This Thursday, April 28th, Release 29 of the selective multiplayer RPG Shroud of the Avatar will be released.
Shroud of the Avatar is still in early access because many game systems are not finished, balancing needs to be optimized, and the story and associated areas have not been finalized. A new version is released every month, bringing additional features, areas, and story elements. Therefore, Release 29 will go live on April 28th.
New Control Method
Along with new story scenes and additional player cities, as well as optimizations to performance, one of the biggest changes is the control system. Previously, you had to hold down the right mouse button to look around in the game. Without holding the button, you were in an interaction mode and could interact with objects and NPCs with the mouse cursor. Starting with Release 29, the camera will rotate without holding down the mouse button, and you can interact with objects and NPCs using a crosshair. By pressing a key, you can activate the familiar interaction mode when desired.
It will be interesting to see how the combat system works, as you need to click skills in a hotbar. In general, the developers want to make combat more active with Release 29. You now have to aim and dodge more.
When is the release of Shroud of the Avatar?
Andreas says: There is currently a discussion about the release in the official Shroud of the Avatar forum. The developer studio Portalarium does not want to officially release the online game in principle, at least not in the way one would expect from other games.
Rather, the final wipe will take place at the end of July, after which the world will maintain its persistence. Neither player houses nor characters will be reset. This would make the game essentially “live.” However, not all content will be included yet. The story and quests of Episode 1 will not be fully implemented until at least the end of the year, and from then on, they aim to continuously provide new features and deliver a new story episode each year.
Thus, they are moving away from a traditional release model, which does not please everyone. At some point, one should leave early access, and eventually, there should also be a complete game. In addition, this provides a good excuse for developers to avoid reviews and ratings, as they can always say that the game is not finished. Nevertheless, they still want to charge money for it, even if you get to play an unfinished product for many years.
Since Release 28, the offline mode is also playable, in which Shroud of the Avatar is eventually supposed to play like a complete single-player RPG. However, there is currently almost nothing to show for it. Shroud of the Avatar feels like an MMORPG and plays like one. Even the quests do not give the impression of a single-player RPG. The developers still have an enormous amount of work ahead of them because at some point the offline mode of Shroud of the Avatar will have to measure up to other single-player RPGs, and currently, the game has absolutely no chance in this aspect.
Even though Shroud of the Avatar gets more and more structured month by month, the planned release model and the offline mode are met with skepticism. Because one cannot shake the feeling that there is no focus on these aspects and that they are merely treated as an add-on. The developers urgently need to dispel these concerns!
