Design Notes

Midnight Maker

July 17, 2012

Fixes, Fighting, Fiction

All Coming This Week in AQWorlds!

Today (it's still Monday if you haven't slept yet, right?) was a really busy day! Every Monday is, but this one more than most. Along with the usual meetings, discussions about release work, and sharing out tasks, we had a few key points we needed to pin down before the team could really get in gear for the week's work.

First up, BIG (soon to be) fixes!

We mentioned recently that one of the latest Flash Player updates has caused the lag increase to skyrocket. We refuse to accept the limitations imposed on us by an outside company, so we're doing everything we can do create our own work-around... even if that means recoding an important part of the engine.

Yorumi is handing over the weekly map-coding work to Dumoose so that he can concentrate on getting this issue dealt with as fast and as thoroughly as possible. We aren't sitting on this problem; it is the TOP priority for the entire AQW team. (And AE's other programmers want to know how to fix issues like this to prevent or reduce them in their games. /cheer for teamwork!)

This afternoon, Yorumi met with Captain Rhubarb, Titan, and Rolith (after speaking with Zhoom previously) about this issue. That's a LOT of programming power focused on fixing this lag issue. We don't have a solution yet, but we DO have promising avenues of investigation.

We will keep you updated as we have more solid answers!

Second, normal-sized fixes!

We also worked on getting the last of the issues from the Friday the 13th/War release fixed. That is a large part of what Yorumi does on Mondays, and while working on the lag issue, he also looked into the War Glaive error, the bugged riddle minigame from Friday the 13th, and some other things.

Fight Against Evil... with Evil!

Part 2 of the Dave* vs Nulgath war releases this Friday! Get ready for more gear, more quests, and more areas of the Underworld to explore! All of the shops will get new items - ACs, Legion/Diamond merge shops, and the regular war merge shops!

Klunk should now be dropping the Facebasher Mace +13 for all loyal Legion followers and any mercenary brave enough to fight with them!

Two MORE minibosses will release with this Friday's war. Will YOUR side be the first to unlock theirs? Remember, the Legion won the first skirmish in the war, but that doesn't mean the Nulgath Nation are out of the game. Rally together and fight for your commander!

Note: Nulgath will not release the second installment of his cinematic war cutscenes. As intricate as they are, they take much longer than a week to produce. He will continue working on that as he has time and will release it as soon as it's polished.

In the meantime, Samba will create an action-packed cutscene that will put you right in the middle of the battle!

* Leaving my original typo in because I make it SO often! /redpenrage

Nulgath Waits... and Watches!

The week before last I wrote a story Design Notes that focused on Dage the Evil. Nulgath appeared briefly, as that lent dramatic tension to the scene. But this week I think it's time we take a closer look at what is happening in the ArchFiend's command tent. Get ready to watch the story unfold from an entirely new perspective. What you learn may very well save your sanity... or your soul.