WAIT! Before you continue, I want to say that this is a very long post (I got too carried away). So if you want to read a short summary of everything I said about my views of the game, be sure to scroll down to the TL;DR section!

Heya guys, from the title, you would know I'm a returning player to SK after not playing for a couple of years. I'm actually kind of excited to introduce myself for some reason, but I actually wanted to express my view on the game as of current times. It is indeed different in terms of population size from now and the past, but before I head into that, I'd like to introduce myself.

I am RotmgModdy, or Phantommoddy (when I returned, I started a new knight to relearn the ropes) in game. I've played this game 3 years ago before quitting for a really long time before coming back just a week ago. Why I decided to come back was because I had, well, a craving for this game. I remembered loving it when I first played it, and I wanted to re-experience that again. And so I am doing that currently, and my fresh knight is already a defender elite stuck on the "Return of Ur" mission, cuz darn those fiends.

As a player coming from ASE, or Asia South East, connection issues with the game are most certainly a problem for me, but I cope with it as I knew that SK was unable to support an AU server, forgot the reason but I was fine with it cuz I could still play the game anyway.

Always on 1 red bar of connection...not to be boastful, but despite that, I consider myself a very strong and decent skilled player in-game. Despite the fact that many things on my screen are delayed, such as bullets being way closer to me than what's on ym screen; or how despite my knight evading out of danger, is pulled back to the swarm of enemies, I am still able to complete most missions and depths with a few to no hits. I could complete "Ghosts in the machine", "Compund 42" and once, "Legion of Almire" without spending a single spark. I once made it through the entire Ironclaw Munitions Factory unharmed, and all those achievements are done as a person with only 1 small bar of connection... :)

As for my knights, my main knight who is Rotmgmoddy is a vanguard with some nice unique items such as the Obsidian Edge and Carbine. Currently my new knight, Phantommoddy, doesn't have anything of strong interest atm, but I enjoy playing on him just to re-experience everything again.

So I think I've blabbered enough info about me, it's time to move on to the current game's state

**-My thoughts on the current game condition-**

Now, about the current game's state. I got to say that I am actually still really happy that SK is even running to this day. The fact that I can still play the game of my...older childhood, makes me really glad as I experience the nostalgia from killing my first snarbolax or getting my first eternal orb. Gameplay is still quite smooth in terms of fps and generally it's all really great!

Anyway, about the player population. Yea, I noticed, it is significantly smaller than before. Last time, loading into Haven makes me lag due to the sheer number of players at the auction house and spawn area. Now, I'd be lucky to even see a horde at the auction house, it's usually close to none. However, despite the smaller population, it is still mildly easy to be in a party of 4, exploring the depths of clockworks or doing missions together. Personally I always cherished the value of teamwork in this game, so I am pleased that such a thing still exists to this day and can be easily demonstrated despite a significantly smaller player base than before.

Another thing, game updates. I haven't really caught up with all the news that I've missed, but from my own intepretation from a few minutes of research, I think OOO disbanded and a few ex-members of OOO formed Grey Havens, a small development team that tries to keep as many of the older games running as long as they can. Keyword here is "small".

As a stalker of the forums ever since I came back, I noticed a lot of complaints, a lot saying that the game is dying, a lot saying that the team is doing nothing to keep the game alive. I'm here to say that I do not think that is true at all. It is hard to support a huge game and give it regular updates when your development team is oh-so-small... and from that thread I saw, it appears that there is still development but it is slow because obviously, small development team, especially when lead designer is gone.

But you see, despite development being really slow, there's still events happening. An event I've never experienced before, the Katalysmic Confrontation, waiting for that ever since back then but it never came (though, probably only came after I quit), is currently on, and it's always nice to experience something new for me. I'm sure the annual events are still running, like the anniversary event, the halloween event and the Christmas event... and the fact they are still running means the game is not dead.

Of course, every game does eventually die. It's a widely accepted fact, and there's no denying it. However, I wouldn't want SK to be dead in bad terms before it dies. I want to see more joyful threads of people experiencing the game, instead of complaints and negative threads that the game developers aren't even trying. In fact, if anything, I'd like SK to die in a good way, one that leaves awesome and cherishable moments and memories in those that have experienced it, and I know I will.

Anyway, that is the end of my looooong thread. Since it is so long, here is a tl;dr below

**TL;DR**
Still enjoy the game like back then, developers are still trying their best to keep the game up and running, events are still running so the game will not die so soon, games eventually die but I want its good memories and moments to live forever in everyone who has played SK.

Aaaaand if you read through everything, I'm also really happy, and I hope I didn't bore you... :s I tried to paragraph a lot to make it easier to read in bite-sized chunks instead of a wall of text. :)