Wizard101: Pack-a-Palooza!

Just saw this on Wizard101.  It seems that in an all out attempt to wring all of the remaining crowns out of my account, card packs are half off until Feb 10.  This means that I will be buying all of them.

Also, if you click on the link, you can get a free gift from KI, which seems to be a free card pack with the chance of an additional item as they introduce the Skyvern's Hoard Pack.

Looks pretty sweet to me.

The website says:

• Up to 50% OFF ALL Packs!
• Launching our newest pack, The Skyvern's Hoard!
• Nightmare & Yuletide Packs Return!
• Receive a Free Item as a Gift From KingsIsle*
• Stay tuned for partner giveaways!

Now that I'm playing W101 again in earnest, it's nice to see the Yuletide Pack make a return.  I bought a few when they were released before and got two very fast candycane broom mounts, which is a great return on investment as far as mounts are concerned.  I don't know if that's typical, but if you're a new player looking for an inexpensive mount, that's a good place to start!

Make sure you check out all the official sites on twitter (maybe not mine since I'm only official for P101  . . .  so far!!) for contests as I'm sure KI will be sending out codes for them to disperse to the community.

It will be interesting to see what the new packs contain and how many crowns I'll have left in my account by the mid February.

Pirate101: Roadblock at Rats of Nim

When my swashbuckler received the dino crew member from the Tribal Crew Pack, I was anxious to try it out and see how it played (more on that in a future post).  What I discovered instead was that my policy of not doing any sidequests had caught up to me with my Swashbuckler at the same place it had with my Witchdoctor" the Rats of Nim quest.  Now, while my Witchdoctor was able to pull through as the sole survivor of that battle, my Swashbuckler was the first to go due to my poor choice of using gallant defense and then trying to go into stealth.  Bad idea.

I'm sure if my strategy had been a little stronger, I could have succeeded, but I think I'm going to change my sidequest policy to doing sidequests that award high xp.   Going through the game underleveled, while it seems a bit faster, loses it's luster quickly when you're defeated by seemingly easy fights.

Taking a Wizard Episode 4 is live!

Wizard101 fans, be sure to check out this week's episode of Taking a Wizard.  My fire wizard Gilroy Boomblossom has started working with pets, gardening, housing, and has reached a new leveling milestone . . . and I have questions!  Hear the answers to last week's questions, things I wished someone had told me, a little miscellaneous advice and a new round of questions.  Thanks for your support and enjoy the show!

Pirate101: Tribal Crew Pack Success!

After opening approximately 80 Tribal Crew Packs, I finally received a crew member on my Swashbuckler!!     It's a muskateer type, Lemba Moonskull.  I had gotten some additional crowns so I figured I'd give it another go.  10-11 Packs later, crew member!

All told, I'd say I opened around 80 packs to get this dino buddy, so I certainly paid my dues.  My Swashbuckler is lvl 14 and that is the level the companion started at.  I imagine that my Swashbuckler will see some attention for the next few days as I try this hard won companion out.

I don't recommend opening that many packs.  It would be nice if the droprate on crew members was increased.  That said, I'm excited to finally get to try one out and can't wait to play this evening.  Good luck to everyone else who is still trying to get one!  I know your pain, but hopefully, I'll be satisfied until the next pack is released.  Until then, all of my characters' bunkhouses will have a distinctly Aztecan look to them due to the over abundance of housing items you receive when you open that many packs.  Silver lining is that none of my Pirates are hurting for gold either, having sold off all the treasures and extraneous mounts/pets/gear/furniture.

Pirate101: Companion Promotion Guide Updated!

I just updated the most popular post on this blog: the Companion Promotion Guide.  Updates include additional companions, including those from the new Tribal Crew Pack, as well as adjusted promotion levels.    Also, I added it to the website for easier access.  View it here.

Pirate101: Disparity Between Witchdoctor and Buccaneer

I ran the Miranda instance in Pirate101 last night.  For those of you who don't know all the instances by name, this is the one where you have to collect cards for a poker game with Death.  The instance warning on this one says it could take up to 2 hours to complete.

I was running this on Witchdoctor last night who was level 35 at the time and it struck me how much easier this seemed since the last time I was here on my lvl 37-38 Buccaneer.  I think this has to do with the way the classes are designed.  Witchdoctors never really use their main attack after you get to a certain point in the game because they have an over abundance of abilities.  So many in fact, that developer Ratbeard has stated officially that part of the strategy with Witchdoctors is which abilities to discard and which to keep.  Buccaneers, on the other hand, barely have any abilities and fewer still that are direct attacks.  To compensate, they have high armor/dodge and a strong melee direct attack.

As I have stated before, Bucks need some help.  They are meant (based on their description) to be heavy armor wearing melee, so a tank in the traditional RPG mold.  However, one of the hallmarks of a tank is the ability to hold aggro, or to put it another way, to keep the enemy focused on them.  Then, they can mitigate all the damage they receive from this attention with the defensive abilities and heavy armor.  They won't hit as hard as every other class, but they should have a higher survival rate and their companions should last longer because the monsters stay more or less focused on the Buck.  Unfortunately, this isn't the case with the way the game is now.  With their lower damage and no real area of effect abilities to speak of inherent to the class, Bucks can't hold aggro and, in more difficult battles, can end up standing alone against the remaining enemies and, over the next 10-15 minutes, slowly winning the back and forth dodging war (particularly a problem in MooShu where enemies have a very high dodge rate).

Jumping from my witchdoctor to my buccaneer is always jarring in just how powerful my witchdoctor feels and how ineffective my Buccaneer feels.  I don't think it's a problem with my strategy and I feel like I have a pretty good handle on this game.  I know they have said that they are looking into the Buccaneer class, but I hope they do it soon.  I like playing tanks.  I don't mind battles taking a little longer because I have more defense than offense, but I don't like not being able to protect my companions, who are high damage/low armor (the damage has to be dealt by someone, after all) while my Buck rarely takes any damage at all.  Having to stack accuracy in favor of all other stats doesn't seem like a fun solution.

I love this game and I like the idea of Buccaneers, but I may have to take on another class as my main if playing as a buccaneer becomes too frustrating.  I'll revisit this again when I get further with the other three classes and, eventually, I'll do an in depth comparison of them all.  Until then, I have a lot of leveling to do!

Connect the DoTs Sells Out!

In order to offset the costs involved in maintaining a website, I have gotten a sponsor for the website/podcasts: Amazon.com!  In looking at all the options available to me, putting the Amazon banner up and letting people click through to buy what they would have bought anyway seemed much better than asking people to join some trial program or plastering intrusive ads all over the site.

Basically, if you like the show/blog, the next time you want to buy something on Amazon, visit connectthedotspod.com, click on the Amazon banner, buy what you were going to buy anyway, and the show gets a small cut of that.  It's a win/win situation: we get the funds we need to keep the show going, you get a great show and have to expend only a minimal amount of effort to show us your support.

Thank you to everyone who has visited our site and listened to the podcasts!  This whole experiment is going along much better than I could have hoped and I'd like to keep it up for as long as I can!

Taking a Wizard Episode 3 is Live!

Episode 3 of the Taking a Wizard podcast is available now and can be heard here.  Once again, I answer last week's questions, introduce a few new segments and ask a few more questions.  Thank you again to everyone who has responded to the show in the past.  As always, if you have any suggestions for how I can improve the show or any advice for Gilroy, post it here or send me an email at takingawizard@gmail.com

Pirate101: Free Tribal Crew Pack Code (UPDATED)

UPDATED!

If you are logged in to mmorpg.com, you can go here to get either an in game item from the Tribal Crew Pack or a Tribal Crew Pack to open.  It seems this works similarly to how the gold giveaways vary between 1,000 and 5,000g: you could get a single pack item (a various worth) or a pack itself.

When you get to the site and have logged in, there's a button near the bottom that will generate your code.

Here are the items possible from the code:

• Aztecosaur Throne (Housing Decoration)
• Priest King Statue (Housing Decoration)
• Companion Training Tome (1 free companion training point)
• Aztecosaur Cube (Treasure – sells for gold)
• Aztecosaur Charm (Treasure – sells for gold)
• Ceremonial Arch (Housing Decoration)
• Aztecosaur Symbol (Treasure – sells for gold)
• Troggy Totem (Housing Decoration)
• Aztecosaur Statue (Housing Decoration)
• Bone Drake (Pet)
• Aztecosaur Altar (Housing Decoration)
• Rare chance for the pack itself.

Good luck to all!

Pirate101: Thoughts on the Tribal Crew Pack

I opened about 50 of these last night.  I may have a problem.  My other problem is that in all of those packs, I didn't get the one thing I really wanted:  new crew member.  Bummer.

I did get around 5 each of the three pets, the Scrimshaw Drake being my new favorite, 4 hunting pumas, 2 Jade Ankylosauruses, 1 Garnet Ankylosaurus, and about 7-8 Citrine.  All told, I also got 15-20 or so training points (on +1 or +3 cards), lots of gear, a few weapons and a ton of housing items and vendor items.

For the gear, most of it was opened on my lvl 50 Buccaneer so it was lvl 45 and, for the most part wasn't as good as what you can get for drops (which is how it should be, btw) and I was able to get a new outfit and totem.  However, I don't think I saw a totem drop that was superior to the eyepatches you can buy in the crown shop, which was a bit disappointing.

The vendor items range anywhere from 600g to 6,750g but are mostly in the 600-900g range.  Not a great money maker, but they sell for more than the housing items I vendored.  Those averaged 8-60g a piece, with a few that sold for 1,500g.

All in all, I'm sad I didn't get a new crew member, especially after that many opened pack, but I do like the new mounts, especially the pumas, and the gear and weapons look neat.

My advice, if you have the option, is to open these on a low level character.  The stats on the gear are more suited for a boost while leveling than they are for endgame, as they don't have any cards attached to them, or at least not that I saw.