Wizard101

A funny little man dressed in green dragged me to my computer. “Log in! To Wizard 101!” he insisted. And when I started to do just that, he slapped my hands rudely from the keyboard. “No! Log in to the TEST SERVER! There all the new St. Patty’s Day things you will see!” “Gee,” I said. “Thanks, Yoda.” I did find the new St. Patty’s Day stuff. But I also stopped in on my friend Zeke the Prospector and found that he now carried new items for the discriminating shopper. ...

Wizard 101 added shared bank slots, voice overs to all quests in Wizard City and Krokotopia, and the St Patrick’s Day RMT gear in today’s patch. Gamer’s Daily News has a full description of the new changes, and I’ll be posting all the details after I get into the game tonight. Thanks to Game Mom for the heads-up!

In 2007, you could have surprised absolutely nobody by predicting that 2008, last year, would be the biggest, best year ever for MMOs. Triple A titles abounded – Age of Conan and Warhammer Online were both just going to tear WoW a new one, but heck, even WoW was coming out with its second expansion. Pirates of the Burning Sea would take MMOs into a new direction, Chronicles of Spellborn would be an indie hit from Europe, and Flagship would be following up Hellgate: London with their MMO homage to Diablo II, Mythos. ...

Has it ever happened to you? You’re skipping merrily along some barren Dragonspyre (or Marleybone) street, and you see a sparkling silver chest sitting there in the road or behind a tower. You open it and are transported to a new mini-game that is over before you’ve figured out what to do? What the heck do you do with them? In many ways, this puzzle is like the train mini-game that everyone knows and loves as the easiest way to refill potion bottles, except here, instead of just rotating the tiles, you are sliding them around. ...

Wizard 101 is built around a card game, and that card game is built around your deck. Deck construction can be tricky. I was talking with a friend about building decks for collectible card games last night, and he told me of some people who would bring massive decks of eighty or more cards to a tournament. How could that player ever get the card he wanted? How indeed? In the best Wizard 101 decks, you always get the card you want. ...

So I thought I would have some dynamic pictures of PvPing but – turns out I didn’t actually TAKE any, so that’s out. Instead, I guess I’ll just have to show off my two wizard’s spring outfits. Because, if I dress them in Spring colors, Spring will come sooner, right? The idea, when dyeing outfits, is two fold: First, make it obvious what their school is. You should be proud of your school of magic! I admit, in PvP, it took me a couple of rounds to figure out that I was facing TWO Life wizards, because only one of them was wearing the green. ...

There’s a lot of hidden numbers in Wizard 101. How do you know if a new hat you just got is really better than your old hat? Is accuracy more important for Storm wizards than it is for Life wizards? Is Crowns gear really the best gear? After trying on nearly every piece of gear I owned and seeing how it changed my stats, I have answers to some of these questions (and a really, really large spreadsheet!) ...

Norrath, the planet itself, wasn’t discovered by humans or elves or iksar or the ancient snake people or even the gods. It was discovered by the great she-dragon Veeshan, who chose this nondescript planet on which to raise her brood. She marked the planet with a swipe of her claws, claiming it as her own to all who could read her sign. Her brood, the First, and all their many descendants chose that event as their emblem, until the time when the awakened Sleeper, Kerafrym, tore the moon of Luclin apart, and in defiance of Veeshan, chose for his symbol, himself, curled in the same way, bursting the moon. Veeshan may have been content to leave her mark on some forgotten frozen continent, but Kerafrym’s mark would be laid across the entire SKY. ...

Just got an email from Mr. Lincoln, the fine-feathered tech contact for Wizard 101, about my troubles getting into Orin Grimcaster’s lair, the Fleshless Tower: Good Morning, Sorry that took so long! I have gone into your character and reset the quest. You should be able to get into the building now. If you still can not please let me know! Thanks, Mr. Lincoln Sounds like I have something to check out when I get home… Any other wizards in the same situation? Mr. Lincoln may be able to help.

Agh, I have SO MUCH STUFF TO TALK ABOUT! I won’t even get a chance to write about EQ2 today :/ Cool outfit, isn’t it? Total trash, aside from the boots which are a marginal upgrade from the Crowns boots I was wearing. The danger of dressing to kill is that it isn’t actually that much use in the actual killing. I was being torn apart by Forum mobs before I realized I did not have my fighting clothes on. OOPS. ...