AQW News on Aug 2009

Design Notes during Aug 2009
Top secret behind the scenes information about AdventureQuest Worlds and our other web based games.

No sushi for you!
A Sockwork Orange.

August 31st, 2009
Now Hiring (inquire within)
The Time Has Come To Decide.
This weekend, we are finally releasing the Good and Evil rep stores and several Daily Rep Quests which you wil be able to get from either King Alteon in Swordhaven or Gravelyn in Shadowfall.

Of course we will be releasing Good and Evil Reputation Shops to go with the quests, stocked to the gills with a number of never-before seen Good and Evil items!

But you're going to have to decide which side you're going to build your reputation with. Starting Friday, switching sides will come with a price... 100,000 gold.

This weekend the Vath boss fight will open for all players, and I'd like to thank all the members for helping test it last week. It was one of the most well recieved fights with some of the best drops that we've ever had. I hope you non-members enjoy it just as much!

This Friday is also when DragonFable begins its Doom Knight Bonus Offers to long-standing Dragon Amulet holders. Keep an eye on your In-box, Dragonlords!

DragonCon stuff!
IN OTHER NEWS... This week we are all preparing for our yearly trek to Atlanta, GA for DRAGONCON. If you haven't heard yet, we will be hosting a panel in the Agusta room of the Sheraton Hotel at 2:30 PM, this Saturday. We'll be talking about AQW and the other AE games, answering questions, asking some of our own. We will probably invent a few games (invented Twilly Golf at Jacon). We will be giving sneak previews of Stats, PVP and the DF artbook, showing a few movies and giving out some prizes!

We will also be signing MQ artbooks and Save Chuckles shirts (or anything else that you'd like signed) so be sure to bring yours, and if you don't have those items yet (but everyone who shows probably will) We'll also be selling a few of them at the panel.

If you can't make it to the panel, just track me down in the hallways (i'm hard to miss) and I will give you your rare Sock Dragon pet. See ya there!

DragonCon stuff!
IN OTHER OTHER NEWS, I finally have a list of stores in Canada and the UK that will be selling AE Upgrade Cards around Mid-October.

CANADA: Safeway Grocery (About 213 stores will carry the cards), Toys R Us (About 67 stores), Macs –Convenience (About 887 stores), and Needs (About 159 stores)

UNITED KINGDOM: Clinton Cards (I have no idea how many stores)

Now Hiring!
IN OTHER OTHER OTHER NEWS... *sigh* we are hiring.

/me kicks over table and hides behind it to avoid deadly hail of questions, resumes and letters asking that we make a ONE time exception and hire them for some position that we don't need or doesn't exist... like Door Trimmer, or Salsa Polisher.

The time has come once again for AE to expand its talent base and once again we come to you, loyal AE fans, to give us your very best. We know there is a limitless pool of talent out there from all the great suggestions and fan mail that we recieve daily, but we are only looking for the best of the best. a HUGE number of the AE Game Development Staff came from the community, from Rolith to Reens, From Ghost to Tomix. Right now, what we need are Experienced Flash Programmers, and Flash Animators.

You MUST be 18 years old, or older.

You MUST be able to fill one or both of the positions listed above. WE ARE NOT LOOKING FOR PEOPLE WHO CAN DRAW OR WRITE. We only need skilled ANIMATORS (who usually CAN draw) and PROGRAMMERS ONLY.

If you feel like you've got what it takes to be a programmer or animator for Artix Entertainment, please e-mail a cover letter, resume and samples of your coding work/your animation reel/ samples of your animations to me.

CyseroHiresYou@battleon.com

Thanks, and good luck!


Reens
Alchemical Bug Wrangler


August 29th, 2009
Bugs and other fun.
This is the way we squash the bugs...
Good news everyone! The bug with the minigame (free players not being able to advance after the minigame) has been fixed. You should be able to finish it up properly now.

Bank and Inventory Issues: 1. Some people have been posting about losing bag slots. What is happening is this - empty bag slots are no longer visible. Say you have 40 slots purchased, but items in 35 of them. You'll only see those 35. You haven't lost the other 5 - you can add items to them as necessary.

2. People are putting in AC items and are unable to find them in the bank. As you can see below, the bank now has 2 tabs. Click on the AC symbol to see your AC items.


2 Tabs in your Bank

Early release? Whatchoo wanna do?
New Skids On The Sock.

August 28th, 2009
Stragegery.
Fight With Your Head First. No. Don't Headbutt Him... Nevermind.
Vath is ready for you... or so he thinks.

Vath Bloodbath

Or maybe he's right.

This boss fight is unlike anything you've seen in AQ Worlds before. it requires a STRATEGY... I don't want to give away too much, but I will tell you this: If you find yourself getting stomped to death by Stalagbite for 3600 damage, UR DOIN IT WRONG!

With quick wits, good old-fashioned trial and error and a pinch of luck... you'll be able to figure it out. Don't give up! The dwarves are counting on you.

If you defeat Vath the dwarves will be waiting for you in Tavern. Speak to Snowbeard and you will be able to replay every single amazing cutscene from the entire Dwarfhold Quest Chain!

Vath is a Pinata. Hit him enough and candy will fall out. He will drop:

1. Chaos Dragonlord Armor
2. Legendary Sword of Dragon Control
3. Shattered Legendary Sword of Dragon Control
4. Cloak of Vath (Yeah, it's Color Customizable)
5. Chaos Dragonlord Helm
6. Chaos Dragonlord Axe
7. Chaos Dragonlord Mace
8. Chaotic Dragon Lance
9. Vath's Hair

And Stalagbite drops a mini version of himself. The Stalagbite Pet.

Then, we've got the new additions to the Player Suggestion Shop, in Yulgar's Inn. (Just talk to Yulgar)

1. AQW Player Dage666's Undead Warrior Armor
2. AQW Player Dage666's Undead Warrior Armet (Helm)
3. AQW Player Titanio's Sword
4. AQW Player Rohan's Hashashin Armor
5. AQW Player Rohan's Armored Hashashin Armor
6. AQW Player Lavitz's Viking Armor

And lastly I am proud to announce that the BANK IS NOW FREE FOR ANY AC ITEM! Starting today, you can drop any AdventureCoin item into your bank for FREE, and it will hold an INFINITE number of AC items. If ytou want to use the bank for normal Items you still need to pay the initial 200 AC fee for your first 20 normal inventory spaces, AC items will slip right past that. If you want you can JUST use the bank to store your AC items and never pay a single AC for space.

This Bank upgrade is for ALL players, member and non-member alike.

To access your Bank, just talk to Valencia in Battleon, click the BANK button and just start moving Adventure Coin items into storage!

You will now see 2 tabs in your bank...

One is for your normal items and the other is for your AC items!

Vath showdown for members, Last week's Rock Roc fight and minigame released for non-members, New cutscenes with music and sound effects, a HUGE number of items dropping fron Vath (some member and some non-member), A Stalagbite Pet, A number of new additions to the Suggestion Shop (Some AC, some member and some non-member), and the FREE AC BANK upgrade this is by far the largest update that AQW has EVER SEEN!

Have fun with Vath and Stalagbite, guys. Good luck. You're going to need it.

No sushi for you!
Mama Said Sock You Out!

August 27th, 2009
Piles.
It Seems To Be A Law Of Nature.
Things always seem to happen in piles. Sometimes it's bad things (You dog runs off with your homework, your cell phone company charges you for talking 2,761,131.3 minutes more than you actually talked, you step in a puddle, you accidentally shave off an eyebrow, the puddle comes back for revenge, your computer runs off with your dog and your dinner tries to eat you), and sometimes it's AWESOME things...

This seems to be one of those times for us. The good kind.

This weekend the non-members get to fight the Rock Roc, while the members face down Chaos Dragonlord Vath with his extremely large number of item drops (His armor, 2 versiosn of his sword, Chaos drow cloak, Chaos Dragonlord helm, Chaos Dragonlord mace Chaos Dragonlance, Stalagbite pet.... pretty sure he's even dropping his hairstyle).

We are also adding 5 or 6 new items to the Player Suggestion shop in Yulgar's Inn.

thankyouver'much

That Armored Hashasin Armor makes me look like a rhinestone Elvis... but how is that a bad thing?! There will be 4 new armors, 1 new sword and possibly a new helm. These new items were thought up and suggested by players just like you on our suggestion forums, and brought into AdventureQuest Worlds!

Got an idea for an item or armor? The AQW Suggestion Forum is the place to let us know about it!

On top of all that, this week Mechquest is releasing its Dragonguard Bonus Packages for Veteran Star Captains!

Then next week, we've got Dragoncon in Atlanta, GA where we will be hosting a live panel on AQW and the other AE games, meeting some old friends (Stratos, Shawn and Violet), meeting new players, giving out prizes like the Sock Dragon pet and releasing the AQW Good and Evil rep shops, opening the Vath fight for ALL AQW players and the making the DragonFable Doom Knight Bonus Offer live for veteran Dragonlords in DragonFable!

I just tried to read that run-on sentence out loud and ran out of breath. Nice.

I'm going to test the Vath battle, now. Later.




Text message had me worried
Is Busy Revving Up The Powerful Sock-5!




August 26th, 2009
Hey UK and CANADA!
Got some good news for ya.
Starting in October, you will be able to buy our Artix Entertainment Upgrade Cards in both the UK and Canada!

I don't have a list of the stores yet but as soon as I do i'll post them here for ya.

Let's see, what else...? Oh, I can show you the Chaos Evolved Dragonlord Armor.

CEDL Armor

Vath WILL drop this, it WILL be for members only (so will both swords shown) and it WILL go live this week during the member preview of the battle aginst Chaos Dragonlord Vath!

No, you can't have Beleen's chinchilla pet. (correction: she said you CAN but she's only selling it for 1 day on her birthday, Dec 14th)

No, you can't be a mod.

No, that's not cheese in the background, it's lava. Dragon + Rocks =/= cheese.

Check out the AQW General Discussion Forums for a list of what ELSE Vath and Stalagbite will drop for members and non-members!

Artix is back in the lab and he says HI to everyone *Artix: /wave*. I'm sure he'll want his design notes back pretty soon.

He also says that Ballyhoo in the originial AQ is feeling neglected. Could you go show her some love? She's still giving away Z-tokens and she will keep giving them away, but she needs people to watch her ads so advertisers will keep paying for those Z-tokens for her to give away.

It's a viscious cycle of free stuff.



Cysero is in control?!
Back With Another Of Those Sock-Rawkin' Beats!

August 25th, 2009
INFINITE AC BANK! And muffins.
Actually Cupcakes.
HAHAHAHA! I have direct access to the AQW design notes now! No more handing over a well written DNs post to Ai No Miko to post for me!

Let's talk. It's been a while. How have you been?

Oh, I guess you can't answer. Ok, let's talk about something else.

How about AC items. You guys know that Adventure Coins are real money. You can earn and spend as much gold as you like and it has no real effect on AQW but every AC that you spend goes to supporting the game, paying for the servers, paying for the bandwidth and supporting the staff who makes the games so we can dedicate all of our professional time to making you more releases and instead of all of us getting second (or in some cases third) jobs at Fatburger. I mean, I think it would be awesome if AE ran it's own Fatburger and we all worked there, but the less I have to make fast food the happier I am.

Sorry, back to Adventure Coins.

As I was saying, you spend REAL money on ACs and that money all goes to supporting the game, and inventory space is limited for cost reasons BUT AC INVENTORY doesn't have to be. You already spent the money to support the game. We don't want you to have to pick and choose which AC items to save or delete... we don't want you to delete ANY of them... they cost you real cash! SO... here's what we're going to do.

Very soon, the bank will be able to hold an UNLIMITED AMOUNT OF AC ITEMS! This upgrade to your bank will cost you no additional ACs. It comes with the Bank. This upgrade to your bank is for everyone, member and non-member alike.

If you haven't opened your bank yet talk to Valencia in Battleon.

Where Valencia Is

As soon as this update happens (maybe this Friday, maybe not... but soon) ...if you decide to buy every single AC item in the entire game then you will be able to fit ALL of them in your bank. AC weapons, AC Armors, AC helms, AC Cloaks, AC Pets... AC ANYTHING.

This was only fair to you guys. We really appreciate all of your support, without member support AND AC support, AQW would never make it. We love this game, and we love you being able to play it... thanks for keeping it alive and going strong!

On to Cupcakes. One of my very best friends, who has been since my first month of college (she broke my watch) and she and her entire family play AQW. I hang out with them in game when I can because they live 4 hours away and I don't get to see them much in real life but LAST WEEKEND they all came to visit. She is good at a lot of things but she cooks like nobody's business (Actually she cooks like it's HER business. Because it IS her business. She runs a catering business) and she made me cupcakes.

Oooooh cupcakes.

Now, MOST cupcakes are pretty good. It's hard to mess up cupcakes, but THESE were SERIOUS cupcakes. The cakes themselves had berries, and they were moist and perfect but the frosting... it was some sort of magical mixture made of confectioner's sugar, cream cheese, raspberry jam and love. I've never tasted anything like it.

Normally my fiancee and I share everything. When we share something I always save the last bite of it for her. She does the same for me. We obviously encounter some problems in that respect. We end up with a lot of "last bites" sitting around. But these magical cupcakes had a different effect on us. We fought over the last one.

I mean fought.

She hit me with a chair. I was forced to turn a fire hose on her. She drove her car through a wall to cut me off on my way to the kitchen. I threw a shark at her. She blew up the sun. It was a MESS.

Man those were some good cupcakes.

So, how about that AC bank, huh?

Beleen

August 21st, 2009
The Next Chaos Beast Awakens!
Well... more like "hatches"…
Master of the skies, the Roc is an enormous legendary Chaos Beast once thought to be extinct. Recent discoveries made by Lord Vath have proved otherwise. With his collection of powerful Chaos Gemeralds, Vath can finally unleash the Rock Roc! So… let me ask you… are you ready to Roc ‘n Roll?!

Okay, so the Rock Roc is HUGE. It is the size of a fully-grown dragon! An aerial assault is the only effective way of grounding this bird-of-clay, but the one thing big enough to take on such a creature is Vath’s own dragon, Stalagbite! …wait… you’re actually thinking about stealing Stalagbite?! And you want to fly on his back so you can take down the Rock Roc!?! Are you crazy?! …awesome. You might have what it takes after all!

Stalagbite

Rock Roc Mini Game!
The battle against the Rock Roc will occur in two phases: Phase 1 being a Mini-Game and Phase 2 being head-to-head combat. The first Phase will allow you to fly on the back of Stalagbite as you try to take down the Rock Roc without being taken down yourself! The Mouse controls the movements and abilities of Stalagbite:

* moving the mouse in any direction will move, speed up, or slow down Stalagbite
* a left mouse click will shoot a fireball
* holding down the left button and letting go ignites a powerful flame
* moving to the bottom on the screen will allow Stalagbite to run on the ground and gobble up Drow Archers to replenish Health

Once weakened, the Rock Roc will fall from the sky and you will have to take it on MMORPG style—brute force mixed with magic! This battle will not be easily won and will take much patience and strength (and a whole lot of Mountain Dew)!

New Items!
New weapons and armors ROC! Head over to Snowbeard’s Rep Shop and get your hands on some wicked cool Dwarven Gear! Snowbeard now offers:

* Dwarf Warrior Armor
* Red Dwarf Warrior Armor
* Scorpion Spear (what could this be foreshadowing?)

Dwarf Armor

Dwarves vs. Drow: the War begins!
As if taking down a massively foul Fowl isn’t dangerous enough, Dwarves have declared War against the Drow! Dwarfhold Mountains belong to the Dwarves and you and your friends must do everything in your power to see that their home is returned! But Wars are no picnics (if they were, everyone would be a lot happier!); the Drow have called their comrades to battle as well! Taking down Chaos Draconians amongst the Drow is not going to be an easy task… especially since Vath's most trusted general, D'wain Jonsen the King Scorpion Lord, is leading the crusade! YIPES!

Artix
Back-adin!
Gone-again-adin?

August 21st, 2009
Friday Release
Coming Shortly
Tonight the Dwarfhold war will begin! Prepare yourself for the newest Chaos Beast, a new minigame (in testing members only this week) and new Scorpion King items in Snowbeard's war shop. When Cysero asked me if I wanted to add the soundFX and music to the cutscenes I was really excited. The "Chaos DragonLord" theme music is a short clip I cut out of one of Warlic, Zhoom and my jam sessions here at the secret underground lab. If you like it, we will re-record the full song for the conclusion of the zone!

Beleen is preparing a full post while we get ready to go live! Hold on to your helms friends. "It is almost Hero-ing time!"

Cysero August 17th, 2009
Stats, PvP, New Classes and Level Cap Raises...
So What's The Hold Up?
Hi Guys,
I just wanted to let you know what is going on and why we haven't told you about all the progress that we've been making toward our goals.

It's because there hasn't been any.

That's not actually true but the truth is less fun to say.

It all comes down to Stats. Needless to say giving your character stat points that effect your HP, Mana, Damage, Crit, Hit, Miss and other attributes will change the game in very dramatic way. Your build will become a very large part of who you are and how you play your classes.

It will also create a lot of problems. How do we gap the level differences when your friend makes a new character and wants to play with your uber, maxed-out, top-shelf, godlike character? How can you stick with one build when you can change classes at the drop of a hat? Do we let you rebuild your character every time you change clothes? These are only a few of the several very large roadblocks that have stopped up from beginning member-only testing of Stats.

Which stops us from doing everything else.

Stats will have a HUGE effect on Player Versus Player (PvP) combat... how long you survive in a fight with another player, how much you can heal yourself, maybe your attack speed, maybe how often you crit on another player, maybe how often you resist crits. Until stats are finished and released we can't move forward on PvP.

How about some new classes, then? *sigh* Those depends on stats too. Every new skill has to be balanced so that no new class is redonkulously overpowered compared to the others. Creating a new class takes some serious effort and thought as well as testing and If we made a new one now, we'd spend a week or more balancing it out only to have to REbalance it when stats are released, along with all the existing classes, which would mean it would take longer to get to YOU. Until stats are released we're stuck there too.

Ok then, Can you just raise the level cap by 10 or even 5? *cries* We can't. Aside from keeping the power levels reasonable so that any player can play new content without finding it too terribly easy or impossible, we still have the New Player Teams With Maxed Player thing to deal with. When we add stats that will make that gap even wider, and break everything. Until we know how stats are going to effect leveling up, then we can't raise the cap.

So we're kinda stuck. No luck. Sitting ducks. Which... stinks.

That's not to say that we haven't made HUGE strides in base functionality. I mean, PvP works... and it's AWESOME. Beleen, Ai No Miko, Llussion and I spent a good hour or two on the mod server whacking each other and knocking each other out. It was Girls versus Boys. We won. But don't tell them that. It was a LOT of fun but also VERY broken.

You guys will get to see, when we get the member only testing servers up and you faithful AQW members can help us iron out some of the bugs, but we MUST get stats out before that can happen.

Believe me, we are racking our brains trying to solve all the game breaking issues having to do with stats... sometimes we are even racking each others brains, whatever that means. We are getting closer and closer to a working solution every day and soon.... very soon, we'll have one.

After that, you'd better be ready for the awesome-sauce that follows... or else you'll drown in that sauce. Not a pretty picture.

Back to work... This week Vath tries to awaken the next Chaos Beast. If you're going to stop him you're going to need a little more firepower than what the dwarves can offer. If only you could gets your hands on a big, purple dragon somehow....

Heh.

Ai No Miko: P.S. They did NOT win

Artix is heading home! A message just arrived saying that Artix completed his final mission in Japan (At the oldest Okinawan restaurant in Tokyo... oddly) and will begin his journey back to the Secret Underground Lab on Monday! We imagine he has a lot of stories of places, foods, monsters, crazier oddities, and friends to share. (Does anyone else get the feeling a Japan-inspired zone with Yokai, Samurai, Ninja, Kaiju, and cutest female npcs running the most insane game shows is in our future?)

Beleen

August 14th, 2009
New Release!
Meet Lord Vath face-to-face!...Kinda
Do you have what it takes to enter Lord Vath’s chamber? Are you prepared to face what is inside? You do realize what will happen if you get caught, right? Are you sure you wanna go in there? …Alright. Just keep in mind that Vath is a Lord of Chaos after all, and he is bound to have a few tricks up his DragonLord armored sleeve! Let’s just hope that everyone you met along the way isn’t a traitor… *shudder* oh, I have a bad feeling about this… Let’s say hypothetically that you do get caught by Lord Vath. The outcome will not be pretty. You’ll probably get thrown into Prison… but hey, spending quality time behind bars has its perks. You can always meet the inmates and help devise an escape plan! But where there is a Prison, there is always a Prison Warden… and Prison Wardens are the boss (hypothetically, of course)!

Mick Guyver, the Dwarven Engineer
Best known for creating amazing concoctions out of odd-ball things, Mick Guyver is one dwarf to have on your side. His whereabouts are currently unknown*, but if you do find him, take the time to say hello; you never know what crazy inventions he might need your help with! He also has a secret shop that sells 14 brand-new Dwarfhold-themed house items, including:

* Stalactite Chandelier
* Mine Cart Bathtub
* Dwarfhold Door Replica
* Stone Throne
* Potty-Trained Llamas

A new Cave House has been added to Penny’s Real Estate Shop, too! This two-room home is built into the side of a mountain and features a scenic view!

Cave House

*We actually know where Mick Guyver is, but we are sworn to secrecy by the Dwarf himself.

New Items!
How monsters get a hold of Gold and Weapons? Beats me. Regardless, the monsters of Dwarfhold have somehow acquired a new shipment of weapons! We did, however, find a wrinkled-balled-up-slightly-torn Shipping Invoice in Vath’s trashcan that listed the monsters’ orders! Convenient, right?

* Amadeus ordered a new dagger: Claw of the Shrew
* Albino Bats received 2 new types of Cricket Bats
* Glow Worms now have 5 multiple-colored GlowSticks
* Balboas received 2 new Rocky Clubs
* Axe of the Prospector was also ordered for Balboas

Snowbeard also got a new shipment in (Fed-Axe must be working double time)! A new Dwarven Engineering Armor is available for purchase, but you will have to be pretty reputable with Dwarfhold to wear this gear!

Dwarf Warden

Drow Heads?
Well… not quite. Well… kinda. The Drow in Dwarfhold are dropping what we like to call “head morphs.” When placed upon your head, these magical helms transform your face, eyes, ears, and hair into that of a Drow! There are 5 new Drow Head Morphs to collect; some would say that this is one way to get a head in life!



Artix
Gunda-din

August 12th, 2009
Life-Sized Gundam!
I am living 12 hours in the future... and they have Robots
Here in Tokyo, Japan they have constructed a life-sized Gundam. Standing around four stories tall it is an amazing sight. Thousands and thousands of people pour in every day to see it.. and we all are thinking the same thing...

LIfe sized Gundam in Tokyo, Japan!
LIfe-Sized Gundam Mecha
(Makes me want to play more MechQuest)

While I have seen a lot of very technologically advanced things in Japan, but this was just amazing. It is a shame they are taking it down at the end of the month.

Yokai #1: The Tsukumo-gami
Those of you who know a lot about Japanese Yokai probably thought I would start off with an easy one like Kitsune, Kappa or very popular Tengu. But it is a well known fact that readers of the design notes like to jump right into the heavy stuff! So Yokai #1 is the Tsukumo-gami. It is said when something that has been owned for a very long time is thrown away... the item can become resentful and haunted! These haunted artifacts can move around and cause great amounts of trouble. It normally takes 99 years of useful service for an item to gather enough energy to become haunted when thrown away (a Tsukumo-gami). However, incredibly popular objects may take MUCH less time. *Looks back up*

P.S. Today I met an awesome AQWorlds player in Akihabara. It was shocking to find a player here in Japan... but even more crazy is that he had upgraded in all the games, and had the Shadowscythe T-shirt, Save Chuckles T-shirt AND the MechQuest Artbook! (Those must have been some crazy shipping costs!)

Artix
Wipes-Away-A-Tear-adin

August 9th, 2009
The Story of Hachi
Legend of the statue at Shibuya Station
Before I share with you the overwhelming amount of information on the supernatural creatures known as Yokai here in Japan, please hear this incredible tale. It is of a loyal dog named Hachikō (Hachi.) This true story takes place only 83 years ago. Every day Hachi would follow his master, a Univerisity Professor, to the Shibuya Station. When his master would return from work, Hachi would be there, waiting, to anxiously greet him. Every day Hachi would wait for him at the train station. Sadly, one day, the Professor did not return from work. He had passed away. However, his loyal dog, Hachi, continued to wait for his Master to return. For 9 years, the rest of his life, Hatchi waited... sitting in his famous spot here at Shibuya Station.

Harchi at Shibuya Station

Today, a statue of Hatchi sits in the exact same place that he faithfully waited for his master. It is the ultimate symbol of loyalty and a very popular meeting place for friends.

Hachi Facts

1. Yes, that one episode of Futurama about Fry's dog was definately a Hachi reference.
2. Hachi means 8 in Japanese.
3. Yes, Shibuya Station is that famous, super busy intersection that always show in movies and documentaries featuring Japan.
4. There have been two movies made about Hachi including one that is about to be released in the States called "Hachi" starring Richard Gear.
5. Yes I miss Daimyo a lot. I wonder if he is at home waiting for me to return?

P.S. Next post will feature Yokai and GIANT MECHA! (Robots)
P.P.S. Reens just fixed the travel map. Reload if you are still getting the bugged version (People who were supposed to be seeing Shadowfall were not, and those who should not have were! Yikes!)


Cysero

Beleen

Weekly Update


August 7th, 2009
What's up in UpperCity?
Jorxlol and his band of assassins!
It's always funny when you find yourself fighting next to your enemies, but in the case of the Breethen D'irt drow assassin clan you should just count your lucky stars that they are on your side.

This fearsome band of assassins are so feared amongst the drow that even whispering their name is considered bad luck. For them no job is too big and no fee is too big.

The clan has been lead by Jorxlol for many years and under his guidance the clan has prospered, mostly due to his knack for staying free of any political ties. Jorxlol has kept Breethen D'irt a free agent in a very difficult business, and business was booming.... until Chaos Dragonlord Vath.

With his undeniable power, Vath terrified even the largest drow houses into joining him on his crusade for Drakath. Through fear, Vath unified the warring drow families and now all of them march as one beneath his chaos banner... and nothing spoils an assassin's mood like peace and unity. It's just bad for business.

Jorxlol is as afraid of Vath as anyone else but the Breethen D'irt clan has mastered moving in the shadows unnoticed until the time to strike presents itself, and you know the old saying... “My enemy's enemy is my friend,”.

Once Geopetal has given you to key to enter Uppercity, speak to Jorxlol and see how he can help you reach Vath, and stop his plans!

Dwarfhold continues to be one of the largest releases that we have ever done for AQW, this week we set loose:

* 4 new monsters, with some new item drops including hard-to-find pets!
* A new AC shop with 11 new items, including 2 new armors and a new AC pet (talk to Jorxlol in Uppercity or Sejeth in Battleon)!
* 4 new items in Snowbeard's Dwarfhold Reputation shop, including the Dwarven Ironcrusher armor!
* 7 Brand new quests in one of our largest and coolest maps ever!
* The Cloak of Disapoofing! The Draconians guarding Vath's keep will attack on sight.... so it's best not to be seen. You can go invisible for any of Uppercity's quests!

It's a big release with a lot of new stuff to play with. Enjoy yourself, because next week we enter Chaos Dragonlord Vath's keep!

The AE Assassin Clan!
Check this out—could this be any cooler? Ai No Miko, Cysero, Reens and I have formed our own little Drow Assassin Clan! By day, we are just simple Gamers who spend most of our time playing AQ Worlds and browsing the web. By day, we are just simple Gamers who spend most of our time playing (making) AQ Worlds and browsing the web. By night, we hide in the shadows of our metropolitan cities, plotting our next assassination (usually against spiders and rambunctious city-dwelling insects). Some people would say that we have the best job in the world, and those people are TOTALLY RIGHT!

AEAssassins!

Join us this weekend as we play the role of assassins in Lore! You can get sweet Drow Assassin loot from Sejeth in Battleon and from Jorxlol in the UpperCity. You can uncover the history of Drow Assassins by talking to Jorxlol, or just by reading Cysero’s Release Post on the Design Notes! I type much faster than him, so keep checking back… his post will be up in no time! *fades into the shadows*

Artix
Yokai-adin

August 7th, 2009
Greetings from Japan!
Questing in the land of the rising sun
I have missed you! For quite some time now Twilly, Zorbak and myself have been on a secret mission* in the far, far, far, far, far East.

Konnichiwa from Tokyo, Japan!

At first, I was surprised when the secret order of undead slayers assigned me to this mission. Here in Japan the undead are mearly a footnote in the HUGE collection of supernatural creatures known as Yokai. These Yokai come in so many shapes, forms... some are like ghosts, others goblins, some are formed from skeletons of fallen warriors on a battlefield... some are even the manifistation of grudges and puns***! While October is the spookiest time in the West, the Summer is the spookiest time here in Japan! So in between your battles against the Chaos DragonLord, I would like to send you stories of Yokai from specific regions here in Japan. Have a great release and I will write to you again soon! (Also, I will post some special photos for you!)

* Artix's skill at keeping secrets is only slightly better than his skill at not getting lost on the Tokyo subway.
** Translates to: Lost, Dark, Hopeless...
*** No need to worry. Artix's Japanese is too weaksauce to make puns.... yet. Although, he has been finding other ways to communicate.