Mar 30, 2007
Dragon Egg Saga - Quests 4 & 5 Released!
WOW! We have done a lot this week and hope you are enjoying it. The new Falconreach, new npc, new weapons, four new monsters, these two new storyline quests and we STILL have a special surprise coming for you later this weekend (In my opinion... the BEST EVER!) I repeat -- there is no ChickenCow level! So, what is your rarity score?
I told you that you were getting your eggs today (Just wait until you see what horribly embarrasing things you have to do next though!)
Mar 29, 2007
The New Falconreach is live!
The new town has been released. It features new art, upgrades that can be voted on, and our newest NPC... Nythera! Also you can turn in the "Last Board of Falconreach" for one of several new weapons or belts. It is really nice that Falconreach finally has an intro scene like the other major towns... the game feels so much more complete now!
To Draka: Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad!
Draka recently posted on the forums letting us know he called in sick for the next part of the Dragon Egg Saga. Draka.... now, you do know we are notoriously late with Friday releases. It is a terrible idea to take the day off for a video game.... *coughs* I am totally being a hypocrite here */coughs* BUT it is perfectly fine to do so for a birthday! Happy Birthday Draka! We hope you and all the players like what we release for you tomorrow!
Hahahahaha! 2,147,483,647 (Formerly Gold Donation Problem)
Do you know what you guys did? *Falls out of chair laughing* First, I have to start out by saying that we reset the counter at 1 Billion Gold. So every time we get the number we just add 1 Billion to it.... right now, everyone is getting XML Query errors when attempting to donate gold. Do you want to know why? The database field was a regular 4-byte integer (Maximum value of 2,147,483,647) -- YOU EXCEEDED THE BIGGEST VALUE THE DATABASE COULD HOLD! Yes, you dontated more gold than the database could count and broke it.... broke it! THAT is insane.
There is no place like gnome... no place like gnome...
TODAY!!!! The new Falconreach will rise and replace the ruins that you see before you. Tomorrow, the path to the far right will open up allowing you to meet and partner up with the greatest Treasure Hunter of all time.... certainly he will be able to help you on the exciting next part of the Dragon Egg Saga. By Friday night.... the egg shall be in your possession!
About the Town Release
We are going to make it possible to get to the war via the new town until tomorrow's Dragon Egg Saga release. So if you want any of the rare items from the war today is your last chance! We are now setting up the first forum vote to decide on next week's town upgrade. These options are being taken from your forum posts. This is a really interesting idea... because you will actually be deciding on what we work on next. Some things, obviously, cannot be voted on -- things that are INSANELY HUGE projects planned for later (Multiplayer PvP) and things that would cause heavy strains on the database or finances (Bank) but you can decide the priority of things like: Guardian Class Skills, A Flight Path and/or Travel Map, Putting potion/health refill objects in the center of town, building paths to new areas, adding class trainers or even a new round of level x to y weapons to Yulgar's shop. This is a really interesting community experiment. I hope you like the new town and enjoy being a part of making more of the game with us!
Wallpaper: Jimmy the Eye spied this scene of Xan commanding his armies. Xan Wallpaper 1024x768
Mar 28, 2007
This week.... on/in/around/under/beside/above/outside-of/within DragonFable!
Today: Falconreach rebuilding project shall be complete!
Thursday: Newly reconstructed Falconreach released!
Friday: We meet the most famous treasure hunter in the world... and get our egg!
Sunday: Special super secret quest special event! (Because there is no ChickenCow level)
Linken's Rumor Mill reports, "Major Motion Picture?"
This is dangerously treading on stuff I am not allowed to talk about... but since I am as good at keeping secrets as I am at spelling* you are going to have to keep this between us**. There are talks involving lawyers and the words "Artix, Video, Amazing, Major, Motion, Picture" and several very large words that I did not understand.... but geez, just imagine Galanoth, Aria, Warlic, Drakonnan, Akriloth, Robina, Sepulchure, Drakath, Zorbak, Fae, and all of the AdventureQuest and DragonFable characters on the big screen in the form of a wildly animated action movie. If ATHF can get in theaters... so can we! SHHHH! I did not say anything. There i snothing to see here, please resume on your way.
* ... and math, and science, and history, and knowing when to stop saying yes to more work.
** ... and the elite group of Ninjas that is stalking you. Shhh, do not turn around.
Mar 27, 2007
Yesterday's Design Notes
Yesterday was a "moment" in DragonFable. I did not want to spoil the powerful feelings we all shared by breaking the silence. But now that we are done with that....
The first rule of ChickenCow club....
"There is no ChickenCow level!"
The reconstruction of Falconreach
At noon today Ash delivered a vast sum of gold to the stealthy Moglin construction force (lead by famous Moglin Rouge) who are now hammering away. If you listen carefully *listens......* and look out of the corner of your eye *looks.....* and maybe if you just sniff the sweat aroma* in the air *Sniff Sniff* you can feel the progress of the new town on its way! Now, we do have a little problem on our hands my friends. You see, the cost of rebuilding Falconreach was 450,000 gold. Yes, that is A LOT of gold.. but that is not the problem. The problem is that you and your fellow players donated 3,112,167,201 gold**. *blinks* Yes, that is over 3 BILLION GOLD***! ...and that was as of yesterday night.... there is like more *falls over* there now. SERIOUSLY... THIS IS INSANE!
So what are we going to do with all of this gold? My idea is we can have a town treasurer and periodically vote on the forums as to what we want to spend money on to improve. Example: Next week would could vote to use some gold to build a healing fountain or put a second story onto the town hall, or buy a 100ft tall steam powered water elemental monster to send to Xan's volcanic fortress as a surprise gift. Still... 3 Billion gold IS A LOT OF GOLD. Can you think of a creative way to turn this sum of shiny coins into a fun community wide add-on to the game? In all seriousness.. I like the idea of using the funds to enhance town and buy "specialty things" to help in upcoming events. What do you think? The new "BASE" town will be ready as soon as the SMCF finishes their work. Also, it is rumored that Warlic is sending his assistant, Nythera, to town. LOL, 3 BILLION GOLD! See you on the forums..... (P.S. This might be one of the funniest things that has ever happened in a game, period.... unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable guys!)
* Not recommended.... construction moglins REALLY like beans.
** HOLY MEGA FROGZARD DROPPINGS BATMAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*** Ash is lucky to be alive considering the amount of gold you have thrown at him... perhaps he can afford that cosmetic surgery you wanted for him.
P.S. We could have just build the entire town out of gold... lol
Mar 25, 2007
VICTORY!
The battle is over... and the town still stands (sort of...) at 1% health. There is nothing left of the enemy forces but ashes! The cheers of happiness and joy to our brave defenders are overwhelming. Congratulations to those who were here during the surprise attack on Wednesday and held the line... AND to those of you who were there when we were pushed back... AND to those of you who were there when King Alteon's reinforcements never arrived.... AND to those of you who never yielded an inch during Falconreach's darkest night.... AND those of you who bested Xan's army from start to the very end. This is a tale that will be sung from Serenity's inn by bards... but first, we must rebuild that inn. Rome was not built in a day.... but we wonder if Falconreach can be? Ash is collecting gold for the reconstruction of town. Is it just me, or is he looking better than normal? This was indeed the greatest battle in the history of DragonFable.... our first truely epic experience together. Congratulations again for winning it, and thank you for being a part of it.
NEXT ON DRAGONFABLE -- Time to get your Dragon Egg!
A tale from the smoke....
As the sun shines above us, waves of elementals are crushed by our weapons. Even in the light we can see Xan's bright flames clearly from the center of town. He has thrown away any strategy and caution... now, blinded with anger and rage he sends wave after wave recklessly at the town. Board by board Falconreach is engulfed in flame... but the townsfolk are safe, and they will never break us! It is a race of the most grave kind... can we destroy Xan's forces before they destroy the town? The eyes of the world are watching you heroes.... may the fates favor you this day!
The Final Battle for Falconreach
Xan laughs chaotically as a pyre'spyinforms him that his monsters have not even pushed an inch further into town. Fire flickers and dances around his skull as his stares into his clenched fist. "HA... HAHA.... HAHAHAHAHAHA! Excellent!", he bellows. In between his cackles you can hear the popping and crackling of flame. Xan jumps down from his cliff onto the back of a large fire elemental staring forward with his eye sockets fixed on Falconreach. He points a gauntlet, which no one has yet mentioned looks strangely familiar, at the town and yells, "Defender's of Falconreach HAHAHA.... you have earned a great honor!!! I shall lead my monsters to destroy what remains of this town... HAHAHA.... personally! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!"
The fate of Falconreach will be decided this day.... Our brave band of heroes defends a town surrounded by a insane pyromancer's army. Xan himself is no ordinary foe; for he commands fire itself. Not even the King's 299 elite guards could best him in battle. Now, Xan has moved to the front lines and is controlling his troops against us personally. We are out-numbered, low on supplies and many friends have gone missing in battle. The people of Falconreach are hiding in the barely standing Guardian tower as flames consume most of the town while we hold off against all of Xan's army. Today begin one final battle. If Xan wants Falconreach, he can get it over our cold, and sometimes humorous death animations! For Falconreach!
New Record: 28,900 29,000 30,000+ users online at the same time!
Mar 24, 2007
The sun rises over Falconreach.... and town is still there!
"They said falconreach would be ashes.... they said we would not last the night... but as dawn breaks the brave defenders of Falconreach have not yielded an inch. NOT AN INCH. With the morning light so comes the hope of ultimate victory. Perhaps we do indeed have more warriors than Xan does. From the cliff where he commands his army we can only image the frustration he is unable to convey through his fire spewing emotionless skull. Xan is throwing wave against wave at Falconreach and the town will just not yield. Maybe... just maybe... we can win this. For Falconreach!" - Unknown, (The first words I heard this morning as I woke up, wiped the soot from my eyes, and joined my friends in battle)
.... then, we heard the sweet pitter patter of rain.
Server Speed Problems
As we move towards prime time we are getting a large increase in traffic. Zhoom has re-enabled the Dragon Amulet Only Server which may help a bit. Here is a peek at our Bandwidth Usage Chart for the DragonFable cluster. Imagine the green part is like water going through a pipe. (That is a lot of bandwidth!) Fear not! We are in the process of ordering more servers and bandwidth so your adventuring will be smooth all week long!
Regular Dragon Amulet Only Server -- Online
Full Screen Dragon Amulet Only Server -- Online
Mar 23, 2007
The Guardians Last Stand
While preoccupied with the... mighty lengthy... attack on Willoshire, the remaining 11 Guardians in Falconreach have been fighting fiercely by your side. The townsfolk take refuge in the lower level of the tower and Reens makes healing potions as fast as she can to help the wounded. The Guardian tower, charred with fireball blasts is barely standing and all but destroyed... a rock could now knock it over and send it into the water below. If the monsters flood into the main square of town.... it is all over. Moral is low and some of the most respected adventurers in the land have already started packing their bags. It is rumored that we will not last the night... this, is Falconreach's darkest hour.
1:45 pm - King Alteons Knights wiped out!
They never made it.... Xan had a second fire monster army on the West (Left) side of town! Now the King has gone missing and town is completely surrounded. Yulgar's Weapon shop, the Defender's shop, and Patch's barber shop have been destroyed! This is a horrible turn of events! Now... it is down to us.... all alone, fighting back to back in the center of Falconreach. Perhaps finding the King will help drive moral up. Curse you Xan!!!
Note: This event was triggered at 1.5 Million victories (75%). Congratulations on beating it amazingly ahead of schedule. The players keep their 1.5 Million victories while now facing the full size of Xan's army: 4 Million strong... Xan will have a harder time attacking town as you are now defending less territory. If you win this war (and you can)... you will be breaking a lot of records! New Defender's Shop Items are in the shop (7th Tier)... now you just need to sneak into the rubble.
12:30 pm - Reinforcements less than an hour away!
The King and his Knights should be here any moment.... and when they do we will sweep through the enemy so fast that the wind from our weapon swings alone will permanently blow out their elemental flames!
A Letter From King Alteon
Dear Sir Render,
When word of this horrifying attack reached Swordhaven we immediately deployed every Knight in the kingdom to come to your aid. By the time you get this we should have just past Oaklore. I am sending 500,000 Knights including my Elite Guard of 299. I will be leading this army personally. Let us teach this... fire mage?... a lesson he shall not soon forget! Hold the line until we arrive.
For Falconreach!
King Alteon
Congratulations
This is the fastest war in history.... you have done in two days what has previously taken 2 weeks. There will be quite the celebration when this war is won!
Mar 22, 2007
The Helm of 300 Flames
Special new item added as a small percentage change to drop in the war.
Gram's Shop Destroyed
Xan's forces have pushed the defender's back destroying Gram's shop in the process. With the town dropping dangerously low to 60% health a wave of panic and confusion washes over the adventurers struggling to defend our beloved home. For the first time in history.... enemies have battled their way INTO the town of Falconreach. We must muster all of our might and force these creatures from our home! We can save Falconreach! Reinforcements are on their way.... so if these hot heads want to hurt the people of Falconreach, they will have to go through us first!
Falconreach Weakens
"We are barely holding against the troops.... the Knights that King Alteon sent are starting to show the strain of the intense battle. Any moment they will push us back. What concerns me even more, is that Xan has been yet unseen on the battlefield!" - Sir If
Note: Yes, the font was the joke. Humor in battle is not to be taken lightly!
Dragon Egg Saga Part 3
Zhoom is sending out a newsletter now calling in for reinforcements to hold off Xan. In the newsletter is a sneak peek at what is coming in the next part of the Dragon Egg Saga. Instead of spoiling it here, I will let those who get the letter share it with you on the forums so you can make wild guesses.... and we can later see which ones of you are right! I really like having this one-time special server-wide war event linked to the main plot line. It is like you are playing the main story with bonus content that no one else will ever get to see again. It is basically happening live..... and you are a part of it. This is what I love most about DragonFable -- the world can change and if you are there... making the history for future players happen. Battle on!
Apology to Galanoth
We broke the AQ homepage for a little bit today*.... Zhoom had to turn off the media server to fix a problem. Sorry about that!
* Clearly a DragonFable plot to take over the game!
Mar 21, 2007
A Desperate Letter from Lymcrest
"Dear Serenity, Everything I write in this letter is true. Please, I beg you, evacuate Falconreach now! Tell Yulgar and Grams what you read here and have them get everyone out while they still can. Xan and his army fire minions are burning straight through the forest towards your town. There are millions of them! Everything in their path has been destroyed. The town of Lymcrest was burned to the ground in less than a hour. I know reports said they would be there by Friday, but at the speed they are moving they could reach Falconreach tonight! Finally, and listen carefully -- the one thing you MUST know is...." (The bottom of the letter was burned)
Cysero's 9 New Weapons Stolen
If you are a rare item hunter or a heroic adventurer looking for the most powerful weapons.... you may wish to read this!
DragonFable Growth
A special thanks to Randor the Red for compiling this list of our achievements over the past year!
Mar 20, 2007
Warlic (aka JDfight)..... is officially a Dad!
Yesterday, Warlic and his wife had their first child. Woooooohooo! Congratulations you two! This is a special moment.... which is why I am going to tell this REAL story (Been at least a week since the Design notes were THIS good). I called Warlic to ask him for an update on the Jimmy the Eye minigame. He told me they were in the car, driving to the hospital that very moment... and it was time! I recovered from the shock and said "Wow, are you serious?!" and then Warlic in a calm and thoughtful voice began to say, "So I had a couple really good ideas for the minigam....", and then I heard, "OMG! JD... you know we are having a baby here!". I have had a long life of funny moments (most not on purpose) but I this was...... *still laughing* the best! LOL, see how committed the AQ and DF staff are! Little Odessa is healthy and adorable.. may her life be full of magic, mayhem and games! Congratulations again you two.
In a related topic: I was informed that I need to get married and have one or two of these baby things too. I assumed, at first, that it was so we could raise them and battle them*. But apparently the primary purpose of having children is so you have a fool proof excuse when buying all of the cool toys and games from the toy store. Either way, when I do have children I plan to completely ruin their lives by giving them what I will think is a cool name** and then teaching them how to be an undead slaying ninja at an early age. Until then, I will embrace the role of Uncle Artix to Odessa and do the best I can!
* Would that be BvB? (...and at video games of course... geez you guys are twisted. Perhaps you have been playing too much Pokemon)
** M3g@tr0n, Lord_Khazghrathar_TheUndeadSlayer01, P373r teh G73@7
Galanoth's Birthday
Happy birthday to the DragonSlayer! To celebrate we have put Galanoth's birthday hat in Patch's barber shop. We know, it was sort of mean for Warlic to steal Galanoth's birthday thunder with the whole baby thing.... but you could also look as a an amazing gift. In a few years we will have a new play tester!
Mar 19, 2007
Contest Winners
Below are the winners of our screenshot contest! Our judges (Seahawk, Rolith, Reens, Pae, Scakk and Geopetal) had a very difficult time choosing the winners
-- all of your entires were great! We were supposed to select 16 winners.... but *quickly counts* we chose... 55! (If only Oprah was here)
The Winners received 200 Dragon Coins and their images will be displayed in the screenshots section of our upcoming DragonFable website redesign. Congratulations to everyone who entered the contest -- in my opinion you all deserved to win. Stay tuned for the next forum contest.... it is coming *checks sun dial* TOMORRROW!
| Screenshot Contest Winners! | ||
Battle Pets |
Cutscenes Shops |
Exploration Inventory |
Xan's Shake'n'Bake oven
What a weekend! Nearly 28,000 adventurers online at the same time on Saturday -- our new record! Between that and AdventureQuest we there were well over 50,000* players online simultaneously. Congratulations to everyone! This week, things are really heating up as Xan has confidently announced his upcoming attack on Falconreach. Basault was merely a messenger of the devastation he will be sending.... and by our scouts eyes it appears his army may arrive ahead of schedule.
* I am officially scared to death of adding up numbers on the DesignNotes now. *shakes his index finger at the forums* For the record, what really happened a few months back, during our last record breaking day, was that I hastefully fixed an inaccuracy with the numbers and forgot to re-total them correctly. Besides, all the math anyone needs to know when making a game in Flash is 1+1 = 11, A+A=0, and (of course) therefore logically 1+A = NaN!
Mar 16, 2007
Contest Winners
The staff is currently reviewing the list of screenshots. Out of 829 entries they have narrowed it down to.... um... 102 of them. *blinks* You sent in too many good ones! The judges have asked me to give them additional time to select the winners -- so check in on Monday to see if you or someone you know won!
100mbps -The Worst High Score Ever!
We hit the ceiling of our 100mbps bandwith pipe (again) for the DragonFable game server cluster again during this release. Please accept my apologies if logging into the game has been slow, we are in the process of solving it (We tried secretly replacing character models with stick figures but we figured you would notice). I will be making a phone call (wish I had one of those Shoe-phones from the 80s... "Hey ISP, yeah... I am calling you from a SHOE!") to order us some more servers/bandwidth. Considering that we have had 25,000 players on DF at only 60% usage I get to slap myself on the hand with a ruler knowing that this problem is the result of overall increased filesizes througout the game. Next week we will break down some of the bigger town files like Oaklore and... *chuckles* REALLY burn down break down Falconreach. We have a number of alternative solutions if that does not bring the bandwidth spikes down to a reasonable capacity. If you have not already gotten a Dragon Amulet, you can help us by getting one. The one nice thing about this problem is that the problem is "Too many people want to play"... these type problems are pretty easy to solve. It is certainly a lot better than the opposite. - Battle on!
6:00 Update - We are live!
We are live! Here is what is new:
- Trouble!
Brand new cutscene introducing the villian you have been waiting to see and a super hard, brand new mini-boss battle! - Robina Update!
3 new quests including a strictly level 10 boss fight and the legendary Quad-Force hunt! You can also bring Robina with you on your adventurers with you and select which character slot she goes in.... and you can uninvite your guests! - Black Dragon Box Part 3
Twilly has a plan for tracking down the Sneevil that took your box..... talk to him and get that box!
Next Week!
The stage has been set..... things are REALLY going to get heated as two villians join forces for one evil goal. Also, the race will be on.... who will get it first?
5:30 Update
We are doing final testing and last minute bug fixes. We ran into a lot of unexpected problems today -- and we *think* they are all resolved. Going live soon!
1:30 Update
We are soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo behind! Please know we are rushing as fast as possible to get this up for you. There is a significant problem with one of the quests (mega lag between screen like the snugglegram delivery quest) and we are still stiching the last cutscenes into the quests. For those of you looking for a real challange today.... or just want to see a monster with amazing art and animation... you are in for a treat!
Launch Day: The countdown begins.....
... we just do not know which number we are starting at! Today we will be putting events in action that cannot be undone. The Black Dragon Box Saga continues, Robina's area will be updated, and you will be the first to face....... *silenced*
Screenshot Contest!
The thread has been locked and judging has begun! Check back later today to see the lucky winners.
New Forum Contest
Best Game Screenshots!
We have a new website coming and just one glance at our ancient screenshots page gave us the perfect opportunity for a new forum contest! This is your character's chance for fame and Dragon Coins. A total of 16 winners will be selected in the categories below. Your character will receive 200 DragonCoins and your image will be featured on our new website's screenshots page. As always we reserve the right to award additional prizes to those of you who go above and beyond. Remember, this is for the screenshots page so we will be judging based on images that best represent the game -- so be sure to show the combat skills menu, wear color coordinated armor and weapons (and a matching silly or serious pet) and take your screenshots in places that that have a special meaning to you or are just beautiful looking. Good luck everyone!
Reward: 200 Dragon Coins and the fame of having your character on the Screenshots page!
Categories: Battle (4), Exploration (4), Pets (2) Shops (2), Inventory (1), Cutscene (3)
Format: Normal DF Screen size, .JPG format, as little compression as possible.
Note: Only two entries per person (must be in the same post and you must post your Character ID # to be eligible. No edits please (but we will do that contest one day) Contest ends.... *scratches head* Friday?
Mar 15, 2007
Crunchy Crunch Bar Time!
The new release is tomorrow and we have so much to do! The story will continue and something terrible, absolutely terrible, is going to be set in motion that will change DragonFable forever. Everyone has seen coming, but never thought would actually happen! So terrible that it can only be accurately described with a direct quote from Xan the wicked Pyromancer....
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" - Xan
It all happens tomorrow -- Battle on!
Mar 14, 2007
Introducing Ghost
I would like to introduce our newest animator -- Ghost! You may have already met him on the forums. As a long time AdventureQuest player with a passion for the game he brings with him the experience of a seasoned adventuer in addition to his outstanding animation skills. His recent works in DragonFable have included the Steel Ant, the new Warrior Attacks, Snugglebear Armor, the Irismancer, the Shellack (The new DA-Only Oaklore Pet) and he has been working away at the giant pile of art that has been mentioned so many times previously.... so far he has completed a number of new monsters, pets, a new boss monster and at least one upcoming class. If you like his work give him a hearty cheer on today's thread (Especially since he is sick today)!
... meanwhile, we are still hard at work on Friday's release. Wish us luck!
Mar 13, 2007
Todays post is to help get you ready for the upcoming releases. Be sure to see all of our bug fixes from yesterday below the picture *looks down the page* ... all the way down there! The next installment of the Dragon Egg Saga launches Friday with a revamped zone, new quests, and a couple of hard to miss killer graphical upgrades! (Maybe even a super tough bonus boss monster if you ask nicely)
Baked Country Dragon Eggs With Frost Mushrooms
Presented by Linken's Lumbermill
5 tablesporks unsalted butter-slime
2 mugs halved fresh frost mushrooms
1 tablespork finely chopped eyenions
2 tablesporks finely chopped green seed spitter peppers
3.14 tablesporks all-purpose fur (or flower)
1 1/2 cups soy-spider-silk-milk, heated
1 tablespork finely minced fresh elvis parsley
1 tablespork low-sodium chickencow stock powder
1/2 tablespork tim curry powder
1/4 tablespork salted slug
1/4 tablespork freshly ground black pepper
6 large hard-cooked Dragon eggs, peeled
1/2 cup buttered dark breadcrumbs of darkness
2 tablesporks finely minced fresh pa-rslay for garnish
Preheat the cauldron to 350 degrees. Over medium heat, melt 2 tablesporks of the slime-butter in a medium upside down helmet (saucepan). Add the frost mushrooms, eyeonion, and green seed spitter pepper, and saute until the frost mushrooms begin to wither in agony, about 5 minutes. In another helmet or plate boot, or medium saucepan, melt the remaining 3 tablesporks butter. Add the fur or flour and cook over medium-quality heat, stirring, until the mixture bubbles up like the wicked yaga of the west hit by a water cannon. Add the heated soy-spider-silk-milk all at once, whisking smooth, and cook until mixture bubbles in the center. We recommend casting a protection spell at this point. Add the elvis parsley, chickencow stock powder, tim curry powder, salted slug, and pepper, and cook over low level fire weapon or fireball for 2 minutes. Remove from the inferno and set aside. Butter a shallow gratin dish (7 x 10 x 3 inches) or assemble your own from Dr. Voltabolt's scrap pieces. Quarter the eggs (horses not nessassary) and arrange in the dish, Dragon yolk side up. Stir the magical frost mushroom mixture into the white sauce and pour over the Dragon eggs. Quickly dodge out of the way of impending explosions. Sprinkle the crumbling remains over the top and bake for 40 minutes or until is golden brown and bubbly (or minimally stops talking). Sprinkle with par-slay and serve. Makes 6 servings (2 if you are sharing with a Gorrillaphant). If you are under the age of 99 or level of 99 please ask for assistance from a skilled chef and hire a Dragonslayer for protection before attempting to make this delicious and nutritious dish.
Guardian Class (It is bad to skip class!)
With all of the energy going into the main progression of DragonFable I wanted you to know we have not forgotten about the other important in-game things. Especially new classes and finishing the existing ones! Expect to see more on this topic in the coming weeks.
Mar 12, 2007
This Week's Dragon Egg Saga event!
Miltonius, the animator of the Artix vs. the Undead video, is flying to our secret underground lab today and will be working with Zhoom, Cysero, and I all week on the next release. Check in every day this week to see what information I accidentally leak about Friday's release.
B.A.D. -- Bug Annihilating Day!
Wooooohooooo! It is going to be B.A.D. for squishy bugs everywhere. I would like to give a special thank you to Randor the Red for his HTML fix which will allow "Full Screen Mode" work on all browsers. Bug fixed posted below the picture!
Bug Fixes & Updates:
We changed the game directy back to "game" so be sure to go back to the homepage and relog in.
- Server time corrected (Curse you Y2K spawn!)
- Poll Results: Blurr vs Fade --- Blurr Wins 86% to 14%
- Prince, King and Emporer Linus Shrink Ray now shows the roll and correctly uses Linus' crit % + your Charisma to determine if he shrinks
- Shrink resistance has been added to the game
- Rogue Potion stealing bugg (Wierd text error) fixed
- 26 more quests (probably 260 scenes) have now are sped up with Bitmap Caching (Including the first scene of the PvP arena where Keelia is standing)
- Boss Hitpoint bug fixed in multiple dungeons
- The button taking you from the Battlespire to Oaklore is now working
- Interface adjustment: Faux dropshadows replaced with outlines
- Yaga Stone Circle Description Fixed
- Leaving the Bee-Hive (Sweetest Thing) corrected
- Clarified Healing room in the Burn it All quest
- Dark Drinker Select was fixed
- Critter Cave .... ironic this place had so many bugs. Fixed!
- Bandit Quest's (Giant Boss) fixed
- Level up on Boss bug fixed
- Water Elemental conga line fixed (hopefully)
- Bandit Ambush typo fixed
- Merge problems fixed
- Path Stalker Quest's Guest layering fixed
- Lagoon Goon Fire resistance corrected
- Redo button in Gram's pet shop fixed and will no longer cause some players to get a black screen.
- Fixed the bug causing my coffee cup to continually empty. *Looks again* Oh no...
Mar 10, 2007
On Duty!
12 hours later -- Things are going much better than we expected. I am not superstitious, but we may all wish to knock on a DeadWood (preferably with a high damage weapon) just in case. We will do our best to immediately fix any new problems, the lesser bugs will be squished on Monday. But seriously... what could happen?
The Y2K says, "There is no escape! I am still coming for you!!!!!!!!!!"
Mar 9, 2007
Late Night report:
Captian Rhubarb has just informed us that the DragonFable server cluster is is hitting it's 100MB/sec pipe limit. We have made changes to the servers to help solve the problem.
Flash 8 Upgrade... Sucess!
Dear Players,
I just want to say thank you. You came to support us and participate in this legendary update 
event which shall go down in history as "May the fates favor us during this impending day of doom" day! . Whether you are a seasoned DragonFable veteran who has been through our madness before, or are joining the chaos for the very first time -- we hope you had fun and enjoy this round of updates. The server slow down is the result of so many adventurers rushing to see the release (and it does look sooooooo much better). We are here doing everything we can to help the servers until it eventually goes back to normal. The entire team will be working through the weekend to fix problems as they are found. Next week, the Dragon Egg saga continues!
Battle on!
Artix, Cysero, Zhoom & the DF Team
Flash 8 Release Day
Official "May the fates favor us during this impending day of doom" day!
9:00am - Crunch time begins!
9:15am - If you have never been with us before for a major update you should probably.... RUN!!!!! ...as fast and as far away as possible. Nothing good can come of watching the bad things that will happen in the coming hours. You do not want to see this.
9:30am - This is like an eye exam, but in this case, blurry is a fine choice too. Look carefully at the intentional blurr behind Maya in B. Which one do you like better?
9:45am - The game intro quest (you know the one that was working before we started doing the updates where it stopped working) is now working! (Fix 1 out of 873564572368976763).
10:00am - The problem causing towns to spit you out into a black void of nothingness has been corrected. The emergency "teleport back to town" will be located on the options screen for this release. You will not be able to teleport from same places for obvious reasons. This includes most restrooms, the barber's chair and the armor color fairy. At this rate we are on schedule to release at exactly *cough hack gurgle cough*.
10:30am - The female rogue is doing insane non-stop acrobatics every time she attacks. Either we messed up her combat script or she found the sugary sweet purple royal honey from the new low level beehive quest.
11:00am - Reinforcements arrive! Zhoom, Cysero, Reens, Rolith and Ghost are digging in. We are picking up some momentum!
11:15am - Oaklore Keep is 81.345% ready. Zhoom has the Rogue working. We are going to reset EVERYONE's hometown to the Oaklore starting quest when it goes live. The requirement to do the first step of the Dragon Chronicle is now level 3.
12:00 pm - OMG IT IS NOOON!!!! *The panic sets in*
12:06 pm - The Quest string for the main quest is now properly elevating. We are getting closer.
12:30 pm - I just realized that time > noon is no longer am. We can blame the time warp faeries. Here at the secret underground headquarters we were successfully able to get from the starting zone to Falconreach. This is AWESOME NEWS! Which means we can start breaking stuff directly in Falconreach now.... we are getting close!
1:00 pm - The female warrior has suddenly started running in place everywhere she goes. It is like watching a hamster on a RPG treadmill.
1:50 OMG... boss monsters are randomgly appearing everywhere in Dungons everywhere... *cries*
2:00 pm - OK! Things are going into final testing..... as I am sure you can guess we are working extremely hard* but if we can just stop the Female Warrior from pretending she is the road runner (or the Flash, or Kwicky Koloa, or.. well, you pick) we should be ready to crash some servers!
* Actually, we are hiding under our beds hoping everyone forgot about us. I vote Cysero has sneak out and Ninja us coffee. Who do you think should do it?
2:30 pm - We are nerfing monsters in Oaklore... take that monsters! Meanwhile, the battle between Zhoom and Artix for Coffee rages on. May the best me be forced to drive over to Starbucks!
2:34 pm - Catastrophe!!
Artix: "What do you mean Death Note issue #10 is out!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!" .... *rushes out*
Team: "....."
Team "Did he just leave?"
Team "Does he realize the release is not out yet?"
Team "Well.. it is Death Note #10...... sort of understandable"
Team "Hope he lets me read it when he is done!"
Players: "...."
Players: "You are not being serious... right?"
Team: "..."
*checks watch* Tick.... tick..... tick.....
2:45pm - Sir Prize lives!
Team: "You're back!?"
Artix: "I was using the little Paladin's room."
Team: "...."
Team: "But what about Death Note?"
Artix: "That came out over a week ago -- of course I had it on the first day."
(Viz Media should be paying us for this)
2:35pm - Coffee contest ends at 3!
3:00pm - ALL MOST THERE..... but apparently I need to go get coffee now. Sorry. See you guys in a bit.
3:10pm - Female warrior working, towns working, quests working, low level quests are now little easier, book quests added to Maya, Falconreach recieving final update. Then... we are going to close our eyes, cross our fingers, press the button and..... RUN!
3:11pm - Fixed that pesky bug that was automatically leveling your character up to level 100 in one click. Yeah, this is going to be a good release.
3:13 Emergency Expectation Setting post!
After reading some forum posts we wanted to be clear that only the first step (and it is a baby step) of the Dragon Egg Saga (we are going to call it a saga from now on.... it sounds a lot cooler, sort of like Dragon Ball Z) will be released. You will NOT have your Dragon Egg by the end of tonight.... but you will probably figure out what is going to happen next! As said in the design notes for the past few days the focus of this release is the Flash 8 Upgrade which will improve the speed and performance of the game which will make it run better on slower computers and allow us to run the game at considerably higher resolutions. *gulps* The updated Oaklore should be a much better starting place for new players..... We are in final, final testing now.
3:30pm - Backing up and preparing to roll!
See... we learned at least one thing over the past 5 years. Also, another game update: Now when you level up your life and mana will be restored to full. Additionally a new pet called the Shellack is being added to Oaklore. The Warrior and Rogue will now "hop back" instead of running back in place.
3:39pm - Autobots! Transform and ROLL out!
This is nerve wracking.... the files are rolling out onto the servers.
3:50 TEASE!
Zhoom just took the game servers offline. The database is now updating all 5 million of your characters with the new starting town. As soon as it finishes the operation.... lets flood and and crash us some servers! Yeee'haw!!!!
3:53 You guys are so nice!
I just saw a get well soon thread for Nythera! That was so nice (except for those of you who voted for her to go get us coffee because... meanies! Lets check on the database server.
Artix: "Database server, how is it doing?"
DB: *Chern* *Chern* *Chern* *Chern* *Chern* *Chern**Chern*
Artix: "Really?"
DB: *Screech* *Wizz* *Churn* *Churn* *Whirl*
Artix: "Erm... that does not sound good
DB: *Cough* *Hack* *Slash* *Cast*
Artix: "HEY! You are playing....!"
DB: Yeah... this is really fun and so much faster than before! Oh wait... 3 million more records to go. BRB!
3:58 Energizer Database
It keeps going... and going!
15 minutes and counting....
Somehow we have made 2 sales since we have been offline -- I mean seriously... how is that even possible?
Coffee is kind of the "undead of all drinks".
4:10 - Good news: No bugs to report! (Except for the whole... being offline thing of course)
4:11- You do realize... that if you have been checking in on us all day waiting for the train wreck to happen.... it it happening. Right now.
4:18 - OH NO!
..... tries to stay calm.... this is a good time to take some fan mail!
YAY! Server Crisis Fan Mail
"HEY DF TEAM, OMG WHAT IS HAPPENING IS THE GAME BROKE?"
Dear Player, oh yes... we done keeled it good!
"I like puppies. Can we have puppies in the game? Maybe pink ones?"
Dear player, a..... erm. Cysero can you take this one please?
Cysero: "Good idea. New recipe now available at Sir Loin's eatery"
"In your March 8th post isn't the guys name FrostScythe?"
Clearly the Scythe was talking... obviously the scythe was the real villian the whole time!
"If the servers are offline how come there are 9K people online?"
Ghosts. (Literally)
Update from Zhoom!
"Probably 5 minutes"
The server alarm went off but we hit the snooze button. 5 more minutes! (Last 1 million characters being updated)
WE ARE LIVE!
(Going to go see if it is working now)
The servers are taking a pounding from everyone logging into the new files. This will clear up soon.
Mar 8, 2007
9pm Update
Quests: All of them are either bugged, not working and/or incomplete (some of them are "D.")
Towns: All broken and crashing to black screens
Engine: Random stuff is breaking and corrupting quest strings
.... in otherwords, everything is normal.
Looking forward to the release tomorrow!
Artix: "Uhh, how many hours do we have left again?"
Cysero says: "The outhouse quest is working perfectly"
Artix: "Good to know the one quest that does not give any XP is working!"
Cysero: "Woot!"
Production Schedule (Updated!)
We are "Ahhhh.... GO" with the DragonFable Flash 8 release for tomorrow. It comes with a few nice features like a "Teleport 
Home" button. I must admit, even though we solved the serious problems found during the tests I am still scared to death of this upgrade. Sure, it is going to make the game run super fast and improve combat flow.... but.... what if something goes terribly terribly wrong*!? Remind me to make a backup before we roll this out please. We are also preparing to start the Dragon Egg Chronicle where you will ultimately get a Dragon Egg** of you own. Included in this week's release is the very first step of this chain. It is a mini-boss fight which will happen just outside of Oaklore Keep introducing a very important villain. (Hint: Not Icescythe nor Sepulchure) We want to release more.... but there is just too much to do in order to release it tomorrow along with the giant build upgrade. This does, however mean that next week we will be releasing the new installments of the Dragon Egg Chronicle as fast as possible (and fixing that ever looping cutscene in front of Robina!) So tomorrow.... DragonFable Build 4 goes live!
* Whew, good thing we have never had that happen.... er wait... OH NO! *gulps* See you at the train wreck!
** Would you like it scrambled, poached, or sunny side up?
Mar 7, 2007
So..... Much....Toooooooo.... Dooooooooooom!
I am pretty sure that I will never learn my lesson. *looks at the list of stuff that is due Friday* Yup, doomed!
Forum Topic: Dragon Skills/Equipment/Upgrades
The focus for now may be getting the egg, but one day it will hatch.Through training your little Dragon ally should be a highly customizable. Because it would be silly to have a three story tall Dragon standing next to you in every fight (and it would take 200 years for him to grow to that size normally...) you will be able to use the power of the Dragon Amulet to instantly grow your Dragon to full size for special battles and flight. What skills and items would you like to be obtainable for your dragon. Special armors? Elemental alignment? Different elemental breath attacks? Would you like to be able to name your Dragon? If we had three stats for your dragon [Power, Speed, Magic] what skills do you think it should effect? What will we name "pet size" and "full size" Dragons? How should we handle "Dragon Dueling" in PvP? This is the right time to be asking for you about this topic as we are now asking ourselves these questions. This should be fun!
Mar 6, 2007
DragonFable - Build 4 (Four!!!!!!)
I milked the 3.14 joke as long as I could. Now, we are off to explore new fun build numbers. In addition to Oaklore and the new quests you may need to watch your heads as you log into build #4 which will be Flash 8+ with improved speed in many areas (Soon, all of them). Also we are replacing the "run back after attacking" with a quick hop to improve the flow of combat. I am really looking forward to completing the Dragon Egg chronicle and moving on to the level 30 to 40 zone. (I better not mention that the Dragon Egg chronicle will span the level 1 to 29 zones rapidly fixing all of the old content before we build the new stuff.... ) In theory each zone should cover 5 to 10 levels worth of stuff to do. Right now if you take a brand new character and do every Oaklore quest once you will be level 5 and ready for the Hydra fight to unlock Falconreach. Ideally, I would like you to get to Falconreach (Oh, and we actually have a falcon for Falconreach now!) in a single sitting with a new character. Front facing NPCs are going to be your primary source of "what to do next" in each zone. I loved the lists people made on the forums of "things you absolutely need to do in DF". So the front facing NPCs will actually give you lists like that and keep track of them for the entire zone. It should be a lot of fun! Wish us luck, we have a lot of wood to chop to have Oaklore and the surrounding forest ready for the next big release. I wonder what the Dragon Eggs will look like.....
Mar 5, 2007
Dragon Eggs & The Knights of the Pactoganal Table
This weeks release... *insert triumphant music* will be the first part of the Dragon Egg chronicle. Since you were supposed to play this at level 1-5 we are going start off by having it scaling and taking place in Oaklore -- which is getting a new front facing NPC, several new quests, and will finally become the official starting place of newly created characters. Do not hold it against me if we are a little late on this release..... but I am just as eager as you are to get an egg. What mysteries shall hatch from it? How will it work? How would it taste in an omelet? So many questions, so little.... hmm, actually there are a lot of forum posts.
There is no "Eye" in Team!
But there is in Winner. Our victory in Falconreach has given us a vision of the future. It was a dark and grim view of what shall come to pass. Darkness.... evil... unpredictability.... that is right -- the Flash 8 upgrade! That is why I am going to distract you with a collage of our female NPC characters (look below) while I talk about the technical improvements. For example... oooh, look Vayle is in there. So is Fae -- I hope she goes in the game soon. Keelia always does that "V" for victory pose but it sort of looks like she is saying "2" which is funny when you go to battlespire and she says "You need 3 more...." but is holding up 2 fingers. Hmmm, what was I saying?
Testing Round 3 preparing to start...... |
Mar 2, 2007
Boss fight!
The boss fight of "War at See" is happening now!
P.S. When Cysero originally set up the war he was completely evil and set the war counter to 2,010,000 (You should have seen him laughing maniacally reading your posts right after everyone hit 2,000,000 and could not figure out why the boss fight had not started yet.)
Dragon Egg!
Note: Cysero types in Green
I'm SO excited guys. I'll just say it.
I don't get excited by much.
That isn't true, i can get excited by soap bubbles, but i don't get any more excited than usual by most things. It's all kind of a low grade excitement all the time.
But i'm REALLY excited. We spent a lot of yesterday talking about things, mostly a really good way to re-arrange and organize this game that we're building. I mean, it's got lots of stuff to do and most weeks we add something new, sometimes more than one something new, but it's all over. It doesn't tie together very well. We knew this, but coming up with a way to tie it together was a real challange.
We can't just make it linear, exactly, like most RPGs. You do A to unlock B, do B to unlock C, etc etc. Because eventually we're going to have TONS of Exclusive DA only content for the game's supporters, and we will still have tens of thousands of free players that we can't leave out in the cold on plot.
We're going to have things like a 6 quest chain, where only the first 2 are available for free players ,but we can't take the main game plot further because the free players would miss out. It would be like reading chapters 1 and 2 of a book, then skipping to chapter 7. SO the linear thing was out. (I know some of the free players will frown about not getting the ENTIRE game for free with all the bells and whistles but we just can't do it, and we're still trying to sneak around a server cap.)
Plus we have this great walk-around engine so If we have all the quests available from buttons, then what's the point? I like to explore personally. Find little nooks and crannies.
But it can't be 100% walk-around exploration because then you're free to do anything in any order that you like, which kind of kills any kind of progressive plot. Try reading a book like this: chapter 1,5,9,2,7,3,4,6, and then 8 and you'll see what i mean. (i've tried it. The book plays out like Momento. Kind of neat, but not really any fun.)
HOWEVER, dear friends and fans, YESTERDAY was a real breakthrough in how we're going to run this ship! I'm STOKED about this and we're already working on it. Working pretty hard too. Which is why today's ONLY release will (probably) be the Eye War Boss Fight.
But understand this, once things are ogranized in this new system that we've hit upon, and we add some of the new extras that we're planning (i'm thinking about one in particular...you know which one, Artix), then Plot will start flying at you full force and content production will really accellerate. New, fun, funny, and well written quests and quest chain galore!
Artix ALWAYS says that big things are coming (and he's never lying, he's just a lot more of a visionary than I am which is why he has 2 growing video games of his very own) But, short sighted as I am, i can honestly say that BIG THINGS ARE REALLY COMING! They might take a while, (BIG projectS, plural) but MAN, when they hit you, they will hit you like an angry Gorillaphant who has had too much coffee and drives a LARGE truck!
-C
C?
Now, what starts with the letter C?
Cookie starts with C!
Lets think of OTHER things that start with C!
Ah... who cares about other things.....
C is for Cookie, thats good enough for me....
C is for Cookie, thats good enough for me....
Woahhhh.. Cookie Cookie Cookie starts with C!
Everyone now!
C is for Cookie, thats good enough for me....
C is for Cookie, thats good enough for me....
Woahhhh.. Cookie Cookie Cookie starts with C!
Hey you know what... a round cookie with a bite out of it looks like a C!
Zombies now!
B is brains, thats good enough for... EWWWWWW!
P.S. Did you guys seriously think I was going to let you down with just a "4% to go... DN post?" Wish us luck on the next big release.
Mar 1, 2007
The next big release!
At the end of this war you will learn many things about the Sepulchure and the evil that is invading our world. May the fates favor your battle against the boss of this war! Extreme mode has been heavily tested and promises to be a true challenge for you and your pet. Meanwhile *DUN DUNNN DUNNNNNN* the team is working on a large update for you involving a Dragon Egg.....
Artix: Carrots.... Zzzzzzz..... Carrots.... Zzzzzzz........
Cysero: ARTIX! *shakes him* Wake up!
Artix: Carrots! Who? Wha? Where?
Cysero: You fell asleep at your desk. Were you dreaming about the Ninjas and WereRabbits again?
Artix: ....
Cysero: Back to work -- we have a lot to do on this Dragon Egg quest!
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