The Labyrinth, Revisited

Nobody likes the Labyrinth. At first. You have to go back for the obsidian chest and, for some, a level 48 spell. It's like the catchy song you don't want to hear at first, but end up listening to on repeat. 

Just snake (snake snake snake snake) it off.

In all seriousness, the Labyrinth used to be hard. I rated it #5 on my list of hardest dungeons before Celestia. It is still rather long, though. Imagine 7 bosses in a row in Khrysalis. By level 150, that dungeon would be a breeze, albeit a lengthy one.

Though no one's really going out to farm for level 45 gear, the Labyrinth is still a surprisingly nice place for loot. Love pets? Vladimir Darkflame drops three of them. Two of them are crowns pets: the Death Leprechaun and Pale Maiden, the latter being retired from the Crowns Shop. 

Rare statue? Yep.

New jewels? Got them.

It's a pretty neat place to fish, too, although there's only one unique species.

Bottomless cliff fishing. What could go wrong... right?

There's also plenty of weird phenomena going on in this otherwise calm area where criminals walk the streets. Kind of sounds like Gotham City, really. It's when you get behind the gates that the Labyrinth becomes a little bit of a freak show. 

It has...

Boss clones. ✔

Mobs invading your personal space. ✔

Like, really invasive mobs. I can't fish and kill you at the same time.

Lastly, I felt like Lord Spike - my old Orthrus who still holds a place in my heart and blog banner -  needed some closure. I paid a visit to the old owner of his dog collar.

Ranulf, the red-faced... whatever the heck you are.

You could even say his face glows after being hit with cartoonish vomit.

I then observed another weird phenomenon when I logged off and came back.

Yep, the dungeon restarted. And I was still behind the gate.

Locked in with the personal space invading monsters?!? This was too much. I had to log off.

Curiously, I couldn't seem to replicate the glitch. I guess it only happens after you beat all 3 floors of Ranulf's tower (and you can only be a Myth wizard to do that). Perhaps it's for the best though. Imagine being roommates with those discolored trolls and minotaurs.

Last but not least, I had to take this opportunity to do the Labyrinth's reagent map. I wasn't exactly looking forward to it, but I did get that Wyrmkin statue and neat jewelry from all the repeated battles.

Voila. Red-faced Ranulf approves, I guess.

Happy Crafting!

Reagent Map Project

The big Jewel socketing/Dragonspyre fishing update is online! As it happens, this is a perfect opportunity to post something seemingly unrelated... I just made a reagent map of nearly every area in Dragonspyre.

Wait, what? ... Let me rewind a bit.

With my return visits to Kensington Park several summer ago, I ended up finding a lot of Scrap Iron, so I made a crude reagent map. As I went through that process, it actually seemed pretty fun. A reagent map of one dungeon wasn't just some dumb project I had relegated to myself. I found it informative, and hoped to pass that knowledge around in the community.

 So, over the last year, I've slowly been developing spawn locations for every map in Wizard101. Here is the culmination of the reagent maps I have worked on over that time -- not much more than a drop in the bucket, but progress nonetheless. But first, let me explain what I've set out to do.

What is a reagent map?

A reagent map starts off as a Wizard101 area map. The image of the map is then manipulated to reveal where certain reagents lie in that area. This happens through symbols or other little images (as I have done), clearly showing where a reagent can be found in that area. After that, a reagent map can be formed in any creative, desirable way.

The Process

I don't have any fancy programs -- all I've really used is Microsoft Paint. To start off, I rendered images of every reagent available for picking up in-game, and gave most of them a colored background to make each reagent noticeable. Then, I mark down each spot on the map a reagent may appear (a "spawn point"). In that process, I take note of how many reagents show up in that area and eventually include that information on the side of the map. For instance, Twin Giants in Azteca will yield 2 Ore and 3 Stone Block spawn points every time you go through the area -- provided no one else has swiped some up.

As it is, I'm still cementing down the process. Eventually, I plan to experiment with making certain maps black & white (as shown in the Basilica map) so there won't be a clash of hues. Many spawn points are also right next to each other, so I've just started giving the rendered reagents some different sizes.

This Emperor's Retreat map, which I made while hunting for the Silver Streak fish, is fully complete. There are no clashing colors and all the spawn points are identifiable. In the end, that's my goal -- for easily readable maps of every area in the Spiral.

Making a reagent map is not a revolutionary idea. After crafting was introduced in the early days of Wizard101 blogging, The Evil Theurgist created many maps, which I believe ran up to Mooshu. Unfortunately, most of that data has been lost. But the idea was not unique. Our own Friendly Necromancer contributed his share to a growing database. Wizard101 Central's guide, "The Crafter's Bible", filled in reagent maps for all of Wizard City. Over 5 years after the release of crafting, I just want to continue the work of others and finally establish a completed database. That will take a lot of time, no doubt, but crafting will likely never lose its practicality, so the information will remain important.

In the meantime, you can check out the maps I've done - including the majority of Dragonspyre - right here: http://twoheadedwizard.blogspot.com/p/wizard101-reagent-maps.html

I'll be updating this page with new maps as regularly as I can. In the meantime, many of those maps will come in handy while out fishing in the multiple lava pools of Dragonspyre! :)

Happy Crafting!