Ever seen someone pull a trick so sly you couldn’t help but wonder how on earth he or she managed to get that awesome move down like it was no big deal at all? Whether by a stroke of good luck or some sort of black magic, here are 18 people who exhibit skills so mind-blowing, the only explanation is that they’re Wizards:
1. This defier of gravity
2. The guy who walks on water (er, sort of)
3. The man with the strongest fingers in the world
4. The guy who is able to bowl a 300, every time
5. This guy, who will do anything in the name of fashion
6. This Ph.D. in getting ready for school in the morning
7. The girl who is a secret baseball whisperer
8. This supreme hula-hooping athlete
9. The girl who makes our hands hurt
10. This lord of the ring
11. This fire-sneezing dragon
12. The man who has literally zero fears
13. The ultimate Frisbee master
14. The girl who has mastered the escalator
15. This guy, who is basically a Spider-Man
16. This tricky hand
17. This tennis racket sorcerer
18. This coolest group of skiers you’ve ever seen
These are so cool! Do you have a secret or unique talent that could make someone think you’re a Wizard?
Have you convinced everyone you know to create their own Wizard101 account? Do you dream at night about leveling up? Many of us play Wizard101 deep into the night, only going to bed when we absolutely have to. If this sounds like you, check out some of our favorite surefire signs that you’re a Wizard101 player.
1. One week after your friend first introduced you to the game, you convinced your whole family, best friends, neighbors, teachers, and more to create accounts.
2. You’ve had an awesome dream about Merle Ambrose calling you into his office with a yellow exclamation point over his head.
3. By looking at your watch, you can tell how much time is left before your pet hatches.
4. On the rare occasion you’re away from the game, you find yourself humming Wizard City’s battle music.
5. You throw a whole apple in your mouth and try to eat it in one bite. Why not? If your Piggle can do it, you can as well.
6. You play late into the night, only remembering to finish homework at the last minute. But before you open your books, you say, “Just one more battle.”
7. Someone makes you mad and you immediately imagine casting a spell on them.
8. A friend borrows money from you and you insist on being repaid in Crowns instead of dollars.
9. In the car, you half expect a yellow arrow to tell you which direction to go and how many more steps until you get to your destination.
10. On Halloween, you rock your Merle Ambrose costume.
11. You secretly hope your local pet shop will start selling Unicorns or Pixies.
12. At the grocery store, you insist on paying extra for the Mystic Dragon Potato. The man selling the potatoes has no idea how valuable those items are.
13. You try teaching your dog how to talk like the ones in Marleybone. It doesn’t work.
14. At the end of class, you sink into your seat like you’re preparing to teleport. You only get up when everyone else has left and the trick doesn’t appear to be working.
15. As you walk down the street, you randomly pick up pieces of scrap metal, rocks, & sticks for crafts.
16. You feel a legitimate fear when you see someone dressed in all black.
17. You have more than one Wizard101 account.
18. You buy prepaid cards to expand your perfect pet collection.
19. You battle the same boss over and over until he or she drops that one hat you know will make your gear stats perfect.
20. You constantly scavenge the wares at the Bazaar, searching for rare items to put in pride of place at one of your multiple houses.
What’s the number one sign to you that you’re a Wizard101 player? Thanks to all of our amazing Wizard101 players who gave us inspiration! See more funny lists like this on our message boards, on fansite Swordroll’s blog and on Wizard101 Central.
It’s not uncommon for parents to feel like they’ve been thrust into the job of raising tiny, occasional troublemakers with no preparation. But take heart—experience can often come from unusual places.
For example, chances are if you’re reading this blog, you’ve played a Computer Game like Wizard101! Computer games operate on common principles such as clear, consistent rules, positive reinforcement, and second chances. If those principles sound familiar, it’s because those same principles are at the core of good parenting.
Set Clear Rules
When you sit down to play a new computer game, there is a learning curve while you get used to the rules of the game’s world. After you acclimate, you’ll have a much easier time navigating the game. This same idea can be used in parenting to make following the rules much easier for your child.
When rules are clear, you don’t have to think about them much anymore after initially learning the rules. For example, you know what to expect in a game when you press a certain key or fall off a high area. Likewise, if your child knows that asking politely will get him what he wants, whereas crying, whining and temper tantrums are grounds for using your parental discipline or strategy of choice, the positive behavior will soon become habit and the negative ones should only occur on rare occasions.
Be Consistent
Consistency also helps you learn the rules of a game – not only in what you can do, but also what you shouldn’t do. For instance, you know if you run out of health or lose a battle, no amount of begging will change the computer’s mind.
With your kids, be the computer. Set rules that apply the same way and don’t let them talk you out of the consequences of breaking one. Your children will be a lot more likely to follow the rules if they know you won’t let an infraction slide. Cheat codes have no place in parenting!
Give Positive Reinforcement
Computer games have plenty of negative consequences that usually involve starting the game, level, or scene over. Despite these, there are usually an equal or higher number of positive reinforcements placed throughout the game. You get rewarded for fighting bad guys; you earn points for exploring the game’s world; you receive bonuses like extra lives, healing potions, and weapons; and you also get rewarded with help for taking care of your fellow players.
Parenting is similar in that there is a place for negative consequences when children do the wrong thing, but there also has to be positive reinforcement for doing the right thing. Many parents have found success with positive rewards like sticker charts. Kids earn stickers for doing chores and can track their achievements on their charts, eventually “cashing in” these stickers for a reward. That being said, you can even reinforce a child’s behavior with an appreciative “Thank you,” a hug, or an unexpected treat too, so don’t feel that you have to set up an elaborate system of acknowledgment. Little rewards are what keep you playing your computer games and likewise motivate your children to please.
Offer a “Do-Over”
Have you ever heard of a computer game that locked up when you died and never let you try again? Of course not. Think of parenting the same way: You have to give your child a chance to get it right.
When your child does something against the rules, make sure the punishment you enact embodies this idea. After all, you’re not trying to get revenge, you’re trying to exemplify proper behavior. You don’t have to offer another chance right away, but after a short break, let your child try again and apply what he or she has learned.
As it turns out, all those hours logged playing computer games—while your parents nagged at you to do your chores or your homework, no doubt—were good for something after all. You can actually use what you learned to raise your own children, and to do a darn good job of it, too. Who knew?
Back in the middle of 2014, the Community Team at KingsIsle had an idea for a new way to interact with (and hopefully entertain) our game communities. Livestreaming video games became a huge trend in the last few years with the growing popularity of Twitch. In 2013, Twitch had upwards of 45 million viewers each month! Many players already use Twitch to stream their gameplay of Wizard101 and Pirate101, so we thought, why not join in on the fun? KI Live was created!
What is KI Live? It is a monthly livestream from KingsIsle Community Managers Tom and Leala (with help from Social Media Coordinator, Julia, appropriately dubbed #JuliaFromKI on Twitter). Each month we focus on the latest news in KingsIsle games, show off gameplay, answer questions from the community and give away lots of great prizes. Players can watch live on our website and join in the conversation on Twitter by using the hashtag #askki. If you ever miss a live episode, you can always catch up by watching the recorded version on our YouTube page.
What goes into creating a KI Live episode? Glad you asked. Lots! Since KI Live is a new endeavor for us, we are learning as we go. This goes for the technical aspects as well as learning what topics most interest our viewers.
Scheduling and Planning: The first thing the community team does is get together for a meeting to discuss when our next episode should take place, what news we should highlight and what we’d like to show off in game. Sometimes an episode will be more focused on Wizard101 or it could be more focused on Pirate101. We try to mix it up and show off lots of aspects of each game!
Show Notes: Once we’ve got a rough idea of what we’ll discuss in the episode, we write down notes to help us remember everything and use them as an outline to guide us during the live show. Since KI Live is live, even with the best planning, the unexpected can happen! It’s exciting and definitely keeps us on our toes.
Announcement: Several days before the event, we make an announcement to all of our players across social media by creating events on Google+ and Facebook. This way everyone knows when the next KI Live will be and can join us!
Setup: When the big day rolls around we convert one of the conference rooms in the KingsIsle office into our own little recording studio. We move in our computers, lighting, microphone, props and decorations for the background. We use lots of posters featuring art from the games, as well as life-sized standees of some of the characters from Pirate101. Since each show has a theme, we often bring in fun hats or costume pieces to wear on the show. Fun Fact: Tom hates wearing hats but Leala makes him, because it’s funny!
Showtime: On the day of the event we announce again across social media and start taking questions from the #askki hashtag on Twitter. We also may call for submissions of in-game screenshots that go along with our theme so that we can share them on the show . We love showing off our player’s creativity! When the big moment comes, we flip all the switches and go live on Twitch. During the episode Leala and Tom will be on camera and in game playing Wizard101 or Pirate101 (or both!) Julia helps out behind the camera to coordinate all of the questions that we answer on air and award prizes to lucky viewers.
And that’s a glimpse into what goes into bringing you KI Live each month! Have you ever watched KI Live? Let us know in the comments what you think of the show and what you would like us to talk about in upcoming episodes. Thanks for reading (and watching!)
Join us for the next KI Live on Friday, February 13th at 4PM Central!
It was an amazing flurry of feathers on Saturday in Pirate101 as thousands of players descended into the reaches of Skull Island in the quest for four simple housing luxuries:
• Embroidered Royal Pillow
• Royal Throw Pillow
• Embroidered Elegant Throw Pillow
• Embroidered Regal Pillow
It was a royal rumble in our first ever KingsIsle sponsored Pillow Fight!
In total, 8046 pillows were acquired by players during the day! Who knew our troggies and cutthroats had such a big stash of treasure? Harvey Deuce, proprietor of the Skull Island Bazaar, is rumored to have filled several empty houses full with this resulting over-stuffed stock!
Check out these crazy statistics we discovered from your time spent farming pillows:
• The first pillow was found 9 seconds after midnight central time.
• The last pillow was picked up at 23:59:27, with 33 seconds to spare
• Pillows were almost without fail 25% of each type. This was mostly the same ratio for the top 10 players as well, so it seems like one pillow doesn’t really drop more than any other.
Though thousands participated, there were a few brave souls who came out on top of this pillow war victorious. Our grand prize winner, with 115 pillows is (drum roll please) . . .
1. Two-faced Anne
When reached for comment, Two-faced Anne told us her main strategy was to scout out a place to farm before the event. Her main target of interest was the Troggy Chief in the Dark Jungle.
Two-faced Anne also wanted to give a special thank you to her friends “Clumsy Calamity” who she called “a great motivator,” and “Perilous Paige” for “all the luck she brought me when it was most needed.”
Congratulations on winning your prize of 60k Crowns . . . and the bragging rights of being Queen of the Hill in our First Ever Pillow Fight in Pirate101!
Our next ten runners up (in order) were as follows:
2. Clumsy Calamity
3. Lazy Keelan
4. Misty Jackson
5. Crazy Cassidy
6. Stubborn Duncan Freeman
7. Merciful Misty
8. Katherine De Bouff
9. Seth
10. Fiery Samantha Moone
11. Harmony Everhart
Each of these pirates received a prize of 10k Crowns each . . . plenty of compensation for all those bops on the head with virtual pillows!
While the following Pirates didn’t win a prize, we were definitely impressed with our entire Top 50, and an honorable mention must be made to these stalwart pirates who weathered the storm and participated at an exemplary level . . . in order of their rankings:
12. Dante Everhart
13. Merciless Blaze Nightingale
14. Silent Sebastian West
15. Dead-eye Mark
16. Wicked Cheyenne Dove
17. Darling Sarah Parker
18. Esperanza Devereaux
19. Alexis Dove
20. Darling Christina Dove
21. Jack Burton
22. Karic
23. Ruthless Valkoor Stevenson
24. Silent Patrick Rackham
25. Blaze Gregory
26. Bloody Ryan
27. Dead-eye Alexander Devereaux
28. Dark Zane
29. Clever Cedric Tolliver
30. Sarcastic Rebecca Armstrong
31. Silver Katie West
32. Benjamin Windlass
33. Unfair Richard
34. Silent Sam Stern
35. Dark Hunter Dodger
36. Robert
37. Fearless Hazel Xanderman
38. Stubborn Joshua Hawkins
39. Rylee Sharp
40. Dashing Brom Dromond
41. Brave Brandon Dromond
42. Crafty Owen Underhill
43. Dashing Connor Bowman
44. Ruthless Emily DeClark
45. Trustworthy Allan Xanderman
46. Dark Rogan Underhill
47. Daring Blaze Usher
48. Dark Sierra Kelly
49. Annoying Rowan Foote
50. Fair Jack Carter
Nicely done and thanks for your participation!
Let us know what you thought of the event in the comments section below, and if you have any great ideas for “farming” events like this in the future.
See you in the Skyways!
KingsIsle Blog 