EpicDuel PVP Game Design Notes

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