Wandcast 7!

Wandcast 7 is going live tonight!

If you have some time tonight, you should go check out what the infokids be throwin' down!


They have more information on their blog, but here's a list of the start times:

8:30 pm Eastern
7:30 pm Central
6:30 pm Mountain
5:30 pm Pacific

They're trying to break 20 people in the chatroom, so they'd appreciate the support! (I think they'll be playing my Celestia pre-quest song tonight, woot!)

Happy Dueling!

Why do they call me a noob?

Question here from Jessica GreenRiver:

I love your blog and I just wanted to ask you a question about Wiz

Lately I've noticed how I've been called a noob by some Grandmasters.

This makes no sense to me because I'm a level 38 and I don't go around breaking feints with wand spells (or anything like that). I don't annoy them but they just come up to me and call me a noob. I just don't get why some Grands do that...Some advice please?

Let's see . . . hmmmm . . . why are they calling you a noob . . . hmmmmm.

I think it's because they have a need to feel superior because in real life they smell, have no friends, and get spanked by their mommy when their fat, little fingers steal cookies from the pantry.


Don't let them get to you. At Level 38 you can help out high level combat in all kinds of ways. Remember when I had my level 20 myth wizard tank Malistaire for my storm wizard? Yeah, you're no noob at level 38. They're just trying to scare you off or make themselves feel superior.

Unfortunately, you're not going to win if you get in an argument with these types of people. You gotta just let the comments go, and just know that some of the strongest spells we have in the game were given to us at level 10 and lower . . . shields. You should arm yourself with mental shields against their noobie comments as well. Anytime you join a fight with someone like this, just imagine yourself casting a noobie comment shield or two or five. They can't break into you with their noobie comment spells!

Be strong!

Happy Dueling!

The Questions of Mythstone

Mythstone has MANY questions

Hey Friendly,
I have some questions for you. Hope you can handle it.
1. Why haven't I seen pets cast spells yet, during the test realm, my Prince Midnight (Fire salamander, now a teen) casted a pixie even though he was a baby, now I see no pets casting spells.
2. Why is one of the Obsidian chests in an Oakheart quest only place. It is no fair to people who didn't do the Oakheart quests (for the record, I had no idea what the heck 'oakheart quests' are)
3. The Miner Mole in Digging Doug (or whatever it is called) and that zoo game, is said to be a pet, but it has never been seen at all. Is it a clue to a new pet or an upcoming underground/or insect world?
4. There is a fun dungeon in each world, Wizard City=Sunken City, Krokotopia= Tomb of Beugiler (sorry for spelling), Marleybone= Keingston Park and Grizzlehiem=the two other dungeons near Hall of Valor. So, why isn't there one for MooShoo?!
5. Why is Cyrus Drake bald? Did he ever have hair on his head? I wonder, and kinda fear, what he would look like with hair?

Hilarious. Ok, let's see.

1. All healing spells were being cast by pets back in the test realm when they were first released. That was weird for most because the pet really wasn't the one casting the spell, so they took that away . . . temporarily . . . read on.

We also have some pets that manifest procs (or interrupts) as talents. Some of the percentages of chance to cast shields and blades and traps seem to be extremely low. (I would recommend that Kingsisle reevaluate the proc percentages on all those.) On the other hand, the Fog Unicorn is proc'ing her pixie spell all the time! WOOT! I love that little Fog Unicorn. Procs like this have been being cast "from the pet" this whole time, however, since the rates on procs are low we didn't see our pets casting as much as we'd like, right? RIGHT!

SOOOO, the most recent test realm has our pets casting again, only it's not the healing spells, they are now casting the card they come equipped with if you play that card, which makes much more sense. My wraith now casts his own card when I select it.

~~~~~

2. /shrug Because they want you to? You could always find one of your friends who has done the quests and use them to get to the chest.

~~~~~

3. I've never heard that. weird. I could see us going to an insect world for sure though! That would be kind of cool to have a mole guide us into the tunnels of a shadow weaver hive. Nice idea!

~~~~~

4. Good point. I don't know why MooShu doesn't have a cool side-quest dungeon. But what I do know is that the Tree of Life Instance in Moo Shu has a couple of hidden bosses that aren't part of the main instance. Perhaps they felt those bosses were compensation enough?

You know, now that I think about it, the Mossback/Oakheart quest takes you into that part of the Tree of Life instance and then also ends in a dojo where you can only access it if you have completed the quests . . . maybe the Mossback/Oakheart quests are MooShu's answer to the side-quest dungeon?

Dragonspyre lacks one of these side-quest dungeons too. Hmm. I think Dragonspyre lacking a side-quest dungeon is even weirder than Moo Shu lacking one. What's up with that? I wonder if Celestia will have one?

~~~~~

5. Malistaire got the good looks. Cyrus got the good soul.


(Picture graciously lifted from Wizard101 Central)

Actually, what I heard is that he heard that Miley Cyrus was going bald and since they are friends because of the name thing, that he'd just go with it too.



Comedy Theurgists had a joke competition and M.W.S. down in the comments had a good explanation: "Why is Cyrus Drake bald?! A orthrus blew off all his hair! No wonder it has gone in Wizard City history books!"

So readers . . . why do you think Cyrus Drake is bald?

Thanks for the questions, Mythstone!

Happy Dueling!

Do bosses drop permanent mounts?

Bryan has a question:

hey FN, its me again
I was wondering:
Are there any boss that drop permanent mounts?

There's a lot of debate about this, and this was a really hot question back in February when the Wing Mounts came out. On 22 February I asked Professor Greyrose about Winged Mounts (and mounts dropping from bosses in general) and she pointed me to a thread on Wizard101.com. It basically said . . . we will let you know when the drop rate has been reset.

We've never heard back about that as far as I know. /shrug

Since that time KI put the temporary mounts in the game as drops. I don't know if anybody has farmed Nightshade lately, but the last time I did I had about four 1-day mount drops by the time I finally got my blue banshee pet.

So, I asked Professor Greyrose about this again for you. She basically said that the only mounts that were dropping in the game currently were the temporary ones.

Now, given that . . . I'm not sure. Maybe there is some slim chance somewhere out there in the spiral that there is a mount on a loot table somewhere that has some crazy .0001% chance of dropping, but if it's so slim as to make our Greyrose say don't farm 'em, they aren't dropping, don't, stop, wait, you shouldn't waste your time, etc. I'd listen to her.

The only reason I'll give you that .0001% chance is because the moment I hit publish, I'll be getting people saying "so and so got a wing mount from the jade oni a week ago!" And my response would probably be . . . are they lying?

It is strange though since we seem to be getting some conflicting information . . . Every crown item you can buy in the game (aside from henchmen and potions) should also be in the game as a drop or for gold. We know that because of answer number nine from week one of questions over at central, which states:

"Items and services that can be purchased with Crowns are purely a luxury, and are either offered also for Gold or drops on creatures. The only items that are restricted to only being available for Crowns are those that shortcut the game in some way, such as Potions and Henchmen."

Hmmm . . . What do I take away from all that?

1- Some drop rates on crown items have to be adjusted . . . stay tuned for more.
2- Temporary mounts are dropping from a few Wizard City bosses like Rattlebones and Nightshade (probably more across the spiral as well) at a pretty good rate. FARM THOSE INSTEAD! YAY!
3- I'd rather be lucky than good because with low drop rate percentages, you better be extremely lucky or have a load of time to kill, which I am not and don't. Please go volunteer some time at your local library before wasting it on finding a mount drop somewhere in game.

*2 cents.*

Happy Dueling!

FW: Update: RE: Failed to Load Instance Zone

Another news item!

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

Housing Issue

It is once again safe to return to your Castles & Dorms in the Live Realm.
If you received the message "Failed to Load Instance Zone" please try to
access your home again.
Housing in the Test Realm is still under repair.

~~~~~~~~~~

You know, I've been getting a lot of reports from readers that this repair
probably had something to do with a glitch where people were able to "steal"
items from other people's houses? That doesn't sound good. Good to see a
resolution on the live realm.

Anybody have a horror story from this experience? I'm all about hearing the
horror stories. *Puts on Jason Mask* *Grabs Krueger Claws*

Happy Dueling!

FW: Wizard101 T-Shirt Design Contest

Another message here from the news wire!

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

Contest!

It's time for another contest!
Our Zazzle t-shirts are so popular that we wanted to give our fans a chance
to design a t-shirt that could be featured on the Zazzle store! For more
information, visit our Contest Page!

https://www.wizard101.com/game/community/contests

~~~~~~~~~

Go, go, creative people!

Happy Dueling!

FW: Failed to Load Instance Zone

This note just came across the news wire

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

Access to Wizard Housing is temporarily unavailable.
You will receive the message Failed to Load Instance Zone if you attempt to
teleport to your Dorm, or Castle. Thank you for your patience, your houses
will be open again soon.

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

Bailey verified this problem getting into her house. Sounds like they are
aware of the problem. Looks like you'll have to run the long way to get
where you're going this morning. LOL.

Happy Dueling!