(Spiral Knights Review)
It’s that time again! I checked out Spiral Knights a few weeks back and I have to say I absolutely LOVE the idea of this game! I mean, it plays like Zelda, the colors are nice and saturated, levels are beautiful, your little robot dude is kinda cute, and it’s freeeeeuuuhhheerrrr…. not so much. Lets get to that soon. So anyways, this little gem is made by Sega; remember them? Anyways, what’s interesting about it is that it’s a “F2P” MMO hack and slasher dungeon diving crafting game. It bugs me slightly that the entire thing in instanced, but it’s not so bad. You can collaboratively build dungeons by donating color crystals to an open dungeon slot; when the timer is up, the most popular color combination unlocks the design. Not too shabby! And the multiplayer is pretty neat. Sure, it’s about as close and personal as an Alteric Vally run in wowcraft, but still, the levels are pretty straight forward so it doesn’t really take too many braincells to figure out what’s going on. You will pick up all kinds of strange material drops that you can combine to make super leet armors!
It’s actually a LOT of fun! You’ll have a great time for about 30min… that’s about how long it’ll take before your energy runs out and you’ll either have to pay ingame currency (“crowns”, but I just call it gold) OR real money. That’s when the fun ends. See, EVERYTHING you do costs energy. You get 100 energy every 22hrs and you can purchase reserves beyond that. So what happens is that when you go into a dungeon, it costs a few energy to go down each level. At first the dungeons were like 5 energy per level, but I guess these change daily or something, so one day, my last day, it was 10 energy per level!! Do the math… that’s 10 levels and that goes pretty darn quick! Oh, and if you die… it starts to have increasing returns, so it’ll eat through all of your allowance pretty fast. Then there are gates (as seen above), these cost a bit of energy too! Beyond are bosses and whatnot, so you want to go through… but… you cant! Cause you spent all your free energy! Exit game, fire up Minecraft! lol!
Now, to be fair, you can buy energy with gold from the player driven market. I’ve noticed it hovers around 5200 golds for 100 energy (the permanent kind). But, you can get anywhere between 5000 to even 10000 gold a day if you’re SUPER lucky! I’m usually somewhere in the middle of that. So, “in theory” you can keep going if you spend all your gold. However, here’s the rub; if you want all that leet gear, you’re going to need a LOT of gold and a TON of energy! The highest tiered items are 5000 gold and 800 energy to craft. Times 6 items you can craft and 3 other levels to craft inbetween… you’re looking at a lot of resources. To be exact, 53,400 gold and 8,700 energy. That’s 505,800 gold (at average market exchange) if you go it the free rout. And given the average gold you get from a daily run, it would take about 102 days to craft it… And that’s NOT accounting for the energy it takes to get the materials!! So a generous timeline would probably be between half to 1 year of playing daily.
But let’s be reasonable here… What are you looking to get out of the game? If you want instant gratification, you can spend $20 for 7,500 energy (which would cut your time immensely) or $50 for 20k energy and be set for life. Or if you go the free route, it’s not all that different than gearing up in any other mmo type game. So either way, it’s just how you like to play. Would I pay for energy? No, not personally. I’m not a big fan of the cash shop system, especially when it’s linked to important gameplay mechanics like play time or player advantages. Is it worth trying out? Absolutely! It’s a really fun game! So give it a try! If you end up liking it, $20 isn’t a whole lot for a game so I think no matter what route you go, it’s worth checking out.
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Hey, gotta pay for those explosive space modulay-tohrs one way or another.
nothing’s free… except the cake… that’s free! >)
but yeah, I’m a big fan of the vanity cash shop and subscription. don’t really like the whole “pay a big fee now AND subscription”… sorry wowland, me no likey.
For me, cause I’m addicted to F2P, I prefer a cash shop that is only for vanity. You shouldn’t have to buy things to get farther into the game.
If you have to pay then it should be either one lump sum or a subscription and with both everything should be all inclusive.
I’m with you on that one. I don’t like the “micropayment” thing for games. I’d rather pay up front or a subscription, not “you need x more of item y or you can’t finish the level or beat the boss”
As far as cash shop setups, I think Forsaken World hit the nail on the head pretty well. Though it’s a bit of a “daily quest” game rather than a regular western quest/dungeon rpg. Still, a lot of fun!
As a F2P connoisseur, got any good recommendations?
Team Fortess 2 is exceptional for their F2P setup. The free account isn’t restricted in terms of gameplay, but just for the vanity items. And, if you spend any money at the Mann Co store, you get promoted to premium, where you can access everything.
Up front/no subscription for single-player games.
1 month free then subscription for multiplayer games.
Cash for vanity only is not a problem for me in either model.
I don’t even have a problem with Cash for gold, it makes it easier for a wage-slave to actually get to play without having to spend their few available hours farming. But the game had damned well better be fully playable without the cash, so that the people with more time than money don’t get left behind either.
And anything that wants me to pay a subscription had better not make me pay for expansion packs. (I’m looking at you Blizzard)
sigh… yeah, not really a big believer in the subscription AND purchase. I understand the logic behind it, but it’s kind of like buying a toothbrush then getting charged a few bucks a month to use it. I think it’s an either or type situation.
Ah, Spiral Knights. I remember playing that for a bit. A neat idea, but you’re right, the Energy system is HORRIBLE. It actually seems to have gotten better from what you said though, used to be that every level cost 10 energy, all the time. And there is no way I will EVER pay to get further in a game.
Though if you’re looking for a good action MMO like that, I would either recommend Vindictus, or Dragon Nest. Both are by Nexon. Vindictus has better (More realistic) Graphics, but lags like hell. Dragon Nest uses more animated graphics, but so far I haven’t run into any lag, which I find amazing for a action MMO. Neither twists your leg into buying anything with real Money.
Vindicutus sounds interesting, might give it a try. Now I’d love to try Dragon Nest… however it decided to fail to install on my computer… after like 10min of tinkering, I gave up on it. >(
Odd, not sure whats wrong with Dragon Nest. Vindi is fun, though I stopped playing it since it lags way to much. If you manage to get Dragon Nest to work, I play as “ShunYu”. PipHalsey on Vindi, but like I said, I stopped playing.
speaking of robots i think a sith inqisitor would be most like you! ( a sorcerror advaced class- advanced classes are like specs) they are sith, they are spellcasters, and they wear purple! but lighting insted of fire
lol! cause that’s EXACTLY the class I want to play in the SWTOR game! XD good call! can’t wait to try the game out!
My opinion on cost really depends on the game. A game that comes in a box, I expect to pay upfront for so I don’t mind doing so, even if it’s like WoW (though I do wish xpacs weren’t as expensive as the game itself). I don’t think charging for multi-game services like Xbox Live is unreasonable, since they do need to maintain servers and such- beats having your game lost because the host’s mom needs to watch her soaps or something. Single player games, I think a small fee for major DLC is reasonable but no subs. Multiplayer non-MMOs, besides XBLA-type fees I’m willing to pay for map packs and such because they wouldn’t otherwise be made very often. MMOs are the only games I’d pay a dedicated sub fee for, and if they don’t have one then I’ll only play if they don’t charge for a near-vital or actually needed resource or service in-game, since they’re just hiding a sub and that’s not right by my book.