has blue eyes.
Alac
is an art-lover

June 30th 2009
Did we publish an artbook? Why yes, yes we did!

Who loves art? I know I do! And if YOU do too, then you'll love the MechQuest artbook that we've self-published. It goes on sale on July 10, 2009 and is chock-FULL of oishii-goodness, Thyton-insanity, J6-jokery (ok, ok, enough is enough) and will have things like a "How to draw mecha" art section, some amazing never-before-seen sketches AND the secret of transforming starships! And as an added "thank you" from us to you, you'll be able to use a unique code a unique code that unlocks unlocks the EXCLUSIVE Skullcrusher Mecha in both MechQuest and AdventureQuest Worlds! (To see the Skullcrusher mech in action, go here) and for all the information we have about the Artbook itself, check out this page: MechQuest Artbook!

On to what we'll be releasing this week in DragonFable! We will have another quest for you, of course, but just what that will involve, you'll need to wait and see! It WILL release on Thursday, though, so you'll get to sate your taste for DF a day early this week. We'll also have a whole steamhouse full of stuff for you to buy for your new Popsprocket-themed house! Things will include a Popsprocket background, steampunk-themed furniture (every house needs a water heater, after all) and a TV for you media junkies (like more than a few of us here at AE). We'll also have our holiday shop full of new weapons from level 10 through 50. And oh, say, can you see that new trinket? You'll be able to once the shop opens! And that's not all; Rolith is planning on having a brand-new minigame ready for you this week and, from what I've seen so far, this is the first of it's kind attempted for DragonFable. (Don't let that alarm you, though. Honest.)

I hope you're enjoying the start of summer, favoritest season of sunscreen manufacturers and ice-cream truck drivers everywhere!

   

has blue eyes.
Alac
is not the director of Gnomeland Security!

June 26th 2009
Set the Alert-level to Puce!

Are you Primed for this release? I know I am! We have some fun things for you this weekend, so lets get right to the run-down!

First up is the PenPal quest! Zapp has been attacked! Or possibly just 'napped! It doesn't matter which, because he's GONE! Who took him and why? To find out you'll need to head to Popsprocket to get the quest, then travel to the jungle to find him. Zapp is such a friendly fellow, it's a shame such a predicament had to befall him.

We ALSO have the conclusion of the Energy Orb saga! Talk to Yix to replay the Assault on Popsprocket (which has been removed from Falconreach as of today). You'll need to gather five Gears of War by fighting in the War waves to unlock the boss battle and cutscenes. All war rare weapons have been removed from the quests, so give yourselves a pat on the back, rare-hunters! For this week only, because we just finished fighting the war, you won't need to re-play through the war to unlock the titan battle. In "The City Fights Back!" you'll pick up where the final war cutscene left off, with the N.C. Positronic Guardian Alert system kicking in and warning the Gnomes. If I were you, I'd get ready to evacuate, because you DON'T want to be on Popsprocket when the Orb's defense system activates. (BIG Hint: DF has never seen a transformation like this before!)

For rewards, we've got some nifty dropping this week. Wigs (yes, wigs)! From the static War quest in Popsprocket, the boss battle will drop wigs modelled after gnome hairstyles for free players, and DA-only wigs will drop from the titan fight quest. There are also two helms modelled after the titan boss! If the best Transformers hide in plain sight, this one has GOT to be good. No one expects the water heater!

More than meets the eye!

For those of you getting excited about the DA-only testing server, you'll need to wait just a bit longer, sorry. We still need to get all the numbers from our number-crunchers, and then Rolith needs to implement them. But once he does, you'll have a whole server all to yourselves to play with the new base class skills and to preview the changes to the stat system.

Have a great weekend!

P.S. - The Fourth of July is next week in the United States, which means a Holiday shop! Since so many of our US players will be away on the July 3rd and 4th for family events, we will TRY to have the shop out by July 2nd to give you guys a chance to get the rares. And if we can't do that, we'll keep it around for a few days after the holiday ends so that everyone has a chance to buy some summer memories.

   

is so happy
Cysero
Feels Safe.

June 22nd 2009
Happy CyDef Day!

Cysero's Defenders are having their third anniversay today and I just wanted to give a huge shout out to Anoril and the other loyal Defenders.

Who Are the Cysero's Defenders, you ask? Let's review shall we?

Here is a quick history lesson for you: This was the post found on the design notes on June 22nd, 2006.

June 22nd 2006
(Artix)
Problem at Cysero's DragonCoin shop?
Our community is insane. 'Nuff said.

Buffing up the Warrior and Rogues!
It looks like the bug fixes went smoothly, but by fixing a few bugs in the Warrior and Rogue they got weaker. Instead of weakening the Mage to even them out... *glance*.... we are going to make combos like the multi-strike and rapid-strike work off of any "attack"! So you can use any attack for your opening move, then unleash your combo.

More Rogue fixes : We are going to double the damage of the Rogues throwing technique (wild daggers) so it is on par with the Warrior and Mage. Also sneak attack is going to be fixed so that it does both attacks instead of the single one it is doing now.

You see, I was having fun with the players back when my shop was stationary and they defided to revolt against my DC pricetags. A few of the players, banded together and started a small rebellion and Artix and I thought it was so great that we placed them INSIDE my shop, having taken over completely.

Eventually Anoril and some other forumites decided that anyone who could take a rebellion with a sense of humor deserved defending rather than rebelling against. A counter-rebellion had begun.

It was a LOT of fun but the havock is wreaked on the forums resulted in the No Rebellion rule which is still in effect. it is a bannable offense.

Let's jump ahead 1 year.

June 22nd 2007
Friday Release

Baby Dragon Feeding and The Official Punt Twilly Minigame!

UPDATE: The Baby Dragons have woken up! They are hungry and need you to teach them, so go see Lady Celestia in Sunbreeze Grove today and give them something to chew on, besides Twilly.

This and MechQuest news + Answers to Oishii's final exam coming soon..... *whispers* You Dragons are going to be SCARY powerful over time as you feed them. I was actually intimidated looking at the spreadsheet Zhoom and Cysero made on Baby Dragon skills.

"That's no castle... it's a Space Station!"
According to Anoril (Who, as one of Cysero's Defenders, I am obligated to trust with my life... or else he will kill me) today is the 1 year anniversary of the so-called "Great Cysero Rebellion" . For those of you who weren'r around let me recount the tale, in all of its glory.

~~~~~There I was in my shop...
When suddenly the door was blown open and the hallway became a storm of laser fire between my shops loyalists and the invading rebels. After the firefight Lord Asparagus entered my shop and lifted one of the loyalists by his neck.

"What have you done with those plans?" He demanded.

"We intercepted no transmissions. Aaah....This is a Dragon Coin shop. Were on a diplomatic mission." Answered the loyalist with his last breath.

"If this is a Dragon Coin shop...were is the proprietor?" Asked Lord Asparagus, and tossed the loyalist aside like a rag doll.

I knew that it wouldn't be long until they found me, so I placed the plans into the memory banks of one of my orbs. I placed the orb in one of the escape pods. I sent it to find Lady Celestia, she was my only hope.~~~~~~~~

Shortly thereafter I was taken prisoner and held captive until Artix, Zhoom and Twilly, and Lady Celestia snuck into and freed me from the Deathst... a big castle. That's how I remember it anyway.

So that is the tale. Sort of. Maybe last year's DNs post will shed some light on things.

Nope, we were right in the middle of a war, racing you guys to the finish to see if we could get the end of the war done before you finished it so there WAS no entry last year. Yeesh.

I guess you're just going to have to look it up on the DFPedia or join Anoril for his yearly retelling of the saga on the CyDef forums if you want the whole story.

Let's talk about this week's release. We're short on animators this week. Tomix is MIA for a few days and poor Ghost (who is getting faster and faster at making his amazing cutscenes) is nothing more than a frazzled stump of an animator and we need gi give him a week to recharge his ghostly power cells. THIS week we've got another Pen pal quest in Popsprocket and the PockSprocket Titan Battle!

One of the players wrote me and actually guessed what the titan battle would be, which surprised me as much as it will hopefully surprise you!

Happy Birthday CyDef!

 

   

has blue eyes.
Alac
loves sneevil-speak.

June 19th 2009
You make done war! REAL good!

I love the way sneevils talk. Writing their dialogue makes me laugh* every time. I sat here and said it to myself a couple times, then forced myself to stop goofing off and go make the commemorative house item as a special reward for finishing the war before the deadline. That's right, you can find a War Rare House shop by clicking Yix's "Talk and Shops" button! Now, on to our Friday release!

We have, to start, a new Konnan quest for you! You know who likes caves? Spelunkers.** Also, guardians. Guardians in the form of a new, never-before-seen DF monster! So talk to Konnan and head to the caves to continue your questing in the Akriloth/Konnan storyline!

And, of course, the Assault on Popsprocket has ended! Your deadline was to have it done by tonight's release and wow, did you ever manage to do that! The Undead meter was at 100% by Wednesday and the Cyklon meter hit that mark this morning. You guys rock! (Rocking out at stuff is endorsed by geopetal.) For the war's end, there are 9 new weapons that drop from the boss quest, a new necklace which pays homage to the RNG god in Yix's war shop, and the Beacon of Hope trinket, which is also still available in the shop. The end cutscene... just go watch. I guarantee, you won't have seen THIS coming!

Tomix and Rolith have also finished getting the Technomancer ready for full DragonLord testing. All the skills are unlocked so you can see just what the gnomes' magitech science has wrought! Lasers, blackholes, grenades... LOTS of tech-y goodness in this armor. The armor will be available for all players in the near future.

And don't forget, Father's Day is this weekend, so make sure to give your dad a hug (and possibly a powertool, if he likes that stuff). I know I'll be calling MY dad on Sunday to say "Thanks for putting up with me!"

P.S. - Expect a Father's Day Shop later this weekend!

* Laughter has been proven to be medically beneficial!
** Spelunking is a VERY fun word to say. I am not sure I'm brave enough to try it, though.

   

has blue eyes.
Alac
went through plans A and B already.

June 17th 2009
Reserve Plan C-3P0 Phase 1 is... complete!

Which means Phase 2 has begun! Phase 1 required Sepulchure's army of Undead Minions to be utterly annihilated, and boy, did you guys ever do that! We planned on Phase 1 and Phase 2 being finished on Friday, but wow, you guys rallied together and demolished those undead!

That means it's time for Phase 2, for the Cyklons to be recycled into scrap metal (just think what Yix could make from all those loose cogs and gears!).

P.S. - Boy, Sepulchure is NOT going to be happy. Not at all. Who knows WHAT he'll do in retaliation?!

   

has blue eyes.
Alac
went through plans A and B already.

June 16th 2009
Initiate Reserve Plan C-3P0!

The war is nearing it's end! Wave after wave of the undead have been demolished and their side is rapidly approaching the 100% mark. Not only that, but between the heroes of Lore, the togriding army and Sepulchure taking out squads of Cyklons (thanks to Dave v384.16's prediction), the Cyklon army is being handled, too! You guys have been whipping through these waves so fast that Ghost, Rolith and I talked to revisit and finalize plans for the end of the war. And so the button triggering Reserve Plan C-3P0 was pressed. We won't tell you all the details of the plan, just know that by the time Friday rolls around, the war WILL end, you WILL face a boss, and you WILL find out what happens to the Energy Orb!

Yesterday the Togriders snuck in a surprise mini-assault and took out a fair-sized chunk of the Cyklon army, hoping to boost everyone's morale. In thanks, WE boosted the Togrider pets' damage just a bit. On the forum, posters have been rallying to both sides of the war, valiantly boosting each others' morale with battle-cries, words of encouragement, and even setting lyrics to Ghost's soundtrack, War By Candlelight! You guys have done an excellent job so far, just another final push or two and you'll have wiped out the undead AND the cyklons!

That's not all we're working on, though! The next quest in the Konnan storyline will come out Friday, and Rolith and Tomix are busy working away at the Technomancer armor. I've seen previews and wow, do things ever go BOOM (Also PEWPEW!). It's a busy week! See you Friday!

   

Rolith
Rolith
Is Sushi-full

June 13th 2009
A very special Saturday Design Notes

It's late Saturday Night, and I just wanted to check in on you guys, and the war for Popsprocket which is still raging as despirate as ever. you guys are putting up an amazing effort, and me and Ghost have plans to give you guys some structure and goal on Monday or Tuesday.

Speaking of Ghost, not only was this week DragonFable's Birthday, not only was it your dragon's... It also contained the Apprition Animatior's! Ghost's skills continue to marvel me, producing some of the most jaw-dropping cutscenes I've ever seen over the past several months, he's helping set the stage for bigger and grander things to come! Make sure you guys stop by on the fourms and wish him a happy birthday!

I've been working on a couple of projects on the backend that you guys will hopefully start to get to see the public face of soon. I've always wanted to do something along this line for a while now, and I finally am going to sit down and get it done, even if it takes some of my free time to finish up. Prepare for some shiny.

   

Rolith
Rolith
Is Distracted

June 12th 2009
And the War for Popsprocket...Continues...

I have had the good fortiune to be surprised by the love and dedication you guys show towards this game over and over again over the past couple of years, and this week has been no exception. The Popsprocket war has shown the best of our gaming's community. Rallying Calls, Orginization, and moral boosting are all what the war threads in DFGD are all about. You guys have reached the halfway point, and unleashed upon the enemies of Popsrpcoket and the Gnomes a impactful blow with the tog-mounted sneevils. The war, however, is not over and we must continue to stand.

Ghost informs me, for those of you with sharp eyes, there's a special treat hidden in the Secret Attack cutscene, the Mages and Warriors shown have on display some special new animations he's been working on in preperation for the base class tweaks, and this is the first chance you guys will get to look at them.

Demento has traveled north, and you with him, in search of the ultimate ice element weapon, which will hopefully let you turn the tide on Akrlioth. See the first part of this journey this week. Keep an eye on this storyline, as it's leading up to one of the biggest events in DF's history. We're pulling out all the stops this summer.

One final thing. Technomancer Armor entered testing today.

Tomix unleased this beautiful armor with it's first four skills unlocked for everyone to see. The armor will undergo pretty through additons and modifications until we're ready to release it sometime in the future. Testing during this phase is for DragonLords only, make sure you let us know what you think on the forums.

   

Doodle can't be undid, home skillet.
Cysero
Has A Dragon
Named Yix.

June 10th 2009
Happy Birthday DragonFable!

Actually, it was yeasterday.

DragonFable went live on June 9th 2006 and has been growing stronger every week. I came into Artix Entertainment when the engine was an angry knot of jumbled code written by Artix and Zhoom and started making weapons and animating monsters, when the only monster in the baby game was the fire elemental. The Sneevil was the first monster that I animated.

The DF quickly grew, as Geo came to work for DF (she was a long time player and forumite), helping us with our weekly releases and evenutally making some quests of her own. Ghost quickly followed suit, having his art and animation skills noticed on the forums. Rolith was next, also a player of the games and member of the forums who was noticed for his skills and asked to come help us. Not too long ago, Tomix who had been floating around the forums was brought to our attention and came to help with his amazimg art and animation, and finally Alac who had been helping us from afar on the forums for more than a year, was asked to bring her writing skills and tireless work ethic and come work on DF.

Not to mention Reens, Seahawk and Maegwyn's army of forum mods and AKs helping us all keep in touch with the community, helping us knit a tigher game community than any on the web, and helping us find the largest, scarriest bugs that they can.

Notice a pattern? Everyone on the team was already a member of the AE Community when they were asked to come work for DF!

Everyone here at Artix Entertainment does the work of 3 normal game developers with our weekly releases, but I'm really proud of the DF team and all that we have acomplished, continue to accomplish and have planned for the future of Falconreach and its surrounding areas.

Thanks for 3 amazing years guys. We couldn't have gotten here without you giving us your ideas, playing through our silly stories, exciting adventures and terrible puns. Thanks to each and every one of you for hanging out with us for this long.

To celebrate DF's 3rd Birthday, you can visit Lady Celestia, click on the Train Baby Dragon button and click the Grow Dragon button. If you can afford the hefty gold pricetag then your baby dragon will become a TODDLER dragon.... and the best part is that it new loads as a GUEST, which means you can adventure with your Toddler Dragon AND your favorite pet by your side at the SAME TIME!

This will seriously increase your damage output!

Enjoy!

   

Doodle can't be undid, home skillet.
Cysero
Wouldn'T Hurt
A Fly.

June 9th 2009
Life Is Fun!

This morning before work I did some stuff around the house.

First off, we had a fly. It got into our apartment a few days ago and it's been buzzing around ever since. I thought "It will just die eventually," but it didn't. It just kept pyssing around, following us from room to room and landing on our ears while we slept, like it wanted revenge for something. Normally I can reach out and grab flying bugs but this guy had some serious fly ninja training. My kung fu was simply not strong enough.

This morning I sat down on the couch with a pillow on my lap holding a glass bowl over my head... and waited. I knew the fly wanted to spend time around me and it was just a matter of time until it landed on the pillow. In a smooth motion I quickly lowered the bowl onto the fly and let him go back outside.

It may have been a little more complicated than a flyswatter but I didn't have to wash bug guts off a wall, and I got him out of the house without killing him which I always consider a plus.

I ALSO discovered that my fiance's flat iron (turned OFF) is a great way to get that last little bit of toothpaste out of a dying tube. See diagram below.

clever!
"Empty Toothpaste Tubes Are The Mother Of Invention"

Anyone who says that everyday life is boring needs to spend a little more time having fun with it.

THIS weekend we will have a quest and HOPEFULLY an armor for you to test.

Following the destruction of Konnan's home town and everyone's defeat at the hands of Akriloth, Demento decided that the answer lies in the frozen northlands. He requires your help to assemble the parts of a shattered, legendary weapon... it might be your only hope of defeating Akriloth and saving all of Lore from firey destruction.

Yix and his gnomes have been working day and night on ideas to help you defeat Sepulchure and the Cyklons. They have finally got a human sized prototype of the Technomancer Armor ALMOST working.

technolicious!
This Armor Will Pop Your Sprockets Off!

With a little luck you will be able to test out the first few skills of this amazing new armor, drawn, colored and animated by Tomix... But remember, armor testing is for Dragon Lords only. If you want to be ones of the first to use this powerful armor and help us balance test the skills then you will need a Dragon Amuet!

   

Rolith
Rolith
i've got nothing

June 8th 2009
Akriloth Is A Guy...

It isn't often we get as mixed up as we were over Akriloth in the underground lab. LORE history almost got re-written in a very unusual way. Whoops. Fixes to the cutscenes to make sure Akriloth appears to be a guy will go live Friday.

So remember the mention of the tweaking of base classes I mentioned a few months back? Lord Barrius, Aelthai, Alac and I have been working on and off, and we're starting to have some stuff to share.

We've defined the three core classes by basic playstyle elements for each... there are a lot of details still to work out but here are the three base classes and what we want to change in one sentence each:

Warrior:
To increase the power and balance out the skills, making it more focused on doing a good deal of damage to single opponents.

Mage:
To reorganize the skills so that they focus more on mage aspects, including giving elemental spells additional and different attributes, making them more effective.

Rogue: To redesign the focus of the class, making it more oriented towards stealth and damage over time.

Again we're still a ways off of getting things to a place where we can show them off to you, but we're definately moving forward. As soon as we have a finalised skill list, I'll make sure to let you guys see it too.

Popsprocket's war has been raging all weekend and you guys are starting to establish a foothold between two raging seemingly countless forces, and as things progress we'll become more and more clear about exactly what it'll take to save the gnomes and try to protect the energy orb from our most fatal foe.

We've got some serious surprises for you guys as the war progresses.

This week Alac is taking time off of quest-creation to work on a side project for Cysero as well as modifiying some existing monster sets to use the new Monster AI (Mana usage and cooldowns) that I made a few months back. She's also been looking out for quick easy bugfixes to make, too, so I wouldn't be surpised to see some gone with this week's release.

The Prologue to the Great Fire War Saga has begun, and will continue this week. We're moving north. Demento thinks he's got a lead on a most powerful of Ice weapons, powerful enough to defend against Akriloth? We'll have to wait and see.

   

has blue eyes.
Alac
is ready for war!

June 5th 2009
Let loose the togs of war!

Welcome to the weekend! Are you ready to fight?!

War has finally come to Popsprocket, and now Yix and the gnomes need you to fight your hardest! You can access the Popsprocket war by clicking on the button in the center of town. This IS a war you can lose; the final cutscene after the boss battle will depend on whether you've defeated enough waves!

In your planning with Yix, you figure that it will take a couple of weeks in order for Sepulchure to plow through all the Cyklons that have started rapidly replicating. That gives you time to battle the bots AND take on Sepulchure's minions as they go after YOU! You'll have waves of Cyklons to fight, waves of undead to fight, AND you'll be able to take on the persona of one of Sepulchure's minions in a new version of the latest minigame. Sepulchure has sent you and Drakath to hunt Cyklons, and he will be most displeased if you let him down. All three of those quests will count towards the war meter. There is also a DA-only quest for upgraded members while will answer the questions about why Dr. Voltabolt hasn't been involved in the Popsprocket saga! Can you convince him to help you?

Ghost has made a new pet that can be found in the Defender's Rares shop: to make a Togrider, you will need Gears of War and Defender's Medals. to make higher versions of the Togrider pet, you'll need the lower version, plus Defender's Medals. Tomix and one of our art interns have made weapons to drop as rewards; Metal weapons drop from the Cyklon waves and Wind weapons drop from the Undead waves. In addition, Yix, the gnomes, the sneevils, and the togs are all working feverishly to plan the secret attack, which will be revealed in a cutscene once they are ready. And as soon as they are, the cyklons and undead better expect to fight harder than ever, because once they're ready to set it off, things are going to get FIERCE!

And if you thought that was all we had for you this week, guess again! We ALSO have the beginning of a new quest chain that will lead up to this summer's main event! You'll need to help Konnan, Yulgar's assistant in his weapon shop because he's found out that his home town was attacked by a fire dragon. You've seen the banner on the home page, so that should offer you a clue about where this will go. It's going to get hot this summer!

Have a great weekend!

   

has blue eyes.
Alac
can't believe it's Wednesday already!

June 3rd 2009
We all live in a yellow submarine...

Or DO we?! The Beatles' just came on last.fm and, really, you can't beat the Beatles for groovy music. Now, if only Yix and Co. could make a submarine. Then again, you don't need one, you can breathe underwater.

On to what's happening this week! The assualt on Popsprocket will begin in just a few days, so ready your weaponry and charge up your spells, because this battle's going to be BIG. And not only will it be big, but if you lose, the entire future of the game will. Be. Changed. So make sure you don't lose! There will be the normal waves to fight as well as a DA-only quest AND an alternate means of getting Defender Medals which WILL count towards the waves (and can be played by everyone).

Not only that, but coming up will be a quest which may begin to give you some insight into AdventureQuest's past. I won't give anymore details than that, though. It would just ruin the surprise. And we DO like surprises!

See you Friday!