Father's Day 2016 Redux!

(Continuing along with the #OneWeekDailyBlogging Event from Emy . . .)

Hey all! I hope everyone had a great Father's Day yesterday! I know my family really went out of their way to make it a great one for me, and I appreciate them so much. I wasn't even expecting the day to be as cool as it was!  Here's what happened:

I woke up. ;) Ok, let's start at the exciting stuff . . . donuts!

I don't know if I've ever talked about this before on this blog, but our family likes to do something called "Saturday Morning Donut Adventure." My wife took it upon herself to drive us an hour away to a completely ordinary donut shop in Marble Falls, TX. Because, while it's important to enjoy a good donut, it's also very important to take an adventure along your way there.  We have visited several donut shops in Austin, TX, but we've never been out this way, and it a very beautiful and winding drive through some pretty country.

The Colorado river runs right through the heart of this town and a large park rests right off of Highway 281 called Lakeside Park.  They had little picnic table areas where the tables were made of what appeared to be solid Marble.  We were more interested in all the spiders we found in the picnic area.  I couldn't get a good shot of all the varieties of spiders hanging above our table, and we didn't stay long enough to disturb them too much.

The river/lake was beautiful though and the day was perfect.  I managed to snap a picture of a couple of balloons floating into the air that some people nearby released.

It makes you wonder if they were releasing them for their father's.  That's kind of a cool way to say I miss you, right?

After we got home, I sat down again to play some more Pirate101.

I helped Desdemona find her love, which was no small task . . . Those sneeple in Aquila were none too happy to see us again!  Too make a long story short . . . Bad Pedro and Friendly Thomas both leveled up, and it felt like a natural stopping point for the day.

One of the gifts I got for Father's Day was a DVD copy of Zootopia, so we sat down as a family to watch it . . . and promptly lost the kids (who had other things to watch lol) . . . but the adults had a great time watching it! I loved the scene where, aptly enough, there was another "donut adventure" of sorts.

The day rounded out with a steak dinner with Pablano Pepper rice.  It was amazing . . . even more amazing, I didn't have to cook it.

It was a great Father's Day, and I love my family for making it so special for me.

Happy Dueling!

It's all about the Witchdoctors Companions!

(Continuing on with the #OneWeekDailyBlogging event from Emy . . . )

I played some Pirate101 last night with my Witchdoctor / Privateer dream team and did pretty well! I lost some companions, but I was never personally defeated.  I’m not sure if people understand . . . a win is a win y’all . . . we have really deep companion pools, and we need to use them wisely in new content.  You may not always want to rush in with you’re A-team of companions on new content, especially instanced content where you know things get progressively harder. Expect a few companions to be defeated and you’ll be doing a lot better. Your mileage may vary, but I’m digging the strategy bump in Valencia 2 a lot. :)

Now, all that aside, I was noticing last night that my witchdoctor companions were just tearing mobs up in Valencia like pros, and I wasn’t even using Old Scratch. Granted, I was buffing Will, Crits, and Dodge/Accuracy with the amazing Witchdoctor/Privateer buff combo, but my witchdoctor companions like Carcarius and Eep Opp Ork Ah Ah did some super heavy lifting last night, and I loved it.

As for the enemies we were facing off against, there were some deadly combos involving Second Chance, Relentless, and Bladestorm. I had some unfortunate chains that a few mobs used against me, and I did indeed lose a few buddies to the wounded task. THIS IS TO BE EXPECTED! On the other hand, Kan Po loved those Second Chance epic misses . . . it just meant he’d be making more Riposte attacks. 

I also made a couple dumb mistakes . . . I got excited and forgot to check my enemies for things like Flanking and Repel Boarders and lost a companion or two to that. Always check your opponents, Tom.  Yup! NOTED! Anyway, that’s also part of why I like my Witchdoctors, they just stand in one place and throw hit after hit: Jobu’s Ruse, Mojo Echo, etc. I freaking love the jobu’s and mojo’s!

My stopping point last night was where I leveled up and gained Contessa as a new companion.  

I took some time to put some epics on her and called it a night, but I’m having so much fun with my Witchdoctor companions that I don’t even know if I’ll use her right away!

See you in Pirate101 friends!

Happy Dueling

Daily Blogging this week? Why not!? Let's catch up...

Hello all! I received a challenge from the one and only Emy Anemsalok . . . Community Manager extraordinaire . . . to join in the #oneweekdailyblogging challenge that she and her cohorts dreamed up. Whew, it can be tough to blog these days for me, but I always enjoy a challenge (and I really loved Blaughust last year, so consider this my warm up I guess lol).

With that, my friends, why don't I catch you up on all things Tom.


1- YouTube! If you didn't know, I have a (kinda) weekly playthrough of Wizard101 going with my buddy Morgrim aka The Art of Warlord.  We're deep into Mooshu now and in a couple of episodes I predict we'll be in Dragonspyre.


2- Work!  Work has been incredibly taxing lately. I lost my cohorts Leala and Julia :( and I've been scrambling a bit ever since, but I'm starting to find a new groove that I hope carries on to bigger and better things . . . like maybe a new KI Live next week?

3- Book 15!  What the what?  I thought for sure "Where's Book 15 of Pirate101?" would be etched on my tombstone, but you know what . . . the team pulled it off and I can't wait to really get my feet wet in the content.  I will be taking Thomas (my witchdoctor) and Pedro (my Privateer) through a 2-boxed adventure into Valencia 2. woot!

4- Other gaming! I know it's hard to believe that I play other games than Wizard101 and Pirate101, but I do.  I've preached it before, but it's good to be a well-rounded gamer.

Just recently I've been playing Legend of Zelda Windwaker.  Said what?  That old game?!  Yup!  It's one of the only Legend of Zelda games I've never really played much of, so I decided to give it some time.  I was sailing around this morning placing pearls from the first three dungeons.

I've also been playing a lot of Dungeons and Dragons Online.

I know you've heard me talk about this game before, and if you didn't know, I have a blog dedicated to this game called the Stormreach Sentinel.  I debated killing that blog and just blogging about my adventures over here on TFN, but IDK, I kind of like how everything is neatly compartmentalized to one game over there.

In fact, I've made 16 blog posts on my Stormreach Sentinel blog since March.  I'm playing a necromancer (of course) and have been having a blast.  You know what stopped me in my tracks though?

5- Physical Therapy!  I've been going to physical therapy about twice a week to work on my leg muscles.  That left leg of mine really atrophied after being held straight for 3 months and I've got a lot of work to get it back into shape.  I've been doing a hour or so of exercises every day, and it really kind of killed a lot of my extra blogging time in the mornings.

All of that, coupled with a fantastic trip to Disney World / Universal Studios last week has kind of taken a lot of my attention away from my old TFN blog here.

Hopefully this daily blogging gig this week will help kick start me a bit.

Happy Dueling!

All Charge Across the Board in Pirate101?

Hey! I got a question submitted to me by Paul:

"What is the movement called where all men go across the board in one turn? Vicious charge is only for the main character."

Cool! I do believe this might be the first Pirate mechanics question to ever hit my inbox. I like it! Thanks for the question Paul.

I'm going to make this short and sweet: Highland Charge is the power you're most likely looking for.

From what I understand, it's very popular in PvP where you can throw on your valor's fort powers and then charge your whole team across the board . . . watch out for that Purge though!

I've yet to use this skill in PvE on my Bucc, but I suppose coupling this with the Pirate ability would give you a pretty good advantage if you could use it in time (or when on a very large battle board)

If you have any tips for using Highland Charge, feel free to leave them below.

Happy Dueling!

Zombie Pet?

Heya! I've got a question here from Nick:

"I've been farming a boss for 2 days now for a pet called Zombie it looks like Grubb but umm
Is it confirmed to be dropped?

Thanks for sending a message, Nick. Yes, the zombie pet is confirmed to be dropped by a boss named Grendel Madlings.

A good way to know something is verified as dropped is by checking out the player-made wiki for the item: Zombie Pet. Knowing KingsIsle as I do, there really would be no reason we'd ever remove this pet from a loot table . . . on purpose. And to be honest, I highly doubt anyone has modified or even thought about the Grendel Madlings boss in years, so I'd give it a 99% assurance that it still drops. Also, taking a look at that player-made wiki page, it also looks like it drops from the Purreau's Plentiful Pet Provisions Pack. That should make it quite a bit more available out in the wild.

To be honest, your best bet is probably signing up to a site like Wizard101 Central and asking if someone has one to hatch with you, like this person did back in 2014. Wizard101 Central has a super active pet hatching group and I'm also about 99% sure someone there would hatch with you if you post in the Pet Mixing Meetups forum. Or alternatively try using the #W101 hashtag on Twitter to see if anyone could help.

Hope that helps and best of luck with your pet hunt!

Happy Dueling!

No Auction Treasure Cards -- What to do?

Hey all! I have a Wizard101 question here from Roxie:

"Where can I sell no auction treasure cards?  I am overloaded with them and if they cant be sold what can be done with them?"

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I hear ya, Roxie.  I currently have 999/999 treasure cards myself.  I really need to offload some of them.  Here's a few things you can do.

1- I hate to even recommend this, but if you have a second account, several players will create new level one players just to hold treasure cards on.  They just trade them over and when the crafting bug comes calling, they'll dig up whichever character was holding whichever treasure card and trade it back to themselves.

2- Trade them to a lowbie . . . just to be awesome. There's nothing cooler than going into an MMO and someone dumps a game changing item on you.  This has only ever happened to me a couple times, but I have to say . . . random acts of kindness rock.

3- Use them. If you can't actually use them in battle, go find someone you can help out with that "one weird treasure card" that's just not right for your class. . . . and what if this is a GARDENING treasure card you're talking about? Well, you really should be doing some gardening!! It's great!

4- Delete them.  How? Just right click on the treasure card you want to dump and say YES.

It's as easy as that . . . and, again, what if it's a GARDENING Treasure card?  Same thing, only from a different location.

You go into your gardening spells, select the treasure card there, and right click. POOF!  It's gone.

5- Hope for something better in the future? I know it's been discussed and discussed, but there's always time to bring it up again . . . never forget you can make requests for new features and conveniences on the Wizard101.com official message boards right here: click me!

Best of luck and thanks for the question. If anyone has additional thoughts, feel free to leave them in the comments.

Happy Dueling!

Ender Dragon . . . again . . .

Hey all!  Let's talk games! (Just a quick catch up post for this morning!)

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Minecraft

It happened again!

I destroyed that big bad Ender Dragon in Minecraft again, and . . . it'll probably happen at least one more time.

My youngest son was asleep when I defeated this dragon, and I didn't think much of it at the time. Unfortunately when I told him about it after he woke up, there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth. "WHY DO I ALWAYS MISS THE COOL STUFF WHEN IT HAPPENS!"  Yeah, apparently this is the second time he's missed my defeat of the Ender Dragon.

*claps hands together* AGAIN!

It's ok . . . I know what to do, and THIS time when I fight him, I'm going in STRONG!

(Hehe, you just know I'm going to end up losing all my gear and using ladders and death after death to punch those stupid tower gems.)

NO!  This time, it's going to be epic.

Question. Would anyone be interested in watching a Twitch stream of me playing a game of Minecraft from beginning to "The end"? I haven't Twitch streamed in quite a while, but it could be fun?

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Wizard101

Brecken (aka Morgrim aka The Art of Warlord) returned from her long bout of Internet outage and is back for the attack.  Here are episodes 6 and 7 of our Let's Play for your viewing entertainment.





(Episode 8 is to release shortly and Episode 9 is in the wings. :))

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Pirate101

Yup! This guy as talked about on this thread.

. . . nuff said.

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DC Universe Online

Team Spode continues to fight the bad guys of DC Universe Online -- it's what we do. There was a brand new duo added with some great gear in Episode 21 that is all the rage now with the team. It'd be a good one for me to do a YouTube on.  Stay tuned.

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DOTA 2

I've once again been playing DOTA 2 on and off with my significant other and a neighbor.  I seem to have moved away from The Beastmaster and Lycan . . . these days I'm favoring Phoenix and (strangely enough) Medusa, who apparently is a very hard "carry" to play. Honestly, I play her more like a strong support. /shrug . . . you know me . . . I'm kind of a MOBA newb.

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Hearthstone

I got the Valentine's Day Back! woot!

Kinda bummed I took a break from the game and missed out on a few the past couple of months, but I've only been playing a few short matches a day lately to keep up . . . anyway, there's still plenty of fun to be had in Hearthstone.

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And that's all I've got this morning, but I wanted to take some time and resurface here on the blog to say hello and give you a brief overview of what I've been up to.  Feel free to say hello in the comments and let me know what you've been up to as well.

Also . . . if you have any game or topic you'd like me to hit on, let me know as well!

(p.s. I don't have any Galvanic Hammer Codes to give out. Sorry!)

Happy Dueling!