Hey. Xan here.
This is just a bit of an idea I had. Before I get started, I want to clear some things out of the way:
- I am well aware that Grey Havens probably won't do this.
- It's an IDEA. You know, one of those things a fan of a game comes up with that's completely ridiculous?
With that out of the way, let's get started.
So what's my idea?
To get started, I'm going to ease into this. Spiral Knights is classified as an MMO, correct? I don't want to pull this move (the "Other people do it so I can do it" move), but I will. If you look at pretty much any other MMO out there, what do they do? They let you choose your side! I'd like to see that in Spiral Knights.
STOP! Keep your pants on, Mr. "Oh but the game doesn't support it because _____"! - I've got reasons for how this would work.
Part 1: Implementing this into the lore.
I personally feel that this is already done. How so? Go watch the intro/trailer - In the Skylark, an officer says he's found the source of the massive energy spike. Correct? So what does the Captain say? "We can harness this energy" (or something like that).
Well damn! To me, that sounds like the Spiral Order is attacking Cradle, trying to take it's energy source! BAM! There you have it! A reason to choose one of both sides!
You can pick the Spiral Order in favor of whatever they need the energy for, or you can pick the ... Gremlin ... Order? in favor of protecting cradle.
So lore-wise, I think we're set to go for the most part. Of course, a bit of extra writing would be necessary, but otherwise we already have the base to build on.
Part 2: Implementing this into the actual game.
Oh dear, every developer's weakness: BIG UPDATES!
This is a big problem for this idea here. As a developer of my own games, I know that when you want to start working on more of the game, you get that "Ohhhh, I really don't wanna do this.." feeling. So how could we fix this, assuming that Grey Havens isn't going to want to do this?
This is going to be a risky move, but I do have good (enough) reason I believe. I think we should allow user-generated content.
But WAIT! Not just any content, because that'd be completely terrible for the most part.
I'm talking about content from people like me who love coding and work great in Java. Effectively I'm saying that you should allow users to generate quest chains, weapon scripts, and preset maps in order to at LEAST accelerate the workflow. Of course, from a business standpoint this'd be a pain to work out due to the workers thing and all that (I have no idea what I'm talking about), but I'm sure there'd be a way to get this to work.
I'm really not going to elaborate on this any more, because it's just not that much of an idea, more of a vision, but hey. Post your opinions below.
The idea sounds interesting, but taking work on a completely opposite track probably wouldn't be favorable. It's probably best if GH would expand and continue on the Spiral Order story line as that's gone quite deep already. Plus it's on a cliffhanger as well. Having the Gremlin's side sounds like a completely different storyline as if they are going to successfully "protect" cradle (even though they have pretty nefarious plans and actually want to DESTROY cradle... or at least Haven i.e. the Roarmulus Twins). And in turn, sounds like the whole gremlin side would be an entirely different spin off game.
And your part two, to be quite honest, just sounds like another "let the community do the work for you for free" type of thing which has already been talked about quite a few times already and been shot down.