November
Update Notes

Venture into Polaris!

Get ready to venture into the frozen north of Polaris. Bartleby has fallen ill, and you must seek out the source of his illness before it’s too late! Along the way you’ll meet the Pingouins, currently under the tyrannical rule of Empress Antuskette. Join the Revolution and find the influence that has driven the Empress to such extremes. Ivan the Great, a former circus performer, is your guide as you search for a Wizard powerful enough to help you find the source of the foul magic that has fallen upon Bartleby.

Players who have reached level 100 and have completed the Khyrsalis quest “Light and Shadow” need to visit Merle Ambrose to take on the quest “Head of the Class.” Those who have completed the required quest will have the badge “Child of Light and Shadow” in the Khrysalis tab of the Badges screen.

For Crowns players, Polaris contains 5 separate Premium Zones, priced at 1995c each.

Reach New Heights at Level 110

With the addition of Polaris, Wizards can now reach the maximum level of 110* and achieve the title of Prodigious!

Training Points will be awarded at level 105 and 110, plus there will be bonus Training Points available through quests in Polaris.

With increased levels also comes increased Gold!

• For Wizards under level 80 the maximum gold is 300,000
• For Wizards level 80-90 the maximum gold is 350,000
• For Wizards level 91-95 the maximum gold is 375,000
• For Wizards level 96-100 the maximum gold is 400,000
• For Wizards level 101-110 the maximum gold is 450,000

This also means that level 110 Henchmen are available from the Crown Shop.

*Please remember, when you were at the previous level maximum of 100 no experience was rewarded for duels and quests completed once you reached level 100. When a player reaches the maximum level, their experience bar disappears, indicating they are not gaining experience from their duels or quests. No experience is rewarded to those who are at the maximum level, which means that everyone who was level 100 before we raised the level cap will be level 100 to start. Now that we have raised the level cap, you can once again start earning new experience points from your adventures.

Learn New Shadow-Enhanced Spells

Continue your magical studies with the ancient scholars of the Arcanum. Meet new professors, ready to impart their knowledge upon Wizards who reach level 108 and have completed the quest “Story of the Sky Anchor.”

Myth School: Witch’s Housecall attacks for 992-1132 Myth damage and summons a Myth minion. This spell costs 6 pips and one Shadow pip to cast.

Storm School: Rusalka’s Wrath attacks for 1445 Storm damage and applies a +30% Storm damage charm, with a reduced chance of applying a -30% Storm damage charm instead. This spell costs 6 pips and one Shadow pip to cast.

Balance School: Nested Fury attacks for 818-866 Fire, Ice or Storm damage to all enemies. This spell costs 6 pips and one Shadow pip to cast.

Life School: Wings of Fate attacks all targets for 525 Life damage and heals all teammates for 525 health over 3 rounds. This spell costs 6 pips and one Shadow pip to cast.

Death School: Winged Sorrow attacks for 850-1030 Death damage and applies a -30% damage charm to all enemies. This spell costs 6 pips and one Shadow pip to cast.

Fire School: Raging Bull attacks all enemies for 775-900 Fire damage and applies -25% accuracy reductions to all enemies. This spell costs 6 pips and one Shadow pip to cast.

Ice School: Snowball Barrage attacks for 85 Ice damage per pip to all enemies. This spell costs 1 Shadow pip to cast.

In October, KingsIsle had the honor of working with the Make-a-Wish organization to grant the wish of an exceptional teen named Daniel who wanted to see how Wizard101 is made. Daniel plays a Necromancer of the same name, currently questing through Zafaria, and enjoys creatively decorating his Amber Estate house. Members of KingsIsle across all departments worked together to make Danny’s visit to the KingsIsle offices one to remember for everyone involved!

When Danny and his family arrived in our Austin offices in the morning, they were greeted with a hearty welcome from everyone in the studio. Throughout the day, representatives from many of the different disciplines that work together to make Wizard101, including art, animation, programming, sound and design, showed Danny their work. The community team also got the opportunity to play alongside Danny through part of Polaris, so he could see this new world first hand.

Before Danny’s visit, we learned that he is interested in becoming a game designer. This was the perfect opportunity to let Danny try out his skills and design a skeleton key boss for Wizard101! Early in the day, some of the Wizard101 designers sat with Danny to guide him through the process of creating a new boss. He chose the location where the duel would take place as well as the type of monster and minions that players would face off against. Danny had great ideas and took to his role as game designer with ease! He even helped design the cheats for this challenging duel and shared new spell ideas. But what’s a boss duel without awesome rewards? The designers and visual effects artist worked with Danny to create the stats for a unique, new wand and some shiny effects to make it stand out.

Next, he moved on to the writer’s room to direct the story and dialogue for this new encounter. One of the most unique aspects of Danny’s boss duel is that his Wizard character is there in game to help players take on this challenge. Once the dialogue text was ready to go, Danny headed over to the sound department to record the voice over for his character’s lines. Danny’s creative ideas truly helped bring Simon the Sayer and his golem minions to life!

For Wizards ready to face the challenge of Danny’s creation (and get a chance at earning some unique rewards) visit Sunken City to take on the Stone Skeleton Key Boss, Simon the Sayer!

The fun of Danny’s day at KingsIsle didn’t stop with this in-game creation, however. Members of the KingsIsle team used their talents to make one-of-a-kind keepsakes for Danny. These custom gifts included a Ravenwood Graduation Certificate scroll, a poster with artwork of his character, a 3D printed miniature figure of his Wizard and a life sized replica sword to match the one he helped to design in game.

It was truly an honor for all of us at KingsIsle to get the opportunity to meet Danny and his family and make this wish come true. Thank you Danny, for sharing your awesome ideas and spirit with all of us!

Housing

Control the behavior of the pets and mounts in your home with Bread Crumbs. Bread Crumbs are invisible housing objects (only visible in “Place Object” mode) that you place in your home. Each Bread Crumb is automatically numbered when you place it in your house, so that you can distinguish one from another and place them in a sequence.

Bread Crumbs can be strung together to create a path for the assigned pets to follow. Click on a Bread Crumb and then choose “Select Next Bread Crumb” to define the sequence you’d like the path to follow. Once you’ve set the path, you can see this indicated with arrows by clicking back on the first one in the sequence. Then select a Bread Crumb to assign any nearby pet or mount to it. Each pet or mount can only be assigned to one Bread Crumb at a time. Click on the “Set Pet Behavior” tab to further customize the actions the pet will take when they reach the selected Bread Crumb. Bread Crumbs can be purchased from the Crown Shop or crafted using a recipe from Jackie Whisperflame in the Wizard City Pet Park.

Players can now ride their mount in the interior areas of the Avalon Castle Plot, Serpentine Escape, Midday Estate, Night Garden and Meadows at Dusk houses.

Petunia Floribund in Wysteria has new housing items for sale.

Rugs will now appear in the Furniture tab of housing items.

Additional housing sign options have been added, including: Open, Closed, Epic Fish, Rare Fish, Common Fish, Magical Fish, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday Wizard101 and “Player Name’s” Avalon Castle Plot.

An option has been added to the Advanced Gameplay Options screen to hide names on pets placed in your home.

Fishing

Earn extra gold when you sell fish with the Catch of the Day! Visit Lucky Hookline in the Commons each day to find out which fish will be featured that day. Each Catch of the Day fish that you sell will earn three times the normal price, plus a daily catching bonus. If you catch a fish when it is Catch of the Day, this bonus increases by 100, with a maximum of 3000 gold per fish! A new fish will be named Catch of the Day each day at midnight US Central time.

Fishing Tournaments are a new way to show your skill in Fishing! Each week a fish is selected as that week’s tournament fish, focusing on either small fry or whopper. Visit Lucky Hookline in the Commons to see which fish is the tournament fish for the week. When you catch the required fish type and size for that week’s tournament, a window will appear that will ask if you’d like to enter the fish into the tournament. If you choose to enter the fish, it will be removed from your fish basket and submitted for judging. To see your standings in the Fishing tournament, visit Lucky Hookline and view the Fish Tournament Leaderboard. Standings are based on fish size, with tournaments for small fry fish awarding those that are the smallest, and tournaments for whoppers awarding the largest. At the end of the week, if you placed a fish in the tournament you will receive rewards based on your standing on the leaderboard! And even if your fish doesn’t win a Medal in the Tournament, you’ll get a prize for participation.

Players can now fish in the waters of the Acropolis, Massive Fantasy Palace, Serpentine Escape, Winter Wind Tower, Pyramid of the Lost Horizon, Sun Palace, Sultan’s Palace, Midday Estate, Meadows at Dusk, Night Garden, Botanical Gardens and Amber Estate houses.

Aquariums in your backpack will now show a list of the fish inside.

Treasure Cards and Spells

Item cards granted from equipment can now be deactivated, so they will not show up in your hand while in combat. To deactivate cards, go to the Spell Deck Screen and click on the item cards at the bottom of the screen. Once clicked, they will show a red “X” to indicate that they are no longer active.

Strong, Keen Eyes, Giant, Accurate, Sniper and Monstrous Treasure Cards are now labeled with the correct Astral magic icon.

The Siphon Health pet spell card from the Rude Goblin will now cast from the pet rather than the Wizard.

Damage over time and drains spells will now count as damage against Armored Shane Von Shane in order to interrupt the Monster Mash cheat.

Shadow pips now cost mana to use, equal to the regular pip cost of the spell. For example, a spell that costs 5 pips plus one Shadow pip will cost 10 mana to cast.

Treasure Cards for Age of Reckoning, Astraphobia, Combustion, Counterforce, Katabatic Wind, Namaste and Saga of Heroes are now No Trade and No Auction.

Corrected the description on the Efreet spell card to accurately reflect the spell effect.

Miscellaneous

The system for calculating Critical and Block has been altered to provide more balance in gameplay. Previously, if a Wizard’s Critical Rating was lower than the opponent’s block rating, they would almost never land a Critical hit against that opponent. The calculation has been altered as follows. When a Wizard casts a spell, the system will calculate a chance for them to achieve a Critical hit with a higher chance to succeed based on their Critical rating. Then the system will calculate a chance for the opponent to Block the Critical hit based on their Block rating. These new calculations will show a reduction in Critical and Block percentages overall. While this means that you may achieve a Critical cast less often than you previously may have, when you do land a Critical hit on an opponent, it is less likely to always be blocked. This should provide more variety in gameplay, and give Wizards the opportunity to continue to improve to level 110 and beyond in the future. As an added benefit to the system, Critical heals will now receive a minor bonus beyond the doubled healing amount.

A button has been added to the bottom of the Spell Deck screen that can be used to remove all spells currently in that deck. This button only appears for Wizards level 20 and above.

Gear from Shangri-Ba, Barkingham Palace, House of Scales and Darkmoor can now be traded through the shared bank.

The badge for completing 100 Way of the Ninja Pig games is now named “Ninja Grandmaster.”

Descriptions for the Blooded Battler and Notorious Dueler badges have been updated to reflect the correct number of Tournament wins required to earn them.

Defeating Maelstrom Elementals now correctly counts toward Elemental badges.

The Merle’s Whisker reagent now has a rank and school icon.

The quests “As the Bone Turns,” “Young and the Boneless” and “Bone and the Beautiful” have had their prerequisite requirement changed to the quest “Out of Control.”

Minions will no longer respawn after defeating Ghalak Poisontooth for the quest “Cry Havoc.”

Eloise Merryweather in Azteca and Khrysalis now has clothing items available to purchase for stitching.

The character Torrek in Khrysalis will now have their name referred to consistently.

The henchmen Matthias JabTail’s natural attack will now use the death casting animation to match its death damage.

Additional phrases related to musical instruments have been added to Menu Chat.

Timers to use Home, Hub and Marked Location teleports have been reduced from 60 seconds to 30 seconds.

NPCs that accompany players for certain quests will only be visible to the player, not those around them.

Various spelling errors throughout the Spiral have been corrected.

Fixed an issue that caused players exiting the Bountiful Mine to be in the wrong house.

Fixed an issue that prevented seeds from being transferred from the attic to the backpack.

Due to popular request, second chance chests have been added to Shangri-Baa, Barkingham Palace, House of Scales, Tartarus and Malistaire in Darkmoor.

The second chance chest for the Pendragon will only appear after the boss is defeated.

Level 110 items have been added to the Terror’s Hoard Pack.

Rockhammer’s Jewel Pack has been updated with Level 100+ Jewels.

School symbols have returned to some PVP gear items on which they were missing.

Fixed an issue with incorrect stats on the level 110 Polarian Explorer’s Attire, Polarian Explorer’s Pickaxe, Shard Warrior’s Attire and Shard Warrior Hammer. These items will return to the stats they had before the November 18 game update.

The text for the maycast Multi Cast spell on the Tundarian Hailstone Staff has been clarified to state that the affect will only apply to the wand strike attack.

Fixed an issue that caused uneven PVP matchmaking for players over level 100.

Fixed an issue that caused Bearyshnakav to disappear for some players during the quest “Dance Revolution.”

Corrected experience and gold rewards for the quests “Cave of Bad Seeds” and “Iceblock Infiltration.”

Fixed an issue that caused Pit Fiends to incorrectly reappear after being defeated.

Fixed an issue that caused some players to not be able to enter the final room during the quest “Storming the Basstille.”

Fixed an issue that prevented some players from being able to speak to Danton to complete the quest “Storming the Basstille.”

Fixed an issue that caused an additional Ivan to appear on the Frigid Mine Docks.

Fixed an issue that caused some players to get stuck on a sigil during the quest “The Imperial Palace.”

Corrected the spelling of Taig to Tayg throughout Polaris.

Corrected the description of the Merle Doodlefish.

With the exception of some bosses, Critical and Block on all monsters throughout the Spiral has been reduced by half.

Adjusted the Critical and Block calculations for players with a lower rating amount. Some players who previously saw their Critical or Block at 1% have received an increase to their Critical or Block percentage.

Fixed an issue that caused incorrect Critical and Block calculations for players below level 50.

The bosses, Hades, Poseidon and Zeus have had their Critical reduced.

Some difficulty adjustments, including reduction of health, starting pips, Critical and Block, have been made within Darkmoor.

Fixed an issue that caused Rasputin to not appear for some players during the quest “Saving the Sky Anchor.”

Fixed an issue that caused stray companions to appear near exits.

Bartleby will no longer appear sick to characters who have not completed the quest “Pomp and Circumstance.”

When accompanying players as a companion in Khrysalis, Old Cobb will give a bonus starting pip.

Quest Finder will now work for the quest “Back to the Arcanum.”

Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented Captain Winters from appearing during the quest “Vive la Penguinonia.”

Fixed an issue that prevented some players from being able to complete the quest “Private Dancer.”

Made changes that should reduce lag in Walruskberg.

Fixed an issue that caused the quests “The Imperial Palace” and “Save Him…From Himself?” to award only 1 experience point and 1 gold.

Fixed an issue that caused the statues in the Baba Yaga battle to disappear if any player is defeated.

Fixed an issue with quest goals updating improperly for the battle against Baba Yaga. In order to properly complete the quest goal to defeat Baba Yaga, players must be present for the entire battle and cannot flee after Baba Yaga is defeated. A warning message will pop up if a player attempts to flee the battle, clarifying that they will not receive credit.

Players can now dye the Polaris Navigator attire when purchasing from the Crown Shop.

Fixed an issue that caused some item cards to deactivate when a player would change zones.

Brume mounts will now make sound when moving.

Fixed an issue that caused the Multi-Cast card on the Tundarian Hailstone Staff to have no description.

Gold will now be displayed when received as a Fishing Tournament reward.

Names for Morganthe Jewel spells have been shortened.

The damage for the spell Wrath of Cronus has been increased to 950.

Fixed an issue that prevented players from seeing the casting animation for cloaked spells.

Polaris has been added to the Join a Team Kiosk.

Fixed an issue that allowed players to purchase Jewel Packs when they didn’t have the inventory space to hold the Jewels.

Fixed an issue with Catch of the Day not properly applying the bonus between the hours of 12AM and 6AM.

Fixed an issue that caused the healing effect from Call of Krhulhu to not display properly.

Fixed an issue that caused some players to be unable to complete the quest “Head of the Class.”

Fixed an issue that caused some players to lose pet snacks when selling very large quantities of snacks at the Bazaar.

Fixed an issue that caused some players to be unable to enter the graduation area for the quest “Head of the Class.”

Removed an unnecessary dialogue interaction window from Mellori after the quest “Saving the Sky Anchor.”

Fixed an issue that caused some players to not receive the Catch of the Day bonus for their first catch if they had not visited Lucky Hookline.

Fixed an issue that caused the Catch of the Day to reset incorrectly. With this update, Catch of the Day should work as expected.

Fixed an issue that caused some players with over 250 gardening items in their home to have some of those items disappear.

The quest "Call the Banners" now lists Sir Perry Giliam as being in the High Road.

Rare, Ultra Rare and Epic housing items in Packs are No Auction. Common and Uncommon housing items in Packs can be auctioned. As a result of this clarification, many housing items have had their status as No Auction changed.

Playing pet games with an Ultra level pet will cost 10 energy.

Fixed an issue that caused the spell description text on the Lord of Winter spell card appear incorrectly.

The Road Hog pet can now be dyed.

The Ice Fuel item card on the Road Legend Helm and the Storm Fuel item card on the Stormrider’s Skullcap are no longer listed as No PVP.

Fixed an issue in which weapons with sockets had their socketed jewel removed when placed on the wall of a house.

Max Gage had his health increase from 1100 to 1850.

Fixed an issue with the sound of the Road Warrior's Chopper increasing in volume when the player changed equipment items.