Episode-2

Episode 2 is now only two weeks away, and we’ve still got some surprises! Previously, I’ve alluded to an unannounced gameplay feature that will be released at the same time as Episode 2, and I’m finally ready to announce it! One thing lacking from Forumwarz is item drops when you beat enemies. Sure, we send you junk the next day, but if you are just 50 flezz short on an item you want, it sucks to have to wait, especially if you have forum visits remaining. Also, there is relatively little to collect in our game, since there are a limited amount of stores and items you can buy from them. ...

So after many many months of work, we’re delighted to announce that Forumwarz Episode 2 will be released on October 15th. People who purchase Episode 2 will get: A hilarious new storyline 21 new forums to pwn Brand new stores with shiny new equipment and consumables Many conversations with new and existing NPCs New and exciting puzzles, quests Class-specific missions A long and detailed text adventure game from flamebate superstar BirdOfPrey Boss battles A cool new way to interact with NPCs A new avatar for the character of your choice All players will get: ...

To celebrate the launch of tomorrow’s Episode 2 Beta, I recorded a podcast this afternoon. Download the MP3 (9MB). Jalapeno had some technical difficulties so it’s just me talking. As a gift, I’ve included a newly recorded audio tubmail of Bruce bear in the beginning!

A lot of Episode 2 has come together over the last couple of weeks. I remember it being this way before we launched Episode 1. It seems to take forever to get the ball rolling, but near the end so much comes together so quickly! I included an illustration of a permanoob in our last update. It’s actually a tiny piece of our new homepage! For Episode 2 you’ll be greeted with a beautiful piece of artwork from the guys at Dooomcat. We liked their artwork so much that we had them re-design the character selection portraits too. I think our moderator, Mc Banhammer, had an orgasm when he saw the full artwork. ...

A few days ago, I checked in the last piece of code to Episode 2 that made it playable from beginning to end. It took a lot longer to stich together the storyline than Episode 1 did, I think because we tried to add variety to missions wherever possible. In Episode 1, the majority of the missions are “Pwn this forum.” While the gameplay still revolves around pwning forums in Episode 2, we tried to vary it up as much as possible. This meant a lot of extra programming, but I think the end product is worth it. ...

Note: If you just want to know the cost of Episode 2 and not our justification behind it, scroll to the bold part at the bottom. Nothing seems to divide our users more than the issue of cost. Last week I put up a poll asking how much you would pay for Episode 2, and as of right now it’s split almost 50/50 between those who say $0 and those who picked a cost. ...

Not everything in Episode 2 is related to new content. We’re using the development time to streamline some other things, such as the battle interface. Check out a new screenshot! The biggest difference is that we’ve re-claimed the top part of the screen. While in battle, normally the only links from the top menu you’d want are to Leave Battle or to Report a Bug. Instead of wasting inches of screen real estate on the logo and tabs, we’ve come up with a one-line version takes up a lot less room! The text “Emi” in the screenshot is the name of the test character I’m using. ...

It’s been a while since I wrote about Episode 2 stuff on the blog, even though I am spending the majority of my time these days working on it. One thing other RPGs have established is that grinding to level up your character feels a lot less like grinding when there is an objective just on the horizon. Right now, thanks to the community forums, there are more than enough forums to visit and pwn in Episode 1. However, besides levelling up your character or earning Flezz, there is little reason to visit them. ...

While writing Episode 2 Jalapeno purposely left a lot of it out of order. So when it came down to the stage of integrating it all together, I was left with a bunch of missions and forums that I could introduce to the player in any order I wanted. In Episode 1, we dabbled a bit with non-linearity, but we only had about 10 forums so we didn’t flesh it out very much. There are a couple of parts in the storyline where you can do things in the order you choose, but most of the time it’s a straight line. ...

I’ve been spending a lot of time lately on the introductory sequence to Episode 2. One thing that got a lot of positive attention with Forumwarz Episode 1 was the beginning, where Excre-Bot and Shallow Esophagus ease you into the universe and gameplay. We spent a lot of time designing that sequence and I think the effort paid off, as our number one complaint when we launched the episode was that players were left wanting more after their first hour or two of gameplay was up and their daily visits were gone. ...