Text bug and how to get around it

Lately there have been some additional issues with porting acting as if a friend has porting turned off. I don't have a solution for this yet but I do have a work-around for the texting bug.

What is the texting bug?
When you click on a player's name in your friend list the chat/text option is gone.

How to work around it.
1) Close the friend window if you have it up already.
2) Hit enter as if you were about to text someone (this gives you the new line in the chat window)
3) Click on your friend list and pick the friend you want to text.
* the text/chat option will be enabled again for the moment *

Arena -1 bug is back

A spontaneous new -1 bug is in effect right now not unlike the one you use to be able to create... (see our investigative piece on that in our archive).

This -1 bug seems to happen randomly to a player who joins a multi player PVP. The net effect is that the team who happens to get the -1 bug can win points from noob teams. A sad example was 4 of us level 50 who won 24 points from a team of level 20. Hopefully this will be resolved soon.

A new irritating feature that has been reintroduced also is the loss of your pips if you cast a multi-hit on someone who just got killed in the same turn as your cast. Ex: storm person tritons the guy you cast on and they die and you lose all your pips you saved to cast Frost Giant. This had been in effect previously and then was went away for a few months and now is back.

Thankfully the texting bug where the text option disappears for friends until you hit enter and then bring up their friend profile is now fixed or so it appears.

Vale

New Year and Resolutions

I challenge you, my amazing readers... to set a resolution to make a difference in the life of someone on the game.

I think when I started the game I was thinking I wanted friends to have fun with and chat with. Recently I've found greater joy in trying to make a difference for people having known me. I hope it's working for my friends but I know has helped me with deeper frienships and a greater appreciation for the amazing people I know.

Vale

Buy a white tiger and support charity

The following is a quote from the Wizard101 site.

"Wizard101 Unveils New Mount to Raise Money for Children’s Charities
Sales of “Meowmodon” to support Child’s Play and the Austin Children’s Shelter

We are proud to give our players and their friends a unique way to support children this holiday season. The purchase of an in-game mount, the “Meowmodon”, will benefit the Austin Children’s Shelter and Child’s Play. The Austin Children’s Shelter provides emergency shelter and care for abused and neglected children and Child’s Play is a game industry charity dedicated to providing games and toys to children in hospitals worldwide.

The black and white Meowmodon resembles a large tiger and sells for 7,500 in-game Crowns per mount. For each Meowmodon mount sold, KingsIsle will donate the full amount (a retail value of approximately $15) to the two charities, divided equally. The Meowmodon is available for purchase through the in-game Crown Shop from December 14, 2009 through January 5, 2010.

“We have an opportunity to give back by tapping into the power of our Wizard101 community – our 5 million players can make a real difference to deserving children,” said Elie Akilian, CEO of KingsIsle Entertainment. “We chose these organizations because we wanted to support the communities that we are a part of – one located in the same city as our design studio and another with global reach, just like Wizard101.”"

A gift if you are not yet a wizard member or you want to open a new account

Sign up with my friend code and get a free dragon pet.

Click here to create a new account and redeem the wizard101 special holiday pet gift.

Fan Blog and Ideas

A fan of the site is starting his own blog. wiztips Check it out. He's got some good stuff.

Some random wizard ideas:

I think school pets should be available to ride...
Ice Wyvern,
Hydra,
Kracken or Stormzilla
Fire Dragon or Firezilla etc...

I also think there should be a crown shop that allows you to mutate cards to your school so you could make a Fire-Giant, Ice Dragon, Myth Lord etc.

I think that you should be able to spend 2 training points and learn a spell from another school that would employ your power pips. So learning by spending 1 training point things would work as they do and use a power pip as = 1 pip, but if you spend 2 training points to learn it, it should use your power pips as = 2 pips for that learned spell. (you would learn fewer spells that way but it would add a whole new dimension to dueling and questing)

Also I think there should be a new school (Technology). Technology would be the opposite of balance and use spells like robot-spiders, clockworks, fire-belly's etc.

If you have any cool ideas post them here or on wizard101mythology

New Houses Coming to Wizard

I popped over to the test realm and tried out the new school based housing options. They are pretty awesome...

Check out the following videos:

Balance House


Death House


Fire House


Ice House


Life House


Myth House


Storm House

"Valerian's School" for Arena

I indicated a while ago that I would post about a new "school" fashioned after my own which at times I've called "shield school" or "arena school" but I'll refer to from now on as "Valerian's School". I had held off posting about this until I had a) proof that it worked and b) the street cred to convince you I know what I'm talking about. Now that I'm safely into high Overlord range I'm ready to spill knowing full well that by doing so I'll make my future battles much more difficult. However maybe I'll have some measure of satisfaction knowing that skill-less wild bolters will be disappointed by a well prepared adversary and therefore may stop relying on bolt as a crutch for their weakness as a duelist.

When playing a serious amount of arena and adventuring a lot one thing will become apparent... second school spells are almost useless. They take lots of pips, usually fizzle, they don't take advantage of your power pips and they are usually shielded against by whoever you are fighting. You will find your own school spells can be used twice as often and thus removing shields you can still generally get the same bang from your pips as you would by throwing another school's spell.

What does that mean for arena?

It means you want to learn how your school removes shields and use that to your advantage. It also means that you'll save a boat-load of room in your main deck for some nasty school-based hits AND SHIELDS. (this is critical)

What is Valerian's School?
Valerian's school is aritificial Balance school or quite literally a mixture of all schools.

What spells do I want to learn for Valerian's School? (arena and high level questing)
a) Always get ice up to tower shield
b) Life up to at least pixie
c) Always learn all of the shields from each school with the exception of life absorb (you probably won't have enough training points)
d) Double up on storm shields if you have enough training points (IE: learn Ice's storm-fire shield and learn Fire's storm-ice shield)
e) Learn your elemental or spirit tri-blade from the tree Niles in Krokotopia
f) Learn spells from Gretta Darkette's hidden school

Optional
g) Death up to feint
h) Satyr if you're willing to give up a dispel
i) and remaining shields to round out your collection and
j) any remaining dispels

If you follow Valerian's school you will be a shieling monster... I believe that shielding is the key to winning duels and flying through high level quest and boss battles. Adequate shielding gives you time to build the pips you need to employ actual strategy in arena. Without good shielding and yes, occasional, judicious use of dispel (a learned spell therefore not cheating) you will find yourself getting nuked in short order.

Valerian's school is the school of finding balance through learning a little of everything and finding the strengths and value in your own school.

Enjoy,
Vale