Category Archives: Wizard101 Game Events And Updates

Fall 2019 Test Realm: PvP Update

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The Fall 2019 Test Realm has been out for a couple weeks with many exciting new features and changes!

We now have a new dungeon in Wizard City for Gear Farming!

A new Backpack Butler (to help us find items)!

Upgrades to the Pet Hatching Kiosk!

Spellwrighting is a new option for your spells!

New Castle Magic spells have arrived!

They have also done expansions to Beastmoon Hunt and the Deckathalons!

(You can read all about these updates on RA right here)

November 2019 Update Notes Wizard101

Fall 2019 PvP Updates

In the Fall 2019 Test Realm PvP Update, there are some changes made to several spells in an attempt to rebalance PvP. In this article, we will look at the proposed changes to the spells. I’ll be talking about how they will impact PvP, if they go live, and my personal thoughts on these changes.

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Guardian Spirit

Guardian Spirit is one of the most powerful and controversial utility spells for the Life school. The way it works is, you cast it on yourself or an ally. When you die, you come back with 15% of your health.

You can increase how much health you come back with, in many ways. You can have it boosted by landing a critical when you cast it, by having a Sanctuary dome up when you die, by having a high healing boost on the gear you’re wearing, or having an aura that increases outgoing heal. All of these will boost the healing percentage of Guardian Spirit. This spell can be cast an infinite amount of times during a battle. When you die with a Guardian Spirit up, you will come back to life. Then you can cast another one so you come back to life again, and again.

For schools other than Life, you can receive 1 Guardian Spirit card from the Mandolin of Evermore.  This wand is available in the Hoard of the Hydra Pack, in the crown shop. The Mandolin of Evermore is a popular wand for low level defensive setups in PvP.

There are no changes to the mechanics of Guardian Spirit in the test realm as of right now. However, the card is now flagged with a no-PvP symbol.

Many higher rank PvPers, between the levels of 50-90, resort to Turtling with Guardian Spirit. That’s because they can’t survive long enough to kill due to the significantly higher pierce, damage, and health of their opponent. It’s an uneven match-up in these situations, and taking away Guardian Spirit would cap these players at a lower rank.

In PvP, at level 100 and beyond, players can get high amounts of pierce in addition to shrike and shadow spells. This makes high level PvP extremely fast-paced and offensive. The removal of Guardian Spirit would perpetuate the high amount of offense in high level PvP even more.

We must take into account that aggressive Life at higher levels isn’t in the best place because Scion of Life is a healing spell, and the last particularly strong hitting spell the Life school has had is Hungry Caterpillar.

Guardian Spirit is a bandaid to these issues. In no way am I saying it’s fair and balanced, because it’s not. The main problem with Guardian Spirit, are the massive resists and heal boosts that are available for the caster. To address that issue, I would change the amount of healing boosts and resists that you can get in PvP.  I would then buff Guardian Spirit to a revival of 25% of your health regardless of stats, aura, or bubble. You would also not be able to land a critical on a Guardian Spirit. To ensure an even amount of offense and defense in PvP, there would also need to be an update on pierce.

Loremaster

Loremaster is one of the strongest spells available in PvP. According to game developer and designer, Matt, Loremaster is the second most used spell in PvP. The first being Tower Shield! Loremaster costs 4 pips, deals 390-470 damage, and leaves both a -20% Weakness and a -35% Black Mantle. That makes it a decent move in almost any situation, at all levels of PvP, Magus and beyond.

In the test realm, Loremasters damage is lower at 235-315 with the Weakness reduced to 15%, and the Black Mantle reduced to 25%. Higher-level Balance Wizards will now become more dependent on reacting to their opponent with Mana Burn or Supernova. (excluding shadow hits)

Balance at Grandmaster and below will be using more strategies that involve masteries for secondary schools.

Legendary balance will feel the effects of this change. They will have to level to Transcendent for trained Mana Burn and Supernova. Even with the trained spells they will still face defeat by Exalteds with Shadow Magic at a lower rank. This may seem like a significant damage nerf, but KingsIsle did it that way to maintain it as a two-utility hit. But, I would have gone about it differently and lowered the damage to 395 (balance damage per pip is, on average <100, so I’ve lowered it to that amount to be consistent with that), removed the mantle, but kept the weakness the way it is at -20%.

Burning Rampage

Burning Rampage is one of the strongest PvP spells, available to the Fire school today. It’s a 5-pip DOT (damage over time) spell that does 70 damage for the initial hit, then 700 base damage on the ticks for two rounds after it’s cast.

Burning Rampage is especially strong in PvP below level 100 because it can easily one-shot your opponents with all the damage the ticks do. You can follow it up with other spells, including a Fire Beetle or two, a Brimstone Revenant, or you can summon the Fire Elemental Minion and cast Burning Rampage the same round the minion casts a DOT (damage over time) spell .

In high level PvP, it’s more situational, but it can be strong when you pull off combos like Rampage then Fire from Above, which is one of the most difficult combos to counter.

In the test realm right now, Burning Rampage does 70 for the initial hit then does 700 base damage after three rounds instead of two. Fire may become even more powerful with this spell, because it gives you more time to stack two traps before the tick goes off, or to cast a Fire Elf or a Link to prevent the opponent from reacting.

I would suggest making the DOT (damage over time) spell go off after two rounds, but redistribute the damage to be close to even, but still a bit on the back-loaded side.

What do you think?

These spells may change, because as the Test Realm notes state, they have them this way for now for testing purposes and to see what the community thinks. With that said, what do you think of the Fall 2019 Test Realm PvP Update? Do you have any alternative ideas you would do with these spells? Let me know in the comments!

The Fall 2019 Update!

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As has become an annual event, the Fall 2019 test realm has just been released, and brought with it a major content update!  With new areas, expansive lore updates and some really epic features, this update has it all!  So lets delve deep into this vast array of new content and explore what it has to offer.

The Wizard City Underground!

After months of waiting, we finally are given the chance to learn about what happened to poor old Landscaper Doug!  Level 15 and above Wizards can adventure down into the Old Town Drain Gauntlet, in the hopes of finding him. Down under, you’ll find the Subterranean Sanitation Operations Boss, or Boss for short. He’ll definitely remember our Wizard’s assistance! 

Many levels later, upon completing Bartelby’s Scion quest line at the beginning of Empyrea Part 2, the next part of the Underground will unlock! Renee will call to us again, as we are the only “topsider” trusted to solve this mysterious issue. Something has corrupted the trash of Wizard City and brought it to life! It is our job to find the source of these monsterous creations and put an end to it! Along the way, we learn an insane amount of new lore that has to do with the origins of Ravenwood and so much more. We won’t spoil that here however, so stay tuned for our next article aptly titled The Wizard City Underground Story! 

These new areas bring with them new mobs, storylines, characters and content for you to sink your teeth, and your wand, into!  I’ve spent the last four hours on test realm and I’m still not done!

The Backpack Butler!

How many times have you had to spend hours, days, even weeks looking for an item? Whether it’s a piece of gear or a housing item, you just can’t seem to remember where you stashed it. Well this, right here, is your solution!  The Backpack Butler will cost you a mere 2500 gold, and can be found in many furniture stores throughout the Spiral!

Now our Wizards can search for an item of our choosing! The new Butler, I named mine Gerald, will then search every single location possible for our character in order to locate it!  

He’ll search our inventory, bank, shared bank, houses, attics, vaults and more until he finds what you’re looking for!  This feature will revolutionize the Wizard101 inventory system!  Perhaps more remarkably, it marks the first time we’ve seen an in-game search function (besides that of the Crowns shop). Could this lead to new search features in the future? What about one for the Bazaar?  

Only time will tell. But for now, I’m going to use Gerald to find my old 50 Million Player Monolith, an item I have been missing for months!

Hatchmaking Kiosk Talent Search!

If there was ever a feature we needed to have added to the already great Hatchmaking Kiosk, it was this.  Simply select the Search for pet talents option located in the top right hand corner of the Kiosk.  From there, simply search for whichever talents you want and select them!  What will follow is a list of every possible pet with those talents available. 

Alongside this massive improvement, there has been a change made to the browsing pages in the Kiosk. A new check mark will appear next to any pet you’ve acquired in your Pet Tome! Collecting all the pets in the Spiral has just been made a lot easier!

Spellwrighting!

This new feature has me extremely excited about what’s to come for the future of our spells in Wizard101! The ability to farm for Spellements, a new type of reagent, that allows us to modify our own spells is incredible!  Variations revealed by Kingsisle have shown accuracy increases, damage range increases and even the removal of damage ranges as a whole, replaced by a consistent amount! It’s exciting to think of the crazy variations that might one day become possible!

It appears that at first this feature will be limited to our original 1 pip spells, as shown by Kingsisle in their update notes, and the two new spells.  Nightbringer and Daybreaker are two new Sun school enchantments, found throughout the Wizard City Underground area!  Collecting enough of these rare Spellement reagents will allow you to modify them! This involves increasing the amount you can carry, their added pip cost, and how many of them can be reshuffled.

It’s likely these enchantments will have a role to play in PvP, as their delayed effect can allow for combinations and strategies not previously possible. It’s only a matter of time until someone finds a new, exciting way for them to be used!

Castle Magic Additions!

Housing enthusiasts rejoice! Castle Magic is receiving a set of three new additions for you all to play with. A whopping 36 new effect spells have now been added to your arsenal. These include Shadow and Loremaster spells!  

A new utility spell will allow you to disable the PvP sigil in your house. The action spell will allow you to teleport all players within the castle to you!  These can be very useful, as well as great fun and cause for mischief!

Event Updates!

This update also brings about expansions to the two major events in Wizard101 as of right now, the Beastmoon Hunt and the Deckathalons.  We are unable to see this content as of right now, but we’ll be bringing you all the information when it drops in a future update of the Test Realm!  

The Spiral Showcase event has also been made a little easier to gain points for. Changes have been made to pet training and team up options to allow points to be gained more easily. However no new means of gaining those points have been added as of right now.

Slap on your theory caps Wizards, maybe all the spoilers and leaks about new maps and other updates are going to come true!

So what else changed?

Lots of other little details have been changed in our precious Spiral.  Some of the more notable changes include the removal of a level requirement for owning houses and fixes to friend’s list issues. These quality of life changes fall in alongside a couple bug fixes and optimization changes to help the game become an even better version of itself!

What do you think?

For me, this is probably the best update we’ve received in a long time. I left out a lot about the Underground areas for my next article intentionally, because the content is genuinely amazing. I enjoyed every second of the hours I played for, and I know that tomorrow I’ll be doing the exact same thing! It’s these massive updates, alongside the beautiful changes we’ve all wanted for years, that allows the game to continue to flourish. I believe that this update will go a long way in continuing the games legacy!

So what do you think of these changes?  Let us know with a tweet or a comment down below.  And of course, make sure to stay tuned for the rest of the upcoming update articles!

The NEW Scroll of Fortune

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The new Scroll of Fortune has been added as a part of the Sizzling Summer Update!  Within it comes potions,  gold and even packs that you can earn by obtaining points over the next 4 months!  So, let’s see if it’s worth 7500 Crowns, and if the rewards are enough!

The Tiers

The Scroll of Fortune comes with 9 tiers. You progress on to the next tier, after fully progressing through your current one. To progress you have to earn points.

Points are earned by participating in the events that are currently active in the game. These include the Deckathalons, the Beastmoon Hunt, The Spiral Showcase, and any future events yet unknown!

Each tier requires a differing amount of points to complete, offering multiple rewards along the way as you progress!

tiers

The Rewards

Throughout the Scroll you will earn rewards as you progress. These can range from gold, to seeds, to Deckathalon packs. Completing the 9th tier comes with 32 rewards. That’s a lot of extra rewards you can earn by simply playing the events active at the time.  

However, the real rewards come from that 7500 Crowns investment into the scroll! With an additional 31 rewards up for grabs, I personally will be buying the Scroll. Justifying the cost is up to you, but I don’t want to regret not taking the opportunity to be able to dab on my haters with the new dance! Or, cast awesome magic spells with a simple emote! Or, what about having piles of elixirs and potions at your disposal to make your Wizard’s life easier, whatever they may be working on in the Spiral!

So is it worth it?

The Scroll initially had a fairly poor reception from the community.  Most people seem to believe it’s a waste of Crowns. I however, don’t.  It’s 7500 crowns for four months of rewards that you can earn. If you’re worried you won’t complete the scroll and get the rewards, you can buy it AFTER you’ve completed the tiers and still claim all the previous rewards you’ve gone past!  

If you need further incentive, do you really want to be that wizard who, a year down the line, has missed out on the opportunity to dab on their enemies after a PvP match..?  I think not! So, will you be purchasing the new Scroll of Fortune? Let us know in the comments below.

Test Realm is Here!

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Here we are again,  time for one of the most exciting “events” of the year! That’s right, test realm has gone live! This is our time, as members, to see what is coming up in the Spiral and be a part of bringing the updates to live realm. With our help, KI can polish up a new addition to the Spiral.  If you’ve never tried test realm, I highly recommend you download it and give it a try! 

You can download it here:

https://www.wizard101.com/game/game-preview

Wizard City revamp is complete!

The last remaining part of Wizard City to be renovated was Crab Alley. Well, with this test realm, they have finished it! It still follows the lead from Triton Avenue in regards to “storminess”, but has a much deeper and  richer texture than ever before. As with the rest of Wizard City, the creatures are more enhanced with better details. Well done KI!  This entire revamping has been an amazing additon to the game.

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Npc's have moved

The Photomancy advisor, Annie Shutterbug, is no longer hanging out by the Library.  She can now be found in Golem Court, where our next NPC used to be. 

The Registrar, Mr Lincoln will now  be located in Ravenwood.  Quite appropriate as you will see next in this article.

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New NPC

We now have a Resident Advisor for new incoming wizards, named Abby K. Doodle.  She’s a wonderful young lady that escorts you around Wizard City, introducing you to the many fun activities available to enjoy. She also makes sure to introduce you to the main NPC’s you need to know of. This is a wonderful addition that will definitely make things easier for new Wizards. 

We meet Abby K. Doodle in Merle Ambroses office, and she invites us to come along with her on a tour of Wizard City. We start in the Commons, where we are introduced to Lucky Hookline, Zeke, and  Eloise Merryweather.  They, in turn, explain what they have to  offer for game play. 

After that, she takes us to Golem Court, where we meet Annie Shutterbug and Farley and find out what ways they can help us on our journey.

She doesn’t stop there, though.  Next, we head on over to the Shopping District, where Abby tells us about all of the different shops there and the types of items they carry. We, at last, end up in Olde Town where we learn about the Bazaar and meet Elik Silverfist. Eudora Tangletree says hello as well, and introduces you to the idea of crafting in Wizard101.

Wizards will receive a badge for going on the tour with her, but it is currently un-named in test realm as of publish.

Meeting the Professors

Another great change for new Wizards is the way you get to meet the Professors for the first time.  After completing Unicorn Way, Merle Ambrose sends you to Mr. Lincoln at Ravenwood to register. Surprise, surprise, all the Professors are right there! They stand together to welcome you to the Spiral. They take turns introducing themselves, then your school Professor teleports you to  the school. Cool, huh?!

So much easier than having to run to each school to meet them!

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Harold Argleston

Harold Argleston, the Librarian, has added some extra spells to his inventory.  No, sorry, not new spells, but ones that can be hard to find.  The cards that have been added are: Balance Blade, Nature’s Wrath, Sandstorm, Blizzard, Stormzilla, Hex, and each school’s Traps. 

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Woohoo for the Balance Blades and Hex!

Quick Sell Changes

They have changed up the Quick Sell process and you can now sell your pets and crown items for gold! I love this, as I dislike having to just trash items or pets that I do not want or need when I don’t have the time to go all the way to the Shopping District to sell them. The Quick Sell button has moved and is now located on the lower left hand side of your tome.  Because of the ability to actually sell a Crowns item, they have implemented an extra “Are you  sure you want to sell these items”, verification. This helps us to make sure we aren’t accidentally selling something we truly want or need.  

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One last  little thing, before finishing this off. I noticed while starting off with a new Wizard, that there was a new healing spell attached to the wand that Merle Ambrose gave me. I personally have never seen it before. It was called “Heartbeat”. A 1 pip spell that delivers 245  health. I do not know whether it is a new spell they are adding in but it seems that way.

That concludes this walk through of the new updates coming that are on Test Realm right now. What do you  think of the new changes? Let us know your thoughts on these fabulous changes coming to Wizard 101!

Empyrea P2: Live Realm!

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Introduction

We’ve finally reached our last chapter in this amazing series! The third and final chapter, Live Realm. We will look and see how the community feels about this world!

Let’s tackle this insane world once and for all and see just what we all think about it!

Questing

The story line and questing difficulty are locked. What we have is what we’re getting. Kingsisle noticed that the majority wanted it to be challenging, we’re lucky we don’t have to relive the Mirage release.

What’s great about this is that the story is engaging. If you take away the visuals, fight mechanics and mini-games, it’s a well-written and enjoyable story!

Did you enjoy questing?

Over two-thirds of the players I asked enjoyed questing throughout Empyrea Part Two. That’s an amazing figure, as only 19% didn’t enjoy it! There are many people in the game who don’t play it for the story or questing, so this makes sense and is a lot better than it seems! 

Personally, I believe this is one of, if not the most important factor, to a world’s memory in hindsight. Looking back on Khrysalis, while it’s a beautiful and story-driven world, it’s only remembered for being insanely long!

It wasn’t just the story that stood out for Empyrea. The difficulty was almost perfectly tuned with the quest line and made us feel immersed within the world!

Did you enjoy the bosses and mobs?

The majority enjoyed the fights within the world! It wasn’t just us battling our way brainlessly, we had fun killing things! Again, this will contribute a lot to our long-term perception of this world. We’ll look back and say yeah, I enjoyed it. Things like these keep our hopes up for the game and its story!

Did you enjoy the challenge?

The difficulty was perfect and I’m happy Kingsisle didn’t nerf Part 2! We needed a challenge and we got one! There are also some debatable topics flying around the community. The biggest being the Titan’s Trident fight. 

Do you think the Trident fight needs to be nerfed?

The community was split on this topic. We want a challenge! It’s too hard! There’s cause for both arguments.

The cheats are unfair and gaining shadows while raised in the air and untouchable means the boss is super hard to beat. If you’re coordinated and playing with a knowledgeable team, it doesn’t take too long.

The problem lies within the team requirements. The demand for Balance and Death wizards for blades and Bad Juju is insane! You need both if you don’t want the fight to take over an hour. This debate will keep raging on and there’s nothing we can do to resolve it!

Overall World

I asked for a lot of information from you guys to get the best overall feel for this world and how you felt about it. It’s safe to say, the chart reveals all!

Did you enjoy the World overall?

All the positive results combined take up more than half the data. Another fifth considers it cool, another considers it okay, and a small majority didn’t enjoy it.

This is a good thing. It shows us that Kingsisle isn’t messing around with world releases. We’ve got a lot to look forward to!

Did you enjoy the ‘Nothing’ teaser?

The community is split three ways on this. I think partially due to concern. It’s been a long time since we started a new story arc, let’s hope that Kingsisle will nail it like they did this one.

This had led to some wild speculation about what we will face, let’s hope it meets our expectations!

Was what we got enough?

An overwhelming majority think we got enough new content to keep us going for a while. However, there is a cause for concern we won’t get new content soon enough, and the game will die down.

Recently, I’ve noticed a lot more people in the game, with a few realms appearing full which used to be empty at peak play time. I think the number one priority for Kingsisle should be to keep this hype train going!

To those who said it wasn’t enough, I’d encourage you to keep going. It may just be the initial grind that burns you out. Give WhirlyBurly, the side quests, and farming a chance. Maybe your opinion will change!

Opinions

I did something different with this questionnaire and asked for individual opinions. I also asked about one of my favorite new games, Whirlyburly!

Have your opinions on WhirlyBurly changed?

Sadly, I seem to be in the minority. I think the main reason for the overall view and perception of Whirlyburly is that there isn’t enough to work for, cause, and there aren’t any shorter game modes. 

That’s a different topic and we can be reasonably sure this isn’t all we’ve seen from Whirlyburly.

I then asked for just your thoughts on anything Part Two related. I got a lot of calls for nerfs but not to over-nerf. There were other great ideas and opinions such as:

  • A request for PvP gear and PvE gear to be entirely separate.
  • It’s the best world ever.
  • A Life school AOE spell needs to be created.

Conclusion

We’ve tackled Empyrea Part Two while breaking down each part to see how we all feel and overall, I think this world has been great. A 8.5/10 at least. There’s little room to complain, a lot to enjoy and shows promise for what’s coming! I am happy and eager to see the game’s future.

A final shout out to the entire community for taking part and helping with these articles! You guys have been amazing and I think it’s participation and approaches like this that will keep this game going for years to come! Thank you all!

Whirlyburly! The Basics

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Introduction

So, how about Whirlyburly? Whirlyburly is that oddly-placed mini-game within our Velo City storyline. It’s kind of like chess, but three player… and hexagonal… with only three pieces…  Okay, so it’s nothing like chess, but it is a tactical board game with a lot of inner complexities that make it surprisingly fun.

The game can be complicated and confusing for a new player, and only through experience does one learn the ropes, but that’s what this is here for! So, let’s see what we can teach you!

The Cards

The random selection of 5 cards you get at the start of each round are what allow you to make specific plays. Ideally, you want big movement pattern cards, but often small, strategic plays can win you a match!

It’s important that you can discard any card you don’t want. A simple right click will allow you to find a better one for the next turn!

You can also gain a lot of tiles at once by matching the letter of your card to your piece. So, S for Scrapper, and when he finishes he takes with him a large area that surrounds him!

You can also change what piece has which card before the selection phase ends by simply clicking them and a new card!

The Pieces

Contrary to the name, the Charger isn’t specifically designed to charge at the opponent and take chests. Each piece functions in the exact same way, but with different prey and counters.

The best you can do is watch where the enemy sends their pieces. If both of their hunters are near a single place, send your Charger in while keeping your Scrapper away. Those 3 point kills make a massive difference. This smart positioning often allows you to take chests without much hassle or competition!

But be wary of overextending! If you send your Hunter in to take a chest, make sure their Scrappers aren’t on your borders ready to pounce!

Remember that you can also knock pieces off the map! If a piece is near the outline, use a Hunter or Charger to knock them off of the edge, sending them back to spawn!

The Points

The points system is pretty easy to understand but can be a lot more complex when you are left with decisions that could drastically affect your score at the end of the game.

The 10 point chest is almost always a good idea, but on your way, you may be killed and leave uncontested tiles for your enemies to take! Tiles build up points faster than you think, so leaving a ton of them on the other side of the board free to be retaken is not a good idea.

Capturing is also a solid method of gaining points. If you can repeatedly take out their pieces and contest tiles you’ll quickly score into first place!

The last round! This is super important and can make or break your entire game. Taking tiles should be your absolute priority. Don’t leave yourself at risk in the round before, otherwise, you’ll just take the tiles you already have. Save some of those Area Capturing tiles for last and boost your score as much as possible!

Conclusion

Whirlyburly is actually quite fun, endearing and a unique game once you start to understand it. It can quickly take up a lot of your time and you’ll end up spending too much time in Velo City, or you’re like me and have created an entire gear set just to wear into games!

Hopefully, this allows you guys to better experience our new mini-game and earn some cool shirts!

Empyrea P2: Test Realm

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Introduction:

Welcome to Chapter Two of my Empyrea Part 2 Series!  This chapter focuses on the current state of the test realm as of 3/11/18.  As this is most likely near the end of Test Realm as a whole, and most of the big changes have been made already!

Once again this article will review information taken from the questionnaire we’ve shared out across a multitude of discord servers, so if you want to help out for the next one (Chapter 3, Live Realm) stay tuned for them!


So, we’ll cover the changes made in Test, what was good, what was bad.  And then overall conclude how we feel about the world in general, let’s get into it!

Questing

In our Expectations chapter, we covered that the overwhelming majority of the discord player base wanted a long storyline.  Nothing that only too a few hours. What we got seems to have split everyone, almost down the middle!

It’s clear to see the majority wanted a longer storyline, but nearly half are happy with the length we got.  It seems Kingsisle have succeeded here, reaching a nice middle ground.  I think the only way we could have got a better result is with a slightly longer story, maybe an hour or two more.  And even then, the story was compelling!  We weren’t bored, tirelessly spamming spacebar to clear through it ASAP (At least the second time).  It’s actually a storyline we can get invested in and enjoy, and I cannot wait to see what the final ending to the Third Arc contains for us!

When asked about the difficulty of the world, it was pretty cut and dry as to what we wanted to what we got.  Overall the questing side of Part Two seems too big a success, with little to no flaws, and without spoiling the story, has some fun bosses, challenges and more!

Not a single person wanted the world to be easier.  With a good portion wanting it to be a little bit harder, a potentially perfect compromise would be to keep the offensive ability of the world the same, but increasing the health overall a fair amount, say 10%-15%.

Unique Content

This was never going to be an easy task for Kingsisle.  They had a lot of work ahead of them if they wanted to match their own creativity and design of Part One.  Not only would there need to be a good amount of this new, unique content but it would also have to live up to expectations!

It’s clear when asked if they were happy with the number of new areas, most people were.  Again, no one wanted less, with a respectable portion wanting more areas than what we saw.  However overall this is another check in the list for Kingsisle!  

I think the only way this could’ve been improved was if the story itself was longer.  It never really felt like we did nothing in an area, or that it was a waste of time. Every area felt fairly fulfilled, and that’s without side quests too!

Here’s the true success story though.  It is almost impossible to deny the beauty, creativity and sheer scale of the new areas.  They’re all incredibly unique, well put together and are very fun to play through.

There’s not much more to say here.  Fantastic job to Kingsisle, and while we acknowledge the smaller portion who disliked the design of the area, it’s almost negligible compared to those who liked it!

But how do the mobs and NPCs fair in these new environments?!  I mean what is there really to say.  An overwhelming majority loved the new mobs, bosses, and NPCs.  

It’s safe to say that no real NPC was boring, felt unneeded or didn’t contribute much to our play through.  Not a single mob really felt useless or unrequired either, and Kingsisle even added multiple roaming mobs you don’t actually take on in the story simply to expand on the world!

As for bosses, well dang.  The regular bosses were all challenging in their own right, with heavy hits and some unique and fun cheats.  And certain bosses were overall super creative and fun to fight through.

But what about puzzles?

Well, this wasn’t too hard either, with a majority enjoying the puzzles and mini-games that were incorporated into the story!  They added a nice change of pace and character to the world, once again making it feel more and more immersive!

But now to tackle something that could potentially taint some players opinions on the world.

It’s safe to say Whirlyburly was being fairly hyped up by the Kingsisle team.  They spoke at length about it in a video on their Official Youtube channel, and we had a lot to expect going into it.

However, it somewhat failed to deliver based on how you responded when we asked what you thought of it.  Most of the player base just didn’t really care about it.  It was kind of just there for them, nothing to take note of, which is a major shame.  Overall not even 20% found it above just meh.  

Further a scary percentage actually just disliked it entirely, which for something that they apparently sunk a fair bit of effort into is upsetting.

Kingsisle have made a fair amount of changes to Whirlyburly in between Test realms, but I still don’t think it has lived up to our expectations, which is a major bummer.

It’s safe to say this is not the potential PvP substitute that many players were expecting, but hey?  At least there are some cool badges to earn.

Gear

Now we get to the juicy stuff.  This is almost what makes or breaks a new world in today’s game.  The grind for the perfect gear has never been easy and everyone wants to be the guy with almost unbelievable stats.  So how did it fair?

Well, we asked what you thought of the rarity, and we got some mixed results!  With a majority finding it to be just about right, just over two-fifths of the players wanted it different!

A near perfect split of that mount going either way, with nearly half wanting it to be a little more of a grind and harder.  Whilst the other half are under the belief that it’s too hard and should be made easier.

What’s unique here is that the craftable gear, like Part One, is an exact copy of the dropped gear, so you won’t have to cry yourself to sleep at night wondering if you’d have got it after just one more run!

However, there is an issue…

It was safe to say, based on just game knowledge and the results from Expectations that we desperately needed improved offensive robes, not useless ones with critical block, as well as Amulets and Athames.  Wands and Rings were also needed, though not as badly, and Hat and Boots were in a good position with Cabalist Gear.  So when asked what gear you believed wasn’t improved enough, we got pretty much what was expected.

An overwhelming majority wanted an improved robe, as for many schools Malistaire or Rattlebones at level 100 is still the best!  And while some have Tenni’syn gear, it’s not enough.

We also clearly see the desire for Wands and Athames, closely followed by amulets.  And whilst the new crafted mastery amulets are great and all, we need some good ‘ol stats on some Amulets!

It’s safe to say we aren’t too happy with most of the new gear, which is a tragic end to an otherwise near perfect world!

Conclusion

All in all, I’d be more than happy to call the world a success as of Test Realm.  It seems polished, minus some bugs, and vibrant.

Almost no issue whatsoever with the Questing side to the world, with the only possible critique being making it a little longer and challenging.  But all in all very nice.

The unique content in terms of design is near perfection!  I am more than happy to say I love this world visually, and how diverse and colorful it is.  The mobs, areas, cutscenes and more were all splendid! Sadly what was potentially the most unique and hopefully long lasting piece of content, Whilyburly, seemed to drop the ball.  Let’s hope Kingsisle change that for Live Release!

Now, gear.  Always a controversial and dividing factor, and yet somehow Kingsisle managed to leave everyone a little disappointed.  I think it is very, very clear that no one wants a robe with basically just block and incoming. It seems they’re a little behind on the “gear meta”.  Let’s hope we see some big changes.

Overall though I am looking forward to bringing all my characters through this world!  Let’s just hope Live Release only bolsters this world’s already impressive achievements and accolades!

Empyrea P2: Expectations

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Introduction

So this series of articles is an experiment I came up with at 2 am while debating with a friend of mine as to whether Empyrea Part Two would be a walk in the park or not.

So I figured instead of just ramming our heads into one another, I’d actually try to get some results.  So I went to Google Forms and whipped up a quick questionnaire that I circled among a variety of large Wizard101 Discord Servers.

The results were kind of interesting and has lead me to make this article.  I also intend on following it up with three more related articles about the Test realm release, Live release and lastly what could’ve been done differently

With all that said I hope you find all of this somewhat interesting, and a special thanks to all the discord partners who shared this and everyone who answered it.

Questing

So this is going to affect different players in different ways.  Some may not care about the actual quests themselves whilst others may.  I gathered some interesting data to take a look into what people seem to want.

First off it’s important to establish what people do not want.  I think the two world traits the community can universally agree are bad for the game are repetitiveness and easiness.

  • Pre-Nerf Zafaria is infamous among older players as some of the grindiest and most boring questing the game has ever seen, with endless infinite length defeat and collects taking hours of your day.
  • Cast your mind back to Polaris’ release.  Coming off Darkmoor and Khrysalis Part Two we were expecting a serious challenge.  What we got was a measly few hours of killing in a few turns without breaking a sweat.

The communities data reflects these idea’s quite vividly, with 43.6% of players wanting Empyrea Part Two to be the hardest in game PvE content we have ever seen!  And the remaining majority wanting it to at least be harder than Part One!

Part One’s Medulla nerf, while maybe needed, was a little too drastic.  And while not on the same level as the Mirage nerf, it still was too much of a nerf.  Players need PvE incentive, and 100 Kill badges for bosses won’t cut it. We want a challenge!!!

We can see this idea of a challenging second part echoed within other data too.  A big part of the memory of a world is how long it takes. Everyone remembers Khrysalis, most quite vividly, due to its sheer length.  

But that doesn’t mean it’s remembered badly.  Most people see finishing Khrysalis as an accomplishment purely based on its length.  But what it appears Kingsisle doesn’t understand is that that itself is not an inherently bad thing!  

A very clear majority want Empyrea Part two to have equal to or more quests than part one, with 79 quests.  And just under half wanting over 100 quests. Finishing 100 or more quests leaves you feeling like a hardened veteran walking away from battle!

We actually feel accomplished, and that feeling is something that a lot of game developers strive to make their players feel as it keeps them interested and coming back for more.  Sadly, the last time I personally felt accomplished in the game when related to PvE content, was finishing Mirage in test realm, about 2 years ago!  So let us hope that Part Two meets our standards!

Unique Content

Thankfully, this is something that KI succeeded in with the release of Part One!  What I mean by unique content can be broken down quite easily. Variations of mobs, New mob types, areas we visit, unique story mechanics and others.

Empyrea Part One released 5 Unique new creature types.  We got the Dwarves of Athanor as well as the Beastmen of Aeriel.  They were all awesome and conceptually incredible. And those 5 doesn’t even include those tagged by ‘unknown’.  Ranging from The Bat to The Quizzler.

When asked how many new creature types they’d like to see,
the resounding majority wanted more than Part One!  

And fortunately, it doesn’t look like KI are going to let us down here with the new mushroom-fungus like humanoid already teased! 

Could this awesome looking mushroom man tie into his own unique area?  Well, let’s see how the community feels! 

When it comes down to remembering a world, a very big factor that contributes to your memories are the area’s you quested in.  Think Floating Island of Celestia, and how unique it is compared to the rest of the world.

It’s very important for a world to create amazing areas both in design and mechanics.  Part one didn’t let us down too much here, with a sophisticated Alphoi city and a subterranean Lava settlement.  And it’s safe to say the community wants it all again and more!

A clear majority want at least 2 more areas compared to what we saw in Part One, with more than 85% wanting more than equal to what we were given.

A giant Mushroom forest with towering mushrooms as tall as trees to accompany our leaked mob could contribute a lot to making Part Two something truly memorable!

Take a look at some awesome airships that we’ve seen leaked, let’s hope these play a fairly large role, like piloting one into battle and boarding enemy ships.  Just some wild speculation but it’d be awesome.  

Empyrea Part One also brought in fun minigames that broke up the monotonous slaying and collecting we normally partake when slicing our way through a world.  The dance game and shock-a-lock variations made the world a lot more fun and certainly had a lasting impact on the community!

When asked whether they’d like to see more puzzles in Part Two, the very clear vast majority answered yes!

Clearly, this shows KI has considerable interest in keeping the game alive and going and is not out for the quick buck.  Why create these fun new mechanics if they don’t care about the games longevity.

And with talk of a fun new “board game” within the game, with tons of badges and fun stuff to accompany it, it’d be safe to say they intend on continuing this trend!

Now we tackle probably the most divisive and complicated issue.. Gear!

Gear

Where to begin.  Part One brought us the Cabalist Hood and Boots, which are without out a doubt unparalleled in the offensive gear section.  Certain schools find a lot of value out the Corporal Tenni’syn Robes and the Cabalist Decks from Beast Man’s Fight Club are also incredible if you can look past the number of copies.

However, there are a lot of out-dated gear pieces that we REALLY need to see upgraded.  A lot of schools still use Malistaire robes, Morganthe’s amulet or Level 99-100 athame’s.  For 25 levels these gear pieces have not been improved on.

And the communities opinions reflect that too.  

Thanks to the Cabal hat and boots, most don’t feel they need improvement, however, the numbers speak for themselves.  Almost everyone universally agrees that we need new robes, amulets, and wands.

Now the upgrading of the crafted wands could potentially take care of this issue, but that eliminates only one problem.  Could we see the same mechanic for other gear pieces? I believe it’d be unlikely to see it on all, or even just a few, but the possibility and potential is there.

But with all this talk of new gear, a very big thing to remember is the attainability of these pieces.  For crafting, we’re limited by the scarcity of reagents, but for regular dropped gear it’s all about the rarity.  

It’s safe to say that the player base got burnt out farming secret tunnel so much.  The fact that Medulla, a final boss, had its top-tier gear also dropped by some elite minions in the first area is honestly alarming.

And this is a flaw with my questionnaire.  I should’ve asked whether people enjoyed farming a random variety of mobs and bosses for gear as opposed to a single boss.  However, a general consensus I discovered amongst talking with the community was that it was detrimental to the game to have top tier gear dropped so early by such a simple and easy mob.

And while this is a trend we see KI repeating, thanks to the video’s on their official channel, we can hope it’s not as boring and repetitively easy as Secret Tunnel.

Conclusion

I think overall we have a lot to look forward too in Empyrea Part Two.  We’re hoping for this to be one of the biggest and most meaningful PvE expansions we’ve seen to date.  And based on the interviews we’ve heard, it may just be that.

However, there is always going to be cause for concern.  We really need KI to keep up without the creatures, areas and artistic success of Part One while not letting us down in the other factors like difficulty and length.

With regards to the other articles, you can expect to see another form after a week or two of test seeing how it compares to your expectations and more, with a subsequent article on it.  Empyrea Part Two: Chapter 2, Test Realm. Get hyped!

I’d again like to thank everyone who took part for helping me reach these conclusions.  Much appreciation to all.