Some Miscellaneous Tourist Pictures

I was going through my blog photos directory and found the following pictures that I thought I'd post because some of are of good friends, others are just plain cool and others are kinda silly.

The first "almost cool" one is me riding the dragon to Malistaire's hide out. What makes this picture funny to me is my character's pose... he's got his fists balled up and is looking like he's spoiling for a fist fight and then there's Rocky my pet who's trying to look cool but isn't even in the basket. The following picture is me as a noob facing an ice golem. He's casting an ice spell as you can tell from the ice school rune.

This is me as a death noob hanging out at Grace's place.

This is frosty finishing up death Oni. This is where I met my friend Julia (you can just see her) in the lower left.

I can't remember who's house this is but I got messaged that there was a tent party so I ported to check it out. I'm standing at the back wall taking a picture of the group and it looks like someone is claustrophobic.

This is me and Haley taking the traditional Malistaire picture just before killing him.

Anyway, I need to start taking more pictures so expect to see more friend photo ops coming soon :)

Valerian

Arena Points Reset

Last night Wizard101 developers reset arena points to make up for some points being awarded too quickly. Instead of resetting all to 500 like they did last time they are bumping everyone Warlord level and above down to base Warlord level so it won't affect their ability to purchase those items that require the status level.

Also they fixed a bug at the bazaar where sometimes you'd get ripped off on selling prices of things. (hmm, like this has never happened at a bazaar in real life)

Now if they'll just retrospectively adjust Grandmaster points like they do arena points a lot of us long-timers will be happy.

~Valerian

Students, Friends, and Families of Wizard101,

Are you a single mother who is deployed or has returned from deployment and plays Wizard101 with a child? If you are, we would love to hear from you! We’d like to share your story with others who are looking for ways to connect with children over long distances.

To participate, send an email message to press@kingsisle.com and tell us a little about yourself and your child. Don’t forget to tell us how best we can get in contact with you.

Thank you for staying connected with us!

*** newsletter request by KingIsle.com ***

A Social Experiment

I have a theory about friends in virtual settings. I want to take a quick poll and ask for general comments.

I'll hold off on commenting until the results of the poll are in but I think you'll see something interesting happening in the poll numbers. So please leave comments and vote in the poll in the right column.

Valerian

Starting Your Own Blog

This seems to be a recurring topic in my comment trail so I want to mention it briefly.

I like http://www.blogger.com/ because it's easy.

Setup and Getting Started
1) Create an account. (you may or may not need a parent's help)
2) Pick the style and color you want
3) Go to Layout and drag the squares into the position you want if you want anything different than the default. In layout you can add video players, follower modules and other add-on items like games and ads.
4) When ready start click on the Posting tab, add your title and start writing. Use the toolbar on the posting area to add pictures and video. When you're done, click publish post.
5) To moderate comments... Click on Post, then on the Comment Moderation link and approve the comments you find acceptable.

What Your Blog Should be About
Wizard101 wants original content and some significant amount of posts before they'll add your blog to their site. Original content simply means that they want to hear what's important to you. What they DON'T want is the same content as someone else. So resist the temptation to post about the same things others do.

Tips
Write every day if you can so you build content quickly and so you have something new for your readers. Lastly, post comments on others blogs so they'll return the favor and visit yours.

Happy Blogging,
Valerian

Thank Goodness for Good Friends

The other day on Wizard I got a wake-up call. And I need to thank my good friend Scarlet for having the courage to confront me with reality.

While is was commiserating with Scarlet, about what I viewed as the possible ending of a friendship I was woken up by the very direct response that she missed the old days when I was a better friend to her. She described how she felt worried to talk to me too much or visit for fear of me being too busy particularly when I missed messages from her. In a few words, she described exactly the same scenario that I had been fearing meant the end of my other friendship. What surprised me most perhaps was the fact that I do care about Scarlet a lot and greatly value her friendship and yet I had been so casual and thoughtless about it expecting that it would always be there.

I just want my friends to know that everyone in my full list means something to me and if I'm ever wanting to be alone I'll turn porting off! So never feel like you can't just visit. I love and value directness and will never be upset with you for telling me the truth, whether it's getting after me for something, or letting me know that you need time with other friends or time with me.

To all the friends I have taken for granted I apologize. As often as not I'm trying to find something to do and even if I'm helping a friend please feel free to join me, you never need to ask, it only makes me feel loved.

Good friends are worth their weight in crowns!

Thanks,
Valerian

p.s. I have so many alternate noobs on my list now that if you're playing one of yours I may not remember who your "super" is! (yikes, I know... bad memory for name changes)

The Blogger Battle

A few of us (Fallon - http://www.diaryofawizard.com/, Amanda -http://talesofthecountessshadowbane.blogspot.com/, Joseph http://eviltheurgists.blogspot.com/ and myself ) were hanging out in the arena area and joined a 4x4 battle together. It wasn't until we got in there that we realized that we were a team of all bloggers. It was kind of a strange experience realizing that each of the others were probably hatching writing ideas from it and taking pictures.

Evil Theurgist is about to die as he goes to "check" his site. (was he scooping us and posting already? all those unused pips look very suspicious)

Sven trying to buy a little time for a much needed recovery.

Amanda saving Evil from an eternity of head-wobbling humiliation.


Fallon delivering the final "touch" on the battle.

Response to Cyrus Drake's Message About Level 50 Wizards

Part of the appeal of the game is the aspect of experience, capability and legend. Without these elements there is nothing special about being a level 50 wizard for example. Wizards who have been at level 50 for a long time have no advantages or respect versus someone who achieved level 50 just days ago. Again to quote Syndrome from the Incredibles movie: "when everyone is special, no one will be."

To address this and the time it takes to prepare a new world etc, I have a proposal that I think would be reasonable to level 50 wizards and achievable from a technical standpoint on the KingIsle development side. Simply create a SQL statement that calculates the time between achieving level 50 in the game and now (using one of the timestamp fields in the game database), split the difference across some ratio of training points and award wizards that many XP. New spells and could come before or after the release of a new world (like the stun shield distro) and I think at least level 50+ would be happy simply to be recognized as long timers whether or not the new world was out with new quests.

By doing this a long-time level 50 wizard would have at least the advantage of respect while vying side-by-side for quest-experience-points in a newly released world. Another minor placation would be the addition of a badge indicating that the wizard was of a higher status level-wise.

While I know you have excellent people on staff already to work on these kinds of things I would not want to miss the chance to humbly offer my free assistance working with your people on developing this kind of update as it's what I do on a daily basis IRL using the same dev environments and technologies.

Valerian Nightbringer

Note From Cyrus Drake About Level 50 Plus Experience

Wizard101 friends, fans, and customers,

When we first envisioned our sixth world we saw it as a world Wizards would experience after Dragonspyre. This world would have increased the maximum level beyond 50 and the supporting content (new spells, equipment, etc) necessary for the max level increase. However, when we dug into the overall Wizard101 game play and what would best serve our community we decided to launch Grizzleheim, a world that created a parallel experience and offered new content and experiences as players leveled thru the entire game and the other five worlds. While we hope that high level characters find the content enjoyable and engaging the immediate downside to this decision was that no level increase was introduced with this world.

Our decision to launch Grizzleheim also afforded us the ability to address several features that you, our community, had asked for. Features like the ability to group with other Wizards, control friend requests, trade request and new systems like crafting and the bazaar. We felt they were good, valuable additions, and so we made a decision to include them for all players new and old to enjoy.

That said, we did mention to our highest level players that the level cap would be raised this summer and we were not able to make that goal a reality. We apologize for that and would like say that we are continuing forward with plans to release new worlds that do push Wizards beyond level 50. In order to accomplish it, we need to make sure there are new opponents, quests, worlds, spells, and more.

If you’re close to or already at level 50, we invite you to explore Grizzleheim, the new crafting system, and the Bazaar and hope you are interested in seeing what new things we have in store for you soon.

Thank you for playing Wizard101!
Cyrus Drake
Professor of Myth
Ravenwood School of Magical Arts
En Magus Nos Fides

New Pet Code for Wizard101

brock2009

Go to Wizard101.com and log in. Click on Redeem Codes, pick the middle button, then enter your code and claim the your item.

This code gives you a death scarab :D

Wizard Graveyard

I started something for my friends as in the last week three of them lost significant friends. Even though it's a virtual thing that takes no physical effort to do on the part of the person deleting it is very real and painful. In an effort to recognize this and give people closure I decided to make a place where people could say goodbye to their good friends who deleted them.

http://wizardgraveyard.blogspot.com/

Please visit there a leave a marker if you would like to remember a past friendship.

Vale

Virtual Wedding of Paige Moongem and Valerian Legendpants

I was pleased to be able to record the wedding of Page Moongem and Valerian Legendpants (the only other Valerian that I know). The wedding took place at the home of Esmee Unicornthief. Please support this lucky couple and check out the following videos.

While I originally wanted to edit this down and make it perfect I wanted the scene as a whole with all of the setting and capturing some of the humor and challenges of putting on this kind of occasion. Special thanks go to the Wizard101 creators who listened to our request for privacy settings that allow people to put on plays or occasions like this. This wedding had most of the highlights you might expect at a real life wedding. Here, I play photographer for a couple who are married in real life and wanted to marry on the game.

The Wedding


The bride and groom drive away


Reception begins


Dinner and cutting cake

Meet and Greet

The Meet and Greet was a success despite the fact that Fallon and I were very late in arriving in the right spot. In the end I got to meet some of the big names in the wizard world and added a few friends. Hopefully I didn't remove anyone close to me. I'm always so nervous to try to find space on my list. Anyway Alia and my two friends named Grace were kind enough to stop by and share a dose of claustrophobia with me.

(if you don't believe me about the claustrophobia, check out this picture from Autumn's blog)
http://autumnaldusk.blogspot.com/2009/07/meet-and-greeoh-my-gosh.html

We should plan a get together just for Valerian's School followers. If any ideas come to mind please leave a comment.

Vale

Meet Myself and Other Bloggers Today

Blog Meet and Greet

When: Sunday, July 12 at 5pm eastern time

Where:Mooshu Jade Palace under the roof of where Mini Games are, Realm, Wu Area 1 if Area 1 is full we got to the next area down and so on

What to do: Meet other blogs, bloggers meet fans, Trading cards, and A best Grizzleheim outfit contest hosted by (Evil Theurgists)

Contest? Prize? Winner gets Rebirth treasure cards,Scarecrow,and anything else I can find lol
2 Rules
1: Must be Grizzleheim clothes

2: Have Fun

Well there you go hope to see you all there :)

I will be running a "teleport bus" service for players that haven't yet unlocked Moo Shu. Meeting BEHIND Golem Tower from 4:55 -5:10pm EST - Atumn Duskhunter

Training Point Regrets?

Have you ever spent your training points on things you realized were a mistake or changed your mind and wanted your second school to be something else? If so you're in luck!

Go to Golem Court and look up the stork. For additional crowns you can buy back your training points and have them all ready to spend at once.

Again whatever else you learn I'd recommend going to Krokotopia's Krokosphinx island and learn the blades and traps from the tree named Niles.

Let me know if you find a good combination of schools. My death wiz David Dragonheart is looking for a second school!

Enjoy!
Valerian

Second Chance for Smogger's Pet Fairy

Have you ever tried Katz Lab and fought Smogger at the end for this very rare pet?



If so you know that typically you have one shot at getting her per time through the instance. A friend Grace Dragonrider tipped me off on how you can fight him twice in the same instance.

The trick to this is that if you kill Smogger himself first BEFORE the minion then when you kill his minion, Smogger will return in a moment for a second time giving you two chances to get the pet.

And if the rare green fairy isn't enough to tempt you to try to get her she comes with a fairy card that can heal you or other team mates.

Let me know if you have any success with this tip.

Happy Smogger hunting,
Valerian

Bugged Malistaire Battle Caught on Video

Fallon and friends along with myself enjoyed a lively death at the hands of Malistaire in the bugged former tweak to bosses in Wizard101. Cyrus Drake of Wizard101 said that they bosses had been made into a puzzle with some means of defeating them being non obvious but solveable. Whatever the case might be this was our first and last stab at Malistaire before the morning updates that set him back to being a not-so-bad guy.

Note in the video his meteor strikes using ZERO pips and his 900 hit point Ice Wyvern (with no blades) and his 900 hit point minor strike. Also notice how when Sylvia Drake "helped" us it would skip all of us. My opinion is that after she gave us pips and the powerplay that she was hurting more than helping. Don't forget to check Malistaire's health too :) *That's a lot of zeros there!*

Full Instance Bug and How to Fix it

I'm sure all of you have noticed recently that most of your friends are in "full instances". This is a bug created by the new update to Wizard linked to the new privacy feature.

You can fix it by going to your game settings...

Click on the Privacy Settings

Then change your setting to not allow friends to port then repeat and set to allow friends to port to you. This will reset and allow one friend to teleport. So with each additional friend wanting to port you will have to repeat this process.

Fallon Shadowblade also posts about this same issue because it has had such a huge impact on the playability of Wizard lately. http://www.diaryofawizard.com/ Check out her site.

Boss Fixes For GH and Malistaire

If you had the pleasure of dying at Malistaire's hand or from the bosses at the end of GH you will notice a change in the game as of last night. Wizard101 patched the bosses so that they are at least defeatable now. I know that they claimed the changes were a puzzle to be solved etc. however those of us who were there, got to see the buggy zero pip spell casting that made it possible for them to do large attacks without using a single pip. I for one enjoyed the greater challenge and will be disappointed if they set them back to being easy. I simply hope that they have fixed the zero pip casts.

Let me know how you find the new Jade Oni, GH bosses and Malistaire.

~ Valerian

Friend Feature of the Week - Megan

This is the first post in a new series about my friends. In time I hope to post something about all the friends in my list. I have collected the best list of friends in Wizard :) I've known Megan for a long time in Wizard years. She's a fun and reliable friend who likes to joke around and kill things. I'm interviewing her for here for the first time. If you meet her I would of course recommend you add her as your friend.

What level are you and what is your latest school move?

I am Level 48 and the last move I learned was Storm Lord.

Do you have any particular funny story you could tell the readers that happened to you online?

A fun thing that happened to me was when me and James tried to make a play but it didn't work out well. It was about a town that was being destroyed by a dragon and the towns people put the dragon in jail.

What is your favorite world and why?

My favorite world is Mooshu because it's pretty.

What tips or thoughts do you have for new wizards or wizards of your same school?

New wizards should choose their second school wisely. Storm wizards need to wear a lot of things that give them health because we have low health.

What do you like most about the game?

The think I like most about the game is having friends and decorating my house.

What do you think should be changed or added to the game?

They should add a thing that lets you have your pets run around the house.

Message From Cyrus Drake

Hello students..
I am hearing loud and clear the message that many of you do not approve of the enhanced boss fights, or at least the way in which they were implemented.

The idea behind these was not to make the game more "hardcore", more difficult or to make it impossible to group. We simply wanted those encounters to be more interesting than 1. Defeat Monster, 2. Collect Loot. Each of the we changed bosses had a twist on normal combat, or required a specific strategy to be employed, like a puzzle.

Rest assured, we have heard your displeasure, and we will re-visit the boss fights very soon.

Cyrus Drake Professor of Myth
Ravenwood School of Magical Arts
En Magus Nos Fides

Experience Points For Level 50 + Wizards

An unexpected result of the update was the continued lack of experience points for level 50 wizards. This has had two side effects 1) it has made a lot of Grand Masters dissinterested in the new world and 2) it creates the "Syndrome Effect" from the movie the Incredibles... in one of the more memorable scenes Syndrome says "When everyone is special, no one will be".

By the end of the summer wizards that started as noobs just a month ago will be the same level as people who have been level 50 for six months. Already many of the level 50 wizards I know are losing interest in their Grand Master characters and much of the game in general. This is unfortunate in terms of building the lore of the game since people are the heart of this game.

I hope King Isle will provide a means to progress even beyond level 50. I'll keep writing them and I'd encourage all of you to do the same.

Valerian

Where to Find Mist Wood

I have had the most success finding mist wood in Marleybone. Mist wood is a much needed item for crafting and it seems like that there is very little of it versus the high demand. If it being a rare thing isn't bad enough it seems as though it doesn't come back in predictable places nor does it return in the same place after someone finds it. I don't know if the makers of Wizard101 intended it to be so hard to find but at this point it is.

Having done extensive searching myself and asking around the concensus is that the most of it is found in Marley for now. This may be due to the fact that Marley is the least popular world and a difficult one (street-wise). Places like Hyde Park and Chelsea court etc. seem to have some more than other places. In Marley there are fewer side grass areas to hide it in and they tend to be on the side of the street and perhaps easier to spot as well.

If you find a watery area you can often find cat tails such as the pond near the arena in Unicorn Way. You can find mushrooms it seems in a lot of places including Colossus Boulevard in the grassy areas.

If anyone else has good tips on where to find Mistwood please leave a comment.

Thanks,
Vale
Mist wood, myst wood, mystwood

Arena Points Reset

Arena points were reset after this latest update. This basically puts even the Warlords on equal footing right now with noobs. However a sad side-effect is that if, like me you were a high enough level to buy trophies and didn't take the chance to do it you'll be working your way back up the ladder for a long long time before you qualify for that trophy again.

That sounds bad but there is a signficant upside! All those chain stunners that made the arena absolutely unbearable will have to start from the beginning as well. Now with Ice Wizards having a stun shield I think the arena scene will change and ice wizard will be in demand to combat stunners.

Have fun out there!

Vale

New Shield Spells For All Schools

New shield spells can be learned from the girl standing on the podium in the fairgrounds in Wizard City. Ice wizards draw a really great card... Stun Shield! Ice wizards are going to be a force in the arena even more now :)