First of all, a really good post by Copperwire about Fun in relation to game content.

Second of all, the other Spiral Knights Crusaders are coming to my home city, and this is exciting to me. I’ve befriended so few people over the years because of really quite terrible things happening when I trusted too easily; I’m grateful that Spiral Knights let me have that extra interaction I needed to feel comfortable with my soon-to-be visitors.

(As a note, they actually met over Puzzle Pirates, also a Three Rings game, and from thence blossomed a beautiful relationship.)

But while they’re traveling, they won’t be playing the game, and I’ll be busy cleaning house and then entertaining them and working to make up missed hours at work and suchlike, which means for me a short hiatus from playing Spiral Knights for about a week.

And maybe when the Crusaders return to the game, the changes will sit better with us (unlikely), or there will be extra tweaks. I have no idea how money stats will look on Three Rings’ end, nor how quickly they would act nor how they will act if crystal energy buys actually drop off severely enough. I know for now I’m holding off on buying crystal energy until a few more months go by, to get a feel for how new production releases will go, how rocky they might be. I have enough stockpiled, and enough weapons and not much of a rush for T3, that I can go on for quite some time.

At this point, I just want to see new content for T2. Us Crusaders worry second-most that new content will stop showing up for T2, thus making expensive advancement required. I like more than most a familiar run, but even I can only stand so many re-themed small sets of configurations. At that point I would stop playing—not out of spite, but because Spiral Knights and my desires would no longer match up. My friends are already tired of the lack of content at our level. I understand that new content is going to be a priority soon, so I’m cautiously optimistic.

What do the Crusaders worry about first-most? The coming lack of a feeling of achievement for players who don’t shell out for T3. There’s a ceiling we feel we’ll hit as casual players, and perhaps the Spiral Knights team can’t or even won’t prioritize us. That’s really the breaking point for us, alongside the content. And for this, I worry a lot more.

Does a hiatus from playing mean I’ll stop posting Spiral Knights content? Well, no. There are great aspects of the game, whatever the payment structure might do to it in the end, and I want to help those new to the game, or even those new to the concept of working up heat levels on their weapons for upgrade purposes.