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 PERIODIC WIPES, 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.
Greetings Avatars, Please read this entire message, as well as the linked instructions and known issues.
Tower of the Shuttered Eye: This entire storyline has been reworked to be better balanced based on where the player will be level wise along the Path of Love. In addition, this is now a required step for players on the Path of Love, so that new players do not attempt to run straight from Soltown to Necropolis. Many issues with the scene have been fixed (although there is no longer free treasure at the top) and in general this should be a much more appropriate area for adventurers from low to medium skill levels. Lastly, we have created a unique NPC face for the chief antagonist of this quest, Min Liang Tan.
Ardoris Polish: We continued polish work on the City of Love. We did additional decoration improvements across the scene, particularly around NPC buildings such as the Guard Barracks, PVP Arena, Peladjar Inn, Tavern, and much more. Many visual effects were added, including insects and schools of fish, and a number of NPC behaviors were further improved as well including a morning gathering for Tai Chi. We have polished the Black Arrow side quest, in which the Avatar must track down a soulless serial killer who is stalking and killing the children of Ardoris. There is also a new side quest involving the special “bonds” of a relationship; visit the very... focused Zangoff the Blacksmith to start this new quest. Additionally we polished many of the conversations (typos, missing keywords, journal entry errors, etc.). Harvest: Harvest is located in the Verdantis region in the Northwest region of Novia. Originally a cloned scene using one of our PRT/POT templates based off of the Forest 01 base template (aka the “PaxLair template”), it was rebuilt in Release 35 to show the plot specific elements of the Norgard occupation and to display a heavily agrarian theme.
Brittany Sewers: Some of you already know that there's something evil going on deep in the heart of the Brittany Sewers. Without spoiling too much for those of you who haven't been there, I think it's safe to reveal that there have been a handful of high-level enemies in a central room, and one of them has a key that gives you access to their treasure room. Some of this is changing with Release 35. The fight is now a wave-based battle instead of a crowd of enemies. Kill all enemies in a wave to start the next one. Defeat all waves to achieve victory. (The number of waves may change in the future.) Better Directions: When asking NPCs such as guards for directions, they will not only tell you where something or someone is if they know, but also unlock the Point of Interest on your compass. We've added many points of interest (such as the Soltown Catacombs in Soltown) which NPCs will give directions to as well. For R35, the following towns will have the ability to ask NPCs for directions to points of interest: Aerie, Ardoris, Braemar, Desolis, Etceter, Kingsport, Solania, and Soltown. Support for the following towns will be added in future patches: Jaanaford, Kiln, Owl's Head, Resolute, Spite, Valhold, Vertas, and Xenos. Roving Encounters: Shroud of the Avatar already has random encounters -- you'll be walking across the Novia or Hidden Vale overworld maps and, without warning, you'll be teleported into a small encounter scene. We like the idea of running into unexpected threats on the overworld, but the "without warning" part is less than ideal…so, as of Release 35, we're changing how random encounters are triggered. You won't be blindly caught by a Random Encounter anymore. We're replacing that part of the encounter system with new overworld enemies who will trigger encounters when you get too close. These overworld enemies will be similar to the ones you've battled countless times in adventure scenes, except they can't be engaged in actual combat. Instead, if you approach too close to the new overworld enemies and they see you, they'll run at you. If they get next to you, you'll be pulled into the encounter associated with them. For example, bandits will pull you into bandit encounters, while wolves pull you into a scene full of wolves. Once you see the enemy, you can walk around it to avoid the encounter or run toward it to force the encounter. If the enemy has already spotted you and you're quick, you can try to run away before the enemy catches up and keep the encounter from ever triggering. Both overworld maps have encounters scattered about. They might be wandering in the woods, meandering along a shoreline, or patrolling along a road. Initially, we'll be adding in common encounters like wolves, bandits, and undead. Over time, dragon encounters will return and we'll include other rare situations like merchants. Please note this means we have removed ALL the random encounters that were previously placed in the game.
Encumbrance: Encumbrance has now been made more realistic in its behavior. Previously, players could carry any amount and still move at a decent speed. Focus would slowly drain away at a constant rate, but running out of focus would not prevent movement. In addition to not being very realistic, this behavior was also enabling some unwanted behaviors such as players mining for hours on end without the need to ever go back to town. Also, this was making it trivial to transport any amount of goods across the world with little effort. Starting in R35, encumbrance will slow the player and use focus fairly proportionally with the amount they are overloaded. Carrying twice the amount you’re supposed to will cut your movement speed in half and drain focus at a slow rate. Carry ten times the amount you should will make you move around a tenth your usual speed and also use ten times as much focus. There is a lower cap to how slow players can move but focus costs continue to rise. Additionally, running out of focus will now prevent movement until the player has a chance to rest and regain some focus. It is advised that players who are carrying an extreme amount of goods stop by a bank or their house and unload some extra weight before the patch. Otherwise, players might be in for a long slow crawl home the day after the patch! The exact math behind this will no doubt receive some further tuning based on feedback but be aware this is intended to inconvenience players who are trying to perform what would normally be considered impossible feats of carrying far more than was intended. In any scene with player housing, the speed penalty will be applied but not the focus loss to make carrying very heavy loads within town scenes less painful. Start Point Selection for Dynamic POTs: Owners of Dynamic Player-Owned Towns will now be able to use an in-game tool to pick which start point they want players to appear at when they first come into the scene. The choice will be from a list of pre-placed options and will include some locations along the edge of the scene as well as a few near the center of the scene. Note that, for POTs flagged for Open PvP, there will still be some randomization of the exact location to deter camping. Water Harvesting: The Novian Mercantile Guild’s monopoly on Bucketed Water has been broken! For now, citizens are free to gather unlimited water from wells and fountains. Get it while it lasts! Water Harvesting will expand to include other sources, including lakes and rivers (with unlimited refill), however some water sources such as rain barrels, wells, and fountains will have refill-over-time tech added. When that tech comes online it will govern how much water can be gathered from rain barrels, wells and fountains over a certain amount of time and how quickly they will refill. New Plants for Agriculture and Other Gathered Ingredients: In order to ensure that almost all ingredients for cooking can be gathered or grown (at least after purchasing seeds), we have added more plants to Agriculture including Lemons, Tomatoes, Lettuce, Wheat, etc. We have also added nuts to tree harvests, mushrooms to gathering, and insured that all meats can be field dressed from animals. At this point, there are only a very few outstanding ingredients that still have to be purchased, milk for example. Higher Tier Cooking Recipes: In Release 34, we revamped the Cooking system to introduce Tiered Recipes with the effects generated by consuming the food being based on the amount and types of ingredients. There are 6 tiers (0–5). In Release 34, we only had Tiers 0–2, which only affected Health and Focus Regen rates. In Release 35, we are adding 25 new Cooking Recipes all the way up to Tier 5 which make Fantastical and Special Foods that give more magical effects and can last much, much longer (but may also have negative effects). And much more including more Elven Bundles, Harvest & Autumn themed items, Unique NPC faces, combat balance, etc.! Click here for the complete R35 Instructions [And did we mention that you should read the negative reviews that warn you about the unfinished state of this game before you purchase? Don't buy this game until you read them!]