0-A Dungeon Lovers!

Welcome to the year 2012! We hope everyone had a spectacular holiday and a stellar New Years! We hope you spent all that time playing DunDef and anticipating future DLC. I mean, thats exactly what we did… ish

We spent a portion of our holiday moving into a NEW OFFICE! That means no more elbow to elbow and shoulder to shoulder high impact coding/programming/testing/PRing/etc-ing for us! We now live the sweet sweet life of individual chairs, desks, and PC’s (I guess a few folks use Mac but they basically aren’t real people). So we put a little bit of blood and a lot of sweat into moving everything ourselves and getting the office set up for upcoming interns and a couple employees to help Trendy step into the great blue yonder on stronger and more learned legs.

Don’t worry though! Sore legs and strained backs didn’t stop us from planning more Holidays to coincide with Events! Events to coincide with dates! Dates to correlate with Holidays! And holidays to be formed for Events! Prepare those anxious ears for ultra Trendestic goodness… just not today.

Speaking of Events! The Amazing Hitmonchan (#107) will be running our final Console Event from 12 noon to 10:00pm EST this Thursday and Friday. What a sweetheart! We should have clarified info on console updates and the likes in coming Digests.

One jump ahead of the breadline?

Gotta eat to live, gotta DLC to eat

As the old adage goes, “All men were born with two hands, and thus all men shall carry one sword”. But us Trendians hate adages… especially old ones. Prepare to yield to no foe during any duel as you dual wield against all foes who pray to yield!

By Grabthar’s hammer,
JDanford

Discuss the Digest Here!

As a kid, I used to dream of a rich, curly beard that would drape from my face and make a Greek god envious. Now, I’d settle for even the patchiest and most haggard of face fur. It’s a sad life.

So while I wish upon a holiday star for my masculinity, here’s today’s Digest.

Console DLC Drops Tomorrow

Good news, console fans! Our first gift to you, The Quest for the Lost Eternia Shards: Part One, will be available tomorrow! You can explore new maps, fight new enemies and wield new loot on XBLA for 320 MSP and PSN for $3.99. Just as a reminder to you, our first console patch is still aimed for a January submission. You can expect to see bug fixes, an increased level cap, new items for the forest DLC and more. We’ll have more details to share once things begin to congeal after the new year.

Get Into the Holiday Spirit

It’s time for the Etherian Holiday Extravaganza! Bells are ringing, carolers are singing and snow is drifting in the land of Etheria, but all is not well. While parents light the menorahs and prepare the feasts, the fire-eye’d Mega Snowman is waging a war against Santa. It’s up to our heroes to save the gifts from the clutches of the devious snowman and deliver them to the eager children.

Thanks to endure for the image!

Our multimedia maestro, Rodrigo Lizarraga, whipped up a gorgeous trailer for the event. Grab a mug of hot chocolate and check it out:

If you’ve been on the fence about past DLC, or if you’re looking for the perfect gift for that special someone, Dungeon Defenders and all DLC before The Quest for the Lost Eternia Shards: Part One are 50 percent off during Steam’s Holiday Sale! This festive sale ends Jan. 2, so you better hurry!

There Can Be Only One

Four heroes enter, one hero leaves. Fight against friends, enemies and Trendy developers in this week’s Console Community Event, Dome of Thunder. Leave your best gear at home — your untimely demise will scatter your loot like a feast for vultures. Fend them away, and you may leave the arena with heavier pockets.

The Final Countdown

We end today’s Digest with a special surprise for our European fans. Dungeon Defenders is coming to PSN EU really, really soon. How soon? Let me give you a few hints. Its release coincides with the release day of a famous R&B song, which later became the namesake of a 1991 movie starring Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis. It’s also the birthday of an American actor famous for his on-screen battles with snakes, sharks and Sith.

Until next time, gang.

Your beardless intern,
Hitmonchan

Discuss this Digest here!

It’s been a big week here in the office. We put the finishing touches on our first campaign DLC, The Quest for the Lost Eternia Shards: Part One. We cheered as our console fans took arms against waves of ogres. And as you drove to the forums to voice your opinions, we were reminded once again how lucky we are to have passionate fans like you.

OK, enough of the mushy stuff. Let’s get down to business.

Deck the Halls with Creeps and Minions

Our first campaign DLC might be getting the spotlight, but the Etherian Holiday Extravaganza! is just around the corner. In preparation of the event, our heroes have been donning thy festive apparel. The Apprentice, too slow to get his first choice in outfit, is ready to spread the holiday cheer as the man-in-red himself, Mr. Claus.

DunDef Creation Winners

JDanford and I wanted to see your most creative Dungeon Defenders creations. Sifting through the submissions, these two works of art struck the same nostalgic chord.

For making us dream of simpler times, you’ll both receive a free copy of our New Heroes DLC! Winners, keep an eye on your email.

Patch Me Up, Buddy

We have an early holiday present for our Impulse and Direct2Drive dungeon lovers. If you haven’t peeked yet, we’ve released patch 7.12 for your enjoyment. This patch includes everything from 7.12 and before. We still await word on when Gamersgate will make the post, but rest assured we will shout it from the mountains when the day comes.

Champion(s) of the Sun

This week’s console event — All Brawn, No Brain — left grown men and women feeling DPS-inadequate. As groups of drained defenders lined the armory walls, one team defied the odds. To Dobneyj, GnaVirus and Sefjwn on PSN, we salute you.

Dungeon Snapshot: A Boss Approaches

Some people shake when the ferocious end-level boss lumbers onto the battlefield. Several of our readers thought it was the perfect time to strike a pose — those brave, brave souls.

Have an epic screenshot to share? Send it to contest@trendyent.com with the subject header “Dungeon Snapshot.” Our favorites will appear in future Digests!

As the team heads out for our annual holiday office party, we want to wish everyone a safe weekend.

See you again next week! Or else.

Your faithful intern,
Hitmonchan

Discuss this Digest here!

O-A Dungeon Lovers!

There are many jokes and puns I could use to bring you into this feature of the DunDef Digest but the extent to which your mind may or may not be blown may be influential enough to probably guarantee (60%… ish) that this digest just might induce increasing amounts of serotonin in your system caused by the the release of that very neurotransmitter at the synapse followed by multiple re-uptake inhibitors that may or may not be caused by the jokes and puns that I have or have not put into this feature of the DunDef Digest. Though I’m guessing you just want the content.

You’ve been asking, guessing, theorycrafting, raging, begging, and sacrificing small animals all in the hopes of snagging a little piece of what our new difficulty mode entails. Well allow me to kind of answer that statement I just made prior to this one and invite you up front in this limo of words to let Argyle drive you to the thrill that is Nightmare Mode.

Nightmare has a musk about it. If I were to describe that musk (and I were) I’d compare it to a whole lot of John McClane. Thats right kids and kiddettes. Before you climb to the top of the Nakatomi Plaza you must remember that no shoes are aloud at this party. While you battle in the realm of Nightmare you may feel that we have nerfed you a bit… because we did. But true Heroes walk on broken glass.

Nightmare: Nightmarer. Not as impressive as what was before or what’s to come, but you best understand that these creeps will be more difficult, and they’ll show up with more friends than the original.

Nightmare with a Vengeance. Thats right cowboys, Yippie-ki-yay, this mode evolves with DLC. As our Heroes fight on to save the world and taunt creeps with their O-A’s, we will be incorporating the new enemies. Prepare to replay the campaign like it was never planned. It’s time to partner up an prep some new strats. Don’t worry though, Zeus is a smart dude.

Live Free or Nightmare we always say here at TE. And by that I don’t know what I mean. We have not finalized how the mode will be distributed. Our plan is that PC users that own the Quest for the Lost Eternia Shards will be able to host the mode, while others will be able to join on them (just like we’ve done with most of our DLC). I will note as plainly as possible, this mode is currently PC only.

Not to be overshadowed is The Quest for the Lost Eternia Shards themselves. I just don’t wanna spoil that fun quite yet. Well…

Can you deal with THAT. The Controller Online has crowned us Downloadable Game of the Year! In their article they mention that we “All Sorts” and “of Fun”. They also seemed to be very impressed with “14.99″. Thank you Controller Online team!

Now don’t forget about our Original Dungeon Defenders Creations Contest! You can win a free copy of our New Heroes DLC! The deadline is December 9th… but we will say December 9th at close… and we don’t really close at normal business hours. You basically have another 24 hours to send your entry to Contest@TrendyEnt.com.

We know how you guys love a little candy on your holidays. Invite this little lady over to sweeten up your December with hot cocoa and oodles of jingle!

Hello Mrs Santa Squire, my name I JDan, how you doin?

A Good Day to Nightmare,
JDanford

Sometimes, the professionals look to unconventional sources to fill a gap. Sports teams have used water boys and towel boys to varying degrees of success. At Trendy, Pmasher and JDanford have graced a small-time intern with the enviable task of writing today’s DunDef Digest.

Let’s do this.

We’re No. 1 (Again!)

Because of you, we’re perched at the top of the Steam charts again. Thanks to everyone who bought a copy and supported our team of lovable misfits.

If this is your first time on our forums, we’d like to welcome you to our humble community. You’ll find help for any issues you may encounter in our Tech Support forums (Console | Mobile | Modding | PC). Be sure to read our forum rules before posting. If you’ve got the mana, head on over to our Trading Post forums (PC Ranked | PC Unranked | Console | Mobile ) and pick up a fine weapon from our wide assortment of community vendors. Check out our Guides forum if you need a spot of help.

And help us eradicate trolls by using the Report a Post function. You can find it in the brown bar underneath every post. Along with your help, our valiant team of forum moderators will be handing out infractions. One infraction point will be given for violating a forum rule. Five points and yer outta here (i.e. permaban)!

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like… the Holidays

It’s down to 50 degrees here in Gainesville. While we Florida boys are pulling out our hoodies and Cosby Sweaters, our heroes have taken the opportunity to be a bit more festive with their wardrobe.

For example, let’s look at the Monk. Inspired by his favorite underdog story, the crafty Monk stitched together the perfect reindeer outfit.

They Don’t Love You Like I Love You

A few people still have not been invited to our console community events. Your sorrowful words have speared me through my fragile heart.

So for this week’s challenge, I’m getting a full night’s rest, grabbing a pack of Monster and starting the events early. From 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. EST, on both Thursday and Friday, I will be manning the helm (unlike Peyton*) and inviting people to kill ALL the enemies. That’s eight extra hours of community co-op action, and it’s all because of my love for you.

I would like to make a couple of things clear before we do this week’s community challenge:

Please do not play music through the headsets. Since this is going to be early in the morning (yes, 10 a.m. is early for me), I’ll have chill music of my own emanating from my laptop. I’m sure your music is beautiful, but there will be no Trendy dubstep/folk mashups happening while I’m around. I’m doing this out of love. I reserve my right to revoke that love.

The extended hours applies to this week’s event only.

I will not be handing out weapons from previous events.

If you wish to do the event as a group, please include your friends’ gamertags/PSN IDs in the message. Unannounced guests are a no-no.

I Heard You Like Free Stuff

As JDanford mentioned in the last Digest, we want to see your ingenious and original Dungeon Defenders creations. If you have a song in your heart, a talent in the kitchen or an eye for detail, use it to crack the blockades to our crystallized hearts. Our favorite entries will win a free copy of our New Heroes DLC!

If you’re like me, you need a little inspiration to get going. I whipped up a beautiful work of art for your desktop to lift you up when the brain-well runs dry.

Behold! My magnificent creation!

Of course, if you need more professional inspiration, check out Danny Araya’s Dungeon Defenders wallpapers.

Send your entries to contest@trendyent.com by Dec. 9. Please include “DunDef Creation” in the subject header to make our lives easier.

He Likes Us!

In this month’s “Best (and Worst) Downloadable Games,” Daemon Hatfield of IGN gave Dungeon Defenders a shout-out. Check it out! (Also, Hatfield gave praise to one of my all-time favorite games, Kirby’s Adventure. So for that and more, we salute you, Mr. Appraiser of the Downloadable Domain.)

Mac Attack

Fear not, Apple fans. Our team is hard at work to bring Dungeon Defenders to the Mac. If you’ve been playing on PC, you will be able to automatically copy over all of your Ranked and Open data via TrendyNet and Steam Cloud, respectively.

Of course, nothing is set in stone at this point. We’ll have more news as the development mold cools off.

Dungeon Snapshot

We’ll end today’s Digest on a high note. In life, there are epic fails and epic wins. Just ask ceemeeir.

Fail:

Win:

Have an epic screenshot to share? Send it to contest@trendyent.com with the subject header “Dungeon Snapshot.” Our favorites will appear in future Digests!

Thanks for staying with me. Hopefully I didn’t disappoint you too much.

Hitmonchan,
Unofficial Trendy towel boy

Discuss this Digest here!

*NFL joke credited to JDanford

O-A Dungeon Lovers!

JDanford back from the World of Tomorrow! And I’ve got some goodness equivalent to 40 megafonzies.

How about another Multi-Lingual Fansite! DDHeaven is a clean/crisp site growing rapidly! Thanks to all the guys involved and to Kampfschaf for pointing it out.

Whimmy Wham Wham Wozzle check out them Mods! Here we have a lovely trailer depicting the brilliant induction of Banjo to Dungeon. Thank you, TillOilenspiegel:

If all you fans of Etheria ever want to submit your Trailer to us we just might throw some logoish logos on it and reveal it to the world! I’ll tell you what, send us your blessed creations (fan-art, music, food, etc) and we would be proud to show it off right here on the DunDef Digest!

Don’t forget to check all the other mods and WIP’s in our Mod Section.

Party On, Contest Winners! Console Events are still going strong, and it appears we have hit one of the toughest challenges yet! No one has been walking on sunshine with these events, but so far PS3 users have shown that they have the slight edge over our 360 fans with more frequents victories… Is this because they get to analyze the 360 strats the night before? Or do they truly have greater skill? We will find out next week when we Swap the Nights! Make sure you look at your schedule. PS3 will be on Thursday and 360 on Friday.

Good News, Everyone!!!! Holidays approach… and you know how we feel about holidays… especially when they get grouped together into one small section of the calender.

I know he’s no Robot Santa… but he still retains the joy of Xmas!

If I don’t survive, tell my wife, “Hello.”
JDanford

Discuss This Digest Here!

O-A Dungeon Lovers!

It’s time for another DunDef Digest. This has been a pretty big week for Dungeon Defenders, so…

First, we’ve updated the New Heroes DLC to include Uber Monster Fest, an 8-player version of the Monster Fest Challenge Mission.

We’ve also furthered improved integration between the new in-game stores on PC and defendersstore.com. Soon to come is 16-players allowed in a shop at a time.

And wait… there’s stuff for console players this week too??? We’ve submitted the first part of The Quest for the Lost Eternia Shards to consoles and anticipate a release for it this year across console and PC! We’ve also made some progress on the PS3 trophy issue, and while we still don’t have an ETA for a fix, are discussing it actively with Sony.

And… if you hop online now and message TrendyEnt1, TrendyEnt2, or TrendyEnt3 on XBLA you can join into the Beefcake Festival community event and have your chance to win the Chi Blast for the Apprentice!

Also in… javahawk trolls everyone:
http://www.ugo.com/web-culture/troll-face-appearances-dungeon-defenders

Discuss this DunDef Digest HERE!

So long and thanks for all the fish,
Pmasher

P.S. Since everyone is so interested in what we have for lunch, this pretty delicious burrito place called Willy’s just opened up in Gainesville and that’s where we ate lunch.

O-A Dungeon Lovers!

So this time it’s actually Pmasher talking. JDanford is off eating delicious food… or preparing delicious food. Something of the sort. Regardless, hopefully you all are enjoying our Thanksgiving treats:

1. Another free holiday DLC! Personally, the Native Princess outfit is my favorite yet and we hope you all are enjoying the mission… even if you can’t beat it yet.

2. More Warping Core maps, this time with multiple warping crystals!

3. The Hunter, The Lady Knight, The Sorceress, and the Monktr…. oh wait. I mean The Ranger, The Countess, The Adept, and the Initiate.

Unfortunately, we don’t have anything to give our consoles players for Thanksgiving except this: we have submitted some DLC for you guys! So please know it’s coming and be patient. In the meantime feel free to join us for our community events which will be resuming next week!

Anyways, before our awesome 50% off Steam Sale (tell your friends!) starts to skew the data, let me give you three fun facts about Dungeon Defenders PC:

Over 800 years of Dungeon Defenders has been played to date (not counting developers).

The Average Time Played for Dungeon Defenders is 36 hours 43 minutes.

The top 8% of players have played for over 100 hours.

And finally, some more Banjo Mod pictures courtesy of TillOilenspiegel:

The way I remember it, albatross was a ship’s good luck, ’til some idiot killed it. Yes, I’ve read a poem. Try not to faint.
-Pmasher

O-A Dungeon Lovers!

So I was about to walk out the door and I thought…. Hmmmmmmmmm

Let’s Unveil the Countess

“A proud Etherian warrior of noble descent, the Countess can more than hold her own against the great warriors of the realm. Though she favors brute force melee combat, she still has increased mobility over her male counterpart. Though she can be stubborn at times, her distinct combat abilities ensure that she’ll never back down from a fight!”

The Ranger, Adept, Countess and Initiate will be joining you in the realm of Etheria next week!!!

And then I got distracted by all these Uber Modtastic Fantastic Righteous Exclamation Marktastic WiP’s!

Sci-Fi Tileset by Dwunky Pengy

Pinkie Pie Launcher by Dsurion

And if you guys wanna see some more check out The WiP Thread

Thats all folks,
JDanford

O-A Dungeon Lovers!

Something incredible is happening and it is ALL thanks to you, our fans! We knew this community would do great things, but never realized how rapidly you guys would take action.

- I first want to bring your attention the Defenders Store, a web interface to post your Items for for sale (Mana). Novus… Wow! We can not even begin to tell you how impressed we are (and a little jealous we didn’t do it first). You have won the official support of Trendy. I want to make it clear to all you guys out there that this site is not created, developed, or maintained by Trendy. This is 100% fanpower and has great potential. Just take a look at these incoming Features:

• DunDefCalc: Will join Oolius and his team to work on something bigger!

• Upgradable items: See how good are your items fully upgraded!

• Item compendium: A reference to the best possible stats for each items

• Item comparator: Compare 2 items to help you choose the best one

• Talent calculator: Create talent trees templates and see how it affects your hero and defenses DPS!

If you ever want quick access to the store just look UP! To help bring you the Quan we put a pleasant button to the Defenders Store for your convenience.

- We also wanted to thank IndieGames.com for the nice shout out about the DDDK!

- Now to continue our YOU appreciation: USER MADE MAPS!

• Hall of Deathmatch! Well a very squarish hall.. But square halls are proven to be the best for a good Deathmatch! It’s simple science.

• And for PvE fans, check out this lava lake of a map called 4 Ways.

- If you guys are looking for information on How To Mod, remember to check out the DunDef Dev Kit Master Tutorial List. We added on the AMAZING guides by Cr4zy and can’t wait to add more!

- 7.10 is coming up! We hope you are enjoying the new First Person View added in 7.09, because 7.10 improves it! Here’s a quick few notes about 7.10:

• PvE: Big overhaul to the item generation system: item drops (chests and mobs) are now scaled differently based on difficulty and wave number, capable of exceeding their previous limits, so that on the highest waves on the toughest difficulties, you’re going to get items that can even beat out the challenge/boss rewards! (rarity of course still comes into play)

• All: Raised Mana Bank to 50,000,000 to better suit the higher-quality items which can now be acquired

• All: Enabled “Valve Anti Cheat” system, finally finally finally! Took a while to work through how to move to a Game-server driven system. This also enables the “Steam Users Played With” functionality! Do Not Cheat! Do Not Use External Software to Cheat! We fully support modding but do not promote straight cheating. Even if you are cheating in our Open mode, it is still cheating and you can still be banned.

• All: Retroactive Chicken Upgrade — Chickens now have a minimum of 45 Upgrade Levels and a Minimum Damage

- I know what your thinking: You had me at O-A… But of course, we have to give you a little more goodness to digest, a little preview of one of the four new Hero variants:

• “The Ranger hails from the wood elfs’ traditional home near the great forest of Mistymire. Unlike his nimble female counterpart, the Ranger’s hardier constitution enable him to take more of a bruising, at a trade-off in movement speed. Additionally, his unique Hero Abilities make him a powerful ally to have in your travelling party!”

Now get back on those Mod Tools and show me the mana!
JDanford