It was an amazing 2018 with the community across the Spiral! There were a lot of exciting things we released and talked about, such as celebrating the game’s 10th Anniversary and the release of Empyrea Part 2 that wrapped up a very special part of Arc 3 of the storyline. An avalanche of items and other goodies were sprinkled in from month to month as well. Check out the list below for the highlights.
On the more intense combat front, there were some heated battles for top dominance on the PvP leaderboards, and of course new pets and spells to aid in PvP. Final Bastion wrote a great guide for PvP builds to help you get started. Look for more updates here in 2019 on expanding out our support for the combat system!
Most importantly, there was a huge amount of community generated content that you introduced to each other. From contests and events like contests and charity giveaways to housing tours and useful starter guides for new players, we saw a ton of community generated content. Keep it coming! One of our goals in 2019 is to expand our presence on new social media sites, so let us know which ones you are on and we’ll check them out.
Wizard101 in 2018
Let’s take a quick look at some of the treasures of 2018 to remember together. A big thanks to Final Bastion, Adventures of the Spiral, Frostcaller, and other sites for tracking content and releases throughout the year!
January: Alphoi Hoard Pack was released
February: Friendship Festival and Five B.O.X.E.S. event kickoff
March: Butterfly Swarm Mount was released
April:
Hatchmaking introduced
April Fool’s ‘Ball-N-Chain' Mount and Unicorn Hoard Pack were released
May:
The first 10th Anniversary Video was released
Battlemage Keep Bundle was a hit in GameStop stores across the country
June: Moonblade Pantera Mount and the Accursed Play Gauntlet Bundle were released
July:
Wizard City revamped
Christmas in July
10th Anniversary Part 2 video was released
New features introduced: Photomancy, Magic Mirror Shop, and Monstrology
KingsIsle participated in Make-A-Wish
Decaversary Hoard Pack was released
Several new blog posts
August: New Decade Pets: the Decade Firecat, Decade Gargoyle, and Decade Piggle
September:
Happy 10th Anniversary Wizard101
10th Anniversary Part 3 video was released
Leah and Tom’s Top 10 KI Live moments blogs were posted
Launch of Wizard101 on Steam
Autumn Leaf Swarm Mount released
October:
Happy Halloween across the Spiral!
Introduced the Elven Nightmare Pack and Spider Rider Mount
Happy birthday Pirate101! Visit www.pirate101.com for their newsletter.
The Great Detective Bundle was spotted at GameStop stores with items up to level 130!
We gave away several All Souls Pegasus Mounts in a giveaway with MMOBomb.com
November:
Empyrea Part 2 released
Harvest items returned
We honored Veterans Day with a free Peace Dove Pet
The super popular Aero Plains Bundle was released
The Night-Knight Crowns rewards event is launched with updates that soon followed.
Extra Life donations totaled over $18,000!
December:
A jolly 12 Days of the Spiral begins!
Charity mounts, Bah Humbug and Noelephant included in the 12 Days event
The Yultetide Gingerbread Pack was released
The final 10th Anniversary Video, Part 4, focused on the community, was released
Kicking off the new year, we’re heading to PAX South! Join Community Manager Mathew “Sparck” Anderson and Associate Producer Renee “Wooften” Wooten as we meet with the community during the show. We’ll be attending on January 19th and 20th. Email community@kingsisle.com and let us know you will be attending so we can say hello! We’ll be hanging out with The Untold Spiral and DuelCircle as they team up for a KingsIsle Community PAX South takeover.
Non-KI Live Community Livestream with Sparck
There was no KI Live in December due to the holidays, though Bat Masterson managed to still sneak into one of the conference rooms to play Wizard101 and Pirate101 while chatting with the community about 2019:
We’re going back to special offers with our zone spotlights, so we need your feedback on what zones we should cover next! Which area in Wizard101 should we spotlight for February? Let us know by tweeting your suggestion @Wizard101 or by emailing community@kingsisle.com!
Fan Screenshot of the Month
Here is Lucas StarDust with this lovely wintry scene from the coziness of his Spiral home:
We love to see your screenshots every month! Send us your best and high-res screenshots to community@wizard101.com (three max please). We can’t wait to see what you capture!
Fan Art Spotlight
We have some truly amazing talent in the community, wow! Usually we will spotlight here a random piece that was submitted to us throughout the month, but this time we want to highlight a few of the additional 2018 Holiday Snow Globe contest entries that didn’t quite make it into the final pool:
Sophie
Anna WaterBloom
Julia SparkleFountain
Save your creative designs for future contests, as we may run a similar contest for 2019!
We need to see more art from our fans for next month’s newsletter. Do you have something to share? Send it to us in an email to community@wizard101.com! We’re always interested in showing off more fan art, gameplay guides, and other content. Thanks, Wizards!
The ending of the Third Arc left wizards with many questions. AwesometheSauce shared some of the questions that many wizards may have. (Warning: Arc 3 Spoilers)
The unaffiliated-with-KingsIsle “Community Newsletter” had a great selection of Wizard101-related links this month from around the web. NOTE: Be sure to visit and follow their Twitter page for more information. To subscribe to their newsletter, send a Direct Message to them over Twitter inquiring to be added or email them at community.newsletter.101@gmail.com. You can unsubscribe at any time by sending them an email with the phrase “UNSUB”.
