Maegwyn

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

November News

It's November! Such a busy time getting ready to bring you all sorts of holiday and non-holiday-but-long-promised goodness! I haven't had much time to write to you lately, and for now mainly I've got news for you from Plasma Charge and Practel. Plasma Charge has been doing some art & animation, and Practel is starting to learn about coding. Arklen, blues, Korin, minar, Vivi, and I have all been working quietly and busily on upcoming stuff as well. Anyhow, here's the news for the day! The actual Star Date on this first one is November 16, 3011

Incoming Transmission…A message to all mecha pilots, long time no see. I hope you’ve all had an excellent  Mogloween. New items!Head to HAL’s hair shop to check out another two new hairstyles, one for the guys and one for the girls! Bug Fixes!The Tyrano mecha series has had a fix made so it can walk around areas like Romero!The Romero sword fight Gremlin has finally been squished!
Gameplay Updates!The Cure Sys-Zero quest now has lower rolls to help new players progress. Also, Mae fixed some typos.You’ll also have a better chance to find one of the parts in Warlic’s Find Starship Parts quest.If you can think of other quests with tedious rolls please let us know here on the forums! 

Thanks, Plasma Charge! And now, here's Practel:

Howdy!
It's been a while since my last Design Notes! Don't worry, I'm still here and working on more than ever! This Wednesday the Mogloween event and maps will be going away once again for another year, however there will be the release of previous years Turkageddon! I've been working on a new Thanksgiving/Fall Soluna City, and here's a small sneak peek below! 
"Nom nom nom"
I've also been working on the One-Eyed Doll CD weapon that will be coming out on Wednesday! This weapon is packed with sheer awesomeness, I love it!
http://cms.mechquest.com/mq/images/shredz2d3u3o.png 
"I declare awesomeness and pew pew!"
Finally, good luck to all of you Heros who are finishing up school before Thanksgiving break! It seems like this is the time where teachers just want to slam you with tests and quizes, and believe me, that's not fun.
Stay safe and have a wonderful Thanksgiving,
Practel 

Thanks, Practel! Happy Turkageddon, everyone! I'd like to take this opportunity to wish all of you American players a happy Thanksgiving as well. We are planning Flavescent Friday for November 30th this year. A special weapon coming to the holiday shop tomorrow will give you a hint as to one of the mecha models that will be in the FF shop.  What do you hope to see in the Flavescent Friday shop? Please let us know here

Maegwyn

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Mogloween Wednesday

Star Date: October 28th, 3012

Incoming transmission from Practel!

Hey, dudes and dudets. 
Almost every video game out is doing a bunch of Halloween updates this week! MechQuest has the decorated Soluna City coming for you on Wednesday! Expect some really... really spooky awesome stuff!
This Wednesday we're also updating the Museum... with a rad spooky Mogloween Quest! Have fun playing it!
So, without further ado, here are two more pictures from the new town.

Anyways peeps,
Battle On!
~Prac

Battle On indeed! Hope you had a great weekend!

=Mae

Maegwyn

Monday, October 22, 2012

Mogloween Sneak Peek

Stardate 22 October 3012:

I'm getting a transmission from Practel!

Heyoooo Quest Mechzerz!
Today I have some screenshots for you of what I've been doing behind the scenes in MechQuest. Coming this Friday you will get to see an awesum update to Soluna City! Mogloween comes once a year, and you'll notice that people all around the city are dressing up as skeletons, zombies, or werewolfs! It's a grand and jolly time, but also a spooky one! I hope you guys enjoy this, all the screens of Soluna City will be mogloweenifyed (Yes, it is a real word. Just as Korin is a brony.)

Battle On!
~Le Practel

I temporarily broke the page! Now you have clickable links instead of images! =Mae

Maegwyn

Friday, November 11, 2011

Art Museum and Mogloween Portal 3011

Art Museum Exhibit Six! The Art Museum's sixth exhibit is now on display! Go West in Soluna City to see the amazing NEW artwork by:

  • blackshock (2) 
  • Bomber of Justice
  • dragonie_em
  • kaibinlore
  • lordkaho (2)
  • Plasma Charge
  • Rikyri  
  • Ronoroa Asero

Congratulations to all of our new exhibitors, and thanks to all of you for your submissions!  It wasn't easy to choose from all the wonderful entries ...  don't forget that you can buy one of the limited-edition prints for your own starship! Just visit Circe's shop in the Art Museum.  Are YOU inspired to submit your own artwork for consideration? We're looking forward to seeing your cool entries in the submissions forum! 

3011 Mogloween Portal for your Starship! Check out the Starship Items shop on Planet Mortis - the Phantom Portal will send you back to the 3011 Mortis Mogloween events if you pick one up before the planet orbits away for another year! 

Korin taught me how to update the Art Museum from start to finish without needing him to step in and handle any of the steps involved! So keep those submissions pouring in and we can roll out frequent updates to that exhibit area - let's Art ON!!  I really enjoyed learning this - Korin is a fantastic teacher so it feels like it's super-easy, actually.  After giving me the basic rundown, he often lets me figure out stuff on my own and just ask questions if I'm stumped, which is really the best hands-on way for me to understand things.  That's actually how the portal item happened - I just wanted to see if I could do it, and tested it, and it worked, so I emailed Korin to let him know it was done & ready for testing. Other than any lingering bugs with the Live town and quest, there are no NEW Gremlins showing up in the portal item.  (But if you find any, please don't hesitate to report them!)

Happy 11-11-11 !!! (MechQuest is reserving 12-12-12 for our coolio special in-game something-to-commemorate-the-crazy-date thing thing. (I actually took a stab at making a cool energy blade but it lacked the cool factor I was aiming for, so it went to the scrap heap... haha) Check out Adventure Quest Worlds for a cool 11/11/11 release!)

We're working on the setup for the new Black and White planet that is coming soon (Star Captains may get a sneak peek quest as soon as this upcoming Friday if all goes well) and here are a few bits of info:

  1. The main quests on this planet will be accessible to everyone who has completed Val's current Museum missions AND has flight clearance to travel off-planet
  2. We are working out the details of what you might call an 'extra' mission that will have an extra requirement or two - requiring you to complete something on a different planet before you can access that part of the Black and White planet's content.
  3. Korin just finished vectorizing one of the art assets from Thyton and is sending it over to Arklen for animating!

I guess that's all of the bits of info for now! Come visit the forums to get more little nuggets of information and participate in the discussion! Thanks for playing MQ - please tell your friends, submit some cool artwork and weapons suggestions on the forums - and generally have fun this weekend!

Maegwyn

Friday, November 4, 2011

Mogloween and More

This has been an insane couple of weeks! Sorry I haven't had much time to write you notes.  Here are some quick ones for now! The 3011 Mogloween event with Trick or Treating is still happening - if you are having a hard time with the clues, just keep going straight for that candy by the Bay Doors in Trick or Treating quests - if you fight the same person a couple of times in a row it is most likely an NPC with a clue and you should go explore his or her starship. There is an image of what the clue looks like by Jack in town on Mortis (orange fingerprint).

The old Hospital mechas have gotten some nice buffs to make them more useful and powerful. 

Last weekend I worked on a whole bunch of Gremlins - got some fixed - and was completely mystified by the Mecha Fryer crashing the game. Korin took it apart layer by layer this week to find the issue - and he has fixed it! Huzzah!

Salvage Quest: Joey has Heads - four models that are all completely new to the game, plus I selected a variety of heads that were either rare, seasonal-rare, or available somewhere in-game for each tier.

Special thanks to Gibby for compiling the list of Starship IDs for me last week, and to Kamui for helping us with pre-testing this week! And a huge thank you to all of you for playing MechQuest! Have a great weekend!

Maegwyn

Friday, October 21, 2011

Mecha News and Mogloween

News from blues! This morning, I got a transmission from blues!

Dear Players!
 
Long time no see :P
We all are pretty busy with the upcoming events and here are some news from behind the scenes.
 
Our Mecha buffing project is ongoing and next buff will go to the Hospital Mechas. Specials are ready, they just need coding and some testing. Next one on my list is the Westion Sheriff Mecha.
 
All the promised buffs for the Promo Mechas are also ready and await coding. They will be significantly better and I´m sure you´ll like them. You will see better damage, lower or even no rolls and some additional specials.
 
Next major project are the new House Mechas. I already have a plan and I´m working currently on the raw specials so that we can discuss them next week. The main themes will stay the same. Wolfs will be offensive with high damage, Hawks will be a defensive powerhouse with lower damage and Ravens are somewhere in between with more ranged attacks. Power will be around SCMM standard so quite good. It´s not possible to balance them exactly because they have different themes. So, when you love hard hitting Machines with a lot of damage, then Wolfblade should  be your first choice. And when you are more the chilling player who loves to have a good defense and nerf his enemies Runehawk is the House for you. In case your undecided, then Mystraven is always a good choice.
I talked with Vivi this week and both of us can´t wait to create the new House Mechas.
 
Aaaaand... better late than never (but I already did this via MSN) : Happy Anniversary Vivi!
I can´t believe that you are already coding for one year!
Working with Vivi is really fun and he always finds a way to get all my fancy ideas working. Kudos to him and all the best for the next Year!
 
That´s all from me for now.
Enjoy playing MQ, your weekend and as always: Have fun!
Thanks, bluesy! And three cheers for Vivi!
Tonight's release brings you new Front Arm weapons in Joey's Salvage Quest.  There are never-before-seen weapons for all players of all tiers, and along with the usual gamble there is a grand one: in some of the tiers, you have the rare chance to Salvage the ultra-powerful Nova Gem BallDrop Mace! 
Mogloween Mecha! Korin asked me whether we had told you that there is a new mecha in the works for this year's Mogloween event ... and I don't think I've said a single word about it yet! Thyton drew another amazing one - I hear good things about it - I mean, it sounds awesome - it brings sweet music to my ears... I imagine it to be hauntingly beautiful, though I wouldn't want it to hit a sour note... anyway, enough of that, haha!  Korin got a head start on setting it up and he's sent it off to Arklen to add some of his cool attack animations.  You'll want to stock up on credits and you might even want to grab some Nova Gems for this new Holiday Rare Mecha!  
More Mogloween News: This year's event integrates the new Starship Trick-or-Treating-styled feature into the continuing Planet Mortis holiday storyline.  If you are a qualifying Star Captain, or are able to become one by Thursday the 27th of October 6:30 PM Eastern time (Server Time), then you will be able to give players from all over the world (or, should I say, the multiverse) the chance to visit your Starship! Head on over to the MechQuest Forums, see whether you qualify (Nigel needs to give you approval), and post your Character ID Number and Character Name http://forums2.battleon.com/f/tm.asp?m=19701667 
Lyris has already put together a fantabulous animated intro cutscene and is working on more, I'm working on writing and laying the groundwork coding for the Starship Trick-or-Treating and other quests (and Korin & Vivi will help get them functional and refined) and Minar has been designing cool new Starship Items!  (Don't let me forget to make an Action Figure of the new mecha, ok?) We are all really excited about this year's Mogloween! 
So if you are a Star Captain, have fun decorating your Starship - and don't forget, everyone still gets the Anniversary XP and Credits Bonus in battle this week so that you can stock up on credits for the Mogloween Event rewards!
Have an awesome weekend! See you on the forums!
Maegwyn

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Encore War Mogloween etc

Thanks for being patient & waiting for the more-detailed Design Notes!  Yesterday I did a terrible haphazard job of vacuuming but I had a lovely time at the corner store and spent some time out with my cousins and brother-in-law plus some friends.  Later, my cousin came over and played guitar with my husband - I played a little trumpet, but that is a loud instrument for late-night jam sessions in a quiet neighborhood...

Anyway, I was a little surprised that the Encore War wasn't going very quickly - until Terosin asked whether there was a reward... it does help to know that you're fighting for something, doesn't it!?  There is a brief mention in the newsletter also, but here's the scoop. Jack has some new mods for your mechas, but you'll have to get through the groupies and have a facedown with Evil Jim himself before those shops will unlock.  Azami and I worked together on these - even though they're holiday rares, the idea is to create some that fill an empty niche.  So you won't already have something with the same stat boosting values.  There are NSC, SC,  and NG mods waiting for you in the shops, and Korin made a really cool cutscene... I think I'll wait until you get to 100% and have a chance to see Evil Jim in action before I talk more about Mogloween-related stuff - so Battle ON!  

So if you've battled the character IDs in PvP from yesterday's DNs - 8367666 and/or 304236 - you've gotten a little sneak peek at the Chronomech's capabilities.  When you have one of your very own, which you can get by ordering the AE Calendar at HeroMart (right now these are just pre-orders and they have not begun shipping yet- so there will be a wait before you can get your calendar with your code) you will be able to click an area of the body during battle.  This is a new thing for MechQuest - with this button you can choose between two specials on the body attack.  The regular special - that happens if you don't toggle the button - triggers the Time Warp Drive that wears down your enemy's weapons and armor (Nerfs Over Time) while increasing your own speed (Buffs Over Time).  By toggling the button, you can choose during battle when you want your next body attack to do its healing special.  This is available once per battle, and has a VERY rare chance of restoring your HP and EP back to where they were at the beginning of the combat.  So this is something that is impossible to see in Assault Mecha, and just one of the cool innovations - Vivi and I will post all the specials for you in much more detail.  They are very interactive specials so the PvP AI can't display the real power and potential for you.  Also we'll get a picture up.

Real life calls again for now - I need to do a better job of vacuuming (haha) and also help my husband, who is trying to figure out some issues with our plumbing... I know some of you are awaiting answers to your PMs on the forums too, so I'll get to those later also.  See you on the forums when I have my household tasks done!

Maegwyn

Friday, November 12, 2010

Quick Note Encore War Mogloween

Quick note for now about tonight's release! More news later - promise!!

The Evil Jim Encore war has begun! Log in NOW to battle through waves of groupies for a chance at a shot at Evil Jim himself!  Caution- his greatest fan (the miniboss of the last war) is probably going to show up...

Chrono mecha calendar promo - fight 8367666 and/or 304236 for a sneak peek at some of what it can do!  It's our first "clickable chassis" - but you can't see the full glory of this feature in a PvP fight, alas. Clicking your Assault Mecha opponent's button isn't at all the same as having one of your own with its special toggle.

I will return later with more chatty notes, but I have to vacuum and do a corner store run first!  Battle ON!

Maegwyn

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

More Mogloween and Specials

First-off - you guys were amazing, tearing through the waves of enemies so quickly to get the rewards shops open and reach the Boss fight in record time!  Again, Happy Mogloween!  Now here are the specials for the war rewards weapons and Skelapunk mecha: thanks to blues for the design and to Vivi for the coding!

Weapons

Pumpkin Shoulders, 4 Hits, NG 

FS
- Increasing damage per hit 
- Hit 1: -30 enemy BtH, 3 turns 
- Hit 2: chance for a crit 
- Hit 3: -50 defense, doesn´t wear off 
- Hit 4: chance for a crit 

BS
- Increasing damage per hit 
- Hit 1: +30 player BtH, 3 turns 
- Hit 2: chance for a crit 
- Hit 3: +30 defense, doesn´t wear off 
- Hit 4: chance for a crit 

Tombstone Launcher 
Front Arm , 1 Hit, NSC 

- chance for a normal HP DoT, lasts 3 turns 
- chance for a normal EP DoT, lasts 3 turns 
- chance for a crit 

Ectorifle 
Back Arm, 1 Hit, SC 

- 1.5 times damage 
- chance for a 1.5 time HP Dot, lasts 3 turns 
- chance for a 1.5 time EP Dot, lasts 3 turns 

Skelapunk Mecha:

Specials are mostly decided by the player's upgraded status regardless of whether they're using the NSC or NG variant, unless otherwise noted 

Head (1 hit) 
NSC: -25 bonus for 5 turns 
SC: 125% damage, Bonus NoT (-10 per turn for 5 turns), General Damage Boost of 15 for 5 turns, 25 against shadowscythe and doesn't wear off 
SC on NG model: General Damage Boost is 25 instead, 35 against Shadowscythe 

Body (3 hits) 
NSC: 
Increasing damage per hit 
First hit lowers defense by 30 for 5 turns 
Second hit lowers boost by 15 for 5 turns 
Third hit has a high chance to crit 
SC: 
Increasing damage per hit 
First hit gives a defense NoT of -12 per turn for 5 turns 
Second hit gives a damage NoT of -10 per turn for 5 turns 
Third hit has a high chance to crit 

Front Arm (3 hits) 
NSC: 
First hit has a chance to inflict an HP DoT 
Second hit has a chance to inflict an EP DoT 
Third hit has a chance to deal damage to EP equal to the HP damage 
SC: 
First Hit has a chance to inflict a 1.5x HP DoT 
Second Hit has a chance to inflict a 1.5x EP DoT 
Third Hit has a chance to deal damage to EP equal to the HP damage 
SC on NG model: 
Third Hit special deals 1.5x EP Damage 

Back Arm (2 hits) 
Both hits do increased damage 
Additional special if the second hit connects: 
NSCs: chance for an extra shot 
SCs: chance for an extra shot, if that connects it deals damage to EP equal to the HP damage they took 
SC on NG model: third hit is more powerful, EP damage is 1.5x the HP damage of the third hit 

Shoulders (2 hits) 
Start off at 120% damage for NSCs/125% damage for SCs, increase by 20% per use for NSCs/25% per use for SCs if the second hit connects 

Thanks to Vivi for writing up the specials!

Many people commented on the forums in hope that the mecha would be color-customizable, and Korin does plan to add this feature for Star Captains and also for the Nova Gem model.  

Mogloween 3010 isn't over! The story continues this week and next week!  New side-quest before everything wraps up, plus more rewards and holiday items!  I don't want to say too much, so I'll simply note that Evil Jim has some interesting fans - and that laying the smackdown on a certain someone will open up another nice reward - and that if you are a Star Captain, you'll want to have a look in the Swag shops!  And that's not even all...

Maegwyn

Friday, October 22, 2010

Mogloween Part One is Here

Mogloween 3010 Part One is HERE!

Yes, it is the time of year when the orbit-path of Planet Mortis brings it close enough to visit without using a special map!  Part One begins with the transdimensional access that will launch you into a place where you may replay events of the past.  There are new items in the weapons and mecha shops NOW: higher-level versions of the Witch Launcher series and Hovering Cauldron shoulders, and the Jack Attack and Nightmare Glove arms.  Also a Level 45 version of the Doom Rider is available for Nova Gems, which scales to Level 49 - PLUS, a Level 45 version of the OverClocked Frankenmecha!  The Star Captain Exclusive will scale to Level 49 - if you are not a Star Captain you may still purchase this model; however, it will not scale unless you have upgraded.

New Starship Swag!

Click the Starship Items button at Jack on Planet Mortis to see the two new shops for 3010.  There are tons of cool items all available for credits (and all of these were created by Minar) and then don't overlook the Nova Gem Swag shop because Korin and Minar both created items for this section of the shop as well.  Everything is not as it seems...

What's new in Soluna City? Visit Tek's Mechs.

I think I may have mentioned that I put together a new updated interface for Tek?  Warlic helped me with one element, and now it all works! Now if you go through the Dropship without checking the Verified shop, you may still access it via Tek's Mechs - and even Verify your character right here in Soluna City!  Currently this shop button will take you to the same shop items as the Verified shop on the Dropship - these are the weapons newly-coded by Vivi with updated specials.  Oh, and - remember we had removed the Lg Blue Laser temporarily from Tek's Shoulders, because it would have been doing the same special as the Large Blue Laser in the Verified shop... well Vivi fixed that, and it's back in the shop. Now the Verified laser special is stronger than that of the Non-Star-Captain laser.  

To sum up, the Verified interface will take you to the low-level updated weapons if you are a Verified or Star Captain player - otherwise you will be brought to the interface that gives you the opportunity to Verify your character.  (And Maegwyn is still really proud of herself ...)

So What's Coming in Part Two?

  • Brand-New 3010 Arm and Shoulder Weapons
  • 3010 Mecha Model modeled after a certain notorious skeletal villain
  • Something related to Evil Jim... those chords I hear in the distance... they are haunting me....