Greetings,

We're very pleased to announce that we have two fine new Game Masters joining the Spiral Knights team.

Their names are Helios and Atalanta. Atalanta will be assisting with the French community as well.

They are going through rough training deep underground, and hopefully will emerge on the other side to help you all!

Once again the Birdsong Trading Co. will be hosting a giveaway to all
players this weekend!

Beginning Friday, August 19 at 2pm server time (PDT) and ending Sunday,
August 21 at 9pm server time (PDT) all players logged in to the game
will be eligible for hourly prize giveaways!

Giveaways will occur each hour and only players logged in will be in the
running for each prize. No purchase is necessary.

Prizes include crystal energy, items and upgrades with a special prize
given away each day at 2pm server time (PDT)!

We're doing a minor bugfix release today to fix an issue that caused Blast Network games to fail to start.

A bugfix patch will be released today that includes the following:

The Coliseum
* Players who go AFK in a Coliseum match will be removed from the match.
* Players who do not participate adequately in a Coliseum match will receive a message from King Krogmo stating that they have dishonored his Coliseum and as a result will receive no Krogmo Coins, Rank Points or other prizes.
* Player who leave a Coliseum match early or are kicked due to AFK will receive no Krogmo Coins, Rank Points or other prizes.

A bugfix patch will be released today that mostly includes behind the scenes fixes, but also includes:

Monsters:
- Vanaduke will now spawn minions regardless of how many are still alive. Existing minions are destroyed by his horrible wrath.

Items:
- All Krogmo bribery rewards now bind on acquire.

To celebrate the release of King Krogmo's Coliseum and Blast Network, we will be giving away a new item, the Spiral Bombhead Mask, to any player that completes a single match of Blast Network (any mode) between 10am August 4th and 10am August 8th.

This item will be delivered via in-game mail pre-bound and cannot be traded.

Additionally, we are releasing two new energy packages available to all players:

The Battle Pack
$24.95, includes:
* 9,500 CE
* Unique costume helm, Plasmatech Bombhead Mask
* Unique costume armor, Plasmatech Demo Suit

A bugfix patch will be released today that includes the following:

Blast Network:

* Players should no longer appear invisible to some players.
* UI adjustments to leaderboards and German and Spanish crown costs
* Krogmo bribing fixed.
* Players should always have unique initial spawn points
* Notifications sent to guild when a guild team is formed.
* Fixed problem in FFA that caused score cards to break.
* Adjusted rank point calculation in team games to be similar to FFA.
* Players sorted within a team in the end game report.

King Krogmo’s Coliseum officially opens today, and the first of many events, Blast Network, is available to play.

How to Play:
The Coliseum can be accessed by clicking on the crossed swords icon on the HUD. This opens the Coliseum interface and allows you to choose your event or join a forming guild party.

Krogmo has promised that he will be unveiling new events regularly throughout the season. Blast Network is the first and allows for three types of game modes:

Free For All - Blow up every player in sight, trying not to include yourself.

King Krogmo has decided to release some pics of Blast Network, featuring some of the strange, cross-shaped explosions of the bombs he custom-engineered just for this event:

http://wiki.spiralknights.com/File:BN_01.jpg
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/File:BN_02.jpg
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/File:BN_03.jpg
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/File:BN_04.jpg
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/File:BN_05.jpg

Hope you brave Knights are ready to get blasting soon!

Please be aware of some upcoming changes to Haze Bombs and Vaporizer Bombs:

- Haze Bombs will be graduating to 2* items as well as having 3*, 4* and 5* upgrades.
- The Vaporizer line which used to require the Haze Bomb to craft will no longer require it.

These changes will occur in a future update.