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March 29th, 2008 Behind the Scenes This brand new walk-around with moving monsters style dungeon was created by Rolith. (Side note: Rolith also coded the new Alvin and the Chimpmonks pinball game that went live in AdventureQuest's Ballyhoo earlier this week... we have been keeping him busy!) We saw that some of the temporary items (which were not supposed to go live until Monday) were causing NaN damage and one shotting monsters... you were lucky if you got one! NaN: Stands for not a number. Litterally what happens when you try to do the following math.... 1+"A" Shameless Dragon Plug |
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March
28th,
2008 How do we keep doing this to ourselves every week? I was TRYING to get this release done for Thursday and once again, 7 P.M. rolls around and we're still getting the release ready for you. At least we have a reasonable excuse this week... we've never done anything like this before. Here's a sneak peek:
THE RELEASE IS NOT OUT YET. Lymcrest isn't a fully functional town (yet), but we plan on expanding it as things go. You WILL be able to set your hometown there if you find the Lymcrest Labyrinth as fun as I do, and you will learn a LOT more about the dwarves of Lore and the town of Lymcrest by talking to Doug. Eventually, Doug will have a shop or two that might sell the temporary weapons that you will find in the dungeon and some other miner-related goodies. We may even add an inn and a few other NPC's, but right now Doug Digg is the only person you'll be able to find in Lymcrest. THE RELEASE IS NOT OUT YET. It really is an entirely different game when the monsters run around and you have to dodge them. We're trying to make this a survival challange, and the balancing is delicate, but with randomly spawning treasure chests that MIGHT heal you or refill your potions you might have enough to make it trough floor 5. Then again, if you're really lucky and clever, you may just walk through all 5 floors without ever getting in a fight. THE RELEASE IS NOT OUT YET. The release isn't out yet but we'll let you know when it is, as SOON as it is. In the meantime here is a funny story. A friend of mine has never ever seen The Goonies. I was stunned to hear this because I really thought that she was the one person on earth who had seen every movie and TV show that I had. I consider this a crime MOST foul, so I'm making her watch it tonight. It was one of the best movies (ever made) from the 80's so to set the mood, I also promised her Tab and Pop-Rocks. As it turns out Pop-Rocks are a very rare find in this day and age. I was driving around my town last night hopping from gas station to CVS until nearly 4 A.M. looking for this noisest of candies and no one had any... most of them didn't carry it... a few people had never heard of the stuff. I was about to give up hope when I stopped for gas this morning and there they were, right on the counter. I fell to my knees and began to cry with relief and joy. They asked me to leave because I was froghtening the other customers. Zhoom, as it turns out, had ALSO never heard of Pop-Rocks. I fed him some. I carefully watched his eyes bug out as he swallowed a whole Pop-Rock and listened to it burst inside his throat. I'll be laughing about that look on his face for a week. THE RELEASE IS NOT OUT YET.
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March
26th,
2008
Forum member and free player Issac suggested Doug Dig (we added another G) and we fell in love. For those of you who don't remember there was once an arcade game called Dig Dug in which you played a little guy tunneling his way through the earth, inflating the monsters found hidden therein until they popped and collecting the various goodies that only miners and geologists can really appreciate. Like rocks. This wasn't an official contest but for making us laugh until we stopped we'll be dropping 500 Dragon Coins on your level 40 warrior, Issac. Great job! We've begun mapping out the first 5 levels of the Lymcrest Labyrinth, which will be released on Friday. We are trying to add some new functionality here which will make grabing a treasure chest a little more interesting, and these monsters will be moving around the dungeon so tread carefully brave adventurer.
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March 25th, 2008 Cheddar says, "I do not know what to say... ah..... I am not really good with words. Cysero offered me a Pop Tart.... then I stole one of his Strawberry Yogurts. Worth the trip from California." *Less likely to attempt to eat our brains. He is likely not a Zombie... but we will keep our eye on him just in case!
Bonus Poem: *** This explains a lot. HAHAHA! I win! So here's the tale: Originally I had you DragonLords facing down a GIANT mummy dragon. That didn't sit well with me because you've already fought one of those. Then, last night around midnight I was at The Globe with my laptop and I realized that I had not referenced Frank Herbert's DUNE series the whole time (actually I did. See if you can find it) ! What good is a desert zone without sandworms?! So I immediately ordered a pot of hot green tea (they don't serve tea by the pot so they gave me a coffee pot full of boiling water, four tea bags and a mug), re-wrote the entire quest, and began work on The Dunelord. I had to do sketches on a napkin and since ghost was offline I had to animate him myself. I'm very happy with the way that he came out and also very satisfied that I was able to close that quest chain with a nod to one of the most important works of literature from my young life. I was very tempted to make him impossible, but I decided to give you a 50/50 chance if you know how to work with your dragon. Enjoy the Titanfight, DragonLords... you earned it!. Once the war has ended and the Titanfight
button moves to Zhoom's zone, it will require that you finish the entire
chain before fighting The Dunelord, but for today... it's open to all
DragonLords. |
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March
24th,
2008 Why did I wait until now to do this? I didn't think of it until just now. You may have noticed that the numbers jumped a bit this morning? WHY? The in-game reason is that Zhoom came in this moirning and said that he had decided to join the fight to save the people of The Sandsea. It's good to have friends! OK! This week Rolith, Geo and I are working on a very new idea based on the maze-style dungeon from MQ. Picture this: You go back to Lymcrest and talk to our first dwarven NPC. He gives you access to a deep underground maze style dungeon that he accidentally discovered while mining. Completeing each floor takes you one floor down, the monsters are wandering around the maze, searching for anything that could eat as food, you can find powerful temporary weapons, items (maybe even temporary classes) in trasure chests which randomly spawn. Every 5 or so floors it takes you back to the dwarven NPC, and saves your progeress so you can start back there next time. Who knows how far down it goes, what you might face along the way, what powerful temporary items you might pick up along the way?
We decided that with the conclusion of the recent Sandsea chain, we were going to have a little fun before we start the next new chain. We want to go back and take care of a few of our numerous loose ends. Starting this week, with the release of the DoomCola Machine monster in DF (remember him? He won the Design Us A Monster contest a while ago), as well as making the RoboTog pets from Voltabolt rares, buffing them and introcuding a new weaker but far eaiser to obtain pet. We want to know what you guys really want to see next. Noxus (Doom wood, tie-in to Artix Versus the Undead video, the Necromantress etc etc), Fae (shape-shifter and DF mascot... who hasn't really appeared in the game yet, but HAS appeared in nearly every ad), or Galanoth (Some guy with a grudge against lizards). Who would you like to see when we get back to work on building the zones around Falconreach? This is your game as much as anyones. Remember that.
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March 21th, 2008
If you are enjoying DragonFable, this holiday weekend is a great time to upgrade and become a DragonLord! P.S. Geopetal is going to kill me for mentioning the Doom Burrito... you guys on the forums nearly caused Rolith and I to shoot coffee out of our noses when we read the follow up posts. Coming next: Find out on Monday -- Same Battle thyme, same Battle channel! |
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March 20th, 2008 * Master Myrzor says, "The future remains cloudy" Sek-Do... WHAT!? Forum Question: Which "known", but not yet in-game NPC would you like to see have their story revealed in DragonFable next? A.) Fae |
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March
18th,
2008 Mechquest has a lot going on so their normal Weds release will be smaller than usual to make room for the MEGAFRIDAY release. Also THESE shirts will be going on sale Friday as well.
It's not a great picture. Sorry, the lighting in that room was kind of weird and my phone is a great phone but not such a great camera. These shirts are a limited run, this means that we didn't make a ton of them so they WILL sell out and only the quick and clever will possess them! You will see me wearing my RuneHawk shirt with pride if you find me at DragonCon. (Yes, I said I was MystRaven before... but only to prove that RuneHawks play pranks too.) |
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March
17th,
2008 There is a boss battle coming at the end of this week and you will be able to fight in it wether ye be free or wether ye own a DA. You will be facing down Sek-Duat and you won't be alone. Zhoom will be at your side the entire time. We're also THINKING about making a mini-war type event which will unlock The Sadnsea's titan battle. The event and (of course) the titan fight will be DA only. Today everyone is a little bit Irish and those of us who are already pretty Irish go almost entirely Irish. It seems appropriate to mention one of the greatest and most well known Irish philosophers of all time, especially since his greatest and most well known thought has ALWAYS applied to all of the Artix Entertainment games: Murphy's Law
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March
14th,
2008 Do you have ANY idea how long it's been since I got a blister playing video games? LIKE 15 YEARS! This tells you 2 things.. .first, my game calluses are magnificent beasts. Second... I was rawking THAT hard. So This week's release is live. If you want to see what all the fuss is about... head to The Sandsea and play the lastest quest in Sek-Duat's continued Sandsea chain. You get to fight against Zhoom! It might be pretty hard for some of our lower level players but you should be fine if you're 15 and up, or you have your potions maxed. 6 Brand new weapons drop from the quest and they look sweet if I do say so myself. The Gold Fever war has laft the game and next Monday, the mysterious prize boxes open! Also, by popular demand, Zhoom's custom PrideLord, Zixcy, has been added to the pet section of my Superstore of Savings. Armor makes everything better!
Most of you will have figured this out by now but I'll tell the ones who are distracted by the shiny new Zixcy... next week you battle Sek-Duat XV (and probably a titan of come sort). Happy Weekend!
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March 13thagon, 2008 Escape from LA Zhoom Boss Fight (This Week!) This weeks battlle with Zhoom is going to be AWESOME!x10 Zhoom's Project What could he possibly lose 8% for you ask? The TA said is was because his code had no //comments! *gasp* (Comments are little notes that say what the code does and makes it easier for someone else to read your code) Zhoom was pretty mad. Now, I am not making this up and I certainly advise against writing letters like this to important people in charge of your grades... but LOL, Zhoom wrote the TA back and said "I work at Artix Entertainment, we do not waste time writing comments :-)"** I laughed really hard, but... um... why do I feel so guiltly suddenly? * We are pretty sure he is one of those terminator machines sent back in time to build games until he is ready to construct Skynet. Cooking on the Backburner! See you on the forums! Feel free to offer up help <whispers> we are going to need it!x5. |
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March
12th,
2008 Sek-Duat XV sends you after Zhoom. This will be an epic battle (of course), and a great way to see which of you is the greater ranger. Unless you're not wearing the ranger armor, in which case it will be a great way to see if your (YOUR CLASS) skills are a match for Zhoom's ranger skills. Ghost is working on the versus version of Zhoom right now and one of his attacks will summon his ranger pet (Zixy, an armored PrideLord!) to attack his enemies. This is one fight that you're not going to want to miss. In other news, Alces and I went to the They Might Be Giants show last night and it RULED! If you haven't had a chance to catch them live, it's a great show. Something else to add to your Do Not Miss list. |
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March
7th,
2008 This week we have some interesting stuff for you. First, in The Sandsea, Sek-Duat XV has been contacted by one of the rebels who wants to turn TRAITOR! What do you do? Do you bring Sek-Duat SV the traitor and betray the rebellion, or do you stand with the rebels and risk blowing your cover with the emperor of The Sandsea? You also get to fight a new monster called the Anubis Knight. This ancient monster has the ability to shield himself AND he regens health EVERY ROUND! It will be a tough fight, good luck heroes. 50% Drop rate of a pretty cool looking helm. Also new this week is our new Mini-Game, Fires Over Oaklore. You will new find Sir Baumbard, a retired DragonLord, right outside Oaklore Keep. He needs you to drop a few lightbombs on invading undead hordes from the back of his dragon, Glumbert. If you can beat all 20 levels of this mini-game and thin out the invading armies enough, the Pactogonal Knights will award you a Defender's Medal. This is a guarenteed drop so now ANYONE can earn Defender's Medals outside of a war! You know what that means? It means that the Defender's Shop will be getting some new items fiarly soon. Not this week, but soon. Fires Over Oaklore is a really pretty addictive game. J6's art and Canon's brilliant Dragonback theme music really add to the replayability! In fact, I'm gonna go nuke more slimes! |
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March
5th,
2008 Who knew that one little green hat could cause so much trouble in so many places and times? Geo did, that's who. I mean, if you're asking me I could tell you some horror stories about exploding hats... I KNOW the dangers, first-hand... but I digress. The green sneevilchaun hat has been sent to parts unknown, and if you don't know what I'm taking about PLAY THE WAR GOING ON RIGHT NOW! In unrelated news, my friend Kat delivered a 7 pound 14 ounce bouncing baby boy into the world yesterday. Eamon, let me be the first to say "Welcome to the world!" and offer a few pieces of sage advivce that I wish someone had given ME when I was a few hours old. 1). Fish sticks are AWESOME and don't waste any time. As soon as you're on solid foods... GO STRIGHT FOR THE FISHSTICKS! 2). Always save your recipts, 'cause as soon as you toss one you, THAT is the second that you need it.
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March 4rthithish, 2008 Forum Question: Do you have any tips for Cysero in this interview about DragonFable? Anything he should BE CERTAIN to say? So Long
Old Friend. Bye Gary, thanks for all the fun.
Ernest
Gary Gygax |
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March 3rd, 2008 .... more coming in a bit! Thank you all so much for your... oh, he covered that. Ok then. Let's talk a bit about Sir Baumbard, the retired Dragonlord. He has finally come home to his beloved Oaklore only to find the keep under constant assualt by droves of the mindless undead!
...Artix is busy... ...SO, Sir Baumbard has devised a cunning plan to drop magical lightbombs onto the undead swarming outside the gate. When the lightbombs explode they start a chain reaction that causes any undead within the blast radius to also explode. This is when the aging DragonLord discovered that after years and years of fighthing beside his dragon, Glumbert, that flying through the skies on his stalwart companion's back makes him a little... queasy. That's right, Sir Baumbard the Brave gets very airsick. That's where you come in hero!
This will be the only place in DragonFable to get a Defender's Medal (as a rare drop) outside of a war! This mini-game is only part of this week's release which also includes at LEAST one new quest in The Sandsea, bringing us ever closer to the big Sandsea finale, and the ongoing war (Geopetal is putting the finishing touches on the end of the war as we speak). This will be a fun weekend! |
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