July Music Festival Contest

Have you ever wanted to start a band?  Well, now you can!

You have a chance to win one of many musical instruments or a music boxes.   See the contest widget below.  Read the instructions, enter and you might be a lucky random winner. As with all contests be sure to enter by using the widget so your entry is able to be linked to you.  If you need help you can ask or better yet get a parent to help out.

What bands do you like?  One of my favorite bands this past while is Imagine Dragons and The Killers (not as dangerous as they sound) Rowan and I got to see them in concert and it was really fun. They started out with Space Man and ended with I've got Soul but I'm Not a Soulja. (sp?)  It was one of the better sounding live performances I've heard.  One that really blew us away in a live concert was Journey with the new lead singer.  (He sounds almost exactly like the original guy... you'd never know it wasn't him.  I heard they found him on YouTube)  They put on a long concert and it was pitch perfect at full volume the whole way.  Of course I love 80's bands too.  Some of them are still putting on good shows.

So enter the contest, drop some good tips and let us know who you like.

Vale

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Some pictures from Aquilla in Test Realm

If you are level 30 and above you can go talk to Cyrus Drake and get the quest for Aquilla.  The world itself is visually interesting and the characters are impressive looking.  The bosses are low-ish level.  I doubt you'll see any above 5000 in health.  If you're level 30 it will be challenging but if you're high level you'll crit your way through pretty fast.

Cryus sends you on a quest to find out about the Immortal games...

 He then sends you to Romulus in Cyclops lane...  Set a marker there as you'll have to report back to Romulus at least 1 time.

Here's a fun glitch I saw with the Minotaur pet. I think he took some Minotaur growth potion.

I think it's funny when a new world is loading and you can see the golems that stand in for the characters until their models are loaded.

Here's Romulus ready to send you on the next leg of your journey

O O, the giant Minotaurs are back!  This makes me want to get one.  I kinda like that size for pets... maybe not always but sometimes.

Instructions to seek Olympus using Apollos' chariot.

Here's my whale looking totally like a fish "in" water swimming around Olympus

Athena sends us on a quest to eventually fight Zeus

These bad guys have about 1500 health each with the boss having about 5000.

A tough centaur but he and his minions are about the same level of difficulty.

This centaur is in big trouble.

I found one of the little things you are supposed to find inside the first instance.  You can see the green arrow on the map to see where inside the instance.

 Aires and even Zeus in their cool looks were no match for my epic crit rating.  But later Zeus did say that he was going easy on us.  I'm sure he'll try to cheat eventually but I'm so ready for that...

A ship that looks like it might be ready to sail into Pirate101.

This instance looks like it might go to where Hades is...

Here's the map of Olympus.  It does really seem like a very small world so far.  I guess time will tell but I couldn't see any areas beyond the initial mapped area.

Aquila on Test Realm!

See you there!

I wonder if they will allow pet training in this test realm.

Vale

p.s. if you haven't loaded test realm yet you'll need to log in to the Wizard101 web site and get it after you log in.  It's a separate program with a different shortcut so it will take extra room on your computer.

New world scoop update and contest coming this week!

While I was prepping the Music contest I was looking at the Wizard101 login screen and :O I noticed something new.

There was an interesting background image that changes each time you open it.

This looks suspiciously like a new world!  And I've noticed a ton of maintenance which to me screams database changes.  If you're running load balancers and multiple web servers you usually don't need to take servers offline unless you're updating databases because you can shuttle traffic over to the other cluster... but database upgrading is notorious for having to shut everything down otherwise you have people lose data and have unhappy Wizards... So I'm guessing they're upgrading like crazy to get ready for an EPIC new world.  Database changes would seem to indicate an increase in the level cap!  And of course if they raise the level cap that will mean new spells.

Rosie and Angel  and Brandon Waterhunter (youtube) are correct based on what I can find on Pirate101 this would appear to be Aquila.  I wonder if we will see Monquista and the other Pirate101 worlds at some point as well?  See the video below for someone who took the time to outline a new world and bosses kind of like Cody Skyrider did with Azteca.  (see the video at the bottom of the post)

Hipocampi

Centaur

Gladiator-eagle seems kinda Zeus-like with a stormy vibe about him

This guy's armor looks Roman but he is sort of built like Hercules.  But is that a hammer or an axe?

Athena has the symbol of the owl

Kinda stumped on this one looks part Griffin-ish (head of a eagle, wings, part dragon part lion). We're wondering if he's based on Prometheus who stole fire from the gods and was tortured by vultures but it's hard to tell for sure. 

                                                                                                     (Griffin vulture - eek!)

What are your ideas?  Any news we should know about?  (leakers welcome!  shhhh!)

July contest will be up this week so keep checking back for the chance to win awesomeness.

Check out this video by Paul WildHunter recorded 3 months ago... He's either a mind reader or giving the Wiz people some good ideas.  I love seeing how players can influence the games they play.  Keep up the good ideas.