Comments:"Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues by Portalarium, Inc. — Kickstarter"
URL:http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/portalarium/shroud-of-the-avatar-forsaken-virtues-0
Richard Garriott, the award winning designer and creator of the Ultima franchise, makes his triumphant return to the genre that earned him a place in the Hall of Fame and a Lifetime Achievement Award. 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.
Richard Garriott guided the Ultima Series from its inception in 1980, through the "trilogy-of-trilogies" of solo player games and later, the highly successful Ultima Online. Under his leadership, RPG's evolved from simple dungeon crawls to immersive worlds where you could easily suspend your disbelief. You cared about the world and its people, and you cared about the actions and deeds you accomplished within that world.
Since then, most every other RPG has focused more on level grinding than on “role playing”, which has been reduced to a few initial character choices. While advancements in graphics and sound have been phenomenal, in many ways the virtual worlds we play in have become less real. Less open. Less immersive.
With Shroud of the Avatar, Richard and his team will again reinvent the classic fantasy role-playing experience. 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.
To help Richard build his new masterpiece, a team of proven industry veterans has been assembled. The average team member has more than 10 years experience and a half-dozen shipped games to their credit. More than 50 titles have been shipped between the team, including almost a dozen games that reached number one on the sales charts.
We're not the only ones who are excited about Shroud of the Avatar!
"As an Ultima fanatic, I'm kind of jittery excited about what's happening here." ~ Felicia Day, actress, writer, and producer of the web series The Guild
"I am really excited to see what new innovations are in Shroud of the Avatar. I can not WAIT to play it!" ~ Ernest Cline, author of New York Times Bestseller, Ready Player One
“Richard and I have known each other 26 years when I first joined up with a small little company called Origin Systems. We had a lot fun being the small rebel upstart company and made some games that are still remembered for defining or creating genres even today. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Richard this energized about the world and game he is creating. Shroud of The Avatar, feels like the kind of game we would have made in the old days of Origin when we didn’t answer to anyone and just made the best game we could with no interference. That’s what’s great about Crowd funding. I’m backing and looking forward to being part of Lord British’s next great adventure” ~ Chris Roberts, creator of the best-selling Wing Commander game series
Be sure to pledge your support today and join our Champions in making Shroud of the Avatar a success!
Entertainment software development is always difficult. A successful game must work well feature-by-feature and be compelling and fun at all times to sustain player interest. "Fun" is very hard to define on paper, and is further complicated when tasked with integrating complex features that the players will find fulfilling. This iterative experimental process creates inherent risks in game development.
We are managing this risk with a number of careful processes. First our team is built around a core of industry experts, who individually have up to 30 years of game development experience. Additionally, we are using powerful, proven tools to mitigate development risks. Finally, we are staging development so that the most important and most risky features are developed first, while carefully containing the scope of the initial release so that feature bloat does not bury the project.
While game development remains inherently risky, this team is qualified and dedicated to drive this project to successful conclusion with skill and passion. We hope to work closely with you, the player, as our partner in completing this challenge.