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Wizard 101: Becoming a Subscription Service
What is that strange blip marring our skyline? Why yes, it looks like Wizard 101 has gone to a subscription service with a first-world is free paradigm. It appears in order to access much of the last levels of Wizard City and any world beyond—and all of this happening before we voces were able to reveal our innermost darkest thoughts about the game’s largest failing.
Examining the pay structure it looks like it will cost about $10 a month to access everything except the most basic parts of the game. Those basic parts appear to be an abbreviated version of Wizard City and, dare we say it, non-subscribers are relegated to using the cumbersome menu chat and cannot use the filtered chat mechanism at all. See the pay schedule here.
Having played through the game, the abbreviation happens about half-way through the experience that is the first world itself, at about Cyclops Lane. Which means that players really can only get through one street total (think of this as the first campaign) before running into the subscription wall. We suppose that the game might be fun to play a few times through that area, but it’s basically the semi-newbie training campaign and everyone knows those quests quickly become quotidian for anyone with a severe case of altitis.
It is interesting to see that the True Friend chat ameliorates the filtered chat to another level (although we have never seen this in action.) It is a chat that is activated when two players exchange a pair of multibit random keys to prove that they know each other outside of the game. Unfortunately, from a security point of view, it is actually possible to transfer knowledge of these keys in game itself via filtered chat using simple first-letter-gaming ciphers.
C’est la vie. Wizard 101. Unless this game receives further fanfare in the media or we receive more money to review further this will be our last series on the game.
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A new slogan:
Wizard101: Almost Worth the Money
If monthly cost was $5.00 bucks i’d subscribe,
I’ve been playing this Since Sept.02 for like 6 hours straight soooo addiciting, One of the reasons i gave up my 4 year marathon with WoW.
Monthly is $10 bucks a year is $60 but i cant seem to pay that much not with so many other mmo’s out there. My 10 year old sis asked me to DL this game for her but then i like it ><
Bottom Line: Very Fun Addiciting Game, wish text chat was enabled, not worth the $10 bucks a month make it $5.00 Plzz
We certainly agreeJen and Curious George. The game is fascinating, simple, and fun. However, with much more compelling, complex, and engaging MMOs swimming out there in the MMO ocean, we are less inclined to pay $10 a month to essentially access the entire game.
The abbreviated experience is laughable and a poor example of what the game itself is like. Unicorn Way to us now feels like an extended tutorial—and being unable to communicate would be frustrating to a first-time-user (although it would burn free-account spam.)
After hitting lvl 9 i didnt think it was possible but i couldnt help myself and subscribed for a month’s worth of service. =)
Name
Chris Soulblood (Necromancer)
Throw us an image (if this blog thing will let ya) at some point, Curious George. We… unfortunately may have to give up on our Death School article due to no longer being in the game (and our necromancer is awol.)
Never did get a chance to play with the Death school peeps, spent to much time slicking it with Ice. But, the ghoul (aka Baron Samedi) certainly caught our attention.
how do you get free subscriber in wizard101