It was December 19th 2008, when I was surfing the internet for a fun MMORPG. Me being a fan of the weird, strange, and magical, I stood no chance in resisting Wizard101. I signed up for an account and downloaded the game. I was blown away by the spells, and graphics. The only MMO that I have played before Wizard101 was Runescape, so I went "wow" and "Cool" a lot during the tutorial for all new wizards. This is when I made my first character, Angel Winterbreeze, a novice Thaumaturge. Some people might not know that the first time I took the wizard test I got Fire, but when I took it again I got Ice. I thought it was fitting since it was winter after all. My favorite spell from that tutorial would be the Minotaur spell or maybe Centaur. They are both so cool! Oh, and I remember after the tutorial waiting forever for Ambrose to bring me to his office. I jumping everywhere and saying "are you ready now?". When I first landed in Merle's office I was surprised with how many wizards were there, and in the Commons too. It's not as much as today but it was still a lot. I spent my days as a novice wizard beating up The Kraken on a daily basis. Oh, and those 101 crowns we got for signing up back then, I spent them on a wand that cost 50 crowns and gave the same attack as a dropped novice wand... Yeah, I know, how foolish of me. On the bright side I learned how to manage crowns better... somewhat.
After I got tired of farming the Kraken, which lasted for about 2 months, crazy right... I took a break, didn't last long though. I think it was in April or May, or some time in the spring of 2009 that I saw this commercial:
After watching this same commercial a couple times I decided to hop back over onto the game. This is when I got addicted to housing, and PvP. This is also the first time I bought crowns. I bought just enough to have half of Krokotopia, which brought me to level 18. "But Angel, that's not really an important level..." Blasphemy! I say. Every level is important, and this one was very important to me. I went in with a level 18 into the arena and came out victorious against a team full of Grandmasters. I got called "treasure noob" a lot because of my treasure Blizzards, but oh well! That and my other team mates were Masters and Grandmasters I think. It was still a fun match though, and from then on I PvP'ed almost everyday! So, yes, I was once again addicted to Wizard101.
After a few months of questing through Krokotopia and PvPing on my Ice I made my second wizard. Bet you can't guess who it is! My Balance? Nope. I created a Myth wizard named Mark Giantcaller. Strange isn't it? Let me tell you that Myth is very hard to quest with. I got stuck at getting the the Cyclops Minion (Darn you dark fairies!). I got back on my Ice with my first Subscription I think around the summer time of 2009.
In July, I had my first Grandmaster. I think this was one of the top moments of my gaming. I was excited about being one of the highest levels in the game finally. I got my level 48 spell, Frost Giant, and I was in love with it! This is also the time I first became a Commander in PvP. After a few weeks of doing the same thing I heard of guides to getting Grandmaster gear. Like any other wizard I wanted the best and strongest gear out there so I checked it out. This lead me to the Wizard101 fan site that is Wizard101Central. I signed up for an account for Wizard101Central on August 4th 2009.
I was pretty amazed on how much information I tapped into with Wizard101Central. I also met some pretty amazing people, and attended some parties that led me to some pretty amazing friends that I have today. I think when I first started posting about random stuff, and reading through the Ice PVP guides that were there. Back then the best dueling was Grandmaster dueling, and trust me, those. were. LONG.
PvP parties. However, there were no houses with dueling circles in them. We had to use the "Old Arena". The Old Arena was where wizards originally dueled each other before the current PvP system. Back then, after the Ranked system was introduced and before the PvP houses we had to port to the middle of The Arena. The only way to get to the Old Arena was that you needed to have marked there before they introduced the Rank system or you had to have a friend there. I always got excited when someone was having a party in the Old Arena because it was the only chance I got to see spells up close in 3rd person. I also got to test my skills against many other wizards that showed up to these parties.
After I got tired of doing PvP I decided to do other things around the Spiral and on Wizard101Central. I started to 'dabble' with graphics. When I say dabble, I do mean dabble. I was not very good at them. AT ALL. I was confused at first of how to blur something or how to cut something out. It was a very rough time but eventually I learned some tricks and some Photoshop classes in school came in handy too. Eventually I started making mutations of spells like the Fire Wyvern. It took me about 3 days to make that picture with the help of other Central members and their feedback. This inspired my Mutation Creation Contests. These contests you had to get a Wizard101 spell and mutate it like I did with the Ice Wyvern but the mutation can not be already in game and I got some pretty interesting entries. From a Plasma Collosus to an Frost Centaur.This was when I first became a Twizard and also when I signed up for Diary of a Wizard Connect X a short time after! At first I just followed the standard Wizard101 staff members, and the very well-known wizards. It took me a while for me to be accustomed to the Twitter Sphere. Especially since I came from a forum where you must know everything. In time I started following Kevin Battleblood, and Cassandra Dragonheart on Twitter along with Fallon, Paige Moonshade and Stephen Spiritcaller. I also created my first blog, which didn't turn out so popular. So, I eventually gave up on blogging soon after that. However, eventually I saw a tweet from Mr. Battleblood about a PvP party that he was holding and I was a regular participant in those. I should of gotten some frequent flyer miles...
a team with Fallon, SorceressMiklai, and some wizard's name that escapes me right now where I introduced Piggly and my excessive Unicorn spamming. Fallon and I were whispering each other on what should we do and I remember she discarded her Reshuffle and was worried that she'd run out of cards so I gave her mine. That match lasted I think 3-4 hours I'm not entirely sure. I added Fallon I think by the end of the match, and I think we took up the entire party with that match and we were all yawning by the end of it. It was a load of fun and that's when I got addicted to PvP Parties that I even hosted my own!
I eventually befriended Kevin and Cass, and we did a couple practice matches together and they were pretty fun even though I was in a wind tunnel. Eventually I added Ronan Dawn and I was introduced to Team Perfect Catch. I was the one in the background hiding like a Ninja pig because people wanted to eat my bacon! It was hilarious when TPC transformed into Treants and started dancing around in them. I remember Panglou and some other Twizards were chasing me around like crazy. BACON!I kind of skipped ahead a little. My first Test Realm was the Grizzleheim Test Realm where they introduced crafting and the Bazaar. At first it took me a while to grasp the concept that the crowns on Test Realm do not go into the Live realm too.. Yes I was very smart ;). Someone had to explain to me and they showed me where it says that "Anything that happens in Test Realm does not affect the realm game." Then came the Crown Shop Test Realm. Oh.. I went crazy in this one. The first time mounts were introduced we could dye them any color we want. I remember I had a white lion, it was awesome. They changed that soon afterwards, and no more rainbow mounts. More and more updates came including the Celestia Test Realm which was one of the most exciting updates ever! That might be because it was very hyped up.
By the end of 2010 is when I changed my name to SirWinterbreeze on Twitter and on Wizard101Central. That's when all the craziness started. It was a random day on the random month of January, I think, that I got a random Skype call from who else but the group that is now known as 'KT'. I was about to decline too... Imagine if I did decline? When I first stepped into that chatroom I knew I wasn't in Kansas anymore. That's when I first met Alric Ravensinger, and Autumn Fireblade. It was later that the group was named KT, it was kind of weird because everyone had a previous connection with each other and I was just, there, you know? Eventually we all became something similar to a family and I was deemed as the little brother.
We did about a few dozen matches together I think. I'm always grateful that I got to be a part of a team, and to actually have won many matches.
It's been three long years since I have joined this great game and I'm hoping for three more years. I've met a lot of great people and I'm grateful to each and every wizard I have come in contact with in the past three years and I want to thank all of you for putting up with me for this long. If you've read this far then I think you deserve something special:
Dashing through Mooshu,
On a clanking Chrismoose mount.
O'er the village we go,
Look how big it's snout!
Bells on it's antlers right,
Making wizards laugh.
What fun it is to ride and sing
on a ChrisMoose mount tonight!
