http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eglXlAZFsZY
Awesome looking levels
Cool bomb charges
Amazing level design
gold trojans
Beta armor
The silver shield thing
A party button that actually works with the style of the game
Vogs (THE COOLEST LOOKING ENEMIES. PERIOD.)
Awesome looking key pedestal
Did I mention how good the levels look?
"NO GRINDING"
TORTODRONES
Magnus buffs
I don't know if I mentioned how utterly fantastic the levels look
BETA ARMORS
-
Why was all this stuff taken away? (Even though all of it is still in the resource folders (I checked, it made me feel better), did it HAVE to be taken away?)
I'm just basking in awe about the simplicity of beta. ALL of the resources are still in the game. Don't you have a way to remove them if you're not going to use them again?
If you weren't going to use them again, why are they still there?
Will you actually answer my questions? I doubt it.
Sorry for the rant, I just REALLY want all this stuff back.
-Aveond
I'm crying right now
Those vogs look cool. What happened to them? No fiery level to compliment a fire beast?
hm.. seems like someone pooped in developers mind. And as I can judge on 95% of updates, poop is alive and grows.
But I still believe and collecting soap to send.
Well they had the soap to begin with, why don't they use it? I dunno.
Still, if worse comes to worst we still have the textures for each and every enemy that has been taken away and stuff.
000 decided it's too cool stuff to be in their game.
look how difficult the game looks
rage
1:03 "NO GRINDING"
oh goodness. Oh goodness why.
Anybody notice the iron slug styled callahan at the tortodrone part?
~Magnicth the Magical Bush
Then you obviously have never developed your own game before ^_^
Post it in the siggestions, and the levels still look cool, even though I wasn't a beta player.
@Rage-Pillows: Maybe because they were hunted to extinction for their [too] warm and [almost not-so] fluffy coats?
Does anybody know what the button thingy at about 0:45 with the swirls is supposed to be? Reminds me of the Airnomad Symbol from Avatar (The last airbender) :P
That's an elevator, my love.
Free to play is the biggest lie ever, i mean in all free to play game, you gotta pay at some point.
Wanna continute to play, but out of energy?
Simple, pay to play.
Get it?
Look at those sword combos, 2 light swings and a heavy backhand.
That charge time. I guess what we call CTR Max was in fact the true nature of weapons.
Non omnidirectional jelly cubes, they turn and face the players.
That ice calibur. That charge attack. So long Triglav.
The shining ward, now just a rusty prop next to punch and vise in guild halls.
(Hmm, I'm gonna' take a WILD guess and say it has something to do with SEGA.)
It feels like it's taken a while for players to seriously start questioning the current state of the game as well as making comparisons to the beta/preview build. For the past god knows how long I've made attempts to entice other players to embrace the preview build and show them what they could be experiencing right now as they play on the release servers, but to my surprise, all I got back from the "newer" playerbase was a rather negative response and that embodied the statement: "Don't try and revive the former state of the game, it's gone along with your hope." Regardless, I didn't take it to heart and continued to spread my mantra, my motto and my message; "Look at the game now, look where it's going... Now look at what the preview was like. Which one do you prefer?"
I only caught a glimpse of what the beta had to offer since I only got to play through the last preview event, but that one month I spent playing the Spiral Knights Preview/Pre-release from late Feb/early March to April has gone down as one of the most addictive, exciting, fun-filled experiences I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing. I don't really know where SEGA and Three Rings are taking this game but I know that the Spiral Knights Devs don't really have much leeway to disobey without serious repercussions. It's been a roller-coaster ride watching this game grow and change and I've met some extraordinary people thanks to the creation of Spiral Knights and the community it has birthed, but I can't really agree with it's departure from the preview.
I mean, just look at the game, look at the trailer. There are massive differences and for the most part the preview looks far "newer" because of the sheer amount of content that was removed from the game on/after release, not to mention the multiple loose ends that the community has picked up on and started to question.
Personally, I think the reason that Spiral Knights is starting to feel more like "MMORPG Knights" with every update is because SEGA generally have no idea how to preserve an absolute gem in the market. I think Three Rings and the SK Dev Team aren't intending for the game to take this path; to put it bluntly, the acquisition of Three Rings and it's involvement with Valve really screwed up the game. Throughout April, most of the patch notes pertain to a very healthy Games Company that had a very healthy relationship/level of communication with their playerbase, but for whatever reason, that unique intimacy - apparent throughout the preview phases and very early release - was lost and has been so for too long if you ask me.
I never played the beta ~ started playing when it came with Steam. I know that when you start playing a different game that is incredible, like SK, you feel, after some time playing, that the first days were the best. It's very common along people. But the problem is: that REALLY happened. The game was a true adventure! Im not just saying random stuff, that is the feel i got in my heart and my mind ~ it was like i was travelling to another world, where i could enjoy something unique that was SK back then. By watching this Beta trailer, even if i started playing in June 2011, i felt good. Like people said before, no grinding, no big worries, balanced ctr, golden trojan...I really believe that OOO can, somehow, bring back the glory of the game. They created an unique gem, and even if it's not shining like it used to shine anymore, they can fix it. Im being optimist, becouse if OOO created something marvelous like SK, they can launch an update that change the game. Thanks for reading ~~~~~~
;)
/e sheds a tear
0
Tbh... a lot of things dropped away for a reason.
For example, Tortodrones were... broken. You can make the argument that they just never bothered fixing them, but they were still broken. Ask players who were around during the Beta and they can tell you of the stun-lock terrors of the Tortodrone. Most players would run past them, or die at their feet. They aren't as glorious as people like to believe.
Golden Trojans are just invincible Trojans, which is BORING. The fun part of Trojans is the David vs Goliath, Man vs Demon, Grace vs Strength fight, slipping around attacks for a few pokes of damage. Once you figure out Trojan patterns, they're so easy to evade (unless there are multiples of them). The only time you really risk dying is when you're trying to counter attack them.
The Beta armors looked terrible. Angelic Sets just made you look like a fish. Here's a pic of them:
http://media.spiralknights.com/wiki-images/e/e8/Classyduds.png
I personally think the current Angelic sets look far better. Magikat I believe was like a Darkfang Shield. There were only a handful of them that ever existed, and they're now removed from the game. Of course they eventually re-implemented it. Even then, I don't think that the Magikat stuff looks good, but that's just me.
The old Bombs don't look fun to me. So small AOE, so difficult to hit, yet so spammable. You know how annoying Polaris is? Well now imagine random Polaris shots exploding BEHIND the enemy, at a significantly faster rate.
The levels look like big blank squares, with blocks that can be broken. Compare them to things like the Ironclaw Munitions Factory, or Firestorm Citadel, or the Gloaming Wildwoods, or even the Royal Jelly Pallace? No contest at all. If you want to experience levels from the beta, the Aurora Islands are almost untouched since Beta. They're just flat open areas with mob arenas every now and then.
There are things that look different, and there are things that look good.
Send the soap yall!
Ok, I'm looking at other videos. I see Bag 1 and Bag 2.
Wut?
Ewbte's comment is pure gold! I laughed way to hard at that...then the mental image popped up +__-
Awesome looking levels
Yes.
Cool bomb charges
Those aren't actually bomb charges at all, they're bomb normal attacks. Apparent;y they were taken out because... well I'm not sure. Something about being too good.
@Traev, I think the bombs had both that attack and the current one.
Amazing level design
Not really. They did have more open space, which is nice, but it would be way too easy now since we have more AOE attacks. Aurora Isles is still like this.
gold trojans
You know those were completely invincible, right? That's boring.
Beta armor
What, like Magikat? What Hex said. If you meant Jaws of Megalodon, that would be cool... but there's no place for it in the game right now.
The silver shield thing
Shining ward? It's just another shield. No idea what it did, but they probably took it out for some reason.
A party button that actually works with the style of the game
The current one is fine, and isn't as cheesy. I like the new one better.
Vogs (THE COOLEST LOOKING ENEMIES. PERIOD.)
Vog Cubs are just reskinned alpha ash tails. In my opinion, They'd be easy to put back in.
Awesome looking key pedestal
That's an elevator, according to Hex.
Did I mention how good the levels look?
Yes. You did.
"NO GRINDING"
That was never true.
TORTODRONES
Were removed because of bugs and generally being way too good. They need to rework them before they get added in, but apparently they have better things to do.
Magnus buffs
Those were in the trailer?
I don't know if I mentioned how utterly fantastic the levels look
You can stop now.
BETA ARMORS
Like I said already.
So yeah... It looks great, but when you think about it the game overall has more content now than it did then, plus it's more sophisticated (level design, etc) and less buggy. It would be nice to get some things back, but they almost all have to be reworked.
...most of the differences, aside form the borring and flat environments, seem to be completely aesthetic.
A different party button symbol, a slighlty prettier key pedistal, jellies that visually face the player, vog
cubs which are just reskinned ashtail alphas....
And what are the non-aesthetic differences?
Spammier bombs with rediculously small AOE.
A golden trojan. Which is totally important. Because it's GOLD. Yeah.
The tortodrone, master of bugs, glitches and OP abilities.
Levels which seem to consist mainly of large square rooms with random blocks placed
willy-nilly all over the place, with the occasional passageway.
Hardly seems like anything to cry over to me.
Cmeresweetheart:
Free to play is the biggest lie ever, i mean in all free to play game, you gotta pay at some point.
Wanna continute to play, but out of energy?
Simple, pay to play.
Get it?
True for pretty much all 'free to play' games - I believe the statistic that drives the energy-based f2p model of making money (yes, money is a reason these games are made, and even aside from that, a means to keep servers up, so people who complain about it are wishing for their experience to end) is that only about 5% of the playerbase will ever pay money, and inside that, there's an even smaller percentage of people who pay a LOT of money (Just ask anyone in a higher tier guild how much real money of CE their guild upkeep and furniture costs if you don't believe me).
Buuuut it's because of those people that the other 95% can play for free ;P
I played on and off for... over two years now (!?), though I'm currently not playing anything due to life being busy.
I own all the heavy swords in the game, almost all the guns, a couple of armor sets and never spent any real money (though I have been on the edge a few times, haha...). The 100 ME/day thing was actually pretty convenient when I was a student :;
Someone had to pay at some point, but if you're part of the 95%, you don't have to.
-------------
@OP:
I'm not one to be talking from the designers' perspective (I work with game designers and believe me, I don't get what they're thinking sometimes -_-'), but some of those probably needed rebalancing or needed a better context to be in the game. Anyone remember when sleep status was a thing? ...Yeah.
Having been around in the first few months after release, believe me, the context has changed a LOT - and from the recent announcements, looks like it will be changing even more soon.
If the assets are still there, it's probably because they're not axed for good ... or they don't take up too much space and don't really matter unused. Your pick.
I might remember Nick or someone possibly hinting at Tortodrone again some day, but you know, there's a bunch of other stuff players have been looking forward to that are still on the backburner.
One time I thought it'd be nice to make an Iron Slug because they were going to rebalance it soon, but you can see where that is right now XD
No, you really CAN'T have a completely fully functioning free online
game without there being some sort of premium hook. Think about it.
TF2 is completely free-to-play. You can play as much as you want, of any
game mode, absolutely free! Well, think about it again. Aside from all of
the money flowing in to Valve from other not-at-all free games that can
be used to keep TF2 running, you have to host your own TF2 servers.
Every moment, in Spiral knights, every player is doing everything
at the same time on one colossal master server upkept by Sega/OOO
themselves. Every time you swing a sword, that's bandwidth being
consumed. Imagine how many people are on how many levels fighting
how many enemies while carrying how many different items. All of
that is maintained, and coordinated, by the master server. They NEED
money. Not as in a sort of greedy, "We need....munaaaaaaaey!" way.
The game can't run without money. It takes a colossal ammount of
bandwidth, which is not free at all.
"Shining ward? It's just another shield. No idea what it did, but they probably took it out for some reason."
Shining Ward was replaced by the Heater Shield because the Crest of Almire took it's functional place.
As a player who hasn't even played for a year, it looks more like Spiral Knights than what we have now.