Wed release of Susie quest in Soluna and DragonCon 2011

So this week's release is(was) (it has already rolled Live) tonight - Wednesday!  We heard you like a lot of experience and credits when you play, so there is a new permanent quest for you to have the chance to gain a LOT of both!  

Susie is standing to the left of Tek's Mechs in Soluna City.  It used to be that all she wanted to do was to duel you - but now she has a mission!  If you talk with her, she'll tell you about her Senior Project.  If you will go on patrol looking for the ultra-rare Berserker Shadowscythe Hound that sometimes attacks in an area of Loreon known as Sector Sixty-Seven - and if you find the rare Amanita Warp Disc* that powers this unstable monster, Susie will give you a massive reward - an astounding amount of experience and credits!  There is a Skip button so you don't have to click through a ton of dialogue - the common Shadowscythe enemies give normal rewards, and the quest brings you back to a point where you can replay it over and over in quick succession, hoping to encounter that Berserker.  

Why a Wednesday release and nothing on Friday?? Because we** are going to DragonCon in Atlanta, Georgia (USA)!  Come hang out with Korin, me (Maegwyn), and more members of the AE team including Artix himself, in the Artix Entertainment Suite at the top of the Marriott (Room 4724) on Thursday night from 8 - 10 PM for a super-casual all-ages pizza party!  Then come to the AE Panel on Friday at 2:30 pm at the Sheraton, Savannah room.  (If you have a costume, this is a good time to wear it.)  MechQuest is creating a special mod for your mecha as a souvenir if you are able to attend!***  

And ... wait for it .... there's MORE!  We also have a Fan Table in the Hyatt this year!  Stop by each day for a visit with different members of the AE team, and to get a special ribbon to hang on your DragonCon Badge, specially made by Jemini - a different dragon for each day!  (Come early - supplies are limited.) Bring your artwork for the drop-box, too!  Char, Korin, and I will be "manning" the table on Sunday, September 4th from 10 am to 12 noon!  

We're really excited and hope to see as many of you as possible!  Can't make it this year?  It's an annual event, so start planning for the future!  See ya!

*Can you guess why the component has that name?

** "We" includes more than just MechQuest's Korin and Maegwyn  - some but not all past and present members of the MQ team such as Char, Jemini, Thyton, Lyris, and even J6 - and lots of AE staff members representing all of our games!

***If all goes as planned, the MechQuest team just might have a special few-of-a-kind unique hand-painted t-shirts to give away - I made a prototype and got a couple more done in between working on releases and fixing bugs, but I'm not entirely satisfied with the fabric paint performance so we'll see what happens.  If nothing else, I can give someone the shirt off my back****... 

**** I will of course be wearing layers if it comes to that :]

Tags: Maegwyn DragonCon Korin Artix ShadowScythe

We Can Has Design Notes

Korin & I wanted to say hi really quickly since we realized that we haven't posted any DNs since the last ones I posted... partly because we didn't have internet in our rooms. We're having a great time - the panel was amazing and we got to meet a bunch of you for the first time and see others of you again this year. So right now Vivi & Korin & I are sitting at this table with half-eaten pies and pretzels on it. And Char just walked up 47 flights of stairs to join us.

The Star Captain Monthly Mecha was a little tricky this week because the file was corrupt. Korin actually did the shading & coloring, and Vivi helped test while I was getting ready to fly to Atlanta for the second part of my vacation. So Korin went to the forums and asked you to name this one - and you came up with "Steve Skysplitter," which was the one that cracked him up the most! (There will be a description on this model in a couple of days, by the way.)

Anyway, about the panel! We met an awesome player known as Azorra who knows more about MQ than we do (we think) - we're going to stay in touch with him about fixing a few things with the early lower-level game experience, too! We also got to meet neo_manni from the forums, whom I've seen around the forums since before MQ even existed & we used to talk on the forums about Adventure Quest - I didn't realize at the panel that he was neo_manni so I got really excited at the Voltaire concert when I figured that out. Aeonarial from the forums was also at the panel - and he won the Guitar Hero giveaway via the best Twilly Punter! Aeonarial & I ran into each other waiting to see the George Lowe panel this morning - which was AMAZING - and we got front row seats - which was also amazing! I could go on for hours writing about all the people we've gotten to see - players you might remember hearing about from last year's DragonCon who cosplayed as AE characters J6, Tek, Valencia, and Ash (and this year Tek had the most amazing little Korin with her - we'll get some photos up when we get back from Con) - and others who traveled from as far away as the UK and New Zealand! I could go on for even more hours & I'm sure I forgot to talk about things I was meaning to write about but we are all half-delirious from tons of walking & lack of sleep so we'll stop here for now. So, bye from Thyton who just walked in like the ninja he is, and from the rest of us - see you on the forums!

Tags: Maegwyn Korin SCMM DragonCon