Now that the game officially launches today, what do you think will happen to the market in terms of prices?
Personally, I think that it's gonna crash, unless a majority of the community buys CE. Thoughts?
The future of the eneygy/crown market
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 05:08
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 05:48
#2
Go Up
Why?
1. A lot of new players coming into the game will be doing runs = Crowns = Crown surplus and higher demand for Ce to craft etc.
I do see the market getting stable somewhat in 2 to 3 weeks MAX. Today I hope it hits 3k to 4k Crowns per 100ce though.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 06:46
#3
Don't think so...
For example: price for 1600 CE is only five bucks. It isn't really expensive.
1600 CE is a load that "free" players take a day or two (even three or four, depending on their luck and, most important, skills) to refund it's crowns on Clockworks and exchange for them. However, there must be many rushed players who could just buy CE normally and swap easily for crowns or some rare material. It's like if they are paying us for doing the hard work, I think. 8D
I believe the trades could stabilize at 2-2.5k crowns per 100 CE.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 07:30
#4
I just started yesterday and
I just started yesterday and I was doing quite well for the prices of energy being at 1.6k for 100 energy running on crowns alone, I doubt it will be a problem anymore now also that I have my tier 2 set, but if prices start getting even higher, I fear many new players will be turned off because they are essentially locked out of the game if they want to play for free.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 07:34
#5
People need to stop wanting
People need to stop wanting to play so much for free then, maybe everyone needs to learn the concept of "paying" for entertainment more often. Too many people pirating games and downloading movies on the internet instead of supporting people that make their entertainment with at least a few bucks now and then, especially if they keep on using the service.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 07:43
#6
Why should they stop wanting
Why should they stop wanting to play for free? I'm sorry but that statement just feels wrong to me, I really like this game and might even purchase some CE in the future, but why should people be forced to purchase CE with cash when the game is open to the public for free? They are spending the time to try out this game, and if the company wants to make money on it, so be it, but currently there is a possibility that you can't even get a foothold in the beginning with the Energy prices because they keep going up.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 07:50
#7
@iandawson0:
"People need to
@iandawson0:
"People need to stop wanting to play so much for free then, maybe everyone needs to learn the concept of "paying" for entertainment more often. Too many people pirating games and downloading movies on the internet instead of supporting people that make their entertainment with at least a few bucks now and then, especially if they keep on using the service."
Don't blame the consumers...
From the "About" page at spiralknights.com:
Free to Play!
Spiral Knights is free to play, no subscription is required to enjoy everything the game has to offer.
Again, it's being advertised and talked about, by the developers, as FREE.
Shockingly, people will want to play... for free... and expect it.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 07:54
#8
Locked out of the game?! I don't think so.
Hai. I don't really like joining into a discussion about speculations regarding future Crystal Energy prices, but I see some assumptions here that are teasing me to post my opinion anyway.
I've played the entire Preview without ever spending real money to buy CE. When I started playing the price was well over 10k crowns per 100 CE. I think the lowest I've ever seen it was 2k crowns, when people were just dumping CE in order to get crowns to buy the new gear from the merchants. The most stable I think it has been around 6k/100. Never once did I feel "locked out of the game". Sure, crafting can form a bottleneck when you're low on CE... with certain CE market prices you might have to have the discipline not to spend CE on anything other than crafting... but then you're still a long way from being "locked out".
A player who doesn't invest real money in Spiral Knights can do everything a paying player can. Just slower.
Assuming the market will stabilize around 2.5k/100... I would disagree with that assumption. Right now there's just a really high supply of CE, people starting out with the full amount of CE they bought in the past, plus 25%. We can only expect that supply to get smaller over time, making the price of CE go up. Looking at the past, 2.5k looks like a bottom price, not a stable price.
But why would high energy prices turn all the "freeloaders" (like me) off? If you're not prepared to invest money into a game, then you know you'll be investing something else (eg. time). Sure some people will run out of Mist Energy one day and decide "this sucks" and leave. But I doubt this goes for most people. This is, though, yet another speculation. I don't even have any idea about the percentage of paying players.
All in all, whatever the energy prices will do, it will always depend on how many people invest real money in this game and how many don't. And on many other factors. Which is why I won't speculate, I'll just wait and see. And in the meantime I'll accumulate as many crowns as I can and buy CE when the moment seems right for it.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 08:06
#9
@RoTide:
Well, they CAN play
@RoTide:
Well, they CAN play for free. Just not as much. If you're gonna play for an extended amount of time, I think it should be common courtesy to pay for your entertainment.
It's like getting a ticket to see a free play along with a luncheon. Sure, the ticket and event itself is technically free, but there is a suggested donation. That's what I see CE as, and the people that want to be able to do everything in the game easier and complain lots and lots about it are like the people that forgo the suggested donation and just nosh on the free food all afternoon.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 08:16
#10
@iandawson0:
"Well, they CAN
@iandawson0:
"Well, they CAN play for free. Just not as much. If you're gonna play for an extended amount of time, I think it should be common courtesy to pay for your entertainment."
I understand your line of thinking. But the game is advertised as free. Expecting kids to PAY for a game billed as FREE is basically ridiculous. I have a career and the ability to use some disposable income on the game, so I do. Those that don't have that ability/want, don't have to.
Without getting to offtopic here...
It's a two way street. If you're a company and you want money, sell your product. If you're a consumer and you want to do something, you generally do it for free if at all possible. Advertising a game as "FREE" and expecting money.. well, good luck.
That's when they "bait and switch". Sure, you can play for free, for a little bit. Here is the handy button to pay to continue playing.
Unlimited Internet!!!*
FREE!*
We both know those are both lies, but don't knock the little guy for trying to get all he can for free.
So the trick is to balance it so there are enough people on the paying side of this game to keep it afloat and hopefully help it prosper while also allowing those who really do want to play for free to do so. That's where you'll see the price of CE skyrocket until it hits the point where dropping a few bucks is easier than farming 10k Crowns for that 100 CE.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 08:17
#11
"A player who doesn't invest
"A player who doesn't invest real money in Spiral Knights can do everything a paying player can. Just slower."
I don't know about you ,but I'm about 3/4 of the way to tier 3 and there's absolutely no way I'd be able to keep up with my guild without buying ANY ce for cash. Granted, you don't have to buy that much. But it's still significant enough to keep a completely cashless player from truly keeping up with people who play regularly. And it really wouldnt require much to balance the system out a bit more.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 08:32
#12
@Cartesian
@Cartesian: that's exactly what I said. You can do everything your guild can. Everything. Just not as fast as them. And that's the only disadvantage you get from playing for free.
In most games you can't even get the cash currency for in-game currency, here you can. Time is truly the only limiting factor.
You could ask your guildmates to lend you CE and pay it back to them later. I don't know how your guild works. :) But as long as you don't pay real money, they will have a "time" advantage over you. They will be able to play more, or sooner/faster than you. I really think it's not unfair.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 09:05
#13
My point is that speed is
My point is that speed is more of a limit than you're acknowledging. This is a largely multi-player game, and if you're constantly behind your guild / friends it can be extremely frustrating. Not to mention, if you're the kind of player who really likes to see everything there is to see in a game (like me) you'd pretty much always be working on old gates as new ones open up. Plus you'd be way behind on any major mineral depositing trends that were to happen among players who were current on gate construction, although that isn't quite in effect yet. Again, I'm not saying it's an entirely broken system. I'm just saying it's not balanced at the moment.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 09:20
#14
But you're talking about it
But you're talking about it as if you're the only non-paying player in your entire guild and nobody wants to lend you any CE at all... surely that's not the case? And I'll repeat you're able to see everything in the game.
Try a game like Wizard101, you'll hit the content wall after 3 days of playing. And there's no exchange where you can trade in-game currency for cash currency. It's pay or quit (or repeat today's gameplay until you've had enough, there's no limit on how long you can play per day).
Other games allow you to buy overpowered items with cash. This gives paying players a permanent advantage over non-paying players, something that cannot be compensated with skill, or with investing time. It's far more frustrating, yet far more common among online games.
In Dutch we have a saying: (only) the sun rises for free. All the rest is just trying to stretch the definition of "free".
I prefer what we have in SK. You're never forced to pay money. Sure it can be frustrating when you run out of energy. Starting up can be harsh. But eventually you will get there, without spending any cash at all. You're not behind your guild mates forever (although we seem to have strongly differing opinions here). Except behind those who keep spending cash on the game. And come on, it would be unreasonable to call that unbalanced in my personal opinion.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 09:25
#15
eh... trying to keep up with
eh... trying to keep up with everyone is a good way to lose interest in the game quickly. If I rush and get all 5 star equipment and unlock tier 3 right now, I really don't have anything else to look forward to...ever. Even a few new additions would only be so much more interesting since I'd still be using all of the best equipment I already achieved. The only reason I want to make Tier 2 right now is because CE prices are rising and its rather tight to pay for CE with crowns gained from tier 1. If it surpasses 3000, might be near impossible (without as stated, waiting for quite some time if you refuse to pay).
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 09:32
#16
I bought as much CE (from the
I bought as much CE (from the trade/market) as I could over the weekend (with the limited time I could invest in the game) because I wasn't sure which way the prices would go when the game went public, but I assumed up (and possibly substantially). I was pretty happy with the prices I paid.. between 1200-1500 crowns.
I think the most I paid (this weekend) was like 1650 last night when I was willing to get what I could with the money I had left before signing out.
All in all I only got about 700 CE and probably slowed down my progress towards Tier 2 since I spent more money on CE than items / recipes / crafting, but I assume it will be worth it. But I got a good amount of materials for future crafting (still need another Swordstone though!).. also, side note -- are the graveyards lucrative or what? Seems like I got a good deal of crowns during those. :D
I just hope the market doesn't get too expensive (at least not until I reach Tier 2 or 3) in the end. I can't remember the prices I paid for some CE during the preview event, but they weren't too bad.. somewhere in the low to mid 2K range, I think the best deal I got was 1500 crowns from someone who pumped the market with cheap CE (compared to what everyone else was dealing at the time).
I actually really enjoy the competitive nature of the market.. its like eBay! :) A game within the game lol.
What are the prices looking like today?
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 11:21
#17
One thing people need to keep
One thing people need to keep in mind is that once 100 energy costs more crowns than can actually be made with 100 energy, then it is no longer useful to buy it from the exchange. The argument for this is that the common route people will take to gain CE without doing RMT (real money trading) is to run the clockwerks for crowns which in turn uses energy.
At the moment doing a t2 run I will use 80 energy on lifts and about 10-15 energy on unlockable doors - lets call it 100 energy. This usually nets me in the region of 4-6k crowns. At the moment with prices at about 2k crowns per 100 it means I can make back my energy used twice twice or three times over depending on my luck.
However if energy prices rise beyond what can be made from that 100 energy then the self sufficiency of non RMT players will be removed from under them. People say "Get to tier3, it'll fix things!" for crowns, however do keep in mind you need substantial energy OR crowns to get there for gear - which a non RMT will not be able to generate except over a very long period of time. The other issue with that is what if energy prices rise beyond the crowns gained from a tier3 run?
Food for thought, really.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 11:36
#18
has anyone brought up
has anyone brought up increasing the mist cap? i have a feeling if the devs feel that the free players aren't getting enough mileage, they could easily boost the cap. players might take an extra day or two off playing, but at least they could delve deeper over time.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 11:57
#19
I see your point kaybol, and
I see your point kaybol, and I think our disagreement has more to do with difference in play styles / preferences rather than any particular aspect of the CE / Crowns system.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 12:04
#20
The "recovered costs" fallacy
It's a bit of a fallacy to argue that 100 crystal energy should make back as many crowns as it cost to purchase. After all, you also make crowns when you spend mist energy: even if you take a small loss on the crown/crystal exchange rate, you make up for it with the crowns that you earn while playing for free. On days when you play less (and only use mist), those crowns you earn are pure profit.
The game CAN be played for free, but this business model only works because free players create value by providing a better experience that keeps the paying players here and willing to fund further development. You can create value by trading crowns for energy, or just by being a friendly, likeable person who's handy to have around.
Playing for free doesn't have to be as easy or transparent as if you paid real cash up front, though, and it's silly to demand that a large company should spend millions of dollars a year while you do nothing in return. If you can't pay money, then help keep the game running in other ways- but demanding a seamless free experience doesn't help you, or the community, in the long term. Meanwhile, just be grateful that you CAN get all the same things as paying players; other games finance development by giving special advantages ONLY to people who pony up.
Also: I got to tier 2 without significant hassles this weekend, including buying a half dozen great recipes and several ingredients.... and still came out neutral to ahead in energy, plus 2 unused mist tanks. It takes some creativity, but it's very doable.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 12:23
#21
@Nyxeth
One thing people need to keep in mind is that once 100 energy costs more crowns than can actually be made with 100 energy, then it is no longer useful to buy it from the exchange.
I second Pauling. Furthermore: crafting gear of increasing star level costs an increasing amount of energy. At a certain point gear just cannot be crafted with ME alone, CE is really a requirement. But real money still isn't. :)
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 17:45
#22
In one month if they
In one month if they advertise the game good the price will be 15k crowns+ for 100 CE.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 18:16
#23
well not really... most
well not really... most people are planning on selling their energy once the price hits like 6000+ on the market sooooooooooooooooo
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 18:22
#24
=.=
Apparently I need to quit
=.=
Apparently I need to quit some of my other games for about a week if I want to stabilize myself in this game.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 19:02
#25
The price will probably
The price will probably stabilize at just about exactly the 10 x the average crowns per floor that are obtained when running tier 3.
Possibly a little lower if the playerbase stays skewed towards tier 2 or 1.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 19:50
#26
@djbiznatch
has anyone
@djbiznatch
has anyone brought up increasing the mist cap? i have a feeling if the devs feel that the free players aren't getting enough mileage, they could easily boost the cap. players might take an extra day or two off playing, but at least they could delve deeper over time.
Yeah, maybe buff Mist energy maximum to 200 or 300 but keep the regenerative rate at 100 per 24 hours.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 19:53
#27
What about 200 max ME, but
What about 200 max ME, but slower regen rates? Say, regular speed up to 100, half speed to 150, and quarter speed up to 200. So it takes 4 days (Day 1= 100, day 2= 50, day 3=25, day 4=25) to go from empty to full.
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 20:06
#28
My initial thought was to
My initial thought was to have a mist 'subtank' like the one you get after completing the tutorial, but refillable. If the player is offline for longer than 24 hours the spare tanks starts filling up, perhaps at a reduced rate.
This means if a player misses a day he or she doesn't lose out on a whole day's worth of energy, and it doesn't enable players to but the CE items with mist energy due to the cap of mist energy remaining at 100 (you just can refill it any time with your spare tank).
Mon, 04/04/2011 - 23:47
#29
If...
If I was worried about player retention and thought free players weren't able to play long enough in the early days, I'd cut the cost of tier-1 gates in half. Maybe even all gates (the code seems set up that way anyway). Long-term players will still spend plenty of crystal energy on crafting no matter how cheap gates are.
Mucking around with 'subtanks' and other complications to adjust what is essentially a billing interface with a story hook... ehhh. If your goal is to let players play more levels, make sure you give that to them, and don't create a way to craft higher level items on mist energy.
Right now the game is pretty cleverly set up so that items after a certain point would be either -all- you could do that day, or another star more, and you can't even craft them with mist energy alone, which means for high level items to exist, it's absolutely required that -someone- spend real money. (Not always the player doing the crafting, but someone.)
Also, of course, free players can always buy CE for crowns and keep playing. That market is there to let free players get plenty of mileage, really.
Tue, 04/05/2011 - 06:11
#30
They want the prices higher
The market is going to inflate. Because OOO wants the market for crown energy to be higher. The higher the price of CE the more people would rather buy energy with real money. So for them to make a better profit off the game they even said that they would "drain crowns out of the economy to raise CE prices". Higher CE price = higher profit.
Tue, 04/05/2011 - 07:14
#31
"So for them to make a better
"So for them to make a better profit off the game they even said that they would "drain crowns out of the economy to raise CE prices"."
I'd like a source for this as who ever that is has no clue how the economy works. If crowns are rare compared to CE, then the market contracts and prices go down. However, there's less crowns to go around. As such, people will want to buy CE with real money since it's hard to get crowns. Similarly, if crowns are plentiful compared to CE, then the price inflates. If they want to raise the market price of CE, they need to dump more crowns into the market place.
However, if they want to control how easy it is to buy CE with crowns, then they need to not control the amount of crowns available, but control the amount of CE.The funny thing is, the crowns to CE exchange is relatively unimportant since any CE used represents money to Three Rings, regardless of if the individual bought the CE directly from Three Rings or bought them from someone else who bought them from Three Rings. Hence, it doesn't matter if I'm playing for "free," because if I use CE, then Three Rings is making money.
Tue, 04/05/2011 - 07:16
#32
we could always unionize and
we could always unionize and refuse to pay high market prices until they come way down, its up to us who runs it -- the buyers or the sellers! :D
Tue, 04/05/2011 - 17:20
#33
"I'd like a source for this
"I'd like a source for this as who ever that is has no clue how the economy works."
I was rereading where I thought I had heard it from, but I wasn't able to find it. :/ So its likely I misread it at first or something like that. xD Sorry 'bout that.
Tue, 04/05/2011 - 18:21
#34
If it crashes, I know they
If it crashes, I know they will put energy on sale or something... and it will rise back up
Tue, 04/05/2011 - 19:05
#35
Do you think the GMs (with
Do you think the GMs (with their limitless supply of CE) sometimes put out a few hundred CE for sale to stimulate the economy/exchange?
Tue, 04/05/2011 - 19:48
#36
nope
no, CE is money for Three Rings, this game needs free players and paying players..three rings could care less about the price of crowns to CE
Really, the higher it is, the better for the PAYING player, cause they will buy more....
my guess on the price is around 3-4k
Tue, 04/05/2011 - 23:08
#37
Also...
Three rings has several other games with similar currency models (Well, puzzle pirates and bang! howdy.... 'whirled' is a little bit different currency model. A lot different. Anyway... ) ... the thing is, Three Rings doesn't add the hard currency to the market, no matter how much up or down the market goes, and if they change the availability of the soft currency (that means crowns here), they do it for other reasons that the currency market. No matter how much the players complain, they've never put extra hard currency on the market... they have no incentive to do so. If the hard currency gets hard enough to buy, you'll either buy it and they have profit, or leave and prove that you never would have spent money anyway, which is little loss to them.
(There is a value to free players even if they never spend money, in that they cause the hard currency to have a higher value in soft currency, since they provide a significant source of demand. That is, free players make it so that crystal energy is worth more crowns than it would be if there were no free players.... which makes it more worthwhile for other people to spend money. It's a kinda strange relationship, but it seems to work.)
Tue, 04/05/2011 - 23:31
#38
@Terryno, CE is money for
@Terry
no, CE is money for Three Rings, this game needs free players and paying players..three rings could care less about the price of crowns to CE
Really, the higher it is, the better for the PAYING player, cause they will buy more....
my guess on the price is around 3-4k
A higher price affects all players regardless of them being paying or non-paying customers, why? Well paying customers can buy CE with crowns just as easily as non-paying customers so having CE crown cost high negatively affects them just as much as us.
Wed, 04/06/2011 - 01:04
#39
Basic economics dictate that
Basic economics dictate that the higher the demand, the higher the price. If you want CE to cost more crowns, you need less people buying CE with IRL money. Conversely, if you want CE to cost less crowns, you need more people buying CE with IRL cash. Now, naturally with most F2P games, the majority of players don't pay much IRL money into the system. So the more people who play, the more the price of CE will cost. This is virtually unavoidable; prices will steadily increase with spots of deflation when a few people go on a crown-buying spree, usually after putting a few bucks into the game.
Right now, however, the biggest problem isn't more people playing; it's the people who post offers to buy CE and overcut more than 1. They either don't understand that it doesn't matter how much you overcut (Because when quick-buying Crowns, you only see the top offer), or they are doing this purposely to drive up prices, so they can later sell their CE for more. I'd bet it's just silliness and ignorance, though.
Wed, 04/06/2011 - 03:36
#40
Useful Reading
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23970
Useful numbers as well as useful reasoning.
@Otrapas:
"I'd bet it's just silliness and ignorance, though."
A huge mistake to make is to assume people are doing something stupid when there's a chance they're doing something clever. If you assume the former over the latter, you stand to miss a lot if you're wrong and gain little if you're right; if you assume the latter over the former, even when you're wrong, you can learn something new. While the quick-buy feature only shows the top offer (actually, wouldn't that be the best *sell* offer?), the market tab shows the top 5 buy and sell offers, and posting a large overcut does have enough psychological pull to grab sellers who would otherwise just undercut the current best sell offer into impulse selling. Now, if your final goal is just to get that energy sometime in the near future, the amount of time you save by doing so isn't worth it; however, I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out the situations in which this extra pull is useful.
(Of course, there's also the note that the offers fluctuate so rapidly that someone intending to overcut by 1 can easily end up not doing so because the best offer changes between typing the price and submitting the offer.)
Wed, 04/06/2011 - 06:19
#41
All I know is while CE is
All I know is while CE is selling for 1500 to 2000 Crowns I will be buying it as much as possible, Cause you know at some point that supply is gonna run out, and thats when you can cash in if necessary. The flow of new people / CE can't possibly last forever.
This is why I think it's so necessary to have an auction house it can keep the need for Crowns and CE high even if you have no new people coming in, in fact it would cater to those who are in the upper levels of the game.
Thu, 04/07/2011 - 07:59
#42
Thinking better, I'm not sure
Thinking better, I'm not sure if the crown market will break. Those who seel CE for crowns are just trying to get them fast and without effort (i.e.: without going through 6 depths to pick around 3k-4k). And who would do this? Mainly, the non-pay players. So, I think the energy sellers will keep the prices to a reasonable equilibrium, because if they fix the price above the gathering level of the free players, they'll kill their customers, since they cant produce the demanded crowns normally.
However, if the prices stay slighly below the gathering level with 100 mist energy, they'll get crown revenue steady and faster, and it'll be a incentive to the market.
In short, if the sellers get the prices too much high, they'll break a system that benefits not only free, but them -payers- as well.
... At least, that's what I think... --'
Thu, 04/07/2011 - 09:34
#43
Yes...
The market will never 'crash' or 'break' .... depending on what you mean exactly by that. Energy prices might half or double what they are now, maybe a bit more, but there's too many people on both sides of the trade that want what they want now for it to ever go to anything crazy like 50,000 crowns per 100 energy or 5 crowns per 100 energy. Someone would outbid or undercut those energy prices in a second.
Thinking about it... gates cost twice as much as they did in Beta. So your expected 'return' on energy invested in adventuring is now half as many crowns; so I expect the energy prices to be stable somewhere close to 2000-3000. A larger player-base and from the general public might mean that energy prices are a little higher or lower that, but I think prices won't stabilize much above what you can make on a Tier-1 run... new players will outnumber experienced players (in terms of actively online and trading) for months or years if the game is being promoted, and nobody stuck in Tier-1 would ever pay much more than one run's worth of crowns of energy. Players that think about it will know they need to make -some- crowns on each run to ever get better equipment, and players that don't think about it, well... they'll still stop buying energy when they run out of energy and down have the crowns left to buy more at the current price. That'll take away a lot of buyers if energy prices ever get too high.
Thu, 04/07/2011 - 11:08
#44
prices are getting a little
prices are getting a little high for my comfort. i wouldnt pay much more than 3000K at this point unless i absolutely needed it. i think youre right about the cost being not much more than a tier-1 run. hopefully people arent willing to pay more than that either.
Thu, 04/07/2011 - 13:07
#45
Experimentation
Ok, so i wanted to test this theory of how many crowns you could get in a single tier, and this new gate just opened soooooo i thought i'd play it and
document the results.
For reference, i'm currently equipped with an Ascended Calibur, Scary Skelly Shield (which is the wrong shield for the enemies on this run), Mighty Cobolt Helm/Armour and a Super Blaster.
START!
Crowns = 10205cr
- 200 entrance fee for tier 2
Total = 10005cr
Wolver Den - Frosty Fury
- 10 Energy Elevator cost
+ 262cr
Total = 10267cr
Treasure Vault
-10 Energy Elevator cost
-3 Energy, Open gate
+357cr
Total = 10624cr
Ice Maul Arena - Beastly Brawl
-10 Energy Elevator Cost
+1130cr
Total = 11754cr
Ice Maul Arena - Fiendish Fray
-10 Energy Elevator Cost
+1511cr
Total = 13265cr
Terminal
Buy Striker Recipe
-5500cr
Total = 7765cr
Flame Lash Arena - Slimey Showdown
-10 Energy Elevator Cost
+2078cr
Total = 9843cr
Royal Jelly Palace - Garden of Goo
-10 Energy Elevator Cost
+1226cr
Total = 11069cr
Royal Jelly Palace - Red Carpet Runaround
-10 Energy Elevator Cost
+2158cr
Total = 13227cr
Royal Jelly Palace - Battle Royale
-10 Energy Elevator Cost
-5 Energy Revive Cost
+191cr
Total = 13418cr
FINISH!
So the total values?
Start crowns = 10267
End crowns = 13418 + 5500 (recipe cost) = 18918cr
Crowns Earned = 8651cr
Energy spent = 88 (80 elevators, 3 gates, 5 revive)
Current Buy price for 100 energy is around 2600cr as of this post.
You guys figure whether its worth it on crowns alone...
...But theres also the items you get along with the crowns!
Items (in order of end game list)
1x Ironwood
2x Rocky Core
2x Silver Coil
6x Brute Core
4x Fine Fabric
1x Hailstone
2x Phial of Phear
1x Blast Powder
6x Cooling Cell
1x Forbidden Fruit
2x Frayed Fabric
1x Frost Gel
2x Fuel Canister
11x gel Core
7x Iron Gear
1x Monster Bone
5x Swordstone
2x Beast Scale
...
and then the 60 second timer at the end ran out :D but you get the idea.
Also Royal Jelly dropped 3 Jelly Gems
So to conclude, you can make back the monies paid for energy by using it at tier 2 without including the value of the item drops.
Anyone care to document their own experiences? How about Magnus? I'm sure you want to say something.
Thu, 04/07/2011 - 15:37
#46
your mileage may vary :P
your mileage may vary :P
Thu, 04/07/2011 - 17:19
#47
Main point!!
As much as most of you are saying - you can make enough to buy more energy and do runs again, your all missing the fact that your wasting your money on just doing the runs again. if you spend all your money on energy, how can you afford to buy equipment?
Thu, 04/07/2011 - 17:24
#48
@Hobocannibal
How many
@Hobocannibal
How many players were in your party?
Thu, 04/07/2011 - 18:02
#49
@Hobocannibal
I think you
@Hobocannibal
I think you should've based your run off tier 1 though. I'm not saying those results aren't real, but for the newer players, they won't ever see values like that off of tier 1 alone. And let's not forget the luck (or planning if you like to wait) of getting into crown goldmines like arenas or graveyards.
In tier 1 I can get 3000-ish pretty reliably, but that's not actually a full 100 energy. Shouldn't be 80 really I think.
Entrance (0)->Depth 1 (10)->Depth 2 (20)->Depth 3 (30)->Depth 4 (30-free clockwork terminal)->Depth 5 (40)->Depth 6 (50)->Depth 7 (60)->Depth 8(60 free Moorcroft). Which in theory if you don't die or spend any on anything else could allow you to do another half run at the very least for 40 energy. Still, someone may want to check this as I reaaaaally don't pay attention as long as I have enough energy to do a tier run so I could have missed something. Skimming the wiki it seems there are a few more areas to run through in tier 2 than in tier 1. So that might explain the difference.
Thu, 04/07/2011 - 18:03
#50
one, hence other people
one, hence other people weren't meantioned
Depends on the advertising.
If they massively advertise a "Free to Play" MMO. You will get a lot of people who want to join up to get their free lunch. A lot of these people will never buy CE with cash (add to the economy), they will buy their CE with crowns. This means there will be less CE in supply
This will drive CE prices through the roof. Imagining 10k Crowns/100CE isn't unrealistic at all.
If they don't advertise it much or don't use the word "Free" a lot. You may see less "free loaders" and a higher percentage of CE purchasers. Which will help to keep the crown/CE prices low as they keep supply relatively high.
It really comes down to just how many people want to play for FREE.