I want this, it's been months :(

Actually OOO said already that they were studying new payment choices including as CE, from a post months ago.

Though, I am still waiting and it is about time <<

I even have friends who have offered to donate the OCH mission to me, but I don't use Steam.

I procrastinate against games who force you to use a game engine for ONE single game when it's meant for a multitude of games, and it's 3rd-Party software. No reason for SK to limit players who play the raw game from a player's perspective.

No way will I be drawn in to OOO's little ploy to try and get everyone to use Steam. If that's the case, they should've built it on Steam first. I'm sure they get advertising money or something from Steam, but it's really not cool when they try to force everyone to use it just because they make some pennies from it.

~Sev

I can't really imagine Valve making an agreement with Sega/OOO just to prevent them to give out a DLC(of a F2P-game, which is also completely optional at that, thus probably having not as high sales as other games) for premium-cash(because that's what CE technically is). It's not like I don't believe they would be so mean, because judging game companys like that is simply naive. What I'm saying however is that such an agreement simply wouldn't gross out enough profit for them to be of any actual use.

So, I'd say that such an agreement is of no actual use except pissing people off, because everytime you want people to do something in such a contract, you'd need to give them something, too(obviously). A restriction of a single ADD-ON for a F2P-game seems, imho, not like a fitting reason to make such a contract, at least not when you're trying to make money.

So while I think there's no sort of conspiracy going on against us players, I just think that it's just Steam itself that overcomplicates everything a bit. Maybe they have problems giving people an add-on on steam by buying it in-game without using the in-game overlay for actual money payments? Or maybe it's the whole thing about being able to play the game with and without steam(I can well imagine compatibility issues or something to be a problem). Anyways, I'm pretty sure it rather has to do with Steam itself, not some weird agreement between the people behind Steam and the publisher/devs of the game.

Because you can't just provide a service like DLC to only half of the playerbase. For the official client, it's simple. But with Steam, you have to do something like make Steam accept that you bought the DLC for free with in-game currency outside of their client. I can imagine the solution wouldn't be pretty and I don't believe Valve would be too happy about it either.

If you give the one half of the playerbase what they want and the other side not, this side will feel disadvantaged and will be angry at you and the other playerbase. It's perfectly reasonable, too: "Mum, why can't I have what my brother/sister got? That's so unfair! I wanted it too! We could even have played together with our toys!" Of course, you could say there was only one of it left, or that you only had money for one. But of course, this doesn't solve the problem, because if you knew you couldn't buy the toy for both, why did you buy a single one in the first place? The good ol' "You're too young/too old for it", whatever you wanna interpret it in comparison to the game, doesn't work either, because you're technically dealing with equally old twins.

And while, in such an unfair scenario, the kid will first play sorehead, trying to not interact with the parent's that neglected him in favour for his bro/sis, and later behave like nothing happened, players aren't as dependent on the game they play as a kid is to its mum. When they play sorehead and go, they will often go for realz. And even if they stay, they will constantly keep in mind that they got refused a feature the other group got.

Only solution for the problem? Wait until the oppoturnity to gift them both the toys they want. All wait a bit longer, but everyone is happy.

... besides the psychological aspect of granting only one half of the playerbase the features, we also have to keep the account-migration to steam in account. The account-migration could cause some problems in the idea of only granting the non-steam community the benefit.

Steam has an actual system for trading in-game items? It would be bad if they would implent the trading system for steam only from scratch while still leaving the other players in the dust, because that would be buying the toy for one. However, here all they do is utilizing a feature that's already there, and that's basically just using the attributes of the room the kid lives in, for example using the other shape of the room for a better furniture-placement to leave the kid with more space to play(the example isn't the best, but understandable. Just go with it).
Of course, you could give the other kid the same space, but that involves rebuying the furniture or buying more special furniture to use every centimeter efficiently(or namely, do the dirty work of implenting a trading system for other sites yourself).
The kicker? We are talking about the trading system here: It's not OOO offering the service of selling OCH with CE, it's the other players. So in the end, all OOO was doing is taking advantage of the room, adding a trading system that just happens to be there. It never actually bought the toy. You are just using your different room to get the toy somehow.

So we aren't talking about buying OCH with CE as feature, because it's, technically, no service by OOO, but by players selling the DLC for CE. So it's the trade feature that's there, not the CE-OCH-service. And as I already said, that's already a feature of the room the kid lives in.

In case my weird metaphor-thing confused you, my point is as follows:
Steam players got the trading system because it's already in steam implented, they are just using what's there. Also, steamers didn't got any feature by OOO to buy the DLC with CE, they just got the trading feature. It's other players offering it for CE. It's steam-only because the steam-trade feature, quite obviously, is exclusive to steam. They could add such a feature for the official site and wherever else people play the game, but that always involves developing a trading feature from scratch in case it isn't there.

"So why not implent the CE-buy feature on other sites to balance it out?"
Because first of all, even if we take out the fact that steamers didn't got a REAL service to buy it with CE, and that they're just using the trade-feature as some sort of loophole, the account-migrating alone could cause a few compatibility problems(and it would discourage it, because while outside of steam you can buy it directly from OOO, at steam you have to rely on other players). And if it's not the migrating, there are another 100 factors to consider.

So yeah, in other words: I'd say we should just wait for the feature to be done on all sides before releasing it.
And I know you will now find some flaw in my argument you are likely to exploit to prove me wrong and all that and blah blah blah. I'll just say that having it available for only one side is no smart option, because there are so many things to consider. Obviously OOO thinks that too. Either that, or they are just playing jerkass and won't let you do that because they're eeevil. Either way, only waiting will let us find out.

The thing is, OOO and Sega are supposed to make a profit off the game. Expansion Packs help with that. Everyone knows (maybe not the beginners, sorry guys) that CE is obtainable via crowns. If the expansion packs are available for purchase via energy then people will most likely go for that option instead of the other (using money). That will ruin the entire points of expansion packs (part of the point anyways)
Basically, no, sorry :(

The only other way to get CE involves paying it from OOO. As someone has to invest CE into the market before someone can buy it first(obviously), all CE in the market already WAS payed with real money. If they'd use the CE to buy the expansion pack, it would have gone back to OOO, more or less. Down the drain, if you will.
In other words, CE being obtainable for crowns is a myth. It doesn't exist. Every bit CE in the game has been payed by someone. It's just that the buyer isn't necessarily the consumer of the currency.

With that in mind, it's
Money => Expansion Pack
versus
Money => CE => Expansion Pack

The end result is really just the same: Someone invests money, someone gets the expansion pack.

Of course, that would mean that CE is being exchangable with the expansion pack, and thus your decision wether to buy the DLC or CE isn't a final one anymore. This CAN result in lower overall sells, because people don't need to buy CE and DLC seperately anymore. However, it's always nice if a game gives you the choice, and little things like this help rising the trust between player and game(it doesn't want to hoax you into buying both), making them more likely to invest money into the game. This is kind of a stretch to calculate that in, I know, but these kind of things really help building some sort of trust base to the players.

However, your argument reminded me off a problem that will very surely appear when this feature would get implented: As everyone wants the energy for the DLC, the CE-price might shoot into(even more than already) ridiculous heights due to supply-shortage on the market and the massive demand of getting the DLC for virtually nothing(you invest time instead of money, and someone still is paying for it in a way). Probably no reason for OOO not to do it(unless they wanna be nice to the player base/see no profit in a game with overprized player-market and keep the CE-prices down), but it would still be another point to consider.

THIS GAME ALL ABOUT THE MONEY NOT WHAT WIKIPEDIA SAYS THAT THIS GAME IS FREE. A KNIGHT ELITE HAS TO DO JELLY KINGS FIRST 2 LEVELS 5 TIMES JUST TO GET 10K SO THAT HE CAN PURCHASE 100 CE TO MAKE HIS 3* WEAPON AND KEEPS ON INCREASING 4* 300 CE ,5* 700 CE THAT IS WHY YHRY JOIN VANGUARDS TO DO FSC AND DESTROY THE BALANCE OF THE GAME BECAUSE THEY ARE DESPERATE TO GET THE MONEY THIS IS A TACTIC OF THE DEVELOPERS TO ENCOURAGE TO BUY PACKAGES IT WILL TAKE A KNIGHT ELITE A YEAR TO BECOME A VANGUARD. WELL THERE ARE SOME SOLUTIONS TO THIS PROBLEMS 1:- REDUCE CE PRICES
2:- REDUCE CRAFTING PRICES
3:- START GIVING MORE MONEY IN MISSION FOR EXAMPLE INSTEAD OF 2K IN JK GIVE 3K THIS WILL REDUCE SOME OF THE BURDEN ON THE NEW PLAYERS I HOPE PEOPLE SUPPORT ME AND M IDEA THANK YOU

... and let you choke on it. Too much big letters hurt my brains! No periods are even worse.

So yeah, kinda doing the same as Luguiru and backing him up a bit more(which won't help, but this caps-logger is making me feel angry!)...

"... NOT WHAT WIKIPEDIA SAYS..."
You should never trust what's on wikipedia, always use secondary sources to back the information from there up. Might help you to get through what comes after the elementary school, where you obviously come from if you can't even utilize the caps lock right. Ugh!

"A KNIGHT ELITE HAS TO DO JELLY KINGS FIRST 2 LEVELS 5 TIMES JUST TO GET 10K"
Hold on, hold on! Knight Elite? Damnit, you can clear a no-boss jelly run with 3*-equipment and average skill, as long as you stay careful and have a decent partner with you that can back up and revive you in the worst case scenarios. Slimes are in no way demanding: They are slow, predictable, slow, have low range, cluster together like no other enemy and are thus by far the easiest to take out with AOE and... slooow. Just throwing that in, you are kinda exxagerating with Knight Elite here.

"DO JELLY KINGS FIRST 2 LEVELS 5 TIMES JUST TO GET 10K SO THAT HE CAN PURCHASE 100 CE TO MAKE HIS 3* WEAPON AND KEEPS ON INCREASING 4* 300 CE ,5* 700 CE"
The friendly box above me kinda already stated the main argument: Getting the CE together for the new equipment goes a million times faster than you'd think. Granted, getting to Tier 3 at first CAN be pretty grindy at times. Then again, this game only has 5 armor-levels, and the armor-level technically determites your player-level. With 4*-equipment, you pretty much stand on the gate to the endgame. This is MY point(see how I sparely used the caps-lock to show you what word I emphasized in my sentence?): It's the jump from mid-game to the beginning of the endgame(I know there are danger missions and all that, but Tier 3 IS the last clockwork tier). It's a huge jump, especially considering how Tier 3 rolls in comparison to the other tiers.
Regarding Tier 5-stuff: This is basically the endgame, unless you go for the shadow lairs. Ever tried to reach the level cap in another game? It gets progressively harder, with a difficulty spike somewhere at the end of mid-game and another one at the endgame. And here it's absolutely the same: Getting to Tier 3 is hard, getting max'd equipment for Tier 3 is even harder. You are not supposed to reach the cap easily.

"WHY YHRY"
What is this word? I don't even...

"JOIN VANGUARDS TO DO FSC AND DESTROY THE BALANCE OF THE GAME BECAUSE THEY ARE DESPERATE TO GET THE MONEY THIS IS A TACTIC OF THE DEVELOPERS TO ENCOURAGE TO BUY PACKAGES IT WILL TAKE A KNIGHT ELITE A YEAR TO BECOME A VANGUARD."
Ironically enough, the energy system, as we like to call it, actually is one of the fairest F2P-systems I ever saw. Granted, progression takes quite long for F2Pers, but it never seems unfair and you still have a decent progression rate. There is no premium-content whatsoever, and thus F2P can get as far as P2P, paying time instead of money. This kinda adds fun to the game, because its at times pretty hard nature really shines if you don't take shortcuts. In fact, the game seems pretty much designed with mainly F2P in mind, and not, what all these people want to allege the devs, with a completely greedy system in mind. Of course, you can interpret the above's doing as you please, but as they don't affect the market in any way, they can't actively force people to pay for their energy. It's bad design because energy is horribly overvalued, yes, but they don't actually restrict the market or the player's abilities in any way other than making promos(which actually BENEFITS the F2P-side due to CE-influx) and said design for where and when crowns are needed over energy(which makes solid crown-sinks so important: To encourage using the market to convert energy into crowns).

"WELL THERE ARE SOME SOLUTIONS TO THIS PROBLEMS"
Caps-lock abuser with questionable exxagerated arguments and a know-it-all suggestion introduction? ... well, I'll just assume he turns out to only have hit the caps-lock by accident and actually has reasonable suggestions :D

"THE WHOLE REST IN INFERNAL CAPS RAGE!"
...
... are you frikkin' serious?

1. Lug already pointed out the vagueness of that statement.
2. Needing to use less energy doesn't keep people from needing it elsewhere or buying it on the best oppoturnity anyway, simply because crowns are worthless tokens in comparison to the shiny blue stuff.
Besides that, the prices seem well balanced. I don't approve the game becoming easier to advance, because even if your insane plot of reducing the prices for the recipes works without drawback, it would reveal the game's actual short duration. Why would you like to have full endgame gear for a game you wouldn't play anymore because it's short and boring?
3. ... you... want to increase the payout of missions, the dreaded thing that's the main cause of the inflation? ... have the crowd's reaction to your idea.