The Friendly Necromancer

Spell of the Week -- Fire Elf!

2012-02-01T04:29:00.000-08:00

The spell of the week this week is a little annoying guy we all know very well. With a jump or two in the air and a fire arrow aimed directly at your heart, I give you the . . .

Fire Elf

This great spell comes to you as early as 5th level and has been in the game since the get go. You can find this spell on treasure cards (even available at good ol' Harold Argleston's shop), items, and pets. This spell not only damages on the first round but continues to do damage over three rounds; therefore, this is an excellent spell for removing fire and tower shields and especially so due to its low pip cost.

I was kind of surprised this time around. I thought I would get pictures from everyone and their danger hound, but I only received eight entries . . . I felt a little dumb choosing the best five out of eight, so I decided to bag it and just post them all! hehe.

Check 'em out!

~~~~~~~~~~~
Rachel Windtalon:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Flash333:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Alexander Fire Blade / Alexander Fuego Audaz:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Blaze Shadowhorn:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Alexander DragonTamer:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Kyle Firesword:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Julia Dragonsword:

(Julia had fun with this one and sent in three pictures! ;))

~~~~~~~~~~~
Seth Hunter:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Thanks everyone for your participation and the great screenshots! I do appreciate you all putting your best foot forward.

happy dueling!

Call for Spell of the Week

2012-01-30T05:14:00.001-08:00

Ok folks, it's time to run another spell of the week, and even though it seems like I'm preferring fire spells 3 times out of 10, I gotta do another fire spell. LOL. Time to cast up your best FIRE ELF!

I think there's going to be a lot of competition on this one since it's so easy to find and we're only choosing the five best fire elves! Make it awesome! Good luck!

Send a screenshot of you casting a Fire Elf to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com by tomorrow night (31 January 2012), and I'll post your picture on my blog on the morning of 01 February.

Here's a mailto address link to get you started: Click Here.

Happy Dueling!

Angus Wins by a Hair in Grand Chasm Past

2012-01-28T10:25:00.000-08:00

I've been inspired lately by a reader of this blog named Rylee Icehaven. Rylee is a really nice wizard of the spiral who's been taking on the Angus Unicornpants challenge. Rylee says there's a swear jar for this character (you know, a jar where you toss in a dollar every time you accidentally let loose with a swear word) but has made it to Newgate Prison in Marleybone. :) I've been there, done that. Playing an Angus character is tough.

That inspiration coupled with the fact that I've taken enough time off from playing Angus to recover, made me ready for more this morning! BRING ON THE PAIN!

It wasn't too bad actually. I started off with a sidequest involving taking out General Greystone in the Plaza of Conquests. He fell easily enough, and I was feeling pretty good about that win since it was coupled with a Death Cyclops pet! That'll go nicely in the shared bank for Thomas. I think that'd be his second Death Cyclops if I remember right.

Next, I went back to my main quest line and finished out the current and past versions of The Grand Chasm . . . including the grueling march through the security tower to charge the crystal that powers the time machine. Again, not too bad!

The Firetusk fight in Grand Chasm Past was an interesting one, but nothing too terrible other than those hitpoints I had to chew through. That's definitely something about Dragonspyre . . . everybody has enough health to make them dangerous, even Vasek Ashweaver. He's solo, but he still has 7,000 health.

I actually made the mistake of going into this fight at half health, which for Angus is like 500 health. whoops! I recorded the entire fight, but it's really the last few moments you have to catch.

:)

Now it's on to the Necropolis and our old friend Sylvia Drake. :) I'm not really looking forward to the Labyrinth. Gulp.

Happy Dueling!

Falmea . . . NOW THAT'S SOME HOT SAUCE!

2012-01-28T10:16:00.000-08:00

Imagine my surprise as a gift arrived in the mail from a local VIP on the Friendly Necromancer blog, Mr. Todd Rogers. Todd is awesome sauce, but I had no idea of the lengths he'd go to pull off the most awesome wizard101 fan gift ever!

LOL

I remember Fred Howard one time saying to me back in 2009 that he wished fans would "do more" for Wizard101. Since that time I think it's pretty safe to say the fans have gone the extra mile for their favorite game.

This is the latest example:

HAHA! It's a bottle of Falmea Hot Sauce. I really got to hand it to Todd here. This is awesomesauce at its finest . . . goes well with taquitos.

I probably shouldn't have opened that bottle. (Actually, I didn't open that bottle. Amber opened it when I had my back turned.) It is labeled after all . . . it's bottle 49 out of 48. I ain't kiddin'.

Todd tells me he shipped the other 48 to KingsIsle's offices as a holiday gift. He reserved the 49th bottle for me. Is there a 50th bottle for him? I think he told me he did that if memory serves me on that particular conversation.

Anyway, I will definitely keep the bottle, but for now it's in with my collection of hotsauce in the fridge. I gotta have me some hotsauce.

Thanks for the gift, Todd! *toasts with another bite of falmea'd taquito*

RAWR! TAQUITO BITE!

SPICY Dueling!

Spell of the Week -- Minotaur

2012-01-25T04:34:00.000-08:00

This week's spell is the mighty . . .

Minotaur!

It's truly an awesome myth spell and what many would call a "class defining" spell for Myth wizards with its shield breaking strike before delivering a final blow (although, Myth wizards have many unique spells in general--stuns, minions, etc.). Once you cast a few minotaurs you start to understand the real value of a blade over a trap. ;) Deadly in PvP and against single targets, Minotaur is a spell that totally says in your mind as you cast it, "HEY! *point* Don't freaking mess with me!"

You can find this spell not only in the Myth line (available at level 33), but also on treasure cards and on about five different items in the game.

We received 15 entries from wizards around The Spiral, each casting the Minotaur spell with much awesomeness. However, in an effort to narrow this down, my family helped me select our five favorite screenshots. Check 'em out!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mitchell Battleflame:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alexander Dragontamer:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Blaze Shadowhorn:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Julia Dragonsword:

Julia adds, "I have added some items from Greek mythology such as the minotaur's lair in the labyrinth (thats where the fight is located), the minotaurs brother getting revenge on Theseus (a guy in greek mythology who killed the minotaur), and lastly the string as the compass! Thanks for having this contest and have a great week! :D"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kyle Firesword:

Kyle adds, "Hello Friendly, here is my Minotaur screenshot! My quote is "This is what happens when you drink too much Red Bull, you become a Minotaur and start wanting hugs!" (the minotaur in the picture looks like he is going to hug the other minotaur) Thanks! Kyle Firesword :D You probably cant see my pet life Minotaur I have equipped or my Blood of the giants badge, but they are both there!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks everyone for the great pictures!

Happy Dueling!

Call for spell of the week

2012-01-23T03:38:00.001-08:00

Ok folks, it's time to run another spell of the week, and this week I'd like to give our Myth folks a shout out with the Minotaur spell!

Look at that! It's me with a minotaur casting a minotaur on a minotaur. ;)

Send a screenshot of you casting a Minotaur to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com by tomorrow night (24 January 2012), and I'll post your picture on my blog on the morning of 25 January.

Here's a mailto address link to get you started: Click Here.

This time I'll be narrowing it down by asking my family help me choose the top five, so do your best work!

Happy Dueling!

Happy Dueling Hour Podcast

2012-01-19T04:55:00.000-08:00

I announced this over Twitter yesterday, so many of you already know about the new podcast Bailey and I did for Happydueling.com, but in case you didn't hear about it or don't tune in to Twitter, here's the link!

*Click for Happy Dueling Hour*

For now we're only planning on having this be a monthly show . . . or whenever we can convince nanamancer to watch the kids for us and we've got the time. Eventually we'll figure out how podcast RSS feeds and Itunes podcasting works, but for now, this is what you get. LOL.

The show itself talks about all the games we play (including Wizard101) and even dabbles in board games and classic gaming. (It's just basically me and Bailey getting together to talk about games hehe.)

Send in ideas for the show here: happyduelinghour@happydueling.com

Thanks everyone!

spell of the week -- Centaur!

2012-01-18T04:14:00.001-08:00

Hello readers! We have a great spell this week:

Centaur

Centaur is simply a straight up damage spell, a classic spell, that for the cost of six pips will unleash a powerful life attack that does 515-595 damage. At 90 percent accuracy, it's hard for Centaur to miss. :) This card is available as a treasure card and an item card, and you can find all about where to get those from visiting Wizard101 Central's wiki page for Centaur.

The best part of this spell though has to be its animation, and the readers of The Friendly Necromancer did not disappoint. I couldn't bring myself to pick just five of these. I will be doing that eventually, but here they all are! Thanks everyone!

~~~~~~~~~~~
Mark Deatheyes:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Timothy Shadowslinger:

Timothy adds, "Here my centaur screenshot. Although I didn't catch it I love how the arrow makes a tree grow which then explodes and implodes."

Awesome job!
~~~~~~~~~~~
Destiny Soultamer:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Edward Lifegem:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Diana Wildheart:

p.s. here's Diana's blog addy: http://dianawildheart.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~
Allison Deathwielder:

Allison adds, "LOL. ever since i had chosen life as a secondary i had regreted it because there were so much better things i could have trained. I would have bought back my tp's, if i had the crowns, but i am kinda glad i didnt at the moment, because thx to my lousy tp use early in the game, i had a centaur that i could just cast, yay.

Also, Friendly, I would like to know what made you choose this spell. Just a simple question, was there any reason behind choosing the specific spell?"

Thanks Allison! Well, at least as a life secondary, you'll always have a heal spell for when you're in a group! I actually chose this spell because I was playing Molly Earthsong this week. She's one of our life wizards. :) That and I haven't done a Life spell yet for spell of the week . . . Myth is next!

~~~~~~~~~~~
Blaze Shadowhorn:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Eric:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Slibs Hobbleface:

Slibs adds, "Since I couldn't cast Dr. Von's Monster, now I can redeem myself with a 5,406 damage centaur! YAY!"

Nice redemption hit! :)
~~~~~~~~~~~
Heather Blade:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Cassandra Dragonheart:

Cass adds, "Here is MY shot of 'ol IronHawk --reference to one of THE best guide writers from Wiz101central who has since retired."

I really REALLY miss Ironhawk.

~~~~~~~~~~~
THE Joseph BlueFlame (life wiz):

~~~~~~~~~~~
Elijah Stormheart:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Seth Hunter:

Seth adds, "woo stringless bow attack!"

ROFL!
~~~~~~~~~~~
Alric Dragoneyes:

Alric adds, "Hey Friendly,

It took a couple of tries and some editing to get this shot.

Keep doing what you’re doing, it’s awesome."

I shall Alric, thanks for participating!

~~~~~~~~~~~
Fin Deathfinder:

Finn adds, "Hi Friendly. Thanks for the amazing blog, and this fun spell of the week thing. It must be very hard to organize it. Thank you for working so hard on your blog. We can all see the amazing job you do on each post.

-Fin Deathfinder

Oh ps the people in the first picture is Rush.(From left to right. Alex Lifeson. Geddy Lee[as the centaur]. Neil Peart. Oh and every one knows Kermit the frog.)"

NIEL PEART! :) Hey! I'm a drummer . . . of course I know who Niel Peart is. LOL.

~~~~~~~~~~~
Kyle Firesword:

Kyle adds, "Hello Friendly! This is my picture for the spell of the week of centaur! I decided to do it in the Elephant Graveyard, because I thought it looked creepy, sacred, and awesome all at the same time! :D Have a great week to you, your family, and all of your readers!!!"

Nice one, Kyle!
~~~~~~~~~~~
Alexander Fuego Audaz!

Alexander adds:Hi Friendly!

This spell of the week event is very fun! It's to sad that you have to upload to many pictures...

Well if your going to start choosing just some pictures I'm going to put extra effort on them.

By the way, thanks for the codes you game in previous weeks for this, but where can I change them?

thanks for the extra effort, Alexander! If I've ever given you a code, just go to www.wizard101.com, log in, and click the "redeem card or code" link that pops up on the left hand navigation column. Thanks!

~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris has the perfect trifecta of pictures:

~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks everyone for your submissions! Centaur is a great spell and you all didn't disappoint. :)

Happy dueling!

Call for Spell of the Week

2012-01-16T06:49:00.000-08:00

Love this spell . . .

Send a screenshot of you casting Centaur to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com by tomorrow night (17 January 2012), and I'll post your picture on my blog on the morning of 18 January.

Here's a mailto address link to get you started: Click Here.

Can't wait to see what you come up with.

Happy Dueling!

Molly Gets Her Gnome On!

2012-01-15T05:47:00.000-08:00

Uber Wife and I have been trying to take a second and third set of wizards through Zafaria. It's always a bit difficult coordinating our schedules.

I got to hand it to Bailey though, she's done the "lionblood's share" of the work preparing her storm wizard and Molly (a mutually claimed life wizard -- it's a long story involving my wife swiping my life character and claiming her as her own hehe) by getting them through both Celestia and Wintertusk.

Last night though, I played Molly and Bailey played Bailey (her storm wizard named Bailey that is) in the big Z! Zafaria! By the end of the night we were finished with the Savannah. Man that's a lot of fire lion people defeating. whew.

We were both psyched when Molly earned her Gnomes spell and was treated to the Gnome visitation in MooShu.

It's too bad these new spell appearances don't stick around longer like the old ones, right? I love to hold my visitations open for as long as possible. :)

So, we now have a gnome caster in the Team Friendly family!

If we could inspire Amber to play her character more, we'd have two gnome casters! ;)

Happy Dueling!

(Guest Post!) "Prince of the Forest" Spell from Lady Blade

2012-01-14T14:01:00.000-08:00

I have a special guest post to share with you today from @LadyofBlades who keeps a great blog over at Lady of Blades. She shared with me an idea for a Life AOE spell that I thought was a pretty great idea. Check it out!

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

Hello everyone, this is LadyofBlades. First, I would like to thank the Friendly Necromancer for giving me the opportunity to discuss my spell idea with you. Now onto the idea.

New Life Spell Idea

A few weeks ago on Twitter, J. Todd Coleman asked people to submit new spell ideas. I submitted one or two but a couple of days later, one came to mind that I really liked and have not been able to get out of my head.

If you have ever played a Theurgist (Life Wizard), your biggest complaint is probably, “No AOE until level 58.” Oh the glorious moment when you arrive in Shoshun Village and see the Forest Lord for the first time. Sure he costs 8 pips but what a spell. However, like everyone else, I would love to see Theurgists get an AOE at either an earlier level or that costs less pips so I came up with one that fits both criteria.

Some of you will get the reference but the spell is called “Prince of the Forest”. He is a giant stag that emerges from a forest, deals 350 damage to all enemies for a cost of 5 pips, and then casts Brilliant Light on the Caster’s team. Do I have your attention yet? Keep reading then and I will explain the details.

Casting: When cast, the battle circle becomes a forest clearing and the Prince emerges. He stares at the opponents for a second, then his eyes glow green and he charges head down, antlers first. He stops just as he gets to the enemy and moves his head back and forth, scratching the enemy with his antlers. To attack another enemy, he rears on his hind legs and comes down in front of the next enemy to scratch them as well. When finished dealing damage, the Prince turns and bows to the caster and each of the caster’s allies, leaving behind a 15% Brilliant Light.(Special thanks to Katherine Light for the Brilliant Light idea.)

Since it only costs 5 pips, the damage should be equal or close to equaling that of level 3 and 4 spells. I wanted to get the same effect as other AOE’s without going overboard. For example, Myth’s Humongofrog does the same amount of damage as Cyclops and Death’s Scarecrow does 400 damage but costs 7 pips so the Prince needs to do less damage than Scarecrow but more than a level 3 spell because of the pip cost.

The reason for only 15% on the Brilliant Light is that a normal one is 30% but it is a level 55 spell which is way beyond what I think Prince of the Forest should be obtained. The other AOE spells are all obtained around level 22 (Balance excluded since theirs is level 16) Regenerate is obtained at level 28 so possibly around level 30 or 32.

That’s my idea to get Theurgists an early AOE. Thanks for reading and may your days be filled with blessings and magic.

~Lady Blade

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

Thanks Lady Blade! Keep up the great ideas. :)

Happy Dueling!

What time is it? (um, Game Stratagyst came in the mail time?) (um, Test Realm Time?) um . . . ?

2012-01-13T04:37:00.000-08:00

It's pack-a-palooza time!

Great timing on behalf of KingsIsle! Just as I'm receiving my new Game Strategyst magazine with an article all about the packs in the game, what happens in the spiral? The Raven's Hoard Pack is released. WOOT!

Although MOG is dead, Game Strategyst is still alive and kicking, and it's a fun issue with articles on Kirby's Return to Dreamland, Webkins, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, Club Penguin, Max and the Magic Marker, Free Realms, Super Mario Island, Poptropica, and just a ton more . . . including Wizard101 of course with an article from me.

The code in the magazine this time is one that gives you two random packs from their collection of packs. Let me know what packs you get from the code! I got the Hand of Doom Pack and a Mega-Snack Pack.

~~~~~~~

The Raven's Hoard pack that is in game now is wild. I'm sure you've heard all about it, but there's a two-seater blood raven mount hidden in it that's amazing! Bailey got to take a ride in one.

I'm still hunting for my own. This pack has a Grizzleheim/coldness/bird theme going to it. From feather wall hangings, to frozen Grizzleheim warriors, to crow pets of every kind (including the exclusive black crow derby pet). There's a whole list of things over on the Central wiki. More info on the packs here.

Another main want from the Raven's Hoard Pack is the bow! This weapon is AWESOME! That's another one I'm hunting for still. I got the two-handed axe and a full set of gear, but no bow yet. hehe . . . check me out in my raven's hoard pack outfit.

It looks like I've got owl eyebrows.

~~~~~~~

And LAST BUT NOT LEAST . . . the test realm is back online again and this time you can test out a ton of transformations (20 of 'em to be exact!).

Angus is NOT liking the change to starter wands at all, but whatever. That wand full of one pip damage spells from all the different classes is what made him get past Meowiarty. Recommendation? Start your Angus Unicornpants character before the test realm goes live!

There's all kind of exciting things going on in the Spiral this week. :)

Happy Dueling!

Spell of the Week -- Dr. Von's Monster

2012-01-11T03:26:00.000-08:00

The Spell of the Week this week is currently the highest level spell in the Necromancer's arsenal. It's also the reason why I didn't get many responses for the Spell of the Week this week. You can't craft an item with it (yet) or cast it as a treasure card (yet). All in good time.

BEHOLD! DR.VON'S MONSTER!

As the card shows, it's a 9-pip life-stealing death-magic spell with the typical 85% accuracy and a little bit of a surprise punch at the end in the form of a -25% healing debuff kicker. Dr. Von's Monster is a nice replacement to Wraith in the progression of single target spells in the Necromancer's health drain line. It's definitely up there with pip count and is meant for larger and harder monsters than you'd find in any pre-Dragonspyre area, but luckily spells like Empower can help you get up to that 9-pip count quickly.

I received four entries into the spell of the week by four awesome necromancers. Check 'em out:

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

First up is a picture from Claire:

Claire adds, "I never realized how hard it is to get the perfect shot. The first one criticaled, but i didn't get the picture with the hit. And then he had to go and death shield. If I could have gotten the words in, it would have said 'A little overkill never hurt anyone... except you.'

Thank you for giving me a reason to set a new record for myself. (Though I know it's not all that impressive)"

Claire! NICE HIT! You're right. I had to take my Dr. Von's picture at least 4 times until I could find one I liked. Thanks!

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

Justin Shadowblade:

Yes! Definitely go check out Deathwiz.com.

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

Eric:

OH MAN, Taunting the Storm wizards! LOL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Allison Deathwielder:

Allison adds, "This spell was easy to find because, well, i am a necromancer lol. Anyway, You knew about Frank being the death spell before many of us. When its school was revealed, many people saw it as a rejected storm spell that was just dead enough to be a death spell. (or something like that.) I would really like to hear your thoughts on those ideas against Katz."

Some Death students seem to be burnt on this spell, and a lot of people at first thought this spell was a Storm school spell because of its original name (Dr. Katzenstein's Monster) and its lightning filled look. But, as we know, KingsIsle likes to take us to the movies. If there was ever a screen representation of classic reanimation of the dead, it's in the original Frankenstein movie where Dr. Frankenstein explains how he has stitched together dead bodies and found a way to use light beyond the Ultraviolet spectrum to bring random dead flesh back to life (even keeping a human heart beating without a body).

Truly a classic tale of necromancy. Reanimation of the dead (or creation of the undead as shown in that clip) is what we're all about, right? Makes sense to me!

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

Thanks everyone for your participation!

Happy Dueling!

Call for Spell of the Week

2012-01-09T04:36:00.000-08:00

It's time to take a look at the Death school of magic, and why not start with the newest necromantic spell of them all: Frankenstein!

LADY BLACKHOPE, Y U NO FRANKENSTEIN GIRLFRIEND?

Send a screenshot of you casting a Frankenstein to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com by tomorrow night (10 January 2012), and I'll post your picture on my blog on the morning of 11 January.

Here's a mailto address link to get you started: Click Here.

Show me what you got!

Happy Dueling!

At long last . . . Grub Guardian

2012-01-06T19:04:00.000-08:00

Sometimes KingsIsle just doesn't say a word. You know? It's not very often, mind you, that a press release or a community leader note doesn't show up when something new happens in game, but today was one of those days. I'm sure the announcement will happen in the next few days, but the most I've heard about Grub Guardian up to this point from KingsIsle has been, "It'll be done, when it's done." Well guess what . . . it's done--or at least close to being done. :)

I was casually browsing Twitter when I saw a few tweets about Grub Guardian being "live" from the awesome #twizard people. I immediately went to kifreegames.com and indeed found a Grub Guardian game on the site with a "beta" note by it, but it seemed to be working just fine, and before you know it, I was playing up my pets outside the confines of Wizard101.

I was bummed when I found out it actually wasn't in the game yet, just on KIFreeGames. I was also bummed when I found it wasn't in the appstore for my iPhone. Then again, perhaps kifreegames.com is the perfect place to run a beta like this.

If you're looking for Grub Guardian guides, there's already a dozen threads going over on Wizard101 Central. :)

Basically, Grub Guardian is a Tower Defense Game. You stack up your different types of guardians (each from a different school of magic) and they blast away at the hordes of baddies pouring forth and heading for your pet's food at the end of the trail.

What's extra cool is that your pet actually plays a part in the tower defense and at the end of the game, they gain pet experience and can even be fed pet snacks from your in game inventory (if you decide to play that way instead of for prize codes).

This can in fact lead to leveling your pet (although you don't really get to see what skills they gained . . . you have to log in to do that).

If you do really well at a level of Grub Guardian, you'll end up unlocking new, more difficult levels of play.

It's a ton of fun and can be really challenging. Once you develop a pattern of where to place your spells on the map and which spells to upgrade along the way, I'm sure it will become a lot easier. I expect YouTube videos of the patterns to be forthcoming any moment now. LOL.

Oh ok fine . . . let me be the first . . .

Woot! Oasis level done! Whew, now if I can just keep going. Some of these levels are tough!

Happy Dueling

Friendly Surrenders to the Super Hero Squad Online Paywall

2012-01-05T04:12:00.000-08:00

I couldn't help myself. I had 10 bucks of Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket, and I wanted to speed things up . . . and that I have!

Since I had about 300 gold and 14000 silver banked, the extra 500 gold from a subscription plus the fact that gold populates the prize wheel everyday now PLUS the fact that you get 20 gold for logging in everyday instead of just 5 meant that I was able to buy an army of Super Heroes. Mostly Agent Only heroes mind you, but heroes none the less. That jumped my Squad level up, and all of a sudden I had an extra hero thanks to Colossus being the reward for getting your Squad level past 200.

It's like I'm drowning in heroes now! 21 heroes in fact and 11 of those are brand new. In essence, I doubled my squad size last night. LOL. (I highly recommend building up a lot of silver before you become a member, so you can buy all those Agent only heroes out of the gate.)

Forget paywalls, now I'm fighting herowalls. Leveling all these Agent Only heroes will be a high priority when I'm in game for now . . . that, earning tickets to spin the prize wheel, and finding all the hulks to play missions with:

Hmmmm, I imagine just spending some time chatting during busy times will help me find people to play missions with, or yes, I may have to buy those heroes myself (might take me a good portion of the month I think).

I'm only subscribing for a month at this point. I'm hoping that will be enough to get me through a few more challenges. As to be expected, my kids interests skyrocketed last night when they saw me purchasing hero after hero thanks to the subscription account. It wasn't enough to pull Kyle off of Roblox last night, but we'll see.

Until next time, this is the Iridescent Time Hound saying, hero up and . . .

Happy Dueling!

Spell of the Week -- Hydra

2012-01-04T04:03:00.001-08:00

The spell of the week today is one that I remember fondly from an old school video from Quantize, an old school player who used to comment on this blog quite often back in the day; he's long gone now, but you still get to see the hydra cast in the first 45 seconds of his video.

HYDRA

As he states in the video, the hydra spell (from the balance family) does three types of damage--fire, ice, storm. It's a 6-pip cost balance spell with an 85% accuracy rate that's up there pretty high on the Balance School tree at level 42.

You can also find this card on items (woot old school crowns gear) and as a treasure card that you can craft, find as a drop, or garden up.

Since the spell separates its damage into three distinct types, sometimes people will use it as a shield breaker spell more than a damage spell. Any way you use it, it's just simply cool looking, and the readers of the Friendly Necromancer have shown their support and sent in a number of these for us to look at.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jason Thudershield:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Legendmancer:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Teri Spell:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alex Mythblood:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cori Rosepetal:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elijah Stormheart:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gorman:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nathan Goldenshield:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ebony Titanfist:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rogan Johnson:

"Burn the MANDER"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ronan Shadowhammer:

"Ready, Aim, Fire"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Spiritblossom:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jason:

"Shocking!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Richard Spiritbright:

"Hot enough for ya?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jordan Golden:

"A lion still roars while facing bigger enemy!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chris Mythbringer:

"Trying to dodge it eh?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Mistthorn:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Travis Darksong:

"I'll turn you into ashes!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Destiny Soultamer:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michael Spiritblossom:

**burn the troll!**

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joe Thunderhammer:

"Your fate is sealed!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Alric Blood:

"Intimidating!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Steven Dragonspear:

"^Bloodymary, Bloodymary, Bloodymary!^"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Savannah Blueriver:

Savannah adds, "Well, I figured that you were going to get a lot of pictures of the spell, so I sent a picture of my old hydra pet casting it instead :) Hope you like it. (And I sent a pic of the actual spell in case you didn't!)"

Thanks, Savannah! Cute Hydra you have there. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bryce:

Bryce adds, "I would also like to add that this spell took forever to find. It just didnt want to show up into the bazaar so i finally got onto my sister's balance wizard to cast the spell."

:) Glad you found one regardless. Thanks for the picture!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seth:

Seth adds, "Here's my photos for this weeks spell. Note that I used the hawkrider gear for hydra since the lv.50 tier robe gives a hydra item card."

Awesome that you found the spell on some gear!

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

Whew! That was a lot of spells, and I'm out of time! Although I've never promised crown codes for participation, I've been surprising those who do with a little code in their email the past few weeks. Thanks everyone for your participation, and I'm sorry that I'm not able to reward you all with crowns codes this week or address all of your e-mails. I'm simply out of time today (late for work even), and I've just received far too many entries this week. I think in the future I may start to run this as more of a contest to see who can provide me with the best picture and only post maybe 5 instead of 27 pictures (and award crowns this way as well). The amount of pictures is becoming unwieldy and has caused delays in my page loading times that are unacceptable (even causing crashes for a few readers). More information will be forthcoming.

Thanks again everyone! Great work!

Happy dueling

Call for Spell of the Week

2012-01-02T14:19:00.001-08:00

Hello all,

This week let's take a look at the Balance school of magic, shall we? It's an oldie but a goodie: Hydra!

Send a screenshot of you casting Hydra to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com by tomorrow night (3 January 2012), and I'll post your picture on my blog on the morning of 4 January.

Here's a mailto address link to get you started: Click Here.

Can't wait to see what you come up with.

Happy Dueling!

Metoo and Brittany? Definitely Ditto Fans.

2012-01-01T19:46:00.001-08:00

So, I got an e-mail from a couple of Fabricated Americans the other day,
"Hi Frizendly!!! How's you? I'm Metoo, and I'm kind of shy, but my friend Brittany isn't! Anyway we're fans of Ditto Wizard and we know you know him from Ravenwood Radio and stuff. So do you think you could post this on your blog or something so he will see it? You could just forward it to him to if you don't want to but it would be cool if you would. PLEAZZEE! WE LOVE DITTO AND MS. NARRATOR!

-Metoo and Brittany Bell"

Hey! I think Ditto is pretty awesome too, so what the heck! This one's for you Ditto!

Happy Dueling!

The End of an Era: Final Issue of Beckett's Massive Online Gamer

2011-12-31T14:39:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I got the notice from Jason Winter, head editor of Beckett's Massive Online Gamer (MOG) that this next issue would be the last issue. MOG, to me, was not only a great news source for MMOs, but also a staple food in the Wizard101 Marketing diet. It wasn't unusual for W101 to take out large advertising spreads in MOG. In fact, Doug Kale (a past editor of MOG) had even done a voice in Wizard101. MOG and Wizard101 shared a booth at PAX East. MOG and Wizard101 were buddies! At least it felt that way to me.

So for me, it's with great pride that I hold this last issue of Beckett's MOG in my hands. It was a great run, and I will always have my freelancing days writing for this magazine notched in my resume. It's been a huge learning experience and led to a great many things for me, including a trip down to Austin where I was able to interview the fine people of KingsIsle for an article and to tour the place.

Sadly, with the passing of MOG, it really feels like print media for this niche gaming market is on its last legs. Magazines can't keep up with the speed of instant news that sites like IGN, Kotaku, 1up, MMORPG, Massively, etc. (But nothing is cooler than a print mag in your hands that you can "feel" or shadowbox and put on your wall, you know?)

This is a great issue regardless. On the cover is a great picture featuring Star Wars The Old Republic, and inside is a huge spread on this new MMO that's making all the gamers fire up their lightsabers and rattle off a few rounds of their bounty hunter's favorite weapon. (Even Stephen Spiritcaller is doing it.)

Of note to Wizard101 players, on page 6 there's the 2011 Readers' Choice Awards. Wizard101 again took the Best Kid-Friendly/Family MMO of the year.

To be expected with MOG there's a good amount of pages devoted to WoW. (You know, because, well, it's WoW . . . you can't have a magazine about MMOs without mentioning the MMO some see as THEE ONLY MMO EVA . . .)

One of my favorite articles (besides my Wizard101 article) is the huge spread on all things MMO news from 2011. It's a fun look back and definitely a good read for the New Year. As a compliment to this article, there's also some grand predictions for the MMOs of 2012. Man, I can't wait for Guild Wars 2. :)

There's a chance Wizard101 players will also really like the code from this magazine. This magazine's code will reveal one random dragon-related prize. It could be dragon wings, a dragon mount, a dragon hoard pack, a dragon pet, and who knows what else. I picked up a pretty awesome dragon pet myself with the code. Check him out!

Thanks to Beckett's Massive Online Gamer Magazine for bringing me on and letting me write about the game I love and collect a bit of money for it as well. It's been great working with KingsIsle's Marketing on these articles. Even though it could be draining (nothing quite like pressing deadlines around the Thanksgiving holiday season to make a dad of 3 sweat), I'll miss it.

Happy Dueling!

Answering Questions about Super Hero Squad Online

2011-12-31T05:05:00.000-08:00

After my post yesterday I got a few questions about Super Hero Squad Online, so I thought I'd take a few minutes and answer those to the best I can.

First up from a long time reader, Digby Mythweaver:

Hey Friendly a couple Super Hero Squad questions for you.

1. I play occasionally and I am on the Challenge of adding a 6th squad Member. Whats the best way to raise Silver or Gold to be able to purchase another character for my squad.

2. I noticed on the Badges, their is an Badge for collecting all your characters Tokens, twice. How does that work?

Thanks, Digby!

1- The best way to raise silver and gold is to log in everyday. Eventually you'll get to the point where you'll get 5 gold per day for logging in. Also, everyday one spot of gold will repopulate on the gift wheel. Unfortunately, that's about as good as it gets for silver and gold, so you'll be spinning that wheel a lot . . . A LOT. I usually go windowed mode and watch YouTube or something while I click "spin." You'll have to earn tickets to spin the wheel, so destroying trouble bots is probably the easiest way to earn those tickets. Note that you don't have to pick them up and throw troublebots to kill them. You just have to get near them and activate your first power emote. Easy tickets.

2- Badges simply give you goals to work for. That's about all I can see for their purpose at this point. Who knows, perhaps Gazillion will make it so badges will mean something more in the future. I'm unsure. It'd be great if earning a badge would equal squadron levels!

Next, Strong Sorcerer asks this question:

"Hey friendly, I've always loved Marvel and have a subscription for a comic every month. I'm wondering if I should play Super Hero Squad Online. if it helps I have played Wizard101, World of Warcraft, Roblox, and a game called Fusion Fall."

Awesome! Which comic are you collecting?

You list quite a wide variety of games, so that's a good starting point for comparisons to these other games.

Wizard101, WoW, and Fusion Fall vs. SHSO: At this point in SHSO there are no quests and there is no storyline. W101, WoW, and FF all have stories and quests. SHSO is more open ended. Because of this a lot of people really see no point in SHSO. Some people feel online experiences like these are more of a virtual hang out and not a game. Fortunately, shortly before I started playing the game, SHSO introduced a challenge line of "quests" so to speak. The main purpose of this challenge line seems to be raising your squad level while experiencing all that SHSO has to offer, which is this:

- emotes (there's a challenge to perform rude emotes in a pond in three zones)
- Card Game (win 10 card games against other players)
- Arcade Games (score a certain amount of points in a certain mini-game)
- making friends (challenge to add 5 people to your friends list)
- Combat missions (participate in combat mission challenges)
- Collect Tokens
- Destroy troublebots
- visit your player housing
- etc.

SHSO is not a difficult game to play. It's easy and extremely casual. I'd put SHSO less in the ranks of W101, WoW, and FF and more in the ranks of Club Penguin or Moshi Monsters except in a 3D world (More like perhaps Big Little Bang) with all kinds of heroes from the Marvel universe.

If you watch the Super Hero Squad cartoon series, read the comic book, play the Wii game, or collect the toys . . . this is a great online experience for you.

At some point, the hope is that Marvel will release a game similar to DC Universe Online. DCUO would be more like W101, WoW, and FF, and if you like DC comic characters and want to create your own superhero with your own powers, this is the game for you.

Also, if you're into superhero games, you might be interested in checking out either Champions Online or City of Heroes. I played City of Heroes many years ago when it first came out, and I have to say that the character creator in that game is fantastic and just a ton of fun.

Now . . . Roblox vs. SHSO: Roblox is all about creating your own content and visiting player created content while running around with these kind of lego style characters. It's a very different beast all together than SHSO or any of the aforementioned games. It's a builder game, similar to minecraft in a way but completely different.

I would also love to see SHSO delve into letting players construct their own superhero experiences. That would be amazing. In fact, I'd love to see ALL GAMES have a builder component. That's part of what makes a game like Little Big Planet (which on the surface appears to be nothing more than a 2D platformer with fun graphics) a STELLAR game instead of just a great game.

If W101 ever put a builder component into the game, I think it'd just push things over the top for me. If I could build my own street and populate it with my own monsters and bosses, I think I'd be totally lost to the world. LOL. It would be a ton of fun.

So, hopefully that helped clear up a few questions about SHSO. It's casual, it's free, and it's very open ended. SHSO is a game I can play for 20-30 minutes a day and log off OR I can spend a bunch of time playing through missions with my kids, having a great time.

I like playing a lot of different games because I feel it gives me a broader horizon with what I know about games . . . and especially online games. I love 'em.

If you have other questions about SHSO, ask away in the comments. If you play the game and I've misstated something, feel free to correct me. Thanks!

Happy Dueling!

Friendly vs. Super Hero Squad Online's Paywall III

2011-12-30T03:38:00.000-08:00

Ohhhh, this is a steep wall right here that I’ve come up against. By my math, I’m going to need at least four heroes (above and beyond the 11 heroes I have now) to make it past the next paywall without paying. That’s just harsh! But it makes sense. I mean, this is a company we’re talking about here that needs to make some money. You can’t just go on and on playing this game for free can you? Well, essentially, yes. I think that’s part of what I like about it. You can definitely keep playing this game for free. It just takes time with a splash of determination—or stubbornness—take your pick.

By my calculations, if I just log in, level my heroes, destroy a few troublebots, and spin the pay wheel every day, I’ll soon have two more superheroes purchased with gold and silver by sometime next week. Specifically Bucky Cap and Mr. Fantastic.

Not the most exciting superheroes in the world to me, but definitely two relatively cheap superheroes. I like cheap!

Anyway, the stretch from Paywall II to Paywall III (or raising my hero squad level from 100 to 200) was pretty fun actually. From all appearances, the most awesome challenge of the bunch happens right here!

It’s win 10 card games against another player. OH YEAH, TIME FOR SOME HAPPY DUELING!

I did it! (But only after going through a number of decks until I found my awesome pinkish purple death deck.)

The PvP card duel in Super Hero Squad Online is an interesting one. The best way I found to win this challenge (without spending too much on booster packs) was to organize a deck that is evenly balanced with blocks and heavily geared toward one type of damage. (I might be a little light on yellow blocks)

That and a little patience with the cards were my recipe for success.

I'll be honest though . . . I'm about ready to surrender to the paywall and subscribe for a month. Unfortunately my kids have lost interest in the game. They do that though, and if they see me playing with a subscription account, they'll come running back. :)

I still like this game on a personal level because, well, there's a part of me that loves these characters and comics in general. See! I even have a few old Captain America comics in my collection.

I can't wait to play my Bucky Cap character for a taste of Captain America! After looking at my issue 305 of Captain America though, I want to play as Captain Britain now! (Dang comics were a lot cheaper back then: 65 cents, wow) Of course, Captain Britain is not to be confused with Lord British . . . I wouldn't mind playing as Lord British either. I'm ready for an Ultima/SHSO cross over game, but is the world? ;)

The next post about Super Hero Squad Online you see from me very well may be as follows: Friendly Surrenders to the Super Hero Squad Online Paywall.

Hard to tell. :) It all depends on how stubborn I'm feeling.

Happy dueling!

Spell of the Week -- Insane Bolt!

2011-12-29T02:47:00.001-08:00

The Spell of the Week this week is one of those that you hardly see used because the risk just doesn't seem match the reward. On the other hand, it can sure make things happen quickly either way because of its impressive power. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the . . .

INSANE BOLT

As you can see from the spell card, it's a storm spell that deals moon damage, making it a very unique beast from the get go. It's a flip of the coin--1000 to your enemy or 10000 to you. When someone plays the Insane Bolt card, it's do or die time.

The spell is typically earned by Storm Wizards when they are 55th level through completing a spell quest in Wintertusk where you have to battle it out with a particularly nasty Grendel named Skabrok, a rank 10 storm boss with 8,000+ hitpoints. The rest of the populous have access to the Insane bolt card through treasure cards in the Bazaar (these drop liberally in Zafaria) and a crafted necklace.

Good luck using this spell, you're gonna need it!

I asked the readers of the Friendly Necromancer to try and capture the Insane bolt in action. They responded in droves! Check 'em out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kristen Willowshield:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fallon Ravenshade:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Haley Earthcloud:

"That hurt....alot :)"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Micahel Bearleaf:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elijah Lightthief:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michael Soulslinger:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ronan Drakeblade:

Methinks Ronan and Michael were in the same battle circle O.o

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fallon Seagem:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alric Dragoneyes:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Mistthorn:

"Happy new year everyone! Yea i thought the spell was gonna hit the other guy, but it hit me. So i got into a conclusion: Storm guy with 85% storm damage + Insane Bolt = terrible.
Tip: If you're casting that spell, be sure to ALWAYS have a storm shield."

heh. See comments below on why using a shield doesn't work (it's moon damage).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Terri Spell:

"P.S. Die little mander o.O"

O.o!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Andrew Goldriver:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rogan:

"I bet this would be too much for akilles eye!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
David Spiritblossom:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ronan Shadowhammer:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nathan Goldenshield:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Destiny Soultamer:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ben:

"Luckily I had ten in my sideboard from Celestia mobs and such. ;) Hope your Christmas was wonderful!"

It was thanks, Ben!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ebony Titanfist:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Steven Dragonspear:

"Steven here! I hope you like my screenshot! It took a long time to create the amulet for this then I found out there were some treasures at the bazaar lol."

LOL! Well I hope that amulet comes to some good use. Thanks!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Luke Shadowblade:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Austin Swifthorn:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Seth Hunter:

"i was wearing my pigswick gear but i was a few seconds off."

It appears your intuition was right!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ryan Lifegarden:

"Luckily, for the first time I cast it, I didn't get hit :)"

IKR! Gratz!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elijah Stormheart:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tara Darkgem:

"Here's the spell of the week! ;) btw late Merry Christmas!!! To you and Bailey!!"

Merry Christmas to you too!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks to everyone who sent me a screenshot! Those were some great pictures (I think my favorites are the ones where it's the caster getting blasted lol).

Happy Dueling!

Happy Holidays . . . Whoa Boon Tree Gives Pets!

2011-12-28T04:56:00.001-08:00

So, I harvested my elder Boon Trees, and guess what? Not only does the Boon Tree give Snowman decorations, but it also gives snowman pets as well! That's right, the Boon Tree is one of the only plants to EVER give a pet as a reward (The Holidaisy has a chance to give an ice elf pet).

Since I planted four of these trees (yeah, I was feeling festive), I ended up with a couple of Ice Elf pets, a Frostman pet, some rank 8 (lower end) mega snacks, a lot of Christmas housing items, four candy cane 7-day mounts, and a metric ton of Happy Holidaisy plants.

In fact, overall, I'd say that the main payout of the Boon tree through regular harvests and the elder harvest is the Happy Holidaisy. Unfortunately, I've never been too fond of the Happy Holidaisy plant. :/ Perhaps one of my pets would like to eat them though (I don't know if you've noticed, but it seems that feeding your pet crown items can result in a few points of experience for them).

. . . and for me, with the harvest of the Boon Trees this morning and with relatives vacating our house, it feels like the holiday season is almost over. :/ At least I have my virtual Christmas decorations to keep the season going in a room at some random house LOL.

It's been a fun Christmas at our house. The kids got a Kinect and a 3DS this year from Santa and a few other games like Disney Universe and Skylanders. Diapermancer has been going nuts with the Skylanders portal of power lol! He loves that thing.

Santa even left a game for me! Yup, Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword was poking out of the top of my stocking this year. woohoo!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice, or whathaveyou! As I briefly mentioned over on my previous post, please let me know if you got (or gave) any fun gifts for the holidays! I love hearing about the loot! :)

I'm thankful for a lot of things in the real world, mainly my awesome family and all of our blessings. I'm so thankful for the great community of Wizard101. You all make this game fun to play.

"Happy Dueling to all and to all a good night!"

Call for Spell of the Week

2011-12-27T04:02:00.000-08:00

This is a bit late due to the holidays (hope you all got lots of Christmas loot--Let me know what you got!).

This week, let's take screenshots of the Insane Bolt Spell! It doesn't matter if the spell is striking you or your opponent, let's just see what you got. :)

Me? Yeah, I'm unlucky.

Send a screenshot of you casting the Insane Bolt to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com by tomorrow night (28 December 2011), and I'll post your picture on my blog on the morning of 29 December.

Here's a mailto address link to get you started: Click Here.

Can't wait to see what you come up with.

Happy Dueling!

Woot Legendary Artisan! (hmmm, what to do about gear . . .)

2011-12-23T13:37:00.000-08:00

Crafting is so much easier these days now that you can swap reagents through the shared bank, isn't it? Well, it is for me. I had been a little stalled on crafting my final conga drum to finish off my final Spiritcaller drum for about a week. To make matters worse, it always seemed like my "secret" spots for farming stone block reagents weren't so secret after all. Every time I logged in to farm, someone else had beat me to the punch.

I started to resort to hitting the entrance way to Malistaire's over and over until I realized . . . hey wait a second . . . I probably have gobs of reagents in Myrna's pack! I logged on Myrna, did a little transfer transfer action, and BOOM, Spiritcaller Drums crafted. (Now if we only had a shared bank space between our entire family of accounts. That would be amazing!)

Check it out, here's Thomas sporting his new badge, riding on his Chrismoose LOL.

The first thing I did with that new badge was craft myself a level 66 death robe. It's wayyyy better than what I was wearing, but we won't get into that. hehe. (I never did get my waterworks robe)

The only problem is, of course, I'm looking a little wanky now.

I haven't looked much into the other level 66 and level 68 gear, but I need to. From what I understand, many people consider the Waterworks gear slightly better than the level 66 and 68 gear, but I'd like to understand it better myself. I long for the days when Ironhawk was making his illustrated guides over on Central. He did such a great job on those (and they were completed FAST too).

What do you all think about the level 66 and 68 gear? KingsIsle once told me that the crafted level 66 gear rated just slightly higher than Waterworks gear, but I'm still not sure. I'd love to hear your input.

Happy dueling!

Super Hero Squad Online Raffle Winners!

2011-12-22T03:04:00.000-08:00

Time is now up for the Super Hero Squad Online Raffle and random.org has chosen our winners.

Thank you all so much for playing.

Grand Prize winner of 1,000 Silver is . . .

Jacob aka World Daring Wasp!

Runner up winners of 500 silver each are as follows:

- Pyro Ninja Pig
- Alexander Fire Blade
- Alex NightFlame

Congratulations winners! Hero up and Getdown! I'll be sending you your codes for Super Hero Squad Online silver shortly.

Happy dueling!

Spell of the Week--Helephant!

2011-12-21T03:58:00.000-08:00

Q: What do Kingsisle Employees give each other for Christmas?

A: White Helephant gifts!

~~~~~~~~~~~

Ahhh, the Helephant card. I remember the first time I saw it cast. I was a lowly necromancer running around in Marleybone when a fire wizard who was higher level than me accidentally got sucked into battle. (The sidewalks in Marleybone used to be a lot trickier than they are now.) He pulled out the Helephant card, and I was definitely wow'd.

It's a six pip Fire School spell that most Wizards obtain at 42nd level. There are treasure card versions around, but it's hard to obtain. You can also cast this when in the Draconian Polymorph (as one of my readers used).

I asked the readers of The Friendly Necromancer to supply me with a screenshot of them casting a Helephant up, and got some awesome responses. Check 'em out below!

~~~~~~~~~~

Swordroll:

He adds: "You must like Fire spells, that's 3/4 Spells of the Week that're Fire! Between heartburn, and back pain, this Helephant seems to be having some real trouble."

Almost true! The Mander Blast was technically a balance spell, but you're right heheh. I do like the look of the fire-y spells.

~~~~~~~~~

Fred:

~~~~~~~~~

Ebony Titanfist:

Ebony adds: "I was battling The elf prince since my friend lended meh this helephant treasure! I wish ya like it!"

Thanks! I do! And thanks to your friend too. :)

~~~~~~~~

Austin Swifthorn:

~~~~~~~~

Alexander Fireblade:

~~~~~~~~

Ben:

Ben adds, "I don't even have a fire wizard yet, and I don't have a secondary school of fire, AND those treasures are pretty hard to find! But I managed to snipe a couple from the bazaar! I wanted to try some with captions, and some with just the spell itself to capture the excitement and such, y'know what I mean?"

I know what you mean! :) Thanks!
~~~~~~~~

Nathan Goldenshield:

Nathan adds, "I really hope you like it and again Happy holidays :D !!!!!!!!"

Thanks, Nathan! I do and back atcha!
~~~~~~~~

Alric Dragoneyes:

~~~~~~~~

Savannah Blueriver:

~~~~~~~~

Christopher:

~~~~~~~~

Flash333:

Flash says, "I have my helephant pet on as well as the blacktusk transformation on"

OH yeah! I see that . . . nice, it's a helephant spell while wearing a helephant pet in elephant tranformation casting on a helephant. That's freaking awesome! LOL!
~~~~~~~~~

Ryan Lifegarden:

Ryan adds, "Here you go! Since I didn't have the original spell, I just polymorphed into a Draconian and used it. Looks like the polymorphs I trained are starting to come in handy! How's the Legendary Artisan quest going? When I realized that I needed the reagents for 4 conga drums, it wasn't very fun, as I had only gotten the required amount for 2 drums. Which meant that I had to fight over 32 more fossils and 8 more pieces of aether. All in all though, it wasn't too bad because I started out with around 109,000 gold from selling all that Zafaria gear"

Awesome! I'm very close to finishing that legendary Artisan quest, but like you . . . I'm stuck on fossil collecting. I'll have them soon enough though. :) thanks for the entry!

~~~~~~~

Fallon Ravenshade:

~~~~~~

Talon Nightshade:

~~~~~~

Tara Darkgem:

Tara Adds, "Heya Friendalee! I got the picture of me casting the Helephant! (I almost died in that battle cause I had to discard here and there to find the spell, as you can tell by how much health I had left in the picture haha) So here you go :p. Also I just wanted to ask you one thing, is the.friendly.necromancer@gmail.com (with dots between) and thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com (without the dots between) the same emails? This might seem like a dumb question but i'm just double checking O:"

EEK! YOU DIED FOR THE CAUSE OF THE HELEPHANT! :) You know, good question about the e-mail. I seem to be receiving both, so I guess the periods don't matter. /shrug

~~~~~~~

Jason Thunder:

~~~~~~~

Amber Fairyheart:

~~~~~~~

John Thorn:

Hmmm, why *would* you use my storm trap? hmmm? ;p
~~~~~~~

Michael Spiritblossom:

~~~~~~~

Joe Thunderhammer:

~~~~~~~

Paige Daisypetal:

~~~~~~~

Thanks everyone for the great Helephant pictures! love them!

Happy dueling!

Buh Buh Buh Boon Tree!

2011-12-20T04:30:00.001-08:00

As always, the people of Wizard101 Central are right on top of things, and have uncovered five likes for the new Boon Tree crown plant that came as a part of the 12 Days of Wizard celebration.

I had some evil magma peas go elder today, and I was feeling festive, so I bought a couple of these things. I remember the awesomeness of the giving tree from last year and decided, WHAT THE HAY! MERRY CHRISTMAS THOMAS LIONBLOOD!

I wonder if the natural rewards of the boon tree are good enough that I'll want to slow down its growth. If they are, I'll be sure to re-plant that despairagus I dug up and remove the likes I have now . . . If I'm not all that impressed, well, I'll plant a Holidaisy next to them and get this show on the road!

Happy Dueling!

Super Hero Squad Online Raffle!

2011-12-19T16:52:00.000-08:00

It appears The Friendly Necromancer's recent posts about Super Hero Squad Online have caught the eye of their community, welcome! We love family games here. Although this blog is 95% about Wizard101, I'm a firm believer in players reaching out and trying new games. Super Hero Squad Online is definitely one of those games.

To those ends, I've been offered a few pieces of in game silver to give away as I please. So, LET'S MAKE THIS HAPPEN!

If you'd like to be entered into a raffle to win a couple of 250 silver code prizes and save yourself 30 spins or so of the lottery wheel, please e-mail me at thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com with the subject line "SHSO Raffle Entry".

Here's a "mailto" link to help you get that e-mail started: Click Here.

Entries must be received by 11:59 pm on 21 December 2011. Raffle winners will be selected randomly through www.random.org, and announced on 22 December.

If you haven't yet tried out Super Hero Squad Online, there's no time like the present. Go make your squad today!

Best of luck! Hero up! and Happy Dueling!

Call for Spell of the Week

2011-12-19T07:19:00.001-08:00

HEYA! So, listen. I don't have a lot of time, but I wanted to get a call out
for spell of the week this morning. I had one of those mornings where I woke
up late and had about 15 minutes to get ready for work. Unfortunately, that
means I don't have a sample picture for the spell of the week, and I feel a
bit rushed.

So, for this spell of the week, I'd like to have you all cast me up the best
HELEPHANT you got in you!

A funny phrase is always good for effect, or maybe you want to show off the
damage you do with your helephant or even cast a helephant in a cool setting.
I'd love to see someone in a Zafarian elephant illusion, with a helephant pet,
casting a helephant. LOL. That might be a little hard to do though. ;)

Can't wait to see what you all come up with.

Please send your screenshot of you casting a helephant to
thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com by tomorrow (Tuesday, 20 December) night, and
I will post them up Wednesday morning.

Thanks for the support and for having fun with it.

Happy Dueling!

Level 20 Soccer Star Wootah!

2011-12-18T04:24:00.000-08:00

Just this morning, a long-time-in-the-making Golden Seal for the Soccer Star profession in Free Realms flashed across my screen. WOOTAH!

I took a long time off from leveling my Soccer Star profession, and a long time off of Free Realms in general. The last time I talked about Free Realms was, what . . . 10 months ago? but I'm happy to say this is my sixth maxed job in Free Realms now.

Finally! The repetitive nature of grinding soccer games in Free Realms kind of got to me. Once you hit 15th level or so in Soccer Star, the quests really dry up and the coach just wants you to grind soccer games up to 19th level. That kind of killed it for me for a number of months, but the past few days I got the feeling that I wanted to play some more free realms again, so I logged on and went for it.

I was destroying the competition.

17-0. That's destruction, yo. Not Top Ten ranking type of destruction, but destruction none the less. Towards the end of my grinding I figured out that I was just putting too much effort into the matches. Each score you make in the game stops the clock and takes an extra 10 seconds or so to reset. Constantly scoring results in a better cash payout from the match, but it really slows down the game.

I decided to get a good lead like 3-0 and then simply run the ball around the field in circles while the clock ran down. Boring, but effective.

Next I started scoring about six goals in the first half, and then just tabbing out of the game the last half and letting the game finish itself without me while I did other stuff. The computer has the worst time playing itself I swear.

Eventually I got to 19th level and battled the Cheetahs in the championship match. This was not a bad game, actually. The computer's players had a good handle on the ball and if they got the ball to the goal, they'd pretty much score. Again, they were no match for the awesome rainbow kicks of Thomas Lionbolt. Think the final score was 7-4 or something like that.

The final quest for the Soccer Star profession has you /taunt-ing the Robgoblins who had been causing so much strife to your soccer team. What's soccer without a little taunting? eh?

I liked the parting words good ol' coach had for me.

Life. It truly is a bitter sweet symphony. If you can grind out the soccer star profession, then you can grind out any job the real world puts in front of you. It just may take 10 months, getting fired, and rehired to do it.

I think I'll tackle the medic profession next. It's been a while since doing a combat mini-game in Free Realms. The quest line looks nice and long. That should help! I read there was a new card game in Free Realms as well, so I may try that one out too.

Happy dueling!

The Awesomeness of Christmas 2011 in Wizard101

2011-12-17T10:06:00.000-08:00

Yeah, in 2010 we got festive decorations, free hats, the Ice Elf appeared, and it was all about the giving tree.

2009 was about the same except for the addition of the Charity Meowmodon Mount. :) (So glad they upped the speed of that mount to 40%.)

2008 didn't have silent night caps I don't think, but we did have decorations and Felix Navidad.

BUT, 2011, Y'ALL!!!

2011 has been a lot of fun so far. As I type this, we're knee deep in the new Wizard101 "12 Days of Wizard."

On 9 December, The Charity Chrismoose was introduced into the game!

I laughed over this thing. LOL. It looked like a dog with moose horns tacked on . . . aka Max.

I'm really glad they've made the Chrismoose's nose glow and lightstrand on his antlers light up. that definitely makes max more awesome.

On 10 December, fans were treated to a poetry contest.

On 11 Decemeber, there was a one-day only free Christmas light strand housing item they gave us.

On 12 December, there was a one-day 50% off sale on the Horde packs.

On 13 December, the new Artic Ninja Pig made its appearance in the crowns shop.

On 14 December, a slew of cute new holiday housing items came to the spiral. Best thing about these . . . you can buy them with gold! Yay!

On 15 December, we all got a free snowman transformation. :) That's not a new thing in Wizard101, but free is free! I'll take it!

On 16 December, Candy Cane mounts! Hooray!

Today, on 17 December, an e-mail coupon code was mailed out to all Wizard101 fans. This code will randomly give you a discount on Crowns and Subscriptions purchased on Wizard101.com. You can get as much as 50% off the regular price of these items today. Wow!

As it sits now we still have four more days of gifts and discounts headed our way! I can't wait to see what's next!

This has definitely been the best efforts Wizard101 fans have seen for the Christmas holiday season. Thanks Kingsisle!

And thanks for this hilarious Christmas song . . . TAKE US OUT KINGSISLE!

Although that entire video is awesome. I'd have to say this is the best part. :)

Happy Dueling!

Bailey, Thomas, Kyle, and Iridian finish Zafaria

2011-12-16T04:51:00.000-08:00

I was actually going to bring this up on the last Check This Out post, but I forgot to mention it. WHOOPS!

Yup, mark four transcended wizards down for Team Friendly as we finished up Zafaria last Sunday.

There we all are sitting in front of the weird box thingy at the end of Zafaria. Wierd box thingy is awesome.

It took us a while to make our way through the world, simply because Bailey and I wanted to experience Zafaria together. Coordinating our schedules while juggling the three kids and their needs and own wishes to play on the computer can be a tricky thing, but we were lucky enough to get some nice stretches of game time over a few weekends, and the rest is history.

Here's the obligatory Morganthe screenshot. :)

Here's the other obligatory screenshot of team friendly in elephant illusion. :) :)

There were a lot of great moments in Zafaria (like visiting the zoo), but more than that, it was fun chatting with our friends lists while playing through Zafaria and spending some time playing together. That was fun, and thank you all for making it an easy ride for us with all the support.

Next up for us would probably be taking another team through . . . I'll let you know when we plan it all out. It'd be great to play my ice wizard again, and I think Bailey has a Myth wizard burning in her pocket. The lure of the basilisk is strong. :)

In the meantime, Thomas is busy crafting his Spiritcaller Drums. Just one more Conga Drum and a few black pearls, and I'm ready to finish that crafting quest up!

Happy Dueling

Friendly vs. Super Hero Squad Online's Paywall II

2011-12-16T04:03:00.001-08:00

On my previous post about SHSO I was corrected by Alric Griffintamer when I didn't realize that max heroes added a couple extra points to your Squad level nor did I realize that each hero has a Marvel rating that adds a little to your squad level naturally either.

My math was off.

Because of Alric's response though, I felt ok about leveling my squad up to max. And I did! And it wasn't too bad! And it was fun! But as I got closer to the goal, I started to realize that I still wouldn't make the required 110 Squad level with my squad. I would still be one level off.

So, here I am a little later and my squad level is 109 with all max level squad members, just one point out of reach from my 110 squad level goal. It's pretty awesome though, as you level to max you unlock power emotes, and that third tier of power emotes is pretty awesome. Especially Stealth Armor Iron Man. DANG I LOVE THAT.

Here . . . here's a little video of my squad's power emotes so you can see 'em.

ACHOO!

The real problem here is that I let my 2-year-old play on my account for a while and he spent all my gold in my early days of SHSO on random stuff for my housing. LOL. I learned my lesson and made Diapermancer his own account to play on. What little gold I've been earning, has been finally building up.

So, now I'm just in the process of building gold so I can purchase one of four superheroes. At 350 gold I have the options of purchasing Nova, The Scarlet Witch, Mr. Fantastic, or Valkyrie. I'm thinking of purchasing The Scarlet Witch just because I hardly ever see anyone running around with that character.

I figure I just have to log in and spin the gift wheel at most 7 days in a row. If I'm lucky with the gift wheel, it could be less. Remembering to hop on SHSO and spin the prize wheel daily shouldn't be too bad of a time commitment. The amount of real money I've paid on this game is still $0.00 to this point. Eventually though the the temptation to pay up will become harder and harder to resist when the goal of raising my squad level to 200 appears. Even worse, the ultimate and final quest (so far) is to raise my squad level to 300. *gulp*

I really don't think reaching a 300 squad level would be too hard to do with just a one month subscription. Without paying though? That could take a really long time to do.

If I did decide to go with a one-month subscription, the worst case scenario is that I could maybe end up with a bunch of "Agent-only", silver-purchased unplayable heroes once my subscription expired (if that's how that works). I'm not sure though. The best case scenario is that you get a ton of awesome heroes added to your squad for the small price of $10. Once I hit the next wall, I'll have to decide if that's the way to go or not.

Happy dueling!

Check this out! (Episode 10)

2011-12-14T03:37:00.000-08:00

Heya!

I've had a few things come across my inbox that I'd like to share/address with you all. You know, stuff I think you should check out! (If you haven't already. :)) So, that means it's time for another CHECK . . . THIS . . . OUT!

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

First up, it's a contest going on over on mywizard101site in conjunction with their podcast Spiral Live. Basically all you have to do is send them some fan art. Although it says, "send in your picture by this Friday December 9th." They are still looking for a couple of entries for that contest, which actually features a crown prize from me (among a few other prizes).

Word has it that they will be closing the contest this coming Friday (16 December), so if you want a chance at 1,000 crowns, send those "Spiral Live" related fan art pictures in to spirallivepodcast@gmail.com

Best of luck Spiral Live! It's tough starting up a new podcast, so I hope you do well and get a few more entries.

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

Ravenwood Radio 54 last week was a lot of fun. That episode has not yet been posted to their Itunes page, but keep an eye out there. Ravenwood Radio 54 also signals the MIGHTY RETURN of a Friendly Necromancer segment, and judging from the reactions in the chat room, it looked like it went over well.

I thought I'd go ahead and put my segment up on my google docs page for you all to download since there were a few people that asked for that. CHECK IT OUT!

Hope you enjoy my interview with a few of my pets, and thanks again Sierra Starsong for sending me in a segment idea. Feel free to e-mail segment ideas to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com.

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

Next up is some awesome fan art I received from Esmee Nighteyes. Check this out!

Wow! Nicely done. She calls it my "congratulations for being in a Wizard101 commercial" gift! That's awesome.

Esmee also noted that as she was going through the Wizard101 Fan Art she noticed that a few of them were "retraces" or "recolors" of the Bleach and Ouran High School Host Club manga. And she asked if I considered that "fan art" or if that was in bad taste.

You know, I'm not 100 percent sure if that is or isn't fan art, and really isn't a question for me, but I'm sure Professor Greyrose would be interested in hearing about any particular issues of that nature. Probably the best course of action would be to send her an e-mail and point out the offending pictures that might be someone else's work.

I'm trying to think like if someone drew a more well known western character from Disney, but put them in a Wizard City outfit and environment, would they accept that? It's hard to tell.

Again, not my call, but THANKS FOR THIS FAN ART! I love it! I'll have to put it on my header for a week or two or something. It's pure awesome.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Hunter Moonbreath sent me this e-mail:

"Hey friendly! You are epic. I was wondering. How do you beat enemies that are really hard? I have mannaged to make it through with some friends. So how do i do this by myself? Its hard when my friends arnt on. Also what do you do when your a fire wizard like me. I am also playing as my Death any suggestions? Hope i meet you in the Spiral! ~ Hunter MoonBreath"

Hey Hunter! NO YOU'RE EPIC! I once gave some suggestions for soloing towers in Dragonspyre as a fire wizard, perhaps that advice will help? Check that out!

In the end, it's all about deck construction and knowing what kind of spells your enemies are going to throw at you. Sometimes checking out the wiki on those really hard bosses will help give you a leg up on what to expect.

Best of luck!

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

Next up is an e-mail from an anonymous wizard:

"I am writing this email for two reasons; one from your site i have seen you have amazing pets, and two you seem like the guy to ask when it comes to anything wizard101. My problem is that i have just begun to care about my pets and i am trying to raise them to have good talents, but so far i keep getting useless talents. I had a few questions that i was hoping you could answer. First does the value of the snack, i.e the number on the snack image, matter? I got a mega snack pack once and got epic talents to appear but after i ran out my pet started to get common talents, i assume there related but figured i would ask. Second does the school of the snack matter? I know that if they like/love the snack they will get more power but can i feed them a different school snack than there own school without affecting their talent outcome. And lastly to increase my pets pedigree do i have to keep hatching the same pet multiple time because i have tried to get a stronger pet from hatching but whenever i mix two pets the new pet gets a lower or average pedigree. Well thanks for your time sorry for the long email. And happy holidays."

Thanks for writing! No the value of the snack or megasnack has nothing to do with making epic talents manifest. Any appearances of that happening are simply . . . VOODOO! RUN!

Your pet's talents are determined upon creation. All snacks do is help unlock those talents faster. This is the reason why some people hit the test realm so hard when it comes out . . . they're trying to find out what talents their baby pets have so they don't have to waste their time in the real realm working up those pets with "real" money if their talents are garbage traits they don't want. Yup, it's a little sneaky.

Also, the class of the pet snack will not cause a certain talent to manifest. As was stated before, all snacks do is help unlock those talents faster. It makes no difference if you feed a death pet a life snack. Whatever talents were marked to manifest at birth, are the talents that will manifest.

The best way to raise a pet's pedigree is to mix it with a pet that has a higher pedigree and so on and so forth until you create a monster with all epic talents. It's a very time intensive endeavor. Pedigree is nice, but what you're really after are a few key traits.

Make sure you check out Petnome. There's a wealth of information over there.

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

Luke Goldflame asks:

"In the Haunted Cave right near the bosses tower (I am blanking on his name) and it has a death school logo on it. It isn't open but I don't know what it is. Do you?"

Ahhh, this question has already been answered by Professor Diapermancer. Check it out.

(it doesn't lead anywhere . . . yet)

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

It's hard to miss (it is on the patcher after all), but I really want to catalog this one here. it's just that good. It's the behind the scenes look at the making of Zafaria.

LOL. I think my favorite part of this video is when J. Todd Coleman says, "It's the turn of the beak and it's the feet. This is so much better than Zafaria."

I think I could rewind that part over and over.

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

A co-worker of mine sent me off to check out this site: Draw a stickman. That's a fun time waster! I like the message at the end though.

Ahh! It's stickman Thomas Lionblood!

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

I'm Tom - "gamer dad" LOL!

I saw the commercial on TVLand last night and freaked out. We were watching Bonanza all night last night because of that. My real-life boss called me at 9:00 pm last night all excited because she had seen me on TV while watching the Investigative Discovery channel.

Word from Fred Howard is that the new commercial is airing on the following channels:

- Chiller
- CLOO (formerly Sleuth)
- Game Show Network
- Investigation Discovery
- Lifetime Movie Network
- TV Land

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

And that's all I have for today's Check this out! Thanks for all the e-mails and inspiration!

Happy Dueling!

Spell of the Week -- Mander Blast!

2011-12-13T02:33:00.000-08:00

The Spell of the Week this week is an attack spell within the Mander polymorph spell.

It's the Mander blast!

For zero pips and about the same amount of damage as a 50th level wand spell, the Mander Blast spell seems to be less about doing damage, and more about breaking debuffs or cuing up your pet's spritely talent ;). It has the appearance of a fire spell but is actually balance damage, which can be difficult to block. It's basically a fun little spell with no pip cost where you get to breathe a little fire on your opponent as a mander.

The readers of the Friendly Necromancer were awesome enough to really give this spell a try this week. Twenty-two submittals! Great work everyone.

Check 'em out below:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ty:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tara Darkgem:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nathan Goldenshield:

BURN KROK! BURN!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ryan LifeGarden:

Ryan adds, "Here you go! Sorry I couldn't make any cool jokes, I have menu chat. -Ryan LifeGarden PS: Even though I am life, (as my name suggests) I have to say that from having a death character (oh, the irony!) that is level 56, Death is a pretty good school. I especially like its steal spells. They often get me out of a pinch quickly. The Death School is (almost) as good as the Life school!"

No worries that you've got menu chat . . . although next time make sure you ask the mob you're hitting if they've seen any acorns! ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Matthew:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Luke Goldhorn:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Kristen Willowshield:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
John Mist:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jason Goldriver aka Swordroll:

Swordroll adds, "This was a tricky one, I only came across one card, but couldn't resist the challenge :) It wasn't hard to notice that most people are saying something during their attack, but I was too concentrated, it appears. You might say that I was on fire with those Mander Blasts, there, which were quite distracting. The wizard that's polymorphed here is Jason Goldriver.

You know me, I love good contrast, and a nice background, so it's no surprise that I chose an icy cave to cast a Fire spell, and also blogged about it. Thanks for this enjoyable segment!"

You're welcome! Thanks for the great picture!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jarrett:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Heather Ravenglade:

Heather had a question too, which was, "What's a good secondary school for ice?"

Hmm, well, you know . . . I like to shop around on my schools and not go pure secondary (get death to feint, life to satyr, grab colossal, etc.), but you can't go wrong with going life and wearing one of those new necklaces that let you cast out of your school for the same amount as casting a an ice spell. Those are awesome.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fred aka The Pyro Ninjapig:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Flint:

Thanks also to James, Flint's buddy who gave him the card XD.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fin Dragonwhisper of Fin and Quinn:

Fin adds: "The phrase was inspired by one of those lame cheers we say before an XC race."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fallon Ravenshade:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elijah LightThief:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dustin RavenBreath aka Country Gamer:

Dustin has two pictures to share, the first is a mander spell treasure card from his Red Bell Pepper Plant (similiar to Mander Blast but different)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Courtney Dreamsong:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ben:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Amber Fairyheart:

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

Thanks everyone for those awesome entries!

A few of you have asked how to take screenshots without screen elements: click here.

Some other tips would be for you to try using the crop tool in Paint (or whatever other graphic software you're using). Some screenshots that get a side view can be accomplished with having two accounts: one to cast the spell, one to take the screenshot.

I'm loving the creativity you all are showing with your phrases! Thanks for all the participation!

Happy Dueling!

Call for Spell of the Week - 11 & 12 December 2011

2011-12-11T04:37:00.000-08:00

Ok, we had an easy one last week. This week I'm giving you something a little bit more challenging to cast, in fact, a lot more challenging.

Mander Blast

This spell is a sub-spell of the Polymorph Mander spell. It's like a mystery wrapped in an enigma! And, to make things worse, the Polymorph Mander treasure card is one that you can't buy and sell at the bazaar, and it isn't for sale in the Science Center or Zafaria library. PLUS, most people sell the ones they do get off because, it's not a very popular card. At least this spell of the week is a pat on the back for those that were forced to pick up the Polymorph Mander on their way down the Moon School line. :D (it does have it's uses though, don't get me wrong. The blade buffs from Polymorph Mander will make you popular with just about anybody in a group setting. I just wish Polymorph Mander had a judgement card in its mix. It would make casting Polymorph Mander about 100 times more popular.)

I love this spell though, I mean, who doesn't want to see a mander breathe fire on someone? Have fun with it!

Here's a sample screenshot to get you thinking:

So send a screenshot of the mander blast to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com by tomorrow night (12 December 2011), and I'll put your picture on my blog here on Tuesday 13 December! Thanks in advance for participating!

Happy Dueling!

Quest Arrows Point to Dallas, and I end up on TV

2011-12-08T21:45:00.000-08:00

I’ve been thinking a lot about the events leading up to 22 November 2011 and the weeks following it. Seems like a pretty normal day, right? Everyone was getting excited for Thanksgiving. People were busy at work getting their last minute projects pushed through before the holiday, and the airports were bustling with travelers as they made their way home. I know, because I was there. Except I wasn’t headed home, I was headed over 1,000 miles away to Dallas, Texas.

I got a phone call from Fred Howard, KingsIsle’s Vice President of Marketing, a week or so before that, when Fred asked me if I wanted to be in a commercial for Wizard101. I acted pretty normal about it (you gotta keep your business face on when talking to Fred, yo) and asked if I could talk to my uber wife about it and call them back. After I got off the phone, I turned to my wife and mother-in-law with a smile on my face said, “Get this! They want me to be in a commercial!” and busted out laughing. “NO WAY!” I assured my wife it was real and before you know it, I was on a diet. LOL! I lost 15 pounds in a week.

I’m sure when I actually see the video, my two seconds (if it's even that) are going to seem like just an inconsequential flash in history, but this was truly a once in a lifetime event for me. One of the first questions I asked Fred was, is there anyone else from the community going that I might know? The answer was that Paige Moonshade would be there and a few people I probably wouldn’t know, but who were vocal in their support for Wizard101 on messageboards and elsewhere. Yup, I was going to meet Paige Moonshade in real life. This would definitely be a cool time! And it was. She's written up a little something about this adventure too. You should definitely read that. :)

Paige and I immediately began sending direct messages to each other about our excitement over being in a commercial for Wizard101. As it turned out, my flight would get in to Dallas around 5:30 pm and hers wouldn’t arrive until 8:00 pm. Unfortunately this meant that Paige would miss dinner with the advertising people of Idea Man, Fred Howard, and a few other people who had flown in for the day.

Oh yeah, check out the crazy troll doll in Fred Howard's truck LOL:

After a great meal with some fun banter between everyone over Dallas style Tex-Mex . . .

. . . we drove back to the hotel in Fred’s truck and called it a night . . . almost, except I knew I needed to talk to Paige. I dialed up her room and after some hilarity over not being able to work the hotel’s fancy telephones, we made arrangements to meet downstairs at the hotel's restaurant. She was starving!

I love that moment when you meet someone in real life that you've only met over the 'net. I've met a number of people this way, and there is a moment where you leap over this mental hurdle and kind of grasp the reality of the moment. I'm thinking, whoa, here I am across the table from Paige Moonshade, how awesome is this?! Two adults, brought across the miles, sitting at the same table, there by a common interest, and that interest is Wizard101. Did I ever think this would happen all those years ago when I first typed to my Everquest buddies about this new game I was playing? Not in a million years.

Paige and I called it a night, waved bye, and coordinated where we were meeting the next morning, which we did along with Suzie Ford and her family, Fred Howard, and a couple other fine Wizard101 fans (like David Dressman aka David Lifestone in game) as we headed to the inconspicuous offices of Idea Man, who would be shooting the commercial for the day. Idea Man was super hip. Paige has some pictures of the studio's deco on her blog post.

The lunch table/snack table was a favorite hangout during the day as well. :)

Fred Howard had us signing legal documents. :)

Rumor has it that Paige wants to recreate this place in a Wizard101 housing setting for fun (That's kind of what Paige is well known for, you know . . . her awesome houses . . . among other things, like being a Wizard101 Central Guide Moderator.) If you're reading this Paige (and I know you are), the Idea Man website even has a map of this place.

If you're looking at the map, we spent a lot of our day hanging out in the "Green Room" during the day and of course, that massive 1,600 foot studio space (top left, labeled 26 on the map, which was glowing green for the greenscreen effect that would allow them to put game footage behind us . . . or anything else they might want to put behind us, I suppose.

People here locally have asked me how this experience was, and I've been answering, it was surreal. It really was in a way. You don't often (or . . . ever) spend a half hour talking in front of a camera with a giant microphone over your head, 1,000+ miles away from home, while wearing makeup in a green-glowing room, being asked why you love Wizard101 so much--all while an entire room of people are hanging on your words, looking for those awesome one-liners they could throw into a commercial. It was surreal, but super awesome at the same time.

Thumbs for makeup!

Two thumbs up for The Friendly Necromancer's Dad Costume!

The Green Room (as opposed to the glowing green studio) was bustling with talk about Wizard101, as would be expected when you get a bunch of Wizard101 fans together in one spot. Movies were playing all day long in the background as we talked about a lot of things, including how to improve hirelings, MMORPG.com, speeding up the casting animation of spritely, and of course Zafaria, which had just been released. We had kind of a Wizard101/gaming think tank going on there for a bit; it was nice!

As a surprise, we were all treated to the first glimpse of the new Zafaria commercial that was to be airing shortly. How cool was that? we got to sit down with the people who helped craft the Zafaria commercial and watch it with them. It was quite funny actually. They had the whole commercial memorized by heart and could have easily shut the laptop and acted it out since they'd been watching it over and over as it was made.

Soon everyone there had a chance to be filmed and talk about Wizard101 on camera. The kids there were so much fun. I can't wait to see their parts on camera. They loved playing Wizard101, and you could see how much that excitement meant to their parents.

Before long, it was all over and we were calling cabs to take us to the airport. As it turned out, Paige and I had the same exit gate there in Dallas, only her plane left an hour before mine. We went together and spent the rest of the day talking about our lives, Wizard101, and the people we've met as a part of it. Our thoughts were with the fine people who make up the Wizard101 community. We felt honored and a little shocked to have been there, in a way, representing the community. I still feel that way. It was yet another once in a lifetime experience for me that has happened all because of keeping this simple blog.

Thank you KingsIsle for this experience. Thank you community for being such a warm and happy place for so many players of this game. Thank you family for letting me do this. Thank you to the other families that make this "more than a kids game," but a family game. Thank you God for everything.

I said a lot of lines to the camera in that 30 minutes or so in the studio, and I have no idea which moment in time they will end up using, but when asked what my favorite part of this game was, my answer was "the people." You peeps make this game special for me. I'm just some schmuck who somehow landed on camera talking about Wizard101, but I would have never got there if it wasn't for you people out there who make this game special for me and my super supportive family, who I wish I could have brought with me.

Here's to hoping the commercial turns out great! Can't wait to see it! Should air sometime around December 12th if I remember right. If I find out more, I'll let you know. :)

Happy Dueling!

Ivy League Plants Growing Up!

2011-12-07T03:21:00.000-08:00

I snapped a picture of the snobby fellas. Look at that one to my left giving me a dissatisfactory grade.

I have yet to harvest these (I'm a day behind those who bought them out the gate), but people on Central are starting to confirm the Ivy League's regular drops are a treasure card, a couple of gems, and some gold. Treasure card harvests so far have been reported to be as follows:

- Insane bolt
- Sacrifice
- Guidance
- Triage
- Availing Hands

. . . now the wait is on to see if the final harvest is a big mega-snack payout or not.

Happy Dueling!

Spell of the Week -- Evil Snowman

2011-12-06T04:06:00.000-08:00

Brrrr. Did the temperature just drop in here?

WHAT THE HECK!? J Todd just cast an original hand-drawn EVIL SNOWMAN on me!!!

That's right! It's one of the original spells of the game. Evil Snowman can be yours for only four ranks down the Ice Spell line from good ol' Lydia Greyrose (or you could score it as a treasure card or as an item card too . . . it's everywhere in Wizard101!)

And because it's so available, the fine readers of The Friendly Necromancer have made a valiant showing today, demonstrating how they throw out the Evil Snowman spell. check 'em out!

~~~~~~~~~~
Alex Soulslinger:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Ronan DrakeBlade:

~~~~~~~~~~~
Alexander Fire Blade:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tara Darkgem:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jarrett:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Elijah Lightthief:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Duncan Daystone:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Destiny Soultamer:

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

Those are awesome! Love the sayings you guys are coming up with, and because you're all so awesome, I have a wonderful surprise for all the participants today. 1,000 crowns each! Check your inboxes folks! Call it, Friendly's-gone-crazy-because-his-hit-counter-rolled-over-1,500,000-hits or something . . . and KingsIsle is backing his craziness up! :p

Thanks for playing along my friends and readers!

Happy Dueling!

Plant-a-Palooza

2011-12-05T03:22:00.000-08:00

As the patcher states so boldly, it is plant-a-palooza season! You can read all about it here. Basically it's an "up to" 50% off sale on those awesome crown plants, and they've introduced a new plant, the Ivy League, and brought back the Happy Holidaisy (where's the giving tree! ;))

Awww, just look at these little ivy league babies!

Here's a list of their likes that have been found so far (minus pixie).

I don't know how many people out there know what these things drop as a harvest . . . they're too new! But with the price they're going for, my money is on Hambrosia. ;)

That'd be great wouldn't it?

I currently have my garden as half Evil Magma Pea and half Ivy League. All I had to do was plant my boom shroom a few paces away in the opposite direction of the Ivy League. That'd be a no-no since the Ivy League don't appreciate the subtleties of exploding mushrooms. Pffft! At least magma peas don't care about fickle pickles and despairagus.

I'll let you know if I find anything out and vice versa, k?

Happy Dueling

Call for Spell of the Week (Dec 4-5)

2011-12-04T18:23:00.000-08:00

Hello readers!

This week's spell screenshot shall be of the Evil Snowman!

All ya gotta do is take a picture of this frosty fella in combat and send it to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com sometime today or tomorrow (4 or 5 December 2011), and (barring any questionable language in the screenshot) I'll add your pic to the walls of TFN!

Here's a sample shot to get you thinking.

Hope to see your awesome spells in my inbox!

Happy Dueling!

Super Hero Squad Online's Paywall vs. Friendly

2011-12-04T06:03:00.000-08:00

I’ve been playing the free-to-play Super Hero Squad Online game with my kids, and I think I’ve finally found the first big pay wall in content.

**UPDATE** If you read down in the comments, Alric Griffintamer showed me the error of my ways!! Apparently I had over looked a couple of things, and I HAVEN'T hit the pay wall after all . . . but that's ok . . . read on . . . you might find something interesting in this post. Thanks, Alric! **UPDATE**

The game is pretty fun actually. So far, the whole purpose of the game is to build a squad of Marvel's awesome, super-deformed-style superheros and level up your squad. You basically start off the game with four superheros, then by completing challenges, running missions, finding tokens, and doing other random stuff around the four zones of the world, you eventually earn silver and gold (which can be used to buy superheros) and unlock superheros by progressing through the game's main quest line, aka challenges.

Here's my current challenge progression screen.

And here's my current challenge progression screen with an explanation of what I need to do next.

Here's a picture of my current squad.

The problem there is the math. 8 heroes at max level of 11 each equals a total squad level of 88 when I need to get to 110. THEREFORE, I need at least 2 more heroes to reach my challenge objective.

**UPDATE** This is where I was wrong. Heroes have an innate Marvel Lore number that adds to your squad level and you receive +2 squad points when a character hits max level **UPDATE**

Now, I could play every day for a few months until I earned enough gold and silver to buy two more heroes. It would be perfectly possible to do this, but if I either purchased gold or joined with a membership, things would suddenly happen a ton faster. Why? Because members earn 500 gold off the bat and everyday their prize wheel repopulates with gold, thus making it extremely easy to pick off those low gold cost super heroes (like Plastic Man for 350 gold.)

Let’s review my options.

1- Buy only the 500 gold I need. Cost = $5
2- Subscribe for a month and buy as many low gold amount characters as possible. Cost = $10
3- Spend a lot of time earning tickets and spinning the pay wheel, logging in every day until I can finally earn around 700 gold to buy the two lowest costing characters and raise them to max level. (Time = priceless)

You can see where I'm going with this. The main problem here for me is that I can’t feel good about myself getting any of these things for "my" account without shelling out the same for my son’s account . . . that just wouldn’t be right . . . like at all. So, double the cost of all the above.

The next question for me would have to be, is it worth it?

At this point, it’s simply an easy, but fun, fighting and card game (love the card game) with a little running around in the four available zones thrown in (although necessary--collecting those hero tokens daily is the fastest way to level your squad with the least amount of effort). Social interaction is minimal with menu chat. I like the game! There's something carefree and fun about it that's got me and my kids hooked.

Now, if you're looking to build your own superhero instead of play a pre-made one, DC Universe Online’s free to play seems vastly vastly superior in just about every aspect . . . for an adult or teen . . . because after watching my son’s reaction as Superman was killed in the opening credits of DC Universe Online told me that we probably ain’t going there. Nah, we ain't going there, at least just yet. I felt really bad about that. It was pretty graphic and he had to cover his eyes and look away from the screen when it happend. :( Super Hero Squad Online is vastly vastly more kid and family friendly. :) In fact, comparing DC Universe Online to Super Hero Squad Online is no more than comparing ye' old apples and oranges cliche. dig?

Sooooo, this is the IRIDESCENT TIME HOUND, blasting my way to squad level 88 free-to-play style! I think we'll most likely subscribe for a month and unsubscribe the same month. /shrug

Any of you playing this game and have some advice? If you see me there, gimme a wave!

Happy Dueling!

Combo move!

2011-12-03T11:42:00.001-08:00

A bunch of the community was just jamming with J Todd Coleman on Twitter (or spamming in my case). He's awesome. 'nuff said.

Anyway, I just wanted to expand a bit on something I mentioned over there on Twitter that probably needed a bit more explaining. (Read from the bottom up)

Anyone who's played a fighting game for any length of time knows combo moves in video games aren't anything new. Basically you string together a series of moves to generate a final powerful move.

In MMOs, the first thing that comes to mind are the group combo moves in LOTRO known as Conjunctions.

In Magic The Gathering they are a smart combination of cards that result in an unbeatable victory state . . . or perhaps doing things like playing a Griffin card followed by a Griffin rider card to boost the other card's damage.

What I'm proposing is something slightly different and more simple.

Let's pretend the developers have coded it so when you cast an ice snake, a fire shield, and a storm shark in that order, you will then spark a chance at a combo move (it doesn't have to work 100% of the time). BOOM! You've made the right combination of cards and the words "Combo Move!" flash above your character's head (similar to the critical message). Because you threw these three cards in this order and successfully made your percentage chance to cast a combo, this releases a meteor strike spell upon all opponents directly after that last storm shark is played. It'd give more reason to go for the boss over the minion first for sure. The boss would have been whittled down a bit from the storm shark and the ice snake and the meteor strike then hits both the minion and the boss. Right?

WOW! That could be game changing.

Now, a normal person would probably never buy those spells individually . . . what life wizard is going to buy a fire shield, ice snake, and storm shark with their training points let alone even load that combination in their deck? But, if we knew casting those spells in a row created a combo move, then you might see people spending their points differently.

What if as a necromancer I cast a Banshee, Feint, Sacrifice combination, and it resulted in summoning a minion to help me for two or three rounds? I might actually load banshee again!

You could even get crazy long combo chains of five or six cards that produced hugely powerful combo moves all their own. AMAZING!

Combo spells could be designed at every level of play and there could be multiple spell combos for us to discover.

I just seems like there is so much potential in combo moves for unlocking special spells . . . so many things they could do with that.

What do you think? Certainly would make the community work hard at trying to discover all the combo moves for a season. :)

Happy dueling

Christmas Elf + Seraph = Frostcaller!! Woot Bailey!

2011-12-02T08:41:00.000-08:00

Check this out!

So Bailey was doing some breeding yesterday to try and get some talents to show up on a cross of a Christmas Elf and a Seraph. She was quite shocked when a jade egg appeared with a card of Satyr!

In fact, she called me up at work and was wondering about what she had done. She even second guessed herself and said that she probably had hatched the seraph with her patriotic leprechaun by accident. So she did the combine again, and wouldn't you know it, AGAIN she got a jade egg with a Satyr card. What the heck!

Well today those eggs hatched and lo and behold, it's a Frostcaller! You know ... That pet that's usually reserved as a level 48 pet hybrid between a satyr and a colossus? Wow! (ignore her storm elf in the picture below ... The interesting thing here is that baby Frostcaller!

So there you have it! Christmas Elf + Seraph = Frostcaller. Thanks, Bailey!

It makes me wonder what other pets you can get through holiday pet combinations? Let me know if you find something out!

Happy Dueling!

Speed Up the Casting Animation of Spritely?

2011-12-02T03:10:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to get a quick pulse from the readers of this blog . . . is it just me or has spritely extended battles more than it should?

Currently when spritely casts, the camera zooms in on your dancing pet, a pixie flies out in the center of the circle, says "hi" with a wave, and then circles around you as the camera pans to the right, leaving behind the spell effect swirling at your feet.

We've all seen it cast 3,000 times now (if you haven't, just watch this Perfect Catch PvP video and you'll see it cast at least 10 times in one fight) . . . In my mind, it's mind-numbingly slow. I love spritely, and I hate to complain, but here are my proposals for a new animation now since it's the most popular talent to add to your pet.

1- The Camera zooms in on your dancing pet, a pixie flies out in the center of the circle, says "hi" with a wave, and disappears as the spell effect is applied, swirling at your feet.

OR

2- The Camera zooms in on your dancing pet, a pixie circles around you as the camera pans to the right, leaving behind the spell effect swirling at your feet.

OR

3- The Camera zooms in on your dancing pet, leaving behind the spell effect swirling at your feet.

So your feedback would be appreciated please. Consider this a petition if you would. Please add your name to the comments below if you agree and let me know which option you prefer 1, 2, 3, or describe a casting animation all your own.

Thanks!

Happy Dueling!

Hot Wizard101 Giveaway at MMORPG.com

2011-11-30T15:50:00.000-08:00

Oh my gosh this is burning hot news, and it looks like mystery codes are going fast. I was still able to claim one of the 1,000 codes at 5:51 pm Central, so you should definitely give this a shot!

Here's the link: click!

I haven't even logged in to see what my mystery reward was yet! LOL! I've seen reports of free Hoard Packs and even a FOG Unicorn. WOOT!

Best of luck and let me know what you scored!

Happy Dueling!

The Krokomummy Spell -- Spell of the Week

2011-11-30T04:09:00.000-08:00

Ahhh yes, the Krokomummy Spell. For the small price of three pips you'll get an awesome animation and 375 fire damage. It's a spell that's not often seen outside of Krokotopia. You can get the spell yourself either through Treasure Cards or the Krokomummy pet.

I asked the readers of The Friendly Necromancer to send me a picture of them casting this spell, and since this was our first attempt at a new feature, I have a little surprise for them. I'll be sending each of them a code for 1,000 crowns. Thanks so much for participating! Here's the screenshots. :)

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

Name: Swordroll (aka Andrew Goldriver)

He adds: If you're wondering how you get the spell and cast in the same photo, take a look at the bottom of THIS post.

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

Name: Ronan DrakeBlade

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

Name: The Pyro Ninjapig (aka Fred Summerflame)

He adds: Awesome blog you have. I have checked your blog everyday for new stuff once I found out about you. Thanks for being awesome and having this krokomummy pic-fest.

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

(Sadly, I also received a couple pictures from a fourth reader, but I couldn't get them to download on to my computer . . . but I'll ship him 1,000 crowns for his efforts anyway! If he can manage to get those to come through, I'll replace this note with his pictures. Thanks!)

AWESOME PICTURES FRIENDS!

Tune your browser again this way next week to see what spell will be next!

Happy Dueling!

Wizard101 Goes to the Movies :)

2011-11-29T19:15:00.000-08:00

This Wizard101 vid that came across Twitter yesterday from KingsIsle made me chuckle.

Nothing quite like Merle delivering famous movie lines. LOL. A little strange, but I'm going with it.

For those who may not know the movies these lines come from, here's a quick list in order of appearance:

1- Casablanca
2- Jazz Singer
3- Wizard of Oz
4- Dirty Dancing
5- King Kong
6- Forrest Gump
7- A Few Good Men
8- Dead Poets Society
9- Sherlock Holmes
10- Animal House
11- Jerry McGuire
12- Terminator
13- Scarface
14- The Sixth Sense
15- Frankenstein (woot +Klout!)
16- Titanic
17- Godfather
18- Dirty Harry
19- Sunset Blvd
20- Wizard of Oz (again)
21- Casablanca
22- James Bond
23- Jerry McGuire
24- Gone With the Wind
25- Abbott and Costello
26- Taxi Driver

Happy Dueling!

Spell of the week 1

2011-11-29T04:42:00.000-08:00

Last week on Ravenwood Radio I made a plea for segment ideas and I've received a couple good ones back. One of those ideas (from Michael Hawk) actually sounded more fun to pursue over here on my blog. His suggestion was that I talk about a spell each week. I like that idea, but I'd like to make it more interactive here on the blog with my readers.

Let's try this and start with something a little off the beaten path, but not too hard to obtain . . .

Krokomummy treasure card spell!

So here's what I'd like you to do. Please email me a screenshot of yourself casting a Krokomummy spell by midnight tonight, and I will put it up on my blog tomorrow morning! (thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com) Please include your Wizard Name in the e-mail.

Here's an example to get you thinking:

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

Name: Thomas Lionblood

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

Have fun with it, and I can't wait to see what you come up with.

SHOW ME THE KROKOMUMMY!

Happy Dueling!

Recent Thoughts on Henchmen

2011-11-27T06:32:00.000-08:00

Lately my thoughts keep turning to henchmen when I play. Quite simply I don't use them because I currently don't need to. It's super easy for me personally to fill a group with my four accounts. I have level 60 healers on a couple of different accounts. What I realize though is that I'm abnormal. Seriously. LOL.

Most people in Wizard101 are running only one account. When I ran through the test realm in Zafaria, I did this. I avoided loading multiple accounts. I wanted to experience what the game would be like solo as a necromancer. Truth is that there were a couple pinch points and henchmen came in handy in the Test realm. Case in point, the healing fight with Tim-Tim Snakeeye. I dropped those test realm crowns for three level 70 Life henchmen and suddenly the fight was cake. There was also a point in the Drum Jungle when a group of Myth casting spider monkeys were irritating me, and so I dropped the test realm crowns for three level 70 storm henchmen and burned through the fight.

Would I do that on the real realm? Nah. BUT, you know what would make me do something like that on the real realms of The Spiral? I think I know . . . let me explain.

Henchmen aren't a new idea in games. My first experience with them was in Guild Wars. In Guild Wars, all areas are tuned to group play. In every zone, you'll find a series of henchmen lining the walls just waiting to be hired out. I don't even think there's a cost for henchmen in Guild Wars . . . the only cost is that they will take a portion of your loot when you use them. That really isn't a problem. Once you select a henchmen to play with you, then tend to stick around in the group until you remove them. It isn't like you summon them for each fight like you do in Wizard101.

My second experience with henchmen is with Dungeons and Dragons online. In DDO, there's a cost to henchmen use and when you purchase them, you purchase them for an hour. Your first hireling will cost some platinum to hire out and you can only summon them at the entrance of an instance. Any additional henchmen you put in your party will cost DDO points (like crowns) and may be summoned at any time in an instance. You can have as many as five hirelings if you're soloing.

Their cost? Well, they all cost 40 DDO points or less. There really isn't price scaling like what was recently introduced in Wizard101. Of course, it's also capped for free to play players so you can't summon a hireling that is higher level than you. (I believe subscription players can summon hirelings that are up to two levels higher then you are.)

In DDO, if I finish an instance early, I still have the hireling sitting in my inventory with a timer on it. (Think mounts with a timer on it in Wizard101--they sit in your inventory with a timer until they expire).

If Wizard101's henchmen sat in your inventory for the span of an hour after purchase, and I could summon them and de-summon them from combat, I think people would buy them and use them all the time (especially at their current cost).

I do think you would have to allow for them to be de-summoned with a toggle button since that's one of the main gripes I currently hear with henchmen use (outside of locked instances). How many times have you seen friends port into a fight where henchmen are being used and feel disappointed they can't join the fun? We need the ability to de-summon henchmen to allow friends in if they show up to play with us.

What are your thoughts on how to improve henchmen? Have you experienced their use in other games and liked it more than how it's used in Wizard101?

To me, it's just simply not on par to have a one-use, one-fight Level 70 henchman cost as much as a Wyvern Hoard pack. Or maybe I'm wrong, what do you think?

Happy Dueling!

Happy Thanksgiginv 2011!

2011-11-24T04:56:00.001-08:00

Can I just repost last year's Thanksgiginv message? Ahh, I guess I gotta do something a little bit special, right? Why? Well, Thanksgiginv is the best time of year where students of Ravenwood gather together to say thanks for all the things that are Wizard101. SO HIT IT MAESTRO!

*cue music*
*cue spotlight*
*cue Frank Sinatra voice*

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

Thanks for pets and advance pets.
Thanks for safari student vignettes.
Thanks for derby and pvp!

Thanks for circles where we duel.
Thanks for awesome gobbler drool.
Thanks for reading blogs like me!

Thanks for Evil Magma Pea gardens.
Thanks for super Bazaar bargains.
Thanks for the Baobab Tree!

Thanks for Grandmother Raven.
Thanks for all the crowns I'm savin'.
Thanks for makin' Falmea a "she"!

Thanks for groupin up with buddies!
Thanks for cyclops minion huggies!
Thanks for that next world's Spiral Key!

Thanks for Malistaire and for Morganthe!
Thanks for chests that give a second chanth!
Thanks for the deep Celestian Sea!

Thanks for blue hair that's a mullet!
YES, thanks from the bottom of my turkey-stuffed gullettttttt . . .

Thanks!

Thanks!!!

Happy Thanksgiginvvvvvvvvvv!!!!

FROM YOUUUUUUUUU TOOOOOOOO MEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!

AND VICEEEE VERSEEEEEEEEEEe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*bows*

(Feel free to add your own verses in the comments! ;)))

Happy Thanksgiginv EVERYBODY!!!

Loving the Armor Designs!

2011-11-23T06:40:00.001-08:00

I know I'm a little late on this news, but have you all seen the designs that ended up winning the contest?

Those are so incredibly awesome! Wonder if that girl's bird costume design would come with a built in mount? I'm also wondering what the opposite gender of each of those might look like? Fun!

Click here to check out all the different designs (I wouldn't mind wearing any of those LOL). I'm hearing KingsIsle received an enormous amount of entries from Wizard101 fans. They had to use giant folder after giant folder after giant folder to keep them all cataloged in their fan art collection. Awesome.

I wonder if they'll ever break those out in the future to gain some inspiration from their fans if there was some kind of recurring theme? Hmmm!

Mannnnnnny wonderings!

Congrats to the winners!

Happy Dueling!

The Looney Toons / Wizard101 Connection

2011-11-20T11:12:00.000-08:00

I had a reader forward me this video a few weeks ago, and I got too busy to post it here, but this afternoon my kids surfed it on the Internet again, and I had to share.

Simply put . . . Daffy Duck and Celestia . . . There is your Looney Toons Wizard101 Connection! LOL! In the words of Daffy Duck, "I think you're going to enjoy this!"

"By the dim light of the dream realm's black sun, the Wizard climbs the frozen waterfall of Voldrini in search of Celestia, the guardian of infinite power.

When suddenly a terrible Garlon appears and attacks with ice!

. . . But the Wizard is undeterred.

The Garlon roars and unleashes the most sinister wind!

. . . But the wizard is undeterred.

The Garlon summons the stones of Prophynia!

. . . But the wizard is undeterred.

Calling upon the powers of the ancient, the wizard conjures a sacred fire and casts his foe into the molten maw of an insatiable Gort. Thanks, Gort.

Ahh, Celestia. I think you're going to enjoy this!"

Happy Dueling!

Zafaria Going Live!!

2011-11-18T03:13:00.000-08:00

Wizard101 shutdown at midnight last night as both the live realm and the test realm were closed for a ten hour period. The reason why was given on Wizard101's Facebook page: Zafaria be comin' today!

I'm a little bummed I didn't get to see the end of the game in the test realm, but like I said in my previous post, we've had some difficulties playing this last month due to real life things, but . . . I did get pretty far last night, and I'm happy to say that I made it into the drum jungle and dinged level 68.

WOOTS! Check out my Dr. Von's!

YOU MONKEY GET SHOCKED DEAD!

YOU WIZARD GET LIGHTNING BOLT HEAL!

ME FRANK! ME KILL STUFF!

I think that's my favorite part about the Dr. Von's spell is that I GET TALK LOUD DUMB MONSTER WHEN CAST! RAWR!

I reported a few bugs. One involving the Dr. Von's spell which was, when zoning back out of the Death School (after recently zoning into the Death School just after getting the Dr. Von's spell), Dr. Von's monster's visitation spot (which is directly outside the Death School) would flash back to life for a couple seconds. You could zone back into the Death School and then back out into Nightside and BAM! There's Frank again and again and again each time you zoned out. ACK! He's the monster that won't die . . . again!! ;)

So, anyway, the fight with The Hoarder wasn't much to write home about and it was a pretty simple battle.

PRISMED WRAITH KILL DEAD! HE NO CHEATING BOSS!

I think it was my old buddy Starsongsky that mentioned over Twitter how cool these class specific Bookshelves were inside The Hoarder's room in Dragonspyre. I'd have to agree!

KI Mark those down as a future crafted item, would ya? Those are great!

I love that one of the where-does-this-lead-to(?) doors of the spiral finally got used in Dragonspyre for the Hoarder fight. :)

Now it's time to do it all over again! ENGAGE LIVE REALM!

Hope to see you all transcended in the live realm soon! Can't wait to see all the buzz and excitement as people explore this new world. :) Those first few days and weeks when new stuff goes live is so much fun! Enjoy it!

Happy Dueling!

Greyhorn Mercenary Land

2011-11-16T04:57:00.000-08:00

Well, I thought I'd just put up a quick post to let you all know where I am and what I'm doing. I'm currently Level 67 on the Test Realm and quickly approaching level 68 (only two bubbles away). Woot! Test cast of Dr. Von's monster coming up! Can't wait. :)

The road to Level 68 has been fun. There were a couple cheating bosses along the way, a trip to a zoo, magical wall paintings that recounted all of Zafaria's majestic past, and . . . a lot of greyhorn mercenaries. A lot ...

Yeah and funny enough, this morning when I logged off I got another quest to kill . . . You guessed it! Greyhorn mercenaries.

Well, that's one badge that shouldn't be too difficult to earn! :)

It's been kind of an insane week, y'all. One of our computers had a hard drive fail, and the Geek Squad at Best Buy was baffled. Needless to say, our family's gaming and computer use has been, um, restricted. I've got deadlines approaching, a death in the family, parent teacher conferences, and business crap woes . . . Not to unload on you all. I WILL PREVAIL!!

Sigh.

How's your bug finding going on the Test Realm? Good?

Happy Dueling!

Test Realm Tweaking Zafaria

2011-11-14T04:11:00.000-08:00

You asked for it, you got it . . . Zafaria is now a little bit tougher. Of course, this made some angry (I'm not sure I buy that "we fizzle more."), but the topic is still being debated. I was online for a little bit this morning and fought a couple battles and didn't really notice the changes.

It'd be nice to see what exactly got tweaked? From Kevin's vlog, it appears that mobs have more health and critical more often. He also adds that it might simply mean you shield more often and that fights will take a bit longer, which is basically what people were asking for . . . a little bit more of a challenge.

I hope that in the future that KI will look at increasing challenge in a more creative way. "Creative" though usually means "more time consuming." To quote myself:

"And that's another question. How should KingsIsle make the fights more difficult if they do? I don't think it's as simple as adding 1,000 health to every mob. I think most of us would rather see a more interesting mechanic rather than just stacking health on the things we fight. Strange resists? Beserk on first round? More healing mobs? More but limited battle circle sizes? More difficult puzzles? What is it that could make this more interesting to the battle weary legendary wizards?"

I have a sneaking suspicion that we're entirely too late in the game for many "interesting changes." You know?

The other change seems to be Level 70 henchmen got buffed and correspondingly became more expensive. Although I'm not sure if the price was just to discourage people from using them too much on the test realm, be carefully with the pricing, KI. If you raise that cost too much, people won't use them. Raising the difficulty of the world is great and will naturally make people look to henchmen more, but raising the cost of those henchmen at the same time might actually take money from your pocketbook. My gut is telling me that the cost of a hireling for one round should not equal the price of a hoard pack.

Also, what do you all think about the changes to Sirens and Dr. Von's Monster (no longer Dr. Katzenstein's Monster)? Looks like Sirens was nerfed a touch and Frankenstein is now adding a -25% healing debuff on the target. On the surface that seems like it could be useful in PvP. What do you think?

Thanks for reading and as always, let me know what I've forgotten or missed. It's appreciated. :)

Happy Dueling!

FOG . . . er Game Strategyst Came in the Mail!

2011-11-12T05:10:00.000-08:00

So "Fun Online Games" seems to be taking a step back and "Game Strategyst" seems to be taking a step forward for the name of this magazine. Previously the magazine was Fun Online Games with Game Strategyst and now it's the reverse: Game Strategyst with Fun Online Games. Either way, the most recent issue looks like this on the cover:

Awww! That's sad that Lego Universe is the cover story, and now it's going bye bye. My kids love that game! Lately, besides Super Hero Squad Online, that's been Diapermancer's goto game to play. PLAY IT WHILE YOU CAN SON! Lego Universe is going the way of the Dodo!

Parents, this might be a good issue for you to buy if your kids like video games!Pages 26-45 are covered page to page with recent videogame releases as a Holiday Gaming guide. You may want to throw those pages in front of your kids with a pen and have them circle the ones they want for when you craft that letter to Santa.

Inside that magazine you'll also find a great article about Zafaria from moi.

That's right! Zafaria! A far out Safari in Wizard101 written by The Friendly Necromancer. Yup, I knew all about zone names, introductory story plot, and Level 68 spells waaaaay before that awesome video from KI came out. I had to in order to write this story, but of course I couldn't say anything to you all without pre-approval from KingsIsle. (Take note budding game writers! It's called an "embargo," and it means you can't talk about pre-released material until the company's PR says "GO!")

These articles are always a little difficult to write because you're writing blind. KI spoon feeds you information and then through a series of questions and answers you fill in the blanks and start piecing together an article. A lot of coordination goes into articles about unreleased information, so a big thank you goes to KI's Marketing Department from me!

I'm glad that article made it out before Zafaria went live. Secretly I continue to hope that the magazine will hit the shelves early, and I will score a massive scoop . . . but that never happens anymore. Awww well. :) I think this will be a really solid article for people who haven't played Wizard101 for a while yet still read Game Strategyst. Hopefully we'll see a few of our old friends back online.

The code in the magazine this time is for a Candy Cane Wand, perfect for the holiday seasons. It comes with 6 copies of the Ice Shard spell, which does 50 ice damage when cast.

Thanks and Happy Dueling!

Wizard101 Shows Valor!

2011-11-11T08:09:00.000-08:00

Wizard101 players got a nice surprise today as they logged in.

By clicking the "Redeem Shield of Valor" today, Wizard101 players were redirected to Wizard101.com where the code "Valor2011" was entered into the redemption block after being directed to log in.

"In recognition of all those who have served their countries, we offer you the opportunity to claim a Shield of Valor housing decoration item."

It's a very cool looking wall hanging. I've been saving my secret room in my Massive Fantasy Palace for something special, and I think i just found what it will be for. VALOR!

I didn't talk much about receiving the Valor sword for 2009 (because I was busy answering questions), but here's a link to my Veteran's day entry for 2010, which is when I received my statue.

Back in 2009, if you sent KingsIsle an e-mail with a note about a family member that was in the Armed Services, they sent you a code for a Valor sword. That promotion obviously has now ended. My father was in the Army. He never felt quite right about being recognized as a veteran since his experience in the Army was quite different than most. As a matter of fact, my dad was a pretty stellar basketball player and ended up as the Center on the Army basketball team during the Korean War. His tour of duty was spent playing basketball and going to school to become a pharmacist while, he felt, others were sent to die for their country on the battlefield.

But, I don't think he understood that his part in the war was one of building morale. At his funeral they sent him off with a 21-gun salute and handed my mother a flag that had been flown over this great country. He was a veteran, and continued to serve his country in local government positions throughout his life. I'm proud of him, and so this one's for you dad!

Happy Veteran's day from someone who also tries to build morale and silently does his part for the country. Thanks, dad!

Happy dueling!

Zafaria Too Easy?

2011-11-08T04:44:00.001-08:00

I've been seeing a couple of threads on central proclaiming that Zafaria is too easy: like this one (where at least 61 people agree) and this one (where a call is made to add 1000 health to all mobs and add more cheating bosses).

Personally I am sitting right below level 62. I kind of wanted to sit out for a bit and let the test realm die down from the madhouse that it was on day one. It's been really nice being able to find a battle circle and still group with people.

I can identify a little bit with the sentiment that the world is too easy, but then I also remember what Krokotopia was like. Do you remember playing through Krokotopia and encountering those 150 health manders after you had just been downing some rather difficult scarecrows (for your level) in the haunted cave? Eventually the difficulty of Krokotopia ramped up, but it never was horribly difficult.

Have I died in Zafaria? yeah, I took a defeat against Queen Tanei Ghostmane's 3 vs. 1 battle this morning in the Savannah right before posting this.

Will it stop me in my tracks over and over? Oh, not at all. I'll simply adjust my strategy a bit or bring an extra character with me. We have four accounts after all and people on our friends lists . . . the easiest way to beat something difficult is add another wizard, and perhaps that is why the difficulty seems meaningless to many?

Every fight in the test realm on the opening day (and day after) was most likely faced with 2-3 other wizards by your side. Then again, even with the Necromancer, who is designed to solo, I was feeling those first few mobs could have been a little tougher. Too be honest, you'd think KingsIsle would make things a little harder to upsell their hireling sales in the crownshop. ;)

I did keep thinking to myself, how in the world would Angus ever get through a world like this where mobs start with 3 power pips and cast right out of the gate . . . not giving many rounds to shield at all. I have no idea.

So, what do you all think after playing through Zafaria a bit . . . is it too easy? Should KingsIsle give us more of a challenge, even outside the boss fights?

And that's another question. How should KingsIsle make the fights more difficult if they do? I don't think it's as simple as adding 1,000 health to every mob. I think most of us would rather see a more interesting mechanic rather than just stacking health on the things we fight. Strange resists? Beserk on first round? More healing mobs? More but limited battle circle sizes? More difficult puzzles? What is it that could make this more interesting to the battle weary legendary wizards?

OR, does it not matter the difficulty? does it only matter that I play here with my friends and enjoy an "easy" (gotta put that in quotes because Angus is pooping his pants over how he'd survive without gear) challenge?

Let me know what you think!

Happy Dueling!

Zafaria Info from Test Realm EXPLODES! BOOM!

2011-11-04T04:09:00.000-07:00

This is how Wizard101 fans operate . . . Less than 24 hours later after Zafaria has been released.

- All level 68 spells have been revealed (A couple Astrals too) (oh yeah, gardening spells too). (oh yeah even MORE astral spells)

- Leopard pet drop location confirmed and skink too. (as well as a confirmation that there is a lack of new school pets.)(also, petnomes for leopard and skink)(also, trying to discover all rewards for feeding pets your gear.)

- Level 70's title is not heroic, but "Transcended."

- There's an elephant transformation potion quest.

- How to beat Belloq's cheat.

- A video of all the new mounts in Zafaria.

- New wand with no level requirement in the crowns shop.

- There are a couple guides at work for Monkees locations: here's one.

WHEW. You all work very fast and furious.

Me? Well, there's no way I can keep up with all that. I'm content with watching from a distance and trying to throw out a joke or two. I did get some time playing with Uber Wife on the test realm last night though! We're finally on the same quest, but I'm pretty sure she's going to play some more today on the test realm without me while I'm at work. I'll catch up. :) Too be honest, it was extremely difficult to find an open slot in the battle circles on the test realm last night. Hopefully that will calm down over the next few days. I think we'll start to see even more information and hopefully more meaningful discussion about how our gameplay will change. Nathan Shadowblood is off to a good start.

Oh yeah, and all this talk this fast is aging me quickly:

I'm a lost student . . . with grey hair! :( KI! My hair is blue not grey! ;)

It's good to see everyone having fun with Zafaria. Remember though, it's not a race (well, anymore at least). We'll all be Transcended soon enough. :) How does it feel to you? Do you like the feel of the new world? Done any good bug reports?

Happy Dueling!

FW: Wizard101 Test Realm is Online!

2011-11-03T11:22:00.001-07:00

OH MY GOSH GO TEST IT! :)

-----Original Message-----

https://www.wizard101.com/game/update-notes/testrealm
Hurray!

~~~~~~~~~~~

HAPPY DUELING!!!!!

Friendly's Halloween MMO Wrap-up 2011

2011-11-01T18:15:00.000-07:00

One thing that I love about MMOs and online games is that they all usually dress up for Halloween. :) They all seem to provide some kind of wacky and festive prize, and I loves me some prizes!

Here's a quick run down of a few of the games that I played during the Halloween season and got a little somethin' somethin' for it.

~~~~~~~~~~

Wizard101

The Spiral was once again alive with little ghosts floating all around Wizard City and pumpkins at every doorstep. The spooky cutouts were everywhere, and the Halloween towers were a good time for everyone. It's all packed up as of today, but it sure was fun while it lasted.

Just as a side note . . . my favorite quest for Halloween is blowing out pumpkins because I get to hear the narrator say "Halloween pumpkin" in an evil voice. I want to sample that and make a song out of it. HALLOWEEN PUMPKINNNNN!

Of course, the Nightmare packs and new crown shop pets made this an entirely different Halloweenfest than ever before. The nightmare packs felt totally handcrafted for The Friendly Necromancer. Thanks KingsIsle for making that pack! Tons of fun. From what I understand, those are going away from The Spiral in like a week. Get 'em while you can!

~~~~~~~~~~~

Dragon's Nest

There's a quest series in Dragon's Nest that you get from Irine in Canderock Pass where if you kill three pumpkin ducks and earned their "tickets" you can get a temporary Halloween pumpkin head for your character.

I played for a bit one night with Tipa from West Karana, and we leveled our clerics while hunting for these pumpkin ducks. It was a ton of fun. Thanks Tipa! We played enough that she could specialize her cleric as a paladin, and I could specialize my cleric as a priest. :) (That's 2/3rds of the MMO trifecta right there. ;))

There are other events in DN that you can do for Halloween, but this was the only one I participated in.

~~~~~~~~~~

Free Realms

The land of Free Realms was celebrating their Spooktacular event again this year. You can learn about all the new stuff in Spooktacular here. The bat ride over water is awesome. WATERSKI! Anyway, the city square of the Sanctuary area had a few quests you could complete from Halloween Harry (a skeleton named Harry is awesome). Since I've been back at leveling my soccer star profession (level 15!), I took the opportunity to go spook a few of the townies and receive their gifts. I love eating candy that turns you into a spider. :)

~~~~~~~~~~

Dungeons and Dragons Online

DDO was once again hosting the "Endless Night" festival. I spent an hour or so running around the Delera's Tomb area where a usually empty zone gets turned on its head as undead start spawning all over the place (lore note: That's because Mabar, the Plane of Night, manifests there--SPOOKY). Basically these undead drop items you can turn in for Motes of Night and buy yourself cool undead bane items . . . OR, if you're like me, 50 pumpkin grenades or so to throw at your friends to make them have a pumpkin head for 15 minutes.

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

Anything else?

No, not for me. Those were the only Halloween MMO events I attended this year. There were plenty other events . . . in fact you can check out a big list of them over on Massively. (Of course, Massively totally didn't care about finding Gary on Club Penguin this Halloween ;) Hope you had a chance to catch a couple of these! Did you get a chance to celebrate Halloween in another game besides Wizard101?

Happy Dueling!

Zafaria news exploding!

2011-11-01T09:46:00.000-07:00

Yup, it's starting to break all over the MMO news scene as KingsIsle officially announced the name of the new Wizard101 expansion today!

Everybody ready for Zafaria!? I AM! BRING IT MORGANTHE!!

~~~~~~~~~

1. IGN

2. Massively

3. Beckett

4. MMORPG

5. Wizard101's Newsletter

~~~~~~~~~

Happy Dueling!!

The Week Wrap Up From Friendly

2011-10-28T06:52:00.000-07:00

Drew Simon the other day (from the Frostbite blog) said in a comment, "Friendly, your lack of theorys convince me that. . . You already KNOW what's coming up in Wizard101!"

My response to that is . . . what's coming up for Wizard101 is more spending of your hard earned money on CROWNS!!!! ;) That's a given isn't it?

~~~~~

Hey look! My Beckett's magazine came in the mail!

Nice 4-page Angus article in there for you all. :) The free code in there this time is a free Eye of The Bartleby pack. Hope you get a cool EotB Feint in that pack! :) The second page of the article even has a shnazzy picture of Todd Rogers on it. ;) The rest of the mag is packed full of MMO news, tips, and previews. Uber Wife found another game she wants to play with me called Salem. It's not even in closed beta yet. Thanks to Sean Kavanagh for his great write up!

As a compliment to my article (or vice versa how ever you look at it), there's a great 2-page WoW article titled "The flightpath less traveled" that details five unique ways to play through World of Warcraft (no pets, solo, exploration, fashionista, and pacifist). Good stuff!

~~~~~~~

On the good news front, we managed to get our Wii back from the repair shop. yup, $40 later we have a working wii (its laser finally gave out from reading the fingerprints of many sticky-fingered children). Also on the good news front, we managed to dislodge the three gamecube games Diapermancer stuffed in the wii the very next day we received it back from the repair shop.

Here's a tip if you run into the problem of a jammed Wii full of gamecube games. Shake out/pull out what you can. Then, press the eject button and insert a blank CD-R that you don't mind ruining into the console as it's trying to eject your stuck disk. Turn off the Wii when you have the blank CD-R inserted about 90% of the way. Turn your wii back on and with any luck your jammed game will eject along with the CD-R. You may have to try this a few times to get it to work.

;)

~~~~~~~~~~~

I've been frequenting my real-life facebook page lately posting about 80's videos. Since I usually defer my W101 buds to friend add my Thomas Lionblood character on Facebook instead of my real facebook, y'all been missing out on the fun!

Here's a sampling:

A formal dinner party is harried by strange noises coming from the attic. Soon the strange noises turn to absolute mayhem as the butler delivers a gift of rats on a silver platter to the table. A guitarist from the band above crashes through the ceiling and finishes his solo on the dinner table, completely expelling any shred of formality left behind. The butler and the eligible bachlorette from the dinner party have a startling transformation into the rockers that were inside them all the while.

With a snap or five of his fingers, Lionel and his underground group of synchronized dancers rescue a lonely woman in red after she falls short of the bride's prized bouquet at a Spanish wedding. Forget the alley way, motel corridor, coffee shop, or balcony. Although these are prized hiding spots, the red light district is Lionel's favorite. Could a bride be tempted so soon by Lionel’s forbidden love?

The scene begins in a club. Night after night, Kajagoogoo and the waitress with the really great hair always meet eyes, but unfortunately the unassuming yellow tank top isn't enough to bring forth her inner tiger--she's too shy shy.

:) Ahhh, the 80's. LOL

~~~~~~~~~~

In other news, Wizard101 is DESTROYING Free Realms in the unicorn poll. I maintain that they used the wrong unicorn for Free Realms. Seriously, I mean check me out on my unicorn ride.

The mane of the Free Realms unicorn MOUNT undulates the full spectrum of the rainbow and the hooves sparkle as you run. There's a glow from the horn that's awesome and guides your way at night.

I still think the Wizard101 unicorn would win . . . just because it's Wizard101, but that little runty Free Realms pet unicorn doesn't even stand a chance. LOL

~~~~~~~~~~~

. . . as for an update on Angus. He's now through the Tower Archives and Plaza of Conquests and into The Grand Chasm. Check out this one shot kill from Angus on the Sea Lord.

BOOM 3,000+ over kill. :) That's the power of a treasure blade, stormblade, supercharge, treasure feint, storm trap, windstorm, storm prism, and a fully charged tempest.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Matt Daley from BigWorld sent me a link to a World of Tanks related video that was filmed at GDCO featuring an interview with Chris Keeling from Wargaming.net. As a summation of this video . . . Chris talks a lot about the juxtaposition of realism vs. fun they've brought to the game's weapons. A good quote from the video is this, "It's a game first and foremost, and not a simulation. In World of Tanks for example, we don't want it to be super realistic, we want it to be super fun! You play with tanks from all nations mixed together because it's a good time."

Stephen Spiritcaller had a chance to talk with these people as well, and he highly recommends the game. I've played it and have it installed on my computer currently as well. As with most "shooter" games, I spend most of my time being the easy target, but it is a blast to play. To be honest, it was Uber Wife who even got me to try this game out! She really thought the guy from World of Tanks from last year's GDCO coverage was (to quote) "Charismatic." Give it a shot if you like this kind of stuff! :)

~~~~~~~~~~

OHMYGOSH I was on a LOTRO podcast. I explain all about my stint on the Liquid LOTRO podcast over on my LOTRO blog called "The Minstrel Magnet," which actually happens to be a much older blog than The Friendly Necromancer here. I just let it kind of sit and do nothing for many years. :)

The podcast features me and Christie (Icywiz) jamming about LOTRO. Hope you enjoy me slaughtering all those LOTRO names! :)

~~~~~~~~~~

Ye' old DDO static group (dubbed "Team Spode") has been busy farming the heck out of Gianthold trying to get flagged for one of the final instances in that zone. Every monday I put up a post about our exploits there. If it sounds like something you might be interested in, click.

~~~~~~~~~~

My Halloween light show is going good. The neighbors keep dropping by throughout the night to check it out. I'd love to grow it beyond what it is now, but it's costly. Maybe one of these days I can add on an extra row of scare poles with a pumpkin top. Not much about the show has changed from the previous years.

I have added a spider on the roof with a flood light that flashes on him and a small cemetery in the front. It's growing . . . albeit slowly. there's a great OCremix that I want to add to the show's lineup. If I ever grow this, I'm going to either add a Boo Ghost cutout or maybe a video screen showing a quick run through a spooky Mario dungeon. :)

Think you might have heard that in my Red Ghost video before. ;)

~~~~~~~~~~

Hope you're all having a great time as we get closer to Halloween! I've run through the entire Halloween quest series a couple times this year. Good stuff. What have you peeps been up to?

Besides work, that's really all I got . . . oh yeah, one last thing . . . BLACK PANTHER MOUNT IN CROWNS SHOP!!!!! :)

Happy dueling!

New Sneaky Peeky!

2011-10-25T09:45:00.000-07:00

Oh my! KI is at it again! Check the link!

~~~~~~~~

It's MMORPG's turn to give a sneak peek! http://t.co/4SKJIfHp

http://twitter.com/#!/Wizard101/status/128869304061009921

Sent from my iPhone

Tweet from @Wizard101

2011-10-24T14:36:00.001-07:00

Ok! Here we go again! Here's another picture with a coded message from KingsIsle!! Here's the Tweet fro KI, check it out!

Another Wizard101 Teaser courtesy of Zam! http://t.co/5Lq4Oelg

http://twitter.com/#!/Wizard101/status/128582306419048448

Sent from my iPhone

CHECK THIS OUT! (Episode 9)

2011-10-23T16:21:00.000-07:00

Heya peoples, let's do a quick e-mail grab bag post, shall we? I've been getting a few e-mails, and I've got a little time here today . . . *cracks knuckles* . . . it's go time! CHECK THIS OUT!

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

First up is an e-mail from Nicholas LionRider!

Hope you don't mind but I made you a gift. You always wanted a death unicorn so here you go. :) -Nicholas LionRider

I don't mind your gift at all, Nicolas . . . for it involves unicorns and death and the combination of the two! I like where you're going with that. However I like EVEN MORE, a combination of ideas from the Twizards @HeatherRavenWiz and @TheNecroManiac. Heather tweeted, "I think death unicorn needs to be not only a pet but a SPELL! Like vampire, but an AoE of pure awesome. @FriendlyNecro", and Brandon added, "@FriendlyNecro @Wizard101 @HeatherRavenWiz Aha! Agreed, it should steal health instead of giving it, but maybe give health back to teammates".

Ahhh, my friends . . . bless you and bless your adoption of the death unicorn cause. ;)

~~~~~~~~~~~

Justin Firesword commented on my Thomas Lionblood Facebook profile picture, "Nice pet!"

Thank you Justin. Lady Dexter was awesome at the time . . . not only because she's an inherently awesome ninja pig, but because she starred in a short comic strip, that I should really continue some day.
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4

~~~~~~~~~

Nikki asked me over e-mail:

"Hi, Friendly. I know you're busy, but would you mind posting pics of the Sleepy Hollow house? Thanks and have a great day.

-Nikki"

Ahhhh, you're talking about Conner's house that I posted a picture of here. I'm sorry, I hope I didn't mislead you with my poor wording. That house is simply the Wooded Cottage Wizard City house, Conner had just decorated it and dubbed it his "Sleepy Hollow House." I don't have any more pictures of it beyond the one on my blog, but you can definitely track Conner down on his blog. If we're lucky maybe he'll make a post about his house, or maybe he'll even Youtube a tour of it! That would be great! :)

Again, sorry for the misunderstanding.

~~~~~~~~~

Drew Waterbringer sent me an e-mail with this question:

"Hey Friendly,
I just bought the new hawk pack, and have yet to redeem the wand. The reason is is that I like the look of the storm wand very much, because I am storm, but I want the stats of the death one, the best wand. Should I go with and ugly-ish death wand with good stats or take the cool storm wand and stitch it with like a lifeforce or something. The death one's stats are really good for me as a storm because 50 critical is good.
Thanks!
Drew WaterBringer"

Right, this is an interesting question -- not because you're debating crit vs. crit block, but because you're debating losing 10 damage and crit and gaining 20 block if you go with the Death Claymore vs. the looks of a weapon. AND, you only can choose one.

Hmmmm, conundrum . . .

Well, if I were you, I'd go with looks. I know that may sound strange, but after the screenshot we saw a couple days ago on Massively, well, you don't know what cooler weapons stat-wise could be around the corner. The look could be a one of a kind look, but newer stats and power growth will always be a part of this game. /shrug

Then again, a blade with +50 block could be really nice if you're planning on doing some PvP over the next few weeks, right?

Hmmmm, conundrum . . . (I like that word.)

~~~~~~~~~~~

One more for you guys. Not really an e-mail, but still worthy of an episode of Check this out. You've all probably seen this, but if not . . . reality will hit you hard, bros.

and in typical viral fashion . . . here's the resulting song.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Thanks for all the e-mail!

Happy dueling!

The Evil Game Gets Pandas and Selena Goes Ghetto

2011-10-22T05:41:00.001-07:00

Does it seem like the world has gone crazy right now? A Panda race in World of Warcraft plus a new pet battling system?

I thought I'd see a pet battling system in Wizard101 LIGHTYEARS before WoW ever went crazy like that.

. . . and WHAT THE HECK? Selena Gomez doing the MTV EMA award show?

MTV Shows
Perhaps the oldschool WoW heads are finally seeing their game for the cartoony hot mess that it is (and strangely, this kind of makes me want to play WoW again), and those of us that cling to a vision of an innocent Selena being courted by a King Crab in Wizard101 are now seeing bra and bare midriffs.

LOL! Well, I guess it is a funny video from Selena, but if WoW is going Kung Fu Panda/Pokemon-style, maybe Selena should make her billions gangster-style. I'm so confused right now. I think I'll just go play Kung Fu Panda World until this strange feeling goes away.

Dueling happy?

Fwd: Massively Teaser

2011-10-21T07:24:00.001-07:00

Fresh off the newswire!! You gotta check this out!!!!

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/10/21/kingsisle-teasing-new-wizard101-content/

Wizard101 Up for more awards! And . . . oh yeah . . . awards . . .

2011-10-21T03:27:00.000-07:00

This one is special to me since I write for Beckett's. YOU MUST GO VOTE FOR WIZARD101 PEOPLE! Click me! Click me! Click me! Click me! Click me! (Especially for the Best Kids’/Family MMO category, you know?)

Speaking of awards, I got this note yesterday from Marcus Deathwalker concerning the GDCO voting prize for the Wizard101 Audience award:

Hello Friendly,
I have just recieved my Mystery pet .
Yes it's a free pet but I can't help but feel a little disappointed.
Maybe my expectations were too high , but when they say limited edition or rare and then offer you a "____" , well it's kind of a let down. I don't want to spoil the "supprise" for you.
What do you think?
Looking forward to your Blog about this.

Well, I wouldn't be too disappointed. A free pet is a free pet. :) I'm just happy it wasn't a piggle. LOL.

Sadly, most likely because of all the complaining, there is no offer of reward for voting in the Beckett's voting poll. No free pet is no free pet. :( I still have faith people will vote though. We have a great game that always has a new surprise just waiting around the corner.

Happy Dueling!

New House, New Card Pack, New Halloween Craziness!!

2011-10-18T16:32:00.000-07:00

News broke today that there was a new card pack in the crowns shop after the longish patch and maintenance this morning. You can read all about the new Nightmare card pack and Halloween goodies from KingsIsle over on the main page.

I was lamenting earlier in the month about how bland the Hallowe'en celebration had become from when we first saw it three years ago. (Also, did you peeps notice that KI is now calling this "Halloweenfest" instead of "Hallowe'en" like they used to? Kind of weird, wish they would have called it something other than "fest," you know? Doesn't seem very creative. Then again, I guess it's better than Halloween-a-palooza, right?) With the new card pack and this new jungle-themed house, we totally got a one-two KO punch today; Halloweenfest is looking more awesome now! Although, I'd love to duel that Spooky Bob for cool Halloween prizes. BRING IT SPOOKY BOB!

First up, let's talk about this new mega giftcard house. Lionrider King is already taking credit for the Zebrifica idea. Hey! I don't blame him! If I had come up with a Zebrifica world and saw this house, I'd do the same thing. ;) I'm just hoping there's a Bullrilla pet for me somewhere in all this excitement. :) Of course, Elie Akilian has been talking about going on Safari over on his Twitter since 8 Jan 2011. Nice, three tweets! LOL.

Bailey was invited to view Jack Skullsmith's house, giraffe pet, and mount by her friend Jason Thundershield this afternoon. Yeah, Uber Wife has connections like that. ;) She had a great time running around and taking pictures of all the amazing things about his jungle paradise.

Here's a picture of Jack on his two-seater mount.

Bailey had some troubles riding on this with Jack, even after adding him as a friend and in a group. Other people seemed to be able to jump on Jack's mount with him and ride around just fine, but it was buggy for Bailey. Hopefully that gets cleared up soon.

Here's another picture of Jack with his awesome Giraffe pet . . . 57 pedigree, hmm. Not too bad! Wonder what awesome talents that thing gets (also wonder what it looks like dancing!)

Apparently if you click on this Bazaar Tapestry, you're magically transported there! That's awesome! Ever since seeing the teleporters, something inside me has been saying, wish I could mark places around the spiral with those instead of just inside my house. Nice implementation there, KI!

The house also features a friendly gorilla who much like the genie in the Sultan's Palace will gift you with treasures once a day. He should be a bullrilla, but gorillas are ok. ;)

Check out the amazing attention to detail in this main room of the house and the awesome carved-looking Lion, Zebra, and Elephant heads adorning the upper tier of this room. Awesome. There's ample room in these houses for all your expert decorating needs.

Just amazing stuff there. The house has other tricks and surprises, and I'm sure I'll be finding more out about it here soon.

Next up is the Nightmare pack.

WOW! Look at this Nightmare mount you can get as a rare find!

That's Conner Mistblade who was dressed as the headless horseman today in his Sleepy Hallow themed house. :)

The Nightmare pack is coming in at 299 crowns, which is 100 crowns cheaper than the regular packs. It's mostly full of treasure cards, pet snacks, specter themed robes, spooky bob themed costumes, pets, broom mounts, and a few housing items. The nightmare mount is definitely the thing you want from those. :)

There I am! Surrounded by my housing items from the few nightmare packs I purchased today. Love that you can get the Halloween decorations now. :) Good news on those pet snacks (don't know if this is going to be changed in the near future or not), you can actually sell and buy some of those new high rank snacks at the bazaar. Be on the lookout for those!

Have fun with all your new surprises! I can't wait to see what KingsIsle has next for us.

Happy dueling!

Supercharged and Headed Back to Dragonspyre!

2011-10-15T07:55:00.000-07:00

BOOM SHAKALAKAH!

ANGUS ANGUS ANGUS!

A few things about securing your supercharge spell if you've stumbled here from a random Google search. You have to be at least level 35. You have to complete Vigrid Roughlands and Frostholm. You have to talk to Baldur Goldpaws in Olde Town to pick up the quest that sends you to talk to Erik Wyrndune. After that, it's just a matter of fighting a boss in Mirkholm Keep and finishing up the quest.

It can be a little confusing because it's not intuitive that you go talk to Baldur Goldpaws . . . nothing points you in his direction.

Best of luck!

So, beware crazy high health mobs of Dragonspyre! Angus is coming after you!

Happy Dueling!

Angus in Grizzleheim: The Quest for Supercharge

2011-10-14T04:43:00.000-07:00

Angus needed a little distraction from Dragonspyre, so I took him back to Grizzleheim for some fun. It's been pretty laid back for the most part, just a matter of rushing through some of these quests. Check it out, I got an 808 hit. :)

Whenever you get an 808 hit on someone, you know it's TIME TO DROP THE BASS!

Though it's good for relaxing from Dragonspyre, the real purpose of Angus doing a little Grizzleheim is so he can get his hands on the Supercharge spell. That's such an awesome spell. Stacking any layer of percentage to damage is fantastic . . . especially against those high hit point freaks in Dragonspyre. Additional blade spell? OH YOU KNOW I WANT THAT!

Oh, I have to say this . . . with my fully geared characters, I never really noticed the hits from Shellek were so freaking beast.

Yeah, that guy, the end boss from Savarstaad Pass. His innate attack is 125 storm damage per pip. That's harder than most Dragonspyre boss innate hits. For example, General Firetusk's innate hit is only 100 damage per pip. Skellek not only hits like a boss, he hits like a BOSS! Like an 808 drop!

Alright, that's enough of that. ;p

Happy Dueling!

We Won!!

2011-10-13T04:22:00.000-07:00

You know, I love the Internet some days. Honestly, last night it was able to put me right there at the GDC awards show, and I was watching it from my living room real-time. The good news is that Wizard101 won the audience award!! 170,000 votes were counted. It once again came down to a battle between League of Legends and Wizard101. Both are great games with really active players.

Joseph Hall, J Todd Coleman, and Kiersten Samwell hopped up on stage and delivered some thanks that I think you should hear. Although the entire show is good (a couple bad jokes), here's a link to their acceptance speeches: Click.

I was really happy to hear Kiersten say these words, "We wouldn't be here both in this game space and on this stage if it wasn't for our players, our fansite owners, and every single one of you in the audience, so thank you for loving the game we love to make."

Dear Kristen, from at least one of your plethora of fansites: "You're welcome!"

Now . . . for the rest of you wondering where your mystery pet is . . . HAHAHA! Wizard101 Twittered a few messages after the award show.

Enjoy your victory, KingsIsle! Woot pet next week!

Happy Dueling!

Stephen Spiritcaller, Icywiz, and Taliesinharps at GDCO

2011-10-12T03:50:00.000-07:00

It's GDC season again in Ausin, Texas. You might remember my trip to GDC last year (if not, click here to see all the posts with my GDCO tag and scroll down a few posts). I've been wishing that I was there in GDC this year, but I'm not. Then again, I was sitting around the dinner table with my family last night and took a moment to realize that I was happy to be here as well. It was Taco Salad Tuesday after all! You know I'm loving a little Taco Salad on a Tuesday while chillin' with the fam!

Anyway, there are a few people down there in Austin that you might know. They're taking in all that Austin is and hanging out at GDC. Hanging out at GDC also means you'll probably get to see a random KingsIsle employee hanging out at GDC. That's good stuff for sure.

Stephen Spiritcaller of Ravenwood Radio is keeping a YouTube page about his trek to GDC, and i keep waiting for more information to come out of that. I'm sure we'll see more and more clips of him at GDC being uploaded over the next week. I'll definitely be watching.

You'll also want to be following Stephen's Twitter, Icywiz's Twitter, and Taliesinharps's twitter for more information.

There doesn't seem to be any real news from KingsIsle other than something big is on the horizon, of course, we can always expect there to be something big on the horizon with KingsIsle, so it's kind of non-news, but I'LL TAKE IT! Of other gossip-y news, from what I hear, Stephen and Leesha have now met in real-life thanks to the magic of GDC! I wish I could have been there to see that. :)

Here's to hoping KingsIsle wins an award at the award show tonight at 6:30 pm Central! I'm hoping one of those three twitter feeds linked above will be exploding with on-the-moment news. :)

Happy Dueling!

Tower of the Helephant: Two Floors of Awesome!

2011-10-11T18:14:00.000-07:00

The Tower of the Helephant (ToH) is an interesting place. I had my first experience going there just the other day. Good times! (Mostly because I had good company.) In the end, I'd say ToH is "interesting" because I’m not really sure why the floors between the first floor and the top floor even exist. They're totally filler. Sure, there’s a puzzle in the middle, but it’s not really even difficult . . . you just run to the teleporter that has the cheese next to it. That’s cool, no biggie. Even if by some random chance you don't follow the cheese trail and you fail the maze, the resulting fight isn’t too bad. Six floors isn't going to run you out of mana, so those floors are . . . useless.

All you really need to know to beat The Tower of the Helephant is the right cards to play and the right strat, which has all been provided for you over on Wizard101 Central. That guide was super handy! OH yeah, one more thing . . . time . . . lots of time.

Anyway, in case you can’t or don’t want to follow that link, let me break down the needed cards for you.

1- Accuracy treasure cards. These are a dime a dozen now. Easy to get at the bazaar but you probably already have a backpack full of them . . . it’s not really a “needed” card on this fight, but you might as well throw a couple in your sideboard if you have a bunch just hanging out and use them on your damage spells. Better safe than sorry.

2- Quench. This one is needed. Every three rounds, Taurus the minotaur casts a smoke screen in addition to his regular spells. Keep plenty of Quench debuffs on him, and you’ll never have to worry about what happens if you don’t.

But Friendly, you cry with your choir of angelic blog-reader voices, what happens if we don’t keep said minotaur debuffed? Fine! I'll tell ya. :) Every time you fizzle a spell, this cues our good buddy Ervin the Boar to cast a skeletal dragon on the person that fizzled. Oh yeah, speaking of that . . .

3- Keep Strangle and Dissipate debuffs on Ervin . . . also Storm Shield on your healer (or whoever has agro).

But Friendly, why use a lightning debuff and Storm Shields against a Death mob? OH, well, k, once Taurus the minotaur dies, Ervin the boar casts Leviathan every other round. Have fun with that! (I like saying "the minotaur" and "the boar" after their names btw, could ya tell?).

Anyway, the final floor is even more awesome than the first. It involves a pesky Draconian named Lyon. Lyon the Draconian is almost completely resistant to Storm attacks and doesn't allow you to Prism (or trap) him. Sorry Storm wizards, but guess what? It's ok because Storm wizards are super effective against the minions that Lyon summons out at the speed of one per round. The thing is, you don't want to let Lyon summon all three minions or else BAM! You eat a supercharged Blizzard spell each round while he has those three minions on his team. I guess this means these would come in handy:

4- Ice Shields and Melt Debuffs.

But Friendly! BUT FRIENDLY! Earthquakes from minions!! I know I know . . . just do your best. :)

Here's a video I made of our trip in the Tower of the Helephant.

It was pretty great to play with my wife again (and Ms. Mistshard as well). We've been kind of playing separately lately for some reason. I think it has to do something with me getting up early, her getting to bed late, and the kids taking up all the time in between. ;)

If you have any additional tips or just want to say hi, feel free to leave them in the comments below.

**Update** I fixed a couple incorrect things in this post thanks to Cody in the comments. He adds that Melt would be a good idea to have in your arsenel to block Ervin's 95% tower shield and that arming a death wizard with Steal Ward could be a nice trick! **Update**

Happy Dueling!

Random New Game Roundup (Realm of the Mad God, Glitch, and Dragon's Nest)

2011-10-03T03:28:00.000-07:00

Heya all,

I took some time off from playing Angus and started messing around on a few new games. I thought I'd just make a post about it here because some of you may be interested in one of these games.

First up: Realm of the Mad God

Amber came home from school one day, fought her way to the computer, and loaded up Realm of the Mad God. We're all, whatttttTTTT? She's all, oh it's some dumb game where I can't even save my level. Instantly I shouted, "I want to try it!" Kyle copied me, "I want to try it!" Before you know it, we're unlocking new characters and rocking the world of said mad god.

Check out my dead level 20 warrior character:

He was awesome. Some guy came up to me and gave me some super awesome gear and before you know it, I'm level 20 attacking a cyclops god at max level.

Just so you know, my daughter was totally right about not being able to save your level. Realm of the Mad God is a permadeath game. Once your character dies, you have to start over, and that's ok, The point is to try and get your fame as high as possible before you die, but it's also to unlock other character classes by getting your character high level.

It's a flash-based, rogue-like crawler game that's fast paced and . . . believe it or not . . . an MMO. Just look at all these crazy peeps:

Grouping is done via just being in the vicinity of other players. You'll get exp for stuff other people kill and vice versa. Don't expect to get healed unless you're fighting something major. 1) Don't think there are a lot of priests out there. 2) You need to learn to keep weaving in and out of things aka DODGE!

My typical method for killing stuff is to run a large circle around monsters to round them up and slowly whittle them down. But my fighter was tough enough with his good gear that I could just go head to toe with monsters and beat them up without much pain.

This kind of fast action / old school vibe was perfect for me this past week. You should check this one out if you're looking for a change of pace. It's free-to-play and definitely has some addictive qualities. Of course, these prices for The Realm of the Mad God's version of crowns are ridiculous. Wow.

I just can't imagine spending 100 bucks on Realm of the Mad God, but to each their own.

~~~~~~~~

Second: Glitch

Glitch is a browser-based 2D MMO. It's hip right now, and to be honest that's probably the only reason I tried it out.

So far the game for me has been about squeezing chickens, nibbling pigs, and milking butterflies. I made it far enough down the animal training skill line so that now I have the ability to rename animals. In fact this morning I took it upon myself to rename all the pets on the Dofsan Vex street in the Alakol district to familiar Wizard101 names as a part of a quest:

I'm sure these will be changed by someone else in the near future. ;)

As I understand it, the real purpose of Glitch is to build up areas as a team. Here's a quote from Glitch's Wikipedia page:

"One of the most unique aspects of Glitch is that players can work together to build out each new street by cooperating on the completion of projects offered by a "Street Spirit." A project is made up of stages and numerous small tasks, some of which involve collecting (and sometimes even creating) quantities of items from throughout the world and returning them to the Street Spirit. Other tasks on projects involve the skills or labor of players to complete. Involvement in projects thus far have been fairly equitable as to the players level, allowing newbies as well as higher level players to participate in the projects together. At each stage of a project's completion, participating players get to vote in the direction that the street project will take, ultimately choosing the completed streets' attributes. Upon completion of the project, participating players are rewarded with valuable benefits. Unlike other massively multiplayer online games, Glitch's gameplay isn't centered on leveling up, it's about working together to achieve goals."

Maybe one of these days we can claim a street for Wizard101 and have a Glitch party. ;)

~~~~~~~~~~

Third: Dragon's Nest

Out of these three games, Dragon's Nest is the one I've spent the most time in recently. I was introduced to Dragon's Nest by Tipa from the West Karana blog. In fact, we've even grouped!

That's screenshot evidence right there that she's promised to adventure with me in a dungeon on the Abyss mode of difficulty. I'll be sure to hold her to it. :)

So . . . are you tired of slow-paced MMOs without much action in the combat? Wanna do combos and fight herds of monsters surrounding you ala the swarms in Diablo only with a 3D perspective? Duuuuude. Load up Dragon's Nest! It's a free-to-play that's a ton of fun and has that distinctive Asian MMO look.

Tipa's written more about this game, and her writing was good enough to sell me. Of course, I'm a fan of Tipa's game writing in general, so I'm biased. :)

Yarrr! I kill the minotaurrrr!

It's definitely the change of pace that I'm liking about Dragon's Nest more than anything, and you know what's awesome . . . Titles aren't just meaningless tags . . . they actually give you a boost to your character. Oh how I've wished for that for Wizard101.

~~~~~~~

Thanks for reading, and I hope you get a chance to check out one or more of these games! Let me know what you think, and if you have a great game that you think I should check out, leave me a note in the comments below.

And as a final note (and pitch), I'm pretty sure most of you know about a few of my other game blogs that I keep, but if not, be sure to check these out . . . you may find some interest in one of them:

Stormreach Sentinel (DDO blog)
Guard and Defy (Rift blog)
Minstrel Magnet (LOTRO blog)
I AM STINGITE (other gaming)

Happy Dueling!

Evil Magma Harvest Time!

2011-09-29T04:32:00.000-07:00

Evil Magma Harvest Time makes me do the Peanut Butter Jelly Time dance!

haha! If I had more time I'd do a YouTube video swapping out Peanut Butter Jelly with Evil Magma Harvest and have one Thomas Lionblood dancing around, because yes! I woke up this morning to this awesome site in my garden!

Evil Magma Harvest time! Man I love Evil Magma Peas. I'm not sure if a lot of people know about how awesome they are as a plant. Surround those with a Boom Shroom, a Garden Gnome, a Jimbe Drum, and an Egg Basket and you'll be harvesting an elder crop of Magma Peas in just a few days. The regular harvest is fantastic by itself with its rare reagents like Sunstone, Pearl, and Scrap Iron, but it's the final harvest where this plant's awesomeness just goes over the top.

Do you see all those Mega-Snack packs? That's just such an awesome reward for a limited amount of effort. It's like getting a free mega snack pack every few days and especially since (as per normal) the peas always return their seed in the final harvest as well.

It does take quite a bit of energy to tend to this plant, but they never get more than rank 2 pests, so it could be worse; although, I'm pretty sure most people use one character to train pets and another character to garden and then just switch things between characters with the shared bank when needed. Know what I'm saying? "Yeah we do, Friendly!"

Happy dueling!

This one's for you Autumn Duskhunter!

2011-09-27T16:36:00.000-07:00

So if you didn't know, the test realm is open! You should get in there and check out the new stuff. :) In particular these new signs!

There's a number of standard catch phrases that you can select for your sign, but I was floored by one in particular that I saw on the list. You know, there really is no greater compliment that could be given by KingsIsle to a member of our community than immortalizing her catch phrase.

I'm floored actually. That one's for you Autumn. :) We miss your fun influence in the community. That's gotta feel pretty darn good.

Happy Dueling!

Angus vs Mavra!

2011-09-27T07:12:00.000-07:00

This morning Angus finished up the first big wall of Dragonspyre: Mavra Flamewing. Here's the YouTube video for the fight. :)

What you don't see in this video are the numerous failed attempts before this successful one. My deck had to be massaged a few times until I came up with a winning combo. The first few seconds of the video show what I was eventually packing in my mega awesome starter deck. ;) In retrospect I should have dumped one of those tempests for another storm shield, but it eventually all worked out (even if it meant an extra reshuffle).

You know what else needed massaging besides my deck? My patience. I kept jumping the gun on my cards, and I was doing exactly what shouldn't be doing (messing around with Wild Bolt). Once I straightened out my deck and got my head in the game, my cards fell in place and I pulled out a win! The Shatter treasure card, of course, was invaluable.

Thanks for reading and watching!

Happy dueling!

Joshua Lionbane Trading Card

2011-09-25T08:17:00.001-07:00

You may remember back a while, Bailey and Joshua Lionbane teamed up to do a huge wand strike. Joshua purchased a bunch of treasure cards for that one wand strike, and that probably cost him a horde of gold. O.o

I met Joshua in the hatchery by some random coincidence. That's always cool when I meet a reader by random accident. Randomness wins!

He's a long time reader, and he's fun to hang out with in game. He wanted a card, and even though I'm not really making these cards anymore . . . here you go, Mr. Pibb . . . I mean, Joshua!

:) Thanks for being awesome!

Happy Dueling!

What blade is this?

2011-09-24T20:26:00.000-07:00

Question from John Legendmancer:

Hello Friendly!
Its me again, John LegendMancer.

At the Bazaar, i see a wizard who have a cool Sword Wand, after i see his Profile, the Blade's name is Lifeforce blade, which means its stitched, Can you explain what wand is it & Its profile (Level, Cards Given etc.)?

Thanks Friendly!
~John L; Adept (26) Sorcerer

Heya John, Yeah that's definitely stitched. I recognized that blade right away since it was featured in Beckett's magazine though. It's the Dragonclaw Blade from issue #26 (5 attacks, 75 fire damage). We have that stashed on one of Uber Wife's characters: Bailey Lionblood!

Be sure to check out FuzzyWuzzy's guide to Beckett items on Wizard101 Central.

Happy Dueling!

Swampy, the Disney/KingsIsle Missing Link?

2011-09-23T04:57:00.000-07:00

You probably don't remember my Disney/KingsIsle conspiracy theory post, so here's a link.

One of the major problems in my theory was that Disney only uses videogames to promote their movies and characters, and never in reverse. To quote myself, ". . . to me Disney uses their video games as part of their commercial blitz and not vice versa. They don't blitz their video games, they blitz their products with video games. Disney scooping up Kingsisle would bring them a whole *NEW* set of characters that are begging to be blitzed."

Yesterday a new Press Release hit the AP Wire from Disney announcing their new Swampy videogame character with the heading, "Disney hopes game character makes it to big screen." Now THAT's a heading! :) You should check out the article here.

Swampy is pretty awesome actually. It's like a cross between the Rubbadubbas and the Peter Pan croc.

To continue to extend the conspiracy theory, could this test case be the first steps down the lane to this?

*eyebrows wiggling* EH? EH?

Meh, since the article's tag line merely comes from the General Manager suggesting a wild theory (""Maybe five years from now, wouldn't it be great if there was a movie that started up on the App Store?" Decrem said."), it's all very premature to even make guesses, but I do find it very interesting.

Something to think about. I just want an amusement park named Wizard101 land.

Happy dueling!

Latest FOG in the Mail! Teamwork: The Key to The Spiral's Door

2011-09-19T03:54:00.000-07:00

The latest Fun Online Games (FOG) magazine came in the mail over the weekend!

The article I wrote for it is a short piece about all the different sections of KingsIsle (and really any videogame company) and a little insight into what each section does--what part they play in creating the magic of Wizard101. I think a lot of videogame-savvy kids (in particular) will like this article. My daughter has read this one through a number of times actually. She's thinking a job as a videogame artist would be her speed. :)

The code in the magazine this time around is a free Wyvern's Hoard pack. I hope a lucky couple of you at least get a dragon out of that!

This issue of FOG is all about Halloween. There's a great four page spread about all the different Halloween events coming to all your favorite games: Club Penguin, Toontown, Pirates Online, Farmville, Pixie Hollow, Free Realms, Herotopia, Neopets, Petpet park, Poptropica, Roblox, Monkeyquest, Webkinz, Wizard101, and Clone Wars Adventures.

There's no new revelations about Wizard101's Halloween celebration coming up, but it does say there might be "an extra special pet." Hmm! I wonder if they'll put one of the more rare spooky pets in the crowns shop?

. . . And the last half of the magazine is pretty much all about the Yu-gi-oh card game. It's a Beckett's mag after all. ;)

Happy dueling!

Casting the Red Ghost

2011-09-17T06:44:00.000-07:00

For those of you who'd like to see what the Red Ghost spell looks like, here you go!

I'm digging my Red Ghost at Ancient! Kind of a fun pet.

Happy Dueling!