Design Notes

December 04, 2013

Battle Wedding!?

Real-life Artix's wedding video

What happens in a video game creators wedding, stays in... nope. It goes right onto YouTube. This actually happened. Inspired by AdventureQuest Worlds weddings, the groomsmen wore Knight armor over their suits and you will not believe what happens next.  The only thing this video is missing is you... and we are going to fix that! Join us on Friday the 13th for the AQworlds  in-game wedding event!

If you find it worthy, please like and share this video.

Photo: Sylvain Gentile

October 30, 2012

Take Care Up North

Hurricane Sandy Has Landed

Quite a few of you felt the wrath of mother nature as Hurricane Sandy hammered the northeastern coast of the United States. This storm broke a lot of records and has already left thousands without power or homes. My own sister had to evacuate her apartment building in New York City last night as Manhattan lost power and the gas main for her building burst. She spent half the night wandering around with no safe place to go. She's fine now, if a little soggy, and so are all the rest of my friends up there in The City but it's a pretty bad scene.

I hope that all of you, your friends and your family are all safe up there in the frozen north.

If you want to help people who have lost their homes and find themselves without food or shelter you can donate to the American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund by clicking here.

Game Improvement Week

It's not a great name because we improve the game every week. Or try to, anyway.

This week we are spending time adding in the new revamped Book of Lore, and adding in the new Tutorial.

Before we set new accounts to go through the tutorial, we're going to release it for you guys and ask for your honest feedback on the AQW Forums. Once we've tweaked it out and made it as clean, fast and easy to understand as possible then we will add it to the beginning of the game. Yorumi is also fixing a lot of older bugs and TRYING to discover a new way to handle the inventory that might allow you to get more inventory space.

As you know we can't just add more as we are at the current possible limit that the game can handle.

You will help escort Twilly and Serval through the new tutorial!

We will also be adding a new wave of Mogloween Seasonal Rares and Committed Event Rares to those two shops this week. Don't forget that we still have the Birthday Event, the Alina and Rolith Wedding, the Committed Mogloween Special and the normal seasonal Mogloween releases in-game for a limited time. If you haven't played through all of those, now would be a good time to get caught up!

ONE DAY LEFT for 4th UPHOLDER!

Don't forget that tomorrow is Oct 31st, which is the LAST DAY to Upgrade and become a 4th Upholder. You will have a chance to become a 5th upholder next year but you will miss out on the rare Star Swords, the Character Page Badge and the sheer awesomeness of being a 4th Upholder!

51 days until Just Another Day

October 19, 2012

The Wedding of Alina and Rolith

Time After Time

Today has been an AMAZING day! First you guys finish a war fought in SIX AE GAMES and save Artix Entertainment from the clutches of EbilCorp and now, riding high on the spirit of victory, Alina and Rolith are holding their wedding and all of you amazing players are invited to share in the fun!

Right now, Alina and Rolith are off taking care of the millions and millions of last minute details that make weddings so sweet and stressful at the same time. Alina was inspired by her total lack of time when writing her wedding event. When one of your friends is getting married, it's THEIR day and you want to do everything you can to help them out. Now it's YOUR chance to help out the happy couple!

In the event you will find the usual assortments of great wedding rares like the Silver and Gold Eternal Flame and Rolith's Berry Mug but Alina and Rolith's friends have also brought some really strange items for everyone!

For a very long time Rolith thought that pigs would fly before he found the love of his life. In honor of his winning Alina's hear, J6 has crafted a few flying pig pets and matching capes. Beleen (with some help from Jemini) has crafted Derpy Pet versions of all of the couple's friends.

Dage crafted the Playa' set and for those of you with INSANELY EXPENSIVE TASTE there is also the Playa' Bling set (honestly... and I'm being totally serious... this set was so stupid that we priced it stupid expensive).

We are SO happy for Alina and Rolith and we hope you have fun helping them get everything done before they say their vows. Thanks for being there for them!

NOTE: There WILL be a Book of Lore achievement for this event which we will add NEXT WEEK.

EBILCORP Has Been Defeated!

It was close but you guys pin some super human effort and somehow, even with Chairman Platinum adding 800,000 more monsters to the war at the last minute, you were able to drive them out of ALL SIX MAJOR AE GAMES AT THE SAME TIME!

We have never had an event on this scale and you guys have really proven that you CANNOT be stopped! You an see Chairman's Video post and Our Thank You Video on ARTIX.COM! We have opened the AE Underground Lab to everyone who helped save the company!

You have also unlocked a 4th Birthday Shop, a 4th Birthday Merge Shop, raised the level cap to 50 and unlocked the new Chunin Rare Birthday Class. You can read my Skills breakdown for the class Here.

Lastly, as a special thank you every player of AQW has received 200 free AdventureCoins as well as roughly the same amount of in-game currency in EACH of the other five main AE games! Check your AQ Classic, DragonFable, MechQuest, EpicDuel and HeroSmash accounts!

Thank you all for helping us throw our biggest birthday party ever, and for helping us build AE from the ground up and keep is going strong for the last ten amazing years. We literally couldn't have done this without your support, feedback and love.

62 days until Just Another Day

October 18, 2012

800,000 Monsters!

Chairman Platinum Plays Dirty!

I think the Chairman is getting desperate.

He's losing this war and he knows it. He knows that he can't possibly win against an army of gamers united under the common goal of fighting for the survival of the game company which you all helped to build.

Today, only EpicDuel and AQ Classic were left fighting their wars, but things were getting a little too hot for our suited foe so he his his big red button and released 800,000 reserve monsters into AQW!

We only have until Friday to defeat all the EbilCorp Monsters and save the Artix Entertainment Game Network and I think we can do it!

Chunin Class Preview

VoT is gone so that means that it's time for a new AQW Birthday Class, the rare Chunin Class arrives when all the war meters reach 100%!

That's right, I said Rare. You will only be able to buy this class with AdventureCoins until next October and it is removed from the game forever.

BUT here's the good part. As a special bonus for those of you who are here to help us battle and save the network, we are offering you the chance to EARN this NON-MEMBER class (all of the other set pieces, 2 helms, 2 cloaks) for free!

The chance to earn the class will only last until the birthday event closes and takes all the rares with it (about a month from when we win). You will have to farm to earn the class BUT you won't have to come back every day and earn it like you did with VoT.

All you have to do is earn 300 Chunin tokens and the class is yours. Non-members can earn one at a time but Members can earn two extra for a grand total of 3 at a time, and you can farm the quests for the tokens non-stop as fast as you want!

This class is a strength based warrior type class which is designed to take on multiple enemies at once. It has no heal but every power debuffs the enemies ability to hit or damage you so it has a very high survivability!

Come back tomorrow for the full Chunin Skills Breakdown!

Alina and Rolith Get Married!

Tomorrow you can also expect the Alina and Rolith wedding event. Since the real Alina and Rolith are getting married this weekend you will actually get to see them get married BEFORE they really get married!

As the real couple scrambles to get all the last minute prep-work done for their real wedding you will be helping their characters take care of all of THEIR last minute disasters! This will probably be a little closer to a real life wedding than any of us would like to admit.

I hope you can make it and help the AE family wish Alina and Rolith many years of happiness together!

4th Upholder!

The month of October is already half gone and Mogloween fast approaches. Remember that you only have two weeks left to grab your piece of history and become a 4th upholder!

To learn more, read m,y earlier 4th Upholder Design Notes. That will tell you everything that you need to know about how to get your character page badge and your TWO rare Star Swords!

63 days until Just Another Day

October 16, 2012

Time is Running Out

Before EbilCorp's Operation Gameocide is Engaged!

AQWorlds has defeated the dastardly Chairman Platinum and his army of EbilCorp minions! /cheer! BUT our gaming network isn't safe yet! We only have until 6PM Friday, and there are still THREE games in danger of being overwhelmed by EbilCorp - EpicDuel, MechQuest, and AdventureQuest. Save our games to save Artix Entertainment...

Click the pic to watch the war meters' progress!

And Unlock the AQWorlds 4th Birthday Party Finale!

We KNOW you guys battle hard when faced with a challenge... so when we're faced with the BIGGEST challenge Artix Entertainment has ever fought, we are even MORE certain that you will win. So much that here in the Secret Underground Lab, now that AQW is safe, we've started preparing for your birthday party!

Cake tastes WAY better than server hamster pellets.

The best Secret Underground Lab parties include boss fights... and cake fights! And yours shouldn't be any different! We'll provide the boss AND the cake, but you've got to make your way down here first!

We've got some EPIC rewards planned, including the:

• New Rider armor from Dage
• DrAEGon of Artix Cape
• Prismatic Pegalion Cape
• Brilliant Derp Fish
• CyberNet Warrior Armor
• Double Agent Zorbak Pet
• And more!

We SAID there was more: the Chunin Class!

Earlier today Cysero polled you guys and came up with this month's newest Class: the Chunin, an evolved ninja-type class. This warrior-based Class is shaping up to be a Multi-Hit DPS-dealer, and here's the first concept sketch straight from Cysero's drawing-pad to your internets:

Fade into the shadows after dealing an unseen death blow!

Time for ONE MORE RELEASE, I hope... my Wedding!

I've always been a dreamer, but I'm a pretty organized person, too. I've got a list for just about everything: what the team needs to do next week, next month, and yesterday. Lists for what needs to be done before my wedding day... and before the in-game wedding event.

And it's becoming VERY clear that with everything we've been doing these last few weeks (like the all-game war we are fighting RIGHT NOW) that there just isn't going to be time to get everything done! But THAT is where YOU come in!

A dream is a wish your heart makes.
This wedding is an event that YOU'LL save.

With as incredible as you guys are, I have no doubt that you will save Artix Entertainment. I sure HOPE so, because otherwise Alina and Rolith won't get married (in-game, at least. It'd make for a more frenzied real wedding day, too, since so many team members are going to be there)!

Peacocks symbolize immortality, wisdom, and peace.*

So, what do you say? If we can crush EbilCorp, do you think your Hero would have enough strength and energy left to help make Alina's wedding to DragonFable's Rolith take place? There's a LOT left to do, and NOT a lot of time left!

* Alchemists used to think the fan of the peacock was associated with certain items useful in turning base metals into gold... Perfect for making a Golden Eternal Flame cape!

September 28, 2012

The Marriage of J6

A Wedding In Three Acts.

J6, AQW's Lead Artist, has worked on just about every game we have ever made or currently have in production. He's got his own faction of rabid followers, his own t-shirt on HeroMart and has drawn many of the items and almost ALL of the maps that you walk around during every new release. He is an amazingly talented artist and craftsman who has also made real life sculptures of Artix, Galanoth's Dragonslayer Helm and his own J6 Helm.

He is capable, versatile and best of all very, very fast. This dude is a machine who has never failed to meet or best any task that we've thrown at him no matter how busy he is.

J6 lives and works from Canada so we don't get to see him as often as we'd like but when he does visit, Cinazool always comes with him. She is a kind, bubbly, fun, friendly and stunningly beautiful woman and after years of dating, they have finally decided to tie the knot and you're invited! 

Artix was actually able to fly up to the great white north to attend the real wedding earlier this month, but for those of us who couldn't make it we have crafted this special in-game event for you. J6 honored me by asking me to write the event and keep all details about it from him. He wanted to be surprised. 

I was so stressed about making it funny that I got writers block and went through four complete re-writes. Everyone on the AQW team chipped in on this one and I even managed to trick J6 into doing the art for Captain Stubbing and the Love Goat map.

If you complete the event, you will be awarded the J6 Wedding Badge in your Book of Lore (not a character page badge) and you will also unlock all of the Member, Non-Member and AC items in J6's Wedding Shop. You will also find a lot of new drops on the various goats found in the release and on Filthy McGee.

As usual there are the stock wedding items like the Bounty Hunter's Berry Mug, the Silver Eternal Flame, Cinazool's Wedding Bouquet and some others but we also have some brand new armors, helms, back items, weapons and pets in this special event.

Congrats, J6 and Cinazool. May you have the best of all possible lives together.

Four NEW Rare Houses in J6's House Shop!

Click the "Rare House Shop" button in Battleon to check out J6's four NEW rare houses! These aren't just ANY new houses, either. They have a secret, owner-only entrance, so that no one can enter unless YOU are home! If you want your friends to gain entrance, you'll need to go to your /house and then they will need to /goto YOU!

Guild Renaming is LIVE and FREE this weekend!

Check your Guild menu to see how to re-name it! This weekend only, Guild re-naming is FREE!  On Monday it will begin costing AdventureCoins. Be warned, if your client is cached, your name change may not appear immediately.

Vindicator of They Leaves Oct 12th!

It's been almost one year since we did our special They Might Be Giants AQW Birthday event and as we mentioned when we released it... we only have the rights to use this stuff in AQW for a year. Our contract with TMBG expires on October 12th, so on that day the event will be locked forever. No more rep farming quests, no more special songs that they wrote and performed just for AQW and no more Vindicator of They Class.

Time is growing short. If you haven't had the chance to earn the Vindicator class and items, remember that you still have a few weeks to buy it from Itzachi in Battleon.

83 days until Just Another Day

September 24, 2012

Bounty on Bachelors

J6 is Getting (Has Been) Married!

The love J6 and Cinazul share shines brighter than the largest gold bounty! As Artix announced on his Design Notes post, J6 married his long-time love Cinazool a week ago, but since you guys couldn't make that one... we're holding his in-game wedding FRIDAY!

You can't put a price on true love!

Cysero's written an epic event worthy of one of Artix Entertainment's long-time artists... complete with Cake, Cruise, AND Crashers! Get ready to celebrate, but bring your sharpest blade because the battle for true love is NEVER over!

Wedding Rares coming this Friday:

• Silver Eternal Flame
• J6 Wedding Cake Helm
• Honeymoon Hyperium House
• And more!

Rare House Shop This Wednesday!

J6 hasn't been busy enough getting married, so in his spare time, he's made a few new Houses for you and your friends to /party in!

The only house bigger on the inside than the outside.

There will also be House versions of the Temple of Hope and the Cleric Temple!

My 1st Battle-pet Shop!

Meet Balboa. He trains Battle-pets to fight alongside the Heroes of Lore! And this Wednesday (or maybe Thursday...) he'll set up shop in Battleon to introduce you to his newest stable of creature-companions!

Samba will have more news in tomorrow's Design Notes about what to expect in this Battle-tastic shop!

February 06, 2012

Time Marches Ever Onward

Last Chances!

Today is February 6th. That means that the Friday the 13th House and Event Rare Shops will be going rare and that the Akiba New Year event will be leaving as well and taking with it all the great seasonal items and rares (like the non-member AC pet) with it. 

so long, PanLong!

New Beginnings!

Lady Azjurai is getting married tomorrow! If you weren't aware, Lady Az is a Mod on AQW but started out years ago as a player just like you, she was asked to help out on the forums then eventually moved to full AQW Mod and we count ourselves lucky for all the help and pre-release testing that she has been able to provide.

Finding love is a rare and wonderful thing and very often you want to share you feelings and celebrate with those who mean the most to you. In this case, she had decided that she wants to share her happy day with all of us in the AQW community.

Later tonight (or tomorrow at the very latest), you will be able to find Lady Azjurai in Battleon and she will be offering to share some items with you.

The Ruby Eternal Flame, Romantic Raccoon Helm (She has a thing for raccoons) and the Evil Toaster of Love.

I'm told that this was the first appliance that the two love-birds purchased as a couple and has given them nothing but grief since they plugged it in. It seems to actually have an evil face on it and it will burn the toast no matter what setting you put it on. Lady A and her bethrothed have many fond memories of running around their place, fanning toast smoke out of the window and laughing together.

Lady Az, we could not be more happy for you. Thanks for sharing your happy day with us and we all wish you guys the very best that life has to offer. Gratz!

I CAN HAS MOD Round 3!

It's been a while since we've mentioned it so this is just a wee reminder that the next I CAN HAS MOD winner will be selected on February 13th. To enter the drawing all you have to do is get the Golden Cheezburger Deluxe from Cleric Joy in Battleon. That gives you one chance to win.

Every months of AQW Membership left on your account on the date of the drawing and every AEXTRA that you complete will also increase your chances by one more entry.

Here is the FULL CONTEST PAGE if you have more questions.

REAL LIFE Limited Quantity Shop!

2012 is already in full swing, and pretty much everyone who wanted the ChronoCorruptor Class that comes with the 2012 AQW Calendar now has it, but I keep getting asked if this class is going rare.

Going RARE, one calendar at a time!

The short answer is that YES, it is going rare. We only have a few hundred 2012 Calendars left in HeroMart, and there are still a few floating around the US Toys R Us stores, but that's it.

We can't possibly print an infinite amount of calendars so, no matter what, there will only ever be a limited number of these classes in AQW.

Heroes Heart Day Is Coming Friday!

AQW's Valentine's Day Event, Heroes Heart Day, is coming so expect to be burried under a wave of pink hearts, thorny roses and chocolate with confusing cream centers.

This Heroes Heart Day we are going all out with special Musical Guest Mia J. Park so sadly there will be no time for a Mid-Week Release this week but you can expect this event to blow our previous Heroes Heart Day adventures out of the water. 

Special reporter Artix Von Krieger has more on the event. Back to you in the studio, Artix...

Artix?

Sorry folks, we seem to be experiencing some techincal difficulties. We'll check back in with Artix in tomorrow's Design Notes for that Special Report. See you then!

319 days until Just Another Day

March 04, 2011

Nythera’s Wedding Event!

Nythera is to wed Ryuuji the Half-Dragon Elf… and you’re invited!

Love is in the air! Nythera the Half-Dragon Purple Mage is tying the knot in real life and in game!

This is a very special release for everyone here at the lab and all of our friends… including you! We couldn’t possibly be more excited to see the head of AE Player Support getting married to her life-long friend, Ryuuji. Morale is at an all time high!

Although their love is ever-lasting in real life... Nythera in game isn’t exactly excited about the marriage… because it was pre-arranged by her parents from birth! During tonight’s release, it will be up to you and your friends to save the big day and become part of AQW History!  

Travel deep within the Void to never-before-seen areas and help Nythera find a loophole in her wedding contract. Brand new Void monsters can be found patrolling this unexplored landscape along with bunches of new quests, new zone music, amazing cutscenes, and—of course—new items!

Did you say... NEW ITEMS!?!?!!

Not only are the Void baddies loaded with drops, the Event Rare shop in the Void Temple has some of the most AWESOME items we’ve ever seen! Some are Member only, some are ACs, and some can be obtained by everyone who joins (or crashes!) the wedding ceremony!    

There are 18 Event Rare Items in the shop that are up for grabs. Dage the Evil, Xyo, J6, and Lodarazs really went above and beyond making these spectacular armors, helms, capes, and weapons for you to show off during Nythera’s special day. As Event Rares, these items will only be available for a limited time, so make sure you get these items before the Event closes next Friday!

Speaking of Limited Time…

Dage the Evil’s birthday was on Wednesday! He has a special shop in Battleon that is selling some of his personal items, including that Dark Caster Armor that EVERYONE loves!

This shop will be leaving this Monday, March 7^th, so make sure you get these items before they go RARE. And since Dage IS evil… I don’t think he’ll be releasing these items ever again.

On behalf of the Team...

The entire Staff at Artix Entertainment wants to wish Nythera and Ryuuji many happy years of eternal bliss! Our warmest wishes go out to the newly-wedded couple… and also to you! We want to thank you for making AdventureQuest Worlds possible!! =D

Really, it is because of you that we are able to create this game and host one-of-a-kind events like this one. Whether you helped by upgrading to Member, making suggestions, supported us by getting AdventureCoins, squashed bugs, clicked on ads, tested new features, or helped your fellow players on the forums -- you are the reason this game is online for everyone to enjoy!

Thank you! And Marriage ON!      

March 01, 2011

Nythera & Ryuuji

Two Half-Dragons In Love!

This Friday: Nythera, the hard-working half-dragon in charge of AE Player Support is getting married this weekend and and you're all invited!

About 1000 years ago, The Purple Mage's parents arranged her marriage to Ryuuji, another very magically talented half-dragon. Just one problem... Nythera has NO interest in getting married, no matter what her parents agreed to.

She thinks she can get out of the marriage contract promising her to Ryuuji but she will need your help and Ryuuji will stop at nothing to win her heart.

As promised, there will be a number of rare items including (but not limited to) some AC rares and since so many of you have been asking for it through e-mails and tweets, the Violet Eternal Flame back item will be one of them.

Much like my wedding event, Nythera plans on getting married just once so this is literally a once-in-a-lifetime event. Don't miss it. Come and help us celebrate and if you can't make it, please stop by the Forums and wish her good luck! :)

Dage's Evil Birthday!

Tomorrow, March 2nd is Dage The Evil's Birthday and to celebrate he has decided to come to Battleon and offer you some of his items, including the highly anticipated Dark Caster armor!

For you Dage The Evil fans, this will be one of the only times when you can grab a few of his items for gold/ACs instead of buckets full of Legion Tokens. These items will ONLY be in game starting tomorrow March 2nd, until Monday Mar 7th. The shop will open sometime during the day.

Dage has requested that the armor price be set to 2000 ACs as he has previously mentioned over Twitter. I just don't want anyone surprised by this.

Bugs and Progress

There has been a lot of recent discussion about bugs and I wanted to adress these concerns and also ask for additional help from you guys.

Some people are concerned that they haven't seen any progress on some of our bigger (actually huge) ticket items. Specifically Guilds, Name Changes, Gender Changes and PvP improvements.

Please understand that each of these projects are fairly big to enormous and require a LOT of time and effort on behalf of the entire team especially considering that we release new content every week, and not just a hat or two but usually a full adventure with music and at least one animated cutscene.

Even comping up with a concept for an easy and fun way for you guys to build and run YOUR OWN guilds while keeping the game family friendly is a challenge, much less the back end.

Name Changes require changing the entire flow of the Login process to require a Portal Account  among other things, plus deciding how far back to go and sieze names of innactive accounts which is bound to make a few returning players mad.

PvP is a constant pain, which requires real-time positioning (so you see your enemy where is, instead of where he sees himself so you're not attaching his ghost image whule he wails on you from behind. It's a lot more calls than normal positioning within the game (except for the Ledgermayne battle). Balancing PvP against PvE (Player versus Environment) is an uphill battle that every MMO has to come up with a solution for (and the most popular MMO on Earth still struggles with) especially in trying to keep up with player demand for new classes, which is one of the most constantly requested game additions.

Lag. It's like snot. Everyone has it and, no matter what you do, it is sometimes unavoidable. Making a Flash based MMO gives us the power to reach a LOT more people than we ever could if we made a console RPG or an MMO that required a client download. A very large amount of our players play from internet cafes and librarys. Unfortunately Flash has some drawbacks and one of them is that it's very prone to lag, but some of it also comes from older computers, slower browsers, intermittent internet connectivity due to the ISP or a wireless connection and some of the lag comes from the servers as well. I'm sure you've noticed how hard it is to log in after a restart. That is because everyone is trying to crowd into the servers at the same time and just like a real door... it gets clogged when everyone tries to run through at once. We are always fighting lag and we are really sorry for the lag you experience.

Each of these items presents their own unique challenges plus keep up with our weekly release bugs and some of those are game-crahsers.

Here's where you come in... WE NEED BUG REPORTS. Everytime we get a bug report we try to replicate it to see if it was a real bug that we can track and fix or just a code-hiccup. We go through the bug reports for EVERY release in GREAT DETAIL and try and fix every bug that we can duplicate, but we can't fix the broken bits of AQW without your help.

Please, when you encounter a bug go to the AQW Bugs Forum and REPORT IT! The more details you can give us the faster we can get it fixed. There are sections for just about every kind of issue you can imagine and without your detailed bug reports, we don't know that they are there.

October 13, 2010

Korin's Wedding

Beware of Just Married Mecha!

I thought you guys would like the behind the scenes scoop on MechQuest Lead Korin's wedding to the beautiful EpicDuel artist Char this weekend. It was breathtaking! Taking place outside on a sunny farmhouse in huge green field near a stream with a wooden bridge. The groomsmen marched up to the alter like koopa troopas to an orchestrial version of the Mario Bros theme song. His wife-to-be arrived via a white-horse-drawn carriage to a much more fitting song. They exchanged their vows in the ceremony and when the part came to "kiss the bride" Korin.... well, he... and I am not making this up... just shook her hand and a confident nod. (Funniest thing I have ever seen) Later that night at the reception the couples first dance was to Tim & Eric's "Doo dah doo doo"... the entire bridal party and (... sings, "I want to meet that Dad") their parents joined in a semi-choreographed special dance. There was also a swarm of killer mosquitos. Congratulations to the lucky couple :-) Korin's Battle Mecha was fitted with cans on strings and a big JUST MARRIED sign.