Hello all

I'm so sorry about my protracted absence from the boards. I've been very very busy, with all kinds of things I can't really talk about. But anyway - I'm going to start this thread by addressing the serious back log of questions at the end of the previous one. If y'all could hold off until I give the high sign, it'll be much appreciated. Note that in some cases, I've abbreviated the questions for concerns of space.

But enough talk! On with the... talk!

@Ethan the Baron:
1. Have you ever thought about adding captain jack sparrow to the game...
Short answer: no. There's a few characters who resonate with him a bit, but I don't think we need Jack himself at all.

2. Is their a reason why nobody knows the female clockwork elite...
Why doesn't anyone know her name? Well, it only seems that way. Lots of people know her name. They just haven't said it within earshot of your Pirate, that's all! I will admit, I derive a certain amount of glee from watching you guys speculate so much over her. Her name, ultimately, is not that important. I'm just working very hard to ensure that when you do finally meet her, it'll have been worth the anticipation. She'll show up soon enough. And when she does appear, her role within the Armada and her relationship with Kane will be front and center.

3. So Valencia is at war with marleybone and when I was reading the worlds monquista said that it was close to war with marleybone so it got me thinking Valencia and monquista don't seem to have any conflict against each other why don't since they both hate marleybone why don't they work together and take down marleybone
The war between Valencia and Marleybone isn't a routine spat or squabble between powers, where they fight a bit and then move on - the Armada took a full shot at destroying Marleybone completely. I don't think anyone was expecting that. As for Monquistan involvement, the Monkeys want to keep themselves out of it - indeed, having their two rivals busy fighting each other might make it easier for them to shift things out in the colonies in their favor. Why risk Monquistan lives?

To be continued...

@Elemutation

1. Presidio Companion: I have been wondering for a while, why don't we just have a sit down with our presidio companion and ask them about our parents? It seems like we have a database of our past that we are just prolonging to delve into. This would especially be useful considering the first 5 years memory wipe.

Good point. It's a perfect thing to do. Seems to me their next promotion quest would be the perfect time to do that.

2.this has been something I am dying to know but never really got around too, are the Turtle Balls a Dragon ball Parody? I am a huge fan of DBZ and I can see a lot of similar plot elements.

Absolutely. One thing we planned but that I'm not sure actually ended up being very visible is that they're named Turtleball A, B, C... and Z.

3. This may be suited better to the designers, but I was wondering if you guys over at your HQ ever planned to give the crown shop version of companions the quest reward companion's promotion quest (ex: Wu Tang getting Wing Chung's Iron Monkey promotion quest). Promotions are my favorite aspect of the game and I would rather work for them in a cool storyline than just pay a couple of gold coins for them to upgrade.

Unfortunately, adding promotion quests to a companion who never had them before isn't really possible - and if it were, I'm not sure that it'd be advisable. For every player who loved having a new quest, another would feel gypped because they already promoted them and can't do the quest, while a third wouldn't like it because promo quests take so long and are soooo boring. Also, fun as they are to play and create (and trust me, they're some of my favorite content in this game), suddenly adding another 30 of them (2 quests per variant, time 15 presidio/kraken skulls/mooshu variants) is a check we can't cash, bandwidth wide. Consider; that many quests would be bigger than Marleybone in terms of writing and implementation. You want me to put the next Book on hold for them?

More to come...

5. I know that you will give me the famous, "That would be telling", but I see Kane's goal is something besides trying to control or destroy something. I am kind of an expert on robot sci-fi, and would like to think that Kane and the armada rebelled because of some deep seated reason. It could be that they are taking programing to the extreme, (I, Robot) to find salvation and truth (Cylons from BSG) or to provoke warfare between others, leaving themselves as the only survivors (Terminator). No mater what the reasoning is, I bet it will leave us all looking back and going, "whoa, that's deep".

That would indeed be telling - but I like where you're going. Something that always separates good stories from bad is "why." Why does the bad guy want what they want - why are they doing this? If the answer is just "cuz he's evil" it's not a strong story. Kane definitely has motivations, and there may even be a twist or two involved - I'm hoping that they will indeed resonate as deep once we get to reveal them.

@Dead Eye Luke
A question about Phule.. We haven't really gotten to know Phule can you tell us what book he will make a major role in?
I can't give numbers, but he'll be back.

Question about our parents. Don't they have a map piece? How will we get that (just a little hint?) What book do you think we'll see some secrets about our parents revealed?
Mom did. You'll get it through a lot of hard work. I'd say it's still going to be a while before we get to the good stuff.

Question about Aquila story. We lost the first 5 years of memory in Aquila. It barely had any impact on the Aquila story. What impact do you think this will have later.
See your previous question. Not remembering anything about your parents might make it really hard to find Mom's piece of the Map.

(continued)

3. I just finished the Amazon-Centaur War quest line, and I have to say - we are quite the warmongers. We've assisted in the Monquistan Civil War, started the war between Marleybone and Valencia, turned the tide at the Trojan War and now have stopped the war between the Amazon and the Centaurs which was caused by the very God of War. I have a feeling Ares is going to find another reason to love us....am I on point?

Yeah, your pirate certainly has sowed a lot of chaos... Every now and then we like to have a small reminder that some of this high adventure stuff might not be all fun and games. We did an awful lot of that in Book 13 - we may not ever hit the point that hard again, but an occasional reminder should always be effective. Of course, to be a real hero, someday your pirate might need to make Ares pretty angry...

4. You didn't answer a previous question of mine in a much earlier post - why was Colonel Smeagle's quest in the War Room added into the main storyline? I assumed it was simply because we hadn't had a proper taste of the Troubles and we hadn't done anything very Isle of Dogs-centric in helping the war effort. Thoughts?

Sorry I missed the question! The War Golem quests did indeed get stitched in to the main line very late in the game (as it were). Why? It wasn't the Troubles at all - it was all game play based. The idea of having Gracie summon a War Golem came along pretty late - once we saw how utterly awesome it was to summon them, we knew we had to do it. BUT: I didn't want Gracie to be able to do it from the start - I wanted to make sure the War Golems got a proper introduction. So, the quests got moved into the main story, and the summoning power became the reward for finishing those quests. Lengthening the MB mainline a little bit also helped us hit our play time targets. So there ya go.

More...

7. Can you give us a one-letter hint as to the name of the next skyway like you did with the Book 13 update (W was for Westminster....how did I not figure that out?!)?

C (in this case, not for cookie, but still good enough for me)

8. I love your in-game reasons for everything and bits of lore and history (like the origins of the Manticores and the relation between them and the Ophidians). Just here to say bravo on all the lore you've given us. Anything you can give us on Darkmoor, or is too soon?

Too soon.

9. Are there going to be any two-world, one book updates in the future, like Book IV? It would be a good way to say, visit our origin worlds while going through the El Dorado storyline....

Most Books will only cover one world, for budgetary reasons. Book 18, though, that's gonna be a doozy...

10. Are there going to be any more fantasy-heavy worlds like Aquila? I can imagine Darkmoor and El Dorado fitting that category though....

I don't think we'll ever have another realm as fantastical as Aquila. Darkmoor will have some elements that are pretty out there, but with a different flavor. It'll still be fairly grounded. And El Dorado? I'm hoping to go in a very new direction there.

(continued)

6().WHY NO AUSTRAILA!

Well, when looking at Age of Sail and Pirate fiction, Australia doesn't come up very much (having not been founded yet). Admittedly, we do go anachronistic here and there, but we owe a lot of that to Wizard. Ultimately, when brainstorming it didn't come up, and we simply haven't gotten to it yet. Wizard might have to do Australia first.

7.Do you plan on adding any new factions on the pirate faction section?

Oooo, it's been a while since that section was on my radar. That'd be a good idea. I'll get One-Eyed Jack to remind me.

8.Why is there no dutch people in p101 seriously why no fifth kingdom dont get me wrong i dont mind marleybone, monquista, valencia and polaris too much but there were a lot of dutch pirates back in the days so wynaut kingsile(lol pokemon pun)

There were indeed, but we didn't want to make the situation in the Spiral too complex - the 4 major historical players you mention PLUS Grizzleheim Vikings (an anachronism, sure, but a huge part of Wizard and simply irresistible) makes 5 right there. Admittedly, we haven't seen much of Griz yet. That's partly oversight on my part, and partly how the Spiral is laid out - Grizzleheim and Skull Island are pretty much on the opposite edges of the Spiral. But we'll be getting our first taste of Grizzleheim before too long.

9.how do i write a fanfic on the website here because personally i love the fanfics on this site and they are a lot better than the typical fanfic with the "cringes" very creepily suggestive themes(seriously who wants to hear about mario falling in love with wreck it ralph?) anyways i think the fanfics here on the p101 site are very good but question how do i make one for myself

I'm not sure about that, honestly - One-Eyed Jack is the fellow to ask.

@Domriunseen
1. You stated that the Mag 7 quests would focus more on fish out of water style quests rather than backstory. My question is: involving the Silk One or Rooster Cogburn (assuming promotion quests for them are still in the works), will they follow this sort of pattern, or will we get backstory?

Their first promo did, yes. The thing to remember about those quests was context: they just happened to fall in Aquila, which was about the goofiest place I could imagine for an Old West legend to be when they promoted. So we had a lot of fun with that. That said, we're always looking to find more to say about these characters, or to look at them different ways (Bonnie Anne's third promo was as much about seeing her in a dark, hurt place as it was about revealing her origins). But context is a big factor - the world we happen to be in at that point will play a huge role in plotting the quest. Regarding backstory in these quests, some characters have much more to reveal than others - the Silk One, for instance: her origin is pretty well covered. Rooster, though...

2. Gortez is a gorilla in Monquista, and we've seen gorillas in Zafaria. So which came first: did some Zafarian gorillas leave their homeworld, settle in Monquista, and evolve into a different species, or did Zafarian gorillas come from Monquista? And speaking of Gortez, is he from Zafaria or Monquista?

Good question. I hadn't really thought that through. Gortez is prominent enough in Monquistan culture that I doubt they would have conferred such honors on anybody not native born - if I had to wager, I'd bet he's from Monquista. As to the origins of Zafarian vs. Monquistan Gorillas, I'm content to leave that vague. Migration is definitely one possibility, though there could just have been apes in two places when the First World shattered.

to be continued...

Welcome back Blind Mew and you have my continued patience and prayers until your workload lightens a bit. Hang in there, you are much loved and Very admired for your genius and monumental hard work.

P.S. You deserve a bit of that glee, watching us squirm with your trail of breadcrumbs. Such masterfulness has well earned rewards.

Thank you Blind Mew I really enjoyed these insights into the game

@CunningFinniganSharp
1. I know you're asked this question rather frequently, but would it be telling if I asked if there are any plans to expand Avernus Skyway later on to include some kind of story? If so, any obique hints? And will the Skeletal Dragons in Avernus ever come into a quest? Seems kind of a waste not to use them.

I'm not asked this nearly as frequently as I am about the female elite, so don't mention it. That said, as regards Avernus, I'll say yes - the story's not done with the place yet. There's one more rather surprising thing we'll do there, if all goes according to plan.

2. Rajah- Will there be any classical Indian themes/references included like the age of the Gupta Empire or is it all going to be Colonial India? Would Classical India better fall under Wizard101?

As we do everywhere else, I'd say we'd do both - 2 skyways would give us both options, like the China/Japan thematic divide in our version of MooShu. Classical India would be an AWESOME fit for Wizard. India of any flavor is so underused in terms of setting - what an awesome break it would be from a bajillion Medieval Western Europe analogues.

5. As we go on our quest to El Dorado, I've noticed that many of our crew members don't seem to be in-it for the gold and fortune in El Dorado, but to actually stop the Armada. Most are paying a dept we did them, or honoring our parents, or just hoping along. I can't speak for Ratbeard, but it does seem like many of our Companions take a heroic/good stance. As far as I'm concerned, the barely bring up a desire to go to El Doradoo over stoping the Aramda. Was this is intended? Also do you plan to make a speaking Companion with a greedy/"I'm-only-with-you-guys-for-the-gold" attitude? I think if you did, he/she would add a lot of funny possibilities.

You have a point - we may be overcompensating a bit for the concerns some folks raised about how heroic and uplifting our message would be. As for just in it for the gold, Ratbeard will always be the embodiment of that sentiment, and Catbeard may end up giving him a run for his money. And bear in mind, the main story of Pirate is a big arc that bends toward heroism - after a certain point, virtuous souls (El Toro, etc) are the only sorts you're picking up.

(more)

WOOT, Blind Mew is back! A round of yum for everyone! So far, I'm already excited with the new posts in this trend. Can't wait for more!

Thank you so very much, Blind Mew, to take so much time to answer our questions. It is always appreciated, and really, quite thrilling to read, as we merrily hope to glean some new information or perhaps shiver a bit at more hints of the menace of the Armada! (And I like that, really! )

Virtuous Anne Radcliffe