Producer's Letter - April 2011 (Wintertusk)

My dear Wizards,

So the cat’s out of the bag! Our next release will include a new area called Wintertusk, a place that completes the story begun in Grizzleheim. You knew there had to be more coming, right? We can’t just leave things on a cliffhanger like that. There will be wolves, ravens, and bears, as you'd expect, but your character will encounter some other epic bad guys too. You won’t be alone, though: in Wintertusk your Wizard will finally meet Grandmother Raven. She should be a great aid to you as your character encounters mysteries and challenges across the Spiral.

That’s not all though! We’re also proud to announce that we’re going to be releasing something hugely requested by the Wizard101 community: high level quest pets! You may have wondered why we asked about pets on Feedback Friday a while ago... that’s the reason! We’re fired up for Wizards to discover new companions to aid you in your journeys throughout the Spiral. They won’t be easy to obtain… but the spoils will be worth the effort!

Another exciting new feature is new and upgraded spells. With Celestia, we gave you some visually super cool epic spells, and now we’re adding more toys for your arsenal. With our new content, we allow your Wizard's other spells to gain in power as well. Your Wizard will be able to “upgrade” one existing spell and will get something new. Your Wizard must be level 58 to get these quests. It won’t be as easy as walking up to a trainer, but you should find that your time obtaining them has been well spent.

With many of the new additions to the game this update, we want to make sure Wizards already at Legendary status have a meaningful way to increase their powers. Each school will have their own, but here are some examples. Balance Wizards, we found some ancient and powerful magic to provide you a new, shiny, and more powerful healing over time spell! Storm Wizards, you’ll find some awesome damage at your disposal, but with great capability comes great danger. Speaking of such things, you’ll also find a new area with the toughest combat yet, but the spoils will most certainly befit the difficulty. These challenges will be presented to our most powerful Wizards. If you fall into that category, let me just say… I hope you’re up for the challenge!

Have you wondered what became of Crab Alley? What happened after the Crab folk went on tour with Selena Gomez? You won’t have to wait too long to find out, get ready to explore our newly expanded Crab Alley! It will be right up your alley if your Wizard is around level 10-15.

There is so much more I just can’t talk about yet! We have a huge list of changes coming out with this next release, and there’s a lot more to come out in the months to come. My next letter should be full of juicy gossip! I’m burning with excitement about the features in this update, and since a lot of the features are hot topics on the message boards, I think you'll feel the heat of excitement as well!