Making an Online World
Massively Multiplayer Mayhem
The funnest* thing about building AQworlds is the world plots. It is easy to get in a never ending spiral with the plots... and equally effortless to become immobilized trying to accomidate the incredible amount of history that has already been written in AQ, DF and MQ. But we are not simply making a remake.. this is a whole new game with fresh new ideas and characters. Although, we love seeing some of the old ones again during this new story. Despite being an MMO, the non-linear storyline we are creating will be very ambitious and require us doing some things we have never seen before in games. The Harvest Festival was a really good excercise for the team. WE introduced a surprising number of new things in there -- cutscenes, NPC state change, non-combat quests, door activated by a minigame which opened for everyone when you won, etc. But we indended to do a lot more. Last week I pushed the game engine so far that we broke it**. Zhoom is working on the new functionality so that we can do some of the things I really wanted to release last week (Specifically a non-combat faction raising foodfight minigame). We are going to release food fighting as early as... tonight! Wish us luck! Update (6:20pm) After working on this all day we realize that we must make changes to the database structure and engine to allow for this :-( I will give you an update on this tomorrow!

* My 2nd grade teacher Mrs Pannabaker would kill me.
** ...and a few of the team members in the process. Easily fixable by duct tape and a little super glue.

Final Chance
Also, do not forget! Today is the LAST day to obtain the exclusive members-only November ultra mega rare items: Armored Baby Red Dragon. Members can obtain him in the Battleon Upgrade shop.

The Armored Red Dragon leaves shops tomorrow!

Forum Question: What would you like the December pet to be? Also, what other special December items would you like to see?

November 29th, 2008
Chat Fix
Bug with [Warning] and [Moderator] corrected
An exploit was found allowing some players to send color coded messages that looked like official server [Warning] messages or [Moderator] messages. Minimal fixed this issue and restarted all the servers this morning.

The reason I am so upset is that several malicious players abused this exploit to pose as Moderators and tricked players into giving them their passwords -- and stealing their accounts. Reens is going through by hand correcting over 100 stolen accounts.

In the past you have seen me understanding and compassionate when players have taken advantage of a hole in the game. But I will not tolerate anyone attempting to fraud you and steal your accounts! Those individuals who are responsible are having their accounts deleted and are being perma-banned. Period. They are not welcome to play AdventureWorlds ever again. (In our most extreme case, a user stole 100 accounts. As punishment we have deleted ALL of their characters and banned ALL of their accounts in AQW, DF, MQ, AND AQ.)

We do everything in our power to protect your accounts, but there is one part we need your help on. Please, never give out your password to anyone. Not even staff. A real staff members does not need your password to look up and modify your account. This is true for all of our games. Also beware of third party programs claiming to hack or cheat as they too will steal your password or trigger the cheater flag from our servers. If you have mistakenly given out your password, please change your password it using the "manage account" link. If your password has been changed, please use the "Forgot my password." link. Reens set the stolen accounts back to their original email addresses, so it will email your password to you.

I apologize for being so angry, but those who attempted to steal from my friends (you) will be given no mercy.

November 26th, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
Special Holiday Release
Happy Turkey day everyone! We have a special holiday in-game event for everyone to enjoy. It features three new areas, our newest NPC... OISHII! (Her first appearence in our games ever. Ironicaly... drawn by Miltonius) We attempted new types of quests and interactivity. There are tons of items for free players and a special bonus quest area for Members. This event has our first cutscenes and interactive NPCs!
Go to the Thanksgiving Forums Post

November 26th, 2008
Cooking Trauma!
"When she said she had to boil water... we did not think she meant the ocean!"
Horray! I'm so happy. I can't wait for you all to come to my Harvest Festival Feast. We had to move locations*, but I'm ready to start putting everything** in the oven now. Mmmmm... this'll be yummy***!

* Blew up the other one in a freak cooking accident.
** ... and we are pretty sure she means EVERYTHING
*** Depending on the status of your "Taste Bud Extraction and Steal Stomach Replacement" (On sale now for only 1,000,000,000,000,000 credits.. erm gold...eh, we will take acorns. From EvilCorp - a name you can trust).

November 25th, 2008
GrandMaster Lunch Lady
OISHII? OH YES, I HAVE HEARD OF HER.

November 24th, 2008
Food for Fought!
Incredibly stange special holiday release... coming THIS WEEK!
My Grandmama used to always tell me, "Don't play with yer food!" * But this week, the food is sure going to want to play with you! Join us on our first ever seasonal MMO Thanksgiving holiday, Food fighting, Monster Munching, Rare item Regurgitating, Boss Monster Backwashing, Server-Cap Crunching**... special event!

* She still does.
** "Cut off!" - Safiria

HUNGRY for adventure? Prepare for in-DIE-gestion!

November 22th, 2008
Quick Fixes
New Enhancements and Monster Respawns Fixed
I hope you are having an adventure-packed Saturday! Zhoom just added two new weapon enhancements for free players (7 & 8) and a new level 11 enhancement for members! Also, Minimal adjusted Monster respawns so they... stop.... instantly rising from the dead to eat our brains... or CPUs... or whatever zombified mechanized Dwakels are hungry for.

November 21th, 2008
The Crash Site
BRAND NEW RELEASE!C
New Area, Monsters, Item Drops, Class... and monster aggro!
ould it be true?? Could a UFO have actually crashed in the countryside? Not far from WIllow Creek, an honest-to-goodness spaceship seems to have nose-dived into the forest-- and is guarded by Dwakel! Not just ANY Dwakel, these guys seem tonhave mastered a technology like no other! Unveil the mystery, face 7 new enemies, complete 5 new quests, and obtain a dozen new items, including:

• ProtoSartorium Armor
• Dwakel Sword
• Steampack
• Piston-Driven Chopper axe
• Oculus Monoculum Helm
• Laser Pack
• Barrier Bot Helm
• Machine-Gun Pack
• Dwakel Bubble Helm
  

Monster Aggro 101
The monsters just got a little smarter...
I hope you are excited about today's new release. The really hot item is MONSTER AGGRO! Previously in the game you had to attack a monster first... but now some monsters will attack you on sight! Actually, Zhoom & Minimal made the game a little more advanced than that - different monsters have different behaviours. Some will not attack. Some will attack if you get close to them, or will attack when certain events happen. Take one of the two new bosses in this release for example.... He is pretty tough on his own, but he also has two minions. I am just taking a wild guess here.. but I bet they ALL will come after you if you trip that red laser defense alter system! One of the minions will even try to block your escape route...

What is this wierd red light? Hey... poke it with something...

The quests in the area are fun -- but if you want to get the new amazing looking rare drop armor... prepare up for a REAL battle!

Game Improvements
We squish so many bugs we should have started an extermination service instead!

• Added a player list for your current Area (You can still hit "U" to bring up the old list)
• Loader Queue! - This is actually a huge improvement which may solve a lot of the browser crashing issues. Minimal recoded the loaders so that your browser streamlines the downloading of everyones pets, armors, items, and extras.
• The quest box will now close when you switch rooms.
• The bug that made your hair stick out the back of your helmet randomly has been corrected
• Your weapon will now correctly display damage (and later stats) after it has been enhanced. Before, you had to relog to see the changes.
• You will now see the correct pet on other players if they change pets in another room. Previously, they were not changing which may have been causing other issues.
• Loading Screen: A working cancel button will now appear on the loading screen after a while. This is here in case you get stuck.
• You can now sell items with a sellback of 0 Gold. This also fixes a problem some people at the 2 million gold cap were having.
• The level requirement for the Bridge map has been removed so everyone can access the Swordhaven Quest
• Some people were having an issue buying upgraded armors at rank eight or nine unless they got at leat 1 more rep. This has been fixed! You can buy your armor the moment you rank up.
• No one actually reads patch notes. So I am going to use the cloning machine and make enough copies of myself to personally go to each and every players house to say hi and tell them everything we are working on in person. Note: LIke Santa, I like Chocolate chip cookies. However, I am lactose intolerant.

Big Week Coming!
The party is just getting started
I know many of you are traveling during this holiday week so please be safe and have lots of fun! We will be having special releases (including our big holiday special zone!!!!!!!!!!!!! It is... <coughs> ... interesting!)

DragonFable - War with Aisha the Ice Queen & Boss fight!
MechQuest - Shadowscythe armada attacks!
AdventureQuest - Dragon transformations!

November 20th, 2008
Dwakel Mecha!
"Shhh... be werry weeey qwiet. Were wunting Dwakels! "
Coming in the next exciting release you will venture deep into a new area filled with new monsters and new items and new quests and.... new new stuff! Then, next week we have a special mid-week release with ANOTHER brand new area... more information coming tomorrow!

New are with monsters and items!

November 18th, 2008
New Rare Member-Only Pet!
Normally, a Dragonslayer such as myself would keep a pet dragon only as a mobile food source, but THIS one just happened to show up and I was unable to either slay him or consign him to a dinner table! He seems to enjoy wearing armor and accompanying me into battle, not to mention he will come in handy to keep me warm when I travel to Nel later in the year, which I hear has frozen completely over. This pet is only available to Members, and only for a few weeks, so become a Member now to get your own Armored Red Dragon pet!

"Easier than carrying around a fireplace!"

Child's Play
Special Announcement
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 Artix Entertainment Team feels very strongly about.

Last year, AdventureQuest, DragonFable, and MechQuest contributed their reserves and sent in a Gold level sponsorship to the charity. We had intended to match last year's contribution again, but thanks to all of you who upgraded and became Founders of AdventureQuest Worlds, you empowered us to DOUBLE our donation this year! We sent in a Platinum sponsorship* on your behalf to Child's Play Charity this year! Thank you so much!

* Wow, your Platinum Dragons ended up giving a Platinum Sponsorship!

UPDATE: This has been fixed! You should now get our emails on Yahoo accounts.

Other news
Continuation of our Dragon themed releases!
These releases will continue all the way through the end of The Month Of The Dragons (November) and all the games are now gearing up for our Thanksgiving Holiday events, large and small. Directly after that begins the Frostval celebrations, (AE Upgrade Cards make great Frostval presents... remember that they work foir AQW too,) so we've got a couple of event packed months coming up. You won't want to miss a single release!

Well you might want to, but you shouldn't. You'd feel so left out.

Artix transmits: "Trip going *ktchhhh....* and Almost done tracking down the... *Ktchhhhh....* ... so I will be back soon. Battle o *Kttcccccch* !

November 14th, 2008
Secret of the Pet Dracolich
"If DEATH ever asks to pet your Dragon... say NO!"
The city of Shadowfall is full of many dark secrets. Regardless of your destiny as a good or evil Hero, it will play a vital part in the story of our world. Many of the strange beings you will meet will offer you deals that you should consider deeply. One such offer will allow you to transform a pet Dragon... into a Dracolich! More on this coming soon...

"But he is sooooo cute and ebil!"

Also Happening Now
See what is happening in our other Web Based Games
It it the month of Dragons and

• DragonFable - Dragonslayer testing, new quests
• MechQuest - 2 New Minigames and a Mecha model
• AdventureQuest - Platinum Edge rare weapon

New Game Servers
Coming Today
As you may know, last weekend the servers were completely full. To make sure everyone can play, Zhoom has been setting up 5 new game servers and 3 new graphics/file servers. This is pretty crazy -- between AdventureQuest, DragonFable, MechQuest and AQWorlds we have 44 game servers!

We are going to try making one of the new game servers have chat enabled for all players. We have been calling it a "wild wild west" server because... well, there you ARE the law there.

Dragons will not have chat enabled for this reason!

Armed with a /ignore shooter at your hip it is an unexplored new frontier of chat. Yeeehaw! We will use this server as a testing area to improve our chat security. Furthermore this server will have a higher player cap so we can see how many players are servers can really hold now that our changes are done (My guess is 5,000... but I am an eternal optimist.). While moderators will play on the server and our rules will be in full effect there, players who join this server must moderate themselves by using the /ignore feature. If the team feels that this server creates too many problems, we will turn off the chat and go back to the drawing board. To play on this new "wild wild west" server you must be over 13 years of age, have a confirmed email address and follow our chat rules to maintain a friendly atmosphere of adventure.

Important Note: There will be no cowboys, cactusus (cactii?), or horses on the "wild wild west" server. But we will call opening of this server, "The Night of the Inferno" (If anyone gets that reference without looking it up, you get 100 points)

In Trinidad
As a on-call member of the secret order of undead slayers you never know what kind of supernatural incident they will sent you to handle next. Some say Voo-do! Cysero says, "Vo-don't!" My next message to you will be from the island of Trinidad. Whatever it is this time, it cannot be as bad as those Vampires in LA or that haunted Pool in PA. Wait -- did I ever make the post about the pool?

November 13th, 2008
Click and Buy Wait?
Upgraded you by hand - sorry for the wait!
This issue has been fixed. We had a problem yesterday and today where players of AQworlds and MechQuest who upgraded via Click and Buy did not get immediately upgraded. We are almost done upgrading everyone by hand today so either now, or very shortly you should be all set and ready to use Member features! I am very sorry for the inconvience.

We know you love knowing why, so here is the full story -- Click and Buy did some improvements on their end but they changed a variable that used to come to us as "1" to "TRUE". Yup, that is the whole story. Not a very good story... I am sorry. Needs more giant killer ponies or explosions or collapsing black holes or rabbid mutant hamsters or... or... or something.

I would like to commend Captain Rhubarb, Safiria and Nythera for their hard work in helping players today. I was not going to tell you this until after Monday, but all Founder's are getting a bonus week of game time!

November 12th, 2008
New Game Updates
New Game Updates
We are making a lot of progress and just updated the game. The item to keep your eye on is the Auto-attack fix. If we really fixed this then we are ready to move onto the original feature list. Please let us know on the forums if it is working or if you get problems. In addition to these updates we will be launching two of the new servers on Friday. One of the servers is being classified as an "Wild Wild West Server" which will <gulps> allow chat for all players. Also, this server will have a much higher online count so we can test how many players we can really have on a single server at a time.

Just Released...

• 2 New Helms in Warlic's Shop
  Orc morph and Ghoul morph!
• Auto-Attack Bug Fixed
  Well... we think it is fixed! This was a major change to the combat system and we could really use your help testing!
• Dragon's Lair Improved
  You let us know on the forums that high level players were having a hard time leveling up armors due to lack of level 10+ soloable monsters. We reduced the amount of monster health for the monsters in the Dragons lair so that they are now solo-able for high level players!
  • Gold/Dark Draconians = 2500hp
  • Purple/Bronze/Venom Draconians = 2200hp
  • Blue Daconians = 2000hp
  • Wyverns = 800hp
  • Vasalkar the Red Dragon is the same powerful mega boss Dragon that everyone loves... even though he wants to eat you.
    
• Ignore Fixed
  If you ignore a player using the menu or typing /ignor <playername> they no will no longer be able to chat or send tells to you.
• Gold Cap for Sell Backs Raised
  The current Gold Cap is 1 MILLLLLLLLION Gold. But it is no fun selling back an item to the shop and getting nothing for it. So we made it so you will continue getting gold for sold items up to 2 million gold.
• Item Preview Improved
  You can preview items in the shop before purchasing them. The items will now appear to the left of the shop and be visible even if they are dark.
  

November 10th, 2008
SwordFall
In Development: The City of Darkness
Sepuchure's fortress has been located! Once upon a time it was a castle build upon the reanimated skeleton of the worlds largest dragon. Now, crashed into the side of a mountain, the city of Swordfall is forming around it. It is rumored that all of sorts of vilianious and evil characters are heading their to train in the dark arts and master forbidden power. Perhaps one day, you will be able to as well. Whilst Sepulchure's forces continue to invade the royal city of Swordhaven one question is left in our minds... "What the heck happened at the end of DragonFable? ... and is that really Sepulchure?"

Entrance to the evil city of Swordfall

Founder Extended
One week - until next Monday at Midnight
Due to player request (Note: this has officially happened in every game now) we are extending the Founder offer for ONE week. So if you wrote us to let us know your letter is in the mail do not worry -- as long as it is here by Monday you are covered. This is truly the final chance to upgrade and obtain the once in a lifetime title of "Founder of AQWorlds" along with your Platinum Baby Dragon and all of the exclusive AQWorlds features. The final founder cut-off date is Monday, November 17th at midnight.

If you have already become a Founder, I would like to thank you for making AdventureQuest Worlds possible. We have a special announcement for all of the founders coming soon!

November 6th, 2008
Dragon Hunting 101
Venture into the Dragon's Lair
Join your fellow adventurers and Galanoth the Dragonslayer in hunting a deadly Red Dragon. The monsters in this new zone are all dragon-kind. Each new monster has a rare drop (Hint: The Wyvern drops a pet and the big guys... well... those swords are pretty killer looking!)

New Game Engine Released
You are going to LOVE these improvements
This new MMO keeps getting better with every release. Here is a list of what just went live.

• Class Armors Level Faster!
  We lowered the amount of rep required to level up your class armors. It was waaaaay too hard before -- it is much better now. Also, you get more rep for slaying monsters that are close to your level. Monsters 20 levels below you will not give any rep.
• 20 Slots for Class Armors!
  If you open your inventory, you now have a tab for armors. You can store up to 20 class armors in there freeing up some spaces in your normal inventory for the new items that were just released.
• 4 New Rep Quests
  Speak to your Warrior, Mage, Rogue, or Healer trainers in Battleon for new quests to level your classes even faster! These special new quests give rep rewards.
• Level Up / Rank Up Animations
  An animation and sound will now celebrate when you level or rank up. Party time!
• New Buttons
  J6 made these new buttons for the redesign of the original AdventureQuest's homepage that we are working on. I ninja'd them fair and square! They are sooooo pretty.
• Stable Servers +1
  We have not had to reboot the servers since Monday. A number of new improvements have just gone in game to make it even more stable. Fixes for other bugs are being worked on as you read this.

I ran out of bag space!
Too many rares... unable to... squeeze them all in....
With presents coming tomorrow it was time to test. As far as embarrasing moments ago, this one is classic. Imagine you are the creator of a game, but you are sitting there nervously biting your nails trying to decide which one of your rares you have to destory in order to test the new rare that was just made. This called for drastic action....

Artix: Zhoom! Help! We NEEEEEEEEEEED more bag space!
Zhoom: Sure
Artix: Tomorrow?
Zhoom: Sure.
Artix: Seriously?
Zhoom: Sure
Artix: I mean... it is half way through Thursday. You can have that ready and tested by tomorrow?
Zhoom: Sure
Artix: You know, you would never make it as a Engineer on the original Star Trek. Scotty always warned the Captain that it would take twice as long as it did to complete things."
Zhoom: ....

Bags and AC Refills
Coming tomorrow (Friday)
So tomorrow we will be able to use our AdventureCoins to permanently increase our Bag spaces. There will be 20 new bag slots available for you to aquire making lots of room for the new awesome things coming this holiday season. AdventureCoin packages will be available tomorrow as well. Finally, Miltonious will be releasing part 1 of The Inquisitors featuring the largest explorable map ever added to AdventureQuest Worlds yet.

The Inquisitors is one of the more serious quests

Forum Question: I am having a hard time choosing which villian to be the focus of AQWorlds first Forstvale. Can you help me? I would love to create a situation replacing the Frostvale Moglins with Sneevils (boxes, what boxes? we did not see any gift boxes) and export their customer support to New Horkia. We have already done Frosty the Snow Golem, Sandy Claws, the Frostwyrm and his 8 ReignDragons, Xan as Scrooge and hehe... remember when I accidently excorsized the ghosts of Frostvale Past, Present and Future? What can we do to trump them all? See you on the forums.

November 4th, 2008
Great Pumpkin Seed Sprouts!
... and Dragon Hunting starts tomorrow.
If you collected either the Great Pumpkin Seed or the Strange Seed from the Mogloween event... log in and see what it grew into! Meanwhile, we are now in testing for tomorrows first Dragontastic release! Funny, no one mentioned this to Galanoth yet.

November 4th, 2008
Dragon's Lair
What dangers and treasure lie within?
Coming this week: Venture into massive and heavily guarded Dragon's lair. Expect to run into a special guest NPC! Featuring all new monsters and items... venture deep into the heart of this dungeon to battle AdventureQuest Worlds FIRST DRAGON!

Entrance of the Dragon's Lair

Armor & Bag Space
Coming with this week's Dragony release!
Zhoom built a new tab for your armors. So when the release goes live, you will be able to store up to 20 class armors AND 20 normal items.

Store 20 Class Armors!

November 3rst, 2008
The Month of Dragons!
Goodness gracous, great balls of Dragon Fire
November is the legendary month of Dragons. The skies and stars will be full of ancient mystical winged lizards. There will be special Dragon quests and events happening in AdventureQuest, DragonFable, MechQuest AND AQWorlds.

Dragon Zone coming this week
Prepare to adventure in our first ever Dragony area! You can guess what special NPC will be making his debut. Expect all new monsters, items and quests! Also, Zhoom should have the "increase your bagspace" functionality ready this week (and hopefully the change that makes class armors not use up inventory space). That will give you a lot more room. To make sure this crazy Dragon month goes according to plan both Galanoth and Reens are flying to the secret underground lab tonight.

Item Preview
Did you notice you can preview items in shops now? We are making a new icon -- but for right now it is that little blue/white globe thingy. It is really cool being able to see all of the items in the shops.

Forum Question
How was your Halloween Mogloween weekend? Did you have fun? Any crazy costume or trick or treating stories to tell? See you on the forums.

Happy Birthday Oishii!
Plus upcoming release sneak peeks
Today is a special day. Mostly because Oishii is not allowed to bake her own birthday cake therefore not uneedly endagering the lives of all of us who would attempt to eat it*. But also we have started talking about our first live in-game event. Two long time AQ/DF/MQ players are getting married in real life and asked if they could also have a special ceremony in game. We said, "That would be so cool! But.. would you mind if we put in some extra surprises**?" Also, Miltonius is working on The Inquisitors. Can you imagine a world with no magic at all? The Inquisitors are dedicated to eradicating all magic. Finally, we are preparing to add our new seasonal rare items***!

* Who could forget that time the she made an enriched Uranium Yellow Cake. The toilets still glow in the dark to this day.
** We are pretty sure they are going to regret this.
*** Thanks for your ideas on the forums, we are going to be using a lot of them!

Map & Game Improvements
Willow Creek currently has an "under construction" sign up as Reens is going through and fixing bugs and improving the quest flow. Meanwhile, Minimal strengthened the login and chat filters some more. It is a shame you cannot see some of the brilliant logic improvements he made... he is so smart is scares me. The currently unused trade channel is now locked down and /e is very secure. Zhoom improved the signup system so it is more secure now too. Instead of nailing down everything in the game we would much rather be finishing the friends list, parties, guilds, PVP and other new features. I am glad we started with just one free chat enabled server. As you can see, over time it is continuing to get stronger and stronger. Instead of a game version, we should have a game level... <DING> AQW Worlds is now level 2!