By now, I have convinced my fiance to play this game with me. On a side note, he was just as entertained by the skeletal pirate in the tutorial as I was. Perhaps thats why we are getting married. I'm still playing my Balance girl, but I know that something is wrong. I cannot solo bosses! And I'm pretty sure it's an operator error, if you know what I mean.
I try to find some helpful information and didnt have any luck on the forums at www.wizard101.com. All I saw were a lot of whiney babies crying about how bad Balance sucks. I found the most help early on from Blogs. I dont know why that is, I've never seen a gaming community with such relevant Blogs.
Since my fiance has decided to play, I make a character to play with him. This time I skip the personality test and go straight to Myth. I'm not gonna lie, I just wanted to have the Humongafrog spell. Eventually I choose Life as my secondary. To my surprise and delight, he winds up really enjoying the game and we play Wizard101 together more frequently than we play World of Warcraft.
I still play my Balance girl when my fiance isnt available to play, but I'm getting more frustrated with her. I hadnt quite figured out the Friend system yet and there really is no way to communicate with others on a global scale. So to find a partner to play with meant I had to keep switching servers and hope I got lucky finding someone that was going into the same boss instance as I was.
At this point I was playing my Balance girl more for a preview of what my fiance and I would see than anything else.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Monday, June 14, 2010
Adventures in Wizard City (part one)
Merle and I are quite chummy now. He thinks I'm the cats pajamas since I answered some call (I didnt mention the Tuesday Maintenence thing) and had the stones to go up against Malistaire. He thinks it would be a good idea to go over to Unicorn Way.
A Quest! A Quest! I love quests. I like bringing back 999 Rat Tails and saving the millionth princess to get herself kidnapped by an evil overlord. You'd think princesses would learn to take some self defense classes or buy some mace. I digress (often and with reckless abandon). This whole quest obsession thing, I think it's a genetic defect or something. I like the going and fetching and earning something nifty.
So I take myself off to Unicorn Way and before I go very far, Merle is pestering me about learning a secondary school of Magic. "Merle," I say, "I dont even know what my main school of magic is! Where is that button, sir?" I'm pretty sure I saw his patient, paternal guise slip for a moment before he composed himself and talked me through that, too.
It takes me awhile to figure out that I'm a Balance Wizard. I thought the scales were there because the game somehow associated my zodiac sign (Libra) with my in-game character. Sometimes, I'm a bit slow on the uptake. Also, it doesnt help that we dont actually have a school perse, just a handsome vagabond with a festive monocle (I want one of those!). I suppose I just assumed that everyone was a Balance Wizard like me, and what made us different were our secondary school choices.
I pick Death as my secondary school of choice. Damaging the opponent plus healing myself at the same time has always been what I call a win-win situation. Plus, I'm pretty sure that skeletal pirate from the tutorial is somewhere in this line and I'm down with putting that card in my deck.
I head back over to Unicorn Way which is infested with all sorts of fun things. Naughty fairies, skeletal pirates (yay, pirates!) and the like, which the guards are willing to pay me a handsome sum to clean up for them. It isnt long before I run across a blatant play on the Wizard of Oz. Some uptight gamer snobs would go on for hours about this in rants and rambles. Me, my mouth quirked up in a smile. I am a long-time Wizard of Oz fan.
I have yet another quest, but this one is different. My spidey-gamer senses immediately tell me this NPC I have to beat up on is a boss. A boss! I like those. They drop good stuff to sell. I dont know where to sell my stuff yet, but I'll just hit up ol' Merle later. Maybe if I buy him a tankard of the good stuff he'll tell me where the best vendors are.
I have to fight her twice before I am successful. I wont be mentioning that to the Guard when I turn in the quest. Later attempts at soloing bosses are met with frustration. We'll get into that later, I suppose.
I'm still playing late Tuesday night when the fiance comes home from work. He asks me what I'm doing, and I explain about my travels. He smiles and nods and promises to check it out the next morning in his ever-so-patient with me way.
A Quest! A Quest! I love quests. I like bringing back 999 Rat Tails and saving the millionth princess to get herself kidnapped by an evil overlord. You'd think princesses would learn to take some self defense classes or buy some mace. I digress (often and with reckless abandon). This whole quest obsession thing, I think it's a genetic defect or something. I like the going and fetching and earning something nifty.
So I take myself off to Unicorn Way and before I go very far, Merle is pestering me about learning a secondary school of Magic. "Merle," I say, "I dont even know what my main school of magic is! Where is that button, sir?" I'm pretty sure I saw his patient, paternal guise slip for a moment before he composed himself and talked me through that, too.
It takes me awhile to figure out that I'm a Balance Wizard. I thought the scales were there because the game somehow associated my zodiac sign (Libra) with my in-game character. Sometimes, I'm a bit slow on the uptake. Also, it doesnt help that we dont actually have a school perse, just a handsome vagabond with a festive monocle (I want one of those!). I suppose I just assumed that everyone was a Balance Wizard like me, and what made us different were our secondary school choices.
I pick Death as my secondary school of choice. Damaging the opponent plus healing myself at the same time has always been what I call a win-win situation. Plus, I'm pretty sure that skeletal pirate from the tutorial is somewhere in this line and I'm down with putting that card in my deck.
I head back over to Unicorn Way which is infested with all sorts of fun things. Naughty fairies, skeletal pirates (yay, pirates!) and the like, which the guards are willing to pay me a handsome sum to clean up for them. It isnt long before I run across a blatant play on the Wizard of Oz. Some uptight gamer snobs would go on for hours about this in rants and rambles. Me, my mouth quirked up in a smile. I am a long-time Wizard of Oz fan.
I have yet another quest, but this one is different. My spidey-gamer senses immediately tell me this NPC I have to beat up on is a boss. A boss! I like those. They drop good stuff to sell. I dont know where to sell my stuff yet, but I'll just hit up ol' Merle later. Maybe if I buy him a tankard of the good stuff he'll tell me where the best vendors are.
I have to fight her twice before I am successful. I wont be mentioning that to the Guard when I turn in the quest. Later attempts at soloing bosses are met with frustration. We'll get into that later, I suppose.
I'm still playing late Tuesday night when the fiance comes home from work. He asks me what I'm doing, and I explain about my travels. He smiles and nods and promises to check it out the next morning in his ever-so-patient with me way.
In the Beginning
Hooked, like a fish!
Picture it: A Tuesday morning (or it was) two weeks or so ago. World of Warcraft is down for its weekly maintenence. I'm trolling around for something to occupy my time and I find this link to a free MMO I've never heard of called Wizard101.
I click the download button and am pleasantly surprised when I hear the 'ding' letting me know the download is complete less than 10 minutes later. I fire it up, just to check it out.
What's this? A wizened old fellow in a smashing wizard hat and robe wants me to take a personality test? This had better not be a cleverly disguised pick-up game. Now I get to make my avatar. I've seen better character generators but this certainly isnt the worst. Truth be told, City of Heroes ruined that for anybody. Anyway, I make my girl with purple hair and a sharp eyed gaze. No dopey smile has ever graced any of my avatars.
I push the Finish button and am transported to the spire where earlier said fellow awaits me. A tutorial, on how not to fail. I move forward with some trepidation. Combat was very unexpected. It's a card system, like Magic: The Gathering. I am again pleasantly surprised. My expectations were somewhere in the range of a frenetic key punching type combat engine where He Who Drinks the Most Redbull Wins.
The few rounds of combat go pretty quickly and I actually like a few of the spell graphics tossed out, most noteably the Pirate. Still though, I can see that the graphics are very cartoon-y. I wasnt sure if I was going to like that.
I finish the tutorial and am opened up to a whole new gaming world to explore.
Picture it: A Tuesday morning (or it was) two weeks or so ago. World of Warcraft is down for its weekly maintenence. I'm trolling around for something to occupy my time and I find this link to a free MMO I've never heard of called Wizard101.
I click the download button and am pleasantly surprised when I hear the 'ding' letting me know the download is complete less than 10 minutes later. I fire it up, just to check it out.
What's this? A wizened old fellow in a smashing wizard hat and robe wants me to take a personality test? This had better not be a cleverly disguised pick-up game. Now I get to make my avatar. I've seen better character generators but this certainly isnt the worst. Truth be told, City of Heroes ruined that for anybody. Anyway, I make my girl with purple hair and a sharp eyed gaze. No dopey smile has ever graced any of my avatars.
I push the Finish button and am transported to the spire where earlier said fellow awaits me. A tutorial, on how not to fail. I move forward with some trepidation. Combat was very unexpected. It's a card system, like Magic: The Gathering. I am again pleasantly surprised. My expectations were somewhere in the range of a frenetic key punching type combat engine where He Who Drinks the Most Redbull Wins.
The few rounds of combat go pretty quickly and I actually like a few of the spell graphics tossed out, most noteably the Pirate. Still though, I can see that the graphics are very cartoon-y. I wasnt sure if I was going to like that.
I finish the tutorial and am opened up to a whole new gaming world to explore.
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