A trip to the Zoo and Pirates

So, I went to the zoo yesterday and took lots of pictures. A bunch of them came out quite well and I think this one is one of the best.

Now, this brings me back to the title of my post. Wizard 101 has a lot of great stuff in it but it's missing two important things: Monkeys (yes, I do realize gorillas aren't monkeys) and pirates (we have ninjas already, so where are the pirates). So to kill two birds with one stone, KI needs to introduce Monkey (and Great Ape) Pirates.
So, who's with me?

(disclaimer: I do think pirates should be added to W101 in time, but really I'm just being silly about the monkey part.)

That aside, I think a sea/island world would be pretty interesting. We've had Egypt and Turn-of-the-century London, a weird mix-up of Chinese, Japanese and possibly other Asian cultures and a fantasy styled norse/viking world. Wizard City and Dragonspyre seem pretty original to me. And Maybe we've got Celestia coming, which with it's Gobblers and fairies and witches sounds like it may have a fairy tale vibe to it. So, a South Seas/spanish main based world would, IMO, fit in pretty well.

Wizard 101 Travelogue

All of the older Wizards will know who Micheal Palin is and for those who don't know, he was part of Monty Python. He's been doing travelogues for the last 20-odd years. He's done the Himalayas and the Sahara and most recently the countries that lay behind the iron curtain.
Maybe this is something I shouldn't be admitting but I haven't paid to much attention to the flavor text for quests and object, etc. So I thought I'd start a new character and travel through the spiral paying close attention to everything and writing about it.

Item of the day: Grumpy Snowman

When this 'Item' dropped for me today, I had an epiphany: the Loot Drop System (LDS; "I think he did a little too much LDS.") is toying with me. It refuses to give me any equipment I can use and then turns around and tosses RARE pets at me left and right. Oh, Well.

Grumpy Snowman from Jacques the Scratcher in Knight's Court

BTW: I want this so much. If there's a housing item for this, I want it. And if there isn't, there needs to be, cause I still want it.

Krokosphinx statue in the Royal Museum.
(what you can't see is me drooling on the glass)

IMO: I love Wizard 101, but...

Like every other W101 blogger in our little community, I love the game. I do have one big complaint though. I agree that both Crafting and the Bazaar are good but incomplete ideas. And making Boss fights more difficult so people can't solo them is a step in the right direction but making them so hard that nobody at all can beat them is two steps in the wrong direction. But these are not my big complaint.
My big complaint is quest rewards, equipment specifically. I'm not going to claim to be an expert on MMOs but I've played my fair share and in every one I've played quest reward equipment, barring any special circumstances, is supposed to be an upgrade and even if it's not it's a unique item found nowhere else.
Now I can understand quest rewards not being an upgrade if you have a high level character providing equipment for the lower level character. But if the character you're playing is the pioneer, blazing the trail for characters to come, then the equipment they get from quests, barring any incredibly lucky drops, should be superior to earlier quest equipment. I haven't found that this to be the case, in fact i've found them to be quite mediocre. I don't expect them to be as good as boss drops, cause boss drops are always the best for their level, but I expect a quest robe in the East Counterweight to give better then 4% balance damage. Not only is a lot of quest equipment inferior, it's also not unique. On a few occasions, I've gotten equipment (usually daggers) that are normal 'trash' drops'.

Okay, I'm done. Sorry for making you sit through that, had to get it off my chest.

P.S. I'm sorry I missed the Bloggers meet-up

Item of The Day: Black Spider

I was working my way through Knight's Court today and when I got to the Black Widow, she gave up one of her babies. I have to say this is easily the cutest and most terrifying thing I've seen in game to date. I'm afraid that if I look at it wrong, it's going to leap out of my monitor and eat my face, in the cutest way possible of course.

"Here, have two Sprites."

I was tormenting the bosses of Wizard City for their Housing Items and I spent a good chunk of time on Alicane with two other wizards. I didn't get a single Housing Item from Alicane but for some reason he gave me two of his Sprites. They made for my fourth (and fifth) pet and my first dropped pet.

Item of The Day: KI salutes Mac Tonight

Come on, you can't tell me that the Krok Moon Plaque doesn't feature Mac Tonight's head. It'll be painfully obvious to anybody who remembers him.