SotA News Roundup

So first off an apology for the lack of recent updates. Stratics has recently undergone a major transformation and is now under new leadership. During this time, following the successful funding of Shroud of the Avatar through Kickstarter, we have been establishing the team and are now committed to once again working with the Stratics and SotA community to bring you the news, updates and info you want to hear and hopefully much more over the coming months.

A lot has been happening in the last few months and the Portalarium team, led by Richard Garriott have continued to share and work effectively with the community even incorporating community artwork into the game to create a truly rich environment focused on making every environment as real and varied as possible. As the team develop new environments new content will be requested and the best sample(s) may be added into the game with in-game rewards and cash incentives. The rules for art creation can be found at the following here. Chris Spears presents a video on the topic over at Kickstarter.

The exciting news was released on July 5th that Starr Long a.k.a. Lord Blackthorn or Darkstarr, joined the SotA team as the publisher. The last time these two worked together was on Ultima Online where MMOs as we know today began. Will this partnership herald the new generation of MMOs and deliver Richard’s vision? The prospect alone and this addition to the already strong team is exhilarating. Read the full update on Kickstarter in Update #32.

To mark 3 months of full scale development a demo of the prototype game was presented by Richard, Starr Long and Chris Spears (Technical Director). The video can be viewed on the Portalarium website or the full presentation on Youtube. Gaming Trend also caught up with Richard and Starr following the presentation, the write-up and video can be view on the Gaming Trend website.

Also if you missed the Kickstarter it is still possible to pledge with many payment options available to subscribers including PayPal, Amazon and Credit Card. There is also a monthly layaway option for those that can’t afford to contribute their full pledge upfront. Existing pledgers can also update their pledge to access new rewards. So what you waiting for? Head on over to the SotA website and pledge 🙂 At the time of writing over $2.3million has been pledged by 24,347 backers. The $2.25million stretch goal has been achieved through the SotA website introducing mod tools, unique player art creation and extended player customisation of the game. A summary of the stretch goals can be view on the Forsaken Virtues website. If you haven’t checked out the rest of that website yet I would encourage you to do as there is some great work!

There is so much more to cover and in more detail so please check back in regularly so we can give you the heads up! Just to mention a few of the highlights for me:

• Pen of the Avatar (PotA) with Stephen Daniele the game’s concept artist taking us into his world as he creates beautiful concept art for the game.
• Crafting system mechanics being revealed with a first look at the process of converting harvested lumber to boards to create a chair to decorate your home. As your skill develops and harnessing the in game tools customise items to make them truly unique and special to you, the player.

Please head on over to the Stratics SotA forum and leave your feedback, start a thread or make a suggestion / request. Stratics is also undergoing a growth period and looking for new staff and volunteers who want to give something back to the community and get involved with what they love. If you would like to apply for a post please fill in the form here.