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So we get a lockbox we then open one for 750 CE then we don't get a key, rinse and repeat until we do? And then when we have one a 4 person party goes down and then it disappears and we start all over again? Am I getting all this? Not only does it lower our Accessories chances but it also makes that upper T3 boss stuff a once in a blue moon event. Good? Maybe, I dunno.

Just saw someone burn through literally $100 in CE opening up Lockboxes.

Not. One. Single. Shadow. Key.

Pretty likely.

#107 i like the troll music and the part where sypsy mentions progress quest :'D

Honestly, I am disappointed. at first instance and the price of silver keys seemed to me ridiculously expensive. Now with this update confirms my thesis, the root of the problem if the price of silver key, so I propose the following as a magic solution.
1 .- Silver Keys ridiculously cheap (2000cr at most).
2 .- Reduce the cost of elevators in half
3 .- Increase the appearance of lockbox expotencialmente based on the floor is lowered.

Proposals may seem ridiculous but thinking as an entrepreneur (read carefully OOO) proved necessary not lead to a bankruptcy:
1 .- popularity would increase explosively. Do not forget the references.
2 .- It would increase the purchase of EC for having more users. Since concideración that one reason to buy is to save time, which could be used to collect objects.
3 .- would improve the relationship between OOO and users.

They can laugh all right to these proposals, as if they are heard and acted probably be shocked amazement.
Finally, the simplest solution is to remove the keys, so Vescrit fully support.

Translated by Google (I have no brain to translate this moment of Spanish to English, sorry = D)

boooo hissssssss er I mean, BOOOOOOOOO HIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSS BOOOOOOOOOOOOO BOOOOOOOOOOOO HIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSS

This is my first post here, I normally just play the game and enjoy. But this new update is ridiculously stupid. I understand the game needs money to survive. I understand its a costly business, but honestly, this is just really poor business ethics on OOO's part. and I'll go into a rant here about why.

1. Any time you put a ton of money and effort into creating new game content, its based on players being able to see and enjoy it. If you add a key to unlock it, that's all well and good. But do make that key part of a random chance is just stupid because it drastically limits the number of players getting to see that new content. This really makes it hard to enjoy that new content and further more, the people that did probably won't enjoy that new content because of the hurt feelings of just getting there.

2. The silver keys and lockboxes are all fine and dandy for something like accessories. They don't change game play or add power, they are just fun. The silver key price however is no fun at all. It costs way too much for just one of them, you are talking a lot of money here for just a chance at what you want. But still, its for something that's not game play changing, so I was willing for forget it. But by adding the shadow keys to the mix, something that changes game play, now OOO crossed the line. Dangling these new items and levels in people's faces and then saying you have to spin the wheel of chance to get there just once and at that, the cost is so high that players can blow through pretty much an indefinite amount of real, hard earned cash without getting a single key. Sure you can make the argument that they could sell those items for a key, but you know that's an incredibly stupid, round about way of getting a key they can only use once. Its utterly wasteful of the players' time and money. And for a business to do this just tells me one thing, they only care to get your money. And to that I say this, I just won't pay you any money then. If this is the service and treatment you will give to your costumers, they people paying you money, sometimes hundreds of dollars a month they could have easily bought a full retail game and played to its full enjoyment without this nickel and dime to death mentality you guys seem to be getting, then this game is gonna crash and burn.

3. As I just stated, this could easily mark the start of this game losing its appeal. So far its had a number of issues, but not big deal breakers. Its popular enough to hold its own for a bit, but its really starting to lose its flavor now. I really like the new content, its very cool looking, but to have this big "You gotta pay for the *chance* to enjoy this and even then you might not get all you need on the first run so better pay us again" wall of crap, it really killed my mood. I feel utterly shunned here, because I don't have a lot of spare money or time to play my games with my friends, and this just totally slams the door in my face. Talk about bad play on the part of the game developers, bad form OOO, bad form.

As I stated before, I understand you need money to make this game run, I understand that. I really do. So why don't you just do the smart thing and cater to your customers. You'll find you'll still make enough money and a nice profit probably, I don't know, I don't have your sales figures. But here is an idea, why don't you just add the shadow keys to the list with the silver keys? Same price and there, a nice, respectful place. Or better yet, just add them to an NPC in front of Spiral HQ so it fits with the game setting. Make them easy to get so players that want to enjoy your game's new content can do so without any unneeded delay. Don't dangle new content in front of your customers face and then put it behind a maze of costly games of chance. You waste the customer's time and in so doing, you commit the ultimate sin of gaming development, you ruin the enjoyment of your game. I'm literally infuriated OOOs has done this. The lockboxes themselves are a rip off, and now to put in tempting game play enjoyment in there too? And to make that game play hard so it'll probably end in failure more times than not? Its insulting.

In closing, I'll just say this to ram the point home to OOO. I loved your game, I've played it for hours on end, and I really have been looking forward to more play time on it. I really did. But this is an offense that I just don't feel its tolerable. This is a naked cash grab and you have insulted a loyal customer with it. For shame. You may think that you can just ignore me and I'm just one unsatisfied customer, no big loss. But as far as I can see, I'm not alone. And to just put the drive in harder, I can just as easily go and play League of Legends with my friends as Spiral Knights, or Counter Strike Source. So don't think I'll just pay up, I can go elsewhere. You have to keep your customers happy OOOs, not insult them with temptations and ridiculously over priced games of chance. Holy Beast Online did this hardcore, and its from last I heard, dying fast. I don't play that game anymore, it was too much chance, not enough payout. And Spiral is looking to fall into the same pit. Games are meant to be fun, meant to be enjoyed. This ruins the fun of the game. So please OOO, undo this. Make your game fun again. Make it enjoyable again. Make it welcoming again. Because right now, I feel like all you care about is getting as much of my money as possible and not even care if i get what I want. And that's just no fun at all.

This is absolutely disgusting, if prices aren't adjusted to make this more reasonable you'll have lost me as a customer OOO. As it is now any of the subscription based games like World of Warcraft and Rift, or even the serious microtransaction games like Dungeons and Dragons Online or Lord of the Rings Online offer FAR FAR better better bang for your buck. Six runs of the new dungeons is the same price as an entire month of gameplay for subscription games with more content than this, and that's only if you get lucky on the RNG and manage to get a shadow key from every lockbox.

I undesrtand "luckybox" system, it is awesome and makes users spend money. If I could get good armor, acessories, weapons and all from the lockbox, I would seriously spend money on the game (and I plan to do so, since I loved the game and I want to support OOO.

I don't like, however, to have content blocked from players. If I can't go to the Shadow Lairs easily, I'll not play so often for I won't have anything to do. If I'm not playing, I don't have an urge to spend money (not "me", but a T3 player). You can create a lot of exclusive stuff for those who pay, but you can't block the content.

If you block content, people won't play nor pay. I know the dream of all f2p games is to convert every single player to a spender, but for conversion you must have a big game for them to explore. On SK we have few armos, few stages and few bosses. We don't have enough stuff to create exclusive content like that.

Dunno, those are my two cents.

Gotta put a +1 here too.
If the chance at keys from lockboxes is as bad as it is, and it costs 750 CE PER CHANCE, I'm not going to be wasting any more of my money buying CE until this mechanic changes.

I've been playing since official release, but even I'm not desperate enough for new content that I'm going to spend that much money for it.

Also my first time "ranting" here... Normally I don't feel the need to chime in and exchange bad words, since for most of the time I'm just enjoying the free game (even though this game already had me break my rule against paying for MMOs - so far I've spent $15 (supporting Ian's work being part of the decision making process)). But when I read this thread, I couldn't stop from saying: I disagree. This upgrade isn't broken. The one before that, however, is.

Now to some degree I didn't care much for the newest upgrade. The new armor sets are all sweet and "Do want!", but there's lots of stuff out there in this game that I want that'll take a lot of time and investment to get. The new boss levels would also be nice to run through once, but as of now I haven't really mastered T3 anyway. So a T3 upgrade doesn't concern me much.

But I can't but notice that all the problems people have with this upgrade are actually rooted in the one before that - 750 CE just seemed right out ridiculous for me to ask for Silver Keys. And the market has proven this to be right - accessories mostly sell for less than the equivalent of 750 CE (the common ones going for as little as the equivalent of 100 to 200 CE). The only people this appeals to are the ones with a gambling problem (the favorite demographic of any MMO producer).

So Three Rings/SEGA just has to fuzz up and admit they misvalued Silver Keys. Pricing them at 200 CE would give them the opportunity to still earn money with them (since they still require CE) while matching accessories to prices people are actually willing to pay for purely decorative stuff and making more Shadow Keys available to T3 players eager for more content.

(On a related note while I'm at it: Heat Amplifiers. 800 energy for a 20% Heat boost for two days? Like, really? When's that ever supposed to pay off? That energy is way better invested in elevators - you get even more heat AND all the other stuff that comes with dungeoneering. Make it 30 days and 50%, and we might be talking...)

Like really, I don't think every player in this game is either a whiny little kid with his mom's credit card, or a person with a decently paying job.
This is just wrong! You know what? I bought Monster Hunter Tri for 17 Dollars, for the record, I have spent at least four times that amount on this game,
AND I'VE GOTTEN MORE PLAYTIME OUT OF THAT. I can't even fathom spending any more money on this game. I really can't. There are far too many
better investments of my time, and really, if I wanted to find a way to frustrate and aggravate myself, you'd see me NOT playing.
As it stands, I was going to purchase 25 bucks more of CE, but I can see it better used with a game, like Kirby: Return to Dreamland,
a game console, or even keychains.

To Richy's comment: Considering a lockbox costs 750 ce to unbind, no the prices won't go down. If they do, it just proves that people don't care about shadow keys or this update, and aren't buying. In any case, the base price that will be paid by someone along the way to make a shadow key available to some player later for a one-time run of special gates, is 750 ce. It's a money sink in the overall market, and its stupid.

To OOO: Normally, I don't have much to complain about this game. Not as much as other players at least. But seriously? I log on today, and all I can say is... this is dumb. This is really dumb. You're turning this game into a virtual casino. You place exclusivity on dungeon content not based on, say, a one time price, like any comparable dlc in other games, but basically by forcing players to roll on a CHANCE of receiving the content. Just a chance! To play it ONCE! And then they have to roll again! Even if they're not rolling, they're relying on other players to engage in the dumb process so that all players can have access to shadow keys on the auction house.

I don't know if the uv vendor update from a while back was good to you (I saw how low the ce prices dropped then) but I wouldn't count on that being your strategy from now on. I saw in another thread someone say there were previous mass-complaints after other updates, all of which have died down. The player was saying this time would be no different, and all of these protests are irrelevant. But keep in mind, if people aren't complaining, it's because they have more important things to do than whine perpetually about the same problem in the same game. It doesn't mean any of us players are any happier. We're still dissatisfied and we're stacking up more and more reasons to eventually quit playing this game.

On my other account, I'm tripped out to play t3 content, but after seeing the costs, I don't see myself spending the money for this at all. As far as I'm concerned, there might as well not have been an update. Nothing has changed for me. And considering how much you added, that's saying something. You have to TRY to make that much new content insignificant. Even if the shadow key supplies go up, and the auction house prices go down, I'll still be annoyed even if I am able to easily buy it on the auction house, just thinking about the process behind it. Someone wasted 750 ce opening a stupid lockbox only to lose money on it. Quit with the gambling! If I wanted to gamble, I'd go to a casino. Find a real incentive for players to stick around, and you might find more players joining the game.

agree with both Eagleorion and Philipjayfry.

SK realy is starting to feel like a casino and i f****** hat gambling... isn't there a law against this? i mean your actualy playing a gambling game (and isn't gambling illegal?)

and yes indeed i also tought the sentence was weird...

Shadow Keys can be found in ANY Iron Lockbox or from the Auction House if available. (the sentence in the release notes)

Shadow Keys CAN be found in any Iron Lockbox or from the Auction House if available. (the sentence how it SHOULD be) see what i did there...

like Philipjayfry said there is no "other" lockbox then the one that exists. this looks more like a scam to get kids to gamble then actualy supporting your game...

To Richy's comment: Considering a lockbox costs 750 ce to unbind, no the prices won't go down. If they do, it just proves that people don't care about shadow keys or this update, and aren't buying. In any case, the base price that will be paid by someone along the way to make a shadow key available to some player later for a one-time run of special gates, is 750 ce. It's a money sink in the overall market, and its stupid.

Actually if you check out prices of other things that come out of Lockboxes(accessories) the price for those is around 10k. So I do believe the price will come down because people will undercut each other and lose money.

Underaged gambling is bad mkay? /Mr. Mackey voice.

But seriously, this should be reason enough for games not to implement these kind of features (*cough* TF2 *cough*). Yes, lot's of people of gambling age DO play these games (myself included), and parents give their kids money for these purposes, and a lot of teens underage have credit cards themselves, I understand these things, but just the fact that kids are ABLE to bend the law doesn't mean OOO should encourage it... /my rant

Again, that should be reason enough to not implement these features. Do you people have no morals when it comes to money? That law is there for a reason, and these features COMPLETELY negate it, and ENCOURAGE it by being in a game that attracts kids with shiny new armors and weapons.

F.F.S. OOO...

And people have already mentioned everything else wrong with the shadow key 'system', which is a lot.

OOO needs to go back to school and pay attention in their business classes. Not to mention taking some sociology classes. ;]

"Actually if you check out prices of other things that come out of Lockboxes(accessories) the price for those is around 10k. So I do believe the price will come down because people will undercut each other and lose money."

But this is the reason why this is broken - no one would mind paying 750CE to open box after box for a shadow key if they knew they weren't throwing that CE away. Something has to be done so that accessories maintain their value. My suggestion - make them 5* items. That way they'll have a bottom value of 30000cr (the price vendors will buy them for).

To Richy: I'm perfectly fine with "rare" or hard-to-obtain items. What I object to is the process. Chance can play a part in many games, and that's fine, but at a certain point, it's absurd. There should be more of a concentrated effort on things acquired through skill rather than a credit card, poor fiscal policies, or just way too much time on players' hands for MMO grinding.

I thoroughly enjoyed the SK's "campaign" to the core, but it was completed in short order, and the rest of the game represents miniscule returns. The new returns that are being added (as exemplified in the last three updates, uv vendor, lockbox and prize wheel, and now shadow keys) are of an almost completely chance nature. I can't value that at all. By hard-to-obtain, you shouldn't mean "Oh my gosh! I won the lottery!" as oppose to, you've put enough focus, planning, and skill development into tackling new and fun challenges the game introduces, and as a result have obtained achievements and items that other players who are not as adept yet are not able to. What can I appreciate in the "rarity" of these items? I either have to be extremely lucky or extremely wasteful, or SOMEBODY has to be extremely wasteful along the way, in order for me to attain them. That's a kind of rarity I have no appreciation for, nor should I. It means absolutely nothing to me.

To put it in other terms, you say these new items (obviously the armor sets) should remain rare. And you're perfectly fine with the current solution to this problem: to just flat out make these new dungeons, however fun and exciting as they would be for the SK community, practically inaccessible in every way to 95% of the community? Really? Do you really value your exclusive ownership of these items over the satisfaction of everyone else? You're right, they should be rare, so REWORK THE SYSTEM! Don't make shadow lairs rare just so you can make the associated items rare. Everyone should have an easy knock at the shadow lair. Increase the difficulty for item attainment some other way.

I like Realnight's suggestion, it mitigates most of the risk of opening a lockbox. But I think it would introduce an issue - there would be a direct bottom exchange rate of CE and CR. If you had a 29/30 chance that your 750 CE could instantly become 30000 CR (4000 CR per 100 CE) then the CE market should never drop below 4000 CR. Of course, it has been a long time since it was that low but it is still imposing an artificial bottom value on CE instead of "only" the market dictating the price. Is there anything in the game that is so direct? If so, maybe such a concern is moot.

The funny thing is that if we are just mitigating risk, the same results could be obtained by lowing the Silver Key price. Disregarding ME for a moment, if it was 250 CE instead, that is equivalent risk-wise as practically guaranteeing a 30k return on the investment. And then you end up with an Accessory that you don't want, that you hope to sell for at least 15000 CR so you can buy another Silver Key.

To put it in other terms, you say these new items (obviously the armor sets) should remain rare. And you're perfectly fine with the current solution to this problem: to just flat out make these new dungeons, however fun and exciting as they would be for the SK community, practically inaccessible in every way to 95% of the community? Really? Do you really value your exclusive ownership of these items over the satisfaction of everyone else? You're right, they should be rare, so REWORK THE SYSTEM! Don't make shadow lairs rare just so you can make the associated items rare. Everyone should have an easy knock at the shadow lair. Increase the difficulty for item attainment some other way.

I more than likely will not play these shadow lairs, so it is not like I have any of the items. I am just saying, nobody has given me a real solution to the fact that if we do exactly what everyone wants and that is lower the price of these things, it will open this up to farming. Your soon going to see a large amount of people running around with this armor which is supposed to be hard to obtain.

So what is a possible solution? Do we make it a 1/500 chance that you see the alchemy machine at the end? That kind of takes out the point of venturing in doesn't it? Do we make these things free to enter but you have a very rare chance to ever find one of these gates at D23?

Why do we need rare items with non-cosmetic effects?

Rarity in MMOs with player-to-player markets comes, from my admittedly limited experience, from four sources:
1. Rare drops: stuff that shows up randomly, but is not hat common. SK already has this going on in the Basil system. Admittedly, none of the GOOD stuff is "rare" because people people just buy the good recipes they don't want and sell them at a profit. But, hey, that's just how market-based player interaction works.
2. Limited-time offers: two words: Rose Regalia. For obvious reasons, these should never have stats. (the reason being that there will never be more than a fixed number after the limited-time offer ends. Which will render a certain set of stats virtually unattainable for people who didn't participate (SOMEONE will always want to sell theirs in the AH). that isn't fair to people who start playing after the offer ends).
3. Bad expensive stuff: When was the last time you saw a Bombastic set? It's ugly and bad, so nobody uses it. even as a costume.
4. Grindy Bindy: it takes a lot of work to get and binds to you. I'm not sure about this one, since I haven't checked the AH to see how many Fangs of Vog are for sale...

The KEYS are 1, the materials are 1 + crazymadskill, and THEN the items themselves are 4. This isn't so much Rare as it is Virtually Unattainable. And that just isn't fair.

THis would be less unreasonable if there wasn't (AFAIK) such a huge gap b/t "I can beat vanaduke" and "I can beat Shadow Snarby". But only a LITTLE less.

But I digress. My main point is just that I don't understand why anyone would WANT rare items with mechanical effects to exist. Sure, SOME players benefit, but (thanks to the existence of PVP) everyone else suffers. The only other possibility is that the items suck, which will REALLY piss off the players that spent all that CE to get them. So, with rare mechanical items it is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE for everyone to win.

tl;dr

@Richy: Why would anyone WANT rare, non-cosmetic, items to exist?

EDIT: also, +several to Iskender's idea. SK merch would be sweet.

"You know, OOO, if you really need the money, release merchandise and don't make people gamble for new content."

YES

I would SO buy a gremlin action figure or even a plushie. My boyfriend said he'd get a develite. I think there are tons of fun toys you could make for this franchise :D