A new year is upon us with a spirally twist! Before diving into the newsletter, a quick review of what’s happened recently in the news:
JAN 4: New Iron Ram Pet released
JAN 6: New Exceptional Pet Bundle released
JAN 8: Winter Wonderland Artwork Contest winners announced
JAN 14: Wizard101 now macOS Big Sur compatible
JAN 20: Ratbeard’s PVP hotfix dev diary
JAN 21: Professor Falmea’s Gamigo update
JAN 25: New Karamelle Souvenirs Pack
JAN 26: New Spiral Scene event begins
JAN 26: New Celestial Pantera Mount
JAN 28: KI Live – Welcome Gamigo!
FEB 1: Friendship Festival begins
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.
WELCOME GAMIGO COMMUNITY!
Please welcome our new Gamigo family to the Spiral! Now that KingsIsle is part of Gamigo Group, we want to introduce all their community members to the amazing things you’ve built together in Wizard101 over the years. There’s going to be a ton of opportunity in the coming months to get to know new faces that may become long-lasting friends. And what better time to do that than during the Friendship Festival!
A word from Professor Falmea since the acquisition of KingsIsle was announced:
“My Dear KingsIsle Community,
The beginning of a new year is always a wonderful time, albeit a little too cold for my tastes as a Pyromancer, but as each day gets longer the sun gets brighter, and soon Spring will be here before we know it! Speaking of new beginnings, some of you may have seen the press release about the acquisition of KingsIsle by Gamigo. This is certainly big news, and I wanted to chat what that means and answer some of the questions that you may have.
First of all, let me assure you that the friendly faces that you’ve come to know and love aren’t changing and we’re full steam ahead on the next updates and laying the foundation for the year to come. Ratbeard and Mattnetic are agonizing over a plethora of spreadsheets and math. The illustrious Jeff Toney is doodling away and you should see some of the astounding things Adam Roush is concepting for the next update! Decius is continuing to curate and maintain our Crown Shop and promotion plan, and you will be able to continue to beg him on twitter for the next Crowns Sale as usual. Sparck/Bat Masterson will be coordinating many KI Lives to come, and Vanessa Mythdust will be continuing to hone her art of the pun. We’re still here, we’re still KingsIsle, and we’re not planning on slowing down.” - Professor Falmea
The latest update for Wizard101 included several important PVP tweaks. Check out Ratbeard’s dev diary below to get all the analytical balance details on what’s changed:
“The usual disclaimer applies – everything in the notes to follow is aimed at our ongoing PvP efforts. PvE players are not unaffected by some of the future changes we’re looking at (eg maycast and spell audits). If you’re interested in what’s coming, read on." - Ratbeard
January 20, 2021 Hotfix Changes
Players should now correctly (and consistently) receive the Opt Out prompt for a Tier or Rank mismatch.
PvP Crit/Block dashboard has been tweaked to further reduce the impact of Crit/Block on a match.
Crit Scalar increase from 3 to 8
Block Scalar increase from 5.38 to 12
COMPARE: 400 Crit vs. 400 Block
BEFORE: crit 64%, block 12%, crit damage mult x1.25
NOW: crit 70%, block 6%, crit mult x1.11
PvP Shadow Pip dashboard has been tweaked to reduce RNG, delay shadow pip gain, and increase value of “out-shadding” your opponent
COMPARE: Player A 120 Shadow Rating vs. Player B 100 Shadow Rating
BEFORE: Player A shad turn 4; Player B shad turn 5; Player B gets first shad ~23% of the time
NOW: Player A shad turn 5; Player B shad turn 6; Player B gets first shad ~02% of the time
Happy New Year community! We celebrated the kickoff of what is sure to be an interesting 2021 in the Spiral on last month’s KI Live.
Our first opportunity to talk about the recent acquisition of KingsIsle was a highlight of the show. While we only touched upon a fraction of the questions you all had, do not worry, there will be plenty of other opportunities to ask them again on the next KI Live.
If you also enjoy hanging out with us in-game, you'll want to tune in to the show, now available to watch on YouTube:
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 (HOUSINGLOOT2021) for another 500 redemptions!
A great gameplay tip submitted to KI Live comes from Torpzun26:
“A recent update in the Beastmoon has made it so that the Myth Beastforms can now benefit from Infection Traps and Infection Absorbs being placed on them. If you are playing as a Myth, make sure to take advantage of this with cards that get a boost against any sort of negative ward!” - Torpzun26
We received so many amazing entries that showed the community's wonderful holiday spirit. Many of them surprised us too by how unique they were to show off the holiday spirit by combining different elements of the games into one scene. In fact, with so many entries we expanded the winning lists to maximize as many entries being recognized as possible.
With hundreds of entries reviewed received and only a fraction able to win in the contest, if yours did not make the list, you can still share your entry on social media for all community members to see!
Below are the winners for the Wizard101 portion. To see the Pirate101 winning entries, visit the main contest page.
Digital Winter Wonders
Belgrim Hextalon:
Scarlet Bright:
Tyler Stormbreaker:
Adam Thunder:
Jasmine Sparkleblossom:
Proud Paper Moments
Emma Shard:
Cassandra Nightbringer:
Roslyn Dragonthorn:
Valdus Stalker:
Ryan Stormdreamer:
Surprise Honorable Mentions
Christo SeaBlood:
Fallon Hex:
Justin RedFist:
Liam Hexrunner:
Diana Moonthief:
Ashley Dragontamer:
Rachel Sparkleblossom:
Rowen Winterblade:
Sestiva:
NEW CONCEPT ART FROM ADAM ROUSH
Adam has been busy creating even more cool new art! Check out his latest:
“Here's the No Spoiler screen for the Karamelle test realm. This was fun, especially painting the expressions.” - Adam Roush
“Let's start the year off with something cute: the Tatzelwurm concept from the spell, which is a mythological cat/ snake hybrid. Always fun to design weird and interesting creatures.” - Adam Roush
“Here's a few characters from Karamelle, the hamster mayor and secretary, plus Greta the mole, who's one of my fav characters from this world.” - Adam Roush
“Here's a few NPCs from Karamelle. Pretty fun working on all of these.” - Adam Roush
COMMUNITY VIDEO SPOTLIGHT
Genevieve Moongarden gets excited about the new Spiral Scene event! She walks the community through all the event has to offer, including some awesome in-game rewards. Even if you tend not to participate in events, you’ll want to check this one out simply for the great examples of all the houses showcased:
For highlights of the hundreds of other community guides available across a range of topics, be sure to visit the official Community Guides page on the main website!
COMMUNITY ART SPOTLIGHT
For this month’s art spotlight, we are showcasing Arcanum's Lore’s new wand designs!
“The Karamelle School Wands sets is finished - all the six together! Which one if your favorite?” - Arcanum's Lore
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!
Wizard101 Folio Guides
Wizard101 Folio has been on a hot streak recently with all the guides they’ve released. Check out a few of the highlights below and then be sure to visit their site for many more:
For more guides be sure to visit the official Community Guides page!
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”
FOLLOW WIZARD101
Question for our readers - is there a section we should add? Tweet your suggestion to @Wizard101 and we’ll select the top idea we can implement to win 5,000 Crowns!
Be sure to follow the game and its community on social media!
If you didn’t yet read our article on online safety, please take a moment to stop by our KingsIsle Blog and read the post titled Account Security Best Practices. There’s important information in the article to manage and protect your entire family’s accounts.
