Monday, January 31, 2011

Test Realm is Up! Celestia Housing

No official word yet from KI, but I came home from work to see Uber Wife running around in some new Celestia housing.


Hopefully I can get some pictures and thoughts up here soon!

I'm about to log in and check it out myself! XD

Check out the patch notes!

Happy Dueling!

What is "Kent" in Wizard101?

Autumn has an interesting question
HI friendly while Kieran and I working on my Power Nova, I noticed the dialog of Jared Banks talking about someone from Kent.

Any ideas about Kent???? Pic attached


Autumn
Ahh Kent. Well, I know that in the real world it's the little area that looks like an alien reaching out to take a bite out of France.


That picture was stolen and modified from Wikipedia, where you can read all about its awesome orchards and hop gardens and its boring cement, papermaking, and aircraft building companies.

So, as far as Wizard101, will the mighty land of Kent be a new location on the spiral? Meh, I don't think so.

-Wizard City
-Krokotopia
-Marleybone
-Mooshu
-Dragonspyre
-Grizzleheim
-Celestia

....

-Kent?

Yeah, it just doesn't have a cool ring to it like the others. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Jared Banks was talking about someone from the actual Kent (since our world is supposedly tied to the spiral), or that Kent is a location in Marleybone that we just don't get to visit. As discussed before, there are locations in Marleybone that are named after actual locations in good ol' London.

Then again, I guess Kent could be a long lost location of the spiral . . . a sister world to Marleybone perhaps? You'd think they'd be more inventive with the name though . . . like Count Kentula or something like that.


I'm afraid of Count Kentula.

Happy Dueling!

Sunday, January 30, 2011

What are These Three Green Wizard101 Pets, Friendly?

Nathan D. has a question for me (that rhymes)!
Hey Friendly!!!!!! Nathan D. here!!
I was just strolling around and I saw some pets I didn't know, could you tell me what they are??

Thanks!!

Nathan D.

NATHAN D! I most certainly can play pet detective for you.



Here are your screenshots and the answers!

ITEM ONE!


Yes, this most definitely is a Viridian Cyclops pet. This rare beast comes from the $20 gift card you can purchase at the magical CVS store. I hope every time you drive past a CVS, you hear the pitiful cries of this cyclopsian jewel of the Nile.



ITEM TWO!


That is the Life Scarab pet! Shiritaki Temple - Plague Oni - GO! NOW! YOUR NEW BUDDY IS HUNGRY AND WAITING FOR YOU TO SAVE HIM!!



ITEM THREE!


And finally we have the Life Troll, who hides in the back pocket of Krokopatra. *shiver* Just think about all that Krokopatra lipstick he's had to endure his whole life! . . . AND who wouldn't want to spend some quality time with this cute little fella?


Best of luck farming up your new green pets and thanks for the question!

Happy Dueling!

Free Realms Update: 20 Blacksmith / 20 Miner

WAHHHHBAMMM! Back-to-back awesomeness!




Honestly, I can't believe I stared down the hours and hours of those freaking mining games and pulled out a max level on both of those. It's truly a test of endurance there at the end with Mining and Blacksmithing (probably Mining more than Blacksmithing).

For me it really makes sense to complete both of these jobs at the same time since they go hand-in-hand, and it's nice to take a break from the insanity of Mining to have a little different kind of insanity with Blacksmithing . . . just kidding, they both are horrible jobs to finish off after about 17th level.

Of course, the really cool thing when you reach max level with most free realms jobs is that at that point you get to take on an epic quest for some awesome gear or a really cool hammer-drill (remember when I got my brawler epic? no? It was back in September).

For mining you embark upon a quest to mine the rare gems out of a bunch of rich ore deposits that randomly pop up around the world. This isn't too hard to do, but I have to say the Free Realms ZAM Wiki was nice to point me in the right direction.


The bummer about the mining epic quest is that it's bugged. sigh. I didn't get one piece of green gear for my efforts, but you know what . . . I don't care. That green gear doesn't look nearly as nice as the golden shiny "Fully Loaded" gear you get for mining gold ore deposits over and over, so I'm going to consider that my epic quest instead: to get all my gold gear for mining. :-)

The epic quest for Blacksmiths involves crafting the summersaber as far as I can tell. I've just now started to crack into this quest, so I'm not quite sure all it entails.


At least you get to talk to this cute legendary Blacksmith lady. She so doesn't look like a legendary Blacksmith to me . . . but I'll trust her because of those pony tails.

After I finish up my Blacksmith quest, I'm wondering which job is next for Thomas Lionbolt? I definitely want to avoid doing a bunch of bejewelled-esque crafting games for a while, so maybe I'll try my hand at pet training. I have three or four pets at my disposal, so I'm half way there already. ;-)

THOMAS LIONBOLT - 20 Brawler / 20 Card Duelist / 20 Demolition Derby-ist / 20 Miner / 20 Blacksmith at your service!

Happy Dueling!

Saturday, January 29, 2011

I finally crafted mine . . .

Yeah, Uber Wife crated her first carosel like forever ago, but me? It took me allllllll this time before even attempting to craft my carousel.


YAY! Look how fun that is! I CALL UNICORN SEAT!!

My motivation for crafting that was all about the Earthquake cards. My Silver Trumpet Vine garden has been giving me a lot of Earthquake cards. Look how many Earthquake cards I had when I went to craft this thing.


Yeah . . . best reason to grow Silver Trumpet Vine EVA!

Cassandra Griffendreamer ported to me and we started talking about a few of the carousel's oddities.

1- What's up with the shark seat being in front of the pole? Do you ride it backwards?
2- Shark is wearing a crown (KING JAWS)!
3- I'd ride the mythbat like a stingray.
4- Firecat has no seat and is therefore a huge safety issue (worse than running with scissors)!!

;-)

Happy Dueling!

Friday, January 28, 2011

Epic Fail Mickey and Ding 19 Miner

So my coworker and I have called each other out in an epic match of Epic Mickey! Don't know what Epic Mickey is? Here, watch the CGR review of this awesome game for the Wii.



If you have a Wii, this game is awesome!

So, it's a race to see who will beat the game first, and I'm actually ahead of my co-worker right now. But, if I keep playing dumb like I did last night . . . well . . . it might be a bad ending for the Friendly Necromancer.

Check it out here in my video I'm calling "Epic Fail Mickey." Since, I just freaking couldn't jump these cards for some reason. It got to be comical.



As the video says at the end, I finally did get up those stupid cards and, yeah, there wasn't anything exciting up there. EXCEPT, now that I'm reviewing the video I see a film reel up there that I need to go back and get. DANGIT! :)

. . . It's the Friendly Necromancer at his worst . . .

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

Anyway, of other news, I also Dinged 19 in the mining skill in Free Realms. One away from the max! WOOT!


Yeah, that's a total test in endurance since you have to play this silver mining game over and over and over to get there. I ran out of quests . . . all that's left to level me up is to play mini-games.

Man, that's a lot of mining mini-games. I wonder how many people have actually endured that punishment and made it to 20th level as a miner?

Mining is an Epic Free Realms fail, but I SHALL DO IT! ENDURANCE!!!!

Happy Dueling!

Stormforged Kitties Contest

Just a quick note that Mr. crazy cat himself, Kieran Stormcaller, is currently holding a contest where eventually you could win a $10 Wizard101 gift card.

He's asking for help coming up with funny T-shirt ideas. :-)

Hope you get some good ideas, Kieran!

Happy Dueling!

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Feedback Friday--I choose . . . DOOR NUMBER THREE!

If you've logged in this week, you've been welcomed with a link to the most recent Feedback Friday with Professor Falmea. Check it out. Basically, she wants to know which secret door in the spiral would you like to be opened and specifically mentions Barkingham Palace. You know, that place we've talked about here on TFN.

Anyway, that Feedback Friday thread is a super dense thread at this point . . . as it should be since it was linked to from the game patcher. (That one time my blog was linked to in the game patcher was an absolute thing of beauty for my blog -- hits SOARED to 11k a day -- I can't tell you how awesome it was for the hit counter and traffic around here.)

At the time of posting this message, they are up to over 500 responses on that thread. I don't have time to go through them all, but it's actually a good study in all the hidden doors around the spiral:
-Barkingham Palace
-Death Door in Haunted Cave
-Fifth island in Krokotopia
-Doors in Nidavellir
-Unruined school doors in DS Acadamy
-lower door in path of scales in Malistaire's Lair
-Elik's Edge
-Crypt in Northgaurd
-Restricted sections of Wizard City Library
-Door behind Lazlo in Plaza of Conquests
-Various unaccessible dojos in Mooshu
-house doors in every land outside of Celestia
-door to the left of Trial of Spheres
-blocked doorway in the Pyramid of the Sun--Alter of kings-
-Crab Alley
-ocean beyond Floating Land
-caved in doorway in Well of Spirits
-etc.
-etc.
-etc.

And there's a lot of cool suggestions being thrown around as well.

It's a good time.

Me? What does the Friendly Necromancer want? Personally I don't care where they open up as long as they finally put in a two-group raid encounter (at that point it just becomes a discussion of where could you fit an eight person sigil?). I remember talking with a couple of people at GDC Austin (oh, a guy named J Todd Coleman himself if I remember correctly), and it was mentioned that the battle circle was programmed to be able to expand. Yes, all the coding is already in the game to make that circle bigger and add more people to a battle.

Now, there are a ton of other considerations that would go along with implementing something like this . . . grouping / communication / extra art for a larger circle / boss battles tuned for eight people / loot tables / etc. / etc. / etc. (not an all-together easy implementation, but the coding is good, so that's a good jump in the right direction! Right?)

So, let me try to help: yes, I'm thinking Barkingham Palace is the place you want to use. Why? 1) It's already marked on the map. 2) There's plenty of room to accomodate an eight person sigil!


What about a room big enough to accommodate an eight person battle? Easy, use the double wide room from Briskbreeze tower. Boss Battle? Eight wizards vs. One Giant Humongofrog. Why? Because I've heard J. Todd Coleman mention that he'd love to see a battle against a Humongofrog AND it was all the buzz lately with that funny press release.

So, who's with me? Anybody else want to fight a Humongofrog with eight wizards?

Happy Dueling!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Rift -- my Impression after the first couple hours

So if you haven't heard about a game called "Rift," then you've been hiding away somewhere much cooler than the MMO-scape. I envy you people. You don't have to live your life thinking, OH MAN I WANT TO TRY THAT GAME OUT RIGHT NOW!

Yesterday, I got the chance to fulfill my destiny of geekdom and actually play in "Beta 5" of Rift. What can I say about this game . . .


LUCY! Sorry, my pink pet leopard thing gets all excited every time I ding a new level in Rift, but more about that later.

Yeah, it's all very . . . familiar. It's a button masher (no card dueling to be found whatsoever) like many many many MMOs out there. It's quest driven like many many MMOs out there. There's gigantically huge swords like many many MMOs out there . . .


But there is something to be said about auto grouping near a "rift" when one opens up. I like that. (From what I understand, it's kind of like how Tabula Rasa use to work?) It kind of has the flavor of someone auto-joining your dueling circle. When you're around a rift experience like this, you don't really have a choice . . . from what I can tell, if you're solo, you're auto-grouped with the people around the rift.


Yes, yes, it's like going to a community Thanksgiving Dinner! That's what it's like!

And because my pet Lucy asked me to tell you about the level up message . . . Yes, the main difference here for me between this game and all the MMOs I've played to date so far is the experience of the most unreal gaudy level up message ever.


I really do feel like I've just completed a fatality move in Mortal Kombat. FINISH HIM!

So, is this game something you might want to try? Is this game something a kid could handle?

/shrug . . . I've only played it for like an hour or two . . .

But, I can tell you that it's a Teen Rated game with what appears to be all open chat (I haven't seen much stupidity yet other than the mention of a Klondike bar--I'd kill for a Mount right now!" says random_stranger_01 "Or maybe for a Klondike bar!" says random_stranger_02.) I can tell you that it feels like I'm playing the Game Which Shall Not Be Named. I can also tell you that the computer requirements to play it are pretty steep; I have to play this game on low resolution settings to avoid lag. ugh. It's definitely NOT Wizard101 by any means.

. . . ultimately, it's a cool game because of one reason: They have a beastlord-esque class, which makes the Stingite in me happy. Will it be something I want to play forever and now I'm hooked? Not so far. I just happened to get in the beta and play it last night.

If you're looking to try this out, then here . . . I'll be an enabler for the first 25 people who want in:

CFFZ-RJR7-NCWX-YMPL-RZCQ

That's the VIP Beta Key they sent me, good for 25 uses. First come, first serve. Good luck! Remember to ask your parents first! (Unless you are a parent, but still, you should call and give your kids' granparents a hug. This is an MMO we're talking about here with the power to suck your soul out for six months to a year--they should know you love them before you ascend and whatnot.)

Happy Dueling!

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Healing Off Immolate--Truely a Show of Awesomeness

I saw the most amazing video last week, and I neglected to share it with you all. You gotta check this out. As far as I know, this is the first time any player has cracked their resistances above 100 percent. In fact, Zachary (Wizardmaster2 on Central) raised his fire resist up to 101 percent.

Here's the thread that talks about this.

Here's the video from that thread:



Now THAT is the first time I've ever seen the "Immune" message float above someone's head, and since he has one percent over immunity, Immolate actually heals him.

This is a thing of beauty my friends because getting your fire resists up beyond 100 percent is no easy task. How he did it? As he states on that thread, "molten mantle, reckless runners, some 30% fire resist robe (bazaar), heartsteel, and a 24% fire resist burnzilla."

You gotta give it up to him for building a gear set specifically for use with the immolate spell, which usually damages you for 250 and hits your enemy for 600.

I don't know if this is even possible for other classes, but imagine a necromancer who healed himself twice over with a sacrifice or who could gain life through the empower spell. Now that would be pretty awesome. :-)

Happy Dueling!

Sunday, January 23, 2011

GM Gardener WOOTS!

Hey look at that!


Level up!

haha! Yeah, a garden full of Silver Trumpet Vine will do that for you REEEEEAAALLLY fast like. :)

Happy Dueling!

Saturday, January 22, 2011

KI Resolves the Open Chat Issue

Yesterday at around 10:30 am, peace was restored to the spiral.

You all can come back to the game now.

But I need to tell you all a quick story. So, about a month and a half ago I was hanging out in a Game Stop, checking out all the new releases and whatnot (I had a couple games to pick up for Christmas, etc.), and I'll never forget this mom coming in with her son and only entering the store maybe five footsteps when she quite loudly and clearly demanded the entire store's attention, "EXCUSE ME! I just want to let you all know that I give my permission for my son to buy a MATURE GAME!" And then waltzed out of the store, leaving this somewhat embarrassed kid standing in the front with his mom's credit card in his pocket as we all eyeballed him up and down.

HAHA!

You know what went through my head? "There goes her mother of the year award." But, you know, she had to do that because Game Stop requires parental permission to buy those nasty M-rated games. Well, she could have used about three million times more tact, but hey, loud-mouthed moms with dirty M-rated kids don't care none. She got all Angus on 'em.

I just want you all to know that it's a good policy to have parental permission, and as KingsIsle states in that link above, a legal requirement. Know that if your mom adds a credit card to your account and says you're 18+ even though you're not, at least you're not that poor 10-year-old kid standing in the middle of Game Stop looking all guilty like, hey, I suck for playing non-appropriate age games and my mom is vile and loud-mouthed, but at least I get to play Grand Theft Auto Four now. *Alfred E. Neuman Smile* What? Me Worry?

Enjoy the heck out of your E-rated game with chat filters because it's awesome, and you all are too. Wizard101 kids rock!

Happy Dueling!

Friday, January 21, 2011

What is the "phantom" zone?

Question from Mark Stormhunter:
I've heard rumors that Phantom Zone will be the next world. Do you know anything about it?

Thanks and I'd love to meet you on w101 some time.

Hey Mark, that would be cool. You know, I should throw a party sometime since I've never actually been the host of a party . . . I usually just show up unannounced. ;-)

SO, the mysterious PHANTOM ZONE! Yes, I did some research and I was getting the kookiest answers, like it's the zone you are in when you fight Kagemoosha or that it was some separate instanced zone of Wizard City Commons, so since none of those really sounded right, I went to the supreme answerer of questions, Professor Greyrose.

Her response:
"It's the 'zone' you're in while you play minigames. Because your character is not physically in the game and visible to others while you play minigames, you're in the Phantom zone :)"

AH DANGIT! I THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE LIKE A COOL SUPERMAN THING TOO!

Happy Dueling!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Taskmaster Djal? Pheonix Statue? Low Level in Dragonspyre?

Question from Jason Ashweaver:
Hi again Friendly!

I was playing with my MuShu (or however it's spelled) wizard earlier today and I found a couple weird things:

1) I got a pink dandelion drop from Taskmaster Djal in Krokotopia. I know that's a crown item, so is it normal?

2) I went in and this was the Taskmaster's speech:



Whada you think?

Right, so Taskmaster Djal is a boss in the Karanahn Barracks.


There are two ways to fight him, one is to face him with all his Elite guards or the second is to poison his food before you fight him and face him alone. This involves completing the Keys to Freedom ~~ Free at Last ~~ The Awakening ~~ The Betrayer quest line. In that final Betrayer quest, it's important that you actually click on the table to put poison into the guard's food (which is behind Kiwu).

Your mysterious dialog box definitely has something to do with this part of the quest. I'm imagining that if you don't poison the food, then this is what you get . . . kind of like a hint you should poison the food?

As for the pink dandelions . . . oh yeah, these totally drop like candy in Krokotopia. Angus picked up a ton of Pink Dandelion while he was finishing Krokotopia. It's a great plant because of all the black pearl harvests from it. Enjoy your new plant!

~~~~~~~~~~~

Question from Alexander Battleflame:
I was watching a video and someone had a phoenix statue I'm guessing this is a drop from dragonsyre where is it?

Hmmm, the closest I can guess right now is the Wyrmkin statue, which drops from Andor Bristleback in the Labyrinth in Dragonspyre.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Question from Evan Shadow:
Hiya, this is Evan Shadow, with my first post/question on this blog.

So, what's up with your new clothes, although I've gotta admit that there are now a LOT more lvl58+ so lots more people have them.

Now, my real question is- I've just started Dragonspyre. I'm in Mirkholm Keep (GH), and not really a side quest person (although I'm savior of wiz city) Should I have my lvl42 spell by now? If so, how will I get to lvl42?! I'm only lvl39 :-(

Ps- I'm school of ice.

Heya Evan! I've actually already answered this question for someone (a fire wizard).

The advice remains pretty much the same except for Number 2 on the list of considerations: that isn't the case anymore since they removed the requirements to be level 50 to enter Celestia.

The girl I answered that question for decided to level to 40 and do her mossback quest before proceeding. I think that was wise.

As for being an ice wizard in Dragonspyre . . . if you don't have a pet with the Dragonblade card, you really should consider getting one as an ice wizard so you can double blade (or triple blade with elemental blade) or travel with a balance wizard companion. Don't forget the power of your balefrost aura, you're going to be rockin' against all those fire mobs in Dragonspyre. Remember to pack plenty of frostbite and blizzard spells for damage, and do what you're best at . . . Defense. :)

Happy Dueling!

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Destiny Silverblood's Wizard101 Ideas

Just a note upfront here: I usually don't post about other people's ideas on my blog, but Destiny was looking for an outlet, and I figured, what the heck. Also, I want you all to know that there are already a few "official" places where you can post your ideas for the game.

The Wizard101 Feedback Forum on Central
The Dorms Forum on Wizard101.com

So, if you have great ideas just rushing out of you like Destiny, please hop over to one of those forums and let loose! I'm sure KI would love to hear from you all.

NOW, on to Destiny's ideas. I'll present one of her ideas and then make a comment about each:
Snack Packs:

Snack Packs related to schools examples being,
Storm Snack Pack - 120 Crowns.
Myth Snack Pack - 120 Crowns.
Life Snack Pack - 120 Crowns.
Death Snack Pack - 120 Crowns.
Fire Snack Pack - 120 Crowns.
Ice Snack Pack - 120 Crowns.
Balance Snack Pack - 120 Crowns.

That's cool. I see what you're doing there, you pay a little extra for a snack pack that gives you more "like" cards than a regular snack pack. Up front, I don't know if KI would do that for only 5 crowns more a snack pack. My opinion is that it'd be quite a bit more than 120 crowns.

Just a quick comment here. I have heard that crafting your own snacks is relatively painless these days, has low costs, and makes it so you can really customize your pet's stats. For instance, check out the Dagwood Sandwich recipe requirements.


There are TONS of bloodbat cards for sell at the bazaar for cheap! For me it's much easier to whip up seven of these bad boys than spend my crowns on pet snack packs, not to mention that the cooldown is next to nothing when you craft these. You should try that out and see how that works for you.

Next idea:
Mount Derby:

Mount derby would be like pet derby, but without set paths. This idea is meant to be interactive and test the players' motor skills and overall control of their Mounts. This idea in my opinion would help Crowns Buyers and Wizard101. More people wanna Race and more people are gonna want better looking Mounts--all in all more Crowns are going to be bought. There would be a Ranking System so its not all for show, something related in not only Ranking Badge, but also Rewards, Rewards being special Saddles or one day Color Changes all the way up to 7 Day - Permanent Mounts.

Ahh, I see. Racing with your mounts instead of with your pets with rewards being mostly cosmetic change items for your mounts. That could be cool. I wonder how much Internet lag would come into play with a system like this since I think the current pet racing method accounts for that in some way. /shrug I'm not a programmer, so I'm just gonna say, YES! I would love to race my mount for a cool reward. :)

Next idea from Destiny:

Hatching Ranks:

This idea would be one of my most favorites considering we all wanna hatch more than once a day. My idea comes in a few parts and differences, so its up to you guys to decide which idea goes the farthest. The ideas basically are either hatching ranks or hatching quests.

Hatching Ranks would be Hatching and getting better pets either school or other wise anything with improved stats, you would also gain Rank for Training your Pets. So say Lord Sparky had parents with not so good stats, like Crafty and Careful, but Sparky got lucky and got Health Gift you would get some Hatching XP, for each Hatching Rank earned you would gain another Hatching Slot.

Hatching quests would come in two parts or combined as the choice of Wizard101's Fantastic Team of Admin Wizards: this would be either combining it with the Crafters' quests out there to craft say 12 Frosted Drakes Cereals or maybe a farming quest to get a drop of a Lightning Bat and Cat Thug in order to get a new hatching Slot.

I see, so this is kind of like Gardening ranks meets Advanced pets. You would level up as a hatcher with both quests and the frequency of your hatching activities . . . with maybe bonus experience points if your pet manifests an epic skill.

Interesting.

Well, I do like goals in game! If someone plunked 10 levels of hatching rank with some rare badge at the end of the tunnel, I probably would go for it . . . especially if there was a neutered rare pet packed with epic traits at the end of the rank hatcher 10 tunnel! An extra hatching slot would be nice too!

And I'm also pro- more quests. If they would give me quests to go along with each step of a hatching rank, then I'd be a happy wizard.

It'd be interesting to see how they would actually implement something like this. /shrug. I like how you're thinking though, for sure!

Destiny's next idea:
Pet Arena:

This idea is still in its infancy stage in my mind, but this idea would bring the biggest change cause the stats of the pets would triple and bring in a stage of Arena Stats related to yet its own fighting skills, and of course for you Rankers out there, yet again more Ranking, but guess what? You're not the ones wearing the Badges this time, its Sparky's turn, the Ranks would be the same as any other Ranking System, Private - Warlord. As for rewards, I don't have much to say its your choice there, maybe booster cards for your pets like an extra attack boost or defense? Maybe rewards like my Mounts idea: a on-day color changer? Maybe (with the consent of Wizard101 of course), a reward to set your pet's name personally? Maybe even a item to boost your pet one level? Maybe even lowered hatching prices for one time or maybe sets of Gold 100 - 50,000? Not many ideas for Rewards here, you Wizards can help me out?

Actually, that's a ton of reward ideas! :p

So, yes, pet arena. Ok, that could be cool to have my pet dueling it out with other pets in Pokemon fashion, and I love the idea of earning a badge for my pet. That's gold! It would be just yet another way to personalize your character.

Destiny, you're flowing over with ideas! My recommendation is that you definitely spend some time posting your ideas over on Central and the Wizard101 forums. I'd break it up though. Maybe post just one idea a day and get some feedback from people. KingsIsle does read their forums and Central's forums, so your ideas will definitely be seen if you post there . . . and especially if you have great ideas.

Best of luck!

Happy Dueling!

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Fame At a Price -- Final Episode!

BEHOLD! The final comics in the fame at a price series from the amazing Alric Ravensinger!








Wraith followed by a feint trap critical hit firezilla combo for the win! *shivers* That Spaz guy really freaked me out, and way to go leader of the Wiz Hunters for pulling a Darth Vader Return of the Jedi at the end and distracting Spaz with a wand blast. XD

Thank you, Alric! My family loves these. I appreciate all the hard work you put into them. Humbled, in fact; thanks for spending all that time with us as the subject matter. You're awesome. :)

Happy dueling!

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Four Questions from Four Wizards (not at all like Seven Brides for Seven Brothers)

It's a question from Blaze Firesword:
Well first off let me say that your blog is the best!!!! Second I wanted to ask how is your progress with translating the tunnel in celestia. It has been some time since you first posted about it. I forgot about it too but I remembered about it when I was flipping through some of your older posts and if you forgot, well now you remember.

Sincerely, Blaze Firesword.
A huge fan of your blog. (and not the kind that blows air).

LOL. Hey, hairdryers have saved me once before, you know! ;-)

You know what . . . I gave up on any translation work because Kevin Battleblood let me know that it's already been done. Yup, he just took the wind right out of me. Thanks a lot Kevin *look of disgust*. Just kidding about the *look of disgust*. But seriously, there's no need for me to re-invent the wheel.

Thanks for remembering about it, though!

Here's the link to all the celestian translations.

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

Cole Moontamer has an interesting insight:
Hey friendly, i am Cole Moontamer lvl 31 fire. i have to ask about a strange spell that a life minion cast that I saw in MB. It is death, called Life bane and costs 3 pips. (sorry, no screens.) It looks like a death trap with the leaf symbol on it. i'm not sure but i think that the effect was something about dispelling, but why would a life minion want to dispell its own spells? Maybe it comes from a hidden trainer in mooshu...

Yeah, it appears all the minions got a little upgrade when Celestia came out and now they can cast a few cool spells that they weren't able to cast before . . . at least that's what this thread is telling me over on Central when Omega97 noticed the same thing. :-) AND, this thread from Austin lists all the minion upgrades.


AFAIK You can't train this spell, but there might just be a teeny tiny uber miniscule chance of a lifebane treasure card dropping from Yakedo or somewhere in Briskbreeze tower, but that's all rumor and here say as far as I'm concerned. Screenshot or it didn't happen people. ;-)

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

Here's a question about a Storm Staff from a Firesword:
Hey this is Jack Firesword (life) and I was over in the library when i saw Boris TallStaff. It reminded me of what you said about the other student wizards in Wizard City. So i was wondering if you could help me out because i have never seen that wand before. Any ideas?
-Jack Firesword

Yup, that is the level 45 wand called the "Lightning Rod." There's 100 of them for sale at the Bazaar at the moment.


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

Here's one from Alexander Battleflame:
Will you have any contests soon??

Not really planning one soon, but you never know when inspiration will strike! Keep checking back!

It looks like the winners from Boogie Woman's Babble last night were the following people:

Tristan Lightbright
Honorary Detective
and Joshua

Gratz people! When the Boogie Woman herself wakes up, I'll have her make a post about it. :-)

Happy Dueling!

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Amber is holding a contest today!

Well, my daughter wanted to make a comeback to blogging over on her blog: Boogie Woman's Babble.

1- She's awesome
2- She's giving away a few crown prizes of 2,500 crowns each
3- She's awesome

Make sure to head over to her world of pink, and give it a shot. :-)



Happy Dueling!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Interview with Jason Durall!

Heya peoples! I have a surprise for you all today. It's a Q&A interview with Jason Durall from Kingsisle! I think you Wizard101 fans and especially you Wizard101 fan fiction authors are really going to like this interview, so please, read on and enjoy!
________________________________________
Friendly: Hi Jason, thanks for agreeing to be interviewed on The Friendly Necromancer! I really appreciate your time, and I hope the fans of Wizard101 are going to take away a lot from this interview. Why don't you start by introducing yourself and giving us a little background information on your job at KingsIsle?
Jason: My name is Jason Durall. I'm the Creative Design Lead on Wizard101, a position that covers creative oversight of all aspects of the game: devising the plots; planning quests; coming up with new characters; writing dialogue; naming everything; and describing environments, creatures, and equipment for the art team, etc. In my day-to-day task load, I deal with every group: programmers, art, design, and even marketing. I do some of that work alone, though much of it is in collaboration with the rest of our awesome team.

________________________________________
Friendly: I understand that writing the storyline to Wizard101 has been a collaborative effort by many people but have you ever had to sacrifice a part of the storyline that you really wish could have stayed in, or was there a part of the storyline that you can't believe made it to the final game? Feel free to talk about the process of storytelling in Wizard101 since I don't believe many really have an insight into how that happens.
Jason: That's a loaded question! I started at KingsIsle a few months before launch, and one of my first tasks was to punch up dialogue, clean up the storyline as best as I could, and to add some bridging content that helped explain things better during the more complex sequences. For scheduling reasons, art sometimes has to be started before story is locked down, so it can occasionally create situations when it made sense to change an idea, but we had to proceed with our past decision.

As far as sacrifices, Grizzleheim ended with some unresolved plot threads, but I suspect that the door hasn't closed on that world yet. Usually though, it's the smaller stuff that gets cut in favor of the core story. There are a few quest lines that we haven't revisited, such as Penny Dreadful's whole story. We have a whole quest line with Sir Reginald Baxby that's always simmering on a back-burner. For various reasons, those stories just haven't made it into the game as of yet.

On the other hand, there's almost no sense of surprise about what's in the game. It takes so much effort to get content created and implemented, nothing sneaks up on you. The only time I've been simply amazed at what went into the game was the Hallowe'en content, where they actually let me do an entire quest chain in rhyming verse!

________________________________________
Friendly: Can you talk a bit about NPC development in Wizard101? How was it crafting dialog for characters such as the school trees and for the professors with strong personalities like Cyrus Drake? I imagine it was a lot of fun!
Jason: I came in after the first four worlds (Wizard City, Krokotopia, Marleybone, and MooShu) were developed, so much of the hard work had been done for me when it came up with developing core personalities of faculty and monsters. However, I've been directly responsible for the characters in Dragonspyre, Grizzleheim, and Celestia, as well as any who have come after release, such as new vendors and trainers or seasonal content. Regardless, the process is the same: figure out what role they will play in the quests and the story, and develop a voice for them that helps convey the spirit of what we're trying to do. In some cases, the concept for the character helps suggest the voice and personality, and at other times the character idea (personality and voice) comes before any artwork is done.

________________________________________
Friendly: A year after the launch of Wizard101, I discovered a particular quest that really filled out all the questions I had about the lore of the Kroknomicon and tied together all the questions I had surrounding the Golden Fang. Unfortunately I had somehow missed the importance of this quest text TWICE Before when playing through the game. When I finally slowed down, I managed to read the text instead of skipping it with the mentality of "What do they want me to do next." How hard is it for you as a writer in this game environment to craft text that people want to read and need to read to understand the story better?
Jason: It's always a challenge writing dialogue and story when there's the very real chance your audience is pressing fast-forward. The most you can do is make your dialogue fun enough to read, keep it direct enough that it's easy to understand, allow for some redundancy in describing what's going on, and present clear and regular goals for the players.

________________________________________
Friendly: I asked Professor Greyrose (Kiersten Samwell) at one time if she could supply me with whatever lore bible you guys had, and the response was that it all mainly just exists in the heads of the writers. How do you keep track of all the lore bouncing around behind the NPCs and areas of the spiral?
Jason: It's easy because I've spent the last couple of years with all of the lore of Wizard101 in my head, but I use a lot of notes, and frequently find myself searching through old quest dialogue documents, or replaying quests I've completed just to remember bits of setting information. Sometimes I have to ask Kiersten to help me remember things.

________________________________________
Friendly: One of KingsIsle's most recent successes is the release of Celestia.
Was there a particular NPC in Celestia that you could comment on as being fun to write quest text for?
Jason: I absolutely loved writing dialogue for the crabs. We had done their look long before any development on their personalities and voices, and I tentatively suggested to our sound developers that I'd like to give them outrageous Italian accents. Once we worked out what they'd sound like, it became a joy to write them. Everything they say is larger-than-life and they are incredibly touchy about how terrible their culture is. The other thing I liked most about Celestia's character development were the three epic "school bosses," imagining how these ancient beings would sound and what they would have to say after centuries of exile.

________________________________________
Friendly: Wizard101 seems to have a really big following with young writers creating fan fiction out of the characters in Wizard101. What kind of advice could you give to the budding writers that are cranking out fan fiction for Wizard101 and beyond?
Jason: Keep it up! Write, write, write! It's incredibly flattering to see that Wizard101 inspires creativity in the players, and there's no better way fuel your imagination than creating new stories and fiction for a setting as rich as the Spiral. Have fun filling your version of the Spiral with your own stories and characters, and feel free to share them with your friends and with KingsIsle. Walls here are covered with creativity from our dedicated fans. It's a wonderful compliment to know that what we do is so inspirational!

________________________________________
Friendly: Thanks so much for your time, do you have any questions for The Friendly Necromancer?
Jason's Question to Friendly: Now that we're starting to move into a big new story arc with the mystery of Morganthe and her designs on the Spiral, where do you think it's going to go?

My Answer to Jason's Q: When I think of Morganthe, I think of her army of Shadow Weavers. For some reason I have the Shadow Weavers in my mind acting as a kind of Borg construct like from the Star Trek Next Generation series: emotionless and calculating with a dangerous hive mentality, which is tragically being guided by Morganthe for her own evil purposes.

Morganthe definitely has her eyes on Merle Ambrose due to a past conflict that we are mostly unaware of. I’m predicting the truth about the conflict between Merle and Morganthe will surface over the next expansion.

I also think we’ll see new worlds opening up that have already been subdued by Morganthe’s Shadow Weaver Hive and, in Hero108 style, have to either undo the lies that Morganthe has told to the reaches of the spiral, converting them to the cause, or liberate them all from the oppression they face from Morganthe and her Shadow Weaver army.

In my mind the final blows will occur one world beyond a Shadow Weaver hive where we finally reveal Morganthe as the evil manipulator she is and FINALLY, the hive will turn on their queen.

How was that? ;p I’m probably not even close. XD

________________________________________

Once again, thank you for doing your part to make Wizard101 a great game. From all the fans, thank you and keep up the good work!

Happy Dueling!

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Answering a bunch of Wizard101 questions to try and catch up

This one comes from Toby:
"I have ben trying to make a blog on wiz101. but formatting i really dont understand. i noticed that your is well formatted. how do you do it?"

Magic. It all involves braving that Design tab and knowing a little HTML so you can modify the design of your blog. There are a number of blogs that talk about this kind of web designing stuffs. Here's one that's incredibly laden with laggy advertising: The Blog Doctor. If there's a way to modify your blog, this guy has a tip . . . just don't use them all or you'll end up laggy like his site.

Once you start Googling a few things, you'll start to find that there are a lot more awesome looking blogs out there than mine.

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

Couple questions from Thomas Goldshade:
1. Do you have any hints on getting the gear that I want for my characters? Whether it's Bazaar sniping or farming.
2. There is a building(sorry, no pictures) in the Shopping District in Wizard City that has it's lights on but you can't enter it. It's right across from the deck shop and the castle shop and next to the ring shop. Any idea why it's there and inaccessible?
Thanks a lot for answering and even thanks having a blog!
1. I guess it all depends on what gear you want! Most of the level 58 gear can be purchased at the Bazaar, and when you hit that level, you most likely have plenty of money to buy it.

An old recommendation, but a good one (oldie but a goodie) is to check Ironhawk's guides as you progress through your levels:

Marleybone
Mooshu
Dragonspyre

Zachery Firedust also has a Celestia guide.

2. I would go look at this shop, but, you know, Wizard101 is down this morning, so . . . readers?! Any ideas?!

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

Question from Lauren Frosttail:
Where is Angus now? I would like to know. I am sorry your busy :( busy isn't fun. Sit down and have yourself Ice Cream Brownies and Hot CHocolate! After all, why not? Good luck to you Angus!

Thank you for the brownies and hot chocolate, ma'am!

Angus is in that first area of Mooshu. Once I got past the mountain of Big Ben, I kind of needed a break from Angus. No worries. His adventures will resume soon.

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

Question from Mac:
Hello friendly! This is Mackenzie Lifebreeze and I have a question about blogging. Blogging. I have been trying to blog but I always FAIL. My goal is to be some type of famous wizard of the spiral like you. So my question is how do I get started out with a good blog? I will look forward to your reply.

Ahhh, dangit. I'm sorry you're not feeling successful with blogging. I think it's a common feeling though. You'll get lots of support from all the Wizard101 bloggers because just like you, they want to do well. Make sure you visit their sites and comment back and forth with everybody, and I'm sure they'll reciprocate.

I have a hard time keeping up with everyone else!

Here's a suggestion that perhaps might help: Find a niche for yourself and see if you can build an audience based around that. I don't know if this is a good example or not, but what if you were the best map maker in the entire Wizard101 community? People would come to your site to see your maps! Stuff like that.

I'm not sure about Fame.

Best of luck!

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

Brian Titansword from The Necromancer Story has a question:
What gear do Duncan GrimWater and Malorn AshThorn have?

Well, I don't know if you remember my post on if Student Teachers were Grandmasters? If you go to the bazaar, you can usually find the level 45 wands pretty easily. If not, you can always make a low character and push them through the Sunbrand quests in Dragonspyre early to get the class staff since you can do the Sunbrand quest in Dragonspyre at any time as long as you can get there.

The Bazaar is also rich with low level clothing, so you can usually find an outfit to match.

Again, Wizard101 is down this morning or I'd go snap a picture or two for you on the subject . . .

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

Laruen from three questions ago is back! With another question:

Well I just noticed something- Angus is casting Storm SHarks and Krakens... is he WAYYY over level for where he is? I dont remember my side character storm getting kraken until MB, Centainly not KT. WHat level is Angus now? one more thing- I think MS DS because thats where you will start to take more and more pips to kill something. Goodluck with a low power pip chance!

No, no. He's right on target. Yes, he's been doing all his side quests, but there was no powerleveling or xp potions, or anything else like that going on.

You know, in comparison to some other classes, Storm really gets some powerful spells quite early! By level 22 you have the Kraken spell, which should happen sometime in Krokotopia or Early Marleybone. The only difference I can think of would be that Angus did most if not all of his side quests in Wizard City (including Collossus Boulevard) and Krokotopia. I slacked off in Marleybone because there were just too many side quests, and I got sick of them.

Hope that helps clear up some confusion.

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

Questions from Alric Wintershield:

how can I get a sheep pet? I seen small little sheep everywhere on mooshu I did not know it was a pet. I seen the other day this girl with a sheep pet her name was olivia i did not take a snapshot of it. I never seen the pet before I look all over central too see it what boss drops it or if it was holiday pet or something. I even ask a question on central on the pet guide and someone responded by saying only VIP wizards can get the sheep pet. I am not sure if he was lying or not which is why I came to ask you directly How or when is it possible for me to get a sheep pet? Does a boss drop it? am I missing something? please answer

Oo! You saw Olivia? Olivia is awesome.

Sigh, yeah, you know, the sheep pet is one of those where the only way to get it is to have Kingsisle directly put it on your account. You can't get it anywhere. You can't even mix and get it.

If you ever see a fake Thomas Lionblood or Kyle Skystaff, ask them to show you the sheep pet to know if they're the real deal or not. They won't be able to do it. I will. That for me is the real benefit of the sheep pet. XD It's an easy way for me to deal with an impostor.

Here's an old post from when Olivia and I got our sheep together to try out some mixing. The result was . . . piggles! Although Professor Greyrose told me the mix should produce a Goat Monk, which isn't much better. ;p Then again, goat monks are pretty sage, yo.

Hope that helps.

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

Question from Alexander Battleflame:

Thanks so much for adding me to your mmo blogger club!!! I owe you one!! I needed someone to finally get my blog out so I could be popular! Thanks friendly and one quick question in Celestia where do you get the water mole statue?

You're welcome!

I do believe that comes from Gahlwok in The Floating Land. :-)

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

WHEW . . . Thanks to Wizard101 being down, I actually got through some of those questions. The next hurdle I need to face is this daunting "Check This Out" list in my inbox.

Happy Dueling!

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Game Report: Rowan and Isaiah Level 48 spell quest and GM Artisan on Thomas!

Uber wife and I decided last night to *finally* finish that lingering spell quest for Isaiah and Rowan.


So? Do you know the answer to Cyrus's question? Hmmm?

You Myth wizards do, right?

It's something to lure the Orthrus out to say hello, and that something happens to be the bone of a two-headed cat. Unfortunately you never get to see the two-headed cat though as Dworgyn just hands it over to you. I kind of wanted to fight a two-headed cat for that bone! :-) Oh well, beggars can't be choosers, and I was begging to get that quest DONE.

Anyway, since Rowan and I were simultaneously completing this quest, we got to see something even more rare than an Orthrus visitation. Behold the four-headed dog of awesomeness!


That's a lot of teeth to brush and noses to blow right there.

~~~~~~~~~~

Earlier in the night, Thomas finally decided to clear out that lingering GM Artisan quest from his quest log and crafted the seal of the seven seas.


You get a lot of gold for finishing that quest, but, um, well it wasn't nearly enough to cover the costs of sniping golden pearls in the bazaar. :)

I had missed that you could buy the Treant Polymorph cards from the Archivist, so I gotta give it up to Cassandra Griffindreamer for letting me know that you can buy them there. That saved a lot of time! No need to craft or even snipe those at all, just buy them from the Archivist. Yup!


WOOT, sporting the new GM Artisan badge with Cass, who looks strangly like an eagle wearing half of a wizard cap in this picture I might add.

Happy Dueling!

Monday, January 10, 2011

Bamboo Well in Mooshu?

Question from Neela Dreamglen:
Hi, this is Neela Dreamglen!
Aaaand i've got a question regarding furniture. So, you know when you walk into the jade palace into MS and you turn to your left a little and there's this bamboo well with a bucket and a crank? Well, I bought the imperial palace and have been trying to find where I can either buy this well for my house, or craft it, or even if it drops from a boss! BTW, your blog is awesome and I read it a few times a week! Thanks friendly!

OH yeah, that's a cool one to be sure.


As far as I can tell, that isn't available as a housing item. The closest we have to that well is the Celestian Wishing Well, which is a crafted item purchased from Gearwise in the Celestian Base Camp, AND yeah . . . that doesn't look ANYTHING like a well, does it?


Nope. This is not the well you're looking for.

Well, maybe someday that'll be a housing item, eh? That'd rock!

And if anyone knows any differently, please educate myself and Neela, would ya? Thanks!

Happy Dueling!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

What happened to Dragonspyre's Life School and Class Trees?

Tanner Rubycatcher has a couple of questions about Dragonspyre:
Hey Friendly! First off, thanks for pointing me towards that Celestia quest guide! :)

Anyways, I was walking around Dragonspyre Acadamy and I noticed that there were different doors with each of the school symbols on them. I thought this was cool and I also figured out that Dragonspyre Academy also has its own School trees. The only trees surviving are the Fire Tree, and the Death Tree(Who isn't very chatty). I also saw that there is no Life school or Balance School(Which makes sense since Balance is a "New" type of magic) in Dragonspyre Academy. So, I kinda have 2 questions that you may not be able to answer:

1) How did Dragonspyre Academy get those trees?

2) What happened to the Life School there?

Ahh, the tragedy of Dragonspyre. Here's a picture I made of that courtyard (click to enlarge).


So, it certainly looks like there's room for two schools that were completely destroyed, and the three other trees as you noted have been chopped down.

Yeah, I'm not exactly sure how the relationship between school tree and school works, but it definitely seems like they go hand in hand. Perhaps when someone establishes a school of magic, they also plant a tree with it?

Sadly it appears that Celestian magic doesn't work this way, instead we have to learn spells from . . . uh . . . magical oil barrels.


Where's the cool trees? You know?

The Life school at Dragonspyre academy was definitely obliterated by the dragon titan and its army of fire wizards. In fact, they look completely melted over as if a lava flow collapsed over them and then cooled, kind of like how it looks over by the volcanoes in Hawaii.


I'm thinking that's some extreme fire magic at work there. So, for a lack of better explanation, "it got deaded by fire wizards."

. . . you'd think they'd want to melt the ice school down, wouldn't you? But, by taking out the life and balance school, I think it also serves as a metaphor that most everything in Dragonspyre is a ghost and in chaos.

What do you all think?

Happy Dueling!

Space Area? And what about Briskbreeze?

I got an e-mail from Seth Hunter, and he wants to say something and has a question:
i believe the next area will be SPACE
and
i got a question why havent they expanded the briskbreeze thing?
You didn't hear, Seth? They already did that, it's called Star Trek Online, the pre-quest was called Anarchy Online, and the pre-pre quest is called Eve Online. What really hurt was when they cancelled the Tabula Rasa expansion on us. GAH!

OK, none of that was Kingsisle.

In all seriousness though, Celestia seems to have some space elements in it already. District of the Stars looks very "space-ish." If they were to explore some kind of space expansion, then I would love it to have cool little planets like on Mario Galaxy that you can jump from planet to planet on.


picture comes from Super Mario Galaxy wiki.

Personally, I'm hoping for a hive world or at least a hive zone. We've been introduced to Morganthe's evil helpers the Shadow Weavers, right? I think we need to go bust up their hive!

As for Briskbreeze . . . I don't know?!?!? Something sinister was supposed to happen out of Krokotopia and it never happened? Has Kingsisle forgotten this while they were busy with Advanced Pets, Celestia, and Gardening?

(most likely, yes.)

It is really hard to have to hang on to a cliffhanger like that for a year and a half, right? How hard could it be to throw another tower in somewhere like Krokotopia anyway? ;-) I'm sure designing / programming / drawing / implementing / marketing / quality checking / whateverelse some of the cheating boss fights is much more difficult that it appears on the outside.

It'd be awesome to see the Briskbreeze story line resurface, and I hope it does.

Thanks, Seth!

Happy Dueling!

Friday, January 7, 2011

Can you Juggle a Plant in Wizard101 to Keep it Forever?

Question from Luke Goldhorn:
Hey Friendly,

So, I have a question. And I thought, "Who better to ask than the all-knowing Necromancer himself?" So, here it is:

When you "neglect" your garden, your plants will start to wilt, and eventually die. I've had a few wilting plants that I saved, an they went back to the sapling stage (I believe that is the teen stage of gardening). I can't remember what stage it was before exactly, but would you mind checking this out? If this is true, it'd seem like an awfully big flaw in the system, since people could just buy the crowns plants and keep reusing them. I would conduct a test myself, but I am currently on break. Thanks so much for your help!

From your's truly,

Luke GoldHorn

P.S: You're blog isn't covered in awesomesauce. IT'S BURIED IN EPICSAUCE!

HELP! THROW ME A LADLE! I'M DROWNING IN EPICSAUCE!



Once again, I am proving to you that it's not what you know, but who you know.

I asked Greyrose, who then passed the question on to Justin Wingard, who also is buried in epicsauce--much more than I am.

Here was his response:
Elder plant harvests for crown plants should also guarantee a seed drop to players so essentially a crowns plant will never completely vanish on you.

Hopefully, we made the rewards high enough at the elder stage such that players are encouraged to keep growing through the whole plant life cycle as opposed to just bouncing plants around between life and death.

Now, the one exception to this is The Giving Tree. The Giving Tree doesn’t give off a seed at Elder. The only way to keep it alive is to juggle it at the lower stages, but in doing that you’re missing out on its elder stage rewards which are really really awesome!

Thanks Greyrose and Justin!

For some reason I have a nagging feeling that others may have some insight into this as well. I know uber wife was saying that it had appeared to her that some of our daughter's plants went elder even though they had needs, but that would seem to be a bug right? Any of you all have some insight to share??

/scratches head.

Pretty awesome that crown plants pretty much guarantee another crown plant seed, right? YES! Maybe that's why I never seem to run out of pink dandelions.

Happy Dueling!

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Busy! Busy! BUSY!

Heya all, just a quick note that I'm busy writing another article for Beckett's Massive Online Gamer magazine this morning, so I don't have time to post. My apologies! Speaking of Beckett's I really hope you all have spent some time sending in a picture or two of your amazing houses for their contest! You could win an MFP or some awesome crown prizes! WOOT!

Best of luck!

Happy Dueling!

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Strange Building in Marleybone? Outfits near Zeke?

Elizabeth Seacloud has a couple questions:
1. So i asked this question to the wizard101 support " In the mb commons thaere are two dogs that look like buckingham palace gaurds, there is a building inbetween them, but you cant get into it, what is that building supposed to be?" And guess what they answered! " I'm sorry, but we're not able to answer this type of question. We consider that information a Spoiler, and we're not permitted to reveal the Spoilers to anyone. They're common for all students at Ravenwood School of Magical Arts, so you can ask your friends and in the forums, but the Faculty is strictly forbidden from revealing them." Hump, that wasnt mugh help... but it did do something, it made me think! Do you think that will me a new tower or something? Hummm... interesting right! What do you think.

2. Have you ever noticed that in the wizardcity commons by zeak and the sticing lady there is a cart. the cart has like school spcific outfits. Were thoes the old crowns gear, can you farm them from a boss. They look really cool and i would loke some...Thx

1. I've actually been asked this question before! Here's my long answer. The short answer is (at this point) its nothing more than a staging area for Henry Wellingbrook and Quentin Boodington.

The interesting thing here is their response to you. There's really no spoiler to it . . . UNLESS, they're going to use it for something else some day! DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN! (then again, it is kind of their template answer for stuff like this . . .)

I guess we'll have to wait and see. :)

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

2. Oh yeah, let's go take a look at that:



Hmmm, I think I've seen a few of those around the spiral. A couple of them might be, but I think some are not. Gah, I don't know . . . you're asking a dude. I'M A DUDE! I don't none notice none of these here clothes details and whatnot no way! I'M A DUDE!

;-)

I'm going to have to leave this up to my more . . . fashion oriented . . . readers. Ahem. Please, if you know what any of those clothes on the cart are, let this dude and Ms. Elizabeth Seacloud know in the comments below. DUDE! THANKS!

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

Happy Dueling!

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Where can I find Scrap Metal in Wizard101?

Question here from Sai:
I need help with crafting! I need to find the regrident scrap iron in Marely Bone if i find this this will save all my problems!!!! P.S: Love you blogs im a lvl 56 Death wizard hope to meet you in wizard 101 some time!
Thanks for reading! You should definitely go check out the maps over at Central. Remember to run a path that will get you the most reagents in a minute and then realm jump. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Also, don't forget you can make your own scrap iron through a transmute recipe. More information can be found here. 10 stone block, 10 ore = 1 scrap iron.

You can always bazaar snipe your scrap metal too if you have a lot of patience and time to sit at the bazaar refreshing the list of reagents and scrolling down to where the scrap metal would be over and over and over . . . and over. Some would argue that this is actually the fastest method there is. Bazaar sniping kind of depends on the time of day and the speed of your fingers. ;)

Probably the least effective method is spending 100 crowns on a regeant card pack. Those make a fun gift for friends, but I'd never use it as a viable way of finding the crafting components I need. I can spend my crowns on a lot better stuff than that.

And finally, with gardening you can now harvest regeants. Helephant Ears and Venus Fly Traps are known to drop scrap metal as a harvest.

Best of luck finding that scrap metal. It definitely is a much sought after crafting component!

Happy Dueling!