Portalarium Clarifies Shroud of the Avatar’s Single-Player Aspect

In an update to the Shroud of the Avatar Kickstarter page yesterday, Portalarium issued some clarifications about how sinle-player will be implemented in the game:

First, the game can be played offline, no connection required. The character used for the offline version of the game will not be useable in the online version of the game for obvious exploit/hacking reasons. We are going to investigate ways to export your online character to the single player version of the game but the offline character will not be importable into the online version.

Second, the offline single player version of the game for those who purchase it through KickStarter will not use any form of DRM. We had been holding off on committing to that because we don’t know what our final distribution system (Steam, GOG, etc) is going to be and some of them use DRM. We may have DRM of some sort on post-KS sales but we’ll commit to keeping KS versions DRM and “phone home” free for the single player version once launched.

Third, the offline single player of the game will not have any microtransactions. We know this is kind of a no-brainer since it is offline but we wanted to be perfectly clear on that since there was some vagueness in a few statements in one of our video chats.

So, to re-cap:

• The game can be played entirely offline.
• A character used for offline play cannot be used for online play.
• A character used for online play may be exportable to offline play, although this will likely be a one-way transition.
• The offline game will not have DRM initially, at least not in the version provided to backers. Depending on the various distribution channels the game ultimately uses, subsequent versions of it may have DRM (e.g. Steam).
• There will be no microtransactions in the offline version of the game, obviously.

This should hopefully clear up any lingering doubts about whether Shroud of the Avatar can be played as a purely single-player title. And offline players won’t miss out on any aspects of the game’s plot:

…main quest line will be nearly identical in both versions! Just think of the online version as playing an old Ultima but your companions are played by real people! We’ll give some more updates daily but we wanted to answer those three questions since they make up about 70% of the concerns people were expressing.

There are still some lingering questions about the game’s multiplayer aspect that aren’t answered above (e.g. will it have microtransactions?), but at least those of you looking forward to the single-player version of Shroud of the Avatar can put your minds somewhat more at ease.