Finished Moo Shu’s first quest hub, Hametsu Village. It’s nice to have kinda-safe sidewalks to run around in; there’s nothing more annoying than the Marleybone rooftops, where the middle of the roof is safe, most of the time. Unless the mobs have decided to use that roof to turn around, in which case — grats on being chain-pulled into encounter after encounter.

The night started off with one last Knight’s Court quest, in Marleybone. I had to talk to a lady there about her purse. Well, I guess she had borrowed it from someone else, it got torn up, needed to be repaired, was really someone else’s, and her purse had been stolen, so needed to defeat larcenous kittens for that one, then re-deliver everything to everyone, and so on — this kind of quest chain is really common in Wizard 101, and I think the main purpose of this quest series is to get you to run along those traitorous rooftops some more :P

While I was there, I bought an airship ticket to Kensington. Not because I was about to do it, but because taking the airship there was the final airship trip out of Digmore Station, which gave me the Aeronaut badge. Don’t see many people with that one, so why not?

Back to Moo Shu afterward.

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I didn’t intend to spend all night playing Wizard 101, but after I finished the Hallowe’en quests and finished the Krokotopia quests I’d ignored to get to Marleybone, I met up with a couple of friends and we spent the night working on Hyde Park quests.

So this is going to be kind of a long post.

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And I have the title to prove it.

I didn’t reroll as an Ice wizard :) I was just spending my mornings as I often do, killing Bastilla in Firecat Alley to try and get one of her rare pet drops — it KILLS me that I haven’t gotten a rare pet yet — and she dropped, along with a rare staff, some rare robes, Chillcloak. For all that it looks like Luke Skywalker’s second best clothes, it’s a pretty unique look. Half cape slung casually over one shoulder. Matching hat and shoes to complete the outfit.

If you look behind Tara, you won’t see the crowds of Wizard City or the blinding glare of Krokotopia. Tara is standing in the central square of Marleybone, its eternal night lit dimly by the glow of shop windows and the flickering magics of the minigame portals. She finished Krokotopia. Well, that’s not *exactly* true. But she did earn the right to go to Marleybone; she didn’t get there by tagging along on someone else’s ticket.

The Arena Master.

I started off Saturday night, after getting back from helping my son move to college, having just barely achieved access to the Krokosphinx, the second quest hub in Krokotopia. The main storyline for that section is the rebuilding of the Order of the Fang, an ancient society that once protected the Krokonomicon from misuse by those undeserving of power. That vile tome was stolen and the Order killed or scattered. Those wizards who venture into the Krokosphinx are there to gather them together once more, both the living and the spirits of the dead. And if the situation of the servile Mander people may be improved, so much the better.

I met up with someone who was just a quest or two ahead of me. He helped me catch up, and we worked together through the Grand Arena and the Vault of Ice.

In the Grand Arena, the Arena Master sets you ever greater challenges to prove your worth to (if I remember right) earn one of the three badges that identifies the bearer as a member of the Order of the Fang. That, and a trip through the Vault of Ice, earns you the right to defeat the minotaur champion at the front of the Sphinx. There’s always people willing to help with that boss, who has 2000 points of health and three friends, because he has some interesting rare drops.

The Order of the Fang sends their love.

That fight ended the night. This morning, I soloed the Emperor’s Retreat instance (which I did again later to help someone with the scarab collection quest), and that earned me my second badge and membership in the newly invigorated Order of the Fang. I left them to continue the good fight and headed into the Temple of Storms.

Somewhere along there I picked up a friend, Oran Ogrestrider (or something like that, call him Oran O.) He was level 10, and I’d probably met him while farming Bastilla at some point. There was definitely no reason for him to be in Krokotopia — 15 is really the minimum level for the second world. But, what the heck.

Unlike most kids who zap in to high level zones, he would stay to fight. Even low level people can be somewhat effective, and while I wouldn’t want level 10 people popping in in Marleybone or Moo Shu, Krokotopia is still easy enough that it doesn’t matter so much. Farming boss mobs so much gives me fairly decent gear (though no rare pets…).

I’d been hanging out with ANOTHER Oran (call him Oran T.), helping him with some boss kills, and zapping over to Oran O. to help him with boss battles in the Krokosphinx, a place he couldn’t even get to without help. I enlisted them both to help me in the final instance of the Temple of Storms. I could use the help, and the final ten bosses or so might drop good loot for folks.

There’s plenty of other things to do in the Temple of Storms, but I was getting impatient to get to Marleybone, just the same way I’d been eager to leave its sands behind when I played in beta. The secret is, you only have to finish the storyline quests to move to the next world. There’s a lot of quests left waiting for me in the Temple, but…

I didn’t get the kill shot. It sure wasn’t my Guardian Sprite who, like usual, was making her own healing her number one priority. Oran T had some sort of lightning elemental pet, probably that got the kill shot. But — DUST! The Buffy fan in me screams with glee.

This is me and Oran T. dusting the ultimate boss of Krokotopia. Oran O. was helping, but left mysteriously during the Trial of Strength. Oran T. asked me why I kept Oran O. in my friends list when he was kinda annoying. That was a good question. I’d been thinking about removing him from my friends list so he couldn’t tag along all day, but didn’t.

I told Oran T., finally, that if we were playing a kid’s game, we kinda had to expect kids were going to act like kids.

So I don’t think I’ll be removing him. But I do hope he learns to call first before porting.

Some Marleybone pics (you’ll be seeing a lot more of these as my friends and I work through this alternate version of London):

Marcel Meow… hey, I don’t name ‘em.

By Jove, Holmes, you can’t be serious!

After being a one-wizard elimination team on the Niriki royalty, it turned out it was all for nothing. Professor Winthrop told me with an astonished tone that the missing Order of the Fang was on an *entirely different island*. Not in the Pyramid of the Sun *at all*, it turns out.

So, I had just gone through and spread terror throughout the Pyramid *for nothing*?

Just so.

All those hours, all those endless card battles, all of that — and I was on the wrong island the entire time?

Sadly, that is the case. And now, would you hurry along to the Krokosphinx and get on with the killing?

How do I know that the real evil won’t actually be on that mysterious looking Temple of Storm island nobody is talking about yet? Why can’t I just skip right there? HUH?

At least I got to see the cool Map Room, which certainly has nothing to do with the Map Room Indiana Jones discovers in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Bah, who am I kidding? Krokotopia has such a love affair going with Raiders that it almost hurts. From the music, to the quests, it’s all there. Just give me a whip and a fedora, please.

Thankfully, the Krokosphinx is the home of creatures that use Ice. My secondary school, Fire, was mostly useless in the heat of the Pyramid of the Sun. But nearly every critter in the Krokosphinx will be baking in the cleansing fire of my Sunbird. Especially if I can get to level 22, my next spell level, before I get too deep. I think this level is the meteor storm, that does fire damage to every enemy.

The Pyramid of the Sun quests left me off partway through Level 21, so I’m just about there.

Last night I had to “de-friend” my first “friend”. I normally approve all friend requests — and why not? But when one of these random friends kept teleporting to me in the middle of a boss fight, I had to let him go. It didn’t matter so much in these instanced fights if people join the fight and immediately leave, because the fight won’t get any harder. But if that had been an open fight, a fight tuned for just one wizard could quickly turn impossible with the adds an extra wizard would bring, but who wouldn’t stay to fight them.

Some people say this is a cheesy way to PK someone, where people will intentionally try to make fights so hard that you’re forced to flee or die, but I don’t think it’s that malicious. These were likely just kids — it’s nearly always children — who were hoping I would be heading to Marleybone or Moo Shu and they could hitch a ride with me to those higher level zones. When this kid saw I was just fighting the final bosses of the Pyramid of the Sun, he lost interest.

But I just couldn’t have him, in the future, pulling this stuff in Marleybone or Moo Shu where that kind of behavior would get me killed, so I de-friended him. Today’s patch, that limits the size of the friends list, will likely have me de-friending a lot of the people I don’t know.

Wizard 101 released a huge patch this morning, but it doesn’t seem to have fixed that many things. The notes, such as they are, are below:

—

Big News!
1. All new pets dropped by bosses will no longer only be named Baby Abbey, they will now have a randomly generated name.

All boss-dropped pets were named “Baby Abbey”, the default name for everything. I wonder if Baby Abbey pets will become rare, now? I still haven’t found a dropped pet…

2. The floating book pedestal in Crimson Fields appears to have been fixed.

This has long been an issue with people trying to complete a certain Moo Shu quest. It’s been said to have been fixed in each of the last couple patches. So we’ll see if it finally is :)

3. Choose your friends wisely. The size of the Friends List is no longer unlimited. Each character can have a maximum of 100 friends, if you have 100 or more friends now, you cannot add new friends until you remove enough people from your list to bring the total under 100.

So much for indiscriminately adding friends :P

Spells
1. Steal spells now describe the “steal” action.
2. Accuracy for the Stun and Freeze spells has been increased to 70%
3. Quench spell Rank has been reduced to 2
4. Melt spell Rank has been reduced to 2
5. Dissipate spell Rank has been reduced to 2
6. Rebirth’s spell accuracy has been reduced

Krokotopia
1. Djeserit Dwellers will turn to dust when they are defeated in a duel.
This is a really cool effect — like when vampires get dusted in Buffy.
2. Oka looks much more like his portrait.
3. Players can no longer interact with the Frozen Forge multiple times.
4. Zan’ne may ask you to do the Tome of the Fang quest again.
5. Desert Golems give credit for both Elemental and Golem badges.
6. Completing the quest “A Fang in Hand” is no longer be required for “Master of the Oasis” Badge.
7. Shackled Slaves will no longer have the word ‘Shackled Slave’ over them.

Moo Shu
1. The Myth Wand available in Moo Shu is now available for all schools of Wizards to use.
2. Players can no longer use “Teleport To Friend” when another player is inside Fushiko’s dojo in Village of Sorrow, since it is now a single-player instance zone. You are meant to complete this on your own as a test of your ability.
3. The floating book pedestal in Crimson Fields appears to have been fixed.

Misc
1. Cyrus has been busy with his red corrective pen again, this time he’s been correcting grammar and spelling.
2. Many treasure cards have new cinematics when they are cast.
Oh, cool :) Treasure cards are always so much fun to use.
3. At the Wizard Creation screen, buttons have been added to rotate your character during character creation. You can still use the mouse to do this as well.
4. The names of all the mini games can now be said in Text Chat.