Artix.com Design Notes Archive - all - all

SOCIAL MEDIA POWER posted by Cysero on 7/2/2014 1:41 PM

When you're making a game, there are a lot of things to consider. How fun it is, the platform or platforms for which it is being developed, how you are going to get traffic, how to fairly monetize the game without cheating your players or short changing yourself. But one of the major things that people forget about is the power of Social Media.

FACEBOOK POWER

You can use Social Media for a lot more than just advertising. For example, when we were making Battle Gems we decided to use Facebook Connect as a bridge so you could save you progress across platforms.

Let's say you have Battle Gems on your Android Phone and you buy the Founder package. You also have Battle Gems on your iPad Air but you don't want to pay for Founder twice (unless you do, that's OK with us). We made it possible to connect your Battle Gems account through Facebook no matter which device you play on, as long as it's connected to FB, you play the same game with the same Founder.

This won't be possible for all of our games, but it worked out that time. Connecting to Facebook in Battle Gems also lets you see how your friends are doing on the game and even fight them in the upcoming recently released PvP update.

Facebook logins also make it much simpler for a lot of the world to log in and try a game without going through the process of registering. Just click Facebook Login and BAM, you're playing.

So, why did we use Facebook instead of our Artix.com logins? It's all about the numbers. Here are some facts about Facebook.

Right now, 1.28 BILLION people use Facebook. That's 20% of population of Earth.
757 MILLION people log into Facebook daily. That's TWICE the population of the United States.
Teens (12-17) have an average of 300 friends each (not counting fake and spam accounts).

Just think about those numbers for a second. If we had used our own Artix.com login instead of Facebook we would be missing out on about 1.27999999 billion possible new players. If the "average Teen" posts a Photo Op on their wall, that's showing Battle Gems to an average of 300 people.

TWITTER POWER

Personally, I really like Twitter. Just the other day over my Twitter someone mentioned how he couldn't believe that he was taking directly to his favorite AE dev. Twitter has enabled fast, short and direct contact between people who once seemed unreachable. For me, that is a VERY important fact. I have always been a fan of how directly we have stayed in touch with you guys and community outreach is part of my job (also, why I write these posts).

Most of the AE staff use their Twitter account for far more than just letting you know about updates but also use it to gather data on bugs, get feedback on works in progress or releases or just to say Hi and keep in touch with the community, one person at a time. That is an AMAZINGLY powerful tool!

Of course, when you have 67,000 followers, you get a few thousands tweets a day and it's impossible to respond to all of them but I try to as often as I am able, which is pretty often considering the 140 character limit on a Tweet. I know that I respond to more tweets than any other AE Dev but that's just because I make it a priority. The other Devs are there and even if they don't respond, they read your tweets. Now some Twitter Stats.

Total number of registered Twitter accounts: 645,750,000
Average number of tweets per day: 58,000,000
Number of people who sign up for Twitter each day: ~135,000

These numbers are STAGGERING, guys. They are MIND BLOWING and any game developer who doesn't use Social Media to their advantage is missing the bus. It's VERY time consuming so even if you have to bring on a Social Media Manager (Beleen has become ours) then you should try to do so.

TIPS AND TRICKS

Here are a few tips to help your game get the most out of Social Media.

Use Pictures. Facebook posts with images get 37% MORE views and substantially more likes. Just look at the posts on any of our Facebook Pages and see for yourself.
Use hashtags. Posts on Twitter and even on Facebook show a lot more activity (up to 60% in some cases) in tweets or posts that effectively use #HashTags.
Longer posts do better. Not as long as MINE but generally Facebook posts that are around 100 words do better than a Tweet sized post. (most Tweets average 10 words).
Learn to punctuate. Especially learn to use Exclamation Marks! Studies have shown that it just gets people excited and that leads to more activity in social media.
Ask a question. Artix does this a lot. When you ask someone something they feel inclined to answer even if it's just to tell you that it's none of your business. Asking for opinions or feedback in Social Media guarantees more activity.

As always, I hope this helps shed some light on why we do the things that we do. I also hope this helps you up and coming developers to make your game the biggest success it can be.

Beleen Nominated for Dragon Slayer Awards posted by Beleen on 7/2/2014 11:35 AM

3rd Annual Dragon Slayer Awards!

Hosted by Game Skinny and Guild Launch, the Dragon Slayer Awards are 100% gamer nominated and gamer voted, focusing on community managers (like me!!) and community members (like you!!).

http://www.gameskinny.com/j1lry/3rd-annual-dragon-slayer-award-nominations-now-open-round-3

I need your help slaying more dragons AND getting a real-life Dragon Slayer trophy from the 2014 Dragon Slayer Awards. And if—nay, when!—you help me win the coveted trophy, I will…

evolve into...

Lore’s first ever…

...

Pink Dragon Slayer!

OMG! Are you serious?!?! Oh yes, I am very serious. Just look at that face. LOOK AT IT. As you can see, we’re talking vry srs. Vry srs indeed.

AND! As Lore’s newest & official Dragon Slayer (did Galanoth ever win a trophy, hrmmm?), I would need to start recruiting fellow Dragon Slayers who follow the path of Pinkness.

Will YOU be one of my super (and sassy) Dragon Slayers? Then we mustn’t waste anymore time... because I’ve already convinced Dage the Evil to create a complete Dragon Slayer Armor Set (for you and me and everyone else to enjoy) IF I win the Dragon Slayer Awards!

Click here to nominate me and show the entire world just how AWESOME Dragon Slayers can be!

You can also nominate yourself and your fellow AQW heroes as the Most Passionate Fan Base here (and we know that's a fact)!

Battle on, my heroes!

xoxo Beleen =D

Nominate Beleen

Just Released: Brand New Video Games Releases on June 27 posted by Beleen on 6/27/2014 2:55 PM

AdventureQuest Worlds

13 Lords of Chaos: Invasion of Darkovia

The 13th Chaos Lord senses a VERY powerful object kept deep inside the Dragon's Lair, and is sending the forces of Chaos to clear a path to it!
Empress Gravelyn needs the Alliance Army to defend the Dragon's Lair long enough to buy her time to gather an even greater legion of warriors to combat Chaos!
Which side will YOU fight for?
Legends can unlock the Alliance side quest to recruit Xan the Pyromancer to their side, too!
- Battle your way up Mount Vasalkar before the 13th Chaos Lord confronts their Chaos Beast
- Play through the “Xan’s Recruitment” storyline if you have an upgraded account
- Find our Summer Shop in the Game Menu and in Battleon
- Upgrade or purchase select AC packages to unlock the Forsaken Warlock tier package

Epic Duel

Lionhart Saga Part 2

Now that the Legion and Exiles are allied against the Lionhart forces,Transcendence and Immanence are taking matters into their own hands.
- Challenge them to one-on-one battles to test your mettle against the best forces Lionhart has to offer.
- Visit Revontheus to pick up on the next phase of the Lionhart Saga.
- You'll be tasked with traveling across Delta V to defeat Lionhart spies, forge more unlikely alliances, consult the greatest minds of Delta V and finally confront Lionhart's children. Perhaps seeing his top lieutenants defeated by mortals will finally draw Saeva Lionhart out of hiding behind his throne.
Immanence and Transcendence armors will be available from the Lionhart Soldier in the Overlord Facility.
- By defeating them you will have a chance to claim their weapons as rare drops!
The Lionhart Soldier will stock new items created by our Volunteer artists Juniu, Hatred Cuirass, Assassin Order, and Bidoof!
Change your look with 18 new Lionhart styles.

Overlord War

Although Delta V is allied against the incursion of Lionhart, Legion and Exile forces still face tensions over who controls the Overlord Facility. This will make the Overlord Facility the next region in the cyclical War.
With this new war, we will introduce a new participation-based prize system.
- Players who fight harder will be eligible for better prizes.

OverSoul

Gravelyn Templars!

Character Release:
- Gravelyn Defender (Male)
- Gravelyn Defender (Female)

AdventureQuest

Weapon of Change - Harmonized Regrets

You must seek out Scakk to continue your hunt for powerful relics.
One slight issue... the fragment you seek is in Cereen.
You must search the cave system that was created by the fallen island.
That is where the fragment will be found, alongside an incredible instrument that will be forged, by Scakk, into a grand weapon.
Also don’t miss the Fireworks Spell coming to the Limited-Time Shop - only here for the month of July!

GOLDEN DEVELOPERS TICKET!

Have you ever wanted to create your very own weapon in AdventureQuest? Now is your chance! For every Golden Giftbox you open during the month of June you will be entered in a contest with the 1 ultimate prize being the opportunity to work with the Aq artist of your choice to make the weapon of your dreams!
- The more Golden Giftboxes you open the more chances you have to win!

DragonFable

The Elite Patrol

The path to the Third Level is out of your reach and the infiltration of Espina Rosa has come to an impasse.
Go the Cafeteria and see if you can learn anything about the Elite Patrol.
Who are they? What is their purpose?

HeroSmash

Chaos War Items!

These relics from the Lore Dimension are available for a Limited Time!
One item will be added to the AQW Founder Shop!

MechQuest

Colosseum Chaos!

Return to Planet 51 and take part in a new round of challenging fights!
Battle through powered up enemies!
- Most were chosen by your fellow players, but there's one special secret enemy!
New rewards, revamped Planet 51 rewards, and even a few "Void Enhanced" weapons and items are yours, if you succeed!
Make sure you've finished Yokai and Necryptos to be able to play through this new challenge!
- If you manage to win all the fights you may even get a small hint at things to come...

Battle On!

LIFE'S BLOOD posted by Cysero on 6/27/2014 11:29 AM

Let's say that you have a boat. The boat has a hole. If the boat takes on water faster than you can bail it out... you have to swim away or drown. A game gets the attention that it can afford. The more popular the game, the more development it gets. If a game gets no support from the players... the game bleeds out and development stops.

Artix Entertainment has been around since the launch of AdventureQuest in 2002. In that time we have produced a LOT of new games, mobile games and minigames, but they have not all been the mega-hits that AQ Classic and AQW are.

HeroSmash is a prime example of a game which started strongly but lost its life's blood. Let me explain what happened.

As I mentioned in this post, games need traffic to provide income and income to stay alive. I even explained how expensive it is and what a delicate balancing act it can be to get that traffic.

HeroSmash started out very strong. We built up a lot of hype behind our new superhero based MMO and we took a new direction with a style that we all liked. The team (at the time there were about 15 talented team members on the project) built the game on the AQW engine but changed everything that we felt was wrong with it and cleaned it up, reducing its size to something more manageable (a difficult, expensive and time consuming task). For months the team kept throwing A+ content into the game every week with new powers and new adventures and new NPCs but fewer and fewer people started showing up.

The raging torrent of players that we started with became a river, then a stream, then a creek, then a trickle. The game was in freefall and no matter what we did, the game couldn't make enough to support the team. We can't keep a team of 15 working on a game that isn't bringing in any money to support the company so slowly the size of the team was reduced, smaller and smaller until now only Randor and a few volunteers are there to keep the lights on for the VERY small number of players who play HeroSmash (and even smaller number who pay to support it). There are days when the game makes nothing at all. Even a roadside tomato stall makes more than that.

People accuse AE of giving up on HeroSmash (and a few games in similar situations), but the truth of the matter is that the players left us no choice. We stuck around and tried to keep people interested in HeroSmash LONG after we reasonably should have but you can't keep that up forever.

All that said, the older and less popular games AREN'T GOING ANYWHERE (including, but not limited to, HeroSMash)! Artix has promised that the games would stay open for as long as possible and he means to keep that promise. Even if development has stopped on a game it will remain open until we can literally no longer afford to run the servers, even if it means keeping them going at a slight loss.

I'm going to say this again. I'm GLAD that all of our games have a free option so that people can have fun in them when they can't afford to support it. BUT, if you like one of our games and you want to see it prosper and grow then get your friends to play. If the game's continuation is a priority for you then support it if you can. Don't just complain that the updates have stopped when it is within YOUR power to change that.

I hope that the passionate and loyal players of our less popular games take this post to heart. With their help, people might come back and play one day. The game might start turning a profit and we might be able to re-start development on them. How cool would that be?

It's really up to you.

WAR CHANGES THINGS posted by Cysero on 6/26/2014 5:23 PM

Especially these.

Maybe you are out of the loop and haven't been playing AQW for a while but the CHAOS WARS have been going on for a few weeks. This is really the moment that we've been building up to since 2008.

If you need to catch up, the good folks in the AQW cage have put together a handy page to help you keep track of what has happened and what is happening. Find it here...

The Summer Of Chaos!

All 13 Chaos Lords have been revealed. Currently every player fighting in the war is fighting for the future. The outcome of these wars LITERALLY decide the future of the game.

You've played in wars before so you know how most wars go. They are fun. Everyone in the game comes together to unite and defeat and common foe. At the end of the event you've had fun, pushed hard, unlocked your rewards and not much in the world of Lore has really changed. This is NOT like that.

These wars will change things. We've had a few wars like this. The one that sticks out in my mind is the DragonFable Xan invasion of Falconreach.

The players lost that war and Falconreach was burned down to the ground. Only one board remained but the hero gave a very rousing speech saying that as long as one board remained, that Falconreach had not truly fallen (I wrote that war and I'm still pretty pleased with that speech).

That war gave us the opportunity to rebuild Falconreach using new art but that was just a happy side effect. The players really could have won that war but they didn't pull it off and that became part of history in DF.

The same is true now.

The wars have already changed the face of the game with the death of at least one major figure in AQW dead and several known and loved locations destroyed. The wars are ending soon but it will be very different playing the game from now on. Things have changed and you will be able to feel that everywhere you go.

This is all leading up to a MAJOR change in AQW. This is something that we decided before the game even went into Alpha testing, years ago and we've (somehow) managed to sit on it. People keep asking if the game will end when Drakath is defeated. It's such a silly question that I always answer "Yes. Game over. You all pack up and go home and we start looking for new jobs."

OF COURSE THE GAME ISN'T ENDING!!! It's just the end of the Chaos Saga! That's why it has said "Adventurequest Worlds... the 13 Lords of Chaos" at the start of the game for years. Soon we're going to have to change that. If you're a loyal player, your whole world is about to get effed. If you took a break from AQW, you want to come back and play again RIGHT NOW.

The wars are almost over but the next chapter hasn't begun yet. You still have a chance to take part in shaping the world to come. NOW is the time to fight, my friends.

Pick up your swords and axes and staves and bows and GET IN THE FIGHT!

BECOMING A GAME ARTIST posted by Cysero on 6/24/2014 4:02 PM

Hey, guys, Cysero here.

Recently, on my Cysero Facebook Fan Page, I've written some Behind The Scenes posts and general Game Development posts which have had such positive feedback that Artix asked me to start making them here on Artix.com. I said this on the page but seems like those of you who are really trying to become game developers were getting something from the posts and you really elevated the discussion past folks asking to be mods and begging for free stuff. You really impressed us. Thanks.

I've gone back and time and transported these posts to Artix.com.

On to today's post.

Art in gaming has come a REALLY long way since the early days of gaming. One of the best games on the ATARI 2600 was called "ADVENTURE".

That's it. Just "ADVENTURE".

I know. It's like making a movie and calling it COMEDY but back then there were so few video games that you could name your games like that. The cover art was a little misleading back then. This is what the game itself looked like.

Note the dragon on the cartidge art.

and THIS is what the dragons looked like in the game.

That's because, back then, games really had no artists. All of the art was usually made by the coders and nobody really minded that it looked like crap because back then crap was the best that anything COULD look. Times have obviously changed...

...and changed for the better in my opinion.

There's a lot more to making a good game than having clutch graphics but it does help. Now that the technology has caught up with the creative dreams of the developers, a game company needs talented and skilled artists to bring their games to life.

So, what do you need to become an artist in the industry?

What Kind Of Education Do You Need?

None. I'm not saying that you shouldn't go to college and get your degree. I have a Bachelors Degree In Fine Arts with a focus on animation and illustration and I do not regret the time I spent there. I took my work seriously and I grew more in those few years than the whole rest of my artistic life.

BUT, lets take a look at some of AE's finest and compare their educations.

J6: Current Lead Artist for AQW. 3 year degree with a focus on illustration and design but, like me, his arts education covered everything from fine art to architecture.

DAGE: Entirely self taught. Never spent a second in formal art training but works with a drive and raw talent that very few can match. He spends hours upon hours every week outside of work learning new techniques and experimenting with new styles to sharpen his skill.

DIOZZ: Apprenticed at pretty much every comic book house in Puerto Rico before attending college and getting a degree. He even taught art for a while.

OISHII: Self-taught almost her entire life but recently got her degree to push herself past her comfort zone.

THYTON: Entirely self taught. The most formal art education he had was high school arts class but even back then he was far above his peers because he had been drawing from observation and learning from his favorite comic artists his entire life.

The two things that these giants share are a passion for creating art and a constant drive to push themselves to the next level. They all know that the second you become satisfied with your skills is the second that you start sliding backward.

A degree always helps. It let's a potential employer know that you're very serious about your craft and that you probably already have more experience than someone without a degree. But what an employer really looks at are your portfolio and your experience.

Your Portfolio

It doesn't matter if you want to be an environmental artist, a character concept artist, a graphic designer, a 3D modeler or some other kind of game artist... you need a portfolio.

You will be tempted to make it a novel, but keep it fairly small. If someone can't flip through it in about 10 minutes then it's too long. Update it FREQUENTLY with examples of your BEST work ONLY. It's more important that every image is mind blowing than it is to see that you can handle various styles if the examples are only OK.

Your Experience

This is a tough one. Experience is worth more than anything. If you can show that you have worked for a real company doing real art, it speak volumes about you. DO NOT mention the "game company" that you and your friend started a few years ago but never really got anywhere. It may have seemed cool at the time but that does not count as professional experience and comes across as very unprofessional.

The trick is how to get experience without any experience. Lucky for you there are companies (like us) who pull volunteer artists from their player base. It may seem like you're working for free but what you're actually doing is getting that precious professional experience. Even if you don't get picked up by the company for which you're volunteering, you can say that you made art that appeared in a game with 10 million registered users. That's a big deal.

The gaming industry has exploded in recent years but it's also become a dangerously competitive place. If you're not one of the tops in your area then you need to keep working until you are.

Here's my advice:

Draw from observation, ALWAYS. Being able to make up a drawing of a realistic person only comes from years of ACTUALLY drawing real people. Draw things that you're no good at. People often have a hard time with hands so become a HAND EXPERT. Force yourself out of your own comfort zone and break your own artist boundaries.
Be able to do everything. Some game companies need big dudes in armor but others need chibi fairies or cute puppies or realistic mobsters or watercolor robots, &c &c. It's great to have a style that you love but learn be flexible to increase your chances of getting work.
Learn to take criticism. If someone says that your work is coming along but it's nowhere near as good as you think it is, listen to them. Ask them why. Don't let your ego get in your way. If you do get a job doing game art, your work will come back with a list of changes as long as your arm and if you're in love with your first draft then you're going to go nuts. People will also think you're a D-bag.
Learn from people who are better than you. Never be afraid to admit that you're not the best but always know that you can be if you keep going. If you see someone do something amazing, find out how. Watch their process. Ask questions.

Good luck, fellow artists. I hope this advice helps you as much as it has helped me in the past.

Happening Now: New Releases in Free MMO Games & RPG Games! posted by Beleen on 6/20/2014 4:29 PM

AdventureQuest Worlds

13 Lords of Chaos: Invasion of Darkovia

The forces of the 13th Lord of Chaos demolished Willowcreek earlier this week, and the attack against Doomwood is happening now! To divide the Alliance, the Legion of Chaos is ALSO marching on Darkovia this weekend.
The Lycans and Vampires have an uneasy truce while battling Chaos, but if the army of Chaos succeeds in conquering Darkovia, the Queen of the Vampires and her 10 million minions will be destroyed… FOREVER!

- Choose to defend Darkovia and Doomwood OR battle for Chaos!
- War Challenge: Reach 100% first to save the Vampire Queen… or destroy her!
- Upgrade or purchase select AC packages to unlock the Forsaken Warlock tier package!

Epic Duel

Lionhart Strike

Now that the Legion and Exiles are allied against the Lionhart forces,Transcendence and Immanence are taking matters into their own hands. Challenge them to one-on-one battles to test your mettle against the best forces Lionhart has to offer.
Immanence and Transcendence armors will be available from the Lionhart Soldier in the Overlord Facility. Also, by defeating them you will have a chance to claim their weapons as rare drops!
Also, change your look with 12 new Lionhart styles.

Overlord War

Although Delta V is allied against the incursion of Lionhart, Legion and Exile forces still face tensions over who controls the Overlord Facility. This will make the Overlord Facility the next region in the cyclical War.
With this new war, we will introduce a new participation-based prize system. Players who fight harder will be eligible for better prizes.

AdventureQuest

Weapon of Change - Interude

Xov has captured Alana and looks to destroy her!
Mages of Lore get some extra help in the battlefield with new Intelligence-based healing spells!
Also don’t miss all the awesome Summer items coming to the Limited-Time Shop!
Plus the Kings Hockey Glaive comes to the Limited-Time Shop for 2 weeks!

June Golden Giftboxes - Blades of Reaping and Grand Tenderizer

Blades of Reaping can swap between Energy and Ice elements!
Grand Tenderizer can pummel and weaken your opponents!

DragonFable

Full Moon

The war is over but the battle has just begun! The curse is spreading, who will save Thursday and the town of Amityvale?

MechQuest

GLaDERP Upgrades!

Higher-level versions of the Security Mechs!
Higher-level versions of weapons!
Father's day weapons and the Jemini Hologram leave tonight!

Battle On!

Breaking News: Documented Sightings of Chaos Across the World posted by Beleen on 6/18/2014 3:20 PM

Secret Underground Lab, Florida – Earlier this morning, frightening images depicting a devious villain began flooding the Artix Entertainment network. These photos, submitted by amateur photographers from across the world, showed the Champion of Chaos, Drakath, infecting the planet with Chaos.

Photo courtesy of Tyler Olmsted

The 180 million players of Artix Entertainment are all too familiar with Drakath, as he is the main antagonist in the MMO AdventureQuest Worlds. Artix players *thought* that logging out of the game would protect them from Drakath’s chaotic madness...

Photo courtesy of Lyvia Melo

Sadly, this is not the case. Drakath has breeched the real world, and has unleashed his chaotic prowess worldwide.

Photo courtesy of Akizutsu

As you are reading this, the Champion of Chaos continues to leave his malicious mark throughout planet Earth. Artix Entertainment needs YOU to show us all the other locations he has Chaorrupted!

Photo courtesy of UltraMegasus

The Alliance has provided the following transparent background PNGs of Drakath and his Chaos Eye.

Drakath NPC
Drakath NPC (no sword)
Drakath NPC (open wings)
Chaos Eye

Grab your camera, capture Drakath enveloping the world with Chaos, and post your photographical findings on Beleen’s Twitter, Alina’s Twitter, or Artix’s Twitter!

Photo courtesy of Beleen

Additional information about the Champion of Chaos sightings can be found via the AQWorlds Design Notes here.

MONEY posted by Cysero on 6/18/2014 2:32 PM

It makes the world go 'round or so they say. There are a lot of things that are more important than money but you do need a lot of it to keep a game company going.

What Dumb People Think

I'm not rich. I'm not poor either but I lease a Nissan Quest minivan (UPDATE: after this post I traded the Quest in for a 2010 Prius to save on gas), I don't own a Lamborghini. I still haven't paid off my student loans. My wife makes clothes for my kids or gets them from the thrift shop or yard sales. If any of our clothes come off the rack, they come off the clearance rack at Target and I'm still broke at the end of the month.

When I was working on AQW there was always a very vocal group of people who thought that I (somehow) personally took home all the money from every AC spent in the game. That I just slept on a bed made of cash. The truth of the matter is that I didn't even get a percentage of AC sales. I work on a fixed salary regardless of how well AQW did or did not do.

I'm not telling you this to get you to take pity on me. I'm telling you what things are really like to try and dispel any illusions that any of us are getting rich off of any of you.

I know it's easy to look at the money that Minecraft or Flappy Bird raked in and think that if you make games, you get rich. But you need to remember that there are literally THOUSANDS of games, maybe TENS of THOUSANDS of games, released every year and almost all of them make no money at all.

SO, where does all that money from Memberships, ACs, DragonCoins, Battle Gems Founder &c go? It goes back into the games. It goes toward paying as many people as AE can to work on the games because without developers, there's no game. I know a lot of people would do this job for free (myself included) but it's nice not having to get another job to support my family so I can try to find time to make games on the side. Very little would get done that way. AE is also very good to its employees so we have very decent medical insurance which is not cheap even for a company as small as ours.

The money goes into the costs of running the games. The servers required for the amount of traffic that our games get are not cheap and they are ALWAYS on.

The money goes into bandwidth. Every time you complete a quest, equip an item, pick a new hair color, say Hi or even move... a small bit of data is sent to the servers, then sent from the servers back to everyone in your room so they can see that you said HI or moved an inch. There are thousands of people playing AQW so every one of those little data transfers add up quickly. Our bandwidth bill is unbelievable... but if we don't pay it... you can't play.

The money goes into advertising. Back in the early days of AQ Classic, the internet was a very different place. There were very few web games so getting people to come and play was cheap and everyone came to play. Now things are different. There are social media sites and a million other games to play online not to mention so many people heading to the consoles and mobile and leaving the web. The price of traffic has grown so much that we can't even afford to advertise in the the major markets where we once swam freely.

Traffic is tricky but I'll try to explain. AQW is a free to play game. Yes, there are significant advantages for people who want to support the game with a Membership or even buying ACs but the game is still free for anyone out there who wants to make an account. Of course most people won't pay for something unless they have to so 98% of every character ever created has never spent a single cent on the game. If you take the 2% that have paid something and the 98% that have not and average them out, you get a very, very, very low Average Revenue Per User (ARPU).

WARNING: MATH AHEAD: If you take the money that you spend on getting traffic (let's say $100) and the number of new users that you got from that traffic (let's say 10 new users), you can find how much you are paying per sign-up (100/10 = You just paid $10 for each new user). If the ARPU (Let's say $0.02) is less than what you're paying per new user ($10 per new user) ... you're losing money ($0.02 < $10).

There is organic traffic (as opposed to paid traffic) that comes from people telling their friends over twitter and Facebook (which is why you see so many games with viral components... they are trying to get organic traffic without paying for it) but you can't count on it. It's rarely very effective unless you make freakin' Portal and EVERYONE is talking about it.

Here's the thing about traffic. People leave the game ALL the time and since the players are the ones funding the game, if we don't get more players in... the game dries up.

So making a game, and keeping it alive is very expensive and all the money that you pay AE goes back into the games (except HeroMart items. Those go back into making new HeroMart items). We're not getting rich off you guys. We're just making ends meet THANKS to you guys. We don't have a big name game company throwing money at us like a lot of places. We survive almost ENTIRELY off of you (we get some help from ads and AExtras but it doesn't really even make a dent in our expenses). That's part of why it cheeses me off so badly when someone asks for free stuff. They are essentially asking to be given a chunk of what YOU paid for, and when I say no they just let me know how greedy I am being.

SO, when I say thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for making it possible for us to keep making games for you... i could not mean it more. I hope what I said helps you understand how much I mean that. AE is YOUR company. You built it and you keep it alive. Thank you.

World War Lore! posted by Beleen on 6/16/2014 1:24 PM

Chaos kicks off the summer in the MMO AdventureQuest Worlds with the ultimate Chaos Lord showdown!

Sure, the World Cup might be big right now… but the Summer of Chaos is the BIGGEST (and most chaotic) event in the entire AQ World!

Over 50 million MMO gamers geared up in their chaotic armors and weapons and stormed up the dreaded Mount Doomskull. There, they confronted Drakath, the Champion of Chaos.

And… the real kicker… is that the final 13^th Lord of Chaos was chosen! WHAAA!?!?! *mind blown*

On Friday the 13^th, the 13^th Chaos Lord unleashed their newfound chaotic powers upon the world of Lore. Willowshire, Doomwood, and Darkvoia were the first cities to succumb to Chaos… but no city is safe from the clutches of Chaos!

Brandish your broadsword, conjure up your spells, and heed the call of battle in the OMG-this-is-going-to-change-the-game-forever event entitled: World War Lore!

So what are you still doing reading this?! There’s a war going on, soldier! And we need YOU at the frontlines!!!

Join the Fight! Play Now!

Never played AQ Worlds? Not a problem! Create your free game account here and discover why AdventureQuest Worlds is the best free MMO game for PC and Mac!

Battle On!

xoxo Beleen =D