The Week Wrap Up From Friendly

Drew Simon the other day (from the Frostbite blog) said in a comment, "Friendly, your lack of theorys convince me that. . . You already KNOW what's coming up in Wizard101!"

My response to that is . . . what's coming up for Wizard101 is more spending of your hard earned money on CROWNS!!!! ;) That's a given isn't it?

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Hey look! My Beckett's magazine came in the mail!


Nice 4-page Angus article in there for you all. :) The free code in there this time is a free Eye of The Bartleby pack. Hope you get a cool EotB Feint in that pack! :) The second page of the article even has a shnazzy picture of Todd Rogers on it. ;) The rest of the mag is packed full of MMO news, tips, and previews. Uber Wife found another game she wants to play with me called Salem. It's not even in closed beta yet. Thanks to Sean Kavanagh for his great write up!

As a compliment to my article (or vice versa how ever you look at it), there's a great 2-page WoW article titled "The flightpath less traveled" that details five unique ways to play through World of Warcraft (no pets, solo, exploration, fashionista, and pacifist). Good stuff!

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On the good news front, we managed to get our Wii back from the repair shop. yup, $40 later we have a working wii (its laser finally gave out from reading the fingerprints of many sticky-fingered children). Also on the good news front, we managed to dislodge the three gamecube games Diapermancer stuffed in the wii the very next day we received it back from the repair shop.

Here's a tip if you run into the problem of a jammed Wii full of gamecube games. Shake out/pull out what you can. Then, press the eject button and insert a blank CD-R that you don't mind ruining into the console as it's trying to eject your stuck disk. Turn off the Wii when you have the blank CD-R inserted about 90% of the way. Turn your wii back on and with any luck your jammed game will eject along with the CD-R. You may have to try this a few times to get it to work.

;)

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I've been frequenting my real-life facebook page lately posting about 80's videos. Since I usually defer my W101 buds to friend add my Thomas Lionblood character on Facebook instead of my real facebook, y'all been missing out on the fun!

Here's a sampling:

A formal dinner party is harried by strange noises coming from the attic. Soon the strange noises turn to absolute mayhem as the butler delivers a gift of rats on a silver platter to the table. A guitarist from the band above crashes through the ceiling and finishes his solo on the dinner table, completely expelling any shred of formality left behind. The butler and the eligible bachlorette from the dinner party have a startling transformation into the rockers that were inside them all the while.



With a snap or five of his fingers, Lionel and his underground group of synchronized dancers rescue a lonely woman in red after she falls short of the bride's prized bouquet at a Spanish wedding. Forget the alley way, motel corridor, coffee shop, or balcony. Although these are prized hiding spots, the red light district is Lionel's favorite. Could a bride be tempted so soon by Lionel’s forbidden love?



The scene begins in a club. Night after night, Kajagoogoo and the waitress with the really great hair always meet eyes, but unfortunately the unassuming yellow tank top isn't enough to bring forth her inner tiger--she's too shy shy.



:) Ahhh, the 80's. LOL

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In other news, Wizard101 is DESTROYING Free Realms in the unicorn poll. I maintain that they used the wrong unicorn for Free Realms. Seriously, I mean check me out on my unicorn ride.


The mane of the Free Realms unicorn MOUNT undulates the full spectrum of the rainbow and the hooves sparkle as you run. There's a glow from the horn that's awesome and guides your way at night.

I still think the Wizard101 unicorn would win . . . just because it's Wizard101, but that little runty Free Realms pet unicorn doesn't even stand a chance. LOL

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. . . as for an update on Angus. He's now through the Tower Archives and Plaza of Conquests and into The Grand Chasm. Check out this one shot kill from Angus on the Sea Lord.


BOOM 3,000+ over kill. :) That's the power of a treasure blade, stormblade, supercharge, treasure feint, storm trap, windstorm, storm prism, and a fully charged tempest.

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Matt Daley from BigWorld sent me a link to a World of Tanks related video that was filmed at GDCO featuring an interview with Chris Keeling from Wargaming.net. As a summation of this video . . . Chris talks a lot about the juxtaposition of realism vs. fun they've brought to the game's weapons. A good quote from the video is this, "It's a game first and foremost, and not a simulation. In World of Tanks for example, we don't want it to be super realistic, we want it to be super fun! You play with tanks from all nations mixed together because it's a good time."



Stephen Spiritcaller had a chance to talk with these people as well, and he highly recommends the game. I've played it and have it installed on my computer currently as well. As with most "shooter" games, I spend most of my time being the easy target, but it is a blast to play. To be honest, it was Uber Wife who even got me to try this game out! She really thought the guy from World of Tanks from last year's GDCO coverage was (to quote) "Charismatic." Give it a shot if you like this kind of stuff! :)

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OHMYGOSH I was on a LOTRO podcast. I explain all about my stint on the Liquid LOTRO podcast over on my LOTRO blog called "The Minstrel Magnet," which actually happens to be a much older blog than The Friendly Necromancer here. I just let it kind of sit and do nothing for many years. :)

The podcast features me and Christie (Icywiz) jamming about LOTRO. Hope you enjoy me slaughtering all those LOTRO names! :)

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Ye' old DDO static group (dubbed "Team Spode") has been busy farming the heck out of Gianthold trying to get flagged for one of the final instances in that zone. Every monday I put up a post about our exploits there. If it sounds like something you might be interested in, click.

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My Halloween light show is going good. The neighbors keep dropping by throughout the night to check it out. I'd love to grow it beyond what it is now, but it's costly. Maybe one of these days I can add on an extra row of scare poles with a pumpkin top. Not much about the show has changed from the previous years.

I have added a spider on the roof with a flood light that flashes on him and a small cemetery in the front. It's growing . . . albeit slowly. there's a great OCremix that I want to add to the show's lineup. If I ever grow this, I'm going to either add a Boo Ghost cutout or maybe a video screen showing a quick run through a spooky Mario dungeon. :)



Think you might have heard that in my Red Ghost video before. ;)

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Hope you're all having a great time as we get closer to Halloween! I've run through the entire Halloween quest series a couple times this year. Good stuff. What have you peeps been up to?

Besides work, that's really all I got . . . oh yeah, one last thing . . . BLACK PANTHER MOUNT IN CROWNS SHOP!!!!! :)

Happy dueling!

New Sneaky Peeky!

Oh my! KI is at it again! Check the link!

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It's MMORPG's turn to give a sneak peek! http://t.co/4SKJIfHp

http://twitter.com/#!/Wizard101/status/128869304061009921

Sent from my iPhone

Tweet from @Wizard101

Ok! Here we go again! Here's another picture with a coded message from KingsIsle!! Here's the Tweet fro KI, check it out!

Another Wizard101 Teaser courtesy of Zam! http://t.co/5Lq4Oelg

http://twitter.com/#!/Wizard101/status/128582306419048448

Sent from my iPhone

CHECK THIS OUT! (Episode 9)

Heya peoples, let's do a quick e-mail grab bag post, shall we? I've been getting a few e-mails, and I've got a little time here today . . . *cracks knuckles* . . . it's go time! CHECK THIS OUT!

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First up is an e-mail from Nicholas LionRider!

Hope you don't mind but I made you a gift. You always wanted a death unicorn so here you go. :) -Nicholas LionRider

I don't mind your gift at all, Nicolas . . . for it involves unicorns and death and the combination of the two! I like where you're going with that. However I like EVEN MORE, a combination of ideas from the Twizards @HeatherRavenWiz and @TheNecroManiac. Heather tweeted, "I think death unicorn needs to be not only a pet but a SPELL! Like vampire, but an AoE of pure awesome. @FriendlyNecro", and Brandon added, "@FriendlyNecro @Wizard101 @HeatherRavenWiz Aha! Agreed, it should steal health instead of giving it, but maybe give health back to teammates".

Ahhh, my friends . . . bless you and bless your adoption of the death unicorn cause. ;)

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Justin Firesword commented on my Thomas Lionblood Facebook profile picture, "Nice pet!"

Thank you Justin. Lady Dexter was awesome at the time . . . not only because she's an inherently awesome ninja pig, but because she starred in a short comic strip, that I should really continue some day.
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4

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Nikki asked me over e-mail:

"Hi, Friendly. I know you're busy, but would you mind posting pics of the Sleepy Hollow house? Thanks and have a great day.

-Nikki"

Ahhhh, you're talking about Conner's house that I posted a picture of here. I'm sorry, I hope I didn't mislead you with my poor wording. That house is simply the Wooded Cottage Wizard City house, Conner had just decorated it and dubbed it his "Sleepy Hollow House." I don't have any more pictures of it beyond the one on my blog, but you can definitely track Conner down on his blog. If we're lucky maybe he'll make a post about his house, or maybe he'll even Youtube a tour of it! That would be great! :)

Again, sorry for the misunderstanding.

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Drew Waterbringer sent me an e-mail with this question:

"Hey Friendly,
I just bought the new hawk pack, and have yet to redeem the wand. The reason is is that I like the look of the storm wand very much, because I am storm, but I want the stats of the death one, the best wand. Should I go with and ugly-ish death wand with good stats or take the cool storm wand and stitch it with like a lifeforce or something. The death one's stats are really good for me as a storm because 50 critical is good.
Thanks!
Drew WaterBringer"

Right, this is an interesting question -- not because you're debating crit vs. crit block, but because you're debating losing 10 damage and crit and gaining 20 block if you go with the Death Claymore vs. the looks of a weapon. AND, you only can choose one.

Hmmmm, conundrum . . .

Well, if I were you, I'd go with looks. I know that may sound strange, but after the screenshot we saw a couple days ago on Massively, well, you don't know what cooler weapons stat-wise could be around the corner. The look could be a one of a kind look, but newer stats and power growth will always be a part of this game. /shrug

Then again, a blade with +50 block could be really nice if you're planning on doing some PvP over the next few weeks, right?

Hmmmm, conundrum . . . (I like that word.)

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One more for you guys. Not really an e-mail, but still worthy of an episode of Check this out. You've all probably seen this, but if not . . . reality will hit you hard, bros.



and in typical viral fashion . . . here's the resulting song.



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Thanks for all the e-mail!

Happy dueling!

Fwd: Massively Teaser

Fresh off the newswire!! You gotta check this out!!!!

Sent from my iPhone

Begin forwarded message:

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/10/21/kingsisle-teasing-new-wizard101-content/

Wizard101 Up for more awards! And . . . oh yeah . . . awards . . .

This one is special to me since I write for Beckett's. YOU MUST GO VOTE FOR WIZARD101 PEOPLE! Click me! Click me! Click me! Click me! Click me! (Especially for the Best Kids’/Family MMO category, you know?)

Speaking of awards, I got this note yesterday from Marcus Deathwalker concerning the GDCO voting prize for the Wizard101 Audience award:

Hello Friendly,
I have just recieved my Mystery pet .
Yes it's a free pet but I can't help but feel a little disappointed.
Maybe my expectations were too high , but when they say limited edition or rare and then offer you a "____" , well it's kind of a let down. I don't want to spoil the "supprise" for you.
What do you think?
Looking forward to your Blog about this.

Well, I wouldn't be too disappointed. A free pet is a free pet. :) I'm just happy it wasn't a piggle. LOL.

Sadly, most likely because of all the complaining, there is no offer of reward for voting in the Beckett's voting poll. No free pet is no free pet. :( I still have faith people will vote though. We have a great game that always has a new surprise just waiting around the corner.

Happy Dueling!

New House, New Card Pack, New Halloween Craziness!!

News broke today that there was a new card pack in the crowns shop after the longish patch and maintenance this morning. You can read all about the new Nightmare card pack and Halloween goodies from KingsIsle over on the main page.

I was lamenting earlier in the month about how bland the Hallowe'en celebration had become from when we first saw it three years ago. (Also, did you peeps notice that KI is now calling this "Halloweenfest" instead of "Hallowe'en" like they used to? Kind of weird, wish they would have called it something other than "fest," you know? Doesn't seem very creative. Then again, I guess it's better than Halloween-a-palooza, right?) With the new card pack and this new jungle-themed house, we totally got a one-two KO punch today; Halloweenfest is looking more awesome now! Although, I'd love to duel that Spooky Bob for cool Halloween prizes. BRING IT SPOOKY BOB!

First up, let's talk about this new mega giftcard house. Lionrider King is already taking credit for the Zebrifica idea. Hey! I don't blame him! If I had come up with a Zebrifica world and saw this house, I'd do the same thing. ;) I'm just hoping there's a Bullrilla pet for me somewhere in all this excitement. :) Of course, Elie Akilian has been talking about going on Safari over on his Twitter since 8 Jan 2011. Nice, three tweets! LOL.

Bailey was invited to view Jack Skullsmith's house, giraffe pet, and mount by her friend Jason Thundershield this afternoon. Yeah, Uber Wife has connections like that. ;) She had a great time running around and taking pictures of all the amazing things about his jungle paradise.

Here's a picture of Jack on his two-seater mount.


Bailey had some troubles riding on this with Jack, even after adding him as a friend and in a group. Other people seemed to be able to jump on Jack's mount with him and ride around just fine, but it was buggy for Bailey. Hopefully that gets cleared up soon.

Here's another picture of Jack with his awesome Giraffe pet . . . 57 pedigree, hmm. Not too bad! Wonder what awesome talents that thing gets (also wonder what it looks like dancing!)


Apparently if you click on this Bazaar Tapestry, you're magically transported there! That's awesome! Ever since seeing the teleporters, something inside me has been saying, wish I could mark places around the spiral with those instead of just inside my house. Nice implementation there, KI!


The house also features a friendly gorilla who much like the genie in the Sultan's Palace will gift you with treasures once a day. He should be a bullrilla, but gorillas are ok. ;)


Check out the amazing attention to detail in this main room of the house and the awesome carved-looking Lion, Zebra, and Elephant heads adorning the upper tier of this room. Awesome. There's ample room in these houses for all your expert decorating needs.


Just amazing stuff there. The house has other tricks and surprises, and I'm sure I'll be finding more out about it here soon.

Next up is the Nightmare pack.

WOW! Look at this Nightmare mount you can get as a rare find!


That's Conner Mistblade who was dressed as the headless horseman today in his Sleepy Hallow themed house. :)

The Nightmare pack is coming in at 299 crowns, which is 100 crowns cheaper than the regular packs. It's mostly full of treasure cards, pet snacks, specter themed robes, spooky bob themed costumes, pets, broom mounts, and a few housing items. The nightmare mount is definitely the thing you want from those. :)


There I am! Surrounded by my housing items from the few nightmare packs I purchased today. Love that you can get the Halloween decorations now. :) Good news on those pet snacks (don't know if this is going to be changed in the near future or not), you can actually sell and buy some of those new high rank snacks at the bazaar. Be on the lookout for those!

Have fun with all your new surprises! I can't wait to see what KingsIsle has next for us.

Happy dueling!

Supercharged and Headed Back to Dragonspyre!

BOOM SHAKALAKAH!


ANGUS ANGUS ANGUS!

A few things about securing your supercharge spell if you've stumbled here from a random Google search. You have to be at least level 35. You have to complete Vigrid Roughlands and Frostholm. You have to talk to Baldur Goldpaws in Olde Town to pick up the quest that sends you to talk to Erik Wyrndune. After that, it's just a matter of fighting a boss in Mirkholm Keep and finishing up the quest.

It can be a little confusing because it's not intuitive that you go talk to Baldur Goldpaws . . . nothing points you in his direction.

Best of luck!

So, beware crazy high health mobs of Dragonspyre! Angus is coming after you!


Happy Dueling!

Angus in Grizzleheim: The Quest for Supercharge

Angus needed a little distraction from Dragonspyre, so I took him back to Grizzleheim for some fun. It's been pretty laid back for the most part, just a matter of rushing through some of these quests. Check it out, I got an 808 hit. :)


Whenever you get an 808 hit on someone, you know it's TIME TO DROP THE BASS!


Though it's good for relaxing from Dragonspyre, the real purpose of Angus doing a little Grizzleheim is so he can get his hands on the Supercharge spell. That's such an awesome spell. Stacking any layer of percentage to damage is fantastic . . . especially against those high hit point freaks in Dragonspyre. Additional blade spell? OH YOU KNOW I WANT THAT!

Oh, I have to say this . . . with my fully geared characters, I never really noticed the hits from Shellek were so freaking beast.


Yeah, that guy, the end boss from Savarstaad Pass. His innate attack is 125 storm damage per pip. That's harder than most Dragonspyre boss innate hits. For example, General Firetusk's innate hit is only 100 damage per pip. Skellek not only hits like a boss, he hits like a BOSS! Like an 808 drop!


Alright, that's enough of that. ;p

Happy Dueling!

We Won!!

You know, I love the Internet some days. Honestly, last night it was able to put me right there at the GDC awards show, and I was watching it from my living room real-time. The good news is that Wizard101 won the audience award!! 170,000 votes were counted. It once again came down to a battle between League of Legends and Wizard101. Both are great games with really active players.

Joseph Hall, J Todd Coleman, and Kiersten Samwell hopped up on stage and delivered some thanks that I think you should hear. Although the entire show is good (a couple bad jokes), here's a link to their acceptance speeches: Click.

I was really happy to hear Kiersten say these words, "We wouldn't be here both in this game space and on this stage if it wasn't for our players, our fansite owners, and every single one of you in the audience, so thank you for loving the game we love to make."

Dear Kristen, from at least one of your plethora of fansites: "You're welcome!"

Now . . . for the rest of you wondering where your mystery pet is . . . HAHAHA! Wizard101 Twittered a few messages after the award show.


Enjoy your victory, KingsIsle! Woot pet next week!

Happy Dueling!

Stephen Spiritcaller, Icywiz, and Taliesinharps at GDCO

It's GDC season again in Ausin, Texas. You might remember my trip to GDC last year (if not, click here to see all the posts with my GDCO tag and scroll down a few posts). I've been wishing that I was there in GDC this year, but I'm not. Then again, I was sitting around the dinner table with my family last night and took a moment to realize that I was happy to be here as well. It was Taco Salad Tuesday after all! You know I'm loving a little Taco Salad on a Tuesday while chillin' with the fam!

Anyway, there are a few people down there in Austin that you might know. They're taking in all that Austin is and hanging out at GDC. Hanging out at GDC also means you'll probably get to see a random KingsIsle employee hanging out at GDC. That's good stuff for sure.

Stephen Spiritcaller of Ravenwood Radio is keeping a YouTube page about his trek to GDC, and i keep waiting for more information to come out of that. I'm sure we'll see more and more clips of him at GDC being uploaded over the next week. I'll definitely be watching.

You'll also want to be following Stephen's Twitter, Icywiz's Twitter, and Taliesinharps's twitter for more information.

There doesn't seem to be any real news from KingsIsle other than something big is on the horizon, of course, we can always expect there to be something big on the horizon with KingsIsle, so it's kind of non-news, but I'LL TAKE IT! Of other gossip-y news, from what I hear, Stephen and Leesha have now met in real-life thanks to the magic of GDC! I wish I could have been there to see that. :)

Here's to hoping KingsIsle wins an award at the award show tonight at 6:30 pm Central! I'm hoping one of those three twitter feeds linked above will be exploding with on-the-moment news. :)

Happy Dueling!

Tower of the Helephant: Two Floors of Awesome!

The Tower of the Helephant (ToH) is an interesting place. I had my first experience going there just the other day. Good times! (Mostly because I had good company.) In the end, I'd say ToH is "interesting" because I’m not really sure why the floors between the first floor and the top floor even exist. They're totally filler. Sure, there’s a puzzle in the middle, but it’s not really even difficult . . . you just run to the teleporter that has the cheese next to it. That’s cool, no biggie. Even if by some random chance you don't follow the cheese trail and you fail the maze, the resulting fight isn’t too bad. Six floors isn't going to run you out of mana, so those floors are . . . useless.

All you really need to know to beat The Tower of the Helephant is the right cards to play and the right strat, which has all been provided for you over on Wizard101 Central. That guide was super handy! OH yeah, one more thing . . . time . . . lots of time.

Anyway, in case you can’t or don’t want to follow that link, let me break down the needed cards for you.

1- Accuracy treasure cards. These are a dime a dozen now. Easy to get at the bazaar but you probably already have a backpack full of them . . . it’s not really a “needed” card on this fight, but you might as well throw a couple in your sideboard if you have a bunch just hanging out and use them on your damage spells. Better safe than sorry.

2- Quench. This one is needed. Every three rounds, Taurus the minotaur casts a smoke screen in addition to his regular spells. Keep plenty of Quench debuffs on him, and you’ll never have to worry about what happens if you don’t.

But Friendly, you cry with your choir of angelic blog-reader voices, what happens if we don’t keep said minotaur debuffed? Fine! I'll tell ya. :) Every time you fizzle a spell, this cues our good buddy Ervin the Boar to cast a skeletal dragon on the person that fizzled. Oh yeah, speaking of that . . .

3- Keep Strangle and Dissipate debuffs on Ervin . . . also Storm Shield on your healer (or whoever has agro).

But Friendly, why use a lightning debuff and Storm Shields against a Death mob? OH, well, k, once Taurus the minotaur dies, Ervin the boar casts Leviathan every other round. Have fun with that! (I like saying "the minotaur" and "the boar" after their names btw, could ya tell?).

Anyway, the final floor is even more awesome than the first. It involves a pesky Draconian named Lyon. Lyon the Draconian is almost completely resistant to Storm attacks and doesn't allow you to Prism (or trap) him. Sorry Storm wizards, but guess what? It's ok because Storm wizards are super effective against the minions that Lyon summons out at the speed of one per round. The thing is, you don't want to let Lyon summon all three minions or else BAM! You eat a supercharged Blizzard spell each round while he has those three minions on his team. I guess this means these would come in handy:

4- Ice Shields and Melt Debuffs.

But Friendly! BUT FRIENDLY! Earthquakes from minions!! I know I know . . . just do your best. :)

Here's a video I made of our trip in the Tower of the Helephant.



It was pretty great to play with my wife again (and Ms. Mistshard as well). We've been kind of playing separately lately for some reason. I think it has to do something with me getting up early, her getting to bed late, and the kids taking up all the time in between. ;)

If you have any additional tips or just want to say hi, feel free to leave them in the comments below.

**Update** I fixed a couple incorrect things in this post thanks to Cody in the comments. He adds that Melt would be a good idea to have in your arsenel to block Ervin's 95% tower shield and that arming a death wizard with Steal Ward could be a nice trick! **Update**

Happy Dueling!

Random New Game Roundup (Realm of the Mad God, Glitch, and Dragon's Nest)

Heya all,

I took some time off from playing Angus and started messing around on a few new games. I thought I'd just make a post about it here because some of you may be interested in one of these games.

First up: Realm of the Mad God

Amber came home from school one day, fought her way to the computer, and loaded up Realm of the Mad God. We're all, whatttttTTTT? She's all, oh it's some dumb game where I can't even save my level. Instantly I shouted, "I want to try it!" Kyle copied me, "I want to try it!" Before you know it, we're unlocking new characters and rocking the world of said mad god.

Check out my dead level 20 warrior character:


He was awesome. Some guy came up to me and gave me some super awesome gear and before you know it, I'm level 20 attacking a cyclops god at max level.

Just so you know, my daughter was totally right about not being able to save your level. Realm of the Mad God is a permadeath game. Once your character dies, you have to start over, and that's ok, The point is to try and get your fame as high as possible before you die, but it's also to unlock other character classes by getting your character high level.

It's a flash-based, rogue-like crawler game that's fast paced and . . . believe it or not . . . an MMO. Just look at all these crazy peeps:


Grouping is done via just being in the vicinity of other players. You'll get exp for stuff other people kill and vice versa. Don't expect to get healed unless you're fighting something major. 1) Don't think there are a lot of priests out there. 2) You need to learn to keep weaving in and out of things aka DODGE!

My typical method for killing stuff is to run a large circle around monsters to round them up and slowly whittle them down. But my fighter was tough enough with his good gear that I could just go head to toe with monsters and beat them up without much pain.


This kind of fast action / old school vibe was perfect for me this past week. You should check this one out if you're looking for a change of pace. It's free-to-play and definitely has some addictive qualities. Of course, these prices for The Realm of the Mad God's version of crowns are ridiculous. Wow.


I just can't imagine spending 100 bucks on Realm of the Mad God, but to each their own.

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Second: Glitch

Glitch is a browser-based 2D MMO. It's hip right now, and to be honest that's probably the only reason I tried it out.


So far the game for me has been about squeezing chickens, nibbling pigs, and milking butterflies. I made it far enough down the animal training skill line so that now I have the ability to rename animals. In fact this morning I took it upon myself to rename all the pets on the Dofsan Vex street in the Alakol district to familiar Wizard101 names as a part of a quest:




I'm sure these will be changed by someone else in the near future. ;)

As I understand it, the real purpose of Glitch is to build up areas as a team. Here's a quote from Glitch's Wikipedia page:

"One of the most unique aspects of Glitch is that players can work together to build out each new street by cooperating on the completion of projects offered by a "Street Spirit." A project is made up of stages and numerous small tasks, some of which involve collecting (and sometimes even creating) quantities of items from throughout the world and returning them to the Street Spirit. Other tasks on projects involve the skills or labor of players to complete. Involvement in projects thus far have been fairly equitable as to the players level, allowing newbies as well as higher level players to participate in the projects together. At each stage of a project's completion, participating players get to vote in the direction that the street project will take, ultimately choosing the completed streets' attributes. Upon completion of the project, participating players are rewarded with valuable benefits. Unlike other massively multiplayer online games, Glitch's gameplay isn't centered on leveling up, it's about working together to achieve goals."

Maybe one of these days we can claim a street for Wizard101 and have a Glitch party. ;)

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Third: Dragon's Nest

Out of these three games, Dragon's Nest is the one I've spent the most time in recently. I was introduced to Dragon's Nest by Tipa from the West Karana blog. In fact, we've even grouped!


That's screenshot evidence right there that she's promised to adventure with me in a dungeon on the Abyss mode of difficulty. I'll be sure to hold her to it. :)

So . . . are you tired of slow-paced MMOs without much action in the combat? Wanna do combos and fight herds of monsters surrounding you ala the swarms in Diablo only with a 3D perspective? Duuuuude. Load up Dragon's Nest! It's a free-to-play that's a ton of fun and has that distinctive Asian MMO look.


Tipa's written more about this game, and her writing was good enough to sell me. Of course, I'm a fan of Tipa's game writing in general, so I'm biased. :)


Yarrr! I kill the minotaurrrr!

It's definitely the change of pace that I'm liking about Dragon's Nest more than anything, and you know what's awesome . . . Titles aren't just meaningless tags . . . they actually give you a boost to your character. Oh how I've wished for that for Wizard101.

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Thanks for reading, and I hope you get a chance to check out one or more of these games! Let me know what you think, and if you have a great game that you think I should check out, leave me a note in the comments below.

And as a final note (and pitch), I'm pretty sure most of you know about a few of my other game blogs that I keep, but if not, be sure to check these out . . . you may find some interest in one of them:

Stormreach Sentinel (DDO blog)
Guard and Defy (Rift blog)
Minstrel Magnet (LOTRO blog)
I AM STINGITE (other gaming)

Happy Dueling!