In the jungle.
The mighty jungle.
The Lion sleeps tonight.
Be glad you can't hear me singing this.
Jambo, everyone! It's been a while. I went for longer without posting than I'd realized. I know I'm starting to sound a little like a broken record, but I have never been so busy in my life. The first grading period in my school district ended on Friday, however, and these first nine weeks have a history of being my busiest, so hopefully between adjusting to what I've discovered will be a year starkly, but thankfully, different from last year, and- of course- the increased amount of free time provided to me due to the upcoming holiday season, I can get into the habit of posting at least once every two weeks.
But enough on that. There is so much going on in the Spiral right now! I'm so excited, and I have a lot to report on!
I'd like to start by saying how impressed I am with Kingsisle's timeliness in relation to major updates; they have come a long way since the mess that was a six-month wait for Celestia last year. Look at Wintertusk, which took just two months- a third of the time- to release from the time it was announced. Then you have Wysteria, which was a total surprise, sprung on us completely out of the blue by KI, probably as they were putting the finishing touches on Zafaria. Way to multitask, KI! Now, with Zafaria out on the Test Realm just two weeks after the release of the first mystery picture, I think I can safely say that W101 fans are extremely pleased, if exhausted, by the barrage of surprises we have received in what has been quite an eventful third year.
Now, all the timeliness in the world isn't worth anything if the final product is lacking in quality, but of course that is not even an issue for the wonderful folks at Kingsisle :) Zafaria is fantastic! The African theme is incredibly well-executed, and I do enjoy seeing another ancient but current society. That is, the African culture represented in Zafaria is one of ancient history, much like the Egyptian, Japanese, and Norse cultures of Krokotopia, Mooshu, and Grizzleheim- the other "current ancients"- but this culture is, within the contex of W101 and the Spiral, a living, breathing, continuing culture that can be witnessed by Wizards, Marleybonians, and Wysterians- who represent more modern or recent cultures within the Spiral- in real time. Celestia and Dragonspyre, of course, fall into a third, post-apocalyptic category, which, despite the release of WT and Wysteria, has seem more proliferated over the past year due to the greater size and importance of CL and DS as worlds. As Wizard101 gets underway in its fourth year, however, that is changing. That said, I think Celestia and Marleybone remain tied for my favorite worlds, thanks mainly to the strong steampunk themes in both, and, in regards to Celestia, the simple fact that everything is cooler underwater.
Now about Zafaria itself. I have already said that the African theme is very-well exectued, causing me to get off on a tangent which I just don't have heart to delete. In addition, the story is strong so far (I am a little ways into Zamunda), and I appreciate the stark differences between each individual area, from the dry grasslands of Savannah to the lush green jungles of Zamunda. Which, incidentally, I feel might be the source of some of the contention between the zebras and the lions; the zebras seem much more privileged :) I love the animated rock art to detail Zafaria's backstory. It's a clever take on the traditional history book quest. The sock monkeys to represent the Monkees are hilarious. And I am (Slight Spoiler!) intrigued by the Goliath beetles popping up in huts and barracks all over the place, not to mention the duplicious nature of the zebra shamans.
It's occuring to me as I write this that I am so taken by Kingsisle's work on Zafaria that I haven't thought much about the individual pluses that make it so wonderful. Nevertheless, I can safely say that I am enjoying myself very much as I test out the new world. When I logged off last, I had just reached Level 64, and so I am itching to get on and collect the first Astral spell quest.
One thing about Zafaria that has stood out to me. I seem to be leveling up very fast. I mean, yeah I've been playing quite a bit the past two days, but I'm barely into the third zone, and yet I'm already at level 64. Now, this may be due to the fact that I ended up doing Trial of the Spheres twice in the Test Realm before I even began ZF, but it's not just what level I'm at. There seems to be a shorter amount of time between each Level Up that there should be, and there are barely even any side quests- unlike Celestia and Wysteria, which were chocked full.
EDIT: In one of life's great ironies, I found myself juggling three or four side quests at a time within an hour of posting this and logging on. So there is a satisfactory number of side quests in Zafaria; they just don't really start up until after you get underway in Zamunda.
Enough of the semi-negatives, however. I still love Zafaria :)
A couple interesting moments for me over the course of my adventures so far:
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| Nemean Rock |
The name "Nemean Rock" is a reference to Greco-Roman mythology- specifically the myth of Hercules. For those of you who don't know, in the myth, the goddess Hera/Juno, who hated Hercules, put him in a violent trance and forced him to kill his wife and children. Hercules was so shocked and saddened by what had happened that, having gone to his cousin Eurystheus, he agreed to perform 12 near-impossible labors given to him by his cousin in order to gain redemption. The first of these labors was to slay the Nemean Lion, whose skin he wore like so:
The lion skin is Hercules' trademark; most ancient art depicting him features it.
I also thought this was chuckle-worthy:
Nice job giving away your location, Ravager. Lucky for me these guys don't seem to be the smartest of all the henchmen I've defeated over the past couple years.
Although I'm not much of a Doctor Who fan, I'm excited to see what comes of this new NPC in Regent's Square, The Professor, which is an all-too-obvious spoof of everyone's favorite alien time traveller :)
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| He doesn't seem to be quite ready to send wizards through time yet. |
Now to log on and resume my adventures in Zafaria!
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| "Everything the light touches." Oh, yeah, I am definitely having a Lion King moment right now :) |
Until next time, Ponder on!
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