Design Notes

November 30, 2010

A Truck-Load of Pun

Incoming!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ooooh! The truck transporting the 1st shipment of Battle On 2011 Calendars just arrived! As the driver, "Buddy", lowered the pallete off the back of the big rig's trailer a swarm of service robots poured out of the Secret Underground Lab's loading dock carrying the boxes to the unpacking plant. Do not worry, they were armed with twin G4-R anti-sneevil lasers*. Florida has a notoriously large sneevil infestation problem. You really need to watch your boxes closely. Faith carefully inspected each box then nodded her head for us to proceed. Within minutes we ripped through the cardboard containers like a pack of highly caffinated velociraptors. Freed from their boxy prison, the shiny Calendars immediately got the codes that unlock the Chronomancer class (and other in-game collector's items) placed within them. As you read this... we are packing your pre-orders and preparing to mail them out! There are a lot of them. It is really intimidating. Probably going to take until Friday for physically pack and ship them all. The only thing scarier than seeing that mountain of boxes** on the truck and knowing they were all already sold.... is knowing that a second bigger batch is on its way and most of them are already sold too O_O So for those of you who have been waiting on the first batch -- heads up, your calendar is on its way soon!

* Hind-sight being 20/20 we should have went with the Bazooka upgrade. You can never be too careful.
** I called it, Mount Boxula

House Call

Last week I was very ill and stuck in bed staring at the spackle on the ceiling***. This gave me some time to think. We are long overdue for an upgrade to our houses. You need the ability to lock your house, let friends-only in, kick players from your house, and to get objects for your house that let you do creative, crazy and terrible things to other players. Examples: A group teleporter so you can launch quests from your house; a mirror ball that makes everyone dance at the house owner's command; and trap doors that send players to alternate dimensions.... maybe with some cool monsters in there. Maybe have the option to make your house into a PvP zone? We are also long overdue to add CASTLES as obtainable homes in the game. On a semi-related subject I would like to add the ability to access shops, your bank, and other features to house objects and pets. Actualy, I would like the ability to add multiplayer minigames to these objects so you can play things like paper-rock-scissors or trivia while hanging out with your friends. Do you have any ideas for cool items? Let us know on the forums! Also, tomorrow -- Beleen is going to start this year's cookie contest!

*** In the spackle I found Skeletor's face, a pair of really uncomfortable looking wool pants, and a spider. Except... it really was a spider. I named him Webster. In fever inspired dreams Webster and I would go on missions and save babies from burning buildings and beat up bad guys using our combined super powers. Of course, with all of his might he was earily lured to the darkside and became the... omg, am I really telling you this?

November 29, 2010

The Big Red Button!

Who Could Resist Its Call?

We have finally returned from our glorious Thanksgiving Holiday Break, which really wasn't much of a break. As some of you pointeds out on my Twitter, it's been a few days since we've done a Design Notes and some of you were downright HOWLING for a few DNs post but I don't have anything in-particular to tell you about so I guess I'll just humiliate myself for your enjoyment.

If you were playing Weds then you know that we suffered from a horrible bug that was making it unable to get ANYTHING from most of the Cornycopia shops. At one point we shut down the servers.

That server lock-out was my bad.

See, we have a little dashboard that lists a bunch of commands for the controlling the game. It has commands just about everything that you'd need to control AQW. It also has a button that SHUTS ALL THE SERVERS DOWN AT ONCE. In my haste to solve the shop bug I accidentally hit that button.

No sweat, just turn them back on, right? WRONG! Here lies the problem... if the servers are off then the dashboard can't control the servers. Zhoom or Minimal has to remote in and turn them back on and both of our codemeisters were gone.

Something is wrong with my head and instead of panicing when anyone SHOULD panic, I start laughing uncontrolably instead. So there I was, ROFLing my face off having just accidentally turned off AQ Worlds leaving literally thousands of your fellow players stranded outside the game and every single person who could turn on the servers was either flying to their home state for Thanksgiving or driving back to their house.

I did what any great leader in my position would have done: I started messing with people on Twitter and waiting for someone else to fix it. About 15 minutes later Zhoom arrived home and turned the game back on for me. Thanks Zhoom.

I stayed until I figured out what was wrong with all of the shops and finally went home.

Every release we need to shut the servers down to add the new content to the game. There's no way around that, but this was the first time that anyone has accidentally hit the OFF switch and hopefully it will be the last

Other than that, I had a great Thanksgiving and thanks to everyone who wished me Happy Thanksgiving via Twitter. I hope all of you had a good one too. Even those of you who live in Sweden where, I am told, there is no American Thanksgiving. Which makes sense.

Things To Come

Artix and I are hacking away at our Frostval event which will feature some musical and acting talent that LOTS AND LOTS of people have heard of. I don't want to jinks it and I legally can't say more than that bit if it works it will be HUGE for AQW! Even if that doesn't work out we have a lot of Frostval Fun planned, the return of our Cookie and Cake Contest from last year...

and the holiday appearance of Quibble planned as we bring this year of AQW to a close.

This week, we are continuing the Frozen Northlands quest chain as chaotically charged Nythera leads you through the frozen wastes of the north.

It's been a year since we began her storyline and now the calendar was come full circle. It's time for a little Dragony Goodness!

Calendar Update

You may have heard but the AE 2011 Year of The Moglin Calendars hit a little snag. They were coming from the printers over-seas when they got held up in the Customs office in Los Angeles. Finally they have begun to move toward us again and are scheduled to arrive at the lab tomorrow sometime. 

That means that the FIRST 1000 Calendars should start getting shipped out by the end of the week. Sorry for the hold up, guys, but it was WAY beyond our control.

If haven't been to HeroMart in a little while you might have missed that we now have Battleon Point Printable Gift Certificates just in time for the holidays.

Print them out and give them to your best friends!

Actually, you can give them to whomever you like. We don't really keep track of stuff like that. Maybe you want to give one to that one guy that you kind of know, or maybe your worst enemy.

$10 Worth of Battleon Points FREE!

Biggest RIXTY Promotion of the Year!

Get $10 FREE!

Feeling the need for some bonus game currency? From now until December 31st, you’ll earn $10 FREE when you deposit $40 or more into your Rixty account using Coinstar machines or Rixty prepaid cards.

Here's how to apply your Rixty Points to your Battleon Master Account!

Coming To A Close

The Toilet Set leaves Ballyhoo THIS FRIDAY so you only have a few days left, and remember that the Battleon Holiday Sweepstakes is still going on. The Drawing isn't until December 10th and all you need to do is create a Battleon Master Account! Good Luck.

Hmmm. I guess I did have some stuff to talk about.

November 24, 2010

Cornycopia 2010!

It's Harvest Time!

Happy Turdraken day everyone! We have a special holiday in-game event for everyone to enjoy. It features the return of OISHII and the last two years worth of Cornycopia content plus a new area!

Head north from Oishii and speak to Scott the Pilgrim! He's in charge of the Harvest Parade that is set to march through Swordhaven and Shadowfall but something has gone wrong!

You'll need to battle your way through skeletal turkeys and chaos infectred paraade balloons (patterend after some recognizable figures) to reach the end of this year's event!

There are tons of items for free players as well as the return of Twig's MEMBER ONLY area, and the Kung Food Fighting achievement shop filled with some seasonal favorites from last year!

And, because Thanksgiving is a time for going a little overbaord, Scott the Pilgrim has some non-member AND member quests with some amazing new drops, and a special event shop where you can pick up some NEVER BEFORE SEEN seasonal rares for everyone!

We are introducing THREE new armors, ONE new helm, ONE new cloak, SEVEN new weapons and FOUR new pets this year! A Warning to members! When you complete Scott's last quest this year, you will get to choose ONLY ONE of the pets, so be sure to pick your favorite! There is no going back!

If you have a Twitter, Facebook or Myspace account then you probably were given a Harvest Scythe by a friend.If you are a member, you may now UPGRADE that tot the GOLDEN HARVEST SCYTHE for FREE By taking to either Oishii or Scott the Pilgrim and hitting their Harvest Scythe Button!

Friday is BLACK FRIDAY!

It is the busiest shopping day of the year. Black Friday (so called because it is the best sales day of the retail year, which keeps a lot of stores "in the black") happens in the U.S every year on the day following Thanksgiving. You will see crazy Half-Off signs everywhere.... and if you log into AQWorlds, you will ALSO see one in Battleon in the form of BELEEN!

Beleen will be offering you most of the same great Black (sigh...AND pink) seasonal silly rares as last year with a few exceptions. The Pretty-In-Pink DOOMknight has gone perma-rare and will not be offered again. You will also notice a few additions to the shop like the Black Ninja armor (why didn't we have one of those already?) ... and the PINK Ninja Armor... for some reason.

We will keep the shop up for a week so if you're out fighting for your life in the rush of mad shoppers you won't have to miss out!

Toilet Set From Ballyhoo!

Speaking of missing out, by popular request we are extending the availability of the super-weird Toilet set for another week. I made the thing for a laugh on World Toilet Day, but suddently I can't open my inbox without a tide of e-mail begging to extend the time to grab it. So... ok.

This set is for anyone who can get their hands on it. All you need is a little luck then go visit Ballyhoo in Battleon and watch her ads. As soon as the ad ends you will get some gold, maybe a few free AdventureCoins and you might even get one of the four pieces of the Toilet set.

See-ya Skyguard Stratos!

This Friday, the Phearless will be hoisting anchor and leaving Battleon!

You'll still be able to /join airship to get the drops and we will be adding it as a permenant part of the game when we continue the Skyguard storyline, but Captain Stratos' AC SHOP will be leaving forever! If you want to grab some of the guarenteed rares from his shop, make sure you get them before Friday. Once the AC shop is gone, those items will never be seen again!

...Except being carried or worn by people who got them.

...and on the AQW Wiki.

BattleOn Holiday Sweepstakes!

Don't forget that you can be one of five winners in the BattleOn Holiday Sweepstakes! All you need to to is starts a Battleon Master Account, and you can improve your chances by linking your BattleOn Game Accounts to your Master Account!

The Drawing is December 10th! Don't forget!

A Time For Giving Thanks

Thanksgiving is a day for slowing down, looking around and being thankful for all that you've got. Maybe it's family for you, like it is for many of us here at BattleOn Games. Maybe it's having some of the greatest friends in the world, like me. Maybe it's as simple as having enough to eat and being healthy.

Whatever you are giving thanks for, we want to say THANK YOU for playing these games. It seems like we say that a LOT but also, not nearly often enough. We try and stay as close to you (the players) as we can and listen to you when you tell us what we're doing right and what wwe're doing wrong. We also try, whenever we can, to give you all that you ask for and surprise you with a little more.

No matter what you think of us, know that we appreciate every single one of you. It doesn't matter if you're a free player who has just joined the game or a long-time supporter who helped make it possible for us to donate to Child's Play this year and years before. We're glad that you decide to have fun playing with us on AQ Worlds.

Thank You and Happy Holidays!

November 23, 2010

Child's Play

Thank you for making our donation possible!

Child's Play is a charity that raises money to make lives better for sick children in hospitals around the world. It was started by gamers, like you and me, and is a cause that the BattleOn Games Team feels very strongly about.

It fills us with happiness that we are able to pass along the support that you give to us to this worthy charity. We have just made a donation to Child's play on behalf of all the 2nd Upholders, AQWorlds Members,  AdventureQuest Guardians, DragonFable DragonLords, MechQuest Star Captains, and Epic Duel supporters. Thank you for making it possible to support them with a platinum sponsorship!

Artix always says that you can never fail unless you give up. If you're still trying then the game's not over. It's really true. There is a great children's hospital in the town where I live and they were not on the Child's Play network of hospitals. So I did a few minutes worth of research on the internet, called the people in charge of fundraising and told them all about Child's Play. Today they are contacting the charity, becoming a benefactor and hopefully some of YOUR generosity will go to help the sick kids in that hospital a few blocks from my house!

If there is a children's hospital in YOUR town, maybe you can do the same thing! All it takes is a little effort and you can improve the lives of so many people. It's amazing to see what gamers can do when we put our minds to it!

Thanks, everyone, for supporting BattleOn Games (Did we tell you all that are changing the name of the company?), allowing us to make great adventures for you and for making our support of Child's Play possible! It's all because of you.

November 22, 2010

The BattleOn Handbook

It is not just a job... it is an AdventureQuest!

There are only three days until our Harvest Festival begins. It starts at the same time as the Thanksgiving holiday starts. Knowing that everyone would be on super crunch schedules we did the usual... an unnessasrily long staff meeting to distribute and review our new official BattleOn Employee Handbook! Yes, it is official, forged by boodthirsty vampire lawyers and legally binding. Here are a few highlights for you.

Pg 54. Section 906. Nose Pointing "The Nose Goes"

Effective Date: 11/1/2010
In the event that a trivial action must be performed by one individual in a group of equally qualified personnel, the last person to touch their index finger to their nose shall be responsible for performing the task"

Pg 53. Table Gum

Effective Date: 11/1/2010
The person who takes the last piece of gum located in the center of the DragonFable table shall be responsible for replacing it. This can be done by purchasing a new container of gum and placing it at the center of the table during the next business day.

A.) Shaking the Table Gum container to determine the quantity of gum remaining is not permissible. Therefore, if you shake, you take.

B.) Tricking non-DragonFable team members to partake from the Table Gum container is allowed and strongly encouraged.

(Yes, those are really in the handbook)

Meanwhile... J6 has just arrived at the Secret Underground Lab!

AQworlds artist J6 has just arrived here. Literally. He is standing behind me watching me type this. He says, "I need to leave!" (No worries, we immediately chained him in front of a computer and drawing tablet.) He and Cinazul had a 3 day drive from Montreal, Canada. They said the trip was like going back in time. See, it is starting to snow up there but it is crazy hot down here. So all of the leaves were gone on the trees when they started but as they got closer to Florida the trees started having leaves on them. They said it was like going through the seasons in reverse! Hmmm, I wonder if they will end up staying in the DoomKnight room.

Forum Question: Oishii is cooking again for the Harvest Festival. RUN!!!!!! Are there any "Rare Dishes" you would like to see on the menu?

Forum Question 2: Would you be interested in a pet that allowed you to access your bank? What about a shop? (You know, so you can sell stuff without returning to town?)

November 19, 2010

Take to the Skies!

Tonight’s Release is not for those who are afraid of heights…

MAYDAY! MAYDAY! Captain Stratos of King Alteon's Skyguard has just reported that his airship is under attack! Gladius and his Draconian Sky Pirates have invaded The Phereless and the Skyguard needs your assistance!

Statos has requested that the Skyguard drop anchor in Battleon in order to recruit fearless warriors to fight off the onslaught of Sky Pirates.

So let’s back up a bit: What exactly is a Skyguard?

The Skyguard are King Alteon’s flying army. They are noble aerial warriors who patrol the skies above Swordhaven and Battleon on the constant lookout for danger. After seeing the threat of Sepulchure’s flying fortress, the Good King saw fit to create a group of knights that could combat him anywhere. The Skyguard can go anywhere and attack from anywhere—no evil is safe from them.

But now the airship, The Phereless, is under attack by Sky Pirates! Their leader, Gladius, has been reported on the ship’s deck along with a massive armored dragon outfitted with anti-air cannons.

Wow… that sounds safe. Where do I sign up to join the Skyguard?

Once everyone was evacuated from Battleon during the server shutdown, Captain Stratos dropped anchor and is taking the most valiant heroes aboard the Skyguard airship.  

But before you head on deck, it would be wise to gear up in some RARE official Skyguard loot!

• Runed Skyguard Sword
• Cobalt Skyguard Blade
• Skyguard Blade and Shield
• Skyguard Captain Hat
• Skyguard Uniform Armor
• Skyguard Halberd
• Gilded Skyguard Helm
• Elegant Skyguard Hat
• Skyguard Full Helm
• Skyguard Officer Helm
• Skyguard Commander Helm
• Formal Skyguard Cape
• Skyguard Officer’s Blade
• Skyguard Crystal Blade
• Skyguard Highblade
• Skyguard Falcon Blade

The Skyguard really know how to dress for battle! All the items in the Skyguard Outfitters Shop are RARE and will NEVER be offered again. Most of the items offered here sell for AdventureCoins, so make sure you stock up on ACs if you hope to get the best of the best loot while you still can!

Reports have flooded in that the baddies on board have some pretty impressive item drops as well. But since The Phereless is still hovering around somewhere up there… I haven’t been able to check the monsters for their drops just yet.

Ewww… ‘monster drops’ sounds a little disconcerting….

Speaking of disconcerting matters…

Port-A-Pwnzor Complete Armor Set!

Flush away evil with the Port-A-Pwnzor armor set! To celebrate World Toilet Day, Ballyhoo is offering you the chance to get the complete set of Port-A-Pwnzor Armor, Port-A-Pwnzor Helm, Port-A-Plunger Mace, and Port-A-Pwnzor Cloak!

That… actually… turned out a lot better than I thought!

Visit Ballyhoo up to 10 times a day to have a chance at getting this totally weird (and awesome) complete armor set. It will be available all this week so have fun watching those ads! And don’t forget: every time you watch a Ballyhoo Ad, you have the chance at winning gold, items, and even FREE ACs!

You can find Ballyhoo in Battleon Town Square (right next to Valencia) or by /join ballyhoo. Without the period. Because then the command won’t work!

Falconreach Idle!

It's DragonFable's very first voice-acting event! So make sure your sound and music options are checked! Starring the vocal talents of George Lowe, Cysero and Lim (voiced by their real life counterparts), Serenity (played by Alina), and Lime the moglin (voiced by the talented Nythera), Falconreach Idle is DragonFable's first parody of all those reality TV talent shows you know, love (or maybe hate) so much!

And it is ALL happening NOW!! It'll be a half-hour packed with action, puns, and a panel of judges who are VERY ready to tell you exactly what they think about your act!  So instead of grasping your remote control, you'll need to grab your mouse and double-click your way to Falconreach because YOU are going to be a STAR! 

It EVEN features Artix’s very own commercial about the highly sought after Paladin Toilet Paper! Check out DragonFable’s Release now!

Next Week: Harvest Festival!

Yup! Next Thursday is the day that we give thanks by stuffing our faces with turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, deviled eggs, sweet potato casserole and all that delish home holiday fixin’s. In AQWorlds, Oishii is back with her classic cooking and cornycopia-filled adventures. We will be releasing on Wednesday next week since the entire team will be in a deep hibernation come Friday morning.

There WILL BE a Black Friday Shop next week. But uh… we honestly don’t know what is going to go in it. Yet.

If you have any ideas, let us hear about them on the forums or on our twitters! We always love to hear your ideas!

Battle ON!

November 17, 2010

Super Hero-ing Time!

Wearing underpants on the wrong side for justice

If you love AQWorlds, you are going to be very excited about the upcoming new SuperHero MMO game! It is being built on a "super" version of the AQWorlds game engine which allows flying, scrollable backgrounds, customizable faces and fully customizable skills (no more classes, you just buy the skills directly). The game project is being headed up by Galanoth (Currently head of the original AdventureQuest) and will feature art and animation by Thyton, and Yergen von Smergenbergen. Character design was a huge challenge. We tried going for classic comic book looking characters... but after 5 rounds we decided to throw everything away. Instead of looking like every other SuperHero game we wanted to make something truely unique. So we created mischieviously cute and ultra violent characters which have been called "Vinyl style." We really hope you like it. Just when we thought things were going smoothly we ran into a major problem... the name of the game was to be SuperHeroQuest which we registered and applied for a trademark on. However, we got a joint cease and desist letter from DC/Marvel telling us that together they OWNED THE TRADEMARK on the word SuperHero and we cannot not use it. Yes, you read that right. No one but the giant mega companies DC & Marvel are allowed to use the word SuperHero because they claim ownership of the word. You can do some research online to learn more about this. This is why you never see small indie comic makers use the word SuperHero in the titles of their comic books. I am not sure why no one ever really stood up to them before... SuperHero is a very common, generic term. We may be a small indie game company, but we are not scared to roll up our sleeves and fight. I wrote back a letter saying that I disagreed with claim on the term SuperHero and am continuing to file for the trademark on our games original name. What do you think?

In the meantime, so we release on time, we have a new working title for the game and will be releasing alpha under that top secret name..... hopefully at the end of this month! Now... we have a new rule for alpha/beta tests. For non-MMO web based games (like BladeHaven), everyone who has supported the games in the past will be invited to help Alpha/Beta test. You guys have good expectations and know that during these tests the games are not ready yet and a lot of bug hunting needs to be done! Thank you :-) For Massively Multiplayer Games there will be 3 phases. During the 1st phase we will allow everyone who has supported the games in the past to create their Character(s). This way you can get your name :-) Phase 2 will probably start later the same day... we will be locked down to a single multiplayer server that can only support a maximum of 1,500 users. We need to develop on a single server because we will be making non-stop code and content changes. Anyone who played on the AQWorlds PTR knows what that is like. Obivouly, there is not enough room for everyone, and since this is an MMO built on AQWorld's engine and resources, the most fair thing to do is limit this phase to players with active AQWorlds Memberships. Once the game is stable, we will open up multiple servers and begin Phase 3 where everyone who has supported us in the past will be invited to play. Yes, there will be something special for EVERYONE who helps test. The part of this game that I am most excited about is the open skill system. Instead of classes, you will be able to buy powers, skills and abilities directly... and combine them differently to create any type of hero you want. Leveling up will unlock new powers giving you a wider choice of things to use. Of course I am really exicted about flying too. Most hero games do now allow EVERYONE to fly if they want to (all you need to do is obtain the skill!)

Question: What is your Super Name and your Super Power? (I think mine will be "Martial Artix"... um hehe... read it out loud.)

November 16, 2010

Pink Power!

The best paladin repellant? Pink Shurikens, of course!

So I got a txt from Cysero yesterday that a present had arrived for me at the Lab. I was in class at that moment (studiously learning, not tweeting or anything like that) so I had to wait an excruciating 20 HOURS to come back to work and tear open the package sent by Gianna_Glow!

Double Triple Quadruple Pink Ninja Stars, omg!

AAAAHMAAAAAZZZIIINNNG! Ginna_Glow hand-crafted these beautifully pink shurikens and I just HAD to share them with you! I wonder how she guessed my favorite color?

Thank you, thank you sooo much Ginna_Glow!

And the story gets even better! Artix came back to the Lab a few moments ago and was greeted by a barrage of pink shuriken fury. And um… heh…. he is currently missing in action.

If you have seen this paladin, please direct him back to the Secret Underground Lab. I promise I won’t use them against you, Artix! We have a release to plan!

Speaking of a new release…

Captain Stratos of King Alteon's SkyGuard has just reported that Galdius and his Draconian Sky Pirates are growing more bold with each passing day. King Alteon has dispatched the SkyGuard to patrol the skies near Battleon and any strange airship activity should be reported to the nearest city guard.

We wish Captain Stratos the best of luck while Cysero, J6, Dage, Skyline, Reens, and the rest of the AQW Team prepare an all-new Rare AC Shop scheduled for Friday’s release. All of the items in this shop will be Rare so make sure you get the items while you can. It is 100% confirmed that the items in this shop will never be offered again.

And they’re sooo rare that WE haven’t even seen them yet. And we’re the ones making the game. Talk about intense.  

(I wonder if any will be pink…?)

Also!

Maybe you have heard, or maybe you haven’t: J6 released a batch of his secret Birthday Items last Friday! These items will be taken out this afternoon (in a couple of hours) so if you wanna get your hands on some super secret J6-exclusive B-day items, head to the Hyperium (if you can find it) and wish that bounty hunter a belated happy birthday!

Once J6 takes out his birthday items, you will no longer be able to get them. I don’t know if he is going to re-release them on his next birthday or not, so if you want a little keepsake of J6’s birthday, I suggest you head to the Hyperium right away.

In addition to all of that…

The 2011 Year of the Moglin AE Calendars sold out completly during pre-orders! WOW, that was fast—so fast that the AE Team didn’t even get copies themselves.

Not to worry! We didn’t want to leave you guys and gals out either. These calendars are in such high demand that we printed out ANOTHER THOUSAND CALENDARS and we ARE taking pre-orders at HeroMart right now!

Head over to HeroMart and Pre-Order your 2011 Year of the Moglin Calendar!

This calendar has some of the best art (if not the absolute best) that I have ever seen. I think you’d agree with me too. And not to mention… the Calendar comes with a special promo code that unlocks the Chronomancer Class in AdventureQuest Worlds and in DragonFable, the Chronomancer Armor in AdventureQuest, and the Chronos Mech in MechQuest!

Yup. The Cape and the Class are entirely animated too. You can read more about the calendar and the Chronomancer Class skills in a previous DN post by Cy.  

The first batch of pre-ordered calendars should be arriving at the Lab next week. The estimated time of arrival for the 2^nd batch of pre-ordered calendars (the ones that are now up on HeroMart) is approx 5 weeks. YAAAY—just in time for Frostval!

Hmm… what new stuff do you wanna see this Frostval, anyway?

So I hope that has answered a bunch of questions for ya ^____^  See you later gators and crocodiles and gila monsters and frogzards and every reptilian in between!

Yeah, I know I’m just a tad bit weird =p

November 13, 2010

Battleon Holiday Sweepstakes!

Hey, Free Stuff!

Here's your chance to win a HeroMart item of your choice totally FREE! All you need is a Battleon Master Account!

On December 10th, 2010 Artix Entertainment LLC. will randomly select FIVE winners for our Holiday Sweepstakes. Each winner will be contacted via e-mail and be allowed to select ONE item of their choice from our new AE Store, HeroMart. Since they are nearly all gone, we're even setting aside five AE Year of the Moglin 2011 Calendars just for the sweepstakes.

The item will be sent to the winners anywhere in the world (even if it's not on the HeroMart delivery country list), completely free of charge and shipping.

We will announce the winners here on the AQW Design Notes on December 10th!

Rules and How To Enter:

1. All you have to do to enter is start a Battleon Master Account on our portal site (Register a Free Account here!). That counts as one entry into the AE Holiday Sweepstakes.
   *If you already have an account, see #3.

2. For each AE GAME (not game account, but game. i.e. AdventureQuest, AdventureQuest Worlds, EpicDuel, MechQuest, & DragonFable) that you have linked to your Master Account you get ONE additional entry into the sweepstakes, for a grand total of SIX entries!

3. If you already have a Master Account and/or have already linked your game accounts to it then you are already entered into the sweepstakes, but if you want to increase your chances be sure to link each AE GAME to your account!

4. You must also have a valid e-mail linked to the Master Account. We will be alerting winners via e-mail, and without a valid e-mail we will not be able to contact you!

5. The number of game accounts that you have linked to the Master Account and the upgrade status of those game accounts will not be considered in the drawing.

6. If we get no e-mail response from one of our winners after two weeks, a new winner will be selected.

7. AE reserves the right to disqualify entries based on a history of hacking, cheating or other violations of our Terms of Service.

8. Good luck and happy holidays from Artix Entertainment!

Here's a link to everything I just said plus all the legal mumbo jumbo that we are required to post. Be sure to click the SHARE button if you have a Facebook account!

Pay special attnetion to rule number two. It doesn't matter if you link 1 or 6 or 19 or 300 AQW accounts to your master account, it only counts as ONE entry for AQW. Each GAME counts, each ACCOUNT does NOT.

We're starting the holidays a little early but I'm a sucker for this season. We've got more contests, events and surprises headed your way before the end of the year so be sure to check back every day!

Happy Early Holidays from myself and all of the AQW staff!

November 12, 2010

The Hollow Halls

“The corridors in HollowSoul are so big that people often get lost and die within its walls.” You will soon see why!

It’s Friday again! Man, this week has just flown on by. With the release of the Novel and Calendar pre-orders in HeroMart… along with the Toys R Us meetings… and finals coming up in college… and preparing for this week’s release… and playing BladeHaven nonstop… and preparing for the holiday season… and battling the Flu irl… it has been one hectic week!

First thing on the agenda: HAPPY BIRTHDAY J6!

Yes, our very own bounty hunter is leveling up in real life! If you see J6 in game, make sure you wish him a happy birthday. You could always deliver him a personal happy birthday wish inside the Hyperium! Well… if you can find it, that is.

Secondly: HollowSoul Castle Expanded!

Duke Ellington is waiting for you in the Hollow Halls. Only the bravest Members will have the opportunity of exploring HollowSoul… but your success of reaching the end is something no one can promise. These corridors are unlike anything you have ever encountered. For starters, it’s a new map so of course you haven’t seen it! =p

But more importantly, there is no “right” path since the halls will forever change no matter which direction you go. Yeah, it’s pretty aggravating especially if you are trying to test it out and Cysero is over in the corner LOL’ing his mutton chops off. Grrr >………<

There are 3 Keys hidden inside 3 secret Treasure Chests throughout the Hollow Halls. You will have to search each random hall for each treasure chest without first getting pwned by the VERY aggressive monsters inside. Yup, they are all set to aggro so don’t think for a second that you can just run through blindly and hope to find each treasure chest without taking out the baddies first.

More fun in store: even if you are in a group with your close buddies, you will still get lost. Duke Ellington said that people get lost and die within the castle’s walls… and this will prove true tonight. Until you Respawn, and then will have to start back at the beginning. WAHAHAA!

Even more fun: you can go to the Hollow Halls anytime you want, but if you haven’t already completed Duke’s Quests in the first HollowSoul Castle map, then you will get stuck in the Hollow Halls FOREVER.

So let’s say that you completed Duke’s original quests, found all the keys in the Hollow Halls, survived the onslaught of aggroing monsters, and reached “the end.” There is a Hollowsoul Lich waiting for you! If you defeat him and get his skull, you can turn it back into the Duke for a chance to get the Hollow Revenant Armor. This armor is pretty killer on its own, but is also a pre-requirement for something totally awesomesauce in Duke Ellington’s Merge Shop.   

Thirdadadly: Hollow Halls Merge Shop

Merge Shops are so much fun. Especially when the item requirements are crazy ridiculous! Duke Ellington has a new Merge Shop that has some killer items in it.

Every item in this shop requires more than 1 item turn in, either from the Hollow Halls, Hollowsoul Castle, or from other places in Lore. Happy Hunting!

Chaos Lord Ledgermayne—now available for everyone!

Last week the Members really showed Ledgehead who was boss. But tonight, everyone gets to bring the fight to the Arcangrove Chaos Lord!

Ledgermayne even has SIX more item drops in addition to his 9 original drops. So even if you have already defeated the Chaos Lord, you might wanna go back because he has something AMAZING you should check out…

OMGOMGOMG is that… woahh… what ARE THOSE? ...Mods? AhAH kidding. What you are looking at are the Atomosian Armaments and Academic Acoutrements… dual wielding “daggers” that are different items!

You can thank J6 for coming up with the necessary genius coding and Dage for making these awesome items! The merge shop in Hollow Halls has a similar item… and there *might* even be another one floating around in game somewhere… but that’s a secret.

So if you are caught up in the Arcangrove storyline, head on over to Rayst by the Tower of Magic and take the final fight to Chaos Lord Ledgermayne!

Pet ‘o the Month: Iron Rune Dragon

Look everyone—we remembered about the Pet of the Month! YAAAY! Since November is Month of the Dragon, Cysero made a VERY awesome Iron Run Dragon for you!

The Iron Rune Dragon is not actually a baby dragon but a dwarven construct shaped and given life deep within the Great Forge in Dwarfhold Keep. Or at least that’s what his item description says. This little guy will only be available for the month of November (and by ‘only’ I mean ‘probably, maybe, if we remember to take him out come December’) so make sure you get him while ya can!

I know there are A LOT of Dragon collectors out there… so don’t miss out on the Iron Rune Dragon!

Well folks, I think that might be it. I am very happy that I got to share all this with you (and flood your monitor screens with an absurd amount of pink).

Have a great weekend and Battle on!

November 12, 2010

YIPES! Last Chance!

Last minute Mogloween tricks and treats!

Hurry! As we get closer and closer to tonight’s release, time is running out on this year’s Mogloween festivities. When the new release launches tonight, ALL of the Mogloween seasonal rares and maps and monsters and events will disappear for another year.

THIS INCLUDES the One-Eyed Doll “You’re a Vampire” event! We don’t know if this will come back next year or not, ‘cuz we cannot tell the future despite many of you guys and gals thinking so ^___^

So get your last minute 2010 Mogloween Seasonal Rares as we get this release ready to go!

November 11, 2010

Calendar Pre-Orders!

HeroMart Is Taking Pre-Orders!

Artix would have mentioned this but he ran out of time before the plane left.

Have you ever seen a paladin clinging onto the tail rudder of a 747 as it flies away? Funny, funny stuff.

Anyway, today the AE Year of the Moglin 2011 Calander went on PRE-sale at HeroMart.

We are NOT SOLD OUT, even though it might say that we are. Actually, the calendars haven't arrived from the printer yet.

Each calendar comes with a Battleon Code Card inside it which unlocks the Chronomancer Class (and Achievement Badge) in AQW, as well as the Chronomancer Armor in AQ classic, the Chronomancer Class in DragonFable and the Chronos Mech in MechQuest!

It also comes with great features like: Pictures of some of AE's favorite NPCs and the power to tell you, without fail, the date.

When the calendars arrive at the underground lab on November 22nd and we will be shipping them out soon after. It should arrive JUST in time for the holidays (makes a great gift).

We have only printed 1000 calendars in this first run and we're not sure when or even if we will have a second printing so if you want one of these I HIGHLY suggest pre-ordering.

liek NAO.

Uncoming Funzorz!

We've got a lot of stuff we're working on here at the lab, including the next Chaos Zone, our annual Cornycopia holiday festival, Frostval and the Frostval Cookie & Cake contest, and a fun AE Holiday Drawing (no purchase necessary. I think i HAVE to say that)!

Oh yeah, and our super powered MMO, coming soon!

November 11, 2010

The DoomKnight Room

"Never Give Up" Achievement Unlocked

I have really missed you over the past 7 crazy, insane, sleep deprived days of conventions, guests and meetings.  Expecting to finally write you a long design notes and tell you about everything in detail... the situation finds my fingers going Mach 5 to type this all out before I miss my flight to LA to attend Miltonius' wedding*! Last I wrote to you, I shared with you my belief that we are capable of doing anything in life as long as you persist and never give up. This was put to the test two weeks ago as I told several hundred thousand of your fellow gamers here on the design notes that I was going to meet an impossible deadline by building a house the same way we build video games.... and have it ready for a few VIP guests who were coming in for the convention at 6am last Friday. Failure would not just mean I had to get the guests a hotel room... but that I would have to tell you that I was wrong. Well, maybe it is not possible to do absolutely everything... but I will tell you that at 5am on Friday (1 hour before they arrived) we were ready! The place had a floor, electricity, hot water (well, luke warm...), and a DoomKnight Room! (Although, LOL, I was not able to legally use my bathroom in my room.) You may have seen some in-progress pictures of the DoomKnight room with it's wall of skulls and giant Shadowscythe logo** were seen on my Twitter account. We were all hoping Kimberly (Lead Singer of One-Eyed Doll) would choose that room and be the first to sign the creepy guest book for people who dared slumber in that room. A picture is worth a thousand tweets!

* Cupid apparently found a machinegun replacement for his Bow at the Secret Underground Lab this year.
** Yes! There is also a Paladin room! But it is on the opposite side of the room for anti-dimentional-rifting reasons.

Why Artix will never get hired as an interior decorator...

Of course the craziness did not stop there. In addition to the game releases and launch of the novel we also ran a booth at the convention. Cysero made a great post below... and I would also like to thank everyone who came! It was great seeing you :-) If you were not able to go -- we need to find a way to meet you too! We should throw our own convention.... erm... in the DoomKnight room? Claustrophobic-Doom-Con! Talking about which, Voltaire was the second person to sign the DoomKnight room's guestbook. Then Galanoth and I met with Toys R Us to talk about the new card game and maybe action figures. They were really nice.... just do not tell them the things I would do to actually make a Sepulchure or Drakath action figure O_O. Of course this brings us full circle back to the Cartoon/Anime. To be honest... we just do not have enough people to make all of these ideas actually happen. I think you and the other creative players are going to need to come help us :-) Just for the record, the player Xyo, who is well known for his fan video has recently started creating new commercials for AQWorlds. The first one "Darkovia" just went on TV today! Please let us know what you think if you see it. This week the CHAOS LORD fight opens for all players and...

OMG.. PLANE LEAVING! 

Talk to you again soon friends. BATTLE ON!

November 08, 2010

Chronomancer and The Dragon's Secret!

HeroMart Items, New and Coming Soon!

Heromart is online and ready to deliver Artix Entertainment swag to your door!

As long as you live in one of the 41 countries (the list is still growing!) to which we are able to deliver.

The first ever AE NOVEL, The Dragon's Secret is now on sale!

It comes with a special weapon in AQW, a pet in DF, a weapon in MQ and a LOT of stuff in AQ classic!

The AE 2011 Year of the Moglin Calendar will go on PRE-SALE on HeroMart this Thursday, but probably won't be delivered until later November. We did have a few on hand at ShadoCon this weekend so you might even see a few people walking around with the class that comes as a bonus with the calendar!

The calendar comes with the non-member Chronomancer Class in AQW! It also comes with the Chronomancer Class in DF, Chronomancer Armor in AQ classic, and Chronos Mech on MQ!

Here is a brief write up of the class, courtesy of Beleen.

As celestial manipulators, Chronomancers alter the flow of time with supernatural divinations and otherworldly expertise. Rather than counting every second in every day, Chronomancers make every second in every day count. Only those with a divine understanding of time may call themselves such.

Chronomancers regain mana when they attack while under the effects of Temporal Rift, a Rank 1 ability. Although the Chronomancer excels under many different Enhancements, the Hybrid Enhancement is often the most common choice.

• Temporal Strike: Rank 1
  5 mana, 2 second cooldown
  Deals light damage to the target and applied Temporal Rift to the caster, a stacking effect (up to 4) that other abilities rely on.

• Rift Inversion: Rank 2
  20 mana, 12 second cooldown
  Heals you for an amount based on the damage you’ve recently taken while under the effects of Temporal Rift (up to 40% of your HP) and consumes Temporal Rift. Applies Inverted Matrix, boosting haste but preventing Temporal Rift from being applied for 6 seconds.

• Rift Collapse: Rank 3
  30 mana, 6 second cooldown
  Deals damage based on the damage you’ve recently dealt while under the effects of Temporal Rift. Consumes Temporal Rift stacks.

• Fall Back: Rank 4
  Passive Ability
  Dodge Chance increased by 15%

• Spring Forward: Rank 4
  Passive Ability
  Critical strike chance, Hit chance, and Haste increased by 5%

• Riftburn: Rank 5
  50 mana, 16 second cooldown
  Places a DoT effect on the target, based on the number of Temporal Rift stacks you have, and consumes those stacks. The DoT deals more damage with more stacks, and gets stronger over time.

One For The Cheaters

Some of you might have already seen some people running around in Chronomancer Class. Most likely, they were cheaters beacuse only 7 players have actually purchased the calendar from our merch booth at ShadoCon.

We missed a key element in our hack-protection for the shops that are unlocked when you buy the calendar or novel. The issue was quickly fixed but we have a long list of people who decided to use a cheat program to open the shops for the calendar and novel this weekend.

It's one thing to open a shop without doing the quests, it's another to cheat your way into a shop that should only be availible to players who paid real money for the merch and in-game bonus items. That's called theft. You're cheating at the game, you're cheating AE and, worst of all, you're cheating your fellow players.

As punishment, ALL of those accounts have had those items removed, they will be banned for 3 days and every single one off those cheaters will have all of their Character Page Achievements removed and replaced with one single Cheater Badge.

In addition, those players will not be able to display any future achievments on their character pages.

There is a way out of it... pay for what you did. If any of you cheaters would like your character pages returned to normal you may purchase a membership upgrade that is 3 months or longer. Your account will have a note attached to it and if we have any further issues with that account it will be dealt with more severly. 

Remember that you brought this on yourselves by cheating and... enjoy.

This Weeked! Ledgermayne for ALL & Hollowsoul Expanded!

it's time for ALL players to show Chaos Lord Ledgermayne what's up! This Friday the Arcangrove Finale opens for all players, and we'll be adding a few new member and non-member drops to the Chaos Lord!

Non-members, you will probably want to pick the member's brains to find the best method for bringing this being of living magic to its knees! It's waiting for YOU!

The member-only Hollowsoul Castle will be getting an expansion. The Duke Ellington is once again seeking help from the best of the best to quell the endless castle's endless hunger for fresh souls!

In the expansion you will find some new secrets and a merge shop where you will be offered the chance to upgrade some of the older Hollowsoul items!

Mogloween will also be leaving this Friday as the town of Mystcroft pull back into the mists and vanishing for another year. Be sure to grab all the Seasonal Rares that you want before they disappear!

ShadoCon

This weekend was the first year for ShadoCon, Tampa Bay's anime, gaming and comic convention. Since it's right down the road from the underground-lab's surface, and since One-Eyed Doll was going to be in attendance we decided that we should at least have a merch booth set up.

We brought a laptop so people could just sign-up for an AQW account right then and there! We were able to meet a few new people who play the game and meet back up with old friends who are crazy enough to attend every con we attend. It was awesome!

We were also able to hang out with Kimberly and Junior from One-Eyed Doll. They arrived on Friday, exhausted from driving all the way from Atlanta where they had a show the night before. Due to some scheduling confusion they were a little late for their meet and greet, so I volunteered to sit at their table and pretend to be them until they arrived.

Wearing the "I'M THE END OF THE LINE" sign confused most people. That pleased me.

They had a ShadoConcert on Saturday night, which melted some serious face, and a fun suite party directly afterward where serious AQW fans and serious OED fans got to hang out together. My friend Alces took some footage with his phone. If I can get my hands on it, i might post it later.

Once again, thanks to everyone who came out to visit us. I've said it before and I'll say it again, it's always super swoop to get to meet and hang out with our players in real life. Thanks for coming out, supporting AQW, buying some CDs, shirts, calendars, and novels and showing some love for Kimberly and Junior. :)

November 05, 2010

Chaos Lord Showdown

in addition to Player Suggestion Shop Update, AE’s 1^st ever Novel, Pumpkin Carving Winners announced, and quite possibly the longest Design Notes post that I have ever made.

I love Fridays! Once again, Artix and Cysero have entrusted me with tonight’s release while they are at ShadoCon in Tampa, Florida. Wahhaha >:D

Don’t worry, I haven’t had the time to change everything back to pink. …yet.

I hope you have equipped the necessary protective eyewear because this is going to be the longest, pinkest, and most uberly awesomely epic DN post to date!

A Cut Above the Rest: Onyx Starswords for 2^nd Upholders!

In case you missed it, or have been AFK for over a month, or just joining in the legendary AQW madness that you are now an accomplice to, 2^nd Upholders received their awesome badge and Onyx Starswords this past Wednesday!

Because of the support from our most dedicated players, this has been the best Birthday ever! We could not have gotten this far without you guys and gals! The entire AE team loves making games that you guys love to play—it’s almost like it’s our job or something =p So thank you all for your kindness and support, and we will continue doing our VERY best to make the very best games out there for you!    

Chaos Lord Ledgermayne

As a special THANK YOU to all our wonderful Members and 2^nd Upholders, you will be the FIRST to fight the Arcangrove Chaos Lord! (throwing you right into a heated Chaos boss battle is a great way to thank someone, right?)

You already survived the enchanting realm of Arcangrove and proved victorious throughout its perils. You pieced together the Supreme Arcane Staff and explored the Para-Elemental Plane of Magic, defeating the great Chaos Beast: the Mana Golem. So taking out Chaos Lord Ledgermayne should be a piece of cake…

Uh-hem, the cake is a LIE!

Chaos Lord Ledgermayne is waiting for YOU in the Para-Elemental Plane of Magic. And he…she…whatever-it-is is not too happy that you have foiled its plans of world domination thus far. A new boss mechanic will require you to pay close attention during the showdown if you hope to survive long enough.

Speak to Rayst in Arcangrove if you are ready to take on Chaos Lord Ledgermayne!

Items that are out of this World

If you are lucky enough to defeat the Chaos Lord, you might just be lucky enough to get his impressive item drops. Ledgermayne holds some of the coolest items that are out of this world. Literally. They’re from the para-element plane of magic. Not from this world ^___^

Here is a nice spoiler of the items that Ledgermayne has stored away under that big bulbous head of his: Astral Entity (seen above in their natural habitat), Wizard's Blessing & Dark Wizard's Disparage Staves, Ledgermayne Armor, Ledge Head, The Supreme Arcane Staff (a 1% Drop Rate!), Fragmented Astral Helm, Armored Astral Morph, and the Astral Runes Cape.

Best of luck to all of our Members and 2^nd Upholders! You guys are ganna need it.

New Items in the Player Suggestion Shop  

More items have been added to the Player Suggestion Shop inside Yulgar’s Inn! All of the items in this shop were inspired by our fellow players. We have some really talented artists out there. Did your item get picked? Check ‘em out!

• White Witch and Warlock Armor with matching hats, inspired by Redleafchannel  
• Demonic Devourer, inspired by Max Man58
• The Clockwork Scythe, inspired by Unleashed Rage
• Petrified Autumn Wood Polearm, inspired by Mennace
• HolloEnergy Blade, inspired by Hollo
• And the Sword Of Animus, inspired by Vampirel28

We truly have some amazing artists out there! We are so honored that we get to make YOUR own ideas into amazing AQW items!!

If you wanna see your item in game, head on over to the forums and submit them in our Suggestion Thread! You never know if your idea will be the next one seen in the Player Suggestion Shop!

The Dragon’s Secret

Our first full-length novel, The Dragon's Secret, has arrived at HeroMart!

Written by Lyra Trice Solis, a member of the AdventureQuest storyline team, The Dragon's Secret tells the tale of apprentice mage John Black who loses his entire family to a dragon onslaught and vows to get his revenge one way… or another.

Filled with dragons, dwarves, and some VERY dark magic, The Dragon's Secret puts you right in the middle of the Great Fire War in a brand new and exciting way! Special in-game items in AdventureQuest, DragonFable, MechQuest, and AdventureQuest Worlds are given to those who discover The Dragon’s Secret.

Get the exclusive Crystal Seed Runed Staff in AQW by using the special promo-code found inside the novel!

Pumpkin Carving Contest Winners!

The results are in! Pumpkin Contest Winners! The prizes have been awarded to the winners. Thanks for making this the BEST Carving Contest yet! Way to squash the competition!

Last Week of Mogloween—get your tricks and treats!

This is the FINAL week of Mogloween! If you haven’t already gotten your fill of the MASSIVE amount of Mogloweeny Seasonal Rares… now is your last chance. The fight with the Vampire Lord Incubus still rages on, so if you haven’t already confronted him yet, you just might want to do so since he drops some pretty impressive items!

If you missed last week’s musical mayhem event, One-Eyed Doll is still around for an encore. Jam out to the “You’re a Vampire” music video and make sure to get your hands on the OED Event Items while you can!

BIG BladeHaven Update!

BladeHaven is our newest game… AND NOW it’s available for EVERYONE!

It's got FIRST PERSON slashing action, achievements, terrified villagers, Jimmy The Eye... pretty much everything you'd want out of a single-player, first person slasher webgame! You will need a Battleon Master Account linked to your other game accounts if you want to join the newest game taking the internet over by brute force. If you get the "Mercenary Contract" item in BLADEHAVEN then you automatically receive the Non-Member Mercenary Gnome Pet in AQWorlds!

WOW!

I told you this was going to be a long one. But well worth it, right? Go forth my heroes and...

Battle On!

November 04, 2010

Chaos Lord coming!

Battle MAGIC ITSELF* this Friday

Minimal created a new combat feature for the upcoming Chaos Lord Battle in Arcangrove. It is really fun experimenting with ways to make the battles more interesting. In this fight... were you stand will be critical to victory. The release will happen tomorrow around 6pm EST.  Beleen will be running the show from the lab while Cysero, Zazul, Faith and I attempt to secure an internet connection and join you from our booth at the ShadoCon convention.

* Pretend we used a cool super deep voice with an echo when you read that.

Forum Question: How good are your marketing skills? We have not updated our AQWorlds ads in ages... I think the last one was the one of me wearing my Pally undershorts... do you have any ideas for funny and creative AQworld's ads? Use your character! Come up with a funny slogan or situation and let us know. Who knows... maybe your character will end up plastered all over the internet O_O (Of course do not click on aq ads when you see them, those things are crazy expensive! Always type in www.AQ.com to visit the site and play the game.)

November 02, 2010

You May Have Won the War…

But the Battle with Incubus Rages On!

Wowza… in just 4 days, you and your buddies have slain over 3,000,000 Vampire Bats, Hemogoblins, and Vampire Ghouls in the Mogloween war! And now Incubus the Vampire Lord is waiting for YOU. He’s a level 35 and has 32,000 HP—so it’s safe to say that this overgrown Vampire Bat really sucks blood. 

Good news though: he’s got some pretty impressive item drops if you succeed in defeating him!

Granted, Incubus isn’t going to willingly hand them over. You are ganna have to fight him over and over again if you hope to get his sweet Mogloween swag (or just be REALLY lucky and get all those item drops in 1 kill, which would be like a .05% chance of happening).  

Don’t Forget!

There are only a few hours left to become a 2^nd Upholder and to play though the Birthday Event! Check out Cysero’s Design Notes for last minute opportunities before they all go RARE! Thank you everyone for making our 2^nd Birthday the best one yet—we couldn’t have done ANY of this without the support from you and your fellow Members =D 

November 02, 2010

The Last Day!

You Only Have A Few Hours Left!

Today is the very last day you will EVER be able to become a 2nd Upholder by supporting the game buy upgrading to a member!

You have heard us going on and on about this for weeks now but maybe you were in outter mongolia and didn't have any internet until today or maybe you just found out about AQ Worlds so here it is one more time!

If you are a member by tonight at 11:59 PM EST (server time) you earn the right to call yourself a 2nd Upholder which grants you a special 2nd Upholder Achievement Badge on your Character Page so the whole world knows that you decided to help keep AQW going strong by supporting it with your membership, AND you get the very awesome rare item.. the Onyx Star Sword.

This will be the ONLY time that the Onyx Star Sword is given out and it ONLY goes to 2nd Upholders.

For those of you who have chosen to support AQW with your memberships, we really hope you find that being a member is worth a lot more than you paid. Thank you for supporting us, thanks for playing and thanks for sharing the game's 2nd birthday with us!

Birthday Event Closes Today!

Today is also the last day to take part in the AQW 2nd Birthday Event hosted by Paul and Storm, featuring Jonathan Coulton! That means today is the last day to play through the Mirror Realm adventure and grab all of the super-swoop rare items from the event!

The AQW Founders will also recieve their free non-member Onyx Platinum Dragon pets will be delivered with the 2nd Upholder full color badges and Onyx Star Swords tomorrow.

Once again, we want to say thanks to the Founders for having faith in us and faith that AQW would become a great game way back in the day. We hope that we have lived up to your expectations when you decided to get into AQW on the ground floor before anyone else.

If you happened to discover AQW after the ball was already rolling then don't miss your chance to become a Founder in the NEW web MMORPG that we are developing: SuperheroQuest! Coming SOON!

Sooner than we would like. Eeep!

Incubus Is Nearly HERE!

You guys have ripped through the current war, and as I write this the war is hovering at around 93% complete. By this evening you will be able to face down Vampire Lord Incubus! Kimberly from One-Eyed Doll is waiting for you in the war camp urging you forward with One-Eyed Doll's newest Single "You're a Vampire"!

You can also catch One-Eyed Doll's spcial AQW version of their music video for "You're a Vampire" by clicking the One-Eyed Doll button in Battleon! If you haven't yet, you really need to check it out.

Your fellow AQW adventurer, Xyo did am amazing job editing AQW in-game art into the real video. We're really excited that One-Eyed Doll decided to let AQ Worlds be the stage for the world premiere of their video.

You might be saying "Cysero, it's so cool to see a real music video right in the game. HOW DID YOU DO IT?!"

The answer is an easy one: I didn't. Zhoom, llussion and our new coder Yorumi did all that. I'm just as impressed as you are.

Pumpkin Princesses and Princes!

The Pumpkin Carving contest is done and we are in the process of marrowing down the winner or winners from all of the great entries that we got! The Grand Prize winner or winners each get 5000 AdventureCoins! I have also made a special pumpkin themed sword for the winner or winners which I have named "For the Gourd". This will be one of the rarest items in the entire game!

I always love having contests like this. It's really great to see how creative you guys can be with something as simple as a veggie.

If you've ever had one of your suggestions make it into one of Artix Entertainment's games and watched it come to live right on the screen then you know how we feel when we see ideas from the games we make come to life in the real world through your creativity! You guys are really amazing!

The winner or winners will be announced, and the sword will be hand delivered this Friday! If you're in game when I'm delivering the swords I'll goto you and say gratz personally.

Chaos Lord Fight: MEMBERS ONLY

This Friday is also the Arcangrove Finale member only preview! It's been a long and fun zone and I'm pretty sorry to see it come to a close. This zone has become my favorite in the entire game with it's beautiful areas, fantastic original music, impressive magic-themed items, interesting NPCs, and extremely fun-to-write plotline. Minimal and I have cooked up a new boss mechanic for Chaos Lord Ledgermayne which will require you to pay attention during the fight. I'm not going to say anything else about it but you members get to figure it out before anyone else. Have fun!

Stratos, Beleen and I have been combing the suggestion threads and we will be updating the Player Suggestion shop in Yulgar's Inn this weeked as well!

Forum Question

A lot of you have already tied your AE game accounts to the Battleon Master Account System but even more of you haven't yet. What little bonus would it take to get you to start a Master Account and attach your accounts to it? A free inventory space? An achievement both in AQW and on your Master Account? A handful of free ACs?

November 02, 2010

ShadowCon 2010

Visit our booth at the convention this weekend!

Want to meet me and other members of the AE team? This weekend, we will be running a booth at the ShadoCon convention! It starts Friday (Nov 5th, 2010) and ends Sunday in Tampa, Florida. See the official ShadoCon website for details. One-eyed Doll will be there too! I am also excited about meeting the voice actors of Gohan, Goten/Videl, & Brolly from DragonBall Z. We will have the new AdventureQuest Novel with us (which also goes on sale at HeroMart this week) and will have 50 pre-release copies of our 2011 Calendar. Oh, and feel free to bring anything you want us to sign! (Except legal documents transfering ownership of Artix Entertainment*)

* You will not fool me TWICE EbilCorp!

Who will be there & what days 

Friday: Artix, Cysero, Faith & Thyton (Nythera later in the day)
Saturday: Artix, Nythera, NightWraith, Zazul, & random others
Sunday: Titan... the tall man stands alone. He is like 6' 6"+ (Faith & Ai No Miko will be there too!)

Behind the Scenes

This is a very personal post... so I hope you do not mind me continuing the story here. Months ago I had invited One-Eyed Doll (OED) and Voltaire to stay with me during their visit. Voltaire is also in town, but he is accepting an award for his short film at a film festival also taking place in Tampa. There was a catch... as of two weeks ago, my house was not finished being built... no floors, no hot water.... pretty much of anything (doors, cabinets, toilets, some walls... you know... missing the little things.) So naturally I told them their rooms would be ready when they got here. (I am an optimist!) I made a pretty bold statement on the design notes that anyone was capable of doing anything if you truly committed yourself and NEVER GIVE UP. Well, the day after that post we ran into some pretty bad problems. Big show stoppers like not being able to get the certificate of occupancy requires that the water rooms all be completed and other legal mumbo jumbo. But... believe it or not... because I made that design notes post I felt like I really had something to prove. So I found a way to solve every single problem and it WILL be ready in time. When Zhoom heard that I was running house construction like we run a game release he started laughing pretty hard. With only 2 days until EOD shows up, I am pleased to announce their room is already ready!!! ...of course, it is the DeathKnight room with a giant shadowscythe logo and skeletons pushing through the walls. (I am an interior decorator's worst nightmare.... pictures coming later this week, promise! There is even a little black deathnotebook-looking thing that anyone who spends a night in the room gets to sign.) The Paladin room (my room) is not done however.... and legally, I will not allowed use my bathroom or shower this weekend. For only being 1.5 weeks the before/after pictures are pretty hard to believe. The first night I will spend there will be when OED gets there.  I have been spending early mornings there and all day at the lab working on the games. I have not had as much time to write or post lately... but that is all about to change soon! The point of this post, and I would like to restate.... YOU CAN DO ANYTHING as log as you NEVER GIVE UP no matter what trouble seems to block your way. Persistance is the key to accomplishing anything you want in life. But please know, if I smell a little ripe during the convention... that is just the smell of persistance*!

* Kidding... I will use another shower. Or maybe just stand outside in the rain.