Why are you happy with the game's development as it is?

While I'm not absolutely content, I can see that they're making it more friendly for newer players, and this is usually good things for the game, both from their side and from the players' side (really, if newer players aren't getting hooked by the shinies, then it's really dying).

What do you think about the greedy seeming nature that many newer players pick up on? (generally from the energy system)

Not sure what this is asking. are you asking about new players looking greedy? idk what you're talking about.

You'll eventually get to a point where there is no more content for you to go through. Are you happy doing the same few runs over and over forever? Or will you just play through the game's content, and then leave? After all, once you've got weapons to do all of the levels with all the rest is just extra credit. Even UV'd items and weapons don't actually benefit you that much once you're set up. They provide a bit of amusement, but they don't really help you that much.

I'm mostly endgame, and have been, since last August. I ended up recently getting into gunning, so it's sort of a different experience. Though, I have fun playing lockdown and blast network, because I like playing with other people.
I really wish there was an alternative to Vanaduke though. Something that focuses on not-elemental and not-piercing weapons.
I wish there was more focus on the Arcade again. I miss running random parties through places of the clockworks that you don't find in FSC (loool). I miss things like Project uJelly where people banded together to affect the gates.

If you like the game, and I presume that you do as you care enough to post these things, then why are you happy when the community leaves?
While I'm actually indifferent to these strangers leaving (I'm assuming you're talking about the I'M RICH AND I QUIT THEREFORE OOO SUCKS AND DOESN'T CARE FOR ANYBODY kids), for me, my 'community' in-game has always been my IRL friends that play the game with me and people who talk/play with me often. If my IRL friends stop playing, or start playing a different game, I'll probably join them.

But talking about the general game community, it's very rare that 1337besthighestgearedUVblah are actually representative of the community as a whole. Not even the old, seasoned players who have been around since beta, since I'm pretty sure many beta players have already silently gone. Heck, I made a Heavy Swords guide that people have apparently been using and a few weeks later silently ragequit to a life circumstance. I am not the community. It's likely that you, reader, are not the community.

The community is the people in-game. Go to haven, play public games. They're the community.

While the forums were making a huge stink about this set of patches, I went to haven, had /zone on, and I heard NO complaints about the patches. The patches didn't really affect them like it did the 1%. People were happy with their pets, the UV locking was irrelevant, etc.

I WAS gone from August to January, but I will say, the last time I saw that community get heated up about something, it was when energy was 7.3k-7.5k shortly before the Steam release. You mess with energy prices to the point that normal t2+ players can't do runs and keep playing, and the real community will start raging lol.

I too greatly prefer the in-game community compared to the forum community. There's virtually no rage there compared to most of the other MMOs I've joined.

One might make the case that they're just clueless, don't care about the game and are just there to fool around but I get a whole ton more fun out of them than I do from the rational and logical people here, which in the end is exactly what I want from a game.

I don't play to have a depressing reality smashed in my face and face it, most of SK isn't real anyway unless one pays for Energy.

I knew I had seen that word before

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Also, Fehzor, I don't know about you, but reading some of the quitting threads made me really mad, not at OOO, but the players. Then I logged in and remembered that silly fact that, unlike their perceptions, they aren't the world. The support threads also give me that feel, but more of a ... pony feel to it, idk. Sometimes when you see someone getting hurt (as if those threads really hurt), sociology and/or psychology (forgot which, but I remember this at some point) says that girls are more likely to be "let's group together to make you feel better when you're sad!".

I haven't looked at those threads, but I wouldn't be surprised if those support threads aggregated that, lol.

Well.

Now I know how it feels to have a thread title repeatedly misappropriated.

I think the majority of these are people on the initial stages of the gameplay life cycle. People who are in the early game, or progressing nicely into mid game, or on the verge of transition from mid-game to endgame play.

These people, in a very myopic way, cannot comprehend that this lack of content affects them in the same way it affects us worn out, ground down endgame players. In a very short-sighted stint, they cannot imagine that they will face the same issues in a few months, or even weeks, once they have consumed the last of the new content. And they certainly don't understand it from a position of "i've been sitting here looking at FSC for over a year now" perspective. Instead, they rather self-importantly declare "don't let the door hit you on the way out."

Then there is a more subtle, deeper level that resides below that. These same people, on the precipice of gaining a new level of completion to the game, be it moving from newbie to intermediate or intermediate to advanced player, have something of an innate desire to be the "it guys (gals)." I was the same as i transitioned from being random knight, to somewhat of a "known name" (worth nothing on an online silly game, lol). But the residing "famous knights" are somewhat of a barrier to the incoming wave of knights.

Its sort of like the rookies coming into the NBA, are just happy to stick for a year or two, and then they start eyeballing the superstars in the league, and decide its "their time," and eagerly anticipate knocking off those on top of the hill.

So i think some of these players are more than happy to say "goodbye. i won't miss you. no one cares," because thats one less hurdle between them and the top of the hill. Certainly this doesn't apply to everyone who says this nonsense, but surely it does apply to a few of them.

And they are wrong. Those people will be missed. Again, guilty of this myself. When i was coming up, and some1 like shoeboxes was quitting, i couldn't have cared less. he was just some rich guy who had the stuff i wanted, and i wasn't sure at all how to get those things. But other well-rooted players were certainly sad to see him go. Just as now, that i have the things i want in the game, there is no ulterior motives, and when a stalwart of the game leaves, even ones i didn't know, or ones i rarely talked to, it saddens me. The game is poorer for having lost these players, wether the indignant majority is aware of it yet or not.

That update irritated me - I feel as if a great many people lost crowns they shouldn't have. Just like when the missions update came out, and I got several recipes I had already paid for. Again, I feel like I lost. And just like this update, in which players like Pawn have lost OODLES of crowns on UV rolling that now anyone can do. I feel like he was wronged. And I feel bad for him. But not so bad that I think the update should be nixed. I certainly don't agree with EVERYTHING OOO DOES. But I have little tolerance for folks who consider themselves so important as to warrant a funeral service upon their departure.

Seiran's post sums up nicely the majority of my feelings in regards to the OP. My post was foremost a rebuttal to Rommil's assertion that the dismissal by the larger community of the complaints of players like Pawn stems from myopia and jealousy.

I think many of these updates hurt more people than they help.

Not everyone has the macro-sense to see how these patches affect the community at large. Take the supply depot. Was a time, any mid-level knight could make a living, and a consistent profit leveling 5* gear, unbinding and selling to other people. The supply depot was instituted to cut out that self-sufficient means of player sustainability without buying CE. You can't convince me they didn't put in the supply depot for any reason other than to undercut players from making in game profits.

They made the price such that no poor player could ever unbind a no UV 5* gear and compete vs the supply depot. (4k to unbind. plus costs of crafting. vs 3500 ce from supply depot). Now, it didn't completely kill the market, just 90%. To the point its not a viable business model for newer knights. OOO claims other reasons, but you cannot convince me that the patch wasn't placed to cut out in game economy amongst players.

Same with recipes in hall of heroes. THey say it was to make it easier to find recipes, but i believe it was to keep lower funded knights from making profitable recipe runs. Just cutting out money making schemes in game.

Those who complain, complain mostly, because we feel these patches are hurting more than they are helping. and then on rarer occasions, such as this uv locking, we feel personally slighted and tricked. I will admit, that gets a little more personal. I do feel a bit swindled. They very loudly told us, "nope. losing your UV is the risk you take when you choose to roll." And while they never said, AND FOREVER IT IS SO. It was more or less implied. then they change it.

"The game is poorer for having lost these players, wether the indignant majority is aware of it yet or not."

"Indignant majority" doesn't seem to me like you were referring to a small subset of players. Your opening line, "as to 'don't let the door hit you'" does direct your thoughts at only a few players, and as I said (clockwaffles!) I agree with that - there are going to be jealous jerks. However, with the last statement of "indignant majority" you are implying A. a majority of players, i.e. most of them, and B. not only a majority but an INDIGNANT majority, i.e. a majority that is "feeling or showing anger because of something unjust or unworthy" (to quote Merriam-Webster on the definition, because I can't put it better). This contradicted your earlier implication that it was only a few, so I derived that you meant the latter.

As to your next one:

The energy depot is a sham, you're right on that. That hurts the community. I don't like it, or the reasoning behind it.

Hall of Heroes is convenient, but it did kill a market. I would sacrifice the convenience for that market.

As stated before, I don't like all the patches. But the rage from this specific patch, and the words of a few specific players regarding this specific patch, is what I'm talking about.

Right, I was just clarifying why I took what I did from what you posted. And I would argue that semantics is everything in written language - but it's a digression from the original topic.

Agreed with the above. The community NEEDS to complain if they believe something is amiss. Even if I don't agree with their complaints, complaining is good.

And while I wouldn't say an exit interview is necessary - especially not the rather venomous ones that they usually turn out to be - I do agree that a little more... tact is in order from everyone involved.

I'm not terribly active here on the forums, so here's a little bit of an introduction: I'm a very late-game player who's been active since a few days after the game came out. I can run most anywhere but a Shadow Lair solo with no problems. I've made a small but significant contribution to the game (a few energy packages and elevator passes early on), but nothing recently as I can make money easily enough to buy what I want with crowns.

I've also made games in some form of another for my whole life, and now do so professionally as the founder of my own company. This makes me very picky about which games I choose to play for long periods of time, and Spiral Knights has exceeded, and continues to exceed, my expectations.

-Why are you happy with the game's development as it is?

Because the overall experience is still fun. Those things that hooked me in the first week I played are still there: the charming visuals and music, the fascinating economy, and the wide variety of weapons and play styles are all just as solid a core as they used to be. I'm also conscious from my own knowledge of what it takes to produce a game of how much time and energy it takes to produce new content, especially new content with the high standards upon release that OOO seems to have.
In regards to the concern that cosmetic additions seem to be taking priority over gameplay additions in development, I can say from personal experience that art is easy and mechanics are hard. I wouldn't be surprised if the monster pockets, wings, cake stuff, and all the other accessories were fabricated in less total time and with less total effort than it took to create even a simple dungeon sequence like the Gloaming Wildwoods. New art is simple and easy to produce, and can be produced concurrently with new mechanics by people with different skill sets; it's very unlikely that one is worked on "instead" of the other.

-What do you think about the greedy seeming nature that many newer players pick up on? (generally from the energy system)

I believe that most people in general are selfish and short-sighted. Spiral Knights' energy system strikes me as very fair to free players because very little (I wish I could say "no" here) content is restricted to paying players. Binding level exploration and crafting together with a common currency unit is a clever way to keep the price low (since the price will always stabilize at the approximate payout of an average run). Without stepping back from one's own immediate needs and looking at the way the system actually works, however, it's hard for new players to get past the "it wants my money just to PLAY?" stage.
In response to the unasked question about the "greediness" perceived by OLDER players, I'll direct you to my opinions about cosmetic additions above, and add that I think it's very poor design when playing the game or supporting the developers isn't the most effective way of gaining resources. In removing the recipe and unbinding markets and severely limiting the UV market, OOO is trying to ensure that the game's core play experience and not its tertiary economic experience is the one that's most rewarding, which is a smart move in my book. As far as the height and eyes change goes, it's a cosmetic change that you can choose to use if you want to with no effect on your power, unlike the Proto Bombs mentioned in the OP which could arguably have provided a real advantage to people who had them; it's unfortunate that an easy change wasn't available, but it hardly seems important enough to complain about. You don't see people crying about not getting wings because they bought their CE package the day before a promo started, do you?

-You'll eventually get to a point where there is no more content for you to go through. Are you happy doing the same few runs over and over forever?

The answer is and always has been no. This is why I mostly run clockworks rather than grinding bosses; it's something a little different each time. I get even more novelty by helping newbies and joining random parties, since responding to unfamiliar tactics from my allies is going to expose me to many more new situations than running through any level. A run is just as much the people you do it with as the dungeon you do it in, and thankfully, there's no shortage of new people to fuel this.

-If you like the game, and I presume that you do as you care enough to post these things, then why are you happy when the community leaves?

If someone's having a bad time with something, then it's best for everyone if they leave. All communities are improved when everyone's happy, and if there's no way to make them happy with what the community's capable of offering, then leaving is the logical choice. That's all especially true in games, where fun is the primary objective. If you are not having fun playing a game, then please go play something else, for everyone's sake. There's to malice in that unless people choose to put it there.