There's a lot of complaining going on about CE prices & how long you can play whether you spend money or not. That's dumb. This game is sweet. You can play an hour or two a day casually for free. That's pretty sweet. Oh, and the game is fun. And it's not arbitrarily limited. Does some stuff need to be improved? Sure, but that's in every game.
I for one think the current CE & mist energy & tank & elevator prices are great. Anyone agree?
I think the whole poe/doubloon, crown/energy concept is excellent and wish it were used in more games and services. I think Three Rings is really on to something with that design.
The concept of the market is fine, but there's the problem of there being no impetus to put CE INTO the market, esp. with crowns being useless in high tiers.
May I counter that?
One : What if you like to have a wide variety of equipment to handle any situation? Elemental blades for those pesky undead, other types for those stupid beasts. Maybe different types of guns for different situations? You're always going to be buying/selling/crafting, and that requires crowns (as well as CE).
Two : There may very well be a need for crowns for future content. This is only the beginning, and most folks complaining that crowns are useless don't seem like they're factoring in the future very well. Remember: This game has an exceptionally small development team.
Three : Well, less so this as the market gets crazier, but buying extra CE as padding is always going to be popular, no matter how pricy it gets. Although if you're not being too greedy, you can REALLY stretch that CE out over time.
That being said, I've been hooked ever since this game became open to play to the public. Keep it up, guys. You rock. And don't pay attention to the whiners.
...you can instead hoard CE, which is 1. tangible, 2. fairly liquid, 3. sells for increasing rates every day, and 4. used for all high-tier trades.
So...why would anyone (5*) sitting on a stockpile of CE sell it to get crowns? There's no immediate need for a large infusion of crowns, whereas the value of CE is appreciating weekly.
Hell, even for endgame equipment and variety, there're only so many items you're going to want, and the crown costs are far lower than the equivalent CE costs (excepting recipes, which are one-shot for all you want).
That is just the point though, Arydrall - we know they have plans to continue to develop the game, but we are offering what needs to be done asap.
As for your points
1) Unfortunately, while there is definitely different sets of gear/weapons best for every occasion, there are a few sets that seem to overpower the others and can do well in all situations. Most high level players have these already, and already don't need to be spending their crowns anymore. This happened in beta, and now it is happening here, so the crowns are becoming devalued (not useless, but definitely losing their worth).
2) This is what we need. Some place to spend our CE or Crowns to keep the market going and keep values up.
3) Aye. :P
Hey, I'm just throwing ideas out there, man.
There's not much data to go off of right now. We don't know how things will change in the future, despite the raw amount of far-seeing oracles that are out there decrying the fate of SK despite it's recent release. (Those guys should probably focus more on y'know, playing the stock market and other things)
Remember, these guys made Puzzle Pirates. They, uh, are extremely good at supporting their releases. (Puzzle pirates was released in 2003. They're still going strong)
Maybe PVP will cost crowns to play instead of CE? I don't know how PVP was in the preview. Or maybe there'll be other things. For instance, the gate construction stuff, gate boosting to get a result you want to see would certainly drain crowns. That sounds awful interesting.
is a crown transfer, moreso than a crown sink.
I'm still in favor of vanity items and/or 'cool' items. Not saying premium, but cool (e.g. not a huge benefit over other players, but looks awesome/still confers some relatively balanced bonuses...and looks awesome). They seem to be a pretty functional idea for other games.
Yes. Most emphatically so.