New Beckett's Mag came in the Mail today

My Beckett magazine came in the mail today, and it’s AWESOME! I totally scored this Warpwood Staff (erm, more of a wand than a staff though) for Thomas from the code in the magazine.


It's a nice little 75 life damage wand for the lower level characters . . . non-ominous looking, but still a nice piece to add to my collection. :-)

The article in the magazine about Wizard101 was actually an interview done by the marvelous Stephanie Morrow as she gathered responses from the big hitters: J Todd Coleman, Jason Durall, Josef Hall, Rhea Shelley, and William Haskins. I mean, COME ON! That’s just a ridiculously cool line up Kingsisle people.

The interview is kind of split into two or three topics:

1- There’s some great insight in the article to how quests are formulated and where the ideas for Wizard101 come from.

2- The heavy hitters talk about their favorites in the game: favorite updates, favorite classes, favorite wizard house

3- There’s also some advice given to aspiring game designers and what wizard101 players can expect for 2010.

So let’s get to the good stuff (aka the major revelations for the next expansion) from that article, shall we?

1- J Todd Coleman noted that areas in the game come from combining animals and cultural references, and then specifically states, “How about an Empire of Crabs with sort of a Roman feel?” . . . So, yup, that’s sounding like a little clue to all of us to what Celestia might be like. Kind of weird though as most people are saying that Celestia might be an underwater world (someone on twitter the other day said his uncle worked at KI and verified it /shrug an underwater rome? /shrug It sounds like the work of aliens to me!). He goes on to also explain that there are usually two opposing factions in a world. So . . . that leaves us with a big question mark and kind of an assurance that there will be other races in Celestia outside of crabs!

2- At the end of the article, J Todd Coleman goes on to explain that “for the next world, I think the players already have some hints as to what is coming next: there are clues hidden within the game if you look hard enough. As for new systems, I want to expand on combat (especially the Player Arena), and I want to explore some other game activities that aren’t related to our combat system that give players a different way to advance within the Wizard101 universe.” . . . So again, yup, we know that the pet system is being enhanced, but the major BOOM CRASH WOW is that the Player Arena is going to be expanded. I for one would love to see some new short duel systems and different ways of combating in the game. Can’t wait to see what they have in store for us.

Thanks for the great interview Stephanie and Becketts! There's a lot of other great stuff in that 3 page article that you might be interested in reading. Also in the mag is info about Star Trek Online, The game that shall not be named, LOTRO, DDO, Aion, Everquest, etc. etc. All the stuff that you would come to expect to read about in an MMO magazine. I think the surprise article for me outside of the wicked Wizard101 interview was a two-page expose' on Fiesta Online. That's one I haven't messed with much that looks kind of fun to me. /shrug Anyone tried it?

Happy Dueling!