A Few Gardening Questions

I've got a few questions about gardening over the past couple threads or so, so let me see if I can answer them.

~~~~~~
Anon asks:

HI there, I'm confused about how to harvest. MY plants are adult, but I cant figure out how to harvest them!

When your mature plants are ready to harvest, they'll let you know. :-) You'll see something that looks like this.


It appears that Gardening is something that you just kind of have to have patience with I guess. I wanted to loot those things as soon as they turned mature as well, but it took a while until they were ready to give me some gold. If I remember right, one of my Dandy-lions didn't give me anything at mature at all. All I got was the reward at the elder phase.

~~~~~~

flash33 asks:

Do you know what it means when the plants eminate a yellow aura, because it's kinda confusing me.

The only two glows I've seen are when the plants are elder and when the have a bug infestation.

If it looks like this, then you're ready to harvest an elder plant or two:


If it looks like this, then you have a bug infestation:



~~~~~~

Jacob asks:

By the way, can plants drop crowns? Also,my friend said something about KI doing some crowns giveaway around Christmas or something. Is this true?

Plants don't drop crowns, but DANG that would be nice if they did!

I haven't heard any direct plans to do a crowns giveaway around Christmas, but DANG that would be nice if they did!

I'll see if I can't Greyrose to drop by this thread and see if she has a better answer on the Christmas Crown giveaway. :-)

~~~~~~

Eric Darkblood asks:

Not sure here but do you have to be a certain level to start gardening?

When you hit level 12, you'll get a notification from Moolinda Wu that she wants to talk to you about gardening.

~~~~~~

Thanks!

Happy Dueling

Fixed!

Thanks to Arlen Dawneyes for pointing out the latest Abracadoodle:

Head-nod to @FriendlyNecro on the latest Abracadoodle xD

UNICORN SIGHTING! That's awesome, but I think the last frame needs just a little bit of fixing . . .


UNICORNS BRING THE GOOGLY EYES! Haha. Sorry, I'm just a bit fascinated with unicorns. ;p Thanks for the heads up, Arlen!

Happy Dueling

Evil Twin Chat -- Episode 27

(click to enlarge)


. . . uh . . . nope, not at all ;)

Happy Dueling!

Test Realm: My Garden's Status

Heya! I hope you've been enjoying the holiday season this weekend. I know it's been keeping me busy and occupied with all kinds of things. I did get a few chances to log into the test realm and grow my garden a bit, and I have a few pictures to share!

Here's a great picture with a lot of information going on:

1) harvesting a honey-sickle was worth 5 xp.
2) I dinged level 2 here.
3) honey-sickle gives blade cards and gold.
4) my garden rocks.

I call that garden my "happy garden." It's awesome. Here's another view:


The odd thing about this screenshot is that the words "Honey Sickle" is displayed. I'm not sure if that's a bug or not? I don't recall seeing that on any of my other loot shots from harvesting plants? I'm just not quite sure what that is?

Here's a ground shot of my Desparagus garden with a close up on that :( face of my plant. heh.


I have eight of them all clumped together. Here's the loot screen from when I harvested all eight in a row. (Hi, John Lifeglen.)


That there is a lot of minion-related treasure cards!

Here's a cool screenshot of me casting the level two bug killing spell to help out my desparagus plants. BE GONE BUGS!


One thing I want you to notice on that screenshot are all the little dots on the tree beside my garden. Do you see those dots? Those dots are the icons symbols from my happy garden plants. (I don't think those should be shining through my tree there . . . reminds me of the old graphic glitch involving the fire elf tree in the battle circle.)

And finally I have a picture of me standing in front of my ELDER Honey Sickle plants in the happy garden! ELDER!


The end result of harvesting those bad-boys was 50xp each (resulting in level 3 gardener) and three blade treasure cards per honeysickle plant. /clap clap!

As far as bug reports: I was quite discouraged to find that two of my front three laugh-o-dill plants in my happy garden just . . . disappeared . . . after harvesting my elder plants. SPOOKY! I'm not sure why, but I know I'm not the first to have a plant or two just disappear on them. I've also notice that sometimes I can't see anything but the sky when I'm in my massive fantasy palace now as well. It's a weird glitch where I have to port around to finally get the world to show up.

As far as complaints:

1) Tending to plants moves entirely too slowly. I hate to have to wait for one plant's animation to completely run its course before being able to tend to my next plant. I should be able to click click click around on my plants and take care of them quickly. Yes, I know there are AOE spell cards from Moolinda Woo's pack and that the pest zapping spells and higher level spells are AOE based, but . . . the speed I am able to cast the level one spells just moves too slowly for my tastes.

2) I also don't like how I can waste my energy globe because of accidental clicking outside of my garden. Those spells should only work if I have a plant selected.

3)Don't even get me started on the fact that plants and pets now use the same energy globe. IMHO, if they're going to do that, they need to up the rate of energy regeneration so I can participate in both more frequently.

4) Those new plant cards are showing up in my dueling deck? what? That can't be right.

5) AND FINALLY, it appears as though my plants are counting as double the house item? Maybe one for the ground and one for the plant? I'm hoping that gets fixed for sure.

Other than those little issues so far, I'm pretty happy with Gardening. It adds a whole new dimension to my housing and has been a lot of fun to mess around with. I find myself wanting to log on just to "check on my plants" throughout the day, which is kind of what I think they wanted. ;)

Good times.

Happy Dueling!

Happy Thanksgiginv! (head nod to Blaze Mistshard)

What, Friendly? "Didn't you mean Happy Thanksgiving?" No Wai! I say it cool like Blaze Mistshard says it:


(That's me and the Mistshards) YES! I like it! Happy Thanksgiginv! I'm thinking "Thanksgiginv" is like . . . "thanks for the gig invite!" I think I'll say that now whenever someone invites me to a group and it goes well. Instead of, "Hey, nice instance run, yo!" I'll be like "Hey, Happy Thanksgiginv, yo!"

OK, so throughout the day I've been dropping into the game to see if any of my friend list peeps were on and there were indeed a handful who had taken a break from the Thanksgiginv feasting to play some Wizard101.

Check it out! Me and the famous Cassandra Griffindreamer:


Check out this Thanksgiving crew right here.


All good peoples to be sure.

I got another one of just me and Titanrider too.


Good times.

And now we disco:



hehe. A coworker sent that one to me.

Anyway, I hope you all are having a great day, and I want you to know how truly grateful we are here at Team Friendly headquarters for your friendship and caring. You all are wonderful people. :-)

Thanks for all you do! Stay happy and have a great holiday.

Happy Dueling

Housing Item of the Day -- Brain Coral and Solar Icon

Uber wife made a cool discovery last night in the test realm. She was offing some bosses in in the Lunarium and got a drop of Brain Coral off of Selenor.


Oh yeah, that big lump of coral is definitely worthy of housing item of the day!


Also, Bailey's buddy, Seth Hunter, got a Solar Icon from Mithraya! Check this out:


So there you go! Not only are Otto and Gearwise selling Celestia housing items, but also housing items have been added to the loot tables on the test realm!

Happy Dueling!

Yes, Yes, it's all true: Gardening on the Test Realm!

Go try it out my friends! Though the test realm patcher says it's offline, it's not! It still loads and you can press play.


The first thing you'll notice if you're over 12th level, Moolinda Wu is all excited to chat with you.


Why? She wants to get you started down the path of gardening, which is a brand new system expansion for Wizard101.

I had to laugh yesterday when the news broke over Twitter because I had just been writing about this "super secret" new expansion just last week. LOL! I was thinking this wouldn't hit the streets for at least another month. Nope.

As you get going here, you'll notice that perhaps this wasn't quite ready for the test realm just yet.


I'm titling this one, "White Bubbles with Arrow Swords Poking Random Information." It's a work of art.

What's supposed to be in those bubbles isn't too hard to figure out.

Top line = Type of plant
Reward line = How good of a reward you get from your plant.
Challenge line = How difficult it is to grow your plant.
Likes = Put it by this to make it grow better.
Dislikes = Don't put it by this.
Level = Level of gardener you have to be to grow it.

. . . you get the idea . . . I'm not going to spoil some things just because I had advanced knowledge.

Take a look over on the right hand bar at the Bloggers club to see all the buzz from the Wizard101 blogosphere. TONS of cool info there. Tipa's got a good post up (to answer her final question, no). This update was practically hand made for Paige. :-) I do believe Amber was the first to blog about it.

Also be sure to check the Wizard101 Central Test Realm forum for information. Lots of good stuff going on there.

The big hidden update that goes along with this is CELESTIA FURNITURE! Be sure to run back to Otto and Gearwise here in the Celestia Base Camp and check out all the new stuff you can craft and buy. :-)


That should make a lot of people happy. :-)

Happy Dueling!

Translating the Tunnel (Part 1)

This morning I was going through some screenshots in an attempt to answer this question from Willzahk:

One request. What is Axenos' little speech and translations into normal?

I was looking for maybe a screenshot of the text because apparently Axenos doesn't repeat his speech when you return to visit him. (if anyone has a screenshot of that text, please send it my way).

What I found instead was this great picture I had taken of the massive tunnel with all the Celestian text.


This tunnel was made for me.

So I got to work and translated the first two panels before running out of time (you may want to click on that to make it bigger).


I need to head to work now, but your secrets will be mine, tunnel! Mark my words!

Happy Dueling!

Glitch report: Curuin Charmtooth

Have you all met Curuin Charmtooth?


Awesome staff he's holding there, isn't it? If I could somehow get my hands on a staff like that, I'd use it to cook pizzas for everyone in a traditional wood fire oven for sure . . . not that I have access to a traditional wood-fire oven, but man his staff looks familiar.

Tattoo guy knows what I'm talking about.



So, Curuin is a sassy little number with one line of text. You meet him in a side-quest in District of Stars.


Air-breathers? Freaking tyrant YOU MUST DIE! Look at him getting all Stormzilla on my group.


That's gonna leave a mark, but he's no match for Team Friendly! We soundly defeated him, and I liked the fight so much I wanted to go back for more. Alas, his sigil is bugged.


There's no X for me to click to go visit him again. sigh.

One-hit wonder. How can I return for a chance to snatch your wood-fire oven staff if I can't get in there again? (not that he even drops it, but it would be cool, right?)

Happy Dueling!

Will KI revisit old content? Can I boost a blade?

I've got a couple questions here today to answer. First up is a question from Alric Hexsmith:

Love the blog! So much information AND fun. Was wondering about something and hoping you have heard anything along these lines.

Now that Celestia is out and everyone is so focused on it, do you think KI will ever go back and do anything more with some of the older content? I personally want to see grendel and bear pets, but things like a spider mount or a Marleybonian butler for my house would be great too. Thanks.

Thanks for reading, Alric! I appreciate it. :-)

One thing I know for sure is that Kingsisle is always working on something and sometimes they're a step a head of whatever else it is they're focusing on at the moment. Yup, Celestia has a good chunk of Wizard101 players consumed at the moment, but KingsIsle is definitely thinking one step ahead.

On the Beckett's MOG podcast, J Todd Coleman stated something to the extent that historically with Wizard101 KI will bounce back and forth between content expansion and system expansion. So, you get something like Dragonspyre then Housing then Grizzleheim then Advanced Pets then Celestia (although there were all kinds of other expansion type things mixed in between: mounts, briskbreeze, celestia prequest, crafting, etc). To me that says we're due for another big system expansion rather than a content expansion, so it is very possible that older content may be revisited in a new kind of way.

All the things you mention are very cool. I'd love to ride on a spider mount and have a grendel pet. That's pretty epic sounding in fact! But what I think you'd see in a system update is something that looks less like new pets and mounts and more like an overall sweeping upgrade to our game experience.

~~~~~~

The next question here is from Tanner RubyCatcher.

Hey Friendly, I have a question: If I use like an accuracy boost on a Blade, and it works, when applied for damage, does it count as a different version of that Blade?

Thanks!

Heya! Well, if it worked like that I definitely would find more value in accuracy boosts outside of the storm class. Theoretically, yes. If you could apply an accuracy boost on a blade, I think it would stack and count as a different version of that blade.

I decided to try it out this morning just to make sure that I wasn't going crazy and you couldn't apply a treasure card on a blade.



whew, I'm not crazy (I know, debatable). See how the only cards that light up when I have the treasure card selected are damage dealing cards (that aren't already enchanted of course -- I had previously enchanted that wraith)?

Awesome question though. I love how you're thinking here.

Happy Dueling!

Writing another article

Heya! Just a note that this morning that I'm working on another article about Wizard101 for Beckett's, so you all get a Men at Work video instead of an actual post.



Oh my word that's horrible. Nothing like a really cheesy video to ruin a song.

Happy Dueling!

Ravenwood Radio 29 Tonight!

Hello readers!

Just a quick note that you can not only be readers tonight, BUT LISTENERS TOO! That's right, your own Friendly Necromancer will be a guest tonight on Ravenwood Radio 29.

Date: Wednesday, Nov. 17
Time: 8:00 pm CST
Place: Over at the Ravenwood Radio site (click Listen Live!)

Hope to see you in the chat room!

Happy Dueling!

Pips!

My daughter got a cool book at the local book-fair called . . . I don't know what the book is called, but HEY LOOK AT THIS THAT SHE FOUND IN IT!


Nice. I didn't know that. Did you know that?

Oh, hey look! Wikipedia has some good info too.

Ahhhhh, so the clubs, hearts, spades, and diamonds on cards are also called pips, and the dots on dominoes are also called pips. OK, now we're learning stuff. Nice.

Thank you random fact book and Wikipedia!

Someone should go in to Wikipedia and add in that the dots around a player's battle circle in Wizard101 are called pips . . . jus' sayin' :-)

Happy Dueling!

When will Celestia Furniture be out? Should I wait?

hey all! I've got an interesting question here from Whitestorm:

I'm getting close to finishing Dragonspyre, and I can't wait to start questing in Celestia. However, I've noticed that there is no Celestia furniture, and I'm wary of doing the Celestia quests before the furniture update comes out. Do you know when the furniture will be added to Celestia? Could you find out? Thanks

Well, I asked Professor Greyrose for you, and she didn't have any idea on a date when this stuff would be put in the game. She did make mention to the fact that there was a lag between putting in Grizzleheim and the Grizzleheim houses.

I mentioned back to Professor Greyrose that Grizzleheim at least had some Grizzleheim-style furniture in the game when it was released . . . and then e-mail traffic went silent. This could be because she was still gathering information or because she's busy or maybe because there's really no good answer right now.

So, let's see, the question at this point then is really, "Should I play through Celestia even though there aren't housing items instituted in the game?"

For me, it's a resounding yes. Yes, you should play through Celestia. The benefits of earning all those levels, spells, and new fun far outweigh the furniture items. Yes, unfortunately, at some point they may load up Celestia with furniture laden quests after we've all gone through that content, and we'll all miss out on that furniture. Meh. It's a little bit of a bummer, and it happened back when furniture was first instituted into the game. But, now I can find a lot of those furniture items for quests for sale in the bazaar. In fact, I just covered a room in my new Massive Fantasy Palace with Grandpa Froggy pictures, which comes from a side quest in Marleybone. Check it out:


Who would have thought I could pick up 24 of those in the bazaar now? Not me!

If you're looking for a time line, then the best I can give you is based off of Professor Greyrose's response . . . let's look to the past for clues of the future. Furniture and housing was instituted in the game after Dragonspyre was released. It was May 6, 2009 to be exact, which was only a month before Grizzleheim was released on the test realm. A year later (late June 2010), Grizzleheim houses were released.

We could be in for a long wait. I'm not really sure, but I say, go have fun in Celestia anyway! I'll let you all know when I get more information.

Happy Dueling!

Massive Online Gamer 28 came in the mail!

It was a back-to-back Beckett's mail week for us. We got the FOG and then the MOG (Massive Online Gamer) magazine within just a couple days of each other.

The article this time is about my recent Austin trip with Jason Winter to go visit the Kingsisle offices and GDC Austin. I write about the KI tour; present snippets of an interview with Ben Conrad, Leah Ruben, Vlad Judys, Justin Wingard, and Karl Holbert; and discuss my time spent at GDC Austin. It's a three-page article with a full-page picture of Leah, Vlad, Justin, and Karl. (And there's a little picture of me and Jason by the KI doorway up on the top corner of page 72 ;))


poke poke!

I can't say thank you enough to the people who helped get me down there. It was an awesome experience and hopefully helped make an equally awesome article. Hope to do it again someday!

So, what's the free item in this mag you ask? It's the Krokotopian Hammock!


Kevin Battleblood (Hiiiii Kevin) reminded me that I had wished for a hammock at one time. :-) Nice! DREAMS COME TRUE! ;-)

As always, be sure to drop by the Beckett site and give your two cents. Don't forget that they have a poll going on right now. Rock the vote!

Happy Dueling!

Bailey's L E G E N D A R Y! (Disco Inferno!)

It is time to burn, baby, burn!


After two failed attempts at beating the near 16k boss (+ storm minion), Bailey pulled off a huge win against Sothmetket the amazing ice krok of epicness.


Bailey rediscovered her love for the fire minion spell and the treant polymorph coupled with a fully charged and bladed heckhound. Those three things were the key to her win and to her gaining a new Disco Sultan buddy.


And after listening to this wonderful Korean disco group called The Sultan of Disco . . .



. . . Bailey was off to lay waste to the Gurtok Piercer with a few of her in game buddies. NUKE THEM GURTOKS WITH THE POWER OF THE DISCO SULTAN! (Seriously, they should have put a gold chain on this guy . . . it's the only thing that would make this thing better)


You better believe after a huge swat with a follow up HUGE debuff (-90% my word), anything is going to be hurting.

It didn't take much time after that for Bailey to finish off those last two levels and hit legendary. (I swear the last three or four levels just FLY compared to the first few levels.) Her Legendary ding happened with Senator Xanthus (hey, that's familiar! That's where I dinged Legendary as well. :))


She quickly traded that Technomancer badge for her new Legendary Pyromancer badge.


OH MY WORD she's looking awesome. She upgraded her look to celebrate as well apparently. No more quilted armor for her. Tiki is the new style, yo!

Gratz uber wife!

Happy Dueling!

Check This Out! (Episode 6)

My e-mail has been bursting with cool screenshots, fun stuff, and information lately. Thanks everyone for keeping me in the know! :-) Let's see all the stuff people are buzzing about this past month:

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

James Iceheart has some cool glitch pictures to share:

"I had this earlier today, this guy rode his dragon the whole fight. :D"

Awesome! I haven't seen that glitch before. Thanks!

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

Next up is a link to a YouTube video from Benjamin Nightfist:

i dare you to try and ride this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7pPIlve6qo

:-) I think you may have found KI's next mount! haha. Actually J Todd Coleman has mentioned that he would love to see a floating car steampunk mount be put into the game. That's as close to the wild wacky action bike as I think we'll get. ;-)

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

Adam Thunderstaff has some photos for us. :-)

Hi friendly. It's me Adam Thunderstaff. I thought you would have a laugh at the photos I sent. Maybe you could put them in a check this out.

haha! Nice Simeon copy, Adam! Reminds me of when I copied Nolan Stormgate. :-)

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

Next up is a picture of Tyler Deathstalker's winning postcard from when I had that postcard raffle:

Hey Friendly!

My Wizard101 Postcard arrived! I have a link in my blog and of course a picture!

http://www.wizard101central.com/forums/blog.php?b=3709

Wow, Falmea wrote that! haha! Thanks for sharing man. :-)

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

Next up is a message and some pictures from Brandy:

Hello Friendly! I love your blog,I don't comment much( I am to quiet? Wait would that work on the internet? Well if loud is being...you uknow what Nevermind)

Sorry I am rambling and I am excited to share this with you. So me and my siblings got cards yesterday from gamestop. I asked my sister to race me up the castle's stairs and she fell through the wall. I thought she was doing that walk through wall glitch when we discovered a whole secret room and a dungeon hallway.

That and...My brother and I were riding our mounts(his batty wings and my new griffin,) we wer racing and I couuldn't see. My brother found outu when I ride my griffin with my mask on it covers my eyes! Well thats all I have to share :D The pics are attached also :D

Awesome! Yeah that little hidden spot in the house is fun. I like how you made the secret room your underwater basket weaving spot. ;-) haha! We need to cut you some eye holes in that hood of yours. :-)

Thanks, Brandy!

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

Next up is a link and a story from Tanner Rubycatcher:

Hey Friendly, could you please read my story on Wizard101 Central? Thanks!

http://www.wizard101central.com/forums/showthread.php?p=577256#post577256

Wow, that thread is 19 pages long and growing! haha! That was one of the most random and insane things I've read in a while, Tanner. I dub thee, King of Random.

"Boy, so this is what being a chocolate bunny is like."

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

Next, a note from Jennifer:

Love your site, very helpful. Just to let you know, I got a firezilla (650-730 damage, 4pips) when I crossed my crown jade oni with a school stormzilla.

wow! I haven't heard of that hybrid combination before. Jade Oni with a Stormzilla . . . got it. Ok, I'm going to have to experiment with that. Thanks for the heads up!

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

And now from K Stormcaller . . . a link to the elf yourself site:

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/u0i5LJZw7JswVKEWeNSQ

Laugh! Looks like all our favorite Celestia bosses are ready for Christmas. :-)

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

I'm gonna end on a serious note here today. A spammer has been targeting readers of my blog with this message:

Hello my dear!
My name is Miss Christiana, and I saw your profile today at (thefriendlynecromancer.blogspot.com) and I became interested in you, my dear Please I will like to contact me back as soon as possible through my email address so I can give you my pictures for you to know who I am, I think we can move from here. Please Remember the distance or color does not matter but love matters allot in life. Answer me back in time

Please, please, please if you received one of those e-mails, DELETE IT! I'm not affiliated with this person in any way, and I don't want you all to end up on a spam list . . . or worse. The Internet is a scary place my friends, and this e-mail has all kinds of scary written all over it.

I've made sure to go back through my blog and delete any old raffle threads that might have inadvertently still contained e-mail addresses.

Be safe! Be smart!

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

Happy Dueling!