What can KingsIsle do to compete against FFXIV?

 Last blog I said I was going to put up a new post detailing my ideas for improving Pirate101 so it doesn't get shut down, and here are my thoughts:

First off, for both Wizard101 and Pirate101, drop the lootbox packs. I know that sounds ridiculous, but the cash shop has so many more items that players can buy that the boosters don't really work. FFXIV's Mog Station cash shop has many items for various prices that are optional, but I buy them anyways as they are really cool glam, neat mounts or stuff I can... ahem...

I don't use the Pirate101 packs as much as the packs don't give random skills like Wizard101's packs do. I'm glad that they made the Grizzleheim spells craftable.

Wizard101 changes:

 

Either add a link skill system like MapleStory(where your alts can give one of your characters buffs depending on their school, like Life School alt giving your main 10% extra HP on level up) or do like FFXIV and allow a playet to switch schools and level them all up, learning all seven schools of magic on one character so alts are no longer necessary. You cannot count on one hand how many trash characters I had to delete due to wanting to play every school. I am not buying a potion to add a seventh character slot, thank you very much. I am not made of money.

Having one character be all schools will allow you to stick to one cahracter. I've made alts on FFXIV, only to abandon them because they are no longer needed. FFXIV has New Game+ to re-experience the quests if you really want to do so, so there is no need to start a new character for story reasons. Sure it's a lot of work grinding all of the characters up, but it's worth it.

 It wouldn't take much programming either. Just have a side-quest at Level 50(since you are go to Level 140, having it at Level 10 would be stupid as people would just switch constantly or burn themselves out, let them experience the first arc as one school first) and, upon completion, the NPC says that he'll pull some strings with the headmaster. Of course, that would retcon a lot of canon(like Falmea's story in the first B.O.X. event) but it would make the content more managable.

Of course, I know that will be impossible due to how leveling works in Wizard101 - you earn your majority of EXP from doing quests, which is why...

You should add an eighth school based on mob-grinding. FFXIV has a limited job called Blue Mage which gains spells by fighting mobs and bosses and learning their abilities. A Monstrology school which allows you to gain spells by kill a certain number of enemies would make the game more interesting to play.

Yes, I know you can make summon TCs of Monstrology Animus, but this sub-school would allow yout o level up your extra schools easily by giving huge EXP for killing mobs. It would have to cap out after a time, but it would make the game more fun.

If that won't work, then have this limited class be in Pirate101 by giving Pirate101 Monstrology as well. The thought of summoning some of the Armada as Treasure Coins would be amazing!

 

For both Pirate101 and Wizard101 have something similar to crafting but involving gathering materials from nodes. Wizard101 has places where you can harvest materials, but make a type of 'magic' where you can use spells to increase the yield of harvests or the chance of rare harvests(like 50% chance of getting Sunstone from Sandstone harvest spots) and give quests where players have to go all over the Spiral to gather stuff. Heck, Wizard101 has Fishing, why not have Pirate101 have it too? Give more varied content for people who don't want to spend their time battling.

 

Have a quest at Level 50 where Wizard101 players and Pirate101 players can get special artifact armor that looks cool and has stats that outstrip anything you can buy at the auction house. FFXIV does this and continue on that trend by having special armor you need special currency(which is farmed from dungeons) that outstrips that! If Wizard101 had artifact armor with a decent universal resist, decent damage boost for their school, and nice stats, players would go for it.

Finally, assign the FFXIV formula to your games, KingsIsle. FFXIV has a special dungeon requirement for queueing up: One Tank, one Healer, and two DPS(Damage Per Second). In your case, you would require one class to be a tank and soak up hits, one to be a healer and two to deal damage per turn.

Wizard101 has such a heirarchy: Life and Balance are considered Healers, Death and Ice are considered Tanks, and Fire, Storm and Myth are DPS. I know it would make queue times insanely long, but by making it so that certain schools of magic or class of Pirate due certain roles in dungeons, players will focus on making those roles special and think carefully about what pirate/wizard they want to be.

Also, create a party finder for your games, a message board in game that would allow players to recruit randoms to join them in a dungeon raid.

Pirate101: The Game That Could Have Been

 

 

I recently heard disturbing news that KingsIsle is going to stop updating content on Pirate101. For those who play Wizard101, you may not know about Pirate101. This game was created two years after Wizard101 got Dragonspyre to draw in more MMO players.

Pirate101 may be set in the same Spiral and have similar quest lines, but it's a completely different experience. Instead of being a young student in a magic academy being the Chosen One, you are a poor kid who was kidnapped by a robotic army called the Armada and rescued by a pirate who takes you to the home base of young pirates-to-be, Skull Island. There you begin your life as one of five types of Pirate: The gun-toting Musketeer, the blade-wielding Swashbuckler, the commanding Privateer, the magic-using Witch Doctor, or the beefy axe-maniac known as the Buccaneer. You then end up on a treasure hunt of the ages, finding El Doraro, the legendary City of Gold, while trying to stop the Armada from finding it.

This is a wonderful story that eases you into its narrative and takes you to worlds in a different way. Since you are a pirate, you get a ship, mainly a raft, that you replace with better and better ships along the way. You use your ship to sail down dangerous skystreams that lead to vortices that are gates to the Dark Aether, the skystream that connects the worlds of the Spiral, and visit new worlds.

While some worlds, like Mooshu and Marleybone, are familiar to Wizard101, you don't visit those until you are high level. Your early life is visiting brand new worlds like Monquista(which is basically ancient Hispania with monkey men), Valencia(home to the dread Armada) and Cool Ranch(a world based on the stories and legends of the United States Wild West era).

The most recent story update was a revisit to Valencia to storm the base of the Armada and defeat the leader of that army, the general Kane, the very first Armada soldier crafted long ago. But...

Now rumors are circulating that the supposed story update to Pirate101 that will let us visit Polaris(which is a world in Wizard101) is being cancelled. The devs have one reason, and sadly, it's the reason that Pirate101 was created in the first place so it can't be removed...

WIZARD101.

This game came first and had two years to grow, and now that Karmelle(its 14th world) has released and the player characters don't look like potatoes anymore, those who are introduced to KI will be introduced by THIS MMO, the more popular one.

There is Pirate101 support, or Pirate101 would have been shut down years ago. But Pirate101 is a zombie cursed by the Lord of the Whorl to be undead instead of a thriving game. People are worried about it being shut down for good.

 

MapleStory had a similar tale: After the huge popularity of MapleStory, they tried to go 3D with a sequel, MapleStory 2. It looked beautiful and had many good ideas...

GUESS WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT GAME

The original side-scrolling MMO was just TOO POPULAR to accept moving to a new game, especially one with a radically different graphics system and battle system. It tried, but failed due to moving out of the 2D side-scrolling that made the original popular.

Pirate101 isn't as bad off, in fact it was graphically better than Wizard101 and only the combat and companion system were different. Well, the pet training too, pet training is much easier in Pirate101. But even that cannot save Pirate101 from being shut down like MapleStory 2 was.

The devs clearly stated that as long as Wizard101 is played, Pirate101 will be ignored, and Karamelle is not helping Pirate101's cause by being so popular. With a level cap of 140, Wizard101 has a lot of content. So the community is trying to throw a revival event to drum up interest. I will be participating, but sadly, KingIsle might have a hard time getting me back...

As I said, my love and body now go to FFXIV. I'll put up a new blog later.