Spiral Knights - Aphrodite Has Spoken - Some of our questions answered.

Aphrodite Has Spoken - Some of our questions answered.

74 replies [Last post]

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 12:24

Portrayt

I recently contacted Spiral Knights Support about some questions I had, and you can see the results below. Hopefully this helps explain a few things.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Greetings,

Thank you for contacting Spiral Knights Customer Service. Your request (#_) has been received, and is being reviewed by our support staff. Response times may vary, but typically you will hear back from us within 48 hours.

If you have any additional comments or questions, or you forgot to include your knight's name, please reply to this email to update this request. Please leave the subject line intact!

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

> Email: _________@gmail.com
> Account: __________
> Knight:
>
>
> Dear Three Rings,
>
> Before I begin this letter, let me first state that I have incredible respect for the work you, as a company, have done in creating Spiral Knights, a "MMORPG" of considerable creativity and excitement. I have been honored to be able to be part of the community, and also acknowledge that it is no easy task to maintain such a large multiplayer game. I salute you for undertaking this task, and the achievements you've obtained are remarkable.
>
> It is with the most humility that I do now come to you with this assembly of text.
>
> I suppose the best way to voice my question is with this excerpt of text taken from a post:
>
> "I find myself just tired of it all, and ultimately I think that the last drop for me was the way Three Rings handled things. Not because they didn't do anything, physically, about it, but because they seem to have this freaking sacred oath to never really tell what's going on or update us on anything.
>
> Remember the official balancing survey(s)? What ever did we get out of that?
> Remember when someone from Three Rings said 'I'm keeping tally' (or something of the sort) during the UI rage thread? No word after that. Not that we ever got to know how many would have been needed to begin with...
> Remember when Nick stated they would look into armours that became obsolete after the Chaos buff? No word after that either.
>
> Not to mention how easily Three Rings could lay the AT discussion dead by saying 'No, we won't be doing anything about that.' Imagine. People seem so caught up in the AT discussion that they turn on each other, and Three Rings don't mind. I'm sure they still like the feedback about AT, but after such a long time they should know that some people don't like it and give a statement about it.
>
> I'm sure they're working their buttocks off behind the curtains, and Spiral Knights isn't the only game they've got to maintain, but honestly how hard would it be to just let us know what's happening."
>
> I suppose, what I'm asking, is "Why is there a lack of communication between the Spiral Knights Team and the general community?" I realize that not everything can be known by players, but it perplexes me that I've rarely seen an explanation for the silence from you. As you can imagine, this is furthered by frustration at being in the dark about things such as the Gunner update being delayed for 5 months after the date it was supposed to be out. Things like this puzzle community members, and, in general, leave ends loose that should not be left loose.
>
> Again, let me reiterate that I hold you, the company, in the highest esteem, and hope very much that I haven't offended you. I'm merely curious as to an answer, and I wanted to address the question privately.
>
> With my sincerest regards,
>
> _____________,
> also known as Portrayt.
-------------------------------

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Spiral Knights Support
Jun 20 to me
Greetings,

Thank you for contacting Spiral Knights support. We have received your email
and it has been escalated to a lead Game Master. A response may take some time
while this issue is reviewed. Thank you in advance for your patience.

If you have any additional information to give us, or if you were able to find
a resolution to your question, please reply to this email so we can update
your ticket accordingly.

Best wishes,

- Clotho

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Spiral Knights Support
Jun 25 to me
Greetings,

It is very rewarding to hear your praise for the game. Thank you for
contacting us with your questions and feedback.

I understand that it is frustrating for players not to have updates on
development status or game design plans. There are a number of reasons the
team operates this way and I hope this email will help you understand our
perspective.

Nick would make 'what's in development' posts from time to time to give
players an idea of what the team was focused on and the direction the game was
going. The gunner update was one of those announcements, and when it wasn't
ready on time, the community was upset. Now that we've delayed it again, the
gunner update has become a focus of anger and frustration for the community.
The development team feels pressure to meet these deadlines and they too feel
discouraged when things don't get done according to the schedule. We can't go
into the details of why things are delayed, and that also makes the community
angry.

We decided it was best not to give the players more updates in order to avoid
this type of situation. Things come up, and sometimes projects have to be set
aside so the team can focus on something more urgent. Or, sometimes they get
into a project and realize it isn't going to work the way they wanted and they
have to change direction or drop that idea. It's part of game design. As many
people have pointed out, Spiral Knights has a small team. Three Rings does
have open job announcements, and is looking to hire some new developers to
work on Spiral Knights. Right now, the team is working the best they can, but
it won't be at the speed the community wants.

The community team is equally frustrated when we can't give a detailed
explanation to the players. Our answers have to be vague and, at times, that
can add fuel to the fire and make the community even more angry. From
experience, we find it better to wait and make announcements when things are
released, rather than still in development.

To address a couple of your other points. From the balancing survey - we did
tally it up and the data is being used by the devs. A lot of that is being
implemented into the gunner update, and other bits are still in progress.
Balancing all the gear in the game is a tricky thing and will take time to
implement. PvP is something that the team wants to take a closer look at, but
it isn't at the top of the list right now. Auto Targeting is one small piece
of PvP. The team wants to take the time to look at the entire system. Making a
small, quick change to AT might be a bad idea and throw things off. The team
doesn't want to make a quick fix and break PvP.

Please let me know if you have any further questions or comment.

Best wishes,

- Aphrodite

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

___________ <__________@gmail.com>
Jun 25 to Spiral

Hello! And thank you for your wonderful response!

I am very glad to hear back from you in answer to my questions, and some of the inquiries I had.

You've answered a lot of questions for me, and I thank you for explaining it in such a kind manner. I am proud to be a supporter of Spiral Knights and people such as yourself.

I'm pretty sure I understand everything you've written, and at this point, I suppose I have only two questions:

May I share this email in a dignified manner on the forums, in an attempt to help explain some of the things players have been wondering/grumbling about, or perhaps you would like to post something instead?

What can we, the community, do to help and make things easier for the Three Rings team? As I'm sure you know, the community can be very motivated and influential at times.

Sincerely,

___________,
also know as Portrayt.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Spiral Knights Support
Jul 1 to me

Greetings,

Thank you for asking permission to post this on the forums. If you feel it
will be helpful for the community, go ahead and post. Most of the information
there has been released to players here and there on the forums, but not in
one large block of text.

Keep in mind: No matter what we say, there will always be players who are
unhappy with the information and will criticize, make wild assumptions, or
just nay-say the post. While there will be level-headed people who will
appreciate the information, be prepared for conspiracy theories and other
negative comments.

One thing you can do to help is believe that we're working on the game, and we
want to provide a quality experience for the players. We have new content in
development that I know the players are going to love. It is difficult to see
people claiming that we don't care and we're just in it for the profit. I love
playing Spiral Knights, and it's something that I do with my family. I don't
get to play a lot, but the times I do dust off my civilian knight, I truly
enjoy the game. I know there are other members of the team who enjoy playing
the game as well.

Best wishes,

- Aphrodite

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I hope this helps explain some things. Discuss below. I can produce screenshots of the actual email if you don't believe me.

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 12:27

Portrayt

tl;dr

You're probably just interested in this:

"It is very rewarding to hear your praise for the game. Thank you for
contacting us with your questions and feedback.

Please let me know if you have any further questions or comment.

Best wishes,

- Aphrodite".

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 12:40

Retequizzle

the last time i was told to believe by a developer, it was this

unless the covenant is coming to cradle with its own anti-son-of-a-*(#@! gun, the only thing i can derive from this is that SK is getting action figures

that would be pretty okay with me

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 12:40

Skepticraven

↓

+1.

High Quality, Short Time, Low Cost.

Pick 2.
OOO picked Quality and Cost.
I fully support them for picking quality and they don't really get a choice on cost.

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 12:58

Asdfasdfasdfs

This is great, although as

This is great, although as Aphrodite states there isn't any ground breaking news, it is still nice to hear them addressing some questions. Maybe this could become a reoccurring feature in the future? Maybe once a month have a Q&A session?

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 13:20

Theirillusion

So the problem isn't if one should change AT. It's how one should change PvP so that high ping players and keyboard only players won't get mad and blame OOO when they die in LD AND fix AT abusers.

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 14:17

Drischa

AtomicBlaster: Maybe once a month have a Q&A session?

Aphrodite: Our answers have to be vague and, at times, that can add fuel to the fire and make the community even more angry. From experience, we find it better to wait and make announcements when things are released, rather than still in development.

.....

Honestly, this response is exactly what I expected.
I was thinking of messaging the team with something like this. However I probably would have ranted more about how acheron v sudaruska is broken.
Props to Portrayt for being a great representative for the SK community.

One sentence has triggered my interest: A lot of that is being implemented into the gunner update, and other bits are still in progress.

I only saw gunner update on the test server. Nothing else. I have a feeling that there is far more to this update's content delays than we thought.

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 14:20

Krakob

Good to see Aphrodite. explain their situation. It makes me sad that the GMs and devs can be so out of touch with the community at times, but things like these are what makes me love the GM crew.

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 15:05

Rage-Pillows

It's good to hear reasoning

It's good to hear reasoning and condolences. I don't know about the other players, but I haven't seen these messages. It takes a lot of frustration away and helps in understanding the situation.

Even if it was to be expected, it's better than not having a message at all. If there wasn't a message, you can get paranoid and claim whatever you want.

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 16:50

Shamanalah

my 2 cents

Thank you for being that cool head we needed Portrayt.

Glad to hear from Aphrodite the struggle of the team and how they feel about it. Also glad I logged in to read this and I will share it on the steam forum ^ ^

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 17:20

#10

Fehzor

And as was expected, a robotic sounding letter talking down to us about how we are unduly upset when given any sort of information because of how we cannot possibly understand the circumstance. Righto.

As for the auto-target issue, I was surprised by how many people were 100% fine with it when I made a thread about it. My conclusion is that autotarget in lockdown is really just a boon for newer and inexperienced players who can get away with spamming a bit. Matchmaking based on skill, custom lobbies, and equal opportunity UVs/trinkets/weapon slots would likely be much larger assets to the experience on the whole.

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 17:37

#11

Krakob

@Fehzor

The primary concern with AT is not inexperienced players scoring cheap kills with combos. Those are easily punished and if you can't do that, you're simply not a very good LD players.

The biggest issue with AT is that it's just plain better than no AT in a big amount of cases. Having aiming skill is not rewarded and reaching the preformance you get with AT is downright impossible. That said, AT is greatly helpful for gamepad players, keyboard players, and laggy players. So removing it would just be silly.

Anyway, the playerbase makes a big deal out of AT and nothing else and I don't understand why. The devs agree.
Auto Targeting is one small piece of PvP.

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 19:14

#12

Fangel

We started neigh-saying almost immediately.

Keep in mind: No matter what we say, there will always be players who are unhappy with the information and will criticize, make wild assumptions, or just nay-say the post. While there will be level-headed people who will appreciate the information, be prepared for conspiracy theories and other negative comments. - Aphrodite, post #0

the only thing i can derive from this is that SK is getting action figures - Retequizzle, post #2
I have a feeling that there is far more to this update's content delays than we thought. - Drachronos, post #6

That didn't last long at all.

And I don't know where the robotic part of the message is that you see Fehzor, but I can pretty much feel the frustration in Aphrodite's message. I would be frustrated in that situation too though. An endless loop of "What's going on?", "This!", "When's it coming out?", "Sometime, we don't know for sure", "This is an outrage! The company is evil!", ". . . . .", "Stop being silent! We want to know what's going on!" would tire me into silence as well. You all at Three Rings either have the patience of a saint or a temper that doesn't seem to boil over. Keep it up. :)

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 19:23

#13

Blazzberry

SCP-96

People barking at gms and devs alike pretty much drive them to silence. It's why we can't have nice things.

Hope you don't mind Fangel but I'm pretty much gonna echo you as it sums up 99% of my response to this thread.

You all at Three Rings either have the patience of a saint or a temper that doesn't seem to boil over. Keep it up. :)

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 19:31

#14

Welux

Holy booty.
We get information and people are still complaining?
*Throws up arms*

I agree with Fangel, this whole message is packed with a GM that probably wants to go on a murder spree from general whining.
You can feel Aphrodite holding back the urge to curse and call people unappreciative swearwords.

But eh, i'm fine with this info, i completely understand why they don't give out status updates, there would be more backlash than praise. And of course we always have those people just screaming at their monitors in pure rage because of a costume that came out. Just go with it, i did, you can too.

It's really kinda sad that this has caused the gms' to stop even updating us. It's always that bad apple that spoils the orchard. Besides it's more than one in this case. Jeez. People get so angry over stupid stuff, i swear. And while i did have my own theories in the past, I've learned that complaining gets nowhere.

Some people should really have noticed that by now.

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 19:29

#15

Linux-Bomber

Nice analysis, Fangel. :D

As long as they keep the game servers up, I'm happy.

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 20:55

#16

Addy

re: conspiracy theories, I

re: conspiracy theories, I beat you all by mentioning what I expected previously and was accused of being a secret GM ;) hahah. gotchu guys covered already.

Also this really was nice to read. I've had a really long work week and came home dead tired and ... I don't understand how this can be seen as some corporate, robotic response, because it honestly kind of warmed my heart a bit. Especially knowing that Aphrodite plays on their off time is really sweet to me. I'm with Fangel overall too, I'm really sorry that players can be so ungrateful and entitled. It's good to see some kind of small update though and confirmation that you are working on something big and exciting, though I knew it all along anyway. :3

Anyhow: Three Rings, honestly, seriously, keep up the good work. You have maintained this as one of my favorite games since the first time I started playing back on day one and I honestly respect the heart put into this game. It's super obvious to me at least, that there's a lot of love going into the game, and it makes me really happy to see a game I love so much also getting so much love from their dev team. Even if you're a bit shorthanded, it still shows. :D

Wed, 07/09/2014 - 21:13

#17

Portrayt

Glad to see the discussion! For the record, I'm going to have to choose to remain neutral on the topic of whether or not players are ungrateful, as it only seems appropriate from the originator of this thread. That being said;
I'm glad to share this with you guys, and perhaps if I continue this email conversation with our beloved GM, would you like me to include any questions/compliments?
If you'd like to discuss this more in-game, you can add me as Portrayt.

Also, at Drachonos and Shamanalah, thank you for your kind words and compliments!

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 01:49

#18

Fehzor

@Addy

Rather than solving the issue, or getting a legitimate response we have the same general set of information handed back to us once more. This is likely what the GMs have been told to tell us, or what the development team have decided we are to be given as information. What I would rather see is actual improvement based on that negative feedback. You know. Progress towards the point where they can talk to us about what's going on in general.

"We can't go into the details of why things are delayed, and that also makes the community angry."

They don't have to go into the details, they can just say that they're reconsidering some aspect of it and that there is a definite chance of another delay. No need for actual deadlines, but instead what's going on in general would be nice, so that I can have some idea of what's going on in the world of Spiral Knights and judge whether or not I would like to invest time into the updates.

We don't kneed to know things like-
"Nick envisioned X, Y and Z and we couldn't put it on the iron slug because the A, B and C features based on J, K and L didn't fit in with E, F and G..."

But something like this would be nice, so that we're not left hanging indefinitely-
"Our vision of the iron slug proved difficult to implement, so we don't know if we'll be releasing any sort of improvement in the near future."

It would be very nice if they could respond to things like this, because they haven't. Maybe a monthly update thread of some sort.

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 00:32

#19

Zaffy-Laffy

It would be nice if they actually let us in on the details. It would be much more respectable that game developers treat their consumers as knowledgeable people and not just some followers who are too busy to bother.

Not frustrated over waiting times, just annoyed at all the confidentiality.

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 01:19

#20

Mtax-Forum

Ahh, thanks Portrayt and Aphrodite for writting this. I hope they'll find new employee quickly. Though I wonder why they just won't put recruiting information on all OOO websites, not only on threerings.net. It would make everything faster.

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 05:41

#21

Seiran

Not frustrated over waiting times, just annoyed at all the confidentiality.

Not that there's an actual convention on this, but the trend I've been seeing in development is to be more open when things are in alpha/beta stages. I believe there was a lot more involvement from staff during SK's beta stages, right?

Would you, as a player, really be interested in something like:

"We've uncovered some legacy bugs while implementing the mechanics for ____ gun and need to spend some more time balancing, so we're delaying the gunner update."
"Due to the test server session, we're looking into some of the bugs that were found and will need to delay the update."
"Not to spoil you guys on an upcoming event mission or anything, but gunner update delayed because we're working on that lol hold on."

IMO it'd better to keep that under the hood instead of keeping it out there. The other side would be like what they said where they lay out a deadline then get undue stress/rushed release when there are higher priority things that could be in the way (ex: if you had a high priority issue with your engine that would take a week to fix, would you instead work on a content update that would take 3 weeks to do instead?).

There is a ton of unpredictability that goes on in game development, unfortunately.

I just hope they're not being driven in circles by some higher-ups. At the studio I worked at, I was told to implement some feature, remove it, then reimplement it with minor changes at least 3 times over the course of half a year before I left. Thaaaat's frustrating.

People barking at gms and devs alike pretty much drive them to silence. It's why we can't have nice things.
:( yeah, to some extent.

Gyre-of-Guile (one of the programmers) was cool. He popped in with some fun snarky remarks over how he had hidden the unattainable achievements and some knights who had their vitapods on too tight started going off about how "unprofessional" and mean blahblah he was. Eventually he left that thread of communication saying something like "Maybe I should have toned down a bit. I should leave communication to those who're better suited for it" (the GMs/CMs).
:\

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 05:48

#22

Klipik-Forum

Two things I don't understand:

-Why do they always have to vague about why things are delayed or can't be worked on or released as planned?

-Why is making a "what's in development" post with an expected deadline for things to happen the only way to distribute information? This whole "where is the gunner update" thing could probably have been avoided if a) the update had been announced without a planned release schedule or even saying that it's not planned for a while, and b) if the new gun models weren't uploaded onto the main client and leaked all over the internet very quickly, causing players to assume that the update was clearly almost done.

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 06:30

#23

Stormguardia

Thanks for posting this

Portrait thanks for posting this it is a true sign of love for the game and the community, mad props to you brotha.

Undoubtedly, this has given me hope and joyful for the future,hmmm I can just imagine myself with new guns and gear with sick uvs.I can almost taste it! Feel it!, and I'm sure this has given hope to other "level headed " knights as well.
Whether you gm will read this or not I just want to say that I know how it feels...Doing something for the sake of others and a passion what you like then Seeing those people you're working hard for don't appreciate it and ask for more and more instead of thanking you for your ridiculously amount of hard dedicated work.I also know that knowing all You've been doing is highly appreciated and hearing this from us motivates you even more.On that note,I want to say this game is very unique and the reason it's so unique is because of you hard working providers.Because of this game I have made fond memories and friendships and will make countless more till this game dies if it ever
Will (i hope not! ;)). If you ever need my help I'll be flattered to give you guys a hand, my in-game name is the same as it is here.I don't bite !x)Much appreciated, your fellow knight storm! :-)

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 06:31

#24

Fehzor

@Seiran

That actually sounds really great. Not for every detail, but for some of the bigger stuff, and as much as they felt like writing about. Like when they made MOUNT DOOM: XMAS EDITION, that could have postponed the gunner update. It would have been neat of them to say something along the lines of "We're putting the gunner update on the back burner for a while to produce a new Christmas thing, so it will be a while, probably sometime in January? Maybe later. What do you guys think?"

Telling us that they were targeting January was the real mistake. That makes it sound like they've got this all planned out and will deliver. If that isn't the way it works, and it isn't (they told us, Nick@RadioSEGA) then they shouldn't make it out to be that way.

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 07:34

#25

Retequizzle

allow me to share one of my favorite quotes with you

-fehzor

guess that means by your own admission, how they make the game and how they release information on the game is their ballpark, not yours

unless we read it literally and you only said "guy typing behind the computer" because you don't identify as a guy, then i guess we can go about it this way instead, because gender equality bs goes here

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 08:39

#26

Momofuku

communication is the key to a successful relationship. this applies to people running the game and people playing the game, too.

I personally didn't mind the Gunner Update delay. we all make mistakes, don't anticipate problems, and delays happen. that's life.

But would it be better to not mention it at all and keep it under wraps? If you take out the gunner update teasers, that's practically half a year of no real updates to the game beyond seasonal themed events and reskins. That would convince many players nothing is being worked on behind the scenes.

Continue showing us "what's to come," no need to throw dates or time estimates at us. Entice us with future content, and that's all players will need to know that things are still in development. Being kept in the dark is no fun.

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 08:54

#27

Addy

ilu Retequizzle

@Fehzor: Aphrodite basically already explained why they can't do stuff like that? If you say too much, people get too riled up expecting something sooner, or had they announced Mount Krampus, people would complain saying they demand their gunner update before this "unimportant" content (you KNOW people would complain), start petitions to halt all other development, etc

and there's a lot of reasons why you'd try to keep update information as quiet as possible, many of them weren't mentioned by Aphrodite, even, but transparency isn't always the best way to go about things. Nick mentioned a few things he wanted to do for this game last year and people are STILL clinging to every word of it, despite a lot of things changing behind the scenes that we may never be aware of, either changing the nature of the update entirely, or unexpected glitches working their way in.

Coding is not some "drag and drop" thing that everybody seems to think it is - when you add a new piece of code, there can be incredibly weird bugs and issues that crop up in the most unbelievable ways. Remember the old Stun glitch? That was brought in with a really minor patch (I forget what it was exactly but it was completely unrelated to the Stun mechanic, anyway, and yet it STILL BROKE THE STUN MECHANIC), and probably the best way I can demonstrate that this community as a whole does not understand how difficult this is for such a small team. And yet this forum is still constantly full of people trying to tell them how to do their job, despite the fact that they should never listen to some guy typing behind the computer telling them how to make their game. ;)

Additionally, I'm not sure if you realize that negative feedback is way more prominent than positive feedback in basically any circle. If things go smoothly, nobody really says anything - but the moment there's an issue, there's an uproar. Weighing negative feedback in that sort of setting is REALLY difficult because for every one complaint, you could literally have a hundred people who were happy.
(I work in a restaurant and these are basic stats of the last week: over 600 meals cooked, four complaints, ten people were "indifferent," no compliments got back to the kitchen at ALL. And yet all of these people keep coming back! If we only listened to the negative feedback, that's less than 1% of the population talking for the whole. It's a rather extreme example, but as it's been pointed out, the SK forums are a tiny, tiny fraction of the SK player base.)

I think this e-mail is wonderful, as I mentioned already. Aphrodite said as much as they could about the development schedule, and while transparency is nice and humans crave information because the unknown is scary, sometimes it's just not really possible to satisfy everybody. And again - Nick mentioned what he wanted to do - big, ambitious things - and here we are still, dredging those words up again and again.
And I still think there's nothing corporate or robotic about Aphrodite's response? I felt a lot of emotion and a lot of restraint, there's a LOT of exciting stuff going on and it can't be discussed, but "we're going to love it." Hearing this is exciting for me, I love seeing creators excited for their own work to come to fruition and reading this e-mail was just as good as getting another update to me, even if for whatever reason, they can't get into great detail. There is a REASON for it, and I have faith that they're doing all they can.

As Atomic and a few other people mentioned, a Q&A would be really cool, though I understand that people would try to ask super detailed things that can't be answered. Atomic mentioned this to me last night:
Dragon's Nest does a weekly Q&A thing where they answer 3-4 e-mails in a public thread, perhaps something like this? That way GMs can choose what they're gonna answer, people don't necessarily SEE the questions so they won't accuse you of dodging the "hard hitting" ones, and people are still somewhat satisfied. (Also, 3-4 questions a week shouldn't take TOO much time out of the development schedule!)

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 09:19

#28

Zaffy-Laffy

Yes, I know, game development is unpredictable blah blah, but regardless, I'd prefer they say something even if it goes along the line of "I can't really solve this bug right now, needs some time" or "What do you think about the new armor?" to at least signify some progress done over the week. A devblog is appreciated.

In the end, all that content's gonna go to us consumers. Unless you want to do some sort of big WOW MUCH SUPRIZE (Yeah, Nick sure SUPRIZE us), I wouldn't like it for me to be kept under the radar, seeing nothing much new or interesting.

And again we're already treating the developers with as much respect by being that patient, but that doesn't give the right to take our patience for granted. Maybe it's me, but I'm sure you guys will break soon too.

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 09:22

#29

Addy

Idk, I'm pretty patient, and

Idk, I'm pretty patient, and seeing them actively working on stuff (preview server, bug fixes, etc) has kept me going for some time, and reading this e-mail has me really happy and excited. I felt warm fuzzies reading how passionate Aphrodite is about this game. It's clearly a labor of love and I'm looking forward to where it goes.

I disagree that our patience is being taken for granted. There are legitimate reasons why you'd keep development schedules hush-hush, and this forum is really notorious for getting indignant when things don't go as expected. (IE, the literal hundreds of rage threads, people even making up reasons to rage since we haven't had a reason to rage in a while, etc.) They are doing ALL THEY CAN with a smaller team than they'd like, with ambitious goals, and snags happened.

They already gave us that announcement saying that the Gunner Update would come "when it's ready," because of a lot of other unexpected problems that arose while they were working on it, and they regretted announcing it as early as they did. It's clearly not ready, they gave us a taste and are balancing issues with it, why do they need to repeat themselves?

If they go into more detail about why things are delayed, you just get nitpickers behind a keyboard telling them how to do their job. Saying nothing actually minimizes the negativity.

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 10:44

#30

Fehzor

I've seen the years go by in triple shads of grey <69

@Addy

I don't want them to be transparent, but I don't want them to be opaque as you're suggesting either. What I want is for them to keep us reasonably informed. This is what I was trying to get across in my last post- no, I don't want massive spoilers about how Herex is going or what the developers had for lunch. What I do very much want to know is what's up with the big update in general. The gunner update was delayed after the last testing session. Was it the new armors' negative feedback? Or Herex? Or a bug with one of the new guns? They don't have to tell us all of the fine print, just the gist of it. Why is that too much to ask?

If it is the case that Three Rings is scared off or hurt by our negativity (and Aphrodite does make it out that way), then perhaps they should take your advise regarding such negative feedback far more than I should. Yes, hate comments will be there but it doesn't mean that everyone reading hates the developers or their content, and it doesn't make developer feedback any less valuable from time to time.

@Retequizzle

Pffffffffft you spent the time? On me? I feel so honored! I really should buy you a drink, but since you want to play the game where we quote each other angrily-

i'm also gonna refer you to a specialist - he takes care of many of my referrals; his name's dr. brick wallis. guy's great at helping people process their feelings after major life changes, an example of which can be seen here. he also does a lot of philanthropic work so even if you can't afford a specialist, chances are he can still see you off the books.

-Retequizzle

Seriously though, get over it. http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/101532?page=1#comment-921523

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 11:03

#31

Agentz

BLARGH

I really just needed to get one thing out of this post; "We have new content in development that I know the players are going to love." This line just completely obliterated any and all of my doubts towards OOO.

And I nominate Portrayt as official Forum Rep. ~Z

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 11:19

#32

Addy

Fehz, the other day when I

Fehz, the other day when I told you that you're being intentionally contrary, I mean stuff like this:

"And also, if I was the OOO developer, I would never listen to some guy typing behind the computer tell me how to make my game, and I certainly wouldn't care how many Pros and Cons you listed. It is my game, you play it, if you like it, you pay some money to support it, end of story."
vs.
"What I want is for them to keep us reasonably informed. [...] What I do very much want to know is what's up with the big update in general. The gunner update was delayed after the last testing session. Was it the new armors' negative feedback? Or Herex? Or a bug with one of the new guns? They don't have to tell us all of the fine print, just the gist of it. Why is that too much to ask?"

you contradict yourself so frequently I seriously wonder what your actual intents are. You made it pretty clear that it shouldn't matter what you want since it's their game, and yet, you're complaining that you're not getting what you want, despite being presented with actual reasons and logic behind not getting what you want. :s

Also, I am with Z, "We have new content in development that I know the players are going to love" made me the happiest I've been in quite some time.

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 11:28

#33

Portrayt

Thanks for being interested, all of you!

Also, at Fehzor and Retequizzle, please be careful with how you address each other and remember to be courteous. If you have something you need to settle, please don't do it here, as it's rather off topic, and I think there are much better ways to resolve differences than calling eachother out. Thank you.
Additionally, let us all try to keep to the topic of this thread, instead of calling into question other's general reputations and opinions. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Thank you, Agentz, and others, for your kind words. I'm glad I can provide this email and am proud to be considered an appropriate representative of some of this community.

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 12:22

#34

Fehzor

But you're late, I wait around and then (bah-dah-dah) <69

I'm with you all the way Portrayt, but I'm tired of having pictures of Asian women crying and bald men telling me how worthless I am shoved down my throat. If that's something that we're going to do then I might as well join in on the fun, regardless of whether I like it.

I also think Addy could learn a lot from our great support ticketing liaison-- we really shouldn't be calling into question each other's general composure or launching personal attacks. I'm sure that if Addy wanted to come by later I could make an exception and let him launch a hefty personal attack on me ;) But for now I think we should really stick to the points actually regarding the thread- such as the ones found in my previous response to Addy.

EDIT: I'm getting that GM over my shoulder vibe, so if any of the GMs are in fact looking at this and see something wrong, hateful, or otherwise that is unacceptable in my post, feel free to edit it out or tell me. I would hate to get banned over something as silly as a forum argument with my good friends Addy and Retequizzle, the only two people that willingly talk to me.

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 13:29

#35

Addy

"him" / who are you talking to?

I don't really see where that was a personal attack, but okay good friend. Generally when I want to argue I stick to the information presented, ad hominem is not really a good way to go about things. When you counter your own points in previous discussions I have a difficult time knowing how to actually discuss anything. :(

Apologies if it came off hateful or personally attacking, I just. do not know what more I can say to drive my own point further.

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 13:18

#36

Retequizzle

you know, you're right

i'll be sure to post asian men crying and bald women yelling at you instead

unless that's not what you meant

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 13:51

#37

Kickthebucket

i knew that nick leaving was

i knew that nick leaving was the end of the "what's in development" posts :(

but reading this i fully understand why they will not continue :(

i for one love SK... if i didn't why would i return so many times :D the game got a LOT of new content trough the years but not much stuff that could keep vetterans busy without them feeling they've done it all/seen it all. now i'm not saying OOO is at fault here (as you can read in the OP they're working on it) so i'm not frustraded or angry towards the game nor the devs. if i feel bored i just put the game on hold and play something else untill i get the itch to play it again :D (and have a coffee brake with vanaduke... i swear the big brute makes a hell of a good cup of black sweetness hehe)

i do hope the arcade will still get some loving ;) (misions are more profitable and easier because you don't have to run the first stratum and earn next to nothing while doing so hehe)

@Portrayt thanks for sharing and i hope this will calm down a lot of "where are my guns" rage :)

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 14:19

#38

Hollafamer

MY two cents

First things first I like the initiative that Portrayt took. It was very mature as well as highlighting the frustrations that we have with the developers in a very clear and concise way, very nicely done.

I am glad Aphopidte took some time to elaborate, but I am not really satisfied with aph's answers. I mean it seems that they are afraid of player's backlash and that simply is not an excuse for not doing your job and communicating with your community. You think players are raging because they hate this game? No its because they love this game so much and only want to see it thrive not fall apart. I just don't get their philosophy what so ever.

I think the decrease in overall content has been due to the declining playerbase and frankly if this game was much more successful and the money was flowing in, I'm pretty positive they would invest into the game much more regularly. The sheer amount of promos has sort of hinted at this, they originally did promos once every few months but now its way too frequent. Pretty much every mmo gets constant raging at developers I mean if you can't take the heat then get out of the kitchen. If majority of the forum community is upset about the lack of communication from the developer then shouldn't you be working on a way to fix that. I mean that's common sense business wise to make your customers happy.

If I had ever created a game I would absolutely be communicating with the players and not just joking around, but serious dialog. I want to make the best game I possibly can and the only way I can do that is by listening to my players who play my dang game. Simply put keeping the status quo is not working its time for 000 to change strategy, if they want this game to continue to survive as well as continue to make them money. I recently graduated as a business major and I am just commenting on this from a perspective as business minded guy and a player.

Edit: I am also glad they are hiring more developers this is a good first step towards increasing the speed of content. Having players play the same thing over and over again is a recipe for disaster so please get those jobs filled soon.

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 15:23

#39

Glittertind

First off, I want to thank you, Portrayt, for bothering to send in parts of my post from your thread, and thanks to Support for the answer.

On with the postings:

"To address a couple of your other points. From the balancing survey - we did
tally it up and the data is being used by the devs. A lot of that is being
implemented into the gunner update, and other bits are still in progress.
Balancing all the gear in the game is a tricky thing and will take time to
implement. PvP is something that the team wants to take a closer look at, but
it isn't at the top of the list right now. Auto Targeting is one small piece
of PvP. The team wants to take the time to look at the entire system. Making a
small, quick change to AT might be a bad idea and throw things off. The team
doesn't want to make a quick fix and break PvP." -Aphrodite

Information like this is exactly what I like. Lovely to know that something came out of that survey, and also good to know that Lockdown and auto targeting seems to probably be up for change and revision sometime in the future. This is good to know, not only because someone seems to want to take a look at it, but also because I now know that someone seems to have heard some of us yammering about it, and someone made some useful data out of that survey where we wrote our concerns and wishes. Great stuff.

---

"We don't kneed to know things like-
"Nick envisioned X, Y and Z and we couldn't put it on the iron slug because the A, B and C features based on J, K and L didn't fit in with E, F and G..."

But something like this would be nice, so that we're not left hanging indefinitely-
"Our vision of the iron slug proved difficult to implement, so we don't know if we'll be releasing any sort of improvement in the near future." -Fehzor

Sorry, I just want to nitpick slightly here, because I think through one of the interview thingies with one of the developers, it was stated exactly why the Magnus line hadn't gotten a change yet. Of course, the two year wait was (is) somewhat ridiculous (and I have definitely felt the salt flow as I had scurried to make a Callahan only to have the first gun I ever made collect dust in my inventory.)

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 16:14

#40

Skepticraven

@Hollafamer

"I mean it seems that they are afraid of player's backlash and that simply is not an excuse for not doing your job and communicating with your community."

I read it as they're choosing not to give more fuel to a fire. There is a difference between not feeding trolls and fearing backlash.

"If I had ever created a game I would absolutely be communicating with the players and not just joking around, but serious dialog. I want to make the best game I possibly can and the only way I can do that is by listening to my players who play my dang game. Simply put keeping the status quo is not working its time for 000 to change strategy, if they want this game to continue to survive as well as continue to make them money. I recently graduated as a business major and I am just commenting on this from a perspective as business minded guy and a player."

I sense some hostility. You seem to be threatening that the game will die if they don't do what you tell them to do. Why are you threatening OOO? [Rhetorical question.] You are unhappy. I get it. They get it. Most forumers/players get it. I'm not saying it's wrong to have that viewpoint. I'm saying it is wrong to be hostile with that viewpoint.

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 20:37

#41

Fehzor

@Glittertind

It was stated, yes. But it was stated a good year later after I asked them during one of the interview posts, because I was legitimately confused what was up with the gun. Those interviews were really nice things, too. I definitely appreciated them doing that quite a bit.

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 21:26

#42

Midnight-Dj

@rete and fehzor

Please, put credit where it is due, the quote And also, if I was the OOO developer, I would never listen to some guy typing behind the computer tell me how to make my game, and I certainly wouldn't care how many Pros and Cons you listed. It is my game, you play it, if you like it, you pay some money to support it, end of story. was made by me in the first place, so please don't confuse that statment with Fehzor's. Oh and yes, that statement is what I think of OOO, it is their game, so they make all the calls, and if they mess things up, they the only ones to blame.

sometimes I wish what spawned in coloseum, stays in the coloseum.

Thu, 07/10/2014 - 22:44

#43

Nu-Mou

I hate video games

"The team doesn't want to make a quick fix and break PvP."

it's a bit late to be worrying about broken pvp, don't you think?

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 04:32

#44

Zaffy-Laffy

As much as SK is OOO's game and they can do whatever they want, I'm not complaining about how fast (slow) they are developing the game, I just feel neglected, as though a huge cash wall is in the middle of me as a player and the developer. I'm pretty sure you all feel neglected too with all the secrecy going on, and this has been a common trend over time. It's almost Half Life 3 bad, except Valve can keep a better secret because they don't have a huge obligation (yet they do) to develop that sequel.

At least say something? Do you want to build a snowman? Yet no response. Well thank you very much for providing so much information to the general public and creating huge insecurities over the game's future.

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 07:16

#45

Whimsicality

Whoa, Aphrodite is saying what all the sensible and patient players already knew.

I just imagine all of the salty responses to be replaced by fart noises.

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 07:35

#46

No-Thanks

subject to decay

its good to know that they try to improve pvp in the long run

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 17:54

#47

Chromosver

I think Three Rings needs more PR than developers, if they even have them at all. Is this what it takes to get them some of our questions? A reassuring letter from one of the level-headed players? Do we have to coax simple answers from them? I'm not one of those level-headed players, but I don't like being treated as a mindless consumer eager to buy the latest tasteful promotion either.

Here's an idea; why not remove the forums if negative comments scare you that much. Recreate the playerbase to just include only those who are 'positive', those people who can't tolerate negativity, our modern day saints. Then it'll be just you and your ochrenosed little sycophants.

Positive translation: Good job responding to that one player Aphrodite! At least you didn't make any statements that would backfire on you since it wasn't you who posted this, otherwise it would tarnish the company's good name. Don't mind the naysayers, they must want to destroy everything we stand for or anything. I BET we're going to love the surprises you have in store for us in the future. The jelly boxes were really good! I like them better than the plain heavy and jelly gear!

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 18:52

#48

Skepticraven

@Whimsicality

+1.

/me leaves this thread in odd suspicion that it isn't going to be smelling good very shortly.

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 19:06

#49

Midnight-Dj

@Skep

Yeah... I am having a bad case of dysentery.... please leave...

Fri, 07/11/2014 - 19:07

#50

Karituo

Keep Going, Developers!

You care a lot about your knights, and it's hard to please us; Though, the knights do go against you, hard work will give you the benefit you developers deserve! I still think this game is great, I could care less about when the gunners' update comes (I still can't solo Vana elite XD) but I do appreciate your hard work to make this masterpeice. I haven't played a game so good like this. (Other than Moonlight Online)

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Aphrodite Has Spoken - Some of our questions answered.