Valerian's School for Wayward Wizards

Test Realm is Open With AMAZING New Stuff!

2013-05-22T22:00:00.000-07:00

This is epic in my book! I've often thought of how cool it would be to put on a concert in Wizard101 and now you can... Check out these new playable instruments in test realm.

And, drum roll please...... (with your new drum set)........ ..........

New dueling tournament pairing and prizes!!!

You can win rare cards, pets and mounts to name a few. So what ware you waiting for???

(((See you in test realm.)))
If you spot me in the game ask me for a code and I'll give you a code for the blue raptor claw wand. (It's exclusive to Valerian's School only)

And last but not least enter the contest in the post below...

How does your garden grow contest

2013-05-14T20:35:00.000-07:00

Enter the gardening contest in the widget below. (You will have to use a Javascript compatible browser)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

How does your garden grow?

2013-05-13T22:24:00.000-07:00

Tonight I went out and did some weeding in our garden and finished up feeling happy, itchy and dirty. Now, if you are a virtual gardener you probably just end up feeling that sense of satisfaction without the dirt and itch...

The creators of Wizard101 wanted us to have a little motivation to get our virtual spring gardening under way... To help out they are giving 5 Red Barn Farms and 20 seed packs.

Join us tomorrow for the start of the gardening contest!

Get your green thumbs ready.

Vale

Happy Mother's Day

2013-05-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

That pretty much says it all...

Without a mom you wouldn't be here! So they're kinda important aren't they?

My earliest memories of my mom are of her singing or telling me a story from memory. She knew these things made me feel better when I was scared. She was always telling stories, making something or fixing something trying to make things last because we were pretty poor. Of course I didn't know we were poor because she took good care of us. (yep big family) Some of my best memories are of her reading Chronicles of Narnia to my sister and I every night for at least a month.

Since my mom received her wings, I miss her more than ever. I try to pass along the same things to my boys... I try to teach them to appreciate stories and good books too.

This weekend I was at a writing conference with about 500 other writers and authors. I got to enter a story in the contest and I took first place this year. I know she's proud of me for trying to get better at things that I was taught to love because of her example. I feel very hopeful that my boys will appreciate that you can dream dreams and make them come true by hard work. I know their mom is teaching them that by living her dream too. I hope that whatever they do in life going forward they will take a love of writing and story telling with them into whatever job or career they end up having.

Happy Mother's Day to all moms out there and those that are mom's in their hearts.

There would be no great wizards without a mom so think of some nice way to give back to your mom either by showing her you love her or by honoring something she loved when she was with you.

Vale

Stay tuned for another contest coming up!

Glitch & Winners of the Bonus Part of the Mount Idea Contest

2013-05-05T22:23:00.003-07:00

Winners!

For those of you who submitted an idea that won a bonus code in the contest below...

If you don't have an email already waiting with your bonus prize code- please comment with your wizard name and email address in a comment. I'll moderate your comment so your email address doesn't get picked up by spammers and I'll forward you your code.

I still have 11 that haven't claimed their prize.

If the prizes are unclaimed within a week I'll have to give them away some other way.

Glitch/Hiding Spot

Check out this interesting glitch pointed out to me by Alexis Jadeheart. I always like to explore side areas just in case there's something cool an I did notice this area when I first explored it but what I didn't realize is that it's see-through from one side and not from the other. Too bad you can't jump out and surprise a bad guy.

In this picture I'm inside the leafy area looking out. Kind of like a 2 way mirror but a 2 way mirror made of leaves and vines. (I know that doesn't make sense to me either)

This is me inside of the hiding spot with the camera angle zoomed around behind me so I can see what someone else would see. You can see a bit of my dragon's wing sticking out.

Here's me inside of the hiding spot again but this time the camera angle is rotated so you can see the very edge of the texture and my dragon's wing behind it.

Yep, you guessed it... it's in Azteca. If you know where this spot is tell me and I'll give the first three people to comment with the right answer an exclusive to Valerian's School wand that you can't get anywhere else in the game on or off the game...

Happy hunting!

Vale

Epic Mount Ideas

2013-04-28T16:51:00.007-07:00

Well, I challenged you to submit great ideas on mounts and there were some super awesome ideas. Unfortunately the comment trail doesn't really let me respond to people by email sooo those of you listed here with ideas that Cody and Logan voted on should leave a comment for me with your email address and I'll send you something cool or COOL (either one).

So without further ado, here are some of your awesome ideas. Sorry that I can't list all of them. They were all brilliant and very creative.

SwordRoll - a mount made of smoke like you're being lifted and moved by the smoke (traveling in Wizardly style! I like it.)

Vijeyta Revankar swallowed by monster and the spacebar makes you pop out on its tongue (as long as he doesn't have bad breath this would be awesome)

Keira UnicornSong furry house cat - we have the tigers but what about a cuddly cat? (who doesn't need a cuddly cat?)

Sophia EmeraldBlossom mount is your current highest spell (a changing pet would be awesome)

Lunar Fairy mount might join battle (I love the idea of my mount helping me out. Sometimes gets lazy and doesn't think to heal me so extra help would be nice)

Tabitha bear powered wheel barrel - bear carries you in the barrel part (as long as he doesn't dump me out in the dirt, I'm game...)

Al Neuu flying castle (Only if I get the balcony seat with a cushy chair)

Brave Alex Richmond - monkey (who wouldn't be cheered up by a monkey? right?)

Tasha Sparkleheart - hamster wheel (if I could ever stop laughing I would probably use this one)

Dylan Sunthief dreamy cloud (several people had this idea but Dylan was the first to suggest it)

That Guy From Down The Street - Mammoth (Manny or not, a mammoth seems like a bigl idea)

Rosie Zhao Panda (Who doesn't want a panda with or without kungfu, pandas are just cute)

JamesDC pulling a wagon with mount or pet in it (Sounds like last time we went to the parade)

Jacob Deathhorn Teleporter bubble that envelops you and carries you around (I love high tech)

Emma Starblood Luna Moth (A moth would be very cool)

Emily Owl Mount (Owls are just awesome and Harry Pottery, I love it)

Llewella Life Swan boat (I'd for sure use this if Rowan was online)

Georgi Manolev - Leviathin (A good scary mount! But will it get dried out in the desert?)

Stacy Igwe multi-seat caterpillar (It's fun to imagine this one slinking along... an inch-worm would be fun too)

Cameron Kangaroo (I mean seriously right? I'd hop along on a roo especially if it jumped high punched too!)

Jordan Lifecaster - floating leaf (sounds relaxing)

Alura Silverdust - poison frog (now that's a fun and colorful idea. i'm all about jumping high so this one would be fun)

Brandon OwlSword - jumping valentine's heart (this is a super fun idea. I bet this would be popular)

Alexandria Rider - chicken (rubber or not, don't chickens make you laugh too?)

Tavi - squirrel (this idea is just plain cute even if you find yourself short on nuts afterward)

Thanks for all the great ideas mentioned and not mentioned.

Vale

One day left on the mount contest!

2013-04-26T21:30:00.001-07:00

This is the last day to enter the mount contest below. I think I'm going to sweeten the deal and give some prizes for the ideas Cody and Logan like best.

One epic idea that I like is the hamster ball mount. ROFL! Awesome!

Check out this cool stacking heaven that Alexis Jadeheart made. It's so high you can literally almost touch the sky. The island looks like a speck from the very top. I have a few more pics I'll post soon.

Mount-a-Palooza contest win 1 of 20 dragons!

2013-04-15T22:03:00.000-07:00

Join Mount-a-Palooza and join the chance to win one of 20 mounts. If your idea is especially thoughtful or creative I might find an additional way to reward you!

If you don't see the widget below log in using Chrome, IE or Firefox with Javascript enabled.

Good luck and may you be riding in style soon!

Vale

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Dueling in test realm

2013-04-08T20:37:00.001-07:00

So Suri and I just had to test out PVP in test realm. We were bummed that too few people were on to test 4v4 or 3v3 but we did try 2v2 and got first cast both times. Each time we got a team that was maybe not the most used to working with each other and we did fine even without the extra pip the other side got.

An interesting side effect was that it seemed that the other team was fully set up about the same time as we were. We hit early which I normally don't do and both times it worked out really well. Usually you want to prepare a fairly big hit that's hard to recover from but instead we hit early and just kept hitting. It was a strategy that paid off in spite of the small pip advantage for second cast.

I was a little worried that a whole pip might greatly tip the balance. While I think it doesn't give a decisive advantage to 2nd cast it makes the undeniable advantage of first a little more questionable. If the teams we played were a bit more practiced I think the result may have been a lot different.

How are you finding PVP in test realm?

Do you like the new combat system?

Vale

Sun and Star School Trainers in Azteca

2013-04-07T17:40:00.001-07:00

As you battle your way through Azteca you will unlock the school trainers which allow you to add to your already impressive arsenal of spells.

Check out some of these new spells that are available from Sun and Star school trainers.

I don't know much about the Moon School as I've stayed away from most of the polymorphs. (Primarily because they never quite seemed to use your wizard's own resist/stats while transformed) Since they appeared useless in PVP I poo-poo'd them and haven't looked back since.

Does anyone use morphs for their serious PVP or questing wizards? I hope that I haven't turned my back on a good thing. Of course I've used up all my training points and still want to spend more.

I did the shield school (Valerian's School)... so I have a fair amount of spells from every school that are taking up training points. But I also like to hit hard and shield well so I have a few bubble spells including the one for pips and the one for shielding and the one for extra tough.

I also set up for dispel of myth which was essential for all multi-v PVP players. Then I finally went back and got death up to feint instead of the tough plus spells. The reason I don't like those is that while they are super useful they take up loads of room in your deck. It's hard to put together an effective PVP deck when half your deck is taken up by Gargantuan or Colossal.

From Azteca I got the new blade "sharpen" which boosts a single ice blade by 10% and immediately makes the stack-able. (I think they need to raise the damage cap past a million now!) And I will get the trap booster for making stack-able 10% plus traps. I got the ice boosting dome which gives an additional 25% boost to ice spells for 4 rounds. And I want to pick up the heal boost as well since I'm needing that more than ever now when trying to solo the new bosses.

Here is star schools' offerings minus the Ice dome which doesn't show for me any longer since I learned it already. The domes are good thing to have in a pinch I think.

And Sun School... (minus Sharpen which I already learned)
I think Sharpen is essential for all PVP wizards and anyone that wants to hit hard.

PVP Change and Hair styles! Test realm is open

2013-04-04T22:43:00.002-07:00

One of the biggest changes to hit Wizard101 is in test realm right now! New PVP changes including a remedy for first-cast advantage! WOOT! There are too many other great changes to name but also an interesting reset of PVP points. But before you go casting a spell on the PVP designers... you'll get a badge for your current rank so you can prove it to people when you say... "yeah, I was a warlord once but they reset the points" This is actually a good thing because PVP has been a little lopsided with some teams getting first cast advantage too often to be able to tell who the better wiz is.

And new hair style capability is just one of the gazillion things that were added and updated. The list of updates is so long you have to go check it out for yourself at https://www.wizard101.com/game/update-notes/testrealm

But first... check out these cool do's that you can see now when you go hat-less.

See you in test realm!

Vale

Amazing House Stacking

2013-03-18T21:42:00.002-07:00

Before I get started be sure to enter the contest (two posts below this) and win some awesome stuff!

I had a chance to visit a friend of a friend's home where he's done amazing work to make his houses more than just ordinary. This first house was made to simulate heaven.

I could try to describe it but it's probably best to just show it. Here we go... the stairway to heaven.

The first level of heaven. If you look closely you might notice golden apples (hmm) and angels flying around the tree.

Here is the second level of heaven... again with angels and cherry blossoms.

The 3rd level has a harp and grand piano and a single rose. (time to swoon ladies!)

P.S. This is David DreamBringer's house

Here's another home David built. I've never even seen this one before!

A neat little escape behind the trees

Standing on the edge of infinity

A really neat way to float items on the water. Who doesn't want a grand piano floating in a reflecting pool?

My friends opining about how epic it would be if all objects could be stacked.

He built a nexus of portals that go to each house from one location.

He also placed a portal inside a fountain with plants around it! Now that's epic! Totally hidden until you're in it an poof!

Be sure to enter the contest in the post that's two posts down from this one.

Rowan's new book is out!

2013-03-13T23:34:00.001-07:00

The Jump Boys

If you go to the link you can check out the eBook and read the first chapter etc. This book is for all age groups but mostly middle-grade range. Enjoy!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Check out this month's Wizard101 contest in the post below and enter to win the Pot-o-Gold contest!

Pot-o-Gold Contest

2013-03-05T20:55:00.002-08:00

The pot of Gold contest starts tonight!

Our winners for the friendship festival are enjoying their mounts right now but this contest gives something totally unique...

Each code will grant the following items:
• Gold Kirin Mount (Permanent)
• Gold Wyvern Mount (Permanent)
• Gold Pieces (50000)
• Crowns (5000)
• Sun Palace House
• Hatching Elixir
• Additional Castle Elixir
• Major Gold Elixir

plus one of the following four pets (at random)
• Death Leprechaun
• Myth Leprechaun
• Leprechaun
• Lucky Leprechaun

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Friendship Festival Ends and Start of Pot-o-Gold Begins

2013-03-02T00:30:00.003-08:00

I just landed a few hours ago from a long stay in San Francisco at the RSA conference. (Security/Hacking Conference) It was pretty epic. It was a week long conference with lots of classes about hacking and stopping cyber-crime.

Contest

I'm behind on announcing the winners from the writing contest. I'll be posting them later this afternoon.

While I compile the results and put up the next contest check out some pictures from the conference and read the stories that were submitted in the comment trails of the contest posts.

(no babies were harmed in the making of this picture :)

This is Fire-Eye "guy". He was walking around and doing the "robot". But it was a guy in a suit. He was pretty good at doing the robot. Had me fooled for a while.

This was a magic show which was really good. There is a lady in the box which is pretty amazing since the box's bottom is barely atached to the top and there are holes that go through from left to right and front to back! Yikes. Somehow she survived! I don't know how he did it.

This is the Enigma encryption machine that was used in world war 2. A huge room size computer was designed to generate just the daily 6 digit code that was created for the specific date used. The rotors near the bottom of the picture were turned to a new set of numbers each day and then the plugs arranged in one of 13 trillion possible variations and then it was used like a typewriter. Cryptography is one of my specialties and I enjoy learning about crypto machines from the old days. Did you know that the Romans used cryptography to send important messages?

Something else I learned from the conference is just how advanced some computer viruses are. Some have been designed with incredible complexity and even remote control! So to keep your computer in good Wizard101 running order - keep your anti-virus programs up to date and don't open emails with attached documents unless you are expecting a document from that person. If a stranger sends you an email with an attachment in it then DON'T open it.

NOW Check out some of the stories from the Friendship festival...

Friendship Contest Continued and Wiz Fun

2013-02-19T21:01:00.002-08:00

Cure for the Common Quest

I was talking to a friend last night and discussing the repetitiveness of some quest lines in Azteca (sorry KI we still love you) where you have to defeat and collect from the same group of bad guys many many many times over. Usually to collect you have to do between 4 and 8 battles. For me one of my favorite areas was Krockotopia and of course Wizard City. The two areas I think about specifically was the Hall of Champions which was very challenging at the time and also Nightside in Wizard City.  Those areas could be tricky to beat and require skilled friends to help you through.

We talked about some of the more fun and memorable things which pretty much always involved glitches. I loved the invisibility glitch, the stacking glitch, the running in the sky glitch and yes, even the gardening glitch. I think it would be cool to have some oddities and see what endless human creativity can do to it.  A little chaos in the system if you will.

I still think it would be cool to have a battle area where you maybe pick up random bad guys from different schools or have to puzzle your way across an area with traps that send you back defeated if you mess up, or where you need to use your stacking skills to construct a bridge over some dangerous spot.  Or there's always the idea that keeps coming back to me of having a dueling street where other players are randomly pitted against you in dueling style match-up.

I am loving the new cards and spells though! And I'll probably love the new clothes if I can get my wiz high enough in crafting to make it.

Friendship Contest

Don't forget to join the contest a couple posts below. If the javascript contest widget doesn't pop up right away just wait a moment and it will probably show. If not, you may need to enable javascript on your browser. (don't worry, it's safe)
See you around the spiral.

Keep your contest entries coming in

2013-02-17T18:48:00.000-08:00

Friendship Festival

We're half way done the Friendship Festival contest. We're loving the stories so keep them coming for big points. JOIN OR ENTER IN THE POST BELOW!

Writing Fun

This past week I was writing a couple first chapters for a writing contest as well. It was pretty tough. Rowan beat it up pretty bad and I fixed it with a lot of effort but the story itself was pretty good so it survived the trip to the story-hospital. There's little better when writing than a good critique partner who is willing to be tough on you without being mean --sometimes as the writer it's hard to know the difference but you have to have a tough skin to accept the help and not get defensive.

Independant Writer's Online Conference

Anyway, I thought I'd mention that Rowan has a conference for writers who are thinking about self publishing. It's called IndieReCon http://www.indierecon.org/ There is a ton of material going up starting the 19th and going through the 21st. It will be packed with Q&A chats, helpful articles and stuff about how to self publish, how to market yourself and how to get started. These are some major authors and they're breaking new ground in the publishing market. So kick back in your PJs and surf around the site or join the sessions and live chats for some mega useful info.

Grubb Guardian Tough for Ice**On a totally different subject... have you ever tried Grubb Guardian using an Ice pet? Wow, talk about tough! Usually the best luck I have is upgrading a myth guy all the way and then adding as many as I can and upgrading them to frog or better. Usually I add an ice guardian or two to slow the bad guys down. If bad guys are still breaking through then you might need to add a fire or other guardian. But there are some levels that are nearly impossible with a non-upgraded Ice pet.

Friendship Festival Contest

2013-02-02T19:54:00.003-08:00

Please enter the Fan Fiction Friendship Festival February Fourty-item Giveaway by writing some fan fiction or tweeting some writerly stuff as long as you put the blog name or URL in the Tweet.

If you have problems with the contest widget not showing you may have javascript turned off. For that the easiest thing might be to try a different browser or get some help from a tech savvy friend.

Fan Fiction Friendship Festival February Fourty-item Giveaway

Wizard101 Friendship Festival Begins!

2013-02-01T22:52:00.003-08:00

February first marks the beginning of the Wizard101 friendship festival. It's a party and a contest all rolled into one.

We will be giving away TRex, Scarydactyl, Winter Treant, Phoenix, Malorian Dragon, Hyrda, Great Hornocerous, and last but not least ... Blood Raven.

I will post the contest rules in just a few hours so stay tuned!

We will do both a random drawing and maybe something else fun.

Also if you are an artist please let me know. Rowan needs someone to draw art for her books from time to time and she's been looking for an awesome Ygdrysl (sp??) World Tree for her new novella in the Desolation series. And she also does scifi so space ships are needed at times. So if you want to show off send along some art and I'll pass them along.

I think I have an great idea for the new contest! I feel a fan fiction theme coming on...

Contesty-goodness is brewing! See you tomorrow for the details.

Vale

Where are the UFOs in Wizard101 Azteca?

2013-01-30T20:56:00.001-08:00

Have you been having as hard a time as I have finding the locations of the UFOs in Wizard101 Azteca? Here are the ones I have pictures for. I'm working on getting pics of the rest.

The arrow on the map shows where my Wiz is and where possible I try to get a shot of the UFO in the picture.

Keep an eye out for the upcoming February contest where you can win some epic things.

Vale

Grub Guardian Ideas

2013-01-22T19:50:00.000-08:00

I've finished all the free levels on Grub Guardian! It took me a bit to figure it out but it's sure a fun distraction when I have time.

Levels after Celestia are locked and you have to unlock them with crowns which would be fine IF I had any! I usually spend them all on mega-snacks and the new wands.

I found the Survey Camp challenging but overcame it with an interesting mix of help (above)

Hero Camp was pretty challenging too but a solid mix of myth was enough to nuke my way through it.

Upgrades to Medusa helped a lot!

Ravenscar was a bear and took me a lot of experimentation to get through. I tried all death which was really effective... just not fast enough for the later rounds.

I tried all myth, myth and death, myth and storm, storm and death, myth death and storm (you get the idea) but none of it really worked until I added about a billion storm guys and upgraded them as quickly as my fingers would tap. Then I threw in some death guys for good measure because they get criticals now and then which take out bad guys pretty well. But it seems like the splash damage from storm was the only thing that saved my bacon. ( a subtle reference to my ninja pig pet there)

Success! Let me know if you've beat this level and how you did it. What score did you get? What mixture of guardians?

I'm totally stoked because I just crafted my Avalon level gear. I had been packing the recipes around for a while and didn't even realize that I had them pretty much done. I just needed a quick trip to Celestia to pick up the "Perfect Peridot" and "Perfect Saphire" and now I have crazy good defense against storm and fire. If you are going to arena you really need your crafted gear.

Have fun!
Vale

Keeping your Wiz computer safe

2013-01-13T16:50:00.000-08:00

Some articles are recommending disabling Java in your browser to stop cyber criminals from attacking your computer and causing the files on your computer to get scrambled until or unless you pay them lots of money. :( See these articles for more information: Danger Danger!
And an article from Homeland Security... http://www.us-cert.gov/cas/techalerts/TA13-010A.html
http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/636312#solution

You can read what I have to say about it here: http://www.trustsecurityconsulting.com/

My take is that upgrading Java to 7.11 with the link in my Trust Security Consulting blog post is probably the best short term solution IF you have Java apps or IF you play Mincraft a lot. If not then I recommend you uninstall it completely and wait for a few months before installing it again.

You will want to be careful about what emails you open and how deep you surf the Internet. Stay on sites that are trusted as much as possible. If your computer is acting strangely then be sure to ask a technical parent or friend for help.

Vale

Some emails arriving... more to go out!

2013-01-10T23:12:00.001-08:00

I sent some lucky winners emails and will be sending many many more over the next day so don't stress if you didn't get an email yet!

I can't wait!!!

Vale

P.S. Ever notice on grub guardian that if you put lots of death guys around (even level 1 guys) that they will often randomly kill off even huge bad guys with lots of health that try to steal your pet's food? I noticed that on the Floating Land level. It was the only way I could kill off the big kraken guys. I put about 20 of those level 1 death guys around and leveled one of them to a scarecrow and had a storm guy leveled to Storm Lord and a myth leveled to Medusa and two ice guys to slow them all down. It worked great! I've tried pretty much every other combination all ending in epic fails.

Contest winners have been picked

2013-01-09T22:20:00.001-08:00

The picture submissions have been judged and prizes will be emailed out tomorrow!

Thank you all so much for your awesome pictures. I'm totally in awe of the talent you have for drawing and awesome picture taking. We love pictures that really tell a story and there were some really good ones.

I would love to get you guys to draw for a site redesign. Hmmm, that gives me a contest idea...

Thanks again for your patience and I'll be showering you in prizes tomorrow evening!

In the mean time enjoy some pictures courtesy of our contestants.

Vale

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Happy 2013

2013-01-04T20:17:00.001-08:00

I hope you all had excellent holidays! Things have been crazy but we're almost done sorting out the entries for our December contest!

Thanks so much for all those that entered!

As a special treat and because of the lateness of the contest closing I'll be randomly awarding a few "blue raptor blades" as well which are exclusive to Valerian's School! (Yep, you can only get them here)

Vale