Early Access is great!

It is a real win-win for everyone. You guys get to try out the unreleased versions of AdventureQuest 3D and we get some incredible feedback from you about our work-in-progress! It really gives you guys a chance to take part in building this game right beside us.

Last weekend we released our first test dungeon, Barrow Pass. A LOT of you guys played through it and many of you had feedback on social media and here in the comments of the Design Notes. Some of you thought it was great! Some encountered technical bugs (like Dungeon Keys not regenerating when you hit 0 and not being called Dungeon Keys as intended, instead of Energy). Some of you thought that the system was cool but wanted a more generous Dungeon Key pool. Others were fine with the max number of Dungeon Keys but wanted the to regenerate more quickly. Still others didn't like the whole system. All of these are valid opinions.

I want you to know that we heard you and we are making changes.

We have a lot of ideas about where to go from here. We could increase the number of Dungeon Keys that you have and/or reduce the time it takes for keys to regenerate. We have talked about making the first run of ANY dungeon open, but any re-runs would require a Dungeon Key. We might also make standard dungeons open and only Challenge dungeons (with better loot, of course) require a key. Based on your feedback we have come up with about a dozen possible changes to the system that we will start experimenting with, a few of which were based on your own suggestions! It's mind blowing how many of you had actual constructive criticism and suggestions instead of just raging that you didn't like something. That's the kind of feedback that we can use!

BARROW PASS

If you have't had a chance to run the Barrow Pass dungeon, just turn right as soon as you enter Greenguard Forest from Battleon and take the path past the Dricken Cave...

... or /join forestlobby.

Give it a try and let us know what you think in the comments section below.

FUTURE DUNGEONS

This is only our first dungeon and it's really more of a test to see if the multi-room dungeon functionality works (it does!). It's small and low-level but future dungeons will have more rooms, traps, puzzles, parkour areas, bosses with special abilities, dialogues, full cutscenes, lots more loot (of course) and lots of other challenges and surprises, many of which already work in the Doomwood Tower dungeon (in testing, coming soon!)!

We're currently working on a new, higher-level dungeon for the Bone Cliffs (level 10-ish). One of the major hurdles to overcome is how to make a ton of new and interesting monsters with a team this small and a deadline this tight. The most time consuming part of any monster is setting up the monster's rig (or skeleton) and animating it, so we are starting to reuse existing those existing assets. For example: Below is Dage's concept painting for a huge cockroach monster.

Dage painted it on top of the existing rig for the Dravir monster (which hasn't appeared in-game yet but you can see that Dage has not used the Dravir's wing bones) and Xero is already working on the new model. At Dage's speed, this guy might be ready to go in a few days, saving us from two to three WEEKS of rigging and animation time, and freeing up Korin to devote his time to other animation needs.

This nasty dude will probably have his own stats and abilities, but he will share his walking and attack animations with the Dravir (tweaked if necessary). Some monsters with completely different body types (like Gorthor the Warfiend) will still need to be made from scratch but creating new monsters this way will enable us to fill dungeons with new and interesting enemies far more quickly than animating every monster individually.

POSITIVE FEEDBACK

The internet can be a very toxic place. Sometimes it's hard to remember that there's a person with real feelings at the other end of a post. I just wanted to personally thank you guys for keeping the AQ3D community positive so far. There will always be small minded people who try to make themselves feel big by making others feel small, especially when they can hide behind their keyboard, but you guys are the other kind. You're considerate and you understand that this is a work-in-progress. I've been AMAZED reading your feedback and watching you build THE GAME UP instead of trying to tear US down. You ask instead of demand. You don't just try and get a reaction because you want attention, or just complain... you propose solutions and bring something to the table.

I'm in awe of the community that you're building. Thank you. Keep that feedback coming!