Going Back to School with Wizard 101
I never expected to go back to Wizard 101. I had played it earlier this year and got to level 7 which equals out to about four or so hours of play. The lack of communication tools made it hard for me to adapt to the game and I eventually gave up. No guilds or ways to organize made it difficult to play by myself.
At one point, I went and fought a boss along side a random person and during the fight we had a fantastic conversation. The problem was that you cannot add someone to your friends list while in combat because most of the standard UI is disabled while in combat. The boss struck me down and the other person could not heal me back to life but was able to kill the boss. When the battle was over, I was instantly teleported back to the commons area. Since names in Wizard 101 are not unique, I was never able to find or contact that person again to say that I enjoy the fight and the conversation or suggest that we should travel together. Furious with this, I uninstalled the game and figured I would never go back.
About three weeks ago, Rynala was off visiting her folks and I found myself looking for a game to play. We do a majority of our gaming together and so when I am solo gaming, I feel like I am missing out. I decided to go back and try Free Realms again since I was on a new computer and I hoped it would not have the weird issues I had before. The main reason I wanted to get back into it was that I had heard great things about the card game and felt like I needed a card game fix. I created my character with my standard custom name "Mordiceius Isagirl". The name was quickly approved but within minutes changed to "Mordiceius Isawirl". Furious once more, I uninstalled the game and promised I would never return. And unlike Wizard 101, I do not think I will have a hard time keeping this promise.
Since I could not get my card fix from Free Realms, I decided to return to Wizard 101 but I also decided to try to get Rynala to try to play it with me. I hate playing MMOs where I do not know anyone so I took my Guild Wars approach. She agreed to try it out and although she did not seem to be getting very into the game at first, it seems she is growing to love it now. I too am singing a different song about this game. There have been multiple surprises for both of us.
When I asked Rynala's first impression of the game at around level four or five, she said "The game is cute, but I do not know if it has any long term potential." I agreed with her at that point for the most part. I saw us playing it for maybe a week or two as a nice diversion and then giving it up. But the further we got, the more we enjoyed the game.
The biggest surprise for me was the story of the game. When you first start the game, you are introduced to the Professor of Death Magic, Malistaire. He apparently went crazy, is power hungry, and wants to destroy Wizard City. Simple enough, I thought. Eventually though, the world gets pretty fleshed out. There is a chain of quests in Wizard City that send you to the different schools of magic to learn their history and eventually you go and learn the origin of the world. I figured the story would be just simple story of going and defeating the death professor. I did not expect a fleshed out world and origin stories.
This game is marketed towards young kids, mainly preteens, so I figured the story would not get too deep. I expected something more like a bad Saturday morning cartoon rather than anything approaching Harry Potter. When defeating enemies, I assumed we were just knocking them unconscious, not killing them. This changed when I was in Krokotopia and had to defeat and evil Krok boss. After he was defeated, I was sent to a new area in the zone and the first quest giver was the ghost of that Krok boss trying to redeem for his sins. In the same location, I found the crypts of two warring families. Even in death they were still fighting and angry about the burial place of the queen that formerly united them. I have fought bosses that have been turning this peasant race into mindless slaves as well as bosses that are harvesting the souls of the dead. I never expected story like this in Wizard 101. It leaves me craving more every time I log off. A game with a good story can often make me forget any other flaws of the game.
One of the things that was added to the game recently that was not in when I previously played is player housing. You start out with a dorm room near the schools of magic and eventually can buy a house or even multiple houses. Furniture, trophies and other items for your house are rewards from quests, drops from bosses, can be crafted or bought off the auction house. I know that Rynala has loved spending time decorating her house she recently purchased. I have not yet purchased a house beyond my free dorm room, but I have a total of over 70 housing items that I have received just from quests and loot drops.
The pricing options have also been something I have taken advantage of. You can pay monthly for $10 a month or a reduced rate per person if under a "family plan" or you can purchase "crowns", the microtransaction currency, to permanently purchase zones. You can play the first ten or so zones for free but beyond that they cost crowns to unlock at about a couple dollars per zone. I believe that you can unlock majority of the game's zones by purchasing about $80 to $100 worth of crowns. This may seem like a lot initially, but really I think of it no differently than spending $50 on a new MMO and then paying for three or four months of service. The difference is, after I buy all the zones, I have them for good and never have to pay another cent.
Graphics and voice acting. Usually I do not expect games marketed towards pre-teens to have much bang in the graphic department. The worlds graphics in Wizard 101 are surprisingly good when you use the high quality textures. All the maps and menus have wizard and monster stick figures drawn on them which are often quite amusing as well. All dialog in the game has voice over which is majority of the time fantastic as well. It may seem like fluff but it definitely adds to the immersion.
Wizard 101 is not without its flaws. The language dictionary can sometimes be infuriating when not recognizing what I would consider to be common words and not allowing you to type or spell out numbers. Trading is limited with only allowing you to trade "treasure" (special loot drop) cards and nothing else. So you can only trade cards for cards. You cannot trade money or other loot between accounts. There is limited trading between characters on the same account via a bank box.
All in all, I am very excited to be playing this game and I fully expect it to be keeping me entertained all the way to Aion's launch. I love the pricing system so that I know months down the line I can return to the game and play through everything (if they have not released anything new) without paying a dime.