That's Life! Episode 3 - Scratch and Sniff

At last it is complete! This is in 2 parts because it was so long I had to split it in half. Youtube is lame like that.





Let me know what you think :)

EDIT: And here's a nice review from Kevin Battlblood, the Chillanthropologist!

Bravo! Very impressive work here. What you've applied and utilized was exactly what I was hoping to one day see in the Wizard101 Video Community: A twist on the original storyline, use of voices (decent job with the British and French accents, and not bad voice acting either!), and a brilliant mix of genres ranging from comedy to drama, yet mystery is still the umbrella on this episode.

What I really liked was the use of different camera angles that follows cinema theory; it gave a professional feel to the movie....

I'm excitedly looking forward to your next installment; keep up your creativity!

Thanks Kevin! You can expect a new installment sometime in the next few weeks :)

At last - It is done!...ish

[x-posted from W101C]

Thank you so much to everyone who showed up for the updated filming, I really appreciate it. I was so glad to see a lot of people returning and even a few new people, it makes me happy to know that the word is getting out about That's Life! and that people want to be a part of it :)

I do realize that some who were there last time could not be there this time, and I'm sorry for that. There will still be more chances for you to be in it so no worries! I will announce the next filming session a few weeks from now, so keep an eye out.

Anyways, thanks again to all the extras, I'm very grateful for your help :)

 Now for the hard part: everything else.

*facedesk*

A Friendly answer.

So, stingite from The Friendly Necromancer has been recruiting some people to take on a bit of his answering work load. Call it an experiment, if you will. Anyway, thought I'd give it a shot and see how I fare in the role of Friendly :P

Noah DreamBlood asks about pets, saying:

You can tell normally if its a hybrid or not depending on time it takes to hatch. School pets are 18 hrs i believe hybrids are 24 or so. And i mixed a colossus that had 54 with a stormzilla that was 53 and got another colossus that had 55, whats up with that? lol

 Aha. Unfortunately Friendly happened to give me a question with a subject that I've very little expertise in. However, I can give it my best educated guess. It's what we college kids do best. /bitter chuckle

 That and sleeping in class.

The only level 48 pet that I've gotten since the pet updates is the wraith for my Necromancer, and as you said the hatch time was around 18 hours (that or 17 or 11; I get my numbers mixed up sometimes). A good deal of the higher level boss drop pets I've gotten are the same hatch time, lower level ones tend to be less (around 6 hours), and gift card pets even less than that (some of them just 3 minutes). Unfortunately I've never bred one of my own, let alone a hybrid, so I can't confirm your numbers, though I believe you in the matter of their hatch times.

 "Umm... little help over here?"

As for the numbers next to their names and how it relates to breeding and such, my first guess was that it represented the number of chromosomes for each breed, which would totally have explained why the baby came out with a new number (new species means a different amount of chromosomes). But according to people on Wizard101Central, the numbers next to your pet name is its pedigree, or in other words the sum of the traits it has already manifested. You know how when you're on your pet summary page in your spellbook, and next to its abilities there are little yellow pips? Well, when all the pips -- full ones and empty -- are added together, that makes the little 54 and 53 next to your parent pets names. As for the number in the parenthases, that is based just on all the full pips -- the yellow ones -- which is why it is substantially less than the first number. There's a fascinating guide for pedigrees HERE.

Now, when you breed pets together, the baby obtains the appearance, class type, and I think even some of the abilities(?) of the parent pet that has the higher stats. Your Colossus had the higher pedigree, but it was 54 and your baby pet had 55. Clearly there is a pattern in there somewhere, although truthfully I haven't the slightest idea what that pattern is. I never really question the all-knowing MCP that is Wizard101, especially when it comes to numbers. I'm kind of numeral phobic. Maybe since you paid a lot of gold for it the game wanted to give you that one extra point. Or maybe there was an added ability from the weaker parent pet. Or maybe they were just going in chronological order (53, 54, 55). It's a complete mystery to me. The most important thing that indicates your pet's abilities is the number in parenthases, as that is a number that rises with much training and care.

The MCP knows all...

If you happen to obtain a lot of gold over the course of your journeys, you should experiment some more, with pets of different schools and stats. I'm especially interested in seeing what people discover about crown pets as they seem like they can probably make some really nifty hybrids.

Fun fact: I wrote the word "pet(s)" 15 times, including the one just now.

Anyways, good luck in your search for the truth, and safe journeys young wizard!

OK, this time... seriously.

 [once again x-posted from W101C]

Here's the new filming info for That's Life!: Episode 3.

DATE: Monday, July 19th.

TIME: 1pm pacific time (if you don't know what time that is in your zone, google "time zone converter")

LOCATION: Life school classroom.

AREA: Wu server (subject to change during filming)

• Same thing as last time: noob clothes, wands and pets unequipped.
• Filming should take around half an hour.
• Please no complaining or rushing. It will take however long it takes, I don't like being nagged when I'm trying to get the filming just right.

That's about it. I'm hoping for the same turn-out as last time but completely understand if there isn't. I know people's schedules are busy so thank you to everyone who makes time to do this. Note: I can't make any special changes or arrangements to the date for anyone, so don't ask. Sorry.

And this is how you fail.

Thanks to some friends from Wizard101 Central I was able to shoot the opening/ending scenes for the 3rd episode of That's Life! Although, it wasn't without a few problems (people coming in and out of the scene, extras not following directions, people randomly porting in). Then to top it all off, the footage was ruined. So, we're gonna have to do a re-shoot, hopefully sometime soon, and hopefully with all of the original cast, plus the extras who missed it last time.

This is very frustrating. I initially planned on hashing out the video by Monday/Tuesday. But I guess it just wasn't meant to be. I'm thinking I might need to unplug for a while, take some time off from the internet and just chill with some friends. I will probably just try to get the filming done first, then take the weekend off and edit the video next week. We'll see, I might not be able to get everyone to come when I finally decide to get around to it.

Anyhoodle, that's the frustrating news of the day. *growls*

Safe journeys!

Success!

Well last night I got my necromancer to level 48. Victoria Ravenblood is now a Master of Death! I just finished the obsidian chest quest for her and now I'm thinking of taking it nice and slow :P I mean, no hurry now that I got one of the most important things done (the scarecrow spell). Tomorrow will be a filming day for That's Life! episode 3, as well as probably Thursday, then I will be editing it on Thurs/Fri. Busy weekend, folks, very busy.

To celebrate my newfound success I will spend the rest of the day playing Left 4 Dead 2. Woot!

Safe journeys, everyone!

This and that - A bit of news for ya.

So, I haven't logged into the game for a couple weeks, even though I'm so close... SO CLOSE... to getting my necromancer to lvl 48. This is for a few reasons, the main being that I'm burnt out on the grind of sidequesting. I know this is not so much of a problem because of the newest updates but still... just need to let this boredom run its course before getting back into the swing of things. Maybe I'll just wait till Celesita comes out so I'll have something to motivate me to finish DS lol.

The other main reason is I had an encounter with yet another "friend" who just used me to level up. Oh it just never gets old. They always find the strangest excuses to not return the favor of helping you out on quests, and then suddenly they just never log on again. Lol I'm so glad necromancy is great for soloing because I am never gonna fall for the whole "quest buddy" thing again. Seriously, I'm so over that.

But anyway, in spite of my whole misanthropy, I have indeed scheduled a filming session for my next episode of That's Life! (which you can read HERE) and I've been expediting my hashing out of the 4th script as well. Must satisfy the masses, ya know (all 3 of the people who care, I mean). We're about halfway through the series now! Thanks to the approaching addition of Celestia, it will be extended out for another episode though. Yay, I think. Episode 3 is gonna be a mystery/comedy, episode 4 is gonna be... well, I'm not quite sure. My plots become more and more convoluted as they go on :P Episode 5 will be pretty epic, I have it planned out a bit in my mind (though I really should write some of my ideas for it down so I'll remember). Episode 6 was going to be for GH but since Celestia may be out before I get to that point, I will be waiting to finish that world so I can make it the 6th episode. The last episode will be for GH, and it's not really going to have a plot (I hope)!

Anyhoodle, that's pretty much all I've been up to. What have you all been doing lately?

Safe journeys!

Just waitin'... waitin' waitin'.

Everyone already knows by now that the new updates are live, but I figured I'd say it anyway. New updates are live. Just waited a pretty good amount of time for the patching and then *GASP* woe is me!

 Apparently one of the updates is if you're a f2p player, you're ushered to the sidelines since subscribers are priority. This includes crowns players who have gone past the 30 day limit of buying crowns.

Hmm... this is discouraging.

Oh well. For those who are allowed in the game, safe journeys!

Filming info for That's Life!: Ep. 3.

 [x-posted from official thread on W101C. Read it HERE]

Good news to those who hate to wait! I've decided that I don't need to level up prior to filming the classroom scene, so we can do this sooner rather than later. Here's the 411:

Date: Wednesday, July 14th*
Time: 1pm Pacific time (2pm Mountain time, 3pm Central time, 4pm Eastern)**
Place: Inside the Life School classroom.
Server: Wu (this may change depending on how crowded it is, but we are definitely meeting on this server)

• Filming will take from about half an hour to an hour tops.
• We will be in our noob outfits, no pets or wands will be equipped during the filming.
• Limit of 30 people (I don't think this will be an issue but I have to stress that there can't be too many people. I would really prefer people who have text chat since that's the only way you can hear my instructions)
• Note: I'm not sure just how many people will actually be seen on the screen at one time. If we cram together just right we might fit 15-20 but some people will be cut off. Either way, I will credit your wizards at the end of the episode. Please only arrive with 1 wizard per person, it would be very uncool of someone was left out because somebody wants double screen time :P

I think that's pretty much it. If anyone has any questions or comments at all regarding the filming, by all means let me know! I've already done a rough recording of the dialog for episode 3 and I can tell you right now this is definitely going to be the best one yet! I should be starting the script for number 4 soon but I can't make any guarantees about how good it will be. It will probably take a lot longer to work on than the others, but that just means I will be putting more thought into it. Also, a lot of extras will be needed for #4, so be sure to tune in often to my threads so you can know when filming will be. Thanks so much everyone!

*Date is subject to change, but most likely won't so no worries.
**Estimated time based on time zone differences, so that everyone can be in the same place at the same time. I got some people confused last filming party because I forgot to do the conversions.



Edit: And another thing! Here's a nice little review someone just gave my series :D

Four words to say about That's Life:

It. Is. Funny. AWESOMESAUCEFULLNESS!

I watched the videos last night, and even though I couldn't hear well (Volume of iTouch, I think), I was laughing hard. Then this afternoon I showed it to my siblings who were just cracking up! I got CODY to crack, and he doesn't laugh to easily. I think they liked the part when Moolinda was yelling at Zachary. Cody also liked the guiding light part. Vanessa liked when Autumn says: "Yeah. It felt really good!" when Zach asked if she insulted his mom. I personally like when Moolinda's like, "They're big, smelly, and throw really large thongs at your head" and "She's ruthless, agressive, and tries to seduce you with her bright pink lipstick".

I'm gonna be there for the shooting!


Thank you, writingnecromancer! <333

Choices - They must be made.

To play, or not to play. That is the question.

I just finished playing all the official maps on L4D2 and I don't really feel like downloading any custom ones. I'm totally burnt out on Combat Arms so I don't want to play that, though I am also a bit burnt out on Wizard 101 again. But I really want to get Victoria Ravenblood to GM so she can get into Celestia when it comes out. Plus I just don't wanna leave her unfinished again >_<

Gah, why must my choices be so HARD? *shakes fist at the heavens*

...

Meh, I guess I'll just go eat breakfast and think it over.

Sir Rex: That's probably a "yes".