Yergen

Dank and Creepy Dungeons of Skulldor

Dank and Creepy Dungeons of Skulldor

Yergen here! The AQ3D team and I have been working steadily on creating the Dungeons of Skulldor. Llusion, and Xero have been modeling amazing dungeon props, and walls, and pillars, and everything else you can think of that would thrive in a spooky, dark, and dangerous dungeon. Thyton has designed some exceptionally creepy undead skeletons, but there appears to be some sort of a gooey fluid sticking to them. Gross. Mido has been adding textures to the base female models. What have I been doing? Taking all these amazing pieces and using them like building blocks and putting together the Dungeons of Skulldor.Thank you childhood building blocks!  What secrets lurk in the dark recesses of these walls? I’ll never tell. Well maybe I will... later.

This Isn't Nearly Enough...

This post seems small in comparison. I guess I’ll have to ramble on a bit… ok. What have I learned while putting together the dungeons? Lighting is key. Here is a work in progress of the dungeon lit with bright light.

Not too spooky, and what an awful color choice. Now here is it lit dimmer.

Muuuch better. It’s amazing what a few setting can do. Anyhow. back to the dungeons power people. This game is going to be amazing! Btw - Monday the 19th I am going to hop onto the forums and answer some of those AQ3D Q&A questions. You have great questions, and I know I'll have some definitely adequate answers.

~Yergen

Kiara

(Kiara) Artix Has Joined the Fight

Progress of the Undead Invasion

This morning Artix sent word to the Underground Lab. He has made it safely to the other side of the world and has already slain several undead. An anonymous source sent us this picture:

It's very dark, but the blurry person jumping to attack with his axe is Artix. Our source tells us that none of the undead shown in the picture survived.

It's going to be tough, but I believe Artix will be able to quell the invasion. So far, the undead have lost every battle, but there are still many more to come.

A Day in the Underground Lab

Some of you have asked what it's like working in the Underground lab. It's crazy... and awesome! There's never a dull moment with so many games to work on and new projects to keep track of. Depending on what day it is, sometimes I hear people running through the halls of the lab, screaming. Usually this means it's Friday or very close to Friday, and someone's lost a piece of art or code. Sometimes it means there's such a huge bug in the systems that the whole lab will detonate if we release it. But no matter what it is, the situation gets resolved and the work atmosphere becomes calm and creative again.

Report for Artix

I'm going to send Artix a report from the lab later this week. If you have anything you'd like me to include, like any new tricks you've found to be effective against the undead, leave them in the comments and I'll add them in!

Alina

AQW: Chaos, Magic, and Mayhem!

AQWorlds' first guest-author event starts Friday

Chaos in your veins... And in Lore's magic?! THAT sounds catastrophic! Join the AQWorlds team and 30,000 of your fellow players at aq.com for a massively-magical special in-game event! Featuring  characters from author Sarah Prineas' novel The Magic Thief, you'll have to race against time and treachery in order to save the missing mages of Lore. And if you can't prevent Drakath's plot from succeeding, ALL of Lore's magic will be tainted with Chaos!

Check out all the latest info on the event page!

During the event, you'll get a chance to learn about how magic in AQWorlds operates: ley lines, nexuses, and focus stones are all crucial if the mages of Lore are to guide and guard the home they love! Look for a new piece of information on how Lore's magic works AND get event updates and sneak peeks each day on the AQW Design Notes!

WHAT:	The Magic Thief guest author event with Sarah Prineas!
WHEN:	March 23rd, 2012 at sundown!
WHO:	The cast of The Magic Thief novel, the AQWorlds team and YOU!
WHY:	Sometimes even the greatest magicians need a little help from a thief!
HOW:	Join us in-game, right here at AdventureQuest Worlds

Send J6 to outerspace!

AQWorlds' lead artist, J6, is astronomically talented! So who better to be Artix Entertainment's ambassador to the galaxy? He has a chance to win a contest to go on the ultimate quest - into space! And YOU can help send him up there, where he belongs! All you have to do is head to this site and vote for him. You can vote once per day, per computer and with all our help, he'll have the chance to draw the first-ever extra-orbital AQWorlds reward!

As of this writing, J6 has 24,949 votes, and 99.9% of that is YOU guys helping one artist realize a life-long dream. It's amazing what the power of the AE community can do when they band together. Nothing is out of reach, not even the moon!

Look fly like a J6 with HeroMart's newest t-shirt!

Head to Heromart, Artix Entertainment's real-life loot store and snag your very own J6-style shirt! These fly off the shelves faster than the speed of light, so if you want to look like a bounty hunter* as you battle through life, this is the shirt for you!

And any bounty hunter worth their guns wants to score the critical fashion hit they'll get when they equip the epic promotional rewards that come with purchase - the J6 Helmet and the J6 Cowboy Armor!

* This shirt does not give you license to act like a bounty hunter. Unless you're in space.

Yergen

Concept Art on the Horizon

Yergen Here! I am neck deep in dungeon making (and having a blast doing it), but I thought I would give you a sneak peek of a possible future location that we are working on.  I'm not allowed to give any details right now on why or what this place is, but the concept art that Llussion is working on is really impressive. First off is a concept for a massive castle wall.

 

The next image shows a town square like area.

These are beautiful concept sketches. It’s going to be a blast making them, and more importantly, running around in them!  Good job Llusion.

What Makes Thyton Awesome…

In coming up with these concepts Thyton, Llusion, and I sat around discussing the mechanics of a kingdom. Thyton takes the extreme tactical approach building an impenetrable fortress. A super fortress! He thinks through and problem solves all major attacks (air, sea, and land) options. He then designs, and places elements that will counter, or slow down the attack. The ideas are flawless!  He plans it out as if he were the king, protecting the people. That’s the approach he takes on everything. To him it has to be believable. It has to work. And that’s what will make this game amazing! Then of course I ask how a farmer will take his fruit from outside the impenetrable wall, to the town market, passing wall after wall, guard after guard, swerving back and forth in a maze of streets every day? “Hmm.”, he says. “Maybe I went a little too tactical…”.

Kiara

Mystery and Magic

Mysterious Package

I was going to make this post earlier today and tell you how ordinary the day was. Not a single person had a panic attack yet and no one collapsed from exhaustion. That's no fun... but then the mailman came.

Usually when the mailman comes, he's here to take an elevator full of HeroMart packages to mail to you guys. But THIS time, he came with a package for us. Package deliveries are usually exciting events here in the Underground Lab. We've gotten odd-flavored Japanese Kit-Kats, one-piece toilet paper, delicious cookies, hand-made figures, posters, slippers, etc... you get the idea, every package we've ever gotten always turned out to be really awesome.

Today's package was from Artix.

That's crazy! He's all the way on the other side of the world, fighting off an undead invasion and somehow, between his axe swings, he's found time to mail us a package. Well, that's not exactly true. He mailed himself a package. The package is from Artix and addressed to Artix.

We're all itching to open it. I think at least a handful of people have already sniffed it. We know it's holding something awesome inside because all packages delivered here contain awesome things, but we can't open it until Artix comes back! What do you guys think is inside?

Friday is RELEASE DAY!

Update on this week's upcoming releases. There's a lot of good stuff coming this week!

AdventureQuest Worlds
This Friday is AE's first ever author event with Sarah Prineas, author of the Magic Thief fantasy book series. For the first time ever, you'll be able to adventure side by side with characters from a novel!
Something is wrong in Lore - all the mages have gone missing! The word around town is that Drakath is involved and he's trying to taint all of Lore's magic with Chaos. Log in tomorrow to meet Conn, a young wizard apprentice, and team up to save all the missing mages of Lore... before it's too late.
www.AQ.com

Check out these Event-Rare Mystical Blades:

EpicDuel
Bunny Battlesuit Bonanza: Thanks to your assistance last week, the leporids have their battle suits and are ready to rock...almost. The suits lack the onboard computer systems they need to retake the Biologic Preserve. Log in tomorrow to enlist the help of Delta V's top tinkerer Ulysses to program the suits and help the leporids.
www.EpicDuel.com

DragonFable
Au'Mydas seems to be losing the war, but time is running out! If you don't help the war meter reach 100%, then Au'Mydas will win and all of Lore will be smothered in his golden kiss. Log in this Friday to defeat new bosses and win the war! War Challenge: If the war meter reaches 100% before midnight on Friday, you will unlock a special rainbow lightsaber reward.
www.DragonFable.com

MechQuest
There is an ancient legend of an underground realm and tales of a magical instrument that could turn the tide, if you can win through to its location! This story will bring you NEW ORIGINAL music, NEW quests, the opportunity to unlock NEW weapons, and NEW starship items!
www.MechQuest.com
HeroSmash
This week in HeroSmash go scavenging for treasure! Golden Claw in the "Ruins" has found a treasure chest full of exquisite, but damaged, treasure. If you help Golden Claw repair the treasure, he'll gladly share it with you! Don't forget St. Patrick' Day is leaving tomorrow for another year, check it out before it's gone!
www.HeroSmash.com

AdventureQuest Classic

This week's second part of the Energy Orb Quest will take you on a hunt with Radagast for the energy orb in hopes of luring in a new numbered beast! Only one slight problem: a mother Thunderbird has mistaken the orb for one of her egg and getting it back might not be so easy. Also coming to the Limited Time Shop this week is the Incendiary Bow weapon.
www.BattleOn.com

AQ3D
Check back tomorrow to see a new 3D update from Yergen.
www.Artix.com

Artix

Can you read Binary?

HINT: It does no decode into "Enjoy your Ovaltine."

01000111 01101111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01101010 01101111 01100010 00100001 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01100011 01110101 01110010 01110010 01100101 01101110 01110100 01101100 01111001 00100000 01110111 01110010 01101001 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01000100 01101111 01101111 01101101 01010111 01101111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01010000 01100001 01110010 01110100 00100000 00110010 00100000 01110111 01101000 01101001 01100011 01101000 00100000 01110000 01110010 01100101 01101101 01101001 01100101 01110010 01100101 01110011 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01000110 01110010 01101001 01100100 01100001 01111001 00100000 01110011 01101111 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100001 01101101 00100000 01100010 01100101 01101000 01101001 01101110 01100100 00100000 01101111 01101110 00100000 01101101 01100001 01101011 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110011 01110100 01110011 00101110 00100000 01010100 01101111 01101101 01101111 01110010 01110010 01101111 01110111 00100000 01001001 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01101101 01101001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01110100 01101111 00100000 01110000 01101111 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110100 01110111 01101111 00100000 01100110 01110101 01101100 01101100 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101100 01101111 01110010 00100000 01110100 01101111 01110111 01101110 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101110 01100011 01100101 01110000 01110100 01110011 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00101110 00100000 01010011 01100101 01100101 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 01101110 00101110 00100000 01000010 01000001 01010100 01010100 01001100 01000101 00100000 01001111 01001110 00100001

Hint #2: Maybe you could use google to find a web based binary translator?

Yergen

End Your Week with Something Ghoulish

Yergen here! It’s Friday, and I thought I would show you something that Thyton was working on. He likes to sometimes just doodle. But his doodles!!!

Look at this creature! Just looking at it makes your imagination run wild. What is this creature? Where would it live? What does it eat?? If it were to attack you what would you do? I know I wouldn’t want to run across this in the middle of the night. Could you imagine waking up in the middle of the night and seeing this perched at the end of your bed? *shudder* We have made a lot of improvements in the game engine and the characters. Next week I'll have more stuff to show from Llusion, and Thyton as well as maybe a model or 3D model or two... maybe. Well that’s it from me. Have a good weekend!