I think new and original promotions are really the proper way to do them. Viking and pirate themed costumes are really cool, and getting reskins of more weapon types gives end game collectors something to show off while actually using, rather than sudaruska being reskinned for the Nth time.

I will say that I would love a promotion to come out alongside game content. However, that requires more of a themed promotion that may not be as unique. For example, a pirate promo doesn't really need a pirate level. However, the gunner update introduced new armor models, so had we had a "gunner update promo" that had reskins of certain guns and armors, we'd be able to play with the new toys immediately if we got lucky, and have a bunch of new colors of new armor to make into costumes. Similarly, a return of the slumber prize box during the starlight cradle update would've been great!

Month-long promotions also allow for us to see more content being developed since you will need a single promo to be made over 30 days, and it doesn't take 30 days to model and skin cosmetics on a regular work schedule(I hope at least). This means we're seeing better promos and hopefully more work going on behind the scenes to better the game we love.

The damage is irreversible in my opinion. And I have a few reasons for why:

-SK can never get the fundings, ever since SEGA laid off SK, there is literally no one backing SK with any kind of serious amount of money, this means media presence of SK is now down the drain, most of the SK youtube community like meroka, serjinxable and skyelite have moved on. Unless somehow by some miracle SK managed to greatly re-innovate itself, there is no chance in hell that SK can get any forms of attention from the internet.

-OOO burned a lot of bridges. You may think I am the only one who is spewing crap at GH but in truth many people had in the past and have now moved on to better games. You can bet they will be bad mouthing this game to any players in their new game if they wanted to try this game out. Years of neglect on OOO's part means a lot of grudges from its former fan base. I wouldn't even recommend this game to any of my friend due to its grindy nature and bottomless end game.

-GH has no directions, the release of new sword like the amputator convinced me that they learned absolutely nothing about weapon balance since the game first released. And the fact they only buffed shard bombs recently really shows how neglectful the management had been. We called for the buff for FOUR YEARS. These bad decision makings don't do any good in bolstering the morale of the remaining playerbase, as much as some of them would like to claim otherwise (I AM LOOKING AT YOU FANGEL).

-SK is for the most part, an unfinished game. So many story weren't told, so many areas of this vast world unexplored. I am sure Nick would one day lay in his death bed (not that this is a death threat, only theorizing) and wonder to himself what could have done to better this game.

The truth is, SK had the most amount of potential I saw in any MMO I played. WoT and navyfield can only spam so many fake tanks/ships before it gets stale, but leaving so much of SK lore and back story lvague is a huge spit in the face for someone who is a sucker for deep lore like me. I just don't see how a team this tiny can give SK the polish it deserves. For this game could have easily had lores that can rival WoW or Warhammer 40K in its depth.

At the moment, the only way I see Spiral Knights making a come back is as a complete reboot with the game being completely refurbished with more to offer in general. A reboot it self would give the game somewhat of a clean slate for it to start again and head in a clear direction. As you can imagine though, this is very unlikely.

@Fehzors-Forum-Alt: "he idea was to build levels as a community and then play them, but this never panned out well"
This is really interesting. I wasn't around during this stage but I remember there often being suggestion threads which requested a way for players to make their own levels and publish them in the game. If I remember correctly OOO's response to this was that it was quite complex so players would probably struggle with it. If that was the case I always wondered why they didn't create a simplified in-game method for creating levels. I understand that it would have taken them a long time but they also spent a very long time not producing content for the game. Although, I guess looking at how long it how long it took them release the Gunner Update after the originally planned release date, maybe this wasn't such a viable idea after all.