EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

May 01, 2012

Hi there EpicDuelists! It’s your friendly Neighborhood Cinderella here with your weekly dose of design notes!

Confounding Keys

As we noted last week, and many of you have noticed, we now have a new system for building your own promo pack, where instead of a set promotional item, you get “keys” with which you can use to unlock weapons, extra credits, and other goodies.

To clarify some things: all keys must be used at one go, you cannot stock up keys.  You can purchase multiple bonuses to use up your keys if you wish or use them all in one go.  Players who purchased packages prior to this system will not be receiving more keys.  The keys are simply a way to allow you to unlock more bonuses with higher tier Varium packs.  You cannot purchase keys independently from the Varium packages.

If you need some help figuring out how to purchase promos using the new system, Practel has helpfully made this video guide to purchasing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXuVB_TQQZM

Infernal Armaments

Our newest addition to the creative team, Disturbed, has been hard at work on some new weapons as a preview to our next war: the Infernal Infiltration War! Again, we are super-excited to have him around, and he’s going to start working on backgrounds and items for this saga.

I should have an outline turned in by the end of this week for the first part of the saga. As before, player action will have a profound effect on the outcome of the story and impact on the aftermath.

New Mods!

We’re proud to announce the selection of the new members of our moderation team!

In no particular order:

Fay Beee

Daimyo

G00NY

ORDER

Elf Priest Jzaanu

Digital X

Basicball

Practel

Congrats all! If you see them running around with a green name, be nice to them- they’re new!

I also realize that at least one of our selections comes with quite a bit of controversy. Practel has been a tester and a personal friend of the development team up to and including Artix himself for quite a while. While he is not quite of age, AE has made exception for exceptional teens in the past, and we have confidence in Practel that he will live up to our expectations.

Artix & Sepulchure Toys

Cysero of AQW has already done a great job describing the new action figures, so Imma just rip it and post here.  Riiiiiiiiiiiiiip :3

They are nearly here!

My sources (at least the reliable ones) tell me that they are on their way to the U.S. Toys R Us locations right now. They should arrive there a week or two before theyn reach us here and become availible on HeroMart.Com.

People often ask us why we can't get them to Toys R Us locations in other countries and that's mostly because there are different branches of the company and our relationship is so far only with the American branch of the company.

If our stuff keeps selling well in the American branch then we might be invited to start up a relationship with various other branches of Toys R Us... but that's really up to you guys.

Toys R Us gets to set their own price and we want the HeroMart price to be competative with the Toys R Us price so we have to wait and see what they set their prices at before we can set ours. If we decided early and went too high with the HJeroMart price, then we would be shooting ourselves in the foot and losing sales to Toys R Us. If we go to low, then we undercut Toys R Us and they might decide to cut ties with us which kills any future deals we might make with ANY branch.

SO... soon they will get theirs, we will find out what the decide for the price and then we will be able to tell you the HeroMart price whicl will be very close to the store price.

For the special Limited Edition BLACK version of the toys, I'm pretty sure that the price will be $50. It comes with the same in-game items as the normal versions but we made a LOT less of these and you will ONLY be able to get them from HeroMart. These are for hardcore collectors ONLY (or maybe people who want to resell them on E-bay for double price when they sell our and go rare).

More news on that as it arrises.

LiveStream Event with Dage the Evil

As you know, AQW has been inviting their artists to take part in live stream events in the game. The 5th and final artist participating in this particular event is Dage the Evil. I know many of our players are huge fans of Dage, so head on over to AQW around 4 PM EST/Server time.

Tents!

I was in the field a couple weeks ago and I had the opportunity to get up-close and personal with a web full of Eastern Tent caterpillars (Malacosoma americanum)- probably first instar. The tent was at eye level so I could see the caterpillars clearly. This species forms nests in woody roses including cherry, apple, and black cherry. The caterpillars are capable of consuming the cyanide compounds in these plants, but instead of sequestering the compounds in the hemolymph or fat, or metabolizing them, they keep the cyanide in the gut and vomit on would-be predators.

Of lepidopteran social behaviors, those of the Eastern Tent Caterpillars are among the most complex. Eggs are laid by the adults in spring or early summer, and the clutch contains 200-300 eggs. Upon hatching, the caterpillars construct a silk tent where they live communally, venturing outside the tend only to feed. They use vibratory and chemical signals to communicate with their siblings, and thrash as a group when the tent is attacked by a predator. 

They emerge as cute little fuzzy pink or brown moths.

Infernal Infiltration Preview Continued

This is another excerpt from the backstory for the upcoming war. Interstellar Marshalls John St. Alban and Silas Auer are investigating suspicious happenings on Delta V during their war for sovereignty. The two are separated, with Silas being guided by a Shadow Guard Commander, and Alydriah’s right-hand woman, Valestra Hitchens. Known throughout the galaxy as the “Angel of Death”, Valestra is an expert at hand-to-hand and ranged combat, a skilled sniper, and an accomplished poisoner.

They ventured into Fortune City's tenth district. A center for research and innovation, the district was marked by a large hospital, which Valestra explained is where she had learned pharmacology.

"There's someone I want you to meet. He isn't the administrator, but I think you'll like him."

Valestra led Silas to a back office in the basement where a lanky man wearing navy blue was working with his back turned.

"Ulysses!" 

The man turned. He was a man of about 30; tall and long all over, with a visage that seemed to be stuck in a perpetual wonder. His face was thin and wide gray eyes hid behind tinted goggles. A shock of unkempt dishwater blond hair perched awkwardly upon his head.

“Valestra! And is this a boyfriend?”

Valestra laughed. “Aww, Ulysses. You know I’m waiting for you.” She turned to Silas. “Ulysses is a Master Craftsman, brilliant engineer...”

“And a lover of beauty.” Ulysses extended a gloved hand to Valestra, took her hand, and kissed it. “If you’re not Val’s boyfriend...”

“He’s one of the Marshalls. Making sure we’re playing nice.”

“Oh! Well, Marshall, let me show you my latest project... I’m sorry what did you say your name was?”

“I didn’t. It’s Auer. Silas Auer.”

“Auer. Like gold. Splendid!” He picked up a golden object. It was oblong and was carved with strange markings. “Do you know what this is?”

“No. What is it?”

“I have no idea!” He smiled broadly.

“Your project...” Valestra interjected.

“Yes, of course. Pygmalion. That’s the name I gave my creation. It’s a method for extracting the central nervous system of a sick or dying creature and placing it in this ingenious metal suit! So far I’ve only tried it on rabbits and squidlings, but it could revolutionize medicine as we know it!”

As he said this, Ulysses produced a cage containing a little robotic bunny. The cyborg rabbit sadly chewed upon a corncob, and looked despondent and confused. 

“He looks sad.” Silas blurted.

“The alternative was dying from his injuries. This little guy was run over by a ground vehicle,” he said defensively, replacing the rabbit cage. “Lovely to see you, Valestra, but I’m sure I don’t want to waste any more of the Marshall’s time.” Valestra and Silas turned to leave when Silas heard his communicator beep. He read the text message- “Do not trust Alydriah. There’s more than she’s telling you. Find the Delta Vault.”

“What was that?” asked Valestra.

“Spam.  Apparently, there are Fortune City singles who wish to speak with me.” He closed the communicator and smiled rakishly at Valestra, "Intriguing."

She laughed. “Your wife must be jealous.”

“You looked at my background. You know I’m unmarried.”

Valestra smiled to herself. “Come on, there’s more to see, cowboy.”

Tags: Cinderella Infernal Infiltration Delta Knight Keys Varium promotions Moderators Armor Weapons War Toys

April 25, 2012

Livestream Out Loud!

First off, thank you to everyone who joined us on the EpicDuel developer livestream on Sunday. We had a lot of fun answering your questions as Nightwraith drew Jimminy Mole Cricket. Titan showed us the Derp Owl he drew (livestream commemorative item anyone?) as well as demonstrating the new purchasing system, where packages come with “bonus points” to allow players greater flexibility in choosing promotional items and credit bonuses with their package. We’re really excited about it, and it’s coming out for real this time (Titan was hurt enough by #smackTitan)! We also announced that the next big story arc is called the Infernal Infiltration Saga, with a revamped war system.

Delta Knight

During the stream, Nightwraith talked about the Delta Knight armor suggested by Reki, and he was excited about it. You were excited about it, he was excited about it... everyone’s excited about it! And Nightwraith’s been hard at work making it a reality!  That means this Friday, we will be introducing the class-changing Delta Knight armor (a different look for each class!) for sale in game and as part of a Promotional Package.

Mods Selected

Thank you to everyone who applied to be a moderator. We had the difficult task of going through all your applications and selecting the candidates we felt were best suited to the job. For those who weren’t selected: I’m so sorry that we could not offer you a position at this time. I hope you will continue to support ArtixEntertainment as a player even though you weren’t quite what we were looking for from staff. For those who were chosen: congratulations! You should be receiving an email from us soon with paperwork and such.

A Disturbing new development

A Warm Welcome to the newest member of EpicDuel’s development team! Disturbed has joined our team, and he’ll be helping out with artwork. Congrats, Disturbed, and welcome to the team!  Be sure to follow him on Twitter for his latest works in progress!

Cerberoz Livedraw this Wednesday at 4pm!

Join AQW this Wednesday at 4PM EST for Cerberoz's in-game live-draw event! We'll be taking your suggestions over Twitter about what he should draw so that you can see your input shape the item as it appears on the screen!

If you haven't joined us for an in-game LiveDraw event yet, here's what's going on:

You'll want to /join stream once the event starts and you'll be able to watch as one of AE's epic artists draws an item based on your real-time suggestions! That item will go into the Black Market shop in the /stream map and, once the art is polished up, the item will turn into the weapon you've just seen created!

AE heads to Relay for Life!

The world is made up of everyday heroes, and this weekend Artix Entertainment is joining a whole group of them as we race to find a cure to save lives in Relay for Life! We'll be walking, running, /stepdancing, and even /sambaing our way up, down, and around the track for 18 hours from Friday  to Saturday.

If you're in the area, /party up with us at the Charles S Rushe Middle School from 6PM Friday night to 12PM Saturday! We'd love to see all our local players there!

Tags: livestream Derp Owl Mods Disturbed Relay for Life Delta Knight Bug Fixes Cinderella