May 28th 2010
The Spy of Falconreach revealed!

Who did YOU guess it was?
All week long- and, really, for the past two or three years- you've been debating just WHO Sepulchure has been using as the Spy of Falconreach. People on the forum have made list after lengthy list, crossing out names and putting others in. So far, NO ONE has guessed the identity of the Spy. Some people have been close, but... no one's been completely correct. Even the ending of last week's quest was a bit misleading!

There was a REASON your pets have been attacking!

But that will change THIS WEEK! Finally, FINALLY you'll know who Sepulchure subverted! This week you'll learn the whole story, and it might raise a few more questions than it answers... but that will just leave you more to find out later! Talk to Aria by the Falconreach Inn to start or continue this mini-chain!

Grand Opening of the FalconsNest Zoo!
Head South from Falconreach's town center to enter FalconsNest. The Zoo's entrance is right before the Nitroglycerin Sponge catapault. Once you're inside, look around, gaze at the (relatively) tame monsters that inhiabit the Zoo and, if you're feeling helpful, do the BreakOut at the Zoo quest to help Zookeeper and Head Gorillaphant Wrangler Anoril recapture the monsters which have somehow broken free! Finishing the quest will grant you access to the Zoo's Souvenir Shop, which is full of monster-themed helms for you to wear!

Who doesn't want to look like a Gorillaphant?! I know I do!

DragonFable: Hard Mode is ready for you!
But are YOU ready for IT? Check under your Options tab on the game interface to enable Hard Mode if you're interested in playing DragonFable on a slightly harder scale. It will give you the chance to use more strategies in battle, which means you can REALLY see an armor's skills in action!

In addition, scythes have been fixed so that a scythe's damage type is based on your stats- whichever stat (STR, DEX, or INT) you have as the highest, that's the damage type that your scythes will do! If an armor's skill says that the skill does a certain type of damage, though, the scythe will do THAT damage type instead.

Summer is coming!
And with it the Florida rains! We're typing in a semi-dark Lab right now, because power keeps flickering. I love storms but I love releasing without worrying about a power interruption more! Now, the only problem is how to get to our cars after release without getting soaked!

Have a great weekend and enjoy the release! See you on the forums, Twitter!

May 26th 2010
Chock full of news and peeks

It's Wednesday again!
You know what we do here in DragonFable on Wednesdays in the Design Notes! It's time for news and Sneak Peeks! So lets get started with the peeking!

New DragonFable Contest!
It's time for another contest in DragonFable!

You're all familiar with Akriloth, right? But what you might not know is that he's the Great Elemental Dragon of Fire. Now, if the element of Fire has a Great Dragon associated with it, it would make sense that ALL the elements which have an Orb would have a Dragon associated with them. And they do!

But what they DON'T have, these Great Dragons, are names. That's where YOU come in! We're holding a contest to name the rest of the Great elemental Dragons, and we want you to come up with them!

If you've never entered a DragonFable contest before, here's how it works:

• Make a forum account (if you don't have one already)
• Follow the link to the Official Contest Entry thread (found here)
• Make sure you post your entry by the deadline and time (all times are based off of server time, not your local time, so be sure to check)
• Follow the format when posting your entry so that it's not disqualified
• Make sure you include your Character ID when posting your entry so we can give you your prize if you win
• Wait for the winners to be announced!

You can find the discussion thread for contest entries here if you'd like to discuss your own or others' entries!

The Spy of Falconreach!
Back in the almost-beginning of DragonFable, we showed you that there was a SPY in Falconreach! Now, your character doesn't know that, but YOU do! And for years on the forums, Facebook, and Twitter you've been asking us just who the Spy is, and when we'd tell you their identity!

Many, MANY threads have been made in the DragonFable forum about the identity of the Spy, and just about every NPC in the entire game has been guessed at one point or another. But only ONE guess will be correct, and I haven't seen ANYone get it right yet!

You might THINK you know who the Spy of Falconreach is after last week's pet attack quest, but we are MUCH sneakier than that!*

DragonsGrasp Concept Art!
We've told you that planning has already started on the Summer storylines. I've finished writing the Nythera Saga part 2 already and Geopetal is working on writing the DragonsGrasp storyline right now. All that leaves us to do is... art and animation and building and coding the quests!

And today we all gathered around the computer with Thyton and discussed what Circe's NPC will look like. Circe (you know her if you go on the forums!) is going to be a part of the DragonsGrasp storyline, but we're not going to say where yet! We ARE going to show you her NPC's concept art, though! Take a look and tell us what you think:

Now, Thyton is going to take the above stick figure (I worked so hard on it!) and turn it into a REAL NPC. Words like "awesome," "maybe punk," "maybe hardcore," and "I trust you, Thyton" were tossed around. We also discussed the concept of Neutral Evil, Neutral Good, and Chaotic and just how to portray them in art.**

Visitors to the Lab mean surprise treats
Who doesn't love surprise donuts?! The Secret Underground Lab doesn't get many visitors*** but today Stratos and his friend stopped by to talk with Artix about a project they're working on. And because they came, Artix asked Faith to go on a donut run! But none of us in the Lab knew that until she walked in with huge boxes of donuts.

It took less than a minute for sugar-starved game and web designers (like lab-rats, we LOVE sweet things) to swarm her! Warlic dove in and got the first donut and the rest of us circled him like a pack of hungry hyenas after a lion's kill. He would be just like a lion, if lion's had beards!

That's all for today's Sneak Peek! See you on the forums, Twitter!

* Except when we're being obvious. But we aren't doing that here. Or are we? DUN DUN DUNNNNN!
** We take our NPCs and their art SERIOUSLY!
*** Though invasions by undead are a regular occurrence!

May 25th 2010
"T" is a troublesome letter.

A totally terrible tragedy for typing!
It's Tuesday. Tuesday starts with the letter "t". A LOT of other words start with the letter "t," too. Typing those words with a missing letter "t" key is inconvenient, but possible so long as you're able to copy/paste a "t" from somewhere else on the internet and save that in your Notepad program.

But that is not the problem I faced today and yesterday; a problem which completely prevented me from working for most of today and tag-end of yesterday. No, the problem I encountered was not a LACK of "t"s but far, FAR too many!

This Design Notes post brought to you by any letter but "T".

My laptop's keyboard decided that it was fond of the letter "t". It LOVED the letter "t". It was so enamoured of that specific letter that it wanted to type it ALL the time. Even- especially- when no one had come close to touching the "t" key on the keyboard.

Yesterday it wasn't so bad. It just made typing in a word processor program difficult. But today, oh today! I couldn't enter in URLs on a web browser; I couldn't open Flash because it kept wanting to open random programs that start with the letter "t" (no joke!), and that was after I spent 10 minutes delete-racing the flood of "t"s to enter in my password.

After a few hours on the phone with tech support, THEY were just as confused as I was. And it's never a good thing when the professionals- the people who BUILT the laptop- have no idea what's causing the problem. So, One-Eyed Doll (the laptop, so named because it has a sticker on it that Cysero brought back from Dragon*Con) is being shipped back to the manufacturer so they can fix it while I use this beat-up backup laptop.

But it works* and that's all I care about!

News about this week!
This week we'll be having two quest for you! The first will conclude the story of why your pets are attacking you that we began last week. And if you think you know who the boss is, guess again! Because it's much, much cooler than that. We've been dying of awesome-overload every time we look at Lim's screen to see his animation progress.

The second quest will be a bit smaller because we want to focus on the Pet Attack finale quest, but it will be a whole new area for you to explore! The Monster Zoo is opening up in FalconsNest and there will be a quest you can access from within it called "Breakout at the Zoo!"

News about upcoming projects!
Geopetal and I are working hard on the quests for DragonsGrasp and the next Nythera Saga already, too. Ghost, Lim, and Tomix all have the art and animation requirements for the Nythera Saga, so they're working ahead on them this week so that HOPEFULLY we can start it next week. It will require a whole new Nythera class, which Tomix is busy animating this week.

DragonFable: Hard Mode!
Rolith has his own project for this week; DragonFable: Hard Mode! It's probably exactly what it sounds like, but if you can't hear the details clearly, I'll type them out just so we're all on the same page.

You'll be getting an option to play DF in Hard Mode (which you can find under the Options tab in your game interface). In Hard Mode, monsters will have more HP, do more damage, and other fun tricks like dodging more often and having a higher chance to hit you!

Hard mode not guaranteed to make you buff like Ash.

Why are we putting this in now? Because with the introduction of the Kathool Adept armor into the game, we've put in the first level-specific armor. It shows that armors should- and will- increase in power based on the level they for which they are intended.

What that means is a level 50 armor- like the Kathool Adept armor- is going to optimally do more damage for your character than an armor intended for lower levels, like the base class armors. As you level up, we encourage you to try new and different classes to see everything DragonFable has to offer and to do level-appropriate damage. Experimenting with different classes will broaden your play-style, too! The other classes will be rebalanaced as we have time.

That's all for today's Design Notes! Check back tomorrow for a Sneak Peek of something that will be coming up either this week or next week!**

* Except for the left CRTL key.
** There are 337 "t"s in the above Design Notes post. And there would have been HUNDREDS if I'd typed this on the broken laptop.

May 21st 2010
Cliffhanger weekend

Get ready to ask questions!
It's Friday again, and that means we are releasing BRAND-NEW STUFF! And if you've been paying attention to the Design Notes, Newsletter, Twitter or Facebook accounts we have, then you'll already know what's coming. But if you haven't, here's what you can expect:

• Learn why your pets are attacking!
• The next quest in the Ravenloss Saga!
• The Kathool Adept armor in Cysero's Superstore of Savings!

And if any- or all- of those three things excite you, I bet you'd like more information on them. And I can give you that!

When Pets Attack!
For the past few weeks, your pets have steadily been attacking you more and more often. Now, that COULD be because you don't feed them or because you keep them all cooped up in that little leather backpack stuffed full of weapons, capes, helms, and trinkets*

But it's PROBABLY some much more nefarious reason. Your pets are loyal, loving creatures. They wouldn't just attack you for no reason, and that reason is what you need to discover this weekend if things are ever going to get back to normal! Talk to Aria outside the Inn in Falconreach to begin the quest to discover what that secret is!

Mayhem in Mystlyk Museum!
If you've been following the Ravenloss Saga, you'll definitely want to talk to Tomix this weekend to do the next quest, which takes place in MystLyk Museum. And if you haven't played through the quests released so far, now's a great time to start, because this weekend will show a HUGE development in the plot!

What development would that be? Well, if I told you, you wouldn't have to play to find out! This week is going to change the entire course of Tomix's search, so you'd better get to that Museum and make sure you find the Bolt Key! And say hi to Izaac Stellini while you're down there. He's a friend from Tomix's past.

Rings and necklaces will drop from this week's quest, from levels 22 to 52! Make sure you have your music option turned ON, because Ghost has made some spooktastic music for this week's Ravenloss quest! And if you're VERY lucky, you might just stumble on a hidden Summon Gem shop. But we're not telling you where it is; that would be cheating!

Kathool is Cool, his Armor rules!
After a ton of revisions and testing, the Kathool Adept armor is ready for release! Thanks for your patience, everyone! Now that everything is all set, we're excited to bring you the newest class! To purchase it, just talk to Cysero in his Superstore of Savings in Falconreach. It will cost you 1800 Dragon Coins, but that's a bargain for a level 50 armor which you can use starting at level 20!

Earlier in testing and production, we thought it would be possible for it to be used at all levels, but the high mana costs- which are necessary- make it so that lower levels have a harder time using it. It's recommended that you be at least level 40, but you CAN use it starting at level 20.

This is only the second Class we've sold for Dragon Coins, with the first being the Gnomish Personal Steamtank. Selling armors for Dragon Coins doesn't happen very often, but this one is so special, we think that it is worth it!

You can scroll down a little to Wednesday's Design Notes entry to see what the details of the armor's skills are. The numbers we listed haven't changed, although there HAVE been a few tweaks to some of the coding and animations. And remember, the armor's damage type is based on the damage type of the weapon you have equipped. So if you're looking to do Magic damage in this armor, equip a wand or staff. For Pierce damage, try a dagger. Scythes will do the same damage type as the default weapon of your base class.

Let us know what you think of the armor after you try it out! We're happy with it, and we hope you will be, too!

Surprise addition to the release!
So, there is SO much releasing this weekend that I forgot to put a whole PART of the release into the newsletter and earlier Design Notes. Whoops! But that's ok, because Geopetal threw a crumpled-up ball of paper at me which, when I unrolled it, read "DON'T FORGET TO ANNOUNCE CRAZY HARRY'S HOUSE ITEM SHOP OPENING!!! (and tell Cysero I borrowed his yogurt. I'll give it back later. - Geopetal)"

So, hey, guess what? Crazy Harry's House Shop in The Locker is opening! It's chock-full of water-themed house items AND a whole new house type PLUS a new underwater house background!

With a name like Crazy Harry, you KNOW the prices (and the merchandise) will be insane!

And if you love being a DragonLord...
Head to AdventureQuest Worlds and verify your Dragon Amulet and you'll gain access to the all-new DragonLord class! Yesterday Beleen sat me down and gave me a rundown of what to expect in the new DragonLord class, and I'm excited to pass that information on to you!

In AQWorlds, Dragonlords are aggressive front-line soldiers. They are skilled in an ancient school of enchanted combat arts.

The skills the class will let you unlock are great for dealing damage:

Rank 1- Cleave
20 mana, 4 sec cooldown
Deals heavy damage to up to two targets in melee range.
Rank 2- Heated Blade
15 mana, 4 sec cooldown
Deals moderate damage and applies Searing Heat, reducing haste and hit change by 5%, stacking up to 4 times and lasting 10 seconds.
Rank 3- Lifestealer
30 mana, 8 sec cooldown
Deals damage based on the difference between your current and maxium HP, and heals you for some of the damage dealt.
Rank 4 passive ability- Furious
Increases all damage done by 15%
Rank 4 passive ability- Resolute
Damage taken reduced by 10%
Rank 5- Cursed Blade
20 mana, 8 sec cooldown
Deals damage inversely proportional to your current MP to up to 2 targets. Applies Cursed Blood, increasing the target's damage taken by 20% for 10 seconds.


Have a great weekend, everyone! We hope you enjoy playing through the releases and we look forward to reading your feedback on the forums, Twitter!**


* Oddly enough, you carry NO food or water in your backpack. You must rely on the kindness of generous innkeepers!
**We sometimes give sneak peeks at what we're working on on Facebook and Twitter in addition to occasionally talking about other projects outside of work that we're active in, so following us gives you +1 to your Inside Scoop knowledge skill!

May 19th 2010
A smorgasbord of surprises!

It's Sneak Peek Wednesday again!
Lets start by announcing the price of the Kathool Adept armor! It will be sold for 1800 Dragon Coins, and you'll be able to find it in Cysero's Superstore of Savings in Falconreach! (What links Cysero has to Kathool, we may never know!)

And If you're excited about the class already, be prepared to anticipate it even MORE, because the skills for it are awesome (get ready for a flood of numbers!):

• Attack - The basic attack will fire an energy ball out of your claw hand and will convert to the attack type of the weapon you currently have equipped.
• Writhe - 80% Dodge for 3 rounds, 6 turn CoolDown, MP Cost of 32
• Fear - Stuns for 3 rounds, 10 turn CoolDdown, MP Cost of 54
• Ink Spray - -50 Hit for enemy for 5 rounds, 6 turn CoolDown, MP Cost of 38
• Regenerate - 4 Turn Heal over Time, 12% / Turn, 15 turn CoolDown, MP Cost of 190
• Brain Drain - Damages enemy mana by 40 (no HP damage) and returns mana to caster (same amount as enemy was damaged by), 5 turn CoolDown, MP Cost of 0
• Migraine - 4 Turn Damage over Time (Element Evil, damage will convert to the attack type of the currently equiped weapon) 5 turn CoolDown, MP Cost of 6
• Unnerve - Darkness damage, damage type will be your equipped weapon type and reduces enemy's stun resistance by 25% for 10 rounds if the attack hits, 5 turn CoolDown, MP Cost of 19
• Mad Fury - 25% PowerBoost for 4 rounds, then basic attack, 5 turn CoolDown, MP Cost of 31
• Tidal Wave - Hits all enemies with Water damage, damage type is the same as your equipped weapon, 3 turn CoolDown, MP Cost of 34
• Shadow Swarm - 4 hits of 25% PowerBoost Darkness damage, increases damage dealt to player by 25% for 2 turns, 3 turn CoolDown, allows casting of "Kathool's Wrath"; MP Cost of 264
• Corrupt - an attack of Evil damage at 50% power but lowers enemy dmg by 25% for 4 rounds, 10 turn CoolDown, MP Cost of 11
• Mind Twist - 110% PowerBoost of Evil damage, or 150% PowerBoost) if target is under "Corrupt," 4 turn CoolDown, MP Cost of 11
• Red Tide - Guaranteed Crit + 25% PowerBoost of Water damage, damage type is the same as your equipped weapon type, 10 turn CoolDown, MP Cost of 30
• Kathool's Wrath - Hits all enemies with 3 hits of Evil damage (each as powerful as a Basic Attack), makes enemies vulnerable to Evil damage by 50% for 5 rounds, 100% Bonus to Hit, 10 turn CoolDown, can only be cast after Shadow Swarm. MP cost of 0 (MP cost is paid in Shadow Swarm).
  

The skill chains you'll really want to focus on are Shadow Swarm>Kathool's Wrath and Corrupt>Mind Twist. Those will help you do a powerful amount of damage! We hope you're looking forward to the class; Lim, Aelthai, Rolith, and Personater have done a TON of work on it trying to make it as amazing as possible for you! The above numbers MIGHT change slightly, but this is what we have right now that we're testing with.

Who's ready for some Ravenloss Sneak Peeks?
There is a brand new (well, almost) NPC coming this week in the Ravenloss quest, which will take place in the dark and deserted Mystlyk Museum!

Meet Izaac Stellini! He's in Ravenloss on some business you'll learn about Friday, and you'll never guess (ok, knowing you guys, maybe you will) who he meets up with by accident!

And if you've been keeping track of what Equilibrium Gate Keys you've found so far, and wonder which you'll be searching for this week, here's a handy guide:

A question for all you music-lovers out there!
So, we've been putting music into the game fairly regularly for the past year, so if you haven't been tuning in maybe now's a good time to run some of the quests we've done lately with the music option turned on.
We're reminding you of this NOW because we have an important question for you: If we ever compiled your favorite DF game music in one place, which songs would you want us to include on the list?

All you AdventureQuest Worlds players out there get ready!
If you haven't yet tried AdventureQuestWorlds, our massively multi-player browser-based game, then now is a GREAT time to look into it! The DragonLord armor in AQW is becoming a full-class with 4 skills that will let kick (monster) tail and take names! There is also a verification shop which gives you access to a DragonLord weapon!

Note: Bald hair not mandatory to be a DragonLord

All you need to do is verify your DragonLord account in AdventureQuest Worlds, and you can do that by going here and entering in your account information! (Make sure you are on an official Artix Entertainment website before ever entering in your account information!)

We like to make sure you get your money's worth when you upgrade your account in our game, and giving you perks in ANOTHER game is a great way for us to do that! We hope you enjoy the DragonLord class in AQW, and look for more details on the skills the class will receive either tomorrow or Friday!

Whew, that is a lot of sneak peeking! I'm worn out, how about you? That's enough for one week! Look for more sneak peeks NEXT Wednesday, and we'll see you on the forums and Twitter!

May 18th 2010
By decree of the Royal Alchemical Society

From the hand of Llykar Stonebridge, Head of the Royal Alchemical Society

By decree of the Royal Alchemical Society,* we hereby award the Royal Alchemist, Alac, the surname of Poisonbane for her groundbreaking work in locating and isolating the components of a solution of crushed Brightstone and Doomdirt which has had the effect of rendering null and ineffectual many of this land's worst and most deadly poisons.

She has made it known that, in recognition of the aid she recieved in formulating this substance from notes given to her by an alchemical-minded relative, that she wishes to take on the name "Alina." I wish it known, therefore, that the alchemist Alac, Royal Alchemist to King Alteon the First, may now be addressed as Alina Poisonbane.

Our thanks to her for her innovative work in the field. May she have many more successes!**

What that means in real life is that my game name (and that of my NPC) is changing from Alac to Alina. You can find me on Twitter, the same as always, but with new names and URLs. On the forum, my name has been changed to Alina.

Why did I do this? Because when I found AdventureQuest back in 2007, I used a random user login taken from the University I was currently attending. It also became my login for the Artix Entertainment forum. And from there I went on to become an active forum member, but I'd never expected this random user login name to become an online identity, which tis quickly did once I started working on DragonFable and writing Design Notes.

Names are important, and going by a name you're not comfortable with just isn't... well... comfortable! Lina was a name I used to RP with back in the late 90s, and Alina is close enough to Alac that hopefully people will get used to it quickly.

That's all I've got for this late-night Design Notes post. See you tomorrow with more details on the Corrupted Water Elf Adept armor!

* It is the sole province of the Royal Alchemical Society to engage in, produce, and educate on the subject of the processes and by-products of Alchemy. Engaging in any form of Alchemy automatically grants you membership into the Alchemical Society.
** Whew! Llyka is an officious and wordy fellow. He makes a great politician in King Alteon's court.

May 17th 2010
The Art of the Water Elf Armor!

You've been asking for it, and now we're giving it to youl!
The Corrupted Water Elf armor is not quite ready to go live yet, but it IS only Monday! To whet your appetites for what's to come, here's a picture of the Water Elf armor's art, and a list of the skills!

• Basic Attack
• Writhe
• Fear
• Ink Spray
• Regenerate
• Brain Drain
• Migraine
• Unnerve
• Mad Fury
• Tidal Wave
• Shadow Swarm
• Corrupt
• Mind Twist
• Red Tide
• Kathool's Wrath

This is a defensive armor, but it has a good mix of offensive skills included. In the words of Lim, "there's a really big nuke" as well as a DoT for your offisive skills, and on the defensive side, there are damage-reducer, dodge, and stun skills to help keep you alive!

The animations are amazing and the skills are powerful; this is definitely an armor you won't want to miss out on! Look for more details on the skills to come on Wednesday or Thursday!

News on this week's releases!
We'll have two quests for you this week as well as the Corrupted Water Elf armor! One of them will be the next quest in the Ravenloss Saga! Greed has a goal in his sights and he's fixated on achieving it! The second quest will give you a deeper look into one of Sepulchure's very well-hidden plans. It's quite possible that you might not even have known about it until now. Sepulchure is very sneaky!

Mid-morning Monday update!
If you've been following my Twitter, you'll see that we rolled out an update to the Quest Log this morning! The Water Orb Saga has been added to the Quest Log along with the unlocked Water Orb achievement badge. Thanks for your patience, there was just too much to do last week to get that finished before today.

Have a great Monday!

May 14th 2010
The secret revealed!

The time has come for you to face... Kathool!
SOMEthing has been playing with your mind for many weeks now, and the time has come for you to say "No more!" Kathool is ready to take you on, but you DragonLords have a secret weapon, something he didn't anticipate: your titan dragon!

It's time for Kathool to become all washed up, and it's up to you to do it! Take him down, finish your hunt for the Water Orb, and learn where Aquella's staff has been this whole time!

In addition to the plot, the rewards for this quest should be mind-bending, too! Lim styled the weapons after the artwork of M.C. Escher. The new weapons will be the:

• Euclid's Nightmare, a Disease sword in levels 53, 43, and 33.
• Depths of Madness, a Disease dagger in levels 53, 43, and 33.
• Dream Hedron, a Disease staff in levels 53, 43, and 33.

There are also THREE new random quests in The Locker, too! You can continue exploring our underwater area by pressing the "Random quests" button after talking to Aquella. These quests drop a TON of junk items (some of which- like the "Bag of Jewels"- are worth more than others), so get ready to sell them and make some gold!

Make your way to Sunbreeze Grove!
Lady Celestia is excited to introduce you to her new apprentice, Elysia! Elysia will take part in future storylines, but she'll ALSO be training Primal Dragon skills once that functionality is ready! Your choice of Primalization WILL make a difference in your battling, and Elysia's first big project from Celestia is to figure out how to make that happen!

An unfortunate delay.
The Corrupted Water Elf armor IS coming, but it won't be released until next week. We're really sorry about this, but we've run into some snags* with the skills, so we're sending it into intensive testing by staff members before releasing it to you**. Since this is an armor you're paying for with Dragon Coins, we want it to be as bug-free as possible before selling it.

But it is looking pretty awesome! We'll have pictures of the finished armor's art for you Tuesday.

Have an awesome weekend and enjoy the release! We're going to go entertain Rolith's mom, who is here visiting. Maybe we can convince her to take part in the Nerf defense of the Secret Underground Lab.

*Like the Basic Attack button doing triple damage at level 1... that's a BAD thing for balance!
** Lim (mad scientist and animator that he is)not wanting a magic-based armor has NOTHING to do with the delay.

May 12th 2010
Meet Elysia!

Lady Celestia would like you to meet her apprentice!
If you head to Sunbreeze Gove this weekend, you'll see a new face in an old place: Lady Celestia's new apprentice, Elysia!

Elysia's Story

Elysia was raised by a pair of DragonLords to respect and revere Dragon-Kin her entire life. Her mother Amara felt that she was destined for great things, and when a Temple Priest visited their town, she asked that Elysia's future be scried.

Using his crystal ball and many mystical mutterings, the Priest glared at a young Elysia from under bushy eyebrows, then turned to his gazing apparatus. He stared deeply into its opalescent swirling mists and, when he was done, looked up with an air of great satisfaction.

"This child's path does not lie in a direction you would wish it to take. She is not destined to be a great DragonLord."

Elysia's mother turned her face into her husband's shoulder and let out a small cry of disappointment.

"No, do not mistake me. She is not destined to be a DragonLord; her destiny is elsewhere. She has the seed within her of Magic, and it will attune itself to Dragons. Properly apprenticed, she will grow to be a great champion for Dragonkind. There is a Priestess I know of. She might be willing to take your daughter on, once she comes of age..."

And so Elysia was apprenticed to Lady Celestia. She is staying with the Priestess in Sunbreeze Grove to learn how to harness her Dragon-Magic ( a magic of a kind different than Nythera's. Elysia's lies in the mystical manipulation of magic in order to aid Dragons. Nythera will one day draw on her half-Dragon nature to use the magic of Dragons directly.)

We have many plans for Elysia. Some you'll find out on Friday (hint: they have to do with our plans for YOUR dragons!), some you won't find out for months. But there ARE plans!

News update on the Corrupted Water Elf Adept Armor!
We've read and listened to your feedback on the new DC armor, and it sounds like some of you aren't happy that right now it's geared towards magic-users., and that you'd like it to also have melee or ranged capabilities.

We try to listen to your feedback as often as possible, and this time you've made a fair request, so we're going to do something about it! Personater and Rolith are going to get together and talk it over, but right now it looks like the two main options for restructuring the armor are:

• Make it do damage based on your base class
• Make it do damage based on your equipped weapon

One of the two should happen. We hope that helps get some of you more excited about the Water Elf armor. Its animations are looking really cool from what I've seen over Lim's shoulders, and Personater's going to go all out with the skills.

Have a good Friday! See you on the forums, and Twitter!

May 10th 2010
Time to get corrupted!

By purchasing the newest class in DF, that is!
That's right, you guys asked for an armor related to the Water Orb Saga, and we're going to give you one! We've been planning this for a while, but we didn't want to announce it until it got closer to the release date.

You've fought against them in The Locker, you've marveled at how thoroughly Kathool has corrupted them... now you get a chance to BE a corrupted Water Elf!

This armor will be sold for Dragon Coins, and it will be released this Friday for sale in Cysero's Superstore of Savings! No info on the price yet, but we'll be sure to announce what that is this Friday in the Design Notes.

Now for some details about the armor to whet your appetites:

• Super-powerful basic attack
• High-level armor with high MP costs (so train that mana alchemy!)
• Scaled to be a poweful high-level armor (in the 50s), but you can unlock it at ANY time!

Skills will include:

• Writhe: a dodge skill
• Ink Spray: a blind skill
• Regenerate: a heal-over-time skill
• Shadow swarm: which allows casting of
• Kathool's Wrath: super-big multi attack

In the Corrupted Water Elf armor you'll be doing a combination of Darkness, Water, and Evil damage! And this is a Magic-based armor, so for those of you arguing that we don't give enough love to Mages, this is one right up your underwater alley!

Here's what's coming this week!
We'll have the Water Orb Saga finale (get ready for a titan battle!) and The Locker random quests will also be introduced. The finale will drop weapons with some mind-bending art. The random quests will drop junk items scavenged from the bottom of the sea floor, so get ready to make some gold!

And you might want to head to Sunbreeze Grove for a bit on Friday. We're introducing a brand-new NPC: Elysia!

I think you'll like her, she's friendly, loyal, and VERY eager to begin working. She is new, though, so she might have to go through some growing and training pains...

Have a good Monday! Enjoy speculating about what's going to happen this week in DragonFable!

May 9th 2010
Happy Mother's Day

Midnight (or a little after) release!
It's officially Mother's Day here in the land of the Secret Underground Lab, and we'd like to wish ALL the mothers, grandmothers, and mothers-to-be out there the very best of days!

How are WE here in DragonFable going to do that? Why, like we always celebrate holidays in-game: with a Seasonal Rare shop! This year's Mother's Day item is a Stone element Scythe (the first of its kind!) and it's beautiful! With a lovely cherry-blossom theme, it would make any mother proud to receive! If, that is, your mother liked getting very sharp, very pretty weaponry as a gift.

... On second thought, you might just want to stick to getting your real mother some flowers and making her breakfast in bed in a few hours! If your Mother plays DragonFable, though, (and there ARE mothers out there who play the game), then this is the weapon for you! It's the weapon for anyone who loves and appreciates all the hard work mothers do for their families.

I'm going to remind MY mom to log in and get hers. She's level 20 and likes to fight in DragonFable wars. Her favorite so far was the Popsprocket war. She would call and ask about news of the fighting, and even bought herself a Beacon of Hope trinket!

I'm pretty far away from my mom this Mother's Day now that I'm working out of the Secret Underground Lab, but luckily there was a gift shop right next to the Post Office, so she'll have a package to open from me tomorrow (note: I did not ship weaponry through the US Mail. That would be a BAD thing for the postman. Although I suppose if you throw a coffee mug that reads "My mother, my best friend" hard enough, it'd qualify as a weapon.)

Make sure you make time to say thank you and I love you to your mom today. It's always nice to hear those words, and sometimes in the day to day rush of life we forget that. I know I'll be calling MY mom up in the morning and telling her that.

Enjoy the scythe, and Happy Mother's Day!

PS: I love you, mom. Enjoy the coffee cup and candy..

May 7th 2010
Reality is slipping away

Hold on to it!
Due to tonight's Water Orb saga quest, we could go into a long-winded philosophical discussion about the nature of reality, sanity, and the links between the two, but that would take longer to read and I'm betting you guys REALLY want to get to the next quest.

So, instead of doing that drawn-out discussion, I'll be brief and say: If you think you're crazy, in reality, you're probably not. Only the insane ALWAYS insist upon their sanity. The rest of us know that sometimes, we're all a little nuts. And speaking of being a few apples short of a bushel, we have a Clashening quest for you tonight!

Aquella is counting on you!
Look deep inside yourself; is your hold on reality still secure? Or are you slowly slipping into insanity? This week, you'll be taking Aquella... somewhere. For some reason. You'll find out why once you run the quest, so what are you waiting for? Get to it!

Also, Ghost wants you to know that there's an Easter Egg in this week's quest, so be on the lookout for weirdness! (Above and beyond the normal bizzarity in this chain, that is.) And when you take on this week's boss fight, be sure to give your thanks to Personater as you get pounded into underwater sludge, because this is his first big coding project, and he went ALL out on it! It should be a very fun battle!

What goes up...
Must come down! Just make sure it doesn't land on YOUR head! Lim is trying to come up with a new scientific theory, and he's sure that if he observes natural phenomenon in Cysero's Garden for long enough, he'll be sure to come up with something!

Since this IS Cysero's Garden and both Lim and Cysero ARE involved, things are definitely NOT going to go according to plan. That's where you come in. You'll need to clean up Lim's mess and make sure that Cysero doesn't get into too much trouble. Well, no more trouble than he's already caused, just by being near one of Lim's experiments!

This week's rewards will make you want to smack your lips (after you've smacked your opponents!). They will be Nature weapons available in levels 27,40, and 51:

• Golden Delicious daggers
• Granny Smith staff
• Red Delicious Rapier

Next week is going to bring on the final finale of the Water Orb Saga so if you're behind in the quest chain, why not take some time this weekend and catch up? It is going to blow your mind completely out of the water!*

Have a great weekend and enjoy the release! And don't forget, Sunday is Mother's Day, so be sure to log in and pick up one of the new scythes in the Seasonal Rare Mother's Day shop! (Not necessarily FOR your mother, unless she is into weaponry.)

*Combo-saying! +2 rhetoric points!

May 5th 2010
Happy Cinco de Mayo!

That's right, it's the fifth of May!
The holiday commemorates the Mexican army's victory at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. It's become a very well-known and much-celebrated holiday here in the US and to celebrate, we're filling a Seasonal Rare shop with items to put you in a Cinco de Mayo mood!

Everything in the shop is FREE! There are both non-DA and DA items, including many levels of:

• ponchos
• sombreros
• and maraca weapons

Show your spirit with this nifty gear and let the party rock all day!

An update on pets attacking.
We've been watching the thread you all have made discussing your pets attacking and, to address your concerns, Rolith has gone over EVERY line of the battle engine code.

There is nothing wrong with the code; he is sure of that! Something else is making your pets attack, and we're not sure what it is. We'd love to be able to point to a mistaken integer and say "Oh, whoops, here's the problem!" but in this instance, we can't do that. There IS no problem! Except, of course, that your pets seem to have developed minds and attitudes of their own.

Keep on tracking the pets that are attacking, where, and when they do. Let us know if the problem gets worse. We'll keep an eye on your forum discussions and, here in the Secret Underground Lab, we'll try to come up with a reason for what could be causing this. Until we do, keep a close eye on your pets. Don't turn your back, or it might be YOU they attack!

Feel free to give comments about what's going on in DragonFable on the forums or Twitter!

May 4th 2010
Oh Man Guys!

IWe’ve been very busy here in the underground lab. We’ve had an eventful couple of weeks, which partially explains why you haven’t heard very much from me lately.

Between the releases (sorry, but I’m more proud of the text-parsing mini-game in the nightmare quest then I have any business being), various other projects (behind the scenes work is never interesting, much less reading about someone ELSE doing behind the scenes work), and a secret item or two on my to do list (Not very secretive if I’m dropping hints here is it? Oh well) I’ve had very little to talk to you guys about, strange as that seems.
But I’ve also let something else slip out from under my control. The bugs list, which was two pages long when we started our major post-9.0 cleanup assault, is now pushing onto its fourth page and rapidly growing faster than I’ve found time to shorten it.

Let’s change that, shall we? Bug Tuesdays are back, and with a vengeance. I’m working with both Verlyrus andAelthai towards the ultimate goal of making DragonFable as stable as we can make it. To start with, I’ve pushed a revision of PoeLala live which SHOULD fix all lingering issues with that very useful Moglin friend.

May 3rd 2010
Doing that thing we do

Which is to say, making DragonFable content for you!
It's Monday again, and we're all back at the Lab and ready to rock out the week!

• Lim is coloring the boss monster for this week's fight today,
• I'm doing some testing and database work for this Friday's release and some side-project work that won't affect you... yet.
• Ghost is doing all that animation stuff he does so well
• Tomix is working on the some Ravenloss stuff (not for this week, though!)
• Geo is prepping for Friday and
• Rolith and Personater are getting their code collected in order to get going on some monsters and guests.

So, what's on the agenda for THIS week? Well, that is an easy question to answer!

You'll be doing another quest in the Water Orb Saga (ready to get wet again?) and heading into Cysero's Garden in a new Clashening quest! It's been a while since we've done a Clashening quest, but now is the perfect time to do one, because Ghost needs to focus on the Water Orb Saga cutscenes. (They should be awesome, from what I hear!)

Other things, most of which are related to DragonFable!
There are a few OTHER things I wanted to discuss today, like the toxicity of daddy longlegs spiders, poetry written by highschoolers, and blueberry versus strawberry breakfast bars. None of those discussions belong in the Design Notes, though, so I'll move on to some that DO!

First up: pets attacking the player.
That is REALLY weird! They should definitely NOT be doing that. They are your companions, your assistants. They certainly shouldn't be attacking YOU. Rolith isn't sure what is making them do that, but he's going to look into it as soon as he has some free-time apart from the secret project he's working on. We'll get to the bottom of this, I promise!
For now, feel free to keep track of what pets are attacking you and how often on the forum. We'll keep track of the thread and hopefully your information will help us track down exactly what is happening!

Second up: Confusion about the multitude of storylines and how we decide what gets released each week.
On the forums and in the emails, Facebook, and Twitter messages we get, there's been some confusion about who does what, when, and why on the DF team. For DF, we have a host of people filling different roles.

• Geopetal and I are designers. We write and build the quests you play. I also do some quest and monster coding.
• Rolith codes many of the quests when they have special features and functionality and does the almost the entiretyof monster/guest/ and class coding. He works with Verlyrus to contain and fix the bugs you guys find. Personater sometimes helps him with coding projects, too.
• Lim, Ghost, and Tomix are the go-to guys for art and animation. They do all the new art for weapons, pets, items, monsters, backgrounds, and cutscenes that you see in-game.

So, that's the team. Now, about the content we release. To keep stories coherent and tight, we have one writer/designer working on each storyline. You've heard the phrase "Too many cooks in the kitchen spoils the broth"? Well, too many writers in the storyline spoils the content. That means that Geopetal has her storylines, and I have mine. And since there are TWO of us, that means two different storylines being worked on and released each week.

That's why we don't just focus ALL our efforts into one storyline at a time; Geopetal and I would get tangled up in each other, overwriting the other's work and generally getting in each other's way.

So that's why you get a Main storyline and a side storyline quest in each week's release! Geo handles the main storylines and I get to have fun with the side content. Her current projects are the Water Orb Saga, DragonsGrasp, and a secret one you'll find out about soon! My projects are Ravenloss and The Clashening Saga and other side-projects, some of which are not game-related.

I hope that clears some issues up! Have a great Monday and we'll see you later in the week!