Pirate101 Test Realm: A Tale of Three Quests

Well . . . I had homework last night. Yup. I hope I don't give away too much, but today on KI Live they're going to use my Pirate, Friendly Thomas, to explore the Test Realm, and for what they need, it will require a level 70 pirate with a level 70 Old Scratch. My pirate, before last night, was level 69 with a level 67 Old Scratch.

But I'm a good student and finished my homework! Luckily it only took an hour or so and didn't involve a lot of math. One level 70 pirate and Old Scratch are ready to go! To those ends, I now present you with . . . a tale of three quests.

BUT FIRST, do you know how I found those three quests?  With the brand spankin' new feature called The Quest Finder.

. . . oh it's been on the frequently requested list just since the beginning of the game is all . . .

I'm telling you now . . . it's beautiful and one of the most amazing features to ever hit Pirate101.

Look to the Skies
It all started with a quest from a wooden puppet named Giovanni Cassini. Well he looked like a puppet to me at the time because I had a fresh installation of the Pirate101 Test Realm and all the game assets were still downloading.

How's it feel, Giovanni, to know you're not a priority over Wand Attack Animations?

Giovanni had the need for a skyship pilot. Giovanni needed me to wrangle up a Parabolic Reflector so he could gaze into the stars. All I needed to do was to hunt down a couple Armada ships . . . for science!

Lucky Jack Russel cleaned house easily here. Sorry clockwork dude.

. . . but wait . . . there's more!  What good is a Parabolic Reflector without a Brass Setting. Giovanni set us straight to fight "The Pretender" who just happened to have "Brass in Pocket" for us. Yes, yes they made that bad pun.

I used all my arms, legs, style, sidestep, fingers, and imagination to complete this quest.

That little adventure netted me two bubbles of experience, thank you very much! NEXT!

Strike Force
Gerardo Dandini had a serious fashion problem. He had ordered Diamond Buckles from the Guinea Pig artisans in town and, gosh darn it, Grande Masque season was almost here! Since a unicorn needs his diamond buckles and didn't want to stoop to talking to "pigs" about the matter, he sent us to do his dirty work.

When you head over to the Artisan section of town you find that all the Guinea pigs are on strike because the unicorns struck up a deal with Tortellini crab mobsters that circumvented a trade agreement on creating clockworks.

What's a pirate hero to do?  That's right . . . go crack some shells and destroy some inventory!

The power of bad breath compels you!

After a quick trip over to Capo to start a small crab civil war, Giuseppe the artisan agrees to send over Gerardo Dandini's Diamond Buckles. The good news for us is that Gerardo was overjoyed and coughed up five and a half bubbles of experience for a job well done -- despite his impatience while we fought a small war over Diamond Buckles.

Due Unto Others
Ludovico Muratori is the local librarian in Florenza and he has a bit of a problem. A nobleman by the name of Luigi Vandelo has a very important overdue, and somewhat famous book that Ludovico was going to trade with the Librarian of Sivella for an equally rare volume of books . . . uh . . . you know, librarian problems . . . they're serious business.

When you head over to Luigi's house, he's super rude and sics his guards on you.

 El Toro ain't havin' none of that nonsense

. . . and thanks to an old bug . . . you get to do that fight twice!

Again . . . El Toro ain't thinking twice about that nonsense.

Luigi has a sudden surge of rememberence after you defeat his guards and viola, you have an overdue book needing return to Ludovico in the Florenza Library.

Ludovico was so happy he coughed up the remaining experience I needed to get to Level 70 . . . WOOTAH!

. . . And that's how we do it in Test Realm Town!

Oh wait . . . that's right . . . this is Test Realm and I'm going to have to do it all over again on the Live Realm if I want to do skeleton key boss fights? Not a problem. I'm up to the challenge, and I hope they have a very very successful KI Live today. I won't see you at the show, but I will be watching it with you!

Homework completed. :)

Happy Dueling!

#Blaugust Day 5 -- Pirate101 PvP Updates are live!

The word went out last night that the Pirate101 was updating the game and bringing the Test Realm to the live Realm . . . and we've finally got ourselves some Ranked P V P! Practice PvP was put into the game a couple months after launch and always with the promise that more was to come. It has always been hugely requested, and so I'm very happy to see that it's finally made it into the game.

Enzo is up and ready to get you queued for combat!

That bit of dialog in his picture is one of the main differences you'll find between ranked PvP in Wizard101 and Pirate101. Ages in Pirate101 are going to roll much faster than the longer ages of Wizard101.  It's seasonal. Rewards are going to rotate a bit on the PvP vendors season to season and if you're a heavy PvP'er, you're going to want to come back every season when you hit the top. (There's also a cool free for all mode -- FOUR PIRATES ENTER, ONE PIRATE WINS!)

Speaking of vendors, I had to run into game and take a picture with the one named after me this morning. :) Yup, I'm a dog pirate who sells pets. LOL.

It's really an honor, and I'm very flattered. It was a total surprise!  Kind of embarrassing and kind of awesome at the same time. I talk a bit about it in our recent KI Live show, and also show off a very short bit of the new nautical instance: The Pirate Regatta.

PvP Seasons are going to be cool . . . it gives us an opportunity to tweak things if something goes completely out of balance, and I certainly hope you enjoy it to its fullest!

Happy Dueling

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This post is part of the Blaughust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting. 

KI Live -- July 2015 (The no-ship equipment incident *gasp* Ratbeard *gasp*)

Here's the YouTube in case you missed it:



I just wanted to thank our 1,500 concurrent and 9,400 unique viewers that joined us on our epic journey of giveaways, fun, and tom-foolery!  We had a great show and a lot of great questions . . . a plague of 100 duck-sized Meowiarties upon thee!

I'm gonna go right now and check on my ship equipment . . . promise!

Happy Dueling!

p.s. I shaved this morning.

Salad Club (and last month's KI Live)

We noticed a couple months agos that #JuliafromKI ate salads every day for lunch. There was some gentle coworker ribbing at the time, and whenever we'd bring in a salad for lunch, it was always in tribute to #JuliafromKI.  There was even once a lengthy discussion of salad costs and expiration dates on pre-packaged salads . . . are they to be trusted? You know, stupid stuff like that.

Yesterday, I came in to a photoshopped surprise from Leala, and it demanded the full parody treatment. SALAD CLUB!

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I also wanted to leave our last KI Live recording here since it's been forever since I blogged, and I haven't put it up yet.

It's always a great time, and we loved hanging out with the community.  We'll see you at the next one!

Happy Dueling 

KI LIve -- March 26, 2015

Hey all!  I had a great time on KI Live with Leala and #JuliafromKI.  Here's the video if by some crazy chance you haven't seen it yet:



We had a chance to answer some great questions, play through Baddle of the Bands, Talk Test Realm, Chat with Matthew F, and even encourage the wizards to play through a little bit of Pirate101.

Hope you all were able to join us!

Happy Dueling!

KI Live, Vine, and Freddy Nine Lives?

So I've got a few things for you here this morning.

1- KI Live for February was a lot of fun, and here's the YouTube for it:

As always, it's a lot of fun interacting with the community and sharing the news with Leala and #JuliafromKI. :)

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2- I made a few game humor vines on Saturday for kicks.  Thought I'd share them here for you. (You can toggle on the sound by clicking the volume control in the bottom right hand corner)

Pirate101:

I love those street sweepers!

Wizard101:

Watch where you're going, Wizards!

Guild Wars 2:

I've been playing a lot of GW2 lately with a few of my friends. Dance parties will happen! (What's up with random bear? I love random bear!)

DC Universe Online:

hehe . . . gotta love when the interact animation. If you haven't played this game, the joke may fall short.

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3- I got a question from Valdus Silverdust, our up and coming necromancer! His question is this, "Hiya Friendly! only 2 levels away from getting Animate, But, I'm stuck, so i need to fight Freddy Nine Lives 9 times, right? so i am wondering, can i have some tips on him?"

Sounds like you're doing great, Valdus!  Keep at it!

Honestly, it's been so long since I fought Freddy Nine Lives that I had to look him up. hehe. Now that I've looked at his page on the Wiki, it's all coming back to me. Freddy wasn't really too tough if I remember right . . . it was just kind of annoying (and also kind of cool) that you had to fight him nine times to get your spell.

Looking at his spell list, it appears the real spells you have to watch out for are his out-of-school cards that he casts like lightning bats and sunbird. If you're struggling with these spells, it might be worth it to stop off at the Bazaar and pick up a few Volcanic Shield Treasure Cards.

Also, as a side note, I was kind of shocked when a co-worker of mine had no idea he had a free death shield spell available to him from Sabrina Greenstar (you get a free shield of your class type, e.g. Death Wizards get a Death Shield, Storm Wizards get a Storm Shield, etc.). If you haven't picked up that card yet, make sure you visit her in the Fairgrounds section of the Wizard City Commons.  

You'll also be well served by using your Death Prism spell against Freddy Nine Lives because he is a rank 4 death boss that will be weak against life magic. 

Hang in there and stick with it, and hopefully you wont' have to spend . . . wait for it . . . five nights at freddy nine lives . . . before you beat it. *winces*

Best of luck and Happy Dueling!

KI Live 15 January 2015

Our Fifth Livecast! I can hardly believe it!

It was a lot of fun running through the BOXES event with Leala on KI Live this month:



. . . Decius stole the show . . .

Happy Dueling!

December 2014 KILive!

Gotta love that Ugly Christmas Sweater!



Happy Dueling!

November 2014 KI Live!

Leala, Julia, and I had a great time broadcasting yesterday! Thanks everyone who attended!