I was so excited to tell you about the features coming in AdventureQuest 3D 1.4.1 but... it is already live!
Just released in 1.4.1! What is new?
Here is a summary of everything that is now live, but if you want to know more here is a link to the official Patch Notes.
NPC & Monster Names You will now see names above... well, everything! You can toggle them off in the options menu if you are going for some awesome screenshots.
Red Names = Agressive
Orange Names = Neutral (possibly orange juice)
Green Names = Friendly (Will help you fight baddies... but can be killeD)
Blue Names = I DO NOT LIKE THIS SHADE OF BLUE! (We should use a darker blue) ...but it really means they are passive and cannot be attacked and will not attack monsters
Player Name Colors
White - A real other player (not an NPC)
Teal - A white hat
Blue - A Tester
Green - Moderator
Gold - Developer/Admin (While I write this it just dawns on me that this is backwards from AQWorlds)
Bug Fixes
Lidra's dialogue has now been fixed! You will now be able to view the Wayker's Root dialogue.
The teleporter crystal to Battleon in the intro should now be working again.
Travel Forms will no longer get stuck. Trying to cast a spell while in a Travel Form will now immediately cancel the Travel Form without attempting to cast the spell.
Added an option in the Settings menu to adjust the camera shakes.
/clear will now clear your chat log.
Chests will no longer be a blue flame on iOS devices!
Fixed an issue with clickies in the Guardian Tower.
Fixed an issue with Sally and Grampy's cutscene not playing on first login.
If trying to send a whisper to a player who has whispers blocked, it will now properly return their name, instead of your own.
Coming next in 1.4.x (The X makes it super awesome sounding)
You know... these highly technical names are too techy in my opinon. I think we should give each release a code name. Sort of like how Android phones do! So we can call them like "Snugglepants release", or "BugDoomDeathDrop", " or maybe "Patchy Patch of Pumpkin Patches". Let me know in the comment section what we should code name the next one.
XP Curve Update (Reducing grindyness)
Major fix for Ashfall Part 2 (There is a bug in our cinema director cutscenes... apparently it is not getting along with it's room mate, Facebook. So we are painting a giant white stripe down the center of their code base and telling them each to stay on their sides.)
User Interface Improvements!
New character select screen
Updating all the menus with the new style
Adding some transparency to menus so you can see through them (So you can see when you are getting attacked
Massive Bug Fixes
Item & Buff bugs -- including icons dissapearing on logout
Targeting bugs including not being able to target buffs/debuffs
Adding error messages when you do not have enough to make a shop purchase
Galanoth NPC not letting you turn in "Find Galanoth" or "Report to Galanoth"
Combat text fixes (no more random heal text)
Walking Dead Bug (not to be confused with the insect only version of the popular AMC series.)
That Bank exploit... >_> I do not recommend doing this one.
Adding MapID chacks for quest objectives
Fixing the bug that causes players who have not recently cleared their cache (hint: clear your cache from the main options if you are getting this bug) from seeming like they are downloading all the assets every time.
Mobile performance profiling & Apple wisp crash fix
Environmental Damage "So Ashfall can make you into an ash when you fall!" (TM)
Upcoming Content
Ashfall Part 2 The Ashfall Saga continues and you will come face to face with the Drake, Steelfang, and.... *secrets* have your first encounter with DragonLord Talyn!
Kickstarter Map Kickstarter backers (including custom item designers) will be able to get all of their rewards from this single place. All players will be able to goto and look around this map-- and for really good reason.
Upcoming Features
The Big Stat Rebalance This topic deserves its own design notes. But the general idea is we are going to change the the stats, the stat curve, and adjust all items in the game-- in your favor. Like I said, this is a biiiig topic that needs its own post. But a gross oversimplification would be that order to make lots of unique classes that are effective and fun to switch between, we need to do this important pass over our stats. Things like... when you launch a Fireball at an idle monster, you will not longer miss. Better to do this now, long before we go live on Friday the 13th, October 2017-- then to do it after!
Class Improvements We will update the four existing classes first (Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Guardian) making them more different, and a lot more fun to play. Then we will immediate implement high priority classes including (Dragonslayer, Paladin, Necromancer, Ninja, Alpha Pirate, and Shaman)
Character Face Improvements The character faces and models are undergoing pass after pass of revisions until we get a really asthetically pleasing and expressive new set of Character faces. The feedback for the newest version of the female face has been really positive... but we are going to do a few more passes on it to make sure it is the perfect fit of confidence, intensity, and beauty for our game world. Also we want to be able to have your characters expression change when in and out of combat-- ideally when they are performing specific moves.
Character Customization This is one of the easy ones that is just waiting for the high priority bugs to be fixed first. Being able to change your characters eye color, skin color, default expression, default idle pose, and being able to put your weapon on your back when out of combat. Xero & Circa have been designing a large number of new hair styles that you will be able to choose from. Also, we still have all of those emotes that are ready but not accessible in game.. yet.
Nameplates & Titles Along with the UI improvements we also have nameplates and titles coming. Titles come from your achievements-- you will be able to select a default title to display. Other players can see it when they look at the new character inspect panel that we are creating.
New Battleon This one pretty much explains itself. One player said we should not show any sneak peaks of it... not sure I can resist, but hmmmm.
Update to Intro, GreenGuard, and all early content! Starting this week we will be fixing and improving all of the early content with our new tools (like waypoints, dialogs, cutscenes, challenges, secrets, and bonus fun stuff). We really hit stride with Ashfall and the entire game needs to be brought up to its level of fun. Now that we have cosmetic items and the ability to add scaling dungeons, we can make some reasons for higher level players to go back and visit those areas too :D
More Features I am probably missing a few things a on the high priority list above. Oishii/Fisn is sitting here with me and we are going over our project board at the things actively getting massive action. A few other items on the radar (but not until the above have been complete) include PvP, Pets, Guilds, some type of Trade (I would not speculate on that one for the time being-- we are not sure exactly how or what we will allow to be traded. Any existing items in the game will likely be "soul bound" to prevent hoarding while we iron out the bugs.) Finally there will be a massive push on content. We already know what the next 5 major areas will be-- well, OK, we know two of them for sure. In addtion to those, I would like to see a 3D version of Darkovia with the Werewolves vs Vampires and Dage wants to recreate the Carnax saga from the original AdventureQuest. This is in addition to the daily dungeons we have scheduled... which really should be called adventures. I like the term adventure because they can happen inside, outside, or well, anywhere. Increasing the speed at which we can create content has been one of our top focuses. With our cloud render farm and new tools, it is my hope that you see AdventureQuest 3D achieve a weekly content release schedule (Or even just getting close to a weekly release schedule would be awesome).
Thank you and see you in game! Oh! Check back tomorrow as we talk about... far less technical, and far more embarrassing things. Battle on!
QUESTION: Which feature or thing are you looking forward to most?
