A funny little man dressed in green dragged me to my computer. “Log in! To Wizard 101!” he insisted. And when I started to do just that, he slapped my hands rudely from the keyboard. “No! Log in to the TEST SERVER! There all the new St. Patty’s Day things you will see!”

“Gee,” I said. “Thanks, Yoda.”

I did find the new St. Patty’s Day stuff. But I also stopped in on my friend Zeke the Prospector and found that he now carried new items for the discriminating shopper.

First, St. Patty’s new wands. That’s right, no new clothes from him, and the St. Valentine’s Day gal hadn’t brought any either. This is a GOOD THING, since until we have appearance slots to show a different outfit than the one that gives us stats, buying an outfit with no stats is not wise.

The wands cast Life magic, and as is usual now, come in different powers for different levels, so you can always find a wand that’s good for your level. Wand? Heck, you can get an IRISH HARP!

The Prospector Zeke in Dragonspyre now sells level 45+ Crowns clothes, athames and rings. These are unusual in that they are not specifically an UPGRADE from the level 35+ items sold in Moo Shu, and they are certainly well below the level of many ordinary drops in Dragonspyre itself. Is this an effort to make the Crowns items less of a “must buy” for each new world? It’s likely — but it’s weird that they aren’t a real upgrade from the Moo Shu stuff.

I’ve bought the Moo Shu crown clothes, so here’s a comparison between the stuff from Moo Shu and the corresponding Dragonspyre stuff. Click on the images to see them full-size.

…. and lastly, thanks to Kasul and Beckett’s MMO Magazine, a glowy staff :)

Halloween is gone from Wizard City at last, and hot on the heels of Spooky Bob comes Harvest Hannah with a whole new inventory of crown gear to sell you. Don’t have any crowns? She also brings a way to earn crowns without paying for them, and she says she has placed Harvest Festival treasures on various boss mobs around the world.

That’s all well and good. But I find it kind of ironic that the wizards and witches of Wizard City would want to dress in pilgrim gear after all of those Salem witch trials. That’s a lot like deciding to wear a Nazi SS outfit in the streets of Tel Aviv, isn’t it? Just not a real good idea?

I half expected to see Headmaster Ambrose dressed up as Cotton Mather, but no such luck.

Anyway. Here’s the stuff Hannah Puritana sells.

Cotton Mather (by the way) seems to be a pretty cool guy, reading his Wikipedia article. He was concerned that the Puritans were losing their way, and urged these second and third generation immigrants to return to their roots, stop their worldly ways and get back to that good old religion, and why not burn some witches to show just how godly we all are?

Hey, you want the headdress of an oppressed Native American as much as the next person, but you can’t quite bring yourself to pay for crowns. There is a solution! Bringing friends into the game will earn crowns for both you AND your friend! Here’s the complete details:

“Invite friends and family to play Wizard 101! You will earn 1250 Crowns for each person who subscribes or buys $10 worth of Crowns (in a single purchase). Plus friends and family who subscribe will also get 1250 Crowns.”

Where was this LAST month?

Ah well :)

KingsIsle, I love the new outfits, but it’s way past time to give us appearance slots so we can wear fun but stat-less gear like this over our magic robes, hats and boots! Otherwise, the outfits are bought, worn for awhile, and then, reluctantly, put away, never to be seen again. And that’s sad!

Appearance slots, please!

Still working on Shoshuni Village quests. I cleared out all the quests in the Cave of Sorrows, a place of treacherous paths and ramps and stuff that you have to cross dozens of times, and am now purifying the shrines in the other zone off Shoshuni, Kimise(?) Village. That is home to three shrines that will, when cleansed, weaken the Plague Oni enough so that I can defeat it.

I am 95% certain that the end result of this Life school quest will be the Dryad spell — a spell that heals for more depending on how many pips you spend on it; the Life school’s answer to Balance’s Judgment, maybe. I don’t even have any heals in my battle deck, and the population in Moo Shu has REALLY thinned out so that I’m lucky to get one or two groups a night, so the only reason to have heals in my deck — to keep group mates alive — isn’t really a factor.

Guardian Sprite is all I need so far. Now, if Moolinda Wu hands me an upgrade to the Guardian Sprite… I will be EXTREMELY happy. She’s absolutely fantastic just the way she is, but in groups I have to use a healing deck which really cuts down on my damage. so the more healing I can pass on to the Sprite, the happier I am.

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