Awesome Thing #18 -- Two-boxing

I don't know how many players run multiple accounts at the same time like I do, but Wizard101 is just one of those games where it accomodates "two-boxing" very well. 30 seconds is ample time to make two decisions. In fact, 30 seconds is ample time to make four decisions as long as your deck is set up correctly, but it's much more enjoyable for me to only control two accounts at once (less teleporting around and set up time).

I first heard the term two-boxing back in the days of Everquest when people would play two accounts at the same time on two different computers (there was no way a single computer could handle the processing needed to play two instances of the game at the same time) . . . this was usually done with a dps class or tank paired with a healer. It was very easy to put your healer on auto-follow, set your dps to attack, click the heal button on your cleric, and continue to grind something down until you won!

It seems a bit anti-social in a social game to play two accounts by yourself, but a lot of times the difficulty of social games are tuned to encourage playing with others, which makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately in real world situations you don't have the luxury of a time zone that allows friends and not everyone is willing to assist you at the drop of a hat. Two-boxing overcomes that and two-boxing a storm wizard with Tempest with any other class in Wizard101 is pretty amazing.

. . . and because Wizard101 accomodates two-boxing so well . . . it's awesome!

Happy Dueling!

Awesome Thing #17 -- Finally Getting that Piece of Gear

Heh. I haven't had this feeling lately since I haven't really farmed for anything in a while (although if I ever get back to Aquila in my adventures, I hear there's a few things there I will want to pick up). BUT, I'm digging back into ancient history here for this Wizard101 example:


It says it all at 2:08 seconds . . . then, like a light at the end of a dark tunnel . . . MY HAT! I think the next time I really felt that same pull to farm an area over and over like that was when Waterworks gear came out. But, really, winning that coveted prize from the depths of a loot table is really what keeps a lot of MMOs going. There are many items that I wanted in certain games that I never got and they STILL haunt me. There was a hammer in Everquest . . . Vander's Bane. Never got it. Or the Blackblade of Shahram in World of Warcraft. Never got it.

Eventually it's all very meaningless, but at that moment where you've worked hard trying for that one thing . . . and you finally get it . . . AWESOME!

Happy Dueling

Awesome Thing #16 -- Daily Presents

So, there are a few houses out there in the Spiral that have a special feature that gives a free loot roll on a daily basis, like the Minotaur at the end of the maze in the Aquila Palace or the Genie from the Sultan's Palace . . . or my favorite:

I love that Gorilla! I don't know where he gets these presents from, and I don't know if I want to know!

But, because that free daily loot roll exists in Wizard101 . . . it's awesome . . . and since housing tours came along, I'm pretty sure you'd be able to find a house with a loot roll every day of the week, even if you didn't buy the house yourself (granted the owner didn't selfishly block it off or anything like that).

Happy Dueling!

Awesome Thing #15 -- Brand New Characters

I've played through the starting area of Wizard City what seems like countless times now, but still there's nothing quite like starting it all up again with a new character!

Yup! Taking Unicorn Way by the single horn and BAM! next thing you know you're through Triton Avenue and moving through all of Wizard City. :) There's a certain inescapable charm to the first few levels of Wizard101, and it's something I reminisce about often -- even if it's for work reasons. (I'll never forget my random assignment last year to play through Unicorn Way again LOL.)

This character here is my youngest's new character. I sat back and watched him play -- amazing how sticking to the sidewalk is so foreign to a four-year-old. he's like . . . what? Sidewalk? ME NO WORRY!

If you've forgotten what it's like, take a moment and make a new wizard today for fun. I hope you feel as much awesomeness about it as I do. :)

Happy Dueling!

Awesome Thing #14 -- Allan Ghostdust

In case you missed this, Allan Ghostdust is a new NPC in Khrysalis who gives you a fourth potion bottle. (Yesterday's post about Potion Motion jogged my memory about this.)

You can read more about the real life Allan's visit to KingsIsle on this Facebook post here.

This was again, very touching, and it was my privilege to meet Allan and talk with his family briefly. Although I wasn't as heavily involved with this Make-A-Wish visit as I was when Ryan visited us, I did get a chance to introduce myself as "The Friendly Necromancer" and show off the promotional Pirate101 map we sent out to all Wizard101 players back when Pirate101 launched.

Experiences like these are really once in a lifetime and very heartbreaking and fulfilling at the same time . . . meanwhile all those who have at least done the first few introductory quests in Khrysalis get an extra potion bottle in Wizard101! :)

Happy Dueling!

Awesome Thing #13 -- Potion Motion

I've been playing all the minigames again lately because the 4-year-old has been interested in them when we play Wizard101 together. Although I wouldn't say Potion Motion is the most fun game of them all, I will say it remains the quickest way to return to the fun of questing in Wizard101, right? Although these days Wizards usually are swimming in cash to the point that they'd rather just talk to Hilda Brewer and refill with gold, but the speed at which you can fill your potion bottle with this minigame remains really good.



The reason why is that the "three in a row" you have to connect doesn't need to be "in a row." You just have to make three similar potion bottles touch, which is easily done by the quick random dragging across the screen technique. You'll have the needed score in no time flat -- like 15 seconds or so . . . maybe less. :) By the time the difficulty ramps and new potion types like the heart bottle start appearing on the screen, You've well exceeded the threshold here.

Which makes Potion Motion awesome!

Happy Dueling

Awesome thing #12 -- The Christmas Tree in the Commons

Merry Christmas to all the people out there who continue to love and play Wizard101.

You all know how awesome this tree in the Commons of Wizard City is. No need to explain. :) The real question is, how many Christmas photos have been staged here? I'd say thousands!

Hope you all have a happy holidays and get lots of evil whippings from Krampus . . . er . . . presents from Santa Frog! ;)

Merry Dueling!

Awesome Thing #11 -- Blade Stacking

Hehe. Really there's no need to rehash blade stacking, which has been done exhaustively in every venue of Wizard101 . . . and it's that exact thing that makes it marvelous. Remember that moment when you first started playing the game and you realized that . . . HEY . . . these percentages of blades and traps really stack up the damage!!! I think most players experience that somewhere in Krokotopia--probably the moment you talk to Niles, the Balance tree. (OH DANG IT! I just realized that I need an awesome thing post on Niles! LOL.)

I guess my real first attempt at explaining Blade Stacking happened here on this post.

I loved making that video:



MAN! Those were the days! Then came the era of 1,000,000 hits with crazy low damage spells like wand strikes.

Yup, blade stacking and Wizard101 go hand in hand . . . which definitely makes it an awesome thing! I'd wager overkill has never been finer in any game. :)

Happy Dueling!

Awesome Thing #10 -- Housing Statues

Sure, they may not have much color to them, but who hasn't spent time searching the bosses of the Spiral for that perfect statue (or I suppose the Bazaar for the more common ones)? I'M GUILTY OF THAT!

I've seen some people do amazing things with their statues (far more amazing than I ever have) and in fact I've seen a lot of people start up a huge collection of statues! It's too bad there isn't a badge in game for statue collecting, right? Well, I'm sure we'd do it anyway because the right housing statues make the house in Wizard101.

Housing statues, yup, pure awesome!

Happy Dueling!

Awesome Thing #9 -- Casting with Class Symbols

Some things happen in game just for fun like this:

There's really no difference in any of the outcomes and after all these years, I'm pretty sure we all know that a blood bat is a myth spell or an evil snowman is an ice spell, but it just wouldn't be the same without that magical swirl of the spell that happens the moment before. It's like you're saying, yes, you waved the wand or wiggled your finger in this pattern and cast the spell that's entered the battle circle. Take it away and it's like taking the pokeball out of Pokemon (unless you're Pikachu and Ash or a wand spell that takes you to the center of the battleboard). :)

And because they exist, they are awesome.

Happy Dueling!

Awesome Thing #8 -- Sun Magic on Low Level Spells

Ever since Sun Magic came out circa, what, 2010, it's been the hottest hot sauce of them all.

What I especially love about Sun Magic is that you apply it to a card like a treasure card and suddenly that spell takes on a new life, and there's nothing more awesome than applying a Colossal Card to a low-level spell along with a Sharpened Blade on a regular blade charm and WHAM!

. . . all of a sudden a wimpy little Vampire card is hitting in the thousands. If you would have shown me fast hits with Sun magic cards back in 2009, I would have been blown away . . . and I think we all were and still are in love with these cards. Using those little four pip AOE spells like meteor combined with all that Sun Magic goodness are a favorite trick of Uber Wife. :) And because of that alone, Sun magic on low level spells gets the official stamp of awesomeness from me!

Happy Dueling!

Awesome Thing #7 -- An Undead Stegosaurus

You know it as "Avenging Fossil," but I know it as Herbie!



Just kidding, I don't have a name for my Avenging Fossil, but ever since I was a kid if you asked me what my favorite dinosaur was, I would say Stegosaurus . . . wait a second, I think I may still have an old pop up book from when I was a kid laying around here that has a cool Stegosaurus in it! *hunts*

YES! DINOSAURS!


This book has to be circa 1970-1980. There's no copyright notice on it with a date, so who knows.


Nostalgia wins!

Anyway, I totally love casting up my stegosaurus. It's a pretty cool spell, but more than that . . . he's a freaking undead Stegosaurus. It doesn't get more awesome than that.

Happy Dueling!

Awesome Thing #6 -- King Artorius and his spells

So, in case you didn't know, once you get to Khrysalis, you gather up this funky bunch of peeps known as the council of light, and while on this quest you pay another visit to your old buddy King Artorius in Avalon. He sends you on to the Lady of the Lake, but in passing, he gives you a super awesome spell . . . for free . . . which (as the title of this post and whole series indicates) IS AWESOME! There's no hoops other than the 90 levels of hoops you've already jumped through . . . just, here: have this spell. I LOVE that.

The Duelist101 site put together a cool video of all the King Artorius spells (one for each class) for everyone to enjoy.


I love this spell, and although it's not a health drain spell, it's a super powerful single target hit with a couple of surprises for each class.

It's awesome . . . it's awesome thing number six!

Happy Dueling!

Awesome Thing #5 -- A Pet with Spritely

You know, I remember (and I'm sure many of you remember) when pets in Wizard101 were nothing more than cute adornment (NOTE: well, except for those pets that came with a card *thanks anon*!). Eventually those pets became much much more. And these days, what pet is complete without the awesome pet power Spritely!?

Yup! You start to see your pet break out into a dance and the next thing you know, you're getting surrounded by healing goodness and a cute little "HAI!" and you're filled with so much win!

I don't think I could even begin to count the number of times Spritely (or Unicorn or Fairy for that matter) has saved me OR how many times I've heard the expression "Good Boy" or "Good Girl" come from a wizard whose pet when nuts and cast a Spritely spell on them. In fact, it used to happen so much that we'd complain that we needed to shorten the animation casting time of the spell.

It's a wizard's best friend's best friend -- Spritely -- a truly awesome pet power.

Happy Dueling!

Awesome Thing #4 -- The Arcus Cloud Mount

Wizard101 is full of cool mounts in game, but the Arcus Cloud Mount is pretty new and just released this past year I believe (time just flew by in 2013).

I remember sitting around the KingsIsle offices and all the Marketing folks were talking about how awesome this new mount was, and they're totally right. Riding around on a little bed of clouds sparking out lightning is the stuff of genius. GENIUS!

I think there's maybe three mounts you ride like this in game now (flying carpet and surfboard are the other two, yes?), but I just love this thing right now. I need to get my son's character, Kyle Skystaff, one of these because a Storm wizard on a storm cloud is about as perfect as it gets for awesome style points!

Happy Dueling!

Awesome Thing #3 -- Regenerate while in Treant Form

The Treant Polymorph spell is one of my favorite spells as it is, and I probably should make an "awesome thing" post just about Treant form. Although awesome all on its own . . . Using the mega "healing touch" Regenerate spell while in treant form for some reason is so much more fun than any other time I've cast Regenerate regularly! Why is that?

And actually, it's more of a combo move . . . foot stomp for the 50% bonus healing aura, Guiding Light charm for the +30% extra boost, and finishing up with Regenerate right as the polymorph is ending so that the heal carries over into the next two rounds. THAT . . . THAT . . . is awesome! And incredibly fun as well. :)

Happy Dueling!

Awesome thing #2 -- Health Drain Spells

You can only find them in the Death school line of spells, and it's still one of my favorite things about my chosen class . . . health drain spells! From the first time I cast a Ghoul as a baby necro to just last night when I hit a mob with Dr. Von's Monster, It's a totally awesome thing about Wizard101.

It finishes off a mob and it makes sure you're at full health for the next battle.

I can't express how much that helps play this game. Overpowered? Maybe, but if it brings the happy, it brings the happy, and it's definitely an awesome spell mechanic in Wizard101.

Happy Dueling!

Intro and Awesome Thing #1 -- low-hitting Wildbolt Spells

Hey! So, I'm bored tonight, and I'm thinking of starting a new series here on TFN! What is it? Well, it's a daily list of awesome things on Wizard101. Now, to be honest, I'm sure I've already listed well over 1,000 things that I think are awesome about Wizard101 on this blog without actually listing them, but, whatever! I need a good shot of optimism every once in a while, don't you? TOTALLY

So, here we go . . .

Awesome thing #1 -- Low hitting Wildbolt spells that are cast against me!

There's something about going against a Storm Mob and they get a roll of the dice on a Wildbolt spell and lose. It's like that old feeling my dad would conjure up when "luck" would go his way -- "I'd rather be lucky than good." HA! I can actually picture my dad's smile in my mind and his kind of strut he'd do when he'd score two points over my head in Basketball. I had that feeling tonight when this spider cast a low-hitting Wild bolt against me.

That could have been painful, but instead . . . awesomeness happened and I got a lucky roll of the virtual dice versus a spell that has the potential to be very deadly.

Thank you game!

Happy Dueling!

Strange Dream Last Night -- and Happy Thanksgiginv 2013!

So last night . . . well, I guess really early this morning (I took the dog out around 5:00 am and then fell back asleep for a couple of hours) . . . I had the freakiest dream, and hey . . . it's Thanksgiginv Day and I have nothing better to do, so thought I'd write about it here on TFN.

In the dream, my wife (Bailey Skystaff), my daughter, me, and Beau Hindman all went to a really interesting Austin Texas Dive. The Dive was pretty small, and in my dream I vividly remeber the yellowing walls that were painted to look like they were yellowing . . . outside of that it was very clean and new, without smell. The first thing I noticed was a man playing a cool keyboard set with electronic hand drums. The music was this really cool glitchy electro that was played very quietly. It was like that because not only the size of the venue made it so that it had to be played softly, but it was meant for that particular venue -- it fit the room perfectly. Off to the side of the keyboardist/drummer was a man with longer wavy hair who began scratching on a record some really lo-fi, quiet scratch beats.

In the dream I was really grooving on the scene. I remember that Beau stood up and helped reposition a CD folder that was near the drummer that was starting to fall to the floor due to the vibrations from playing. My daughter left the room for a moment and I looked back after her and then looked back at the show. By this time, the guy who was scratching the record had moved over to the right wall besides where they had set up their keyboards and DJ stuff. On this wall was a series of toys that had been modified somewhat to be part of the show musically, and the DJ then began to work on an ipad type of instrument and he was playing this kind of clown music. He turned to face the audience and started making a winding motion to his neck like he was winding up the toy to play while simultaneously making a circling "this is coo-coo" motion to his head, which was really funny in the dream, and the audience gave him a good laugh for his theatrics. At the moment when the DJ turned around to face the audience, we locked eyes and . . . it was none other than Michael Action Smith, the CEO from Mind Candy -- the company that makes Moshi Monsters.

And then I woke up.

DUDE VIVID DREAMS LIKE THIS FREAK ME OUT!

I think the hand drums came from watching this video last night on YouTube



He does these hand drum things at 20 seconds and 35 seconds that I think stuck with me in the dream.

I've sent Beau a couple of emails lately, and he's just a really nice guy. Perhaps my brain was just like . . . hey . . . it'd be cool to go to an event with Beau, like we did back at GDC Austin way back with his wife Leala.

The surprise of the dream was the inclusion of Michael Action Smith. LOL. I don't even know why . . . but have you seen how cool the Moshi Monster offices are?



(My co-workers would most likely find working here annoying, but I love the concept and his attitudes behind it -- those British peeps are kooky like that)

Whew . . . thanks for the brain dump . . . kind of wish that dream was real in a way. LOL. It'd make for a great show and a great story, so, Beau, if Michael Action Smith ever comes in concert with a toy glitch band, I'm calling you up.

Happy Dueling!

And just like that . . .

Bad Pedro Pace dings 65!



That's max level for a Pirate currently for those of you keeping score at home. Bad Pedro is my second pirate to max level post-Aquila. How's about that?! (Those with more max level pirates on their accounts now scoff in my general direction . . . *fist bump* you guys rock!)

I just re-read what I posted last time I finished Pirate101 on Friendly Thomas back in late June early July, and I'm trying to think what I could add that hasn't already been discussed.

Of course, I'm not really done yet with the story portion, but I'm really stinking close. Scylla is my next quest, and it's just a quick few battles past that until being finished. I really am just feeling done now that I've hit 65 though. I think the players who talk about hitting the cap and not wanting to lose experience are swaying me to their side in this instance. I'm not sure though . . . it's so tempting to keep going.

So, I think this time through I was more aware of the separation of chapters than I was previously, and I did several side quests in Aquila that I skipped past last time. The Hydra fight was easier now that I knew what to expect. Actually, everything was easier. I used a lot of the same tactics I did with Friendly Thomas, only buffing with a Privateer is infinitely easier when facing up against Aquila's witchdoctors and the like. The concept of "Spread out!" doesn't really gel well with JuJu buffs like it does with Battle Zeal and Discipline.

One thing I did come to learn the past few days of concentrated playing was, holy . . . I so love the power of Nausica from the Empire Bundle! Her ability to move before firing coupled with her three tiers of guaranteed critical attacks -- well . . . I love it. She was my first mate for the past three days and owned everything in her path. BAM! Burst Fire! BAM! Burst Fire! BAM! Double Tap! BAM! Burst Fire! BAM!



I finished up the run much lower in Nautical level this time than I did with Friendly Thomas. So far I'm sitting at 51 Nautical . . . and I don't think I'm the only one that low. :) *points finger at low nautical leveled pirates reading this blog* YOU! ;)

Next up . . . Sly Kai the Buccaneer. He's been a little neglected there in Cool Ranch. I haven't talked much about Sly outside of his introduction post, and he's not much further than when I talked about him then -- Level 24 to be exact. My son kind of got lost in a vortex of other video games, and I don't know if he'll be coming back to Pirate101 for a bit (we were to level our pirates together) . . . so . . . Sly Kai, it's on!



What a beautiful pink sombrero you don, Sly Kai!

See you in the skyways!

Happy Dueling!

Test Realm is Online -- Khrysalis Part 1 and more!

Get thee hence and read these here Update Notes from Professor Greyrose!

That's right, Khrysalis Part 1 is on the Test Realm with a bunch of other game changing improvements -- Castle Tours, Shadow Magic, a new gardening level, 5 more player levels, and more! WOOT!

Time for a couple quick stories from the office:

First story . . . So, one day, Professor Greyrose was out and she asked me to attend a weekly Wizard101 meeting in her absence. I went and took notes for her and when they revealed Shadow Magic at the meeting, it was pretty freaking awesome. The Wizards in the room saw I was having a fan moment, and they called me out on it. When it came time for reports from around the room they asked me if I had anything to say from the Pirate101 folks . . . I said, oh nothing, just we're getting shadow magic too. (Of course I was just deadpanning and letting my jealousy show through.) I will say that I did read through a very thick documentation packet about Shadow Magic a couple days ago, and it sounds very interesting! I hope it's awesome in application.

Second story . . . one afternoon a couple months ago I went out to eat with Gary Smith and his daughter, and he let me know about the upcoming Castle Tours system he was working on. Again, I was pretty blown away. The idea is genius. And . . . wow, that's just not a very interesting story . . . but I guess from now on there will always be a part of Castle Tours that will remind me of Japanese Hibachi Steak, which I guess is a good metaphor . . . at least it wasn't a Mcdonald's cheese burger lunch, eh? ;) Enjoy your steak, everyone!

Can't wait to hear your reactions and play through this new world.

Happy Dueling!

Raffle over! Thanks!

Heya all,

Yup! The Raffle from the last post is now over and we had some awesome hints given to us. Thank you so much for your participation!

I ran out of time this morning, but I will be picking winners and sending out codes within the next couple of days.

Until then, hamster dance:


Um . . . and the gummy bear song:


and, uh, how about some duck song for good measure, yeah:


Soon!

Happy Dueling!

Doing the Aquila -- RAFFLE!

Doing the wah wah Aquila. Doing the wah wah Aquila.

Seeing that my quest arrow was pointing me toward's Zeus's demise, I snagged one Bailey Skystaff to come help me out. Neither of us had played through Aquila, and it was HIGH TIME, my friends, to conquer Aquila . . . and we did!

ZEUS!

POSEIDON!

Yeah, the first two dungeons didn't provide much of a challenge for us, but I imagine conquering those at the level they are designed for would be quite an accomplishment!

Loved this statue for sure though, right?!

I was going to post more here about my thoughts, but, again, I'm behind the curve on Wizard101 blogging, so I had an idea.

I've created a raffle.

First rule, Only enter once per household -- I will delete entries that are duplicate IP addresses.

Second rule, do not enter this raffle if you're under 13--let mom and dad enter for you.

Third rule, you must use the Rafflecopter app below to enter, and you must leave me a comment in this blog post with a hint, tip, or link to some helpful Aquila information.

Prizes? I don't know, not everyone will win, but I have some spare stuff here that I've never given away, and I may have a surprise gift or two, plus I have a number of Galvanic Hammers to give away!

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Thanks! I can't wait to see all the advice you have to share.

Happy Dueling!

Crab Alley done, now, what . . . what the ZEUS?!

I'm all . . . la la la!

And la la la!

Yay, Crab Alley is done! That was fun, and yay new badge! :)

Hmmm, I wonder what comes next?

WHAT THE ZEUS?!?! Ok, well, wherever the wind may blow or the gods may dwell . . . lead on quest arrow!

Happy Dueling!

Thomas Lionblood does . . . Crab Alley? Crab Alley!

I logged on Thomas and I said to myself . . . ok . . . I'll just let the quest arrow guide me, go! I've got a ton of side quests in my quest log that I've never done, so I might as well clear them out.

Yup, I've never done Crab Alley on Thomas. I thought for sure I had, and I was just following the arrow to some random side quest in Crab Alley, but . . . nope! It was the full deal. (Not that Crab Alley isn't just one huge side quest anyway.) When I had done it before I was playing Myrna, duh.

Memories came flooding back to me (see what I did there?) about writing an article for Beckett's about Crab Alley. Good times!

I started out killing stuff and it was suddenly apparent that I had Waaaaaaaaaaaaay too deep of a deck for Crab Alley. Are you insane? Wait . . . don't answer that question. ;p

I started fishing through my decks to find one that was empty and that's when I realized . . . on yeah . . . you can rename your decks now. Thus Death Small Deck 1 was born!

By the end of my play time today, I was swimming in Deep Warrens and ready to EXPLORE MINI-CELESTIA! I can't believe they didn't name this zone mini-celestia! ;) jk.

Until next time, this is Thomas Lionblood, just blowing with the wind, er, rolling with currents in Wizard101.

Happy Dueling!

...

p.s. This video! (wish I could take credit for that video, but I was just a small part in its making -- silent props to the three people that helped make it happen AND, really, the entire team and fans for being awesome, would never been made without all of you and the work to make this stuff happen.)


Happy Dueling!

Quick Ramble - NXP, some links, and Syfy

Heya! So I have like 10 minutes before I need to get up out of this chair and get ready for work. I've been grinding Nautical XP in game this morning solo.

Oh Bad Pedro . . . look at you . . . level 58 in Aquila and you've had to rush back to MooShu to grind on ships to level. tsk tsk.

I really don't have much to write about today. I would like to share a couple more selfish links to posts I've written for the KingsIsle blog:

Realmscon Visit
Writing Update Notes and more

. . . I want to go back to the beach! That was a lot of fun there in Corpus Christi for the fam. I was tweeting pictures of Zoomer getting soaked in the ocean hehe.

As for real life, the one show Uber Wife and I really love to watch religiously is Syfy's FaceOff. There's nothing quite like watching stressed out Creature Creators racing against the clock to put together really cool make ups.

CREEPY STUFF. That'll help you get into the mood for Halloween costuming!

It's pretty fun looking through their photo galleries. There's a Pirate Gallery from Season 3 that's awesome!

Ok, I'm out of time.

Happy Dueling!

Happy Birthday Pirate101 from TFN

I'm tired . . . it's been an exhausting year, but that's not why I'm tired. *yawn* I just woke up. Let me see if I can string together a few sentences here about Pirate101's birthday from my point of view.

It seems like in life we like to plant flags in certain dates because it helps us separate time. HERE ENDS THE PAST! HERE STARTS A NEW BEGINNING! Missing that opportunity would be incredibly unfortunate, and so I'm very happy that we were able to do that yesterday, and I think we did a pretty good job, and it's been a pretty spectacular year at KingsIsle IMHO with both games rocking out stuff.

We didn't throw a grand party at KingsIsle -- too much work to do! We did, however, gather together at one point during the day where Josef Hall gave a short speech about how impressed he was with all the Pirate101 team had worked on this year. We haven't slowed down since launch. Marleybone and Aquila was a huge undertaking, and we've been working hard on . . . other stuff yet to be released. :)

Then Jay and Mike passed out cookies. Wheee! Cookies! nom nom nom.

I won't rehash our birthday too much since you're all well aware of the hat (hehe, leaking the hat on Puppet Pirates with Jeff Toney was fun ;)) and the decorations and all the Halloween stuff happening simultaneously. You guys all know that, and if you haven't seen it yet -- log in! Whatcha waiting for! :)

The best part of yesterday for me was playing Pirate101 with my youngest after work and watching him get excited over the Parrrty hat and pumpkin eyepatch for his level 5 character and getting him the new Haunted Galleon. He loved his spooky new ship! :)

And that was awesome . . .

Happy Dueling!

X and Y invade the Friendly Household!

Saturday afternoon we went to Gamestop to pick up our reserved copies of Pokemon X and Y for the kids.

Woo woo! There was some intense bargaining from the kids at first about who was going to play which version . . . Amber wanted X and was very staunch on that stance, and this made Kyle want X as well. It took a bit of talking, but everything worked out based around fairy-type Pokemon and Yveltal, the dark/flying type pokemon (if I remember right . . .uh yes, thank you Forbes), and Kyle became convinced that Y would be his game. whew. Crisis averted. ;)

Since we pre-ordered, the folks at Gamestop were nice enough to give us this cool timeline poster showing all the Pokemon games throughout history.

:) Timelines are awesome. I can now coordinate the birth of my children to a specific Pokemon game. LOL!

After a couple of days here, they're both around the 3rd or 4th gym battle and chugging along. My daughter proclaimed her Pokemon X to be the best Pokemon game evar! I trust that endorsement.

Happy Dueling!

Missing Reagent Maps--Call to arms?

Yesterday one of the designers who sits behind myself and Professor Greyrose, spun around and yelled "I need Scrap Iron!" HAHA! It was awesome to see that real-life reaction that pretty much every player has that undertakes crafting. Greyrose and myself were like, "Marleybone!" and "Bazaar!" He went on to explain he had been trying to snipe reagents in the Bazaar by refreshing every 30 seconds, but it was driving him a bit nuts.

Then I remembered! Oh yeah! We started making awesome maps of where all the reagents are out there in the world . . . hmmmm.

I linked him to my posts, and he jokingly said, "The Friendly Necromancer? Who is this guy?" Sadly, none of the maps I ever made *had* the wonderful scrap iron spawns he was looking for. Then I linked him to Evil Theurgist's Reagent Map site. And that did have some good info, but I could clearly see just from looking at the map to Regent's Square that a lot of the spawn locations were missing or incomplete. Fail.

Are these the best we have?

Really?

It seems like every person (myself included) that has begun to take this task on has crumbled at the sheer amount of work it involves or lost interest in continuing the project. Where's the Celestia, Avalon, Zafaria, Azteca, Wintertusk, and Aquila maps?

Looks like Jester has the maps and is willing to work with someone based off of this thread (hehe, someone tried to repost my maps here, which in this case I am totally ok with btw.)

If there's a site out there that's good for this kind of information, please let me know about it!

Happy Dueling!

Riffing . . . Old Times, New Pet!

I logged on this morning and played the good ol' dance game a few times to level my Frakenbunny a bit.

Yay! Old enough to hatch!

I stopped by Professor Falmea's office yesterday and told her that I liked the new Halloween quest and we talked a bit about it and had fun riffing on possibilities. I love that. I don't know one Wizard101 fan that doesn't love riffing on the possibilities of how to improve the game. In fact, I don't know a fan of anything that doesn't love riffing on the possibilities of whatever it is they are a fan of. It's just ingrained in each of us. I highly doubt anything will come of our discussion because it's all in good fun, but it is fun!

Speaking of being an old fan of things . . . I was digging through some old CDs this week because I'm desperately trying to track down a CD that contains the files I need to run my Halloween Light Show (and failing btw *sobs*). I found a great old CD full of old Everquest screenshots. LOL, this was my less-than-uber Female High Elf Cleric back when I'd take up the phone line for the entire evening using dialup to play with my friends online:

Oh how that game has changed over the last decade plus!

Happy Dueling!

Rethinking Angus for Celestia?

The announcement that the rules on Reshuffle in Wizard101 were changing happened several months ago, and with it I mentally signed off Angus Unicornpants. I logged him on this morning and did a couple of Halloween quests and a couple of old quests I hadn't done yet. I noted that it was pretty funny he didn't look out of place doing his battle training quests at all even though he's level 49.



I have several old side quests in his quest log that I never finished, and perhaps now is a good time to look back at those and finish them off in an attempt to level him a bit before attempting Celestia. After all, my real interest in Celestia was the Polymorph spells with Angus, and I think going back and padding his level a bit might just be the key that will help me progress. Defeating Malistaire with Angus has definitely been my most grueling pve experience in Wizard101 to date, but Celestia would be near impossible for Angus because of the difficulty ramp. Polymorphs seemed to be the answer to wearing no gear since they supposedly have their own statistics, unfortunately, I don't think crit block and critical are amongst those statistics.

Perhaps it's time for some new rules for Angus as well . . . maybe a larger deck is now allowed because of the reshuffle rule change? Maybe he can only equip a base set of crit block and crit gear? I don't even know if that exists! Meh, or I could just keep him au natural and just see how it goes.

Hard to say. What do you think?

Happy Dueling!

Nosferabbit . . . it's spookies!

Hallowe'en is a big deal in Wizard101. It was their first and only really big holiday content season. Sure, there's vendors and fun stuff for the other holidays, but when Halloween hits, there's towers, and quests, and decorations a plenty! It's fun, but after the hour or two of fun is finished, you were kind of like . . . yeah, I've done this before. yawn. next! However, that feeling coupled with all the in game legends about "what's behind the door next to the storm drain tower", and there's just a lot of awesomeness about this new holiday update for Wizard101!

Mmm hmm! It's a simple quest (at least for level 90 characters) that's cute and short, but it's awesome and a lot of fun too.

Sorry Professor Diapermancer, it took a few years, but now your answer to Bailey Firesword's question is incorrect.



It was Bailey's Skystaff's birthday yesterday, and (for a little bit of fun) we decided to give this new content a run through.

Dworgyn gave us the skinny.

Eek! Sure enough there was a sigil right there in front of the doorway that had been abandoned for so long.

Who knew it would be fortune seeking moles to break in there first and awaken the thirst of Nosferabbit and his undead veggies. After we entered, I ran ahead to check things out.

Bailey calmed my fears *cough* and in the end, we were just a couple meteor strikes and a Deer Knight away from Defeating Nosferabbit and getting to the real prize of this instance! Cheep Bird transformations and a Frankenbunny pet!

I think the Wizard101 team did a great job on this quest, and it was a lot of fun to play through with Uber Wife on her birthday.

We tried to run through Aquila as well, but we ran out of time before we needed to pick up "Professor Diapermancer" from school. :) I'll just save any discussion of Aquila for later.

Happy dueling!