Release 4 Player Instructions

Release 4 - Player Instructions

Setup:

Download and run the SotAInstaller.exe here:

PC: http://goo.gl/KVYzpF

NOTE: If you still have an install then all you need to do is patch, no need to re-install

We recommend having at least 4GB of free disk space on the drive you install to, though the game will only download about 850 MB of data.
Either allow the installer to auto-run on complete, or run either the desktop shortcut named “Shroud of the Avatar” or the “Launcher.exe” located in your installed Portalarium directory.
Once the launcher is finished, the game will start.
(optional) Leaving the launcher running will help us and others by providing some of your bandwidth to assist others in downloading the client.

Enter your www.shroudoftheavatar.com registered login information - If you are a Kickstarter backer and have not yet linked your kickstarter pledge to your account, you will not be able to gain access. If you have not backed the game yet, you will need to register and login on www.shroudoftheavatar.com, select the "Pledge" button in the right side-bar, and purchase a pledge at the $45 Adventurer level or above.
Choose your play mode - Currently, the only valid options are Single Player Online and Multiplayer Online.
Click Enter Game to enter Avatar creation. The Avatar creation step by step process:

Enter a first name and an optional last name (only first name is required)
Select gender and adjust character proportions as desired
Click next
Adjust skin tone, eye color, head type, and facial features
Click next
Adjust hair color, hair style
Click create character

Menus:

There is a master menu that will show up in the top-right corner of the screen when hovered over with the cursor which contains icons that can be left-clicked to perform the following actions-

Crossed swords & shield: Access Avatar character information
Bag: Open up inventory
Gears: Options menu-

Audio tab contains various options for audio control
Video tab allows video and graphics setting adjustments
Game tab contains options that affect in-game play
Controls tab allows the user to rebind the key controls
Quit will allow a user to quit the game

Question Mark: Bring up help page
Sealed Letter: File a bug report (In-game version is disabled, will open a web browser to the bug forums)

Basic Controls:

‘W-A-S-D’ keys control Avatar movement
Double tap ‘W’ key to engage in auto-run
Holding both left and right mouse buttons will move the Avatar forward
Pressing the ‘SPACEBAR’ key will cause your Avatar to jump, the longer you hold down the ‘SPACEBAR’ the higher the Avatar will jump
Swimming engages when the Avatar enters a deep enough water source and behaves like normal movement with two exceptions: the player cannot jump and combat is currently prohibited while swimming.
NUMPAD ‘/’ key or typing /walk + ENTER key will switch the Avatar between running and walking modes
Mouse movement + holding right click controls the camera view

In the options menu (the gear icon in the top right menu) there is an option in the Game tab to invert the mouse look

Decorative items, crafting components, and equipment can be moved via holding left click+dragging items to their new desired location and releasing the left mouse button.

To wear equipment, open the Avatar character information screen (‘C’ key) and drag equipment onto the display avatar or corresponding highlighted equipment slot and release the left mouse button.

Items can also be equipped by dragging them onto the actual Avatar within the world

To move items into a bag, open the bags inventory interface (‘B’ key) and drag items onto the desired bag followed by releasing the left mouse button to place the item within the selected bag

Non-equippable Items will automatically be added to your top-most inventory bag if they are dragged onto the Avatar within the world

Avatar character management:

The Journal (used to keep track of important information that has been imparted to players) can be brought up by typing /journal into the chat window, in the future this will include a UI interface and icon for use
‘C’ key or left-clicking the crossed swords & shield icon in the top right menu will bring up your Avatar’s paperdoll and character information
‘I’ key or left-clicking the bag icon in the top right menu will toggle open/close your inventory bags

To switch between inventory modes, open up the options menu (left click the gears icon in the top-right corner menu bar) and click the game tab, than the ‘Use List Inventory Mode’ check box.

‘N’ key displays the names of other players and NPCs over their head. This is not active by default.

The Green/Yellow/Red dot that appears next to character names displays the current health status of that character.

‘O’ key opens emote list. Double left clicking on an emote activates it. You can also activate emotes by typing /<name of emote>
‘F’ key brings up Friends List where you can add or remove friends.

Type in a name in the search field followed by the ‘ENTER’ key to add a user as a friend
Select a friend from the list and left click Unfriend to remove the selected friend

‘X’ key will bring up the Blocked users list that will block any users from appearing within your chat window

Type in a name followed by the ‘ENTER’ key to add a user to the blocked list
Select a user from the list and left click Unblock to remove the selected user from being blocked

‘ESC’ key exits all open interfaces

Interactive Objects:

Objects in the world that change the cursor when hovered over can either be interacted with by double left-clicking or picked up by left click + dragging the mouse. Some examples of interactions:

Doors can be opened through interaction
Chests can be opened and looted through interaction
Light sources can be toggled on/off through interaction
Ladders can be “climbed” through interaction (currently a teleport)

World Navigation:

Upon leaving certain scenes or towns via the roads located near the entrance/exits the Avatar will be taken to the world map. World map navigation works as follows:

Single left-click a hex to move towards it, note that travel speed will be affected by certain types of terrain
Double-left click a hex that your marker is on to enter it and transition to a new scene, every hex should contain a scene, even if they are simply placeholder at this time.

To instant travel between towns:

To travel between Kingsport and Owl’s Head use the Lunar Rift located near the entrance to Owl’s Head or the Lunar Rift in the densely forested area of Kingsport.

Combat:

Creatures and NPCs that can be attacked highlight red when hovered over with the cursor.
While hovering over a creature/NPC that can be attacked, double left-click to engage in auto-attack combat with your equipped weapon.
Enemies that are defeated and have loot for the Avatar will highlight the cursor bronze when hovered over and can be double left-clicked to bring up the loot gump.
If the Avatar should drop below 0 health they will be incapacitated for a short time until they regain consciousness.

Player parties:

Parties are currently limited to six members
Press the ‘F’ key to bring up the friends list, players can now be invited and managed through the party tab on the friends list
Players can be invited to party with you if you are the leader of a party or if your are not currently in a party
When invited to a party, a dialog will pop up that the player may accept or decline
All party members are shown in the list and their status is listed, status includes: Leader, invited, member of party
If the party leader disconnects or leaves the party, party leader status will be assigned to a new party member
Party leaders can:

Invite new party members to join
Kick party members
Make new party leader
Manage invited members that have not accepted (uninvite)

Offline party members will remain in the party, but their name will be greyed out
HUD elements (displayed vertically in the top left corner) for the party include name, health, and focus of current party members

Player Housing:

House Selection:

Pressing or holding the ‘P’ key will signal available housing lots to display a visual beacon effect
To claim an available housing lot, walk up to the ‘For Sale’ runic sign and double left-click the sign to interact with it
Once a lot is claimed, the runic sign will display to the owner how long they have until the lot can be claimed by another Avatar
Once the housing lot is claimed, the owner may choose what house is displayed on the lot and, currently, is the only Avatar able to decorate the house
Note: Changing the player house on a lot will clear out any decorations that were contained within the previous house. Unclaiming a lot will also clear out decorations but allow the owner to deposit any remaining placed decorations into their inventory.

Decoration:

To decorate, make sure the avatar is within their claimed housing lot (lots are denoted by a runic sign post and only the owner of the lot may decorate) then left click+drag objects from the Avatar’s inventory into the world and release the left mouse button when the object is green to place it in the world. A red object will not be placeable.
The ‘Q’ and ‘E’ keys will rotate the object during placement.

Holding the ‘LSHIFT’ key while using ‘Q’ and ‘E’ to rotate will slow down the rotation for precision placement

To remove decorations, left click+drag an item from within the world back into the Avatar’s inventory.
There are new commands through the runic sign that allow the owner to deposit all currently placed decorations within a lot into their inventory.
Decorations will be removed when changing houses on a lot and locked upon losing the claim on a lot.

Permissions: Currently all lots are set to public permission by default which means other players can enter you lot but cannot decorate. Later releases will add permissions to control this (kindred, guild, friends, public, etc.)

Harvesting/Crafting:

Resource nodes throughout the world can be harvested in two ways:

Equip the required resource gathering tool and interact with the resource node through a double left-click
Use the out-of-combat hotbar by first dragging a harvesting tool from the Avatar’s inventory to the out-of-combat hotbar followed by initiating the harvest by pressing/clicking the corresponding hot-key slot on the out-of-combat hotbar

‘R’ key opens the recipe log

To see the known recipes for a particular category, left click the desired category
Recipes you don’t have the components for will show up greyed out, each component you possess or recipe you can craft will show up bolded instead.
If already at the corresponding crafting table and all ingredients are present, a crafting recipe may be double left-clicked to automatically add everything needed to the table for crafting the item.

To craft an item, first double click the crafting table that corresponds to the item you wish to make. Once the crafting table is in use, drag each component (exact amounts only, use ‘CTRL’ to grab a single item from a stack) and the tool you want to attempt to craft with onto the crafting table from your inventory. Once all of the necessary components are placed on the table the “craft” button will highlight and an item will be created once it is clicked.

Iron Longsword example crafting recipe:

Iron Longsword (Blacksmith) - 1 Smithing Hammer, 1 Chunk of Coal, 1 Iron Longsword Blade, 1 Iron Hilt
Iron Hilt (Blacksmith) - 1 Smithing Hammer, 1 Chunk of Coal, 2 Iron Ingots
Iron Longsword Blade (Smelting) - 1 Smelting Tongs, 1 Blade Mold, 3 Iron Bars, 1 Chunk of Coal
Iron Bar (Smelting) - 1 Smelting Tongs, 1 Bar Mold, 1 Chunk of Coal, 4 Iron Ore
Iron Ingot (Smelting) - 1 Smelting Tongs, 1 Ingot Mold, 1 Chunk of Coal, 1 Iron Ore

Chair Decoration example crafting recipe:

Chair (Carpentry) - 1 Carpentry Hammer, 2 Wooden Board, 1 Wooden Pole
Wooden Poles (Milling) - 1 Wood Rasp, 1 Wooden Board
Wooden Board (Milling) - 1 Cubit Measure, 1 Wood Log

All items can be removed from a crafting table by left-clicking the Take All button.
Stacked Items (Crafting Ingredients): Moving a stack of items brings up a dialog asking how many you want to move. If you are holding down the ‘CTRL’ key when you click-and-drag a stacked item, you will remove only one item from a stack of items.

Chat:

Filters & tabs

Currently there are only 2 chat tabs, each tab can be left-clicked to make it the active tab
Each chat tab has a drop down menu to allow filtering of what each chat tab receives

Chat box controls

To converse with NPCs or other players hit the ‘ENTER’ key to bring up your chat log. Type the text you want conveyed to the npc/players within the chat box, and hit ‘ENTER’ again to send the text, which also exits text entry mode (an industry standard we have adopted).
To send chat directly to a specific NPC, select the NPC with your left mouse button before sending a message
The chat log can be scrolled through by left click+dragging the slider on the right side of the chat window
In the Options menu you can disable the requirement to hit Enter before each text entry (as it was in R1)
You can click the green triangular gem in the corner of the chat window to lock or unlock the auto-hide feature. By default, the chat window is now locked on.
To move the chat window, left-click + drag while the cursor is within the text receiving area.
To re-size the chat window, left-click + drag the window borders as desired.
A list of chat ‘/’ commands and their functionality (type in the command followed by any input, denoted below by a pair of <>, and the ‘ENTER’ key to execute it. EX: /w LordBritish Hello - will send LordBritish a friendly private message):

/join <playername> - join the party of the specified player
/leave - leaves your active party
/friend <playername> - add player to friend list
/unfriend <playername> - remove player from friend list
/block <playername> - add player to blocked list
/unblock <playername> - remove player from blocked list
/w <playername>, <text> - send a private message to a player
/p <text>- switch to party chat text entry mode
/l <text> - switch to local chat text entry mode
/loc - print the player location in world coordinates
/bug <text> - copy a bug small bug report to the clipboard
/stuck - reset the Avatar’s postion
/<emote> - the emotes from the emote list may be entered as a chat command

Shopping:

Many NPCs now buy and sell things. You can activate the Shopping interface in a number of ways:

Double-clicking an NPC will call up the Shopping interface window, if one exists.
NPCs may also open up a Shopping interface window as part of a conversation. “What do you sell”, “Show me your store”, “What is for sale”, “What goods do you offer”, or the ever popular “vendor” and “buy” will all work.

You can buy and sell goods from an NPC using a tabbed interface and set quantities for purchasing/selling multiple items. You will be asked to confirm a transaction before it is completed.
The Avatar starts with 100g, vendors will buy and sell items- the best method to make money currently is to craft items and sell to vendors- see how much money you can make!

Bug Reporting & Misc:

To report a bug, either left-click the sealed letter in the master menu or open up your chat log (‘ENTER’ key) and type in /bug followed by your bug report and the ‘ENTER’ key. This will copy your bug report and game information to the clipboard and bring up the SotA bug forum where you can paste the clipboard into a post for us to receive. Before posting in the forums please follow these guidelines: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IgbhfeXt8mTLZaY7cXGf3m-Pf-3BodoRK1-sVuHlHr8/edit
The ‘F11’ key will take a screenshot of the game and save it to your installed SotA directory
To find out the current position of the Avatar in game open up the chat log (‘ENTER’ key) and type in ‘/loc’ followed by the ‘ENTER’ key. This also copies out the location to your clipboard so that it can be pasted elsewhere as needed.
The ‘Alt-F4’ key combo or left-clicking the options menu “Quit” tab will exit the game.