Design Notes

May 01, 2012

News-day Tuesday

Dia do Trabalhador!

It's the first of May, and that means it's time to celebrate in countries around the world! In Brasil, it's also the Dia do Trabalhador, and to get into the espírito de celebração we're adding a new armor and helm to the Paymentez shop tonight! Brightly colored and ready for battle, /equip this new gear and you'll be good to go - whether fighting on the field or partying in the streets!

Players in Brasil are able to purchase memberships and AdventureCoins via Paymentez; this unlocks a special shop full of awesome gear!

Cinco de Mayo 2012!

Grab your maracas and string up your sweetest pinata, because Cinco de Mayo is almost here! This Friday night, the Cinco de Mayo 2012 shop will return!

The shop's packed fuller than the pinata pet with equips for the whole /party!

• Maracas and Dos Maracas weapons!
• Mariachi Armor!
• Sombrero and Big Sombrero helms!
• Pinata Pet! (It leaves a trail of candy when it runs!

And our second favorite part of the Cinco de Mayo holiday: it's Randor the Red's birthday! He will be featuring his birthday shop in HeroSmash this year! So fly on over and grab the gear to smash your opponents while /cheering for Randor!

MechQuest MayPril Fools' Mech

It's the first of May, and if you're familiar with MechQuest, our mecha-robots-in-space game, you'll know that means the Maypril Fools' mech is here! This year, Korin, Maegwyn, and the MQ team have launched the Loki Mecha into orbit... and the holiday shop! (And don't miss the one-day quest!) For more information about the Mecha, head here!

What is MechQuest, you ask?

Good question! MechQuest is the 3rd game released by Artix Entertainment back in 2008. Once you login, you'll begin a journey that catapults you from life as a student at G.E.A.R.S. University (campus location: central Soluna City, Planet Loreon) into one of the key fighters in the war against the evil and powerful Shadowscythe!

Make off-world alliances, right wrongs, and blast through battles across the universe! Armed with an energy blade for on-foot skirmishes and a hangar full of GIANT fighting machines (aka "mecha"), lasers, cannons, explosives - really, anything that goes BOOM - you'll be ready to rock the galaxy and save the universe from total destruction!

What's new in MQ?

Planet Romero is the newest, undead-liest zone in MechQuest's storyline.  Warlic, the Dean of G.E.A.R.S. University, needs your assistance: board your ship and travel to Planet Romero, currently being exploited by the giant conglomerate EbilCorp for pharmaceutical testing.

Investigate reports of creatures described as "walking dead" and meet up with a certain Paladin (we're pretty sure you'll recognize him!) Adventure onward to learn about EbilCorp's latest wonderdrug, Poozom. (Hint: Expect to battle Zombies.  Lots and lots of Zombies!)*

*Thanks to DrDOT and Plasma Charge for the Romero screenshots!

Friday the 13th rares leave tonight!

Have you battled the Sleezter Bunny yet? If not, /join sleezter and take on an army of bunny clones bound to destroy Lore! While you're there, pick up your Friday the 13th rares, because they're leaving tonight!

Shadowscythe Mousepad coming to HeroMart!

We've made ourselves some mousepads! (No ShadowScythe mice, sadly.) We're going to put a small test-batch in HeroMart soon to see how well they sell. If you want to show your allegiance to the ShadowScythe while battling the baddest baddies in Lore, keep any eye on Twitter and the Design Notes for news of when they arrive!

Coming with the mousepad is the epic Shadow Steel armor! The shadows will never be as silent as when you're sneaking through them in this gear! (Made of specially-muffled metal!)

Dage the Evil livedraw tomorrow at 4pm!

If you're online tomorrow at 4PM, make sure to login to AQWorlds and /join stream to see Dage the Evil's first in-game livedraw event and the last of our 5-week Livedraw series! What will he make? That's up to you! But knowing Dage, it'll be EPIC!

See you guys tomorrow as we continue working our fingers to the bone (skeleton reference!) to create the first release in Doomwood Part 2: Whispers of the Darkness Lord!

November 11, 2010

The DoomKnight Room

"Never Give Up" Achievement Unlocked

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

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

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

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

OMG.. PLANE LEAVING! 

Talk to you again soon friends. BATTLE ON!