June 28, 2006
Guardian Tower
Cysero, J6 and Zhoom are working on the Guardian class and the new Guardian Tower interior for DragonFable. Classes will not take up room in your inventory -- instead you will be able to go to the class trainer to temporarily pick up your class armor, or set the class as your default.

Daimyo's Birthday
My ever faithful and yappy friend leveled up today. I really wanted to put a quest with him in the game:

Daimyo: "Arf Arf!"
Player: " What is it puppy? Artix fell down a well?
Daimyo: "ARF ARF!"
Player: *looks down well and hears combat*
Player: "Do not worry Artix I will get you out"
Artix: "Actually, can you come back in.. oh... about an hour? There are LOTS of undead left down here!"
Player: "Heck no! You cannot have all the fun! *Jumps in*"
Daimyo: "Arf! Arf!"

June 27, 2006
John Smedley phone call?!!!
*Tosses the phone up into the air, and does a flying jump double flip kick through several skeletal soldiers and lands in front of the computer* Dear players... just a few moments ago I got off the phone with John Smedley!.... The President of Sony Online Entertainment!... the maker of EverQuest, EverQuest 2, and StarWars Galaxies!... *Takes a moment to catch his breath* For those of you wondering if I start phone-calls the same way I start forum posts... yes, but I opened the call with a "greetings" but choked on the "salutations". It was an honor to have an introduction call with him and hearing about his achievements in game making was extremely inspirational. Having misplaced 2 years of my life to EverQuest it was hard holding back all the stories I wanted to tell... but I did get to share that my X-girlfriend was the first one to complete the Cleric Epic-Ressurection stick quest. Wish I had mentioned that my guild made the final 4 in the very first all-server best of the best contest... (Fires of Heaven put the beat down on us before getting their just deserts in the final round by a PvP server guild). Back to the matter at hand. For some reason a lot of big companies have been calling us recently. Sure it was simply a "getting to know you" call, but I am sure you are asking yourself, "why would one of the biggest MMORPG companies in the world contact us about AdventureQuest and DragonFable?" Web game? MMORPG game? *thinks* MMORPG..... Web..... MMORPG..... Web..... *sighs* Nope, I am just not getting it. See you on the forums. Battle Rumor On!

June 26, 2006
Amassing stuff this week!
This week we are getting the raw materials together. New Monster Models! New Hairstyles! New Dungeons! New Weapons! New NPCS! I will post you screenshots of the work in progress.



Special: Monster Making
This is what a monster looks like initially... just a B&W Sketch. Then we scan it in, import it to Flash where we vector, color, and animate them. Then we add specialty functionality like color customization ability, special moves, breath weapons, etc.... then finally we add the AI code to it. We have created over 35 unique base-model monsters in DragonFable. Expect to see over 500 uniques (with dozens of variations of each) over the next few years.

Manga?
I know a lot of AQ and DF players like Anime... but do you read Manga? For the past two years they have gained a lot of popularity here and have taken over multiple shelves of the local bookstores. If you do read them, what are you favorites?

June 23, 2006
Happy Birthday Lady Tomo!
To celebrate Lady Tomo's birthday we added a special Lady Tomo birthday party hat to Patch the Barber's shop! Wear it to celebrate -- what is the most bizzare screenshot you can take in your party hat? (Haha! Check this out)

Robina the Hood: Bounty Hunting!
Need some gold to get that Doom weapon? Now is your chance... speak with Robina about Bounty hunting and you will unlock the special bounty hunting mode of the Bandit Camp. Bosses will all become rare spawns worth large sums of gold!

SureStrike in CounterStrike!
Cysero has been training me in the ways of CounterStrike..... perhaps he has been training me... too well. On an unrelated note it would be so funny to have a character class with every move named after another game. Concept: Player Class Skills: Quake, Fear, Doom, Counterstrike, and the ultimate spell... Oblivion!

In your wildest dreams... what would you want in DragonFable?
This is a time for planning. If you knew you could write something down that might actually appear within a years time, what would you say? We all know the big stuff -- friends, guilds, wars, the epic storyline... that is all coming for certain. But what else would you like to see? Haunted places with Vampires.... that you take over and control? Exploring mysterious ruins... and discovering you are the reincarnation of the great leader who ultimately destroyed them? A quest about a farmboy with a magical toothpick and when he speaks he replaces all his Ts with Zs? Zhe Zerror! Zhe Zerror! A secret quest to learn the deadly art of basket weaving? This weekend, lets let our imaginations run wild. See you on the forums!

June 22, 2006
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.

June 21, 2006
Fixes Released!
*Now we sweat and hope for a good grade!*

Day 2 --Run bugs run! We are coming for yooooouuuuuu!
You know... it sort of feels like you gave us homework. Lots and lots and lots of homework. Reens and Pae compiled huge lists of your bugs, quirks and typos and then them all to us in the form of one giant to-do list. I hope we get an A when we turn it in tonight! (Be nice when grading our work... we have way to much blood in our caffeine-stream today!)

Tonight's Release:
- Fixes all of Artix's typos. (It's a miracle!)
- Solves the freezing problem during combat
- Fixes class skill bugs
- Makes DragonAmulet and DragonCoins easier to recognize in your inventory
- Fixes quirky issues with monsters, invisible items, and NPCs
- Will allow pets to attack when you are in a group (i.e. Against Gorgok)
- The real spelling of Gorgok is... um *coughs* Gorgok....
- Scan through the lists of bugs on the forums... most of them will be fixed too.

Wish us luck! Meanwhile, we are also working on the Guardian class. It should be ready for release next week. It is a level 10+ required class and will be the first multi-class.... meaning you will be able to switch back and forth to that class keeping your color customization and your level. Have any ideas for all of the Guardian skills between attack and summon Guardian Dragon? ... to the forums!

June 20, 2006
Happy bug Smashing day to you!
Today the hammers have come out! (Bug squishing hammers) We are on an all our bug smashing assault. From my horrible typos to bugged skills we are opening a can of bugspray on the game all day long! Today feels like it needs its own song.... anyone want to write one?

Bug Busting Themesongs!

June 19, 2006
The Dragon Boss fight is happening now!!
Gorgok, the infamous ravager of the Redpike Ravine and nefarious devourer of the Dreadmill Dam is finally cornered! His army has been wiped out by the combined forces of you and your fellow players.... now it is time to bring this Dragon down! Battle on!

Boss Tips
We wanted the first Dragon fight in DF to be one you remembered. Given the magnitude of Gorduk's immense hitpoints and his Area effect fire breath, using a little strategy and pacing yourself is key. The experts on the forums have already divised dragonslaying strategies for the different classes. Check in with them if you need an edge. If you are looking for a real challenge -- try defeating him with your starting weapon... or better yet, beat him with a level 1 weapon from the opposite class (half damage)!

Game Bug -- Need your help
We are aware that there is a bug when Posion (Rogue) and Wound (Warrior) wear off which causes the monster to freeze. Can you help us verify this bug?

June 16, 2006
Dragon Assault on Willowshire!
Gorgok, the elemental Dragon of Earth along with his army of half-dragon minions have sieged the small town of Willowshire. Nobody knows why, but the focus of their attack seems to be the Guardian tower there! Willowshire is just a short distance from our town.... if we can break their army, we can bring down that Dragon. To make things really interesting, Robina and Ash seem determined to fight the Dragon along side you!

What is a "Jinx"?
When two people say something at the same time... the first one to say "JINX!" wins. while there are many variations of this tradition from around the world it normally makes the one who is jinxed unable to speak until the jinxer releases them by saying "Jinx" again. When I was a little kid I got jinxed for three days straight.

3 vs 3 Battles!
Finally.. we get to play with a full sized party! You will quickly notice that NPCs have the capacity to have skills when we make them levelable. The more we release, the more we are eager to make. We also upgraded the Engine to version 3.14, Yay!

The DF-pedia!
Reens just announced that the player run DF-pedia has been released. Check it out here!

June 13, 2006
D. Trump points to Red Dragon and says, "Your fired!"
Yes, Red Dragons are Fire Dragons... it was a pun... *sighs* One day I will get a sense of humor, really! Our first game server, known as Red Dragon, went bad... real bad. Not unlike Ash's hand from E.D.2. So, we kicked it off the network and put a new one in place. Unfortunately, no, we did not name it Chainsaw. We did have to reconfigure the load balancer though which is why the game was down for a short while. We currently have 7 game servers running DragonFable using a load balancer, so it is not a big deal. Bad Dragon, bad!

June 12, 2006
DF / AQ Animated Pilot almost complete!
A few months back we stole an animator who was working on a TV show for the cartoon network and started production on an animated mini-series Web/TV pilot. The first segment is 2.5 minutes of non-stop undead slaying action following the story from Chapter 3 of DragonFable. The characters have a unique style which is not too far from AdventureQuest. It is amazing how many undead you can kill with the default Warrior sword! It will be released in the near future!

Re-balancing the balancing!
In the next few days you are going to see monster strengths adjusted and the loot tables balanced out better. Thank you to everyone on the forums who collected data and made suggestions -- I really liked Greywolfe's post. There is a big difference between people who do not know anything about a game and post flames, and those who love a game and post things because they really want to see the game get better and better. We have listened. Changes are coming!

Hurricane
We have the first hurricane of the year coming through tomorrow. It is just a Category 1 and it is hitting to the North, so for us it will basically just be some heavy rain. We are going to use this time to balance stuff and get ready for this weekend release.... and um, look at the May 10th screenshot for a hint of what is coming on Friday! *Big Smile*

June 11, 2006
Network Issues -- Fixed!
One of our network switches was misbehaving. Zhoom and the Capt worked with the ISP to resolve the issue. This was in fact related to the issue last night -- we will continue keeping an eye on everything. Over the past 4 years we have become pretty good at fixing stuff!

June 10, 2006
Sit and Deliver!
... because otherwise, it hurts your wrists to type when standing in front of your computer! The first two days of the release have gone GREAT! I was overwhelmed by how many people joined us on opening day. This was a rite of passage for DragonFable -- the definitive moment where it became a real game. On a personal note, friends, family members, even online friends I have not heard from in years contacted me just to say congratulations. Felt like the day I opened that piece of bubble gum that told me I was a winner of the BubbleYum Bubblegum He-Man contest (Which is true, when I was in 3rd grade I was one of the winners of a very Willy Wonka like He-Man contest. Which sounds great until you find out that my prize was a *shivers*... the Teela doll... which, for those of thee unfamiliar with the He-Man universe, she is the female good-guy character... and probably the least desirable He-Man prize for a young warrior minded boy who was overcome with delusions of being sent heavily armored berserk warriors to slay the undead with.... hmmm, now that I think about it, Skeletor did sort of look undead-like! ) I told everyone I spoke with the dead truth. The credit for this success goes to Zhoom, Cysero, Oishii, Arklen, J6, Capt. Rhubarb, Galanoth, Safiria, Nythera, Pae, Reens, smbDoll (and everyone on the team) and especially you and the players. Once again....Thank you! Thank you! thank you! Everyone worked so hard to get here. Now, the real work for the team begins. Ironically, just like clockwork, *chuckles* it is Saturday and we are up at midnight and just finished solving our very first network issue. I think that was the final required part of the rite of passage (Needed to solve a mini-crisis for it to be a real game).

Hmmm... now it is time for a snack. Pretzels are my favorite! Especially the big sourdough ones that you can crush into bite size pieces. What about you? What do you eat when you are working at your computer or playing DF / AQ?

June 9, 2006
WOOOHOOOOO!!!!! It is here!

• We just counted... 121 new items in the game today!
• 4800+ Players Online (This is insane!)
• Exits added to the Pyramid and the Frozen Cave!
• More New Items added to the new dungeons!
• Important note: If you level up in the middle of a quest it may appear that you are getting less gold and exp when you beat the quest. But actually, you are getting it all. We will fix the summary scroll in the next version of the game which will be known as Version PI (3.14)!
• Exp/Gold caps raised on many of the new dungeons!
• The Level cap has just been raised to 25
• Ice Monsters are now weak against fire... especially the snowballs!
• The Earth Elemental Cave in Warlic's area has been fixed!
• Any and all special items released will be available for an extended time to make sure that nobody misses anything. Especially if you are waiting on your eCheck to clear.

Less than 5 minutes!!!!
You guys are right... this does feel like New Years! We populated the dungons with items... but more items are going to be added all day long! Do not finalize those lists for dungeons, because we are going to make sure that by the end of the day the right level items are dropping from the right dungons. 4 minutes....!

Less than 30 minutes until GO TIME!
Artix's mother has officially made the first DragonAmulet purchase. The portal to Warlic's area is active on our development server. Zhoom, Cysero, Safiria, Nythera and I are rushing to fix last minute bugs and dropping the new items into the dungeon loot tables! It is almost here!

Less than 1 hours until release!
You can see the official clock on the DragonFable.com homepage. Thank you so much for being a part of this! We will be adding new things, fixing bugs, and tweaking the game all day as you play -- keep us up to date with what you see on the forums, we will all be there! OMG, so close...

Less than 1.5 hours until launch!
The final crunch is on.... items being added, files flying through the ether like a swarm of wyverns. At noon, please return to the homepage and when you see the login button ignited with a blaze of elementals (you will know what I mean) please read the page, check everything out and then login! The build will be upgraded to 3.0 live!

Less than 12 hours until launch!
So here we all are.. it is midnight and we are all online typing faster than the human eye can see with a really bad blood to caffine ratio in order to have everything ready for Noon tomorrow... erm... *checks watch* today! You may see some wierd numbers changing in the game as we do some pre-balancing in preperation for the new level 10 to 20 area. The final skills have been added to the character classes (you are going to love the level 20 skill) and new weapon models are being uploaded to the server as you read this. The next major post you should read will be titled: RELEASE!

June 7, 2006
Released time updated to Noon on Friday!
I am so happy that everyone is eager for this release. Warlic's area is looking awesome! On the forums I read so many posts that this release is too late at night -- especially because we ALL want to be present and able to play for a long time when it happens! Therefore we have officially set the launch time to 12:00 Noon EST on Friday. Battle on!

Less than 48 Hours away from the live release!
Starting at noon on Friday..... the portal opens to Warlic's area, the DragonAmulet goes on sale, the level cap increases to 25 and new items will be found by you and your fellow adventurers! Join us in this week long RPG party... it all starts Friday!

6-6-06 (Special Midnight Report)
The Doom Weapons and the Undead
On this day, for no reason... no conceivable reason at all... these strange weapons have begun to cast an eerie red glow. The undead in Doomwood have risen from their graves and are much more powerful than any undead we have ever seen in the past. Rumors are spreading fast that the Doomcrawler has nearly doubled in strength... can this be possible? Is anyone capable of taking one down? ... and.. someone please say this is not true... did the Doom weapons increase in power AGAIN!?

June 02 , 2006
Surewood Forest has been released!
This new zone is the level 1 to 10 questing area. Many new drops are being added. Also, Build 2.999999 of the engine will be released tonight featuring tweaks that make combat flow faster, easier to access character sheet, and the inventory can scroll. After the release next week we will be adding the quest strings which will start with the main NPC of each area. Battle on!