Shroud of the Avatar on Tolkien influences and town sieges

    
0

Lord of the Rings fans, this week’s Shroud of the Avatar newsletter is going to look mighty familiar to you: Level Designer Esteben Zaldivar begins the piece with a look at the game’s Midras Ruins, which were inspired by Tolkien’s Osgiliath. “I took a lot of inspiration from its reference in Blade of the Avatar along with adding my own take to the map,” he writes. “Aesthetically I was inspired by the city of Osgiliath in the LOTR. Especially the idea of having ruins that had vertical space and were now only frames of what they had once been.”

Portalarium’s newsletter also outlines how NPC town sieges will work once implemented in R37.

“Anyone approaching a town in the overworld that is under siege will see a temporary ‘siege weapon’ object (e.g. a catapult) next to the town. If you try to enter that town, you’ll instead be sent to a ‘siege encounter’ scene. (As with roving encounters, your fellow party members will see a special icon in the overworld that they can use to join you in that siege encounter scene.) The siege encounter appears according to a schedule and won’t leave until the schedule says it should (for example, it shows up at dusk and won’t leave until dawn). You’ll spawn into the siege encounter on its edge near an enemy camp. Nearby is a central battlefield, where waves of enemies and allies clash again and again while also being assaulted by periodic catapult attacks. On the opposite side of the map, is a squad of allies, pinned down by enemy forces as they defend the only exit. There are two obvious paths: The long way around includes a handful of low-threat enemy patrols, while barreling through the enemy camp and frontline will be quicker but far more dangerous. There’s a third option: Your allies need your help destroying the three catapults that keep them pinned down. Destroying the catapults and their high-threat siege engineers will draw out the greatest threat, the siege commander. If you can take out the siege commander, enemy reinforcements will stop coming and the siege will end.”

Check out the gallery of new SOTA images below — there are a bunch from Midras in there!

Previous articleTwilight Spirits unites the east and the west with a dose of bullet-time
Next articleEVE Online preps for tomorrow’s F2P transition, requests patience and feedback

No posts to display