Shroud of the Avatar: Richard Garriott donates his skull

After Richard “Lord British” Garriott has already donated hair and blood for his RPG project Shroud of the Avatar, now follows his skull.

Last Monday, the “Fall into Winter Telethon” of the selective multiplayer RPG Shroud of the Avatar took place. During this approximately 12-hour live stream, the development team answered questions from the community and showcased scenes from parts of the online game that have not yet been released, which is currently still in Early Access. During the telethon, over $112,000 in donations was raised from fans, enabling the community to receive new decorative items for the housing system.

Lord British’s Skull!

During a community event as part of the telethon, players gathered directly in MMO mode. Joining the player-managed city Rift’s End was Lord British himself. In the tavern there, skulls of players defeated in PvP are displayed as trophies. Lord British handed the tavern owner his own (of course virtual) skull. Because in the collection was already the skull of the character of project leader Starr Long, known in the game as Darkstarr. With the now placed skull of Lord British next to it, the players wanted to restore the balance between chaos and order.

During the telethon, a curious announcement was made. Theft in the game will be punished in such a way that thieves must automatically participate in PvP after their third criminal act. Then other players are supposed to hunt them down. When asked what would happen to the NPC guards in the game world, the cryptic answer was given that due to technical reasons, it would not be possible for the guards to have behavior that would allow them to punish players. There would only be two options: either completely prevent theft or introduce the PvP solution.

What? You want consequences for decisions and actions?

However, how this will be handled in single-player and offline modes remains unclear. It was also very strange to observe that the developers seemed visibly confused when players asked how consequences for decisions and actions are managed in the game. After all, Shroud of the Avatar is advertised on the official website as a story-driven RPG with a single-player narrative structure and decisions with consequences. However, currently, consequences are not represented.

For example, if you catch a murderer, nothing happens to him. An arsonist also has nothing to fear, a farmer does not return to his farm after it has been freed from undead, and a rescued child is never reunited with its mother. When the development team was approached about this, they appeared to have not considered these things at all and did not understand why consequences need to be visibly represented.

With a release in early next year, the development team of Shroud of the Avatar should quickly come up with something here. Because when a game is announced as “a story-driven RPG with a single-player narrative structure and decisions with consequences,” then players want to see these things in the game.

More articles on Shroud of the Avatar:

Shroud of the Avatar introduces city sieges that aren’t city sieges

Shroud of the Avatar has a big problem: The quests