Design Notes

August 29, 2011

Magic Keys: Take Two!

How Many Treasure Chests Have Your Found?!

This weekend we pioneered our Treasure Chest System. If you missed it here is how it works:

You can defeat ANY monster in the entire game (That means ANY monster, PvP Kills don;t count even if your opponent is monsterous) and you have a small % chance to get a Treasure Chest which can contain any one of a number of really cool items and armors, all of which are 0 AdventureCoin items so you can store them for free in your bank.

To open the Treasure Chest, you need a Magic Key which Twilly sells in Battleon. Give the chest and key to Twilly and he will open the chest for you.

The Magic keys cost 200 ACs each but if you are a Member you will be getting 2 Magic Keys for free each month.

If you don't feel like buying ACs or earning FREE AdventureCoins with AExtras, you can just sell the chests for 500G each.

We've gotten a LOT of very positive feedback from most of you. You like the fun of hunting, the fun of opening a surprise, the ability to get ACs for keys pretty easily through AExtras and the new member perk of 2 free keys a month.

This weekend we encountered a few bugs which were quickly taken care of.

1. The engine wasn't checking your BANK for items so you might have opened the same thing twice. THIS WAS NOT MEANT TO HAPPEN. The way it works is that you never get the same item twice so you don't waste your keys.
   
   
2. Once that was fixed, another bug popped up where people were turning the quest into Twilly and nothing was happening. No reward at all. That one Zhoom fixed REALLY quickly. 

Unfortunately this mean that some of you wasted your keys and your hard earded ACs.

We don't like that so we're fixing it.

A little later today we will take the number of keys you bought, compare it to the number of keys you have + number of treasure chest items you have and give you the amount of keys that you lost.

It's not possible for us to track the 2 free keys that we gave members, but we don't want you to have wasted your free keys, we are just going to give ALL AQW MEMBERS another 2 Magic Keys absolutely free.

If you didn't use your keys then grats, you get 2 more for free. If you bought your membership this weekend, then grats, you get 2 free keys. :)

In addition to this weekend's DragonCon festivities and special release and suggestion shop update, we will also be adding even more great items to the Treasure Chests this weekend.

Cysero's Con Survival Guide! (revised 2011 edition)

DragonCon starts THIS WEEKEND and as has become tradition I am imparting my knowledge and experience to you all. This is Cysero's Con Survival Guide '11!

WHAT TO BRING

• A Large Bag. You're going to to be carrying a LOT of stuff around with you and picking up a lot of stuff as you con so a large bag is necessary.

• A Towel. Your hotel room will probably come equipped with these but I always preffer to bring a large, beach-sized towel with me wherever I go. Hitchikers listed most of the uses, but for a more practical example: I have fallen asleep in the hallways of more than one convention hotel and it's always nice to have a towel for a blanket or pillow.  
  

• Energy Bars. Meals come unpredictably during con and staying alive can be hard. You never know when you'll be stuck at a table-top gaming session that lasts 14 hours straight... and if you leave the brutal GM will just kill you.

• Bottle Of Water. See above. Also good for waking up wierdos who are sleeping in the hallways of your hotel.

• Extra Strength Energy Shots (Optional). You know, those little bottles of energy booster that they sell everywhere. These things are not great for you, but caffine and sugar have no effect on MY metabolism and you might be built the same way. Con goes day and night, all weekend long. And it's a holiday weekend. I consider them a necessity during Con.

• Cash (Well Hidden). As you explore the convention you WILL encounter some stuff you NEED to own. Swords, pithy shirts, novels, William Shattner selling autographs... and there is a 50% chance that the thing you want to buy, you can't buy with plastic. If you plan on falling asleep in a hall somewhere, be sure that your cash is in your sock or in the secret pocket in your boxers, or cloak... you don't want to wake up broke.

• A Mobile Computing Device. Most modern cell phones will do, but you might not get a signal in the underground mazes that connect the convention hotels. Having a wireless card in a small laptop is priceless. A smartphone attached to a 3G network will do (con-tested my iPhone in 2009, worked like a dream). You might or might not Tweet. You might or might not need to check your Facebook but your FRIENDS will NEED to contact you about something that you HAVE TO SEE RIGHT NOW!
  
  Additional: This year, DragonCon is working on a free Con Schedule App! You will eventually lose your paper one but so dones everyone else so there are an endless supply of them in every corner BUT this way you don't have to get your hands sticky and wonder why the last person ditched it.

• A Good Friend. The buddy system is always a good idea. That's why I bring Alces. He's part Dr. Gonzo, part Chief Medical Officer and part Tech Support. He is all best friend and has been for more than half of my life. If you have a friend who has been before and can show you around the ever changing paths of the convention, bonus.

• A Camera. Fully charged. Memory card empty. NEEDS a flash. Your cell won't do for this. Too many dark corners with Halo Spartans hiding in them.

• A Zorbak Plushy. It's the ultimate ice-breaker. "Can I get a picture of you holding this guy, please?" "Sure... what is he?"

• Good Walking Shoes. Trust me.

• Glow Sticks or a Dance Party App. Last year Alces and I accidentally found ourselves in a mobile rave. One guy was wearing the sound system and power supply on his back and his two friends were each wearing giant speakers converted into backpacks. The party never stopped moving. Alces and I took a chance, caught a cab, went to an all night market and bought $44 worth of glowsticks to give to share with our fellow mobile partiers. We were gone about 4 minutes, but when we returned to the street corner, they had moved on. We spent the next hour followig the sound of those booming speakers until we caught up. If on'y we'd had the glow sticks on us!
  
  
• Portable Gaming Device. Long lines. Really long lines. After last year this one was moved to the MUST catagory.
  
  
• Duct Tape. This is just something you should have all the time anyway, BUT there are a LOT of people in a LOT of costumes and things start falling apart on day 1. A well timed piece of duct tape can make you a lot of friends very quickly.

That should be, more or less, everything that you need to pack. Other options include: clean clothes, costumes, things you want autographed, video camera, your Battleon Battle Card deck (teach a stranger how to play!), a map of the con (some of us like getting lost), a pair of scissors (for a lock of Kevin Sorbo's hair while he's passed out in a fountain somewhere), a sketchbook (for ideas), a steampunk R2 unit, 8 channel progrmable remote control, Sonic Screwdriver, or grappling hook... just cause.

August 26, 2011

Crossroads & Treasure Chests

The Chaos Twins Are Back!

Xing and Xang, the Chaos Twins: They have been a constant point of curiosity and source of debate among hardcore players.

"When a great King, Queen, or Hero reaches a moral crossroad, legends says the Twins appear." but for a while they have not been the force for balance that they once were. Something happend to the Twins to alter them and today you find out what that was.

Journey to the Crossroads and speak to the half-Troll Druuz and the half-Horc Rawg and perform the ritual to summon the Twins to answer 5 of your questions! 

You will find new, intresting sub-species of well known monsters like Lemurphants or the deadly Chinchillizards. You will only be able to summon the Twins if you can pass the test of She Who Answers (Maybe they should call her She Who Quizzes) as she challenges your knolwedge of both Horc and Troll culture.

In this release you will also find new items added to both the Horc and Troll Reputation Shop as well as drops from the monsters in the new area!

Have You Found A Treasure Chest Yet?

Mysterious Treasure Chests have been showing up all around Lore lately. Have you found one yet?

This is a new, fun, and completly random addition to the game. These chests have a less than 1% chance of dropping from ANY monster in the entire game. Each one contains one of over 20 (and the number will keep growing) Epic Items that you can't get anywhere else, including 5 all new Armors!

All of the items are 0 AC so you can store them for free, all of the items are non-member so you can use them forever!

There's just one problem. You can't open the Treasure Chests without a Magic Key. The good news is that Twilly (the little red Moglin in Battleon) has a few extras and will happily sell you one for 200 ACs and open your chest for you.

If you don't have a lot of spare ACs, you can always do some AEXtras to get some quick AdventureCoins, and if you don't feel like doing that, just sell the Treasure Chest! Each one is worth 500 GOLD!

MEMBER PERK: Once again, AQW membership gives you even more of the best of AQW. Today, everyone who was already a member at the time of the release got 2 FREE MAGIC TREASURE CHEST KEYS added to their backpack!

And it just keeps getting better. Soon, we will be adding a way for every Member to get 2 Free Magic Keys EVERY MONTH from Twilly. We will annouce that as soon as we have it working. Since the keys are worth 200 ACs, that means that it will be possible for members to sell them and get ACs from the game for the first time ever!

NEXT WEEK: DRAGONCON 2011!

Once again it's time for the LONG CON! Every year a lot of the AE staff head to Atlanta, GA for the  DragonCon! "The largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe!".

As usual, we have an AE Panel where players who attend the convention can come to hang out with us, punt some moglins, get things signed, sign things for us, ask questions, get answers and see sneak peeks of our top secret projects that we always have in the works.

As usual, each person who attends the panel will get a special DragonCon Pet made just those brave few who travel from all corners of the Earth (we can actually say that now!) to hang with us.

This year we've got some new stuff going on. Artix is having a full-size wooden replica of Galanoth's the DragonBlade crafted and one of the lucky panel attendees will be going home with it!

We will also have a Fan Booth set up in the one of the main convention halls. Each day we will be handing out REAL LIFE ACHIEVEMENT BADGES to attach to your convention badge. There's a different badge for each day of the con!

As usual we will be driving up to Atlanta and every time we stop somewhere I will scout out a public pay phone and Tweet the number. If you catch the tweet, you will be able to call us and say HI! It was big fun last year and should be again!

I will also be accepting Battleon Battle Card challenges anywhere at anytime during the convention.

There's also a Pizza Party in Artix's room on Thursday night.

I'm not making ANY of this up.

Here's the Info page.

Have a great weekend! or Else.