Things I Like to Do in Wizard101

When you first start playing Wizard101, there's the excitement of creating a young wizard and training up while exploring magical new worlds. It's exhilerating and wonderful. Then, after awhile, for new players anyway, you get stuck. You're somewhere maybe in Mooshu or Dragonspyre, not knowing the maps intimately, so you're lost going in circles trying to find something the map arrow won't work for. Or just a bit tired of the level grind, and that magic feeling slips away.

Maybe you take a break for a bit because of that. Maybe you cast about looking for a leveling partner. Or maybe you start exploring the game for something different. What else is there in the game besides training to be the most powerful spellcaster the Spiral has ever seen?

Well, for many, they start to look at PvP (player vs. player to the uninitiated). The Arena offers endless opportunities to battle in ways that an AI opponent could never offer. This is where you can truly test your mettle, and your wizard level doesn't matter. That's not to say gear, pets, or treasure cards are unimportant. Quite the opposite actually. Good PvP players spend a great deal of time preparing their setups to dominate the rankings. And outside the game, you can find videos on social media like certain youtube channels where players offer streaming clips of their battles, including tips, commentary, and one-upmanship. There's also the Pet Derby, a sort of PvP for pets! 

Neither of those are my thing.

I like Castle decoration.

I'm not necessarily good at it, mind you; but theres a ton of stuff that goes into decorating, and many hours of grinding for hard to find house pieces. Not to mention Castle Magic, which offers so much more variety to make your virtual homes pop.

This post won't go in-depth into all of Castle Magic, but I will touch on the various aspects of Wiz101 houses, and how I interact with them.

Castle Tours

You can visit player houses and rank them. I find this to be fun; and there's also a reward for doing it, too. After visiting and rating enough houses, you get badges; and those unlock a shop from Myrella Windspar, which offers new pieces and recipes like new skins for your player bank, invisible furniture pieces like stairs and platforms, a personal Castle Magic vendor to place in your house, a separate world gate, and an entire apartment.

What your own personal tastes for rating will vary, but I have my own internal system to be as fair and responsible as I can. I tend to rate houses in the Decorated category, but you might enjoy Collections or Magical categories. Things I look for:

• Creativity (designer finds interesting uses for space and furniture, including using imaginative merges and Caste Magic)
• Originality (there are loads of Christmas houses and hotels, but far fewer zoos and battle stations)
• Theme (how strict does the designer stick to a theme rather than just throwing in a mix of different pieces from different worlds)
• Good color coordination (elegant vs. eye-sore)
• Wow factor (it's really hard to have a wow factor, but it's nice when I see it)
• Clean and sharp (there's a difference between an absence of clutter and basically bare, and a Castle can have a high item count with things still looking orderly)
• Easy to navigate (getting hung up or stuck on furniture really kills the mood, and sometimes my slow and laggy computer ports me into a castle where the expanding castle-magicked tree roots me to the spot)
• Utility (Castles that provide item-granting furniture, crafting tables, kiosks, gauntlets, mini-games, monstrology tomes, and ports to other castles are all nice bonuses)

I will rate lower houses that look like no effort was put into it. Empty rooms, no music playing, all the pets dumped on the front lawn just to get the item count up, those bug me. It's really not hard to make a basic effort to make your Castle presentable, even if its just to have it up for friends to use your gauntlet. In fifteen minutes, you can wallpaper your entire house, hang up some clocks and put couches, chairs, carpets, and tables throughout. If you have 70k gold, you can buy a set of three world furnishing packs from the Crown Shop and make your place look decent.

I use two rating systems, generally, that depend upon my mood.

System 1 (easy system)

• 1 point: no decoration, items dumped in one spot to make minimum item count
• 2 points: reallly basic, unfurnished rooms, no thought to any kind of design
• 3 points: effort put into house (I say house and castle interchangeably). House can look otherwise cookie cutter basic, or really really good
• 4 points: solid effort put into house and house also shows something with Wow factor, or is super original, or is so dang elegant I want to live in it

System 2 (stricter system)

• 1 point: no decoration or is sloppy and under-furnished
• 2 points: average house, and effort not enough, but a 2 here isn't bad. A pretty good job
• 3 points: house has to look good, have good design and consistent theme
• 4 points: house has to not just look good, but must include something big and distinguishing

I think there are arguments to be made for either system, but I think that decorating purists would push to have a stricter system.

So what else do I like to do in Wizard101?

Collect Things

1. There are a lot of things to collect in the game.
2. Gear for stitching. This can be an endless grind, depending.
3. Fish. Gotta catch them all!
4. Monstrology. Gotta catch all these too!
5. Max shared bank with reagents. Maybe I have a problem...
6. Play Grub Guardian for rare furniture pieces. Ya, I got a problem.

A lot of the above activities feed back into Castle improvements. You can utilize Monstrology for house guests. Reagent farming can be critical for crafting unique furniture pieces, or even a new castle recipe, and you can add Fish for decorations and Castle collection pieces.

Collect Things Using Item-Granting Furniture

Every day I run a castle tour circuit of favorited houses on all my wizards. These houses include Blacksmith's Fjord, Nomad Camp, Castaway's Bungalow, and Everafter Village for amber reagents, Aero Village, Briny Deep Retreat, Heavenly Palace, and Polarian Shipwreck for unique furniture pieces, and Darkmoor Manor during clothing drop days. Also, I have a Castle favorited that has Iron Sultan, since he can drop amber as well. The amber collecting is slow going, though with the addition of the Blacksmith's Fjord on my circuit, that has increased. I think between all my wizards, doing this daily tour routine, I get around 5 amber a week, though some weeks I get pretty lucky. Although I have my reasons to run this circuit, there are other item-granting furniture and house pieces besides these, and as you tour the Castles, you can mark any houses you find them as "favorite" using the little heart icon at the top of the castle tours controls. Then you can always return to the house to use that item (like the Fantastic Fish Bowl, or the Magic Treehouse) once a day. Unfortunately, some items can only be used if you are friends with the Castle's owner, just like how it is with gauntlets, but do look for those on your friends' castles. If you are running low level wizards, doing your own daily house circuit can be a good way to build up your character, receiving bunches of snacks, seeds, some gold, treasure cards, reagents, and sometimes even some pets. What you can't use, you can sell at the bazaar, and this will add up.

Castle Magic

I'll end this post with a bit about Castle Magic, and hope to talk more about it later. I was late to start learning this, and there are parts I still find difficult, but I've put more effort to learning Castle Magic, and I'm starting to get the hang of some things. It is definitely worth using to make your castle shine. Most people use the spell to make their furniture pieces larger, but if you want to make your castle interactive, Castle Magic is a necessity.  Puzzles, sliding doors, and the visual spell effects all can be used with it.

Pet. Bread. Crumbs! I guess not technically Castle Magic, but I decided to use them in conjunction with it for a summoning effect. I learned two new things this week. First, pet bread crumbs have facings, and you can assign your Monstrology house guests to single bread crumbs, and you position their facing via the bread crumb. This was significant for my summoning circle so that the house guests all faced the center of the circle, instead of all facing the same direction west. Second, you can use a bread crumb as point to cast your spell effects on instead of a physical furniture piece. Bread crumbs are cheap and very useful for making your castle more dynamic!