The addiction part of getting more cr/ce/wealth.

Other than that Spiral Knights is 'spiralling' out of control.

You can't compare a game like Spiral Knights to a retail game. With retail games you pay once and you get the complete package. With a game like spiral knights you can pay as much as you want but you'll never feel satisfied that you have a complete game. Games like this entice their consumer base into paying for things regardless if they are good or not. What are you paying for here? You're not getting anything new in terms of gameplay, all you are doing is paying for cosmetic things. Would you go into every store buying every piece of clothing and jewellery just to let people know you own it all.

*insert Pokémon "gotta catch em all theme here"*

To be fair what 000s should look to do is balance promos and new content. Atm it is basically like 10 promos in a row then some random event that adds reskins of older weapons. Maybe make a new boss stratum with equal or more payout than FSC that gets everyone interested again, maybe get more people involved in arcade levels. We all know arenas are the place to earn more cr so add more levels with them in it. Then if you wish, go back to doing more promos. Spiral Knights to me (atm) is just a cash grab and everyone is riding the boat with it without a thought, you all complain about no new content but then 'support' 000s by throwing away cash on these promos that encourages them to do more. I guarantee in a few years time when all of you are old enough to start making money for yourself you'll understand how much you wasted.

This is coming from a massive fan who has put in well over 2000 hours into the game, I could have doubled that if I carried on playing for the past 6 months. I enjoyed every moment of it, and I desperately want this game to bring back and add to 'those' elements that made Spiral Knights so exciting to play.

I would never spend more than £30 on this game because I would never spend that much on a game from the shops.

The reason why players pay for cosmetics is so that OOO gets money they need to do updates. Or maybe SEGA is milking them to release only promos and not real updates. Either way, they need money so that SK can continue. No pay, no play.
And imagine if Minecraft was free. People would get it instantly (those that don't have it), but Mojang wouldn't gain any money, so now updates don't come.

Back to topic,
This game shines in graphics, coloring, and music, just like any Sonic game (except for some, namely Sonic Schoolhouse, Labrynth, Chronicles, Shuffle, etc.). Heck, SK uses Blast Proccessing. I also like how there are so many elemental triangles and movie references (Callahan, Voltedge, AoA, etc.). The Steam trading feature was a nice touch, allowing me to grind for Sonic CD, Terraria, Super Meat Boy, Awesomenauts, and BT Runner.

The amount of times I have heard 000s needs money to make updates without seeing any major gameplay update makes me sick and I believe anyone who has loved this game as much as I have will understand where I am coming from. If everyone agreed with what you say why are people leaving? I see the odd "I had enough" thread every other week. How many updates have their been where 000s has made money from us and how many updates have there been where significant changes were made that actually matter to everyone playing? You could be right about the SEGA thing. I think by now though 000s have enough recognition from Spiral Knights. Just ditch SEGA and go solo like before 000s.

Minecraft....dude the amount of stuff you can do in Minecraft is way beyond the scope of this game. Spending money on that is well worth it. What will I be spending my money on in SK? A plume renamed as a horse tail to stick on my butt?

Yes 000s needs to make money that's obvious. I would do the same. But it's only fair that they put that money (at least some of it) into meaningful updates where we as the players can appreciate that our money is being put to good use. Seems to me all your money is going to funding more accessory and costume promos, obviously that takes time and effort to make. Am I wrong? Since I've been here (around 2 years I think now) I have yet to see the forums rage/troll/frustration/angry free when ever an actual core gameplay changing update is released.

You carry on throwing your money at 000s, but just don't expect things to change in SK any time soon. I'm actually counting down the next promo. I guarantee you we will have many more before the gunner update for example. If not then maybe 000s and their team do read the forums and realise people are getting bored with this game.

What this game needs, and 000s should have got this by now.

1. A new Boss Stratum that has equal or more payout in crowns than FSC for the more experienced players and Jelly king for the newer or more casual players. Elite mode was an awesome idea, but its basically the same thing again. Grinding FSC. I hope all that stuff 000s were talking about making certain nerfs and buffs to monsters was to make Elite mode seem harder......I was expecting the swarm.
2. More weapons/armours/shields/helms etc....The gunner update will hopefully do this so no complaints here.
3. Less promos, yes it is a good way to make money but if you're going to release promos and get out money please use it to design new content quickly. It's been 2 years now and Vanaduke is still the only tier 3 boss.
4. Don't bother wasting time and money on content that is only ever played once and then left to collect dust. Games like this will only get people playing if they know they are making progress while playing. Only FSC does that for us. OCH is an example of play once and forget about it. Payout is not worth it.
5. More of these flash sales on rare accessories. Make it easier for the new guys coming in to grab some of those things. Ok you have already done one and done over some people quite hard (lol hacked aura was 90kce lol!) so don't do the same ones again for another year or so.

coding is quite more complicated than making art in the technological sense so of course we'd see more art than of actual in-game functioning changes ... a little mistake in coding can create quite a big hole while a smudge on an art piece can easily be fixed (especially if it's digital art). coding doesn't have a visual interpretation and takes quite a lot of time; im not an expert in it but i have experienced doing codes.

the way i see it, there are only two options: either wait out what's next and spend more time irl/other games or kill time derping in-game while dealing with the static environment

@Arcknightdelta/others who share the same opinion about promos

I've said this in multiple threads now but the art team can make the 'content' (models/skins) needed for promos can do so separately from the part of the team that works on the actual tangible part of updates (changes to mechanics, creating new systems, new bosses/minibosses, arcade redux, bug fixes [..or introductions, hehe]). It doesn't necessarily take away from the time it takes ... you know, programmers and level designers to finish working on their things.

Coding is hard? You mod games? Congratulations, gamer. I worked in the game industry as a programmer and I know for a fact that artists can work on unrelated things to features without delaying what programmers/designers are working on. Heck, they tend to get things done -first- unless they're being pushed to make a lot of content for the existing systems.

It blows my mind that people actually think that an entire team of programmers, artists, and designers is just sitting around on their hands all like "iehaiuehauheua let's make COSTUMES instead of a feature update!!L!OL!O!OLO!!L"

Promos can be scheduled (Winter event, Lunar New Year, Anniversary), or arbitrary (Rose Regalia/certain themed ones), but honestly, they can't be bad so I don't know what you people complain about them for. Ex: If a good promo happens, lots of Energy goes into the game, and Energy prices go down. If an unpopular promo happens, not a lot of people buy them and nothing much changes in game. The best part is they're completely optional! They aren't the forge system and rigged radiant drops, a sad attempt to force people into paying or spend weeks or $20 (wtf, that's like almost a retail game's price) on a 5* item to get it to the same point that it was before you upgraded it - that's evil.

Just look at the updates in the past: When Three Rings goes 'silent' (ex: all we get are promos and events), a major change happens in the game (ex: addition of shadow lairs, the mission/shield bash/dash/pets system).

Keep in mind that aside from the Gunner update (seriously, I'm a gunslinger and I DON'T think it's that important), there's an even more significant Arcade Redux that's supposedly on its way, too. THAT'S what I'm looking forward to. Cause think about it: if they only create more guns, people will just get blocked by radiants or decide Brandish is stronger, or go back to using Elemental guns that already exist because the main profitable run is FSC, and any new guns that aren't Elemental won't contribute to it. But new (profitable/fun) T3 content, with different monster themes and reasons to use different weapons? Heck yes.

[edit/aside]:
T3 LD has quite some variety now. They're slightly rare (vs the very rare in the past), but there have been more and more people who can hold their own with unconventional classes and styles (ex: gunning in general, recons, guardians).

-------

On topic:

Comparing an F2P to a retail game is trying to compare a live webcomic with a finished novel, and honestly I like retail (pay-once) games better since they need good quality to convince people to buy them (not talking about hardcore gamer types who go on kotaku and get media-hyped into buying games they'll regret later). I have a lot of gripes with most F2P games' directions nowadays, but as I see it now, SK's in a transitional period as it's transforming from its old facebook-game style and turning into something more traditional in MMOGs.
¬__¬

So they have a scheduled promo, like the Lunar New Year. Are you suggesting they just not announce it, skip it? Will that satiate anything? It takes like, 1-2 days to come to a proposal and talk about what ideas they can work on and then the art for those can take 1-3 days, depending on how much of the models need to be made from scratch (and really, a lot of the stuff they're making are textures on existing models lol)

I'm just saying they're announcing these promos because the art for them has already been done and the scheduled time to release them has come (heck, not to go into too much detail, but people have been posting spoiler pics of the gunner update - the only reason I can see that's possible is that the art/models for those guns have been done or near-done for months and are sitting in the game files). Promos don't necessarily remove from their 'focus' on the features they're being silent about.

I do understand that endgame content has been either inaccessible (Shadow Lairs), rare (Danger Missions, Grinchlin Assault, Apocrea events), or stale (FSC). Heck, I've taken a step back here and made this thread because I'm one of 'those few' who actually like playing Lockdown and spend most of my SK time in it. I wanted to remember/get an idea of what people do (especially from the ones who don't play PVP) because I've long felt like the level content has become stale to me, and wanted to see if there was something that keeps them going. Honestly, if it weren't for LD community (seriously, I've made friends, fans, and 'enemies' there - it's great), I would have left the game already.

@Tortodrone/importance:
I'm sure Tortodrone will be more of a random miniboss or somethin, but like I said, I have hopes for the arcade redux, more so than the new boss or gunner update.

From here :
After a great deal of evaluation we’ve decided to change the way the Arcade will work and the purpose it will serve to the SK community. After introducing missions, the Arcade has become a place of redundancy. It has also suffered from the recent sprite update, relying on mineral leftovers from the community.

Over several patches, we intend to transform the Arcade into the place it has always aspired to be:
- A sandbox-type experience where unexpected things can happen
- A place where players can farm materials and items in between missions
- A feature that gives players some degree of control over the experience

If that's going to be anywhere near as fulfilling as I hope it will be, it'll require some heavy changes to the game - on a level equal to the Mission system patch.

@Don't Starve:
See, that's a different business model. By the time people are playing the game, they've already bought it. After they buy the game, the developers can either abandon it (well, it's "finished" when it sells), or keep working on it either for vanity/love's sake or to raise the quality to get their players to get their friends to play.

Videogames are a way for people to make money, and as such, the way they make money affects how the games play. In fact, games driven by their business sides were quite successful:
- Arcade games were fast paced, difficult, noisy, and attention-grabbing because they were designed to get people to try them, lose, get addicted, keep paying money to keep playing. They were also intended to be in very social areas where people would hang out, so they tended to be multiplayer.
- Console games were longer because they were (originally) more expensive and needed to justify people buying them instead of going to arcades. They also needed to have quality to prove they were worth buying. Heck, Pokemon was pretty much made in a way that each "single" copy of the game would "multiply" and sell more (how can you catch them all except through trading with a friend who has the other version?).

So that said, F2P games (which I was sadly a part of) tend to have this battle between quality and quick (or reoccurring) money, because they have a lot of players, but only a smaller percentage of them actually pay. This leads to these things:
- That they need to be maintained (costly), meaning they'll have to keep finding ways to get people to pay.
- Of the people who do pay at all, there's a smaller group that pay A LOT (look around the SK community, you know who they are ;v) - and the things they pay for don't really always match up with the things that people like: so who do you think is more likely to get features that make them happy?

Of course, there's also the whole thing about trying to get non-paying players to either pay or keep playing. I have a feeling SK was having trouble keeping new players, so they've been focusing on changes to do that (--> enter mission system, new minibosses and stage designs, all for the rescue camp portion of the game - then removing energy and all... these are mostly things you can feel from the beginning of the game, but invisible to most endgame players).

---
@ forge:
...yeah;

well, fortunately if you have t3 gear already, level 10 4* gear doesn't fall too far behind 5* (well, people say they're about the same as lv 7 5*, I think?). Getting level 10 4* items are actually not bad at all; it's only 5* that really hurts.

---

Oh, and actually really on topic:
SK's random level piecing was/is cool.

unfortunately, after playing those stages so much, they start to feel the same lol.

It's just an unfortunate fact of their speed (and/or team size) that they have to put focus where they think it matters (and it tends to make the other groups feel left out). All healthy groups (guilds, games) should have people coming in, cause it's a fact of life that the older ones move on sooner or later. You can see their focus historically when they started adding content post-steam-release: Despite most players running T2, they added the T1 Snarbolax first. Then they added T2 content with RT, made a segue to PVP and 'premium' content (OCH, Shadow Lairs), then went back to T1 content (rescue camp remake, missions). They dabbled a bit in "T3" content with Danger Missions, but they cycle daily and can't be done more than once, I think? (correct me if I'm wrong there since I haven't done those in a while). With everything set up[?], it looks like they're starting to finally move up to T3/all-tier regular content.

It might seem a little cold, but think back:
When the crafting costs were bumped up to 400, 800CE and item binding became a huge thing, a lot of the old players who saw their livelihood in crafting were hit hard by that, claimed it was the economic apocalypse, left, etc.

The newer players who were starting out around that time (it happened when I was 2*) kind of just shrugged it off cause well, that was a just part of the game. And of course, the game's survived since then.

Similarly, they're in the middle of a big transition right now: missions have been flying for a few months, they've just removed the staple of an energy-required gameplay and they have a piece of the arcade redux and a bunch of achievements that need to be redone. I can only imagine how new players are taking all this. It's definitely a lot messier than the AH/item binding situation.

You can already start to see a 'generation gap' when you see new players who rate others and themselves depending on mission rank ("omg i hate vanguards", "but i'm only knight elite is that ok"), old players who still say "CE".

My friends list is full of people who haven't played since 2011/2012, or even mid 2013. In my case, I've started (carefully) replacing some of them with people who have added me more recently and now usually see 15+ people online at a time. I've been considering playing jelly runs and adding those newer players just to see how things pan out.

[edit] ...but then I remember I'm busy saving up for newer gear in the worst case of a continued 5* crystal shortage and do FSC speed runs instead of meeting new players hurrrr
#partoftheproblem

coding is quite more complicated than making art in the technological sense so of course we'd see more art than of actual in-game functioning changes ...

This is not an excuse in any way shape or form. Hire more people. And no it is not more "complicated", the tools used to do this aren't "more complicated" than photoshop or autocad... if you look at Path of Exile, a Free to Play game, they add gems (full fledge skill and passive skill with animations, dmg and creativity), they add uniques (that people either paid 1 grand to put it in or the dev made) AND cosmetics in their update... (that are P2P, also PETS! P2P too). Yes, it takes more time... Plan ahead!

And I'm not gonna jump into arcknight vs seiran cause I'm too lazy to read 5 wall of text >.< sorry guys

- Implementing new armor/changing existing armor tends to be a matter of art (models/texture), design (tweaking stats), and QA work. It's not difficult, but when you have an ecosystem in place, balancing is important. It's not something you want to throw around too often, either.

- You can't ever completely predict the future of a project. It's inevitable that people make assumptions ("this won't change!") at the early stages of a project, and things can be built on top of that. When suddenly something calls for that thing to change, it can be time consuming or dangerously buggy to untangle it.

---

Not that you specifically asked about the gunner update, but because of the above, and also this old thread, (and another post that I can't find where it was hinted that they didn't have the tech/resources at the time to make the magnus line work as they intended):

Kryptix: I'm curious about the Iron Slug. Per this post (#15), is the mentioned improvement aligned with the damage increase for guns or is there something more?
Nick: Kryptix - Something a bit more substantial is still to come. Thanks for your patience.

And a later one:

Nick: The Magnus-style guns are all still getting a buff. Various issues have prevented us from releasing it sooner, but it's coming.

...I actually expect that the gunner update is going to introduce some differences to the mechanics of some of the guns (and having to deal with those 'tangling' issues). While I'm a little skeptic of them since the shard bomb change, I'll be disappointed if the only changes are new items :3.

That said, I think they've been holding it off because there are just more pressing priorities, from dealing with new players to the arcade redux.

---

And yeah, I agree (and hope!) that OOO does things differently than the place I worked at. The players of those games got pretty mad about things pretty often (and there was nothing that we could do about it because those changes were often requested by the higher ups). I actually had a rather unhappy time in it, and as a result, quit.

[edit]:
Also, reading back to that thread, that was the update that Punch gun was given amazing knockback! I was and am still disappointed that Slug/Callahan got none of that ;/

Combat Fluidity. Diablo and Torchlight don't come close in my opinion. The only things that rival SK in terms of combat fluidity that aren't just a series of chained quicktime events are fighting games, TERA, and Warframe imo.

Oh Seiran, I haz a question.

How long does it take a composer to create music of a decent quality, like the (not really by now) new Candlestick Keep one on average?

I definitely want to compare Bastion to SK. Bastion is just amazing. Many people will want to hold back comparing two games because it won't make much sense, but to me, this is a way you can certainly highlight features of the game by saying "You won't find this part of SK anywhere else."

You can definetely compare Bastion to SK (I LOOOOVE Bastion, talking about it makes me wanna play again).

Comparing anything to Diablo III is flatenning. Because Diablo III is THAT bad. Also AAA titles like GTA V have a lot more $$$ to go around...

Edit: it is clearly evident that art gets done faster. and no im not saying it's an excuse.

I know, I just see the "it's too hard" way too much and it's not really THAT hard... I know a lot of people that could learn coding or programming. It's just that when you are not passionated by it, it looks complicated and you never dwell in. I dived into Fruity Loop when all my friends couldn't even use it (back on version 7) and I just learned it on my own and I made 2 awful song. But I was just passionated enough to learn it and not give up.

Most softwares can be self-taught with little effort, if you want it... XD

@Rage-Pillows:
Oh, when I first played Bastion, I thought "wow this is like narrative Spiral Knights with a tumble" (long before dash/shieldbash were in the game). It's definitely got a lot more with its combat, and it can afford to do so because it's completely offline. I was totally into looking for animation cancels in that game, haha. I'm with you too, that for some reason I just didn't get into New Game+ for Bastion, either.

Maybe I'm not like a lot of people, but I have trouble motivating myself to replay narrative games.

@Sandwich-Potato:
I can't say much about Mr. Harry Mack, but that depends on the musician and level of polish wanted :\
I usually do little game projects with some friends for this thing called Ludum Dare (make a game with a team in 72 hours) and I usually end up making the music (<30 second loops) for our games in the last 2-3 hours... but those are usually sketch-quality chiptunes. I don't know much about doing things with sound quality (since I have more of a background in live music than sound production) but doing real production work on music can take hours/days on top of the actual composing and putting the parts together. Obviously, the longer the track (before it loops), the more hours go into it.

@Self-teaching:
Well, most things go down to self-teaching, unless you get stuck and need someone to bail you out all the time :x
It's people who do things on their own time that really get good with whatever they're doing.