Editing Release 113 (section)

==RELEASE 113, April 27th, 2023==
Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Release 113 goes live April 27th at 10:30 AM CDT.

Welcome! The Catnip Games development team marks this monthly release of Shroud of the Avatar with new content and improvements. For Release 113 (R113), we offer the new scene of Port Harmony and newly-tameable reef spiders.

For those wishing to participate in any [https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=35475 community activities], upcoming one-time and recurring community events have been announced! Be sure to also review the [https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/playerguide/ Player Guide] and [https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/knownissues/ Known Issues] for additional information on recent changes and upcoming fixes.<ref>[[Avatar's Update]]: [https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?p=132370 Play Release 113!]</ref>
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===2023 Roadmap Update===
So far we are pretty much on track to keep the roadmap schedule.

The one item we have a delay on is implementing Unity 2021. We are now in process of migrating servers and applications to new Virtual Machines as well as adding new internal build and Dev/QA environments. This will eliminate the process bottleneck we currently have and allow for the parallel development work on our current Unity 2018 platform and Unity 2021 until it is ready to be deployed into production.

The first phase of our Treasure Map system is currently in development. Devilcult is doing a great job of prototyping the maps and setting up the tech and systems that we will need to move forward with more advanced features.

As detailed farther down in these release notes, we are in the final push to get the in-game scene maps completed. There is still much work to be done to catch up but we have met our commitment to ensure that any new qualifying scene released will have a map on day one. Work on the SotaMap server is still on the schedule as well but is blocked by server and infrastructure updates being done to our website datacenter. This will be an ongoing project and updates will be provided as we reach the next stage.

Episode Two work continues and is progressing beautifully! Sannio (Keith Quinn) has created a unique and bright town in Port Harmony that will greet players as they first arrive on Mistrendur. Sannio has outdone himself again!

Look for more roadmap updates at the end of June!

– Ravalox

===Preparation and Announcement of Dev Events===
[[Image:item_construction_barricade.jpg|200px]]
This last Release cycle we hosted our annual Egg Hunt event. Special thanks goes out to Laney, Veepers, Devilcult, and Allium for taking the time to setup and run this year’s hunt! Many of our Developer-run events require time to plan and decorate the scene where the event is to be held. The Egg Hunt is one of the most laborious efforts; this year extra work was done to set up the entire scene with buildings, deco, and (of course) the eggs and other prizes.

A number of players have asked why we did not advertise or otherwise announce the event prior to it occurring. This year, the event was moved from Hometown to Mount Midir because the popularity of the event had drawn excited players to come ‘watch’ the Dev Team prepare which, in the case of an Egg Hunt, rather defeats the purpose. Some of our events are scheduled and advertised and others are what are known as ‘pop-up’ events. By advertising the event, we would have had even more player detectives on our trail while we hopped around the scene setting things up.

We are working on tech that will allow us to close a scene for ‘maintenance’ without a client patch. This will allow us to better prepare our events and surprises while keeping the players informed that something is coming, which in turn will allow us to plan and devise more somewhat-on-the-fly special events. More on that in the coming months!

– Ravalox