However, the announcement of the game came with some confusion, as the game seemed to be described in terms of an MMO, or at least a massively multiplayer game, in which players teamed up with others online. This led to concerns of a Diablo III-styled always-on system.
Howewer, in the latest post, Garriott has reassured gamers that players will be able to play offline single player, and the game won't have DRM.
According to Garriott, "The game can be played offline, no connection required. The character used for the offline version of the game will not be useable in the online version of the game for obvious exploit/hacking reasons. We are going to investigate ways to export your online character to the single player version of the game but the offline character will not be importable into the online version."
This system should be familiar to anyone who played Diablo II, in which single player and online multiplayer characters were segregated.
He went on to state "the offline single player version of the game for those who purchase it through KickStarter will not use any form of DRM. We had been holding off on committing to that because we don’t know what our final distribution system (Steam, GOG, etc) is going to be" and added, "the offline single player of the game will not have any microtransactions."
Shroud of the Avatar is expected to be released in October 2014.
