Mod versus Dev

Know The Difference

For a long time, everyone with a gold name has been called a Mod (short for Moderator) but there are actually 2 kinds of people walking around with gold names. Mods and Devs (short for Developer).
Mods do exactly what the name implies, they moderate the game and help keep things going smoothly. They are usually loyal fans and supports of the game who are helpful and patient with new players, fun, friendly yet responsible with the other experienced players.
As we need help moderating the growing game we bring on more moderators and we almost always look for players (usually over the age of 18) like the ones i just described above.For the most part being a Mod is a volunteer position, although they do enjoy other rewards like free memberships, free ACs and access to pretty much any item they would like.
You might see Reens (the Lead Mod) and Stratos (the Mod General) running around the game with some of their team muting people who try to spam chat, flood chat or curse or possibly handing out kicks and bans to players who are being rude and trying to ruin other's fun in AQW.
Devs develop the content for the game. Content can be anything from writing quests and cutscenes to building weapons and armors to crafting the beautiful maps and bacgrounds to programming the game so everything works! Devs build AQW.
As we need help building the game we usually look to our community to find some talented volunteers to help craft items and adventures for you. Most of the Dev positions start as volunteer (Assistant Dev) and if things work out, it may turn into a paid position as a part of the Artix Entertainment Staff. We usually look for people over the age of 18, but we are open to talent whever we find it. Several of our artists have started their asstiant Dev positions at 15 or 16 years old.
I'm sure you've seen me, Artix, Zhoom, Beleen or some of the other Dev's running around.
Dev's have all the same powers as Mods plus they get to create content for the game on a weekly basis. That keeps us very busy so we usually leave the moderation to the very capable Mod team but sometimes when we see someone breaking the rules we are forced do a little moderation on our own.
Although we both have gold names we have very different responsibilities, and the criteria we use to finds Mods is very different from what we look for in potential Devs.
Now you know the difference but we will all probably just keep calling everyone a Mod. It's eaiser sticking to one name and it's not like you can tell the difference between one gold name or another.

More Card Game News!

We are getting closer and closer to the launch of the AQW Battle Cards card game!

I cannot tell you how much I enjoy playing this game. Over the past few days, Artix and I have played each other with the one sample deck we have floating around the lab and it's SO MUCH FUN!
I mean, shirts are great, calendars are useful and plushies are cute and nice to snuggle with but this is the first REAL, PHSYSICAL ITEM that we've ever made that is really, really fun to play with. We've played quite a lot as we developed the game but we're really happy with the finished product. It looks slick, it's funny and it's fun (and Artix and I are tied for wins/losses). The fact that is comes with the non-member CardClasher class is just gravy.
I finally have a release date for you. The card game will start showing up in U.S. Toys R' Us stores on April 18th and we think they will cost about $19.95 USD. Toys R' Us controls their own prices so we're not sure if they are going to mark up the prices but they might.
However, if you can wait until early May then HeroMart will be selling the boxes for exactly $19.95 USD (plus shipping).
There is ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERNCE between the boxes that Toys R' Us and HeroMart will sell, other than about 2 weeks and maybe a few bucks.

This Week!

This week we continue the Sandsea as Zahart unleashes his Chaos Beast on the unsuspecting Sandsea. If all goes according to plan, next week will be the Sandsea Showdown, but first you have to face the ancient terror of the Sphinx (no riddles, just damage)!
Quibble Coinbiter will also be heading back into town this Friday with a bunch of his never-before-seen, slightly used AC items and rares!
We'll post more info here on the DNs as the week progresses.