Monday, August 31, 2009

It's all about the Kyle loot!

Last night and this morning it was all about Kyle's gear my friends.

So, what is this picture saying to you? hmmm?


Yup, Kyle GOT HIS MALISTAIRE CLOAK! Look at that thing.


So awesome. The real Kyle was at my side when it dropped for me and he got so excited about it! LOL. "Is that mine, daddy?" and "oh thank you daddy!" haha. It does a dad good to make his kids happy with the phat loots.

But wait! That is not all, look at this VERY INTERESTING piece of gear that dropped from the fire helephant boss in malistaire's lair.



Your eyes do not deceive you. Those are the Dragonspyre crown gear shoes. It's not old school crown gear, but it's crown gear nonetheless. Now THAT has got to be a rare find. I had heard rumor that Malistaire was dropping crown clothes . . . very interesting. Now if only they were old school crown clothes . . .

Happy Dueling!

Sylvia Drake Picture

Here she is!



Talk amongst yourselves . . .

Actually this picture is for Amber, who wanted me to get a good picture of the woman behind the myth.

I had a longer post planned for this morning, but my Malistaire run went a little long . . . more news about that later today.

Happy Dueling!

Sunday, August 30, 2009

The Eleemosynary Necromancer

eleemosynary?

Yeah, I just wanted to say that I've made the decision to remove advertising for the time being. It's something I've struggled with, but to be honest . . . a year's worth of work from advertising on this blog is only worth about 20-30 bucks before taxes and whatnot. This is a labor of love, not money, and I'm not going to fight bad advertising on my site anymore.

I was never in this for the money anyway. All I wanted to do was blog about the game I was playing and do so while keeping who I am and what I stand for in mind. If I was to make any money from advertising, I would have used it to donate to charity.

So go forth with your new word of the day: eleemosynary! I think it'll impress your parents.

Saturday, August 29, 2009

*At the ol' ball game*

YAY!



There she is . . . Bailey is warming up the pitch . . .

AND IT'S



ONE!



TWO!



THREE STRIKES YER OUT! AT THE OL' KROKO . . . TOOOOPIAAAAA!!!!!

Popcorn and peanuts for everybody!



Seriously, the firezilla pet is HAWT! I think the wife likes her new friend, Mandy. :-)

Happy Dueling!

Neosteam, can your kids play it?

Well, I started playing a new game called Neosteam about two weeks ago just to see how it was. I'd read a little bit about it in the latest Beckett's and thought I'd try my hand.

I'm now a level 22 Lupine Strider, and I'm actually having a lot of fun playing this game. I mean, I'm basically a furry wolf guy brandishing a giant sword and towing around an animated golem pet I call Gumby (whom I captured inside the belly of a land whale believe it or not).



I mean, yeah, that's fun right? It certainly looks like my kid would like that.

And yeah I stepped inside an AT-ST type of machine and blew away ten ant sized bad guys.



Of course that's fun! It's Star Wars! Kids love that stuff! I certainly did when I was a kid.

I mean, who wouldn't want to play a free (so far) game-that-shall-not-be-named-clone with more technology than a golem engineer in the aforementioned game can shake a stick at? Sure the soundtrack is horrible and the font is ugly, but it's free and looks awesome on my computer. Right?

ahem.

Excuse me while I take the subway train in Neosteam to another train of thought.



Well, here's the deal, after watching the general chat fly by and having my eyes burned by what was being said and seeing that you can buy the female avatars bikinis with RMT . . . I figured this is a game that I'm really only going to be playing before the kids are up or after they go to bed for the most part. Or I may just have to play it real careful.

Here's something you can do as a parent if you're trying to filter out some text.



So luckily, by clicking those buttons you can turn off certain zones of chat (usually World Chat is where the majority of eye burn happens), but I don't think I can do anything to clothe the bikini-clad, which I've yet to run into. ;-) RUN AWAY FROM THE BIKINI CLAD!

General play seems safe enough so far, but I don't think I really want the kids to be playing this one a lot. As amber would call these elves on neosteam, they are "sexy ladies." LOL.

Just FYI, that's how I see it as of today . . .

. . . and we now return you to your regular posts about Wizard101! If I do any more reporting on Neosteam, it'll be over on my other blog, which has been collecting a lot of dust lately. In fact I may just repost this over there.

Happy Dueling!

Friday, August 28, 2009

KingsIsle is now hiring! What do you think that means?

I’ve talked about it appearing as if KI was in a hiring freeze before, but that looks to have changed. Bad economy? What bad economy?

Go click here to see KI’s job availabilities.

Eight new positions available (as of 28 August 2009):
- Associate Programmer
- Lead Artist
- Senior Producer/Producer
- Lead/Senior Designer
- Senior 2D/3D Artist
- 2D/3D Artist
- Associate 2D/3D Artist
- Game Designer

What does that mean to us? Part of me is thinking that it means (and this is just theory mind you) that the second project is getting close to beta, and they need to start on a third project. All conjecture. Don’t quote me on that. But . . . 4 artists, 2 designers, a producer, and a programmer? That sounds like fresh start to me. Of course, they did just cut 13 people last November.

Best of luck with your employment endeavors, KI! I hope you find some great people for those jobs.

Anyone else care to venture a guess as to their plans with those new people?

Happy Dueling!

I got a present for the wife!!!

THERE!!



Now we just need to find some time together to play!

I can't wait to watch her firezilla chew the heck out of those monsters time and time again. :-)

I love you, wifey!

Happy Dueling!

Thursday, August 27, 2009

What's with the strange quest text?

Question here from Silverheart:
Question=Hi friendly can you explain some thing
to me? I was hanging out it the
Jade Palace on my level 26 storm
wizard who still has not finished
Kroc. All of a sudden I was spun
around to face the big cow statue and
it started to talk to me it said I had
passed the "test of spirit" what is
that and how did I pass it?

Ok, so this is kind of like a bug and kind of not. The quest text you note is from The Great Mooddha quest. The same thing has happened to me a couple of times . . . and not just here.

It's like if someone's quest cues an "area event" nearby, then everybody in the vacinity will receive the quest text from that one person's quest.

What seems buggy about this is the quest text is worded in such a way that it sounds like your character is the one The Great Mooddha is talking to, when really it's someone else.

"Area events" can add to the feeling that you're not just playing the game by yourself, but if they're going to do that, I think the programmers should have approached it differently . . . the wording of the quest text should be different and the name of the person doing the quest should be announced.

At least that's how *I* feel about it.

Happy Dueling!

Official Goodbye from Homework in a Graveyard

Well, I sent Autumn Duskhunter from the now defunct Homework in a Graveyard blog an e-mail, and I basically said my readers want to know did you quit and should I be scripting up some questions for an exit interview.

Autumn sent back this very kind address to all her fellow bloggers:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"To my friends, and followers of "Homework in a Graveyard",

As you can tell, the Graveyard is no more, This was a calculated measure, whereas I cannot continue to blog about a game I am no longer involved in. Words and ideas can be powerful tools, but a blog is only as good as it's writer, 'Homework', once full of optimism, has slowly sunk into cynical pontification, and self-perpetuating narcissism, in a case deemed terminal.

Unlike TFN, DoaW, and all the other fine blogs out there, who can remain stable and even-tempered, Homework, and myself, are too given to wildly swinging arcs of passionate outburst. There is already more than enough negativity in this world, and I will not allow 'Homework' to languish and become part of that larger sphere. So, I have archived it, and removed it.

It was my first attempt at blogging, and I have met many great people, and learned much. However, I am still on a 'MMO pilgrimage', of sorts, and sadly, W101 is not the 'MMO Home' I hoped it would be.

Do not mourn 'Homework's" passing, I ask of my fellow bloggers no tribute, aside from perhaps a gravestone at Valerian's. If you truly want to 'tribute' Homework, do it by going to every blog you follow, and take a moment to thank the blogger. Blogging is a personal sharing of the individual, so take the time to thank all those who open their lives to you. As for myself, I am withdrawing inwardly, to become, once again, a private gamer.

As Friendly is quick to ask of you, ala Bill & Ted, "Be excellent to each other!". You are part of a special family, one that I was honored to be part of.

Be well.

-Autumn Duskhunter

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

Thank you Autumn! I will try my best to keep the Tenure for Dworgyn banner raised high for you and may the Penny Dreadful story always be an fond mystery for us all! I just have to say that your ideas and your wit were always appreciated. For the short time that you were writing for us all, thank you . . . well done.

Here's to success in whatever you do, and as always . . . Happy Dueling!

Daily twitter updates?

So it appears our friends at Kingsisle are on fire with Twitter updates. They are apparently shooting them out at one a day since Monday. This is awesome! This, to me, is exactly what I've been hoping would happen at Kingsisle. Each one of these twitters is basically like a press release a day. It's what they should be doing!

Let's take a quick look at these recent twitters:
• Monday = Wizard101: Check out our limited time, 1-year subscription for only $60! https://www.wizard101.com/site/home/wizard101/subscribe

• Tuesday = Wizard101: Did you know Eric Bloom of Blue Oyster Cult plays Wizard101? http://tinyurl.com/lm2vgf

• Wednesday = Wizard101: Wizard101 is now on WarCry! http://bit.ly/3J9Nl6

• Thursday (today) = Wizard101: Check out our new Facebook contest on Wizard101 Central and enter to win special prizes! http://tinyurl.com/nsso4x

Monday's twitter is good to hear. The $60 promotion is what I originally signed up under last year. BTW, we're approaching that one year mark for Wizard101. September 2nd was the first day of Wizard101 if I remember right, so that offer comes with perfect timing for those of us who took the $60 offer last year.

Tuesday's twitter is a link to Stargrace's blog. hehe. Tipa at West Karana was so jealous of Stargrace when she found out about Stephanie's talk with Eric Bloom. I follow both of them on twitter. There was definitely some /envy going on.

Wednesday's twitter was a huge BOOM of awesomeness. Have you guys looked through all the great information that Warcry has on our game now? I tried to get Professor Greyrose to offer up some quotes about the Warcry site, but the marketing department at Kingsisle wasn't biting.

Today's promotion is interesting. Basically, from what I'm reading, is that if you're a member of Central, you win . . . as long as more than 25,000 people become new fans of Wizard101 on Facebook. Awesome. More fans = better reward for Central members.

Basically, it's been a fantastic week of twitters for Wizard101 fans. I hope they keep this up! Thanks for all the news, KI!

Happy Dueling!

Housing Item of the Day -- Crate of Chickens

Still no robe from Malistaire!



His is fond of giving me chickens though. :-)

Happy Dueling!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Can I beat Wizard101 with two characters?

I have another question here!

username=Boris Lifeblossom
Question=Hi FN;

My parter and I just started playing Wizard
101 and we love it. We're both around level
20. She is a storm/death wizard, and I am life. I
haven't picked a second school yet, but I will
probably go balance.

So far we have beaten every boss and sunken
city, just us two. Will we be able to do the whole
game like this? Can two wizards alone defeat the
hardest boss (Malistaire?)

Thanks!


Hi Boris! First off, great combo. If I were you (a storm and life combo is exactly what I did for my kids' characters), I would go with storm for my secondary and snag the balance traps and blades from Niles in Krok. Storm has a ton of traps in their main line that you can help the storm wizard lay down the pain with. Once the storm wizard gets tempest, you pretty much win the game with that combo. It's a ridiculously awesome spell.

Now for your question, you can take that duo all the way to Malistaire's door, and then you will be stuck. You need three people to open Malistaire's door. Each person stands by a crystal and you all click at the same time to unlock the door to Malistaire. That's the only time you really "need" a third person for your combo.

**UPDATE** Or do you! My long time reader SDW noted that you can use the Mark Your Location feature to quickly teleport one of your duo to the third crystal in time to open the door. Thanks for the tip, SDW!!! **UPDATE**

Now, there are certain fights that will be difficult to do with just two people . . . I'm thinking stormfather in grizzleheim in particular . . . and if they ever release the harder difficulty boss fights as an optional battle again, those will be tough or impossible to do with just two players. But that's just it, those fights are optional.

Other than that, I think you'll be golden! :-)

Happy Dueling!

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

How do you cast spells outside the circle?

Got a question here! I love questions!

Hello,
I was wondering if you had an answer to this question regarding the Wizard 101 game. I have noticed a couple of times wizards casting spells in common areas, outside of any fight rings. For example. I saw someone cast a spell in the circle area in front of the Library in Wizard City. Also, saw this done in circle area by fairground in Wizard City. Can you tell me please, how is this done? Thanks for your help. Sincerely, Wanny


Good question, Wanny! Here's the deal. Those aren't actually spells. Those are "visitations" by NPC's as people complete their spell quests. For instance, I recently posted about Bailey having an encounter with a fire snake (it's the second picture down in this post).

In this ancient post, Kyle was visited by a storm bird in Krokotopia.

Here's an even more ancient one where Amber was visited by a Satyr.

Here's a recent one where Digby, my noob fire wizard, happened upon someone completing an early myth wizard quest where they talked with a unicorn.



So, although it appears a spell is being cast, it's really just a scripted event in the world . . . AND, it just happens to be one of my favorite moments in the game. Whenever I run into one of these I screenshot it. Amazingly enough, I can't find anything in my picture bin of 2,000 screenshots or so unless I catalog it on my blog here right away. LOL.

Hope that answers your question!

Evil Twin Chat -- Episode 24


(click to enlarge)

Oh SNAP! Amber saw right through my clever disguise!

Monday, August 24, 2009

Evil Twin Chat -- Episode 23

Here's a new look and a new comic for ETC!


(Click to make larger)

OH, and btw . . . be sure to check out Cassandra's new Diapermancer comic! Diapermancer learns his first word!

Happy Dueling!

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Real World Wizard 101--Fire Dragon

NOOOOOO! Who would dare cast a fire dragon on me while I was watching Amber and Kyle play on inflatables?!



I searched everywhere for the level 48+ fire wizard who could have cast this, and I think it might have been the redhead behind the counter for admission. I introduced myself as a wizard of death majicks to her and challenged her to a duel.

She just smiled at me and handed me a card from her deck. It was a new card that seemed to summon the powers of an evil psychiatrist, but there were no pip counts on it . . . totally unusable. I told her I only use official cards from Dworgyn and left promptly. Who knew the redhead would be a cheat. I was no longer afraid of the fire dragon because any card dealt from a cheat like that would just be full of hot air.

Happy Dueling!

Friday, August 21, 2009

Battle of the Sexes! I mean . . . Admins!

Hey all,

I don't know if you've seen the battle between Jester and his wife Olivia, but you gotta watch this . . . at least for the ending. :-)


(if you don't have enough time to watch the whole fight, at least fast forward to the last minute . . . good stuff)

For those of you who are not familiar with the awesomeness of Jester and Olivia, they are the husband and wife team of creators/admins for the Wizard101 Central website.

They sound as good at dueling as I am. LOL. Go check out Olivia's blog and look at the graphic they created on the right hand side of this post. LOL they are hilarious! (In fact, Olivia's entire blog is worth a look!)

I'm they are dumb and dumber, I assure you I'm dumberest.

I can't wait to see the next round of . . .

happy dueling!

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Free Realms Steps Up Their TCG!

LOL. Sorry to post about another game here on my blog, but I just got a Free Realms e-mail that said this:

Make your Free Realms™ character into a playable card in the Trading Card Game! Build decks based on you and your Card Duelist friends!

Duelist On Demand allows you to order printed Free Realms Trading Card Game cards with your Free Realms character!

Duelist On Demand is easy. Just follow these simple steps:
Purchase a Duelist On Demand voucher from the Marketplace
Log into the Free Realms TCG and pick your character
Select your job and background
Place your order and go!
In 6-8 weeks you'll receive your Duelist On Demand card pack with 10 printed cards. Plus, each card contains a unique code that unlocks a digital version of your DoD card! Redeem three for your digital decks and trade the others to your friends for copies of their cards!

Duelist On Demand is now available through SOE and Topps! Be the first to get into the game with your Free Realms character! You're in demand!

This is *so* close to what I envisioned with my player trading card of the day idea. LOL. SO close. Honestly, I hope Sony does extremely well with this idea for Free Realms. In my opinion, this has always been and always will be a great idea to bring the players into the game on a deeper level.

Kudos to the people at Sony for stepping up their card game like this!

Kingsisle, take note!

Happy Dueling!

Molly and Bailey Enter Krokotopia! Amber gets her Dagger! Unicorns!

I have a uni-rific graphic to celebrate the defeat of Lord Nightshade and the entrance to Krokotopia for Molly and Bailey!


(click to make bigger!)

They've actually been in there for a week, but I'm just now getting around to updates on what's actually been going on in game.

It's been interesting explaining to my wife how blades and converts work. I think she gets it now. She still has a hard time understanding DoTs because she's not looking at the mob's health go down with each round. But, I think I showed her how it's working. We also bought bailey a necklace with fire trap on it, so she's starting to get set to do some major damage. I think she loves the power of Sunbird on her character.

And of course I'm MOLLY! MOLLY EAAAAARTHSONG! (said in a high-pitched English Accent of course) I've been playing the healer for the group for the most part. Yes, I know I've already played a healer up, but this healer is going to be on Kyle's account instead of on Thomas Lionblood's account. That'll be nice won't it? A healer on both accounts? I think so.

OH . . . and in other character news, Amber received her Gurtok dagger! Gratz!


Unicorns, of course, were not used in this battle . . . I just like the unicorn sticker tile background today. Deal with my unicorn obsession, m'kay?

Happy Dueling!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

What if my friends don't want to PvP?

Got a question From a long time reader here:
Well Friendly, I'm just getting closer and closer to canceling. I want to do so many things, yet no one EVER does anything with me. Even my close friends on there always ignore my requests for fun. I want to PvP so badly, yet no one will ever accept, and no one is ever online. As of now the whole game is a complete waste of money. Do you have any suggestions?


C&C, I'm torn. This is a tough one. I've typed you three responses already and deleted them all. yikes.

Don't talk in Extremes
I can sense you're really feeling some emotions here because you're talking in extremes like: always, ever, no one, anything, whole, complete . . . . Do you see those words in your message? I do, and I know it's not the whole truth because of them.

So my first suggestion is, relax a bit on these extreme feelings. I know the game hasn't been a complete waste for you. Even if you leave now, you've had many months of fun. Don't forget that and don't let the thirst for PvP ruin that.

Talk to your friends like they're friends
Next, you mention a problem of getting your friends to PvP with you. Here's my suggestion. Talk to your friends about playing PvP with you, differently. If someone kept bugging me about "let's pvp!" all the time, it would become a bit . . . ignorable.

You need to really talk with them and find out what it would take for them to pvp with you. You need to tell them why you want to pvp and why you specifically want to pvp with them. It's not just that they are a warm body and a means to your ends.

You know, and maybe they don't really like to PvP because it's draining. Sometimes it can take a lot of time and maybe your friends just don't have that kind of time. Sometimes it can be that they don't like the smack talk factor of PvP. Sometimes it can just be a little nerve wracking to duel a human opponent. It's a lot harder than dueling the computer.

Once you find out what it is that's bugging your friend about PvP, then you can try to work it out. (because PvP can also be a TON of fun, right?)

In a perfect world, all my friends would be on the same energy level and vibe as I am about whatever it is I'm doing at the moment. In reality, we don't always feel the same at the same time.

You've got to persuade them, not with appeals to pity (like "As of now the whole game is a complete waste of money") or appeals to consequence (like "I'm just getting closer and closer to canceling"), but you need to persuade them because you are awesome, which I think you are!

The Bottom Line
I know you're awesome. You have three grandmasters and have played this game to the ground! You've tried to pass along information in a blog. And, you've followed my blog for a long time!

All you need to do is try a few different strategies with your friends and see if you get results.

Also have you considered any of these:

- scheduling a few times to PvP with your friends during the week? (if someone knows in advance that there is a "pvp date," then you may have better success)
- offering a reward for your friends pvp'ing with you. I know that may sound strange, but reward power can be a very powerful thing. The next time someone pvp's with you, drop a cool treasure card on them after the fact and tell them thanks for coming. You don't have to do that every time . . . it's just a little something to say thank you.
- taking a break. You've definitely earned it. Maybe taking a month off wouldn't be so bad, you know? When you put some distance between you and the game, maybe you'll see it wasn't so important after all.

Beyond the Bottom Line
If you're friends don't want to pvp and you *do* want to pvp, then perhaps what you need to do is go to central and put up an advertisement that you want to build a team for pvp and spell out your intentions, like . . . I want to pvp most nights for two hours, my goal is to make xx rank, I need teammates that aren't going to flee in fights, etc.

Your plea actually reminds me of how a lot of people can feel about raiding in other games. Let me try to explain.

In Everquest I first started the game in a guild of friends and family. When you're in a guild, you all share the same tag on your name and you all have a special chat channel dedicated just to you. Someone is the guild leader and they usually have officers. Then there's everyone else.

Our friends and family guild raided once a week on Thursdays. We did pretty good at raiding for our small guild, but here's the thing . . . other guilds were raiding pretty much every night of the week.

Now raiding usually isn't a light-hearted happy thing. It's a "hardcore" gaming experience with a small margin for error where you usually throw yourself against very difficult scripted events for a small reward . . . usually a piece of gear for one or two people and that's it.

Naturally, people began to see the disparities between the way our guild was outfitted in loot compared to how the other guilds were outfitted in loot. And they got the thirst for loot. It's a scary disease. So, our long time friends would leave our guild and go join a raiding guild.

Well, when whole families of people are being fragmented, then it starts to become a problem socially. The guild fell apart and we all flocked to other guilds based on what our interests were. Some went to raiding guilds, some went to other family oriented guilds, etc.

When you build a pvp team . . . you would basically be building a mini-guild of four people or so. You become committed to those people.

I'm pretty much proposing that if it's not working out with your friends that you search for new friendship with people that pvp. You metaphorically leave your guild for a new one. Now, THAT's a tough decision to make. You need to figure out if your thirst for pvp is really that strong.

I hope *something* in that mess of a long post held something of value for you.

Happy Dueling!

Monday, August 17, 2009

New poll on PvP--Rock the Vote!

Hello duelers!

There's a poll going on over at Central that the man, the myth, the legend . . . Mr. Quantize . . . asked me to post up here.

So, here's the poll: Click!

Right now there's only a handful of votes on this thread . . . let's see if we can't get that number up a little bit higher and give this thread some more attention. Quantize made the point in his e-mail to me that these threads have the potential to give KI some good information about how the players really feel about PvP in its current state. You can't really judge opinions on our HUGE player base with only the 37 votes that are up.

So if you have a moment, please drop by and ROCK THE VOTE!

Thanks for your time!

Happy Dueling!

Tom Hall--the web search

The thirst for knowledge about Kingsisle's second project is incredibly strong, yet no one knows much at all. Because the lockdown on information about the second project goes beyond incredibly strong . . . it's like diapermancer strong.



I went on a small hunt of my own . . . similar to what Evil Theurgists did the other day. It was funny to see him take the blurry graphic and try to work it out because I did the exact same thing. Great minds think alike!

In my searching I also became much more acquainted with "THE MAN IN CHARGE" aka Tom Hall, whose tweets are hilarious. None of which say anything about the second project.

Working backwards here, I found his tweets from his blog, tomtomtom.com, once again . . . pure genius can be found here. Once again, not a spot of information on the second project.

Working more backwards, I found his personal website from going to wikipedia, which has a great entry on him.

You know after reading that wikipedia entry, I'm pretty sure we'll see the dopefish somewhere in the next game . . . we have to! I mean, dopefish seems to make and appearance in most of his games, but not all of them though. Take a look at this game list from a bio page on Tom Hall.

I dug up this great picture of him in collegiate graduate robes here from when he gave a lecture at the game education summit.

I know he's talked before at GDC and other summits (one in particular called We Have No Lives: RPGs, Players, and the Future), but most seem to be old links. (If you find more links to Tom Hall, please post them in the comments below)

One more link from me . . . I also dug up how Hall actually left production of Doom (one of the greatest games of all time) over creative differences. You don't have to follow this link, but I'm going to provide a quick pull out quote from that article:

"In the initial development of Doom, a determination was made as to what direction Id’s games should take. This decision resulted in founding member Tom Hall leaving Id Software. Carmack and Romero felt that Hall’s creativity was coming into conflict with gameplay.

As creative director, Hall was insisting on continuity in the storyline and trying to give the game a plot. As Romero would later say, 'You don’t need much of a storyline if your game is good.'

'The game designer shouldn’t be making a world in which the player is just a small part,' echoed Carmack. 'The player’s the boss; it’s your duty to entertain him or her.' In the midst of this debate and other creative differences, Hall left Id to become project manager at Apogee."

So, much to all of our delight he had absolutely nothing to do with Doom the movie, AND, I think his "creative differences" also ensures us that we will have a solid storyline with the second project. Right? I don't think I'm digging too much there. That's probably all I need to know about the second project in the end. :-)

Happy Dueling

Sunday, August 16, 2009

What is the quest that leads to the level 48 spell for Necromancers?

I have a question here from a confused Necromancer:
Question=I know what the
reward for the level 48 death quest is
but what is the actual quest? I
looked at your wiki link but the article
doesn't tell me. since you are a
necromancer you should probably know.

You're right! I should know! And, believe it or not, I actually do know!

Let me take you back to a time when I was doing that quest. It is a magical time called Early April 2009. I wrote up this guide on how to get your scarecrow spell. The quest was carried over from the test server blow by blow, so it should all be correct.

Also, I updated this wikia page and the following 3 sub-quest pages (the level 48 spell quest is actually 4 quests) to tie it all together as well based on your comment.

Hope that helps!

Happy Dueling!

The I-didn't-make-the-Meet-and-Greet photos!

So, I was 30 minutes late to the Meet and Greet because I was off soaking up the sun and splashing down water slides with Amber and Kyle . . . and I missed it entirely.

Since I usually avoid logging on Thomas Lionblood because of the innate fear of the possible swarm that could form around me, I decided what-the-hey and just ran around helping people, meeting people that wanted to meet me, and checking out houses.

Here's a quick screen tour of yesterday:


Ronan definitely was earning points here! It was good to meet a long time reader of the blog. He even took me to his house to show a little tribute he had built for me. aww!



Our Terminuses . . . or would that be Termini? . . . needed to talk.



Somtimes friendly just comes to dance for you. That is, after all, my best spell.



Caroline DreamStone showed me her most awesome statue that I immediately fell in love with; although, I'd hate to farm the Labyrinth for it. (/sigh Labyrinth)



I was pleased to hear that the message to give Cassandra a dogpile was not missed! I'm just sorry I wasn't there to instigate it. I did run into Cassandra post-party though as she was farming for a blade from Avalanche. I was helping and had a discussion with Avalanche about this, and Cassandra has now immortalized it with her MS paint skrillz.



And finally, I found this in Amber Stargem's house. Eww!

So, sorry I didn't make it to the meet and greet, but it was good to see a bunch of you after the fact!

Happy Dueling!

Player Trading Card of the Day--Amanda PixieWhisper

Hey! I have a great card today! It's our friend Countess Shadowbane in her more myth'ier form--Amanda PixieWhisper!



I actually had to cut Amanda's advice on the bottom of the card a little short to make it all fit.

Here's her unabridged comment: "The quests are important, but the friends you make along the way are even more so. A quest is a quest. Its who you're with that makes it fun! Take care of your friendships and this game will be more fun than you could imagine. After two grandmasters, its not the repeated quests that keep me coming back, its the people."

Too true, Countess!

Happy Dueling!

Spell List

Ice Spells
Fire Spells
Storm Spells
Balance Spells
Death Spells
Life Spells
Myth Spells
Sun Spells
Moon Spells
Star Spells

Happy Dueling!

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Player Trading Card of the Day--Samuel Firehunter

Here's today's player trading card!



Samuel seems to be leveling fast and getting new gear all the time! Nice work and thanks for the advice!

I can't wait to get immolate for my wife's pyromancer. :-)

Happy Dueling!

Meet and Greet is today!

2nd Official Meet and Greet Promo
Glitter Graphics



Evil Theurgists and Diary of a Wizard are holding a meet and greet today at 4pm CST!

Will I be there?

I don't know. LOL. I always say that, don't I?

I'm taking my kids to a water park today, and I don't know if I'll make it back in time, but I will put up a quick post before then if I make it back and have time to attend.

If I don't make it . . . HAVE FUN AT THE MEET AND GREET AND DOGPILE CASSANDRA FOR ME!

Happy Dueling!

Friday, August 14, 2009

How do I stop my fear of the arena?

Question here from ms. Shy,

Question=Hey Thomas, I need a little help here...

I just started enjoying the arena
as of late and I'm trying my best for
my wings. Really excited, but it
seems, every other battle I have is
against a team (I fight with someone
instead of just myself) that is
rude, or something! And it aggravates me
so much, and I end up losing so much
rank, I'm back to private after I've
worked hard to get up to the ranking I
was at. What am I suppose to do? I'm
starting to get afraid of the arena,
but I really want to reach my goal of
Commander with my wings..
So, basically, if you didn't find the
question in there, How do I make myself
not afraid of the arena any longer? I
really like it, but dislike being
afraid..


When you're talking wings, you're talking this cool wing trophy right here, right?


That would be cool to have in your house!

So from what I'm gathering is that you're letting people's comments (rude or otherwise) get to you.

Right. I'm so with you because (gauging on what I know about you and me) we're empathetic people. So, we can get a million good comments and then that one bad comment is the one that sticks with us. In the arena you get hammered with comments. If there's ever a time I want to turn off chat, it's during pvp. Unfortunately if you're 2v2, you need chat on to communicate with your teammate.

You see, in some games they separate communication from the "bad guys" and the "good guys" when it comes to PvP. For instance, Lord of the Rings Online has a big battlefield that you run around in and "the creeps" (people playing monsters) have no way of communicating with "the freeps" (slang for "the free people" aka people playing the regular character classes). Also, in The Game Which Shall Not Be Named, you have alliance races (the good guys) that battle against horde races (the misunderstood guys). They can hear each other speaking, but the game garbles up their speech so you can't understand what it is they're saying.

In other words, communication is separated between opposing teams.

(Then the worst that happens is that you get slammed on a message board after a fight or your own teammates are rude to you.)

I like separated communication myself. KI, I think it would help a lot with the smack talk. And I don't want the other team to sit there and ask me questions or try to influence me not to heal myself or to agree to certain rules they want me to abide by during our match. That stuff always drives me crazy. I remember dueling a guy in Guild Wars and he was trying to get me to not use ranged attacks as a "Ranger" . . . GAH, I hate that.

So, now to answer your question.

The only way to decrease fear is to somehow increase confidence.

Here's my recommendation: build a team and a strategy . . . and work to refine your strategy. Only go to the arena with your team. When you have a strategy, you do two things mentally. One, you increase your odds of winning if it's a good strategy and you and your teammate execute the strategy well. Two, you decrease your fear because if people beat you or are rude, mentally, they are now defeating and being rude about "the strategy" and not you because you've taken a good chunk of "You" out of the picture and instead put "the team's strategy" at the forefront.

Look at something like football or basketball. They usually have complex patterns they run in order to win. Sure, there's usually a star in the mix, but usually the real star is the play and how the players execute that strategy.

Now, if that doesn't work . . . there's always self-hypnosis. LOL.

I do sympathize with you though. I don't like that feeling of anger or over excitement that happens with pvp sometimes.

/shrug and /hug

Any suggestions from the crowd?

Happy Dueling!

Thursday, August 13, 2009

The Torment of Malistaire (entry to comic contest)

Speaking of Amber Stargem . . . Amber and Kyle went for a quick run at Malistaire yesterday evening. Here is our story.


(You'll probably want to click on that . . . it's a big graphic)

As a side note, this is August 13th . . . the last day to enter Defenders of the Spiral's comic contest! Or maybe not as his blog indicates.

At any rate, Isaiah, that's my entry right there!

Thanks!

Happy Dueling!

Player Trading Card of the Day--Amber Stargem

Here she is! It's Amber Stargem!


She promised me this would be printed out and taped to the inside of her locker! LOL! I do hope this ends up next to a hot picture of Daniel Radcliffe and the Jonas Brothers.

If you haven't dropped by Amber's blog, do it. do it now. (She needs to update her blog though, since Autumn from Homework in a Graveyard is back. just saying!)

Happy Dueling!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Amber has new shoes and a hat!

Well, Amber simply had hardly any difficulty at all getting her new hat and shoes. Let's hope her Malistaire robe comes just as easily.

*HUGE KNOCK ON WOOD*



Go Amber!

Happy Dueling!

Progress with Molly and Bailey

This weekend the wife and I spent some quality time on Firecat Alley playing Molly Earthsong and Bailey Skystaff. Now if anyone starts calling me Molly, you guys are in trouble. :-) Actually, it's kind of funny, every time I log on Molly, I say in a high-pitched English voice, "Hi, I'm Molly, Molly Eaaaaarthsong."

I've been doing my best to keep everybody alive. I'm loving the unicorn spell.


You can see I'm keeping the effects of foulgaze at bay there with my super dooper awesome unicorn! LONG LIVE THE 'CORN!

Bailey has been doing awesome as well. Here she is doing her Harry Potter imitation (for more Harry Potter imitations, see Tara's post today).


Oh yeah, talking to snakes. Fire snakes at that. And because of her little conversation, she earned herself a cool new spell.


Nice one, wife!

She doesn't know what this means, but we're to Lord Nightshade now. You know what that means, don't you? Yup, desert music in our future.

Happy Dueling!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Should I delete my friend if he flees and is rude after I make a mistake?

I got a question here from a reader:
Friendly, I need your advice. I have a friend who isn't very nice. I help him with a Jade Oni fight (which I'm not even at yet). I use one spell he doesn't want me to use and he flees so I have to beat Jade Oni myself. I beat him but it still wasn't nice of him to flee. Should I delete him as a friend?
Plz answer


Hey, you know, this kind of stuff happens all the time. I’ll throw out a few traps and then someone will wand through them. No big deal, but only because of my attitude about it and because I've set up my deck to account for stuff like that happening.

I keep a deeper deck than some just to have a boy scout type of attitude toward it (be prepared). I don't have the most full deck in the game, yet I don't have my deck peeled back to bear-bones-exactly-what-I-need. And my attitude is that those traps are out there for anyone to use. True, a trap in the hands of a skilled player can make long battles short, but when you play this game with others, it’s cooperative play. You account for mistakes.

Now I can see being a little more than just "regular upset" if I had spent hours crafting a treasure card trap and someone came in and blew it, but if I was being really uptight about trap cards, I'd just turn my teleports off and not let anyone come to me.

But, to answer your question (sorry, I'm feeling long-winded), you know, it’s a little like when you go out to eat at Chuck E Cheese, right? They bring your party a big ol’ pitcher of soda for the whole family and a big pizza as well. Some may drink a lot of that soda, or some may hold off knowing they are going to be gaining 10 pounds of bubbling fat if they drink more than half a glass tonight, but by the end of the meal, hopefully everybody has had enough to eat.

Now, say I grabbed the piece of pizza that you really wanted (and you had told me you wanted it) and took a big bite. Would the other person run away crying about it? Maybe, but they’d probably hit me in the arm and say something like "HEY, I TOLD YOU I WANTED THAT PIECE OF PIZZA" and gave me a look of disgust, right? And you’d probably respond, “ah, dangit . . . MY BAD!” and you’d work it out. And really in the end, the person probably didn’t care so much about the piece of pizza, what they cared about was that you didn’t listen to them.

You see, there’s four ways people generally deal with problems in life: Positive active, Positive passive, Negative active, and Negative passive. (bear with me here . . . lemme 'splain.)

Positive Active reactions between people are when you have a discussion or talk about the problem and try to come to a resolution. Voices may be raised, but in the end both sides usually feel satisfied with the conclusion.

Positive Passive reactions are where you maintain your friendship by letting them basically have their way and not making waves because, hey, you like them and they'd probably do the same for you.

Negative Active reactions would be to do something that solves the problem in a way that could be perceived badly, like delete the friend in your friend list, leave the situation mad, or maybe even have a fight.

Negative Passive reactions would be to simply ignore the problem and hope it goes away, usually to the point where you feel “stepped on.”

So in the end, your friend had a Negative Active reaction. He left. Your initial reaction to the situation was Negative Passive. You ignored it.

Now, given all that preface, you might see that your question really is, should I also have a Negative Active reaction in response to his Negative Active response? Or as you say, delete them off my friends list.

The golden rule applies I think. Act toward others as you want them to act towards you. You probably wouldn't want them to delete you off their friends list if you fled a fight in anger. You'd probably want them to talk to you about it and try to make amends, right?

Unfortunately the situation is passed and that makes it very hard to go back and discuss what happened yesterday. BUT, if you come prepared (like a boy scout) so that the next time a problem happens you can take a positive active approach, things will be better.

It's hard though, right?

What's a cool positive active thing you could do?

How about buy your friend a rare trap treasure card to make up for it? Then the next time you see him, open up a trade window and say something along the lines of, "Hey, I wanted to make it up to you for blowing your trap the other day. Hope you like it and that you'll let me fight alongside you again sometime. peace. Sorry for the misunderstanding" I think you'll find him apologizing for fleeing and being mad . . . if not, just know that he should be . . . but, not everyone has class. If he keeps being unapologetic time and time again (if this kind of stuff reoccurs), *then* maybe it'd be time to remove him from your friends list.

Going back to the Chuck E. Cheese story, what could you do after stealing your friend's piece of pizza? How about give your friend some of your tokens and tell him sorry for not hearing him. Seriously, the hope is maybe in the process, you'd teach them how to act maturely when you come up against confrontation over a mistake you made.


What would Chuck E do?


In my opinion, yes, they were rude, but you should show class. Lead by example and all that.

And that's how I feel about it at 8:00 pm on 11 August 2009.

Happy Dueling!

More Terry Dietz Sculptures

I mentioned Terry a couple posts ago and it reminded me that I actually do have some more figures of his I wanted to showcase.

If you haven't read my interview with Terry, it's a fun read: click!

This is Terry's newest edition for July



These two figures are from June




Love them, Terry! You do such a good job with those!

You can find these and more over on Wizard101's main site in their Fan Art section.

Happy Dueling!

Player Trading Card of the Day--Digby Mythweaver

Hello duelers! Today's Player Trading Card features the admin for the Wizard101 Fan Wiki. It's Digby Mythweaver!


The fan wiki seems to have a vibrant forum over on their site that you should take a look at. Looks like they need to do another contest too!

Thanks for all the hard work maintaining the fan wiki, Digby!

Happy Dueling!

Monday, August 10, 2009

The math behind your character's name: are you unique?

BravoJaime over on Twitter pointed me to this fantastic post by Julia SummerDreamer.

Basically she's done all the number crunching to all the possible name combinations and as it turns out, there are 1,990,114 Total wizard names possible. (side note: it was brought to my attention that this information was also figured out independantly on Wikia even earlier than this.)

. . . thus giving you a 1 in 1,990,114 chance that someone else will have your same name . . . you may fear Julia's number abilities, but do not fear mine.

In addition here, I think you have to consider the "x" factor in names. For instance, if you choose to name your character Patrick Star, Luke Skywalker, or Taylor Swift, I guarantee your chances of running into another wizard with your name will escalate. (AHA! Not as original as you thought you were, were you Mr. name dropper!)

Also, if you're a 1 name person, your chances are also going to escalate (like 1 in 139 as Julia pointed out). I can't tell you how bummed my fire wizard named "Digby" was when he ran into another "Digby" out and about. (Sigh, and I really liked the name Digby--just Digby--too)

I've yet to run into another Thomas Lionblood, Kyle Skystaff, or Amber Deathsong . . . although now that I've posted that, there are now 10 bloggers making characters with those names to torment me with screenshots on their blogs with said names. It's ok, I'll become an action figure for you to model (if only I could convince our friend Terry Dietz to make a Thomas Lionblood figurine).

You know, there might also be some kind of mathematical curve towards wanting to name your character to match your class. Throwing the name Death, or Hex, or Blood into your name as a necromancer is very attractive. You know what I'm talking about? If x=evil name and y=necromancer, then n2 +9 +9 . . . to further understand this, you must watch this presentation on maths.


The British always seem to make me feel more sane.

. . . what? I'm just doing my part to get you guys ready to go back to school . . .

Anyway . . . THAT's what goes into your name combination. Um, Or something like that. I'm not so good at maths, but thanks for the eye opening post on possible name combinations, Julia!

Happy Dueling!

Seven hour duel?

KI, you know you have a problem when a member of the winning team complains. Yup, That's a clear indication you have a BIG problem.

Let that be a warning to you all to not do 4v4 PVP until KI fixes that problem. I know most matches don't go 7 hours, but I suggest banning it for the time being. Actually, anything over an hour or two is incredibly harsh, don't you think?

Readers, please let common sense prevail and just give up in that situation--just flee. Your time in your life is worth so much more than the rank you'll lose. You'll never get that time back. Please do something more productive.

It's good to see a lot of the things listed on this old PVP dirty laundry list have been addressed. KI just needs to figure out this button and implement it.

Happy Dueling (just not seven hours of dueling please)

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Player Trading Card of the Day--Alyssa Silverheart

Hey everybody! It's our friend, Silverheart!



When she's not busy playing volleyball, she's tearing it up in Wizard101! Thanks for being such an awesome reader of the blog, Alyssa!

Happy Dueling!

Tour of Wizard101 offices now up at Becketts

I had mentioned this earlier when I first got my copy of Beckett's MMO magazine, but now this is available to all: CLICK ME!

There are seven small pictures there in the article. I grabbed them off the site and blew them up in my graphics program, but they were still really small. If anyone has access to the high resolution versions of those images, please let me know.

Here's one of their picture blown up and sharpened. I can't get much out of this. What instance are they working on in this picture? Any guesses?



This article is well worth the read! GO NOW! What are you waiting for!?

Happy Dueling!

Why are people reporting me for asking for the Umbra Sword code?

I got a question here from a reader:
Question=can you help me?
plz can i know what the umbra sword
code is every one is reporting me for
asking them.

I know the real question is "Can you give me the code for the Umbra sword?" The answer is . . . I could give you the one I got from my issue of the Beckett's magazine, but it wouldn't do you any good. It's spelled out in a number of locations that this code is good for one use only. Each copy of the magazine has its own unique code. In other words, the code in my magazine will be different than the code found in the next magazine in the rack. And once I use my code, it then becomes deactivated in the big database of valid numbers and no longer works.

The second reason I'm not going to give out an inactive umbra sword code is that someone will most likely lift it off of my blog and start adding it to their "cards for codes" scam. I don't want to be an enabler. In fact, that's probably why people are reporting you. They might be thinking you'll use it to cheat someone for free treasure cards.

So, the only way you're going to get one of those swords, unfortunately (since I know it's hard for kids to come by money sometimes), is by shelling out the money for a copy of the very well written Beckett's MMO Gamer magazine.

My apologies and I hope you understand.

Happy Dueling!

IRON CHEF . . . i mean COMPOSER!

My family and I have been watching a metric ton (pats belly) of The Food Network lately. Seriously, it's incredibly addicting. Between that crazy wide-eyed southern lady (Paula and her buttery innuendos) and The Best Thing I Ever Ate show, we're kind of hooked.

And the monster, the creator, the GIANT of all shows on the food network? Iron Chef America. If you're not familiar with this show, what you'll see is a couple of kitchen areas in the middle of a stadium. Two chefs descend upon these kitchens to go head-to-head as they compete to delight the judges' taste buds and hopeful eyes--all while sticking to a "secret ingredient." This inevitably leads to strange things like a meal of lobster salad, lobster soup, lobster lobster, and lobster ice cream . . . or perhaps steak salad, steak soup, steak steak, and steak cake! you get the gist.



What does this have to do with Wizard101?

nothing. I just wanted to make you hungry for steak cake.

Ok, actually, it does have something to do with our Wizard101 Composer, Nelson Everhart! Nelson has been selected as one of the composers to compete in the IRON COMPOSER competition at the upcoming Austin GDC. Here's the link to the Austin GDC website that talks about the competition. And now, the quote from their website:
Three months before the event, each participant will be given a description of The Mystery Game. During those three months, they will prepare a sampler full of sounds and music. On the day of the session, each competitor will have a turn at playing their prepared sound set live, while audience volunteers play the game.

But there is one twist: The Secret Ingredient! Whose composition will reign supreme?!

Oh man, that sounds like an awesome 60 minutes of the Austin GDC. Too bad it's like 800 bucks to attend.

Best of luck to our music composer, Nelson Everhart! Here's to hoping your secret ingredient isn't the accordion!

Happy Dueling!

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Where can I find a good life sword?

Got a question here from Ryan DeathHeart:
Question=ok so im looking for a life blade for my
life wizard and my death wizard. the
only prob is, none of my friends are
online at the time i need them. so if you
have life wizard that has life blade
and you remember where it is that
would be great. thanks ;)

Ok, the best lifeblade in the game is locked inside at the top of a grueling tower called the Safehouse. Amber was lucky and got it on her first try. Here's where I posted about it. (Safehouse is in the Drake hatchery btw . . . it's the one with Valeska Redwind at the end)

The second option is to farm the Labyrinth for Zora Steelwielder's Mineblade. That wouldn't be too bad since she's just the second boss in. It does 5 damage less than Redwind's blade, but it's comparable.

The third option is to either buy the wildbranch sword from the bazaar or farm it from Stormfather in Grizzleheim. That does 10 damage less than redwind's blade, but it's also comparable.

Those all give a power pip.

And I think that's it for options on life swords unless you delve into mooshu. In that case you'd be hitting Oyotomi . . . you know, come to think of it, farming oyotomi is much much easier than farming stormfather, and the wildbranch sword and oyotomi's blade are pretty much identical in damage output and stats as far as I can see.

either way you slice it (shhhhwing!), best of luck with farming your life sword!

Happy Dueling!

New Tune up--Centaur Jam

What's up duelers?!

DJ Friendly Necromancer here,

I just thought I'd let you know that I've got a new song up over on my Diary of a Wizard page to share with you all. It's the Centaur Jam! Just go to my page from that link and then play the song from my music.



This song is free for you to share, etc. Just please give credit where it is due if you use it in something. Feel free to add that to your page as well if you'd like. :-)

Hope you like it! This one goes out to you Life Wizards from The Friendly Necromancer!

PEACE!

Happy Dueling!

Friday, August 7, 2009

Player Trading Card of the Day--Matthew Willowblossom

Ahh! Today's card of the day is the infamous potroast himself! He's one of the great administrators of our Wikia: Matthew Willowblossom!



Thanks for being my first Myth card, Matthew!

Happy Dueling!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Friendly's TCG for Wizard101

Hello all,

I started crafting a TCG for Wizard101 a few months ago. You may have noticed all those Player Trading Card posts. Anyway, I've been so busy that I haven't yet been able to finish the advanced version of this game and I also haven't been able to video an example of me playing this game with my family yet.

I'm basically looking for a few more players to step up, namely:

4 Myth Wizards
2 Life Wizards
2 Storm Wizards
3 Fire Wizards
2 Ice Wizards

So if you would like to be a part of this, let me know! I'm more than happy to make you a card if you're a balance or death wizard just for fun, but if you happen to be one of those listed classes, I'd be MORE THAN more than happy to make you a card. :-)

Leave a note here and let me know how I can contact you to get a card made. If you left a note on a previous thread, and I missed it . . . please leave me another note and hopefully you won't be missed this time around. And if I did miss you, my apologies . . . I've had a lot of my mind lately. ;-)

Now, on to the game.

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

The basic card game can be played with a simple deck of cards, which will be replaced with actual cards once I make a sheet for you to print out (this is going to be a free game that I hope you will be able to just print out and play). You’ll need two decks of cards to play.

The first thing you need to do is separate your cards into two piles and get a piece of scratch paper.

Put the Ace and the 2-7 cards of all suits into one pile. Put the rest of the cards (8-Queen) into another pile.

The Ace through Seven cards will be your “player cards.”
A Balance
2 Death
3 Life
4 Myth
5 Storm
6 Ice
7 Fire

The Eight through Queen cards will be your “monster cards.”
8 Death
9 Life
10 Myth
J Storm
K Ice
Q Fire

Shuffle both decks separately.

You and your opponent now decide how many rounds you’re going to play (3, 5, or 7).

Make two columns (one for each player) on the scratch paper. Since in the basic game each side begins with 2,000 health, write 2,000 on the top of each column under the player’s name.

Flip a coin to see who goes first at the beginning of each round.

Each side draws their “team” of four cards from the player cards and puts them down face up in front of them. If any Balance cards are drawn, the player must declare what class that balance player will be playing as (death, life, myth, fire, storm, or ice). In other words, Aces are wild.

The person going first draws one card from the top of their monster card deck.

The effect of this card will vary based on the make up of their team of player cards. Effects of the monster cards will be as follows:

If the card drawn has no corresponding player cards of that class, the damage to the other team will be: 200 points
1 of the same class: 400
2 of the same class: 800
3 of the same class: 1600
4 of the same class: 2000

Cards are played until one side’s health drops below 0.

Example play:
• Player A draws their team and this round it will be made up of one life, one death, one storm, and one fire wizard.
• Player B draws their team and this round it will be made up of one death, one ice, one myth, and one balance wizard. Player B declares their balance wizard will be playing as a death wizard, making Player B’s hand to have two death wizards, one ice wizard, and one myth wizard.

• A coin is flipped and Player A will be going first this round.

• Player A pulls a myth monster card. Since there are no myth wizards in Player A’s deck, the other team only takes 200 damage. Player B’s life total is now 1,800 life.

• Player B pulls a death monster card. This will do 800 damage to player A since player B has a death wizard and a balance wizard playing as a death wizard (good draw!). Player A’s life total is now 1,200 life.

• Player A pulls a life monster card. This does 400 damage to Player B. Player B’s life total is now 1,200.

• Player B pulls a fire monster card. This does 200 damage to Player A. Player A’s life total is now 1,000.

• Player A pulls another life monster card. This does 400 damage to Player B. Player B’s life total is now 800.

• Player B pulls a storm monster card. This does 200 damage to Player A. Player A’s life total is now 800.

• Player A pulls a fire monster card. This does 400 damage to Player B. Player B’s life total is now 400.

• Player B pulls a life card. This does 200 damage to player A. Player A’s life total is now 600.

• Player A pulls an ice card. This does 200 damage to Player B. Player B’s life total is now 200.

• Player B pulls another death card and seals the deal. Player A’s life total is now -200.

• Player B wins round 1.

Player A.......Player B
2000...........2000
1,200..........1,800
1,000..........1,200
800............800
600............400
-200...........200
...............winner!

Player A and Player B set their used player cards and monster cards aside and draw four more player cards for the next round. Best of 3,5, or 7 rounds wins!

~~~~~~~~~~

That is the basic game. The advanced game will add additional effects of the player cards (such as life player cards will grant the team a bonus of 100 health per round or ice player cards will half the damage of all attacks, etc.) and will allow focused attacks to take out player trading cards one at a time.

Let me know if you can follow those instructions or not and if you play this, let me know if you had fun! This is the first card game I've ever tried to make.

(hmm, maybe I'll make an instructional video soon).

Happy Dueling!