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 | February 21, 2014 War Two Point OhWhen will the Dread War End?
We've heard your feedback about the Dread War and many players have made it clear they're ready for it to end. Well good news! We’ve been working hard planning exciting improvements to the current system. When we first conceived the Dread War, our goal was to implement an event that could provide perpetual engagement, but over time, a few weaknesses in the system’s design have become apparent and the war has become a bit stale. The current war is complicated, it never ends, it doesn't offer enough rewards, and there is no focal point. This post will explain how we intend to overhaul the current system, and offer up the key points of the proposed new war system. The details are subject to change so please give us your feedback so we can build the best system possible. We believe by borrowing the best ideas from previous phases and prior wars, we can craft a system that is simple to understand, extremely engaging, perpetually rewarding and really, really fun!
As you can see, our dry-erase board breeding program is progressing nicely.
A Sense of Urgency Currently, The Dread War is a global conflict without end. The lack of focus and lack of duration means there’s never any urgency. In past events like The Frysteland War and The Infernal War, there was a clear set of victory conditions. With War 2.0, we hope to recreate this sense of urgency by limiting the scope of the War to one region at a time and structuring it as a race. The War will last until a specific set of conditions are met by either alignments’ forces (we expect these regional conflicts to last roughly 1-3 weeks). When the War in a particular region ends, the environment will visually reflect the winners, and the region will remain in control of the winning alignment until it comes up for contention again in the future. Prizes will unlock for the winners, and the top participating players and factions will be made famous (in a similar fashion to the Infernal War). After a small cooldown period, the next region will activate and the war will continue. The victory conditions in each region will vary to keep the conflicts interesting.
Streamlined Gameplay To a new player, the current War system is baffling. Control points, cooldowns, and other obscure systems are extremely challenging to convey at a glance. As we develop War 2.0, we’ll be streamlining many of the old systems. Mechanics like Influence, Flag Captures and World Dominations will remain, but behave differently from the current system. The gameplay mechanic will evolve from a constant grind for control, to a more focused system where both alignments are racing toward very specific goals. Each regional War will be a race to complete the given objective and whichever alignment fills their global war bar first will win the battle and take control of the region! PvP battles will remain the main driver of conflict, however, Influence will no longer be earned at the end of battle. Instead players will earn Influence by depositing new "War Drops" on War Objectives within the region. These drops will be similar to the grenades in the Infernal War in that they will drop after winning a PvP battle. War Drops will be thematically tied to the currently contented region and can be anything from missiles to computer chips, ammo crates, bricks, cakes, plants, metal, bullets, etc. Players of all levels can obtain and use these items, maintaining a very low barrier of entry for War participation.
Showoff If you fight hard to be the greatest champion EpicDuel has ever know, you deserve a place of honor. With War 2.0 we hope to give greater exposure to exceptional players who make the greatest contribution to the war effort. Interactive leaderboards will display the leading players and Factions for each alignment. At the end of each regional War, the bravest, most dedicated soldier will be displayed prominently until the region is contested once again.
War Prizes By defining a clear beginning and end for each regional War, we can offer real rewards for the victor. At the end of each War, players on the winning alignment will gain access to exclusive prizes. To add variety to this experience, players can select a prize from a list. These prizes could be never-before-seen weapons or currency prizes like Credits and Arcade Tokens. Each region will draw a new set of prizes to choose from, and the prize pool will continue to expand as the regional wars progress. These rewards will only be available to those who participate on the winning alignment, and they will only be available until the next regional War begins. We will also be adding additional levels to each regional War achievements. If you’re at level 10 or close in any of the regions, you’ll be able to battle your way to an even higher Rating Point score! Also, the highest scoring player at the end of each day will receive a War Hero achievement. This achievement will have a tracker to record each time you qualify for this prestigious distinction.
EpicDuel Evolution War 2.0 will herald a new phase of EpicDuel development: EpicDuel Evolution. This new phase will be unlike any before it – over the last few months we have been gradually building tools and tutorials to allow EpicDuel’s future to be directed by a force more powerful that the mighty Titan himself: our Community.
Over the years we’ve attracted some amazingly talented and ambitious players. Our player base may be much smaller than AdventureQuest Worlds, but the level of talent is no less. Our intention for EpicDuel Evolution is to allow more input and direct involvement from our players to influence things like content creation and balance. If you were shy about contributing content or ideas to EpicDuel, now is a better time than ever to express because soon we’ll be offering the resources to make them a reality!
We're aiming to activate the first region on Friday, March 7, but as usual this is just an estimate and could be delayed if development demands it. Stay tuned for more details as this exciting new feature evolves! Tags: Nightwraith War Dread War Factions Legion exile Alignment Planning |
| February 06, 2014 Epic Cleanup
This week, we're getting our hands dirty with some deep-cleaning of EpicDuel's inner workings. It's been awhile since we've done optimization so this week we worked hard to fix some nagging bugs and clean up some code to improve performance. These updates don't usually yield many shiny new toys for your enjoyment, but we've worked hard to make sure you're not empty-handed for this update!
Home Decor To assist you with the cleaning process in your homes, we're introducing crabby new home item. These crabs are hungry and ready to clean your homes of any refuse.
We're introducing a total of 31 new home items, including the popular development phase AI trainers. Show off your appreciation of the eras from EpicDuel's past with these awesome new home items!
Matching Last week, we planned on implementing a change to the matching engine to tighten the range at the highest levels. This means that a level 40 should almost never match against a level 35. This change was not thoroughly tested, but this week we're confident in releasing this change. This should encourage fairness and balance among the high level players.
Prize Codes This weekend we'll be giving out more prize codes! As an experiment, we'll be dropping codes more randomly, making it more difficult to "camp" codes with multiple accounts. Follow our Twitter pages to stay updated with the latest developments on these codes and their availability!
Preview Next week, we'll have more awesome items in store for you, including Revontheus' epic new swords, Aphrodite's Woe!
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| January 30, 2014 Heartbreak at Halftime
Get ready to finally experience EpicDuel's new tutorial system! After much testing and polish, we're finally confident that it's ready for prime-time! Give it a try by testing the "A New World" mission chain and letting us know what you think! You didn't think that was ALL we'd be releasing, though, did you?
Heartbreaker As is the seasonal custom, we will be stocking the Alydroid in Alydriah's Spire in Fortune City with a host of Valentine's rares, including last year's promo items: Azraels' bazookas and sidearms! These items will include the cores so if you missed the promo last year, now's your chance to unleash the awesome power of Azrael!
Maintenance The server hamter were upgrade to super-server hamsters...possibly hampster ferrets early this morning. Ideally, this would have happened without much notice, but for reasons beyond our control (and some within our control) the EpicDuel servers were down much long than intended. We should have done a better job preparing you in advance for this outage, and we apologize for that oversight. However, we will do our best to make it up to you with a couple exciting additions this release!
Power Weekend! To try to make up for the lost dueling time, this weekend, we'll be offering Power Hour all weekend long! Double XP and double Credits! Just log in and play and become a Legend faster than ever! Titan is also making some changes to how Power Hour works to give us more flexibility to do day-long or weekend-long Power Hour events more easily in the future!
Prize Code! We haven't done one in awhile, so this weekend, we'll be offering new prize code items! Follow our Twitter pages to stay updated with the latest developments on these codes and their availability!
Secret Package Revealed! That's right! After nearly a year, we'll finally be unwrapping that mysterious Secret Package earned from the Tea and Titan mission. When we go live, the mission item will automatically be converted to the item so you won't need to do anything to unwrap the package! I hope you think the prize was worth the wait!
As of the release Friday, we will be removing the Tea and Titan mission, in addition to the Yeti Trainer missions. Going forward the only way to train up a Baby Yeti or Dark Yeti to an Omega Yeti will be with the Growth Serums purchasable from the yeti trainers in Frysteland.
Matchmaking Rabblefroth is adjusting the matching engine to enable tighter matching for those at the level cap. It should be MUCH harder for a level 40 to match against a level 35. Also, alignment matching will be loosened for faster matching.
The Big Game In the Achievement shop under the seasonal tab, you can find the Big Game Achievement! Celebrate the excitement of America's most watched sporting event (or most popular commercial viewing and chip eating event if you're me) with this capstone Big Game Achievement. Do you have all of them? Tags: Nightwraith |
| January 24, 2014 Welcome to Delta V
As you may have noticed, this week's release is a wee bit behind. We've been working all this week and most of the week prior to develop a new tutorial to welcome new players to the worlds of Delta V in style! This requires a lot of custom programming and loads of new artwork to make the experience streamlined and exciting. When finished, it will be leagues ahead of what we have now: randomly placing a new character in the midst of Central Station without the foggiest clue of what to do! Since the success of this new feature is so crucial to maintaining new players, we're devoting the weekend to refining this feature to release early next week. We don't want to risk releasing the tutorial Friday evening, only to find that new players coming in over the weekend are getting stuck, frustrated, and logging out forever! In the meantime, check out this brief rundown of what we have so far. It may not be thrilling for you veteran players, but it is interesting to think about from a game design standpoint: how to introduce EpicDuel to a new player without overwhelming them with options!
Soft Landing Welcome to the Feldspar Flats! This region near Central Station was mark for heavy construction before the war against Baelius. Now, it's littered with the ruins of abandoned scaffolding and rogue construction robots. Miraculously, life still flourishes in this region, as the volcanic soil is quite nourishing for plant life. Your first task will be to move around the screen. This may seem overly-simplistic for veterans, but you might be surprised by how many players first attempt to use the keyboard for movement!
Ok, you've overcome that challenge. Feeling good! Ready for a mission?
AI Trainers (relatives of the M4tr1x AI) will offer simple missions, introducing players to missions as an important means for collecting credits, experience, and items. They will also serve as an introduction to some quick battles against Renegade Junkers. Apparently, years of neglect and dust storms have corrupted their programming and made them openly hostile to new arrivals. Collect Robot Parts to help the AI Trainers reset their programming!
Be sure to disarm them! You'll need all the help you can get to face the enemies ahead!
After completing this mission chain, new players should have a weapon for each slot (primary, sidearm, auxiliary). This will guarantee that new players emerge from the tutorial more battle-ready than before. Whoa! This fellah means business!
Learn about Physical/Energy Damage and Defense/Resistance by defeating a series of Boss Junkers.
These Junkers are bosses in name only. They can be handled easily with the right equipment.
That doesn't mean they're harmless, though.
Gather their Corrupted Chips and return them to your trainer for your reward!
I think I see the problem: It was set to MURDER! Your journey isn't over yet! We've moved the alignment selection from the character creation process to the tutorial. Representative NPCs will plead their case and request your pledge of support. If you accept, you will be offered a new mission to complete an automatch battle.
After you complete the battle (win or lose, all you need to do is complete the battle), turn in the mission, and the gate to Central Station will rise, allowing you to join the rest of the experience EpicDuel community!
Don't forget your "One Small Step" achievement!
Legro Inmortuorum Poster And now a word from HeroMart! HeroMart is proud to offer an Art Nouveau (French for New Art) inspired poster of Dage and his undead legion! This new 24” x 36” high quality poster by Diozz featuring Dage and his undead army will be a great way to make your room feel more alive! Or rather undead.
Order the poster soon, because I don't think anything this awesome is going to stay on HeroMart's shelves for long! Did I mention it also includes a mysterious new blade, Dage's Desolation, in EpicDuel? Tags: Nightwraith Tutorial HeroMart Dage Diozz |
| January 17, 2014 Patch Notes - 1.6.1NEW CHANGES / FEATURES
BUGFIXES
BALANCE
Tags: Nightwraith |
| December 24, 2013 Legendary Patch Notes - 1.5.42NEW CHANGES / FEATURES
BALANCE
BUGFIXES
Tags: Nightwraith |
| December 19, 2013 A Legendary Release
Become Legendary Prepare for the most exciting evolution of EpicDuel since Omega! In addition to an impressive new Varium bundle, we're unlocking level 40! But what happens after you reach 40? Level 40 will allow all players to achieve Legendary status! This means you will continue to earn experience toward Legendary ranks, all the way up to 100! Each Rank will allow you to unlock points to invest in new stat categories. This part of Legendary mode is still in development and will be fully-released after the new year. This is partially because we want to make sure enough players have reached level 40 before turning it on, partially time constraints, and partially because of the next major chage to EpicDuel described below!
10x the Balance! Well, maybe 10 times the balance is a bit of an exaggeration, but this release, we're increasing key stats like health, energy, damage, and defense by a multiple of 10. This means that every point of stat investment will have a significant impact on your overall combat effectiveness. It also means that all the EpicDuel Maximum Damage videos are going to be posting some huge numbers!
In addition to looking impressive, multiplying the stats also gives us finer control for balancing skills. We're making all the adjustments we can before we go live, but we're also hoping that all the battling over the holidays up to level 40 will give us good information on further tweaks.
Blood Hawk Battlegear Mega-Bundle This release, we're unveiling the new Blood Hawk Battlegear Mega-Bundle! For the price of one 10k Varium package, you'll be getting 2 Blood Hawk Battlegear Mutating Weapons, 2 Blood Hawk Slayer Swords, 2 Blood Hawk Bots, and, of course, 10,000 Varium.
These weapons will be available in the one-stop Varium shop for a limited time. For those who would rather purchase the items piecemeal, Frysteland Valestra will be stocked with the Blood Hawk items in-game. These awesome items will come with some killer cores! Check them out: Hawk Guardian
This Active Core comes equipped to all the primary Blood Hawk weapons. When your health is critical, summon a wild Blood Hawk to come to your aid and deliver a devastating claw attack to your opponent!
Blood Hawk Claw
This Blood Hawk Bot skill allows you to summon the spirit of the mysterious Frysteland Blood Hawk to deliver a nasty attack with razor-sharp talons.
Armor Annihilator
As a Blood Hawk, flap your metallic wings and pierce your opponent's armor. The detached feathers detonate as you fly away, temporarily disintegrating the target's armor!
Kawkaw!
Mega Mutations! This Winter, we decided to have a little fun with our new vehicle selection. Indead of riding a bike, you can actually become one of the creatures below! These designs are fully color-customizeable with entertaining travel animation!
Are you Yeti? How Yeti are you? This year you can be an actual Baby Yeti!
Soar above it all as a Blood Hawk!
Dino Hawks are the ancient precursors to the Blood Hawks. They can't fly, but their strong hind legs allow them to move quickly across the snowy landscape.
The final bike is a more conventional vehicle, concepted by G00ny and Smackey El Frog and vectorized by Charfade! It's powerful treads will allow you to tear through the frozen tundra with ease!
Artix Arcade Bonanza! Ever wished you could take your favorite items from another AE game and use them in EpicDuel? After this release, you'll have your chance as we unveil new Arcade games for AdventureQuest, AdventureQuest Worlds, DragonFable, MechQuest, HeroSmash, and OverSoul. By collaborating with the other teams, we've amassed a mighty hoard of legendary weapons!
New Arcade games also mean more Achievements and more leaderboards to dominate. With 6 Arcade prize pools respresenting the biggest AE games, you'll have plenty of reasons to farm Arcade Tokens over the Holidays!
Stylin'! Thanks to the help of Revontheus, we've been able to introduce 30 new Asgardian styles! Alter your looks to resemble a notorious trickster god or a mighty Asgardian warrior.
What more crazy styles will Revontheus create? I have a feeling they have something to do with a moose...
Into the New Year This Legendary release will be our last major release of 2013, but that doesn't mean we're slacking! We already have big plans for 2014, including a tutorial system to welcome and teach new players as well as features to keep the game fresh and exciting for veterans. All the tools we've added to EpicDuel over the years, especially this year, have really streamlined our processes and made delivering feature and content-packed releases easier than ever. We have very high hopes for the future of EpicDuel, and we hope you'll join us in making 2014 Legendary! Happy Juloffenblotten and Frostval from all of your friends at Artix Entertainment! Duel On! Tags: Nightwraith Legends Legendary balance Arcade styles Stats Frysteland Winter Holiday Level 40 upgrade Blood Hawk |
| December 05, 2013 Winter Returns
Welcome back, Duelists! We hope you had a happy and safe Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, or last Thursday of November! Did you complete the Black Abyss Saga? If not, there's still time, but some big changes are coming this Friday to EpicDuel!
Achievement Overhaul The central feature of this latest release is a complete overhaul of the Achievement system. Over time, EpicDuel has released over 300 achievements in multiple categories. Some are seasonal, some are rare, some can only be earned once while other accumulate. We will be consolidating them all into one interface, divided into categories:
From this interface, you will also be able to track your progress in collecting all of the available achievements. To make this feature easier to access, we've readded the Achievement button to the main HUD. Also, you can purchase Badge-style achievements from the main Achievement interface now, instead of seeking out a VendBot.
Winter Rares Return Visit Hank and Valestra in Frysteland to browse a robust selection of returning seasonal rares!
These items will only be around for a limited time, so get them while you can! Speaking of rares, a lot of current seasonal rares will be leaving this Friday, including all the Harvest and Nightwraith seasonal rares. Rabblefroth's Thanksgiving rares will remain a bit longer, but all the Harvest and Nightwraith missions will also be leaving until next year!
Balance This Friday we will also be pushing out a balance update to address energy stealing skills like Static Smash and Static Grenade. Energy stealing skills will be capped to the target’s current energy, thus obeying the laws of thermodynamics.
Preview As I type this, Charfade is busily concepting new armors, vehicles, weapons, and bots for the upcoming winter release. It's going to be a super-sized mega release so we'll need two weeks to complete it!
Stay tuned for further updates!
Royal Wedding Royale  What happens in a video game creators wedding, stays in... nope. It goes right onto YouTube. This actually happened. Inspired byAdventureQuest Worlds weddings, the groomsmen wore Knight armor over their suits and you will not believe what happens next. The only thing this wedding is missing is you... and we are going to fix that! Join us at sundown on Friday the 13th for a very special AQWorlds in-game wedding event!
 If you find it worthy, please like and share this video. Tags: Nightwraith Frysteland Juloffenblotten Hank Valestra Achievements Winter Seasonal Rares Weapons previews Wedding Artix snow Frost |
| November 26, 2013 New Mobile Game!?Battle Gems is coming soonMore news from Artix! Get the latest info on AdventureQuest: BattleGems! Do you have an iPhone, Android, iPod, iPad, iToaster, iSock or iWeirdSenseOfHumor? This holiday season we plan our releasing our first major mobile game! It is an RPG/Battle-Puzzle game calledAdventureQuest: Battle Gems. You battle by touching the screen and connecting 3 or more gems of the same type. We got creative and added slime levels, lava challenges, bombs, cages, and a bunch of other crazy game mechanics. As you read this we are in the home stretch of creating the game's 140+ monsters and 256 levels.
Yes, it will be free. Probably an optional upgrade in it -- but we do not know what yet, we have been competely focused on the gameplay and level design. We want you to fall in love with our first mobile game. The Battle Gems project was started to "teach us how to make mobile games" so we would be ready to create a mobile version of AdventureQuest Worlds. It turned into something really amazing... we hope you will be one of the first people to download it and try it out when it is ready this December. Want to be the first to know when it goes live!? Like the BattleGems Facebook page! Tags: Nightwraith |
| November 22, 2013 The Dark Harvest
It's that time again! Time for family, giving thanks, and, of course, battling to save the world! We've crammed so much into this release that we'll need to hold off on releasing today (Friday) and instead release next Tuesday! Sorry for the inconvenience, but we're sure this update will be worth it. New bots, weapons, missions, achievements, an incredible boss fight, and a new item bank system! There should be something for everyone in this latest harvest release!
Darkness Rises The evil Chairman Platinum was defeated by the combined efforts of Delta V's warriors and Elon Musk, but while his EbilCorp Factory was active, it stirred something terrible in the depths of Delta V's cavernous interior.
This mysterious region of Delta V is known as the Black Abyss. Years after the initial colonization of Delta V, Baelius' scientists concluded that there was nothing of value in this region so it was sealed off from all mining and exploration operations. At least, that was the official story. Once again, Legion and Exile forces are threatened by this fearsome new enemy. If it is not defeated, this may be the last Harvest Festival for the citizens of Delta V. Fortunately, new technology has emerged to help you prepare for the trials ahead!
Into the Black Abyss The dark substance that emerged from the Ebilcorp Factory site was unlike anything Delta V scientists have ever seen. Like most new discoveries, however, it was quickly adopted for the manufacturing of new weapons! The Black Abyss Battlegear will be available in physical and energy flavors from an NPC near the current site of the Wasteland's SolarWorld Factory.
Again, the Black Abyss Battlegear will be available in-game with a new, locked, active core. We'll post more about that as we finalize details. We are also restocking Rabblefroth with the seasonal Thanksgiving rares. Be sure to stop by and check them out if you missed them last year! In addition to new weapons, we will be introducing an exclusive new Varium package that will include 2 new bots, the Black Abyss Bots! In addition to dealing a devastating slash attack, it is also capable to unleashing powerful secondary skill. Again, we will post more details as they become finalized.
Mighty Missions An epic-sized release wouldn't be complete without new missions, and new missions wouldn't be complete without new achievements! Collect the new seasonal-rare Turkey Terminator achievement from any VendBot. It will only be available for a limited time so get it while you can. Also, the Hallowarrior Achievement will be leaving to make room for this new achievement, so if you haven't picked it up yet, now's your last chance!
New Achievements will also be available for completing the new mission chain related to the anomaly in the Black Abyss. One does not just walk into the cavernous depths of Delta V so level up and perfect your builds for one of the greatest challenges yet!
Bank Access Bots This release introduces the new BankBot system, more accurately described as a Bank Access Bot. Once the release is live, you will be able to load inventory items into a centralized "bank." This bank can be accessed from any BABot you have on one of your homes. To make access as easy as possible, we are gifting all players one free Basic BABot with 20 bank slots. This feature introduces a lot of changes to the current inventory system so I will list them as clearly as possible:
Stay tuned for more updates on this epic upcoming release! Tags: Nightwraith Black Abyss Bugs Turkey Thanksgiving Holiday Sale Cores Banks Inventory Bot Cores Weapons Achievements Boss Missions |
| November 14, 2013 Big Balance Bonanza
Prepare for one of the most comprehensive balance updates EpicDuel has ever seen! Every class will be affected as we focus on making battle more interesting, strategic, and fair. We understand that these changes can be rough, especially as everyone struggles to find new builds and strategies, but know that we're trying our best to keep all the classes fun, interesting, and competative. Balance is not my specialty, so I'll defer to our resident Numeromancer Rabblefroth. If you wish to comment about the changes or following the specific nuances of the changes, you can follow this thread in the AE forums! The following is a quote from Rabblefroth in the thread's first post. Hey everyone!
Black Friday Preview A dark force is awakening in Delta V. Elon Musk may have stopped the Chairman's Ebilcorp factory from destroying the planet, but he couldn't stop the evil Chairman from disturbing something that was better left forgotten.
Something is returning. Something that has slept for thousands of years. Something that is very hungry. Stay tuned for more updates on this new threat! Tags: balance preview Thanksgiving Skills Weapons Black Friday Nightwraith |
| November 07, 2013 Shameless Self Indulgence
Prepare to party! This week, celebrate the birthday of EpicDuel's resident artist/assassin: Nightwraith. New missions, new weapons, and revamped skills await for your celebratory needs! As if that weren't enough reason to celebrate: the winners of the Creative Carving Contest will be announced in-game at Elon Musk!
Back to Party Business Visit me at my usual haunt in the Wasteland to investigate my stash of weapons and armors! Do you have your OneX6 Keys? No? We've got you covered -- you can either buy one directly or win one by completing a new mission. Be warned: I've been buffed to level 36 so I'm not the pushover I used to be!
The classic birthday missions are also returning, with a few new additions in case you've already completed the old ones. Complete them all for huge rewards!
Suggestion Shop In addition to hunting bounties and weaving baskets, I (Nightwraith) am EpicDuel's lead artist, but I don't mind sharing the spotlight with aspiring artists. That's why we're combining my birthday celebration with the introduction of a new round of suggestion shop weapons, created from ideas submitted from our creative EpicDuel community!
It's been way too long since we've done a shop like this so we're really going all out. We hope to have over 12 new weapons culled from the best of the best suggestions. Charfade and I are working as hard as possible to deliver more, but this is a thoroughly packed release. The weapons are still in progress so check back for a full list of items and their associated artist after we go live. If your suggestion was not selected, that does not mean it was terrible or we hate you -- it just means it may have to wait for the next suggestion shop. Hopefully it won't take a full year to do another one! I wouldn't be surprised if more items enter the game next week!
Arcadia It wouldn't be a proper birthday without a new Arcade Game!
Horrifying! Give it a spin and be the first to claim the grand prize! As with other games, Nightwraith's Nightmare will introduce it's own new evolving achievment and leaderboard!
Cheevo Counter Speaking of achievements -- we now have tracking for many of the daily achievements like the 1v1 and 2v2 automatch daily winners. Players who win the daily achievements multiple times will increment their number on the appropriate achievement.
Active Update To address balance this update, we will be tweaking a few energy numbers from last week's update, but we also have a far grander change in store: Converting all passive skills into active ones.
That means Blood Lust, Reroute, Deadly Aim, Shadow Arts, Adrenaline, and all the Armor skills will be converted into active skills. Blood Lust and Reroute will become Mark of Blood and Battery Backup respectively. The purpose of this change is to add strategy to battle. Currently, passives grant HUGE benefits with little sacrifice, especially for level cap players. Active skills require more sacrifice in terms of energy cost and turn cost. To compensate for these sacrifices, the effects of the skills will be modified. This change will affect all classes so we're really interested to see what new strategies emerge from this change.
Adrenaline
Hybrid Armor, Mineral Armor, and Plasma Armor
Reroute
Deadly Aim
Blood Lust
Shadow Arts
Contest Announcement
When this update goes live, be sure to visit Elon Musk for a list of the winning entries! The effort so far has been stellar with such short notice. We are currently in the process of judging entries and narrowing down the list of finalists! Tags: Titan Nightwraith Suggestion Shop Elon Musk contest Arcade Missions balance Skills Weapons Birthday |
| November 01, 2013 Patch Notes - 1.5.37NEW CHANGES / FEATURES
BALANCE
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| October 31, 2013 Musk Mania Continues
You've done it! The forces of Ebil have been vanquished from Delta V with the help of Elon Musk. This week, enjoy even more spoils of war with new weapons, new home items, balance improvements, new missions, and a new arcade game!
Musk and Ebil Gear! Try your luck at the new Musk Mania arcade game for Musk-tech and Ebil-tech loot not available anywhere else in-game!
Can you win the grand prize?
Pumpkin Hunt! Visit Musk to embark on an epic hunt spanning all of Delta V! Musk is preparing something special for you if you can complete all of his scavenger hunt missions and retrieve all the weird, wild pumpkins from the far corners of the planet!
Be vigilant! Some pumpkins will be harder to find than others!
Home Decor Some of those pumpkins mentioned above, as well as several new Musk and Ebilcorp-themed items will be available as home items for your decorating pleasure!
Not so intimidating now, are you, Chairman?
Balance Another change coming to this Friday's release is a balance update that will specifically address cores. For many builds, it is more useful to use a series of cores than to invest in particular skills and stats. For this reason, we are adding energy costs to many cores. This change will require you to think strategically about reserving enough energy to use all of your cores and necessary skills, adding variety and tactical choice to battle. This is not the last balance change we have in mind, but because it is quite a big change, we could not fit in any other adjustments this week. Look for more farther reaching changes in the coming weeks.
Storefront Cleaning Next week, to refresh the Varium store, we are clearing out the following Varium packages:
Exile package Legion Package Dread Package If you have not already picked up one of these exclusive and powerful packages, now is the time to do so. Next week, they will no longer be available in the Varium store or in-game. Also, the items featured in the packages will be available for resale if you need the extra loot. Again, this change is not happening until NEXT WEEK so you still have another week to pick them up before they're gone! We wanted to announce this a week in advance so it didn't take anyone by surprise! Tags: balance Arcade Weapons Elon Musk SolarCity SpaceX Tesla Nightwraith |
| October 25, 2013 Patch Notes - 1.5.36
NEW CHANGES / FEATURES
Tags: Nightwraith |
| October 25, 2013 Ebil's End
Thanks to you and your fellow duelists, Chairman Platinum and his vile sludge factory are all but defeated! When the life bar finally falls, get ready to access Elon Musk's SolarWorld factory, to be contructed on the ruins of Ebilcorp's sluge machine. Within, you'll find many awesome gadgets, including and exciting new power. What power you ask? How about the power of flight!
The new Flight Module equips in your vehicle slot just like bikes and hovercraft. The module is activated by typing /fly to takeoff and again to land. This new flight ability looks great when combined with the new Musk Husk Armor, a mass-production version of Elon Musk's power suit.
This elegant, yet efficient design is able to adapt to any class or gender. If you don't have the stomach for air travel, you can always try a more grounded method: the Model L hovercar!
This new vehicle allows the driver to travel in luxury and privacy while preserving the environment!
Core Contingency The SolarWorld factory will also house two new cores for your dueling pleasure! Piston Punch
Deliver a solid, solar-powered punch that absorbs your opponent's energy with this new active armor core! The energy absorbtion is based on your armor's Defense and Resistance values. Critical Heal
Always have a backup...especially when your life is on the line! This armor core improves the effectiveness of Field Medic when you're in critical condition (less than 20% HP).
Rare Harvest While you're in the Wasteland, you might want to visit Snork in his subterranean home beneath the Minetower to check out some of his awesome returning seasonal rares!
Also, be sure to check out the Event-based Harvest missions and collect the Hallowarrior achievement! There's more holiday fun to be had next week -- we just need to boot that pesky Chairman off the planet for good! Tags: Elon Musk Nightwraith Lotus James Bond Car Vehicle SolarCity SpaceX Chairman Platinum EbilCorp Armor Battle Green Energy Rares Solar Cores |
| October 16, 2013 Meet Mr. Musk
Ebilcorp is back with a vengeance as Chairman Platinum is attempting to suck Delta V dry of all its precious resources. Fortunately, a more benevolent businessman, Elon Musk, has arrived on Delta V and he's ready to help. Complete Musk's missions to defeat the Chairman and dismantle his life-sucking factory. To help you on your journey, Musk is selling 4 new passive cores to give your stats a much-needed boost!
Visit Musk in the middle of Fortune City for a complete list of your tasks. If you complete them all, you'll be rewarded with material treasures, but you can also gain a wealth of knowledge about this real-life innovator.
In addition to a full character bio, you can also watch intensely cool videos. You haven't seen anything until you you've seen machines turn 20,000 lb spools of metal into working vehicles. You can see firsthand how Musk is bringing the technology of the future to the present!
Are they assembing the next generation of powered armors? Only one way to find out!
Challenge the Chairman! You thought Chairman Platinum would learn his lesson after the beating Delta V's dilligent duelists gave him and his cronies last year, but I guess if at first you don't succeed...
...build a giant, resource-sucking factory on your enemy's homeworld? Classic Chairman! The only way to shut down his Ebil Factory of Doom in the Wasteland is to defeat the Chairman, but he's too tough to take on in a 1v1 duel. Fortunately, Musk has volunteered to help you and your fellow duelists crush the Chairman and send him packing. However, you'll need to gather a few supplies for Mr. Musk to help him devise the technology necessary for blasting the sinister CEO. The Factory's strength is measured by a War Bar at the top of your screen. By defeating the Chairman, you can help take the bar down and bring Delta V one step closer to ridding itsself from Chairman Platinum for good! According to Musk, he can re-engineer the factory to be a source of renewable, clean energy. There may also be some other amazing prizes inside once the Ebilcorp Factory's defense are eliminated.
If you defeat him, you'll be rewarded with an achievement. Why fight him again, you may ask? Good question!
We've add boss defeat tracking to all "boss" achievents. That means every time you bring the pain to Titan, Nightwraith, Caden, or any other NPC that offers an achievement, your achievement will track the number of times you were victorious! Unfortunately, this change is not retroactive so if you want to rack up the wins on the other boss NPCs, you'll have some work to do!
Scavengers Over the course of Elon Musk's epic mission chain, you'll have the opportunity to try a new mission type: scavenger hunt!
NPCs can now direct you to search a specific region of the world to find a mission item. Look carefully -- some items may not be as easy to find as others!
Musks' Cores Musk has come to Delta V packing some pretty amazing technology -- including these 4 passive cores that buff the stats Strength, Technology, Dexterity, and Support!
If you want an extra edge over your opponents, these cores will provide a great way of doing so! This release is packed to the brim with content, but we're not done yet! Once the Chairman's factory falls, the real party can begin! Tags: Nightwraith SolarCity Tesla Innovation Elon Musk Chairman Platinum EbilCorp Cores Missions SpaceX |
| October 15, 2013 Need Account Help?Make Sure to Use the Help Pages!Player Support is the first line of defense whenever you have ANY issue, be it payment, account, technical, or game-related, and we personally read EVERY email sent to us. We’re a small team, but we are MIGHTY in our power to help solve your problems and make sure you enjoy our games as much as possible!
The Player Support team is made up of:
Where Else to Get Help?You should only email the Help Pages! For us to help you in the best and fastest way possible, we NEED you to use them, not Twitter, Facebook, or the forum! If you post on Twitter, Facebook, or the forum, that just means our team members need to redirect you to the Help Pages anyways! (It's also very easy for our team members to miss your important posts on social networking sites, because sometimes they need to sleep.) Using the Help Pages right from the start means we can start helping you confidentially and directly as soon as we read your email. (Remember, because real people read each email we get, it may take between 1-3 business days to respond!) Where ARE the Help Pages?You can find them linked on each of our game websites! Account Safety TipsThere’s nothing I enjoy less than a stolen account. I’m sure you feel the same way - who wouldn’t?! So here are some tips to help keep your account safe and out of the hands of thieves.
We Don't Want to Ban or Mute You!We have rules in place to help keep ALL our players safe and having fun in AQWorlds! Make sure you follow the rules so you don't have your account muted, banned, or disabled! Not sure if something's ok to do? Review the rules! |
| September 27, 2013 Arcade InboundThe Arcade is nearly here, but before Valestra officially has her Grand-Grand Reopening for her Arcade, I'll walk you through the newly renovated Arcade.
You know Valestra's, right? Fortune City's premiere hangout -- at least before Baelius banished most of the population to an interdimensional prison. If you're new to the game or just never explored much beyond Central Station, you can find Valestra's in Fortune City tucked behind Alydriah's Spire. Don't worry, there's a sign.
Token Time! Once you're in Valestra's you can activate one of many ArcadeBots. You can't miss them -- there's a least one on every screen. An Arcade interface will immediately appear, displaying a game title, prize, list, leaderboard, and buttons for playing / purchasing more Arcade Tokens. One Arcade Token gets you one press of the "GO" button. That's one chance to hit the Jackpot. Even if you miss, you'll leave with something nice. Arcade Tokens are easy enough to come by -- Daily Missions reward one Arcade Token as a reward for completion of the mission chain.
Maybe you don't want to play once. Maybe you want to mash the "GO" button until it shakes the whole Arcade, and all the players around you give you the old shifty eyes look and back away slowly. If that's they case, we appreciate and accommodate your enthusiasm. Each ArcadeBot features an option to buy one Arcade Token or a bundle of ten. Since they don't take up space in your inventory, you can buy as many as you want.
Just be mindful of your Varium balance -- once you hit a winning streak, it might be difficult to stop!
Game Changer Snork's Stash not exciting you? Choose from 3 other games/prize pools buy using the navigational arrows. Each game offers a different assortment of prizes. We look forward to offering many new prize pools in the future with truly unique rewards!
Prizes aren't the only different aspect of each game. Every time you deposit an Arcade Token, you earn a score based on your prize -- the higher the tier (Bronze, Silver, or Gold), the better! All the different games store an individual score based on your success. This score comes with a unique achievement that evolves as your score grows! Currently, we are offering 5 tiers per achievement. Can you level them all?
Each game also features an all-time leaderboard displaying the top scoring players with your current score displayed alongside them.
What are you waiting for? Grab your Arcade Tokens and head over to Valestra's Arcade! You can't win if you don't play! Tags: Arcade Nightwraith Credits Prizes tokens Achievements evolution Games |
| September 12, 2013 Going Up!
Are You Ready for a Challenge? After weeks of controlling events from behind the scenes, Administrator 10 and the mysterious Exile Leader are ready to step into the spotlight, and they’re taking matters into their own hands! Team up with a friend to challenge these foes and claim their achievements for your own! These bosses will be some of the most challenging in game, but we’re not without mercy. To make it easier to triumph over these foes, we’re raising the level cap!
Level Up! At long last, we have increased the level cap to 36. It won’t be quick or easy to reach so we’re sure there will be a mad dueling dash to be the first to reach it. The first players to reach this goal will be able to upgrade their gear and skills to become the most powerful duelists on Delta V! Will you be strong enough to defeat Administrator 10 and the Exile Leader?
Daily Missions In between duels, Administrator 10 and the Exile Leader will have some new tasks for you. Check back with them daily for missions and rewards. The missions will be part of a chain so players will need to complete all of them in order to receive the best reward! To keep missions from becoming monotonous, we’ll be cycling in new chains each day to guarantee that there’s always something exciting to do on Delta V!
Arcade Returns!
Remember the Arcade? We haven’t forgotten, and we’re working on implementing a new and improved version next week. Under the new system players will be able to deposit Arcade Tokens for a chance to win anything from a pile of credits, to never-before-seen weapons, to previously retired rares (gasp)! Tags: Nightwraith Missions Daily Level Cap Arcade Prizes Legion exile War Challenge Achievements |
| September 06, 2013 Yaaaaar Design Notes
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!
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!
Also, the Talk Like a Pirate achievement will also be returning!
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.
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?
I hope they're on my team!
Patch Notes 1.5.30 NEW CHANGES / FEATURES
BUGFIXES
Tags: Nightwraith Pirate Achievements Toast Titan RabbleFroth charfade Administrator 10 |
| August 28, 2013 Seasonal Rare RestockAs we noted in previous DN posts, we have automated the seasonal rare restock process. This means that we can plan releases for seasonal content well in advance without even requiring a server restart. It also ensures that we won't miss any items. Since there are some items using this system in game, it seems appropriate to let you know when this ephemeral equipment will leave the game for another year. All dates are Eastern Time (Lab Server Time) at 12:00AM. Don't know how to figure that out from your Time Zone? There's a website for that!
Titan's Gear
Dragon/Charbinger/Back-to-School Gear
Talk Like a Pirate Day
Tags: Nightwraith |
 | August 27, 2013 Mini Mission Update
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 When: Saturday, Aug 31st @ 2:30pm until 3:30pm 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
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:
Item Resale Correction
Mission Bug Fixes
Tags: DragonCon Nightwraith RabbleFroth charfade staff mission Bugs |
| August 22, 2013 Mission Overhaul
Dragon Returns It's that time of year again! Time for Summer to slowly ease out into Fall. Time for students to go back to school. Time for...DRAGONS!
The classic Dragon and Back-to-School items will be returning to The Slayer, along with the Charbinger weapons and Harbinger Armor from last year's Dragon's Reckoning Saga! Some of these are limited quantities, so better move fast! It's All About Timing Rabblefroth's programming skills have allowed us to put seasonal items on a schedule. This means that items like the Heartbreaker weapons or the Independence Day gear will automatically stock in the shops without requiring a restart. This means we'll never have to worry about forgetting to add something as the list of seasonal content grows every year. This will also give players a larger heads-up before we add and remove gear from the various shops. Mission Overhaul Those of you who have been around awhile have probably noted the lack of missions lately. The existing system has a number of flaws that make adding missions cumbersome. For one, NPCs do not support more than 4 missions. With a small-ish cast of NPCs, this means if we want to add more, we have to move or remove missions. Another reason is that mission are hard to find. Aside from players who closely follow the Wiki and these Design Notes, most players would only stumble upon missions through luck. Even after finding a mission, there is still the matter of navigating the mission chain, which is often unclear. Because of those flaws and because so few players were able to experience the missions we were adding, we made a conscious choice to stop adding new missions until we could build a better system.
Now, we finally have that system! From the Mission button at the bottom of the main interface, players can view a directory of all available missions! This will allow players to view different mission categories like Permanent, Seasonal, and Daily, view details about those missions, and jump to the NPC offering them. As a minor housekeeping task, we have grouped many existing missions into chains, altering them slightly to flow together naturally. We also filled several gaps in term terms of missions for low to mid-level players (1-20) so players getting familiar with the game will have more opportunities for credits!
Because this is new system with many changes and opportunities for critical bugs, we will not be offering Daily missions this release. If everything works with few or no bugs, however, we could see Daily missions very soon!
Finding Mission has never been easier! With a little time and effort, you'll be rolling in credits! Tags: Nightwraith Missions Dragons Weapons |
| August 16, 2013 Shields Up!
Shields Activated! Defend your hard-fought War Objectives with Shield Generators! These critical structures allow you to reinforce the influence of other structures you own in a certain region. Like Turrets, Shield Generators can only be used on another structure within the same region.
Like Turrets, Shield Generators have 3 levels of improvement depending on the amount of your Alignment's Influence.
New War Objectives! Building upon the Turret release last week, we have added Turrets and Shield Generators to all contested regions. Here's a quick look at the new Objectives and their locations. Better hurry if you want a foothold in a heavily disputed region!
Wasteland Missile Turret
Barrens Shield Generator
Central Station Cannon
Central Station Shield Generator
Overlord Shield Generator
Bio Cannon
Naval Yard Shield Generator (formerly Propaganda Tower)
New Titan Cores! Titan's birthday may be over, but he's not done giving just yet. Visit him in his frosty Frysteland lair to try three new Charge Cores!
Bacon Breath Unleashes the powerful scent of bacon on your target, dealing 114% weapon damage.
Titan Chomp Summon Titan to chomp your target for 114% weapon damage.
Bacon Rain Rains down delicious bacon, dealing 114% weapon damage to the target.
Matchmaking Rabblefroth is also making some fine adjustments to the Alignment matching. It should allow for better quality matches, especially in 2v2. Tags: Nightwraith Shields Factions War Objectives Turrets Cannons Destruction Cores Charged Titan Birthday |
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