Celestia Pre-quest Test Realm

This couldn't have hit on a much worse day for me, been doing things with family, etc. So I did as much as I could and found a few things that I'm not sure everyone picked up on since most were doing the quest that started with Balestrom.

Mostly I will lay this out like my "quick-notes: version, only cleaned up some and with pics.

The new pet vendor in Marleybone is where the secret spell trainer is, down the stairs that are behind the mayor at Digmoore Station.

All the pets this vendor sells are Balance pets. Here is a pic of each:

Wood Golem:

Cat Thug:

Brass Golem:

-Old Smokey is now located in the factory in the Ironworks....he is just standing there:

In my opinion; it would have been a lot cooler to put him behind the other locked door in back of the factory. It would have given that place a purpose(other than random wooden chests and reagents that you might find.


-Death minions cast plague and Doom & Gloom. I'm not sure this is totally new, but even with the twins I hadn't seen this happen before. In the live realm I had seen Balance's mander minion cast Power Play once, so it makes me wonder how new this is with death. Minions(at least death) are not attacking with in-class spells as much....but they are still casting blades for themselves, as well as their master. Traps are cast as well, as has always been. Skeleton Minion cast tower shield on ME...also cast Taunt...and suffered a quick death for it...lol. It seems that you might want a 4 pip and up minion for death...not real convenient for lower level death wizards with less power pips to go around at the beginning of battle

-Snorri Oysterbloom's quest in Grizzleheim is nice, but extremely short. I was really hoping for a lot more with this quest. Basically 2-3 battles and you are done.

-New Grizzleheim crafting is so AWESOME! These are the kind of crafting challenges I was hoping for! You actually get to craft a Grizzleheim-style house if you so wish to! You can even preview the house! I will show you later exactly how to access that, as well as give you a little tour of this gorgeous house and all it's surrounding beauty!


I really want to show you all the new items you can craft from GH, so here they are(and none are terribly easy, which makes them all a bit of a challenge and will make every item very special indeed:

I really adore that little aquarium...I think it "may" be one of the first of these I craft! I have been wanting that ever since I saw it in the Pet Pavilion...and I was hoping, too, that it would be something to craft!

A lot of this furniture really makes me think of that old tavern I was talking about a few posts ago . The name of the place in those Dragonlance books was The Inn of the Last Home. It was an Inn/tavern that was built into the tops of a giant tree. The way it was described in the books you could almost feel the warmth of the fire heating your face up as you read through those books...and it always seemed like such a wonderful, cozy place that was always filled with interesting people, travelers from afar.

The floor plan to this Inn, for the few of us who might know about these books, was like this:

I could just see using some of that GH furniture in, say, the Life House...if not in one of the GH homes, and setting it up similar to this plan. But I am thinking the Life school house, as it IS in a giant tree...so it would be perfect to recreate The Inn of the Last Home within those walls. I can almost see Tika serving drinks in my Life House, Raistlin sipping his tea by the fire, Caromon acting like a goof tipping himself backwards in one of these chairs, root beer casks stacked up in the corner, patrons drinking from tankards, sitting at these tables on these wooden chairs that we can now craft.....absolutely perfect!


Anyhow....

-New Crown purchasable GH house is cute, but very small for the price. Don't miss the secret room under the rainbow bridge!

-I did all of the Celestia Prequests up to the tower. Really didn't have anyone available to go in with at the time since I got home late...seemed like anyone else was already in it. I am wondering why there are no sigils to the battles leading up to the tower, after the battle with Typhoon, that is? You can have people port in, but you can't enter at the same time.

Here are a few pics from the prequests:

After that last shot you are sent to talk to a guy at the Royal Museum in Marleybone, and he sends you on to the tower. Apparently KI never did learn that most people HATE towers. Sounds like this one is giving a lot of people a whole lot of trouble too. Personally, I play this game to relax, not to gain new headaches; I have plenty of real life ones without the addition of virtual headaches. In my thinking: if you need stress online then apparently you haven't lived through enough yet, but when you do you will soon learn that relaxation is a good thing! This is why I am looking forward more to the crafting...it allows me to relax. I just hope that some friends will accompany me through this new tower, since I pretty much "have to" do it.


John Lifeglen was showing me the drops available from this tower....definitely different looking stuff! Very Where's Waldo meets Indiana Jones looking. I am not at all impressed with the stats on the stuff, even though much of it has higher health and some global resistance, it has nothing else that really impressed me. One thing I did notice I found somewhat funny: the name of the gear that drops is "Wayfinders." Wayfinder is the guy that sells recipes in Grizzleheim. This really means little, I just thought that was interesting.

-New Beastmaster gear CAN NOT be combined with other stats from clothes and you would have to wait the normal amount of time to fill up your pet energy globe to 66(if you are a GM) OR you would have to purchase Pet Energy Elixer in order to fill up...BUT AFTER putting the Beastmaster clothes on! The clothes would have been a good idea IF they could have the stats combined with your normal fighting stats. Some schools can't really take losing ANY of the health their gear gives them(*cough cough STORM cough cough*) There may be uses to this gear, more-so for those that can't get on for long periods of time and need to save up more pet energy to use.

What I am hoping for, though, is that when we get to the point of needing/being able to use and farm level 60 gear, that maybe the gear we can get at that point may include extra energy as well as the usuall attack stats for our specific schools.

-Pets cast their own innate cards now(check out Taz in the video when I cast his blue card)! Stormzilla spell has been altered. More, brighter lightning has been added, more electricity, part of airplane graphic has been cut out...it now only starts to appear after zilla is grown and attacking...you can see it from behind, Zilla's claws are a different color now.


-Hall of the Ice Forge, which is located to the east across the river, over the stepping stones and near where the ghost raven is standing is where you will find the Grizzleheim Crafting Anvil for crafting all those awesome new items!

This is a beautiful place! Take a look at these pics...the snow sparkles like sugar in there!

Well, that is it for now. When I can I will post a video of the crafted house Youtube is slower than a snail stuck in molasses sometimes....so who knows when I will be able to share it...hoping for a little later today. I really wish xFire worked in the Test Realm...so much faster!


See ya in the Spiral!