It seems to be a growing trend that I will install and then uninstall a MMORPG on the same day after but a few minutes of play. Maybe I'm jaded. Maybe I'm expecting something that modern games simply do not provide. Maybe these games are simply terrible. I don't know.
But, right out of the box, Wizard101 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard101] gets points for not being another World of Warcraft clone. The graphics are very cartoon, which is appealing. The premise is that the player characters are all students at a magic school a la Harry Potter, but just far enough removed from it to not have to pay royalties. As if J. K. Rowling invented the idea of magic schools, after all, right? Right.
Wizard 101 is intended for younger players and quite a bit has been done to make sure everything stays kid-friendly. For one, you can't name your character things like Heidi Sausage. You select your name from a menu of pre-generated first, middle and last names, resulting in names like Kevin GreenLeaf, which I guess is supposed to be cute.
Chatting is similarly hobbled. There is a menu of pre-written sentences, but you can type whatever you'd like to say by hitting ENTER. However, there's a strong obscenity filter. In fact, I don't think it has a list of words that are disallowed so much as a list of words that are allowed. Therefore anything typed defaults to disallowed unless you spell an allowed word. Considering this is for kids, this is not a bad plan. It is a little silly sometimes. When in the headmaster's office, I noticed a globe on his desk. I wanted to say "Wow! A globe!" but "globe" was not allowed. I cannot imagine why not other than they saw no reason for anyone to comment on the globe or they don't want people to refer to testicles in any way, so words like balls, nuts, pill, happy sack, orbs, small grapes, and, yes, globes are disallowed words.
When creating a character, you select a school of magic to specialize in by answering a series of questions that are similar to those "Which Marvel Super Hero Are You?" quizzes, only not as long and pointless. I tested as a fire mage or pyromancer since i like to burn stuff. Oh, this game knows me too well! You get the spells in your school for free but as you level up, you gain training points which allows you to purchase spells from other schools.
Spells are handled like a card game, which filled me with unease since I never got into Magic the Gathering for reasons of sanity. Combat is turn-based, and that unease turned to dread. I have no patience for turn-based combat. None. But I gave this one a go anyway.
How it works is you simply have to approach an enemy to enter into combat. You then get arranged on a large circle with several smaller circles around the circumference which is where additional combatants can take part in the battle. I also learned that walking to close to a battle in progress will get you sucked into it even if you're just trying to walk on by.
You're dealt a certain number of cards from your deal to select from. Spells cost Mana to cast. You have a small reserve of this represented by a blue glass ball while health is a red orb. Spells basically consist of summoning creatures to wap your opponent. So it's like the summons in the Final Fantasy series, only the animation is not so long and that's all you can do.
And when I say that's all you can do, I mean it. If you run out of Mana, you can't do anything except run away. And if you run away, it is automatically counted as a defeat. And if you're defeated, you reappear all the way back in town. AUGH!
Also, spells can "fizzle" so you waste the Mana and nothing happens.
Adding insult to further insult, health regenerates while in town but Mana does not. There are only two ways to regain Mana.
One is to catch "wisps" that appear randomly. There are wisps that replenish health and wisps that replenish Mana. These things are fairly rare and only give you one point back. Considering that my second-level character had seventeen points of Mana storage, refilling in this manner is a lengthy chore.
The other way is, get this, to play mini-games at a fairgrounds that's set up. The mini-games are based on old school classic arcade games. I played three of these. One is based on the arcade game Joust. Another is a memory game of matching tiles. the Third was some kind of stationary shooter similar to the old cannon games where you must judge the angle and power of your shots. All three of the games that I had tried were ridiculously difficult, which may be the point. But this is a convoluted method for recharging my magic points so I can play the flippin' game proper.
And this is what made playing such a bloody chore. Having to go back out to the area where I was fighting monsters as per some quest but first replenishing my Mana every time since it doesn't just grow back. It got tiresome fast. Really fast. And there was no strategy to the turn-based combat aside from casting a spell and hope the game doesn't screw you by making it fizzle.
Actually, upon reflection, here's what I should have done:
I received a mission to slay three pirate skeletons (or are they skeleton pirates?). I should have gone to the area where these guys are, killed one, came all the way back to town to heal and recharge my Mana playing Joust, and then go back out again repeating this for all three skeletons. This seems like the only reasonable way to play this game. Maybe it's because my character was so low in level that such measures were necessary, but this strikes me as either a balance issue or a gameplay-lengthening ploy.
Younger players, particularly those with a tolerance for turn-based combat might still like this game. Even if they don't, the measures to publisher take to maintain its kid-friendliness does make this a good game for them, anyway, so that parents don't have to worry about their children getting sodomized by a night elf.
But, right out of the box, Wizard101 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard101] gets points for not being another World of Warcraft clone. The graphics are very cartoon, which is appealing. The premise is that the player characters are all students at a magic school a la Harry Potter, but just far enough removed from it to not have to pay royalties. As if J. K. Rowling invented the idea of magic schools, after all, right? Right.
Wizard 101 is intended for younger players and quite a bit has been done to make sure everything stays kid-friendly. For one, you can't name your character things like Heidi Sausage. You select your name from a menu of pre-generated first, middle and last names, resulting in names like Kevin GreenLeaf, which I guess is supposed to be cute.
Chatting is similarly hobbled. There is a menu of pre-written sentences, but you can type whatever you'd like to say by hitting ENTER. However, there's a strong obscenity filter. In fact, I don't think it has a list of words that are disallowed so much as a list of words that are allowed. Therefore anything typed defaults to disallowed unless you spell an allowed word. Considering this is for kids, this is not a bad plan. It is a little silly sometimes. When in the headmaster's office, I noticed a globe on his desk. I wanted to say "Wow! A globe!" but "globe" was not allowed. I cannot imagine why not other than they saw no reason for anyone to comment on the globe or they don't want people to refer to testicles in any way, so words like balls, nuts, pill, happy sack, orbs, small grapes, and, yes, globes are disallowed words.
When creating a character, you select a school of magic to specialize in by answering a series of questions that are similar to those "Which Marvel Super Hero Are You?" quizzes, only not as long and pointless. I tested as a fire mage or pyromancer since i like to burn stuff. Oh, this game knows me too well! You get the spells in your school for free but as you level up, you gain training points which allows you to purchase spells from other schools.
Spells are handled like a card game, which filled me with unease since I never got into Magic the Gathering for reasons of sanity. Combat is turn-based, and that unease turned to dread. I have no patience for turn-based combat. None. But I gave this one a go anyway.
How it works is you simply have to approach an enemy to enter into combat. You then get arranged on a large circle with several smaller circles around the circumference which is where additional combatants can take part in the battle. I also learned that walking to close to a battle in progress will get you sucked into it even if you're just trying to walk on by.
You're dealt a certain number of cards from your deal to select from. Spells cost Mana to cast. You have a small reserve of this represented by a blue glass ball while health is a red orb. Spells basically consist of summoning creatures to wap your opponent. So it's like the summons in the Final Fantasy series, only the animation is not so long and that's all you can do.
And when I say that's all you can do, I mean it. If you run out of Mana, you can't do anything except run away. And if you run away, it is automatically counted as a defeat. And if you're defeated, you reappear all the way back in town. AUGH!
Also, spells can "fizzle" so you waste the Mana and nothing happens.
Adding insult to further insult, health regenerates while in town but Mana does not. There are only two ways to regain Mana.
One is to catch "wisps" that appear randomly. There are wisps that replenish health and wisps that replenish Mana. These things are fairly rare and only give you one point back. Considering that my second-level character had seventeen points of Mana storage, refilling in this manner is a lengthy chore.
The other way is, get this, to play mini-games at a fairgrounds that's set up. The mini-games are based on old school classic arcade games. I played three of these. One is based on the arcade game Joust. Another is a memory game of matching tiles. the Third was some kind of stationary shooter similar to the old cannon games where you must judge the angle and power of your shots. All three of the games that I had tried were ridiculously difficult, which may be the point. But this is a convoluted method for recharging my magic points so I can play the flippin' game proper.
And this is what made playing such a bloody chore. Having to go back out to the area where I was fighting monsters as per some quest but first replenishing my Mana every time since it doesn't just grow back. It got tiresome fast. Really fast. And there was no strategy to the turn-based combat aside from casting a spell and hope the game doesn't screw you by making it fizzle.
Actually, upon reflection, here's what I should have done:
I received a mission to slay three pirate skeletons (or are they skeleton pirates?). I should have gone to the area where these guys are, killed one, came all the way back to town to heal and recharge my Mana playing Joust, and then go back out again repeating this for all three skeletons. This seems like the only reasonable way to play this game. Maybe it's because my character was so low in level that such measures were necessary, but this strikes me as either a balance issue or a gameplay-lengthening ploy.
Younger players, particularly those with a tolerance for turn-based combat might still like this game. Even if they don't, the measures to publisher take to maintain its kid-friendliness does make this a good game for them, anyway, so that parents don't have to worry about their children getting sodomized by a night elf.
