It's the last thread we've had, but we've had other forms of response. Unfortunately, whenever Three Rings reaches their hand out someone is going to bite it. Instead of handfeeding us anymore they've moved to throwing food over and occasionally a treat in.
What's in Development - September 2013
Wed, 10/08/2014 - 15:16
#452
It is sad, yes.
Wed, 10/08/2014 - 15:49
#453
They don't even do that. They do nothing. If I recall, the one time we managed to get anything out of them after they voiced their new policy of "not announcing anything" because it would "upset the players" was when someone went out of their way to confront them and force it out via a support ticket. That shouldn't have been necessary in the first place. This idea that players get upset when they announce progress made on an incomplete progress is false. It notifies us that something is at least happening, which for most is all they need. People will always complain. This is a fact. But going silent does not solve anything.
Wed, 10/08/2014 - 16:04
#454
Players will always rage, yes.
Unhappy or entitled players will always be around, and have things they believe must be done. I would love for Three Rings to be a bit more transparent for sure, as it would help yes, the players, help the game designers create the game that would be the best for us. A simple "We're working on ____ right now. There was a bug, but we fixed it." would work. A weekly thread telling us what's up would be even better!
However, I would rather Three Rings not make a weekly thread if the only thing the community would find to say is "where's the gunner update". Perhaps even incorporate a little scale thing in the weekly newsletter.
And I guess the feeding bit was more of an allusion to the game being here and free, the treats being the updates/promo bits.
Wed, 10/08/2014 - 16:26
#455
It doesn't even have to be as frequent as weekly. I'd be content with a monthly or bi-monthly progress update. How vague or detailed doesn't really matter so much as we know something's been going on. Has there been progress on X, y/n? How is progress on Y? Is Z on hold?
To make an example, one of the more criticised aspects of the Gunner Update during testing was the armour. Has development been put on hold due to balancing still being in discussion, or is it underway? Have the guns been reworked in any fashion since testing, be it change in mechanics or bug-fixes? Even if the specific nature of the gun/armour or even the name itself is being withheld we now know there's been some form of progress. At least this would put a damper on speculations that suggest the team has just given up on development in favour of milking the game dry with box promotions.
Wed, 10/08/2014 - 17:53
#456
The "No announcements" policy
The "No announcements" policy is just terrible for marketing, this game is stale and it needs hype, a lot of it.
It doesn't matter if people keep saying everything in the new update is bad or explains in extensive terms how they'd rather set themselves on fire than playing with the new mechanics or whatever, as long as they keep talking about it they generate hype which in turn makes players more active and willing to shell out dat sweet sweet cash.
This "no tell, no know" policy or whatever it is would actually be perfect on a game with more frequent updates.
Unfortunately it seems like OOO can't push updates very often for whatever reason I'm not going to speculate, which is why in order to generate hype they should rather rely on mysterious hints, small previews and minor stuff that doesn't even have to tell anything about what's going to happen.
Hell, even a 5 seconds vid with a gun silouette and a big question mark on top of it would generate more hype than this, just the idea of some big thing that's imminent could push players to play much more than not saying anything till it happens.
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 00:17
#457
A question.
Greetings, Nick
I wish to ask you a question in hopes that you might answer it. For the new ranked missions, will Vangaurd still be the highest rank in the spiral order or will there be more ranks after vanguard, if Vangaurd will still be the highest rank what will happen to the current Vangaurd knights once this update as taken effect?
My next question is, do you play Spiral Knights these days?
Thank you for your time and effect in to the Spiral Knights universe.
"May glory follow you path."
- Boyjakey
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 00:36
#458
dt
Boyjakey: Ha ha, unfortunately Nick... yup, he quit living with OOO because the tentacles kept choking him in secrecy and he didn't want anybody to find out. Or so they say...
Thu, 11/13/2014 - 01:50
#459
I've heard that Nick got in a fistfight with Atalanta and lost and Atalanta is secretly the lead designer nowadays.
Sun, 11/16/2014 - 12:53
#460
BLARGH ^
This is the best thing I've seen on the forums in months.
/slowclap ~Z
Sun, 11/16/2014 - 18:42
#461
Ehhh...
13 monthas and nothing, NONE of this has happened. I would almost rather not be told about whats in development and not be disapointed when it doesnt com out...
Sun, 11/16/2014 - 20:19
#462
@Luke-Ground-Flyer:
I know not much has happened (at least to the public), but it's an extreme exaggeration to say "NONE of this has happened".
Phase 1 of Arcade Redux happened not very long after this thread was posted, and the "Modified Rank Mission Campaign" happened ~half a year ago.
Mon, 11/17/2014 - 11:31
#463
The Arcade Redux patch hardly did anything except clean up after the sprite update, add some newbie help, and introduce some new pickups which were interesting but not at all in any way unique to the arcade, not to mention not fully implemented. Heck, we're still missing Ultra Poison Barriers and Auto Turret Kits. It has been discussed multiple times but the devs have issued no fix to the problem, even though Ultra Poison Barriers are without a doubt easily implemented. Auto Turret Kits, maybe. There are already turrets and one would assume that they are finished since they said that they implemented them.
That's the only thing which actually changed the contents of the Arcade. Three new pickups, one which comes in a bazillion flavours.
As for the Rank Mission changes, the only two of the missions which had changed gameplay were:
Rank 4-2 - A New Threat - New mission.
Rank 4-3 - Shocking Sentient Sentries - New miniboss fight.
They were by all means very cool, but it was not at all much. Of course, you can't say that Nick gave us the impression of more coming. Quote from OP in this thread: The Rank Mission campaign is going to be receiving an update that continues the story of the Artifact and introduces a new primary antagonist for the Spiral Knights. The framework for this story will allow us to further expand Rank Missions post-Vanguard.
This highly implies that changes would mostly be story-wise, and they were.
Mon, 11/17/2014 - 12:57
#464
In 2 days the server will be
In 2 days the server will be down for hours. I think this will be more than just a promo on top of a promo, or some bugfixes, or even an event. I think that the first part of the things stated here will finally be released!!! Since we already had the test server where we discovered that a big part of the gunner update was finished already. So probably the gunner update will come, and maybe even more...
This is just some random guessing. But I really think that something big is coming...
Wed, 01/28/2015 - 14:56
#465
So how's that arcade redux
So how's that arcade redux coming along? :D
Wed, 01/28/2015 - 16:34
#466
These questions are directed to someone who quit...
Why do people keep necro-ing this thread? =_= Just let it RIP in peace in pieces till the redux actually happens...
Thu, 01/29/2015 - 18:35
#467
Because we are excited for the arcade redux and want to know whether or not it's still coming, and if so what they're putting into it. Cuz we care about the game.
Fri, 01/30/2015 - 04:41
#468
I think it's very important that we discuss what the devs are working so hard on! I mean, if it's taken them more than a year to make these things, surely they'll be brilliant!
Sat, 01/31/2015 - 07:51
#469
my 2 cents
Atalanta came in the french haven about a month ago to tell us about a new T3 boss and her only knowing it'll be a mission boss...
They have stopped announcing deadlines cause they obviously can't respect them, and the fanbase gets antsy... And they don't want to deal with the antsy community, but the fluffy and lovely community that fills out art contest... to promote on SK facebook page...
Yeah it has gone to this... OOO cannot respect deadlines because of their lack of regular employee
https://www.threerings.net/jobs/
What is arcade redux exactly? That is something a dev could answer and hype us about... but they dunno how to deal with a community, their community manager gets personnal with some situation and that's unprofessionnal.
Personnally, since Nick left I never though the game would come to a dead stop and stop producing creative event, Torto, Apocrean, Grinchlins... It was Nick idea, you can't even make me believe otherwise
Edit: So it seems they found a sysadmin engineer or decided to not hire one... and now looking to hire a senior user acquisition financial analyst.... I wonder why....
Edit 2: WAIT WUT????
SEGA Networks Inc. dba Three Rings seeks a Senior User Acquisition Financial Analyst to conduct quantitative analysis of mobile game application performance data and formulate financial models to simulate outcomes with the aim of helping management make capital allocation investment decisions and improve the efficiency of media buys.
SK on mobile?!?! I think I found the gem that OOO was hiding!!!! ^ ^
Sat, 01/31/2015 - 07:49
#470
Meep.
'' Senior User Acquisition Financial Analyst - San Francisco ''
^ That
Sat, 01/31/2015 - 07:54
#471
The thing is for OOO Spiral
The thing is for OOO Spiral Knights is likely no longer the hype project, they've moved on to something else, and we are left with just minimum communication and updates. It's no wonder the game has been mainly just promos and recurrent events lately, those require very few efforts and still satisfies the paying portion of the playerbase, which is where any profitable game should focus.
/sad
Sat, 01/31/2015 - 07:56
#472
my 2 cents
Sorry OOO, I'm just too happy not to show it
https://www.threerings.net/jobs/job_suafa.html
Senior User Acquisition Financial Analyst
SEGA Networks Inc. dba Three Rings seeks a Senior User Acquisition Financial Analyst to conduct quantitative analysis of mobile game application performance data and formulate financial models to simulate outcomes with the aim of helping management make capital allocation investment decisions and improve the efficiency of media buys.
Specific duties include:
Monitor and follow areas of development in game mobile application, and confer with senior management to identify areas of focus to analyze to acquire and increase overall users;
Work with the Analytics team to analyze and interpret performance data (e.g., cost per acquisition, creative click through rate, user conversion rate);
Analyze current definition and technical requirements of best-of-breed experiences within our games and devise plan for management to acquire users;
Create individual game user Lifetime Value (LTV) forecasting model simulating various financial allocation scenarios and validating models;
Use statistical models such as multi-linear regression to determine the k-effect, the measure of the virility between acquired and organic users against various financial allocation decisions;
Prepare reports on the financial analysis through charts, graphs, and spreadsheet to help management in their decisions on how to allocate financial resources, including plans and recommendations on large data storage infrastructure investments;
Present reports to management that evaluate the financial aspects of product development, and create detailed return-on-investment forecasts to help management make capital allocation decisions based on financial analysis; and,
Mentor junior analysts on quantitative analysis work and expand the overall knowledge of mobile data analytics team.
This position requires a Master's degree or the equivalent and one (1) year of experience.
Spiral Knights on mobile might actually be a thing....!!!!! :O
O.O
*MINDBLOWN*
Sat, 01/31/2015 - 12:46
#473
Or...
Or they're developing another game for mobile.
Three Rings has other games than just Spiral Knights y'know...
Actually that might explain some of our complaints on here too.
Sun, 02/01/2015 - 15:14
#474
If I lived in the US, I'd apply for the Engineering positions. I'd probably enjoy working in game development more than my current job (although I will admit, I have a pretty damn good one currently in regards to the office environment that makes it a pretty nice place to work), even more if I was working on my favourite game.
Sadly, that isn't the case, and I'll have to stick with my current day job, and tinker around with my own game engine in the evenings.
Sun, 02/01/2015 - 15:43
#475
I somehow doubt they're making a port to ios/android. That sounds a bit... lackluster. It's more likely the case that they're transitioning their company away from Spiral Knights and into the mobile market because business execs think that's where the money is. "Apps".
Nor is this new information.
Sun, 02/01/2015 - 16:03
#476
So you guys are telling me i should forget about this game going to have awesome stuff like 2011? (why i think that? Nick already left OOO and while Cherub is an awesome Artist, i doubt his only vision could work to make longer SK like Nick did with awesome lore) and that OOO have ready to go the new missions, boss T3 and arcade redux only to delay it like gunner update to release content between like every 20 promos??? Seems legit.
Anyway knowing OOO previous games, the new Mobile game they are working its most likely a puzzle game... which without doubt they are expert to do... so maybe SK was too much for them.
Wed, 02/04/2015 - 04:23
#477
@Rhagnarock
We already have SK on mobile. Use a laptop :B
On a more serious note, SK on Android/iOS would be a nightmare. People already complain about the camera angle allowing for cheap shots from enemies that come at you from the bottom of the screen (Scarabs are freaking annoying, for example. Thanks for letting me know, Apocrea, really enjoy wasting sparks because of that hogwash! :D). Imagine how it would be on a smaller screen and with a good chunk of the bottom of said screen being covered by the touch "buttons" for movement, attacking, shielding (as well as dash and shield bashing, if OOO doesn't allow us to use button combos for that for some reason), sprite abilities and item slots. And probably one or two extra buttons for weapon switching. Not to mention your own fingers as you play.
I even shudder to think of how cluttered it would look when you opened stuff like the Arsenal, Forge and the like even out of battle. :p
Not to mention other things like the chat making the on-screen keyboard pop up every time you want to use it (which I bet would cause insane lag) and the fact that Steam players would need to make new accounts unless OOO finds a way to either make us able to login through Steam or let us convert our Steam knights to non-Steam knights. There's probably a whole slew of other issues I'm not even considering right now.
Inb4 "some tablets have keyboard docks and can even have a mouse connected to them!". Not all tablets have that, and if you're going to do that anyway you might as well just play on a laptop, no? :T
That said, they would probably do well enough with something simpler like WoW's Mobile Armory app to allow us access to the AH, guild chat and maybe even feed our Sprites or craft/Forge gear through our phones/tablets.
Wed, 02/04/2015 - 04:43
#478
touch me
FINALLY !!!!!!after long wait of boringness and endless grinding it's good to know they r atleast doing something still u guys need to fix the starting mission it realy bores the crap out of new players
Tue, 08/09/2016 - 05:57
#479
Reviving
Cause I can, and want to.
Tue, 08/09/2016 - 08:13
#480
"How about no.
Please. This was way too far back to matter now, so send it to a damn archive already. I mean, it's not worth bringing up useless threads that are 2-3 years old unless you're referencing something from the past.
Tue, 08/09/2016 - 13:46
#481
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUAdgt5Glk0
Wow Kudelia, you're the coolest.
Tue, 08/09/2016 - 13:52
#482
Nostalgia is good.
Nostalgia is good.
Wed, 08/10/2016 - 11:51
#483
Nostalgia.... about the times we actually got new content :c
#dontletskdie2016
Wed, 08/10/2016 - 12:23
#484
Hello Darkness, my Old Friend.
It's not even September.
Ah, such sweet, innocent times when me and my friends were genuinely excited for the future of this game. Just what ever happened? It saddens me that this is the last "What's in Development" thread we got. That's thirteen months now without any updates on what's going on behind the scenes.