The game is free, but it requires a little from your wallet if you're serious about it. There's really nothing wrong with that, and the price of a few dollars is quite cheap. There's nothing limiting your playtime, however, since you can buy energy with crowns. It just takes a longer time. It's not a scam and the energy system is fine imho.

I agree with everything you said Ykro nicely put but watch a "Pro" try to shut you down lol

Recharge of Mist Energy realy isn't a problem.
What IS a problem is that you have to pay an insane amount of energy for crafting.
Reduce the crafting fees and everything will be OK.

For crafting 1* item 10 energy
................ 2* item 25 energy
................ 3* item 75 energy
................ 4* item 100 energy
................ 5* item 125 energy

^^ that would seem pretty reasonable to me.

However, I must agree that Mist Tank should be able to store more than 100 energy. Like, if you can't be online for a day or two for some reason, then your accumulated energy should be stored in your mist tank.
So if you log in the game third day, your Mist Tank would contain all the energy that was generated but wasn't spent.

You can play the game for free. It is free to play. That said, of course OOO is trying to make money--this isn't a charity effort. They've set up a system that encourages you to pay them for the services they provide, and offer those services, in a slightly limited manner, for free in order to convince you that their product is deserving of your money.

It's not a scam. It's a perfectly legitimate business model, and if you expected anything else, that's basically your fault alone. It is just silly to expect OOO to give away their game for free without offering you an incentive to spend money on perks.

I realy realy doubt SK will ever "shut down".
This is the silliest argument I've ever heard and I'll tell you why this argument is silly:
SK shutting down = OOO voluntarily cut off one of their money income = never gonna happen ;)

The problem isn't called "SK would shut down" or "game economy would crash", the problem is called "OOO wouldn't have that much money from their players" (it's not like OOO is a bunch of poor people, though) ;)
They knew what they were doing when they set the energy costs for crafting and elevators.

It's a known thing that everyone wanna have LOTS of money and those who already have lots of money want to have MORE. It's just a humans' nature.
Everything cost so much energy for some reason. Not because of "crown sinks" or whatever, but because OOO want to milk as much money as possible from this game (and generaly, developers of EVERY game want to milk as much money as possible from their games).
I think it's pretty obvious, yet it sometimes seems that some SK players don't get this and think that the everything costs so much energy for whatever other reason.

In short, I have to smile at how some players thinks that "SK would should down" :)
(although it's pretty much possible SK will end up like a "ghost town", but it'd happen if there is lack of new players, and it's another topic)

Wow. That was long :D

Energy system is fine I have barely been playing a month and am starting to make my 4 star gear and that's after getting 100k crowns to buy the custom Black Rose Hat. You just need to learn to manage your resources better...or not spend all day playing video games trying to beat them as fast as possible...I mean seriously look at what all there is in the game to see everything it doesn't take much they have to keep you around some how so that then they release new bosses and such to keep you playing their game other wise they would have no potential customer base. I played NEO Steam before they use the energy system as well. Now that being said they do allow you to up grade their equivalent to the mist tank so it can hold more. But re-charge rates there are just about as long to fully recharge. But energy is only used to craft and some other small uses, but not to proceed every level of a dungeon.

See I like this game it's one you can truly play and get ANYTHING the game has to offer with out paying a dime it just takes a while. Other games you can only get certain things by paying real cash. And then only a fraction of those let you trade them.

Sorry you can't have everything right away...if you want that go back to playing consoles with your action replays, gamesharks, and game genies.

Maybe you just don't look right at it.

You take 5* gear as something you have to have ASAP.
Maybe 5* gear is meant to be dificult to obtain... maybe it's supposed to be something valuable?
Considering the only goal of this game so far is to get 5* gear and kick some more @$$es, that would make perfect sense to me.

I would maybe compare this to epics from WOW. You don't have shiny epic armor and axe that does [craploads] of dps right after you start playing. You have to play for some time to get there.
Same with 5* gear in SK.

Sure I don't like how energy is expensive on the game market! But hey, I have all my life in front of me and it's not like I'm gonna quit playing SK anytime soon... so I don't mind playing it for several months.

(and I still think crafting should cost less energy while the elevator prices should stay at 10 :D )

I'm just laughing at this, if its such a scam then don't play. It says that you don't need to pay to enjoy everything in the game and you don't. Honestly I'd be much happier if they would change the price of crafting 3* items to 100 that way its more manageable. They can keep 4* at 400 or drop it down to 300 while 5* would either be 700 or stay at 800. Honestly, doing Jelly Runs will get you enough cash to buy energy then run through levels again, then you just repeat and you're fine. I played for a month living off, only Mist Energy (and I didn't even play everyday) and I was fine, I had already started getting into 3* gear. Another month later and I can already be in all 4* gear if I choose to be (all I need is the armor but I'm not so eager to spend almost half of my CE).

Three Rings scammed my virginity. Then they took 10 energy...

Before Three Rings was Three Rings, they were Ellipsis Entertainment.

Let's just say I punched a hole in it and call it a day.

there are plenty of free to play games out there that are able to turn a profit without doing some ( most) of the things this game does.
yeah sure it is free to play but not free to enjoy. everything in the game requires spending some cash, yes there is strategy to playing the game while spending the least amount of money possible. but errr um i have a life, and like a normal person i only play games to release stress not stress my self out thinking of how to cheat the system or make my build better without spending money. also the fact that you cant sell an item after you have used it, is BS. its "bound to you" come on, and the only way you can unbind is to spend CE. it just feels like every aspect of this game requires you to spend money. i have no problem with that by all means "get you money Bo bo" but today was the last time im playing Spiral Knights...

Why the necro?

If you hate the game so much LEAVE ALREADY. NO-ONE'S forcing you to STAY.

Hurrdurr, buy ce with cr, did I spend anything? No.

No extended logic please, that complicates things and hurts my head every time someone brings it up.

And I'm in a little rush, so excuse my post for not being as...argumentative as it could be.

Unlimited play won't make the game better. MMOs that get rid of a stamina system end up introducing more grind to compensate. This can appear in many different ways. More heat could be required to level up gear. More energy is needed to craft new items. Auction sales have a higher crown tax. New content is too difficult without investing in good UVs.

I'd rather have short play sessions where I feel like I am making actual progress. I've played many free-to-play MMOs where I felt like I was a running on a hamster wheel. No matter how much time or effort I put into the game, I felt like I was going nowhere with my characters.

The way Spiral Knights works being a F2P with perks obtainable only by real money purchases is fine really(Although I must admit I wouldn't mind the choice to purchase bigger mist tanks for crowns).
It is the way these games go, Almost any F2P game you will find has real money perks/benefits. The way OOO is doing it is definetly NOT a scam and is the way most F2P games go these days.
I haven't spent anything on spiral knights and I'm in my tier 3 gear without a trouble in the world(Although I sometimes struggle to obtain the amount of CE for crafting)
It is perfectly fine and if you think otherwise go play some other game...

This thread is just pure whining about some people who haven't the foggiest of basic economic principles.
Needless to say, Yuzublack's post doesn't really deserve a proper, logical response.

On a side note, I miss Madadder.

I'm pretty sure you doing a fine job of taking his place, like how I pretty much fill in for Iron in terms of memes.

Thought that would've been fairly obvious by now.
Apparently quite a few people just can't be bothered to wait awhile before full 5*.

Seriously, kids, just wait for your mist to recover if you don't want to pay.
In the meantime you can do something more meaningful, like read a book, go to the gym, or even learn the cook, for god's sake.

@Shadowking: No commercial MMORPG is totally free. Hey, at least you don't have to pay for a subscription fee.
Problem?

@Psycho: Close enough, I suppose. Madadder's protege... hmm, that sounds good. :P

Thanks Asu. We really needed another bump for this god-forsaken thread.

EDIT: Hardly. You've got a bump distance 5 times as high as me.

And look at kentard. 39 hours? really? XD

After reading what you all had to say about the energy economy, i've got to admit.
you're all acting a bit silly.
Its not that hard to work your way around mist energy and then use CE.
Heck, i do about 2-3 FSC runs per day and i'm also repurposing my armour and i've got plenty of ce and mist left (apart from when i'm crafting, then i have no mist).
If you lot are complaining about how CE costs too much or we dont have enough mist, GET over it!.
If you're actually GOOD at the game then there would be no complaining about the energy system.
There probably wont be any change to the system but if there is then spiral knights would be a heck of a lot easier, TOO easy infact.
that would ruin the game, and you dont want to ruin the game do you?
Changing the crafting values and the elevator costs could help newer players but it also makes it so that they practically dont have to work for anything.
Having everything as it is makes it so that you have to FIGHT and EARN you way to the top.
It wont just be Handed to you and its not a scam either.
My mum wont get me any CE with her card, so i am forced to earn CE rather than just have it passed to me.
having the current system makes you a better player, isnt that what we all want to be? better players right?
all im saying is quit your whining and just play the darn game! we dont need any new changes, all we need is for people to just stop moaning and just play the game.
I bet that if you stop complaining about the energy system then there would be no problems.

He's all yours. ;)

You were stoned when you wrote it?

CALLIN THE COPS

I am mildly offended by Luiguru's idea that I am whiny and incompetent due to not paying money to support the game directly with my cash.

I do not whine about CE prices nonstop, I do not necrobump threads (unless they contain hints about the tortodrone coming back, or are this thread which I was linked to from a relevant thread), and I find that a few people do in fact care about my ideas to an extent. So please, don't blame me for some rude kid you found. Thank you.

Haha, topics like this are like persistent poo, no matter how many times you flush it down, it goes back to the surface.

I saw a screenshot that had 500 ME... Umadbro?