Author Topic: Spiral Knights  (Read 4377 times)

Offline zespri

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Re: Spiral Knights
« Reply #15 on: June 20, 2011, 03:19:03 pm »
I did start playing Global Agenda though, thanks to Steam, and I quite enjoy it so far.

I downloaded this massive thing, and spent an hour installing it (for some reason it was a reaaaaaaaaaally slow installer) and then finally booted it up and saw that there was a 45 minute queue to get into the game. But apparently I could buy 'elite' access to log in faster. So I closed it and did something else. I honestly don't know if I'll ever go back to it. I mean talk about making a bad first impression, wow.
I didn't like the game in principle, but I'm not sure what you are complaining about. The game has a lot of assets, so it's obviously takes some time to download, it depends on your internet speed. They hardly can make your internet better, or make the game smaller keeping in it all the functionality. So this first complain I think is totally baseless. The second one, about the queue has more merits, but even blizzard with almost infinite money had a similar problem at some stage with WoW, so there is nothing to be so surprised about either. A server hardware, even modern one can support only so many users.

Offline BobTheJanitor

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Re: Spiral Knights
« Reply #16 on: June 20, 2011, 08:01:55 pm »
I didn't like the game in principle, but I'm not sure what you are complaining about. The game has a lot of assets, so it's obviously takes some time to download, it depends on your internet speed. They hardly can make your internet better, or make the game smaller keeping in it all the functionality. So this first complain I think is totally baseless. The second one, about the queue has more merits, but even blizzard with almost infinite money had a similar problem at some stage with WoW, so there is nothing to be so surprised about either. A server hardware, even modern one can support only so many users.

I don't really care about the download size, I just put it in the background. I'm not sure why it took over an hour to install itself though. Neither of those is the problem... But as far as the queue, if I'm a new player interested in possibly trying a game, if the first thing I see is a screen telling me I'm going to be waiting 45 minutes to play, and secondly something asking me to pay to go to the front of the line, that's just a turn-off right out of the gate. Combine that with the fact that I have a ton of other games I could be playing, and I can't even bring myself to want to put in the effort for this. It's less about the cost of the game and more about the time investment these days. I can get hundreds of games for 5 or 10 bucks, or even free-to-play like this one. I look to the game to answer the question of 'why should I give you my time and not something else?' This one did not.

Sure, I'm familiar with queues from WoW, but that was for a game that I really wanted to play (at the time) so I was putting up with it. For a game that I'm only vaguely familiar with, for it to immediately put me at the back of a line and then ask me to pay to get to the front tells me two things: 1. They don't have enough hardware to handle their demand. 2. They use this as a way of further monetizing the game. Those are the only impressions the game has given me so far. Not good. I'm a brand new customer who could potentially give them money. Thus far all I have used is download bandwidth (and it wouldn't surprise me if Valve gets a kickback for that, since they're providing the bandwidth, but that's just guessing) and I haven't gotten close to being interested in giving them cash. I would think the smart thing to do would be to put brand new players in the 'elite' club for some set time period so you can get them in the door and hook them on your game. Once they actually WANT it, put them at the back of the line and dangle the elite login carrot in their face. But don't do it the first time they walk in the door.

Maybe I'm overthinking this, but it seems to me like any quality marketing department wouldn't allow this to happen.

Offline c4sc4

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Re: Spiral Knights
« Reply #17 on: June 21, 2011, 08:26:41 pm »
I think the main problem you're having with Global agenda is that there are tons of new people trying to play the game because it is being advertised on steam. I had no idea there were that long of log in times because I have elite status from when the game wasn't free. In case you didn't know, Global Agenda used to be a game that you buy once without a monthly fee. They recently changed the game into a free-to-play model and gave everyone who bought the game previously elite status. If you want to try the game, you could wait for the new players to die down that is bound to happen in the coming weeks or try to play at some odd time when it is less likely for people to be on.

Offline Echo35

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Re: Spiral Knights
« Reply #18 on: June 22, 2011, 11:22:53 am »
I think the main problem you're having with Global agenda is that there are tons of new people trying to play the game because it is being advertised on steam. I had no idea there were that long of log in times because I have elite status from when the game wasn't free. In case you didn't know, Global Agenda used to be a game that you buy once without a monthly fee. They recently changed the game into a free-to-play model and gave everyone who bought the game previously elite status. If you want to try the game, you could wait for the new players to die down that is bound to happen in the coming weeks or try to play at some odd time when it is less likely for people to be on.

Yeah, I didn't touch it over the weekend, but I was playing last night and could log right in. Queues happen on any MMO, making one free to play and announcing it on one of the biggest digital distribution services around can make that happen faster :P