Spiral Knights is not supposed to supply your complete entertainment for the rest of your life. If you're done with it, then move on and do something else, and maybe return for a while when new content comes out. There's no reason to get upset about it.

Sorry irevolutioni, but Warframe has been released for quite some time now and the population isn't really going up or down. Still, they do have over 20k+ players on at a set amount of time, which is a lot, of course, nothing compared to DotA 2's whopping 700k+ players lol.

Mainly the peoblems with SK's population is the server. Larger server = handles more players. Our current server can only handle about 4k players then it starts to lag.. Bad.

And btw, the community manager does see our posts... OOO is still trying to polish the gun update. After that updates can flow through SK normally. The big update OOO is focusing on is not letting OOO make other cool updates. As a result all we're seeing are promos. This is why "big boomer" updates are much worse than weekly chunk updates.

How do I put it here...
Companies, much like people, can multitask. Some better than others. Let's say 2/7 people are skilled in developing/programming and the other 5 are skilled at making art. Now, art assets are going to be much easier to make and pump out since you have more people working in that area because that's what they were hired to do.
By saying "stop the promos" you are effectively telling 5 out of 7 people that they shouldn't do what they were hired to do. It's like if you were hired to design clothing, and you did that job really well, but after a year or so of designing clothing some clothing outlets tell you to stop designing clothing and instead physically sew prototypes. That job is already given to other people, and you don't make any extra money sewing anyways. Besides, you don't exactly sew on a professional level, so if you did sew prototypes you would be making prototypes that are worse quality and therefore look bad to the business.

See where I'm going with this?

Ending promos isn't going to make new levels or enemies show up any faster. Think back to the time of mist energy, where we only had promos once in a blue moon. There were many times where we would go months without anything happening to change game content. The reason people are complaining right now is they see something "new", but it isn't the "new" thing they want. If promos were less frequent, impatient players would say the game is dying because no content is coming out. Now that we have bi-weekly promos (which is a bit much in all honesty, but it's fun as well!) those same players want to end promos so that content comes out.

Seriously, it's not rocket science. I would hope that all of you had at least some resemblance of schooling in which you had multiple classes at the same time(else my next analogy won't make sense). You can take a language course and a mathematics course at the same time without falling behind in one, but one of them (such as math) may have more busywork and deadlines, whereas language might have classwork and large projects. To the same effect, art-based promotions are much easier to pump out than level or weapon updates.

Why don't you play some mario series hacks. Im sure you'll be alot more enraged than you are mow.

Bear with me and I know I'm doing this on purpose, but it's a bit cleaner than throwing this thought into my other wall of text.

Creating art and coding are both separate adventures. It's not a good idea to compare them to each other. Coding may seem faster at the start but it takes longer to test and debug, whereas art can take more time up front, but once it's finished it's finished.
So like, don't try to go all out with the "you can't critique what you don't know". That is just a bad argument all around.

I'm not siding with the idea of shutting down the promo train. The constant promotions exchange energy sales with artwork. As long as new content (any functionally different gear piece, or access to specific levels) is kept out of boxes and the art team has the time of day, promotions are a net positive- we get a nicer looking game, they get money to continue development.

Rather, I'm suggesting that the developers and by extension forum regulars consider some truth in what people like the op are saying. Correcting the op isn't going to change anything. Entertaining their ideas and sharing a higher form of truth that they can latch onto is how actual improvements in the game's development can occur.

Nothing- and that's the issue. People come on and say these things and we dismiss them... But that doesn't make what they're saying any less true- in this case, it is that some portion of the players are upset with how they perceive development to be going.

The fact that this thread is one of many only indicates that there is more basis to these threads.

you know... i have waited like 1 year and more for any significant update for this game, yet im not coming here like "BLUAARG BLAARG MASGWARG TRAWNIG YARG GUNNER UPDATE!"

ANYWAY, leaving that on other side, im worried for the game, i remember i read in someone thread about asking how was doctor who worlds in time final days. and... everyone answered about the bad threads, and how much they hate those "SK is dead" threads... but nobody answered about: how were those final days on that MMo that OOO closed.

I dont mind if some relevant update hit SK someday, i can wait doing some mapping for my favorite game, because you know... there isnt something else to do in this game. better to do something rather to wait here and see if OOO will add something.

However i really care about the game status. idk but in some previous forumers posts when they talked about how all should feel bad because those bad posts agaisnt OOO because they have only 2 programmers and should be more patient and the update will hit someday and bla bla. well i dont feel bad when i read these kind of comments. I FEEL WORRIED! by the state the game is. and adding the "Nick already leave the team you guys should know now the team dont have a direction for this game, should wait they will release the update!" dont help either to turn low my worries.

Honestly i wouldnt mind if devs bring back "what its in development" or what they want to do for the game or whatever thing, and i honestly wouldnt care if they only make these kind of posts when they have something that worth to show up, as long as i get some kind of sign of life, some kind of "hey were still working on the game and here is just a small look on what you would play soon ;)"

This forum start to make me remember how were Starbound forums when they stopped to say something after the december update and st. valentine update. everyone went mad like how they are going right now in spiral forums. But devs after a long "silence" they talked with the community the reason of lack of updates or their response in forum and now they post what they are doing with starbound once they have something worthy to show up in the blog. even if that take them 2 weeks or 1 month.

Sure the community have been some kind of trollish with them, and probably the make them go silence, but the situation right now would be really a relief if devs or community manager post about whats going on with spiral right now, im not asking about gunner update release date neither for arcade redux or even a big next update for spiral knights, what im asking its... this game is really going anywhere now that they dont have Nick in the team? theres a chance spiral knights will be here the next year and probably the next one? something!

Right now (and after some unfair prize box chances and promos without energy + boxes) i dont feel like invest in this game... i dont want to invest dunno 100 bucks on one promo and another and then Eury pops up and say "were closing servers in february 2015" and the good bye post (WARNING FOR THOSE HOLY INQUISITION: im not saying spiral knights will die in 2015 only expressing my main concern about this matter) reason why i dont like this silence. Why i would invest in something i dont know how is going? thats my concern with Spiral Knights Right now.

Nicely said. See, sharing these kinds of conversations actually help the issues at hand instead of creating false objections that seem to pop up all over the forums.

Promos do not kill the game, but they certainly don't bring new content into the game, nor should they.
What potential money spenders want to know if how the game is coming along. I know there's a Spiral Knights newsletter, or at least was, but I've never gotten around to reading/signing up for it.

I think that a "what's in development" thread that is posted in the announcements subforum would be a great way for developers to avoid direct conflict with their userbase while still letting us know things. We could have a post in the general discussion that links back to the announcement so we could all talk about it, and if a developer wanted they could post in there.
I think an "Ask us anything" type thread would be great to have stickied. Remember when Harry Mack, the Spiral Knights composer, had one of those? That was fun! (I only mention his as it was the last one I believe) We could even have banned topics or an FAQ so we can't pester them about the gunner update in that thread. Or we could, just we wouldn't get an answer.

"understaffed" thanks that dont help with my worries about the health of this game. less programmers, no lead programmer, then no direction on where is heading the game... how is that supposed to help me to feel a relief about if this game not going to end like Doctor Who Worlds in Time? i mean i dont care about if they give content this year or not. i only want a single word of whats going on with this game. but hey sure devs and GM wouldnt do that.

Reason to no invest this game anymore if the next Year a wild eury appear and said "we going to shut down server in feb 2015, we have good time sorry for the troubles!". (Again Note for the HOLY INQUISITION: im not saying the game will end the next year just my main concern).

There are probably 2 questions that are important:

What score would you give SK in its current state?

What is the score that you would give SK when its full potential would be unleashed?

The answer at the first question is around 7.5 for me. It is a good game, I can play it for hours, but there are still things missing or stuff that could be better.

The answer at the second is to my opinion 9.5, or maybe even 10. With some new PvP stuff, more updates and a bit more general content this could be 1 of the best games ever made. We actually started playing the game too early, since in a few years the game will be a lot more "evolved".

^ LoL?

So why you should use the argument "health and happy life"? so im not allowed to be concerned about the things i enjoy? really? you concern shouldnt what people are concerned about. should be only about you and the ones you care. thanks.

Anyway, im not even asking "when the update" is going to come, never if they going to add a Tier3 boss or either arcade redux. no i dont want to KNOW WHEN those things will COME to the GAME. what i want to know WHATS its the situation of the game, they still work on it? i dont care if that take another year or even 2 years more as long i know they still care about the game, a single word frm devs or trough a GM is enough to calm the hostility and rage in forums at some degree, only stay silent fuels the rage that its trought the forums because people dont know what its going on with the game and pretty sure im not the only one.

Not need to hype people with stuff that will come, only things that will calm people about where the game is heading.

If I understand him/her correctly, Lunarias and I are saying the same thing.

We're not saying that you have no right to be upset. We're not saying that Spiral Knights doesn't need new content. We're not saying that Spiral Knights couldn't be much better than it is.

What we are saying is: Your level of upset has no effect on the Spiral Knights development team. You're going to be waiting for months for new content, whether you get angry or not. It's up to you, but your personal life will be better if you adopt an attitude of calm and serenity.

Here, allow me to leave this here.

But let me address something:

An excerpt from post #9 states:

Couldnt Adress It better. But yea... Most off the people who are defending it are new players. All the vets I have seen are mostly disagreeing with the promos.

Let me first say that I'm nowhere near a "new player", so assuming such things is never a wise decision. I wouldn't even call myself a "defender", much rather stating the obvious to the oblivious, mind you. Take that how you will, but it is how many of the people, who write these kind of threads of either similar or the same topics. Holy-Nightmare was right to ask about the coding; it is something beyond tedious and takes time to implement. Do you think every major expansion can be done within the blink of an eye? That is certainly what you're implying.

Many, many other games out there have major expansions on their behalf. Do you think they're able to be made and released instantly? No. Spiral Knights has a major expansion coming that's not just the gunner update and the arcade redux. For all we know, they could be doing many, many more things behind the scenes that may very well draw us in together in awe once it is released. Things take time, and patience is needed for these things to be done correctly. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather have a stable release of new content, then something that'll actually make everyone want to stop playing because it absolutely breaks the integrity of the game itself.

Bopp is absolutely right with what they said; if you're tired of waiting for the new content, you're not limited to just Spiral Knights as your source of entertainment. As you said, you have Warframe to play, as you were going on about, so maybe you could spend more time on it instead of waiting around on a "dead game" and complaining about it as if it IS your only source of fun around here.

Take some time away from the game, and if it need be, uninstall it even so you don't have the urge to return to it. When the new content is released, I'm certain they'll have a promotional image on the Steam Newsletter when everything is ready to be released. Give it time. Give it peace. The developers may just shrug off these posts when they inspect them, but to some, they take these things right to the heart, and it ends up making them feel horrible and wondering if they should even continue at all, if the community is acting the way they are. Promotions are intended to keep a game fresh, and maintain a source of revenue. Many other games do this, whether it is needed for finanical reasons, or if they just released something they've had in the works for a way and wish to seek newer players.