November 26, 2015

Happy Thanksgiving, Heroes!

Thank you for battling alongside us

2015 is FLYING by - it's hard to believe we've just released our 7th Thanksgiving event... and even harder to believe that December arrives next week! But it's the time of the year to remember how far we've come, and to be grateful to those who've gotten us here.

It's been a crazy year so far - Yorumi has been pushing hard on the server rewrite, and we've brought in additional coding help to give him the boost he needs to finish the last pieces of it. We've finished the first Queen of Monsters Saga in Embersea, then brought on more writers to help us take the story to deeper, darker, and more intense places. We had the Return of the Devs summer event, which saw Artix, Cysero, and Beleen come back to the AQW team for a few weeks to tell tales of their own, and we saw the internet evolving all around us as Flash and various browsers made changes that will affect how you play AQWorlds...

But through it all, we've had you guys battling alongside us as we tackled those issues and brainstormed ways to rise beyond them - like Artix's announcement about taking AQWorlds onto mobile in 2016.* I am genuinely grateful to all of you who join us each week as we bring you new releases, stories, gear, and more.  Each week, we read your comments and feedback and take those back as we develop the next series of events. 

As I sit here on vacation** in the frozen wilds of South Dakota, far from the Secret Underground Lab where I usually write Design Notes, I'm reminded of how much I appreciate what we get to do every week because of you guys: telling stories, building worlds, making peace and war and videogames. 

So thank you, heroes. (Yes, you. With the armor on. Right there, reading this.) And a huge thank you to the volunteer artists, designers, testers, moderators, archknights, and other staff who work their computer processors down to the last byte bringing you epic gear to equip, awesome adventures, and friendly places to play/discuss them in.

Without all of you, there wouldn't be an Artix Entertainment. When we say we make our games with and for you, it's the truth. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

* And how about AQW on Steam? Seems like a logical step, right? Right!
** "Isn't writing Design Notes work?" I was asked. "You are very bad at vacationing!" Saying thank you is never work - especially not during Thanksgiving!