I recently finished the main quests of Polaris, and I have to say that I enjoyed them. Still due for some side questing, though! The pacing was nice, if a bit brisk at points. =P It was certainly enjoyable to see less filler quests. Memories of collecting teeth still haunt many of us to this day. One quest in particular even had us collect a wooden spoon from a bunch of gorillas. A wooden spoon!
I think the areas in the later half of Polaris became a little bit too fragmented, though. There were a bunch of spots where you'll have this tiny little area that leads into a dungeon. You come out of the dungeon into another tiny area and repeat this until the last of the main quests. That made it feel like it was going even faster than usual near the end. Maybe there could have been a little more to each area, or less dungeon choke points to make it feel a bit bigger.
I'm not as bothered by the enemies having lower health. They seem to have an increased amount of disruptive spells this time around. That said, it wouldn't hurt if they were a little meatier once you get past the 3v1 battles.
One neat little thing I think you could add is the ability to have a small chat with Mellori or Ivan after the quests in Polaris are done. They played a big role in our quests and it would be a small touch to help us feel a little more connected with the world.
Overall, the quests and environments in Polaris seemed pretty good. Would love to see more of this in the future. =)
Sounds almost like what you have been through in Castle Darkmoor, but, I think there should be Dungeon Checkpoints made so it would be better to continue where we left off in longer dungeons, especially those that have long singular instance quests instead of being split up into many quests that follow into the quest chain. I've asked about that for a while & I still think it may be good to have Dungeon Checkpoints so we won't have to try to finish longer dungeons in one whole day or so. I would still like to see Dungeon Checkpoints added to Wizard101.
I've noticed some interesting pictures in the hall of Divination. This is only an educated guess, but they seem to be concept art for Empyrea. Any comments? At any rate I like the "cathederal city" look of whatever that is.
Welcome to the team it's always nice to see a fresh face in the team that makes my favorite game(and possibly the favorite of many others as well). I personally love what I have seen of Polaris so far, the story line is really quite intriguing especially the penguin revolution. Really great work. I only have one complaint. The spells. They seem to be a little underpowered for the level we recieve them at. Perhaps you could mention to the people who works on that aspect of the game to look them over carefully and make sure each one has the effect and damage that they really want us to have(especially Ruskas wrath and wings of fate).. But anyway. Good to have you and good luck here
As headmaster Ambrose once said or I think he did at least welcome to the spiral and the message boards librarian fitzhume I hope you love it here and I really love Polaris kinda surprised it didn't end up in pirates first but still love every bit about it and just wondering but why is the new life spell wings of fate a overtime spell and has low damage I'm not complaining just wondering if it would be ok to make the damage on it go up just a tiny bit I really love it though and I hope you love working here as much as everyone else has playing and working see you around
You know, this approach heavily reminds me of Pirate101's approach in it's quest design, only many of it's quests are lengthier & had more goals to complete multiple instances in one quest, like the one during the Beachhead sabotage adventure, & et cetera. I really like it!
I know music is not really in your forte, but, through my suggestion on that approach, & to pass this on to the music & sound team, the idea of boss combat themes in W101's worlds should be mandatory, previous, current & new worlds to arrive, with many bosses that have shared boss combat themes in some zones, & some having separate unique boss combat themes to make certain encounters with them feel more unique, & have end-of-arc villains have their own combat themes, each for their own forms, right up to their very last forms in their last battles, & in the case of more side dungeons, like Castle Darkmoor, specific boss combat themes in them, too, both shared & unique.
I would really like that to happen to go with that approach, Librarian Fitzhume! Hope I get to hear many boss combat themes in Wizard101's many worlds, both current & upcoming.
Will this new more streamlined approach to the Wizard101 story likely influence the game's previous quests to match these quests' kind of focus on the story instead of NPCs giving many random tasks to pull them away from the storyline?
It's clear that past quests may be modified at some point or other to match Polaris' quests' standards someday. I would like that to be made, should there be enough time to do so, of course, almost like what's been done to the Skull Island Expansion quests in Pirate101. Just saying.
Almost forgot, where is the usual history lore quest in Polaris? This usually comes with it each time we get a new world in Wizard101, which would be the case of showcasing Polaris' backstory & lore, like before in Avalon, Azteca & Khrysalis. Hope there's time to add it in someday, should it go to Live.
Will this new more streamlined approach to the Wizard101 story likely influence the game's previous quests to match these quests' kind of focus on the story instead of NPCs giving many random tasks to pull them away from the storyline?
It's clear that past quests may be modified at some point or other to match Polaris' quests' standards someday. I would like that to be made, should there be enough time to do so, of course, almost like what's been done to the Skull Island Expansion quests in Pirate101. Just saying.
Almost forgot, where is the usual history lore quest in Polaris? This usually comes with it each time we get a new world in Wizard101, which would be the case of showcasing Polaris' backstory & lore, like before in Avalon, Azteca & Khrysalis. Hope there's time to add it in someday, should it go to Live.
Great question! The history lore quests were terrific in those previous worlds, and so we actually worked them into the main quest series this time. I don't know if you've played far enough into Polaris yet to see them (there are actually a couple), but I'd welcome any feedback on the way we handled it.
Great question! The history lore quests were terrific in those previous worlds, and so we actually worked them into the main quest series this time. I don't know if you've played far enough into Polaris yet to see them (there are actually a couple), but I'd welcome any feedback on the way we handled it.
I... didn't know. I was kind of used to what was used to be in past worlds' side quests containing history lore, I just didn't see it right in front of my face the whole time. Well, now that Polaris is Live, I'll be sure to see this myself. Keep up with that, though, about what you said of history lore being part of main quests now! I really liked it!
Other than that, I'm very excited to be in Polaris! I can hope that the next world will be exciting... and maybe have some more zones while keeping to the focus on the quest design's different approach you spoke of. I really like it a lot. Heavily reminds us of how P101's quest design approach is.
Speaking of which, I still do play P101, but, many are still concerned about P101 going forward with the story there. I know we've been patient on that for a long time, but, with W101 still going forward with the story, P101 still needs to go forward, too. The standstill on P101's storyline can't last forever. I'm still amazed with KI's MMO Live Team's formation, 'cause one team working on both games at once, way better than two teams alternating between the two games... & beyond.
Oh! A little unrelated, but, I really enjoyed Daniel's new Skeleton Key boss creation in Wizard City's Sunken City! Everything about that was amazing, especially the unique gameplay mechanics built in. Hope there may be more like that in more duels to be made.
Though, I thought I would see some Skeleton Key bosses in Polaris, I don't mind if even 1 was added to any world besides Polaris. Maybe in time, there could be some new Skeleton Key bosses in Polaris made. Other than that, I would like to give Make a Wish, all of KI, & even Daniel, the player that made it reality my greatest thanks, & my regards! Keep up with making more wishes come true!
Now, if only P101 could do another Make a Wish request there. Been long since it was done, anyway.
Great question! The history lore quests were terrific in those previous worlds, and so we actually worked them into the main quest series this time. I don't know if you've played far enough into Polaris yet to see them (there are actually a couple), but I'd welcome any feedback on the way we handled it.
Is the school that's closed off the School of Light?
I really do love this new form of questing. I think you guys really did a great job with less of the defeat and collect quests, and less defeat 10 things and move on quests. I noticed immediately the new format and loved it. It would be hard to do without a team though, with all the multi-battle instances. Thanks for everything, you guys did great!
Well, it's really great for you to be at KI, Librarian Fitzhume, & I can hardly wait for many more adventures to come!
A question I have to ask that got me wandering from a particular KI Blog post... didn't King Artorius spoke of "The lost city of Alissar" while mentioning about dungeon designing? That is very interesting... I'm guessing it's somewhere inside a particular unmentioned world there. Sounds intriguing.
Though, I would like to visit Nodor, cause it's more from Grizzleheim related matters. I think it's been very long since we've heard last from the Coven's attempts to bring the Everwinter ended in failure in Wintertusk...
Yet, I was curious about King Thermidor knowing King Amadeo of the Riverclaw legion. How do they know each other so well? I guess they had such conflict with each other before he went to his world tour. I would like to know a lot more about his rivalry with Amadeo. I have not forgotten about that.
In any case, I really do enjoy Polaris, but, will we still likely explore mentioned places in the Spiral & more someday? I'm thinking the city of Alissar is very mythical & mystical.
Thank you for helping to bring Polaris to Wizard 101. Ah, all the new content is both appreciated and welcomed. I love the look and feel of Polaris, and big thumbs up to the newly adjusted up gear and jewels, pets, housing bundle, new areas to explore, battles, bosses, dungeons, and spell animations to experience, and more...
...even with the under-whelming, dramatically adjusted down, and not appreciated, nor welcomed critical hitting and blocking system (my family's been playing since beta, and the changes to this system is noticeable in the worst of ways; and yes, I'm venting)!
This all being said, welcome to Wizard 101, and thank you again for helping to bring Polaris to Wizard 101; and all the new, cool, fun areas to explore, experience and play in!
Personally, I love this approach. As a lorehound I love cutting to the chase (finding people's handbags in Marleybone was pretty bad lol). I understand that part of the world's shortness also had to do with the new combat system, which I fully trust will end up being much better than before for us PvE'ers (sorry PvPers, we need some love too!), and look forward to a slightly longer world next time where lore is more in-depth and evenly sprinkled throughout. The Arcanum was the perfect way to introduce us to life away from Ravenwood and it's got me unbearably curious. The difficulty adjustments were very appropriate and I appreciated you allowing us to solo more without feeling like you were going easy on us. Because this was such a massive improvement from Azteca and even Khrysalis, my interest in Wizard101 feels like it's been restored to the way I felt when I first started playing in 2009. I can see the innovation of the dungeons and quests and look forward to seeing how you further expand upon that innovation. I already can't wait for the next world.
just one thing about the arcanum, nobody knows about it. you should announce it better, i had to tell my 109 friend about it just saying you need to tell people
just one thing about the arcanum, nobody knows about it. you should announce it better, i had to tell my 109 friend about it just saying you need to tell people
Why on earth would they need to do that? You literally are required to go there if you want to complete Polaris.
I joined the creative team on Wizard101 this past year, and Polaris is the first world I’ve worked on. I wanted to hop on the forums to introduce myself and share a few thoughts. First, I should say how great it’s been to join this world-class team with some of the most creative people I’ve met in the game industry. I can tell you straight up that Wizard101 has a team of champions working every day to improve the game, to expand its systems, and to bring you exciting new adventures. Equally important, however, is the fact that it wouldn’t be possible without such a strong community. To see a game like this with such a dedicated following even after several years… it’s really something special, and it’s you guys who make it that way.
We’ve been working on Polaris for some time now, and we’re super-pleased that it’s up on the test realm now so you guys can check it out. We’ve been watching your videos and reading your comments here and on other forums, and I can’t tell you how much we appreciate the feedback. Rest assured, we read it, we discuss it, and we try to figure out ways to address it when possible. Some of you have commented that Polaris seems shorter than previous worlds, and though part of that is a matter of combat balancing (which is still in progress), part of it is also because we’ve adopted a slightly different approach to narrative and quest design, and so I wanted to talk a little bit about that today and invite you to weigh in.
For better or worse, we’ve tried to streamline the main quests to focus more tightly on the narrative. For those of you interested in the storyline, we wanted you to be able to play through the world without being sidetracked as often with the problems of minor characters. You’ll notice fewer times when you enter a new zone and are given a main quest to “kill 5 x and collect y”. Our intention is that there still will be side quests to “fill out” the experience in these areas and offer you the chance to engage in offbeat stories with offbeat characters (I highly recommend checking them out, in fact, because they’re really funny). Of course, we still want every quest to feel unique, meaningful, and worth your time. We hope this makes the story more immersive, and that the characters feel well-developed and like they're part of the world and not just there to give you a random task.
Ultimately though, we want to hear what you think. We can only make so many changes to Polaris at this point, but your feedback would definitely help influence our approach, if there was perhaps… another world coming at some undetermined day in the future. Perhaps. Maybe. No promises. About anything. Ever.
Look forward to hearing more from you guys and engaging in this grand adventure together.
Rob “Fitzhume” Chestney
Since the Implementations of the New World Polaris through to Mirage, the CRITICAL and CRITICAL Blocks is SO out of Wrack it's not even Funny. Please get these Criticals and Blocks back up to standards, like it was before Polaris came out! Most of us Power Hitters likes to Solo allot, but now ya forcing us all to Team up! That is not Fair at all!
As Wizards grows, so should their Knowledge and Power on all of the Spells and to Combined more than one spells to create and even more Potent spells but alas it has got to have the critical, Pierce and damage to add to it! If you are going to reduces out Criticals then at least increase our Damage and Pierce TOGETHER!
Things is gonna have to improve allot more for me to keep investing more of my hard earn money! Regards! William ThunderSword
You know, I've been wondering what Malistaire did with it as well, and whether it would even be possible for someone to recover it. There might even be subtle hints to its relevance somewhere in Polaris, but as to whether or not we'll actually find out what happened to the Eye... well, only Time can tell.
I love it! Such a great Teaser without giving anything away! Time!
When is Bolstered Ward going to be trainable/why is it not already? (This is the most important question.)
While I love getting the spell quests etc. Will there ever come a time that the Arcanum Scholars will offer some spells like the Ravenwood professors did? What I mean is, instead of being a Spell Quest, that there is just a level requirement (and having learned the previous spell requirements) before they just give you a spell. (i.e. Ice Beetle, Snow Serpent, Volcanic Shield, ..... Colossus and then on to new spells?) I think that would be a good addition.
Perhaps like the "Wall" Spells or "Fuel" Spells could be learned in this manner? Or Balancespear? Or even new attacks etc. The possibilities are endless, just I wasn't sure if that system will ever see a return?
Since the Implementations of the New World Polaris through to Mirage, the CRITICAL and CRITICAL Blocks is SO out of Wrack it's not even Funny. Please get these Criticals and Blocks back up to standards, like it was before Polaris came out! Most of us Power Hitters likes to Solo allot, but now ya forcing us all to Team up! That is not Fair at all!
As Wizards grows, so should their Knowledge and Power on all of the Spells and to Combined more than one spells to create and even more Potent spells but alas it has got to have the critical, Pierce and damage to add to it! If you are going to reduces out Criticals then at least increase our Damage and Pierce TOGETHER!
Things is gonna have to improve allot more for me to keep investing more of my hard earn money! Regards! William ThunderSword
When is Bolstered Ward going to be trainable/why is it not already? (This is the most important question.)
While I love getting the spell quests etc. Will there ever come a time that the Arcanum Scholars will offer some spells like the Ravenwood professors did? What I mean is, instead of being a Spell Quest, that there is just a level requirement (and having learned the previous spell requirements) before they just give you a spell. (i.e. Ice Beetle, Snow Serpent, Volcanic Shield, ..... Colossus and then on to new spells?) I think that would be a good addition.
Perhaps like the "Wall" Spells or "Fuel" Spells could be learned in this manner? Or Balancespear? Or even new attacks etc. The possibilities are endless, just I wasn't sure if that system will ever see a return?
Thanks!
exp613
I'm glad that the Scholars are offering to train spells like the Ravenwood Professors! I hope that it can be expanded in the future to include more! (New spells are always fun to see).
I wonder if we'll get to see Bolstered Ward come in anytime soon? I know I tried writing to Scholar Stellargaze before, but hopefully we'll hear an answer! Perhaps Librarian Fitzhume could forward him the memo?
I actually felt that the Penguin Revolution bit of the world was sufficient or even a bit too longer. It was after that when the quests seemed to progress rather quickly. I would like if the core narrative itself stretched a little further. If that's not possible, I'd say this: This is a perfect balance. We don't want to be collecting someone's missing shovel that was miraculously stolen by a street mob, but there are also a few moments where that'd be totally acceptable. One in particular in the sea lions in Urville Station, which we don't fight at all. It would have made sense in terms of the story to defeat them in the process of freeing the caged penguins. I like a rule used somewhat loosely in Avalon - we have one storyline quest dealing with any particular mob. So in Urville Station, there are guards and sea lions. There'd be no more and no fewer than one quest in the main story that required us to defeat so many of each.
As to the difficulty of Polaris, which is not necessarily the topic here but has been commented on multiple times, I found it extraordinarily refreshing. In fact, Polaris replaced Avalon as my all-time favorite world. Why? Because the Galleries were stressful. I have enough of that during the day. But fighting Rasputin and his guards was fun, which is why I started playing Wizard in the first place. That's not to say it was perfectly balanced in terms of difficulty, but I enjoyed it.
To quote this post, I finally got my first two characters to Polaris(Level 108 Fire and Level 108 Death) and I really did enjoy the world as a whole. The setting(Revolution-era France with Czar Dynasty Russia) was a lot more fun than Morganthe's bug world of Khrysalis(even though I loved the mouse tribes) and while every boss had Shadow Magic and most enemies used the Moon Shifts, I didn't feel it was too difficult. Those Iron Paws started spamming Sirens but other than that, not too difficult at all. (I have just completed the Basstille and am getting the flag up, but needed to take a break, so I haven't even reached Baba Yaga yet).
If you had done this balancing out for Khrysalis instead of throwing mobs which spam 10-pip attacks on us round one, then worlds might have been challenging in the long run. I'm not trashing Khrysalis, It's just sad that the last worlds in each arc were not fun for me. I am hoping for Empyrea to not disappoint but after fighting the two Skeleton Key bosses you find there, I won't be surprised if the end of Arc 3 is as boring as Dragonspyre and Khrysalis.
it's always nice to see a fresh face in the team that makes my favorite game(and possibly the favorite of many others as well). I personally love what I have seen of Polaris so far, the story line is really quite intriguing especially the penguin revolution. Really great work. I only have one complaint. The spells. They seem to be a little underpowered for the level we recieve them at. Perhaps you could mention to the people who works on that aspect of the game to look them over carefully and make sure each one has the effect and damage that they really want us to have(especially Ruskas wrath and wings of fate).. But anyway. Good to have you and good luck here
Katie GoldFountain, Level 90
