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Shroud Of The Avatar: Forsaken Virtues RPG Released On Steam For Linux

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3zXNn6YP-8
Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues aims to be a rather massive RPG. I say it aims to be as it's currently in early access, and it has a long way to go, but it looks great already.

It's a bit pricey, so sadly we don't have a key to give you any initial thoughts yet, but from what we have seen it already looks like a lot of fun.

I love the idea of being able to play either offline, or online. Seems like it will suit many different player types. You can either play completely offline with around 40 hours of story, or play it online with a few different modes.

It's worth noting that player-wipes will happen, so don't go into it expecting to keep playing the same character. The developer stated it could happen as much as monthly.

About the game
Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues is a new type of third person fantasy RPG that combines a single player narrative with a sandbox MMO. It is being created by a team that includes: Richard "Lord British" Garriott the creator of the Ultima series, Starr Long the original Director of Ultima Online, and Tracy Hickman the author of the beloved Dragonlance Novels and Dungeons & Dragons modules.

Check out Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues on Steam.
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14 comments
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EKRboi Nov 24, 2014
I might actually like this one. However, I'll be waiting for a finished product, because I KNOW I will get frustrated with the character wipe thing and I'm just done with spending $$ on unfinished games in general.
Guest Nov 24, 2014
I backed them on kickstarter; obviously missed the email telling me it's out on steam. Will have to install it and see what it's like.
booman Nov 24, 2014
Offline will be an awesome feature for many people. I'm glad some developers still see offline as important.
Looks like Shroud of the Avatar will be an exciting sandbox and RPG game. Graphics are very nice, and I'm loving the day/night cycle.
Its hard to tell in the video if its an action combat game or turn-based combat.
nitroflow Nov 24, 2014
I backed them on kickstarter too. I went for the full 5 games though as I expect the single player alone will be worth the discounted price of $120($24 per game/expansion)
oldrocker99 Nov 24, 2014
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I hadn't heard about the game before I saw it on Steam. Of course, the developers responsible for the much-mocked Ultima Online have probably learned the many lessons they needed to learn. I'm hoping this is as good as ULTIMA 7.
Guest Nov 25, 2014
Quoting: boomanOffline will be an awesome feature for many people. I'm glad some developers still see offline as important.
Looks like Shroud of the Avatar will be an exciting sandbox and RPG game. Graphics are very nice, and I'm loving the day/night cycle.
Its hard to tell in the video if its an action combat game or turn-based combat.

I was hoping for an updated, 3D Ultima Online (Guild Wars 2 is the first MMO to almost push UO off the top of my list of "favorite MMO games" ), but it's really not.

Think of it like Everquest, but your abilities show up as if being dealt slowly from a card deck (which you build). You can create multiple card decks (and switch between two of them for a mana cost), e.g. one for defense and one for offense. The skill trees include abilities to increase your max deck size, the delay before cards expire, the rate at which cards are dealt; reduce your mana cost for switching decks; and even allow you to lock certain abilities so that they are always available (but cost extra mana).

I'm not sure about offline single-player (as it's currently locked), but characters transfer between online single- and multi-player, so I've been using online single-player when I don't want to deal with other people, and switching to online multi-player when I need some help (or want to help others). In online single-player, you can still see the effects other players have on the world, but you won't see any actual players, and all of the logic is calculated locally (so you won't see the results of lag unless it's *really* bad).

One of the features that I think *could* be great, but right now is mostly frustrating, is that the game encourages you to actually type out conversations with NPCs. I believe this is also something that Everquest did (I don't recall that game very well); but with so many advancements in technology since then, I'm hoping that they will be able to make conversation seem more natural in the future. I'd like to see a more complicated decision tree, but right now it seems to only respond to very specific keywords and punctuation (i.e. conversation is pretty clunky). The current conversation tree seems about as fluid as vim key-bindings - you keep hitting sequences of keys until the right thing happens, and if something *really* bad happens, you leave and start over.
Vedzom Nov 25, 2014
Omg this looks amazing.

I added it on my wishlist but I'm simply not buying it until it's out of Early Access. I'm sick and tired of EA, I bought Rust a long time ago and it's still not finished. I'm just not interested in EA games anymore, they are more frustrating than fun.
nitroflow Nov 25, 2014
Quoting: boomanIts hard to tell in the video if its an action combat game or turn-based combat.

I'ts not turn-based but it's not action combat either. You have a default auto-attack using the equipped weapon and then you have a customizable hotbar where you can place abilities and consumables. You can set it up like a traditional hotbar with locked skills that have a cooldown or you can set it up like a card based system where the hotbar is auto filled with the abilities on your deck that get replaced on a timer or whenever you use an ability, or you can mix it up by having locked slots with auto filling ones.

View video on youtube.com
Mohandevir Nov 25, 2014
Everquest... You don't have to say more, I'm already sold. Everquest is to date my best MMORPG of all time. Unfortunately the graphics began to look terrible, else I'd still be playing it.

Nothing easy, everything you get, you work hard for it. I like that. If Shroud of the Avatar is anything close to that, we will finally have an MMORPG the way I like them.
Skully Nov 25, 2014
Looks good. 2 things hold me back atm.

1st - it uses the Unity engine. Which rings alarm bells in my head. It's performance is abysmal for anything other than simple games like side scrolling platformers.(even in windows)
Only a couple of devs have ever proved it can be done (eg. Interstellar Marines, Verdun) but even still those game would have been better in virtually any other modern engine.

2nd - Early access has treated me bad. A couple of devs have done a great job with it. But most just suck.

I will keep my eye on it. Really think they should of used Unreal 4 engine though :(
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