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T.600 -> The Growth of Epicduel. (7/18/2011 3:44:15)
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It all started when two college students, Titan and Nightwraith had a dream. They dreamt of doing something with their recently aqcuire degrees and making a game. Epicduel was that game that they dreamed of perfecting; a PvP based MMO with a scientific/alien theme set in a world where war has broken out. Two people became three when Big Tuna joined and contributed to gettting the story onto paper, and later on a cutscene/trailer was created to give a brief showcase of the Epicduel story. The focus of this game was PvP, so therefore they focused on the PvP elements of the games at first. We had three classes; the tech mage, mercenary and bounty hunter. The game was progressing quickly; we had the introduction of health and energy boosters during alpha, and many of the mighty debuff and buff skills were perfected at the time. The game was new and we had two battle modes already. We had frequent updates that were intended to improve the gameplay, improve balance, please the players and the alpha players were rewarded. Prior to the the beginning of beta, we had a basic stat system, three classes, two battle modes, special equippable items (boosters), buddy lists and much more.
June 13th 2009, the beginning of Beta. The opportunity to become an elite arose and alpha players were rewarded. The level cap was increased to 30, and we had many new weapons+general system improvements. Beta allowed us to challenge NPC's, create factions, use hoverbikes, use robots, there were two new areas, many balance improvements, new weapons and armors, new NPC's, countless bug fixes, exp boost, houses and housing items, there was the founder status and beta status, an improved achievments and rating system. Many new players had joined during Beta, Epicduel had merged with AE as well which had increased the scope of advertising for Epicduel. Everyone was close to each other in the community although there were cheaters and scammers; something you see in every game. We had the heal loop era, strength bounty era but the devs never gave up on trying to improve the balance in Epicduel and make new features. There wasn't really a storyline in Beta, but the PvP aspect of the game was being perfect and many other fantastic features had been implemented to accompany the aspect of just continiously battle. Factions and achievments were two examples of some incentives to battle that emerged during Beta.
Wednesday, August the 4th 2010 was the day that Gamma begun. Here's the list of everything that we expected in this mighty update:
New Gamma Achievement added to achievement shops
- Level Cap raises to 32
- Beta Weapon auto-converter (if you changed class prior to the Beta Weapons converting)
- Item enhancements (customizable weapons)
- Introduce new Gamma Bot and Gamma Bike
- Beta Achievement goes rare!
- New FaceBook and Twitter integrated viral features!
- Independence Day Achievement goes rare!
- World Cup achievement goes rare!
- 3 New Hair Styles for all classes / genders (18 new styles)
- Several new Armor sets
- Musical weapons will go live
- Increased overall server response time
- Loads of bug fixes
It sounded too good to be true, such a massive update and a sign that the game was moving forward. We all looked forward to the enhancement system; we expected it to be like AQW's enhancement system. The update had been delayed, and the release came live about a month after it was announced. Everyone was still looking forward to it though! Many new features came in Gamma, but it was mainly the massive balance changes that occured and the flow of some slightly younger players coming into Epicduel. Gamma saw the introduction of; missions, enhancements, new weapons,armors and bikes, balance changes, interface and engine improvements, housing items, the new 2vs1 battle mode and much more! Many people see Gamma as a downturn in Epicduel due to the balance issues which had always been a problem, but there was also pricing issues and the pressure of pleasing more players.
The Delta launch was announced in a similar fashion to Gamma, about a month prior to its release. This time, new classes were announced. Some of us saw, a chance to increase the variety in gameplay because we assumed they would have new skills whereas some of us a whole lot of balance issues that could occur. There was also going to be new weapons, a reduction on the price of credit class change, 2vs1 boss battles, new NPC's and a new special ability known as 'curse'. Obviously we would have a new achievment to symbolise those who played in Delta and the gamma promotional items went rare along with the achievment. Delta is the current phase of Epicduel and the new classes only have a few new skills each but as I expected, there have been a lot of balance issues which the testing team are currently working on. The 2vs1 boss battles were just amazing though and the new Delta Weapons are a nice addition to Epicduel.
I have a few questions to finish my post:
How do you think Epicduel has grown since the Alpha Launch and what things have you liked and disliked about playing Epicduel?
What could they have done better?
How much has your character changed since you made it?
What would you like to see the devs focus on in the future?
You don't have to write as much as me, a short summary would be good or even just once sentence.
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