There are a lot of things wrong with the game right now.

But it's a Preview because they are testing things out before they open the game to the public.
If we help them find things and fix them instead of bitching and whining about it (or maybe because we do), eventually the game will be at a state that we all consider fun and enjoyable for everyone.

That being said, I haven't played the game in nearly two weeks and nothing has really changed.
It's not really disappointing to me, I'm glad it hasn't changed because it means I'm not missing anything cool and exciting.

"SGA (Spiral Gods Alliance), the most famous guild in SK made up of the BIGGEST fans of the game, are complaining and leaving"

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait a second here, I thought SGA was crumbling because of lack of leadership. SGA needs a real leader, someone who will be there. Someone you can count on. What I mean is... Kymroi for president.

Anyway.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying, and I don't mean to discredit your thread at all, but a lot of what you've mentioned has already been heavily discussed on the forums. Especially in the last couple days.

Here's a quote from one of the devs, Cory, on energy:

"This is a dangerous topic for developers to tread upon, but I do want to let you guys know: This is the first phase of the Preview Event. Right now, we're mostly just trying to get players into the game, see some early behavior patterns, and most importantly, make sure things on the technical side aren't horribly broken. In subsequent phases, we're going to be focusing much more closely on the energy system, payment models, and getting all of that stuff where it ought to be. So! Do know that we're listening to your ideas and concerns. If you don't see movement right now on things, it's not because we're not interested; we're just not to that phase yet."

And I do think it's a shame that there's essentially no reason to go to Haven or Moorcroft once you've reached Emberlight. But again, as Cory said in a thread earlier today or yesterday, is that the game should be getting harder soon so the levels below Emberlight won't be nearly as easy to solo. I'm not sure how that will end up working out, we shall see. In any case, we definitely need a reason to go back to Haven and Moorcroft. There has to be something there for us to need to use (Haven Auction House, please!), so once our travel passes expire we don't hang out in Emberlight all the time and have pigtail parties.

You saw what I did.

I SEE WHAT YOU SEE AND I SAW YOU SEE WHAT I DID.

By the way, If you asked me one particular reason why the current energy system will fail, it is this: If you buy energy, and then use it to do a level and then DIE inside, it feels like you just lost real money. No one likes that feeling. No one will want to pay for that feeling in the long run.

@Rose: Okay thanks, that's a tad of motivation. :D No wonder I couldn't find them on the Wiki; maybe next time I'll try literally typing the topic of interest into the address bar, hah.

instead of complaining about new people quitting, why don't we help the newbies?

i'm constantly going back to haven just because i get bored of sitting in emberlight not moving because i want to go for a core run. i always round up new players if i find them and i will play with them. yes i know their incredibly greedy to begin with ( i don't care its mostly because they havnt realised that most of the time the settings are round robin) but if they are successful in making it to another town, ill reward them with one of my many prissy alchemers (yes, i have taken up creating new ones constantly everytime i leave the house as i generally have the materials and crowns, i also realised alching will generate you mist faster if thats all you do). it's fun, i enjoy it.

and more on the energy topic, i seem to get along fine with my 100 a day mist (more a day if i alch), and i find it amusing that i almost get to the core and realise i have no energy left. sure in the beginning i agreed with everyone else, but after i wasted 7500 energy in the space of a month, i learned conserving energy was actually pretty easy. one thing i do agree with atm is the amount of energy newbies need, with the constant dying, experimenting with recipes and 'need' for stuff like heavy and drake. so itd be nice to see newbies start of with like 500 CE.... but then again this would just be abused by people making accounts and resetting them for more energy..... or you could make it untradeable or soming.

just my views, contradict me/ tell me of/ eat me (o_0) if you please.

Once you feel comfortable in Emberlight, there is ZERO reason to leave Emberlight. It is simply a waste of energy. The crown payout is MUCH larger in emberlight. They need to either do something like make a cumulative bonus for playing from Haven to Emberlight, or level out the crown rewards or something (or both). In a Moorcraft Manor run I seem to net about 2-3k crowns. In an Emberlight run I net about 10-11k crowns. One thing I find annoying about some games is that when you're higher "level" or whatever system the game uses you tend to get better rewards. And equipment prices are balanced with that in mind, making it so that it's almost impossible to save up for those cool items in the lower zones. I think the crown payouts should be relatively even and just use only prices to make better gear harder to get.

If there's ZERO reason to leave emberlight, hoe come most of the time i see people essentially wasting energy when they have a full bar of mist because they cant make it to the core? I don't see how going back to haven is wasteful at all, esspecially when there are better shops in haven. I also find it more relaxing than standing in the arcade all day. Anyway I'm sure there'll be stuff to do in haven and moorcroft pretty soon. Like in haven theres still the east side in construction, in moor, there seems to be endless paths going nowhere..... seems suspicious for new content areas.

and back to Black's very first comment. Here are some quotes from the SGA forum, about the greats who are basically leaving due to this energy stuff on the topic of "I'm out".

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zaf: "yea i'm out too.. this forum is set as one of my daily sites and if for what ever reason Delux desides to take it down i'll probs start jumping on the old forum again..

the whole SK energy thing made it really had for us to play together as much as we used to.. and now we're all at the point were we just can't be stuffed.. gimme a buzz on facebook though if you see me"

Mav: "Well, Idk what to say to this one. Personally, I've been thinking along those lines, but I never got myself past the idea of at least dropping down to regular member. Honestly, I stopped seeing myself as a head of this guild back when the second preview closed. You guys make of it what you want; I'm not pulling the reins on this one; I've spent too much time trying to rally people together"

Delux: "What happened to this guild? Nobody wants to play this new ****. Our guild leader isnt on. Nobody I want to play sk with is on. Sk is ****? That too.
I hate to be the worst, but I think we've outgrown our places here. We've been cooped up to much with nothing to do.

I'm leaving the site up for anybody to do whatever they like with it, but I'm not interested in SK any more, and thus I'll be the selfish hypocrite and bail."

Astralknight: "I hate seeing people go T-T it really isn't the same without everyone being so active. Idk what happened with SK. Too many things changed that limited the game time we had together... and school is obviously part of something in everyone's lives, and which has always been a problem for me. SK is what brought us all together, and because of our close ties to the game, it's what will bring us down. The "let's unify as a guild once more" thing probably won't work this time. I'm not sure where this guild will end up, but I don't want us to separated there's gotta be something we can all agree on and that we can all commit to with our daily lives not interfering with it... So Jesus, please don't go just yet"

Raii: "Argh I might have to agree, I cant even remeber the last time I came here becuase I wanted to, not as a chore to keep up with everyone who has grown far apart. But I guess I could keep coming at least once a week?"

Me (fallout): "gah, yeh im feeling pretty much the same, although i cant stop but wonder whatll happen next.... will we reappear final launch? or is that it?"

QuickChat convo (bottom --> up):
Fallout: im talking bout sk, but i also mean in game with other guild.
November 14, 2010, 03:40:04 PM
Riodaisho: I'm talking about SK or are there threads I can't see?
November 14, 2010, 10:08:26 AM
Delux: hahaha
November 14, 2010, 10:00:12 AM
Riodaisho: Well, nobody really seems to care anymore for SK, leaders are always away or absent in SK
November 14, 2010, 08:33:17 AM
Fallout: seriously what happened to this guild?
November 14, 2010, 05:50:02 AM
Riodaisho: me too
November 14, 2010, 04:56:12 AM
Fallout: i feel so alone these days
November 14, 2010, 12:54:05 AM
Fallout: where is everyone
November 14, 2010, 12:53:54 AM

and yet no reply from ty....

Its not entirely the energy.

Im Jesus, or Delux now because my name was censored. I've been keeping up with SK since November of last year if I recall correctly. Which I know isnt a long time compared to some of you guys that have been here since the first release. Whatever.
SGA isnt falling apart from lack of leadership. Its falling apart from lack of interest. I'm intrigued by Shoebox, who said "eventually the game will be at a state that we all consider fun and enjoyable for everyone." Not the kind of logic I remember from the Shoebox vs. Mav saga. No game is ever at a state thats fun and enjoyable for everyone, and as much as you may want to believe it, beta's aren't far off from the final.

I don't enjoy this game for several reasons. Namely because it has lost its pickup-and-play value. Whereas in previous releases we were able to explore and master levels with friends comfortably, we're now faced with overpowered enemies and nerfed weapons. Reasons for this? The more you spend to revive, the higher the demand for currency becomes ingame. The betas I knew weren't based off greedy systems designed to watch you fail, such as the one in place now.
There was a wiki, and I'm not sure if anyone remembers it. However the SGA put one in place, keeping it professional and easy to use. I was planning on moving it to an ad-free website, and hosting it free of charge. Nick and some of the other admins knew of this wiki, yet they decided to release one without the courtesy of letting us know in advance that ours would be outmatched, making all the content and work put into it null.

If any of the admins are reading this I'd like to remind you that we met last November. We were a small group, Tyran, Raii, Astral, Mav, Zafirbel, and me. You guys have no idea how much we adored your game. Your game was so good that it kept all of us together for a year, waiting for the next release, just so we could play more SK.

At the least though, I do want to thank you for the memories you guys helped make with the second preview. But right now its just a dissapointment on all sides.

No game is ever at a state thats fun and enjoyable for everyone.

I'm not going to defend my statement.
But I wouldn't be here after a year if I didn't think it could get close.

It's nowhere near it right now, but there's practically nothing in the game.
There's at least three times as much stuff in there now as there was before.
But it's still barely a shell of a game.

I honestly agree completely with Deluxnate... enough said.

no..... deal with it

> In order for Spiral Knights to live and to get that opportunity to meet its potential, we do need to make sure the business side of things is working.

I fully understand that.
I fully understand the model of "Give people a chance to pay even in development; the more people are willing to pay, the better business the game will be when released"
I not only understand it, I support it.

If I could change one thing about the current payment system, (and I've already mentioned this), then whenever someone buys 100 units of energy, have the game supply 300 units into the system. If N is the current best sell price, then put 100 units at N-(?), 100 units at N-2(?), and sell 100 directly to the best buy price. (How big of a discount? From 18,000 crowns per 100 energy, 100 crowns might be the right step.)

Is that too much energy to put into the system? Maybe. It's basically adding 100 energy every time someone buys 100 energy, and acting as a crown sink for people who have way too much crowns and want some more energy. If that is too much, tune it down. If beta testers really are limited by energy costs, and you want that to change, then change it.

> you post a new topic every other hour
This is just a preview
We don't need the devs to worry about every single little tiny thing that's an inconvenience to you

So ... I'm very interested in the game, I'm very enthusiastic about it, I like it, and see great potential in it, I want to see it become a really good game, with a lot of people playing, and you think I'm being too interested, and too eager to try to improve it?

I see a big gap between where it is now, and where it can be; so do the devs from what they've said here. Will the end design look anything at all like I think a game should look? I don't know. I do know that if I don't say anything, my ideas won't even be considered; by giving my ideas out, they can be considered, and the final game will look more like what I want it to look like.

Still think I should stop posting ideas, issues, and concerns?

If anything, I'm really amazed that this game runs so much better than Bang! Howdy did, and a three-D world with creatures moving is more intensive than what was basically a 2D map with cardboard counters running around. B!H had graphics for the sake of graphics, and they took away from the game, and the playability on then-recent hardware. SK is actually running better on the same hardware that B!H did not.

So that's already kudos.

The only thing I'd like to see from the devs that we haven't seen so far is: What do you see as the "end product" for SK? The AARRR paper was stressing "pivot early, pivot quickly" -- the same view as "fail faster". The fastest way to find out that an idea is bad is to present it before spending the time/money to implement it.

No new ideas? Seriously? I've given TWO.

To repeat this idea, with the SAME DETAILS repeated:

If someone buys 100 units of energy with cash, then 100 units are sold by the game to the highest bidder (which directly doubles the supply of energy to the beta testers), and supply another 100 on the market at 100 crowns less than the current best sell, and another 100 on the market at 100 crowns below that. Those two might never fill -- other players might decide to sell for less. But it will act to lower the price of the exchange.

The result of this? More energy will be sold to beta testers as energy is purchased. More energy in the hands of testers means more testing and playing being done. At the same time, this will act as a minor crown sink.

Now, the disadvantage: As this will flood the market with energy, at least initially, we'll see the price of energy drop; this in turn will reduce the amount of energy purchased for resell. It is entirely possible that the total amount of energy available for players to spend (mist, purchased energy, and game selling to buyers) will not change; if that happens, then the income stream to Three Rings will go down. Now, that's not in and of itself a problem -- if the point of the income from energy selling during beta is simply to serve as an indicator of player interest, then this is just scaling that by a constant factor. It still provides the indicator of player interest, and has not lost any value.

If the goal is to actually bring in some early funding (not that much of an oddball idea, actually; history is full of early business startups that provided cheap initial pricing to early adopters), then this idea will hurt. However, somewhere there is a price point (or in this case, a supplemental energy selling rate) that will improve player experience and not hurt the income stream. I just don't know what it is.

Cory, it's cool that you guys are able to say that your own expectations aren't being met. I've seen a few different games become irrelevant because the devs never took the time to figure out what works and what doesn't. I personally find the game a real refresher from the "blockbuster AAA" titles flying around these days (there's a real hard-on for marines and zombies these days). It's been a while since the last update now so I suspect there's something cooking, like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Hey Zafirbel
They only reason I see to keep playing, is to talk
This game has become a chat room to me basically

I also see now
The only thing keeping people playing is recipes
Looking for materials to create it, not finding it for a long time, and when you do you don't have the energy to craft it
This process takes days, then add one to the end for the time waiting to actually craft, then you find out, theres something better
I don't like this at all
Crafting is cool, but it shouldn't cost energy
And equipment slots/trinkets are going over the edge for energy uses
This also limits gameplay, and makes another excuse to make money
I know its a preview, but GAWD, It just makes you guys look greedy
Make Crafting require no energy, that would make me happy
Then I could actually craft something, and be able to use my energy for fun stuff, like playing, even though its too expensive for the elevator anyways