TFN Interview!

Pretty self explanitory.


THE FRIENDLY NECROMANCER INTERVIEW
Q: Your awesome! Why are you some awesome? (Yes, this is from one of your interviews)
A:haha! I guess I'm awesome because I was the first person to have a blog entirely dedicated to the topic of Wizard101, and I seemed to have helped spawn a whole community of bloggers who specifically blog about Wizard101 (and who are as equally awesome as said Friendly Necromancer. :-))

Q: Why did you begin blogging? A:I've always written about games. Whether it was writing that was on a guild message board or in mass e-mails to friends; I've been there writing about what I do . . . play games. When I started playing Wizard101 it was just a natural for me to start writing about this game. The first four blog posts on my site are actually e-mail messages that I shared between friends first before I decided to make a blog.

Q: What is your favorite school?
A: Death, of course. MUHAHAHAHA! You'd think it would be life though considering I've level 2 of them into the upper echelons of the game. I'm a big fan of storm wizards as well. I've yet to play a balance or myth wizard at the high levels though, so who knows, maybe they'll become my new favorites someday. At the end of the day, every class has something about it that I really enjoy.
Q: Your favorite pet?
A: My favorite pet changes from day to day. Sometimes the mood dictates a rat magician. Sometimes you need to equip your wraith. Sometimes the pioneer dragon is my best pal in the world. I have no idea how the new pet enhancement system will change the world of pets, but I've been assured that it will be amazing. Who knows, maybe I'll finally find my favorite pet by combining two of them I rarely considered taking out of backpack!
Q: Who are the people who are on your "Star List" in Wizard101?
A: My family members and people that I accidentally star'd and didn't realize that I had star'd them. :-)
Q: Besides Wizard101, do you play any other games at the moment?
A: Absolutely! I've been playing Dungeons and Dragons Online every Sunday night with a group of 3. I've been playing quite a bit of Fiesta as well. I have an active account for Lord of the Rings Online, but I haven't been motivated to log in for a while. We got a Playstation3 for Christmas and Little Big Planet was on constant rotation there for awhile. Pretty much any game my kids are playing, I'm interested in. That's kind of my job as a gamer parent. If they like it, there must be some value to it, and so I want to join in the fun and help them out where I can. Wizard101 has been my "main game" though for the past year and a half.

Throughout my life I've dabbled in all kinds of other games though. You should see my boxed up archive of old gaming systems . . . it's pretty intense. Well, out of the box, of course. Maybe someday I'll have a room full of gaming systems that I can give guided tours through for bling. $$!!
Q: What do you expect in Celestia? Any new mounts in mind?
A: I expect Celestia to have enough content to level us to 60. Hopefully that means at least 14 more playable zones that are either completely submersed in water or partially submersed. I think there's a really good chance we're going to end up swimming in Celestia which brings a whole entirely new aspect to movement in the world, it also brings a whole new aspect to battle circles. What if there will finally be "battle spheres"? If that ever happened then that would provide for multi-group content or raids. THAT, would be amazing. Yes. Yes it would!

I also feel that since the pet enhancements are being released before Celestia, that the pet enhancements will also kind of play into how we "win" Celestia. I imagine at some point you'll have to turn into a crab pet to crawl through an area so you can fight a boss or something like that. /shrug

I think you'll see seahorse or maybe eel mounts in Celestia. I've watched Little Mermaid with my daughter one to many times to not see myself with a couple of eels harnessed in front of me.

Of course we're also going to see 3 new secondary schools of magic that are pure secondary only and perhaps not fully developed schools of magic at this point. Perhaps each secondary school will only have 3 spells in it at this point, which then would allow them to fully introduce those secondary schools as full fledged schools of magic in the future when we get the expansion beyond Celestia, whatever that may be.

(Whew. How's that for predictions?)
Q: Which blog would say is your favorite, thats on your blogger club? *Field Required
A: Whichever ones are in the top five slots for being recently updated when I log on in the morning. :-)

Q: Would you mind all your wizards for us?
A: Account 1: Thomas Lionblood, Molly Earthsong, Isaiah Taleslinger, Myrna Lionblood, Diedre Deathsong
Account 2: Thomas Lionblood (evil twin), Kyle Skystaff, Iridian Legend, Rowan Ravenshard (hehe, thanks) , Sean Ogrehead, Brahm Boomhammer
Account 3: Bailey Skystaff, Amber Deathsong, Flint Stone, Moira Drake, Neela Hawkmask, Alexandria Winterthistle
Q: What caught you hooked on Wizard101?
A: Well, this is a topic I've actually gotten emotional over before believe it or not. I'm a big gamer geek and have played in a lot of hardcore gaming situations where many many other people depended on me doing my "game job" correctly. Unfortunately MMOs like these aren't really built for dads, yet a lot of dads play them. I was one of them. I don't ever want to find myself in the situation where I have to make another a judgment call about whether to heal someone in a game and cost 30-40 people their time if I fail in my game job or to address an issue that my crying child has in the real world at the same time. That's not for me. Wizard101 gave me the fun of an MMO with a very casual battle system. Each round I have 30 seconds to a minute between judgment calls rather than a split second. It's enough time that I can click on a card and turn to my child to talk to them . . . perhaps put them on my lap and talk to them while still playing the game, and log off after the fight without many strings attached. I can also log on when the kids are asleep and play it as hardcore as I want or just hang out and talk. It's also a game I can play side by side with my kids. It's also a game with a moderate amount of depth where I can spend a year and a half writing about the game and still not fully cover everything that it has to offer! So in a way, Wizard101 was a perfect storm for me.
Q: So I heard you once applied for Kingsisle, is this true?A couple months after I started blogging about Wizard101 I sent them a resume and an e-mail stating that I would entertain working any job they had for me. I got a phone call from Julie Dupree in the Customer Service department and we had a nice phone interview. In the end I declined a face to face follow up interview because my wife was pregnant and the job was going to pay quite a bit less than what I'm currently making. Ahem. Since that time Julie has called me her best unpaid employee ever. Ms. Dupree is awesomesauce, and it'd be a pleasure to work with her. What nobody knows is that I also recently interviewed for another position at Kingsisle (can't say what it was unfortunately). Again, this didn't work out for reasons I'd rather not talk about, but I'm keeping my ear to the ground for another opportunity at Kingsisle . . . even though it'd require a HUGE move for me and my family. Kingsisle is a company that I feel I could work for and really make a difference there. I like all the people I've talke dot from the company. I like the creative vibe, and I like the passion they have.

Q: Who would you say is your biggest fan?
A: I would say that would be my family. Without their support I couldn't do half the things I do with this game. Outside of them, probably Nails. :-)
Q: Last question. How do you eat string cheese? Biting it or peel it off in strings?
A: haha. Nice quote from the Nelson Everhart interview. PEEL IT, YO! PEEL IT!
Any questions for me? If you could go back at any moment while playing this game and make a different decision than the one you made, what would that be and why?
A: If I could change something, it would be to not to do so many side quests in MS, I'm a lvl 37 and still in MB heh.
Thank Thomas Lionblood for letting me interview him, and for Cody for not going crazy waiting for it!