An image from the legendary day when General Primo commanded his army of Elite Guardian Riders against the driken menace. (Weird things happen in our games.) Completely unrelated to todays post about teef, graphix, and sword fighting babies.
Do you have teeth? Do not feel alone. A lot more people than you think do too. They too suffer from the constant danger of being struck by high-speed, wildly swung boffer swords. But boffer swords are those foam ones that are all soft and foamy you say! Well, that really depends on how hard you swing one. O_O It is customary at Artix Entertainment 'Team Building" events to have plenty of sword fighting. As the saying goes, "It is not a real AE party unless someone is bleeding and someone else is picking bits of teeth up off the floor." Statistically speaking, I guess it WAS my turn.
The AdventureQuest 3D team has been burning the midnight oil for a long while. So Yergen wisely suggested that we take part of a day and do something else to increase the teams spirit, and give our semi-newly assembled crew of Avengers a chance to talk and get to know more about each other than our 3D poly count efficiency. Our first thought was to rent a space shuttle and go to the moon-- but I am too cheap, so instead offered everyone to come over to my house and grill some burgers instead. They brought their children, significant others and/or roomates too! Seeing everyone talking and playing was magically beautiful... especially all the little ones (most 1 to 3 years old) It was also exactly what the team needed. Stryche even send over a box containing AQ3D T-shirts for the entire team. It did not take time for the sword fighting to start. Dage had brought over his swords...
The "MUST WATCH" sword fights are always between AQ3D artists Thyton and Dage. Thyton is a formally trained martial artist with a love for blades and Dage is a freaking unstoppable berzerker, self taught through countless hours of real life combat events. Their match was legendary, full force, and officially declared a tie. Their match was also the first time my son, Aidan (age 1.. about to be 2 next week), saw a real life sword fight-- and you could see it in his eyes. "OMG! THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE BEEN TRAINING ME FOR?!" Gotta remember, like in the Karate Kid (the original) where he was waxing on and waxing off secretly learning how to block... Toddlers have no idea what the techniques are are actually teaching them with foam swords are until they see them used. (It should be noted that I spend an equal amount of time teaching him NOT to hit people or animals during our training... if you put a punching pad up in front of him he will punch it. But if you ask him to punch your face, he will shake his head no. Good kid.)
Everyone took turns fighting... including the two new guys :D All trained sword fighters know that "new guys" are far more dangerous than anyone else. That is because new fighters do not know the etiquette and often do unexpected things at unexpected times. Also, experienced fighters tend to drop their guard a little and "play a little" instead of taking it seriously... which is... >_> what exactly the mistake I made. While sparring with PanicPop the cover of his boffer sword got a little shredded and a long piece of fabric was dragging behind it like a whip. I was being mindful of it, but at some point I got hit in the jaw and the fabric landed on the edge of my mouth as I bit down. When he yanked the sword away it chipped several of my teeth and knocked a filling out. O_O. OUCH! I was picking little bits of teeth out of my mouth-- and I noticed that no one else had figured out what happened. Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you deal with it. So I stayed happy and positive, congratulated him on a good match-- I wanted to make sure everyone continued having a good time. Plus, he really felt like a part of the team now after the fights and fun and that was more important. I was careful to draw no attention going inside to inspect the damage. Eeek. It could have been worse, but it was pretty bad. I decided to go to the dentists and get it fixed before I told him (or anyone) what had happened. The Dentist (yup, the same one from the BattleOn Battle Cards Commercial with the Drill) fixed me up and commented on how crazy our office is... and something to the effect that our crazy activities keeps his business going :D Then... he made me a custom mouth guard. >_>
The moral of the story... if you are going to do combat sports, wear a mouth guard.
"The More You Know!"
We finished the power curves and put them on the testing server yesterday. The auto attack has received a buff. This was important both for game balance, and for the visual feeling of progress. Seeing double digit damage numbers feels really good at level 10. We also tweaked how much of your power comes from gear and how much comes from your level. Earlier in the game, more will come from your level. Once you get to level 10+ your gear becomes very important. We might roll that change out before the other changes go in... which includes the improved quest system, itemization, and how the game will flow for new players.
One of our newest coders, Perseus, had a break through today in making a way for us to significantly improve the speed at which we can test maps. We can now roll to the servers directly from the Unity IDE... which is crazy pants awesome!
Tomorrow
Tomorrow, we are getting a visit from the County Commissioner (The one I asked to make me an Artix Symbol when she needs helps with super villains) and her cyber security expert friend. I am not entirely sure what we are meeting on, but it sound exciting! Also, the AdventureQuest 3D will be having a "Campfire Meeting" on the next major area... which is a serious of Volcanic Dragon Lairs :D (Can you say DragonSlayer class?)
P.S. A lot of people anxious for the barber shop! Let me talk to Zhoom about how easy it is to hack something in so you can tweek your appearance until it is ready.
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