Artix Entertainment - A decaying mismanaged relic of Flash games

[Coffee Druid]

I was obsessed with AdventureQuest for a short period of time in elementary and middle school. I guess it was the appeal of a free rpg game I could play online. To young me there was so many places to go, weapons, pets and other items to get, etc. There were all kinds of questlines and "wacky" characters. Not to mention the monsters. It was actually charming to see the old artwork next to newer stuff. Sure, you had to buy the premium membership (one time though) to get everything and my parents wouldn't do it. But I have fond memories of it. I went back years later to try it out and maybe it's because I had better games to play now, or they added TOO much crap, but it wasn't the same. It's been awhile since then so I don't know how much more has changed.

I played Dragonfable briefly but don't remember too much, and haven't touched the other games. That Herosmash game is new to me but if the character creation is anything to go buy the art looks like crap.

 

[IceGray]

While Herosmash's character art being not quite up to snuff is a common sentiment, I think it's still pretty shitty of AE to drive away the fanbase it did get. Even if bad business decisions ended up being the main factor, doesn't it sound like common sense not to sabotage every player attempt to drum up interest in the game?

AE claimed they would only accept HS as a legitimate game if it boomed in popularity, but won't link it on the main page, have said they won't add it to launcher, and now sabotaged new character creation entirely. Might as well ask a pig to fly before they do something that doesn't shoot themselves in the foot.

 

[WinchesterPremium]

While Herosmash's character art being not quite up to snuff is a common sentiment, I think it's still pretty shitty of AE to drive away the fanbase it did get. Even if bad business decisions ended up being the main factor, doesn't it sound like common sense not to sabotage every player attempt to drum up interest in the game?

AE claimed they would only accept HS as a legitimate game if it boomed in popularity, but won't link it on the main page, have said they won't add it to launcher, and now sabotaged new character creation entirely. Might as well ask a pig to fly before they do something that doesn't shoot themselves in the foot.

They didn't even support their popular games, how would you expect them to support a game not even they liked?

There will always be a special place in my heart for the free-flash game era. No matter how much they try to fight it, AE will always be a relic of that era.

 

[Ad Lib Moaning]

Add another to the count that I liked the AE games when I was a kid. I still go back to AQ sometimes to check out the new writer Cryax(?), since the last one (Falerin) died recently of a heart attack.
Falerin got a permanent memorial, item, and a statue in-game.
But afterwards, I noticed the game changed to remove some of his dark writing in places, mentions of genocide (and the Hero indirectly causing some), some animations of suicide (Drakel Destroyer used to bash its head to a pulp in its defeat animation, but now, its mace just falls on its foot), a storyline that focused on death and depression got removed ('Looking for Silence' is the storylet's name or something), and Aria's, the manager of the pet shop, passing comment of 'looking for her Grandma' got removed (it lead to something like "...but I was going to teach you something" if you refuse.)

I did liked HS, shame it got swept under the rug. Never got far on DF, since kid me thought you have the pay for the dragon amulet to process through to remove the pop-up and thought the beginning was a 'demo' for that. And World is... World. Fetch quests for clothes. Used to be lore-orientated but fell to gacha. And most items and maps requires membership! And said membership is not even permanent like the other games!

Outside of that, I did met the company on some cons I went to, but I never interacted with them. I don't know why- I would be happy of meeting the creators of any games I liked, but something just tells me to avoid them every time. Guess this thread explained so.

Even so, I don't think they are a cow. They're just the usual failing company but didn't shit the bed that hard (yet).

 

[WinchesterPremium]

But afterwards, I noticed the game changed to remove some of his dark writing in places, mentions of genocide (and the Hero indirectly causing some), some animations of suicide (Drakel Destroyer used to bash its head to a pulp in its defeat animation, but now, its mace just falls on its foot), a storyline that focused on death and depression got removed ('Looking for Silence' is the storylet's name or something), and Aria's, the manager of the pet shop, passing comment of 'looking for her Grandma' got removed (it lead to something like "...but I was going to teach you something" if you refuse.)

I think most of those changes happened before his death. Like the Drakel change happened when they got an art upgrade, long before he died, as part of AE realizing that the main appeal for flash games was young kids and not college students.

 

[IceGray]

They cleaned up the dark themes, but with their neglect of HS they indirectly set the moral for that game to be "villains won, heroes are worthless."

The game was abandoned right as an alien supervillain threatened to freeze time permanently so that the other faction of aliens could never bring about a bad future.

If I wanted a game where heroes are incompetent failures I'd play a Fromsoft game again.

 

[RJ MacReady]

I remember playing DragonFable an eternity ago and getting away with hacking it for massively increased XP gain since it was laughably slow, they didn't care and I'm guessing had no way to stop it. I'm pretty sure I had one of the highest levelled toons at the time. I also played MQ but don't remember a ton besides the surgery minigame and pizza delivery side quest.

Mobile gaming seems to be where most of the flash developers of yesteryear ended up and it feels like most of them weren't successful. I can't imagine Artix is doing any better than just hanging on.

 

[Red Sun]

I think most of those changes happened before his death. Like the Drakel change happened when they got an art upgrade, long before he died, as part of AE realizing that the main appeal for flash games was young kids and not college students.

Yeah, definitely. I explicitly remember the update on the drakel with the mace, but it's news to me that falerin is fucking dead, that's wack.

I remember playing DragonFable an eternity ago and getting away with hacking it for massively increased XP gain since it was laughably slow, they didn't care and I'm guessing had no way to stop it. I'm pretty sure I had one of the highest levelled toons at the time. I also played MQ but don't remember a ton besides the surgery minigame and pizza delivery side quest.

If you played the pre-release of mechquest, those two mini games were the "endgame content", which is probably why they're all you remember.

And you're not fuckin kidding about the slow EXP in dragonfable, I played consistently from the day it released for a few years and ended up in the mid-30's. If my child self met yours, I would have been forced to fight you to the death for your crimes.

 

[Markorian]

Every once in a while I try to check in on the Dragonfable story, because while I played AQ a LOT, DF was my absolute jam. From what I can tell, the storytelling in chapter 3 is the best of any of their games, which is a pretty massive catalog, but it's held back by being stuck to DF, a fun but extremely outdated and limited rpg engine. And yeah, exp in DF was wack as fuck, I played almost religiously every day after class, and I'm pretty sure I was only around 40ish when I quit.

 

[Drakonnan]

Artix Entertainment will die with flash this new years.

 

[Cheetahman]

with their neglect of HS they indirectly set the moral for that game to be "villains won, heroes are worthless."

This was already true the moment the AQW story started, because your alignment choices were an old man with chaos AIDS or the canonically virginal, teenaged daughter of one of the most-wanked characters in the multiverse, further compounded by Milt, Dage, and most of the artists since 2008 being edgy bois.
Although to be fair, if you couldn't make this choice as a 14-year old kid, you might have been gay.

 

[Slimy Time]

Herosmash came out 10 years ago? I remember that being new when I first attempted (and promptly dropped it). Played the other 3 main flash games when they came out and it was "big" as a kid. I think I got my AQ character to something like Level 50 or something like that. Never paid money either, parents wouldn't allow it. I'm honestly amazed it still exists.

 

[ChucklesTheJester]

No joke AQ is what got me into listening to Voltaire.

 

[Markorian]

No joke AQ is what got me into listening to Voltaire.

Same

Spoiler

I still listen to the AQW version of Day of the Dead occasionally

 

[IceGray]

Oh, I do like some of Voltaire's early music myself. Not particularly a fan of how AE used to (still does) shill solely hard rock or heavy metal concerts though.

That reminds me, they once booked Ayi Jihu for a concert and went through with the event before it came out she was a complete fraud about her supposed fame.

 

[c-no]

Seeing this thread, it gives me a trip back to memory lane in 2006 when AQ would have a server limit on the number of players and Dragonfable being a new game they were making. They were a fun alternative to whatever was on Newgrounds even though AQ and DF were pretty lacking any depth beyond "get a weapon that your enemy is weak to." Wouldn't mind playing either one of them or Mechquest just for some nostalgia and a final look of then and now. All that said, with how the company itself is doing, I won't be surprised if they were to fold within a few years unless they actually make something else besides the 3D AQ game they made.

 

[Cheetahman]

unless Artix was using his games to lure in children, I don't much see the value of this thread.

I don't believe Artix himself has any child-sized skeletons in the closet, but some of the forum jannies were definitely groomers.

https://twitter.com/search?q=occavatra&src=typed_query&f=live

Digital Weaponsmith ‏ @Valoroth
O_o What happened @Occavatra?

http://archive.md/M8hDt

Holy Crusader チーズ‏ @cheese_unicorn_
Replying to @Valoroth @Occavatra

Of you are wondering who he got done for grooming it was me, you can find the tweet on my profile. But don't give him benefit of the doubt, what he did to me was not right, I will be releasing some of the end when I get back home

6:36 AM - 8 Sep 2018

http://archive.md/AjCqN

https://twitter.com/cheese_unicorn_/status/1037747362125500418/photo/1 http://archive.md/zMSmv



Apparently people harassed the kid who exposed this. To their credit, AE seemed to have called the cops on Occavatra (power word Westley Rush(?) may have gone DFE(?)).

Mentioned a-log Geo has a lot to say about his grievances, almost all of which are pretend deep dives into irrelevant bullshit. Of one of the most actually significant instances, this smug retard can only say "I don't want to talk about it" before going into theatrics about being a reddit hero.

*the second one mentioned, Gjappy, is the one doing damage control for Occavatra here: http://archive.md/JN24y

In a lighter topic, no capes.

 

[Markorian]

I don't believe Artix himself has any child-sized skeletons in the closet, but some of the forum jannies were definitely groomers.

https://twitter.com/search?q=occavatra&src=typed_query&f=live

http://archive.md/M8hDt

http://archive.md/AjCqN

https://twitter.com/cheese_unicorn_/status/1037747362125500418/photo/1 http://archive.md/zMSmv
View attachment 1460586
View attachment 1460585

Apparently people harassed the kid who exposed this. To their credit, AE seemed to have called the cops on Occavatra (power word Westley Rush(?) may have gone DFE(?)).

Mentioned a-log Geo has a lot to say about his grievances, almost all of which are pretend deep dives into irrelevant bullshit. Of one of the most actually significant instances, this smug retard can only say "I don't want to talk about it" before going into theatrics about being a reddit hero.
View attachment 1460591
*the second one mentioned, Gjappy, is the one doing damage control for Occavatra here: http://archive.md/JN24y

In a lighter topic, no capes.

Yeah, it's a bit of a sad reality that in any sort of forums of something marketed towards kids and teens, you're going to end up with groomers. From what I've seen, they were always generally on top of things and more than willing to turn someone over to the police if necessary.
Adam/Artix himself always struck me as genuine, but at the same time overconfident. He had a string of lucky breaks, between the original AQ, DF, and while MQ wasn't on the same level of success, it certainly wasn't dead on arrival, and the big one being AQW, coming out during the peak of runescape's decline. I think he began to lose sight of how lucky he was, making the right game at the right time, and started attributing all of the successes to pure talent and nothing else, and became dissatisfied if something didn't immediately print money, regardless of how much effort and resources were put into it.
Unfortunately, as the trends they lucked into started to dry up, they were slow to adapt and didn't get any of the same lucky breaks. I'll admit, when they finally put DF out to pasture, I'll be sad, even though I haven't actually played in years. If they hadn't completely botched the launch of Oversoul, I think this thread would have an entirely different tone to it, and probably wouldn't have been made, as they might have been able to beat hearthstone to the punch and get themselves early in the door of another major trend before it got cluttered.

 

[IceGray]

I think we can more or less agree we all have fuzzy warm memories of AE games, and a bit of worry about where it's heading.

 

[Drakonnan]

I am so happy that Artix Entertainment bullshit is finally coming to roost. Starting next year AE will be screwed. Why you ask? Because Adobe Flash will be unusable this New Year. Check it out! As quoted:
"According to Adobe, once Flash Player has reached its EOL date, the company will not only stop providing updates for this software, but the company also plans to remove all download links of Flash Player from the company’s website. This step will prevent people from installing Flash Player and continuing to use an unmaintained version of the software.

Moreover, the company also said that after the End-Of-Life date, the company will block all Flash-based content from running in Adobe Flash Player. This indicates that the company plans to add or has added a ‘time bomb’ in the software code to avoid users from using Flash Player starting 2021."

So once that time bomb goes off all AE games with the exception of AQ3D will be unplayable.

The funny thing is AE saw this coming back in 2014! AE had a plan to remake all their flash based in unity for PC and mobile devices named Omni Project.

https://archive.artix.com/designNotes/post/28221/DragonCon-2014

The plan changed to instead of remaking all the games that AQ2D will be a mobile remake of AQWorlds, which is no where near finished by the way. AE had 6 years to save itself but instead they pussy footed around. They get what they deserve!