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EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

Behind the scenes information about EpicDuel's development and releases, a real-time PVP MMO that you can play online in your web browser.

	July 02, 2013 Bad Guys, Good Battles Contest! Contest now live at Artix.com! It's that time again -- time to sharpen your pencils and test your creative mettle against the best the AE community has to offer. Since Beleen already nailed the contest details in her post over at Artix.com and AQ.com, I'll repost it here for your enjoyement rather than force you to slog through my mangled prose. ------ It’s a good day for bad monsters! Instead of using weapons and magic, pit your creative talent and artistic skills against all the existing monsters and villains from your favorite Artix Entertainment games. And have a chance at winning awesome loot in the Bad Guys & Good Battles Contest! Your Quest Help Loremaster Maya! Create artwork or write histories for Artix Entertainment’s monsters and villains! Winning entries will help us build the AE Encyclopedia Lorepedia (currently on AQ.com, but probably not there forever)! How to Start Your Adventure Take a look at one of Loremaster Maya’s first Bestiary pages, then get out and hunt up a monster or villain of your own to observe! http://www.aq.com/lore/monsters/Frogdrake Ideas for artwork submissions include: Draw Paint Illustrate Photoshop Sculpt Craft Bake Sew and Stitch Carve Balloon Animals! Ideas for writing submissions include: Details about where the monster/villain lives Any unique behavior or identifying appearance details What they’re good for after defeat Any lore we already know about them (like the Bloodtusk Troll/Horc cultures) Anything we DON’T know about them that doesn’t contradict what is already in-game So long as your submission is a monster and/or a villain from your favorite Artix Entertainment game, then you’re one step closer to winning the contest! Make sure you post your submission in the contest thread at Artix.com! Quest Requirements Read ALL THESE rules before submitting! This is not a suggestion contest, all of the entries must be based on monsters/villains that already exist in our games. All artwork must be original—absolutely NO tracing and NO stealing someone else’s artwork. Pictures must be at least 500px wide and in either .jpg or .png format. All writing must be original. If you use any existing in-game lore in an entry, you must add original ideas onto it. Written entries must be no longer than 500 words long. Entry must be inspired by a monster and/or a villain from an Artix Entertainment Game (AdventureQuest, MechQuest, DragonFable, AQW, EpicDuel, HeroSmash, OverSoul). You may use any form of media for your design (Pencil, Flash, MS Word, Notepad, cake mix, etc). You can include other Artix Entertainment characters alongside your monster, be it your player or a popular NPC like Warlic or Cysero. Post a valid link to your picture in the Comments section below in the Image URL field. Include the text of your writing entry in the Comments section text field. Only ONE Bad Guys & Good Battles contest submission will be judged per game account (although you CAN post more entries under each AE game account you own, so you can post one entry for your AQW hero, then another for your EpicDuel account, another picture for your DragonFable player, etc). You can enter artwork, OR writing, OR both. But only one entry total per game account. Your entry MUST include your Character Name AND which game your character belongs to. How else are we gonna award you if you win? Your entry MUST include the name of the monster/villain you created. Please please PLEASE only post once—it will take some time to approve your submission, so please don’t spam the Submit button! You will be automatically disqualified if you do not follow all the rules. We have the right to remove any entry that is unacceptable or inappropriate—so keep your entry safe for everyone to enjoy! And, most importantly, have FUN! Quest Rewards Here’s your chance at wining awesome stuff in your favorite online game! The Bad Guys & Good Battles Contest prizes will be broken down by game, but since the Lorepedia encompasses ALL our games, we will award prizes in Artix Points! Additional prizes may be awarded to those who go above and beyond! Quest Turn-In In the Comments field below, please include: Your Character Name What game your Character is in What monster(s) and/or villain(s) you’re basing the entry on A short biography and/or picture of the monster or villain A valid URL link in the Image URL field or the text of your biography Please make sure your URL link works online! Use a free online photo uploader like Tinypic, Photobucket, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Quest Time Frame The Bad Guys & Good Battles Contest begins today, July 2, 2013. Submissions will be accepted until July 10, 2013, at 11:59pm EST. Judging will ensue the following week, and prizes will be announced and delivered around that time too! Good luck everyone, and may the best Bad Guy & Good Battles entry win! --Beleen Tags: Nightwraith Artix contest Design Monsters AE Beleen Lore LorePedia Good Evil Art

	September 27, 2012 Spooky Head Design Contest! Hey there! Just to let you know, there a totally rad contest we're hosting in the AE forums! Dust off those pencils and grab that printer paper because it's time to DRAW! As many of you know, Halloween (or Mogloween) is celebrated widely among every single game Artix Entertainment makes! Delta V celebrates a Harvest Festival, but the spirit of dressing up in cool, scary and twisted ways is still a major part of the holiday. For this reason, the team and I thought it would be a great idea to kick it off this Harvest season with a contest. This contest is all about “Player Head Designs!” Since it is the time of year that Halloween rolls about, we are looking for some very awesome Scary, Funny, or Creative head designs. However, it is not required that it is related to Halloween. To be clear, all head designs must be drawn, either traditionally or digitally, but in-game screenshots are NOT allowed at all. To make life easier for you, I've uploaded head templates for all the classes and genders. You can deviate from the template, but it's a good place to start if you're running short on inspiration. I recommend printing them out and drawing over them using a lightbox to perfect your design. You can also import them into your drawing program of choice! EpicDuel Male Template EpicDuel Female Template To award the wonderful artists of the community, we have the following awards to give out: 1 Grand Prize Winner will receive 1,500 Varium, a very special 1,000 rating points achievement, all the hairstyles in-game up to the point the winner is declared, and the style they created added into the game permanently! 5 Winners will receive 1,500 Varium, an achievement, and their style featured permanently in-game! The contest will run from Thursday, September 27th till Wednesday, October 26th at 11:59pm. You have plenty of time to work on these entries to make thems as polished as possible so please use your time wisely! The rules and guidelines are short and to the point, but we advise you to follow them otherwise your entry will be disqualified. Design must be inspired by EpicDuel Your entry must be entirely made by you, and must be original work. You must include your EpicDuel Character Name with your entry. You may use any form of media for your entry. (Pencil, Flash, etc) No Screenshots. Do not change your entry or edit your forum post until the winners are selected. Only ONE entry can be submitted per person. An entire set of styles for all classes and genders can count as one entry. The head design must be made in the theme of Scary, Funny, or Creative Make sure that you provide a VALID URL to your photo. Try using a reliable photo uploader like Photobucket, TinyPic or Twitpic. Entries without working links or entries requiring a login to access will not be considered. You have until 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, October 26th to submit your entry. The team and I look forward to seeing all these awesome head designs, and may the odds be ever in your favor! Stay safe and good luck to everyone! Nightwraith Contest Entry Format (Can adjust for the contest) EpicDuel Name: Title of Entry: Image: Well, what are you waiting for? Head to the official forum topic right now and get drawing! Tags: Nightwraith contest Halloween styles Drawing Art Forums

	April 10, 2012 Bunny Battalions Continued Post PAX Preparations First things first: welcome back Nightwraith! For those not in the know, our creative lead was away at PAX East over Easter weekend. He got back safely so we can all bother him to tell us all about PAX. Will he do a recap? I dunno. That's up to him. Don't worry. I've written enough to punish him for having too much fun. Roll On Roll Up Roll Out We are finally moving the game to CS5. For realsies this week. If all goes well, you guys won't notice a thing! Maybe a reduction in lag, and better performance with Flash Player 11. For us it means enormous changes and vast potential for implementing all the cool features we've had to put off until we upgraded. Some of you might be wondering why we didn't just use CS5 all along. Well, at the time EpicDuel was first being developed CS3 was new, and it was impossible to forsee it's limitations. This happens all the time in software development, but it was an extremely valuable lesson to learn and formidable challenge to overcome. Hopefully, we can wrangle Titan into giving us more details in the next EpicDuel Q & A. Last week we also rolled out quite a few backend things. For example, you can now hit shift while you click to add or subtract 5 points from a skill. Armors got a little cheaper, and you can now buy misc or mission items with a full inventory. Nerf a Derf RabbleFroth is planning a nerf for Tech Mages. What is it? I dunno, nobody tells me anything. Watch here for details. New Promo Packs! I am sorry to report that these new packs will be delayed by another week. This week was very trying with all the CS5 testing, so we were unable to implement and thoroughly test the new packages. We really wanted to get this in, but it's not something that can be rushed out. Again, I apologize for the inconvenience. --Nightwraith This week we will be adding new items to packs at different price tiers and different levels. This should increase the usefulness of promo items for our players who wish to upgrade but have not yet reached the level cap. In case you are wondering, the Bionic Battlegear will remain as promotional package for the time being. The new packs will include sets of brand-new weapons that can asist players who are having trouble climbing the ranks or finding just the right set of gear for their level. Behold! These new packs will also give us more flexibility for players to mix and match Varium quanities with promotional items, and will allow us to give players more exciting options for packaged gear in the future. Happy Dueling! Bunnies! We will be continuing the Bionic Battalion saga by accompanying Myxoma and the others on their mission to save little Lepus. While in the Biodome, the bunnies will discover the secrets of their origin. What else will the rabbits uncover in the Archives? Maybe they know! Addendum Two points I want to address. Yes, I'm helping out with words on HeroSmash, but I am not leaving EpicDuel, as I know many of you were concerned. Also, if you are a fan of EpicDuel on Facebook, you are now able to send me a direct message. I don't care if you use it to send reports, ask why you were banned, or things of that nature. However, if you have an account issue, payment issue, want to ask for free things/varium or send me death threats, please don't. Account issues must be dealt with by the help team (thru the help link on portal.Battleon.com) and I am not authorized to deal with master account issues. I also cannot give you free varium. Even if I wanted to. Threats, it should go without saying, are unwelcome and can lead to bans or worse if they're serious enough. Mechachillids When the first miners came to Delta V, it became increasingly apparent that Varium mining is not for humans. Varium does not form like a typical ore, and after one too many fatalities in the subterranean caverns, the workers began to imagine sentience in the stones themselves. In response, scientists and tech mages worked on a form of artificial life. The idea was for robots that could build and maintain tunnels, keeping them safe from the dangerous earth. But the mages took it one step further: the robots could replicate themselves, repair and evolve. The inventors were amazed that after only a few generations, the mechanical bees had formed a caste structure and had started building infants with different qualities: workers who dug the tunnels, repaired the machinery, nurses who tended to the sick and injured, and warriors who protected the workers from wandering Hazards. The mechanical bees were nicknamed "Mechachillids". For generations, the Mechachillids and mine workers worked in tandem, but as the human workers turned into slaves, they grew distrustful of the social robots, who recognized Baelius's authority without question. When the citizens were exiled by Baelius, the Mechachillids were forgotten by the humans, but happy to evolve without human interference. They've been working and living in the tunnels beneath the minetower for a while now, and mostly don't trust any animal who keeps their skeleton on the inside... Wednesday Livestream at 4pm with Mido! Mido comes to AQW! If you've played through Etherstorm, you'll have met him already. If you have only played EpicDuel, we can only assure you that he is an awesome artist and now you get to see his incredible art skills in action! This Wednesday at 4PM server time, log in to AQWorlds and /join stream to see Mido take YOUR suggestions and turn them into an awesome in-game item (AQW that is)! Real Life Kraggor Kraggor and her people are based on real life animals called Megachillidae: the family that includes mason bees and leafcutter bees. While Kraggor's people are eusocial, many megachillids are solitary, including the creatures which serve as Kraggor's visual reference: the orchard mason bee. This shiny bluish purple bee will find a natural hole or opening in which to build her nest, and she protects her babies by building a house out of mud bricks. They are gentle, industrious bees and rarely sting. They are cosmopolitan across North America, and are efficient pollinators, keeping the pollen on the underside of theory abdomen rather than on their legs like honeybees. They do not produce honey, feeding their young with pollen. Tags: PAX East Cinderella Nightwraith CS5 Flash development programming livestream Art Bugs Bunnies Promo packs