Spotlight on an Employee’s Wizard
Howdy fellow Wizards! I’m Gary Scott Smith, but you may know me in game as Duncan DayDreamer. On the forums I post as Arthur Wethersfield. I’m a game programmer that’s been working on Wizard101 for almost 5 years. I first started with player housing. Then I did mannequins, pets and mounts in housing, the maze game, gardening, housing games, wands on walls, housing music players, housing signs, housing teleporters, the Bric-a-Brac Elixir, the Additional Castle Elixir, buy more and sell more, spectator mode, playable musical instruments… and lots of other things!
I have a Wizard101 character that I’ve been playing since launch. As of this post, I’m level 81 and near the beginning of Azteca. My character’s primary school is Storm. With Storm, all fights are over quickly, one way or the other. I also have a level 51 character in Pirate101.
My focus at work is player housing, and other than questing, that’s my main aspect of playing Wizard101 as well. Since we added the Additional Castle Elixir I have been able to buy, acquire, or craft every house in the game – 32 at the moment! I’ve decorated most of them too.
For this blog post, I wanted to share my favorite house. Yes, I know that there are bigger and fancier houses… but I’ve always liked the Wooded Cottage. I enjoy the Wizard City sky in the background and the cottage’s cozy interior.
By the way, did you know that the unicorn that periodically appears in the grove was added before you could put pets in your houses? Now if you want, you can fill the house with unicorn pets and the unicorn that lives in the grove isn’t really necessary, but we’d never remove it!
I crafted the carousel at this house before gardening existed and farming Wintertusk made Black Pearls and Earthquake treasure cards easier to acquire. I sure spent a lot of time gathering Black Lotus in MooShu so I could craft that carousel!
I think it’s important for developers to play the games they work on, both to be familiar with the content and to thoroughly understand what works well and what doesn’t. For example, I implemented “buy more” and “sell more” features after slowly buying and selling reagents one by one… over and over! It made me wish there was a better way. I recently alphabetized the crafting recipes in our crafted recipe lists after hunting for one randomly listed recipe one too many times. For similar reasons, I like to know what players are saying about Wizard101. I read lots of blog posts; I scan our forums, the Wizard101Central forums and I listen to Ravenwood Radio.
The future is full of exciting things! See you in the spiral.
Gary Scott Smith
Senior Software Engineer II
KingsIsle Blog 
ok crafting used to be my favorite aspect of the game. i crafted so much and after a short time over half of what i crafted became available in the bazaar! it shot me down to the point of “why bother to craft it will just be for sale in the bazaar soon enough”. it also killed my house decorating allot. i valued the rarity of crafted house items and now all thats left rare are things such as the carousel, some kitchen items and a few other things. for a crafter as myself i only craft clothes now and miss the house decorating with rare house items. sorry for a negative sounding response but there has also been many improvments all around. i just wish if a item takes so much to craft it wouldnt be sold for gold in the bazaar. i have spent weeks or even months to craft 1 specific item and then a few months later its in bazaar ugh. this is my only complaint.
I agree and I forwarded your post to our Design department.
Hi, thank you for helping wizard101 it is a great game the idea of allowing pets and mounts in and placed thats AWESOME, house games are cool, thanks for everything you did
I think that players should be able to give items to each other. Because there have been many times when I see my friends have two of something and I would be like “I want that.”
That is genius cause I play with my cousin and he is a fire wizard and I am a storm wizard and we quest together and I usually get fire only gear and he usually gets storm only gear so yeah totally agree
hi my name is jared windwalker on wizard101 of course, I love the post! thanks for the buy more sell more. 🙂 I rarely go to bazar and I get every single reagent I can get so it made a lot easier for selling them thx so much. cant wait for next update
I was so bummed out that my Grandmaster Artisan at level 6 doesn’t need to craft anymore since StormLord, Rebirth, and Frost Giant are easy to buy. I’m also bummed that crafting Polymorph cards are no longer allowed to use in PVP, even for practice.
Yes, I use to go to Krokotopia for scrolls, blocks, and Mooshu for Lotus, and Celestia for Pearls. the good old days of finding reagents. But now that I don’t craft anymore, Artisan is a lost art for many of my noob wizards with GrandMaster Artisan badge.
Balance is still excellent to craft. Spectral Blast and other tc cards that you don’t see in Bazaar makes it more appealing to craft. Why craft when you can buy with gold?
I really love wizard101 ever since i found this game i’m on the computer 24/7
Thank you the game, I love the game I will play it forever.
So you’re the genius that came up with the buy/sell more. Thank you, that has come in handy. Although I often forget to use it. Ravenwood Radio? And just what might that be? 😀
~Mary TrollHunter
Journeyman Sorcerer
Ravenwood Radio is a Wizard101 focused podcast that can be found on iTunes as Ravenwood Radio Live.
Ravenwood Radio is a podcast about Wizard101. The show started in October 2009. It records live every other Wednesday night. I’m a co-host. Hope to see you in the chat room soon!
Ravenwood Radio is a podcast about Wizard101. It started in October 2009. We record live every other Wednesday. Hope to see you in the chat room soon!
Wow, it’s nice to know that some other people enjoy the simpler updates of Wizard101. Thank you for making this spotlight! It is very inspirational.
I want to suggest something what if you put a new icon of trading snacks with other wizards that will make easy for people in upgrading their pets and you should bring a more higher stage then mega 🙂
its nice knowing that the people who make w101 play too, but it just an idea i think myth should have a healing spell because other then ice every school does but ice has shields and a ton of health
@Valerie: Those plants are called Potted Palm, Potted Bobtail and Potted Cattail. Use http://www.wizard101central.com/wiki/Main_Page to see where you can acquire them.
I enjoy all kinds of activities in wizards 101, but ultimately nothing has been more enjoyable than housing. Just wanted to say thanks for all you do, and that your creativity is unbelievable.
One question though: any chance you are planning on making a coffee pot housing item? Wizards need caffeine too!
you should make a pet that’s a white hydra it would me awesome and you should ease a bit off on the txt chat cause if the parents don’t want there kid to hear that then they can set up menu chat
I also wish you could access more areas without crowns but I still love that buy and sell more option could you also add more space to have more wizards to play on I would love that and thank you for making this game it is my favorite game of all time! 🙂
I love wizard101! But i been wondering…Will someday we will be able to add little pieces on to our gear? Kinda like custom gear? I think it will be a great add on.
Thx!
TY for doing this game for us, but I have been playing for 3yrs now, & I love this game, but I think after this long you would FINALLY listen to me and others regarding the garden, pet and changing clothing energy. It’s almost impossible when your wiz gets to 90 to be able to grow stuff & train a pet & then worry about changing your garden clothes to save a friend bc you will lose your energy. I have 138 energy & it’s still not good. WHY WHY WHY did I ask WHY can’t we have different pet and garden energy, trust me we will still SPEND SPEND SPEND your precious crowns! I wish when we changed our energy clothes they stayed charged so when we took them off if we go help a wiz we not lose all our energy and the friend doesn’t die, it’s so sad that we have to have a HUGE dead garden to be a good wiz friend. I also don’t get the money limit, we get so much stuff and have no room n attic,houses,backpack and win stuff that we have no choice but to sell, but then not allowed to sell bc at limit, then we cant feed it to pet. I also don’t agree that we have to make these decisions on REAL money items we spent crowns on, there should NEVER be a limit on that stuff we spent REAL money on. I also would like an elixir so that we could have all 7 wizs, I would really like to have a Myth wiz and be able to experience all the wiz spells. Last it would be cool if we could actually use our stuff in our house like sit, eat etc..
nice work bro
i really want them be the game withuot crowns or wen i creat a account i got 2000 crowns
or one month mebership
Hi there, my favorite house is Red Farm Barn. I’m trying to furnish it. My best pet is nightmare, Miss Angel. I have a lot of pets. I’m Ashley DasiyHeart at level 70.
I think this is great! I think I’ve seen your character around before. Are we friends? I dunno. Anyways, this was very awesome! Keep on writing more!
~ Jasmine Icebloom. Level 65. Ice Wizard~
i wish that instead of wearing hats all the time there should be a setting where you can just take off your hat and have your hair. i dont mean like buying hair styles from the crown shop i mean that you can have your hair that you started off with
I think pets should be able to talk like when you say good boy they can say thank you 🙂 or make airplanes when we travel to other worlds
hi, I know creator of this blog probably wont see this comment but that’s ok. I would just like to thank you for what you have done for this game its so much fun and I would never happen with out your help. I would love to do what your doing in fact I want to be an anime creator. but my parents don’t think there is a future in it . but see this blog and thinking about how fun and happy this game made me want to be one even more. thank you for all you have done for this game thank you for the inspiration keep doing what your doing don’t change a thing.
sincerely,
Taylor or on wizard101 Samantha wildflower.
this is corwin thunderweave I have always liked crafting but I mostly like spells like storm owl sirens good luck getting to xibalba
my real name is corwin thunderweave
hi i love this its awesome thx for everything you did
ps. add me I’m usually in kroktopia i bought it so i’ll be there forever who-oo and my name is hunter lionhaven lvl 36 storm
good luck with every thing mind going to um lets see how about the world tree behind the door I will add you I lvl 65
hi I am really happy but wizards make fun of me cause I don’t have a mount or a big house
if you could meet me in ravenwood outside the myth classroom that’d be AWESOME (satyr area 1) if you can meet me look for a wizard named luke fireblood ( lvl. 47 death wizard
really love the game but I got sooooooooo bummed out because you can’t go into tornaments or watch them without crowns and I wish crowns were easyer to get.but otherwise this game is awesome!
Please do something about friend limits.
My daughter plays wiz101, (she got me into wiz101) she then takes up not 1, but 6 spots on my friend list.
I have a few very good friends that play, each taking up between 4 to 6 spots on my friend list.
If the friend list is 100 max friends, it is very easy to max out ones list.
I can not make a new friend without deleting an old friend.
No one likes having to delete their friends.
gary, you mind meeting me at ravenwood inside the storm classroom in seraph realm? look for a luke fire blood date: 7/ 11/ 13 8:30 if you can
I rarely last longer than 3 months at a game, get bored and move on to the next one. This “childrens” game can be played at so many levels and focusing on so many areas that it is after about three years, still immeasurably fun! My wish? That players with more than one account (oops, are there those?) could link and allow switching of items in the shared bank. Also, a few more clothing choices for us consummate shoppers, along with a wardrobe that contains them. Another pet peeve, dont give me a chair and never let me sit on it! LOL
Hello Gary, thanks for the nod to our humble little podcast! My first Wizard101 house was the Wooded Cottage, and it’s still my favorite (don’t tell my Avalon House, though). When I first bought it, it didn’t have the unicorn yet. It was a lovely touch and such a wonderful surprise when it was added! Thanks for all you do. Christina
I have an idea id like to throw at ya I notice a lot of players complaining about pets and gear people have I wonder if you could implement a trading post to trade gear or pets of course at a price mb gold or crowns mb trade gear that we can’t sell like water works gear I have 3 sets of them if people really want them then go to trading post and trade for a price of gold or crowns sort of like you pay to hatch a pet just a thought.
Hi Gary, or should I say Duncan. Thanks for all you do for this game. I have played it for coming up on 4 years now. Yes I played before there was gardening. Before there where all the wonderful mounts. Before there were two person mounts or music players for our homes and so many other fantastic and fun upgrades. My account classroom is completely full of wizards. Storm, fire, ice and death wizards are busy improving their stats while awaiting the next world to surface. Life wizard is on her way to Drum Jungle and my Balance is still in Grizzleheim.
I find it curious that there are only six seat in my classroom, yet there are seven schools. I will never know the wonders of playing a Myth wizard unless I start another account or delete one of my others. (not going to happen).
If I could suggest one thing currently it would be to increase the amount of items you can place in the yards of the houses. Especially the new Farm House. There are a lot of fields to plant. But you can not put that many items in the yard. So I have only a couple of fields in use. Maybe an upgrade potion to increase the items allowed could be an option.
Thanks again for all you do and I will be watching for Duncan Daydreamer in the future. 🙂
i did have a idea with cooperative pets since your a part in pets, make it so when 2 certain types or bloodlines get in a fight they do special things not related to there 5 talent slots. like randomly(like fairy rates) cast lifebat, smokescreen and legion shields or something, you would have better ideas with that part. i just think the idea could be good to make people want to help others more or families feel a little more special with these pets and more interactive.ty for all your work and the rest of KI with this wonderfull game 🙂
Hello Gary, just wanted to ask a few questions..just wondering why are some furniture in the game are so big and others so small compared to my wizard? ( the sink very tiny and the bath huge!).Also, I enjoy being able to interactive (like the bathroom sink) with some of the housing items it would be nice to be able to use all furniture such as sitting in a comfy chair/couch in front of the fireplace after a long hard day questing.
We’re aware of the furniture size problem and we try to be vigilant when new items are created. One problem we have is once a poorly sized item gets in the game we can’t change it. As for sitting, it’s one of those features where the effort isn’t worth the reward but since so many wizards have requested it, I’m sure it will be investigated someday.
add some new houses to both the crown shop and all the houses shop in the many worlds of the spiral
I think you should add a seventh seat to the main menu so people can play with all the different types of wizard classes
two comments about the furniture:
if you tell us sizes of furniture like small or castle size it would help us know if it will fit in our houses.
and why would it be hard to add x boxes for sitting on furniture? when you approach the couch you would have a choice to sit or not.
thanks so much for this wonderful game.
I think there should be a way to move a mansion from one character to another so that we dont lose the mansion after spending 39 dollars for it from bundles. What if we decided to start a character over and it had a mansion you wanted to keep. It kind of makes you wish never bought it. Though it would be nice to use a storage where you can transfer it or maybe a potion to transfer it. I mean some more options on that would be nice.
I have a request for kingsisle. When to i try to train my pet it takes a long time to play a minigame and then feed my pet. i wish there was a way to just feed your pet all your snacks so you don’t have to do so much work to feed your pet. Just asking. I t would make my pet training more efficient.
Gary, would it be possible to make it so that you can just feed your pet snacks without playing a minigame first. It would be alot quicker
Thank you Kingsisle for making such an awesome game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will continue to play wizard101 forever and ever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
By the way: Me and my friends thought wouldn’t it be cool If there were a way to earn crowns? 😛
I wrote a comment about being able to use the minus two pips cards on the treasure cards(TC) that have eight or more pips since the wizards of different schools can’t use them or make it possible to get more then seven pips on the battle field. If you think about it when you are battling you can only get up to 14 pips on the field if they are power pips. Since efreet, chimera, storm lord(I think that needs eight pips), ra, etc. can only be used by their school(if they get the pips) it would be great if the other schools could use the minus two pips on them in a battle. I have some of these tc and I know I wouldn’t mind using them in my battle since I don’t like to sell or discard them to make room for more tcs. If you can’t get the minus two pips to work with the tcs then maybe make a treasure card mastery amulet like you have the death, life, fire, etc. mastery amulet I think people would buy them especially if you can use your power pips to use all the tcs and not just the ones of your own school.
It’s ok if you craft things and it goes in the bazaar because many people can buy what you crafted. I would buy it on Wizard101 but i can’t because my parents banned me so i use Pirate101 and I LOVE KINGSISLE!
Hey Gary,
It’s great that you play the game that you work on and it’s true that you get a better insight on what can be fixed and improved. Thanks for all the improvements that you’ve mad to make the game better. One thing that I do find rather annoying and perhaps you’ve noticed it too, is the furniture placement is housing. For some items you aren’t able to center them, it feels like the grid of the furniture placement layout was designed as cubic squares and the furniture could only be placed in these cubic squares. This takes away from player decorating since we are limited to where we can place furniture. I remember trying to place flags around my door walls, and the walls weren’t equal or the flags weren’t equal in size, since I couldn’t place one or two flags. I also remember trying to place some chairs in front of a table, but it wouldn’t let me because it would only let me place it further away from the table. A good example is the long blue carpet, forgot the name, it’s a common Wizard City carpet, it’s a blue purple type of color. If you try to place the carpet, or rug I should say, in front of your door in your dorm, it won’t let you place it, it will limit you to placing it in the middle of the room even though there is space for it in the place where it should be. I am guessing this has something to do with the layout design of the housing furniture placement limits? I talked to Todd about it about 3 months ago and he said that it was impossible to fix because of certain limits, but I’d like to hear your take from it. Thanks.
-Daniel Deathcaster
The placement grid serves two purposes. First it provides a framework for placing items that makes it easier for beginning players to place items. Second, it prevents item intersections. When you place an item, it uses spots on the grid that other items can’t then use. I understand your complaint and it’s possible that someday in the future we’ll offer an enhancement placement for experienced players.
I think you should make the pet pavilion as big as the commons and add more games and stores to fill it in