Tech Demo 5 - Mage & Stability Test on Adventure Quest 2D

Tech Demo #5 is complete.

Result = Success

AdventureQuest Worlds: Infinity ran a test for Mage class and game stability. 16th Upholders of AdventureQuest Worlds were invited to help Mage class and the insane number of server and game changes we have made since our last test. Please note, this is a stability test. It is light on content, although it is possible to get a sneak peek inside Bludrut keep if you a crazy enough to try to get the key.

WHAT: Tech Demo #5 - Mage & Stability
WHY: To test all of the changes to the game & server... which includes combat & the newly converted mage class.
WHEN
- Starts: Happening now
- Ends: Monday, October 7th @ 10:30pm
WHO: 16th & 15th Upholders of AQWorlds
WHERE: Download link will become available on the AQWorlds Account Webpage when the test starts.

PLAY BY PLAY

I will post everything that is happening as it happens right here. Refresh this page during the test to get the latest info!

9:00am - Zhoom & Artix meeting. (While lifting heavy objects)
10:00am - Final game is build being prepared. (I am a little scared of just how many commits were made since midnight last night.... we are still working on things down to the last second)
11:00am - Play by Play post goes live.
11:15am - Well, this is not good. A ton of things are suddenly broken this morning including dev commands and NPC buttons. O_O (This is how you can tell it is a release day, LOL.)
11:30am - Zhoom, Warlic, Tunik, Yorumi, Ghost, Reens, and the crew are in voice fixing the issues and preparing a build of the game.
11:45am - Dev commands restored. Starting run through of the maps to make sure everything is ready for the release.
12:25pm - Monsters scattered around the Town of Battleon... internal walk through in progress.
12:30pm - Warlic is attempting a quick fix for an issue that prevents some player's hairs from loading.
12:50pm - "This takes me back to AQW when it was brutally new" is what we are hearing so far from the internal testers... which is a good thing. Before we open today's test, you should hop on AQWorlds and play the mage class real quick to compare. We are just waiting on a several fixes and then will start uploading the build for today's test.
1:11pm - Warlic is testing the hair fix. We are now at "pencils down", there sill be no more changes until after we do the final build. Cross your fingers.
1:28pm - The Discord Server for this tech demo is now open on the Artix Games Discord Server. https://discord.gg/artixentertainment
1:44pm - Server and account page updated to grant both 16th and 15th upholders of AQWorlds access to this Tech Demo.
1:55pm - TECH DEMO 5 is now live! (Link for 16th and 15th upholders in the AQWorlds Account Webpage)

Tech Demo 5

2:00pm - 143 testers online. Initial feedback is super good. One player reports their NVIDEO overlay is saying they are running at 400 FPS. (Not sure if that is real, I thought we had capped the frame rate O_O)
2:05pm Yup... I am getting 310 FPS. Nice! A lot of players seeing this for the first time and surprised at how smooth the game runs. The new animations are getting a lot of love. (Good job Ghost, Nulgath, and Lodrian)
2:25pm Overall stability is surprisingly good. Top issues are hair loading problems (Need to get these game characters some Rogaine!) and edge case null errors.

Fighting

2:50pm So far, so good.

They found the key

3:09pm Bludrut Keep is not ready for release, but we decided to leave it in so testers could take a peek. The first quest is to get the key. We set the drop rate of that key brutally low. Less than 1% O_O. Some people did not believe it exists at all. (In their defense, we did not realize the quests were still staffed when it went live. We fixed it and restarted the server.) I found one player that made their way inside. #ScreenshotOrItDidNotHappen This is not the drop rate that it will be when the area goes live-- this is just for this tech demo since there was no other content released alongside of it. Do not feel that this is in any way mandatory. If you want an easier drop, just wait to do it in the next tech demo.
3:15pm Finally get to use the restroom. #BladderMeterFull
3:30pm Kudos to the team for their hard work on getting today's tech demo live. It is feels really good seeing so many players on, having fun. Especially the people trying this for the first time. Thank you to everyone helping us test today.
3:46pm How about we keep this Tech Demo for a few more hours? Then our friends at work on the other coast will have time to hop on and check it out. Any objections?
6:25pm Server Still online. Things running pretty smooth.... we will keep it up longer.
7:46pm Tech Demo still running. The team is keeping an eye on the server, but things are pretty calm.
We left the server up all night...
FRIDAY
11:30am Tech Demo is still running. We are going to leave it up longer.
Saturday
1:20pm Tech Demo is still online running. Because this was a stability test and there is not much to do, the online count is very low. But we are leaving it up this weekend for any 16th Upholders that want to log in and see it. We are keeping an eye on the server and I will pop in occasionally. Have fun!
Monday
11:30pm Tech Demo 6 complete and ended. Success!