Have you ever heard of South by Southwest (SXSW)? It is an annual set of film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. This past week, KingsIsle was lucky enough to host a booth at the SXSW Gaming Expo! It was an awesome experience as our first time hosting a booth, and we certainly hope it continues at future cons and expos. Check out some of our favorite moments from the event below, including our first ever KI not Live!
Crutch buddies unite!
While hosting the booth at SXSW, I noticed a mini-me on crutches and yelled out “Crutch buddies!” He smiled and came over to give me a fist bump. I promptly sat up and said, “Let’s race!” The crowd parted before us and we hobbled off. I don’t want to say I let him win, but HE WON THE RACE!
“You cheated!” I teased him and asked him if he had ever played Wizard101. He hadn’t so I got him and his family set up with a bunch of free Crowns codes and talked with them a bit. Next I asked him how he broke his limb, and he said, “I fell out of a tree!” Without batting an eye I yelled out, “ME TOO!” I told him and his family the story, and we all had a good laugh. Meeting my new crutch buddy was my favorite highlight of SXSW. -Tom
Mario, Luigi, and . . . Leala?!
Cosplay is always a big part of going to conventions and we saw some great costumes over the SXSW Gaming weekend. One of our favorites were a couple of very familiar plumbers who dropped by the KingsIsle booth, and we introduced them to Wizard101. “This-a is-a my new-a favorite-a game-a,” said the Mario cosplayer in full character. We had a good laugh and took some pictures with our new friends in familiar disguise. Mario and Luigi’s mom told us this was only the beginning of their cosplay antics.
Friendly Neighbors
Part of hosting a booth at a show is that you get to know the people at your neighboring booths and talk network a bit around your games. We had a great time talking with the guys who ran the “Brawlhalla” game booth, Minecraft booth, and also the Reaper Miniatures booth. At the Reaper Miniatures booth they actually let you paint your own plastic miniature for free! Vanessa Mythdust was visiting us for the day, and Tom and Vanessa took some time during the last hour of Friday night to paint a couple of miniatures together. Vanessa talks about it on her blog, the Untold Spiral.
The Voice of Dalia Falmea
We all know Professor Falmea from the forums is our beloved Leah Ruben, senior producer, but we had a surprise visit from the voice of Dalia Falmea (also known as Kat). Tom made a vine of the occasion to celebrate and selfies were taken left and right.
KingsIsle Devs Galore!
We were so happy to host a whole troop of developers from KingsIsle during SXSW. Officially hosted were Leah Ruben and Joel White from Wizard101 and Pirate101, Kevin Chin and Kevin Wienecke from the Mobile Team, and master doodler extraordinaire, Jeff Toney. Outside of our officially hosted devs, we had a ton of others who dropped by to help us out and talk about the games–it was hard to keep track of them all! One thing is for sure, our KingsIsle group is a fun loving and hardworking bunch.
KI not Live:
Where do you want to see KingsIsle host a booth next? Let us know in the comments and be sure to stop by and say hi at the next event we attend! 🙂
Despite the desert climate and always sunny skies, Cool Ranch lives up to its name as one of the “coolest” places in the Spiral. The journey may be a long one, but these wonderful tidbits make it worth it in the end!
#10 Bison Companions
Throughout your Pirate’s adventures in Cool Ranch you’ll meet many influential Bison. And after completing the quest “To the Rescue” in Elder Bluff, you can even add some Bison to the ranks of your crew. Perhaps the “coolest” looking of this Cool Ranch bunch is the aptly named Ghost Singer. He also comes with a healing ability that is always handy in battle!
#9 Stagecoaches
Added to Pirate101 in September of 2014, Stagecoaches are one of the most helpful features of Cool Ranch. Use these speedy transport options located at the docks of many areas to traverse the skyways like a breeze.
#8 The Magnificent Seven
When you first meet the Magnificent Seven, they are a retired band of heroic peacekeepers. Wyatt Chirp, Wild Bill Peacock, Calamity Jane Canary, Duck Holliday, Buffalo Bill, Bat Masterson and Billy the Kid are legendary in the Spiral. But with the emergence of the Wild Bunch in Tumbleweed, it’s up to you to convince them to come out of retirement and help the innocent settlers. And once you complete the quest “Payback” from Sly Winkum in Tumbleweed, you’ll even get to recruit one of the Seven to your crew!
#7 Puppet Shows
Puppet shows are one of the “coolest” parts of Pirate101 and Cool Ranch has several for Pirates to enjoy. In one of the newest additions, Thunderbird will tell you the story of William the Duck’s tragic descent into villainy in the Duck of Death puppet show available after the quest “The Enemy Revealed.”
#6 Funny Food References
Cool Ranch is packed with funny references to modern and historical culture. Even the name is familiar as a flavor of corn chips. Hidden Valley Ranch isn’t only an area in Cool Ranch, but also a brand of salad dressing. When you meet Corporal Sanders, try not to laugh as you think of this military chicken as the spokesperson for a fast food chain. Face off against Monterey Jack during the quest “The Legend of Burly’s Gold.” If you are lucky enough to be a Privateer, recruit him to join your crew and enjoy this cheesy pun any time.
#5 El Toro
Oh, what a tangled web the heroes of Cool Ranch weave. Friar Cluck tells you the tale of this mysterious hero in the El Toro puppet show after the quest “Who is that Masked Bull?” Our masked hero makes several appearances in quests, but always seems to slip away with a “T”-shaped slash of his sword and signature trumpet flair. Eventually you will learn his secret identity and even recruit the memorable hero to your crew after the quest “The Shadow of Death.”
#4 Timmy
You meet Timmy, the cutest little chick in the Spiral, while inquiring about the Magnificent Seven at the Desert Rose Tavern. As one of the Magnificent Seven’s biggest fans, he tells you all about them during their puppet show after the quest “Trouble in Tumbleweed.” Later, you join the Magnificent Seven in a daring rescue mission to save little Timmy from the hands of the Wild Bunch!
#3 Miranda
Near the end of your adventures in Cool Ranch, you’ll be tasked with visiting the ghost town of Miranda. You need to find the cards to play Captain Blood’s final hand and break his spell of immortality. The dungeon of Miranda is one of the most epic in all of Pirate101! Not only does this huge ghost town have a spooky vibe throughout, you can even take side missions within the dungeon to help the ghostly citizens. The dungeon ends with a showdown in the saloon versus the notorious Captain Blood, while all the town’s citizens look on. And if you are lucky, you might even walk away with one of the most coveted items in game, Captain Blood’s Jacket with the Blood Flames power attached!
#2 Deacon
In one of the final battles in Cool Ranch, you face off against the Armada elite, Deacon, who interrupts your mission to find Captain Blood’s treasure. He always seems to show up in time to ruin your plans, doesn’t he? It can be a challenging fight, so bring your best companions and some friends along for the fun. But once you’ve shown this foe a thing or two, you’ll get your hands on the second piece of Marco Pollo’s map! You’ll also get a new ship, the Santo Oro, as a token of your victory.
#1 Dos Amigos Y Uno
Inside the Gallo Loco Cantina in Santo Pollo, exists the most famous mariachi band in the Spiral, Dos Amigos Y Uno. Fans of the classic movie Three Amigos will enjoy this hilarious reference in game. They send you on a romp of a side quest to gather the required materials to join the band. This quest series culminates in the battle versus El Kaboing for a beautiful guitar. But watch out, he might just hit you with the guitar rather than give it up!
And that’s our list of the top 10 coolest things in Cool Ranch. Do you agree? What are the coolest Cool Ranch things that didn’t make our list?
Can you believe that Spring is almost here? 2016 has been flying by! With March in full swing, we are certainly ready for that springtime weather to kick in. And what have our Pirates been doing while keeping warm in the cold months of the year? Creating amazing fan art of course! We like to feature fan art submissions through or official social media like Facebook and Pinterest.
We had many talented artists submit amazing drawings, paintings and more in the past months.
Here are some of our favorites so far from this winter!
Want to submit something creative of your very own? If you are under 13 years of age, ask your parent or guardian for permission to send us your screenshot. If you would like to submit something, send the picture and your character name in an email to community@pirate.com! Please attach no more than three images per email, and please limit total submissions to no more than nine screenshots in a month. Try to only submit your very best images!
I know a lot of you readers may think any computer game that came before 2005 is ancient, but there’s a long history behind video games! One of the first games I enjoyed playing with my friends was Oregon Trail (1981), but as old as the original Oregon Trail seems – it doesn’t even begin to compare to some of the first video games ever made.
Would you believe that the world’s first video game dates back to 1947… hard to imagine! The “Cathode Ray Tube Amusement Device” was a lot different than what a player in today’s world would think of a game. Developed by Thomas T. Goldsmith Jr and Estle Ray Mann, this game was a missile simulator inspired by combat in World War II. Analog circuitry was used instead of digital to display the cathode ray tube beam on the screen, and players would aim the beam at a target drawn on a sheet of paper that was placed over the screen. Why paper? They didn’t have the ability to generate game graphics yet!
Remember the classic Atari game Pong? That may seem like an older video game, but there’s actually a similar much earlier predecessor! A man named William Higinbotham created a game in 1958 called Tennis for Two. Made to entertain visitors at the Brookhaven National Library, Tennis for Two had simple graphics displaying a tennis court. This two-player game required a ball to be passed over the virtual “net”, and to do so, each player held a box-shaped controller with a knob and a button to “hit” the ball back to their opponent.
Photo by Wikia
In later years, scholars at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took the concept of video games further with titles like Mouse in the Maze, HAX, and Tic-Tac-Toe. These games, created from 1959-1961, incorporated simple computer graphics. Later from MIT came Spacewar! This game is credited as the first influential video game, because it was placed on new computers of its time and was even traded on a very early version of the internet.
We’ve come a long way with internet gaming since Spacewar! but without titles like these, there would be no Wizard101 or Pirate101 today! If you’re interested in learning more about the history behind gaming, check out this cool timeline created by the International Center for the History of Electronic Games. There’s definitely a lot more history behind gaming than I could put into this blog post!
Do you have a favorite “classic” video game from your past?
Did you know that March 2nd is “Old Stuff Day”? We had never heard of this strange holiday before, but sure enough, there it was, listed on daysoftheyear.com – complete with five fun ways you can celebrate this unique day of the year:
- Be nostalgic
- Appreciate vintage items
- Declutter
- Learn
- Reflect
We know we have a lot of faithful players who’ve been playing right from the beginning, or even before the beginning, in the Beta testing phase. Leah Ruben, our Senior Producer for Wizard101, was right there as well . . . only at the time she was the Associate Producer.
When asked about those old days she had a couple of fun thoughts to share, “At the time, KingsIsle was a lot smaller, and we wore lots of hats. During an average week before launch, I might have been addressing labels for our alpha discs, in game placing sound effects, ordering dinner for people who were working late, helping to design the prototype for our first website and message boards, or in our VO booth, screaming like a banshee!” She continued, “It’s fun to look back at those old times, and when I hold an old Alpha Disc in my hands, those memories come flooding back.” (You may have seen Moolinda Wu showing off one of these discs in the recent KI Live.)
A lot of players have also been great collectors from day one, gaining several items that are very hard to get these days. Items like the FOG Staff, which was a promotional weapon only available by code from the Fun Online Games (thus F.O.G. Staff) magazine. You’ll see us from time-to-time breaking out old items for a special Throwback Thursday sale in Wizard101 or through a fan site promotion. What’s old can always become new again!
Along with time comes clutter! We understand it can be hard on your inventory space when you’re an avid collector of fun old items. Remember when you couldn’t put that FOG Staff on the walls of your house and had to keep it in the bank? We know you do! It’s quite amazing to see all the features that have been added over time to help deal with the daily clutter of farming and collecting items in Wizard101. Seed vaults, mannequins, weapons on housing walls . . . who knows what the future will hold to further help you? One thing is for sure: today is a great day to head to the Bazaar or your favorite vendor to offload some old items you just don’t need to keep around anymore.
As for learning from the past, there’s always valuable advice that’s still sound . . . even seven years later! Check out this old blog post from one of our original blogging stars, Tipa from Westkarana.com. Even today, it has great advice for building smaller decks and using the reshuffle card (even though some commentary on using pets for their cards is a bit dated with the invention of Advanced Pets).
And if you’re looking to reflect on Old Stuff Day today, we kindly ask you to leave a comment on this blog post and let us know what you’ve learned through all your years of playing Wizard101. If you’re looking for a tale to tell, maybe start with some of these questions to get you going:
- What’s the first house you ever purchased?
- What’s the first mount you ever rode?
- What’s the first plant you ever grew?
- What’s the oldest item in your backpack?
Let’s hear about your favorite old memory, item, or thought from the past years of playing Wizard101!
See you in the spiral, old timers.
KingsIsle Blog 