Worst MMO Ever? - Wizard 101 

My memory of wizard 101 was making an account, enjoying the tutorial, then hitting a paywall and dropping it forever

I hate Wizard101, it's my favorite game.

My little brother played this and when he'd hit a paywall area, he'd complain to our Dad about it and, since he wouldn't shut up about it, our Dad paid for it. I complained and said "He can get that stuff for FREE if he could do those Tests and score well. He just has to be smarter." Well, when it came time for College, I complained to my Dad that I needed tuition for Med School. He told me I could get in for FREE if I had scored well on more tests and were smarter. I somehow got horribly Dad-burned by Wizards 101.

btw the timer thing is intentionally designed that way because players can strategically stall out the turn timer to let friends join the battle at certain points, so it always needs to have a timer even when its just you so that players can't just stall forever and wait for their allies to flee and return to boss fights indefinitely.

You’d think these “pick from a pre-made list” name systems in children’s games prevents rude names, but I saw a person in Toontown once named Big Buster Nutterface, and that will live in my memory forever. Big. Buster. Nutter. Face.

I remember when you used to take a personality test to decide your magic type 🤣

Wizard 101 is without a doubt one of my favorite MMO's. Even as a 30+ year old, every time I played, I felt like I was doing something with my deck and character that no one else was doing, even when compared to someone operating within the same school as me. Not to mention they are one of the few MMO's that got player housing, and useful pets right.

The difference in quality between voice lines is due to the fact that the voice lines were all added in different eras of the game. Originally very few characters were voice acted. Mostly ambrose and gamma for the tutorial and a few more main story characters. Most other voice lines including malastaire in the tutorial were added fairly recently in the timescale of updates. Hence them having nearly 10 year newer audio quality.

The only memory I have of this game is from a few years ago when I was homeless, I'd walk to McDonald's every day to use the wifi. There was a group of 3 elderly ladies who would come in, plug in their laptops and play Wizard 101 together for hours on end. It was wholesome. I hope they're doing well.

I remember playing, hit the pay wall, and then was able to break through the barrier by teleporting to a freind who had the membership

I remember seeing the ad as a commercial while watching cartoons with my older brother while we were going to get snacks and we both looked at each other and just ran to the computer because we were so exited to play this. This game will always have a special place in my heart forever

A comment on the fizzle mechanic. While annoying, it's actually not the worst thing in the world. Each card tells you to odds of how likely it will cast and if you fail a spell, you keep the pips, meaning you have more pips on the next turn to cast a potentially stronger spell instead. It introduces a bit of random chance into the game and helps balance the fire and storm schools high damage for the early game, making their playstyles more risky while being stronger/faster at fights.

the fact that this game is fully voice acted and still receives updates still astounds me.

Ok, but the ultimate experience of wizard101 is making a girl character and getting guys to gift you p2w items.

Just wanted to point out that the chance of your spell working is shown on each card. If it says 70%, then there’s a 30% of a fizzle. Which if anything actually makes it more tactical than not.

I remember playing the game as a kid and hitting the paywall, not paying, and just playing the free to play areas for soooo long, reaching level 26 before convincing my mom to get me the membership and allow me to work off the payment as an allowance with chores and such.

only memory of W101 i have is seeing commercials on TV and being like "wow that looks fun but i have to be 10 or up to play, guess ill wait."

my 10 year mute ends in just over a year boys. My sins of telling someone my minecraft username will finally be forgiven.

hey!! i know this video is a year old but this is a game i grew up with and it’s JUST NOW taking steps to possibly eliminate the immediate paywall 😭 until january they’re making arc 1 (5 worlds) free which is something they’ve never done before!! so it’s a small step but it might become permanent :D very proud of them for this

I’m well aware of this game’s flaws, but try as I might, I still have nothing but fond memories of this game. It was one of the pinnacles of my childhood, and arguably got me into gaming later on. Ahh 2010, how I miss thee…

"Spells arent that long" Ra would like to speak with you

The fizzle isn’t random. Each card has a success rate shown as a percentage. The higher damage output, the lower success rate and vice versa.

18:40 So the deal with the house lights being on is referring to the window on the door. The quest door lights are blue, enterable is yellow, not enterable is black (aka lights off). Also, if you look at the left hand side of the screen you'll see that the game is still installing while you're playing. A lot of your graphical bugs are just because it's not finished yet

this is an old video but 16:14 Fizzling isn't random, it based on the percentages listed on your card. Its on the middle left. Certain elements tend to have higher percentages than others, and stronger attacks tend to mean higher chance of fizzling. Of course, there are also cards with high damage and high cast percents, but they're super rare (read: cost money / level locked)

Saw a guy named "Jack Ash" on Wizard 101. I miss him every day.

The "Fizzle" isn't at random, there are percentage chances for something to fall. Life spells have a high amount of chance to succeed but Lightning spells have a medium amount, usually 70+ whereas life is 85+ sometimes

16:15 I actually couldn't believe he complained about this being a bad mechanic just because he didn't understand it. You should complain about it not being explained to you, not the mechanic itself. Each card literally has the percentage chance it will hit written directly on it. This relates back to the point he made earlier about how it's a GOOD and interesting thing that this card game allows for damage to be randomized, such as a spell dealing between 40-50 damage, and how it can let you try a spell that MIGHT kill an enemy, or use one that definitely will but lose that card for later rounds. This is the exact same principle, but you complain about it? You can choose to play a card that can deal high damage but has a higher chance of fizzling, storm cards are a good example of this, or you could play a card that might not do as much but has a higher chance to hit. For an analysis this in-depth I'm pretty disappointed you chose to criticize the mechanic without fully understanding it instead of criticizing the fact that the game didn't give you the resources to understand it. Honestly, who's first thought when a spell fizzles is "this must be completely random and unexplainable so I'm going to complain about it".

I played this with my ex many years ago. You have to pay for membership to really play, the beginning part is really just a long tutorial, hence why so much random stuff is thrown at you and why a lot of the main important areas are in the first area (pets/breeding them, your home is introduced, pvp area, shops, etc). It's meant to show you the basics of what you're getting into. Once you have membership then all the real content is unlocked. Honestly it's a similar model as runescape, where there is just a f2p area and then the members world is like 20x bigger. I really enjoyed this game back in the day and my only payment was just the membership which was on sale so it was literally like $5/month. You don't actually pay for gear and such. You can farm all the best stuff by beating bosses in dungeons, which are usually done as 4 man raids where the team works together to clear it. It's basically the true mmo experience where you have your monthly subscription for it and farm your gear, but also, it's a fricken card game with strategy based off cards. Only unfortunate thing is the game doesn't really explain what each of the schools excel at, although it is on the game's site, so people just pick what they think is cool but may not like the actual school's playstyle at first.

Diego the duel master gives a quest almost immediately that explains the card and duel mechanics. I think you skipped it. He teaches accuracy, pips, strategy, traps, blades, etc.

That cyclops lane quest broke my heart when I was a kid

Oh man I opened this video expecting some visceral takedown of a game I loved as a kid (but still recognized some issues with it), and honestly I kinda just want to open it back up again now, just for the nostalgia. Great video!

I remember playing this as a kid. I loved it so much, when I hit the paywall, my soul literally left my body :(

I'm really glad Josh seemed to like the game, because if he didn't I would have had to muzzle my childhood.

I played when I was 8 years old. I was playing for the better part of 5 years with my grandmother. She got cancer and it was how we spent a good portion of that time together. I have nothing but fond memories of this game. I have no idea how this popped into my feed, now as a 21 year old. But I’m kinda glad it did. RIP memere,🙏

Fizzle actually makes it more tactical because some cards are more and less likely to do it so creating a well balanced deck becomes important

I played this game a lot. The thing I always hated most about it is that gear/card/pet drops are always random, and thus a large proportion of your time has to be taken up by grinding for all the good drops. Dungeons are actually fun, but they start to get old really quickly once you've done them 5-10 times. Don't even get me started on the loremaster.

You hit the nail on the head. W101 advertises itself as a free mmo, but it's really not. It's a paid mmo with a free trial. Essentially if you want to play the game for more than, like, a couple days, you have to start paying. And that's fine, but misleading. The game itself is actually a load of fun, with a surprisingly excellent story, especially in arc one.

If only he read a single card to find out that the reason fizzles exist is due to cards having an accuracy percentage, not a mechanic that's just meant to make the game unfun.

This game was great - I used to play it as a child and I'm so grateful that somebody actually bothered to make a good, easy-to-understand yet deep and complex game for children. There is an idea that things for kids don't need to be high quality because they're "easy to please", so a lot of new entertainment for children is garbage (mobile games, reaction videos), just things made by people looking to make a profit rather than a good product, whereas Wizard 101 was good, obviously it wasn't without faults and the heavy monetization was a bit predatory, but I still think it's much better than a lot of new things. I'm glad I played it - it was one of the first games I tried and it really made me want to play other games.

The pay wall is for sure annoying and disappointing as you try to find quests that AREN’T in a blocked area within the first few hours of playing. But I think the membership is worth it. Playing when I was a kid, it was less accessible, but I still saved money and don’t regret the money I spent on it. Now I’m an adult with a job, and the $10/month fee is a great deal to me. Streaming services have monthly fees, too, and it all boils down to the price you’re willing to pay for your entertainment. However, I do agree with another comment I read about them needing to re-advertise this as not free-to-play, but being free trial. Unless they do completely unlock the first story arc (not a bad idea; at least they need to unlock all of Wizard City).

8:40: *surprised by how populated it is* I miss the early 2010s when there were around 20 people talking to Ambrose at a time

"most of the game takes place in wizard city" heh... About that

00000~3 feels like a reference to an old well known Starcraft 1 cd key back in the day that was commonly used on burned copies of the game. We would often forget what number was at the end so start at 1 and work our way up. I can't help but feel like that quest is a reference to this.

I remember one of the MMOs tried making the question markers a turquoise color to match with their theming and they just could not get test players to find the quests on a consistent basis so they had to go back to yellow

Most of the wiz player base joined as kids and still play now. They are mostly 18-24.

I remember playing this game, and actually figuring a way behind the paywall. Basically you make friends with someone who is a premium member, they travel behind the paywall, and you teleport to them. Anyway that’s how I managed to beat the game without paying any money.

I remember seeing ads for this and Pirate 101 on Cartoon Network as a kid

You missed an opportunity for "Richard Bone Rider"

I stopped playing wizard 101 years ago as a kid because of the sudden premium pay wall that i couldnt pay for. They advertise it as a free mmo even tho its a free trial game, but it still holds a special place in my heart and is the only turn based card game i ever enjoyed

23:13 ”just how many players there are!” F for those who thought wiz is dead 5 years ago 🤣🤣

Xanadu is a greenish gray color Falu is a red color commonly used on wooden cottages and barns in Sweden, Finland, and Norway Smalt is a blue color

18:25 Lights on = colored window on the door. Most doors have grey windows (which means you can't enter them), but some of them have yellow or blue windows from what I recall. That is likely what was intended here

One thing I like about wizard101 is the spells. Most of them are just so well animated especially the high level ones

as someone whos been playing for 11 years ambrozes voice in the tutorial hasnt been updated and was probably recorded in like 2007 but i think malistaire and gamma (?) were updated in 2018 with the wizard city overhaul

I took up this game about 6 weeks ago, in part because of this video, in part because Steam pushes it pretty aggressively on my store page. I'm also drawn to free to play games (which this definitely isn't) and thought I would try for free and see if I wanted to continue. When I started, Arc 1 (the first five worlds!) was free, and I got to the second world before that freebie ended, but by then had decided on a membership anyway. One thing I agree on is that they try to monitize way too early. Halfway through world 1 is just nuts, and they need to give more before forcing that decision to be a member. Currently Wizard City, world 1, is free, and I think they are nearing the point where they'll offer something more free permanently, whether that is world 1, or arc 1. I think world 1 is a fine place to force the decision. Where it was when you made this video was super inappropriate. It makes perfect sense at the transition from world 1 to world 2 though. Arc 1 would be insanely good to offer for free. I just barely finished Arc 1 after 6 weeks, though I wasn't rushing the game and enjoy playing the weekly events even more than doing the normal quest progression. I haven't purchased any crowns yet, and I don't see that it is required at all, though you can get faster progression if you do pay more. All in all, I highly recommend giving this game a try to nearly anyone, and thank you for your honest feelings about the game in this video!

I remember playing about a third of the way through the game as a kid, grinding pet minigames to make them stronger, and really enjoying the PvP arena. Back then treasure cards couldn’t be bought with premium currency, only in regular currency from some vendors in limited supply and found in the world

Honestly with how many people downloaded Wizard101 and bought cosmetics, if the game just costed 10 dollars to play or just 5 dollars, they would've made so much money they would never need to crown lock locations. It honestly would've saved the game

"I just settled to Richard because is shortens to Dick and that makes me chuckle" We are truly the most mature community on RU-vid.

I love that you take the naming system not as an insurance for appropriate names but as a challenge to make something rude 😄

man used to play this at my late grandparents house almost every weekend good times i still remember my login

Every child’s favorite. Saving Private O’Ryan

I'm actually surprised it takes so long to get to the premium zone fees now. I remember when I played it as a kid I got a quest going into a premium zone pretty quick and couldn't do anything (since I did everything that was free already). So I basically just replayed it a couple times as different schools until I just stopped since my family couldn't pay for it.

Oh i thought your voice was familiar. Josh Strife Hayes / Josh Strife Plays. Just found your content last week but I've been loving your videos. Keep up the great work ❤

Thinking of the voice acting mic changes (quality wise) they have kept a lot of old original recordings, and have re voiced a few as the years have gone on. They’re celebrating their 15th year, there’s definitely going to be a huge audio quality different

Fizzling is part of the strategy. The higher damage spells have less accuracy, meaning they fizzle more, so you have to decide between a riskier attack that would kill, or a less risky attack that wouldn't kill but still take the damage lower. You can improve your accuracy by going to the Bazaar in Olde Town and buying the gear with your desired stats, you don't need to pay real money for it.

I think one of my core memories was finally unlocking all the spells for this game and being so happy that I just decided to kill everything in sight for like 4 weeks straight

The thing about w101 is, the f2p part is basically just an extensive tutorial. The membership is basically required to play the actual game, since the main quest line goes out of the starting area after like 5 quests. Ignoring that, the packs and everything else in the premium shop is decent and people definitely buy it, but it is by no means necessary. So I'd say the biggest flaw of the game is marketing itself as free, since it's basically a ten dollar subscription. On the flipside, I personally know how much fun I had as a kid just playing everything in the free zone, spending hours on the minigames and just running around the map looking for Easter eggs. And if anybody decides they want to play the game and see the whole story through, just go in expecting to get the membership. Plus, KingIsle is pretty smart in pricing the whole thing, they have a family option, so multiple accounts can get a discounted membership and they also do discounts pretty often, including making the whole first world free.

Note, the item stays get way more complicated in late game, and for the mount sellout issue originally during the 1st mount update it was only horses/brooms/(wings maybe?) With dwindling pop over the years, ig they had to start 1 upping themselves with the mounts For the complaint with solo 30s battle timer, if you're in a battle or smth and you're 1 turn from death, if they removed the solo time limit, you could just call a fried/log in on an alt and tp to your main account to save progress and have you TP back after death it way to easily.

6:20 "They don't slow the game down too much" *Ra, forest lord, and mystic colossus have entered the chat*

I remember back in the day I had a friend that paid for access to all the areas. We found out that I could still teleport to him in places I hadn't bought, so whenever I got to a new area that I couldn't go to, he would just walk through the pay wall and then I'd join him on the other side without paying a cent. I got through a good chunk of the game that way, all the way up to the Asia inspired area with the ninja pigs. There was no restrictions on level or anything either. I remember I was just in the desert area, and I could join him in the end game areas. He powerleveled me like crazy.

When I first tried the game when it was still advertised on tv, I got through the starting cutscene where the wizard said he'd be right back before he never did. I couldn't move, I couldn't press anything, nothing. I literally sat there for hours trying to figure it out and not even my dad could find out why it wasn't working.

Cards have the percent of fizzle chance on each and vary depending on school. Making higher damage schools more balanced with higher fizzle chance and lower damage schools with lower fizzle chance.

Having played the game from the beginning one major thing that I would point out is that YOU DONT NEED TO BUY CARD PACKS TO GET CARDS. Cards are earned as you lvl up through the game. You can also get cards through crafting as well or by farming a particualr boss but thats it.

18:22 before they revamped the game, the owl would explain that houses with blue lights are relevant to one of your quests

This is really sad. I played this years ago--not as a kid but nonetheless years ago--when it was primarily a subscription game. The subscription or unlocking areas was literally the only thing you paid for; there were no mounts, no pets, no housing, no cash shop, and it was pretty clearly communicated that the first two areas were a free trial. I went back to try it again a while ago, and the amount of cash shop it had was absolutely miserable. There are just Too Many Systems now.

when you ran into Tin Man and Mr. Toto. I thought you were gonna say, 'I have a terrible feeling... that we're not in Kansas anymore..'

The guy in pvp offering to help you quest is wholesome af

I was in the level 90 world krysalis and there was a boss that told me "despite all your rage you are still just a rat in a cage" then he died and said "smashing pumpkins". Best reference by far. Gave me a chuckle.

One thing i liked about the crown store is that some things like permanent mounts and housing can be bought with regular gold or crowns. Not all mounts or housing but but it's an option.

"Boy wizards wear blue and girl wizards wear pink" Well they actually both wear any color they want, they just used that color for the selection screen so kids can know which is which lol

The dialogue of this game is mixed from 2008-2021 that's why there's such a difference in quality and at other random points questing soe characters sound different mid dialogue. But originally there was no voice acting I think. The beginning of the game was updated a few times over recent years

him:"I feel like you will eventually outgrow it" Me: *Laughs in max level ice wizard after playing this game for almost half my life*

I still regularly log into my Wizard101 account. I have such fond memories of this game and even with some of the paywall stuff, there’s a lot to this game. I think the art style is very unique and interesting, glad it receives regular glow ups. I remember the original starter school uniforms, man do I miss them, but I’m glad the game has the option to change the graphics to be the original or the updated. I also remember the original voice of Malistare, before they changed it for some reason to something a little different but still good. Actually all the voice acting is great, you’re absolutely right on that. Special props to Ambrose, he has this great grandfatherly tone that is distinct enough despite him being a Dumbledore Expy that he stands well on his own. The combat, while some say is outdated, is actually really good. And there’s always great variety to the other worlds you visit. My favorites to visit so far are Marleybone and Mooshu.

Colour trivia quiz: "Falu" is probably red, because there's a famous paint called Falu red. Well…famous in Sweden, anyway; it comes from the mining town of Falun and is made from byproducts of the copper mining industry; it's been used to paint houses since the 17th century. …Which of course every children's MMO player would be expected to know.

Fizzling isn’t entirely random, it’s based on a percentage and that percentage is tied to spell level and school (ex. Storm spells deal the most damage but fizzle the most). It can also be affected by various spells

I use to play this game religiously. You could say i was raised playing it. Even after hitting the pay wall I just kept playing. Then I dropped it, returned in 2016 because a friend gave me their account with membership and told me shed keep paying the membership till i stopped playing. I stopped playing after a long time on there and had garnered so much gear and cards and pets. Then I stopped playing. Now im going to start playing again because of this video and nostalgia

Cards have an accuracy score, more powerful spells have a lower chance of hitting and a higher chance of fizzling. It's a way of balancing the different schools to allow for some to do more damage with their spells without being defacto the best choice. There's gear and pets you can get to increase accuracy, and spells to buff accuracy as well to avoid fizzling

Man if there was only a way to get them to make a single player version of this game and pirates 101 both are seriously fun in terms of gameplay but hampered by how heavily pay to win is shoved in the players faces. And it forces you too so you can't even enjoy the game without literally running into at least 1

"It gets more furry as you play" Me playing Pirate101: 😳

How i'd fix Wiz101: make the entire first world accessible by everyone for free, only have the extra worlds be paid. And it's not like there's just 2 other worlds, there's like, a dozen of them

I like how you say you declined the city tour quest and then immediately complained about how you didn't know where anything was in the city

i see this is an older video now but i wanted to say i like your thoughts on wiz at your first impression! i could talk about this game all day, but there's something specific sticking in my brain because i can explain it, and i know no one asked so sorry if this comes off weird 💀 12:38 is a feature, not a glitch! the person in the battle circle nearest to you had already selected their card, and the numbers get calculated as soon as the animation phase starts. their battle was already "scheduled" to end, per say, so when that lost soul that spawned in front of you turned around (enemies' trigger areas are in a semi cone shaped FOV in front of them, from what i can tell from almost 15 years of playing), it pulled you all the way to the nearest unoccupied battle circle. it's actually only a recent update within the past few years where KI made battles that have already been won unable to be joined while the animations play out. this is good! nothing was more annoying than unleashing your aoe, killing your mobs, aaaand then another mob joins and you have no pips 😅

As a person who played the game for many years, I wouldn't say this is a pay to win, but rather a pay to play. Most of the stuff in the crown's shop is unecessary and doesn't really impact gameplay much (plus you can get some items like certain mounts (not too flashy ones though) and houses with in-game money). Most of the good sets can be achieved by farming certain dungeons or through crafting. However, I may add that the shop contains "packs" that kind of work like loot-boxes, which can be pretty dangerous (specially in a game aimed for kids). It's probably the sketchiest system to get money implemented in the game. Apart from that, it's absolutely true that the pay-walls are a pain in the ass and things can get REALLY expensive if you want to reach endgame content. It's also true that soloing bosses gets extremely complicated as the game progresses, specially for certain classes. As a storm wizard (who are pretty much glass-cannons) I would get destroyed really easily, and my success in battle fully depended on an rng based healing spell that could either save you or be absolute trash, which was frustrating lol. Overall, I think it's a game I would still enjoy as an adult despite its flaws. The card system is really good, and bosses later into the game use different "tricks" that force you to change the way you play to spice things up. The game makes you seek new stratergies just to beat them specifically, which keeps the battle system from becoming too stagnant and predictable. Apart from that, you can indeed customize your deck quite a lot with cards from other classes using points you get throughout the game, which is pretty nice. In addition, PVPing is really enjoyable and challenging, and every class plays a unique and important role in battle (I didn't think it was too unbalanced when I used to play), house decoration is nice and pet leveling/breeding (despite being time consuming and pretty repetitive) is kinda fun as well (imo) Fun fact: There was a time where the spanish server had no pay-walls until Celestia (lvl 50 or so), and I haven't experienced a more lively community since then. Nevertheless, pay-walls from the beginnig of the game were introduced in like 2013 or so, and most of the players completely vanished. Glad to see the english server is doing so well, though :).

To be honest, this video made me have a better view on Wizard 101 and show me it was better than I had expected, instead of making it worse.

Xanadu is a green color that carries a light gray undertone. It gets its name from the Philodendron plant that carries the same hue as the Xanadu paint color. smalt (countable and uncountable, plural smalts) : a deep blue pigment made from powdered glass mixed with cobalt oxide sarcoline (comparative more sarcoline, superlative most sarcoline) : flesh-coloured

"logical journey of the zoombinis" holy shit my brain almost bluescreen'd trying to locate that one in the memory archives

16:14 ... *All storm wizards EVER start sweating profusely*

Anyone else remember going to the gas station and seeing wizard101 cards everywhere lol

The crazy thing is that it used to be free to play and then one day it wouldn’t let me play any further

In defense of this game, it is p2w but not with the cards as you can't get any permanent card with cash. The card packs are one time use cards and later on in the game, you can craft your own one time use cards without spending money on anything.