Shroud of the Avatar News Round-Up
As I post this, the Kickstarter campaign for Richard Garriott’s Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues has surpassed $580,283 of its intial $1 million goal, a quite decent start for not quite two days. Complaints about the steepness of the reward tiers aside, it would seem that there’s a good-sized groundswell of enthusiasm for the project.
Speaking of which…pay close attention to the official Shroud of the Avatar website; a non-Kickstarter funding option, which will presumably include PayPal support, should be coming soon.
And if you haven’t already, check out the Ultima Codex’s Shroud of the Avatar portal; our interview with Richard Garriott is there, as well as a number of screenshots, concept art pieces, and gameplay videos. Oh, and of course, the map of the initial game world is there as well.
Anyhow, let’s take a look at some of the coverage that Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues has been getting today. The biggest write-up about it almost certainly comes from Polygon:
Shroud of the Avatar, which launched on Kickstarter this morning with a $1 million goal, is built upon the tenets Garriott developed over the course of his more than three-decade-long career making games.
If funded, Shroud will strive to reinvent the classic fantasy role-playing title by delivering a game that focuses more on the player experience and less on grinding, fetch quests and dumping a person into a virtual environment with lots and lots of strangers.
Shroud of the Avatar will be a game of, at max, “tens of people,” Garriott said. While it can be played entirely offline or alone, when online, the game will be constantly looking for like-minded players, sometimes friends, with which to people a player’s world.
“Instead of being an MMO where if all ten thousand people dog pile in the same map you see all ten thousand people, the way the game works is, in real time it brings people into your viewing area in a priority system that is relevant to you,” Garriott said. “So anybody that is your friend is favored to bring in. Anybody that might be in your local geography or on similar activities at the moment are brought in, and if those people aren’t available, it starts bringing in strangers and other opportunities into your purview.
And here’s another snippet:
Most modern role-playing games are too easy, Garriott believes, they hold your hand too much in terms of explaining why you’re there, what you’re supposed to do and how you’re supposed to do it.
Garriott envisions a tougher sort of RPG, one that, while it might not force you to literally take notes on a pad of paper when you play, will certainly force you to do a bit more thinking and remembering.
“I don’t wanna do a quest log and arrows telling you where to go and exclamation points over peoples’ heads,” he said. “We’re gonna give some kind of journal for you to be able to at least have an auto logging of things that you have to do so you can at least look back. But it’s not going to be a checklist and explanation points and arrows on a map. It’s going to be, ‘You’re in this world, it’s a real world, go live in it and explore it to your heart’s content.'”
The idea of dropping into a situation with another player and not knowing what’s going on also sets the scene for Garriott’s take on player-versus-player combat, which is equally interesting.
GamesRadar: Richard Garriott hits Kickstarter with multiplayer RPG
The creator of Ultima Online (yay!) and Tabula Rasa (yikes!) is pitching Lord British fans through Kickstarter, in a bid to create a new multiplayer RPG.
Shroud of the Avatar, which can be played both online and offline, is a spiritual successor to Garriot’s Ultima games–EA owns the rights to the RPG series. It blends classical mechanics like an overworld and character customization with an emphasis on meaningful encounters between players.
Destructoid: Richard Garriott returns with RPG ‘Shroud of the Avatar’
The Windows, Mac, and Linux title “will include what I think are the keys to an ultimate role-playing experience,” said Garriott. “These important tenets include things like a fully interactive virtual world, deep original fiction with ethical parables such that players’ choices are relevant, cultural histories and fully developed alternative languages and text. Also we want our players to have physical game components like cloth maps, fictional manuals and trinkets. These are all things that people came to expect in my earlier works and we plan on bringing them all back to create Shroud of the Avatar.”
After the recent (and ongoing!) performance of inXile’s Torment: Tides of Numenera, I would be shocked if this project doesn’t meet the million-dollar milestone within its first day. The stretch goals are going to be interesting with this one. Of special note is the $10 “Guilt Pledge” for those who “ever pirated an Ultima game or used an exploit to grief other players in Ultima Online.”
Gamespot: Ultima creator reveals Shroud of the Avatar
“And as you travel around the map it will feel like an Ultima 3-6 feeling. You’ll see both static locations that you can go find, whether they’re towns or dungeons or other points of interests, as well as you’ll see mobile points of interests like bands of gypsies travelling around or dragons flying around mountains,” Garriott said.
“And when you then find that encounter, it will take you down into what we call the scenario-level activity, which is a third-person, over-the-shoulder exploration of a scene,” he added. “And the scenes are story-based scenarios that you can complete in five-to-30 minutes and it can be completed or played solo or multiplayer.”
In terms of pricing, Garriott said the game does not easily fall into a simple category. It’s easier to explain what the game is not, he said.
“It is neither what I’ll call a standard retail boxed game where it’ll have a retail price and that’s the end of it; nor are we anticipating that it will be subscription-based MMO.”
Forbes: Richard Garriott’s ‘Shroud Of The Avatar: Forsaken Virtues’ Launches On Kickstarter
Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues is the first of five episodic releases in Garriott’s new fantasy gaming franchise. Episodic may not be the best term. Garriott tells me that each release will expand around the world’s original core, essentially tripling its size. The second installment will be twice the size of the first; the third twice the size of the second, and so on and so forth.
Garriott says it has a “new interpretation of online” that he hopes is one of its biggest selling points.
The game, which launched today on Kickstarter, is not quite an MMORPG and not quite a single-player game. You can play offline but you can also play with online connectivity in which you’ll be matched with friends, characters of a similar level and progress, all by behind-the-scenes calculations.
I tell Garriott that this reminds me a bit of what Chris Roberts is doing with Star Citizen which he says is no surprise. He and Roberts go way back in this industry, after all, and Roberts has consulted with Garriott on the Kickstarter launch.
Massively: Garriott kickstarting Shroud of the Avatar multiplayer RPG
Richard Garriott is officially returning to his RPG roots with a new project called Shroud of the Avatar. Lord British has launched a Kickstarter project, and while the FAQ reveals that the new title isn’t an MMO, it will have some sort of co-op/multiplayer component. As you might expect, it’s a fantasy world with a heavy emphasis on sandbox elements, exploration, combat, and storytelling.
Joystiq: Richard Garriott Kickstarts ‘Shroud of the Avatar’
The details are unclear, but Shroud of the Avatar is intended to return the focus of RPGs to “role playing” over grinding. “Players may choose to follow the life of the adventurer or, if they prefer, focus on exploration and discovery,” reads the Kickstarter description. “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!” It features both online multiplayer and solo offline play, with a persistent online world for those who want to play online.
Kotaku: Ultima Creator Richard Garriott Revolutionized Video Game RPGs. Now He Wants To Do It Again
Garriott came to Kotaku’s Manhattan offices to offer us a first look at Shroud of the Avatar, the new role-playing experience that he’s been quietly building with a small team in Austin. He wants the game to free players from always having to be an intrepid hero character and promises that you’ll be able to have a rich varied experience as a normal townsperson who isn’t hungry for combat. Like many an old-school developer nowadays, Garriott plans to get funding for Shroud of the Avatar via Kickstarter.
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During his time at Kotaku NYC, Garriott also talked about his own personal history as a game designer, talks about why he prefers making games for PCs and why it’s better that Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts is back at making games instead of movies. He also explains the difference between a role-playing game and an RPG and shares his theory on the kinds of cyclical changes that hit with every hardware cycle—and why he’s sick of that merry-go-round.
Kotaku, again: This Was In Lord British’s Backpack
What was in the backpack? His very first computer role-playing game—he’s holding it in his hand right here; it’s all in ASCII code on a spool of paper made for a Teletype machine. CIrca 1975.
BBC: Million dollar appeal on Kickstarter for Ultima sequel
…Shroud of the Avatar, is scheduled to be ready to play in October 2014.
Mr Garriott is expected to make a formal announcement about the game and the funding push at the SXSW festival arts and media festival currently under way in Austin, Texas,
In an introductory video on the Kickstarter webpage Mr Garriott, often known by his in-game alias Lord British, said the current crop of fantasy video games had become too formulaic and scripted.
Instead, he said, Shroud of the Avatar would be a much more open experience in which players were free to follow their own path. It would be more about playing a useful role in an online world than just racking up kills and loot to make a character more powerful, he said.
PC Gamer: Lord British’s Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues headed to Kickstarter
Ultima creator Richard “Lord British” Garriott has announced his next game. It’s Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues, an episodic RPG with a name that makes just as much sense if you randomly reorder all the words in it. It’s being built in Unity by a team of about 12, Portalarium, and hopes to build on the traits that made Ultima famous. That means there’s no class system to constrain your character. Your avatar can become an adventurer, a farmer or a frontiersman and participate in an “overarching story” that’s “woven into the player experience.” You can expand that story over time by buying future episodes.
The CRPG Addict: Shroud of the Avatar
My initial reaction to the game is that it sounds great. I’d like it a lot more if it didn’t focus on any MMO elements at all, although I suppose I’m in a dying generation on that one. Anyway, my goal is to scrounge up $10,000 by April 7 so I can bid at the “Lord of the Manor” level and get an original copy of Akalabeth and a tour of “Britannia Manor,” so within a few days you should see my Kickstarter project to pledge $10,000 to Richard Garriott’s Kickstarter project. A $10,000 pledge will give you a limited-edition copy of Addictive Adventure: Journey of a Computer Role-Playing Game Addict, Volume 1: The Early Ages and an opportunity to get drunk with me in New Orleans.
Wired: Back Lord British’s Kickstarter, Get This $5,000 Game
On Friday, the designer who goes by the nom de cyber Lord British launched a Kickstarter effort for a new game called Shroud of the Avatar. Like many crowdsourced projects from game designers that enjoyed their peak of popularity in the 1990s, Avatar is pitched as a spiritual successor to the classic gameplay of that era. And fans with deep pockets who back Garriott’s Kickstarter to the tune of $10,000 will find themselves with a reward perfectly suited to the devotee of all things Ultima: A tour of Garriott’s elaborate home Brittania Manor — and a now incredibly rare original copy of Akalabeth.
That copy of the game isn’t quite worth $10,000 all by itself, but it’s closer than you might think. In 2011, an eBay seller sold one of Garriott’s original handmade Akalabeth copies for $4,900. Another is currently on sale on eBay; the buyer has listed it with a very high price and is entertaining offers.
Neither of these copies, however, are from the original 12 copies of the game that young Garriott sold at the time. And neither are the copies he’ll be giving to backers. They’re from his unsold stock, which never saw a store shelf.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun!: Revealed: Richard Garriott’s Massive Ultima Successor
he’s brought his stack of PC RPG relics and plastered every piece of Shroud promotional material with Lord Britsh’s hallowed name, because that’s just how the Kickstarter game is played. But I think – or at least, I hope – there’s something real underneath it all. Even at Waaaaaaay Too Early For Nathan Grayson ‘O’ Clock, Garriott’s excitement is palpable. And sure, maybe he’s just a really good actor, but together, he and his game tell the full tale. Garriott’s not thrilled because he stands to make a little extra bank by repackaging his best ideas from yesteryear. Rather, he’s getting to pick up precisely where he left off. He can finally move forward.
“It’s been about 15 years since I’ve gone back to my fantasy role-playing game roots in particular,” he tells me. “I think that the industry has evolved and the genre of role-playing games in particular has evolved in a direction that has left a large opening for me. I kind of put role-playing games into two general categories: One I’ll put my work into, which is sort of sandbox realities, where you get invited into this world.
“Not only is there a deep, rich story that unfolds, but also you can do all kinds of things at your own pace, whether that’s to be a shopkeeper or to be an adventurer or to be a blacksmith. They’re all richly detailed ways in which to play in that world. Whereas if you compare that to, say, EverQuest or World of Warcraft, in those games, every player is first and foremost a combatant.”
So Shroud of the Avatar is, in large part, about looking back. But it’s not just a slightly-prettier-than-we-remember stroll down memory lane. Garriott wants to push the needle forward as well, but he plans to do it his way – current genre giants be damned. This, in other words, is basically the Next Great Fantasy RPG as imagined by the late-’90s. It won’t be a servant to the whims of countless cinema-quality cut-scenes, and it certainly won’t hold your hand.
The Wing Commander CIC: Lord British Unveils Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues
Origin founder and space explorer Richard Garriott has unveiled his newest game, Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues. After being involved with several massively multiplayer games throughout the early 2000s, Richard dedicated himself to becoming the casual games and has long said that this was to build infrastructure and talent up within his new studio. Portalarium has now announced a full-fledged role playing game. The project’s intent is to get away from some of the more linear trends in recent RPGs and deliver a more immersive and free form experience.
VentureBeat: The revenge of the old farts who outlast evil and survive in the games business
As I watch what the pros do, I can’t help but notice that staying in the game is important. Even after you fail. Richard Garriott [above] is one of those game developers who has survived and thrived in the game business for more than three decades. He was there at the beginning, creating role-playing games like Akalabeth and Ultima on floppy disks that shipped in plastic bags. He came up with the story for Ultima in one of his much-hated English classes and then went on to create a gigantic franchise for Origin Systems, which he sold to Electronic Arts. Garriott went on to create titles like Ultima Online, the first big hit in massively multiplayer online games.
And he also dug one of the biggest craters in gaming history, with the seven-year quest to create a sci-fi massively multiplayer online game, Tabula Rasa. When it debuted, nobody played it. But he didn’t quit. He didn’t give into the evil of making games that he didn’t want to make. He flew into space on his own dime, using his profits from decades of making games and becoming the only second-generation astronaut in the world. He could have called it quits after an achievement like that. But then he started making Facebook games, and he’s not done yet. He’s making news this week with a new game and a Kickstarter to fund it, too (more on that in another story). Garriott has a shot at success because he is taking another shot.
Buffed.de
Ernest Cline
That’s it for the moment. We will of course keep an eye on the newsfeeds, and round up additional coverage of Shroud of the Avatar as it gets published.