Eukara Vox
Legendary AdventureGuide!
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The Launching of WarpForce
by Eukara
Seven years ago, a journey began - one that led thousands of people on a voyage into a place far from earth and far from our imaginations. More and more people fell in love with AdventureQuest at its inception in 2002. Then, four years later in 2006, a new game was born. It was different from AdventureQuest in almost every way, from animation to game play. DragonFable kidnapped us into a past Lore, where dragons were more than elemental breathing brutes. Eventually, through this game, you were gifted a joyous friend, a dragon of your own.
As if a snowball had been released, plans flew into action and a year later the players of DragonFable and AdventureQuest, along with the gaming world was introduced to Lore... But thousands of years in the past. In 2007, MechQuest charged forward and quickly drew a dedicated following with its giant mechas and interesting storyline. As if this wasn't enough, AE heads realized that a dream was close to being achieved. An MMO of AE proportions arrived on the scene in 2008 in the form of AdventureQuest Worlds, giving the faithful players of the other three games a way to finally play together in real time.
So AE had everything... Its baby and pride and joy, full of dragons, drakels, creatures that were conjured up during the late hours of the night (Where else would something like a blecch come from?); a dragon laden adventure where you talk to a dragon and fight by its side; a mecha driven plot of epic proportions and their very own MMO. What more could AE want?
Apparently, the big guys whose brains brought all these games to you weren't done yet. While everyone was enjoying their new toy in the form of AQW, plans were set in motion to create something new for those who love AQ, and AE fans in general. A continuation of a Saga and a trip off planet. Welcome to WarpForce!
Now, many people put in a lot of time and effort to make this addition to AQ take off. Four individuals were chosen to give us their thoughts on Warp Force - Westwind, The Programmer; Aelthai, The Balancer; Falerin, The Writer and Reverendwyrm, The Artist.
Though each of these individuals have been assigned a title, they are not entirely defined by it. Westwind has a long list of duties, including game design, Knight of Order, general forum moderator and AQ/WF writer. Aelthai, if you haven't come across her NPC in AQ, is also the person responsible for hunting and dispelling the Bugs that sneak into our beloved games. She is a Knight of Order and general forum moderator with an eye on DragonFable.
Falerin, somehow aka God of Evil, heads up the story development team, quest/idea development, head moderator on the forums and recently picked up layout artist and animator. Then we come to Reverendwyrm, who seems to be a highly sought staff member on AQW. I cannot fully put into my own words what he does, so I will just quote him. You'll understand why. "First and foremost I'm the greeter at an exclusive, inter-dimensional nightclub AE owns. When you see the guy with the mechanical wings, bizarre monocle, and giant spork waving like crazy that's me. Thankfully the club is only open three Terran nights a week so I have plenty of time to catch up on my other AE duties, namely art with a sprinkle of animating. I'm primarily an artist for AdventureQuest and WarpForce though I also dabble in AdventureQuest Worlds. At some point I'd like to dip my toes in the DragonFable and MechQuest art ponds."
Introductions out of the way, let's investigate the launching of the newest piece of the AE universe, WarpForce.
Long before WarpForce was hinted at on the forums, the AQ expansion was already being planned. Those who were in on the planning were busy envisioning what this new addition would do for their loyal players, and hopefully, draw in some new ones. Falerin was near beside himself with excitement. Learning the scope of the game and the power of the story hyped him up so much that he claims that his excitement has always been greater than any of our players. Westwind saw this as an opportunity to see science fiction take center stage in the AQ world. Growing up on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Westwind saw ample opportunities to take the puns parodies to a whole new level.
On the flipside, though, Reverendwyrm admits to having misgivings. In his honest answer, he admits that he isn't a fan of the walk around type of play that DragonFable and MechQuest employs. So when the expansion was in its infancy, he was afraid that WarpForce would be made the same way. Reverendwyrm also had trouble imagining how AE's fans would react after the company created their "Magnum Opus: AQW." In his words, "Once I found out that it was being built on the AQ engine and was going to be an expansion of AQ my initial worries vanished like a Shoggoth in the sunlight. Plus getting to be one of the key artists for the games initial launch is pretty cool as well!"
So, newness aside, work began and everyone took their places. Everyone involved did what they had all along for AE. In Westwind's words -
"I help design item stats and then code the final preparation for the weekly releases. Our artists create the different aliens, weapons, and so on; Galanoth and Falerin set up and animate the quests; Aelthai and I review the rewards to figure out stats; and I go over the quests and items to make sure that the code does what we need it to do. Sometimes this is as simple as making sure the music we've added to WF will respect the "Mute sound" option, and sometimes it's as complex as setting up an armor with over a half-dozen different attacks. I'm often the last person to touch quest and item files before they go out to the players, so I also try to make sure their quality is where it needs to be by fixing typos and the like. I also squash bugs [along with Aelthai] that come up -- and the bugs out in space can sometimes be a lot hardier than the ones back on the ground! I blame cosmic radiation."
Now, as everyone knows, no game launched from scratch takes off perfectly. And no matter how hard the greatest animators, writers, coders and programmers are, things don't always go as planned at the beginning. WarpForce was no exception and when asked, this quartet of workers explained some of their concerns when assembling and readying WF for launch. Aelthai recalls being worried if what she wanted to do would even work, though she noted that there were some things that had to be postponed. Time was also something she worried about. As time went by, she was plagued by the possibility that it would not launch on time.
Falerin worried about the reaction of the players. He knew that they had a great thing in WarpForce, but would everyone else accept and run with it as he hoped? Westwind's worries revolved around the guns. Feeling that they were a vital part of the science fiction genre, he wanted to make sure that they were done right. Since one of his dissatisfactions with AQ was the projectile weapons, he was determined to change that with WF. Each armor was given "it's own 'firing' animation, and as armor's attack can apply different attack power and accuracy to the shots a gun fires..."
Finally, the day comes and the game finds its way off of the launch pad and in the face of every player that can use a mouse. Each person that participated in the launching of WF remembers feeling great about the experience. Everything from overwhelmed, to amazed, and tired was expressed, though Reverendwyrm sums it up nicely. "It was kind of like key lime pie, drizzled with syrup, and wrapped in pita! In a word: Awesome!" Knowing they had pulled off a treat for AE players from all over the world, all the staff had to do was sit back and wait for the commentary to roll.
As the commentary rolled in and players went on missions, staff reflected on their favorite parts of launching this expansion of AdventureQuest. Aelthai will remember "getting bugs fixed - that's alwas a good feeling (I would apologize for the extreme damage you all did in WarpGuardian for about a day, it shouldn't have happened ... but I think you'd rather I didn't ;-) )" whereas Falerin's fondest memory was the mystery that he set up and ran, building up the hype for the game. Successes, the ability to sleep and triumphs that came because of a middle-of-the-night wake up calls pepper the memories of those who worked so had to get this game going.
Now came the moment of truth... How were all those players going to react to this game? Prior to the release, the forum was a mix of positive and negative commentary. Many people were excited about this newest addition to the AE line-up. Others were skeptical, as many thought that AE was beginning to stretch itself a bit thin. Back and forth, these individuals discussed, each having good points and productive counter arguments. And as this went on, and then into the discussions that surrounded the games after launch, the staff watched and read everything that was said.
Aelthai believes that, based upon public reaction, that WarpForce has been quite well received. Agreeing with her, Falerin also adds that he learned that there were many that expected WarpForce to be different. When it came to constructive feedback, Westwind admitted that the negative feedback gave him much more to think about than positive. Not that positive feedback wasn't welcome, because it was, but it was felt that the negative feedback actually helped more. This allowed for game staff to look at the game more carefully, thus allowing for better evaluation and changes in future content. The complaint that there wasn't enough to do was well received, mostly because it meant that people wanted more, they loved it so much.
Favorite post-launch moments:
Aelthai: "Well ... once I actually realized that we were finally live, I got to get some sleep? ;-) After Beta Launch (and after I got some sleep after Full Release), I was able to see everyone's reactions to the game I had worked so hard on - that was wonderful J"
Westwind: "I would have to say that seeing the excitement from the players is the best post-release 'moment.' "
Falerin: "Too many to mention, I am really excited to have WarpForce out there."
Reverendwyrm: "I think my favourite moment was actually during the WF/AQ crossover event recently. When it was launched the WarpGuardian had a graphical glitch that made him have tails protruding from all over his body and they looked like tentacles!"
Being a part of such an endeavor seemed to bring out the best of our game staff. What is most intriguing is the almost childlike joy that this brought to the forefront in the staff. Regarding the future of this game, Reverendwyrm's words sum everyone's thoughts up. "Whatever you do, where ever you go, do NOT read from the book! WarpForce is just getting on its feet, grab a hold of something bolted down and hang on tight because it's going to be a wild ride. From Beautiful Crustaceans bent on universal domination to strange Sea-faring Elves, WarpForce is going to be a blast! And remember 'May the Warp be with you, always.'"
What will happen in the future? Where will WarpForce take us? Will we discover new creatures, new races and new technology? Will our characters do something totally unprecedented? Will we lose ourselves in this universe? As much as we would love to know the answer, we all will have to wait. But waiting is one of the best things, as anticipation only makes everything that much sweeter.
One last tidbit, take it how you want. After WarpForce was launched, feedback rolled in and bugs were attacked, it was revealed that, well, launching a game of this nature really takes it out of a person. It will not be revealed who dropped this detail in the Zardian's lap, but it was felt that you, the reader, should know.
"To recoup from the stress of the release, the entire team convinced Galanoth to take us on a trip to South America. While we were there we captured the reclusive Peruvian Limax Maximus Draconi, or Giant Dragon Slug! I won't bore you with the details but once we had the beast finally caged Galanoth got a bit to close and the Limax covered his armour with slime that smelled like the nesting ground for a herd of Cantankerous Vertooth! If you've never smelled a Vertooth (it's something like a Terran llama but much, much worse), well, you're the lucky one!"
< Message edited by Eukara -- 8/6/2009 14:59:43 >
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