Etherstorm's Earth Realm!

The Last Element is NOT the Last Chapter!

Finally, even though it has cost Galanoth dearly, the Proto-Prime Elemental Dragons are growing in power and you are returning balance to the elements. Or so you think...

Desoloth, the Final, finds this amusing.You've even brought a new toy for him to play with... The Proto-Prime of Earth, Arradia!

This week you journey into the twisted Earth Realm where you will learn much more than you bargined for about the power of Elemental Earth Magic as well as the resonating frequencies of some crystals. Have you ever heard crystals sing? (If you've played through Mythsong valley then the answer is YES)

This week you will not just hear them sing, you will need to focus, and burn their song into your mind and replay it! There is also a brand new Etherstorm Earth Rep Shop with new reputation items for you to enjoy!

Etherstorm is drawing to a close, but it might not be the ending you would like.

Quibble Is Back!

This time he's returned with some elemental, natural and markedly UN-natural goodies for you including Solrac's Woodland set...

And the highly anticipated transforming armor from Dage... the Exosuit Binoku which transforms (for you, not those around you) when you click on it. There are SEVERAL parts to the set and each one has more than one transformation depending on where and how many times you click it. Will you be the first to find every transformation?!

This is all the same armor and helm. Seperate weapons.

PUNT RETURNS!

Ready for the SUPERBOWL?! This Sunday is the biggest American Football game of the year... the showdown between the New York Giants and the New England patriots. To celebrate, during the Superbowl's Half-Time Show we will be opening up the PUNT map so you can see how far YOU can kick Twilly. Reach the full 100 Yards and get an ACHIEVEMENT BADGE! We are also opening the Half-Time shop during the Superbowl's Half-Time where you can show support for YOUR favorite team, the Mammoths or the Loyalists!

See you at Half-time!

Tags: Superbowl Punt Quibble Etherstorm Wastes Cysero

The Heir to Cornelis

Hodan Cornelis Is The Last Of The Cornelis Line!

He has wandered the face of Lore for years and has returned to reclaim his family's ancestral home from roving gargoyles and twisted Chaos magic!

He needs you help to find his family vault hidden in the maze-like ruins of the once great city of Cornelis. Until he has the Cornelis Title which proves he is the last true heir to Cornelis, he can do nothing to restore his home.

That's where you come in!

Defeat the invaing Gargoyles, defend the city, uncover the vault's secret location (with a little help from yours truly) and solve the RuneSweeper puzzle to unlock the treasures of the Cornelis Family Vault!

This Mid-week release also comes with a Member Only Character Page Badge for unlocking the treasure chest within the Cornelis Vault! Thanks to everyone on the forums for your fresh ideas about the Mid-Week Reward Systems!

PS: MEMBERS - your two FREE Treausure Chest keys are available once you do your monthly quest to get them!

Quibble Comes Friday!

We will, we will ROCK YOU with this earth-shakingly awesome armor by Dage! The Exosuit Binsoku will transform at your command; all you need to do is click the part of the armor you wish to change!

Exosuit Binsoku: For hard-headed heroes and hard-hearted villains!

We'll have many more items in Quibble stock, too! Make sure you don't miss Quibble Coinbiter's bevy of elementally excellent items in this Etherstorm edition of his time-traveling shop!

Enjoy!

Tags: Mid week release Achievement Cysero Quibble

Song of the Frozen Heart , Part 2

Frostval Continues Friday!

The second part of this year's epic Frostval storyline, Song of the Frozen Heart, continues on Friday when you find out who is behind the insidious ice infection that has frozen the hearts and veins of many across the snow-covered lands of Lore.

Don't forget that QUIBBLE will also be getting in a new shipment of holiday rares and items that he will be adding to his current stock!

Quibble Gets A Buff!

As we promised, Quibble Coinbiter's shop will be expanded with a second round of Frostval themed items and armors just for you.

We will be adding the rest of Tomix's amazing frost items...

Along with some highly anticipated armors, like Aegis's Frost Jester and Dage's PermaFrost Legionaire and PermaFrost Sapiens sets and lots of other cool items!

If you're worried about missing any of these Quibble items for any of Beleen's Birthday merge items... Relax and enjoy the holidays. You've got plenty of time! Frostval, Quibble and Beleen's Birthday Shop will stay up until the beginning of next year!

Non-Member Bank Pets!

This Friday we will also introduce a new type of pet to the game: Bank Pets!

As the name would suggest, just click on any of these three new pets and it will open your bank from anywhere in the game!

They are NON-Member pets, they will ONLY work for the ower of the pet and they will cost 2000 ACs each. Twilly and Zorbak will be found in Aria's Pet shop and Valencia's AC shop from Friday onward, but the Frostval Quibble Bank Pet is a Guarenteed Rare that will leave the game when Quibble leaves battleon and will never be back again.

This has been an item that we've had in our heads since before AQW went into beta testing, and also a suggestion that we see quite regularly on the forums so we're happy that it's finally arrived.

Some of you will want to know why they pets cost so much. It's gets a little technical but I've already answered that question last week in THIS FORUM THREAD on THIS POST.

On a side note, I really had a lot of fun talking to you guys that day. I would like to thank every one  of you who participated that day for being patient with me as I tried to answer your questions. There is SO MUCH that goes on behind the scenes of AQW that nobody really knows about (but many THINK that they do). It's nice to be able to open the door a crack and let you peek in from time to time to see what's REALLY going on. It really made me happy to know that the forums can still be a supportive and interesting place for curious and players with smart questions and comments.

That whole thread is a pretty great example of what the AE Forums should be (and once was) and I hope to see things moving back that direction in the future! I will definitely be back more often as time permits.

Tags: Cysero Frostval Quibble Bank Pets

Song Of The Frozen Heart

Frostvall 2011: Part 1

This Friday we will be releasing PART 1 of our new Frostval adventure: Song Of The Frozen Heart, Quibble will be arriving with his first week of Frostval Items and Rares and next week he will be getting a buff, and selling even MORE great Frostval themed items!

Coming on Wednesday: We will be releasing the second mid-week member mini-adventure! This week we will be buffing the LAIR area, adding a new Dragonhunter (A fallen Dragonslayer) NPC as well as a bunch of great member-only Dragon themed items. This will be the last Mid-week release of 2011 but you can expect more in in January of 2012, the Year of Chaos!

We're happy to announce that, as of this Wednesday, you will be able to expand your backpack to a maximum of 120 Inventory Spaces! That's 20 more spaces for all your favorite gear!  Artix and Zhoom have been moving things in the game engine around and found a way to make the impossible possible.

As usual, you will be able to purchase these new inventory spaces from Valencia in Battleon or by hitting the Add Spaces button at the bottom of your backpack!

Zhoom says that this is the very limits of how far we can expand the inventory right now due to the limits of technology so this will be IT, but we make a habit of making the impossible possible around here so you never know...

Finally, Wednesday is Beleen's Birthday and she will be returning to Battleon with her OWN sack full of goodies as well as a new scavenger hunt all over Lore for some of Beleen's favorite things!

Even More Holiday Fun!

December is a VERY busy month for AQW. Later this month you can expect Part 2 of our new Frostval Event, Quibble will be getting even more new items, An Expanded New Year's event and on the 30th, back by popular demand, we're planning the last Limited Quantity Shop of 2011!

The new I CAN HAS MOD contest is now running and we will be picking a winner first thing next year on January 3rd! If you don't already have it, better go get your Cysero's Golden Cheezburger from Cleric Joy in Battleon! Don't forget that every month left on your Membership and every AEXtra that you complete gives you one more chance in the drawing! Good luck!

This year's annual AE Creative Cookie Contest is in full swing,  so bake yourself a tasty entry, take a sweet pic and drop it HERE!

AQW will hit the ground running, full steam into the Year of Chaos! We've got a LOT of great surprises, stories, toys, rare items, classes, and new gameplay expansions in store but we don't want to ruin the new year's surpises! Let's just say you ain't seen nothin' yet!

Come back to the Design Notes TOMORROW for some pretty big news that we think everyone will be excited about!

Tags: Frostval Quibble LQS I CAN HAS MOD Cysero

Horc Evader & Troll SpellSmith!

Double Class Weekend!

As promised, we are giving you TWO classes for the Bloodtusk Ravine area and BOTH of them are coming out tomorrow.

As promised both classes will require a reputation rank of 10 for each of the respective ranks to purchase, but after the recent fashion we will be offering a 2000 AC version of each of the classes for those who feel like they'd rather save the time and effort.

As promised each of the classes have human versions of the art for the class and a Horc or Troll version of the art as armor which is also Rank 10 Rep.

Since we have a lot to go through, let's get down to business. Here are the skill breakdowns for each of these classes.

HORC EVADER SKILL SET

There are two interesting things about this class at first glance. First is that this is our SECOND PET CLASS, meaning that you need a Battle Pet in order to use any of it's skills.

You'll be happy to know that the class comes with a Battle Boar which you can summon using the Whistle Skill as long as you don't have any other pets equipped. Just make sure that pets are visible in your options screen.

The second thing that you might notice is that, even though most people think that the Horcs are all about brute force, this is a class with light armor which focuses heavily on stacking a lot of Dodge. That is because the Evader is a master of a different school of Horc thought which thinks that being able to take a hit is necessary but to develop the skill to easily side-step your opponents clumsy attacks while developing the ability to command a pet to attack them with bestial fury at the same time is a show of ultimate focus and skill.

This class benefits from DEX more than anything else so I suggest Thief Enh for this class.

AUTO ATTACK

2 second cooldown.

A basic attack taught to all adventurers.

WHISTLE

45 mana, 16 second cooldown.

Calls a pet to your side or sends it into a rage causing more damage but making you take more damage too.

If you don't have a Battle Pet equipped, this will summon the Battle Boar to your side and once its there this skill will increase your damage output but will also leave you vulnerable to attacks, making you take more... if they can hit you. Once you have a good Dodge stack you shouldn't be afraid of using this skill but keep an eye on your life bar.

SHADOW STRIKE

10 mana, 3 second cooldown.

Your pet attack your target causing Damage Over Time while also increasing your Dodge for a short time. Effect stacks up to 3 times.

This is your go-to skill. it should be the first thing you do after summoning your pet. Once you have three stacks of Shadow Strike applied, you will have a weak-ish DoT eating away at your foe's life AND you will receive the benefit of having a very hefty Dodge stacked up.

Remember that you need to keep three stacks of this skill up at all time but that DoT won't kill your enemy so you need to balance it with the other damage dealing skills. Since it's built on the Warrior mana-regen model you will be getting mana every time you hit, or get hit but you won't be getting hit a lot so keep an eye on your mana.

SMELL FEAR

15 mana, 5 second cooldown.

Your pet sniffs out your foe's weak spot greatly increasing you Dodge and Crit but slowing your attack speed for a short time. 

I'll leave it to you to decide when you use this skill. The Dodge and Crit are VERY nice to have, especially on top of the Dodge buff from Shadow Strike but slowing your attack speed means even LESS mana coming in. It's a question of what you need at the time.

NIGHT HUNTER & SHADOW WISE

Rank 4 Passive

Increase Critical Chance by 10%

Increase Dodge by 10%

Ranking up the class unlocks the ability to get critical hits more often, plus EVEN MORE DODGE... They don't call it the Evader Class for nothing.

HUNTER'S CALL

20 mana, 6 second cooldown.

You decide to put an end to this fight quickly. You call out to your pet increasing you AND your foe's Haste for a short amount of time.  

There are various uses for this skill. If you just activate it without using any other skills you should get a lot of mana rather quickly for a short amount of time.

Or you CAN use it counter the slowing effect of smell fear but the price is nearly doubling your foe's attack speed for a while. It app depends on how much Dodge you have stacked up.

SMELL BLOOD

Rank 10 Passive

You sense that your foe is near defeat which causes a burst of incredible speed for a few moments.

From time to time you will see yourself suddenly start attacking at Fast Forward speed, increasing your damage output AND your mana regen for a while.

You will notice that THIS class is the first class in a while that has no healing skill. The idea is to use your skill as a player to keep your Dodge so high that you don't NEED to heal yourself, but you can always use your potion slot for that if you want.

TROLL SPELLSMITH SKILL SET

This is a warrior/caster who is very multi-talented. You have an AOE that can attack many foes at once, a decent amount of single target damage and chance of stun which is great for solo-ing or taking on bosses and a self-heal which is ALSO a HUGE buff to ALL of your skills.

This class is all about representing the Trolls academic interests as well as their mastery of the magical arts. It's an elegant class more like a razor than a broadsword. You need to know which skills to use and when and there is a low of room for creativity with how you use them. 

This class benefits from INT more than anything else so I suggest Wizard Enh for this class.

AUTO ATTACK

2 second cooldown.

A basic attack taught to all adventurers.

ENERGY ARC

35 mana, 10 second cooldown.

Calls on the power of electricity to arc from one foe to the next, slowing all of their attack speeds.

This is a really nice first skill for a few reasons. First off, unlike Shaman, this lighting attack doesn't weaken as it arcs from one to the next. Each enemy receives the same damage. Similarly they are all slowed the same amount. Of course, if you're not careful you will have an entire room of monsters on you and then it won't matter HOW slow they attack.

FROSTFLAME

25 mana, 5 second cooldown.

A freezing fire that will cause moderate ice damage and slow your enemies with a chance to stun them.

This is a GREAT skill. The damage is moderate but at a 5 second cooldown you end up causing a LOT of damage. The stun is always a nice treat but the slow stacks with the slow from the first power causing your foes to attack you at a crawl.

FOCUS ENERGY

16 second cooldown.

Convert your own energy into mana but slows your attack and lowers your damage for a while.

Like the Necromancers of DoomWood, trolls have learned to consume their own life-force and convert it into much needed mana, which is dangerous enough, but the speed and damage debuff will make you think twice before using this skill. It can be a life-saver but only if you have the skill to see when its needed.

EMPOWER & SHIFT FATE

Rank 4 Passive

Increase Damage Output by 10%

Increase Critical Chance by 10%

Ranking up the class unlocks the ability to get critical hits more often, while also doing more damage overall. In short, this is a massive buff to the entire class.

WEAKNESS SIGIL

20 mana, 5 second cooldown.

Stacks up to 5 times. Heals you for a little bit, increases the effectiveness of all other skills and increases your chance to crit on your foe with each stack.

This skill is flat out AMAZING. It speaks for itself but in case you missed it... it is a SELF-HEAL with a 5 second cool-down that makes ALL of you other skills stronger with each stack AND raises your chance to crit on a single target. it keeps you alive and seals your foe's fate at the same time. It's the best reason to rank up that I've ever seen.

TROLL CONTROL

Rank 10 Passive

Random chance to double your attack speed for 10 seconds.

Like the Evader, this rank 10 passive will also have you breaking into frenzied spell-casting giving you the chance to burn your fow down before they know what happened and since you can make your own mana, feel free to go nuts!

So there you have it. People have been asking me which is better against the other one in PvP. Dumoose and I spent some serious 1v1 arena time trying to figure out the answer to that question and we STILL DON'T KNOW! It was really about 50/50 with neither being clearly superior to the other one so if you were hoping to run into the arena against the faction you're against and wipe the floor you might want some practice first just to give you that edge.

Each class will be in the Rep Shop for its own faction in Bloodtusk and you will be able to find the AC versions there as well as Itzachi's Class Shop in Battleon. If you're in a hurry to Rank your new class up, don't forget that Itzachi also sells the CLASS POINT BOOST in her shop as well.

REMINDER

The Black Friday Shop and the Harvest event will be closing tomorrow and Quibble will be leaving on next Monday but don't worry, he always returns near Frostval with a bunch of great Frostval Items! if your family is the gist giving kind, you might want to be prepared and ask for an Artix Points card for the holidays.

Tags: Bloodtusk Battle Pet Quibble Horc Evader Troll Spellsmith Class Cysero

Interference

The Alliance Is Coming.

The Trolls and Horcs have had problems with each other for hundreds of years, but have always managed to deal with them on their own terms. Now that the rumors of the Twins appearing in Bloodtusk have reached King Alteon and Empress Gravelyn, they feel that it is their duty to step in and help the Trolls and Horcs settle their differences before a new Chaos Lord is born from the mutual hate and distrust.

General Tibias of the Shadowscythe Army and the former Pactogonal Knight, Knight Commander Cynari will arrive in Bloodtusk this Friday with a Alliance army behind them.

There is an ancient temple in Bloodtusk which hold great meaning for both the Trolls and Horcs and plays a large part in their shared history. Now, the Trolls and Horcs battle has managed to spread deep into Blookdusk Ravine and threatens to topple the Ar’Huus Temple, leaving it a pile of rubble.

We all know that Alteon and Gravelyn are dedicated to making the Alliance between Good and Evil work, (at least until the Chaorruption of Lore has been dealt with) but it just seems like trying to FORCE two ancient races to stop fighting is just adding more people to the conflict. I wonder if this is exactly the kind of chaos that the twins were sent to spread?

This release features a new expansion to Bloodtusk as well as a Member Only section of this map with high level monsters with special member only items, but there are plenty of other items in the new area and in the Horc and Troll reputation shops!

It all starts Friday!

TLPD SHOP EXTENDED!

Due to a flood of requests to keep Quibble in town for another week, he has decided to stay but he WILL be leave Friday of NEXT WEEK. If you don't have your TLPD rare booty by then, then you're out of luck.

Our art team had their hands full this week so there will be NO additional items added to the shop. Sorry.

3rd Upholder Is Coming!

You might have already read my 3RD UPHOLDER POST, but if you missed out... here are the finer points:

Upholders are people who help support the game buy buying Memberships during October, which is AQW's Birthmonth. First, there were Founders, next came the 1st Upholders, then last year came the 2nd Upholders and now is YOUR chance to become a 3rd Upholder!

If you buy any Membership in the month of October OR if you already have a Membership that expires ON or AFTER NOVEMBER 4th, 2011... you will be a 3rd Upholder!

3rd Upholders get the Platinum Star Sword rare weapon and a shiny 3rd Upholder Badge on their character pages to show off that you supported AQW during our 3rd Birthday.

You can use any method you like to get your Membership, even Artix Points, but it HAS TO BE A MEMBERSHIP. ACs DO NOT get you 3rd Upholder. 

You get the Character Page padge as soon as your upgrade takes effect but you don't get the Platinum Star Sword until November 4th.

Since I've been getting a ton of questions from Brazilian players, here it is again... em Português:

Nós temos tido mais questões do que o normal vindas de jogadores brasileiros a respeito do status de 3rd Upholder, então pensei que isso pudesse ajudar.

Para se tornar um 3rd Upholder, conseguir a 3rd Upholder Badge na sua Character Page, e a Platinum Star Sword em 4 de Novembro, você PRECISA ter uma membership (ser membro no jogo) que expire EM ou APÓS 4 de Novembro de 2011 , ou você pode simplesmente comprar uma membership (se tornar membro) a qualquer momento durante o mês de Outubro.

Você pode comprar uma membership utilizando qualquer método no site do AQW ou utilizando Artix Points, mas PRECISA ser algum tipo de membership DO AQW.AdventureCoins NÃO CONTAM. Espero que isso ajude a esclarecer um pouco da confusão, e obrigado por tudo!

Thanks For The Support!

I see a some of you are already sporting your 3rd Upholder badges on your character pages. We know that there is a lot to do in AQW for free, and every Membership and AC is optional, which makes it mean so much to us that you have chosen to support AQW.

Thanks for helping to support AQW with your membership. We really appreciate every Membership and AC, which helps keep the game moving forward every week but we always want to make sure that Members get the most out of the game.

There's no denying that some of the AC items you see are great, and it can be a fantastic short cut to unlockeing some of the best classes in the game but members get tons of pets and battle pets, daily quests to make rep farm easier, some of the finest armors and items the game has to offer, special areas and member only game content, challenge fights and areas, 2 free Treasure Chest keys per month... the list keeps growing.

Members really do get the best that AQW has to offer and we work hard to make sure that you get more than your money's worth. AdventureQuest Worlds would not be possible with out you.

See you tomorrow for the weekly release!

Tags: Cysero 3rd Upholder Bloodtusk TLPD Quibble

Happy TLPD 2011!

Yar!

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day, maties! It be time for a little nautical education. A lot of people didn't grow up in a piratical culture like I did here on the gulf coast of Florida so I'm sure a few of you don't really know what YAR actually means. It's not just something pirates yell to be piratey.

I think it was best defined in one of my favorite movies. Katherine Hepburn's character Tracy Lord is talking about a ship she and her ex-husband, Mr. C.K. Dexter Haven (Cary Grant) once owned:

" My, she was yar...It means, uh...easy to handle, quick to the helm, fast, right. Everything a boat should be..."

So there you have it. NOW BACK TO SWABBIN' THE DECKS, YA SCURVY SEADOGS! 

Quibble has really outdone himself this time, brining more than 40 TLPD rares including the Platinum Naval Commander Set, The Inverted Pirate Captain set and the Legion Jolly Roger set! Quibble will be here at LEAST until Friday, maybe longer, but he won't stay forever. If you like this year's TLPD rares, grab them quick!

Screenshot Contest Is OVER!

At noon today (EST, server time) our latest Screenshot contest ended and we have a LOT of entries to sort through before we can announce the winners but keep your eyes on the Design Notes and we will announce them as soon as we have some to announce.

Thanks to everyone who participated. I can't wait to see how these new shots look on AQW Screenshot page!

The War Is Over... But The Battle Is Just Beginning.

Word of the Twins appearance in Bloodtusk Ravine has spread far and wide, as well as tales of the increasingly bloody conflict between the Trolls and Horcs.

Princess Gravelyn and King Alteon have come to the conclusion that neither a Troll or Horc should be allowed to become a new Chaos Lord and they are willing to use all the combined might of the Good and Evil Alliance to end this stalemate.

The undead armies of evil are marching alongside the armored knights of good and they are all marching on Bloodtusk. The Allaince plans to force a peace between the Horcs and Trolls by any means necessary.

The war AC shop going rare at Friday's release as well as all of the Boss's drops EXCEPT for the Tigriff and Chaos Tigriff pets. War Merge shop and drops are staying in, as promised.

Tags: Cysero TLPD Quibble Bloodtusk Ravine War

Necromancer Breakdown!

Unraveling The Mystery Of Necromancer

The Necromancer Class comes out TOMORROW. Somehow people are still confused about the EARNED & AC versions of the class so I will try and break it down.

There will be 2 paths to get that lead to obtaining the non-member Necromancer class.

PATH 1, The Earned Path: You can EARN the Necromancer through hard work and dedication. Once you reach the top of the Tower of Necromancy in DoomWood the master of the tower will offer you the class if you are able to deliver 2 items. The first is the Necropolis University Expanded edition of the Necromonicon which can ONLY be found for Rank 10 DOOMWOOD REPUTATION from the DoomWood Rep Shop in LightGuard Keep. The second item a Creature Shard that will be a 5% drop from the Creature Creation in the Chopping Maul.

In summary, to earn the EARNED version you need to get to Doomwood Rep Rank 10, Farm the Creature Creation and overcome all of the tests and puzzles on your way to the top of the tower.

PATH 2, The AC Path: You can BUY the Necromancer for 2000 ACs from Zorbak in his hut in the Chopping Maul map. You will have to have completed all of the doomwood quests neccessary to enter Zorbak's hut but hopefully you have aleady done that.

the AC version will also be able to be purchased through Quibble until he leaves town, then you will have to buy it from Zorbak if you want that version. It will NOT be going Rare when Quibble leaves.

Other than the price (and the fact that you can store the AC version for free because it is an AC item) there is NO DIFFERENCE AT ALL between these two versions of the class. They have the same appearance, they have the same skills.

Necromantic Skill Set

Now let me tell you what to expect from Necromancer.

You need to understand the Necromancer to really master it. Necromancers are all about stealing life energy from the living and even sacrificing their own life energy to become more powerful. If you are unwise, you can eaisly kill yourself with this class.

The class balances on the razor's edge between life and death. Using your own life force to power your pet and stealing your enemies life force to keep you alive. It needs you to pay attention and use your brain.

Watch your HP bar, find the happy place between sacrifice and power... then DESTROY! 

AUTO ATTACK

2 second cooldown.

A basic attack, taught to all adventurers. 

SUMMON MINION

45 mana, 16 second cooldown.

Summon an undead minion to your side or sends it into a frenzy, doubleing all damage at the cost of health.

This is a very necessary skill to understand.

FIRST, if you do not summon your minion, your attacks will do next to nothing to your foe.This should the first skill you use, unless the Skeletal Minion is already standing right in front of you.

SECOND, if you have another pet equipped, UNequip it. Your minion cannot be summoned if you already have a pet equipped.

THIRD, once your minion has been summoned this becomes a POWERFUL attack buff for your pet. You watch as your pet goes into overdrive doing slightly more than DOUBLE DAMAGE for the duration of the effect, but you also watch a portion of your life energy tick away.  

WEAKEN

15 Mana, 5 second cooldown.

Weakens the target, lowering damage while stealing some of its life and healing you.

You will be using this skill a LOT. Not only does it do a small amount of damage and return some HP to you, it also lowers your foe's damage output by 40% for the duration of the effect. As nice as this is, between your pet's Frenzy skill and the Infect skill, you will be giving up a lot of your life.

Use this to keep you going.

INFECT

3 second cooldown.

Infect yourself, damaginf yourself tor estore MP.

THIS SKILL is the dangerous one. You can get away without using it, but if you learn how to use it wisely, it basicaly opens up a world of infinite power to you. Use this skill to convert a good portion of your HP directly into MP.

Master this skill and you master the class.

DEATH'S SPEED & DEATH'S STRENGTH

Passive.

Increase Damage Output by 20%

Increase Haste by 20%

Pretty standard fare here. Ranking up the class unlocks the ability to do more damage and do it faster than ever before.

COMMAND UNDEAD

20 Mana, 6 second cooldown.

Order your pet to attack doing increased damage.

Here is your mini-nuke. It's a very handy power to unlock as it buffs your pet for a beefy single strike against your foe which only costs mana, without eating any of your life. Use in conjunction with Summon Frenzy skill and apply liberally to foe for best results. 

Just spam this sucker. It's not like you're running out of mana anytime soon, right?

SO there you have it. Necromancer in a nutshell. If I were you I'd use Wizard Enhancements since Necro gets its power mainly from INT and slightly from WIS like Magi do.

Right now the Skeletal Mintion pet that you summon to stand before you, shield you and attack your enemies is the ONLY Battle Pet in AQW. We plan on adding several more in coming weeks which will be REAL pets (not temp pets) and nearly all of which are planned to be member only.

ALSO COMING TOMORROW!

In addition to the Necromancer Class to be found at the top of the Tower of Necromancy and the AC version in Zorbak's Hut, we have also spent all week working on the devilishly constructed Tower of Necromancy. The original plan for the tower was set down on paper by Artix and it goes from pretty simple to nearly impossible in only 10 floors!

If you are able to make it to the top, not only will you get a bonus cutscene where you meet the Master of the Tower but you will ALSO gain access to the MEMBER ONLY Necromancer Shop in which you will find a treasure trove of necrotic weapons and a few alternate armors for the necromancer. 

Quibble is also getting a buff this week, vastly increasing the number of items he is offering. This round will be more Pali themed and less skull-i-fied but there are a few putrid additions all provided by AE artist Mennace.

AE and PariahCon 2011!

 Several members of the Artix Entertainment STAFF including Artix, Nythera, Jemini, Korin, myself and several others are headed to the Imperial Swan Hotel Lakeland, FL on Friday, June 10th for PariahCon 2011!

It's Lakeland's first ever anime/gaming/collectible convention. Because this is the first year for this con, we expect it to be small but small cons are GREAT for getting to meet lots of new people!

Our Artix Entertainment Panel will be held on Friday, June 10th at 4:00 PM EST in the Main Events Room on the 7th Floor. We will be talking about all kinds of secret AE projects, playing round after round of the AQW Battleon Battle Card game with everyone there and just goofing off. We really hope to see you there!

Welcome Back Alina!

Glad to have you back in the lab. Thanks to everyone who wished her well onver Twitter and on the forums.

Tags: Cysero PariahCon Necromancer Quibble Skills DoomWood Tower of Necromancy

Zorbak, the Ebil Blue Moglin!

Visit Zorbak's House in DoomWood!

This weekend, the DoomWood story continues. Artix has discovered that there is a new undead threat in DoomWood and is racing to join you in smashing wave after wave of crunchy undead soldiers... and you HAVE to stop him.

If you don't understand WHY you should be keeping Artix from doing battle what he does best then you should go play last week's chapter of DoomWood right now!

A lot of people have been asking about Vordred the Paladin Slayer. They haven't figured out a way to defeat him.

People have said that if you have 3 Palis or a Pali and 3 healers or if you turn the sound off then you can defeat him. Those folks are either mistaken or they are yanking your chain on purpose.

Vordred CANNOT BE DEFEATED!

You may ask, "Then why add him into the game if he can't be defeated?. Because Artix, Alina and I did not want you to take our words for it. It's one thing to say "Oh, this bad guy is an undefeatable evil. Watch out. OOOOoooOOOOooOOOOoo!" but when you get your rear handed to you over and over again by a guy who is more skulls than anything else, it's something else entirey. Vordred cannot be defeated by any known method on Lore.

This weekend you will journey deeper into DoomWood past the undead Chopping Maul (get it?) to the home of the one and only ebil, blue moglin... Zorbak.

The first time you entered the DoonWood Necropolis (in DragonFable) you couldn't have done it without Zorbak's... uh..."help". Maybe he has some information on Vordred and whomever created him to defeat the Paladin Order.

Oh Yeah...

We are also finally raising the level cap to 40 this weekend!

Quibble Coinbiter's DoomWood Shop!

Once again, Quibble Coinbiter is heading back to Battleon this weekend to set up shop.

He's fully restocked with a bunch of DoomWood, undead and other themed (never-before-seen, slightly used) rares and items. As usual, MOST (or possibly ALL) of his items will be AC items so now is the time to renew your supply if you are running low.

Normally Quibble's arrivals seem to line up with the arrival of a new Chaos Lord or Chaos Beast... but on rare occassions, like this Friday, he's just in the neighborhood and has the goods to sell.

LAST DAY TO GET HEROSMASH FOUNDER!

Tonight at 11:59 PM EST is the last chance you will EVER HAVE to become a HeroSmash Founder!

Remember that once the clock strikes midnight here on (or in this case, several stories below) the east coast of the United States... you will never again have the chance to become a HeroSmash Founder. Do not miss this oppritunity.

Or if you do miss out, Please don't ask me over Twitter if it will be coming back. Cause it won't.

THE NPC's CD Is Back In Stock!

Faith has just told me that after nearly 2 month, we finally have more of the NPC's Critical Hits CD featuring music from a lot of our games is back in stock!

The CD comes with special musical themed items in AQW, AQ Classic, DF, MQ, ED and WarpForce! If you want one of these, head to HEROMART and grab one before they are gone!

...

Again!

NEXT WEEK... (as in NOT this week)... NECROMANCER CLASS RETURNS!

It was one of the favorite parts of the PTR experience for most of those who helped us test. The Necromancer!

NEXT WEEK, it will be returning to AQW with a whole new set of powers... the Tower of Necromancy.Here's the bet part... it will be usable by ANYONE. That's right, Necromancer is for both Members and Non-Members!

We've decided to try an few interesting things with this class. First off it will be a PET class. That means that you will be able to summon a base skeleton pet who will do your fighting for you. You will cast necromantic spells on your pet to deal more damage to your opponent, return mana to you or even steal your foe's lifeforce.

This means that we will also be (eventually, not next week) adding a new type of Item to AQW, Battle Pets. Pet classes like Necromancer (and future pet classes) will be able to equip these pets to attack for them, and use their skills to help their companions or undead slaves fight. Equippable Battle Pets might even have special skills that only that pet can use.

As they are Pets, almost all Battle Pets will be MEMBER ONLY, however the base pet that comes with the class will be usable by anyone. Next week, however, you should be able to summon the Basic Skeleton to fight for you using Necromancer.

Something else that we are trying... 2 different ways to get the Necromancer Class.

The first way will require a LOT of hard work. You will need to reach DoomWood Reputation Rank 10 to get one of the items that you require to obtain this class... THEN you will have to battle your way through the Tower of Necromancy. If you survive the trials you will be awarded the class.

The second way to obtain the class is buying it with ACs. No muss, no fuss, no rank, no nearly-impossible tasks to compplete... just slip the Tower Necromancers their asking price and POOF... the class is yours.

We've never done an AC class before, and I didn't think we ever would due to some complications in the AQW engine but our amazing coding team has broken down that barrier and it has become possible. We know that a LOT of people would rather pay ACS and save the time and effort so we are giving them that option.

Other than the AC/NON-AC nature of the classes they will not be different in any way. In fact, you can even get both if you want to but you will need to rank each class up seperately.

NOTE: All of this could change at any moment. It's currently in production so we could encounter some game crashing bug that sets us back a week or more, and we don't know the AC price for the AC version of the class yet.

Sadly, if you DID test the class in PTR you will NOT be able to keep the ranks that you earned there.

The only reason I'm telling you guys about this is that it's pretty exciting and Yorumi has not encountered any massive roadblocks so far. Fingers crossed!

Keep in mind that DoomWood will ALSO have another MEMBER-ONLY class coming as the zone progresses. Keep reading the Design Notes for more details on that!

Tags: Cysero Vordred Artix Zorbak Founder HeroSmash HeroMart Necromancer Quibble

Bucket Of Stuff

I Tried For 20 Minutes To Come Up With A Better Title

We have a LOT of stuff going on again, so I'm going to tell YOU guys about some of the things you might care about. Keep in mind that for everything we TELL you that we are working on there are abiut 5 other things that can't tell you about.

A Call For Moderators!

Want to be a mod? Want to spend hours a day not getting paid while helping your fellow players, catching cheaters, hackers, scammers and muting people who use abusive language?

If you answered YES to either of these questions, then you should probably check yourself into the nearest psychiatric hospital as soon as you can, but I also have exciting news for you.

Reens and Stratos (the Lead Moderator and her Moderater Majordomo) are looking for new mods for AQWorlds (and HeroSmash), and now is your chance to apply! One thing Reens needs to stress - you MUST be over 18 year old.  If you are under 18, if you don't include your age, or if you start with "I'm not 18 yet, but..." the application will not be considered.

What they need you to included in your email is:

1. Your real name, age, and country of residence.
2. AQW Game account name and email address
3. Master Account name and email address
4. Forum account name and email address if one is entered. (not required to have one)
5. Languages you speak/read
6. C.V. (Resume)  *please note we'd like the CV in English.

Please send your COMPLETE application to beamod@battleon.com .  If the application is not complete, they toss it out.  And please - one application per person.
Reens and Stratos will read all the applications.  If you are chosen to go through a further interview, they will contact you. Unfortunately, they cannot reply to everyone. If you do not hear from us, sorry.

The Next Limited Quantity Shop

Announcing the NEXT Limited Quantity Shop featuring Dage's Prometheus Set!

The next LQS opens at 1:00 PM EST (GMT -4 now thanks to Daylight Savings Time) on April 1st (As much as I love messing with people, this is not an April Fools Joke). The Shop Will Include 5000 of the Prometheus Armor, 5000 of the Prometheus Helm, 5000 of the Prometheus Back Item, 5000 of the Prometheus Sword (shown above). Each of the items listed above will cost AdventureCoins. It will also include a few extra items of various prices and quantities (some AC some not) and the rest of the unsold Scythes from the last LQS.

There will be a female version of the armor. It is NOT color custom. Prices will be higher than Quibble's (as one would expect from a Black Market vendor) but may or may not be announced ahead of time.

You may be asking yourself why we're opening the shop at 1:00 PM when a lot of you are still in school or work or doing something else. I told you that I would roll a random time EACH TIME we opened the LQS to give everyone a fair shot of being first to get the items.

I rolled my dice and the dice do not lie.

I rolled a 13 on my beloved D20. That means 13:00 hours or 1:00 EST. If I rolled a 20 (CRIT) I would roll my D4, if I get a 4, we stick with 20:00 hours. If i get a 1-3 it means I roll again and add the D4 to the D20 for 21:00 - 00:00 (that's 24) hours.

I could have just written a random number generator to pick the hour but dice are more fun. There is a reason I wanted to be the Luck enhancement vendor.

with 5000 rather pricey AC items they will probably last more than 24 hours, but if they do not... maybe next time I will randomly roll the perfect for YOU!

Quibble Is Staying

For another week after this Friday. Little guy has to rest his feet.

HeroSmash Alpha Phase 3 TONIGHT!

If you haven't been following Artix's Play-By-Play on over at HeroSmash, tonight we open our newest game to anyone who has EVER upgraded in any of our games (even EXPIRED AQw upgrades), Anyone who has ever purcahsed AdventureCoins (AExtras are not purchases), anyone who has ever purchased Battleon Points for their Master Account, or anyone who has ever purchased Varium for EpicDuel.

You will also that account attached to your Master Account.

If you meet these requirements then you WILL be able to play HeroSmash Alpha Phase 3 starting tonight at 6:30 EST and experience level 10, try out the new mix-n-match powers system that lets you pick and equip your own powers to customize your hero (or villain's) abilities!

Come log in and help us try and smash our HeroSmash servers!

Sandsea Finale Coming Friday!

After thousands of years, Tibicenas the Chaos Djinn is FREE and seeking revenge for his millenia spent as an outcast.

Follow Zhoom to the Djinn World, Pit your friendly Djinn, Saahir against Tibicenas to save The Efreet... and all of Lore from the insane corruption of Chaos.

There will be FOUR new armors in this release including a Chaos Lord Tibicenas Armor and Zhoom's Sandsea Ranger outfit! Remember that if you haven't completed all of the Sandsea Quests then you WON'T BE ABLE TO BATTLE THE CHAOS LORD!

See ya then! :)

Tags: LQS Sandsea Tibicenas Chaos Lord Quibble HeroSmash Cysero

Friday, Friday, Gettin Down On Friday...

Fun Fun Fun Fun

Zahart has finally awoken his Chaos Beast...the deadly Sphinx. Classically the Sphinx is regarded as a wise creature full of riddles, but the only riddle THIS Sphinx poses is how to survive his BRUTAL onslaught.

I will go ahead and tell you that this fight is NOT for lightweights. The level 45 Sphinx monster has unusually high hit points and hits pretty hard. It doesn't take a lot of strategy one of your friends SHOULD bust out their Healer or Acolyte armor.

Bring friends.

You will, of course, earn a Chaos Sphinx Achievement badge in your Book of Lore for defeating yet another Chaos Beast. There are several very nice drops for members and non-members in this release but it might take you a while to get all of them from the Sphinx.

Next week... face the Chaos Lord of the Sandsea!

Quibble Coinbither Is BACK!

And he's got TWENTY ONE all new items for you, like the Celestial Sandknight armor, with matching Helms, Wings, Spear, Sword, Axe and Claws all of which have color custom accents which apply your accessory color to the whole set for your own custom look!

You will also find the Ra Armor from Polistar and a number of Nightshock items and weapons from Xyo so you can impress them with your godly might or shock them with your electrifying power!

Or maybe you are more interested in Xyo's EXTREMELY customizable Agile Racer armor, which you can color customize with your Armor, Trim AND Accessory color. Perhaps you'd be interested in Skyline's Obsidian Katanas which will appear to have either red or blue highlights completely at random!

Maybe you're more interested in some of Lodarazs' Color Custon wings or some of the other items that will vainsh soon and may never return. You never know how long Quibble might stay. May be a week. Maybe more.

Enjoy the release and have a great weekend.

or else.

BUGS UPDATE!

During the live release, we pushed a few client changes live and, as usual, we missed a few items. You may have noticed that the TEMPORARY ITEM inventory and the HOUSE ITEMS shops in /buyhouse will open an old-style shop with nothing in it. You also won't be able to close said dead shops.

We are aware of the issues, know the causes and are working to get fixes in place. It might take some time but we will get these issues resolves as fast as we can. Sorry for the inconvoenience

BUGS UPDATE UPDATE!

A temporary fix has been put into place. Temporary Item Inventory and the shops in /buyhouse should now work as intended. Thanks Minimal!

Tags: Sandsea Chaos Beast Quibble Cysero

Mod versus Dev

Know The Difference

For a long time, everyone with a gold name has been called a Mod (short for Moderator) but there are actually 2 kinds of people walking around with gold names. Mods and Devs (short for Developer).

Mods do exactly what the name implies, they moderate the game and help keep things going smoothly. They are usually loyal fans and supports of the game who are helpful and patient with new players, fun, friendly yet responsible with the other experienced players.

As we need help moderating the growing game we bring on more moderators and we almost always look for players (usually over the age of 18) like the ones i just described above.For the most part being a Mod is a volunteer position, although they do enjoy other rewards like free memberships, free ACs and access to pretty much any item they would like.

You might see Reens (the Lead Mod) and Stratos (the Mod General) running around the game with some of their team muting people who try to spam chat, flood chat or curse or possibly handing out kicks and bans to players who are being rude and trying to ruin other's fun in AQW.

Devs develop the content for the game. Content can be anything from writing quests and cutscenes to building weapons and armors to crafting the beautiful maps and bacgrounds to programming the game so everything works! Devs build AQW.

As we need help building the game we usually look to our community to find some talented volunteers to help craft items and adventures for you. Most of the Dev positions start as volunteer (Assistant Dev) and if things work out, it may turn into a paid position as a part of the Artix Entertainment Staff. We usually look for people over the age of 18, but we are open to talent whever we find it. Several of our artists have started their asstiant Dev positions at 15 or 16 years old.

I'm sure you've seen me, Artix, Zhoom, Beleen or some of the other Dev's running around.

Dev's have all the same powers as Mods plus they get to create content for the game on a weekly basis. That keeps us very busy so we usually leave the moderation to the very capable Mod team but sometimes when we see someone breaking the rules we are forced do a little moderation on our own.

Although we both have gold names we have very different responsibilities, and the criteria we use to finds Mods is very different from what we look for in potential Devs.

Now you know the difference but we will all probably just keep calling everyone a Mod. It's eaiser sticking to one name and it's not like you can tell the difference between one gold name or another.

More Card Game News!

We are getting closer and closer to the launch of the AQW Battle Cards card game!

I cannot tell you how much I enjoy playing this game. Over the past few days, Artix and I have played each other with the one sample deck we have floating around the lab and it's SO MUCH FUN!

I mean, shirts are great, calendars are useful and plushies are cute and nice to snuggle with but this is the first REAL, PHSYSICAL ITEM that we've ever made that is really, really fun to play with. We've played quite a lot as we developed the game but we're really happy with the finished product. It looks slick, it's funny and it's fun (and Artix and I are tied for wins/losses). The fact that is comes with the non-member CardClasher class is just gravy.

I finally have a release date for you. The card game will start showing up in U.S. Toys R' Us stores on April 18th and we think they will cost about $19.95 USD. Toys R' Us controls their own prices so we're not sure if they are going to mark up the prices but they might. 

However, if you can wait until early May then HeroMart will be selling the boxes for exactly $19.95 USD (plus shipping).

There is ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERNCE between the boxes that Toys R' Us and HeroMart will sell, other than about 2 weeks and maybe a few bucks.

This Week!

This week we continue the Sandsea as Zahart unleashes his Chaos Beast on the unsuspecting Sandsea. If all goes according to plan, next week will be the Sandsea Showdown, but first you have to face the ancient terror of the Sphinx (no riddles, just damage)!

Quibble Coinbiter will also be heading back into town this Friday with a bunch of his never-before-seen, slightly used AC items and rares!

We'll post more info here on the DNs as the week progresses.

Tags: Quibble Sandsea Mod Dev Cysero

Last Release Of The Year

And What A Year It's Been!

• We started with the end of Yokai and the Kitsune battle.
• Groundhorc's Day!
• The return of the Superbowl Halftime Shop!
• Darkovia!
• Darkovia Brawl PVP map!
• PVP rewards!
• Heroes Heart Day!
• Chinese New Year and the first AC non-member pet the White Chibi Tiger!
• Pancake Day... yeah, that really happened!
• PTR Shop!
• The Shamrock Fair!
• The amazing AQW Wiki's first Birthday!
• Suffered through a LOT of Facebook and Twitter fakes!
• The release and eventual repair of Miltonius' Secret area!
• Grenwog and the Choco-Bunny which would change shape for EVERYONE!
• Member Only Twilight Zone expanded!
• Member Only PTR testing of the new engine!
• April Fools gag, where EVERYONE (except us) got a gold name!
  
  
  
  
• 8 Track Day and Disco Stoopid!
• PTR engine release, finally got STATS in AQW!
• The Rixty Ripper!
• The Portal Site and Master Accounts!
• Planet Day and Captain Lore!
• Mythsong & Chaos Lord Discordia!
• Started adding music to most weekly releases!
• One-Eyed Doll and our awesome LIVE event!
• NEW CLASSES, more than I can even list here!
• Return of Cinco De Mayo seasonal shop!
• Return of the Mother's Day seasonal shop!
• I got married!
• J6 began his amazing zone!
• TONS of awesome contests like the Art contest & Music contest!
• The Member-Only Hollowsoul Castle zone & expansion!
• The birth of HeroMart and all the Calendar craziness which is STILL happening!
• The GIANT SIZED quest chain!
• DragonCon, MetroCon * ShadoCon!
• Rolith and Alina got engaged!
• The J6 LIVE DRAW event where you watched and helped J6 draw a brand new weapon!
• Friday the 13th featuring George Lowe!
  
  
  
  
• Beleen's Stupid Derp Fish
• Korin got married!
• Arcangrove and Chaos Lord Ledgermayne!
• Talk Like a Pirate Day!
• Taco Day!
• The Obridgado Brasil shop!
• The addition of Dage The Evil, Skyline, Yorumi, & Stratos to AQW staff!
• 2nd UPHOLDERS!
• AQW's 2nd Birthday Event featuring Paul & Storm and Jonathan Coulton!
  
  
  
  
• The rerelease of the Canadian Thanksgiving seasonal shop!
• Mogloween!
• Quibble visits and brings some great AC items and rares!
• Member only ALPHA testing for our new MMO, HeroSmash!
• Battleon Games again becomes a Platinum Sponsor of Child's Play! (Thanks!)
• Cornycopia!
• I hit the BIG RED BUTTON and turn off the entire game. Smooth move, me!
  
  
  
  
• Frostval (still going on!)

I'm sure I missed some stuff, and sorry for that, but I could keep writing this post all day!

Thanks to everyone for making this AQW BEST YEAR YET! Special Thank You to the Members for keeping us going. I know that not everyone can support the game with a membership, and every AC, AExtra and ad helps keep AQW running but Members are really the fires that keep the AQW engine running and we are SO grateful for your support. We promise to keep AQW Memberships the best value in gaming, keep listening to your ideas and suggestions and try to get as many of them in the game when and where we are able!

So What About This Week?

This week, we've got the return of the New Year's event with Icemaster Yeti and Lim! We will be re-releasing as many of the new-year's seasonal rares as makes sense (the 2010 New Year's Hat would NOT make sense) but we're also adding LOTS of brand new items!

House Items that DO STUFF!

Yorumi has been working his code magic and we're going to try and release a few MEMBER ONLY house items in the New Year's release! These items will ONLY work for the owner of the house. One will make everyone in the house dance, one will allow you to kick unwanted guests back to Battleon and if we can get it working we will add an item that will lock everyone out of your house except you and the people on your Friend's List (and mods, of course).

Speaking Of Members...

As promised, to make up for having to unlock Frostscythe for all players, we will be adding several new MEMBER ONLY seasonal rares to Frostscythe.

Speaking Of Adding Items...

I did say that Quibble would be staying until the new year and this Friday is still in 2010 so you will STILL be able to get his items for this week AND Next week. Quibble is leaving NEXT Friday, but THIS Friday we will be adding a few MORE new items! 

If he doesn't sell his entore stock he's going to break his spine carrying those items out of town after new year.

Speaking Of The New Year...

This Saturday is January 1st, 2011... that means that all the gift boxes from Tinsel and the Big Red Bag in Battleon will open sometime on Saturday, the day after this week's release. It could happen at ANY TIME during Saturday (based on the server clock, which is Eastern Time) so don't bother flooding the forums and my Twitter with "What Time Do They Open?!".

However, It's perfectly fine to flood Beleen's Twitter! Heh.

Reminder!

AEXtras is still a great way to get FREE ADVENTURECOINS and even FREE BATTLEON POINTS! 

 Just CLICK HERE to get started!

Or, You can jump onto your Master Account and start earning free BattleOn Games Points using AExtras and use those Points to get stuff in ANY of our games!

Tags: Cysero Quibble New Year Frostscythe 2010 AExtras