Happy Halloween!

I just wanted to share our family's submission to the Wizards 101 October contest.





The hat is made out of zucchini, the eyes are made from cloves, the buttons and clasps are made from nails, and the wand casts a spicy balance spell from a slice of jalapeño.

Thanks Kingsisle! What a fun idea! We’ll be proudly displaying our pumpkin this year from our front porch.

Golem Albinism!

Have you ever heard of the Albino Squirrel Preservation Society?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albino_Squirrel_Preservation_Society

That’s one cute little dude on that link. I can see why there’s an organization for their preservation. A white squirrel like that out in nature would seem to scream eat me to a predator.

Well, it’s not a surprise that Wizards 101 has not forgotten our albinic friends (how many color schemes can you use for the same golem model from krokotopia anyway, eh); unfortunately, it is not my goal to preserve this fella . . . it’s my job to destroy him and his non-albinic preservation society members.



Also of note this week, awesome quest names . . . what’s your favorite quest name? I completed one this week called “you shall not pass,” which gets points for the cool LOTR reference . . . but this one goes down in the books:



Gotta love the nod to that band right there. I was so glad I was able to finish up the stray cats quest (another band name nod . . . of course) this week so I could start collecting my classic 80's rock hits.

Happy dueling!

Introducing Amber Deathsong

Hey everyone! I'd like you to meet someone!



(you can see me sitting in the desk back there in the back)

This is Amber Deathsong. Although her name may sound it, she's no necromancer. In fact, she's a level 13 life wizard! This is my 7-year-old daughter's character. She pretty much spams friend invites and quest requests--except when i'm playing her character, then she's more necromancer like.

My daughter got lost in a sea of unfinished quests and pleaded with me to help her get to Krokatopia, so I'm doing my best to help her out. She's close. It'll slow down my moo shu progress a bit for sure, but this character here is going to get some wings. I also started up a second account to play more with her. So there's also a level 8 diviner in my future as well. :-)

I'll be featuring Amber every once in a while on this blog since she is pretty awesome.

/waves like a pixie card

Mooshu Shmooshu

Thomas Lionblood stood resolutely at the doorway to the Mooshu world. Everything he had accomplished so far in his academic pursuits in the World of Wizards was preparatory for this one moment. He peeked inside and had a revelatory flash! Apparently there were more sidewalks in his future, only these were nice grass patches instead of cement.



. . . too many ninja pigs, too little time.

Yes, that is right friends! We are back to sidewalks here in Mooshu so far. We’re also back to some more excellent play on words.



HAM-etsu? oh that’s bad. Hametsu is the first major world you are directed to for some of that good ol’ fashion quest’y goodness.



Shojiro Gama here is a wisen’d bull ninja that sends you on your way. Holy cow that’s an awesome look he has on his face there. I should send him to go meet my friend the balloon car driver in Marleybone . . . I think they’d have a lot to not talk about.

So our town ninja and its citizens have you putting out fires, recovering stolen food, and using your Marleybone-esque detective skills to discover where the metal needs to be put to the curly tail.



This is Do-Daga, the main bad guy of Hametsu. He liked to talk smack and carry a gigantic axe. I wonder if there was ever a death metal band that dressed up like pigs?



This is Do-Daga after you pull the carpet from under him. Wee!

It looks like the Tatakai village is next up on deck! Wish me luck. :-) Any insights as to what should not be missed in Tatakai village are most welcomed.

Thanks for reading! Happy Card Dueling!

Plague Debuff Rocks

Just a quick message before I head to my real-life job.



I love the new plague debuff that targets ALL opponents. So nice. This is all.

The Final Throws

Hello again friends!

There I was ascending the Big Ben.

.."tick tock"

I couldn’t believe it.

.."tick tock"

For 13 floors I had dueled out victories and defeats both.

.."tick tock"

It was definitely a challenge to get to the top floor

.."tick tock"

and especially when you do all this ascending solo like I seem to do so much these days.

.."tick tock"

It took a while, lemme tell you.

.."tick tock"

*takes aim at the clock and duels out a meteor strike*

That's better. Now where was I . . . oh yeah, along the way I came to a boss that I probably could have avoided if I wasn’t spilling his milk so much.



Spike was no chump (well kind of a chump, I mean look at him with that cap). He had 3,500 hitpoints, and he came alongside two friends. That’s just a lot of hit points to chew through. I actually had to play my balance treasure card that allows me to reshuffle the used cards back into my deck. It was an intense and long battle . . . especially since fire wizards are well known to put out some nice DPR (damage per round . . . how do you like that new acronym?)

The top of Big Ben was amazing.

.."tick tock"

*points a figure at the clock threateningly*

*ticking stops*

You get to see the clock faces from the inside, but the real amazing sight was MALISTAIRE . . . and his trio of bad guys that looked like a painful combination: Death caster boss, Myth caster boss, and a pesky life wizard golem.



So, I went for it.

I was soundly defeated by the trio, BUT I was able to take out the life wizard before my defeat. I drank a potion and ran all those flights of stairs again (huff huff) and then gave those two bosses a shot without Mr. Spirit Armor helping out.



They liked to cast sharks on me. Go figure, it’s an alternate way of cleaning the floors in that place.

I’m happy to say that Meowiarty did fail in his plans, and I was able to stop him from causing any more mischief.



And then the rewards just flowed in.



I love the name of that new badge! It makes me think of that crazy MSI Mastermind song (that I won’t link you to since it has explicit lyrics).

Whew . . . so the end result of all that is of course . . .



It's time! TICK TOCK! Time for more happy dueling! Beware cattle! I'm on my way!

Thanks for reading! ;-)

Marleybone Death Throws

Hello friends!

Sadly, I'm sensing my time in Marleybone will soon come to an end. I've had a lot of fun, but I'm closing in on the Meowiarty fella. I do have a few words to say about the current content I’ve been dueling my way through.

Now here's a twist . . . clockwork spiders. For some reason I don't find them nearly as scary as the black widow or brown recluse I recently ran into. Clanker here was the first clockwork spider that I saw.



By the time I had finished up Katzenstein and the east counterweight of Big Ben, mecha-spiders were old school.

Katzenstein gave me a bit of trouble. Why?

For the Day 1 attempt, well I had a fella on my friend list who jumped in with me, and we just weren't meshing well together. Battles ended up taking longer, and we kept getting into more unnecessary fights with the random clockworks running around rather than just sticking to the boss fights. Also my hands were just not working out for me like they usually do. Bad draws. I ran out of time and had to leave.

For the Day 2 attempt I just simply didn't have enough time. I made it through the first couple bosses and oops . . . it was already time to get going into my real life adventures.

For the Day 3 attempt everything just fell into place and I finished the instance within my allotted hour of play time. Here's a good shot of the crazy-like-a-cat Dr. Katzenstein. If I remember right, he quoted me a cliché that sounded a lot like the lyrics to the Pet Shop Boys song, "opportunities." I don't know what's scarier . . . the cliché or that I had that Pet Shop Boys song in my head for the rest of the day. (I've got the brains, you've got the looks . . . hmmm hmm hmm hmm HMmmm)



After the good doctor filled his final prescription I got to talk to this Igor fella. (btw, anyone seen the new Igor film? Any good?) So you end up getting a chance to throw a lot of switches for Igor in the final room. My screenshot doesn't do justice to all the blue cartoony lighting flashing around this place.



Good times. Happy card dueling!

Favorite defeat animation

So far I have to say that this is my favorite defeat animation in game. (however I haven't seen anything in moo shuu yet . . . keep that in mind)



You know these chimney sweeps from Mary Poppins had to have been an inspiration to the developers. Notice in this video how there's a part when the chimney sweeps begin to circle mary poppins and the kids? I'm clearly reminded of that pavilion in Marleybone (is it ironworks?) where the street sweep frogs are slowly pacing in a circle. haha! And they are kind of frog-like in their movements. Maybe?

Yes! Magus!

Hooray! I hit 33rd level and earned the Magus title. :-)



Mr. Personality here tried to thwart me during my last bubble of 32nd level by trapping me on his balloon car . . . it worked for about 3 minutes. This guy is really milking his 15 minutes of fame.

Halloween Razzle Dazzle

Hello Friends!

From now until Oct 31, you should run yourselves to the mainland and check out all the Halloween goodies!



There's a special quest giver, pumpkins, and halloween lawn deco all over the place!



Which is spookier? Me with my krokomummy pet or the ghoul standup? Speaking of standups, will the real slim shady please stand up? please stand up? I guess I'm just imitating. (sorry, if you have no clue what I'm rambling about . . . here ya go.)



Thanks Kingsisle! I loved that I got a chance to run around blowing these things out. It brought a childhood memory to light. :-)

Happy card dueling!

Spiders 101

Hello friends,

*adjusts cap to appear more scholarly than usual*

Thank you for coming today to this Spiders 101 class. I do appreciate your attendance and please remember you are given citizenship grades in this class as well.

/ahem

Today we will be focusing on poisonous spiders.

Loxosceles reclusa, is a well-known member of the family Sicariidae. It's common name is the Brown Recluse spider . . . you may have also heard it called the fiddleback spider. Our friends at the world's most fantastic and user-editable encyclopedia will tell you that these spiders are 1/4 inch to 3/4 inch in size. I would like to remind my students that wikipedia is user-editable: they are clearly larger as shown in slide 1.



For a necromancer like myself, it's interesting to note that the bite of a brown recluse will cause necrosis. (only click that link if you have a strong stomach. /shiver). Necromancers and Necrosis share the same prefix, which stems from the Greek word Νεκρός, which means "dead."

I discovered a good way of making these things Νεκρός was to use bugspray. fantastic.



Another poisonous spider of note is the black widow. The venom of a black widow is very potent. You can die from their bite; however, it's more likely you will simply experience extreme pain. You can imagine my dismay when I was instructed to go play with one of these things. Is that reward really worth it?



I was even more dismayed when I discovered something wikipedia couldn't tell me about black widows . . . apparently they like to talk smack.



And wouldn't you know it . . . they are much bigger than the purported 35 millimeters in length, and they like to pal around with other poisonous spiders. Great. Ah the thrill!



Once again, bugspray seemed to do the trick.



*RING*

Blast that bell!

Be careful out there, fellow wizards, and enjoy the rest of your school day!

Happy Spider hunting!

/waves bye

Star Sighting!!!

Hey look! It's Bull from Knight's Court!

Life Wizards Picketing KingsIsle!

I was out declawing some scratchers and groaned a big groan. It was a groan that echoed throughout the walls of my house and bounced around the number of empty houses for sale on my block. Times are tough: Stock Market crashing, people gaining new hemorrhoids over presidential election worries, Wars dragging on, the critical eye of the world staring down our country, and then this . . . a scratcher casting a guardian shield.

Oh man. I hate those things. Life wizards love 'em. I hate them. It usually means that I have to chew my way through an extra 500 points of damage to get to the target below them.

BUT WAIT. A REVELATION! I couldn't believe my eyes!



Did that life stealing spell just jump right past the spirit armor? Holy Moly! (or "Holy Mole!" as I did eat some great Mexican food last night.)

My groan turned into a cheer, but I have to wonder how the Life wizards think about this? My daughter is a life wizard . . . I guess I should ask her! Then again, I guess the cards are doing as advertised. /shrug

Malistaire Drake Sighting!!!

CURSES!



No, I am not upset that this Meowiarty fella escaped. I'm upset because Malistaire was there by his side, and I wasn't fast enough on the screenshot button.

btw, those two welcomers were chumps for me and my minion card. just so you know . . .

on a side note, out of the blue my daughter asked me to read her chapter two of my wizards 101 fan fiction story last night. I was excited. She liked it! I laid down the bones of chapter 3, but I haven't had time to add the muscles and stretch the skin over it.

Species Bias--Who Shot the Sheriff?

My adventures have taken me into the depths (or heights rather) of the Scotland Yard prison. Unfortunately it seems all the real criminals have escaped and all the innocent have been left behind to plead their case to me. It's cool. I'll help them out because that's how the friendly necromancer rolls, yo.

I do have a side comment on the fact that most of the criminals are cats and the good guys are dogs. Marleybone is totally species biased. Outrageous. Ok, there, I said it. But, at least the dogs try to be humane in their capture of cats. Here's a picture from within the prison. See? They gave their prisoners free and colorful balls of yarn to play with. See?



You know . . . given the name of the town is Marleybone, right? Like Bob Marley, right? And given it's all about jail cells and criminals, right? I keep waiting to find a dreadlocked Chihuahua who quotes me the lyrics to "I shot the sheriff." You know, and maybe that NPC could even come along with an associated quest for finding the deputy's killer.



I really hope this happens.

If you can't beat em . . .

Join em . . .



Just call me Mr. Stoicism.

I think you can hear carmina burana in the background.

ominous . . .

wow . . . minion summoning . . . wow

Ok, so I had some great screenshots. had. My computer decided to die on me about two hours into my play this morning.

See, I had these great screenshots of me taking down this cat. A fat cat at that. He was hanging out in Chelsea Court in Marleybone. You had to defeat him nine times and then go back to Mr. Dworgyn with a pretty penny from said fat cat. Dworgyn then supplies you with a new card.

Wow . . . minion summoning . . . wow. This changes everything.

Let me tell you, I had SO much fun playing with minion summoning this morning after I got my new card. What a huge blast that was. It took me a few minutes to figure out what was going on with the summoning, but I've got it now. the more pips you have in your queue when you cast your minion, the stronger the minion you get. awesome.

So as far as I could tell, it went a bit like this:

1 pip = a rank 1 ghost (100 hitpoints or so)
2 pips = a rank 2 dark faerie (200 hitpoints) *taunts
3 pips = a rank 2 skeletal warrior (300 hitpoints) *taunts
4 pips = a rank 3 ghoul (400 hitpoints)
5 pips = a rank 3 ghost (500 hitpoints)
6 pips = a rank 4 banshee (600 hitpoints)
7 pips = a rank 4 scarecrow (700 hitpoints)
8 pips = a rank 5 ghost (800 hitpoints) *taunts
9 pips = a rank 6 banshee (900 hitpoints) *taunts
10 pips = a rank 6 ghoul (1000 hitpoints)
11 pips = a rank 6 Krokomummy (1100 hitpoints)
12 pips = a rank 6 skeletal warrior (1200 hitpoints)
13 pips = a rank 6 ghost (1300 hitpoints)
14 pips = a rank 7 wraith (1400 hitpoints)

I will update this blog post as I get more information.

I can't tell you how much easier the minion makes soloing. The lower minions serve as a target for enemies to dump their spells on, which protects you. The higher minions tend to cast DoT spells and are so tough. Most of them also come equipped with a frost spell that cuts the next spell damage to them in half. After the fourth pip, they will start to cast 4 pip spells at max (kraken usually).

More strategies on using the minion as I figure them out. It shouldn't be too tough to figure out the benefits. I love this spell. I'd only opt to not use it if my card line up and opponents were such that it would slow things down to cast a minion.

Happy Dueling!

Stoicism

Seriously . . . I'm on a quest to have Kingsisle name this toon Marcus Aurelius.



I mean, can't you just see him spouting, "How ridiculous and how strange to be surprised at anything which happens in life!"

why so serious?

This fella that flies the ship to Hyde Park . . .




. . . so stoic. Almost like a mannaquin. Unmoving. Dedicated. Loves his job. He didn't even blink at me when I stood in his line of sight. That guy is on autopilot for his entire existance. I wonder what his life is like outside of the balloon plane? hmmmmmmm. He probably doubles as a gangster informant for those burglers I've been killing there in Hyde Park. yeah, yeah, kinda shifty like that, yeah.

Down to the Wire, Saved by a Friend

In looking through my quest list, I discovered that I had left behind a couple quests in krokotopia. So I find myself locked in battle with the minotaur boss out there in the open in that entry room with Shelek the Wise on Sphinx Isle. This guy come along with two adds. I have one guy on my list, and that's it. nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I ask if he'll help . . . he's busy . . . he'll come as soon as he can.

So I jump in and I'm getting hammered by these three. I get one down before I'm miserably defeated. Sigh. Well, I'm thinking, let me just go back there and see if he's still there. Wouldn't you know it, he's still there and he now only has one of his friends! I tried to go at it again, and I think . . . ok, kill off his other friend before defeat and come try it again. Nope. My plan seemed to work perfectly, except he despawned.

sigh.

So I respawn the event and give it a third try. Somehow my cards just landed perfectly this time around, and I kill off his two adds, and I'm doing pretty good at keeping myself alive! wow! I'm fighting and fighting and healing and healing, and it's getting down to the wire because for the first time, my full card deck is getting near empty. WOW.

So I find myself with one skeletal pirate that could be up to 4 pips away, and hardly anything else worth mentioning. I think a myth buff card or two. He's almost defeated and I have about half life. I could be defeated . . .

When poof!



YAY! My good friend Calab magically jumps to me. This is a surprise since he wasn't on my friend list before when I checked. Whew. In typical Han Solo fashion, he comes zooming in and finishes this guy off. I love when that happens.

Amazing.

This was a battle to go down in the books. Definitely.

Patch Day October 1

Haha! This is the best news ever! No longer will our unique pets all be named Baby Abbey!!!!! I'm excited to see what strange combinations pop up on the unique pets.

Here's the full patch message below:

Big News!
1. All new pets dropped by bosses will no longer only be named Baby Abbey, they will now have a randomly generated name.
2. The floating book pedestal in Crimson Fields appears to have been fixed.
3. Choose your friends wisely. The size of the Friends List is no longer unlimited. Each character can have a maximum of 100 friends, if you have 100 or more friends now, you cannot add new friends until you remove enough people from your list to bring the total under 100.

Spells
1. Steal spells now describe the "steal" action.
2. Accuracy for the Stun and Freeze spells has been increased to 70%
3. Quench spell Rank has been reduced to 2
4. Melt spell Rank has been reduced to 2
5. Dissipate spell Rank has been reduced to 2
6. Rebirth's spell accuracy has been reduced


Krokotopia
1. Djeserit Dwellers will turn to dust when they are defeated in a duel.
2. Oka looks much more like his portrait.
3. Players can no longer interact with the Frozen Forge multiple times.
4. Zan'ne may ask you to do the Tome of the Fang quest again.
5. Desert Golems give credit for both Elemental and Golem badges.
6. Completing the quest "A Fang in Hand" is no longer be required for "Master of the Oasis" Badge.
7. Shackled Slaves will no longer have the word 'Shackled Slave' over them.

Moo Shu
1. The Myth Wand available in Moo Shu is now available for all schools of Wizards to use.
2. Players can no longer use "Teleport To Friend" when another player is inside Fushiko's dojo in Village of Sorrow, since it is now a single-player instance zone. You are meant to complete this on your own as a test of your ability.
3. The floating book pedestal in Crimson Fields appears to have been fixed.

Misc
1. Cyrus has been busy with his red corrective pen again, this time he's been correcting grammar and spelling.
2. Many treasure cards have new cinematics when they are cast.
3. At the Wizard Creation screen, buttons have been added to rotate your character during character creation. You can still use the mouse to do this as well.
4. The names of all the mini games can now be said in Text Chat.

I also want to point out some cool news from the newsletter: Unique Halloween items in exchange for crowns!!

Happy Card Dueling.