Please separate Elevator Pass into a separate CE offer.
Please make elevator pass 15/30 days long, 2 weeks = 28 days, not 30.
I'm not paying $15 for 2 week long Elevator pass, as this makes the game cost $32 per month (2 ele passes = $30 = 28 days).
Comparison:
30 days of World of Warcraft - $17
30 days of Eve Online - $17.50
28 (!) days of Spiral Knights - $32
$6 for 30 days of Spiral Knights ele pass was ok. $32 for 30 days is too much, way too much.
SK has all but a fraction of WoW's content, and even some of it needs more money to reach (SL!). The elevator pass, even with the price of the rest of the bundle considered, is way too expensive at $14.95 for 2 weeks.
28 (!) days of Spiral Knights - $30....
+ Extra items and stuff.
Besides, making it a bit expensive, is OOO way to KEEP elevator pass ingame without destabilising game. Making it not very easy way to obtain (which complete opposition was "christmas promo") is a compromise between allowing acces to it (as people wanted) and in same time not discriminating F2P players (where SK still advertises itselft as free to play)
My opinion about this suggestion is negative
-1
Asukalanforum
Free to play doesn't mean "we don't need money, we're charity".
-1 on opinion. xD
More on the topic: in a month when elevator pass existed the highest CE price was recorded on FIRST day of ele pass sale ($6/mo). All due to speculations tons of people will have infinite supply of crowns and will simply buy out all CE. But it didn't happen for a simple reason - it takes a lot of time and effort to generate any amount of crowns to buy even 100 ce. People didn't get rich overnight, and CE price dropped somewhat.
Elevator pass does not affect economy as horribly as some free to play players imagine.
Next, "give more power to free-to-play players" at the expense of "pay for extra" players is not going to happen. Ever. So stop asking.
"we don't need money, we're charity" thats why they keept pass ingame (since after first introduction of it they stated it that they will decide if they will keep it ingame or not, so it wasnt certain they will keep it)
If they would completly removed it from game, it would discriminate P2P players and then it would look like SK is a charity.
They had to do it in diplomatic style. They were choosing between Keep or Not Keep. While Keeping would somehow make F2P players irritated and Not Keeping would make those who want to pay feel angry they had to choose something between.
Keeping it while making it a lil expensive so those who "really" want to spent money will do it, and still F2P will be amused that game wont be overflowed with passes which could harm F2P.
Asukalanforum
They kept the pass because people wanted to buy it, thats all.
Edit in reply to edit:
Asukalanforum
Free to play players won't get hurt by ele pass. Ele pass doesn't limit free to play players in any way. If they get irritated, they can buy ele pass themselves. There are no limitations to who gets to pay $$ (as long as there is some way to pay for it, some claim they cannot send $$ due to offered payment methods not being available in their country).
Removing ele pass completely would give people a reason to stop playing. At least people who think similar to me - I stopped playing completely when my ele pass expired. Bought pair of passes on Jan 2nd, and if by Jan 30-th I can't buy it for $6/mo, I'll be taking another extended vacation from Spiral Knights.
Just saying, you had plenty of time to extend your Elevator Pass during the holiday sale promotion, when Explorer Packs costed $3.
Metagenic
I can't stack them up to use later, they're used on purchase. Paying money for something I might not use is not my style.
If I could stack them up to use whenever I felt like, I'd buy more. Probably...
If I knew I could buy 1/2/4 week long ele pass for a fixed price whenever I wanted to, that'd make things easier.
Again, I'm not rich enough to throw $1000 here $1000 there and still have a couple of millions left on PC games.
You actually can stack pases... Buying 10 explorer packs granted you 10x 14 days of elevator passes. You didnt saw all those ppl bragging that they have like year of elevator pass?
Asukalanforum
The deal wasn't bad - 1k ce + silver key that nobody wants + costume item nobody wants + ele pass for 2 weeks, which is 1 day shorter than it used to be. But that ele pass forces itself upon your account, simply prolonging your game instead of staying in inventory till the moment you want to use it.
You can buy a year long ele pass and then play for 2-3 months and get bored of Spiral Knights. What happens with your pass then? It can't be sold, it won't be used... wasted money.
I want ability to buy ele pass when I feel like at a fixed price, I don't want any "extras" with it, just plain $6/month ele pass. And that is my suggestion - separate elevator pass into a separate $ item and make it sold for $6.
$30 in 2x explorer pack gets me 28 days of ele pass, 2k ce + 2x silver key (worth less than 1k ce) + 2 hats (worthless)
$31 in $6 ele pass (old offer) + $25 CE gets me 30 days ele pass (old offer) + 9k ce ($20 7500ce + $5 1600ce)
Current $15 explorer pack offer is a great deal. But not for the buyer.
People who didn't buy ele pass yet still have this offer as 30 days for $6. Those who bought it can only have it for $30 per 28 days. 5 times difference...
My impression was that the "normal" 30-day/$6 elevator pass was NEVER stackable, meaning that you had to wait for your first pass to expire before you could buy a new one. So before you complain too loudly, maybe you should wait and see whether you can buy one when your current pass expires.
@Round-Shinigami: "More on the topic: in a month when elevator pass existed the highest CE price was recorded on FIRST day of ele pass sale ($6/mo)."
That's...completely untrue (unless perhaps there was a VERY brief, VERY high spike while I was offline). According to the energy price recording project, the price of energy climbed gradually from ~6.6k when elevator passes were announced (Nov 16) up to a peak of 7.7k fully a week later, when the rise was finally arrested by the Thanksgiving sale getting people to spend more real money. It then hovered around 7.3k until the featured auctions started on Nov 30, dipped for a week, and then recovered to around 7k until the explorer pack went on sale for $3, which finally brought the price down to about 5.8k.
I was actually expecting elevator passes to drive the energy price down in the long run, on the theory that they probably induced people to spend more total money and would likely save the purchaser at least $6 of CE on average, increasing overall supply, but that doesn't seem to be true. Even a full month after the elevator passes showed up (when the first buyers had gotten maximum benefits from it and were starting to renew them), prices were still DRAMATICALLY higher than they were before--and that was after OOO held two major events that reduced them!
It's possible some of the rise was due to after-effects of the crown glitch of Nov 4 that hadn't fully settled out before the elevator passes showed up, but I would say that the evidence clearly supports elevator passes making CE prices go up over the long term (though I can't say why).
On a side note: I refuse to recommend this game to any friends until the CE price drops to around 4.5k, because that's about the highest price where tier 1 players can run the clockworks without LOSING money, and I cannot in good conscience recommend a game when the new player's introduction to the economy would be that perverse. I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that this means I will NEVER be able to recommend this game to anyone unless the dev team undergoes a major change in leadership and philosophy.
@Antistone My original elevator pass expired a while ago and I can't buy another one for $5.95. Also, I'd argue that the recent price dip was more due to the steam promo and the new players it brought in than it was due to bundling energy with the new pass.
Antistone
"evidence clearly supports elevator passes making CE prices go up over the long term"
Actually, ce price is always slowly rising because supply of CE is limited (people who pay $$) and demand is infinite (basically, playing requires CE, unless you sit in tier 2 with 2-start equipment forever). CE price was always rising, regardless of existence of elevator pass, or its availability.
Before the game went on steam CE was around 7k, or so I heard, I joined with Steam.
After the game went on steam CE price went down to 3.5k. Gradually it went back to 7k+.
When CE neared 8k, rose regalia redux event was made and ce price dropped. Gradually it went up to 7k+.
Then there was lockdown update with its bomberman costumes, which lowered CE price. But it went back up gradually.
Latest update - elevator pass + 1000 ce for $3. This forced CE price to go down for a very simple reason: you got "extra" energy for elevator passes you stacked. Which led to a significant CE price drop (I bought some around 5.6k).
I can guarantee CE price will keep rising in the future. Its simple, really: to craft anything better than 2-star item or to ride elevator more than 10 times a day you need more energy than mist tank can provide. At the same time, majority of players (as far as I can tell) doesn't go around buying CE for all their needs using $$, instead they buy CE on the CE market, which leads to price going up. Some people buy CE for $$ and sell it for crowns on the market for more or less obvious reasons, leading to ce price lowering. But there is a greater amount of people buying and spending CE than people buying CE for $$ and selling for crowns.
Back to ele pass. Its effect on the economy was never as dramatic or immediate, as some people believe. Sure, it inflates crowns by giving you ability to generate crowns using only your time. At the same time it doesn't let you make more crowns in the same period of time it takes you without ele pass - drops don't change. Only thing that changes: you don't spend energy to ride elevators.
At the same time ele pass lowers demand for energy - you won't be spending your mist on riding elevators, freeing some 100 energy every day.
Ele pass has no ability to lower CE price for a basic reason: it doesn't supply you with CE. Since supply doesn't change (demand lowers very slightly), price will not go down. At the same time effect on inflating crowns is also small - it takes a lot of time to earn any significant amount of crowns.
As for $6 "original" ele pass - it was said to be a time-limited offer, yet its still available for those who skipped it (just like starter pack or king krogmo promotions). But once you buy it, you can't have second one (you can't receive it in a 4-pack either). Mine expired exactly 30 days after it was introduced because I bought it as soon as it was available. When mine expired, I couldn't buy a new one, so I stopped playing till Jan 2nd (when I bought a pair of explorer packs). Now the price is $30/month and in my personal opinion, its a very bad offer. So my suggestion is simple, let me repeat:
make elevator pass ($6 for 30 days) available at any moment for any player, make it stackable. Having a small amount of "extra" or "bonus" CE would certainly be nice, but only as long as it doesn't make ele pass more expensive than $6/month.
maybe either 9.99 or 4.99 that way with steam you can only add multiples of 10 in money so 5.99 makes you add 10 dollars and waste 4.01. just saying.
Dexorr
Err... you don't have to add in multiples of 5, its easy to add any amount above $5. Its just $5 being minimum amount you can add and inability to buy several items as a single checkout in spiral knights that makes you think otherwise.
Here's what you can add your desired amount:
Do this at your own risk!!!
1) go to your steam wallet balance (click on $0.00 or any amount you have)
2) add money - $5
3) change amount to desired amount (copy link location - change 500 into another value, 500 means $5.00)
4) buy you desired item that costs less than $5 in packs.
On a related note: when paying for something that costs more than $5, you are offered to add precise required amount to steam wallet. When I purchased ele pass for $5.95, I added exactly $5.95 to my steam wallet, as it offered me to. When I purchased starter pack, I added $19.95 and not $20.
On a related note:
I calculated exact value of explorer pack's "$25 value". Its real value is...
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/39184
tl;dr all the posts, just commentin' on the OP.
You were sayin' that it costs £15 for 30 days of SK (or some such), but I'd like to point out that that deal actually included more than just ele passes; it did also include CE, and silver keys (which are worth a fair amount of CE ingame), however I agree that the overall price for ele passes has become unreasonable; you'd just get that deal for the other stfuf and let the ele pass be a bonus. Getting the monthlong for £3, or the two week ones for £2 over the summer was great, and I'd like to think that they'll keep the ele passes on sales to some degree, permanantly from now on. It allows a nice bonus for p2ps that don't feel like farming fifteen runs a day and making no more than 100CE profit w/o having any effect on gameplay or balance, andhas no real negative impact on CE. Prices always have an always will increase until the market crashes then repeat (as there is only a certain threshold that runs will pay for themselves before they simply become too expensive and people will refuse to buy more), the ele passes will just allow people to play w/o the worry that "if I do a non-JK run, this run will cost more than I make" and be forced to make one run a day w/ ME.
In reply to Darkbrady
Original Ele pass was priced at $6 for 30 days, so I'm calculating 2 week long ele pass as $3 value.
Current Explorer Pack, the only way to get elevator pass, costs $15, provides you ele pass for 14 days. Other than pass itself it contains CE and some items, but...
Actual $ value of current Explorer's Pack is:
- calculating based on NPC prices: $13
- calculating based on Auction House prices: $8!
Calculations were simple:
- in the "NPC prices" case I took Boost's price of items in the Explorer Pack, gathered it together and used its price to find closest equivalent of CE pack sold for $$ (3500 ce for $10). Then I added $3 for 2-week long elevator pass.
- in the "Auction House prices" case I took current auction house price for items that come in package, converted it into CE for 60 crowns per 1 CE, took closest CE pack of similar value (1600 ce for $5). Then I added $3 for 2-week long elevator pass.
With this in mind I can make the following conclusion:
Because of the huge difference in the value and price of "extras" in the ele pass package, I want pure ele pass with no extras for smallest price possible to be available to all at any point of time. Would be great if it was also stackable.
Calculations and thoughts about "value" of the pack can be found here: http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/39184
Update on prices of Explorer Pack, 8-th of January:
Hat - 4k crowns.
Heat amp 7 days - 9k crowns.
Silver key - 40k crowns.
Total - 53k crowns, around 850 ce.
Plus 1000 ce.
Current "value" of explorer pack is 1850 ce (around $6 worth if you sell its contents on auction house) plus elevator pass for 2 weeks, making ele pass cost $18/4 weeks (Explorer pack's "value" - $6, price - $15, leaving us with $9 ele pass for 2 weeks, or around $20 per month).
I'd pay $7 for ele pass (30d) + 500 ce, and it'd make CE price go down. But I won't pay any more, $10+ per month is too expensive for me, I'll just keep playing for free.
Just wanna point out that saying the irl-value of a package is less because it sells for less ingame is pretty backwards/stupid.
The package is worth what it's worth.
£3 for ele pass
heat amp = 1,8k CE
Silver Key = 800 CE
Hat = [x]
1k CE
Call that 3,6k CE, which is about $10 + $3 ele pass (although if you consider that the monthlong one was on sale, then this is arguably more) + the hat which is an indefinite value.
So calculating based on real life values, the package is worth roughly $15 (give or take...). That may not be the best price, but it is THE price, since it's the values that they have set.
Convert prices to energy, convert energy to £s and you have your actual value. You cannot compare it to the ingame currency, then convert THAT to £s, that's just stupid.
Why?
Because people have placed prices on the hats, and they're low. Not because they're bad, but becasue there's a lot of them.
You're looking at the heat amps and sayin' they're 10k? They are, which is great, but at the same time..they're not! They are actually 1,8k CE. Get over it. The fact that people are selling them doesn't lessen the value of the package itself, it just lessens the amount of crowns you can get from selling it all. Take advantage of that and buy a heap of heat amps now while they're cheap, don't complain.
I mean, if you're wantin' to complain about it this way, let's look at it from the flipside.
Sniped hats are about 50~100k still. What if ALL the hats were that much? And what if people were selling the amps only *just* below the value they sell at Boost?
Then the package would wind up being (in your eyes...) worth MORE than what it currently is worth, which is about $15, since the hats would be 75k average (converting to 1,5k ce, which is another few $s worth).
Would you be complaini'n about it then?
"This package sells for more ingame value than I paid for it! Raise the prices OOO, I demand it!!"
No, you'd be perfectly content. Fact is that since they're repeat purchasable, which means that the value of the items in game has dropped. Make the most of it while buying heat amps and keys while they're cheap, then wait till the sale is over and resell them all, make a profit from it instead of whining.
"I'm not paying $15 for 2 week long Elevator pass, as this makes the game cost $32 per month (2 ele passes = $30 = 28 days)."
Umm.. you dont HAVE to pay to play, as the game is F2P. Let's not rage about that debate again
And how about a 2 week elevator pass that costs about 5$
V for Victory! >:D
$5.95 30-days long elevator pass is here to stay! We can now re-purchase it indefinitely!
Someone's gonna be happy.
http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/40752
You can buy a 30 day long elevator pass for $5.45 seperate from the explorer pass.
Alpabeta, Eeyup
Just saw the news.
Yup, I'm happy :D
You make good points about the need for CE prices to be lower before recommending the game to new players.
Perhaps OOO could give new players (i.e. players without Tier 2 access) a discount on Tier 1 elevator costs
(such as 5 instead of 10).
Or heck, even lowering the Tier 1 cost permanently.
Dude, Graveyard this thread before more people get all shocked and horrified at your terrible, stupid, awful word choices, now that they've finally put the pass back in perm.
+5.95