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!

Winners of the Watchtower Hall Contest/Giveaway!

Ok! We deliberated long and hard, and Amber, myself, and Bailey narrowed the winners down to 10 out of 121 amazing entries. I wish we could give prizes to all of you, unfortunately, we just don't have the prizes to do that.

The following ten dorm rooms were our favorites (in no particular order):

- Midnight in Grizzleheim by Deni Deni


- Grizzleheim dorm room by Chris


- Grizzleheim dorm room by Kiera Wyrmsong


- Grizzleheim dorm room by Malorn Ghostrider


- Grizzleheim boss cave by draven74


- Grizzleheim dorm room by Amber Rosepetal


- Grizzleheim dorm room by Gavin Wraith


- Grizzleheim dorm room by KingEdward987


- Christmas in Grizzleheim dorm room by Amanda Skyweaver


- Grizzleheim Dorm room by by Mariah


Great job everyone! You all really did amazing! It was a tough decision, but these really captured our imaginations. Thanks!

Five more houses were raffled from all 121 entries. congrats to the following lucky individuals!

1- Ruth King
2- Jenna Nightshade
3- Richard Nightrider
4- Dustin Griffinflame
5- Chris Deathflame

Prizes will be sent out soon via e-mail. Thanks everyone for participating! If you didn't win this time, keep trying! I'm sure another contest will be right around the corner.

Happy dueling!

Tips for Raven Farming?

Question from Christopher Hexshard:

You mentioned you farmed the ravens for gold. I am yet to beat more than one in a battle so could you give me a few tips for raven farming? Thanks!

Heya Christopher,

Yeah, this is a farm you HAVE to do with friends. Otherwise it's too hard and too lengthy of a fight to make it a valuable farm. It's probably possible to solo, just not as profitable (I tried to solo Ravens and almost did it, but they have amazing dps. Thermic Shield seems to be almost a necessity . . . I digress.)

If you're soloing, go after bosses like these in Dragonspyre. Or take a few of my other gold building suggestions.

I have to say something else here, dang, farming for pets can be some serious bank. You will farm up a ton of trash loot on your quest to farm up all the new pets you want. Bailey has been doing this and she's got some money. Right now it's a great time to farm since everyone is interested in a few key pets like the crabling or the ianthine spectre. Plaza of Conquests is alive with activity the past few weeks. It's a great time to be farming for gold. TONS of willing participants.

NOW, as far as the ravens go, bring a level 48 healer and an elemental wizard or two (really any setup will work, but I like the AOEs and damage output of storm wizards). Have the healer stick to healing and you'll be just fine. Storm wizards will need to prism the storm boss and should be wielding myth swords/hammer in case a myth shield is played, but one or two fully charged, bladed up tempests or storm lords will clear the Ravens out quickly. Likewise, a bladed up Fire Dragon or two will also work (prism on the fire boss of course). Likewise, a bladed up Frost Giant or two will also work . . . you get the picture.

And as always, my readers may have a few more insights. :-)

Happy Dueling!

Silverback Wildclaw Zoos (pet of the day!)

A question from Paul sprung up this afternoon:

Hey friendly, um today I found a new pet discovery, I think. I got a silverback wildclaw form the coven. The final bosses in GH. When I told my friends they said it was impossible. Is this a glitch, or is it a discovery?

Heya! Well, as much as I want to tell you yes . . . Nope. Not a new discovery, but very cool nonetheless because it is one of the new pets!

It's got a really high pedigree doesn't it? so fun!

Check it out, my daughter's character has 5 of them! LOL!


I have three.


Uber wife has one.


Kyle has a pair of them.


I'm guessing that pretty much everybody that farms the Raven$ for money has a couple by now. I predict by the end of this advanced pets madness that everyone will have a personal zoo full of silverback wildclaws.

Let's just make it the pet of the day and get it over with now. ;-)

Thanks for the question and gratz on the new pet!

Happy Dueling!

Leveling fast and Grizzleheim houses?

Ok, I have a couple of questions here from a couple of posts yesterday.

Olivia Ashbringer asks this:

Okay, I wanted to ask you a question, as I've seen other people do that, but had no idea where questions were supposed to be submitted!

So, I'm just going to ask it here, if that's okay.

I discovered KingsIsle's youtube channel today and was going through all their videos and I saw this one:

http://www.youtube.com/kingsisle#p/a/u/2/vqzSEh4ELaI

Three seconds into it is housing I've never seen before. It looks like Grizzleheim housing, of which I thought there was none!

Am I right?

I'm actually in the middle of a break on answering questions because it was burning me out, and I wanted to just talk about pets and whatever I wanted for a little bit. I talk a little bit about that on this thread.

Your question has actually been asked before believe it or not! Check this out.

My current theory is that Grizzleheim housing exists, but it hasn't been implemented in the game. There must be a problem with it of some kind or it would have been released by now. So, I'm not getting my hopes up to see it at this point. I know, I'm being all Debbie Downer about it, but it's 2010! Grizzleheim is so 2009! ;-) Hopefully those words come back to haunt me.

Second question comes from Anon:

Hey Friendly, love the blog, I check it out all the time! Anyway, I was wondering how you leveled up so fast. I remember in one post you said you were level 16 halfway through Wizard City. You've gotta have some kinda method right? Please pass on your gaming knowledge to me and I will be gratefull

Thank you, kind anon!

Well let's see, here's a couple links for you.

one
two

About two weeks ago I made some kind of mental breakthrough with Wizardblox, and I now seem able to break the 500,000 point barrier! This means that my reward is going to be an experience boost potion. Awesome. Just remember the best way to use those is to get a number of quests right to the edge of where you are going to finish it, and then finish them all up while your potion is burning.

. . .

You know what kills me? (No friendly, what kills you?) What kills me is when people try to make a battle last as long as possible so they get more experience points. Oh it just kills me. Seriously. In the time that it takes to really get up into some good experience points from a battle, you could have completed a slew of quests, and QUESTS (outside of Grizzleheim ;-) I'm such a Debbie Downer on Grizzleheim today) are where the real experience points are earned in this game. The faster you do those kill quests and collection quests, the faster you level.

Delaying a battle for experience points is so Unicorn Way, yo.

*nasty taste in mouth*

Happy Dueling!

Imric Gloomlight?

Question from Joe!

Hi friendly,

I was wondering if you knew what Imric Gloomlight’s, the crypt keeper in the upper right corner of Northguard, purpose was? Does he assign any quests for Grizzlehim? Thank you for your help :]

I've noticed that Imric before too and wondered the same darn thing. What secrets does Mr. Gloomlight hold?


Look at him, all ghosty and guarding some scary door that you JUST KNOW has awesome zombies or skeletons or spiders in it.

But, nope, he does nothing unfortunately.

not . . . a . . . thing.

Nothing to report on Wizard101.com
Nothing to report on Central
Nothing to report on wikia

zilch.

nada.

kaput.

BUT, whenever I see an NPC like this I think POTENTIAL! What would you all like to see Imric do?

Here's my idea. You know how throughout the spiral there are death bosses scattered throughout? What if Imric gave you a quest to see what random death boss he had behind his door? Then as you zoned in, it chose a random death boss for you to fight. You could get Lord Nightshade, you could get Wormguts, you could get Malistaire, you could get Ivan Soulslinger . . . who knows?! It'd be random and repeatable.

What are you ideas for Imric?

And while you're talking potential, that whole corner of Grizzleheim needs work . . . how about these guys:


Especially Haarek back there in the back. It'd be nice to get some fishing trophy housing items for my house walls from him.

Happy Dueling!

Is that the Grizzleheim House in the commercial?

Got a question here from Liam:

Hey Friendly. Nice job on Ravenwood Radio. It's Liam F. I was watching youtube and saw the newest W101 comerrcial. I saw a Grizzleheim house, but when i attcually looked, there wasen't any houses. Do you know why?

Thanks for listening to Double R.

So, you were watching THIS youtube, eh?



And right at 15 seconds where it says, "be first to discover hidden secrets . . ." you see that Grizzleheim looking house, eh?

EH?

Yeah, I see that too and I, like many others, have the same question you have. Where does Friendly turn when he has questions that he can't answer? I turn to Professor Greyrose, and THIS is what she said to me, “I can confirm that the house shown in the commercial is a house from Grizzleheim, but you’ll have to wait until the new year for more details.”

Oh man . . . I love the sound of that, don't you?

"a" house from Grizzleheim?

"details" are forthcoming in January . . .

yup.

Happy Dueling!

Where are all the Grizzleheim books?

Cassandra G. of Witch Warrior has a special request:

Hiya, blog bud!
I need help here!
Can you please make a map of the Grizzlehiem books? The quests doesn't give me quests helper.(I got the Northguard one)
Thanks a lot!
- C.G.

Yup. Pretty much all you have to do is keep your eyes open in the main boss fights throughout Grizzleheim and you'll find these. BUT, for you, because you're you, I went ahead and made these up for you. :-)









Hope that helps!

Happy Dueling!

Oh yeah . . . RAVENSCAR DONE!

yeah. I decided to get crazy with the cutouts on this poster. That took entirely too long to do.


(click to enlarge)

Anyway, so yup, I finished Ravenscar a few days ago, and I've just been too busy to write about it. Grizzleheim was an interesting experience for me.

At first I jumped on the test realm and tried to speed information so FAST out to my readers. It was like there was SUCH an urgency for me to report on the new awesomeness that was Grizzleheim.

You may remember this video.

Then I suddenly stopped dead cold in my tracks. All I wanted to do at that point was record some music from Grizzleheim and make a remix. So that's what I did, I stopped right there and made this remix.

I talked to my friend Caleb and he wanted to work on Grizzleheim a bit with me, so I brought out Kyle and myself and we worked through one world of Grizzleheim together. And then that was it. Caleb beat the game and hasn't played much since, and that's ok. Grinding for gear after beating a game or doing pvp until the next expansion comes out isn't really his thing. I digress.

Then there was a huge gap in time when I was just leveling the kids' characters to Grandmaster and playing Molly with Bailey.

Then I decided last week to just FINISH IT! Mounts are coming out, and well, the Raven$$ are going to be a HUGE hotspot for farming up money. It's going to be the place to be I think. That and the new tower instance for sure.

My impressions of Grizzleheim . . . Kingsisle improved their game a bit here. You have more awesome battle animations, more interesting pathing, more dangerous mobs, more spectacular boss battles, more interesting zone layouts. I just think these zones feel less "square" than the other zones, you know? I think they did a good job with how the zones ebb and flow together.

What were your impressions of Grizzleheim?

If they make the next world even better than Grizzleheim, then we are in for some amazing stuff here in the future.

My only complaint . . . it went too fast. I think that was everyone's complaint. I don't know if it's the teleporters or the amount of side quests, but it just seemed like it went too fast. Well, I'm going to be able to experience it again and again as I keep bringing my other characters through. Maybe sometime in the future I'll have more insights into Grizzleheim. As for Thomas, fork him . . . he's done!

One thing that I've been remiss on . . . grizzleheim housing items. You may see more stuff about that crop up here in the future.

Happy Dueling!

Jotun down, Ravenscar on deck!

Hello Duelers!

Thanks all for the great suggestions you gave me on taking down Jotun. I used a little bit of everyone's advice. Here's a poster:


(click to enlarge)

I actually tried to just zerg the middle Jotun instance at first and take him down with Thomas and Kyle without taking out one of the brothers first. I think I may need to head back in later for a rematch with this version of Jotun and his brothers. I think I can take them with just me and kyle. I ended up being shy one convert to really lay the pain down on Jotun and after taking the two brothers and one add down . . . Jotun finished me and kyle off.

So, then I did the maze and took care of one of the brothers first. Yup, the Jotun fight was cake after that.

*wipes hands clean*

So it looks like Ravenscar is up next!

Happy Dueling!

Tons of Exclusives! Mannequins go LIVE tomorrow morning? (Grizzleheim too?!)

Hello all,

Our friend Fernando (Marketing and PR guru at KingsIsle) has been busy handing out some really cool exclusive stuff today. I'd stay tuned to your favorite fan sites for more information unfolding over the next couple of days.

Two exclusives that I noticed off the bat were . . . 1) an exclusive Wizard101 desktop graphic over at West Karana and 2) an exclusive Grizzleheim desktop graphic over at Wizard101 Central. There's also an exclusive interview about crafting over at MMOHub, which even features a picture of Fallon from Diary of a Wizard. (I actually pitched an e-mail interview about crafting with Kingsisle a couple weeks ago, but it didn't work out . . . no biggie though--I have some other good news to share.)

(**Update** The Wikia received a cool Krokotopia wallpaper as well! click here **Update**)

Sooooooooo, it's basically an exclusive fest today for KingsIsle!

And not to be left out, Fernando has a little something for my readers as well. As he said in an e-mail to me:

"... Attached to this email is a unique, exclusive peek at a new feature that will be introduced with our next major build that is scheduled to reach the live game environment tomorrow morning: Mannequins! ..."

So I think I got a two-fer there: Mannequin screenshots, and this little nugget, "our next major build that is scheduled to reach the live game environment tomorrow morning." I don't know about you guys, but I'm reading that as GRIZZLEHEIM GOES LIVE TOMORROW MORNING. How about you guys? Could it be? Tomorrow? Grizzleheim at last?!

Ok, on to the mannequin photos (these are pretty awesome btw):


That first shot there shows the actual crafting of the mannequins. I'm looking at that recipe and just thinking, whoa . . . that looks like one intense ingredient list. Fun!
~~~~~~~


This second screenshot shows how you choose a hat, robe, and shoes to adorn your mannequin with. This is so awesome. It almost seems like additional storage doesn't it? Plus, you get to show off your favorite gear right there on your mannequin! I wonder if they'll ever add in a weapon slot for mannequins in the future?
~~~~~~~


This third shot shows how clothes will look on the girl mannequin model. (Notice the cool Celestia gear that everyone loves . . . .)
~~~~~~~


Here's another girl mannequin photo. IT'S PINK!
~~~~~~~


And finally, the boy mannequin. It's like owning a little haunted minion from Triton Avenue all to yourself there, isn't it? (Only this haunted minion has bull horns and a fetish for black and blue clothing.)
~~~~~~~

And that's what they sent me today. :-)

So, this is all fantastic news. Kingsisle keeps instituting game changing, fun things and treating their fan base wonderfully. Thank you so much to the wonderful people over at Kingsisle from all of us. Keep doing an amazing job!

See you all in the newly expanded spiral and HAPPY DUELING!

Are there houses for Grizzleheim?

Starsongky has a great question that she sent me,

Can we buy houses in Grizzleheim? I'd love to see what a house there looks like. That would help me decide whether to go ahead and buy that MooShu mansion I've been saving for, or wait and get one in Grizzleheim once it goes live.

Well, I dunno. I mean, I *thought* they said there were going to be Grizzleheim houses, but I haven't seen a vendor yet. Hmm, let me log on . . .

*time passes*
*insert jeopardy music*

Ok, I found the hut where the vendor is hiding!



It's just to the left of Mr. Ironclaws (that first NPC that Merle asks you to go see).

I ran inside and there's no turtle. There is a friendly bear fella selling some housing items though. Unfortunately his "castles" tab is greyed out.



People over at the Central seem to be asking the same question.

The official test realm patch notes page (found here) says this:

"As student wizards adventure through subsequent worlds, Grizzleheim will offer new quests, new locations to explore, new opponents and new Viking-themed decorative housing items interspersed throughout the mid and higher levels of the game."

Man, all I see from that statement is that there will only be new housing items.

Hmmm. Tell you what, I just sent Professor Greyrose an e-mail. I'll get back to you with an official statement from her if she gives one.

Happy Dueling!

Grizzleheim -- my first hour (a bit of a spoiler)

Hey all . . . here's a little spoiler video for those that haven't been on the test realm yet to run around. :-) Don't watch this if you want to experience the first stuff all for yourself.



I'm so excited about all this stuff! Sorry the audio is a little low.

Happy Dueling!

Housing Item of the Day--Basic Crafting Station (from the test realm)

Well, there it is! My first new item from Grizzleheim off of the test realm. This one came from the intro to crafting quest from Eudora Tangletree.



Hmm, now I need to create a little work spot in my house. You'll be using this to make all kinds of stuff it looks like! Woot!



This is so awesome!

Happy Dueling!

About that patch message . . .

Ok, so it's taking a while for me to load up the test realm . . . and the best thing you need to do is go read those patch notes while it's loading. WOW! There are a TON of game changing things going on.

- Grizzleheim (access through olde town)
- Bazaar (prices based on supply and demand)
- Crafting (oh man, that's going to make the housing item list go through the roof . . . but believe me, it doesn't stop there. You'll be able to craft much much more.)
- Open Chat for 18+
- Chat channels including a group chat
- Grouping (yes grouping)
- No more stun locking
- and more!

Seriously, you need to check those patch notes out.

Grizzleheim "might" come out on test today!

IGN was given the scoop!

Grizzleheim is on the test servers on Tuesday, and expect it to roll out to the live game sometime in the near future.

Go check out the full article. You won't want to miss the screenshots over there as well. Three really good ones of the new races.

Keep in mind, no official announcement has come from Kingsisle to the fansites yet. When that happens, I'll forward it along. I just think KI wanted to give IGN the scoop. IGN has been a fantastic gaming newsite site 1998, so it was an extremely good choice.

Will Grizzleheim be released on test tomorrow?

Got a question here from Jesse:

. . . do you have any info on the grizleheim test realm I here it would be open tommorow but do you know when are they going to realese grizzlheim yet?

Here's the deal, there has been no official announcement yet. BUT I can tell you that around Wednesday last week they (as in the developers) were still reviewing the music for the world. When Grizzleheim was first announced, the music for it wasn't even written yet. Those two things, I know for a fact.

I wish I had a definitive answer for you, but from the sounds of it, they were putting the final polish on it (like the music) before it went to test.

All the fansites will get a mass e-mail the moment the decision is made to release Grizzleheim to the test realm. I can tell you that no announcement e-mail has been delivered to my inbox yet today, so things are looking slim for tomorrow. On the other hand, we're only half way through the day! We can hope! When they announced Dragonspyre was going to be released, they announced it really late on a Friday. It was like midnight. I swear Professor Greyrose never sleeps.

So, that's all I got on Grizzleheim. I do feel some pressure to provide you guys with some actual news, but as I said before, all I can do is speculate at this point (we all know how wrong I was on the wand being from Grizzleheim).

Also looking at the past, from the time the first Dragonspyre pictures hit the street to the day that Dragonspyre hit the test server, it was about two and a half weeks. Guess what, we're at two and a half weeks.

So, with all that detective work out of the way, here's my speculation for the release of Grizzleheim . . . some time this week. Let's see how wrong or right I am. /shrug

Happy Dueling!

Evil Twin Chat Episode 20

(click comic to enlarge)

Well here's what I do know. Gamemom (Part of the PR team) said she wasn't going to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), and Nelson Everhart said in an e-mail to me that he'd be done with the first track of Grizzleheim's music today (he's been researching a lot of viking and Norse music, which is tough since not much of their musical history was ever written down). I wouldn't dare speculate and say that Todd Coleman will be unveiling Grizzleheim at E3, but it sure seems to be good timing considering E3 is June 2-4. And knowing their past action of unveiling player housing at the Game Developers Conference . . . makes a guy quote an old TV personality, "Things that make you go, hmmmmmmm."

If I get anything verified, I'll let you know and keep you informed. In the meantime I can only speculate and cause confusion.

Happy Dueling!

Grizzleheim Speculations

Let's speculate shall we?

Even though our model in the Grizzleheim pictures is wearing dragonspyre clothing, he is sporting a really cool looking fire stick.


That's got to be a grizzleheim weapon. I say good on them for bringing back the wands. I hope it has an awesome casting graphic, or I think people would rather stick with their swords.

**MYTHBUSTER ALERT! Elijah just let me in on the fact that the wand in this photo is the fire wand from mooshu. Thanks Elijah! MYTHBUSTER ALERT!**

Then again, you've all seen this graphic right here I'm sure.



Look at those weapons they're brandishing! I'd love to have a cool spear. I think it'd need to have a glow though.

And speaking of the above picture, it's mighty full of awesomeness: sword carrying bears, giant treant beasts, vultures reaking of death magic. Yup.

Notice how there are nine of them? Here's my second speculation. If Grizzleheim is anything like Krokotopia, Marleybone, and Dragonspyre, you will have three distinct areas with at least three sub-areas in each. Right?

- In Krokotopia you had Tomb of Storms, The Pyramid of the Sun, and the Krokosphinx.
- In Marleybone you had Scotland Yard, Digmoore Station, and the Royal Museum.
- In Dragonspyre you had the Atheneum, Dragonspyre Acadamy, and the Necropolis.

And each of those areas had around three or four subdivisions each.

What if what our graphic here is really showing are the nine major bosses from Grizzleheim? hmmm? hmmm?!

Well maybe that's enough speculation for one night.

I wonder if the level cap will be raised 5 or 10 levels? I'm hoping 10 levels with 2 more spells.

ok, ok . . . seriously, that's enough speculation from me.

Go ahead and leave your own Grizzleheim speculations in the comments.

Happy Dueling!

Grizzleheim

Ok, so Grizzleheim is all the talk here today. It looks like What They Play got to break the story. Gratz to them, that's a great organization and a great choice for releasing this information.

Tara over at West Karana got wind of it after gamermom twittered about it. I really need to follow Gamemom on twitter because she's all over the wizard101 scoops it seems like. Nice work, Gamemom. And Nice work, Tara.

So I drove to work (I pulled off to the side of the road on the way and tried to enter "seveneleven" into the wizard101 website, but couldn't find where to type it /shrug . . . gratz to Sean Emeraldweaver for getting a bug) and back channeled Professor Greyrose over e-mail with my congratulations on giving the scoop to What They Play. I also shot Nelson Everhart a message saying, we gotta do another interview on the music of Grizzleheim OR SOMETHING. He shoots me back an e-mail and get this . . . the music for Grizzleheim hasn't been written yet. So don't get too excited just yet. There's some stuff there that needs to happen still. I don't think you're going to see it busting out on the test server tomorrow or anything like that.

Around 3:00 pm or so, Kingsisle drops the press release on the rest of the world. After that, the news was basically wild fire. Where was I around 3:00 pm when the news hit? I was in a training course on how to facilitate a business meeting. wee.

Where was I tonight so I could type about it all? Amber Deathsong's 2-hour long dance recital.

And that's all about I know about it.

There are some awesome pictures of this stuff out there. I will probably throw down some speculations of my own in the next couple of days.

All I have to say now is AWESOME! I honestly can't wait for some new content like this.

More later!

Happy Dueling!