Shroud of the Avatar - Kickstarter by Lord British

[Hornpipe]

Lord British returns to his fantasy RPG roots with Shroud of the Avatar, hearkening back to his innovative early work.

Shroud of the Avatar is the first installment of Richard’s new vision and represents the reinvention of the classic, fantasy role-playing which he pioneered. A fantasy role-playing game that will focus more on player choices and discovery than on level grinding.

Using state-of-the-art tools and technology, the game will focus on what made his seminal Ultima Series great. Once players are introduced to the game, they will discover their own story woven into the immersive world and lore surrounding them. Players may choose to follow the life of the adventurer or, if they prefer, focus on exploration and discovery. Players may even choose the life of a homesteader; either nestled within the safety of the settled lands, or on the dangerous but potentially lucrative frontier. The world is full of opportunities and challenges!

The familiar psychological profiling used to create your character, organically derived game-play responses to player behavior and fundamental virtues and consequence of actions will all play a huge role in Shroud of the Avatar. Players will be free to choose their path, but must then live with the consequences of their actions.

Shroud of the Avatar general features:

From Lord British's Treatise on "What is an Ultimate RPG?":
- Fully interactive virtual world - If it looks usable, it should do something
- Deep original fiction - Ethical parables, cultural histories, fully developed alternate language text
- Physical game components will be available: Cloth map, fictional manuals, trinkets
- Multiplayer Online Game - which can also be played solo player / offline

Classless character system:

Unlike most RPGs, players will not be limited to the class they select at the beginning of the game. We will be discussing this feature in more detail during an upcoming Developer Blog.

Player housing:

Player housing will live in the persistent shared world, so real estate will have location value.

The least expensive housing can be found in Villages, which offer the highest density of low-cost housing. The core of a village will include basic services that will encourage players to both visit and settle in the area. Villages are a great place for an ambitious adventurer to hang their hat. (Only a few thousand Village homes will be available to players in-game.)

Towns on the other hand, offer more protection and amenities than Villages. The larger amount of available services will further increase traffic flow to your home or business. Plots of land will be larger as well, allowing players to build bigger houses. Towns are an excellent place to start a business while affording moderate levels of safety. (Only a few hundred Town homes will be available to players in-game.)

A City provides substantial protection for players, with large, vital services to draw players to visit and spend their coin. Cities can be protected by large defensive structures like Tesla towers, and offer luxuries not found in Towns or Villages. Cities also have the largest and most valuable homesteads. Be aware though, that the most valuable properties are available to very limited number of players and will likely be in high demand! (Only a few dozen City homes will be available to players in-game.)

Once a house is purchased, players will need to pay regular taxes on it of course. But as a special thank you to select Kickstarter supporters, all housing obtained by making a Kickstarter pledge of Citizen, Lord, Baron, Duke or Lord of the Manor will be tax free for life!

Crafting system that avoids busy work:

Craft as a hobby or as a career! The results of all crafting elements have value as consumables and components in the combat system, as well as maintenance and upgrade elements for housing and cities. The crafting system will be a topic of discussion in one of our upcoming Developer Blogs.

Meaningful PVP that also minimizes griefing:

An incentive-driven system will draw players into the challenge and intrigue of the PVP experience, whether they become the hunter or the hunted!

Scene based encounters:

In a nod to Garriott's early RPG works, Shroud of the Avatar is split up into a high-level overland map and adventure scenes. Scenes are generally re-playable and can be experienced solo or with others.

Versions:

Shroud of the Avatar is currently planned for downloadable PC, Mac, and Linux.

Shroud of the avatar on kickstarter :
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/por ... -virtues-0

Sroud of the avatar official web site :
shroudoftheavatar.com

[Jaesun]

ugh.

[Dominus]

While I pledged on kickstarter for this I'm not entirely sure whether to let this post exist further since it is blatant ADVERTISEMENT...

[Hornpipe]

@Dominus

First of all, sorry for the message content. I'm a french player, and I thought it would be more clear with that. My english is poor and I think I would have made ​​mistakes in trying to explain everything by myself.

The aim was to inform the people who loved Ultima 7 that a similar project was proposed by the same game designer and that this project needed support.

Since I can not edit the message, I suggest you leave only the links with this explanation.

For my part, I hope Shroud of the Avatar enable the Ultima series to raise awareness of younger generations.

Thank you for your understanding,

[Dominus]

Now that sounds better
The way you copied the official text it seemed like a drive by ad

[Dominus]

Last few hours - if you want to pledge, do it NOW

[paulo]

Don't support the decline of MORPGs.

Look at the Divinity kickstarter instead; it's shaping up to be like ultima 7 + TB combat.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lar ... -sin/posts

[Dominus]

C'mon, you didn't have to flame bait now. Save it

[paulo]

Just hate MORPGs. Argghh.

[Dominus]

Thanks for letting us know, we really needed that to know

[paulo]

btw, i wouldn't be so certain the op is not a pr plant. There are (exceedingly shitty) jobs at companies that all they do is to recruit marketing graduates with less than stellar grades to post on forums.

Why, i could be one myself!

[Pegbyter]

Hornpipe said,

"First of all, sorry for the message content. I'm a french player, and I thought it would be more clear with that. My english is poor and I think I would have made ​​mistakes in trying to explain everything by myself."


Paulo, I think you've got Hornpipe nailed dead to rights on this one...

I don't like flaming people unnecessarily, yet his English is FAR from poor in either of his posts... His sentence structure is far from poor and he is almost grammatically perfect. (a little too perfect)

Peg

[Hornpipe]

Hi,

I'm a SOTA backer yes, but I'm not working for Portalarium nor for possible subcontractor.

I'm a french lawyer and I'm working for health insurance.

SOTA is not only a MORPGs : you can play offline, without DRM, just like Divinity.

Divinity project sounds great although I'm not a fan of turn based combats, but I can't pledge for all games : I already support Star citizens and SOTA. I will think about it. I have 16 days.

I thank you for your compliments about my english. English grammar is not easy to respect for frenchies. In fact, my first post is almost a copy paste from the site of SOTA.

After that, you are free to believe what you want. I can't give more than my word.

[monotremata]

Wow I wish I wouldve been on here last week and seen this so I couldve donated!
This sounds like its gonna be pretty awesome and man, Tracy Hickman, one half of the godlike Dragonlance team, is on the design team now??
SIGN ME UP!

[Dominus]

Mono, you can still pledge on the sota site via paypal, afaik

[Hornpipe]

Ok I pledged for Divinity, finally.

Damn you, Paulo !

[Kensu]

Strike 1: all of the examples he used to demonstrate what Ultima is came from Ascension.
Strike 2: It's a trojan horse. He's trying to make it look like a single player game with some online content, but I think it's pretty clear that it's actually an MMORPG.
Wish I had a strike 3 handy to complete the baseball metaphor, but I think that's enough.