Overworld evolution

A very special year for Shroud of the Avatar is going to die today in the Earth. We could see the game growing and changing, as a little human baby (and humans start their lives being very weak).

Probably the overworld (aka overland) was the characteristic of the game most polemic, and also the one with the most changes suffered. But seeing the actual result I think Portalarium did the right choice. Now I can feel this distant lands under my hooves:

* Click to enlarge *

Big bugs in Shroud of the Avatar

Maybe you are looking for some bugs in this release, or even worried about them. They are not so hard to find, but I didn't see again a large number of big bugs as the first time that I went to Ardoris in the R10. Those could be great allies for the Vortex Llama.

Because giant dragons are so last year!

The anti-virtue hat wants you!

Bored of those release hats without any conversation and Christmas carols? Maybe all you need is a little of rock 'n' roll with one of the new anti-virtue hats!

Professional handsome model posing with the new and flaming "fire hater hat".

Where in the hell is the Vortex Llama?

To say welcome back to myself, and goodbye to the old year, we have here another llama contest! Now you will be able to win a hot tub, if you run as if you had four hooves!

To craft or not to craft

I was crafting in the "have no idea" mode when I could read in the local chat "How the f*ck do I change this animal hide into leather, it never works". At that moment I could feel that I was not alone.

The Monument to the Fallen is back

Since the Monument to the Fallen has existed just for small periods in R6 and R7, to commemorate the past Memorial Day, I rebuilt it for Christmas. You can find it in PaxLair, Valemark. If you like it you can leave a coin for SotA, please. :P

As now the limit of lights in the yard is much more rigorous I had to reinterpret the memorial, using only six spotlights in the ground:

Especial credits: Soleidad and Gaelis. Thanks also to Net for paying bills.

All I want for xmas is... blocks!

Finally we got a large collection of room dividers and hedges! Of course some people as Riya, the master of mazes, already used them massively:

* Labyrinth in the castle of Owl's Head. Giant, golden or happy xmas turds not included. *

The Heart of Sorrow

"The Heart of Sorrow is a legendary item rumored to be a powerful artifact of the ancient world. Some say it is a powerful weapon capable of driving foes into deep despair. Others say that it is a cursed item, that serves only to cause the one who possesses it to become lost in sadness."

This mysterious information was dropped in the Update of the Avatar number 113. What is this powerful artifact? A weapon to conquest the world? A doomed jewel? A key for a heart?

If you don't like the surprises maybe you wish to check this exclusive clue that the great Lord British shared in a private meeting:                  

 *** Spoiler alert ***

The Crowned Llama

Did you know about the legendary llama cafe?

The black screen of the death

Today my launcher seems like bugged while patching. I got a "mortal black screen" in the logging and now I need to update again the client. Of course my wifi is not working that well...

New worlds, old memories...

MGT Spotlight's Eriador and Vortex Llama

 

Can someone be enough insane or insensate to interview the evil with hooves? DavenRock, the guild master of MGT, did it in a community spotlight! Yes, I know, usually I make the questions here but...

If you don't know about this community I can add a little information about the guild (and remember that R13 already added a guild system!). Their initials mean "Moongate Travelers" and they were one of the first guilds in Shroud of the Avatar, while the Kickstarter campaign was running.

When MGT started was really an initiative to push everyone to add 4,70$ to their pledges and rush every single stretch goal or, at least, to reach the Tracy Hickman novel. Finally we hit the 2 millions of dollars and we got much more than that, Garriott chicken dance the most important.

I know that it's pretty unusual to have myself in the "Hall of fame", and I can neither to speak well any human language, but since it was touching amusing I will add this demented record to my unholy book:

An Interview with Eriador

original post

As you all know, Eriador has an amazing website, updated regularly, that features many of his own characters and interpretations of current/past/maybe even future events. It's quite fun to read and focuses on a mystical Vortex Llama. Visit the website above for a long while to witness a great humorous outlook about all things Ultima. Check it out. Will you find the Necrollamacon? 

Donkeys vs Llamas - The Ultimate Showdown

Some days ago I received a private message with the title "The most important decision of your life". It was a very inspired text by Enderandrew:

"I'm about to kick off a community drive. I want to get every guild and SotA fansite involved. I'm contacting you first of everyone in the SotA community, for reasons I'm sure you can ascertain. I'm hoping you will post to your website and reach SotA community members through carrier pigeon, whatever."

I´m pretty sure that most of you already know this event from the original forums, but anyway I will transcript here the entire text.

Happy R13 to the community! I'm back!

In december...

Happy R10 and sad purple llama

I hope you all are enjoying well the R10. That is a nice event, I hate you. The not "that nice event" for me is not only that I still have no internet in my new lair but also that my laptop is... broken. Yes, mortally dead, rest in peace, totally powned.

That is the main reason why I'm disconnected from the virtual world. And also sadly I cannot prepare another massive "wardrobe or whatever building" for this release. A real pitty since I joined lately the Soleidad, Net and Riya group of architects called "4B" (or some kind of credit card, I'm not sure).

However I will try to find a place today where I could play a little bit to Shroud of the Avata to taste this new release, so you will not be that lucky to totally avoid my presence. But yes, my sadness is big.

Through the moongate

These last two days I have been around here, but lately I'm in a very busy moment, and today will be the zenith of my "business".

Please be a "Las Vegas" gate, be a "Las Vegas" gate!

My Disastrous Adventures 5: The Fallen Son (II)

The fright has four legs

I just want to remember to the world that this masterpiece exists:

If you don't know about this jewel, and as you can see in the trailer in Imdb, it's a zombie-sheep movie with gore elements. A perfect drama to watch in the next Halloween, or when you're bored  in your insipid human life. Because hominid zombies are so last year...

Ah! For any reason what made me remind about "Back Sheep" was this notorious picture of Ultima Online:

My Disastrous Adventures 4: The Fallen Son (I)

New terrifying monster has arrived!

One of the leitmotifs of this site is "the humor is the language that intelligent people employ to communicate with their equals". And that's sounds pretty smart and cool!

To teach you about that I prepared this "hard to do" and very elegant sample of high-level comedy:

Oh, yes! This is a deep and awesome lesson about not to follow just the appearances... and toilets!

The fallen son will come back soon!

A customized world

In the last update of the avatar Portalarium posted some pics of the llama ziggurat. Very good choice, but I seem very interesting some pictures of a community member (Sargeras Dragon) that posted some pictures in the officials forum of Lord British visiting the court.

I didn't know that our maximum highness visited my "son of the boredom", but what really impressed me was really what our dear leader said here:

Well, that about my "Necrollamacon" it's great. Yes, we need player made books and it's nice that he didn't forget about that. But what is even better and new was this quote:

The Court of the Eternity

medium

Welcome to the Red Ziggurat, where the Court of the Eternity lies! You will find it this R9 in the upper meadow of the PaxLair (Valemark).

Its construction was filled with adversity. Not only because of the new item limit and some problems with the lights and bugs, but because the game patched the stacking system when I was building the ziggurat and I had to demolish the half of the structure after hours of work to change the walls style and also because the new vendors system is a hell for the "wardrobes designers".

But, well, it's better when is challenging. Or not, I don't know. Anyway I just want to share pics of the place and also of some people (with pants) there:

The Red Ziggurat! (Honestly I couldn't call it the "Purple Ziggurat")

Conceptual art in SotA

With the current system of stacking items/collision you can be a little bit creative. In the PaxLair city of Valemark you can check it in new a piece of modern art of Riya and Net. We prepared together a very modest performance with a deep meaning:

First world problems in SotA

I remembered this meme and I had to do this:

Top llama archives: The top 5!

Finally the post number 100 and the top 5 of the list!

5.- Hoof of the Avatar #5: The Miracle

The most visited "Hoof of the Avatar" of all the times, from the old or new collection, was this one. Probably because you humans love the pretty girls with makeup.

If you look very closely to my pieces of art you will always find some little details and secrets hidden there, in the shadows, even in this very simple transformation.

In the list appears more pieces of "HotA", but I skipped the entries with similar themes.

Top llama archives: from #10 to the #6 follies

Now, after near of one hundred updates it's time to see which updates are in the "top follies" list, because if you are not curious about this I'm! 

Three, two, one... ロケット パンチ!

10.- The Llama Mothership

For any reason from all my nonsenses in my long nonsenses list of my nonsenses section this one was the most visited. 

And probably even this comment is even longer than the original post... Ok, we have time. Here a "Midas" in ascii art:

         /\_/\
    ____/ * * \
  /~____  =ø= /   SotA sucks!
 (______)__m_m) 

The Purple Llama Ballad: Rain of Old Britain

I have been preparing an unwise version of "Rain of Castamere", the iconic composition of the Game of Thrones tv show of the house Lannister, and today the site is going to suffer it.

This is the version of "Old Britain", my own song with a lyric about the end of the past world and the born of New Britain. Of course I changed a little the animal of the coat of arms. ;)

Lord Baldrith also prepared his own, very different and dark version of the piece. Pleace check it here if you have some time. His rhythm is totally new and original! Now, with my pleasure for you all, my ballad Rain of Old Britain:

* Please, remember that nobody here is a professional of.. nothing *

Cat interview: Midas the King

Finally with all of us the 10th guest. Midas, the pvp cat and Dread Lord of the Old Britain!

3 months in purple!

Three months ago I started officially this crazy adventure. Today I will share with the universe some "anniversary" posts, until the number 100th. One hundred documents in just three months is quite a lot, at least for a lazy llama. 

In this time I also uploaded more than 250 pictures and met more than 4.200 visitors, probably most of them "google fails". After today I will need some time to study a little for a couple of weeks and to think what to do with the site.

Since I'm not totally sure what will happen I wish to publish some special thanks and to wish you all a wonderful R9 with tons of good impressions. And just one advice:

Llama can flow or it can crash. Be llama my friend!

Especial credits (llama interviews):

And the 10th guest is...

I just came back from travelling through the time-space for few days. Just in time to celebrate the 3th month "birthday" of this lair tomorrow.

To whet your appetite I have today a few screenies of the Shroud of the Avatar intro that we will see in nine days in the R9, but a customized version for this great occasion. And at the end we all will discover who will be our glorious 10th guest, in the most important llama interview ever.

The 10th quest

Yesterday we had our ninth personality in the interview. Now be prepared to receive in few days our magnanimous 10th guest...

A recognizable shape?

Llama mini interview: Vallas (The Bear Tavern)

Today we have a mini interview with Vallas, the guild master of The Bear Tavern. We prepared it some time ago, but because at that moment he also had a "Community Flashback" the interview was in the freezer... until now.

If you don't know about this tavern (are you serious?) I can tell you that is a tavern, a guild and also a megapolis (Beran's Reach) and they supply the game with beer and events for the community, like pvp brawls and party meetings.

If you want to know more about it you can check their official site http://www.thebeartavern.org/ because in this interview probably you are not going to find anything useful...

Bear art by Kumakaze.

The rise of the Time Lord

Once upon a time was a very handsome, nice and productive guy (without girlfriend) that was very happy because I just he just got 3.000 likes in his favorite pre-game forum. But then a secret mission started when he got this  private message:

Road to the disco

There is a Japanese collectible card game called "Ultima Generation: Road to the Avatar", that it's a creation based in our very beloved license, the Ultima series.

Sadly Digicube, the publisher company, passed away thanks to a bankruptcy one year after Ultima Generation was introduced into the market and the information about it is very vague. 

We know that the designer was Hidetsugu Ishikiriyama, that is a game for two players and that can be played in around 60 minutes. But, over all, we have this card:

Ah, the crazy seventies!

And everytime I contemplate this magnum opus piece of art my brain start to whisper myself:

Site map, or something like that

Today I was thinking to write some thoughts about the R8. But I can do it very fast: I enjoyed much more that I supposed the deck system, but the pvp still need to mature a lot, but was funny to try it. Anyway I will attempt to write a webcomic about our own blood and sand release.

So finally I'm going to write a short description of the sections of this sanctuary. Probably it's boring and I should do it the first day, but at that moment I had no idea about what I was going to write here... Although now that I'm totally centered I will present to you all this modest refuge:

Art: This section is the place for the art and the artists. Since I'm a insane llama here you will see pieces with turds or people with sandals and socks. This is also the corner for the "Hoof the the Avatar".

Codex: Threads related with the adventure, exploring, skills, creatures or combat, both pvp and pve. Or player versus tequila, animals or Windows 7.

Taming horn (Royal Artisan pledge level). Dark purple edition.

3D Art Llama awards

Finally is the day! Let's take a look to the 3D Art Llama contest submissions and hail the winner!

Net was the first artist to send a photo to the contest. Here his glorious labyrinth of the R8.

Update #84, pvp champions and 3D art

Wow! Today in the official update number 84 Portalarium shared a couple of photos of the Altar of Destruction (I wonder why this world was destroyed again). We can also appreciate there some pics of the Net maze in the R8 and some other top "art events".

To celebrate this... well, actually without any reason I'm going to share this photo of a Korean product:

  

Maze Lords: Riya & Net combo interview Part II

Second and last section of the longest and most labyrinthine llama interview ever. Don't get lost (it)!

Q: Which aspects of the game are you most interested?

Net: I am mostly interested in tools for interaction between players, especially cooperation. I am also looking forward to crafting (I am really intrigued by alchemy) and exploration. I like solving puzzles and I hope that not every puzzle will be as easy as the torches in Ravenmoor.

Riya: Into Chaos^^ Yeah I don't walk on one line, I will take all. For me the most important aspect of this game is, that I don't have to follow paths. Each situation has more then one ending and everything has final consequenzes.

So I will not run through the game and hopefully don't get bored by it. What me really impressed is the community behind the game, which gives the game depth I never experienced before in a game. 

 

Maze Lords: Riya & Net combo interview Part I

Today we have a little bit different interview. We have with us Riya and Net, the creators of the gargantuan mazes that we saw and suffer in the releases.

Since is a double interview and also is a little bit longer than usual I'm going to split the result in two parts. If you want more resources you can take a look at their galleries:

Net R7 photo gallery

Net R8 photo gallery

Net video gallery

Hoof of the Avatar #15: City of Tamers

And this is the last version of the new "Hoof of of the Avatar" serie. With my purple pleasure!

Original Version

Hoof of the Avatar #14: The Haunting Claw

Original Version

Hoof of the Avatar #13: The End of the Time

Original Version

Hoof of the Avatar #12: Gyros

Original Version

Hoof of the Avatar #11: Hunger Games

Portalarium has released some few new concept art pieces lately. That means that I should do the same with a new edition of "Hoof of the Avatar". Or maybe not, but I will do it anyway. :D

Original Version

Sympathy for the devil

In this last release I met someone that love the destruction as much as me... I could not resist to take a selfie with this burning love.

The Altar of Destruction

Since the thursday you can visit in the PaxLair, Valemark, my own piece of 3D art: The Altair of Destruction. If you are curious you can join any of the "welcome quests" that Winfield prepare, or you can just find it in the upper meadow, where my last piece also was.

My first plan was to create some kind of llama, but finally I choose a more recognizable and universal shape for the purple God of the mortal death: a devilish skeleton. But, since the war is only funny in games, I want to share here another tribute against the war, together with my little creation gallery. :)

Enjoy the release and, please, kill a lot of people!

"In order to understand, I destroyed myself." - Fernando Pessoa

Release 8, the PVP day

Prepare your deadly poison weapons, because the day is here...

Mario Bros, the Knight Marshal

Looks like someone has upgraded his account...

Mario is also using his founder-plumber gala white uniform.

Be flexible, my house

Since the update 82 we have the "Flexible Placement Stretch Goal". Mmm, wait a second... I have some new ideas about my house placement. But, how much "flexible" could the placement be?