Road To DragonCon

I'm sitting in the Exit 5 Cracker Barrel just over the Gorgian border with the AE Lab Crew. We stopped to have a bite to eat and I wanted to see if the new Design Notes system worked on my phone. If you can see this, it does.

Tags: Cysero

Dragoncon Panel Info

When & Where is AE?!

I know that most of you aren't going to be able to make it to Dragoncon, but it's the fastest way to reach those of you who are going.

Safiria wants to make sure that you know where we are going to be and when:

AE/AQW Panel
Saturday Sept. 4, 2010
1pm to 3:30 pm
Sheraton Hotel
Savannah Room

We will be wandering all around con, of course, from Thursday night until Monday morning. I'll be carrying Zorbak with me as much as I can. Please, say "Hi". We are WAY more excited to run into you than you are to run into us.

Mudluk Village

Thought I'd post a little teaser pic of the village.

You'll get to see a LOT more Friday!

Tags: Cysero DragonCon Mudluk

Mudluks & DragonCon

The Mudluk Village

I'm pleased to say that we are already testing this week's release and it's only Tuesday. Since we are headed to con EARLY on Thursday, we have all been busting our respective humps trying to get this week's release ship shape and ready to launch on Friday. Of course we are learing EARLY on Thursday morning and I wanted to have all Wednesday to test the Mudluk Village, so we are pretty much done with the release ALREADY.

My goal was to have a quality (mind you, not-rushed, fully tested and fun) release ready to go by tonight and somehow we have succedded. I have to say, even i'm impressed with our work. This is one of the most fun and well rounded releases we've had in a while.

We have a beautiful new map, a new fun boss monster, a killer cutscene, lots of great monster drops, secret AC shop, new rep items, a great new NPC, new area music (Skyline's first try in-game song!), and a wicked puzzle that will require a pencil and some paper to get through.

Unless your friends decide to go all lamezorz and tell you the solution.

Personally, I'd make you work for it.

We even had a little time left over so we made a new Social Item (like the Marshmallow On A Stick from the Friday the 13th Event) to share with your friends. It's the FREE Color Custom Sorcerer's Apprentice Hat. Keep an eye on Twitter and other social networking sites for your free hat! You have my personal guarentee that it will never return once it is removed so keep your eyes peeled.

Peeled eyes. Gross.

We will be releasing the hat later today probably but the Mudluk release isn't coming out until Friday, as usual. It's fun cramming into Artix's hotel room and releasing from Dragoncon!

Cysero's Con Survival Guide! (revised 2010 edition)

Last year, in honor of Beleen's first con, I posted my con survival guide. She managed to live through it so I've decided to repost my helpful guide here!

WHAT TO BRING

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

• A Towel. Your hotel room will probably come equipped with these but I always preffer to bring a large, beach-sized towel with me wherever I go. Hitchikers listed most of the uses, but for a more practical example: I have fallen asleep in the hallways of more than one convention hotel and it's always nice to have a towel for a blanket or pillow.
  Note: Cysero also wore a white bathrobe to our last panel - use your best judgement with all advice.

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

• Bottle Of Water. See above.

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

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

• A Mobile Computing Device. Most modern cell phones will do, but you might not get a signal in the underground mazes that connect the convention hotels. Having a wireless card in a small laptop is priceless. A smartphone attached to a 3G network will do (con-tested my iPhone last year, worked like a dream). You might or might not Tweet. You might or might not need to check your facebook but your FRIENDS will NEED to contact you about something that you HAVE TO SEE RIGHT NOW!

• A Friend. The buddy system is always a good idea. That's why I bring Alces. He's part Dr. Gonzo, part Chief Medical Officer and part Tech Support. He is all best friend and has been for more than half of my life.

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

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

• Good Walking Shoes. Trust me.

• Glow Sticks or a Dance Party App. Last year Alces and I accidentally found ourselves in a mobile rave. One guy was wearing the sound system and power supply on his back and his two friends were each wearing giant speakers converted into backpacks. The party never stopped moving. Alces and I took a chance, caught a cab, went to an all night market and bought $44 worth of glowsticks to give to share with our fellow mobile partiers. We were gone about 4 minutes, but when we returned to the street corner, they had moved on. We spent the next hour followig the sound of those booming speakers until we caught up. If on'y we'd had the glow sticks on us!

That should be, more or less, everything that you need to pack. Other options include: clean clothes, costumes, things you want autographed, video camera, portable game systems (some lines are long), a map of the con (some of us like getting lost), a pair of scissors (for a lock of Kevin Sorbo's hair while he's passed out in a fountain somewhere), a sketchbook (for ideas), a steampunk R2 unit, Sonic Screwdriver, or grappling hook... just cause.

It's going to be a heck of a party (and I get to bring my shiny new wife and son. It'll be their first REAL CON!). It's a Artix Entertainment Underground lab tradition and it's one that we love. Last year we got to meet a few of our most hardcore fans and we hope to see a lot more of you there this year!

Tags: Cysero DragonCon Mudluk

Arcangrove Disconnect

The Fix Is In

When I woke up this morning I saw 2 pages of bug reports about the same bug. People were crashing in Arcangrove. It was really frustrating because nobody could complete Reens' Daily potion tasks, or pretty much anything else.

Zhoom and I got to work and now we are fairly certain we fixed the issue.

Sorry to everyone who got DC'd during their fight and lost their progress, and thanks to the brave room of adventurers who helped me test the fix. The entire room made it through all 3 dailies without anyone crashing once.

Thanks also to everyone who went to the Release Bug forum and reported the bug. Without your very helpful reports and eye for detail it would have taken MUCH longer to fix it.

Have fun in Arcangrove!

Pay special attention to the Cysero entry in the Encyclopedia Arcana. Beacuse it's about me. Cysero.

Remember, if you think you've found a bug, the best way to let us know is on the Release Bugs forum thread!

Update

There is another bug causing disconnections in other parts of the game. We're working to resolve this one now.

Tags: Cysero Arcangrove Bugs

MAGI of Arcangrove

Arcangrove Tower  is OPEN!

Visit our lovely tower! Feast on one or more of Blakk's magical pets! Spend your hard earned gold on some of Master Druid Moonwrath's Arcangrove items! Spend quality time with your friends earning Arcangrove reputation to earn the right to weild or wear some of the awesome, uncommon reputation items! Read a raondom entry from the Encyclopedia Arcana! Play with our broken teleporter pad! Experiment with Reens' one-time-use potions and scrolls!

This is only the first portion of the town that will be expanding even further next week, as we begin exploring the magical and mysterous Arcangrove!

Player Suggestion Shop UPGRADE!

We are also adding a few more items to the ever expanding Player Suggestion shop in Yulgar's Inn. This shop is FILLED with amazing items pulled from our Player Suggestion Forums, designed by players just like you and brought to life bu our amazing artists!

This expansion brings you 2 brand new culor custom armors, one matching helm and a pair of REALLY HUGE daggers!

We always read that forum and look at the buckets if creativity pouring out of you guys. If you haven't checked out the thread, you really should. You can get lost in there just spending HOURS going over the pages and pages of fantastic creations. Maybe you'll want to add something? We're always expanding the shop so maybe next time it will be YOUR item that becomes a part of AQ Worlds!

Dage The Evil

One such player going by Dage The Evil is currently helping out the art team. His armor is still in the Player Suggestion shop but now we've hidden him somewhere in the game and added some of the most difficult quests in the game to him, but the rewards are worth the effort. If you can find him, you might be able to upgrade his original armor design to something far more sinister!

Happy hunting!

Friday the 13th George Lowe Event!

Due to the populatiry of this event we have extended the event rares shop and ability to get the Friday the 13th achievement badge for a few more days. They will be removed mid-week next week so if you haven't gotten the chance to check out the Event Rares or get your badge, now would be the ideal time.

The badge will come back Next Friday the 13th but the rares will be leaving forever. This is your ONLY chance to get them!

Dragoncon

One and a half weeks left until DRAGONCON 2010! As you are probably aware, every year the crew from AE's secret Underground Lab (us) pack up our things and head northwards, neither toward nor away from the setting sun, to the fabled Lost City of Atlanta. Georgia.

There we take part in the east coast's (maybe the world's) largest Sci-Fi/Fantasy convention. It's ALWAYS a fun time for geeking out, failing to sleep and meeting new friends (in fact, it's where we met Stratos, back when I was head of DragonFable). This year we've got a 3 hour panel in a much larger room than last year and we'd love to fill every seat with one or more humans. Our panels are filled with fun stuff, behind the scenes stuff, contests, free swag, moglin punting, a free rare non-member pet and we'll sign anything you put in front of us whether you want us to or not.

I signed a baby last year.

Voltaire, Kimberly and Geroge Lowe are all going to be at con and MIGHT show up for our little panel!

Satuday 1 PM
Sheraton Hotel, Savannah Room

We're also co-hosting a MMO party Saturday night!

I know that some of you are going but if you happen to live in the greater Atlanta area, happen to be going there around the beginnig of September, or have a little time off coming up and some extra money for the con ticket you should come out! We'd love to hang and you won't be disappointed.

To misquote Captain James Tiberius Kirk... "COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!"

Tags: Cysero Arcangrove

J6 Items Added

Sorry About That

Hi guys, sorry, the J6 weapons were added to the Event Rare shop as promised YESTERDAY! Don't know how they escaped! Derp!

We've been getting a LOT of great feedback on the event. We're really glad that you weren't terrified by the completely random odyessy that became this Friday the 13th Event.

Kimberly was so impressed by you guys during her Live Event that she wrote and recorded the song Battle On which you can hear in her area of the event. She has also said that if you donate $5 for any full One-Eyed Doll album, you get the Battle On song as a bonus! Check it out here.

Thanks for playing and we hope you keep enjoying the event. Have you found all the secrets yet?

Tags: Cysero Friday the 13th Event One-Eyed Doll

Your Password

Dos and Don'ts For a Secure Password

Some of you have probably heard that a new hacking program has been released, and as usual it's claiming to be able to get past our defenses. Also, as usual, it's almost all talk.

I would explain exactly how it tried to brute force hack your password, and exactly why that won't work (unless you have a terrible password) but it strikes me as a bad idea to tell everybody exactly how our servers defenses work.

Zhoom has reassured us all that your accounts are safe unless you have a password that is easy to guess. So the best way to protect your account, is to change your password to something at least 8 letters long with both letters and numbers (as every good password should be)

If you want to add another layer of security to your account RIGHT NOW, head to the Master Account site and link your AQW account to your Battleon Master Account.

Unfortunately this hacker is managing to get some of our player's accounts, and we are locking them as he gets them, but he's only able to get the ones with very weak passwords. To quote Artix "our laywers and coders are on the case" trying to keep AQW safe and fun for you to play.

Now let's talk about your password...

A secure password is the safest way to guarentee that nobody will ever log into your account except you.

1. The FIRST and MOST IMPORTANT rules is to never tell anyone your password. AE staff will never ask for it. We dont need it. It says that as soon as you log in, every time you log in but we can't stress this enough.
   
   
2. Your password should never be your Character name. For example if yout character's name is BigFace123, your password should not also be BigFace123.
3. Your password should never be "password" or "secret".
4. Your password should never be "123456789", "987654321", "11111" or any string of numbers, even if the string of numbers is all mixed up and out of order, but ESPECIALLY not a string of numbers in order.
   
   
5. Your password should never be "aaaaa", "asdfghjkl", "qwerty", "abcdefg" or any really obvious string of letters.
   
   
6. Your password should never be your real name. Eventually you'll fight with a real-life friend and they will sell all your gear as revenge.
7. Your password should ALWAYS be as long as possible. I believe that AQW has a 25 character limit and I use all 25. That would literally take centuries to brute force hack, if we didn't stop a brute force attempt after several failed attempts.
8. Your password should ALWAYS have letters AND numbers in it and use punctuation if possible (which AQW passwords do allow), but avoid really obvious passwords like "AQW111"

A very long, very safe password is the best way to avoid ever getting hacked. For example, you KNOW hackers would love to get their hands on my account. You know they try to often, usually every day. I am here to tell you that NOBODY has EVER gotten into my AQW account. My first password was "7goforburnonmymark321mark!" and my current password is even better than that. I make a habit of changing them regularly.

Phrases like "go for burn on my mark" are still fairly predictable, so using random words that nobody would link to you is best. None of my passwords have ever had the words Sock or Yogurt in them.

If you think it would be a good idea you can go to manage, then click the CHANGE PASSWORD link on the side menu and change your password to a stronger one RIGHT NOW.

Oh and Beleen even made this super long picture that shows step-by-step instructions on how to create your NEW Password. I highly suggest checking it out. And no, it’s not in .derp format. CLICK HERE to see How To Change Your Password.

There Will Be Bludrut

Got a lot of complaints that Bludrut wasn't dropping enough Trophies this weekend. Minimal is in the file and raising the winning drop rate from 2-4 trophies to 2-10 trophies, depending on how hard you win.

Some people were complaining that the weapons are IMPOSSIBLE to get, which is, of course, false. They are just very very very hard to get. We wanted to add some inscentive for the people who like hard to acquire items. If it's too hard for you to get, don't get it.Still, raising the trophies should help those of you hardened and expert PvPers attain those juicy rewards before 2011.

A few people complained that the General was impossible to kill. After running a several PvP matches with you on several of my toons this weekend I can say that is PROBABLY because those folks didn't read Dumoose HOW TO for the map. You must kill the Brwalers AND the Restorers or the general will be very very hard to defeat. Once they are down, the entire team needs to focus on getting the general down because he is still the general and still pretty tough.

Friday The 13th is COMING!

This is it, this is what we have been spending most of our content development time on for the past few weeks. It is an event unlike anything we have ever released! Are you ready?

No, you're not.

Tags: Cysero

Goings On

Bludrut Brawl Changes

We've learned a lot from the PvP Testing Period which lasted WAY longer than it should have. Sorry. If you were one of the PTR PvP testers, you will notice that we have added a room where you can rest to the BB map (You used to rest IN the boss room... made the matches go on for a LONG time).

You will also be able to get new item rewards from Dumoose, our PvP Battle Master. Some of which will only be availible until we chance the PvP map again, and some will be permenant additions to the PvP. One of the upgradable weapons will be upgraded versions of the Vampiric Nightshade which, rumor has it, Edvard is currently in possession of. New upgraded versions of the weapon will be available only through PvP.

BB is STILL one of the best PvP maps we've designed to date, but we're always looking for new ideas. If you've got an idea for a PvP map, let us know on the forums!

Friday The 13th Is Coming For You

Preparation and even more preparations are going into this event. It has the largest amount of voice acting that we've ever had, blowing the One-Eyed Doll event out of the water in that area. This this is shaping up to be more like a playable horror/50's sci-fi/B movie than an AQW Event.

New in-game items, AC, Member and non-member drops, music never before heard in-game from Volatire and One-Eyed Doll. Voice acting by Volatire, Kimberly, AE Staff members and GEORGE FREAKIN LOWE! I don't think that's his real middle name.

Join us, won't you?

Preparations for the LONG CON!

Only 28 more days until DragonCon! This year we have a 3 hour panel (which Artix and I will probably fill most of with our ceaseless babbling... I will also make Beleen babble some). As usual there will be Q&A, Trivia, Free Candy and other AE related swag, an AE costume contest, and other things like those things I just said.

There will, as always, be a free item that anyone who goes to the panel or finds us walking around the con gets just for saying 'HI', and as usual, we will ask those of you who attend what you would like as your free in-game item. Then we will tell you 'No', when you ask for a free class or enhancement that can kill anything in one hit, then we will ask for other more reasonable but still pretty cool ideas.

I really mean it when I say this: I hope to see you there.

It would be cool if I could meet every single AQW player in one place at one time. We'd rock the house.

Last year it was my pleasure to sit down with have lunch with Sunumbrella on the first day we met her. If I could I'd buy lunch for all of you and we'd all sit down and have a fun chat about AQW, life and everything in between.

She came all the way from New Zealand so you've got no excuse! I even bought her a shirt. Be there!

Tags: Cysero

Being A Concise And Much Anticipated Recounting Of Orbs, Fish, PvP and Friday the 13th

Of Orbs...

If you happen to own one of Miltoious' Orb Pets, you probably noticed that last week we took the quests out of the orbs. We did this mostly to keep their rarity for you. We have added code that allows ONLY YOU the orb's master, to access the quest that will allow you to transform your rare non-ac version of the Void of Miltonius into one of the other non-AC armors once again.

We might have to change a few more things like this to actually protect those rares as rares in other pets that came from the zone. As he warned you when he began this long, strange journey... Expect changes and don't cry when they come.

If your orb doesn't give you the quest, close your game window, empty your cache and relog-in to AQW.

Of Fish...

If you were following Beleen's Twitter or My Twitter, you probably know about this already but we've got a new Pet O' The Month in Aria's Pet Shop. It's Beleen's Stupid Derp-Fish!

Someone pointed out that it has (once again) been more than enough time to add a new Pet O' The Month and Beleen discovered that it's "Catfish Month" so she took 12 seconds and drew this...

Bear in mind that Beleen is NOT one of AE's artists.

There was suddenly a mass call for Beleen's Catfish to be made into the Pet O' The Month, which I immediatly shot down. I mean, look at it. It's got a eye on it's forehead. However, as the requests piled up, and the more I looked at this stupid thing, the more I loved the idea of getting it into game.

So I spent about 7 minutes of my time, translating this monstrosity into a pet for Aria's pet shop, staying as faithful to the original design as possible.

If you are a member you can pick up this amazing Pet O' The Month from Aria for a limited time (but probably more than a month). So yeah... have fun with that thing.

Of PvP...

This Friday we are closing the Darkovia PvP map and Re-opening Bludrut Brawl for ALL players (members and non-members alike will have access to the map)! It was one of the favorite maps from PTR PvP testing and we're happy to open it. Dumoose will ALSO be offering ALL NEW PvP Rewards!

Of Friday The 13th...

Artix, I and a handful of the other staff here in the secret underground lab were VERY excited to be on the phone with voice actor George Lowe as we ran through and recorded his lines for the Friday the 13th super insane-o event coming two weeks from now. Voltaire recorded his yesterday. Kimberly should be recording hers any day now. J6 is working on backgrounds and the George Lowe NPC while Milton crafts monsters and begins working on some of the longest, and best Cutscenes in this game. Skyline and Dage are both working on Friday the 13th items and PvP rewards and Beleen.... she's drawing derp-fish.

Ballyhoo Says Thanks!

Since we placed Ballyhoo in Battleon, allowed her to give you up to 5,000 FREE GOLD per day and DOUBLED her chance to drop ACs from watching her ads, she has been getting a few more visitors and feels much less lonely. She's always happy to see you, so be sure to stop by and get your free gold and ACs every day!

Tags: Cysero Derp-Fish Miltonius PvP

GIANT SIZED FINALE

Finale, Fianlly.

We have arrived at the end of the Giant Tale finale! If you haven't been keeping up to date, you beat up a housecat, took a trip through 80 cartoon nostalgia, raced to a bowl of soup against a bunch of roaches and you're finally ready to grab the key and rescue Jack's village from certain dinner.

We decided to try something a little different today. You have to climb the giant and fight his various body parts. Most of which have quite a few interesting drops.

See? Here's me in one of the new Shadow Guard armor, Shadow Helm, Razor Wings and sporting the color custom Live Dragon Daggers that came from J6's Live Drawing Event yesterday!

Bally...who?

Our Adver-master Ballyhoo has not been getting a lot of love recently so we decided to help her help you guys. As you know you have 10 chances a day to watch her ads and earn either gold, or... if you're lucky... FREE ACS!

We took a look at our in-game economy and realized that capping her gold per view ar 160 for lvl 30s was really cheap! So we've made it 500 FREE GOLD per view! That means that you can get 5000 Gold a day just by watching her ads.

We also made her eaiser to find. How could we make it eaiser than a big button in Battleon? How about putting her directly in Battleon, right in front of town square!

We ALSO decided to DOUBLE the chance you that you would get FREE ACs from wathcing her ads.

Want to help the game out, but don't have the cash to upgrade or buy ACs? Clicking on the ads that you find even a little interesting always helps the game stay alive and helps us continue to bring you new adventures and items week after week. But remember, you don't even have to click the ads for your free gold or chance at free ACs, you just have to sit through the ads!

J6's Live Drawing Event Yesterday

Yesterday at 3:00pm EST to about 4:30 PM EST we had our first live item creation event in AQW! We streamed J6's webcam through AQW. More than 20,000 players logged in and he took suggestions live as he created the Live Dragon Ranger sword, and the culor custom member version the EPIC Live Dragon Ranger. He decided to use the esign that you helped him make and created staves and daggers to go with each sword as well!

You even helped him pick the price, 1337 gold for each weapon. For the next week you can find them in the J6 Live shop in Battleon, after that they are leaving the game forever. Be a part of AQW history by grabbing one or ALL of these amazingly cheap items, before they go Rare.

Don't worry if you missed out on the Live Drawing Event. It went SO WELL that we are already planning our next Live Drawing Event!

Friday The 13th News!

Speaking of live events, we are growing ever closer to Friday, August 13th. As you know Friday The 13th events have become something of a tradition in our happy little web game, and we are planning on continuing this tradition with one of our craziest events EVER featuring the voice and/or musical talents of Voltaire, Kimberly of One-Eyed Doll and famous TV/Film voice actor George Lowe!

OMGOMGOMG I get to write for George Lowe! EEEEEEEEEEEE!

We've got a lot of work to do and only two weeks to do it in, so I gotta split. Have a great weekend guys!

Or don't.

But I hope you do. Point is, it's optional.

Tags: Cysero

Will The Real Cysero Please Stand Up?

What A Hilarious Past Few Days

So my Facebook account got disabled. There are a LOT of fakes on facebook, and I was apparently one of them.

I got disabled for being a fake Cysero. Classic.

I'm really kind of happy about that. It was great while it lasted but all the fakes and scammers on facebook make it a really dangerous place to be.

All you really need to know is that I am no longer on Facebook. Neither is Beleen. Artix IS on facebook and he also has a FANPAGE that anyone can join, but rarely gets the chance to check it just because he's so amazingly busy ALL THE TIME. there are a LOT of FAKE ARTIX's ON FACEBOOK. If you're not talking to the one I linked above, you're talking to a fake.

Any other Artix is a fake. Any Cysero is a fake (unless I decide to try to get my account re-enabled). Any Beleen is a fake. There are MANY other fake AE Staff profiles (Fake Reens, Fake Miltonius, Fake SKyline, Fake J6 and so on).

Just remember to be safe, remember that if anyone says they can get you ACs, memberships or make you a mod that they are lying and will just steal your account. Remember that AE staff will NEVER ask for your password. We don't NEED your password, we have acces to every account. Just be smart and be safe.

Anyway, sorry about all the Miltonius stuff again. We are still tying up some loose ends but this solution is finally one that will work. Remember to hang on to your Totems, as Miltonius will begin adding NEW items/ armors etc starting NEXT week, (not this Friday).

This Friday we're working on the Giant tale finale. It's been a fun story and I'm going to be sad to see it go, but it's been a nice, silly break from the constant war against chaos. We're thinking of moving into the Sandsea next. We're also considering the Bloodtusk Gorge, or Arcangrove. What would YOU guys like to see next?

Tags: Cysero

The Miltonius Mess

Let's Try This Again

As you probably know, we "fixed" the issue if Miltonius selling quest item turn-ins for AC this Friday. We did this primarily for the players who were looking at their ACs and coming up short, then sending us letters to ask what happened. We keep track of items bought and sold for ACs so that we can provide you guys with the very best Player Support that we can, but unfortunately, due to the database layout, we can't track AC items that you turn in for quests which really messes up your spending record, and damages Player Supports ability to help you if you lose an item, think you lose and items or get hacked. Miltonius was unaware of this fact when he originally designed these quests and rewards.

Our solution was elegant. Replace all the items with copies that are not worth ACs, leaving the originals in tact and still able to be stored in the bank for free or sold back for ACs, while giving all new-comers a shot at these famously hard-to-get items but without the AC tracking nightmare.

We didn't want to you to feel like you'd wasted any money getting these items so we made them pretty hard to farm for. Most AC items were replaced with a number of Totems which one can only get by gaining access to Miltonius' Secret Area and killing his minions until they drop 100 Essences of Miltonius, each essence only having 10% drop rate. We did the math and found that it would take about 40 times as long to farm for a Totem as it would take to get the requisite amount of ACs by doing AExtras offers, depending on your luck in item farming.

We felt like it was a pretty fair deal. People who  spent the money to save hours of their lives farming for items that were much harder to get now, got "Rare" tags on their items and got to keep them in the bank for free, while newer players still had access to the items. Problem solved, right?

Very wrong. Oh Cysero, will you ever get tired of being so wrong?

YOU did NOT feel like it was fair. Quite a few players believe that NO amount of life lost farming can equal spending $10 on ACs. You spoke, some of you more eloquently than others, and we listened to all of you.

We really want you guys to be happy, and we don't want you to feel like you EVER sspent money on AQW only to see it wasted, so here's what we are going to do now.

We're removing these items and making them Rare. As of today, you will no longer be able to obtain these items in AQW.

• Betrayal Blade of Miltonius
• Dual Betrayal Blade of Miltonius
• Primal Saw of Miltonius
• Primal Dread Saw of Miltonius
• Dual Primal Dread Saw of Miltonius
• Oblivion Blade of Miltonius
• Shadow Orb
• Primal Orb
• Blood Orb
• Arcane Orb
• Coin of Miltonius Pet (300)
• Void of Miltonius
• Shadow of Miltonius
• Shadow Guard of Miltonius
• Fiend of Miltonius
• Fiend Face of Miltonius
• Blood of Miltonius
• Blood Guard of Miltonius
• Hex of Miltonius
• Hex Mask of Miltonius
• Dual Busters of Miltonius
• Spellbound Staff of Miltonius
• Skull of Miltonius
• Vestige of Miltonius

The Totem versions will not be tagged. If you happen to get one or more over the weekend, grats!

For those of you who feel left out in the rain, fear not. Miltonius is working on a load of new armors, items and pets for his area all of which/whom will be obtained with Totems, so your totems will not go to waste. We'll start releasing the new items next week!

We really, sincerely appologize for this whole mess and hope that this will satisfy everyone.

Live and Learn (to never do anything like this ever again).

Tags: Cysero

Let The Races Begin FINALLY!

Sorry For The Delay

You wouldn't believe the day that we've had. Poor llussion is on his last nerve trying to get all the coding done. He really wants to make a super fun mini-game and put a lot of time into but ran into some issues. So did Dumoose and I when making all the fixes to the Miltonius Zone. It also took some time adding all 43 race prizes to the minigame.

We've got 2 new armors, 3 new pets, 9 new weapons, 3 new helms, and 26 new house items! That's a whopping 43 brand new, never-before seen items that you can ONLY get by gaining racing trophies in the minigame! And you can ONLY play the minigame, if you are up to date in your Giant tale Quests!

We will have the release out as soon as we can, I promise!

The Biggest Bug

So, llussion has encountered the mother of all bugs. I guess we shouldn't have added so many roaches. The problem lies in the racing opponent AI. It was somthing that was working in the minigame engine and now is not. He has called in re-enforcememnts and busted out the COMEDICLY LARGE CAN OF BUG SPRAY.

I'm really really really sorry that the release is running so late. Believe me, we want to go home and put this week behind us as much as you want to play. I'll keep you as updated as I can.

Update: 10:55 PM

We've both been here since about 9AM, and neither of us have eaten since lunch. Just ran out to get Llussion and myself some dinner while he yelled at his computer, and shook it a little bit. Exactly the way you don't treat a baby.

Maybe it's the glow brought on by fast food or maybe it's the fact that we've been at work for about 15 hours, but I think we're making some headway!

Talked to Artix. He had fun at MertoCon. Goober.

Update: 11:05 PM

Starting to wonder if this will actually be a SATURDAY release. 55 mins left.

Also starting to wonder what my wireless mouse tastes like.

Update: 11:06 PM

Bad. It tastes bad.

Update: 11:16 PM

Zhoom has a breakthrough, finding a crack in the GREAT WALL OF BUGS. Roach racing opponent is no long bashing his face into the piles of mashed potatoes that the minigame places in his path, allowing the player to now finish the game!

Looking hopeful, right at the very second all hope seemed lost.

I should be webcasting this tragic comedy!

SIDE NOTE: Wireless mouse's off-putting taste just takes some getting used to. Now tastes like chickencow.

Update: 11:30 PM

J6 comes online to see if I'm ok after reading that I am chewing on my computer peripherals. Llussion, through his delirum, just mentioned something about "looking good". Can't be long now.

How long have we been in this wilderness?

I can't remember civilization. Was my life before the bugs all just a fever dream.

Update: 11:51 PM

Minigame now working, Beware hard mode, it's not impossible too difficult but those roachers will cut you off and drive you into the fruit. Llussion says we need to test just one more thing and we'll be ready to start the countdown!

Update: 12:10 AM

Looks like a Saturday release after all. BUT we are merre minutes from getting this release OUT! 10 minute warning Incoming!

kaneuf saeknfsoaenfkiawdoanbw d! (faceplant on keyboard)

Update: 12:31 AM

Servers are down, and so are we. Our brains are moving slugishly after 16 hours at this table.

Just making sure that everything has been moved to the live servers before we open up the floodgates and let you guys swarm in.

Hey, look at it this way... we saved you from the midnight lagstorm.

SIDE NOTE: My mouse is in tattered ruins. One of us was not going to make it home tonight. I'm glad it was him and not me or Llussion.

Update: 12:39 AM

WE ARE BRINGING THE SERVERS BACK ONLINE. We survived the release. The Miltonius changes are in, the Giant Tale part 3 is up, Cutscenes work, Racing Game works, Music works, Prize Wall works.

Something like 16 and a half hours after we walked into the lab, we are finally ready to leave.

Goodnight AQW, and thanks for keeping us company through our madness.

THE RELEASE IS LIVE!

Update: 1:44 AM

Broken Yulgar fixed, racing pets fixed, Crag & bamboozle and Dridgen prcing fixed. May odd dreams of edible wireless mice haunt carry you through the night.

This concludes our broadcast day. Going to bed. Night night.

Tags: Cysero Giant Tale Miltonius

Roach Racers & Sword Lasers

I've Never Used The New Design Notes System Before

This is a brand new back-end system that we're trying out. The amazing coding team put it together for us and NOW we have tags and we can link to specific entries and all kinds of good stuff. Let's see how badly I break it!

Roach Rage!

Tomorrow we're releasing the next to last section of the Giant Tale storyline, which includes a brand new racing minigame! We are also releasing loads of prizes you can earn by playing the game! Llussion has been blowing a lot of his brainpower (and coding time) on making this game interesting, and I haven't seen more than 3 seconds of it yet so we'll see how that turns out. Expect greatness.

(now, how do I add a picture?)

(I wonder if that worked.)

Some of you have been saying that the Giant Tale storyline isn't very interesting or too "kiddie" for your tastes but I have been having a BLAST writing these cutscenes and it's really nice to take a break from the stress of the constant war against Chaos to just have a little silly fun.

AE has always been about silly, stupid fun and I hope we never lose that part of ourselves. It's what makes us, us. So for those of you who have been laughing along with me, thanks for keeping me company on this adventure!

Friend's List Increased!

Zhoom told me the Friend's List Max was increased by 10, as promised. I haven't tried it out yet. Hope that works too.

Miltonius Fixes!

All is going well with the Miltonius Secret Area quest and item fixes. Today is the last day to turn in your AC Turn Ins, and pick whom you love better, Drudgen or Crag & Bamboozle. If you're confused by the whole concept, re-read my earlier DN's HERE. (did that work?)

Metrocon, Here We Come!

And when I say "We" I mean everyone else. Sometimes I look at by beautiful son and remember why I love being a father so much... because it get's me out of things like working the Artix Entertainment Merch Booth at MertoCon in Tampa this weekend (starting tomorrow actually) like Artix, Nythera, Ai No Miko, Thyton, Nightwraith, Faith, and Zazul!

I plan on stopping by for a few hours on Saturday, wearing my Chickencow T-Shirt! If you see me, say hi!

Our merch booth will be the FIRST PLACE EVER that someone will be able to buy the Chickencow T AND the NPCs AE Soundtrack CD! Remember that buying the CD will earn you a secret code that will unlock a special guitar item in EVERY AE GAME, including earining you the Green StarGuitar (and achievement) in AQW!

And, as you know the Chickencow T comes with a special in-game pet in DF and AQW. The non-member Armored Chicken Calf!

AND AND If you buy ANYTHING from our merchbooth at MertoCon, you will recieve the very, very, very, very rare MetroCon Samurai Moglin non-member pet in AQW! I know it's going to be very, very, very, very, very rare because MetroCon is NOT a very large convention. In fact, Shawn and Violet. y'all might be ONLY PEOPLE ON EARTH with these pets when all is said and done.

Critical Hits Track List

Lots of folks have been Tweeting me and asking about the NPC's AE Soundtrack CD Track listing.. so I'll just type that out for you. All 32 tracks of greatness.

1. DF - Warcry Of The Paladin by Carbon Rapture (AKA The Out Crowd)
2. ED - Epic Duel Suite by Warlic
3. AQW - TV Spot by Warlic
4. BH - Main Theme (Yeah, BladeHaven will have music) by Warlic
5. Artix Vs the Undead - The Rise Of The Paladin by Warlic
6. WF - Break Free by The Archivist
7. AQW - Mythsong Classical by Warlic
8. DF - All Roads Lead To Falconreach by Ghost
9. AQW - Mythsong War by Warlic
10. MQ - Flight Of The Kingadent by Warlic
11. DF - Call Of Kathool Atchoo by Ghost
12. MQ - Galactimecha 8Bit by Warlic
13. AQW - Coronation by Warlic
14. AQ - Bouree by Warlic (Arranged by J.S.Bach)
15. DF - Demento's Dirge by Ghost
16. MQ - Sugar Plums and DOOM by Warlic
17. BH - Swamp Battle by Warlic
18. DF - Looks Like It's Time To Get Awesome by Ghost
19. AQW - March Of The Doom by Warlic
20. MQ - Crush The Weak by Evil Jim
21. AQ - Shipcrash by Warlic
22. DF - Into The Fray by Ghost
23. MQ - Evil Jam by Warlic
24. AQW - Sneevil Jig by Warlic
25. MQ - Spaceflight by Warlic
26. DF - You Will Become What You Once Destroyed by Ghost
27. MQ - Ticklish Zorbo Dance Party by Warlic
28. AQW - Dramatic Theme by Warlic
29. DF - Magiscience - Ghost
30. MQ - Sys-Zero Breakbeat by Warlic
31. DF - Ruins Of Bask by Ghost
32. NPC's Original - Don't Like Them Ninjas by Warlic, Zhoom, Alina and Artix

*whew*

And to answer some of your OTHER questions, YES, the CD will eventually be available on Heromart, once we get it up and running and it will still come with the rare guitar items!

What have we learned today? Ghost favors long titles, Cysero likes the new DN posting system, BladeHaven (our next game project) has music, and aircraft deisgners use a "chicken gun" to fire dead poultry at 900 miles an hour at the windshields of new aircraft to test how well they will handle getting hit by birds mid-flight.

That last bit is entirely true. It was also my 1337th post. W3rd.

Now let's go see if this DN's post worked!

Tags: Cysero Miltonius Convention Metrocon

What's Up With Miltonius' Area?

You Didn't Explain Yourself Very Well...DO BETTER!

OK, I will do better. We've been getting a HUGE number of questions about the changes coming THIS FRIDAY to Miltonius' Secret Area. If you don't know what that is, look it up. If you don't care then you can skip the next few bits.

First, Why Are You Changing It!

As many of you know AE has a very small but very dedicated Player Support team headed up by Nythera and Zazul. The team handles all the "I GOT H4CK3D!" reports, returns what accounts and items that can and deal with all the various payment issues that arrise.

Miltonius, as Art Director of the game, was given free reign to create his own area which quickly became so confusing that nobody except him had any idea what was going on, thus ensuring that it would become a fan favorite.

It became a fan favorite.

Unfortunately he added some AC items and weird item-trade-in voodoo that really messed with the payment system, causing HAVOC for the poor Player Support team and complicating their job.

As the Game Lead, the task fell on me to straighten out the entire mess once and for all. So I made Dumoose do it.

THIS FRIDAY (I can't stress that enough) we are permanently changing around the most of the AC items, repalcing a few with non-AC copies that will be MUCH MUCH harder to get.

OK, What's Changing?

We are removing a few of the quests that allow you to trade items back and forth. We are also removing ALL the items that you buy with ACs and replacing them with Totems of Miltonius.

How Will I Get Totems Of Miltonius?

Miltonius' minions, the Dark Makai, have a small chance to drop the Essence of Miltonius. You can trade in 100 of these for a Totem of Miltonius.

What Can I Buy With The Totem of Miltonius?

You will be able to use these (in various amounts) to buy MOST of the Miltonius Items, Such as the Arcane Orb, Blood Orb, Primal Orb, Shadow Orb, Void of Miltonius, Coin of Miltonius Pet, Betrayal Blade of Miltonius and others...

But I Already Have The AC Version Of That Stuff!

GREAT! Because it's going to be a LOT harder to get the new versions with these Totems of Miltomius! You lucked out!

We are NOT... I REPEAT, NOT... removing any of the items. The Chaos Lord Helm will still be there, but only as a helm. You will no longer be able to trade it in for the orbs. If you have an AC version of one of the duplicated items.... Gratz! They will be RARES on friday.

We'll be chaging the rarity score and tagging them as rare in the title! (If you happen to have one of the accidentally released non-member Coins of Miltonius Pets which is already tagged as "Rare",, then we're tagging those "Extra Rare").

Who Cares?! What About Drudgen, Crag & Bamboozle!

Due to popular demand,the Drudgen The Assisstant and Crag & Bamboozle pets will remain AC items but Miltonius will sell them directly for 5000 ACs, rather than trading you for a 5000 AC item.

YOU WILL NO LONGER BE ABLE TO TRADE ONE PET IN FOR THE OTHER, so decide which one you like the most by THIS FRIDAY!

If you have an AC item to turn in, Or decide to get one of the Miltonius items before they go rare/very VERY hard to get, You have until we release on Friday to do so. We don't want you getting stuck with a useless Miltonius Minion Voucher.

OH, I Totally Get It Now!

Good, I'm glad we had this chat :)

So What Else Is Happening This Friday?

We've having a minigame in the Giant Tale storyline! Race across the dinnertable before the racing roaches beat you to the giant's soup!

Warlic is making a new song JUSt for the racing minigame and Miltonius is focusing all of his considerable artistic might into making some amazing member and non-member rewards for beating the mini-game!

What About MetroCon?!

Oh yeah! This weekend is MetroCon in Tampa and we've got a merch booth there! If you happen to live in the Tampa Bay area (like us), stop by, say hi and pick up some swag!

This will be your first shot at the Chickencow Tee and your ONLY chance to get the Metrocon Samurai Moglin non-member pet!

Tags: Cysero

Hey Fat

Now It's Time For A Breakdown!

Let's have a quick summary of what we've got going on.

MetroCon!

AE has a merch booth at MetroCon in Tampa next weekend. Artix, Nythera and a few other AE staffers will be manning the booth.

Buy ANYTHING there and get a free non-member Samurai Moglin pet!

Chickencow Tee!

First appearing, at the MertoCon Merch booth, then being sold in Heromart. Buy this and get a bonus non-member Armored Chickencalf Pet in AQW and one in DF too!

Look, A Shirt!

Giant Tale!

Tomorrow we continue the Giant Tale storyline in AQW with lots of new items for members and non-members, several new quests and 2 more BRILLIANT cutscenes (As per usual, I wrote them)!

New Guardian & Defender!

Tomorrow the non-member Guardian class gets a skills make over for the AQ Classic verification shop, and the current Guardian skills are moving to the Defender class, which will be another non-member armor availible in ALL 3 verification shops.

Comic Contest Winners!

Announced tomorrow. We've been making Beleen read all of them to narrow down the best of the best for judging!

Prizes are all in BATTLEON POINTS which you can use on ANY AE GAME! You can even get an upgrade in AQW with them if you want.

Or get some Varuim to get some Beta items before EpicDuel
leaves Beta testing forever!

More Friends List Space!

A lot of you have asked for more friends list space. I talked to Zhoom about adding 10 more spaces for everyone for free and he said ask Artix if it was OK.

I asked Artix is it was OK if we added 10 more friends list spaces for free for everyone and he told me to ask Zhoom if the servers could handle it.

So, there ya go. Next weekend, (not tomorrow) we'll adding 10 more friend spaces for free for everyone.

Changes To The Miltonius Quests!

We've been having a lot of Player Support issues with the AC item turn-ins from the Miltonius quests, so next weekend (not this weekend) we will be removing the AC items and changing the quests. It will be rougnly 40 times more difficult to get those items from that point forward.

If you have the AC items that you need but haven't turned them in yet DO IT NOW. More than a week warning should be more than you need, but I wanted to make sure that nobody wasted their ACs.

Friday the 13th?!?!?!

Voltaire is very busy working on his NEW ALBUM (which, i'm told, will feature AQW songs AND art on the cover) so he can't do a Friday the 13th event.

What kind of Friday the 13th Event would YOU like to see in AQW? Let us know on the Forums!

Tags: Cysero

Chickencow Shirts & BIG news!

Artix's Secret Project

Last week Artix asked you for your craziest ideas ever, for his secret project. We are all absolutely LOVING your terrible ideas (and some really great ones too) and Artix has decided to keep this ball rolling for another week.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about... READ THIS.

Donate ideas freely. Go nuts.

Chickencow Tee!

We are getting closer to releasing our Chickencow Green T-shirt. To start it will ONLY be released in Cysero Green but if the shirts do really well we might re-release it in other colors like Sepulchure Crimson, Chaos Purple, Got My Eyes Closed Black and Artix Is BLIND Pink.

Cluck Cluck Moo to You!

The shirt comes with a BONUS, Non-member pet in AQW and BONUS pet in DragonFable... the Armored Chickencalf!

Just A Baby!

I'm told that the shirt will be $19.95 + Shipping and that we will be shipping to the US, Canada and Australia. We're trying as hard as we can to offer shipping to a lot of other countries too. Setting that up is harder than it looks.. I'll give you guys news on that as soon as I get some.

AQW's BIG Adventure

This week we will be continuing the Giant Tale storyline cause I want to. You'll be making your way to the fabled Smuurvils Village, home to the blue sneevils called Smuurvils. Papa Smuurvil is a world class apothocary and he might have the ingredients to make a Knock-Out Potion strong enough to take out a GIANT!

Defender Class COMING THIS WEEK

Dumoose's rework of the Guardian Skills is total win, and will bring the Guardian Class's damage dealing potential up to the amazingly descructive level of DragonLord and Star Lord classes!

Defender will also be coming to ALL THREE verification shops... yet another non-member AQW class. It will have all the current Guardian skills and will continue to be a great tanking class with the ability to yank monster aggro AND be darn-near unkillable with the right party.

Dage The Evil is doing the art for Defender and our coversation actually included this tidbit:

Dage The Evil: I'm thinking over the top
Cysero: Always
Cysero: Or rather, I should say... There is no top to go over.
Dage The Evil: rofl aight dude I think I can put something together :3

Expect win.

I Had Something Else To Write About

But I forgot what it was.

Oh Yeah! Zhoom's Auto-Ban Hammer!

It was this. Some of you have noticed that you're getting banned by Zhoom's auto-banner for 3 days at a time. This is NOT a mistake. We checked the records for everyone who reported this as a bug over the weekend and none of them were.

Just fair warning, this week the 3-Day Warning Bans are a thing of the past... they turn into Permma-bans.

To sum up, script-kiddies... You cheat, you hack, you spam, you scam... you're done with AQW and vice versa. Play the game fair and keep it fun for the other AQW players, thanks.

Oh yeah. Zorbo is now worth 0 gold

Tags: Cysero

Update Time

I'm Sick.

Sorry I haven't updated the Design Notes this week. Here's what we've got going on:

Chickencow Tee!

We FINALLY have a BEAUTIFUL Chickencow T-shirt coming to Heromart! IT IS NOT ON SALE YET but when it DOES go on sale it will come with some chickencow pets for the various games, including a NON-MEMBER mini-chickencow pet for AQW!

Cluck Cluck Moo.

I'm more excited about this shirt than I have been about any of our other swag, mainly because it was my idea. See how majesticly the chickencow spreads it's mighty wings and soars through space? You can almost her it's bone-rattling... uh.. roar. Mido, our current graphic-design intern is responsible for this masterwork. Clutch, right?

Tall Tales

We are taking a small break from Chaos before to turn our attention to the next Chaos Lord. This weekend starts a new kind of adventure, it's a flashback tale of how you saved an entire village from a hungry giant, in AQW's own version of Jack and The Beanstalk.

Picture the setting: You are sitting in Yulgar's Inn telling tales of your adventures to a group of children gathered at your feet, reliving your adventure in the form of AQW quests, running around a terrifying giant's home, no larger than a mouse.

New weapons like the Cotton Swab staff, and the Acorn Cap helm. The Dust Bunny pet.

Defender Class

We haven't forgotten what we said. We are still working on the Guardian Class skill rewrite. The Guardian has long been our flagship member status from AQ classic, and it means a lot to Artix (and quite a few of the players from the game that started it all) that we make the Guardian skills more closely resemble the BoA Skills from the original AdventureQuest, and the Guradian Class from DragonFable.

Once Dumoose has reworked the skills, we will balance them against the DragonLord and Star Lord classes, then we will move the current Guardian tanking skills into the Defender art and make Defender Class availible in all 3 verification shops.

It won't be coming this weekend, but I'll keep you guys updated on the project and when it WILL be released.

NO Green Starsword.

A few days ago, a players asked me via Twitter if a weapon got enough support behind it, would it be made in game? I answered "We always do our best to listen to the wishes of the community. So, yeah, we probably would." which most of you know to be true. We pull idea pretty regularly from the AQW forums.

The same player asked how many supporters it would require, to which i answered "Considering if the petition goes through people will suddenly petition for everything, it has to be high. I'll say 3000 signatures."

I was thinking that if someone was driven enough to get 3K AQW players to sign a petition on some petition website, and all 3k signatures were legit and it wasn't an silly request like "give everyone free memberships" then I would happily reward that kind of effort by creating the item and probably name it after that person.

It takes a real leader to get that many people together behind one idea and respect that kind of power. I've seen it a few times in my life and it's pretty awe-inspiring.

We're VERY big on interacting with you guys and allowing you to build Lore through your own requests & decisions, but this suddenly degenerated into insanity.

People were spamming all the servers telling people that I promised to make a non-member free green starsword if 3000 people wore green at the same time, which I never said.

Some of these players were demaning that other players wear green "or else". There were some threats, lots of spamming on the staff facebook and twitter accounts, and outright madness on the forums that even eventually degerated into some rude and very offensive comments.

THOSE are not the kind of actions that I would consider rewarding. As i finally said on my twitter, after 2 days of mass spamming from a few rather rude people, "There are NO PLANS to make any starswords anytime soon... Not to say we won't make one someday. I love green, so we probably will. But not like this. Bullying people and ruining fun to get your way."

I'm sorry if you're disapponted by this announcement. I know a lot of people were promised a lot of crazy things by people who had no place to promise anything but we want to keep this game, and all of our games, FUN... and that wasn't fun.

It just goes to show you that some people can get excited about something, thoughtlessly take things way too far and ruin the fun for everyone.

What a mess.

Tags: Cysero

Hollowsoul Castle & Freedom!

And Mulligan Day!

Now that we are live, Mulligan Day is in full swing! If you are one of the fighteningly large amount of people who did not recieve your "Eye Was There" badge for completing the event LIVE with is, you may now join the replay event and you will get the badge, right off the bat.

Talk to Kimberly of One-Eyed Doll in Battleon!

Remember, you only have 24 hours to grab the badge. If you miss out this time, it's all on you!

As we warned, the rares have left the event but the replay will stay in Battleon for another week become being intigrated into the Mythsong storyline.

Hollowsoul Castle

The NEXUS portal, just outside of Battleon has opened up a new portal to a new area!

Hollowsoul Castle is an ancient place, and vast. More vast, by far, than any other castle anyone has ever dared create. Who builtc this "castle with no end", that has clamined the lives of SO many who have gotten lost within it's walls.

You might be the first to find out.

Speak with the ghostly Duke Ellington and unlock the mysteries of this all-new member only area!

Duke Ellington, Long Time Resident of Hollowsoul Castle

Uncover key after key, and maybe you can gain access to the Hollowsoul Castle Armory, PACKED with all new member only items, including the Hollowsoul Knight Armor, Hollowsoul helm and Hollowsoul Lance!

The Hollowsoul Castle Armory!

Duke Ellington also has some treats to offer those who dare speak to him. 2 brand new houses are being released today including the Castle House and the Chroma Theatre!

The Castle House may look friendly, fun and inviting but you will find the insides resemble the cold and ancient walls of Hollowsoul Castle!

Don't Judge A House By Its Bouncy Exterior!

The other house is whole different story! It only has one single room but the Chroma Theatre is CUSTOM built for all of you YouTube stars who love to make and edit your own AQW movies!

This house has been designed with a special GREEN SCREEN room (the only room really) for people to use their movie editing programs to drop in their own amazing backgrounds and use movie magic to whisk their AQW heroes to far of locations!

Don't Judge A House By Its Bouncy Exterior!

Llussion and Zhoom event went so far as to find a way to remove your shadow, so it won't ruin the green-screen effect! What a couple of great guys!

Did anyone else notice that the last 3 pics are of me getting smaller and smaller and smaller?

Limited Time Shop

Once again the countdown clock is ticking for AQW Members to grab the latest guarenteed rare item, the Scythe of Liberty (painstakingly hand-crafted by Skyline!). Just click the really hard to miss button with the clock under it in battleon to learn more!

it leaves Sunday midnight. You have been warned!

The Freedom Shop!

In the United States, the 4th of July is when we celebrate our hard won independence and remember the day that we became our own nation. Canada celebrated their independence day on July 1st. France's is the 14th and a host of other countries seem to have liberated themselves from the chains of oppression and now celebrate the idea of freedom in July.

Must be something in the air, round this time of year.

Sadly, we don't have the time or man-power to make a flag for every country on Earth, or even every country who celebrates their independence day in July but we ARE able to, once again, release our American and Canadian Independence Day seasonal rares today in the Freedom Shop in Battleon, and we hope that you'll join with us in honoring freedom all over the world!

Happy 233rd Birthday USA! (if my math is right)

Have a wonderful 4th of July weekend guys! I'll be trying to make Nursey admit she's sick and stay in bed.

But HEY... Fireworks, right?!

Don't blow your faces up, mkay?.

Tags: Cysero

Mulligan Time!

First of all, I want to say Thank You to all the amazing players all around the world who were able to stay up and help is make the One-Eyed Doll LIVE event one of our biggest events ever.

Everyone who was there played along with us as we revealed some HUGE Mythsong surprises (which were very hard for us to keep but totally worth it for the OMGs we got) and suffered through the AMAZING amount of lag cause by 31,000 heroes all fighting to save Lorestockapalooza, got kicked, off, logged back on, hung while loading the cutscenes... it was chaos in the purplest sense of the word, but it was a GREAT time.

Kimberly could not have had more kind words for all of you. The band was truly stunned by your enthused battle crys and "Battle On" attitudes! Thanks guys, you really made us look good!

There have been a number of complaints about the fact that we were running the LIVE event at a time that was inconvienient for the person complaining, but that is the nature of the beast.

For it to be a LIVE event, most of the core AQW staff and One-Eyed Doll had to be online and we only had a window of a few hours that everyone could be on at the same time.

A LIVE event in AQW is very much like a concert in real life. It might be a pain for you to get there, it might be too late or be in a city that you can't get to, but the band isn't going to stay on stage for 24 hours because YOU can't make it to THEIR show.

Either you make it, or you can't.

One-Eyed Doll had to get back to music and we had to get back to making video games so we couldn't stay up for a full day nd night and keep the event going. For those of you who missed it, make sure to catch the NEXT live event.

That being said, things didn't go as smoothly as we'd hoped. There were freezing problems, and disconnection problems. Our servers were in overdrive but just couldn't keep up with the flood of hereos AND Flash had recently patched their Flash Plyer which caused ALL KINDS of issues all over the net including your own AQ Worlds.

There are PAGES of e-mails to us from people who were AT the live event, fought with us to the bitter end and made it all the way through, but didn't get the "Eye Was There" achievement badge.

So, this Friday we're having a Mulligan day. If you Join the re-play event this Friday, as soon as you join, you will get the "Eye Was There" achievement.

(Mulligan: A mulligan, in a game, happens when a player gets a second chance to perform a certain move or action. The practice is also sometimes referred to as a "do-over.")

It stinks that we had so many technical errors but we have thought about it a lot. While this will allow lots of players who weren't actually there to get the badge, it's the fairest thing we can think of to allow those that WERE there to get the achievement that they fought for and earned.

Beleen has asked me to mention that she is starting up a new contest soon. I'm curious if you guys would rather get ACs or BattleOn Points (which you can use in ANY of our games, using the Master Account system) as prizes. Let us know on the forums!

I'll let you guys know what is coming this week a little later on this week. Once we know.

Tags: Cysero

I'm Getting Married!

And You're invited!

We always say that AE is a real gaming community and If this isn't proof of that, I'm not sure what is.

Some of you may have been playing DF back when I proposed to my beautiful fiance', Rebekah. (I snuck her into the game as Nursey from the Dwarfhold tavern).

My Future Bride!

If you missed it you can read about it on the March 26th, 2009 DF Design Notes!

It was the happiest day of my life when she said yes, until our son Jack was born on December, 26th of last year. You can read all about on the December 27th, 2009 AQW Design Notes!

If you do the math, our son was born 9 months and 1 day after I proposed to her. Heh.Frankly, I would have prefered to do things in a more traditional order (Propose, Wedding THEN Kids) but I've never been very good about doing things in the right order. As I have said before... sometimes you have breakfast for dinner.

Now, finally the day of our wedding is upon us. This Sunday (if she will still have me), Nursey finally becomes Mrs. Cysero! Artix, Warlic and Zhoom are all arguing over who gets to be the best man.

How can I use that to my advantage? I know... a contest to see who has what it takes to stand beside me. DANCE, PUPPETS!

I'm so happy that I found the one person that I want to spend the rest of my life with, and there has never been a single doubt in my head that it was her.

I'm also really happy that I get to share all of these wonderful times with you lot!

SO... We're having a wedding in AQW and you're ALL invited!

One Ring To Rule The Mall

My wedding is on Sunday, but the Wedding Event will be released THIS FRIDAY and will last for ONE WHOLE WEEK (That's MY kinda party)!

As I plan on never getting married again, this will be a ONE-TIME ONLY event and every item that comes from this event will be a guarenteed RARE!

Some of them will be Cysero themed versions of the original wedding map rares and there will be some brand new items too!

We have a LOT of stuff to do to get thigns in order so I'll be doing wedding stuff later this week, leaving J6 in charge of AQW once again.

Speaking of J6... We will also be releasing the next section of the J6 Area and we PROMISE that it will work MUCH better than the last section. Llussion is still fixing the maps from Friday's release. He'll have them up and running soon.

Anywhoo, thank you all in advance for being a part of our happy day!

Wish me luck! :)

Tags: Cysero

The Release is FINALLY LIVE!

A New Level Has Been Added to Battleunder!

Yara has found her way down to the second level of battleunder, but that's not all she has found.

Yara's Enchanted Treasure Chest!

She has also stumbled upon a magic trasure chest! The items inside change depending on which of the 4 keys you reassemble. You might get one of several all new weapons, including the Deathknight weapons... or you might get nothing at all. Want to try your luck?

If you have never discovered battleunder, look around Battleon. You will find several secret entrances hidden around town. Happy hunting!

J6's Impossible new Area!

Many of you know J6 as one of the brilliant artists who devotes his time and effort into making AQW one of the coolest, slickest looking MMO's out there...

Tonight we are releasing the first part of his MIND TWISTING area where nothing is as it seems.

You will start your adventure in his J6 map, where he grew increasingly lazy as time went on. You'll see what I mean when you read the quests.

Looks Like J6 Got Disctracted...

Do battle with his half-finished monsters and you might find yourself in a sketchy version of the full J6 armor!

Will The Real J6 Please Stand Up?

Or maybe something a little more silly...

Slightly Used Spittoon Helm. Gross.

But if you're clever, that will just be the start to an amazing adventure that J6, Beleen and llussion have been working on for quite a while. You will visit far off places and might even find yourelf on J6's spaceship!

The Hyperium!

I won't give away too much, but this will finally answer all the questions about the Dwakel Decoder!

Remember... NOTHING in this area is what it seems to be and you'll have to team up with other AQW players to find your way through. Remember, if you get stuck... ask another player or head over to the AQW Forums and see what others did when they were stuck!

You can find the J6 Area Forum Thread HERE. (thanks Circ)

This is only the beginning of the area, and there will be more coming in a future release!

The Ticklish Zorbo Ticket!

if you are one of the skilled few who have beaten the top level of the Mythsong /Dance Evolution Mini-game then you have been waiting for a few weeks to see what your Ticklish Zorbo Ticket will turn into. As of tonight you will be able to talk to the Great Godfather of Soul and redeem your ticket for a special member only pet or non-member sword!

Ticklish Zorbo!

The Necromancer Token's Final Form!

If you were one of the early PTR testers and you grabbed the necromancer class, you were warned that the class would not make it to the live servers.

Upon release of the PTR engine the Class was transformed into the Necromancer Token and tonight it will assume its final form... the Guardian Shadow!

This is a back item that will show everyone your evil necromantic power, as you are followed forever by the ghostly Guardian Shadow. This is a back item, NOT a pet, so it will be for members AND non-members alike.

Tonight's release is pretty big, and it might take some of you all weekend to make your way to the stopping point in the J6 area... I'll see you at the Saloon!

Tags: Cysero