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Ditto’s Current Games – Oct 15th

So here is my weekly feature about what games I’m playing now and how I’m enjoying them – gaming from a Fabricated American point of view!

Wizard 101
So as always my first game is my beloved Wizard 101. Of course the big news this week is Celestia hitting the test realm, but that wasn’t really the big news for everyone’s favorite furry orange monster – I’m only level 33, so I can’t really do much with Celestia. I did hop onto test realm and bought some new mounts – I’m in LOVE with the ancient Koi, it’s such a fun and awesome mount! I can’t wait to get one in the real game – so cute! And Madame Jasmine likes it to!
One big game change this week for me was changing my secondary school spells. After 33 levels it has become clear to me that I am a much more aggressive player than I thought I was and my play style is more about damage and knocking my opponent out fast – I rarely used my satyr healing spell and that was all I used from the life school. So what did I switch to?
Death. Yup – I’ve trained death to Feint and then grabbed the elemental trap and blade from Krokotopia. I hit Jaques the Scratcher for over 2000 damage and he didn’t even get me below 1000 health, so yeah, I do enjoy the big damage numbers.
Instead of my traditional screen shot for Wizard 101 this week I’m putting a video in of some of my Halloween questing, since I realized I hadn’t posted a game play video and people like those – so here you go!

Lord of the Rings Online
I’ve only played about an hour of LOTRO this week because I was having so much fun in Wizard 101. I DID get all the way to The Shire and actually made it to BAG END! Ancestral home of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins!! I have to say, this is where LOTRO excels – it literally pulls you into Tokein’s world, and if you’re a fan of the books, it’s details like this that make you say ‘ooooh, ahhhhh…’ I totally did the tourist screenshot thing here, my dwarf Ditto Monster in front of Bag End… So cool!!

Ditto the Dwarf posing at Bag End

Backyard Monsters
Big re-design of my yard this week and though I am taking a bit more damage to my outer buildings in this configuration, no attackers have even gotten close to my town hall or my core buildings, which is the main point now. So far it’s working out really well for me, though I think I’ll continue to tweak it. The PvP aspects here are interesting because when you’re attacked you don’t have any way of interacting or preventing damage outside of the defenses you’ve prepared in advance. It’s all about the strategy of your yard and how you’ve set up your towers and lasers. Yup – still fun, I play at least once a day…

Ditto's backard in Backyard Monsters

Game of the Week
So my game of the week this week was from a suggestion made last week – I started playing Toon Town Online.
So I know this is an older game, at least 5 years old, but I have to say, it’s still fun. The basics are a lot like Wizard 101 – you have a similar combat setup (though totally different combat mechanics) similar kinds of quests, housing – it’s just with cartoon characters instead of student wizards. There is also far less ‘story’ to it – it’s pretty light on storyline overall – but it’s still clever and cute.
I created an orange cat character and named him Ditto Monster, and right now he’s got a squirt gun and he can throw pies, which is pretty hilarious, I like the character design.
The game certainly shows it’s age a bit, but I think it’s something I’ll play once in a while – while not as in depth as Wizard 101 it’s still quite a lot of fun overall!

Ditto's House in Toon Town

That’s it for this week – stay safe, have fun, see you in The Spiral!!!

PLOX

Posted by dittowizard | October 15, 2010 | Categories: Fabricated American, Gaming, vBlog | 2 Comments

Ditto’s Video Bloggy Thingy – Oct 13, 2010

So here is my weekly video bloggy thingy. OK, I was a little lazy this week, because my roommate was busy in the living room and Mythbusters was coming on and I REALLY love Mythbusters, but I wanted to get a video out anyway… well, there’s not a ton to talk about this week if you’re only level 33 and can’t actually get into Celestia, but I do manage to babble on for three or four minutes anyway. Enjoy!!

Posted by dittowizard | October 14, 2010 | Categories: Fabricated American, vBlog | 6 Comments

Why I’m not worried about Celestia

There are an awful lot of GREAT articles and videos out there right now around the test realm and Celestia in general. Indeed, it seems a sort of Celestia-fever has gripped much of the Wizard 101 community, and for good reason! Celestia looks amazing, the new level 58 school spells are awesome, and just look at all the new gear, mounts, quests… the list goes on and on! It wouldn’t be at all surprising to find yourself a little Celestia crazy right now!

Celestia on the test realm and I have a Koi!!

In addition to my ‘Celestia Fever’, though, I started to notice other symptoms as creeping in well… I’m only level 32, you see, and with all this Celestia hype it certainly makes one want to ‘hurry up’ and get through Marleybone, then dash through Mooshu and finally, defeat Malistaire in a blaze of meteors and helephants so I can get into Celestia and start checking out the new stuff!!

But then, as I ran past a yellow exclamation point over the head of a defenseless Marleybone citizen (They don’t use magic, you know… poor pups), thinking ‘ah, that’s just a side quest, and it will probably take me forever to get through it – I just need to finish the main quest line.’, I stopped in my tracks.

‘Getting there fast’ is certainly not what Wizard 101 is all about, and it never has been… In fact, some of my very favorite quests are some of the more entertaining ‘side quests’ that are out there. I think about all the work the developers at Kingsisle put into all these great side quests, some of them interconnected, all of them well thought out and entertaining, and I think of how much great work I would be passing by trying to ‘get there fast’ and see the ‘new shiny’ as soon as it comes out.

The truth is, though, that Celestia isn’t going anywhere. It will be there for me to explore whether I make level 50 next week, or next month, or next year. In the meantime, I have SIX other worlds, all exciting and fun, that I will be exploring and adventuring through, all different, all awesome, and I can’t wait to finish them all!

Of course on the other side of the crown, I would LOVE it if Kingsisle did something similar to Grizzleheim and gave lower level players small sneak peeks into Celestia, doing small quests or talking to NPCs, maybe getting access to a few lower level Celestian items in the shops. But if they don’t I’m OK with it, I can wait, and I know that, as with everything else KI does, it will certainly be worth the wait!

So if you’re level 48+ and have defeated Malistaire, congrats to you, Celestia beckons and I’m sure at level cap there is a LOT you’d like to see and do now, with new worlds and spells and quests and bosses to face, new undersea adventures to be had! If I were in your place I’d be truly GIDDY with excitement! But for everyone else – the casual players and the newbies and everyone out there like me who is just taking their time, enjoying all these wonderful, rich, and amazing worlds that have been created for us, I’d say keep enjoying it and keep questing, do all those side quests, find all those poor lost birds and cats and oysters for Zeke, and before you know it you’ll be walking into this amazing new undersea realm.

Of course by the time I get there, there might be ANOTHER new world even beyond that one – but that’s OK, because I’ll get through Celestia in my own time and then that next realm will be ready for me too!

See you in The Spiral!!
PLOX!!

Posted by dittowizard | October 12, 2010 | Categories: Gaming, Wizard 101 | 2 Comments

Welcome to Celestia!!!

So Celestia is officially on the test realm!! Of course I can’t actually get to Celestia yet, since I’m not level 48 and haven’t defeated Malistaire, but there is a lot more to this update than just Celestia! First – new mounts! The turtles are SO CUTE!!! But I have to admit, I am completely in love with the Ancient Koi mount!! It’s so cool and wonderful, I want one! Well, in the test realm I have one, I want one in the real world too!

There is so much more to this update that we’ll all be exploring over the next few days, I’m sure there will be lots and lots of great stuff coming soon! Celestia is finally here – yay!!!

Celestia on the test realm and I have a Koi!!

Posted by dittowizard | October 9, 2010 | Categories: Wizard 101 | 1 Comment

Ditto’s Current Games….

Here we are again, another Friday (Though as I type this it’s technically Thursday, but I won’t post until tomorrow, so for you, it’s Friday…) and here are the games I’m playing now. I’m going to start off with my current and then talk about my new ‘Game of the Week’… We’ll see how this goes – this post has been getting the most hits each week so I guess lots of people like it! Feel free to give me suggestions, etc… too!

Wizard 101
Of course I start off with my wonderful Wizard 101. Digby is still level 31, as I haven’t had a lot of time to play this week. currently he is fighting giant spiders in Hyde Park – why is it always Spiders?? I’m also farming scrap iron to finish up my crafting quests – that’s been really time consuming, and I never see it in the bazaar either. I’m almost there though – only a few more pieces needed to finish up my tasks.

Fighting giant spiders in Hyde Park

LOTRO
Yes, still playing, though again, not much this week. Ditto made level 15 and I got a nice surprise – he can add a surname, meaning he now has a first and last name! Of course that last name is Monster, so I am now a dwarf known as ‘Ditto Monster’! I am also trying my hand at crafting, or more specifically, ‘resource gathering’ – I became an ‘explorer’ who can gather wood and minerals and ore, natural resources, and supply other crafters with them, but not really ‘craft’ anything myself. That’s OK though – I think it will be a nice side income for me to get a house soon, which are EXPENSIVE!! In Wizard 101 I had enough gold to get a house when I wanted one – in LOTRO I don’t know how I’m going to get that much cash without doing a lot of auction house selling and resource farming.
One cool thing – I moved my happy little dwarf out of the cold and windy northern Dwarf areas and down into the lush green elf-lands! It’s so beautiful – kind of breathtaking really.

Ditto finally made it to the lovely elf-lands!

Backyard Monsters
Some big changes in this game this week – they have added new ‘wild monster tribes’ that you can battle for a PVP-like experience without actually PVPing someone, and these tribes will attack you back. It is actually a big change in game play and overall strategy, because fighting these tribes isn’t about stealing resources like regular PVP, it’s all about protecting your town hall and taking out their town hall. I’m going to be re-designing my yard to better account for this, as right now my resources are really well protected, but my town hall is rather exposed.

Ditto's yard in Backyard Monsters

School of Wizardry
I’m not posting about this one after this week. I’m level 125 and I believe I’ve unlocked all quests, so now I’m just going through the motions.

The Game of the Week!!
Here it is, Ditto’s ‘Game of the Week’!! This week I will be talking about ‘Sea Fight‘, a Free to Play pirate game. I found this game thanks to an ad on Facebook while I was playing ‘Backyard Monsters’, and the concept is simple – you have a ship, you sail around, you kill sea monsters and sink other ships. Not much more to it.
Overall the game is kind of a train wreck, sorry to say. The user interface is really simple, but that’s because you can’t do anything with it – to do anything other than sail around and kill sea monsters, you have to log out of the game, go to the website, and use the web-based interface there. And it’s not even a very good web-based interface.
They do start you out well, with a decent ship and both in game gold and ‘pearls’, which I believe is the ‘real money’ currency, and that allows you to better outfit your ship with faster sails, more guns, ammo like exploding cannonballs and flaming pumpkins, plus a crew of swarthy pirates. All the ‘elite’ gear does cost real world currency, but it’s fully playable and pretty fun – though limited – with the in-game gold stuff. I haven’t tried PVP yet, which seems to be a BIG part of this game, so my opinions might change on the viability of the ‘free’ stuff if I come up against someone fully tricked out in premium gear.
One of the crazy things about it is that you can complete a quest, but you apparently need to PAY to get the reward form the quests. Usually $.99 per quest. Seriously? That’s a bit crazy, sorry..
Overall it’s a fun diversion, it was very easy to sign up and get playing, and I do like pirates – who doesn’t? I’m known as ‘Captain Ditto’ and sail around slaying huge kraken and monster whales and destroy Blackbeard’s ships like it’s going out of style – wonder where he gets them all – but the game doesn’t have enough ‘hook’ to grab my furry orange attention and keep me playing. I think next week will be another ‘Game of the Week’, though I might update on this one again, depending on how things go…

Captain Ditto playing Seafight

Posted by dittowizard | October 8, 2010 | Categories: Fabricated American, Gaming | Leave a comment

Ditto Monster's Bloggy Thingy Ditto the Monster looks at the world of family friendly online games from a Fabricated American perspective