Now on Live Realm, discover the stolen lands of Lemuria! We’ve opened the sealed door to an exciting new world that is at once familiar and strange and completely bonkers. What will you find there? It’s a mystery! Let us know, as we are just as curious.
Along with the new world and all the exciting content it has to offer, we’ve made several improvements to existing systems, starting with the Quest Journal. It has been revamped to allow filtering of quests! With mainline and side quests to complete, it’s now easier than ever to focus on those most important to your questing goals. A cluttered Quest Journal is no longer a thing!
Also in the update are new features to Adventure Parties, continued balance changes to PvP gameplay, exciting new Beastmoon rewards, and of course a selection of new Beastforms to challenge your play and scare the enemy team right off the combat sigils. Are you a fan of Castle Magic and making your castle the bling bling of the Spiral? Seek out Babbage Basset for a bunch of new decoration options!
Here are several community guides and news you’re going to want to check out:
Gamigo is also celebrating the holidays and Lemuria’s launch with us by offering the community special in-game treats. Need something more tangible like improved furniture for your computer setup? You can also enter the raffle to win a real-life gaming chair!
Before diving into the next article, grab this Lemuria Wallpaper made by Adam Roush!
Recent Holiday Activities:
NOV 18: PvE Roundtable
NOV 30: Lemuria Released!
DEC 2: KI Live – Lemuria!
DEC 2: New Holiday Items
DEC 9: 12 Days of the Spiral Begins
DEC 9: New Charity Hippogriff Mount
DEC 10: Charity Livestream
DEC 11: Winter Wonderland Contest 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.
STATE OF THE GAMES WITH FALMEA
Professor Falmea had a big State of the Games announcement for Pirates on December's KI Live show! She talked about what was coming together for 2021, so you'll want to check out the dev diary. Here's a snippet:
"Happy holidays KI community!
Before we all take a long winter’s nap, I wanted to reflect on this past year and all that we’ve accomplished. Each year we set goals for the game, which are our “North Stars” to guide us for the year of development.
So, I’d like to peel back the curtain a bit to give you some insight into WHY we chose what we chose to tackle in 2021, and some light analysis on how we thought it went!"
Renee "Renee Wooften" Wooten, Producer at KingsIsle for Wizard101, also had a great look at the many things we accomplished with you all in 2021! Here's a snippet:
"Greetings, fellow Wizards!
It's hard to believe that 2021 is already coming to a close. We're deep into the 12 Days of the Spiral where many Wizards are experiencing the benefits of free membership for a limited time, and we have our traditional Charity mount available in the Crown Shop to spread holiday cheer!
There have been a whirlwind of changes happening throughout the Spiral and exciting new initiatives that we could not wait to share with you all this year. Oh yeah, and planning has only just begun for 2022!"
We had a festive and 'Superfan' KI Live that wrapped up our 2021 shows in what has been an amazing year for the community!
We talked all about our excitement of Lemuria's launch (the new world for Wizard101!), announced some exciting developments for Pirate101 that you don't want to miss, hung out with the community in-game in the new Lemuria hub of Telos, and super cool Superfan Outfits were also given out again.
Missed the show? No worries! You can watch the recording on 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 - The giveaway code was also changed up a bit with an exclusive Pirate101 code provided this time. 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 (KILIVESUPERBOOTS) for another 500 redemptions!
A great gameplay tip submitted to KI Live comes from Kestrel Avacufor:
"If you're ever in need of quick gold and have access to Wintertusk, stop by Halfang Bristlecrown in Vestrilund! Moderately low health and valuable/resellable drops" - Kestrel Avacufor
12 DAYS OF THE SPIRAL
The kick off of the 12 Days of the Spiral week included a holiday charity livestream! It was an amazing five hours of supporting both the AbleGamers and the Creative Action charities with special guest interviews from each charity team. Congrats to the community for raising over $3,700 total for these two charities!
We had back-to-back dev diaries at the launch of Lemuria with Artie “GraniteHeart” Roger’s Choices Dev Diary being the latest! Artie talks about the vast set of choices players have in shaping the future of their characters and gives the community a look into what 2022 is going to build upon.
“There’s been plenty of talk about Player vs Player spells and balance, system structure, and gameplay, so as a change, we want to start a conversation with those of you who enjoy more Player v Environment centric questing, adventuring, and exploring the Spiral.
Over the past year, we made several changes to make it easier to meet up with Wizards, to coordinate adventuring with friends and family, and to improve the overall adventuring experience. Our driving goal was that playing with other Wizards should be fun!"
Following on the heels of Artie’s dev diary, community member WhiteTiger93 hosted a great PvE Combat Roundtable Livestream during last month’s Test Realm with our team. We talked a ton about current PvE Combat (and Adventure) 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:
Kaiser Noah, part of the roundtable, produced a video afterward summarizing what we talked about and how excited he was with the future of PvE. Check out that video below:
Keep watch in 2022 for more roundtables with the developers and hosted by the community!
NELSON EVERHART’S MUSICAL TOUR
So many awesome videos this month! In this latest one produced by Nelson Everhart, Composer for some of the greatest Spiral hits, he continues his Musical Tour of the Spiral with a new soundtrack from the new world of Lemuria – Tour #16: Ursai Village!
For this month’s art spotlight, we are showcasing a festive drawing of the Storm Titan from community member Valerian Song!
“I make Christmas cards and this year I made one with the Storm Titan wearing a santa hat. I paint Christmas cards for my family every year and I was inspired to make a Storm Titan card while questing through Empyrea. That fight is unforgettable for the best reasons, and definitely one of my favorites.” - Valerian Song
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!
COMMUNITY HOLIDAY CELEBRATIONS
You’re invited to Arcanum Archives Candy Land Christmas event on December 18th at 1pm CT, followed shortly by Wizard101 Folio/Warriors Christmas Celebration at 4pm CT!
Arcanum Archives
When: Saturday, December 18, 1 pm Central time
Location: The Commons, Wizard City, Unicorn Realm
Dress Code: Christmas/Festive! There will be many events, games and giveaways!
Wizard101 Folio/Warriors
When: Saturday, December 18, 4 pm Central time
Location: The Commons, Wizard City, Greyrose Realm
Dress Code: Christmas/Festive! There will be many events, games and giveaways!
Some of the developers will be at these events, so we hope to see you then!
Adventure of the Spiral’s 9th Annual Advent Contest
“Ahoy there! It’s that magical time of year where the ground freezes over and decorations light up every area of the Spiral as we get involved with all our favourite festivities. We’re now heading into our 8th year of AoS, and with it brings our 8th Annual Advent Contest to celebrate the holidays.”
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.
