Level 20 Soccer Star Wootah!

Just this morning, a long-time-in-the-making Golden Seal for the Soccer Star profession in Free Realms flashed across my screen. WOOTAH!


I took a long time off from leveling my Soccer Star profession, and a long time off of Free Realms in general. The last time I talked about Free Realms was, what . . . 10 months ago? but I'm happy to say this is my sixth maxed job in Free Realms now.


Finally! The repetitive nature of grinding soccer games in Free Realms kind of got to me. Once you hit 15th level or so in Soccer Star, the quests really dry up and the coach just wants you to grind soccer games up to 19th level. That kind of killed it for me for a number of months, but the past few days I got the feeling that I wanted to play some more free realms again, so I logged on and went for it.

I was destroying the competition.


17-0. That's destruction, yo. Not Top Ten ranking type of destruction, but destruction none the less. Towards the end of my grinding I figured out that I was just putting too much effort into the matches. Each score you make in the game stops the clock and takes an extra 10 seconds or so to reset. Constantly scoring results in a better cash payout from the match, but it really slows down the game.

I decided to get a good lead like 3-0 and then simply run the ball around the field in circles while the clock ran down. Boring, but effective.

Next I started scoring about six goals in the first half, and then just tabbing out of the game the last half and letting the game finish itself without me while I did other stuff. The computer has the worst time playing itself I swear.

Eventually I got to 19th level and battled the Cheetahs in the championship match. This was not a bad game, actually. The computer's players had a good handle on the ball and if they got the ball to the goal, they'd pretty much score. Again, they were no match for the awesome rainbow kicks of Thomas Lionbolt. Think the final score was 7-4 or something like that.

The final quest for the Soccer Star profession has you /taunt-ing the Robgoblins who had been causing so much strife to your soccer team. What's soccer without a little taunting? eh?

I liked the parting words good ol' coach had for me.


Life. It truly is a bitter sweet symphony. If you can grind out the soccer star profession, then you can grind out any job the real world puts in front of you. It just may take 10 months, getting fired, and rehired to do it.

I think I'll tackle the medic profession next. It's been a while since doing a combat mini-game in Free Realms. The quest line looks nice and long. That should help! I read there was a new card game in Free Realms as well, so I may try that one out too.

Happy dueling!

Friendly's Halloween MMO Wrap-up 2011

One thing that I love about MMOs and online games is that they all usually dress up for Halloween. :) They all seem to provide some kind of wacky and festive prize, and I loves me some prizes!

Here's a quick run down of a few of the games that I played during the Halloween season and got a little somethin' somethin' for it.

~~~~~~~~~~

Wizard101

The Spiral was once again alive with little ghosts floating all around Wizard City and pumpkins at every doorstep. The spooky cutouts were everywhere, and the Halloween towers were a good time for everyone. It's all packed up as of today, but it sure was fun while it lasted.


Just as a side note . . . my favorite quest for Halloween is blowing out pumpkins because I get to hear the narrator say "Halloween pumpkin" in an evil voice. I want to sample that and make a song out of it. HALLOWEEN PUMPKINNNNN!

Of course, the Nightmare packs and new crown shop pets made this an entirely different Halloweenfest than ever before. The nightmare packs felt totally handcrafted for The Friendly Necromancer. Thanks KingsIsle for making that pack! Tons of fun. From what I understand, those are going away from The Spiral in like a week. Get 'em while you can!

~~~~~~~~~~~

Dragon's Nest

There's a quest series in Dragon's Nest that you get from Irine in Canderock Pass where if you kill three pumpkin ducks and earned their "tickets" you can get a temporary Halloween pumpkin head for your character.


I played for a bit one night with Tipa from West Karana, and we leveled our clerics while hunting for these pumpkin ducks. It was a ton of fun. Thanks Tipa! We played enough that she could specialize her cleric as a paladin, and I could specialize my cleric as a priest. :) (That's 2/3rds of the MMO trifecta right there. ;))

There are other events in DN that you can do for Halloween, but this was the only one I participated in.

~~~~~~~~~~

Free Realms

The land of Free Realms was celebrating their Spooktacular event again this year. You can learn about all the new stuff in Spooktacular here. The bat ride over water is awesome. WATERSKI! Anyway, the city square of the Sanctuary area had a few quests you could complete from Halloween Harry (a skeleton named Harry is awesome). Since I've been back at leveling my soccer star profession (level 15!), I took the opportunity to go spook a few of the townies and receive their gifts. I love eating candy that turns you into a spider. :)


~~~~~~~~~~

Dungeons and Dragons Online

DDO was once again hosting the "Endless Night" festival. I spent an hour or so running around the Delera's Tomb area where a usually empty zone gets turned on its head as undead start spawning all over the place (lore note: That's because Mabar, the Plane of Night, manifests there--SPOOKY). Basically these undead drop items you can turn in for Motes of Night and buy yourself cool undead bane items . . . OR, if you're like me, 50 pumpkin grenades or so to throw at your friends to make them have a pumpkin head for 15 minutes.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anything else?

No, not for me. Those were the only Halloween MMO events I attended this year. There were plenty other events . . . in fact you can check out a big list of them over on Massively. (Of course, Massively totally didn't care about finding Gary on Club Penguin this Halloween ;) Hope you had a chance to catch a couple of these! Did you get a chance to celebrate Halloween in another game besides Wizard101?

Happy Dueling!

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?

~~~~~

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!

~~~~~~~

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.

;)

~~~~~~~~~~~

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

~~~~~~~~~~

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

~~~~~~~~~~~

. . . 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.

~~~~~~~~~~~

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! :)

~~~~~~~~~~

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! :)

~~~~~~~~~~

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.

~~~~~~~~~~

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. ;)

~~~~~~~~~~

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!

Angus / Dark Crow / Soccer Star

Heya!

Someone asked how Angus was doing yesterday, so I logged him on after a long long hiatus yesterday to see what was what with Mr. Unicornpants.  HECK, I even finished a couple more quests with him to get myself reacquainted.  It was a good break, and one that I needed after that grueling run through Marleybone and Meowiarty.

I read a great article a week or two ago about punishing game play vs. challenging game play.  It's a great read.  At some points I have to tell you that choosing to play this way with Angus really feels punishing as I go along.  At first it was challenging . . . now it's starting to get painful.  I would never ask anyone to develop a game that was as unforgiving as playing through Wizard101 with none no clothes on . . . especially in Mooshu against those freaking ninja pigs that cast fire spells.  LOL.

I’m glad I wasn’t recording audio last night during my Angus session.  Such hate was spewing out of my mouth for those Oyotomi Supply Runners in Tatakai Outpost. It's so hard to defend against back-to-back-to-back fire elves.  It took a quick monstrous card + tempest or two to finally get through those DARN DANG DAGNABIT DIDGERIDOO ninja pigs. XD

If I can build up the speed to play Angus again, I will definitely keep you informed on his progress.  Just looking at his quest log, he probably was a little hasty in going to Mooshu, and maybe he should head back to Marleybone to finish up a bunch of little side quests that he skipped.  It might make things like the Oyotomi Supply Runners a little easier. (Easy being a relative term)


 
~~~~~
 
Timothy Icegem yesterday asked me if I could YouTube a video of my Dark Crow Derby pet casting up his Dark Crow card.  SURE I SAYZ! HERE'Z ONE FOR YOU KID!



With a little Fire Elemental polymorph on the side . . . felt good to fry a couple Ninja Pigs after playing Angus.
 
~~~~~

And my final offering today comes from Free Realms, not Wizard101.


Woohoo!  Level 10 Soccer Star, y’all!
 
If you remember from a few posts ago I was going to go with Pet Trainer as my next job of choice, but come to find out . . . Sony broke their Pet Trainer class. *snicker*  I wonder what they have in store for pets?  I mean, I don’t get into claiming sides between Free Realms and Wizard101 like I’m part of some street gang or something . . . I just like both games actually.  It’s just, I know and you know that Free Realms and Wizard101 are competitors, right?  So I'm now looking at Pets through the eyes of Free Realms vs. Wizard101 . . . It’s kind of a "duh" at how Wizard101 currently blows Free Realms out of the water there. One would expect Free Realms to amp their game in response . . . not break it. 

So, since Thomas Lionbolt of Free Realms will be stuck at level 8 pet trainer until its gets fixed, I decided to give the Soccer Star job a go.

FUN!  It’s a fun minigame.  It’s starting to get a tad difficult, but definitely not punishing by any means.  I’m interested in seeing what levels 10-20 look like. :-)

Happy Dueling!

Free Realms Update: 20 Blacksmith / 20 Miner

WAHHHHBAMMM! Back-to-back awesomeness!




Honestly, I can't believe I stared down the hours and hours of those freaking mining games and pulled out a max level on both of those. It's truly a test of endurance there at the end with Mining and Blacksmithing (probably Mining more than Blacksmithing).

For me it really makes sense to complete both of these jobs at the same time since they go hand-in-hand, and it's nice to take a break from the insanity of Mining to have a little different kind of insanity with Blacksmithing . . . just kidding, they both are horrible jobs to finish off after about 17th level.

Of course, the really cool thing when you reach max level with most free realms jobs is that at that point you get to take on an epic quest for some awesome gear or a really cool hammer-drill (remember when I got my brawler epic? no? It was back in September).

For mining you embark upon a quest to mine the rare gems out of a bunch of rich ore deposits that randomly pop up around the world. This isn't too hard to do, but I have to say the Free Realms ZAM Wiki was nice to point me in the right direction.


The bummer about the mining epic quest is that it's bugged. sigh. I didn't get one piece of green gear for my efforts, but you know what . . . I don't care. That green gear doesn't look nearly as nice as the golden shiny "Fully Loaded" gear you get for mining gold ore deposits over and over, so I'm going to consider that my epic quest instead: to get all my gold gear for mining. :-)

The epic quest for Blacksmiths involves crafting the summersaber as far as I can tell. I've just now started to crack into this quest, so I'm not quite sure all it entails.


At least you get to talk to this cute legendary Blacksmith lady. She so doesn't look like a legendary Blacksmith to me . . . but I'll trust her because of those pony tails.

After I finish up my Blacksmith quest, I'm wondering which job is next for Thomas Lionbolt? I definitely want to avoid doing a bunch of bejewelled-esque crafting games for a while, so maybe I'll try my hand at pet training. I have three or four pets at my disposal, so I'm half way there already. ;-)

THOMAS LIONBOLT - 20 Brawler / 20 Card Duelist / 20 Demolition Derby-ist / 20 Miner / 20 Blacksmith at your service!

Happy Dueling!

Epic Fail Mickey and Ding 19 Miner

So my coworker and I have called each other out in an epic match of Epic Mickey! Don't know what Epic Mickey is? Here, watch the CGR review of this awesome game for the Wii.



If you have a Wii, this game is awesome!

So, it's a race to see who will beat the game first, and I'm actually ahead of my co-worker right now. But, if I keep playing dumb like I did last night . . . well . . . it might be a bad ending for the Friendly Necromancer.

Check it out here in my video I'm calling "Epic Fail Mickey." Since, I just freaking couldn't jump these cards for some reason. It got to be comical.



As the video says at the end, I finally did get up those stupid cards and, yeah, there wasn't anything exciting up there. EXCEPT, now that I'm reviewing the video I see a film reel up there that I need to go back and get. DANGIT! :)

. . . It's the Friendly Necromancer at his worst . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Anyway, of other news, I also Dinged 19 in the mining skill in Free Realms. One away from the max! WOOT!


Yeah, that's a total test in endurance since you have to play this silver mining game over and over and over to get there. I ran out of quests . . . all that's left to level me up is to play mini-games.

Man, that's a lot of mining mini-games. I wonder how many people have actually endured that punishment and made it to 20th level as a miner?

Mining is an Epic Free Realms fail, but I SHALL DO IT! ENDURANCE!!!!

Happy Dueling!

Recent Free Realms Redux

Before I type anything else. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you grumpor:


"That looks perfect!" Yes, yes, she's a beauty; however, I was shocked to see that grumpor was not Dr. Brightenstein's assistant in the blockbuster 1987 hit Dr. Brightenstein's Monster from the Care Bears DVD Care Bears Share a Scare. SO I guess that doesn't look so perfect after all, now does it?! Care Bears pwn Freerealms! (I smell double entendre . . .)

Grumpore is a part of the Mining profession quests, which I have been breaking my freaking wrist over. If you didn't guess from my previous post, I've been working on Mining and Blacksmithing together. They're kind of companion professions that just naturally go together (like a philly cheese steak and some creamy jalepeno sauce, yo). As I explained in that previous post, you mine the ore, you smelt the ore, and you use the bars of ore in a recipe for making cool stuff.

When you see this symbol finally flash on your screen, there is a humbled moment of silence as you realize your time to playing those mini-games grows closer to an end:


(Don't remind me that I still have the Cooking profession mini-games to look forward to.)

I do believe I have reached the point with Blacksmithing and Mining where most sane people give up. Would you like evidence? Ok! I have evidence.

I have attained the highest possible score in copper bar smelting. This puts me on the leader boards; however, if you look at my actual ranking, it's a paltry 48th place. Why? Well I just happen to be the 48th person to get that score since the last time they reset their leaderboards (have they ever reset them? I don't know. I just don't want to say 48th person "ever" and then have someone come laugh at me because I didn't know about blah blah leaderboard reset that happens every blah blah month or something.)


Now, let's compare that with my high score for iron bar smelting. Hey, look at that, I'm 10th for my high score, and it appears that NO ONE has ever gotten the 24,400 high score above that. Why? I think it's because sane people stop the insanity long before this point. Those nine people who trail-blazed before me are all just as freaking nuts as I am. PSYCHOS!


Anyway, the order for mining/smelting ore so far seems to go copper->tin->iron->silver->??. I'm going to guess gold comes after silver and that you can only mine that after you've reached level 20. We'll see. I just wanna know where the gold's at.

I don't know yet because I'm only level 15 at this point, which unlike the gushing praise I got for my card dueling skills, in these circles here they only predict that I'll be "as good as most famous miners."


I'm gonna come back here and use that plant guy as ingredients when I start working up cooking.

Happy Dueling!

Something to Admire with Crafting in Free Realms?

I've been working up the Blacksmith and Miner classes in Free Realms, and I kind of like how crafting in works there. If you're not familiar with the process, you should check it out:



The sticker comment there with crafting in Free Realms is at the end of the video . . . you do this process over and over and over. What was awesome and fun for the first 50 times, slowly begins to lose its shimmer. Then again, comparing it to Wizard101 or Everquest or The Game Which Shall Not Be Named or any number of other MMOs, it feels more "real" than simply clicking a button to say "combine" these things. GO! I like that I can get more or less of a raw or refined element based on how well I do on the mini-game.

So, if you were to apply a similar system to Wizard101, I think it could be done . . . better. I like that I can collect ground spawns of items, but what if when I clicked to pick up a ground spawn, I was given the option to play a short mini-game to get a better chance at the rare node item? (This would be kind of how the silver chests in game work, only you get an either/or option instead of all/or nothing situation.)

You know how we have four or so different crafting tables in our houses? I think each one of those could be turned into a mini-game as well. I like options though, so I would like to keep the "click to combine" option of crafting for the sure thing, but since I'm a gamblin' man, how about instead of clicking to combine, I get the option of playing a mini-game for either nothing or a rare combined item! Sure, I can craft tacos, but what if I played a mini-game to make SUPER TACOS WITH SUPER SAUCE? Sure, I can craft a carousel, but what if I could craft a rideable carousel? Hmm? It'd be like crafting advanced!

But, please, KI, if you were to ever take crafting in this direction, just make sure there is more variety than what crafting is like in Free Realms. My word do those mini-games get repetitive after 100 times or so. Then again, I guess that's why they put leader boards on them so you could try to get yourself into the top 10. :-)

Happy Dueling!

*Incognito*

This guy in Free Realms must have been to a few Wizard101 parties where I was present, weird:


I've been having to once again travel incognito:


I don't know, perhaps my unicorn ride (complete with undulating rainbow mane) is a bit too flashy for incognito.

So what's all the buzz about? OHHHH, a couple of things I guess.

1- I won the crash cup in Demolition Derby on Free Realms.


That's the cool trophy you get at the very end of the Demolition Derby quest line, which has been the hardest quest line for me in Free Realms to date. It involved a lot of patience and luck for sure.

2- I actually placed on the all-time leaderboards for the Tangletrack Derby (See 4th place there):


. . . and THAT was done WITHOUT the cool station cash car . . . me wanty.

3- To top it all off, mark me down for level 20 in Demo Derby!


WOOT! That puts Thomas Lionbolt at Level 20 for Brawler, Card Duelist, and Demolition Derby. I think I may take a break from the cars for a while and try something else . . . maybe mining? I hear it's good money.

Speaking of money:


Yeah, I wish!

Happy Dueling!

Free Realms Likes Giving Me Free Stuff

Every time I log into Free Realms I look down on my login bar and see this little yellow button.


If I click that button, I'm taken to the magical land of Disney-is-everywhere-ville. It's magically commercialized AND delicious!


I can't tell you how many times I've watched that little Tinkerbell trailer. Enough to tell you that on September 21st flying is believing, But wearing my new Lady Gaga outfit makes it all worth it.


OH yeah, lest I forget to mention the daily free wheel in a discussion on how Free Realms gives me free stuff . . . can't forget that. Sure, most of the time it's an old pair of work boots or something, but IT'S FREE!


FREE! FREE IS AWESOME! I CAN'T GET ENOUGH FREE STUFF!

p.s. added Steven Spiritcaller to my friends list on Free Realms yesterday . . . FAMOUS PEOPLE! Now if I could just get Selena Gomez on my friends list in Wizard101.

Happy Dueling!

Thomas Lion"bolt" Will Be Famous Someday!

I don't know, but she seems pretty certain I'll be famous:



;-)

Thomas Lionbolt . . . representing for the *team friendly* guild on Free Realms.

Level 20 Brawler and now slowly working up the card duelist (level 7).

Happy Dueling!

The Case of Wizard101's Missing Presence

So I was in a game store the other day, and as I was looking around at all the amazing shelves and racks of game after game (this was truly an amazing game store), I couldn’t help but thinking about this game that has captured my heart and imagination. So, I started looking around for a wizard101 logo while looking at all the other stuff in this store.

They had the standard fare of Dungeons and Dragons, Magic the Gathering Strategy Guide, etc. You know: the kind of gaming books you can find at any commercial bookstore (Barnes and Noble even). They had a huge pile of boxed party games: everything from Life to Would you Rather. They had a stack of fantasy based warfare games; I saw a number of "the game that shall not be named" boxes there that looked like complete packs of miniatures. That game is truly a beast. They also had comics, trading cards, sports memorabilia, Xbox party rooms, gamer tables complete with sweaty 20-year-olds barking out dice rolls, and an area dedicated to large tables for immense miniature campaigns. Amazing!

After talking to the owner and the owner's son and the owner's daughter . . . (who opened the door to the store for us . . . man I love family run businesses) I found out they had been there for seven years now and this was, in fact, my first trip in there. *scratches head* so much for me being some uber "gamer" dude.

Anyway, I walked past the TCG aisle and cringed a bit as I saw packs of Free Realms cards for sale. They do that to me, you know. I know Wizard101 is gaining a lot of mainstream exposure (what with their heavy advertising on Cartoon Network), but I started to wonder about the missing presence of my game here, in this cool gamer shop run by this family. Here was Free Realms, and it was in this place that gamer-y gamers like to go to and apparently like to grow up going to. (I remember going to a local gamer shop when I was a kid . . . it was one of the places we'd ride our bikes to every saturday.)

As my family wandered around, a young 13 year old son of the owner came over to us in the comic book section and talked to us about the ratings on comic books and pointed us to some comic books that would be more my kids’ speed: Sonic the Hedgehog and Tiny Titans. We purchased these mags and went our way. Come to find out, on the back of Amber's Sonic the Hedgehog comic book, there was a Free Realms ad:


A few things on this ad that were interesting . . . this ad was not so much pitching freerealms.com, but it was pitching the Trading Card Game and a comic book that's soon to be released. I can tell because that spot on the ad is the very spot they say that people's eyes travel to first when they look at ads (I took a class on Communication Graphics in college and stuff). They also threw a free code in for kicks, so . . . kids . . . use "skeletal" next time you log on that other game. *cough*

You know, this is the power of Sony right there. Sony is a huge company with an office dedicated just to producing TCGs. I know that for a fact. I read the blog of a guy that works there (it's a little adult, so I'm not going to link it) They probably also have another office dedicated to producing comics. I don't know that for a fact. But, seriously, Sony is huge! They have the power here.

On the other hand, Kingsisle is only 4 years old, and Wizard101 is their first game. If they did somehow manage to establish some sort of presence in some random gamer store, I would be highly impressed! Has anyone seen Wizard101 advertise in comic books? Here's where I've seen wizard101 so far: Cartoon Network, Beckett's Magazine, Pokemon Magazine, all the stores where they sell their game cards, and a few school type promotional handouts.

Where have you seen them?

What do you think about their missing presence there in that gamer store? of no consequence?

Happy Dueling!

Free Realms Steps Up Their TCG!

LOL. Sorry to post about another game here on my blog, but I just got a Free Realms e-mail that said this:

Make your Free Realms™ character into a playable card in the Trading Card Game! Build decks based on you and your Card Duelist friends!

Duelist On Demand allows you to order printed Free Realms Trading Card Game cards with your Free Realms character!

Duelist On Demand is easy. Just follow these simple steps:
Purchase a Duelist On Demand voucher from the Marketplace
Log into the Free Realms TCG and pick your character
Select your job and background
Place your order and go!
In 6-8 weeks you'll receive your Duelist On Demand card pack with 10 printed cards. Plus, each card contains a unique code that unlocks a digital version of your DoD card! Redeem three for your digital decks and trade the others to your friends for copies of their cards!

Duelist On Demand is now available through SOE and Topps! Be the first to get into the game with your Free Realms character! You're in demand!

This is *so* close to what I envisioned with my player trading card of the day idea. LOL. SO close. Honestly, I hope Sony does extremely well with this idea for Free Realms. In my opinion, this has always been and always will be a great idea to bring the players into the game on a deeper level.

Kudos to the people at Sony for stepping up their card game like this!

Kingsisle, take note!

Happy Dueling!