Sadly Disappointed

Hello Everyone,

So, I recently wrote a very angered letter to KingsIsle Entertainment. I know, I know, I'm breaking my promise of not blogging, but I thought this deserved some reckonzition (sorry, spelling) on my blog, because it's pretty good if you ask me:

"Greetings KingsIsle Entertainment,

My Username is (censored) on Wizard101, and I am also known as Luke GoldHorn. I'd like to submit my opinion about your Crowns Versus Membership payment, as the way you have been changing and altering it is truly upsetting. First, I'd like to go back to the past; particularly about a year or two ago. Things were simpler; and to be honest, a lot more enjoyable and fair. The only real benefit the Membership players had over the Crowns players was the PvP Arena and the Open Chat, however Crowns players could access the Arena via Crowns. This was one feature that I REALLY liked about this game, due to the fact that I cannot afford to pay a subscription every month. This option of payment allowed people, for example people like me, to play the game at a slower, more enjoyable pace; however at a more expensive form of paying. Some people can only make payments at certain times in certain bulks of money, which also makes this option very interesting. The game was a lot simpler back then, making the game a lot more fun. Now, let's zoom to present day. You dealt with this whole Open Chat issue, which, by the way, I had no problem with. I actually scorned the people who complained, telling them it wasn't that big of a deal. When you gave back the Open Chat to certain players, I was impressed, and thought the game was improving back to its original enjoyable state. Then today you go and update the Test Realm, which I happened to see was open. Now, I realize that you, KingsIsle Entertainment, don't really like people in the Test Realm without a subscription, or without having payed anything within a month. However, when an individual has spent a lot of money on a single game, possibly the same or even more money than subscription players, that becomes an extremely troubling situation for that individual. I would, with the reply email, like to see exactly how much I've paid for this game, if that's not too much trouble. I believe I've payed around $300 - $500; however, feel free to prove me wrong. Back to the point, I've calculated the numbers, and if someone were to pay $10 a month for as long as Wizard101 has been running, you would have paid around $300, and that's over-estimating, due to the fact Wizard101 has been running for exactly a two years and five months. So, answer me KingsIsle; why should a crowns player, who has paid $400, not get the benefits of someone who has paid $300? I was one of the first people to realize the Test Realm had opened, yet, I couldn't even log in, because my last payment was in December. That's outrageous in my opinion, as well as many others with a normal mind set. I'd wish to purpose a principle, which, in my opinion, is well planned out; Why don't you give Crowns players, who have kept up with the monthly payment course the member benefits (so, for example, if you are a crowns player who has paid $300+, you would be effected by this). Or, better yet, you could go by the six month or even a year payments, that way the price isn't too high that players wont even try to keep up with it every month (In fact, if you want exact numbers, the six month total is around $250 [ Since this is the original message I sent, I'm not going to edit it entirely, but after checking my math, I found I was actually more than $25 off], and the year subscription total is around $240. Please also keep in mind that the six month total and the year total are both overestimated, especially the year total). Now, from a business prospective, this has both benefits and downfalls. For example, a benefit would be an increase of new players, due to this new revolutionary payment method that is so unique to Wizard101. However, a downfall could be a decrease in expected payments, due to the fact that some subscribers might change to Crowns. My point, however, is this; I, like millions of other Crowns players, want something done about the way KingsIsle Entertainment is treating it's Crowns players, because your company is slowly making this attractive payment method into something not so beneficial. Now I'm sure you've heard this millions and millions of times, however, I feel the need to bring it up. If you don't change the way you treat your Crowns players, then I will quit, which I'm sure isn't that big of a deal to a company; one player quitting? No big deal, right? Well when millions of more Crowns players become angered at how they are treated, and when they quit, it will effect the game greatly. Also, your company constantly says they "listen" to the players, yet the community email never replies whenever I try to contact them. Please consider my ideas, and please don't send me a pre-typed message back. Thanks for your patience and understanding,

(Censored)"

Read that if you want. I'm not going to force you; I know it's a lot of reading to do. And again; I'm usually not one for complaining. But I feel different about this topic of Crowns Players V.S. Subscription; I feel that Crowns Players wind up getting the short end of the stick. So, feel free to tell me I'm so wrong in the comments box. See ya round.

P.D.

The Voki says it all

Hey Everyone,

So, the title says it all. Huh...that was awkward.

Anyway, yes, go over to the right and click on the Voki if you'd like to hear my last words -------->

I wish you all great adventures in the Spiral,

P.D. Signing off

Beggars Can't Be Choosers

Hey Everyone,

So I became very mad today. No, not for the reason you might think. Supposedly, there was an announcement made from Lydia GreyRose herself. It basically said that you will have to have a membership every month paid by a credit card in order to have open chat. Sadly, some of us don't have that, because some of us aren't 18 years old. Well, some of us who no longer have this privilege, decided to whine about it. Yes, this is what I'm mad about; how we have to act up because we're just mad we can't have the privilege that adults have.

Just a fair warning, this is going to be a rant. I'm not going to sit here and cuddle the people who feel like victims. So if you don't feel like being yelled at, then leave right now.

For those of you that are stubborn and chose to read on, because you want me to say it's not fair, it's children like you that caused this mess. There were too many kids getting open chat without their parent's permission. Then, on top of not discussing the issue with the parents, kids decided to abuse the privilege by cursing. THIS IS KID FRIENDLY GAME!!!!!!! If you feel the need to curse or say inappropriate things, please leave the game. I'll admit, I discuss things not appropriate for children in the game. But I only discuss the topic with people I know in real life and people I know truly don't mind.

This all happened because children decided to curse people out whenever they didn't get their way. So, tell me; what happens when you don't follow rules? Privileges get taken away. If you got that one, give yourself 100 points. So, KingsIsle did what any parent, school, boss, etc. would do. They modified the privilege, making it so that only paying members that pay with a credit card and buy a subscription may only have open chat.

So upon discovering this, kids decided to whine in hopes of getting their adult privilege back. Let me just start off with this; this is an adult privilege. You shouldn't have this in the first place anyway. Even if your parents decide it's ok to have, it's meant for adults 18 and over. And now you have the guts to whine for a privilege back that didn't originally belong to you. Some people are even deciding to quit because they lost this privilege, and just so you know, that's not admirable at all. In fact, it's just down-right childish and selfish.

Now, there may be more specifics as to how it works. That's what I heard. But this is the exact reason why I left the game; because of the family aspect. I get how some adults like it because it gives them a chance to do something with their kid, and gaming is a perfect way to do that. But MMO's aren't designed for kids. They're designed for adults who can handle the fact that they aren't going to win every raid or every battle. Now don't get me wrong; I love the idea of having a safe clean environment. But in an older environment, with older players, it honestly doesn't seem to be that big an issue.

I was actually thinking of taking a shorter break, you know. I was thinking that maybe a whole break thing was a bad idea. But now I see otherwise. I refuse to take part in a community where everyone is always fighting, people are always ignorant, and where begging is accepted. If the community decides to mature a bit and realize that you wont always get as you want, as I have learned from being an abandoned child, let me know, and MAYBE I wont see it in such a horrible light.

Goodbye and Farwell,

P.D.

Just Checking In

Hey Everyone,

So, I feel like a father on Paternity Leave! xD (Yes, they have that :P) Anywho, I just wanted to check up on a few things here on the old blog! Here we go with floods of information!

-Lounge Lizard Help: I recently got a question from an Anonymous Reader asking for help with the Lounge Lizards. I did a post on this a while back. It's actually one of my most highest viewed entries! So if anyone else needs help with that, you can go to that link!

-GrandMaster Gardener: That's right folks, today I've reached GrandMaster Gardener! I can't believe it really, it's kinda shocking that I got yet ANOTHER GrandMaster in a craft such as Crafting or Gardening. So, I guess I am a "verifiable" source now for gardening questions? Feel free to send those towards me! Also, if you haven't seen my gardening question featured by The Friendly Necromancer, by all means, CHECK IT OUT! I really want to say a huge thanks to Friendly for answering the question!

-Writing Life: For those of you who are die-hard readers of mine, and by that I mean readers from the Central Blog I had that somehow by some miracle happened to find me, (huh, there's probably none of those guys out there xD), you'd know I'm very passionate about expressing yourself, especially through writing (yes, I know, I'm a hippie for expression rights, don't judge man! Fight the power!). Wow, that was what grammar sticklers would call a run on sentence. Anywho, I love to write. For me, it releases all my inner emotions; it helps me connect with things that are happening around me. I also love to read a lot. I'm currently reading The Lost Hero, by Rick Riordan. I must say, with the exception of the grammar errors (which seem more copious than in the past books, btw. New editor?), your books are amazing Mr. Riordan. I love them. Can't get enough. In fact, I've actually adapted a lot of voice in my writing from Mr. Riordan; so well, that when people read my writing, they swear it might be from a Percy Jackson book (which can be good and bad; don't want anyone to think I'm stealing any ideas or anything! D:).

Anywho, so usually, when I read his books, I start to write again. When I'm not reading his books (which is usually because I've finished all of them), well, writer's block tends to fall on me. I guess reading stimulates my ability to write; which, like I said, could be seen as both a good and bad thing. It can be good, because Encoporating different styles and ideas into totally new styles and ideas is what grammar sticklers would call a creative process. However, this can also be caught by the grammar sticklers as plagiarism. Ugh, I hate plagiarism a lot. When someone steals a good idea from you... it's just down-right wrong. But yes, it could be seen as plagiarizing; weaving several ideas into one complete idea. My last novel was about these 12 children who were experimented on by the U.S. Government, with substances found in an ancient cave in Mount Olympus. Some would know this as Nectar and Ambrosia. Each of the 12 children started to take on traits of the gods, the main character being a guy called Zachary. It was actually a pretty neat idea; each god/goddess having their own customized weapons. I loved Hades, or Hayden's weapon; it was a regular set of headphones. The catch was they had a button right near where the input plug was that, when activated, turned the headphones into two dastardly blades connected by a chain. Sadly, after a while, I felt this plagiarized too much from the Percy Jackson series, so I left it behind.

Anywho, I want to avoid plagiarizing as much as possible. So yeah, I'm writing a novel again. I'm trying to stay as far away from Percy Jackson ideas as possible. Here's a rundown of the story:

So there is this secret order of Roman Magi known as the The Order of Magi. They were intertwined with the Catholic Christian Church, but were excommunicated relatively soon to the creation of the actual religion of Christianity. To hide their connect with any magics, the church burned any and all scripts that they could find linking them to the secret order. The two reasons they were excommunicated: 1. They practiced Magic, and 2. The Order of Magi started to incorporate gods from older religious into their spells as well. So the main character is Porter Russo, a teen age boy who, as you can tell, is purely Italian. The roots of his family actually go back to this now secret Order of Magi. One of the head monks kidnaps him while on a School field trip in the St. Peter's Basilica, and tells him about his family lineage. When Porter doesn't believe him and escapes from the Monastery, he encounters a demon and has to slay it. From there, he goes on a quest to seal a rip in the seems of the spiritual and physical world, to stop the demons from getting into our world, or worse; the devil himself.

Yeah, I copied and pasted that. I didn't feel like typing that all again from an original message I had sent to Cassandra DragonHeart. So yeah, if you'd like to take a look, leave a comment, and I'll try to put some on the blog. I want to get some type of protection put on it first though, so no one can steal the idea.

Ok, I gotta get going! I hope everyone is having a great New Year!

P.D.

P.S: I'm sorry the link wasn't up! I forgot to put it up! My mind tends to forget a ton of things! it's there now though! :D

Sythomps Of Wizard101 Addiction

Hey Everyone,

So, if you're on Twitter, you'd know I have announced that I'm taking a break from blogging and W101, however, I'm still logging in to check up on my plants. I figure, since I check up every once in a while on W101, why not do some house cleaning on my blog every few weeks. That way, everyone doesnt totally forget me when I come back in a few months. I'll probably be back before my Wizaversary (June 16th, I believe), so expect to see me back around April-May.

Anyway, I wanted to talk to you about why I'm taking a break from the game. I kinda caught a disease, you could say. I was addicted to W101. I remember, back when Noah or Mycin or even Patrick were even thoughts, and I was meekly going around Wizard City amazed at the Spiral before me. Back in my first month of playing, I had a one month membership that I wasn't allowed to renew. I enjoyed as much of it as I possibly could have. When it was up, I was level 31. I had to quit, because, well, there was nothing for me to do, and because I couldn't get another membership.

Then my friend who I know irl, Wolf IceHunter, suggested an idea. Crowns. What if we bought every area in the Spiral with crowns; that way, we wouldn't have to rush through anything, and we'd have them forever. I thought the idea was incredibly moronic, because, well, that's expensive. But we tried it. Around Thanksgiving, 2009, I started playing through content again, getting from MarleyBone to DragonSpyre by, well, this time of year last year. I remember jumping on the computer from 3 in the afternoon when I came home till 10:30 at night. I got in trouble from my mom a lot, but I became a GrandMaster. I was amazed at the fact that I had aqquired my first GrandMaster.

I then journeyed from there, straying from the Fire School to the Schools of Balance and Storm. Mycin StarGem and Patrick FrostHorn were created and played through. I remember both being insanely challanging, due to my lack of inexperience. It was also around the time of my becoming GrandMaster that I heard my first ever broadcast of Ravenwood Radio. It was the best time of my W101 life. I started reading The Friendly Necromancer. I started posting helping threads on Central, and eventually making a Central Blog with the help of MLHagan. Later on, around May-ish, I started my blog on Blogspot. I also got Patrick and Mycin to GrandMaster. Haha, I remember doing a victory dance when Patrick became GrandMaster. It was because of my horrible handing with my first characters. If you ask me, Valdus, Diana, Gilroy, and Noah were all more succesful than Luke, Mycin, and Patrick combined. They were easier to deal with; I actually knew where all the quests were, and I had a bit of experience under my belt. I also tried throwing a Wizaversary, but no one really knew who I was, so no one showed. I was kinda upset.

Around June, I planned a team with three of my friends, I would play Noah GoldHorn as a Myth wizard. I never planned to level a Myth character; I've never had much of an attraction to Myth. Wolf IceHunter planned to get his second GrandMaster on a Death Wizard known as Shelby DeathHammer. Wolf's brother, Blaine StormMender, was planning to roll a Life wizard named Edward LifeCaller (? I forget his last name xD). And lastly, a newer friend of mine who I met in DragonSpyre, a girl known as Paige Whisper, who is actually a Beta player, was also planning to roll a Death character named Kiley DuskCloud (? I also forget the last name of her too xD!). This was where it started to become a bit stressful. This took place all through July, and when people actually started to recognize me as an active role in the community.

After that group reach GrandMaster, dramatically reducing my "time" so to speak that it took me to get to GrandMaster, Paige and I decided to try the ultimate test. We wanted to see how fast it took us to get to GrandMaster, and try to become faster. So, I stepped into Diana GoldHorn's shoes, and she rolled a Storm Wizard know as Ryan RainCaller (and yes, this was a girl character). We were GrandMaster in two weeks. Now, keep in mind, we barley moved from our computers, woke up at 7 in the morning, and didnt got to bed until, like, 3 at night, haha. It was awesome. We had fun.

Then I kinda went solo again. I decided to level Gilroy SkullFlame. It was also around this time that I realized that I was on my last character, so I made a new account so I could make more Wizards. Valdus GoldHorn, my Ice Wizard, was thus born, and I leveled them together at a slower pace, since I was exhausted from speed-leveling. My goal was to get them to GrandMaster before Celestia came out, and so I did. Then Celestia came out, and I wanted to do it with my friend Paige, but she was taking a break, and she wanted me to wait to level up Luke, Patrick, Noah, and Diana, due to the fact that we had partnered up our characters. So I decided to go through with Noah, and eventually Noah and Valdus became a team, and all three reached Legendary. I started working on Luke to become Legendary, but it soon got tiring. I kinda took a break from Celestia, and decided to try gardening.

And now here we are. I am almost a Rank 9 Gardener, and there is almost nothing that intrests me in-game anymore, because, well, I've done most of it. I've gotten a pet to Epic. I'm a GrandMaster Crafter on Mycin. I have a house on each of my characters. All of my characters have at least they're Grand gear, with exception of Noah, Valdus, and Mycin having thier Legendary Gear. The game just doesn't seem as fun at the moment, since there isn't much to do other than complet the Celestian content 3 and 1/8ths over again (that fraction is an estimate ;) but point being, Luke is almost done).

So I want to warn you, so you wont wind up being in the same spot as me one day. Don't overwhelm yourself liek I did. Take your time. Enjoy the Spiral! A good example of this would be Ditto. He just takes his time getting through the game exploring the Spiral. This post wound up kinda being an "About Me" post, but it was neccessary to showe you how I've gone too fast. I would say more, but time is up for me. I'll see you in the Spiral soon!

P.D.