Release 5 Heralded as a Success

The Shroud of the Avatar team has taken to the game's forums to speak about the latest testing phase. According to Richard Garriott, the team worked hard to get Release 5 out the door, did so, and found that it was very successful and produced some terrific feedback from players.

The addition of combat and magic skills opened up another exciting aspect of Shroud of the Avatar, and players were finally able to start hunting in earnest, both alone and in packs. Others spent their time gathering enough resources to make their own items from scratch. Obviously much more work is needed from our end to really open up these system, but we’re ready for the task! In the end, I was very pleased to see the game beginning to feel like a real game, not just a demo. Even the new lighting, including the darkness of night, seems to be well received.

Now, we need to focus on polishing the above systems for the next cycle! Combat, crafting, lighting, textures, hair, and many other systems are in high need of some scrutiny, so we will be fine tuning them instead of the scramble to cram in more features like the past few releases. The team is really looking forward to digging in, shining up, and expanding on the systems we have already put in. That’s not to say that exciting new stuff won’t also be coming in, but perfecting will trump inventing for each of us over the next few weeks.

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