something intersting like a new boss or some weapon/armor balance.
in fact, it's the gunner update.

Mist energy

!!! I said it! Flame me now!

Reason It's free to play.

How do you know users are "lurking"? There is no "users browing this foum" other forum have.

Calling it now....

"I miss the old Iron Slug..."
-Paintool after Gunner Update, year 201X
(It's funny because Megaman + Blue Bomber Gun = unknown release date year)
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I'm going to say the UI. It was thrust upon us with no mention, and like any good UI it should have had an option to switch back and forth between the old UI. Features are constently in the way of the screen (shield and health bar), can't see my team mates health to the pip, can't share pick ups for teamwork (click and drop is gone!!! GONE I TELL YOU!!), and I still don't like looking at my massively expensive self portrait all the time. (Serve's WHAT FUNCTION!?)
I do miss the old item icons, however I do like looking and telling what gear I'm playing with.

MIST! Sure it stopped you from playing all the time, but it reinforced me to come back everyday. I didn't get to play all the game had to offer, but I always came back. I just felt it could have been handled differently somehow.

If they gave me cookies! Mm cookies... (C: (big nosey!) :D

I know a lot of old players that just got bored of running fsc, if they added a new repeatable boss that had a good cr payout, I bet a lot of people would return.

I've been here since 2011.
And frankly, I don't care about the updates.
I just play to play.

Buff Wolvers and Chromalisks, more beasts, SNARBOLAX AS A PET, BEASTS ARE FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!1111!!!!1!11!1!!!!1

But seriously, more reasons to run arcade

My main evidence lies in the fact that I'm quite familiar with a majority of veteran players

That's highly doubtful. You might have a big friend list, a big guild, and big former guilds. You may be familiar with everyone who plays Lockdown during your waking hours. You may be familiar with frequent forum posters. This set of acquaintances still constitutes a small minority of veteran players, probably.

It's easy to underestimate the size of the silent majority --- those people whom you don't even know you don't know. For example, I have a number of ultra-veteran friends, whose names have never come up on these forums.

Don't fall into the trap of thinking that you know the community and what it wants. Cheers.

Content, content that is not event based and will be gone in 1-2 weeks time. Plain and simple.

I take frequent (increasingly longer) breaks because I get bored. More bosses, floors, monsters (beasts are incredibly weak and under-developed, just as an example) would make the game interesting again. Things that are challenging would be nice also... and I do not mean challenging due to unfair level design/too many mobs at a time to possible be able to dodge them all. Elite mode was a nice addition but the mobs having more HP is a moot point, and them dealing more damage only matters if you get hit. It is not really a challenge either when you know the areas/mobs so well from doing them for 3 years that you could do it in your sleep.

Honestly when I heard about Elite mode I expected all the enemies to be reverted back to pre-nerf and very dangerous forms (which would have made the game much more interesting). That unfortunately was not the case. Alpha Wolvers still move like trains that are incredibly easy to kill once they start attacking, Zombies still don't turn, etc etc.

The last constantly accessible normal boss we got was the Twins in mid 2011, Shadow Lairs late 2011 (which are rarely ran due to cost), and the last one was Seerus in OCH (DLC) in early 2012.

While I understand new content takes time to create and code, the lack of consistently playable content is something that makes a lot of the older players get bored.

~Gwen

The point at which we should have a fully balanced and final game.

Honestly, coming back's pretty out of the question for me. I've beat the game.
I had the best weapon that anybody in the game could get. Radiant Sun Shards.

Only way I'd be willing to visit again'd be my shards coming back. And something worth challenging that isn't stuck behind a wall of pay/random number generation.

Both aren't happening I assure you. So yeah.

PvP is the same boring game here. And PvE isn't in a condition for old blood to play.

I lost interest and enjoyment in videogames recently. Sadly.

I have been playing this game for two years, do I count as a veteran, albeit, one year late?

Anyways, for me, it would be if they bring back the old heating systems. You know all the reasons for this. Radiants being rare, takes a lot of them to heat up a weapon, yada yada yada. And I know that for that to be possible, you would need mist to come back. And we know that's not gonna happen.

Also, new stuffs to play around with would help as well. Promos are nice, but we need something to really sink our teeth into. You can't just have icing and no cake. It's good for a bit, but then you want something else.

just as said above

old ui/craft system/enegry system/revive system(teamplay)/elevator buttons/one difficulty and itemdrop for all/etc., everything that did make sk "other game".

Screen shake!! Muhaha.

What? It was in the beta before they tried it again with the UI update. It's the only thing to have been implemented and removed twice.
Also sad veteran angst is sad.

The thing that bugged me on this topic lately is the boss u fight from the book of dark ritual. It's the coolest boss in the game hands down. It is the most recent boss added to the game by a longshot. I can't for the life of me figure out why at this point (3rd kat event) they wouldn't make it any easier to play at all.

If OOO opened that goddamn core that has taken 3 years and still nothing.
Opened core=new depths(new monsters and weapons)+new boss :D
Gunner update would be really good too

I read the whole thread as "What would you bring back" instead of "what would bring you back" and got really confused.

As for me, even though I still play fairly frequently, what would get me back in heavily would be either a fairly steady flow of content-adding updates, like once a month or something, or a major weapon rebalance and explosion of playerbase combined with a ranking system for LD and custom lobbies.

I played a while, then got bored. I then fired it up again after quite a long break when mist was removed. I grew bored quickly though.

I believe the things that would bring me back are, in order from most to least interesting:

1. Enemies that aren't boring to fight. The current enemies are really easy. Their attack patterns are very predictable, which makes for very boring battles in general. I remember the monsters being less restricted, of course that could be nostalgia.

2. Permanent, interesting content. I am not interested in limited time offers. If I can't get to it on my own time, I won't start the game.

3. UI Changes. I agree that the large self portrait is obstructive and unnecessary. I can not think of a single reason to have it in the game.

Any of these would at least make me give the game another look.

Why is new content and balanced content lumped into one category?

Put me in for balanced.

Server/lag fixes.

That or changing the heating system.

Could be its own topic, really. And I'm not sure if what I have to say would be well-liked or easy to categorize. For that matter, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to be in this discussion at all, given I still mostly happily play every day and generally have been satisfied with the current build. But since we're imagining, let's toss out what I'd personally like to see.

People have been asking for more content, and I generally agree ... but I'd like to point out that people generally haven't been particularly specific. There's one particular type of content I would like to see: additional visual interest/variety. What do I mean by that? I mean that the game, while having a pleasant art style, simply stops being interesting to look at after some time.

Two areas need to be changed to fix this, assuming it needs fixing. First off is level design. The current maps could afford to have a bit more randomization and more visual effects and props. The Scenario Rooms introduced some time ago were a great step in this direction, but ideally every room would have something to separate it from the others. It's something I learned back when designing D&D adventures: the same 30' by 30' room is going to get dull fast. We don't need new levels in the sense of, say, Candlestick Keep. What we need is for interesting shapes, breakable props, extra hazards, and interesting background events.

The second probably holds lesser priority, but it's still worth mentioning. When you think about it, how many monsters have you killed? Wouldn't it be nice to have their appearance be random too? The idea of "monster accessories" might seem a little silly, but I tend to like it. There's unfortunately an upper limit to how many different behaviors can be implemented (though we haven't reached it yet), and making Wolvers different levels of fuzziness or giving Thwackers something other than that hammer-wrench-ax thing to hit people with might be fun and interesting while giving the art team something to do.

So yeah. That's my ... what's the phrase? Two crowns?

When did I say anything about balance?

-something from that list http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/89218
-real perfomance improvements, lke multithreading
-map editor
-wall bug fix

Hmm... Although I clearly see multiple issues with this game, I still find enjoyment in it. I get bored of the same old stuff like everyone else, but that is unlikely to change. So instead I change myself and go fighting the same old with stuff I've never used before. This keeps things a bit more fresh for me. Though even this will some day dry up because at this rate, I'm going to have used everything against anything 100 times over.

But when that happens, here is what would keep me in Spiral knights for a very long period of time:

Add a new vender to the Bazaar and Guild Halls called the Arms Dealer who wears a snazzy Trench Coat and Hyper-Ultra-Swagmasteh-Toupee that everyone would want. Even those who usually hate toupees. He would stand in an awesome pose right next to Bosco twerking on a box whilst throwing random Iron Slugs all over the place and every time a person stepped on one, every item in their arsenal would get replaced with the Iron Slug for the rest of the day. Including Crowns and Energy. Every now and a then, the Arms Dealer would also come parachuting in on a random party exploring the Arcade along with a bunch of Recon Rangers and starting rapid fire one hit killing everything with dual M60s. Every time you see his NPC, a (most likely) illegal copy of 'This Ain't a Seen it's an Arms Race' would start playing at max volume.

For something more realistic to happen, weapon balance. The Acheron has completely driven me away from the Obsidian Edge. And that means I can't completely goal number one.

Well, what would keep me playing...

I had a lot of fun playing this game and going through the missions. Something I would like to see implemented are more unique missions, like the cake mixer mechanic from the Anniversary.

I see they have the boxes for Apocrean back on sale for energy, that was one of the things I was going to add. I hope it isn't only on energy necause of the overlapping events.

I don't want total weapon balance, but I want to see something where someone using an Acheron/Gran Faust can be beaten by someone who is using an Iron Slug. Change the weapons so tactics a can be employed.

Even if none of this happens, I would still play this game. I'm still a new-ish player so this game still has my main interest.