It's funny, I've mentioned Guild Wars on this blog a handful of times. It's a solid game, and in fact five (almost six) years ago, it was my number one game. Before DDO, it was my static group's Sunday night game. Originally, I bought it and played it on the day it came out back in 2005. What this means now is that every year on each character's birthday, they get a little package in their inventory. Inside each of these packages is a free pet from ArenaNet/NCSoft. yay! See those two blue gift icons in Chachi's inventory below? Yeah . . . it's been a while since I've logged on Chachi ;-)
Happy Birthday, Chachi Happydays! Chachi Happydays is the best character name ever. The thing about Chachi is that I've never really even played him. I mostly just made him so I could get a pet when his birthday rolled around. Funny enough he has a gold rare pet. Here's the two pets he claimed today.
Hooray raptor thing and beetle bug guy!
My first character in GuildWars is up to his fifth present and in just a couple of months he'll be celebrating his sixth birthday. Woot!
Anyway, pets in Guild Wars are nothing more than cosmetics, but still it's a collectible item in the game. What's awesome is that it looks like when Guild Wars 2 is released, ArenaNet will actually hunt through your inventories and give your Guild Wars 2 character some kind of benefit if they have a nice collection of pets (among a plethora of other accomplishments in game including badges and hall of monuments). You can read all about it here.
The rewards calculator doesn't seem 100% working correctly at the moment since I know my character Wallace Stevens has a few more monuments than what they are indicating he is eligible for, but it's no big deal (it's still in beta anyway). Heck, just the fact that if I make a Guild Wars 2 character and that I would get anything of benefit from all the fun I've had with my regular Guild Wars character is AWESOME!
So, let me extend this out to Wizard101 a bit.
1- In a way, here's a different example of "badges meaning more" in another MMO. Although cosmetic pets and badges really don't do anything for a character in Guild Wars. For a character in Guild Wars 2, they will mean special sets of gear or unique pets from day one when you re-create your character from the original Guild Wars. That's huge.
Imagine if KingsIsle came out with a Wizard201 game, and now you were basically forsaking all the things you had done in Wizard101 and moving to a newer and better game. It would be cool if all those collections and badges somehow translated into a reward for your new character in Wizard201.
(Sidenote: heh. It's funny, ever since I've been doing this Wizard101 blogging gig, there's always been this looming "second game" for KingsIsle. I know there's a team devoted to getting this second game out the door, but it just hasn't even been revealed yet. The only thing one can dig up about the second game from KingsIsle is rumor and conjecture. They are infamously tight-lipped on this information.)
2- I want a birthday present for my Wizard101 character! YES! I mean, I know that we get a present on Wizard101's birthday, but it would be some kind of awesome to get a loyalty reward on my characters' birthdays. Guild Wars does pets. Everquest does Veteran AA abilities. City of Heroes gave out a loyalty character emote. Aion is even giving loyalty rewards on a monthly basis! How awesome is that?
I just think it would be cool to get some kind of loyalty reward in Wizard101.
So here's your question for the day, if Wizard101 gave out a loyalty reward each year on your character's birthday, what would you think would be a good present? Do you think the reward would be different for free players vs. crowns players vs. subscription players?
Let me know what you think!
Happy Dueling!
10 comments:
Although I'd love to get a birthday present, I have a feeling Kingsisle would give something lame, like a party hat or a useless wand.
What I'd like to get would be a really cool elixir that turned you into a unicorn or something for the day, so everyone would know it was your birthday.
I don't think this is going to happen, though, because I can see people scamming the birthday system left and right, by changing their age and birthday every five minutes in their settings on the website. I don't know how Kingsisle would overcome that one.
hmmm
i think each year we get a different limited edition pet and you can only get it on a characters birthday of a year such as in say 2011, whenever a character reaches his or her birthday they will get a new pet or something like that. It would be same for free players as for subscript players.
@Kestrel: Scamming won't be too easy in these systems; rather than focus on the player's birthdate, we can focus on the avatar's. After a year has passed since character creation (like in Guild Wars) or account creation (one per year, instead of six), the player would receive a reward.
@Friendly: I would think one of each pack of Treasure cards from the Crowns Shop would be a nice annual gift. As an account becomes older, bigger Crowns Shop items would be given: Phosphorescent Hammer for the second year, plus those Treasure Cards. Third year: Your choice on one of seven unique symbols on a cloak or robe.
Getting birthadya presents from KI would be AWESOME. My idea is that it takes your level and school and then finds a random item to give you. They could also give treasure cards, or let you pick 1 free 100 - 500 crowns item on your birthday. I agree with Kevin we should use the characters birthday, not the persons. As Kestral says, you could get a lame B - day present, but the odds are random. You know, getting a unicorn or troll or cyclops or krokotopian, ect. tranformations would be awesome. Though you probably you get lots of transformations of transformations from the iphone app and from Wizard 101's birthday, and KI has to make a lot of codes to give. Its probably done by a computer, but it still takes a lot of power to power that machine. What I think would be most approiate is that evrybody gets a good, old, eye of bartelby treasur card pack. Its cheap to give, and it actually has some good cards in there, well, sometimes it does. I also agree with Tara. It would be awesome to get limited amount items on your birthday, though every body getting the same thing wouldn't be limited. I think everything should be random. They just have to make those non-givable, so people don't scam each other.
I think you should get something like, either an elixer to morph you into something for 24 hours or a specal henchman you can use all that that is any school you chose(even celestain) that gets 2 power pips per turn and always uses the level 58 spell ( for actral schools they use RA) and ifyou need it they ALL can heal
~Belgrim GiantTalon-level 55 necromancer-i was friendly before it was a blog~
Hmm, I think you should get 5000 crowns, a free mount of your choice, and a rare pet, like a fog unicorn (wich i really want!) Then like Kestrel ShowdowThistle said we could get a elixir to change into a unicorn or something. You know something big and magical! I mean it's your birthday we need something more then comeing into the game, and going "YAY! My present is questing1"
M. BearGiver
How about some type of clothing rather than an exlir. For example, say if my avatar Luke GoldHorn's birthday was 6/15/09, from 12 A.M. to 12 P.M. I would get special a special robe, hat, pet, wand, and deck. You could choose the pet's appearance (includes color schemes) and talents. The wand could give +2 Power Pips and Crit block + Crit chance stats. Also, the card and style of the and could also be customizable. The robe, hat, and shoes you get will give you extremely rare cards that are convientant for your character's class, or you could choose the spells that you'd like to use. Also, the appearance would be customizable, such as having the ability to add astral signs to my clothing, school signs, etc. On your birthday, these clothing items would have a shimmery-glow to them, but when the day is over, you get to choose one item to keep. If you choose the pet, the selected talents disappear, and all new talents are chosen. If I pick the wand, the extra pip will go away as well as either the crit block or crit chance. If I pick the hat, robe, or shoes, all the stats on that particular piece of clothing would wear off and it would become an item you can stitch. I'm trying to make the idea of having a unique symbol that makes your birthday stand out (the glow of your armor) consistent with the fact of an actually item (giving you one of the items after, but the "birthday" spell so to speak wears off). What do ya think?
i think for each year you'll recive more crowns. for example, the first year you recived 1000 crowns, next year 2000 crowns and so on! Sent from my psp
It would be cool if the reward was free subscription for a day! :D!
@Kestrel: an elixer that turned me into a unicorn is like the best thing ever for me personally. Even better . . . a death unicorn. ftw.
@Tara: limited edition pet would be nice. I kind of think they'd want to vary the reward for free vs. subscription or crowns though, wouldn't they?
@Kevin: Everybody loves those unique symbols on clothes. It makes me wonder why KI dumped the symbols on clothes idea post mooshu?
@Talon: Transformations are fun, right? I wish they had a ton of them.
@Belgrim: Hey! Special henchman is a cool idea. I hadn't thought about that.
@Morgan: big and magical = awesome for sure! How about a giant transformation? LOL!
@PD: I like the idea of a symbol that wears off. Like a special birthday glow! That would rock.
@Firezilla: I know, right? Crowns would be such an awesome gift, but why am I think there's no way that would happen?
@anon: aye, what would you do with a free sub for a day? hehe. I bet for some it would be a day full of wizard101 . . . just to see how far they could get in 24 horus. :)
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