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Design Note Archive - See the good,
bad, and the buggly -- all the way from the start!
Rolith
Is Working...
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Orginization is Your Friend!
So, while Cysero is on the phone with tech support muttering over his dying laptop some secret incantations to try to get it to last one more week, I decided to drop in and fill you in a bit on what’s been going on around the secret underground lab!
This week, we’ll hopefully see the boss battle with the Ice Dragon War, (Have you been fighting? I Have!) as well as several new quests. One new floor in Lymcrest has been completed (We’re going to go with larger floors coming out spread over time, with every fifth being saved as a checkpoint) as well as a new quest in Oaklore for our new players, as well as those of you who just can’t get enough of the Pactagonal Knights.
With the new monsters being coded for the Oaklore quest (3 of them), Boss fight for the war coding, and several other things for lots of other projects, as well as a stack of bugs about as tall as at least some of our players, my to-do list has grown to ridiculous levels that I’m not sure I’ve ever seen before. All of these projects are being thrown at me repeatedly from all directions, and it’s rather hard to keep track of.
So, of course, my first response was to hide from them and do something fun instead.
So I did.
See the Nooby Nooby Noob quest in Amityvale.
But now that I've gotten to have my fun, it’s kind of hard to avoid the responsibilities as lead coder forever. So I did the next best thing to avoiding the work itself, I decided to get organized. If you’re ever facing a daunting task, I strongly recommend having a clear itemized list of what you’ve got left to do; it’d have saved us several late releases if we have always kept this on-task.
Anyways, this morning I spent the entire morning organizing my list.
It’s currently 80 items long, and still missing a large number of things, including everything I personally REALLY want to do.
I’m not kidding.
*Gulp* At least they’re organized by category.
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Cysero
Is In Two
Places At
Once
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Merely
Childs Play
If you were reading
the Design Notes this time last year you remember that we donated
to the Child's Play charity. It's
that time of year again.
Childs Play was started by the guys over
at Penny Arcade, and it's been my very favorite chairty for as long
as it has existed. They collect money, games, and books and donate
them to various children's hospitals around the globe. Since its creation,
itIt's a great way to help people who could use some it, and to show
the world
what
gamers like us can really do when we put our minds to it and work together.
Personally,
I have donated every year sicne it was created and when I started
making everyone else around
here do it last
year, (since a lot of us were already donating) we decided to
give as a company. We were able to use some of the money from your
purchases
of Dragon
Amulets
(and
other
upgrades)
and donate a Gold level sponsorship.
The charity is really
important to us and we had planned to give again, but the financial
support from the Founders in
AdventureQuest Worlds was so strong that YOU GUYS were able to match
our donation... DOUBLING IT.
This year we are very, very proud to say
that we are PLATINUM sponsors and you guys made it possible.
If you want to see
what REAL power your Dragon Amulet has... just visit http://www.childsplaycharity.org and
take a look for yourself. You helped change lives for the better.
Well done, everyone.
Give yourselves a pat on the back! Yah,
Who?
Hey guys.
Just wanted to let
you all knwo that we've been having a LARGE problem with Yahoo. Yahoo
Mail blocks any and all e-mails coming from us. So if you don't get
the DF, MQ, or AQ newsletters, that is why. If you made an account
of AdventureQuest Worlds and you didn't get a confirmation e-mail...
that is why.
This happens from
time to time with Verizon and Hotmail, but Yahoo has decided to block
every single e-mail coming from us. We've been trying to get this
fixed but either Yahoo doesn't want to be very helpful (unlikely)
or Yahoo has bigger fish to fry than our little web game company
(likely). Either way, we can't seem to get anyone to give us a hand.
If you have encountered
this issue, the ONLY thing that you can do for now is set up another
free-mail account somewhere else, like Gmail.com and then change
the e-mail attached to your account.
You can set up Gmail
to forward your mail to another addresse and Yahoo shouldn't have
a problem with that. We hope.
Again, if you never
got your AQW confirmation e-mail and you have Yahoo... there is your
answer, and there is exactly nothing that we can do to fix it. Although,
we are trying.
In other news, we
are continuing our Dragon themed release all the way through the
end of The Month Of The Dragons (November) and .all the games are
now gearing up for our Thanksgiving Holiday events, large and small.
Directly after that begins the Frostval celebrations, (AE Upgrade
Cards make great Frostval presents... remember that they work foir
AQW too,) so we've got a couple of event packed months coming up.
You won't want to miss a single release!
Well you might want
to, but you shouldn't. You'd feel so left out. |
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Cysero
Is STILL
Keeping
Quiet,
Artix!
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WAR
and COOKIES!
It's November the
14th. This is the day that I celebrate being with Artix Entertainment
for 3 years.
Normally I bring
in homemade oatmeal raisin cranberry cookies for everyone to celebrate
and thank them for letting me work with them, but Artix had to be
out
of the
lab
today
so I'm
waiting
until next week.
Guys, doing this,
designing video games, especially for you guys is really a dream
come true. Aside fom having the coolest job on earth working for
the coolest comapny i can imagine and working with the coolest and
most talented, hard-working lot that the gaming world has ever seen...
i get to make games for you guys, by FAR the coolest and most appreciative
gaming community in the world.
I'm so grateful for
the oppritunity to live out my dream and keep doing what I love day
after day. it never gets boring and rather than running out of ideas
I seem to get more and more every day.
Someday the ride
will be over. I will retire or die or something else. I know that
I can only do this for a very limited time and I'm enjoying every
second
of it. Thanks to AE for having me and thanks to you all for making
my dream come true.
Enough of that, lets
talk about the war.
Not that one. The
one in Dragesvard.
This war is the bees
knees folks. You get to choose the battlefield upon which you wish
to face Aisha and her army of ice monsters. Do you want to fight
in the human town or help save the Killguins? Do the Ursice Savages
need your help more than the Tuskers?
Even better, you
get to CHOOSE your war rewards! Each faction needs your help and
each faction is willing to reward you for helping them with their
very own set of war rare weapons! Different levels and different
elements (none of them are ice) but which do you want? Will you have
time to get all of them? Tomix did a great job on these weapons (especially
the Ursice weapons... tasty) so give him some love on the forums.
As usualy Ghost worked his magic with the Guests and the new Frost
Drake monster. We relied on his skills a lot this week and he came
through as always. As usualy, nothing would have happened without
Rolith, Geo and Alac and if I'm forgetting anyone... sorry. You did
great too, whoever you are.
You WILL want the Dragonslayer armor for
this war. You will SLAUGHTER wave after wave of enemies if you've got
it on so if you haven't helped us test the Dragon Slayer you couldn't
have waited until a better time!
Have a great weekend guys!
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Rolith
Thinks Fish are Fish
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We come from the land up yonder!
My devoted fans (and those of you who want to kill me for all the time you've spent on togicides) might have noticed I have been a bit absent the past couple of weeks. Don't worry, I have no intention of stopping the togicides or any of my many other devious plans (armor saving is still progressing nicely but don't expect it this week, going to be a bit more still.)
Anyways, I was up in the ancient homeland of most good programmers, rural Pennslvania, where the winters are cold, the software stores are far away, and they only have basic cable, for a wedding. Working from there was an interesting experience to say the least, and not the most productive I've ever been, but that's not the point of this post, No! I actually have a point in this rambling tirade.
I got a PM from a member of the forums this morning asking if I could fill him in on a day in the life of the AE team, and I figured rather than just ignoring his PM like I ususally do (sorry, but developers are busy people!), I would post a snippet of life here for all to read and enjoy!
Now, I've said before and I'll say it again, it's a HUGE honor to be able to get to do this for a living day in and day out, but only having to wake up at 9am-ish is a nice perk too! I usually am in not much later then that, and most mornings are spent reviewing the forums, checking out suggestions, and looking out for major bugs that were discovered overnight, and handling them when they show up.
If there arn't any, often mornings are when I get to have a little fun working on my side projects / major entries on the to do list / proof of concept code, but once we get going in the late morning/afternoon the "fun" ends and the real work on the release begins. Day in and Day out, this usually involves coding classes, quests, and any new additions due out that friday.
Often times this also requires attempting to get major changes up for testing as soon as possible (thursday at the earliest...but we're getting better!) and handling the testing process. Some of the mods, mainly Alac, help with this part, and it gives them a chance to make suggestions and offer up what they think you guys will think. All the while, Cysero and Geo are working on the creative side of the weekly quest, laying out the maps writing and animating the cutscenes and setting up the monsters for you to fight. It's ususally a very frantic friday where my code goes into their designs and ususally it dosn't work until very, very close to release. More often than not I am here till 7-8 trying to ensure that the release is out on time.
There you go, a rather clinical and boring look at the day to day life of a AE Programmer. If you were expecting some crazy story full of nerf gun fights and foam-sword battles well.. Wait, I could have told you guys about the nerf-gun fights and foam-sword battles, not to mention the countless ninja invasions, zombie hordes or right-sock cages! Oh well, there's always next time.
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Cysero
Is Keeping
Quiet
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What
I'm Not Allowed To Talk About
I was going to write
a very exciting design notes post but Artix said I can't yet. Don't
worry, it's only exciting to me. You're not missing out on much...
and when the times comes... POW... I'm gonna write the heck outta
that post! JUST YOU WAIT!
*squints eyes*
See? I have eyes.
So, instead I will tell you some other
stuff. All my attempts at a pumpkin-asiago bread were a failure by
my exacting standards. I say they were a failure because I still have
a bowl full of pumpkin guts that I never used to make any bread. I
should probably throw that out. Yuk.
The gang sat around this morning and talked
about a couple of exciting ideas that we had for the games... importing
characters into AQW, a big hub site for all the games so you can get
to all of the games or ebil games from one big portal, tying your accounts
together to make one big AE account to people could see your DF, MQ,
AW and AQW characters all from the same page.... and my personal favorite...
a, Artix Entertainment Games badge system so you can see all the badges
that you've earned in all of the games from your main character page.
ooOOooo Badges!
Keep in mind that all of those things
are IDEAS and some or possibly all of them might never happen. Still,
it's fun to talk about WHAT-IFs, isn't it?
This week, the Dragesvard Ice Dragon Wars
begin. This will be an interesting type of war. If all goes according
to plan (which it rarely does) then you will be able fight waves of
dravir, ice elves and maybe even dragons from any of the homes of the
races helping you. You will be able to defend Dragesvard with galanoth
at your side, team up with Grrol and help the shaman defend the Ursice
Savage camp, bring G'joob along as you defend the underwater home of
the Tuskers, or join forces with the mightly King Linus and defend
the Killguin Battle Arena (and hockey rink) from invading forces!
Each wave defeated will count toward the
ultimate goal of defeating Aisha each race will have it's own special
war drop (along with normal defender's medals) and each drop can be
spent at a special shop for war rares. For example, if you like the
look of the special Ursice Savage war rares the best then you can fight
with Grrol to defend his people and buy the lowest level and upgrade
it using those special drops.
The DA only special quest for this war
will feature an old friend... someone we should have seen before now,
considering how many ice dragons we've already seen.
Geo is also working
on a brad new Dragon quest for this weekend, and Alac is working
on a new quest
chain
in Oaklore Keep, which may or may not start this weekend. Either way,
this weekend should be fun...
...especially if you're testing out Dragon
Slayer for us.
Thanks again for all the feedback, we're
started tweaking the armor out and I bet a few of you will notice some
real damage buffs for this class. SOme of you have said that there
are too many dragon slaying lance skills, so Ghost is touching up the
armor with some new animations. Keep up the good work testers! Thanks
for your help!
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Cysero
Has Another
Clue For You
All... The
Walrus Is
Paul.
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Happy
Actual Mogloween!
It's October 31st...
Officially Mogloween with candy and spooks and candy!
We're really in the spirit this year as
we have just added 2 brand new spooky quests to Amityvale. One of which
you can get from Thursaday and you will recognize if you ever watched
any cartoons or movies about gangs of friends with a talking dog who
solve mysteries.
Next, if you walk down the AMityvale path
you will see across from the Pumpkin patch a new path has opened in
the hedges! This new hedge maze is a great addition to the Amityvale
path and offers a rare, Mogloweeny pet to anyone who can defeat the
challenge area (look for the red, glowing bush).
Lastly we have the next step in Dragesvard
chain. Galanoth sends you to try and convince the xenophobic Tuskers
to join the humans, killguins and Ursice savages as they unite to stop
Aisha from making her icy dreams come true. This new quest offers three
brand new helms as drops.
Next week the Months of the Dragons begins,
and we have a LOT already in the works for that including the NEXT
step in the dragesvard chain, a new dragon filled quest in Celestia's
zone and DA testing of the DragonFable Dragonslayer class armor!
It's getting late and I have candy to
hand out, parties to attend and a new idea for a halloween whole wheat
pumpkin bread that I want to try out. Have a great Halloween/Mogloween
guys!
Try not to eat yourselves sick.
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Cysero
Is Gonna Have Himself
A Noobie
Snack.
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Working...
Please Wait.
We've got some interesting
stuff headed your way tomorrow.
We've got a paradoy
quest that Rolith has been working on. If you haven't heard of it,
then read the previous post that Rolith made. We've also got the
next step in the Dragesvard quest chain coming, which will require
some swim fins and a scarf. Lastly, we've got a new Lymcrest Labyrinth
style dungeon quest which will be added to the Amityvale path. Alac
has been working on that bad boy and It will be a new, fun haunted
house style quest.
UNFORTUNATELY it
looks like Dragonslayer will NOT be ready for DA testing this week...
which makes me cry. Sad face. I was looking forward to that but Ghost
is only human (and a dead one at that) and we've kept his hands very
full this week.
Here's a sneak peek
at the male D-slayer player armor.
It's not an exact
replica of Galanoth's but Tomix made sure to design it so you would
look awesome standing
next to Gal.
No helm yet and we haven't added the Baneblade to the file
yet so he's still holding the default longsword... but you get
the idea.
Once we get a Now, I'm going to
leak some info to you. I'm pretty useful when it comes to asking
me what's going on and if you've ever sent me an e-mail with a question
or asked me in AQW then you know I will give you as much info as
I can... but I try and keep my mouth shut about most stuff until
i'm pretty sure that it's on it's way.
Rolith is juuuuust
about ready to test the ability to save your class armor.
How would you like
to be able to log in and already be wearing your Necromancer, or
Pirate or PumpkinLord or whatever armor? Your weapons, pet and items
all ready close at hand and ready for adventure!
It will be a feature
added to the Armor Closet house item (which makes sense... put on
your clothes and then save them all at the same time). For anyone
who has already purchased the Armor Closet then it wil be an upgrade
to the thing, but if you haven't purchased one yet then it will come
standard when you do.
That's all I got.
Goo Goo G'joob!
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Rolith
Tuesdays are FUN days.
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We usually know what we're doing by now!
I've got a problem. I have a deep desire to parody a certain 1970s mystery cartoon, ideally featuring a talking dogs, a van, and some delectable dog treats. However, I can't use the show's name, the dog treat's name, or even the occasionally appearing sports team that spontaneously showed up for no good reason.
Also, I'm a bit out of ideas. I mean I've got Amityvale LORE Hikers, but beyond that I'm drawing a compleat blank. Wanna help?
As for what's coming this week, I can give you a bit of info on that as well.
For the closing of Mogloween, we've got the previously mentioned quest coming up, as well as a specially designed Lymcrest-dungon style quest done by Alac, which may, if we have time, have a mini-challenge for you all. Defiantly not featuring togs. Nope.
Dragesvard is moving forward this week, we'll be seeing the next quest released and the build-up to the confrontation with the Ice Queen stepping up another gear.
I don't know if you guys understand what's at stake with this coming war, but Aisha controlls an army of DRAGONS here. DRAGONS! ... DRAGONS!
Also, we're making progress with the DragonSlayer armor, and we may be calling on DragonLords soon to help test it. Maybe as soon as this weekend.
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Rolith
Sunday Night Suprise Post!
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Random Sunday Post!
I'm Just hopping on and checking the forums. The thread starting from my design notes post earlier this week is yeilding results! Heading South from Warlic's zone now takes you to Lymcrest (It was extremaly buggy before, but not that that's been solved, no reason not to take you there. Also, the guardian tower arena monsters have been updated, and I hope to keep them up to date as time passes
This goes along with dozens of bug fixes and typo correctilons that are slowly being made to the game as time passes. We're making good progress on the to-do list, even if it's still the size of a small football stadium.
Oh, By the way, be sure to wish Alac a very happy birthday! it's a little late, but she leveled up this weekend!
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Cysero
Is Riding
The Sugar
Train!
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Happy
Mogloween!
Hey, Mogloween is
LIVE!
A few things to remember.
1). Do NOT accept
apples as Mogloween Candy. It's not candy and it's not even funny.
Its like those people who give out floss and fifty cent tooth brushes.
They mean well, but they JUST DON'T GET IT.
2). YOU HAVE TO COMPLETE
THE NECROPOLIS CHAIN as well as GET ALL 12 MOGLOWEEN MASKS FROM LAST
YEAR before you can unlock this year's Mogloween event. I cannot
Caps that enough.
3). While trick-or-treating
in Doomwood you will still get last year's weapon drops. If you want
THIS year's weapon drops, you have to beat the Boss Fight. *evin
grin*. I'm a jerk.
Speaking of jerks,
2 weeks ago my car was sitting there, helplessly parked on the side
of the street, minding
it's own business when some jerk came and rammed into the back of it.
They took off leaving only their front bumper (with no front plates.
grr) for the cops. My car has been in the shop for 2 weeks so I have
been working from home, from The Globe and from friend's apartments
for the last 2 releases.
It really makes me appreciate people who
telecommute every day. Ghost, this one's for you. At least I have a
fantastic team of people that I work with, who are each very capable
and each worth whatever two normal people would be worth.
Point is, that's why the release came
a little later than we've been releasing lately.
Speaking of Ghost,
here's a funny example of what happens when you name things the same,
and what can go wrong.
For the past week Ghost has been seeing
this:
And thinking to himself "Why is my giant
head a monster? Are the guys trying to tell me something about the
size of my head?"
You see, the problem is with the names
that we use. We called the ghost monster "ghost" naturally, which is
what Ghost, also very naturally, named his head. So he saw his giant
head and we saw:
His face being haunted by evil spirits.
Just another reminder what can go wrong
is you use the most obvious names for things... or you just name them
Symbol 96 like every other symbol that you've ever made for the company...
MILTONIUS!
Have a good weekend
guys, and HAPPY MOGLOWEEN!
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Rolith
Serious Rolith? Weird.
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Big Ranty Kind of Post!!
It’s not often I get a few hours to look back when working at AE. Usually it’s forward at all costs and at reckless speed. We’ve built a brand out of that very concept, and it works very well, ya know, besides the occasional train wrecks of releases. The concept, however, doesn’t leave much time for reminiscing, which is where this post comes in.
So, we week in, and week out, work to produce content at the highest level we can that you guys will enjoy as much as possible. All the while, we are trying to tell a story, make you guys laugh, and take ourselves as non-serious as possible while still making you feel like a true hero. It’s a very hard balance to keep.
Looking at things like the quest log, which hasn’t received any major additions for the last couple of weeks, it’s easy to understand why some things slip out of our perspective at the prospect of so much other work, especially when said quest log takes hours and hours of work to set up and layout one zone, and will require constant upkeep every week.
While the project to resolve the quest log is under way (it is btw! Promise!) There may be other things that have slipped us by, or things that you really like that you’d like to see more of (Lymcrest Challenges for instance). Or maybe you’ve got an opinion on how difficult releases have been lately. Too hard? Not hard enough?
Basically... I’m curious… What is it you want to see out of Dragonfable in the coming months. What have you really enjoyed, and what do you really want to see more of? What have we done to keep your interests week after week that you’d love to see more of? How can we make Dragonfable better for you?
This isn’t about single requests or DA vs Non-DA content. For the most part that stuff can’t be changed...but more a question of where you guys would like to see the game going. Not that all considerations are going to be taken.
So, let’s chat! I’ll see you on the forums!
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Rolith
Almost Totally to Blame.
Alac
Was a part of this |
Home...but watching you!!
With everything that has happened over the past week, we've been very busy. All we've done, all we've accomplished, in the MMO, Dragon Fable, and the rest of the games, it's hard to belive we'd be impressed with you....But I am.
Still, we've got yet another solution to another Lymcrest challenge, and I'm suitably impressed. Yet again you solved it long before I've expected.
Good night...and I will have another challenge for you soon!
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Cysero
Loves Candy
Corn.
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Mogloween
Revisited.
It's CANDY TIME,
people! The sky is dark, the pumpkins are glowing and there is a
chilly, crispness in the air. It's time for MOGLOWEEN!
We've got the first
of a two part Mogloween holiday spectacular rolling out in just a
few minutes! If you were here last year then you can replay all the
fun quests from last year and if this is your first Mogloween then
allow me to introduce the Cauldron Sisters... Bubble, (Bubble,) Toil
and Trouble!
In this part of the
release you can replay last year's Mogloween and relive the birth
of the holiday... you can also get all of the rare holiday items
from last year including the Pumpkin Lord armor, all the weapons
and the DA only mask themed helms!
In order to unlock
NEXT week's event you will have to have all 12 masks unlocked as
well as having the Necropolis quest chain completed! Remember that
I said that and start gathering candy!
We have also got 2 brand new releases
for you. The next 5 amazing floors of the Lymcrest Labyrinth, in which
Rolith has taken his sadistic streak to all new, terrible heights...
and geo has put together a new quest for Thursday (Amityvale needed
a new quest... tis the season!). Talk to her and see how your power
matches against the threat known only as The Pit!
Don't forget that
AQW starts it's Mogloween celebrations today too AND don't forget to
come back next week for the all new DF MOGLOWEEN release!
Happy Mogloween guys!!!
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Rolith
Didn't Sleep very well.
Alac
Doesn't Have an Avatar... |
Greetings from the Underground Lab!
Sounds like a fair few of you guys picked up on my birthday last weekend! Thanks for all the PMs, sorry I didn't get to respond to all of them. The cake was indeed not a lie, but tasty..and chocolate! YUM!
So, Alac has been down visiting the undergound lab, but she's not here just to sit around and laugh at all the horrible jokes we make (Looking at you, Galanoth). She's been learning some of the tricks of the trade when it comes to bug fixing and quest creation.
If you haven't been paying attention, you might not know that Alac has been instrumental in the revisions of the Lymcrest Labyrinth (and all the evil that it entails) and as fast as she was learning that system (which by the way, since I desgined was torture in and of itself, of course) we wanted to see what else she was capable of.
With her help, the bugs list got 15 items shorter this morning, and is continuing to shrink! The revisions will be rolled with the release Friday and include, among other things, fixes to Nythera's quest chain, double-Galanoths, and even some tweaks to the minor annoyances in PVP.
Also: Lymcrest floors 16-20 this week. MWHAHAHAHAHAHA...
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Rolith
Knows how to spell Worlds...and Live!
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Thursday's Dungon and Dragesvard Quest!!!
So Cysero had to slip out just before we finished cleaning up the last of the bugs, so I'm doing design notes tonight.
This week you will be meeting with the Bears in Dragesvard to try to convince them to join in your fight against the Ice Queen.
Also, in the spirit of the season (hehe, you see what i did there? Sprit? Eh... they all can't all be winners) we'll be going to visit Thursday and exploring a MASSIVE random dungon, discover Sanguin Roses and earn a more powerful weapon. These weapons are available to everyone and are the highest level wind weapons available for people who arn't DragonLords.
Remember, becoming a DragonLord unlocks a massive amount of content and features that free players don't get to enjoy! Become a DragonLord Today!
Oh yeah, and I'll see you on AQW Over the weekend!
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Cysero
IS BUZZING!
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AdventureQuest
Wrolds LIFE RELEASE DAY!
We are still on schedule
for the DF release but I'm writing right NOW to let you know that
in half an hour (NOON E.S.T) we will be launching our brand new browser
based MMO, Adventurequest Worlds!
Thanks to all of
the Dragonlords, Star Captains and Guardians who have helped us with
our most ambitious game to date. It's great to be able to go and
chat you all of you guys and I can't wait to see all the new faces!
"...We're out of Beta and releasing on
time"
More to come...
ADVENTUREQUEST WORLDS IS LIVE!
click
the dragon to visit AQ WORLDS! |
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Cysero
Has His
Hands Full.
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CRAZYTOWN!
WOW, am I ever busy.
Here's what's going
down. Tomorrow is my amazing girlfriend's birthday. Friday is the
release of the next quest in the Dragesvard chain with 3 brand new
high level
weapon drops, A new quest in Amityvale from Thursday to get us psyched
up for Mogloween with some mid-level weapon drops AND the live launch
of our brand new MMO, AdventureQuest
WORLDS.
If you haven't heard
about that yet then you've been under some kind of rock somewhere.
I've been making sure to spend a few hours on AQW every day talking
to guys guys and answering whatever questions I can about the release.
You guys seem as excited as we are about the full live release!
Then we've got Saturday.
That's Rolith's birthday. Sunday is my birthday.
I've also been working
with our new intern, Arai-Hime, (Ah ryee HEE may) who is helping
out with some art for DF and some vectorization for DF and MQ. You
will see some of her new, awesome dragons as the Dragonslayer quest
chain
in Dragesvard
finally
starts
getting
to the DRAGONS.
And on top of all
of this, we're plotting out this year's Mogloween celebration. It
will require you to do last year's Mogloween as well as complete
the NECROPOLIS quest chain before you can help us witrh this year's
disaster. We've got some fun in store for you and with some luck
we'll be kicking the party off NEXT friday!
Wish us luck!
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Rolith
thinks he's possibly too evil...
|
Tis Still The Weekend!!
I've got a good feeling about this... And by that, I mean a bad one for you guys.
Yup. One thing's for sure when I'm this happy about a challenge I'm giving you. You'll have a good few hours of work ahead of you, if you're interested.
Lymcrest floors 11-15 are live along with a little challenge I like to call Togicide!
I'll see you on the forums.
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| |
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Cysero
Has Been A
Greeter, A
Waiter, A Line
Cook And A
Sandwich
Artist
|
Scenes
From An RPG Restaurant
Welcome to Friday
Release, sir and/or madam. You table is waiting.
I've seen you here
before so I know that you're well aware of our normal menu but let
me run through tonight's specials for you.
Xan
Flambe:
The Insane pyromancer is back in Falconreach with a very high level challenge.
He's recently, he knows not where, lost all of his mirth... and wants
you to help him find it.
If you are
able to beat this static level 50 challenge monster then you will
possibly recieve one of 3, level 48 free weapons!
Young
Nythera With A Side Of Warlic:
The Nythera quest chain continues as we delve into the past of the Blue
Mage's apprentice, and get a glimpse into the first test that he puts
her through.
Desert Specials:
Lymcrest Pie:
Rolith will be releasing the last few floors of the Lymcrest Labyrinth
completing the complete overhaul of that dungeon. It's become Rolith's
playground and the bane of his existence. You can expect more madness
from Alac and him there fairly soon.
They might
not come out today, but I am assured that it WILL be release sometime
this weekend!
Founder's
Chocolate Explosion:
Deep, rich DragonFable founders smothered in a heavy 200 Dragoncoin sauce.
Each DF Founder will suddenly find themselves 200 DC richer! Thanks for
helping DF get onto it's feet. We couldn't have done it without you.
Things are really,
really busy right now with the launch of our latest restraunt, AdventureQuest
Worlds, being a mere week away. Lead Chef Artix Von Krieger himself
is overseeing the new location's menu and making sure that evrything
is ship-shape, but everyone is pitching in to make the release a
success and the cooking and wait staff have been working overtime
to get things prepared.
Sir and/or madam,
let me assure you that if you like eating here at DragonFable then
you will LOVE what AQ WORLDS will
have to offer the discerning browser-based gaming connoisseur.
Ghost will be here shortly to take your
drink order.
Bon Apetit'!
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| |
|
Rolith
will probably be some kind of scientist...
Cysero
Is The
King Of
Useful Info.
|
Engineered
Away + Some AQW Info!
Normally I would not
put this above Rolly's post but it's kind of a hot topic.
People have been writing
to me asking me about AQW Pricing
and finally I have some useful information for you!
First... We are going
Live October 10, 2008 (we hope)!
I can't give you exact
prices yet but here's what I can tell you:
There will be a FREE
PLAYER option in AdventureQuest Worlds. Compared to our other games,
the free player option will be a lot more limited but it will be there.
There will be 3 payment
options. One for 3 months, one for 6 months and one for A YEAR. Naturally,
the longer you buy a membership for the more you will save. You will
also get a proportionately large number of goodies, depending on which
package you go for.
I can tell you THIS
tidbit for sure;. Even the Year Upgrade Package will be less expensive
than a new Xbox game, and you will still get a constant stream of new
content released, very much like all of our other games. It's the only
thing we know how to do. *shrug*
For you parents who
are concerned about AQW being our first game with LIVE CHAT... fear
not. We will have a few chat-safe "Moglin Servers" (named
after famous Moglins... like Twilly server) in which every player will
be limited to a number of pre-selected phrases, questions and answers.
For those of you less
concerned with live chat there will be a number of "Legendary
Servers" (named after AE characters like Artix and myself, for
example) in which players will be able to chat as they do now, with
a strong profanity filter and the ability to report inappropriate behavior.
Here's the catch. If
you have upgraded in ANY of our games (AQ, DF, MQ, AQW) then you will
be able to talk freely using free chat... if not, then you will have
to use pre-set canned chat, no matter which server you are on.
This will help us cut
down on bandwidth (our server bill for AQW will still dwarf all of
our other games, but this will help) and it will be a way to reward
and thank those of you who have decided to help us support the games
over the years! YAY YOU!
Now let's talk for
a second about becoming a Founder.
This week marks MechQuest's
1 year anniversary and Warlic has some neat stuff planned for everyone
and some REALLY neat stuff planned for the founders. When we were making
DragonFable we didn't think to have any such founder-type set-up, luckily
for YOU we keep very good records! This Friday every founder (meaning
that you upgraded that specific character to DragonLord on or before AUGUST
11, 2006) will get 200 free Dragoncoins Added to their
founder character or characters!
Remember, if you missed
out on your chance to be a founder of DragonFable you DO NOT want to
miss the chance to become a Founder in AQ Worlds!
Being a Founder in
AQW will get you some neat special treats, and because this game will
be truely interactive... you'll really be able to brag about it and
show off your Rare Founder pet (oops... forget i said that).
Now... On to Rolith's
part.
See? we like all
of JoCo's stuff...not just Code Monkey and Still Alive.
Anyways, being the
resident evil dev in the office I figured it'd be my pleasure to let
you guys in on the doom that's on its way.
MWHEHEHEHEHE
Woah, channeled Kefka
there for a second, sorry. First off, for the hardcore players out
there who have continued to push the limits placed on the game, we're
preparing a fun little challenge for you. A level 50 fight against
a very challenging mini-boss that will push even the best equipped
50s to their limits. Don't feel bad if you can't kill him yet, that's
kind of the point.
Also: Lymcrest renovations
are almost complete! This week will see the release of floors 11-15,
the last of the old floors being redesigned, and the completion of
a project long long overdue. And with it, of course, comes another
community challenge. This one will test your patience, I've got a feeling,
to the very limits. Five rooms will be filled with 10 monsters a piece.
Yes, you will have to kill them in the right order or face a reset.
Yes, this does mean there's litterally hundreds of thousands of permutations
you're going to have to go through, yes, that means this one MIGHT
take you guys a bit. Hopefully longer than 9 hours at least.
Alac already has
the map almost ready for the following floors, and we'll be discussing
the challenge for those sometime later this week, I think sticking
with every other week for lymcrest makes the most sense. If we can't
come to a concensus about how to test you guys, we might ask you to
pick your poison so to speak, so keep your eyes here.
Also planned this
week is the continued release of the quest log, we're taking input
from you guys on the forums about your questions and concerns and will
be cleaning up the interface as we go, responding to your input.
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| |
|
Cysero
Saws
Quest Logs.
|
Quest
Log!
We have lot coming
out today so here's the break down.
1). DF finally has
a QUEST LOG! It's not complete yet but we're got it inside the game
for you to play with. It gives even eaiser access to most of the
game's quests (for those of you who don't feel like walking around
the world and exploring or for those of you who are allergic to Gryphon
feathers)
You will find this
MAJOR game advancement inside the DA button, which is found...
Right here!
Just click on the
DA and any player (players with or without DAs) will now be able
to see the DA button options. Including the Quest Log button which
is found...
Right here!
It's been a long
time coming and when it's complete it will give you a complete list
of EVERY quest in DF so you can finally see what you've walked right
passed or missed when you were at your grandparent's house for the
weekend.
2). The next step
in the Dragesvard chain is now open and drops 9 brand new weapons!
See if you can make it through the Killguin King's tests!
3). The next baby
dragon quest is now live in Lady Celestia's zone. It will require
a little Luck and quite a bit of Charisma in
order to get your baby dragon to do what you say.
We will be making
all of these things live within 5 minutes of me posting this....
Enjoy the release guys!
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| |
|
Cysero
Shall
Forever Be.
|
Our
First Print Ad.
Check it out, this
just showed up on the doorstep of the underground lab this morning.
It is our FIRST EVER
PRINT AD! It appears in the November issue of Shonen Jump (Volume
6, issue 11).
You may be asking
yourself why an online gaming company would bother taking out a print
ad in an Otaku Magazine. The answer is BECAUSE WE CAN! Artix has
been a fan of Shonen Jump forever...Personally I let my subscription
run out when I forced myself to break my Yu Gi Oh addiction.
I figured you cvould
either run out and buy the magazine... or I could just show you the
ad here and save you a few bucks (unless there is something in there
that you actually want to READ).
Back to piling more
things onto Rolith's To Do list.
|
| |
|
Rolith
Loves Tab and Mountain Due...
|
Very Simple
Man!
I've got to say,
in all honesty, Friday night before release, I was hoping that about
this time today, I'd be encouraging you guys to not give up on finding
Greg. Shows how much I know.
Nine hours! NINE!
For all of you who just want the answer: HERE Congratulations
to all of you, especially fire blaze who was the one who found Greg
in the last quest, opening the way to one of my favorite fights so
far in DF. The coding behind it is kinda cool. I don't know if anyone
noticed, but Greg randomly went into "Charge Mode" and powered
up until he had over 9000 skill points and unleashed his special attack.
Not the most challenging
fight in the world, but at the same time, the resolutions/rewards aren't
the point of these challenges, Which I hope you guys keep in mind.
Sure while the recolored foam Rolith's Hammer is by no means weak,
it's not exactly uber in anything except coolness factor...
Sorry... may be a
little biased here...but that's an AWESOME weapon!
...The Lymcrest community
challenges are about...the Challenge, solving it with friends and allies
on the forums and working together. Keep that in mind if things seem
a little "weak" when all is said and done.
Anyways, the next
part of Lymcrest isn't due out until next week, should give me plenty
more time to think of ways to frustrate you cause you to work
together to solve the problem! I've got a feeling you'll all really
start to fear me after the next one... and remember, after floor fifteen
all bets are off in terms of difficulty Mwhahahaha.
*cough* Sorry, totally
not evil.
This week we're working
on some serious fun for everyone, including a much wanted/long desired
quest log that's been promised, talked about, debated, and argued over
since long before DF was even out. It's a massive project, but considering
it becomes a larger one every time we delay it, it's been decided we
start to get to work on it. Cysero and
Artix are working on the design and interface while I have already
started working on the coding..
The quest log is
by no means the only thing on our plate, and I've got a to-do list
right in front of me, and instead of counting it in pages, lets start
counting it in "gulps" it triggers in me over the course
of the day when i read over it. This week? Five gulper. Last week,
for comparison, was a three.
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| |
|
Cysero
is.
|
The
Cricket, The Mirror and the Wardrobe.
Hiya game-monkeys,
We've got a lot of
stuff this week so letsbreak it down in nice, easy chunks.
1). The new 20,000
DC package for $49.95! It's out best DC sale yet and it should last
you a while as long as you're not a DC-Item-A-Holic.
2). The long awaited
Armor Closet has finally beed released! With this House item you
can load nearly any armor that you've ever unlocked in DF!
THIS WEEKEND
ONLY! The Armor Closet is on sale for half price! For this weekend,
the closet is only 500 DCs. When monday rolls around, the closet
will return to its original price of 1000 DCs!
3). The Magic Mirror,
for sale for gold in Ikea's House item shop, this magical item will
take any DA holder who owns it to a shadow pocket dimension for some
quick gold farming!
4). 18 new weapons,
(6 have specials!) and 6 new helms (which match the Shadow Class
armors VERY well), have been released in my Superstore of Savings!
5). Greg the Extradimensional
Cricket! This new interesting challange begins in the Lymcrest Labyrinth
and will take you all over DragonFable! This little, green guy is
fast and tough so team up with the other players on the forums to
help track him down in the 10 quests where he's hiding.
This new challange
was put together by Rolith and more than a little help from the forum-famous
Alac! If you get frustrated enough to cry...blame them.
Not me.
Not my fault.
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| |
|
Cysero
For
President!
|
20,000
DragonCoin Package Is Now Live
And
To Never Take A Picture With Your Phone's Camera
In A Gas Station Bathroom.
Well, that pretty
much sums that up.
A few weeks ago Warlic released the 20,000 Nova
Gem package for $49.95 U.S.D. in MechQuest. Since there has been
a non-stop stream of e-mails and forums PMs begging for this kind
of deal in DragonFable. We've got it all set up and ready to go for
you, and we wanted to give you something extra nice to spend them
on.
We decided to take a break from Dragesvard this
week and release something special that we've been working on for
a while. This weekend we are updating the Superstore of Savings with
6 new weapons (some of them have specials... if I have time, all
of them will) and a few new helms.
The BIG news for the week is the semi-secret
project that Rolith has been working on all week... the Armor Closet!
This is a house item (to be found in both the
normal house shops AND the Dragesvard house shop) that will allow
you to equip ANY armor in the game that you've unlocked (the only
exceptions are the Snugglebear armor, the Chickencow Armor and the
new Base Class armors that come from the Shadowscythe shirts....
in short the exceptions are armors that you can load from your backpack)
This means, Pali, Necro, Ranger, Guardian, Pirate,
Ninja, Pirate Monkey, Pirate Ninja, Dragonlord (as well as color
custom and evolved Dragonlord), and special holiday armors like the
Pumpkinlord can all be loaded from your house! That’s not all...
As more armors become available in the game, those will also become
available from the closet!
No more hauling your butt to a certain city just
to load an armor.
This may not seem like much of an advancement
to you guys but it's a pretty big deal to us. It's a masterful feat
of coding, and it's an addition to the game that we have wanted to
add forever (along with several thousand of you).
We'll also be adding a few new items to the Dragesvard
House Item shop... some fish plaques, The juice barrels from the
basement of Yulgar's Inn in AQW, some new couches and the like.
We will also be releasing the new repaired versions
of the Lymcrest Labyrinth, floors 6-10. The remaining floors will
be released next week!
Finally, Greg The Extradimensional Cricket (DBZ
fnas will like this one) has issued a challenge to you. The challenge
is "Catch me if you can". He will be hiding in random places
in several of DragonFable's quests, waiting for you to show up. Much
like the new Lymcrest Challenge this will also be a task for forum
cooperation! Catch him, defeat his challenge, and you will be rewarded
with a temporary Captain Rolith's Hammer!
So, to sum up: This week's release... 20,000
DC package, Armor Loading Closet, other house items, 18 New DC weapons
with some specials, 6 New DC helms, Lymcrest labyrinth floors 6-10
re-released, and finally the challenge of Greg the Extradiminsional
Cricket.
Now for a story called The
Great Cysero Cell Phone Disaster of Con08!
There we all were with our bags packed, on our
way to DragonCon 08' when we decided to stop the car at a random
gas station in the middle of nowhere for a bathroom break.
My time came and upon entering the gas station
bathroom (which was as clean as any gas station bathroom that you've
ever seen... which is to say NOT, in any way, clean) I saw 3 main
items in the room, the toilet, the sink and the novelty dispenser
on the wall.
The novelty dispenser was really what caught
my eye, so as I was doing my business, I was glancing over the various
headache medicines, imitation designer colognes, and Stay Awake pills
(for hard working truck drivers) all available for less than a buck.
I had no interest in any of these items but I
thought I would take a picture of the dispenser with my phone and
send it to my girlfriend to demonstrate that we were having fun on
our little road-trip, kind of a "wish you were here.... well
not RIGHT here but at least with us," sort of thing.
Watching sitcoms as much as I have in my life
I should have realized what a set-up this was, but when you're starring
in the show... you never catch it until it's too late. I raised my
phone to take the picture and WHOOPS, fumbled it directly into the
gas station toilet basin.
Any mortal man (or sane person) might have decided
to leave it there in it’s watery grave... but I had a problem...
see, I haven’t memorized my girl's phone number, having always
just used the return call button... and there was NO way that I was
going to flush my phone down into the sewers of Wherever, Florida
before we ever got to Con with no way to contact her for several
days.
DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME OR ANYWHERE
ELSE...
I gritted my teeth and did what I had to do.
I plunged my hand into the basin and, in a fraction of a second,
pulled it back out with my poor phone in hand. I whipped around and
immediately, and ran my entire arm and cell phone under the hottest
water that I could get to come out of the sink (pretty hot) because
I'd rather have a slight water burn on my entire forearm than...
say... hepatitis A.
Of course the waterlogged phone refused to work
but once we were on the road again I took it apart, patted it as
dry as I could with the paper napkins on hand and let it dry in the
sun until we stopped a few hours later to eat.
Holding my breath I reassembled my phone and
turned it on. It came to life and the buttons were confused but they
mostly worked! I knew that I had to work fast so I navigated to my
girlfriend's phone number as fast as I could with the water damaged
interface. I had just enough time to write it down (and make Waldo
put it in HIS phone as a backup) before the phone switched itself
off, never to return to life.
My little loyal phone had come back to life just
long to whisper my girlfriend's number into my ear with it's dying
breath, then went to the great cell phone recycling center in the
sky. I removed the SIM card, and the 1 Gig Micro-SD card, (my cell
phone was an organ donor) and we held a brief service for it. There
were tears.
I remembered that our hotel in Atlanta was located
directly next to the Peachtree Mall, so as soon as we arrived I grabbed
my two bags and told Artix " Dude, I’m going to the mall
to get a phone." To which he replied "Why
don't we take a couple of minutes and check in.... once we get settled
we can...Cysero? Cysero?" but by that time I was already
in the mall.
Within 3 minutes I called Artix and asked where
everyone was. He asked me how I got a phone so quickly. I had made
my new phone purchase within 47 seconds of entering the mall (yes,
I counted), The phone was an upgrade to my old one but the SIM and
Micro-SD fit fine and so my loyal phone with all of my numbers, pictures,
movies, wallpapers, and MP3s was reborn into a sleek new body with
a healthy new battery!
A few minutes later I called my girl and asked
her how her day was. I already had one funny con story to tell her.
Moral of the story... never take a picture with
your phone's camera in a gas station bathroom.
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|
Rolith
Hasn't Posted in a while...
|
My My How
time flies!
It's been an interesting
few weeks, to say the least.
I just wanted to
emphasize again how much you guys impressed me with the release of
the side boss in lymcrest. You impressed me so much that I decided
to make the next extra challenge even HARDER!
I've decided that
each set of Lymcrest floors will contain a new game play twist that
I've always wanted to try but never managed to find a place they'd
fit before.
As we wanted to keep
the first 15 floors relatively unchanged from the original releases,
these changes for now are going to be optional. After floor fifteen
is re-released,however, expect some fun fun things to prevent you from
reaching deeper into Lymcrest.
This week we'll be
re-releasing floors 6-10 of Lymcrest. Alac and I have been working
on this map for over a week and a half now, and it's making good progress
with her help.
The side challenge
will include a fight wtih a completely new monster drawn and animated
by Ghost! As for some spoiler information, you'll be chasing him all
over LORE, trying to hit him with a hammer to prove you're better.
I'm hoping someone already gets the reference, but if not, I'm sure
it'll become abundantly clear Friday.
As for what else
is coming this week, I'll leave what to fill you in on up to Cysero,
I've spilled enough beans for the day.
Side Note: I moved
6 months worth of design notes posts to the archive. We've got to get
better about doing that on a regular basis...
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Cysero
Helped
Robina Hide
|
Player
Appreciation Weekend *Bonus Gold!*
Hi guys,
We've decided to
have our own player appreciation weekend, so as of right now, every
single quest in the game drops an additional 5% gold! It may not
sound like much but it really adds up. So if you've been looking
to earn a little extra cash, this is the weekend to play!
Sorry to pass along
that the next Lymcrest Labyrinth update will not be this week because
we made Rolith do fun things instead. But we DO have 2 brand new
quests for you to play!
The first is the
next quest in the Nythera chain, where you go back in time and play
as young Nythera and reveal the secret behind why she cannot access
her dragon magic!
Next is the next
quest in Galanoth's Dragesvard chain. Gal has spent a little time
as a captive of the ice elves and now it's time to do your best Steve
McQueen impression and bust him out.
I'll wait here while
you go Google Steve McQueen.
Back? K.
I'm kind of happy
to report that you guys ate the Shadowscythe T-shirts up like they
were the pancakes and pancakes were going out of style (which will
never happen... nor will these shirts ever go out of style... see
how I tied it back in like that?)!
I'm told that every
single size has sold out already... a few hours after they became
available to buy. Crazy.
We're going to try
and get some more printed, and the second run will STILL have the
codes that will get you the upgrades in all 3 games. To those of
you who got your shirts.... well done! To those of you who did not....
CLICK FASTER NEXT TIME!
Happy Weekend!
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|
Cysero
Wears Shirts
|
FRIDAY
T-SHIRTS!
HI! We've got some
shirts that you want!
Shadowscythe T-Shirts in Red on Black or
BLACK ON BLACK
Aside from just being
smotherd in rich, creamy awesomesauce these shirts also come with
an In-Game bonus for EACH of our games!
In MQ, you get a
special Mech based on Sepulchure's Doomknight Armor!
in AQ you get a special
Doomknight armor of your very own!
And in DF (because
we will eventually be releasing the Doomknight class on it's own)
you will get a special In-Game item that loads a Shadow version of
your base class armor!
Show your loyalty
to the Darkness by equipping this special armor for your class. Become
the Shadow Warrior, Shadow Rogue or Shadow Mage and keep all of your
original skills!
This week, heroes,
you will also be attempting to rescue Galanoth from the Ice Elf Prison
and taking a trip down memory lane with Nythera!
And THAT is your
head's up.
Tomorrow I get to
tell you one last Con Tale. The tale of How Cysero Got His New Phone.
|
| |
|
Cysero
Is Glad That
Rolly Is
Enjoying
Himself
Rolith
Was Expecting this to take longer...
|
Gary.
Not The Snail.
Hi guys,
What do we have this
week? Ok first, and most fun.... this is the 5th year anniversary
of Rolith playing AE games, so he decided to redo the first 5 floors
of the Lymcrest Labyrinth and add a special side-boss.
This guy hits for
5k per, so how are you supposed to beat him?
You and the other
heroes have to figure that out. Toss out some ideas on our
forums!
Next, the next quest
in Galanoth's Dragesvard chain is live, with 3 brand new, very pretty
DA only weapons. This is less of a challange than Lymcrest but unless
you know what you're doing this quest could be a little tough too.
Oh yeah.... there
is NO such thing as "too many Portal jokes,".
Remember that.
It's not even 10PM
yet! You guys are AWESOME! I guess that means we're going to have
to do something a bit harder next time! I saw some awesome teamwork,
which is exactly what I was going for!
|
| |
|
Cysero
Never Wants
To Give You
Up!
Rolith
Never Gonna' Let you down
|
DragonCon
Panel Video (not really)
Hi guys, busy working
on this week's Dragesvard Quest and Rolly has got his hands full
fixing the Lymcrest dungeons, which should also be ready for this
weekend.
Ok... ORIGINALLY
I had a link here. It was supposed to be a video of the first panel
(which we DO have and will probably post in time) but In actuallity
it was me Rick Rolling you, which is always funny.
Unfortunately Reens
informs me that this is a bannable offense on the forums so I had
to remove it and to set a good example I will take my ban with pride
and composure.
Instead of a Rick
Roll, here's Artix's
recap of the Panels.
Yeah…Rickrolling you guys? Partially my idea. Sorry.
Anyways, since C decided to spill the beans on what
I’ve been working on so far this week, I figured I’d come
and post some more info on what’s coming.
Lymcrest has been a bit of a weight on my shoulders
since it first started getting released. It was one of my first
major attempts to create a new style of quest, and in short, it was
a failure. But that’s alright. Everyone has to learn
somewhere, and at Artix Entertainment, we learn on a weekly deadline!
Now that I’ve got a little bit of free time,
and a better understanding of how DragonFable works, I sat down and
decided to give it another try the other night, and it turns out some
of the stuff I came up with isn’t half bad.
Also, while the first five floors are being released
more or less unchanged, keep a lookout for something special extra
tossed in as a surprise. An easteregg that bites, if you will.
When describing Dragon*Con over the past two days
to friends and family, I’ve used the term “Life Changing”several
times. Also, thanks to the large number of costumes, “Eye
Pleasing”has been said several times; the latter, accompanied
with pictures, has been more accepted.
D*Con Story Time:
When I was walking up to the Sheraton (where our
second panel was to be held) to check out the accommodations we’d
be looking at for the following day’s MMO panel, standing out
in front were a row of bellhops waiting to help anyone that was showing
up to the hotel.
In order, there was a bellhop, another bellhop,
another bellhop, a bellhop with a Starfleet communicators badge and
tricorder, then more bellhops. I’ve never wanted my camera
more than I did right them, so it was a pity I’d forgotten it
in the room. It was crystal clear: these people weren’t there
FOR the con they ended up there that day just by going to work, but
when confronted by that wall of weirdness they just gave in and decided
to have fun with it. How many Starfleet ensign bellhops have
you seen in your life, seriously?
Experiencing stuff like that, and many other dozens
of stories that there just isn’t time to share, makes me realize
I’m one of the luckiest people on the planet, and I thank you
guys daily for allowing us to continue to entertain you week in and
week out. It’s nice to feel like a rockstar…or,
well, more popular than the geologist panel being held.
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Cysero
Is Glad
To Be Back!
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The
Long Con
We're back. Sort
of. Historically the day after Con is a day of rest and healing,
but there is no rest for the silly.
I wanted to show
you guys some pictures from con that might not make it to the Zorbak
goes to Con site, and let you know that the Sock Pets have found
their way home to you lovely people who came out to meet us and listen
to me babble into a microphone.
Zorbak
and I taking a nap on the way to con.
Cracker
Barrel 1: Halfway to con. My friend Waldo (A.K.A Alces) invents
the breakfast Taco which consists of a pancake shell, scambeled
eggs, cheesy hashbrowns, and a very serious strip of bacon on top.
Cracker
Barrel 2: Me playing with the convex security mirror, Nythera on
my right, Waldo on my left.
The
View from Artix's 47'th floor suite! Hello Atlanta!
The
view of the hotel's inside from the 47th floor.
Me,
before con has begun, full of life and vigor! Ready to con!
The
smallest stormtroopers in the world taking on Aliens.
Zorbak
trying to make a break for it, Waldo and Alac chasing him through
modern art.
Waldo
finding Waldo. (Yeah, Alces has heard the "Where's Waldo" joke
before. Lots.)
Me
and Rosie the Riveter!
First
Panel 1: Right side.
First
Panel 2: Left side.
This
DF fan built herself her own DA! Now THAT is a dedicated DF
Fan!
This
is the same fan... she wore the sock that I gave back to her.
AE
Party: The Mysterious Stranger pays us a visit. Notice the
detail in the Skullstaff of Doom that he built himself! Technically,
our first Cosplayer!
The
last night of Con, about 4:30 AM. Con is still in full swing.
Me,
the morning after con. Tired, defeated, a little haggered,
but happy and ready to go home!
So, there you have
it. A taste of DragonCon 2008! Thanks to everyone who made it out
to talk to us and hang with us. We all had a great time (as usual)
but you guys really were the best part of Con for us! See you next
year!
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© 2006-2008 Artix Entertainment LLC. All rights reserved.
