Chillin' with Gwenny and the Knights

Oh, yeah, here I am - me, Rowan - chillin' with Queen Gwenny and the Knights, after completing the storyline quest, Call the Banners. After completing this quest and a few more intermediary quests in the line, I am headed for the Outer Court - further progress toward level 80, and completing the storyline of Avalon. Exciting!

Mommy, Where Do Gnomes Come From?

Well, Virginia, they come from Gnome Bushes, of course!

Gnomes in Avalon

Yes, here we are ... we have arrived in Avalon.

The above image is Rowan casting Gnome in the first encounter of The White Tower.

Well, we fought through Caliburn and made our way through enough of Caer Lyon so that we gained entry into The Wild ... and Wild it is! Not long after we had gotten into The Wild, our adventures led us to our first dungeon - The White Tower. That was quick, and I certainly did NOT expect what I encountered when I entered there.

As they say, bad owls are VERY bad, yes indeed! As well as other evil doers that skulk about The Wild.

I was determined to get through The White Tower, and in the first two encounters I quickly hired henchmen to assist me, as I knew I would not make it alone. The third fight, in the depths of the castle, I decided to try it alone ... well, I was assisted by Maya, my night hawk, and my Life minion Pixie.

I had just gotten the Life Resurrect spell, and was eager to try it. I quickly formulated a plan, after seeing that I was fighting two ice monsters in the last fight. My Pixie has only 350 health, so I knew that if the ice monsters multi-shot us, or got mad enough at the Pixie, she'd be wiped out instantly ... a terrible waste of 4 pips, not to mention losing my little helper to the aethers.

As soon as I could, after I summoned Pixie, I put Resurrect on her. I then put a Tower Shield on her, and later an Absorb. Yes, she often stole my traps on the mobs, but I figured this was a fair exchange, because - being Ice - they were constantly throwing up their own Tower Shields. So, she kept taking down their Towers, healed me very well, and slowly chipped away at the health of the monsters. It took a while, as it often does for me as a Life wizard, but Pixie and I both lived and successfully completed the White Tower.

Avalon is Closer

Despite further techological challenges, I have been able to make great progress with Rowan, the Life wizard. Rowan has advanced from 71 to 74, and has gotten through Mirror Lake, as of Saturday night this past weekend!

Every night this past week James and I were able to work together getting through Zafaria - from getting through Stone Town, to the Drum Jungle, and in one night getting through Elephant Graveyard and Mirror Lake. We met up with two other wizards as we started Elephant Graveyard on Saturday night, and I am sure that without their help, James and I would not have made it through that evening.

James is Fire, as I said Rowan is Life, and their new friends are Death and Storm.

Rowan had just bought back her training points, changing her secondary school from Balance to Death. She had made good use of the Balance school amulet, which allows a player to use pips of that amulet's school in the same way that they use the pips of their primary school. Rowan does not yet own a Death amulet, so she could not make use of her newly gained Death spells, and did miss the use of her old Balance spells and therefore did not help with damage.

Also, early on in the fights, due to her new deck setup, she was not a very helpful healer. After many deck adjusts, she was able to get back to reliable healing, to her great relief. How embarrassing to be a healer who gets no healing cards, as she watches everyone's health diminish and then worst of all, for the other to have to heal themselves. Fortunately, in the Graveyard Palace boss fights and on into Mirror Lake, she was able to pull her weight and heal the others, who fought quite impressively. There was some great damage there, Wizard friends! Thank you all for your great help and excellent teamwork!

Next, a boss in Mooshu must be defeated, and then I hope I'll be gaining entry to Avalon.

Onward through Zafaria

I'm still not able to play much, but this week with the help of my friend James Sunflame I was able to get a few quests done in Zafaria. Will I ever reach Avalon! I hope so.

With friends, all things are possible!

Long Time No Post

Hey, Wizard Friends - I have injured a nerve in my arm, so I have not been able to play much for over a month now, thus my quietness on my blog. The nerve damage has still not mended, so I won't be around much ingame for who knows how long.

I hope everyone is enjoying the game. The new card pack and the upcoming expansion, Avalon, are very exciting!

Have fun where ever you may travel - I hope to be back to playing Wizard101 one of these days soon.

Mystery Puzzle ...

"Can you put all the pieces together to discover the magic?"

Find out more here:

Mystery Puzzle

Eggbert and The Egg

Eggbert has returned to the Spiral! You can find him in the Shopping District.

He is selling the Pet Egg, and also a Bunny Costume in the Crown Shop!

Raven's Hoard Pack On Sale!

Raven's Hoard pack is on sale now! 50% off! Sale ends March 22nd at 11:59pm US CT. Moonflower seeds, new weapons, Raven mount and the two person Bloodraven mount could be yours!

Raven's Hoard Card Pack

Green, Green

I have not been able to get ingame much, but I was able to take advantage of the Green Sale! Yay!

Yes, Pat O'Gold made it to the Spiral, but I have not checked in to see if she is still there, or if she has travelled on. Oh, that Real Life server can cause me to stay away from the Spiral more than I would like.

I got all 5 of the Shenlong dragons! I am very happy about that. Now I just need to get back into the game so that I can make some gold so that I can train all those cute little babies! Not to mention that I need to train up the Foo puppies that I have, too!

I hope you all are having fun wherever you are, and I hope to catch up with Wizard101 soon.

Spring Means New Pets!

Spring is coming to the Spiral!

The latest Ravenwood Bulletin has some exciting news!

Soon we will be seeing Pat O'Gold in the Wizard City Shopping District. She will be selling (for Crowns only) a special Spring pet and many wands for celebrate the return of Spring.

Later this month, Eggbert will be selling his wares in the Shopping District, also for Crowns only.

Although both Pat and Eggbert charge Crowns for their wares, let it be known that their wares can also be found in the pockets of many bosses throughout the Spiral! It is great that we are offered this opportunity by Kings Isle for holidays and special events, for those who might want a challenge in getting those special items, or who might not have the means by which to buy them with Crowns.

Thank you for this opportunity, Kings Isle!

Happy Leap Day!

Raffle - Last Day!

Frabjous February Fun Raffle!
 at Wizard101 Central ends last day of February.

---

"We are giving away 5,000 crowns every single day during the month of Frabjous February!

To enter you will need to grab a free raffle ticket from our "Raffles" section. You can only get one ticket per day, so you will have to visit every day to get your ticket!"

---

I wish I had known about this sooner, but here is one last chance for us all.

Good luck!

Tweetle - ee - dee!

Hrmmm, well ... I rarely Tweet, or post on Facebook, but I was reading a post on Swordroll's blog, "Ten Blogger Tips and Tricks, ..." from Tuesday, September 13, 2011.

One of his blog tips is join Facebook and Twitter, and to become friends with others on Facebook and to follow people on Twitter. I have three friends, and follow a baker's dozen on Twitter, but I only have one follower so far. I just added a Facebook and a Twitter widget to my blog. It is a start.

You Can Win a Foo Dog!

Swordroll is offering a contest to win a foo dog! Read Swordroll's post, Win a Foo Dog ... to find out how.

Join his blog, he writes very well, and has a lot of great information on his blog. Part of his contest to win a foo dog has to do with getting people more aware of his blog and all the great information he has there. He has written about many aspects of Wizard101, from pets to housing to pvp to game dynamics, and he has the most amazing and helpful Grub Guardian Guide, which has very detailed information on how to get the most out of playing Grub Guardian, as well as videos of his most successful games played. These help a lot in coming up with your own strategies in winning in Grub Guardian.

I hope you visit Swordroll soon, you will be happy that you did!

Pet Training Grind

Pet Level	Experience Gain	Energy Cost
Baby to Teen	125 exp	2 energy/game
Teen to Adult	250 exp	4 energy/game
Adult to Ancient	500 exp	6 energy/game
Ancient to Epic	1000 exp	8 energy/game

I made up this table, which shows the training progression of pets in Wizard101. I love my pets, I enjoy seeing them progress. If one could train a pet and get just what they wanted in a pet, then I could accept the amount of effort that goes into training. I am happy that pet hatching costs have gone way down since they were first instituted. I still find a cost of 40,000 gold quite a bit for hatching a pet, though. If the success of creating a great pet were more frequent, I could see that 40,000 gold might be a justifiable price - still, I could buy two homes for the same price.

That brings me to the amount of time, energy and experience needed to level a pet. Isn't it enough that the experience needed to get from one level to the next DOUBLES? That in itself is enough of a challenge, in my opinion. To keep increasing the energy needed by 2 for each level is uncalled for, and way too much to ask.

I have hatched 12 pets so far, and of those pets, I have leveled 6 to Epic, and 6 to Ancient. Only 2 of the 6 that I leveled to Epic really had a good pet talent mix. Now I have 4 useless pets just wandering around my homes, never being of use, except for looks. The other 6 Ancient pets might get Spritely, and that is what I hatched them for mainly. Would it be worth it to get them to Epic?

I might never know, because the task seems just too daunting.

With a maximum energy level of 70, and an energy cost of 8 for each game, I can play 9 games (8 times 9 is 72, but you gain 2 more energy while playing the previous games). If I get the top experience of 4 for the game, and then 6 experience for a pet snack, I can gain 10 experience per game. 10 experience times 9 games gives me 90 experience per training session.

Now, this is at level 70! If I had the time to get into the game once in the early morning to train my pet, and then once again in the evening, I would gain 180 experience for my pet. I don't get into the game even once a day lately, never mind trying to get there twice a day. Buying crowns so that I can play another session is not an option I am going to consider, either.

So - at 90 points a day, it will take me 11 days, with one session more to get me to 1000 experience.

Yes, if I wanted to take more costly measures, I could log on twice a day, I could buy mega snacks for crowns, I could spend a lot of time and resources making higher level pet snacks, and I could use crowns to purchase more energy to have more training sessions available.

I have not even touched upon my dissatisfaction with the cost and availability of pet snacks. Suitable pet snacks should give at least 6 experience; they are costly enough in themselves whether you buy or make them, and are sometimes difficult - if not impossible - to get, as not all schools have ALL the snack types at higher levels. Availability of reagents for making pet snack is yet another part of Wizard101 which needs serious reworking. Anyone who attempts to gather reagents knows exactly what I am talking about. I am not even going to discuss mega snacks, because they are just way too costly for a normal game budget to consider having or using on a regular basis.

I don't think that we get back all the effort that we put into pet training to warrant that we spend even more than normal time and effort - that is, one session a day with a pet snack that gives 6 experience when fed to the pet.

And for these reasons, I think that Wizard101 should strongly consider restructuring their pet leveling model.

One Small Step ... for Petnome

I just checked on Petnome, and I DID have the last Derby stat on Duke Blue, my Elemental Foo Dog. I am happy that I could contribute, even in such a small way, to the Petnome Project's database.

The Derby stat that Duke Blue contributed was Oil Slick.

Petnome Project - Elemental Foo Dog

May the Foo Be With You!

Many crowns spent, but I now have at least one of all six new foo dogs. -Happy Dance-

I have only trained one of my foo dogs so far, just to Adult, as I have not been able to be online much. I have been training the Elemental Foo, the Life school pet. I saw today on Friendly Necromancer's blog that Kevin Battleblood at the Petnome Project is looking to fill out the Talents and Derby stats on all the foos, exciting!

My Elemental foo, Duke Blue, is now at the start of Adult. I just took screenshots of his stats and sent them to Petnome. His Talents are already listed on Petnome, but I believe that one of his Derby stats is the final one that was missing. Oooo! We shall see!

Foo Dog!

I just got back into the game after a few weeks of not being able to play. I was at the Bazaar today, and what did I see next to me? A Foo Dog! I love it, I love it, I LOVE IT! I didn't get one yet. I can hardly wait until the new Kirin deck comes out so I can (hopefully) be lucky enough to get one. This little pup that I saw was an Adult, and he had Spritely! He is lavender and is a Storm pet. I think that there are three other Foo Dogs, but I am not sure which schools they are from. There is some information on the Wizard101 forums and Wizard101 Central, I think. I don't have any links yet.

Since I was in the Bazaar with many other people, this was the best picture I could get. I couldn't get the attention of the owner, so that I might get a better view of him. He was probably very tired of all the questions he was getting about his lovely little dog. Can't blame him.

There is a promotion at the Wizard101 site - if you log into your account and use the code "pack" between February 2nd and 6th you will get a free item from one of the card packs in your gifts window ingame next time you log in. Wizard also has daily contests on their Twitter and Facebook pages going right now, I think until February 12th. Check your mail or Twitter account to see if you have won!

And, don't miss Pack-a-Palooza Game Card Pack Sale, going on until February 12th!

Good luck, I hope you will soon be the proud and happy owner of a Foo Dog of your own!

Real Life Server

I'm working out some bugs on the Real Life Server ... not much time to play lately.

Have fun wherever you are on the Spiral, and in Life!

Be well and happy,
Blessings,
Rowan

White Rat Magician is Mine!

Tonight, after a good session with my fire wizard Alexis and her friend Tarlac in Krokotopia, I decided to take a quick run through Big Ben. I have always wanted to get the White Rat Magician, purely for its looks. I figured, what harm could it do? I have never soloed Big Ben with Rowan, my 70 Life wizard.

Well, I got through it all pretty painlessly, and chose to spill the three milk bottles and face Spike the Crusher and his two friends. I think Meowiarty and his companions might be a bit too much for one lvl 70 Life wizard to take on alone.

After Spike fell, I got ... a ring. An okay but not really extraordinary ring. So ordinary, I don't even remember what it was. Not much loot for all that work. Then, there is Spike's chest. It would be nice if those boss chests were free, and did not require you to pay ever increasing crowns to get another look in the chest ... which you pay for in advance and have to keep, regardless of whether you want it or not. Oh, well. However, it is worth it to pay 100 crowns and get ...

-drumroll-

A White Rat Magician!

White Rat Magician Pet - Wizard101Central.com

New Improved Myth House

When I started this blog in November, I spoke of posting before and after pictures of my Myth wizard's school house. I had gotten her to 15 so that she could buy the house, as Rowan had run out of room for all the trees she had gotten in trying to get a wyvern, which she finally did get. Huzzah!

Here is a picture of the Myth school house not long after Tavia moved in. Notice the stone cyclops looming over everything. I loved the house storage and the layout of the land and inside the house, but the cyclops would have to go!

After much work and a lot of trial and error, here is the improved or should I say enhanced Myth school house.

Below are a series of pictures that were taken during the process of adding all the trees to the property, most of them were added to float in front of the cyclops. The last picture shows the base that the trees were put on, and the previous pictures show the construction of an "elevator", from which the base of blue rugs were laid.

Sultan's Palace at Blockbuster

Ooo, I want a Sultan's Palace mega bundle. They used to be sold at Gamestop stores. At the time that they had them, I didn't want one of course. Silly me! When the new Sun Palace super bundle became available, the Sultan's Palace mega bundle was removed from Gamestop.

Now, we are being offered a chance to get the Sultan's Palace mega bundle at Blockbuster stores. I love that on the King's Isle Wizard101 main site, when you view a gift card, under the information on that gift card is a link to the website for the retail outlet where that gift card is sold.

I clicked the link to Blockbuster, to see where the nearest store was. I entered my zip code, and the search came up that there are NO STORES near me. I tried entering my full address, and still NO STORES near me. I live in western Massachusetts, the REAL western Massachusetts, Berkshire County, which is bordered on the west by New York. A lot of people think that western Mass. is anywhere west of Boston, but it is not. We know, because we true true Western Massachusians are there ... right now.

So, I put in a search for Main Street in Springfield, Mass. and found 4 stores. Springfield is almost but not quite 50 miles from me. One would think that Blockbuster would include the nearest stores, although those stores might be 200 miles away. Otherwise, from my viewpoint, it means that I'll never be getting to a Blockbuster in this lifetime ... that is it light years away.

I tried to send a message to Blockbuster, but after composing an email and trying to send it, they sent me to a screen that told me I needed to answer another question, totally unrelated to my email. I clicked the closest choice, because I had no other option, and it clicked me away to a screen to reenter my information, deleting all that I had written before. Goodbye, Blockbuster website.

I am hoping that in the near future the Sultan's Palace mega bundle will be offered online, as the Massive Fantasy Palace is now being offered.

I posted my request on the Wizard101 forums. Maybe my wish shall come true!

Dark Crow Pet

I opened some Raven's Hoard card packs, wishing to get this little pet. I have wanted one since I saw it, but I do not pvp, so I have not had the opportunity to buy one. Now I have not one, but two!

New! Raven's Hoard Game Card Pack

Just out today! When you log in, you can see the announcement on the login screen:

The newest game card pack is Raven's Hoard and was just released today.

The deck contains 7 cards. As with the other game card decks, you have a chance to win any of the items that are in this deck, with certain ultra rare items, such as mounts, pets and gear, which drop only occasionally. There are two new mounts - the Raven Mount and the two person Blood Raven mount. Some of the other more rare items are new gear, new weapon sets, along with ice themed items and the standard pet snacks and treasure cards. Pets are not mentioned, but Austin Swifthorn, owner of The Singed Cover blog, has gotten a few of the new packs, and he has gotten a sunbird and a snowman pet, along with some other items. Austin has a good post about the new Raven's Hoard pack, along with many pictures. Good read!

The new weapons look great:

There is a new plant, too - The Moonflower!

Two person mounts can be fun, I love my rhino. Still, this seating arrangement looks a bit dangerous. Hold on tight, Blood Raven!

Grubbing About

Grub Guardian, the newest KI Free Games addition (though it is still in beta), is way too much fun. I have spent much of my free time there since it came out. As others have said, the rewards are not that great. I have a small herd of unicorns, about 2,000 more gold, a small number of reagents (you get one or two as a reward), two Gold potions, an XP potion, and a Mana potion that started as soon as I accepted it from my Gift Box.

Perhaps at the very, very high levels there are other sorts of pets. I have unlocked a lot of new areas, and have done many Hard level areas. Two of the hardest to conquer so far were Tree of Life and Kensington Square. When I finally beat Tree of Life, keeping ALL my food (which I like to think of as my store of cookies), and getting a score of over 5500, I got two ore.

Now, I often don't even turn in the codes. It frustrates me, after all my efforts, though I must say, getting 150 to 250 gold for a reward never hurts.

Also, as far as pet training, I don't see a way to choose which stats one is training, like you get to choose in the maze - pizza for strength, intellect and will, or fish for intellect and will. It seems that the type of stats I am going to get are possibly only from the food that my pet eats, or the food and stats chosen for me by the game by default. Granted, I only need to be online and not ingame to do this, and I like this, but I don't like not being able to choose the stats I am working on, other than the stats of the pet food. Maybe I missed something somewhere. Oh, yes, this is beta. I wonder where we submit our feedback. After the twenty-odd other things I need to investigate, this one will go toward the bottom of the list.

Regardless of all my "constructive criticism", I love the mechanics of this game. The layouts are quite varied, as are the monsters to kill, and the school towers that you use to destroy the monsters. It really gives one's brain a good workout on finding the right setup of towers for killing the monsters. The final factor is being efficient in the placement of towers - what kind, how many, what rank to use, where to put them for the best damage. Towers and their enhancements are purchased with silver that is supplied; you earn silver for each monster killed, and at the end of the battle, the amount of silver you have left is figured into your final score, along with how many "cookies" you have remaining, and a few other factors which are now evading my mental grasp.

Both The Friendly Necromancer and Swordroll have written about this new game in their blogs. Friendly's Grub Guardian post has a movie on a session of Grub Guardian that he played, along with a very helpful introduction to the game. Swordroll's Grub Guardian tips, hints & info is a very detailed and thorough account of the game. It was very helpful to read both accounts. I'd advise anyone who is interested in Grub Guardian to take a look at their blogs, and to head on over to KI Free Games and try it out for yourself.

Unicorn Graphics Glitch

While questing on my baby Fire wizard, Alexis, I came across this strange sight on Unicorn Way. I just had to get a photo! In front of the Arena, in that open paved area, a Unicorn was bowing to its owner over and over and OVER again. Quite a pretty site, I love the Unicorn!