May 19, 2014

FRIDAY - The Chaorrupted Lab

I Have No Idea What I'm Doing!

Hey guys! 

If you have been paying attention for the past year, you know that I haven't been working on he AQW team. I and the rest of the OMNI development team have been hard at work building, releasing and stabilizing Battle Gems (and beginning work on our next top secret project). But Alina has stepped out for the week and she's asked me to take a little time out of the insane OMNI development schedule to write a Design Notes about this week's release. 

I really haven't had much time to check in for the last year to see what's going on in AQWorlds so, armed with that knowledge, sit back and enjoy as I talk about things about which I know next to nothing. This should be fun. 

So, apparently there was a contest where we let players posess our developers and write their own releases. 

Frankly, this sounds awesome. One thing that AE has always wanted has been Player Created Content. I mean, sure, we have the Player Suggestion forums and the AQW team has always tried to incorperate as many of those good ideas as possible into the game, but it's a slow process and people don't often get as much credit as they would like. This way still insanely slow and really only lets one person at a time show off their creativity but it's a real step in the right direction. 

I REALLY want to add more options for Player Created Content in some of our next new games. Something that lets you draw and upload your own armors and import them directly into the game. Maybe sell them on some kind of markletplace for in-game currency like ACs. There are a lot of problems to solve before that can ever happen but it would be SO cool, right? But that's off topic. 

What was I writing about? 

OH! So, there's this player named Runester333 and whomever was judging the Make Us Do Your Work For You contest thought that his/her idea sounded like a really interesting release. After reading ahead I have to agree. 

The basic idea behind the release is that after Beleen's dream world leaked into the world of AQW last Heroes Heart Day (That happened? Reading that right off the release pitch), she left a crack open and ALL of the other developers' thoughts and ideas began flooding into the game world until it reached a critical mass and all of these conflicting ideas collapsed into a kind of Chaotic singularity that actually pulled the AQW devs into and trapped them in a Chaotic version of the Secret Ungerground Lab. 

Here's an early screenie of the Chaos Lab as done by J6. Note that the AE Dragon has been replaced by the Chaos Eye. I particularly like the upside down doors. 

Cool, right? I mean, if it were going to happen, that's how it would go. Chaos born from the conflicting hyperactive imaginations of some of the most idea-driven people that I've ever known. 

This also has something to do with the Mirror Realm. I'm not sure what. OK I just read last week's Design Notes so I guess this is a continuation of Alastair Q's release? Maybe? Oh, nevermind, Memet just told me that the Mirror Realm stuff is not happening and this is a stand-alone release. Just pretend that part never happened. 

So, just a Chaorrupted version of the Lab. Got it? Good. 

The release will also, of course, have some cool gear coming out of it. OH COOL! There's a Chaorrupted Cysero armor coming I guess. Neat. And some weapons and uh.. capes, helms and a pet. 

If I had pictures of that stuff, I'd preview that for you. But I dont. 

OK, Sounds fun. What else?

Let's see. Looks like some kind of shop riffing off the new X-Men movie. Can I say X-men? I'm told that I cannot, for legal reasons, say that. Let's say the new movie about muta... I can't say mutant? Some superher... I can't say that word either. This is like a nightmare game of Taboo. OK, You can do this Cysero.

There is a shop that has nothing to do with a new movie about some... people... who have... genetic abnormalities... that give them some... powerful... skills? Anyway, this shop will be getting some more stuff this week (starting today? Is that right?).

I pointed out to Alina that the Red Skull was actually the result of a Nazi super-soldier experiment and not one of the genetically abnormal persons but she just... OK, I'm being told that I also cannot say Red Skull. 

Man, this is tough. 

OH! There's a full release and price list on Alina's Previous Post! That's very helpful! 

GuildLauch Stuff!

Apparently, there is a GuildLaunch badge and shop with unique items also coming later this week. I'm not sure if the badge is a character page badge or not but if it's not then I'll just go ahead and suggest that it should be cause that's the first place that a lot of you will go.

Animated Item Alpha Test

It also looks like Yorumi is working on some sort of new kind of items that call special animations under different conditions. I don't think that the system is ready and I'm almost certain that these animations are just graphic, and cause no damage, debuff or buff. Yorumi says that this MIGHT NOT be ready by Friday and if it is, it's an Alpha Test so don't expect wonders upon wonders. 

Still, that sounds pretty cool. 

*sound of papers shuffling* 

And it looks like that's all that I've got. If anything that I have said is terribly inaccurate or just flat-out-wrong then I'm sorry. I did warn you that I have no idea what I'm talking about.