Announcing the Fishing Database!

The AoS team is overjoyed to announce our newest product that we have been working on for the past month: the Fishing Database!

Just like our Companion Database, which you can view here, we wanted to provide an interactive way to view information on a very broad topic. With so many fish, fishing spells, and crafting recipes out there, creating this database will make finding answers to fishing-related questions much easier!

You can sort fish by the world that they are found in, further broken down by sublocations. So, if you’re in the Vigrid Roughland pond and want to see every type of fish that you can find there, just sort by Grizzleheim fish and then Vigrid Roughland ones, and you’ll have the information that you need in seconds! Or, if you prefer, you can sort the fish by class to easily identify which school a certain fish is.

Aquariums are covered too – need to know if a fish will fit in a regular, large, or tall aquarium? Take a look on our aquarium pages to find out! We also have the recipes to craft them included there, too… and, after some browsing, you can even find the recipes to the craftable tapestries and pet snacks!

Finally, you can take a look at spells, categorized by rank, and see what each one does. And, of course, don’t forget the actual FISH! Each one has their own page composed of important information – their school, aquarium size, locations they’re found in, rarity and rank, experience, and more!

We hope you find the Fishing Database rewarding and easy to use! Of course, if you have any questions, you can contact us about it through our Twitter account (@Official AotS) or via our email (admin@adventuresofthespiral.com)

Now get fishing, young Anglers!!

A Glimpse Into Grizzleheim

We know a lot about Grizzleheim from Wizard101, but what would happen if we see this Norse-based world appear in Pirate? And, more importantly, why would we have to visit it? It’s commonly thought that Valencia will be the next world due to the information we received at the end of Book XIV, but we may just see Grizzleheim before that.

Valencia Put On Hold

We hear that we need to go back to Valencia for special information as to how to defeat Kane. And, as of now, that’s our only lead – the two remaining map pieces, belong to Erika the Red and our mother, could literally be anywhere in the Spiral. So, logically, one of the only things that we could do is head to Valencia, find out Kane’s weakness, and escape. However, there could be a number of problems with getting access to Valencia… for instance, how are we supposed to get a Windstone?

In the case of Marleybone, we had to storm a highly secured fort in order to get a Yellow Windstone. With Valencia, however, the Armada is likely to keep their Windstones (likely Red ones) even more protected. So, perhaps the whole point of going to Grizzleheim would be to get a Red Windstone. The Bears are merchants, after all, so they’d have to have transportation to Valencia.

Since Grizzleheim remained neutral in the Polarian Wars, transportation there may have come to a halt long ago. Retrieving the only known Windstone and helping local residents along the way in return for information would make for a perfect storyline.

Erika the Red

Another theory is that we may need to search for Erika the Red. The problem with this, however, is that she’s probably more likely to not be in Grizzleheim. As a Viking, she’s likely to travel all around the Spiral… besides, if she has a piece of the map, why would she want to be easily found in her homeland? Thinking that it may be a trap, however, Avery may not be willing to send us off to Valencia just yet… instead, we could investigate other matters, such as collecting the rest of the map pieces. Our mother’s piece? Any attempt to find it would simply be a blind guess. As for Erika the Red’s, however, starting in Grizzleheim may not be such a bad idea.

Perhaps Erika IS in Grizzleheim… or at least her map piece is. But, then, we’d only have one piece left to find and then we can sneak back into Valencia and the main story will be over – spread across five remaining books. Two more non-back-to-back visits to Valencia are planned, too, and it wouldn’t seem like such a good idea to go there with only one piece remaining, get the information we need, find our mother’s piece, then travel back right away. Meeting with failure in terms of map pieces in Grizzleheim seems like the more likely route.

That being said, it’s hard to say what we would actually do there with Erika the Red missing. Just going around and helping all of the civilians there doesn’t really seem very piratey, and it wouldn’t make for such an interesting story. Perhaps the first chapter could be finding an old crewmate of Erika’s, under the assumption that she is still in Grizzleheim. For the second chapter, after we find out that she departed recently, we’d attempt to find out where she went and why. Maybe she got shipwrecked somewhere… Krokotopia certainly seems possible. It’s rather likely for us to go there in the El Dorado arc, and there wouldn’t really be any reason to do so otherwise… unless that’s where our parents ended up.

Additional chapters could really be anything. We already have all of the information that we need, so what’s the point of staying there any longer? There could be a “side story” in the middle of these two chapters – discovering that Erika the Red is gone and finding out where she is – to give the world a bit more length and to resonate more with the Norse mythology theme. Think Kurghas in Marleybone. Getting them worse food was inconsequential to our overarching goal, but we needed to do so in order to give the Marleybonean Navy a fighting chance against the Armada. Similarly, Grizzleheim could be having its own issues. What they could be is anyone’s guess, but it’s sure to make an interesting storyline!

Some Deeper Theorycrafting

We can’t forget about the Armada! Even with Deacon gone, they’re watching our every move… and it’s very likely that they know that they’re losing in the race for the map. They wouldn’t want to let any more pieces slip out of their grasp, and knowing the location of Erika the Red would be crucial to their game plan. So, could we see the Armada in Grizzleheim? It’s certainly possible. Kane himself is very busy, but we haven’t encountered that “Queen” yet – could she have been sent off to Grizzleheim, possibly as the Armada’s head of foreign affairs? We may be finally fighting that Armada elite, but possibly not completely defeating her yet. If there’s one thing to know about chess, it’s that the queen is the most powerful piece in the game.

Suppose that both we and the Armada find out about Erika the Red’s location… that would be the perfect opening to sneak into Valencia the following book. However, if we don’t get any map pieces then and the Armada already beats us to Erika the Red in Book XVII, then it’d be a tie at three. Or, to go even further, what if the Armada ambushes us – Phule, most likely – when we go to Valencia, stealing our three map pieces? That means we’d have none to the Armada’s six – if they beat us to the last piece, our mother’s, they’d be all ready to sail to El Dorado. That would practically force us to sneak back into Valencia for one final time before the Armada can make their move and get all seven map pieces back from them.

When you think about it, something like that would make sense. If the Armada has a couple pieces of the map and we have the rest, what could either of us do? Not very much. But, if the Armada has them all after Phule steals the ones that we’ve collected, that would make for a pretty epic conclusion of the El Dorado arc. It would also give us a pretty good reason to fight Phule… perhaps, after defeating him, Kane would appear for the first time, take the map pieces, and end our second trip to Valencia with failure. If only Avery didn’t have that idea to keep the pieces with us!

The Orange Windstone

As a final note, keep in mind that Windstones work in the order of ROY G BIV, but backwards – if we get a Red Windstone and go to Valencia next, what about the Orange one? Therefore, we may be seeing a world before Valencia based on that Windstone logic… Grizzleheim would be the perfect candidate.

We haven’t yet seen a “Stormgate to Grizzleheim (Requires Orange Windstone)” in the game, but that could be just to keep the surprise – Avernus does still have an empty Stormgate, as well as Marleybone and Aquila…

What do you think about Grizzleheim? Will it be the next world, or will we just be seeing a preview of it soon? Regardless, be sure to familiarize yourself with June’s Producer’s Letter… it has several hints towards Grizzleheim in it, as well as some other neat surprises that are in store for us soon…

Happy hunting!

The Possibilities of Ranged Pets

Currently there are only melee pets in the game, but what if ranged pets were introduced? How would that affect the current pet system and allow it to continue to grow? Some issues may come up with implementing ranged pets, but their potential would likely exceed beyond anything we’ve yet seen in terms of Pirate101 pets.

Melee Pets

Ever since the game was released, all pets have been melee. At the time, this may have seemed a bit strange – pets would only come with one epic talent, so why couldn’t ranged ones be added? If the system was left how it was at the time, then perhaps ranged pets could be introduced much more easily. It used to be as simple as a pet having Cheap Shot and that aspect alone separating it from other pets that don’t have that epic talent. Therefore, it’d be quite possible to have a pet that’d function similarly to a Musketeer and have an epic talent like Parting Shot instead.

However, we never saw any pets like that. Why? The simplest answer is that the Pirate101 team was planning ahead to this advanced pet update where ranged pets wouldn’t really be possible. We’ll discuss more on that later.

It is important to note that, with melee pets, you must walk up to the enemy in order to hit. This would certainly put your pet in danger, even if it has talents like Turn the Tide, First Strike, Vengeance Strike, etc. Higher level enemies will rarely miss your pet, and, with their relatively low health, it won’t take long for them to be defeated. You’ll want to hope that they can make use of their melee powers as fast as possible when they engage in close combat!

This is likely the greatest weakness of melee pets – their vulnerability. In various cases you’ll likely find that they won’t even be able to use all of their powers in time before they’re defeated. Especially if you’re using ranged companions yourself, your pet will be one of the few units out in the fight, making them the primary focus of the enemy. Perhaps this isn’t so bad; it’s taking the heat off you, allowing your pirate and your companions, who are the main heavy hitters in the fight, to attack away at the enemy unscathed.

Ranged Pets

Ranged pets would have completely different purposes than melee pets, mainly because they won’t be up close in the fight. This allows them to survive longer, so they’d likely deal more damage to the enemy than a melee pet could. Keep in mind that the existing pets in the game, who are all melee, already don’t have such high dodge, and that’s generally an advantage of melee classes over ranged ones. So, is there any case that ranged pets would actually be weaker than melee ones? Stats-wise, probably not. To truly retain the central aspects of the Musketeer class, they’d have to have high enough accuracy that they’d barely be missing the enemy – this is a huge advantage that melee pets won’t have.

What’s so different about ranged pets? If they won’t be in the center of the fight, a ranged pet wouldn’t be able to draw the attention of the enemy as well as a melee pet could. This shifts the focus over to your melee companions, who are generally pretty fragile – something you wouldn’t want. Therefore, there definitely are downsides to having a ranged pet. If you like using a pet to keep the threat off of you and your companions, perhaps you’d want to stick with a melee pet if ranged pets are ever introduced to the game.

You also have to take into account that your pets are auto-controlled, unlike your other units in the fight. What’s to say a ranged pet won’t charge into the middle of the fight, attacking from only two square away from the enemy instead of four? It’s a bit more unpredictable than melee pets are, considering that they have to be adjacent to the enemy in order to attack.

Associated Problems

Simply put, a ranged pet can’t just be added to the game without taking any further measures. The pet on its own would be pretty cool, being completely different than everything else we’ve seen so far – so why can’t one just be added?

Just like in Wizard101, to get really good pets, you’re going to need to hatch – or, in the case of Pirate101, morph. First generation pets probably won’t have everything you’re looking for in their talent and power pools, so you’ll have to move on to second generation ones, third generation, fourth generation, etc.

Consider this. A ranged pet is introduced and it has a great talent that you want to have on your main pet, so you decide to morph it with one of your other pets. What would happen if you morph a melee pet with a ranged pet?

The answer is that the hatch wouldn’t be able to be completed without almost entirely duplicating one pet’s trait pool. If the result is a ranged pet, no melee talents or powers could be on the offspring. If it’s a melee pet, it couldn’t have any ranged talents. So are you really morphing anything together, or will you just be getting the same melee/ranged pet back? Perhaps some talents can be mixed – extra dodgy would work fine on a melee or a ranged pet. But Repel Boarders or Riposte doesn’t work as nicely.

This is the main problem that will arise; of course there are others, but they aren’t as severe. An entirely new set of ranged talents and powers would have to be created, consuming much more time for the Pirate101 team that could be devoted to producing more playable content. More animations would have to be created for melee-ranged hybrids, too – if the hybrid resembles a melee pet, it couldn’t just take on its animations; instead, an entirely new set would have to be created since it could be attacking from a distance instead of right next to the enemy.

Possible Solutions

That shouldn’t rule out having ranged pets in the future, though! There’s an easy, though restricting, solution – melee and ranged pets can’t be hatched together. Only melee-melee and ranged-ranged morphs would be allowed. At first, that might be a bit more frustrating considering that there would be a very few number of ranged pets and not much to hatch them with. However, as the game progresses and more ranged pets are introduced, there’d soon be many more ranged combinations that could be made with.

Another solution that might be more difficult would be to change epic talents to correspond with the pet being melee or ranged. For example, suppose a melee pet that has Riposte is hatched with a ranged pet and the offspring is ranged. The Riposte could simply be changed to Parting Shot, though this could conflict with the ranged pets own epics – perhaps it already has Parting Shot in its own talent pool. Instead, the Riposte could become Stock Assault, which is essentially the same thing as Riposte, except for it only being able to be used on a ranged unit. Not only does this allow for the transfer of melee and ranged epics, it creates the opportunity for melee-ranged morphing in general.

Stock Assault may currently be the only epic talent like this that a companion can currently obtain, but more are coming, as confirmed by Ratbeard. It would be very interesting to see these types of epic talents available on pets, too.

Perhaps there simply wouldn’t be any ranged-only powers, just ones with infinite range. That way melee and ranged pets could both use them and these powers could be transferred on normally. Attacking from, say, four squares away might be something that ranged pets would only do with their normal attacks – powers could be set for infinite range, thus creating the possibility for them to be used by both melee and ranged pets after these powers are morphed out.

Conclusion

What’s your opinion on this? Could ranged pets work with the current pet system that Pirate101 has? What solutions would you propose to eliminate the above issues from occurring? We want to hear what you think!

Hoard Packs - What's Their Potential?

So far, Pirate101 only has one hoard pack: the Tribal Crew Pack. It’s filled with great loot that’s perfect for any pirate, including gear, weapons, housing items, training tomes, and even a rare shot at a companion. However, all we pirates currently have is this Azteca-themed pack – will there be more coming in the future? And, if so, what will they hold?

Hoard Packs in Wizard101

We’ve seen plenty of Hoard Packs in Wizard101. Many of them, in fact, have different “jackpot items” than the others. For example, the Dragon’s Hoard Pack was the first one that was introduced, the most sought item in there being the Bone Dragon mount. Additionally, it came with other cool items that had a lower rarity, the Dragon Wings mount, a variety of new wands, and exclusive gear among them. Compare this to Purreau’s Plentiful Pet Provisions which is entirely focused on pets. In fact, it was with this hoard pack that we saw many Star spells become may-cast talents on pets. Finally, the Shaman’s Lore Pack gives you a small chance to actually learn a new spell just by opening a pack – these spells are great whether you’re a lower level or a max level wizard.

Of course, these are only the main focuses of each pack. There’s plenty of other items within each one – many of them are good, but some of them aren’t as useful, such as common reagents or treasure cards that you could normally find at the Bazaar. In order to get something really worth it, then, you’ll probably have to buy a few packs to hit a jackpot item… or you could just buy one and try your luck.

Where Does Pirate101 Stand?

This is where Pirate101 begins to differ. With the Tribal Crew Pack, it’s pretty likely that you’ll get something worthwhile every time you open a pack. Of course, it isn’t guaranteed – a max level Buccaneer might not have use for training tomes or a Witchdoctor Staff. However, there’s plenty of great gear, eyepatches, and furniture that can be obtained through just a single pack. Check out this Azteca-themed room that was made entirely with items from the Tribal Crew Pack!

Not only that, but these furniture drops can’t be auctioned, so a friend who visits your house will know that you put the Crowns into it when decorating. Be sure to also include your Serpent pets and Dinosaur mounts that can now be placed in your house!

Keep in mind that the companions are very rare drops from the Tribal Crew Pack, so, when buying it, it may be a good idea to only purchase a pack for the other items you could get – receiving a companion would just be an awesome bonus to the rest of the pack’s loot. Not sure what companions you could get from the pack, their promotion levels, or what epics they can train? Check out their pages on our companion database here.

Future Packs

The Tribal Crew Pack is likely just the beginning of hoard packs in Pirate101. Despite not receiving a new one in a very long time, packs just probably haven’t been the top priority, especially with the previous Spring update and a new one that’s already being hinted at. Perhaps between them we’ll get another pack?

Even if not, it can’t be long before a new one is introduced, and there’s plenty of potential within that single pack. There’s several different ways that it can differ from the Tribal Crew Pack. Keeping the same idea – having companions as the jackpot items – has proven to and will continue to work rather well, but the packs can even be changed up a bit more to make them different but still just as rewarding to the players.

By making companions the epic item in the pack in terms of rarity, it gives much more incentive to buy that pack. They can be priced at 5,000 Crowns in the Crown Shop, so why not have the opportunity to get them for only 399 Crowns? Even if you don’t get one, you’ll still get new items from the pack just like with the Tribal Crew Pack. Additionally, some players may have all of the companions they want from the Tribal Crew Pack, so there could be another in case they want to try their luck at some more. Or perhaps you don’t want Azteca companions, but you would be interested in different ones.

There’s countless possibilities for a theme of new pack companions. Like the Azteca ones, they’d likely come in a set, all five of them being of the same origin but a different species. Grizzleheim companions have been suggested numerous times; maybe we could see a Buccaneer Red Claw Bear, a Swashbuckler Wolf, a Witchdoctor Raven, a Privateer Grendel, and a Musketeer Boar! Indeed, practically any world could be the theme of new pack companions… it would be interesting to see ones that we haven’t yet visited to get a preview of what we might see if we ever go there. Grizzleheim would definitely be cool to see, then, as there were a couple references to it in the Producer’s Letter…

New Ideas

What if companions weren’t the main aspect of a new hoard pack? Wizard101 has spells, but it doesn’t seem quite right for pirates to learn new powers from opening a pack. How exactly would that work? We aren’t able to decide which powers to use or not, so would the power always appear for us so long as we have a weapon equipped that allows for it to be used? That doesn’t necessarily seem plausible… but there are other options.

It would be interesting having a ship as a rare drop from a pack. It would have tiers just like all of the other gear and weapon drops, the level of it depending on the level of the pirate who opened the pack. What’s interesting about this is that there could be Skiffs, Frigates, and Galleons of worlds we haven’t yet visited and, therefore, there wouldn’t be a normal vendor to sell them to us. Not only that, but the ships could come with default equipment that could be changed so long as the new equipment has a proper world origin.

Maybe once you hit the jackpot from the pack and get the ship, new items could be available from the pack with the same world origin but better stats than what comes on the ship. This way, players wouldn’t be able to obtain ship equipment that they couldn’t use right away, only being able to once you have the actual ship. How cool would it be to finally get a Darkmoor ship just like the English Bill’s? An Avalon ship? What about a Polarian navy vessel? The possibilities are endless!

Perhaps a pack could even be dedicated to pets, just like with Purreau’s Plentiful Pet Provisions. With the new advanced pet system that was just released, having a pack that gives pets and pet related items would be just what every pirate could use.

And don’t forget about gear! For the pirates that don’t have the time to farm bosses, there could be pack gear that have item cards, though it could be a little weaker than what you’d get for farming the actual bosses to ensure that the players who worked hard to get their gear still remain on top. This would be especially useful since the gear that’s currently in the Crown Shop is more focused on stats rather than giving powers.

Conclusion

There’s plenty of possibilities for Pirate101 hoard pack… what would you like to see? Do you like the current loot in the Tribal Crew Pack or would you like to see changes in future packs? Be sure to let us know!