I Say, Embrace Your Inner Wikia!

So, I've never worked on a wiki before. EVER. I've never contributed one ounce . . . until today. I decided today to conquer my unnatural fear of wikis by adding to the wonderful Wizard101 Wikia. One reader of The Friendly Necromancer, Matthew Willowblossom (He also goes by the name "Potroast" over on the wikia), is one of the admins of the site and seems to be a great guy.

I say let's join Matthew, EMBRACE WIKIA MY FRIENDS! Yes, kind readers, let us embrace this wonderful resource and make it "some kind of wonderful" for all the players yet to come. We NEED to embrace this. Seriously, if you have gone through the game once with a character and are questing through the game a second time, you have no reason to not help out with building this site after today. Got it? Good.

So, with that said, I would like to unveil a little of what I worked on today at Wikia. Here's how it played out . . . .

I was looking at the Dragonspyre portion of Wikia, and I noticed just how sparse it really was. There's the entrance area of Dragonspyre and a couple other zones . . . and then that's it. Well, my son's and daughter's characters just happen to be in the third area of the Atheneum, The Grand Chasm.

So, while I was playing today I opened up Microsoft Word and decided to keep track of a couple quests I was running.

So I did . . . and this is what I wrote down.

Level 45 quest

Crystal crawlers are rank 8 ice wizards

1270 hit points

cast: Tower shield
Ice elf
Ice blade
Ice trap
Ice wyvern

They wander with rank 7 death wizards named “undead wizard”
cast: Ghoul
Vampire

Edrik tells you the one you collected was not perfect but it will do.

1550 exp for completing the quest

Follow up quest is called Charged up

------------
Charged up

Edrik wants you to go talk to Belia Windgazer to get admittance to the vaults.

She says “You want admittance into Edrik Scatterglow’s valut? Normally, that would require three signatures, but considering the circumstances . . .”

“Here’s the key to Edrik Scatterglow’s vault . . . no signature required! Get Edrik Scatterglow’s charger from Valut D on Floor 8”


315 exp
108 gold

Follow on quest is “Just Charge it”

------
Just Charge it

I then went to Wikia and discovered that I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I read the help file. I read the help file's help file. I read the help file of the help file's help file. I still couldn't figure out what the heck I was supposed to do. Then that Dragonspyre Brazier went off in my head, OK, I need to create a page for The Grand Chasm since there wasn't one created for it yet, THEN, I could enter in my quest information.

Then I decided . . . well, why recreate the wheel? Right? I mean, if the work of setting up a new zone page has already been done by someone else, why not copy and paste it into the one that *I* want to do. So I went into the Wizard City file, clicked "edit this page," and copied the code information for Unicorn Way, which looked like this.

[[Image:UnicornWayStatue.png|thumb|left]]


'''Unicorn Way''' is the location of the first line of main quests. It has recently become plagued by corrupted [[Dark Fairy|Dark Fairies]] and various Undead. Here, the player must, amongst other things, discover the reason behind the corruption of the fairies and help clear away some of the Undead from the streets.


==Map==
[[Image:UnicornWay.png]]

==NPCS==
:[[Ceren Nightchant]]
:[[Private Connelly]]
:[[Ugo Kalahad]]
:[[Olivia Dawnwillow]]
:[[Diego the Duelmaster]]

==Creatures==
:[[Lost Soul]]
:[[Dark Fairy]]
:[[Fairy Queen]]
:[[Skeletal Pirate]]

==Places Of Interest==
:[[Dorothy Gale's House]]
:[[Lady Blackhope's Tower]]
:[[Rattlebones Tower]]
:[[Hedge Maze]]
:[[Arena]]

==Connects To==
:[[Commons]]

Then I hopped over to the red link (that means a page isn't built for that area yet) for The Grand Chasm and pasted the Unicorn Way code into the Grand Chasm code. Then it was as simple as deleting all the NPCs, connecting areas, etc. of Unicorn way and then filling in the NPCs, connecting areas, etc. of The Grand Chasm. Then, I clicked the upload picture file button and uploaded the map I had snapped a screenshot of. And for a finishing touch, I even made a cool banner for the page. (hehe, I took liberties and put "The Friendly Necromancer" on the map and included Amber Deathsong on the banner graphic . . . hope that's ok . . . it should be! Stuff like that will make people want to fill in the wikia so they get their character's name seen!)

The result looks like THIS: CLICK ME!

Awesome, ain't it? Now all I'll have to do from now on is have Wikia up in the background as I quest with my kids' characters and fill in all the red links as I go through the following zones. By the time my kids have plowed through this content, I'm hoping I will have helped this Wikia grow and thereby helped out every single following person who wants to know about this stuff . . . UNLESS YOU BEAT ME TO IT! And believe me, I don't think the admin of the Wikia site will object at all if everyone pitches in and builds a grand wiki for all Wizard101 players to use.

There's still a TON more I need to understand about our Wikia, but at least I'm on the road here, right? RIGHT!

I hope you all catch the fire of this, and as I update the Wizard101 Wikia, I hope you all will join me to make it a great resource. NAY, I'm counting on all of you to jump in and help this site become awesome. Wizard101 is too great of a game to allow our wiki to have big holes in it like this. Pitch in, and let's make OUR WIKIA golden.

Happy Dueling!

I'm a member, how come I can't go to all the worlds?

I just received the following question from a reader named Winter.

I want to go to the
other worlds in the
spiral but when I
go in the big tree,
and i go to the
door, it only shows
Wizard City on the
map even when i
bought all the
world? Do you have
an answer for that?

Congratulations on becoming a subscriber! When you purchase the world with crowns or when you subscribe to the game it allows you to play Wizard101 content beyond Triton Avenue.

On the other hand, this means you've got a lot of work to do! You've got to complete those quests in each area as you advance from land to land. Completing the main storyline quests in Wizard City will earn you a key for Krokotopia. Completing the main storyline quests in Krokotopia will earn you a key for Marleybone, and so on until you have all the doors unlocked.

In the meantime, if you just want to *see* the other worlds of the spiral, you need to make some friends with a few people who can get you beyond the door. Sometimes you'll see people hanging out in front of the spiral door asking passerbys if they could become friends. Why? Once those people enter the spiral door, they'll port to their new friend on the other side to get a glimpse of the worlds earlier than they are meant to.

The game really is meant to be played in a way that you work through quests in every area before you move on to the next world of the spiral.

Buckle down and get those quests done, wizard student, and the spiral will fully reveal itself in time! Hours and hours of fun await!

Happy Dueling!

Housing Item of the Day--Model MB Automobile

I've been meaning to put this up on the Item of the Day for a while now. It's one of the most expensive crown items out there, and I decided I really needed one parked out front.



Seriously, what house is complete without a car parked out front? The rumor is that Marleybone bosses can also drop one of these from their loot tables. So if you get one that way, consider yourself lucky!



You know, I read in an article somewhere (can't find it now; thought it might be this, but that wasn't it) that in the future Kingsisle would like to make some of the housing items "useable." Wouldn't it be awesome if your car here opened up a driving mini-game for your house guests to play? Yup, it'd be awesome.

Happy Dueling!

Bonus Item of the Day--Spouted Lava Fountain and Imperial Banner

That's the thing about weekends . . . there's never a shortage of friends running around willing to show off their awesome stuff. So today and today only, you are getting bonus items of the day! BONUS!

First up is the Spouted Lava Fountain from our old friend Kraysys.



That fine specimen there belongs to Alex Dragonblade. Thanks for adding an item of the day to the list, Alex. Some people may say they are the biggest fan of the Friendly Necromancer, but Alex assures me they are all wrong because *he's* the biggest fan of this site. Are you 7'2" Alex? Future basketball wizard I'm sure.

Next up is a wonderful imperial banner from the Jade Oni courtesy of our old friend Sean Emeraldweaver.



I was helping Sean finish up Mooshu when he got that! Gratz again on finishing up Mooshu (hope you get that quest journal problem sorted out.)

You're a new Fire Wizard and you need help?

Another visitor question here, and this time it comes from carme1311.

I'm a new fire
student and I needd
some
help!!!!!!!!!!!!

New fire student, eh? Awesome. Fire students are masters of damage over time spells and putting out stuns!

My first suggestion for you would be to get out there and do those quests! There's nothing more educational than playing the class and finding out what works best for you. The next thing I'm going to suggest for you is that you sign up to Wizard101 central. Those are the forums. On the forums there are many class specific sections.



That's the one you want right there. There are three pages of helpful posts in that section. You'll find everything from pvp advice, to setting up a deck, to your complete spell list.

I have yet to play a fire wizard, but I think it would be cool . . . as evidenced by this post.

Also, while you're at Wizard101 central, check out the forum called "In game quest help and meet ups." That's a good place to ask for people to help you with your questing.

Best of luck and Happy Dueling!

How do you get statues onto pedestals?

We've got another question here. This time it comes from Morgrim Hexmender aka Malfi

Here's the question:

Hey Friendly! I
don't think my last
question went
through! I was
wondering how you
got your statues
onto pedestals? I
couldn't get my
unicorn statue to
sit on top of my
life pedestal. HELP!

Thanks for the question, Malfi! You're right, I don't have any record of your previous question . . . weird. Thanks for trying again.

As for your question, I actually already brought this up in this post here (click me) when the life pedestal was the item of the day.

Basically, the life pedestal appears to be broken! Please bug report this item if you can. All other pedestals in the game have been working for me. You just place the statue on top of the pedestal after setting the pedestal down. It should be easy, but for some reason I have had no success with the life pedestal in particular.

Happy Dueling!

Housing Items of the Day--Ruined Dragonspyre Ring and Ninja Pig

I was hanging out at Michael Firecatcher's house when he decided to show me a couple of his prized possessions. We decided to make them the items of the day right then and there!



This first item is the Ruined Dragonspyre Ring. When I asked Michael where he got it from, the answer was a bit cryptic ("Tower of Arch"), so I'm hoping someone (maybe Michael himself) will clarify in the comments to this thread exactly where it came from . .. hopefully the name of the boss. (**NOTE** Morgrim, a reader of the blog let me know that this comes from Petrov in Gloomstrider's Tower in The Tower Archives **NOTE**)



The second item is a bit more well known, this is the Ninja Pig from the Jade Oni.



I'd love to get my hands on one of those for my statue collection.

Happy Dueling and Thanks, Michael!

Housing Item of the Day--Dragonskull Obelisk

Today's Item of the Day can be found in Dragonspyre near the Robes and Hats vendor (upstairs in Milos Bookworm's place in the Atheneum).



It's one of those run in and click on it to loot it items.



It's really a cool piece that hovers and glows. it's one of those really odd pieces that you just have to have somewhere in your house. For now mine is stashed inside of my bookshelf maze, but I may go take it up by my other monuments in the future. hmmm. Not sure.

Happy Dueling!

Evil Twin Chat Episode 20

(click comic to enlarge)

Well here's what I do know. Gamemom (Part of the PR team) said she wasn't going to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), and Nelson Everhart said in an e-mail to me that he'd be done with the first track of Grizzleheim's music today (he's been researching a lot of viking and Norse music, which is tough since not much of their musical history was ever written down). I wouldn't dare speculate and say that Todd Coleman will be unveiling Grizzleheim at E3, but it sure seems to be good timing considering E3 is June 2-4. And knowing their past action of unveiling player housing at the Game Developers Conference . . . makes a guy quote an old TV personality, "Things that make you go, hmmmmmmm."

If I get anything verified, I'll let you know and keep you informed. In the meantime I can only speculate and cause confusion.

Happy Dueling!

Where are all the quests?

I just had a question asked through my handy gadget over there on the right hand side!

You know, this thing.



And here is the question that was posted to me:

WHERE ARE ALL THE
QUESTS AND
ONE OF YOU PLEASE
MEET LIAM MYTHMENDER
AT THE RAINBOW
BRIDGE WATERFALL

Thank you Liam Mythmender for your question. I was starting to wonder if anyone would ever use that thing.

I don't think there is a definitive place for all the quests, but almost all the low level quests are found at the Wiki! Click here.

The problem here with meeting you at the rainbow bridge waterfall is that you forgot to include the realm and area, and a range of times and dates would help "us" find you.

How do you find the realm you're currently on you may ask? Well wizard101.com has a wonderful guide on how to play this game, and on this page they tell you all about realms and how to change them.

Hope that helps!

Happy Dueling!

Evil Twin Chat Episode 19

Oh Snap, Evil Twin!

Happy Dueling!

Evil Twin Chat Episode 18

(click comic to enlarge)

There they are! They've been hiding out back in my house! Silly kids.

Happy Dueling!

Game Improvement Ideas

Tara over at West Karana asks what improvements we’d like to see to the game. I agree with her list, and here’s a couple more of my own:

1)Improved group combat

In some MMO’s like LOTRO and a couple other MMOs, there are certain moments during combat that a group move can be opened up to add damage to your opponents or heal or buff your group. I would love to see this kind of mechanic added to the relatively standard card game in Wizard101. This would come in the form of a card that opens up a kind of combo move for the group. Imagine that the person in the Sun position plays the group card, then depending on the following three cards played, one group animation and combat move was executed. So the first person plays the group card, and the next three people play a fire elf card . . . boom . . . Alicane Swiftarrow appears and puts a DoT on all opponents for twice the normal damage of a fire elf card. Or, the same scenario, only this time one player plays a lightning damage spell, another plays a fire damage spell, and the final player plays a cold damage spell and a swarm of hydras appear and damage the opponent based on the number of pips on the players damage cards. Group moves would give players a reason to reach into other schools of magic because the damage potential from a group move would make it even more effective than a single cast from their own school.

2)Mischief spells

You’re hanging out at your house and all of a sudden a gobbler appears to take over your screen and splats your screen with a pie. You’re in the middle of fighting Malistaire when all of a sudden a flying pig flies across your screen and blows you a kiss. You’re hanging out at someone’s house when “poof” you’re put in a troll costume for five minutes. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this game needs more comic mischief. I want the ability to play a trick on my friends in my friends list. This would be a spell that you cast, that costs mana just like it does when you mark a bind point. Accomplishments or side quests would open up mischief spells.

3) PVP Improvements

I've talked about this before in another post, but seriously a truce button and a silence other team button would be amazing.

Feel free to post a few of your own ideas! You know you have them. Why are you being all selfish with your ideas? huh? HUH?!

jk

Happy Dueling!

Housing Item of the Day--Clawed Statue Base

Yesterday I jumped online and ran through the Labyrinth just to see what kind of goodies I could get. I'm a bit strapped for gold these days since going a little crazy on my house (which isn't near being done). Zora Steelwielder decided to get down off her pedestal and . . . give it to me!



I wonder how many pedestals there actually are in the game? I wonder if anyone out there has a pedestal collection? That's gotta be one of the most boring collections one could do in the game, but hey! If you ever do undertake that forsaken task, I'd have to say this pedestal right here would be the crown jewel. LOL.



Mr. Cyclops sits nicely on that.

Happy Dueling!

Housing Item of the Day--Nightshade Bones and Tiger Lily

It's a memorial day weekend special!

I was in kind of a hurry this morning, but Nightshade did cough up a few bones for me while I was running to grab a brain jar . . . how convenient!



So, yeah, I stopped by the graves. It was a good moment.



(Actually, I did put some flowers on a few graves this weekend in real life. Dropped by my dad's grave. My dad actually died a month before Amber Deathsong was born. He was a great man, and this was a holiday where for some reason he really liked to go all out on flowers for graves. I'm a bit more conservative, but I did go a little more overboard on flowers for his grave this year . . . I think I miss him and his guidance. I digress.)

The tiger lily can be acquired at the Mooshu shop! So I bought a couple of those for Nightshade's brain jar and bones. The only thing that would make this more perfect would be a tombstone from Sunken City. Maybe one of these days.



Happy Memorial Day Weekend and Happy Dueling!

Housing Item of the Day--Pillory

Well, well, well. Break out the public humiliation devices and call us crazy, today's item of the day is THE PILLORY! MUHAHAHA!

Ahem, excuse me. For some reason these things make it really hard to suppress the raging necromancer inside me, like Edward in Twilight . . . only not as pretty and stuff.

What's that you say? Did I just mention the book/movie Twilight?



So, if you want one of these ancient public humiliation devices, you may pick yours up in Sandor Spearcaller's place in the Plaza of Conquest. You don't even have to fight him. Just skip to the left side of him and it's there just up for the grabs as if it was a craigslist special.

So Elijah happened to be around when I was doing my boring old item of the day post, and I just had the pillory in the side room here all by itself. But, NO, Elijah said, "Hey Friendly, go grab a campfire, a couple book ends, and some chairs." My mind immediately knew where he was going with this. The end result is the judgement room/torture viewing room.





Yes, here you are put in the stocks and made to confess and repent of all your wizard101 wrong doings in front of a searing flame! MUHAHAHAH! I CAN'T RESIST THE NECROMANCER INSIDE ME ANYMORE! OH! SO YOU WENT AFK FOR AN HOUR IN THE MIDDLE OF A KENSINGTON RUN, EH? TO THE PUNISHMENT ROOM! or how about YOU PULLED ME INTO A FOUR HOUR PVP MATCH? PUNISHMENT TIME!

And last but not least:



tsk tsk tsk.

For some reason I feel like I need to take a bath after this housing item of the day.

um.

Happy Dueling!

House Item of the Day--Frozen Stone Pedestal

I got this pedestal when I was farming Sunken City.



But, from what I'm reading, this is one of the many random drops from all creatures in Wizard City, just like the prop houses, and the prop mountains. So I slipped that new frozen pedestal underneath a statue, and snapped this here screenshot.



Happy Dueling!

Grizzleheim Speculations

Let's speculate shall we?

Even though our model in the Grizzleheim pictures is wearing dragonspyre clothing, he is sporting a really cool looking fire stick.


That's got to be a grizzleheim weapon. I say good on them for bringing back the wands. I hope it has an awesome casting graphic, or I think people would rather stick with their swords.

**MYTHBUSTER ALERT! Elijah just let me in on the fact that the wand in this photo is the fire wand from mooshu. Thanks Elijah! MYTHBUSTER ALERT!**

Then again, you've all seen this graphic right here I'm sure.



Look at those weapons they're brandishing! I'd love to have a cool spear. I think it'd need to have a glow though.

And speaking of the above picture, it's mighty full of awesomeness: sword carrying bears, giant treant beasts, vultures reaking of death magic. Yup.

Notice how there are nine of them? Here's my second speculation. If Grizzleheim is anything like Krokotopia, Marleybone, and Dragonspyre, you will have three distinct areas with at least three sub-areas in each. Right?

- In Krokotopia you had Tomb of Storms, The Pyramid of the Sun, and the Krokosphinx.
- In Marleybone you had Scotland Yard, Digmoore Station, and the Royal Museum.
- In Dragonspyre you had the Atheneum, Dragonspyre Acadamy, and the Necropolis.

And each of those areas had around three or four subdivisions each.

What if what our graphic here is really showing are the nine major bosses from Grizzleheim? hmmm? hmmm?!

Well maybe that's enough speculation for one night.

I wonder if the level cap will be raised 5 or 10 levels? I'm hoping 10 levels with 2 more spells.

ok, ok . . . seriously, that's enough speculation from me.

Go ahead and leave your own Grizzleheim speculations in the comments.

Happy Dueling!

Mythspent's Awesome T-shirt Designs!

L. R. Jonte (from the Mythspent Youth blog) has these awesome T-shirt designs for sale on Mysoti.

I'm quite fond of this design myself!



Nice work, L. R.!

Happy Dueling!

Housing Item of the Day--Stack of Two Books

Ever wonder what furniture item you get for completing the library dues book quest? Yup, I wondered that too, so I took Isaiah and The Evil Twin on a journey back to Wizard City to find out.



After defeating the six or so bosses in Wizard City all over again, I discovered that I get a small stack. Not a small stack of pancakes as I was hoping for. (I need to stop writing these posts early in the morning before I've eaten.) But a stack of two books. Isaiah planted these on his desk in his dorm room.



Happy Dueling!

Housing Item of the Day--Scroll

As you hopefully know, Isaiah and The Evil Twin are working their way through krokotopia, which means more "side quests" that are quickly becoming known (in my mind at least) as "furniture quests."

Today's quest was to reveal the history of the manders by tracking down a book containing all those hidden pieces of history for people like Zan'ne here.



WHOA LOOK AT THOSE REWARDS FILLING THE SCREEN!



I never ever get tired of seeing that. :-) It's like dipping your hand into a co-worker's candyjar right after you give them some work to do. BOOM!

Isaiah dropped his scroll on the ground since he has no desk to place it on in his dorm room and it's true purpose was born.



GOOD BOY DUKE ANGEL! GOOD BOY! If only I had two of those, so there would be one for each head. hmmmm.

Happy Dueling!

Grizzleheim

Ok, so Grizzleheim is all the talk here today. It looks like What They Play got to break the story. Gratz to them, that's a great organization and a great choice for releasing this information.

Tara over at West Karana got wind of it after gamermom twittered about it. I really need to follow Gamemom on twitter because she's all over the wizard101 scoops it seems like. Nice work, Gamemom. And Nice work, Tara.

So I drove to work (I pulled off to the side of the road on the way and tried to enter "seveneleven" into the wizard101 website, but couldn't find where to type it /shrug . . . gratz to Sean Emeraldweaver for getting a bug) and back channeled Professor Greyrose over e-mail with my congratulations on giving the scoop to What They Play. I also shot Nelson Everhart a message saying, we gotta do another interview on the music of Grizzleheim OR SOMETHING. He shoots me back an e-mail and get this . . . the music for Grizzleheim hasn't been written yet. So don't get too excited just yet. There's some stuff there that needs to happen still. I don't think you're going to see it busting out on the test server tomorrow or anything like that.

Around 3:00 pm or so, Kingsisle drops the press release on the rest of the world. After that, the news was basically wild fire. Where was I around 3:00 pm when the news hit? I was in a training course on how to facilitate a business meeting. wee.

Where was I tonight so I could type about it all? Amber Deathsong's 2-hour long dance recital.

And that's all about I know about it.

There are some awesome pictures of this stuff out there. I will probably throw down some speculations of my own in the next couple of days.

All I have to say now is AWESOME! I honestly can't wait for some new content like this.

More later!

Happy Dueling!

What’s the haps 20 May 2009

So here’s the deal, yo. I’ve been at this blogging for Wizard 101 for about 270 days give or take a few. Things have kind of changed and evolved here, and so in looking forward, I’m going to just take a quick look back at what we’ve seen and let you know where I stand now.

When I started this blog, I was mainly talking about me and my adventures as I crashed through the game. I found my way on to the community list and became listed in the group of bloggers. I made a couple videos for youtube and the blog. And, after working through Moo Shu, I started really helping my kids play their characters through the game, and they seemed to appreciate it (say in unison with me now, "Thanks Dad.")

Meanwhile, I was formulating plans in the background the whole time of how I could make this blog into something really significant and important. What I came up with was interviews! Interviewing Nelson Everhart, Professor Greyrose, Super Death Wizard, and Cheyenne were major publicity for the blog. People I believe really became aware of this blog through announcements both on the Wizard101 main site and through announcements on Wizard101 Central. (I still have plans to do something more meaningful with this blog, but it’s been proving difficult.)

Meanwhile, I was still playing the game and decided to start making the mooshu video journals. This went well and was an easy way for me to catalog me moving my kids through mooshu. Halfway through that process Dragonspyre happened. BOOM. I took the mooshu video journal idea into Dragonspyre and completed Dragonspyre while knocking out a four-part video series.

Meanwhile, The Evil Twin comics and the Google Searches made an appearance on the blog.

Meanwhile, I’ve been holding Kyle and Amber back from completing Dragonspyre because I wanted to level them with my friend Caleb. We hardly ever get together to play unfortunately. The REAL Kyle and Amber have pretty much lost interest in the game. Kyle would rather play ToonTown or the Wii and Amber would rather play Free Realms or Barbie Castle designer. (That's the nature of my kids though: they like to roam and sample games rather than stick to one and really feel it out . . . I guess I didn't pass on that gene.) I started leveling The Evil Twin and Isaiah Taleslinger in the meantime because I didn’t want to level my kids’ toons without my friend.

THEN, player housing happened. Now I’ve been posting pretty much a new item a day for the past few weeks.

Boom.

So what’s next? Here I am, a dad who really just wants to play with his kids and express myself, and I’m now playing Wizard101 with others (wonderful others mind you) instead of with my kids and expressing . . . something. And somehow through it all I’ve become the “featured blogger” and gained an actual audience . . . I’ve never had that before to this extent.

So what do I do? Do I start blogging about these other games I play with my kids and become a gamer daddy blog instead of a wizard101 gamer daddy blog? Do I keep posting about Wizard101 and reaching out to the fans? What do I do? I like the connections I’ve made at Kingsisle a TON. I like the people that read my blog a TON. I like that people will stop by my blog for info a TON. I try to keep up on information and find the pulse of you guys, but I don’t know.

What I do know is that I’m not sold on providing an “item of the day” post for the rest of existence. It is easy content to provide you all with, but it’s not my job (I’m not the wiki). My job is to follow the pulse of the game, to be true to myself, and to provide you with entertainment and actual news so you’ll keep coming back. Maybe an insight or two and lots of hyperbole in typical blogger fashion. ;-)

So, yeah, I think I will keep reinventing myself. I think I will try to keep giving you the goods on Wizard 101, but in my own distinct way. I’m not going to settle into a rut and gather dust (hopefully *brushes off shoulders*).

NOW, with all that said. My family and I are expecting number three to appear on the scene in early July. I’ve basically got one month until my time goes from limited to WHAT THE HECK JUST HAPPENED TO ME AND MY TIME! This state should last at least six to nine months more. After that point with a newborn, things start to chill just a bit more.

So I’m up for an interesting ride, and hopefully you are too if you come along with me on the journey and if I can manage to still create interesting things for you to look at and read.

I guess the point of this post is just to say, things, they are a changin', and things, they’ve been changing all along.

Happy Dueling (the one thing that remains constant around here)!

Housing Item of the Day--Bluebonnet Flowerbed and Mallet

Here is, yet again, another quest reward furniture item from Marleybone. (Man, I'm getting a lot of milage from these!) This time it is the Bluebonnet Flowerbed and Mallet from the Bone and the Beautiful quest from Henry Wellingbrook.



I love the mass of rewards you get for these side quests now.



Amber was quite pleased about the flowerbed, but I don't think she knows exactly what to do with the mallet for now other than set it on the ground and wait for a good work bench or something to put it on.



Happy Dueling!

Dueling the Devs?

So a message came across the twitter wire today:

"This morning, J. Todd Coleman, creator of the game, accepted a duel from a long time fan. Read more!"

Wow!

Yeah, you definitely need to go check out this link!

And as always the best place to catch the community response, is over at Wizard 101 Central.

I can't wait to see what Angel Dragongem has to say about the duel! That's gotta be awesome to duel the executive director of the game, right? yup.

Happy Dueling!

Housing Item of the Day--Sundial

This item comes from the tower conquest side quest with Oskar Crowfriend in Dragonspyre in The Tower Archives zone.



After you finish his quest, he dumps this amazing sun dial on you.



Such a nice lawn item there. They definitely have built a very menacing looking sundial there. haha. "Hmm, let me check the time on my sundial . . . I'm going to stand back though because it looks like it might get mad and eat me."

Happy Dueling!

NEW WIZARD 101 COMMERCIAL!

Yup, they are really pushing the housing in this ad. AND, I have to say it's about time. :-) I was kind of getting sick of watching the old commercial on Cartoon Network. For some reason the advertisement looked dingy and old to me . . . I don't know what it was, but it looked like it lacked sharpness. /shrug

Anyway, here's the new ad:




Impressions . . . feel free to share yours.

- Does Gamma look odd in this commercial to you?
- Anyone know how I can score the dragon head on the wall?
- Should they have shown a clip of Dragonspyre when they said explore new realms?

Happy Dueling!

Housing Item of the Day--Airship Photograph

Today our attention turns to Amber Deathsong, who, like Kyle, had a couple lingering Marleybone side quests in her quest log. The Purse Curse 2 had me running all over Marleybone and back, but eventually, Cathrine Dalton was satisfied that the purse curse had been lifted.



She was so overjoyed that she reached under her hoop skirt and provided me with a painting. I always wondered what she was hiding under there in a very G-rated way.





And now I think I know who Cathrine's heart really beats for . . . maybe, Mr. personality?



maybe?

Happy Dueling!

Housing Item of the Day--Grampa Froggy Painting

You know those little side quests you do in Scotland Yard to help clear the names of a couple NPCs? Well one of them is titled "Liberty!" and is from the sweeper named Wade Wadsworth. This was another one of those side quests that I had hanging out in Kyle's quest journal in hopes of some good furniture.



Who knew that what a innocent frog takes with him to cell block C would be a picture of his grandpa . . . and that he'd give it to me!



Of course, he may not be much to look at now, but it's the memory behind the painting, right? Um, yeah.



Yeah, I'm going to keep telling myself that. (you can click on those pictures to get a better view of them if you want in case you didn't know that; although, use caution . . . shiver . . . he's not that pretty)

Happy Dueling!

Housing Items of the day--Gaurdhouse and Maple Bookcase

Kyle Skystaff had an old quest hanging out in his quest journal that I had been holding on to just to see what the furniture reward to be.



Reading into the past is the name, and I'm pretty darn sure it's the Marleybone books quest. It's been so long that it's hard to remember. Come to find out, it rewards TWO furniture items for completion. Yeah, that reward is fitting for a books quest.



You should have seen the smile that went across my face when I saw "guardhouse" pop up. Hahaha! I love it.



Awesome. The Bookcase is huge too! Now if only I could get some books to put in that bookshelf. It looks so barren.



Happy Dueling!

I AM IRONMAN . . . I mean, STINGITE

So I've been getting some questions as to where the handle "Stingite" comes from. No, it doesn't come from some strange adoration of the singer Sting. Although, good on him for trying to take on the ballads of John Dowland. And, no, it is not some equally strange worship of Bilbo Baggin's knife named "Sting."

So, sit back and relax while I tell you of the origins of my handle Stingite.

Stingite originally is this fella.



That's Stingite standing tall in a place known as the Plane of Time in the game Everquest. Though there were a couple MMO's before Everquest (or EQ), EQ is the father of a lot of these MMO games, or sometimes called a first generation MMORPG.

Around the time Amber Deathsong was born (in real life) there was a fantastic expansion to the game of Everquest called, The Shadows of Luclin. I had played a cleric class up to that point, but I knew that I really wanted to play a new class that was released with the Luclin expansion called "The Beastlord."

Oh man, they were awesome. Everyone in my guild (that's a big group of people that hang together under a name and get a private channel between friends) was pretty irked that I had switched classes from a cleric to a beastlord, but they hadn't had to suffer the indignation of staring at their spellbook for a year while they all ran around hitting stuff. (you used to have to sit and stare at a really dumb spellbook graphic to regain your mana faster.)

I also knew that I wanted to be an iksar. I mean, who doesn't want to be a scaley lizardman character at least once in their life? Not only that, my favorite starting area of any Everquest land (and believe me, there were tons of starting areas) was the field of bone, which was dominated by iksars. The field of bone was overrun by tons of these guys, scorpions.



So, knowing that the land my character was birthed in had a lot of those scorpions, I called myself STING-ite . . . or "of the sting." And it just kind of stuck from there. The following four or five years that I played Everquest just kind of solidified that name for me. I mean, when every time you log in and say hello in guild chat and everyone says, "STINGER!" or "STINGI!" or "STING!" it just kind of becomes a big part of your online persona. I AM STINGITE!

Of course I took the name on to other games like World of Warcraft (hunter character with a spider pet named "rimshot").



or Guild Wars (ranger beastmaster build with a lizard pet named "shoes") . . .



Or Lord of the Rings (champion, dual wielder major aoe dps man)



And pretty much any save file I do on any console game . . .

It just kind of became my handle online, which reminds me . . . I need to go reserve that name in free realms. If only Wizard 101 would find a way to approve that name for me somehow. That would be awesome. I'd drop "Thomas Lionblood" in an instant.

So that, my friends, is where the name Stingite comes from . . . a lizard man character in the game of Everquest who grew up in a land of scorpions.

Happy Dueling!