Wednesday, January 25, 2012

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

Sunday, January 15, 2012

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!









Thursday, January 12, 2012

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.













Wednesday, January 11, 2012

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!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

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!

Monday, January 9, 2012

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.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

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!