Another Month Gone…

So much for “Back to Blogging.” At least my quarter is almost over. Two more weeks and I’ll be free until September. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish a blogging project or two during that time, though my summer plans may keep me busier than I’d like to be. However, I have a lot of ideas for my blog and luckily I can work on several of them while in the car this summer. I plan on putting my blog toward the top of my summer priority list, but we’ll see what actually happens once summer and real life kick in. 🙂

Projects

I’ve decided to put Cultures of the Spiral on hold for a while. It’s a huge project and I have other projects I’m more interested in working on right now. (My sociology class has taken the fun out of exploring cultures for me right now.) But by putting one project aside, I’ll now have more time to work on the two projects that mean the most to me: Reagent Maps and Finding Housing Items Made Easy. I may also work a little bit on Who Drops It? but I don’t know how to execute that project. I have a vision for it, but right now I don’t see it as feasible. Maybe in the future if I ever have a small staff to help me…It’s something I’ve been considering.

Anyway, I should have a few Reagent Maps ready to release once summer hits. I’m almost done with a map for Mirkholm Keep and am working on maps for Hrundle Fjord and Caer Lyon. I’ve also created the Master Key. If all goes well, you should be seeing Mirkholm Keep and the Master Key by June 18th with Hrundle Fjord and Caer Lyon not far behind!

I’ll be kicking off Housing Items Made Easy with information for Plant Life, starting with Potted Plants, early this summer! I still haven’t decided how I want to format the webpages for Housing Items, but I know how I want things organized. Once I get started, the sorting and compilation shouldn’t take long to put together.

This summer you can also expect another in-depth Test Realm review, questing updates from Jenna, Suri, and the Hawks, and from Kayla and Rachel, PvP updates with Natalie, and likely a guide or two about gardening and pet training as I work on in-game projects dealing with both for my characters. You can also expect me to take another look at my blog/YouTube project, Dorm Rooms with Emma. I have ideas of how to reformat it to better fit what I want from it.

Contests

I’ve been interested in hosting my own contests for well over a year now. Possible prizes could include in-game gifts of Crown items, Treasure Cards (in bulk for selling or a few rare), pet hatches (either for stats or more likely cosmetic), custom graphics and artwork (keeping in mind I’m still fairly new at drawing), and maybe a rare gift card/bundle…maybe. Bearing in mind that I prefer contests that require a little work (those are the type I prefer to enter too!), 90% of my contests will be creative based (graphics/art, screenshots, short stories, etc) or in-game contests such as Hide-and-Seek and Scavenger Hunts, with maybe an occasional raffle. How interested would you be in entering, participating, and generally seeing me host? (Keep in mind I’m not an official fansite so all prizes will come directly from me–my prizes will most likely not be as good as what the official sites offer, but there’d also likely be less competition.) It’s something I’d LOVE to do, but I need to know my site is being visited first. So, leave a comment below letting me know if you’d like to see my host contests and would like to participate, don’t care either way, or wouldn’t ever enter so I shouldn’t even bother. If I have a large enough audience who’s interested, I’ll start hosting this summer. (So if you want to see contests, let your friends know!)

Updates

I’ve been busy questing with Cameron this past month. Our four finished Azteca on May 26th. We haven’t started Khrysalis yet, in favor of spending time farming Tartars. We’ve spent three days farming, averaging 3 runs a day, each run mercenary style. (I may write a guide for how the two of us with our four characters can run the dungeon in 40 minutes…) We’re still planning on doing at least another dozen or so runs before we consider moving on to Khrysalis, Shadow Magic, and Darkmoor.

I’ve spent the past several weeks intensively hatching with Suri and Emma, working on Suri’s “perfect pet.” Most pets have done well until ancient, but I’ve only had one manifest a desirable talent at ancient so far. As a result, I’ve been leaving pets with two desirable at adult to use as hatching bases. All pets that haven’t failed yet are capped at adult until Test Realm when I can see which  pets can progress and which will be put aside. I’m hoping that I’ll only have to hatch intensively for another couple of weeks before I get a pet with Proof, Defy, and the three needed selfish talents….

I’m still actively creating graphics with GIMP, but I’m getting a little board of my wizards. If you’re interested in having a custom graphic made for a Wizard101 Central signature or avatar,  a Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or blog banner, a wallpaper, or other type of graphic made, let me know and I can create a form for you to fill out. It’d be fun to work with new material! 🙂

I’m looking forward to being able  to spend more time in game, blogging, and being part of our fantastic community this summer! I blog mostly for me because I enjoy it, but I’d appreciate it if you’d be kind enough to leave a shout out in the comments–let me know what you like about my blog and/or what I can improve on, if you’d like me to host contests, if you are (or may be) interested in any graphics (no need to mention them if you’re not), and/or if you’d potentially be interested in helping with any of my projects. (You don’t have to leave a comment, but it’d be greatly appreciated.)

~Emma