May 31, 2011

Zorbak, the Ebil Blue Moglin!

Visit Zorbak's House in DoomWood!

This weekend, the DoomWood story continues. Artix has discovered that there is a new undead threat in DoomWood and is racing to join you in smashing wave after wave of crunchy undead soldiers... and you HAVE to stop him.

If you don't understand WHY you should be keeping Artix from doing battle what he does best then you should go play last week's chapter of DoomWood right now!

A lot of people have been asking about Vordred the Paladin Slayer. They haven't figured out a way to defeat him.

People have said that if you have 3 Palis or a Pali and 3 healers or if you turn the sound off then you can defeat him. Those folks are either mistaken or they are yanking your chain on purpose.

Vordred CANNOT BE DEFEATED!

You may ask, "Then why add him into the game if he can't be defeated?. Because Artix, Alina and I did not want you to take our words for it. It's one thing to say "Oh, this bad guy is an undefeatable evil. Watch out. OOOOoooOOOOooOOOOoo!" but when you get your rear handed to you over and over again by a guy who is more skulls than anything else, it's something else entirey. Vordred cannot be defeated by any known method on Lore.

This weekend you will journey deeper into DoomWood past the undead Chopping Maul (get it?) to the home of the one and only ebil, blue moglin... Zorbak.

The first time you entered the DoonWood Necropolis (in DragonFable) you couldn't have done it without Zorbak's... uh..."help". Maybe he has some information on Vordred and whomever created him to defeat the Paladin Order.

Oh Yeah...

We are also finally raising the level cap to 40 this weekend!

Quibble Coinbiter's DoomWood Shop!

Once again, Quibble Coinbiter is heading back to Battleon this weekend to set up shop.

He's fully restocked with a bunch of DoomWood, undead and other themed (never-before-seen, slightly used) rares and items. As usual, MOST (or possibly ALL) of his items will be AC items so now is the time to renew your supply if you are running low.

Normally Quibble's arrivals seem to line up with the arrival of a new Chaos Lord or Chaos Beast... but on rare occassions, like this Friday, he's just in the neighborhood and has the goods to sell.

LAST DAY TO GET HEROSMASH FOUNDER!

Tonight at 11:59 PM EST is the last chance you will EVER HAVE to become a HeroSmash Founder!

Remember that once the clock strikes midnight here on (or in this case, several stories below) the east coast of the United States... you will never again have the chance to become a HeroSmash Founder. Do not miss this oppritunity.

Or if you do miss out, Please don't ask me over Twitter if it will be coming back. Cause it won't.

THE NPC's CD Is Back In Stock!

Faith has just told me that after nearly 2 month, we finally have more of the NPC's Critical Hits CD featuring music from a lot of our games is back in stock!

The CD comes with special musical themed items in AQW, AQ Classic, DF, MQ, ED and WarpForce! If you want one of these, head to HEROMART and grab one before they are gone!

...

Again!

NEXT WEEK... (as in NOT this week)... NECROMANCER CLASS RETURNS!

It was one of the favorite parts of the PTR experience for most of those who helped us test. The Necromancer!

NEXT WEEK, it will be returning to AQW with a whole new set of powers... the Tower of Necromancy.Here's the bet part... it will be usable by ANYONE. That's right, Necromancer is for both Members and Non-Members!

We've decided to try an few interesting things with this class. First off it will be a PET class. That means that you will be able to summon a base skeleton pet who will do your fighting for you. You will cast necromantic spells on your pet to deal more damage to your opponent, return mana to you or even steal your foe's lifeforce.

This means that we will also be (eventually, not next week) adding a new type of Item to AQW, Battle Pets. Pet classes like Necromancer (and future pet classes) will be able to equip these pets to attack for them, and use their skills to help their companions or undead slaves fight. Equippable Battle Pets might even have special skills that only that pet can use.

As they are Pets, almost all Battle Pets will be MEMBER ONLY, however the base pet that comes with the class will be usable by anyone. Next week, however, you should be able to summon the Basic Skeleton to fight for you using Necromancer.

Something else that we are trying... 2 different ways to get the Necromancer Class.

The first way will require a LOT of hard work. You will need to reach DoomWood Reputation Rank 10 to get one of the items that you require to obtain this class... THEN you will have to battle your way through the Tower of Necromancy. If you survive the trials you will be awarded the class.

The second way to obtain the class is buying it with ACs. No muss, no fuss, no rank, no nearly-impossible tasks to compplete... just slip the Tower Necromancers their asking price and POOF... the class is yours.

We've never done an AC class before, and I didn't think we ever would due to some complications in the AQW engine but our amazing coding team has broken down that barrier and it has become possible. We know that a LOT of people would rather pay ACS and save the time and effort so we are giving them that option.

Other than the AC/NON-AC nature of the classes they will not be different in any way. In fact, you can even get both if you want to but you will need to rank each class up seperately.

NOTE: All of this could change at any moment. It's currently in production so we could encounter some game crashing bug that sets us back a week or more, and we don't know the AC price for the AC version of the class yet.

Sadly, if you DID test the class in PTR you will NOT be able to keep the ranks that you earned there.

The only reason I'm telling you guys about this is that it's pretty exciting and Yorumi has not encountered any massive roadblocks so far. Fingers crossed!

Keep in mind that DoomWood will ALSO have another MEMBER-ONLY class coming as the zone progresses. Keep reading the Design Notes for more details on that!