Lazy Vacation

Hey guys,
Just wanted to make a quick post since I haven't done anything on this blog during my vacation. I had a really fun time with my friends and family and I hope you all had a great holiday season and enjoyed your break. I plan on recording some more Binding of Isaac this week and uploading a Flash Friday I did with Brendan on the day of my birthday party (12/4). Hopefully I can back into the habit of doing those.

Again, sorry I've been so lazy. Now go watch some of my Isaac videos and subscribe if you haven't already.

Thanks!

Happy Gaming 

Test Realm: Celestia Housing and Malistaire an ally?

Hey everyone! The test realm is open and here are the new updates that are coming!

Celestian Housing:


Direct from Celestia - Two new Castles!
We know you've been wondering when these Castles & Lands would arrive and the industrious residents of Celestia are ready to open up shop. Here's a peek at the two new houses.

The Island Getaway

This item can be purchased for Crowns or Gold in the Crown Shop.

 

 

The Celestial Observatory

This item will challenge our players, as it will need to be crafted. See the housing turtle in Celestia for the recipe.

 

 

 

Those are both really cool looking! I like the Island Getaway, but the outside walk-able area (first picture) looks too small for my decorating space needs. :)

The Celestial Observatory is AMAZING! I love how it has the three different sections and the teleporters (second picture) are really cool! It even has a dueling circle! I love it! Great new incentive for crafters!

Next part:

How does your Garden Grow?

Since we've released Gardening to the Spiral, you've given us some feedback that let us see how players are Gardening, what's missing, what's confusing and what needs to be made more fun. Here are some updates to Gardening that will address some of these issues

1. There is a new tab in your Gardening window for pots and items.
2. The base of plants will now glow when they are ready to be harvested.
3. New Dorm rooms will start with two pots of soil.
4. To avoid confusion, the wording "Time to harvest" has been changed to "Time until Harvest" to better reflect the time is indicating how long before you can harvest that plant.
5. Gardening Treasure Cards can now be trashed by right-clicking them in your deck.
6. Also to avoid confusion, the icon indicating your plant needs magic now has a white pip to represent magic, and no longer a yellow pip which was easily confused with the 'needs sun' icon.
7. All plants now like pixies.
8. Stinkweed will now grow faster!
9. Once a plant is in a pot, you cannot pick them up!
10. You can now harvest plants while you are in the Gardening window.
11. Gnomes will no longer trip you up as you run around your Garden.
12. Treasure Cards that affect all plants now clarify that they only affect plants in the current zone of your house (indoors/outdoors)
13. Pots and plants now count towards your housing item count. There is no longer a 'gardening' item count. Each pot, plot and plant individually counts as an item in your house.
14. Enchanted soil spells now cost the correct amount of energy shown on the spell.
15. For those of you who navigate the Spiral using your mouse to move, you will no longer cast a gardening spell when you release the mouse button used to walk.
16. The Imperial Palace contained an area that you could plant on, but not reach to harvest. You can now click on plants in those areas to harvest them.

 Ok, so since I haven't started gardening yet, due to my opinions on it, I can't really comment on this, but I don't like the idea of plants counting as housing items. I find that stupid. Anyway, next update.

Life is change. Here are some minor changes in the worlds and creatures of the Spiral.

Wizard City
1. So as not to confuse our new players, Pet Snacks and Reagents will be removed from the creatures in Unicorn Way.
2. Boris Tallstaff has taken up a new location in the library.
3. Players will be given the quest "Grim Tales" at a higher level.
4. More chests have been added to Unicorn Way
5. Players will be able to get the quest "Pesky Pirates" after they have completed "Stop the Maker".
Grizzleheim
6. Orn in Grizzleheim has a new quest!
Krokotopia
7. The clue to direct you to Oka's chest is a little clearer to decipher.
Mooshu
8. Ahn Fu has decided to take a new ancestral name and is now known as Ahn Nao.
9. The Emperor is no longer missing from his bed when the player is on the quest "An Imperial Cure".
Dragonspyre
10. Dungeon time indicators have been adjusted to more accurately represent the approximate time it will take a player to complete the area.
Celestia
11. Selwyn Skywatcher and Unimatus have learned the error of their ways and will no longer cheat.
12. Celestia creatures that were appearing to resurrect after defeat should now stay defeated.
13. Speak up! Celestia characters that had no voice will once again speak their mind! You will download individual files for those that were missing their voice chat.

Other than a new quest in Grizzleheim, and Selwyn Skywatcher and Unimatus no long cheating, nothing too exciting there.

Here's some membership updates.

Current active subscribers who have paid with a credit card are now part of our Wizard101 Membership Program! As part of our Wizard101 Membership Program, players who have made a subscription purchase with a valid credit card in the last 30 days, or have an active recurring subscription will have these added features:

1. Energy will refill twice as fast.
2. Your backpack will grow to 120 slots.
3. Your Crafting Timers will now reset twice as fast.
4. Your friends list will expand to 120 people.

This does not apply to players who use their credit card to purchase Crowns.
This does not apply to players who use Gift Certificates or Gift Cards to make their purchases in Wizard101.
You will have these benefits as long as you have an active renewing membership. These benefits expire when your membership expires.

Please note, when your membership expires (you are no longer an active subscriber) your backpack will return to 100 slots and you will not be able to put more items in your backpack until you empty out the overflow. Your friends list will also return to 100 maximum, and you will not be able to add new friends until you remove the overflow.

So that's pretty cool for subscribers. I don't need to mention my views on the discrimination of crowns players

Here's some shopping updates.

Crown Shop
1. Some Gold prices have changed.
2. The 'Sale' Tab has been renamed to the Featured Tab and will now Feature items that are both on sale, and not on sale.
3. Henchmen will now sort by level not school. You can easily reorder the Henchmen in List View.

The following items will be removed from the Crown Shop, and from Zeke where applicable:

1. White Mare Mount (permanent, 7 day and 1 day rentals)
2. Purple Glider Mount (permanent, 7 day and 1 day rentals)
3. Faithful Dragoness (permanent and 7 day rental)
4. Celestian Sword

There's always the chance these items will return in the future, but for now, they will be removed from the Crown Shop & Zeke. 

 So nothing terribly exciting there either.


Here's the next (and possibly coolest) part of this coming update.

Crafting
1. Golden Pearls and Pearls will be slightly easier to find.
2. Arcane Ampule recipe now calls for Mutate Minotaur Treasure Cards, not Elucidite Treasure Cards
3. Celestian Stilletto recipe now calls for Giant Treasure Cards, not Simplify Treasure Cards
Pets
4. Ice Hounds will now cast their own spells, and won't make the player cast for them!
5. The Polar Cat now gives 1 Dragonblade Card as intended.
6. Jade Oni and Earthwalker pets will now have the chance of manifesting spells that match their school.
Mounts
7. The Charity Meowmodon has had its speed increased to 40% to match the other permanent mounts.
Housing
8. The Housing menu will now indicate how many free Housing slots you have.
9. Owners of the Castles & Lands that contain a PvP circle can now boot any players engaged in a duel in their house.
10. Players can no longer sell a house that still contains pets.
11. Grizzleheim wallpaper & tile are available at the Grizzleheim furniture store!
Spells
12. A new Treasure Card Pack has arrived in the Crowns Shop: The Hand of Doom Pack! Summon world bosses to fight at your side!
13. Efreet's Weakness effect can now be removed by Cleanse Charm
14. Level 60 Ice Henchman has an improved deck and will taunt less frequently.
Energy
15. So as not to confuse our new Wizards, the Energy globe will not appear until a player has a pet or completes the Gardening introduction quest.

So, easier crafting, better pets, increased Meowmodon speed (should have been +40% from the start,) more control of who's in our house, safer pets, new Grizzleheim housing supplies, and what's this? Yeah, 'The Hand of Doom' is going to be beast as heckhound! I can't wait to pull out a Meowiarty card and fight with that cool cat! And it's not little bosses like Lady Blackhope, (although she IS pretty powerful [Ambrose to Zeke's fan-fic]) it's going to be JUST world bosses! (Lord Nighshade, Krokopatra, Meowiarty, Jade Oni, Malistaire, and Mithraya [possibly Astraeus and Ptolemos too!]) It'll be SO cool!

So, hop onto that test realm and let me know how that is!

Happy Gaming 

The Spiral Is Blossoming

Friendly is proven correct once again. We are coming out with a new expansion VERY soon. GARDENING! We will now be able to have items that allow us to harvest reagents, treasure cards, pet snacks, and other helpful items directly from our home! (It will cost energy to cast gardening spells. This is drawn from our pet energy globe.) Sounds really fun! (There is no official press announcement on this feature just yet, so when W101 tells us about it expect something from me.)


Here's a picture from Paige Moonshade:

And a good post from Tipa.
Another addition to the update will be Celestian Furniture, such as this Brain Coral from Selenor,

Yeah, when I herd that I thought of that Spongebob episode too.

http://www.spike.com/video/spongebob/2773872 (I couldn't find a clip of it. Skip to around 9:25.)

and there's this Solar Icon (which I absolutely love!) from Mirthraya.

There are also going to be furniture salesman in the Base Camp.

I'll keep you guys updated on these 2 great new additions to the Spiral. They are both available in the Test Realm currently. (Even though it says it's closed.)

Enjoy.

Happy Gaming

Pet Pavillion

YES! Finally KI made an announcement about the test realm. They released a video about the all-new pet update! It's going to be EPIC! The addition will include:

• The ability to set our pets free in our castles and lands.
• Get our pets excercise in the Pet Derby (looks like a racing game. ALL NEW PVP TYPE w00t! Friendly will love that!)
• Buy or craft treats to make our pets happy.
• Let them have some fun with minigames. (I don't know if they are making all new pet-exclusive mingames, or it our pets can help us in the existing games...Dueling Diego with an imp? WIN!)
• Create new pets with the "magic of hatching." (In other words, we can breed our pets. I assume there will be a "No breeding a bred pet." rule. For example, you can't breed a cylops/storm hound with an imp. But, you can breed a cyclops with a storm hound. Like the one I made (shown below.)
• Watch as our pets cast their own spells in battle.

Yeah, it's a pretty bad edit, I know. I just threw it together in a few minutes.

In order to be able to access these sweet new features after you defeat Sergeant Skullsplitter on Triron Avenue, (Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.) and hit lvl 7. The Pet Pavillion will be accessed through a tunnel in the commons. I have no idea where they can fit one though. Maybe over by the fairgrounds, near the Smith.

In other news, I got a nice surprise when I checked my e-mail today. Turns out Autumnal Dusk, that's right Friendly, the Autumnal Dusk (She runs Homework In A Graveyard. I'll put the link in the sidebar.) is following me on Twitter! w00t! I'm pretty excited! I mean, Friendly and his daughter (Is Amber her real name?, I'm not sure.) both read my blog. (I'm not sure about Kyle.), but this is my second W101 blogger that is going to be reading my blog and following me (not stalker-like though. XD)

Well Autumn, welcome, I hope you enjoy it over here in AwesomeSauceLand!

I think that's everything.

Happy Gaming