Warlord in Da Hause!

Oh, look at that title. Yeahhh...It's not me. John's planning to talk more about that a little bit further down. I hadn't posted in a while, though, and wanted to show off exactly how we're doing the portrait things now. John got sick of not having NAMES on them so we opted for these newer ones. Woohoo!  And now on to the meat of this post.

Here's John. Keep it Frosty,
Noah Mythglen

As Noah said, we're switching up the portraits a bit. Something a bit nicer. With names. The old format will still be used for level updates, though!  Oh, that title? You're wondering about that? Well, the big news is that I achieved Warlord today! I bought a 24 hour day pass and played some good old fashioned 1v1.  Woohoo!!! Then I proceeded to go spend a bunch of tickets. I'm planning a trophy room as soon as Wysteria goes live and I'm able to get a 3rd trophy! Picture time!

Mr Baxter and I.

Yeah...not the best stats in the world. It took a lot of work. And I used to do some other PvP. Only recently did I step back into the ring and pull myself above Knight. 

My stats used for PvP. 

Mister Baxter's stats. Note: He does NOT have Spritely. I'm still working on a pet with the top 3 talents and Spritely. This was something of a challenge without any random healing. Just goes to show how dependent I've become on it. Gotta try and ween myself off of it!

My new goodies! I've had the Kyanite Trophy for a while now, but I just bought Lord Chance and the Angelic Trophy today. So excited!

Next on my agenda is to keep at it, shoot for Overlord (1000+ rank) and eventually obtain the rest of the furniture and the other pets. I'm a bit low on tickets at the time being, so this is a long term goal (though I might be able to hatch for a couple of them). Next on the agenda is Pet Warlord. That should be interesting considering how little the Derby is played.

And that's all I've got for the day. Exciting stuff indeed!

Your Friend Always,
John Lifeglen

Blue Berets are OFFICIAL!

Hey guys, just a quick little note about an issue I've noticed cropping up.  The nifty little button you see on my header (not the ones made by KI, but the Bloggers' Club Member one) is cropping up in places other than sites that I have approved for inclusion in the club.  Any website not linked to on my Bloggers' Club HQ page is NOT affiliated with us in any way shape or form.  Please disregard anyone claiming to be a member who is not.  Now on to the meat-and-potatoes (or should I say macaroni-and-cheese since I can't have meat today??) of this post!

The Blue Berets (hashtag #BlueBerets on Twitter) are fully formed now!  WOOT!  We've got our four players for a full team and we have even attracted a team mascot (wearing the uniform sans symbols).  Ok, who wants a picture?  Methinks yes.

From Left to Right: Back Row: Maria Moonblossom (Life), Jasmine Smith (Mascot), Cassandra Hexthorn (Fire).
Front Row: Matthew Deathcaster (Death), John Lifeglen (Balance).

So that's the team.  We've played two practice matches thus far.  We lost the first (going second) and won the second (going second) so it's going to be an interesting ride.  Conflicting schedules mean we don't get to work on improving as often as we would like.  

It surprises me that my best friend EVER Cassandra Hexthorn is now enjoying PvP to a degree.  After our old 2v2 experiences (that she has conveniently repressed memories of...) I was certain she'd never step into the ring again.  How happily surprised was I?  Super!

And now I need to get changed and head to work.  Have fun!

Your [Stoked] Friend Always,

John Lifeglen

Former PvP Commander Say Wha?

Test realm is going live tonight!  Woot!  Time to buy me some Baconator and a new sword for PvP.  Wait, what?  PvP?  John Lifeglen doesn't PvP.  Um...

Yeah, I was a PvP Commander FOREVER ago.  I got hit with an unlucky streak of sniper bolters before the arena was "fixed" and then my sub ran out...so I never got it back up.  I had subbed for a couple of months in order to get a rank other than Private, and I'm happy to be sitting at Knight right now.  However, the PvP bug has bitten again and this time I'm teaming up with my friend Maria Moonblossom from Wizard101 Central and my friend Matthew Deathcaster.  We thought that having a team uniform that was SUPER DUPER close and yet unique to each of us was something we wanted, so we came up with the idea of wearing school symbol robes of all the same style and then having a common color theme that worked for all of us. 

GREAT idea in theory...in practice it was a bit tougher.  Life, Death, and Balance don't seem to have ANY robes in common between them all...except for ONE that all seven schools actually have (though finding the Death one was SUPER tricky, a big thanks to Kestrel's brother Alex for that one!).  Lacking so many robes and pieces of clothing is a bit annoying.  I would love it if somehow (be it dropped, crafted, or...dare I say it...crown items...) KI introduced the missing pieces of symbol gear to us.  But, since we did finally find something that works it's ours.  I'm doing it.  Calling Dibs.  Right here and now.  DIBS DIBS DIBS. Yeah, it's a bit immature...but necessary.  Dibs on our team uniform styles! 

Best of luck coordinating your own uniforms should you choose to use them (not that I can really do a single thing about it if you should choose to use our exact uniforms, other than be slightly irritated.).  So, the uniform that I would appreciate you all not using is as follows: Hat in the style of the "pie hat" as Heather Emeraldflame would have called it (also known as a Cardinal's Cap to those who reference Eloise); Robe in the style of Regal Outfit; and Boots in the style of Mage's Boots.  Our color scheme is Dark Blue with White Trim.  Also know that I reserve the right to use this same combination for any other school that tickles my fancy!  Here's a picture of me in the balance version of the uniform.

Let me know what you guys think!

Your [Super Excited To Try PvP Again] Friend Always,

John Lifeglen

The Leaning Tower of Honey Sickles (Goes POOF!)

John Lifeglen here again (wow that makes for 2 days in a row...sounds like someone is finally caught up on homework to the point that he can write something!).  As the title implies, this post is about gardening towers.  Yep, they're going away!  KingsIsle has acted very swiftly in removing this exploit from the game.  The super-gardens will soon be leaving the Spiral and all those that so painstakingly created them have created them for nothing.

It was coming.

Exploits that give some players with knowledge of them advantage over those that do not have the knowledge of how they work is downright wrong, and bravo KingsIsle to fixing it (JUST this exploit, keep that in mind).  I'm hoping this doesn't come back to bite everyone, though.  Since this exploit was so far-reaching and it involved the rug bug, I'm seriously hoping KingsIsle doesn't remove a powerful tool in housing decoration.  Yeah, I know it's a bug in the system, but they've let it exist for such a length of time now without ending it that it would crush certain people to lose it.  Before people understood the mechanics of what it did and how it was triggered would have been a better time to chop it.  Only time will tell, I suppose.  This is just one wonderful thing KingsIsle has done in crushing exploits. 

I'm not exactly pleased with a couple other "fixes" they've applied in the recent past.  Primarily, this would be the Wayfinder Scheme.  It would have been great to be able to buy Wayfinder gear for my alts when they "come of age" so to speak, but now I get to grind the WareHouse for Bartleby only knows how long.  Thanks to the exploitation of different colors being worth different amounts of gold when sold on the bazaar.  I can proudly say that I didn't take part in getting gear turned from Auction to No Auction.  At least we can still trade it between our wizards, because John has finally perfected a deck for use on the boss floors in there.

I was watching Ravenwood Radio from the sidelines last week and one Fallon Firefountain pointed out something interesting.  I hadn't thought about it until she presented the argument, and it made some sense.  Her argument is that PvP kills the normal use of spells.  Her first mention was the stun block introduction into the game.  Stun Block wouldn't even exist were it not for PvP, thanks to your friendly neighborhood chain-stunners.  Before Stun Block when I was running my little ice character through Wizard City, he found Freeze to be an invaluable asset.  Now what?  What are the schools that have any type of stun doing with them now? 

The application of four Stun Blocks in the arena post-stun is fine, it's a fix for chain stunning (given that Earthquake is still behaving properly...which is another can of worms entirely), but what about PvE?  I know that I relyed heavily on my ability to stun mobs for a couple of turns in a row in order to give a friend the time to get a good attack off without being killed!  Is there no way to change mechanics between PvP and PvE?  Your friendly neighborhood moderators Kevin Battleblood and Cassandra Dragonheart quickly explained the reasoning, and I noticed she dropped the conversation.  I was rather hoping to see where she went next with her argument as it spiked some interest.  Maybe she'll start a blog and let us all know how she feels, I for one would love to follow it.

As per always, comment away.  I'm hoping Kevin and/or Cassandra will see this post and restate what they told Fallon, as I only remembered her initial argument well and wouldn't want to restate their thoughts improperly.

Your Friend Always,
John Lifeglen