Instancing in Wizard 101

I dinged 15 this weekend, completed practically all of the Wizard City quests, found the entrance to Krokotopia (the next major Questing area), and got the quest to enter the first W101 Instance known as "The Sunken City".

If you thought WoW was MMO 4 Dummies, but you've never played W101, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Oh, before we get started, one other accomplishment I achieved this weekend was collecting a second Potion. In W101 the number of Pots you can have is limited (at least at the start of the game), but using a Pot will fully restore ALL of your Health & Mana. You could have 1 HP & 1 MP and using your Pot will still completely fill your Heath & Mana. So I managed to obtain a second Pot, which is really only useful for Instances as any other time you can just go play a Minigame to restore your Mana & Health. The Minigames are also, coincidentally, where you refill Pots, too, unless you're pressed for time and want to pay the Pot vendor 150g per refill.

I decided to have a go at Sunken City so I went to the entrance and waited to see if anyone else was interested. A couple of people turned up.

"Hi. Want to do Sunken City?" I typed. (I can do that, because I enabled Text Chat in my account).

"Yes, but I'm waiting for friends," replied the girl who first arrived.

Another fellow turned up, hit X and started the Countdown Timer. I hit X and followed suit. The girl joined us (so much for friends, or maybe he was one of them), and in we went.

The Instances are a little tougher because you're often facing multiple Mobs. In most areas outside, if you're fighting one Mob by yourself, other Mobs will (usually) wander up to your combat zone then despawn. It's only in the tougher zones where you'll face multiple Mobs, but similar rules still apply. If 2v1 Combat is allow, and you're already facing two Mobs, other Mobs approaching your combat zone will despawn rather than join the battle.

The Sunken City provided us with a quest quiver who sent us to the first Tower to retrieve a Key to unlock the first gate. Naturally there's a Miniboss in this Tower guarding said Key. The Group I was in was able to coordinate our battles fairly well, and it was amusing to see almost all aspects of combat in a more developed MMO are also present in W101.

As an Ice Mage I'm technically the Tank class. As I level more I'll be able to get Spell to Taunt Mobs & Bosses so they'll attack me, rather than my allies. Because of this the Armor for my School tends to provide more health & mana than that of other schools. To counter this potentially making the Ice School over-powered, my spells are often less damaging or powerful than the other Schools. There's also a Life School (& its counter, the Death School) which naturally can be the Healer class, capable of healing not just themselves (as most Schools can do) but also others, including the entire Party. There's the standard Heal spells, group Heals, and even HOTs...and yes, that means there's DOTs, too. There are Spells which can Stun Mobs for 1 Turn (most likely higher level Mobs can Stun players), and there are Spells to summon Minions. There are even AOE spells, as I saw utilized by a Fire Mage in Sunken City.

Getting back to that.

The problem with Combat in W101 is you cannot break away from Combat without Fleeing, but Fleeing reduces your Mana to just 1 point and works as if you were a Paladin Bubble Hearthing. If you get defeated in Combat you also "flee" and this is actually a good thing for Instances, as I later realized.

We killed the first Miniboss, got the key, unlocked the first Gate, and received our second quest to unlock the second gate. These quests do reward you with XP and by the end of the Instance, after completing the entire Chain, I'd put on almost a full level.

The final Tower contained the last Miniboss who was guarding the key to the Boss's chamber, and we fought our way up, floor by floor. With each fight my Health got lower and lower and that was when I realized being "killed" in W101, even in an Instance, is not really a big deal. There's no repair costs, and as I mentioned, unless you're in a hurry, you can just play the Minigames to recoup your Health & Mana.

We got to the final Miniboss and I decided against drinking my last Pot, foolishly wanting to keep it until before the Boss battle. I was hopeful we could defeat the miniboss without suffering any casualties, specifically mine, but that was not to be. As my health was reduced to zero (or zero point one, perhaps ;) I typed "I'll be right back." and I "died" and Fled from battle.

The point at which you spawn after Dying/Fleeing from battle is right down the road from the Pot vendor. I quickly guzzled my second Pot, totally rejuvenating my Health & Mana, then ran to the Pot vendor and bought two refills. And it was then that another aspect of W101's simplified play style came in very handy.

Earlier in the Instance the four of us had made "Friends" with each other, and as Friends can Teleport to each other's location with a few clicks of the Mouse, it was a piece of cake to rejoin my comrades in arms, with full health and mana.

"Did you miss me?" I typed. Yeah, we all know I'm a bit of a smart arse ;)

The Miniboss went down and we made our way to the Boss's chamber. The fight was long, but not overly taxing. The most annoying aspect are the defensive spells Mobs can throw up, mitigating in some cases up to 80% of the damage your spell would have done. A clever Wizard learns to use his Wand to dispell these, although it's not so much dispelling the debuff, but rather using a low level spell to negate the effectiveness of your target's protective spell. Which would you rather do? Wait 3 turns to use a powerful spell, only to have it do 80 points of damage instead of 400? Or use your wand and have it do 10 points of damage instead of 50 ;)

With the Boss defeated I earned myself another title/achievement: "Sunken City Survivor". Now other players can see my avatar and know that I've conquered Sunken City.

Clicking the Home button on your Map act as a Hearthstone with a cooldown of 60 seconds. Yes, I'm serious. So I Hearthed then looked through the Loot I'd got out of my run. There were a few decent Items in there, but none suitable for an Ice Mage, or at least not upgrades for me. One or two would have been good for JE's Myth Mage, and that's the downer with not being able to Trade Items among each other, not even those you get from regular Mobs in non-Instanced areas. Several times I've picked up Items that would have been great for JE, but I couldn't give them to him.

/sad panda :(

Anyway, that was my first PUG'd W101 Instance, and I must say it was inherently less painful than any WoW Instance I've done, and understandably so given the target audience of W101. That said, from start to finish I think it still took us well over an hour, maybe even close to two (it was long enough that Liz was getting pissed because I hadn't done the vacuuming :P) It was not exactly a walk in the park...more like a walk in an overgrown park where you have to hack your path with a machete ;)

It was actually fun :)