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Cysero DIDN'T DO
IT!
June
30th,
2008 Sir
Ver And Friends Take A Nap.
You may have noticed that
we had a little downtime today. Everything broke.
There has beena lot
of speculation as
to what might cause all 3 games, the DNs, the forums and the minigame
site
to go down and stay down for several hours. I can't tell you anything
for certain right now, but I can tell you this... it wasn't my fault.
Pretty sure it wasn't
my fault.
Things are still a
little wonky but the disconnectivity storm seems to be blowing over.
Bear with us and things should be fully opperational again soon. ish.
We'll now that the
Necropolis is all tied up, we will be working on a new zone for a few
weeks. I won't say much except A) you'll want to dress warm and B)
you're going to want to find a disguise for your baby dragon. You know
how Galanoth can get.
THIS week we're still
working a few things, including balancing out the necromancer armor
(Rolith forgot a few damage dividers in there so Final really is Final),
and getting it out to you as soon as we can, so you can get your Deathknight
armor too. Also this weekend we will be releasing some 4th of July
rare DA weapons.
These bad boys will
be colored Red, White and Blue to celebrate the 4th (Independence Day
in the United States, celebrating our Declaration of Independence signed
back in 1776...usually it means flags, fireworks and family cook-outs!)
and when their specials (yes, they will have specials) go off, fireworks
will erupt from them as they deal additional damage over time! I'm
also trying to see if it can randomly tint the affected target red,
white or blue.
These weapons will
be DA ONLY and they will only be in the game for the extended weekend,
so get them before they vanish!
Geo is also working
on a few interesting quests for the Pirate and Ninja Inns, and we were
talking about a second weapon for rogues. We can't use shortswords
because a lot of the daggers are large enough to be short swords already,
can't use fist weapons because of the ways that the weapons change
direction in the rogue's hands during some attacks. We were thinking
about Sacks of Things as a secondary rogue weapon.
Like a sack of
rocks, or doorknobs... or frogs....
or like... beans.
We're still
working on it.
If you guys have any bright ideas for new rogue weapons,
let
us know on the forums (now that they work again)!
Ok, we're running a bit behind
on coding the Necromancer armor, so we are NOT
releasing it or the Deathknight armor today.
Well, not exactly.
We ARE releasing it
for free DA ONLY testing. Mostly fully trained (except one skill that
we're having real problems with) versions of the armor will be available
from a button in Falconreach (like the
Deathknight
is
now) and once you guys have found ALL the bugs and given us lots of
helpful feedback then we will rebalance and release them. Here's what
it looks like:
That's me fighting a Boardrake in the testing
arena. Yes, I just summoned that skeleton dog thing. Yes, I am floating.
Yes, you too will float instead of run, just like Noxus.
Yes, the Necro Helm and Necro Cape that
I'm wearing will be released in the Superstore of Savings later today.
Balance testing on
the Necro Class Armor won't last very long (we want to release it as
badly as you want us
to release it!) so make sure to help test as much as you can! We haven't
had time to test this puppy as much as we would have liked and if we
released
it
today,
things
would
melt. Faces would melt.
Rolith would melt.
That would be very bad.
Today, as promised
we ARE releasing the newest level of the Doom Weapons (available
in Yulgar's Forge for you to built on your own). We are also
releasing the purified versions of the Doom Weapons. Once we
are live, go visit Artix and bring your Doomy, and he will
transform them using the power of Light, into the Twin
Blades of Destiny, the Dragonstaff of Destiny or the Blinding
Light
of Destiny! Seen here:
Remember, you will
only be able to de-bug and balance test the fully trained Necromancer
armor if you have a Dragon
Amulet, and thanks in advance to all of our Dragonlords for, once again,
helping to improve Dragon Fable by testing and giving us all that great
feedback!
We will let you know as soon as the release
is live.
In other news, Warlic
and I tried to test our powers against each other today. See, he's
the creative director of MechQuest and I'm the creative director of
DragonFable... so we hold the same rank, I guess. I've worked for the
company longer but he's known Artix since they were kids. We wondered
what would happen if we tried to fire each other... so we did.
Either we are both
fired, or they cancelled each other out. We're not sure which.
We had a BIG bug issue
with the war boss! There was a MASSIVE bug that reset your Necropolis
quest chain. We've tracked the bug down and repaired the issue but
unfortunately there is a chance that it reset your Artix chain back
to the first quest. You will have to play those quests over again.
Sorry for the inconvienence!
If it makes you feel
any better, I have to do it too.
This was a VERY big oversight on my part, and for all of you affected you've got my deepest apologize that we didn't catch this bug during testing.
Ghost: "redman95 has noticed that it took
almost 13 days to complete the war.. thankfully
we did
it in 12.8 or the world would've ended."
Good work guys, you have nearly saved Doomwood,
Falconreach and all of Lore but you also saved
our world fro the Friday the 13th war lasting 13
days! Who knows what would have happened?!
The war is almost done, and you know what THAT
means...
So I don't have to tell you.
Bye.
*Cysero gets up and
starts heading out the door. Artix grabs him by the arms and sits him
back down, pointing at the keyboard*
Ok, I guess I DO have
to tell you. it is apparently in my job description that I have to
do this. Who knew?
Once the war is over
you will have access to the Boss Fight! You will also unlock the last
2 quests in the Doomwood: Necropolis saga... the final fight against
Noxus and the Titan battle, which is one of my favorites to date. He
eats your dragon's mana. Fun, right?
You will notice a few
new buttons when you talk to Artix (Other Classes and Purify Doom Weapon)
and yes, we are aiming to release at LEAST ONE (maybe both) of the
promised classes this week.... as well as the new levels of the Doomies
AND the purified versions!
I would also like to
point out the tiny music note in the upper right hand corner of the
Noxus quest. Click on this to load Warcry of the Paladin by TheOutCrowd
(remember him from the music contest?), and play it while fighting
Noxus and his creations! It makes a fun quest even more fun!
Good luck in the contest,
and against Noxus, and if you're a Dragonlord.... against the Titan!
You're gonna need it!
Cysero Likes Puppies
June
20th,
2008 See
What Good Taste We Have?
Once again we find ourselves
racing you, dear heroes of Falconreach, to the
end of the war. The Boss fight is all ready, so
is the Titan battle but the one in the middle...
the Necropolis finale quest where you face down
Noxus and we tie the whole thing together... we're
still working on that one.
So why am I fighting
war waves with you? Cause I am an idiot. And the experience is pretty
good.
I just wanted to show you guys that we have
SOME taste. In the original end of the necropolis Noxus was this undead
obsessed scientist type. Basicly harmless, just nuts. See, when he was
a kid all that he ever wanted was a puppy, but he never got one. So he
has spent his entire career trying to make himself one... an undead
puppy. Sadly, even though he has nearly perfected his art, he just couldn't
get that puppy right. He had a pit in his lab, and when he failed in
his latest attempt he'd grab the poor thing and toss it into the undead
puppy pit and start all over from scratch. There had to be hundreds of
the cuddly undead in there. You were going to kick him into the pit after
you defeated him in battle... ripped straight out oft 300.
I wrote most of that
cutscene a few weeks ago, so when I started building the quest a few
days ago I cracked open
that text file and, know what? That's REALLY SICK!
When Artix and I were
talking about it at the beginning of the zone, we were laughing at
that idea so hard that we couldn't
see through our tears... and maybe
it IS that funny, but it's also really disturbing. We scrapped the idea
and went in a totally different direction.
And that is our editing process.
In other news, forumite and DF player
Suuichi was so inspired by J6's SROD that he made himself a Skullstaff
of Doom!
Nice!
Today's release: Happens
when you beat the war!
Cysero Is Suitably Impressed!
June
17th,
2008 J6
and his MAD SKILLZ!
J6 in da' hizzy.
He's really the sleeping
giant amongst us...The artistic elephant in the room. He's so quiet
and unassuming that you'd never know the creative torrent that constantly
flows out of him. See, J6 does art for AQ, DF, MQ and now AQW also.
His skills as a Flash artist
are
unmatched and we could really use a cloning machine so we could *poit*......brb
*checks E-bay for cloning
tech*
*nothin there*
...Ok, as I was saying...
we could really using a cloning machine so each game could have a J6
to ourselves. In addidtion to bring mad game to Florida this trip he
also brought this...
That's right. He built
his own Shadowreaper
of Doom. Granted, it's only about as large as a
shoe but still he MADE IT! He even made the wee coffin in which it sleeps.
He's so talanted that I feel a very strong urge to eat his heart and
take his
artistic strength into myself.
But if that didn't
work then I just killed one of our top artists. Ok, i'll just have
a yogurt instead.
Keep fighting on my
friends and loyal customers! The necromancers can't quite keep up with
your power! We've got them on the run!
First and most importantly
we'd all like to say Happy Birthday Ghost! Since he came on the team
he was been my personal savior more times than I care to count. Way
past "I owe you a bagel" more into the realm of "I owe you my first
3 children". He has come a long way as an animator and an artist (In
fact, unbeknownst to him, he was forced to make the art for the war
weapon drops... which were made to celebrate his own birthday! HA!) and
I always know that when we need something animated with mind-blowing
awesome sauce and a side of sneevil fries, he is the dead guy to turn
to.
Ghost, here's to you! Happy Birthday!
Speaking of the 4 levels of weapon drops
from the war, all 4 levels are for ALL players! up to level 37! We haven't
shown the free players enough love lately so these are the highest level
of weapons that we've ever made for you!
Ghost will also upgrade your Cloak of Doom in exchange for a few Defender's
Medals. You can upgrade the level 5 rare cloak to ANY of the higher level
cloaks... all you need are the right number of Defender's Medals.
The Dragon Amulet Only war quest features
the Scary Doll monster, which was abyssofmillenium's prize winning Monster
Contest design. As a special WAR RARE ITEM you can get 3 levels of the
Scary Doll PET from the DA only quest! You can also buy the lowest level
version of the Scary Doll from the my Superstore of Savings if you have
the spare Dragon Coins and don't feel like farming.
Also launched today
is DF's own Wallpaper
page. These quality wallpapers were built by
our own Randor the Red, (pulled from the ranks of the forums, much
like Ghost, and into the Artix Entertainment family). These are all
free! Check out Reens as Ms. June 2008!
If you are the type
of Dragon Amulet holder who only has time to stop in on the weekends
don't forget to see Lady
Celestia about your Color Customizable and/or Evolved versions of the
Dragonlord Armor that we release on Tuesday to celebrate your dragon's
birthday and Dragon Fable's 2 year anniversary!
This war will be a
long one but the rewards are numerous, the monsters are fun and the
gold and xp are pretty decent! Fight hard, heroes of Falconreach!
The release is nearly ready. We are in the
last few minutes of testing and we should have this week's release out
to you in the next 15 days.
Yesterday, right before we
left we heard Artix asking people how to spell
Antidisestablishmentarianism, because he was going
to put it on the AQW
Design Notes. In
the other room geopetal and I started laughing
because
we KNEW that he was going to bork it.
I mean, I
knew how to spell it, but I thought it would be
more entertaining to watch him muddle through it.
I'm no help at all, it's amazing that I am still
employed.
A few hours later I
was hanging out at The Globe (My coffeehouse of choice, free wi-fi,
try the beans and rice!) building a map for the war and reading the
DN post that he made. I was
forced
to
call Artix and let him know that he has misspelled it. Bless his wee
heart, he wanted to spell that right SO badly. He screamed out loud
and immediately fixed it.
Today's AQW test is going well and I was
really glad to talk to as many of you as I did. I want to thank Loki
Dragoon and Paperclip for helping me test my abusable powers, and thank
everyone else for all your help during the Alpha. It's still a long way
to Beta but every step takes us closer. "The journey of a thousand miles
begins with a single step." Or as my mom used to say "Cleaning your entire
room starts with picking up one pair of boxers." Same thing.
Tonorrow is Friday the 13th! Every Friday
the 13th so far Falconreach has come under attack from the strangely
empowered undead. This time we're bringing the fight home. We will spend
tonight sharpening our staves and polishing our blades, and tomorrow...
as the sun sets... we will make this an unlucky day to be a necromancer.
WE ATTACK THE NECROPOLIS!
Letter From the Dead
of Students;
Dear Student of Necromancy
University,
We have recently been
alerted to a VERY LARGE group of heroes marching toward the Necropolis
from Falconreach. All that we know for certain is that they number
in the thousands and they are not in the mood to talk things over peacefully.
This means that, unfortuantely, the regular invasion of Falconreach
will have to be cancelled. This also means that a great number of the
undead army that you have been tirelessly working on for Sepulchure
will be destroyed! We MUST not let these heroes ruins our plans. We
must put aside our differences and work together as a single destructive
machine! THE PRODUCTION OF UNDEAD SOLDIERS WILL CONTINUE during the
invasion of our home and we will drive these invaders back to their
pathetic town.
Any student caught
running from the fight will be slain on sight. Any student who fails
to meet their undead soilder quota will be slain on sight. Any student
caught complaining about the new "slain on sight" policies will be
slain on sight.
Be prepared for a long
fight, my students. Remember your lessons well.
The Color Customizable and Evolved versions
of the Dragonlord armor are now available from Lady Celestia in Sunbreeze
Grove! The Dragonlord Helm (one of the very finest in the game) is now
available in Cysero's Superstore of Savings in the Helm and Cape shop.
The Dragon's Birthday Hat is now available from patch the barber! Happy
Birthday dragons and happy Birthday DF!
Today is your dragon's first
birthday! During this special day it's very important
to know these facts about an infant dragon.
1). Baby Dragons are eaisly frightened by
loud noises, so if you have a noicemaker at the party, make sure that
it... and you... are fireproof.
2). Lady Celestia has an entire volume of
Lore's Greatest Recipies (Volume 12) dedicated to cakes for dragons,
which says that if yo crumble up some Special Dragon Chow into the icing,
you can trick your baby dragon into eating well even on it's birthday.
3). Most baby dragons like a little "Scent
Of Panicked Villager" sprayed on their chew toys.
4). Many baby dragons use villagers as chew
toys, which causes them to panic.
5). in Draconic, happy
birthday is pronounced "Allyorbace Arr Beelongtoouhz"
Later today in Lady Celestia's Sunbreeze
Grove you will be able to purchase some special altered Dragonlord armors
for 20,000 gold each. You will have the option to buy a color
customizable version of the Dragonlord armoror unlock the evolved
version of the Dragonlord armor (see what exposure to the power of the Dragon Amulet
can do to ya?)!
If you've got 40K gold lying around you
can even unlock both, if you want!
You WILL have to unlock
these armors in that order... Color Custom Armor and then the Evolved
Armor.
Evolved Dragonlord!
The helm will also be available in Cysero's
Superstore of Savings in the helms aisle.
All of these things will be permanent
additions to Dragonfable. Thanks for 2 great years guys, we couldn't
have do any of this without your support!
Cysero Would Give
You The Shirt
Off
Of His
Back
June
9th,
2008 The
Dragon Sized Cake Is A Lie.
Check out the new Shadowscythe
shirt
designs! Cool, neh?
Before I get started
I want to say Grats to the AQW team for a lag-free test on Saturday!
That was the kind of hurdle you hold your breath until the game jumps.
We can all brathe a sigh of relief, inhale and start screaming anew
about the next billion hurdles.
We've got a LOT on
our plates this week in DF. We've got a WAR coming on Friday, but unlike
the OTHER Friday the 13th wars, this will be an all-out attack on the
forces of the Necropolis! You already know the number of their forces,
the location of the Necropolis and you know that you can count on Artix
to be there (kill stealing).
Once the war has been
won, you've will unlock
the last quest in the Necropolis zone... you finally get to face Noxus
and his personal creations... including one TITANIC beast that will
take everything that you've got to defeat.
Keep in mind that these
necromancers will keep building soldiers as you defeat their other
creations. It will be an uphill battle to reach Noxus, but I know that
you have the skill and steely nerves to reach him and take down Sepulchure's
undead army.
Tomorrow is your Dragon's
Birthday! One of the ideas that we're working on is using Dragon PVP
trophies to buy special armored dragon head options for your dragon!
That probably won't be out for a little bit. Tomorrow, though, you
Dragonlords will be able to speak to Lady Celestia and use gold to
buy a brand
new version of the Dragonlord Armor (same skills) if you want! The
only question that remains is where do you buy a dragon sized birthday
cake?
Right now Rolith is
huddled in a small ball in the corner crying because he's working on
Housing for DF. We have to keep sharp objects away from him until he's
done (for his own saftey). Pretty
soon you will be able to buy and customize your own plots of land
and upgrade
from
a
campsite,
to
tent,
to hut,
to house and so on! We have a LOT of ideas for housing which I won't
go into because I'm not Artix. That may not come out this Friday
but it's getting closer and closer to becoming a reality in DragonFable!
Friday is also Ghost's Birthday. We plan
on doing something special for that but don't tell him. It's a secret.
I'm terrible at secrets.
Artix
Kermit the
Froggadin
Cysero Is Looking
Tired
But
Happy
June 6th, 2008 Anniversary and Necropolis Finale A Friday the 13th to end them all! DragonFable's second birthday* is less than a week away. We saw a lot of good ideas on the forums (we want to do something with the Dragon PvP Trophies too) and have come up with an ambitious plan**. We have something special planned for all of the DragonLord's to celebrate one year of their Dragons. It also looks like you might just be getting your very own plot of land.... which will be the future site of many different styles of castles, towers, huts, houses, and tents which you will be able to buy! He
says "Looks like" and "might" because we made him
say it. Somethings don't run according to plan. Right Captain Rhubarb? Also, in an exciting double release..... on the ONLY Friday the 13th of the year, it is time to face the Master Necromancer Noxus and BRING DOWN THE NECROPOLIS***!
This all starts next week... if you have not already hatched your Dragon and aquired a Dragon Amulet, you will want to do this before the 10th so you do not miss out!
* Oh no... the terrible twos! ** It is possible this is because we do not know how to come up with any other kind. *** Let us talk Rolith into unfixing that bug that corrected my NPC's overpowered damage. We will probably need Vayles help too... defeating Noxus will require a type of strategy never before seen in DragonFable!
The release is LIVE! The new weapons are in the shops,
as well as 2 new Guardian themed helms (they even match the base armor
color), for you newer players, Oaklore just got more fun with faster
battles and more XP, and the Guardian and Dragonlord power buffs have
been added!
Artix
Plungadin
June 5th, 2008 Frogzard in my Toilet A story of passion, courage and triumph! It has been a long time and I have a lot to tell you. But first.... I found a frog in my toilet. *moment of WHAAA!?* Now, I am sure I do not need to tell you what a shocking experience that is... especially when you need to go really bad.... it is also the closest I have come to screaming like a little girl in a long time* ! No idea how the poor little fella got there. Did he crawl up the pipes? So I spent a while trying to figure out how to safely remove the frog and place him outside**. The answer came to me in a flash of plastic goodness -- tupperware! Armed with a tupperware container I was sure I could scoop the little fella to safety. Alas, I failed my skill roll and he escaped down the drain. I told him that I was here to help*** but he did not believe me so he hid and I was forced to wait hours before trying again. This time I brought reinfocements and THREE tupperware containers. I blocked off his exit and.... created a sophisticated Tom and Jerry style trap. Using most of my advanaced martial arts skills I was able to sit there until he.. um... stepped into the container. Then I took him outside and released him into the lush wilderness of my garden where he would be free to feast on the bugs. Now that I think of it, he would have had more bugs to eat if we just put him in the MMO....
* Zombies, Vampires, Dracolitchs... no problem. Little cute frog? AAAAAAAAAAAH!!!! ** Without him jumping on my face *** Rosetta Stone: FROG Repeat after me. Did you know you taste like chicken? Ribbit Ribbit Ribbit."
On a serious note.... I have a lot to tell you about. More coming tomorrow.
Cysero Is Looking
Good
June
5th,
2008 About
That Alpha
I've gotten a LOT of e-mails
and questions about the Alpha test of our next
game; AQW.
I'm just going to answer most of them here and
now, since I can do that.
1). You will get
your 10,000 gold once we are out of Beta (not Alpha, but Beta) and
that's really not all that much to spend it on in the stress test
anyway.
2). I'm sorry that
some of you missed one or both open stress tests but we're not going
to turn poor Sir Ver on just for you.
3). You
did NOT miss the Alpha. Alpha is the phase
that the game is in, in the development schedule. It will
continue for some goodly amount of time.
You don't need to worry about missing the Alpha, you didn't. Besides,
Beta will be a lot more fun anyway.
4). It's REALLY fun
to hang out with you guys! I'm glad that I got to see some people
that I recognized from the forums and meet some of you that just
really like DF and the other Artix Entertainment games. Once this
thing really jumps off, you can expect to see me on AQW a lot.
So this weekend,
we be takin' care of business:
1). A lot of the
lower level quests in Oaklore have been tweaked to have fewer time-comsuming
3 monster battles
and boosted XP, to help people get to their baby dragon's faster!
2). Final Guardian
skill (this will be another Titan fight that you do NOT need a
DA for, but unless you have your baby dragon you can't go on the
quest!)
3).
Guardian Class power Buff. In addition to the last skill we're
turning the power knob up on the Guardian Armor.
4). Dragonlord Power
Buff! As much as I like the guarian armor, the DL Armor is pretty
central
to the game and a
lot of people think that it's underpowered, so that is ALSO getting
a boost. See? We listen.
5). 6 New high level
Dragon Coin weapons!
6). Some New Dragon
Coin Helms (I'm not sure how many, I haven't drawn them yet)!
So if you're going out of town, that is
what you're missing.
Cysero
Captain
Rhubarb Is Looking Out
A Window
geopetal
Captain
Rhubarb
June
3rd,
2008 Cap'n's
Crunch.
Artix and I are both wearing
WHITE shirts today. What's up with THAT?
Captain Rhubarb made
a booboo. He was running around in the AQW Database and wrote a quick
litte snippet of code to change his character's name to "Captain Rhubarb".
The only problem is
that he forgot to specify that it should change ONLY his character's
name to Captain Rhubarb. Now, in the MMO, my name is also Captain Rhubarb.
So is Artix's. And Zhoom's. And yours.
Every character
name in AdventureQuest Worlds is now Captain Rhubarb.
Unfortunately there is no way to get them
back so we are going to have to nuke the database and everyone is going
to have to recreate their level 1 characters again. (Oh NO! 20 seconds
of your life... GONE FOREVER).
The REALLY funny thing is that Artix said
(incorrectly) that all your data would be saved from this point forward,
which it won't. The game isn't even a game yet. It's not even in Beta,
it's barely in Alpha. Of COURSE many many many interesting things are
going to happen while you help us test. That is why you're helping us
test... so when the game goes live we can avoind little hiccups like
everyone's name becomign Captain Rhubarb.
It's going to be a long, very
strange and really entrtaining road until AQW is ready for public release
and we're really glad that you guys are coming along for the ride!
How about some DF news?
This week we're working on some things that
have almost NOTHING to do with the Doomwood: Necropolis zone. We'll be
releasing the last Guardian Class skill (finally), re-balancing some
of the earlier quests (not as many 3 monster battles and more XP), adding
a
few weapons to my shop (Bleach themed swords, among others), and preparing
for NEXT week's release including the showdown with Noxus, the necropolis
Titan battle, and of course the friday the 13th war (you knew that this
was
coming).
NOTE: You won't be able to re-make your
character until we re-open character creation in AQW. It's closed for
now but we will let you know when we re-open it.
