School of Wizardry on Facebook - SoW Guide

What's New?

2012-12-22T00:00:00.000-08:00

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)

Welcome to the School of Wizardry

2012-12-21T23:59:00.002-08:00

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

2012-12-21T23:57:00.001-08:00

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

2012-12-21T23:55:00.002-08:00

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

2012-12-21T23:53:00.001-08:00

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.

Click here to see all other characters.

The Game

2012-12-21T23:51:00.001-08:00

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

2012-12-21T23:49:00.000-08:00

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

2012-12-21T23:48:00.003-08:00

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

2012-12-21T23:48:00.002-08:00

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

2012-12-21T23:47:00.000-08:00

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

2012-12-21T23:46:00.000-08:00

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!

2012-12-21T23:45:00.000-08:00

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

2012-12-21T23:44:00.000-08:00

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

2012-12-21T23:43:00.000-08:00

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

2012-12-21T23:42:00.000-08:00

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!

2012-12-21T23:41:00.000-08:00

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

2012-12-21T23:40:00.000-08:00

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

2012-12-21T23:39:00.000-08:00

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:

More Characters

2012-12-21T23:27:00.001-08:00

UPDATE: The October 18th-19th update changed the description and the price for the characters. You can view them for free now. Click here to see them.

*** The text below was posted on October 15th, 2009, and it's probably somewhat obsolete. ***

Yes, you can choose other characters besides raiven haired, broken wand and bookworm. All you need to access the other characters in this game is 500 hall passes. You get hall passes every time you master a lesson (1 hall pass), master an entire year (2 hall passes), send gifts to people and they are accepted (1 hall pass), you can buy more hall passes if you visit The Headmaster and scroll down to the bottom.

Once you have 500 hall passes, go to The Headmaster and simply click on Pick a New Character - "Buy for (500) Hall Passes". Then you'll end up on this screen:

Now if someone has detailed info about these characters, I would really appreciate your help if you could email me or let me know how long it takes them to generate energy, health, stamina and gold.

I only have info for the blond kid, since I play with him. They are as follows:

Blond Kid Generates:

Energy - 2 minutes

Health - 3 minutes

Stamina - 3 minutes

Gold - 40 minutes

Click here to see all other characters.

Characters

2012-12-21T23:25:00.000-08:00

There are a total of 8 characters. Three of them are available for free at the beginning of the game. Since the October 18th-19th update to get the others, you'll need anywhere from 1200 to 4000 Hall Passes. Each character has different strengths and weaknesses. Choose accordingly to your favorite way to play the game.

Raven Haired (200hall passes)
High: Health, Defense
Low: Stamina
Energy - 3 minutes
Health - 2 minutes
Stamina - 4 minutes
Gold - 60 minutes

Broken Wand (200 hall passes)
High: Energy, Health
Low: Gold
Energy - 2 minutes
Health - 2 minutes
Stamina - 3 minutes
Gold - 80 minutes

Bookworm (200 hall passes)
High: Stamina, Attack
Low: Defense
Energy - 3 minutes
Health - 3 minutes
Stamina - 2 minutes
Gold - 60 minutes

Blonde Kid (1200 hall passes)
High: Energy, Gold, Attack
Energy - 2 minutes
Health - 3 minutes
Stamina - 3 minutes
Gold - 40 minutes

Now, regarding these other characters: I have never played with any of them. So if you do, please drop me an email or comment about their information.

Blonde Girl (1200 hall passes)
High: Health, Gold, Defense
Energy - 3 minutes *
Health - 2 minutes *
Stamina - 3 minutes *
Gold - 40 minutes *

Crossed Arm Guy (2000 hall passes)
Super: Stamina
High: Gold, Attack
Energy - ? minutes
Health - ? minutes
Stamina - ? minutes
Gold - ? minutes

Black Haired Woman (2000 hall passes)
Super: Energy
High: Health, Stamina
Energy - 1:20 minutes **
Health - 2 minutes **
Stamina - 2 minutes **
Gold - 60 minutes **

Big Blond Guy (4000 hall passes)
Ultra: Attack
High: Energy, Health
Energy - 2 minutes ***
Health - 2 minutes ***
Stamina - 3 minutes ***
Gold - 60 minutes ***

Please, if you play with any of these last 4 character and see a mistake in this page, do drop me a line. Thank you very much.

* Blonde Girl stats reported by Jacq.
** Black Haired Woman stats kindly given by Kumi Rae aka Tyana.
*** Big Blond Guy stats given by SOW Fanatic.
Thank you guys for your help.

Raven-Haired

2012-12-21T23:23:00.000-08:00

Now that the prices of the characters went through the roof, let's sit back and analyze our first three free choices: Raven-Haired, Broken-Wand and Bookworm - as you can switch between them free of hall passes just by uninstalling and reinstalling the application.

I've said this before. Besides the fact that Raven-Haired is... well.. Raven-Haired, I don't like what he has to offer. 3 energy / 2 health / 4 stamina / 60 gold. It's almost as if the developer made the worse character out of him because he assumed most fans would choose him because he's the hero.

But if you look deep down, deep in your heart, and you like to duel, I guess you could stick with him. His only forte is 2 min regeneration of health. But that's kinda dampened by the fact that his stamina regen is 4 long minutes! I guess if you duel a lot, you can keep increasing you stamina until you have more stamina than health. At higher levels you could just sit back and wait for a little bit and you'll have more health faster so you can duel again.

Just reminding you, dueling people at your level, or higher levels than you, will get you anywhere from 2 to 5 experience points every time you win a duel per stamina used. That's way more than energy will ever give you at its 1:1 (First Year) to 1:1.58 (Wizard level).

But if you factor in health... then the difference is not so disparaging. If you attack a person that is 20, 30 levels above you (they pop up in your duel list from time to time, no rhyme or reason) you can get 5 experience points if you win. But his hit will take anywhere between 1 to 6 in health. So if you add them up stamina+health, you're not much better off.

I'll concede to the fact that health and stamina clocks run side by side, and energy you have to just sit and wait patiently, but still, 4 minutes for a stamina? I guess it's good if you don't plan or intend to be on School of Wizardry 10 hours a day. That would make sense.

Having said that, dueling is still the best way to level up when you can do it 1 stamina - 1 health to 5 experience points. But all the factors have to come together. What are the odds? Pretty slim since none of the factors are entirely under you control. But it does happen.

P.S. I don't like to duel, so I've never played much with him. If you want to share your point of view, you are totally welcome to do so.

Broken-Wand

2012-12-21T23:21:00.000-08:00

He was my first choice when I started playing this game. 2 energy / 2 health / 3 stamina / 80 gold. I went greedily for more energy, disregarding the benefits of gold, as one is bound to when one has played Mafia Wars for so long. It was a big mistake. Hum.. make that huge.

School of Wizardry items, creatures and properties are so expensive, it's not even funny. You need so much gold that I wonder if this game should be called monopoly.

Yes, with broken wand you can do lots of lessons, you can do lots of duel too, but man, oh man, don't count on him doing any good for your properties. Where the other character generate rent income 24 times a day, he can only generate 18 times. It means that when you have all the properties, Broken-Wand will generate 12,393,000 a day when the two others will be generating 16,524,000. (gold intense characters can generate 24,786,000 a day, but unfortunately they are too expensive now)

I tried to calculate how much it would cost to play the last level of this game, Wizard. I'm not sure all my computations are correct and if I'm off, it's not by much. But my calculation were that I would need 302,440,000 to buy all the items in bulk. Not one by one. In bulk. But I guess now that the item loss is off the plate, it's doesn't sound so bad. (well you can deduct the fact that you would partially purchase some of the items on Sixth Year and Prefect level)

To sum it up, never having enough gold, and doing over and over again all the lessons long after third level mastery is completed is not a pretty sight. And really irritating. But again, they changed the game play, with no more item loss, you only have to buy enough items once. This is a huge pro for this character.

Also if you're in high levels, and done all the purchases you're suppose to make - Leveling up is not easy, duel is hardly an option since you'll usually get just 1 experience per stamina if, and only if you find someone you can beat - I guess then, Broken-Wand becomes a very fanciable alternative.

Bookworm

2012-12-21T23:19:00.000-08:00

She would be my first choice if I were starting the game today. 3 energy / 3 health / 2 stamina / 60 gold it's a very balanced character comparing to the other two.

When you are starting the game, you want to duel more anyways. (but you must learn how to win them in the first place) You get more experience points this way. She regenerates stamina like it's nothing and unlike energy, you only need 1 stamina to duel someone. It's a plus if you're trying to get money through dueling too.

She gets the gold in 60 minutes intervals like Raven-Haired, and that's the best one can have with a free character.

Dueling becomes harder and harder at higher levels until you're down to 1 stamina - ? health to 1 experience point. At that point if you don't need gold anymore you should switch to Broken-Wand and stick to doing lessons. Which is what you're supposed to do, right? This is a school after all.

Duels

2012-12-21T23:17:00.000-08:00

Ah, what can I say? The duels are a rather heated debate in this game because of the unlimited amount of times you can attack an opponent (well, the only limit is your stamina and health), but the most controversial part of it is that you can be attacked unlimited times as well. I will try do describe all the aspects I know about the duels, but in the end, only you, and you alone will decide what you want to do.

When you're attacked, the only thing you can lose is gold, that's why I said that the "Visit Bank" link should be your best friend. You don't loose any health when someone else attacks you (hence why you can be attacked unlimited times). The only other thing affected is your Duel Record (Win - Losses) and honestly, they are just numbers and don't affect the game at all.

So if you take good care of your gold (pay those 10%, it's not even real gold), you shouldn't care if someone hits 300 times in 5 minutes or not, because it does not affect you at all.

So why do people attack me 500 times in 5 minutes for? You must put this in your head: IT'S NOT PERSONAL! It really isn't, dueling is just another way to gain experience in order to level up. Usually when I run out of energy, the next thing I do is waste all my stamina to get as much experience as I can.

It's the way the game is. For example: my main objective in this game is to complete all the lessons. To complete all the lessons, I need energy. When I use all my energy, what's the only way I can get more energy and fast? (without spending real money) - By leveling up! So that's why there's a sense or urgency to reach the next level, because when I get there, I'll have another 5 skill points and all my stats are filled up.

Sometimes it's not always easy for you to find someone you can win in a duel, so people tend to go back and pick on the same character over and over again. Remember, it's not personal. Another thing is that the duel page doesn't refresh very often (I think it changes when you move up), so sometimes you're stuck with the same people for days. At one point I was stuck with the same players for about 7 days! It was a bloodbath. But out of 15 people he was the only one I could win in a duel. It wasn't my proudest moment. Even thought I didn't take a dime from my opponent.

Humans are creature of habit, they like easy, and they don't like changes. Therefore, some players tend to attack the same character over and over again, because this way he/she doesn't have to look for a new person to attack, don't have to worry if they'll loose the battle, and to tell the truth, that "Rematch" button is just way too convenient.

Another reason people might hit you repeatedly is the amount of experience points they can get. If they duel someone their own level, they'll usually get 2-3 experience points. If they duel someone below them, they'll only get 1 experience point. But when they are 25, 30 levels behind the opponent, defeating him/her will give them 4 or 5 experience points each time they win.

Think of the return per point used - you use 1 stamina and could get up to 5 experience in return. Whereas energy and lessons, the maximum one can have is a 1.59 return on the last lesson, on the last level. No wonder players are dueling each other left and right.

Just remember, it's not personal. And always, constant vigilance!

Duels - Fight Back!

2012-12-21T23:15:00.000-08:00

Now, my advice if you're getting attacked all the time, and you just can't stand to see all those alerts that you lost a duel? You can do two things: Sit and whine about it in the discussion forums and pray that the developer changes the dueling part of the game. Or you can be proactive and do something about it.

Don't put yourself in the position to be a victim. Having hundreds of order members will scare some wannabes from attacking you. So if you don't mind strangers on your Facebook friends list, go on and use some of the Mass Add lists or Add Me threads in the discussion forums.

But the beauty is only skin deep. You can still loose a duel to someone with a smaller order than you if you don't have enough items/magic/creatures for your 3,000 members order.

So it definitely helps to know how duels work. The player who has both the highest Total Attack Points and Total Defense Points will always win. If you can't win on both counts, it becomes a flip of a coin. Sometimes you'll win, sometimes you'll loose.

There are three components that will ultimate increase or decrease your Total Attack Points (TAP) and Total Defense Points (TDP).

1. In a duel you attack once and you defend once. Every order member gets to duel with 1 item, 1 magic and 1 creature. Every time you duel, the computer will automatically assign the best items (one of each) for attack and the best items for defense from the most powerful item, to the least powerful item (descending order).

2. Then there's your Individual Attack Points (IAP) and Individual Defense points (IDP), the ones that can be increased using skill points, but I advise against because they add very little to your total.

3. Finally there's character's strengths and weaknesses that are directly tied with 2 specific dueling modifiers: Attack and Defense. For example, Raven-Haired has high defense, and bookworm has high attack but low defense. Broken-Wand's characteristics do not emphasize neither. (For all formulas, click here)

For example, you start the game with 10 IAP and 10 IDP. If you only have one order member, and your items are 1 Lightsaber Wand (A.30 D.20), 1 Robe (A.1 D.1), 1 Fancy Robe(A.10 D.5), 2 Alohomora (A.8 D.13), 1 Phoenix (A.10 D.2), 1 Owl (A.6 D.10). Note that you have 3 items, 2 magics and 2 creatures.

When your one member order attack, you'll use 1 Lightsaber Wand, 1 Alohomora, 1 Phoenix. If you add the attack points from items plus your IAP you'll get 30+8+10+10 = 58

When you defend you'll use 1 Lightsaber Wand, 1 Alohomora, 1 Owl. Again if add all the defense points from items plus your IDP, you'll have 20+13+10+10 = 53 this will be your Total Defense Points.

Now the third step is tricky since it depends on which character you have. If you have Broken-Wand, the numbers above will be your TAP and TDP.

If you have Raven-Haired, your modifier is that you are high in defense. So your TAP remains the same, 58 but your Total Defense Points can be calculated using this formula:

TDP = (Defense Points from Items + Individual Defense Points) * 1.1

So your actual Total Attack Points will be 58. Basically a 10% bonus.

If you have Bookworm, your modifier is that you are high in attack BUT low in defense. Your formulas are:

TAP = (Attack Points from Items + Individual Attack Points) * 1.1
TDP = (Defense Points from Items + Individual Defense Points) * 0.9

So Bookworm has 10% bonus on attack, and 10% penalty on defense. Using the numbers from the example above, Bookworm will have 64 TAP and 48 TDP.

Now if you have 3 members in your order:

Attack:
1 Lightsaber Wand, 1 Fancy Robe, 1 Robe, 2 Alohomora, 1 Phoenix, 1 Owl, plus 10 IAP
TAP = 30+10+1+16+10+6+10 = 83

Defense:
1 Lightsaber Wand, 1 Fancy Robe, 1 Robe, 2 Alohomora, 1 Owl, 1 Phoenix, plus 10 IDP.
TDP = 20+5+1+26+10+2+10 = 74

Note that 1 member of your order doesn't have any Creature nor Magic. You should get him one of each ASAP if you like to duel.

3rd Step Calculations:

Broken-Wand (no modifiers, numbers above will be your stats):

TAP = 83
TDP = 74

Raven-Haired (high defense)
TAP = 83
TDP = (Defense Points from Items + Individual Defense Points) * 1.1
TDP = (74) * 1.1 = 81

Basically a 10% bonus.

Bookworm (high attack, low defense):

TAP = (Attack Points from Items + Individual Attack Points) * 1.1
TAP = (83) * 1.1 = 91

TDP = (Defense Points from Items + Individual Defense Points) * 0.9
TDP = (74) * 0.9 = 67

10% bonus attack, and 10% penalty defense

If you have 4, 5, 10, 100 order members but still have the same amount of items, nothing will change, you'll still have the same Total Attack and Total Defense Points you had when you only had 3 order members.

So it's a combination of order member + item + creature + magic + character that gives your order power. Your Individual Attack/Defense Points helps little. It's better to get an extra order member, better items, creatures and magic than to boost you Attack or Defense with valuable skill points.

So at the beginning (levels below 15, I believe) if you see a another order with 50 members, same stats as you, 10 attack, 10 defense, click on them, and see how many items they have. If they only have 1 robe, and your 3 members order has 3 robes, go ahead and attack him/her, I guarantee you will win.

There's also a link that tells you your attack and defense points. The first time I saw the link it was first posted in a discussion forum by Katz von D. I'm just copying it here. http://apps.facebook.com/wizard_/items. Click on the link and hit Ctrl+A so that you can read the page.

If you don't want to add strangers to your Facebook account and you're getting attacked by someone about your level, about same amount of order members as you, make sure everyone in your order has an item/creature/magic. If you click on the link above, it will tell you how many order members are missing items/magic/creatures.

Now that you know how it works, buy better items for your members if necessary, boost your Attack and Defense points by begging you real friends to install the application so that your order can grow, they don't have to play the game, it's the headcounts that matters to you. Bide your time to strengthen you order and remember, revenge is a dish best served cold.

P.S. If you play with premium characters, and you would like to help out with their bonuses information, please feel free to drop me a line here. TDP/TAP formula is courtesy of Sougata Som, thank you.

Duels - Calculating TAP and TDP

2012-12-21T23:13:00.000-08:00

In order to face an opponent and always win the duel, you must have both TAP and TDP higher than your opponent. The computer will always assign the strongest items / magic / creatures to be used in duel first, so you don't have to worry about equipments.

Here are the formulas to calculate Total Attack Points (TAP) and Total Defense Points (TDP) in the game. Formulas in italics are assumptions (I'm basically making an educated guess based on other characters).

Raven Haired (high defense):

TAP = (Attack Points from Items + Individual Attack Points)

TDP = (Defense Points from Items + Individual Defense Points) * 1.1

Broken-Wand (no modifiers related to duel):

TAP = (Attack Points from Items + Individual Attack Points)

TDP = (Defense Points from Items + Individual Defense Points)

Bookworm (high attack, low defense):

TAP = (Attack Points from Items + Individual Attack Points) * 1.1

TDP = (Defense Points from Items + Individual Defense Points) * 0.9

Blond Kid (high attack):

TAP = (Attack Points from Items + Individual Attack Points) * 1.1

TDP = (Defense Points from Items + Individual Defense Points)

Blonde Girl (high defense):

TAP = (Attack Points from Items + Individual Attack Points)

TDP = (Defense Points from Items + Individual Defense Points) * 1.1

Crossed Arm Guy (high attack):

TAP = (Attack Points from Items + Individual Attack Points)*1.1

TDP = (Defense Points from Items + Individual Defense Points)

Black Haired Woman (no modifiers related to duel):

TAP = (Attack Points from Items + Individual Attack Points)

TDP = (Defense Points from Items + Individual Defense Points)

Big Blond Guy (ultra attack):

TAP = (Attack Points from Items + Individual Attack Points)*1.3

TDP = (Defense Points from Items + Individual Defense Points)

Thanks to Sougata Som for figuring it out and also for finding out Big Blond Guy bonus attack info.

P.S. If you play with any of the premium characters (except blonde kid) and would like to share the info, please let me know. You don't have to do the calculations, I can do it myself. Just need the data. And I promise the info received will be kept confidential. Just let me know that you want to share it by leaving a comment on the blog.

Tips and Tricks

2012-12-21T23:11:00.000-08:00

I'm not going to teach you anything illegal or cheats for that matter, so don't worry. I just want to give out some pointers.

Gold belongs in the bank. Always.
Energy, energy, energy. That's where most of your skill points should be going into.
Play this game with a calculator and a timer if you can :P (before you ask, no, I don't really use a timer)
Don't waste skill points with Attack and Defense. Order member + item + magic + creature combo is way more efficient. Only invest in Attack and Defense when you feel that you have enough energy points. (ha!)
Don't cash out your rent to put in the bank unless your three days (72 hours) are almost up. Try to spend your rent money first to buy equipment and properties. I usually find out how much the items will going to cost, subtract the rent money and whatever is still missing I withdrawal from the bank.
And yes, use three tabs for that. First tab to Collect Rent, one for the bank with the amount to be withdrawn pre-entered and a third tab open with the item and quantity to be purchased already selected. It takes less than 5 seconds to complete all 3 transactions (depending on your internet speed).
Don't let energy points or stamina go to waste. Keep a close watch on your experience counter. If you're close to level up but you have way more energy than necessary, go back to First Year and do some 1:1 ratio jobs (Expelliarmus anyone? That is, if you have a huge order) until you're really close to level up. Then go to the job with highest exp/energy ratio and do it. You will get a jump start with the experience needed to level up in the new level.
Try to purchase your items, creatures in bulk. Saves you gold in the long run.
A quick way to purchase the EXACT amount of items you want at the Magic Shop is to calculate the exact amount of gold you need for the purchase. With the exact "change" in hands, go to the Magic Shop (or use multiple tabs) and select any quantity higher than the quantity you wish to purchase. Example: You want to purchase 15 Oak Wands but the slider jumps from 10 to 20. Just select 20, 30, or 100, doesn't matter. The system will automatically always let you buy up the the maximum amount of gold you have available on you.

These are all I can think right now. Will update this page as I think of them.

Skill Points

2012-12-21T23:09:00.000-08:00

Skill points are the only thing that can improve your character. There are only two ways to get skill points. One is to use hall passes. The other and most common way is by leveling up. Every time you level up, you are awarded with 5 precious skill points. Click on "Profile", and you'll arrive at this page:

Max Health - Ultimately, it allows you to duel more. (used in combination with stamina).

Max Energy - Allows you to do more lessons and consequently it means more gold and more experience. (best pick)

Max Stamina - Used in combination with Max Health for dueling. Don't increase this unless you know how to duel and you actually CAN win duels (if you only have 2 or 3 order members, don't bother).

Max Attack - This increases your Individual Attack Points (IAP).

Max Defense - This increases your Individual Defense Points (IDP).

Real Estate

2012-12-21T23:07:00.000-08:00

This is a crucial place in the game as it the place you go to buy properties and collect rent. The game is too expensive for you not invest you gold in properties. You trade a bunch of gold upfront in exchange for infinite hourly payments that you don't have to do a thing to get it besides coming to collect it at least every three days. Don't forget it, otherwise your gold will start vanishing into thin air after 72 hours.

Collecting Rent

This place serves as a mini bank of sorts. You can let your gold accumulate there if you're looking to make a big purchase.

Once you have enough, cash it out, buy what you need to buy and put the rest back in the bank, This way you pay only 10% on the gold you're depositing at the bank. Most of the time, I withdrawal gold from the bank too to cover the purchases. So if your rent income never makes into the bank it's like your income was tax free :P

Stolen Rent

Don't forget to collect your rent every 3 days, or else this will happen:

How much do you loose if you don't collect your rent? It is actually how much you get to keep. You'll be able to collect rent only for the first 72 hours of income.

For Raven-Haired and Bookworm it translates to 72 * Income since they generate income every 60 minutes.

For Broken-Wand it is 54 * Income, since he generates income every 80 minutes.

For high gold characters, it should be 108 * Income, because they generate income every 40 minutes.

Everything else that goes over that amount gets "stolen" by "your goblin and troll tenants".

Upkeep

Properties don't have upkeep (I think School of Wizardry doesn't have any kind of upkeep anymore). But you can only buy a maximum of 10 units of each property.

Purchasing Property

You don't have to, but you should save to buy a new property (all 10 of them) for each year you complete (mastering all three levels). For example, by the time you finish your first year, you should already have 10 candy shops generating income for your. It really helps with the gold it generates.By the time you finish the second year, hopefully you'll have all 10 joke shops you're allowed to purchase and so on and so forth.

Properties are unlocked as you level up. The higher the level you are, the more expensive the property is and higher the payout will be.

Reach Level 8 to unlock:

Reach Level 16 to unlock:

Reach level 25 to unlock:

Reach level 35 to unlock:

Reach level 46 to unlock:

Reach level 58 to unlock:

Reach level 71 to unlock:

Reach Level 85 to unlock:

If you buy properties in bulk:

Property	Cost	Income	# of rents to recover investment
Candy Shop	$200,000	$4,250	47.06
Joke Shop	$350,000	$4,750	73.68
Bookstore	$700,000	$7,250	96.55
Robe Shop	$1,500,000	$12,250	122.45
Magical Pub	$3,250,000	$22,000	147.73
Owl Shop	$7,000,000	$41,500	168.67
Wand Shop	$15,000,000	$81,500	184.05
Quidditch Stadium	$35,000,000	$165,000	212.12
Castle	$85,000,000	$350,000	242.86

Depending on the character you have this is how long it takes for you to recoup your initial investment. Remember, the three original characters Raven-Haired and Bookworm generate income every 60 minutes and Broken-Wand generates income every 80 minutes. Some of the premium characters can generate income every 40 minutes.

Property	Days 40 in minutes	Days 60 in minutes	Days in 80 minutes
Candy Shop	1.31	1.96	2.61
Joke Shop	2.05	3.07	4.09
Bookstore	2.68	4.02	5.36
Robe Shop	3.40	5.10	6.80
Magical Pub	4.10	6.16	8.21
Owl Shop	4.69	7.03	9.37
Wand Shop	5.11	7.67	10.22
Quidditch Stadium	5.89	8.84	11.78
Castle	6.75	10.12	13.49

How to Purchase Properties

I used to tell people to buy their properties in bulk instead of buying one by one because they increase 5% each time you purchase one. But there's been some discussion threads saying it's actually better to buy one by one. Please read the following Q and A from this blog.

Anonymous said...

I've heard that it's better to buy properties as soon as you can, rather than saving up to buy all ten. In the time it takes you to save up, the properties you could have bought would have generated enough income to cover the price increase for the rest of them, plus extra. Is that true?
November 11, 2009 6:21 PM

C. Green said...

This is nasty calculation. I can't calculate how fast someone takes to come up with the money. This depends on how much energy one has, which levels they are playing, how many times a day they play, if they get their income in 80, 60 or 40 minutes, if they are getting extra gold from dueling... And if one decides to buy 2 properties at once or 3 or 4 instead of buying one by one could change the outcome considerably.

As you can see, there are just to many variables. You should always do what you feel more comfortable with, this blog is not here to tell you exactly what to do.

But what I can tell you with certainty is that in the end, it actually depends on how fast you can come up with the money to buy your next property. The longer it takes you to come up with the money to buy the next property, the more money you'll make off the property you already possess and consequently, the more money you'll have to cover the price increases and more profit.

So if I were to do a 'guestimation', a casual player - playing once a day or when they remember to play should buy property as soon as they can.

If one is a hardcore player and levels up more than 6 times a day, and their short-term priority is to purchase more property, they might be better off purchasing in bulk.

Example: It took me roughly 6 days (144 hours) to save up to buy 10 castles. (my character is high on gold, though)

Hall Passes

2012-12-21T23:05:00.000-08:00

Like most online games on Facebook, SoW features a special kind of point system that can be purchased using Paypal and other online payment methods.

In this game these points are called Hall Passes and they can pretty much buy anything in this game. (see picture)

In order to play SoW, or any decent Facebook game for that matter, you don't ever have to spend cold hard cash to experience all the fun of the game. Some people don't mind, but personally, I never spent a dime on any Facebook game. I do however sign up to free trials and answer weird surveys from time to time, but they don't cost me anything other than 5~15 minutes of my time. (sometimes you don't get credited thought, but now if you have a confirmation email you can submit a claim)

Having said that, you can always get hall passes for free just by playing the game. There are several ways to do so:

Actually inviting a friend to play the game and your friend accepting your invitation will award you 1 hall pass.
(click on Order and select the friends to be invited)

Sending gifts to your friends. Once they accept your gifts, you'll have to click on a Facebook notification, and you should be awarded 1 hall pass. (click on the Gifts, and you can send up to 20 gifts per day, that should have been 20 hall passes. But Facebook spam control doesn't allow that to happen, so you'll probably get about half of that, 10, if you're lucky.)

Every time you level up you are get 5 skill points and 1 hall pass.

Mastering a lesson gets you 1 hall pass.

Master all lessons in a year and you'll receive 2 hall passes. Then Master Level 2 and Level 3, and you'll get more hall passes each time.

If someone attacks you and win the duel, sometimes, you'll also get a hall pass.

Save up your hall passes and use it for things that you couldn't get otherwise like change character or on skill points (and use those skill point to get more energy).

If you plan on not buying hall passes you should never use you hall passes for:

Energy refill
Stamina refill
Health refills
Magic (at the Magic Shop)
More Gold
More Members (unless you really, really have a problem adding strangers to your Facebook friend list)
Pick a new name (unless you already used 2500 to 8000 hall passes to pick a better character, you can always remove the application and reinstall it to change your name and/or character - raven-haired, broken wand and bookworm)

In a nutshell, all I'm trying to say is that you don't have to spend money to play this game. But if you want to, more power to you. Buying points also helps the developer, and I guess that's a nice way to thank him. But you can also thank him by signing up for those crazy free stuff at the bottom of the headmaster page, since I assume he also gets a cut from those offers.

Best way to spend your hall passes? Save up for a character that best suits your playing style. If you are satisfied with your character, use your passes to purchase more skill points -> More energy or Stamina/Health if you're a dueler.

(One day I will elaborate more on why using the hall passes to get more skill points is the best way to spend them)

Weekly Limited Edition Item List

2012-12-21T23:03:00.000-08:00

Starting October 4th the game has been offering for a limited time, an unique item every week for 500 hall passes. Here they are:

From December 21st to December 27th

From December 14th to December 20th

From December 7th to December 13th

From November 30th to December 6th

From November 23rd to November 29th

From November 16th to November 22nd

From November 9th to November 15th

From November 2nd to November 8th

From October 26th to November 1st

From October 19th to October 25th

From October 12th to October 18th

From October 4th to October 11th.
(Item)

Gifts

2012-12-21T23:01:00.000-08:00

Gifts are a great way for a player to get Energy/Health/Stamina boosts in the game. The boosts give you 20% of your max stat of that item. Meaning if your maximum amount of energy is 100, using an energy boost will get you 20 energy points to use right away without having to wait for them. The sad part is that you can only receive one kind of boost every 24 hours. So if you received an energy boost in the last 24 hours, your name won't even appear on your friend's gift list for energy boosts.

Gifts are also great because you can gift some types of magic instead of doing a job just to get them. But there are only 8 you can choose from and some stronger ones like Imperio, require the recipient to have a certain level before it can be used in a Duel.

So, 8 magics to choose from, which one should you send? I'd say Imperio and Petrificus Totalus as they are the strongest ones in the list.

Since October 25th, every week there's a Weekly Limited Edition Gift. Sometimes it's worth sending it, sometimes not. If you receive 20 items of the current Weekly Limited Edition Gift, you'll get a 5% bonus on your TAP for the rest of the week.

How do I receive my gifts?/How do use my boosts?

You can send up to 60 gifts/boosts a day, limit imposed by Facebook, but you can receive an unlimited amount of gifts per day. The annoying thing is, you have to accept your gifts/boosts one by one manually. To accept your gifts/boosts go to the top of the page, click on "Home" (on the blue navigation bar from FB). This will take you to your Facebook home page. Now. look at the column to your right, you'll see a box called "Requests". You may or may not see "School of Wizardry Invitations". If you do, just click on it, it'll take your directly to your School of Wizardry gifts if you have any awaiting acceptance. If you don't see School of Wizardry Invitations inside the request box, they might be under "other requests". Just click on the option and manually search through the page that loads for a blue wizard hat and you should find your gifts/boosts, if you have any.

If you got lost in the explanation above, this is the direct link to accept SoW gifts/boosts, provided that someone has already sent you something.

Once you find your pending SoW gifts/boosts, click on "Accept Your Gift/Accept Your *** Boost", this will take you to the SoW game home page and it should display a very self explanatory message. i.e. "You received (insert gift you just accepted here) from (a very thoughtful member of your order :P). It has been added to your items."

If you get the white screen of the death instead of the SoW home page - don't do anything harsh. Just hit reload on your browser, and it usually loads the page like it's supposed to.

Weekly Limited Edition Gift List

2012-12-21T22:59:00.000-08:00

Since October 25th the game has introduced the Weekly Limited Edition Gift. This is basically a gift available for a limited time, 7 days. You can't gift yourself. But you can send as much as you want of the Limited Gift (no more than 60 a day, this limit is set by Facebook) to your order members in hope of getting some back in return.

If you manage to receive at least 20 of the weekly gift, you'll get a 5% bonus on your TAP during that week. (read about duels if you don't know what TAP, total attack points are for)

From December 21st to December 27th

From December 14th to December 20th

From December 7th to December 13th

From November 30th to December 6th

From November 23rd to November 29th

From November 16th to November 22nd

From November 9th to November 15th

From November 2nd to November 8th

From October 26th to November 1st

Tip: Due to this feature, active players are sending out gifts more than ever. Facebook (and not the game) only allows you to send out 60 gifts a day. So if you have more than 60 order members, it would help you to create a list with the people that have sent you gifts. Type or just copy and paste their names on notepad or any text file and save it. My file is called "SoW Gift List.txt".

Why do that? So you won't waste any of your precious 60 daily limit gifting an inactive player or a cheater (players that put a symbol like ' or - that will put them on the top of your friends list).

This way you also reward people who took the time to send the gift to you in the first place, and when people see that you send gifts back to them, they are more likely to keep sending gifts your way. A win-win situation, as they say.

Bronze, Silver and Golden Items / Creatures

2012-12-21T22:57:00.000-08:00

Bronze, Silver and Golden items are new items and creatures in the game. They first appeared on the October 15th update and they are awards given to you by the Headmaster as you Master all the lessons of a year.

They work as an incentive for people to completely master all the lessons instead of just repeating lessons that have higher payouts or lessons where you can find magic.

More items appeared after the October 18th - 19th update. Now we have bronze, silver and golden robes and some other items that seemed to be missing previously.

Contact the Developer

2012-12-21T00:01:00.001-08:00

The game is still in Beta, so bugs and various kinds of glitches are expected. At any rate, I think we have the best developer on Facebook, because he actually listen to users feedback (maybe a little bit too much). I have had some bugs and some hall passes that went missing on me for no reason at all, and I am pleased to say that I contacted him and my problems were solved.

No, I don't have a special relationship with him, far from it, actually. He didn't even know who I was when I messaged him. You see, C. Green is just a pen name, so you won't find me in the game under it either.

So please, if you are having some weird problem don't hesitate to contact him. He's really here to help us all.

Just a little note: Regarding spells that you need to find, particularly Incendio (2nd Year) and Aguamenti (3rd Year). They ARE hard to find, but it's not a bug. I've contacted him on the past on behalf of several people that asked me about it. His response was "There isn't anything special about that lesson that makes it any different from the other ones."

I know of two ways to reach him. Please let me know if there's any other way to do so.

1st - From the application page. On the left column, below "Fans" you'll see a couple of links. The third one is "Contact Developer".

2nd - From the bottom of the game page. Scroll all the way to the bottom. On the left corner, you'll see a little wizard hat, "Built by School of Wizardry" and right next to it: "Contact".

Excel Workbooks

2012-12-21T00:01:00.000-08:00

In this workbook I compiled information about all lessons and I also calculate the average return per energy used in performing the lessons.

Click here to download file in Excel 2007.

Click here to download file in Excel 97-2003.

Please let me know if you ever get an error trying to download these files.

FAQ

2012-12-21T00:00:00.000-08:00

In this post I would like to address the most frequently asked questions I see in the discussion forums. Feel free to submit yours.

1. How do I change my name/character to either raven haired, broken wand or bookworm?
1. a. There was a glitch when I started and I couldn't choose a character or a name, what do I do?

No more switching characters for free by uninstalling/reinstalling the application. Apparently the the code was tweaked. Now you have to go to "The Headmaster" and shell out 200 hall passes to pick a new name and you need anywhere between 200 to 4000 hall passes to switch between characters.

As of today, October 16th, 2009, all you have to do is go to the application home page and click on remove application (or you just remove it any way that you know how). Then go back and install it again. You'll be prompted to choose one of the three main character and your name. Your old stats will still be there, as well as the gold in your bank.

~~There's a faster way to switch characters as Graceunderautism was so kind to share with us all - just look for the link in this comments section.~~

2. How come there are players with 20, 30 Castles (insert-property-you-saw) when I can't purchase more than 10?

It's because the developer modified the game. Before October 4th or 5th, there was no limit on the amount of properties one could have. In fact, the slide would let you buy up to 100 properties at once. But not anymore. So if you come across someone with lots of properties, report it to the developer so he can fix it.

3. I saw some people with bronze, silver and gold (robes, map, textbook, sword, hat, hippogriff, 3-headed dog, centaur, unicorn), but I can't find it anywhere to buy one.

They are rewards given by the headmaster when you master all lessons in a year, and therefore cannot be purchased. They serve as an incentive for people to master all the lessons instead of just doing lessons that have high payouts. You can only have one of each. If you come across another player with more than one, please report it to the developer.

4. I was attacked 10 times in one second and lost 500,000 in gold. What do I do?

Always bank your gold as it is the only thing you can loose when you are defeated in a duel. Learn how duels work and decide whether or not it's worth your time to keep people from dueling you.

5. How duels work?

There are two posts for that. The first one explains why people attack you. The second one explains how duels work and what you can do to improve your chances in a duel.

6. I'm on level 20, but my max energy is still 5. When will it increase?

To increase your max energy level you must put your skill points (those 5 points you get every time you level up) into it. Don't waste them with Attack or Defense. When you have skill points available, just click on "Profile" and choose the second option - Energy.

7. What is upkeep? How do I get upkeep?

In School of Wizardry, upkeep used to be a maintenance cost for owning creatures. Upkeep used to be deducted from your rent income every hour (or 80 minutes, or 40 minutes depending on your character). Currently there is no upkeep in the game, so you get to keep all your income from rentals.

8. I've been leveling up but no new lessons are showing up, what do I do?

Have you clicked on the tab to navigate between different tiers of lessons? Read more about lessons here.

9. If I "upgrade character" will my stats change or do they stay the same?

Your stats won't change. The only thing that will change is the regeneration time for your stats.

10. How do I get an Ice Broom/Pensive?

You can't anymore. They were a weekly limited edition gift given out back in October and November. Click here to see the complete list of past limited edition gifts.

11. How do I get a Lightsaber Wand?

You can't anymore. They were a weekly limited edition item sold for 500 hall passes between 10/04 to 10/11. Click here to see the complete list of past limited edition items.

12. Can I delete friends once from FB once they are in my order? How do I grow my order?

No you can't delete them. To add new members to your order, all you have to do is add them as your friends on Facebook. After a few minutes they'll be automatically added to your SoW order. There's also no need for your friends that are already playing the game to click on your "direct link". That link is actually just the link to the game. Because if the person you're recruiting hasn't installed the game yet, all they have to do is to install it and they'll automatically be added to your order after a few minutes. No manually adding is required at this moment. That is why if you remove them from you FB friends list, they'll be gone from your SoW order too.

First Year and Inflation

2010-01-31T23:47:00.000-08:00

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, Buy School Supplies From Diagon Alley - Wand, Books, Robe, requires a robe before you are allowed to do the lesson. The first robe costs you 200 gold.

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 job paying 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 11" Holly Wand
1 Sorting Hat
2 School Textbook.
3 Standard Flying Broom

Magic
1 Expelliarmus

You'll need Expelliarmus in the final lesson, but don't go to the Magic Store to buy it because they cost hall passes instead of gold. You can get them "free" because you'll 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:

Second Year

2010-01-31T23:45:00.000-08:00

In the Second Year you'll need a total of:
Items and Creatures
2 Magical Diary
3 Invisibility Cloak
2 Marauder's Map
2 Phoenix

Magic
2 Lumos
1 Impedimenta
2 Confundo
5 Incendio

Sometimes finding all the Incendios you need can be difficult. But don't give up. They are easier to find than Aguamenti, in the third year tier.

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

Third Year

2010-01-31T23:43:00.000-08:00

In the Third Year you'll need a total of:
Items and Creatures
7 13.5" Yew Wand
4 Flying Motorcycle (You'll need 5 in the Fourth Year)
5 Hippogriff

Magic
3 Engorgio
2 Accio
1 Expecto Patronum
2 Levicorpus
1 Reparo
3 Lumos
1 Aguamenti

It has come to my attention that some users are having some serious trouble finding Aguamenti. 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:

Fourth Year

2010-01-31T23:41:00.000-08:00

In the Fourth Year you'll need a total of:
Items and Creatures
7 Fancy Robe
5 Firebolt Broom
5 Three-Headed Dog
5 Flying Motorcycle

Magic
1 Expecto Patronum
2 Levicorpus
2 Accio
3 Impervius
5 Lumos
5 Engorgio
1 Expelliarmus

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

Summer Break

2010-01-31T23:39:00.000-08:00

In the Summer Break you'll need a total of:
Items and Creatures
4 Wizard Times
8 10.25" Willow Wand
5 Flying Car
3 Enlarging Lips Candy
4 Owl

Magic
2 Reparo
5 Reducio
6 Lumos
2 Expecto Patronum

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

Fifth Year

2010-01-31T23:37:00.000-08:00

In the Fifth Year 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 Golden Locket
4 Centaur

Magic
2 Expelliarmus
1 Expecto Patronum
5 Stupefy
1 Colloportus
6 Legilimens
5 Defodio
2 Alohomora

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

OWL Exams

2010-01-31T23:35:00.000-08:00

In the OWL Exams you'll need a total of:
Items and Creatures
15 16" Oak Wand
8 Advanced School Textbook (Sixth Year you'll need 10)
3 Dragon Egg

Magic
1 Legilimens
5 Colloportus
5 Alohomora
10 Stupefy

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

Sixth Year

2010-01-31T23:33:00.000-08:00

In the Sixth Year you'll need a total of:
Items and Creatures
3 Bott's Every Flavor Bean (Wizard level you'll need 15)
7 Lightning 2000 (Wizard level you'll need 15)
7 10.25 Hornbeam Wand (Wizard level you'll need 15)
10 Advanced School Textbook

Magic
10 Legilimens
12 Obliviate
5 Defodio
3 Alohomora
10 Confringo

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

Prefect

2010-01-31T23:31:00.000-08:00

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

Magic
4 Protego
15 Alohomora
15 Obliviate
4 Incendio
5 Evanesco
5 Imperio
5 Petrificus Totalus
5 Avada Kedavra

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

Wizard

2010-01-31T23:29:00.000-08:00

In the Wizard level you'll need a total of:
Items and Creatures
10 Tornado Broom
10 Mirror of Erised
10 Dragon
15 Bott's Every Flavor Bean
15 Lighting 2000
15 10.25" Hornbeam Wand
15 12" Ash Wand
10 Sword of Griffindor

Magic
7 Confundo
8 Legilimens
5 Obliviate
5 Incendio
5 Reducio
5 Defodio
5 Protego
10 Avada Kedavra
5 Imperio

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

Old News and Changes

2009-11-02T01:35:00.000-08:00

Posted December 15, 2009.

It's no longer possible to purchase magic @ the Magic Store using hall passes. That feature was removed for lack of people using it. To get the magic you need, just go back and repeat the lessons that gives you the magic you're looking for until you find as many as you need.

There's a new link in the game to see the rankings - but sometimes the rankings are wrong, but anyhow, here's the link.

- 500 hall passes for: New Weekly Limited Edition Item (Items) - Wide Ride Broom - (A.15 D.45)

- New Weekly Limited Edition Gift (Magic) - Aidus Incantum - (A.12 D.20)
Not very good, just collect 20 for your 5% weekly TAP bonus.

Posted November 30, 2009.

There's new limited items and gift of the week available now. I'll post more info and pictures when I'm done with my finals.

I hope the developer manages to fix all the problems before people waste more time to accumulate something that vanishes into thin air. He posted on the game's wall that he won't be able to do much (anything) regarding what's been lost.

No more switching characters for free by uninstalling/reinstalling the application. Apparently the the code was tweaked.

- 500 hall passes for: New Weekly Limited Edition Item (Items) - Time Stopper - (A.17 D.40)

- New Weekly Limited Edition Gift (Magic) - Cruzio - (A.25 D.1)
Better than Avada Kedavra, send them away!

Posted November 28, 2009.

The daily limit to send gifts went up again to 60 this time. Thanks to graceunderautism and Sougata Som for taking the time to let me know.

Posted November 27, 2009.

Is it just me or the limit increased again to 40?

Posted November 26, 2009.

As kindly noted by graceunderautism, the daily limit to send gifts went from 20 to 30.

Posted November 22, 2009.

Apparently the daily limit to send gifts went from 16 to 20. Also, I'm not sure if this is new but now there's a chance that you might get a Hall Pass if someone challenges you and you win the duel.

- 500 hall passes for: New Weekly Limited Edition Item (Creatures) - Goblin - (A.37 D.19)

- New Weekly Limited Edition Gift (Magic) - Ridula Sempro (tickle) - (A.16 D.16)
Just make sure you get at least 20 gift of the week to get that 5% boost on your TAP.

Posted November 16, 2009.

- 500 hall passes for: New Weekly Limited Edition Item (Items) - Shape Shifting Juice Potion (A.20 D.36)

- New Weekly Limited Edition Gift (Magic) - Ardus Leviatum - (A.12 D.22)
Just make sure you get at least 20 gift of the week to get that 5% boost on your 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.

I also tweaked pages here and there, but I don't remember which ones anymore.

On a personal note I'm blocked from the game because Facebook is accusing me of using automation to play the game. Apparently I click so fast that FB thinks I'm a robot. I don't know if I should be flattered or downright outraged. I guess this gives me more time to work on the blog...

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.

- 500 hall passes for: New Weekly Limited Edition Item (Magic) - Movius (A.39 D.15)

- New Weekly Limited Edition Gift (Item) - Ice Broom - (A.20 D.15)
Not as good as the Pensive but this week's gift attack points are as good as the Mirror Of Erised (A.20 D.18). Since the Mirror is quite pricey starting at 5,000,000 gold. Gift them away!

Posted November 7, 2009.

At first it seemed that there has been some changes to the dueling in the game. But in reality, those changes are actually very profound in the fact that Attack and Defense points are weighted differently now. The balance has been so disturbed that I take back all my comments regarding skill points. I don't know if those changes will stay or not, I've been told that more adjustments will be made before this is final (about a week). So until then I'm just gonna wait and see what ever happens from this dueling debacle.

At this moment, you should only use this blog as a reference guide for things like where to find bronze items, list of equipments needed, etc... all my opinions about skill points should be disregarded because of the changes made to the dueling formula.

Needless to say that the Dueling page formulas are obsolete. I will update them when the developer is done making changes in that part of the game.

Basically what they did is that your IAP/IDP is multiplied by your order size and everything else still holds true.

So at the moment:

TAP=(Order size * IAP + Attack Pts from Items) * whatever bonuses you have (i.e. 5% for having 20 weekly gifts, and your character modifiers).

TDP=(Order size * IDP + Defense Pts from Items) * whatever bonuses/penalties you have.

Posted November 2, 2009.

- 500 hall passes for: New Weekly Limited Edition Item (Magic) - Dovis (A.16 D.38)

- New Weekly Limited Edition Gift (Item) - Pensive - (A.5 D.28)
Unlike last week's Conjuntivitis, this week's gift is actually worth giving. Even though it only gives you 5 attack points, it gives you a whooping 28 defense points in the item category. That's better than Tornado Broom's defense points, which is only 22 and each tornado broom starts at 7,000,000.

Also, I updated this blog's Duel Pages and added a new one, since with the help from Sougata Som (he came up with the formulas after I posted some information about my character and he noticed a pattern), we finally know for sure how duels really work. That's some pretty advanced stuff, maybe I should change the Blog's name yet again...

Posted October 23, 2009.

The developer left a note on the School of Wizardry application page and also on the Forums. I just want to help spread the word.

Peter Mooney wrote:
"When the game was first launched, there wasn't a maximum limit on the number of real estate you could purchase so some users have more than 10 of a certain type of real estate. To make the game more fair for everyone else, users with more than 10 real estate of a certain type will be reset to having 10 on Wednesday. You can sell your property before then to recover some gold."

Posted on October 20, 2009.

As many of you must have noticed, there were several changes made to the game during the update that took place over last weekend.

The ones I managed to catch are the following:

- More bronze/silver/golden items. This time around we have these specials items awarded for mastering any level in any year. So mastering level 1 will get you a bronze item, level 2 a silver item and level 3 a golden item.

- Hall passes required to change character and character descriptions have changed. Instead of a flat fee of 500 hall passes, now it ranges from 400 to 8000 hall passes depending on the character.

- Conjunctivitis disappeared from the list of items that can be gifted.

- There's a new helluva Pumpkin Pie for sale this week. (shouldn't have bought that stupid Lightsaber Wand...)

- On the headmaster page now there's a button "Missing hall passes?" for you to keep track of the offers you sign up in exchange for hall passes. You can also contact support if they have not credited you as long as you have proof that you completed the offer in good faith. (such as a confirmation email)

This is all I have spotted so far, if I missed anything, please let me know.

P.S. I used the "Missing hall passes?" feature. I submitted a claim on 10/20. They replied on 10/22 and credited me for it :) I'm having a Pumpkin Pie after all!