Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues Kickstarter Update #19, $1,299,651 and Counting

Just as the promising RPG is about to break $1.3 million in funding, Portalarium has treated us to a thirteenth update on the Shroud of the Avatar: Forsaken Virtues Kickstarter campaign. This time around, new stretch goals and bonus awards get profiled:

New Stretch Goals

$1.5M: Content is King + Iolo + Spoony interviews Richard
â—¾ Denis Loubet Cover art! (Denis made every Ultima cover except Ultima 2)
â—¾ New David (Iolo) Watson musical composition! (Iolo created (Stones) for Ultima!)
â—¾ Noah (Spoony) Antwiler interviews (roasts?) Richard (Lord British) Garriott
â—¾ 20 additional unique scenes including arctic scene sets
â—¾ Starting continent doubles in size

$1.6M: Shipping Lanes Open for business + New Island Content Set + Soundtrack
â—¾ New (Mysterious Island) content, city, and scenes
â—¾ Ports with boats that run on schedules to transport players to areas beyond the mainland; Safety not guaranteed! (In short, be prepared to defend your vessel!)
â—¾ Trans-Atlantic shipping lanes open the way for localization to other languages (languages for consideration based on player support: German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, etc.)

$1.7M: Dynamic and Contested Resource Nodes + Optional Minimap System
â—¾ Meteorites, volcanic eruptions, outbreaks of rare plants and animals can appear and vanish suddenly (online and offline) for those who are paying attention. Some PVP focused resources appear in tile
â—¾ Optional minimap system for the directionally impaired!
â—¾ The Lost Vale – A new mini-adventure centered around a lost valley previously hidden to players, now visible only during special astronomical alignments.

$1.8M: Tracy Hickman Novel + Catacombs + Apprentice System + Cloaks!
â—¾ Serialized novel by Tracy Hickman as a prequel to the SotA storyline, distributed in digital form for all pledge tiers, and printed versions for higher pledges.
â—¾ Massive, interconnected underworld with a story and ecology all its own.
â—¾ Apprentice system allows players with (Master) level skills to help lower skill players advance more quickly.
â—¾ Cloaks with full cloth simulation including being affected by wind.

$1.9M: The World is a Stage!
â—¾ A new City Center Theater building
â—¾ Rentable by an individual or group for a performance
â—¾ Only approved individuals may enter backstage or on stage
â—¾ Players must pay to enter seating areas
â—¾ Viewers may only emote, such as claps (claps are tracked to (rate) the performance)
â—¾ Money goes to performers for their performance
â—¾ Also useable for weddings and other community events!
â—¾ We add a full complement of (masks) and (costumes) for use at various events.

$2M: Players Take over the World!!!
â—¾ Castles & Keeps effectively a new (Town Type), where the structure is ownable by players or guilds
â—¾ Guilds can declare war against other guilds
â—¾ Guilds can declare as full time PVP
â—¾ Guilds can earn a guild house and guild bank
â—¾ Guild Tabbard/Shield/Flags useable by all members
â—¾ Minimum of 5 castle types added to the game
â—¾ Castle merchants with unique merchandise
â—¾ Castle defense scenarios for most castles which can be played offline as well as online

$2.25M: Mod tools + Unique Art Creation skill + Expanded Player Customization
â—¾ Work begins to expose options for player modification of the offline game and limited elements of the online game
â—¾ Skill for (Art Creation) to create actual individual unique art to show and trade in game
â—¾(New You) detailed character creator – We will provide tools well beyond the basic choices of gender, body/face/hair/eye types, and layer in morph targets to customize your avatar to be (the real you) at the in-game (New You) salons.

$2.5M: Full VR Treatment!
â—¾ Virtual Reality: LB has always been a VR enthusiast and a VR skeptic… many times, we have looked at supporting the myriad of 3D goggles and head trackers only to find them too slow, too heavy or too low rez… But the times, they are a changin! If we hit the $2.5M goal, we will support all the great new VR technologies that are coming of age now. Key examples are: Occulus Rift HMD goggles.

I suspect that VR goggles in a role-playing game wouldn’t do much for me unless the game was completely designed around them.