Why do I get the feeling that CE prices are about to go way, way, way up...
30-day elevator pass
Is this the developers' way of increasing CE prices to try to get more players to buy energy with real money? I can't wait to see just how high the price for one Pass is.
i know this must be embarrassing but um OOO, your greed is showing again
Just remember this OOO has brought its own downfall.
If the energy passes are allowed to continue crowns will inflate massively causing F2Pers unable to play for free. They will turn this game into a P2P game which will kill half or more of its current membership. Also if the passes are sold at say $6 nearly everyone will have one, and therefore SK's death will occur.
Or, maybe this is something that players have been suggesting for quite some time:
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/10475#comment-58883
thanks bro for ruining SK, now we will watch this game be driven into the ground and i will know who to scream obscenities at in the final minutes of this game's lifetime
did it ever occur to you the ramifications of that idea?!
....Last time it was Shadow keys which...killed Three Rings before that it was Iron Lockboxes....Guys you remind me of magic 8 ball always wrong with your conclusions.
As is the case after every significant update, Three Rings has killed Spiral Knights. Its destruction is imminent. Why does Three Rings hate Spiral Knights so much, and so regularly?
The worst update was when crafting costs increased (e.g. to 800 energy for 5-star). When was that, May? No one has played Spiral Knights since that disaster.
@ Icee I only count 6 people, and not all agree there
haha my next suggestion will be an auto trade refuse checker.
There will be lot more beggers in town, hope they implement this function quickly, or else I won't be able to enjoy my game-play at the Haven
This isn't such a big deal, honestly.
I see myself use up much more energy on crafting costs than elevator passes. Yet this is still a good idea, don't see what people are complaining about.
infinite crown profits!
I don't know why people keep claiming such things. Apparently, not only do they think their time is worth nothing, but also that there are more than 24 hours in a day.
Even if elevator costs were cut to zero for everyone, I doubt the amount of crowns fountained into the game would go up by much more than a factor of two.
Holy addiction problems batman :(
I guess they're trying to encourage people to play 300+ hours a month...
Also, it's not like this is a free pass. Depending on the $ cost for it, it's very possible it wouldn't even change the conversion rate.
But we'll see in an hour and a half after the update how much it costs to buy the pass.
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, this is pretty good for people who run Clockworks all the time. On the other hand...CE prices are going to skyrocket, unless the pass is really expensive, in which case nobody is going to buy it.
Even if the pass isn't very expensive, I probably won't buy it. For one, I play like 2 hours a day, so I don't be taking full advantage of the pass. What would I do with my mist? Crafting isn't worth it unless you get good UVs, so the mist would be essentially useless.
Ah well, we'll see how it goes. I'm just glad I haven't sold my friend's Shadow Keys yet. Hopefully they'll fetch 1700 CE or so soon.
unless the pass is really expensive, in which case nobody is going to buy it.
There are advantages in knowing that you can always go down the elevator, so people may well buy it even if they end up paying more CE that way. (I'm guessing this will be bought with CE, not crowns...)
What will change is that with this pass, it may well be better to start over from the top of the tier when you die, rather than pay to revive. This aspect would reduce the amount of crowns fountained, but people may want to save all the energy for crafting.
What would I do with my mist? Crafting isn't worth it unless you get good UVs, so the mist would be essentially useless.
At current prices, crafting can turn 100 mist into 100 CE even without any UVs.
the passes don't give you unlimited energy you still have to rev if all of your party goes down with Mist or ce the pass ONLY pays for the way down.
I don't think they will be that popular...at first yes but later it will become something only if your going to be playing all day.
At current prices, crafting can turn 100 mist into 100 CE even without any UVs.
Hmm, really? I guess I haven't been going about this in the right way then. I usually craft two 2* items so I don't use any CE at all, and that nets me 4k on a good day. What do you craft to get 6.5k?
It all depends on the price of the pass.
We'll see in an hour and a bit how drastically this will affect the game....while it's fun to speculate about it now, it's not helpful until we see how it balances in with the cost(in real money) of CE.
EDIT: @Myl : 3* items. Use 100 ME and 100 CE.
Just to clear up a little confusion, as stated in the announcement the Elevator Pass is only available form the Energy Depot, where you purchase energy. The Elevator Pass cannot be purchased for crowns or energy.
Or, you know, not.
Anyway, I agree with what was said in that to not overreact or assume until we know the $ cost of these things. Even if not so high, I don't see them being so disastrous by any means. I mean, $10 and $20 already gets you a ton of CE to work with anyway, and that's not even restricted to just delving.
At the very least, I consider any this type of alternative pricing model to be a good thing, if just to introduce more people to participate longer into the game. At least this won't make people accidentally blow all of their CE away with revives, crafting, and such; that's a thing I saw way too often when I pugged with Tier 1 and Tier 2 players.
Hmm. Okay. I assume these passes won't be able to be traded (goes into effect immediately and all), so it now depends on how many people would shell out the money. CE price is probably still going to go up, we'll have to wait and observe by how much.
Crafting 3* items: True, it's better than crafting 2*s and if you choose your 3*s well, you can indeed turn that 100ME into 100CE (and a bit of profit) at current prices. Though if CE prices goes up by a lot, that 100 mist will turn into 50CE or something...we'll see, I suppose.
hmm, well that solves a lot of problems then. This means it now exists for those who had been talking about just wanting to have a subscription type model for the game. This is cool then. Because that means players who get that actually...are players. Not just market influencing types. There may be those who try to use it to run gates a lot to earn money, but hey at least they're working for it (in game) like the rest of us :P Some might even buy CE with their crowns. But I don't think it will have any significant negative impact.
@Nick I suppose the one bright spot is it gives players a way to send you money without just buying their way to victory (ie: buying a bunch of CE, trading it for endgame gear).
It's honestly something I'd consider buying for that reason, I just hate to think of what it's going to do to the in-game economy.
I don't see what the big deal is. I personally like this update but I pay to play so nothing effects me. Heck I got a job so $10 - $20 every 2 weeks (sometimes 4 weeks) isn't a big deal to me. I support this game so I figure the best way to show it is by paying for it. Most of the CE I get goes into crafting anyways and I don't have the patient to earn my CE the free way to craft XD
But maybe it won't effect the market. I probably have the whole idea wrong but when steam users joined SK CE dropped like a rock maybe if this encourages ppl to buy CE the price will go down. Like I said I'm probably wrong though but if the price goes up I'm not complaining either. Just dont lose sleep over this kk : )
Just to clear up a little confusion
Confusion could have been reduced if you had announced the price of these kinds of things in the release notes, like you did for the shadow keys. The last time shadow keys were announce to be sold, you didn't mention their price, which caused some confusion then too.
/pro tip for anyone taking physics/engineering: keep track of units while you work your math! If you end up with sec/meter rather than meter/sec, you know you have gotten confused somewhere.
Math time. Energy costs $0.25 per 100.
If the pass costs $15, one will need to use more than 20 elevators per day to make back their costs. Heavy, but quite reasonable for a dedicated player.
If the pass costs $30, one will need to use more than 40 elevators per day. That's five runs of the entire Tier 2, which is somewhat workable for a single day, but every day for a month?
Basically, for pass prices under $20, CE prices will see some inflation. The cheaper, the more inflation. More than that, and CE prices may see some inflation as well simply due to a decrease in supply from people stupidly buying passes with money they would have otherwise spent on CE.
Other possible effect of the pass: more people run regular clockworks floors that they otherwise wouldn't due to lack of profit.
I wonder if you can tab party-members into your pass, though.
Other than that, I'll be waiting for the price to pop up and, if my budget allows for it, fetch myself an elevator pass. Free elevator access is like the ultimate in ultimate awesomeness for regular players like myself. I'd be able to run the Clockworks for an infinite amount for as long as the pass is active without having to worry about going negative. Heck, I might just take the opportunity to deliberately die to check out the new energy revival. (Missed out on the test servers due to awkward scheduling.)
That is, if it works as suspected. Cheers and happy spelunking, Knights!
As the notes mentioned, we're trying something new with this pass and need to see who buys it and how they use it. This limited time offer will allow us to determine if it and/or it's price works.
For this limited time offer, the Elevator Pass will cost $5.95.
To answer another question, if you have a pass and add someone to your tab, it simply consumes the energy you have, just as it does now. Nothing changes.
@K-E:
Pretty sound numbers, although the price per CE is less efficient than 100 per $0.25 if you buy the smaller CE amounts(buying 750 CE works out to around 76 per $0.25 or so).
And yes, as you point out, the way that elevator passes affect player behavior may also affect the economy. People buying passes instead of CE are less likely to liquidate CE for crowns, and people buying passes are more likely to buy up CE with their pass-acquired crowns. Also, simply the perception of inflation can make inflation occur, since people are more likely to accept the fact that CE prices will rise and thus continue paying higher prices for it.
EDIT: 6 bucks? ....wat?
At $6, that'll be 8 elevators a day to break even, which is less than the daily mist allotment (not to mention mist can still be converted to crowns through other means).
CE prices are going to go up a lot. I don't think that's a very good price at all. For f2p and "I buy energy periodically but not every time I need it" players, that's going to really drain the value of clockworks runs. And for people who buy the pass, it removes the entire elevator mechanic from the game.
Basically at $6 the pass is an absolute must buy.
Wave goodbye to making cr/ce off sealed swords / any boss token items.
Also if CE prices go up then people will Buy CE to sell on the market. Win win for OOO... players have been given.. practically nothing and asked to pay for it.
@35 Currently, the best way to make money off jelly tokens is to buy brute jelly armor and vendor it. You get the most profit/token.
you shouldn't be getting sealed swords anyways. Go for the jelly armor.
"30 Day Elevator Pass
We're trying something new! For a limited time only, a 30 Day Elevator Pass may be purchased from the Energy Depot. This pass allows all Knights on the account the ability to bypass elevator costs. Elevator Passes are activated at the time of purchase and will show up in your arsenal's 'Useable' category as with other upgrades."
At $5.95USD ....
This is Awesome!
On any given Saturday, I will run FSC 3-4 times and JK/Twins .. gods know how many times.
If I go to the pub, instead, I spend 6USD in under an hour.
Xombie likes.
Before you talk all doom and gloom, this is the end; why don't you wait and see what's gonna happen?
You never know the outcome. ;)
My guildmates think this could theoretically drop the price of CE, actually, by removing the elevator cost sink from the game and increasing CE supply. It's just a matter of whether the increasing crown supply is going to outstrip the increasing CE supply. Either way, 8k+ CE prices are gonna be bad for the game so let's hope they don't get up that high.
I want to abuse this as much as i can since everyone will, for how long will the pass will be available?
People will use their new found wealth to do... what? with
1) buy 30 day pass
2) Run gates like madman all day - ignore christmas
3) Look at silver keys with new found wealth
4) ????
5) FAIL
@39
This would depend on the demand to liquidate new/existing supplies of CE into crowns as a counter-inflating factor.
Because the elevator pass can theoretically generate an inordinate sum of crowns without costing energy, there may be less demand to liquidate CE into crowns, unless there are time-critical factors involved(auctions, etc) which demand a larger supply of crowns than the owner has.
It will be interesting to see how it plays out. Either way, this pass has the potential to greatly shift the dynamics of the current game economy, especially at the price it is being offered at.
It's like a 1-month subscription fruit heads!
Six bucks. Hmm. Okay, yeah, crowns are going to be worthless now. XD
@Nick: "if you have a pass and add someone to your tab, it simply consumes the energy you have, just as it does now. Nothing changes."
That means you can use your mist energy to tab a friend while you're running on the pass, though. That sounds interesting. I bet it would be helpful for introducing a friend to the game (gives them an extra 100 mist to burn trying stuff out on their first night playing with you).
I bet it's going to mean more players begging their random party members for tab, though. Oh well.
I'm very interested to see what effect this has on CE prices. Could go either way, as far as I can tell.
Remember: if this 30-day pass is the first time you're spending real money on the game, you now have two hundred mist per day to spend on something other than elevators--100 on your main account, and 100 on a secondary account on the same computer, since your first account is now "paid" and therefore has independent mist. I want to see some cheap trinket and weapon slots on the trade channel!
Just a quick calculation: if doing the entire T3 FSC nets 8kcr and takes 1.5 hours, and if an unemployed bum runs it for 12 hours a day that's 64000cr per day. If they keep that up for a month that's almost 2 million crowns, not counting mats, boss tokens, etc.
For $6 I'm going to be one of the people running the SK economy into the ground. Might finally get the "Cradle and All" and maybe if I'm lucky the "Dauntless Delver" achievements too.
Random unforeseen consequence: If you die, even if your party is wiped, you can just return to haven and rejoin and not have to pay the res fee, as leaving for haven doesn't currently lock the party. You won't even lose your pickups, as they'll all be dropped in a nice little pile where you left. Only exception would be boss levels and shadow lairs.
"For this limited time offer, the Elevator Pass will cost $5.95."
Heck yeah, I'm getting that! Thanks for the deal!
Oh, and how long is "limited time", or is that confidential information?
---
@Nicoya-Kitty
Your theory is false. Rejoining a party you left will leave you at the same state as when you left the party initially. If you died, left and rejoined, you will still be dead. Likewise, if you left with full HP, you will come back with full HP (although you've lost any additional HP a vitapod had granted). I do suppose this allows you to leave and come back with different equips, should an Arsenal Station not be present though.
So, what we can expect of this is:
1- All paying players will get this.
2- They will get lots of crowns with this.
3- The rich will be even richer.
4- The poor will be even poorer.
5- CE prices will skyrocket.
6- F2p playerbase will leave like rats in a ship.
7- ????
8- ...PROFIT?
Great design choice, OOO. I thought you couldn't impress me anymore, but you did. I think I will be preparing my luggage, just in case the situation gets unbearable...
I'm not gonna lie, I'm super excited about this. Now I can play as much as I want and I'm gonna go out on a limb and pretty much guarantee I'll make more than 2k ce off the crowns I get within the next month. Not to mention this will free up my mist for taking care of my need-to-synth list. I was just starting to feel bad about only spending $5 on this game thus far despite playing for more than 450 hours to date. Win, win and more win.
$6 is less than I'm about to go spend on dinner, congrats OOO you got my money.
As the notes mentioned, we're trying something new with this pass and need to see who buys it and how they use it.
Ah, yes, who uses the pass and how is very important, and really hard to accurately predict.
Some thoughts:
* people who don't have money and/or won't every pay for a game won't be buying this, obviously. These people won't change, and so won't change the cr<->CE market.
* people who buy CE in order to sell it on the market for crowns won't be buying this, since if they had time to run lots of gates, they would have more than enough crowns already. These people will still have more CE and not enough crowns, so they won't change the cr<->CE market.
* people who play only a little bit and spend less than $6/mo on CE probably won't be buying this. A few may because it is nice to know you can always go down the elevator, but I suspect most won't.
* people who play a lot and buy a lot of CE with RL money in order to run gates will want this, but they aren't buying/selling CE on the cr<->CE market, so they won't have much of an impact.
* people who play a lot and don't buy enough CE with RL money to run all the gates that they do run will want this. However, the net effect is that they will be buying less CE from the cr<->CE market.
It is quite possible that the net effect on the cr<->CE market is that the exchange rate will go down.
infinite crown profits!................................ SKYROCKETING CE prices! :(