Buh Buh Buh Boon Tree!

As always, the people of Wizard101 Central are right on top of things, and have uncovered five likes for the new Boon Tree crown plant that came as a part of the 12 Days of Wizard celebration.

I had some evil magma peas go elder today, and I was feeling festive, so I bought a couple of these things. I remember the awesomeness of the giving tree from last year and decided, WHAT THE HAY! MERRY CHRISTMAS THOMAS LIONBLOOD!


I wonder if the natural rewards of the boon tree are good enough that I'll want to slow down its growth. If they are, I'll be sure to re-plant that despairagus I dug up and remove the likes I have now . . . If I'm not all that impressed, well, I'll plant a Holidaisy next to them and get this show on the road!

Happy Dueling!

Super Hero Squad Online Raffle!

It appears The Friendly Necromancer's recent posts about Super Hero Squad Online have caught the eye of their community, welcome! We love family games here. Although this blog is 95% about Wizard101, I'm a firm believer in players reaching out and trying new games. Super Hero Squad Online is definitely one of those games.

To those ends, I've been offered a few pieces of in game silver to give away as I please. So, LET'S MAKE THIS HAPPEN!


If you'd like to be entered into a raffle to win a couple of 250 silver code prizes and save yourself 30 spins or so of the lottery wheel, please e-mail me at thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com with the subject line "SHSO Raffle Entry".

Here's a "mailto" link to help you get that e-mail started: Click Here.

Entries must be received by 11:59 pm on 21 December 2011. Raffle winners will be selected randomly through www.random.org, and announced on 22 December.

If you haven't yet tried out Super Hero Squad Online, there's no time like the present. Go make your squad today!

Best of luck! Hero up! and Happy Dueling!

Call for Spell of the Week

HEYA! So, listen. I don't have a lot of time, but I wanted to get a call out
for spell of the week this morning. I had one of those mornings where I woke
up late and had about 15 minutes to get ready for work. Unfortunately, that
means I don't have a sample picture for the spell of the week, and I feel a
bit rushed.

So, for this spell of the week, I'd like to have you all cast me up the best
HELEPHANT you got in you!

A funny phrase is always good for effect, or maybe you want to show off the
damage you do with your helephant or even cast a helephant in a cool setting.
I'd love to see someone in a Zafarian elephant illusion, with a helephant pet,
casting a helephant. LOL. That might be a little hard to do though. ;)

Can't wait to see what you all come up with.

Please send your screenshot of you casting a helephant to
thefriendlynecromancer@gmail.com by tomorrow (Tuesday, 20 December) night, and
I will post them up Wednesday morning.

Thanks for the support and for having fun with it.

Happy Dueling!

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!

The Awesomeness of Christmas 2011 in Wizard101

Yeah, in 2010 we got festive decorations, free hats, the Ice Elf appeared, and it was all about the giving tree.

2009 was about the same except for the addition of the Charity Meowmodon Mount. :) (So glad they upped the speed of that mount to 40%.)

2008 didn't have silent night caps I don't think, but we did have decorations and Felix Navidad.

BUT, 2011, Y'ALL!!!

2011 has been a lot of fun so far. As I type this, we're knee deep in the new Wizard101 "12 Days of Wizard."

On 9 December, The Charity Chrismoose was introduced into the game!


I laughed over this thing. LOL. It looked like a dog with moose horns tacked on . . . aka Max.


I'm really glad they've made the Chrismoose's nose glow and lightstrand on his antlers light up. that definitely makes max more awesome.

On 10 December, fans were treated to a poetry contest.

On 11 Decemeber, there was a one-day only free Christmas light strand housing item they gave us.

On 12 December, there was a one-day 50% off sale on the Horde packs.

On 13 December, the new Artic Ninja Pig made its appearance in the crowns shop.

On 14 December, a slew of cute new holiday housing items came to the spiral. Best thing about these . . . you can buy them with gold! Yay!

On 15 December, we all got a free snowman transformation. :) That's not a new thing in Wizard101, but free is free! I'll take it!

On 16 December, Candy Cane mounts! Hooray!


Today, on 17 December, an e-mail coupon code was mailed out to all Wizard101 fans. This code will randomly give you a discount on Crowns and Subscriptions purchased on Wizard101.com. You can get as much as 50% off the regular price of these items today. Wow!

As it sits now we still have four more days of gifts and discounts headed our way! I can't wait to see what's next!

This has definitely been the best efforts Wizard101 fans have seen for the Christmas holiday season. Thanks Kingsisle!

And thanks for this hilarious Christmas song . . . TAKE US OUT KINGSISLE!



Although that entire video is awesome. I'd have to say this is the best part. :)



Happy Dueling!

Bailey, Thomas, Kyle, and Iridian finish Zafaria

I was actually going to bring this up on the last Check This Out post, but I forgot to mention it. WHOOPS!

Yup, mark four transcended wizards down for Team Friendly as we finished up Zafaria last Sunday.


There we all are sitting in front of the weird box thingy at the end of Zafaria. Wierd box thingy is awesome.

It took us a while to make our way through the world, simply because Bailey and I wanted to experience Zafaria together. Coordinating our schedules while juggling the three kids and their needs and own wishes to play on the computer can be a tricky thing, but we were lucky enough to get some nice stretches of game time over a few weekends, and the rest is history.

Here's the obligatory Morganthe screenshot. :)


Here's the other obligatory screenshot of team friendly in elephant illusion. :) :)


There were a lot of great moments in Zafaria (like visiting the zoo), but more than that, it was fun chatting with our friends lists while playing through Zafaria and spending some time playing together. That was fun, and thank you all for making it an easy ride for us with all the support.

Next up for us would probably be taking another team through . . . I'll let you know when we plan it all out. It'd be great to play my ice wizard again, and I think Bailey has a Myth wizard burning in her pocket. The lure of the basilisk is strong. :)

In the meantime, Thomas is busy crafting his Spiritcaller Drums. Just one more Conga Drum and a few black pearls, and I'm ready to finish that crafting quest up!

Happy Dueling

Friendly vs. Super Hero Squad Online's Paywall II

On my previous post about SHSO I was corrected by Alric Griffintamer when I didn't realize that max heroes added a couple extra points to your Squad level nor did I realize that each hero has a Marvel rating that adds a little to your squad level naturally either.

My math was off.

Because of Alric's response though, I felt ok about leveling my squad up to max. And I did! And it wasn't too bad! And it was fun! But as I got closer to the goal, I started to realize that I still wouldn't make the required 110 Squad level with my squad. I would still be one level off.

So, here I am a little later and my squad level is 109 with all max level squad members, just one point out of reach from my 110 squad level goal. It's pretty awesome though, as you level to max you unlock power emotes, and that third tier of power emotes is pretty awesome. Especially Stealth Armor Iron Man. DANG I LOVE THAT.

Here . . . here's a little video of my squad's power emotes so you can see 'em.



ACHOO!

The real problem here is that I let my 2-year-old play on my account for a while and he spent all my gold in my early days of SHSO on random stuff for my housing. LOL. I learned my lesson and made Diapermancer his own account to play on. What little gold I've been earning, has been finally building up.

So, now I'm just in the process of building gold so I can purchase one of four superheroes. At 350 gold I have the options of purchasing Nova, The Scarlet Witch, Mr. Fantastic, or Valkyrie. I'm thinking of purchasing The Scarlet Witch just because I hardly ever see anyone running around with that character.

I figure I just have to log in and spin the gift wheel at most 7 days in a row. If I'm lucky with the gift wheel, it could be less. Remembering to hop on SHSO and spin the prize wheel daily shouldn't be too bad of a time commitment. The amount of real money I've paid on this game is still $0.00 to this point. Eventually though the the temptation to pay up will become harder and harder to resist when the goal of raising my squad level to 200 appears. Even worse, the ultimate and final quest (so far) is to raise my squad level to 300. *gulp*

I really don't think reaching a 300 squad level would be too hard to do with just a one month subscription. Without paying though? That could take a really long time to do.

If I did decide to go with a one-month subscription, the worst case scenario is that I could maybe end up with a bunch of "Agent-only", silver-purchased unplayable heroes once my subscription expired (if that's how that works). I'm not sure though. The best case scenario is that you get a ton of awesome heroes added to your squad for the small price of $10. Once I hit the next wall, I'll have to decide if that's the way to go or not.

Happy dueling!