I think the tutorial is ok, but I don't think that it accurately represents what SK is really like or about. It advertises a closely knit game with a story-- the knight arrives and is contacted immediately, and is hand held throughout the entire set of starting missions. The levels feature Razwog, who steals the artifact and drives the narrative along, as well as a unique boss after only a few minutes of gameplay.

This contrasts with what the game was originally advertised as. If you click the "about" tab on the top of your screen, you'll be taken to a page that details exactly what I'm talking about. To quote

"Filled with strange machinery powered by Minerals claimed from the worlds below, Haven's Arcade is used by the Spiral Knights to build their own gates that cut unique paths into the underground Clockworks."

The rest of the game files suit with this original notion- the jelly king doesn't have any narrative. Just jellies. Neither do the roarmulus twins. Sure they have descriptions, but there is no Kora there to hold your hand. You just go, which is how the game was initially made to be-- and I'd rather the game be about ever changing worlds and co-operative gameplay than fragmented, slow to produce, conversation pieces.

Pfft, you guys are just Debbie Downers. The new stuff is quite fun! I went through it again fairly recently with someone who doesn't game much, and it is mad fun seeing new things even at a lower level.

I think my first time from the crash site to haven took like 5 minutes of me just wanting to barrel through to find harder things... this is much more fun!

It shouldn't be a surprise, being the OP of this thread.

@Mtax-Forum

The one problem that I have with that is the issue I see happening with most events, as well as the rest of the "normal missions". Specifically, no matter what you have going on or how much hype there is, it gets really really repetitive and boring after about 3 days.

Imagine that the entire game was like you describe. The missions are all well thought, and the knights all go in and stop the bad guys, return home.. or get minerals, or do some objective other than "From point A to point B". That makes a lot of interesting situations, but its all set in stone. No matter how flashy something is, or how interesting the NPCs are, its the same thing over and over again and it MUST wear on players after a certain amount of time-- this is what I see happening with the after-mission levels.

People go back and do the mission levels from time to time as it is, but for the most part they only really do the ones that go to the right depth, or are good for grinding whatever content is out-- i.e. "Kill devilites for an ID pass :D" = "Grind Silent Legion with Fehzor for once".

I am of the opinion that if the developers truly want to get their game off the ground, they need to embrace random generation AND story elements to make a unique experience that lives up to both ideas. Currently, these things have been separated quite clearly: Missions are always set in stone to a large degree; arcade levels always lack story elements completely. Scenario rooms and the occasional level before the "real" mission starts help to even this out, but don't quite fulfill the requisite role-- scenario rooms aren't interactive/don't change the level in any way, and random levels before missions are usually just fodder.

This is something that has never truly been done before-- games like Faster Than Light have paved the way, but aren't multiplayer on a massive scale, and don't truly offer much more than text to explain the situation. Further, Spiral Knights isn't a roguelike in the same vein as something like Isaac, but it has a very similar potential, and as I said above in my first post, Spiral Knights completely ignores this facet of itself in favor of events and a linear mission system-- two things that it will NEVER perfect well enough to compete with other titles.

Yep, I'm talking about the newbs again!

I always love NPC interaction. Unfortunately, we only see good bits of this in the beginning levels of Spiral Knights. Rhendon with his Valve Blitz needle, those Knights in the beginning that perfectly show what each class is capable of, and best of all, they can actually fight!

As for later NPCs, or prestige NPCs, wow... All of them are pure melee that can barely hold their swords let alone hit with it. Speaking of that, does anyone know how much damage they deal? I once sat and watched two NPCs fight a Trojan. They eventually took it down without my help but it took longer than I thought it would. A lot longer.

Other than NPCs, I like how the story that Spiral Knights forgot about is built up at the Rescue Camp. It made me really excited to start playing. Obviously, arriving in Haven didn't throw me off but I still make tons of Recruit characters to relive the days of the Rescue Camp. Hopefully the future Rank Missions will bring in some more parts of what the Rescue Camp had to offer. Isn't there something about this Artifact doohickey? Not sure, I haven't heard anything about for about 9 ranks.

Dear OOO,

Why was Rhendon replace by Cobalts?

From, Bamzalot

They should make monsters able to beat the snot out of Rhendon again. I wouldn't mind a showcase of the Aurora Isles.

But at least allow the user to choose their Proto Bomb as their starting weapon. Guns and Swords have an advantage, and most people will probably go "Woah when did I get a Proto Bomb o.O".

I don't think they'd even learn to get money