He makes some valid points about CE, honestly, I believe the price and cost to ride the elevators is a little too high. Personally, I would like to see energy costs in general cut in half. 5 Energy per elevator makes a big difference for the free players. Difference of potentially 20 floors vs just 10 a day. Crafting I would venture to say is fine in terms of CE, as it encourages leveling gear more, and revives are fine since in groups you don't even have to pay half the time.

Though I take his review with a little hesitance as it is true he did not review enough of the game given this fact. In my opinion, if your going to review a game fully, you need to foot a bit of the bill to describe the game play before you hang up due to the cost limit. I want a review, not a guy who gets hung up on the cost to review it. I'm sure PC gamer can foot a 20 dollar charge to fully review the game.

After a second read-through. I'd say the review is dead-on.
It does a great job explaining the core mechanics of the game, and is precise and to the point in addressing the very reason why my list of 50 friends, many of whom I recruited, is habitually empty and why so few have stuck around.

I thought this was a thread about a review, but it's just another CE thread.

That aside, he's a reviewer. Paying for games is obviously something he isn't used to.
Most of the time the Publishers will stick a fat wad of $$$$ inside the review copy so he gives it a good score.
Hell, most reviewers don't even play games, they just write up a couple pages based off of the blurb on the back of the box.

So 51 isn't that bad a score from a cheapskate who takes bribes. But still pretty bad considering he gave DNF an 80.

Wow... seriously? PCgamer is really going downhill. That review was horrible.

This game, should be at least a 75. To me, its a 90.

All they talked about was the business model, and even then they failed to mention you can buy CE with crowns...

Obviously there is a ridiculous amount of white-knighting going on in this thread.

I love the game. I leveled one full set without ever dropping a dime, and felt the game was worth my investment, so I bought I starter pack to put together a second set just to vary the playstyle.

That said, lets be real, people.

You can and in most cases do see 90% of the content, top to bottom, within a single bar of mist energy.
I know, I know. Say what you will about the boss stages. I love them too. But at the end of the day, even those stages share a lot in common with any other depth you'll visit. Snarbolax and Jelly King are essentially standard depth levels, albeit a "theme", with the boss being the single, solitary exception. FSC and Ironclaw add some much-needed spice to the variety of the game.

You can't discredit an honest review that seems to grasp the game's core mechanics, because they didn't experience boss-depths or a specific fight. That would be like discrediting a poor review of a restaurant because the reviewer didn't try their hot sauce.

I'll say it again. The business model is flawed. Many other games have done it better.
You'll still catch me logged in but I've got tough love for OOO. No sycophancy here.

Some of this stuff will probably have been said, but I'm too lazy to read it all.

But reading the comments for the article are hilarious. And what I don't understand with this "review" is that it says it reviews Spiral Knights, but he drills the Energy part of the game like crazy. That's just one part of the game. Yeah, it can be a bit much at time, but OOO wants to make money with this, and to do so they have to make it easyish to play without paying, but not extremely easy, because then they would lose a lot of money.

His experience of this game is basically the hurdle you have to get past to really enjoy the game, he doesn't understand the game at all...

He understands and explains the lore/story of how you got there / why you are essentially playing the game.
He points out that the game's content is a series of layered dungeons.
He mentions dungeon themes and highlights arenas/danger rooms as exceptions to the standard dungeon crawl.

He discusses the simplistic nature of combat, 4 player parties, how completing dungeons continues to feed the dungeon evolution (IE minerals), and that all buffs gained inside them are temporary.

He mentions that leveling is done by way of gear alone. And how crafting is highlighted as the primary way of advancing your character. Yes you can buy items "but it's much more sensible to make them."

Amazingly, there is not much more to the game than that. You can argue semantics, but this is a damn simple game — anyone who played a classic NES/Genesis console can pretty much sit down and play with a near-full understanding from day one.

Frankly, it wouldn't be hard to rework the system to be a much more viable, and inviting free to play.

If crafting continues to cost high amounts of energy, as it does, the energy market can continue to do that capitalistic thing it does.
Reduce all elevator costs to 0, so the game truly is free to play. Leave in the gear restrictions on tier, inviting players that want to progress past tier 1 to delve into the energy market to do so.
All upgrades and customizations. All. Should be at a cost. Heat Amps. Weapon Slots. Trinket Slots. Change your name. Change your color. Heck, maybe even allow players to choose where they go on any given gate map. And it should all cost real money.

However you do it, merely playing the dungeons you have access to should be free.
Expanding your experience means opening your wallet. It's a very common F2P practice. Again, look at Vindictus.

Wow, just read the review and he hardly mentioned ANYTHING about the game itself. What little he did mention was incorrect most of the time (boss on floor 10... limited to two weapons... seriously?)

All he really wanted to do was gripe about the CE system. It's like opened up the SK forums, found a random CE whining thread, and copy pasted it onto his review.

I think all OOO can do to correct this is helping people understand how the in-game economy works and how to use their resources more efficiently.

Though that has been mention enough times already, I think.

The problem here is that this is a ''professional'' review, what do you expect?

They're paid to spend a couple of hours or so, at most, -then- right a review on the game. Most ''professional'' reviews are disgustingly ridiculous, giving games that are garbage high scores, or giving great games low scores.

There's never any ''professionalism'' involved, they just rate it how they personally want to rate it, or they get paid off with free products (Commonly happens) to write a fairly decent or great review.

The man is an amateur, working a job that doesn't require any knowledge of what you're doing.

PC Gamer Sucks! i give Spiral Knights 100 Two Thumbs Up!! A+++ The Best MMO online!! The Best Action Slash RPG MMO!! i bet the guys in PC Game Mag have nothing to do or say! they must be board in there heads... Truly! SK for me is the best game MMO out there! im playing since Beta! and i will continue to do sow!

That's the review I would have written if I had spent about an hour in the game, were bad enough to not be self sustaining, and never planned to spend any money if it grew on me. It's like reviewing a console RPG off of the 45 minute demo bundled with another game and thinking "All I did is watch cut scenes and listen to people talk wtf?!"

I can see a 60-85 being a fair score depending on if you like this type of game. 51 is pushing credibility.

^

If I was a new player looking at the review I would have absolutely no idea if the game is worth playing, because he doesn't tell me what the game actually has to offer.

All he does is knock the game's business model without even explaining it in full.

On top of missing information, a lot of the information that actually is presented is wrong.

Real reviews are ones created by yourself and your friends.

How would "having all the ME in a hour and a half (or did you mean half an hour?)" help the kids to take a break from playing?
The ME is regenerating when you are offline, so they don't have to be online during that time.

I don't remember posting that comment eh probally my brother logged onto my forum acc since I let him

the sad part is, there isn't a game on the market that is doing what spiral knights is doing.

and if there were, spiral knights would probably STILL do it better.

someone said giving it a 51 pushes his credibility. i'd say thats a freakin given at this point. the only thing he reviewed was the energy system from the perspective of an uneducated noob who was no desire to learn any further.

honestly he probably never intended to play the game from the get go and decided beforehand what his review was going to be.

I see two types of comments in this entire thread.

1) You are offended (don't deny it) and call him an amateur that has no idea what he's doing and how dare he insult my favorite game.
2) You like Spiral Knights (else why would we be here?) but you do recognize that he has some points.

I'm not trying to troll, maybe he didn't explore all the features of Spiral Knights, but considering he said he couldn't play anymore, would not that explain it?

When people are trying to pick a game to play, do they play the one that markets itself as free to play but then quickly brings your gameplay to a halt and asks for money if you want to continue (I am completely aware there is a way to continue playing without paying, but as I stated earlier, that relies on other people who DO pay and it's not totally viable for a new player) or one that is honest about a one-time payment then you can play to your heart's content?

I like this game a lot, it's why I've played it every single day for a good month now, but that's just how people who don't play will see the game, and I want people to understand that. This isn't a question of pride, of how he insulted us and now we must discredit him, this is the view of the outside looking in, this is how people who don't play see this game. He played until he couldn't play anymore and then he reviewed his experience.

Running out of energy doesn't boot you out of the game. You can wander around haven all you want. Perhaps chat with the NPCs and learn about the energy system, maybe explore the in game economy. It's just a lame excuse by a reviewer who didn't want to work too hard.

Then again I kinda like the harsh realities that the energy bar brings.
Reality A, if you want to play longer maybe you should play better. Sure at the beginning everyone wastes energy, I certainly did (that army of mecha knights was cool till I realized how much energy I wasted), but you quickly understand that energy conservation will lengthen your game, and that smart playing will increase your crowns.

Reality 2, if you had so much fun that you ran out all your energy and weren't ready to quit, maybe it's worth giving them some money. This of course spurs all the rage posts attacking OOO for being greedy. Let's get real here, at the worst exchange rate is 750ce, or 75 dungeon levels for $2.50. If you decide it isn't worth the money, no problem, you can pick it up the next day.

Ironically one complaint about SK is that it's too easy to buy straight to end game. Something the reviewer wasn't even close to touching.

"This is true of all free-to-play model games. They rely on people who do pay. Without them the game would shut down and the free players would no longer be able to play."

Technically true, but in this case without said paying players DIRECTLY selling CE this game isn't even what I'd call F2P. In other games players pay for convenience or fun or whatever else, in here it's kind of between F2P and P2P.

To all your points about what he didn't mention:

"I'm not trying to troll, maybe he didn't explore all the features of Spiral Knights, but considering he said he couldn't play anymore, would not that explain it?"

---

The review wasn't that bad, you can't put off an essay of text about why you thought it was bad if you weren't offended about it at least on some level.

It wasn't in depth, it missed a lot of points and maybe he was just flat out wrong on certain topics BUT- if he was just playing through to see what he could find and then he couldn't go farther in the dungeon that he was already mostly through then what kind of reaction do you expect from someone who's been playing for an hour?

I'm confused as to why people are so shocked by the conclusion the reviewer reaches.

I've lost all respect for this person.
"We head into the elevator at level nine. The boss level is next. "
What. There's no boss at "level" 10.
:I
And he never heard of patience.
Don't review a game you've been playing for less than a day, in total.
The rest has been said. ( probably this too but eh)

"how dare he insult my favorite game."

It's not about the rating. It's not about any insults, real or imagined. It's about the reviewer not saying much that is meaningful about the game. It's about the reviewer saying so many things that are wildly inaccurate. It's not "inaccurate" opinions.

It's that there are objective facts about the game and the reviewer gets them wrong. What are "forest areas" and "pack rats" and "electric zones"? Apparently the last one doesn't mean a shock-themed level, or at least if it does, then the reviewer hasn't the slightest clue what a shock-themed level means.

The review implies that groups are formed in Haven, rather than players joining on the fly. That players can join on the fly is one of the key features that makes this game unusual, and the review not only misses it, but implies that it isn't even there.

The only mention of blocking is that you can "press ‘X’ to throw up a shield." But lots of games have shields, and the functionality of a shield here has nothing to do with the functionality of a shield in, say, WoW. That's a key game mechanic, and people who read the review will no no more about it afterwards than before they ever heard of the game. It would be like saying that the game has swords, but nothing about what you do with them. Or that the game has bombs, but nothing about what you do with them. Oh wait, the reviewer doesn't even know that the game has bombs.

Even his rant about the energy system is wildly wrong. For example: "I can either buy more to continue, or come back 24 hours later." For starters, your full mist tank takes 22 hours to refill, not 24. Furthermore, it only takes 10 energy to do a level, or 60 for all of tier 1, not a full tank. Or try: "As soon as the counter at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen reaches zero, you’re done for the day. Unless, of course, you choose to pay." That asserts that you cannot buy crystal energy with crowns. And that is totally wrong.

I don't care if the reviewer gives the game a 51 or a 91 or a 21. But at least leave false claims out of the review, and talk about the important game mechanics that someone potentially interested in the game needs to know about. The review does neither, and that is why it is a failure.

"When people are trying to pick a game to play..."

I don't know about you, but I first try to find a game that would be fun to play. Business model considerations come after that. Would Spiral Knights be fun to play? Someone who reads that review won't know any more about it after reading it than he would before.

"this is the view of the outside looking in, this is how people who don't play see this game."

So basically, you're conceding the point that the reviewer doesn't have the slightest clue what he's talking about, as his views are representative of those who haven't played the game?

"There are plenty of games out there that "get better later,""

To the contrary, there are many games whose players will tell you that it gets better later. But they're wrong. They're always wrong. If a game isn't fun within the first few days, then it never will be.

It's not that the game itself gets worse. To the contrary, the content itself might well get better. But rather, what was once new and exciting becomes old and mundane. You get a broader variety of skills, you better understand what you're doing, and so forth.

"You might not realize it, but the current energy system is a tremendous inconvenience for new players."

You know what else is really an inconvenience for new players? Having to buy a box before you can play a game. Having to pay a subscription fee before you can play a game. In other words, for a company to make money off of a game is an inconvenience to players.

But that sure beats knowing full well that after a few weeks, the game will degenerate into one of, whoever pays the most wins.

"what kind of reaction do you expect from someone who's been playing for an hour?"

I expect him not to publish a review before he knows what he's talking about. Is that really so much to ask? Play the game, understand the game, and then post a review, without skipping the first two steps to commence with step 3?

Now, some games are really hard to understand. You could have two well-done reviews of A Tale in the Desert that make it look like the authors aren't even playing the same game. But the only thing that makes Spiral Knights tricky to understand is that it does some things differently from industry norms, rather than being yet another mediocre WoW-clone. Yet that is what makes the game potentially interesting, and precisely what a good review needs to convey.

"I would rather play a subscription than have this "Nickel and diming" that KEEPS happening. There are examples of it all over the game. Whenever something could be adjusted to be better for the player or the developer, they side with the developer. Take the Haze Bombs, the only 1* item that is actually worth crafting (for unique variants to upgrade). They are turning it into a 2* item (from 10CE and 200C to 50CE and 400C) and removing the different alchemy paths. How does this help me as a player? It doesn't. I wish they would have went a different route and add alchemy paths for more 1* items."

Thats funny, I would rather pay nothing while continuing to play the game. No one is forcing you to spend money. With the Haze Bomb its obvious that this was a problem in making strong gear too easy to acquire. We might as well make a 1* version of the Calibur so that everyone can craft 10 a day for free and much more easily get those CTR bonuses that they're hunting. I mean, this isn't broken at all, I don't know WHAT they're thinking. They're not even removing the vaporizers so I don't know what you're even complaining about. All they're doing is making the Haze Bomb into its own line.

"I appreciated the "Half" off energy surge week. It meant I actually played the game for a length of time that was enjoyable. While the game has great aspects, this area just keeps players from having fun. There are sooo many other ways that Three Rings could present this that would make me happier as a player, but just falls short on this area."

90-120 minutes isn't enough for you? Anyway you CAN start at different levels, try making some friends or joining a guild, its not that hard. Or just join a party and chances are you'll already be some levels into the stratum. I get the feeling you like the review because your points are just as bad. Not to mention you say you spend money but can only play for a limited amount of time. I haven't paid a cent and can play as much as I want. You pointed out the reason WHY the Haze Bomb needs to be a 2* item and yet you fail to see why it makes sense that it'd need to be one? Please re-read your post.

(duplicate post deleted)

Iactually agree with all your points, cdn. All of them are things that OOO could do a better job on, although it may take a fair amount of effort on OOO's part. (In particular, the screen freezes are probably due to memory leaks causing the java garbage collector to do too much work, and memory leaks can be a *real* pain to find.)

Still, 100hours of game play isn't bad for such a simple game. If everyone played at least 100hrs before quiting, OOO would be doing very very well.