What is happening with Starstorm?

fzzzap!!

Will you reach Boltavolt in time?

KABOOM!

Choose your words wisely...

Can Zargon be saved???  

During this thrilling Grand Finale you will view and participate in exciting cutscenes, challenging fights including a never-before-seen very tough Boss, and you can earn the right to purchase a powerful Nova Gem mecha. (Next week, you will be able to buy NEW reward weapons with your credits, too. The bossfight will actually unlock the weapons shop as well... It's just locked at the moment because it's still empty.)  

When you discuss this on the forums, please use spoiler tags!  

Huge round of applause for Vivi, Minar, Lyris, blues, Arklen - and me, Maegwyn.  Korin let me coordinate this while he's working behind the scenes on some exciting developments for MQ.

Next week we'll get those weapons into the Zargon Wormhole Bossfight reward shop - I'm trying to keep my committments fairly small for that week as I'm throwing a bridal shower (I'm actually the "Best Man" and the bride's brother is the "Maid of Honor").  Next week I have a ton of "real life" stuff to do besides MQ work - I'll need to get some "Mad Libs" style games put together for that, coordinate the food and decor, and finish figuring out the little shower gift prize thingies.  Plus some of the team goes back to school soon, some of us are going to Dragoncon... a bit of a breather might be in order as before you know it, it'll be time for MQ's Anniversary, and Mogloween - and the holidays just don't stop once they get started, do they?

Anyway have a great weekend - thanks for playing MechQuest!

NEW Wormhole Quest (access it via the Dean Warlic button in Soluna City): It's a race against time - can you get to Starstorm before Boltavolt does? (Cliffhanger...)  The cutscenes in the Wormhole this week are the simple style, rather than the animated, to give Lyris some breathing room.  The backgrounds - specially destroyed by Minar - have some animated fire effects.  Note that this can cause a bit of lag in the quest, but shouldn't affect your ability to complete it.  

Here's Vivi with the specials he programmed into the new Star Captain Monthly Mecha, the Dharmahp, according to blues' specs:

Mecha Triggers - Additional Damage Against: 
Shadowscythe: +25% damage 
EbilCorp Units: +20% damage 
Equippable Enemies: +15% damage 

BA - 2 Hits --> CD=2 
Both hits do increased damage 
First hit lowers immobility resistance by 100 for 3 turns 
Second hit attempts a stun 

FA - 2 Hits 
All hits do increased damage 
First hit lowers enemy bonus by 30 for 3 turns 
Second hit lowers enemy defense by 50 for 3 turns 
Chance for a third hit 

Shoulders - 2 Hits ---> CD=1 
Alternating damage buff. Start with 125% damage and add +15% every turn, caps at 250% 

Head - 3 Hits 
Increasing damage per hit 
Hit 1: Chance for a Bonus BoT, starts with +10, adds +10 every turn, lasts 5 turns 
Hit 2: Chance for a double HP DoT for 5 turns 
Hit 3: Chance for HP drain of damage done 
Damage BoT, starts with +10%, adds +10 every turn, lasts 5 turns (not tied to any hit, activates at the end of the attack) 

Body - 2 hits 
Both hits do increased damage 
Critical BOT. Starts with 5% and adds 5% crit chance every turn, caps at 75% (not tied to any hit, activates at the end of the attack)

Thanks for putting that together!

We had lots of time for testing and tweaking, so we hope you won't find any Gremlins - if you do, please report them via the Gremlins forum

Have a great weekend - stay cool if you're in a hot climate, and keep warm if it's your winter! Thanks for playing MechQuest! 

When Char opened the wormhole and it led to... Zargon, in the VERY recent past, this created the possiblity of averting catastrophe. But, the Queenadent wants you and Sys-Zero to avoid getting involved with events because Chronal Paradoxes are unpredictable and dangerous...  You will be faced with a choice: what risks are you willing to take?

With more amazing animated cutscenes by Lyris, rewards drawn & animated by Minar, coding by Vivi and me, Maegwyn (quest by Vivi incorporating an idea of Minar's, arm coding by Vivi, specials designed by blues // enemies coded, stat setup, and re-color, & town file setup & coding by Maegwyn) this was a fun collaboration!  I really enjoyed coordinating everything and pushing my limits a bit, too.  We miss Korin & hope he's having a nice vacation!

As you explore the Lair, you have the chance to pick up a key card each time you battle one of the Guard Drones.  After you complete the quest and return to Sys-Zero, you'll see that he has a new shop - if you don't want to spend time questing for a key card, you may purchase one for Nova Gems! 

This quest has three new swordfighting enemies - if you are not a Star Captain, this will be your first encounter with an opponent who can actually pause to regenerate mana points!  There is an A, a B, and a C - one of the three is quite dangerous, especially if you are not prepared!  (Hint: if you think you encountered the most dangerous one, you may or may not be right.)  

Note that there is a Gremlin (a bug) at the engine level - if you have a temporary sword equipped, such as the Yokai Blade, and you find the key, the shop unequips your Energy Blade.  So if you are a non-Star Captain, you will want to use one of your strong blades such as the Ultraviolet from Necryptos... 

If you can find the hidden shop, the rewards are a hand-to-hand Energy Blade and a mecha-equippable Front Arm, both drawn & animated by Minar!

The hand-to-hand energy blades may seem similar to the ones you can buy on Necryptos at first glance.  There is one for Star Captains and one for NSC players.  There are two differences: the Volt Spike and Bolt Spike are compatible with the Yokai Ninja Uniform's Magic attack, and they also give you a little buff to your Power Stat when equipped!

Let's go to Vivi for the run-down on the specials on the mecha-equippable Volt Strike series that he coded from blues' specs!

This sword is available to all players, and has SC-powered specials even for NSCs! 

Against Equippable enemies: 
125% damage 
Chance to disable a weapon each use on hit. Order is FA/BA/FS/BS. 
Star Captains ONLY: Starts with the head instead, and you get a guaranteed stun when disabling it. 
Every other use of the weapon attempts a resistable stun with immobility resistance lowered by 50. 

Against Unequippable enemies: 
125% Damage 
Chance to inflict an HP and EP DoT. These DoTs grow more powerful each time you inflict them.

Thanks, Vivi!

So it looks like, unless everything breaks unexpectedly, we'll actually have an early release so we can head over & check out the Arc Attack special event in AQWorlds! I am a huge fan of Arc Attack - I saw them at DragonCon one year with Artix & a few other people from AE! (Have you been watching the behind-the-scenes happenings on the Play by Play at that link?) So maybe we'll catch you online in AQWorlds a bit later, or on the forums as usual! 

Thanks so much for playing MechQuest!  Talk to you again soon - have a great weekend!

You'll need to go see Dean Warlic via the button on the main Soluna City menu on the right side of your screen - if you played the quest already, just one more time! There are lots of Skip buttons for that Prequel so it won't take you long.  And that button will take you to the NEW installment of this Wormhole - which is Part One and will be continued in the upcoming weeks.

Lyris put together some more great cutscenes, Vivi connected them to the awesome quest he "reskinned" and added some features - I set up the town file and worked with Vivi on the quest a bit, worked with Lyris on dialogue ... too much to list.  

Minar, who had a birthday July 10th (Happy Birthday!) drew and animated some really great weapons to reward you for Part 1 of the saga.  He also colored and made some tweaks to the new enemy you'll face here in the quest. blues designed specials and Vivi coded these - I did some preliminary coding on the monster file and set everything up in the database.  Korin checked in while on vacation and offered to help - I told him he could name the weapons... somehow right after he saw how many there were, he suddenly had to go... hahahaha!  It didn't take me that long to do once Minar helped come up with the names - but that's because I'm used to it.  There really are a lot of weapons!  (And I'm just teasing Korin... )

We've got big plans for the next installment of this Wormhole chapter of the Dragonoid Saga, and we're already working on it.  So that'll be in the next week or two.  I'm not sure whether I'll receive the elements for the SCMM while Korin is away or if that will have to wait but we're prepared to release it for you if it does come down the pike this week.  I know a lot of you have been waiting for it.

Then I mentioned that Minar is working on a Sekrit Projekt and some of you began to speculate really big things - I really wanted it to be a surprise so I don't want to say what it is, but everyone on the forums who has guessed so far has not been anywhere NEAR close.  But actually people on the forums did mention it in another context.  It's something for Star Captains, it's not a new game feature, and it's really cool!

I need to write to you guys more frequently on the Design Notes!  For now, I have to dash.  Whatever happened to all those questions you were all asking?  Did I answer yours?  Well thanks for playing MechQuest - please tell your friends, use your referral link, and stuff.  And I'll talk with you again soon!  Time to go for a ride in the VW Bug!