Five ????? from Fallon Ravenshade

Five questions from Fallon Ravenshade:

okay i love love love your blog and i have been reading it since advanced pets and when i entered on your gobbler giveaway. i read all your posts and now i have a couple questions for you ( sorry if they might be personal )

1. how come its daylight in a lot of places on the game but we never see the sun?

2. KI has the ability to make it rain such as in the tutorial but why dont they make it rain in other areas of the game?

3. do you prefer moving with the mouse or arrow keys?

4. did you ever get a stormbat pet?

5. do you know any future plans for wizard101? ( new worlds, crowns items, pets, features, ect.)

Thanks for the questions, Fallon.

1&2 - Let's see, I'm going to lump questions one and two together since they're both talking about environmental effects in a game. You're right, there's areas of darkness and there's areas of sunlight. And, yes, even a cut-scene with rain.


The question really is why can't we have an area with all three like in other MMOs . . . I mean, even Everquest has a night, day, and rain. There's even a druid spell in Everquest to turn off the rain called "Wake of Karana."

And it's that Wake of Karana spell that brings it all back for me. Computers were far less powerful back in the early 2000's. Once it started to rain, you'd hear the voices shouting in the out of character and shout chat channel, "Please any druids, can you stop the rain?! I'm lagging!"

And that's the only reason I see why something like that might have been avoided. KingsIsle tends to pat themselves on the back for making a game that can even run on junk computers. So, I'm going to blame it on the processing speed it takes to run a game when you add environmental effects.

I agree with you though. I love little things that make you feel more immersed in a game. The eternal night of Marleybone is a little sad actually. It would be kind of cool to see those streets in daylight once in a while.

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3- I use both the mouse and WASD to move my character. For a long time I used the mouse and the arrow keys as I talk about in this thread, but I switched to WASD because it's available in most games and tends to centralize my hands on the keyboard.

Funny, when I went back to play Everquest classic a few weeks ago, and WASD wasn't available . . . I had to go back to arrow keys and mouse.

Uber wife uses the mouse . . . and especially when she's playing that Maze game. My word, uber wife is so stinking good at the maze game.

I'm more of a dance game person. arrow arrow arrow arrow!

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4- No! Not on Thomas. But now that you mention it, I have access to at least two different storm bats through Amber and Bailey. I think Kyle might have even got one. I may just mix one of my pets with their storm bats and try to get one that way. My pet collection is now pretty much out of hand. When I get a pet now I'm thinking . . . well, where can I hide this thing? Remote corner of a house I don't use any more? Ok!

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5- haha! Well if I did, I can guarantee you I'd be under embargo to not say anything. Once you've gained KI's trust, you don't want to lose it.

BUT, let's take a quick look back at all the updates from the past.

● 2011 Feb-Celestia Housing
● 2010 Dec-Gardening
● 2010 Oct-Celestia, New Schools, Level 60
● 2010 Sep-Celebrity Guest in the Spiral
● 2010 Jul-Celestia Preview
● 2010 May-Advanced Pets
● 2009 Dec-School Housing
● 2009 Oct-Mounts, Crowns Shop
● 2009 Jul-Grizzleheim, Bazaar, Crafting
● 2009 May-Castles & Lands, Voiceovers
● 2009 Apr-Quest Help, New Spells, PvP
● 2009 Mar-Voiceovers, Shared Bank
● 2009 Feb-True Friends, Booster Packs
● 2009 Jan-Dragonspyre Opens
● 2008 Oct-Access Passes

That comes straight from the top of the page of the latest update notes.

With each of those updates there have been a lot of little tweaks and modifications to Wizard101, and I have to say that I'm impressed that updates have been steadily rolling in for us. It will never be fast enough for avid gamers, but you have to admit it's kind of cool to see that update after update, they've been making this a better game.

Historically we've seen that major world updates take a long time. It took us about 15 months to get to Celestia from Grizzleheim, right? But in between we had housing and advanced pets and Selena. So far we've had gardening and Celestia housing between Celestia and whatever comes next.

As much as I'd like them to hurry up and put out the next world, I think we have a wait in front of us, and I would LOVE to be wrong on that. I'd love for them to surprise me.

Who knows, maybe we'll see what Autumn was all excited about yesterday come to fruition before we see the next Wizard101 world? I'm not sure . . . Maybe Wizard101 will leak some information at PAX East next week? Again, I'm not sure, but it would be a good opportunity to bring something new to the table.

Thanks for the question!

Happy Dueling!