I have a friend who I want to play Spiral Knights. He refuses to try it and says, quote, "It looks like it's for 5 year olds". Can someone please give me an argument that might convince him to try it?
Fun for Adults?
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 11:42
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 12:31
#2
We are all children, compared to the stars.
It sounds like your friend is feeling insecure of their masculinity/adulthood due to our bright and incredible colors. Part of being "an adult" or "a real man" is to do things without fear of what people will think of you. Perhaps you could tell them that if they're really as adult or masculine as they think they are, they'd try the game-- kind of like the "real men wear pink" thing.
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 14:03
#3
Definitely.
While on the surface the game's artstyle is cute, the game itself does take a fair amount of knowledge and has a pretty high skill ceiling.
If your friend assumes that a game's artstyle is representative to how difficult it is, or the themes it has, point them to other games with a cute artstyle but something beyond the surface. Binding of Isaac looks adorable despite how gruesome the setting is, and the quickly-becoming-a-huge-thing Undertale has an innocence to it despite having storytelling that "adult" games simply will never achieve.
Gameplay-wise, the game is a hack n' slash. If your friend wants to play multiplayer Legend of Zelda in a futuristic steampunk setting, this game will appeal. If your friend is one that won't pick up a game because it doesn't have an M rating slapped on it despite being like, 14, then this game will not appeal to them.
I would say to find various videos of gameplay to show them. Show them gameplay of tier 1, tier 2, and tier 3, hopefully a boss battle in one of those, then show them a blast network and lockdown video. Bonus points if you get a highly competitive match between parties that are evenly matched. This will preview what the game has to offer.
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 14:09
#4
Oh your friend must be such a
Oh your friend must be such a grown up judging the game only by its art style; I think the game would be perfect for him, he's got the mind of a 5 years old alright! ;)
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 14:20
#5
a
i'd say it starts off all cute and innocent when you first start playing, then towards the end it gets pretty heavy
nothing completely edgy but still more than what you'd expect from a game with literal jelly armour
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 15:28
#6
I'd actually really enjoy the game becoming darker, as long as it's a subtle thing.
A good example of darker in the right way would be the Arkus fight, where he's going insane turning into a trojan. That sort of thing is terrifying when you actually stop and think about it.
A good example of darker in the wrong way would be Sweeney Todd. The setting is dark, the people are dark, but the main three characters are at heart good people killing those that are less than good. Not that I didn't enjoy Sweeney Todd, of course.
@Hippo
Totally read that in Willy Wonka's voice XD
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 15:51
#7
Eh...
I don't think dark really needs to be the game's setting, but rather impactful. What would make a good impact on the player? Well for one, the bloody core opening was probably the most excited over a game I've been in a long time. The eerie but panicked message you get from Vaelyn it just... Sometimes I replay the 10-2 missions in order simply because that one speech bubble hits like a train for a veteran.
The next huge impactful thing to happen would be an encounter with the alpha squad. I can see Grantz being a boss, corrupted and tortured by the swarm. Rulen could be found wandering the whitespace, or we could meet up with Parma, who has become heavily injured and we must fight off a trap that the swarm has set to get to her. Finally, Euclid could be fighting off an endless arena, where we run in and help for a set time, but he tries to convince us to leave after every boss battle.
Basically, we don't need the game to go all dark and angsty, we need to have more moments where our actions have meaning, where victory is in sight but unreachable... The Unknown Passage does this very VERY well, and I'd like to see more situations with that design in mind.
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 15:55
#8
How to become an unconditional parent.
Per Three Rings' terms of service, five-year-olds are far below the age for playing Spiral Knights without parental supervision. The fact that this game is oriented toward a large online playerbase and offers microtransaction services may also prove to be a compelling argument, as people of this age generally do not possess the experience, understanding or responsibility required to properly keep conscious and take after of the consequences of interacting with strangers and making grievious mistakes in a game of this nature.
As for the art style, we should not forget that art by definition is strictly subjective to each individual. The depth of the characters in the game tends to vary largely in lightheartedness and severity of what happens in the story and world of Spiral Knights, but generally do not develop much by themselves enough to stand out. This may possibly impact how the player progresses and keeps immersed into the game.
In his friend's defense, however, not everything Spiral Knights has to offer would be considered a legitimately fun experience for seasoned players. Potentially excessive grinding, an abusive player market and various forms of artificial difficulty during gameplay are notorious parts of the game and have long been subjected to controversial topics.
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 16:48
#9
-
Double post
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 16:47
#10
shameless self advertisement
"It looks like it's for 5 year olds".
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 16:52
#11
Director's Cut: Spiral Knights
I would not mind at all Christopher Nolan taking over development from here. Turning Spiral Knights into the Dark Knight would be pretty cool, but you have to remove that kid friendly tag and put in m for mature.
"THE CORE! WHERE IS IT?! WHERE IS IT?!" -Snipeman
@Midnight-Dj I was going to say shameless self advertisement, but you did it anyways to yourself once I noticed it.
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 17:11
#12
a
"THE CORE! WHERE IS IT?! WHERE IS IT?!""
TELL ME ABOUT HEREX
WHY DOES HE WEAR THE MASK
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 17:19
#13
Food for thought
It can only be attractive to adults if there's a community of adults that they can play with. This was the case in 2011/2012. Personal chats with other 20 somethings indicates a large amount have stopped playing due to the stagnation of the game disintegrating these tight knit communities.
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 18:39
#14
@Petater
This smells like the prismatic bolted vee situation that you brought up last time we were saying something decent about the game.
"It can only be attractive to adults if there's a community of adults that they can play with."
"Personal chats with other 20 somethings indicates a large amount have stopped playing due to the stagnation of the game disintegrating these tight knit communities."
You're not wrong but I have a hard time saying that you're right-- there are plenty of older players left in game. Not as many as there once were, but it's still plausible to play and have a good time as a 20-something.. and in the OP's case especially, it's plausible to bring a friend in on it and go through the game together, making friends with like minded individuals as you go. The game itself is still there and in fact bigger than it ever has been in the past.
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 18:57
#15
No, this smells like the former people I used to play with back in 2011-2013 who quit the game even though they used to spend heavily on the game and were 20 to 40 years old. Players like Perronius and Lycheesoup. Although now that you bring that up, mismanagement of the game did kinda scare off some adults (Like myself from spending another dime). I'm sure people want to have a serious discussion with you when you try to derail any legitimate opposition against you with previous topics unrelated to the current one in a fallacy of ulterior motives serving all future discussions.
I have a hard time believing "The game itself is still there and in fact bigger than it ever has been in the past." I can see it in the market every day the current status of the game. I don't see the number of active guilds anywhere close to where they used to be, nor for the active guilds left do I see what would amount to what used to be the norm in active players online at any time. This game has gone from adult end game oriented to new player turnover in large respects.
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 19:22
#16
I'm a Wizard
0*-2 easy did gaem sucks
1*-woh statuses so cool
2*-woh its hoh so cool
3*-I cnat find orbz
4*-I still cnat find orbz
5*-Two things, either: orbz 2 expensive, or Wow this weapon has a pretty cool charge!
Meh.
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 19:26
#17
@Blazecat-Percival
You forgot
5*-Give me radiants
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 19:28
#18
@ Traevelliath
Or.
4*- I can't get past defender elite.
Tue, 12/08/2015 - 19:41
#19
@Petater
The crux of your argument is that the OP's friend cannot enjoy the game as an adult because the community is smaller. That just feels somewhat.. blown out of proportion, don't you think?
There are still some older players left to play with and all of the content is still available (i.e. bigger than it ever has been in the past content-wise, not player wise). It would be incredibly nice if the older portion of the community were larger again, but hardly 100% necessary for an older player to gain enjoyment from the game. This really shouldn't even be up for debate.
I mean.. you're in your 20s and you still play the game and (hopefully) want to see it succeed so it can't be that bad.
Wed, 12/09/2015 - 01:47
#20
@Six-From-Syrup
If by playing you mean solo'ing vana or doing market things, and complaining about the mismanagement of the game every day. My empirical experience with the game shows it's definitely not fit for adult players anymore, and is just a mill for new players to swipe their credit card for a gamble box and then quit due to stagnation in the game.
Back in 2011/2012 there was an actual community to interact with more-of that provided a means for staying in-game well past burning out your 100 daily mist allotment. People wonder how we survived back then, and I can say it was way better than post free elevators, just because of the community alone. My empirical experience in the past year shows me there is in no way enough adult players left to provide a functioning proper experience for themselves inside guilds. That time has gone and it feels like a mill for churning out young players at best who don't interact with guilds anymore.
With that being said, I can safely go on and say the forge system is anti-community (for all ages). It deters vanguards from playing lower tiers due to locking of rarities they need to higher tiers. What that did is kill off interaction between the new players and vanguards. By extension that made the game more solo focused and killed off community building. Back in 2011/2012 vanguards did RJP as much as Vana, namely because they linearly scaled in payouts they could use for crafting, so a bored older player could play RJP and befriend an adult testing out SK.
Wed, 12/09/2015 - 05:08
#21
Or^
The adult interaction mostly comes from the fact you have 100 mist energy. You have to do everything to preserve it, and players try not to use up their mist energy alone, so they try to bring along their friends with them.
Wed, 12/09/2015 - 08:45
#22
obligatory
In the days of mist energy, you could always buy crystal energy and play off that. Any advanced knight could acquire crystal energy faster than she spent energy and therefore play forever. I used to play for hours and hours for free. On the other hand, accumulating crowns was slow, and the mist system was unfriendly to novice knights, who couldn't farm as quickly.
Obviously the game has more content and a smaller community than it did in 2012. If you want to have a productive discussion, please use the principle of charity: Assume that your opponent is intelligent and knowledgeable, and interpret her statements in the best possible way, to avoid pointless arguments based on mis-interpretation.
I agree with Petater that the economic changes in release 2013-07-30 (Sparks of Life, Radiants, etc.) did hurt collaboration and community. But I don't see any evidence that new players are younger or that younger players are less into guilds. Also the game seems more F2P-friendly than ever, until you get to Radiants. So I don't understand the credit-card-swiping part.
Wed, 12/09/2015 - 11:01
#23
My own empirical experience dictates that. You can disagree with it, but you can't deny what I've personally experienced as a failing community in the game. If the game wasn't credit card swiping oriented then the employees wouldn't be as focused on making promos the thing they spend the majority of their time working on or releasing every two weeks. I see new players often buy a promo box when they get to defender rank since they assume it's the hip thing to do due to the walking advertisements in haven and then quit sk often as they get quickly bored due to lacking community and content.
Wed, 12/09/2015 - 11:35
#24
okay
I haven't seen Defenders buying promo boxes, so I don't have that evidence. But apparently you have seen this, and I have no particular reason to doubt you.
You are right that the promos are a way to keep a revenue stream going without using up much developer time. In general, selling cosmetics is a good way to fund a F2P game, because cosmetics don't give rich players a gameplay advantage. But I don't pay attention to these promos myself at all. I value only playable content (new weapons, monsters, etc.).
Wed, 12/09/2015 - 15:53
#25
@Petater
....See but this phenomena doesn't necessarily mean that people above a certain age are suddenly incapable of gleaning joy from the game, especially when there ARE some older players still in game on a regular basis. "My own empirical experience dictates that. You can disagree with it, but you can't deny what I've personally experienced". It could certainly be better, I'm not denying that, but it's still there for people that are interested.
"I'm sure people want to have a serious discussion with you when you try to derail any legitimate opposition against you with previous topics unrelated to the current one in a fallacy of ulterior motives serving all future discussions."
Wed, 12/09/2015 - 16:24
#26
If a post-war (dying?) military-run-government race of gunslinging, portable nuclear device bearing, semi-robotic swordmasters trying to find a new home happening upon a planet of stolen and artificial terrains holding hostile natives, strange aliens, and pretty much manufactured Satan goo isn't "adult", I dunno what is.
Inb4 someone mentions the cute little characters that are top tier in leading online games like WoW or LoL or what have you. Seriously, look up "league of legends cute" in Google and tell me those are not the faces of people who actually commit genocide with their friends.
ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ Haters gonna hate ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
Wed, 12/09/2015 - 16:43
#27
@midnight
I pretty much stopped reading after your post, but this was my reaction:
Your friend couldn't be -> I wonder if I'm in one of these.
any further -> maybe
from -> Eh probably not.
the truth. -> oh.
If your friend's idea of "adult" is scantily clad superhunks and superbabes taking themselves quite seriously, then Spiral Knights is not for him.
If your friend is adult enough to appreciate charming artwork and wry humor, then Spiral Knights may be for him.
(The actual adult world is full of people trying to project power and eroticism, usually through tedious cliches. Some of us adults like to escape from it to games like this.)
If your friend is a serious gamer, then he may find Spiral Knights too easy --- especially at the start. If so, then show him some of your own masterful play in a hard level. Or he may resent what the free-to-play concept is doing to the game industry. In the end, he's either grabbed by this game or not. Good luck.