Innovation is all around us at KingsIsle

Did you know today, February 16^th, is Innovation Day? This is a special day that’s set apart and dedicated to paying tribute to all those amazing innovative ideas around us.  Every day at KingsIsle we see innovation happening both from our employees and from our amazing players.  Let’s take a look at a couple of amazing and recent innovations that have happened from both sides of the fence.

KingsIsle recently released a really cool bundle for fans of Wizard101 to purchase called, the Jewel Crafter’s Bundle.  Josef Hall, vice president and creative director at KingsIsle Entertainment, wanted to have our Crystal Unicorn Mounts, crystal butterfly pets, and shard warrior armor and hammer be SHINY!  In fact, he wanted them to be shinier than our light mapping techniques currently allowed. The team went to work so the shiny items wouldn’t fall flat and figured out a way to push the envelope a little more to bring those items to life – that new innovative technique is now integrated into Wizard101, and we’ll be able to use it on all kinds of things now (including a certain funny item coming up for April Fool’s Day).

Other innovations have also been made with the release of Polaris. We now have slippery ice and new NPC characters that blink their eyes! It’s the innovative touches like these that make Wizard101 get better and better with time.

Our players show innovation every day. We love the innovative efforts our player groups like the Mercenaries for Hire and Duelist101 put into figuring out strategies for beating those big bad cheating bosses in the Spiral. Not to mention that every day our players come up with very innovative strategies to duel each other in the PvP arenas. Our more creative fans even innovate with their fanart and fan fiction where they blend their personal talents with our original characters. It’s a lot of fun and makes for amazing pictures like this one from Aaron ShadowRider (aka Dark Rapier).

Currently, the final boss in Wizard101 is a big mean character known as Rasputin. This is a difficult instance that should require a group, but thanks to innovative players like Skelemystyk, there’s now a really innovative strategy to solo this very difficult boss. That’s innovation every soloing wizard101 player can appreciate.

Do you have an example of something innovative you do in Wizard101, Pirate101, or one of our mobile games?  We’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Happy innovation day!