KI Live Rundown 4/24/25

[STATE OF THE GAMES]
**Wizard101** – They've determined Portal of Peril is worth it, but they need to slide it back into their development cycle. They'll be doing a full rework on it with full test cycles, so you may not see it for a while. Could there ever be exclusive gauntlets only run through PoP? Absolutely, they've talked about it. Once they can get the existing ones working, they'll dedicate the time and resources to creating gauntlets just for PoP. Internally, they're talking about improvements to how they test and evaluate updates. There's a lot more complexity in updates now. They need to change and evaluate updates differently as well. You shouldn't notice much difference, except Live releases having less bugs. The best way to contact them is the bug reporter tool on Test Realm. Or the bug reporter section of Discord. They've been hard at work on the summer milestone. They're not ready to let the fire cat out of the bag yet, but there'll be a lot of teamwork needed this summer. This is not a solo endeavor.
**Wizard101 EU** – They have launched Selenopolis and subsequent updates. They're super excited to be just a few months behind now, and continue to possibly improve in the future.
**Pirate101** – Let them know if on Pirate going forward that you're still experiencing lag - they think they fixed it today. They don't have a lot to talk about since they're not ready to talk about it. They're hard at work on the summer update, where "pirates may find themselves in an elevated state of mind. You'll find it royally cool. It will rock you."
**Ravenwood Academy** - They finished their first major production milestone, but it's still in early development. The team got to show off their work and everyone was blown away. The art is beautiful and they have a lot of the basic game framework in place. One of the younger professors is fire! As the year goes on, they'll give out a lot more info than just that, such as sneak peeks and dev diaries.
**Wizard101 Console** - You'll be able to buy Crowns in each console shop, then they'll have Membership Elixirs in the Crown Shop that you can buy. You have to do everything through the consoles - if you want to buy Crowns with a prepaid card, you need to use the respective console's prepaid card and redeem it on their platform to buy Crowns. You will not be able to use GameStop cards, Safeway cards, Kroger cards, or other prepaid cards they have out there, due to console regulations. There shouldn't be any real difference between PC and console when it comes to the way you actually play the game, other than playing with a controller. Console will have a worldwide server, which is translated to various languages. Everyone on all three consoles will play together worldwide. Will there ever be cross-platform? Never say never, but certainly not anything they'll be doing at launch or anywhere close to that. They'll be launching with two separate servers. Console will have only Menu Chat, which auto translates into the language you have your client set at. If you want any other chat with people on console, join your console respective chat system, or join Discord directly through your console to access a chat that way. Will there be any console exclusive items? All three consoles have rules saying that if it's available on one console, it must be available on the other, meaning you cannot make exclusives for any. Console will be in NA Discord, if they need to make another server then they will.

- Weaving Pets are intended to reward players for completing the quest. They are marked Exclusive to ensure all players who have it, have completed their associated quest.
- Official Lore Guide? They have thought about doing that in various forms over the years, multiple pitches. The spirit is willing, but the schedule is packed. Sam would love to work on it, it's just they haven't had a chance to do that versus all the other things. There's some NSFW language in it so Leah won't link it or officially recommend it, but if you look up Wizard101 Lore on YouTube, you might find good video overviews. She has really enjoyed those.
- Any plans for a new Halloween dungeon? Not in the plans for this year, noted for future years. One of the reasons they haven't done a lot of Halloween content is because of its proximity to their big content release in Fall. Not to say they'd never do it, just that it's not in the plans even though they've had requests.
- [P101] Are there any plans to implement Mannequins? Andrew says this is something they definitely want to implement in the future, it's a technical issue and on the list of things they want to add into the game. As of now, it is not in the process of being implemented, but it is on their wishlist.
- [P101] Will Moo Manchu ever show up again? What about Second Chance Chests? They're looking into bringing back Second Chance Chests and implementing more of them soon. For Moo Manchu, Sam would love dearly to see him again, but they need the perfect place to use him. Right now, the story isn't moving in his general direction.
- [P101] Are there any plans for future Trainers, example being the Clandestine Secret Trainers? Andrew says there are no plans on additional trainers at this time, but it is an interesting idea and worth discussion. Ratbeard says that's one of the last things they added while he was working on the game, and they didn't quite work out the way he hoped they would. They were on some kind of a timer, so definitely something he wants to go back and look at. He just wanted to do something different compared to the secret trainers in Wizard.
- [P101] Are there any plans to change the AI priority system in Pirate? It currently goes Heal -> Attack -> Buff. Dom says that this would likely require tech resources when they can get them, but on the design end, they've been experimenting with manipulating the existing AI. They have even more plans to make units behave in more intelligent ways going forward.
- [P101] Can we expect teleports into areas such as Tartarus and Zigazag, as we cannot teleport to anyone inside those areas? Andrew says they're working to try and avoid this in the future, it's not intended.
- [P101] Could we see Pet grants like Jobu's Ruse, Retribution, and any new Epics we may see in the future? Ryan says yes, you can expect more Pet grants in the near future! Also very interested in looking into new Epics.
- [P101] We know future Worlds are very far off, but there are skylanes that lead into Skyways that haven't been implemented yet - is there a likelihood that we will return to places like Monquista, MooShu, or Valencia to explore those areas? Sam says it's possible, but they quickly run into a lot of the same issues they ran into with new Worlds. There are lots of things at play rather than just a Skyway. A new Skyway in an existing World would save work, it'd have its skybox and cloud layers already built, or built enough to modify and to shape. They're actually working on- trying to work on some of that at some point in the past. That wouldn't be so hard to make on its own, but a Skyway is just a cardboard box essentially to house other things. To get a place that feels "real," a place where we can stage stories, you need so much much much more. Skyways need big islands, continents. Say if you went from the Monquista Skyway they have to another one, but on the mainland - if it suddenly vanished or looked identical, it would destroy the illusion of a real world. Mainlands, alas, are not cheap. They take a lot of time and effort to build.

A new Skyway would also need island objects to sail and dock with - small, medium, and big versions - and if you want to dock at these islands, that requires big environments all on their own. Interiors and POIs to boot! They might reuse an existing island, sure, but he has noticed it doesn't tend to go over all that well, so they try not to reuse too much. It made him really sad to ship Calabra Skyway with islands in it you couldn't go to - imagine a Skyway where there was one island to go to, or none at all! Who would want that? So, would an empty Skyway with nothing but windlanes and pathing monsters be worth visiting? That being said, a sparse Skyway might work if done right and used for the right purpose. Believe him, he's looking at it from many different angles. If things continue to go the right direction, this would definitely be a stepping stone on the way to a full World. He has an idea or two for a future Episode that attacks this issue from a different direction.

[ATMONOTE: "...imagine a Skyway where there was one island to go to, or none at all!" While the sentiment that an empty Skyway would be 'sad' is understandable, the reality is that Pirate101 already has Skyways with minimal or no dockable islands - Avernus (no islands) and Ithaca (just one). The argument that undockable islands harm immersion doesn't hold when the game has already set that precedent with Calabria Skyway. As for the claim that mainland models are 'expensive,' this conflates scale with complexity. The mainland terrain we see in Skyways consists of low-detail, low-poly geometry - something easily scalable with minimal effort. The real cost in development comes from detailed, interactive environments (docking points, interiors, NPCs, etc.), not the distant landmasses themselves. If the goal is simply to expand navigable space, reusing or upscaling existing assets would be far more efficient than using 'expense' as a blanket excuse.]
- Has the team ever considered having gauntlets and building blocks mix together? Like where the player could in theory "Build-a-Gauntlet" to offer new and fresh challenges based on the creator's imagination. Actually yes, they have.
- [P101] When are we getting a new story Companion? Dom says he thinks you'll be very happy in an upcoming update.
- [P101] What is the reasoning behind making certain Origin Talents percentage, and others flat? Ratbeard says he can't remember why they did it that way. It's something that comes up since players feel like they're not balanced very well, so it's certainly something they can go back and review later. Changing some of those fundamental decisions in Pirate is something they've talked about from time to time. Ratbeard consulting with the new design team. It's a matter of prioritizing it versus other things. And also being careful not to break something that's working.
- [P101] Is it possible to implement a new trainable Talent or piece of gear that applies Undead, Beast, etc. to the player? Dom says that would be a really cool idea.
- Will the opening quiz at the start of the game be updated on console? No, it's going to be the same.
- [EU] You will not be able to Earn Crowns as EU does not want that to be in games. The regulations are so severe that it would never work.
- [P101] The team is well aware that Companions are the coolest part of the game outside of your own character. The nice thing is that most of the work is just design, and there's a lot they can do. It's fair to assume that upgrading Companions is pretty close to the top of the list.
- Will Nelson Everhart get some form of dedication in-game? It would've been a really great idea as an easter egg for Musicology, yeah. They like the notion a lot.
- [P101] No plans currently for multi-passenger Mounts.
- Will there ever be a voice dub for each language ever? Probably not, that's a lot. They have 400-600 hours of VO content. That's a lot of lines.
- The goal is to keep console 90 days behind PC - this is because they have to go through certification for the consoles. If they need to have all the bugfixes go out and send that build over, it could take Nintendo up to 90 days to approve it.
- Can the chat filter be updated? Greg and Joel were looking into that to add things, but it falls to their programming team to implement it on Wizard. On Pirate, a designer can do it using a tool, but that tool does not work on Wizard. But they've asked them to work on that once they get through this round of console certifications.
- Since you're in the new office, are you able to hire more devs to work more, or more efficiently? Leah says she knows it doesn't look like it, but they're pretty full.
- How much of console Wizard101 is finished? 97.555559%.

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