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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.
Charfade

June 05, 2015

EpicDuel Guest Artist Team

Do you want to join the EpicDuel Guest Artist Team? GREAT!

Charfade_call_for_artists

Before you submit your portfolio, please read through the following requirements:

 

A Link to Your Portfolio Must Include the Following Samples of Work

  • Completed EpicDuel game asset samples including:
    • Weapon sets of both physical and energy versions
    • Armor designs for male and female character models
    • Hairstyle designs for male and female character models
    • Bike designs
    • Home item designs
    • Mission item designs
    • Background environment designs**
  • Sample sketches in the EpicDuel Style – these are to show your thought process in design
  • Anatomy studies and examples of NPC designs
  • Color studies and value studies
  • Any animation examples to show a basic understanding of animation**

 

Technical Qualifications

  • Legal version of Adobe Flash CS5 or higher
  • Reliable computer and internet connection
  • Understands how to use Photoshop or SAI**
  • Skype account
  • G-mail account
  • Twitter account

 

Personal Qualifications

  • A desire to want to learn and grow as a professional artist
  • A minimum of 5-10 hours a week to dedicate to the team
  • Work well with others on team-based projects
  • Active member of the AE community in good standing
  • Offers and accepts constructive criticism well
  • Works well under pressure and can meet deadlines
  • Can handle tedious tasks
  • Able to fit the EpicDuel style
  • Can read and write in English
  • Is in compliance with the Terms of Service Agreements of Artix Entertainment, LLC.
  • Must be at least 18+ (or 16+ with parental permission and a valid work reference)

 

**Not required, but strongly recommended.

If you are still interested in joining the EpicDuel Guest Artist Team and meet all the above qualifications, please submit your portfolio to Nightwraith@battleon.com. We will consider all applications that meet the requirements, but we will not be able to respond to all submissions.

Tags: charfade


Charfade

January 06, 2015

EpicDuels Frozen Fury House Decorating Contest 2014 Winners

EpicDuel house decorating contest banner

Hi EpicDuelists!

First of all, I want to extend my appreciation and thanks to everyone who participated in the EpicDuel House Frozen Fury Decorating Contest 2014! I want to thank our judges who took their time this weekend to vote, and a special thank you to Mecha Mario and Trans for leading and moderating. We had a tremendous response to this contest; of over 200 submissions, we had to narrow down to just 25 winners.

Our judges went through each and every entry, spanning the AE Forums, Reddit and Twitter. They judged based on the most creative home decor designs. While houses didn’t have to have a winter theme per se, they did need to have some sort of winter house item involved. We looked for color schemes, patterns, function and overall creative effort put into the house design.

Ultimately we could only chose 25 winners to receive this awesome Winter-themed achievement:


And Winter-themed House Item Trophy:


Without further ado, here are your winners!

r00tb3ar 73

ConQrR

Gx.

..N0Thing..

A L E S S I O

iCassidy

Bambi47

Sr. Luciano

DARIUS199

.Darkness Lord.

R A Y

Alien Fundador

Master Mako

The New Caden

Just An Asian

alpha Q

.Dey100.

kira of emerald

Santa ClawZz

LIETUVIS4

angelbeats

Sr.jaspion

SMGS

T W E E T Y

Buffy


We ask winners of the contest to please not change your house ( other than maybe adding your trophy ) for the remainder of January, so that visitors may see your epic house creation! Also as a heads up, it may take a day or so before you receive your achievement and trophy because we need to add it manually onto your characters.

Once again we thank our EpicDuel players, and we hope to see you in the next contest!


Tags: charfade


Charfade

November 24, 2014

EpicDuel’s Frozen Fury House Decorating Contest 2014

EpicDuel PvP MMO Winter Contest

Seasons greetings, EpicDuelists!

We are super excited to announce EpicDuel’s Frozen Fury House Decorating Contest! Your character is equipped for the winter season, so why isn't your home? We're looking for the snazziest, most creatively cheerful and festive houses that you can decorate!

The contest is sure to bring some Delta V warmth to your home! To top things off, if you win you'll even get a personal EpicDuel house item and achievement!


Achievement! Oooo La La!

 

EpicDuel PvP MMO Contest Achievement Prize

House Item Trophy

EpicDuel Winter Achievement Prize

HOW TO ENTER

This time around, there are three ways to submit your entries: The AE Forums, Twitter, and the AE Reddit!  

 

►AE Forums Please only post contest entries in this discussion thread. If you have any questions or want to discuss the contest you can use the ED discussion fourm.

 

►Twitter Include hashtag #EDCoolHouse in your Tweet BEFORE submitting. If your tweet is more than 140 characters long, http://www.twitlonger.com/ is a great tool to help when your entry is a bit too long!

 

►AE Reddit Please only post contest entries in this reddit link here.

 

RULES AND GUIDELINES

The rules and guidelines are short and to the point, but we advise you to follow them otherwise your entry could be disqualified.

 

  • Your entry must be YOUR own in game EpicDuel house and not someone else’s (We will check).
  • Your house should have some holiday themed items in it (but you can still submit houses that aren't Christmas themed!
  • Please make sure you submit your EpicDuel Character name, the name of the house, and a screenshot or two in your entry.

Include the below format when submitting:

EpicDuel Name:

Name of House:

Title of Entry:

Image(s):

  • Always make sure your links and image tags are working throughout the duration of the contest. Any broken links or deleted posts at the time the contest ends will be disqualified
  • Link to your screenshots, please don't use image tags.
  • Only one entry per person. Make it your best!
  • Please don’t change your house in the middle of the contest or edit your picture you submitted. This could get you disqualified.
  • Judging criteria, we will be looking for the most creative homes in decor design. Think about use of color schemes, patterns, function, overall theme of the home designs.
  • Last but not least, have fun!

 

The team is looking forward to seeing your entries in a few weeks! Good luck, everyone!

Stay safe and Happy Holidays!

The EpicDuel Team

Tags: charfade


Charfade

September 04, 2014

Waves of Wrath Preview

Muahaha! I, Charfade, have taken over the EpicDuel Design Notes! All fear my grammar and punctuation wrath! Nightwraith is away recovering from Pax Prime so you’re left with me this week. Due to a Monday holiday and shorten staff, there is no EpicDuel release this week. However, there is still plenty to talk about. Cysero announced at Dragon*Con what we have in store for you this fall. So here are the cliff notes and previews of what to expect from the EpicDuel team.

 

EpicDuel’s Waves of Wrath

https://cms.aq.com/ed/images/EpicDuel_Waves_of_Wrath_Logo2.png

This year the EpicDuel team decided to expand the ever so popular “Talk Like a Pirate Day” held on September 19th with a whole new event! Similar to our LionHart event, EpicDuel’s Waves of Wrath event will have all new missions, npcs, items, styles, achievements, and a redesigned naval yard.

 

Redesigned Naval Yard

https://cms.aq.com/ed/images/EpicDuel_Waves_of_Wrath_bg_concept.png

We’ve always thought the Navel Yard could use a bit more sprucing up and give players more of a reason to visit. We also needed more screens to support the new war system. With the new npcs and a boss coming soon to this area, Big Tuna and the Gamma Guard shouldn’t feel so lonely anymore.

 

New NPCs

The EpicDuel guest teams really have been doing a great job building a whole new cast of characters to expand the ED universe. These npcs will be fightable and playing a huge part in the Waves of Wrath’s three part mission chains.

 

New Boss

https://cms.aq.com/ed/images/EpicDuel_Waves_of_Wrath_Kracken.png

New custom animations and skills are being created for our next major boss.  He will be one of the toughest bosses in EpicDuel yet, be sure to stock up if you have any hope in beating him!

 

War

If you haven’t already guessed yet, the next war will take place in the Naval Yard. Given the size of the EpicDuel Waves of Wrath event, we won't have new war content ready in time, so we will update the war clock next week to reflect this delay. But don't worry!  The EpicDuel Waves of Wrath event will come with all sorts of fun to "tide" you over!

 

Balance and Bug Patch Update

We haven’t forgotten! Titan and RabbleFroth have been working diligently knocking out the current long list of bugs in ED while reviewing some needed balance changes. These changes can be expected in the next EpicDuel release next week.

 

Twitters to Follow

The EpicDuel staff has been working closely with our guest teams for all the fall and winter events coming in 2014. We recommend following their twitter accounts. As work gets finished they actively post updates and details pertaining to release content for EpicDuel. More is definitely planned for EpicDuel Waves of Wrath so be sure to stay tuned!

 

Guest Artists

@vorzathiel @AssassinOrd3r @Goony_ED  @Mecha_MarioAK @SarpDv @Deuce_AE @Revontheus @HatredCuirassAE @BidoofAE @kingdrekon @Vultex @2046808

 

Guest Writers

@Vince_fury @Trans_AE


13 Lords of Chaos Poster Promotion

https://cms.aq.com/ed/images/Heromart_13_lords_of_Chaos_Poster.png

Available now from HeroMart.com get the new 13 Lords of Chaos Poster.

This poster comes with 2 exclusive EpicDuel in-game items: Chaos Dragonslayer Sword P and Chaos Dragonslayer Sword E.

https://cms.aq.com/ed/images/Heromart_13_lords_of_Chaos_ED_weapons.png

These Design Notes were edited by Mecha Mario to ensure the finest in content quality.

Tags: charfade


Charfade

July 03, 2014

Overlord Overdone

Overlord War Exile Victory

Exiles Win Overlord War


Congratulations Exiles for winning the Overlord Facility War, making this the fourth war Exiles have claimed victory since War 2.0 went live.  We should take notice and praise the Legion’s effort this time around for putting up a great fight.  We saw new and old Legion factions participate even harder this time which resulted in more of an even conflict. Additionally, our War Rally adjustments seems to have aided in the overall balance of the system; while the Exiles did have more players with extreme Influence amounts (as made obvious by the leaderboards), the Legion had a higher average Influence per participant and thus managed to keep it close. In the end, the Exiles managed to pull away. Congratulations to everyone who participated! Now is the time to login and claim your war prize! 

 

Friendly Reminder: Claim your war prize before you consider switching alignments. Changing alignments will remove all of your regional war data. Your achievement progress will not be removed however.

 

Independence Day Rares Return

Independence Gear


Typically around this time of year we get a day off to enjoy the summer with our families and embrace our patriotic side with yeti burgers and Hank’s delicious chocolate cakes. Canada Day was on July 1st and Independence Day is tomorrow July 4th for Americans. We invite you to celebrate freedom along with us with the returning Independence Day themed rares. You can find them equipped to the Overlord Guard in Overlord Facility. Also, the Independence Day achievement will also be available for a limited time.

Independence Achievement


Much Restock, Many Rares, Wow!

Restocks on many of our limited time items this weekend! Be sure to check out Dage, Charfade, Revontheus, and the SolarWorld Factory to take advantage of picking up some really exclusive gear! Among the returning items are the Imperial Skull Bike and Liberty Eagle Bike located at Overlord Guard!

 

Power Hour Weekend

Power Hour

 

The war is over, but that doesn't mean the dueling is over.  Battle your heart out over this holiday weekend for double XP and Credits! There's no special mission to complete or button to activate -- just log in and DUEL!

Power hour is scheduled to last between: July 4th 12:00am est  – July 7th Mon 12:00am EST 

 

Lionhart Part 3

Lionhart Room


Since this week is a rather short because of the holiday festivities, we decided to hold off on releasing Lionhart Part 3. This also gives you the opportunity to complete ( if you haven’t yet  ) Lionhart parts 1 and 2. Lionhart part 3 with new missions and introducing SaevaLionhart is coming next week! Stay Tuned!

lionhart logo

Tags: charfade


Nightwraith

September 06, 2013

Yaaaaar Design Notes

Mwahahaha!

After a brief hiatus for DragonCon and other important real-life events, the EpicDuel team is finally assembled at full strength. The problem is we only had 3 day to build a release (technically one full day and 2 half-days if you include planning and release testing)! We were so tight on time that I just got around to the Design Notes now. It's like I'm typing live! Anyway, no more wasting time...let's get down to it!

 

Administrator 10

Fighting in the Dread Plains has gotten so heated that Alydriah has ordered Administrator 10 to oversee battle operations directly. Normally content to manipulate events from behind the scenes, the Administrator has a nasty battle record that keeps his troops loyal and his enemies in a constant state of fear. He is also an extreme hypochondriac and wears a gas mask constantly to prevent himself from breathing in the irradiated vapor and toxic dust that blows across the Dread Plains. This, combined with his notable paranoia and disrespect for authority makes him an exceptionally unpredictable and dangerous foe.

 

Mission Organization

This week we've also made improvements to mission organization. Completed, pending, and unavailable missions are now color-coded and sorted for easy navagation!

Mission Organization

 

Talk Like a Pirate Again!

Yaaaaaaar! Since we've fixed the error with the seasonal rare scheduler, we are able to reintroduce the Talk Like a Pirate Day-themed rares! It turns out that the error was due to a single misplaced letter among the dozens of lines of code -- like finding a needle in a needle-stack! Visit Big Tuna in the West Naval Yard to check them out!

Yarrrr

Also, the Talk Like a Pirate achievement will also be returning!

Additionally, yarrrr!

Yarrrrrrrrr!

Because of this error, the Titan weapons were removed early. We have returned them for one more week! Thanks to Rabble's hard work on this system, we will now be able to add and remove items to merchants without rebooting the server, making it easier to get the right gear into the right hands!

 

Bye, Bye, Botanical Gear!

Since Fall is on the horizon (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, anway) we felt it was time to retire the Botanical Gear and the Botanical Borg promotional packages. 

Bye Bye Botanical Gear!

If you managed to snatch them up, good job! If not, you'll have another go at them next year around Springtime to add them to your robust arsenal.

 

Coming Soon

All the battling in the desolate Dread Plains has begun to stir the local wildlife. Normally shy but curious Dire Wolves and Goat Lizards have begun to creep into the warzone. Will they align with Legion or Exile forces? 

Coming Soon!

I hope they're on my team!

 

Patch Notes 1.5.30

NEW CHANGES / FEATURES

  •  Arborgeddon and Botanical Battlegear promo packages removed from the shop
  • Mission List now sorts and displays mission groups in a more intuitive way

BUGFIXES

  • Seasonal item sheduler fixed -- TLAPD and Titan items now showing properly on merchants
  • When purchasing battlegear weapons (legion or exile) the passive core slot shows a “-1”
  • Cores included with Promo Package items were not showing up properly until relog
  • You were able to see the opposite alignment assets for a brief moment when you joined the Bazaar.
  • Reward from “Not a Good Reason” still result in a loss when you finish the mission. Should now give you a net profit of 1000 credits
  • Limited quantity Concussive Shot now working correctly
  • If you attempt to use the Strike button right after your opponent leaves, you would see an error message “You must select an enemy character to use the null.” 

Tags: Nightwraith Pirate Achievements Toast Titan RabbleFroth charfade Administrator 10


Charfade

August 27, 2013

Mini Mission Update

Dragon Con

Greetings, EpicDuelists! It’s that time of year again where many of the Artix Entertainment staff, admins, mods and our most adventurous players head off to Atlanta Georgia  for Dragon*Con this weekend. Which means EpicDuel will be releasing a mini-mid-week release today!

For those visiting Dragon*Con this year, the Artix Entertainment panel is this Saturday Aug 31st @2:30pm in the Hilton Atlanta hotel  room Grand Salon E. We are also on the Dragon*Con app,  under Events -> MMORPG.  EpicDuel’s very own “RabbleFroth” will be attending this year’s panel and hovering over the AE fan table. Be sure to say hi!

AE Panel at DragonCon
Title: Making Video Games with Artix Entertainment

When: Saturday, Aug 31st @ 2:30pm until 3:30pm
Where: Hilton Atlanta, Grand Salon E.

First time DragonCon attendee? Lucky for you, Cysero has posted a DragonCon survival guide on the AQW design notes!

For more information about Dragon*Con, please visit the official DragonCon website! 


Mini Mid Week Release!

Without time this week to work on a huge fun filled release, the EpicDuel team decided it was best to go on a mission bug hunt and make further improvements to the New Mission system. Titan is also making more changes to the player’s user experience by polishing up the new mission interface. You’ll notice minor changes in how you interact with NPC’s this week, this will hopefully streamline and reduce the number of clicks you need to do in order to access mission content.  These are small changes, but we really hope they improve your game play experience!

 

NPC Notifiers

Notice MEEEEEEEE!

Naomi has a question for you!  New to EpicDuel this week is the New Mission NPC Notify System. Now if a NPC has something for you to do, like a mission you’ve been putting off, that npc will let you know with a notify indicator above their head. The same indicator icon will be carried throughout the flow of finding and accepting any new missions. All the maps with NPC’s had to be updated to support this change.  Which you can imagine, took up most of the development time.

No new missions this week. More time is needed to fully develop and test any new missions. We also need more time to implement and fully test the Daily Mission features. Which are in the coming soon bucket!  The EpicDuel team returns from their mini hiatus on Sept 3rd. So there is no release scheduled for this Friday. Will be back to full EpicDuel power next week!

 

Patch Notes - 1.5.29 

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

  • Further improvements to the New Mission System interface
  • Add Mission notify system
    • Updated every screen to support new NPC missions notify system – Which now supports indicators above NPC heads.
    • NPC mission button flow polish, limiting the amount of clicks to access and accept missions.

Item Resale Correction

  • Emeralds (Flawed = 50, Regular = 200, Perfect = 400)
  • Ice Gems (Flawed = 50, Regular = 200, Perfect = 400)
  • Infernal Gems (Flawed = 50, Regular = 200, Perfect = 400)

 Mission Bug Fixes 

  • Naomi’s mission ‘Purify’, small spelling error fixed
  • Fighting For Fabulous - NPC IDs were wrong. Database fix
  • Coffee, Tea, or Battle - description says 5 wins, but the mission is asking for 10 wins. Should be 10. Adjusted text to be consistent
  • Not a Good Reason - Reduced purchase to 1 Trident Blaster instead of 4. Your reward will net 1000 credits instead of a steep loss
  • The Annoyance of Humanity - Incorrect NPC IDs. Fixed
  • The Golden Gun Gals mission is resulting in a credit loss. The 4 Imperial Blasters required cost 3,000 credits, but the final reward can only be sold for 625 credits 
  • The mission “Restock” to only require 2 Imperial Blasters and to reward the player with a 1000 credit profit if they sell the gun
  • You Know My Choice - Yeti Hulks will now also drop Coffee
  • Business Partners - was reported on forums that it wasn’t tracking wins. No issue found 

Tags: DragonCon Nightwraith RabbleFroth charfade staff mission Bugs


RabbleFroth

August 26, 2013

Patch Notes - 1.5.28

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

  • Mission Overhaul System!
    • New mission system interface 
    • Replaced old system with a mission check list guide
    • Grouped old missions together in a series of chains
    • Categorized permanent and event based missions (daily missions coming soon!)
    • 20 new missions have been added
  • Season Timestamp on Items: Sets a schedule to automatically update seasonal items with start and end time without game restart. Gives players a larger heads-up before we add and remove gear from the various shops
  • Seasonal Dragon weapons and Back-to-School weapons equipped to Slayer (available for a limited time)
  • Reinforcements Reworked: Applies globally instead of at individual objectives, and changes based on rate of War Points instead of whoever is in the lead
  • Continuing to monitor matching system with new tracking information

Tags: charfade


Cinderella

September 20, 2012

Charfade Triumphant

Yaar and so forth

Yesterday was Talk like a Pirate Day!  If you haven’t already grabbed the cheevo and items from that salty wench Isla “Big Tuna” Grier.

 

The Dragon’s Reckoning

Is he right?

The Dragon’s Reckoning is coming to its epic conclusion with an epic cutscene!  What will become of the Dragonoid?  What about Dravax?  Will Mirv finally get the praise and attention he craves?  See Charfade in-game to find out!

 

Epic Stylist!

Epic Stylist

You may have noticed that you can now purchase hairstyles, and said hairstyles are yours forever.  Changing between hairstyles or just changing your colors now only costs credits!  Unfortunately, this is only relevant going forward, as we cannot figure out every hairstyle every player has ever had.  But the Steve-bots are eager for you to get your hair did, so they’re offering a new, evolving Epic Stylist cheevo!  Epicly stylish!  Can you buy enough styles to unlock them all?

 

Codes...How Do They Work?

If you follow any of the ED staff on Twitter, you may have noticed us posting codes periodically.  What are these codes and how are they used?  Currently, the codes can be redeemed for free Starter-Kit weapons, but we are expanding the system to offer a number of different prizes.  Here's a step-by-step guide for redeeming these codes.

Step 0: Get a Code

Currently, you can get these codes by seeing us in person at a convention or by following us on Twitter!

Nightwraith

Cinderella

Titan

Charfade

RabbleFroth

 

Step 1: Find a City Guard

They primarily hang out in Central Station and Fortune City.  You can use the Delta V map to travel quickly between areas if you don't feel like going on foot (or by bike).

Step 1

 

Step 2: Select the "Prize Code" option

Step 2

 

Step 3: Enter the Code and select "Submit"

These codes are currently one-time use so only the first one to redeem the code will get the prize.

Step 3

 

Stay tuned for more developments on this exciting feature as we add features such as more prizes, more redemptions per code, and more ways to receive codes!

 

Something Ebil This Way Comes!

Chairman

Some twenty years before the current events of EpicDuel, Baelius had a “falling out” with his investors and backers when he declared the colony on Delta V a sovereign state and declared war.  But not all of his backers turned on him -- Baelius’s war was partly financed by the mysterious and influential Chairman Platinum.  Word has it that the Chairman is returning to inspect his investment.  Is he coming to free the people of Delta V from Baelius' vile machination or will this be a hostile takeover?  Knowing the Chairman, we suspect the latter.

 

Terrible Tachinids

If you follow me on Twitter, you know that I had a pet caterpillar named Nova.  Nova was a happy caterpillar, was hand-fed the finest tomato leaves whenever he was hungry.  Eventually, he was slated to pupate (that is, metamorphose into his adult form), and after wandering for a bit, he turned brown and began pupating.  He was also a lucky caterpillar -- I’d noticed that he had cleared an infection by braconid parasitoids.  But his luck was not to last -- a few days after pupating, I noticed that his coloration was off, and there was a weird discoloration along his ventral nerve cord.  Naturally, I observed, and much to my horror eventually Nova exploded, leaving a pile of slimy grey maggots.

These are the larvae of tachinid flies (likely Winthemia manduca), which lay their eggs on lepidopteran larvae (ie. caterpillars), and develop inside the caterpillar.  They’ll begin to devour the caterpillar from the inside during diapause and emerge.  They’ll spend a day or two as free-living maggots, and pupate for 10-24 days depending on environmental temperature.  As adults, they resemble house flies, and will repeat the whole process over again.  As they reduce populations of lepidopteran pests naturally, they are attractive for use in integrated pest management. However, they are not extremely host-specific, and will attack related species to the target organism- eg. an East European tachinid fly introduced in the US in areas affected by gypsy moth has caused a massive reduction in Saturniid moth numbers.

Tags: Steve Cinderella styles TLAPD Pirate Dragons Dragonoid charfade Twitter Codes


Nightwraith

September 11, 2012

Final Reckoning

The votes are still rolling in, but you've made your voices loud and clear. You will defend Charfade and Delta V to the last! Although this is a noble path, it does little to discourage Dravax and the planet-destroying Dragonoid that have come seeking Char. The final hour of judgment approaches -- are you ready?

Final Reckoning

A Living Charfade Is a Happy Charfade

Charfade is so pleased by your overwhelming support that she's constructing a new series of items to offer in her Limited Quantity Shop.  She's also reverse engineered Dravax's technology to produce male and female class-changing variants of the Harbinger Armor (Credit and Varium only payment options like Infernal Android). You can complete the look at with a quick style change for a new Harbinger style!

Harbinger Armors!

Charbinger Weapons

Yarrrr and Such!

This release will also see the return of the epic Talk Like a Pirate Day weapons. We know it's a little early (actual TLAPD is September 19), but holidays on Delta V are a bit more...fluid than other games. In any case, you'll need all the help you can get sending the Dragonoid back from whence it came. Visit BigTuna in the West Naval Yard to acquire these awesome items while you can!

Also, "Yarrr!"

 

Yarr!  Thar be nautical nightmares!

 

Pirate Cheevo!

Stop by a VendBot anywhere on Delta V to pick up the TLaPD achievement for 1500 Battle Tokens! If you missed it last year, now's the perfect time to grab it before it's too late! 

Ding!  Pirate!

"Yarrr...I'm unattrictive."

Tags: Titan Nightwraith charfade TLAPD Pirates Yaaaar Dragons Dragonoid Achievements Dravax


Nightwraith

September 06, 2012

A Practical Dragon*Con Recap

Howdy there, EpicDuelists. I'm stopping by briefly to turn the DNs over to EpicDuel tester and Mod Practel for a thorough Dragon*Con recap. Artix did a pretty amazing job describing the event from the developers' perspectives, but I think it's equally interesting to read about the Con through a different set of eyes. Without further ado, heeeeeeere's Practel!

----------

We’re home!

Hey there, Duelists! You might have noticed that this Design Notes post isn’t from your friendly neighborhood warrior princess, Cinderella. This is my first (and most likely last) Design Notes post! Some of you may not know me, so let me introduce myself. My name is Practel, I’ve been playing EpicDuel since December of 2009 when EpicDuel merged with Artix Entertainment. I became a tester (someone who tests the weekly releases every week for bugs and to make sure it’s stable for you guys) in August 2011, and now I am an in-game Moderator for EpicDuel and a forum ArchKnight! I’ll be writing the Dragon*Con Recap since our awesome story telling writer Cinderella wasn’t able to attend (which is sad, there’s always next year!)

 

What is Dragon*Con?

Every year about 50 Artix Entertainment staff and assistant staff travel from their secret undisclosed battle locations to Atlanta Georgia (an 8 hour bus ride) to attend Dragon*Con! Dragon*Con is the largest multi-media, popular culture convention focusing on science fiction and fantasy, gaming, comics, literature, art, music, and film in the universe! Each year the convention attracts about 60 to 70 thousand people, and an awesome group of Artix Entertainment players! To see everything that the con has to offer is almost impossible, but those who are courageous enough to fight the “4 days with no sleep” boss can do it! The con offers something for anyone. There are panels about everything from making your own functional steampunk R2-D2, to meet-and-greets with some of the biggest names in TVs, Movies, Gaming and Books. There are thousands of people dressed up as their favorite characters, movie marathons, a sea of tables for table top games like Dungeons and Dragons, card games like Pokémon, Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh, board games like Risk, Settlers of Catan and King of Tokyo.

Did I mention there were storm troopers?

 

Dragon*Con Pizza Party Meet and Greet!

Each year, generally the day before the convention officially starts, AE throws an awesome pizza party for all the players that attend. People come across the world just to hang out and talk with the staff about the games, what’s coming up, and genuinely have a good time. The players LOVE hanging out with the staff, and the staff love hanging out with the players! Each year a different, very dedicated player will come by and discuss the game to the point where even the player knows more than the developers about their own game! This year there was one player who was VERY dedicated and even cosplayed as Artix!
Mini Artix

 

The Artix Entertainment Panel

Just like the awesome pizza party AE holds every year, it’s always a tradition to hold one of the coolest panels in all of Dragon*Con! This year was definitely the best panel AE has ever hosted – it had well over 100 people attending to come and watch, laugh, even cry, and genuinely enjoy their time as a player and proud con-goer. Each game lead stood up, discussed the game they headed, told the players what was going to happen in the future, and answered questions. Coincidently, I happen to have a video of Nightwraith discussing some EpicDuel stuff!

As promised, anyone who went to Dragon*Con this year should have received their Slayer armor and DragonBuster II sword by now! If you signed the paper for the AQW item, but forgot to list your EpicDuel name, please let us know!

 

The Booth

Artix Entertainment always has a player fan booth, where about 5 or 6 staff sit, talk to players, answer questions, and have a good time. For the entire convention. During this time, we had a few very friendly players that most of us knew from Twitter and the forums visit. I was completely shocked and happy when one of my good friends A.C.W popped up and introduced himself to me officially in real life! If you visited the booth, you could have gotten a bunch of cool ribbons to put on your badge. One for each day the booth was open!

Badges!

 

HawkBlackWell

He came in a champ… left as a legend. One very awesome, and very dedicated player by the name of HawkBlackWell did the unimaginable… he challenged Titan to an Epic BattleOn Battle Cards game!

The stakes were as follows:

If Titan won, he would receive one steampunk trophy.
If HawkBlackWell won, he would receive one permanent NPC in EpicDuel!

The battle was tight… Titan was annihilating HawkBlackWell, and it was in everyones eyes that Titan was going to win. Then, the most magical thing happened. HawkBlackWell played his deadliest card, life swap, swapping his and Titan’s HP. Titan was instantly annihilated.

A deal is a deal, and it was a tournament between Titan and HawkBlackWell. Look for a HawkBlackWell NPC sometime in the future!

 

Epic Cards

 

Returning Home

It’s always sad to leave the wonderful players each year, but there’s always the time where everyone needs to get back to reality, go to school, work… life. Everyone had a great time this year at Dragon*Con, and it was all thanks to you guys, the players. If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t be where we are today.

As usual, we hope to see you next year, for another epic time with the team.

BattleOn!

Practel

Tags: Titan Nightwraith RabbleFroth charfade Cinderella HawkBlackWell Pizza Convention Artix Entertainment Panel Cards NPC DragonCon


Cinderella

August 28, 2012

Daring Draconic Design Notes

DragonCon this Weekend!

Dragon*Con

Hey there, EpicDuelists! With Dragon*Con this weekend, we’ll be rolling a midweek release. Remember that if you visit our fan table in the Hyatt Regency Atlanta (lower level) and write down your character name for us (one per attendee, please; please don’t beg your friends to get free stuff for you) to be awarded the Dragon Slayer armor, which is also available in-game and comes with the Dragon Master achievement! For those who are brand new to EpicDuel, we will be giving out codes redeemable for a free set of starter gear! This is an exciting new feature as it can be used for more special promotions in the future. First time DragonCon attendee? Lucky for you, Cysero has posted a DCon survival guide on the AQW design notes: http://www.aq.com/gamedesignnotes/dragoncon-2012-2072 !

For those who only want the bare-bones details on for meeting us at Dragon*Con, here they are:

This year the Artix Entertainment Panel:

  • The time will be Saturday at 5:30PM
  • The hotel will be the Hilton Atlanta
  • The room will be the "Grand Salon E"

This year's AE Pizza Party:

  • The time will be Thursday at 7:30PM
  • The hotel will be the Marriott Marquis Atlanta
  • The location will be on the 10th Floor, in the Skyline meeting area.

We understand that many of you cannot attend Dragon*Con, but please understand that we are not affiliated in any way with the management or funding of the convention. We cannot ask them to host Dragon*Con in your hometown, and as great as it would be to travel to your city or town to meet you, it is not logistically feasible. Again, we understand that not everyone can travel to Atlanta, GA to visit us, but we do not want those who do stop by to see us to leave empty-handed.

 

A Char-faded Memory

Can you defeat him?

We did not release the first missions for this arc because we were building a new battle feature! With this release, players will be able to team up with the Slayer to defeat Dravax itself and send his master a message he'll never forget! Your missions start with Dravax, who attempts to convince you to hand over Char without conflict. Your quest will then lead you to Mirv, who needs your help to re-enable the turrets defending the planet. Will you surrender Charfade to the Harbinger and its Master? Or will you keep her safe and save Delta V another way?  

 

Bombs Away!

Of course dragons do not exist, but there are insects who are pretty close to spewing fire! Bombardier beetles are a cosmopolitan tribe in the Carabidae consisting of over 500 species of beetle named for their defense mechanism. The beetle maintains two reactant chemicals (hydroquinone and hydrogen peroxide) in abdominal reservoirs, and spray the foul-smelling resulting chemical at enemies. The product is not only foul, but the reaction is highly exothermic, with the spray reaching 100C (ie. Boiling) and quickly volatilizes. This system is often used by creationists as an argument for intelligent design and irreducible complexity, but the use of hydroquinone in defense is conserved in the carabids and hydrogen peroxide is a normal waste byproduct  of cellular respiration. 

Tags: Cinderella charfade MechQuest Dragon Harbinger Dravax Battle Mode DragonCon


Cinderella

December 20, 2011

EpicDuel Home Decorating Contest

EpicDuel’s First Annual House Decorating Contest

In case you haven't heard (that the bird is the word?), it's not too late to enter the EpicDuel Holiday House Decorating Contest! Decorate your in-game home in its holiday finest and post a picture in the ArtixEntertainment Forums by Friday, December 30th at 12 PM (noon) Eastern Standard Time to be considered for the prize, which consists of a personal EpicDuel House Item and a special achievement!

As always, your entry must be your own in-game house (please include your EpicDuel character name), and above all, be creative! See the Forums post for official rules, and Decorate On!

Tags: charfade contest decorating Prizes


Cinderella

August 03, 2011

Rebalancing the Equation

Hi there EpicDuelists! It’s that time of the week again, time to let you know what’s on our agendas for this week!

 

Balance Changes

Last week I promised that we’d implement some balance changes soon, and we’re finally ready to release the planned balance changes!

 

Here’s what we’ve confirmed:

  • Static Charge gets a buff, no longer being reduced by the enemy’s defenses when calculating the energy gain (similar to Atom Smasher)
  • Slight nerf to robots, now using either the robot’s attack or its special ability will send both options into cooldown
  • Buff to Plasma Rain, and Multi-Shot as they will now improve with each 4 points invested in Technology or Dexterity (to match Artillery Strike)
  • Fixed Damage skills will now improve with your character’s level
  • Percentage based skills (Berzerker, Bludgeon, Double Strike, Massacre) will now work like Deadly Aim, applying to the relevant equipped item instead of the entire attack amount

 

This is not meant to be the “be-all, end-all” Ultimate Solution to Balance, but as I’ve said before, we’d rather go in with a scalpel than a sledgehammer. The improved scaling with cast spells required Titan to program a new scaling system, which is a big reason for the delay.  This list is subject to last minute changes as testing progresses!

 

Code Improvements

We’ve managed to fix a few bugs, including one where removing a buddy does not unlink you as allies, one of the sources of lag (hung battles), and a few bugs on our moderator tools.

I’ve also been getting a lot of questions as to why we haven’t implemented more bots into the game, or added more dynamic options (such as battle pets) to the game. The system that bots currently use needed fixing, and Titan is currently building a better system for robots, as well as several other new useful features. We like building new features, and it’s really fulfilling to be able to set the ground work.

 

New Banners!

Charfade’s back from her holiday, and she’s been working on giving the webpage a facelift. I’m not sure when this’ll go up, so I don’t know it has gone up or not when you’re reading this. If it has, good job Charfade! If it hasn’t, also good job, but not as enthusiastically.

 

LQS Restock

As stated in last week's DNs, we plan on restocking the Telsa and Lady Tesla Armors once again with the new release on Friday.  This restock will be small, but we'll try to give everyone who missed out on it last week a chance to grab it! This is the last guaranteed restock.  After this weekend, restocks, if they happen, will be very small and entirely random.  We want to provide a fair chance to as many players as possible to grab the LQS items, but we also want to retain rarity and value of the item for those who were lucky enough to grab it immediately.

 

More?

We'll see what we can squeeze in before the end of the week!  Could be anything!

 

Now we’re E/I!

Not really, but when I asked on Twitter how the players would respond if I started putting an “Insect Fact of the Week” on the Design Notes, the response was overwhelmingly positive. So, this feature will be a regular occurrence!

Here are a couple facts about insect maturity!

When insects mature, they molt- that is, shed their exoskeletons- until they are mature. The developmental stage between each molt is called an “instar”. Since insects do not molt after reaching maturity, the term “instar” only refers to larval or nymphal forms of the insect.

The process of maturing in insects is called “metamorphosis”. Homometabolous insects undergo complete metamorphosis, where the larva forms a pupa, and undergoes a dramatic change. You know about this if you’ve ever seen a caterpillar turn into a butterfly. Hemimetabolous insects go from a nymph to an adult through gradual changes, and the nymph often resembles the adult. An example of this kind of insect would be a dragonfly.

Tags: Cinderella balance Bug Fixes bug facts charfade

 

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