OOO doesn't really give a flying duck to the forums. They just make discussions on what the latest announcement / patch was. It's cheap. They should really do more talking to keep us busy.

The spotlight could even be Nick's Hair. I would love to ask it questions regarding its position as the true mastermind of OOO and why it chooses to use its well quaffed powers for evil instead of good.

I don't have time to talk on the forums, I'm too busy hunting down the perfect fedora, trench coat, and sunglasses for my job as Secretive Agent*. ;)

In all honesty, though, while we do know some things about what's in the works, all of that is subject to change - we don't want to tell you something that later turns out to not be true, so we leave update announcements and what's-in-the-works posts to the devs. That aside, is there something in particular you'd like to chat about? I'll reserve the right to not answer if it's not an appropriate question, but you're welcome to ask.

*I could have gone with the tuxedo look, but that guy always seems to get beat up a lot... I like vanishing into shadows more!

At some point in the nearish future? I can't really give an exact date or narrow it down more than that, I'm afraid. Like I said above, that kind of thing is often subject to change, and the problem is that even if I provide a full paragraph of disclaimers, there'd be someone going "zomg Hyperion PROMISED". One of the important things about being a GM (or any customer service job, really), is to not say things we can't back up with facts. I can tell you I'm as excited as you guys are about stuff like Battle Sprites and really looking forward to trying one out - whichever one goes best with my tendency to charge into the fray and get myself killed a lot.

... I also have to confess that sometimes, when I'm off-duty, I like using my magic GM powers to play dressup in the privacy of the Three Rings guild hall, so I also happen to really enjoy the cosmetic updates.

If there's something we feel can benefit from being tested, then yep, generally we open up the testing server. With regards to GUI changes, that'd fall under "stuff I'm not qualified to speak authoritatively about" - generally speaking most "will this feature be implemented? when? how? why?" questions would fall under that category. The stuff I'm allowed/qualified to discuss in that area is stuff that's already public, which you'll already know!

Well, I can understand what your saying. I am actually ready for this update myself, and I have seen concept art for the new swarm enemies. But If it takes longer than expected, then I can understand that. As long as you guys are still working on Battle Sprites, then I think all should be fine.

What about giving feedback in the land of sausage tins? Are you/Eury/the janitor with two eyepatches allowed to say whether you like it or what you think? Does Nick have everyone chained and shackled to their desk while carrying a whip with his mustache, ready to lash out at anyone who attempts to do so? Because I can imagine that. And it would be weirder than it sounds.

its Nick's mustache that we have to worry about now

Well, the sad part is that a lot of people in the Suggestions forums already shut down discussions, even without OOO's input. There's become this rather silly idea that if your suggestion isn't posted without fully fleshed out details, numbers, and figures then it's not worth discussing, which in my opinion is stupid. Like Hyperion said, discussion leads to new ideas, even on the old ideas that we know wouldn't work. People always have something new to bring to the table and vehemently denying their say in any matter is rude and counterproductive to the whole idea of the Suggestions forums.

And thanks for coming in and talking with us Hyperion!

I agree with Zopyros. I also find some posters tend to completely discourage some ideas by making gross assumptions about what the developers are and aren't capable of doing, with gross assumptions and erroneous generalizations about the technology and effort involved. Some simply discourage the discussion of some suggestions because "the developers have not said it's possible".

I don't think this is a problem created by the majority, but by the most vociferous participants, and the only chance you have is to become as vociferous - with often negligible results, given how little any form of evidence seems to do for these critics.

Ooooh,a GM reply! *cough* tortodrones,normal damage weapons buff,iron slug buff,weapon balancing,new arcade levels,etc. *cough*

@Hyperion:

But seriously, might an iron slug buff and tortodrones, which have been mentioned as being worked on by the devs at some point in time long ago, be heading our way at all? Also, the new enemies look great. Might we be seeing them in any new clockworks levels( as shown in the released screenshots)?

Thanks~

~Magnicth the Salted Sea Slug

When did the vendor Cr:mat exchange change? 5* mats no longer give me 100cr when I vendor.

That makes a lot of sense but it would be nice to have someone drop in when something is so ridiculously inane that people are putting their toes in their nostrils to stop the absurdities. There are a lot of times where a thread is rotten enough for its participants to fall off and lay on the floor when suddenly some moron like me drops in and explodes stuff all over the walls but for all the repeat topic threads with less content than a fingernail clipping it would be helpful to bag those up so the page space can instead be populated with threads where discussions are actually happening.

Say generic new player number derpbillion oozes in and this is their thread:
"pets pets pokemon pets pets pets fight stuff for you pets pets in your underpants"
But an active thread on pets where people are actively discussing it gets flushed away because people are posting in the new thread how much they hate it. In the forum rules it says to search the topic you plan to make a thread for before publishing it yet countless players not only ignore this rule, but the entire thread on rules because they think they are above the rules and nothing will happen to them. Do these people get warnings next time they log in, temporary forum/game bans, or do they get off scot-free? I hate seeing people get their knickers twisted until the fibers snap because other people refuse to be responsible for themselves. Whenever I see it happen to a degree I consider pushing too far I report it here but there have been many times where the offender not only goes unpunished but continues their misbehavior for days, weeks, or even months. If people make new threads with something to say, fine, but if they have nothing to contribute they may as well be part of the discussion already going on than start a new one. If they do have something to say they could put it in those discussions already going on since the people already there are clearly interested.

Quick breather. Want some water? Alright, back on the track. Last lap before hitting the showers.

Here are some discussions going on in suggestions while I am typing this sentence:

• Add a Negative Shock resist to Skolver/Wolver Armor and Helm Pieces!
• Spiralknights should make an Android and Apple app!!
• Guild Hall Upgrades - V2.0

The first concerns balance which many, many, manatee threads are based around. If you give someone two different toys but one is broken in half, which will they prefer? A normal person, not me. I would probably use the broken toy in some weird experiments to turn it into a zombie that eats ants. So if you give a normal not-me person those toys and they complain about the broken one, why not fix it or explain why it is broken? Sorry son, your little toy car is broken because I accidentally dropped it on the way home, so I am going to take it back to the store and get you a new one tomorrow. Sorry son, the plastic toy gun is broken because the manufacturers are stupid so I am going to take it back to the store tomorrow and hit the manager upside the head with it.

The second is more of a technical question and should be sent to support as ruled by:
"Direct support-related issues and questions to the support staff via the Support Email form."
But since the people participating in the thread have likely not paid attention to the rules have completely ignored and proceeded throwing insults and tantrums at each other like trench warfare instead of focusing on their problem. I would do it myself but since the question is theirs I see it as their responsibility to do so. Besides, by the time they read this sentence someone would have sent it in anyway.

The third is a large and respectable thread, one of many, which was used for the game. This sequel thread was created after the update went live to lay on the table what people would like added in the future or never made it to release in spite of it being in the original. The guild halls may bigger and better than before but they can still have more content. For the things which were carried from the previous thread, why were they not included for the release? Did it offend a religion? Does its breath smell bad? Did it do that weird thing at a party last month and it would be awkward to invite them again?

There was a thread a while ago about favorite admins/developers/janitors-with-three-eyepatches. When it was here I was going to say Poseidon for helping me with a weird glitch that happened a while ago and for writing the forum rules, then Curio for jumping on the beds in the Echo of Silence guild hall with me, but between those two and Hyperion for managing questions from the community I have become more indecisive. You know what? All three are my favorites. Choosing one would be a crime in my position. Punishable by tickling.

Do the devs even take a glance at forums? Like there was this new tier 1 boss suggestion about a Rockwood, have they even thought about it?

"And honestly, if I know forum-going gamers, you've probably analyzed every syllable of those posts already."

Game Masters realise the truth = Half Life 3 confirmed.

The suggestions forums are very, very silly. At the same time, it paranoids me. The fact that people say that I'm wrong, and that java runs on every bit of every technology. Is it possible to play Spiral knights on every device, excluding Macs and big macs?

You need to separate Java the language from Java the specification. Java the language can be built for anything that supports dynamic linking, and it can also be compiled into Dalvik bytecode. Java the specification requires a full JVM (or cross-compiler such as GCJ) and class library.

But even so, SK requires OpenGL, which is not available on every device; having it run on every device (that matters) requires porting it to OpenGL ES, and if anyone cared about Windows RT then that would require porting it to Direct3D.

They be cute.

It's likely that the majority of OOO is currently hard at work at their Doctor Who MMO
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/12/20/doctor-who-worlds-in-time-sem...

Whoot, non-game-design questions! Sorry if I came across as a bit cranky in my last answer; I have since installed a fresh version of Java on my wetware (read: drunk a caffeinated beverage ;) )

Where do you guys do the GM jobs from? From the OOO office in the states? From your own house?

Generally speaking, from home. We're all over the place, and it wouldn't really make sense for us to commute by jet to San Francisco every time we had a shift or to build offices in every town. Personally, I've worked from my home, a family member's home, in airports, and on one memorable occasion from inside a car during a storm, parked as close as I could get to a closed coffee shop that had wifi.

Are French speaking GMs in France or somewhere else? Are Spanish speaking GMs in Spain or somewhere else? Are German speaking GMs in Germany or somewhere else?

Yes.

Is one of the GMs awake when it is midnight in the states where the OOO office is?

Yep! Not only do we have GMs scattered around the globe, we also have some folks who prefer to be awake during their local night. This means that there's someone looking after the support request queue virtually all the time.

What is your opinion on Wrench Wands?
SHINY. (Seriously, I really like yellow. Must be my sunny personality!)

Hey Hyperion, are you reading the news/watching teasers of Kojima's Phantom Pain?
I'm actually not. Is this where I have to hand in my gamer membership card? Shooter games aren't really my thing, with the exception of Portal (and that's only a shooter on a technicality, really). I've recently been catching up on older games that I really should have played but have missed for some reason - Psychonauts is a good one.

Some quick googling reveals that what they're doing with the slow reveal looks pretty neat, though I don't have the background in the potentially-related games to offer an opinion one way or another - I bet folks are having a great time trying to decipher hints and clues! That's great, I love when game companies do puzzles and mysteries. We've done some of those with Puzzle Pirates (I remember when Atlantis came out, there were lots of tiny clues hidden around the oceans. Players solved the puzzle in a matter of hours, the clever so-and-sos.) and they were a lot of fun and taught us to hope that the Puzzle Pirate Hive Mind is never harnessed and used for evil*.

*Disclaimer: I was not involved in that in more than a spectatorial capacity! Is spectatorial a word? I hope so.

It's likely that the majority of OOO is currently hard at work at their Doctor Who MMO

That's not really a question, but it's probably a good time to point out that each game has a dedicated team, developer-and-artist-wise. We've all got the same CEO, COO, office manager (who is absolutely awesome - I know a few folks have toured the office, and if so, they've probably met her) and I'm pretty sure the infrastructure team that we wake up at four in the morning - on a happily very infrequent basis - with frantic cries of "HELP HELP THINGS ARE BORKED" overlaps too. We send them lots of virtual cookies and hugs. Infrastructure engineers are the unsung heroes - they get all the unglamourous routine work, and then if something isn't routine, it's usually accompanied by all of us breathing down their necks going "Fix it! Halp! Panic panic! Players rioting! Make it stooooooop."

Devs and artists, though? Game-specific. On a sidenote, the Doctor Who game, Worlds in Time, is worth a look if you're a fan of the Doctor at all. (New episodes soon! I'm excited!)

How lingual are all GMs?
We do all have tongues. At least, everyone I've met does, and if anyone has a congenital thing or tongue-related injury, they haven't mentioned it in the work chatroom.

I suspect you're probably speaking about languages, though. Everyone speaks English, the listed folks speak French, German, or Spanish, and there's a smattering of other languages. As a side-effect of having the job we have, we can identify swear words in about twenty different languages at a glance. So don't be a jerk in any language, because we'll either understand or use the vast resources available to us to work out what you said. Wheaton's Law is a piece of global good advice.

Also, guess what game I'm from.

You're putting on a certain persona.

Are you crops? Mutated ones?
Can't speak for anyone else, but I appear to be a mammal of some kind.

Can... Can I eat you?

I'm told that'd put you at risk of any number of unpleasant prion diseases, so I'd recommend against it, as my professional customer service ethics demand that I not suggest you do things that would cause your brain to melt.

Now, who wants to talk about MURDERS?
The corvidae are the most intelligent birds there are, exhibiting tool-using skills, excellent mimicry and language comprehension similar to a parrot's, and recognition of individuals of different species (including humans). Murder is the collective noun for crows, but you get a parliament of rooks.

"Of Hyperion we are told that he was the first to understand, by diligent attention and observation, the movement of both the sun and the moon and the other stars, and the seasons as well, in that they are caused by these bodies, and to make these facts known to others; and that for this reason he was called the father of these bodies, since he had begotten, so to speak, the speculation about them and their nature." - Diodorus Siculus

GMs have a Greek mythology or natural phenomena theme to our names. I thought the above was particularly apt for a game whose protagonists were trying to work out how the world they found themselves on worked. Hyperion the Titan was clearly a scientist, and science is a thing that I get really excited about. That and it was the first name I thought of which sounded equally cool in French and in English.

I do occasionally spell it Hyperoni, though, which in my mind is like really amped-up macaroni.

When will you fix the latency? :[

msaad: some of the latency is architectural, and can be out of their control (Java in of itself has GC pauses / How much money is OOO willing to spend on servers (can't spend more than they're taking in I presume?)).

I know the topics about Australian servers is frequent but, how much approximately would it actually cost to run a server in Australia? Not that this is a demand or anything, I am just curious. Have a nice Day :D. Your resident Australian knight; Hpland