DUNGEONS

Out first test dungeon is growing ever closer to completion. Recently, we've been working on a lobby for the dungeon where you will find an NPC with Dungeon specific quests (in this case Artix as soon above). There are also two separate dungeon experiences, depending on which portal you enter from the lobby. One side is a linear dungeon, complete with traps to escape and a puzzle you solve before you reach the boss.

The other is a survival style dungeon which is a single room that cannot be escaped until you defeat the boss but in order to get the bosses attention and make it spawn, you have to defeat waves of increasingly difficult monsters. It's a pure test of grit and determination.

NEW PLAYER EXPERIENCE

All modern games more complicated than Flappy Bird need a little bit of a tutorial, but we are building much more than that. We are combining teaching you the elements of gameplay with an introduction to AQ3D's world of Lore by thrusting you into middle of a heated battle between the Guardians and an undead army.

This is the result of a few weeks of fantastic meetings with the AQ3D team where we discussed what we all wanted out of an intro. After I wrote out the first draft of the Intro's design document, we combined our ideas what we think would be the ideal experience.

Our environmental artist, Llussion, immediately began sketching the battle-worn keep where the final battle with the leader of the undead forces takes place.

Meanwhile, Dage and Thyton began furiously producing concepts for the intro's boss at a feverish pace. Each sketch brought them closer and closer to the final unified vision for this undead beast.

Now, production is fully underway as Xero and Llussion are modeling out the environment. They already have a white box version working (which is the basic geometry with none of the textures or final lighting applied).

It's amazing to run through a field seeing and hearing Guardian NPCs actually doing battle with undead Skeleton monsters in the high grasses, while catapults fire and you make your way through the battlefield to the keep. I'm amazingly proud of how much we have accomplished in such a short amount of time and I think you'll really love starting the game this way. It's also great that for the first time, we are actually going to have a game with an intro and tutorial completed and in place BEFORE the game goes live!

PALADIN & CRAFTING

Oishii and the testers have also begun working on balancing the first class promised to the Kickstarter Backers who supported AQ3D by purchasing the Legendary Founder Class Pack (Paladin, Necro, Ninja and Dragonslayer).

Yergen, Zhoom and I have also been working on early concepts for AQ3D's crafting system. AQ3D will be HEAVILY crafting oriented (this will be how you get most of your items and classes) and it's great to finally start seeing that come together past the planning stages.

You can expect to see more sneak peeks at ALL of these things in the coming weeks!