The Other Side of the Challenge

Hey everyone,

Now the challenge is over, and I have had a little break from gardening, I thought I'd take time to let you know a bit more about the Key Lime seed and what I got out of the gardening challenge overall.

So the Key Lime seed is the one to go for if you want to level fast. Now it is a crown seed for 750 crowns and it can also be picked up in either the Skywyvern's or Wyvern's Hoard Packs. But you really only need one. Just one little seed and you will soon be off and running - trust me.

There are a few reasons why it is a great seed. The first is that it is extremely easy to look after. It has 3 needs, as you can see - but importantly it only has Rank 1 pests. This is really important if you are a lower level gardener, or if you are running your gardening to the maximum of your daily energy. The bug bolt only costs 5 energy, but even better is the Pungent Bug Spray - this costs a mere 10 energy and keeps the pests away for 48 hours. If, like me, you have more than one garden, each of them can have this spell running consecutively. Very handy.

The second reason is the speed this seed grows. This is what I spent most of my time working out when I was researching. You see, you can't just take the face value of the details you can get in Wizard101 Central, you need to also note the affect of the likes on your seed.
As you can see, the harvest time during Mature phase is 16-22 hours. Based on this I could expect one harvest a day. However, I had all the likes in place, and my harvest actually ran every 5-6.50 hours. What a difference! This meant that I could potentially harvest four times a day.
And I can honestly tell you that when time permitted that is exactly what I did!

Look at the following pictures I took during the challenge:

This plant is ready for harvest.... so I harvest it and the take another picture straight away - this indicates how quickly the next harvest will occur, and as you can see it is 5hrs and 8 mins. If you weren't sure if the power of likes are really that important - there is your answer. They are VERY important!

And lastly, this seed is one of those that just keeps giving. As you can see in the info box, each harvest will give you the chance of 1-seed, with another guaranteed at Elder. With my garden I found that each standard harvest gave me approximately a third again in seeds. So with 6 plants, I started off getting 2 back each harvest. The more you harvest the more seeds you get.


Trust me, you will end up with far more seeds than you know what to do with. Take a look at my bank for instance. I have 49 pages of seeds, of which 45 of them are Key Limes - that's over 300 seeds. And I have not been storing them all either.... Oh and I still have one garden left at Elder because I didn't need to harvest it to win the challenge. As you can see, my Bank is literally overflowing. A maximum of 100 items is holding 439!!

So what to do with all these seeds? Again, the Key Limes are a plant that just keeps giving. The best thing to do is feed them to your Pet. Just make sure it is a pet you are leveling up. Feeding your Pet will either give you 120 Gold or 2 Pet XP.

And don't forget to sell all those low level Pet snacks you get from the harvests. They may be low level, but enough of them will boost your gold considerably (see my post on that here).

Well that's it from me on this subject. Hope you have found this useful!

Until Next Time,
Tabitha

Minigame Madness - Chapter 1

Welcome to the first chapter of my adventure through the minigames!

I was fighting my way through Wizard City, but low on health and mana, so I thought I would just use my purple potion for a quick refill, and I continued questing. When it was time to turn in a quest to Merle Ambrose I thought that I should fill up my purple potion to make sure that if I wanted to continue another time I could. I always thought of the minigames as a bit of a chore and when I arrived at the list of games I just couldn't decide which one to try! So I decided to play them all just to see which one I could do easily to reap the best rewards... and give you my opinion on each of them.


The game was fun but proved to be very difficult. The  aim is to shoot the little skeletons out of the sky by shooting a fireball at them. Floating is very difficult, it jumps up quickly and floats a bit before it will go up again. With such a poor ability to maneuver the character it was hard to dodge the enemy who had no problem with "ganking" (attacking the player from different directions all at once to defeat them) my character.

When you manage to actually hit one of the flying skeleton riders their skull will pop off and fall. But if they fall onto a platform they come back as a green skeleton (slightly faster)....  unless you manage to eat the skull first (which will add to your points). If the skull comes off the skeleton and it does not fall onto one of the platforms then the skeleton will not return, but you also lose the points that it would grant you.

The strategy is to hit one and dodge the others to make them fall into a position that will benefit you. Another possible helpful mechanic of the game is to land on one of the floating platforms three times causing the platform to fall until the start of the next match. If you had a lot of practice at this game it could prove to be beneficial, but as it stands I don't think I will be returning to that game any time soon.

Can't wait to see you in game!
Christopher Battlesmith

Grub Guardian - Tanglewood Way

Here is my first Grub Guardian guide. Tanglewood Way, is a map from Wysteria in the Grub Guardian Crowns Shop. In this map I use Star Towers which can also be bought in the Crowns Shop of Grub Guardian.

Although these do cost Crowns, they are DEFINITELY worth it. In fact, these maps and tower are the best thing I've ever used my Crowns on. Wysteria maps can drop Energy Elixirs, Gardening & Treasure Card packs and more! You easily get your Crowns worth back again through these.

Well here it is! I used an Epic fire pet in this level and am currently trying to work it to Mega.

I hope you enjoy!

Blaze

Look who's got a Shiny New Badge!

Hey everyone!

I'm very pleased to announce that the view I have been waiting to see in my garden has finally arrived....

This is the harvest I have been waiting for.... I stopped re-planting a couple of days ago when I realised I had enough plants to complete my challenge to beat Morgrim to level 20 gardener. Since then it has just the waiting game to get everything to elder at the same time.

I will write a post about my seed choice soon as there are lots of little things I have found along the way that deserve their own post. But what I can tell you is that I started this challenge with a lot of research. I had just re-planted my whole garden with my usual mix of King Parsley, Couch Potatoes and Evil Magma Peas. My research told me that these plants were not going to be my friend in a challenge of this nature. But as I had just planted them, I had time to figure out what I was going to do. I knew Morgrim had 145 energy, while I had 120. I also knew that Morgrim was well into level 17 whereas I had just levelled to 16. I was always going to be against it, I needed a clear strategy to put in place quick.


And I found it. The Key Lime. From the forums on Wizard101.com I knew that Wizards had adopted the strategy before. It is a low level plant that is very easy to look after, and many, many low level Wizards have used it. There wasn't anything on the high level Wizards using it - it wasn't a decision I took lightly. But at the end of the day I couldn't find any reason not to use this seed, and I couldn't find any other plant that cycles quite as fast!

Now, unlike Morgrim I did not chose to enter this challenge without the use of crowns. I knew that I would need Elixirs at some point (not knowing the secrets of Grub Guardian that Morgrim had adopted)... and of course the Key Lime seeds are a Crown purchase I had one in my bank, and I decided to buy 6 of them - total outlay on seed purchase was : 4,500. Now I could have just bought 1, but I needed to hit the ground running, so planting 7 that first harvest was my choice.

While waiting for my garden to go to elder, I had chores to attend to. Number 1 was to get the likes in place. Now, oddly, KL only have 5 likes... they are:

• Tropical Garden Gnome
• Pixie
• Red Barn Farm 
• Honey Sickle
• Water-Mole Statue

I had to go buy a couple of Honey Sickle seeds, plants them and then let them die. The Water Mole statues I had at another house, so I just brought them over. The other likes were already in place. I was ready to go as soon as my EMPs went to elder - they were the fastest plants I had at that stage. So I got planting. KL are a plant that continues to give, each harvest has a chance of a KL seed with one definite seed at elder. I found that generally I would get a third back each time I harvested. It didn't take long for my bank to start filling up. The CPs went to elder next, so I then had to plough those large plots and replace them with medium plots. These are stacked gardens, so that takes a bit of time when you have full plots surrounding them!

It wasn't long before my 250 garden limit was reached. I picked up everything in the garden that did not relate to these seeds. All the other 'likes', any empty plots - I cleared the land. Eventually the KPs went to elder and that's when the challenge went into over-drive. The replanting and ploughing etc cost me more energy than I had. Until I had both sides established I found myself buying those Energy Elixirs. My 120 energy just wasn't enough. However, as soon as those gardens were established that quickly changed. I have been hard pressed to use more than 60 energy daily. And I have been harvesting multiple times a day. 

I had been asking Morgrim how he was going on his levels.... whilst never mentioning mine. I had to see if my strategy was working. I was clear early on that it was indeed the best strategy. I overtook him some time back, but never let on. When I hit level 19 last week, I knew that I only needed a few more days to win. 

I calculated how many plants I needed to harvest at elder to win and stopped replanting when I knew I had enough there. Then I continued to harvest until the plants went to elder. My plants have not been in sync. They all harvest at different times and at different stages. Each harvest became selective. I didn't want to harvest any of those elder plants. That would spoil the video I wanted to take to show my victory!

And today is the day..... and here is that golden moment... captured forever in Wizard101 history - the day I beat Morgrim to level 20 - Verdant Gardener. Enjoy!

I just want to say a big thanks to Morgrim for this challenge. It has been executed in the spirit intended and Morgrim has been ever the gentleman by choosing the no crown strategy - to give me a chance! It has been fun to research and fun to put into place. It has been fun.... and that is what this game is all about.

And I won... woo hoo!

Until Next Time,

Tabitha

The Secret Weapon - Just what is it? And will it be enough?

I am guessing, if you are a regular reader of our blog, you will know that Tabitha challenged me to a "race to Rank 20 Gardener".

Of course I accepted, but with a one Level head start, and more energy...well, it actually posed me quite a difficult decision.  There are only 78 different seeds in Wizard101, and this means, only a certain number of strategies.  There were no rules, so I decided I would play with a 'no Crowns' policy and see if simple choices would be enough to get me over the line.

If Tabitha went with the most likely option, I would need a lot more than my 145 Energy to beat her!!

So, how to get this - with no Crowns in play?

Oh...and the other challenge will be, I need to max out my house(s) and yet still be able to service them, knowing all the while that there is a 69-plot limit to a Large Area Spell.  To do this, I need those special Treasure Cards that are usually found in - Moolinda's Green Thumb Pack.

But again - no Crowns?!  Is this even possible?

Enter - the Secret Weapon!!

Now, I know that Tabitha has a lot of theories about what this could be, but I am not sure she has guessed this one.  It isn't really conventional, but with a lot of work (and a little luck), I can triple my daily Energy and really give myself a chance!

So, just what is the Secret Weapon?

Yep, believe it or not, my strategy was based on good old Grub Guardian.  You can get both Energy Elixirs and Moolinda's Green Thumb Packs from this great little game.  I have my favourite map and I can play it quickly, easily and my target is to get the exact same score every time.  Honestly, I don't know if this makes a difference or not, but it has meant at least one Elixir and one to two Green Thumb Packs per day.

Given this, I figured I had about 290 Energy per day to use, and it has actually worked out very well.

Now, Tabitha's strategy will be hers to share, but I have suspected what it might be for some time.  For me to combat that, I needed a combination of things I could control (seeds I had and seeds I could buy) and things beyond my control, where I needed luck, such as drops from fights and mid-harvest seed drops.

For Power Leveling without Crowns seeds, there are not many options.  You need something you can buy and something with quick cycle times.  The best option here, believe it or not, is the Frozen Fly Trap!  The very seed I failed on when I first started playing Wizard101 (you can read more about this in my book on gardening!).

These seeds cycle about every 216 hours, but with likes, that is more like a few days.  The first harvest is a bit more than 24 hours after the seeds are planted.  This is reading well so far.  The bad news is that they are only worth 50 xp per harvest and 500 xp at Elder.  Compare this to those seeds that require luck (or Crowns) and they are 300 xp per harvest and 3000 xp at Elder.  Hmmm...all of a sudden they do not look that good!

Assuming that Tabitha has planted out her Red Barn Farm (I know I would) with 3000 xp, fast cycle plants, I will need 6 times more seeds to be 'in the game'.  That means that, assuming the Red Barn Farm is full both inside and out, that is a maximum of 300 seeds.  I need 1800 seeds!

<phew> that is a lot of seeds.  Is that even possible?

Then there is the Energy to maintain it all.  WOW!  That is not going to be fun!

OK, now I have 30 Couch Potatoes that I have farmed over time, so that will help (30 x 3000 xp), bringing my target down by 180 seeds.  I also have 12 Evil Magma Peas, that is another 72 less.  I now need about 1550 seeds.

I have the houses, but I will need to build the gardens...that is another 5 Energy per location (3 for the Enchanted Plot and 2 for the Seed).  This is going to be tough.

I will need to call in backup.  I have a few White Tiger Lilies that I have been collecting.  That is a start, but I need more.

For that I need to farm Night Goblins in Avalon.  I won't say why, as there might be some overlap here, but let's just say, that farming has been extremely tough with very little, but not zero, payback.  I got one of what I needed, but I fear it may be too little, too late.

...but let me know if you can guess what I was after there?

If Tabitha has done what I suspect...I am in trouble.  Still, I don't give up.  We'll see what the week brings!

You know what though?  If there is anyone I am going to lose a challenge to, I don't mind it being either Alia or Tabitha...so in the end, I have learned a lot more about gardening and either I will win or one of my favourite Wizard friends will, so there is no downside :)

See you 'round the Spiral!

Morgrim

Gardening for Gold.... Lots and Lots of Gold!

Hey everyone!

The gardening challenge continues, and one of the bonuses has been the amount of pet snacks I have been accumulating. The seeds I am using are not my usual ones, this is purely for the challenge, and I will write a post about it soon... but they produce lots of level 3 pet snacks. And they are making me a lot of gold!

Level 3? Really? How can you make gold with those? I can hear you asking those questions, so I took a video to show how much gold I made after just a few days of gardening. Take a look!

Over 100,000 gold was made in this video. I am getting this amount every 3 or 4 days - very handy! Only thing is I am not really spending any at the moment, so the amount of snacks I have just continues to grow.
Hope you found this an incentive to get gardening - there are lots of benefits, be they gold, reagents (and remember Amber can be awarded at elder!) or those Mega Pet Snacks...... Morgrim's e-books are available for free if you are not sure where to start - you can find them at the top of the blog.

The gardening challenge is moving into it's final phase this week, who do you think will win?

Until Next Time,
Tabitha.

Big Green Sale Now ON!

Looks like it's time for another colour coordinated sale in the crown shop! Save 50% OFF Select Green Items in the Crown Shop!  4 DAYS ONLY!!

Get ready to outfit your Wizard in everything Green during our Saint Patrick's Day sale! 

From now through March 17th 2014, you can save 50% OFF Crowns Prices on the following items:

• Crokagator, Sea Turtle & Two Person Treant (Permanent) Mounts
• Sea Turtle, Earth Walker and Jade Oni Pets
• Moolinda's Green Thumb Pack
• Sword Fern, Ivy League and King Parsley Plants
• Life House
• Bundle of Fun, Gobbler Pinata and Green Teleporter Housing Items
• Life Mastery Amulet
• Viridian-Charged Wand and Staff of Viridian Flux

Some great bargains to pick up, but of most use to me right now is Moolinda's Green Thumb Pack... might be worth picking up a couple of finish this gardening challenge up.

Until Next Time,

Tabitha

Tabitha's Myth House Revealed!

Hey Everyone,

As you may have read earlier this week, my Myth House is now done. Inside was complete when I placed the final Jade Chair, and the placing of the Carousel saw the garden also complete.

As promised here are a few pictures of the house. First up is the outdoor entertainment area. I have set a party theme here, and this is also where the majority of my sunflowers shine.


I wanted to create a fun area, that was also relaxed enough to kick back and take in the evening.

You have already seen the bistro area with the jade chairs and tables, so I'll skip that part of the house.

The pool area is the obvious choice for more of a celestial theme.More sunflowers and scattered cushions and mattresses make for the perfect spot to enjoy some ice-cream!

You have seen the carousel already, so I have taken a few more of the garden to showcase the myriad of colours provided by trees of all sizes and hues.


A few of the trees were tough to get hold of, and it is fun to walk around through some of their branches when you actually visit.


There are chickens, flowers, food carts and even a wooden well. My love of things that move meant I also had to place a couple of steaming pagodas.


Next up is a very functional kitchen and a rather blue sitting area. The kitchen is again crafted from the recipes bought in Grizzleheim. I hope there are different options a bit later in the game for crafting some different kitchen furniture.... if not then I guess I'll have to get some housing packs in the Crown Shop.

In the sitting room I was keen to create a blue floor to match those padded chairs. There were no carpets to suit, so I used 3 of the knotted rugs instead.

The last area is the rather pretty garden themed bedroom. This is the first time I have used a full carpet in a room, and I think it works very well. The bright cerise tones help bring the room alive, so I was happy to pick up a good mix of them. There are a few of the more difficult to acquire objects in this room too.

Again I have had a great time decorating this house. I really need to get back to questing though, as I have been doing anything but!

Once this gardening challenge is done, I will get back into it properly. At the moment I tend to stay in my gardening gear all the time! And I haven't even had to do much at Halfang recently. One of the bonus side effects of the extra gardening. I will post some more on this soon. Join me on Twitter and get behind me in this challenge! #Tabithatowin

Love to hear your comments on the house!

Until Next Time,

Tabitha.

Biding my Time

 Hey Everyone!

For anyone that has been reading the blog recently, they will know that I have (somewhat foolishly) engaged with Morgrim in a race to reach level 20 Verdant Gardener.

 I've become a little bit (OK a lot!) obsessed by this challenge, and I needed a distraction! And I had a fair bit of gold too, selling my fares from obsessive gardening will do that for you!

So what to do? I had Gold and I had Time...... easy choice - time for Crafting something again! Plenty of room in the garden of my Myth House, so off I go to Grizzleheim, Dragonspyre and Celestia to chose the item.
It was an easy choice in the end... the Carousel. It was bright, fun and I didn't have all the reagents needed, so it would take a little time to complete.

Of the reagents required, I needed the Grendelweed and Ancient Scrolls. The Scrolls were fairly easy to find at the Bazaar, but Grendelweed... not so much. As many times as I hit refresh on the Reagents - that weed did not show. So I checked my backback for my transmute cards to see what I needed create some of my own.

As you can see, 15 Frost Flowers would give me 1 Grendelweed. These transmute cards are very handy - any serious Crafter needs them. They can be brought at Celestia, and the best news is that the crafting slot cool down is not triggered by them. So you can create as many reagents as you want!

It wasn't too long before I had everything in place. So off I went straight to my Barn, as that is where I keep my crafting tables. Pressing 'x' on my Housing Table, I was surprised not to see the Carousel waiting.... so I double checked the recipe..... Thanks to Morgrim's post about crafting tables I was able to identify that I needed the Dragonspyre Anvil. You can read up on it here. I also had a quick re-read of that post to remind myself of where to go in Dragonspyre! Thanks Morgrim :)

Once done, it was back to my Myth House to find a good garden spot. This garden is a myriad of colourful trees mainly, so I moved a few around to create a good sized area - and here it is!

I love it. And I think that this is another house I can call closed. I will pop some pictures up of my efforts later in the week. 

I guess it's back to gardening now! #Tabithatowin

Until Next Time,

Tabitha

Your week in Review - the Wizard101 Weekly is out!!

Hey everyone,

Yes it is that time again..... and it seems that Pets are on everyone's minds right now!

Top Stories this week:

• Can Tabitha win?
• Blaze is back with a Pet Update
• Swordroll notes the reasons for NOT wanting a Critical Pet

 ....... Read all about it here!!

Don't forget to follow the friendly banter between @MorgrimL and @TabithaWildgem as they get into the spirit of the challenge... Who do you think will win? #voteTabitha

Enjoy and we'll have another one ready for you next week!

Until Next Time,
Tabitha

How To Choose Your 'Perfect Pet'

A 'perfect pet' is a pet that manifests all the talents that you want and that has good stats (usually I go for 240+ to make sure I get the highest possible percentage for the talent revealed).

To make your 'perfect pet', ask yourself 2 questions... What talents do I want and how can I get them? & How high do I want my stats to be?

Some talents that I would suggest trying to get would be:

 Spell Proof & Spell Defying. These talents both give Universal resistance which is really useful for taking big hits. With a total of up to 15% Universal Resist together, it's a pretty good thing to have!

 Fairy Friend/Unicorn/Spritely/EB. Fairy Friend is the obvious first choice out of these healing talents, as it provides you pet with a chance to cast Fairy. The others aren't as good but aren't far behind. I would get Unicorn if you're a team player but otherwise, EB (Energizing Battery) and Sprite are useful too. Energizing Battery (may cast Healing Current) is also useful for a 1000 health heal a third of the time so choose wisely.

The Dealers & Givers. The Dealers are school specific damage talents that solely boost one schools base attack damage by up to 9%. The tricky bit is getting the right talents but once you've got it, 9% extra damage is really helpful! The Givers are very similar but only give a maximum of 6% damage to specific schools, however! Pain Giver is just like a normal giver talent except instead of giving 6% damage to one school, it gives 6% to EVERY school.

That pretty much sums up the talents I would usually go for but there are others that some people may choose. For example. I might be working on a Death Damage pet (which I kind of am now), I want maximum damage from my pet. I would choose Death Dealer, Pain Giver, Death Giver and maybe something like Spell Proof or Fairy since there are only 3 damage talents.

Keep experimenting and researching and see what you find.

Thanks!
Blaze

The Power of the Pixie

I just thought I pop up a quick post today on a topic that some people might not be quite sure of - The Power of the Pixie when gardening.

This little lady (she looks like a lady!) is considered a pest, but is an asset to any garden.  

For example:

• Almost every seed has the Pixie as a like, so when your Pixie appears, your plants grow quicker
• She will keep away all other pests while she is flying around your plant
• She can scare away other pests that are already invading your plants

So, how do you get your Pixie?

• There are some plants that attract Pixies, but these are typically higher level plans, such as this Fiery Boom Shroom, Angel Oaks and Couch Potatoes to name a few
• The lowest level plant that can attract a Pixie that you can get from one of the Gardeners is the Pink Laugh-O-Dil, Orange Danelion or Venus Fly Trap from Marley in Moo-Shu
• Or...!  You can visit Charley in Krokotopia and learn the spell Pixie, however, you do have to be a minimum of Level 10 and it will cost 175,000 gold!  Still, if you can afford it, this can be a very handy spell.  Let me show you how.

This spell can be quite handy while you are waiting for your plant to get its fairy.  In the attached, you can see how she chases away some Explosive Gnats, and then hangs around to help the rest of the garden grow!

As you can see, that little Pixie is actually quite a powerful part of your Gardening strategy.

Good luck with your gardens and...

...see you 'round the Spiral!

Morgrim

Pet Training! (Good news for once!)

After many, many, many hatches and lots of hatch setting up on Wizard101Central I have managed to get very close to "one of" my  Perfect Pets.

This will be my PvP/hitting hard pet. For it, I want the 5 following abilities.

1. Fairy Friend, one of my 'must have' talents for most pets ('May Cast Fairy')
2. Death-Dealer, yes I am making a school specific pet for my Death (main) wizard (adds 9% Death Damage)
3. Spell-Proof, another must' have' talent for me (gives 10% Universal Resistance)
4. Pain-Giver, my first ever pet to have pain giver, a great talent for multi-school and specific schools (6% Universal Damage)
5. Spell-Defying, similar to Spell-Proof but a little less resist (5% Universal Resistance)

This is what I have so far...

Amazing! Right? 4 out of 5 of the talents I wanted. I'm not training to Mega yet (it has Pain in the pool), but instead hatching this pet with others.

I hope my luck stays with me as I train my other pets. Thanks goodness for Couch Potatoes and DHEs!

Also (something we haven't done before), if you would like to hatch with this pet, please post a time in the comments and the name of your wizard so that we can meet up. Make sure you have at least 50, 000 gold just in case before you come so that you afford the hatch. I will wait 15 mins after the time you posted and if you do not show up, I will move on. Feel free to repost.

Don't forget that I can only hatch once every 12 hours (so I can't hatch one after another (unless your willing to gift a potion)) and only have Menu Chat.

See you next time!

Blaze

When Dark and Murky Becomes Bright and Vibrant!

 Hey everyone,

I thought it was about time I got back to questing today. Celestia has been patiently waiting for me to pop over and explore - today was that day.

To be honest, having seen a little of Celestia already, I really wasn't in a hurry to go over there. I think that is why I have been dragging my heels somewhat. It is the sub-marine, under-water thing. It just looks bleak and bland. Having come from the bright, fresh and open landscape of Grizzleheim, this just wasn't exciting me!

But as with everything in Wizard101, these perceptions can change. And that change can be quite dramatic!

So off to Celestia I go, and whizz around those submarine tunnels getting through some of the initial quests. Then I get the call to go to the District of the Stars. Cool, somewhere new in Celestia, and also getting me closer to the Astral schools. I have some training points burning a hole in my backpack, but I have been waiting to see what is on offer in Celestia before deciding what to do with them!

And this is where the total back flip occurs.... this place is stunning! In no way natural like Grizzleheim, it is about as Blue as you can get, but the colours flowing through really bring the place to life. Take for instance the wall art I have taken below. You could forgive yourself for thinking you had transported to an art gallery from another world!

There were many more of these, so I took the ones that really caught my eye. Bright and Vibrant. I found myself wandering around looking at each of them - weirdly in the same way you would an art gallery. Questing was forgotten for a little while.

Hats off again to KingsIsle, and the artists that bring these worlds to life. You've done a great job, once again. Of course the great news for me is that I am now looking forward to seeing what else Celestia has to offer!

Until Next Time,

Tabitha.

Get Comfortable! Time to Relax and Read the Latest Wizard101 Weekly!

Hey everyone,

Here we are in March already! Start of another week, and and the Wizard101 Weekly is ready to be read!

Top Stories this week:

• Is Tabitha a lucky Wizard?
• Update Notes from Wizard101.com - not Khrysalis Part 2, but new goodies for us all!
• Archangel Gear is released.

 ....... Read all about it here!!

Enjoy and we'll have another one ready for you next week!

Until Next Time,
Tabitha

Feb was Fantastic!

You know, it seems like only yesterday when we were welcoming in 2014, now, we are well into it with March kicking off and the year is simply flying past.

Here at the Keep, it has been a big month.  The opening of February was the announcement of our secret project that we had been running for more than 6 months - the Manual of Mastery.  HERE and HERE).  With a few people now owning their own version of the software, it is starting to get people excited at that it can really do!
With that first post, followed by a little more of an explanation of how it worked, we ended up with the most comments we have had on any post!

It was a month when Pack-a-Palooza was back, we started our series on Grub Guardian, and Tabitha's Bazaar stalking started becoming a little bit creepy!   (only kidding of course Tab, we all do it!)

I had a rant at one stage about the joys(!) of being a Fire wizard. and even KingsIsle had some challenges on their hands with pets not casting Fairy!

Absolutely everyone (at high levels) has been waiting patiently - or not so patiently - on the Test Realm being opened again to see more of Khrysalis Part 2, and when it finally arrived, no update was forthcoming, although the updates with the Test Realm were very, very handy!  :)

During February, Tabitha got her first Mega Pet, Valentines Day came and went with some great, although sometimes a little confusing, specials in the Crowns shop and Tabitha also showed a hint of her competitive side, challenging Galen to a 'Buy Off' in the Bazaar on her quest for more Jade Chairs.

The Lost Pages event was back in the Spiral, and there was a little post in there to help people know what to do if their backpacks started filling up with gear they couldn't Sell.  I even ventured back into Wizard City to see if I could inspire some of the young magicians to taking their Wizards on, in the same way I was inspired all that time ago...

Interestingly, and what was very important for us, was the renewed focus in the Wizard101 Weekly.  This newsletter (free!) goes out each week chock full of useful Wizard101 facts etc.

The last big item of note is the introduction of a new Keep member this month. I am looking forward to his contribution and I hope it continues to be worthwhile for you, the reader.

So, that's it for February.  It was a big month!

As ever, feel free to leave some feedback on the kinds of things you would like to know more about, and we'll look to getting some Blogs up for you.

I don't know about you, but I am looking forward to March.  It should be a great month!

See you 'round the Spiral!

Morgrim

The Lucky Wizard?

My fellow Wizards here at the Keep think I am one of the luckier ones when it comes to pack purchases and Bazaar purchases. And with my latest pack purchase, I'm guessing they will be thinking the same thing again. After reading Morgrims' Pack a Palooza post, I knew that the  pack of choice for me too was the Wyvern's Hoard Pack. I needed energy gear, as I am ever keen to add to my gardening.
So I brought some.
I did OK. Actually I was really happy to get a bunch of sunflowers from those packs. When I do the post on my Myth house, you'll see how I have used them. You also get some really nice trees and some gardening treasure cards - very useful. And some permanent mounts - like these Orange Fairy Wings or Golden Wyvern that I also picked up in the packs (both permanent)!

You may remember that Morgrim was after the Greenwarden's Energetic gear. There is a good energy boost from that gear - I wanted it too. Being the 'lucky' wizard that I am, I had previously scored the robe and the boots. But I didn't have the hat. Last night I decided on a quick and very random pack purchase - of course the pack of choice was the Wyvern's Hoard pack..... with bated breath I clicked on Buy and waited for those little boxes to appear.
I could hardly believe it - there it was.... Greenwarden's Energetic Mask! I had the gear! Of course I re-stitched that Mask straight away - it is quite a look, one that is definitely not for me!

The great news is that my energy levels are now up to 119 - I know they can go higher, but for now I am definitely happy with the result! As you can see I have two stacked gardens now:

I have sorted out all the likes for both sides apart from a constant pixie for the right. That is on-going, but I expect it to be there by the end of the week. Luckily Couch Potatoes get them very easily, so the temporary one is in place.

So with all this gardening going on, I guess it is no surprise that I am now a rank 16 Legendary Gardener........ catching you up Morgrim!!

I'm gradually building those pet snacks again too. Be ready to do some more hatching to improve the impressive start I have with Patch.

Until Next Time,

Tabitha.

The Madness of Jade Chairs

You know, when I got my Myth House I really wasn't sure what style would evolve as I started decorating. I know it took me a long time to make the plunge to buying it, but I am really glad I did. One of the first areas I started working on was on the ground level. A mixture of banners and potted plants and I quickly achieved what I wanted. Next up was what to fill the floor space with..... I decided on a bistro style area - tables and chairs all around. At the Bazaar I spent some time looking at the choice available, and decided on the low Jade table. I already had a recipe to craft Jade chairs.... And so it began.

First up was getting those tables. Although not rare - sometimes it takes a couple of days to get 1 or 2. I needed 8. And pretty quickly I had 8. Next the Jade chairs. I need 2 per table to achieve the look I want.
The biggest problem with the recipe is the need for Black Pearls. As you can see, I need 24 Black Pearls for one chair. Black Pearls cost 1875 gold at the Bazaar. Very rarely there is more than one available. And more often than not, Buy returns a "Item is Already Sold". I have a transmute card, so I can use that to create them, that needs 15 Black Lotus..... not always easy to get hold of either. Needless to say it has been a long process. Yesterday I decided to just needed to buckle down and put in the time at the Bazaar to get those Pearls. I had almost 200,000 gold.
Let the refresh begin! I have no idea how long it took, but you can see the results for yourself - I managed to get hold of 105 Pearls, and I am left with 839 Gold. That's 196,875 Gold.




I can craft 3 of them before the warning about the crafting slot, and then the wait begins. Actually, the wait involves hopping over to Hangfang to try and replenish some of that gold.

Always hoping for amulets over there, I'll admit I did 10 battles and not one amulet came my way. But at least I had some gold. I only needed 9 more Black Pearls and 20 Bones to finish my latest crafting quest.

So I hopped back over to the Bazaar and tried my luck again. The end was in sight.... come on Black Pearls...... and there it was. 10 of them. I had never seen 10 of them in one go before. I needed 9. I held my breath and tried to move that mouse as quickly as possible..... Success!! And a cheaper price than normal was the added bonus.
I did it!!! Time to craft that last chair and pop it in place.
I have to say I am pretty glad that is over. Those Jade Chairs are worth 300,000 Gold in Black Pearls alone. Add the other ingredients and I have no idea how much I have actually spent. But I think it was worth the effort. You can only see 6 tables in the shot below, but it gives you an idea of how the area has turned out. And you know the funny thing? That last Jade chair was my 250 housing limit item! It was obviously just meant to be!

  Another room done. Actually another house done! I'll post a few pics of the other rooms another time. But you know what? It's probably time I got back to doing some quests. I have 4 quests. Just 4. One page - time to hit Celestia I think. In the meantime - what do you think. Are the Jade Chairs worth the effort. Drop me a comment and let me know!

Until Next Time,
Tabitha.