How do I spawn Yakedo?

Liam has another question!

Hey, FN. Its Liam F. I got a question: on W101 Central, ironhawk posted a guide to mooshu. It says in the Crimson Fields instance level there is a secret boss named Yakedo. It dosen't say how to make him appear. Help?

AHAHAHAHA! YES! Now this "secret" boss I *DO* know about. The first time I talk about him on this blog I don't mention his name. But there is a little video of Amber pulling the banners that spawn him.

I brought Amber back to pull more banners this morning just to verify.


So if you pull all four banners out in the main battlefield of Crimson Fields, then after you complete all the construction of the barricades and gather all the scouts and finally spawn the army of bad guys . . . BOOM . . . Yakedo will spawn with them.

I ran to go take a screenshot of him


And I got stuck on my horse from being too close to the edge, LOL. BUG!


Luckily Kyle was there to port to and away from the sticky situation AND luckily Kyle had warmed up an electric blanket to tuck Yakedo away as well.


A SNUGLY SOFT AND DEADLY BLANKET OF ELECTRICITY THAT IS! And hey! he doesn't drop half bad loot, does he?



And as Liam indicated, you can find Yakedo's list of loot over on Central from Ironhawk's amazing guides.

Thanks for the question!

Happy Dueling!

Staying home from work, Ravenwood Radio 6 tonight.

. . . I'm sick. There's just no getting around it. I could probably go to work and suffer through the day like I did yesterday, but . . . nah . . . I'm sick. I better just admit it.

To make matters worse, I'm supposed to supply Ravenwood Radio with a clip for tonight's show, and I haven't recorded it. Bah. I may just go record it anyways and just do my best even though I sound horrible.

If that doesn't happen, my apologies all around. Either way, as far as YOU go (enough about me), the place to be tonight (30 December 2009) is in Ravenwood Radio's chat room at 8pm CST. It's sure to be a good time.


Happy Dueling!

How do you beat General Akilles?

I got a question from a mom!

I’m trying to help my son get past General Akilles. He says that he can’t figure out how to defeat him. I can’t seem to find an answer anywhere online. Is there a site that has a step by step walkthrough? Or a “Wizard101 for Dummy’s”. If you can help….I would be SO grateful.

What an awesome mom to ask a question for her son!

Well, there's really no step by step walkthrough for this game that I know of, but you can get a good idea of what you're up against by looking at some of the entries on Wikia.

Here's the wikia entry on General Akilles. That won't tell you much beyond who he is and what treasure he drops . . . and the discussion tab is not worth looking at on this one, so FRIENDLY TO THE RESCUE!

The general rule with all early boss fights is as follows

1- Start with full health.
2- Defeat the minion (the cyclops legionnaire in this case) of the boss first.
3- Heal yourself often with the pixie spell. (heals 400 in exchange for 2 pips)
4- Use those shields if you have them! (myth shields for this fight)
5- Remember that if you can't seem to do it alone, by all means go with others since this is an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) game.

If your son is playing a low damage class like ice, have him get an amulet with lightning bat or lightning snake to help him win (these guys are weak to lightning spells), and you can buy shielding treasure cards from the library if necessary (to use a treasure card you click off a card you don't need from your deck during battle and select draw). At the early levels, ice is by far the most difficult class I've played solo. It can be done, but it's really a grouping class.

So, here's the best tip I can give you. Press Escape to go to the options window.

You'll want to click on the gear icon on the right and then the gear with the spheres on the top right.


This will bring up the "realms" window. What you'll want to do is have your son travel to the busiest realm available. Early in the morning here, the busiest realm I could find was Ambrose.


This will put your son where all the action is and where the most people are.

Then you wait.


In the time it took me to write this article, I had six people run up to fight Akilles . . . and it's extremely early in the morning . . . just imagine when it's busier in the afternoon!

At this level it's pretty standard that you just join people as they run into these instances, but at later levels your son should probably ask if he can help before jumping in with someone. It's just a common courtesy.

This is a difficult fight at low levels to be sure, without shields up, these two can put out a lot of damage (I was hit for 550 points by the end of the third round), but as a friend of mine noted last night, it's not nearly as difficult as rising to the top of the Golem Tower at low levels. Greater challenges are in store!

Hope that helps! I'm sure my readers have some tips to give as well, so please check out the comments that will follow.

Happy Dueling!

Cyrus, er, Angus Drake at the Wizened Wizards Party!

I missed it! GAH! I'm always missing the cool stuff.


This screenshot was posted in the Wizened Wizards group by Katherine Winterheart. The event started right as I was getting off work. I should have left 40 minutes early so I could attend. hehe. (p.s. Angus Drake is really an alt of Professor Greyrose.)

Congrats on the successful party Wizened Wizards!

Bailey and Molly ready for counterweights! oh yeah, and smogger.

Wow, it's been a long time since Thomas was finishing up Marleybone.

Now the wife and I are ready for the counterweights and Big Ben! Woot!

Look how awesome the wife's character is looking these days:


We cleaned up Katzenstein pretty good btw. It didn't hurt that some random 50th level superstar is on my friends list for Molly. /shrug.


Thanks Starslinger! You're a star! He even powered us through the "secret boss" Smogger while we were there in Katz lab. Man I love that smogger loot.


My wife found starslinger outshining me by knowing all about the "secret boss" there to be hilarious. Yes, even I, the mighty Friendly Necromancer, answerer of all questions, supposed holder of all Wizard101 knowledge, didn't know about Smogger in Katz Lab. She laughed. She laughed. And she laughed some more. OH, it was so funny!

I tried to tell her that I remembered hearing something about it but not paying much attention to it . . . no . . . no excuses for the Friendly Necromancer.

So, thank you Starslinger for the education and thank you wife for the humbling moment.

So, to inform you all about Smogger . . . you collect wooden planks around the lab and outside of the lab after beating Mr. Katzenstein. You use these planks to construct a bridge that leads to smogger from the "dead end" room left of the lab. He has 4k health and is a rank 7 boss. Look here . . . even wikia knows about him. Look here . . . even central knows about him. Look here . . . even Tipa at West Karana knows about him (actually, that's probably where I remember hearing about Smogger from). And yes, probably ALL my readers even knew about Smogger. /smacks head THE TRAGEDY OF IT ALL! Well, if you somehow didn't . . . now you do. Gratz.

Sheesh.

Happy Dueling!

Wizened Wizards Event Tonight!

Attention all old people!


If you're a member of Wizened Wizards, tonight would be a great night to be playing the game around 5pm CST.

Mecatz has set up an event, so please go check the Wizened Wizard events on Wizard101 Central.

And I may even see you there!

Happy Dueling!

Isaiah's Christmas Party!

OH yeah! And before I head to work, one last thing.

Isaiah's Christmas Party was fun! Loved the foot races!

Here's a few shots from it. You should go read around on the blogroll to hear more about it.

Nice meeting all the new people!





Happy Dueling!

How do you get famous in Wizard101?

Hi there!

I was wondering how a wizard gets famous. I would like to have my own blog about Wizard101 but I am worried no one will visit it and I don't give nearly as good advice as you do. I am a blog member of Wordpress and not Blogspot, so would that make any difference?
Sincerely, Natalie Crowshard

WAIT! I hear a bad 80's song moment coming on.



Heya Natalie! Welcome to blogging about Wizard101. It really doesn't matter if you blog on Wordpress or Blogspot. They both are awesome as far as free sites go.

Well, my blogging club is a great place to start. A lot of people use my site as a jumping board for reading Wizard101 blogs. I'm their RSS feed. Get on that and start posting cool stuff and you'll be on your way.

I've given some advice before to aspiring bloggers, but you need to check out this thread on Wizard101.com. It's a classic. :-) I'm a total Alex Jaderider fanboi.

In the end, I have no idea. The "fame" aspect of this blog really kind of threw me for a loop. I wasn't expecting that at all. Although, I have to say that I've only been recognized a few times in game where someone said . . . HEY, YOU'RE THAT GUY THAT RUNS THAT BLOG! If I leave my teleports on, then there is a chance that I will become a traveling party, which can be fun. But, for the most part I just run around doing my thing on my alts, staying very low key.

I have to say that the real famous people in the game for me are the people that had a hand in making the game. Like seeing Samantha on or maybe Calamity Boompants is HUGE for me! Interviewing Professor Greyrose and the duo of Nelson Everhart and J. Todd Coleman was amazing! See, the way it should be is the developers are the famous ones and the bloggers are their entourage. Know what I'm saying? As bloggers for Wizard101, we should be invited into the inner circle of cool for KI and then everyone else in game gets to live that through our blogs.

I know that I'd love to make a trip to Austin, TX to see a few people there. KI if you're listening, I'd love to come write about my experience touring your offices (post NDA of course, of course) . . . feel free to inconvenience me with a plane ticket! ;-) I don't think it's going to happen. ;-)

Best of luck with your endeavors.

Happy Dueling!

Is Malistaire's staff in the game? good wands for 11th level?

Got a couple wand questions, so I'm throwing them together.

First is this:

Hey, FN. Its Liam FireCrafter again. My friend, Jeffery SoulBlade (he asked about the fire house. he really wants it!), said he once saw a wizard with Malistaire's staff. ???

Many a wizard would love to have Malistaire's staff! Unfortunately, it is not available in the game. HOWEVER, if your friend should see that staff again (you know, because maybe there's something I don't know about), by all means have him screenshot it and definitely gear check him.

Do you know how to gear check people? No? Well, here's how you do it . . . Amber Deathsong will illustrate. Amber ran into Ravenwood and selected this chick:


Hello Katherine Jadeflower, whoever you are! Look at you! All gussied up with your Dragonspyre gear on!

So, now that Amber has Kathrine selected, she then clicks this little arrow.


This brings up her traits and what not, but since we want to look at her gear, we need to click one of these two arrows.


Then we can roll over her gear and check it out.


What the heck? Why isn't she wearing any shoes? Weird.


Hmm . . . she digs the hitpoints and is wearing an ice wyvern necklace . . . to each their own I suppose. At least she has a cool sword!

So, if your buddy ever sees Malistaire's staff on a player ever again, make sure he checks their gear. It's highly likely that he really saw something else, like maybe the Dragon Rider Staff.



My second question on wands is this:

Hey Friendly, glad to hear that you had a good Christmas. I hauled a lot of money and I think it's enough for me to get a year subscription. But that's not why I'm here. Do you know any good wands for a level 11 storm wizard (who is currantly without subscription)?

No subscription, eh? Well your best bet would be to do one of two things. Camp the bazaar for a staff from somewhere like Collosus Boulevard . . . like this:


OR, be like the cool kids and grab the latest and greatest Beckett's MMO magazine and snag yourself a Blue Raptor Blade. I talk about that here. It's a seriously nice sword for a low level character.

Thanks for the questions!

Happy Dueling!

What is an "alt"?

One of the D's from the D&D's of Wizard101Info asked this question:

I was listening to you on the 5th Episode of Ravenwood Radio, and I heard you and Stephen mention "ALT"'s a lot. Like, Stephen said that he had an "ALT". What IS an "ALT"? I've heard it mentioned a few times in game, and I would love to know what it means.

/smacks head . . . how many gamer terms did I use during that thing?

Ok, Alts are your "alternate characters." This is a throwback to other MMOs where, if you were part of a guild, you usually had to declare a "main" or an "alt" because of raiding.

/smacks head . . . I did it AGAIN! "Raiding" is when you get a large group of players together to slay the dragon . . . or whatever other huge boss there is in your game.

You see back in my days of Everquest, World of Warcraft, or Lord of the Rings Online, I'd have to combine forces with between 12 to 72 players (depending on the game) and hunt down bosses that dropped really good gear. The problem was that these bosses only dropped maybe 1 or 2 pieces of gear for the entire 12 to 72 players, so it took a long time to get one character fully decked out with the best robes, shoes, swords, etc. that the game offered.

The way these games were designed was so that good gear on your character actually made a huge difference in how easily your entire raid force could defeat more powerful bosses . . . so much so that it was essential to a raid force to have well geared "main" characters over well geared "alt" characters. (It was not strange for people to sometimes have 2 or 3 max level characters on their accounts.) Therefore, In most raiding guilds Main characters received looting preferences over Alt characters.

In Wizard101 EVERYONE GETS LOOT! It's part of what makes this game great, you know? I don't have to roll against any other players to win loot at the end of the battle. So, it really doesn't matter if there's an alt or a main in a group.

In Wizard101, I suppose your "main" character would be the character you are most invested in or embodies you the most. So for me, Thomas Lionblood is my "main" character and all the others are "alt" characters.

Hope that helps you understand that bit of confusing gamer lingo.

Happy Dueling!

Christmas Un-Wrap Up!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas! Santa visited us! I tried to stay up late to see him, but I fell asleep.

He gave us the gift of Playstation3! YAY! Little Big Planet is awesome. I wonder if I could build a Wizard101 level. hmmm . . . Anybody out there have this game and has built levels for it?


So what did you all give/get for Christmas?

I'm excited to hear about your presents!

Me? Oh you know . . . I got dad stuff. Like socks. (shh, I think the Playstation 3 will get a lot of mileage from me.) OH, and Amber Deathsong drew my name this year! She got me a $15 Itunes card. YES! I have a list of songs I've been wanting.

I need to say thank you to Cassandra G. (She's already listed her gift list over on her site--WOW, nice haul) and Leesha D. (Don't forget Ravenwood Radio 6 is this coming Wednesday!) for their gifts in game! Thank you so much!

Happy Dueling!

Isaiah Spelldust's Christmas Party

Isaiah has a three hour block reserved for two days! Wow, that's a lot of party . . . Here's the details:

- It will be held on 2 days : Dec. 26 from 3:30 PM Central Time to 6:30 PM Central time. And The second day will be Dec. 27 from 4:30 PM Central Time to 7:30 PM Central Time.

- It will be held in Ravenwood, Area 1, Realm Vampire
- Who ever brings a full Santa Suit will win an Eye of Bartleby gift card booster pack!

- Everyone is Invited!

- Rules of the Party :

1. This is NOT a dating party, so please dont blurt out "date" related things. That is not what Wizard101 is about.

2. No name calling please.

3. Trading treasure cards is encouraged!

4. Be there!

- Also, I just wanna add something. I wanna see how many Firezilla pets we can get in the party, cause if we get a lot, I want to take a screenshot of all those wizards with that many of the same pet!

Merry Christmas from Defenders Inc. ! And hope you can be there!

~Isaiah Spelldust

So, if you're looking to meet a hardworking blogger, Isaiah has committed himself to Ravenwood for a long time over the next couple of days. I definitely can't commit myself to being there the entire time, but I may drop by for part of it. I'll twitter about it if I head in (I need to score a free pack of eye of the Bartleby!).

Happy Dueling!

Christmas Wish for the Awesome Pyromancer

Many months ago, I read that the Awesome Pyromancer had a goal to reach 10,000 hits on her blog. I see now that she's only 150 hits away from her goal.

I wouldn't normally ask people to visit a blog just for the sake of gaining hits, but what the heck . . . if everybody that reads my blog could just click here to see her blog and help push her over that 10,000 hit goal, well, that would be awesome.

Keep reaching for the stars, Jessica!

Caption that Comic!

This contest just came across the community wire!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's time for another contest! Our Abracadoodle comic has become so popular that we wanted to give our players a chance to submit their own comic caption!

We've provided the comic strip, and we need you to fill in what these characters are saying!

Learn more and submit your entry here:

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

What’s Abracadoodle?

Click here to follow the adventures of two young Wizards as they meet the professors of Ravenwood School of Magical Arts and learn about magic. https://www.wizard101.com/game/comic

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

My local newspaper does something like this. It's fun! Best of luck everyone!

Happy Dueling!

Merry Christmas Eve!

My blog buddy Cassandra put together a Christmas poster for a few of her blogger friends! yay!


Thanks Cass, you too!

I sent my friend list their presents today! I had to stop halfway through and go buy another gift card to finish LOL. Eye of the Bartleby packs for all those on my friends list! Merry Christmas!


I really would like to thank all those that continue to drop by this blog to make it a daily read. Hopefully you've found enough information here to save you all some time, and my hope is that you've used your spare time wisely.

I'll have more thoughts on the past year as we head into 2010 next week.

Peace, Love, Happiness, and Happy Dueling!

Power Leveling? AoEs?

Sierra asked a question a few posts back:

"Power leveling? Could you define that some time? And you mentioned AOE spells a few times on Ravenwood Radio, what's that?"

Yup. My wife chastised me for using those "gamer" terms and not explaining them. SORRY!

*Insert non-offensive picture of public flogging* (I couldn't find one)

Yes, so power leveling is when you take a low level character and do higher level instances while they stand at the door and/or you take your character and finish quests at an advanced speed by using a second, more powerful character to do all the work.

Let me give you an example with that noob character from the other day, Aedan. Wave hi, Aedan!


Aedan here has never set foot in Unicorn Way. He's level 1.

The easiest Dragonspyre dungeon has got to be The Grand Chasm Past. It's short, it's easy, and your low level character levels quickly here.


Ugg, Aedan is so bossy, but we love him.

Kyle goes around fixing bridges and locking doors. Aedan soaks up the experience. Kyle destroys General Firetusk. Aedan soaks up the experience. wash, rinse, repeat (since you can do instances twice for experience). Badabing Badaboom, Aedan is just under level 9 in under an hour (with 216 gold to boot).



The second way to powerlevel involves AOEs. AOEs? AOE stands for Area of Effect. The term comes from many many other games. The easiest way to describe AoE is through the gun/grenade metaphor. Whereas most spells in our inventory strike one target, like a gun, there are many spells that strike all targets, like a grenade. The AoE's of Wizard101 are as follows:

Storm: Storm Lord, Tempest (AoE Trap: Windstorm)
Ice: Frost Giant, Blizzard (AoE Taunt: Taunt)
Fire: Fire Dragon, Meteor Strike, Scald (AoE Stun: Choke, AoE debuff: Smoke Screen)
Balance: Power Nova, Sandstorm (AoE buff: Bladestorm)
Death: Scarecrow (AoE debuff: Plague)
Myth: Humongofrog and Earthquake (AoE stun: Blinding Light)
Life: no damage AoE's (AoE healing: Unicorn and Rebirth) (AoE buff: Guidance)

. . . Wizard101 usually calls these spells "multi-strike" spells, but AoE is pretty standard lingo in the gaming world. /shrug

Anyway, the SECOND way to powerlevel a character in Wizard101 is to use AoE spells to destroy everything in the battle circle. For instance, one of my characters, Isaiah Taleslinger, is currently hanging out in Krokotopia. He's just starting the Grand Arena. His current quest is to kill a number of Ice Spiders. These Ice Spiders have 395 hitpoints each. Now, for Isaiah to kill these Ice Spiders by himself, he would have to buff himself with a blade and trap the other spider, then cast cyclops . . . twice . . . possibly more times if they were using tower shield . . . and he would probably heal himself somewhere in the process as well. By the end of this combat, he's gone through at least 6 rounds if everything went perfectly. It could be many more rounds if the monsters were full of surprises.

With Kyle in the mix, he enters the first round of combat with 2 power pips and a set of grandmaster gear. He casts Tempest. All of the spiders die in the first round. Easy. Even though Kyle isn't getting much experience in the way of combat-earned experience. Quest-completion experience by far outshines the lack of combat-earned experience.

And that's power leveling in Wizard101!

Happy Dueling!

How do I get the silent night cap?

The magificent Amber Stargem has this question for us today!

Dear Friendly,

I was wandering around wizard city, (this just showws how bored I was) and I saw a girl wearing like the santa hat for girls, with stars on it called the silent night cap. I wanted to ask her where she got it but she didnt have text chat. It was a crowns item and I already checked the crown shop and Felix Davidad. Do you know where to get it?

Thanks and Merry Christmas,

-Amber StarGem
Myth Master
Crazy Physco

Thanks and Merry Christmas to you (my favorite crazy psycho . . . or physco if you like . . . sounds a bit like an athletics store to me though. ;))

Ok, yes, there is a new cap in game. You're right. HOWEVER, it's only available to new accounts (great time to set up a second account for yourself).

I decided to try this out for myself just to verify how it works. What you do is this:

1- Sign up a new account and make sure you check the box that says "receive free gift" when you sign up.

2- Wait for your e-mail from the fine folks at Kingsisle, namely, Merle Ambrose. Your e-mail will have a link to activate your free gift, so click it.

3- Log in to the website with your new account name and password.

4- Log in to the game with your new account.

5- Claim your gift.


6- Show off your new Amber Stargem Character and her cool hat!


It is tradeable through the shared bank, but you can't auction it. Gratz to the new people of Wizard101!

Happy Dueling!

Why is Wizard101 not going to accept any more fansites from blogspot?

Sorion here has a question that is going to affect many of you aspiring Wizard101 bloggers:

Heya Friendly, my blog's starting to roll into rhythm so I thought i might register it with KingsIsle, but then I found this worrying line X_X...

Fansite submissions received after 31 December 2009 cannot be hosted by free hosting sites such as blogspot.

What exactly does this mean, I'm not really planning to register until a few months... And my blog is clealy Blogspot X_x*

Well, I hate to break this to you guys, but this is true. There's been a bad seed or two running around registering blogspot addresses and submitting them to Greyrose over and over and over. There's been people who have even stolen my material as their own and submitted it to her, trying to get on the fansites page. And what this has done is that it's caused Greyrose to try and find the root of the problem (or at least a strong limb): free websites.

Y'all are wonderful bloggers for the most part in my book, and I bet you that if your site really does stand on its own and brings out the spirit of a Wizard101 fansite, then you'll be considered even though you're on a free website like blogspot or wordpress. (But don't quote me on that!)

Get well established and please know that my blogroll is there to help you all gain a little exposure.

/shrug

What ya' gonna do?

Happy Dueling!

Why does the Feint Trap Display Incorrectly?

Alex Deathshade has a couple questions:

what school do you favor or think is the best and why does the feint card say it puts a 30% trap on you when it does a 70% trap?

Death is the best of course MUHAHAHAHAHA! I've already successfully avoided the first question on this thread, so . . . there you go.

Yeah, the feint spell is displaying percentages incorrectly. Be assured it is putting a 70% damage trap on your target and a 30% damage trap on you even though the words are saying a 70% trap is being put on both of ya. That's been a bug from day one, and it has been listed on their site as a known bug pretty much from day one.

Why? I don't know really . . . maybe there's no cheese at the end of the maze?



(I think someone moved my cheese.) I fear that to correct the problem they would have to go back and mess with some really old code in the engine or something; otherwise, it probably would have been fixed by now. I do believe it is the only simultaneous trap in the game. Just kind of a unique beast. Maybe a programmer with some key knowledge moved to another company. Maybe they just have the programmers working hard on a newer more awesome project. It's really hard to tell from the outside looking in. You'd think it'd just be as easy as changing a little 70 to a 30 somewhere in the code, but odds are that it's something deeper and definitely more mysterious. It's an enigma! GASP!

You know what? It really would be cool to have a programmer try to tell us, the non-programmer types, the reason why that bug is such a longstanding one.

/shrug

Happy Dueling!

Website says pvp enhancements instead of playing the commercial?

Kestrel found something odd:

So, I was on my friend's computer, and it is really weird and doesn't play the slideshow when you log in to wizard101.com. So instead of the slideshow, the whole time we were there, there was a big picture that said that PvP was being revamped with all new arenas, tournaments, and rare prizes!?! It said to click the button below for more details, but below it said "to view this you need adobe flash". I tried clicking on the picture but nothing happened. Weird, eh? I was wondering if this was an old thing, or if we were previewing something new that hasn't been released yet.

What you saw probably looks like this:


That's actually old. That poster is back from when they launched the pvp you know today. Well, kind of . . . tournaments went by the wayside thanks to the cheaters, and gold wagering never made it out of the test realm . . . .

I actually get the same thing that your friend saw on my iphone when I surf Wizard101.com, but underneath that poster I have a box that says this: "In order to view this content correctly you need to have Adobe Flash Player installed." Of course, iphones aren't able to do that. BUT, what that tells me is that your friend needs to install the latest and greatest Adobe Flash Player to see the site correctly.

Hope that clears up the confusion!

How do I add friends when they are not in the same location?

I have a wonderful note here from Scarlet and a question to boot:

Dear Mr Necromancer,

I've tried searching your blog but I can't find the answer to this, so hopefully you haven't answered it already. I did find 'An hour with Jordan Skybane' which was the funniest thing I've read in a long while, I'm definitely going to try that :)

My question is, How do you add somebody to your friends list when you aren't in the same location as them? And how do you add people to your friends list during a battle?

Thanks very much. I love reading your blog!

Kind regards,

Scarlet

Thank you for your pleasant letter! Somedays I miss Jordan Skybane . . . I haven't found a newbie that was as fun as he was yet.

The trick to adding friends when they aren't in the same location or during battle is either through the power of the mystical and magical True Friends Code or through using private messages.

You get your true friend code by clicking this button here.


This will give you a screen with a random code that you can use to add your friend for the next 48 hours on *one* character in your account. Quick, easy, efficient.


Of course, you may be in game, without an e-mail for this person, and you can't just blabber your true friend code around with menu chat or filtered chat, can you? NOPE! That is why we have this second way! What you have to do is to establish some whisper/private/purple text with the person you want to befriend with another one of your characters. Amber and Kyle will now demonstrate how this goes down . . . today we join Amber and Kyle as they sit back and relax with a spot of chat in Malistaire's Lair.


Amber logs off now that she has some private chat established and logs on Aeden here.


Aeden presses "R" and talks to Kyle since he was the last person that account talked to (yup, he's still able to talk to him even though it's a different character . . . that's the magic of whisper chat). Kyle says something back to him (if he doesn't he can't add him). Aeden clicks on Kyle's name in the chat window and adds him as a friend.

Aeden ports to Kyle for powerleveling duties.


I'm not sure if that fully answers your questions, but I hope that helps!

Happy Dueling!

Upkeep and Taxes in Wizard101?

I got a very upset message from my blog buddy Cassandra:

Big trouble ahead, blog buddy!
BIIIG Trouble!!
In February, their going to put gold payments and taxes on items and houses.
Payments cost half of your house, IN GOLD!
If we don't pay it, all our stuff is moved to the attic and we cant access homes until we pay.
THIS IS BAD!!
We cant let this happen!!
Please tell me you're against this!

*UPDATE* This has been verified to be untrue!! Thanks to Luke Darkblood for doing the footwork on this one and getting the response we're looking for from Professor Greyrose! *UPDATE*

*unruffles feathers*

ok, first, I need to know where this rumor comes from. Link me!

Second, what you're talking about here is reminding me of Lord of the Rings Online, which I've been dabbling in lately on the side. Let me show you how it works in that game, and then we can make a few metaphors and talk about how it "feels" in game to pay things like upkeep.

Ok, hey y'all this is my house in LOTRO!


There's like two rooms inside of this. hehe. it's horrible compared to Wizard101 housing except for one thing. I have cool neighbors. It'd be awesome if I had a neighbor in Wizard101.


Anyway, so I paid 1 gold for my house in LOTRO. That's actually a pretty good amount of money since they also have copper and silver money. So I have to pay 50 silver a week to keep my house. It's called "upkeep." 50 silver is 1/20th the total cost of my house. (I'm paid up on my house until 21 Jan, whew, buffer)


So, before my life in Wizard101, I played quite a bit of LOTRO. When I left the game, of course, I stopped paying my upkeep and I was locked out of my house. A year later I logged on to the game and guess what, there's my house in the same neighborhood, and I unlocked it and paid all my upkeep dues. That's nice! It's still there!

So, if Wizard101 were to use the exact same system as LOTRO, it would mean this. Say the cheapest house is 8000 gold, that would mean I'd have to pay 400 gold each week to keep my house. Not bad I guess. Now if the same 1/20th upkeep rule were applied to school houses. That would mean I'd be paying 5000 a week on upkeep. That's significant, but I'd rather pay 1/20th than 1/2 LOL. That would be insane.

How does this make me feel in LOTRO to have to pay upkeep? Well, I guess there's a bit of reality to it. It makes me feel very poor that I don't have a fancy house in LOTRO and it really makes me think about "what's the purpose of having a house" even more. Some people won't buy them because they see them as a waste of money. BUT, the people who love their houses and have the really really expensive houses take a new sense of pride about their house because people know that it's a bit of a challenge to maintain an expensive house.

HOWEVER, if you've been getting something for free and then you get upkeep charges applied to you, it kind of makes you feel a little upset. I don't like the idea of having to pay upkeep; however, wizard101 does have the coolest housing out there so . . . I guess it kind of makes sense to inject a bit more importance to having a house since it's such a big part of this game.

At this point, this is nothing more than a rumor. But, does upkeep happen in other games? Absolutely. What is the end result of upkeep? I farm bosses for loot.

*UPDATE* This has been verified to be untrue!! Thanks to Luke Darkblood for doing the footwork on this one and getting the response we're looking for from Professor Greyrose! *UPDATE*

Happy Dueling!

Is that the Grizzleheim House in the commercial?

Got a question here from Liam:

Hey Friendly. Nice job on Ravenwood Radio. It's Liam F. I was watching youtube and saw the newest W101 comerrcial. I saw a Grizzleheim house, but when i attcually looked, there wasen't any houses. Do you know why?

Thanks for listening to Double R.

So, you were watching THIS youtube, eh?



And right at 15 seconds where it says, "be first to discover hidden secrets . . ." you see that Grizzleheim looking house, eh?

EH?

Yeah, I see that too and I, like many others, have the same question you have. Where does Friendly turn when he has questions that he can't answer? I turn to Professor Greyrose, and THIS is what she said to me, “I can confirm that the house shown in the commercial is a house from Grizzleheim, but you’ll have to wait until the new year for more details.”

Oh man . . . I love the sound of that, don't you?

"a" house from Grizzleheim?

"details" are forthcoming in January . . .

yup.

Happy Dueling!

Ravenwood Radio's Live Event? pvp rules?

Erik had a question for me:

hi freindly i got two questions for you first one i was listening to ravenwood radio 5 yesterday and you were talking about the pvp touraments now this is my question where do you sign up for this and second you said that you could only use spells you learned so does this mean that i cant use my wand or anything that that gives my cards like clothes or pets or you get the idea thanks.

Oh! Sorry, yeah, that tournament is now over. It was Diary of a Wizard's Winter Smash and Bash tournament that happened yesterday. This was the link the participate. All the information on rules to participate, etc. can be found over there.

I wasn't able to attend myself, but I have reviewed the hour of footage that my new buds steve and leesha recorded on their site. Lesse . . . let me embed that on my site . . . here we go:

Watch live streaming video from ravenwoodradio at livestream.com

Now, if you're looking for more pvp tournaments, let me highly recommend those tournaments hosted over on Central. No, there won't be coordinated video of the matches and all the hype of a full media blitz that only Fallon and her friends can produce, but these are excellent pvp tournaments that will reward you with Central forum gold and they occur all the time. They have their own set of rules, which include things like no fleeing, no bad language, no chain stunning, and only one life wizard per team. They also will have specific rules based on the particular event you're in.

Sorry we both missed the event! It looked like fun. :-)

Happy Dueling!

Firehouse Interview? Badges? eh?

Jeffery has two questions for me today:

Hey FN. I got 2 questions. 1st – can you put a video of someone interviewing the fire house? 2nd – how do you get the secret shop, krokoshpinx delver, and the bookworm badge?

1st- shrug . . . here you go!




I was going to put it on youtube, then got really embarrassed.

2nd . . .

Secret Shopper--To get the Secret Shopper badge, go to krokotopia and wait for this pad to light up:



Go to the shop there.

Krokosphinx Delver--To get the Krokosphinx Delver badge, complete all the Sphinx Quests. From what I'm hearing, Krokosphinx Delver isn't a new badge; however, Tomb Raider, which used to be bugged, is now working properly: just complete all the quests in the Tomb Of Storms to earn it.

Bookworm? No idea. It's too new. The leading theories seem to be do the book quest in Wizard City OR visit the libraries of the spiral OR complete all the quests in the libraries of the spiral. /shrug At some point maybe the warcry database will be updated and we'll know for sure.

Hope that helps! LOL.

Happy Dueling!

Ravenwood Radio 5!

Listening to Ravenwood Radio now! I'm on there in full geekiness! Go listen to it! YAY!



It's FRIENDLY RADIO NOW! WOOT!

I have to say that being on Ravenwood Radio was a blast. I LOVED being on the show. I LOVED throwing out my opinions and just being the strange off–the-wall type of person that I am. It’s probably going to be strange. You’re probably not going to like me as much after the show, but DANGIT I had so much fun.

Steve and Leesha couldn’t shut me up. It was AWESOME! I was on such a high from talking about the game I love. It was like I just opened up the flood gates and a hundred thoughts came rushing out.

For some reason it sounded like my mic freaked out half way through the show /shrug . . . but what eva.

*snaps a Z at Leesha*

Happy Dueling!

Where do I get simple vials, stone blocks, and death gear recipes?

Wildrose has a question for us:

I was wondering well I really wanna know where the best place to find a siple vale and stone blocks/ Money to buy them for my crafting quest also where can i find a recipe vender who sells stuff for deaths wizards??? (I'm death level 37)

Hi Wildrose! It sounds like you want to know where to get a simple vial? You buy those at a vendor in Krokotopia for 40 gold each. This guy right here sells them:


His name is Al Saf'wan and he looks mean, but he's really quite quiet. I do like his book collar he's wearing in that picture. I want a book collar like that.

It also sounds like you're searching for stone blocks as well. You can find those all over the place from Krokotopia to Dragonspyre. This thread at central is one that I've contributed to before. You'll find all kinds of good information about where to find those crafting Reagents. At level 37 . . . hmmm. Knights Court might give you an opportunity to get some scrap metal while you're farming stone blocks.

Keep in mind that the best way to farm reagents is to run a path that's rich with nodes, jump to a new server, and run the path backwards, jump to a new server, and wash rinse repeat until you've gone through all the available servers.

The last part of your question seems to be asking about who sells good recipes for death wizards. Here's a short list of them for you:

1- Mortis, the death tree in Nightside--he sells all your treasure cards.
2- Zam Fir in the Karanahn Barracks of Krokotopia
3- Darcy Holdstock on the Scotland Yard Roof in Marleybone
4- Yao Fan in the Ancient Burial Grounds of Moo Shu
5- Nada Sunderblade in the Necropolis of Dragonspyre

The best place to find all the vendors of all crafting recipes is this thread at central.

Hope that helps with your crafting endeavors!

Happy Dueling!

How do I get the undead slayer badge? (and bookworm badge?)

Got another question here from Liam:

Yo it's Liam FireCrafter again. I have a big question: do you know the order to the undead badges? I have up to: undead stalker, undead hunter, then undead conquerer. There looks like there could be more.

Well here's the undead badges I've got:


That last one I'm missing there is the undead slayer badge. It's painful to grind. I've talked about that one before, and I still believe that badges should mean more. Also, I want to remind everyone that, although it's missing the new badges, I think warcry is one of the best places to look on badge information . . . I love how sortable and easy it is. But, because the community is so large and willing to help, the most complete information would be found by pouring through all the multiple pages of this thread on badges at Central.

Without the interference of newbies, I can grind about 3 undead a minute on Unicorn Way. Doing the math . . .


I see that if I had the constitution to do so . . . I could probably finish up that badge in around 3 hours of play time. MAN THAT'S A BORING 3 HOURS OF PLAYTIME!

Looking for the best place to farm undead outside of unicorn way, I definitely have a slower kill rate in the Djeserit Family Tomb, but this spot looks like it would be perfect right here:


The problem with this spot is that the mobs just move so slowly that you end up waiting for them to join the battle. If I could get 3 at a time quickly here, then I could finish the fight in one round with Kyle's tempest out of the gate. One thing about that spot though, the loot is much better than unicorn way. hehe. I was scoring a lot of treasure cards and triple loot here at first for some reason and then the loot died down. /shrug

Gah, where's the carrot? Having "undead slayer" under my name just doesn't seem worth it, does it?

OH and since we're talking badges . . . I have another question from yesterday's post:

How do you get the badge bookworm? I have it but I don't know how I got it.

Yup, AFAIK two new badges went into the game with the latest patch . . . Bookworm and Krokosphinx Delver.

The rumor on Bookworm is that it had to be something involving zeke's book quests; however, a recent report was that it had to do with talking to the librarians of the spiral. It's a little new, so people are still figuring it out.

Happy Dueling!

Question mania!

The questions are rolling in with lightning speed! I've got 8 that need answering today:

1- Yo, I got 2 questions. By the way, I am Liam FireCrafter. How do you get the "Master of Death" badge? What is the best farming boss for a level 35 Death student?

Nice to meet you Liam. 1-You learn all of your death spells. ALL of them, including the odd hidden ones from around the spiral and your level 48 spell. 2- I'd say Oyotomi at this point would be your best bet . . . bring your prism spell!

2- Luke Goldflame asks, "I read in one of your newest answered questions about someone having just enough crowns in the real realm to get a new house. They also want a reasonable size inside and out. I want one like that except i want to have one that i wont get bored with too easily. Can you give me a suggestion?"

Hmmm, I don't know what your tastes are, but I have to tell you that the storm house is pretty awesome and it's on sale right now. That'd save you a few crowns for sure. I guarantee you're going to see more storm houses around right now just because of the sale though.

3- Hiya blog bud.
First, before i ask my Q, i have an announcement: I HAVE OPEN CHAT NOW!! YAY!
Ok here's my question:
I just noticed in the test realm, something was up with my hat.
The flower that was on it... is GONE!!
That flower was pretty!
Why did they remove it? WHY? WHY?! T.T


Gratz on the open chat! It was fun saying odd stuff to you last night and knowing that you could see it! woot! odd stuff! I am so sorry your flower is going bye. But I think I can hear all the young male level 10-15 death students cheering in the distance as they bid farewell to the girly flower that was adorning their Helms of Agitation. /comfort For reference, check out my hat on this video. I even talked about someone making fun of my hat on this thread. LOL

4- Mike asks, "Hey friendly! It's mike. Well cristmas is coming up, and so is the end of my subscription. I will resubscribe, but idk when, I might be after christmas, witch means that my subscription will expire, will I lose my wizard? Or does it save my wizard untill I resubscribe, or does it just not let me into the other worlds anymore. This is really important, cuse if I lose my acount, along with my wizard, then the holadays won't be so jolly anymore."

hehe. Nah, no worries Mike. If your subscription expires your wizards will still be there. What you describe is what a lot of players do, play until their subscription runs out, then wait until the next allowance/birthday/Christmas pay day. You'll still have access to the free zones in Wizard City with all your wizards. You won't lose your account. The holidays will still be jolly!

5- Ryan WinterBreeze asks, "hey friendly i bought a house last night at three am and when i went to equip it it was not on my list i bought with gold to and it all so waisted my gold so i was wondering if you could ask them why i got ripped off or what maybe i could get my money back or so on."

Egads. What you need to do is submit a ticket and get your account rolled back to a time before you bought your house. I have some instructions on submitting a help ticket here.

6- Hi Friendly, I wanted to ask a question. I all of a sudden was banned on central, and this was all I got on the message: You have been banned for the following reason:
No reason was specified. Huh? Banned for no reason? So I was wondering if you had the time, if you could ask Olivia or Jester why Deidara98 was fizzled, I would really appreciate it. Thank you!

I don't usually make it a practice to bug Jester and Olivia about stuff like this. Usually you get banned because of not following the long list of rules (as I'm sure you know . . . after 700+ posts on central.) I'll get back to you if they let me know anything. Don't get your hopes up. And I won't bug Jester and Olivia about this stuff for everybody, not because I don't care, but just because I fear I would be flooded with requests. In the meantime, you should go post on Ravenwood Radio's new forums . . . they are young and in need of some solid discussion.

7- anon asks, "do you know when the black panther is gonna go live? ?o.o? "

No idea. Love that mount, but seriously, I have no idea. I'm still bummed the permanent blue dragon mount didn't go live yet.

8- The Helpful Sorcerer asks, "Hey friendly necromancer I need yur help. Help me find a friend I met on the test realm. Sine it's offline I don't know where she is. Her name is Abigal Dragonheart. If you find her tell her to email me at this adress: (removed)"

*Shouts out in a loud voice* ABIGAIL! WHERE ARE YOU??!!!! YOUR FRIEND MISSES YOU AND NEEDS TO BE YOUR FRIEND ON WIZARD ONE OH ONNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEE!

Hope that helps. Send me an e-mail abigail, and I shall reconnect you with the helpful sorcerer. He misses you. Can't a sorcerer catch a break?

. . . .

Well, I'm spent. How about you guys?

Happy Dueling! (and I was never heard from ever again, the end.)

FW: Wizard101 Unveils New Mount to Raise Money for Children's Charities

This just in from the news wire!

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

Wizard101 Unveils New Mount to Raise Money for Children's Charities
Sales of "Meowmodon" to support Child's Play and the Austin Children's
Shelter

We are proud to give our players and their friends a unique way to support
children this holiday season. The purchase of an in-game mount, the
"Meowmodon", will benefit the Austin Children's Shelter and Child's Play.
The Austin Children's Shelter provides emergency shelter and care for abused
and neglected children and Child's Play is a game industry charity dedicated
to providing games and toys to children in hospitals worldwide.

The black and white Meowmodon resembles a large tiger and sells for 7,500
in-game Crowns per mount. For each Meowmodon mount sold, KingsIsle will
donate the full amount (a retail value of approximately $15) to the two
charities, divided equally. The Meowmodon is available for purchase through
the in-game Crown Shop from December 14, 2009 through January 5, 2010.

"We have an opportunity to give back by tapping into the power of our
Wizard101 community - our 5 million players can make a real difference to
deserving children," said Elie Akilian, CEO of KingsIsle Entertainment. "We
chose these organizations because we wanted to support the communities that
we are a part of - one located in the same city as our design studio and
another with global reach, just like Wizard101."

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

I'm uber excited they chose to go with Child's Play. It's a charity that
I've talked about before on this blog, so maybe-just maybe-my little voice
might have helped raised the chant. GO KINGSISLE!

Happy Dueling!

Player Housing, Facelifts, and Christmas are LIVE!

It's here y'all, log in and buy those houses!

You'll be happy to know that the storm house and the meowmedon are up for sale right now.


. . . And that's a significant savings! woot!

On a personal note, I looked to see if the permanent blue dragon was live as well, and no . . . no permanent blue dragon mount AGAIN . . . someday I'm hoping that goes live.


The Facelifts are in as well. I stopped by to wish skullsplitter a merry Christmas.


And the tree and felix are also in the game now. Go stop by the tree for your holiday photos!



Ahhh, Christmas last year was pretty much the same. Every time I look back on this Chirstmas post I LOL over amber and kyle's clothes.

And that's all the news to print. Go log on and enjoy the new stuff that's available!

. . . and I was never heard from ever ever again,

The End.