AdventureQuest

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AdventureQuest is a free online single player RPG developed by Artix Entertainment in 2002. The system requirements for the game are a current web browser and version 7.0 or later of Macromedia Flash Player.

The game is free of cost, but a one time upgrade grants players the Guardian or X-Guardian status, allowing them to experience certain in-game benefits and features not available to other players.

Guardians are allowed to play ArchKnight and DragonFable, two other RPGs based loosely off AdventureQuest, as well as Zardwars, which is a test game created to test multiple databases. Guardians also have a separate server which is used for testing possible changes to the game and participating in special game events open only to Guardians. Guardians have the advantage of being able to play whenever they want on AdventureQuest servers, while there are a certain, variable, amount of slots for non-paying adventurers.

As well as random encounters and quest battling, there are also events called wars. These are server-wide events that call for a certain amount of monsters to be defeated before moving on to a boss battle. If a player defeats the boss he/she may be able to claim a rare war prize. In the past players did not actually have to slay the boss to get the rare prize. The matter was resolved by implementing a system where items are now purchased in a war chest, which can be accessed only after defeating the boss monster. Weapons are the most common war rewards. They often do more damage than weapons available normally or have other advantages, such as powerful specials.

Several new war methods are being held currently, including a manually updated percentage bar, and a quest-style war where there is no waiting bar for the boss. Both of these sell the rewards in a war chest, which can be accessed after defeating the final enemy. Some wars have had a limited time to be completed for the rewards to be made available. Now, the servers can handle 2 different wars at the same time. The amount of slots can peak at around 22000 users, and can have a low of 6,000 users. Currently, it seems that the manually updated percentage bar is preferred by the staff. There is also a type of war where players can fight for one side or another and whichever side fills their quota for enemies defeated fights a boss and collects the rewards from the chest, although all players can fight the boss.

In May 2006, two wars that are two-sided like the style mentioned above have taken place. They were the Necromancer vs. Paladin war and the Werewolf vs. Vampire war. The Necromancers won the Necromancer vs. Paladin war and the Werewolves won the Werewolf vs. Vampire war.

Contents

1 Event
2 DragonFable
3 Z-Tokens
4 Controversy and criticism

4.1 Guardian Only Login
4.2 Lack of in-game interaction
4.3 Monotony
4.4 Lack of features
4.5 X-Guardian Boost
4.6 Misc.

5 Character Classes
6 Myths
7 Clans
8 Characters
9 External links

Event

A mysterious portal had appeared in the middle of Battleon. Previously explored by Guardians and X-Guardians, it was discovered that someone from the far future was trying to change Battleon's past! The first and second parts of the war have been completed now, with the first war reward being a weather control device (generally received badly by players due to it being "weak" compared to previous rewards). The second war rewards are more weapons, like the BFG(Big Freaking Gun), the Overcharged BFG(Big Freaking Gun), Number 9, along with the previous rewards and a more powerful version of the Weather Remote. Currently characters are allowed to go out and fight in strike teams while the AQ team gets ready for Part 3.

Part 3 of the Time war is now over, and was the final chapter in this Carnax Saga. the rewards for this future war are acces to the shop where the aforementioned items are, along with a powerful new armour called the AssaultMecha.

DragonFable

This is the newest game by Artix Entertainment, entitled DragonFable. DragonFable is something of an interactive serial web comic, the storyline of which will consistently evolve over time. It has been stated that DragonFable will interact with AdventureQuest. In fact, Guardians may already access DragonFable. However, it recently came out of Beta on June 9th, 2006, and the DragonAmulet was made available for purchase. The Dragon Amulets unlock special areas, quests, powerful items and allow access to an expanding number of exclusive areas in the game. These areas contain incredibly rare and powerful weapons. As the game progresses, the amulet will unveil more secret benefits including special story side quests, the ability to speak in the language of Dragons, and your ultimate destiny of becoming a Dragon Lord. The full game is due to open to free players by October 2006.

Recent updates on the game's progress are available on the Design Notes page. It will be intertwined with the AdventureQuest storyline so that players will be able to play both games to get rewards. Even though the focus will be on DragonFable, AdventureQuest will still be updated. Unlike AdventureQuest, though, DragonFable will be a 'walk around' game, where players can walk their characters through towns and quests. However, the game has no character interaction besides NPCs. Guardians and X-Guardian have a special "Guardian Class" armor at their disposal for making the payment towards AQ. New, free players from "AdventureQuest" who want to become Guardians on "Dragonfable" have the option (along with Guardians) to buy the special "DragonAmulet," allowing players to go to special places and get rare and powerful equipment.

DragonFable will take place two to three years before AdventureQuest. All characters from AdventureQuest will appear in Dragonfable as well, with characters such as "Galanoth" and "Artix." The game will tell the origins of things such as the missing "Guardian Towers," how "Battleon" was founded, and how the "DragonSlayers" came to be. New characters will also be added, and the "Doom Weapons" and "DragonLord's" weapons will make their mark as some of the most powerful weapons in the game. However, the DragonLord's weapons will need the DragonAmulet to activate them.

Currently, characters may be created in only three classes: Warriors, Mages and Rogues. Charcters may also switch to an incomplete version of the Guardian class, and stay that way until they log out or change charcters. Additional classes, including the Dragon Lord Class, are due to be released in the future. Minor additions such as weapons and enemies are constantly being introduced, as well as new locations.

Z-Tokens

Z-Tokens are a kind of rare currency in AdventureQuest that enables players to buy various "elite" weapons, armors, shields and pets. Z-Tokens randomly appear, and can be gained by fighting monsters, or can be bought. It has been said by one of the staff that the amount of Z-Tokens you get depends on the level but the amount that is gained has no known formula(To the Public People) as of 15 July 2006. These strange coins appear like any other coin, but have a "z" shaped in the center. They are used to buy items in the Z-Token shop, which is located in front of the Inn. All types of weaponry are available in the shop. The stronger items, such as Summon Energy Dragon, Little Death, or Grim Vestige have higher price tags than normal. The prices range from 50 to 10000 Z-Tokens.

Controversy and criticism

Guardian Only Login

There is a limit on the number of free players which can play simultaneously. In the early days of AdventureQuest, the limit was fixed at 4000, but now the limit is at least 10000 , and the number of extra slots fluctuates according to time of day and server load.

Once the limit is reached, only Guardians may log in, until sufficient Adventurers log out to free up slots, or the limit increases. This can be sometimes difficult, as the limit will occasionally decrease by nearly half, and moments after the limit is increased, the limit is usually full. Some Adventurer Players use AQstats.com( http://www.aqstats.com )server stats to try to log in,others just keep pressing refresh when it says that the server is full.

New accounts get fifteen free logins to help them enjoy the game. During that time, they can bypass the limit. However, Guardians can bypass it anytime. It is a common occurence that free accounts are abandoned after those fifteen free logins.

AdventureQuest may eventually have advertising added to its game site to allow more free players to run the game simultaneously.

Lack of in-game interaction

AdventureQuest is essentially a single-player game, and provides few means of in-game interaction between players. Some commonly requested in-game interaction features include:

Battles between players. High level players may find the monsters too easy and wish to challenge other players. NOTE: The AQ staff has said several times that PvP will not be inplemented into the game, although an AI-based PvP system may be added to dragonfable after its release.
Item trading between players was once offered, but was taken away because staff had to do it manually, and there were too many requests.

Monotony

AdventureQuest is sometimes accused of being repetitive and boring. Almost all of the gameplay activities involve killing monsters to gain experience, while there is little else to do. The majority of the gameplay involves hitting an attack button, choosing from a limited amount of armor, weapons, spells, and pets, buying and selling those items, clicking dialogue boxes, and clicking on directions to move to a different area. Training up and leveling takes a long time, and often requires repeating tedious tasks. Many of which involve waiting short animation senquences to end before continuing on playing. However, many people enjoy it because they can multitask while playing, which is not hard to do with a variety of online games.

Lack of features

AdventureQuest is often accused of lacking basic features present in other RPGs. Artix Entertainment rebuts by reminding users that AdventureQuest has weekly updates and is ever-changing, although several other online RPG's possess those qualities as well, with most of AdventureQuest's updates consisting of only new, medium level weapons being added to the game. The reason no user interaction is possible is because it was originally made to be just a single player RPG, and it has progressed too far to consider rewriting to whole game to add the benifits of extra battle features, better side events, or multiplayer actions.

X-Guardian Boost

In the Guardian information page, it says that buying the Guardian status lets one's character receive all future Guardian updates and features. However, Guardians do have to pay for the X-Guardian boost. In X-Guardianship, there are only 4 things received that are different from normal Guardianship:

A separate Hall of Fame list showing only X-Guardian characters.
X-Guardians get 10% more experience from every battle, whereas normal Guardians get a normal amount of experience.
A minimum 3 health and mana potions at login, instead of 1 (Adventurer) or 2 (Guardian) - Any potions in a character's possession over these minimum levels will carry over.
A potion limit of 35, instead of 25(Adventurer) or 30 (Guardian)
A one-time addition of 10,000 gold

Misc.

There is an evident lack of Free To Play content being added. Many updates are Guardian only or are showcased only on the Guardian only server. In some cases, an entire update is devoted solely to advanced ways to pay for ingame content, such as X-Guardianship and Z-Tokens. With the AdventureQuest staff proclaiming on the homepage that about half the game is available only through Guardianship, this leads people to think of the free play more of a free demo, rather than a free web RPG. Combined with the extremely limited free player access the many links throughout the game asking one to become a Guardian and pay money, this is often taken as an elaborate way to convince players to pay, instead of allowing people to think of the game as a free web RPG.

Character Classes

There are a constantly growing amount of classes in AdventureQuest. Classes were first introduced after the Dragon War Saga, when the player slayed the legendary Fire Dragon Akriloth and was awarded with the Dragonslayer class, however this was in name only as it had no effect until the real class came out. Currently, Adventurers can only go up to Level 5 in class abilities, while Guardians and X-Guardians can go to the full 10.

Fighter

A basic warrior who practices swordplay - and then uses it. Their class abilities focus on pure melee attacks.

Rogue

A person that uses a mix of both dexterity and strength to quickly assail an opponent. Their class abilities commonly used ranged attacks.

This class has an "elite" armor type, the Blarney Rogue Outfit.

Mage

A "rookie" magician that is good with spells and staves. Their abilities lets them cast spells based on any element.

Knight

A strong fighter who fights to defend the king (though no one knows who the king is). To become a Knight, one must be at least a level 5 Fighter. Their abilities focus on both ranged and melee attacks, making them much more useful than Fighters.

Necromancer

A magician specializing in re-animating corpses and becoming an undead themselves (a lich). To become a Necromancer, one must be at least a level 5 Wizard. Their spells focus on summoning powerful Undead creatures to attack.

This class has an "elite" armor type, the Obsidian Cloak.

Ninja

A class that, like the "rogue" class, depends on speed, dexterity & multiple attacks to defeat an enemy. Surprisingly there are no class relations with other class levels. Their is no actual abilities that Ninjas focus on, as they have at least 1 melee, ranged, and magic attack available. They do, however, focus on Darkness powered Razor Fan weapons.

Paladin

A blessed knight on a journey to slay undead. To become a Paladin, one must be at least a level 5 Knight and a level 5 Mage. Their abilities focus on Melee, Magic, and Light. Their abilities gain immense power when facing Undead foes such as Zombies.

This class has an "elite" armor type, the Golden Holy Armor.

Dragon Slayer

A person who devotes their life to dragon-slaying. Their abilities are are weak on their own, as is their Armor, but they become truly deadly when facing any monster with "Dragon" in their name. Their true power is unleashed when wielding the Guardian Only weapon "Dragonblade".

This class has an "elite" armor type, the Elite Dragon Slayer.

There is a glitch with this class, characters that defeated Akriloth during the dragon war were awarded with the class of Dragon Slayer. 2 years later, when the true class was released, characters that took the class could skip the first quest (which was different from the rest) and take the normal kind to earn the first class level. This was caused by the characters having the class but no level. This was shown by the misson screen stating the player was a level 999 dragonslayer. This glitch ended when the character gained a level in ANY class. This glitch has likely been resolved as there are likely no character's that still have the Dragon Slayer class from the war that are in use and have trained in a class.

Dracomancer

A person who studies under High Khan Cyrus to learn and protect the ancient knowledge of dragons. They can transform into a dragon themselves. Their abilities focus on the power of dragons, such as turning their own hand into a fiery dragon talon.

Vampire Slayer

A person who slays vampires and werewolves. Their abilities are only useful when fight Vampires, the Undead, or Werewolfs. Their weapons gain power when wielded against a certain foe.

This class has an "elite" armor type, the NightHunter Vampire Slayer.

Wizard

An advanced mage, who is extremely good with spells and magic. To become a Wizard, one must be at least a level 5 mage. Their abilities are completely magical, and are far more deadly with high Intellect.

This class has many different types/colors of armor but they all are the same statwise.

Sub-Race

While not a true class, it is counted as one for compliation purposes. One can choose to become either a Werewolf or a Vampire. They both have separate weapons to use, and their armors have special powers. Guardians can also be a Werepyre, a combination of the two, which harnesses the power of both Werewolves and Vampires, but at the cost of not having weapons, and being a reject from werewolves, vampires, and humans. However, though werepyres are "rejects," nothing changes, except they can enter neither the Werewolf Lair nor the Vampire Castle. They are also given a stronger armor than Werewolves or Vampires.

Misc.

All the classes that are listed having "elite" armors simply have two different types: a cheaper, lower level one and a more expensive, sometimes better, high level armor.

Myths

Over the history of Adventure Quest, some myths have appeared that have spawned dozens of rumors. These are all, however, just rumors and untrue.

During the Great Fire War, there were rumors that the Ice Katana would cost over 1 million gold and many players became extremely rich trying to save up for it.

In the final parts of the Great Fire War, a myth circulated that if one saved the Fire Orb, instead of using it to fight the final boss, the player would be able to keep it for use as a shield.

After Demento's death, rumors abounded to the extent that attending his funeral would let the player keep his armor.

It is rumored the staff-only shop is located in plain view behind the door with the number 42, though staff and the more intelligent players know that the door is just a reference to the book Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. It is not surprising, seeing as the staff are big fans of the book. (Note: Certain tales of this myth involve the 42 door being opened at exactly 3:00 and 10 seconds every day, and the weapons and equipment from the Golden set.)

A small rumor began when the Carnax wars were re-released, that beating the fully powered Carnax would allow them to buy the Carnax Fighter and the Eye of Carnax. This rumor ended when the fully powered Carnax was defeated by a small group of people, and the rewards were still the same.

There is a rumor when you get 120 or 125 hourglasses for Death, you may buy any Rare that has been in the game from Reapers Hideout.

A rumor about the Archmage Warlic is actually the evil Shadowmaster has been flying around the forums since part 10 of the Epic Quest was released. this is the ONLY one of these rumors which may ever become true, although a statement in this quest mentions that we (the player) may be the shadowmaster...

Clans

AdventureQuest players can now join three different clans, Aerodu (wind), Nautica (water), and Geoto (earth). Once you have joined one, you cannot leave and join another clan until the event is over.

There are goods and bads in all clans:

Aerodu: High Attack, but low defence

Nautica: High Defence, but low attack

Geoto: Moderate Defence and Attack

There is now a war between the Aerodu and the Geoto. Nautica voted no.

Characters

The game features character customization. To edit your character's face, you must visit Warlic's Magic Shop and use the mirror. You can customize hair styles, hair color, skin color, and eye color. As a guardian you are also allowed to customize the color of your armor, and choose if you want a cape. However, this must be done with Valencia, the rare item collector. You can also change your character's name in the Hourglass Quest.

External links

[Adventure Quest] - Main site for Adventure Quest.

[Adventure Quest Forums] - Main forums for AdventureQuest.

[DragonFable] - Flash game by Artix Entertainment that mirrors Adveture Quest's plot.

[Minigames] - Minigames branched from Adventure Quest themes.

[UltimateAQ] - A nonaffilated, but helpful, site all about AdventureQuest.

[AQstats] - A nonaffilated site for information about characters in Adventure Quest.

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