Three days ago buying CE at 5110, selling at 5250; now its 5750 buying, 5900 buying. Is this normal (temporary) inflation? I am expecting the market to tumble back to the 5100 buying rate--should I expect this or was that unusually low?
CE/CR Market Fluctuations
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 07:08
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 08:47
#2
Oh damn, wow. An increase of
Oh damn, wow. An increase of over 500 overnight.
I agree that it's natural for the price to increase over time, but it bugs me how it fluctuates so irregularly.
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 09:03
#3
I guess the price will reach
I guess the price will reach the point where players will simply stop buying it, because they won't be able to afford it. This crisis will stay for several days and then the prices will go down slowly, eventually reach a number near 5K again.
And then, they will begin to increase again...
That's the better scenario.
The worse scenario is, that the energy prices will go ridiculously high and stay there.
Then, some players will still play the game, using only ME and some players will leave and SK will end up exactly like Puzzle Pirates - slowly dying game without new players to bring it back to life.
But this game is quite young, with things to explore and stuff, so I guess first scenario is gonna happen. And I wouldn't mind it, it's natural that prices aren't stable.
But I WOULD mind the second scenario a hell of a lot.
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 09:30
#4
i think
the prices will hopefully drop at some point.
as mentioned before, they will reach the point, where the prize of 100CE is equal the gain of Crowns in the runs. it will stop the players from buying CE, as they simply cant afford it or just dont want to pay this horrible prices (like me^^).
im myself only using ME now, crafting is impossible (without 400 CE at least), and i cant get forward in this game. so there is no point in playing it just now (except ME runs, checking prices, eventually the auctions, if there ist something cheap i want ect.).
the worst kind scenario for me would be the need to buy CE for real money. this is a free game for me, and i want to keep it this way. i like it very much. my friend bought the starter package and got 7500CE, he has now great equipment, but i think, he lost the fun, because there is nothing to gain anymore (he has what he wanted, and to create your armor yourself through sheer work is just a fine motivation for playing).
i like the conzept, that anyone in this game can get to 5-star-items, just by playing it and dont wasting energy.
is there a way for us to drop the prices, except buying CE for real stuff?
another topic:
what do you think, will the prices on the auctionhouse raise again, depending on the fact, that less players will go adventuring and can afford them, if the prices for CE are raising?
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 09:47
#5
I'm a little surprised that
I'm a little surprised that CE prices have stayed under 7k for as long as it has.
There are a bunch of critical price points where people change their behavior. There is the point when people stop blowing lots of CE reviving and on energy doors. That probably happened around 4k cr per 100CE. It appears that now, fewer players are farming UVs as much off of CE bought with crowns and are beginning to use ME or not crafting at all. The prices of mats have certainly gone down a lot. Then there is the point where you can no longer make a profit off of running gates to run constantly, and people switch to maximizing ME use. Eventually, there is a point where people rarely buy CE for anything other than crafting, and crafting only what they really need.
I'm of the opinion that before steam, the player base had just hit a plateau as more and more players shifted to ME only, and that the price could easily reach the beta levels of 12k-18k after a while.
On the supply side, the higher the CE exchange rate, the less CE people need to sell to get their recipes and crafting costs. The more experienced the player base, the less they need to buy over-priced stuff from the AH and the more they can just live off of the crowns they earn from normal play.
It won't be long when people think that the current exchange rate is "cheap", keep buying, it will go up.
Then, some players will still play the game, using only ME and some players will leave and SK will end up exactly like Puzzle Pirates - slowly dying game without new players to bring it back to life.
I haven't played puzzle pirates in a while, but it is a far better game and far healthier than SK. You would expect after launch for there to be a lot of hype and a rush to play, and yet only a month or so after SK was released, it had fewer players than puzzle piratess, and SK's player base was dropping faster. Steam brought in a huge amount of players, but the number of players appears to have already dropped about in half, and is quickly heading back to lower player levels than puzzle pirates. Puzzle pirates can easily take years to reach end game for a large percentage of player, SK takes weeks or months.
I like SK, it is a fun game, but I don't see it being that popular for that long, especially if OOO continues to ignore the need for crown sinks, especially end-game crown sinks, to keep the cr<->CE exchange rate down to the point where people can play more. Far too many people choose to either quite playing, or play strictly on ME when the exchange rate goes up rather than change to buying CE with money. Overall, OOO is losing a lot of money by having the exchange rate go up too much.
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 09:56
#6
"but i think, he lost the
"but i think, he lost the fun, because there is nothing to gain anymore"
That's exactly my view point on this.
Personally, I see it this way:
some people buy energy like crazy, and raising the prices on the Energy market to have LOADS of crowns.
Thus, they will have everything they want very soon and, sooner or later, will start to complain that this game is boring, that there's nothing to do. This will eventualy lead to them leaving the game.
Now that simply can't be much of a fun. Sometimes, it seems some people fail to realize that.
As I said before, the only goal in SK right now is to have 5* equip and kill some more monsters... definitelly no need to reach this goal during the first week of playing and then be bored to boot.
But again, that's only my personal opinion and I may be wrong (though I think I'm right :D )
Either way, let's just hope the prices will go down again at some point
(also, the "buy energy" offers on the Energy Market could help to keep the prices - more or less - stable).
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 10:46
#7
"but i think, he lost the
EDIT: sorry for doublepost, it was lagging because of the update.
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 10:10
#8
It's a skill-based game, the
It's a skill-based game, the goal is also to get good at it skill-wise. It's exhilarating to be able to easily solo strata in an under-starred armor and shield.
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 11:28
#9
What's the point of this game
What's the point of this game if all you are doing is nothing but Jelly Runs so you can accumulate just barely enough crowns to buy another 100 energy so you can repeat the process ad nauseum? Is this game really going to come down to nothing but a Jelly Run? How exactly are new players ever supposed to be able to upgrade their equipment with that kind of structure in place? So one should be happy with having to do Jelly Runs for six months straight so they can finally save up enough scrap crowns on the side to craft their first level 5 item?
There seriously needs to be a price ceiling on energy. It's common sense actually. That's the only way the game will sustain itself long term and thrive with new players. The only ones that would disagree with this are long time players with an insane surplus of energy that don't bat an eye at paying some absurd 40k CE price for a weapon with a Maximum UV.
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 11:34
#10
Well you have to remember
Well you have to remember that 3 Rings wants to make money too so they're profiting off of anyone who doesn't have the patience to re-do Jelly Runs over and over again. Honestly I've been fine on crowns and energy. No one said you even have to spend crowns as soon as you get them. If you just use Mist Energy you can make a good amount of crowns a day without Jelly runs. And again they hit people who lack patience hard as they have to wait another day to recharge their Mist Energy. It seems fine to me and I'm not someone with an insane surplus, I've only gotten over 1k CE once and that didn't last long.
Wed, 07/06/2011 - 12:00
#11
Well you have to remember
Well you have to remember that 3 Rings wants to make money too so they're profiting off of anyone who doesn't have the patience to re-do Jelly Runs over and over again. Honestly I've been fine on crowns and energy.
OOO doesn't make *any* money off of people who quit the game.
OOO *loses* money on people who only use ME and never CE since they tie up server resources and OOO gives away ME for free. Ok, they make end up making a little on people who run gates exclusively on ME and every once and a while buy CE (either with money or with crowns) to craft, but I doubt it is enough to survive on.
I strongly suspect OOO would make a lot more money if they made crowns desirable enough that people bought CE in order to buy crowns, that is often what people do in puzzle pirates. If crows are desirable enough that paying players buy enough to keep the crown to CE exchange rate below the what the average player earns, they would allow people with money, but not much time, to pay others to gather crowns at about a $0.10/hr to $0.50/hr rate. That's what happens in puzzle pirates. In puzzle pirates, most stuff that can earn you crown, will earn you more crowns than the CE you spend on it. It is far easier to sell CE when people are thinking they are "cheating the system" by buying crowns than to sell CE because you feel like you are forced to or you can't play the game. Yeah, that is emotional rather than logical because they really are effectively the same, but people are not purely rational, especially in a game.
I would love to see SK survive and OOO to profit off of it, but things like the latest boss will get old within a week for most people and it take them far more than a week to develop it. "New content" can't save the game.
Fri, 07/08/2011 - 22:20
#12
I personally love the
I personally love the fluctuations in CE. I spent about 1,200,000 crowns buying 30,000 CE when the prices were at 4,000. Now, with the prices at ~5800, I've made about half a million crowns from my original investment. There's no money to be made with no fluctuations!
And yes, I'd have to agree that Puzzle Pirates is a "healthier" or at least less volatile game than Spiral Knights. Although, someone mentioned that it took years to reach YPP's end game. I find this to be false, as you can easily make millions of POE in a matter of days if you're skilled at poker. If only SK had poker... haha.
And in all honesty, I strongly believe that free players are expected to play only on mist -- that's why it exists. If you want to play for free and use more than 100 energy per day, then you should expect slim profit margins. That's just how it goes, I'm afraid.
Energy prices will continue to increase until it reaches a point where the crowns you could earn with 10 energy equals the selling price. The only way to lower the energy price is to increase the number of paying players, thus increasing the amount of CE entering the system.
Before the game was advertised on steam energy prices were stable at 6800-7000, which is roughly what players can earn doing T2 JK runs with 100 energy.