It’s summertime and that means a hot new update to Wizard101! We’ve been working hard at continuing to improve the beginning areas of the game and refining the quests along the way. Many quality-of-life improvements have been made that you may notice on your journey across the Spiral.
One of the biggest changes in this update are new socialization features, built upon an initial feature set we added in the Spring Update. This time though, we’re expanding them out to support more ways to group players together for questing and events. Ratbeard also had a ton to talk about with PvP balance changes and matchmaking improvement highlights.
And if you enjoy participating in the monthly calendar events, Beastmoon are being updated to include a new Beastmoon Hunt map and beastforms. Be sure to check out the revamped Beastmoon Pavilion accessed by taking the yellow teleporter in the Duel Arena.
Last but not least, we teased another peek into the upcoming world of Lemuria!
Explore all the details in the Summer Update Page and then hop on into the game to check it out.
Before diving into the newsletter, a quick look at recent news activity:
JUL 6: New Krokotopia Art Book
JUL 8: National Video Game Day
JUL 12: Happy Shark Week
JUL 12: Beastmoon Roundtable chat with Gladrocker
JUL 13: New Blacksmith’s Fjord Bundle
JUL 20: New Raven Wings Mount
JUL 21: Celebrating Christmas in July
JUL 28: New Ravenwood Rangers Lore Pack
JUL 28: Summer Update Live
JUL 29: KI Live
AUG 2: National Coloring Book Day
Keep updated on the latest news for next month on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, including special announcements from community fansites! Read on for more fun happenings with the community and their Spiral activities.
KI LIVE: WIZARD101’S SUMMER UPDATE
Wizard101's Summer Update has arrived! The usual developer guests on the show celebrated with the community, but we also had a special new guest-to-be-permeant attendee that joined our marketing team this month!
Throughout the show we answered your questions, gave away multiple in-game items (see below!), and much more.
Missed the show? Watch it now YouTube!
It's always a blast hanging out with the community, so let us know what you most like about KI Lives so we can continue to make them even more fun to watch.
Secret Reader Bonus - As of this newsletter's announcement, for those who didn't get a chance to redeem the KI Live giveaway code yet, we opened it up again (TERRORSTATUES2021) for another 500 redemptions!
A great gameplay tip submitted to KI Live comes from Exp613:
"Collect (the new) Green Wisps after you do combat with other wizards to get a small amount of gold!" - Exp613
BEASTMOON ROUNDTABLE WITH GLADROCKER
Community member Gladrocker hosted a great Beastmoon Roundtable Livestream during last month’s Test Realm with our team. We talked a ton about current Beastmoon systems and revealed quite a bit of what we hope to tweak and add in the coming months!
If you ever wanted more insight into how decisions are made on event changes and how we incorporate player feedback, be sure to check out this livestream now on YouTube for a great discussion:
Keep watch on social media for an upcoming socialization roundtable on August 12 with another community member!
COLORING BOOK DAY – LEMURIA SKETCH
Happy Coloring Book Day month! Coloring Book Day was this past August 2 and we celebrated by releasing this open sketch of the Lemuria Mural:
Use your imagination and fill in the sketch with color, and then post it on social media using the hashtag #W101Lemuria by August 16th. We’ll be showcasing as many eligible entries as we can on KI Live (Aug. 26th)!
NEW CONCEPT ART FROM ADAM ROUSH
Adam has been busy creating more cool new art! Over the past month we released news packs and other items you can now get in the game. Check out a few of the concepts below!
“Here's some of the early concepts for the vine monster from the Catacombs. Initially sculpted in 3dCoat to get a cool silhouette then painted to get more detail. So much fun designing this.” - Adam Roush
"Here's the Fjord Dragon mount from the new bundle. I REALLY like this one: a mix of Norse dragons, sharks/fish, and nature. Had so much fun with the design and this painting :).” - Adam Roush
"Here's a couple interior designs from the Blacksmith Fjord house. The shop interior was really fun, especially designing the forge.” - Adam Roush
GUIDE OF THE MONTH
Miss Angel vs Gobblers, Lost Souls, Obstacles, and Derby Opponents
Check out this great pet training guide from Adventures of the Spiral! Join Miss Angel as she navigates her way around Gobblers, Lost Souls and Derby courses and learns the ropes of Pet Training.
Talking to Milo Barker
“After acquiring a pet from the crown shop Humble Misty’s character, Maria Mistmender went into the Pet Pavilion. It was a bustle of excitement, energy, and things to do. The first person that was there, in front of Maria, was Milo Barker and he suggested a bit of fun training – a Scavenger hunt! She was intrigued and talked to him further. Milo went on to explain that a good pet has very sensitive hearing and sight that should be able to find things sooner than she could sense them. So he buried some metal rings in the Commons and Shopping District for Maria’s pet, Miss Angel, to find.” - Adventures of the Spiral
For more guides be sure to visit the official Community Guides page!
VIDEO OF THE MONTH
Stormbreaker presents a playthrough of the FTUE-updated Firecat Alley from the new Summer Update!
“Introducing the first edition of a new series! Drawing the Wizard101 professors in my style! I had to do Falmea first.” - (@Wisptress)
We would love to see more screenshots and art from the community for next month’s newsletter. Do you have something amazing to share? Send it to us in an email to community@kingsisle.com! We’re always interested in showing off more fan art, gameplay guides, videos, and other content.
Thanks, Wizards!
COMMUNITY BULLETIN
Community art by: Swordroll
Keep updated on what’s happening in the community right here in our Community News section! For every newsletter, we receive direct from the community links to new gameplay guides, exciting upcoming contests, and much more. Thanks to the following fansites and other community leaders for their contributions this month!
On July 8th we celebrated National Video Game Day with the community! Dozens of livestreamers from both Wizard101 and Pirate101 communities came together to celebrate our games. We even streamed for a few hours!
Thanks Wizards for hosting each other through Twitch throughout the day. We had a ton of fun visiting your streams and saying hello to your viewers! Several of the livestreams and YouTube videos were shared on our Twitter page @Wizard101.
The unaffiliated-with-KingsIsle “Community Newsletter” had a great selection of Wizard101 links this month from around the web. NOTE: Follow their Twitter page for more information. To subscribe to their newsletter, send a DM to their Twitter asking to be added or email them at community.newsletter.101@gmail.com. You can unsubscribe at any time by sending them an email with the phrase “UNSUB”
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