Spiral Knights: First Impression

Three Rings has a new game out, Spiral Knights. It reminds me heavily of Brawler Whirled. The style they used for the characters is very popular on their virtual world, Whirled. Even the UI reminds me a little of Brawler Whirled.

It is a very cute style and for Spiral Knights they have added just a touch of steampunk. I love the mix of fantasy and steampunk. I'd heard the game play was much like the old Zelda games and I agree with that statement. You hack down bushes to find hearts inside them, you can throw pots and other little things that remind me of the Zelda games.

It's a fun little game with the only downside I see right now is that you can't really play solo. To run through the dungeons you need some party members, so make sure you grab some friends to play with you. I call it a downside because not everyone can make friends that easily or has a horde of gamer friends on standby, but at the same time I think everything is more fun with friends and I probably wouldn't want to play Spiral Knights as much if I had to do it all alone.

When you are making your personal color, it will also be the color of your name that floats over your head in the game, so that players will have a pretty good range of different colored names.

I look forward to playing again, as I had a lot of fun. If you try it and get lost, there is a wiki and forums on the Spiral Knights website to help you out. Never fear Three Rings support, those guys rock and are super nice.

Here's another screen shot that shows the knight using her gun.

Guild Wars: Trilla's Armor

This was a funny conversation I came across while looking for something else. I don't think I posted it back when it happened so here it is now. Trilla is a baby warrior at this time and Nick is one of my oldest Guild Wars characters.

LOTRO: Drinks at the Pony

I was at the Prancing Pony as Nikoalas and ran over to where Valarond (Jakub's alt) was to see what he was up to. Then I noticed a table of other role playing players just sitting around and chatting at their characters. One of them was Dwemit, the leader to the kinship Jakub and Eibwen were in before Marked for Death. Nikoalas sat at the table with them, but true to his character he never spoke.

Valarond also adopted Nikoalas, so now he has a father and a sister, as Valarond adopted another kinship member as well. (I'd type the name, but for fear of spelling it wrong.)

LOTRO: Lottery Again

I won the lottery again. My kinship joked and said I must be the only one entering since I'm always winning.

LOTRO: Mad Kinship

I was helping Saeleniel in the Old Forest and when we emerged we were in the North Barrow-Downs. Saeleniel invited another she saw there and Evolution and Bull both found us as well. So we decided to take a walk among the dead.



Then somehow Bull became the leader of our little walk. We headed north east then west, then north west. He lead us over hills, off cliffs, up rivers, through a bandit camp and across Ost Barandor then on into the Shire. Needless to say the sun was shining once or when we got there.




At one point he killed more than half the fellowship when he lead us off a cliff and not all of us survived.


We did actually stop to complete a task that was given to me by someone back in town and in the process we killed a giant. Then we restarted our walk.


Eventually we made it to the hobbit homesteads to check them out for those that had not seen them yet. After that we went to the elf homesteads.


Then we all decided we were tired and since we have no kinship house we are a homeless kinship and so we squatted at a kinship house in the elf homesteads for the night.

LOTRO: Sparing Friends

I found my father and our new elf friend dueling in my father's neighborhood. I then bid them to get upon the stage at the party area so I could sit comfortably while I watched them spar over and over again.



After they were done I had them sit down and tried to tell them a story, but Father fell asleep and the elf wouldn't sit still.

LOTRO: Fishing

I was in Ered Luin to meet up with an elf cousin of mine. She's a distant cousin through Eibwen's mother, but that's a different story than the one I'm telling now. I was waiting for her to meet me at some docks and decided to do a little fishing while I waited. I found fishing rather hard with the person in the water splashing around like a guppy on land. I told him to stop scaring my fish. He apologized and informed me he was in trouble. It was then that I noticed he was not dressed for swimming and his heavy clothes only would get heavier in the water. He was wet and the docks were wet and he was having trouble climbing out. So I gave him a hand.


I then went back to fishing and I guess the elves were so happy to have a helpful woman visiting them that I received my own minstrel to entertain me while I fished.



(The rest of the story is missing, as my friend playing the elf I was to meet deleted that elf and made a new one.)

LOTRO: Lottery Winner

My father confessed today he reads my journal (he was talking about this blog) and he said I make him, sound like a stalker within the pages. He then commented on my gem polishing. I quickly put the gems down and looked around the crafting hall while exclaiming, "Are you stalking me again?" He ran out before I could actually lay eyes upon him and despite the strange looks of the others, I went back to work. (No strange looks were actually given the conversation was in teamspeak.) After I was done polishing the gems I went home to leave one at the house of one of our neighbors, Thaodur. While there I found my father once more. He assured me he wasn't following me, but I think he just likes to keep a close eye on one of the only women in our family. He needn't worry so much, if a man crosses me I'll run him through.


After returning to Bree I discovered I'd won a lottery. Apparently it was pie day in Middle Earth. I won a few other things as well and am very pleased. (The lotteries were awesome fun, thanks Turbine)


I then finished my skirmish training as my father has often asked if I had completed it or not and my answer in the past has always been that I had not. I found my friends Lockeadon and Bullsvie in the skirmish camp. Lockeadon stopped and greeted me as he often does, but Bullsvie didn't seem to recognize me. Or he thinks I'm just a loony drunk girl. I was engaged to a cat when I first met him.


Then my father came and we did a skirmish. We had asked Thaodur to come as well, but he had not completed the training. So we sent him off to do that as we tried and failed to defend the halls on our own.


We then for reasons I can not explain stood in the road near the skirmish camp outside the south gate of Bree. While there a dwarf stopped and stood there starting at us. We decided it was the same dwarf that once appeared to be stalking me through the Lone Lands, but then had passed me by. I waved at the dwarf, but his response was to take off running down the road. Not the first time I've gotten that reaction.


An elf also came along but he responded to being waved at in a friendly manner and soon joined our efforts against the enemies in another skirmish.






Random conversation bit:

.

OOC: My elf Maenurvith also won some pies in a lottery and the welcome wagon lottery.

LOTRO: Random Shots

I'm being lazy and there isn't much to say about what I did in game, so I'll just show three random shots instead.

LOTRO: First Instance

OOC: The following story is told from the point of view of Eibwen

I went to my father's new house, which is where my grandfather once lived. (It's in a different neighborhood, but in the same location as Kudo's house and since Kudo hasn't been around I speak of him here as if he's gone. He's probably not.)


I have picked out the house I'd like to buy in the future, but I'm still 6,200 silver (and a gold cap) away from being able to afford it. I had picked out a nice little house for my granddaughter, Jeswyn near the one I want, but Thaodur came by the neighborhood looking for a house and decided he wanted that one. I did not argue the issue with him and instead gave him my full blessing. Jeswyn can't afford even that cheaper house right now and it's better my future neighbor be a friend than a stranger.


Thaodur and I then went riding into the Lone Lands together to fight some orc that had vexed him.


Then I joined a larger group that included my father, brother, and grandson in hunting the undead. (It was my first instance of this nature in LOTRO and I had a blast. It was also my first time dealing with the combo power thingie and I'm such a slow reader I did not read the information about that when it popped up, as we were in the middle of a battle.





I've also joined a kinship. I can't remember the name off the top of my head as it's not in common. It was a kinship my grandson was a member of. I had grand dreams of banding our family and maybe some of our friends together in a kinship in the future, all -or most- of us living in the same neighborhood together, and having a large kinship house where we could gather for festivals, birthdays, celebrations, and just general parties. But it's not something we can do if the rest of the family isn't also up for it.

LOTRO: Slow Day

I didn't do much today because mostly I was out of room to put anything. I'm slowly clearing things away in the auction to make more room, but I'm quickly finding more stuff to horde. And Father and Thaodur keep trying to give me stuff.


Father and I went to rescue some guy who'd gotten himself into trouble. The man insisted on checking ever crate in the enemy camp, I had half the mind to just finish him off and go about my day.



Father and I then went to the local tavern where father ordered me a drink of their best stuff.



Night found me in the Barrow-Downs North where I came across Lockeadon. I see him around pretty often actually.

---

OOC: I've made a new alt. Named her Jeswyn. The intention is to have Eibwen's son Strapnel adopt her, but I made her from Rohan instead of Bree to get more of the look I wanted for her. I figure her mother was from Rohan.


I haven't found her voice yet so nothing in first person for her. She already has friends in Thaodur and Nightpick who gave her weapons, armor, and a cloak.