Back So Soon?

Surprise! I'm back sooner than I thought. I had an awesome time on vacation. Yesterday Philly, Vanya (David's cousin that was adopted from Russia) and I, went to see The Sorcerer's Apprentice. All I can say is EPIC. I'd love to see some of the stuff in that movie in Wizard101. It'd be crazy.

Tomorrow I might make more than one post, so just be ready to be reading more than usual.

I'm really glad to be home again, and I'm heading through my Spiral Door as I post this.

Happy Gaming

Ahhhh I Can Relax...

Hey everyone. We got here about an hour ago. Man, I'm lying on the couch typing away on my ipod (I apologize in advance for the typos. ;D) and man do I feel great. It's so nice to be away from all the stress of daily life and just relax here with family and friends.


I can't guarantee that I'm going to post tomorrow and Sunday, but I will certainly try. Now, I don't have any of the pictures that I need(or the capability to post them) from my ipod, so expect just a big wall of text (head nod to Friendly on that [expect a link when I get home.)]


As for now, I just wanted to let you all know that we got here safely and I'm really enjoying myself.


Happy Gaming

Vacation Once Again

Hey everyone, today I'm going to be going on vacation with David's family and my parents. I can't say where because well, who likes stalkers? ;D

All I can say is that I know I'll have a great time with David, Philly and the rest of the family that will be there.

It's only going to be for the weeked, and I have quite a few post ideas for when I get back. So be prepared to be reading and playing a lot when I return. (You'll wanna try some of this stuff out ;D)

Happy Gaming

Seriously?: A Little Rant

Ok, first of all I'd like to say that last night I went out with my Mom, Dad, David, his parents, his aunt and uncle, and Philly, and his dad and grandparents. We had a wonderful time at a very nice restaurant. Later we all went back over to David's and jc'd. (jc = "Just Chilling" for all those noobs out there. ;D)

But, none of that is the point of this post. Today I am having a little rant because of the comments I received on the previous post. In the post I clearly stated that everyone who entered the contest had guessed correctly and won. I received two comments (it may not seem like a lot but it's enough to make me upset.) asking "lol did I win?" and saying "I feel sad that I didn't win. :( It's not my fault that I don't have a membership. AND I WAS FIRST TO POST A COMMENT! :( x sigh x I hate not being a member." Seriously? Here's the comment I was going to post, but decided making a new post would have a better impact.

@Alyssa and everyone else who is reading this:
EVERYONE WHO POSTED A COMMENT WON! IF YOU READ THE WHOLE POST YOU WOULD KNOW THAT! IT BOTHERS ME THAT YOU GUYS ARE ASKING ME SOMETHING THAT I TOLD YOU IN THE POST. SERIOUSLY. I MEAN, WHAT DOES THAT SAY ABOUT MY BLOG? THAT IT'S TOO BORING TO READ THE WHOLE POST? COME ON GUYS.

This isn't even the first time it's happened. Go back through my comments sections and see.

I hope from now on I don't have to explain to someone that if they read the whole post, they would know what's going on.

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

Another Magic-Filled Day

Hello everyone, there's not too much to talk about today, but I suppose if there wasn't too much, then I wouldn't be making this post.

Today has been very fun so far.

When I went on W101 today, Emily and Alyssa were on. And after a while of talking, Emily and I discovered that she lives a few towns away from me. Isn't that awesomesauce right there?

This morning I watched the rest of 2012 with my dad. That was a fantastic movie. I really hope that all never happens irl though.

I just watched The Blind Side with my mom. That was also a great movie. I'm glad that there are still good-hearted people in the world.

If you're wondering where I was yesterday (which I'm sure you all are) I was over at David's because it was his birthday on Friday. (If you wish him a happy birthday in the comments, you get +10 Brownie Points ;D) I watched a movie with Philly too. It was called The Thaw. (It's a horror movie, so I suggest you not watch it if you get scared easily. There is some language in the movie, so make sure it's ok with your parents before watching it.) It's about a parasite that comes from a wooly mammoth that a scientist discoved that has thawed out of a glacier. The parasite gets a whole bunch of people infected obviously. I was a little freaked out because I'm very scared of bugs (much like the character, Federico, in the movie) but me and Philly turned the scary parts into funny parts, through the art of commentary.

I also finally finished a quest that has been bugging me since I left Mooshu: Fushiko. This quest was nearly impossible for me when I got it. At first I couldn't even beat the second candle mob, even with a potion after the first candle. I finally got to the boss fight but died quickly. I then just gave up on the quest and moved on. The only reason I even started the quest was to get the book in Fusiko's lair. Yes, I do the book quests. Of course I can't just port into the room through a friend that's already done the, I suppose you could call it an instance, because only one person can do it at a time because it's supposed to test our strength. (Clearly I wasn't strong enough.) Once I got partway through Dragonspyre, I tried again, still no. Now that I've beaten Malistaire, and gotten to level forty eight, I was finally able to beat her.

The weird thing about it was, that when I lit the second candle, the two ghosts appeared, but only one went into battle with me. This made the instance a whole lot easier because I got to fight them one at a time. Now, before you comment asking me "How the heck did you do that, Blaze?", let me tell you that I have absolutely no clue. I'm assuming it just wasn't within the "pull-in" range of the battle circle.

Yeah, I only had a little over 600 health left. But I was still able to pull the rug from under her. (Does that even work in this case?)

In other news, Emily got a new outfit, and leveled up to 14. This now means that in one level, she will be able to wear all new gear and purchase a castle and land. She doesn't really want a castle just yet because she's still pretty attached to her dorm. You all should see it, it's just gorgeous! I'll have to take some pictures of it and show you guys. It's so neat and organized. She calls it her library because there are 31 (let me know if I remember incorrectly, Emily) books in the room. (Emily loves to read, in case you couldn't tell.

And, finally, I was on twitter today, and found this picture posted by Merle. I've been told he has a mean right-hand swing. Better watch out KI!

I love how well KI puts the characters into the pictures and makes it look SO realistic! It's so inspiring for me (I love to use PhotoShop and image editing software, as you can tell from the few edits I've made [Eggbert's Vacation, and the Troll Drummer.])

I believe that's everything that I have to talk about...oops, I almost forgot. Tomorrow I'm going to be posting my idea for the storm lvl 58 spell. (I can't post it now because we're going over David's now.)

Happy Gaming

How To Train Your Dragon

Hey, so today at 12:00, Philly and I went to the movie theater with my mom to go see How To Train Your Dragon. It was a great movie. I'm over at David's house right now, trying to explain to Philly what the "plot" of my blog is. Rofl. Such a n00b.

He, like David, finds Wizard101 stupid. He even tried it. He was a fire wizard, and apparently after 5 minutes he got "bored."

x sigh x

Ten year-olds. You can never please them.

x shrug x

So anyway, the movie was fantastic! I really enjoyed it. If you haven't seen it yet, you definitely should right away.

So, the pet of the day is good ol' Flappy. (The lightning bat, for all those who don't follow Friendly's blog. x grumble grumble x) Yeah, poor Friendly doesn't have any lightning bats. I wish I had one that I could let him BS (Bazaar Snipe XD.)

So, I probably won't be able to go on Wiz101 today. As, I'll probably be staying at David's till 11:00 once again. So much for getting a good sleep tonight. Oh, well.

My mom says I should get one because she says that I sound really sick, but I feel perfectly fine.

Also, this morning, while getting ready to go pick up Philly, from David's house, this song from Alice In Wonderland, was stuck in my head. It's called "How D'ye Do And Shake Hands." You can fast foreward to around 00:38. That's where the song begins. The video also include the story of The Walrus and The Carpenter. (That's my favorite part of the entire movie.)



Cause that's manners. Maybe tomorrow I can play Button Button Who's Got The Button with Alyssa, and Emily. That would be fun! :D

Yeah, this song was stuck in my head because yesterday I was playing on my other wizards (I'll introdce them tomorrow ;D) and one of them, Samantha, is very nice, and Alyssa was introducing me to some of her friends, so I started singing this wonderful song. XD

Have a nice day and:

Happy Gaming

Level 47

Yuppers, I finally hit lvl 47. I was in Chelsea Court, or maybe it was Newgate Prison...No, it was Chelsea Court. I don't know what exactly did it for me. I was questing, and I just did one for David Beeman. (I then needed to defeat 8 gearheads.) Then while I was fighting the gearheads, I looked down at my quest bar and BAM! It was only a half a section full! I had done it! I finally made it one level higher! No, I wasn't able to get a screenshot. (Remember, I didn't even notice until it was already a half section in?) Thanks Mr. Beeman!

Super sorry I didn't make a post yesterday. I was, you could say babysitting, but that would be inaccurate. You see, David (That's the friend that I've talked about countless times. Our families are very close. His relatives are my relatives too. It's a great connection that our families have. As a matter of fact, we're going bowling tonight with his cousins.)

Anyway, David's family was going to a cousin's club meeting yesterday, and David's cousin, Philly, is staying for the week. (He came down on Friday night for the big birthday party [I know, again, a LOT of birthdays in David's family] on Saturday.) He's allergic to dogs, so he couldn't go to the meeting. So, being the nice guy I am, I stayed over at David's house for the day, to be with Philly, so he wasn't by himself. (He's 10. Think what could happen O. o)

I know, David has a ton of computers, but honestly my blog wasn't even on my mind yesterday. Ridiculous, I know. Shame shame, I know your name. (That's from The Goonies. I say that a lot, when someone does something wrong XD)

Have a great day!

Oh, before I forget, Friendly wrote a very motivational post today, about how we should stand up for ourselves when people say Wizard101 is a "kid's game." Check it out!
http://thefriendlynecromancer.blogspot.com/2010/04/playing-kids-game-is-awesome.html

Happy Gaming