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With the Polaris update out, it might be a good time to review what was Good and Bad about the update. It’s important to review the entire test realm before it gets to live realm, especially since Test Realm is where your comments matter most. After reading my review, maybe you should review everything about the update yourself and make suggestions as to what you think was good and what you think needs improvement.
The Good
Graduation! We finally graduate from Ravenwood, and honestly it was a moment I’m sure everyone was anticipating, for better or worse. It seems like many people have felt at least some sort of emotion while watching the scene, and I too felt like this was necessary. Perhaps the most emotion-provoking scene in Wizard101, and I’m proud of KingsIsle to deliver this so well.
Sight and sound. The two most important senses in gaming. Polaris has a very well constructed city. The graphics have definitely improved and that’s a good thing. The music also adds so much atmosphere. Every area in Polaris has its own Combat theme, and every single one of them sounds somewhat different but also somewhat similar; they all have their own uniqueness to them. Walruskberg’s is very patriotic and sounds like unity within people (PO-LA-RIS chanting), while the Frozen combat theme is very distress-y, and has aspects of what you’d hear in an actual frozen forest horror/distress movie. Thumbs up on this aspect too.
Spells! The actual effects of the spells are so spot on this update. There are semblances of what the community wanted in many of the spells. Myth got a solid single hit that’s akin to the effects of Van Der Borst spell used frequently by low Myth wizards. Fire’s got a nice solid hit AoE with a smokescreen. Balance no longer ‘needs’ a balance convert, especially since the new spell is so good for PvE too. Life actually got a hit AND heal, which was something that was moderately requested or a ‘wouldn’t it be cool if’ sort of discussion among players.
Fishing! I’m always biased towards fishing (I AM Shadowfishy after all). The new fish are all so cute, especially in their doodle forms. Adding a larger benefit for catching certain fish and obtaining some nice gear for your efforts is also fun and revitalizes fishing as having another reason to fish other than for crafting. Good job on this too KingsIsle. Housing fishing was always something many people wanted.
Badges! There are a ton of new badges. Personal favourites include Wizard101 Excelsior (achieving level 101, of course), and Ravenwood Alumnus. My favourite discovery has been the side quest badges. For helping a certain painter penguin with three side quests in Walruskberg, you get a special badge displayed above. Now, you’ll have to do side quests to get some badges that some people might have missed. It’s these small discoveries that add to the fun of the world.
Problems
Critical and Block. I’m not going to talk much about this. There are many active conversations about what’s going on with Critical and Block, but it’s definitely out of whack right now. The only good thing about critical and block so far, is that mobs are actually unique in their chance at blocking or not. Just because you landed a critical on one mob, doesn’t mean that the one beside it won’t block, and this is how I think it should be.
Gear. Tagging along the Critical and Block mistake, we start seeing gear that just really doesn’t make sense. The stats on many pieces of gear seem to be nerfed in exchange for a seemingly high NUMBER for block, which in reality adds just about the same amount at 101+ than a lower number should have for 100. For example, an athame gives 7% (school) damage, and 80 block, which sounds like a good deal, but in reality, 80 block doesn’t give you what you’re expecting because of the weird 101+ nerf, and so the gear from Darkmoor still gives you ‘better’ stats, because they actually give you damage, health and power pip percentage. Some of the gear’s stats also make no sense for the school. Randomly adding 7% resist to Fire and Myth on a boot for an elemental school doesn’t really make sense to me. This was an issue in the Ultra one shots too.
Spells. The big issue here is that the numbers are so off and random, that some schools feel like they got the short end of the stick. Life and Fire in particular seem moderately low.
Underdevelopment. Many of the storyline aspects in Polaris are really not fleshed out. Polaris goes by extremely fast, you get to level 110 (and suffer the pains of critical and block nerfs), and you’re left wondering what to do now. There’s not a lot of hype after you get the side quest badges. For such a short world, I’d hoped that there would be more of a reason to stay in the world. Much of the world seems underused (especially Walruskberg with so many buildings and areas, but so few reasons to stay).
Next Steps
What can you as a community member do? Submit the bug reports as usual. There are a ton of bugs, naturally (no wisps?), and your bug reports help fix the game up for Live Realm standards. You want a change to be made on the critical and block problem? Say something. Gear not what you wanted? Perhaps give a suggestion! But be polite about it. Providing an alternative is always better than just saying ‘this needs to be fixed. KI fix it now.’
What can KingsIsle do to improve? I truly believe that KingsIsle should take a break in world updates. The biggest problems seem to be things that were overlooked. Gear that hasn’t been balanced properly, mechanical or graphical glitches in different worlds and battles still exist. Drop rates might also need a good fixing. For the next update, a big old broom and red pen might be the best remedy before further continuing on in the third arc.
My final suggestion might be to have players directly impact the game. There’s not a whole lot of this going on. There’s feedback fridays, but that’s sort of where it stops when it comes to player influence. Other games have done specialized surveys sent by email. For example, a wizard that spends most of their time fishing might get a fishing update survey about what they think of the current state of fishing, and maybe their opinion on a few suggestions KingsIsle has. This style would help the game improve significantly. Unfortunately, people would be excluded from the survey, but I believe that surveys should be sent to the right people. A wizard that hasn’t crafted before isn’t going to be that helpful for a crafting update. Likewise, a doctor might not be helpful for fixing a car in the real world. By getting player ‘expert’s’ opinions on specific topics, the game gets much needed improvement. Along that line, perhaps a direct ‘committee’ or player suggestion team can help out. Community Managers can only do so much. Perhaps assemble a team of more well known community players to collect ideas from respective groups and voice their opinions to KingsIsle. Player voice means everything, and if the overall ‘community needs’ are met or at the very least, listened to, everybody benefits: Players getting immense joy out of playing a game they helped with or wanted to see, and KingsIsle gets rewarded for doing a fantastic job.
What do you think of the new update? Where do you think the next update should focus? Leave your comments below!
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