How has Kingsisle's recent updates impacted your opinion on them as whole?

[Dylan Windwalker]

I feel like the term "worst update" been popping up recently and my friends are often mocking or criticizing the company for their handling of the game's old/new features. I've heard that players are getting worried or have been concerned about Kingsisle's lack of communication and under-the-same-page understanding of what players would like to see in the game. A lot of players are saying that the updates don't make sense and could be designed better. But then there are many players who are just flowing with the changes and feel like adapting with the changes is easier for them.

What's your opinion about Ki after seeing the most recent updates? In a scale between 1-10 (1 being the best, 10 being the worst) that illustrates how you feel about the Spring update?

In my opinion, I'm pretty neutral becuase while the most recent update didn't hit on all the points or problems that need to be looked upon, I'm still pretty content about the previous Fall update of last year involving Lemuria, a world with an interesting plot and story that I enjoy...

[JaredSpellFrost]

Well, KingsIsle took a look at my rock bottom opinion of them and grabbed a shovel. I'm quite disappointed that low level PvP which I enjoyed is nonexistent and that Tournaments give no rewards, so naturally my personal rating of KI will drop further into the negatives.

And even if this update didn't affect you, that's a problem worth mentioning too. Updates should bring net positive changes to the game, and help as many Players as possible. The fact that the Spring 2022 update utterly destroyed PvP for many (And Derby!) while bringing little benefit to the masses is nothing to dismiss.

[Sierra SeaSong]

Well, first they release all these reworked spellements to get everyone excited, wait a week and inform us we aint getting any lol.

option 1 is out since all my wiz are maxed
option 2 the retriever pets have a 5 min cooldown and you only have A CHANCE at a spellemnts
option 3 cantrips chest, well after wasting 15 energy come to find out 3 people is not an option, it is REQUIIRED


So again I ask, how are established players supposed to get spellements outside of packs? Did KI imagine we would be happy wondering around worlds we no longer need to be in looking for chests then coming up short?'

Am I supposed to have 3 memberships to open a cantrips chest?

I am at a total loss, I guess new spellements are not happening for me.

These systems are great for new players though, so there is that. Sure every try hard pvp player started a new wizard to farm spelllements this week lol

[Pegasus Unbound]

@Dylan Windwalker , I want to start by saying that you fall into a very special category of "posters" in my personal opinion. You ask numerous great questions that get some real discussions going.

This time you have started 2 separate threads that in all honesty I think are very related to each other, so while I am answering to this one I think people need to see and follow the other one as well:

http://www.wizard101central.com/foru...ple-or-obvious

Now to the question(s) at hand.

I will preface that I am one of the players who started just after Beta testing and even remember things like the introduction of pets (That had zero special features or talents), having to run all over since there were no mounts until they introduced the Wing mounts, and even going through the new DS way before they nerfed it.

Those were some really fun and magical times, and we all celebrated as the number of players grew from hundreds of thousands to millions. We all waited anxiously for Celestia to come out and enjoyed every single moment of it.

Then came the day that PvP entered the Spiral and with it a "new breed" of player. Suddenly players became hostile in PvP and it slowly spread to the entire Spiral. It was "manageable" to some degree, but it was still an issue.

The game continued on and grew beyond anybody's expectations and as a company, a lot of new "attention" was directed in their way. Before we knew it, we lost one of (If not the most) important people in the game who was part of the founding vision of W101.

That was the beginning of the end in my opinion as instead of a form of relaxation and entertainment that made money as a company...instead of being driven by the players the new "management team" decided to let the all mighty dollar drive the game.

Since that time, the management has repeatedly used smoke and mirrors to drain the players of money and avoid fixing issues by trying to instead get people to focus on "new things to do" that just added to the wallets of the corporation.

So here I am now, all these years later, and as I have said in another post; I am finally starting to lose hope in something that I love and depend on so much.

I actually started playing because of a recommendation by my doctor. I was in serious mental distress due to stress and anxiety (Also known as severe bipolar disorder, ADHD, dyslexia, OCD), and she told me to find something to distract my thoughts and emotions. While we talked about my interests I told her I was one of the original players of Dungeon & Dragons back in the 70's (I still have all my 1st edition books, my dice, my diagrams and maps and more all in storage). That day I got home, turned on the TV and there was the very first commercial for W101, I logged on and tried it and the rest was history. Thanks to the game I was able to reduce my medications by 50% and was able to start relaxing for the first time in many, MANY years...So yeah, I really do love and depend on this game even today (Perhaps in someways, more so than ever).

Also over the years I was one of the big "cheerleaders" convinced that given time, it will all be OK. Sadly, now I am very afraid I was wrong. The new management was and is like a slow "cancer" eating away at the healthy body until nothing remains but an empty husk.

Instead of fixing simple things, they ignored them and slapped a band-aid on them which only let those issues rot and fester. Instead of taking the time to fix it, they created "A New Age" for that activity...more often than not at the expense of other aspects of the game. The simplest example is the Badges. Does anyone in the corporate structure of KI even understand how important something so small can mean to the players? We players take a great, even HUGE amount of pride in our accomplishments and a simple badge of honor can often be the most important thing; Yet this simple issue is ignored over and over and over again (Ad nauseam) even to this very day. Yep, they can spend time and money messing with spells in Beastmoon, spend time and money creating new forms and yet the very simple issue of Beastmoon Monster Mayhem badges are still messed up and have been virtually from the very beginning of the game. It has been ignored to such a degree that many have said just zero them out, fix the issue and start the badges over...but no, that's not what they have done.

And now we turn our attention to yet another "New Age" and update that "supposedly" fixes PvP...and yet again at the expense of PvE. You not only STOLE the Arena Tickets from the PvE community but you didn't compensate the for it, give AMPLE time to deal with the issue, and even failed to mention what they were doing to the Pet Derby (Which has been ignored for years on end as is Gardening).

So yeah, I am finally beginning to lose faith in KI continuing to be a positive part of my life and the sadness it brings is beyond words.

@Sparck, you and the others have asked us time and again to let you all know how we feel, but I have to ask why? What good will it do? Recently I cam to an observation/realization that may be a major key in this whole "We want to hear from you" concept.

How many have tried to post on the actual W101 message boards? If you haven't noticed, it is very restricted to the point that even if you use all caps, the automated system rejects the message regardless of the content. There is also a long delay in time before a post shows up because they want to make sure of what is being posted...kind of like a dictator that is only interested in making himself/herself look good.

Thank God @Jester created W101Central. Here we are more free to openly share our thoughts and discuss what is happening...the good, the bad and even the ugly. @Sparck , I wonder how many people in KI out of the thousands of employees actually pay attention to the open discussions here at Central. I would be willing to guess that the number/percentage is very small; and the number who have the ability to do something about our concerns is smaller. Worse yet is that the number of them that are willing to do anything or even care is even less.

It's not just a matter of a company chasing after the almighty dollar, it's a matter of ignoring (Not forgetting) the very player base that made them rich in the first place. It's become an obvious matter that KI just does not care about its customers.

So now, as I sit here writing this, I am full of such great sorrow and anger...but yeah, I still love this game. To say I am torn over these recent events which keep escalating would be a major understatement...but yeah, I still love this game...

And deep down inside this 61 year old man (Who was forced at the age of 12 to grow up on the streets of Los Angeles and literally never had a childhood) is a little boy who just really doesn't know what to do or believe anymore. It's funny, I survived those streets and the horrible memories, I lived to be 61...but right now no betrayal hurts as much as the one that is happening right here and right now by KI.

[AstralFrost]

To be honest, cantrips seem like the kind of thing you play around with for 5 minutes then never touch again. I truly don't understand why it was necessary to add these into the game.

Let's be clear, side systems like this will not drive new players into the game, this isn't a selling point.

Do I think that the game is starting to hit crisis mode?
-Yes, I do.

It's just sad because at this point I don't see anything other than new world content that can actually bring players back into the game. If KingsIsle wanted to revive the game into its old player statistics, the opportunity would have been 5 years ago...

Do I think that the game is going to close relatively soon?
-No, I don't... Sadly I think that the game is going to slowly loose more and more players as time goes on and by the time the game closes, it won't be much of an event.

However, take everything I just said with a grain of salt because I don't actually play the game anymore. But, from an outsider perspective, it seems pretty disappointing and worrying for the longterm wellbeing of the game.

[BaronvonWolf]

lets just say poorly

[The Lone Ninja Escapist]

Sigh. Okay, this is going to be a long one.

I used to be excited for test realm. I was excited for new story content. I wanted new ways to improve my wizard's gear and deck. I was ready to get into whatever new activities were going to be offered in the game. And I couldn't wait to see what new shiny Crowns shop mount or some other item was waiting for us when the updates when live. It used to be something I was looking forward to.

But now I dread it.

Every time I hear "overhauls" or "re-balancing", I worry about KI touching my hard-earned gear and the respecs I've done to have the perfect gear and decks. They took away Mystic Colossus's mass shatter effect that was so useful for cheating bosses. They added gear bonuses that completely ignored the popular "OP" gear in order to entice players towards second-rate/bazaar gear (because of that and the degradation of stats in new gear as years went on, I refused to move away from my Darkmoor gear to this day.)

And their idea of upgrading spells is just an even worse grinding activity that removes your ability to enchant those upgraded spells afterward. And now they're removing spells drops in lore packs and boss drop tables and replacing them with spellements. I really hate this shift towards P2W when they're forcing us to obtain the new spells exclusively through spellements. I've decided to completely ignore the feature entirely.

I used to love KI for everything they've done for the game. But now after every update, I find myself asking, "What have you done?" They keep returning to W101 to break things that we loved about the game, then turn around to sell us a solution to the feature they intentially broke. They keep churning out updates way too soon and never fix the bugs that we've been telling them since test realm, or they give us an empty promise to "fix it" in the NEXT update. Quality of life updates don't have that "quality" to them anymore as the positives in each update always have been outnumbered by the negatives added to the detriment of the game.

Last year, KI was asking fans to vote W101 in the Steam Awards for the Labor of Love award. And you know what I did?

I laughed. I laughed that they considered 1.) turning W101 into a P2W game, 2.) pumping out under-baked updates, 3.) removing/changing features that were previously working as intended- AS CONFIRMED BY EVEN KI THEMSELVES IN THE PAST -as suddenly "Not intentional" as they were too beneficial for players and needs to be monetized in some way or form; as a LABOR OF LOVE?

I've played better games that year that were far worthy of that award, and KI with W101 never comes to mind.

I'm sorry if I came off rude for the last part, but this is coming from a W101 fan who has seen the good and worst of KI throughout W101's lifetime. I used to be more forgiving of KI, but it's like they're trying our patience with ruining features we love or want, then try to win us over with useless features that I feel like were implemented too late for little fanfare it will receive today. I'm tired of hearing the "We hear you" phrase on KI Live every time we complain about ongoing issues- it's so overused in the gaming industry in ad nauseum that it has lost its indication that they have the potential to improve to me.

If KI wants to win my respect again, they'll have to do more than "We're sorry" and actually ask the community what and where they need to put more attention to in the game. Stop buttering us up for the need for these updates when you're just going to mess it up for the players in the long run. I tired of being lied to again and again.

[RookieRecurve]

Overall, this update had minimal negative impact on my opinion of them as a whole. My opinion of the company has been low for some time though. A lot of great staff built up this amazing game with engagement, culture, and community. Now, and for some time, it has felt like it is so driven by profit, that they have taken a lot of the magic out of the game. I know that they need to be profitable to be a company, but when the focus seems to be so heavily directed at profit, the organic aspect that drew so many people into the game is gone. I still enjoy the game, mostly because of the players, and their efforts to help other people get the most out of the game. It really is an amazing community, but it sure feels like KI is less and less part of that community. I really don't know what goes on behind closed doors, but it sure feels like KI has been going through a major identity crisis for some time now.