Throwback Thursday – Gardening Fun!

Time for another Throwback Thursday, to showcase one of great Wizard101 articles printed in the Beckett Massive Online Gamer magazine.  Originally printed in the Mar/April 2011 issue, this article focuses on Wizarding with a green thumb… gardening!

Wizard Mary, Quite Contrary, How Does Your Garden Grow?

That’s right!  I fyou haven’t guessed it, the students of the Ravenwood School of Magical Arts are now using magic outside the battle c ircle and inside their houses to grow outrageous plants with unique personalities where harvesting bountiful rewards is just a click of hte “X” key away.  Can you dig it?

It all starts at level 12 when Moolinda Wu, the Life Professor, requests Wizards pay her a visit to begin ascending the path to mastering all 10 levels of gardening (Novice to Grandmaster).  Tending to plants and eventually harvesting them earns Wizards gardening experience (and loot) in this new, alternate way of progressing through Wizard101.

One of the first things you’ll notice as you begin to explore the new gardening system is a number of new vendors who sell gardening-related spells and give gardening quests.  Look for the primary gardening trainer (Farley) tending to the lawn around Golem Court as you begin your new classes in Gardening.

Gardening 101

The basics of the system involve all the basics of real gardening: seeds, soil, tending to plants’ needs… and blasting the bugs that infest them with a Meteor Strike!  Now that’s how Wizards take care of business.

Let’s break down the basics of gardening in the Spiral:

Step 1

Obtain seeds through drops, vendors, crafting, or through the Crown Shop. Those seeds determine the difficulty and type of plant you’re going to grow and the reward they’ll possibly return to you.

Step 2

Prepare a spot of soil outside your player housing or prepare a batch o soil in a pot for an indoor plant.  This preparation involves casting a magic spell that doesn’t use mana from your blue globe but rather energy from your green and yellow globes.  This is the same energy you use when training your pet.

Step 3

Plant your seeds and watch them grow! Plants grow at different rates, determined by the type of plant you have and the envrionmental conditions in which you are planting it. For example, if a seedling has a natural affinity for the plants that surround it, it may mature more quickly.

Step 4

Tend to your plants with magic.  You can cast both permanetnly trainable spells and one-use treasure cards to fulfill your plants’ needs.  AGain, you’ll find these spells from trainers, quests, drops, or through the Crown Shop.  Although there isn’t an equivalent to the Mega-Snack pack for gardening to make yoru platns gro waster, there is a new special pack of cards that helps save you time by casting a global-effect spell to take care oftthe neesd of all your plants with a single action.

Step 5

Reap the rewards!  Plants start as seedlings, grow to adolescence and then eventually become “elder” plants. Plants rward character sthroughout their life cycles.  For example, one of hte first plants you encounter in the new gardneing system is the Baby Carrot (sold by the Wizrad City vendor).  The rward a Baby Carrot plantgives is… a lot of different carrots! Throughout the carrot plant’s life cycle, Wizards have a chance to collect all the carrot pet snacks as rewards : the Flaming Carrot, the Diamond Carrot, and even the small chance of harvesting the Baby Carrot Mega-Snack Pack for your pets.  All of those rewards are in addition to a small amount of gold that you receive as well from all plants.

Eventually, you harvest your plant one final time at the end of its life cycle. You know a plant has entered its elder phase because it begins to glow.  At this final level of maturity, you can harvest your plant for a much bigger reward.

Step 6

Do it again! After your plant has been harvested at the elder level, it says good-bye and you can start the process all over again with a new seed.

By Tom Purdue

This article originally appeared in Beckett Massive Online Gamer Vol 6 No.2 on Mar/April 2011 and has been reprinted with permission from Engaged Enthusiast Media by Beckett.

What do you think Wizards, are you a fan of gardening?