Facts! We want all the new players to be able to progress especially since 160 instead of 50 is the max it’s a lot more of a daunting task to some that can’t even get past level 10 before paying
If someone loves a game enough they’ll pay for it. I’ve been playing since 2011 and have been on and off since 2019 and everytime I come back I enjoy the couple months I’m back, get a membership, get some crowns, and reach max level again maybe do some farming. The only people complaining about the pay wall are the people that just don’t wanna spend money on anything in life
@@SARKAZYMYT For some people, they think that only getting up to Unicorn Way isn't enough of a preview to get a grasp of what the game actually wants you to buy. It might not be enough to get someone hooked enough to like the game. Personally, I'm neutral. The game isn't at risk of dying yet so to me, the whole debate isn't too important right now.
I've been playing wiz on and off since I was a kid (14 yrs), and can say that the first arc should definitely be free, especially now with as many worlds and arks as there are and the max level cap getting even higher, I think they would only benefit from having players be able to quest through to lvl 50. There's enough content, time and storyline for someone to understand if they'd invest in this game or not. The reason i think us OG players want for this to happen is to finally get new players into the game. Because in the later content, specifically azteca..(iykyk) there can be zero players to clear harder dungeons with and make questing for certain classes almost impossible. But not even that, just having new players finally back into the game would make it feel more alive again, but Idk, theres alot I could rant about, but I think that it would only benefit them at this point.
For the paywall argument, while yes us max level players arent affected by it, it still sucks knowing that most new players dont really have a chance to experience the game before being hit by it. It takes all of about 10-20 minutes to get up to that paywall and that just isnt a good thing, they havent experienced enough of the game yet to be forced to pay to keep playing. Most of the money generated is from the veteran players anyway so i always have wanted the first arc to be free as that will give new players a chance to be invested in the game and pay if they want to keep going
@@ThanosShouldSnap story arc, so for example “arc 1” is the Malistaire story that ends in Dragonspyre, and “arc 2” is the Morganthe story from Celestia to Khrysalis, etc.
I agree but let's be real, 10$ isn't really that much considering how much you can do in the game and how much fun you get from it. I find more worth in spending like 30$ on membership on wizard10q than buying a ps4 game and finishing it in 3 days
To me one of the reasons why so many people on wizard101 are nice welcoming and helpful is because a lot of them aren't kids playing or at least they weren't kids when they started playing, so many parents started to play the game when their child did so a lot of people playing was in 101 now our parents who help their child with the game so helping out and questing is how they learn to play the game and that's how they have fun playing it. A lot of times when I was a kid and I'd stay home sick from school I would sign on and see one of my friends was online and say hi but then it turns out that it was just their mom playing their account
And i rly love the fact that the wizard 101 community is mainly adults because everyone is more mature, fun, and supportive compared to the newer generations and their toxicity.
I learned to play video games sitting on my Mom's lap while she played Wizard101. All the adult friends she made online were eternally patient with me, and my under leveled death wizard whenever I needed help. Unfortunately, people are much more rude nowadays, but I think it's the entire landscape of the internet. People won't ask when they join in your battle anymore, they'll just do it. Doesn't matter how close you were to beating the NPC, they'll draw in two-three new ones just so they can leech off your XP. Politeness is very much dead in all MMOs, Wizards is no exception. I've started fleeing and leaving them with their own mess.
15-year-player-paywall-opinion: In Europe the Paywall was set After Dragonspyre (Level 50, which as a child is like 3-4 month worth of gameplay) The game was always really crowded, players where everywhere. And now, over a decade later where Videogames in general took off so much, the game feels very dead in comparison. Its true the Paywall doesnt affect older players that much, but it prevents new players from coming and that really sucks
@MelanchlyApex They werent dead back when the Paywall was in Celestia. They are sure way more dead than the US Servers, but now it is even worse. It feels like in 2009 there were 10 to 15 times as many players. We have only 4 different spheres in Germany, and back then 2 were always on FULL. Since they Paywall change i have never seen one on crowded
I feel like they could definitely move the paywall as they increase the level cap. It would make a lot of sense to have the paywall begin at level 40 for a max level of 160 at the moment. And increase as the time goes on (either by 5 level zones or 10 depending on the devs). That would really give new players the time to fall in love with their characters, and let older veterans return to level up different schools.
Yeah I feel like maybe the first 3rd or first 5th of the game should be free at least. If not the entire first arc, at least let people get to marleybone and cross paths with malistare for the first time. That’ll at least give people enough of a chance to put a considerable amount of time into the game and get invested into their character then leave them on a cliffhanger after seeing malistare and fighting meowiarty. I feel like that would make people get hooked to the story, attached to their character, and wanna get the membership to keep going. Stopping us halfway through wizard city hardly gives us any context for the story and unless you were like me as a kid and found the combat mechanics and graphics really satisfying and also liked magic-based stuff, it won’t really be something you wanna put your time and money into based off wizard city up to colossus/firecat/cyclops.
Many, many people don’t make it to 40. If you search hard enough you can actually find statistics for how many levels of each account are in-game. I remember seeing around 30ish% are under level 20 a few years back
@@JMarcus52 I believe it, unfortunately. You can see it in how desolate some of the higher lvl worlds can get even on the most populated realms and it probably has at least a little bit to do with where the paywall is rn. That being said I feel like most games that have millions of players have a playerbase that is mostly low level. For example, in GTA V, I'm lvl 300 something. I haven't consistently played in like 4 years and could be above level 1000 by now if I played like I used to in the late 2010s, but I just simply stopped playing after awhile and most of the players I came across in that game while I was playing consistently were anywhere from level 75 to 250, which can realistically be reached in a couple years and that's probably a very representative range of the vast majority of that population. Obviously xp is much easier to come by in gta than wiz but it just goes to show that even with very popular triple a titles this is probably a trend.
I post this on a lot of videos that talk about the paywall, so I'll try to keep this brief. KingsIsle earns the vast majority of their money through their premium Crown Shop. The issue with the paywall is that it prevents new players from playing the game, as the conversion rate is actually very low. The industry standard for this is less than 5% of new players, usually around 2% or less actually. So in Wizard101's case, almost the entire player base is either at the very start of the game or at the very end of the game. This means that you'll rarely find people anywhere in between, becoming less frequent the further you go in. If you weren't playing with a group of friends already, you'll notice that it's almost impossible to find Team Ups. It's difficult to find Team Ups even for big dungeons, with the only exceptions being Olympus, Waterworks, and maybe Mirror Lake (there could be a few others). Even the dungeon you showed, Darkmoor, will have you potentially waiting a good while before finding even a single other person unless you're lucky or playing with friends. This isn't to say that you can't play the game solo, I've played most of it solo, however there are required multiplayer dungeons in the game that you have to have help in order to complete it for the main story. Having a steady new player stream is one of the most important things for any game, but especially for MMOs. Even in free-to-play games, free players *are* content for paying players. If there's nobody playing, even if you play solo, there's not much of a point in doing anything. My proposal has always been either one of two things. Either move the paywall to Celestia, or remove the paywall entirely. As I've said on many previous comments, membership is not how KingsIsle makes the majority of its money. Best of all, they don't need to remove membership either, they simply need to repurpose it. One thing you didn't mention is that membership also gives member benefits, which is the only reason end-game players even buy membership. (This is also why the membership argument is bad as, prior to member benefits, the only people who had membership were players still progressing through the game and PvP players while PvP still required membership.) So if the majority of earnings are from the Crown Shop and most players only buy membership for member benefits, I believe their best path is to remove the paywall and repurpose membership to focus entirely on member benefits. Instead of member benefits changing every week or however frequently, I think all member benefits should be active at once. Though I believe the reason they have it rotating is to get players to come back each week for a different benefit, which will make them subscribe for longer, but I don't think that's a good way to entice people. Instead, membership should also give a small amount of Crowns each month (maybe only 2500 Crowns or less) or just giving general discounts in the Crown Shop only for members. Improving member streak benefits would also give greater incentive to stay subscribed. Doing the above will actually increase membership sales and release the floodgates for a steady stream of new players. This means new potential subscribers, new Crown Shop sales, and a more alive community throughout the entire length of the game. They'll also invite their own friends to play, allowing for exponential growth to be possible. It's the positive feedback loop that every online game wants. There's a reason that most of the industry has moved forward with free-to-play being the new way of monetizing these sorts of games. Now there are other issues I have with the game, mainly that it's extremely repetitive and that most of the game comes down to boosting into an AoE. But I do enjoy the more complex fights. I also find it sort of special to hop into a dungeon and either be able to have a casual conversation with everyone, or everyone be completely silent and yet know exactly what to do without saying a word. I like your video and I think you did a pretty good job of summarizing the game, but I did need to comment about the paywall topic as I find it to be the most important issue about the game that could easily be solved, and already has been solved by more "recent" MMOs. *TL;DR:* Good video, covers the game pretty well. Paywall should be removed, member benefits should be improved, and turn the game into the successful free-to-play model that newer MMOs use.
I have a question, since you are also a veteran player. My Mother, siblings and I played this game together growing up, but last year when we sat down to really play it again, we fell off about the end of Chrysalis. Because it simply became too complicated to play. Every school as specific gear that you HAVE to farm for, and as you said, player team ups are dead at best. On top of that, the dungeons take several hours. Not a reasonable expectation for the adults who are paying to play their game. I always stay at least two worlds ahead of her, so I can guide her through, but the new cards that combine schools and stuff are such a steep learning curve. Neither of us are dumb, my Mother is an extremely skilled player to have powered through so far with awful gear and purely strategy, but that's seems to no longer be viable. Do you think bloat is the source of the issue? Is it bad UI? Or maybe our methods? I don't know, it's really discouraging. This used to be a family event, now I see the game in my suggested and just feel disgruntled.
@@TheLimeCrimes It's cool to see another wiz family. My father started playing with me back around when I was in Dragonspyre for the first time. The game definitely starts to get a bit more serious starting around Azteca. This was near the peak of Wizard101's popularity around 2012-2013. Worlds began getting longer and more difficult. This is probably when having good gear became a bit more important. Darkmoor was a huge landmark for gear as well, but it also introduced high level dungeons that often required a full team of skilled players. You even fail to get the good drops if you die during the second phase of the final boss, which I believe is the only boss that does that. Beyond that, there are certain boss fights that are virtually impossible to solo and generally also require a skilled team that knows exactly what to do. I'll be honest, I haven't even gotten into Novus yet, I only got far enough to get the spell. I personally think general difficulty increases are good, but I'm not a fan of main story content that can't be soloed. I do like harder things that require a team to do as side content. But finding people for older content is rather difficult. I'll firstly say that one big issue the game has is that the game doesn't provide you with all of the information that you need. You have to consult the Wiki or player guides/videos just to know how to deal with a particular boss/dungeon, or the best items or spells that you should be going for. The deeper you get into the game, the less casual it becomes. There are some worlds that are suddenly easier, which are a nice break, but it's the grinding you have to do to prepare for the harder worlds. Pet training helps quite a bit, but that requires creating a Couch Potato or Evil Magma Pea farm for pet snacks, and knowledge regarding pet hatching and training. As for the new Archmastery system, I think it just requires some getting used to. It requires you to think ahead a bit. In short, a school pip will work as a power pip both for your own school and the school that it is. For spells that require a specific school pip to work, it will need the base pip cost of the spell plus the specific school pip it requires. So for example, Ninja Pigs is rank 4 and requires a myth pip, so you'd need 2 power/school pips plus one myth school pip, totaling to 3 power/school pips (one being myth). In short, the game becomes less casual and will definitely require getting better stats to keep up consistently. I wouldn't actually say it's required, my father didn't ever farm gear until the end of Novus. He actually got well ahead of me and maxed out most of his wizards to my surprise. But having better stats will make the game considerably easier, except for those few challenge points. My issue with the late game is that KingsIsle seems to have put a focus on PvP and P2W elements. Most of the new spells seem almost entirely focused on PvP, which is obviously irrelevant for PvE-only players. They made drops rarer and much more annoying to farm for, or you can just pay for world packs in the Crown Shop. There was even a point where the best wands were completely locked behind packs in the Crown Shop. There's also the raid system which is really only for the most hardcore of players. It seems that KingsIsle is focusing all of its efforts on their end-game players, of which are mainly more serious about the game, to do whatever will make them happy while also being profitable. If your family still plays together, I do think that will help out quite a bit as the game gets way easier when you're not going solo. You can even tackle the really challenging bosses if you have the right stats, deck, and strategy. I think team-play in Wizard101 is probably my favorite part. But it really depends what you and your family want out of this game. This was kind of an open rant, so I apologize if anything was confusing. I'd be happy to talk about this further if you wish.
For the paywall thing, you also have to remember that a lot of us were kids when we first played the game and that affected us. We'd have to ask our parents to pay for it, we couldn't do it ourselves. I remember playing when I was around 11-12 and it wasn't until I was about 17-18 that I got membership for the first time (I was also a stupid kid and would redeem the crowns and not the membership whenever I bought the cards), so a lot of us are advocating for the first arc to be free because without membership and doing every quest and side quest available until you hit the paywall only goes up to level 11 (I actually tested this out). The game is already on the fourth arc, it's honestly the least they could do. Also I remember when the pets *were* just decorations, that takes me back.
This is nostalgic 😢as a kid i stopped playing when i got stuck at fire cat alley needing to buy crowns. Was talking about the game with a friend yesterday i might start playing again
I just wonder how a game got us all hooked cause of its God-tier animation at the time it was produced. Still alive and well despite the years? Does it still receives updates?
I would say that Wizard101 was very good from its release date till like 2016 before they began making all the changes to the game. It was more fun to play and people would literally pvp in homes and have parties for hours and just chill. Pvp has always been a huge factor in the game but it hasn't anymore since the entire change. I'm a wizard vet and have been playing since I was 10-11 and now I'm 23. So I feel bad that the new wiz fams have to experience the game as it is now and not be able to experience it from years ago.
Wait what happened? I'm a very old player who hit a pay wall and stopped playing. Now I recently came back for nostalgia. (I played like around 8-10 years ago)
It's really interesting seeing someone new play the game, I've been playing on and off since 2010 so hearing someone new talk about it positively is very refreshing. On the point of paid memberships since Wizard101 is marketed as a childrens game more worlds should be open for them to play so their parents can justify paying 10-20 bucks on memberships you know?
I've been playing the game on and off since 2011 so I agree with it being nice to hear new players talk about the game positively lol. I wish they'd at least make the whole first arc at least free maybe just so you can reach lvl 50-60 and all.
Pausing the video at 5:27 so if I get corrected I apologise. But the issue most of us have with it, is that it makes so many new players stop playing. I mean seriously the first few areas last like 2 hours then they are forced to pay $10 and most just don't.
Really cool video. Was nice to see someone give an opinion about the game with no prior knowledge about it. I remember playing the game for the first time in 2011 and I was fortunate to be a part of the community when it was in its youtuber prime. I'd never have learned the things I have about "whats the best gear whats the best pet" if it werent for accounts like BlazeLifeHammer and ZenMasterBlue. Grew up watching Walkthroughs and Gear Set Up videos, test realm patch videos and the like. I took a break from the game in 2019 and just came back last year and man was difficult to familiarize myself with the new features and meta esp without as many youtubers to follow. I met some good people who kinda took me under their wing when it came to pet making and farming. I recently joined a Guild. Now I have a couple Nullity Robes, NightMire Robes and many 'Quad Mighty' Pets. I definitely understand the whole elitism argument, people can be pretty particular about how they like to play but usually they're open to helping you understand the cheats and how to work together to defeat a boss. Nothing worse than having a group of people doing their own thing in a team setting such as dungeons and gauntlets where teamwork is crucial...although last year when I was farming for Merciless Gear some guy dumped on my stats when I hadnt played in years. Ultimately I'd say the good people outweigh the bad eggs. If you can find a group of people you enjoy playing with and talking to the game will always be worth playing.
as a very old player (july 2010 for current main account, had others that've been long forgotten over the years playing on and off) whose just got to khrysalis for the first time, i can say the community can be SUPER welcoming!! i notice all the time when im questing (especially when membership is free for a period of time) that if im struggling on a dungeon typically i can join team up and find someone who is also on the quest/willing to help! a lot of the time i find someone on the same questline and we'll spend some time doing a bunch of quests together! i spent a few days by myself doing the first maybe 1/6 of khrysalis, found one person to team up and got a third of the main khrysalis quest tree done in 2 nights (coincidentally teamed up with the same person 2 nights in a row) not only are people super friendly, especially in team-up, they're super HELPFUL!!
I first played as Death because I wanted a fierce wizard to play as. It might’ve been because I was a little edgy, but I still have Death as my lead, and not because of the fact that I’m edgy anymore. Now it resonates with me. And as of writing, my Fire is not far behind on being maxed as well.
haha i spent way too much time on the game as a kid... and now... i have 3 level 160s with full aeon gear. That took way too long. The rest of my wizards are level 50+. It took WAY too long.
@@MonsterMasterFightingLucario ignore him man, he’s just a comment troll they go through responding trying to spread negativity for zero reason. Don’t give them an ounce of attention, i understand what you mean I did the same thing. Before I went death bc I liked the idea of death and angels and the celestial type shit but now it’s just bc it’s overall the better class imo.
I’ve played since 2012, starting when i was 7. I hit the paywall but kept playing regardless, and farmed the kraken just because everyone was so nice. I came back in like 2020 and played during the month they had free first arc. I fell in love again and now buy a membership and my main is now lvl 124 fire. :)
4:19 buying all the areas with crowns is one of the best decisions I ever made on this game. One time crown sale purchase of $300 and I unlock everything in the game and then some, can play when I want whenever I want, no longer worried about wasting membership time or being forced to get on. Deal with burnout, and play multiple characters over a period of time. The amount I spent on memberships as a kid probably is far more than the $300 for all the zones. So now it’s saving me money in the long run and I never have to spend anything on this game again if I don’t want to do anything in crowns shop.
For long term ofc its better, but 30 months of membership is 2 and a half years. 2 and a half years is more than enough to level all wizards and then u just need to buy the newest zone and thats it. Overall for new players its not worth at all buying all zones.
Thanks so much to review this game in a pretty fair way! I've been playing this game since 2017 and it is still the only games that I stick into after all these years (I'm usually not a gamerhead lol), and YES one of the best things on my way through this wizard's journey is to make friends. But one of the worst things of this game is the paywall. Like all my friends in reality won't even give it a try because of the art style and the paywall. Not a single one. So I really wish that they'd put the paywall a bit later in the game (and I'm glad that they started doing that, cuz sometimes they'd make the first 4 worlds totally free for a few months.) Anyway thanks so much for reviewing and I really hope that there would be more new players to get into the game!
I've been playing wizard101 since 2008 and I really haven't enjoyed a game as much as I have when I play it. Its so addicting and there is always something to look forward to while playing! Magnificent game IMO
Yeah, last time i played, the lvl cap was 50..insane how i return back to the game just now to seeing 160+...Im trying to convince myself if should go ahead and put time and grind this game out again like i did years ago
As someone who has never had membership or crowns or anything like that to help me progress, the event “12 days of the spiral” finally got me the furthest I’ve ever gotten on Wiz, as of right now I just entered Mooshu and I hear this all the time but it’s so true, they need to make the first arc free
Wizard101 housing is peak housing in games. I wish some houses had more space for decorations, but the ability to decorate them pretty much in your own way, is so fire.
Heck yeah bro glad to see a guy with a beard playing, feel better knowing I won’t be the only older person still playing this awesome game that I was once addicted to 24/7
if it’s your first time def listen dialogue, some lines are boring yes but that’s any game, the dialogue makes what your doing actually feel meaningful
wizard 101 can be really fun especially if you are questing with friends it makes it really fun and time passes by really fast. I once made a friend on this game and we literally quested from Azteca all the way to level 150 and we played all the time together. The game is fun and enjoyable once you get the concept which is not hard to pick up its a blast to play.
it baffles me that W101 has not gone away with the paywall system. The game is already severely p2w so it might as well be f2p if it wishes to truly get more people/
The paywall is something we have been trying to tell KI for god knows how long but it will never change... It's really annoying to have it so early on as well
I love this game! Wanting to get back into it and start making content on it aswell I feel as the community just keeps growing slowly and slowly and once you start really getting into it it’s hard to get away from!
Wiz community is amazing! Literally made a high lvl friend who helped me with 3 worlds on one day cuz she was alrdy the highest lvl at the time. As a mostly solo player she saved me days of questing!
this not a spoiler but after reaching arc 3 like you NEED at least another player to quest like you may have the best gear but it aint gon help you progress, not impossible to solo quest from that point but it feels more like a necessity too hard 💀 to solo, resist dont even matter just all damage / piercing. and you die that means you did something wrong. point is to kill asap
I was going obsessed with this game, had my first gaming rage, spanned my most powerful cards to just get my obliterated by an enemy not that much higher than me in skill
I used to play the game when I was like 10 and it was great I never got that far but it was probably one of the best games I ever played and I’m glad it’s still around. Now that I have adult money I might pick it up again haha
Wizard101 is one of the most wholesome games I've ever played. I am biased though, wizqrd101 player here. But I've met some of my bestest friends on this game. And yes play without touching packs.
to max out a character in 2 weeks, you need a second account to self boost or have a friend that boost. at the end of the play through its pretty much 1 day = 1 world
As someone who has played since 2009 as a 9yo, Thank you for actually giving wizard101 a fair review. People made a big deal over xQc playing it and he hardly gave it a chance. He played it for a quick bit, acted like he didn’t have the mental capacity to understand how some of the mechanics work. Another youtuber tried to give it a fair review but based off some of the things he was saying, it felt like he spent less than 1 day playing the game, and still made it seem like it was pay to win because of the membership costs. Finally I come across someone who actually plays the game and tried to give it a chance and you enjoyed it lol. Even the criticisms you give are totally fair and acceptable as you actually gave the game the time of day.
Very hard to get friends into this game when paywall is super early. Game has been out for so long the first 50 levels should be free permanently. Just like other companies, its hard to stick with a game when the company wont listen to its player base.
hey fun fact you can feed loot you don't want to your pet and get random rewards like gold or tcs or reagents and there's a chance it could gain some xp which means you can level your pet while you're questing
And now that Wizard101 is attached to Gamigo, I fear that things will just get worse cause Gamigo is one of the most infamous publishers, notorious for milking mmo’s for money and then putting them on life support until they die. Read that Devs had to fight just to continue updating Pirate. And that’s dire.
I started in 2012 as a 12 year old literally just roaming and trolling. It was good times just messing with people in the commons. I never took it seriously till 2014 when Darkmoor test realm dropped. That's when I made the effort to actually ask my mom for a prepaid card. I think Darkmoor had to be the biggest event in the game. Felt like peak Wiz as well with the sheer amount of players questing just to get there.
I am someone who played this when I was a kid, but I couldn't afford to pay for it. Now that I am 25 and can afford to spend my own money to buy stuff, I just started officially playing again a couple months ago and I love it. I had to make a new account, but that fine because I remembered what my original 2 characters were. They were Balance and Fire. My first official run is Balance (I'm currently lvl 61 and its rough lol). I like that there is a membership because generally the community is better, we are giving money to a company that keeps up with their game, and it means that everyone who plays are true fans and will keep the game alive for as long as possible. That being said, now that the max lvl is 160 or 170, I think up the first 3 or 4 worlds should be free now. Being able to learn about more worlds before having to pay for anything would be nice
I've been playing since release, paywall now should let you get at least halfway through Krokotopia. Lets you get to know the game and get to a point where you WANT to pay.
I’ve been playing since 09, off and on. My gf that I met on WoW got me back into it in 2020 and even then, we’ve taken breaks time to time but we love the game and we cherish making new friends online. WoW players are very toxic and manipulative, which is why we love Wiz.
Ive been at this game for 10 years with 2 accounts many maxes and I say Wizard City the 1st world should be completely free! That would be the best "Free Trial" and would give you longer than 20 mins to get into the game!
It's really great you enjoy the game that much, and you haven't even made it to the part of the game most wizard101 players love! The 3rd and 4th arcs really take the game to a higher level. ❤ Packs are mostly cosmetic nowadays and aren't needed at all atm so definitely try to avoid those if you dont care for cosmetics 😅
Discounting players arguments about the paywall based on your own bias of, 'it doesn't affect you why does your opinion matter?' is extremely short sighted, dismissive, and really just inflammatory for no reason. Games where the veteran players care and put their opinions forth about the game are the ones that survive and grow over time. Players enjoying and joining the game, getting further, and wanting to reach the end game affects everyone, so all player opinions are important.
ive been playing wiz off and on since i was nine years old and im about to turn 25, you got your character a higher level than mine in like a fraction of that time lol i was never able to get the subscription so i was one of those kids forced to unlock each area individually, which made leveling up take FOREVERRR im just now reaching level 90 something lol
I definitely agree that the paywall can be a problem but people really overrate the monetisation in the game. The only thing that you must buy is membership for the worlds, everything else depends on you and is optional. Like basically every piece of gear is farmable except from pack gear which is usually either worse or slightly better than the dungeon gear. And also membership is like 10$ and then amount of fun and playability you get from this game's is insane. For me, 30$ on a 3 month membership is more worth than buying a game for 30$ which I'm gonna finish in 3 days. I do think the 1st arc should be free considering 8 levels isn't really enough to showcase everything that the game can offer to make you buy membership.
If you play for 10-15 minutes and then get hit with a paywall, you won’t be as invested as putting hours or months into then running to a paywall. More people will want play!
The problem isn't the wallet, it's the lack of updates to improve the game. They could improve the graphics, evolve the combat. People are willing to pay monthly just look at games like WoW, FFXIV all paid. The best thing, from my point of view, would be to first eliminate the separate servers and create just one on a global level in order to encourage people to come back to play as well, given that as an Italian, our servers are completely empty and the updates they are far behind the American version of the game
I think making huge changes to things you mentioned like graphics or combat, would fundamentally change the thing that people come back for, nostalgia. Look at maple story, it didn’t go so well when they went 3D.
@@neonprado9989 I must have expressed myself badly. They should encourage people to return with new content and perhaps try to remove the monthly subscription by inserting a paid battle pass with cosmetic items, crowns, etc.....If the game were to return free to play in my opinion there would be a great return of people
this is such a nice review. a bunch of reviews of this game are complaining about monetization and how greedy kingsisle is but you actually just seem like you enjoyed playing the game and for some reason that's pretty rare
Look at many other MMO's with F2P. Final Fantasy 14? Up to level 70 I think... Runescape? There's at least a dozen quests and content that could take weeks for a new player to reach, with the "final boss" of F2P being slaying a dragon. This game, I can play for like, an hour and have reached the paywall. You're still getting tutorial popups by the time you've finished with the free to play content. I think at least having Wizard City unlocked for F2P would be a good, at the least. Right now it's just way too restrictive.
As someone that constant btch about some KI practices, I can agree with you 100%, I am the same way wiz and I have a love and hate relationship , we fight but at the end of the day we kiss and make up and I still play this game, the sad thing is that most of my friends do not so I usually just solo play. The paywall crap is cause we just want people to at least enjoy the first two worlds but I agree with you , coming from someone that had played every single mmo out there, its what its, you will either play it or put it down like others had done.
After returning to the game for the first time in years and finding out that I apparently paid to unlock Wizard City, it should definitely be included in the F2P experience. If any of the P2P zones had pay-walled me, I'd have probably dropped the game within a matter of days, but being able to actually experience the game feels amazing. When I finish this first arc, I'm going to have a hard time not considering a membership.
I have been playing for two weeks. I am in celestia now. I tried to play this game years ago and only made it through half of krokotopia. If I didn't have friends who have been playing for 15 years then I would never have picked it back up. My point is that the game doesn't really get very enjoyable until at least marleybone and it takes off in Dragonspyre.
I recommend you try pirate101 the sister game of wizard101 it’s different from wizard101 you get to lead a crew and sail around the world I love both the games and I have trouble choosing between the two 😂
If you are a casual player who wants to quest and do pve then the game is great! However, if you want to get into the competitive aspects like pvp the game is complete dogsh*t.
I used to play but might have to get back into it when i can. My account is from 2009 and have some of the things they don't have anymore like the Selena Gomez stuff from the quests when the area near the Waterworks first came out 😅 left cause my younger sister did something petty cause i didnt go on her account to level up her character so she gave spmeone my password and username in game (got it back but was muted until 2 uears ago) 😅
People don't like the paywall because it's hard to keep new player retention if in your first 2 hours of gameplay you see a paywall popup. Not to mention you only have access to a few very limiting quests and it's harder to level up overall. IMO all of Wizard City should be F2P
seems like a very nice game i think i will not be playing it, but you did a very good job making me consider it either way, i enjoyed your presentation, and i subbed have a nice one
this game will outlive time itself the player base is fueled by nostalgia and rage ... the good kind :D... but honestly, they need to work on updating the looks of the worlds at least a little bit like krokatopia has to be the laziest world design I've seen like ever.... n64 games tried harder lol but regardless it's always good to see wizard101 still getting love!
been playing for over 10 years glad to see new people playing the game and making content on it. yes paywall sucks but keeps games alive and updating. glad you enjoyed it overall!
Not gonna lie another criticism a lot of people have about the game is that the community is great but kingsisle’s treatment towards the community sucks sometimes. For example, for users 13+ you could use text chat instead of the preset messages from the menu chat. At 18 you get open chat but it seems like kingsisle thinks you are the same age you set yourself as 10 years ago so some guys are like 25 now still not able to use open chat and kingsisle does virtually nothing. If you’re like me and went into master controls as a kid and changed your birthdate to your dad’s back before they turned that feature off, you used to be able to say whatever you want in open chat, but it seems like now it gets more and more restrictive every year. Grown adults with 18+ chat can’t say things like lmao and wtf and attempting to say those things risk you getting muted or banned. Surely they understand most of the audience are just twenty and early thirty somethings trying to get their nostalgia fix. Sometimes I ask people how old they are(which you have to use a workaround for because that’s also banned) just to see what the average age is like on wiz and while I’m 23, most people are like 25-30 and the youngest I’ve come across is 16 only once. You can’t even type numbers smaller than 100 in the open chat because they don’t want you saying how old you are. These restrictions make sense in the 13+ text chat but open chat starts to feel more and more like text chat each year and it feels like the only advantages of open chat these days are that if you make a typo it won’t censor out the whole word. They’re acting like they’re responsible for child safety online like these same kids they’re trying to protect aren’t on xbox live calling people racial slurs and screaming into the mic, and that’s only a tip of the iceberg type of issue
played this as a kid round the time the whole Malister plot was still going, is that whole first arc free yet or nah? Because its 2024 and I still want to finish that damn quest!
15 yrs. They still cant get ppl to have a free pass from Krokotopia til Dragonspyre. This game was huge. Couldve stayed huge like WOW, but KI just doesn't have a good company to back them up, sadly. Would love to get back into the game if it becomes one the great games again
Yeah, I started playing the game when it came out so long ago. I have had accounts banned due to gaming drama queens bullying me . Yet, I Luke the game so much and created another account. Thing is, it appears I got more experienced at the game with getting account after account banned haha.
I get into it when I have time and I’d try to get friends into it. We had a group and we stopped at 40. Now…I already had a near max character (lvl 144/150) so redoing the game was a bit hard…
You're making me want to play this game again. I haven't played in years, the reason I stopped was because how p2w it was when I played. I mained a life wizard and at the time, the best life set was in a pack. I know this comment is late, but I am tempted to try again, but I definitely wanna know, is this game still heavily p2w or has that died down enough that not as many people do it?
6months later..did you try it? I'm in the same boat I quit because I'm not gambling on gear, it's something that should be crafted or farmed..anyways, is it still heavy pay to win?
Been playing on and off since 2014, whenever i feel like playing again i wait for the membership to go on sale for 5$ perfect price to grind this game out for a month and not touch it again for a while lmao
Personally I’ve been around since like 2010 on wiz. An I have to say now after 15 years. I would like for Arc 1 (lvl 1-50) to be free so I can rope friends into playing an taking their time. Sure you get a month for 10$ but people don’t play everyday, So they might feel rushed to cram what they can in a month.
As someone who is on the europe server. Yeah games is dead there they need to merge eu and us otherwise they are losing a lot of money running updates and keeping the servers up
Here is the reason w101 players care about the paywall. W101 is a multiplayer game, and it is more fun to play with friends. If you ask a friend to play a game with you, you want to make sure they like it before asking them to put money down on a membership. There is not enough time to show off the game to your friends with where the paywall currently is, so w101 players do not want to recommend w101 when what will happen is they will see cringy dialog, linear gameplay, and quit 30 minutes in with diminished respect for your overall opinion. Other content creator timed the time it takes to go through act 1, and act 2 with plans of act 3 and 4. Act 1 has about 15 hours of content, Act 2 has about 70 hours of content, I would guess act 3 and 4 combined together have similar time to act 2. So lets say there is a cool 150 hours of questing in W101... A f2p can do Triton avenue and unicorn way in 30 minutes. So you are getting to play .3% of the game before it makes you chose if you want to pay. 30 minutes into a game your not going to be heavily invested into your wizard you will be asked to put in your credit card, and what is going to happen is you will say nah I am out and believe a membership isn't worth trying.
For the paywall argument, we max players love our game, we want others to love our game too, so our game wont die 😂
Facts! We want all the new players to be able to progress especially since 160 instead of 50 is the max it’s a lot more of a daunting task to some that can’t even get past level 10 before paying
@@danielerrico7411 I think soon 170 will be the max
If someone loves a game enough they’ll pay for it. I’ve been playing since 2011 and have been on and off since 2019 and everytime I come back I enjoy the couple months I’m back, get a membership, get some crowns, and reach max level again maybe do some farming. The only people complaining about the pay wall are the people that just don’t wanna spend money on anything in life
@@SARKAZYMYT For some people, they think that only getting up to Unicorn Way isn't enough of a preview to get a grasp of what the game actually wants you to buy. It might not be enough to get someone hooked enough to like the game. Personally, I'm neutral. The game isn't at risk of dying yet so to me, the whole debate isn't too important right now.
i just didnt have money when i was 8 @@SARKAZYMYT
I think the reason long time members care about the paywall is because it's hard to get friends into the game
This!
"Some bosses require you to hit every turn"
DAMN YOU BELLOQ!!
Soloing belloq as a life was impossible with quest equipment
I've been playing wiz on and off since I was a kid (14 yrs), and can say that the first arc should definitely be free, especially now with as many worlds and arks as there are and the max level cap getting even higher, I think they would only benefit from having players be able to quest through to lvl 50. There's enough content, time and storyline for someone to understand if they'd invest in this game or not.
The reason i think us OG players want for this to happen is to finally get new players into the game. Because in the later content, specifically azteca..(iykyk) there can be zero players to clear harder dungeons with and make questing for certain classes almost impossible. But not even that, just having new players finally back into the game would make it feel more alive again, but Idk, theres alot I could rant about, but I think that it would only benefit them at this point.
Azteca was so annoying to do…same for the mouse one. I forgot what was called. Having access to more content would help encourage players to continue.
For the paywall argument, while yes us max level players arent affected by it, it still sucks knowing that most new players dont really have a chance to experience the game before being hit by it. It takes all of about 10-20 minutes to get up to that paywall and that just isnt a good thing, they havent experienced enough of the game yet to be forced to pay to keep playing. Most of the money generated is from the veteran players anyway so i always have wanted the first arc to be free as that will give new players a chance to be invested in the game and pay if they want to keep going
EXACTLY
What does arc mean?
@@ThanosShouldSnap story arc, so for example “arc 1” is the Malistaire story that ends in Dragonspyre, and “arc 2” is the Morganthe story from Celestia to Khrysalis, etc.
@@donottouchmyfood Oh ok thanks!
I agree but let's be real, 10$ isn't really that much considering how much you can do in the game and how much fun you get from it. I find more worth in spending like 30$ on membership on wizard10q than buying a ps4 game and finishing it in 3 days
To me one of the reasons why so many people on wizard101 are nice welcoming and helpful is because a lot of them aren't kids playing or at least they weren't kids when they started playing, so many parents started to play the game when their child did so a lot of people playing was in 101 now our parents who help their child with the game so helping out and questing is how they learn to play the game and that's how they have fun playing it. A lot of times when I was a kid and I'd stay home sick from school I would sign on and see one of my friends was online and say hi but then it turns out that it was just their mom playing their account
I'm 20 and I last played last year when I was 19 and actually ended up adding 2 people I met on snapchat one a year older one a year younger.
I started playing as a kid with my mid friend... no parent involved and now im a young adult
And i rly love the fact that the wizard 101 community is mainly adults because everyone is more mature, fun, and supportive compared to the newer generations and their toxicity.
I learned to play video games sitting on my Mom's lap while she played Wizard101. All the adult friends she made online were eternally patient with me, and my under leveled death wizard whenever I needed help. Unfortunately, people are much more rude nowadays, but I think it's the entire landscape of the internet. People won't ask when they join in your battle anymore, they'll just do it. Doesn't matter how close you were to beating the NPC, they'll draw in two-three new ones just so they can leech off your XP. Politeness is very much dead in all MMOs, Wizards is no exception. I've started fleeing and leaving them with their own mess.
15-year-player-paywall-opinion:
In Europe the Paywall was set After Dragonspyre (Level 50, which as a child is like 3-4 month worth of gameplay)
The game was always really crowded, players where everywhere. And now, over a decade later where Videogames in general took off so much, the game feels very dead in comparison. Its true the Paywall doesnt affect older players that much, but it prevents new players from coming and that really sucks
@MelanchlyApex They werent dead back when the Paywall was in Celestia. They are sure way more dead than the US Servers, but now it is even worse. It feels like in 2009 there were 10 to 15 times as many players. We have only 4 different spheres in Germany, and back then 2 were always on FULL. Since they Paywall change i have never seen one on crowded
@MelanchlyApex they weren't dead, as he said they started to die after they changed the paywall from dragonspyre to wizard city
@MelanchlyApex np
Wrong! I live in Europe and have been playing this since childhood!
I feel like they could definitely move the paywall as they increase the level cap. It would make a lot of sense to have the paywall begin at level 40 for a max level of 160 at the moment. And increase as the time goes on (either by 5 level zones or 10 depending on the devs). That would really give new players the time to fall in love with their characters, and let older veterans return to level up different schools.
Yeah I feel like maybe the first 3rd or first 5th of the game should be free at least. If not the entire first arc, at least let people get to marleybone and cross paths with malistare for the first time. That’ll at least give people enough of a chance to put a considerable amount of time into the game and get invested into their character then leave them on a cliffhanger after seeing malistare and fighting meowiarty. I feel like that would make people get hooked to the story, attached to their character, and wanna get the membership to keep going. Stopping us halfway through wizard city hardly gives us any context for the story and unless you were like me as a kid and found the combat mechanics and graphics really satisfying and also liked magic-based stuff, it won’t really be something you wanna put your time and money into based off wizard city up to colossus/firecat/cyclops.
They want to make money, most won't get to lvl 40.
Many, many people don’t make it to 40. If you search hard enough you can actually find statistics for how many levels of each account are in-game. I remember seeing around 30ish% are under level 20 a few years back
@@JMarcus52 I believe it, unfortunately. You can see it in how desolate some of the higher lvl worlds can get even on the most populated realms and it probably has at least a little bit to do with where the paywall is rn. That being said I feel like most games that have millions of players have a playerbase that is mostly low level. For example, in GTA V, I'm lvl 300 something. I haven't consistently played in like 4 years and could be above level 1000 by now if I played like I used to in the late 2010s, but I just simply stopped playing after awhile and most of the players I came across in that game while I was playing consistently were anywhere from level 75 to 250, which can realistically be reached in a couple years and that's probably a very representative range of the vast majority of that population. Obviously xp is much easier to come by in gta than wiz but it just goes to show that even with very popular triple a titles this is probably a trend.
I post this on a lot of videos that talk about the paywall, so I'll try to keep this brief. KingsIsle earns the vast majority of their money through their premium Crown Shop. The issue with the paywall is that it prevents new players from playing the game, as the conversion rate is actually very low. The industry standard for this is less than 5% of new players, usually around 2% or less actually. So in Wizard101's case, almost the entire player base is either at the very start of the game or at the very end of the game. This means that you'll rarely find people anywhere in between, becoming less frequent the further you go in. If you weren't playing with a group of friends already, you'll notice that it's almost impossible to find Team Ups. It's difficult to find Team Ups even for big dungeons, with the only exceptions being Olympus, Waterworks, and maybe Mirror Lake (there could be a few others). Even the dungeon you showed, Darkmoor, will have you potentially waiting a good while before finding even a single other person unless you're lucky or playing with friends. This isn't to say that you can't play the game solo, I've played most of it solo, however there are required multiplayer dungeons in the game that you have to have help in order to complete it for the main story. Having a steady new player stream is one of the most important things for any game, but especially for MMOs. Even in free-to-play games, free players *are* content for paying players. If there's nobody playing, even if you play solo, there's not much of a point in doing anything.
My proposal has always been either one of two things. Either move the paywall to Celestia, or remove the paywall entirely. As I've said on many previous comments, membership is not how KingsIsle makes the majority of its money. Best of all, they don't need to remove membership either, they simply need to repurpose it. One thing you didn't mention is that membership also gives member benefits, which is the only reason end-game players even buy membership. (This is also why the membership argument is bad as, prior to member benefits, the only people who had membership were players still progressing through the game and PvP players while PvP still required membership.) So if the majority of earnings are from the Crown Shop and most players only buy membership for member benefits, I believe their best path is to remove the paywall and repurpose membership to focus entirely on member benefits. Instead of member benefits changing every week or however frequently, I think all member benefits should be active at once. Though I believe the reason they have it rotating is to get players to come back each week for a different benefit, which will make them subscribe for longer, but I don't think that's a good way to entice people. Instead, membership should also give a small amount of Crowns each month (maybe only 2500 Crowns or less) or just giving general discounts in the Crown Shop only for members. Improving member streak benefits would also give greater incentive to stay subscribed.
Doing the above will actually increase membership sales and release the floodgates for a steady stream of new players. This means new potential subscribers, new Crown Shop sales, and a more alive community throughout the entire length of the game. They'll also invite their own friends to play, allowing for exponential growth to be possible. It's the positive feedback loop that every online game wants. There's a reason that most of the industry has moved forward with free-to-play being the new way of monetizing these sorts of games.
Now there are other issues I have with the game, mainly that it's extremely repetitive and that most of the game comes down to boosting into an AoE. But I do enjoy the more complex fights. I also find it sort of special to hop into a dungeon and either be able to have a casual conversation with everyone, or everyone be completely silent and yet know exactly what to do without saying a word. I like your video and I think you did a pretty good job of summarizing the game, but I did need to comment about the paywall topic as I find it to be the most important issue about the game that could easily be solved, and already has been solved by more "recent" MMOs.
*TL;DR:*
Good video, covers the game pretty well. Paywall should be removed, member benefits should be improved, and turn the game into the successful free-to-play model that newer MMOs use.
I have a question, since you are also a veteran player. My Mother, siblings and I played this game together growing up, but last year when we sat down to really play it again, we fell off about the end of Chrysalis. Because it simply became too complicated to play. Every school as specific gear that you HAVE to farm for, and as you said, player team ups are dead at best. On top of that, the dungeons take several hours. Not a reasonable expectation for the adults who are paying to play their game. I always stay at least two worlds ahead of her, so I can guide her through, but the new cards that combine schools and stuff are such a steep learning curve. Neither of us are dumb, my Mother is an extremely skilled player to have powered through so far with awful gear and purely strategy, but that's seems to no longer be viable. Do you think bloat is the source of the issue? Is it bad UI? Or maybe our methods? I don't know, it's really discouraging. This used to be a family event, now I see the game in my suggested and just feel disgruntled.
@@TheLimeCrimes It's cool to see another wiz family. My father started playing with me back around when I was in Dragonspyre for the first time. The game definitely starts to get a bit more serious starting around Azteca. This was near the peak of Wizard101's popularity around 2012-2013. Worlds began getting longer and more difficult. This is probably when having good gear became a bit more important. Darkmoor was a huge landmark for gear as well, but it also introduced high level dungeons that often required a full team of skilled players. You even fail to get the good drops if you die during the second phase of the final boss, which I believe is the only boss that does that. Beyond that, there are certain boss fights that are virtually impossible to solo and generally also require a skilled team that knows exactly what to do. I'll be honest, I haven't even gotten into Novus yet, I only got far enough to get the spell.
I personally think general difficulty increases are good, but I'm not a fan of main story content that can't be soloed. I do like harder things that require a team to do as side content. But finding people for older content is rather difficult. I'll firstly say that one big issue the game has is that the game doesn't provide you with all of the information that you need. You have to consult the Wiki or player guides/videos just to know how to deal with a particular boss/dungeon, or the best items or spells that you should be going for. The deeper you get into the game, the less casual it becomes. There are some worlds that are suddenly easier, which are a nice break, but it's the grinding you have to do to prepare for the harder worlds. Pet training helps quite a bit, but that requires creating a Couch Potato or Evil Magma Pea farm for pet snacks, and knowledge regarding pet hatching and training. As for the new Archmastery system, I think it just requires some getting used to. It requires you to think ahead a bit. In short, a school pip will work as a power pip both for your own school and the school that it is. For spells that require a specific school pip to work, it will need the base pip cost of the spell plus the specific school pip it requires. So for example, Ninja Pigs is rank 4 and requires a myth pip, so you'd need 2 power/school pips plus one myth school pip, totaling to 3 power/school pips (one being myth).
In short, the game becomes less casual and will definitely require getting better stats to keep up consistently. I wouldn't actually say it's required, my father didn't ever farm gear until the end of Novus. He actually got well ahead of me and maxed out most of his wizards to my surprise. But having better stats will make the game considerably easier, except for those few challenge points. My issue with the late game is that KingsIsle seems to have put a focus on PvP and P2W elements. Most of the new spells seem almost entirely focused on PvP, which is obviously irrelevant for PvE-only players. They made drops rarer and much more annoying to farm for, or you can just pay for world packs in the Crown Shop. There was even a point where the best wands were completely locked behind packs in the Crown Shop. There's also the raid system which is really only for the most hardcore of players. It seems that KingsIsle is focusing all of its efforts on their end-game players, of which are mainly more serious about the game, to do whatever will make them happy while also being profitable.
If your family still plays together, I do think that will help out quite a bit as the game gets way easier when you're not going solo. You can even tackle the really challenging bosses if you have the right stats, deck, and strategy. I think team-play in Wizard101 is probably my favorite part. But it really depends what you and your family want out of this game. This was kind of an open rant, so I apologize if anything was confusing. I'd be happy to talk about this further if you wish.
For the paywall thing, you also have to remember that a lot of us were kids when we first played the game and that affected us. We'd have to ask our parents to pay for it, we couldn't do it ourselves. I remember playing when I was around 11-12 and it wasn't until I was about 17-18 that I got membership for the first time (I was also a stupid kid and would redeem the crowns and not the membership whenever I bought the cards), so a lot of us are advocating for the first arc to be free because without membership and doing every quest and side quest available until you hit the paywall only goes up to level 11 (I actually tested this out). The game is already on the fourth arc, it's honestly the least they could do.
Also I remember when the pets *were* just decorations, that takes me back.
This is nostalgic 😢as a kid i stopped playing when i got stuck at fire cat alley needing to buy crowns. Was talking about the game with a friend yesterday i might start playing again
Sameeee I need a computer though haha 😅
@@N0E4SY_ST4YOT8 good thing it can run on pretty much any potato lol
I just wonder how a game got us all hooked cause of its God-tier animation at the time it was produced. Still alive and well despite the years? Does it still receives updates?
Yes it still receives regular updates. In fact, a new world (Wallaru) is coming out in about a week lol.
I would say that Wizard101 was very good from its release date till like 2016 before they began making all the changes to the game. It was more fun to play and people would literally pvp in homes and have parties for hours and just chill. Pvp has always been a huge factor in the game but it hasn't anymore since the entire change. I'm a wizard vet and have been playing since I was 10-11 and now I'm 23. So I feel bad that the new wiz fams have to experience the game as it is now and not be able to experience it from years ago.
DUDEEE I used to host a TON of pvp parties, we used to make all sorts of stuff work haha, those housing minigames and just so much more.
@@Demonic_ righttt! Use to spend hours just chilling n talking 😂😂🤙
the immense lag at the pvp house parties hold a special place in my heart
Wait what happened? I'm a very old player who hit a pay wall and stopped playing. Now I recently came back for nostalgia. (I played like around 8-10 years ago)
I think the game is a lot better now than it was. I think nostalgia might be giving you rose tinted glasses.
It's really interesting seeing someone new play the game, I've been playing on and off since 2010 so hearing someone new talk about it positively is very refreshing.
On the point of paid memberships since Wizard101 is marketed as a childrens game more worlds should be open for them to play so their parents can justify paying 10-20 bucks on memberships you know?
I've been playing the game on and off since 2011 so I agree with it being nice to hear new players talk about the game positively lol. I wish they'd at least make the whole first arc at least free maybe just so you can reach lvl 50-60 and all.
Pausing the video at 5:27 so if I get corrected I apologise. But the issue most of us have with it, is that it makes so many new players stop playing. I mean seriously the first few areas last like 2 hours then they are forced to pay $10 and most just don't.
“Why would you argue about something that doesn’t affect you in any way?” Empathy.
Really cool video. Was nice to see someone give an opinion about the game with no prior knowledge about it. I remember playing the game for the first time in 2011 and I was fortunate to be a part of the community when it was in its youtuber prime. I'd never have learned the things I have about "whats the best gear whats the best pet" if it werent for accounts like BlazeLifeHammer and ZenMasterBlue. Grew up watching Walkthroughs and Gear Set Up videos, test realm patch videos and the like. I took a break from the game in 2019 and just came back last year and man was difficult to familiarize myself with the new features and meta esp without as many youtubers to follow. I met some good people who kinda took me under their wing when it came to pet making and farming. I recently joined a Guild. Now I have a couple Nullity Robes, NightMire Robes and many 'Quad Mighty' Pets. I definitely understand the whole elitism argument, people can be pretty particular about how they like to play but usually they're open to helping you understand the cheats and how to work together to defeat a boss. Nothing worse than having a group of people doing their own thing in a team setting such as dungeons and gauntlets where teamwork is crucial...although last year when I was farming for Merciless Gear some guy dumped on my stats when I hadnt played in years. Ultimately I'd say the good people outweigh the bad eggs. If you can find a group of people you enjoy playing with and talking to the game will always be worth playing.
as a very old player (july 2010 for current main account, had others that've been long forgotten over the years playing on and off) whose just got to khrysalis for the first time, i can say the community can be SUPER welcoming!! i notice all the time when im questing (especially when membership is free for a period of time) that if im struggling on a dungeon typically i can join team up and find someone who is also on the quest/willing to help! a lot of the time i find someone on the same questline and we'll spend some time doing a bunch of quests together! i spent a few days by myself doing the first maybe 1/6 of khrysalis, found one person to team up and got a third of the main khrysalis quest tree done in 2 nights (coincidentally teamed up with the same person 2 nights in a row)
not only are people super friendly, especially in team-up, they're super HELPFUL!!
I first played as Death because I wanted a fierce wizard to play as. It might’ve been because I was a little edgy, but I still have Death as my lead, and not because of the fact that I’m edgy anymore. Now it resonates with me. And as of writing, my Fire is not far behind on being maxed as well.
Bro had to repeat 10 times that he isnt edgy anymore💀 its okay lil bro we know you still edgy
@@habibi3312 Uhh… Huh? …What do you mean?
@@habibi3312😂😂
haha i spent way too much time on the game as a kid... and now... i have 3 level 160s with full aeon gear. That took way too long. The rest of my wizards are level 50+. It took WAY too long.
@@MonsterMasterFightingLucario ignore him man, he’s just a comment troll they go through responding trying to spread negativity for zero reason. Don’t give them an ounce of attention, i understand what you mean I did the same thing. Before I went death bc I liked the idea of death and angels and the celestial type shit but now it’s just bc it’s overall the better class imo.
I’ve played since 2012, starting when i was 7. I hit the paywall but kept playing regardless, and farmed the kraken just because everyone was so nice. I came back in like 2020 and played during the month they had free first arc. I fell in love again and now buy a membership and my main is now lvl 124 fire. :)
4:19 buying all the areas with crowns is one of the best decisions I ever made on this game. One time crown sale purchase of $300 and I unlock everything in the game and then some, can play when I want whenever I want, no longer worried about wasting membership time or being forced to get on. Deal with burnout, and play multiple characters over a period of time. The amount I spent on memberships as a kid probably is far more than the $300 for all the zones. So now it’s saving me money in the long run and I never have to spend anything on this game again if I don’t want to do anything in crowns shop.
For long term ofc its better, but 30 months of membership is 2 and a half years. 2 and a half years is more than enough to level all wizards and then u just need to buy the newest zone and thats it. Overall for new players its not worth at all buying all zones.
I only bought zones where I know Imma spend time on. Like Zafaria for Mirror Lake, Aerial Shore, Thieves Den in Mirage, and Darkmoor.
@@IrrelevantOaf why mirror lake? I had only one dungeon there
Thanks so much to review this game in a pretty fair way! I've been playing this game since 2017 and it is still the only games that I stick into after all these years (I'm usually not a gamerhead lol), and YES one of the best things on my way through this wizard's journey is to make friends. But one of the worst things of this game is the paywall. Like all my friends in reality won't even give it a try because of the art style and the paywall. Not a single one. So I really wish that they'd put the paywall a bit later in the game (and I'm glad that they started doing that, cuz sometimes they'd make the first 4 worlds totally free for a few months.) Anyway thanks so much for reviewing and I really hope that there would be more new players to get into the game!
I've been playing wizard101 since 2008 and I really haven't enjoyed a game as much as I have when I play it. Its so addicting and there is always something to look forward to while playing! Magnificent game IMO
Yeah, last time i played, the lvl cap was 50..insane how i return back to the game just now to seeing 160+...Im trying to convince myself if should go ahead and put time and grind this game out again like i did years ago
As someone who has never had membership or crowns or anything like that to help me progress, the event “12 days of the spiral” finally got me the furthest I’ve ever gotten on Wiz, as of right now I just entered Mooshu and I hear this all the time but it’s so true, they need to make the first arc free
Guilty of dropping $200 for ghulture horde packs and STILL not getting a single life ghulture
Wizard101 housing is peak housing in games. I wish some houses had more space for decorations, but the ability to decorate them pretty much in your own way, is so fire.
Heck yeah bro glad to see a guy with a beard playing, feel better knowing I won’t be the only older person still playing this awesome game that I was once addicted to 24/7
Nathan FireWraith 🙌🏼
if it’s your first time def listen dialogue, some lines are boring yes but that’s any game, the dialogue makes what your doing actually feel meaningful
wizard 101 can be really fun especially if you are questing with friends it makes it really fun and time passes by really fast. I once made a friend on this game and we literally quested from Azteca all the way to level 150 and we played all the time together. The game is fun and enjoyable once you get the concept which is not hard to pick up its a blast to play.
As a player who has actively been playing for just over 12 years, it was refreshing to see this.
it baffles me that W101 has not gone away with the paywall system. The game is already severely p2w so it might as well be f2p if it wishes to truly get more people/
The paywall is something we have been trying to tell KI for god knows how long but it will never change... It's really annoying to have it so early on as well
I love this game! Wanting to get back into it and start making content on it aswell I feel as the community just keeps growing slowly and slowly and once you start really getting into it it’s hard to get away from!
Wiz community is amazing! Literally made a high lvl friend who helped me with 3 worlds on one day cuz she was alrdy the highest lvl at the time. As a mostly solo player she saved me days of questing!
8:43 sitting down with an experienced player and taking a "pet class" is so real LOL
this not a spoiler but after reaching arc 3 like you NEED at least another player to quest like you may have the best gear but it aint gon help you progress, not impossible to solo quest from that point but it feels more like a necessity too hard 💀 to solo, resist dont even matter just all damage / piercing. and you die that means you did something wrong. point is to kill asap
omg the king is kinging again
beastmoon is where theres more variety
I was going obsessed with this game, had my first gaming rage, spanned my most powerful cards to just get my obliterated by an enemy not that much higher than me in skill
Nice video, love your opinion on wizard101!
I love wiz, it’s so nostalgic for me and the community is super welcoming
I used to play the game when I was like 10 and it was great I never got that far but it was probably one of the best games I ever played and I’m glad it’s still around. Now that I have adult money I might pick it up again haha
Wizard101 is one of the most wholesome games I've ever played. I am biased though, wizqrd101 player here. But I've met some of my bestest friends on this game.
And yes play without touching packs.
picking death is now "oh they wanted to have an easy time playing"
to max out a character in 2 weeks, you need a second account to self boost or have a friend that boost. at the end of the play through its pretty much 1 day = 1 world
As someone who has played since 2009 as a 9yo, Thank you for actually giving wizard101 a fair review. People made a big deal over xQc playing it and he hardly gave it a chance. He played it for a quick bit, acted like he didn’t have the mental capacity to understand how some of the mechanics work. Another youtuber tried to give it a fair review but based off some of the things he was saying, it felt like he spent less than 1 day playing the game, and still made it seem like it was pay to win because of the membership costs. Finally I come across someone who actually plays the game and tried to give it a chance and you enjoyed it lol. Even the criticisms you give are totally fair and acceptable as you actually gave the game the time of day.
Very hard to get friends into this game when paywall is super early. Game has been out for so long the first 50 levels should be free permanently. Just like other companies, its hard to stick with a game when the company wont listen to its player base.
hey fun fact you can feed loot you don't want to your pet and get random rewards like gold or tcs or reagents and there's a chance it could gain some xp which means you can level your pet while you're questing
And now that Wizard101 is attached to Gamigo, I fear that things will just get worse cause Gamigo is one of the most infamous publishers, notorious for milking mmo’s for money and then putting them on life support until they die. Read that Devs had to fight just to continue updating Pirate. And that’s dire.
as a fire wizard myself. players are only nice if you play the way they expect.
It takes 6 years and two months now if you do quizzes every day. 100 crowns per day
I started in 2012 as a 12 year old literally just roaming and trolling. It was good times just messing with people in the commons. I never took it seriously till 2014 when Darkmoor test realm dropped. That's when I made the effort to actually ask my mom for a prepaid card. I think Darkmoor had to be the biggest event in the game. Felt like peak Wiz as well with the sheer amount of players questing just to get there.
I am someone who played this when I was a kid, but I couldn't afford to pay for it. Now that I am 25 and can afford to spend my own money to buy stuff, I just started officially playing again a couple months ago and I love it. I had to make a new account, but that fine because I remembered what my original 2 characters were. They were Balance and Fire. My first official run is Balance (I'm currently lvl 61 and its rough lol). I like that there is a membership because generally the community is better, we are giving money to a company that keeps up with their game, and it means that everyone who plays are true fans and will keep the game alive for as long as possible. That being said, now that the max lvl is 160 or 170, I think up the first 3 or 4 worlds should be free now. Being able to learn about more worlds before having to pay for anything would be nice
I've been playing since release, paywall now should let you get at least halfway through Krokotopia. Lets you get to know the game and get to a point where you WANT to pay.
Love wizard101 and love this video.
I’ve been playing since 09, off and on.
My gf that I met on WoW got me back into it in 2020 and even then, we’ve taken breaks time to time but we love the game and we cherish making new friends online. WoW players are very toxic and manipulative, which is why we love Wiz.
Ive been at this game for 10 years with 2 accounts many maxes and I say Wizard City the 1st world should be completely free! That would be the best "Free Trial" and would give you longer than 20 mins to get into the game!
It's really great you enjoy the game that much, and you haven't even made it to the part of the game most wizard101 players love! The 3rd and 4th arcs really take the game to a higher level. ❤
Packs are mostly cosmetic nowadays and aren't needed at all atm so definitely try to avoid those if you dont care for cosmetics 😅
The last what 4 out of 5 packs were meta pvp gear, pay to win stuff!!!
Discounting players arguments about the paywall based on your own bias of, 'it doesn't affect you why does your opinion matter?' is extremely short sighted, dismissive, and really just inflammatory for no reason. Games where the veteran players care and put their opinions forth about the game are the ones that survive and grow over time. Players enjoying and joining the game, getting further, and wanting to reach the end game affects everyone, so all player opinions are important.
ive been playing wiz off and on since i was nine years old and im about to turn 25, you got your character a higher level than mine in like a fraction of that time lol i was never able to get the subscription so i was one of those kids forced to unlock each area individually, which made leveling up take FOREVERRR im just now reaching level 90 something lol
I definitely agree that the paywall can be a problem but people really overrate the monetisation in the game. The only thing that you must buy is membership for the worlds, everything else depends on you and is optional. Like basically every piece of gear is farmable except from pack gear which is usually either worse or slightly better than the dungeon gear.
And also membership is like 10$ and then amount of fun and playability you get from this game's is insane. For me, 30$ on a 3 month membership is more worth than buying a game for 30$ which I'm gonna finish in 3 days. I do think the 1st arc should be free considering 8 levels isn't really enough to showcase everything that the game can offer to make you buy membership.
If you play for 10-15 minutes and then get hit with a paywall, you won’t be as invested as putting hours or months into then running to a paywall. More people will want play!
I read it all the way. I agree with some things. You gotta understand not ever had $10 to spare
@@hirahiro2331 If you can afford a PC/laptop to play the game and you really like the game, you have 10$ to spare
@@gjbsarmeri3957 lol can’t fight with that logic
@@hirahiro2331$10 isn’t a lot and other MMOs require that or more.
The problem isn't the wallet, it's the lack of updates to improve the game. They could improve the graphics, evolve the combat. People are willing to pay monthly just look at games like WoW, FFXIV all paid. The best thing, from my point of view, would be to first eliminate the separate servers and create just one on a global level in order to encourage people to come back to play as well, given that as an Italian, our servers are completely empty and the updates they are far behind the American version of the game
I think making huge changes to things you mentioned like graphics or combat, would fundamentally change the thing that people come back for, nostalgia.
Look at maple story, it didn’t go so well when they went 3D.
@@neonprado9989 I must have expressed myself badly. They should encourage people to return with new content and perhaps try to remove the monthly subscription by inserting a paid battle pass with cosmetic items, crowns, etc.....If the game were to return free to play in my opinion there would be a great return of people
this is such a nice review. a bunch of reviews of this game are complaining about monetization and how greedy kingsisle is but you actually just seem like you enjoyed playing the game and for some reason that's pretty rare
I'm glad you enjoyed the voice acting! So many folks skip through everything
Can’t lie I no-lifed during my summer break and maxed my storm in a month 😭
Look at many other MMO's with F2P.
Final Fantasy 14? Up to level 70 I think...
Runescape? There's at least a dozen quests and content that could take weeks for a new player to reach, with the "final boss" of F2P being slaying a dragon.
This game, I can play for like, an hour and have reached the paywall. You're still getting tutorial popups by the time you've finished with the free to play content. I think at least having Wizard City unlocked for F2P would be a good, at the least. Right now it's just way too restrictive.
You're amazing and so wholesome! ❤
As someone that constant btch about some KI practices, I can agree with you 100%, I am the same way wiz and I have a love and hate relationship , we fight but at the end of the day we kiss and make up and I still play this game, the sad thing is that most of my friends do not so I usually just solo play. The paywall crap is cause we just want people to at least enjoy the first two worlds but I agree with you , coming from someone that had played every single mmo out there, its what its, you will either play it or put it down like others had done.
After returning to the game for the first time in years and finding out that I apparently paid to unlock Wizard City, it should definitely be included in the F2P experience. If any of the P2P zones had pay-walled me, I'd have probably dropped the game within a matter of days, but being able to actually experience the game feels amazing. When I finish this first arc, I'm going to have a hard time not considering a membership.
I have been playing for two weeks. I am in celestia now. I tried to play this game years ago and only made it through half of krokotopia. If I didn't have friends who have been playing for 15 years then I would never have picked it back up. My point is that the game doesn't really get very enjoyable until at least marleybone and it takes off in Dragonspyre.
I recommend you try pirate101 the sister game of wizard101 it’s different from wizard101 you get to lead a crew and sail around the world I love both the games and I have trouble choosing between the two 😂
Dude pirate 101 was amazing asf and I’m already maxed out. I loved it
I absolutely love this game, I genuinely do. But, It's the most predatory scummy game I've ever seen in terms of monetising strategies.
This video is super helpful and well done!
Glad it was helpful!
If you are a casual player who wants to quest and do pve then the game is great! However, if you want to get into the competitive aspects like pvp the game is complete dogsh*t.
I used to play but might have to get back into it when i can. My account is from 2009 and have some of the things they don't have anymore like the Selena Gomez stuff from the quests when the area near the Waterworks first came out 😅 left cause my younger sister did something petty cause i didnt go on her account to level up her character so she gave spmeone my password and username in game (got it back but was muted until 2 uears ago) 😅
good video maybe one day talk more in depth about pet training
People don't like the paywall because it's hard to keep new player retention if in your first 2 hours of gameplay you see a paywall popup. Not to mention you only have access to a few very limiting quests and it's harder to level up overall. IMO all of Wizard City should be F2P
seems like a very nice game
i think i will not be playing it, but you did a very good job making me consider it
either way, i enjoyed your presentation, and i subbed
have a nice one
If the game looked how it does in the trailer so many more people would play for that reason too
and now I'm watching this 6 months after those said 6 months
All hail our lord and savior Kirby Longspear 😎
this game will outlive time itself the player base is fueled by nostalgia and rage ... the good kind :D... but honestly, they need to work on updating the looks of the worlds at least a little bit like krokatopia has to be the laziest world design I've seen like ever.... n64 games tried harder lol but regardless it's always good to see wizard101 still getting love!
been playing for over 10 years glad to see new people playing the game and making content on it. yes paywall sucks but keeps games alive and updating. glad you enjoyed it overall!
Not gonna lie another criticism a lot of people have about the game is that the community is great but kingsisle’s treatment towards the community sucks sometimes. For example, for users 13+ you could use text chat instead of the preset messages from the menu chat. At 18 you get open chat but it seems like kingsisle thinks you are the same age you set yourself as 10 years ago so some guys are like 25 now still not able to use open chat and kingsisle does virtually nothing. If you’re like me and went into master controls as a kid and changed your birthdate to your dad’s back before they turned that feature off, you used to be able to say whatever you want in open chat, but it seems like now it gets more and more restrictive every year. Grown adults with 18+ chat can’t say things like lmao and wtf and attempting to say those things risk you getting muted or banned. Surely they understand most of the audience are just twenty and early thirty somethings trying to get their nostalgia fix. Sometimes I ask people how old they are(which you have to use a workaround for because that’s also banned) just to see what the average age is like on wiz and while I’m 23, most people are like 25-30 and the youngest I’ve come across is 16 only once. You can’t even type numbers smaller than 100 in the open chat because they don’t want you saying how old you are. These restrictions make sense in the 13+ text chat but open chat starts to feel more and more like text chat each year and it feels like the only advantages of open chat these days are that if you make a typo it won’t censor out the whole word. They’re acting like they’re responsible for child safety online like these same kids they’re trying to protect aren’t on xbox live calling people racial slurs and screaming into the mic, and that’s only a tip of the iceberg type of issue
legit all kingsisle needs to do is make the first arc free
Hell yeah a fellow pyromancer my brotha!!!!
played this as a kid round the time the whole Malister plot was still going, is that whole first arc free yet or nah? Because its 2024 and I still want to finish that damn quest!
15 yrs. They still cant get ppl to have a free pass from Krokotopia til Dragonspyre. This game was huge. Couldve stayed huge like WOW, but KI just doesn't have a good company to back them up, sadly. Would love to get back into the game if it becomes one the great games again
Yeah, I started playing the game when it came out so long ago. I have had accounts banned due to gaming drama queens bullying me . Yet, I Luke the game so much and created another account. Thing is, it appears I got more experienced at the game with getting account after account banned haha.
New players have it more easy now in boss fight they use to be hard the first go around.
I get into it when I have time and I’d try to get friends into it. We had a group and we stopped at 40. Now…I already had a near max character (lvl 144/150) so redoing the game was a bit hard…
My game just says connection lost and wont let me connect
You're making me want to play this game again. I haven't played in years, the reason I stopped was because how p2w it was when I played. I mained a life wizard and at the time, the best life set was in a pack. I know this comment is late, but I am tempted to try again, but I definitely wanna know, is this game still heavily p2w or has that died down enough that not as many people do it?
6months later..did you try it? I'm in the same boat I quit because I'm not gambling on gear, it's something that should be crafted or farmed..anyways, is it still heavy pay to win?
Been playing on and off since 2014, whenever i feel like playing again i wait for the membership to go on sale for 5$ perfect price to grind this game out for a month and not touch it again for a while lmao
Personally I’ve been around since like 2010 on wiz. An I have to say now after 15 years. I would like for Arc 1 (lvl 1-50) to be free so I can rope friends into playing an taking their time. Sure you get a month for 10$ but people don’t play everyday, So they might feel rushed to cram what they can in a month.
It makes me so happy to see my wizard in UA-cam videos :)
Thank you for this amazing review. It made people at work all happy today. Also, this is comment 101.
Happy you enjoyed it 🙏
As someone who is on the europe server. Yeah games is dead there they need to merge eu and us otherwise they are losing a lot of money running updates and keeping the servers up
Haha I’m not death but I’m stuck in the ✨HOT TOPIC EMO PHASE✨ 🖤
Here is the reason w101 players care about the paywall. W101 is a multiplayer game, and it is more fun to play with friends. If you ask a friend to play a game with you, you want to make sure they like it before asking them to put money down on a membership. There is not enough time to show off the game to your friends with where the paywall currently is, so w101 players do not want to recommend w101 when what will happen is they will see cringy dialog, linear gameplay, and quit 30 minutes in with diminished respect for your overall opinion.
Other content creator timed the time it takes to go through act 1, and act 2 with plans of act 3 and 4. Act 1 has about 15 hours of content, Act 2 has about 70 hours of content, I would guess act 3 and 4 combined together have similar time to act 2. So lets say there is a cool 150 hours of questing in W101... A f2p can do Triton avenue and unicorn way in 30 minutes. So you are getting to play .3% of the game before it makes you chose if you want to pay. 30 minutes into a game your not going to be heavily invested into your wizard you will be asked to put in your credit card, and what is going to happen is you will say nah I am out and believe a membership isn't worth trying.
Swtor is next?😆😁