Spiral Knights Boycott Reasoning

Original: The latest patch of Spiral Knights, dubbed the Overpricing Patch is, quite literally, an insult to the entire community. Look over on the forums, and you'll find EVERYONE absolutely furious. And I'll admit I'm not the best with words, so I'll also direct you to this post detailing Three Rings' handling of the implementation of his patch (http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/8737?page=1#comment-47010), while I'll cover the patch itself.

Everyone wanted an Auction House pretty badly. That's what we got. With it, the removal of the point of HAVING an Auction House. Players can no longer sell four/five star equipment, as it's bind on pickup. This includes Sealed and Antigua crafting lines.

That's right. The end-game of Spiral Knights, selling high level equipment, was removed. As well as getting any profit out of extra Jelly Gem tokens.

Now, this isn't the end of it. Recipe costs were reduced. Sounds nice, right? It would have been, but energy costs of crafting have been GREATLY increased. This, in turn, has made it cost A LOT MORE to craft higher level gear for first time crafters, as well as people who are making more of the same (which has no point anymore).

Long and short of this, the end-game was removed, it was made all the more difficult to get to the lackluster end-game. And an Auction House was added, while it was made impossible to sell anything meaningful on it.

I'm going to boycott Spiral Knights for this extremely destructive patch and Three Rings' adolescent handling of the implementation AND the reaction to the patch. Please, join in on this boycott. You don't have to stop playing entirely, but don't buy any energy, and clear your Billing Information from https://billing.spiralknights.com/billing/coin_history.wm and maybe Three Rings will realize the devastation they've wrought upon themselves and undo their horrible mistakes.

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Update: June 14th, 2011. Spiral Knights was just released for Steam. Sounds good? NOPE. Thee Rings says Steam will get special deals. Sounds better? NOPE.

Remember the Achievement update a while back? It forced players to recraft a lot of gear just to get them. When you log into steam, they don't auto-unlock for Steam itself. In fact, Steam achievements only unlock if you're playing with the Steam account, instead of SK account.

Yes, Steam Account and SK accounts ARE SEPARATE. You want those special Steam deals? They only apply to Steam accounts. If you want in on that, you have to start over. In other words, this Steam update was made only to get NEW players and encourages old players to start all over, and spend even more energy. On top of the higher crafting costs, and auto-binding gear, that's just out of the question.

When I pointed this out on the forums, and clearly stated how Three Rings was approaching this without insulting anyone or making up anything, my posting rights were revoked and my posts were edited, and was accused of 'flaming.'

That's right. I was censored because I said Nick was dodging the issue of linking Steam and SK accounts, and pointed out this update was encouraging old players to remake if they wanted something new. All because Three Rings didn't think about having a merge option right from the get-go.

How unprofessional can you get?

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Update: June somethingorotheridon'tcareanymore. An update was released to convert SK accounts to Steam accounts.

That's right. Convert. Not merge, combine, fuse. \Convert/.

Ever play on multiple computers? Don't always have Steam on hand? Think you're entitled to enjoy Steam deals or achievements and still be able to play without Steam every now and then? Lost your Steam to hackers or got banned? Well then fuck you. Once you convert, you can't play without Steam. The conversion literally moves your character(s), energy, and achievements to a new account.

Now, this is fine for players who carefully play on their Steam and always have it on whatever computer they're on. But if you're hacked? All your SK stuff is gone. Banned? All gone. You at least were able to hide your SK account, but not your Steam account, so it puts you in a much more vulnerable position to lose everything if you piss off the wrong person... Or anything else, really.

It's an accident waiting to happen for a lot of players.

And how Three Rings handled the general consensus from the player base of "Players shouldn't be forced to make a choice like this," is, of course.... Non-existent. They completely avoided the issue, as per usual.

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July 7th: New content! Everyone should be happy. Of course, that's what Three Rings is saying, hoping their players don't notice an underhanded moneygrab they laid out in their new content, the Ironclaw Munitions Factory.

Besides, of course, having to emergency patch the area and the boss TWICE (like they always have to, they do not believe in testing content before they release it), and the energy everyone wasted getting down there only to be met with two invisible, turbo lag causing bosses, Ironclaw Munitions was, quite literally, DESIGNED to make you lose money.

So, while most people are excited for new content and rush straight in, Biznasty counts the crowns.

First level, only 1,200~ crowns. The second, a pathetic 600 crowns. If you were to play this area over and over, you wouldn't be able to afford energy, especially while these costs are rising.

Meanwhile, over at the Royal Jelly Palace and Firestorm Citadel, the jellies and slags are making it rainn with crowns. Eveyone's a king at those parties! So why do they release content /no one/ should play if they like having money?

Because they expect their players to be dumb enough to not notice.

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July 8th, 9:11 pm: New patch to rebalance crown droprates. If Three Rings were an honest developer, it would be to increase the crown droprate in Arenas and Ironclaw Munitions, so you're rewarded for killing more enemies and get enough crowns to get by at all in a less enemy-saturated area.

If you've read this through this entire document so far, you know that is not the case.

This 'rebalancing' is actually a 'general lowering.'  I'm sure older players remember that arenas, once flooded with crowns and heat, were reduced to being twice as challenging, but only just as rewarding. This is essentially that, except arenas now give less, Ironclaw Munitions, which already gave next to nothing now gives less. Everything gives less.

Three Rings has made a direct attack on the free players again, scolding them for playing their game wrong by not buying energy with real money.

And, of course, this should come as no surprise to anyone, lovers and haters of myself or Three Rings alike. Because this is what they do and always will do.

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Agust 18th: I'm glad I don't have to say everything myself.

http://pastebin.com/TVdSf2Yu
http://pastebin.com/f8pgMNB5

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August 19th: Two things happened today.

1: Three arenas in an undead stratum directly before the Firestorm Citadel. Tons of crowns to come. I mean loads of crowns. So Three Rings has to step in, of course.

They scramble the Undead stratum, and even though it remains labeled such, it's suddenly a Fiend stratum inside, and has an entire Dark City, a very unprofitable area. Then they try to hide they did this, of course, and move the Copper Phantom gate up before it's natural time, which adamantly breaks the whole thing.

The Copper Phantom is completely unable to be entered, so no Snarbolax for any newer players or older trying to get tokens. And far over to the right in the open to deposit gates, a gate was also spawned before its time, and was not a Snarbolax gate as it should have been, but was forced into a second Vanaduke gate, even though there was one already to its direct left.

Hours later, they cycle all eight of the gates out.

2: I saw, first hand, the new lotteries. Used to get thousands and cool gear for winning the lottery, but now, you only get a thousand energy, and a upgrade slot or one day booster of something. And considering that there are thousands more players than before, so... Just doesn't add up.

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October 10th...

It's been a while since I've written, and I should have a long time ago.

Candlestick Keep, new levels hyped up by Three Rings, are new generic random Clockwork levels. They have unkillable Kat-versions of phantoms that can only be warded off by candles, kats, and zombies. So when it came out, a few of us decided to go check out a T2 one. It was easy, and there were very few enemies. By the end, I had hardly earned one hundred crowns. It was such a miserable amount, and many other players know this now, too. Many players adamantly avoid Candlestick Keep not because it's hard, but because it just doesn't pay jackshit.

More recently added were accessories. They come from randomly acquired Lockboxes. These boxes require a 750 ce key to open. And the odds of you getting an accessory WORTH 750 ce is slim to none. This is exactly like Hat Fortress 2's business model, except you can't buy specific accessories directly for ridiculous prices. Which means it's even more random. So, buying a Key is like playing the lottery, but with no real rewards.

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October 18th: http://pastebin.com/tRp90G2h

This is far too big to go here.

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January 8th: It's been a while. I won't lie, Three Rings was starting to do some good with Explorer Packs for only three dollars with how much they gave. Hell, it was enough to justify putting the end to the boycott if it stayed. But they cost fifteen dollars now, so that good streak ended. And a new patch came out a few days ago. One dubbed Pussy's Patch.

Wolvers, Alpha Wolvers, Retrodes, Zombies all don't home when they bite/swing. And if you're experienced, you'll know the horrible truth behind that. Wolvers take very long to attack as is, but now, they will only hit you if your keyboard comes unplugged and you're magically unable to move. And your mouse comes out too and you're unable to block.

Being full-on manly and jumping into a pile of Slags or Retrodes doesn't mean anything anymore either. They're only gonna hit you if you somehow forgot how to move and block, too. And their swing speed was nerfed, too. (But to be fair, you can get really, really bored and stop trying much and end up getting hit just to pretend it's challenging. I know I did. :c)

Here's the official Pussy's Patch changelog: http://spiralsnipes.tumblr.com/post/15312089999

This kinda shit just makes me wanna quit.

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April 18th: Height and Eye Changing!

Good idea, great idea! Three Rings even promised to let new knights change their eyes and height!

They lied through their fucking teeth, though. New knights can't choose anything. And to ice the cake, instead of simply being able to buy changes, new lockboxes. That's right, eyes and heights are being treated as another series of accessories.

Some fucking anniversary.