Lots of questions . . . Lots of answers

Seriously . . . I'M OUT OF THE QUESTION ANSWERING BUSINESS . . . but since you guys asked a few questions, here you go. I gave it my best.

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Hello Friendly!

I Have some Q's that I'm very curious for seeking answers for it!

1. What traps & blades i should use to score massive damage? (over
3000+) (I'm a level 22 sorcerer & death as secondary)

2. How did wizards survive Dungeons like Katzesteins lab & Big Ben?

3. Remember the Mount contest for Moonlight pony? I See you have 2500 crowns code, how did you get them?

Thanks!
~John LegendMancer

1. You can find all the answers you need for stacking blades and traps from the damage calculator ! If you're into stacking traps at level 22, then you'll probably want to get a dragon pet with DragonBlade, and maybe some crown clothes with a hex. You can also grow some Honey Sickle and Silver Trumpet vine plants to get some balance blade cards (or buy them from the bazaar). Best of luck with stacking up blades!

2. Like in the past? We were always fine without all the boosts. The number one thing that made these instances easy was grouping. Duo'ing any of these instances makes them easy like cake--yummy cake!

3. I had those crown codes as leftovers from my visit to KingsIsle and, more specifically, the GDC Austin conference. KingsIsle's marketing printed out a bunch of these crown codes for their employees to pass out to random people at the conference (and at the previous conferences they had been to), and let's just say that more than one employee decided to dump these codes on to me. I redeemed a few, but then I decided to just give them away at the contest since I had so many left over. :) You're welcome. I don't have any left though, so . . . no additional codes will be given away during house-a-palooza.

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Hi Friendly,

Hope things are going well for you this weekend. I am a Dad that got started on Wizard101 when my 7 year old started and my wife wanted me to play with him to make sure it was ok. Big mistake! I got totally hooked. We now have two or three Lvl 60 wizards between us, and our twin five year olds are chomping at the bit to get started. (I won't let them get their own accounts until they can read everything)

Anyway, I have been reading your blog for a couple of years, and really appreciate your insights. Your reasons for playing Wizards really resonate with me. With that in mind, I was wondering if you had any suggestions for other MMOs that have many of the same community characteristics as Wizards, but are more mature and graphic intensive. I came across AION, and was wondering if you had played it or not, or anything else that might fit the bill.

My guess is that Wizards is pretty unique, so I won't be surprised if you haven't come across anything, but any suggestions you have would be great, and keep up the great work!

All the best,

Craig

Things are going great, Craig, thanks!

Glad you liked Wizard101 so much. I hear you on the addictive qualities. ;)

Short answer: no. None of them have our scene. Long answer: Every community is different, but I think you need to look for "pockets" of community in other games. These usually come in the form of message boards for guilds or news sites or podcasts. When you find one you like . . . go with it. Even in Wizard101, some people tend to like Central and some people don't. Some people like Blogger, and some don't. There's a blind eye turned to the parts of the community that you don't really understand or like (or just don't have time to participate in).

Wizard101’s community is interesting because KingsIsle gives underage players a voice. Everyone can contribute and for many players, Wizard101 is their first online multiplayer game.

There's three types of people in a community (any community, really): silent majority (you know . . . people who play the game and don't read blogs or message boards), Vocal minority (everybody who DOES check on these sites), and the creative minority (like a subset of the vocal minority--these are the players who are constantly providing suggestions, feedback, creating fansites, etc.)

If there's a hardcore element to a game, I think you'll find the egos to go with it. From what I understand, EVE Online has one of the most close knit, vocal, and active communities of any game, but they self police in an aggressive way and that can be a turnoff to a new player. They seem to have a large vocal minority, and a very large creative minority.

At first I started to think of suggesting something like Toontown, but ToonTown’s community is kind of dead—they gave up and removed their official message boards.

Best of luck finding something great out there . . . you have to hunt a bit, but I'm sure you'll find something good for you.

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You run some very popular blogs, and they are awesome. I have just started a blog and would like to know how I can become popular, too. I know that being an official fan site is no longer an option, but you must have some secrets. Please help and thanks fot the answers.

-Michael Hawk

Hey Michael! Best of luck, and I hope your blog takes off. Be sure to forward the URL to me to add you to my list of Wizard101 blogs.

Number one secret: be as generous and helpful as possible, and as Icywiz says, People like the funny!

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Hey, I was looking at your spreadsheet of pets, which was very informative, thank you, and noticed the new pets and hybrids were missing. I have a few. Were you planning on adding any of the new ones to the list? I have gotten a few hybrids from the new level 58 pets and I can screen shot them if you wanted to add them. Just let me know.

Also, I got an unlisted hybrid from 2 of the old level 48 pets. I crossed Wraith and Satyr and got a Ghast with a Wraith card.

Thanks,
Sisu
4 legendaries, 4 grands, 4 lowbies and 2 kids.

Glad it helped! Unfortunately, the past few months I've been kind of out of it, and I haven't taken a good look at my pet list for far too long. I'll see what I can do to get that updated. Thanks for the heads up on the Ghast! That sounds wicked awesome!

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I saw your last post - Why am i still playing wizard101? I ask myself that all the time. I started playing wizard101 in mid to late 2009 after i saw something about wizard101 in an ad on some site. I went to the site took the test (dont remember what class i got) I found out about wizard101central and signed up. My problem is i cant pick a school because i like every single school. Ice is the class i always get if i answer the quiz question correctly. I like ice because its has high health and great defense but i hate the low damage spells Fire is great and i like the damage over time spells . Storm is my favorite school because of the high damage but i hate the low health and accuracy and i cant even create a storm wizard because im so scared of dying alot and with storm that will happen. I wrote to you about this with another email address . Any tips for low health and accuracy for a storm wizard.

I took your advice and created Iridian Rain and i took her all the way to level 42. then i deleted her and that was around june 2010. I took a break from wizard101 around that time and started playing maplestory. I like every school but i cant be the one i want to be because im so afraid.

I should give up now because my dream of grandmaster will never come true and im tired of doing the same things over and over.

My dream is to become grandmaster than legendary and to become a warlord in pvp and get the full arena gear

Autumn

Autumn, I'm sorry I don't have much advice past my previous post, but I gotta say this: Don't. Delete. Your. Wizards. Ever. Again. PLEASE!

If you keep deleting your wizards, you'll have to do those 42 levels all over again, which will just make you feel even worse.

Chin up. You can do it! Find some friends to play with!

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Heya Friendly i have a ton to ask you! (might be good to put on the blog, idk)

So i need to fight Khai Tengri to get Leviathan on my storm and i have lost three times already...

What do i do? I use the novice storm deck with one thermal Shield, three storm lords, one amplify, one fortify, three pixies, two stormzillas, three tritons, and my wand is the Jolting Jellywand and i have the Stormzilla pet...

I am gonna get the sultans palace card so i wanna use henchman. i have decided on using Life and Ice, but shoudl i also use death?

Btw Khai is Fire and his minion is Life

Also something NOT Wizard101 Related

How do i go about interviewing an employee at, say, Petsmart just to know more about the place when i dont want my mom and dad involved? (I cant really walk/bike there...)

Thx

A P

Hey AP, take a look at the last half of this post I made about Kyle's level 58 fight here.

If you use henchmen, well, yeah life, ice, and death could be a good combo I suppose. Let me know how that goes!

As far as interviewing someone at a place of business . . . man, I don't know. Sounds like you want to call the place and talk to an employee about what it's like to work there? Well, typically I think you have to go through a manager (or a Human Resources Representative) to get in touch with an employee, but those people will want to answer the questions for you and try to avoid bothering their busy employees. hmm. That actually might not be so bad since a manager would be able to tell you what their expectations are of their employees.

You could get lucky and get an employee on the phone who's cool enough to just talk to you when you ask, "hey, I was just thinking about applying there and I want to know what it's like?" You never know until you try!

Also, just interviewing for a job can give you a lot of knowledge (even if you don't get or don't take the job). The first job I ever applied for was a dish washer position. My resume was fit for something much more awesome. I just wanted money and my friend worked there . . . the manager who interviewed me for the job was like, are you sure you want this? You're kind of overqualified . . . (laugh) I should have listened to her.

You know what was a great job for me when I was younger? Working at a copy shop. It puts you in touch with local businesses and people. I loved that job. I still use stuff I learned from working in a copy shop.

. . . I guess you could pass it off as a column you're doing for your school newspaper?

Too be honest, all jobs kind of suck in one way or another. Best of luck! Sorry I couldn't be more help here. ;)

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Happy Dueling!