You Didn't Explain Yourself Very Well...DO BETTER!
OK, I will do better. We've been getting a HUGE number of questions about the changes coming THIS FRIDAY to Miltonius' Secret Area. If you don't know what that is, look it up. If you don't care then you can skip the next few bits.
First, Why Are You Changing It!
As many of you know AE has a very small but very dedicated Player Support team headed up by Nythera and Zazul. The team handles all the "I GOT H4CK3D!" reports, returns what accounts and items that can and deal with all the various payment issues that arrise.
Miltonius, as Art Director of the game, was given free reign to create his own area which quickly became so confusing that nobody except him had any idea what was going on, thus ensuring that it would become a fan favorite.
It became a fan favorite.
Unfortunately he added some AC items and weird item-trade-in voodoo that really messed with the payment system, causing HAVOC for the poor Player Support team and complicating their job.
As the Game Lead, the task fell on me to straighten out the entire mess once and for all. So I made Dumoose do it.
THIS FRIDAY (I can't stress that enough) we are permanently changing around the most of the AC items, repalcing a few with non-AC copies that will be MUCH MUCH harder to get.
OK, What's Changing?
We are removing a few of the quests that allow you to trade items back and forth. We are also removing ALL the items that you buy with ACs and replacing them with Totems of Miltonius.
How Will I Get Totems Of Miltonius?
Miltonius' minions, the Dark Makai, have a small chance to drop the Essence of Miltonius. You can trade in 100 of these for a Totem of Miltonius.
What Can I Buy With The Totem of Miltonius?
You will be able to use these (in various amounts) to buy MOST of the Miltonius Items, Such as the Arcane Orb, Blood Orb, Primal Orb, Shadow Orb, Void of Miltonius, Coin of Miltonius Pet, Betrayal Blade of Miltonius and others...
But I Already Have The AC Version Of That Stuff!
GREAT! Because it's going to be a LOT harder to get the new versions with these Totems of Miltomius! You lucked out!
We are NOT... I REPEAT, NOT... removing any of the items. The Chaos Lord Helm will still be there, but only as a helm. You will no longer be able to trade it in for the orbs. If you have an AC version of one of the duplicated items.... Gratz! They will be RARES on friday.
We'll be chaging the rarity score and tagging them as rare in the title! (If you happen to have one of the accidentally released non-member Coins of Miltonius Pets which is already tagged as "Rare",, then we're tagging those "Extra Rare").
Who Cares?! What About Drudgen, Crag & Bamboozle!
Due to popular demand,the Drudgen The Assisstant and Crag & Bamboozle pets will remain AC items but Miltonius will sell them directly for 5000 ACs, rather than trading you for a 5000 AC item.
YOU WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO TRADE ONE PET IN FOR THE OTHER, so decide which one you like the most by THIS FRIDAY!
If you have an AC item to turn in, Or decide to get one of the Miltonius items before they go rare/very VERY hard to get, You have until we release on Friday to do so. We don't want you getting stuck with a useless Miltonius Minion Voucher.
OH, I Totally Get It Now!
Good, I'm glad we had this chat :)
So What Else Is Happening This Friday?
We've having a minigame in the Giant Tale storyline! Race across the dinnertable before the racing roaches beat you to the giant's soup!
Warlic is making a new song JUSt for the racing minigame and Miltonius is focusing all of his considerable artistic might into making some amazing member and non-member rewards for beating the mini-game!
What About MetroCon?!
Oh yeah! This weekend is MetroCon in Tampa and we've got a merch booth there! If you happen to live in the Tampa Bay area (like us), stop by, say hi and pick up some swag!
This will be your first shot at the Chickencow Tee and your ONLY chance to get the Metrocon Samurai Moglin non-member pet!
20%-adin!
July 18th, 2010
Target is offering 10% off!
Special in-store only promotion
As announced in the Target stores circular (much better than a square-ular) starting today there is a special promotion! You can get any of our GameCards in Target stores at a whopping 10% discount. (<whispers> Off their end... not ours! So go for it!) Get $20 worth of upgrades for only $18! Do not forget you can finally stack up cards to get bigger packages in the BattleOn Master Account Sysem. This Target promotion ends on July 31st.
New "BattleOn!" cards will start showing up on store shelves too!
We really need to do the "BATTLEON SITE SWAP" soon...
Do not forget... Metrocon Convention is next weekend!
I will be at Tampa's largest anime convention with Nythera, Thyton, and many other members of the AE team. If you are going, please stop by, I would love to meet you! (Please save any undead Cosplayers if I forget where I am.... ok?) Thyton is going to be sketching random things to give out. We might even se up a little portable DVD player with game footage... and terrible live-action ninja martial arts movies that we have been making during the weekends at unmarked construction sites. Oh! ... and Nythera told me to remind you that we will have Chickencow T-shirts, Artbooks, and some other experimental new things with us :-) This is the first time we have ever done this -- I am a bit nervous, but it should be fun!
July 16th, 2010
Guardian and Defender Classes
Available now!
They are finally here! You guys have been waiting for quite awhile now and the time has come to introduce the newest Classes in the Verification Shops: the new-new Guardian and the old-new Defender!
Defenders and Guardians showin’ respec’t
The Defender Class (pictured left) has the same skillset as the former Guardians, but sports an incredibly awesome new look. Defenders are a NON-MEMBER Class and can be obtained from any of the 3 Verification Shops inside the Guardian Tower.
Guardians, listen up! Due to an overwhelming amount of player suggestions (aka demands), we have given the Guardian class a complete skill makeover! The new and improved Guardian Class (still Non-Member) now has incredible damage-dealing potential like the DragonLord and Star Lord classes. As a new-new Guardian, you must master the following abilities:
Guardian Rage
Furiously bombard your opponent with strikes. Damages and cripples your target, reducing outgoing damage by 5% for 10 seconds. This effect can stack up to 3 times.
Keen
Use the pointy end of your weapon for stunningly sharp attacks. Applies Keen, increasing critical chance by 15% and has a chance to Stun the target briefly.
Guardian Light
Empower yourself! Releases blinding damage if your weapon is Keen, otherwise increases your resistance to incoming blows.
Red Shift (Passive Ability)
Haste increased 10%
Dragon’s Might (Passive Ability)
Strength and Intellect increased 10%
Guardian Blast
Calls forth mighty dragon flames to scorch your opponents.
Yes, both of these Classes are Non-Member. But the ONLY way to get them is by verifying your upgraded accounts in AdventureQuest (specifically for Guardian Class), MechQuest, or DragonFable.
Last weekend you began retelling your heroic story of how you helped Jack save his village from a hungry giant. After defeating a gigantic guard-cat, you discovered that the only way to free the town was to get a very large key hung around the very large neck of the very large giant.
And since ‘asking politely’ would result in an instant respawn, you and Jack must travel to Smuurvil Village in hopes of finding a potion strong enough to knock the giant out cold. Keep a look-out for these monster item drops while on your flashback:
Mushroom Axe
Smuurvil Pain Spoon (uuhh, what?)
Smuurvil Hat (color custom!)
Mushroom Mace
Smuurvil Pet
Mushroom Scythe
Comic Contest Winnars!
After 5 days of uncontrollable laughter, we have FINALLY picked the winners to our first ever Comic Contest! There were sooo many amazing entries that it was incredibly hard to narrow them all down! Wanna see if your comic made us LOL enough to win a prize?
Well folks, I think that’s it! Go forth and enjoy the release and enjoy the LOL’s!
Battle on!
We Are Fat But We Are Sock
July 15th, 2010
Hey Fat*
Now It's Time For A Breakdown!
Let's have a quick summary of what we've got going on.
* Cysero is STILL obsessed with that fan submitted comic... read older posts if you want the inside scoop.
MetroCon!
AE has a merch booth at MetroCon in Tampa next weekend. Artix, Nythera and a few other AE staffers will be manning the booth.
Buy ANYTHING there and get a free non-member Samurai Moglin pet!
Chickencow Tee!
First appearing, at the MertoCon Merch booth, then being sold in Heromart. Buy this and get a bonus non-member Armored Chickencalf Pet in AQW and one in DF too!
Look, A Shirt!
Giant Tale!
Tomorrow we continue the Giant Tale storyline in AQW with lots of new items for members and non-members, several new quests and 2 more BRILLIANT cutscenes (As per usual, I wrote them)!
New Guardian & Defender!
Tomorrow the non-member Guardian class gets a skills make over for the AQ Classic verification shop, and the current Guardian skills are moving to the Defender class, which will be another non-member armor availible in ALL 3 verification shops.
Comic Contest Winners!
Announced tomorrow. We've been making Beleen read all of them to narrow down the best of the best for judging!
Prizes are all in BATTLEON POINTS which you can use on ANY AE GAME! You can even get an upgrade in AQW with them if you want.
Or get some Varuim to get some Beta items before EpicDuel
leaves Beta testing forever!
More Friends List Space!
A lot of you have asked for more friends list space. I talked to Zhoom about adding 10 more spaces for everyone for free and he said ask Artix if it was OK.
I asked Artix is it was OK if we added 10 more friends list spaces for free for everyone and he told me to ask Zhoom if the servers could handle it.
So, there ya go. Next weekend, (not tomorrow) we'll adding 10 more friend spaces for free for everyone.
Changes To The Miltonius Quests!
We've been having a lot of Player Support issues with the AC item turn-ins from the Miltonius quests, so next weekend (not this weekend) we will be removing the AC items and changing the quests. It will be rougnly 40 times more difficult to get those items from that point forward.
If you have the AC items that you need but haven't turned them in yet DO IT NOW. More than a week warning should be more than you need, but I wanted to make sure that nobody wasted their ACs.
Friday the 13th?!?!?!
Voltaire is very busy working on his NEW ALBUM (which, i'm told, will feature AQW songs AND art on the cover) so he can't do a Friday the 13th event.
What kind of Friday the 13th Event would YOU like to see in AQW? Let us know on the Forums!
July 14th, 2010
LOLOLOLOL!
Rofl’s in the Lab
A few weeks ago, I got the crazy idea to start up a new contest on the Forums. In the past, we’ve hosted Art contests, cookie-making ones, and even a pumpkin-carving competition that resulted in a particularly unlucky gourd that exploded into flames.
But this Comic Contest was my favorite one yet!
Over 750 of our friends submitted amazing comics that had the entire Secret Lab laughing out loud. Yours truly spent the past 5 days going through each entry and compiled the images into the biggest ZIP file I have ever seen. And tomorrow… these comics will face a panel of AE Judges to determine the winners!
I gatta admit, I have never LOL’d this much. Ever! And, if you know me, I’m always laughing about something. Always. But one particular comic really touched the laugh-boxes of everyone here at the Lab.
This hilarious masterpiece was made by your fellow player, Skymage55. As one of the first few submissions received, Skymage55’s work made me laugh so hard that I immediately showed Nightwraith and Titan from EpicDuel. After hearing the roar of laughter, everyone else at the Lab gathered around to see what was so funny. A few seconds later, the hallways became flooded with “HEY FAT” exclamations and cheers of “we are fat but we are STRONG!” Yea, we’re all a little weird here…
So this has been going on all week, folks. Dubbed as the “HEY FAT!” meme, Cysero took it upon himself to even make an E-Honda avatar inspired from this one comic.
If you have been following us on Twitter, you have already felt the meme’s effects. A bunch of you have joined in the meme fun, wondering why mercenarys—HEY FAT!
See? It never fails to LOL =D
On Friday, the winners of the Comic Contest will be announced on a special page devoted to them. I cannot WAIT to see which comics come out on top! Even though you guys are all winners for making me LOL so much that Lim tried to hadouken me 192 times in the past 72 hours…
Beleen’s Secret Mission
Next week I will be embarking on a top-secret mission to an uncharted realm in the middle of Earth’s largest Ocean. Some people call this a ‘vacation’… I call it a QUEST!
My lovely GrandNPCs are celebrating their 50th Year Anniversary and have invited me to /join their party! For the next 2 weeks, I will hang-up my Pink Armor and equip the more appropriate Battle Swimwear (still available in the Battleon Summer Shop!). I’ll even use a SPF 20 Enhancement on my skin to help protect me from Lvl 100 critical sun rays as I explore my new surroundings. I hear there are many new Monsters and NPCs on this island… and I will be charting my travels in the form of random Twitters and photographic evidence!
I am even told that there is a beautiful deity who lives on the island, powerful enough to control fire, lightning, and volcanoes. I wonder if I am going to meet such a Maiden on my travels…
Aloha On!
Sock (like Sick, but with an o)
July 12th, 2010
Chickencow Shirts & BIG news!
Artix's Secret Project
Last week Artix asked you for your craziest ideas ever, for his secret project. We are all absolutely LOVING your terrible ideas (and some really great ones too) and Artix has decided to keep this ball rolling for another week.
If you have no idea what I'm talking about... READ THIS.
Donate ideas freely. Go nuts.
Chickencow Tee!
We are getting closer to releasing our Chickencow Green T-shirt. To start it will ONLY be released in Cysero Green but if the shirts do really well we might re-release it in other colors like Sepulchure Crimson, Chaos Purple, Got My Eyes Closed Black and Artix Is BLIND Pink.
Cluck Cluck Moo to You!
The shirt comes with a BONUS, Non-member pet in AQW and BONUS pet in DragonFable... the Armored Chickencalf!
Just A Baby!
I'm told that the shirt will be $19.95 + Shipping and that we will be shipping to the US, Canada and Australia. We're trying as hard as we can to offer shipping to a lot of other countries too. Setting that up is harder than it looks.. I'll give you guys news on that as soon as I get some.
AQW's BIG Adventure
This week we will be continuing the Giant Tale storyline cause I want to. You'll be making your way to the fabled Smuurvils Village, home to the blue sneevils called Smuurvils. Papa Smuurvil is a world class apothocary and he might have the ingredients to make a Knock-Out Potion strong enough to take out a GIANT!
Defender Class COMING THIS WEEK
Dumoose's rework of the Guardian Skills is total win, and will bring the Guardian Class's damage dealing potential up to the amazingly descructive level of DragonLord and Star Lord classes!
Defender will also be coming to ALL THREE verification shops... yet another non-member AQW class. It will have all the current Guardian skills and will continue to be a great tanking class with the ability to yank monster aggro AND be darn-near unkillable with the right party.
Dage The Evil is doing the art for Defender and our coversation actually included this tidbit:
Dage The Evil: I'm thinking over the top Cysero: Always Cysero: Or rather, I should say... There is no top to go over. Dage The Evil: rofl aight dude I think I can put something together :3
Expect win.
I Had Something Else To Write About
But I forgot what it was.
Oh Yeah! Zhoom's Auto-Ban Hammer!
It was this. Some of you have noticed that you're getting banned by Zhoom's auto-banner for 3 days at a time. This is NOT a mistake. We checked the records for everyone who reported this as a bug over the weekend and none of them were.
Just fair warning, this week the 3-Day Warning Bans are a thing of the past... they turn into Permma-bans.
To sum up, script-kiddies... You cheat, you hack, you spam, you scam... you're done with AQW and vice versa. Play the game fair and keep it fun for the other AQW players, thanks.
Oh yeah. Zorbo is now worth 0 gold
July 9th, 2010
Once Upon a Time…
in a galaxy far, far away…
That’s how all great stories start. Right? …something like that, at least? But seriously, imagine how cool it would be to play the lead role in one of those timeless tall-tales! Just envision the feeling you would embrace from the gathered neighborhood NPC children, all star struck and awe-inspired from your glorious tales of Giant-slaying adventure. Oh yeah. That would be pretty epic.
Well wait no longer—your PM’s have been answered! Because this is the Yulgar’s Story Release!
Omg ew, why am I holding a USED q tip?!
The noobish children of Battleon Town have all gathered inside Yulgar’s Inn and are eagerly awaiting Story Time from their favorite Hero: that’s YOU! Relive (for the first time) the classical tale of Jack and the Beanstalk ChickenCow Ladder and team up with Jack himself as you tell the children of how the Giant captured the young farmer’s village*.**
Don’t remember the story? Well, I would hope not, since this is a never-before-told rendition of Jack and the Beanstalk—with that special AQWorlds’ touch, of course!
I don’t wanna ruin the Story for you, so I won’t say anymore! …except that the monsters in this first-of-its-kind Story Time Release are loaded with HUGE drops.
Red Ants eat Dust Bunnies
This is just the first chapter in this tale, so anything CAN happen as we sink deeper in the upcoming weeks. You guys are the ones retelling YOUR story, so get a group of friends together and help write the next exciting chapter!
Have a great weekend, everyone!
Battle On! ^___^
*Longest proper sentence EVAR! **When was the last time I used asterisks?
Insan-adin!
July 6th* 8th, 2010
Craziest Release Ideas... EVER!
Weatherman forcast predicts "BRAIN STORMING"
Over the past 8 years we have received an incredible number of your creative ideas and suggestions... but today, a new top secret project**has begun. This project may... possibly.... involve AQWorlds, an amateur film crew, a tour of the Secret Underground Lab and the usual quantity of Ninja, PIrates, Cyborgs, Vampires, and Were-servers. I was sorta wondering... did you want to be a part of this too? If so, next monday the team will be recorded looking at a special thread... this will be an anything goes... any plot... any feature... any game... even new game ideas... or even things you want the team to do in real life. Be forewarned, we might actually do/build/act some of the best (or wierdest) things in this post. Limit yourself to just posting once -- make it your best! This thread shall be known... as the CRAZIEST RELEASE IDEAS EVER thread! Take your time & have fun!
* Curse you time travel faeries!!!!!!!!
**Since when has Artix actually been able to keep a secret for more than 20 seconds?
MetroCon, Tampa FL
Nythera and I are going to be running a booth this year at Metrocon -- Florida's Largest Anime Convention. If you are attending we hope you will visit the booth so we can meet you! It is happening July 23-25th at the Tampa Convention Center. Warlic is even make a special CD featuring music from the games and a special Zhoom track "I don't like dem Ninjas", because it is a well known that Zhoom, does not... like being attacked by Ninjas.... and it is really funny when we overdub him with a cowboy voice saying so.
Zhoom also does not like Hackers (Ban Warning!)
The ban hammer has been unsheathed and over 1,000 hacker accounts have been flagged (targeted) in the database for perma-ban. A new version of AQWorlds has just went live fixing the town-kill and attack-spam exploits that were reported yesterday and is now secretly identifying players who use cheat programs. Any characters found using cheats will be banned. We love all of our players... it is our goal to create a fun, safe and fair game world for us all to enjoy together.
Sorry I haven't updated the Design Notes this week. Here's what we've got going on:
Chickencow Tee!
We FINALLY have a BEAUTIFUL Chickencow T-shirt coming to Heromart! IT IS NOT ON SALE YET but when it DOES go on sale it will come with some chickencow pets for the various games, including a NON-MEMBER mini-chickencow pet for AQW!
Cluck Cluck Moo.
I'm more excited about this shirt than I have been about any of our other swag, mainly because it was my idea. See how majesticly the chickencow spreads it's mighty wings and soars through space? You can almost her it's bone-rattling... uh.. roar. Mido, our current graphic-design intern is responsible for this masterwork. Clutch, right?
Tall Tales
We are taking a small break from Chaos before to turn our attention to the next Chaos Lord. This weekend starts a new kind of adventure, it's a flashback tale of how you saved an entire village from a hungry giant, in AQW's own version of Jack and The Beanstalk.
Picture the setting: You are sitting in Yulgar's Inn telling tales of your adventures to a group of children gathered at your feet, reliving your adventure in the form of AQW quests, running around a terrifying giant's home, no larger than a mouse.
New weapons like the Cotton Swab staff, and the Acorn Cap helm. The Dust Bunny pet.
Defender Class
We haven't forgotten what we said. We are still working on the Guardian Class skill rewrite. The Guardian has long been our flagship member status from AQ classic, and it means a lot to Artix (and quite a few of the players from the game that started it all) that we make the Guardian skills more closely resemble the BoA Skills from the original AdventureQuest, and the Guradian Class from DragonFable.
Once Dumoose has reworked the skills, we will balance them against the DragonLord and Star Lord classes, then we will move the current Guardian tanking skills into the Defender art and make Defender Class availible in all 3 verification shops.
It won't be coming this weekend, but I'll keep you guys updated on the project and when it WILL be released.
NO Green Starsword.
A few days ago, a players asked me via Twitter if a weapon got enough support behind it, would it be made in game? I answered "We always do our best to listen to the wishes of the community. So, yeah, we probably would." which most of you know to be true. We pull idea pretty regularly from the AQW forums.
The same player asked how many supporters it would require, to which i answered "Considering if the petition goes through people will suddenly petition for everything, it has to be high. I'll say 3000 signatures."
I was thinking that if someone was driven enough to get 3K AQW players to sign a petition on some petition website, and all 3k signatures were legit and it wasn't an silly request like "give everyone free memberships" then I would happily reward that kind of effort by creating the item and probably name it after that person.
It takes a real leader to get that many people together behind one idea and respect that kind of power. I've seen it a few times in my life and it's pretty awe-inspiring.
We're VERY big on interacting with you guys and allowing you to build Lore through your own requests & decisions, but this suddenly degenerated into insanity.
People were spamming all the servers telling people that I promised to make a non-member free green starsword if 3000 people wore green at the same time, which I never said.
Some of these players were demaning that other players wear green "or else". There were some threats, lots of spamming on the staff facebook and twitter accounts, and outright madness on the forums that even eventually degerated into some rude and very offensive comments.
THOSE are not the kind of actions that I would consider rewarding. As i finally said on my twitter, after 2 days of mass spamming from a few rather rude people, "There are NO PLANS to make any starswords anytime soon... Not to say we won't make one someday. I love green, so we probably will. But not like this. Bullying people and ruining fun to get your way."
I'm sorry if you're disapponted by this announcement. I know a lot of people were promised a lot of crazy things by people who had no place to promise anything but we want to keep this game, and all of our games, FUN... and that wasn't fun.
It just goes to show you that some people can get excited about something, thoughtlessly take things way too far and ruin the fun for everyone.
What a mess.
Think-Big-adin!
July 6th, 2010
Yulgar's BIG Tale
Coming in this week's brand new release
Some say it is a tall tale. Some say he is stretching the story. But this week's release may just be the biggest release of the year! The game expands this Friday just before sundown!
Forum Question: What is the biggest monster you have ever fought?
Hollowsock Casock
July 2nd, 2010
Hollowsoul Castle & Freedom!
And Mulligan Day!
Now that we are live, Mulligan Day is in full swing! If you are one of the fighteningly large amount of people who did not recieve your "Eye Was There" badge for completing the event LIVE with is, you may now join the replay event and you will get the badge, right off the bat.
Talk to Kimberly of One-Eyed Doll in Battleon!
Remember, you only have 24 hours to grab the badge. If you miss out this time, it's all on you!
As we warned, the rares have left the event but the replay will stay in Battleon for another week become being intigrated into the Mythsong storyline.
Hollowsoul Castle
The NEXUS portal, just outside of Battleon has opened up a new portal to a new area!
Hollowsoul Castle is an ancient place, and vast. More vast, by far, than any other castle anyone has ever dared create. Who builtc this "castle with no end", that has clamined the lives of SO many who have gotten lost within it's walls.
You might be the first to find out.
Speak with the ghostly Duke Ellington and unlock the mysteries of this all-new member only area!
Duke Ellington, Long Time Resident of Hollowsoul Castle
Uncover key after key, and maybe you can gain access to the Hollowsoul Castle Armory, PACKED with all new member only items, including the Hollowsoul Knight Armor, Hollowsoul helm and Hollowsoul Lance!
The Hollowsoul Castle Armory!
Duke Ellington also has some treats to offer those who dare speak to him. 2 brand new houses are being released today including the Castle House and the Chroma Theatre!
The Castle House may look friendly, fun and inviting but you will find the insides resemble the cold and ancient walls of Hollowsoul Castle!
Don't Judge A House By Its Bouncy Exterior!
The other house is whole different story! It only has one single room but the Chroma Theatre is CUSTOM built for all of you YouTube stars who love to make and edit your own AQW movies!
This house has been designed with a special GREEN SCREEN room (the only room really) for people to use their movie editing programs to drop in their own amazing backgrounds and use movie magic to whisk their AQW heroes to far of locations!
Don't Judge A House By Its Bouncy Exterior!
Llussion and Zhoom event went so far as to find a way to remove your shadow, so it won't ruin the green-screen effect! What a couple of great guys!
Did anyone else notice that the last 3 pics are of me getting smaller and smaller and smaller?
Limited Time Shop
Once again the countdown clock is ticking for AQW Members to grab the latest guarenteed rare item, the Scythe of Liberty (painstakingly hand-crafted by Skyline!). Just click the really hard to miss button with the clock under it in battleon to learn more!
it leaves Sunday midnight. You have been warned!
The Freedom Shop!
In the United States, the 4th of July is when we celebrate our hard won independence and remember the day that we became our own nation. Canada celebrated their independence day on July 1st. France's is the 14th and a host of other countries seem to have liberated themselves from the chains of oppression and now celebrate the idea of freedom in July.
Must be something in the air, round this time of year.
Sadly, we don't have the time or man-power to make a flag for every country on Earth, or even every country who celebrates their independence day in July but we ARE able to, once again, release our American and Canadian Independence Day seasonal rares today in the Freedom Shop in Battleon, and we hope that you'll join with us in honoring freedom all over the world!
Happy 233rd Birthday USA! (if my math is right)
Have a wonderful 4th of July weekend guys! I'll be trying to make Nursey admit she's sick and stay in bed.
But HEY... Fireworks, right?!
Don't blow your faces up, mkay?.
July 1st, 2010
Sneak peek at what’s in store
... and what’s leaving the stores
Don your anti-pink-protective-eyewear now… because this sneak peek is more like a scenic route! But I’ll try my best to keep it somewhat short. (key word being ‘try’)
For starters, the RARE items in the Pre-Show Merch Shop are going PERMANENT RARE! There are 11 items in this shop that will NEVER EVER return. Ever! So if you haven’t already got your One-Eyed Warrior Armor, One Eyed Crawler Cape, One Eyed Axe, and all the others… now is your last chance!
Remember that these items can FOREVER be stored in your AC bank for free! So get ‘em while you still can—this shop will disappear tomorrow right before we release.
There will be an ‘encore’ of the Live Event tomorrow; Cysero has dubbed this as the Mulligan Day. So if you missed out on the Live Event last Friday, you can replay through the madness (hopefully without the servers crashing) and get the “Eye Was There” achievement badge! This rerun will ONLY be available for 24 hours after we Release… and One-Eyed Doll would be crushed if you missed out on their show…. again…. Lol!
We are also celebrating Freedom Day in Battleon this weekend! Last year’s seasonal items are returning along with a few new festive ones to help celebrate Freedom throughout Lore. Skyline has even made an auuuuhhhmazing Scythe that will be put in the Limited-Time Shop in Battleon. The Scythe of Liberty will ONLY be available until this Sunday at Midnight, so make sure you don’t miss out!
Hollowsoul Castle
Hollowsoul Castle is known as the “castle with no end.” Legend says that the Castle itself feasts off the unlucky souls who become trapped within its corridors. Haunted by ghoulish Wraiths, Hollowsoul is a dangerous place accessible only to the bravest of Members.
You are going to need some protection before charging through Hollowsoul Castle. Luckily for you & your soul, a specially-crafted Hollowsoul gear set has been made! Starting tomorrow night, you too can suit up in this amazing armor, helm, and weapon combo. Looks great with the Dragonhawk, too. Wahahah!
It is also rumored that you can get a mortgage on your very own 4-roomed Hollowsoul Castle Home! Don’t worry; the Wraiths and mothballs have been evicted and the House is move-in ready… as long as you don’t mind the Florida-inspired whether patterns.
Well my friends, I do believe that about sums it up! ^__^ I really do want to give a sincere ‘thank-you’ to all of our friends, especially Members. Without the support from you guys, none of this would ever be possible, yah know! So thank-you so much again, guys!
Battle On!
June 29th, 2010
A New Contest Appears!
Make us LOL & win big time
Grab a pencil and your sense-of-humor and prepare yourself for AE’s first ever Comic Contest!
This Contest is open to all players and has just begun on the AE Comic Contest Thread! Before we get into specific details, let’s first discuss what everyone wants to know: the prizes you could win!!!
The Grand Prize is 4,000 BattleOn Points!
The two Runner-ups will receive 2,000 BattleOn Points
and Honorable Mentions will get 500 BattleOn Points
…soooooo waait what are BattleOn Points? Glad I forced that question out of yah! BattleOn Points is the newest way to Upgrade your account with the Master Account Login system. Obtaining enough Points allows you to get Game Currency in ANY of your favorite AE games and even Upgrade your account to Member Status!
BattleOn Points is also how you will unlock features, powerful items, and magic spells in the soon-to-be-released-brand-new minigame, BladeHaven! So what better way to get a head start in BladeHaven than with your Contest prize earnings ^___^
Rules Rule!
So now that you know what you’re competing for… on to the Comic Contest rules! I’m only ganna say this once (…and then copy-paste is everywhere else…) so pay attention because ALL OF THE RULES need to be followed for your Comic Entry to be eligible. So if you wanna win, make sure you’ve actually read each rule BEFORE submitting your entry, kthx =D
Your Comic MUST BE created by YOU!
You gatta have a Master Account Login, since the BattleOn Points prize will be awarded to it
You may only submit ONE (1) Comic to be judged (if making a Comic Strip, please condense it into a single jpeg/png/gif/swf/etc)
Your Comic MUST have your Character Name (NOT your Master Account Login name) written/typed/signed somewhere on the picture to ensure that it really was YOU who made it! Any Character Name from any AE game is acceptable. Comics without a Character Name clearly displayed will result in an automatic disqualification.
Your Comic must be “AE themed”… this is an AE Comic Contest after all! Your Comic can contain ANYTHING from AQW, MQ, AQ, WF, DF, and ED!
You can create your Comic using any medium you choose. Hand draw it. Photoshop screen shots together. Use a fancy photo-editing program. Or whatever else you can think of to make a hilarious Comic.
Make sure to post a VALID link to your uploaded artwork, or else we can’t view it!
Make sure the Link actually works before hitting the “submit” button!
And most importantly: have fun with your Comic! If your Comic makes you LOL, it will most likely make us LOL too!
This contest begins today, June 29th, and will end at 11:59pm EST on Sunday, July 11th. That is a pretty long time to submit your awesome Comics, so I expect to be roflol’ing by then!
Winners will be announced Friday, July 16th and Prizes will be awarded then as well. A special page will be made announcing the winners, and we will provide you with that URL on the Portal Site and your favorite game’s Design Notes and/or Homepage!
We cannot wait to see what artistic lol-talent hides behind that avatar of yours. Head on over to the AE Comic Contest Thread and post your Comic today! Or tomorrow. Or the next day. Or the next… or the next… or whenever it’s finished!
Good luck to all, and let the LOL’s commence!
June 28th, 2010
Mulligan Time!
Our Bad,
First of all, I want to say Thank You to all the amazing players all around the world who were able to stay up and help is make the One-Eyed Doll LIVE event one of our biggest events ever.
Everyone who was there played along with us as we revealed some HUGE Mythsong surprises (which were very hard for us to keep but totally worth it for the OMGs we got) and suffered through the AMAZING amount of lag cause by 31,000 heroes all fighting to save Lorestockapalooza, got kicked, off, logged back on, hung while loading the cutscenes... it was chaos in the purplest sense of the word, but it was a GREAT time.
Kimberly could not have had more kind words for all of you. The band was truly stunned by your enthused battle crys and "Battle On" attitudes! Thanks guys, you really made us look good!
There have been a number of complaints about the fact that we were running the LIVE event at a time that was inconvienient for the person complaining, but that is the nature of the beast.
For it to be a LIVE event, most of the core AQW staff and One-Eyed Doll had to be online and we only had a window of a few hours that everyone could be on at the same time.
A LIVE event in AQW is very much like a concert in real life. It might be a pain for you to get there, it might be too late or be in a city that you can't get to, but the band isn't going to stay on stage for 24 hours because YOU can't make it to THEIR show.
Either you make it, or you can't.
One-Eyed Doll had to get back to music and we had to get back to making video games so we couldn't stay up for a full day nd night and keep the event going. For those of you who missed it, make sure to catch the NEXT live event.
That being said, things didn't go as smoothly as we'd hoped. There were freezing problems, and disconnection problems. Our servers were in overdrive but just couldn't keep up with the flood of hereos AND Flash had recently patched their Flash Plyer which caused ALL KINDS of issues all over the net including your own AQ Worlds.
There are PAGES of e-mails to us from people who were AT the live event, fought with us to the bitter end and made it all the way through, but didn't get the "Eye Was There" achievement badge.
So, this Friday we're having a Mulligan day. If you Join the re-play event this Friday, as soon as you join, you will get the "Eye Was There" achievement.
(Mulligan: A mulligan, in a game, happens when a player gets a second chance to perform a certain move or action. The practice is also sometimes referred to as a "do-over.")
It stinks that we had so many technical errors but we have thought about it a lot. While this will allow lots of players who weren't actually there to get the badge, it's the fairest thing we can think of to allow those that WERE there to get the achievement that they fought for and earned.
Beleen has asked me to mention that she is starting up a new contest soon. I'm curious if you guys would rather get ACs or BattleOn Points (which you can use in ANY of our games, using the Master Account system) as prizes. Let us know on the forums!
I'll let you guys know what is coming this week a little later on this week. Once we know.
LIVE-adin!
Saturday, June 26th, 2010
The Play by Play
Wow... what an adventure
The live event was a huge success with 31,000 players showing up to battle the Chaos Lord! Below is a recap of what happened starting Friday morning. Thank you to everyone who came! Especially everyone who stuck through the really tough parts.... we hope you had a lot of fun! Also, we would like to thank One-Eyed Doll for being so awesome! This is one event that we will never forget!
11:00pm - The re-run version of the event is available for ALL PLAYERS! Enjoy the cutscenes! 10:45pm - Server restarting for re-run mode to begin! The shops, special backstage area, and re-runnable version of the map will be available all of next week! 10:00pm - "Best Event Ever!" Thank you so much for being a part of this! The team is getting ready to restart the servers for the re-run version of the event. 9:59pm - VICTORY TO THE HEROES!!!!!!!!!!! 9:32pm - The 3 part REAL CHAOS LORD FIGHT STARTED!!!!! (in the sky!)
9:20pm - CHAOS BEAST FIGHT!!!!! 9:00pm - ..... THE BIG SURPRISE HAPPENED! (and all of the servers crashed.... everyone is relogging in) 8:45pm - The battle with Discordia begins! 8:00pm - The EVENT STARTED! 7:00pm - Only one hour until the show starts! (Is it bad that we are still coding) 6:15pm - Please join us in game in the waiting area.... 6:08pm - Servers coming up! /join Live to prepare for the event. 6:00pm - Thank you for choosing to fly AQWorlds airlines. Before we begin our flight, please pay attention to the following in-flight emergency procedures. In the event of a crash... you will find floatation devices under your browser... We will be cruising at about 764MB/s and expect mild to game destroying turbulance. 5:50pm - Servers restarting in 10 minutes! old on to your helms.... or hoods.... or.... hair? 5:45pm - Wooohooo ready to.... *BREAKS* ... one moment! 5:38pm - Preparing to roll the files to the live servers... 42 items, songs, maps, monsters, and cutscenes. 5:30pm - We just had a few very embarrasing things happen what are too long too write here now... but I assure you they were VERY embarrasing! Bonus Live event tip -- If you crash... and have problems getting back in. Try restarting your browser. 5:00pm - Cysero broke. Not the server... the real one. We are attempting to fix him now. Does anyone have any duct tape? 4:00pm - Only four more hours till showtime! *whispers* Hurry guys.... hurry! 3:40pm - Evil Sir Ver, the "other" Member-Only server is now online for the event. Apparently the server has become self aware and is publically picking fights with the original, and very whomesome Sir Ver. 3:30pm - With each tick of the clock the moment draws near. The team is working frantically to get ready in time. Will the heroes win the war in time? Will the live event happen on time? Will 20,000+ players face Discordia? Will we win? lose? crash? ..... tick... tick.... 3:00pm - The war in Mythsong wages on... but things are looking desperate for our heroes. If Chaos Lord Discordia has kidnaps all of the bands and reaches Lorestockapaloosa before us.... 2:45pm - We have so many "One-Eyed" items in this release we should rename the game to CyclopsQuest! Miko just saw one of the cutscenes. Her response was "........................" Oh yes, you are going to enjoy this! 2:30pm - Oh wow... over 5 hours till the show and there are ALREADY 17K players online! 1:00pm -Lots of rares in tonight's event - Free, Member, and AC. We bought super-bandwidth for this event so the cutscenes and audio should stream fast... even though they are HUUUUUGE. Now, the only question is can we reconfigure the servers to use it in time! ... oh, and we are adding an other Member-only server, EVIL SIR VER for the event. 12:35pm - Zhoom says something is causing the map not to load. We are loading 13 different types of monsters in the event... we might have too many! He is editing the engine now. 12:25pm - Friday Release-Pizza Delivery! The delivery boy brought in 2 GIANT dufflebags full of Pizza boxes and mentioned, "You guys are very loyal....", smiled then added, "believe it or not this is a smaller order than normal!" 12:01pm - Zhoom writes, "Artix, we have a problem." 12:00pm - Only 8 hours until the show! It is so wierd that we have not had any problems yet. 11:50am - If the war is not won... then Discordia will beat you to Lorestockapaloosa... we have no idea what will happen if that happens! There are supposed to be thousands of people at the concert already! 11:45am - I was up veeeeeeeeery late last night testing functionality with Stratos and the team. So I am sufficiently sleep deprived to be controlling all 13 servers at the same time tonight. O_O This should be interesting! 11:30am - Cysero is reporting for duty at the Lab. 11:15am - Miltonius has entered the War Room! (He "borrowed" MechQuest artist, Thyton's, wacom monitor...to build the event on.) 11:00am - Artix, Beleen, and J6 are in the warroom. With only 9 hours before showtime... the pressure is on! A live release is the most difficult thing to build and run in game. Beleen is wearing pink.... Artix moved to the far side of the table so he did not spontaniously catch on fire. Yesterday - One-Eyed Doll band members were spotted on AQWorlds Servers!
LIVE-adin!
One-Socked Doll
Friday, June 25th, 2010
The Live Event
Musical Guest One-Eyed Doll & Chaos Lord Fight
This is one event... that no one will want to miss! We will restart the servers an hour early and let everyone join the map to get ready. Then.. when the event starts.... well.... ANYTHING CAN... AND WILL... HAPPEN! This is so exciting! (62.45% chance... not including electrical storms and tornados.... that this event will crash our entire game network. It has been waaaaay to long since we enjoyed a good train wreck together. See you tonight for some REAL Chaos!)
What to do before the Event
Read the Play by Play on the homepage It is at the bottom of the first post from me)
Complete all of the Mythsong Canyon Quests Then... you will get full achievements and quest progress saves during the live event! But do not worry, if you have not completed all of the quests you will still be able to do the event.
Battle in the War!
The war going on now will determine what happens tonight..... things are not looking good!
Upgrade to Become a Member
Members will get to go backstage after the show for bonus quests, a special shop... and yes... our first Weapon Enhancement with a Special Effect: The One-Eyed Gem! If you enhance your weapon with this weapon it has a % chance to cause ongoing Fire Damage to monsters. The stats are balanced so it is good for all classes.
EVIL Sir Ver?! What The Floop?
Once again, Evil Sir Ver has claimed a server of his own. We are expecting a LOT of people for the One-Eyed Doll Rock Show / Chaos Lord Fight tonight so we added another server. Yay us!
ALSO: We have confirmation that there will be a "Eye Was There" Achievement Badge for anyone who finishes the event while it is still LIVE! You can ONLY get this Achievement during the show TONIGHT and it WILL show up on your character page. Be there or be somewhere else!
There will be 3 shops in the event.
First is a Pre-Show Merch Booth, as any good rock show should have. This will contain all AC items and this shop will only last one week. Next Friday... when the event becomes a permenant part of the game... THIS shop vanishes forever.
The second shop is the One-Eyed-Doll Event Shop. You will have to complete the event to unlock this shop. It contains Member and Non-Member gold items and will never leave the game.
The last shop is in the Member-Only Backstage area. In this area you will have access to the last shop full of One-Eyed Doll and Mythsong house items, Special quests with a CHANCE to recieve a new type of Enhancement as a reward (this Enh will add stats to your weapon AND has a chance to cast fireball at your enemies!), and you will be able to interview One-Eyed Doll after the show!
a HUGE 35 TOTAL items including armors, pets, weapons, color custom helms, and Enhancements with Specials... not to mention out biggest (and WAY coolest) event to date with several animated cutscenes, voice acting and the powerhouse muscial talents of One-Eyed Doll.
ALSO ALSO.... the Summer Break shop returns for one week (that's 9 MORE items!) celebrating the end of school and the beginning of summer break for kids all over the world.
This will be a night to remember!
June 24th, 2010
Live Event Tomorrow!
Best prepare yourselves now for the…
Mythsong Canyon grand finale, Chaos Lord showdown, special Musical Guest appearance, possible Chaos Beast encounter, tons of Event Rare items, Summer Break Shop, Backstage passes, the first-of-its-kind proccing Weapon Enhancement, One-Eyed Doll House items, cutscene-a-palooza… and this is just the gist of it!
If you can’t already tell, tomorrow’s release is going to be E-P-I-C! You thought the Voltaire Live Event was huge? Just wait ‘til you see the File Size on THIS bad boy! The awesome insanity begins tomorrow, June 25th at 8pm EST/5pm PST.
This Event is available for ALL PLAYERS of ALL levels, so tell all your friends (even if they have never played) to come join us and become part of AQWorlds History! And lookie here: you can use the Refer A Friend feature to earn BONUS gold and EXP, just in time for the Live Event! Pretty cool, huh?
Spoilers Ahead! Erm, Below!
Since tomorrow’s event is going to take place LIVE, no one is too sure exactly WHAT will happen. The War is still going on (around 63% last time I checked) and victory doesn’t look too promising. We have never lost a war… so no one (not even Zhoom or Llussion!) knows what will happen if Chaos Lord Discordia wins…
What we DO know is this: there WILL be Rare Items… lots and lots of ‘em! And they will ONLY be available during this one-of-a-kind event. But let’s sweeten the deal even more: all the items will be selling for AdventureCoins, so you can store ALL OF THEM in the Bank for FREE forever!
Here are just a few One-Eyed Doll Rares...
Running low on ACs? Didya know that Artix Entertainment Upgrade Cards can be found at a store near you? It’s true! There are so many ways you can Upgrade your account that Artix would smother me in marshmallow fluff if I flooded the DNs with EVEN MORE pink to list each option. To save time (and your eyesight), click here (http://portal.battleon.com/store/points/buy.asp) to see each available method!
By Upgrading your account, not only do you gain access to the most epic features, areas, and items in AQWorlds, but you also support the Team who works so hard to make Live Events like this possible. Without your kindness, none of this would ever be possible! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
AND! We have a special surprise just for you Members! If Discordia doesn’t completely destroy the world of Lore (or the servers over at the Lab), a special Backstage Pass will be awarded to every Member, granting you SPECIAL access to meet Kimberly, Mr. Socks, and Jr from the band One-Eyed Doll!
As a VIP (Very Important Pwner), you get to chill with the band backstage, ask each band mate some personal (and hilarious) questions, unlock a special One-Eyed Doll shop (with even more items OMG!!!), and partake in some behind-the-scenes quests that award a VERY special prize: the first-of-its-kind proccing One-Eyed Gem Weapon Enhancement!
Seared Tune-a-Fish, anyone?
Woah…what is that?!? It’s a JPG. No not that… THAT! Well, this unique enhancement equips your weapon with killer Stats AND the ability to cast Fireballs when attacking! No other Enhancement is quite like the One-Eyed Gem. AT ALL. And it can be all yours starting tomorrow night! It’s a Lvl 30 Enhancement too, so you know the Stats on it are going to be HOT!! (c’mon, I had to throw a horrible pun in there somewhere)
So let’s wrap this downpour-of-pink-text up with a little Story Time! You may not know this, but tomorrow’s release will be my FIRST ever Live Event! Yup, that’s right—I got hired on right after the live Voltaire/Friday the 13th event last year, so I cannot wait to share this experience with all of you ^___^ I don’t plan to sleep at all tomorrow night, so I had better meet each of you personally in game—screenshots galore!
Grab all of your friends and let’s make this the biggest, awesomest, and most totally epic (with-lvl-100-cherries-on-top) Live Event ever!
I’ll be seeing ya at 8pm SHARP. Don’t be late!
June 23rd, 2010
They May Have Lost the Battle…
…but WE’RE losing the War!?!
Woah woah woah WOAH. What is going on here? Do you see this?
You know what that is. That’s the War Meter. At 56%. On Wednesday afternoon. And do you know what that means? WE ARE LOSING THE WAR AGAINST THE MUSIC PIRATES!
This is bad. For many reasons. The first being: you made me use Caps Lock! The second: the War Shop that unlocks at 100%. And let’s not forget about the Chaos Lord’s Music Pirate minions. If they reach Lorestockapalooza this Friday… well… we don’t know exactly what will happen...
Honestly folks, we planned out this upcoming Live Event based on you guys winning this war. But, um… unless you get 13,256 cans of Mountain Dew and stay awake for the next 48 hours slaying Pirate after Pirate… yeaaah, ummm…. help plz?
Mozzy, blissfully unaware of the upcoming devastation.
Help us fight, you lazy moglin!
Concert-adin!
June 21st, 2010
One-Eyed Doll!
Live Musical Event this Friday at 8pm EST!
I am so excited! Join us this Friday for the grand finale of the Mythsong saga in a band new live event featuring the rising star band.... One-Eyed Doll!
If you have never been to one of their concerts... brace yourself! Their beautiful and sweet lead singer, Kimberly, has a tendacy to erupt with explosive energy that would even catch our Chaos Lord opponent off guard! This crazy event is available for all players (and Members will get a VIP backstage pass for after the show.)
Friday is going to be.... CRAZY!!!!!
June 18th, 2010
The Mythsong War & More
Music Pirates, Mythsong War, Father’s Day Items…and on time!
First things first: we gatta wish Safiria a very Happy Birthday! The entire AE team celebrated Safiria’s real life level-up with a delicious bday cake that suddenly disappeared 3.7 seconds after the picture was taken. Mmmmm, who knew vampires were chocolate-filled?
On to the release! War has broken out in Mythsong Canyon, giving a whole new meaning to “battle of the bands.” Chaos Lord Discordia and his fan-club of 1,000,000 Music Pirates are not only stealing music… but the bands themselves! You and your friends must team-up and stop the Pirates before the Lead Zeppelin makes it way to Lorestockapalooza. The Chaos Beast is believed to live deep beneath the concert… but if Chaos Lord Discordia reaches it first… well… heh…. <gulp>!
New War Items!
Stopping Music Pirates is a reward of its own. But if you want more of an incentive, then the War Shop is your best bet! Mozzy has an assortment of Mythsong Weapons for you to help achieve victory during this war: Bass Clef Bow, Shadowscythe Reaper Guitar & Swordhaven Battle Guitar (player suggested!), and the Megaphone MegaGun. The Music Pirates on board the Zeppelin drop some weapons too… but they’re pretty rare… so good luck getting them!
Inspired by our fellow player RedLeafChannel!
Father’s Day
Father’s Day is this Sunday! Show the world of Lore that your Dad is #1 with a bundle of Event Rare Items! Last year’s favorite rares have returned to Battleon along with 5 new never-before-seen gifts (all of which were inspired by our twitter-friendly friends). Get your hands on these 100% Dad-approved items:
BBQ Spatula ‘10
Meat on a Stick ‘10
The Ol Fishin’ Garb Armor ‘10
Gravity Defying Coffee Mug ‘10
The Ol Fishin’ Rod ‘10
Golf Suit Armor ‘10
Golf Club ‘10
BBQ Apron ‘10
Golf Bag ‘10
The Ol Fishin’ Hat ‘10
Newsparchment ‘10
Oh, and there’s a NEW gun in the Upgrade Shop in Battleon. Get your Precise Assault Magnum today!
So whatta you still doing here for? Mythsong Canyon needs you RIGHT NOW! Gather an army of your friends (and possibly some well-armed ninjas) and bring the battle to those Music Pirates!
Battle On... the Lead Zeppelin!
Eeep-adin!
June 17th, 2010
Who would steal Musicians?
Music Pirates...
This Friday (tomorrow) we are beginning the week long journey to the biggest concert in the world -- Lorestockapaloosa! When we get there, next Friday (June 26th at 8pm), there will be a LIVE event! Well... that IS the plan but all of the bands in the world suddenly went missing. You only have one week to uncover who is behind this nefarious plot and save the concert*!
* In the secret language of gamers... THIS MEANS WAR!!!!!!
Beleen: ALL of the bands have gone missing? Artix: <Gulps> I am afraid it seems so. Beleen: What about... Artix: Yes. Beleen: And... Artix: Yes, them too. Beleen: What about your band? Artix: I am the only one left. Zhoom, Warlic and Safiria are all missing as well! Beleen: EEEEEEP! Do you think that the new Chaos Lord is behind this? Artix: Dischordia? Beleen: Yeah, that Phantom of the Concert looking guy. Artix: I have no idea... I am not caught up on the last releases yet. Beleen: WHAT!? Hurry up... you need to be up to date in the Mythsong storyline before the release tomorrow! Artix: ... <logs in>
Meanwhile, in the real-world: I received a surprise call at 3am. It was the female lead singer of a band that has not dissapeared... and she offered to help!
Forum Question: Which class has the best skills for battling in a War? Is it the new Starlord class with its area of effect attacks... possibly the mage because of ranged spells... or a healing class like the Paladin because of its survivability?
FAN OF METAL
Time and Date incomprehensible
"I LOVE MUSIC!"
He is really excited about Lorestockapaloosa
HA HA HA HA.... MORTAL... PREPARE YOURSELF FOR.... OH. WHOOPS. SORRY. FORGOT I AM OFF THE CLOCK. REALLY LOOKING FORWARD TO THE BIG CONCERT! YOU GOING? CHUCKLES, MYSELF, A FEW OF THE BOYS FROM THE UNDERWORLD ARE GOING TO START THE WEEK ONLY JOURNEY TO THE CONCERT ON FRIDAY. WORD IS GETTING AROUND THAT SOME OF THE BANDS HAVE GONE MISSING. ALARMING. SINCE I HAVE NOT "SEEN THEM" IF YOU CATCH MY DRIFT. SO -- I AM CALLING IN ONE OF THE FAVORS YOU OWE ME. WHAT DO YOU MEAN "What favor?"!?!?!?! WHO DO YOU THINK SENDS YOU BACK EVERY TIME YOU GET EATEN BY A MONSTER? BOARD THE "LED ZEPLIN" THIS FRIDAY WITH THE BANDS. FIND OUT WHY MY FAVORITE BANDS ARE MYSTERIOUSLY DISSAPEARING. MAKE SURE THE CONCERT IS NOT <coughs.... coughs..... it is really hard talking like this for long periods of time> CANCELLED!!!!!!!!!!! GOOD LUCK. HA HA HA HA!
Rock-adin!
June 14th, 2010
Coming next in AQWorlds!
LIVE EVENT: The Phantom of Mythsong in 2 weeks
They say music has the power to change the world*. Have you been following the story that is unfolding in Mythsong canyon? Do you think our hometown of Battleon is actually safe from what is about to happen there? Lorestockapalooza is the biggest musical event in the world**... and the live event with new musical special guest ????? is taking place in 2 WEEKS!!!!!! (Live Event, Friday, June 25th @ 8pm EST) Well, it SHOULD take place... we just discovered an insidious new plot that could stop the event and destroy our hometown. Check back here tomorrow to learn more! (Remember, this is AQWorlds -- ANYTHING can and will happen***)
Forums Question: It is Father's day this weekend too! Item ideas?
* If you are indirectly quoting Bill & Teds excellent adventure, we may need Beleen to smack you for us. ** Do you mean attendance or filesize? Cause those audio files can be pretty big! *** .... ya'know, as scary as that is, that's why I love this game!
How did the wedding go?
We want to know!
Ok... story time! First, I want to tell you about the "Bach-Lords" party. If there is one thing I like about Cysero and the gang -- all of our real-life adventures are surprisingly suitable for the design notes! So... all of Cysero's male friends met him at a restaurant and we told him we were going to take him to a museum. He was suspicious to say the least. We walked to the museum... and around the corner... into a dark mini-ally where we surprise captured him and put a giant black potato sack over his head. (He was still checking twitter through it so we had to use 3!) He was put in a car, driven around the block a few times and finally when the bag was removed from his head.... we were standing on the dock, all of us completely dressed in pirate-outfits with eye patches, hats, hooks and even a parrot (ok, it was actually a pterodactyl. Pre-historic parrot?!) Cysero, who did not seem surprised at all, was told that to prove his bravery for marraige that he had to perform a test. And this test... was Piracy! YAR! We gave him a skull and crossbones flag... pointed to a boat anchored out in the middle of the bay and said, "Be bringing that one back, matey! Arrrr!" So Cysero jumped into the bay and swam out to capture the boat (Yes, we had rented that boat... and oh yes, have video of this, hehe) We had an amazing time at sea. Well... I am pretty sure right here is where I am NOT supposed to mention how the whole bag + car + super heat == Cysero w/ a wee bit o' sea sickness. A good show for the folks dining at the fancy restraunt at the end of the bay. But he got his sea legs just in time to walk the plank. (LIterally, they gave him a piece of wood with a leash attached to it.) Great memories!
The wedding was also sea-side... and beautiful. Seeing the whole AE team there dressed up fancy (minus some crazy footware) was really cool! Who would have guessed we cleaned up so well. Beleen, in her long fancy dress... somehow kept bringing in unidentifiable objects from the water and having everyone guess what they were. It took the combined might of Thyton, Zazul and several others to break open a long fiberous thing which was... apparently an undead coconut. The tables at the reception were identified by pictures of different Artix Entertainment characters and 1,000 origami cranes (folded by C and Nursey) were hung all over the room. We thought of you and wished you could have been there too. At the wedding, one of C's family members asked me when he was going back to work. I gave a puzzled look and said, "What? He is not working right now?" <cracks whip> Put that cake down.. we have a live event in 2 weeks!
Starts when you login,. ends when the servers crash
First.... I would like to tell you that Beleen actually cried during the TESTING of the wedding event. Also, the battle between Zhoom, Warlic and myself over who gets to be Cysero's best man and stand with him at the alter has spiraled out of control! As you can imagine, the team is so incredibly excited about our friend's wedding -- your friend too! Morale is at an all time high! Cysero the Mad WeaponSmith and Nursey the Dwarfhold Gem are getting married -- for real! Of course... But before the ceremony can begin, Cysero needs your help on the most important QUEST of his life....
I am so happy for you bot...woah... WEDDING RARES!?
Following the wedding ceremony is the reception, full of cake, embarrassing dance moves, and, most importantly, gifts! Cysero and Nursey want to share their presents with their favorite guests (pssst... that is you), so here is your only chance at getting your hands on some very... um.. unique... “Cysero-approved” Wedding Event Rare Items!
<whispers> So no one can see you cry...
J6's Weapon shop in Hyperium
J6 has installed 2 new missions inside the HAL Room in the Hyperium… if you can get past his impervious security system… and figure out how to access the VR Room… and figure out where Hyperium is in the first place. If you are successful on your bounty-hunter-in-training quests, you can gain access to J6’s secret weaponry.
We have no idea what or where this is... or how to get it.
We have also received reports that the Vulture Men aboard the Zephyrus are dropping some items. If you are lucky enough, you can now equip their Hooklaws, Vulture Wings, and Vulture Hood!
New Pet of the month: World Cup style!
The newest pet of the month has arrived in Aria’s Pet Shop! Head on over to Battleon Town and get your very own AQWorld Cup Ball. Best thing about this pet… you’ll never have to feed it or clean up after him. Have a ball!
Why are you reading about DragonFable's birthday party here? I made a special design notes post for you over at DragonFable.com where they have just started their crazy month of releases early! I love DragonFable!
Balloon Chickencow sez, "Eat more Baconz"
Breaking AQWorlds news! 1.) The Cysero Wedding Event starts Friday! 2.) We have recieved confirmation for an all new LIVE musical event with a special guest. It will happen this month.... <coughs> likely on the same day we battle the Chaos Lord! Stay tuned for more...
Forum Question: What is your favorite DragonFable memory?
Friend-adin
June 8th, 2010
Cysero... is getting married!!!!
Who gets to be the mad weapon smith's best man?
This weekend everyone's favorite "mad weapon smith" is forging his most powerful creation ever... eternal love*. Cysero's wedding is happening in real-life AND in a special AQWorlds event! I have never seen anyone more happy and in love than Cysero.... we are so happy for him**.
Story time! I first met Cysero nearly 5 years ago when we started building DragonFable. He was by far the most unusual person I had ever met. He comes from a long line of dowsers (people who locate water sources using sticks?), he inherited half an island (in another country), is a ordained minister (via a form on the internet), and asking him how his weekend went often yields a story like "Well, we found a way to cram 12 people into a single outhouse at the renaissance fair and then spent the day jumping out and surprising people.***" As a shining example of someone who believes in living life to the fullest, his strong leadership inspires creativity and fun in the 12 members of his game dev team... and he is the tallest mage I have ever met. He is truly one of a kind! Exactly what will his wedding event be like....? <gulps> We are going to find out this Friday when the quests for the event start! This is one event that we would not miss for the world****!
* Zorbak says, "Meh... Love? Have you fools even seen what the Necrotic Blade of Doom is capable of?" ** Meanwhile the lab has been thrown into chaos as Artix, Zhoom & Warlic battle over who gets to be Cysero's "best man". *** All true.... **** Pssst... Cysero, tell Nursey to throw the garter toward Zhoom or I! (Note: At the end of some weddings the bride throws the bouquet for the unmarried girls, and the garter for the unmarried guys. Legend says who ever catches it will be married next.)
Bounty Hunter
June 7th, 2010
We tested it, no lies!
Release is live with 68% of the content inaccessible!
Wow, friday's release was a trainwreck of unreachable madness! I have no idea what to say except that we really did test everything, and it *was* working. Most available staff helped all week long to test J6's zone and everything was running really well. There were a few speedbumps on Friday which pushed the release back 'till late but when we put the servers back up we were sure everything was working. Minor problem though, players couldn't reach the release! So we goofed, and by the time everything was out it was too late, the only people left awake were Beleen and I, and we no code good. We were able to reach Llussion late friday and he fixed the problem preventing people from joining saloon but when he left again it was too late for us to tell him Zephyrus was also un-joinable.
So all of that is behind us, its a new week, new problems to create! Hopefully we've fixed everything and you'll be able to enjoy the release and actually finish part 1.
Apparently the only thing preventing people from getting to the map was a letter was lower-case when it should have been upper-case. Things like this make me really glad I'm an artist. Imagine having a map not work because of one misplaced blade of grass...
This week: junkyards and rings!
Here Comes The Sock!
June 7th, 2010
I'm Getting Married!
And You're invited!
We always say that AE is a real gaming community and If this isn't proof of that, I'm not sure what is.
Some of you may have been playing DF back when I proposed to my beautiful fiance', Rebekah. (I snuck her into the game as Nursey from the Dwarfhold tavern).
It was the happiest day of my life when she said yes, until our son Jack was born on December, 26th of last year. You can read all about on the December 27th, 2009 AQW Design Notes!
If you do the math, our son was born 9 months and 1 day after I proposed to her. Heh.Frankly, I would have prefered to do things in a more traditional order (Propose, Wedding THEN Kids) but I've never been very good about doing things in the right order. As I have said before... sometimes you have breakfast for dinner.
Now, finally the day of our wedding is upon us. This Sunday (if she will still have me), Nursey finally becomes Mrs. Cysero! Artix, Warlic and Zhoom are all arguing over who gets to be the best man.
How can I use that to my advantage? I know... a contest to see who has what it takes to stand beside me. DANCE, PUPPETS!
I'm so happy that I found the one person that I want to spend the rest of my life with, and there has never been a single doubt in my head that it was her.
I'm also really happy that I get to share all of these wonderful times with you lot!
SO... We're having a wedding in AQW and you're ALL invited!
One Ring To Rule The Mall
My wedding is on Sunday, but the Wedding Event will be released THIS FRIDAY and will last for ONE WHOLE WEEK (That's MY kinda party)!
As I plan on never getting married again, this will be a ONE-TIME ONLY event and every item that comes from this event will be a guarenteed RARE!
Some of them will be Cysero themed versions of the original wedding map rares and there will be some brand new items too!
We have a LOT of stuff to do to get thigns in order so I'll be doing wedding stuff later this week, leaving J6 in charge of AQW once again.
Speaking of J6... We will also be releasing the next section of the J6 Area and we PROMISE that it will work MUCH better than the last section. Llussion is still fixing the maps from Friday's release. He'll have them up and running soon.
Anywhoo, thank you all in advance for being a part of our happy day!
Wish me luck! :)
JSOCKS
June 4th, 2010
The Release is FINALLY LIVE!
A New Level Has Been Added to Battleunder!
Yara has found her way down to the second level of battleunder, but that's not all she has found.
Yara's Enchanted Treasure Chest!
She has also stumbled upon a magic trasure chest! The items inside change depending on which of the 4 keys you reassemble. You might get one of several all new weapons, including the Deathknight weapons... or you might get nothing at all. Want to try your luck?
If you have never discovered battleunder, look around Battleon. You will find several secret entrances hidden around town. Happy hunting!
J6's Impossible new Area!
Many of you know J6 as one of the brilliant artists who devotes his time and effort into making AQW one of the coolest, slickest looking MMO's out there...
Tonight we are releasing the first part of his MIND TWISTING area where nothing is as it seems.
You will start your adventure in his J6 map, where he grew increasingly lazy as time went on. You'll see what I mean when you read the quests.
Looks Like J6 Got Disctracted...
Do battle with his half-finished monsters and you might find yourself in a sketchy version of the full J6 armor!
Will The Real J6 Please Stand Up?
Or maybe something a little more silly...
Slightly Used Spittoon Helm. Gross.
But if you're clever, that will just be the start to an amazing adventure that J6, Beleen and llussion have been working on for quite a while. You will visit far off places and might even find yourelf on J6's spaceship!
The Hyperium!
I won't give away too much, but this will finally answer all the questions about the Dwakel Decoder!
Remember... NOTHING in this area is what it seems to be and you'll have to team up with other AQW players to find your way through. Remember, if you get stuck... ask another player or head over to the AQW Forums and see what others did when they were stuck!
This is only the beginning of the area, and there will be more coming in a future release!
The Ticklish Zorbo Ticket!
if you are one of the skilled few who have beaten the top level of the Mythsong /Dance Evolution Mini-game then you have been waiting for a few weeks to see what your Ticklish Zorbo Ticket will turn into. As of tonight you will be able to talk to the Great Godfather of Soul and redeem your ticket for a special member only pet or non-member sword!
Ticklish Zorbo!
The Necromancer Token's Final Form!
If you were one of the early PTR testers and you grabbed the necromancer class, you were warned that the class would not make it to the live servers.
Upon release of the PTR engine the Class was transformed into the Necromancer Token and tonight it will assume its final form... the Guardian Shadow!
This is a back item that will show everyone your evil necromantic power, as you are followed forever by the ghostly Guardian Shadow. This is a back item, NOT a pet, so it will be for members AND non-members alike.
Tonight's release is pretty big, and it might take some of you all weekend to make your way to the stopping point in the J6 area... I'll see you at the Saloon!
June 1st, 2010
SMS Bug
It’s not our fault this time!
One of the many ways you can Upgrade your account is by using SMS mobile payments straight from your Cell Phone. But there’s a bug out there that is totally refusing to cooperate—and it’s not our fault this time around! There are a number of outages currently ongoing with SMS that won’t let you upgrade your account OR let you purchase Battleon Points. The following geographies / carriers are impacted:
- USA, SMS mobile payments (Verizon and Virgin mobile)
- Canada, SMS mobile payments (across carriers)
- Australia, SMS mobile payments (across carriers)
So what does this mean? Well, as of now, you won’t be able to Upgrade or purchase Battleon Points using your cell phone. BUT! Captain Rhubarb is talking to the folks over at Allopass (the ones in charge of SMS) to get this straightened out as quickly as possible.
Don’t worry, no payments have been accepted from SMS during this buggy time. So if you tired to make an SMS payment but got back a funky “invalid number error” text message, your account—and wallet—is still intact as it was before. And as soon as SMS is back up and running, we’ll let you know ^__^
Fausock!
May 28th, 2010
Don Giovanni, Faust & Player Suggestions!
Another GREAT round of player suggestions!
Once again, we dove into the Player Suggestion Forums and picked out our personal favorites and the hottest items with the most player attention and added a new round of fantastic items suggested by the very inventive AQw fans!
As always, the players who suggested those items will recieve the items at no cost and have been credited for their work in the item names or descriptions or both!
This is the coolest round of player suggestions items that we've ever released and oddly enough J6's new apprentice, Dage The Evil, worked on producing this round. If you recall back when Dage was a player we selected some of HIS stuff to add to the Player Suggestion shop.
Who said making fan art never leads anywhere?
If you've never been to the Player Suggestion shop, you can talk to Yulgar in his Inn in Battleon.
The Orkestra Temple!
This week we also move on to a new section of the Mythsong area. It seems that Don Giovanni has made a bad deal with the wicked Faust. He needs your help before moonrise, or else he'll get dragged to the underworld!
The Terrible Faust!
You will also be able to hear Warlic's classical area music, fight our newest monster (like the Mozard), and pick a few pets and Faust's weapon, helm and wings!
Yeah, We Went There.
You will also be able to hear Warlic's classical area music, fight our newest monster (like the Mozard), and pick a few pets and Faust's weapon, helm and wings!
Quibble has decided he can spare another week in Battleon before moving on so be sure to grab his slightly-used, never-before-seen items before he splits!
Book face!
Social Networking Update
Staff Imposters and other oddities
Beware of people on FaceBook, Myspace, and Twitter claiming to be our staff. Never give out your password. The staff will never ask for it, and any one who does is just trying to steal your account. Especially beware of the new imposter on FaceBook claiming to be Beleen.
Get your hands on these 100% Dad-approved items: 
