Design Notes

March 20, 2015

New Flash Player Update: 17.0.0

How to update Flash Player and keep it up to date!

Adobe Flash Player upgraded to level 17 (this comes after last month's update to 16.9). And this has caused some problems for some online games that use the Flash Player plugin—like, for example, all Artix Entertainment games!

From our end, we think we have solved most of the issues, so now it’s our turn to help YOU get rid of some your Flash bugs if you have them!

What is the Adobe Flash Player?

The Flash Player is a plug-in that is required to play all of our games, and is automatically ‘plugged in’ to your browser (Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc.). Adobe Flash Player makes our games run, displays the flashy animations, makes your shiny Blade of Awe glow bright, and plays all the epic cutscenes!

Which version of Flash Player do I have?

First of all, you might need to know which version of Flash Player you have on your browser. To find that out, follow these easy steps:

1. Open your browser.
2. Go to www.aq.com/play-now
3. Right click somewhere near the ‘Login’ button.
4. In the menu that then opens, you need to READ the last line, which says something like “information about Flash Player 17.0.0.305…”
5. IF it DOES NOT say “Information about Flash Player 17.0.0.…” and gives another number, then you need to upgrade your Flash Player to the latest version.

How to upgrade Flash Player to the latest Version?

If you do not have the latest version of Flash Player, you‘re in trouble….  O__O ….. because older versions of the Flash Player will cause your game will lag, disconnect, have sluggish animations, etc. So it is ALWAYS better to upgrade. Here is how to upgrade your Flash Player if you do not have the latest version:

1. Open your browser
2. Go to http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
   • If you have an older version of Flash Player, the page will automatically tell you to upgrade it.
3. Click the link “Download the Adobe® Flash® Player system plug-in”
4. Click “Install now” to download the newest version and install it.
5. Follow the instructions given by the program.
6. Restart your browser and it should be working fine now!

This method should work for any browser you use. Some browsers, like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, automatically update Flash Player when a new version is out. Other browsers do not and then you will have to update Flash manually.

I want Flash to automatically update!

When you update your Flash Player, there is an option in the installation process where you can check the box to make Flash Player update automatically, like in the picture.

However, you may not know if you enabled that for your computer. Or that you are sure your computer has not enabled automatically updating Flash Player. In that case you can still enable it in this way:

1. Go to www.aq.com/play-now
2. Right click near the “login” button.
3. Click “General Settings” in the dropdown that opens.
4. Go to the tab “Advanced Options” in the Settings Manager that opens.
5. Click on the button “Change Update Settings”, this might require administrator rights.
6. Check the bullet/box of “Allow Adobe to install updates”
7. Additionally you can click “Check now” to see if there are any updates for Flash Player.
8. Close the window and you should be fine.

I am using Google Chrome and it does not work like that!

Oh yes, Google Chrome acts a bit weird in that case. Chrome usually updates Flash automatically, unless something (or someone!) disabled it. Here’s how it works for Google Chrome:

1. Go to www.aq.com/play-now
2. Right click near the “log in” button.
3. Click “General Settings” in the dropdown that opens.
4. The browser will bolt you to a help page of Adobe in a new tab.
5. Scroll down till you see a link called “Panel General Notification Options” and click it.
6. Set “Check on updates” in the screen that follows on 14 or 7 days, and check the box “Warn me about new updates”
7. Close the tab and it should be set now.

What if it still does not work right?

Curse technology!! It could be that your computer just refuses to update the Flash Player, or that it keeps messing up because of conflicting versions.

In that case, it is better to entirely remove Flash Player and re-install it. To remove Flash Player, it’s best to do that via your computer’s configuration panel. (Note: this might differ per Operating System)

1. So go to “Start”
2. Open the configuration panel.
3. Go to “Programs and Software”
4. Search for “Adobe Flash Player” (there might show multiple of them)
5. Right click them, and select “uninstall/delete”
6. If you had more “Adobe Flash Players” showing in the list, uninstall these too.
7. Then open your browser and go to http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
8. Click the link “Download the Adobe® Flash® Player system plug-in”
9. Click “Install now” to download the newest version and install it.
10. Follow the instructions given by the program.
11. Restart your browser and it should be working fine now!

Still having troubles after? Then you might want to check if your Firewall or Security programs are not blocking it. Programs like AVG could still be blocking it. Quick options to change that would be:

1. Open the AVG panel
2. Go to Firewall
3. Go to Options
4. Go to the tab Applications
5. Make sure “Adobe Flash Player” is on the list of allowed applications.
6. If it’s not, add it manually.

This is all we can teach you about Flash Player—a tricky but very good plugin that all our games run and live on. If you have additional questions, feel free to comment below and we will try our best to help you out! Please only write our Player Support team if there is a serious and/or complicated problem.

Thank you, Gjappy!!

When you see Gjappy in game, be sure to give him lots of /cheers for helping US help YOU! We could not have done this without his help, and we cannot thank him enough. So if you want to share your love, be sure to thank him on Gjappy’s Facebook and on Gjappy’s Twitter!

August 26, 2013

DragonCon 2013

What Is DragonCon?

Quite a few people don't know what DRAGONCON is so we should probably cover that first. 

Since 1987 people have been coming to Atlanta, Georgia (roughly 8 hours drive from The Secret Underground Lab) for DragonCon which has become one of the largest Sci-Fi, Fantasy conventions in the world. They say that they get about 40,000-45,000 people every year but it's closer to 65,000 or 70,000 and every year, it keeps growing. 

There is so much to see that it can actually short out your brain. it happened to my on my first year.When I got back my friends asked me how it was and I actually needed a few days to process all that I had seen and done, heard and tasted, battled and escaped from before I could talk to them about it.

There are panels about everything from making your own functional steampunk R2-D2, to meet-and-greets with some of the biggest names in TVs, Movies, Gaming and Books. There are thousands of people dressed up as their favorite characters, movie marathons, a sea of tables for table top games like Dungeons and Dragons, card games like Pokémon, Magic and Yu-Gi-Oh, board games like Risk, Settlers of Catan and King of Tokyo. There are several WAREHOUSE sized rooms stocked to the gills with Naruto headbands, Lightsabers (like mine and Yorumi's), Steampunk Goggles, Nerdy T-shirts, Comic Books, Video Games, Card Games, Board Games and other types of games, Art and anything else you can imagine for sale. There are nightly raves, Firefly themed shindigs, vampire masquerade balls and a constant stream of Concerts featuring people like I Fight Dragons, One-Eyed Doll and Voltaire... and, of course, our own Artix Entertainment Fan Panel.

We are a small company with a small but loyal fan base who keep showing up no matter how awful the panel was the year before. In fact, they keep giving us bigger rooms  and better time-slots every single year. 

At the panel we get to meet and hang out with some of our biggest fans, we talk about what is coming up, have a question and answer session, Artix usually shows some movies that he's made over the weekend and we usually have a Kick-The-Twilly contest. In 2012 our panel was AMAZING complete with a fight between Artix, Chairman Platinum and Sepulchure himself fighting surrounded by screaming AE fans cheering Artix on. A few people even stepped in front of our friendly paladin to protect him from the DoomKnight. 

Every year we make a special item for those who have come from all over the globe just to hang out with us, but there is also an Artix Entertainment Flyer that we will be handing out that has a code for another DragonCon item for everyone. Just talk to one of your friends who goes to get the code.

This year the Artix Entertainment Panel:

• The time will be Saturday at 2:30PM. (only 1 hour this year!)
• The hotel will be the Hilton Atlanta
• The room will be the "Grand Salon E"

We will also have a AE Fan Table in the Hayatt Recency Atlanta, on the lower level (we think). Members of the AE staff (and maybe some AE fans) will be manning the table all through the con. We have made special achievement stickers to attach to your Con Badges for all three days of the con. Make sure to stop by and grab your wee achievement stickers on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and keep us company! We get lonely.

That is not a giant pen... the stickers are teeeeeeeeeny tiny. I put the pen in the photo to give you guys a sense of exactly how small they are. 

A LOT of the famous people at con will sign something for you if you pay them, but lucky for YOU we're NOT FAMOUS AT ALL! All you have to do is give us a marker. We will sign ANYTHING. I mean that. Artix and I signed a dude's neck back in 2011.

NOTE: WE DO NOT RUN DRAGONCON! AE has nothing to do with the set-up or funding of the convention. We just attend like everyone else. It's an institution in Atlanta and has been held there for the last quarter century so asking us to have it in YOUR hometown next year impossible on every level.

This is also the closest, biggest convention that we can get to. We would LOVE to come to the convention in your town or in your country but we simply can't afford to travel that far. 

If this is your first Con, then you should carefully read...

Cysero's Con Survival Guide! (revised 2013 edition)

DragonCon starts THIS WEEKEND and as has become tradition I am imparting my knowledge and experience to you all. This is Cysero's Con Survival Guide '13!

WHAT TO BRING

• A Large Bag. You're going to to be carrying a LOT of stuff around with you and picking up a lot of stuff as you con so a large bag is necessary. And when I say bag I DO NOT mean a large plastic grocery bag. I mean a sturdy courrier bag or backpack. I will be bringing my N7 Canvas courrier bag, hardered for con survival.

• A Towel. Your hotel room will probably come equipped with these but I always prefer to bring a large, beach-sized towel with me wherever I go. Hitchikers listed most of the uses, but for a more practical example: I have fallen asleep in the hallways of more than one convention hotel and it's always nice to have a towel for a blanket or pillow.  
  

• Energy Bars. Meals come unpredictably during con and staying alive can be hard. You never know when you'll be stuck at a table-top gaming session that lasts 14 hours straight... and if you leave the brutal GM will just kill you.

• Bottle Of Water. See above. Also good for waking up wierdos who are sleeping in the hallways of your hotel under beach towels. Trust me.

• Extra Strength Energy Shots (Optional). You know, those little bottles of energy booster that they sell everywhere. These things are not great for you, but caffeine and sugar have no effect on MY metabolism and you might be built the same way. Con goes day and night, all weekend long. And it's a holiday weekend. I consider them a necessity during Con.
  
  
• Multi-Vitamins. There are thousands of people from all over the world at con and many of them have brought strange, exotic diseases with them. All these diseases mingle together and become some sort of super-flu affectionately called "Con Rot" that WILL infect you. Keeping your body's defenses up during con severely reduces the time and number of limbs you will lose to the Con Rot after you leave the convention.
  
  
• Hand Sanitizer. See above.

• Cash (Well Hidden). As you explore the convention you WILL encounter some stuff you NEED to own. Swords, pithy shirts, novels, William Shattner selling autographs... and there is a 50% chance that the thing you want to buy, you can't buy with plastic. If you plan on falling asleep in a hall somewhere, be sure that your cash is in your sock or in the secret pocket in your boxers, or cloak... you don't want to wake up broke.

• A Mobile Computing Device. Most modern cell phones will do, but you might not get a signal in the underground mazes that connect the convention hotels. Having a wireless card in a small laptop is priceless. A smartphone attached to a 3G, 4G or LTE network will do (con-tested my iPhone in 2009, worked like a dream). You might or might not Tweet or Vine. You might or might not need to check your Facebook and Twitter but your FRIENDS will NEED to contact you about something that you HAVE TO SEE RIGHT NOW! 
  
  A VERY large bonus to a smartphone is the DragonCon App. it has schedules, maps and gets updated on the fly unlike your paper schedule.  
  
  
  
  You will eventually lose your paper one but so does everyone else so there are an endless supply of them in every corner BUT this way you don't have to get your hands sticky and wonder why the last person ditched it. 
  
  It has maps, schedules for panels and speakers, concert times... everything you need to plan your Con experience. If you don't have an iOS device you can still access the event app through their web page. 

• Phone Charger. Everyone has something to charge now so finding an open power outlet can be a real challenge but just like you never know when you will get to eat, the same goes for your phone. If you have an emergency battery boost for your phone, bring that but at the very least make sure that your phone charger is close at hand.
• A Camera. Fully charged. Memory card empty. NEEDS a flash. Too many dark corners with Halo Spartans hiding in them. If you have newer generation smartphone with a decent flash, that will do fine.
  
  
• Glow Sticks or a Dance Party App. in 2010 Alces and I accidentally found ourselves in a mobile rave. One guy was wearing the sound system and power supply on his back and his two friends were each wearing giant speakers converted into backpacks. The party never stopped moving. Alces and I took a chance, caught a cab, went to an all night market and bought $44 worth of glowsticks to give to share with our fellow mobile partiers. We were gone about 4 minutes, but when we returned to the street corner, they had moved on. We spent the next hour following the sound of those booming speakers until we caught up. If on'y we'd had the glow sticks on us!
  
  
• Portable Gaming Device. Long lines. Really long lines. After last year this one was moved to the MUST catagory. Again, one of the newer generation smartphones will do. 
  
  
• A Good Friend. The buddy system is always a good idea. That's why I bring Alces. He's part Dr. Gonzo, part Chief Medical Officer and part Tech Support. He is all best friend and has been for more than half of my life. If you have a friend who has been before and can show you around the ever changing paths of the convention, bonus.

• A Zorbak Plushy (Optional). It's the ultimate ice-breaker. "Can I get a picture of you holding this guy, please?" "Sure... what is he?". 

• Good Walking Shoes. Trust me. 
  
  
• An Umbrella or Poncho (Optional). in 2011 the Venture Brothers panel line was long enough that it went outside the hotel and Alces and I found ourselves in the middle of a rain storm. With all of the weather coming from Tropical Storm Isaac headed toward Atlanta just in time for con. I suggest packing weather protection. A poncho will fit in your bag but an unmbrella makes you look swanky if you rock it right.

• Duct Tape. This is just something you should have all the time anyway, BUT there are a LOT of people in a LOT of costumes and things start falling apart on day one. A well timed piece of duct tape can make you a lot of friends very quickly. 

That should be, more or less, everything that you need to pack. Other options include: clean clothes, costumes, things you want autographed, video camera, your Battleon Battle Card deck (teach a stranger how to play!), a map of the con (some of us like getting lost), a pair of scissors (for a lock of Kevin Sorbo's hair while he's passed out in a fountain somewhere), a sketchbook (for ideas), a steampunk R2 unit, 8 channel progrmable remote control, Sonic Screwdriver, or grappling hook... just cause.

You Guys Are Coming With Me! 

It always seems that we have a TON of fans at our panel but they represent a tiny fraction of you guys and we really do wich you could ALL be there. This year Im going to try really hard to keep a contact stream of Twitter and Vine spam coming your way so you can come with me and live DragonCon through my eyes (camera). 

Here is a link to my Twitter.

Alces and I will be hopping in the car on Thursday Morning, so be packed and ready to ride to Atlanta with us! 

April 11, 2013

J6 Saga Study Guide

A Simple Guide to a Complex Saga

Embark on the exciting conclusion of the J6 Saga this Friday evening!

Here’s a helpful spoiler-free guide to aid you on your J6 adventures from beginning to end. Give a great big THANK YOU to Sora To Hoshi for helping with this guide and providing screenshots =D

Pencil Puddle

J6 goes out for a picnic and forgets to draw his zone. But not all is what it seems! Fight the Sketchy Dragon for a clue to find the elusive Bounty Hunter J6.

Begin your J6 adventures by typing /join J6 in the chat field in-game!

The Rusty Spittoon Saloon

Grab some Moglinberry juice and help the local patrons with their quests. Discover valuable information about the mysterious J6 and test your knowledge against the Bounty Hunter himself.

Answer all of J6’s questions correctly and he’ll award you with coordinates to his Hyperium Spaceship!

Hyperium  

Watch out for those darn Turrets! You and your friends must work together as a team to get past the Turrets. Don’t give up—it WILL take some time! Crack into the Bounty Hunter armory by clicking on the gauges in the correct order, meet H.A.L. the computer, and find the hidden VR Room Access Card.

Continue on your quest with J6 and pay special attention to his clues!

Zephyrus

Once you’ve found the VR Room Access card, you can embark on Virtual Reality missions! Explore the Zephyrus train, talk to the passengers, and make sure none of them are hiding anything.

Retrieve the Crystallized Dragons Breath, spin open a chamber, and run across the Zephyrus roof until you reach the Hyperium once more!

Planet Westion

Finding the Chapter 5 Datadisk allows you to find out more about J6! Travel through the Moonyard playing AS J6 but make sure to hold your nose… because this is one Virtual Reality simulation that really STINKS!

Kick some Robo-butt in the Moonyard and return to the Hyperium when finished.

Banzai Planet

After helping H.A.L. with some missions, find the location of Datadisk 4 and journey to Banzai! Nullify all life on this planet by winning multiple mini games and defeating the L.O.S.E.R.S.

After disarming the bomb, make your way back to the Hyperium floating through space and complete your mission.

Evil Medieval

Help H.A.L. and get a clue to the location of Datadisk 3. Watch the content of this Chapter 3 Datadisk in the VR Room once you found it.

Afterwards, speak with J6 and help him with his last minute quests before taking flight into hyperspace!

Take H.A.L. Offline

Now that you are in hyperspace, go to the VR Room and await instructions from the Baron.

You need to find a way to turn H.A.L. off—so you must challenge your Memory against his!

Defeat H.A.L. at his game and discover the secret to powering down this super computer.

Last Week’s Cliffhanger

Once the Baron breaks onto the Hyperium, it is up to YOU to decide weather or not to Shoot J6 or Spare J6’s Life.

And this Friday, YOU are the sole decider of J6's fate! Will you be the Bounty Hunter's friend or foe? Will you help him with his mission… or put a permanent end to J6?

Log in tomorrow night for the highly anticipated J6 Saga Finale!