Pixie Love

Who ever heard of a pest being lovely? Have you discovered pixies yet in your garden?

Where else but in the Spiral would a pest be lovely? (Actually some of the things that we consider pests on the real life server can be quite helpful. Many of the plants that people call weeds are actually very helpful - like the lowly dandelion. Its fresh leaves can be cooked or eaten raw, and its roots can be made into a tea or tincture as a very potent healing tonic.)

I dug up my old garden layout last night, inspired by the idea that I could harvest MOAR mega pets snacks! There are still a few plants left from the old layout. I've left them where they are until they reach elder. What is so very nice about these plants is that some of them have pixies, and those pixies are affecting about one half of the new mega pet snack garden layout.

I don't know if I will keep on growing laugh o dils. Their "razzberry" noise gets to me after a little while of weeding in the garden. Still, look at those pixies! Not just one, but three pixies here.

They must really love their fountain, and especially their water mole statue. It took about three weeks to find it on the bazaar, and then when I did, I actually found two of them within an hour, just after I had become Legendary. Thank you, Wizard, for the graduation present.

Final picture is this sweet picture of the love of a venus fly trap for its pixie friend. Aww, have you ever seen such a look of adoration?

How does your garden grow? Prickly Bears

Iridian's Prickly Bear patch, about 12 hours after planting. It is coming along so nicely that I just had to show it off.

Gardening for Pets

This is my new layout for pet snack production, mostly hoping for a high yield of mega pet snacks. Rowan is here with Samson, doesn't he look quite proud and serious? I had to face Rowan and Samson looking down so that I could show as much of the layount as possible.

In the front in the small pots are pink dandelions. Just behind them are 4 snapdragons, flanked on the left by the chameleon statue. The rest of the plants are pretty much in a circle; I have not tried this type of layout before, but I kept missing a few of my plants on the edges with my old layout, so I decided to more clearly define the edges of the garden, and make certain that I can no longer miss plants with the pest killer. That can be costly.

On the right side of the garden, in medium pots and going counter clockwise are an evil snow pea, a venus fly trap, and a honeysickle. From the top of the circle, still going counter clockwise toward the pool, are my six deadly helephant ears. The top helephant ear is just out of the area of the pool, so when I replant, I will plant it in the empty pot on the lower left side of the circle. It is late, so I am not going to go into great detail about all the liked items, but they are all positioned behind and to the sides of the garden.

What you cannot see is that I have tucked four magma peas, one boomshroom and a ninja fig just behind this garden, because one of those (which I cannot now remember) also likes the weapon rack that is liked by one of the plants in the large garden circle.

It has been very confusingt to me as to how to make a layount which includes plants that like plants AND include all the other housing items plant likes. I made simple diagrams, and if I am ambitious and organized enough, I'll scan them and put them up here ... I said IF, and that is a big if. They are really easy to read and contain all the information, and I'd like to share them ... but these days, the best laid plans ... do gang aft aglay.

Here is Iridian's new prickly bear garden. I thought it was a rather nice and tidy layout, with the Pile of Sand and Krok Insect Tablet just behind, and the Tropical Garden Gnome tucked neatly in, just behind the Tablet. It is a quiet spot, with the sound of the waterfall in the background. I have not grown prickly bears yet, so I am interested to see what the pet snack yield will be for them. I don't think that they drop mega snacks, but I do know that I have regularly gathered mega snacks from Deadly Helephant Ears and Snap Dragons. I also have not grown Magma Peas, so I am looking forward to see what they will yield in the way of tasty uber pet snacks.

I have leveled Rowan's Life pets recently - satyr and forest lord, aka wookie, as well as the death pony that was available from the crown shop during the hallowe'en period. That takes a lot of food, and when I get to that last stretch of 1,000 points to Epic, I just want to run away. Mega snacks help me to go on!

Time Keeps on Slipping, Slipping, Slipping ...

... into the future!

So much happens ingame, and then nothing, and then the real life server acts up, and before I know it ... could have had twenty-something blog posts, and I end up with none.

The past few weeks I have mostly been on Rowan (Life wizard), headed toward Legendary. My Fire wizard friend James and I have been doing all our old quest lines, waiting for time on the weekend to do the two hour dungeon that finishes the main quest line in Wintertusk.

I had a quest that sent me to Colossus Boulevard ... Briskbreeze Tower? Ugh ... don't  ever go there, unless you really like being mean to yourself ... and I mean REALLY. Several levels of cheating baddies, and just when we were about to defeat the final boss, James' Life wizard Gabriel (he had stepped in to help with the dungeon, as for some reason James could not enter) died, I rezzed him, then he died again, and I was quite near death. I held off for two rounds, but was down to 130 life, and that last little death sprite, with plus damage, took me down. Gabriel did not get back in time, but he could run back up to the top, avoiding the mobs on the way. As I went back to join him, I got caught. I lagged out of a doorway and before I could turn around, I lagged into the group of mobs on that  floor.

I was able to flee and get back to Gabriel. We did finally get the boss down, but the time spent, the lack of xp and the lack of rewards made the whole experience seem quite demeaning and just downright cruel.

Wizard, WHAT were you thinking?

Lucky 13 and Krokotopia

Due to my avid pursuit of mounts that are only available through purchase of various card packs, I have ended up with a lot, and I mean A LOT of extra housing items. I now have more trees that I could ever have imagined.

Rowan, my lvl 55 Life wizard, had the standard three houses allowed by the game, but soon she ran out of room to plant all the trees. Too bad for her, she was forced (ahem) to drink a terrible tasting potion, after which she felt a great expansiveness in her mind, and was then able to buy the new Sun Palace. Poor little wizard. Now, even with an epic house, she has run out of room for trees! Whatever shall she do?

She called upon the aid of her cousin, Tavia WindBlade. Luckily, Tavia herself was having a bit of difficulty finding space in her dorm room to put all the things she was acquiring on her way through the Spiral. It seems that she too had caught Card Fever, but Rowan was too polite to say anthing about it. Rowan also did not want her habit to be called to anyone's attention. Wizards can sometimes be very kind to each other.

Tavia told Rowan that of course she'd take that 10 acre plot of trees off her hands, as she hoped to soon be in a position to buy her first real home.

Tavia was lvl 13, and needed to be 15 before she could buy a house. She ran about Wizard City, tying up loose ends, completing her quest lines. She still had to go back into Colossus Boulevard, and she was not looking forward to it - especially all those rude mannered gobblers. Then, she got send on an errand into the Haunted Cave, to investigate the Stormdrain Tower. She prefered anything to those dirty gobblers, even the very evil and powerful Lord Nightshade.

Down went Lord Nightshade and his evil companion, and to her surprise, when Tavia reported back to Headmaster Ambrose, she was given a spiral key! Her first! With a few more preparations, she was allowed to use the key to move through the Spiral to Krokotopia!

Oh, dear, she thought, it will take a long, long time to get through the last part of level 13 and on through to 15 and her new home. She settled in for the long haul, and began meeting all the new folks around Krokotopia and helping them out as she could. She ran here and there, in and out of dusty and dangerous crypts and archeological digs, but she did not complain. She was treated very well by all those she met, and before she knew it, Simeon Firemane had sent her a message to see him near the dorms back in Ravenwood. Simeon, didn't he have something to do with housing? She hurried back, and Simeon told her to visit Buxley Turtleton at the Furniture store in Wizard City shopping district! Well, the news was great, and soon Tavia had a lovely Myth house of her very own.

Tavia was so grateful to all those lovely Manders and the excavation site crew of archaeologists, who made her journey from 13 to 15 so fast and so pleasant.

Next came the truckloads of trees ...

Tomfoolery, aka House Hacking

I love player housing. I have found, though, that there are often times that I just cannot put something where I want to, or I start thinking about ... hmm, what if I could put that over there. This has ended up with me playing around and pushing the limits of the housing scheme, and finally to tomfoolery! In other words, making housing features and items do things that they otherwise would not do. A little persuasion.

After accidentally moving a rug, I found that rugs could be used to move things to places that they otherwise could not be. After a little research, a whole new world opened up to me - the world of Floating! With a few rugs, some crates and other various items, I really started to move outside the box. I also saw others' houses, and things that they had done. Most like to keep their tomfoolery to themselves, I have found. There are a few generous souls who have posted in their blogs about how they have achieved the seeming undoable, and I am very grateful for that. Without posts on the Wizard forums, house videos and fansite blogs, I would not have gone far.

Above is my first attempt at adding platforms to my rug runways. I was just goofing off, this is more of a sketch that what I shall actually create. Right now I am working on applying floating techniques and glitches to my little Myth wizard's house. I'll post the results when I am finished.

Happy floating, Friends!

Diversity

What shall I do now? What shall I not do now?

It amazes me when someone in Wizard101 says "I'm bored". It seems that I can never find enough time to do all that I want in the game. Of course, I am just coming back after not really playing for a year. When I started, it was a few months after the launch of the game, and the cap was level 30. Now it is level 60, soon to be 70!

My main character, Rowan WindFlower, is a Life wizard. Her secondary school is Balance.

Besides working on getting to level  60, I also love to decorate my homes, care for and train my pets and develop my crafting skills. Over this last weekend, leveling became the most important activity. When one finds a friend who is on the same course, then advancing one's game progress becomes more important than improving pets, or deciding which sofa goes with which rug.

This week, however, I hope to catch up more on getting my houses more in order. Besides the additions of housing drops, I have taken advantage of the Nightmare card packs, as well as my usual purchases of the other card decks. I want that wyvern mount! I don't know if it will ever be mine, though I have purchased way too many packs of those cards to even want to remember. -sigh-

Due to my card purchases, though, I have ended up with a great deal of housing items, many of them being trees. I love trees! I have put the trees to good use in my homes, turning my Krokotopia palace into an oasis in the desert. It is my favourite house. Although there is not a lot of land, there is a great diversity in the areas, and it feels much larger to me than it actually is. The taller trees grow through more than one level of the land, creating a very lush area, which is quite fun to travel through from top to bottom.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Krokotopia palace, it is a four level desert setting. One comes in from the portal to "steps" of sand clumps that go down. You land at the main level, where the house is. From there, you can proceed down to an area with a small lake, fed by a waterfall which is two levels up from it. Traveling back up to the main level and on to level three, you climb a mountain path to enter a hidden cave, which has an underground pool. This is where the waterfall starts that falls down to level one. You pass by the underground pool, only to find yourself in the remains of an ancient crypt! (Mine is filled with ancient treasures of the past, along with a friendly family of bats.) Passing through the crypt, there is a stairway upward, which leads to level four. This is the top of the palace, where an enormous sphinx holds command, beside a towering cliff above it. This little palace may not be to everyone's taste, but I love its diversity. Take a tour, if you get the chance, when you get a little free time in game ... perhaps if your thoughts start tending toward boredom? -grins-

Progress, Not Perfection ...

Reading back on my last post, I can see that someone might be puzzled about why, at level 55, I was NOT in Celestia. I had just turned 55 - just - when I had gotten all my golden pearls. From about 45, I was on a whirlwind tour of the Spiral, going around Mooshu and then into Dragonspyre, and ocassionally hopping up to Celestia to help my friend, as he was already there, to help him on his way to Legendary. He did reach it last week, and I was there! Congratulations, Chase DeathBlood!

I had dropped my more intensive pursuit of crafting, once I reached Master, to get through Mooshu and Dragonspyre. I figured that would be the best course, since I could not advance my crafting any further, as there was no more advancement until I reached a much higher level.

I just got Celestia access the night before last, -cheers!- with my friend James SunFlame. I met him when I was starting Ravenscar. We were both on the same quests, so we began to join forces. He was good enough to go back into Dragonspyre with me to complete those missions that I could not do on my own, as well as help with some of those more challenging quests. I did have to do a lot of grinding through later Dragonspyre on my own, as it is meant to be. It was a lot of killing, but finally Saturday James and I were ready to defeat Malistaire in his lair.

Fortunate for him, but unfortunate for James and me, Chase had just left the Spiral for a two week vacation. He and I had quested together since Krokotopia, and I had been with him to defeat Malistaire. None of James' or my regular questing buddies were on at the same time we were either Saturday or Sunday. Also, James ran into some technical difficulties over the weekend.

None the less, on Sunday night, a little after midnight Eastern time, Malistaire went down!

Teleporter News!

I have just made my first teleporter! Yellow. It would not be my first choice in colour, but the treasure cards to make it were the most accessible for me at the time.

The hardest regeants to obtain for the teleporter were, of course, the golden pearls. Not only are they needed for making any of the teleporters, golden pearls are needed to make the crafted quest item for the Grandmaster Crafter.

I am at level 55 right now, and wondered how I might ever get to this point of making a teleporter before I actually was "legally" able to get into Celestia. As a Life wizard, even at lower levels, I was asked to help friends who were in much higher zones. It is a very exciting life, as a Life wizard, yes indeed! I get to travel far and see the world before I ever would have in the normal progress of my little  wizardly life, due to the fact that I can heal!

So, how did I get four golden pearls before entering Celestia and NOT from ever buying one on the Bazaar? After doing some reading, researching and investigating around the Spiral, I found out a few things. Number one, I was doing some sorting out of my bags, and I discovered that I already had some pearls in my backpack. How could this be? Later that day, when gathering a harvest of maelstrom snap dragons, I saw a pearl drop into my backpack! A little more poking about and I found that deadly helephant ears would yield pearls! Also, to my surprise and great delight, on my final harvest of a maelstrom snap dragon I got a golden pearl!

I started in right away to shift my garden over to supporting deadly helephant ears and maelstrom snap dragons, so that they'd grow happily in my garden, and thus give me more pearls. More about that later. Since this was going to take a while, I looked for other options for getting pearls. I found that I could transmute golden pearls from pearls, and that I could transmute pearls from black lotus. Black lotus can also be transmuted, from ore and cattail. Since I was able to gather up to Mooshu and Dragonspyre, I spent time gathering not only black lotus, but cattails and ore, and transmuting black lotus when the supply was scarce for harvesting. Along with the pearls and golden pearls from my plant harvests, the gathering of black lotus, cattails and ore for transmuting all the way up to golden pearl, it took me about two weeks to get all four golden pearls. I got the earthquake treasure cards from either the Bazaar or plant harvests.

Now, where shall I put my new teleporter!

onomatopoeia

one of my favourite words ... I thought I'd start out with that.