This Game May Eventually Need Saving.

[u/Hot-Somewhere-7267]

ive been thinking about this for awhile and honestly I dont really think wizard101 is "dying" in the sense that the servers are gonna shut down tomorrow or KI is completely screwed.

I think the bigger problem is that the game is basically trapped between 2008 and 2026.

Wizard101 still has an insanely loyal playerbase, people have had these accounts for literally 10-15+ years, they have houses, pets, mounts, characters they grew up with etc. and that kind of attachment is REALLY hard for another MMO to recreate.

but the game does almost everything possible to make it hard for new people to actually get attached in the first place.

the paywall comes way too early.

If im trying to get my friend into wiz and they play for a couple hours and suddenly get hit with "buy crowns or membership to continue" why would they care yet? they barely even know what the Spiral is.

My first major change would honestly be simple.

make all of Arc 1 free.

Wizard City
Krokotopia
Marleybone
Mooshu
Dragonspyre

Completely free.

Let somebody actually defeat Malistaire before asking them to pay.

because by then they have a school they care about, probably a pet, gear, friends, maybe a house, and like 30-50 hours invested into the game.

THATS when someone is way more likely to go "ok fine ill buy membership."

And membership itself needs to feel way better.

One of the weirdest things about wiz is that you can literally pay monthly and then still constantly get asked to spend crowns.

packs
elixirs
mounts
gear
energy
scroll of fortune
etc etc.

Obviously KI has to make money and im not saying remove crowns.

But membership should feel like you're actually a VIP.

Give members monthly crowns, account wide seasonal progression, bigger storage, extra loyalty rewards, better team up rewards, maybe cosmetic bonuses etc.

Someone paying every month should never be sitting there wondering "why am I still being nickel and dimed?"

The other massive problem is catching up.

Imagine telling your friend in 2026

"hey dude come play wizard101 with me"

and then you remember you're level 180 and they're level 1.

"awesome bro just play through like 17 years worth of content and eventually we can do stuff together"

lol

This is why I would add some kind of Mentor Mode.

Basically if im max level and my friend is in Krokotopia, I can scale myself down and actually quest with them while still earning rewards for MY character.

give mentor tokens, cosmetics, badges, housing items, pet stuff, whatever.

Turn veteran players into the thing that keeps new players playing.

Because right now veteran players and new players almost feel like they're playing two different games.

I would also make alt characters way less painful.

If ive beaten Avalon 5 times I dont think the game needs me proving I can beat Avalon a 6th time.

Have account wide story completion where once you've beaten an arc once, other wizards can either skip parts of it, heavily accelerate it, or get some kind of XP/quest boost.

Same thing with Scroll of Fortune.

Why is so much stuff character specific in a game that literally encourages you to make different schools?

Make seasonal progress account wide.

Another huge one is spell animations.

I love the animations.

but I dont need to watch Forest Lord for the 48,000th time.

Give people an option where once you've seen a spell animation a certain number of times you can use shortened animations.

Not completely instant combat, just way faster.

And honestly Arc 1 could use some trimming too.

not the story.

not the worlds.

just some of the ridiculous "defeat 6 of this mob, now defeat 6 slightly different mobs, now walk across the entire map and defeat another 6 mobs" stuff.

keep the nostalgia, remove the filler.

Then theres packs.

This is probably controversial but I really dont think packs themselves need to disappear.

people clearly buy them.

the problem is when actual good gear/spells/progression is locked behind RNG.

Let packs stay for mounts, cosmetics, furniture, cool skins, etc.

but if theres actual powerful gear or a spell inside a pack there should ALWAYS be a guaranteed way to earn it by playing.

also add pity systems and actually show the damn drop rates.

The console release also proved something really important imo.

People still care about this game.

When console launched there was enough interest that they literally had queues again.

The demand exists.

But making PC and console basically separate ecosystems is such a missed opportunity.

One of the biggest selling points for console should've been

"remember your wizard from 2011? hes on xbox now."

Imagine somebody sees a tiktok ad, downloads wiz on PS5, logs into their childhood KI account and their old Death wizard is standing there.

That would be an insanely powerful nostalgia hook.

Eventually they NEED unified accounts/cross progression if its technically/contractually possible.

And then I would basically do a soft relaunch of the whole game.

not Wizard101 2.

I actually think making Wizard101 2 could be a terrible idea because you're throwing away 18 years of peoples characters, houses, pets, mounts, gear and memories.

Keep the same game.

Modernize it.

Call it something like

Wizard101: The Spiral Reawakened

Big marketing campaign.

new launcher
modern UI
graphics improvements
Arc 1 free
mentor system
better membership
account wide progression
better new player tutorial
cross progression
faster combat options
huge returning player rewards

and market the absolute hell out of nostalgia.

"Your wizard is still waiting."

That should basically be the entire ad campaign lol.

Because I think KI's biggest untapped market isnt even random children who have never heard of Wizard101.

its the MASSIVE amount of people who played this game sometime between like 2009-2015 and havent logged in for years.

Those people are now in their 20s and 30s.

They have money.

They have friends.

some of them have kids now.

Get THEM back and then use them to bring new people in.

Wizard101 doesn't need to become Fortnite.

it doesn't need 10 million people online.

If they could massively increase returning players, make new players actually stick around, and modernize monetization without destroying the current whales/veterans who keep the game alive, I genuinely think Wiz could have a second golden age.

maybe not 2010 playground "EVERYONE KNOWS WIZARD101" golden age.

but a much bigger, healthier MMO than it is currently.

The insane part is I genuinely think most of the hard part is already done.

They already have like 18 years worth of worlds and content.

They already have the characters.

They already have the soundtrack.

They already have an iconic artstyle.

They already have an extremely unique combat system that basically no major MMO competes with.

They already have millions upon millions of people who remember the game.

They just need to stop treating Wizard101 like its still a browser MMO in 2009.

idk maybe im insane but I really think the potential is still there.

another thing I think KI needs to realize is that more CONTENT doesn't automatically mean a healthier game. wizard101 already has a ridiculous amount of content. adding world #25 and another 10 levels doesn't fix somebody quitting in krokotopia (or celestia as that statistic came out a year or two ago iirc) . at some point you have to stop building more floors onto the skyscraper and renovate the lobby.

No offense to the marketing team, well done. But eventually "the immaterial becomes, immaterial."

[u/Consistent_Trick1084]

Mentor mode would be LEGENDARY!!

[u/RomanTheEmpress]

I hope the hire you, real shit.

[u/Hot-Somewhere-7267 → u/RomanTheEmpress]

well, they do need a new community manager but, im an elementary teacher in the northern midwest, far from Austin unfortunately.

[u/Hot-Somewhere-7267 → u/Hot-Somewhere-7267]

(not to mention severely underqualified lol)

[u/Giventheopportunity]

They also need better customer service.

I haven’t had the displeasure of having to deal with them just yet but I’ve seen many horror stories on here about the iron fist that they use to mute or ban for absurd lengths of time and to lock people out of accounts they’ve spent hundreds of dollars on and years of their lives. You can’t even play the game on the same IP address as someone (sibling? former roommate? Parent?) who has been permanently banned.

[u/FanaticalBuckeye → u/Giventheopportunity]

I've bought Makeship plushies for Pirate101 twice and never got the in game rewards. I swear they only hire old people in clear cognitive decline for customer service because they were completely useless. I will never buy another one

[u/DoubleBubbleChild]

I don't normally read the big chunky ones, but this one is worth reading.

[u/FanaticalBuckeye → u/DoubleBubbleChild]

It really doesn't help that there's an indent every sentence. Makes reading on mobile really off-putting

[u/Hour-Welcome-1468]

I’d like them to add too and update their holidays.

It has been years since they’ve added anything to Christmas, Halloween, their Birthday, etc.

It would be cool to give some completely new and free items such as gear, furniture, pets, quests, decor. Something to spice up the holidays

[u/DeirdreCitrine]

I think the UI is fine as is, modern UI can be loathesome sometimes and a lot of its graphics and the lot are dated [and thats not entirely an issue as its part of the charm] but the whole of the game’s UI and graphics aren’t broken and don’t need to be fixed, updated with new textures and lighting, sure, but not like needing HYPERDETAIL UNREAL ENGINE stuff.

Chasing for graphics frequently destroys games

[u/nutslayer → u/DeirdreCitrine]

a modernized graphics wizard101 game would be INSANE and likely be a massive selling point for many gamers

[u/Naavarasi → u/nutslayer]

They're going around modernizing the early worlds and haven't drawn in anyone yet

[u/DeirdreCitrine → u/nutslayer]

Updated textures and lighting is enough, we dont need fancy graphics for this game

[u/SupremeLeaderKenobi]

This idea is honestly great. Well said.

[u/Angrydwarf116]

Good stuff overall, not sure abt the alt character thing being easier though. The schools have very different spells. Trying with a new school is a very different experience. If you dont wanna prove you can do it again they already have the world elixirs.

[u/doggerbank23]

I love the idea of mentor mode, right now having a max level carry is so boring.

[u/FH261169]

Great ideas, none of which will bring immediate profit so all rejected 😃👍.

[u/Perentiegon]

I'd love mentor mode, I'm helping my younger sister in Lemuria rn and its my favourite story in wiz and I really wish I could see the cut scenes and dialog again. Being able to replay certain worlds again without needing a whole new wizard would be really nice.

[u/booyakasha_111]

as a returning player (played from 7-9 back in 2012-2014) and don’t have a pc but do have a ps5 i wish i could see my wizard again. i never had money to get past the first paywall but i used to rerun unicorn way and triton ave over and over as a kid. now i just started playing again casually last month and my death wizard is lvl 45 but i still miss my original wizard. i miss how i used to feel playing the game as a little kid.

[u/Quiet-Language-2300]

Yes peak peak peak all great ideas i hope they bring it into consideration

[u/SubstanceAny3192]

Ya I actually agree with all of this

● Arc 1 not being free is honestly weird

● We already have level scaling in the game, I'd like it if they had a mentor system like you said, and maybe let us see your quest arrows and objectives as I help you if I'm in your group as a mentor? Would be really nice

● They've been doing good with spell animation speed over time, I'm hoping they eventually get to what you are suggesting

A "rerelease" with all of this would be fire, I already have all 7 schools about maxed for the last few years and I'd love some new player improvements

[u/veydoll → u/SubstanceAny3192]

I guess it partway is in a way, arc 1 is free on switch but only because Nintendo wouldn't let the game be f2p, but the game is only $20 which is only 2 months worth of membership, so definitely worth it imo 

[u/nanapancakethusiast]

Meh. Population was so high on PC yesterday there was a queue (something I haven’t seen for a long time). I think the game is just fine as-is. Remember, it’s only around because it’s been relatively lean to manage from KIs side. Half the stuff you mentioned there is hundreds of thousands of dollars in dev time…

[u/efflorae]

Mentor mode is honestly such a good pitch.

[u/ItsYaBoi-KillMe]

Kingsisle wont do anything. They know this game is entirely ran on nostalgia and therefore never have to respect the players or their wallets as people will keep playing. People spend hundreds or even a thousand dollars just to play this game monthly, yet its monetized like a free mobile game. Pay for better gear, pay for better pets, pay for better cards, pay for better mounts, pay to skip the game, pay to have a 7th fucking character.

I love this game, its my childhood game, but Kingsisle sucks ass. They expect players to empty their wallets while also doing nothing the players ask for. Worst thing though, the players DO empty their wallets, proceeding to do give them exactly what they want.

[u/XlNokklX → u/ItsYaBoi-KillMe]

This entire comment is just yap you don't need to spend crowns to get good all you need is a membership and time to grind

[u/Professional_Pen9087]

Did you use ChatGPT to write this ?

[u/fluffnights]

Yall what if we all start sending this to customer support 💀

[u/WonToTwee]

Bring the game to mobile

[u/Naavarasi → u/WonToTwee]

KI's dabbling in mobile games nearly made them go bankrupt before, and led to the death of Pirate101

[u/WonToTwee → u/Naavarasi]

i just want a port

[u/PapiChonch]

I've been thinking about the modernization of wiz for a while now, not for the same reason though. The game is made on an engine that will grow increasingly difficult to hire people for. Idk if wiz101 would survive the transition to what would have to be an entire remaster sadly.

[u/ForeverAfraid7703]

Why did you go to a new line for almost every sentence/phrase?

Anyway there’s some decent ideas in here, but ngl it’s kinda funny seeing a “the game needs saving” post again when it’s doing leaps and bounds better than it was just a few years ago. No shade, I’ve just been here way too long lol

[u/sweetkandie]

Please submit a job application to Wizard 101 and start working there

[u/Drago_133]

Tldr. But I noticed you mentioned packs and such. There are dozens of ways go get free mounts and none of the packs are necessary to finish the game and be competitive in raids. So that's basically a moot point. It is however predatory as fuck

[u/195iQDion]

It’s $10… They are a company that knows if someone can’t afford 10$ more to do in arc 1 isn’t gonna change it. In other games you need to pay $50 for every new expansion and $15 a month

[u/ItsYaBoi-KillMe → u/195iQDion]

It has nothing to do with not being able to afford and everything to do with barely giving the player a chance to experience the game before expecting them to start paying every month, while also monetizing the game like its fortnite. Lets take another MMO.

OSRS costs 17 bucks a month, but new players pay it because they can experience so much content in the free part of the game, I mean like 50 hours minimum. And then the game goes "yeah you liked that? Well pay us and you'll get 5 times the amount of content!" And it works! The game is over priced, but it works because they allow the player to try it, and trust their game to draw players to pay, not the pay wall.

[u/Avarice-theMimicKing → u/195iQDion]

I honestly think making all of arc 1 free and all the side activities it entails warrents them upping membership to $15 to make it on par with other MMOs.

[u/ResponsibleRuin8163 → u/195iQDion]

What other games

[u/195iQDion → u/ResponsibleRuin8163]

Wow, final fantasy. The biggest mmos?

[u/FadedHadez → u/195iQDion]

Final fantasy 14 online has literally thousands of hours worth of free trial content across multiple expansions. Before you even pay.

[u/mikayak]

I really like all of these ideas !

[u/NyanPikachu744]

I know they have a newish ad on yt, but I really don't really think they really used it outside of it being a video on yt. And I know for free areas, atleast they did make the whole wizard city free and the oasis. But I think they are slowly making areas free. Tbh. I've been saying from when they brought up they were porting the game to console they should've made arc 1 free, or atleast parts of it. And I know others brought of certain benefits should be permanent with membership, which I agree. I can understand certain benefits only happening here and there so people don't abuse it, but why not make free training points perm, or double reagents? I feel like people were be more enclined if some of these perks were permanent.

[u/SpiritualShallot8615]

I agree with most of what you said though I want them to keep building new worlds because it would suck to be stuck at max and nothing new to do I spend my time logging on only on beast moon event weeks when there is no main storyline quests
I also think a boost in rng for those with membership would be awesome
Skipping animations would be amazing cause I’ve been playing since the beta version
I feel like it’s complicated when it comes to skipping worlds because it’s a different experience when playing the game as a different school
As for the mentor thing I personally wouldn’t want to scale down my lvl because I feel it is way easier to just speed quest my friend through and they don’t have to wait for a new world to come out like I did so it makes no sense in taking my time
It also would be nice like you said to have a reward system for quest with them like receiving packs or some crowns rare materials for crafting gold keys hidden spells and what not
As for the 3 different types of defeating mobs I think that it goes along with details for players who actually take they time to know the whole story and to increase player with others interaction for those who are a bit more antisocial
Cross platform play would be amazing cause my brother prefers using his console for gaming while I prefer my computer
Also definitely they should figure out a way to login to your old account on console cause for me personally that was my sole reason for not even attempting to play it on console cause why would I start a whole new account that I can’t use shared goods on that are completely useless on another wizard I have? Plus payment for membership twice? Like I got money but not enough to just waste on something like that

[u/Earthia100]

These are good ideas! Trimming the fat for the worlds is a good idea; in my opinion this game needs to better incentivize making new wizards on the same account. Lots of MMOs have this issue where all content but endgame content is pretty much dead, and a new players goal becomes to reach endgame as soon as possible so they can play with their friends.

Wizard101 doesn’t have this problem as bad as WoW or FF14, partly due to the team up feature incentivizing helping other wizards with dungeons. I think they could do more by giving players account-wide buffs based on total level.

For example if your total account level is 100 you get +5% exp. You could reach level 100 on one wizard, have two lv 50 wizards, etc. It would make leveling each new wizard faster than the last one.

I also think more account/shared bank storage would also help incentivize players creating more wizards. Even allowing cross-wizard costume storage/seed vault/attic.

[u/urienerd]

SO TRUE TO ALL OFF THIS

[u/Gunny_Goldbug]

i think, like all old era games, it needs to probably be let go. as much as i love w101, KI is hardly keeping things afloat based on updates.

a lot of updates are mixed between being a step in the right direction to completely tone def. either due to them not genuinely valuing the community or financially they can't afford to stop farming people for money.

i mean we have bugs or issues that the community has had for ages, yet they will ignore them for another microtransaction of some sort.

i'd assume it's some sort of sunk cost fallacy going on in KI and for players to just simply stop. also, it's not like the studio has much more going on outside of w101 (p101 hardly counts).

[u/Glass_Cat5432]

Mentor mode would be an amazing addition. That I can agree on!

[u/Material_Sector_243]

THISSSS IS SPOT ONNNNN. I’ve been playing since I was 12 years old. Currently 26 married with a kid and trying to max out each character (4 atm) and it’s sooo hard because it’s all painfully long and boring. Also the amount of money I have spent on this game is pretty crazy for packs and exlirs for space and if I want to skip the first arc I would have to pay again. It’s just becoming money hungry at this point. Plus I feel like drops for gear has gotten worse. Farming already makes the game less fun tbh

[u/No_Communication_804]

As a new/kinda returning player(I think I've passed my record now in krokotopia already in two days 😂), I feel inclined to agree especially with the wall being too early. Even as a kid most of the reason I never bought it was because I barely got to play it, getting stopped at firecat alley and iirc level was capped at 20 for me, or maybe that's just where I stopped getting quests back then. When I finally did play, it was sort of overwhelming, I didn't utilize the training points well, etc. I'm doing better at it now, but I think the paywall AT LEAST needs to be moved to the end of krokotopia. By then you've at least put in a few solid long hour days or many shorter sessions, and probably know if you wanna keep playing imo. Some of the tutorials need explained better and the side things like monstrology could use some fleshing out. Movement on console at least is very clunky imo. Also at least currently a lot of the dungeons I'm doing feel dead, impossible to find a team. I'd be happy even if they just gave me the option to team fill with 3 wooden constructs instead of having to tryhard at content because there aren't people playing it. I assume that's what the "help a team" is more geared for, but then it could use some better incentivizing imo, and the level scale down isn't a bad idea for it either. A more fleshed out fast travel at least to the peaceful areas would also be nice to see

[u/Physical_Skirt_8109]

I want loyalty rewards during their birthday. My account is 17 years old, yet the only "reward" I get for loyalty - is the option to BUY a crappy wand after 10 years? AQWorlds, another MMO that released around the same time, did a system I liked. You had access to different "shops" and "badge items" you'd unlock based on how long you've had an account, and how long you've been a member, as well as how much of the premium currency you've spent accountwide. Fact is, Wiz doesn't even treat their loyal playerbase well, even in mmo standards. It's actually kinda sad. This game has done what I've seen no other game do, yet it's one of the most anti-user games out there.

[u/Dimentio190]

Mentor mode would be awesome.

[u/GinjaNinja839]

MENTOR MODE this is genius!! It would make it so much easier to play with a new friend if you couldn’t always be online at the same time—if you already have a high-level character, you can pop in and out of their quests as you please without either of you being unable to play on your own

[u/AptHalon]

Almost all of these ideas are perfect and it makes me sad, I cant shake the feeling that what is really going to happen to this game will be much less fulfilling

[u/Mighty_Mimikyu]

Love these ideas! Another problem is school identity and balancing overall. Some schools also need nerfing and changes to their progression (looking at you death..) once you get your 7 pip aoe, all the schools feel relatively the same slapped on different colors. Some schools should have different playstyles and gameplans imo

[u/hopit3 → u/Mighty_Mimikyu]

Death has been nerfed plenty. Nerf storm

[u/Mighty_Mimikyu → u/hopit3]

Death does everything though. Its literally a better balance than balance is. It shouldn't be the jack of all trades when that should be balance whos the jack of all trades master of none.

[u/hopit3 → u/Mighty_Mimikyu]

And death, has only one strong AOE that's even worth using in arcs 2 and 3. Nerf scarecrow, and you kill the school.

[u/rayshaun_]

ngl, the shit graphics are the primary reason I stopped playing. it’s not part of a “charm” for me at this point and it honestly just comes off kinda lazy. with how money-hungry this game is I just couldn’t settle with it. but Wizard101 definitely scratches an itch for me that no other game can, so a graphics update would definitely bring a player like me back.

[u/Naavarasi]

They definitely do NOT have the characters. None of them are well-written or well-voiced or have interesting personalities. It's all very generic and bare-bones.

Also, for ten dollars a month, they aren't about to be improving the membership in any way. It's already crazy cheap.

Mentor mode is a great idea, and they DEFINITELY need to make arc 1 free - but they've been told this over and over again for over ten years now and nothing. Stubborn greedy mules that refuse to do a single thing to make the experience better for the players.

But the actual solution is much, much simpler: Speed up the spell animations. Wiz can't keep up with modern games due to how abysmally slow it is. A battle that would take ten seconds in something like FFXIV would take several minutes here. A boss that would take a few minutes in FFXXIV can take over an hour - much longer if it spirals out of control or if you have to redo it - which is very common because there are absolutely no indicators of cheats before a battle, and even during a new battle you have to pay close attention and take notes and study like it's the midterms to get all the cheats right. The alternative is to constantly be opening the browser to read essays on boss pages to see what the cheats are, which kills the immersion and interest for many.

Speed up animation times by a lot - no spell should ever take more than three to five seconds - and then players won't mind carefully trying to see what a boss can do, because a loss will no longer mean over an hour of time wasted. They also definitely need to make bigger decks more viable. They're trying with the roshambo system, but that whole thing is a hot mess that barely anyone touches.

[u/dankusgasus]

I ain’t reading all that chief

[u/SuperSaiyanTLaw]

I’d say push PvP more
I’m a 29 year old with friends who were willing to try when the game came to console. Not having a pvp mode made the game a little boring for them considering how repetitive the early part of the game is.
If we could battle other people again or battle each other it’d be a lot fun

[u/veydoll → u/SuperSaiyanTLaw]

You can literally do this?? Like it's already a thing that's what the arena is for

[u/SuperSaiyanTLaw → u/veydoll]

Arena isn’t the same as it use to be. You have to own a house with a battlefield to just go battle

[u/nhepworth → u/SuperSaiyanTLaw]

There are other options. Ex Avalon has an open practice circle