So, before I get all pessimistic, let me open by saying that I've really enjoyed Spiral Knights. The game is full of color and life and interesting ideas. It has a good playerbase that I've generally enjoyed playing with. I've been playing for a few years now, and I don't regret any of it. And even with all the terrible things I'm about to say, I say them because I want you to prove me wrong. That you can take what I say and use it to improve.

But.

I'm just not feeling it anymore. If I had to name something in particular as the straw that broke the camel's back, I'd have to say it's the Gunner update. You announced it, and then announced delay after delay. Weeks turned into months. Months turned into half a year. What started as excitement turned to impatience, turned to anger, turned to frustration, then just turned to boredom. You committed gaming's cardinal sin; you bored me. And even now, as I see the update in the testing server, read the reports from the testing forum, I just can't bring myself to care. You gave me time to think about it, and I've realized that I won't get to play with the spiffy new weapons without straight-up paying you money to build them from scratch or buy the overpriced complete version in the Depot, and I've had the time to ponder if that's not on purpose. I can't say for certain if there that greed is truly imbedded in the design, but the seed of doubt is there now.

I feel like I've done everything there is to be done, short of insane self-imposed challenges, and that's just not how I roll. And maybe that's just the game running its course. Maybe I ~have~ done everything worth doing. I can't really expect you to be constantly rolling out new stuff for my amusement. But even when new content does appear, when events roll around - Caketastrophe, Dark Harvest, or Winterfest; Black Kats, Apocrea, or Tortodrones - I still just don't care. It's just changing from grinding one thing to grinding a different thing. Again, maybe this is just the nature of the beast; that circular grinding is all you do at the end-game of an MMO.

But even when truly new stuff rolls around, it's like it doesn't respect me as a veteran player. "Want this new thing? Better throw away the old thing you put time and effort into and start from scratch again." And I get it. You have to court new players because they're more likely to spend money. But the new design philosophy seems less and less about respecting the money I've already spent and more about trying to get players to spend and spend and spend. Event boxes with random contents instead of just getting a single specific item. Boxes with stand-alone prices rather than being bundled with CE purchases. Supply Depot prices that would be laughable if not for the fact that building things by hand has become an ridiculously arduous process. I don't have some spyhole into your dev process, I really don't want to believe that these decisions are made by greed, but I see it everywhere.

I even tried PvP. But it's either unbalanced or outright broken. The skill of individual players matters less than how much money they've pumped into their gear. Have they bought the best accessories. Have they spun Punch's slot machine enough times. And the parts of PvP that can't be made more powerful with money have been just left as they lay, with no effort put towards balance. Blast Network lies in a barely-finished state, untouched since its release save to fix the most blatant bugs. Lockdown exists in a static state, with players using only the loadouts proven most effective, with no room for innovation or new entries.

So I guess this is the point I wander into the sunset. I'll technically still be around; I've made friends here. But make no mistake, I'm here to hang out with them, not with you. And I'll be watching the updates. Maybe I'm wrong - I ~hope~ I'm wrong - maybe you'll turn around with the updates, and the game will be fresh and exciting again. But I'm not holding my breath anymore. It's been half a year, I need to breathe. Time to find some fresh air.

With respect,
Vanguard Likal, retired