Design Notes

November 03, 2011

Trolls and Spitfire and WHOOOPS!

Whoops! 3rd Upholder coming... and, LOL sorry Leon25

Thank you and congratulations to everyone who is getting the 3rd Upholder badge and starsword today! Actually, you should have already received it, except Zhoom accidently wrote his database update query backwards. So instead of giving 100,000 players 1 Starsword, he accidentaly gave.... 1 player (Leon25) 100,000 Starswords. Now that is one heavy and full backpack! All 3rd upholders should have their perks after tonight's release!

Tonight's Bloodtusk Ravine release!

The main storyline continues... and things are about to get crazy. While Cysero and Alina have strictly forbid me from giving away what is about to happen next, I am allowed to tell you there will be hint at the worlds new Chaos Lord tonight. Also, the Treasure Chest is getting an update with new items by Dage.

Level 45 SpitFire Enhancement!

The Spitfire Enhancement goes into your weapon and gives a chance for every attack to hurl a fireball at your enemy. We are adding a level 45 version of it tonight to both of the Collector fights the Enhancement shop in Battleon! Thank you for your understanding as took a lot longer than expected to get it in. For lower level players we are adding a Level 1 Fire Sword (member) tonight that has spitfire built into it. It will be located in the weapons shop where you load in BattleOn and in the newbie zone. Yurami (coder) would like to add more enhancements with special effects... if you have ideas, please let us know! (Freeze? Wind - blow your opponent to the other side of the screen? % chance immunity to stun?)

MOD PACKS & Paladin Slayer Class & Artix T-shirt

Thank you so much for the great reviews and comments on the new cards! Faith has shipping lots of boxes to players all over the world (literally) from HeroMart (now located in a HUGE room here at Secrret Underground Lab #4) A lot of you told us that your local Toys"R"Us did not have them in stock yet... even though they were supposed to as of last Friday. If you U.S. based Toys"R"Us store does not have them out yet, please ask a manager to check to see if they got them but have not put them on the floor yet (this is what we keep finding.) Also if you see the packs or the full card game box hidden in the back of a rack *whispers* it would be super awesome of you to move them to the front. (I always do that at book stores for "Z is for Zombies" which is done by Johnny Atomic, the same guy that helped us make the MechQuest Artbook"
Get the ModPacks and AE shirt at HeroMart

Pumpkin Carving Contest

Everyone did an incredible job this year. The Pumpkin Carving Contest has been judged! Read Samba's post below to see this years' winning pumpkins.

Turning 13

As you know AQworlds is a game for players of all ages. Happy Birthday to AQWorlds player who turned 13 today... and sent me a Tweet on Twitter saying that even though he was 13 he still could not use chat. (Age 13 is our cut-off for chat date) Turns out we were checking the data with a ">" greater than instead of a ">=" greater than or equal to. Zhoom just fixed it... so for all of the players celebrating their 13th birthday today or soon, CHAT ON!

Mogloween & TMBG Items

This weekend is your LAST chance to get the rare and seasonal rare items from the special event shops. By player request we are extending the TMBG item shop until Monday. Be sure to get the ones you once because once they are gone... there is NO WAY to get them again!
TMBG event page

Myterious 11-11-11 Portal

We have no idea what the ominious giant portal is... or what will happen on 11-11-11. Will it open? Will we go into it? Will something... come out of it? There are no legends about this. In fact, nothing like this has ever been seen before in the history of our world. It is a complete mystery. All that we do know, is that 11-11-11 is NEXT FRIDAY!

Lots of things going on... what are you the most excited about? Let us know on the Forums, FaceBook or Twitter!

October 27, 2011

Battle Card Mod Packs & PaladinSlayer

CardClashers Rejoice, Mod Packs Have Arrived!

It's no secret that I LOVE playing the AQW Battle Card Game, so when Artix mentioned that we were going to make Mod Packs I was right on top of him (an easy thing to do, I'm far taller than he is) making sure that the cards fit in with the rest of the game and only made it more fun.

These cards not only make the game more fun, BUT it proves that we can make additional cards for the game without breaking the flow if the card-game as it is. I'm looking forward to making more cards and maybe including them as real-world bonus items with future AE stuff like shirts and toys!

The Core Game contains 110 cards which is all you need to play this game with your friends so these new cards won't make your deck stronger against your opponents... It just gives you more cards, more options and more ways to own your friends. Each Mod pack allows you to MODify your deck with the Chaos or DoomWood theme cards, or both if you want.

Don't forget that each pack comes with a special in-game item, and HALF of the PaladinSlayer Class and Helm.

• IN TOYS R US STORES Friday, October 28th! 
• DoomWood Mod Pack comes with Vordred's Sword!
• Chaos Mod Pack comes with the Chaos Eye pet!
• Each Pack comes with HALF of the PaladinSlayer Class and Helm!
  (Combine the two packs to form it!)
• Each pack also comes with an Character Page Achievement Badge, like CardClasher did.
• Both Mod Packs will come to HeroMart in the future!

I'd LIKE to tell you that the Mod packs will go on sale in every Toys R Us retail store in the United States tomorrow but just like with the Core Game, some of the stores decided to start selling them a little early. If you are really excited about modifying your deck, getting these items and this brutal class, I'd call your local Toys R Us store and ask if they already have them.  

And once you've GOT your Mod Packs, head here to redeem your code for all the RARE LOOT that comes with them!

If you live outside the United States (and MANY of you do) don't worry. HeroMart will begin selling the Mod Packs very soon. Part of our deal with Toys R Us (US) is to give them first crack at selling them which we are happy to do.

PALADINSLAYER SKILL SET

Since a few of you already have the class, I'd better get the skill breakdown up today.

Anyone who has played through the first portion of DoomWood knows that Vordred, the PaladinSlayer was built for nothing more or less than completely destroying every last Paladin on the face of Lore but their dark powers go far beyond that one simple task. They are powerhouse damage-dealers DESIGNED for combat!

It draws some of its strength from Str and some from Int as it has a number of Physical and Magical attacks. I've had the best results with Hybrid Enh, but if you want to add some survivability, try SpellBreaker and let us know what you think on the forums!

AUTO ATTACK

2 second cooldown.

A basic attack, taught to all adventurers.

You've seen this before.

DECAY

12 mana, 4 second cooldown.

A quick strike dealing both weapon damage plus magical damage. Applies Decay which stacks up to 5 times. First stops all healing them applies a progressively worse DoT.

Here's your main PvP skill for fighting any kind of healer, Paladin or otherwise. You'd be surprised how weak most other classes get when they can't heal themselves. This is also your go-to power. There are better Damage over Time powers in other AQW classes but never underestimate how much life this skill can eat away. Just make sure you keel that stack going... do not let it fade.

DARK ENERGY

15 mana, 7 second cooldown.

Condenses dark energy into a solid projectile and launches it at your enemy.

This is another damage skill. You fire a crystal of pure darkness at your intended target. Great for pulling monsters from across the room so you never have to slow down combat. Also good for firing into the backs of fleeing foes in the PvP arena.

DARK GRIP

35 mana, 15 second cooldown.

Darkness grips your enemy, reducing haste and increasing all damage they receive.

At this rank you start becoming valuable in a group setting, be it PvP or teaming up to fight bosses in the storyline, but this powerful debuff is also really good for solo adventuring. This is another ability that you should not allow to fade. Slowing your foe provides a little damage mitigation, but lowering their defenses at the same time make this skill worth the rather high mana cost.

DARK GRIP

Rank 4 Passive

Increase Strength by 15%

Increase Critical Chance by 5%

Ranking up the class unlocks the ability to hit harder every time you hit, plus an increased chance of getting a critical strike. Nothing bad about it.

UNDEAD POWER

20 mana, 45 second cooldown.

Applies a damage and dodge buff to yourself or a friend. 

For 10 seconds your damage is increased by 60% and your dodge rate goes up providing a decent amount of cover from incoming damage. Once again, solo adventurers will be glad to have this power but it also makes this class ideal for team play.

While testing this ability, we tried teaming up with a lot of classes. The Necro, CardClasher and Vindicator of They classes saw a very noticeable spike in damage output since their damage output is already so high. Rogue, if paired with its skills correctly, was flat-out damage proof for a while but the neatest effect we saw with Defender class. With it's ability to maintain aggro from monsters, this became a real game changer. Paired with PaladinSlayer's damage output it because an army of 2.

VOIDUMINANCE

Rank 10 Passive

POW.

Like a lot of recent classes, this one also has a rank 10 passive. Every once in a while, out of nowhere, you will see a little yellow "Voiduminance" and a very very large damage number appear over your foe. It's tasty.

All things being equal, this is a pretty beastly class and once that we're happy to have in the game. Do you dare follow in the footsteps of Vordred?

Mogloween 2011 Tomorrow!

Tomorrow we will finally be releasing the last update of October... Mogloween 2011. This year's adventure was born when Nursey brought home some fresh peaches and, baker that I am, I decided to forge a peach pie. After Tweeting a picture of it Alina asked for a slice and I said that I would trade them a slice for a poem. From a baker to a writer, it seemed a fair trade.

The poem that she wrote was more than a little creepy. It was about a pie that I had made that had a horrible life of its own drawing you in, telling you things that can't forget but will never quite remember.

As soon as I was finished I said "LET'S DO THIS FOR MOGLOWEEN!"

You can expect a bunch of new seasonal rares and monster drops. We've gotten a lot of requests for some REAL (not seasonal) rares for this Mogloween so Mennace has crafted an amazing armor which you will find in the AC shop. Yorumi and Zhoom were able to change the engine enough to allow you to be able to visit your friends houses and actually Trick-Or-Treat for candy that will earn you other awesome items from the Mogloween Candy Merge Shop.

Last Chance For 3rd Upholder

There are only a few days left to become a 3rd Upholder! This will be your ONLY CHANCE to get the 3rd Upholder Achievement Badge and the Platinum Star Sword. All you need is to upgrade before Nov 4th when we deliver the Star Swords and you will become a 3rd Upholder!