Day 2 For "Wizards Unite" and for "WU -- Connecting The World"

Day 2 in the life of Harry Potter: Wizards Unite (WU) seemed pretty calm based on the Google News searching I did on the topic.

Likewise, Day 2 of this website, "Wizards Unite -- Connecting The World," will be low key, mainly featuring my WU game activities. I'll also provide a few background links for people who have not yet played the game but are at least someone intrigued by it.

This morning I went on an hour and a half WU walk around the neighborhood. A small local park and a nearby church had some WU inns, greenhouses, and fortresses. Along the way I picked up ingredients and watering cans, while casting spells at every Confoudable that popped up on my screen.

I found out the following points about WU:

1. The game uses more cellular data than I'm willing to pay for, at least in terms of the way I played the game this morning. All my WU play to this point had been on wifi; hadn't used any cellular data to play. This morning, during my one and a half hour walk, I used a little over two US dollars of cellular data to play the game. Way too expensive for my budget. I'll discuss the cellular data cost of the game tomorrow after I do more research on the issue.
2. By the time I got to the neighborhood park, I had used up all my spell power and could no longer battle the Confoundables I found. That was disappointing. It was also instructive as to the need to learn more about getting additional spell power, as well as using it wisely. Several articles I read about WU after my walkabout said spell power is one of the game's limiting factors that people need to learn how to optimize. Will research more and share what I learn.
3. I picked up all the ingredients and all the water my Vault can store. Which caused frustration when more ingredients and watering cans appeared on my screen, and I couldn't pick them up. So, another research topic for tonight -- how to effective use ingredients and watering cans so I always have room for more when I see them.
4. I read one post that seems relevant to connecting people with WU, which is my primary goal for playing the game and for learning more about it. I'll cover "connecting people with WU" in a post within the next week.
5. One of the primary drawbacks (at least in my mind) of WU, and probably most other AR video games, is the amount of time one can VERY easily spend playing the game if one is not disciplined about setting limits and sticking with those limits. In addition to the discipline required to have and respect those limits, it's even hard to say at this point whether even a minimal number of hours per week playing WU is worthwhile. Pretty much all video games are designed to be engaging and entertaining, and to a certain point, even mildly or strongly addictive. Lots more to say on this topic, but that will be one of the topics for an upcoming blog post.

Here are a couple additional links for WU background reading:

1. An overview of Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.
2. An opinion article (from a WU fan) about differences between WU and Pokemon GO, a similar augmented reality game produced by the same company.
3. An opinion article (from someone not a WU fan) about WU vs Pokemon GO.

I plan to walk to my local Starbucks tomorrow and spend a few hours there. At a couple wifi spots along the way to Starbucks, and while there, I'll be playing the game. Certainly going to keep my cellular data turned off, though. Hope to develop a strategy for playing WU around the neighborhood on wifi only. Check back tomorrow to hear how that goes!

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