October…

Well, it’s October. So much for regular posting in the summer. My summer didn’t offer me the time I thought it would. Yes,  had the time to sit and blog, but there were so many other things going on that simply were more important. I may never have gotten around to executing my summer plans for my blog, but I want to get into regular blogging again so here I am, four months later. 🙂 Don’t worry. I haven’t completely forgotten about this!

Life Updates

A week after finals, my family and I went on vacation to southern Wyoming to visit family. It was a lot of fun and I’m so grateful I had the opportunity to go with them. A week after we got home, I was off again, but this time to stay. I moved 10 hours away with my boyfriend to live with him (and temporarily his family). It’s definitely been an adventure. And the biggest reason I didn’t blog this summer. I’ve had a hard time adjusting to this new life, but I’m happy here and have mostly adjusted (I think). He’s introduced me to several new games, so I didn’t play Wizard101 as much as I thought I would–too busy enjoying other new games too! Some new favorites include Undertale, Minecraft, The Sims3, Dragomon Hunter, and Dark Souls. He’s also introduced me to D&D and Betrayal in the House on the Hill (board game).

School started again two weeks ago. I’m taking one online class through the college I had been attending prior to moving. So far the work load has been light. Hopefully it’ll stay that way so I can work on the blog projects I REALLY do want to do. I’m also taking two different introduction to traditional animation classes with a retired Disney animator. We’re working on anthropomorphic characters in one of the classes, so you can expect to find me spending a fair amount of time in the Spiral with a sketchbook, drawing NPCs–especially in Marleybone, since the character I’m currently working on is a dog.

Wizard101 Updates

Cam and I did about 50 runs of Tartarus on our four (balance, storm, ice, & fire) and each character ended up with at least one full set of Hades gear–most got both sets! We’ve finished Azteca and started Khrysalis. I’d like to get our four through the end before the next world comes out, but since it’ll probably be the fall/winter update, I doubt we will. We’re eager to reach 100 and farm Darkmoor. Only 5 levels to go!

Blog Updates

I’m still working on Reagent Maps. They’re harder to create than I initially thought. Much more time consuming. And I get bored putting them together really quick. I’ll post them as I finish, but they’ll take time. I have discovered that I need to be in the right mood to work on them or else I get bored after a single realm. Each map section (depending on the size of the map) takes between 15-20 realm loops to make sure I found ever spawn spot.

I still plan to work on Housing Items Made Easy, mostly because it’s something I want to have access too and because Wizard101CentralWiki freezes too easily on my laptop. As much as I love the database, it’s useless on my computer. 😦

I mentioned above that Cam and I did around 50 runs of Tartarus this summer. The majority of those runs took place within about 2 weeks. We would average 2-4 runs a night, each run taking less than an hour. I have plans to put together a guide of how we farmed the dungeon. When we start farming Darkmoor, I plan on putting another guide for it together, though both dungeons are run extremely similarly.

And as for Dorm Rooms with Emma…well it’s something I do want to do, I’m just not sure if I like the formatting of my first two. I’m not sure how I want to run the series yet, but I’ll figure it out. You can expect some form of it sometime fairly soon…I think. I should probably stop promising projects happening “soon”. I haven’t been very good about following up…

So I’m back. I haven’t forgotten about the blog, it’s just been put off. Hopefully, I’ll start being better about writing again. This really is a lot of fun and something I honestly do more for myself than for anyone else, even though knowing other people will occasionally view my blog is nice too!

~Emma

Back to Blogging

Last time I posted was a month ago, right before I started my spring quarter. I’ve had a busy first month of school and have had a lot of big personal issues to deal with. Things feel under control again so I should be back to posting, hopefully at least semi-regularly until summer. 🙂

Last time I posted, I wrote about a new idea I had: exploring the cultures of the Spiral. Joseph Firesword (my first commenter!) alerted me to a project that the Nordic Champion has been working about Spiral History. Cheyenne did a fantastic job on the posts! She put a lot of thought, time, effort, and research into each one and they are incredibly interesting!

My original plan for The Cultures of the Spiral was going to be similar to what Cheyenne has been doing, but I have decided to take the project a slightly different way. While I do plan on exploring the history and cultures of the real life inspirations, I also plan on exploring the history of the Spiral World itself. However, my biggest focus is going to be on the culture of each World from a sociological perspective. I’m taking sociology class right now–it’s interesting, but I’m having a hard time understanding the concepts. I’m hoping that by applying the theories I’m learning about to something I genuinely enjoy, I’ll start to understand and do well in the class. Plus I can count blogging as studying. 😉

I’m still working on Reagent Maps. I have three that are mostly done, but none quite ready to post yet. Hopefully I’ll have one or more ready by the weekend.

Who Drops What and Finding Housing Items Made Easy are both currently on pause. I’m not sure how I’m going to format Housing Items and Who Drops What will be on pause perhaps indefinitely. I haven’t found a way to put it together in a way I like. Dorm Rooms with Emma has been inactive for a while now, but I have plans to bring that one back to life. 🙂

In other news, Natalie participated in more than a dozen tournaments during the member benefit event last week. I’ve been enjoying ranked again on her now that she has all the PvP gear I wanted for her. I’m doing pretty good, considering I thought myself to be terrible at PvP 5 months ago. 🙂

Jenna, Suri, and the Hawks are almost done with Azteca. It’ll probably take us another session or two of questing to finish, depending on how long we have when we’re both on. We’re both excited to get our group of four to 100 and run Darkmoor. Based on this guide from Mercenaries for Hire, we think we can do Graveyard runs in about 20-30 minutes.

I’ve been slowly questing with Kayla and Rachel. I’ve decided Magus Storm and Adept Life make a good team! I finished the first third of MooShu in one sitting, but haven’t gone back to it yet. If I just sit down and quest, it probably wouldn’t take me more than a few days to reach Celestia…I just have to do it…

I think that about caches everything up. 🙂 I’m excited to get back to blogging my adventures in the Spiral.

~Emma

 

Creating the “Perfect” Pet

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard the term “perfect pet” over the years. It bothers me because there isn’t a single perfect pet. THE perfect pet simply doesn’t exist. I’m tired of players judging other wizard’s pets. It’s one thing to critique a pet when someone asks if you think it’s a good pet, but it’s quite another to go up to someone and tell them that their pet “failed”.

For example, shortly after I trained Emma’s Carnation Fairy, Lily, to Mega, a friend told me it was a failed pet. When I asked why he thought that, he simply told me he personally wouldn’t want most of the traits Lily has. I understand that some of her traits aren’t ideal, and there a one or two that I’d be fine if I didn’t have, but she by no means failed, especially since I wasn’t expecting a pet nearly as good as she turned out. There was absolutely no reason for this friend to tell me that MY pet was a failure.

Unfortunately, I’m expecting to hear this a lot once I finish Suri’s “perfect pet”. Her perfect pet would ideally be ice, preferably the one-headed hybrid ice hound. I want the pet to have Spell-Proof, Spell-Defying, Fairy Friend, two “selfish” talents that enhance to resist stats, along with a third selfish as a jewel. If it all works out correctly, Suri will have a pet with 21% universal resist and may cast fairy.

Before you judge me for wanting selfish talents on my “perfect pet”, you need to understand Suri’s role in her team and how I play my ice character.

I quest Jenna (Fire) and Suri (Ice) together along with two of Cameron’s characters, Cameron Hawk (Storm) and Daniel Hawk (Balance).

Cam Hawk and Jenna are primarily hitters. Sometimes they’ll play support for each other. Sometimes the attack the same target(s) one after the other. Sometimes they take out different targets the same round. It depends entirely on the type of battle and who draws what cards when.

Dan Hawk primarily plays support. He keeps Jenna and Cam in blades so they can hit fast and hard. He sometimes will play healer with Availing and Helping Hands and sometimes with Treant Polymorph.

Suri is the tank. She’s always first in the battle circle (except for the rare occasion when someone gets dragged in on accident). For boss battles, she wears a hodgepodge of gear that gives her the highest possible resist. She has an average of 65% resist to any one school at a time, with the highest at 86%. My goal is to get her to 100% resist to any one school by level 80. I’m hoping to have her at 100%+ resist to ALL schools by level 100. It’ll take work: a lot of farming and a fair amount of crowns to succeed, but it’s possible. But in order to succeed, I NEED a pet with 21% resist.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, THINK BEFORE YOU JUDGE A PET WITHOUT BEING INVITED TO DO SO. It’s hurtful, thoughtless, and mean. You never know if the pet that you perceive to be a failure was intended to be the way it is, or if the pet belongs to a child who hasn’t grasped pet training, or if it belongs to someone who doesn’t want to invest countless hour and snacks trying to “prefect” a pet.

If someone asks for your opinion, give it (preferably in the nicest way possible), otherwise, please leave any critical thoughts to yourself. Remember, if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything.

On a different, but related note, I’m currently actively working on three “perfect” pets: one each for Suri, Jen, and Kayla. I’m also passively working on improved pets for Emma, my Life, Alyssa, and my Death, Fallon. (Which basically means if I stumble upon a pet with useful talents for them while working on Suri, Jen, and Kayla’s pets, they can have it.)

Anyway, I’m working on getting the above mentioned Ice pet with Proof, Defy, Fairy, and three improving selfish talents for Suri. So far I have a pet with proof and two if the selfish talents. (9% resist at ancient!) on Suri’s account. I also have a pet with Defy on Emma. That pet has a chance at developing Fairy Friend. If it does, Suri’s hatching process will become simpler….

Ultimately, I want Kayla to have a Spark Beast with a combination couple storm damage talents, universal damage talents, a may cast heal, Galvanic Field may cast, and universal resist. I realize that’s far more talents than talent slots. Ideally, I would want Pain-Bringer, Pain-Giver, Storm-Dealer, Storm-Giver, and may cast Galvanic Field, with Storm-Boon as the socketed jewel. Although right now, she’d probably benefit more from Pain-Giver, Storm-Dealer, Spell-Proof, Fairy Friend, and Galvanic Field

Jenna’s, like Suri’s, is more exact. I want her to have a Blaze Beast or Fennec Fox (both give extra Fire Blade card) with Fire-Dealer, Fire-Giver, Pain-Bringer, Pain-Dealer, and either may cast Furnace or Fairy Friend, with Fire-Boon in the jewel socket. Since she’s a hitter, the more damage she has, the better off she is. I’m hoping to have well over 100% fire damage by the time she reaches 100. From what I’ve seen, that shouldn’t be too difficult.

~Emma

Introductions :)

A little over a year ago, I started a Wizard101 blog. I didn’t post regularly and my interest in it tapered out after a couple of weeks. Looking back, I think it’s because I didn’t have a focus for it. I wanted it to be unique, but decided that everything there was to say about it has already been said by someone else, and besides, I’m not really all that involved in the community outside of playing regularly, how was I going to build an audience when there are all the official sites?

Then last night I found a Wizard101 blog I’d never heard of. (Wizard101 Basics for Beginners) She’s been posting regularly and is still active! (A lot of unofficial sites are no longer active.) After looking at her blog, I realized that I DO have plenty of unique ideas. I have plenty of opinions, especially with the newest update. I felt inspired after looking at her blog! So…I’m going to try again.

This time, I’m not going to worry about standing out or about what other people will think. This time, this is for me. 🙂

Anyway, I’ve been playing Wizard101 for a couple of years now and I love it. I have 8 active characters and probably a dozen “on the side” characters. (I love creating new characters and hate deleting them!) My main wizard on my main account is Emma DreamWeaver, Exalted Sorcerer. She’s currently level 102, and getting close to 103. I love playing as a balance character. My main wizard on my second account is Suri WinterSong. She’s ice and is level 73. I quest Suri with my fire, Jenna, and two of my best in-game friend’s characters (Daniel Hawk and Cameron Hawk). (Both of us duel-account regularly.) My other characters aren’t as active as those three are, so I’ll introduce them as they come up.

The categories above will slowly be filled in as I write posts. I have a few good ideas for them that I’m super excited about!

I’ve also recently started a Wizard101 YouTube channel: Dorm Rooms with Emma. Spiral: A to Z will have posts relating to “Dorm Rooms with Emma” but won’t be the primary focus. Actually, the focus will be a little bit of everything 🙂

~Emma