Shroud of the Avatar Kickstarter campagin reaches goal, developers announce stretch goals

Richard Garriot's Kickstarter project – dubbed Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues – has reached its funding goal of $1 million. With 19 more days to go, the team has announced the stretch goals for the game. There will be more additions made to the game depending on how much more money they can make.

After reaching $1.1 million, the developers will add a pet system into the game. There will be both social vanity pets as well as combat pets that will help you in your adventures. The pets will be controllable through simple commands. Reaching $1.2 million will have the developers add a seasonal weather system into the game. This means that weather will be dynamic and will depend on the in-game calendar. There will be more stretch goals announced later.

The campaign reached its goal in just eleven days

Recently, the game's Tech Director Chris Spears explained how the team will be handling the multiplayer component of the game. Shroud of the Avatar will have four ways of playing the game – single player offline, single player online, friends play online and open play online. The single player offline mode is a DRM free completely offline version of the game. The player’s character is stored on the computer and can not be used in any of the online modes.

Single player online lets you connect to the server, receive content updates and can see the long term changes others are having on the world. This isn’t multiplayer, however, as you aren’t visible on anyone else’s screen, nor can you group up with others. You can, however, switch from single player online to friends play online or open play online whenever you like as long as you’re in a city or the overland map. Some parts of the main story quests may force players into single player online mode temporarily.

In friends play online, you only see people in your game that you have flagged as friends, and likewise, only they can see you. This is a server side filter and the game mode is primarily designed for those who only prefer playing online games with friends. Like single player online, you can switch to the other online modes when you’re in a city or the overland map.

Open play online lets you see everyone that the server thinks you should be able to see. This doesn’t necessarily mean everyone in an area, but the game will have some algorithms to determine who is important enough to be visible to you. This game mode will basically feel like an MMORPG. It will have lots of options for social interaction with other players. The system being employed here has the data flow through players instead of a server. The company believes that this is better for the players and the service, but the major drawback is that the upper limit of players on one map may be restricted.