Welcome to the 'Bers!

Hi there!

I hope all of you had an amazing August. I hate to say it, well not really, but I'm so glad August is over. The 'Bers has always been my favorite time of year! For me, as soon as September arrives, I start preparing for the Holiday Season - Halloween, Thanksgiving, and of course, Christmas!

At the moment, I am mostly looking forward to Halloween - next month. It's crazy that Halloween is already so close! I actually added a Halloween Header to my blog last month to celebrate the Holiday Mashup - which I'm extremely far behind on, I promise I'll catch up on announcing winners of contests asap - and didn't take it down! Since Fall is quickly approaching, I've decided to leave it up through the end of next month. Speaking of Fall & Halloween, I know many of you look forward to the Halloween Run each year. We actually did a live poll in-game during the Holiday Mashup and the majority of you stated that your favorite Run was the Halloween Run. I really do appreciate that! 

I recently had another poll on the SpiralVision Twitter Account asking what day you like seeing us host events. The Majority of you (over 70%) voted for Saturday! I had no idea so many of you would rather see us host events on Saturdays, so we are definitely considering bringing the Run Events (and other events)  back to Saturdays! So keep an eye out for more information about those type of events. One thing that I want to work on this month is to brainstorm ideas for the events. We want to make them unique, but also a lot of fun. I look forward to hosting more events for this awesome community. I would like to thank those who stick by the events after so long. Even if you're unable to attend, your support for the events truly means the world to us. Thank you! 

Other than Wizard101 stuff, I am hoping to bring back Edward Cringle back to the Spiral very soon! My plan is to start streaming his adventures live on Twitch! I don't know when I'll be able to start live streaming, but do keep an eye out for an official announcement here on this blog. Some of you that have kept up with this character may be shocked to hear that I created this character nearly 7 years ago! Well... nearly meaning December of 2012. Edward Cringle Update Posts have been on the decline over the past few years, but they will return! I also plan to upload every questing adventure to YouTube to publish here on this website. I'm hoping to announce the first livestream towards the end of this month, so keep an eye out for more information! :D 

Anyway, that's all I have for you for this post, other than a piece of news that I forgot to share! Please keep an eye out this upcoming Friday (September 6th) for a new Wizard101 Blog Post. This post comes straight from my heart and I hope the community likes it. I do think you will, but we will see. If you don't, that's okay too. But my goal is to have the opposite effect. So do keep an eye out on this website and my blog's official Twitter Account, @AroundTheSpiral for this new blog post. Thank you all so much for reading. Until next time, I'll see you around the spiral.

A Long-Needed Break

Hello Wizards!

It's actually been nearly a month since I've made a new blog post. Today, I wanted to talk about our events, and a bit of what we have planned for the future. We recently celebrated our recent Holiday Mashup event (the recap post will be published later this week) which was a lot of fun even though we had to improvise unlike ever before. But we recently decided it was time to take a break from hosting events.

I started the first Run event back in December of 2012 - known as The Santa Run. In December of 2015, I decided it was time to bring it back and we started hosting events nearly every Holiday since that time. With each event, we would further improve how we hosted the event & even started hosting activities that would take place before the main run event. Back in the day, we would wait in the commons until it was time to run & then after the run, we'd teleport everyone to the after-party. Today, we host many activities, run, and then have an afterparty. With that, came a lot more work. 

We started working with Kingsisle to get codes to giveaway to you all during our events, further improved our activities so most were able to participate and started streaming our events on Twitch. All of that also came with a lot more work. In 2015, it would take an hour to prepare for an event. Our 2016 events? I'd say around 3 or 4 hours. Today's events take countless hours to prepare for. So it does take a lot of time & energy to come up with everything. It is fun hosting them, but after nearly four years (30 major events) of doing this, we thought it would be good to take a long-needed break from the events.

We were thinking that a perfect time to come back with the events would be the Bunny Run of 2020 - which will either take place in March or April of 2020. This will give us time to improve SpiralVision when it comes to our normal streams & try to think up a new direction for the events going forward. Again, we are in no way leaving. We're just taking a temporary break from the events. The purpose of these events has always been to bring the community together. So let's create a SpiralVision community. Our vision of the spiral has always been the same as the old community leaders. I look forward to bringing that to life next year. So get ready for major surprises going forward. In the meantime, feel free to join us on our new upcoming streams on SpiralVision! Also, feel free to give us a follow!

https://www.twitch.tv/spiralvision

Holiday Mashup 2019: Guide Contest

Hello Wizards!

The Holiday Mashup 2019 is quickly approaching! This year's Holiday Mashup will take place on Sunday, August 11th (http://www.edward.p101/2019/07/holiday-mashup-2019-sunday-august-11th.html). If you didn't know, each one of our events, we not only have activities, but we also run around Wizard City in a group - keep in mind this will be a multi-area event. If you watch the video below, you'll see where we'll run during this event. The Run officially begins after all of our activities. Now let's talk about the contest!

We'll be giving away 30,000 crowns to one lucky winner that watches the Holiday Mashup Video (above) and correctly writes down all of the areas that we visit. All correct entries sent to us through email will be entered into a Random.Org drawing. If you would like more information about this contest, keep reading:

Watch The Run Video

You will need to watch the video above to know where we'll be running during the "Run Portion" of our event. Again, The Run will take place after we have activities during our event.

Write Down The Areas

 As you watch the video, you will need to write down (in order) all of the areas that we visit in the video. We will visit an area more than once, so make sure to write down every single area. Example: We will start in The Commons and end in The Commons. You will have to write down both.

Send An Email

Once you write down all of the areas, please send an email to thespiralvision@gmail.com. Please include your Wizard's Name and Your List Of Areas with the Subject "Holiday Mashup Guide Contest". This Contest STARTS TODAY and ENDS Sunday, August 11th. Good luck to everyone!

Holiday Mashup 2019: Sunday, August 11th

Hello Wizards!

We hope you're ready for one epic Summer Event! Our 2nd Annual Holiday Mashup will take place on Sunday, August 11th with our Official Stream beginning at 12pm Central / 1pm Eastern on Twitch (https://www.twitch.tv/spiralvision). Please keep reading this page for more information about this epic Summer event and a special giveaway!

12:00 pm Central                                   Twitch Stream Begins

12:10 pm Central                                   The Nightshade Battle
12:30 pm Central                         Pet Derby (Holiday Teen Pet)

12:50 pm Central                                    We Are Santa's Elves

1:20 pm Central                                      Holiday Hide & Seek

1:50 pm Central                      Holiday Mashup Raid Caroling 

2:10 pm Central                                            Trick Or Treating

2:30 pm Central                                Line Up For Mashup Run

(Watch Video Below To See Where We'll Be Running)

3:00 pm Central                         Holiday Mashup Run Begins

3:30 pm Central                                          Afterparties Begin

Holiday Mashup Raffle (One Winner)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I hope you're ready for this epic event! Spread the word to your friends by sharing a link to this post with them. Let's get the word out about this special event & contest. This will be a family-friendly event, so please keep it family-friendly if you're planning on attending. Thank you all so much. Let's make this event one of our best events ever! If you would like event reminders, feel free to follow SpiralVision on Twitter or click on "Interested" on our Facebook Event Page (link below). We hope to see you at the event!

Follow SpiralVision on Twitter

https://twitter.com/thespiralvision

Facebook Event Reminder

https://www.facebook.com/events/2238708012864948/

More Information About Our Events
http://www.edward.p101/p/events.html

My 10th Wizardversary

Hello Wizards!

First of all, I'd like to wish all Americans a Happy 4th of July! I hope you have a wonderful & safe Holiday. And now.. I'd like to officially announce that today marks my official 10 years of playing Wizard101. I can't even believe 2009 was a decade ago, but you know... time flies when you're having fun! So today I'd love to talk a bit about why I joined Wizard101 and why I'm still playing the game today.

I officially joined Wizard101 on July 4th, 2009. It's crazy because I should have been outside lighting fireworks & enjoying the nice weather. However, it was raining all day so I had to stay inside. I was 15 years old at the time and decided to watch some program on Cartoon Network (I still have no idea what I was watching that day because Wizard101 took over the entire day :P). I remember watching and seeing an awesome commercial - the one above - show up. And just a disclaimer: there's a reason the run events take place on Rainbow Bridge. Watch the commercial above to see why. ;) Anyway, as soon as I saw the website on this commercial I went and signed up to join this mysterious game! I created my first wizard, Edward Wintergem, an ice wizard.

From that moment, I became addicted to the game. I made new friends (that I would often quest with) and ended up joining the Wizard101 Community in October of 2009. I didn't know there was a community for the game and only found out when Wizard101 had somewhat of an advertisement on their launcher about this podcast called "Ravenwood Radio" (which is now SpiralRadio). I remember watching their first episode. Leesha Darkheart & Stephen Spiritcaller really got me to further explore the community. I started reading a blog called "The Friendly Necromancer" by Tom Purdue and attending major events from "Diary of a Wizard". Speaking of these three sites... they're really what inspired me to start blogging in 2010 & hosting events in 2012! 

Whether it's blogging or hosting events, I've come a far way in my life. Before I joined this community I had severe depression, social anxiety, and generalized anxiety. I also had recently lost two close family members - my grandmother from cancer & my aunt from a heart issue. I really didn't think life was worth living during this time. But things have changed. Sure, bad things do happen. But you have to push through because there's a lot more good than bad in our life. We have to be willing to see the good things even if it seems that there's more bad than good. I've changed so much since I joined this community. I will say that it's okay to talk to people. Playing this game & interacting with the community helped me open up to talk to counselors many years ago. I am so thankful to have moved past that time in my life and living a happy life. I would like to thank all of you & Kingsisle for making this an amazing 10 years. Now... it's time to end this post and make new memories for the next decade. ;) Until then, I made a montage of a few key moments that warmed my heart during my time here. Feel free to watch the video below! Thank you all again for reading this post. Until next time, I'll see you around the spiral. I love y'all!