Interview Q.) If we are all going to a University to learn how to pilot giant armed to the teeth mecha... where did we go for High School? A.) Mecha Lecka High of course!
I just got word from Braddock Steele that he's got a quick one-fight mission for you! Hurry now to the War Camp at the White Castle! This is a great opportunity to push the war meter over the 50% mark and show EbilCorp that we're not going to let any corporate types push us around. I've got to run before I get caught transmitting this...
Plasma Charge wrote this up to post on the forums at release time, so I thought it would be nice to share it with everyone here on the Design Notes!
Prepare yourselves! For an unforgettable week of poultry PAIN! Because right now, the awe-striking Falcon mecha has returned to smack his enemies into submission! FALCON SMAAACK! The falcon has been buffed up a bit to match current standards for mecha. These buffs will affect all new and old models!
All Star Captains will be able to get the Falcon-P from the SC club, and, while there, any brave souls among you may want to test your strength, skill and determination against the horrifying Super Mutant Ninja Turkey - he's mean, green and is going to crush the weak! Good luck to anyone who tries, and may the RNG be forever in your favour!
Meanwhile, this week you can also head to the Art Museum in Soluna City West to see an awesome new display, by you and your fellow players. This exhibit features the amazing art of:
Congratz to everyone who got their art in, and don't forget if you think you've got what it takes to become the first Picasso of Soluna you can submit your submission to the board of directors for approval!
Finally, the amazing Shadow of Doubt from this Friday 13th got a buff this week! Maegwyn wanted me to add that Friday the 13th will be available over the weekend so that you have the chance to pick one up if you haven't already. Hope you all enjoy the release, I hope the Turkey doesn't cause you too much pain from face-desking, and don't forget to turn the speakers up for FALCON SMAACK! =D
Thanks, Plasma Charge - what an exciting writeup!
I'd like to thank everyone for the creative artwork submissions! It's never an easy decision. If yours wasn't chosen this time, don't give up! We love to display your creations!
The buffs to the Falcon mecha models:
Head gets a damage BoT, +10% per turn for 5 turns
Body gets additional dazzling effect (damage reduce -30 for 5 rounds)
General damage buff
Note that the originals of these were created before the level cap raised to 45. The highest-level version scales to Level 42. That is intentional!
Speaking of Star Captain Monthly Mechas, since we are no longer pushing one out every month, what should we call them? Also, what art style would you like to see for the next one? Please let us know on the forums in this thread http://forums2.battleon.com/f/tm.asp?m=20511016
Buffs to the Shadow of Doubt: now deals more damage, and its last hit has a boosted chance for a critical hit.
The Bragging Rights bossfight battle in the Star Captain Club currently just features the new boss. On the forums, some of you expressed interest in keeping Super Teravolt around as an option, and then gradually building a group of bossfights from which you will be able to choose. That's what we will prepare for you for the future! Thanks for the feedback on that - we really like to hear about what you'd like to see in game, and if it's doable, we do our best to work it in. Vivi is going to have a look at how to return you to the proper place when you lose a bossfight - the quest has a mind of its own and insists on kicking you farther back out of it instead of bringing you right back to the challenge. So if that's fixable, expect that to come along with the choose-your-bossfight update.
Everyone has been asking about G.E.A.R.S. Games. We have not forgotten them! We ran into some complications with the new mechas where the animations needed some tweaking, and some details of the mechanics of the actual Games that seemed like they would be pretty straightforward to implement threw us a bit of a curveball. I'm going to meet with the team early next week about ways to work around and move forward with all of this for you.
Korin & I have already started to work on the next events that occur on Planet Liath - Minar is putting together a few elements also, so things are in motion on that.
I guess I'd better wrap this up, so I'll just say thanks so much for playing MechQuest, please tell your friends, and have a great weekend! See you on the forums!
You may have already noted a change to the main interface this week. The News Screen no longer pops up automatically when you enter a new area. Instead, a new News button has been added just under the Options button on your main screen so that now you may read the News whenever you like! Except during battle. You can read the news during battle, but we don't recommend it. It's rumored that the Gremlins like that sort of thing.
We'll be looking at more bugfixing in the next few weeks and doing a lot of major planning as well. There is a 4th of July mecha coming - updated artwork of an ancient model along with new animations and of course new specials! And that's just one of many things happening behind the scenes.
Here's Plasma Charge from the forums, with the weapons news!
This week there are two HOT! new back arm weapons being released in Soluna! The first of these - the Phoenix Spear - has been specially commissioned by the Traveler for Star Captains who have helped him and Maria 5 so far! This new weapon combos perfectly with the rest of the set, by not only having a chance for HP and EP DoTs, but also supporting the other weapons by giving them increased chance to hit! Meanwhile, Tek's Mechs is also receiving a new shipment of back arms: the new OverHeat model inspired by GASKAL! Created for intermediate level pilots, this weapon has it all: increased damage, a powerful DoT - and against equippable enemies it has a chance to increase the cooldowns of the enemy's arms and shoulders. So there you have it - a blazing new addition to the Phoenix series and a piping hot new weapon with the possibility to change PvP as we know it!
Thanks - that was a fantastic writeup, Plasma Charge!
And thanks to all of you - have a great weekend! Thanks so much for playing and for your support - and please tell all your friends about MechQuest!
Early Release Today! All the stars and planets seem to have aligned nicely - tonight's release is Live already, so log in NOW!
Salvage Quest: (See Joey standing in Soluna City, to the right of Tek's Mechs.) The Salvage quest has now been updated with chances for Back Arm weapons to drop! I don't want to give away too much yet, so I will just say that there are NEW Never-Before-Seen Back Arms for NSC, SC, and NG at every tier, plus some other "Oh I have one of those / OOh I was wanting one of those" Back Arms scattered among the possible drops as well. Huzzah for Korin getting the new weapons all vectorized and animated and coloratizized, and grazie to bluesy for the specials designs, and to Vivi for codings - and yours truly set them up with all their numbers and descriptions and that sort of thing.
Star Captain Club Extreme Challenge: This new "Bragging Rights" option lets Star Captains battle the featured - and extremely tough - "Boss" - we are kicking this off by featuring the un-nerfed, super-powered, unleashed Teravolt! There was a little mix-up in the initial communication of specials planning for the Zargon Wormhole battle, so the original Teravolt came out as an opponent who was ... basically unbeatable by what I'm guessing would have been 999 out of 1000 players. I haven't found my strategy for beating him in the Star Captain Club challenge yet, in fact. (Feel free to discuss it on the forums, but please use spoiler tags if you come up with a way to defeat him before the end of this weekend...)
We're working ahead on Mogloween (MQ's Halloween) with some very cool plans - continued Mortis-related storyline with new animated cutscenes, all-new quests and in fact we are already working on the backbone for a "Trick or Treat" style quest! Are you a Star Captain? Has Starbuck approved you for PvP (at the Stadium at GEARS University)? If not, there is still time - the deadline is Thursday the 27th of October 6:30 PM Eastern time (Server Time) You may submit your Character ID and Character Name on the forums in this thread so that players from all over the world (and from everywhere in the galaxies) can have the chance to visit your Starship this Mogloween!
I hope you all have a fantastic weekend - I know I will! I am getting IRC queries about having no Design Notes up yet, so I shall wrap up here and post them for you! I will be immersed in music and artwork when I am not doing home maintenance and not playing our games or visiting with you on our forums - and on that note... TTYL!
The Traveler Gets a New Shipment! A Star Captain Head complements the Ring shoulder series, and a Nova Gem and a non-Star Captain shoulder also arrive!
The Star Captain Macabre Circlet series: Each of the 4 hits has a chance for a critical hit. Can nerf enemy damage by -10% for 5 turns. Can reduce enemy Bonus to Hit by -10% for 5 turns. Has the potential to do HP and/or EP Damage Over Time for 5 turns.
The Nova Gem Poison Cannon series: May add +30 to your Bonus to Hit for 3 turns. Good chance to do critical damage. May mergepurge all Bonus to Hit nerfs affecting you; can also mergepurge all Damage nerfs affecting you.
The non-Star Captain Flamethrower series: Does extra damage. Good chance for an HP DoT - decent chance for an EP DoT as well. Also has the potential to blind the enemy with a Bonus to Hit Nerf over Time (-10 per turn for 3 turns).
The 4th of July Mecha Models stay in the shop over this weekend! NG and SC get a buff! A lively discussion of the power level of the Deflagrator models is underway on the Balance Discussion Forums. After some mid-week Staff discussion of your comments, we decided to buff the Star Captain and Nova Gem models a bit - the Star Captain models now have a chance to get what was previously the Nova Gem exclusive special, and the Nova Gem models have a greatly-increased chance of that special. So we are keeping the shop open this weekend for you to pick up a Deflagrator.
Char is working on opening the wormhole... but...
This is a sneak-peek from one of the upcoming cutscenes in the newest Wormhole chapter of the Dragonoid saga! Lyris has been putting together some epic scenes and we are working on quests, enemies, and ... rewards! Thyton is drawing up something amazing, and as this unfolds over the next few weeks we think you will be on the edge of your seat!
Minar, meanwhile, is working on an exciting top-secret project in his spare time, while keeping busy designing and animating weapons! Awesome art, as always!
I guess that's it from me for now - I feel like I'm forgetting something I meant to tell you, other than to thank you - and I'll see you on the forums (and facebook, and formspring, and twitter...)
"Team Loose Cannon" - which is Maegwyn, Vivi, Minar, and blues - ROCKS! While others of the Artix Entertainment team focused on mini-game styled things for Gametastic (which you should vote on here http://forums2.battleon.com/f/fb.asp?m=18657738) Korin let me manage this week's MQ release! (The link to Korin's team's game isn't quite ready yet but you should totally check it out when it is!) (And congrats to all the Gametastic teams!)(Our team didn't make a new minigame as the other teams did - we worked on this week's release.) (I think I might be finished speaking parenthetically...) So, if you've been eyeing the "S.O.O.N. List," one thing we promised ages ago was to update the Star Captain Xtreme Challenges in the SC Club. For a long time, blues has had ideas for this, and we made it happen! This is part A of (planned for 4 parts) and it is brutal... blues wanted this to be more than just a challenge, so I wrote up some storyline that will gradually reveal over the parts of the quest. Vivi coded all the monsters and the reward heads - Minar designed, drew, and animated the heads!
The one thing about which I'm less than satisfied is - what happens when you lose. You have to click more buttons than is really ideal - and you're going to lose a LOT before you win... Warlic & Korin took some time to assist wwith this puzzle - this is not just me being new at quest-building - so far, we haven't been able to put the player where I envisioned, upon losing a battle. I did put in lots of skip buttons otherwise, so while there are some extra clicks if you lose, you should be able to get back into the challenge reasonably quickly to give it another go.
Non-Star Captains have the intro to the Knife & Spork's new Challenges to keep playing for this week. The Traveler is still in town, so everyone still has time to purchase weapons. Next week we've got some beautemous new weapons for Hero's Heart Day from Minar and some replayable MQ Hero's Heart quests as well!
Enjoy your weekend and I'll try to catch up with you on the forums!
The Traveler returns to Soluna City with new weapons (art & animation by Minar, specials designed by blues and coded by Vivi) - something in his shop for NSC, Star Captains, and Nova Gems. If you are a Star Captain you may choose to go on an exclusive quest! This quest will be available when The Traveler comes to town so if you upgrade to Star Captain in the interim, you will be able to access this quest when he comes back.
There is a new bossfight - Vivi designed and coded the AI. I think it's genius! Korin suggested a detail in this enemy's defeat animation that puts a pretty awesome finishing touch on this gem.
The reward is sweeet - another work of brilliance brought to you by Minar-blues-Vivi!
I hope you like the quest - Korin is starting his grand plan of getting help more with quest building. He started by giving me a tutorial, using an existing quest as a sort of template (so you will recognize a lot of elements) and I used that to set up what I guess you'd call the 'bones' of the quest. Things like how it decides which enemies you will fight, and when - choosing from a variety of things you might find if you don't find the thing you were looking for - basically how the quest is set up. Then he took that and added it to The Traveler's menu choices - so that you can actually, y'know... access it...
I actually used real paper, colored pencils, and scissors to set one thing up. Then I took photos of it and showed it to Korin so he could see exactly what I meant. But it would be a spoiler if I were to explain exactly what. You'll just have to play the quest to find out... It was really fun to write and set up and I even got to do some coding without making too many mistakes! I learned a lot from the little things.
Korin also chose from your suggestions and we've given the first Verified Mecha its proper chassis and weapons names. Thank you to everyone who participated - I don't have the list of names of everyone whose suggestion was chosen but I know astro999 came up with the part of the chassis name that shows which level it is. Congratulations and thank you!
And I know I had a lot more to say but I should probably take a break at some point here. So thanks for playing, and have a great weekend! (I'll probably see you on the forums.)
Child's Play is a charity that raises money to make lives better for sick children in hospitals around the world. It was started by gamers, like you and me, and is a cause that the BattleOn Games Team feels very strongly about.
Artix always says that you can never fail unless you give up. If you're still trying then the game's not over. It's really true. There is a great children's hospital in the town where I live and they were not on the Child's Play network of hospitals. So I did a few minutes worth of research on the internet, called the people in charge of fundraising and told them all about Child's Play. Today they are contacting the charity, becoming a benefactor and hopefully some of YOUR generosity will go to help the sick kids in that hospital a few blocks from my house!
If there is a children's hospital in YOUR town, maybe you can do the same thing! All it takes is a little effort and you can improve the lives of so many people. It's amazing to see what gamers can do when we put our minds to it!
Thanks, everyone, for supporting BattleOn Games (Did we tell you all that are changing the name of the company?), allowing us to make great adventures for you and for making our support of Child's Play possible! It's all because of you.
