Happy Thanksgiginv! (Head Nod To Friendly)

Ok guys. I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving. (or Thanksgiginv as Blaze Mistshard calls it.)

I had a great time this weekend hanging out with Donna Spellthorn and a ton of other bloggers at the Piggle Rally. (I think Piggle Palooza sounds better.) Shame I only found out about it a few hours before it was gonna start. I could've made a sick logo and glog to promote it. (I LOVE doing stuff like that so please don't hesitate to shoot me an e-mail. [blazesilverfist@gmail.com for those who don't know. I probably should add some text in the sidebar with that on it.]) 

Anyway, here's some pictures from the party. Oh, did I mention it was at Donna's MASSIVE FANTASY PALACE!?!?!

There were just a ton of awesome people there. Leesha Darkheart and Stephen Spiritcaller (Ravenwood Radio,) Paige Moonshade (Paige's Page,) Amber Rosepetal, Donna Spellthorn obviously, (Diary of a Life Wizard,) Arlen Dawneyes, (The Two-Headed Wizard,) Benjamin Frogstone, Heather Raven, (The Wandering Conjurer,) Christina Icedreamer (IcyWiz from Ravenwood Radio,) Fallon, and even Cassandra Griffindreamer (WitchWarrior101. Most of you probably know her from Friendly's song: here.)

Thomas Lionblood (Friendly's main,) Bailey Skystaff (Mrs. Friendly) and Kevin Battleblood, (The Chillanthropologist, Petnome,) couldn't make it, but it was still a rockin' party.

It was set up really well. There was a huge Thanksgiving Feast / Piggle Pen inside the great hall.

We never actually got to hang inside though because everyone just mysteriously disappeared after a while. (You guys have some serious explaining to do. ;D) When I came back from supper everyone was completely gone. Even Donna! I texted her and her and a the few others had gone to another house.

Before the party, as I mentioned, Donna, Amber, and I hung out. We had a witch hunt, where Donna (being a witch) would hide, and me and her friend Alura would have to find her. We even had an intense chase scene.

I played 'Alice's Theme' (Danny Elfman) from the Alice in Wonderland Soundtrack. Made the chase SO much better!)

Here's me confronting the witch in her dungeon.

Donna and I wore our pilgrim clothes and visited the first Thanksgiving together too!

(Clicky make biggy as with all my pictures.)

Make sure you go get some cool pilgrim duds from Harvest Hannah as well as a cool Autum/Fall/or Corn Wand. (I love my wand. CORN POWERS, GO!)

Many of you remember my picture on where we theorycrafted Eggbert goes when he's not visiting the Spiral.

Yeah, hanging out with Miley Cyrus. Well, I looked closer and saw that it actually wasn't Miley he was with. It was Hannah! (Harvest Hannah. Not to be confused with Hannah Montana.) Which is ironic considering Miley is Hannah Montana.)

Funny, isn't it? Maybe all our Shopping District friends go to this beach when they're on vacation.

In closing, remember our monthly poll. (Only 14 days left to vote.) Choose what song you want me to use for the Wizard101 music video I plan on making, starring YOU GUYS! (I list the song, artist, and how many wizards I would need for the video.)

Thanks guys. Have a great week.

Happy Gaming

Cast A Change

The time is here. The final details for the party of the year. With help from Arlen Daweyes and Kestrel Shadowthistle, I present to you, the Cast A Change party!

(Yes I made the logo. ;D)

This party is to help promote taking good care of the environment. I named it "Cast A Change" because everyone can make a difference in the world no matter how small it may seem. ("Cast" because we're wizards, but you could figure that out on your own, right?)

The party will be taking place at not only Kestrel's Life House, but also Arlen's new Marleybone Mansion, and my Balance House. (Maybe I can take you to my Desert Villa to show you all The Stairs v1.0 If you all behave, we'll see. ;D)

We're going to be having "port bus" waves every so often so you will be able to come join the party. For those who don't know, a port bus is a person (typically one of the hosts) that stays in the meeting location (in this case, the Life Tower) and goes back and forth between the house holding the party, and the meeting location, allowing guests to port. I don't know the times for the buses just yet, but we will notify you all when we figure it out.

Here's a the poster that I made on Glogster. (You can click on the videos to play them without leaving this page. Click on the pictures of Alren, Kestrel or Me, to go to the respective blog.) Please, pass this poster on to all your W101 friends. We can make a difference in the world.




Thank you all so much! I hope everyone in the entire Spiral can come. The Earth needs our help. I know we can help out in some way.

Recycle, Use a water bottle instead of buying plastic ones, use both sides of a piece of paper, there are so many ways. I hope you all try your best to help out and teach your family and friends how to also.

Thank you again. I'll keep you updated with info about the party.

Happy Green Gaming

#Twizards Party w/ Arlen Dawneyes and Kestrel Shadowthistle

That's right everyone, Arlen Dawneyes of The Two Headed Wizard, Kestrel Shadowthistle of The Shadowthistle School of Wizardry, and I are going to be hosting a party. Now, this isn't going to be just any old party. It's going to be a party to help promote taking good care of the environment. We're still working out some of the details, but I promise to keep you all posted. I'm working on a Glog right now for you all to e-mail and tweet and whatnot to help spread the word. As of now the party is planned for the 11th of next month, but the date is tentative. We all can do our part to help make a difference in the world. I highly encourage all of you to come to the party and to start doing your part to help the Earth.

Thank you.

Happy Gaming

Enchanted Trading R.I.P.

Hey, as amost of you know, I wasn't able to make it to the Ravenwood Ball last night. I had a great time with Philly, etc yesterday though. (I'm going over David's to chill with just him and Philly tonight.) But that's not what I'm here to talk about today.

I want to discuss the loss of our ability to trade enchanted cards. I'm sure many of you are very dissapointed in this collosus-sized event in the history of the Spiral. But is it really such a bad thing?

Let me start with a quote from via Friendly's blog:

"The trading of enchanted cards was never intended; it was an error on our part that players were able to use this system to gain access to spells they were never suppose to receive. Yes, this has been an issue in PvP, but that's really a minor part of the overall problem (as PvP is a relatively minor part of the overall W101 experience.)

Please understand that we went to great lengths to craft and balance the difficulty and "fun factor" of our game. We spent thousands of hours pouring over spreadsheets, implementing, testing, and then repeating that process until we got it right. We planned for players to have "easy" fights and "hard" fights. We planned on solo areas, and areas where we wanted them to ask other players for assistance, fostering social connections. As part of this process -- and to make each class feel special -- we created a handful of custom, unique spell that were restricted to each class. We wanted each player to feel like they could do something that other players could not. Each class was engineered to have areas of strength and weakness, so that the style of game play (and strategy) would different from one player to the next. We wanted to foster a sense of identity, to make the game interesting (and different) based on the path that the player chose to follow, and (of course) to make the game balanced across 300+ hours of gameplay.

After all that effort, we made a mistake, one which allowed player to use 50 gold enchantment cards to circumvent these class restriction. Oops! I wish this mistake had never been made in the first place; had the class restrictions been properly enforced from the beginning, players would have thought "well, that makes sense" and not given it another thought.

The problem is, this may seem like a minor issue, but it is not. This one oversight fundamentally dilutes the unique nature of each class. Replicating these spells creates a huge imbalance in our system, not just in PvP, but in the overall play cycle and in the experience of the game we spent so much time and energy crafting. If everyone can cast everything, what's the point of having classes at all? To borrow a phrase from The Incredibles, "When everyone's Super, then no one is." In my eyes, being able to mass produce a collection of class-restricted, high level spells for a trivial amount of gold falls pretty clearly into the category of stuff we should fix. And so, we are fixing it.

I certainly realize that you may not agree with this decision. Much
like a parent sometimes the "right" decision is not necessarily the most popular one. In this case, I recognize that some people will be unhappy with this fix. But as the director of the game, I have to look out for the health of the game as a whole. It's my call to make, and I stand by my decision. You may not agree, but I do hope you will understand."

~J. Todd Coleman

Ok, let me try and sum up what you just read: They didn't originally intend for us to be able to trade crafted cards because they wanted some spells to be school only spells. Thats why there are cards that don't drop from enemies. KI wanted there to be something special about each school, but if everyone can cast every spell, then what's the point in the different schools?

That's right, Syndrome. When everyone is super, no one is.

The special spells that were meant to be school-specific were really cool ones, like the lvl48's, Judgement, Satyr, Earthquake, Wildbolt (<--PvP will be better now), all the buffs, etc. PvP will be much better now, because only diviners will cast wild bolt, (we won't be beaten by n00bs with orthrus anymore ;D) and only life will be able to heal.

And once again, Balance will be brought back into the Spiral.

Because of this huge part of the update, about a week before it went live, I gave Emily some cards:

• 1 Cyclops
• 1 Humungofrog
• 1 Orthrus
• 1 Death Trap
• 1 Ghoul
• 1 Vampire
• 4 Skeletal Pirate
• 2 Wraith
• 1 Scarecrow
• 1 Strom Trap
• 4 Wild Bolt
• 1 Kraken
• 4 Stormzilla
• 9 Triton
• 7 Storm Lord
• 10 Judgement
• 6 Krokotillian
• 1 Locust Swarm
• 8 Hydra
• 25 Power Nova

Now, you're alll probably wondering, "Blaze, what the heckhound were you thinking, giving away all those cool cards?" Well, one of my very first posts was about how much I care about Emily, and how important our friendship is to me. Now, I'm almost a grandmaster (I dinged 49 the other day. I'll post some screenshots later.) I'm very confident in my casting abilities, I don't need any of those cards. My dad won't give me money for them in the bazaar. (He says it's against the rules. Otherwise he would take them, but Professor Drake would be very angry I:) So, why not give them to someone that can use them.

Now, I know Emily isn't a n00b (she knows a lot about the game) but she is at a low level still. I'm positive these cards will be of use to her, and I'm sure she'll save a Judgement as a sentimental thing. My last gift to her, you know? (I remember when I gifted her that bandit suit. And I'll be sure to gift her more items that she'd like, once I get more crowns.)

Again, I apologize for making such a lengthy post, but oh well.

I'm going to head over to the Spiral (I finished my science project finally.) until I have to head over to my 2nd house. ;D

Happy Gaming

Pool Party

Hey everyone, the month is almost over so make sure you've voted on the poll! I'm heading over to Emily, Erica, Aunt Debbie, and Uncle Mike's house with David and Philly. We're having a BBQ and pool party. Most likely James and Jillian will be there too, so the whole crew will be there. ;D

No, I haven't set up an e-mail for TAS (The Awesome Sauce-erer) yet. But, I promise the next time that I post, I will tell you about the gift that I gave Emily, before the trading ability left (well enchanted cards anyway.)

In other news, Friendly made a list of all his pets and their talents today. So I'll be posting that link in the post where I talked about all his pets (as soon as I find it.) Kevin Battleblood (The Chillanthropologist) has set up a wonderful website where we can enter our pets talents. This will eventually be turned into a guide (like Ironhawk's guides over at the central) So, his blog is in my blogroll, be sure to check out the site and please enter the talent information of all your pets. Make sure you're accurate about the info (so our guide is 100% perfect.)

Thanks guys

Happy Gaming

Surprise Tomorrow

Hi everyone, I just got home from David's tonight. I'm going to make a very exciting awesomesauce post tomorrow which will leave you with your jaw dropped. (As I was when it happened to me.) I really need to go to bed right now. I'll talk to you as soon as I can tomorrow.

Happy Gaming

Apologies & Party

Hi guys, sorry I didn't get to post yesterday. I have two projects that I have to do for school, (Science, and History, in case you were wondering,) and I really need to work on those. History is due next Friday, and Science is due in the middle of next month, but it's a big project, that requires a lot of work. My mind is just bestuffed (word courtesy of Friendly here) with all the things that I need to do.

So, tonight my Mom, David's mom, and his Aunt Debbie, are going ou tshopping together, while Aunt Debbie's two girls, Emily and Erica, and niece and nephew, James and Jillian, Aunt Debbie's parents, her husband, Uncle Mike, David, his dad, my dad, and myself, party over at Aunt Debbie's parent's house.

I always have fun being with them, so I'm pretty excited. David's dad is picking my dad and me up in a few minutes, so I have to go right now.

Happy Gaming

Celestia Artwork

Hey, I'm at my friend's house. It's his uncle's birthday today. :D I love birthdays. They're so exciting.

So, I'm on my friend's mac-book (sp?) It's pretty awesomesauce, I mean, I love my desktop, but this is pretty awesome, even for a laptop. ;D

Anyway, Friendly got some pretty sweet concept art for Celestia from the folks over at KingsIsle. Gosh, you gotta love those guys. They didn't give us any of the actual people in the picture. They're gave silohuettes of the creatures. The humanoids look like they might be Marleybonians. Also the machinery in the background looks like the stuff in MB. So, I'm guessing the Marleybonians are exploring Celestia and we'll need to help them out, like in Krokatopia.



I'll upload the picture he gave us, tomorrow, because it's obviously not saved on my friend's computer. (He thinks W101 is stupid. O: Yeah I know, it's ridiculous. How can you hate a game as awesome as this?)

For now, just click on the look over in the good ol' sidebar and check out his post on it.

I'll talk to you guys probably late late night tomorrow. As I have piano lessons on Thursdays and we'll definitely have a lot of homework, as usual on Thursdays. (That's why I call it "Poopy Thursday.")

Happy Gaming

Happy Mudkip Day!

It's my favorite day of the year. Yuppers, it's Mudkip Day! (This is NOT an April Fools joke.) What's that? You've NEVER heard of Mudkip Day? Well, let me tell you the short and awesome story about how it started.

So, once upon a time, on Deviant Art, on April 1st, some insanely awesome hacker changed everyone's profile pic to a picture of a cute little mudkip. So now, every April 1st, we all celebrate Mudkip Day instead of April Fool's Day.

I even wore my "Happy Mudkip Day Shirt." It's a one-of-a-kind shirt. I made it myself last year (well, with the help of my mom.) It's white with this picture on it:

(Courtesy of Vampire Pumpkin over at Deviant Art)

Pretty awesomesauce huh?

So, Happy Mudkip Day to all.

No, I haven't played W101 yet today. XD I probably won't get a chance to go on today. I have a party at a friend's tonight. I: Oh well. I'll definitely be on over the LONG WEEKEND! Yay for Good Friday!

So, I'll talk to you guys tomorrow.

Happy Gaming