Who develops new content for Spiral Knights: OOO or Sega? Will they continue developing?
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I saw everywhere that the reason SK is dead because prize boxes blah blah, Lockdown toxicity blah blah, but everybody think it is OOO's fault. Maybe it isn't OOO, but Sega?
Anyways, it's up to either one of them to continue development of Spiral Knights. Either they keep releasing new content as small updates to conform with other games (think Alpha/Beta games in live development) or abandon the game completely, focus on other games (i.e. Puzzle Pirates, one of OOO'S games) and forget about us, the community (for example the standalone paid games released many years ago). Sega must to decide if they want to continue developing/partnering with OOO so we don't complain how this game is dead. Also, some more frequent updates with 1 new thing every ex. 2 months won't even hurt, especially enough to keep people from complaining how the game is dead right now.
Alternatively, when they will finally give up on prize boxes, then...nothing else, but post a note in Announcements that Spiral Knights is shutting down irreversibly. Not to suggest OOO on killing SK, but they might soon run out of known gemstones to release prize boxes for and people don't like same prize boxes all over again, especially when they hold same content as they knew.
So, maybe it isn't Three Rings' fault that Spiral Knights is dead, but Sega is behind this game nearing to f2p abandonware* state?
*Abandonware - a game that was abandoned by its devs. No more updates will ever come to abandonware, and (probably) is free to download.
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As Petater said, Three Rings is the part of Sega that works on Spiral Knights. I don't see any use in distinguishing between them.
Sega must to decide if they want to continue developing/partnering with OOO so we don't complain how this game is dead.
The simple fact is that players are continually finishing the game and getting bored waiting for new content. Most of these players quietly go on to other games. But some fraction players instead complain on the forums. This happened even when Three Rings was releasing new content rapidly.
* In May 2011, even before the Steam launch, I saw threads about how the game was going down the drain.
* In July 2011, once the initial Steam surge passed through, I saw threads about how the game was dead.
* Later in 2011, when OOO was adding PvP, Shadow Lairs, the first seasonal events, new monsters, etc., there were still these threads.
And these threads continued into 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015, as OOO became less productive. No matter what OOO/Sega does, players complain.
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Past references of people saying the game is dying do not invalidate current posts.
That's a common kind of fallacy pattern brought up in debates.
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That's true but players are more apt to complain when they see a lack of action on the part of the developers.
TF2 keeps it's players in touch, Unreal Tournament same thing.
Heck you should see what AQW does, new content on a weekly basis plus blogs from the team throughout the week and while game quality isn't amazing it is assuring to know that the team is invested in keeping you interested.
http://www.aq.com/gamedesignnotes/
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"What? Spiral Knights has developers working on it? I thought everyone quit." - from Cyphereau's Groove: Quest For Adventure (12-01-2015)
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That's true, but it's not my point. So let me make my logic more explicit.
Matikclocker's post makes various statements. The one I'm focusing on is: If Three Rings developed this game at a more rapid pace, then players wouldn't complain that it's dead/dying.
My post says: Even when Three Rings developed content at a much more rapid place, there were still lots of complaints about the game being dead/dying.
Therefore my post refutes Matikclocker's claim. (If you wanted to get technical about logic and fallacies, I could lay out this argument symbolically.)
Now you may doubt my assertion that there were really complaints like this in the past. I invite you to read the forums after release 2011-05-17, when crafting costs were raised and supposedly everyone was going to leave. Or after the introduction of Shadow Lairs (2011-10-19), when supposedly everyone but the whales was going to leave. And so on.
Please note that, as a player of Spiral Knights, I too really want new content. But threads like this don't assign the developer resources needed to make that happen.
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You all constantly seem to forget none of this matters for a new player, since everything will be regarded as new for them. If you cannot fathom the fact that an indie game won't supply you multiple years' worth of content, you need to stop playing altogether and possibly reconsider your gaming priorities.
TL;DR : Spiral Knights doesn't end, only Knights expire.
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I should have mentioned this is a message intended to people lacking basic logic skills, which is a large portion of forums, we can probably agree on that.
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Then why do the Sega Networks LLC employees continue to direct monetization towards the vanguards and not the new players. Specifically 700e for 50 rads and most players I see who buy the shiny stuff being vanguards idling in haven. Moving the paywall from 4 star hall of heroes to 5 star post-vanguard item levelling seems pretty blunt to me on who the target consumer base is still. You might think differently, but I'm definitely seeing different signals.
Also, I'm not sure if it'll occur to you, but having vanguards leave gives no community base for new players to play with or be helped by. If you neglect one component of your community, it'll affect all. Whether or not the employees are capable of producing adequate content doesn't change the requirements for satisfying said community.
Bonjourhippo speaks the truth.
Unfortunately, most people don't understand this.
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Says the person who started blasting players for not wanting to spend on the game anymore in a troll thread. It's not your decision to make. That's fine if the company doesn't want to keep up with the demands the consumer base make. It's not up to the company for people to spend, it's up to the people to decide if the product is worth it still.
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Vanguards aren't given a REASON to help newer players other than some benign warm fuzzy feeling. To a lot of older Vanguards young players are just going to slow them down.
I would love to see some new daily missions that force players to mix ranks and work together.
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There used to be an objective where guilds would recruit older mature players who were starting out the game, and actually try to have *fun* with them. What's the word? Oh yeah community... The problem is that's severely lacking now. With the tier locking of rarities, that kinda killed a bunch of desire to casually play lower tier levels with the newer players.
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Your post #10 is quite reasonable. You might be right that primarily vanguards spend money on this game, and primarily for luxuries (cosmetics, guild halls, and other kinds of prestige).
But is that a problem? Do you want to force Tier-2 players to spend more money? Isn't it probably better for maintaining a player base, to have no serious costs until near the end of the game?
...having vanguards leave gives no community base for new players to play with or be helped by...
But new vanguards are constantly arising. Players cycle from newbie to vanguard to bored-vanguard to ex-player. Of course, I'd rather keep all of the old vanguards around, forming a giant community happily devouring new content. But it seems too much to ask for.
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And your point about rarities forcing the farming of certain tiers, and hence hurting community, is also quite reasonable.
@Petater
The fact that post #7 had nothing to do with my thread makes you look like just another forum troll. You clearly didn't even read my thread properly, since you have no clue what the topic is even about. Don't try to lie your way out either, because anyone can see that the topics are severely unrelated.
My thread:
Topic: Radiant fire crystals
Issue: Players complaining about F2P grinding
Solution: Spend money, because 2 hours working is better than 5 hours grinding.
(Keep in mind that this is with the assumption that people are indeed heating their items, 5*, which are the items that need Radiants)
This thread (a different thread)
Topic: OOO developing status
Issue: Who develops new content/why new content isn't as prominent
Solution: Pending
TL;DR:
Get off your high horse and read the post
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I would love to see some new daily missions that force players to mix ranks and work together.
That is a really great idea. Goodness knows we could use some new prestige missions. Has it been proposed in Suggestions? I don't read that forum much.
It could be done bluntly, like: You can't get prestige for this mission unless the party contains a certain mix of ranks.
Or it could be done more subtly, like: The mission has a mini-boss, and having part of your party attack it from the back greatly helps. But the enemies around the back adjust to rank in such a way that vanguards will find it nearly impossible to get around there.
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I commented earlier, because you were deliberately trolling the forums earlier with a previous thread. When you actively try to flame war bait general discussion a few hours prior, people tend to mark caution when you post again.
> Don't try to lie your way out either
Okay, now you're deliberately fishing for nasty responses.
Back on topic...
It is true, the community is dying to know what the status is of development. I think we all are. We need less magic crystal balls and more Q/A sessions with employees.
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i think the employees of OOO develop the game, while sega just sits on them twiddling its thumbs
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@Dreemurr
So you suggest it's Sega's fault because they don't want to help OOO in creating a new update?
So, Sega's laziness = OOO has only time to make prize box contents
Prize boxes = more frustation
More frustation = More complaints
More complaints = More people leaving
More people leaving = Less money for OOO and Sega
Less money for devs = More Sega laziness
More laziness = Less content in prize boxes/repeating offers
Repeating offers= more frustation
And so on. This is the never ending circle of game failure...
@Petater
Q&A Livestream on Twitch might have a chance of dragging in more people and possibly finding the final answer: Is this game still developed or now abandoned.
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If you want a suggestion forumy attitude here's one for you - Make a ranked prestige mission in which you can only join lower parties. These would be available to knights at rank 4-1 and higher. Essentially you join in on another party and get some credit for it with prestige.
Having tier 2 missions in general that are open to all ranks and show up on all party finders would also be a super fun way to encourage playing together. Potentially make custom puzzles where higher tier enemies spawn so the vanguards will need to focus fire on them, and various trial and error switches that need to be hit rather quickly so lower level players can try to solve the puzzles while the vanguards hold off the enemy.
Heck, class missions would be a lot of fun, where players pick a "class" to play beforehand and get buffs/nerfs, and need to complete a few levels like that. Higher ranks unlock more classes, meaning lower star players would usually play the low defense VIP player, potentially able to deathmark enemies but not kill them, while vanguards have access to "protector", "aggroer", "slasher", "gunslinger", "demolitions", and more. Goal is to keep VIP alive - VIP can revive other players like the old health revives, and overall you get a lot of people being friendly with each other of all ranks working together for a lot of fun. You can also just go all vanguards if you want to play with friends, but have there be crown/heat bonuses for each player, but the higher their rank the less of a bonus. You want high ranking players for their access to all the playable classes, but you also want some lower classes for the reward bonuses.
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"So you suggest it's Sega's fault because they don't want to help OOO in creating a new update?"
i didn't say anything like that
i just said that i think sega owns OOO while OOO works on the game
i wouldn't call sega "lazy", if you've read what they've been doing this year, they've been downsizing and axing jobs, so they're most likely in financial trouble themselves
let's be real here
there's probably no real reason for them to invest in an mmo with a tiny development team and such a small amount of players
ooo is doing the best it can, reskins are still new content
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@Bonjourhippo
"Endless" content is very possible for them though.. games like puzzle and dragons pull it off with ease and I've written a good many ideas for how it could be done for our game in a similar fashion. See-
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/108062
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/112494
Endless content is kind of a pipe dream in itself though. Even having a few balance updates for things like armor, and basic communication with whoever is in charge would be wonderful. Currently there are a handful of rather serious questions that should be answered-
Will there ever be a bomb or sword update akin to the gunner update?
Are there plans to finish the story line and if so, will development continue after that?
Is the arcade redux still in the cards for us at all?
@Petater
With the tier locking of rarities, that kinda killed a bunch of desire to casually play lower tier levels with the newer players.
Tier locked rarities makes me play lower strata more as opposed to less, actually. It's like OK, what levels provide rarities that I can actually put to good use? And the answer is quite clearly:
A. Dreams and Nightmares/D27 + D28
B. All of tier 2
Naturally, many of my runs are with newer players.
Post number 10
Pretty much hits the nail on the head. My solution for players is to buy boxes- if those sell well, there will be less need for players to buy things like fire crystals.
My solution for developers is to make all fire crystals far rarer, and then heavily decrease the prices in energy so that it's feasible to just buy them- think 1-2 energy per fire crystal, about. That way, players 'grow up' buying fire crystals and it feels natural to do so as opposed to coming across the great wall of radiant fire crystals like 'OH LORD'. 6.3K energy is way too much to expect people to pay per item.
@Dreemurr
Petater's comments in particular are rather noteworthy on the subject of who is developing the game. OOO and SEGA are pretty much one and the same at this point, aside from in the literal sense that SEGA bought OOO and the scarier sense that many of the employees that originally worked on SK are now gone.
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At least this exists:
https://jobs.lever.co/sega/55ed387e-97a9-47d9-b96b-550b82da8b0e
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They will give us accessories for the next fifty updates or so... Maybe 51.
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Prestige isn't a viable reward since it has absolutely no use in the game at the moment, if it became useful then I could see a mixed tier mission paying more Prestige being popular. I'd rather have it so that the mission itself offers a more useful reward... maybe a prize box holding a random orb of alchemy for players to use.
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Sure. I wasn't as interested in the specific reward as in the general idea of getting ranks to mix.
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imagne if "breaking in the recruits" actually paired up a team of 4 beginners and a team of 4 vanguards then splits into two different quests after the first floor
After playing this game for such a long time I stopped.
In 2011 even with game designers actively releasing shadow lairs and pvp, players saw it wasn't enough. The creativity, design space, and story could be expanded so much, why wasn't more being done? New content, bosses, levels, floors, gear and server improvements should have been rolling out weekly or monthly. OOO needed to identify their audience as mature people from many different countries and make the sk world something special.
Instead I see it has been prize boxes and meaningless dress up accessories for years. It makes me sad that this oppertunity to create more and build up sk wasn't taken. It makes me angry that I wasted so much time with sk.
I have since started up with a different game, a mobile one. Surprise surprise it is from Sega Japan. There is absolutely nothing wrong with how sega developes and releases content in this game. The artwork is beautiful and the content was thoughtfully made so everything has a purpose. There are events and new places to fight every week. The only thing that sk had better was player to player transactions and the ce market to do economic analysis on.
I know now it was never a problem with Sega's ability to design content for sk. The reason for lack of content and the prize box disease doesn't even matter. Only thing that matters is, there is no content, there is not enough content. Coming to terms with that statement means the rational thing to do is find other things to do in life.
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I just want to know what OOO is doing at this point. They give us no idea whatsoever of what their plan is with how they will handle the game, and they leave us wondering what on earth is going on. Starts to make me wonder if it's because their prize-box development tactic is an underhand tactic to leech money from the cash whales - something along those lines that other players wouldn't appreciate that much.
It really isn't hard to get one of your devs to make a sticky or an article in the news section. Takes thirty minutes tops. The fact no real content updates have been released for a very long while and the team hasn't said anything to calm the forums down is fishy. Something is going on with SK.
You're saying it like three rings still exists as a separate entity. My current understanding is that three rings is no longer a separate company, but was merged into Sega Networks LLC with other game studios. The former CEO is supposedly no longer (cleaver posted a note here - http://banghowdy.com/support/ ). Their public linkedin corresponds with this information. It also explains why Rise of Knights even happened (Sega Networks LLC is a mobile app division of Sega).