Artix Entertainment

Artix Entertainment, LLC

Type	Limited Liability Company
Industry	Computer and video games
Founded	2001
Headquarters	Land O' Lakes, Florida
Key people	Adam Bohn, Project Lead
Products	AdventureQuest, DragonFable, MechQuest, AdventureQuest Worlds, WarpForce, EpicDuel, ArchKnight
Website	http://www.artixentertainment.com

Artix Entertainment, LLC. (often shortened to AE) is a game development company that works primarily with browser-based role-playing games. As of September 2010, the company has over 110 million users in their games.^[1]

History

Artix Entertainment, LLC was founded by Adam Bohn (better known to players as Artix von Krieger) in 2002. The company develops four single-player games (AdventureQuest, DragonFable, MechQuest and WarpForce) and four MMORPGs (HeroSmash, EpicDuel, AdventureQuest Worlds, and Hero Smash). Including an interactive sword-slashing game ( Blade Haven ). They currently employ 48 workers and over 60 volunteers. Worldwide, there are over 110 million registered players in all AE games.^[2]

Games

AdventureQuest

Main article: AdventureQuest

AdventureQuest was Artix Entertainment's first project. The game is set in the fictional world of "Lore", a tongue-in-cheek reference to the original game name, Lands of Rising Evil. While it is free to play, players may upgrade their characters to become Guardians in order to receive in-game benefits. As of July 14, 2010, the server cap was removed.

DragonFable

Main article: DragonFable

After AdventureQuest gained popularity, Artix Entertainment began to develop DragonFable, set in the same universe. Unlike AdventureQuest which featured a 2D background with the player clicking the edges of the screen or doors to move around, DragonFable has a 2.5D movement system. Unlike AdventureQuest, it does not have a server cap. Though it also has a daily exp. and gold cap, similar to other AE games, to reduce the exp. abuse in the game (commonly known as "Error Saving Exp" code 500.83).

MechQuest

The third game, MechQuest is a science fiction RPG set in the same universe as the previous two games. MechQuest's game system is a fusion between AdventureQuests' and DragonFable's, it is the prequel to AdventureQuest and DragonFable set 5,000 years before the former and 4,995 years before the latter. Players can control their own giant robot (called Mecha in the game) to fight evil robots invading the city.

Nic Stransky complimented the graphics and simplicity of the game, but wrote that melee could feel inconsistent and that players may wish for more strategy.^[3]

AdventureQuest Worlds

Main article: AdventureQuest Worlds

AdventureQuest Worlds is the 4th game made by Artix Entertainment and a browser MMORPG. It is also the first multiplayer MMORPG created by the company. The game was released on October 10, 2008. Like its predecessors, it uses 2D-3D animation, although in a much simpler style to account for the increased server load and incorporates elements of all three previous games in its story. Unlike its predecessors, however, membership upgrades are not a one-time payment, but are instead purchased only for a certain number of months.

Play is similar to many MMORPGs, with players being able to chat and fight both in-game monsters and other players, in limited areas. Characters can be customized in appearance and gear, and character classes are available to train in game. Combat is not turn-based as in Artix Entertainment's other RPGs, but is real-time and allows for group battles. Special events take place often, with many holidays being celebrated in-game. Other special events include wars, in which players collaborate to defeat enough "waves" of monsters to win the war over several days, and live events with guest stars like Voltaire, One-Eyed Doll, George Lowe, Paul and Storm, Jonathan Coulton, the cast of Ctrl+Alt+Del, Ayi Jihu, Michael Sinterniklaas as the voice of Deady, and ArcAttack

WarpForce

Artix Entertainment's expansion to AdventureQuest, WarpForce, was released on July 17, 2009. It is a sequel to AdventureQuest, specifically relating to the recently-completed five-year Devourer story arc in AdventureQuest, and many crossovers between the two are planned. It was built with the same game engine as AdventureQuest and, like AdventureQuest and Artix Entertainment's other single-player RPGs, is free to play with an optional one-time fee. Updates are on a monthly basis, but are intended to be much larger than weekly updates.

WarpForce was negatively received by IGN's Jeff Haynes, who criticized the lack of free-to-play content and gave it a 4/10 overall, but did note that the game might eventually have enough content to justify its price.^[4]

EpicDuel

On December 2, 2009, Artix Entertainment announced that they were taking on a new MMORPG, EpicDuel, which they acquired from Epic Inventions LLC, who were developing the game independently. This is now their sixth major RPG. EpicDuel's battle system is primarily based on player versus player gameplay.

HeroSmash

HeroSmash is a superhero-themed MMORPG that has entered beta testing, based on AdventureQuest Worlds. Beta stage is playable to all players in the game that possesses a Master account. The game was originally going to be called SuperHeroQuest, but "SuperHero" was a trademark from DC Comics and Marvel Comics which stopped Artix Entertainment from using the name they wanted.^[5]

Master account minigames

In early 2010, the BattleOn Portal was created in hopes of providing "One Login to Rule Them All!" where players could connect all of their game accounts to one master account. Work had then begun on creating a system where newly-created mini-games could be created, and progress could be saved on the master account.

The first of these minigames is Bladehaven. The beta testing for Bladehaven began on Thursday, October 14, 2010, where only paying customers of Artix Entertainment's other games were allowed to participate.^[6] On Friday, November 5, 2010, Bladehaven was completed and released to the public. Guests are allowed to play, but they would encounter advertisements and the inability to gain Master Account Experience for achievements, unless they registered a Master Account.

The second of these minigames is Put The Record On (commonly abbreviated as PTRO). AdventureQuest Worlds moderator and animator Xyo had been developing PTRO since early 2011, but there were no plans to integrate it with Artix Entertainment at all. But when Xyo introduced his game to the public in a demo testing stage, Artix was blown away and offered to connect PTRO to the Master Account system. Xyo accepted.^[7] PTRO is expected to enter alpha testing at the end of September 2011. The full release of the game is not known at this time.

Other games

A test Guardian-only game known as ZardWars was developed in order to test how the servers would react to more than one database.

Another Guardian-only game called ArchKnight was made, though it was replaced by DragonFable before the game could be sufficiently developed, with the promise that ArchKnight would be worked into the new game. On 19 February 2010, the ArchKnight game and quest chain was continued and finished in DragonFable, and was made only accessible to those with upgrades in AdventureQuest and DragonFable.^[8]

In addition to their main projects, Artix Entertainment used to develop content for a minigame site, EbilGames. There are nine minigames available on the site.

Videos

Artix Entertainment has also released two animated shorts. The first, Artix Vs. the Undead, was made as a teaser for the DoomWood storyline in DragonFable. The second short, Death from Above, was released as a sneak peek to the MechQuest storyline and was developed by J6 of the Artix Entertainment staff, and can be viewed in the game MechQuest.

Books

Artix Entertainment's first artbook, titled The Art of MechQuest, was released on Friday, July 10, 2009. The book features artwork based on MechQuest characters, as well as a special promotion code to unlock a rare mech in MechQuest and a special armor in AdventureQuest Worlds. A DragonFable artbook is also in the works.^{[citation needed]}

In November 2010, Artix Entertainment published its first novel, The Dragon's Secret, written by AdventureQuest player Lyra Trice Solis.^[9] A promotional code accompanied the novel which unlocks exclusive items in all of AE's games.

Payment

Payment in AE games consists mostly of both a one-time payment (or subscription, in the case of AdventureQuest Worlds and HeroSmash) to unlock extra content. Most games also have "secondary currencies" (microtransactions) which are gained through offers or from spending real world money. These currencies can be used to buy in-game items, (in AdventureQuest=" Z-Tokens", DragonFable "Dragon Coins", AdventureQuest Worlds "Adventure Coins", and WarpForce also uses Z-Tokens), (in MechQuestNova Gems and EpicDuel Viridium), or fame (in HeroSmash).

AExtras

AExtras is a system of gaining the previously payment-based secondary currencies in Artix Entertainment's games. This system was first introduced in their MMORPG AdventureQuest Worlds, and it soon became available in all four games, as well as their Master Account System (BattleOn Games!). However, it was discontinued by the winter of 2010 in all but the Master Account System (and AdventureQuest Worlds), encouraging users to connect their accounts to it and earn their rewards using that method. It allows for players with financial difficulty the ability to gain free secondary currency or membership provided that they complete the offers of the third-party sites. Using this system, players are given a list of offers at which they at their discretion can complete to get the secondary currencies. The feature has been criticised for allowing offers from companies who sell users' email addresses to third parties.^{[citation needed]}

References

1. ^ "Artix Entertainment Surpasses The 110 Million User Milestone". IGN. 1 September 2010. http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/111/1117429p1.html. Retrieved 28 December 2010. 
2. ^ AE forums staff list
3. ^ Nic Stransky (13 March 2008). "MechQuest Live View". RPG Vault. IGN. http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/859/859005p1.html. Retrieved 28 December 2010. 
4. ^ Jeff Haynes (24 August 2009). "WarpForce Review". IGN. http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/100/1007364p1.html. Retrieved 27 December 2010. 
5. ^ "Artix Apologizes to Blizzard". IGN. 7 December 2010. http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/113/1138840p1.html. Retrieved 9 December 2010. 
6. ^ "AQW Design Notes: Chaos Beast / Mogloween". AQW. 11 October 2010. http://www.aq.com/gamedesignnotes/mogloween-re-run-325. Retrieved 25 June 2011. 
7. ^ "Awesome News!!!". 31 May 2011. http://www.puttherecordon.com/apps/blog/show/7242414-awesome-news-. Retrieved 25 June 2011. 
8. ^ "Artix's RPG ArchKnight Epic Finale on Friday; Game Finishes Inside Another Game". IGN. 17 February 2010. http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/106/1069908p1.html. Retrieved 28 December 2010. 
9. ^ "Artix Entertainment Announces First Full-Length Novel: The Dragon's Secret". IGN. 18 November 2010. http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/113/1135436p1.html. Retrieved 28 December 2010. 

External links

• Artix Entertainment
• AE portal site for the Master Account System
• Ebilgames, AE's minigame website