Player Trading Card of the Day--Luke Goldflame

Luke pulled through with some information to my e-mail (by the way, it's over on the Right hand side there where you ask friendly a question . . . in case you were wondering)



Interesting advice Luke. There actually is a quest or two you can complete in Dragonspyre as a low level character, but you'd only be able to pull it off with friends. For the most part though, yup, you should do enough of the sidequests to get you to level 40. It'll make life a lot easier for you.

Back in the day when Dragonspyre first opened up, most everybody was level 42 or higher as we waited in Mooshu for Dragonspyre to be released to the public. There were a few people that were higher level than that because you used to be able to repeat instances over and over for experience (people would run the first part of Crimson fields over and over and over . . . LEVEL UP+1!!). Now you can only repeat them twice for experience.

Happy Dueling!

p.s. I have to say thanks to all the fire wizards! I'll still try to make a few of you some cards anyway. :-)

Player Trading Card of the Day--Charles Raven

Thanks for stepping up and supplying me with information and a picture so quickly, Charles!



Ah yes, strategy is very important . . . it's definitely how a level 20 myth can tank on the Malistaire fight, wouldn't you say?

Happy Dueling!

1st look at the deck

Wow!

There it is!

The first ever fan-created deck out of fans of Wizard101 made by yours truly.



The second deck didn't turn out as nice as the first because I REALLY started to run out of printer ink. I'm thinking it might be cheaper in the long run to take this job to the local copy shop, yo.

NOTE: I'm still lacking 2 fire wizards come to find out (I had a storm wizard in my fire wizard pile by accident). Luke Goldflame check your e-mail and Fred Firepants check your blog please!

Any other fire wizards out there in case these two don't pull through for me?

So, even if the game ends up not being as fun as I'm hoping it will be, at least I have a deck of fans of wizard101 and a few cards to show off the monster spells of Wizard101, right?

Thanks all for witnessing it unfolding and for participating!

Give me a week or two and the finished product should be ready to go for you all in a nice, neat little .pdf file.

Happy Dueling!

Player Trading Card of the Day--Jenna Dreamwalker

Oh goodness . . . here she is . . . Cassandra's alt . . .



Are they escapes from reality, Jenna? Or are they practice grounds for real life?

/wink

Ok, so Jenna also has a question for me today while I'm at (she's keeping me busy for sure, HAAAAANDFULLLLL!)

Question: I have done research on my school (ice), and found out I don't learn ice blade till lvl 38! Why do you think it takes that long?

Yeah, Myrna wishes she had an ice blade earlier too. Ice wizards were meant to be the tanks of the game. When you're a tank, you don't do so well with damage, but man are your defenses high! Tower Shield, Ice Armor, high hit points, and an AOE taunt spell are the tradeoffs you make for damage with an Ice Wizard (especially in the lower levels). That's why Niles's blades and traps in your 20's are so awesome. That's also why you should hunt down a necklace with ice trap on it (like the Pendant of the Icy Soul). It's also why partnering with a balance wizard is so important. Boy, one of those pets with a blade on it are nice too (like the ones that were for sale around Christmas time) for an ice wizard. In other words, you have to work around it.

Eventually ice wizards come into their damage. It just takes a while because they are meant to be more of a "warrior" wizard than a wizardy wizard.

Happy Dueling!

(Guest Blogger) What Kind of Crown Gear Do You Think I Am Anyway?

Sierra is doing a great job of helping me out this week, don't you think?

Here's her answer to another question:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friendly recently got a question from blogger Luke Darkblood:

"I was checking the crown shop just to see what they had, and I saw this robe. I know there was old crown gear with triton card, but I wasn't playing when they still had it, so I'm not 100% sure. Could you clear this up? It's "Robe Of The Deep" on the left. Thanks."

When they released the Crown Shop, Zeke's crown gear got split up among the other vendors throughout the Spiral. The Robe of the Deep you spotted is designed for Level 45+, so I headed up to Dragonspyre to look for it.


None of the other robe vendors had it either. One thing I noticed, Andrei's robes both say "Crowns Only" while your Shop robe doesn't. That means you should be able to buy it with either gold or Crowns, just like the mounts and School houses.

Next I asked Professor Greyrose if this Robe of the Deep might be a retired item that somehow found its way into the shop, and got this response:

"In March of 2009, old Zeke moved from Olde Town to his current location in the Commons. At that time, he retired most of his clothing items, in search of new suppliers.

https://www.wizard101.com/game/community/updatenotes/march2009

Since then, the items he used to sell are considered ‘retired’ Crowns items."

(A side note, apparently I started playing just before Zeke's move.)

I asked Friendly to dig through the back of his closets and he found three of Zeke's old the retired Storm robes, including one with a Triton called Master's Garment of the Triton:


So this Triton robe isn't quite the same as the retired version, but where did this one come from?

Next I headed over to Wizard 101 Central, searched for "Robe of the Deep", and found a thread discussing the history of Crown gear. They mention three generations of gear:

Gen. 1: Ultra-powerful gear retired when Dragonspyre came out, no longer sold or dropped anywhere.

Gen. 2: Basic Crown gear available through the regular vendors' shops. These once had gold equivalents but now are Crowns only.

Gen. 3: Crown gear currently sold through the Crowns shop on a rotating basis, also listed as available for gold.

Finally, Professor Greyrose confirmed some of the theories:

"The SHOP regularly pulls items from a long list of Crowns Only items and displays them in the ‘On Sale’ section. These items will differ from character to character, and even differ between characters on the same account. An item may be ‘On Sale’ for a day, or a week."

Whoa! It sounds like the Crown shop works like a giant flea market. They have a big pile of stuff they can put on sale, and they don't always show the same stuff to everybody. So if you get lucky like Luke did and spot something you like, grab it if you can, 'cause you never know what you're going to find.

Great question, Luke!

See ya 'round the Spiral,
Sierra Starsong

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

It's good to know where all those mystery shop items are coming from!

Happy Dueling!

Player Trading Card of the Day--Connor Shadowstalker

Here he is! Connor Shadowstalker!



It's nice to finally round out the storm set with this card. Connor's advice makes me laugh, but when you play a storm wizard, these are words of wisdom! Don't get too discouraged my friends! Bring an accuracy buff in your deck. :-)

Happy Dueling!

Request

The first to reply for each of these classes will get a card made for them and be put into my card game.

1- storm student
1- fire student

That's all I need. First come. First serve. I'm not going to make any other cards after that. Sorry! I'm just on a tight schedule these days and don't have the time right now.

Please include your Wizard101 Central username (or e-mail addy) so I can track you down there for any clarification. I will need a picture and the following questions answered.

Wizard School:
Level:
Favorite Spell:
Favorite Saying:
Goal:
Advice (make it short):
Favorite title:
Made up title of your own:

Thanks!

Happy Dueling!

Fire Dragon, Frost Giant, and Helephant Cards!

And those are the last of the monster cards I need!




I'm getting closer!

Happy Dueling!

Triton Avenue goes crazy!

Kyle and Bailey were playing on alts yesterday when they ran into something very odd in Triton Avenue.


A big stretchy wall up by Blad! Then, to make things even stranger, the Kraken somehow broke free of its island and was roaming the streets!


Whatever this bug or glitch was soon ended, and Triton Avenue went back to normal. I ran there after work to see if I could witness the glitch firsthand but it was gone. SO DISAPPOINTED! Oh well, I guess it's good things are back to normal.

Anybody else out there see this happen?

Happy Dueling!

Valentina Heartsong returns to Wizard City!

This community news release came across the wire today!

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Valentine Heartsong has joined us once again in Wizard City. She can be found in the Wizard City Shopping District near the fountain. She has lots of fun items for sale for Crowns, but just for a limited time.

We also have something special for our young Wizards for this year's Friendship Festival! You can download and print your very own Wizard Valentines!

Each Valentine has a space for you to write your Wizard101 Invite a Friend Code, so you can invite friends to join you in Wizard101.
Not sure what your Invite a Friend Code is? Click here to find out!

Click here to see the Valentines and to learn how to print them out!
~~~~~~~~~~~~

Excellent idea with the Valentine's Day cards wouldn't you say? I don't know if they'd be a hit around the office, but my kids might be raking in the crowns from it!

It was a good time last year with Valentina. My daughter still has one of the piggles in her backpack from then! It's good to see Valentina back. :-)

Happy Dueling!

(Guest Blogger) tips for Sunken City?

Hey all, Sierra Starsong is once again helping me out with a question while I work on a few things here (and doing a great job of it I might add). Thanks, Sierra!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Friendly recently sent me a question from Amber:

Hey Friendly,

It's me, Amber, again. Thanks for the info about that Transmutate spell with the Blood Moss. Mucho gracias.

Anywho, I've been having trouble with a certain quest of mine. It's the Grubb quest in Sunken City. My friend, Tiffany, and I are trying to team up on it, but we just keep getting beat.

Tiffany is Fire/Balance and she just made Magnus. I'm Storm/Fire and I'm level 29.

Please help us.
~Amber StormTamer

In case you missed it, Friendly answered Amber's Blood Moss question here.

Sunken City's definitely one of the tougher dungeons in the Spiral, nearly impossible when you first unlock it. Wizard 101 Central has an illustrated Sunken City guide, but it doesn't mention the one factor that trips up most wizards - the street fights--so I'll focus on those.

There are a lot of enemies wandering the streets of Sunken City, and I mean a LOT of them. The Myth ghosts and Death banshees wandering the first half of the dungeon are so transparent they're nearly invisible. You'll want to turn on Overhead Names if you have them turned off, and watch for their names to spot them.


These ghosts are and they'll use the slightest excuse to pick a fight. In fact, there's one street fight you simply cannot avoid no matter how hard you try, right inside the dungeon entrance. You'll be facing three or four Myth ghosts (three if you're alone, four otherwise). Yes, they will try to outnumber you, so you might want to invite a friend or two to join you and even up the odds.

Multi-attacks are your friends! You'll probably rely a lot on Meteor Storm and Tempest, especially Tempest's Storm boost against these Myth enemies. Use Blade spells rather than Traps to boost your attacks, a trap only works on one enemy while a blade will give you an extra punch against all of them. Fire and Storm both have high fizzle rates so you might want to look for gear that increases your accuracy, and power pips wouldn't hurt. With such large fights, the faster you can take them down the better.


Once you're out of that fight and safely back on the sidewalk, remember your traffic safety rules: Don't play near the road, and look both ways before crossing the street. If you're used to riding everywhere, get off your mount and walk. Take your time and watch your step - pretend you're sneaking around on tippy-toes. Hug the sidewalks as closely as possible, the street thugs can pull you in off the curbs. If you have to cross, remember that monsters can't see behind them, so run across right after they go past.

You might want to play leapfrog; one person sneaks ahead toward the next goal while everyone else waits in a safe spot. You can all port to them once they're there, and if they get pulled into a battle someone else can sneak around it while the enemies are busy fighting them. The unlucky fighter can flee (or get defeated), grab a potion and port back in to you once you're clear. The large grassy areas around the towers are safe, if you're both hurt you can wait there and take turns going back to the Commons to refill.

Things will get tougher for Tiffany once you get past the second gate, as the earlier Myth ghosts get replaced by Fire scarecrows. She'll need to add some Fire Prisms to her deck before you head through. Norton (the second boss) is Fire based, as are Grubb's guards. You mentioned her secondary is Balance, so she may want to swap out her Meteors for Sandstorms at that point.

Hopefully these tips will help you conquer Sunken City, Amber. See ya 'round the Spiral!

- Sierra Starsong
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sierra has some awesome tips!

I also just want to add that I did a youtube video of sunken city that might also help. Click me!

Happy Dueling!

Triton, Wraith, Skeletal Pirate, and Colossus Cards!

Getting closer to the end of the monster cards here. I'd love a good picture of a fire dragon if you've got one being cast. Needs to be a clear shot of the dragon! Please send it to me over e-mail (the link is over there on the sidebar fyi).






Happy Dueling!

Orthrus, Cyclops, Humongofrog, and Storm Lord Cards!

Four more today! It's mostly myth attacks . . . and one static beard shock to boot. (There really is nothing worse than beard static. /headnod)






Happy Dueling!

Webkins meet Wizard101! Paint! Sculptures! CREATIVITY!

I was browsing over at the fan art page and noticed this AWESOME webkin-like doll in full Dragonspyre gear!


I love when people get creative with Wizard101 like that.

Speaking of creative, Sorion Hex sent me a cool paint picture the other day. He was doing his best to imitate the style of the infamous Cassandra G. :-)

He said this in his e-mail to me:

"Yooooo, Friendly >_> I made this randomly because I know one of your friends if good at painting xD And I realized, that painting with Paint on a netbook is hard xD Anyways yeah, see if you can identify the bloggers! Sorry about your hair xD It was a work in progress and it kind of got like, bread-like? near the ends xD And I'm just assuming Cristina is blonde >_> "

So did you identify all the bloggers in this pic?

I have one more creative cool thing to share with you guys. Terry Dietz (he's a VIP around these parts) has been making more cool sculptures! These aren't necessarily Wizard101 related, but he assured me he's still steeped in fantasy and playing the game when he can. :-)






Methinks Terry is envisioning a water world for Celestia . . . I think that would be cool if there were water dragons and water unicorns in Celestia. A unicorn humanoid in Celestia would be awesome too!

Thanks all for keeping the creative juices flowing!

Happy Dueling!

(Guest Blogger) What do the Bazaar & Backpack Colors Mean?

Hey all! I've requested that Sierra Starsong of Modern Auto Magic help me with a few questions this week while I'm doing a few other things here (you can also find her on Central and all over the spiral actually, she rocks).

Thanks and enjoy!

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

Hi folks, Sierra Starsong here. Diapermancer's been keeping Friendly on his toes lately so he asked me if I could stop by and help him out a little.

Diapermancer? Put Daddy's wand down now, there's a good boy...

Let's see, where was I? Right, a question.

Hey, FN. It's Liam F. As I was buying the Kraysys amulet, I noticed that it appeared red at the bazaar, but black in my Backpack. ?

Sharp eyes there, Liam, I never noticed that before! It looks like the Bazaar and our Banks both work the same way, so let me grab a pic of my kid brother Jordan going through our Shared Bank.


Let's take a closer look at those decks, shall we?


The yellow Deck of the Lotus is level 30+ with no school restrictions. Jordan's a level 43 Necromancer, so he could use that deck right now.

The red Dragonfire Deck doesn't have any school limits either, but it's only for level 45+, so Jordan has to wait another two levels before he'll be able to use that one.

The black one, Haru's Rational Deck, is an old one of mine. Since it's only for Ice wizards Jordan will never be able to use it.

Bazaar and Bank Color Rules
Yellow items are usable now.
Red items can be used later (when you're high enough level).
Black items are ones you can never use (wrong school).

Next I asked Jordan to pick these three decks up and put them in his Backpack.


The red deck changed to black! Just like before, the yellow things are usable, while the black items aren't. Jordan can use that Dragonfire Deck in a couple more levels, but he can't equip it right now, so it's black.

Backpack Color Rules
Yellow items can be equipped
Black items cannot be equipped

The Bazaar and your Bank are places to plan ahead, so they mark your "someday" gear in red. However, your Backpack only shows whether you can equip that gear right now (yellow) or not (black).

Oops! Gotta run, one of Diapermancer's Imps is getting into the peanut butter. See ya 'round the Spiral!

- Sierra Starsong

~~~~~~~~~

Thanks Sierra for the answer, and thanks Liam for the question!

Happy Dueling!

Sunbird, Centaur, Seraph, and Frost Beetle Cards

Just trying to knock out a few more monster cards for the card game! :-)






Happy Dueling!

Minotaur, Leprechaun, Scarecrow, and Ice Wyvern Cards

You'll probably see me post up a few more of these cards here as I get them crafted up. You may remember the TCG I'm making, you may not. Here's a link or two to help you remember. It's been a couple months. :-)






Happy Dueling!

Housing Item of the Day--Dragonfire Braizer

Hey! Kyle got a cool new drop yesterday. For some reason this isn't listed on my housing list and it was a complete surprise when Kyle got it from the Sea Lord while soloing him yesterday.


It just goes to show you that there's plenty left to discover in this game.

Also check out Kyle's new Life House in the background! I went to go help his character a bit last night and the overflow in his bank was 240/100 . . . yeah, he hadn't sold anything for a long long long time. He had money to burn and after looking at all the school houses, he really wanted the life house the most. I tried to talk him into the storm house, but he wasn't into it. :-)

Thomas Lionblood hasn't even bought a new school house yet, so Kyle is the first in our family to own one. Gratz Kyle! All that powerleveling dad does with your character paid off in spades!

Seriously!



Happy Dueling!

Farming bosses in Dragonspyre besides Vashek?

Miss Sierra Starsong has a question!

Awhile back you mentioned Vashek Ashweaver was a great boss for Necromancers to farm, and my husband used your tip to buy his Grandmaster a Death house when it was on sale a couple of weeks ago. My Balance wizard finally hit level 15 and I want to use my Grandmasters (Ice, Life & Storm) to farm up items for her to sell, so she'll have the 75,000 gold to buy the Balance house whenever it goes on sale. Are there any particular DS bosses that are good loot farms for wizards in those schools?

Short answer: Yeah, kind of. Try Katia Firewinter for life. Try Valerik Brightsword or Sea Lord for storm. Try Rurik Flamesoul or Boris Blackrock for Ice.

Long answer: For those who don't know about death students farming Vashek, start here.

Here are the magic ingredients for a good boss to farm: no guard, high rank, low damage, no shields, no weakness, same class (except for balance . . . sorry, no prism)

So, the best place to start to look for bosses like these in Dragonspyre would be The Plaza of Conquest and The Crucible. Both of these areas have bosses with no guard that you spawn by using a crystal that's near them.

I wasn't able to try out the ice boss for you, Sierra, since my ice wizard isn't a grandmaster yet, but I was able to try out the Life and Storm bosses there.

Let's start with Storm . . . Out of The Sea Lord and Valerik Brightsword, Sea Lord is more difficult because he has more hitpoints. I'd suggest Valerik Brightsword. The downside is that both of these fellas cast myth shields, so you need to get your storm prism spell down early and wear a myth wand to take them out.

Valerik stacking order:

Storm Prism
(Then cast these in no particular order:)
Storm blade
Elemental blade
Storm trap
Necklace Storm trap

NOTE: Bring 2 or 3 lightning shields and pack a pixie heal to cast right before you unleash a Triton from your Malistaire cloak. Valerik does have high damage for a boss and earns power pips. Pack extra prism in your deck to ensure you get that prism down first.

Valerik drops gold and two unique items however he also drops random trash loot from Dragonspyre as well. The MONEY loot drop from Valerik are his shoes. It's his uncommon item and it can sell upwards of 900 gold in the bazaar.

Here's Kyle's Deck for the fight:


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

Now for Life . . . Katia Firewinter is a horrible farm for the solo life wizard, but it is doable. She likes to cast both weakness and death shield. Unfortunately Amber still needs to finish Grizzleheim in order to earn a training point that she needs for Feint to help with the Life Wizard's lower base damage as well. Wear a death wand to take out the shield if she gets it down before your prism.

Here's my stacking order

Death Trap Necklace
Prism
(if you get those two down without a death shield being placed, yay!)
(In no particular order:)
life blade
spirit blade
spirit trap
life trap

NOTE: If you don't get a weakness cast on you, then that should be enough to unleash the Centaur from your Malistaire Cloak and finish off her 4500 hitpoints. Cast a Satyr before casting Centaur to heal up.

Here's Amber's Deck for the fight:



Best of Luck with earning the phat cash!

Happy Dueling!

Why does Ambrose keep calling me to his office?

Question here from Rogan Shadowshard about something that's a little buggy:

Hey Friendly! First off I'd like to thank you for making all your posts. Even though some of them are above my level, they are still very interesting to read, and many of them have helped me a lot, so thanks! Now, I'm moving from reader to asker, cause I have a question about something thats really annoying me. A few times now, I'll finish some quest and level up or something, and I'll get the little button on the right with Merle Ambrose's face. I click on it, and I get a message from ambrose telling me to go to his office for something or other. So I go there, and when I talk to him he just tells me to "keep searching for information on Malistaire". Should I be doing something in his office? like...is there a book or something I need to interact with? You're friendly, and i'm confused.....lol

I am friendly! And I can see why you're confused!

There are actually a number of legitimate reasons why Merle summons you back to his offices. Most of the time it happens when you're still new to the game. Wikia gives a pretty solid list of all the quests that Merle hands out.

What you mention here actually is a known bug from KI's known bug list. Let me quote what they say about it:

Merle Summoning Players without Reason: Sometimes Merle likes to check in with his students, however we've noticed lately that he's been calling on our young Wizards every time they gain a new level. Don't worry, he may not always have a quest for you, however it's a good reminder to visit him, as well as your Professors, on a regular basis. (Note: you may also see similar messages from Simon in Ravenwood, who is ready to introduce you to housing.)

So, it's a bug.

You know what I've noticed? Here at Casa de Friendly we have three computers, and sometimes we play our accounts on any one of them. It seems like after I've played a character on one of those computers for a long time and then log that same character on one of the other computers, then I get a short stream of tutorial tips and other messages. To me that seems to say that perhaps "tip" information might be stored on your computer much like a cookie from a website. Then perhaps there is a problem sync'ing the server data with the data on my computer. Of course, that's just an uneducated guess.

It is good to know this bug is on their list of things to do! GO TO IT PROFESSIONALS!

Happy Dueling!

What's a good secondary for Death Wizards?

Nice! Here's a question from one of my favorite people in game:

Have a question for ya, should be real easy for you.
I'm having trouble choosing a secondary school for my Death. All I can figure is Ice to Tower. Aside from that.. I'm blank. What do you think?

Hey, Shy! Long time, no interview!

Well, of course, opinions on this are like bellybuttons, everybody's got one. The moment you mention your recommendation for secondaries, everybody and their ninja pig are at your door telling you why their secondary choice is the bees knees. So, I'm sure you'll be hearing a lot of suggestions. I'm going to give you some paths for you to choose and why I like them.

~~~~~~

Pre-recommendations comment: I like that you're going up ice to tower. Good choice. You'll also be getting the volcanic shield when you do that, and that's a bonus.

~~~~~~~

Recommendation 1: Life up to Legend Shield or Myth up to Ether Shield. Life up to Legend Shield costs fewer training points.

Logic behind recommendation 1: a few key Death spells damage you before giving some benefit. Those death shields can be very handy for protecting your self inflicted damage. And someday they may even help you solo malistaire. ;-)

~~~~~~~~

Recommendation 2: Balance

Logic behind recommendation 2: If you play your Death wizard with a lot of other people in a group, then I feel your role to be a support one. You can heal, you can debuff, and you can put out the big traps. If you like being a support player, balance is outstanding. Weakness is a perfect debuff compliment to your already outstanding curse spell. Powerplay can be a great aura for Death students because most will never use doom and gloom outside of pvp. Donate Power gives pips to the people who you are supporting. Hydra breaks all those nasty shields. And finally, don't forget to grab the blades and traps from Niles in Krokotopia (You'll want to do this even if you don't go up Balance for a secondary)

~~~~~~~~

Recommendation 3: Myth

Logic behind recommendation 3: You lack an AoE spell up to 48th. Humongofrog does more base damage than Blizzard or Sandstorm. If you like to pvp in groups, earthquake, as you well know, is astounding. Having the Death student cast earthquake instead of the people doing the real damage on the pvp team seems to be logical.

~~~~~~~~

Recommendation 4: Storm

Logic behind recommendation 4: Through the magic of Empower, you may cast any five pip spell on the second round when you're 30+ and armed with a staff that gives you an extra pip (you have to be 38 to even get empower). Out of all the five pip damage spells out there, Stormzilla is the biggest zap for the buck. That's a 650 to 730 base damage spell in two rounds (if you don't fizzle). That makes for brilliant farming potential and the noobie wow factor you're hunting for. Well, that I'm hunting for at least. ;-)

~~~~~~~~

So in the end it really comes down to what you want to do with your character. Do you want to pvp, do you want to pve, do you want to farm, do you want to solo, do you want to group, etc. You know what I'm saying. :-)

Good hearing from you again, shy!

Happy Dueling!

Was Sylvia Drake the first life teacher?

Got a question here about some lore!

When i looked on W101 website and on the esteemed faculty page, it says that Moolinda Wu is RECENTLY HIRED. Was Sylvia Drake the first life teacher? and that is why Malistaire left?

Your answer is yes and yes.

Happy Dueling!

...

Ok, maybe I'll go into some more detail.

*assumes the role of a chatty kathy talking to her friends about her favorite soap opera*

Sylvia Drake was in fact the first life teacher. She was great friends with Gloria Krendell in Olde Town. They totally liked to break out the glue sticks and acid free paper together. Seriously. They made a scrapbook that somehow made its way into the hands of Sergeant Skullsplitter. I have no idea what kind of crazy stuff Sargent Skullsplitter was doing with a scrapbook, but that's just downright insanity. What in the world would an undead skeleton guy want with their scrapbook? Anyway, the real story is that Sylvia "wouldn't get better" from a cold. I repeat, "wouldn't" . . . that's what Krendell said to me anyway. I mean, you have the professor of the life school who was all about the healing arts and for some insane reason she "wouldn't" get better. Wouldn't? Shouldn't she say "couldn't" instead of "wouldn't"?


Is that trying to tell me that Sylvia had some kind of sick death wish? What a weird chick she is . . . all in love with the master of the dark arts, Malistaire, and obsessed with not getting better from a sickness. CREEPY! What's even more creepy is how you end up meeting her in Dragonspyre when she's turned into a wraith at the hands of Malistaire as he's tried to bring her back to life. SUPER CREEPY! It's almost like Sylvia is the cause of all this insanity more than Malistaire you know? All he did was fall in love with this death obsessed chick and try to help her out. I don't know, they're both insane. I say they deserve each other. Well, I guess she's ok and stuff. She's super groovy looking with a flower headband when she's a ghost and you see her in Malistaire's Lair. Malistaire thinks that his brother, Cyrus, is just messing around with him and he's all stop and Cyrus is all NO YOU STOP and then Malistaire is all DIE! I can't believe Sylvia messed with his head so much that he was going to like destroy everything to bring her back to life. Are you hungry? Let's go to Chic-fil-A or something, K? I love their Polynesian sauce. YUM!

. . .

How was that?

You find all that information out from doing this quest here.

You get a little more information (not much) about her when you see her again in the Necropolis as a wraith.


And finally you get another glimpse of Sylvia Drake in Malistaire's Lair, where I took this picture of her.

Happy Dueling!

How do I get a lot of experience at level 48?

A question here from Travis Emeraldspear:

i am level 48 storm. i was wondering where to get big xp quests, well actually i did Mooshu and Dragonspyre. So can you tell me where those dudes are? thanks. hope to see you with riding our tigers or lions :D

Heya Travis! So I see what you're saying: you're gunning for grandmaster, and you're looking for something that will give you a lot of experience outside of the quests from Dragonspyre and Mooshu. Maximum rewards for minimal effort.

Hmmmmm . . .

You know, the side quests in Marleybone can be kind of a pain, so a lot of people skip them, but by the time you're 48 those side quests can be finished up pretty easily. There's a side quest chain about a policeman's ball and by the time you've finished up the quest, you've earned over 2000 exp. You know you've reached the end of the line when you complete the Fiddle Riddle quest.

Also, I'm not sure if a lot of people know that you do get experience for the quests within instances twice; however, the second time you only get half as much. So if you're scrounging for experience, it may prove beneficial to run all your instances a second time. There's a lot of hidden experience to be had there.

And just one more thing:



That's a spendy little number at 500 crowns. The 30 minute version is 300 crowns. It is addicting and evil. HOWEVER, there is a good way to use those elixirs, and it's all about setting up for an exp fest. Here's what you do. Go through the world and finish up a bunch of quests for your character right up to the point of the turn in. Get a bunch of them just kind of lined up throughout the spiral, use you're exp boost potion, and then run around finishing up all the side quests in your quest log. Good times!

Happy Dueling!

Bailey Rocking the Looks!

As is customary with Wizard101, you end up going through a lot of cool outfits. The wife's character just leveled to 35 this morning and I had a surprise waiting for her in her backpacks.

Here's how she looked right before turning level 35:



Here's how she looks now:


THE EYES! THEY BURN FROM THE UGLINESS! Well, what can you expect, they are the old school crown clothes from Thomas Lionblood. Amazing how you can change a hat's look completely. I guess that's the power of womanhood for you. :-)

Let me tell you, she will put the card of Helephant on that hat to much greater use than I ever put it to. I'm terribly excited for her . . . um . . . we do need to make a trip to the dye shop though, wifey. YIKES!

Bailey's counterpart in crime, Molly, is also sporting a cool mooshu look these days, but she's still an instance and a quest or two away from level 35.


Now all we need to do is get them a couple mooshu swords, and we're ready to rock the runway in old towne like a couple of supa' sta's.



Happy Dueling!