EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

February 08, 2013

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• Lowered character retrain cost from 20 Credits per level (500 max) to 10 Credits per level (250 max)
• Lowered item retrain cost from 250 Credits to 100 Credits
• Vendbots have finally learned how to buy items from you
• Veteran and Advanced Battlegear are now Rare Promo items
• Mutating armors are now labeled as such in inventories
• Added a resale value to Bacon drops from Titan

BALANCE CHANGES:

NOTE: These are far from the only changes we plan on making. We wanted to make these encompassing changes first to make sure we aren't over-tuning other skills or classes at the same time.

• Health and Energy now grows by 1 point every even level (So level 35 players will have an extra 17 health)
• Juggernauts now match with players 6-10 levels lower (Changed from 3-8 levels lower)

BUGS FIXED:

• Missions would stop counting wins past 255
• Items with no resale value (Grenades and Chairman Bux) now have their proper resale value
• Missions rewards will now come with appropriate weapon damage instead of 0
• Missions that require rusted weapons have been updated to require different weapons
• NPCs would sometimes fail to drop mission items
• Changing worlds very rapidly could result in a server kick
• Leaving a battle early would still grant battle rewards
• The item finder now supports apostrophes (') in search
• Awarded missing Enhancer achievements to players that were supposed to receive it
• NPC fights no longer show a visual loss during battle
• Renamed duplicate mission "A Frosty Redux"
• Poison/Frostbite damage now update your bottom-left HP/EP bars
• Field Commander and Blood Commander were able to be cast on top of each other
• Chairman's Fury is now properly a one-time use
• Thorn Assault is now properly a one-time use

Tags: Patch Notes Titan

February 04, 2013

The time has finally come! Omega is nearly upon us and this is your last chance to be an Omega Founder and obtain the Golden Omega Ticket!

In addition to giving the Omega Onslaughter (mutating physical), Omega Obliterator (mutating energy), Omega Slayer (energy sword), Omega Impaler (physical sword), Dark Yeti (energy bot), and Baby Yeti (physical bot), the ticket also entitles you to a slot in the Golden Yeti Tournament!

This preorder ticket is the ONLY way to participate in this event and will disappear forever as soon as Omega goes live!

We are in the final testing phases and should be ready to roll tomorrow. Time is quickly running out to take advantage of this amazing offer! Are you yeti for Omega? We are!

Tags: Titan

January 31, 2013

This morning after logging into the live server I realize that we have made roughly 2 kabillion improvements and changes over the past several weeks of Omega development. I thought it was worth summarizing all the things we've done, to show you just where we are in terms of development progress:

Tags: Titan

January 22, 2013

Did you know EpicDuel has it's own Official Youtube channel? If not, you probably didn't know that EpicDuel Mod and tester Practel just released a new video showing footage from the developer server testing Cores and the new stat editing system. Practel also answers some frequently asked questions about Omega. 

What are you waiting for? Check out the video now! Be sure to watch the video until the very end!

Tags: Titan Omega Video Practel Cores Youtube

January 20, 2013

For those in the know, following us on Twitter is the best way to stay up to date with the latest EpicDuel developments. It's also the best way to get prize codes! To keep the excitement going leading up to Omega, we've been offering some pretty saucy rewards this weekend. Tonight, at 6:00 PM EST, Nightwraith will be posting a prize code that can be redeemed for an item never before released in-game! There is a limited supply, so be ready as soon as the code is posted for the best chance of redeeming the prize!

If you're new to the game or need a refresher course on redeeming codes, here's a post we wrote awhile ago explaining the process!

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 2: Select the "Prize Code" option

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.

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!

Tags: Titan

January 18, 2013

Hey there, quick post. I was working on a big DN post elaborating on Core and some other key Omega features, but I relized some of these items are too difficult to explain even in the simplest terms. Our testers are hard at work on Omega videos to demonstrate Cores and other Omega features. These should be much clearer than a paragraph or even a series of screenshots. Next week, we will be posting a series of detailed Design Notes about Omega and it's features, including compensation for players with enhancements, a detailed breakdown of cores and how they work, EpicDuel beyond Omega, and a specific release date (for real this time!)

Stay tuned as development continues!

Tags: Titan Omega Cores

January 16, 2013

I'd like to offer up a few quick clarifications on how cores will work as we move into Omega.  I know there have been a good number of questions about how existing abilities will transition as we go forward and I'll try to offer some clarity here:

All item abilities will carry over into Omega.  If you currently have an item with a special ability on it, that special ability will be equipped on your item when you login.  You'll see a new icon inside the item details pane that visually shows any abilities your item has.  These abilities are called "Cores" in Omega.  You'll have two core slots available on all of your Weapons, Guns, Auxiliaries, and Armors when the release launches.  In the picture below, you see the Passive Core slot on the left and the Active Core slot on the right.

Above is a sample of roughly what the inventory will look like when you login.  Notice the tiny lock icon that appears on the Spreadfire icon within the item details pane.  This lock indicates that the Passive Core on Dage's Haunted Boomstick cannot currently be replaced with a new core.  Because the system is going to be new to everyone, including us, we're going to initially lock any core slots that already include a special ability.  This is a safety measure to prevent players from accidentally replacing exclusive cores that might no longer be available for sale.  As you can see in the picture, you can still edit the Active Core, upgrade the stats on the item, and reconfigure it any way you like.    

This part is really important: Just because a core slot is currently locked on a particular item does NOT mean that the slot will remain locked permanently.  The beauty of the new system is that we can lock and unlock the core slots at our discretion.  Consider a passive ability like Exoskeleton.  Exoskeleton is an "event ability" that was useful against the Delta Vault during the Infernal Infiltration War.   Now that the war is over, Exoskeleton doesn't serve much purpose in normal battle.  In Omega, when we're ready, we will unlock the Exoskeleton core slot and allow players to replace it with a new Passive Core of their choice.   The point here is that we can unlock core slots on items whenever we want or need.  This will allow a high level of flexibility for creating exclusive weapons, event items, and specialty cores, while simultaneously not junking up the database with a bunch of obsolete items. 

So if you're eagerly waiting to crack some skulls with that special item in your inventory, you're in luck.  A primary goal of Omega is make sure that all items remain viable battle options.  Like the way a sword looks but don't like it's current stats?  change'em up ...   Or maybe you own a cool set of blades but the special ability is no longer useful for your build?  Swap it out.   

The main takeaway here is that we're going to do our best to ensure you always have options to customize and improve your gear.  I'll offer up more about the process of adding a core to an item soon, but for now back to the code!

Tags: Titan

January 15, 2013

When Omega launches, every single action you can issue in battle, including Strike, gun, bazooka, all of your skills, all of your item special abilities, and well, everything is now handled by a 100% new "core-based" battle engine. Sound fancy? That's partly because it is. If you haven't heard, the 9500-lines-of-code-long battle engine that is the heart of EpicDuel has been rewritten for this release.   

Why would we do such a crazy thing?  The primary reason is for future expansion.  For all of you loyal duelers out there, you know that it takes us a good while to create new skills and abilities in game, and we all know it's these new abilities and custom builds that are the most exciting. Omega will dramatically increase the rate at which we can generate new, well-balanced, exciting abilities.

The largest code change in Omega is the overhaul of the battle engine.  So what's different about it?  First, every battle action we create now has over 100 different variables available to manipulate in the database!  This is an increase from only about 30 values previously. This means skills can have more unique effects, and we can recycle effects and functionality more easily than ever.  

Think of this example, say we wanted to have 3 similarly functional, yet visually different abilities... maybe three skills that rain down damage on your enemy.  Let's say we want one with a fire animation, one with water animation, and one that rains down a bunch of rabid monkeys.  In the old engine we would need to write 3 completely separate skills.  The fact that the skills were similar was previously irrelevant. 

In the new engine, Omega allows us to define "rule sets" that can be applied to any action.  These rules can now very easily be recycled and tweaked. So if Rule Set A defines an action that rains down damage, we can pair Rule Set A with Animation Set A, B, and C to create three different effects without creating loads of extra work. 

This flexibility will mean more exciting battles every time!

This core functionality will also be applied to bots, meaning bots can be created more frequently. In fact, it will be possible to create bots with two active skills or two passive skills. Hopefully this could become a more modular system and allow you to add alternative cores to bots for different battle configurations!

Tags: Titan Cores Omega bots code

January 14, 2013

Sometimes Flash treats you right. It's intuitive, smooth, and responsive. Other times, it's a terrible force of nature that could care less about what YOU wanted to do. You want to move that a few keyframes in this movie clip? How about I delete those keyframes AND corrupt the file?

If you've followed any AE Devs on Twitter for any amount of time, you would have seen at least one rant about working in Flash. Crashes, slow performance, and the worst -- irreversible file corruption -- are par for the course with regular Flash usage.

This may seem like a ranty post, and it is, but in addition to blowing off a little steam I also wanted to impart some wisdom on aspiring developers: There's always a way. When whatever platform you're developing for decides it wants to be your worst enemy and devours hours of precious work time, you have two options -- three if you count tossing your computer through a window. You can quit. You can let software win and go do something else with your time that's less stressful. OR you can be a warrior. You can stare at that blank screen or flickering error message and rush right into battle with even more determination than before.

In any long endeavor, you will be tested. Obstacles will emerge to test your resolve and tempt you to take an easier path, but you must fight on! You can get angry, but channel that anger into productive energy to recoup your lost time and produce an even better product that you would have the first time around. Learn from your mistakes and account for the unexpected. These are all key bits of knowledge that will help you persevere when the outlook is most bleak.

Ah! I see that Flash has finally decided to let me open my movie clip. Thank you Flash! And thank you players, for letting me rant a bit, for Flash cares not for the troubles of mere mortals and will only stare coldly at my pleas for mercy.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more! 

Tags: Titan

January 10, 2013

In the midst of all the coding chaos for the new battle engine, I overlooked a promise we made earlier in the design notes regarding the Golden Yeti Tournament.  I'd like to offer final clarification on how participation in the tournament will work:

As mentioned previously, the tournament will NOT begin until a few days after Omega Launches, however, Omega Yeti Tournament tickets will ONLY be available via the Omega Founder Preorder Promotion. To be crystal clear, we will NOT be offering the tickets in game once Omega launches.

I'd like to apologize for any confusion on this issue as I know we've sent conflicting messages over the past few days.  This was an oversight and I appreciate that it was brought to our attention in the forums.

Keep your comments coming, back to coding!

Tags: Titan

December 21, 2012

The Dark Yeti offers an energy-based alternative to the classic Baby Yeti's attacks. When Omega goes live, you will be able to upgrade it to the Omega Dark Yeti!

Along with a Baby Yeti and Dark Yeti in EpicDuel, you will also receive a Baby Yeti Battle Pet in AQW!

Shirts are a real limited quantity item. There are only so many, so once they're gone, we're very unlikely to reprint more.

Get a shirt, save three yetis! Can't beat that! Mr. Scrabbles approves!

Happy Holidays! I look forward to continuing Omega development in the frosty Northlands.

Tags: Titan Are You Yeti Shirt HeroMart Yeti Pet Bot AQW

December 20, 2012

Hey guys,

I have some pretty bad news to share. The EpicDuel Omega release will not be ready in time for Christmas and will need to be delayed until after the new year. The team has gone to absolute insane lengths to put in the best possible effort to create what is effectively a brand new game. I have never worked harder in my life on anything, and I think I can speak for the team in saying the same for them.  I'm incredibly impressed by everyone's dedication, and for that reason, I'm extremely disappointed that we couldn't showcase their efforts in time for the holiday.  Honestly, it makes me sick that it's not ready, but I'm out of options at this point.

We did not take this decision lightly.  This week is our fourth straight week of 7 days a week, minimum 15 hours per day.  We've had several meetings discussing where we could cut, and how we could trim the release to be able to get things out on time. Last week, when we announced the delay from Dec 14 to Dec 20, we made the tough decision to cut several features that we previously thought were critical to the release. I thought with these cuts and our strongest effort that we could get Omega out in time. I was wrong and I'll take the blame for miscalculating the requirements.  

"Scary Town"

I wanted to share briefly why this release is so important, why it's taking so long: Over the course of several months and numerous meetings, we compiled a list the primary reasons why someone might not enjoy playing EpicDuel.  Additionally, we wrote down every issue in our development pipeline that was overly tedious, or limiting in what was possible. This list is known as "Scary Town". The goal of the EpicDuel Omega release is to crush "Scary Town." Some of the major issues we want to solve include improving the initial gameplay experience, speeding up the development time on new skills and items, eliminating the plague of power creep, and removing loads of restrictions that create a bad experience for players and ultimately hurt the game itself.

Golden Yeti Competition

Oh, yes, I suppose I forgot to mention a 2-week competition in which the top 100 participants will receive an Ultra-Rare Golden Yeti. There will be an ongoing leaderboard showing the current rankings for the duration of the event. This Yeti WILL NOT be available any other way, and you can only win it if you have a Golden Yeti Ticket. If successful, we can evolve this competition into a full-blown tournament feature going forward into Omega.

Tags: Titan

December 11, 2012

Greetings EpicDuelists! This morning we had a mega meeting and discussed our progress on Omega. Everything is looking really good and once it's done, I'm 1000% confident it will be the greatest EpicDuel phase ever. However, we were also faced with the realities of being corporeal organisms bound to the laws of physics and biology. Basically, we realized that even working 16-20 hour days every day we would not be able to release Omega in a finished state by Friday. I regret to inform you that the official date for Omega is being pushed back to Thursday December 20th. This was not a decision we arrived at lightly, but a Friday goal simply was not possible. We figured it was better to tell you now rather than at 3 AM Saturday morning. At the very least, this means you'll have a bit longer to complete the mission and collect the items that are going rare when Omega launches.

Return to Frysteland

Recently, on the developer server, we revamped the Frysteland screens. The artillery shells and craters have been swept away but the punishment of the Krampus people and their innocent Yetis endures. For Omega, you'll be able to travel to Alydriah's new Winter palace, built upon the remains of the old Exile fortress, and Titan's Peak, a mysterious addition to the Frysteland skyline that suddenly became visible this year. Could this signal the end of the world? Have the gods finally descended up the cursed world of Delta V to pass final judgment? Find out when Omega goes live December 20th!

You will also be able to meet a Yeti Trainer. These beast maters can help you evolve your Yeti to the next level, but it won't be easy! A strong Yeti requires a strong master, so you'll need to hone your battle skills before these trainers deem you worthy of a more powerful Yeti. Rumor has it that there's a shortcut to this process. Maybe Titan knows something about it?

For the latest Omega updates, be sure to check out our Twitter pages, available from the sidebar on the left side of this page. If you have some Omega suggestions or questions, join the discussion in the EpicDuel forums! 

Tags: Omega Titan

December 06, 2012

Now it can be told: the official release date for Omega is December 14th early February! Of course, we can't confirm what time exactly, but we will do our absolute best to get this epic release to you in a stable, tested condition! To satisfy your curiousity on some of Omega's amazing features, enjoy this new Design Notes as we continue the Omega marathon!

Changes to NPCs

Today we wanted to go over some changes to how NPC fights will work in Omega. We want NPCs to fill the purposes of:

                1) training or testing builds

                2) gaining credits

                3) furthering missions and the storyline

They currently fill some other purposes that we want to move away from, including padding battle records, faction farming, and leveling.

Some of the changes are as follows:

• NPC fights no longer count towards your battle record. We want the Leaderboards and your battle record to clearly reflect your PvP accomplishments instead of forcing players to farm NPCs to pad their win rates.
• You can now fight NPCs an unlimited number of times.
• NPCs will not give experience after level 5. This will allow new players to be eased into the battle system, but afterwards we want the focus to be on PvP. This also allows leveling players to get credits without continuing to level if they feel like they are falling behind.
• NPCs will no longer give Battle Tokens or Influence. Since you can fight them without limit, we don’t want factions or players to farm them for Tokens or Influence. Again, we want the focus here to be on PvP.
• NPCs will not give rewards if you lose. We don’t want people to purposely lose to NPCs over and over, so you will need to win to get Credits or other rewards.
• Brainwashing is removed since it is no longer necessary.

Enhancements

We know there are still many questions about what we’re doing with Enhancements, but we’re not quite ready to talk about this in-depth yet. We will say now that the new system will allow for much greater customization than before, and will involve equipping passive effects and active abilities to your weapons.

Additionally, we will be providing compensation for those that have enhanced weapons in the current system. We’ll provide more specifics soon.

Omega Obliteration! 

We would like to kick off our new development phase with not one, but TWO promotional packages. These designs were inspired by devoted EpicDuel player and aspiring artist TrizzzCentrino! You can choose from the Omega Obliteror set, which features an energy sword plus a mutating weapon! 

OR if physical damage is more your thing, you may select the Omega Onslaughter!

All of these weapons will offer 2 new weapon skills (one active, one passive) to give you an edge in Omega. We will explain what these skills are and what they do as soon as we finalize the details!

Speaking of promotions: Check out Heromart's Coming Soon page for details on the upcoming "Are You Yeti" shirt! This epic garment will come with not one, but TWO yetis for you to play with for the upcoming release!

The Frozen North

Alydriah has been up to no good in her captured territory. However, there is one bastion of hope in this shattered land:

Titan stands watch from his mountain lair in Frysteland. Many displaced Krampus have taken shelter at the foot of this mountain fortress, seeking some respite from constant harassment from Legion troops. Alydriah is smart enough to steer clear of this mysterious refuge, but not so fearful that she wouldn't taunt the gods of Delta V through more indirect means. What new cybernetic terrors has Alydriah created in during the Legion's occupation of this region? Would Alydriah burn Frysteland to the ground just to annoy Titan? How many cheeseburgers do you think Titan has hidden up there?

I guess you'll have to login to find out!

Easy on the Eyes

As we mentioned earlier, the early game experience is getting a drastic overhaul, starting with the login and class selection screens. We will also be refreshing the look of the base armors and styles to reflect this graphical overhaul. This might not be tremendously exciting to our veteran players, but it will make EpicDuel 1000% more appealing to new players, expanding the total number of active players, which means more opponents for you!  

WHY NO UPDATE?!

With all the changes to the database structure and game code, we literally cannot release before it's ready.  Also, preparing a weekly release would divert time away from development on Omega, and we cannot spare a second at this point!

On that note -- Code Sorcerer, away!

Tags: Titan promotions Omega Frysteland Winter Obliterator Onslaughter Yeti HeroMart Shirt Enhancements Stats code TRizZzCENTRINO Update Holiday Seasons Epic Skills Weapons alydriah

November 29, 2012

Some of you may have seen on Twitter that BIG changes are coming to items. We wanted to take the time to explain some of these changes as we get ready for Omega. Today, we'll be talking about gear requirements and stats.

SO LONG, DELTA!

Before we dig into the meat of this post, I will tell you that as soon as Omega launches, the Delta Knight armor, Platinum's Pride armor, the Dragonoid Saga gear, and all the Harvest gear will be leaving the in-game shops and Varium store. Delta Knight we go ultra rare, never to return again, while the Dragon Buster II and Platinum's Pride will be going perma-rare. We're not yet comfortable posting an official date, but it WILL happen sometime in December before Christmas. If you've been holding off on picking up any of this superb gear, what are you waiting for? Grab it before it's GONE!

REQUIREMENTS

One major change we want to bring to the game is greater freedom of choice in gear. Currently your choices are severely limited by the level and stat requirements on gear. If your level is too low, you simply can't equip the item. If your level is too high, the item isn't useful enough. If the item has odd stat requirements, you either can't use it or you have to alter your build to equip it.

In Omega, these requirements are going away entirely. You can buy and equip any item at any level, and there will be no stat requirements to prevent you from equipping anything. The only requirements that will remain are gender and class for class-specific items.

STAT FREEDOM

One other limitation to picking your gear is the built-in nature of stats on your items. If you like a staff or gun, but the stats are bad for your build, then that weapon is no good to you. In Omega, you may now arrange your stats how YOU want on all of your items.

To maintain balance, you will not be able to put all of the item's points into one stat, but otherwise you can customize it as you wish. Similarly, you will be able to choose the allocation of Defense and Resistance on any armor.

UPGRADING ITEMS

(Please note that the above graphic is still in the testing phase and not finalized. It's simply meant to illustrate this exciting new upgrade feature!) 

Another major change coming to items in Omega is the ability to upgrade any item. As you level up, you will gain the ability to put more stats, damage, and defense/resistance onto your items, up to their maximum potential for your level. This effectively means that any item can be used at any level and will not be stronger or weaker than any other item at that level.

Let me repeat that. You'll be able to upgrade any item to your current level and it will be useful in battle. Founder Armor, Beta Gear, last year's Autumn items, that weapon you loved using at level 6 -- all of these will be viable at your level.

And just to be perfectly clear, these features will be available with or without Varium. Upgrading your gear and rearranging your gear's stats will have both Credit and Varium options available.

ENHANCEMENTS

That covers everything we want to share today, but we have more still to talk about in the coming weeks before Omega's launch. Maybe next time we'll discuss our plans for enhancements.....Stay tuned! Feel free to discuss everything in the forums.

Other Progress

Here's a quick look at some of the projects the art team is working on for the Omega release!

Stay tuned for further updates as development on Omega progresses!

Tags: Titan Omega Update Weapons Armors RabbleFroth Forum Yeti Delta Rares

November 16, 2012

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• Rabblefroth has appeared in the Barrens! Be warned, he's a little...different. Defeat him for his achievement and vote in his poll.
• Added Wraith Pikes to the ArmoryBot's inventory

BUGS FIXED:

• Mort and a Shadow Guard incorrectly had "Missions" buttons
• Potential fix for map to the left of Snork
• Character creator now properly shows all 10 starting hair styles

Tags: Titan Patch Notes

November 09, 2012

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• 42 new hairstyles across all classes and genders
• Restored Nightwraith 11-11-11 missions and Armory Bot Shop (Achievement will not return)
  • NOTE: If you did the mission last year and sold the OneX6Key, you can redo the mission to get a new one
• Granted achievements and hairstyles for all our Spooky Head Design Contest winners

BUGS FIXED:

• Stopped Juggernaut battles from being accessible during server shutdown mode
• Fixed a potential leaderboard discrepancy
• Several stability improvements (hotfixed on Nov 6)

Tags: Titan Patch Notes

November 08, 2012

Happy Birthday to me! Happy Birthday to me! Happy Birthday to m...OK, that's a little over-indulgent, I admit. Even though I'm leveling up in real life, what I'm really excited about is what I get to offer you!

All your favorite items will be returning from my personal stash of weapons. I'm generous, but I don't want to make it too easy to access them. Like last time, you can either buy the OneX6 Key from me directly or win it from me by besting me in combat!

Check out these new level 35 bazookas suggested by ..TRizZzCENTRINO..!

All your old favorites are returning as well!

The missions will also be returning. Visit my friends and associates around Delta V to see what Birthday trickery they're cooking up!

The one key absense is the 11-11-11 achievement. 11-11-11 is only happening once in my lifetime so it's RARE. 11-11-12 doesn't really have the same ring to it.

Dress Your Best!

It wouldn't be a real party without outrageous costumes! Suit up in one of 42 NEW STYLES (7 groups with one style for each gender and class). These artisan styles were crafted with great care based on the winning designs from our Spooky Head Design Contest. Join us Friday to see the designs come to life in-game!

On Friday, the winners will also receive their achievements and their in-game styles free of charge! Congratulations, you earned it!

A Cold Front Approaches!

As Fall comes to a close, a cold wind blows from the north. Last year, Frystland fell to the Legion and Alydriah has commanded the occupying forces to do...something. We don't know, and that's terrifying. We have a feeling that she'll unveil her schemes soon, though.

In the meantime, check out these new concepts for revamped EpicDuel classes: Bounty Hunter and Tech Mage!

^Thyton

^Nightwraith

Tags: Nightwraith Titan contest styles Cake Birthday Missions Weapons Armory Omega

October 31, 2012

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• 4 new mutating Primary weapons
• 5 new Guns
• 15 new Swords
• Buddy List no longer displays Online / Offline text

BUGS FIXED:

• Level 1 City Guard had higher stats than intended
• NPCs with multiple item drops were only dropping the first item
• Artix's Triumph displays proper information in the Item Finder

Note: All new gear can be found on Snork in the Minetower or Naomi in the Train Station.

Tags: Titan Patch Notes

October 19, 2012

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• Kimberly's Axe is being sold in limited quantities with both Varium and Credit options
• Chairman Platinum has 4 new missions

BUGS FIXED:

• Chairman's Fury (Uppercut)
  • Fixed thorns not reflecting damage
  • Fixed Rage being applied if you stole enough to gain max Rage
  • Defense should now always be used to reduce damage, regardless of weapon's damage type
• Rage gain was ignoring blocks, deflections, and defense-ignoring attacks (including crits)
• If you leave battle while an NPC is speaking, the dialog no longer continues
• Unchecking the Sound option will instantly stop all chat and music
• Rechecking the Sound option will start playing NPC dialog again
• Charpage no longer flickers 7 blue stars while loading
• Leaving a battle now counts as a loss for leaderboard percentages

ADDITIONAL NOTE:

Thank you to all players who helped to drive back the Chairman! Get the full report here!

Tags: Titan

October 17, 2012

The EbilCorp war is nearly over, and you have fought valorously against Chairman Platinum and his corporate ninjas in all of AE's games. Yay! EbilCorp was no match for our dedicated players. Congratulations! When the war bar reaches 100%, you can just click the “Claim Prize” button to claim your prize! What is your prize? IT IS A MYSTERY!

By popular request, Kimberly will by offering her One-Eyed Axes in energy and physical flavors as limited quantity item!

Aftermath

The Chairman may be down, but he's certainly not out. Alydriah has personally seen to it that his personal transportation off of Delta V is, shall we say, unavailable, and it would amuse her greatly if you and Kimberly would keep bashing him! You will be able to continue challenging Chairman Platinum for cheevos and lulz.

Being the opportunist that he is, the Chairman will be looking to enlist the help of Delta V's citizens to regain his strength and rebuild his forces. There will be credits and tokens in it for you, but is it worth making a deal with the devil?

Suggestion Shop

Nightwraith and Disturbed are still working on the Player Suggestion Shop, so keep submitting! As Char said during the Livestream, if you're looking to get art in the shop, think 2 holidays ahead!

Speaking of holidays and suggestions, the Head/Hairstyle design contest is still going on, so head on over to the AEF to check out the rules and competition! You have until 11:59PM EST on October 26 so hop to it!

On the Horizon

We mentioned on the Livestream that we're going to be doing some pretty exciting back-end stuff over the next couple months (which means that sometimes content will be lacking, but code will be abundant!) while we prepare to enter into a new development phase!

We're planning on reevaluating and retooling the early-game experience, with tutorials and such to initiate new players into an informative and engaging early game that is up to par with the latest content. EpicDuel has become a very complex game and new players can be easily discourage by the steep learning curve. We've already started outlining/writing the tutorial system.

Rabble and Titan are going to be tearing down the battle engine and retooling it. The ultimate goal is for even those of us on the creative team could create a new skill in the database! Weapons stats, skills, and enhancements will be completely retooled for greater flexibility, like we'd intended originally.

We'll also be "tightening up the graphics," as they say, in our ever present quest to battle framerate slowdowns and bring the older visuals up to par with the latest content.

And certainly not last or least, we'll be able to build at least one major feature (like, say, Tournaments) that are frequently requested by players!

Stay tuned for more developments as we finalize me details!

Said the Spider to the Butterfly...

I'm sure you all missed the insect facts! What, you didn't? Well, I want to talk about butterflies and will not be silenced! There are several examples of insects that mimic their predators in an attempt to avoid being omnomnomed. In the case of tephrid flies in the genus Zonosemata and metalmark moths in the genus Brenthia, markings on their wings and wing-flapping behavior looks very similar to the behaviors of jumping spiders. In laboratory tests, both of these creatures were eaten quickly by nonspider predators, but avoided by jumping spiders. In the case of the butterflies, jumping spiders even returned the displays, indicating that this sort of mimicry is effective against spider predators. Whether they win Halloween costume contests among the arthropods is still a matter of debate.

Tags: Titan Chairman Platinum EbilCorp harvest Ninjas suggestions Kimberly One-eyed Doll Artix

October 05, 2012

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• New 4-key promo containing 20 hairstyles, including 3 new EbilCorp styles
• Unlocking a hairstyle will now unlock that style across all classes. Note that not all styles are available on all classes. (This applies to all styles already purchased as well)
• Players that had already purchased the same style on different classes have been refunded any Varium spent on the extra styles
• 18 new EbilCorp styles (3 per class and gender)
• New default styles to give all class/gender combinations 10 default styles
  
  • 2 new default styles for male Hunters
  • 1 new default style for male Mages
• More EbilCorp henchmen have been appearing in Fortune City...

BUGS FIXED:

• Eye glow on Dage shotguns

ADDITIONAL NOTE:

If you unlock a group of styles, the equivalent styles in the other classes will not count toward the Epic Stylist Achievement (i.e. unlocking the wolf head group will only count as one unlocked style).  If you already have the achievement, you will not lose it, but it the extra styles in a group will not count toward the next tier.  Sorry for the confusion.

Tags: Titan Patch Notes

September 27, 2012

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• Chairman Platinum has shown up and brought a new level 25 and 35 promo armor: Platinum's Pride
  • Grants a new skill usable once per battle: Chairman's Fury
  • Chairman's Fury uppercuts your enemy and steals 25% of their current Rage
• Dage the Evil has also appeared in the Minetower!
  • He brought a new bike with him: Dage's Blood Rider
  • He also brought guns with a new ability: Spreadfire
  • Spreadfire deals damage to all enemies in battle, dealing 85% regular damage if it hits multiple targets
• Hallowarrior Achievement available in achievement shops
• 52 Halloween-themed home items have reappeared in the homes shop

BALANCE CHANGES:

• Massive Strike ignores 65% of defense, reduced from 75%
• Maximum charge on Infernal Android special reduced from 150% to 140% damage

BUGS FIXED:

• Defeating an NPC that grants an achievement will only show the achievement window once

Tags: Titan Patch Notes

September 21, 2012

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• New Dragonoid cutscene - See Charfade, Dravax, Mirv, or Slayer
• New achievements for unlocking 5, 20, and 50 hairstyles
• Added many new Spanish translations
• Many improvements to City Guard code redemption system

BUGS FIXED

• Awarded missing Dragon Master Achievements
• Fixed advanced classes not properly owning their current hairstyle

Tags: Titan Patch Notes

September 19, 2012

NEW CHANGES/FEATURES:

• It finally be Talk Like A Pirate Day, ya scurvy curs!

BUGS FIXED

• Fixed several screens getting stuck on loading
• Bioborg thorns were reflecting damage on some ranged attacks
• Server stability improvements
• Ally chat option disabled for the Juggernaut

Tags: Titan Patch Notes