Spiral Knights - a free-to-play MMOG that's fistfuls of fun...

[Edvard]

Did you love dungeon-crawling with your arcade buddies in Gauntlet?
Did you find the Legend of Zelda series fun and challenging, and never complained about it's "cutesy"-ness?
Do you like the social interaction and character-building aspects common in most modern-day MMORPGs, but aren't basement-bound geek enough to take them seriously?
Are you short on cash?
Do you want all this and have a ton of fun while you're at it?

Come, join up with the Spiral Knights and explore the ever-changing Clockworks world!

You have crashed.
You are stranded.
But you are not alone.
The Spiral Knights have awoken on an alien world. Their equipment stores have been raided and their starship, The Skylark, will not recover from the crash. Now they must work together to survive on a journey that will take them to the very core of this strange world.

http://www.spiralknights.com/

It's written by Three Rings, the creative hooligans behind Puzzle Pirates and an upcoming Doctor Who game, in conjunction with Sega.
Most of the artwork has been perpetrated by Ian McConville, the creative genius behind the Mac Hall and Three Panel Soul webcomics.
It's browser-based, written in Java (which means it's Linux-compatible  ), and offers very creative gameplay that seems to borrow from a fistful of enjoyable predecessors.
It's free-to-play, which means you can sign up and have access to everything you need.
You get 100 units of Energy every 24 hours (EVERYTHING you do costs Energy, some things very little, some a little more...), and at first sign-up they give you a free 100-unit bonus tank for the first time you run out.
I recommend playing as much as you can with the free energy to learn the best energy-conserving tricks, get used to the game mechanics and trading system, then buy some extra Energy for extended play.
The energy pricing is fair and not terribly expensive (you can spend as little as 2 bucks) and they take PayPal as well as the traditional options (they even take a check in the mail ).
I've been playing for a couple weeks now, and having a blast even though I can only spare an hour or two at a time, which is just about perfect.

I don't know enough about the game yet to give it a comprehensive review (there's just so much to it...) but here's a good overview from Giantbomb.com:
http://www.giantbomb...al-knights/61-34489/
And if you search "spiral knights review", you'll find most of the reviews to be quite positive.
http://www.google.co...piral+knights+review

I also recommend the Wiki as your first stop; it's well-written, comprehensive and updated often.
http://wiki.spiralknights.com
Go through the Starting Out page first, to get an idea of what to do when you get around to signing up (don't forget to hit all the links at least once):
http://wiki.spiralkn...hts.com/Starting_out
... then read through the New Player Briefing to get a good overview of gameplay mechanics that you will experience:
http://wiki.spiralkn.../New_Player_Briefing

Whether your cup of tea is engaging in fast-paced combat, building your character, or interacting with others via trading or chit-chatting, it's all possible within this game world, and I highly recommend it for the "fun" gamer in you...
Ready? Good!

https://www.spiralkn...register/register.wm

[Deozaan]

A free-to-play MMO that costs money to buy Energy to do anything?

Looks like it could be really fun, but this seemingly severe limitation will likely keep me from playing it.

Thanks for the review/suggestion.

[Edvard]

Au Contraire, Deozaan...
I've been playing 3-4 days a week for the last month, haven't spent a dime on the game and haven't yet felt the pinch (not that it wouldn't have been nice a few times...).
You get 100 units of Energy FREE every 24 hours, which is good for at least an hour or two's worth of enjoyment, and if you need more it's really not that expensive.
As a free-to-play they had to come up with some way of making money and this isn't the worst I've seen.
I think they're trying to strike a balance between not just handing out Uber-weapons for cash in an item mall (making the progression more interesting IMHO) and charging a subscription for "enhanced" features not available to the proles running on free time.
From reading some reviews, this is exactly what some people want, but I like this model better.

So not being a hardcore gamer, a game that's much more than your average casual flash game but needs less involvement than your average MMO, an hour or two of good solid fun is just fine by me.
The game looks great, it runs flawlessly on Linux and it's really fun; which makes it perfect. 

[Deozaan]

OK then. I'll try it out.

EDIT: I'm on there as Deozaan

[Deozaan]

Yep. It's fun!

The gameplay is a lot more like an Arcade game than traditional MMO(RPG). It plays like a combination of Guantlet^w, Zelda: Four Swords Adventures^w, and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles^w.

[Edvard]

Yup, it's pretty good for all that.

They now have an Auction House and a Training Hall.
I'm going to check it out now, haven't played in a while.

Looks like Tycho from Penny Arcade is obsessed with the game, and

look who I found flying around the Town Square!

[steeladept]

Wow, I missed this.  Sounds perfect for my busy schedule.  I never get my monies worth on most of the decent MMORPG's since I would tend to play about 3 times a week at best, and even then only for about an hour or less each.  Otherwise I would seriously have considered EVEOnline.  This sounds like it is priced right and has the play timeframe that works just about right.  I will try it tomorrow when I get home from work.

[Edvard]

My knight's name is Googoogajoob, go ahead and tag me in your friends list when you get signed up. 

[Jibz]

Seems quite fun actually, and the energy thing works well to limit your time wast^H^H^H^Hspent on it .

[Deozaan]

Spiral Knights is now also available on Steam (for free of course!) along with some other free-to-play games.

Edit: The downside is that there doesn't seem to be a way to merge your account with your Steam account. So you either still have to login with your old account (which isn't different from how any other MMO works on Steam) or you have to create a new character.

[lanux128]

Edit: The downside is that there doesn't seem to be a way to merge your account with your Steam account. So you either still have to login with your old account (which isn't different from how any other MMO works on Steam) or you have to create a new character.

-Deozaan (June 14, 2011, 12:02 PM)

this has been added since then...

How to Convert to Steam:

    Install Spiral Knights through Steam.
    Start Spiral Knights from Steam. It will automatically bring you to character selection or creation for your Steam account.
    Click on the Back button in the lower left corner, or if you can't see that button, hit ESC and log off.
    Uncheck the Use Steam Account check box.
    Enter your Spiral Knights web account name and password.
    You will be prompted if you are sure that you wish to transfer your web account to the Steam account. If you confirm to convert it will complete and you will immediately be logged into the Steam account instead.

-thread

• Source: Converting Spiral Knights accounts to Steam accounts

[lanux128]

lol, the actual reason i came to this thread was to ask if any kind soul could spare me a couple of Firecracker bombs? this is for the Steam summer achievement.


• http://wiki.spiralkn...ghts.com/Firecracker

[Deozaan]

I can make you one if you want me to. You only need it in your inventory to get the achievement and as long as you don't equip it, you can trade it to other people.

[lanux128]

I can make you one if you want me to. You only need it in your inventory to get the achievement and as long as you don't equip it, you can trade it to other people.

-Deozaan (July 07, 2011, 10:47 PM)

thanks a bunch, Deo! much appreciated.. 

[steeladept]

Every time I try running this it fails.  I know I need to reimage my machine (I have a failing harddrive as my boot drive), but I should have been able to load it up and run it.  The harddrive hasn't given up the ghost yet, it is just very unheathy according to the SMART monitors.  I guess I will try when I get the new hard drive and redo my machine.

[skwire]

For the record, may we assume you have said drive backed up?   

[steeladept]

Of course, I use it as a temp drive now until I get it replaced.  It is handy for downloading all kinds of stuff to check out, because I know I won't be using it much longer.  I am just putting off actually fixing it for a lot of reasons, some good, some not so good 

[Edvard]

Maybe update your Java?
That's what Spiral Knights runs on, couldn't hurt.

If you're running Linux, make sure you're running the latest Sun java package, not the other stuff I forget the name of.

[steeladept]

Thanks.  Been running the latest Java (well latest Java 6 - haven't moved to 7 yet).  I am learning to program in Java, so I KNOW I have kept up with that.  I actually was thinking the other way around.  Maybe I should downgrade - but then I haven't tried that either.