Taking Wizards 101 as a Summer Class

Category: Scribe's Corner

Last Updated on Thursday, 04 August 2011 21:19

Written by sun

I find myself between MMORPGs right now, yet I still have the urge to play something to fill that void before that next big subscription game comes out. As I browse through some so-called “free-to-play” offerings I see too many that look much the same as something that I played before. I doubt that any of these would hold my interest for long. Then I came across a game called Wizard 101 that stood out as something quite different. While it was my immediate impulse was to dismiss it at a “child’s game”, after seeing a number of awards and reading the testimonials of adult players who claimed it was a refreshing experience from the typical MMORPG, I decided to give it a shot. After all, it is free-to-play, right?

I was quite amazed about how quickly you could jump into the game. The initial download was quite small and with streaming downloading during play means that you will be playing in minutes rather than hours. This is very good if you are impatient, but it does allude to the fact that there is little data to be transferred. As expected you start with character creation. Your avatar represents a child who is heading off a Ravenwood, a school for magically gifted children. There are very simple customization tools for altering your character appearance and selecting a name from a menu. The most involved decision is your primary school of magic that you will be taking up as a new student. Once you done that, you are off to your first day at Ravenwood.

During the introductory mission, you are immediately involved in the central plot to the game, which is way too close to the Harry Potter series that can be ignored. You are greeted by the benevolent Headmaster Ambrose who immediately enlists your assistance when the primary antagonist, Malistaire, who a good professor gone bad, starts causing trouble. Ambrose helps explain some basic game play and most importantly, how to duel. Dueling is the combat takes place between opponents through a customized card game rather than in the typical MMORPG fashion.

The cards that go in your deck for dueling is largely influenced by your primary school of magic. These schools are: fire, storm, ice, death, life, myth, and balance. Each school has unique type of spells that make them different from one another. For example, most storm spells tend to do the most direct damage but have the highest failure rate, while some death spells inflict less damage but heals the caster for half the damage inflicted. In the turned based combat that is dueling, you gain a unit of power, known as a pip, at the beginning of the round. At that point you can cast a spell that cost one pip, or try to save it to cast a spell that cost more in the next round. Each attack spell summons some type of monster, like a bat, ghoul or fairy who inflicts their damage and disappears. The battle continues round after round until one opponent runs out of health. In addition to these basic attack spells there are variety of shields, heals, buffs, de-buffs, and multiple opponent attacks that you will gain as you level up. The customization that is very appealing is that when you start to level up you will begin to select spells to learn outside your own school of magic so you can make your own blend of magic spells.

Even though you are a student don’t fear that you will be spending time in the classroom. Rather you will be running around Wizard City completing the familiar sounding MMORPG type quests including defeating these many opponents, collecting drops from those mobs, or clicking on barrels and crates to collect them. The quests givers are voiced, which encourage you to actually listen to what they have to say. Some quest givers are voiced well, and some hilariously poorly, but always entertaining. The questing, especially in the beginning, is very easy. A yellow arrow points you in the direction for the quest objective making it easy to run from one point to another without even consulting a map. The layout of the typical zone consists of streets with sidewalks on either side. The mobs walk back and forth in the middle of those streets. If you wish to avoid combat, merely stay on the sidewalks and bypass most mobs on the way to your objectives. Also to start you can own pull one mob at time, even if you walk in a cluster of them. This does change to two mobs at time and then more in the latter stages of the game. Most zones feel very small if not cramped. With a teleport ability that will get you back to a central location with only a 60 second cool down means your travel time with be very short to just about any point on the map keeping the action going.

Now where the game really shows that it is a child’s game is the graphics. Character and mob models are very simple and cartoon like, although charming in its own way. The backgrounds models are repeated way too often. Even on the highest graphical settings, much of the environment is visually dull with little detail. The spell animations during the combat are nice the first hundred times you see them, but can start to annoy you after that. The sound is OK most of the time, but some sound effects seem out of place or underwhelming. The servers are stable most of the time with rare connection problems or crashes.

There are many features that seem frivolous to me, but other people might enjoy. Instead of paying to refill empty potion bottles, for example, you can play some simple action or puzzle games, and if you score high enough you can fill them for free or earn other prizes. As one might expect in such a game, you do have magical pets to raise and train with their own set of mini-games. There is also PVP dueling against other players, which seem to be lopsided and not at all enjoyable. There is crafting for clothes and other items as well as gardening, both of which appears overly simple and dull compared to complex crafting system found in other MMORPGs.

The community is important aspect of this game. Undoubtedly, there is a large portion of young players. You can expect some begging, frequent friend invites from strangers and rare encounters with people that just don’t understand how to play. You can play solo mostly and try to avoid the frustration, but eventually there will come a point, especially in Wizard 101’s version of a dungeon which requires assistance from at least one other player who knows what they are doing to progress in the game. Communication is purposefully difficult to keep it family friendly by having severe chat restrictions. It makes grouping and coordinating your effort in battle hard. Nevertheless, I had more pleasant grouping experiences in this game with random people than in any other MMORPG that I played in years.

For all the charm that this game does have, the truly diabolic nature of the game is it free-to-play traps that you need to avoid. Your free access consists of only about half the zones in Wizard City which will get you to about level 10. With a level 60 cap and 5 more large zones outside Wizard City, there quite a bit more content after that point. A monthly membership for $9.95 USD is the most straightforward to get full access to game. The in game-currency is "crowns" that can be typically bought for 500 crowns per $1 USD, although there are specials and discounts from time to time. You can buy access to a mini-zone with Wizard City one at a time for $1.50 apiece which will give you 2 hours of playable content per mini-zone. Buying the monthly membership is more cost effective. You can also use crowns to go shopping in the grossly unbalanced item shop for various premium “play to win” items which can cost up to $30 USD per item. To a value minded gamer to myself, it deeply influences what entertainment I expect to get out of this game for the money I am willing to part with. My favorite example of how crowns unbalance things, however, is after you defeat a boss, he will drop a quality item, as bosses tend to do in MMORPGs. There is also a chest in the room. For a mere 50 crowns you can buy another drop. Want another? Sure, for 100 crowns. The system made me laugh, then cry.

So if you are in doubt if the game is right for you, here are my suggestions. If you are looking a serious, deep MMORPG that will keep you engaged for years, this is not it. I think will you find the graphics repulsive, the game play too simple, the child-centric design annoying, and the price structure offensive. However, if you are looking for something more light-hearted and open to enjoy the experience with childlike wonder rather than serious power gaming, it might be worth downloading. If you like the Harry Potter stories and have an addiction to collectable card games, this might be short but pleasant diversion for you. Remember to hold on to your money tightly, buying a membership only a month at a time. I suspect even those who like it, the game will keep you entertained for no more than a month or two. Avoid the temptation in the spending your real hard earn cash for virtual items for a game that you won’t be playing for very long. If you do plan on getting an account for your child to play on, for heaven’s sake, secure your credit card information.

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