Design Notes

January 27, 2023

Nulgath's 2023 Birthday Collection Update

Unlock 180+ rare items in Nulgath's Birthday Collection

Nulgath’s birthday celebration continues this weekend, and we want everyone to get in on the /party! For all you real-life rare hunters, the final update to the Nulgath 2023 Collection Chest is here! Log in now to find the newest additions to the Nulgath 2023 Collection Chest in Battleon, featuring Nulgath's DoomFiend set. Get all of the 2023 event rare gear (over 180 items) + a character page badge for 10,000 ACs.

This week we added:

• Enchanted Void + Nation Ritualist sets (color-customizable)*
• Nation Ritualist's Sigils + Chthonic Fiend Claws Gauntlets
• Chthonic Fiend Slayer set
• Parasitic NecroFiend set
• Parasitic Necro Nymph pet

Plus, find all of the gear released last week in the Nulgath's Collection Chest:

• DoomFiend of Nulgath (crafted for you by legendary artist, Nulgath)
• Abyssal Reaver set
• Nation Phalanx + Lancer sets
• Crystallized Void Vanguard set
• Immortal Void General set
• Revontheus Legacy, Fabled Legacy, and One-Winged sets
• NULLB0rg set
• Messenger + Samurai of Abbadon sets
• ShadowScythe Fiend of Nulgath set
• Phalanx, Nation, and Revontheus Legacy ground runes
• Plus additional pets, weapons and more!

If you buy the chest this week, the items above will be automatically added to your chest. You can also buy individual items from Nubble the Makai in Battleon.

*  Non color-customizable variants of this set will be available as reward farming gear in this week's release of the birthday story.

Just want a couple of the items listed above? Apart from the exclusive pets, all of the gear contained inside the Nulgath 2023 Collection chest will also be available to buy individually in Nubble's shop.

Read on for important information

A few important tips to remember:

• All of this year's event rare items will be available individually from the birthday rares shop in Battleon until February 24th, 2023.
• In order to prevent shop abuse, the Collection Chest pet and Badge Quest pet cannot be sold.

Nulgath's Seasonal Birthday Shop Returns

Find Nulgath's seasonal birthday shop is full of dark and deadly gear. These sets will return every year for his birthday, as our way of helping all his fans celebrate! Find the shop in your Game Menu until February 24th. 

Nulgath's seasonal Birthday Shop features:

• Forsaken Fiend armor set*
• Void Rebirth armor set
• Void Awakening armor set
• Shielded variants of both armors
• Nulgath's Bounty Hunter Drone Pet (with two quests)
• Nulgath's Birthday Gift Pet (with one quest)

*New armor set added this year.

January 27, 2023

Nulgath's Birthday Part 2

New Birthday Rares, Farming Rewards, and Story!

Log in now to dive deeper into the Temple of Light and its secrets. Exterminate the DOOM that infests the stolen member's of the Nulgath's Nation. The rewards will be fiendish!

Login in this weekend and /join templedelve to begin your adventure!

• Talk to Nulgath to begin hunting a Mysterious Stranger into the depths of the Temple of Light.
• Battle Delirious Elementals and the DOOM-possessed members of the Nation.
• Learn about the secret machinations of the followers of Light.
• Discover who the new enemies of the Nation, the Legion, and the Shadowscythe will be

New Item Updates and a New Nulgath Quest?!

Some changes during the week happened with the Void Beetle Warlord armor and many other new additions with this week's release. Read this Design Notes post for a full list of what's been changed.

2021 Event: Nulgath Origin Story

Nulgath the ArchFiend, lord of the OverSoul, has conquered many worlds and slaughtered millions, ruling over a a Nation of deadly fiends and warriors. But he was not ALWAYS one of our world's supreme Evil Overlords. Nulgath was human once... until he met his Master, Adimonde. This weekend, log in and battle as Nulgath and discover how he became the ArchFiend he is today.

/join originul to begin your adventure:

• Discover how Nulgath unlocks the power he wields today
• Fight to escape Inquisitors
• Enter a realm of darkness and energy... and survive your training
• Battle fiends to prove your skill and leadership
• Defeat the Fiend Champion of Adimonde to become his heir

Then take on the ArchFiend’s forces as you battle through his fortress. Your mission: destroy the Fiend Shard and save the OverSoul!

/join fiendshard to continue the adventure:

• Scout through Nulgath's fortress and battle fiendish guards
• Locate the Key Fragments to progress
• Defeat a filthy, fiendish miniboss
• Destroy the Fiend Shard

• Fiend Champion of Adimonde
• Evolved Worshipper of Nulgath
• Arcane Warfiend of Nulgath

2020 Event: Mystery of Crag

Nulgath the ArchFiend, lord of the OverSoul, has gathered around him many followers, creatures, and allies over the centuries. This weekend, as we celebrate Nulgath’s birthday once more, log in and battle to uncover more information about one of his mysteriously silently minions, the sentient Rock Beast known only as… Crag.

Talk to Bamboozle in /cragglerock to begin your quest. Collect special gems for his best boulder bud to earn the special gear that only a powered-up Crag can create.

Complete Bamboozle's quests to reawaken (or at least... partially /heal) Crag to collect stones for his merge shop and to rank up the new CraggleRock faction.

And if you're a true member of Nulgath's Nation, you'll want to find Lae in the /tercessuinotlim zone! He's got a bounty of new gear for you... IF you can pay his price. All crafted by Yo Lae for members of Nulgath's Nation to celebrate the ArchFiend's birthday!

Casparilla's Fiendish Reward Quests

If you're a fan of Nulgath's Nation, you're no stranger to hard work... or almost-tortuous quests. This weekend, log in and /join citadel. Find Casparilla... because she's got some games for you to play while Nulgath's away. And if you know ANYTHING about Nulgath, you know that the only Court Jester he'd keep is a crazy-loyal and just plain INSANE trickster.

Complete Casparilla's quests to unlock the pieces of the 0 AC Elite Void armor set from AQW Community Artist, Reki Roland. Hardcore Nation fans can also complete Casparailla's SUPER evil bonus quests to get two exclusive swords and a floating sword pet.

Not sure who Nulgath is? Read on!

Nulgath the ArchFiend is the in-game persona for Nulgath-the-team-member, one of AQWorlds' original artists. Though he no longer works regularly for Artix Entertainment, his art style (prevalent in early AQW and featured in Oversoul) and the character itself remain hugely popular with many of our long-time heroes. To recognize their dedication and the love they feel for his character and art style, we hold an event in-game each year to celebrate

>:::)

January 23, 2023

Monday Afternoon Updates + More!

Frostval 2022 Gifting Additions from this weekend

It has been a pretty crazy end to 2022 and start for the new year. We released SO much last month, and so many real-life issues + emergencies arose, that our normal production schedule saw some significant delays. I apologize for all of them; we're working as hard as we can to get everything out as quickly as possible. But because so many of you were so eager to get your rewards, we released what we had ready. Last week, we released MOST of the Frostval 2022 AC Gifting rewards + character page badges.*

Here's what's still left to come:

• Tier 7: House + Holiday Mirror Gravelyn houseguest 
• Tier 7: Holiday Mirror Gravelyn Bank Buddy
• All tiers: House item versions of your Moglin Giftbox pets
• All Tiers: Badges added in the Book of Lore

Character Page Badges

In the Gifting Design Notes, we noted that there would be one badge per tier (not that all previous badges would be unlocked). With as many tiers as there are, giving players the highest tier lets you display your generosity without overloading the character page. 

Tiers 1- 7 all unlocked a Unique Moglin Giftbox pet w/ quest for House Item, a unique character page badge, and other rewards. In addition to their exclusive prize packs, any hero that donates at least 5,000 ACs (Tier 2) automatically unlocked all of the merge shop items in their Book of Lore badge shop at the end of the gifting event.

4:30 PM update

This weekend, we released the character page badges and only showed the highest tier you'd gotten for the reason above. But after seeing how many people so badly wanted ALL of the character page badges (especially as they all had unique art), in the spirit of the holiday and reason for the badges... we've updated character pages to follow last year's model.

Now you'll see all of the character page badges for the tiers you've unlocked. I thought the Design Notes had been clearly worded, in that you'd only unlock the highest tier. But based on how many comments we got from players who didn't realize that, it's clear we just... weren't clear enough! 

Thursday Update?!?

Shhh.. Yoshino taking over this post with Alina currently on a delayed Christmas, i'm here to inform you all that the Gifting Tier 4-7* House* Items have arrived in addition to the Holiday Mirror Gravelyn Items. Their Badge art in the book of lore has also been updated. 

Here's what's still left to come:

• All tiers: House item versions of your Moglin Giftbox pets

* From a previous copy and paste error in the tiers, The Frostval Brightrise Fortress House wasn't intended to include a Hair/Armor Customizer... Read on for more information!

9:00 AM Update

We've renamed the Doom Fiend of Nulgath items to be ShadowScythe Fiend of Nulgath to avoid confusion with the DoomFiend of Nulgath Set.

9:30 PM Update

The Frostval Brightrise Fortress has been updated with an few extra rooms and a Hair/Armor Customizer Room. You may need to re-equip the house to see the extra rooms added.

January 20, 2023

Nulgath's Birthday Returns

New Birthday Rares, Farming Rewards, and Story!

Log in now to defend the Temple of Light from an unexpected attack by Nulgath's minions. Investigate this betrayal of the Alliance and reap the rewards. Then return this Friday for Part 2!

Login in this weekend and /join templesiege to begin your adventure!

• Talk to Carnage to begin the quests to discover just what's going on
• Battle Light Elementals and Overdriven Paladins
• Discover just how DOOM came to invade the Temple of Light

Pet Quests + Reward Sets

You asked... and we answered! Log in this weekend to find two new farming pets + their related reward sets. 

1. Unlock Void Beetle General's Pet from the merge shop
2. Complete its quest to unlock all the 0 AC Void Beetle General's gear 
3. Evolve the pet into the Void Beetle Warlord's Pet 
4. Complete its quest to unlock all the Warlord's gear, too!

2021 Event: Nulgath Origin Story

Nulgath the ArchFiend, lord of the OverSoul, has conquered many worlds and slaughtered millions, ruling over a a Nation of deadly fiends and warriors. But he was not ALWAYS one of our world's supreme Evil Overlords. Nulgath was human once... until he met his Master, Adimonde. This weekend, log in and battle as Nulgath and discover how he became the ArchFiend he is today.

/join originul to begin your adventure:

• Discover how Nulgath unlocks the power he wields today
• Fight to escape Inquisitors
• Enter a realm of darkness and energy... and survive your training
• Battle fiends to prove your skill and leadership
• Defeat the Fiend Champion of Adimonde to become his heir

Then take on the ArchFiend’s forces as you battle through his fortress. Your mission: destroy the Fiend Shard and save the OverSoul!

/join fiendshard to continue the adventure:

• Scout through Nulgath's fortress and battle fiendish guards
• Locate the Key Fragments to progress
• Defeat a filthy, fiendish miniboss
• Destroy the Fiend Shard

• Fiend Champion of Adimonde
• Evolved Worshipper of Nulgath
• Arcane Warfiend of Nulgath

2020 Event: Mystery of Crag

Nulgath the ArchFiend, lord of the OverSoul, has gathered around him many followers, creatures, and allies over the centuries. This weekend, as we celebrate Nulgath’s birthday once more, log in and battle to uncover more information about one of his mysteriously silently minions, the sentient Rock Beast known only as… Crag.

Talk to Bamboozle in /cragglerock to begin your quest. Collect special gems for his best boulder bud to earn the special gear that only a powered-up Crag can create.

Complete Bamboozle's quests to reawaken (or at least... partially /heal) Crag to collect stones for his merge shop and to rank up the new CraggleRock faction.

And if you're a true member of Nulgath's Nation, you'll want to find Lae in the /tercessuinotlim zone! He's got a bounty of new gear for you... IF you can pay his price. All crafted by Yo Lae for members of Nulgath's Nation to celebrate the ArchFiend's birthday!

Casparilla's Fiendish Reward Quests

If you're a fan of Nulgath's Nation, you're no stranger to hard work... or almost-tortuous quests. This weekend, log in and /join citadel. Find Casparilla... because she's got some games for you to play while Nulgath's away. And if you know ANYTHING about Nulgath, you know that the only Court Jester he'd keep is a crazy-loyal and just plain INSANE trickster.

Complete Casparilla's quests to unlock the pieces of the 0 AC Elite Void armor set from AQW Community Artist, Reki Roland. Hardcore Nation fans can also complete Casparailla's SUPER evil bonus quests to get two exclusive swords and a floating sword pet.

Not sure who Nulgath is? Read on!

Nulgath the ArchFiend is the in-game persona for Nulgath-the-team-member, one of AQWorlds' original artists. Though he no longer works regularly for Artix Entertainment, his art style (prevalent in early AQW and featured in Oversoul) and the character itself remain hugely popular with many of our long-time heroes. To recognize their dedication and the love they feel for his character and art style, we hold an event in-game each year to celebrate

>:::)

Class Update: Arachnomancer Changes + more

Significant reworks to better align the class’s damage types, desired stats, and give it a playstyle. Cooldowns were significantly reduced overall, making the class play much faster. Original niches have not significantly changed, but the class now functions as a strong mid-game high dodge solo class that can scale into early endgame. 

This class presented an interesting challenge in design- it was already strong (if underappreciated), and aligning its damage types and stat model would have made it far too powerful. A light redesign gave it a new way to play while still being usable the same way it was before, allowing it to now function with 100%+ dodge, and encouraging more interaction from the player.

Read this Design Notes post for a full list of what's been changed, what's been fixed, and stay up to date! 

January 20, 2023

Nulgath's 2023 Birthday Collection

Unlock 180+ rare items in Nulgath's Birthday Collection

Nulgath’s birthday celebration begins this weekend, and we want everyone to get in on the /party! For all you real-life rare hunters, the Nulgath 2023 Collection Chest is here! Log in now to find the Nulgath 2023 Collection Chest in Battleon, featuring Nulgath's new DoomFiend set. Get all of the 2023 event rare gear (over 180 items) + a character page badge for 10,000 ACs.

• Get the full collection for 10,000 ACs (over 50,000 ACs worth of gear) or
• Buy individual items from Nubble's Rares shop in Battleon 

This week, Nulgath's Collection Chest pet unlocks 146 items, including:

• ArchFiend's Collection Chest 2023 (with a quest for the exclusive character page badge)
• DoomFiend of Nulgath (crafted for you by legendary artist, Nulgath)
• Abyssal Reaver set
• Nation Phalanx + Lancer sets
• Crystallized Void Vanguard set
• Immortal Void General set
• Revontheus Legacy, Fabled Legacy, and One-Winged sets
• NULLB0rg set
• Messenger + Samurai of Abbadon sets
• ShadowScythe Fiend of Nulgath set
• Phalanx, Nation, and Revontheus Legacy ground runes
• Plus additional pets, weapons and more!

And even more items will be added on January 27th:

• Empowered Void + Nation Ritualist sets (color-customizable)*
• Nation Ritualist's Sigils + Chthonic Fiend Claws Gauntlets
• Chthonic Fiend Slayer set
• Parasitic NecroFiend set
• Parasitic Necro Nymph pet

If you buy the chest this week, the items above will be automatically added to your chest. You can also buy individual items from Nubble the Makai in Battleon.

*  Non color-customizable variants of this set will be available as reward farming gear in Part 2 of the birthday story.

Just want a couple of the items listed above? Apart from the exclusive pets, all of the gear contained inside the Nulgath 2023 Collection chest will also be available to buy individually in Nubble's shop.

Read on for important information

A few important tips to remember:

• All of this year's event rare items will be available individually from the birthday rares shop in Battleon until February 24th, 2023.
• In order to prevent shop abuse, the Collection Chest pet and Badge Quest pet cannot be sold.

Nulgath's Seasonal Birthday Shop Returns

Find Nulgath's seasonal birthday shop is full of dark and deadly gear. These sets will return every year for his birthday, as our way of helping all his fans celebrate! Find the shop in your Game Menu until February 24th. 

Nulgath's seasonal Birthday Shop features:

• Void Rebirth armor set
• Void Awakening armor set
• Shielded variants of both armors
• Nulgath's Bounty Hunter Drone Pet (with two quests)
• Nulgath's Birthday Gift Pet (with one quest)

Plus, a new set will be added next Friday, January 27th!

January 13, 2023

Aurelio Voltaire's The Black Labyrinth

Aurelio Voltaire Returns for an all-new Friday the 13th Event!

Friday the 13th has returned once again… but we don't have any horror movie villains or armies of the undead for you to tackle tonight. This weekend, Aurelio Voltaire returns with something incredibly special for you and our community of videogamers; he's got a new tale to tell, one near and dear to his heart. This weekend, log in and /join blackmazehub to begin an adventure inspired by his new album: "The Black Labyrinth!"

• WHO: Gothic Musician Aurelio Voltaire, the AQWorlds Team + your fellow Heroes
• WHAT: Battle through the Black Labyrinth, an adventure inspired by Aurelio Voltaire's newest album
• WHEN: RIGHT NOW!
• WHERE: www.AQ.com

/join blackmazehub and talk to Aurelio Voltaire in-game to begin your journey. But first, a message from our favorite Gothic Musician just for you: 

"Behind this door in particular is an introduction to a world near and dear to my heart. I worked alongside musicians who performed and composed with David Bowie to create the songs in my album; The Black Labyrinth. There's a story those songs tell, and I would love for you to have a glimpse of the people and places that come alive in this musical tale." - Aurelio Voltaire

Fantastical Reward Gear

After you complete tonight's event, talk to the mysteriously familiar-looking Valarian.  Complete his quest to collect Zenobia's Moglinberry Juice. You'll be able to trade it for dark and lovely new reward sets. 

Valarian's merge shop includes:

• The Harvester armor
• 3 Harvester set helms
• 7 Harvester set weapons
• Goblin King's Formalwear (regular and gender-reversed)
• 2 Goblin King's helms
• 1 L'il Dewdo pet
• Mystical Glass Orb Wand
• Zenobia's Berrystain Splash ground rune

Battle the monsters in the Black Labryrinth to collect:

• 2 Harvester set helms
• 2 Goblin King set helms
• Mogchita pet
• The King Transformed pet
• 3 Harvester set weapons
• Mystical Glass Orb Mace + Dagger
• L'il Dewdo On Your Back cape
• 4 Harvester set capes

Friday the 13th Featured Rare Gear

It wouldn't be Friday the 13th without new rare gear to commemorate the event -- and this week, our dark artists have channeled misfortune and mayhem to craft the NightStalker Guise and the Oracle of Misfortune sets in your Featured Gear Shop until Friday, February 10th.

NightStalker Set

• 1 armor
• 6 helms
• 6 capes
• Potion Pet
• NightStalker's Sword, GreatSword, ManSlayer
• 2 Polearms
• Altar of the NightStalker house item*

Oracle of Misfortune set

• 2 armors
• 5 helms
• 3 capes
• 6 weapons
• 3 house items*

The house items can be found in the Holiday House Shop in your game menu.

Final Weekend: 50% More AC Bonus

This is the FINAL weekend for our Holiday AdventureCoin bonus! Get 50% more ACs until next Friday, January 20th. If you're excited for Nulgath's Birthday collection (arriving next week), now's the time to top up your AC stash! 

Friday the 13th: The Eternally Dark Holiday

What is undead can never die… Not when there is always another Friday the 13th. ALL heroes can now /join Voltairetown to battle through all our previous Friday the 13th seasonal events.

And don't miss the rest of this month's update. See the full release lineup here: AdventureQuest Worlds calendar.

Aurelio Voltaire Returns for Friday the 13th!

Friday the 13th and Aurelio Voltaire go together like Evil Armies of Undead and Horror Movies. He is legitimately one of the most creative people we know. He is the maker of music, films, books, comics, toys and... mayhem. He first appeared in AdventureQuest Worlds back in 2009, during our first-ever in-game Friday the 13th UNLIVE event! Since then, he's appeared in all of our Friday the 13th events, and this year he made his first appearance in AdventureQuest 3D's "Return to Skullpunch Island."

This weekend, battle your enemies to the beat of his Black Labyrinth tracks! The event features: "Song for a Goblin King," "Oubliette," "The King of Villains," and "Kill the Beast." Stay up to date with all his music, art, and news updates here and once you've finished the event, make sure you check out his Youtube series, "Gothic Homemaking with Aurelio Voltaire." 

While you battle, you can also stream all the tracks from the album here! 

On behalf of the entire AdventureQuest Worlds team, we want to thank Aurelio Voltaire for being a part of this special event! 

Leaving Soon: mark your calendars

Darkness.  Destruction. And madness are all happening this month in AdventureQuest Worlds! Don't miss a moment, a battle, or a limited time reward. 

Friday, January 20: 50% holiday AC bonus ends

Friday, January 27: 

• New Year's Eve zones leave
• New Year's Rare gear leaeves

Friday, February 17: Nulgath 2023 Birthday Collection leaves

Daily Gift Schedule

Log in each day for a new server-wide reward item, boost, or drop rate increase. Bookmark the Daily Gift page to keep up to date with all of daily gifts! And don't miss the rest of this month's update. See the full release lineup here: AdventureQuest Worlds calendar.