I doubt having a "earn free energy" section would help. Those things take too long for too little reward and the fact that most want personal info or a subscription means most can't be done by a large number of people (including those who couldn't afford energy).

As for the buying, a lot more people are buying than you think. I've spent most of my time in the games at the energy exchange (I can't go in the dungeons) and, from what I can tell, people are buying energy like crazy. Seriously, of the 1400 (number I heard randomly, probably lower than actual value) players on at any ONE moment, almost all of them that go in the dungeons will need crystal energy to actually get anywhere. Even if they buy it with crowns, the person they got it from (like me) still had to get it from someone else (saps who undervalue the market, people who sell at low prices because the market for energy is down in value).

Based on the fact that I'm pretty sure I saw someone put up some crystal energy for 68% market value a few hours ago, I can tell there are some people who are willing to pay/ support the game for a short-term advantage.

The game is free... I can pay money if I want to advance faster than otherwise.
I'm not 'afraid' to pay a (reasonably low) subscription. On other three rings games, you have to spend real money at some point to have your characters not idle-out and get destroyed after a few weeks of inactivity. I haven't seen any statements about character permanence here, but, I'll probably buy energy once for that benefit if it's true here.

But.... anyway... I think quite a few people -are- spending money on energy. I've partied with people who open every energy-treasure gate and res for energy without thought. If you're counting crowns to buy more energy with, you don't do that kind of thing. The return on energy gates for treasure boxes simply isn't worth it at 30 crowns per crystal energy. After your second tier-2 res, it's absolutely more efficient to restart from level 8. I forget the res cost on Tier-1, ... 2? So you can get three res there before it's costing more to continue than to descend to depth 1 again.

Anyway, by inference, such players aren't treating energy as worth a set amount of crowns, so they must then be getting it another way... i.e., spending real money. Not that I actually ask, that seems rude somehow... but I think it's the obvious conclusion. (Of course, some may be playing purely on Mist, and treating 'winning' as more important than 'amount of play time', that would be another way to consider energy as something other than crowns.)

IneptOracle pretty much said it all.

If I had anything else to say, its I'm satisfied with what I can do with the free section of the game. But I won't lie, if anything tried to make me pay for this, I'd quit in a second, there's too many other free (and legal) games to play. And yes, even "supporting" the game isn't a convincing argument for me for the reason stated above. I'm just here to enjoy what I can.

However, as a free player, the least I can do is be decent to others, answer questions, etc etc, so others who do pay will continue to want to pay (and far surpass me)

The idea is that people reason that the game is "free". Thus, the idea of paying for what they can get for free is just alien.

It's a common mentality for people new to microtransaction based games.

Beyond not having to spend, some simply just do not wish to spend. There isn't anything wrong with that, their choice is theirs to make. I'm perfectly fine with someone else making their own choice so long as I don't have to hear them complaining about things or trying to change things to the detriment of the community purely for their own personal gains.

Regarding this game in particular, I haven't spent any money on it yet but I intend to. I'll probably just buy whatever energy 10$ is worth later on. The reasons I will is to show a bit more support for this game and Three Rings (a bit of a misconception because I am *already* showing support by playing the game and supporting it both ingame and by contributing positively to the community) and because I want my account to be filed as a "paid" account. It gives me some peace of mind to have that as I'm putting so much effort into the game as is.

The reason I haven't bought energy yet is because I want to get through end game content without having spent a cent on the game. It's been out a week already and I've seen Vanaduke (though he destroys me). It is partially a personal goal but I also wish to be able to say that you can do everything in the game without having to pay and use myself as an example.

oh where did they get that idea...
http://media.spiralknights.com/v/20110408154448/images/play_now_top.en.png
I have no idea...

[this is obviously a joke]

I don't remember the first guy selling you free items =T

It doesn't really bother me that so many people are reluctant to pay. It's understandable. A kid isn't going to be able to shell out $5.00 without the help of a parent, and frankly, most of them just don't understand MMOs, haha. It's definitely a phenomenon of the last decade and a half. Funny how so many of these people wouldn't think twice about handing the kid $20 for the arcade or a movie with their friends, but pitch a fit over ten bucks for an entire month's worth of entertainment. Oh well.

What DOES bother me are the people that whine, moan, and basically behave as though they're ENTITLED to a completely free play experience, utterly unhampered and unpunished and equal to the play experience of someone who HAS paid. Many of the threads shrieking that the sky is falling over the rising cost of CE make me want to pull my hair out.

It's supposed to get tougher for you to progress in the game without paying by DESIGN, people. The company has to make a living at SOME point.

One more reason : some people may be old enough to buy their own things, but are still under control of their parents (because it's their money in the first place). And paying for something volatile is not a good thing to them.

This also applies for you, because paying for something volatile IS NOT A GOOD THING.
I know it's F2P and that's how it usually works, but some people would rather pay once and for all.

Oh and one idea : You can pay with your mobile phone. Be careful of errors though.

Neurod has a good point--think of ME as a time limit; when you're out of ME, you should get on with the rest of your life. :]
No, but really, if you have a credit card/paypal etc. it's perfectly safe to just buy $0.75 worth of CE when you just want a little bit more play time.

I don't really like using Visa gift cards because you have to buy the cards, then pay to activate them. I don't really like paying money to turn my paper money into electronic money.

I don't think it's likely the CE will go higher than a number a little lower than the amount of crowns you can conceivably make from that CE. This is because if CE costs more than the crowns you would make from the CE, you will not buy CE (what a waste of crowns!) except for crafting. It seems likely to me that most of the current demand for CE is in gates - if CE were hypothetically put way above a sensible price, demand for CE would fall drastically, as people realise that it simply isn't working. That or people would stop selling their mats so cheaply, raising the amount of crowns that can be made out of the energy. Also if CE was worth more than you could make from gates, it would be more profitable to SELL your CE than use it exploring. I for one hope it will not be the case that it is better to sell your CE than use it exploring gates (this would also factor in increasing market supply of CE, and increasing demand for mats (people who don't do gates have to buy mats since they won't drop any!).

Currently I haven't paid anything for this game because I feel that it simply isn't necessary to pay. It slows me down a little having to buy more CE to continue playing, but I know that I'm still making a crown profit, and not even including my materials (I made ~ 5k crowns on a T1 solo run in pure crown drops today - that's only 60 CE, and I'm sure there are many more profitable routes that can be taken). Perhaps the price of energy will go up to an amount where I can hardly make crowns and progress my character/build and at this point I may buy CE (I would certainly consider it) for cash. Not until that point, however.

I'd pay $40 for this if it meant I could get it to run flawlessly/ get more updates and balancing. Seriously, this is one of the best designed casual games I've played in a while. It saddens me though, that the game is so unoptimized. Such potential, wasted so far.

How will going to McDonalds help me?

Paypal without a credit card is a TREMENDOUS hassle.

The game is harder/more fun without spending real money on it. In games like these, spending money often results in giving a big advantage. For $10 I could buy 3500 CE, at a price of 3000 per 100, that is up 105k CR (at least) depending on how much you convert and how much you use. That's about 3-4 days of runs (without selling materials). I see buying CE as a way of skipping out on playing the game, why would I want to do that? I prefer to actually play the game. If CE wasn't as readily available as it is now then I would buy it, but there is simply no need to do so at the moment. There are some people who don't like the grind that I enjoy, and those people are more than willing to take up the slack that I am letting out in the CE market

I'm sure there are good folk who click the donate button on bittorrent's official site, or whatever other freebie they've tried and decided a few dollars would go a long way for both parties.

Conversely

People like free stuff.
People can't afford stuff.
People don't want to pay because they choose not to.

Angry Birds. Even at 99cents, you still have people "getting" it for free when/where they can. Don't PM me now, I won't tell. That's testament to just how far people will go to avoid paying.

They may ultimately be the penny-wise pound-foolish ones, but to them, not paying still = win :p

Some might choose not to because of how much you have to spend. From my experience most free to play MMOs will cost far more than a pay for MMO. I do still pay at times but I have to be careful because you can easily spend more than $15 which defeats the whole purpose of playing a cheaper game.

So to answer your question, some may refuse to pay because they would much rather pay for a $15 a month game with no strings attached over a free MMO that wants over $200 a month.

I do agree that we should give the games we love at least a little bit of money. These games can't function without it and if you want to see it continue, a bit here and there doesn't hurt. Sadly, not many think of this.

One nice work around I have only seen a few MMO's do is provide an optional monthly subscription that provides players with many features they normally have to pay a lot for in the game.

Uh, guys. CE has been 3.2K-3.3K for the last four days. I think it might be pretty stable now. Of course, it'll still increase, but only at about the same rate as inflation.

i dont think that the rates are going to necessarily be the same as the preview event -- thats a skewed number. the number of players was much smaller, and the ratio of people willing to purchase CE to not might be different now. plus it was a preview event, and there were reasons for people to buy CE then (bonus) or maybe just wait (character wipes, maybe they didnt care about the bonus). things could be different now.. it could go way higher before it stabilizes, or it could stabilize lower. its not something you guys can accurately predict. just assume its going to change more over the next few weeks. not to mention during my time in the preview event, the price was WELL under 10k. in fact it was cheaper than it currently is. maybe the market was flooded since people wanted the bonus CE, or people were just giving it away cheaper since the game was closer to ending, but I didn't see those prices (not saying they didnt happen though).

your problems managing your CE are not everyone elses burden. slow down, relax, smell the flowers. go outside. dont play the game so much. youre going to run out of new content real quick, then youll complain about that.

Some countries do in fact ban this.

Well the topic is ridiculously long for me to read it now so maybe later but I'll say this

- Some can't afford it (and i mean it it's better to buy food, clothes and other small things and get the game for free than the other way)
- Some like it free (there are various reasons, first point have something to this one also)

= Overall there are also ppl who apply to both categories, also i would found an 3rd category also when someone when kid was like the first point or second one, but in time even when he grew up etc. - his habits don't change.

I hate monthly fees simply for the fact it feels like I'm paying for the same game every mouth I understand they use the money for updates and running servers but it bugs me sure 15 20 dollars is not much but that crap adds up and I don't always play the same game every day so why pay for something I am not constantly using? I much rather play a game that gives me a choice to pay for a extra do-dad then being forced to pay every mouth in order to keep playing.

why did that post three times....