My Favorite Things About Pirate101

I found myself humming "My Favorite Things." Then I realized that what if I listed my favorite things about Pirate101 for Pirate101's Third Birthday. Hey, you find inspiration for ideas ANYWHERE...

The Story

It goes without saying that I adore Pirate101's story. The pirate orphans who lost their parents and now has a huge task - stopping the Armada Elite who's bent on dominating and controlling the spiral. I mean, you couldn't find a better story than THAT!

The Characters

Boochbeard is such a sweetheart with that twinkle in his eye. Wait, maybe that twinkle is because he's eyeing your wallet. I don't know. But he's sure helpful... kinda.. not really. Sure, he taught you how to fight and sail ships. But that's pretty much it. You got to admit it though that when he does show up, you can't help but say ARGGGGGGH, piratey friend. He's your biggest fan for sure! There's so many great characters in the game. Catbeard was one. His talk about pants and sardines were perfect. Just perfect.

The Worlds

It's so refreshing to explore the new worlds with stuff you haven't seen before. I mean, can you imagine going into a giant skull? Climbed a volcano? Walked through a giant leviathan skeleton? That's just to name a few... 

The Mobs

There's so many varying mobs of every kind. But I think my favorite might be the Lava Fish. I know it's silly but the way you defeat them is hilarious. They act like they're being flushed in an invisible toilet. I'm not kidding... The most grossest mob probably are the Skarakeets. They poop on you during battle. Yep, they poop. 

The Ships

Man, the biggest awesomest raddest thing about this game is ship battling. I love ship battling so much. It's so much fun firing your cannons and declaring victory when their ship goes down. You feel like a true pirate!!! The ships are actually my favorite thing in this game. It's just super fun!

Our Companions

Not only that, the characters that we get to bring along with us on quests makes it much more meaningful. Every time they chime in during quests makes it more real and meaningful. We groan, we laugh and we cheer when they say something. You can practically imagine Bonnie Anne glaring at Ratbeard and rolling her eyes.

The Pets

There's so many kinds of pets you can think of in Pirate101. This includes hybrids. My favorite is the Bullrog. It's this wicked awesome Minotaur/Demon pet on fire. When you got that hybrid pet equipped, people know NOT to mess with you.

The Mounts

You have so many kinds of mounts that you could think of. There's bicycles, animals of all kinds, even transport golems and wings.

The Houses

The houses they got are so varying. The one above has this cool goonies style of opening a door to a secret room that give you treasure in the form of scrip or gold. The others have their own niche. Secret rooms, caves, towers and more. The way they built the houses is amazing. They're usually very large where you have the room to decorate whatever you want. When you walk around in one, you can't help but love the personal touches, the roomy feel, and the beautiful design. Look at that night sky!

The Furniture

Man, there's so many cool furniture in this game. There's so many that I can't even pick a favorite. Cool Ranch furniture is pretty cool though because it has the wild wild west type of theme. And we all know that theme is super cool! Not only that, there's huge pavilions you could get for you houses like the one in the picture above. It's a furniture of luxury and coolness. Once you set it down, you know it's time to party!

The Stormgates

The stormgates are the most beautiful thing I've seen in-game. It helps you to travel between worlds and man is it stunning. I absolutely love the mini worlds floating around. I remember in Pirate101 Beta being blown away. And to this day, every time I go through, I am again blown away.

What are your favorite things about Pirate101? Comment away!

Another Polaris Sneak Peek from Wizard101!

Wizard101 released this sneak peek on Twitter. My first thought is... is this a prison?! It looks dark, formidable and scary. Notice the gates, the scary fish heads and the way it's on an isolated island. Will we meet someone infamous here? Like the power hungry Napolequin? Or someone else....?

What do you think?!

A Sneak Peek of Polaris from Wizard101!

Wizard101 has released yet ANOTHER sneak peek. This time, we get to see a character as well as a building in Polaris!

Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Notice that sky? That's the Northern Lights aka the Aurura Borealis. It's a naturally occurring phenomenon in the Arctic and Antarctic areas. It's a light display that is one of the most beautiful sights that you can find in nature.

Video Example of the Northern Lights

Not only that, have you noticed the building behind the Polar Bear character? It's stunning! Notice the colored bulb roofs? Just beautiful. On the far right, there's an interesting shape of a door. I also love the border right below the bulb roofs. It's very candy cane in a way. 

And how about that Polar Bear character? He's really rawking the mustache and beard! He is obviously a soldier. I wonder if he's an important character or just one of the boys in their army? I love his gear, it's so simple yet elegant. I want that hat!

So, North of North? Are they trying to hint that there's an actual city named North that's set in North? Or an area literally named North? Guess we'll get to see for ourselves soon!

Are you excited? I know I am! If you want to see the above sneak peek for yourself, go to wizard101.com/coming2015

Another Concept Teaser from Wizard101!

Today, Wizard101 has released yet ANOTHER sneak peek teaser at the upcoming new world expansion, Polaris!

Looking at the picture, it's clear that you have to wear fur coats here. But in the distance, a statue stands tall. I causually mentioned that it is a penguin crying. Then someone chimed in saying, "actually that looks like Grandma Raven." Then I took another look. Could it be? He's probably right. But then there are penguins with crazy eyebrows. Check out some of them below.

The Erect-Crested Penguin

The Fiordland Penguin

The Macaroni Penguin

The Rockhopper Penguin

The Royal Penguin

The Snare Penguin

So which one could it be? Grandma Raven or the crazy eyebrowed penguins? Guess we will find out soon!

The Adeline Penguin

In addition to the crazy eyebrowed penguins above, I would love an Adeline Penguin as a pet. They have a cool mohawk thing going!

Aren't you excited?! I know I am!

A Little Education On Arctic Animals

I was thinking about Polaris and what kind of arctic animals there that we most likely will see. A few are obvious like Penguins and Polar Bears. But what about seals? Walruses? Even mammoths?! Then I realized that I don't know much about each animal species. So I decided to ask my best friend for information which was of course Google. While looking through all of those facts, some of them sounded so interesting. Then I realized, why not put them in a blog post? I tried not to put so many facts for each making this one long read. I chose the most interesting facts.

Penguins

There's no penguins in the Northern Hemisphere, so yes they don't exist in the North Pole.

Emperors stand almost 4 feet tall and the Little Blues are only 16 inches tall.

Their earliest penguin relatives lived 60 million years ago.

The Gentoos are the fastest, swimming up to 22 miles per hour.

Most penguins create nests for their eggs. But the Emperor is the only species that incubates their single egg on the top of their feet under a loose fold of skin to keep it warm.

Only humans prey on Polar Bears.

Even in a freezing environment, they overheat more than be cold.

Polar Bear cubs weight a little more than a pound at birth.

Polar Bears' skin is actually black.

Their fur might look white, but it's actually transparent.

They can smell seals, their main food source, from almost a mile away.

They can run up to 25 miles per hour and swim up to 6 miles per hour in water.

Males weighs up to 1500 pounds while females are usually half of that.

There are two groups of seals. There are 18 species of "True Seals" while there are 15 species of "Eared Seals."

The only difference between the two groups are their ears. True Seals do not have ear flaps while Eared Seals do.

Southern Elephant Seal is the largest, weighting up to 8,500 pounds while the smallest is the Ringed Seal at 110-150 pounds.

The Southern Elephant Seal is also the biggest in length, averaging at 20 feet long while the Ringed Seal averages at 5 feet.

Some seals live in the ocean, some seals make caves in the snow to live in and some stay under the ice creating holes to breathe through.

Seals mainly eat fish. But they also will eat eel, squid, octopus and lobster. Leopard Seals will eat penguins and smaller seals.

They are distantly related to dogs, coyotes, foxes, wolves, skunks, otters and bears.

Harp Seals can stay underwater up to 15 minutes.

Elephant Ears have "Smoker's Blood" which means they have the same amount of carbon monoxide in their blood like a person who smokes 40 or more cigarettes every day.

The Crabeater Seal has the largest population of any species of seal in the world. They think that there are 2 to 75 million Crabeaters.

The Grey Seal can eat up to 10 pounds of food in a day.

They're called the gentle giants of the Arctic because even when they're huge carnivores, they are really not aggressive.

They can weigh from 1,320 to 3,300 pounds, and grow up to 10 and half feet.

Males are twice as big as females with longer and thicker tusks and thicker skin.

Walrus tusks can grow up to 3 feet.

Tusks helps them to break through ice and helps them climb out of the water and onto the ice. They also use them to defend themselves and establish dominance.

Most Walruses live near the Arctic Circle, preferring areas with shallow water so they can easily find food.

On the average, they can swim around 4.35 miles per hour and run as fast as 21.74 miles per hour.

A group of walruses is called a herd.

Herds are segregated by gender. There's a herd for each gender.

Walruses can slow their heart rates which allow them to live in freezing temperatures.

Walruses love to eat shellfish. They can eat up to 4k clams in one feeding. If desperate, they will eat carcasses of dead seals.

Calves weigh around 100-165 pounds at birth.

Swimming right after being born, calves stay with its mother for the first three years of its life.

Walruses have two natural predators - the Orca aka "Killer Whale" and the Polar Bear. They say that both predators are more likely to hunt their calves than the adults.

Odobenus rosmarus, Walruses' scientific names, is Latin for "tooth-walking sea-horse."

Woolly Mammoths were not the only animal that was woolly. There were even Woolly Rhinos!

There were a dozen kinds of Mammoths other than the Woolly Mammoths. A few examples are the Steppe Mammoths, the Imperial Mammoths, and the Columbian Mammoths.

There were also three different smaller mammoth groups - Pygmy Mammoths of California, Dwarf Mammoths of Wrangel Island off the coast of Siberia and Dwarf Mammoths of Saint Paul Island, Alaska.

The Woolly Mammoths weren't even the biggest Mammoth species. The Imperial Mammoths weighed over 10 tons. They say that also a few individuals of the Songhua River Mammoths were even bigger, at 15 tons!

The smaller dwarf mammoth races were on the average 5.6 feet tall and 1,680 pounds.

The Woolly Mammoths did not just have a thick coat of fur. They had 4 inches of solid fat under that fur to protect them from the freezing conditions.

The Woolly Mammoths' fur ranged from blonde to dark brown.

The last Woolly Mammoth was alive 4,000 years ago. That was at the same time when the pyramids already existed in Egypt. Imagine that!

A small group of Woolly Mammoths from Wrangel Island lived there until 1700 B.C.

Hope this was interesting to you like it was to me. I sure learned a bit today! Maybe when we walk through Polaris, when we will see new characters, we will get to be able to understand them more. For me, I just want cool pets and mounts. Some of the animals above sounds awesome. Especially that Woolly Rhino!

What's Inside Pirate101's Birthday Presents?

So it's October which means Halloween. But not only that, it's Pirate101's 3rd Birthday! Everywhere in Skull Island, you will find those awesome presents that now drop loot! You can get pets, temporary mounts, eyepatches, furniture and pet snacks! The neat thing is there are actually NEW furniture and pets. I am sure I'm missing some, but here's the info I could gather the best as I could.

Eyepatches:

None of the items below are new. But still you're getting free eyepatches which normally cost 100 crowns!

Birthday Eyepatch

Autumn Eyepatch

Jack O'Lantern Eyepatch

Metal Eyepatch

Pirate Eyepatch

Crossbones Eyepatch

The Karma Paper Dragon

Pets:

The Karma pets are brand new, never seen in-game before. However, the Crawlie is not a new pet. It's actually a known card pet.

Karma Chameleon

Karma Paper Dragon

Birthday Cake Crawlie

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr-eat!

7-Day Temporary Mounts:

Some mounts are new while some are not.

Armored Scorpion

Sky Shark

Pouncing Panther

Riding Lion

Lonely Buffaloon

Pennyfarthing

Transport Golem

Solar Saber

Batacuda

Forest Tiger

Jaunty Jaguar

Crokgator

Flying Turtle

Lurching Lobster

Prancing Pony

Pirate Parrot
Aquilan Pegasus
Gryphon
Hammerhead
Clockwork Wings

Furniture:

Most of the items below are new.

* - New Items

Chessboard*

Red Checker*

Black Checker*

Gumball Machine*

Tall Sundae*

Small Toy Train Set*

Toy Train Set*

Pumpkin*

Blue Party Gift*

Ship in a Bottle

Balloons*

Toy Monkey

Piggy Bank

Theater Mask
Teddy Bear
Pie*

Pet Snacks:

None of the pet snacks are new.

Decimatoes - Rank 6

Kippers - Rank 5

Albion Eggs

Moolong Tea

Farm Fresh Yum

Cupcake

Minotarts

Haggis Crisp

Fortune Cookies

Stymphalian Birdseed

Chilly Cos Queso - Rank 4

Buffaloon Patties

Wholly Frijoles

Junction Jerky

Banana Burger
Miranda Midas

Tumbleweed Toast

Banana Kabobs - Rank 3

Breakfast Tacos

Pan Fried Banana
Banana Soup
Banana Creole

Mystery Nuggets - Rank 2

Coconutella

Watermolen
Molten Lava Cake

Fish Fingers - Rank 1

Which ones are you most excited about? I loved the new furniture and pets. It was pretty cool finally getting something other than confetti from those presents. The pet snacks didn't hurt either!

If you find anything missing or incorrect, please leave a comment below. Thanks!

It's official! We are going to Polaris!

The final poster has been peeled away to reveal this beautiful postcard welcoming us to Polaris!

You can see it for yourself at: https://www.wizard101.com/coming2015

What To Expect For October in Wizard101?

Since October will be here in a day or so, I have decided to list what should we expect for October in Wizard101? Here's five expectations for October.

1. New Wizard101 Bundles

We will be expecting two new bundles on September 30th - The $39 Polaris Bundle and the $29 Jeweler's Bundle both from GameStop. YES NEW BUNDLES! I have listed this first because tomorrow they should arrive according to GameStop stores across the country tomorrow. It depends on their shipments, but the general date is tomorrow. Hopefully your local stores receives its shipment on time. If not, you might have to wait a few days. Make sure that you call your stores and stop by tomorrow September 30th!

2. Major Content Test Realm

We will be seeing possibly the final sneak peek on October 1st. Once that's done, we will be seeing Test Realm very soon for the brand new major content in Wizard101! Aren't you excited?! I know I am!

Every Thursday like clockwork, a poster is allowed to be removed. So in two days, the final poster will be removed. Or will it be the final one? We'll see! Keep your eyes peeled at: https://www.wizard101.com/coming2015

After this, we should fully expect test realm to come soon, possibly in a few weeks!

 

3. Halloween Packs Returns

Two Halloween Packs returns, the Harrowing and the Nightmare packs. The great thing about this year's packs is that the Harrowing pack has new items that was accidentally leaked like the ram horns and cat ears. Those items have not been found in game before. The people at Wizard101 must have put new items in the pack thinking that people wouldn't find out about the new update until the pack was sold again. The Winged Catastrophe pet was also from that pack. I know a lot of people were so excited that the pet spread like wildfire. So what other new items that we haven't seen yet is in the Harrowing pack? Or maybe the Nightmare pack? I can't wait to find out. I really want those cat ears.

4. Halloween Fish Returns

Remember the Vampire Fish? Yep the Vampire Fish and its evil spawn, the Black Cat and FrankenFish will be swimming in our lakes and rivers and streams. I just received confirmation from a Kingsisle staff worker that there will not be new holiday fish in addition to the above three known Halloween fish. If you have missed out on your chance to reel them spooky fish last year, this is your chance!

5. Halloween Quests Returns

Yep, the Halloween quests will return. Jack Hallow will introduce the quests like he has always done every year. Not only that, the Nosferabbit quest will come along which are great for low level wizards. If you haven't done it already, there's even a great reward - the cute Frankenbunny pet!

What are you most excited for? I personally can't wait for the Test Realm and new Bundles! The new items from those packs doesn't hurt either!