Log of Bruce Rainbows, day 1

Yesterday was the first day I decided to use Bruce Rainbows for dungeon running. I was curious what it'd be like to have a fresh start at Spiral Knights. Before I had been in the closed beta and bought CE, and when they opened from the closed beta I got the CE refunded with a +25% added to it. While I did have to start from scratch again I had enough CE to do many, many runs and eventually was able to use it to get easy crowns when the market evened out. I was also able to craft everything on the fly. I wouldn't have that luxury doing a "newb" run with Bruce, though I do have the advantage of understanding the UI, the energy system, the crafting system and the market. I hear that many people have difficulty at first getting a grasp of this and they burn up their without getting much done.

I used up all my ME that day doing runs of tier 1. For the first time in ever tier 1 felt difficult and slow to do. It took some patience but I was able to solo at floors like 5 and 6 but I had to be careful. I was also using my gun a lot and running in circles to strafe enemies.

My first run was from floors 1-7 and some of my ME was spent reviving. Fortunately reviving was pretty cheap. The run took so long a very tiny amount of my ME came back. My second run started on floor 3 when I joined a party and ended at 6. By the time I was doing floor 6 my party had all but disappeared and I was soloing. The crowns get better the deeper you are in and clicking to join a party is a faster route to skipping a few floors and saves some ME. I noticed a lot of knights were like me, completely in new starting gear or having obtained a two-star piece. Most of them left mid-travel when they died, or didn't continue to the next floor despite having sufficient energy. Perhaps they didn't have the time or had to go, but I've been seeing this practice so frequently I begin to wonder if they understand how much more profitable it is to stay the course even if it takes longer to kill something.

Overall I made about 5,500 crowns which would not buy me any CE on the market. I didn't find any recipes that I wanted on the vendor. I did, however, try the auction house. Before I made that many crowns I placed a bid on one recipe in hopes that I could get one of them. While this would indeed be cheaper, it meant my crowns were tied up until the auction was over, or until someone outbid me. Maybe I'll win the auction but until then I couldn't afford to buy now, and I was 80 crowns short of bidding on the other recipe I wanted. I decided I would leave it be because if I took a 12-24 hour break and come back perhaps the auction would be over, and my ME needed to recharge anyways.

The auction is a very handy thing and it obviously wasn't around when I started. It transformed materials and recipes from a seller's market into a buyer's market and before that materials and recipes were often something you had to search out for and bargain with other players to get. Recipes themselves became a speculation market. I was trying to get in on that after the AH was made. It's funny how it didn't really benefit my main spiral knight at all, but for Bruce Rainbows it's a real help having a market that works in her favor. It's better this way anyways.

With all my ME spent up I decided to finally get around to the quests they wanted you to do as a beginner. Funny thing was that now I have the task with delving into the clockworks. Silly me saving that for last!

Overall things accomplished on day 1:
Delved into the clockworks, floors 1-7 and floors 3-6
All proto gear maxed out
Made 5,500 crowns
Bid on an auto-gun recipe

We're all monsters in the end, aren't we?

Speaking of I had a random musing. What are spiral knights? What is mist and crystal energy? Since I saw the new interface for death and resurrection it had me thinking. Seeing that pulsating heart of energy, is CE or ME the life force of knights? Or is it just what keeps us going in the Clockworks? It's obviously the force that gets us back onto our feet and fighting once more. It's obviously the force that lets us become a part of the clockworks and delve inside. And the deeper down we go the stronger we get. It also makes me wonder if Knights are robotic or organic, if they are people in the suits or some sort of mechanism inside the suits. Does the energy animate us too?

It'd be nice to see some sort of explanation to what the knights are an a better understanding of where they came from. We know their motives and goal, from what I understand it's to get the Skylark going again, but so far the game story-wise just tells us we need to figure out the Clockworks and keep delving in. It feels a little aimless. The idea that we all have amnesia and don't know why we are here and where we are from and what to do feels like a bit of a cop out, though it does sort of imply that all knights are being affected by the same force, and either we are a hive-mind or under some collective trance. Either way it'd be interesting for players to know what the story is (if there is one thought up yet) and where we're going with it. Overall I haven't seen a huge change since the closed beta, and I feel like the story's more tacked on than a part of the game. We have dungeons and a directive but we don't actually have some storyline to pursue overall and I think it'd be a little fun if we did.

Thanks, Mejez. I do like fan art and I wish I could do more art of Spiral Knights but I need to figure out a way to simplify their looks because they ARE quite detailed. Maybe when I do I'll take another whack at the comic.

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Log of Bruce Rainbows, Day 2

Once again I burnt up all my ME on runs. Unfortunately some of it was wasted. I got into half a room when I did join so that wasn't so bad, but then there was a treasure vault and.. I suddenly DCed and had to reset the router. I was back in in less than three minutes but I got booted to the Haven somehow. I don't get why. Treasure Vaults are a waste anyways. I did manage another run though and was soloing by the time I got down to floor 7. At that point my ME was less than ten. I was in an arena room and my heat was maxed out, so I wasn't concerned about completing the dungeon, but grabbing the most crowns. Needless to say I died in the third part of the arena room.

When I was done I had enough crowns to actually buy my first 100 CE. I also had a plan for the magnus. Someone was going to craft it for me using a combination of their ME and my CE, I also covered the crafting cost in crowns. This really isn't widely practiced anymore, mostly due to the updates, but it used to be that recipes were expensive and crafting was cheap, and items weren't bound to you after crafting to a certain grade. Because of this there were some people who would craft in exchange for the materials, crowns, and the CE. Some people did this at a profit while others just asked to cover the costs of crafting only but appreciated tips. I think I liked it when it was like that and I know Three Rings didn't really want us to buy end-game content, but it was an interesting business to be a part of.

I guess you can still do it now but even three-star items require 200 CE and it's a lot to give out if the other person is going to back out of the transaction. The cost of five-star is excessive so I don't think that Bruce is going to have any of that for a looooooooong time. I did get one thing special for Bruce though and that was glasses. Asked my boyfriend if he could buy me some for Christmas from the AH and he did. Since it's only an aesthetic I don't think it'll change the "newb" experience that much with Bruce.

Overall:
Spent all ME on runs
Got 100 CE
Spent 100 CE
Got a Magnus!
Got glasses!
Auction for the auto-gun recipe is still going.

Awww, thanks C:

Log of Bruce Rainbows, Day 3

Today was a little irregular but I did manage to spend all of my ME just like the rest. There was actually a time where some of it got to recharge too! I took Bruce on my first Gloaming Wildwoods run and solo'd until the floor before the boss. At that point there was going to be an update in 30 minutes so I did actually invite a friend to help finish in a timely manner. He wanted to go straight to the boss when I personally didn't want to waste 10 ME on it, but he was being so helpful that I went along. When I was done with the fight I logged out to take a break and join a roleplay. Coming back my ME had recharged to 62, conveniently enough to build my new gun from the recipe, do a floor, and have a revive.

I changed my layout from an all keyboard control to a keyboard and mouse control. I plan on only having guns on this character. I heard it's a rather slow path to take in combat so maybe it'll keep me from flying through my ME for the day. I've mostly taken today to test the first gun with the protosword and then did one floor with two guns. It worked pretty well but it's hard to tell what things will be like judging by floor one. I was also a little clumsy but all good things come with practice and time, and I am patient.

I wish my brother did what I did when playing the game. He got obsessive and addicted to it and resorted to stealing a huge amount of CE just to run elevators and spend on revives. I feel like I can't apologize enough to Three Rings for what he did because I've been loyal to them since Whirled and this game. Some updates I do not agree with, but I love the company overall and they did not deserve what my little brother did. My brother was eager to play the game with me and I was eager to share a hobby with him but he's obviously not mature enough to handle it and he's forever banned from Spiral Knights. While I think this could serve as a lesson to others I don't think what my brother did was very typical. He was just desperate to keep playing. He couldn't tear himself away from the game after all the ME was spent and take a break on something else. I like the ME system personally because it does give me a meter as a sign to take a break.

Finally I wanted to discuss the issue about guild searching. Now it seems until you reach end-game Spiral Knights isn't very guild oriented. You can go without a guild. Because of that I'm taking my own sweet time finding a -social- guild. I noticed the forums mostly advertise 5-star, tier-3 guilds and some of them even have applications to even join. I just want a bunch of people I can occasionally chit chat with when I log in or even visit and go for a run. And that's something I can wait for while browsing for guilds.

My choice of searching for an all-girl's guild may have been peculiar to some. Some were inquisitive about it while others were defensive. Some even decided to resort to misogynistic mocking and once I was referred to as "one of those kinds." I'm baffled that people would get so upset about someone seeking out their own demographic if they are in a minority. It's not as bad on Spiral Knights because our Knights are androgynous, but at large the gaming and geek community is male-centric and you can always expected to have a bunch of boys and men to turn around and talk to. It's also a community that's not very well known for being respectful to women, as evident by the fact that I was patronized, held in contempt, and derided just for having the gall of seeking out my own. If you want to sincerely read about the issue of male privilege you can look here: http://kotaku.com/5868595/nerds-and-male-privilege

But online and in MMOs you can expect to some degree a lower level of respect for women. To some degree you can expect situations like this to occur: http://img862.imageshack.us/img862/5320/umm.png

Someone may tell me to get over it but I won't. Girls and girl gamers should deserve dignity and respect. This isn't the first time someone has hit on me out of the blue. I've had other people ask me out, and even one person told my boyfriend "back off, she's my girl." In another game I was being stalked and pressed for cybering which I felt was sexual harassment and the person wanted to "just be friends" but wouldn't stop pressing me until my boyfriend stepped in. The thing is I deserve some dignity and respect. This sort of treatment is very uncomfortable, especially when strangers are coming onto you for no other reason than that you are a girl. Some of them may seem "nice" while doing it but it's still very creepy and honestly I should be free to play Spiral Knights without having to deal with this.

And this is one of the reasons why I'd like to hang out with other girls, because I can reasonable expect girls not to objectify their own group or treat me this way, or disrespect me for being a girl. There may be a circumstance where it does happen but it's not typical. Unfortunately the people who my rant applies to will probably get upset and offended, but honestly this needs to be said.

Overall:
Ran a whole tier 1 and beat Snarby!
Temporarily joined an all-girl's guild, left because the owner kept begging for crowns.
Won the auto-gun recipe auction
Made the auto-gun!
Now I have a two-gun setup!
Tested one floor with the two-gun setup.

I am in the US, don't forget our country is multinational and there are arabic people there. It's not intrusive to ask, it's alright.

Log of Bruce Rainbows, Day 5

Nothing too much of interest. I was sort of busy drawing for my boyfriend and roleplaying but I did manage to get on and spend my ME on runs. My guns have yet to max out but I feel they will soon.

I confused the recipe I had, it was for a drake scale helm, not the armor. I am still planning to craft it because the runs I did for Day 5 managed to net me some crowns, so I was able to buy 100 CE, and the materials needed. I would have to auction off some shard bundles though to have the 1000 crowns for crafting. Now that it's all in place I need my ME to charge to 100 so I can crown the object.

Right now it's at 79, so if I do my grocery shopping and visit my mother it should be charged up soon. Needless to say there will be no running for Day 6.

Overall:
Gathered crowns
Bought 100 CE!

Not sure if anyone can see this, but yeah:

http://www.whirled.com/#shop-l_5_118253

I tried to make an animated gif but each time I publish the head symbol is missing. It's more perplexing o: