Design Notes

December 01, 2016

A Moment of Cheer and Maya

Art Keeps the Heart Happy

With the holiday hype machine raging across the internet, if your online life is like mine, you're inundated with countless emails from all corners of the globe telling you to get this, watch that, don't stick that in an outlet (!!!)... It can be easy to get overwhelmed. To combat that, here's a really awesome, chill picture of Loremaster Maya and her moglin friend created by the incredibly-talented AQW artist, Crulon!

Feast your eyes, rest your mind, and ease your heart...

Then prepare to unsheathe your blades because OMG do we have a lot coming for you this month! But I'll hold off on more news of that until later today. For now, stare at the pretty lady and chilly moglin and be at peace. War will come soon enough to Lore!

Tags: Aethai,

November 30, 2016

2017 Calendar Available for Pre-Order

Head to HeroMart to reserve yours now!

A new year approaches, and that means it's time for a brand-new Calendar to arrive at HeroMart. This year's new calendar features digitally painted artwork inspired by our newest game, AdventureQuest 3D, and its theme is "Year of Adventures." Given everything we've got planned for 2017, that sounds about right!

Unlock rewards in multiple Artix Entertainment games!

The entire team was so excited about how cool this year's calendar looks, that EVERYONE wanted to get in on the reward action! That means you will unlock in-game rewards inside AQ3D, AQWorlds, AdventureQuest, DragonFable, and EpicDuel!

To celebrate this brand new "year of adventure" the calendar includes our first ever revision of the original CHRONOMANCER ARMOR for AdventureQuest 3D!

It also includes the highly anticipated AdventureQuest Worlds class, the Shadow Walker of Time Class inside AQWorlds!

The DragonFable and AdventureQuest teams are planning to release their classes for calendar buyers in early 2017. (To any time travelers out there... let me know what the release date turns out to be!)

2017 Calendar: Collector's Edition

For those of you SUPER collectors, we've got a really sweet treat this time around. The Collector's Edition includes a limited "Dragon Slayer" Collectors print as well as a signed copy of the 2017 calendar!

Shadow Walker of Time Class Skills

What IS a Shadow Walker of Time, you ask? Good question! These intrepid, timely explorers can step into a shadow in one time-stream and emerge from a completely different shadow in another time stream.

ShadowWalkers of Time gain mana when they:

Strike an enemy in combat (more effective on crits)
Dodge any attack (restores HP as well)

ShadowWalkers of Time gain mana when they:

Strike an enemy in combat (more effective on crits)
Dodge any attack (restores HP as well)

Rift of Shadows

Applies Chaos Rift, which is used for other abilities. Each attack also affects you and your opponent's sight, lowering your opponent's Hit Chance by 3% while increasing yours by 3%. If Temporal Eclipse is active, each attack will affect you and your opponent's Focus, lowering your opponent's Dodge Chance by 3% while increasing yours by 3%. Both stack to 5 and last for 10 seconds.

Cooldown: 1.5 Seconds
Range: Melee
Type: Physical

50% Weapon Damage

A strong defensive skill that takes a short while to build up. Your opponents will struggle to land a hit with their Hit Chance reduced by 15%. If you’re in Temporal Eclipse mode it will further your defensive ability with increased dodge chance. Considering you lack consistent heal, this will be vital to keeping your health in check.

Exude/Devour

Strikes at the blink of an eye, causing up to 2 opponent's existence to slowly fade. Deals moderate damage and applying a moderate DoT for 6 seconds. If Temporal Eclipse is up, shreds the opponent and feeds off their shadows. Deals moderate damage and applying a moderate HoT to the caster for 6 seconds.

Mana: 15
Cooldown: 6 seconds
Range: Far
Type: Physical/Magical

150% Weapon Damage

Your bread and butter skill. Helps get the damage train going and applies your only heal while you have Temporal Eclipse. Not to be overlooked.

Vendetta/Umbral Stigma

Marks your opponents, dealing Moderate damage and increasing the damage the target takes from all sources by 20% for 10 seconds. If Temporal Eclipse is active, singles the target out, recording their being in that point of time dealing Moderate Damage. After a short moment, echoes the damage based off the damage you have done in the past 10 seconds.

Mana: 30
Cooldown: 6 seconds
Range: Fullscreen
Type: Physical/Magical

100% Weapon Damage

This class is strongest vs a single opponent and Vendetta is the reason why. A 20% damage boost vs all sources means you’ll be a hit at parties and the opponent will be taking hits like a pinata.

Silhouette/Shadow Warp

Sacrifices your life force to constantly warp through the shadows, increasing your dodge by 300% for 4 seconds and dealing damage to up to 3 foes while focusing their attacks onto you. If Temporal Eclipse is active, strikes from the opponent's shadows for Moderate Damage to up to 3 enemies and healing 30 mana after 2 seconds to the caster. Costs health after 2 seconds.

Cooldown: 12 seconds
Range: Status/Fullscreen
Type: Physical/Magical

Deals 380% of your attack power as damage to self after 2 seconds

180% Weapon Damage dealt to opponent

You lack heal, we get that, but this class isn’t about healing. It’s about being in the shadows, dodging, lurking, striking fast and hard and when it’s least expected. 300% dodge for 4 seconds. You’re practically invincible to everything. In PvP, if you know your opponent well, hit this right before their big nuke, slip into the shadows and come back blades a blazin’.

Neverending Dusk: Increases Endurance by 25%

Harbinger of Shadows: Increases Damage Output, Crit Rate, and Crit Damage by 12%

Temporal Eclipse

Emits total darkness applying Shadowed state, lowering up to 3 opponent's Hit Chance and negating their Crit Chance by 30% for 5 seconds. You access new abilities as you warp through the shadows applying Temporal Eclipse, increasing your hit and crit chance by 80%. Lasts 5 seconds. If Chaos Rift is up, applies Turbulent Rift, doubling your haste but increasing the damage you take by 20% for 5 seconds.

Mana: 30
Cooldown: 15 seconds
Type: Physical/Magical
Range: Fullscreen

Your ‘berserk mode’. Hit this and get ready to spam your skills. Use Shadow Warp to replenish mana, Devour to heal up and Umbral Stigma to deal the killing blow! Be careful though, as you will almost definitely have Chaos Rift up (unless you open with Temporal Eclipse *hint*). That means you’ll be taking 20% more damage from all sources for 5 seconds. Hit Devour often for that sweet heal and make sure your autos are landing to get the dodge buff to neutralize any additional damage you would be taking.

Shadows of Time

Rarely freezes up to 3 opponents in their Shadows while increasing your ability to warp increasing your Speed for a short time.

Tags: Aethai,

December 11, 2016

Special Holiday Bonus Offer

Get up to 50% more FREE Adventurecoins!

From RIGHT NOW until January 6th, buy any Adventure package and get up to 50% more FREE bonus ACs!

The bigger the AC package you buy, the more free AdventureCoins you'll get!

900 AC pack: 100 extra ACs

2000 AC pack: 500 extra ACs

5000 AC pack: 2000 extra ACs

12000 AC pack: 6000 extra ACs

* Note: bonus AdventureCoins are only available with AdventureCoin packages. The special bonus offer does not apply to membership packages.

Tags: Aethai,

November 11, 2016

TRIPLE server boost: ACTIVE!

Concentrating More Players onto Testing Servers

To help concentrate players onto the testing server, over the next few days, we will sporadically be turning on a TRIPLE boost to XP, Rep, Gold, and Class Points on the following servers:

Zorbak
Safiria

The boosts will be active for a couple hours at a time as we monitor the data. Log on and battle, and once you see the Server Message saying the boost is active, call all your friends and let's fill the servers as MUCH as possible!

The Nythera, Alina, and Cysero testing servers have been hidden to help concentrate player populations onto these servers.

The boost will return Sunday afternoon. Watch these Design Notes and my Twitter for boost status announcements.

Limited Time Rare Drop... only on the test servers!

If the triple boost isn't enough incentive for you to log onto the test servers... now you've got a RARE ITEM! Enter Zorbak or Safiria servers until Tuesday and battle the Lesser Groglurk in /marsh2 for a chance to get the Black Blood Blade until Tuesday!

Update: right now, there is a bug on the testing servers (thanks for finding it, guys!) with reward drops - the rewards are not dropping for everyone in a room at the same time. This bug will be fixed on Monday.

You *can* still keep farming for a chance to get the drop, but because of the bug, we will extend the leave date until Friday.

Player Feedback: FASTER servers!

InfiniteAE says: "Not gonna lie, I'm really blown away (amazed) on how FAST the test servers have gotten! Keep it up! I have lots of faith!"

Tyler: "Thank you for the triple boost! I didn't realize how fast the PTR servers are! Holy!"

vοrτεχrεαvεr: "The response time when transferring items from your inventory to your bank is incredibly fast!"

What To Do While Testing: Report Bugs

If you find any bugs while battling on the testing servers, please make sure you report them to the Bug Tracker at www.Artix.com/bugs

PS: click this for a sneak peek of some of the Black Friday gear coming later this month! (Unless you don't like spoilers. Then... carefully do NOT click!)

Tags: Aethai,

October 26, 2016

Double Birthday Server Boost

Time to /Party and Battle On!

Hi, guys! October is a CRAZY month here at the Underground Lab, and for the members of the Artix Entertainment team. So many of our games have their birthday events, and many of our team members do, too -- including Cysero, Rolith, Ai no Miko (who's birthday was yesterday!), and me. It is hard to believe that another year has already passed, and it's time to level up again...in real life!

I want to thank you all for helping make the past year an AMAZING one for me, the AQWorlds team, and everyone at Artix Entertainment. Please enjoy a 24 hour DOUBLE server boost as my birthday/thank you gift to you!

* Add in wedding anniversaries AND Halloween and it turns into one long month of crazy, non-stop /partying!

Time to /party and Battle On!

Tags: Aethai,

August 19, 2016

Changes to HeroMart + HeroPoints

Read on for more information on HeroMart Changes!

Please see the post here for the latest information on HeroMart and HeroPoints!

Tags: Aethai,

August 08, 2016

Monday News Blast

Get ready... set... GO! NEWS FEED!

Hello and happy Monday night, heroes! After bowing out of Friday's release due to illness (man, I hate doing disappearing on Fridays, but thank you all for the well-wishes!), I am back and full of good tidings to share!

Get Your Two FREE HeroPoints!

Help Stryche celebrate the grand opening of the in-game HeroMart location by completing his quest for two FREE HeroPoints! Once you've gotten yours, you can spend them in his in-game merge shop.

His quest is one-time only, but you can always get more HeroPoints when you buy merch from HeroMart.com! Currently, the only item that comes with HeroPoints is the new AQ3D shirt, but more HeroMart products will have them in the future!

Note: if you bought any HeroMart merchandise in the past, please make sure you check the inbox of the email that was used for the order, as you (or your parent) got an email with a code for exclusive, free HeroPoints! You can redeem those AND do Stryche's in-game quest for the two free points!)

DragonSlayer General Class Buff

MORE good news! The Class designers and balancers, plus Artix and I, watched your feedback and requests all weekend long! By the end of the day Saturday, the designers were already brainstorming on how to improve the class!

In the interest of not releasing a too-overpowered class, the designers created a class that had room for improvement. We always want to listen to your feedback to make the classes what YOU want them to be and now, with the changes made today, it will be.

Those changes are coming (or may already be live O_O), and you can see the full list here!

After speaking with Arklen, the head of our class design and testing team, we are also going to shoot for bringing back the "member preview for new classes" perk in the future to help get MORE feedback before it releases to all players.

Recent unplanned class "nerfs" and other changes

Players have reported changes to several classes (like Abyssal Angel), saying they are doing less damage than before. Adjustments to rebalance those classes rolled out slightly early - on the new server, those are actually BUFFS, but with the current server, people are experiencing lower damage levels.

Other recent class changes:

Archfiend now has better mana regain, consistent healing and improved damage.
Arachnomancer got a small buff to its survival and we are looking into its DoT damage for when the server rewrite goes live.
Alpha Pirate was doing spell damage while being mainly a weapon damage class so we adjusted it to do only weapon damage, which gave it a nice damage boost.

The other classes on the "to rebalance" list will be adjusted after the server rewrite, since the effect is too dramatic to release on the current live servers.

Speaking of the server rewrite...

Good news! The server rewrite itself is done BUT Yorumi estimates he has maybe a week left of client-side bug fixes. (Unless something goes unexpectedly awry... which CAN happen *eyes the server hamsters*)

These are primarily small-but-important fixes like:

Chat mutes not working
PVP Amulets not equipping
Facebook link button does nothing

He has been making steady progress on those 20+ bugs fixed last week alone! (Thanks, testers and player-testers!!)

For everyone asking about the PTR Sir Ver Bank Pet... you'll need 150 Quest Mission Sprockets to create your very own PTR reward! You can get these by doing ANY of the quests on the PTR Testing servers.

Make sure you report any bugs you find on the Bug Tracker!

Valencia and the Hunt for the Sanguine Garnet Change

Valencia and her adventure in Darkovia have disappeared temporarily while we relocate it. Expect to see that adventure reappear later this month, based out of the Museum in Battleon town!

Tags: Aethai,

June 26, 2016

Black Hole Sun War Boss Unlocked

Take on the Reflecteract Now!

Congratulations! The Reflecteract war boss has just been unlocked! Talk to Anubyx for the boss quest and story cutscenes, then take on the boss for a chance to get its reward drops.