In this thread: FREE.

[F]anatical [R]amblings and [E]xclamations of [E]ntitlement.

This game, by the way, was already inspired by a Japanese game: Phantasy Star Online.

That game was sold for a full retail price (not free) and then, partway in, had subscription fees added in (even less free).

Furthermore: A new free player can play for more than two hours on their first session. You get a Mist Tank on reaching Haven, so you can play twice as long on the first day, should you choose. If you managed to scrounge up a full set of 2* gear that day, you could get clearance for Tier 2 in a single day, and receive a second Mist Tank, further extending Day 1 playtime.

With Tier 2 unlocked, crown rewards are high enough to support CE purchases, though possibly not on Day 1.

Its obviously not people playing for free who are gonna raise CE price. Should I just repeat you that I myself play for free and had no issue, and still don't have any crafting 5* gears?..

Free means it does not cost you any money, although the option is there so you can advance faster. If you do not pay then there is a limit to how much you can play a day (for a while anyways). I have played a couple other F2P games, there is ALWAYS a large emphasis on the cash shop because (duh) the company wants to make money. Unlike most F2P though you can get everything in the game on a free account, it will just take longer.

The 2 I remember most well...
RS free account? 1/4-1/2 the available abilities are locked.
Runes of Magic free player? You'll never reach high end play because you'll never get the upgrade items/equipment that are sold EXCLUSIVELY in the cash shop. Also in RoM you used to be able to purchase cash shop currency in their AH, the ability got removed for some obviously BS reason.

Failing economy. Game is rather new, give them time to work on it.
"Most failing F2P Expension." Again, I point to RoM and other games like it where you no pay, you no do high end. Here you can, it will just take you a while (which is fine).
Bugs after patches. Have you EVER played a F2P game? There are always bugs after patches that have to be fixed, OOO is actually rather fast on fixing the big ones (like Snarby's lair not showing up). Maybe you've never seen a game where the patches/updates have bugs because the game is released in Japan first and then the US later. In that case there were bugs... the Japanese players just found them before the US release so the patch is relatively bug free. Since OOO releases their stuff here first it means we get to play the role that Japanese players often get to.

If you use up all your energy and can't play anymore you CAN purchase CE, although nobody is forcing you to. Sell off the mats you picked up while in the Clockworks to raise extra cash, talk with guildmates, play business and buy low/sell high, or it is Summer... you could go outside.

~Gwen

If there was no way for you to obtain energy in the game other than with cash then, yes, this game is not free to play. Guess what, though? There is. While an hour a day may not seem like much to you it is enough time to make progress (as Gigafreak pointed out very well) and eventually you are able to sustain yourself for longer play periods.

If you hate this game, then you don't have to play it.

You haven't put any amount of money into it, so you don't have any tangible investment into it. There's no reason to keep doing something you hate.

"You arrogant players always do think about money ?
Its not always money ?

Money is just like time. It passes by.
You die and you take your money to Heaven or Hell ? BE smart -.-

Btw enough about money.

This game earns alot of fame because of the f2pers ?
Many other companies notice it and maybe take it over.
It site value get higher by the day."

BLA BLA BLLLLAAA BLAAA. Hey, shut up, you're pointless. Like everyone already said you here, the game isn't good enough for you after 4 years developping, you get out. There are enough stupid complains on the forums already, don't enter the contest of the stupidest and poorest complain thread please.

You arrogant players always do think about money ?
Its not always money ?

Money is just like time. It passes by.
You die and you take your money to Heaven or Hell ? BE smart -.-

Then be smart, take your money that you can't take with you when you die, hand it to OOO, get yourself some CE, and stop spending your time trolling.

OOO rings could of went with a traditional cash shop system and probably made more money just selling costumes and crap.

Games fun, energy system is freaking stupid so my suggestion go play a better game I mean it's almost summer there's a ton of new MMOs just released or coming out.

Most other free to play games either restrict the gear you can use, or the areas you can go to, or both. Spiral Knights does neither, and instead restricts the amount of time you play free of charge. Furthermore, Spiral Knights lets you buy your playtime from other players using the in-game currency.

I fully understand that its hard to be sustainable in Tier 1, I get that, but the current system is FAR BETTER than the alternative.

What's the alternative you ask?

The alternative would be that you need armor/weapon/tier "upgrades". Wanna wear anything other than 1-star armor? You need the respective upgrade. Wanna fight the Jelly King/Vanaduke? You need the respective upgrade. That the alternative.

Why would that be that be worse you ask? After all, then I'd have unlimited playtime.

The main reason is that the upgrades would expire in 30 days (most likely) like weapon/trinket upgrades we currently have. This means that your hard-earned playtime crowns would now have an expiration date. Under the current system, your playtime never expires. Furthermore, expect to pay a LOT for these upgrades. Assuming that an average player with unlimited playtime can do five to six Jelly King runs in day (35 to 40K per day), wearing 3-star equipment (the max equipment designed to be used in Tier 2) I would expect the upgrade costs (for everything) to be around 17000 CE minimum for Tier 2 clearance and four pieces of 3-star equipment.

8000 crowns per run * 5 runs per day * 30 days = 1200000 crowns

1200000 crowns converted into CE at an exchange rate of 100 CE / 7000 crowns = 17142 CE

That's 17000 of your hard earned CE thats being sunk each and every month, regardless of how much (or little) you play that month. 17000 CE being spent on items/tier clearance each month, that you currently get for "gasp" free (at least once the items are made/clearance is achieved).

This game is F2P until you run out of mist energy, and if you decide to buy crystal energy you're either going to: P2P with real money, or P2P with game currency. If you want to get into tier 3, you're most likely going to have to P2P one way or another, unless there's a whole set of 4* and 5* gear that aren't bounded that you can buy.

Adressing the issue of bugs with patches: they can't test on every instance of a computer, and some bugs won't happen until it is placed on the web. The staff fix bugs pretty quick, so it shouldn't be something to frustrating.

In the open preview energy costs and such were the same: I never bought CE. I've played this game since October last year. FTP games give you SOME FTP material and some things that you need to buy: THAT IS HOW FTP IS DESIGNED TO WORK. Companies need to make money too, look at it from a financial stand point on their side. This game is still cheaper than other MMO's that are "FTP". Next time, do some research on the economy of games before trolling like this. There are principles to economics of FTP. There are standards. I can make it into MoorCraft (teir 2) with out using all my energy aday.

It was designed with the thought of only playing so much a day: it was designed with the thought in mind that you have obligations in your day to day life. At least I feel that it was made this way, and I agree. Its a good theory. I know I only have maybe 2 hours a day to dedicate to this game due to school and work.

Japanese companies doing it better: I played Phantasy Star Online. This game is much better. The Japanese do not always do things better, they just have an older industry standard to stand on. Think on this: the creator of Mega Man left because he didn't like where the Japanese Game industry was going.

Well I can only speak from my experience. I paid for the game. A lot more than any other game. However after I crafted my 3*, 4*, 5* equips, eventually I ran out of CE. From this point it's like I never paid for the game before. I cannot play more than those 100me. And it goes pretty quick.

I used to make some profit and buy CE to play more, but I gave up after the prices went nuts. It's just not worthy for me to play on CE.

It's strange not being able to play at will a game I spent more than any other game that allows me to do so. Comparing it with Guild Wars: I paid once for the trilogy. Also bought some special stuff later. But I can play it all day if I want, and I still have content to discover.

So, in my opinion, this is a pay-to-play game. An expensive one, since it limits your playing time. Maybe they wanted to keep the game fresh for a longer time.

Anyways, I enjoy the game, at least while I'm playing it.

ive met 2newbies, we 3 complained about needing energy to play

now 2 of us play and are doing pretty okay, while i havent seen the 3rd person for a while

assuming, that 66% of all newbies get to play without turning into beggers or such, it can be considered a free to play game, where u have to start off with casual playing, which leads to more time spent in reasearching and learning the useful and necessary things about the game

Spend your mist energy and play another game while waiting a full 22 hours to replenish mist energy. Other games like AQW, Deadfrontier, Gunshine, GUNZ, Counter-Strike: Source, the ever-popular Call of duty, PSP games, etchetera. Then after you get bored after playing, you'll notice that it's 10 PM ! OMG ! Then you suddenly fall asleep, drooling.

You'll wake up tomorrow and have 100 mist again. Hooray ! Now you can repeat.
( This is what I do nowadays. )

When you have enough crowns to upgrade your gear like Seven bagillion or so, then buy the CE and upgrade. Simple as that. >_>

Ciao!

Don't quit!

Really? This coming from the man who quit playing the game because of "the Patch" and now only patrols to Forums to tell us all how the game is going to die soon. A bit hypocritical, don't you think?

here's what some other ppl do....
1. stay up all night playing spiral
2. kids dont have jobs, they're still playing spiral
3. they're in there own little world, non-stop spiral
4. they're playing spiral
5. mom or dad brings them diner, they don't eat, they're bodies' have become linked to their character's energy stystem
6. their frirnds are trapped deep in the clock works, its not a game anymore, they have to save their friends.
7. they sneak in to mommy and daddy's room with a rusty knife, hack saw, and garbage bags because they didnt buy CE. why!!! why didnt they buy him or her CE!!!! now the bodies rot and the credit card of the deceased partents is max out... the child dies of starvation, but not before beating vanduke... yes they died a happy death...

I meant don't quit the forums.

On contraire, I take great pride in posting on these forums, and I'm still very much doing other things I enjoy. Racked up over 40 hours on Terraria for instance, watched gametrailers's E3 coverage live, talk to my friends, and play my PS3.

I'm still around, don't kid yourselves.

If you quit the game, you should probably quit the forums.

There's all kinds of games that have similar systems but they call it stamina or fatigue or some variation of that and in fact on those games there's no way at all to get more HOWEVER in these games you can probably play 4+ hours a day on easily with SK it's very limiting because basically everything you do in this game uses your energy thus making it the most limiting f2p game I've seen but for a good reason and that's lack of content and this game has barely enough content to be considered a game.