January 11, 2013

Into Blackhorn Keep

I Hope You Love Spiders!

Today we begin the new Maximillian Lionfang's Chaos Story. Many of you have long wondered if Lionfang, who began his life as a one-off bad guy for our first birthday event, would ever actually become a Lord of Chaos. 

Spoiler: He does. 

We're trying something kind of interesting and new with this release. Based heavily on Lionfang's established lore, we're back tracking a bit and showing you how you first met Maximilian Lionfang when he was a General for King Alteon. 

You will follow his lead to the ancient Blackhorn Tomb (some of you might recognize the name from last week's adventure) where General Lionfang has tracked an ancient scroll that might reveal a way to defeat Chaos itself! 

In this release you will find an AC shop at the beginning of the release with a host of amazing items, lots of drops on the monsters and if you complete the release you will unlock another shop full of Member and Non-Member gold items and armors! 

NEXT WEEK: Come back to relive a special expanded version of the assault on Lionfang's Keep, or play through it for the very first time! 

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY RARES!

Our newest and dumbest contest yet is live! Read ALL about it on the SUATMR Contest Page (pronounced soo-AHT-meer)!

WHAT IS IT?: It's a contest where you can win one of my or another dev or mod's rare items! 

HOW DO I ENTER?: Talk to Cleric Joy in Battleon, click her SHOP button and buy a February Rares Raffle Ticket! You must have this item in your backpack or bank on the day of the drawing to enter the raffle.

WHEN IS THE DRAWING?: The drawing will be the first Tuesday of every month, so the first drawing will be held on Tuesday, Feb 5th!

HOW DO I HELP MY CHANCES OF WINNING?: The Rares Raffle Ticket enters you in the contest and gives you 1 chance to win. Every DAY of AQW Membership left on your account on the day of the drawing increases your chances by 1 (200 days left = 200 more chances). Also, every AExtra that you've completed from jan 1 to the day of the drawing increases your chances by 1 more (12 AExtras done =  12 more chances to win). 

WHAT CAN I WIN?: See the SUATMR Contest Page for a list of possible prizes! 

I DON'T GET IT!: Really? OK, then you should really, really go read the SUATMR Contest Page. Seriously, read every word. 

RANGER CLASS, 2000 ACs

We've been getting a FLOOD of requests in recent months to sell the Ranger Class for ACs like all other recent classes. When I say a flood, I mean a FLOOD. Of all the the coming features that we've talked about or hinted at, all the bugs past and present this one change has beaten them ALL in terms of the numbers of people asking for this. 

I've never been a fan of the idea since I thought that it was quite the badge of honor to have earned the class. More reasonable heads than mine pointed out that it's STILL a badge of honor if you earn it, even if a version is sold for ACs. 

As of tonight, you will be able to buy the Ranger Class from Ragnar's Class Shop for 2000 ACs, BUT the earned version of the class, identical in every other way, will be renamed to the MASTER Ranger Class so you can more easily prove to your friends and other players that you EARNED this class. 

This is the only Class for which we plan to make this concession, so enjoy it all you hard core Sandsea farmers (past, present and future)! Wear your Ranger class with pride! 

Seasonal Rare Shop On Twilly

A few changes to Twilly's Pop-up in Battleon. He is now hosting a Seasonal Rare Shop. This little shop is just an fun little option for people with ACs to burn who like the items he has. Every season (Spring being the next) Twilly will get NEW seasonally-themed items that will also go rare. 

All you have to do is purchase Twilly's 2013 Ice Token and that will enable you to open the shop and grab ALL of the Seasonal items which are all 0 ACs. Items will go perma-rare in March when the Spring shop opens! 

The New New Mage

The new Mage base Class Art is live and with it the new Mage Armor in the mage trainer's shop. 

Due to a large influx of player requests, the previous version of the mage armor will remain availible but as been renamed "Noble Mage". Dage really went all out redesigning the base classes and we are now VERY proud that new players, just coming to AQ.COM for the first time will be greeted by these amazing classes. 

New Offer Pop-Ups!

Recently, we have added a couple of special offer pop-ups in-game for a very small amount of people who met the exact qualifications for the offer and a lot of people were asking "Why not me?!"

In response to this we have added a small array of NEW special offers targeted directly at YOU. If you DO qualify for these special offers, keep in mind that these are limited time offers and you might never see them again. 

If you guys like these and continue to ask for them when we might expand the offers even further. If not then these will just... go away. 

New Verification Armors

Members of our OTHER games were promised updated armors for their DragonLord, StarLord & Guardian shops in the Guardian Tower as a Frostval Gift. Sadly, a million things fell down on our heads all at once and these got backlogged BUT THEY ARE FINALLY HERE! 

You can find the new armors in the same verification shops where you can find your special classes, and the weapons for the new armors will arrive NEXT week! Enjoy and Happy (Belated) Frostval!

Last Chance for 2012 Holiday Gear!

Alina says remember: Make sure to log in before Monday, January 14th, because that will be your LAST chance to access:

• our Kezeroth the World Ender Frostval event until December
• the Save the Sun New Year's event until January
• Quibble Coinbiter's Shop 
• the 2013 Sun/Moon Rares Shop*  
• the Last-ever Limited Quantity Shop** 

* This shop will go PERMA-RARE! Welcome in 2013 with some of the shiniest gear of the season!
** This is the LAST Limited Quantity Shop we will do. Once this gear is gone, it will NEVER return!

Weekend Project

This weekend Artix, Dage, a few of the other team members and I are getting together to sharpen out Mobile Development skills. I can't even say that we're making a game, per se. I will say that we are making something very small and barely functional for multiple mobile devices. 

Whatever we spit out at the end of this weekend might just be a total disaster but we DO plan on releasing it for free on as many mobile platforms as we can figure out, 

Keep and eye on our Twitter feeds, Artix.com and the AQW Facebook Fanpage for updates to see how things are going! 

Have a great day.

OR ELSE!