Design Notes

August 02, 2011

"Coming Features" Progress!

Duel Invites option turned OFF!

Do you love battling your friends and foes, but only on your OWN terms? Do you want to prevent nasty cases of random "Shattered-Skull Syndrome" or inconvenient bouts of the "Battered-Bone Blues"?

Yes? Excellent! Then we have the solution for YOU! Just head into your options menu and uncheck the Duel Invites button!

Your Options screen if you DON'T want to duel.

This new option is LIVE! (Right now!) But that's not all Yorumi's made progress on...

Character Pages are getting a NEW look!

Have you ever wondered what AWESOME armor the enchanting new Mage in your party has equipped? Too shy to ask? Then you'll find our handy-dandy, new and improved Character Page feature that displays what your fellow players are wearing a huge help:

Yorumi worked hard ALL day! /Cheer him on!

This feature should go live this Friday! It's looking good in testing, so with luck, you'll have a shiny new, much more useful, character page this weekend!

Bits 'n' Bobs about other News

• An update is coming to the Player Suggestion shop! Mennace, Skyline, and Dage will all contribute as they bring to life (bring to Flash? That doesn't sound as impressive somehow...) the ideas of players just like you! The next update could showcase YOUR creativity, but you have to show us what you've got, and you can do that here!
• The Event Rare shop in the ArcAttack zone will go rare THIS Friday! So if you want to equip epic electrical-themed gear, get it now!
• The weapon/item drops from the Shadowfall War will ALSO go rare this Friday! The Darkness Gems that drop which are used in the War Merge shop will NOT go rare, nor will the items in the Merge shop.

Have an excellent Tuesday night! We'll see you all tomorrow for another day of writin', gamin', and rockin' the Secret Underground Lab!

July 25, 2011

The DoomWood Finale

Coming this week

This Friday is the thrilling conclusion of the DoomWood saga as the story finally reaches its climax. You've made your way through DoomWood, been everywhere from the top of the Tower of Necromancy to the bottom of the darkest dungeon that the Necropolis has to offer. You've tolerated Zomboda and all of the puns in the Chopping Maul. You've seen Noxus and Chuckles change places and Gravelyn change clothes and last week you accidentally helped ArcAttack accidentally super-charge the Paladin Slayer, Vordred.

Now it all comes to a close. You and Artix are ready to face Vordred and stop him once and for all.

If he can be stopped.

Samba and Nulgath are both already hard at work on the cutscenes because this is no ordinary conclusion. As always, you shape the storyline. We've been getting a lot of great feedback from you guys on this zone and you've had a lot of different ideas about where it's going so we are opening up the ending to multiple possible endings all based on your choices.

ArcAttacking!

Last Week's ARCATTACK event is still in full swing. There are LOTS of non-member drops, LOTS of member only items in the member only backstage area and LOTS of rares in the EVENt RARE SHOP, but those won't last forever. The drops and member shop are staying in the game along with the event but those rares will be leaving soon. Don't miss out.

If you want to read more about the band and see what ArcAttack Fans think of the event, visit:

ARCATTACK.COM

or ArcAttack's Facebook Fan Page. As long as you there, you might as well Like them!

Trying To Make Everyone Happy

A few new classes are coming to AQW this weekend. As promised, the UndeadSlayer Class (for members only) will be coming to the DoomWood Rep Shop for rank 10 DoomWood Rep BUT for those of you Members who have not yet hit Rank 10 while farming for Necro, there will also be an AC version of UndeadSlayer (also member only).

Just like Necromancer, there will be no difference at all in appearance or abilities. The AC version is just there to give you the option to work hard to earn the class or just drop the ACs and save the time.

We've been getting a lot of mixed signals from you guys about an AC version of Arcangrove's non-member Shaman Class.

A handful of very dedicated players have worked tirelessly to earn the Shaman Class but we've gotten tens of tousands of messages asking us to add an AC option to buy it. It's impossible to make everyone happy, but that will never stop us from trying. Of course, it would be a terrible insult to those hard working players to go back and make Shaman Class availible for purchase but we think we've found a compromise that will work for everyone.

This weekend we are introducing EVOLVED SHAMAN CLASS to Arcangrove. It will have an all new look and new set of skills based on the original Shaman Class Build with entirely different powers.

Here's the nice part, if you have already earned Shaman, you get the earned version of Evolved Shaman FOR FREE. No fighting through impossible tower mini-games or farming for a drop that never seems to drop... It is a gift to those of you who put in the hard work and time to earn Shaman. Everyone else will still have the option to earn Shaman and Evolved Shaman just like you did or they can buy Evolved Shaman with ACs but the original Shaman is not and will never be for sale. 

New Color Picker

Zhoom and Yorumi have pretty much ironed out most of the bugs from the new color picker and have told me that (unless they find some OTHER terrible bugs) the new color picker will be live THIS WEEK. Sorry that we weren't able to release it last week, but we're soo close... can ya taste it?

What does it taste like?

July 22, 2011

ArcAttack Event is LIVE!

ArcAttacking CastleMania!

The ArcAttack event is now LIVE!

more than 23,000 player are currently online after a vyer interesting and revealing Q and A session with the members of ArcAttack where literally THOUSANDS of questions were gathered by the Devs and Mods from all different servers and from Twitter.

Once again, you guys did a great job of making us look good. Your enthusiasm for the event really surprised ArcAttack and they put as much thought into their answers as you did into your questions.

But that is over now and the ArcAttack Event is underway!

DoomWood continues with special guests, ArcAttack, whom Vordred us using to cause electro-musical mayhem in CastleMania!

We've got 5 special cutscenes with voices and music by the band themselves (Special Guest appearances by Galanoth as Vordred and One-Eyed Doll's Kimberly as Sally) , an Event Rare shop with 22 GUARENTEED RARE AC ITEMS...

...10 Non-Member Drops including 2 brand new armors, 14 Member Only Items, a Member-Only Backstage Area with Vordred Outtakes where you can stand in the Faraday Cage and take a screenshot with the band NPCs, and an event Achievement Badge (Book of Lore and Character Page!) for everyone who completes the event!

Play through the entire event to see what happens when Vordred tries to use ArcAttack's electro-musical research to increased his powers of undeath and get prepared for next week's DOOMWOOD FINALE!

Every Good Scientist Needs Willing Test Subject

Today will be the beginning of AQW's ArcAttack Musical Event, and if you have been following Artix's Play-By-Play you know exactly whats going on. This is the final ArcAttack band member spotlight. This mysterious... man, probably... is known only as 7.

Not much is known about 7, other than the simple fact that he is without a doubt the bravest person that the band has ever know. Or the stupidest. Or both.

In ArcAttack's live shows 7 is always seen wearing his Faraday Suit which insulates him from very probably harm and allows him to perform in-between their giant Singing Tesla Coils as electricity crawls, arccs and snaps across the surface of the suit and the Lightning Guitar. 7, wearing the protective suit, is the ONLY person capable of playing that instrument without risking permanent damage.

Within the walls of Castlemania, he assist the band's electro-musical experimentation as a volunteer guinea pig and test subject. Who knows what effects these experiments have had on this chain-mail-masked musician of mystery beneath his Faraday Suit.

Get Ready for an electric explosion of AWESOME!

July 20, 2011

John

Getting to know ArcAttack's Bassist!

The Countdown continues - only TWO more days until the Arc Attack Musical Event this Friday! There's a little bit of Mad Scientist in most artists, and in anyone who has a passion for creation, really. We share that trait with the members of ArcAttack, and we've all been hard at work creating the various parts of this weekend's musical event!

Today we'd like to continue our introduction of the ArcAttack band members with the most bass-ic member of them all - John! As ArcAttack's bass guitarist, you'd expect him to be strong, powerful, and a driving force in the band, much like the bass line in a rockin' song.


As a mad scientist driven by frequencies beyond the range of normal human hearing, he embraces his ability and puts it to work manipulating magic through music. Already possessing a double-Doctorate in Dissonance and Direct Current, he's aiming for a third degree in Dead-icated Necrotics. This weekend's experiment will be used in his dissertation.

AC and Member Event Rare items for this weekend's event!

We mentioned yesterday that there will be some EPIC items coming to the ArcAttack event, and today we want to show some of them off! We want to whet your appetite before we ROCK it!

High-voltage AC gear pictured above:

• Faraday Suit Armor
• Ride the Lightning Cape
• Ionic Discharge Staff

AC items for SCIENCE!:

• Mad Scientist Armor
• High-Voltage Conductor Mace
• Experimentation #7 Staff
• Toxis Resistor Axe
• And more!

Member-only Helms:

• Augmented Vision Helm (top right)
• Toxic Vision Helm (bottom right)

AC Helms:

• Mad-Eye Scientist Helm (top left)
• Hypochondriacal Scientist Helm (bottom left)

There will also be non-member items, but we do not have the art for them yet. No art, no preview pictures!

Reminder!

AEXtras is still a great way to get FREE ADVENTURECOINS and even FREE BATTLEON POINTS, and with new Inventory, Bank slots and Preimere Event rares to buy there's never been a better time!

 Just CLICK HERE to get started!

July 19, 2011

Joe

Getting To Know ArcAttack's Guitarist!

Only THREE more days until the ArcAttack Musical Event on Friday! We are teaming up with ArcAttack to feature an Event Rare shop absolutely packed with powerful electrical-themed equips like:

• Mad Scientist Armor
• Faraday Suit and Hood
• Ride the Lightning Cape
• Static Staff
• And more!

But that's not all! There will also be 5 voice-acted cutscenes and a member-only backstage area after the event!

Yesterday we showcased ArcAttack's robotic drummer, King Beat. Today we are excited to introduce to you... Joe! He's a Doctor of Deadcanics and has a PhD in Power Transformers.

He's combining his knowledge of electricity, music, and magic along with the other members of Arc Attack to take experiments in undead technology to the next level!

He LOVES fooling around with frequencies and sound. We're just lucky he hasn't learned how to turn his experiments sentient, or you might be battling waves of sound instead of waves of undead!

He'll rock you, he'll shock you, he'll Bach you up when you need it most in this weekend's special musical event!

July 19, 2011

Telsa Coil Replicator!?

Warlic's crazy Arcttack music code!

This Friday, ArcAttack will be shocking audiences for the first time inside a video game. Replicating the effect of how their Frankenstien style telsa coils shoot lighting to produce the music was a bit of a challenge though! So Warlic wrote code in Actionscript 3.0 that listens to the song and triggers the in-game version of the Tesla Coils to shoot lightning on time with the music. It is sooo cool! Way to go Warlic! We just emailed our prototype to the band.

Voice Acting

Also, in this upcoming special musical event, Kimberly (from One-Eyed Doll) will return as the voice of Necromantress Sally, ArcAttack will be themselves... and Vordred will be voice acted by *transmission lost* which should be interesting! Make sure you are caught up on all the quests in the DoomWood Storyline before the event so you get ALL of the achievements and quest-completes! It all starts Friday at sundown.

July 18, 2011

King Beat

Getting To Know ArcAttack's Drummer!

]The ArcAttack Musical Event is coming THIS FRIDAY, along with an [b]Event Rare[/b] shop with lots of theme items, 5 voice acted cutscenes (voices of the band themselves!) and a member only backstage area after the event, (where, among other things, you can take a screenshot in ArcAttack's Faraday Cage!)

We thought it might be cool if we let you know a little bit more about the band and their ground-breaking music by doing a spotlight feature on each of the members of ArcAttack all week long. Today we'll learn a little bit more about ArcAttack's drummer, KING BEAT!


King Beat was actually a king! He was once ruler of a planet called "Battlerock" who
selects their leaders by having a battle of the bands competition every so often instead
of voting. He was eventually beaten, dethroned, scrapped, and ArcAttack pulled him from a garbage dump. They repaired him and King Beat is now the drummer for the band (the band's drummer has been a robot since they started the group).

He is very technically minded but that's not to say that he doesn't have feelings. Arcattack is very lucky to have him on board. The only thing cooler than having a robot for a drumemr is having a robot for a drummer who is also the deposed king of an alien world.

Come back tomorrow for more info on the band and come back Friday for the ArcAttack Musical Event! Click HERE or click the poster above for more info on the event, the band and even some video clips of the band doing their thing! This special musical event is leading up to the DoomWood Finale coming up very soon, but this weekend's event is one that you're going to want attend.

The ArcAttack Musical Event is coming THIS FRIDAY, along with an Event Rare shop with lots of theme items, 5 voice acted cutscenes (voices of the band themselves!) and a member only backstage area after the event, (where, among other things, you can take a screenshot in ArcAttack's Faraday Cage!)

New Color Picker Coming This Week. Probably.

Yorumi has been hard at work on the new color picker that will continue to allow you to select colors from a grid as we have now but also allow you to change the picker into free-form mode and pick the color you want from a free-form spectrum.

As it is coded now, you will NOT be able to see or enter color values in either hex or RGB so when you pick a color that you like, be sure to remember around where it was!

With a little luck it should be ready to go this week. With a LOT of luck it MIGHT even come out today, but don't hold your breath.

DEADY TOYS ARE RUNNING OUT!

Faith (head of HeroMart) has asked me to warn you that we have got only 130 Deady Toys (we started with SEVERAL HUNDRED and they have gone so fast!) left in stock at HeroMart and we will NOT be getting any more as there wer eonly a limited number ever created.

Each of the Deady Toys also comes with the exclusive non-member Samurai Deady pet as featured in our most recent Friday the 13th event with Voltaire!

Each of these toys are collector's items and if you're a fan of Voltaire you really don't want to missl out on them!

July 15, 2011

Tomix LQS Details

Clearing Up Some Confusion

People seem to be a little confused about tomorrow's LQS so here is all the info you should need, plus some new pictures.

WHEN: Tomorrow (Saturday, July 16th) at 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time.

Here's a handy-dandy online time zone converter to make logging in at just the right moment a little easier!

WHAT: A Limited Quantity Shop is a shop that has a fixed number of items. If an items has a Quanitity of 500, once 500 people buy it... that's it. There are no more. If you see somthing you like, be sure to arrive when the shop opens for your best chance to get one of the limited rare items.

ITEMS:

• SteamGear Armor - 900 AC - 7,000 qty
• SteamGear Helm - 300 AC - 7,000 qty
• SteamGear Bow - 200 AC - 3,500 qty
• SteamGear Moglin Member pet - 25,000 gold -7,000 qty
• Gilded Coffin Cape - 150 AC - 7,000 qty
• Dire Daggers -300 AC - 3,500 qty
• Soul Harvester Armor - 700 AC - 9,000 qty
• Soul Harvester Hood - 300 AC - 9,000 qty 
• Soul Harvester Spear - 200 AC - 9,000 qty
• Ultima Thermos non-Member sword -25,000 gold -  30,000 qty
• Ultima Frigia sword -250 AC - 3,000 qty
• Ultima Aquus sword -250 AC - 3,000 qty
• Ultima Geoda battleaxe - 250 AC - 3,000 qty
• Ultima Electrix spear -250 AC - 3,000 qty

Below are pictures of: Tomix's SteamGear set (minus the daggers), Dage's Soul Harvester full set and the five elemental Ultima Elemental Weapons (inclusing the non-member Ultima Thermos sword).

Tomix's SteamGear set (minus the daggers)...

Dage's Soul Harvester full set...

and the five Ultima Elemental Weapons (including the non-member Ultima Thermos sword).

Later Today 

Prepare yourselves for theboss fight against Noxus and some of the best story driven cutscenes that we;ve had in AQW history, PLUS all new items in the war merge shop, all new war drops and a member-only EXTREME NOXUS BATTLE with special member-only drops!

Next Friday: The ArcAttack Musical Event!

Don't forget to come back next week for our next in-game musical event

Our special musical guest, ArcAttack will be here to help us make our way toward the end of the DoomWood Saga. There will be an event rare item shop, voice-acted cutscenes and, of course, the coursing science-driven music of ArcAttack!

Click HERE to read more about the event and see some live ArcAttack videos!

July 14, 2011

Legendary Release Lineup GO!

Noxious Noxus Boss Battle Blowout!

This Friday the showdown in Shadowfall BEGINS! There's something rotten in Doomwood, and all noses point towards Noxus' rotting corpse! If you want to save Gravelyn, the Alliance, and Artix, you'll need to break through the massive battalions of undead and take Noxus DOWN!

We're also stocking some NEW awesome additions to the War Merge shop and epic rare items for monster drops, so get in there and BATTLE ON!

ArcAttack is Electrifying!

Next Friday at sundown AQWorlds will team up with the epicly electric musical guest star, ArcAttack! These mad scientists will fuse music and energy in an experiment that will ROCK THE WORLD! That much power would make Vordred COMPLETELY unstoppable! You've got to save the scientists and stop Vordred's super-charged takeover attempt, so get ready to grab a guitar and turn the amps up to 900,000 in this special musical event!

Here is some video of Arc Attack Performing... it is really something that needs to be seen to be believed!

You may have seen Arc Attack perform on Amercia's Got Talent. Here is a snippet from the show giving you a a little more information on the band.

Meet and play with ArcAttack in-game in ONE WEEK during AdventureQuest World's most SHOCKING musical event!

DoomWood's Finale - The Nature of Darkness!

On July 29th, the ultimate battle between Light and Dark will come to an end! Face death, destruction, and Darkness... and its Champion! Artix's story will not be complete until YOU finish telling it, Hero!

SATURDAY at 10 AM EST - LQS!

Set your alarms for 10 AM server time, because the Limited Quantity Shop is BACK! It's stocked with gear that's sure to get grabbed up FAST, so if you want a chance to equip the coolest in Tomix-designed steampunk wear or rock the Soul Harvester set that Dage has made, you'll need to move quick!

Here's a handy online time zone converter to make logging in at just the right moment a little easier!

• SteamGear Armor - 900 AC - 7,000 qty
• SteamGear Helm - 300 AC - 7,000 qty
• Gilded Coffin Cape - 150 AC - 7,000 qty
• Dire Daggers -300 AC - 3,500 qty
• SteamGear Bow - 200 AC - 3,500 qty
• Clockwork Moglin Member pet - 25,000 gold -7,000 qty
• Soul Harvester Armor - 700 AC - 9,000 qty
• Soul Harvester Hood - 300 AC - 9,000 qty 
• Soul Harvester Spear - 200 AC - 9,000 qty
• 2 swords -250 AC - 3,000 qty
• 1 non-Member sword -25,000 gold -  30,000 qty
• 1 axe - 250 AC - 3,000 qty
• 1 staff -250 AC - 3,000 qty

Sensational SteamGear Armor

Spectacular Soul Harvester Armor

Cunningly Cute Clockwork Moglin

Reminder!

AEXtras is still a great way to get FREE ADVENTURECOINS and even FREE BATTLEON POINTS, and with new Inventory, Bank slots and Preimere Event rares to buy there's never been a better time!

 Just CLICK HERE to get started!

We've got a LOT lined up for the rest of July! We hope you've enjoyed the DoomWood zone so far, but hold on to your helms because you haven't seen ANYTHING yet!  

August 26, 2010

Kimberly and ArcAttack

Shocking music video... literally!

Our friend, former-chaos lord, and Friday the 13th brain slime fighter, and One-Eyed Doll lead singer,  Kimberly,  made a guest appearence with ArcAttack on the last episode of TV's America's Got Talent. ArcAttack is a very cool band because they use two tesla coils to zap metal creating music. Here is a link to a video of it on youtube that Raviteja sent us through Twitter. Note, the episode and the voting is over, so please do not call in. The first time we met Kimberly ArcAttack was shooting lightning at her just like this (You may remember from that one DragonCon Post)... All I have to say is -- Brains. Daaa naaa naa naa naa naaa naaaa Battle On

The Chaos Lord of Arcangrove?

On the topic of Chaos Lords... this week... something truley maddening will appear in AdventureQuest Worlds. This is so unthinkable... and improbable... and dangerous.... that I would like to once again remind you that AQWorlds is not like other games. The story is growing under your feet. Being created from scratch by the team and your suggestions at the beginning of each week and released on Friday. Unlike other games it is possible for a Chaos Lord to actually win this game if we were to fail.... ANYTHING can happen! This week, you will also discover that ANYTHING can BECOME a Chaos Lord...