Pet Hatching

Many people have been anticipating an endless variety of pets. Some people have expected it meant that the pets will share the looks of the pets being mixed. For example a firezilla and a colossus might look like part colossus and part zilla. This is not the case. The child of two pets will look exactly like some existing pet in the game. I have heard of someone mixing a wraith and an aurthurus and getting a hydra. I have only seen them come out looking like one of the parents but time will tell.

When you are playing in the test realm and want to get started with pets, check with Merle Ambrose first. He'll set you on your pet quests and give you a pet of your own.

Enjoy,
Valerian

Here's a code for the fastest wizard: 2875A-3L9W7-24NLX-5LL66

Great Gobber Give Away!

We have been graciously allowed to participate in the Great Gobbler Giveaway. A total of 1 gobbler pet will be awarded in each of 5 separate contests.

1) Random new subscriber- for all new subscribers to this blog a random drawing will be done for one gobbler pet.

2) Most prolific commenter- the visitor who posts the most relevant comments (not spam and not the same thing multiple times) will win another gobbler pet.

3) Most interesting comment- the visitor who posts the most interesting or relevant comment.

4) The most awesome game tip.

5) One to be awarded by some mysterious and yet unknown means. I will be puzzling over this one... but already have some fun ideas!

Thanks for the help Kiersten!

AW! Someone told me that I messed up on the last code so here's a few to make it up to you.


Visit these sites for additional chances to win:

Homework in a Graveyard
Diary of a Wizard 

Wizard101 WarCry 

The Friendly Necromancer 

A Mythspent Youth 

Wizard101 Fan Wiki 

West Karana 

Wizard101 Central 

Ravenwood Radio

Here are a couple more codes for the fastest wizards ( log into wizard101 web site to redeem them) Only the first person to redeem the code will be able to get the item.
385QA-4L2L3-26WQX-6L862

EL7QA-QLQJ3-28N3X-4L279

Test Realm with Pets and Responding to a Comment

Test Realm is up! Log in if you haven't already.

So much stuff is happening so quickly I can tell I'll have a million posts going up today...

Sierra Starsong commented that in the release notes for this latest patch that trading of enhanced treasure cards from wizard to wizard will be restricted. This may in fact reduce the bolting issue. I for one will be excited to see!

Another commenter asked last week what my email address is for sending me pictures etc. My email is
Now, if you are one of my younger readers you should always get a parent's permission to email or have your parent email me. It's important to note that it's difficult to post content from an email to my blog so if you want your content posted to my blog you may want to consider sending it in a comment. If it's something more complicated with pictures then an email may be better.

Valerian

T845A-7L329-28P8X-7LQ69

Test Realm is Up!!

If you don't have the test realm version downloaded Go to Wizard 101. Log into the web site using the same account as you do for the game. Then you will notice a ribbon on the right hand side of the screen at the top. It should look like this:

Click on that to download a Wizard101 client program that will connect only to the test realm. It will give you a new icon on your desktop. Whenever you run that version of Wizard it will take you to the test area where new features are ready to test like pets!

Valerian
(new codes for the first wizard to redeem them)

R872A-7L827-27BQX-3L765

J859A-7L8J8-27Q9X-7L762

Pets will be in Test Realm very soon!

I captured the video from Wizard101.com but decided for copyright issues I'd just post some caps of the video that show some detail of pets coming out.

The link to the video is here: Wizard 101 Pets!

Well, one of our friends did it! If you go back and see the interview with my friend Megan... her idea was to allow pets to run free on your property. Well I guess someone at King Isle took notice and voila. A year later her wish is now reality.

Check this out...


Looks like someone started a unicorn farm.


This last one is a picture of a pet that is presumably casting it's own spell.


In the video I haven't seen any mutated pets or any new ones that were hinted at. However it does look like all the usual suspects are present. I wonder who drops the "Timmy the Icepick" pet?

In any event there is rampant speculation that the prolonged update tonight may in fact be the release of the test realm. Cody Skyrider was the first to speculate that update is in fact a test realm release. I suspect if it's not the test realm that it's the database backup that fuels the test realm.

In any case I think we'll see pets in test at least on the first of the month if not sooner.

Valerian

Wizard Blox points for crown items

As some of you may know there is a wizard blox application out for the iphone. It plays a little more smoothly than the mouse based computer version allowing you to move blocks around with your finger. If you are one of the lucky few iphone users you should definately get it from the app store.

I've been playing it for a while, and of course I obsess about knowing all the ins and outs of everything wizard so. As such, I've discovered the following....

Score Item
-------------------------------------------------
0 - 199,000 gold
200,000 - 250,000 transform (seems to be random)
260,000 - 300,000 health elixir
290,000 - ? regeneration elixir
350,000 - ? Eye of bartleby card pack
375,000 - ? Marvelous Minions pack
400,000 - ? Remarkable Reagents pack
540,000 - ? XP boost elixir
700,000 - ? Major Regen elixir

There are many more items and I've only begun to determine where the boundries are but if you have more info please let me know :)

Here's one of the codes for the first wizard who redeems it.
W847A-6L399-28P9X-2L564

Valerian

School Observations

While playing my death wizard in arena the other day I realized something interesting about death school and looking at things in a new light I'm reexamining the other schools.

Death School is one of gambling. With death school, one typically wants to keep high pips and hit in an effort to heal. So for example, if an attacker is holding their pips, a death wizard will often save their pips also for a wraith or crow to regain any lost health. This fighting style is a gamble that one will not be killed by your opponents first attack. The feint move takes this paradigm one step further, risking significant damage in hopes of getting a good hit yourself. Then add doom and gloom to the battle and your own healing opportunities are greatly reduced in a gamble that your opponents will worse off than you. Part of death schools appeal is the element of risk. If you haven't tried death school yet, you should.

6878A-6L9H2-28Q5X-5LQ68

Arena Chaining

The other day some friends and I were headed to arena for fun. As I arrived they had come out of 3 chain stun rounds where the other team had chain stunned them until they were dead. After I joined them we were chain stunned 3 more times. For them it was 6 chains for 8 battles. For me it was 3 for 4. Not good odds :(

Some of the chainers

(I can't call them players) had built up extreme ranks like 4500rank points. Naturally to get matches they'd start a match with a lower ranked wizard. Getting stunned twice or even 3 times per turn was par for the course.

After some time of expressing frustration my team mates and I came to some conclusions:

1) These people don't care what is fair or not
2) They enjoy it when people get angry
3) They claim they are justified in cheating because King Isle allows arena to be used that way.
4) With second cast you will always lose against chainers
5) With first cast you will always lose against chainers

So if you still want to lose 3 out of 4 battles, and lose your rank to people that cheat you can still go to arena. When you get chainers we highly recommend you don't give them the satisfaction of being angry. (I need to work on that one) Chaining is very boring and pointless even for the chainers except that it seems to give them immense pleasure when you say something back. Don't flee, just get up, go get a snack, read a book or watch TV and just let them wait the full 30 seconds for each cast and the satisfaction of knowing that you're not even trying, not even watching, and not listening to their stupidity.

If you are a chainer, it's not to late to change your ways, and earn respect rather than prove that you deserve none.

Arena Tips From the Dark Spiral

I'm back after being sucked into the black hole of the work galaxy which I think is the evil parallel universe of the spiral.

Work has me writing programs to predict outcomes for things. So in that spirit given how things are devolving in arena I'll pass on some pessimistic predictive prognostications for arena teams.

All storm teams...
Watch out on the third pass for single-Lord followed by a double-Lord (Single-Double or the flip of that... Double-Single) the next round followed by a tempest or another storm Lord. Plan accordingly.

Also if they are pulling out bolts from the beginning of the match it probalby means they have their treasure full of them and you're just toast. Nothing you can do...

Storm and Fire teams...
Watch out for early stuns followed by storm Lords.

All Fire teams...
Watch out for spamming of minus accuracy. Fire wizards are very particular about their fire dome since dragon doesn't stun... therefore keep some domes of your own school handy.

Ice teams...
Watch out for multiple frosties, Single-double or Double-single chaining. These are less effective than storm's chain stuns because Frosty does much less initial damage than Lord.

Any team with a Myth
You can be sure that you won't be able to keep your shields and blades on. You may want to bring your own dome and hit hard and fast.

Any team with a Life
You're not done the battle until the Life wizard is dead. Since most are heal boosting now they can be a potent threat to fully revive all of their members in one pass. Some people concentrate too much on the life wizard trying to get through all their shields. It's a good idea for one of your people to throw a quake before a huge hit or get a convert on early. Also if someone is close to dying and you're hesistating to finish them because the life person will just heal them, you should consider if they have any pips they may be worth finishing off to get rid of their pips. Also if the team is warlord level or above they will likely heal after you are stunned. So have curses ready for the same pass as you expect to be hit or one pass before if you have second cast.

Teams with 2 Life
Usually teams with 2 life wizards will set up for one hitting and the other healing. They will always keep some heals handy in case the other goes down. In this case you're kind of stuck with hitting after the attacker Life has used their pips. The other is probably saving theirs... Keep a doom and gloom handy, some curses and good luck because this is a hard combination to beat. You may find you have a better chance of running them out of hitting cards. Remeber, whoever runs out of hits first loses!

Death Teams...
Beguile is part of death school so plan accordingly. Under beguile you can still hit single hit spells without any danger of hitting your own. Death can also heal so be aware of that. Death hits are weak but restore their health so you will have to hit very hard or not at all.

Balance teams...
Rare, but usually spam weakness and save up tons of pips for a cheeze-ball followed by a Judge or two.

Any team with a balance...
Be prepared to shield up. You'll need it! Hits coming from teams with a balance will be very hard. If you notice an early storm fizzle from a balance wiz you know they are going to just blade and bolt. Balance also has a small heal ability but it's not effective on defeated wizards.

While I had hoped the beginning of April and "spring" would bring pets to the spiral but it's still snowing here! So maybe that's why :( but here's a code anyway for the first wizard that redeems it. (only the first person to use the code will get it) LQ92A-2LLC3-2LJLX-4L777

Good Luck!
Vale