This guy drops Evil Magma Peas

I just got word from Valkoor Legend that this guy:

drops Evil Magma Peas. Valkoor regrets not getting a snap shot of the actual drop; he says he was not paying attention, and after leaving the cave, he noticed that in the chat box, it said he got gold, some gear, and an evil magma pea. Sure enough, he had the seed in his inventory. So, he ran back in and got this picture. This guy is in Avalon, in the Wild (Wyld?); be sure to bring a friend, as he is tricky and difficult - mostly because he gets power pips at 80-90% consistency.

Back from vacay, and Wizard101 has a new pack!

Hey everyone,

All my friends have been wondering where I disappeared to for a couple of weeks... having forgotten that I told them where I would be before I left.

Dad took the family to Spain for a couple of weeks. He was there to capitalize on their collapsed housing market by purchasing houses and property at dirt cheap prices (also the Euro is really weak right now to the dollar). While he did that, the rest of us were on vacation.

I asked Dad for a rental car, and cruised back and forth between Madrid and Granada and Cordoba -- Dad was buying property in the Cordoba and Granada areas, and the family was staying in Granada. Anyhew, it's only a few hours drive, so I went clubbing all night in Madrid (yay lower drinking ages!), then would hot foot it back to the hotel.

But there was tons of other great things to do, and I did them, and it was the longest and funnest two weeks of my life. Spain is awesome! By the end, I was begging Dad to not leave Spain without buying at least one house for us that I could come back and stay.

So, I get back, and Wizard101 has a new Lore Pack out -- the Avalon Lore, or Knight's Lore, pack. I am completely out of cash, so it will have to be a little bit before I can get crowns to check out this pack.

If any friends have gotten it, give me an e-mail, I will post pics!

Got done with Dragonspyre too early

For a full day I could not figure out why I could not get to Celestia... I had finished all the necessary quests!

And then a friend told me that I was too low of a level. The battle of Malistaire gave enough experience to level up to 47. My friend told me that I needed to be 48. So, I have to go through enough quests to gain a whole experience level.

My friend suggested Grizzleheim, which I have ignored up until now.

On an un-related side note, We (my little clique of friends and myself) have a new member to our tight circle -- Heather FireMancer (she is apparently, in real life (IRL) the girlfriend of Valkoor Legend - which explains why he hangs out with her all the time on the game).

Valkoor promised me pics soon.

Whatever could it be?

Valkoor Legend did send today this pic --> It is a hatching between Lady Pepper (Pedigree 62 Hydra) and Lord Chico (Pedigree 53 Orthrus). Lord Chico manifested a selfish talent at Ancient, so that's the end of him. Lady Pepper had amazing talents all the way to Ancient, and is expected to manifest a great talent at Epic.

The talents slots on this pet are all far, far better than Lord Chico, and are about as good as Lady Pepper.

Drat... I was told that the result was just another Orthrus, nothing at all special other than a higher level two-headed dog.

P.I.P. update: A less annoying balance pet

The problem with Balance is that it is very, very hard to get a good pet. Probably the best pet is Judgement, supposedly. However, Valkoor Legend reports that his Judgement manifested the exact same talents as his pet dragon (Pedigree 29, purchased in Shopping District). He has, or had, several of those basic dragons, but there was one that manifested useful talents instead of selfish. So, his Judgement (Pedigree 60) manifested the same thing as a Pedigree 29 pet. After having a hydra that only manifested selfish talents, a Jade Oni that only manifested selfish talents, and several other Balance pets that were less than useless, he was ready to give up on Balance pets.

Valkoor did not tell me what he crossed a hydra with, but he then crossed that second generation hydra with a different judgement pet to get Lady Pepper (seen above).

As you can tell, he is finally getting something worthwhile. He anticipates that if he takes the pet to Epic, he will most likely get the talent of Pip Boost. He does not think this pet will give Spritely. The pet only had two Epic talent slots, and both manifested early. Valkoor also reports that the pet hardly ever casts the weakness spell, but the vengeance is helpful, and the added defense from Balance has proven useful in the Waterworks :)

Is it possible to take something beautiful and make it more so?

The answer to that is apparently yes;

Valkoor Legend has already beaten me to the punch. He has Wysteria Villa, and has already decorated the place. And, he did a magnificent job! I mean, really, he made the place just absolutely fantastic.

I always envied Valkoor for what he did with his Wizard's Tower -- the outside is incredible, and turned the downstairs into a museum (and it really looks like a museum), and the upstairs into the most fantastic library you could imagine.

Well, with the Wysteria Villa, it is unbelievable how awesome he changed the place. He reports that you don't crowd the place with junk. Instead, you work with the architecture, colors and design -- he also said it was a bit of a challenge because Wizard101 does not have much in the way of furnishings that appropriately goes with the villa -- yet.

However, the fine details he did with his villa just make the place seem, I don't know, it's hard to describe as I am not an interior decorator or an architect.

Valkoor says he will work on some photos for me to post on my blog later this month. He is really busy with his job all the way up until the last week of July...

Wysteria housing

YES YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!

I am gonna say this, it is the most beautiful, most awesome housing on the whole Wizard101 game. Wizard's Tower comes in a very close second, but the Wysteria Villa is gorgeous.

And you can buy it for gold in the crown shop!

Which means that once again, all  my crowns will be blown on the packs.

Benefits of gardening on Wizard101

To get a full idea of all the benefits of each plant that is available for gardening, go visit the Wizard101 wiki. Just know that you can farm certain plants for years on that game and you will never, ever see some of the drops.

So, my list here is a list of the common drops from these plants, and is the reason why I am growing them. If you also garden these plants, it is likely that you will only ever see or benefit the same as what I am doing.

Dandelions -- these guys are very regular in dropping the slightly harder to get reagents that cost a small fortune in the bazaar, and are rare to get when running around harvesting. I only raise the pink and orange dandelions; the yellow dandelions do not drop anything worthwhile, even at the final harvest at Ancient. The Pink and Orange also drop good storm-snacks. As for the gold, don't count on getting rich anytime soon with these plants.

Dragons -- I do both the burning and maelstrom snap dragons for even more rare reagents, better quality snacks (although they don't do much in the snack department), but mostly for gold. The Maelstrom provides the occassional good quality Treasure Card, but they are excellent at dropping the extremely rare sandstone and sunstone, and pearl and golden pearl.

Venus Fly Trap -- I don't know, gold maybe? This guy is in my garden to make the dragons feel happy.

Ninja Fig -- The Fiery Boom Shrooms like this plant. Otherwise, this plant is just in my garden for the universal curse treasure card which adds nice damage in a fight. Also, I get lots of polymorph into a Ninja Pig, but I never use those cards.

Fiery Boom Shrooms -- very nice treasure cards; the evil magma peas like this plant.

Evil Magma Peas -- what is there not to like? Treasure cards, great rare reagents, mega-snacks, gold

White Tiger Lily -- very hard to come by the seeds, but gives very nice amounts of gold. Supposedly gives Amber, but I have never seen it. Also gives some great Ice treasure cards like the Ice Hound.

Wysteria housing, or, time to expand the garden

The time has come where the simple house I bought to be my farm can no longer contain my garden. The Wooded Cottage is a great starter kit for houses in Wizard101, and allows for a small garden outside. But, you can only have 50 items outside.

So, I have some dandelions (pink and orange), burning and maelstrom snap dragons, venus fly traps, boom shroom, evil magma peas, and finally a ninja fig.

Then I have a garden gnome, potted cattail, ball of blue yarn, dragon skull, mooshu weapons rack, broken stump, sand pile (I used to have some prickly bear cactus previously), bamboo fountain, egg basket, jimbe drum, and I think that is it. Well, that seems to add up to 50 items very quickly.

So what does this have to do with Wysteria Housing?

Fingers crossed, I am hoping that the great big beautiful Wysteria housing has an outdoor garden patch area and that you can do 250 items outside, like other large houses in the game.

That would just be terrific, 'cause I got to see the place in the Test Realm, and it is more beautiful than my wildest imagination. But I did not get to see how many outside or inside spaces the place has...

Anyway, I am buying the house once it hits the live game, assuming you can buy it with gold. So far, every house can be bought with gold, which is great because I am limited on how many crowns I can buy each month, and those crowns go toward packs :(

I am not here for your pleasure

Oh noes, we have come to the inevitable rant on someone's blog.

Okay, here goes my rant, and then its back to having fun in life:

A huge part of the attraction to Wizard101 is socializing. I personally know of several people on the game who don't even bother with quests, spells, fighting, and all that stuff; instead, they got themselves a fancy costume, and they log on every night, and just spend ALL night long talking to people, and yes, getting involved in drama.

Some would say, "it takes all kinds to make the world go 'round."  Well, from what I have read of philosophers and from socio-economics, it does NOT take all kinds to make the world go 'round. And I am gonna say it, there are some psychos in the game. Fortunately, they live in the Commons and only ever leave to go to their homes for a deeper level of pschyo activity.

Anyway, my rant is more about two things: being accosted in the Commons when passing through or meeting up with friends, and the inconsiderate children out there in the world who have no concept of "other".

Here's my examples: I was on some quest that brought me into contact with lower level wizards, the noobs if you want to use that term. These guys don't pay much attention to the game and spend half of their energy socializing, and maybe half of their energy playing the game. Well, we sometimes cross paths, and they always always always ask for help. I am a nice gal, and don't mind helping out the kiddos, because you never know if they are secretly a pro player who has just started up a fresh character, or if they are an adult who decided to give this very fun game a try.

So, I help them, we click friends, we have good time, then we go our separate ways. Then I find out, later, just who they are exactly. Example: I am in my house, gardening, minding my own business, and POOF!, someone teleports on top of me and starts demanding that I immediately go help them right this second. I ask them, "with what?" And then it turns out to be that they have to go talk to someone or turn a quest in or some other extremely benign menial task. It's like I am their personal minion that they can summon whenever they feel like it. They have no consideration of "other", as in that they are talking to a real person, who thinks and feels and has their own agenda.

They are the ultimate personification of self-centered, like to a degree where you wonder if they have brain damage.

Ok, then there is getting molested in the Commons. A few nights ago, me and my friend were chatting about what quests we should do that evening. Some low level noob comes up and starts saying extremely offensive sexual things to us, and then doing obscene things with his character. So, we changed realms.

Believe it or not, the very next realm had another kid doing the exact, same, thing!!!! And he targeted us!  So, again, we changed realms. Absolutely unbelieveable, the third realm, another kid doing the exact same thing!

At this point me and my friend are not believing in coincidence and we think that it must be one guy with three characters on three realms, or maybe three friends who are communicating and doing this.

So, we change realms a fourth time. Guess what... Yep, another dang kid doing the same disgusting stuff. At this point we just fled the Commons because this was too weird.

But this sort of thing happens all the time. We have noticed that the Commons is not a safe place to hang out. There is all sorts of depravity taking place in the Commons. It's like the Soddom and Gomorrah of Wizard101.

But it sure is annoying when you have to quickly pass through for the pet pavilion or on your way to the Bazaar. Me and my friends know that we can change the chat option to filter that out, but then we can't communicate with one another or have our (very friendly and clean) chats in between quests. And, we need the open chat for strategy during our fights, 'cause let's face it, we are awesome.

So, our primary defense is to flee to realms that are labeled "Perfect", meaning that there are few people on that realm. The "Crowded" realms are where the socializers hang out.