It's a differet turn that OOO made that ticked people off, not the price. People forsee what may become of Spiral Knights, but their vision may be obscure. They will be missed, though. This happens to every game. As for those who are leaving, I wish you farewell and hope that you may return (and maybe when OOO might fix this situation).

I have a feeling this is only going to turn into a huge argument which, right now, we don't need more of. So I guess Imma have to aid Treize with this hijacking. I agree- the stuff is better used then deleted, especially if someone bough ce with real money to craft. Despite the fact it's a little.. distasteful (??) in accordance with the melancholy mood of all this, I for one, would feel honored to know I was wielding a sword Nicoya, for example, crafted and used.

I think its less about them being "spoiled", and more about them being dissatisfied and hurt by the upgrade. OOO doesn't make content very often, and they kind of sneakily changed it up at the last second. I COULD purchase the update very easily with my "hard earned ce", as could Nicoya, but I don't really want to support OOO in their endeavor to make the game more pay-to-win than it already is. You paid twice what the promotion cost the seller. That was a person with money, whom is now buying content instead of buying ce, which directly hurts the new F2P people, whom will be more pressured to leave the game. This isn't very healthy for the economy. Granted, its not going to cause a heart attack or be the end of the world, but just as eating a cheeseburger isn't going to kill you, it is most definitely a step in the wrong direction.

People like Nicoya (whom just left) are (or were) the heart of the community. Whether or not you talk to them, they post on the forums, help to fill in the wiki with pictures and numbers and ideas, and they help to spread the game to the world by producing youtube videos and telling their friends. And when that kind of person leaves, the game dies a little as a player asks a question and receives one less answer, or tries to see how much damage a volcanic pepperbox would do in S2 and cannot.

It doesn't matter if buying content is a "standard" in many MMOs, or if its the golden standard of all games, or if it just "must be". Spiral Knights doesn't have to be "other games", and it certainly doesn't have to make the same mistakes they make in its unique financial plan that may or may not even work with such upgrade paths economically. The argument that DLC costing USD only as a standard just doesn't work. Nor was asking for CE ridiculous.

Another point, its rather deceitful feeling. Its like OOO said- "If you buy CE now, you'll get more! Spend money to buy ce so you can get more now, and then buy the new content with that!" and then immediately took that back, and said "JUST KIDDING. Pay us again for it. We erm, need this on steam. Yeah. Steam made us do it. Important announcements. Yup. Even changed it in the mission notes from 2 weeks ago so that you guys would know in advance. Kind of."- and that's after 4 CE promotions in a row, with almost no new content in the middle.

Now go disregard all of this and perhaps even purchase a crimson hammer pack or twelve. Then all of the (good) new content can be like this.

You really need to think harder.

It's not about F2P vs P2P. It's about OOO saying "CE is worthless now, give us more money". If you're able to trade 3000ce to somebody for it to be gifted to you, then why don't OOO offer the Expansion Missions for 3000CE directly in game? Because they don't want 3000ce, they want money now. But CE is money, it is only obtainable by real money and is understood to represent real money in game. If a F2P player obtains CE, it still represents the real money that was spent to get it into the game. If a P2P player buys CE with real money before, why can't he use that bought CE to buy the Expansion Missions now? The money value is the same, bought with the same real money. It's because OOO is trying to cheat us saying "CE is worthless now, give us more money".

People don't quit for the short term. The short term is nothing -- we can all agree on this.

They quit because if this model is so successful -- and so far, it is, SK will become almost entirely P2P from this point on. They're just getting out while they're ahead.

It's one thing to whine about P2P and how F2Ps can't play it/how you have to pay $4 for it. But everyone gets their share of say, and let them have it. Simply agree to disagree. There's no consensus that we'll reach in the forums of all places; no magic bullet that will hit people and make them change their minds.

Before you troll me, I bought the pack, and I'm not quitting. I simply respect the views of those that thing it's severe enough to quit over.

I have a solution that i like and think serves well.

1st. @ Batabii. I respect your decision to not pay for content. But plz do realize it is a free to play game, and not a free game. The servers, the ce, etc cost money. Still, if u don't want to pay for it, i certainly understand. I WILL BET THEY PUT THE NEW EQUIPMENT ON THE AH. All caps for a reason. You will still be able to get this new equipment. OOO will put it in the featured AH. IMO that's why it is permabound.

2nd. I feel for everyone who can't or doesn't want to pay for it. We (you) support the game for a year (almost) and FINALLY we get new content and ur locked out. Boo.

My solution. Once 30 people (or some random made up number) in a guild has purchased the content with real $$ or bought thru steam in-game, make the content purchasable as a guild perk for a high number such as 25k ce (which would be about the cost of 10-15 people buying it). And it becomes available to all people in the guild, but is owned by the guild. I can guarantee you most large guilds would put together to buy this. Rommil and I both bought the expansion, but we would both gladly shell out an additional 10k ce to give our guild clearance. Of course i don't know where the numbers would need to be to be profitable, but still. Even if they made it so that as a guild perk u didn't get the rewards, at least friends could play it with u. Even if the guild cost was 30-40kce most large guilds could come up with it. It's not a perfect solution, but better than what we have now.

At no point, in any free-to-play game, should you be PUNISHED for not paying.
It's that simple.

Then why create a free to play game at all if you don't expect to at least break even? Even if there wasn't new content, there would still be costs that have to be paid for what not. The entire basis of free to play is to keep a player in the game long enough so that they eventually pay to play. Honestly, most free to play sections of MMORPGs are really glorified demos.

Then why create a free to play game at all if you don't expect to at least break even?

Very few people are expecting Three Rings to be doing all this for absolutely nothing. However, people were expecting to be able to use CE as the purchase currency given how that is what the entire economy has been built around. Plus using CE was the original promise and the issue might not have even come to light until the release if someone hadn't made the query in the forums in the first place.

Seriously, it's a pretty big "whoops" to change the pay structure for some content and neglect to mention it until someone happens to ask.

Now yes, you can trade CE to another player to get them to trade over the content via Steam trade. However, not only is this making the process more awkward (as in free players need to actually find a seller, settle on an acceptable price and then carry out the trade) but it locks out people who don't play via Steam and can't or don't want to pay real money. And surprisingly, those players that aren't paying real money? Yeah, they're pretty important to the game too. That Penny Arcade video that's been posted around a fair bit demonstrates why perfectly. Just because they're not adding $$$ to the game upkeep directly does not mean they aren't contributing in some manner.

Now, are Sega and Three Rings entitled to do this? Well yes, of course, it's their game and they can distribute content any way they wish. And yes, some games use a lot of paid DLC content to bring in the extra cash. But all this needs to be considered in line with the way SK has been marketed so far and determine if this new strategy really gels with that. I imagine we're not going to see any changes in the way this DLC is handled (except hopefully allowing gifting outside of Steam) until it's been out for a while and has had a chance to show some actual sales data. I'm not abandoning all hope for it personally. The Shadow Key system was changed after all, proving that Three Rings can admit to when they've screwed up.

As for quiting, I don't really feel that urge myself. It's true that I'm unlikely to experience this content anytime soon, but the majority of the game is still free to me. I can still do rank missions, random clockworks runs or dabble in a little PvP if I wanted to (just got to watch for those exclusive weapons). No, I don't like the way the DLC situation was handled but I'm not going to stop playing just because one set of missions is currently locked off to me if I don't cough up some cash.

"I would like to point out that Featured Auctions often have absurd prices, into the millions even. I have never possessed more than 100kcr at any time, and I only got 10k on my last trip to vanaduke, just to put things in perspective."

The featured auctions are crown sinks for end-game players with spare dosh lying around. It was initially introduced to drive CE prices down. I have to disagree with the poster who said the items from the missions will be obtainable through featured auctions one day; the items you get from the mission are one of the incentives to even purchase the DLC.

"Cheat's a pretty strong word, since all previous applications of CE still apply. Just because it doesn't apply to the new content, doesn't automatically make it worthless."

Yes "cheat" is a strong word, but I cannot think of a better word. Scam maybe?

Do you think it's acceptable if I put money on a store card, came back 3 months later to buy something with the card only to be told I cannot buy anything new that was added to the store inventory after I got the card? Would this be fair?

When everyone bought CE before the Expansion Missions were released, they were under the understanding and impression that CE is good as money and can be used to purchase everything in the game....present and future. Now to be told that CE cannot be used is deceptive.....much the same if OOO decided tomorrow to make CE unusable in the game. There's a reasonable expectation that CE will be usable tomorrow just as much as there was a reasonable expectation that CE could be used to purchase everything money could.

So maybe "cheat" is not strong enough of a word.

Um i cant get it D:

Im not a steamer.

Im a konger?

I'm pretty sure that if they made the expansion pack purchasable with CE ingame - even if it is for a ridiculously huge amount of CE - all this anger would die down.