Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rant. Show all posts

Saturday, February 4, 2012

From Another Point Of View

I could use the excuse of school, laziness and computer issues, but lets face it: It wasn't a very active January, no? Still, we had the Raven's Hoard, Grub Guardian, and new transformations. This looks to be a more active February for me though, with the Death duo inching towards Dragonspyre..










Yes, now you're able to see cats in Celestia, wolves in Wizard City, manders in Dragonspyre.. you get the point. Pretty cool new transformations, but still just cosmetic. It should make for fun parties, though! As for the level 70 gear.. no power pip or accuracy %? The critical ratings and the fashion is very decent, but it's hard to go without those. So, as you can tell, overall opinion = not worth it. I do like the astral throwbacks a lot, though. I feel much older now, having had several pairs of that old astral gear from '08-'09.. ah, the old days..






So now we get into a little, say, psychology portion of the post. I *accidentally* got a family friend (in late elementary school years) hooked, now as a Level 33 Necromancer, I believe. So, I borrowed a few of his many screenshots (14/113 of them, to be exact.. yikes) and cropped them some for better pictures. Here are some of them, sort of through the view of a newbie to Wizard101.










The striking thing here is the Magma Man having 5 pips :o






Ah, he saw the midget bear. Of course.









Strangely-timed picture immediately following a storm hit.. head in the clouds much?












Treants in a cave..


















Do I see a gentle hint for a furniture item here? I've always wondered what those little school-decor-pool-thingies are. Future housing item? Pleeeeezzze?








Oh my Bartleby..












Delicate dragon mosaic - nice Wizard's Watchtower catch. Feels like a dragon church :P










Though this would be a menacing entrance for a churchgoer..







Which reminds me - Happy Chinese New Year! This year of the dragon ought to be interesting.










Uncomfortable close up, lol









BOOM.












And lastly, as well as oxymoronically, if thats a word. Snowman in Krokotopia!





And, onto the Death duo! Admittedly, I haven't covered them much on here, but I have made lots of progress. Skipping side-quests makes Marleybone pretty quick. And I dare say that's a nice reward for my 4th Big Ben run (2 spoiled by lost connection. Egk.)












What's with all the quests being questions? Don't think that's a great sign..






And, another well-deserved reward, this time for helping my Ice character Sophia finish the Trial of Spheres.. which I found out she had never done. Oops. After the Death duo, I'm really going to need crowns on that account for Zafaria, and I just found that Tavia hasn't finished the ToS also. Grrrr :P








I would of covered this project too, but I figured I'd start it after the Raven's Hoard pack came out and finished it about a week ago. Why another house crafting project? With all the new items from the Raven's Hoard plentiful in the Bazaar, I realized I could use this nice house. So, hours of TONS of reagent collecting and buying (all characters on the account making it are broke), success. *droops in exhaustion* Ok, that was worth it ^-^. Can't wait to decorate the house, though I still need an overall theme. My Dragon's Fjord on Tarlac (which I updated and is nearly finished) has a camping/cabin motel theme, and a big kitchen. So, I'm thinking Sophia's Watchtower Hall = battle theme, with quite a few hammers, trees, and frozen warriors dotting the landscape. Creepy. We'll see how it turns out, I'll work on it.. eventually ;P.

Well, since I'm sort of on the Hoards topic, I'm sure you've all seen Pack-a-Palooza out. As much as I want those pets and an ice wand (or axe, or bow.. whatever..) for Sophia, I have to hold out. My main account does have 2800 crowns, but must. save. Well, maybe just 3 to even it out around 2,000..*noooooooo*. Since everyone else seems to be giving their opinion on Hoards lately, mostly negative, I might as well give mine as it is---
  • The packs aren't necessarily useless. You still get a lot of stuff, even if it's not what you want, you can sell it or what not. That being said..
  • The Dragon's, Wyvern's and Nightmare Pack were enough. Now I audibly groan whenever a new pack comes out. Don't succumb to temptation too often.
  • Solution: As others have pointed out - let major items from the Packs sell individually, so we don't have to keep risking it. Some people just want the mount or whatever, and they use up 40,000 (What is that, $50 or so?) crowns just to try to get this one item. Let it be a choice, basically. Also, no more packs. Keep the ones you have, but no more, please? From personal experience, it's a bit like taking advantage of kids---that family friend earlier has been spending most of his crowns on the latest Pack, thus setting him back on buying areas instead. He's had 50k crowns so far, only 2/5 (more or less) spent on areas.
Granted, my opinion was much different at the beginning: I mostly welcomed the first several Hoards, but I think their popularity is a bit like Hoover's 1928-1932 presidential ratings - good at first, but a very noticeable decline as time goes on, and more packs are released. (History lesson! Find out about Hoover's ratings yourself :P).

Well.. that's pretty much it. The Death Duo has gone well into Mooshu---I'll provide more screenshots from them next time! I'm probably forgetting something else too, but it's been a whole month, a lot has gone on :P. Hope everyone has a great February (and Super Bowl tomorrow!)

Happy Questing!

Saturday, August 20, 2011

We Are The Champions




Go Ravenwood!



















They're obviously used to this, because that pig didn't bat a sweat at the sight of a ghost..













Reminds me a little of the Science Center.. 'cept for the flying Unicorns, defenses, and hobgoblins, of course.













Spiffy! Chico begs to differ though, think he got a splinter.


















Immediately following a 10-15 minute maintenance fixing the friends list, LOL.













Ok, those Green Men are just STRANGE. Face reminds me of Shel Silverstein for some weird reason and whats with the thin red handlebar whiskers?











Nastrond-esque tunnel - easy to get claustrophobic in.














Hall of the Gorgon, where its not too hard to get lost. Very pretty and spacious! And the satisfaction of defeating a snob helped ;)













Its like the gateway for those condemned to the lions in the Roman Colliseum, yet the rug, fountain (not pictured) and more closed-up arena give an air of fanciness. Nice design by Kingsisle to give both a view of feeling condemned walking down those dungeon-y halls yet the splendor is completely different.. I could go on ^.^















*evil smile* + Myth Prisms + Gargantuan + Froggy....














I probably liked Nalia the most among my opponents, not jumping to conclusion of victory, humble in defeat.. I hope Mirage comes first, I want to see more of those foxes over Goth Pixies and Goblins with pierced-ears (sorry, Weirwood). Or the flying squid world!















Sorry I didn't bring you along for the ride, Medusa. A wall painting can't hurt me, right?



















Feelin' Stronger Every Day! I mean.. YAYYY I HAVE THE SPIRAL CUP! *tries to lift, fails dramatically, carries broken piece of Cup to Jared Banks*

And, onto opinions!

The Best ~
It would have to be the new furniture items. Even if you weren't splurging on the Wyvern Hoards, some were up in the Bazaar, among them Birdbaths, Chicken Coops, etc. Cutefied! I even filled a small spot inside and outside to completely finish my Island Getaway from Wyvern Hoard items...










A close second, probably the design that was Wysteria. The ominous
background music (thank you, Nelson Everhart), the delicated tile and building, there was just many new places that are hard to compare to others. Pegasus Park, the vines, the Dorms..


The Worst ~
Err, why the little Pet Page change? (btw, credit to Cass Hexthorn for the idea of this segment and the pic) Thats just wasted time spent changing that right there for Kingsisle, while having zero good advancements made. The only thing they need to work on there is changing more accurate rarities, and that wasn't even done. Its small, but its just taking a tiny step back.

Teleporters - Yes, I believed these were very nifty... so I splurged 10k crowns on the 6-Pack. Now I want a refund. The main complaint from my end is it not being trade-able. I've heard there can be issues if it IS tradeable, but what in the world is the point of the 6-Pack if you only have 5 houses (if you have the MFP and MSP) and 1 dorm at maximum? And it doesn't change too much walking, it sort of shows you how lazy we can all be somet
imes xD.

The Debatable ~
Obviously, for a main course, we have the Wyvern Hoard Pack dispute. I'm on the fence here, to be honest. To stray the subject matter a little bit, take the 1000 gold for 800 crowns deal. That, along with the other gold for crowns buys, are a complete rip-off, (25k gold for $27? Farming
can get you that amount in under an hour) but you rarely hear people complain about why those are in the Crowns Shop. "Then doesn't everyone just not buy them?" Not really, newbies to the game may think this is a great deal and buy it, but 1000 gold is very easy to get in Wizard101 these days. Plus, the total combined gold of what you sold from everything in a Wyvern Pack would be well over 1000, for only 400 crowns. Or, take the second-chance chests, there's a
chance at getting a piece of gear that sells for a bit for only 50 crowns. Anyways, what I'd do for the Hoards is, should you have plenty of crowns, buy 20-25 and completely stop after that no matter the circumstances. The Wyvern mounts would probably be 10k crowns if sold separately, and spending 8k is probably enough. Still, if you don't get the Wyvern (me..), you got plenty of little things (more energy gear, housing pieces, etc) and can sell the stuff you don't need for a bit of gold and be a bit satisfied, but pick a reasonable limit. Its an addiction, after all! I really want the Cloud Wyvern, but I've
reached that personal limit, so just moving on. And, after all, maybe its not as great as you think, take the Skeletal Drake - I got that on my 2nd Dragons Hoard try, was pretty excited, but its just uncomfortably large and takes up a bit of the screen. The Wyvern may be the same case, maybe try getting on in the next Test Realm -free crowns- and see how it actually feels to ride it. It may not really be good enough, and don't most of us have plenty of mounts anyway? Anyways, I'll cut it short, the Hoards aren't Vegas, but they've got their pros & cons.

Note: For those interested in all the Wyvern drops, click HERE
Miscellaneous ~
These can be skipped over, the pet page is an example of a small miscellaneous update, but here's some opinions on the small ones that appear on the Update Notes:
Players will now see a confirmation window when they ignore a friend on their friends list - Good! There's been many accidental removings of friends, as Ignoring removes a friend, and we get a confirmation window to remove them, right? Good little fix.
School Symbols of Mobs/players now appearing besides them - Nice notice, and not changing it in PvP. Bosses with pretty long names don't have it all written down, is that part of the update or my Computer resolution? Might be my bad, but thats not very important anyways.
"Transaction Not Successful." -> "Sorry, this item has been sold." - A bit more simple... but, I noticed the number of reagents available didn't change when I bought some, and I had to refresh the page to see how many left again, which is kind of inconvenient. If this was bought on by the new sentence... this caused more bad than good for my Bazaar sniping.
Text Chat Dictionary slightly smaller/Angrus Hollowsoul no longer appears to load - Not sure which words were taken out of the Dictionary, but from the substitutes I've seen, there's always going to be a new way to say an obscene word. Hopefully they took out some big ones for the Trolls and peace may be a little better. Bad apples hurt the good ones, which is life, sadly. Angrus Hollowsoul, very minor update but lessens some annoyance when I sometimes walk through the Commons. It just makes me tic a little even though it matters none.. so I'm glad they fixed that.

Long post gotten to you yet? Sorry, I've had a lot to catch up on :P but I had fun for a week, and won't be going on anymore Vacations, although School restarts in 9 days. Good luck to those starting in the upcoming week! To close, it was nice to hear about the further Wizard101 expansion into foreign areas, as the largest country in terms of population joined hands! I hope it goes over well there and attracts many new players, so it will be interesting to see the commercial for China and if anything is different there. The British servers whole Wizard City is free, I believe, with several other minor differences from our main one, so you never know.

Happy Questing!

Friday, May 6, 2011

Level 53 And Counting

I just didn't feel like posting yesterday, sorry about that, but here's one :).















So, Sophia made it up to Malistaire. Awesome volcano ride!



















THE SUSPENSE



















After getting little from Gurtok & Tumok, I made it!











Tarlac & Sophia trying to talk sense into him, but no...



















EPIC WIN! :D














Back in the safeness that is Ambrose' Office. Snack break, THEN Celestia.














Some green misty stuff I noticed on top of a rune by the King after beating Jotun. Someone trying to poison him? O_o











Celestian roof! I had a tough fight with Optio Agenor, but emerged victorious


If you've done this quest, you probably know what I'm talking about. Luckily, it just took 4 fights to collect the pesky 3 pieces of icky algae. Below is the deck I used, if thats helpful! I survived each battle :)























CELESTIAN SEAHORSE HI! :P I soloed the Stellarium, dying at that Myth guy once, but came back and he was without his minion, so I managed to win that (thankfully they took away that meteor-when-you-heal little cheat on him) and Selwyn was easy, no more weird cheating of his own either. Next was..











My favorite area here. Peaceful "landlubber" breeze up here! Now, I'm in Stormriven Hall (already, yes, you might ask. Some people find questing tedious, but I easily get the bug to do it) and can't wait to get to the Portico for reagents and 58 for Snow Angel. I'm hardly turning in any side-quests, as I hear WT gives quite a bit and I'll save the CL/DS ones to turn in when a new level cap comes out. Gah, eXP. I'm making a goal to get to the Crustacean Empire by Wednesday, I'm going to my Grandmas again and won't be on the Computer till Tuesday, so expect 4-5 days until the next post. Lastly, I'll dish my opinion on the new WT music:

-Dull
-Depressing
-Dreamy

3 'D' words, basically. For dull, I just think there are too many drums, low sound, etc. Depressing, just not enough rhythm and again, low sound. Dreamy, the only good trait, is the likening to a famous tale, like Narnia, that I found it to be. Some parts are nice, but pretty much 2/3 - eh :/. And I think there's too much of a deal over it, Kingsisle should give more credit to Nelson Everhart's better music, and even though its aimed for kids, how about making a big deal of a person from the old days so children can learn more about what their parents grew up in/may have liked? Some kids would find it boring I guess, and they need all the customers they can get, but thats my 2 cents. Whoever it turns out to be, KI should pay more attention to their work like whatever the next world is, fixing bugs, etc. Apologies to the "hot new talent", as well. Have a great couple of days, wizards :D (and try not to be pessimistic, lol, new pet peeve of mine. Its almost Summer!)

Happy Questing!

P.S. Also, don't be surprised if I have some pics from Moongem's wizzy-versary party thats starting, it should be a blast :D