OOO is proving themselves to be just shades short of a dedicated fraud factory. It's getting old. You guys are doing fine on money, you make plenty of it just on energy sales and battle/starter packs. You don't need to keep shoving out the promotions like you're desperate to stay afloat.
LESS PROMOTIONS.
MORE ACTUAL GAME CONTENT.
Does anyone think they planned these 'events' and 'luckboxes' awhile back and had the assests already to upload? Just think about that - they're probably working on the gunner update right this second and throwing in alot of extras aimed at other parts of the clockworks.
Well, to be fair, the Moonstone Rose Regalia set looks pretty sweet. I guess I'll try and save up the crowns for that.
I'd only like to ask someone at Three Rings a few things on the matter, if they haven't been addressed yet.
-What is the practical reasoning as to why the promotional items are separate purchases from Energy?
-What are their stance on going back to the original, long-running method of giving away prize boxes as a bonus for specific Energy purchases?
-But most importantly still, however, do they feel they are rewarding the players with the current system?
I'd rather have weeks upon weeks of promos than several months of nothing. I don't know where you're getting the notion that Three Rings' art team makes a promotion then they and the development team do nothing for weeks on end for 8 hours 5 days a week. Heck, someone was telling me the other day humans would rather shock themselves with electricity than be bored for 15 minutes. 8 hours would be worse.
As to unofficially answer some of your questions Melonfish:
-What is the practical reasoning as to why the promotional items are separate purchases from Energy?
Because the players were buying energy during promotions for the sole purpose of getting those boxes. Three Rings had a survey that had quite a few questions regarding their promotions, and soon after came up with this idea.
-What are their stance on going back to the original, long-running method of giving away prize boxes as a bonus for specific Energy purchases?
I would assume they will not go back to the old way, or at least not anytime soon. Selling prize boxes directly probably nets them more money, and makes players happier because now they get 5 chances at getting neat costumes for $20 rather than just 2. As a paying player, this new change does make me very happy when I want what's in the boxes, but not as much if I wanted to buy energy then sell the box or its contents.
-But most importantly still, however, do they feel they are rewarding the players with the current system?
As a paying player, I feel more rewarded. I can only use energy for so much now, and when I buy boxes, I expect boxes.
However, I would like to see Three Rings have another promotion to deal with energy. After buying the special packages, there's no extra incentive to buy energy. I would love to have a crazy promotion event where we see three different prize boxes, one for buying energy, one for buying directly, and one for buying off the supply depot. Perhaps with some overlapping rewards, or even all of them being different version of the "surprise" box we had last anniversary.
The fact that we don't need energy anymore is probably why we see so many promotions now, as since the game is more free-to-play, we don't need to buy energy to play, and instead of getting ~$6 a month from paying players, they can get ~$40 or more from paying players by releasing two good quality promotions every month. It's brilliant, honestly.
Nick actually talked a bit about players like you a bit ago on twitter. No, he's not a dev of SK anymore but it's very much relevant anyway.
https://twitter.com/NickPopovich/status/493888834028195841
https://twitter.com/NickPopovich/status/493889094557392898
https://twitter.com/NickPopovich/status/493889210357919744
https://twitter.com/NickPopovich/status/493889440423878657
Still, OOO needs to get their priorities right. They make plenty of money from energy sales alone, and they have plenty of programmers and coders on their team. They need to stop shelling out so many promotions and work on giving us actual content, new weapons, new areas to explore, new enemies to fight, new modes to play, etc.
I'm honestly kind of doubtful towards your post, considering you don't even know that "programmer" is synonymous with "coder". Say, would you happen to know how many "programmers and coders" OOO has working on Spiral Knights?
Does anyone think they planned these 'events' and 'luckboxes' awhile back and had the assests already to upload? Just think about that - they're probably working on the gunner update right this second and throwing in alot of extras aimed at other parts of the clockworks.
I say this like, all the time :(
Heck, the gunner update assets were in the game and people had been spoiling them since like, a few weeks after the announcement. The art is done incredibly quick here - the content/features (the meat of the updates)... not so much ;/
Nick actually talked a bit about players like you a bit ago on twitter. No, he's not a dev of SK anymore but it's very much relevant anyway.
Hey, let's quote Nick ;D
And this also goes in line with my time as a game dev too. Promos and events are scheduled ahead of time, and because of their nature, they must happen (ex: valentine's day promo must happen on time or not at all), so they're often prepared ahead of time. Artists can get those things done (since it's mostly art effort), then move on to other tasks completely unrelated to whatever the programmers/designers are working on. When you're coming up with a new feature, you're usually treading into unknown territory so it's hard to estimate (so the best choice is to announce it to players when it's done and in the testing stages, if not already past it). When you're tweaking stats for something that players have invested a lot in, you need to tweak very carefully or else SNAFUs like the shard bomb update will happen (huge disappointment from players who had invested in it in sacrifice for the developer's vision).
Well I was going to post "wrong" in all caps, but I just checked and it appears that they have very recently acquired another programmer. But until pretty recently, they were only two for quite a while. Now, who's this Sylvain guy? I haven't seen anyone take note of his presence.
A post that contains a permanent response to this kind of stupidity that radiates from these impatient players, that most forum users who commented on fully agreed.
Where did that thing go to...
Can we just have people stop whining about the constant promotions. The coding team is working tirelessly on the Gunner Update so the when they accually release it, we can use the new content and be content with the content. But seriously, these promotions and reskins every other week is only something for the art team to do while they are waiting on the balancing. New content is comig but in the meantime, they are going to keep pumping out promos. And I will guarentee you that when the gunner update rolls around, OOO will hold off on the promos for a few weeks.
Or they only have two developers currently working on the game and are short on developers because coding takes time"
Fauxhownd, your welcome to join Three Rings and help if you want. YOU CAN DO IT.
So he can sing that damn pointless song again that we've heard a million times?
*Edited* Sigh, how did you managed to mix us up?
@Gianor
I am just going to use every OOO cheerleader's arguement when a thread like this came up.
If you can't make a song, don't judge mine.
And now to put this wothless whine thread to the grave yard, here is a song just for you ;)
The unenlighted gamers,
You cannot make the judgement call,
Give up your free will forever,
Your voices won't be heard at all.
Display your paypal,
While never begging for more contents,
And blindly swear your fanbase,
Let your MMO control your mind,
LET YOUR MMO CONTROL YOUR SOUL!
Play in ignorance,
And purchase your shiny boxes,
When the cash and money is the real cause,
Thinking ceases and the thruth is lost!
Don't you worry,
UFSC will be exactly what you grind,
We give our players the promos they need,
The RNG shall succeed.
The fires of greed will burn the F2P,
So we will make mist tanks obsolete!
Breaking down the fabrics of reality!
Let UI update control what you see!
Let your MMO control your soul,
Let your MMO control your mind.
LET YOUR MMO CONTROL YOUR SOUL,
LET YOUR MMO CONTROL YOUR MIND!!!
I wasn't talking about you DJ. I was talking about Midnight-Shades.
i rather see that song for the millionth time than read another one of the ridiculous arguments that sometimes pop up around these forums... just sayin.
It's like pulling teeth with you people.
If i had a dime for every time i saw this thread..well, i'd have like, a dollar. but that's not the point.
You don't have to buy these boxes? Do you? Is there a man pointing a bully charged blitz at your head and telling you to spend away? No? That has been noted.
Ok, so. What's exactly your complaints?
I'm going to be honest. i didn't read anything but the capital letters.
Why are you so stressed out about it? Go outside! if you're one of those people. Play a new game! steal your parents credit card if you have to.
you don't have to be here, y'know. You don't have to sit on this forum, you could be somewhere else. Eating a burger. or maybe some steak. Or playing another game!
Go on steam and buy this neat little free game unturned. it's fun, make a few friends, its funner! You're clearly bored of this game to the point your begging for new content. So just stop. Why even bother? Move on. It's like getting broken up with.
Just.
Move.
On.
Complaints on the day promos come out are getting old
i wonder why they started the promo bombing after nick left ...
we had sometimes even 2 promos at the same time.
well they could bring back the ce buying+box thing then we could buy 2 different boxes with 1 purchase
No new content because half the devs are working on promos
>i wonder why they started the promo bombing after nick left ...
Maybe that's why nick left.
Dragonuity: No new content because half the devs are working on promos
You mean artists?
/grin
---
On-topic: You know, promos aren't guaranteed to suck money from players. It's not like the old Energy system that forced us to pay or not-play (facebook-game-style). They're actually rather benign because people who want the promos are happy and people who don't want the promos don't have to buy into them.
The real issue at hand is that the permanent content/feature updates are slow, but I find that all irrelevant to the promos (because my understanding as a former/now-hobby game dev is that artist [models/promo] work can be done separately from programmer [bugfix/feature] work). It's my complaint as well as a player, but there's nothing that we can really do to speed it up.
Artist team big, dev team small.
Artist team wont twiddle thumbs cause dev team overworked.
hiss.
Promotions. Nobody forces you to buy them. also the only reason the Gunner update is taking long time and coming in september, is that the Core, Arcade Redux, and the Gunner update is coming at the same time. So relax.
@Galaxthekillrmech
Still need a source on that.
@Xtweeterx
In a certain way it is content, but it doesn't add anything substancial to the game. When we are talking about actual content, we're talking about new levels, enemies, gear or even new gameplay features.
DX
http://spiral.onyxbits.de/node/6751
I hope you're happy that Spiral-Spy crushed your hopes and dreams.
I'm not, however.
inb4 "[DATA EXPUNGED] you Moonstone-Shades, you are a [insert expletives here]"
He's full of Spiral. OOO is not going to invest so much time into a major overhaul of a core aspect of the game and then scrap it because it can't possibly make people happy.
This wall of text should be noted:
"The problem with releasing a vast number of new gear choices is that you add a whole lot of complexity and dependencies. Something is bound to go wrong in any complex system. Worse yet, when you try to resolve an imbalance in one place, you are likely to open up two new imbalances in other places.
Whatever the exact cause was, OOO spend way more time on cleaning up than they had p originally lanned and the community grew more impatient with each passing patch day that brought no updates. After several months delay, Three Rings finally realized that the anticipation for the gunner update had grown completely out of proportion. Nothing they could have released would have been big enough to meet the community's expectations. At that point, the gunner update would have had to at least include a cure for cancer in order to not create an angry forum lynch mob, as players were fantasizing it to be the messiah of patches.
By now, the devs probably have sorted everything out, but it's way too late to release. Players would be massively disappointed and therefore the thing wouldn't sell. Furthermore, too much developer time was wasted, putting OOO hopelessly behind schedule (I am even inclined to speculate that this mismanagement of resources is the/one reason why Nick left the company so unexpectedly).
What does this mean for the community? My guess is that Three Rings has given up on the original gunner update, but since a lot of work was invested already, they likely decided to scrap the project in order to recycle bits and pieces of it in other updates. For that matter, I'm fairly convinced that the now released torto guns were (though probably not with that skin) originally developed as the secret main attraction of what should have become the gunner update. If I am right, we will likely see the rest of the gear popping up as prizes in future events."
There will BE NO GUNNER UPDATE.
Continue to think there will be a Gunner Update, but if OOO actually replans and makes a general Weapon Update, then I might've eaten my own words.
I think it's high time I send you a "lovely little" letter to you.
That's what I've been thinking since the update was delayed forever. Even if it was released, it would unlikely live to its hype, much like HL3.
Still, if they did a whole gear update or maybe something bigger, perhaps they could redeem themselves for their enormous delay.
All I have to say about this topic:
http://s30.postimg.org/wkbctnlmp/SK_Boardroom.png
We already heard from Aphrodite that the update is still on its way, they're working on it, and we've had two test server weekends. Why on earth would they delay the content that's nearly ready so long, only to scrap it entirely?
SpiralSpy guy clearly did not play on the test server. :T Or even look that closely at the game files, because the Torto Guns were not involved in the gunner update at all.
It's like I've been saying all along: it's almost like a very small team is putting together a very large content update, which takes time. Time and money. Money that promos are giving them! (Let alone the costs to run a game like this in general, server upkeep, etc etc...)
So many fools who have no understanding of how this stuff works.
As long as you defend OOO, they will keep pumping these out. They do not care about you or if you like the game; they only want your money.
Now, onto the topic of promos. It doesn't look like many of you understand that the artists aren't the only ones involved, here. The coders have to work to actually get these reskins in the game. It's more code than you'd expect, too. Now, why aren't they working on new content, instead?
Why isn't all the money going towards improving the game itself? Better optimization, more and better servers, new content, etc.
How about the developement team? Yes, it's a small team. No, that's not an excuse for this. There are smaller teams who are working on larger-scale projects who are getting more done in a quarter of the time that it takes OOO. Engine reworks, new content, and many other things. That isn't even in Java, which is EASIER to do all of this in. How are you going to defend OOO for that?
Many people, myself included, do not expect OOO to do much to improve the game, if anything. Yet, somehow, they continue to let us down.
I love Spiral Knights, but loathe OOO. I look forward to the day when they're no more.
This game should be run by Hammerpoint Interactive.
With a monetization system similar to Infestation: Survivor Stories.
The coders have to work to actually get these reskins in the game. It's more code than you'd expect, too.
Yes, it's a small team. No, that's not an excuse for this. There are smaller teams who are working on larger-scale projects who are getting more done in a quarter of the time that it takes OOO.
teammember, please back these up.
Now I can easily understand that coders have their work to do, that a game is made by various departments, not by a single person and things like this.
I suppose then that there could be some sort of fallacy in the coordination between dev. sections, what I do not understand is how can still they work perfectly fine when it is to create endless palette swaps of the same overused polygons.
(I liked tortoguns, they were new, but not the Serene nor the Regalia things...)
When you do the same thing again and again nd punctually the audience whines, there is a problem.
If people keep on whining about these things I suppose that the audience has at least some reason in the end, after 4 years they can be right at least once.
No?
I mean, if my work is lifting pianos I shouldn't whine of how heavy a piano is, now should I?
Of course I would too dislike people that criticize how I do my own work, telling me how to do it, in this case the options are: shushing them up by showing that you know how to do it well (and you do it) or accepting that the critic was in fact constructive and then you still do the job well.
At least I guess... who am I after all?
When this many people are up in arms about a consistent and dubious trend in OOO's marketing practices, it's time for OOO to start giving at least half a Spiral about what they have to say and taking a second look at their priorities.
They make plenty of money on energy sales alone. They don't need to keep shoveling out one promotion after another. They're simply doing it because they're greedy, not because they're short-staffed in the programming department.
You talk as if you've been in OOO's offices, you obviously haven't. At this point your just spewing garbage.
You don't know whats happening, stop making stupid assumptions.
I expect this thread to die. Theres nothing more to talk about. You can believe what you want, when the update does come, you're gonna feel and look extremely stupid.
Now just put on your little tin foil hat and go conspire on steam if you want to complain.
I'm done with both of these ridiculous threads. I've wasted enough time here.
Why don't you gather up your special friends like Midnight-Shades and go lick a window together. Preferably a window looking into OOO's offices.
Fauxhownd, do you even have legitimate information on how much OOO makes or are you just blindly assuming they are making a ton of money? I want to see estimates since you keep saying they have more than enough money for content.
Please, back up your claims since OOO is greedy. Many of us want to see proof. And said proof is not gazing at haven from your perspective on how many are wearing promo items.
well, it seems we are splitting between whiners and haters on whiners, two groups that don't understand each other and that are actively in competition. can we avoid that? we all at least like the game, having this kind of community doesn't help.
you, don't say it's OOO's fault, if you notice we go on the same statements every single topic and we do not resolve anything, it's us that don't want to move from our position.
and you, don't say it's the whiners' fault, they have all the reasons in the world to complain, if you want them to dissapear you must move them with some actual reasonment.
please let's enjoy the game in what we can. promos don't affect gameplay, and if you are bored, well, MMO cycle. whiners don't affect the gameplay either, so same thing as before.
Blazzberry, do you REALLY think they'd be in financial trouble if they didn't shovel out all these promotions? Are you that convinced that they wouldn't be able to keep the game online without these promotions?
So you are just assuming things. That's all I need to know.
G'day.
Or they only have two developers currently working on the game and are short on developers because coding takes time.