Design Notes

November 25, 2013

Updates from this Weekend

Did You Confront Drakath Yet?!

If you haven't played last weekend's release, what are you waiting for?!?!! Drakath, Champion of Chaos, is waiting for you... and so is the battle of a lifetime! 

Chaos is waiting.

Isses from last week resolved!

While we get the team set up for the week, the coders tackle the bugs from the previous week's release. Here's the progress update on issues from the weekend:

• Game not recognizing Mythsong zone completion: Fix rolls tomorrow.
• The Unkillable Drakath being killable: Fix rolls tomorrow.
• Eligible players not receiving 2 free Fortune tickets: Already fixed.
• Changed names not updating in guilds: Fix in progress.

And for the many players asking about reclaiming inactive names from 2008 to get a new name: the expanded range of inactive account purges began Friday. We are purging thousands of accounts a day. If you do not see the name you want available, please try again soon. Remember, once a name has been changed/purged, it is unavailable for 30 days. (This is to prevent hacking issues.)

August 08, 2013

All that Glitters… is Guild!

Build your Legendary Guild and take over the AQWorld!

Guilds are one of the best perks of being an Upgraded Legend. As a Legend, you can create your own Guild, invite your friends to join your Guild, and starting this Friday, you will be able to decorate your Guild Halls in our Guilds Phase II release!

SGT Warchild117 and his Guild
“Exalted Blade Masters” versus Ultimate Binky!

But before we begin on all the new features, let’s refresh ourselves on current Guild information so everyone is up-to-date.

Guilds 101

• Guilds will have 15 member slots to start with.
• Guild leaders will be able to buy additional member slots for 200 ACs each.
• The maximum number of Guild members is 50.
• We reserve the right to change any inappropriate Guild name.

Guild Commands

• /gc name, is create guild
• /gi name, is invite
• /gr name is remove
• /gp name is promote
• /gd name is demote
• /g triggers guild chat
• /say turns guild chat off
• /guild will bring up the list of guild members and what server they're on (coming soon!)
• /motd alone is the guild message of the day
• /motd some message, sets a new one if you have enough rank to use that command

Guild Rankings

• Rank 3: Guild Leader
• Rank 2: Guild Officer (Most of the privileges of the GL, can't kick GL)
• Rank 1: Guild Member
• Rank 0: Guild Duffer (Revokes Guild Chat, player still a Guild Member)

Guilds Phase II—Friday Night Release

When you go to your Guild, you will be able to customize your Guild Hall in anyway you’d like by adding Buildings and Paths!

On the right side of the screen, you’ll see your Guild Hall Menu:

In Edit Mode, you’ll see little rectangles that denote where you can place Buildings and Paths.

Click on one of the boxes to place a new Building or add a new Path. When you add a new Path, a little Land Preview box will appear, and you can choose which Frame your new Path will lead to.

Pick the land you want, click Buy Frame, and then purchase the plot of land so you can expand your Guild onto!

To buy more plots of land, click the Buy Land option in the Guild Hall Menu. You can buy up to 16 additional plots of land—and depending on how big you want your Guild to be, you can gobble up all 16 plots!

Now we can begin adding Buildings. You can buy Buildings from the Building Shop and place Buildings on the rectangles in the Edit Mode.

Afterwards, enter your Building, click Edit Mode, and begin decorating!

Just like Housing, you can add Floor and Wall Items to suit your inner Interior Decorator. All the House items in your House Inventory will magically be uploaded here, so you can adorn your buildings in anyway you’d like. 

In the future (meaning NOT this week), you will be able to decorate the outside lands of your Guild Halls. Green-thumbs will surly dig this feature =D

Speaking of the future…

We have even more exciting Guild features in the works! Here’s a quick list of what we’re planning for you:

• Fully customizable Guild Halls
• NPCs for your Guild
• Guild-exclusive interior Items
• Upgradable Buildings

Is there anything else you’d like to see implemented for your Guild? We’d love to hear your ideas! Just give us a shout-out on the AQWorlds Facebook Page and maybe we can turn your fantasy into reality.

And don’t forget to Like the AQWorlds Facebook Page so we can hit 1,000,000 Likes by October 11—which just so happens to be AQWorlds' 5th birthday!

Stay epic, my heroes!

xoxo Beleen

April 22, 2013

Summer 2013 in AQW

We have BIG plans for AE's biggest MMO!

Every Monday, the team leads meet to go over their plans for the week. In today's meeting*, Artix asked, "Hey, AQW team! What INCREDIBLY-AWESOME releases do you guys have planned?! We should tell EVERYONE about all the insane things we've got planned so they can gear up before the BIG BATTLE!!!!"

2013 Continues the Chaos!

Here's what Cysero and I have planned:

• May: Begin the 2-part Xing/Xang** mini-arc in the Mirror Realm!
• End of May: Mage University zone***
• June: Summer of Dage! Dage the Evil takes over AQWorlds with NEW gear, quests, boss fights, and a Class****!
• June: More updates to the town of Battleon!
• July: A NEW member-only zone with challenge fight, mini-game, Class, and exclusive gear!
• July or August: the 12th Lord of Chaos zone... can you guess WHO the Chaos Lord is?!
• This Summer: Guilds Phase 2/3! Customizable Guild Cities AND Halls PLUS Guild vs Guild wars!*****

Prepare for the Summer of DAGE!

* BEFORE the nerf-gun battle, AFTER the ninja attack...
** Why are we only just NOW doing the 2nd Lords' zone? Because Chaos, that's why!
*** A player on Twitter suggested Horcwarts University! LOL! 
**** Cysero and I will still head AQW, but we've asked Dage to design ALL of June's releases!
***** Yorumi is already BACK to work on Guilds AND has made significant progress! 

So, tell us...

Let us know which releases YOU are looking forward to next by telling us on Twitter (Artix, Alina, Cysero) or Facebook, or the forum! 

December 12, 2012

Epic Plans For AQW

Behind the Scenes, We've Got a Lot Going On!

Every week is FULL of furious typing, crazy-fast coding, and lots of  coffee because we have got a SUPER-long to do list! But since we are so busy every day, a lot of what we work on that ISN'T for release just doesn't make it into the Design Notes. We want you guys to know as much as possible about what's going on, so let's fix that!

A New Look for AQWorlds in Progress!

Between solving a large portion of the lag issues and working on Guild Halls AND dynamic quests,* Yorumi has been working with Artix and Kraken on a new character creation screen (Artix totally spoiled this news on Twitter!) and new in-game interface for AQW. We try to get as many of the bugs OUT of AQW before you get to play it, and here's a great example of why we test!

* Triggering different quests at different times in different zones!

It's never good to lose your head in battle!

The homepage is also getting a makeover. We're starting slowly by changing the homepage posts to make them more dynamic and informative. There is so much content in AQWorlds that sometimes it's hard to remember what's out there!

Coming soon, you'll see featured locations, classes, items and more on the homepage! And if you scroll down, you'll already see the Featured Guilds section we introduced. Get YOUR Guild featured on AQ.com by following the directions here!

The Adventurers were our first Featured Guild!

Better Bug Smashing!

Koi  (the AQW Bugs forum moderator), Reens, and I met last week to discuss changes to the Bugs forum. We want to make it easy for you to report your AQW issues there, because it is a lot easier for us to keep track of bugs when they're posted on our forum instead of on Twitter.* 

One thing we really want to do in the as-soon-as-possible future is get an in-game bugs reporting system ready. That would help us collect vital information  (like what version of Flash Player you are using). The goal for the AQW Bugs team is to fix ALL (or as close as we can get) of the bugs in the game - big and small!

* Because of how many tweets we get every day, it is very easy to lose important ones.

Planning Releases for 2013: What would YOU like?

Because of how insane it is to do what we do - release a new expansion to the game each week - we need to be very flexible with the game's release schedule. You never know when a team member will get sick or a planet-wide catastrophe strike. But having an outline in hand lets us plan what the team should work on ahead of time.

We've got our list of releases, but YOU are the heroes who will battle through them! Since we make the game for and WITH you, we want to know what YOU'd like to see in AQWorlds this year? 

What do WE have planned for 2013?

How about Chaos Lords 11, 12, and 13?! 2012 was so busy, we didn't get to face nearly as many Chaos Beasts as we wanted to, so we're going to have to launch an all-hero attack on Drakath and find out what's behind his Chaos Portal! ARE YOU READY?!

12-12-12 Event Releases at Sundown! 

12-12-12 is a deadly date! 26,000 years ago, Kezeroth the World Ender tried to free the Beast Quetzal from his prison in a giant ice comet, but failed. Tonight, Quetzal's comet is finally close enough once more for Kezeroth to sense it, and to end what he began so long ago. If he succeeds, he will use Quetzal's power to encase the world in ice... ending all life on Lore for good!** Grab your sharpest weapons, Heroes, because we're NOT going to let the world end!***

We're ALL going to need bigger blades for this boss fight!

** I wish our Loremasters had deciphered those scrolls LAST week!
***  Since I've been dealing with a lot of this background work, Cysero has taken on the entire 12-12-12/12-21-12 combo event! After watching the first mind-blowing cutscene, I am 100% sure this is one of AQW's most EPIC cutscenes EVER! 

September 20, 2012

Coming Up!

Coming Friday

With guilds soft launch yesterday, we found a few bugs in guild creation and naming but nothing to stop Phase 1 from fully launching tomorrow!

It may not seem like much of a release to you guys, but we've worked for a REALLY LONG TIME on phase 1, Yorumi is still working on as I type this and will still be working on it up the minute we launch tomorrow.

You can look forward to a lot of guild upgrades in Phase 2 and beyond including Guild Halls that you can build, decorate and grow together as a team, Guild renaming options, Customizable Guild banners so your group can unite under one flag, Guild name and banner displayed on your character page, special guild only challenges and more!

To kick it off J6 will have a few special Guild Battles for you this weekend. You will need to work together with your guild as a solid unit to defeat these special challenge fights. You MIGHT be able to take them on with a group of well trained strangers but I wouldn't suggest it. There will, of course, be Special drops and a merge shop to rewards your successful efforts.

4th Upholder Coming in October

October is not only AQW's 4th Birthday but also Artix Entertainment's 10th Birthday! We are planning something larger than we've ever had before for our special AE birthday event but I'll save that for later.

October is also a special time for our supporters as it's your chance to become an AQW UPHOLDER!

When AQW launched we gave everyone who supported us the chance to become an AQW Founder. Since then our Members have the chance to uphold the tradition by supporting AQW with a Membership every year around this time.

Upholders get a special Character Page Badge, a rare Star Sword (This is the year of CHAOS so... CHAOTIC STAR SWORD!) some insane bragging rights and the knowledge that they helped support AQW! There are two ways to become a 4th upholder.

1. If you have an AQW Membership that expires ON OR AFTER November 1st, 2012 then you're in the clear. You are already a 4th Upholder and will automatically receive the badge as soon as it's made.
   
   
2. Option 2 is simple. Just upgrade to a Member (3 months or longer) any time from October 1st to October 31st, 2012. Poof, you'll become a 4th Upholder that very second.

That's pretty much it. I will be posting a picture of the Chaos Star Sword and the badge a little closer to October.

LQS and TLPD Staying

The Limited Quantity Shop and the Talk Like A Pirate Day shops will both remain in Battleon through the weekend and possibly longer. We don't have any set dates on the shops removal, otherwise I'd just tell you when it was.

September 17, 2012

Tomorrow: Guilds Phase 1

Guilds Member-Only PTR!

AQWorlds has wanted to introduce the Guilds feature for 4 years, and the day is here... TOMORROW! Starting tomorrow, members will be able to log in to www.AQ.com, join the PTR server and create their own Guild! Even after Guilds open for all players (hopefully this Friday), ONLY members will be able to create them.

Gather your crew, create a guild, and /battleon!

The Lag PTR "Lag Flame Pet" will be awarded tomorrow. It ends when the new engine rolls to release the member-only Guilds PTR (comes with badge)!

Vital info to know for tomorrow:

• Guilds will have 15 member slots to start with.
• On Friday, Guild leaders will be able to buy additional member slots for 200 ACs each.
• The maximum number of Guild members will be 50.
• Guild commands (listed below) will ONLY work on the PTR server until Guilds release to all players, but you can run aroundin any and show off your name.
• Future Guild content (like Guild Halls/Towns) will come out in Phase 2!
• We also reserve the right to change any inappropriate Guild name.

The guild commands are as follows:

• /gc name, is create guild
• /gi name, is invite
• /gr name is remove
• /gp name is promote
• /gd name is demote
• /g triggers guild chat
• /say turns guild chat off
• /guild will bring up the list of guild members and what server they're on (coming soon!)
• /motd alone is the guild message of the day
• /motd some message, sets a new one if you have enough rank to use that command

Guild rankings work as follows:

• Rank 3: Guild Leader
• Rank 2: Guild Officer (Most of the privileges of the GL, can't kick GL)
• Rank 1: Guild Member
• Rank 0: Guild Duffer (Revokes Guild Chat, player still a Guild Member)

What are YOU looking forward to with Guilds? More information to come tomorrow!

June 12, 2012

Guilds: What Are They?

So You Want To Know What A Guild Is...

We are serious gamers.

If you're going to MAKE video games, then you have to PLAY a lot of games to know what is out there. Many of us follow the news from our favorite developers, we go to gaming conventions (not as speakers, but as humble fanboys and girls) or have subscriptions to the official magazines of our favorite consoles. We play RPGs, FPSers, Racing games, fighting games, puzzle games, RTSs, mobile games, table-top games, console games, PC games and everything in between.

We were all noobs once. We weren't born knowing that RTS stands for Real Time Strategy or that MMORPG stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game. We sometimes forget that not everyone has the same gaming experience as we do. Sometimes we use gaming terms that hardcore gamers consider common knowledge but are unknown to those people who are slightly less wrapped up in the gaming world.

Take the term "Guild" for example. By the time I came to work for AE, I had already been a guild leader in at least two MMOs, and with "The Guild" being such a popular online series, we were completely taken by surprise when we started getting a flood of tweets from people asking what guilds are.

Guild /gild/ noun : An association of people for mutual aid or the pursuit of a common goal.

I asked Chainsword (a player who is visiting the lab today) to help me explain and he has this to say...

It's not something you can easily explain to someone who hasn't ever heard the term.

Now, it could be said that guild is like a community inside whole game community. An adequate explanation could be comparing guilds in game to your friends in school. As student in school, you're part of whole school's community that consists of teachers, students, janitors, security guards and chefs and that guy that drives the school bus.

Now, think about your friends in school. During breaks, and after school, you gather around to do all sorts of fun stuff like playing football, hanging around in mall, telling jokes, talking about all sorts of stuff, and overall just having fun and playing with your own rules, respecting each other.
That's kind of what guilds are for. Think of it as group of friends you know and like, hanging around and planning your own adventures and plans inside the game.

Thanks, Chainsword!

Maybe your guild's goal is to help each other become the best PvPers in AQW. Maybe you all want to help each other get every new character page badge that comes out. Maybe you are all followers of Evil. Your goal is up to you. The point is that you have come together with like-minded people in AdventureQuest Worlds to work together as a community WITHIN the community.  

Once your guild leader has formed the official guild in-game he can invite you, promote you to help share the burden of responsibilities and maybe even allow you to invite others. You will all wear your Guild Name with pride beneath your character name.

Maybe we will be able to add a function for you to design your own guild crest which you can proudly post on your character page. There will certainly be a Guild Hall or Castle or Keep or Town that you all work toward together to build up, improve, and customize to your liking where you can all meet and nobody except the members of the guild will be allowed to enter.  

Guilds are a LOT of fun. They add a lot to the entire gaming experience. Some of my best memories of some of the MMOs that i have played are things that I've done with my Guild and I've even made very strong  and long-lasting friendships in the real world with people that I've met in my guilds.

Now you know. You can see that this is a pretty HUGE project to do correctly and hopefully those of you who have been waiting for a very long time won't be disappointed by our efforts.

Recalculating...

191 days until Just Another Day

June 04, 2012

Summer of EPICness

Wall of AWESOME text ahead!

We fit A LOT into the first five months of the year... but we're not done yet! We've got some major, game-changing releases coming in AQWorlds this Summer. /Equip your Reading Glasses of Belief +5 and get ready for an eye-opening list of awesomeness!

This week I: Xan's Apprentice revealed!

Are you ready to get fired up? Xan is Lore's most powerful - and insane - Pyromancer... and he's ready to take on an apprentice. The only question is... which townsperson will it be?! Are YOU the unlucky one? If you aren't up to date on this story, /join volcano because this Friday's release looks like it will be Far(enheit) and away the most explosive Xan Saga release yet!

This week II: Alchemy Tradeskill!

Dumoose (with the help of Yorumi, J6, Samba, and Solrac) have been pushing to get the Alchemy tradeskill ready for release, and that time has come! This Friday you'll be able to train your Alchemy skill, which will let you create consumable potions by gathering and combining reagents!

Different reagents will be required to make different potions, and as you train your skill, you'll be able to unlock new ones. (Unless, of course, your attempt fizzles. You'll just have to see what happens then!) The reagents - like Chaoroot, Rhison Blood, and Dragon Scale) started dropping last week from monsters through out the game.

Potions that can be created include:

• Unstable Courage Tonic: Increase endurance by 16%, but reduce luck by 10% for 7 minutes 
• Honor Potion: Increase all damage by 50% but increase all mana costs by 15% for 25 seconds
  
• Pure Chaos Potion: This viscous fluid hardly seems safe to consume. Your eyes water fiercely just from the fumes escaping this bottle. Drink at your own risk.

Next week: Releasin' like a J6!

A Bounty-Hunter's got to hunt... and J6's search for... something... is far from over! One thing's for sure: prepare for an EPIC journey through space, farther than you've ever been and WAY more dangerous than you dream.

Next week II: BLoD/Sepulchure chains update!

Beleen crafted CRAZY-hard quest chains for the Blinding Light of Destiny and Sepulchure's Armor... but they're not done yet! We know there was a lot of confusion over the weekend about these quest chains, so we'd like to clear the misconceptions up.

Blinding Light of Destiny/Artix's quests

Go on the quests from Artix to create the Blinding [X] of Destiny weapon series. These weapons are the FIRST tier of weapons in this chain. They will be required if you want to merge up to the second and third tiers of weapons. The art for each tier will evolve into a more awesome form...  and the quest chain's ULTIMATE reward will be: the Blinding Light of Destiny axe that Artix wields!

Sepulchure's Armor/Vayle's quests

Battle through Vayle's quests to create darker versions of the Destiny weapon series. Just like with the Destiny weapons, they are the FIRST tier of weapons in a chain, and will also be required if you want to merge up to the second and third tiers. The quest chain's ULTIMATE reward will be: a new version of Sepulchure's Armor! 

There was some confusion late last week about whether this was still true, but we clarified with Beleen and Artix today and it WILL be release at the end of the chain. It will be similar to the DoomKnight armor, but will be a slightly different color (based on the more intimidating shade we used in the Sepulchure action figure).

New art for the Blade of Destiny/Blade of Shade

The current art for the Blade of Shade and Blade of Destiny is NOT permanent. Dage is creating new, more awesome art tomorrow that will be used instead of the current placeholder art. (Made by my very handy Emergency Build-a-Blade file.) We will showcase the re-designed art in tomorrow's Design Notes!

We were NOT planning on releasing that, but it slipped in accidentally. We push hard every week to produce the most epic releases possible, but sometimes mistakes do make it in-game. For those of you who saw the art for they had on Friday, you got a sneak peek of the Necrotic Light of Destiny!

Coming this Summer I: Dage vs Nulgath War!

Evil vs Evil, a world-shaking clash of titanic villains! Later this Summer, Dage the Evil's Undead Legion will take on Nulgath the Archfiend's mass of followers in an all-out, no-holds-barred battle for control of the Underworld! Expect EPIC gear, never-before-explored areas of the Underworld, and an all-new cinematic cutscene animated by Nulgath!

Coming this Summer II: The next Chaos Lord!

Many of you might have met a Chaorrupted Chronomancer in your travels... but you should never trust a stranger. Especially when THEY are trying to get a feel for who YOU are. This Summer you'll be (re)introduced to the next Chaos Lord, and he has MANY plans for you!

A Hero is a Hero, no matter what time or dimension they are battling in, and the same holds true for you. Learn how AQWorlds came to be created when Galanoth slew the Dragon of Time, and how the merging of AdventureQuest, DragonFable, and MechQuest created who you are NOW... and what it means for your future!

Coming this Summer III: Guilds!

Guilds ARE coming this Summer and we are PLANNING to do a lot with them*! The initial launch will happen at the end of June while Phase II will take place in late July on a member-only PTR server. (Public Test Realm server, where members can test... and BREAK... the new gameplay features we want to release!)

June:

Phase I will let you create and join guilds. We have yet to work out a LOT of the details (we are meeting later this week to finalize numbers/sizes/etc), but here is what Yorumi has working so far:

• Joining a guild
• Viewing a list of fellow guild members
• Guild-only chat
• Guild name displayed under your name

July:

Phase II, Yorumi says, SHOULD let your guild create a customizable guild town in which you can position the buildings you purchase. This involves re-working the way AQW's housing system works, but Yorumi has been making good progress.

He also wants to set up some system of GvG and GvE wars: Guild vs Guild and Guild vs Environment wars. Those may have to come later on, but it is something he REALLY wants to make happen. No promises, though.*

Again, there are still a LOT of details to work out, like member perks, the rules for guild leaders/members, etc. We will do a bigger Design Notes post once we have decided on these things,but those details might not come for a while.

We are REALLY excited about getting Guilds in-game finally! We hope you all are looking forward to them, as well. Yorumi would like to hear what YOU would like to see happen with guilds, so if someone could create a separate brainstorming thread on the forum, he says "thanks!"

* A plan is NOT a promise. Sometimes we talk about things to see what you think of them. Until we say "this is finished and is releasing," plans are subject to change. We are always excited about everything we plan on releasing, and sometimes we are just as disappointed- if not more - thank you guys are when things don't work out. 

Mod Search still underway!

Reens and Stratos have received SO MANY email applications to become an in-game moderator for AQWorlds! It will take them time to go through all the applications, but they WILL email the people they are interested in; unfortunately, they cannot reply to everyone. We will announce when those emails go out, so please hang tight.

Thank you to everyone who wants to help make this game as safe and awesome as possible, we really appreciate your desire to help!

Man, that was a LONG Design Notes with a LOT of information! We've got SO MUCH to do this Summer! We hope you guys are excited, because we are SO READY to heat this Summer up with epic releases!