I'm going to be the lone wet blanket on the new elevator pass bundle

I'm sure I'm foreveralone.jpg on this one, but I'm actually a bit disappointed with the new elevator pass package.
From a strict value perspective, of course, it's completely and entirely superior to the previous elevator pass package. Basically the same price, for the same thing, but with free extras thrown in.
Stranger hat? No problem. Looks a bit derpy but I can ignore it. Heat amp? Neutral on this, it's not like it takes ages to heat a piece of gear doing a couple FSC runs which, coincidentally, the elevator pass facilitates quite nicely.
But the 1000 ce rubs me the wrong way. The whole reason I bought the elevator pass in the first place was so I could send OOO some money for making a great game, and get more hours of gameplay in without having to worry about my play time running out, without buying my way to victory. (I should mention that I have no problem with people who do buy their way to victory, it's just not my thing)
Now granted I could just give away 100 ce to 10 players on my friends list, or hold a little contest for free ce, or trade it for some accessories, but all that is more fuss and bother than I want to deal with. I don't want to play favourites, I don't want to run a contest, and I don't want to deal with coming up short or having extra left over on a costume/accessory trade.
You've done a great thing, Nick, and on behalf of everyone else in the game I thank you. But for the moment at least I'm gonna pass on it.

Why not give that CE to me? ;)
All joking aside, I can understand not wanting this package. I personally wanted it a lot when I saw the price, but then I saw the hats...ew. D:
I never got an Elevator pass to start with, since I liked having a daily limit of mist energy so I don't play SK too much, and I don't feel that I play enough to make good use of the pass (not to mention I promised myself to not spend on SK after I went overboard when I first started).

But the 1000 ce rubs me the wrong way. {..} without buying my way to victory.
Eh?
Since when is crafting stuff with CE you bought "buying your way to victory"?
I don't even see how buying CE in order to get crowns qualifies as "buying your way to victory", since end-game equipment means very little compared with end-game skill. Sure, if you drop enough cash, in a matter of a day you can go through the shadow lairs solo by buying 5* equipment, racing through levels to get T2/T3 access and spending a *lot* of time on the 1000CE revive cap, but you are going to find very few people who will call that "victory". Indeed, a lot more people would call getting through T2 bosses in proto gear to be victory.
If you want to make yourself feel better, just don't sell any CE on the exchange.
There is nothing wrong with buying and using CE. The game needs people to do that.

you can also just let the CE sit there haha ;)
no need to use it... i think i just spend the last CE i would spend last night crafting my snarby armor (and maybe i'll use the remaining for a costume when i feel like it)

Wasn't the supply of CE one of the main concerns concerning the Elevator Pass? Many people were worried about how the Pass was much better to get than its equivalent in CE, thus strangling the source of CE into the economy and raising energy prices. Sounds like this is a workaround for that.
If anything, you can just sell off all 1000 CE and make some CE buyers happy, then go into the AH and bid several thousand crowns on Gel Drops.

@Algol-Sixty Let me put it another way. I could drop a pile of cash on a bunch of CE and own pretty much every piece of equipment in the game. And then... what would there be left to do? Granted I enjoy playing the game just for the sake of playing, but half the fun is slowly working my way towards different pieces of gear that interest me. If I started buying CE with real cash, it would be like, I dunno, eating an entire cheesecake in one sitting: delicious at first, but something one would quickly regret later.
That said, 1000ce isn't much. Combined with mist (since I'd have an elevator pass, there's no reason not to use the mist for crafting) it's exactly enough to craft one piece of gear up from 3 to 5 stars. But it still just doesn't feel right to me. I want to be able to look at my gear and know that I dragged it up from the clockworks one crown at a time (well, a couple thousand at a time, but you get the point).

Well, that CE you bought was brought into the game at some point using real money. So, someone, sometime payed OOO for you to be able to craft that 3* and up thingy, and now OOO basically gives you 2000ce as a gift for getting next months elevator pass.
Why not then?

its the principle of, the more money(CE in this case) the more responsibility with it, i guess
im somwhat getting what you are trying to say

Buy it for the pass, convert the energy to crowns and "donate" your money to either punch or vise the unbinding smith. Presto, OOO gave you the opertunity to give a 4* item to a friend or made your gear a bit more awesome. You already made that gear, it's yours and you can feel proud of that. The UV is a tiny extra bonus you got with your pass and taking crowns out of the system is a good thing.
Make sure you mail your energy and crowns to yourself before you do this, I hate it when my "honest" crowns get contaminated with "dirty" bought crowns. Dispose of the leftovers that aren't divideable by 20k.

If you feel a bit guilty with the CE, do what Silphius said and convert it to crowns and roll on your items.
:)

I play the game, gradually earning money to buy stuff with, but the bulk of my money comes from CE I bought and random lucky crafts. It's sort of an interesting thing, because the reason I enjoy the game is because I like gradually earning stuff, and yet that's not where my stuff comes from.
I'm aware of the irony and it doesn't really bother me. Fun is fun. 1k or even 20k CE isn't going to get you everything you desire, anyway. If it bothers you, I'd advise spending it all on Shadow Keys.

@Nicoya-Kitty
While I tend to agree with you, and that I feel it's somewhat cheap to 'buy one's way to victory', if you truly felt that way completely, you wouldn't have purchased an Elevator Pass, either.
That said, I am very much inclined to spend via this promo, since:
a) It was the Christmas-type promotion I was expecting, when the Elevator Passes were first released
b) It is far too good of a price point to pass up without strong consideration(just the Pass, CE and amp, the other things are cosmetic and pointless to me)
c) I have already 'achieved victory' by grinding for all of the 5* gear I wanted via the previous month's Elevator Pass
If you truly feel like this promotion is not for you, however, I would speculate that a standalone version will be available after the holidays are over. Or, you could grind normally(via ME and CE) until you feel like you have 'accomplished' your set of gear, and THEN purchase the pack(they are available until Jan. 2, after all)

Hoard it. Mmmm hmm...
Although it's technically a mental disorder, it's fun to have some CE sitting there, never being used...I know I would do that with my CE if I ever bought any.
speeding through the game is boooriing. Slow upgrading is fun and lets you appreciate the weapons/gear more as you get some sort of feeling of progression through the game.

You could also trade it for some Steam games. :)
You wouldn't get full value for it right now, but maybe later. It shouldn't be too much trouble to find someone willing to trade you games at 400-700 CE a dollar in the bazaar.

Well, I bought CE before the elevator passes, and about 80% of what Iv'e used it for is only elevators, basically using it as the pass today. I kept a tab on earned v.s depth energy, and when I was down to my last bit the accessories came out, so I bought one. For this, I'm tempted to buy this, so when I'm done with the pass I'll have extra energy for depths or to make the cost of a shadow key only 700ce (100 mist and 1000ce) or just another silver key.

or like Kalaina-Elderfall said buy some shadow keys ;)
trust me you still have to work your way trough the shadow lairs (now i did my first one i WANT to do more but 1800/450CE for a remapped bossfight is a bit to much for me so maybe this extra bit of CE will get me to buy some more keys and do the other lairs)

Buying an elevator pass is "Buying your way to Victyory" as well. No differences to me.
Spend the ce on shadow keys. You still need to fight through hell and back to get anything out of the shadow lair, so it sure isn't buying your way to victory. I'd know.

That sentence itself rubs me the wrong way.
Although I know this isn't an attack on anyone. I don't really think buying CE is buying your way to victory.
I used to play like you, without paying a cent. (you thought this was gonna be a arrow->knee joke huh?)
But I finally caved and bought CE when I wanted to play more than the daily mist allowed. Sure now I'm at the point where any CE I have is now spare for anything I may want to buy, but never at any point did I find it to be buying my way to victory.
Now I'm completely fine with Mist play everyday. And hey. You said it yourself "so I could send OOO some money for making a great game."
That attitude is all that was needed. :3

@Vescrit
I'm in the same boat as you in terms of buying CE. I think the idea of "buying your way to victory" is a personal achievement mentality, though, rather than the idea that everyone who buys CE is "buying their way to victory." I definitely understand the mentality, because it's sort of the idea of skipping the game. If I immediately have all the stuff I need/want, then why play at all? I think it's just a different strokes thing, though, some people are just more tolerant of buying than others, ignoring the money costs, but they don't necessarily look down on the people who do buy.
With the elevator pass, you're still earning all your crowns. You're just earning them a little bit faster. That's different from just buying a million crowns worth of CE because you're not "missing out on the game".
The thing is that having all the stuff you need/want costs an absurd amount of money relative to what the average person is willing to pay. We're talking like 200k CE to get a variety of good UV equips with rare accessories. That's ten 20k CE packages. So even if you do buy a few packs, there's still plenty of stuff left to shoot for.

"If I immediately have all the stuff I need/want, then why play at all?"
Exactly, I didn't buy all the CE I have just to buy my armor. I used it when I felt it was time to upgrade, I only did so to help me get further in the game slightly faster. In fact, when I bought 6000 CE, I used it on not only myself. I used it to help my friends who had just started.
"We're talking like 200k CE to get a variety of good UV equips with rare accessories."
I did happen to grind a bunch of crowns just to get my UV's, though I was lucky while crafting my inital weapons.

What really rubs me the wrong way is that neither package can be had thru the mobile phone option.
Mobile payment, $2.00 = 612 whopping Ce compared to the explorers pack.
~Luke

Why is buying CE "buying your way to victory" exactly? CE can be used for more than just trading for crowns, such as just going through more runs i fyou don't have an elevator pass (and if you do have a pass, it's the exact same as buying infinite CE that's used exclusively for elevators, which is still "buying victory"), it can be used for lazy revives within the dungeons or reviving others/full team, or for paying elevator tabs for friends and guildies who're worse off than you, it can also be used to pay the energy cost for crafting, because one might not want to pay 800 ce to craft a 5* item that's funded with their crowns that they DID earn the hard way...
et cetera. You don't get to say that buying CE is "buying your way to victory" when there's plenty more innocent usages for it, try not to be so assumptuous, or frankly, obnoxious. You're happy with the free costumes (that you would have to buy in game for ce/cr), the silver key (that costs ce/cr), the elevator pass (that replaces ce), the heat amp (which costs ce/cr), but just getting a nice wee dollop of raw ce rubs you the wrong way? Get real.
You could always use the CE for costume items you wouldn't normally make, like a Mercurial helm, or maybe some oddball lockdown weapons