Wizard101 has occupied a strangely consistent space in my life these 20-odd years on the planet.
Released in open beta during the summer of 2008, this seemed another game riding the rise of the MMO, taking many peoples’ money, and preceding to eventually fizzle out with the worst of them. Where it sought to differ from its many contemporaries was in the game’s combat; this was not to be the traditional hack-and-slash, RPG-elements, action/adventure-inspired, generic fantasy derivative set in an attractive, huge, sparsely detailed world.
Rather, Wizard101, despite having swords (one of the many forms of wand, and at release, the rarest above staves and traditional sticks) didn’t have the player-character making a great deal of contact in combat with the many interesting (but so often reused) monster assets. Because this was the game’s selling point, and I believe, outside the economics of a game, a primary reason it still exists to this day, and is still regularly updated, when even its sister game, Pirate101, has fallen to the wayside.
Duels with enemy mobs (or players, in the Arena) are undertaken via an adapted card-game system. Ingeniously, especially given the easy accessibility of a click-and-cast, this MMO came with that sense of collection and deck-building that was made popular by the contemporary fads of the Pokémon TCG, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and the like, especially among Wizard101’s target audience — children (and, according to suspicious hearsay, full families).
So, one day, after a standard day at primary school, a few friends and I try it out. I wasn’t really into my games, beyond Lego Star Wars. In many ways I was that bitter kid that had no consoles, handheld or otherwise, except for the fact that we did have the old family potato PC (and many good books, luckily). Old it was, yet run Wizard101, it could. So I made my character, met up with my pals, and we played our way through to Victorian-London inspired-, dog/cat/rat populated-, rooftop Marleybone. Flash forward to our current poorly-handled pandemic and among other things this lockdown I’ve taken a level 9 Death School wizard, “Juan Dream”, whom I created in 2011 or so, to almost level 100, playing with my two siblings on-and-off.
I’m 20 this year (disgusting) and I’m caught admitting to playing Wizard101 online with a child and a brother that barely talks to me outside of our long playing sessions. Why? When I last played seriously I was 14 or-so and had reached the max level of 90, where I’d farmed Hades the Unseen (Greek Mythology-inspired raid-like dungeons are (or were) important) as much as my pubescent self could, until a world called Khrysalis came along and I thought it was due time I should grow up. That was 6 years after release and it was pretty miraculous even then that they were still making new content — Khrysalis itself (the world that “Juan”, “Diana”, and “Blake” quest in now) is made up of almost 300 individual quests, and most estimates I’ve seen peg the game time for that world alone at a bare minimum of 20 hours. It took my first wizard, “Talon ThunderSmith” (grim capitalisation aplenty in this game) literally 6 years to surpass this world, so it has an earned reputation in my mind as a real time-sink of tedium. But I’m still playing through it, and most likely I’ll be online questing through the “Tyrian Gorge” later today.
The point of this nostalgia trip is ultimately that this game does still exist. It has a level cap of 130 now. The latter worlds (post-Khrysalis) are even more hilarious than the earlier ones, full of stupid references and mildly amusing, often self-aware dialogue, that breaks up the extremely relaxing combat system (save the strategic fights, of which there are few, and PvP, of which I refuse to even think about since my terrible First Age record) that means you can immerse and “un-immerse” yourself whilst playing with ease. I often find myself on YouTube during parts I find particularly irritating or drawn-out, but the game allows for that, and regardless, like all MMOs, you still gain that desirable feeling of (false) achievement. You gain it all the time, not least when the horrific RNG gear-drop infrastructure finally folds and you receive the hat or ring you thought you desperately had to have (until you replace it 10-40 levels later).
So, the faithful stuck with Wizard101 (at least on the US servers that I am a part of) joined by a few new players who seem to pop up now and then. Recently, a large, controversial balance update swept the game, tweaking the nature of spell cards that had been the same since as early as 2009 (thanks for the new Power Nova, KI). This was a bold move for a number of reasons, but to me, it strikes that:
The developers are willing to interfere with the stasis that most of those day-one players had come to accept, despite the backlash (a lot of which, during the early “Test Realms”, was deserved), almost certainly knowing that the game mostly exists still because of the playerbase’s acceptance.
It is obvious that they’re interested, for the first time (as far as I remember), on a fundamental level, in keeping this game afloat even longer than 12 years. That impresses me even more. And with the new central-European-candy-themed world, Karamelle and the surrounding Candied Islands (Flapjack & K’nuckles references inbound, I presume) of “the Spiral” in the works, this is clearly a direction of growth in a game I thought would be stagnant (see: Pirate101) or dead by now (see: Pirate101, almost).
It would be remiss of me not to say this also: I hate this game. Wizard101 is absolutely riddled with serious issues. You cannot trade, beyond the single-use “Treasure Cards” (so much so that the community stores their excess gold and assets in these “TC”, namely Empower) or by trying the ever-risky process of selling an item to be bought by a specific individual at the Olde Town Bazaar (the game’s auction house), which I refuse to even attempt. You cannot change your wizard’s name (which you select from a limited set of pre-approved names upon creation), an update that would have gone nicely with the desperately necessary character-editing “Magic Mirror” update of recent. The oppressive filtering system (you cannot even type out “gay”; “aa” anywhere in a sentence is banned. Try to circumvent these, and expect a 10-year mute) which harks back to the roots of it being a children’s game, although I imagine the average age of players is between 16-35 at this point. Male characters cannot use pink clothing dye. The arbitrary limits on things like housing or inventory space, that can only be expanded with the use of premium currency, Crowns. Gear that gives you nigh-immunity to all damage in combat, gambled to purchase with the use of Crowns. Excessive pet-breeding costs of farmable gold and time, sped up with the use of Crowns for energy and pet snacks. Mounts, that are necessary on the larger world maps, of which out of the many dozens, only a handful are purchasable with gold; a number that, since the conception of mounts in 2009, has not expanded. The rest are Crowns-only.
I imagine you see the pattern. Where another MMO like Guild Wars 2 has additional utility and cosmetics only in its premium currency shop, Wizard101 demands these Crowns of any players seeking a more fulfilling experience in specific elements of the game, particularly PvP. Even to transmogrify the appearance of your gear, you must pay Crowns per purchase. It is true that every day, a selection of 10 trivia quizzes (in the strangest earning system I’ve ever seen) can net you a maximum of 100 Crowns. So, if you did 80 days of trivia with a bot, or got it right every time, you could buy a Membership Elixir from the Crowns Shop.
Because membership exists also in this “free-to-play” MMO. And it is horrifically expensive — the “best deal” being an occasional sale of something like $60 for a year (tax not included, to my British surprise), but usually, you’ll end up getting a month for $12-20, depending on extra hidden costs. Nice one. So now you have that toxic feedback loop of purchase to invest proper time, invest more time so you’re more inclined to purchase, use the purchased time to the fullest extent, etc.
So that’s where this game’s longevity comes from, obviously. I’m no economics student, but anyone can see that — what was an interesting lance of new design ideas into the MMO genre from the game’s original conception, has had its lifespan extended by the greed of publishers and the whales of the world. None of this is to mention that necessary spells for proper enjoyment (such as Death’s Deer Knight — recently superseded for most purposes by the latest gamble-earned spell, Ship of Fools), some of the most important gear (see: “Jading” & “Professor’s Hoard boots”), and some of the most sought-after mounts are put in — I imagine you saw this coming — loot boxes. “Hoard and Lore Packs” these are called, and they are disgusting. Estimates I’ve seen of people who spend hundreds (seriously - for context, the “best deal” is 60,000 Crowns = 60$) on these packs determine the percentage for the top-tier stuff floats between 0.1~2% in almost every different pack. People are welcome to spend their money on what they like, and this is the unfortunate state of many games at present, but it can’t be ignored. This does set nasty precedents for those who simply cannot spend money that they might not have just to keep up. Who already spend money just to be in the race. Recently, this seems to only be getting worse. But that’s the children’s game Wizard101, that’s why it still exists, and that’s why I’ve been able to have a little bit of casual fun with my siblings this lockdown playing it. I imagine, for worse or for worse still, it will continue to be the reason Wizard101 still functionally exists (where the game’s systems, like the combat, keep it attractive), until finally the karmic uppercut knocks some of the suits out of the boardroom and they react by cutting funding entirely.
So, unless you’re fuelled by nostalgia, have too much time, or are just curious, maybe try this game out. But remember, it only gets more and more expensive and more and more samey after you buy that membership to get into Cyclops Lane. Maybe you’ll return 10 years on and wonder why you ever did that, why you ever convinced your dad for an early birthday gift, until the gleeful memories of a bygone age get you conflicted, and you take out that wallet again. Oops.
Perhaps that is the meaning of money well spent, though. Reconnecting with an estranged brother, enjoying some quality family moments, reliving some childhood fun — at a time when I think we all need to keep our spirits up. Maybe I don’t hate this game but I just can’t help the feeling that it’s also money dirtily spent.
Thank you for spending time reading this little work. I hope you enjoyed it enough to stick around for more!
Upon each publication, I’ll post a couple of questions for the comments:
How severely do gambling-style elements hamper any experience for you?
and:
As my first post, what did you think? What sort of criticisms or feedback do you have for my work or style?
Appendix: see the Glassdoor reviews for Kingsisle Entertainment for an insight into the truly sad state of play on the corporate level.
A Reddit post from 2018. I like to think I’m both birds, at least since lockdown started.
i read this and this is beautiful.. also i hate the game for people being too competitive about it.. im guessing that what made the new spell nerf happened.. only community can help this game being economy friendly.. but people just love "gambling" yes i said it gambling for packs on a child game.. Even CS:GO have better floats for cases than these packs and you can sell them for real money to market if you get shitty items..
also pardon terrible english.. not my main