Becky McCord here, posting to my Mom’s blog on Job Shadow Day…

Fiesta Online is a game that many people in the younger generations play though i do know some older people that play fiesta.Fiesta is a game much like Runescape where you level and fight things and in some locations can fight other players such as during a guild war ( a group of people that are under a group) or in abyss (one place a player can level)or on a Free Battle Zone (self explanatory). Fiesta also has been sponsored by T-pain yes the singer that sang the popular song Low and is based in San Fransisco. When you or your child play fiesta there is four different types you can be a mage who uses magical attacks ,a fighter who uses magical sword move thingys, A archer who uses magical arrow moves which along with the mage can create mobs (mobs of monster that you run around and kill them so they don’t kill you) and the cleric which magically heals and buff you which is an extension of your health and is what most players flock cleric for. I myself am a cleric, level 60.

 Fiesta if you look over ones shoulder is rather odd game with great graphics has manga looking characters with hair colors ranging from blue to light yellow how ever if you don’t have spark cash which is what your child will be after to make their character look better because the basic “noob” character has blue or purple crazy hair which to most isn’t very becoming. So spark cash is something like money that you purchase with real money to buy clothes ( there is only armor on the game) character enhancements weapon enhancements, permanent outfits oh and hair coupons, etc.Spark cash to player makes your character something like a celebrity on the game hence why i have spark cash.

 You get special title for specific title for things you do for instance not talking for a month earn the title silent, celebrity for filling up your friends list, talk show host for shouting in one area for if i remember correctly four hours. Shouting is when everyone in the map can hear you instead of on normal when people only in close range can hear you.Fiesta does block out cuss words or close to cuss words but however most players figure out to get around that so be warned not to let maybe younger children play on the game because the age is around 13-18 years old that play the game. You can get married on the game also which you get a marriage buff which increases stats on the player.

 Stats are something you increase to make your character better such as endurance to raise your health or strength to increase how hard you hit the foe.Different characters need different stats to be higher such as mages and archers need there magic stats to be higher than cleric and fighters that hit on contact which is endurance and strength.

Fiesta is like a social networking site people ask for your I.M which is you can sneakily not answer that for private issues my best suggestion is to ignore that question or change subject if it  comes up.Fiesta has something like Facebook pages called spark pages on their home website (http://fiesta.outspark.com/community) Another warning if somebody (probably one of those type we call no lives) offends you on the game you can report them on contact a CSR on that website and the will get a warning if they get reported again by somebody else their account will be banned.A CSR or a GM (Game Maker) often play the game and host events online. You can befriend one which has many perks if I do say so myself.

Here I have listed some of Fiesta language :

Pleveling: v. (power leveling) when somebody who’s a higher level take you with them to get you to level faster.

Spark cash:n. Fiesta store money

gift:n. a person who get paid in gold to buy people things with spark cash

gold, silver,copper,gems:n. fiesta in game money

+9:n. fully enhanced weapon

Hammer/mace:n. cleric weapon

two hand / one hand:n. fighter weapon

Bow: n. archer weapon

Staff/wand:mage weapon

job change:v. the act of taking a test at level 20 , 60,100 to continue

moves:v./n. what your character uses to magically attack foe

High level:a really high leveled person usually is on all day not necessarily liked

noob:a person who doesn’t know how to play fiesta or a person under level 20 or a person that doesn’t have spark cash

enhanced: v. the act of bettering your weapon (n-han-scid)not enchanced!

license: another way to better your weapon by killing alot of one foe

monster: the foe

I hope this was helpful to you and you understand this game better.And maybe play the game yourself (i suggest the server epith)thanks again!

Hello I’m Bobbie, and my mom is in charge of McCord Web Services; but the reason I’m here is because it’s Shadow Day and you get to shadow a person of your choice, and I chose my mom.  So since this is one of the things she gets to do, I get to make a blog!! Yay!

Anyways…  

Kids & Parents Guide to Fiesta Online

(www.outspark.com or http://fiesta.outspark.com/).

Pssst, if you’re a kid and you’re  reading this, the second link is so you can download the game~ Well, if your parents say so, that is~

OHH! By the way! The game is completely safe!! I’ve been playing for, hmmmmm..  maybe a year and a half? And nothing bad has ever happened to my computer. Pinky Promise.

Kids Guide

Okay, once you download the game from the link you can go to the launcher and log in once you make an account on the homepage. Then, you are free to choose a world: Epith, Teva, Bijou, Legel, Apoline, and Cypion. (Hey, if you asked me, i would suggest Epith… *hint hint* That’s the server I’m on… My Character’s name is Teeta and feel free to add me if you need a friend or need some help getting used to the game.)

Anyhoo, after you have selected your world you are free to make a character of your choosing: Archer, Mage, Fighter, or Cleric. The you can start training!! There will be tons of controls so it can get a little confusing. Haha, I know how it feels, there was this other game Asda Story that I’ve been playing recently and when i first made an account– holy cow — it had alot of controls! Anyways after you get used to the controls on fiesta and you can move around, you can talk by pressing enter on the keyboard and then typing what you want to say and then pressing enter to send it.

The town you’ll start in is called Roumen, and at first the quests will give you what you need like armor and skills to use so you can use more cooler and fiercer attacks on the monster’s you need to fight.  You can walk out of the town and *gasp* there’s these weird purple poofballs in your way! Heh-heh those things are called slimes, the first monsters to kill that are for beginners. Later in the game, you can fight bosses like the King Crab (that’s the first elite monster you’ll need to fight for a quest) but chill, it’s not hard~ the Giant Goblin King or ggk for short, and the Mini Dragon (that’s for about level 80’s).

Oh! Almost forgot, if you press “c” on the keyboard your character’s stats will pop up and the box can show you things like: what level or “lvl.” your character is, the guild its in, how much experience or “exp.” it has, the percentage it’s at to show how much you have until you level, which the highest levels currently are, hmmm 105 for players but for GM’s (Game makers) it’s 150. **Also, something you can’t play the game without! Stats will also be shown, and depending on what class or type your character is, these are the stats i suggest.. (they will help make your character be the best it can be.)

Cleric: Raise the End, Str and if you want Dex stats.

Fighter: Raise the End, Str and also, if you want, Dex stats.

Archer: Raise the End, Str, and Dex stats. Dex is highly useful on archers.

Mage: Raise the End, Int, and optional again, Dex. Mages have low health so putting some stat points on Endurance comes in handy.

And if you’re wondering what  ”End” and “Int” and the others mean: Endurance, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Spirit. So Yup, those are some starter things to know.

Also, on the bottom right-ish side of the game screen there should be some panels and scrolls among them:

Help: If you need help with something, this may be able to assist you.

Character stats (explained earlier)

Fiesta Store*

Inventory or your items which you can pick up from monsters.

Community or your friends, guild,  guild academy, master and apprentices, your mate (you can marry on the game.. kinda corny i know ), and party matching (where you can post notices like when you’re selling stuff or if you need help or if you uh obviously.. need a party).

Skills which is where you can use skill points to enhance your attacks (Note: skill points and stat points are not the same.)

 Quests which is where it shows the quests you’ve accepted to do. The max number of quests you can hold in 20.

Actions which is where you make your character laugh, dance, follow, etc.

Mini House: The place is where you can rest and heal your character.. you can’t rest if you’re by a NPC or a computerized character that sells stuff but is not actually played by a person like you or me or anyone else. This is also where your character can sell or buy stuff, also it can have different houses and when your character gets to level 25 you get get a new house, and by “Changing Outlook” it can change and heal your character faster.

Options: where you can change the sound, game, shortcut and graphic settings, and also where you can change characters and servers. This is also where you can log off the game.

*The Fiesta Store is where you can buy spark cash which is purchased by spending money on the site (5 bucks, 10 bucks whatever) and then you can buy these cool outfits or dress your character up and change their “do” and face and such. You can also buy leveling packs and pets that you can ride to help you get around the world, Isya, faster.

The world of Isya is big and so each realm of the land will have the monsters you need to kill to excel in the game. I sincerely hope that this has or will help you in the game. Until then, See you later… maybe in the game, who knows.

Parent’s Guide

Whew, thanks for still reading through that. If you’re a parent and here phrases like “plvl” or “sc” or something like that, those are shortened meaning or words like “plvl” mean plevel and pleveling mean to power level someone by helping them with their quests. “sc” means Spark cash, which above, it says what that is.

Yes, this is a big game but it has very very good graphics and most likely will not clog up your computer and will not give a virus. No, I’m not bluffing. Anyways hope this has been useful to you or your kids because let me tell you: it makes time pass by and you’ll be hooked for a very long time.. handy for long summers where there’s nothing to do.

     Have a great day. This is the end of my blog… for now. -Bobbie McCord

Fiesta Tip and Info

Fiesta Online from my view is the best game ever : ) . I have an account that is a fighter level 29. He uses an axe in Fiesta. At level 20, you fight your shadow in a cave, but you have to find the shadow and it has 5,000 health. You have at least 300 health then. You get skills and you can make stones and other stuff too.

How to make your weapon hit more. You can make your weapon hit more when you buy elrue or make it and refine the item. Elrue gets the weapon to level 1-3 lix gets it to 4-6 xir gets it to 7-9. You can refine a shield too. Then your weapon will change color at level 3, 6 , and 9. There are patches on the game too.

My son Billy who is 12 years old has written this blog post as part of “Go With Your Mom to Work Day.”

Welcome to The player’s view of Fiesta Online!

Fiesta Online? What is that?

    This is what you might be wondering; and I am going to tell you. It is a game that once you start playing for a while, it becomes addictive and soon, every spare time you have, it’s spent playing on this game. The graphics are very good, with the characters being very detailed. Oh, By the way, the characters are manga, and so they don’t look like real people, but cartoon-ish instead.

    The game also has a store that (using real money) you can buy spark cash, the game’s form of money; that can be used to buy cool items that your character can equip. Example:  A premium Beauty Shop Coupon. This can be used to change your character’s appearance. It can change gender, hair color, style, and the structure of their face. All for 3600,i think. That is a little over $5.00, which in spark cash is 3500. Although, most of the items only last for a week or a month. Then they disappear. Although, the new appearance of your character does not change after you have used the coupon. The creators of Fiesta are coming out with permanent items that cost about a lot more, but you can keep them forever. Great, huh?

    In Fiesta, you can gain titles, like the one I have on the game, which is ‘Announcer’. That title I got through talking on a certain chat for a while. There are other cool titles like ‘Talk Show Host’, ‘Enhancement God’ and ‘Warrior’.  Right now, my characters are a level 44 Wizmage named Teeta, in guild Cupcake_Cult, and my level 37 Highcleric named Royia, the ex-master of Eternal_Flower, and now a proud admin of Swift_Legion. I have other characters on my server, which is Epith, but those are the ones that I play on the most. The other servers are: Bijou, Apoline, and Teva.

    You can also go up levels by killing monsters, like for level 1’s, it can be slimes and mushrooms. Another way to go up levels is to do quests. Or you can have a high level help you with them, and go up levels faster. That is called ‘p-leveling’. That is where you are power leveled by a higher level where that person helps you with quests or takes you to a higher place where you get more experience. You need a certain amount of experience to go up a level.  Once you go up a level, you are faced with new quests, new titles, and new armor which you can buy with copper. 100 copper equals 1 silver and 100 silver equals 1 gold. And so on.

    There are also guilds. In one, you can be a member, a guard, an admin, a council, or even the master; if you created or were given that guild. It costs a lot though to make a guild. 300 silver. Tip: you can not buy gem, gold, silver, or copper like you can with spark cash. You have to make it yourselves. You can do that by selling the items that monsters drop when you defeat them.

    Right now, the highest level possible is 89; soon to be 105, i think. Oh! Once you become level 20, you have to take a challenge to receive a title. If you do not defeat this quest, which is where you must defeat a copy of yourself that has about 8000 health while you have only about 1000. Once you defeat him/her, you go up a rank. You go from a level 20 (cleric, fighter, mage, or archer. One of your choice.) to a level 20 (Highcleric, Cleverfighter, Hawkarcher, or Wizmage). Notice: once you start as a certain character, you can not change it’s class.

    There is a big map of Isya, which is the land where your character this game is placed in. There are 4 towns. Roumen: a beginner’s town. Mostly for levels under 20. Small and simple. Elderine: a level 20-60 town. It is luxuriously big and has a lot of people. Sand Hill: holds the same items and stores as Eldy, just has different monsters and look to it. Uruga: The high level town, only accessed by scrolls or traveling through level 60 places. I would show you a map of Isya, but currently I cannot find any. Everyone all over the world can play Fiesta Online.

Go to this website if you want to download it or if maybe your child does!  

http://www.fiestaonline.net/ 

If you are in the  US, Canada, or Mexico; scroll down to the right side of the screen and click on the link labeled: For US, Canada, or Mexico users.

Or, If you want to see my page and ask me about it, go to this website.

http://www.outspark.com/profile/?sparkid=seriena

P.S. ~ I hope this doesn’t sound like advertising! *laughs*

  <–People from Fiesta Online

This post was written by my 12 year old daughter who has spent the day with me on Visit Your Parents At Work Day today.

Fiesta is the game sweeping kids around the globe by storm. I interviewed a player to see what all the commotion was about. It seems she couldn’t pick just one feature about the game to be her favorite, but here are some she mentioned. First was that she liked to use it for chat and the second was because she feels it has good graphics. I must say as a gamer, graphics are a big part of liking a game; it’s all about how it looks.

 I asked her why she liked the game for chatting because there are plenty of ways to chat without a game being involved. She said none of her friends liked using AIM or other chat windows. Also her mother doesn’t want her to use them.

Next, I asked her, why do you buy enhancements that last under 30 days? (Mind you she spends real money on this) she answered 30 days is a long time to me and its only $5. Also I asked about marriage because I thought it was funny that characters would want to get married on a game. She said she doesn’t want to get married now, and didn’t say why others did it. All she said was that you have to pay for the marriage as well and the dress costs around $15 real dollars.

I then asked about hair coupons and what they do. She said the coupons are only $5 and they alloy you to change everything about your character’s face and you can even switch sexes. To close it up, I asked if a lot of people curse and what happens when they do, since this is a child’s game. She said there is cursing, but it is all blocked out and she doesn’t see it happen very often.

I hope you find this player review useful and can help you make a decision on whether to let your kids play the game.

Left 4 Dead is a fairly recent game that I have played and found to be a lot of fun. First off, the story line is that some disease has broken out and has infected everyone in the city, except for the four people that are being played by you and your friends. It is just like any other recent zombie movie, they aren’t dead they are infected. If you have see 28 Days Later, or Dawn of the Dead you know what I’m talking about.

Well anyway, you start out in a specified point with your pals and you are walking through the city trying to get to the extraction point. Along the way you encounter large hordes of zombies and sometimes you run into things like little bosses. They all do different things, for example, you have this giant fat character that has growths all over his body and his job is to throw up on you. This makes your life miserable and makes all the other zombies come after you. Along the way you find new guns and ammo, as well as improve your health. If you die, your friends can find you in locked rooms and can save you almost like saving someone that was stranded.

Don’’t fret, story mode isn’t the only thing you have to do, also there is a form of verses. This is composed of two teams infected and regular people ‘er rather victims. As a person, you have the same job as in the rest of the game, to survive and make it to the check point and finally to extraction. The job of the other team (the infected one) is to kill you, the regular people. When you are on the zombie team you are one of the boss characters.  And at certain point in the level you are on, you have the chance to be a tank which is the biggest baddest zombie -like an Arnold Schwarzenegger zombie.

I find the game to be great fun and it is not in the least bit scary because you know when the zombies are coming. I would say 14 and up could play this game and have a lot of fun with it. So check out Left 4 Dead.

Xbox live is something most every Xbox and Xbox 360 owner has or if they don’t should have. It’s a fun way to meet new people and show your skills in specific games online. It allows you to compete with others, and prove you are the best. Everyone loves a little competition, right?

I happen to love playing Halo 2 online and when I’m at my friend’s place I play Halo 3. I love the competitive nature of the game and the “trash talking” that takes place before and after a game. You can hear some pretty outlandish things! People are always trying to come up with a logical reason for why they lost that excludes the other opponent simply being a better player.

Xbox Live has many features for you to enjoy including the microphone so you can talk to other players. Xbox Live for old Xbox is different than Xbox Live for the 360. The old Xbox Live is much simpler but has less features.

Xbox Live for 360 has options including a new point system called Microsoft points. These points can be bought with money and allow you to make new gamer tags and download new demos for up and coming games. Also all games for Xbox 360 are Live compatible unlike the old Xbox. This means you can talk with friends and receive messages on the game, even if you are unable to play the game online.

My kids who are 11 have found this game and are loving it, but from a parent’s point of view is it a good game for kids? If you click my post title you will go to the Outspark game page. My kids like the game called Fiesta.

One thing that you should be aware of is that you will need to help them download it as they will be asked if they are above 13 years old. Hmm, well you’ll have to decide if you can handle that issue or not yourself. My kids equate it with Runescape but with hugely better graphics.

The game is actually quite entertaining and the graphics are really quite advanced. I find that this game will be best for 11 to 15 year olds and may bore older children or be too advanced and complex for younger children.

In Fiesta you can do quests, can fight mushrooms, get pets like dragons, the graphics are manga-like and so very cool. There is chat available and bad words are blocked out with stars – Thanks Outspark. Fiesta has new features added all the time. When you first log in, the control panel shows you what is new so you can know what to check out each time you log in. The kids have not seen any special events like on Runescape, but that doesn’t mean that come a holiday they won’t be there.

The very best thing is that you can go to different worlds and fight different creatures. From a parent’s viewpoint the kids cannot fight people just funny creature-like things such as slime, blue crabs and mushrooms. There is fighting, but no graphic people oriented violence.

The ability to travel worlds, earn experience points from doing quests and fighting creatures, and you can buy things. My kids have not learned to buy things yet, but they love the quests.

There are four levels of cash; bronze silver, gold and gem. You get money from selling things that you have made as an artisan or from killing a creature and taking their holdings. If you have a younger child or one who has not played before on Runescape, you may want to check it our for yourself first, but if your child is already playing Runescape this is another game clone and you should be fine allowing its use. As always, download a game or watch the play for the first 30 minutes before you decide to let it stay in your house.

If you are a parent of elementary school aged children then you know what a Webkinz is – a stroke of marketing genius to help separate us and our kids from our money.

These fuzzy stuffed animal pets, that aren’t really even pretty, have become the rage with the elementary school set. Buy a Webkinz animal and get a code to logon to Webkinz world online. Although I think that the push of the website is to encourage our kids to buy more and more, that is your decision as a parent to feed that or not, but what about the website, is it safe and fun?

The online games are fun for kids and very easy even for the youngest Webkinz fan. As bad as the Webkinz animals look in real life online they are adorable and their actions and movements are cute in the online world. One of the big features of the site is the addictive and fun games. The Webkinz dollars you win are used to purchase items for your Webkinz house and garden. I found the house stuff to load slowly and be annoying as a parent to watch load, but my two girls age 11, are absolutely ga-ga over them. Webkinz encourages kids to log on every day to search for gems, that you install in your Webkinz crown.

I took a look at the games and for kids, they are fun and creative. There is a chat area, but you must select the sentences and cannot write your own text guaranteeing a safe environment for all. The kids love this site and I think that it is nice, fun, and safe.

My one big issue is the focus on consumerism. Some parents may be sensitive to this and others not care at all. The site features a pet of the month, encouraging kids to buy it each month so that they will have greater access to unique items and games if they have the pet. Encouraging kids to log on every day to get the gem of the day is another ploy. Oh and how about the discount and extra perks to own three, ten, and twenty Webkinz. Each Webkinz costs between $13.99 to $16.99 so the dollars start to add up fast!

If your kids have just told you they don’t care about all of that, the least expensive place we’ve found to buy them is at Hallmark. There we paid $13.99 versus $17.50 at Limited Too. So Webkinz can be fun, is surely safe, but you may be spending more than you want for the stuffed animals to feed your kid’s desire for more. For us, I have now limited the animals to three each!

Elementary girls and tweens love this game called Club Penguin. Boys like it too, but typically want more action and prefer Runescape, Silk Road or Voyage Century.

At Club Penguin your kids can dress up like Penguins and waddle around and collect pins, play games like Bean Counter and party at the dance room. They can buy items, go sledding on the mountain and play “rock the ice”. Also the kids can participate in holiday events, gather unique once offered items, become an agent and solve mysteries, and much more.

My two girls like Club Penguin and want to login every day to collect their pins. Here’s where having a computer time monitor is a good idea, we use ComputerTime. As with all online games, kids can easily lose control of the amount of time that they are online and as Club Penguin is fun and can be addictive.

I think Club Penguin is great. It may be too tame for older teens, seventh graders and up, but is wildly popular with the elementary school set. You can click our post title to visit Club Penguin for yourself to see why you too should be waddling around collecting pins!

Continuing our review of online games for parents, today I am reviewing Silk Road. This is a great game for fifth graders and up. It has much of the same charisma that Runescape has but the graphics will really WOW you. This is a 3-D game and is very advanced in appearance.

Kids can go on quests, link to other guests and talk and barter with them, visit new towns, ride horses and other animals including elephants, and join guilds. As the game is more advanced, so are the players. I would not recommend the game for kids under fifth grade, they should stick with Runescape. You will find many teens, high schoolers, and even some adults playing Silk Road.

The time to download the game is steep, typically several hours over DSL, so save it to a network and then install it on multiple computers if you have more that one child who is interested in playing.

Very similar to Silk Road is Voyage Century which I will review later this week but is about boating, maritime trade, and pirates.

In Silk Road, if you abhor violence, you’d better stay away from this game. The violence is not terrible, but kids can battle others and particularly kill monsters and bears. They wield swords and shields and daggers. I have carefully reviewed the amount of violence and I have a low tolerance when it comes to gore and I have approved this game for play by my kids. However, I have found that my kids still gravitate to Runescape based on their age. If you have older kids, you should check out Silk Road but you may want to set time limits for the amount of play. Using a product like ComputerTime (which is what I have installed) will allow you to control the amount of play time that your kids can have on this great online game.

As a parent, you should really know what your kids are playing. In an effort to help you know which online games may be suitable for your kids, I will be reviewing several of the most popular. The first online game I’ll be reviewing is Runescape.

First, this game is popular with the elementary and middle school set. I have seen some high schoolers play, but typically it is popular with the younger set.

I think that Runescape is great! have played with my kids and it can be quite complicated but is easy to get started on right away. First you can customize your person. At start up the tutorials will show you how to play the game, you select hair color, clothing, and physical attributes for your person.

Once in the game, it is a virtual world. You work, earn money, barter and sell items, store things in a bank, get attacked by robbers, and can even die and lose your stuff. If you die, you lose the things you were wearing or carrying, but do come back to life to start out again. If you had stored items in your bank, you can get them and be back in business quickly.

Runescape does teach kids that you have to work to earn things, now that is a real world lesson. The group that hangs out on Runescape is friendly. Others will chat, share tips and how to catch fish for example, let you know where to find the best food and other helpful tips.

I have never seen or heard foul language, sexual conversations, or for that matter any other things that would raise my concern to keep my kids off of Runescape. One thing that my kids really like is at Easter, Christmas, and other holidays, Runescape will offer special events. If you complete a mission, you will get a ring that allows you to turn into a bunny, for example, with a ring, on demand. These special items are coveted, not able to be traded, and once lost can never be regained. My kids also love the rainbow socks and special hats and clothes you can buy.

For a special treat, you may want to consider giving your kids a million Runescape dollars for about $7 real dollars on PayPal you can hook up with a person on Runescape and get a million or two dollars and let the kids knock themselves out buying cool stuff.

Should you become a member? I have not allowed my kids to do this, but if you are a member, you can do more and buy more. One of my kids recently told me that many of the things that used to be available only to members are now becoming available to non-member – oh the glory of competition between online games.

I would definitely recommend Runescape to you. If you see McMom there, you’ll know that it is me being lead around by my pack of kids.