Avatars,
Release 59 of Shroud of the Avatar goes live this Thursday, October 25, at 10:30 AM US Central Daylight Time (15:30 UTC).
There is a ton of new content going live this release including:
New User Experience Revamp: For Release 59, we have revamped and improved the New User Experience by separating the tutorials from the story spaces in the three starting areas (Battle of Solace Bridge, Battle of Highvale, and Blood River Massacre). We have also built a new focused tutorial space in the Isle of Storms that walks you through the game basics in a gated fashion (i.e. you cannot advance to the next room until you prove you can swing a sword). Another change is that choosing your story path is now independent of your starting decks!
Fishing Phase 2: Fishing Phase 2 launches with Release 59 and includes 3 different water types, over 25 new fish, trophy data on fish, different baits and group fishing XP bonus!
Quality of Life ImprovementsWe made several key improvements to the quality of life to increase connectivity between players in Release 59 including the addition of a Universal (game-wide) chat channel and the automatic selection of Open Multiplayer instances when entering towns, overworld, and Outskirts maps. We also created a new Rewards interface that lets you claim rewards anywhere. Additionally we have removed the previous gameplay restrictions of story, trade and lot ownership from our free players. Finally we have removed decay of experience upon death!
Bug Fixing: We dedicated a significant portion of the release to working solely on fixing bugs and reducing our overall bug count. We addressed over 100 issues with over 60 of them highlighted in the google spreadsheet, including fixes to various scenes (typos, stuck spots, etc.), crafting fixes, combat fixes, and various user interface fixes. NOTE: We have purposely not shown issues related to exploits, security, and customer service issues.
Performance: Yet again huge improvements were made to performance, especially in scenes with large numbers of players.
Pumpkin Head and “Nearby Power”: The latest addition to our menagerie of seasonal creatures is Pumpkin Head who uses the newest boss behavior: “Nearby Power”. This behavior allows bosses to draw power from nearby objects and/or other creatures. Pumpkin Head draws his power from the pumpkins in his pumpkin patch.
and much, much more!
For all the details, please read the entire R59 Instructions and Updates Notes post, as well as the linked Instructions and Known Issues within the post to ensure a smooth update to your game client.
Have fun exploring New Britannia!