September 2nd is the seventh anniversary of Wizard101 going live to hard drives all over the world.
After five years in development, including a few months in Beta, on this day Merle Ambrose and Gamma the Owl started guiding students through picking a class and preparing for that first fearsome fight with the Jade Oni (Malistaire didn’t even think to show up until a few months later)! Now that it’s been seven years and over 50 million registered accounts later, it’s time to let the numbers do the talking while we take a look back at seven big moments in the history of Wizard101.
7. Seven is a great number for “young wizards” because it’s the level you can start fishing! It’s a newer feature from just this past year, and now fish can be displayed in your house via tanks that can be crafted or purchased from the Crowns Shop. In addition to looking pretty neat and having some punny names, fish are essential to many crafting recipes, like the new craftable mounts (an amazing update to the game in and of itself--why I remember the days we had to use our legs instead of riding in comfort).
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6. This number reminds us we can have six characters on the same account, which means you can experiment to your heart’s content and pick your favorite of the seven schools! You can tank, heal, deal pure damage, or buff friends and trap enemies.
5. In the first five years, two really big systems happened! The Pet Pavilion opened for players level eight and higher, and Gardening became the thing to do for players who were level 12 or higher. Training and hatching pets added better stats and bigger abilities to the already huge arsenal of spells (not to mention now you can add jewels to their collars to make them even more “Ultra” powerful). Gardening awards gold, treasure cards, reagents and pet snacks, so it’s really useful for pet leveling as well as crafting.
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4. Speaking of crafting, four is the level that you can start working your tradeskill arts to craft equipment, housing items, pet snacks and treasure cards for your wizard. As you progress through crafting you can make more and more powerful items and fine-tune the gear by adding jewels.
3. Can you believe there’s been three ages of PvP in Wizard101? The Third Age of PvP started recently, letting members reset the playing field and climb the ranks to earn tickets for top-notch PvP gear and pets as well as housing items like PvP trophies. Now there are even sanctioned tournaments available too. PvP tournaments are available to members starting at level ten, with practice PvP available to all players. (Side note: Speaking of three, you can own three houses and then unlock slots for extra houses with a special elixir from the Crowns Shop.)
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2. KingsIsle has added two new disciplines of magic since game launch: Astral and Shadow. These spells give players tons of options to boost accuracy, damage, healing and abilities. Some even allow you to polymorph into different animals all together with unique powers. Shadow magic emphasizes your already existing strengths and the new spells out of Darkmoor allow you to access powerful spells super-fast.
1. One is the number of a big great community that comes together every day to battle against the forces of evil in the Spiral. As with any MMO, the player community that forms around it is truly the best highlight that withstands the test of time. Groups like Mercenaries for Hire, Duelist101, Wizard101 Central, Petnome, Spiral Radio 101, the #Twizard community on Twitter and all the other fansites out there are what make this game the most fun I’ve had in any other game.
