Shroud of the Avatar heralds over 2000 changes and improvements are arriving

Shroud of the Avatar has been building towards a major milestone release, at least according to an announcement post that heralds a “bright and chaotic future” for the MMORPG — and it’s apparently happening very soon.

According to technical director Chris Spears, the past 60 days have brought foundational updates that include a Unity engine upgrade, an all-new server infrastructure, multiple performance and balance updates, a better patching client, and “hundreds” of other changes and features, for a total of over 2,000 changes made overall. Readers may recall all of this effort is likely the infrastructure move mentioned this past July.

This newer and shinier version of SOTA, otherwise referred to as its Chaos server, is aiming for a release on Thursday, October 1st, with the new client patcher available for downloading and use now to access intermittent testing windows that will feature character wipes. Once the new server goes live and enough progress is made, there will be a planned ad campaign to boost what’s being called the relaunch of Shroud; timing for this isn’t tied down, but the target is sometime during the holiday season. As for the current server, that will remain online “for emergencies,” with logins being redirected to the new server otherwise.

Our blurb below and all of our prior reporting up to this point already mark the long and sluggish development trajectory of SOTA along with its corporate shenanigans, so one would be forgiven for taking these claims with a grain of salt, particularly as Spears points out that the October window may slip but also that “progress so far looks great” to meet that target. Whether this is a new day or just more bluster remains to be seen, but at least now there’s a marked attempt to make a leap forward.

source: official site Longtime MOP readers will know that Shroud of the Avatar is a controversial game in the MMO space. Kickstarted in 2013, the project has been criticized for cutting promised features, crowdfunding excessively, delaying Kickstarter rewards, obfuscating its corporate leadership and office status, and neglecting SEC filings legally required by the game’s equity crowdfunding. In 2019, Richard Garriott company Portalarium sold SOTA to its lead dev and all but exited the game. Press inquires were met with stonewalling and insults, and equity crowdfund investors were abandoned without notice or any semblance of accountability; moreover, the execs began touting a (failed?) blockchain MMO and a battle royale. SOTA itself does still have a tiny playerbase and is technically still receiving minimal development.