing has been too rudimentary to really get a grasp on how functional or enjoyable the combat system will be. PvP sounds like it is going to be much more like Trammel than Felucca for the most part with some temporary zones that have a PvP rule set with no Full Loot. Essentially, you will never have to PvP if you never enter the PvP zones (which have the best resources). Additionally, guilds are expected to be able to establish flexible PvP rule sets when warred (no details yet). There has been no PvP testing as of yet.

Housing is in the game and is one of the primary "gifts" for crowd funding Shroud of the Avatar. You will be able to purchase housing ingame with ingame currency; however, it will be expensive (a relative term that has not been defined) and will not be rent-free. The incomplete crafting loops that have been in testing as well as ingame vendors give some of the basics to furnish and decorate the homes. Player run towns can be purchased starting at $750 as of the recent major anouncement.

Summary: If you are looking for UO... you will likely be disappointed. There is a lot to be developed and revealed. Roleplayers can make lemonade out of lemons so it will be fine in that regard. The jury is out on how well the crowd funding can be sustained until sales pick up the slack and whether the market will adopt the finished product that can be built with the crowd funding that is sustained. For $45, you can check out the pre-Alpha releases that are published to the servers for one weekend once a month. I am not really sure I would do it yet unless you are curious. Aside from Cear, I have crossed paths with a member or two from this community (mostly former active members) over there and I would not be surprised if there are others. I have a character (and forum profile) named Kier Bracken; however, my main over there is Archibald Leatherneck. Feel free to look me up (forum accounts are free from what I hear).

None the less, I hope you all enjoy your day and gaming. This community is wonderful and I have been hard pressed to find one that is comparable and where they may have existed, none of them were able to sustain themselves as this community has. The community and its members are to be commended for that.

[Cear Dallben ZOG]

---