My Advice - Look Closely....

 If you haven''t yet got to Wintertusk, then you'll probably be leveling up at a fairly steady rate. Wintertusk changes all that. All of a sudden you will get between 6,000 and 15,000 XP - you start to level very quickly. So it was of no surprise that I leveled to 60 last night.

This is a big level to get to because Waterworks is now open. I am told by Morgrim that this dungeon is very hard, but that it has arguably the best gear drops in the game. But I will leave that for another time, I haven't even contemplated this dungeon yet.

What I do like to do on a level up, is pop over to the Bazaar to see if there is any gear worth buying for my new level. After all there is always room for improvement! And there was one item - a hat. I had 195,000 gold, yet I still took a second to consider spending 15,000 on a hat. Was it really worth it? Having access to Halfang did help with my choice though. I hit the Buy button, and then head over to the Treasure Cards to see if there was anything worth buying.

It was then that I noticed my gold balance was now 49,000. What? Back to the Hats list and there it was - that hat had cost me a staggering 155,675 gold - ten times more that I had thought I was spending.

And as you can see from this picture, it is quite a look - not one that I liked at all. So not only had I spent nearly all my gold, but I would also have to re-stitch! Another 32 Gold on a cheap hat and 100 crowns to re-stitch. This was an expensive 10 minutes.

This is how it looks now.... I like these style of hats rather than the helmet style that hide your face and hair.

So my advice is to look closely at that price tag. Or be prepared to spend a lot of time at Halfang if you get it as wrong as I did!

Would love to hear of any Bazaar stories you guys have? I can't be the only one to have made such an expensive purchase by mistake?

Until Next Time,
Tabitha.

What a Stunner!

I leveled up to 58 the other day, and with that came the promise of a new spell!! Of course spells at these levels spells need to be earnt, but they always take you to your school first. So off I go to Nightside to see Dworgyn.

I had no idea what spell would be coming my way, and that brings with it a certain anticipation.

The quest is revealed - I need to make a bone drake. Mortis tells me all about the bone drake, and what I have to do to make one.

Back to Dragonspyre I go to find the Nightreaver's Lair. Of course Osseus Nightreaver wouldn't just give those bones away - let the battle begin! And then I notice that he is a level 10 death boss. Not just any level 10 death boss - this was going to be one hell of a battle - he had 33,310 health!! The minion in the fight only had 1,055, but once again was death. I took care of him, and settled into the biggest battle my wizard had ever fought.

I pulled out the Living Puppet, with 45 health, that I get from my wand to lend a  hand. Surprisingly he managed to last the whole battle, as you can see in this shot just before the battle finished.

One other issue with this battle, is that the boss gave me a +35 trap every time I played a feint, a trap or a blade. Made a tricky fight all the more trickier!
There's no calling a friend in to help on this one either. You have to prove your worth to get this spell it would seem.
Thanks to the Living Puppet and my hound I finished the battle with pretty much full health - it's great being a death wizard!

Time to go to Grizzleheim now. This is a great part of Grizzleheim actually, I do love the ice parts.
Once in Nidavellir I take out the bones and let the magic of the place re-build the bone drake.

 How awesome! I have never seen the spell I am about to get, so looking at what has now appeared in front of I am more than a little excited.

Time for another visit to Dworgyn to let him know of my success and to collect my reward.

The Skeletal Dragon spell, otherwise know as the Bone Drake.

And it is a stunner!

Awesome to watch and a big hit that just keeps going. Looking forward to the next boss fight now!

Until Next Time,
Tabitha

And that makes 20 or is that 21??

On the 26th December I set myself a personal quest to get 20 snow globes - you can read about it here. So I have been hanging out at the Bazaar. A lot. For days there would be nothing, then one day there would be 3 of them sitting there. I managed to get 15 relatively easily...... I felt sure that once the New Year arrived there would be a bounty of snow globes in the Bazaar.

So I was dismayed to find them even harder to get hold as (if you are from this side of the planet it would be described as "Rare as hen's teeth"). Today that elusive little globe at last showed up in the list. I held my breath as I pressed the Buy and then confirmed - I was dreading seeing the "Sorry this item has been sold". But lady luck was with me, and I got it. The 20th snow globe.

I took a short video of me placing my last globe - an historic moment :)

With a break for maintenance, the next time logged back I was again at the Bazaar. Habit got the better of me so I checked, and there was another snow globe. With lightening fast reflexes, that globe was mine.

So I went back to my house to see what would happen.... I can't place any more outside, so number 21 will just have to go inside!

And here it is. In my everlasting Christmas room, keeping the snowmen happy - a bit like the little snowman in the Disney movie Frozen!!

My Winter House will now have lots of snow all year round. No global warming problems here!

Now I wonder if I will be able to resist the urge to buy them when I see them at the Bazaar next time.... Time will tell!!

Until Next Time,
Tabitha.

What Spell is THAT???!???

The other day, I found myself browsing a part of Wizard101Central that I check out every now and then - the "School Spells" section.  You can find it here: http://www.wizard101central.com/wiki/Category:Spells Then I check out the Fire spells, and just see if there are any I might have missed in my journeys...

One of the spells that stood out to me was called Inferno Kraken.  This is a treasure card that you see from time to time and I had always dismissed it as simply turning a Storm spell into a Fire spell...but I should have known better!

I have often used the spell Mutate Thunderbird to turn my Phoenix into a Thunderbird, and I gotta say, it looks great and leaves a little gift that you don't get from a Phoenix ... three +30 traps!  Just like a Fuel but for any school.  I mean this spell really is quite spectacular!

I should have realised that the Inferno Kraken was not like a normal Kraken!

Well, this little baby is considerably more useful.  For 4 pips, the Inferno Kraken will do 695 damage!  In fact, it will actually do 245 + 400 over 3 rounds.  Pretty good shield stripping and payback for the 4 pip investment!

Then I realised the catch.

I cannot apply it to anything but the actual spell!  Oh no!  That meant a huge Training Point investment, because I needed to train in all the Storm spells leading up to it.

In the end, and disappointed, I realised I wouldn't realise the dream of owning this spell.  I simply couldn't go through with it.

Still, it was an interesting exercise and I know I'll continue go through that page about once a month, just in case a great new spell appears - one that I can hopefully use!

See you 'round the Spiral!

Morgrim

Ancient Talent Revealed

I thought it was about time I updated you all on the hatching progress. My original Toaddle hatched with a Coldfire Dragon, giving me a new Toaddle - called Murphy. This was the first pet I trained to Epic, revealed awesome talents and Murphy has been invaluable in battles and constantly casts the MC spells.

Here are his stats. It is good that every stat is above 200, but there was definite room for improvement. The talents are awesome, but I have taken Morgrim's advice and started concentrating on the stats instead. I have hatched with Morgrim's King Pepper, Ianthine Hound a few times. Each time the stats have got better. Oh and I no longer have a Toaddle. As much as Murphy has been a great help, I actually prefer a pet to be on the ground and not floating - so the hound was suited to me!

Each time I hatched with Morgrim, I trained the pet to Adult so I could see what talents were revealed. One of them gave me talents I just wasn't interested in at all, so he has now taken up residence in one of my houses. The final time I hatched with Morgrim produced sweet stats. I trained to Adult, and decided that I would further train this pet to Ancient and see what the next talent is.

And I was not disappointed. Spritely and Fairy Friend, in addition to the Dragon Blade. Curse Giver is OK, but being death I already have plenty of these cards. As you can see the stats are near perfect.
I will be training Winston to Epic to see what the talent is, but I am happy with the progress made.

I took Winston out for a trial run at Halfang last night and he did very well. The Balance Blade is so handy and the MC spells were frequent and timely.

Just need my Couch Potatoes and Evil Magma Peas to reach elder and give me some more Mega Snacks then I'll finish his training. I'll let you know how I go!

Until Next Time,
Tabitha

Alia'a Sightseeing through the Spiral - G

G - is for Grub Gardian

When I was looking for new furniture I found some of it was dropped by playing Grub Gardian.  Although I had heard of it before I had never had a reason to play it before.  After a few tips from Blaze I changed my death pet to my storm pet and was off on the very addictive tower defence game.

You can either play to train your pet or play to win gifts for your Wizard101 character.

Although I've only had one furniture drop, I'll definitely play it again to see what prizes I can win.

Good fun,
Alia

Can you pass by?

When I first created Tabitha earlier this year, and for a long time playing I was not able to pass a Wooden Chest by. Now-a-days I don't tend to go out of my way to see what treasure they hold inside. I am not in need of the fairly small amount of gold and they do not often yield anything else, sometimes a Treasure Card maybe.

I can't remember when I saw my first Silver Chest, but I remember being excited. I had no idea what would happen when I pressed the 'X'..... and then I found the Shock-a-Lock game. The first couple of times I was just too slow. But I persisted and now they are a breeze to finish. You need to click fast and then put the puzzle together once you have 2 or 3 lines of tiles turned. That's how I like to do it anyway.

The treasure from it is not much, more likely it is a Treasure Card and gold, but I like the challenge of completing the puzzle as fast as possible.

What about you? Do you pass by or take on the challenge?

Until next time,
Tabitha

The Perfect Pet - What is it Really?

One of the things we have been discussing a lot lately here at the Keep is "the Perfect Pet" - what is it and does it really exist at all?  Blaze reads a lot and has a few theories, and he and Tabitha have both been on a quest to find their perfect pet, and it has inspired me to give this some more thought again.

I have a little theory (or approach perhaps) to breeding pets, and I have been helping out both Tabitha and Blaze, working through this approach.  It seems to work pretty well.  Given that, I need to get a few more of my pets up to full stats so I can make sure the breeding program pays dividends.

As for talents, now that is harder.  What talents do you want in a pet?

With the big deal made about Critical right now, and with Block virtually abandoned for many wizards, it seems strange that it was only a matter of months ago when Resist and Block ruled as King and Queen in the Talent stakes ... well, after the classic healing SUF (Sprite, Unicorn, Fairy for those who are not avid Pet fans, usually seen as SPUDF (adding Spell-Proof and Spell-Defy to the list).

But is that really the perfect pet?

With heavy resist from Jadezillas and Ice Tanks, Incredibly Infallible was all the rage, then with Shadow Magic, the tide turned again, it is all about the damage - how high can it go?

Even Healing is no longer straightforward.  Do you want the SUF, or do you want to try your hand with Energizing Battery?  Or how about a pet that might, that can, learn mc Shift?  Do you start to sacrifice one or more Healing talents in order to getting the talents you really want?

What do you think?  What about some of the old faithful ones like Guardian Wall?  You can't deny it is pretty handy when your pet casts a Tower Shield for you...but it is all about the timing...

Let me know, let's see if we can figure out what a perfect pet really is, and then let's make one!

See you round the Spiral!

Morgrim

Alia'a Sightseeing through the Spiral - F

F is for Furniture

It must have been a while since I have bought furniture at the crowns shop and so I was delighted to see the new furniture packs there.  I bought all the Zafarian furniture sets 1, 2 and 3 and they have become my new favourite furniture in the game.

At 22500 gold a set, I think they are great value and I think it is great that you don't need crowns for them.

I have been redecorating my life house which is still a work in progress but have included a few pics for you.  My favourite is the elephant bath with the rubber duck wearing a mask.

At the moment the bath, sink, bed and dining table are all in the same room downstairs.  This was just because I didn't have time to rearrange all my rooms, and I just wanted to see what it all looked like.







The lounge/entry room upstairs currently has the tree couch, fireplace, bookcase, rug and table.  One of my little sea dragons wanted front and centre for the photo :)


I'm not sure how long the packs have been in the crown shop for, but when I was telling my new friend Emily about my find, she said that she already had it in her house.  Here is Emily Roseblossom standing next to the enormous Zafarian Bath Sink which is just so impressive with it's size.  Thanks again Emily for letting me visit your lovely home.

 I went on to buy the Celestial Furniture packs as well and ran out of money after sets 1 and 2.  Thanks to Morgrim for helping farm halfang with me so I could afford set 3.  Not my favourite furniture but the dining table is amazing.

Until next time
Alia

Alia'a Sightseeing through the Spiral - E

E - Is for Enchanting

Happy New Year to all the wizards in the spiral.  Christmas is such a magical time, and it is wonderful to be surrounded by this special holiday in the spiral.  Thanks to Wizard101 for creating all the enchanting objects to decorate our homes.

It has been a lot of fun putting the Christmas spirit in my spiral homes this time.  I have managed to add a few more items to my Christmas supplies this year.

With our Christmas tree now packed away for another year, it is now time to pack away my spiral Christmas items.  The hidden room in my Fantasy Palace becomes the storage area to put the Christmas tree, gifts and other items.....until December 2014

Alia

I declare this house OPEN!!!

Next time you're in the Commons, how about stopping by the Castle Tours? Only there is a new house on the Block - An Imperial Palace. And it's my house. The one I have been blogging about - it is done :)

True to my word, every room has at least one crafted item, most of them have many... Thanks to the new Item Identifier you'll be able to see what I have crafted. Here are a few pictures of the rooms.
First up is the completed library - not much has changed in it since my earlier post, but I eventually found the right coloured rug to finish off the room.

Next up is the dining room and bar area. I have taken 2 pictures, one at each end as it is a very long room. This room only has one crafted item. The hardest part of this room was finding a dining table the right shade of wood. The amount of time I have spent at the Bazaar searching for just the right item to finish a room is well... let's just say I'd rather not think about that right now.

But I am pleased with the end result, and that's what counts.

You saw a preview of the bedroom when I first bought this house. I have changed this since then. The floor is better and I found a couple of lavender rugs that together were the finishing touch.

The sitting area is actually the entrance way and hall areas. I wanted to remove the dojo feel of this area, and the flooring and wallpaper were a dramatic change!

The 'Violin and Stand' was the most expensive piece in the entire house. It is crafted from a recipe in Grizzleheim, and is one of the few items that requires crafting at the Grizzleheim forge. Don't forget to check out Morgrim's post about the different crafting stations and what to look for! You can find the post here.

The 'Ship in a Bottle' was also crafted there, from another Grizzleheim recipe.

Lastly there is the kitchen. This was one room I was so looking forward to crafting, and I am so pleased with the result. Take a look! Again I have split the room across two pictures so you can see them properly.
This is the room with the most crafted items. I have also added one of my teleport tapestries to this room, so if you want to visit Avalon, come on over and take a trip through the tapestry. You'll find it over near the bistro table.

Outside I have tried to create a Spring like atmosphere, There is a picnic area, lots of trees and flowers.

I still hang out there, so if you catch me at home be sure to say Hi! I'd love to know what you think of my house too, so leave me a comment!

Time to plan my next project and to keep looking for those Snow Globes..... the last one is proving tricky to get!

Until next time!
Tabitha.

I have to wait how long?

As you all know I have bought the Imperial Palace, and I am busy crafting and purchasing at the Bazaar. I have set a personal quest that all rooms must have at least one crafted item in them and so far all rooms have except the main sitting area.
One of the rooms is a library. Thanks to Emily for suggesting this, as I was a little stuck for ideas.
I picked up the recipe for the "Untidy BookShelf" in Grizzleheim, which is also where I picked up the kitchen crafting recipes. As you can see I did not have enough Red Mandrake, but on an earlier visit to Celestia (thanks to Morgrim for the lift over there!) I had already bought all the Transmute cards. Which meant I had the recipe for Transmute Mandrake. If you are not sure what the Transmute cards are then head on over to wizard101central.com to find out more about them. They are very useful if you have access to Celestia (or can grab a lift!) and are a high enough level crafter.

The  recipe called for 10 Mist Wood and 10 Deep Mushrooms, which I always keep in stock, so it wasn't long before I had enough to complete the craft process for the Bookshelf.
By the way, the reason I chose this instead of the empty shelving was because it had books on it and you can place items on the top of it. I have crafted 2 untidy Bookshelves and 1 carved bookshelf in this room.
The rest of the items I have got from the Bazaar. I keep adding books to the shelves where I can, so it is looking more full now.
Oh and if you look at the next photo closely, you can see the titles of some of those books on the crafted untidy shelf. Great attention to detail!


But back to the reason I titled this post as I did. Time. The amount of time you need to wait to craft a few items. When I started crafting my kitchen, I wanted to do it all immediately. I popped over to the Bazaar and bought a massive amount of obscure items as called for in the recipes. All of it was easily sourced, except for Scrap Iron. I was silly enough to use my stored Scrap Iron to Transmute Sheel, which I needed for Monstrous Cards. So there is a tip. Before Transmuting anything, check what you need for other recipes. Same goes for selling at the Bazaar, or Trading Treasure Cards. The amount of times I have off-loaded treasure cards that I actually needed for a recipe. Very frustrating! Unless you know a certain Wizard who has 387 Scrap Iron that he is willing to sell at the Bazaar for you to buy (and thanks again for that!) lol!


Sorry I am going off-tangent again! Time. Perhaps KingsIsle are attempting to teach us to be patient, who knows! BUT - you can only craft 3 things before the slot over heats. Then you have to wait for it to cool down. I see this all the time when I am crafting the Monstrous cards. I have to wait 2 minutes 30 seconds and then I can craft another 3. It's no big deal.
However the larger items are obviously harder to craft and the poor crafting slot over heats again, but now it will take 12 hours for it to cool down!! 12 hours!!

So if you are relatively new to crafting, as I am, now you know. Learn to wait or buy the elixir in the Crown Shop, but I'm not sure 250 Crowns is worth skipping the wait. Be patient!!!

Well I reckon those slots have cooled, and I am ready to craft again. Would love to hear of some of your crafted projects!

Until Next Time,
Tabitha.

Music in the Spiral

I have been in and around the Wizard101 Spiral for a couple of years now, and, as all good things, there are times where you just get a little flat.  I hit that flatness once I had completed Zafaria.  It was good, but it was just that I was quested out.

I moved into crafting and helping people for a new months, and then I found myself in Azteca, Cloudburst Forest to be exact.  Then it struck me.  The music of the place, the feel of it.  It was mesmerising.  I felt back under the spell of the game and found myself invigorated.  I have always loved music, but Wizard101 and Kings Isle had done it again.  I have often found myself humming the Wizard City music, but hadn't quite connected with some of the other worlds in the same way.  But this...I knew the magic was back!

It was then that even my crafting took on a new dimension.  I could never really understand those music scrolls, or why people would want to adjust the music in their homes, but now, I was on a mission.  I needed that music.

I grabbed a player from the Shopping District and then started looking for the music itself.  It actually took quite a lot longer than I expected to find the right music, but once I found it, I was in the Bazaar daily hoping to get just that one scroll.  My patience paid off and I was rewarded with not one, but two of these amazing scrolls - and I knew just where to put it.

I set up one so it would be blaring out over the river and grassy fields.  I wanted the player to be discreet and just let people experience the beauty of the music as they traversed my home.

I was then to find out that the music was limited to either Inside or Outside.  Lucky I had secured two of those scrolls!  So, the second was set to set off the throne room.  This then filled the inner rooms of this home from Grizzleheim.

It was perfect.

As ever, the game didn't let me down.  I had discovered another depth to the game to become immersed in and I began questing anew.

Why not let me know what you think of the Wizard101 music?  Does it have the same affect on you?

(and have you ever found yourself humming the Wizard City music?  C'mon, really?)

See you round the Spiral!

Morgrim

Getting Closer......

Update on the snow globe quest. My castle is gradually filling with snow, and I have started placing them outside too. I have 7 at this castle now. I think I'll move them all outside eventually - see if I have enough to make the whole outside area snow. We'll see!

With it being a brand new year I was also hoping that more would be available today. 

And it seems I was right. Take a look at how many I have scored this morning!! Another 7 and I am running low on gold yet again. Looking like I might well complete this quest. I've decided I am going to keep the Christmas going at my snow palace too.                                                                               I've got Spring happening at my new place. Pleased with how the kitchen is looking although the crafting has been a bit slow. More on that soon.                                                                                         

Back to the snow globes and I need 6 more - fingers crossed that I make it to 20!!

Until next time,

Tabitha

New Year at the Keep

Hi all,

This has been a very interesting year in the Spiral and it has been a lot of fun sharing it with you all.  Some of the more notable things that have happened include:

• The emergence of Our Wizard's Keep online, which has been a lot of fun to share our experiences and learnings with other Wizards
• Tabitha has joined us in the Spiral, giving us another new friend reminding us of all the fun that we had as we first found our way around the Wizard101 world
• Blaze hit level 90 just so he could get some of the Aquila gear he has been so keen on :)

It was a year where rumours ran rife about the future of Wizard101 as Pirate101 takes off and we saw the demise of a number of major Disney titles.  Well, Kings Isle put pay to those rumours in the best possible way...and haven't let us down either with:

• Aquila coming online, with its great new gear, secret bosses and level specific dungeons
• Halloween has seen Dworgn open the secret gate in the back of Triton Avenue, revealing the Nosferabbit and the great Gardening Spell drops from the battles there
• Khrysalis Part 1 and the emergence of Shadow Magic have changed the game at many different levels, both questing and, more importantly, in the PvP Arena
• The new gear and items in the Yuletide pack have also introduced the adorable Rescue Rover, the big loveable dog that lopes along beside you 
• The promise of Kyrysalis Part 2 early in 2014 just to tempt us all with where this game is going to take us next!

With this level of ongoing expansion and investment, there is plenty of life in this game yet - much to the excitement of all of us fans :)

• Here at the Keep we also embarked on a couple of things we never thought we would, including:
• Writing an eBook on Gardening (with all sorts of hints, tips and little known facts), that actually turned into 2 eBooks!!  Where else can you find:
• How many plots for a Small plot, Medium plot and Large plot garden?
• How many plots can a Large Area spell service?
• What is all of the Energy gear in the Spiral and where can you get it?
• How to make your Energy stretch to go further?
• and much, much more...all in one place?
• (see the links on the right to get your own copy of these free eBooks)
• We tested out our terrible vocal chords and created a video for the 12 Days of Christmas Wizard101 Style :)
• And a very special, highly secret project that hopefully will provide assistance to all Wizards of the Spiral from the day your new Wizard begins their Wizarding journey all the way through to the highest and most experienced Wizards - but more about this in the first week of the New Year :)

2014 in the world of Wizard101 will be bigger and better than 2013. We hope you choose to join us as we keep sharing what we do and learn.  And if there is anything you want to know more about, just drop us a line and we'll do our best to help you out.

From all of us here at Our Wizard's Keep, have a wonderful and safe New Year's Eve and a fantastic 2014.

...and remember to have FUN!

Morgrim, Alia, Tabitha, Blaze and the rest of the family.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!