... whats keeping you guys around and still playing sk?

I guess Ive shifted these same outlets to someplace new. For me there are more attractive ways to relax (snuggle my kitten, veg out and catch up on shows), talk to friends( the best friends will follow you outside anygame) , collect data( everythings a learning experience!) and revisit nostalgia ( new pokemon games out! :D or just reconnecting with old hobbies is extremely rewarding in itself. Recently I got back into skateboarding. I was never very good at it in the past but ive made some massive progression and feel very satisfied)

I see your point as its a comfortable social routine. ( I always thought of sk as my social networking preference, screw facebook!)My point is merely there are many other even more rewarding ways to achieve what sk fills for you.

Ahh, the days of Mist and Crystal energy. I disliked the mist energy, but I dislike the current Forge way more. It's just so... tedious to heat now.

Also, Energy prices have skyrocketed. https://sites.google.com/site/skcemarket/chart

I'm /that/ person and have 5200 hours accordin' to Steam. |D

What keeps me around? I just generally love the game. Call me stupid but Spiral Knights is my favorite game on Steam. I just love almost all the elements of the game itself. The art, the music, the story, the mobs, the playstyle, just about everything. I started a few days after the Steam release. During the days of mist, the game was fun but I didn't really like how it limited my free play and if I wanted to continue to play, I either had to wait for my mist to regen or pay up with crystal energy. Crafting up was an absolute bear to me as well, seeing as not only was I paying for the recipes along with the small crown cost, but then it required crystal energy too. It was fun but I hated crafting up as it felt a bit P2P. The jump from 4* to 5* is what led to my disappearance on SK for a few months as it felt a bit impossible at times.

Let's just say I'm one of those who was quite pleased when the battle sprite update came around. I'm a sucker for battle sprites (prolly 'cause I'm a bit of a pet fanatic olol), I love the free elevators, I enjoy the new crafting system as I don't have to farm specifically for cash just to upgrade. Orbs aren't too hard to farm for with a little patience and persistence. I know the forge gets a LOT of crap (I'm pretty sure it's primarily about rads) but I honestly don't mind it. With the changes, one needs to learn to adapt and just go with it. They can't just make crafting easier like that and then leave the heat system as it was, people would get to 5* within 48 hours. If it really bothers you that there is heat that's gone wasted, equip multiple things that need heat so more is used. :P Sprites certainly take a bit out too!

Imo, the only major flaw the forge has right now is radiants. They're a bit too scarce considering how many one needs to fully heat a 5* weapon and one can only do Dreams and Nightmares for maybe 30 rads per so many times before your brain wants to pop a gasket. Otherwise, I have no problems with it.

I enjoy the community for the most part, though I'm forced to be a bit antisocial when it comes to doing missions/arcade runs, my internet generally throws a fit if I go in parties due to bandwidth limitations. I do find many a conversation in Haven though, always something to pitch a sentence in to while advertising in /2.

Which cost more than the crafting fee did in the days of yore, thanks to energy inflation. Yeah, you can get Orb drops, but those are never guaranteed. You also got 100 Mist a day before, which further reduced the crafting fee.

Also it costs the same amount of energy.

So, using 700 CE that you must buy + free 100 mist is the same as 800 CE that you must buy (since you can't buy single orbs only stacks), seems legit... I don't think missing out playing SK for a day is as punishing as another obligatory vanagrind, after all, you have other games you can play.

The soaring of the ce prices is mainly due to the free elevators. Deal with it.

Until you have data to actually back up your claim I will consider what you said partially invalid.

@Fangel

But can you prove that it wasn't just an increase in demand for energy or lowered demand for crowns? It's economically possible that players actually started earning less crowns, and that there is somehow more energy in the system.

Hello, i was a fan of this since 2013, but i could not play it because of my crappy pc. Today i have a new pc and play this game and it make still fun. Yeah the alchemy orbs are a bit annoying but it makes still fun, Who cares if this game has some pay to win aspects, it makes still fun

I've been here since launch. I haven't played as much as I should have in the past year, though. ~Z

I hated the old days but I loved them too.

I am from the old era, but I would only play 12 levels a day because I am and was free to play :(

I was not a big fan of the old days because I would grind out second tier (I was a noob at the time) to get enough money to buy more energy, but then I would have no money :(

I do not remember what my old account was (maybe it is this one) but I am coming back to the game from a long hiatus.

OMG the old days.

A bit off-topic but the days back then were SK's prime times. Tier 2 Lockdown was balanced (no hammer) and nobody used UVs. When health pendants became craftable LD became annoying, though.

The Energy was so low too... 4k crowns was it?

Oh and the shard bombs... My favorite weapon to use by far... I loved doing choochoo trains with those bombs, but the new laggy shards barely do any damage in Lockdown and are susceptible to gunning.

Those were the days when I wondered what weapons looked like, what armor and costumes looked like, how weapons worked. Now that I've experienced everything, it isn't the same anymore =/

Tier 2 Lockdown. It was extremely competitive back then. The hammer, however, kills it entirely. It's just so sad!

If Hammers were to be banned from Lockdown (which is likely never going to happen because of the game model), there is a glimmer of hope.

Old player here. I just resumed playing the other day after two years of inactivity. Im glad to see a few familiar forumers are still around. I missed this community so much

I remember just after mist got removed; I wasn't playing SK at the time, just checking back on it every few months because I knew that mist was gonna go eventually (else the game would bomb)

Sure enough, it did. I played this game till no tomorrow for about a month. Felt like my hand was gonna fall off. But it was worth it, for those memories of jelly palace and doing huge arcade runs.

EDIT: And, of course, way, way back, when I was playing in the mist era, I always freeloaded the elevators. For those who don't know, you needed mist for the elevator but as soon as one person paid for it everyone could use it for free. People usually took paying in turns.

I always said that I didn't have enough energy to use the elevator, and that my energy icon glitched out (if you had enough energy it would turn white to show the party you had enough to pay, and if you had less than 10 it would turn yellow). So then the moneybags of the party would pay for me instead. Nostalgic times...