KI Live Rundown 6/26/25

[STATE OF THE GAMES]
**Wizard101 US PC** – The Summer Update is Live! Next month, they'll launch the Aquila Chronicles. The team is already very hard at work on the next update.
**Wizard101 EU** – They're still at work on the 2025 Spring Update, it's in translation and will be coming later this Summer.
**Pirate101** – The Summer Update is coming to Test Realm "pretty soon, right around the corner, finishing up some last things." They've dropped some teasers already, but there be more on the horizon! They're going to let you level to 75, as well as your Pets. We're back to collecting El Dorado Map Pieces! You'll be one step closer to achieving that dream after this update.
**Ravenwood Academy** - More will be shown at PAX in Seattle on August 29 with a new demo.
**Wizard101 Console** - They'll be showing W101 Console off at PAX. They're still in Phase 2 for the Xbox preview, where you have to buy Membership or unlock Areas with Crowns. Joel wants to see if at the end of your 30 days, you're able to redeem your Loyalty tokens - surprise, that didn't work out yesterday, so they're working on that right now. One of the new things that came out in the new patch on Xbox is the ability to change your language. You can now play in English, French, German, and Spanish. You can change your language on the fly - it pops you right back to character select, and everything should be changed. This is also something they want to bring back to EU servers at some point as well as NA, so you can play in whatever language you choose to play in. One big thing about the preview is they already broke 1 million hours played after just about a month. PlayStation is coming along nicely, there's still some bugs to fix. For Nintendo Switch, they're unblocked in all but one spot to get into the testing system.

- [P101] Teasers are coming out from content creators. Yesterday, it was WizardToby. More will be coming out over the next week from Almond, Just Fang, Kukki, Ice Gold, and Ultimate Speedster.
- What are team's favorite side Events?
__LEAH:__ I have much love for the Deckathalon, because it was the first initiative and I had a lot of fun (and frustration) getting through those initial- I had to cheer and shout when I actually won the Balance one for the first time. I also have a soft spot for Scroll of Fortune since I took point on design and was the implementer for the first year or two until I could pass it off to somebody else on the design team. I love Beastmon too, but...
__JOEL:__ My favorite is definitely Beastmoon Monster Mayhem, because of all the coordination it takes. It really takes a group that plays together well. I like that you have to be willing, if you're not one of the people doing the final fight in the center, to run around and do the buffs. It feels like a sacrifice, but what you're doing is really providing so much extra help.
__RATBEARD:__ I don't really have a favorite. We looked at where players were spending their team and made correlations. People who spend time in Beastmoon spend a lot of time in Gardening. Not really very surprising, but those two are paired the strongest. The other one was Spellements and PvP. We also saw that people who engage with Cantrips the most do Guild Museum. One of the things I'm hoping to do with this data is to create stronger incentives in pairings or drag certain systems towards other things.
- Color and emotion to describe the next World? Gray.
- What are the chances of integrating a new Member Benefit for Spellements? They wouldn't do it right away, but they do know players really like Spellements. Any time they find something players like, they use that to make them do certain activities. If players are asking for a better, different, and maybe easier way to get Spellements, then the answer is probably yes. But it may not just be strictly double Spellements.
- Can we get more options to store Pets in the future? They have been talking about Pet related ideas recently. This didn't specifically come up, but the limitations did come up, because they don't want all Pets on the screen all the time. But Ratbeard will put this on the list of things they should be discussing as they look at this Pet system. Usually when they design- let's say they design a new activity- they also look for ways to improve the user experience in general. He'll put it on the discussion list and see what they can come up with.
- [EU] They're going to figure out a way to get the Scroll of Fortune paintings distributed. They do have the Crowns Reward events that let you get old gear, and Joel would really like a way to do Scroll of Fortune catchups, but they currently don't have the ability to run two at the same time. It's on his plan of GDDs to look at next year to see if they can give any sort of option on which Scroll you want to work towards. Right now though, that's just a thought in his head and not something he can promise.
- [P101] If you got to choose one Companion's next look for Promotion, who is it and what would they look like?
__LEAH:__ Bonnie Anne, and her final form/attack transforms her into her plushie self. Other than that, maybe Catbeard just done to the nines in the most fancy ornate hat and peacoat, like swanky Catbeard, fabulous and swanky.
__JOEL:__ The Christmas Companions. The Yule Troggy is almost my #1 Companion when I play.
- [P101] Can we have more future fights that allows everyone to bring in three Companions? Kane is one example. Currently, a lot of new content only allows one person to bring three, and others only two. They're always working to explore as many mechanics as they can in fight design. Almost certainly.
- [P101] Given KI's direct sponsorship of recent events such as Slade's Summer Showdown, could we see a greater variety of events supported in the future? Yes, they do plan to work with their amazing content creators to support more community events.
- [P101] Currently, there are many Powers that push enemies away, can we see Powers that pull enemies towards us? They'd love to explore that concept. Currently, knockback has bugs in how it functions, so a pull-in mechanic like this would need to be looked at carefully. Knockback can get weird in certain situations, especially near battleboard edges, but perhaps pull-in wouldn't be as much of an issue because of that?
- [P101] There's gonna be some teasers for the upcoming Pack pretty soon. Look out for that sometime next week.
- [EU] They're still working to get a partner to distribute Kroger jewels via codes on cards in EU, but the last one fell through at the last minute. Until any contracts are signed, they can't just say yes it's happening.
- Will we ever see any form of crossover between Pirate and Wizard?
__LEAH:__ I will say there's a very interesting one coming up with the next World, and other games-
__JOEL:__ No, no spoilers, spoilers, spoilers!
__RATBEARD:__ I'm still waiting for Sam to say 'go' on that midnight Pirate raid into Wizard City, I think that'd be so fun.
__LEAH:__ We've talked about that for many years.
__RATBEARD:__ Even if you don't see any of the students or professors, just the idea of having your Pirate sneak through there to accomplish something and get out again, that'd be- I wouldn't call it an easter egg exactly, but it'd be a neat little nod.

__CODES:__ PRISMAPRIDE625, SUPERPRIDE625