Wizard101 in 2024 . . . back to the sewers!

This past week my mind started returning to the game that changed my life, Wizard101. Oh, man! I haven't logged on to Wizard101 for a long time . . . in fact the last time I played it was back in January.  I'm going to be completely honest about some of the motivations last time for logging on: I was trying to get a job back at KingsIsle as a part of the Design team.  It would have solved so many problems for me at the time. I wouldn't have had to move. I could have stayed in the industry. I could have been working with old friends. I could have been working on a game that I love! Unfortunately, I just wasn't what they were looking for in that particular role and thus . . . it wasn't meant to be.

Anyway, I logged on X and shot out a very simple message to see what I'd get for a response. "Tell me about what Wizard101 is like now here in 2024. I want to know your thoughts on reaching endgame. Also, how many hours a day are you playing and what are you mostly doing?" The response I got back was surprisingly awesome. I had no idea I still had reach like this with the fanbase. It got 10,000+ views and garnered a ton of responses.

While you can go read through that yourself, I thought I'd take a second to summarize what I got back:

• Side Activities -- The endgame can be found in events and side activities, specifically Beastmoon, PvP, leveling pets, gardening, fishing, monstrology, and hunting for badges. There's tons of side activities now that I think about it.
• The gear grind endgame remains -- You will spend a lot of time farming bosses to equip your character. It's just kind of what everyone does . . . or you buy hoard packs and skip all that nonsense.
• Just being with people -- Helping friends quest and grouping up with randoms through the team-up kiosk continues to be popular at endgame.
• Guilds -- Completing your Guild museum and participating in Guild Raids will give you hours of fun (and the guild raids are apparently extremely difficult and unforgiving)

Outside of these, I got a few outlying comments

• The good -- As to be expected -- there are just people that continue happily playing the game no matter what they're doing, leveling a fifth character . . . hanging out . . . whatever. They're just happy to be playing.
• The bad -- As to be expected -- some people are burnt out and unhappy with a variety of things. The direction of PvP, the pay-to-win monetization, the decrease in production value, being stuck in difficult content, etc.  Those are all valid.  I respect those honest responses. *hugs the downtrodden* I hope stuff gets better!
• The broken -- These folks lack a computer to play, but love the game . . . they're also looking forward to a console release of Wizard101.
• The pirate -- God bless 'em. I'm a Pirate101 fan too. The upcoming update can't come fast enough.  

It made me log back into Wizard101, and I found myself exploring the side world that is the sewers under Wizard City, and unfortunately, where I left off was at a particularly difficult fight and one that was impossible to solo.

Not the best screenshot, but there's the Greggors . . . old and young.

This Sir Greggor fight took way too long to win, but after a couple attempts and not having friends to turn to, I realized that using blades and renting some crown shop companions were going to be my key to winning this.  I realized that what makes this game really difficult is not its difficulty, but rather its time commitment because of its turn-based nature. Thankfully not all fights are as time-consuming as the Sir Greggor fight. (I'm bracing for someone to tell me . . . just wait until you fight X random boss)

Thankfully the writers of the story were pretty great about summing up why the heck I'm fighting old Dragonspyre ghosts in the sewers of Wizard City. As it turns out the sewers of Wizard City are actually old tombs and there are some Dragonspyre ghosts here thanks to a time when a power-hungry prince from Dragonspyre tried to wage war on Wizard City. Got it.

Looks like I'm back to playing some Wizard101 and hunting down old ghosts . . . sounds surprisingly apropos.

Happy Dueling!