Welcome Back HIAG Party Announced!

Taji over at Sorcerer's Corner is hosting a party for Homework in a Graveyard this Saturday!


Y'all should check this out and go bust Autumn's friend list with invites! It's sounding like a late night, kinda spooky night type of thang! If I can make this party, I will. Plus, I like the sounds of some of the events planned.

Check 'em out:

Best dressed contest
Pet Derby Tournament (Practice derby races)
Sunken city runs
Hatchery time
Dancing!
And many other things (to be determined during the party)

Definitely sounds like a good time! (Although I'm currently hurting in my bank account from a recent hybrid level 48 pet combine. Ouch.)

Happy Dueling!

Equipment with Beguile, Astral Magic, level 35 death gear, and the paparazzi?

Here's a smattering of questions from yesterday:

Gabriel Shadowsmith asks: Hey! Is there a beguile card giving item?I really love the spell, but i'm not death....pls help me out Friendly.

Heya Gabriel, I don't think I've ever seen an item with Beguile on it. Not even old school crown gear. However, don't give up hope! I remember when Empower was only an item card on some old school crown gear and then all of a sudden they add a toys R us gift card pet with the spell and, boom, awesomeness. I also remember when death minion wasn't an item card, then, BOOM, Ianthine Spectre. So, things change. Keep an eye on the gift card pet page. It updates every month.

If I'm wrong, readers. Please let me and Gabriel know. kkthxsbye!

Anonymous asks: Friendly, I'm not sure how to leave you a question, so I'll just write it here. I've heard that there are going to be three new schools of magic in Celestia. Is this true? If so any predictions what they'll be? Thanks.
P.S. I am so pysched for Celestia.

Yes! Astral magic has been discussed for quite a while now. The going theory is that sun, moon, and star will be the new schools of magic, and they will be secondary only schools of magic. In other words, you won't be able to make a celestial wizard or anything like that.

I'M TOTALLY PSYCHED TOO!

Blaze Duskblade asks: hey friendly i have a question for you what would be the best level 35 death only gear and where can you get it

Hmm, interesting question because level 35 lies right between the best Marleybone gear (usually level 25 or 30+) and the best Mooshu gear (usually level 40+). (The easy answer used to be crown clothes, but all the old school crown gear is unavailable.) So I guess, I can't give you the easy answer of . . . go look at Ironhawk's Marleybone or Mooshu guide. Although, it might give you some ideas.

Another place I can point you to would be over to wikia's list of level 35 gear.

Death hats
Death robes
Death shoes

Hmmm, no Death specific rings or athame's listed there though.

Hmmm, so the last suggestion I think I could give is to sort your bazaar by level and look for the best.

From doing that I'd vote for the following pieces:


BUUUUTT, even that's debatable because there are similar gear pieces with less death resists and more hitpoints.

So, hopefully in a roundabout way I've answered your question or given you a few ideas.

Sean Emeraldweaver asks: Friendly, lol you are a celeb these days! Do I have to be paparazzi to get hold of you

Yes, pretty much you have to be paparazzi to get a hold of me . . . and even then I shall rush by you screaming, "NO PHOTOS! NO PHOTOS! NO COMMENT!"

Things definitely haven't slowed down any around here in your absence, Sean. They've only got busier and crazier and more spectacular!!! (or something like that.)

/wizardhugz

Happy Dueling!

LOL Surprises from Uber Wife

Ok, so the truth of the matter is that I'm an early bird type of a person, and my wife is a late night type of a person. I woke up this morning with a couple of surprises waiting for me in the picture folder.

Surprise 1:


HAHA! Iridian and Myrna played a lot of Dragonspyre this weekend. We worked through all of Plaza of Conquests and The Grand Chasm, and we started working The Drake Hatchery as well. The last thing I remember was that Myrna was really freaking close to level 42 . . . like maybe only 10% left to go. Well, it looks like uber wife was busy with my character. HAHA!

THANKS UBER WIFE!

Surprise 2:


Yeah, I woke up to two mysterious eggs with a 14 hour timer on Thomas Lionblood. The dye shop revealed them to be storm cats. HAHAHA! The wife played my character and got me two stormcats from Herkir last night! WOOT!

Dang that's awesome!

I bet you all wish you had an uber wife.

Best powerleveling tip ever.

;-)

Happy Dueling!

Gold, black lotus, farming, crafting, and blog posting?!

Question here from Taji:

Hey friendly! I have a couple of questions for you that i need answered. You see if you have read my latest blog post, you will see that I am at a standstill in game. I don't have enough gold in game to continue my crafting quests at a very good rate, and I have been having trouble farming for my gear. So here are my questions:

1- Do you know of a good way to get a lot of gold fast?
2- Do you know of a way to get black lotus/black pearls fast (since they are so prominent in the Dragonspyre crafting quests)? Such as a place that has a lot of them or a technique that yields a lot of them?
3- Do you have any tips on farming for stuff, such as ways to make it faster, or make it easier?
4- Do you have tips for crafting overall?
5- And last but not least . . . how do you make so many long blog posts? I find it very hard and I can't seem to do it!
I would be very thankful if you answer these and thank you in advance!
—Taji34

Heya Taji!

Let's see if I can make this a short post!

1- Seven ideas for making gold.

2- Let me cut and paste idea 7 from that last link on making gold here: "Find a route and farm the nodes. For instance, I was in an area in Mooshu today and I was looking for the elusive Black Lotus spawn. I found a good route here that not only had black lotus, but also a couple treasure chests along the way. If you're just up for some running around, you need to find a route that you can run and farm multiple items in exactly one minute. You do this and then immediately jump to another server and run the same route backwards. Wash, rinse, and repeat. Owning a mount is great for doing this. Not only will you beat the walking people to the nodes (not that I condone racing to nodes mind you), but you'll be able to cover more ground and pick up even more nodes along the way."

Honestly, this is a huge wall for most people in crafting. Black lotus and black pearl are horrible to find because everybody needs them. I've yet to find a particular path that is loaded with black pearl/black lotus, but I will say that these maps are pretty accurate (take a look at Tataki Outpost). Those should help you plan out your route in advance.

3- The number one tip I can think of here is use a short deck. The main slowdown in anybody's farming is finding the right cards. If you have too big of a deck, you'll spend a longer time discarding unneeded cards and trying to find what you want. A little preparation in advance will save you tons of time in the long run. Only pack what you need to defeat what you're up against. This is probably the biggest time saver of them all . . . aside from having a pocket storm wizard.

4- Set your eyes on a grand goal. For instance, say, I want to craft a carousel. If you make yourself a goal, then it will increase your ability to persist through the more tedious parts of crafting. AND, plan to reward yourself in someway after you reach the goal. Always plan your goals with rewards at the same time. *friendly's uber tip of the day* Apply this throughout your life. word.

5- I'm not sure. It just kind of happens. I'm hardwired that way. Hopefully my posts aren't too long and tedious to read. The point isn't to be long-winded. No one likes to read long-winded. The point is to care enough about the topic that you do it justice.

Sooooo, I guess my tip here is two fold:

5a- WIDTH--always have a list of things you want to talk about. In question three I said that preparation will save you time . . . it'll also keep your mind full of ideas. Sit down every week and write a list of the things you want to talk about or research. Then each day sit down and type out one of those ideas.

5b DEPTH--find points in your writing where you can expand the topic. Give us something we don't know or maybe haven't thought about. There are usually hidden gems scattered throughout everything that covers a basic topic. Find spots where you can go deeper, and do it. Pictures are awesome for this.

whew . . . question five was the hardest to answer by far, Taji. yikes.

OH!!! 5c--answer questions for people . . . you'll never be short on topics. LOL.

Happy Dueling!

What's the quest chain to get to Crazed Forest Spirit?

Question from the man, the legend . . . I give you "mike"!

Hey friendly! it's mike. Did not want to take up to much of your time, so just a small question. That crab pet from the crazed forest spirit or something like that, i have been trying to farm him, but can't find the right side quest. Do you know what mooshu side quest it is? I want to be all hip for the grand opening of Celestia! :)

Cool cool. Well, since it's a short question, and I've learned much more since I attempted to answer this question long ago. Obviously, my answer came up short (and got chastised by Sorion, and I quote: "Doesn't stop there by the way xD Not by a long shot X_x")

1-The easy answer is go to Ironhawk's Moo-Shu Quest Guide on Central.

2- From there scroll down to (or Ctrl+F "mossback" to) the first mention of Mossback's first two side quests called "I'm cursed" and "Rock on" in Cave of Solitude. Make sure you've done those. If yes, continue on to step 3. If no, do those quests and continue on. You have to do the whole chain.

3- Scroll down to (or Ctrl+F "mossback" to) Mossback's side quests in Kishibi Village. Done those? Do those!

4- Scroll down to (or . . . you get the idea) Mossback's side quests in Shirataki Temple. Done those? Do those!

5- Mossback's side quests in Ancient Burial Grounds. Done those? Do those!

AND NOW, you should have your quest for Crazed Forest Spirit.

TADA!

IT'S CRABLING FARMING TIME!

At this point you might as well go on and finish the long quest chain here:

6- Wavebringer's side quests in Village of Sorrow.

7- Oakheart's side quests in Tree of Life.

Best of luck getting that Crabling!

Happy Dueling!

Mega Snack Pack is Back for Thee Attack!

Soooooooo,

This little card pack is expensive at 2,500 crowns. Seriously. I mean, which would you rather buy? Access to Cyclops Lane, Firecat Alley, and Colossus Boulevard . . . or one mega snack pack? That's just insane on the costs in comparison, isn't it? How many hours of fun have I had in those three zones compared to how quickly I blew through this one mega-snack pack? hmm?

Yeah, I bought one.


And, yeah, I used most of them to get Mister Brandy close to Ancient.


And, yeah, I have to tell you parents that this is the best reason to restrict your kids' crowns because IT'S AWESOME! It's so amazingly addictive to see those numbers fly and watch your pets improve at a huge pace! Evolution Pet Stones, er food, are THEZ BOMBZ! BOOOOOOMZ! The time savings is just HUMONGO(FROG)US, the will bonuses are DYNOMITE! The feeling of watching your pet soar to the next level IS AWESOME!

BOOOOOMZ!

Careful with those addictive snack packs my friends.

Careful.

*slowly backs away from the crown shop*

Happy Dueling!

Dopefish in Wizard101?

I think I just stumbled across a Dopefish reference in Wizard101!

"Dopefish?" you ask?

Yeah, see, almost all the games that Tom Hall has a hand in find a way to make some kind of Dopefish reference. It spans all the way back to the Commander Keen video game. Here's the wikipedia entry on it.

The catch here is that Tom Hall is (or was, not sure) working on the second project for Kingsisle . . . not necessarily Wizard101, but I'm almost certain he must have had a hand in things somewhere. I know that he's still a part of Kingsisle Entertainment for sure!

Anyway, Dopefish is usually a green fish with buckteeth. This "large fish" is orange with buckteeth.


Could it be? I think it's the closest we've got! :-)

I've mentioned Tom Hall a couple of times before on this blog:
- His stroke
- Initial mention

Happy Dueling!