Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Questions for our Wizard101 Community

Hello fellow Wizard101 fans! Our fine community leaders for Wizard101 have a couple of questions they'd like to ask you. SO CURIOUS!


Curious Thomas approves of KI's curiosity!


Take a look at these questions, and if you can provide some good answers, make it so! You may even get a few crowns out of the whole deal if they like what you write and use it in an article!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1. Are you addicted to Wizard101? Tell us how often you play and what you like doing most! https://www.wizard101.com/game/addicted

2. Did you learn to read or strengthen your reading skills through Wizard101? Tell us about it! https://www.wizard101.com/game/readingskills
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I know of one person who told me he had read all 500+ posts of mine and felt
that in the eighth grade, he was now reading on a college level: all because
of this game (and my blog). I love when I hear feedback like that!

As far as addiction to Wizard101 goes, remember my friends, as Benjamin Franklin would say, "all things in moderation."

Happy Dueling!

Halloween Poems!

I’m pretty sure that everyone is well aware of the poetry contest currently going on for Wizard101. If you aren’t aware, it’s one of the main items in the launcher currently.


Fallon has discussed it, Sestiva has talked about it as well, and I'm sure there are a bunch more.

Here’s the link to the actual facebook event page for the poetry contest.

Here’s a cut and paste of the basic rules.
We will be giving out 15 prizes a day through Friday of this week!

In order to have a chance to win, you must write a Halloween themed poem for Wizard101. The poem should be no longer than 8 lines.

Winners will be selected out of those who write poems in our events page.

If selected, you will be able to choose which prize you would like to receive out of the following: Black cat pet, Halloween outfit, or the Ninja Pig outfit.

Anyone who comments multiple times or spams will be disqualified.

I also asked Professor greyrose if people could submit a different poem each day or just one poem and that’s it? She got back to me and told me that “Players can submit the same poem each day, or a different poem each day, it’s all good!”

So good luck everyone! I hope you all participate and get a really cool ninja pig outfit for your efforts. ;-)

Happy Halloween and Happy Dueling!

How did you make your header?

Got a question! I love questions!
I was wondering how you made the title for your blog with your character on it.

The header! Yeah, did you know that my header use to be much much smaller and had a picture of me flexing infront of mr. personality? The picture on Wizard101.com still shows this old header.

I decided to go obnoxiously huge with the current header after visiting a few other blogs and realizing that, hey, obnoxiously huge is awesome!

So I use a really old graphics program. Most people use photoshop. I love photoshop, and it was the first graphics program I learned to use, but I have a really old graphics program that I choose over it because it's so easy to use. Most people hate this graphics program.

I'm serious when i say I choose this program OVER photoshop since i have both.

Are you ready?

Microsoft Image Composer.

Oh my word I love Microsoft Image Composer so much.

So here's what I did. I set my composition space to black. I went to the opening screen of the game and took a screenshot of my character. I dumped that picture onto my composition space, then I trimmed him out to remove the background. I typed "The," "Friendly," and "Necromancer" separately and moved them around until I liked what I saw. I plunked my character in front of the words ala magazine style. Now, I liked it at that point, except then I realized it needed a finishing touch: a smilie face for the dot on the "i" in the word "friendly."

and that's it.


Happy Dueling!

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Jotun down, Ravenscar on deck!

Hello Duelers!

Thanks all for the great suggestions you gave me on taking down Jotun. I used a little bit of everyone's advice. Here's a poster:


(click to enlarge)

I actually tried to just zerg the middle Jotun instance at first and take him down with Thomas and Kyle without taking out one of the brothers first. I think I may need to head back in later for a rematch with this version of Jotun and his brothers. I think I can take them with just me and kyle. I ended up being shy one convert to really lay the pain down on Jotun and after taking the two brothers and one add down . . . Jotun finished me and kyle off.

So, then I did the maze and took care of one of the brothers first. Yup, the Jotun fight was cake after that.

*wipes hands clean*

So it looks like Ravenscar is up next!

Happy Dueling!

Mirkholm down, jotun and his buddies up next

Just another quick update. I finished up Mirkholm Keep with Thomas today, and it is now on to Nidavellir, which means Jotun and his brothers are right around the corner for me.

I made a little collage of some scenes from my time in Mirkholm.


(click to enlarge)

Any tips that you guys want to throw my way for Jotun, I'd be more than happy to listen to. :-)



Happy Dueling!

Monday, September 28, 2009

quick missive

Morning all! I hope you have a great Monday!

I'm eating Count Chocula Cereal this morning. Count Chocula is a friendly necromancer.



Seriously,



He's a friendly look-a-like even.

So what's up then, right? Well, this morning I spent a good portion of this morning working on a new Lady Dexter comic. It's not quite finished yet.

I also wanted to let you know that our family now has four characters at the same place in the game. Isaiah, The Evil Twin, Bailey, and Molly are all at The Krokosphinx now. I actually got to play Molly with Bailey this weekend!

I also decided to start moving Thomas through Grizzleheim finally so I could unlock the loot monstrosity that is the Raven$, so Thomas is now making his way through Mirkholm Keep.


I know . . . finally. I guess I just was more interested in beating the game with kyle and amber and getting bailey and molly up and running.

It took the leader of the Wizened Wizards (Ms. Mecatz) showing me that the Raven$ drop a ton of loot each time you fight them to convince me that I really should finish up grizzleheim with Thomas and stop delaying . . . meh, loss of exp, meh. What ya gonna do? I WANT THE GOLD! GIMME THE GOLD!



So, yeah . . . have a great Monday and . . .

HAPPY DUELING!

Sunday, September 27, 2009

What was that Wizard101 patch update all about?

Question from Luke Darkblood:
I was wondering what that update on 9/23/09 to wizard101 was about? Thanks

So, that patch, it wasn't for much. If KI releases a large update where a lot of things are added to the game, then the update information is listed in this magical place. You can see currently that Grizzleheim was the most recent big patch.

I don't think the patch took care of any of these major bugs because those are so well known that I'm pretty sure they'd want to announce that in flashing red lights.

Now every other little onesy-twosy thing that happens out of cycle, you're probably not going to find out what the patch was all about. A lot of these are done just for database cleanup, server resets, and other minor technical maintenance. Most of their 3am downtimes are "behind the scenes" things that help Wizard101 perform better but that do not directly impact gameplay.

Also, if a patch fixes an exploit, people using the exploit will notice it's gone now. People who don't use an exploit, will probably never know about it.

Happy Dueling!

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Lady Dexter--Episode 2

Well, I was told that the publication cycle for comics in James's paper would be every Friday. Kind of weird that he didn't use this comic that I sent him . . . well, I ain't gonna let it not be published, so here it is!


(click to enlarge)

Happy Dueling!

Tips for Wizard101 Bloggers

I've been getting a lot of requests (well about 3 requests) to post something up to help some of my fellow Wizard101 bloggers (and those that want to blog about Wizard101) with some tips for making your blog interesting enough for people to read often.

Ok . . . I guess I could try.

1- Be awesome. I don't know if any of you guys caught this yesterday, but this young fashionista (who keeps a blog at the age of 13) was featured on MSN.com yesterday on their front page. You guys may think that I have a big following on my blog, but just to put things in perspective. I get maybe 1,000 hits a day . . . this gal had 1,000 people on her blog at the same time yesterday, and this morning she had 100 on at the same time. That's amazing. I bet I'm lucky if I have 10 on at one time. The industry she's blogging for LOVES HER as does her audience. Why? She's awesome. She's passionate about the industry she blogs for and loves to have fun with it.

If you can capture that essence . . . that magic . . . gratz. You win the game.

2- Have a great layout on your blog. Not only should your blog be aesthetically pleasing, but it should be laid out in a way that people get to the information they want. Mine still needs a lot of work to be honest. It could be a lot better. But a winning design goes a long way. Check out some of these designs.

3- Your blog content should sing.


Honestly, it doesn't matter what aspect of Wizard101 you want to write about. You could write about them all. What makes it great content is that it flows along like a song. Think about your favorite song. What do you like about it? Now capture that essence in your writing for your blog. It's a feeling that goes along with the words, you know? Capture that, and you're on your way to making a "hit post."

And speaking of hit posts, people are going to spend about the length of a song or less on your website. Sometimes you're going to write hits, and sometimes you're going to write duds. If what you write is a hit, people will come back to read it over and over again.

4- Respect the almighty Google.


Your writing may be good, but people are mainly going to find your site through Googling about what it is they want to find. You'll notice that I've built a lot of my site to respect the almighty Google. My "Ask Friendly a Question" feature attempts to answer those questions that no one else has answered. If someone happens to type in a question into Google that's similar, then they'll find me . . . and hopefully the writing will be good enough that they want to stay and read again and again.

5- Know the grammerz. If thiere izs o1ne things thet harts a blzog mre then enything elze, its por gramer and spelingz.

Remember that song metaphor up above? When you misspell something or use poor grammar, it's like someone just banged a pot in the middle of your song. (side note: paragraphs breaks are highly recommended. I think I'll put one here since I'm kind of changing topic . . .)

If you're not comfortable with your grammar and spelling, it might be a good idea to write your posts in something like Microsoft Word first where you can run a grammar check or a spell check. Then copy and paste it into your blog. AND, even if you're comfortable with your grammar, click the spell check button on your blog please. Every little bit of effort helps.

6- Embrace the community to the extent that you can. You gotta link up your site. Get it linked up EVERYWHERE! post on other people's blogs. Let people in the community (the ones who love the game) know who you are and what you're posting about. TWITTER!


It isn't enough to just make a blog without acknowledging your fellow bloggers.

Diary of a Wizard is great at this, btw. She's a social media genius pretty much. Much respect for Fallon's skills.

7- Keep on top of the pulse. Basically, you don't want your blog's front page advertising the new housing feature when mounts are coming out. Old news is old news and I don't want to waste my time with old news.

8- Use your talents. Blogs are about more than writing. They are about YOU writing about a topic (sometimes . . . sometimes you gotta be invisible). You'll notice that I've tried to write Wizard101 remixes, make cartoons, videos, etc. Find what you're good at and show the wizard101 world . . . you'll definitely get noticed.

9- A picture is better than words.


I'm actually not talking about using graphics here. I'm talking about painting a picture with your words. There's a great suggestion that many creative writing teachers have pushed at me, "show don't tell." If you want to write about a great new feature in the game, you'd go a long way to paint a picture with your words (although an actual painting would be fun too) about what you're writing about rather than just telling me about it.

And that's about all the advice I have this morning.

I'm full of advice, but I'm tired now. I think I'll go log into Wizard101 and actually play the game instead of write about it.

oh yeah.

10- PLAY THE GAME. Don't keep writing about the game if you're not playing it anymore. Duh!

11- btw . . . if you made it to the bottom of the post, wow . . . most people don't. (so put your most important stuff up top . . . like "be awesome".)

Happy Dueling!

Can you list your favorite classes?

Question from Blaze:
Blaze Golden Blade here, I’m a level 40 pyromancer and I was curious. First I’m going to guess your favorite class is death, but what is your second and third and so on? If you are so inclined, why? Thanks ahead of time

You guessed right! Death is my favorite class. MUHAHAHAHAHAAAAA!

*sounds of screeching bats fluttering to the night sky*

Ok, so . . . you realize that me choosing my favorite classes is going to open up a can of worms because one of the classes has to end up at the bottom, right?

Here's one thing I have noticed. My personality tends to draw me to the Life, death, myth side of the house moreso than the ice, fire, and storm side of the house. I haven't even tried balance yet. However, after running kyle through the game pretty much twice over . . . once with Death and once with life. I really like the idea of pairing the inner triangle of magic with the outer triangle of magic.

Image stolen from here:



I really hope they expand that triangle with some new magic over the coming months. I've heard rumor of Astral magic coming to play sometime in the future. They note the sun, moon, and stars as being the new classes, but I think it should be something different. I think they need to finally balance that triangle out with something that opposes balance.

My suggestion: volatility magic: the magic of randomness. Actually if you look at that dictionary definition there are a lot of cool words being thrown around with the word volatility . . . evaporation, vapor, inconsistent, fickle, lighthearted, flighty, ephemeral, fleeting, violence, explosive, flying, volant, irresolute, boiling point, exciteableness . . . I don't know about you, but those are starting to sound like spell names to me. THE POWERS OF RANDOMNESS DESTROY YOU BALANCE! A CURSE UPON THEE!



Seriously, wouldn't it be cool to say you belong to the volatility school of magic? That would be my new favorite class for sure!

Um . . . so the moral of the story is, when you don't know the answer to a question or don't want to answer it: baffle them with bull.

Happy Dueling!

Friday, September 25, 2009

Does mute = deaf (or just dumb)?

Question from Destiny Deathgem!

how do some kids get muted, and also can they read what non-muted people are saying, unlike those who are 'originally' muted a.k.a. underage players? also, how many times do kids have to be reported in order for them to get banned? Does it depend on their offense? or the number of times they got reported?

Ahhh, welcome to the dark side of Wizard101 my friends . . . in the dark side, kids say really bad things when their parents aren't looking and . . . who knows, perhaps the parents are setting a bad example and need a good mute themselves from time to time. Regardless, we all have a report button available to us, and we use it.

Behold the mighty power of the report button!


You can select anybody and *click* report! OH NO! IT'S TOO MUCH POWER!

Well, Destiny, I contacted Mr. Lincoln about this (well, the person at Kingsisle who portrays Mr. Lincoln) and got a few good answers for you.

1. Muted players are not deaf.

2. If a person has got to the suspension stage of the game already once, then they should know the gravity of the situation. We aren't talking three strikes, you're out . . . we're talking two strikes, you're out. And yes, the severity of the offense absolutely matters. You wanna know how to move past the two strikes you're out zone into the one strike you're out zone? "sexual harassment, racial slurs, or
exchanging personal info will pretty much move you right past warning to perma-ban."

3. Here's another official quote from Mr. Lincoln, "We receive hundreds of reports a day and each are reviewed (most of us are parents too, with our own children playing in game), in conjunction with other tools used to ensure player safety. Typing around the chat filter may allow an intention to pass in game momentarily, but it's not going to pass with the report reviewer. Those players found violating the Terms of Use will face sanctioning.

False reporting, "he falsely reported me", "she won't leave my house", "they have on ugly clothes", etc. is a large percentage of the reports we review. For obvious reasons, this makes it more challenging to weed out truly egregious behaviors, not to mention an unpleasant gaming experience for the falsely reported. Repeat false reporters can face the same sanctions as the valid reported.

Lastly, the other thing to note, although we have an open chat option and just because you can type something, it doesn't always mean you should. Terms of Use apply to ALL chat options."

There's more information at the bottom of this page as well. Check it out. (scroll down to the bottom)

Hope that answers all your questions. That report button is a scary thing! Use it wisely!

Happy Dueling!

Regular posting to continue tonight

Hey all, no post this morning because I woke up late. I spent a good portion of yesterday working on my Halloween light show and got a lot done. I fell asleep early, then woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't go back to sleep for a few hours. I finally fell back asleep . . . and now here I am: up late and with a headache.

I've got a few questions to answer on the backlog.

In the meantime . . . kirby:



Happy Dueling!

Thursday, September 24, 2009

How do I obtain good rank as a grandmaster ice wizard?

Question from Blaze: MistShard
Hey Friendly,Blaze MistShard here, I was just wondering how to become a GOOD Rank Arena Master in the Arena as a Grandmaster Ice such as myself. Hope to hear a answer soon, Cya! ~Blazey Lazy~

I don't know if I have a good answer for you, but I do have a story!

Gather round, kids! It's story time from Friendly!

*pops popcorn*

Today's story is a scary tale of how I was soundly defeated in a 2v2 battle by a pair of grandmasters.

It was a good day in Wizard City (they're all good days in Wizard City) and I was out and about just doing my thing . . . being friendly . . . dancing for people . . . hanging out. When all of a sudden some purple text floated across my screen. It was an invitation to duel with an inexperienced grandmaster friend of mine who was a fire wizard. I said, "okies!" and she said, "OKIES!" and we went down to the arena, skipping and laughing the entire way. That's what you do in Unicorn Way . . . you skip and you laugh.

Anyway, we entered the arena and the mood was definitely different there. You know how it goes when you're sitting in front of the arena guards and everyone standing in there thinks they're number one and you're thinking, "NO! I'M NUMBER ONE!"

Anyway, we signed up for a duel and were whisked away to an available arena. Our opponents were an ice wizard and a fire wizard. Both had multiple pvp stripes by their names and we . . . we had none. My friends, this was to be a lesson in fast food service.

"Fast food service?" you ask? Yes, our team was the customer and we got served . . . and quickly. It was actually very pathetic. Here's what I remember of the duel.

(a stage hand in the distance whispers "CUE DREAM SEQUENCE" *FOG MACHINE*)


The other team had a "strategy." (I've preached the use of strategy before.) In other words, they had planned out a method of attack beforehand and used it on us. It was possibly the most beautiful execution of "win" I had ever seen before in Wizard101.

Now, I must remind you that this was back in the days where you could stun lock your opponents. So, the rules have changed a bit now . . . but I think you'll see where I'm going with this story.

1- The ice/fire combo began alternating shielding themselves and buffing their attacks. One round blading/trapping. One round shielding. over and over until they both had a full row of power pips.

Meanwhile my partner, the fire wizard, was doing things like wasting pips by casting vampire and I'm fumbling around only casting blades and traps, no shields. You can see where this is going, right?

2- The fire wizard unleashed a smoke screen spell (this minuses a ton of accuracy, so that you will most likely fizzle).

3- The ice wizard unleashed a Frost Giant (this does damage and stuns us)

we pass . . . because we're stunned.

4- The fire wizard unleashes a fire dragon (this does damage and puts a big 3 round DoT on both of us)

we try to cast, but we're debuffed with smoke screen and fizzle.

5- The ice wizard unleashes another Frost Giant (once again this does damage and stuns us) . . . it doesn't quite kill us because this time it's unbuffed . . . but it stuns us.

The DoT ticks away.

6- The fire wizard stuns us . . .

We are defeated from the DoT while we were stunned.

"Would you like fries with that? Thanks and come again!"

Nowadays there's something called stun block, so you can't be stunned twice in a row like that, but I have to tell you that there's a lot still to be learned from these guys.

What I liked about being served like this is that it was so beautifully executed. Casting smoke screen back to back with a frost giant meant that we had two rounds where we could basically do nothing but fumble around. The DoT from the fire dragon ticking away at us while we were stunned was brilliant. It was like you could do nothing but sit there and watch as you were soundly defeated.

Take from the story what you will (alternating buffs and shields . . . using stuns and chokes), but my main suggestion to you is find a partner and work out a strategy. I think ice wizards do best when they're paired with someone else.

My friend and I talked after our defeat and we decided to try a different strategy next time we dueled since we had seen that excellent service there.

If you want to become good at pvp, probably the best thing you can do is get out there and learn from what other people are doing.

I can't comment specifically on ice wizards too much, but I can tell you that you have all the right spells and EXCELLENT defensive powers to win a 1v1 easily. It's all in the execution. Your spell list seems tight from a distance: Ice armor, steal ward, minion, frost bite to break shields, colossus, tower shield, volcanic shield . . . ice wizzies have all the right stuff . . .

Feel free to comment and add your two cents my ice wizard friends!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Warrior vs. Mage . . . what should I choose?

Here's the question:
Hi Friendly! I'm starting Runes of Magic, and since you've had experience with games like the one that shall not be named, which is similar to Runes of Magic, I thought you may have some advice on which type would be better. I've decided on two types: Warrior or Mage. I'm interested in mages because they specialize in attacks with elements and all that, yet warrior is, warrior, which is always awesome, whatever the game may be.

Both are awesome for the reasons you give, and guess what? It's actually sounding like you could be both at once!

Check out this little snippet from their website:

"When you first start Runes of Magic, you will choose your primary class: warrior, ranger, cleric, knight, mage or rogue. When you reach level 10, you can add a secondary class. There are up to 30 individual class combinations.

Generally, all classes in Runes of Magic can serve as either the primary or secondary class. To make your secondary class your primary class or vice versa, you must visit a special class trainer, such as the one in Varanas. You have full access to the complete level-based skill set of your active primary class, but only the non-specific skill set of your secondary class is available.

Character attributes of the secondary class equal 10 percent of those of the primary class. Experience, attribute and talent points are applied only to the active primary class, and the level of the secondary class cannot exceed the level of the primary class. To level the secondary class, you have to register it with any class trainer as your primary class."

I believe the first place I saw a really good application of this system was in Guild Wars. I run a really scary ranger/elementalist in Guild Wars. I built my entire build around using an elite ranger skill that dumps TONS of mana back into your character if it successfully hits. I used this mana to fuel devastating meteor storm attacks. I could throw them out much more recklessly than a regular elementalist because of this skill (which cost a lot of mana), but they were less powerful than if cast by a true elementalist.


He looks like a ranger sure enough



But, HEY, he throws fire like a wizard! Tricky ranger!


As far as typical play styles: The warrior usually has high hitpoints and armor class, but does low damage. The mage usually has low hitpoints and armor class, but does high damage.

So it sounds like a very interesting situation actually.

I've also heard this is possible in Final Fantasy XI. Check out this link.

Here's a quote from it:
"You can change your job any time, and eventually gain the ability to select a support job. With a support job, you can effectively "hold two jobs at once." Want to be a warrior who can cast white magic? How about a monk with black magic? With support jobs, the combinations are endless!

As your adventures progress, you may find that new jobs become available. Why not try your hand at learning the ways of the bard, ranger, or beastmaster?"

So, multiclassing isn't new (and yup, it even stretches back to pen and paper days of Dungeons and Dragons), but I can tell you that the game which shall not be named DOES NOT allow multiclassing. A warrior is a warrior. A mage is a mage. Yeah, you can tweak what "kind" of warrior you are or what "kind" of mage you are, but pretty much it goes like this: warriors wear tough armor and kill stuff up close with their wicked looking weaponry, and Mages wear dresses and kill stuff from a distance with burning rings of fire.

And as you all know, in Wizard101 we even multiclassing through our secondary schools. The Ice Wizard is kind of our "warrior class," and the Storm Wizard is definitely our "nuker class." You can have an ice wizard that casts Storm spells. /shrug

Hey! Look at that, Tipa over at West Karana even wrote something up on RoM recently.

Ahh dangit . . . look at what you did . . . now I'm actually downloading RoM.


(whoa . . . big download)


Thanks a lot anonymous!

;-)

Happy Dueling!

Strategies for soloing with Myth

Question here:
Hello Friendly! I was just wondering what your opinions are on strategies to use when soloing with myth.

Ok, just so you know, my myth is only level 18 and I usually play him at the same time as the Evil Twin. So, my experience soloing with myth is limited. However, I'm going to go ahead and spell it out as I see it. All you Myth students feel free to step in if you have some advice to offer.

1- Heal Thyself. If you're going to solo, then you're going to need to heal and block damage. Load your deck with pixies, weakness, and tower shield (Ether shield and volcanic shield as well as the situation dictates). Always keep your potion bottles full. Know that your cyclops pet can heal you. Know that you have a siphon health card. There's a lot of tough fights ahead of you, you need to do your best to keep yourself alive.

2- Ninja Pig is candy. Buy up all the Ninja Pig cards in the bazaar and load them in your sideboard. If you have a big boss battle, you may find yourself pulling that out and using it because you don't have to double trap the boss.

3- Know thy minions. If you use the golem minion, you want the agro on you. If you use the other minions, you want the agro on them. Since the golem minion is a one hit wonder, you pretty much have to follow its lead. Whatever the golem targets, you target. Unfortunately the golem usually targets the boss, which is backwards logic. Usually you would want to kill off the minions first and then the boss, but if you want to keep that little wooden puppet alive, you have to follow his lead to ensure you have the agro, or he's dead.

So, here's my theory with casting the golem. Don't cast him on the first round. Wait a round so that you have an extra pip. Then cast a pixie to heal yourself or a two-pip damage spell on the golem's target and your agro will be secured over the golem. A pixie is more reliable than a damage spell because it hardly ever fizzles. Note this as well. Your heal builds up hate from all mobs, not just the one the golem is fighting. So, if you're using a golem minion, pixies are a wonderful thing.

If you use another minion besides the golem, you just have to rely on their powers of taunting while you play shields and build pips to unleash your cyclops, humongofrog, minotaur, ninja pig, whathaveyou.

4- Use your minions wisely. You have to get those utility cards from the secret shop in krok and at least one from Croaky. At level 25, pick up Sap Power from Croaky. Using Sap Power with a golem minion is an unreal power boost. For example, you come into a fight with a pip, cast a golem which costs no pips, cast sap power to destroy him, and you suddenly have enough to cast a seven pip spell by the third round of a fight. Not shabby at all at lower levels. In fact, that could equal two humongofrogs in a row for you.

5- bubble and blades > traps. This is true especially for when you cast those two hit spells like minotaur and orthrus. Cast your myth blade, cast your bubble, cast the spirit blade spell from Niles (you'll want to pick up spirit blade from Niles in Krokotopia at level 25). Traps are nice, but double trapping takes a while . . . very worth trapping and even double trapping if you're taking on a big boss somewhere.

6- stuns. You get a big one after beating Marleybone. It stuns all targets for the cost of two pips. This is an agro securing spell, let me tell you. They will want to come after you big time if you use this spell. It can also be super effective if timed right.

7- pvp in 1v1. Myth are one of the best (if not thee best) 1v1 in the game. Your opponent will usually have to double shield against you, and the cards just don't land right all the time to do that.

8- No true secondary. So if you read between the lines, instead of having a secondary class, I've recommended you go up the ice path to tower shield, go up the balance path to grab weakness, buy spirit blade from Niles (might as well pick up spirit trap while you're at it for kicks), buy sap power from croaky (it's a storm spell go figure). what you buy from there is yours . . . (I'd probably go storm with the rest so you can boost your minion's tendency to cast storm shark and because it's the opposing class . . . you probably will have enough to do that.)

And that's how I see it. Myth casters out there, any other tips to give this person? I'm sure everyone has a different point of view on it. That's just how I see it today.

Happy Dueling!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

bah, fail box

Well, I'm sick of the fail box.


To keep using the fail box, you would have to lower your security settings, so it's gone.

Instead, just click the link over on the side now.



. . . and if the spam from that address gets too bad, I'll just make a new e-mail address.

My apologies for any questions I might have missed due to fail box.

Happy Dueling!

Will getting a mount be fun?

No one asked me this question, but I'm asking it of myself:
username=thefriendlynecromancer
question= Hey friendly! Will getting a mount in Wizard101 be fun? Can you totally go over some stuff about that? YAY and YAY AGAIN. BYEZZZ!

So I've played a lot of MMOs, and "the mount" in all these games have been a pretty big deal.

Let's take a look at how those break down.

1- Lord of the Rings Online

In Lord of the Rings Online, you have to wait until you're a certain level to own a horse, and then you have to spend a lot of in game money to buy it. It's enough that at the level you can buy a horse, it drains your pocketbook completely dry. Most have to end up borrowing the money from one of their rich higher level friends. Once you get the horse, you have to complete a "driving test" quest or two to make sure you can handle your horse ok.

The quest fun rating= 8 out of 10 (although some really had a hard time with the driving test LOL).

The money grind rating = 3 out of 10

2- World of Warcraft

In the game that shall not be named, you also have to reach a certain level before you can purchase a horse, and it is at a hefty expense as well. At first there were two versions of mounts: epic and normal. Normal hurt the pocketbook, but Epic was insane to purchase. OR, if you're a paladin or warlock, you get a couple quests to unlock your holy or unholy mounts . . . both normal and epic. These quests used to be pretty difficult to do. Now I imagine your high level buddies just breeze you through them. Later on in the game you could buy flying mounts that raised you up high in the world . . . once again normal and epic flavors were available. Once again pocketbooks were affected.


(or you could get the incredibly rare raptor mount from the ZG raid. I was one number away on the random from winning this btw)


I don't think anyone had quests for flying mounts. But I know you could craft a helicopter type craft through the powers of engineering. meh, I never made it to that part of the game.

The grind for money to buy a horse (or begging your guild to donate money to the cause) = 3 of 10.

The horse itself = 10 of 10 (riding a horse in wow is fun!)

The quest for paladins and warlocks = 10 of 10 (it really was fun to do this quest and paladin and warlock epic mounts are AWESOME looking). I made a video when I earned my paladin mount I was so happy about it.

3- Everquest

You buy a bridle to summon your horse. That comes in 4 or 5 speeds. wow it's been a long time. I remember that at the time, buying even the lowest horse for my cleric was painful, but SO necessary. You could meditate from horse back to regain your mana. Horses were a game changer for casting classes. You would pretty much always seem them on horse back regaining their mana. wow it's been a long time. There was no quest involved to unlocking the mount and it just hurt the pocketbook a ton. The fastest horse though was very very nice. I had one. It cost a lot of money. It was worth it for saving time on travel.

fun factor = 3 out of 10 to earn and 10 out of 10 when you got it.

OH, and there was ONE quest for a mount in Everquest . . . I had totally forgot this until I remembered just now. You could enter a low level dungeon (Befallen) and complete a quest there until a bridle with 1 charge of summoning appeared. It was a fun quest to complete, but that 1 charge of bridle just left you wanting more.


(oh look, an old picture I dug up of me and my buddy with said 1 charge bridle)


4- Guild Wars

what? There's no mount in Guild Wars. Exactly. Actually, there are a few missions where you "become" a monster and travel at high speeds or have devastating attacks. It's not really a mount per se, but you do get to experience the game at a different pace. They also had a mini-game where you could turn into a fast rolling potato bug type of creature and race against a number of people to a finish line . . . i.e., a race.

fun factor = 0 out of 0 for not having mounts, but 10 out of 10 for when they let you experience the game at a different pace and competitively.


(Riding and guiding inside the belly of the worm spore)


5- Wizard101

I hope that they in corporate some kind of "driving test" quest into getting a mount. In all these games, mounts have really been painful to earn the money to get, but they've been so worth it once you got it. But as you can see, earning the money for a mount has been my least favorite part of the game. (Some people love that by the way . . . some people just love making in game money . . . it's crazy . . . I've never been one of those people. I'm horrible at playing the bazaar. I think I see a lot of Raven$ farming in my future.)

I also hope they have quests to get a 1 or 2 charge use broom or horse or whathave you.


(it's looking fun! But will it be fun?)


I'm excited for mounts, but I'm also excited just to see how they implement them . . . how they introduce us to mounts. You know? It really ups the fun factor for me to have a quest or two go along with a mount.

What would be even better would be a mini-game ala Mario Kart. If they don't integrate this feature into the game, it's one of the first things "our crowd" is going to ask for. I guarantee it. Who doesn't love a good round or two of Mario Kart? I'd love to participate in that with my new expensive mount. It would make the crown purchase worth it because it would be like buying a game within a game.

. . .

And that's how I see it at 6:11 am on 22 September 2009.

Happy Dueling!

(p.s. I'm out of time . . . I'll probably add a few pictures later in the day, but I wanted to get this out there for discussion)

Monday, September 21, 2009

Will the test realm open for testing mounts?

Got a question here from LegendCrafter on twitter:
LegendCrafter: Good morning, Friendly! Any idea if the test realm will open for mounts or whether they will go live directly?

My immediate answer to her was, "Well, historically they've taken two to three weeks to open the test realm from the time of announcement." Grizzleheim seemed to take a little bit longer to hit the test realm, but we aren't talking a new world here necessarily. We are talking new houses and a dozen mounts along with some new monster models and whatever other surprises they're going to hit us with. It's a little intense, but it's nothing that's going to require music to be scripted, you know?

So, I took it a step further and I asked Professor Greyrose, "People want a guesstimate on when the test realm for mounts will go live."

She said one word, "October."

So, the answer seems to be, yes, they will go to the test realm sometime in October.

Personally I don't expect this to stay too long on the Test Realm, but you never know. Right?

:-)

Happy Dueling!

FW: More Wizard101 AGDC Coverage

More AGDC links are starting to come in from Professor Greyrose! Here are a
couple more articles that I haven't linked to yet on this blog.
________________________________

The Virgin worlds.com interview (posted previously) was picked up by
Massively.com -
http://www.massively.com/2009/09/20/agdc-2009-wizard101-hits-5-million-accounts-mounts-coming-and/

Common Sense Gamer covered our "Mounts" preview:
http://commonsensegamer.com/?p=1492

Gamasutra.com also covered our postmortem online:
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=25001
________________________________

Happy Dueling!

FW: AGDC Updates

Hello readers.

Over the next few days, KingsIsle will be forwarding on some tidbits that
came out of the AGDC. I'll forward on any that I haven't covered already.
Good stuff!

________________________________

Check out the interview with James Nance and Fred Howard of KingsIsle on
VirginWorlds.com: http://tinyurl.com/mv9sen

________________________________

Happy Dueling!

Can I start a Wizard101 blog too?

Have a question here from Destiny:
username=Destiny StormStone again
Question=hi again! my mom said that i might
be able to start a blog on w101 i wuz
wondering if you had to get
premission from kingsile or
something to start one

Hi Destiny! All you have to do to start your blogspot blog is click here. And if you don't like the way any blogspot blogs look, click here for wordpress. And you have even more options than those, but those are the two main "free" blog sites.

It's also important to note that you can purchase a blog at Wizard101 Central for 200 forum gold. The benefit to having a Wizard101 Central blog is that you're in a moderated environment and a fairly active one at that. You'll be assured a few views on your blog for every post you make, and it tells you right there how many views you're getting. They've done a lot of the leg work for you.

Now, you ask about needing Kingsisle's permission. You don't need their permission if all you want to do is blog, but if you want to get on Kingsisle's official blogroll listed here, then you've got to follow their rules and get their blessing. It's at the bottom of the page, but I'm going to quote them here for you:
We are always looking for Wizard101 fansites and blogs. It is important that your site mainly contain content about Wizard101. Your site needs to be updated weekly at a minimum. Your site cannot contain content or links to content that violate the Wizard101 Terms of Use. Fansites owners must be over the age of 18, or have written permission from their parent or guardian.

Fansites listed must provide a valid contact email to us and in return will receive updates news via email.

Think your completed site should be part of our program? Email your information to community@wizard101.com. Inclusion of your fansite on our list is entirely at our discretion.

It sounds to me like your mom is already on board with you making a blog, so you're probably half way there.

Good luck on your blog!

Happy Dueling!

Sunday, September 20, 2009

New video tour from AbleGamers

First, thanks to Diary of a Wizard for linking this up.

Next, this is truly an amazing video to watch from AbleGamers.com (Disabled Gamers community). You're going to want to watch this because you'll get to see the amazing Tony the Tiger mount.



I want one of those.



GETTYUP TONY!

Anyway, this video is from AbleGamers's exclusive peek at Wizard101.

The interviewer is Beau from the Spouse Agro blog. Well done, Beau! Thanks so much for doing this!

This was such a cool look at everything the fans want to see.

Here's a quick walk through of the video in case you can't access it from work or school or something.

Besides a clip of the fire dragon spell killing a ninja pig, the video starts out with some pictures from the fan art wall. Brilliant. Then you have James Nance (developer) walking through the design pit with Beau and Fernando (PR) in tow. The next piece of information imparted here is that we will be getting some new monster models in the early part of the game for the sake of variation. Awesome.

James and Beau then begin discussing how the data integration works, and the Tony the Tiger mount is unveiled (I love how the rider of the tiger mount has a ninja pig outfit on as well). They talk about the challenges and successes of making Wizard101 able to play on something as basic as a netbook. Then they talk about how they have built about 30 mounts so far; however, there will only be a dozen or so initially launched. The rest are going to be saved for special promotions and as . . . dun dun dun . . . monster drops.

Then James and Beau move on over to the environment sector of the design pit and try to snag a bite of an artist's granola bar to no success. HOWEVER, we do get a nice detailed look at the new balance world house. That's right, every school of magic is going to get their own house model. Beau actually tries to get them to call up the Death housing and they distracted him away from that attempt and they get pulled over to the concept art for Grizzleheim, and they have a quick discussion of moving from concept to game integration. Then we see the sound office, make a quick spin past the programmers, and there we go.

All in all . . . A+ fantastic video. Five stars from friendly for sure! You're going to see this video popping up everywhere that wizard101 fans frequent. Excellent!

Happy Dueling!

The Friendly Necromancer Blog turns 1 year old!

Hello all! I just wanted to say that it's been a pleasure writing for Wizard101 this past year. And LOOK! Cassandra made me another awesome picture of all my family's characters!



It all started with a passion to tell the world about this great new game called Wizard101, and it all somehow morphed over time into a passion to somehow keep telling the world about this game and much more.

I still remember that initial feeling I had that just overtook me with this game. WRITE! WRITE! WRITE! Since that time we've had a lot to talk about:
- Interviews
- Videos
- Comics
- music remixes
- fan fiction
- News about the release of Dragonspyre
- News about the release of Player Housing
- News about the release of Grizzleheim
- News about the release of MOUNTS!
- The Housing Item of the Day series
- Player Trading Cards and a card game based around those
- Wikipedia work
- Central News
- And on and on and on to the tune of 500+ posts pretty much all about Wizard101 in one form or another.

Hopefully you've also got to know Thomas, Bailey, Amber, Kyle, Isiah, The Evil Twin, and even Digby (my level 5 fire wizard). And don't forget DIAPERMANCER! :-)

I've also tried to answer a lot of questions through the "ask friendly a question" series and make myself available to the community that has been so generous to me. Thanks to my blogroll and friends in Wizard101. To everyone, keep up the good work because you all are inspiring to me.

Here's a great picture that Autumn Duskhunter made for my blog's 1 year birthday way back in August. hehe. I have to include it because it was so full of awesomeness.



Also, I'd be really ungrateful if I didn't publicly thank Professor Greyrose and the KI staff. You all have been great to work with. Keep making our game great. :-)

Happy Dueling!

Trouble on Triton Avenue--Chapter 3 (Lexicons for Lionblood)

Hello all, I'd like to now present you with Chapter 3 of my fan fiction. In case you're late on the scene and haven't read my other two chapters, here are some links to them:

Chapter 1 - Ripped from the Light
Chapter 2 - Leaves of Healing

Thank you all for reading.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Chapter 3 – Lexicons for Lionblood

In an effervescent puff of mist, the students landed securely below the steps to the Wizard City Library with Merle. Thomas felt the eyes of his classmates that had suddenly stopped to view the headmaster and the two class clowns; they all had such deadly serious looks on their faces.

Adding to the odd sight was how amazingly nimble Professor Ambrose was for his age. Thomas wondered why they had appeared at the bottom of the steps to the library instead of at the top? It might just be that Ambrose liked climbing stairs . . . or maybe he wanted to make this entrance.

“Here we are, students!” said Merle as he sprang up the steps with Thomas and Caleb trying to keep up.

Merle peeked his head through the doors to see his students busily checking out research materials for mid-terms. “Good day, all” Merle announced with a quick, clear voice, “Shut the doors and finish your transactions, Harold; we’ve got urgent spiral business!”

Harold, the Marleybonian librarian of Wizard City, calmly looked up through his dusty spectacles, licked his nose, finished his current transaction, and said in his calm, slow, and dog-like voice, “Pardon me students, the library is now closed.” He reached under his desk and pressed a magical clockwork button that quickly both sealed the doors and magically teleported the students back to the Wizard City commons.

“Um, Professor Ambrose?” asked Caleb. Thomas, Caleb, and Ambrose were still standing outside the library doors, which were now sealed magically tight.

“Yes, boy, I know we’re not inside the library,” stated Merle resolutely. Merle knocked on the library door three times quickly and three times slowly. Suddenly Thomas, Caleb, and Merle were shrunk and spun through the keyhole in the library door as if draining through the holes on a bathtub. When they materialized on the other side, there was Harold, who was raised from his usual position behind the desk and rising up the stairs to the second level of the library.

Merle once again sprung up the steps of the library staircase, completely passing the slow and methodical Harold. Harold, Thomas, and Caleb all reached the top of the staircase while Merle paced back and forth, muttering to himself about needing to talk to Falmea about recent fire wizard fashions. “What in the blazes is he muttering about” whispered Caleb to Thomas. Harold slowly winked at the boys and slowly opened the upstairs door. “Please, students and headmaster; let us retire to this private meeting room to discuss your urgent business.”

Harold had such an amazing sense of old school charm about him that most of Wizard City lacked. It was a true class and wisdom that was to be admired.

The students and Harold sat down in the comfortable leather seats and stared at each other for an uncomfortable moment. Harold served tea—silently—methodically—spectacularly.

“Well,” said Merle, feeling the uncomfortable silence. “How about that card, Thomas?”

"Uh, right!" Thomas started searching his pockets. It wasn't just moments ago he was in hospital robes . . . not student robes, "let's see, here they are." Thomas reached into his right hand pocket and produced a torn Cyclops summoning card.

Harold looked Thomas in the eyes and said softly, "may I please inspect your card, sir." Thomas, almost embarrassed by the formalities of Harold replied as formally, "of course Mister Argleston."

Harold took the card and elevated it to the light and pulled a small magnifying glass out of his coat pocket. "Yes, pre-titans card. Nice. Very nice. Horrible rip. I heard through the grapevine that you tried to heal the card?"

Thomas finished, "Yes, and when I did a hand came out of the card."

"Well that's what I heard, boy,” Harold laughed quietly. “And believe me, I've seen stranger occurrences happen in this city in my day.” Harold grew a more serious look, “What concerns me is that this card is pre-titans work. Work that should have expired years ago”

Thomas felt a bit unsure, "You’re talking about the time before the battle between the titans and the dragons?"

Harold nodded, “You know, Life and Death magic are the oldest of all the schools. Storm, Ice, and Fire are the youngest. But, Myth is interesting because it is both old and new at once--for legends are created everyday.” There was a moment of silence for Harold’s wise knowledge of history. "Tell me, did your cyclops friend tell you anything when he came out of the card?" asked Harold.

Thomas stared at the ceiling. What did happen? It all seemed so dream-like now to him. And then he remembered something outside the pain in his hand, "Yes, he asked me to help him."

Harold looked taken aback, "help him? Certainly the cyclops whose tear made this pre-titan card was vanquished in battle many years ago . . . perhaps before even Merle here was born."

Harold continued to look at the card and flipped it over, "Where'd you come by this card, Mr. Lionblood?"

Thomas once again stared at the ceiling, "You know, I'm not quite sure where this card came from. It was almost like it just was there one day among my other cards."

Merle stepped toward Thomas and Harold, "Thomas, you know it's customary for the head of the Myth School to give students their summoning cards . . . are you sure this isn't from Cyrus Drake?"

Thomas noted, "Yes, I had already received my cards from Cyrus when this appeared."

Merle looked shocked, "And you didn't find it strange it appeared?"

Thomas shook his head, "Actually, no I didn't. I'm sorry." “Strange things just kind of happen at a magic school,” Thomas shrugged.

Merle remembered Thomas had just been through a lot during that day and reached out comfortingly to him, "It's ok, Thomas. I just want to make sure you and Caleb know that the operating procedures of this city dictate that students report malfunctions of magic like this, but I know you're not a trouble maker. There is no crime here." Merle motioned to Harold who was still studying the card intently, "Mr. Argleston, can you see any clues to its origin besides being pre-Titan era?"

Harold shook his head yes, "Yes, yes I can, the back of the card has been painted with a rosin from a tree other than Ivan. And there is a brand here that resembles the symbol of General Akilles on Cyclops Avenue here in town. I think he might be able to give us some more assistance."

Merle smiled. He knew his old friend Harold would have some insight. It was his nature. "Thank you Mr. Argleston, we are off now to talk to General Akilles. Your assistance is as always, invaluable."

Harold slowly handed the card back to Thomas. "Thank you, young Lionblood, for letting me examine this card.” Harold rose from his chair and began to gather the tea cups before them, “And let me know how things go with Akilles, that stubborn old cyclops."

And with a flash of effervescent mist and a click of Merle’s fingers, Thomas, Caleb, and the headmaster vanished out of sight.

Harold descended the stairs and moved to the locked doors of the library. He whispered under his breath, "That boy's going to change the way we do business around here someday, I'm sure of it . . . now, let's make some more money," he said with his tail wagging the dust in the air.

The doors opened wide and a few students who had been trying to listen through the door stumbled in. Harold smiled and moved back to his chair.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Happy Dueling!

Saturday, September 19, 2009

The Adventures of . . . LADY DEXTER!

Hi! I'm starting a new comic series for James Summergem's Newspaper thread over on Central.

I'm just reposting it over here on my blog in case you missed it.


(click to enlarge)

Happy Dueling!

What's the new statue in the commons?

Got a question here from Destiny:
username=Destiny StormStone
Question=When I went on
wizard101 this morning i saw this
fountain in the middle of the
commons pond. Do you have any idea what
this is? it says gratias ago vos on it

Yes! This is a really cool statue, isn't it?




As I understand it, "Gratias ago vos" means "Thank you, everyone"

You may remember when we got that statue for the 1 millionth player of Wizard101.



Well . . .



it's gone now, and no . . . no one knows kayla silverstaff.

So, I'm pretty sure the new statue is to celebrate the 5 millionth player. And maybe, just maybe, KI just wants to tell us all thank you for playing their game. :-)

Happy Dueling!

How much will mounts cost?

Got a question from an anonymous poster on the mounts thread below that I thought might be good to pull out here and see if we can get some good guesses . . .
Any idea on the cost of [the mounts]? or the number of crowns?

It's a very good question; however, I don't think anyone is going to have a good answer at this time. It's too soon, and I know that things get changed around in the test realm a lot too based on user feedback and opinions.

BUT, what we can do is look at the cost of current speed boost items.


and

so right now you're looking at paying around $5 real money to buy an 8% speed boost. Horses, and the permanent kind, are going to be five times that. Simple math says 5x5 = $25 real money.

However these things are never simple math, right? I mean, when you go to the movie theaters, they usually jack up the price of the small drink and then make it 50 cents more for a medium drink and 75 cents more for a large drink. Then you think, oh yeah, well I might as well get a large drink since it's only 75 cents more than a small and only a quarter more than the medium drink, right?

So it's entirely possible that the "rule of theater drinks" may apply.

We have three choices we know of for a surety:

- 1 day trial mount 20% speed boost
- 7 day trial mount 40% speed boost
- permanent mount 40% speed boost

How much would you spend for a PERMANENT speed boost to your character that you don't have to switch in and out of your inventory like boots. AND . . . it's unsure at this time if there will be other options as well like ability to avoid combat while on a mount, which would be another plus.

How much would you spend in real money for that?

It's hard to say . . . here's what I would guess:

- For 1 day--25000 in game gold or 2000 crowns with the option to put that towards my purchase of a permanent mount
- For 7 day--50000 in game gold or 10000 crowns with the option to put that towards my purchase of a permanent mount
- For permanent--20000 crowns?

Opinions? Too high or too low of a guess?

Of course at this time it's all conjecture . . . um . . . *opens can of worms*

Happy Dueling!

Thursday, September 17, 2009

AGDC Wrapup Post

Check it out! It's a picture of J. Todd Coleman at AGDC!



Yup, he's all talkin' and stuff about Krokotopia and there's a couple guys who have kind of dark curly brown hair there. One is starting to lose hair on top . . . OH WAIT! Blizzard T-shirt! Wonder who that guy is? It's so Blizzard to try to sit front and center and stuff. Hmmm, what if that was Professor Greyrose with the ponytail? AND what's the deal with the empty seats? This is FREAKING Wizard101 we're talking about here. I dedicated the last year of my gaming life to this game, and you people at AGDC leave empty seats? Oh man, so wrong.

Ok . . . now that I got that out. Let me just complete the story here that I started a couple days ago with this post.

So Nelson Everhart didn't win the Ironman competition, but he said it was a lot of fun. From what he was telling me, there was kind of a miscommunication about composing a piece of music for the game (which was Raving Rabbids) and doing live sound effects for the game . . . so he kind of had to shuffle, but lucked out by already having the "secret ingredient" sound already loaded in his soundbank! If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can get some background information by reading this. Who won? A guy named Justin Brown (looks to be the composer for all the sims games). The lucky thing for us is that Nelson plans on writing a blog post about his experience. When that's up, I will definitely forward the link.

Next . . . oh yeah . . . this picture again:



From what I've heard through the rumor mill, and from what I can piece together from a couple of tweets, this was more of a get-to-know-the-sleeper-game-of-2009 jam session given by our Mr. Coleman.

Here's a couple tweets from people that saw the lecture:
RT @twizznerd: #AGDC wizard 101 can be played on most netbooks!
RT @NicoleLazzaro: Wizard 101 showing public Google stats to compare the major MMOs. They have 5M players. #agdc #gdcaustin Awesome.

Once again, from what I understand, the Google analytics they looked at showed Wizard101 was a more searched term than ToonTown or FreeRealms. So, you know, nothing much new came out of that, but hey! Have you seen this cool picture I got of J Todd Coleman speaking at AGDC?



(Thanks Nelson for snapping a picture for me and for the info . . . You rock!)

The big thing for us (us being the common Wizard101 gamer) through this whole thing was that we found out about mounts during the whole process, and we will all probably start to see more news trickle in about mounts as they are written about by all the cool gaming news websites that Kingsisle's PR guru talked to while he was there. (/waves to Fernando) Now if I could only find out who they talked to while they were there so I don't have to take the shotgun approach to gathering information . . .

I digress.

OH! One more thing before I drop the topic of AGDC forever, if you're looking for some more pictures of the event, here's some pictures of the conference from GameDev.

Happy Dueling!

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Alex Jaderider wears cools clothes, what are they?

Got a question here from Mike:
Hey Friendly ,
Having a look at your post about Alex Jaderider .What is that robe he is wearing? I've never seen anything like that before. Reminds me of the Knights of Camelot!
~Mike

I can show you all his secrets!

MUHAHAHAHA!

Well, not all his secrets, but I can show you his gear at least. Actually, you can see his gear by taking a trip to the pvp vendor and looking at the cool commander pvp gear. Check out the stats:



If you're unfamiliar with that -100 mana on each piece, you'll be kind of flipping out right now. This is really pvp only gear. KI tries to avoid sending their players out into the pve world with +35% resist to all damage types on their gear. "Wouldn't be prudent" So, they sap the mana right out of you so you can only use the gear for pvp fighting (where you don't need mana).

Happy Dueling!

How do I get the Master of Death Badge?

Here's a question from Ms. Deathsong:

username=Olivia Deathsong
Question=Hi Friendly Necromancer.
I have a question. I am a Grandmaster Necromancer but did
not receive my master of death badge. I completed the quest and have
my wraith pet. Do you know what happened and what I
can do to get mybadge?
Thx

Ok, so, there may be a bit of confusion on this badge. If you've done everything correctly, you should, by the time you get your scarecrow spell, receive your Master of Death badge as soon as you get that spell, BUT sometimes I've heard that people haven't been getting the badge. As it turns out, this is because it isn't completing the level 48 spell quest that gives you the Master of Death badge. GASP! I know! Crazy!

I'm going to refer you to the Warcry database on Badges for this answer: click

The requirement for this badge is to "Learn all the Death Spells."

All the death spells? Yup, all of 'em.

So the next question, logically, is . . . oh dang, what are all the death spells and what am I missing?

I'm going to refer you to two lists:
1) Warcry
2) Wikia

The usual suspects would be these four spells:
* Death Shield
* Pacify
* Infection
* Steal Health

Then I'd move on to the quest spells.

Sooooooo, finally, if you have all your spells and you still don't have your badge, then it's time you dialed up Customer Support.

Hope that helps!

Happy Dueling!

FW: Wizard101 News Announcement from AGDC

NICE!!!


This just came across the wire from AGDC!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WIZARD101™ MOUNTS



The next major new content being developed by KingsIsle Entertainment for Wizard101 is a series of Wizard Mounts that provide a fun, fast, and stylish way of getting around. Many different types of Wizard Mounts will be available with more to come in the future. Initially, four will be introduced: Brooms, Horses, Cats, and Dragons!





Wizard Mounts may be rented for a day or a week. They may also be purchased permanently. The one and seven day rental gives Wizards a chance to try out the mount and decide which one they want to own permanently. One day rentals add a 20% movement speed increase. Seven day rentals and permanent purchases add a 40% movement speed increase.





One day rentals may be purchased with in-game gold. Seven day rentals and permanent Wizard Mounts may be purchased with in-game gold or Crowns. All mounts may be purchased at the Crown shop (player user interface that will be available in October) or Zeke.



Wizard Mounts are expected to launch in October 2009.



Wizard Mounts Fast Facts:
• Four types at release: Brooms, Horses, Cats, and Dragons!
• Available in a variety of appearances that favor male and female styles.
• May be rented for 1-day or 7-days, or purchased permanently.
• 1-day rentals give 20% movement speed increase; 7-day and permanent purchases give 40% movement speed increase.
• May be purchased for in-game gold and Crowns from the new, upcoming Crown shop or Zeke.
• Available in October.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I just knew something good would be coming out of the AGDC! I'm so excited for these speed boosts! AWESOME!

Happy Dueling!