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Artix Entertainment, LLC

Type	Limited Liability Company
Founded	2002
Headquarters	Land O' Lakes, Florida
Key people	Adam Bohn, Project Lead
Industry	Computer and video games
Products	AdventureQuest DragonFable MechQuest AdventureQuest Worlds WarpForce
Website	http://www.artixentertainment.com

Artix Entertainment (LLC) (often shortened to AE), is a game development company that works primarily with browser-based RPGs.

[edit] History

Artix Entertainment was founded by Adam Bohn in 2003, while introducing Artix Entertainment's first game, AdventureQuest. The game was immensely popular: by June 2004, over one million accounts had been created,^[1] although Adam Bohn said he would have been happy to have at least 100 people play. He said the large amount of players has taken him by surprise. Following the success of AdventureQuest, Artix Entertainment developed a second game called DragonFable in 2006. In late 2007, a third game, MechQuest, a sci-fi-themed RPG was released. In May 2008, the company announced the development of their fourth major game: a fantasy MMORPG named AdventureQuest Worlds, which went live October 10, 2008. Over 60 million accounts have been created in the four games.^[2] Artix Entertainment's expansion to AdventureQuest, Warpforce, was released on July 17, 2009. On December 3, 2009, it was announced that Artix Entertainment had acquired the game Epic Duel from Epic Inventions, their fifth major game.^[3].

[edit] Publications

[edit] Role Playing Games

Currently, Artix Entertainment has six major RPGs.

[edit] AdventureQuest

AdventureQuest was Artix Entertainment's first project - a fantasy web-game set in the world of Lore. AdventureQuest uses basic graphics which steadily become more advanced as development progresses, and has a server cap that prevents players from accessing the server until there are enough open spaces. While free to play, players can upgrade their characters to become Guardians to receive more in-game benefits, as well as bypassing the server cap. AdventureQuest has two mods developed by Artix Entertainment: Zardwars and Archknight. Zardwars is a Guardian only modification, and the coding only extends to random battles primarily with lizardlike Zards and other old monsters. Zardwars was originally developed to test having multiple game databases. The game staff have announced no plans to extend the game thus far. The other modification, ArchKnight, is also Guardian only, and was the code base for the two other Artix Entertainment RPGs. Although originally intended as the next game, it has been discontinued, and was replaced by Dragonfable. ArchKnight's plot has recently been merged into "Dragonfable".

[edit] DragonFable

After AdventureQuest gained popularity, Artix Entertainment began development of another game, DragonFable, also set in the world of Lore, but five years before the beginning of AdventureQuest. DragonFable uses far more advanced graphics than AdventureQuest had at the time DragonFable was first created and also becomes more advanced over time, but does not have a server cap that prevents players from playing until there is an open place on the server. Like AdventureQuest, DragonFable players can upgrade their characters to become Dragon Amulet holders (also known as "DragonLords"), and receive special in-game benefits.

[edit] MechQuest

The third game, MechQuest, while also set in the world of Lore, is a mecha RPG, and is more scientific than magical. Mechquest's game system is based on Dragonfable's. Mechquest takes place 5,000 years before AdventureQuest. The limited edition MechQuest art book, revels that in the future a universe changing rip causes the world to "reset". and shift back to medieval times. It also changes all of the character's name. For example, Sys-Zero changes to Cysero. MechQuest currently has an upgrade system similar to Guardianship, known as Star Captain. "Mech Captains" can purchase many exclusive items like the Dragonguard Mecha and access additional quest strings.

[edit] AdventureQuest Worlds

The fourth game made by Artix Entertainment. A massively multiplayer game that plays right inside your web browser. Battle monsters in real-time combat alongside your friends. Unlike their previous single-player games, AdventureQuest Worlds is a fully-functioning MMORPG. Like its predecessors, it uses Flash animation, but a much simpler style, to keep the game running smoothly. The storyline incorporates elements of all three previous games, due to a fusing of the timelines. During the testing phases of AdventureQuest Worlds, the game was only available to players who had paid accounts in one or more of the other three games to play. The game allows players to chat with each other. The membership however is monthly, rather than one-time.

Verified members of other games may buy additional armor and weapons.

The main storyline deals with the side of good (led by King Alteon) and the side of evil (led by Gravelyn) forming a truce to deal with the threat of Drakath and the 13 Lords of Chaos.

[edit] WarpForce

Artix Entertainment's expansion to AdventureQuest, WarpForce, was released on July 17, 2009. It is a sequel to AdventureQuest, specifically relating to the five-year Devourer story arc that was recently completed in AdventureQuest. Many crossovers between the two games are planned, and it was built with the same game engine as AdventureQuest[3]. This game, like AdventureQuest, DragonFable, and MechQuest, will be a free game with a one-time fee for upgrading an account, called "WarpGuardian". As in their other games, WarpGuardians receive many advantages, including a powerful armor and blade (for Strikers) or rifle (for Gunners) which have specials including summoning the Reaper 2.0 and the WarpGuardian Dragon and WarpGuardian Dragon Jr., access to more missions, and a level cap at least 10 levels higher than other players.

Unlike Artix Entertainment's other games, WarpForce players have the option to play as a human, Drakel (a technologically advanced species featured in the series whose features are a blend of draconian and mammalian) or elf. Updates will be on a monthly basis (as opposed to weekly in the other games), but are intended to be much larger than weekly updates. Some non-playing characters from AdventureQuest will appear in WarpForce, with Celestra the Huntress and Garavin the Eternal playing a major role.

In the main storyline , where the hero on the planet of Lore (where AQ is set) meets Zorbak who explains what to do in the game, after which the hero fights a monster. The hero the meets up with Queen Prad'Mithia and the rest of the WarpForce crew and go to outer space to fight "The Network".

[edit] Epic Duel

On December 2, 2009, Artix Entertainment announced that they were taking on a new MMORPG, Epic Duel, which they acquired from Epic Inventions LLC, who was developing the game independently. This is now their sixth major RPG. Epic Duel's battle system is primarily based on player-vs-player gameplay (commonly abbreviated to "PvP"). The creators of Epic Duel-lead programmer "Titan" and lead artist "Nightwraith"-have joined Artix Entertainment, and continue to work on EpicDuel. A storyline has yet to be released.

[edit] EbilGames

In addition to their main projects, Artix Entertainment also develops content for a minigame site, EbilGames. There are nine minigames available on the site, as well as an animated feature called Ask Zorbak, where Zorbak, a major NPC from both AdventureQuest and DragonFable, answers questions that are emailed to him. Currently, there are twelve animated episodes of Ask Zorbak, with recent episodes instead being in The Zardian. Some of the minigames on this site include, 'Punt Twilly', 'Deady', 'Robina's Monster Hunt', and 'Ninja Shadow Assault'.

[edit] The Zardian

The Zardian is Artix Entertainment's e-zine. Released every few weeks, the writers consist of forum members and staff. The Zardian project was started in September 2007. The content of the webzine largely consists of articles relating to Artix Entertainment games, as well as other topics of interest. Since the 36th edition (released in early November, 2008), the Ask Zorbak feature formerly on EbilGames.com has been moved to The Zardian.

[edit] Videos

Artix Entertainment has also released two animated shorts. The first, Artix Vs. the Undead, was developed with the help of Milton Pool, an animator for Cartoon Network. Artix Vs. the Undead was made as a teaser for some of the 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.

[edit] Books

Artix Entertainment's first artbook, titled The Art of MechQuest, was released on Friday, July 10, 2009. The book features art and behind-the-scenes information for MechQuest, as well as a special promotion code to unlock a rare mech in MechQuest and a special armour in AdventureQuest Worlds . A DragonFable artbook is also in the works.

[edit] AExtras

AExtras is a new system of gaining the previously pay-to-get secondary currencies in Artix Entertainment's games. This system was first introduced in their MMORPG AdventureQuest Worlds and is now available in all four games. While this system is still in testing, it allows for players with financial difficulty the ability to gain free secondary currency 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. There is also the "Battle Bar" in which AdventureQuest WORLDS players can install to designated browsers (Firefox, Flock, and Internet Explorer) in which they can view how many friends online, their gold, AdventureCoins, and level while offline. With this they can also search, and every many so searches they earn some AdventureCoins for AdventureQuest WORLDS.

[edit] Core staff

Adam Bohn (Artix) is the project lead, heading up all four games, but spends much of his time working with AdventureQuest Worlds. Tony Deller (Galanoth) leads AdventureQuest development, Cysero is in charge of AdventureQuest Worlds and assists Artix by designing and testing items in AdventureQuest Worlds. Warlic used to head up MechQuest's development, but he handed off the position to Korin. In AdventureQuest, Falerin leads storyline development and Captain Rhubarb is the main programmer, along with Kalanyr who does a large amount of programming. In DragonFable, Geopetal and Alac are in charge of game content, Rolith is the programmer, and Ghost, Tomix, and Lim manage the art and cutscenes. Rolith also does programming for MechQuest, where Korin and J6 do much of the art. Beleen assist mostly with AdventureQuest Worlds. One of the original animators, Arklen, still contributes from time to time. A newcomer, Tomix has also contributed some of his work. Maegwyn assists with MechQuest's development. Programming for AdventureQuest Worlds is mostly done by Minimal and Zhoom. Outside game development, Safiria is the head of player service and the Artix Entertainment help pages. She is assisted by Nythera, Zazul and Reens. Circe is the head of forum administration.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Artix Entertainment