Cysero
Comes
Con-Ready!

August 27th, 2008
The Ole' Switcheroo!

I've been practicing for con. last night I dreamt that I satyed awake for four days straight. Ironically, I dreamt this while getting a very good night's rest.

(not really irony, merely coincidence)

As many of you have ready in Warlic's MQ Design Notes... thanks to the odd schedule that we're all on this week, DF and MQ are switching release days! Meaning that the main mechquest release day will be FRIDAY this week and that DF will be rolling out this week's release ANY SECOND NOW!

About the release...

These are known as the Weapons of the Amulet! They are special (in that they have a Special built into them) ancient Dragonlord weapons that you can only get from Nythera's new quest!

That's right, Nythera has returned to DF and stands by her master (and target) Warlic. You can only get to Warlic's zone by taking the portal next to the Guardian Tower in Falconreach! As before, Nythera is still trying to learn all she can from her master, and also trying scheme after scheme to bump him off.

You know, to 86 him.

To make sure he sleeps with the fishes.

To ice him.

To do him in.

To eliminate him.

*Cysero draws his thumb across his throat in a quick slicing motion*

...

She's trying to kill him.

As of tomorrow, We will all (nearly all, Warlic gets to stay behind by himself... keep a close eye him... solitude can do horrible things to the mind) be at DragonCon, Conning our butts off (whatever that entails).

A quick note... if you're going there to get your left sock back... here's what you need.

1) Approach me and ask politely/ demand your sock back.

2) I will give you a real sock.

3) You will give me your character ID! If you fail to give me your ID then NO SOCK FOR YOU.... I don't need or want your character name, or login info...all useless to me... all I need and want is your ID number.

4) When I return to the Secret Undreground Lab I will use your ID number to drop a special sock pet (bacon type damage) into your backpack, (after a few days of resting to make sure that I don't delete everything in your backpack)

5) Then we go to a party.

Yeah, Artix is having a suite party for all of us and, lemme tell ya, if his suite is anything like it was last year, it will be CLUTCH!

See you guys there!

Cysero
Has
Christine's
Cell Phone

August 22th, 2008
The Bear Facts

Hey Christine, you left your cell phone in my car last night. I'd just call you and tell you but... ya know.

Hi guys! We're LIVE with the next quest in Galanoth's Dragesvard quest chain. We introduced a new monster (Who doesn't like armored polar bears?), who you might need to stun before he stuns you. I don't want to say anything about the quest, but Frode holds some clues to the direction that the rest of the zone will be going.

In other news we have finally raised the level cap from 40 to 50! To help you power-levelers we also released 24 brand new weapons in my Superstore of Savings, all of which are level 40+!

You guys are getting closer and closer to the end of the Monkee war (we're going for a record for longest war, I guess).

I don't want to get ahead of myself and talk about what we have going on for next week but it will be an EARLY release for us as we are all leaving on Thursday (very VERY early) for DRAGONCON!

Enjoy the release and have a good weekend. I'll have a better one.

Cysero
Is A Good
Host

August 18th, 2008
Preparations!

Hola. We are getting prepared!

Prepared for WHAT, you ask?

LOTS OF STUFF!

First, and probably the most important is Hurricane Fae. She's plowing through the Florida Keys right now and by this time time tomorrow (give or take) she will be right on top of us. Specifically directly on top of my apartment.

Hurricane Fae

Due to it's secret underground nature (and the fact that it's a bit more inland) Artix Entertainment HQ should be right-as-rain (pun intended), but I expect to wake up tomorrow and find the 85 MPH gusts to have firmly placed a whole tree squarely in the middle of my livingroom. It will be resting comfortably on my brand new couch watching the episode of Kyle XY that I most recently downloaded form the Xbox Marketplace. I might offer it some homemade bread (Dante Q. Breadly III) like a good host.

We are also preparing for DragonCon which starts next week. We are trying to prepare 2 weeks worth of releases for you, so even though we will be at Con, we will still be working. We might even launch the relese from our hotel rooms or maybe even one of our panels.

Last but FAR from least, we are preparing for a new Beta test of AQ WORLDS. We will be waking Sir Ver up around 3 PM Server Time (EST, or GMT - 04:00) give or take. Artix will be there, so will Zhoom, Rolith, Geopetal and I. So will a number of other of the game devs and forums mods and AKs! If you have a DA you should come see who you can find and tell us how awesome we are! We will need the ego boost if Ser Vir crashes.

Remember, you need a Dragom Amulet in DF (or you need to be a Guardian in AQ or a Star Captain in MQ) in order to help us test our baby MMO. If you miss out on this test, make sure you are prepared to join us in the next one! You're going to want to tell your grandkids's grandkid's grandkids (MAN, you're going to live a long time!) that You Were There When It All Started!

See you in Swordhaven (or the tub in Yulgar's Inn in BattleOn... I have a quest to give you!)

Cysero
Is Filling In
The Blanks

August 15th, 2008
A Little History

Hiya Guys. This week's release is now LIVE!

We went a little crazy with the minigames this week. First, you will find the first quest of Galanoth's story arc is now available from Dragesvard. We've got a couple of nice belts dropping from that quest and a little glimpse into Galanoth's past, and a tie in with another character from AQ.

Next, we have the new quest in Celestia's zone. It will require some fancy flying footwork (wingwork?) to get through this quest. This quest also drops some nice DA ONLY rings and SUPER Special Dragon Chow!

Wait.... do you feel that? That tingle in the air?

That special little sizzle in the air means that it's nearly time for CON! We've got a lot of stuff planned for this year (like 2 real, honest-to-sheep panels of our very own! No more having to steal someone else's microphone!), a lot of swag to get rid of, a lot of old friends that we hope to see again (Hi Stratos), and a lot of new friends to make (Hi players that we haven't met in real life yet). To learn all about what we've got going on, click HERE.

Last, but not least, we've got a very probably BETA TEST on Monday for our flash based MMO, AQ WORLDS! You don't want to miss out on this because things are really coming together, but you need a DA (or you need to be a Guardian or Star Captain) to participate in the fun!

Come help us break our latest game!

Cysero
Is Now A
Mad
Weaponsmith
And Baker.

August 12th, 2008
Dante Q. Breadly

Hiya Guys. Look what I did!

Thanks to a little Alton Brown and a whole lot of Yakitate!! Japan , I decided to start making bread. I don't mean making bread from frozen hunks of bread in the grocery or using a bread machine (a method for which I have equal disdain), I mean MAKING BREAD out of yeast and flour and other base materials!

Through some sort of wonderful alchemical ritual that I discovered (on YouTube) I was able to transform these simple ingredients into a fluffy, crusty, warm and (if I may say so, myself) tasty loaf of hearty bread. Before a few friends and I devouerd him, I named this beast Dante Q. Breadly.

You thought I liked sandwiches before? They're EVEN BETTER when you make your OWN BREAD!

This was my first attempt at bread and it came out terrific! I have great hopes for future breads that will be better for me than basic white bread with words like "multi-grain" and "whole milled weat" and "gluten-free" in their experimental titles.

Let's see.... what are we looking at this week?

We've got the first quest in Galanoth's Dragesvard quest chain which begins, as most grand adventures (like baking bread) with simple curiosity.

Geo is also working on the next step in Celestia's DA Only, baby dragon (as it appears to be) quest chain.

Rolith
is not afraid of the dark

August 8th, 2008
My Favorite Release!

Some of you are probbly going to think I'm kidding, but I'm not. This has to be one of my favorite releases!

We're releasing a titan fight, and that's always a big deal, but it's also the best drop rate out of any DA quest for the REALLY SPECIAL DRAGON CHOW. Also we've added a really really nifty thing to the walk around map in this quest. Your pet following you around screen caused no end to the number of bugs, but it was just too awesome not to do!

This week's release is accessable by DragonAmulet holders, along with loads of other features too numerous for me to mention here, so if you haven't upgraded yet, check this link out for all the details and learn how to upgrade!

Have a great weekend!

geopetal
tuff

August 7th, 2008
Baby Dragon Bonding!

This week's release is rolling along! it's been fun building a bigger, more explory map for it and Rolith has been working on a few fun surprises for it as well. You get to take your baby dragon out for some bonding experience and grab a package for Celestia from an old friend. It all ends up with you having to break out your most powerful armor and fight in a TITANIC battle!

The coming weeks will see a lot more fun stuff with your dragon and others in the frozen north around Dragesvard! We're working on more quests, lots of new monsters drawn by Thyton and, of course, Dragonslayer Armor! Dragonslayer is still being worked on, art and and skills are still being gathered (so it's definately not coming out this week) but it should definately be fun to use to take on some of the wicked ice dragons in the area! How is your baby dragon going to feel about you becoming an official Dragonslayer though?

Cysero
Is In Monday
Mode

August 4th, 2008
Contest Winners, A Note From Saf and Some Updatage

3 points of interest today guys...

1). The DF House Contest Winners!

Grand Prize winner (2,000 DCs)
(Best Combination- bedroom)
valinorian_coe

Most creative interpretation of "Bedroom" award (1,000 DCs)
.Discipline

Best Bedroom
DRACO DRACONIS I
Zade x555
Kaizer

Funniest Bedroom
eli beans
Vampiragoon
TiamatRoar
Fayt1188

Best Livingroom
Lost Angel
Crature
AC2Katana
Silvenas
JPChaosMage
azem
xerogears
jharris1994
Armakuny999
Stanwise Gamgee

Funniest Livingroom
whos john?
sjdu
TerrorofDeath91
combatboy099
Punkedelmo
drbannanas

Best outside/other
Xanagas
reni bluestar
Lkeas
Elgert
Domino455
The Collector
sahmosah
fishycheese
Ker
pyroXavier
Lex Libris
KEV
he11ix
Greystar
Flegias

Funniest outside/other
Uberdog
wiseman111
rincewind
ZzlzhtT
hawkbad
~Quiet Berserker~
Shadowguy597
The Ducksta

Honorable Mentions
(BestCombination- living room) iinky
(Best combination- Bedroom) westward_ho!
(Best Combination- Others) RANDOMKID
(Best Livingroom) simon groso
(Funniest - Other) Zink
(Best Bedroom) kamejosh
(Best other) Dragonlord Zakar
(Best combination- bedroom) imicahi
Darkick
(Best Living Room) twitchyhug
(Best Combination- bedroom) Lellyna
chandlerrulz
(Best Combination- livingroom) Groovie PSP
(Funniest outside) Groffeltoff
acmpuppy
(Best Combination- Other) Albel Wicked Nox
(Best combination- Other/Kitchen) Belderiver
(Best Combination- Other/Outside) Belderiver
(Funniest Combination- Other) SirSoppa
(Best Combination- Living Room) leo1024
(Best Combination- Other) Dihe
(Funniest Combination- Other) Glendolynn

Thanks to the judges who helped select from the many excellent entries!
Judges for the housing contest were: Alac, Reens, Seahawk, Circe, Aelthai,
blues, and Falerin.

Special gratz to valinorian_coe. Hope that grand prize helps with take the sting out of all the time and DC you put into your house! Alac says that "The check is in the mail," Meaning you will all get your prizes as soon as humanly possible. Thanks again for another great DF contest!

2) A special note for all of you who we will be seeing at DragonCon:

The Artix Entertainment team is at Dragon Con again this year. This time, we'll be holding two panels at the convention in Atlanta, Georgia, which starts on August 29, 2008. The first panel will be about all of our games, while the second panel will be entirely about our upcoming MMO, AQ Worlds.

Gaming Track: "Meet The AE Team" Aug 30th, Saturday 2:30pm
MMO track: "AQ Worlds" Aug 31st, Sunday 11:30am

We would love for you all to join us there, and we'll have some surprises in store for the people who make it.

-Safiria

Those "surprises" are NOT your left sock. Those are seperate. The special D-Con treat is something that you're going to like though.

3) Lets chat about this Friday. While we are plotting and planning and scheming with Dragons, Ice Zones and Dragonslayers on our minds we will be introducing a side quest from Celestia this weekend. She wants to know that you're doing everything you can to train your baby dragon and as long as you're out there she has a special tsask for you. Remember the dragon at the beginning of the game? Well he's back and he's got a very special and powerful package that Celestia needs you to get for her.

This special side quest will also have a higher drop rate for REALLY SPECIAL DRAGON CHOW than any other quest in the game! But this quest will be for Dragon AMulet holders only, so if you haven't decided to upgrade yet... no time like the present.

4) (Bonus bullet point!) Speaking of Dragon Amulets I wanted to share this with you. Janienne Jennrich is a DF player who writes a lot about AE games on Suite101.com. Here is one basic review of DF.

Here is another article about the value of the Dragon Amulet! DF may not get a lot of press but it's nie to know that most of it is people saying nice things! Can't ask for much more than that. Thanks JJ!

Cysero
Is
Too Busy
Pwning To
Put Anybody
Down!

August 1st, 2008
It's The Monkees!

Hi Guys! The release is live.

There have been a few changes to the plan. First.... there are, as of yet, no weapon drops in the war. This might change over the course of the war... I guess that depends on how fast you guys get to 50% (HINT).

Also, instead of having to complete the Pirate / Ninja Inn quest chain to participate in the war (which is fair but not very cool), we decided that the being changed into a monkee with all of their amazing skills was too good to miss. Anyone can play in the war.

Some of you have noticed that you can break the (very very weak) monkey curse bu equiping the ChickenCow armor. Some people think that this is an awesome exploit because you can equip ytour favorite weapons in the war. Those people are kind of slow.

The rest of you noticed that you can equip ANY WEAPON THAT YOU WANT as a monkee. It doesn't change the monkee's weapon's appearance, but the damage and element definately change.

This is the first time you guys get to wear the Monkee armors. Why would you want to be a fighter, rogue or mage? Let the ChickenCows have their fun, I say!

Dragesvard also got an upgrade. All 3 of Galanoth's random quests are now open for business and drop the stackable Ice Dragon Scales (which will be used later in the zone, as usual).

Ikea has also opened her store for business. It doesn't have a lot of items in it yet but that will change as the zone grows. Still... the Dragesvard location is one of my favorites AND who doesn't want a replica Dragonslaying Lance in their living room?

Enjoy the war and the 3 new quests guys!

Have a good weekend! Or Else I'll have it for you!