Hi! I'm back to...

...filming! Here you go: The Shadow of Night Part 3! It's been quite a Part 3-style week, hasn't it? Enjoy!

- Sophia E

Really Rapid-fire Writing!

I made that alliterative on purpose. Anyway, you might be wondering why I didn't post yesterday, when pirate week was supposed to resume. I just realized that when I sat down to write pirate week posts, it felt more like a burden than a pleasure. I realized that if I wasn't enjoying writing pirate week, I should stop for now. As a blogger, I'm supposed to love giving informative posts, but I just feel - well - sick of Pirate101 for now. Plus, I have only two ships, and that wouldn't be very impressive for day 7. Rest assured, pirate week WILL continue, when I'm in a piratey mood and have more ships and experience; I'm just not sure when.

On that happy note, I think you might be wondering what that title was about. You're probably astonished at this news: I have finished TSG part 3! When I was writing the last sentence of that part, here's exactly what was going through my head: Whoa. A part written in a week with whole days away from home and the computer. Talk about FAST. And, it's the longest part yet! Yay! :) :) :) :) :) Five smilies of approval! Now, in book-advertisement style, I will give you a description (sort of) of this part: What happens to Sophia and her friends? If you want to find out, read this next installment of The Secret Gate! :D 
...
Not a great description, I know. I'm just doing my job as advertiser , no, annoying person, that is, bookseller - augh! Fine. PERSON WHO MAKES YOU WANT TO READ IT. How's that?

Just remember: If you want to find out, read this next installment of The Secret Gate!
- Sophia E

Surprise enclosed, written in invisible ink!

That's right! You have to highlight this post to read its content! >:)






































Just joking. I wouldn't be that mean, would I? I could do it if I wanted to, typing in white color, but I don't want to. But maybe I do! Muahahahaha!
The content is written below.

Okay, I have good news and bad news. Which do you want first? Good news or bad news? Hmm, that's a good question! Let's flip a coin! *gets out quarter* *does super impressive flip* Okay, it came up on tails! That means bad news first! You may be wondering why I'm posting again today. It's very rare for me to post twice on the same day. In fact, it's so rare that this is the first time! That brings us to WHY I'm posting. You see, I didn't realize how busy a weekend and the following days would be when I started pirate week. So, I'm postponing pirate week. Day 3 will be this Wednesday. I wish I didn't have to postpone, but I do. I will see you then. (Yes, I probably won't post until then. Sad.)

Enough sadness on this post! Time for the GOOD NEWS! And it is good news indeed! Better news than you could possibly imagine! (Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a teensy little bit.) But it is quite good. *drumroll begins* Wait for it ....................... wait for it ....................... *drumroll gets louder* I have gotten back to writing, and the Secret Gate part 2 is FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *happy smiling faces* Although, there was one little error in that story. Emma and I get along in there.
That's just your wishes. Not reality.
Yeah, so true. Now please leave.
Hmph.
Anyway, READITREADITREADIT! NOW!!!!!! Look in the My Writings tab! You won't be disappointed! (I hope.)

- Sophia E

Pirate week, Day 2: Companions!

I'm back, as promised! So anyway, let's get on with pirate week, shall we?

Day 1: Health and Life Fountains

Day 2: Companions

Day 3: Battle

Day 4: Training (changed!)

Day 5: Pets and Mounts

Day 6: Skyways

Day 7: Ships

Oh yeah, and I had a quest goal recently that said "Investigate things that should be left alone". Why investigate them if they should be left alone?

Companions

Companions are, in my opinion, one of the coolest things about Pirate101. I want to talk about how companions work, how you level your companions, and also talk about my opinions about my own companions. So in battle, companions are like friends that you control, or maybe running multiple accounts without the multiple accounts part. Out of battle, your companions are NPCs that talk to you, walk with you, and are key parts of the storyline. You also assign them different ranks on your crew, the highest being First Mate. Your first mate will always be in a fight with you (except for a few very special cases, where you have no companions with you). For all the other ranks, the higher the rank, the higher the chance that companion will be in a fight with you. All in all, companions are really totally awesome and a great part of a great game. 

However, when you first gain your companions they will not be ultra-super-powerful like you want them. To make them more powerful, you need to train them. Every time you level up, you get 3 or 4 companion training points, which you can use on whichever companion you like. You can also get these points from certain quests, and they also can be bought in taverns for gold. Be warned, though: These points are expensive! Be careful not to spend too much gold on these, because leveling companions extra can be addicting! Here's a little tip on training your companions: train them all, even the lamest companion in the lowest rank. There's always the chance that your lowest ranked companion could be chosen to battle with you, even though that chance is small. If you haven't trained this companion, this is a complete throwaway and you could lose the battle. Also, there's another way to make your companions better: promotion quests. You meet with your crew in a tavern, and then you do some quest goals. At the end, you can choose a new epic ability for your companion! Note: you don't choose when this happens. The companion eligible for promotion will give you a tutorial tip and you automatically get the quest.

Now, I want to show you my companions (the companions of a level 13 swashbuckler), and why I like them. This should give you an example of what the companions are like. Note: your companions and what powers and abilities they have may vary.

My Crew

Right now, I am level 13 and I have 8 companions. See how it says firstmate above the guinea pig in the green hat? He is my firstmate because even though he's not the highest level, he has the best abilities and is relatively durable. Now I am going to go briefly over what each of them can do.

Gaspard de Vole (firstmate) ~ Level 10 buccaneer. He has Critical Strike (guaranteed critical on one certain attack; I can activate this whenever I want) and First Strike (when an opponent tries to hit him, he might be able to hit the enemy first; this does not count as his turn, it's randomly activated and can activate multiple times).

Bonnie Anne (the fox) ~ Level 10 musketeer. She has been promoted through a quest, so she's one of my best companions. She has Line of Fire (shoot all enemies in a straight line and reduce their dodge, activate manually, one use), Double Tap (randomly attack another target if she makes a kill shot, activated automatically), and Burst Fire (attack again if her first attack is successful; activates randomly and automatically, does not always activate).

Pedro de Olid (the monkey with the feather hat) ~ Level 12 musketeer. Not as good as Bonnie Anne, even though he's a higher level; haven't used him much.

Old Scratch (the skeleton) ~ Level 10 witchdoctor. Can use ranged attack, and has Bone Chant (summon skeleton that you don't control; this is like a minion).

Don Luis Cebidas (the monkey with the helmet) ~ Level 12 buccaneer. Not as good as Gaspard de Vole, even though he's a higher level; haven't used him much. Note: see the lightning bolt next to his picture? It means I can give him a new talent! (Basic stat boost, not epic ability.)

Ratbeard (the rat) ~ Level 10 buccaneer. He has Critical Strike (see Gaspard de Vole), and I'm not sure who is better: him or Don Luis Cebidas. See the gray exclamation point next to his picture? It means he's ready for a promotion quest! (He probably will be better than Don Luis Cebidas after this.)

Sarah Steele (the girl mouse) ~ Level 10 swashbuckler. She's basically a clone of myself, and I don't need a clone of myself. She attacks big, though, and can come in handy if she does happen to get chosen.

Subodai (the horse) ~ Level 10 buccaneer. He's my very first companion and isn't all that good, but I need to train him anyway. You'd be surprised just how much he gets chosen.

See you tomorrow! (again)

- Sophia E

Pirate week, Day 1: Health and Life Fountains!

Hello again! I just noticed that I have 2,000 pageviews now, thanks everyone! But now I'm going to get to the real content of the post. First of all, I FINALLY finished the signature for Elizabeth and me on Wizard101 Central! Here it is! It took forever to get some of it just right, but here it is! If you want, comment and tell me what you think of it.

Do you like it? By the way, "The Dream Wizards" is the name of our on-hold questing team, because the dream shield spell (death) contains life and myth shields. So anyway, I'm going to get to the real REAL content of the post. It's my unofficial pirate week! I will post information/opinions on different areas of pirate101 gameplay for the next 7 days. Here is the pirate week schedule thingy:
Day 1: Health and Life Fountains
Day 2: Companions
Day 3: Battle
Day 4: Housing? (I'm kinda clueless about this right now, so this will likely just be speculation.)
Day 5: Pets and Mounts (probably more speculation)
Day 6: Skyways
Day 7: Ships
Did you notice I have certain "clumps" of days that go together? Days 1, 2, and 3 are all about battle/questing, days 4 and 5 are about the side activities, and days 6 and 7 are about the skyways. So anyway, it's time to begin the questing days of pirate week! Enjoy!

Health and Life Fountains
Like in Wizard101, you need health to survive in battle in Pirate101. The interesting thing about this is - even if you get killed, but your companions are not killed, you can continue to control them. Unlike minions, they don't die with you, so if you finish the battle, even after you get defeated, it could still count as a success. I don't find health is quite as important in Pirate101 because of this. You can regain health in three ways. I will talk about each. First, you can teleport to the nearest life fountain, and interact with it by pressing X. It will revive any of your companions that may be dead, and your health will restore bit by bit as long as you stay in that area.

Puerto Mico (Monquista) Life Fountain

 (Random side note: when you teleport, it looks like you erupt into smoke.) The second is yum-yum fruit, which looks like a red pear with wings. This fruit is the pirate equivalent of wisps, except even better because the red type are also in the safe areas. There is also a blue type of fruit.

Red Fruit

Blue Fruit

Since there is no mana or anything similar in Pirate101, what does the blue type do? This brings us to the third way of regaining health: potions. These are like instant life fountains. They fill your health completely and revive any dead companions. You fill these by catching blue fruits. When your potion globe (located in the same place as mana globe in wizard101) fills up, you get another potion. However, there will come a point when even if your potion globe isn't full, you won't be able to catch any more blue fruits. You can't have infinite potions, that wouldn't be right.

Health (Red) and Potion (Blue) globes. Note how much of the Potion globe is filled; this is the max for me. I have 2 potions.

So that's the basics on health in Pirate101. See you tomorrow, for the next installment of pirate week!

- Sophia E

NDA...is lifted? Wow.

Since NDA is lifted, I'm going to share my pirate's identity. I'm Silver Julia Nightingale in Pirate101, I'm level 11 I think, I'm a swashbuckler, I'm in Monquista, and I quest REALLLLLLY slowly. Don't expect a lot of groundbreaking news from me. Why am I a swashbuckler in Beta? I'm going to be a privateer in live, and I don't want to feel like I'm doing it all again when that happens. So anyway, Swordroll is probably going to share all the news, so I'm going to not even bother to post. I'm happy that all my swashbuckler clothes are green, and I might start up a Pirate blog. (Think artsyprivateer.blogspot.com.) That's all for now, and I may post a picture of my pirate sometime!

- Sophia E

I just wanted to share - my first ship was called The Twitchy Cuckoo. This is one of the funniest starter ship names I have found, besides maybe The Snoring Troggy.

Guess what day it is?

It's national aviation day! (United states)

Well, it is. But that's not what I meant to blog about. It's my birthday! August 19 is my birthday! I like to pull that joke on people, naming an obscure holiday on a very special day. Although, it being national aviation day is rather appropriate, because I'm flying the skyways! Yes, I'm in Pirate101 Beta! Although I think many of the people who read my blog are already in beta, I'm just going to say that it's really, really, cool and the battle system makes a lot of sense. I don't think that counts as breaking the NDA. I'm keeping my identity in beta a secret, but I'll just say I am NOT a Sophia and I am NOT a privateer (I plan to be both in live). Also, I have a question. Emma is really fun to write about on here, but is she annoying? Would you rather I stopped with the Emma posts? Or should I keep writing with her in the posts, but change her personality a little? There's a new poll about this, so please vote! Thanks.

- Sophia E

Ravenwood Ball was fun!

Wow, did I have fun at the Ravenwood Ball! I had to leave for several hours during mid-day, but I had fun in the early morning dancing and doing horse races. Here's a picture of the early morning dance line:

Okay, it's not the straightest dance line. But who cares? Oh, and --
I made an appearance!
Sadly, Emma did show up. I think she might have ruined the party for the half-minute she was there --
But it was just a half-minute! Seriously, Sophia, you are SO sensitive! All I did was pop in and say "Hey everyone, it's the splendiferous me!" Shouldn't my splendiferous self get a chance to meet people for a half-minute?
The biggest problem was that you pushed ME out! So anyway, I didn't come back to the party until about 5:30 EST, and by then it had split. So I just ported to a friend in a mini-party and played some Wildfire Tag (which I didn't win) and finally got a chance to see the Tower of the Winter Winds (which is an awesome house, btw.) *wants* So anyway, that's all for today! See you later! :)

- Sophia E

My splendiferous self is back!

Hey, everyone! Sophia hasn't let me post in such a long time! Didn't you miss me and my splendiferous posts? I'm awesome! Now, I need to write this post quick before Sophia comes back from the Bazaar- Oh, no! She's back!

Emma, what are you doing on my blog?

Sophia has something to say! It's a completely splendiferous thing! Come on, Sophia! Say it!

Oh, right, the promise. Just so you know, readers, I promised Emma that if she could manage to get on here and start a post, I would say something for her. I thought my combination lock (aka password) would throw her off, but no! She actually managed to break in!

I have splendiferous hacking skills! Sophia, you didn't say it yet, so please do!

Emma, where did you pick up the word "splendiferous"?

It's my little secret which I am not telling you! Say it!

*sigh* Fine. Emma is good at PvP.

That's not what you're supposed to say! Say it for real!

Emma, really? Fine. EMMA IS BETTER THAN ME AT PVP.

*gleeful* She said it! She said it! Oh wow, I got her to admit that I, with my splendiferousness, ice wyverns, and  fashion sense, rule PvP! 

I think it's time for a subject change. Pirate101 Beta is finally opening! I have not been accepted yet, but I reallyreallyreally want to!

What's Pirate101?

No comment. It's nothing important. Nothing at all. Anyway, I think I'll just DIE if I don't get accepted into Beta! I already know I want to be a Privateer and it sounds super exciting!

Ooh, you'll die if you don't get accepted! That's splendiferous!

EMMA!! (Readers, sorry Emma's so crazy today. She had way too much Radioactive Pizza and now she's hyperactive!) Emma, you're getting WAY out of hand right now. Time to take you away. *locks Emma in closet with new combination (aka password)*

*muffled voice* HEY!!!

Aah, finally some peace around here. New topic: Ravenwood Ball! I am so excited! Who's going? I am! It's my first Ravenwood Ball so I'm ultra-excited right now! If you're going, please comment and vote on the poll. I want to meet my readers! Tell me how early you're showing up, I'll probably go there in late morning or early afternoon. See you there! I'm SO EXCITED! EEEEP! :D

- Sophia E