EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

October 20, 2021

Can you... SQUASH... the competition?!

… Ok, at this point maybe “Fall Food Decorating Contest” is more appropriate, but it just doesn’t have the same ring. BUT on to the contest! Do you have what it takes to carve the best EpicDuel-themed pumpkin in all of Lore? How skilled are you in the fine arts of squash carnage? Are you able to duel-wield a camera and a carved ear of corn at the same time? If so, this contest is perfect for you!

Attention all ye who wish to enter…this contest: Mogloween is drawing ever near, so we need pumpkin-carving masters to take on this challenge!

Mogloween mog-luh-ween; noun

The evening of October 31 in Lore; celebrated in the month of October; observed especially by Heroes in costumes who solicit treats, and candy.

Prize Details

1. There will be ONE Grand Prize winner, who shall receive 2000 ArtixPoints

2. 2nd Place Winners will get 1000 ArtixPoints

3. 3rd Place Winners will get 700 ArtixPoints

4. Runner Ups will get 500 ArtixPoints

5. If you go Above and Beyond, we shall award you accordingly ;)

Contest Timeframe

The contest will range from today, October 20th until 11:59pm EST on Sunday, October 31st. The winners will be announced the following week on the Design Notes.

Contest Rules

To be considered, all entries must:

• Include your game character name and the year (2021) visually displayed somewhere within the picture or video

  • The game character name in the picture must be tied to an Artix account to receive a prize

• Must not use digitally altered art (so no photoshopping) - we want to see what you can do offline!

• Be themed on any Artix game, character, monster, etc

• Be posted to the AE_Contests Twitter account

• The photo of your pumpkin must be of the highest quality—the bigger and more clear the picture, the better!

• One entry per person

You are welcome to think outside the box and submit other non-pumpkin creative entries for our consideration… but carved pumpkins and gourds are what we want to feature!  So you COULD...

• Paint a pumpkin

• Dress an ear of corn

• Carve a pumpkin pie

• Build a diorama featuring acorn squash

• … the possibilities are endless

Reminders

1. Please don’t spam your entry or you will be disqualified! You can only win once per person!

2. A true hero is a good sportsman -- we reserve the right to reward excellent examples of good sportsmanship or remove entries for abusive behavior towards staff or other contest participants.

3. As always, entries that WOW us and go above and beyond, displaying true effort or creativity, will get extra-special attention (or prizes)!

Good Luck!

On behalf of the entire AE team, we are really looking forward to seeing your creativity carved into pumpkins… or gourds… or apples (?!)! Will you win the Grand Prize? There is only one way to find out—submit your photo today!

Tags: Artix

October 10, 2014

A Thank You from Artix

It is our 12th Anniversary-- and we hope you enjoy this year’s cross-game event, “Phantom of the Pixel!” The idea of cursed items crafted from dead pixels is…. spine-tinglingly awesome! The event spans AQWorlds, EpicDuel, DragonFable, MechQuest, HeroSmash, Oversoul and the original AdventureQuest. With the coming of the new mobile games, it might be too hard to have another full cross-over games event like this… so do this one while you still can!

I would sincerely like to thank you, and everyone who has been a part of this incredible journey. Thank you to you and all of the amazing gamers who login and battle in our video games. Thank you to all of you who give us encouragement and much love on the forums, twitter, facebook and all of the other ways you talk with us. Thank you for not just playing the games but contributing your creativity and clever ideas. Thank you to everyone who believes in us and supports us by upgrading or buying things in the video games—because of you we can afford to keep the lights on and the server hampsters running at full speed. It has officially been 12 YEARS of weekly, non-stop updates! THANK YOU!  

Our video game’s “weekly new releases” — where we add new quests, maps, monsters, weapons & content to the game — is something that is really special about our community. AdventureQuest classic was one of (if not the) first to do it. We have been compared to long running shows like The Simpsons, Southpark, and Saturday Night Live with our game’s history of weekly releases. But there is one big difference… TV shows run in seasons and the cast and crew… take breaks. We do not. We never have. As a whole, the AE team has delivered a new video game update/release every single week for 12 years. Our games never take holidays off — the team and I actually work harder and have larger releases during them!  

Because of that, I would very much like to recognize and thank the AE team — all of the artists, animators, writers, coders, the moderators, the forum staff, and all of the volunteers for their hard work. I am extremely proud of these passionate super heroes. Thank you all, too — players, team, and all the people who love us and put up with our crazy video game habits — for making Frogzards, Moglins and DoomKnights a part of our everyday life!

Battle on!

Artix

NEXT year will be our 13th Anniversary; we should up the bar and change the format. Better start brainstorming now. Open to ideas!

Tags: Artix

December 24, 2013

Holiday Wishes From All of Us to You

Happy Holidays from your video game family here at Artix Entertainment! Even when you are not on our servers, you are still in our hearts. We have done so much together this year and made so many great memories... and we could not do it without you! 

Tags: Artix

December 05, 2013

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:

General: Basic achiements like those earned through Mission completion.

War: Earned through events like the Frysteland War and the ongoing territorial control achiements.

Boss: Earned through defeating bosses like Titan, Nightwraith, and the Black Abyss Spider.

Arcade: Achievements earned through Arcade play.

Seasonal: Recurring achiements like Frost Warrior.

Badges: Purchaseable achiements.

Feats: Especially hard or impossible to earn achievements like Epic Artists and Alpha Tester.

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

Tags: Nightwraith Frysteland Juloffenblotten Hank Valestra Achievements Winter Seasonal Rares Weapons previews Wedding Artix snow Frost

July 02, 2013

Contest now live at Artix.com!

It's that time again -- time to sharpen your pencils and test your creative mettle against the best the AE community has to offer. Since Beleen already nailed the contest details in her post over at Artix.com and AQ.com, I'll repost it here for your enjoyement rather than force you to slog through my mangled prose.

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It’s a good day for bad monsters! Instead of using weapons and magic, pit your creative talent and artistic skills against all the existing monsters and villains from your favorite Artix Entertainment games. And have a chance at winning awesome loot in the Bad Guys & Good Battles Contest!

Your Quest

Help Loremaster Maya! Create artwork or write histories for Artix Entertainment’s monsters and villains! Winning entries will help us build the AE Encyclopedia Lorepedia (currently on AQ.com, but probably not there forever)!

How to Start Your Adventure

Take a look at one of Loremaster Maya’s first Bestiary pages, then get out and hunt up a monster or villain of your own to observe! http://www.aq.com/lore/monsters/Frogdrake

Ideas for artwork submissions include:

• Draw
• Paint
• Illustrate
• Photoshop
• Sculpt
• Craft
• Bake
• Sew and Stitch
• Carve
• Balloon Animals!

Ideas for writing submissions include:

• Details about where the monster/villain lives
• Any unique behavior or identifying appearance details
• What they’re good for after defeat
• Any lore we already know about them (like the Bloodtusk Troll/Horc cultures)
• Anything we DON’T know about them that doesn’t contradict what is already in-game

So long as your submission is a monster and/or a villain from your favorite Artix Entertainment game, then you’re one step closer to winning the contest! Make sure you post your submission in the contest thread at Artix.com!

Quest Requirements

1. Read ALL THESE rules before submitting!
2. This is not a suggestion contest, all of the entries must be based on monsters/villains that already exist in our games.
3. All artwork must be original—absolutely NO tracing and NO stealing someone else’s artwork.
4. Pictures must be at least 500px wide and in either .jpg or .png format.
5. All writing must be original. If you use any existing in-game lore in an entry, you must add original ideas onto it.
6. Written entries must be no longer than 500 words long.
7. Entry must be inspired by a monster and/or a villain from an Artix Entertainment Game (AdventureQuest, MechQuest, DragonFable, AQW, EpicDuel, HeroSmash, OverSoul).
8. You may use any form of media for your design (Pencil, Flash, MS Word, Notepad, cake mix, etc).
9. You can include other Artix Entertainment characters alongside your monster, be it your player or a popular NPC like Warlic or Cysero.
10. Post a valid link to your picture in the Comments section below in the Image URL field.
11. Include the text of your writing entry in the Comments section text field.
12. Only ONE Bad Guys & Good Battles contest submission will be judged per game account (although you CAN post more entries under each AE game account you own, so you can post one entry for your AQW hero, then another for your EpicDuel account, another picture for your DragonFable player, etc).
13. You can enter artwork, OR writing, OR both. But only one entry total per game account.
14. Your entry MUST include your Character Name AND which game your character belongs to. How else are we gonna award you if you win?
15. Your entry MUST include the name of the monster/villain you created.
16. Please please PLEASE only post once—it will take some time to approve your submission, so please don’t spam the Submit button!
17. You will be automatically disqualified if you do not follow all the rules.
18. We have the right to remove any entry that is unacceptable or inappropriate—so keep your entry safe for everyone to enjoy!
19. And, most importantly, have FUN!

Quest Rewards

Here’s your chance at wining awesome stuff in your favorite online game! The Bad Guys & Good Battles Contest prizes will be broken down by game, but since the Lorepedia encompasses ALL our games, we will award prizes in Artix Points!

Additional prizes may be awarded to those who go above and beyond!

Quest Turn-In

In the Comments field below, please include:           

• Your Character Name
• What game your Character is in
• What monster(s) and/or villain(s) you’re basing the entry on
• A short biography and/or picture of the monster or villain
• A valid URL link in the Image URL field or the text of your biography

Please make sure your URL link works online! Use a free online photo uploader like Tinypic, Photobucket, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Quest Time Frame

The Bad Guys & Good Battles Contest begins today, July 2, 2013. Submissions will be accepted until July 10, 2013, at 11:59pm EST. Judging will ensue the following week, and prizes will be announced and delivered around that time too! 

Good luck everyone, and may the best Bad Guy & Good Battles entry win!

--Beleen

Tags: Nightwraith Artix contest Design Monsters AE Beleen Lore LorePedia Good Evil Art

January 07, 2013

It's 2013! Already? When did that happen? How does it feel to have survived yet another apocalypse? I think if you survive 12, you get a free cold cut combo with a drink and chips. That might not be accurate. In any case, we had a busy, bittersweet end to 2012. Our goal was to release Omega before 2012 at all costs, but after a serious dose of reality, we decided our goal in 2013 should be to make the wait for Omega worth it.

For the New Year

The future of EpicDuel post Omega will hinge on gameplay. When all the items in game suddenly become viable options, the dynamics of battle will shift to your build and what skills are equipped to your items.  We will work hard to make the battle engine, the core of EpicDuel, as dynamic and robust as possible to offer interesting experiences in every battle. Tournaments, new battle modes, and new skills will ensure that battles always offer interesting choices.

Omega Progress

Our Twitter pages have been quiet lately, but not for lack of working. The holidays offered a brief interruption in the development routine, and getting back in synch proved to be challenging. For this reason, we've been hesitant to drop more details. However, after today's intense Monday meeting, we decided that it would be best to keep everyone as informed as possible by posting Design Note updates every day until Omega goes live! It may be a tiny blurb or a massive, multi-paragraph summary of a feature. Many of you already know what's releasing in Omega, but I will try to be as informative and interesting as possible!

Although we do not have a formal deadline for Omega, we will inform you as soon as we do! Some have speculated that we will "surprise" you with Omega. This is a profoundly bad idea for such a massive release. We will absolutely inform you of the date as soon as we are confident in our timeline, but also understand that we will not and cannot release Omega until it is in a ready state. We may be able to find features to cut, but the largest part of Omega is the battle engine, and we cannot release a broken battle engine no matter badly we want to release Omega.

We thank you again for your patience, and we hope we can make Omega release to remember!

Golden Yeti Tournament*

Mention of the Golden Yeti Tournament in previous Design Notes may have grabbed your attention. We discussed it further. and we are making a few adjustments / clarifications. First, it will be a 2-week competition instead of a 30-day competition. 30 days is a long time to expect someone to constantly battle at 100% capacity, and seeing someone at the top of the leaderboard with thousands of wins might be discouraging to someone unable to participate at that level.

Second, we will not be offering the Omega Ticket with a promotional package after Omega is live. We are doing this because seriously participating will be more challenging the longer the tournament progresses and entering midway through the event would place a participant at a huge disadvantage. All those who preorder will be able to participate in this tournament as soon as the tournament goes live.

Participation will be simple --  if you preordered you have the ticket. Each PvP victory will automatically earn you points. These points will position you on a leaderboard with other ticket holders. At the end of the competition, the top 100 players in terms of point total will be awarded the Ultra-Rare Golden Yeti as well as a tiered achievement based their standing on the leaderboard. It's more of a competition than a tournament, but if it succeeds, it will be an important stepping stone to a fully realized tournament system!

Some have mentioned that it's not fair to the non-Varium players to restrict this tournament, but the tournament is a special reward for the preorder offer and making it available to everyone would defeat the purpose. Keep in mind that this will not be the last competition of this type -- future contests will be open to a much wider range of players!  

*As of January 9ths DN post, we decided will be adding a buffer of a few days between the launch of Omega and the start of the tournament. This will give everyone a chance to explore all Omega has to offer.

Wiki Recruitment

When we go live with Omega, the EpicDuel Wiki is going to need major help updating all the entries for items.  Stats and requirements as you know them are going out the window, so much of the existing information will be obsolete the second Omega goes live. We are constantly impressed by how quickly the Wiki updates with each EpicDuel release, but they are definitely going to need help for this one.

Please contact a member of the EpicDuel Wiki Staff to find out how you can join the cause and help to keep this great resource as accurate as possible while lessening the burden on the small but dedicated staff. Please do not contact the Devs about being a member of the Wiki Staff as we are not directly involved in it.

To encourage more participation on the Wiki, we will be increasing the value of the coveted Lore Master Achievement by 1000 Rating Points, as well as offering the extremely rare Rabble's Attack Tome sidearm for contributors deemed worthy by the current staff.

Please do not confuse Wiki Staff with Moderators or Developers.  They should not be contacted concerning bugs, account issues, or player reports. Also, please don't send them your passwords. They don't want or need your account information.

Become a Bug Hunter!

Artix.com just unveiled this snazzy new system for reporting bugs! No more tweeting at Devs hoping they'll see your report! No more trying to find the right place to post on the forums! This is your one-stop reporting zone. The bugs will never know what squashed them!

Charity Is Child's Play

One more item before I wrap up this DN post: Child's Play Charity, the charity that raises money year round for toys and money for hospitals around the world! This year gamers showed astonishing generosity and raised a grand total of $5,085,761! That's a lot of happy sick kids! I feel it's an incredible feat and definitely worth sharing.

Can this record be shattered in 2013? Given the track record for boundless gamer generosity, even in times when others are tightening their belts, I have no doubt that record will be obliterated!

Tags: Nightwraith Resolutions Omega Tournament contest Progress Report New Year Child's Play Charity Bug Artix

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 12, 2012

This is what happens when you trust executives...or at least allow them to remain on your home planet! The nefarious Chairman Platinum has assembled an army of Corporate Ninjas and freshly recruited Ebil Hazards to take Delta V by force! 

Fortunately for us, the Chairman's enemies are numerous and powerful. One such ally is the newly arrived Kimberly, Space Warrior and professional face-melting guitarist of One-Eyed Doll!

Visit Kimberly in Fortune City, who's happily wading through the Chairman's henchgoons, to receive your assignments.  Delta V has scarcely seen a threat like this and Kimberly knows exactly how to take the Chairman down!

However, before we can take the fight to the Chairman, we need to clear out some of his goons!  Scattered throughout Fortune City and Central Station are EbilCorp minions.  Challenge these minions to fill the War Bar and fire EbilCorp for good!  What is it?  You'll find out after you've expelled EbilCorp from Delta V!  Wouldn't want the Chairman to steal it from you!

Once the bar is full, everyone who participated in the War will receive a rare prize!  Defeating More challenging enemies will award you more points, and give you a better chance of gaining these:

They're barely worth the paper they're printed on, but they ARE printed on very expensive paper.  Sell them back to Delta V merchants for bonus credits!

This is it!  No going back!  Delta V and all of Artix Entertainment is counting on you to defeat EbilCorp!

Cheevo Get!

In lighter news, you can stop by any VendBot to pick up a new, free Achievement! This shiny little badge will show that you were present for this milestone! After the event, it will be gone forever (or until time loops around and we have another 10 year anniversary, but that could be awhile), and those who own it will receive a hefty Rating Point bonus!  Thanks again for letting us make awesome games for you and a pre-emptive thanks for helping us kick the Chairman's butt back into space!

I understand there is also another achievement lurking around.  What is its purpose?  It is a mystery!

New Livestream!

Join us this Sunday at 10AM EDT for a new EpicDuel Artists Livestream!  For those unfamiliar with the streams, we have the Dev team and several mods join us for a live Q and A while Charfade or I draw something.  You can check out some of the previous streams to see what you've been missing and get a feel for what they're like.  If you do join us, please be courteous as we will ban anyone for any misconduct during the stream.  If you miss out, the stream will be recorded for later viewing.

Suggestion Shop?

Disturbed and I are still busy bringing your suggestions to life!  If you haven't posted yet, there's still time to get noticed!  Remember to post your suggestions in the official EpicDuel items suggestion thread!

Tags: EbilCorp Ninjas Platinum 10 Year Anniversary AE Artix Kimberly OED Nightwraith

October 05, 2012

A special event across ALL our games

When did you first start playing EpicDuel & Artix Entertainment games? How long have you been playing? How is it possible that we will have been creating weekly releases together for 10 years next week? 10 YEARS!?!?!? We need to do something special. Not just special, we need to do something bigger and crazier than we have ever tried before. We need to do a new "1st!" you are hereby invited as a VIP guest, October 12th @ 6pm EST for a special event that will take place not just here in EpicDuel... but in ALL 6 of our major games! (Next Friday!)

Tags: Artix