I'd like to point out first that I am not invested in the old Rose Regalia sets in any way, nor am I invested in the new sets. I have no monetary stake in this.

That said, this does cause me some concern as a player, especially one who has purchased CE in the past. To quote the announcement for the Rose Regalia promotion, "It is only available through this special energy bonus." Now, I understand that sometimes circumstances change, but this feels like outright deceit to me. More importantly, it's a very slippery slope. If it happens one time, who's to say it won't happen again, and then again after that?

Now, I understand the need to both positively affect the CE market prices to keep players playing, and to keep paying players paying. That's part of what the Featured Auctions are about. However, there are better ways to go about that, ones that don't involve going back on your word. For instance, they could do another Rose Regalia promotion. That would likely cause numerous players to buy CE to get the costumes, which would be both a profit increase for OOO, and would cause an influx of CE into the market, driving CE prices down. It wouldn't even be difficult to reskin the Rose sets with new colors. Granted, eventually there would be no more colors to release, but by that time, many new ideas would have come forth, and much new content could have been designed. It's not so much "give us content nao!" but more of a "give us something to foster a little faith in you while we wait for new content." I've already seen many end-game players quitting this game because there has been little new content, and because they feel as though new content is not coming reasonably soon. I don't want this game to go the way of so many other MMORPG's.

My heart skipped a little when I opened up the auction house.

I couldn't really describe the feeling, but Ruby summed it up best for me:

"Seeing those same sets appear again, brand new, is a little worrying, but mostly because of principle - it's hard not to feel like we were lied to. I don't think the value of the items is going to plummet (in fact, it may rise), but the view this gives to players now is that almost nothing is sacred: even the most limited, one-time special items, for the right amount of crowns, can be yours on the Featured Auctions. "

I'm pretty sure someone's gonna say "It's only one of each set". Well, that's the thing. It's only one for now... but what's stopping them from putting 5, 10, 20 down the line if you don't speak now.

This is a great game, thanks to all who make and maintain it.

Recent featured auctions have upset my ideas about rarity.
- I thought I knew how rare old Rose sets were. Apparently I was wrong.
- I have no idea how rare scissor blades are. Loads more next week? No more ever?
- Lavender personal colour got bought out... Then 1000 more appeared. Then they went away again.
- Violet and Coral Rose, maybe 20-30 chaps of these colors got bought. So they're rarer than old rose, for now.
- Auras, scarves, haloes, wings, the list goes on.

Why does this matter at all? Well, buying and selling rare items is quite a fun part of this game, for me at least. But if I don't understand rarity, then it becomes a matter of luck rather than skill. So it looks like I should now collect CE instead of rare items. That will be much less fun.

And now pawn mentions multi UVs. Please no, let's leave them properly rare. Of course we all want them, but the secret of a great MMO is an enjoyable pursuit of that ultimate item, not actually getting your hands on it. And least of all, just buying it.

might as well start selling groundbreaker sets in the the featured auctions too

While I agree with Rubyeclipse's stand, here's what I have to say.

OOO could have easily put the 1st edition rose sets in the normal AH instead of the featured auctions. Who would even know about it? You have to agree with me that for the Devs to put in items into the market is so easy, they didn't have to create the feature auctions to put items into SK for sale. I have to compliment them for being open about putting extra items into the AH.

They could have easily put the prismatic/volcanic/divine accessories into the normal AH. Would you, Rubyeclipse, the buyer of the volcanic aura, wings and halo, know who you were buying them from? Think about it.

However, from this source http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/5957 as noted by Rubyeclipse, this is what Nick said: "There are three chapeaus and three tabards in all, so this is your last chance to collect all six!".

To OOO, four words: Mean what you say.

As a player who has been around since release, and managed to get a Rose Chapeau during the original event, it makes me sick that OOO has to keep recycling the Rose Sets. My chapeau is the only "special item" I have, and I have always thought of it as the Item that has made my character "unique". Now any person who wants to fork out loads of money can get one of the items that "represents" alot of veterans. I know a lot of people will disagree with what I am saying, and I would love to support OOO, but this has damaged my already low trust in OOO.

I have strong mixed feelings about this. As has been noted elsewhere, 000 releasing one of each of the original rose sets into the wild shouldn't effect the market value of the original colors much, if at all--as long as it's only one set of each, or even if they released one set of each a year, for example. Some have even suggested that it might lead to a price bump that would benefit people with unbound original sets, as the players who lose the new auctions look elsewhere for black/white/red. That having been said, however, it does set a nasty precedent for the future.
I bought a white set for my knight when the original roses were released, and I was happy to see the first rose redux come out as it gave me the opportunity to grab a set for my alt, but the shocking price disparity in the new colors recently sold through the AH (even without accounting for the value of the ce that was included with the original roses/redux) was bad enough, and the thought of seeing the original colors potentially appearing with some regularity in the AH much, much worse.
Please, 000, let limited be limited, not "limited to when we feel like it." Please?

I'm not sure where I stand on the issue, but I'd just like to play devil's advocate here for a second. It's worked pretty well for me in the past on these forums, so I expect only the best of reactions.

I can see how one could easily be deceived. I've definitely considered investing in all sorts of "limited edition" and "limited time sale" items. Super safe investments, right? Guaranteed crowns if you wait. I never did, though, because I've always blown my crownsies on new toys right before the sale and couldn't justify tying up even more money in illiquid items.

But

"Safe" investments are rarely as safe as investors think. You buy a bunch of "limited edition" items in hopes of holding on to them to resell. A perfectly reasonable investment. But, people invested heavily in the euro because it was essentially risk-free. I mean look at Germany. Low to no deficits, huge current account surplus, etc. Safe as poop, right?

Likewise, thank you for the prompt reply. I really appreciate the level of contact/interaction with devs and other 000 staff available on SK--much better than many MMOs. I hope you appreciate, however, that "buyer beware" is a hard sell, especially if we will indeed be seeing limited-time items continue to appear with some frequency at the AH straight from 000. The recent Halloween masks, for example, were likewise advertised as a limited-time offer. While they are not nearly as iconic for the player base as the original rose sets, based on your response above, I'm assuming that they will appear again next Halloween--in the AH, and with a significant markup.
I know all of you at 000 have put a lot into developing SK--and it shows, GREAT game--and that the re-release of limited-time items supports 000 as players buy energy to convert into crowns, but the difference between SK and your examples above is that if I spend my money on a car, the car is still there when I'm not driving it. When spending real money on virtual goods, I, for one, assumed that "limited" truly meant "limited," because how else does the real expense justify the virtual value? Naive, I suppose. Still, without lapsing into melodrama, I don't think I'm going to be spending my money on another "limited-time" promotion anytime soon if they are going to be rolled back out in the AH a few months later.

It's very common for people to pay extra money or stand in long lines, etc to acquire something first, be it a product or experience. The people who had those limited colors have had a long time to enjoy them exclusively. The auction has no buy it now price, so it's really not going to affect us anymore than one player selling his/her sets in the ah. And it give s hope and a chance for newer players to get things they simply could not afford otherwise.

The issue is not players wanting to sell their sets for high prices (there's nothing to indicate that this will affect the market for these items in any significant way), it's the fact that, as Huhbum put it, it's inherently a deception. It's basically setting precedent for this to happen again in the future.

I also agree with Ruby and the others, this for me takes out the rarity and a 'UNIQUE' property only applied to a tiny amount of items in this game. In every game it is nice to have items with such rarity they almost become priceless.

What worries me is where will you go next? Will you bring back Darkfang shields? I for one hold pride in wearing my red rose and darkfang combo, but if you are going to bring more of these items in to the game they lose their charm.

There is a line, the question is... where will you draw it?

P.S. Spiral knights is a wonderful and successful game, please do not take away its charm as you are doing with these items.

I think its great that OOO is selling these. Most of the players who got them originally either leftt/never play anymore, so being able to see them around again will be rather nice. The players that don't want to see them sold again are just greedy people who want to sell anyway, or want to be better than others by having them.

Darkfang Shield is obtained randomly through Boxes and is really really rare, The fact that you have one just means someone found it and someone put a high enough price tag on it. Great shield, Despite its stats I'd use it as my normal shield if I acquired it.

@Fehzor

Sigh... for the last time, this is not about the money. If you will ready MY first post in this topic, I clearly state that I have no monetary stake in this at all. As it has been said previously, there is nothing to show that this will affect the market for the old Rose sets in any way. There are multiple players who have these sets and are wearing them (thus making them untradable), who are upset because they were led to believe this was the only way the sets could be aqcuired. It'd be like if they sold Groundbreaker sets in the Featured auctions, or the artifacts for beating the Shadow Lairs. If you can just buy one, it ruins any meaning owning one might have.

I'm not so sure why you're all so surprised, this is not very different than the Shadow Key thing where they sold it off the vendor for 1500 CE, people stocking up on it because they said they're going away for awhile....then a short time later they released it for 1800 CE and then 1350 CE before anybody could really profit. When those affected by this complained on a thread, the SK "fanboys" ridiculed them or dismissed their rage on OOO. Makes me wonder if OOO finally hit the SK "fanboys" where it hurts now?

Sure this situation is different, the rose sets were harder to obtain, there's a 8 month period inbetween, and they're being resold now at very limited quantity compared to the Shadow Keys....but the OOO strategy is the same.

I'm not affected by this Rose Regalia thing....I only got burned on buying 3 shadow keys but I learned from the keys incident and reading on the forums not to trust OOO, where I kind of naively did before. If you think they put the player's experience first before making a profit, I think you're mistaken....or they have changed. They clearly seem to putting their profit before the player's experience now. Take the Elevator Pass for instance, people think it was to alleviate the high CE Market Prices....it only lined OOO pockets and drove it up more. Then the Featured Auction was added which reduced the CE market for a while. I noticed a pattern of "Problem, How OOO can profit from this, Made Problem Worse, Now OOO tries to Remedy the Problem. Repeat".

I think OOO should just put the player's experience first, they can still profit well this way. They should just release new content instead of trying to deceive the player out of their hard earned money.

And if you think it's hard for them to release new content, you're wrong. This Rose Regalia thing could have so easily been avoided if they were different colors (ie. New Content because they'd be new items). If you doubt how easy it is for OOO to do this.....check out these files in your SK directory. Goto your Spiral Knights directory \rsrc\item\gear\armor\tabard\ and look at the files skin_blk.png & etc with a picture viewer. Yup those 31k picture files are the Rose Regalia tabards. Now how long would it take OOO or anybody to load up photoshop and change the colors on them thereby creating new content? Or how about new accessories.... \rsrc\item\gear\accessory\armor\front\badge\skin_proto.png is the proto crest, imagine how easy it would be to make a whole bunch of new badges. OOO can even do a minimal amount of work by letting players make new accessory pictures and submit them to OOO to select and include in the game....thereby netting them new content & profit for minimum work.

But I digress. Things could be better, but they're not. Expect more of the same so you can avoid the pitfalls.

TL;DR:
Same old OOO Strategy. Shadow Keys, Elevator Pass. Rose Regalia? OOO should make new content instead. New content easy to do, but OOO rather deceive players for profit instead of making new content to make players happy and profit mutually. Expect more of the same.

Chillax guys, its only 2 sets of each, from what i see right now. Nothing to seriously injure your profit making. Lol

I for one have to agree with Ruby's Original Post.

I was not here for the package of White, Red, and Black, but I have seen them every once in a while and fell in love with white. It is my favorite color, and it is the nicest out of all 8 Rose sets in my opinion. Granted, I have a beautiful gold set that i got from trading back and forth during the Redux promotion, but at that time, I had not put in a penny into the game in order to get even my first one.

What I am trying to say here is, when I heard the Rose sets where limited to a package deal that happened prior to me even hearing of the game, I was disappointed about not ever having the opportunity to get any of them, though I knew I could one day afford to buy one off someone. Though it is not about what "I" want as a single player, it is what the majority of the SK community are looking at. We want to feel special, and honestly, being told something is limited, and Nick I know you addressed this in an earlier comment of this thread, I feel limited should truly be, "limited."

I am looking forward to the next boss now, and I know you guys worked hard on the SL's. I can tell when I failed the Ice Queen miserably from lack of energy or gear. Thankfully I now know what I am up against and will be working towards a very powerful Skolver set. But some new bosses would be nice rather than bringing in more accessories.

I honestly do not mean to be rude with this post, I just hope it brought some attention to your eyes about what some of us, at least some, probably most, are looking for. We want something to keep us busy, not to make us just look cool. Ice Queen Crown, Arcane Salamander Suit with Proto Crest and Military Wolver Tail. Awaiting the day to have that setup. LOL.

Sincerely,
Noobowns

I do agree with Ruby, and I also think Nick has a great point, and with that said both sides have a good argument, but Nick wins this argument only since he proved that limited is never meant to mean they go away like POOF....kinda like when I was little and people told me the Charizard Pokemon card is like ubber rare and stuff and x amount was printed they so lied =(.

What brothers? The only brothers i know on the game are my brother and i. But i assure you, i post all of my hated, despised, self-serving content firmly under my name: Pawn.

And if you don't like, just remember: i am just a pawn. a piece to be pushed. inexorably moving towards its final destination.

P.S. Rubyeclipse may or may not be my alt

@Pawn: You can disregard whatever "Public-Relations" has typed. One who needs to post hiding behind an alternate (forum) account, his words have no weight and serve no purpose. LMAO. Waste of bandwidth. Period.