Test Realm! Food Fight!!

The Wizard101 Test Realm is back online and a brand new housing game is up for testing . . . FOOD FIGHT!



No no no, silly Friendly Necromancer. Not the classic 1980's game involving twitch skills and 8-bit graphics! (How much of my parent's money did I spend on that game at the local arcade? wow!) This food fight seems to be more like a race to grab as much food as you can and also steal food from your friends ala Capture the Flag. Actually, there seems to be four modes to the game:

Chef's Special
Within a limited time, find and return with as much food as possible.

On a Diet
Find and return with as much food as possible, but the amount of hidden food is limited.

Buffet 25
The first team to find 25 points worth of food and return it to the kiosk wins.

Pizza Party
Find and return with as much pizza as possible.

Nice! Skeletal Pirates and Pizza! Two of my favorite things in one!

On the test realm the game goes for 2,500 crowns or you can head to Abbey Road in Avalon to pick up the Crafting Recipe from Padraig. The crafting recipe looks a bit steep. You need to craft a Carousel as part of the ingredient list! O.O Eep!

Along with the Food Fight minigame is also a nice handful of updates. Be sure you check the update page for more information: click.

On a personal note, I've been so busy at work with my Pirate101 duties that I missed my opportunity to play this game when it was in development. I was slipped an invitation to play against the devs, but unfortunately I was occupied at the time. :(

Let me know what you all think!

Happy dueling!

House-a-Palooza 2012 Raffle!

Heya readers! It's House-a-palooza week this week, and that means Friendly has turned the reins over to me, Bailey, to run a contest for him!

I've been looking at how some of the other bloggers run raffles, and it looks like the easiest way to do it is through Rafflecopter. I'm giving it a shot! *crosses fingers this works*

Here's what I've got. I've got 10 (count 'em 10!) Watchtower Hall houses to giveaway this year. Wait a second, isn't that what we gave away last year too?! Oh yeah. Well, it's still a super awesome house that's hard to craft, so I expect there to be a ton of entries. Who doesn't want a free house? Right? Best of Luck!

Just to keep things interesting, I've added a question to go along with the raffle that's going to have you hopping back to Grizzleheim to find out the answer. :) check it out!

Remember, if you're 13 or under, get your parents to help you. You need their permission! All information gathered from the raffle will be deleted after the contest.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Best of luck everyone! We'll leave the raffle up for one week and announce the winners on the morning of 21 August.

As Friendly would say . . . Happy Dueling!

My Housing Teleporter Run

I haven't done just a random video in a while, so this morning I thought I'd show my little portal path I made through all my houses. Check it out! (Full screen in high resolution is best if your stream can handle that.)



My teleporter pathways all have one thing in common, putting a Thomas Lionblood mannequin nearby and usually quick access to something I need . . . like my garden or my crafting station.

This was just for fun though.

That's all.

Happy dueling!

Test Realm Up! TAG YOU'RE IT!

KingsIsle opened up the Test Realm yesterday afternoon, and as to be expected, there has already been a lot of talk about it.

I don't have much more to add than what these fine bloggers have already said:

- Wizard101 Madness

- A Pyromancer Say

- Secrets of the Spiral

- The Unicornflower's Type - Great guide to Tag Stars here.

- Around the Spiral with Edward Lifegem

- Paige's Page

- Diana Wildheart: Guardian Theurgist's Journal - Talks about playing tag at Bailey's house yesterday.

- Valerian's School for Wayward Wizards - reminds us to train our pets while we're in the Test Realm.

The fine people at Central are also talking up a storm on the test realm forum: click. Seems like there's already talk of coordinating massive tag games here. :)

The Tag game is currently priced at 2000 crowns on the Test realm. That seems reasonable for the hours of fun people are reporting from this housing enhancement.


I can already imagine how this will redefine some people's decorating choices. hehe. BRING ON THE HOUSE MAZES! When derby was introduced into The Spiral, it seemed like a lot of people wanted to have derby races in their housing. I have to say this is BETTER than having a derby track for your house. Nicely done, KingsIsle!

Be sure to report those bugs and have a good time playing tag on the test realm. :)

Happy Dueling!

The Awesomeness of Christmas 2011 in Wizard101

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!

New House, New Card Pack, New Halloween Craziness!!

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!

Winners of the Watchtower Hall Contest/Giveaway!

Ok! We deliberated long and hard, and Amber, myself, and Bailey narrowed the winners down to 10 out of 121 amazing entries. I wish we could give prizes to all of you, unfortunately, we just don't have the prizes to do that.

The following ten dorm rooms were our favorites (in no particular order):

- Midnight in Grizzleheim by Deni Deni


- Grizzleheim dorm room by Chris


- Grizzleheim dorm room by Kiera Wyrmsong


- Grizzleheim dorm room by Malorn Ghostrider


- Grizzleheim boss cave by draven74


- Grizzleheim dorm room by Amber Rosepetal


- Grizzleheim dorm room by Gavin Wraith


- Grizzleheim dorm room by KingEdward987


- Christmas in Grizzleheim dorm room by Amanda Skyweaver


- Grizzleheim Dorm room by by Mariah


Great job everyone! You all really did amazing! It was a tough decision, but these really captured our imaginations. Thanks!

Five more houses were raffled from all 121 entries. congrats to the following lucky individuals!

1- Ruth King
2- Jenna Nightshade
3- Richard Nightrider
4- Dustin Griffinflame
5- Chris Deathflame

Prizes will be sent out soon via e-mail. Thanks everyone for participating! If you didn't win this time, keep trying! I'm sure another contest will be right around the corner.

Happy dueling!

Wysteria Going Live and Teleporters!

I hope everyone had fun in the test realm. To those who went into the test realm and reported bugs, thank you! Thank you for helping to ensure our game is awesome. For the full list of updates being implemented into the game today, please check the patcher notes.

Definitely one of the coolest things bundled with this expansion are the new teleporters being introduced into the game. The community has already developed a number of great guides on their set up and use: Diana, John, Paige . . . I'm sure there are more . . .

I played around with them a bit too! I made my dorm room into a teleporter chamber leading to all my houses.


Then I put a teleporter in each house leading back to my dorm room. I think I may have to do something like that in the live realm as well.

Also coming to the spiral are two brand new houses! Luke Goldhorn gave a great run down on the Wizard's Watchtower house, and I liked this Slideshow of the Underwater Palace from Vanessa at The Diviner's Lane.

I think it's so awesome we have a sunken ship in our housing options now! That was totally something I wanted to happen ever since stepping into Calypso's area.

Hope you all enjoy this update! I think the level 25 people are going to love the break from Krokotopia to go play in Wysteria.

Happy Dueling!

House-a-palooza contest! Watchtower Hall House!

**CONTEST NOW CLOSED***
**CONTEST NOW CLOSED***
**CONTEST NOW CLOSED***
**CONTEST NOW CLOSED***
**CONTEST NOW CLOSED***
Click here to see the winners.

That's right! We've got contests for houses coming out of our wizard hats around these parts, y'all, (be sure to check all your favorite fansites and blogs), and I'm lucky enough to be giving away 15 of the . . . AWESOME . . . RARE . . . CRAFTING-EXCLUSIVE Watchtower Hall House. You usually can't get these without putting in some serious time and gold AND patience . . . until NOW, and (as far as I know) ONLY here on The Friendly Necromancer blog WITHOUT all the pain and hassle you would normally have to go through to get one of these bad boys. :)

The Watchtower Hall House was the first crafted house to ever come out, and Bailey was so excited about it, she crafted one up herself. I remember the pains she went through to get that thing. /shiver . . . this is pre-plants crafting we're talking about here too. You had to work for those reagents back then. :)

Check out how her house is looking post-decorating!

Indoor Waterfall feature:


Kitchen:


View of the Tower:


Entrance way:

Are you ready to win one of these for yourself? YEAH? YEAH?!?! Ok then! Without further rambling, here's what you have to do to be entered to win a Watchtower Hall House:

1- Decorate your dorm room with a Grizzleheim theme.
2- Take a screenshot of your Grizzleheim-theme dorm room.
3- Send the best screenshot (only one screenshot please) to thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com sometime before 11:59 p.m. PST on 20 August 2011.

We will be judging the screenshots and will announce the winners on 22 August. Prizes will be distributed sometime before the end of the day on 23 August.

10 houses will be awarded to those with the best dorm screenshot. 5 houses will be randomly raffled to all those who enter the contest. So, don't feel like you shouldn't participate if you don't have a knack for decorating (just do your best).

Good luck and happy dueling!

Ravenwood Radio 45 Tonight!

That's right, it's Ravenwood Radio 45 tonight, with . . . me . . . as a guest host filling in for Fallon. :) She has a previous engagement this evening, and Mr. Spiritcaller was so kind as to invite my special brand of insanity along for the ride.


I apologize for his mistake in advance. ;p

That all starts at 6:30 pm Pacific, 7:30 pm Mountain, 8:30 pm Central, and 9:30 pm Eastern. See you all there!

I've looked through the show notes and there should be a few fun topics. One that I see needs to be added would be the addition of all these new housing items in the crown shop that can be purchased for gold!


Theater Masks!!! I definitely need that one. :) *DRAMA*

Happy dueling!

Celestia Housing goes live!

That's right, go log in and start your downloads, kids!


Celestia housing is now out of the test realm and into the live game, along with all the other goodies that are a part of the patch message.

Enjoy those hand of doom packs! :)

Happy Dueling!

Bamboo Well in Mooshu?

Question from Neela Dreamglen:

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

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


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


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

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

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

Happy Dueling!

Housing Item of the Day--Large Willow Tree

Heya all,

I got this note from Donna Spellthorn back in 2010 (sorry, couldn't help myself) about a pretty epic housing item:

I think I found your next housing item of the day...it's called the large willow tree. It can apparently be found at the bazaar, but the alleged drop is from Praetor Mako (no clue where that is) But I thought it was absolutely beautiful. I think other people should know about it too, so that's why I sent you this email.

Well, thanks for the note, Donna! Consider it done!

Large Willow Tree, I hereby declare you the housing item of the day!

So from what I could tell, this item is rumored to drop from not only from Mako, but also from Achaelos. Both are located in the Crustacean Empire.


HOWEVER, I spent a good amount of time farming Achaelos and walked away with no trees, but I did get a lot of the little doghouses. When I went to farm Mako, I got the tree on my first try.


You know, from a distance, this tree looks kind of goofy to me . . . not at all what I would consider a Willow tree.


The Wizard101 Large Willow Tree looks more like one giant trunk with a bowler's cap on.


Regardless, it does provide a good bit of shade and cover. A few of these big trees and you're ready to start your own jungle with undergrowth . . . kind of like Paige Moonshade's trip to Pandora through Wizard101 housing.

Uber wife did something pretty cool with her epic tree . . . Check it out:


So awesome to be up there in the canopy!

Happy Dueling!

When will Celestia Furniture be out? Should I wait?

hey all! I've got an interesting question here from Whitestorm:

I'm getting close to finishing Dragonspyre, and I can't wait to start questing in Celestia. However, I've noticed that there is no Celestia furniture, and I'm wary of doing the Celestia quests before the furniture update comes out. Do you know when the furniture will be added to Celestia? Could you find out? Thanks

Well, I asked Professor Greyrose for you, and she didn't have any idea on a date when this stuff would be put in the game. She did make mention to the fact that there was a lag between putting in Grizzleheim and the Grizzleheim houses.

I mentioned back to Professor Greyrose that Grizzleheim at least had some Grizzleheim-style furniture in the game when it was released . . . and then e-mail traffic went silent. This could be because she was still gathering information or because she's busy or maybe because there's really no good answer right now.

So, let's see, the question at this point then is really, "Should I play through Celestia even though there aren't housing items instituted in the game?"

For me, it's a resounding yes. Yes, you should play through Celestia. The benefits of earning all those levels, spells, and new fun far outweigh the furniture items. Yes, unfortunately, at some point they may load up Celestia with furniture laden quests after we've all gone through that content, and we'll all miss out on that furniture. Meh. It's a little bit of a bummer, and it happened back when furniture was first instituted into the game. But, now I can find a lot of those furniture items for quests for sale in the bazaar. In fact, I just covered a room in my new Massive Fantasy Palace with Grandpa Froggy pictures, which comes from a side quest in Marleybone. Check it out:


Who would have thought I could pick up 24 of those in the bazaar now? Not me!

If you're looking for a time line, then the best I can give you is based off of Professor Greyrose's response . . . let's look to the past for clues of the future. Furniture and housing was instituted in the game after Dragonspyre was released. It was May 6, 2009 to be exact, which was only a month before Grizzleheim was released on the test realm. A year later (late June 2010), Grizzleheim houses were released.

We could be in for a long wait. I'm not really sure, but I say, go have fun in Celestia anyway! I'll let you all know when I get more information.

Happy Dueling!

Even *more* *MORE* (*2!) Gamestop Double-Wide Card Questions

You have more MORE questions; I have more MORE answers!

Gorman asks, "How long will this gift card run for???" which happened to also be the same question Duncan Dragonblood had earlier in an e-mail to me.

I asked Greyrose for you guys, and she said they are in the gift card lineup permanently now, but she added a note of caution for Santa Claus's elves, "expect them to be hard to find as we get closer to Xmas." Make those lists early . . . regardless if you've been naughty or nice.

Cassandra has a question, "Question: Also included in the card is the Additional Castle Space elixir. Is this a permanent elixir or does it last an hour?"

It's permanent.

It's funny you should ask that question. Fred Howard revealed that answer when he first showed me the Massive Fantasy Palace during my trip down to Kingsisle. I finally got permission to show this video clip to you all, so without further ado, Fred, running around in the Massive Fantasy Palace complete with my first reactions and Jason Winter's comedic interjections:

Kellen sent me an e-mail and asks, "I heard that there were a bunch of secret passageways in the new house, and I was wondering if you could give a list of them. Thanks!"

Thanks for asking that Kellen! It's something that at least 3 or 4 people caught me on in yesterday's video. LOL! As far as I can tell, there are two secret passageways in the house and one out of the way portal leading to an island in the sky.

1-By the front stairway

2-At the bottom of the spiral staircase

3-Behind the throne and to the right

The secret passageways are my favorite thing about the inside. It's something that I was hoping to see more of in the school housing and especially the Death House. Kudos to KI on making them!

Happy Dueling!

Future housing items of the day from Crab Alley?

I did a little swimming around last night while doing my Selena Gomez quest, and tried to look at the little objects around Crab Alley that maybe someday, somehow could possibly become housing items at some future point in time.

~~~~~~~~~
How'd you like to own a record player?


(or a hormoniogram or whatever they call it). How would you like to be able to go into your house and have a record player that you could assign a few select .mp3 files to? Oh man it would be awesome! Dance party at your house!

~~~~~~~~~
And no party would be complete without a disco ball . . . or this shinier crystal ball item.


If only you could float that upside down somewhere in your house. We have a crystal ball housing item like this now in game, only it doesn't glow as far as memory serves.

~~~~~~~~~
Red Coral explosions:


There was also some green coral around Crab Alley, but it was far less dramatic than these blooms.

~~~~~~~~~
Table full of presents:


I wouldn't mind some variety in present sizes. I think all we have now out of that pile is the little red present with a bow in front. It's a crowns item too if I remember right.

~~~~~~~~~
The Ace of Cakes Wedding Cake, of course:


Deeeeeliciously awesome. I doubt they'd put this in the game for us to have as a housing item, but I wouldn't mind one of these in my party room.

~~~~~~~~~
Intricate Flower Vase:


Tucked away in the shadows of the Selena room, there was this foo-foo grandma-looking vase that looked really nice. I'd put it in my hot tub room in my death house for sure.

~~~~~~~~~

So, if I could only choose one out of all those to be future housing items, I'd go with the record player! They could make it an interactive housing item too, which is something else I think we'd like to see more of in the future, right? Couches that you can actually sit on. Record players you could play. Statues that would flex when clicked. That kind of stuff. (Thanks Caleb for reminding me about the mannequins) What do you think?

Happy Dueling!

Housing Item of the Day--Dog Pilot Painting

We get a special Housing Item of the Day today from Heather aka Kaitlyn Dunerider!

Hi, Friendly!

I have commented on your blog a couple times, my name is Heather. I have quite a few wizards, 3 accounts, 9 Grands, and a few others I am working on.

Well, I just wanted to let you know about this housing item, maybe you can add it to your list one day. I am not sure if you knew about it, but I didn't see it listed. It's called "Marleybonian Pilot Painting," though when it dropped it said "Dog Pilot Painting."


It dropped from Sprockets in Counterweight East. Here is a pic of it with my newest balance wiz, Kaitlyn Dunerider(as you can tell by the rat magician, she had fun with Sprockets as far as the drops were going.) I was really happy to get this painting as I had just commented to a friend, while in Air Dale's, visiting Croaky for a spell, that I wished I could have that painting. I didn't even know it was available for a drop so I was very pleasantly surprised by this :)

Hey! Very cool find and thanks for thinking to send this to me. I appreciate it!

My list of housing items is lacking a number of the new items and some of the items from Grizzleheim. If I can get some spare time in I will definitely update it and include this awesome find as well.

Happy Dueling!