Shroud of the Avatar on Display at E3

Richard “Lord British” Garriott makes his return to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) this year and will be showing off the latest version of his epic fantasy role playing game currently under development, Shroud of the Avatar™ (SotA) at the Plantronics booth in the Los Angeles Convention Center June 10-12. Portalarium®, Garriott’s development studio, and Plantronics have partnered to provide E3 attendees with a chance to see, hear and communicate inside the game using headsets from Plantronics, one of the global leaders in audio technology. Shroud of the Avatar will be on display at the Plantronics booth, #515 in the LACC’s South Hall.

Audio, music and voice communication are all critical pieces in Shroud’s development process. Most of the music and sound effects in the game are crowd sourced and much of it is curated and peer reviewed by players using voice communications. Many of the players use third party voice software and the game itself is being created by a distributed development process where voice communications are important.

“We couldn’t have found a better partner for Shroud of the Avatar than Plantronics,” said Richard Garriott. “Their long history in audio technology and hardware is unmatched. Their headsets are high quality, reliable and perhaps most importantly provide clarity and excellent sound isolation that lead to the very immersive worlds that we want to create for our players.”

“It’s a privilege to work with Richard Garriott and Portalarium,” said Dorothy Ferguson, director of marketing for Plantronics Gaming. “We anticipate Shroud of the Avatar to be a huge success and are honored to share it with E3 attendees at the Plantronics booth."

Garriott and Executive Producer Starr Long will be providing demos of the game throughout the Expo. The two will also be discussing some major additions to Shroud’s pledge rewards and pledge tiers announced today on the Shroud of the Avatar site, www.ShroudOfTheAvatar.com. Also announced were new housing types and plans in the game for player owned towns and a stretch goal store.
Additionally the Shroud team will be giving away access to the upcoming Early Release 7 (scheduled for June 26-29) to anyone who submits their email address at the Shroud of the Avatar demo area in the Plantronics booth.

Shroud of the Avatar is a multiplayer fantasy RPG for the PC that is the spiritual successor to Richard Garriott’s previous works in the genre. It is expected to launch at the end of 2014. It is a crowd funded and crowd sourced game built in Unity that has raised more than $4.1 million from backers to date. For more information on the game and to become a backer of the project, go to www.ShroudoftheAvatar.com.