Happy Halloween Everybody!

Hello everybody!

Cassandra crafted up a spooky picture of her favorite bloggers Halloween Style! LOL I'm so FREDDY!


MUHUAHAHA! I love it Cassandra. Evil Theurgists is holding his severed head! EEP!

I hope everyone has a great Halloween this year! I'll be passing out a lot of candy here and hanging out. My new thing is to put on this groovy leather jacket from the 80's and spend 3 weeks growing a beard, which I shave into a super ugly moustache. Then, I put on this really greasy looking afro mullet wig. I call myself the Halloween Groover and dance to the beat of my lightshow all night. BOOYAH!

Lightshow you ask? Yeah, a couple years ago I bought this crazy light-o-rama thing that's awesome. People usually do Christmas light shows with it, but I made a Halloween one! yay! I'm loading a couple videos of it to youtube as I type this.

I went outside last night and took a few pictures of it while messing around with a long delay setting on my camera to make the lights blur. Here's a few of those:


Dizzy!


DIZZY X2!


I call this one "Good Game." It's like I just said GG to you after a PvP match! ;-)

Oh good! The videos have finished uploading. Check it out! This first one is of the Twilight Zone and a little spooky zombie romp through the pumpkin patch.



This next one here is a remix of the Thriller! Enjoy!



Those are hot off the presses there . . . video quality should improve in a few hours I think.

Anyway! I hope you all finish up your Halloween quests in Wizard City over the next little bit! Have a great one today!

Happy Dueling!

Are there maps with the locations of the teleport stones?

Hello readers. I have a question from Sierra Starsong:

Hey Friendly, it's Sierra Starsong again. Do you know if anyone's mapped out all the Teleport Stones yet? I always have trouble remembering which colored stone goes to which location.

As far as I know there is only one thread over on central that attempts this. This only has 3 Marleybone maps currently.

There's another interesting thread over there as well that requests KI give us the ability to mark our own maps! Now that would be awesome. They used to have a "cartography" feature in Everquest that allowed you to make your own maps as well. What ended up happening was one guy made awesome maps and everyone just downloaded those to their hard drives.

Cartma on that thread basically proposes that same functionality:

"The ability to notate positions on your own map would be a great addition. Things I would mark:

- reagent locations
- teleport stone locations
- boss locations (since some bosses disappear off the map after the quest is done)
- those darn smoke stacks in Katz lab
- Zeke quests (smiths, beetles, etc.)

A client side xml file would be great, because then, you can share it with others."

I wouldn't mind having maps with all those marked!

Thanks for the question.

Happy Dueling!

Why can't I fly up?

Question here from Mike:

hey friendly, it's mike! i have an ida about the mounts well broomes and other flying mounts, i was going to tell this to kingsile, but i wannted to to see if you and some other wizards liked it to. what if you can fly up and i mean up, in the clouds, so when you look up in the commens you will see broomes swarming around in the air, and i think it would be neat to see wizard city from in the air. also you could evan fly to other worlds on your broom, all manual! fly there yourself! so ya like the ida? shuld i ask kingsile if they cn make it hapen? plz comment.

I like it, but I don't think we're quite ready for it in our little world of Wizard101. Here's the problem as I see it. The moment you allow a player to go "up" in a 3D game (also known as traveling along the Z-axis), is the same moment you chance getting a player stuck on world objects, your world maintenance costs go up, and your complaints go up.

If they did though, that would pretty much rock. Who doesn't like to go up in games? Imagine being able to soar off the edge of the waterfall on Triton Ave, under the bridge and over the Kraken battlefield? It would be really fun.

If you look at Guild Wars as an example of a game that didn't allow a Z-axis . . . they had an incredibly successful run with four expansions while no one was allow to travel the Z-axis in any of their games. However, Guild Wars 2 (unreleased) promises to allow you to swim down into depths and fly in the sky. Perhaps someday we'll get a Wizard201, the sophomore year, where we can do that! :-) /shrug . . . time will only tell.

The only way to do it now in Wizard101 seems to be making your own stairways with floating books in your house. ;-)

Thanks for the question (sorry it took so long for me to get to it)

Happy Dueling!

Ravenwood Radio

OH! Before I forget, I must tell you all about a new podcast coming to the spiral! Apparently sometime tonight there will be a broadcast from Ravenwood Radio.

Click!

This was something that has been asked about before on my blog. So, the very first podcast about this game is an exciting thing! I know Diary of a Wizard will be tuning in as well!

I'm hoping one my remixes gets played on the podcast for sure!

Best of luck to Ravenwood Radio on their first broadcast!

Happy Dueling!

Player Trading Card of the Day--Luke Dragontamer

Slowly but surely we're knocking these cards out!



It's the Luke Dragontamer card! Thanks for participating, Luke! And yes, we do need to meet up in game one of these days. I just wish my life wasn't so dang busy all the time. ;-)

Happy Dueling!

Player Trading Card of the Day--Alex Dreamwalker

Wow, been a long time since I've done one of these!


Thanks for stepping up, Alex! I agree with your advice!

I had to cut Alex's advice short to fit it on the card. His full advice was this, "If you are going to use the Second Chance Chest, using once is ok but they get addicting. Used Malistaire's yesterday and spent about 3000 crowns before I knew it and never got anything for my life char. Going to have to start a storm wizard just because I got three of the Grand Robes for it now. LOL"

oo! ouch 3k crowns. It's interesting that you got three of the same kind of robe. I received three of the same kind when I was doing that as well. My wife's character is all set when she turns 50. ;-)

Happy Dueling!

Stormzilla, Heckhound, Vampire, and Earthwalker cards

I'll be crafting up a few monster cards each day this week for my card game. Here's a few I did this morning:









Happy Dueling!

What's the purpose of Sir Reginald Baxby?

I have a question here from Blaze:

Hey Friendly, its Blaze again, and I just want to know about that Zebra in Wizard 101 named Sir Reginald Baxby. WHAT DOES HE DO IN THE GAME!?!? Does he just sit there to look pretty or what???

mm, I dunno, but Myrna agrees with you!


I actually have a few good quotes for you.

The first comes from this thread from the forums on the main Wizard101 site:

"Sir Reginald Baxby is stoically awaiting orders from Merle Ambrose.
Until then, he watches over the streets of some of the worlds of the Spiral to ensure they are safe for all young Wizards"

The second comes from this other thread from the forums on the main Wizard101 site:

"During our Beta period . . . Baxby had a quest. Since then, that quest was turned into simple badge rewards for defeating large numbers of the same creature."

So basically, this is an NPC that they left in the game because he looks cool, and who knows, at some point maybe they'll make him actually do something more than just look cool. I liked my idea of adding rewards for badges that I talked about here. That would be an excellent reason to dust him off IMHO!

Hope that helps!

Happy Dueling!

Why does Balance get four minions?

I had a reader post this question/comment on the spells thread.

why does balance get FOUR minions i mean they get a normal minion and then that random one. seem kinda dumb to me...

Well, you'd be shocked to know that death actually gets 14 minions . . . click me! And myth has four minions to choose from as well.

To answer your question, I actually had to refer to the old balance guide from Tarlac since I've never had a sorcerer up to that high of level to know exactly what the minions are like.

He actually gives a very good reason and strategy for using those balance minions. Let me quote a bit here for you:

"Because he (*The Mander Minion*) casts Elemental Shield, he works best when facing Fire, Ice, or Storm enemies, so I usually let him take a back seat to my Spectral Minions when I am fighting a Death, Balance, Life, or Myth boss."

So the reason for two different minion spells seems to be to help you against all different kinds of wizards. I can't speak for KI, but that seems to be completely working as intended.

Definitely check out that guide I linked to and especially the portions on Mander Minion and Spectral Minion.

Hope that helps and . . .

Happy Dueling!

The Case of Wizard101's Missing Presence

So I was in a game store the other day, and as I was looking around at all the amazing shelves and racks of game after game (this was truly an amazing game store), I couldn’t help but thinking about this game that has captured my heart and imagination. So, I started looking around for a wizard101 logo while looking at all the other stuff in this store.

They had the standard fare of Dungeons and Dragons, Magic the Gathering Strategy Guide, etc. You know: the kind of gaming books you can find at any commercial bookstore (Barnes and Noble even). They had a huge pile of boxed party games: everything from Life to Would you Rather. They had a stack of fantasy based warfare games; I saw a number of "the game that shall not be named" boxes there that looked like complete packs of miniatures. That game is truly a beast. They also had comics, trading cards, sports memorabilia, Xbox party rooms, gamer tables complete with sweaty 20-year-olds barking out dice rolls, and an area dedicated to large tables for immense miniature campaigns. Amazing!

After talking to the owner and the owner's son and the owner's daughter . . . (who opened the door to the store for us . . . man I love family run businesses) I found out they had been there for seven years now and this was, in fact, my first trip in there. *scratches head* so much for me being some uber "gamer" dude.

Anyway, I walked past the TCG aisle and cringed a bit as I saw packs of Free Realms cards for sale. They do that to me, you know. I know Wizard101 is gaining a lot of mainstream exposure (what with their heavy advertising on Cartoon Network), but I started to wonder about the missing presence of my game here, in this cool gamer shop run by this family. Here was Free Realms, and it was in this place that gamer-y gamers like to go to and apparently like to grow up going to. (I remember going to a local gamer shop when I was a kid . . . it was one of the places we'd ride our bikes to every saturday.)

As my family wandered around, a young 13 year old son of the owner came over to us in the comic book section and talked to us about the ratings on comic books and pointed us to some comic books that would be more my kids’ speed: Sonic the Hedgehog and Tiny Titans. We purchased these mags and went our way. Come to find out, on the back of Amber's Sonic the Hedgehog comic book, there was a Free Realms ad:


A few things on this ad that were interesting . . . this ad was not so much pitching freerealms.com, but it was pitching the Trading Card Game and a comic book that's soon to be released. I can tell because that spot on the ad is the very spot they say that people's eyes travel to first when they look at ads (I took a class on Communication Graphics in college and stuff). They also threw a free code in for kicks, so . . . kids . . . use "skeletal" next time you log on that other game. *cough*

You know, this is the power of Sony right there. Sony is a huge company with an office dedicated just to producing TCGs. I know that for a fact. I read the blog of a guy that works there (it's a little adult, so I'm not going to link it) They probably also have another office dedicated to producing comics. I don't know that for a fact. But, seriously, Sony is huge! They have the power here.

On the other hand, Kingsisle is only 4 years old, and Wizard101 is their first game. If they did somehow manage to establish some sort of presence in some random gamer store, I would be highly impressed! Has anyone seen Wizard101 advertise in comic books? Here's where I've seen wizard101 so far: Cartoon Network, Beckett's Magazine, Pokemon Magazine, all the stores where they sell their game cards, and a few school type promotional handouts.

Where have you seen them?

What do you think about their missing presence there in that gamer store? of no consequence?

Happy Dueling!

What happened to the CCG?

Got a good question here:

i was wondering what happened to your idea of the trading card game for Wizard 101 that you were working on. i read it on one of your blogs and me and my son loved the idea and were hoping to print off the cards and get his mother to play that with us( she is not to into actual video games.).

Yeah . . . it's been around three months since I was talking about making a CCG. I guess I kind of got a little disheartened about the project. I need to get that intensity back about it.

Ok, so as far as I can tell I'm down to the last six player cards that need to be made.

I need the following people to step up:

1 fire wizard
1 storm wizard
2 ice wizards
2 life wizards

I think once I have those done, then the next thing I will need to do is make the monster cards.

So, if you're interested: leave me a note below with a way to contact you for more information. If you leave me an e-mail address, I will write it down and delete your post as soon as I can so I can remove your personal information. If you don't have an e-mail, leave me your name on Wizard101 central.

If you need a refresher on my CCG project, click here and here.

And to John, who sent me the question, thanks for asking! :-) I'm with ya. Let's get this thing finished so you guys can play this offline with mom!

Happy Dueling!

Farmable/Odd Damage-Based Treasure Cards

Hello readers,

There's a group of Treasure cards out there that drop from monsters or bosses that are kind of rare or unusual. It's hard what to call this group of cards for me. I guess "Farmable" Damage-Based Treasure Cards would probably be the most correct title that I could peg to it, but they are not only farmable, they are odd as well . . . more odd than your standard odd transmutation.

These cards usually cast from a school of magic, but they aren't found in the school's standard learnable spells. Here's the list of them:

- Ghost Touch (You can really only get these in one place, Unicorn Way's Ghosts . . . nothing better than killing a ghost with a ghost)

- Naturewalker (Only seems to drop from Ironsplinter--it's a 6 pip life card)

- Krokotillian (Balance damage in the form or a Krok blast--farmable from Krok models)

- Krokomummy (Fire-based damage that features spinning bandages of death--farmable from krokomummy models)

- Ninja Pig (The favorite of all myth wizards, myth-based damage that is just pure awesomeness--only available from ninja pigs in mooshu)

- The Bonekeeper (Possibly the most rare of them all, it comes from the bonekeeper mob, an out of the way ghoul boss in Krokotopia)

- Black Cat (This is available only at Halloween time and is a death based transmutation of the firecat for the most part--I only include it because you can get a lot from a one-time only quest. It's not hard to get a bunch of these with your lower level alts or buy them on the bazaar)

- Harvest Lord (Only comes from the Harvest Lord on Triton Ave--Fire damage from a scarecrow? I love the way this guy spits out blue light from his pumpkin head and chucks it at the mob)

- Lord Nightshade (Only comes from Lord Nightshade in Wizard City--2 pip wraith model that's sure to thrill the kiddies on Unicorn Way)

So I went to Dragonspyre with Amber and just had a blast throwing these cards out. I tried filming them with the Xfire program that I downloaded last week, and it worked pretty good actually. There's more to Xfire than I knew!

Anyway, enjoy this latest video! It was fun making it last night!



Happy Dueling!

Should I make a second character?

I have a question here from Lucas:

My character is a level 37 Life (wizard) . . ., and I have a question. Everyone I meet seems to have at least two characters over level 10. I always feel lazy whenever my friends have more than 1 character that are up to the same place they are and I'm still stuck with one character, because I don't want to redo all those quests over again.

**Sigh** Wizard City, Krok, MarleyBone, MooShu... and then DS! Ugh. I guess one of my problems is that I usually do all the side quests I pick up because I want to hit GM ASAP, but seriously - creating another character to level up to your higher character seems like a ton of work and I feel lazy.

What do you think I should do? Because I really want a Storm and Death Wizard, lol.

Cool! I get to express my opinion rather than give a fact! yay!

Here's my opinion: It all comes down to how moody you are, your definition of how you win the game, and your determination level.

Moody? Well yeah! These characters all play differently. Some days you're going to feel like a life wizard (full of helping and life) and some days you're going to feel like a storm wizard (full of raw and dangerous power) and some days you're going to feel like a death wizard (no worries, I can do it all myself, you're just here to make things go faster).

So if you're pretty even keeled and feel pretty much the same way every day, you're not going to need a second or third character at your disposal. You are what you are.

Which brings me to this game . . . and how you win it.

From what you're saying, it sounds like you generally like to play a game through to the end and then you're done. We all can relate to that. Like most gamers, you see the world out there is so full of other games, why waste your time playing this one again?

However, you're also in this strange game where it's not just a game; it's also a place to hang out and meet people. Games like these are different from the games you've played in the past. I mean, have you ever played a game on your wii where your friends thought you were lazy (other than wii fit . . . that just doesn't count for this metaphor ;-))? I mean, no one is going to be calling me lazy on Super Smash Brothers . . . maybe unskilled, but probably not lazy. :-)


But this game is different! It is! And so, I think when a game is different, you should play differently than you usually do. You should do crazy things like play the lower levels over and over making new characters and meeting new people! Because in the end of this game, the big bad boss is not Malistaire. The big bad boss is you. And the way you win this game is not by beating Malistaire, but by how awesome you were while playing this game with others. The memories you forge while fighting through the game with other people are what you should keep!

But, if you're just in it to play it and move on, you won't need those additional characters. Forge on.

NOW, let's talk about this game and what it's really like. This game has gotten easier over time. Grizzleheim has made it so you can get a slight edge on leveling and given you an additional training point. Mounts have made it so you can get from place to place faster. The bazaar has made it so you can get the best gear at every level. What this did was make the easy parts of the game easier. Krokotopia and Mooshu are kind of a drag now (*ducks and covers from the people who might disagree here*). There's no towers in those worlds and IMHO they are just not as tough as the other worlds. Sometimes the drag of these worlds will push you back to Wizard City where a trap stacked on you by a monster and other people joining in a fight and fleeing can really make things challenging. (Believe me, I was defeated a few times yesterday on my new ice wizard.)

So, I can see why people go back to the beginning of the game because sometimes easy parts of the game can be a drag. That may be what is happening to your friends (probably not, but you never know. I'm just covering my bases here).

Anyway, what does all this have to do with whether you make a second character or not? Well, the answer from my point of view is yes, most definitely yes you should make a second character . . . and a third . . . and a fourth! Yeah, you're going to do the same quests over and over. But, you will now have a character for every mood inside you, and you never know who you might end up meeting in the process (never know, you may make a lifelong friend like I did back in my Everquest days)! Every character class plays differently, and you'll really be giving yourself a richer game experience in the end.

. . . And if you have the determination, with one of those characters you'll eventually beat Malistaire. There's really no rush to save the spiral, he just keeps respawning anyway. ;-)


Give a new character a shot!

Happy Dueling!

Savage Wildclaw . . . not Tricky Wildclaw

So, if you all haven't met my new buddy Duke Smokey . . . SAY HELLO!


I had him out today as I was running around, and people were oo'ing and ah'ing over him a bit.

I was a bit disappointed at first because I thought the Tricky Wildclaw pet was supposed to come with a card of reshuffle and Smokey here has an infection spell. hmmm. I even mentioned it on the side to Professor Greyrose when I was talking with her the other day (she e-mailed to let me know she liked the new spirals). However, someone pointed it out to me today that I did not have a "Tricky Wildclaw" at all! (I think it might have been Ronan.) What I really have is a "Savage Wildclaw."

yup, notice the name on the top of the card there:


No matter! Duke Smokey still has a place in my heart. :-) I must have missed the Tricky Wildclaw pet. According to the giftcard site, it looks like the Sturdy Wildclaw (card of stunblock) is up next.

Happy Dueling!

Where can I purchase a mount?

Got a real basic question here from Anna Icestone and Vanessa Deathsword:

Hi!

I was wondering, where can purchase a mount?

You purchase a mount through the crowns shop. The crowns shop isn't like the other shops where you enter it through a door. Nope. The crowns shop is actually right there on your screen at all times.


Hope that helps!

Happy Dueling!

Question redux from the Ideas for Earning Crowns thread

Ok, so I just read through all 75 comments on the Ideas for Earning Crowns thread again. whew. It's a little scary on that thread . . . almost youtube-ish!

So, within that madness, there were about five questions that I think I could address in one big shwoop.

*COMMENCES WITH SHWOOPING!*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Question 1 - "wow i love your logo how you make it you can post that next"

Actually, I already did post on that! Here's the link.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Question 2 - did you know about www.grandmasterfiles.blogspot.com?

I did not know about it until you posted! Welcome to the blogger's club, Allison!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Question 3 - Where do i get the gift cards at?

You can purchase gift cards for Wizard101 at a whole slew of places. Check this link to see the whole list of them.

Oh! And I went and picked up a $20 card today from Walgreens. Yup, the cool grizzleheim pet is out! I can't wait to log on and see what my new little buddy looks like!



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Question 4 - hey that a good idal can you show us how to get life trap

Sure! Go to Colossus Blvd by Mindy Pixiecrown and head down the stairs this way. There's a witch in there who is handing out the life trap spell for free to all life students, but death kids like me have to cough up a training point.



p.s. yes, you must hop there . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Question 5 - how do i enter the spiral pls answer me!!!!:-)

You enter the spiral by completing all your main quests in Wizard City and then using the door in the middle of Bartleby. I kind of talked about that already here. And I also kind of talked about this before on this post. Check them out! In summary, just do all your quests and you'll be well on your way to working through the spiral.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So, thanks for all the wonderful spam, newcomers to the blog. It's all a good time! Stick around! And as always . . .

Happy Dueling!

Don't mind me!

I'm just messing around with the design of my blog a bit. Things will probably keep morphing a bit or go back to the original if I get fed up with it all.

As you were!

Happy Dueling!

Is scrap iron only found in Marleybone?

I have a question here from Rylee:

My question is this. I am searching for scrap iron is Marleybone the only place you can find it as I have never seen it in any other realms? I want to finish my crafting but it is crazy hard cause you can't buy scrap iron anywhere. Thanks, Oh and I love the blog!

Thanks for loving my blog! you get brownie points! *sparkles*

Yeah, Scrap Iron is a tough one. It does appear to be a Marleybone exclusive at this point (someone let me know if I'm wrong); however, since the last patch you have another option available to you!

Felicia Worthington now has a cheap transmute scrap iron receipe for you. Now you can take 10 ores and 10 stone blocks and turn it into 1 scrap iron! Ore and stone blocks can be found in abundance in krokotopia and dragonspyre.


Hope that helps!

Happy Dueling!

How do I restore accidentally deleted characters?

Well it appears my previous post has spawned another question!

"Hi friendly! I saw in the post about new wizards that KI support can restore characters to your account. Is there any way I can have them do that without CALLING support? I deleted a wizard and it was a huge mistake. Thanks and have a great day!!!"

The answer is, yes! In fact, I've had to do this twice now . . . so I'm kind of an expert, yo. You see, my son Kyle has deleted my character twice. This was before the addition of the "Abracadabra" control that they implemented. You used to just have to click delete and another button to say you were sure. WAAAAYYY too easy.

Anyway, here's what you do: You go to Wizard101.com and login to your account. Then click on the support tab, at the bottom of the page you'll see this:


You click on that little graphic and it brings up the commonly asked questions tab. Click the "contact us" tab right next to it.


For character restoration questions, select the gameplay category and the character or item loss sub-category. Finally, type your request out and be sure to include your character name, the date they last were in the game, and your account name couldn't hurt; although, I do believe since you're logged in, there's really no need to (but the more information you can give them the better).


(I suggest you not be as self-depreciating as me.) After a while you'll get a response back over email (the e-mail you registered your account with), and they'll ask you further questions if needed.

Honestly, KI has a great support staff. Both times I've worked with them, they took really good care of me.

Hope that helps!

Happy Dueling!

Can I have more than one wizard on a Wizard101 account?

Hello readers, I have a question here from Kiley Redsword (love the name btw):

I was interested in starting another wizard, to play along with my grandadughter who is not as ambitious as I am on advancing. Can one account have more then one wizard? I don't want to lose my kiley who has worked up to lvl 36.

The answer is "Absolutely, Kiley!" Here's a picture of my start screen on my 1st account.


As you can see, I have six characters on one Wizard101 account (that's the max). All you have to do is click that "new" button down on the bottom of that screen and you'll soon have a totally new character at your disposal. The only way to delete one of those characters is to select them and click the delete key, then type abracadabra. So don't worry about accidentally deleting your character. AND, if you do happen to somehow accidentally delete your character, Kingsisle's support staff is awesome at restoring your characters. No worries.

Have fun with your new characters!

How do I make the door to the temple of storms come up again?

I got a question here from a reader:

how can i get the well of spirits. I have already been through the door that comes up from the sand. can i make it come up again so i can go through it. I need to get to the temple of storms and the well of spirits

Oh yeah, this can be a little confusing, can't it?

Ok, here I am facing the sand pit and looking at the obelisks around it.


What you do is get near one of the obelisks and click X.


You'll notice it lights up.

Do this at every obelisk around the sand pit and wait for the giant head to appear and walk through!


Tada!


Don't forget to go around back and get your beetle while you're there!

Happy Dueling!

How do you buy mounts with gold?

I have a question here from Blaze:

Dear Friendly,

First off, I hope your having a grand day, secondly have you or anyone you know seen where to get a mount without having to pay for it with crowns? I read in the patch notes that you could buy it with crowns and regular in game cash. Thanks!

Blaze GoldenBlade
~!A pyromancer with a passion for pie!~

Dear PieRomancer,

You rock. Yes, today is going better than yesterday, thanks! I've been a little under the weather. Don't worry, it's not the swine flew . . . just a cold.

Now, on to your question.

So, yes, you can buy these with gold as well as crowns. Here's what you do. Go to the crowns shop and click on the mount you want to buy.


Notice the spiral in the circled part. It's on a tab called crowns. Look what happens when you click on the tab that says "gold."


Tabs are super magical! Now you can buy your mount for gold instead of crowns.

Also, you can rent brooms for 1 day for gold from Zeke as well.


Note that on the test realm, 1 day used to equal 1 day of actual play time. This is not the case anymore. Now it only lasts 1 day actual time. So, buyer beware. You don't really want to buy one of these unless you plan to do a lot of playing in that day.

Hope that helps ya!

Happy Dueling!

Housing Item of the Day--Dragon Wall Bust

First things first. I was shown this trick by Elijah Stormheart and Ronan Ravenshard (and Blaze Mistshard was along for the ride as well).

AND . . . Elijah wanted me to make sure I mentioned that he learned about this HIDDEN HOUSING ITEM from Lail Ghostshade. Lail, you're awesome.

So let's get on with revealing the secret. *rubs hands together*

You need to head to The Cruicible in DragonSpyre and run to the location marked by a green arrow on the map below:



Run into the doorway as Amber is demonstrating below. Press X. Tada!



At first I couldn't get this item. Do you know why? Because my backpack was all full. D'oh. Once I made a spot in my backpack, poof! Success!

We all ran over to Elijah's pad and yelled item of the day.



Then I ran Amber there later in the day so she could show off her own.



Unfortunately, it's been such a long time since I've done one of these items of the day I forgot to say the magic words . . . Photoshop should help:



Actually, I guess that should say Thanks Lail . . . oh well. Hey! That rhymed!

Happy Dueling!

Second, Third, etc. Chance Chests

A lot of fuss was made over the wishing well mechanic because of the way you could burn through crowns trying to get something good and because it was in essence "gambling." That progressive nature of the expense to play was particularly bothering to one of my readers. Let me quote a little here from smvb for you:

"I didn't think it was such a bad thing at first, because I thought it was simply a way to exchange crowns for gold at a better rate than usual (5 crowns->20 gold) with an extra treasure card thrown in from time to time. What I had obviously MISSED was that the amount you tossed in kept increasing with each throw."

My friends this mechanic still exists in the game. The second chance chests in each boss area uses the exact same style of betting crowns for something good.

Last night I farmed Malistaire again attempting to get Amber's elusive robe. I put together a little timeline graphic of how my second chances went. I missed a few screenshots of the cost because at the time that wasn't what I was really concerned with. But you'll pretty much get the gist of what I'm saying here.

For those of you who don't know how the second chance chests work, after you defeat a boss, you get to walk up to their wishing well . . . um, I mean chest . . . and spend crowns on trying to secure that elusive drop you wanted from that boss. It doesn't respawn the boss for you like some may think. It just starts acting like an ATM machine. The bidding starts at 50 crowns and goes up . . . I stopped when it became painful at 500+ crowns for an attempt.


(click that graphic to expand it so you can see what I'm talking about)

So for the cost of around 1,000 crowns I basically got 605 gold, 2 iceflame cloaks (ontop of the 1 I already got), 1 Malistaire Drake Ruby Signet, 2 crates of chickens, and 2 ruined paintings.

I don't know if I'd let my son (who LOVES to burn through crowns) use that second chance chest unsupervised . . . not because it's "gambling" so much, but because of the progressive nature of the cost. Do I feel burnt because I was unlucky? Probably. If I had gotten a rare mount and Amber's cloak, you better believe this post would have a different tone. LOL.

I do think 50 crowns for a second chance at loot is fair, but I don't think 500 crowns for an eighth chance is . . . unless it was the jackpot. OH SNAP! There goes that gambling metaphor again!

I kind of wish I had an ice wizard on this account. haha! He'd have three colors of tunics to choose from.

Happy Dueling!

How do I earn the phat cash?

Got a question here from Timothy Darkstone:

can you reccomend a way to get a lot of gold?

Heya Timothy! Well, it's kind of a tough one to answer because I'm not really sure of your level or what your character is capable of doing; however, I can give you some general advice and the most common methods out there.

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1- Don't get a house. Sell all housing items in the bazaar. Don't carry anything more than the clothes on your back. Sell all pets. Sell all unneeded treasure cards. Go with the bare essentials.

Yeah. Where's the fun in that? /shrug I mean, you usually want money so you can buy stuff, right?

Well, when I was going to college I had this crazy professor who was a minimalist. This basically meant that he owned nothing more than what would fit in his backpack. He didn't own a house. He didn't own much more than a few pairs of clothes. He kind of felt like he was freed up because of that. He didn't have any attachments and so he was more "free."

College is great isn't it? You get to meet absolutely insane people who are wicked smart. It's a good time.

So, virtually, if you do this, you won't have to spend money on a house or stitching or waste your time having a bank that you dip into. You'll be making money on everything that isn't what you wear. If you actually look at what you have in your pack, you'll find you actually have a lot of capital, meaning your character is worth a lot more than you realized. If you're truly strapped for gold, and it's all you really want, then sell off everything you can. There's hidden money in them there backpacks!

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2- Find a higher level boss that's easy for you to farm. The big one use to be Oyotomi the Defiler. He's a wraith in the Village of Sorrow. He's right out in the open, meaning you don't need to go into an instance to fight him . . . meaning you don't need to be in any particular part of your progression to get to him.



He's a death boss, so his damage is low. You just have to stack him up with traps and blades and you're good to go. He only has 2300 health.

If you're low level and playing the free game, well . . . there's always the Kraken. :-)
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3- Raven$.

At the end of Grizzleheim you'll find four ravens that have 4200 health each. It's best to do this with three or four people, but I've had people tell me they have duo'd or solo'd these guys. It's rare though and it goes a lot faster with four wizards.

You want to know why these guys are the phatest farm in the game? Take a look!


You're pretty much guaranteed that four items will drop each time. Some of them will sell for $1000 gold if it's got an expensive coloring to it (like light blue). Get a group of people and work out the fastest way to kill these guys and do it over and over and over. You'll be swimming in cash in no time.
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4- If you're rich and only if you're rich (like rich in real life), spend your real money for game money. It's a horrible return on your investment. It's honestly the biggest ripoff to trade crowns for gold. I would never recommend it to anyone that isn't a millionaire, and even then it's like . . . dude, just play the game. However, if you have a lot of real world cash . . . bottom's up! At the best rate of purchase, which is $1 real money to 750 crowns, 95 bucks will max your gold . . . you know, the price of a bottle of Château Rayas Chateauneuf du Pape Blanc 2003. Gratz on being upper crust.
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5- Crafting. There's a wonderful article that you need to read over on Diary of a Wizard by a guest writer named Oran DayGem. Click me, click me now! Oran walks you through crafting for profit. Good stuff. Personally though, I find this to take a lot of knowing what the heck you're doing. You need to sell at the right time and know which items are going to make you the most money.
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6- level to 50. Not only will you make bank just from doing the quests and fighting everything in the game, but now there's a prize at the end of the tunnel. It's called the Briskbreeze Tower. I was just in this tower today and I noticed something awesome. On most floors I was getting over 100 gold per floor. I think you're pretty much guaranteed $1000 gold by the time you finish the tower and sell off the prizes. I still think Raven$ is a better farm, but this is a great way to mix it up IMHO.
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7- Find a route and farm the nodes. For instance, I was in an area in mooshu today and I was looking for the elusive Black Lotus spawn. I found a good route here that not only had black lotus, but also a couple treasure chests along the way. If you're just up for some running around, you need to find a route that you can run and farm multiple items in exactly one minute. You do this and then immediately jump to another server and run the same route backwards. Wash, rinse, and repeat. Owning a mount is great for doing this. Not only will you beat the walking people to the nodes (not that I condone racing to nodes mind you), but you'll be able to cover more ground and pick up even more nodes along the way.
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If those don't work, there's always minigames. ;-)

And that's pretty much all I can think of at the moment without delving into hacks and macro programs that could get you banned from the game if you get caught.

I'm sure my readers may also have some suggestions. Please readers, if you know a good way to make money that I haven't listed here, leave it and let us know!

Happy Dueling!

Day 1 of the New "Mounts" Patch: some intesting notes

Hello all,

I've been having some fun here today running around on the live realm in between picking my son up from school, doing dishes, and tending to my Halloween light show.

First thing of note is, my good buddy MeCatz told me to port to her because she was standing in front of somebody special. I promptly ported to Ms. MeCatz because when the guru of Wizened Wizard says jump, you say . . . YES MAAM HOW HIGH AND CAN I BRING A CLOUD DOWN FOR YOU?

So, this lead to me meeting the infamous Samantha from Kingsisle Support (notice the badge).


Wow! So I introduced myself and made a spot on my friends list hoping to get an invite. She had her friend requests turned off, but to my surprise, she friend added *me.* yay! So we got to chatting back channel and, yup, I know who it is. I've even emailed this person at KI before, so it was very awesome. I wouldn't dare give away the secret identity of Samantha, but this person is really nice and really concerned about your experience in the game. Samantha's eyes were happily watching all the wizards using the transformation potions. I told Samantha that I was so happy with this patch because it really did feel like "the kid" had been put into the experience of being a kid at wizard school. Samantha also told me that this patch has been a lot of fun for the staff at Kingsisle to implement.

Later in the day I logged on and once again MeCatz sent me a tell and said MR. LIONBLOOD HUP TWO AND GET YE HENCE TO THE BRISKBREEZE TOWER! So, of course, I jumped and grabbed the quest. We then took some time with my new friend Allen to work through the tower.


(click to enlarge)

We managed to save Mr. Culpepper without much hassle at all, and we all got our decks and we all got our rings. And it definitely sounds like new trouble is brewing out of Krokotopia! All good stuff.

Well, good stuff, except for a little teeny weeny problem with the myth ring that Allen received. What we discovered on the myth ring was this little bug.


(click to enlarge)

Yikes! You know that will be fixed sometime in the near future.

More to come! I hope you all are enjoying yourselves!

HAPPY DUELING!

I'm patching!

. . . and it can't load fast enough! HURRY!

Happy Dueling!

Mounts go live tomorrow!

This came in around 3:00 pm eastern today while I was busy getting my teeth checked at a dental appointment.

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Wizard101 the game will be offline from (approximately) 3am to 6am Central US Time on October 16 2009 to add Mounts and many new features to the game.

During this time, players will be unable to log in to the game, and active players will be prompted to log out. Our website may also experience interruptions in service during this downtime, and the Test Realm will not be available. Thank you for your patience while we improve the performance of the game for all of our players.

Want to learn more? Click here to read our Update Notes for October 2009.

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YAY here we go again with yet another FREE update to our awesome game.

. . . no cavities btw . . . just thought you'd want to know *my* exciting update. LOL.

um . . . MOUNTS WOOT!

Happy Dueling!

Initiate Crafter Status!

I decided to give crafting a go again. I had worked my way up to Marleybone crafting with Amber and stopped because of the predictable scrap iron dilemma. Things are going to get a whole lot easier from what I can tell on the test realm. Requirements will come down on the number of items you have to craft. But, since I'm all hardcore and stuff, I just hammered through the scrap metal.



So, through this whole process I've discovered one thing that makes my heart JUMP for joy. Yup, it's one of my new favorite things.



*BLING*

Oh man my heart just leaps for joy when ever I get a three-spawn node of scrap iron. I get a little smile on the inside of my ribs every time that happens.

However now that I'm an initiate crafter, I'm discovering a whole new tickle.



THREE SPAWN BLACK LOTUS FTW!

:-)

Happy Dueling!

FW: Wizard101 takes the Bronze in list of Top 10 MMOs

Another message here from Professor Greyrose:

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The List: Top 10 MMOs Since WoW

World of Warcraft changed the MMO landscape on November 23rd, 2004, but 174 MMOs have come out since that fateful day. MMORPG.com ranks them and Wizard101 takes the bronze!

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm?bhcp=1&feature=3615&page=2
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Here's a HUGE Congrats to KI for making a truly great game!

Happy Dueling!

FW: Interview: Appealing to the Hardcore Gamer?

This just came across the wire from Professor Greyrose:

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MMORPG.com's Garrett Fuller spoke with Randall Lekan of The Syndicate, a hardcore MMORPG guild, to find out what appeal Wizard 101 could have for a player more familiar with a more hardcore style.

MMORPG.com:
Wizard 101 has been planned out as a kid's game. How did hardcore MMO players like you get involved?

Randall Lekan:
Kingsisle approached Dragons, the Guild Master of The Syndicate, and offered to allow us to join the BETA. Initially I tried it out and liked it enough to add my children's accounts. At the time we were playing Toontown but my boys had lost interest so we were not playing as much. By the end of the BETA we were hooked and subscribed when the game went retail.

Read "Appealing to the Hardcore Gamer?

http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/3616/page/1

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I'm forwarding this from e-mail, so the formatting of this message may be a little messed up. I'll fix it when I get home.

Happy Dueling!

Gambling Chuck E Cheese Style (Hasta La Vista Wishing Wells)

If you hadn’t heard, there was a controversial feature for the upcoming patch. For more information you can head to Joe’s blog, and from there you can find links to the thread on Central and another on the Spiral Free Press.

The Wishing Well feature has now been put on hold because of all the concerns being listed. Yes, it has gone the way of the dodo bird and gold wagering. The following official statement came down yesterday:

“Thank you everyone for your feedback and concerns regarding the Wishing Well system.

We are reconsidering how these Wishing Wells function, and they will not be going to the Live Realm with the other updates. We may choose to revisit the Wishing Well in the future, but with a dynamic that is more favorable to all our players.

It's players like all of you that help make Wizard101 safe and fun for everyone.”

So one may ask what exactly the new “dynamic” could possibly be? I’m not sure exactly. Most of the time when a gambling-like function was put into an online game, it was so that the huge amount of the gold-bloated, economy-choking surplus of virtual money in an MMO could be removed through the gambling system. (not really possible in Wizard101 since there's a cap on the amount of gold you can earn, but I digress)

We know how gambling works . . . the house wins . . . even when they lose, they win because the odds are in their favor. Most people lose and then one or two lucky suckers get the jackpot. Any way you slice it, KI would win in this situation.

Back tracking my gaming history here, I think Everquest is an example of a true gambling system in MMOs. They didn't try to hide it one bit: it was labeled as "gambling" and you did it in the "casino." I remember buying a few EQ gambling tickets and trying my hand at win a staff that allowed you to cast a spell on your character to regenerate life at an astronomical rate. It was basically a power leveling dream for low level characters who typically had to spend a lot of time on their kiester waiting for their hit points to regenerate (it was a very slow process to heal up after combat back in the day). All I ever ended up with were a few pieces of stat food (yup, food in EQ gives you stats like gear does . . . that’s a whole other misty thicket picnic that we won’t get into now though).

I actually proposed something along the lines of a wishing well back in this post here . . . and I quote myself here, "I hope I'll be able to throw a few coins in and get something good in return. That would be a great way to get some of the virtual money out of the game and out of people's backpacks."

Pardon me while I break out the Chuck E. Cheese metaphor again for you all. (Oh sure, use the Chuck E. Cheese metaphor again, Friendly . . . go ahead, let's hear it.)

I mean, really, at Chuck E. Cheese you put a token (which you paid real money for) in a game there and through random chance (or skill) you receive tickets and then you go spend those tickets on little toys over in the redeem center. EVERYBODY knows that you can get those little toys for much much cheaper at the store, but a trip to Chuck E. Cheese is all about getting those tickets and having fun for an hour or two earning them with your kids. You get to see that big wheel spin, and you dump tokens into those machines like mad even. Maybe even more furiously than at a gambling establishment, but no one seems to be raising a big fuss about that, are they? Nope . . . because it's all in good fun.

I agree 100% that I want to see Kingsisle be more charitable (as Spiral Press asks), and I would like them to try harder than how the wishing wells were presented to us . . . mainly because the wishing well feature was not anywhere near as fun as a one of the games at Chuck E. Cheese and could have been!

If KI does fix the “dynamic,” then I think it should be something along the lines of improved mini-games and perhaps locking the games behind a password protected door to their own mini-game world where teleports are disallowed. You know? If a kid wants to go spend their crowns playing exclusive games for exclusive prizes, then mom and dad have to ok it, and THEN it actually would be at that point like a virtual trip to Chuck E Cheese within the world of Wizard101, which would be awesome.

What do you think?

Happy Dueling!

Rock the Walk, A Tribute to the Marleybone Cops

You know 'em.

You love 'em.

They rock the walk.

Get funky.



word.

Thanks for all you do Marleybone Cops! This one's for you!

Happy Dueling!

TFN blasts past 200,000 hits

. . . and the reason why? Well, the last 20,000 hits or so were due to an idea to put stickers on candy with your friend code. Crazy! When the company picks a post and puts it in the patcher message and on facebook, your hits a day increase from 1,000 a day (which I'd say is pretty darn healthy by itself given the genre and scope of my blog *THANKS FAITHFUL READERS*), to 10,000 a day. (it was a *whoa*)

It looks like we're headed back down to normal here now though. :-) We peaked on Friday (if that piques your interest).


Anyway, thanks for the link, KI, and welcome to all the new traffic in the Wizard101 blogosphere! Be sure to click through a few of those links to other bloggers on the right hand side . . . you may find you like hanging out and blogging with all of us.

I'm definitely excited about this, and I hope the next 100,000 hits brings some new contests, some fun, and some more interesting reading for all the Wizard101 fans who keep tuning in!

Happy Dueling!

Should badges mean something more?

By now I’m sure you guys are all very familiar with the many badges that Wizard101 offers us. If not, you should go check out this list at Warcry.

I was working a bit on my undead slayer badge this weekend, and I'm about 700 kills away still. That's a lot of ghosts on Unicorn Way fyi.

I’ve been thinking a bit about the badge system. You know, it’s really too bad that more rewards aren’t tacked on to this system to really give you an incentive to earn the badges. All you really get in this game is a title that slips under your name. Personally, I think we should get some extra badges for extraordinary accomplishments (along the 2,000 undead kill lines), and that those should come along with a reward attached with it.

Let me give you an example of how this might work in another game. In Lord of the Rings Online, if you kill x amount of monsters, then you get a small boost to a particular stat. It wasn’t much of a boost, but it was a little bit extra. People loved that because it would basically show that their character was as good as they could get it . . . even if it meant killing 500 centipedes to get it.

I mean really . . . kill 2,000 undead is a huge time sink. I don’t think many people have completed that badge. What if after finishing that last undead badge, you earned a special pet for your accomplishment? How cool would that be? Even further, what if you got a pack of eye of bartleby trading cards for every 500 undead you killed? Now there's some motivation, right?

In a recent interview, I saw Todd Coleman complain (or "strongly assert" if that makes it more palatable) that it’s hard for their team to satisfy the wants of players for new content (I can't find the link right now, but TRUST me . . . I know I read it). It seems to me that there could be a lot of motivation for players to earn rewards in what could be the biggest grind of the game available: earning all your badges. I mean, who in their right mind really wants to earn all their badges? As it is now, badges are kind of that byline under your name that no one really looks at.

If there were better rewards attached to the badges, I think you’d see players working a lot harder to earn them, and it'd buy them some more time while all of the grandmaster crowd anxiously awaits the release of new content (like Celestia).

Opinions?

Suggestions?

HAPPY DUELING!

Ninja Pig mode activate!

HIIIIII-YA!



Well, I was one of the winners of the facebook poetry contest, so you may see me running around once in a while in full ninja pig mode.

I have a feeling that Lady Dexter has been escaping from me when I have my other pets out and playing.

btw, those ninja pig shoes are awesome. Check me out with just those on.



I'm sensing some serious 80's dance fashion going on.