Star Date: 8 March, 3013

Skip button/ "Free Pass" feature: Many of you have told us that you've had trouble with minigames that prevent you from progressing along the storyline quests - so we've started adding in a "Free Pass" and/or "Skip Button" feature to missions that include minigames.  We're gathering a list of those missions on the forums here - if you have one that's tripping you up, please let us know via that link. If you can't post on the forums, please email me (Maegwyn@battleon.com).

Odessa's War Camp: The War Camp setup has been revealing some Gremlins and/or design issues that prevent some people from completing all the storyline missions that are required to unlock Odessa's Missions menu. I know you're really eager to war against those masses of Shadowscythe so we're tweaking those problematic areas/issues while setting up the major epic event. 

War. Is. Inevitable.

in·ev·i·ta·ble *  

*Google define inevitable: results

Vivi Levels Up! That's right, tomorrow is Vivi's birthday! It snuck up on me like a ninja so I don't have a birthday hat or anything set up (of course I #BlamePractel2013...) - we should all wish him a happy birthday on twitter - #ViviLevelsUp @AE_Vivi 

Enjoy your weekends, everyone!

Star Date: 21^st September 3012

Phantasmal DOOM, Eidolon mecha revival!

Once again doom strikes Soluna City... the Hunter Eidolon mecha series has been by far one of the most interesting series in the game.

 So I was really excited to see these new buffs designed by Blues, they increase the efficiency of the mecha against both ghost and normal enemies! Here’s Vivi with the new specials:           

FA: 
Deals 150% damage 
+30% damage on ghosts 
Applies an effect that drains EP (they lose, you gain) equal to Level/2 rounded down that lasts 4 turns 
Chance for a 1.5x EP DOT 

BA: 
Deals 150% damage 
+10% damage on ghosts 
Captures weakened ghosts 
If the enemy is not captured, chance to lower bonus by 40 for 3 turns and the enemy loses 15% of their max EP 

Shoulders: 
Deals 150% damage 
First use of the shoulders gives the enemy the Psionic Link effect (which does nothing). The second use replaces Psionic Link with an Energy Drain effect. Each turn the enemy loses 75% of their EP Regen and you gain it. 

Head: 
Deals 150% damage 
High crit chance on ghosts 
Against ghosts, gives +40 boost for 5 turns 

Body: 
Deals 150% damage 
If you have any ghosts captured, consumes 1 ghost and heals 40% of your max HP and 20% of your max EP 

Thanks Vivi, not only have these new specials been added but also the mecha is now color customizable!

Hope you guys enjoy the release, watch out for scurvy gremlins, and I leave you with doom pirates! 

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First of all let's all wish Vivi a very happy birthday!  And many, many more!

He animated today's Scalpel Front Arm weapon for us, besides his normal coding in of the specials blues designed! The specials all fit into the description so you should go to Romero and check the Vend-o-Tron for that info.  These are Nova Gem exclusive weapons. My original plan was to bring you also Star Captain and NSC (non-Star Captain) weapons, which Minar drew for us but we just honestly didn't have time to get them animated for this week. (Minar had final exams and Korin had a ton of other things in the works.) You will get them most likely next week. 

So many mecha models "lost weight" this week - TONS - so they could "fit" in the walkaround quests! I had to shrink their shadows, actually. Some have only one shadow, and some have two. And of course each mecha model has many levels - so to roll this release I had to open 8 separate windows with many, many tabs in each one to change nearly 100 filenames! So if you were not able to complete the walkaround quests in any of the models on the following list, try again!

• Wolfblade (lower-level, not the Advanced)
• ShS Trog SC
• ShS Trog NSC
• Dragon Spirit Form NG
• Dragon Spirit Form SC
• Dragon Spirit Form NSC
• Chronomecha
• Derpmachine
• Guardian
• Mechatron
• Vanguard

If you get stuck in a different model, or are still getting stuck in any of the above, please report it in the Gremlins forum as a reply here

I fixed a few database typos:

• Sparkler Rocket Std 3010 description is now correct
• Dimitri's Gaze series got a typofix and a grammar fix
• The Flamorah series also got a correction in its description 

I didn't get into quest files this week for any dialogue or mouseover typos. I'm still on the PC which can't handle having MQ open and running while Flash is open and running, so my multitasking is suffering horribly. I actually did some questwriting on actual paper with an actual pen with actual ink over the past couple of weeks! My hard drive on the laptop turned up blank - all my precious text files gone... and the first estimate from a file recovery place was over $1,000 USD. Getting one more estimate before I just get a new HD & send this one to Korin to give it a last-ditch effort for file recovery - so let's all hope for the best. Back up your files NOW!

Anyway...

Also in this bugfixing frenzy, Vivi got rid of NaN bugs in:

• Cosmic Talon (head)
• Steve Skysplitter (head)
• Yeti Boss (arm)

Vivi also fixed something with the Giant Gorilla on Liath - I don't know offhand what it was ... because a Gremlin sneaked into one of our testing mechanisms somehow - so that fix actually rolled un-tested! (Normally every potential fix gets tested before it rolls Live.) (The Gremlins ArchKnight Plasma Charge is checking it now - he just told me that what was wrong is that it was buffing the player instead of its own attacks.)

Speaking of Gremlins AKs - Ello is back with us! 'Ello, Ello!

Coming up: Charfade plans to guest-art us a St. Patrick's Day weapon! Jemini did backgrounds for St. Pat's Day! Traditional-styled original Irish music! More about that new music later, though - because I have to run out the door! Have a great weekend - thanks so much for your support! Please tell your friends about MechQuest!

Gremlins Fixed: A huge shout-out goes to NaturallyMaria on the forums for helping confirm and isolate these Gremlins from Yokai!  Thanks to Vivi for the fixes!  (I helped. Just saying so's you don't think I do nothing. Ha!).

Snake Master Arms: 
The damage boost and crit boost should be working now 
The NG special is functioning properly 

Tengu Wings: 
NG version now has correct specials (was using SC numbers before) 
BTH buff and debuff effects respect the stat cap 

Tiger FA: 
Respects the stat cap 
Does not reset itself to 0 when you reuse it 

Tiger BA: 
Now increases your boost properly

Also here are the weapon specials from Friday:

Phoenix (1 hit, SC) Quest Reward - Traveler
- 1.25 times damage 
- Chance for 1.5 time HP DoT over 5 turns 
- Chance for 1.5 time EP DoT over 5 turns 
- Chance for an HP Heal Over Time over 5 turns 
- Chance for an EP Heal Over Time over 5 turns 

Lightning (1 hit, SC) 
- 1.25 times damage 
- Chance for blinding effect, BtH NoT of -10 per turn for 5 turns 
- Chance for BtH BoT, +10 per turn over 5 turns 
- Chance for damage NoT, -10% per turn over 5 turns 
- Chance for damage BoT, +10% per turn over 5 turns 

Beam (2 hit, NG) 
- 1.5 times damage 
Hit 1: 
- Chance for a damage BoT of +10% per turn over 5 turns 
- Chance for a 1.5 time HP DoT over 5 turns 
- Chance for a 1.5 time EP DoT over 5 turns 
Hit 2: 
- Chance for a damage NoT, -10% per turn over 5 turns 
- Chance for a BtH buff of +50 for 5 turns 
- Chance for a BtH nerf of -30 for 5 turns 

Rift (2 hit, NSC) 

- Chance for 1.25 times damage 
First hit 
- Chance for a BtH buff of +20 for 5 turns 
- Chance for a 1.25 time HP DoT for 5 turns 
Second hit 
- Chance for a damage Buff of +15% for 5 turns 
- Chance for a 1.25 time EP DoT for 5 turns 

Thanks to blues for designing those, and to Vivi for coding them (and writing them up!) Also - Plasma Charge is the person I wanted to thank for reminding me about the MechQuest facebook page updates.   

Hope you all had a glorious weekend!  I went to a nice party and had ice cream and worked in the garden - and I'm still at war with the ants... having fun now working with the team to bring you something new!  See you on the forums!

So today's release brings new Head weapons to the Gameshow planet and buffs the Mechatron SCMM model.

Here's Vivi with a rundown of the SCMM changes: 

Switched the BA so that the specials are more aligned with the rest of the mecha 
BA is more damaging 
Head is clickable, toggles whether you'll turn shifting on or off when you attack with it 
Head gives +30 defense or boost depending on your current toggle 
Shifted body keeps some crit damage and reduces bonus by 10 per crit instead of 7 
Shoulders deal a bit more damage, effects are slightly stronger 
FA Crits on second hit whether or not you are shifted

Also the default weapons have +2 to crit, and the body has +10 to crit.  That's a database-based tweak, suggested by golden1231 on the forums. Besjbo created the discussion, and notable participants were EinhanderX01, glaisaurus_x, NaturallyMaria, Selutu, Street Halo, TostiTostelli, $$$$ (and maybe more but those were the constructive posts that stood out for me - if I missed your post, it was nothing personal - please PM me on the forums please with a link!) - thanks as always for your valuable input!  

Then back to Vivi again:

NG Head: 
150% damage 
Even odds of either +40 boost to yourself for 5 turns, -40 boost to opponent for 5 turns, or both ("even odds" meaning 1/3 chance of each) 
If you're in the Mechatron, this will also trigger or disable the data shift the same way its default head does 

SC Head: 
First hit gives -20 defense 
Second hit deals 150% damage and either stuns the enemy or heals you equal to damage dealt (50/50 chance of either) 

NSC Head: 
120% damage 
Chance to inflict a 1.5x HP DoT on hit

Thanks again, Vivi!

We worked hard on getting this together for you, and we really hope you like the new Heads!  Also, in theory the buff to the SCMM should set it up to power standards.  We tested it and it definitely plays better - if you have something more tweak-needing to discuss, please use the Mechatron thread in the Game Balance Discussion forum.

If you're in the area, you should check out PariahCon this weekend!  Korin & Charfade were instrumental in setting this up, and ArtixEntertainment has a booth so you really should go if you can! And on that note - thanks for playing MechQuest - please don't forget to tell your friends - and have a fantabulous weekend!

Let's try this again... yesterday I wrote you some lovely, long Design Notes but I wrote them directly into the Content Management System... and did not save early and often... so CMS logged me out when I went to post them and they were eaten.  I'm writing these in Notepad...

Friday the 13th was a fun and kinda scary release... because Korin turned me loose on planning & managing it.  I've been helping him do this kind of thing for a little while now, but it's different when you're actually in charge of it.  We have this amazing team, though, so it really wasn't all that scary.  At first, I thought that I would mainly be filling a managerial role because I had already planned to be working with blues on the next installment of the Star Captain Xtreme Challenge during this timeframe - but as it turned out it is his vacation time!  So I was able to focus on Friday the 13th & be more involved in the creative process as well as the behind-the-scenes mechanics.  

One of the first things that happened in preparation for the Friday 13th release was that I asked blues before he went away for recommendations for the Uber Jameson buff.

Uber Jameson buff: Applies to the Nova Gem models of 3010 and 3009 plus the new L45 Primo Jameson. Added a general damage boost, and the head now has a Damage BoT (Buff over Time) of +10 per turn over 5 turns.  
(I actually did some of the coding for the buff, with the help of Korin and Vivi, along with my update to the levels-with-you code -  I was a little worried that it was too strong but I'm not hearing any complaints on the forums.)

The Pipe weapons idea grew spontaneously from the release plan.  Since we are in different locations, we communicate online - so I pulled Vivi and Lyris into an MSN group chat and we brainstormed. Lyris made us a Gdoc and put together the dialogue.  She also put together the art assets that turned into the sewer components - and Minar turned the pipe art into weapons.

The new sounds are kind of an interesting story.  The hand-to-hand combat pipe was ready first, and I gave it to Lyris to test.  She said it worked but it seemed weird for a pipe to make a laser noise and that it would be cool if it would "clang."  So the next morning I wandered around the house banging on metal.  The faucets and pipes don't make the right sound - the thing that ended up with good resonance was my stainless steel soup ladle on the vegetable steamer.  I recorded that as an mp3 and sent it to Korin, who figured out how to attach it to the swordfighting combat stuff.  

So yes, the pipe does the same damage as the Evil Jim Replica Axe (rare) and with the merge with the Polish, also buffs up to the same as the EJ Axe.  The difference is that this has the new sound.  As has been mentioned on the forums, it really would have been cool to have a swordfight-style encounter for this weapon, but we had already planned the quests to be mecha combat so the weapon was really more of a 'teaser' and a souvenir.  I thought it would engender more speculation on the forums than it actually did, and I figured you guys would guess that it was going to have a merged version just like the EJ Axe did.  

Then the mecha-equippable arm - I figured that Vivi would be coding it and since he was working on quests, one of which was the quite-complicated maze, I didn't want it to be too complex with new specials, so I asked Minar to set it up as a one-hit stunning melee style.  Things were getting hectic and I decided to try my hand at adding the code to make it function in combat, and once I got started with that I started playing with figuring out how to make it perform the stun.  In an email I had also put out the idea to the brain trust of doing some kind of BtH nerf to the opponent - as it turned out, that part was the easiest to figure out.  I sent it off to Vivi because I didn't think I had the stun-resist-lowering right & thought I was trying to get too fancy... and I'm actually not sure how much needed changing - so judging from your reactions on the forums it looks like it came out pretty well.  

Anyway, back to the sounds.  So Lyris had noted on the gdoc that a flushing noise could be embedded.  We were talking via email and she mentioned it again, and it occurred to me - just so happens that my downstairs bathroom has the original fixtures from like 1908 or something, including an old-style pull-chain overhead tank toilet - that goes WHOOSH when you flush it.  So I sent over an mp3 of Maegwyn's Toilet, and Lyris enhanced it with more water to make it more dramatic.  She did such a great job with the animated cutscenes - so many great little touches that add dimension. (There actually were more places where she would have liked the music clip to play but it had gotten to a point where other functions had to take priority) - (like making the reward shop button unlock) (haha).

So Vivi was busily setting up the quests, which he's impressively good at doing - and then also we had new enemies - he & Lyris put together the art for the new enemies you meet, using existing art.  (I believe this is what Lyris calls "kitbashing" - which isn't quite the same as what Urban Dictionary tells me it means. Basically it's a matter of dissecting and disassembling existing assets and recombining them to make something new.)  Anyway they did an amazing job - Lyris did The Screamer and the Sewer Gator, and Vivi did Freddy Cougar  (I did the unglamorous but necessary database work for that bit).  

Then everything needs some kind of a hub, so I put together the town file and set up the shops and the buttons that send you to the quests, and came up with some dialogue for those areas.  Then of course as always I set stuff up in the database & managed the testing & the usual.  Korin was around - answered a few questions and was always there if needed - mainly he worked on the Gameshow planet and took some time to fix a bug with the coloration on the Punky uniform - and he made the Cursed Tape in game and starship item.

This was a great team collaboration and I'm thrilled that Korin put it in my hands.  We all work so well together - it was definitely a lot of work and long hours. I did get out of town for an overnight trip (was in a canoe looking for river otters, taking photos of birds and turtles and flooded areas) so I got up extra-early and stayed up extra-late to make up for taking off ... while Vivi was going through finals at the same time as wrapping up quest work and Lyris was animating scenes in her evenings after having large projects for the day job.  I am so impressed with the work Vivi and Lyris did! (That either sounds like I'm complaining about long hours, or like I'm saying that I went out of town to have fun and left Vivi and Lyris to do all the work.  Hm... )

So I'm sure I'm leaving something out - rewriting this has taken longer than writing it the first time... anyway I should wrap this up by saying this was such a fun release to put together!  I can't praise our team enough for the fantastic work - and from the feedback on the forums I'm seeing, it sounds like you guys really enjoyed the release.  Thank you so much for playing - I love MechQuest and I love our team, but most of all I have to say that I love the passion you all bring to the game!  You guys totally rock!  

Have a great rest-of-the-weekend!  

The weather report is ominous!  It's definitely time for a Murky Lake Reunion.  

I hardly know what to say tonight, I'm so exhilarated & exhausted!  Huge fun working with Vivi and Lyris putting together this event.  I like to try to say who did what - this was such a collaborative effort that it's hard to remember and sort out.  It was a bit scary managing the whole thing & while I could go to Korin with questions I actually didn't have too many.  I'm really proud of our team and I hope you like everything!

We originally had a tough Rusty Rat in by mistake (from the Advanced Combat Theory Class if I'm not mistaken) but now it's a normal one.  Now that that's fixed and I buffed the rest of the Uber Jamesons (at first it was only the 3010 ones) I really need to meet up with my husband & cousins.  I will write more later though!  I'm too hungry to write...