Happy CMAD Day, Mathew Anderson!

Hi there!

Today is Community Manager Appreciation Day. I'd like to thank our community manager, Mathew Anderson, for all of his work over the past 6 months! He's already brought a lot of the community together in many different ways. Mathew has used social media to bring many in the community together to make new friends. I've definitely made new friends!

From Ravenwood Academy, Arcanum's Archives, and even to our events, we've all been given a platform to promote our events to bring the community together. On top of that, a lot of people have also been given a platform to promote their art, screenshots, blog posts, videos, and more! I appreciate all of the hard work that Mathew has put into bringing the community together. I look forward to seeing what he has planned this year. Happy, CMAD, Mathew! Keep up the great work! We appreciate having you in this wonderful community. :)

Wish Mathew A Happy CMAD On Twitter

https://twitter.com/MathewAnderson

Tag: Four Games I Enjoy Playing

Hi there!

There has been a tag going around in the #twizard community over the past few days. I was tagged by multiple friends & I'm supposed to respond with four games that I enjoy playing. I've decided to respond here with my four favorite games and talk about why I enjoy each game. I will tag four people at the end of this post.

Wizard101

I started playing Wizard101 back in July of 2009. I've come a long way playing this game. I remember having a lot of social anxiety when I started playing. Since then I've overcome my social anxiety and interact with many great friends in-game & in this community. I love everything about Wizard101 and it's very nostalgic. I have all schools (a few doubles) of different levels!

Pirate101

I started playing Pirate101 in early August of 2012 - during the final few days of Alpha. This game has an amazing story-line & is very funny. It is nice to see that this game is still around in 2019 & I hope Kingsisle adds a new world (specifically Polaris) soon. I enjoy this game & hope to get back into it a lot more this year to bring new events and streams to the awesome Pirate community.

Animal Cove 

I started playing Animal Cove when it was first publicly released last year. Animal Cove is a mobile game made by Kingsisle. While I haven't played too often of the past month or so, I plan on getting back to restoring all of the areas that Animal Cove has to offer. I believe I'm nearing level 100. I look forward to playing again this year & sharing my adventures on this website! 

Lord of the Rings Online

I started playing Lord of the Rings Online in February of 2018. I haven't been playing this game long, but the time I have played has been amazing. I was never that interested into Lord of the Rings until early last year. I started playing this game and became addicted. I currently have three different characters ranging from level 8, level 23, and level 70. This is definitely one of my favorite games!

Thanks to everyone that tagged me. I love these four games the most at the moment. I hope to try out more games this year, but these are definitely my favorites at this moment. Now... I would like to tag @MathewAnderson, @Jesters, @tonygaddisart, and @nathan_darkhorn to let us know what their four favorite games are. Don't forget to tag four others after you share your favorite games! :)

Edward Gem Gets His Level 48 Myth Spell

Hello Wizards!

I hope you're having a wonderful week. Over the past few days, I've been sick. But that hasn't stopped me from questing on my group questing wizard, Edward Gem. We've recently made it to Dragonspyre. Side quests have helped us out a lot - and while we've only started in the second area in Dragonspyre, some of us will get our level 48 spells early. My myth wizard was able to get his spell today! Feel free to watch my level 48 spell adventure by clicking play on the video below:

Wizard101: Valentines Art Contest

Hello Wizards!

I hope you're having a wonderful week. Today I'm proud to announce that I've received some codes from our awesome community manager, Mathew, to host a Valentines-themed contest! It's been awhile since I've hosted a contest, so I thought I'd start out with hosting an art contest. Keep reading this post for more information:

Draw A Picture that represents your love for both Wizard101 & the community. Please make sure this drawing is Valentine's Day themed. Drawings, not graphics, will only be accepted for this contest. Well-drawn & inspiring entries will be more likely to win the contest. Include your wizard's name & the finish date on this drawing.

Send The Picture to the email edwardfrostgem@gmail.com with the subject "Valentines Art Contest". Please include your wizard's name in this email and only send one entry. Additional entries from the same or multiple emails will disqualify you from this contest.

1st Prize

15,000 Crowns + Lovely Leopard Pet

2nd Prize

10,000 Crowns + Lovely Leopard Pet

3rd Prize 

5,000 Crowns + Lovely Leopard Pet

Contest BEGINS today and ENDS Thursday, February 7th at 12:00 pm Central. A Contest Winner post will be published on February 9th with three winners of this contest. Above you'll see the prizes that these three winners will receive. Good luck to everyone that enters & if you have any questions - feel free to comment below!

Snow Day: What I've Been Up To Lately

Hi there!

I hope all of you had an amazing weekend & you're having an amazing start of a new week. I'd like to start this post out by apologizing for the lack of blog posts lately. I haven't been feeling well lately due to migraines. These migraines have prevented me from making new Wizard101 & Pirate101 blog posts. I promise that I haven't forgotten about this website.

One thing that I have been doing lately behind the scenes is planning out things that I haven't done on this website for a few years now. One of these things is Holiday-themed contests! Another type of contest that I really enjoyed having in previous years was art contests. Have a look below at one of the winning art entries that I had a few years ago for a contest that I had on this blog for Wizard101's 8th Birthday. 

It's going to be so much fun bringing contests like these & other fun contests back to this website. Really other than thinking about what type of contests I could have, I have been resting & enjoying the snow while I can. I may have shoveled a driveway with well over a foot of snow yesterday. ;) Although I still had a migraine - and a few hours of sleep - I didn't miss the opportunity to shovel the driveway. By the way, I also made a video about the snow for all of my Twitter friends. Feel free to watch it below: 

I had to mention the Spiral 😂 I still hate my voice but enjoy the video ❤️ pic.twitter.com/b1eyj6bXvw

— Edward Lifegem (@EdwardLifegem) January 12, 2019

The past few weeks have been different, but I'm still pushing forward. I look forward to making new blog posts again once I'm feeling better. I already have like 20-30 blog posts planned, but haven't had the time to make them. You may see a lot of those be published towards the end of the month. Anyway, thank you all so much for supporting this website. Until next time, I'll see you around the spiral. :)

My Goals For SpiralVision

Hi there!

As many of you already know, we've recently changed the twitch channel "EdwardLifegem" to SpiralVision! We had a contest last year for the community to choose our new name to represent all of the community & the streams that we have. This new name really got me thinking about what I want the channel to be in 2019 & the years ahead. So today, I'm going to talk about a few goals that I have for this channel.

"The" Community-Themed Channel, Not 'A' Community-Themed Channel

One thing that I want our channel to be a part of is the community, not a community. When I joined the community in 2009, there were many different fansites. Although they were all different people with different opinions & views, together they were still part of the same community, not separate communities. Nearly a decade later, I'd love to follow what they started - which I believe really made the community boom (feel free to read my post: "A Growing Community: The Beginning"). 

This really ties into the inclusive & exclusive stream conversation. There are many streams outside of our community that are exclusive where you have to pay to feel like you're involved. I'd love to make SpiralVision the complete opposite of that to the point where people feel very welcomed at the events, group questing streams, and many more streams that we will have in the future. This is in no way saying that our streams are better than streams who may do this. It's an entire spiral of different opinions. Let's just say, we have a different vision. ;) 

Staying True To Ourselves

I love visiting the different streamers, to name one - WhiteTiger93. I look up to people like him for many different reasons. His channel is very nostalgic to me because he is a family-friendly YouTuber & Streamer. You may have noticed that I am a fan based on the event recap posts that feature his recap videos. As I said I look up to people like him & many other family-friendly YouTubers & Streamers in the community for putting the community first by staying true to themselves.

Staying true yourself means not changing who you are because of what others may or may not think of you. If you have to change who you are in order to fit into a group of people, that group is not for you. Once think about it, a group like that isn't for the people in that group. My main goal is to make SpiralVision a place where we can be ourselves. If you ever stop by the channel during an event or group questing stream, you'll hear some very random stuff from ASMR to favorite food conversations. I'd love to see SpiralVision continue on this pathway in 2019 & beyond. I mean because why not? :D

This year is going to be amazing as long as we stay true to ourselves. The only way we can make the year amazing together is to follow what I said above & have a positive outlook on the future. I am beyond thankful for each & everyone of you that have supported our streams. I know not all of you are able to make it to our streams but you do support them. You're the reason why the events exist & why any stream that we have on this channel occurs. To anyone that has supported the events & streams that we do - whether you're able to attend or not - thank you. Here's to an amazing 2019. Thank you all for reading. Until next time, I'll see you around the spiral.

Check Out SpiralVision

https://www.twitch.tv/spiralvision

Wizard101: Quest With Us In Dragonspyre!

Hello Wizards!

It's been nearly a month since I've made a group questing post. Today I thought I'd start anew with a post about where we are in our group questing adventures. As you can tell from the title above, our amazing group of friends has finally made it to Dragonspyre! Let's talk a bit about what we have planned for this world and when & where you can catch our next stream.

As many of you already know, we've quested through each world in Wizard101 as a group. We quest every Tuesday (subject to change in the future) at 6:00 pm Central for nearly two hours of main questing. When we're not questing or streaming, the group has the option to go and do side quests in each world. If you miss a stream one week, then you can catch up with us on our main quest which will always be posted on this blog and on our new Spiral Vision Twitter - @thespiralvision. Keep reading for more information about our next quest and when we'll quest/stream again.

Main Quest: "Crystal-Matic"

Optional Tasks: Complete Side Quests in all worlds 

Quest through Grizzleheim up to Ravenscar

Next Questing Stream

Tuesday, January 22nd

6:00 pm Central / 7:00 pm Eastern

https://www.twitch.tv/spiralvision

Everyone is welcome to join our group questing streams whether you have a character that you want to quest with us or whether you want to help us out on one of your higher level wizards. We always quest through the Kelvin Realm so feel free to hop on to join us on our new adventures in the Spiral. Thank you all for your support & here's to an amazing 2019!

New Twitch Name: SpiralVision

Hi there!

A few months ago Autumn & I announced a contest for a new Twitch name - which would be chosen by someone in the community. We had many great entries & we're thankful for all of the great names you sent in. We had to choose one & that one name was SpiralVision which was sent in by Esmee Stormweaver! We're excited to announce that we will use this new name & link for all future events, group questing streams, and more. We look forward to growing this channel in terms of community togetherness in 2019 and beyond. :)  If you would like to access the new channel & our new Twitter, feel free to click on the links below:

Twitch Channel: https://www.twitch.tv/spiralvision

Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/thespiralvision

A Growing Community: The Beginning

Hello Wizards!

I hope you're having a wonderful first week of 2019. I wanted to make a blog post today about the community. The community has grown through multiple social media platforms such as Amino, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, etc. The community is growing every day! Today, I'm going to talk about what made this awesome community grow to such large numbers across social media.

Let's start with what the community is like today before we talk about the past. The largest communities today are the Central & YouTube communities. They, along with many other communities, provide great information about the game and have helped those communities grow for years now. While you can link your other social media accounts from YouTube, that wasn't how communities outside of these two boomed. Let's travel back in time to see how the community really got started.

Nearly 10 years ago (it's unbelievable that it's nearly been that long - but it has), Wizard101 teamed up with Wizard101 Central to have a contest on Wizard101's Official Facebook Page. As you can see in the video above from Technodude67, a danger hound was given away to everyone who liked their official page & was a Central member. This contest was used to get the Wizard101 Facebook page to 100,000 likes. This was one of the sparks that got the community growing & was effective. I still have my danger hound from this contest on my ice wizard. This was an awesome contest & I hope Kingsisle considers having a contest like this again in the future. :) While this contest helped the Facebook community, what got the other communities to grow? Simple answer: Podcasts & Fansites!

The first podcast that I can think of is none other than Ravenwood Radio (currently Spiral Radio). The first episodes of Ravenwood Radio aired in October of 2009. This podcast was the very first podcast/stream to ever occur in the Wizard101 Community. Many people would tune in every Wednesday night to listen to this awesome podcast by Stephen Spiritcaller & Leesha Darkheart. This podcast, for me at least, was what introduced me to The Friendly Necromancer aka Tom, Diary of a Wizard, and all of the other fansites. I was first introduced to this podcast by Wizard101's promotion of Ravenwood Radio on their official launcher - this was nearly 10 years ago, so I could be wrong. But I am thankful that Kingsisle promoted them because I wouldn't be making this post right now if they didn't. 

From there I'd listen to Ravenwood Radio every Wednesday night with the rest of the community. They would have special events such as the Mali-Fest of 2010. They made a lot of Wizard101 History because this was the first Malistaire-type Livestream with four well-known wizards (Leesha & Stephen of Ravenwood Radio, Thomas Lionblood of the Friendly Necromancer, and Fallon Shadowblade of Diary of a Wizard). It was awesome to see four great death wizards defeat Malistaire Live. Livestreams like these introduced me to the other fansites in the community. When people tuned into Ravenwood Radio, they would tell their friends about it. I remember inviting my friends to their podcasts & events. From there, the community grew even larger.

Diary of a Wizard teamed up with Ravenwood Radio and other great fansites in the community to have one large event in Ravenwood known as the Ravenwood Ball & Birthday Bash. This event brought so many people together that the event grew each year. These events were one of the largest (if not, the largest) events to ever occur in Wizard101. I was very shy when I first started attending these events but started talking a lot more. I was inspired by all of the people that promoted/threw these events that I created this website. There are many other fansites that were inspired by fansites like Ravenwood Radio, The Friendly Necromancer, Diary of a Wizard, Ditto Wizard, Paige Moonshade, and many other great sites that they created their own. They even started joining social media pages to follow them. From there, people would tell their friends about the community & it would continue to grow from a few hundred to thousands and today tens of thousands of active wizards across various social media platforms! 

While I know not everyone will agree that this is how the community boomed - it really was. Through contests & most of all, podcasts & fansites, the community grew. A lot of people, including myself, were inspired by these amazing people to start having events, creating blogs, podcasts & more to pay it forward. A decade ago, I was going through such a tough time. I'll always remain thankful to those who inspired me & many others in this community to pay it forward just as they did. They did what they did for free & some still continue to do that - those are people to look up to. Thank you to everyone who helped this community grow to what it is today across all social media platforms. Without you, there's no way the community would be as amazing as it is today. Thank you all for reading this random Saturday morning blog post. Until next time, I'll see you around the spiral. :D

Gardening Up A Garden!

Hello Wizards!

I hope you're having a wonderful year so far. Over the past few weeks, I've been getting back into game activities that I haven't really participated in for a while now. One of these game activities that I've started back up recently has been gardening. I think the last time I gardened was when it was first released to the game (I believe gardening was released in early 2011). Check out the old commercial below!

Can you believe this commercial is 8 years old? Time really is flying by and Kingsisle has done a great job by adding side activities, like gardening, to make the game even better! :) So as I've mentioned above, I really wanted to get back into gardening this year. Many of you already know that I created a new myth wizard, Edward Gem, in September of 2018 for group questing. I've recently used this wizard to start gardening again! The Aero Plains Bundle House was a perfect area to start this garden + I used a sparkle globe to make it magical. :D 

Autumn Dreamwalker recently gifted me Key Limes on this wizard. I knew those seeds would be the first I'd plant if I ever did a garden again since they give a lot of gardening experience points. Just after Christmas I planted these seeds & checked on my garden day & night as they matured. Autumn told me that I only needed to check on them once a day - but I have to admit... in 2011, I let a large garden die out because I didn't check on it enough. That was when I stopped gardening. So, Y'all should know that I mean business this time around. :D I've already made it to Rank 9 in Gardening in a few weeks! How crazy is that?!

Shortly after raising my Key Limes & Harvesting them, I decided to buy even more seeds. I made the mistake of planting them far apart (I was trying to make somewhat of a design to make it look amazing). In recent days after I harvested a plant, I moved the pot closer to the other plants. This makes it easier to use a gardening spell on multiple plants - therefore saving energy for other needs. The pests have been super annoying since you have to use 15 energy to kill Rank 3 pests. I've been looking around on my wizards on my main account for one of the 48-hour pest-free spells to trade to Edward Gem. I know I have these spells because I found a few on my fire wizard - as you can see above (Dragonflies & Electricity Bolts - I think that's what they're called). Anyway, I look forward to gardening even more. I am thinking I'll make another post once I get seeds that give mega snacks. :D Wish me luck on my gardening adventures! Thank you all so much for reading. Until next time, I'll see you around the spiral.

2019 Goals

Hi there!

Welcome to the future. It's 2019 and in these current times we can fly & communicate by singing. Yeah, I needed to start this post with something that I can look back on in the future & laugh at. Anyway! It is the first day of 2019. Last year was a fun year, but I'm going to make this year an amazing year. So let's talk about some New Years Resolutions that I have for this website, the events, streams, and more.

I made a 2018 Recap Post yesterday (last year - hehe) stating all of the fun stuff that took place including all of the Holiday Events & Twitch Streams that we started doing in September of last year. I stated yesterday that 2018 was full of adventures and learning experiences. From these, we've decided to change a few things this year - mostly how the events will run. While we plan on changing the outline of the events, they will still be a lot of fun with our main goal still being to bring the community together. We're in no way planning on stopping these events anytime soon. Your support means the world to us and we'll continue having them. So let's talk about how this year's events will be different from previous years.

A Change In The Events + New Twitch Channel Name

Our plans for this year & the future is to bring back the main purpose of why we started having these events in the first place. While the events last year were still meant to bring the community together, we also tried to improve each event as we went to make them bigger & better than ever. That took a lot more work than anyone could imagine - especially for the Spring & Winter events. We've recently decided to scale back on the Bunny Run, Halloween Run, and Santa Run events to make life a lot easier. While we are planning on scaling back on the events, that doesn't mean they won't be fun. We appreciate all of your support & that's why we will continue having events in the future. While these three events will be scaled back, we are planning on making this year's Holiday Mashup an EPIC event. So I've already typed so much about the event changes... let's recap the changes.

Bunny, Halloween, & Santa Run

Scaled Back + Free To Play Areas

No Mounts or Memberships Required

Holiday Mashup

Improved + Variety Of Worlds/Areas

No Mounts Required

The Holiday Mashup will still be a Run-Type of an Event, but we're going to put a lot of work into this event throughout the year to make it, unlike any event we've ever had. Scaling back on the other events will give us time to make at least one event not a major, but an epic event, unlike any event we've ever had. There is so much we're planning on doing including a new Twitch Name to add to the events. We haven't officially announced our Twitch name to the public, but when we do, we'd love that you share the new name with your friends. We'll officially announce our new Twitch Name on Social Media sometime in the next week! This new Twitch Channel Name will be used for all future events & streams. We'll promote that quite a bit before our next event. Thank you all so much for your support on our events & streams. Let's make this year one of the best for the events! By the way, these event changes will also bring positive changes to this website!

The Future Of This Website

My website has declined on blog posts in recent years. When I first started this website, I would blog about just about everything from news to questing posts to events that I attended throughout the community. In recent years I started posting more about our events & streams. There hasn't been as much as we had before since it took 24-36 hours to prepare for each major event throughout the year. This website turns 9 years old this year. I'd love to show love to it again by making a variety of blog posts for Kingsisle games. On top of that, I'd love to have more contests again on this website. One thing I mentioned in a video that I made yesterday was Holiday-themed contests. I remember having art contests. We're going to bring that back this year! Scaling back on the events will allow me to do so much with this website including a potential redesign! My 9th Blogging Year will be amazing for this website. I already know where I want to take this website & I hope you enjoy this year's blog posts. While I am going to put more of a focus on my website, that doesn't mean I'm going to ignore our Twitch Streams. We will, of course, have plenty of Twitch Streams + we'll be streaming other games in other parts of the Spiral... What a vision we have for the future. ;)

There's no disputing that 2018 was a crazy year. But I'm putting all of the negatives behind me & focusing on positives this year. I have a lot to do, all of which I'm looking forward to sharing with all of you. This year will be an amazing year for the events, this website, and the streams. I hope all of you join me on this wonderful adventure. One thing I hope I can say at the end of the year is that I was able to further help bring this community together. I am so excited to celebrate everything that we have to look forward to this year. The events will be less stressful which means a lot more times to plan things out. I'm already planning on out a contest that I want to have on my website - specifically for Valentine's Day! Keep an eye out next month for more information about that. I think that's all I have for all of you for my 2019 Goals post, other than a major THANK YOU for all of your support. You have no idea how much your support means to me. Thank you for being such great friends. :) Now... let's progress through this year with a positive outlook & attitude on things. Remove that negativity & make this year a great year. Feel free to follow my social media below for updates on everything events, blog, and stream related! Happy 2019, everyone, and thank you for reading this blog post. Until next time, I'll see you around the spiral. 

Follow Me On Social Media

Twitter - @AroundTheSpiral
Facebook - @AroundTheSpiral
Instagram - @EdwardLifegem