Blimey - Richard Garriot's Ultima successor MMO Shroud Of The Avatar: Forsaken Virtues only launched back in March. Despite leaving early access just seven months ago (to tepid critical response), Portalarium's dragon-bothering epic has now gone free-to-play. This second debut (third, if you count its 2014 early access launch) comes with an overhaul to the game's criticised earlier areas, hopefully making for a smoother ride for newcomers. Below, a trailer featuring dungeoneering, dragon-bothering and jolly online co-operation.
]]>Another game has completed the long and treacherous journey from an industry elder having a nostalgic idea, fighting through the dark forest of crowdfunding, then brawling in the tavern of early access, to finally reach the glimmering Palace of Being Properly Out Now. The elder is Richard "Lord British" Garriott, the nostalgic idea is a return to his player-driven MMO days of Ultima Online, and the game is Shroud Of The Avatar: Forsaken Virtues. Five years after a Kickstarter campaign, the fantasy RPG has left early access and is now officially released.
]]>The past few years have been dense with reboots, remakes and Kickstarter-funded drives to return old franchises to life. When it was first announced, Shroud of The Avatar seemed like a relatively safe bet; the original mind behind the Ultima series, returning to not only dust off the singleplayer and story-driven side of the franchise, but blend it with the fondly remembered gameplay mechanics of Ultima Online.
We've not covered Shroud of The Avatar at all since November 2014. Now, almost five years since it first raised $2m on Kickstarter, and over three years since it first debuted on Early Access, Portalarium reckon it's about ready for launch.
]]>So... 2016. (FX: 'Urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh....') It's not been the greatest of years, from just about every celebrity you might have loved deciding to peg it, to America electing the Curious Orange. As far as RPGs go, it's also been fairly quiet, thanks to lots of stuff deciding to stay in the oven for a few more months. That's not to say we've had nothing, not least Early Access versions of many of these games. Awards are coming later this month! But in terms of big, BIG, BIG releases, it's been kinda quiet. Next year though? Whoooo-boy, do we have a lot of awesome stuff on the way. Here are some of my picks for the games I'm most excited to get my hands on in 2017.
]]>Even by Blizzard's standards, The Mean Streets of Gadgetzan is taking the piss. In case you missed it, which I know you didn't, but work with me here, it's the newest Hearthstone expansion. The trailer is wonderful. The setting is a corrupt crime-town full of gangsters, hoodlums and mugs, all fighting for cash and control in a tongue-in-cheek mix of Lord of the Rings and Bugsy Malone. I'd love to play a full adventure/RPG/heck even shooter set in that world, not just play with a new set of cards using it as a theme. In just a minute of charismatic art and a fun song, Blizzard fleshed out Gadgetzan with more love and more detail than some games manage in their entire runs.
But, uh, here's the thing. This is what Gadgetzan actually looks like.
]]>We're almost half-way through the year, and it's not been a bad one. The finale of The Witcher 3. Dark Souls III, for those players who consider it an RPG. A couple of late-arrivals, like Dragon's Dogma. But as the nights again start to draw darker, what's up next? Here's some of the big quests still promised for 2016. As ever, don't be too surprised to see a few more jump from A to B.
]]>Would you like to own a "Lord British Blood Reliquary" containing Richard Garriott's actual blood? Now is your chance! The Tabula Rasa developer is selling artwork containing his blood for the low-low price of $5000 (around £3852) via eBay alongside a selection of items from his new MMO, Shroud of the Avatar.
]]>The holidays are now over, and it's time to get back to what matters - saving a million accident-prone fantasy realms from their own past mistakes, evil gods on the rampage, and all that pesky loot that they clearly don't have anything better to do with than stick it in barrels at the bottom of dungeons. This is why so many of them have no choice but to have bandit-driven economies. Shameful. Someone should Do Something There.
Here's some of the most exciting RPGs due in 2016. I suspect a couple may not actually make it to final release this year, but never mind - 'tis the season to be generous. In no particular order, then, some of the ones I'm looking forward to...
]]>Has it really been ten months since we last posted about Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues? Gosh. A new RPG from Ultima creator Richard Garriott seems like something we'd pay a lot more attention to. Why is this? Personally, I was burnt out on opulent Kickstater dreams manifesting as unexciting pre-alpha builds. But of course they'd look ropey. Anyway, what I think matters a whole lot less, as you can form your own opinions by playing Shroud of the Avatar. Yesterday it reached a done-enough state to launch on Steam Early Access.
]]>There's an awful lot of money floating around out there. Richard Garriott's determined return to the world of RPGs with Shroud Of The Avatar: Forsaken Virtues has now raised over $3m, with an epic $1.1m having been tacked on after the successful Kickstartering of $1.9m. (Spotted by Massively.) Would anyone like to crowdfund a holiday for me?
]]>I'm watching a twenty five minute video of Shroud of the Avatar, with commentary from bearded spacefarer Lord British. I was going to take in the whole thing, making the occasional note when something caught my interest, but I'm four minutes in and I've become rather distressed. So far, Garriott has shown a couple of settlements and the player housing within them. There's a pokey wizard's tower, with a teleporter instead of a staircase, and Viking and Germanic themed dwellings. The problem is, they're all crammed full of blatant fire hazards. Wooden houses containing enormous braziers, flames hungrily dancing and spilling from within. The druid is slightly more careful, possibly because he lives in a tree, but he's still plonked an open flame next to a case of precious books. Very concerning. Oh, there's conversation, combat and crafting as well but it's mostly Rightmove Britannia.
]]>If anyone knows how to decorate a medieval-style home, it's Richard Garriott. He does, after all, have a reputation for taking up residence in actual, factual castles. And so it seems all-too-right that the man, the myth, the (tarnished, due to a perhaps not entirely needed Kickstarter) legend is now walking us through the Hoarders-worthy halls of his Shroud of the Avatar abode. Like snowflakes, however, every nigh-impregnable war fortress is different - an expression of its owner's most delicate soul. Ponder your own plans as Garriott indiscriminately stacks everything with masterful finesse after the break.
]]>Where there are fans, there is also fan art. This is one of nature's most time-unsullied processes, painting our planet in mighty strokes since it first sang itself into existence. For example, what are alligators if not fan art of the dinosaurs? And ancient Rome? Just a fan recreation of ancient Greece. I rest my case. Richard Garriott and his merry band of Garriettes are clearly aware of this, which is why they've decided to directly ask fans to make art for Ultima spiritual successor Shroud of the Avatar. They've even provided custom tools with which to do it and the promise of a rather hefty payday - if fans' completed submissions get accepted, that is.
]]>The resolution of this first video of Richard Garriott's Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues is so bad that I thought I'd time-traveled back to the 90s. However deductive reasoning on my part eliminated that notion quickly enough: I wasn't wearing an X-Files t-shirt, and I wasn't pining over [name redacted], [name redacted], [really, Craig?], nor Gillian Anderson (a message to lank-haired teenage me: you'll eventually live your lifelong ambition of traveling, working in the games industry, and squeezing a bit of any girl. Please, get a haircut). No, it's just low-res. It's part of an hour-long presentation Garriott and his team gave at RTX 13, talking about his adventure in crowd-funding, the many eras of multiplayer games, before finally showing off early footage. Video is below.
]]>Shortly after Torment: Tides of Numenumenumenuma-BATMAN claimed its title as the most-funded Kickstarter game in the short history of Kickstarted games, Richard Garriott's definitely-not-an-Ultima sequel, Shroud of the Avatar has raised over two million dollars. The Kickstarter campaign, which had a one million dollar goal, finished just shy of doubling the target but direct pledges through the RPG's website pushed it to a current total of $2,057,992, a figure which will almost certainly be out of date by the time you click on the link. Understandably, recent updates have been focused on clarifying and altering reward tiers, although as is increasingly common, I find the whole system cumbersome in the extreme. There were details about crafting last week though and some of that information is below.
]]>Like so many role-playing pioneers before him, Richard Garriott has joined the boom-or-bust gold rush that is Kickstarter. However, unlike literally all of those same pioneers, Garriott's kinda, you know, been to space. He also owned an actual, factual castle at one point. The fates, in other words, haven't been unkind to his rather formidable fortune, and it stands to reason that he's not in what mere mortals like ourselves would refer to as "dire straits." So then, why all this Kickstarter hoopla for Shroud of the Avatar? Moreover, how will its episodic structure work? And Garriott's gone on about how the pseudo-MMO is actually single-player at heart, but how will the teeth of one puzzle piece interlock with the sawblade edges of another? Click past the break for Garriott's best attempts at explaining some of his Ultima successor's stickier issues.
]]>Rounding out the Kickstarteriest week in gaming history, Richard "Lord British" Garriott has emerged from his castle of silence to reveal his oft-hinted-at Ultima spiritual successor, Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues. It's chugging along quite nicely, too, already having charmed more than $300,000 (of a hopeful $1,000,000) out of wary wallets in a mere few hours. But how will it actually work? Sure, Garriott's promising he'll essentially combine single-player storylines and sandbox-y MMOs, but what does that entail? I recently met up with the ex-ruler of Britannia himself to see an early prototype of the game in action and find out all about his plans for world-building, questing, combat, real-estate, farming, and duck-economy-despising skeletons. All (and I do mean all) will be revealed after the break.
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