Saturday, December 22, 2012

What's New?

Posted January 31, 2010.

Blog update to change the name of the tiers and magical store products and spells. I focused on the tiers, so you'll still find references to things from the original game if you read the blog carefully.

Another thing is Sougata Som (many thanks) came across information regarding Big Blonde Guy's attack bonus - 30% o-O

If you're into duel, that's a really good advantage over your opponents.


Posted January 27, 2010.


Yes, I am aware of the changes. If you don't, please read this.

Do actively send this week's limited gift - it's worth it.


 Posted December 21, 2009.



I think players are still reporting rollbacks. So I believe we're not out of the woods yet. There's been no announcement from the developer yet. Please be patient.


- 500 hall passes for: New Weekly Limited Edition Item (Items) - 10" Goblin Ore Power Wand -  (A.48 D.12)

- New Weekly Limited Edition Gift (Magic) - Incantus Stopus - (A.10 D.22)
Collect 20 this week to get that 5% boost on TAP.

Posted November 14, 2009.
Pages updated: Real Estate and Lessons. Real Estate page now contains more information about purchasing properties and how much rent income you loose when you go over 3 days without collecting. Lessons page now contains more detailed information about Lessons targeted to new players/beginners.


Which reminds me, it takes a lot of work and time to make this blog. It is OK to pass out the info you find here on the Forums, which for me, it's normal and expected, since we're all here to help out. But to copy and paste verbatim entire posts without at least putting a link back to the blog or mentioning the correct author is just wrong, not to mention a complete disrespect. (hint: I spoke with Katz and he said he has no idea why he's receiving the credit)



Posted November 9, 2009.

The game is back to what it used to be before the Friday's updates. At the present moment, the advices on this blog are relevant again.

But in case you haven't heard, the developer is making adjustments to the game, he's particularly keen on changing the weight of the Attack/Defense points which will impact people's ability to duel. Right now, I strongly advise you to ignore my comments regarding skill points although the developer said that when he is ready to change the TAP/TDP algorithm again, he would consider resetting all the skill points allocations. This way players will be able to reallocate their skill points accordingly with the new rules, so that no one will end up with the short end of the stick.

The developer also started a thread in the forums where you can voice your opinions regarding the changes proposed to the current dueling system. Click here to go to the forums and voice your opinion and suggestions. This is probably the only game on FB where the developer actually listens to the players.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Welcome to the School of Wizardry

First a little disclaimer - I am not affiliated in any way to the game's developer. I'm just a player, like you, who stumbled upon this new and very addicting Facebook game.

What I intend to do with this blog is to help people that might have just started playing the game with little tips and advices so you don't feel overwhelmed. I have some experience with this type of games, I've been playing Mafia Wars (If you don't know what Mafia Wars is, no problem) for a couple of months now, and School of Wizardry is basically a Mafia Wars set in a... School of Wizardry.

Between you and me, we all know the name of the school, but.... since the H name is nowhere to be found in the game, I will called it SoW.

Finally one last note: the game is new, so the developer is still working and making changes to it, some for better, some for worse. So a tip or advice given here might suddenly become obsolete. Hopefully I will find out, or someone will let me know, and I'll correct it.

Well, that's it, and I hope you enjoy the game, see you around.

Update: I created a quick start guide if you already installed the game on your Facebook. 

Quick Start Guide

So you just started the game, don't have time to read and want to get it over with? This is what this quick guide is for.

First thing you'll want to do is click on Lessons and look for the first one: Accept Invitation....



Click on Do Lesson 5 times, that's how many experience points you need to level up, get all your stats refilled and 5 skill points.

Once you master the first Lesson, click on Diagon Alley and buy yourself 4 robes. If you buy them all at once it will cost you only 800 gold. Then see how much money you have left. If you have 4,000 gold, buy a sorting hat. If you have 9,000 buy 6 11" Holly Wands. If you don't have enough gold, just go to the next step.

Click on Visit Bank (your best friend) and put all your gold away lest someone attacks you and steal it.



Click on Profile and put all your skill points into energy, unless you know how dueling work (read the duels post), I recommend you to stick with lessons. Only when you're more familiar with dueling you should start increasing your stamina bit by bit. But whenever you don't know where to put your skill points, just increase your energy.  

You will never have too much energy. Never. Trust me.
(and if you are an experienced player, you must be amused)






(At the beginning you level up so fast that you can even forget that you have skill points available to upgrade your character as you can see on the picture above)


Go back to lessons and you'll see the yellow border gone from lessons you now have enough required items. Do lessons until you master all of them and repeat the process.

If you run out of energy and you haven't level up yet, bank all your gold again and go to the Duel page.
A super quick dueling tutorial - On the left side you'll see the opponent's stats, on the right side yours.

Look for someone with a smaller or same order size than you and ignore the rest for now.

You remember the items you bought at Diagon Alley, don't you? You should have at least 4 robes by now if you followed my instructions.

Click on you opponent's name and you'll see their profile. Check out their items. If they have less than 4 robes and nothing else, attack! Repeat the process until you level up.

When you level up, go back to lessons, use all you energy, make the purchases you can. Put your skill points into energy. Don't waste them with Attack and Defense.

Bank all your gold and go back to duel. Always make sure you have more order members/items/magic/creatures than your opponent. Don't put skill points in stamina until you learn how to win duels and you're comfortable doing it. Also, don't go crazy on the stamina because you only have so much health.

Remember to save gold so you can buy Real Estate. If you save 200,000 you can buy all 10 Candy Shops at once (because this game has inflation), and you'll have income even when you're not playing the game.

That's pretty much it. Have fun!

Update: For more information about lessons, click here.

Before Getting Started

The good thing about SoW is that there's more than one way to play this game.

The bad thing about SoW is that there's more than one way to play this game.

Some people play it to complete lessons, some people like to duel other players to see who's the strongest, some people want to have the largest order in the game, some people want to reach for the top of the ranking (some players do it at any cost) and some people just do it to rob other players.

Unfortunately before you even start the game, you are faced with the decision of choosing a character, a main component in the game that heavily influences your playability. He or she will dictate your rhythm, the pace in which you will be able to play this game. Therefore you must have your goals in your mind from the beginning, because your goals should dictate which character you should choose for the game, although you can change it later, but it's rather costly (The Headmaster).

You'll see as you continue.


Getting Started

Finally to the nitty-gritty.

First, the link, http://apps.facebook.com/wizard_/.



Then of course, click on allow.

You'll be prompted with three choices: Let's call them raven haired, broken wand and bookworm.




This is where the planning mentioned earlier comes into play. Because each character has distinct strengths and weaknesses, it's best to choose accordingly with the way you want to play this game.


Raven haired generates:
Energy - 3 minutes
Health - 2 minutes
Stamina - 4 minutes
Gold - 60 minutes




Broken wand generates:
Energy - 2 minutes
Health - 2 minutes
Stamina - 3 minutes
Gold - 80 minutes




Bookworm generates:
Energy - 3 minutes
Health - 3 minutes
Stamina - 2 minutes
Gold - 60 minutes



If you would like to duel more, then bookworm would be the best choice since she can generate stamina every 2 minutes.

If you'd rather do lessons, which is my favorite way to play the game, you need energy. So broken wand would be the first choice although his poor performance in gold may frustrate you later, because you'll need a lot of money to finish lessons.

Raven-haired is a balanced character and I particularly wouldn't choose him, but if you must choose him, I would say he's better suited at dueling, since he can generate health every 2 minutes.

There are other characters you can choose from, but not right now. After you made your choice, remember to put the name for your character on the field next to where you click "Start Playing". (for some strange reason there's lots of people with default names)

If you mess up, go to the application page, remove SoW and reinstall it. It will prompt for you to set it up again.

Next step is to invite your friends to your order. This game has no minimum order member requirement in order to play it. But, the bigger your order is, the better you'll be a dueling/defending yourself. I would say invite all your friends and beg them to install the game, whether they play it or not, it doesn't matter. You just need the headcount.

If you don't mind strangers in your Facebook account, go for the Mass Add lists (where you can invite hundreds of people at once) and/or Add Me threads in the forums all over Facebook and on the SoW application page discussion forum.

The Game

At the top of the page you'll find your stats - Level, Experience, Energy, Health, Stamina and Gold.

Under 4 of them, whenever necessary, you'll see "Get Refill", "Visit Nurse". "Visit Bank" will always be visible.




The "Visit Bank" link is your best friend. Especially because if you duel someone or if someone duels you and you are defeated, if your gold is not in the bank, you'll loose your gold too. I've been attacked and lost hundreds of thousands of gold before, so be careful, and deposit your gold in the bank, even though it costs 10% of the amount deposited. You have the choice to either pay 10% in bank fees or loose 99.9% of your gold on duels. There's a lot of people complaining in the discussion forums about players attacking with the sole objective to rob them. Don't be a victim, remember, CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!

"Visit Nurse" will take you to the nurse who can refill your health back to 100%. But you can only do this once every 5 hours and it isually it costs 100 times the level you're in. For example, if you are in level 10, it will cost you 1,000 gold. If you're in level 35, it's going to cost you 3,500 and so on.

Both "Get Refill" links will take you to The Headmaster, who will heal you Energy and Stamina and even health for 200 hall passes. This is a waste and in my opinion and you should never use your hall passes for any of these.

Below your stats you'll see the tabs where you can navigate through the game. They are: Home, Lessons, Duel, Diagon Alley, Real Estate, Gifts, Profile, The Headmaster and Order.




Home will take you to the main page where if become fan of the application you will be able to see the posts from the developer. He usually let us know about the changes in the game and stuff like that.

Lessons will take you to the lessons, the core of the game.

Magic Shop You will need items, magic and creatures to complete lessons and also to equip your order. This is where you'll go to buy them. Items and creatures can be purchased using gold. Magic can only be purchased using hall passes. Again, in my opinion, this is a poor way to use your hall passes.

Real Estate tab will take you to the properties you can buy. This is also the tab you have to go in order to collect the rent. Do not leave rent uncollected for more than 3 days, otherwise it starts to disappear. There are 9 different properties in the total although you won't be able to see them all until you reach a certain level.
You can only buy 10 of each property. I will list all the properties in a different post.

Gifts allows you to send free gifts to your friends. They are free, so do it. You'll also get hall passes when your friend or order member accepts them. It's a win-win situation. But you can only send one gift to 16 friends, once a day. You can choose from 3 boosts, Energy, Stamina and Health or you can choose from 8 types of magic. Some of the magics require your fellow order member to be above a certain level of experience before they can be used in a duel.

Profile - when you have skill points available this is the tab you'll go to use them to make your character better. If you're a Lesson person, you'll want to use it all on Energy, if you're a duel person, you'll need to put your skill points in stamina at first, eventually you have to balance between stamina and health. I particularly find a waste of skill points to use them for Attack and Defense. Best way to boost your attack and defense is getting more order members and having more items, creatures and magic.

The Headmaster takes you to a special shop. You can purchase a limited edition item (usually for 500 hall passes) but also:

Energy refill - 200 hall passes
Stamina refill - 200 hall passes
Health refill - 200 hall passes
More gold (the amount varies according to your level) - 250 hall passes
More order members (also varies according to your level) - 400 hall passes
(10) More skill points - 325 hall passes
Pick a new name - 400 hall passes
Pick a new character - 400 to 8000 hall passes
Reset Account - 500 hall passes

And you can also buy hall passes with cash (real cash, like US Dollars cash) or you can complete offers in order to get more hall passes. (Sometimes even if you do everything exactly like they ask you to, you still don't get the hall passes for some weird reason - I'm talking about the free offers, not the hall passes purchased with cash)

Order - You go to this tab if you want to invite your Facebook friends that are not part of your order yet. You can invite only 16 friends per day (I think). Under this tab you can also see all the members of your order.

New Tiers Name

It used to be Year 1, Year 2... Now they are:

Portsville
Beginnings
Apprentice
Duel!
Mystical Forest
Gateway Woes
Trouble
Attack!
Wizard World
Closure

Lessons

Like I mentioned before, there are many ways to play this game. Therefore, there are many ways to approach the Lessons. I do think it's rather up to each person what order one might want to do the lessons. Always do whatever works best for you.


Navigating Inside the "Lessons" Tab

You'll start at "First Year". At the beginning you only have access to a few lessons, but as you level up you'll unlock more and more lessons. Also remember that you can repeat any lesson as many times you want to, as long as you have enough energy. When you reach levels labeled in the tabs below, you'll also unlock new tiers of lessons.




Navigate between different tiers to find more lessons to be completed just by clicking on these tabs.






Lesson Requirements

If you see a yellow border around some of the required items in a lesson, it means you don't have enough items. You can just click on the box and wait for a little pop-up to open so you can purchase items on the spot or head to the "Magic Shop" to purchase required items.


The first number indicates the quantity you possess. The second number is the quantity required. When you don't see a yellow borders, it means that you have at least the quantity indicated in the little green box.


Mastery Levels

You can obtain three mastery levels for each Year of lessons. They are indicated by little medals and they are also labeled.


Level 1 Mastery. You have to complete all the lessons so that you can move on to the next level of mastery. You will receive a Bronze Item from the Headmaster when you complete Level 1 Mastery.


You will know you completed Level 1 Mastery when the progress bar from all the lessons resets back to 0 %, but they will have a little bronze medal under it, just like the picture.



For Level 2 Mastery, just repeat the process. When you finish Level 2 Mastery you will receive a Silver Item from the Headmaster.




The progress bar gets reset once again, this time for Level 3 Mastery. You'll also note a new silver medal at the under the progress bar.




Level 3 Mastery in Progress. When you complete Level 3 Mastery you will receive a Golden Item. The progress bar will NOT reset anymore and you'll have three medals. This is the currently the highest level of mastery possible.



Level 3 Mastery complete. You will no longer receive any mastery for repeating this lesson. But you can still repeat the lessons to acquire more gold, experience and magic.



In Which Order?

For those who are seeking a little more guidance, here are my two cents on the mater. Personally, I strive  to do Year 1, mastery levels 1-2-3, Year 2 - mastery levels 1-2-3, etc.. for a number of reasons:

3 Main Reasons:

1. You don't have to spend money to buy new equipment - so you can save money to buy next year's gear in bulk, thus save money on the inflation side (every time you buy 1 item, the price goes up).

2. You can save money to buy properties, they'll in turn generate income while you're not playing. (gold is really essential. Items keep getting pricier and pricier as you move up, mark my words).

3. You get a bronze, silver or golden item or creature whenever you master a level completely. They are handy for duels, that's all I'm saying.

Not main reasons, but something to think about:

4. As you level up, you unlock more and more lessons from the next tier, you can take a peek at them, see how much all the equipments are going to cost and plan ahead how much gold you'll need and save accordingly.



Another thing I like is to do the lessons backwards - starting from the last lesson of a given year to the first lesson (unless I need to pick up magics along the way).

Lessons towards the end of a year have the highest payout both in experience points and gold. This way you get a boost in your gold reserve and you also level up faster. As you work your way up the list you will also do the earlier lessons faster and faster because you've already accumulated more energy while doing more advanced lessons.

Also, when you don't have enough energy to do a higher level lesson and you know you'll be away from the computer for a good while, you usually want to use up all your energy. This way there's a chance you find yourself with enough energy to do one more lesson.

Portsville and Inflation

You'll want to get to the lessons as soon as you can. You can repeat any lesson, as many times as you want (to find a magic, for gold, to burn exp points, etc...) as long as you have enough energy.

If you're really just starting to play this game there's something you must know.

You need tons of gold in order to play this game decently. And on top of that, the game has inflation. Meaning that every time you buy an item, the price of the same subsequent items will go up 5%. For example,  first year, second lesson, Make new friends with the kids in town, requires a robe before you are allowed to do the lesson. The first robe costs you 200 gold.




But since I know that the first year will require 4 robes in the total I went ahead and purchase 4 robes at once, only spending 800 gold. If you were to buy one by one you would end up spending 860 gold. After I bought 4 robes, they now each cost 240 gold each. That's a 20% increase.




You may think,  40 gold is not a big deal... well, it will be a big deal when you're trying to buy a Tornado Broom for 7,000,000 and you need 10 of them with the highest paying lesson giving you  no more than 223,500 and even when you have all the properties allowed you cannot generate more than 688,500 in rent every 40 minutes. But I digress... :P

On a good note, the price will never be more than 2x the original price. The bad note is that it applies to all items in the game, including properties (though you can't buy enough properties to double its price).

So try to save up and buy all the supplies you need for the whole year in bulk. "But how I am going to do that if I can't see the whole year at the beginning of the year" you might ask. That's why I'm posting this list ;)

In the First Year you'll need a total of:
Items
4 Robe
6 Basic Wand
1 Wizard Hat
2 Textbook.
3 Standard Flying Broom

Magic
1 Disarming Spell

You'll need Disarming Spell in the final lesson of the first tier, so how do you find it? It's at "Discover that you possess wizard powers as well". Look carefully under the button "Do Lesson", X % to find: X Spell. You will always see the lesson that gives you the magic you need before you have to do a lesson that require such magic.

Of course you won't always be able or willing to save all the money to buy all your supplies at once, but at least this way you'll be somewhat prepared for what's to come.

If you complete all three mastery levels in this year you'll also get these cool special prizes:


Beginnings

In the Beginnings tier you'll need a total of:
Items and Creatures
2 Basic Magic Book
3 Magical Herbs
2 Town Map
2 Phoenix

Magic
2 Flashlight Charm
1 Impeding Charm
2 Confusion Spell
5 Cast Flame Charm

Sometimes finding all the Cast Flame Charm you need can be difficult. But don't give up. They are easier to find than Jet of Water Spell, in the third year tier.

If you complete all three mastery levels in this year you'll also get these cool special prizes:



Apprentice

In the Apprentice Tier you'll need a total of:
Items and Creatures
7 13.5" Yew Wand
4 Wizard Crest (You'll need 5 in the Fourth Year)
5 Hippogriff

Magic
3 Grow Object Spell
2 Summoning Spell
1 Protection Charm
2 Dangle Victim Spell
1 Repair Object Spell
3 Flashlight Charm
1 Jet of Water Spell

It has come to my attention that some users are having some serious trouble finding Jet of Water Spell. A user with 200+ energy was trying to find it for days, I'm not kidding.

If I'm not mistaken, it took me a while to get one too. When I get stuck with a spell that doesn't come up, I usually take a breather and try to do other lessons that give out spells as well, just to see if spells are coming up. Then I go back to the lesson and try again.

If you complete all three mastery levels in this year you'll also get these cool special prizes:



Duel!

In the Duel! tier you'll need a total of:
Items and Creatures
7 Dueling Robe
5 Flamethrust Broom
5 Gateway Guardian Dog
5 Wizard Crest

Magic
1 Protection Charm
2 Dangle Victim Spell
2 Summoning Spell
3 Repelling Spell
5 Flashlight Charm
5 Grow Object Spell
1 Disarming Spell

 If you complete all three mastery levels in this year you'll also get these cool special prizes:






Mystical Forest

In the Mystical Forest tier you'll need a total of:
Items and Creatures
4 Mystical Forest Map
8 10.25" Willow Wand
5 Protection Necklace
3 Protection Ring
4 Owl

Magic
2 Repair Object Spell
5 Reduce Object Size Charm
6 Flashlight Charm
2 Protection Charm

If you complete all three mastery levels in this year you'll also get these cool special prizes:






Gateway Woes

In the gateway Woes tier you'll need a total of:
Items and Creatures
10 16" Oak Wand (in the OWL Exams you will need 15 total)
4 Unicorn
3 Gateway Locket
4 Centaur

Magic
2 Disarming Spell
1 Protection Charm
5 Mesmerize Charm
1 Lock Door Spell
6 Mind Reading Charm
5 Hollow Out Object Spell
2 Lock Picking Spell

If you complete all three mastery levels in this year you'll also get these cool special prizes:





 

Trouble

In the Trouble tier you'll need a total of:
Items and Creatures
15 16" Oak Wand
8 Advanced Spell Book (Sixth Year you'll need 10)
3 Dragon Egg

Magic
1 Mind Reading Charm
5 Lock Door Spell
5 Lock Picking Spell
10 Mesmerize Charm

If you complete all three mastery levels in this year you'll also get these cool special prizes:



Attack!

In the Attack! tier you'll need a total of:
Items and Creatures
3 Healing Potion (Wizard level you'll need 15)
7 Lightning Broom (Wizard level you'll need 15)
7 10.25 Hornbeam Wand (Wizard level you'll need 15)
10 Advanced Spell Book

Magic
10 Mind Reading Charm
12 Erase Memory Charm
5 Hollow Out Object Spell
3 Lock Picking Spell
10 Fire Explosion Spell

If you complete all three mastery levels in this year you'll also get these cool special prizes:






Wizard World

In the Wizard World tier you'll need a total of:
Items and Creatures
10 12" Ash Wand (Wizard level you'll need 15)
10 Sword of the Chosen

Magic
4 Shield Charm
15 Lock Picking Spell
15 Erase Memory Charm
4 Cast Flame Charm
5 Vanishing Spell
5 Mind Control Curse
5 Body-Binding Spell
5 Disabling Curse



If you complete all three mastery levels in this year you'll also get these cool special prizes:


 
 

Closure

In the Closure tier you'll need a total of:
Items and Creatures
10 Tornado Broom
10 Communication Mirror
10 Dragon
15 Healing Potion
15 Lighting 2000
15 10.25" Hornbeam Wand
15 12" Ash Wand
10 Sword of the Chosen

Magic
7 Confusion Spell
8 Mind Reading Charm
5 Erase Memory Charm
5 Cast Flame Charm
5 Reduce Object Size Charm
5 Hollow Out Object Spell
5 Shield Charm
10 Disabling Curse
5 Mind Control Curse

If you complete all three mastery levels in this year you'll also get these cool special prizes: