Wizard 101

I started playing this game when I was 11 years old, in september 2009. I was one of the happy children to be able to play the Golden Days games: ToonTown, Club Penguing, Wizard101. Even now, as an adult, I play at least 50 hours per year, just to remember the old days. The game is all about a student of magical arts at "Ravenwood" (similar to Happy Potter at Hogwards). It has card-game-based combat where players summon fantastical creatures such as unicorns, cyclops etc to defeat enemies (you can compare this to evil monsters in cartoons; nothing scary) and complete a storyline in multiple steps (called Quests). The game is fully narrated and the graphics are similar to cartoons (and it's like controlling a character in a cartoon). The game has a free trial period where the player can access multiple areas of the game, but they need to move on to paid areas in about 1 hour or so. The player has to pay $9.95/month (or less if more months are purchased at once and during sales) to continue playing or zones can be purchased individually (this is more expensive). What is bad is the in-game shop where players can spend money to get unknown items and power-ups. Some stuff can also be unlocked with in-game currency that is free and obtained in game. The premium currency (the one you buy) can be even earned by completing daily trivia quizzes ($0.2 per day and it takes about 5-10 minutes). The game is very good for children, as long as you, as a parent, only pay for the monthly membership. As a parent, you have complete control over what the child can and cannot do. I recommend setting up the account with an adult's age and disable open chat from the account settings (this will enforce a chat filter so the kid cannot say or see bad words or disclose information such as full name and address). 10/10 Game. I totally recommend this. Pirate101 is also a good alternative, which is like Wizard101's sister game. You also pay less if you have membership on both games or have more than one child account with membership on either game ($6.95/month per game).

The gameplay/graphics I love and is only the real reason I am still looking this game up from time to time. If you're going to put money in this game, you will need another account that is completely unconnected to your main account because their chat filters and staff are ridiculous these days. Now don't get me wrong; I know their are some players who talk real ugly on this game, but there are many other solutions that can solve the issue and many people who don't actually deserve to be banned are being banned. For example, I was about 13-15 years old when I was having a private conversation at their home when I said something along the lines of, " what the 'crop' happened?" Now, I obviously meant crap but what 13 year old doesn't say crap.. personally I think it's better than attempting to say .. eh you know what I mean lol. Now I am not saying that it should be unpunishable, I went around their chat filters and it wasn't supposed to be done. However, A 10 YEAR MUTE is a little too much for 13 year old children. I didn't really learn anything except that I could just create another account to talk with.(Something like being muted for a waitable time might have taught me better not to say things blocked by filter no matter what. 10 years is simply too long for a punishment.) I could agree with a month or maybe up to 1 or 2 years, but that was way too drastic especially in the context I saod it in. I mean, I have had children of my own now and I am looking through the different games that I have played when I was young in hopes of finding fun games for my kids and I'm still muted; I hate to say it BUT THIS GAME IS NOT AN OPTION. They won't even let you post your issue on their forum without buying a membership, that's how much they are milking their players, just to ban/mute them in the end. Side note: If you do have an issue you need the staffs help with, be weary because every interaction I have had with their staff was considerably unpleasant and rude. In my opinion, their attitude reflects their work environment.