well based on the poll I have done out of 94 people
82 voted for infinite clockworks
while 12 voted for getting to the end-game faster
here is a new poll for you,
if you could go down to the clockworks as much as you wanted, what would you trade for it.
please vote, make suggestions, or discuss your opinions!
Thanks!
if its free to go down to the clockworks no one would rez, or at least most wouldn't
Ok, I see your point. Howver, people just don't want to waste their time, so rezzing would still be an option.
In any case, CE is mostly needed for just rezzing and crafting. And it is taking a helleva lot of CE to craft. Not that I'm complaining about it, but it'll keep people busy at it.
WHY the subscription fee?! The SK will no longer be a F2P! Unless it's one of those buy options, where the other players will just be left out of it and live as normal. Kinda like the unlimited packs you get for txts, calls and internet.
TLDR:
1. I disagree with unlimited clockworks. Energy prices would be jacked up to everyone's detriment because now some people have the opportunity to create crowns to kingdom come.
2. Also I disapprove of a subscription fee for unlimited clockworks. That nominal cost in $$$ could've been invested in CE to distribute to the market. Yep it makes energy prices worse. Even if a CE payment is charged rather than real money, it still subtracts CE from the system.
3. Rather than limiting the time of a player to play, more services that cost crowns should be employed.
Legend:
CE - commodity
cr - money
RATIONALE:
Economics of F2P are very prone to inflation of in-game currency precisely because ANYONE can step in and add money supply to the economy. Everytime someone goes to dungeons using mist (or for free, in this case), it's like PRINTING MONEY. This is as opposed to real-world economies where money supply is regulated to keep the exchange rate stable. Keep this in mind as it will be important in the following paragraphs...
Too much money supply is BAD. If you checked out what happened to Argentina (I think) the government couldn't fund its projects so it abused its power to print money. Result: Inflation became extremely high, the money became essentially worthless, regular people can't afford basic commodities.
The limitations of mist is to precisely stop the "unlimited creation of money". If you want to play beyond mist, it is essentially destroying CE to create more cr. Which is kind of also bad. Rezzing using energy is the worst.
Today, because of many more players, more money is created than can be destroyed or can be traded for CE. Or CE is being destroyed faster through crafting and unbinding and running the clockworks than money is being printed. Result: crowns are devalued, CE (the commodity) inflates in price.
As long as the supply of crowns being created keeps coming at a faster rate than the rate that CE is being "created" though player payments, then the commodity of CE will always cost ever more crowns. This crown creation is even worse during power surge. Power surge even destroys CE as players are encouraged to use CE to pay the elevator costs.
A free clockworks system will authorize paying players to create unlimited amounts of crowns as their time permits.
***
If you think my argument is based on limiting the TIME of a PLAYER to play then yes. It is true.
Real-world money is backed up by gold reserves.
The only thing limiting the amount of Spiral Knights crowns is the amount of time all player can invest generating that money. And even more players result in even more total time invested making crowns. So time replaces gold. If time playing (of all players, whether F2P'ers or paid players) is limited, then crowns will not be created so fast.
***
But is there a way to keep crowns prices stable without limiting someone's time or addiction?
1. Many more have to pay for their CE to increase CE reserves
2. More ways to destroy crowns should be added, or existing services that cost CE should be converted to crowns cost, like UNBINDING, boosters and krogmo bribes.
When I heard the term infinite clockworks I envisioned a gate that has nothing but randomly selected levels that get harder as you go down. After the lowest depths of tier3 the enemies start getting larger amounts of attack power and hp. The only way to finish is to decide to go up or you die. You know, kind of like a rougelike.
There's something that bothered me about your original poll. By allowing free clockworks access, your crowns only pile up. In Spiral Knights, wealth is the endgame through getting your armor. If you are rich without limits then the engame rushes right to you. So A implying B is a bit of an oversight in my view, unless considerable tweaking to loot drops was an unmentionned part of free clockworks.
Of course there's economical instability as previously mentionned.
hugh jeffner's idea sounds neat though. (What's this? No underscore on this mobile device?)
Anyways, just my two cents, and I apologise if I left any typos in there, Zune keyboards can be fickle.
You can trade a subscription fee each month for infinite clockworks. Currently, if you pay $30 you will get about a month's worth of continuous clockworks. The crafting fees are another matter. Post T1, most of the energy you spend on this game is in crafting fees. Well, that and energy rezing (if you rez a lot.)
Personally, I'd put a fourth option on the poll. Trade infinite clockworks for a drastic increase in energy rez costs (10, 20, 40, 80, 160 energy to rez at T1 fore example. More in higher tiers.)