So how was the game, like, back then?
I mean like, I started playing at around June after it came out on Steam and my older brother was like "O hay bro check dis game out it is like cool" and I was like,"OK".
So how was the game before then? Were systems for stuff like crafting and selling and buying and energy and damage and monsters and elevators and run-on sentences different?
You can take a look back at the Announcements forum, to see features as they were added. Off the top of my head:
Did the Auction House and Advanced Training Hall exist when you started? They were added in the same update. Where the Advanced Training Hall currently is, there was just a tent, where I would sometimes sit. Where the Auction House currently is, there was just a solitary Stranger selling energy. (Now he stands off to the side.) No one hung out in the Town Square at all. People hung out near the Alchemy Machines in the Arcade and the Bazaar. You might say that the Auction House revived the Town Square and killed the Bazaar.
There were no piercing swords. The Brandish line went only to the 2-star level.
Monsters inflicted a somewhat different mix of damage. For example, slimes didn't have spikes, and I think that they inflicted no piercing damage?
In what was perhaps the most infamous update of them all, crafting prices were increased. I think the 5-star craft went from 500 energy to 800 energy.
well a "real" beta player could tell you more. I won't say anything of the time before April 1st as I was too new to actually care (only entered one super brawl match).
At it's heart, the game is mostly the same from April 1st to now. We've gotten more weapons (flourishes, brandish expansions, pulsars).
Crafting was relatively cheaper. 3* was 100 energy. 4* 200. 5* 300 energy. The recipes cost more than now but it still was cheaper (if and only if) you didn't buy your energy. But the methods were the same.
We didn't have an AH back then either so selling stuff was more of a hassle.
Beasts/slimes/devilites used to deal only normal I think. We didn't have polyps and the like either, elemental defense was king.
You used to be able to avoid summoning the slag guards of vanaduke by not killing the skeletons. Token rewards were higher as well.
Um that's all I got for now
In the beginning, SK created . . .
At first when you crafted an item, it was unbound, then SK made them bound with no way to unbind, then they made a way to unbind again.
Trade chat and selling in haven were wild before the auction house was added.
There were no polyps. JK and Vanaduke were the only bosses.
gate construction was slightly different. It was possible to have a full gate of a single type if you wanted. Also higher payouts in general, not that that mattered much but still.
This is about the FINAL PREVIEW TEST! LATE October 2010 ONWARD!!!! because I joined late october...
Well... the tiers you know now, were known as "sub-towns"
they were like pit stops you could log off at when delving into the clockworks!
Every item had defense VS every element (nml, shd, prc, ele)
Lots of items were missing art soooooooooooo... they were basically Proto gear with different colours... Jelly gear was proto gear BUT IN PINK!
Skelly Helm used to ACTUALLY BE A SKELLY HEAD! IDK WHY THEY CHANGED THAT!!!
Noobs (like me) often bought recipes without knowing they had a pre-requirement because they didn't tell you the ingredients when you were buying them!
Energy costed 10k!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nobody had a Sealed Sword! FIRST PERSON TO FIND ONE THOUGH WAS CACTUSCAT in the 3rd quarter of beta or something like that...
Jellies had no spikes
Lame swipe charge attacks
EVERYBODY USED KHOROVOD!! it was OVERPOWERED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hearts weren't shared so there were some greedy peeps....
I can't remember much about vitapods... they confused me for life! but I think each vitapod gave +1 to your health?
The ONLY BOSS was Vanaduke AND it was easy to survive him AND BEAT HIM WITH 3* items...
You could only reach Emberlight by completing the levels from Haven to Moorcroft until Emberlight and you could have any starred gear
There was a gate for noobs in that Haven central place that costed 5 energy
Most players either used: Scarlet Shield (+1 health), or Swiftstrike Buckler (added attack speed), Stone Tortoise Shield (drop from Tortodrone) -> Omega Shield.. but this was when they defended all elements
I always saw Tantarian randomly sitting around and looking epic...
We had 5 slots in our vial belt
It said PREVIEW BUILD on the left and right sides of our screens
Red Treasure Boxes first arrived in November 2010
You could drag items from your inventory into the game! (e.g. http://wiki.spiralknights.com/File:Merry_Christmas_Shards.PNG)
There were Travel Passes... but I don't recall what their function was... I THINK it was a pass you got every time you reached a sub-town and you could use them to go from Haven to that sub-town but the passes expired after some time!
What happened to the tortodrone etc? I heard they were taken out to be balanced or something.... then never added again to date....
Does anyone know if they might add the Tortodrone and other things like the Sloombargo? which in its description on the wiki it says it could be found formerly at the "shrime of slumber," sounds strange
So many cool things, why did they have to go away? :o
The only true rare thing nowadays besides finding, say, a sloom in a monster cage or a soul jelly, is getting the Darkfang Shield and that is BoE so people can just buy it making it not as cool....
I think that would be awesome if more extremely rare things were added that are BoP / items so you have a trophy.
The Zee Core for example, according to the wiki is dropped by the sloom. I heard that the Sloom isn't even supposed to be in the game, but the devs forgot to take it out of monster cages or something? If someone has a Zee Core that would be an awesome little trophy.
I was extremely surprised when I found a sloom from a monster cage when I started SK running snarb. Sadly it didn't drop me a Zee Core trophy T.T
Also the very old levels all of those jelly farms and rock farms or whatever. They have interesting things like that secret key when you kill the one floating stone block. There should be more levels like that.
Now it's like hit the switch and press the button, kill the stuff, get your loot, grats.
Scenario rooms did help get rid of that though :3 but that's more of just a random encounter instead of a secret.
OH and MORE NPCS!
The Tortodrone was showing up in Tier 1 and killed all the noobs EASILY but a single charge attack from a 5* weapon killed it instantly!
Old spiral knights looks awesome
Mainly because I am a fan of the aurora isles / all of the oldest levels. They are by far my favorite, mainly because jello.
Though I have to say, the work they did on this game to date has been for the better.
I can still enjoy my jello farms, just that I have to have a ton of the right minerals now T.T
ohi.
Spiral knights first preview existed on the 15th of april for about 4 hours, and those chosen were avid whirled players. At that stage barely anything was known; and nothing was really recorded anywhere about it.
The Second Preview came about late 2009 in november; this is when I started playing. A small ad was placed onto a number of websites and the player base reached somewhere around 40 players I think. Gates existed as static (basically elevators) located in the central hub. Different Gates were released over a number of days. there were several gates each having a mini-boss/boss which was succeeded by a treasure vault in which Golden Trojans droned about in. Loot in the game was 'free-for-all' so what you got was yours. The Bosses were quite strategically based, i.e. there was one I remember which followed the scarlet fortress which contained a large hall of blast boxes and rocket puppies with a trojan to top it off. The best tactic was to lead the trojan over the blast cubes to deal the most damage. The amount of gear was quite sad but the catch was that all the good stuff were monster drops; and the majority of the good items were obtainable from boxes. he drop rate however (compared to now) meant that you could get a silversix a shield and maybe a chroma mask all in one level. the drops also depended on the gates theme. Bombs were OP in these previews with no charge time but small radius.... Crystal bombs were essentially abused.
Vendors appeared in the levels; and you could buy an array of great items the best being silversix Avenger and Crystal bombs. all purchasable for about 800cr.
The Third preview (January 2010) introduced the Energy system, which is almost the same as it is today with varied caps. The inventory available was slightly greater now, but the Gate system was still the same; again with gates opening on different days (uncertain, 2nd and 3rd preview were to close to remember specifics)
Energy
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4
The SK team gave out several surveys with many questions (several pages) and players were rewarded with crystal energy. Energy really went unnoticed for those who didn't play to much of the preview; and so it really wasn't critiqued upon. the preview kept most of the same systems and ideas as the 2nd preview.
The inbetween; there was also a very short, unannounced and top-secret preview that came about in april 2010; less was discussed about this due to notice from the snipes; but a lot was added to the game.
The Final Preview started October 12th I think; with the first able to access the game being the Spiral Gods Alliance who had a tight relationship with the snipes and was sort of a middle-man. After a week much of the playerbase from previous preview had returned. In the beginning Materials were very pricey to buy off other players, and the drake scale set along with a troika was pretty much end game (after the dauntless task of obtaining a drake scale from a bull chromalisk). King Tinkinzar covered most of the standard differentiating factors from then and now. weapon/armor Drops were still qutie common with a lot of players ending up with 25+ brandishes in the arsenal. As a christmas present the snipes gave us a whole new arsenal including the first purchasable 5star gear (only 3 players obtained 5star gear before that via drops Like Tantarian with his Volcanic Plate shield) which meant a whole lot of weapons to use and comment on. following that came many buffs and nerfs along with Super Brawl. There is still a large number of Final Preview players out there... I feel I typed enough for the moment.
I loved my original Khorovod, I remember crafting that first Troika and being all "woah". I gave up looking for those Drake Scales and converted my Rocky Cores into a dashing set of Rock Jelly armor. Pink was most certainly in.
Yeah, I remember giving out Brandishes like lolly-pops. Sometimes the occasional piece of Emberbreak gear would also drop for some reason.
There were no status themed levels. All these Blast Furnace and Wasteworks zones didn't exist yet, along with their status themed monsters! Oh gosh, so many Clockwork Tunnels were just Wolvers, Chromalisks and Gremlins. Also, monsters like Phantoms, Retrodes and Grievers had yet to appear. That first incarnation of the Phantoms really ripped you a new one too. It took a while for damage types other than Normal to start appearing.
Many monsters have undergone changes to how the appear and act. Rock Jellies used to be the normal Jelly to see in Tier 3. Develites could become Yesmen, Fired or Overtimers. Fired Develites could drop bombs! Also, Pit Bosses did not revert when you killed all their underlings. Though the most infuriating was that a projectile a Develite has yet to throw did not go away if you killed it quick enough. It still flung through the air to clonk you in your noggin. Gremlins these days are a bit of a joke compared to what they used to be, especially in Arenas. Five Healers in a round anyone?
There was no in game mail system. The only way to contact someone in game was to find them using the chat, then again, there were so few people that there was only a single instance of Haven. Also, no trade channel, still loving that addition.
The Core! It was a place under construction where the Gremlin Foreman you apologize that it's not done yet and let you have at a pile of chests. Though, more often than not, you just got a pile of vials and Red Shards.
Kozma, Wegner, Brinks and Feron had yet to set them selves up in Haven, it was a much quieter place then. Except for when a dev would pop in to chat. Since the player base was much smaller they had no fear of being swarmed. It's been a while since that snipe Pinwheel came for a chat...
After watching that video No-Thanks dropped in and reading what you guys said, it looks and sounds as if the old Spiral Knights renditions, excluding minor bugs and such, was awesome.
Was it reaaaally 300 energy for crafting a 5 star weapon? That would make alchemizations so much easier today...
The two things that I like the most about the old SK, after watching that video, would probably be:
1) The awesome art style. For some reason, I feel like SK today is a bit too shiny, yet lacking any sort of feel from the environment. The details back then look a bit more drab, yet have a better look in my opinion for some reason.
2) The fact that you didn't have to charge bombs, but they look kind of weak as a result.
i know what u mean with the art thingy, but i think its a matter of getting used to it:
http://www.moresay.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/yahoo-messenger-smiley... -> http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs49/f/2009/210/f/e/Bored_Face_by_Krasus.jpg
I have some old screenshots:
http://wiki.spiralknights.com/User:Pupu#Photo_Album:_A_blast_from_the_past
is there any chance for the old status display to come back? at least with the numbers instead of bars or additional to bars?
a simple % dmg reduction pop up like in perfect world would help too :O :O
I was here before Jelly King AND Vanaduke existed
/flex
First they released Vana
Then they released JK like MONTHS later...
There used to be no status type levels. Every wolver den was just a wolver den. Every clockwork passage just a clockwork passage.
Even every arena was just "Battle arena"
There was no Faust or Avenger or Antigua line
It used to be better to buy low star items from the store then craft them.
Also there used to be a $.75 energy package (200 energy)
Good times... good times.
Also 5* items could appear in the store for only 105.7k crowns 8)
I was the first player to obtain a 5* I believe 8)
Bought energy and converted it the day I saw a 5* item in the store.
Everybody was running around in full 2*
Alchemer line had no upgrades past 2* for a while. They were just called "x" alchemer.
When they released vana we went down and killed him in out 1*-2* firebreak armor with our 2* alchemers.
He had 7 phases and about 2x his current health.
All of the stages were also significantly harder.
And keep in mind our bullets did like 40 damage on a 2 shot gun.
Also we used to have 5 pill/vial slots up top and you could spam vials as fast as you could click <3
@ tantarian
I would have massive amounts of screenshots had they not said in the terms of service its completely against the rules to take screenshots or videos.
Lol
We should totally have a time warp event so we can play the beta levels and fight beta monsters, just for fun, no special rewards that would unbalance or anything.
@Dirigible
"Was it reaaaally 300 energy for crafting a 5 star weapon? That would make alchemizations so much easier today..."
Like I said, that depends on what player you are. If you paid for your energy in the case of old method versus new method, the only real cost you apply is the recipe price (standard alchemy crowns are ignored since they were unchanged). The old price was 45000. The current price is 25000. If energy isn't a factor, the new system is cheaper.
If all of your energy has come from purchasing it through crowns in game, then the new system is worse (unless energy goes down to like 4k per 100).
I'm not saying the reason for the changes was bad since this promotes paying and blah blah (let's not turn this into a f2p vs p2p topic). I just wanted to point out that it is only easier depending on how you play.
Recipes were way cheap in the preview, I don't think 5* recipes went higher than 10k crowns. When it went open to the public the price rose. :)
We had a Firefly gate! That was the tutorial gate that you could go to for 5 Energy per depth. Would be nice to bring it back for new players and familiar themselves with the basics still.
GUILD HALLS WERE PRETTIER. Think of it like Town Square in Haven, but smaller with the fountain connected to the wall. Now it's so bare and ugly ewww.
@King-Tink: Travel passes were used to travel between Haven to Moorcroft/Emberlight. They got rid of him though when they let you start from any tier from the arcade though, hehehe.
You might want to check the old threads Chris, some of them date back to a few days before you claimed to have joined (or it was even possible for that manner). They discuss Vanaduke and defeating him.
The Faust and Avenger lines were always there, most players around that time had collected the recipe. It's just that the critical component, the Sealed Sword, was initially marked as a rare beyond rare drop. Same goes for the Antiguas. These weapons were already known from older Preview events.
As per screen shots.... how do you think we built the wiki? Taking screenies was not against the ToS, but hosting them anywhere other than the wiki was.
We also didn't have Chris in the forums during the majority of the Preview, he didn't bother speaking up till March ;P
@Chris
>I was here before Jelly King AND Vanaduke existed
Vanaduke was here very early in the last preview event, unless you mean you were here before the '09 preview, which I doubt.
>There was no Faust or Avenger or Antigua line
They existed, they just weren't craftable. The recipes were around. I won an Argent Peacemaker from the Christmas lotto, it was the second one that existed after Tobi's one which he bought from Lemon who won it from the lotto the day before.
>I would have massive amounts of screenshots had they not said in the terms of service its completely against the rules to take screenshots or videos.
It was against the non disclosure agreement to publish them outside of the wiki. Learn to read what you sign Chris.
Please don't spread misinformation.
They used to have an awesome Pink Pith set. Nothing could match its power. :(
Why Nick, why oh why?!
Yeah, I would know. I wore it for 6 months... and how I miss it. :(
@ tantarian and dogrock
Vana was implemented near the start of the last preview event.
Nobody had collected any recipe for anything other than 2* and lower the first day or two of the final preview.... rofl....
When I stopped playing the last preview event due to boredom and lack of updates the current knightmare crew were among the most experienced and best geared in full 2*
Sure by christmas time people had collected the recipes and etc. But that was what..... 4 months after what I'm talking about?
The christmas raffle was AFTER most of the older beta testers had left due to boredom...
"Nobody had collected any recipe for anything other than 2* and lower the first day or two of the final preview.... rofl...."
Hm, I wonder why... ;)
ENERGY! Unless you played for 24 hours straight and grinded your way to the Energy market it's not at all surprising that people didn't get 5* gear on the second day. Everyone started with 0 crowns and 100 Mist Energy, so there was no way (except for grinding in the Energy marker) to get 5* recipes in one or two days. The reason why this was possible when Spiral Knights went open to the public was because paying customers from the preview got their Energy back, plus 25% more, so they were able to amass the crowns fast enough to get the 5* recipes. They either sold their Energy for crowns or used their Energy to do runs to get more crowns.
Protip: Always think of why something is, hon. :3
Oh, and preview opened something like October 20, so your estimate would be cut in half. 2 months.
♥ you guys.
@chris
>We also didn't have Chris in the forums during the majority of the Preview, he didn't bother speaking up till March ;P
I joined the beta on 12/26 and I never once saw a "chris" running around haven or in the clockworks.
Even though i didn't talk much during preview i still saw people. Cobalt running around ALL the time, bought a few mats from Njthug, & I was always jelly of tantarians armor. I had a LOT of playtime during those 3ish months. Most people that say they were in beta i remember seeing at some point, unless you were one of the people that joined up when open beta started. Which is when you signed up chris.
quit frontin'
I don't like trying to shrink your e-peen but damn, you're annoying. & i don't know how you can say there wasn't any updates bc i remember having a bugfix or release multiple times a week. According to the announcements forum, i'm totally right.
@TheOP
The winmillion was effing awesome. The normal damage for it was a a full bar (charge still sucked though), Pretty much all the enemies did normal damage, the core level was awesome with it's billions of treasure boxes which usually always had a 5* mat drop, oh yeah 5* mats were really rare to drop from enemies, & crafting was much, much, cheaper
@Op:
Well this game has had many changes from what I know and heard from others:
Example: Bombs:
Bombs really had no ctr before you could just lay them out like the gremlins do, but due to this the bombs were so op the dev's changed that. (Fallout correct me if I am wrong).
Fang of Vog --- This came out towards the end of beta, and people went crazy over this sword, but it was a regular drop in the older preview stages, and was a sword you can just pick up from a basil (on certain maps).
5* --- Five star weapons were pretty hard to come by due to the fact the materials were not out in the game. Thunderballs, Spark of life, Snowballs, Sunsilver, ever frost and many others weren't out in this game. The Dev's did made certain 5* materials available for a short time like 2 weeks, and then after that made them go poof again.
5* Items in Shops --- Only about 4 to 8 5* items were available in shops the best item was the radiant sun shard bomb which if I am not mistaken Sharkiez was the first to grab. The bomb in beta was 5*, and I guess due to its ubber power the dev's made it 4* now.
Mat Prices --- For about 2 months in beta the price of a mat was given by the stars it held. So 1* mat = 1k Crowns 3* = 3k Crowns etc.
Guild halls --- The guild halls contained all the trinkets we have in the game now, excluding love trinkets. The guild hall was much bigger, and was pretty relax to hang out in. Could play tag and just run around without anyone bothering you.
Red Mineral --- Red minerals made only Gates so back in beta all of us would just dump red minerals in the stratums and just went crazy.
Monsters ---- Nick dressed up as a mender for a reason the menders were OP'ed and I am going to be honest I loved it.
I will give more insight, and will be posting a link to another topic I will be making shortly to give you know knowledge on the subject for sure.
Vanna ---- Bullet stage was pretty hard back in the day best I did against vanna (don't mean this in any bragging manor) 3* armor set with 4* shield and 3* gun, but you have to keep in mind at that time most of the armors guns etc. were not available to the public so just to be able to beat vanna was somewhat of a challenge. The second person to solo vanna in the last preview was Dogrock. (He going to hate me since I posted that lol).
@Christina
Really, please stop posting false information I mean honestly you just make yourself look bad, but I guess you just don't care.
At everyone who is trying to correct Christina. Sadly, Christina still believes the guild system has been out for 17 months at least, and argues its been here since the alpha testing. Don't try to argue with a brick guys a brick can't learn guys. (I am pretty sure you can all figure out who I may or may not be calling a brick in my last statement, and this is not a personal attack since I am just talking about a brick, and never state anyone's name just making up an analogy).
@Moonsoon
Ya I was playing a lot in beta almost caught up to Dogrock in play time lol....and no I never seen a Chris in beta or even much in pvp in beta kinda strange come to think of it, but hey I guess he played late at night or early in the day, but then again I played all the time (Dogrock's girlfriend has witnessed this....we start at 8pm get done by 9am at days....I might get done a bit later than 9am LOL).
@Chris
>Sure by christmas time people had collected the recipes and etc. But that was what..... 4 months after what I'm talking about?
4 months eh? That seems rather impossible given the preview event started around the 10th of October, which would leave Christmas at about 2 months and 2 weeks after the event started. Supposing you started playing on the very same day the closed preview started, which I bet you didn't.
Also after a little review, Vanaduke was here from day 1 of last preview, most people probably didn't notice because they were playing T1 and T2 at the time.
Also I don't remember you during those times at all, and we had so few players we only had one instance of Heaven back then.
Most of the really active players in beta never saw him, and its surprising since you see Chris talk so much on the forums, and well play pvp a lot I never even saw him in any pvp game in Beta...Makes you wonder if he was actually even active in beta I am going with he wasn't since he still believes guild system was made in alpha.
For the sake of being Devil's Advocate guys, Chris said he was bored of Spiral Knights so he quit. I'm guessing he left around December, which explains why many active players never saw him. But checking the announcements forum show that he's incorrect about the lack of updates. Either that, or he's talking about the 3rd preview event, in that case I'd check in with Fallout instead since he's more reliable.
I can't argue much there since I joined in the final preview event, so y'all have to bicker about this amongst yourselves x3
There are systems for run-on sentences?