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Hey, witches and wizards!

So, today I'm wanting to talk about castle magic! As most of you probably know, people have made some amazing creations with castle magic. I've seen everything from jump scares, to movies, to functional ufos. It's really amazing to see what y'all have come up with! Due to that inspiration, I've decided to make a house that showcases some of these aspects of the castle magic system. With this, I'm hoping to start a conversation on the types of things devs could provide us to make the process more streamlined or more interactive.

What kind of house did I make? Well, I've always had a thing for adventure maps in games like minecraft. Stuff with quests and dialogue. So I tried to replicate that within Wizard101. And for the most part, I would call it a success! I will have a video up on youtube later that will show off the house in its entirety. However, as that's not quite out yet, I'll go ahead and describe the house here.

When you first load in, you'll be greeted with a pressure plate. After stepping on it, a cut scene plays showing a coffin tipping over and releasing Boris Black Rock! Then, the camera pans to a Qhat with a button that has appeared next to her. Players should notice that this is a common occurrence in the house. Stuff spawns in when it's needed for use and vanishes when it's not. And this is what brings me to the first couple of improvements that could be implemented. Firstly, some ways to alter camera spells would be nice. For example, when you have to create a cut scene, you have to use multiple camera spells. This can be okay in some situations, but other times it becomes a bit hard to keep track of for players. Due to this, I'd like to see the ability to tweak the length of the camera movement as well as its speed. Also, some sweeping camera spells would be nice (Like an orbit or spiral down sort of effect). An option to have our own dialogue in a box similar to the dialogue in normal quests would be nice to have as well. Obviously, this system would have to fit with the current filters of normal text chat. These two improvement would help a lot of players to make more effective feeling worlds and puzzles in their houses if they so chose.

After this opening scene, players may go press the button, and another cut scene plays showing that bear ghosts and a monstrodome have spawned in the forest you just walked past. Again, some dialogue options would be nice here, but the camera makes it kind of obvious where you have to go. If all players enter the monstrodome, the quests can continue. This is because the house will "reset" when you come out, and this makes an orb appear that can be put in its corresponding orb collector. The brings me to some other improvements or additions that could be made. The main issue with this house is that all wizards must go into the monstrodomes before the quests can continue. An option to make castle magic or furniture be "Client Side" would be VERY useful. Client Side events, for those who don't know, are events that play out and can only be seen for your wizard. Examples of this already in the game are things like the Malistaire dungeon in dragonspyre where the ending story is shown to each player individually and wizards who skip through the dialogue don't spoil the story for those who are actually reading/listening to it. Having an option in the form of a castle magic spell to make things that happen in the house client side would ensure that wizards can go through cut scenes or quest lines at their own pace.

So, the house continues on like this for a couple more fights, and you'll eventually gain access to a tower. In this area, you have to go through one fight, a puzzle, and then one last fight. The puzzle area is where some really fun magic happens. Players start out going through a pressure plate maze that sends them back to the start of the maze if you step on the wrong plate. Then wizards must go through a small gauntlet of teleporters that will send them back to the start of the maze if they get caught in one. After that, wizards must do a brazier combination lock that will allow them to move on to the next floor. The combination is hidden somewhere in that maze area, but it's not super hard to find! So what would make this area easier to make? Well, I think something that could be very helpful is a way to increase the size of a player detector. By that, I mean a horizontal area around the detector that could be shown as a light circle while hovering over the detector in the furniture mode. This area would be configurable in the options of the detector (on a second page) and it'd allow you to change the width, height, and area shape - circle, box, etc. In this instance, I could have used the detector to make a cut scene to display the puzzle areas in full and made sure players knew what they were getting into while also giving a hint towards the combination lock code.

Another change I'd like to see implemented is a way to change the size of effect spells (like the ones that cast ice beetle or cause a magical particle effect), and a way to make a target that isn't linked to a furniture object (much like how you set up teleporters.) In terms of targeting options, I would also be nice to see a option to set the center of the animation or the target location of the animation. So, if I was setting the center of storm lord, he would do the animation and appear where the targeter was, but if I was setting the target location, his lightning bolt would strike there. As of right now, players trying to use these effect spells have to kind of guess where to put their target to have it appear where they actually want their spell to come up. On the subject of effect spells, it would be nice to see the spells added in to actually look like their battle counterparts. For instance, gaze of fate doesn't even have the building it comes out of in the effect spell version, and Handsome Fomori doesn't have the right color scheme or even snow.

So, in summary, I'd like to list the changes I'd like to see in a bullet point format. Before that though, I'd like to say that castle magic has been one of the best additions to the game that I've seen in a long time. It really helped reinvigorate my love of Wizard 101, and I'm super thankful for the dev's inclusion of this system. I've been playing this game since Mooshu was the last world and housing wasn't really a thing, and it's amazing to see how much its changed for the better. Anyways, here are the changes like I promised:

1. More camera spells and camera options (sweeps, speed/length options)
2. dialogue spells (using the text chat filter with a max character limit for each spell)
3. A spell that makes furniture and castle magic events "Client Side"
4. Player detector size and shape options
5. effect spell options for size, an overhaul to their targeting options (like teleporter set up, but for center or target)
6. effect spell visual improvements to match battle counterparts

I will be posting a link to the youtube video I'm making to show you the work I've done on the house along with tutorials on how to do these sorts of things for yourself! Thanks for reading, witches and wizards! I hope y'all enjoy yourself in the spiral!

With much love,
Blaze IceWhisper

That house is excellent!

I really like the cut scenes and the moving teleporters!

I could look into a camera orbit spell when I have time.

Castle Magic spells don’t have parameters so I’d have to make additional spells with different camera speeds. Are the existing camera spells too fast or too slow?

If we let you type text for a dialogue window, menu chat players wouldn’t be able to read the text. We could let you choose from a list like housing signs but I’m not sure that could be flexible enough to be useful. What do you think?

As for having to go into the Monstrodomes, have your tried using the Restore All Objects spell? What isn’t resetting correctly?

About your request to have the target not be an object, you do know that Castle Magic spells can target object placement only objects like bread crumbs?

Please let me know if any of the Castle Magic combat spells don’t look right.

Arthur

Gary Scott Smith on Feb 3, 2020 wrote:

That house is excellent!

I really like the cut scenes and the moving teleporters!

I could look into a camera orbit spell when I have time.

Castle Magic spells don’t have parameters so I’d have to make additional spells with different camera speeds. Are the existing camera spells too fast or too slow?

If we let you type text for a dialogue window, menu chat players wouldn’t be able to read the text. We could let you choose from a list like housing signs but I’m not sure that could be flexible enough to be useful. What do you think?

As for having to go into the Monstrodomes, have your tried using the Restore All Objects spell? What isn’t resetting correctly?

About your request to have the target not be an object, you do know that Castle Magic spells can target object placement only objects like bread crumbs?

Please let me know if any of the Castle Magic combat spells don’t look right.

Arthur

Wait. Is this legit lol?