Richard "Lord British" Garriott is conducting a live presentation that he has been teasing for the past week. During the presentation, Garriott announced "Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues".

With Shroud of the Avatar, Richard and his team will again reinvent the classic fantasy role-playing experience. Using state-of-the-art tools and technology, the game will focus on what made his seminal Ultima Series great. Once players are introduced to the game, they will discover their own story woven into the immersive world and lore surrounding them. Players may choose to follow the life of the adventurer or, if they prefer, focus on exploration and discovery. Players may even choose the life of a homesteader; either nestled within the safety of the settled lands, or on the dangerous but potentially lucrative frontier. The world is full of opportunities and challenges!

Check out the Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues KickStarter page.

Check out the Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues Live Stream.

“Shroud of the Avatar will include what I think are the keys to an ultimate role-playing experience,” says Garriott. “These important tenets include things like a fully interactive virtual world, deep original fiction with ethical parables such that players’ choices are relevant, cultural histories and fully developed alternative languages and text. Also we want our players to have physical game components like cloth maps, fictional manuals and trinkets. These are all things that people came to expect in my earlier works and we plan on bringing them all back to create Shroud of the Avatar.”

Players in Shroud of the Avatar will be introduced to the game, but then discover their own story. There is an overarching story woven into the player experience, and players may choose to follow the life of an adventurer or, if they prefer, focus on exploration and discovery. Players may even choose the life of a homesteader, either safely within the settled lands or on the dangerous but potentially lucrative frontier.

From familiar psychological profiling used to create your character to organically derived game response to player behavior, fundamental virtues and consequence of actions play a huge role in Shroud of the Avatar. Players will be free to choose their path, but must then live with the consequences of their actions.

Another well known video game developer going down the kickstarter route, what is the reason for the kickstarter funding?

People are already throwing money at it without even reading the page, which is nice in one way and a bit disturbing in another

Originally posted by SlickShoes

Another well known video game developer going down the kickstarter route, what is the reason for the kickstarter funding?

In short? 

Market interest measurement, research of customer needs and free community-based advertisment. 

Seeing the nuances of the game development and possibly participating in it in some way is VERY attractive for custommers, as Wasteland II kickstarter has shown. 

Not to mention that as kickstarter finishes, the kickstarter results and stats can be then used to possibly attract "bigger fish" to invest into the product, showcasing the already existing custommer base and market interest. 

Originally posted by SlickShoes

Another well known video game developer going down the kickstarter route, what is the reason for the kickstarter funding?

People are already throwing money at it without even reading the page, which is nice in one way and a bit disturbing in another

Read the page, watched the video, then threw money at it :P 

Haven't read anything I haven't liked so far. 

Player Housing

Classless Character System

Fully interactive virtual world - If it looks usable, it should do something

Multiplayer Online Game - which can also be played solo player / offline

Something that looks Akin to Dynamic Events

PvP

The ability to be nothing but a crafter

A game thats about living a story rather than grinding levels

Pretty much everything I've been looking for in an Fantasy MMO.  

I also have a bit of faith in Garriott and it sounds as if he has a good team. I also don't see EA ever releasing a UO2 and if they did I'm not confident in them to do it well and I have no interest in buying another EA game anyways. 

Most importantly.... 

(Richard Garriott) Shroud of the Avatar > (EA) Ultima Forever: Quest for the Avatar

First rule in business... "never spend your own money"

Looks interesting though, seems like he's carrying on from UO but on a smaller scale.

Its a sign!!!  I just got a job offer over the phone as a result of my steller interviewing skills!  Woooooo!  I'm no longer jobless and potentially homeless! 

While Lord British is not "ultima"tely responsible I feel his RPG magnificence was definitely a boon.  Huzzah!  I'll be able to afford to play things other than F2P titles now. 

First I want to thank God, his crazy followers, all my gaming experience, science, atheists, nerds, geeks, and hipsters.  I especially want to thank my nature as not a single fuck will be given this day!

Meh...

Want to interest me Mr. Garriot?

Stop talking. Create a working, stable and innovative game. Dont change it half way through development. Finish what you start. Release a fun and complete game. Dont let your company take over and kick you out (again). And finally DONT waste a bunch of money on some grandious adventure for yourself.

Originally posted by Axxar
The overland map thing turns me off. I was hoping it'd be a completely immersive seamless experience like the Ultima VIIs. A shame we can't do with technology today what we could in 1992.

QFT

Originally posted by SlickShoes

Another well known video game developer going down the kickstarter route, what is the reason for the kickstarter funding?

People are already throwing money at it without even reading the page, which is nice in one way and a bit disturbing in another

Kickstarter is just about only way to get funding unless your game is a direct clone of a more succesful brand. Real investors are quite unimaginative when it comes with game funding.

Richard Garriott can have a few of my $ any day - I have been selling quite a few old Ultima games on eBay lately, seems appropriate that I use some of the funds to back this.

I actually think Kickstarter is a great way of funding games. It seems to work too. Torment: Tides of Numenera raised their $900k in 6 hours.