#Blaugust Day 4 -- Paid Gear/Spec Switching in Guild Wars 2?

Guild Wars 2 allows a person to be very flexible in the way they build a character. With five specialization trees that can be built out in several ways and a set of skills that is far deeper than the five slots (or 10 if you count weapons) that you're given to shape your character, there's a lot of potential to design or tweak a number of builds.

For instance, on my necromancer, I usually run an axe/dagger/staff combo that focuses on wells, marks, and condition damage. 

But if I'm out in the world exploring, I typically like to put up a summoning build that has a full spread of minions that will gladly offtank for me as I run by, but simply switching the skills to minions from wells still means I'm not prepared on the back end with my specialization trees. 

Or, what if the group I'm in suddenly needs me to switch to a utility role where I'm cleansing, healing, fearing, and buffing?   I've got the skills, but I may be short on time to set everything up on the trees to be my best at what the group needs from me . . . and gear swapping? Well, it's just extra clicks and extra inventory space.

What if I'm hitting teq, and I can't crit on that dragon . . . at the least I'd like to switch to some gear with a bit more health . . . 

I can typically do just fine in any of these roles if I'm just chasing a zerg around in the Mists, but . . . serious 5v5 PvP? You'll want another special build so you can hold nodes.

Now keep this in mind while I switch gears to a different game . . .

~~

DC Universe Online also allows a person to be flexible with how they build their character.  You have three trees of skills that you swap out and weapons/movement you can invest skill points points in to really make your character shine.

For instance, on my sorcery hero, I usually run a shield/rifle DPS build that uses a pet. He's an amazing powerhouse that brings the deeps yo.

If I want to PvP, however, I'm going to need to change my gear . . . and changing my build is probably a good idea too.

And if the call goes out for a healer, I'm again going to want to change pretty much everything so I can be the best I can while still mixing it up with damage as well. 

Now, this is where DC Universe shines.  There's a really cool housing item called an Armory -- you use it to imprint your current build and assign it to a button key press for instant use anywhere in the world.

In other words, these allow a person to click one button and POOF, as long as I'm out of combat, I'm fully dressed, equipped, and set up with the powers and skills I want.  ONE BUTTON and I'm the best healer setup I have. ONE BUTTON and I'm the best DPS I can be. 

. . . and they sell this amazing magical item in the cash shop. It's genius, and would be perfect for Guild Wars 2. 

. . . even better it looks incredibly swanky in your player housing. 

What's surprising to me is that we just give this one away for free in Wizard101. Equipment Sets went into the live game back in November 2014 . . . and it's free?! ONE BUTTON and you have all your gear and the correct deck for questing in PvE. ONE BUTTON and you have all your gear and the correct deck for PvP. It's quite cool and people love it. I don't blame them. It's a must have quality of life item.

I'm sure this is in more MMOs (and especially older MMOs that grow more complex as they age). If you know of one, leave a note in the comments. Personally, I would love to see this implemented in Guild Wars 2, and it's something I'd buy a pre-paid card to invest in. (And looky here! I'm not the first to suggest this.)

Happy Dueling!

~~

This post is part of the Blaughust challenge -- Thanks to Belghast from Tales of the Aggronaut for hosting. 

PvP Scoreboards!

I can't take credit for this idea at all, but I have to say, I wish I could. So the other day Uber Wife was hanging out in the pvp ring and she leans over to me and says, "I wish they had a scoreboard so I could see the health of the people fighting." OH MY GOSH YES!

After that she kind of started to flesh out how this thing would work. Basically this wouldn't be anything that the pvp'ers in the thick of the battle would need to see. What this would be is . . . kind of like a jumbo tron when you go to a basketball game, right?


Or perhaps something like a laser tag scoreboard near the pvp ring for all those sitting outside the ring.


It would show the name of the person in the ring and their health, and that's it. You don't need to show off a person's class or any other stats (you know, to avoid people yelling out what classes people are) . . . name and health alone would be just fine.

It's incredibly hard to look down at the ring and try to guage what's happening as it is currently. A quick look at the names and the health would be a huge boost to viewing pvp matches as a bystander. And maybe to make a little money for KI, throw it into the crown shop and allow us to buy them for our houses to put by our PvP rings. /shrug

What do you think?

Happy dueling!

Combo move!

A bunch of the community was just jamming with J Todd Coleman on Twitter (or spamming in my case). He's awesome. 'nuff said.

Anyway, I just wanted to expand a bit on something I mentioned over there on Twitter that probably needed a bit more explaining. (Read from the bottom up)


Anyone who's played a fighting game for any length of time knows combo moves in video games aren't anything new. Basically you string together a series of moves to generate a final powerful move.

In MMOs, the first thing that comes to mind are the group combo moves in LOTRO known as Conjunctions.

In Magic The Gathering they are a smart combination of cards that result in an unbeatable victory state . . . or perhaps doing things like playing a Griffin card followed by a Griffin rider card to boost the other card's damage.

What I'm proposing is something slightly different and more simple.

Let's pretend the developers have coded it so when you cast an ice snake, a fire shield, and a storm shark in that order, you will then spark a chance at a combo move (it doesn't have to work 100% of the time). BOOM! You've made the right combination of cards and the words "Combo Move!" flash above your character's head (similar to the critical message). Because you threw these three cards in this order and successfully made your percentage chance to cast a combo, this releases a meteor strike spell upon all opponents directly after that last storm shark is played. It'd give more reason to go for the boss over the minion first for sure. The boss would have been whittled down a bit from the storm shark and the ice snake and the meteor strike then hits both the minion and the boss. Right?

WOW! That could be game changing.

Now, a normal person would probably never buy those spells individually . . . what life wizard is going to buy a fire shield, ice snake, and storm shark with their training points let alone even load that combination in their deck? But, if we knew casting those spells in a row created a combo move, then you might see people spending their points differently.

What if as a necromancer I cast a Banshee, Feint, Sacrifice combination, and it resulted in summoning a minion to help me for two or three rounds? I might actually load banshee again!

You could even get crazy long combo chains of five or six cards that produced hugely powerful combo moves all their own. AMAZING!

Combo spells could be designed at every level of play and there could be multiple spell combos for us to discover.

I just seems like there is so much potential in combo moves for unlocking special spells . . . so many things they could do with that.

What do you think? Certainly would make the community work hard at trying to discover all the combo moves for a season. :)

Happy dueling

Speed Up the Casting Animation of Spritely?

Just wanted to get a quick pulse from the readers of this blog . . . is it just me or has spritely extended battles more than it should?

Currently when spritely casts, the camera zooms in on your dancing pet, a pixie flies out in the center of the circle, says "hi" with a wave, and then circles around you as the camera pans to the right, leaving behind the spell effect swirling at your feet.

We've all seen it cast 3,000 times now (if you haven't, just watch this Perfect Catch PvP video and you'll see it cast at least 10 times in one fight) . . . In my mind, it's mind-numbingly slow. I love spritely, and I hate to complain, but here are my proposals for a new animation now since it's the most popular talent to add to your pet.

1- The Camera zooms in on your dancing pet, a pixie flies out in the center of the circle, says "hi" with a wave, and disappears as the spell effect is applied, swirling at your feet.

OR

2- The Camera zooms in on your dancing pet, a pixie circles around you as the camera pans to the right, leaving behind the spell effect swirling at your feet.

OR

3- The Camera zooms in on your dancing pet, leaving behind the spell effect swirling at your feet.

So your feedback would be appreciated please. Consider this a petition if you would. Please add your name to the comments below if you agree and let me know which option you prefer 1, 2, 3, or describe a casting animation all your own.

Thanks!

Happy Dueling!

Recent Thoughts on Henchmen

Lately my thoughts keep turning to henchmen when I play. Quite simply I don't use them because I currently don't need to. It's super easy for me personally to fill a group with my four accounts. I have level 60 healers on a couple of different accounts. What I realize though is that I'm abnormal. Seriously. LOL.

Most people in Wizard101 are running only one account. When I ran through the test realm in Zafaria, I did this. I avoided loading multiple accounts. I wanted to experience what the game would be like solo as a necromancer. Truth is that there were a couple pinch points and henchmen came in handy in the Test realm. Case in point, the healing fight with Tim-Tim Snakeeye. I dropped those test realm crowns for three level 70 Life henchmen and suddenly the fight was cake. There was also a point in the Drum Jungle when a group of Myth casting spider monkeys were irritating me, and so I dropped the test realm crowns for three level 70 storm henchmen and burned through the fight.

Would I do that on the real realm? Nah. BUT, you know what would make me do something like that on the real realms of The Spiral? I think I know . . . let me explain.

Henchmen aren't a new idea in games. My first experience with them was in Guild Wars. In Guild Wars, all areas are tuned to group play. In every zone, you'll find a series of henchmen lining the walls just waiting to be hired out. I don't even think there's a cost for henchmen in Guild Wars . . . the only cost is that they will take a portion of your loot when you use them. That really isn't a problem. Once you select a henchmen to play with you, then tend to stick around in the group until you remove them. It isn't like you summon them for each fight like you do in Wizard101.

My second experience with henchmen is with Dungeons and Dragons online. In DDO, there's a cost to henchmen use and when you purchase them, you purchase them for an hour. Your first hireling will cost some platinum to hire out and you can only summon them at the entrance of an instance. Any additional henchmen you put in your party will cost DDO points (like crowns) and may be summoned at any time in an instance. You can have as many as five hirelings if you're soloing.

Their cost? Well, they all cost 40 DDO points or less. There really isn't price scaling like what was recently introduced in Wizard101. Of course, it's also capped for free to play players so you can't summon a hireling that is higher level than you. (I believe subscription players can summon hirelings that are up to two levels higher then you are.)

In DDO, if I finish an instance early, I still have the hireling sitting in my inventory with a timer on it. (Think mounts with a timer on it in Wizard101--they sit in your inventory with a timer until they expire).


If Wizard101's henchmen sat in your inventory for the span of an hour after purchase, and I could summon them and de-summon them from combat, I think people would buy them and use them all the time (especially at their current cost).

I do think you would have to allow for them to be de-summoned with a toggle button since that's one of the main gripes I currently hear with henchmen use (outside of locked instances). How many times have you seen friends port into a fight where henchmen are being used and feel disappointed they can't join the fun? We need the ability to de-summon henchmen to allow friends in if they show up to play with us.

What are your thoughts on how to improve henchmen? Have you experienced their use in other games and liked it more than how it's used in Wizard101?

To me, it's just simply not on par to have a one-use, one-fight Level 70 henchman cost as much as a Wyvern Hoard pack. Or maybe I'm wrong, what do you think?

Happy Dueling!

Swampy, the Disney/KingsIsle Missing Link?

You probably don't remember my Disney/KingsIsle conspiracy theory post, so here's a link.

One of the major problems in my theory was that Disney only uses videogames to promote their movies and characters, and never in reverse. To quote myself, ". . . to me Disney uses their video games as part of their commercial blitz and not vice versa. They don't blitz their video games, they blitz their products with video games. Disney scooping up Kingsisle would bring them a whole *NEW* set of characters that are begging to be blitzed."

Yesterday a new Press Release hit the AP Wire from Disney announcing their new Swampy videogame character with the heading, "Disney hopes game character makes it to big screen." Now THAT's a heading! :) You should check out the article here.


Swampy is pretty awesome actually. It's like a cross between the Rubbadubbas and the Peter Pan croc.


To continue to extend the conspiracy theory, could this test case be the first steps down the lane to this?


*eyebrows wiggling* EH? EH?

Meh, since the article's tag line merely comes from the General Manager suggesting a wild theory (""Maybe five years from now, wouldn't it be great if there was a movie that started up on the App Store?" Decrem said."), it's all very premature to even make guesses, but I do find it very interesting.

Something to think about. I just want an amusement park named Wizard101 land.

Happy dueling!

New plot opportunities from Pigswick?

We're all very familiar with Diego from the Dueling Diego mini-game from both inside Wizard101 and at KIFreeGames.com, right? Right! We've even talked a bit about Roberto and Franchesca here on this blog before.

At Pigswick in Wysteria there is another Duelmaster we are introduced to--one who appears to be a rival of Diego's. His name is Benedict Glendemming!


Awesome unicornman there, right? To be expected, I like Benedict's style. As with all Pigswick NPCs, he also shares the air of disrespect for Wizard City and specifically Diego. It is a civil rivalry though . . . no malice, just contempt.

It all makes me wonder about Diego's true nemesis, Roberto. At one time we were searching for clues to who would be the "new Malistaire" after his defeat in Dragonspyre. Roberto's name came up from the fans as an option, but that was only because we really had no clues to make us think of Morganthe (Some would argue Merle's name is similar to Merlin from the King Arthur legend, whose nemesis was Morgan le fay). Unfortunately we haven't even seen a hint of the Morganthe story in the past two adventure areas.

Given the dimension of "Pigswick" as an alternative school of magic in The Spiral's lore, the sheer existence of that school makes one think of other possible schools in The Spiral. Likewise, it isn't too big of a stretch to wonder if Roberto could be the duelmaster for an evil school of magic where Morganthe is the headmistress . . . and perhaps this is why we were introduced to the lore of Pigswick now. Probably not, but I think the possibility exists.

It also makes me wonder if the second chapter to Pigswick could be one where Morganthe's evil school of magic strikes down upon Pigswick with all its fury, insulted they weren't invited to the magic duel competition? And what of Franchesca? Could she be a duelmaster for a school similiar to Beauxbatons Academy of Magic? Again, probably not, but it is something to think about.

~~~~

ANYWAY, the point of this post is simply to point out that Pigswick adds a lot of thickness to the overall plot of Wizard101.

For a few, it seems that the existence of Pigswick may be a sore spot . . . Uber wife ran into a guy on the Test Realm that was pretty upset Wizard101 would "copy" Harry Potter's competitions from The Goblet of Fire. I would agree that the likeness is there, but I also think there's potential for much more to be added to the original story of Wizard101 because Pigswick has been introduced to us.

What do you think?

Happy dueling!

Wysteria's Wand Displays

I was playing through Wysteria tonight with Myrna (earned my Spiral Cup :)) and noticed that Wysteria has three different types of ways to display wands and staves.

The first is the more traditional method found back in Wizard City: Wands on a rack.


The second method is to place them all on a long table . . .


The third method is in these really awesome shadow boxes:


We've asked for a way to hang our weapons in our housing before, but seeing all these alternate methods made me think perhaps it's time to bring it up again. I continue to collect wands and staves, and it would be super dooper awesome if I could put those in my housing and get them out of my bank and bags. You know what I mean?

I think I prefer the shadow box method for looks. Those are awesome! Although for space conservation purposes, perhaps a simple weapon rack would be best.

Which is your favorite?

Speaking of wands, did you happen to notice the pip giving wand you can get at 20th level from the "Let's Dance" quest in Wysteria?


Add another to my collection! That's a cool new beast right there. Before this, you weren't seeing a pip giving wand outside of the crowns shop until Marleybone. Nice! That wand is definitely a reason to side step from Krokotopia to Wysteria.

Happy Dueling!

Ranked Derby -- What to do with the growing black hole?

Yesterday over Twitter I moaned that it'd be great if all teen-pet knight-ranked derby racers would please log on and join derby. ;p Bailey asked me to zoom up her teen pet the last few points she needed for Pet Captain yesterday, which I did.


Yay! Baby Cassie was rockin' the teen-pet circuit. It took a bit to get there, but luckily on a busy Saturday morning there were at least four other like-minded speed racers.

The population in Derby is a real problem, as others have noted. It's true. I kind of made a rough diagram of where I feel you'll find the most races (this isn't actual data or anything . . . just what I've experienced).


It'd be interesting to get some actual statistics from KI on this (if that's possible). Anyway, that black hole in the middle tends to grow and shrink based on time of day and week, and I imagine it will slowly grow bigger and bigger as derby gets older and older (then again, fresh blood continues to pour into the game). I also think it will continue to be a growing problem for KingsIsle and its players . . . unless . . . INTERVENTION! (was going to link to a video called World of Warcraft Intervention, but a questionable word or two in the video prohibits me ;))

My fixes would be as follows:

1- More derby awards. I mean, these pets are great, but really?


Really? That's all we get? No cool car-related housing items? No trophies? No special speed-boost potions you can use during derby? No special mounts? It just seems like a lot of lost opportunity here.

2- Player intervention . . . something like ranked derby parties. Attach the word "party" to anything and get it widely publicized, and you'll be sure to get at least a handful of new players.

3- Balancing of skills. Debuffs should be harsher . . . they just can't compete with the power of the "hurry" skills.

4- ??? - What are your suggestions and insights?

Like I also Twittered yesterday, I don't think I could get to Pet Warlord anymore if I were to try for it today. There just aren't enough matches to go around like there were back when derby was brand new. "Good luck" is all I can say for aspiring Pet Warlords.

Happy Dueling!

Do a Dallop of Dailies?

So, as most of you know, I've been playing a bit of Rift. It's a very slick MMO that is just really cool looking and fun--like "the game which shall not be named" fun. It's so cool that it takes itself a bit too seriously, but I like it! It's been a fun couple of months playing it.

I left World of Warcraft a long time ago and only looked back once or twice, but I never got to experience the daily quests in WoW. I do remember when all my friends at work started saying they were making a lot of money by just running the daily quests every day. It was a solo activity outside in the main world (there were group ones too from what I'm reading). I imagine the main complaint would be that they are repetitive . . . of course . . . everyday you run the same quest over, but that's kind of the nature of the beast, and before "dailies," people would simply farm lower level instances over and over and over for money. I used to do that with my paladin all the time. Looking for some quick cash? Run into The Stockade and just AoE everything dead. /loot! /auction house! /repeat!

Then a little after Burning Crusade was released, Blizzard gifted the players of WoW around 45 dailies, of which you could run 25 of those each day (at least that's what this website is telling me). Wrath of the Lich king introduced more.

Now that I'm playing Rift, I'm seeing the same mechanic. There are dailies all over Telera, so I'm finally getting a chance to see this mechanic in play.

I like it!

One of my favorites is called Bare Knuckled: The Return. In this quest you basically get to face off with one of 16 random competitors each day, three times a day. Each fight plays a little differently and some are harder than others. Each time you win, you are awarded with a "fighter's purse" that has a couple of scrolls with some stat enhancing buffs and a couple of mana potions. You also get some money for each fight you win. Each competitor that you down has an item on them that eventually will complete a "set" of items that you can turn in for a reward and an achievement.

Why do I tell you all this?

Wizard101 needs dailies. It would be such a perfect compliment to the spiral, it kind of freaks me out. Crowns players have to pay crowns to open up an area to play in it, right? But after you've purchased an area (especially a lower level area), it kind of feels like will I ever really be back to Firecat Alley? If you follow the game to its conclusion and never look back, never farm for reagents there, never farm bosses there, etc., then yeah . . . you might feel a bit ripped off.

DAILIES COULD BE THE ANSWER!

If every day I could return to Firecat Alley and earn some money or a get a small chance at a rare drop, then it would keep me coming back to the zone. This also gets higher level characters intermingling with lower level characters more often.

Another daily in Rift that I like is one involving an ant queen in the Droughtlands. Every day you have the chance to turn into a queen ant and spray pheromones onto other ants and lead them around. It's so incredibly awesome to see your character in a new light. Fun factor is fun!

Back to our daily quest in Firecat Alley--What if part of your daily was to run around for a few minutes in a free fire elf polymorph in which you have to fight against the plague of skeletons? Then you just have to report back to Prince Alicane Swiftarrow for your reward, who would not suck you into battle as long as you were in fire elf illusion . . . I like it!

If KingsIsle was really adventurous, they could also tie a faction system into certain zones like Firecat Alley. What if you had a separate stat where you could build Firecat Alley faction tickets that could be used to buy special unique wands and clothes with a Firecat Alley flare. Maybe you could even purchase a special Fire Elf Polymorph card and open up tiers of new badges. These items and benefits would have to be attractive to all level ranges.

I think this should be done in every world of the spiral as well. For instance:

Firecat Alley = Wizard City's daily quest zone
Hall of Champions = Krokotopia's daily quest zone
Newgate Prison = Marleybone daily quest zone
Village of Sorrow = Mooshu daily quest zone
Plaza of Conquests = Dragonspyre daily quest zone
Stormrivin = Celestia daily quest zone
Vestrilund = Grizzleheim daily quest zone

If there were daily quests in each of those zones, just imagine the traffic that would generate to those worlds.

Here's the thing about Wizard101 as well. Sometimes people will buy up to Krokotopia and then have to wait for the next allowance to come through before they can buy another area. So, in essence, they're stuck in Krokotopia for 1,000 days. ;-) If there were a couple areas these people could play in by completing dailies while waiting for the next pay day to come through, then awesome! Perfect! It would keep them coming back!

All practical realities of what it would actually take for KingsIsle to implement a system like this aside . . . What do you think?

Happy dueling!

Sandstone Present Inside!

Hey, just a quick thought today for you all.

You know how KI recently changed pearls in Celestia so that you could harvest all types of pearls? Black, Regular, and Golden?

That's awesome, right?

Why don't they change change stone block in Celestia so that you can harvest all types of stone, including the ever-elusive sandstone? I'm not even going to bring up Sunstone . . . but I guess as long as we're dreaming . . .


;-)

Oh, and while you're at it, go ahead and throw that on the stone block in Dragonspyre too. *HUGS*

Happy Dueling!

Character Birthday Presents (in Guild Wars & Beyond)

I didn't play much this morning (or I haven't yet). Instead, I logged on Guild Wars and claimed all my unclaimed birthday presents.

It's funny, I've mentioned Guild Wars on this blog a handful of times. It's a solid game, and in fact five (almost six) years ago, it was my number one game. Before DDO, it was my static group's Sunday night game. Originally, I bought it and played it on the day it came out back in 2005. What this means now is that every year on each character's birthday, they get a little package in their inventory. Inside each of these packages is a free pet from ArenaNet/NCSoft. yay! See those two blue gift icons in Chachi's inventory below? Yeah . . . it's been a while since I've logged on Chachi ;-)


Happy Birthday, Chachi Happydays! Chachi Happydays is the best character name ever. The thing about Chachi is that I've never really even played him. I mostly just made him so I could get a pet when his birthday rolled around. Funny enough he has a gold rare pet. Here's the two pets he claimed today.



Hooray raptor thing and beetle bug guy!

My first character in GuildWars is up to his fifth present and in just a couple of months he'll be celebrating his sixth birthday. Woot!

Anyway, pets in Guild Wars are nothing more than cosmetics, but still it's a collectible item in the game. What's awesome is that it looks like when Guild Wars 2 is released, ArenaNet will actually hunt through your inventories and give your Guild Wars 2 character some kind of benefit if they have a nice collection of pets (among a plethora of other accomplishments in game including badges and hall of monuments). You can read all about it here.

The rewards calculator doesn't seem 100% working correctly at the moment since I know my character Wallace Stevens has a few more monuments than what they are indicating he is eligible for, but it's no big deal (it's still in beta anyway). Heck, just the fact that if I make a Guild Wars 2 character and that I would get anything of benefit from all the fun I've had with my regular Guild Wars character is AWESOME!

So, let me extend this out to Wizard101 a bit.

1- In a way, here's a different example of "badges meaning more" in another MMO. Although cosmetic pets and badges really don't do anything for a character in Guild Wars. For a character in Guild Wars 2, they will mean special sets of gear or unique pets from day one when you re-create your character from the original Guild Wars. That's huge.

Imagine if KingsIsle came out with a Wizard201 game, and now you were basically forsaking all the things you had done in Wizard101 and moving to a newer and better game. It would be cool if all those collections and badges somehow translated into a reward for your new character in Wizard201.

(Sidenote: heh. It's funny, ever since I've been doing this Wizard101 blogging gig, there's always been this looming "second game" for KingsIsle. I know there's a team devoted to getting this second game out the door, but it just hasn't even been revealed yet. The only thing one can dig up about the second game from KingsIsle is rumor and conjecture. They are infamously tight-lipped on this information.)

2- I want a birthday present for my Wizard101 character! YES! I mean, I know that we get a present on Wizard101's birthday, but it would be some kind of awesome to get a loyalty reward on my characters' birthdays. Guild Wars does pets. Everquest does Veteran AA abilities. City of Heroes gave out a loyalty character emote. Aion is even giving loyalty rewards on a monthly basis! How awesome is that?

I just think it would be cool to get some kind of loyalty reward in Wizard101.

So here's your question for the day, if Wizard101 gave out a loyalty reward each year on your character's birthday, what would you think would be a good present? Do you think the reward would be different for free players vs. crowns players vs. subscription players?

Let me know what you think!

Happy Dueling!

Reincarnation in Wizard101?

In the game Dungeons and Dragons Online there is an option to reincarnate your character so you can choose a new build if you messed up and you don't like your choices. Here's a link to read all about it if you're interested.

In Wizard101 we have the ability to pretty much do the same thing. We buy back our training points from Mr. Lincoln and we can re-train all our secondary spells points in whatever we'd like.

But there is something exciting at the end of the rainbow in DDO that we don't have. In DDO there is an option for greater levels of reincarnation where you can add additional abilities to your character. Here's a quick quote to get you thinking in the right direction (just read it with Wizard101 in mind).

"True Reincarnation allows you a fresh start as a more powerful character. You must start at level 1 again, and it requires a little more XP to level from that point on, but you gain several attributes and may change more about your character than the other types of Reincarnation. It is an excellent choice if:


■ You’d like to upgrade a 28 point build to have more ability points
■ You’d like to change your race
■ You’d like to completely redo your character, including what class they are
■ You like prestige and recognition for your accomplishments
■ You’d like to gain extra perks for your character"

First of all, if this idea was to be introduced into Wizard101, it wouldn't be called reincarnation. I'm guessing that's too political in nature and since there's really no death (only defeat), it wouldn't really work out. For us it would have to be an option once you hit Legendary to "Invigorate your learning." It would be an opportunity to become a level 1 wizard again and return to school all over again.

Imagine if you got to start over, but based on your previous class you now had access to a special spell or two that only those who had "invigorated" could train? The first thing that comes to mind are the mutate spells, but I'm imagining the ability to create an epic version of a level 48 spell would just put it over the top: Epic Skeletal Dragon!!

Imagine gaining a couple extra training points for your decision as well!

Imagine getting the ability to visit the salon. Since it's a new you at school, you'd get to change your hair and starter clothes.

Imagine getting access to a special badge only available to those who have "invigorated."

Imagine getting to start over at Level one so you can play your character with a new friend that you've brought into the game without having to make a new character!

You know, it would totally take the sting away from when they release a world that isn't level 60+, and as an invigorated character, you'd want to explore it because yeah . . . maybe you'd need the experience from a Grizzleheim or a Candyland to make up for the extra experience needed as an "invigorated" character.

Personally I think it would be the most exciting thing to happen to this game in a long time. I think KingsIsle would keep all their old playerbase active and playing through different levels of their game.

Honestly, if this were available, done properly, and had a decent price tag, I'd jump on it faster than you can say "Merle's your uncle."

Happy Dueling!

Feedback Friday--I choose . . . DOOR NUMBER THREE!

If you've logged in this week, you've been welcomed with a link to the most recent Feedback Friday with Professor Falmea. Check it out. Basically, she wants to know which secret door in the spiral would you like to be opened and specifically mentions Barkingham Palace. You know, that place we've talked about here on TFN.

Anyway, that Feedback Friday thread is a super dense thread at this point . . . as it should be since it was linked to from the game patcher. (That one time my blog was linked to in the game patcher was an absolute thing of beauty for my blog -- hits SOARED to 11k a day -- I can't tell you how awesome it was for the hit counter and traffic around here.)

At the time of posting this message, they are up to over 500 responses on that thread. I don't have time to go through them all, but it's actually a good study in all the hidden doors around the spiral:

-Barkingham Palace
-Death Door in Haunted Cave
-Fifth island in Krokotopia
-Doors in Nidavellir
-Unruined school doors in DS Acadamy
-lower door in path of scales in Malistaire's Lair
-Elik's Edge
-Crypt in Northgaurd
-Restricted sections of Wizard City Library
-Door behind Lazlo in Plaza of Conquests
-Various unaccessible dojos in Mooshu
-house doors in every land outside of Celestia
-door to the left of Trial of Spheres
-blocked doorway in the Pyramid of the Sun--Alter of kings-
-Crab Alley
-ocean beyond Floating Land
-caved in doorway in Well of Spirits
-etc.
-etc.
-etc.

And there's a lot of cool suggestions being thrown around as well.

It's a good time.

Me? What does the Friendly Necromancer want? Personally I don't care where they open up as long as they finally put in a two-group raid encounter (at that point it just becomes a discussion of where could you fit an eight person sigil?). I remember talking with a couple of people at GDC Austin (oh, a guy named J Todd Coleman himself if I remember correctly), and it was mentioned that the battle circle was programmed to be able to expand. Yes, all the coding is already in the game to make that circle bigger and add more people to a battle.

Now, there are a ton of other considerations that would go along with implementing something like this . . . grouping / communication / extra art for a larger circle / boss battles tuned for eight people / loot tables / etc. / etc. / etc. (not an all-together easy implementation, but the coding is good, so that's a good jump in the right direction! Right?)

So, let me try to help: yes, I'm thinking Barkingham Palace is the place you want to use. Why? 1) It's already marked on the map. 2) There's plenty of room to accomodate an eight person sigil!


What about a room big enough to accommodate an eight person battle? Easy, use the double wide room from Briskbreeze tower. Boss Battle? Eight wizards vs. One Giant Humongofrog. Why? Because I've heard J. Todd Coleman mention that he'd love to see a battle against a Humongofrog AND it was all the buzz lately with that funny press release.

So, who's with me? Anybody else want to fight a Humongofrog with eight wizards?

Happy Dueling!

Destiny Silverblood's Wizard101 Ideas

Just a note upfront here: I usually don't post about other people's ideas on my blog, but Destiny was looking for an outlet, and I figured, what the heck. Also, I want you all to know that there are already a few "official" places where you can post your ideas for the game.

The Wizard101 Feedback Forum on Central
The Dorms Forum on Wizard101.com

So, if you have great ideas just rushing out of you like Destiny, please hop over to one of those forums and let loose! I'm sure KI would love to hear from you all.

NOW, on to Destiny's ideas. I'll present one of her ideas and then make a comment about each:

Snack Packs:

Snack Packs related to schools examples being,
Storm Snack Pack - 120 Crowns.
Myth Snack Pack - 120 Crowns.
Life Snack Pack - 120 Crowns.
Death Snack Pack - 120 Crowns.
Fire Snack Pack - 120 Crowns.
Ice Snack Pack - 120 Crowns.
Balance Snack Pack - 120 Crowns.

That's cool. I see what you're doing there, you pay a little extra for a snack pack that gives you more "like" cards than a regular snack pack. Up front, I don't know if KI would do that for only 5 crowns more a snack pack. My opinion is that it'd be quite a bit more than 120 crowns.

Just a quick comment here. I have heard that crafting your own snacks is relatively painless these days, has low costs, and makes it so you can really customize your pet's stats. For instance, check out the Dagwood Sandwich recipe requirements.


There are TONS of bloodbat cards for sell at the bazaar for cheap! For me it's much easier to whip up seven of these bad boys than spend my crowns on pet snack packs, not to mention that the cooldown is next to nothing when you craft these. You should try that out and see how that works for you.

Next idea:

Mount Derby:

Mount derby would be like pet derby, but without set paths. This idea is meant to be interactive and test the players' motor skills and overall control of their Mounts. This idea in my opinion would help Crowns Buyers and Wizard101. More people wanna Race and more people are gonna want better looking Mounts--all in all more Crowns are going to be bought. There would be a Ranking System so its not all for show, something related in not only Ranking Badge, but also Rewards, Rewards being special Saddles or one day Color Changes all the way up to 7 Day - Permanent Mounts.

Ahh, I see. Racing with your mounts instead of with your pets with rewards being mostly cosmetic change items for your mounts. That could be cool. I wonder how much Internet lag would come into play with a system like this since I think the current pet racing method accounts for that in some way. /shrug I'm not a programmer, so I'm just gonna say, YES! I would love to race my mount for a cool reward. :)

Next idea from Destiny:

Hatching Ranks:

This idea would be one of my most favorites considering we all wanna hatch more than once a day. My idea comes in a few parts and differences, so its up to you guys to decide which idea goes the farthest. The ideas basically are either hatching ranks or hatching quests.

Hatching Ranks would be Hatching and getting better pets either school or other wise anything with improved stats, you would also gain Rank for Training your Pets. So say Lord Sparky had parents with not so good stats, like Crafty and Careful, but Sparky got lucky and got Health Gift you would get some Hatching XP, for each Hatching Rank earned you would gain another Hatching Slot.

Hatching quests would come in two parts or combined as the choice of Wizard101's Fantastic Team of Admin Wizards: this would be either combining it with the Crafters' quests out there to craft say 12 Frosted Drakes Cereals or maybe a farming quest to get a drop of a Lightning Bat and Cat Thug in order to get a new hatching Slot.

I see, so this is kind of like Gardening ranks meets Advanced pets. You would level up as a hatcher with both quests and the frequency of your hatching activities . . . with maybe bonus experience points if your pet manifests an epic skill.

Interesting.

Well, I do like goals in game! If someone plunked 10 levels of hatching rank with some rare badge at the end of the tunnel, I probably would go for it . . . especially if there was a neutered rare pet packed with epic traits at the end of the rank hatcher 10 tunnel! An extra hatching slot would be nice too!

And I'm also pro- more quests. If they would give me quests to go along with each step of a hatching rank, then I'd be a happy wizard.

It'd be interesting to see how they would actually implement something like this. /shrug. I like how you're thinking though, for sure!

Destiny's next idea:

Pet Arena:

This idea is still in its infancy stage in my mind, but this idea would bring the biggest change cause the stats of the pets would triple and bring in a stage of Arena Stats related to yet its own fighting skills, and of course for you Rankers out there, yet again more Ranking, but guess what? You're not the ones wearing the Badges this time, its Sparky's turn, the Ranks would be the same as any other Ranking System, Private - Warlord. As for rewards, I don't have much to say its your choice there, maybe booster cards for your pets like an extra attack boost or defense? Maybe rewards like my Mounts idea: a on-day color changer? Maybe (with the consent of Wizard101 of course), a reward to set your pet's name personally? Maybe even a item to boost your pet one level? Maybe even lowered hatching prices for one time or maybe sets of Gold 100 - 50,000? Not many ideas for Rewards here, you Wizards can help me out?

Actually, that's a ton of reward ideas! :p

So, yes, pet arena. Ok, that could be cool to have my pet dueling it out with other pets in Pokemon fashion, and I love the idea of earning a badge for my pet. That's gold! It would be just yet another way to personalize your character.

Destiny, you're flowing over with ideas! My recommendation is that you definitely spend some time posting your ideas over on Central and the Wizard101 forums. I'd break it up though. Maybe post just one idea a day and get some feedback from people. KingsIsle does read their forums and Central's forums, so your ideas will definitely be seen if you post there . . . and especially if you have great ideas.

Best of luck!

Happy Dueling!

Remember Your Halloween Candy This Year!

Here's a refresher from last year for you: Don't forget that while you're handing out Halloween Treats, it could end up being a profitable idea to add your friend code on the candy!

"Here's an idea! What if you printed out a bunch of stickers with your friend code web address and stuck them on your candy that your family passes out for Halloween? THEN, not only are you giving kids some candy, but you're giving them the chance to make some crowns and give you some crowns in the process.

In other words, put that sucker on a sucker!"

Try it out! You never know. That might lead to some extra crowns for you and your family. :-)

Happy Dueling!

A Quick Cure to Heartbreaking Pet Talents?

Well, I now have a heartbreaking pet story. This is my version of Where the Red Fern Grows.

*hands out tissues*

I don't know if you've seen this pet in the derby awards:


Sure you have! It's awesomeness. I wanted that Dark Crow pet as did a few of our friends, so we set up a system over at the pvp arena to trade wins in order to get arena tickets because quite honestly, no one derby's at the ancient pet / pet warlord level. It's lonely at the top and it's hard to get the pvp tickets you need through Derby alone.

It took quite a while to spin up 750 arena tickets, but eventually I GOT MY CROW! Love my crow! I rushed over to the dance game and worked my pet up to Adult, and this is what I found:


Selfish talents and a couple of "meh" derby talents. Oh man, 750 arena tickets for that is painful. Sure sure, now at least I have the bird model and I can mix that with other, more uber pets to get better stats on my crow, but that could equate to a TON of time and gold depending on how unlucky I am. It's definitely possible to make a better crow . . . it's just time consuming (keep that "time consuming" idea in mind and stick with me here).

Now, on the flip side of that, I also recently received a fierce hound from the Double-wide gamestop card (which Kingsisle was kind enough to give to me and a few other fansites for free). Check out what manifested on my free fierce hound when I leveled him up:


Not bad at all, right? In fact, that might be the pet I first use in trying to build a better Dark Crow!

It's just ironic that the pet that me and my friends worked our tails off for manifests junk traits, and the pet I get for free and with no effort manifests sprightly of all things. (Actually, I take that "free and with no effort" statement back; keeping the Friendly Necromancer blog going for two years to earn one of those pets is a lot more effort than it is to spin up 750 arena tickets . . . .)

SO IT GOT ME TO THINKING!

I don't know if this has ever been proposed before, so I'm going to throw this out there and see what you all think. You know how you can pay good old Professor Lincoln to reassign your training points on your character? Sure you do, it can end up being quite costly reassigning your points, but if you want a perfect character build, you go for it, right?

What if you could go to the ringleader there in the Pet Pavilion and pay to have one of your pet's talents reassigned? You just know there are better talents hidden on that dark crow pet, right? What if you could select a talent, click a button, pay some crowns, and *poof* the pet magically unlearns the unwanted talent and instead chooses another talent on a pet's pedigree chart?

You know, I've seen worse than my Dark Crow. I've seen some heart breaking pets out there where people have spun a pet all the way up to epic and their pet manifested nothing but selfish talents. I bet you those people would love this feature. You could even make that a stipulation to using the pedigree enhancer. You could require that the only pets that could use the pedigree enhancer were epic.

What do you think?

I guess the next logical step after that would actually be going to a "training school" where you can pick a better pet talent from a menu and replace your unwanted talent with one that you buy, which might be simpler and more direct.

What do you think?

Happy Dueling

Gregor Mendel pays a visit to Wizard101

Gregor Mendel, you say? Yes, Gregor Mendel! He was an Augustinian priest and scientist, who gained posthumous fame as the figurehead of the new science of genetics for his study of the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants. I totally stole that from wikipedia.

You know, I really do believe that Kingsisle has a good heart beating inside it's amorphous chest over there in Austin Texas. I think that at the end of the day, they want to teach us through play yet not make it seem like we're learning. That's kind of the difference here between games like Jump Start where it's overtly putting learning number one and something like Wizard101 where the learning is kind of hidden.

. . . and I could just be talking out my posterior.

The new pet breeding really has me going back to my high school memories when I first heard about Gregor Mendel. Gregor Mendel was cool. He's all planting his pea plants in his super secret experimental garden tucked away in some hip abbey trying to figure out how to make pea plants more awesome. Little did he know that we'd all be trying out genetic experimentation in a video game someday trying to get certain "dominate" and "recessive" traits to manifest.


Now all our little community needs is a nice clear list of all the traits that are possible.

As I envision this, it will be a four column entry.


This is probably the most desperately needed list from this expansion for those who are serious about breeding their pets. Miguel Wildthorn gave us a great head start with his petnome mapping; unfortunately, we need this petnome mapping effort times 50 since there are now so many pets in the game. AND, since you can't dance your pet to epic anymore, this is now going to have to be a community effort to uncover the hundreds of talents and derby talents out there. AND, knowing the name of a skill and the actual effect of the skill are both needed.

In other words, Miguel could do this on his own, but it'd go a lot faster with some community involvement.

. . .

You know, the major glaring difference I see here between Gergor Mendel's work and our Wizard101 breeding is cost. It costs a whole heck of a lot more gold to breed two epic pets than it does to breed two pea plants. It'd be like Gregor Mendel starting his genetic experiments out with Snowdonia Hawkweed that was expensively flown in from Wales within a climate-controlled, transportable atrium.

So whatcha gonna do about that? I'm sensing a lot of forum gold in someone's future over on Wizard101 Central if they have the time to organize a community thread and list out the pet derby talents and pet talents. Perhaps this is something the Pet Master would be interested in. Or perhaps Miguel himself would like to take the lead and guide the community to petnome mapping success! I look forward to your ideas and comments on this one, fo' sho'!

Happy Dueling!

Three Words: Pokemon Evolution Stones

Ok, if you don't know what an Evolution Stone is in pokemon, please watch this video I found from the 4:40 minute mark to around the 5:30 minute mark (or you could watch the whole thing if you want to watch a Super Smash Bros Brawl /shrug).



So, here's my thought. What if Kingsisle put some version of the evolution stone into the game to help people evolve their pets? It could be a rare drop from bosses (similar to how the crowns shop items work now) OR if KI was feeling sassy, maybe they could actually put evolution stones into the crowns shop?

With the basic premise being that when you use an evolution stone (or whatever variant KI dreams up) it boosts your pet's experience, how much would you pay for an item that gives your pet 100, 200, 300, 400, or 500 experience points . . . thereby shortcutting the amount of mini-games you had to grind to get your pet to epic? Or, how much would you pay for an item that actually jumped your pet a full level?

Heck, they could even put variations of these stones in the game that would evolve a pet a specific amount. There could be a stone that would only evolve any pet from baby to teen, teen to adult, etc. There could be stones that only evolve death magic pets, myth magic pets, etc.

I think at this point the last remaining major worry for all of us beyond those I've stated in the past are the sheer number of mini-games we're going to have to play back-to-back with the amount of gold we need to use the hatchery with our level 48 pets. Well, if I'm out farming all this gold, I'd love the loot tables of the major bosses to also give me a chance at an evolutionary stone.

Opinions?

If not this, then I feel something else needs to be done about the pet experience situation.

hmmmm.

You know, in Everquest you can get these weapons in the game that you have to level up to make them powerful, talk to you, etc. Basically what you do is toggle a switch and all the experience that would be going to your player now goes toward your sword. Could we be given an option to level our pets through dueling as well as the mini-games? /shrug. 25 regular experience points = 1 pet experience point? You know, the problem with those mini-games (aside from there only being four to choose from) is that in the end they stop you from socializing with your friends because you're busy . . . and one of the best things about this game is that you can play and talk with people at the same time.

I'm envisioning some people will need an alternative for pet leveling . . . whether it's evolutionary stone or pet experience through dueling. something. anything.

What do you think?

Happy Dueling!

What would menu chatters like to see added to their menu?

So I was reading an interesting post by The Wizard101 Addict. And I was thinking about my own experience following a text chatter around.

Okay, now here are a few things I think should be added to the Menu Chat tabs. (My mom doesn't trust me with Text Chat. Hmmph.)

- I'm fine.
- I'm not feeling that fine (???)
- No thank you (It sounds kinda rude when somone asks you, "Do you need any help?" and you just say, "No."
- Sorry, I don't have access to that area

What are some of the other text chat options that you would like to see added for those of you that play with menu chat all the time?

Another great suggestion was recently made over on Wizard101 central: Add "May I join your battle?"

I also found this thread here that has a few more suggestions that are worth checking out. The third and fourth post down on that thread has some excellent suggestions.

Can you think of anything else that would be nice to have?