It exists. It is cheaper, and more preferable. Capitalism once again takes its toll on this game! Like UPS and the Postal Service, the CE market will be going out of business!! Another government job (three rings and its CE market) has been killed once again, thanks to capitalism!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=131738555
And here I thought that there was no such thing as a Free Market in Spiral Knights, due to what little things players can sell on the AH. I bet this is illegal! It must be! Three Rings will ban it soon, those damn communist jerks. I don't want to sell accessories; let me make crowns this way, Three Rings!! WE DEMAND DEMOCRACY; WHERE ARE MY RIGHTS AS A PLAYER IN THIS GAME!?
i seen them around. good business plan for the owner as they get the same profit made on that level alone.
/bravo
One day there'll be a ninja trader that sells 999999999999999 CE for 1 crowns.
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!
I want to know if this is allowed, so that I can make some alts, and do this myself.
@ Fleet-Miss-Gun
They won't make profit if they do that. The thing is, that these players who are selling mist knights for really cheap prices, the mist knight will go do the run with them, and the mist knight will receive the crowns for that level, since everything is shared. It's a nice trickery.
You pay me 500 crs for two Vana run levels, and I will tab you for those two levels, but the guy tabbing will ALSO get crowns and mats because he's there in that level, and everything is shared. So, basically, it's as if you have a leecher in your party.
THE NINJA TRADER DOESN'T CARE ABOUT PROFITS!
THEY'LL REALLY GENEROUS!
But it will never happen. ~_~
That's not generosity, that's being crazy.
Hm, I don't know about whether the knight doing the tabbing would stay with the party. If it's a main or an alt with strong enough gear to play FSC, yes. What I've done with missions before, where you can keep inviting alts during the run, is to use an alt to go down, kick it, then invite it again at the end of the level to get me down another level. Granted, it's very inefficient, since the tabbing knight has to spend 20 mist of it's own for each level except the last one done plus the tab for any knight or knights it is tabbing.
It works well for doing the first 2 levels of RJP though, one alt can spend 50 mist to get you through those 2 levels for free. Or just pay for the first level while you pay for the second yourself (20 mist per alt and 10 per your main per 2 level run) to be able to do 10 runs of the first 2 levels of RJP entirely on mist using 2 alts plus your main. :)
@Halandin: If your going to bring an alt to tab you, just leave him dead on the floor, and trade his crowns at the end of the level... You get a free ride, AND you get double crowns on your main.
Yes, in a full party, you will only have 3 living knights... but if your good, or in RJP, it won't matter. You can solo RJP/ICMF with 3 dead players, without ANY problems (with 4 star gear. Or with TONS of time and 3 star gear).
I think I'll try this underground CE market thing... save the seller some $. I think a CE selling fee is lame, lame, lame.
Assuming this is not going to get raided by a SWAT spearheaded by GM Cronus.
I think we can anticipate more market participants to join and keep the prices low. The limitation on this business model is that the barrier to entry is pretty low ($2.50 for one P2P alt or free if you have more than one machines running) and so it's hard to defend against competitors.
Demand for elevator pass could go down. To offset that downward pressure, expect more grinding missions like BK.
Ele pass demand would actually fluxuate between "norm" and higher, because if you went ahead and used ele pass you wouldn't much require alts to use the energy. Granted, returns would diminish a chunk once you broke out the CE, but this is a poor version of the SL and OCH "services", with just a higher probability of the guy choosing to die at first instant.
WELCOME TO COMMUNISM. And it is not illegal many people do it. And stop being market experts my head hurts!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@Skold. You were talking about existing Elevator Pass users (meaning within a short term). In medium term, EP demands would go down because there is a substitute product for it at a lower cost. (Keeping all things equal.)
The risk of using this service? You may not get your own share of profit back from the alts you are renting and you need to do more damage to compensate for the extra life mobs gained. And in a long run, if you have enough machines to sustain 4 SK clients (a quad core CPU would do, duo core would also but may lag in some maps like FSC), you may as well bite the bullet and buy the alts and cut out the middleman fees.
EP is not EP anymore and many aren't buying them anymore because of.
There once was a day when having the EP meant you by-passed the elevator fees. Now, you just by-pass the energy costs of the elevator but still pay the crs for it's usage. And someone thought we wouldn't notice. >.>
@ Iamnoone
Yeah, idk this company just doesn't want the players to have fun in this game. Three Rings is three idiots with a company name. communist skcid, thanks for killing off your misleading promotional video of adventure and no grinding.
TRUE FACT:
Majority of the new players in this game quit once they have reached Tier 2; some don't even make it past Tier 1.
"There once was a day when having the EP meant you by-passed the elevator fees. Now, you just by-pass the energy costs of the elevator but still pay the crs for it's usage. And someone thought we wouldn't notice. >.>"
The elevators in the Arcade have always had a fee attached to going to T2 or T3 if you did not previously enter from D7 or D17 of that gate previously, a 200cr or 500cr fee. The fee was one of the reasons why anybody that wanted to farm FSC would do at least one run of T2 in that week's FSC gate, so they wouldn't have to pay it constantly. Missions, which is what most people run now, do not have a fee to start other than earning your way to the mission. None, no crown fee to reach the mission lobby or on the elevators for the floors themselves.
As for softpaws "true fact"... it is grossly inaccurate.
~Gwen
You can see the the vast majority actually quit before they even beat Snarbolax, but we'll chalk those up to being lost causes who would never hold any interest in the game in the first place. 10% of steam players have bothered going as far as earning T2 access. Out of those 10%, only 20% bothered going as far as earning T3 access.
I'm thinking those first 90% went to find a game that didn't limit their playtime with energy shenanigans.
Besides the energy issue, it's mostly because the new players are playing this game alone. With no guidance, with no one to play with, why wouldn't you quit? If It wasn't for the media and my love for rpging and adventuring, I wouldn't be a fan of SK.
If you hear players that say that this game is fine as it is, don't listen to those closed-minded morons. They don't know tihs. Those idiot morons are the same mindless losers who grind FSC over and over, and play PvP. That's all that they do in this game. All they care for is game money. I'm angry that I want to make crowns, but I don't want to do FSC to make crs. I also don't want to do the arcade because I'll be playing it alone, which is lame and boring, and profit is slightly less. One or two FSC runs are my limit per day.
Be careful because players lie about how much energy they really have. I've been asked for tabs when the players energy circle was yellow.
@Zeddy
Something else to consider is the huge influx of TF2 players who just played long enough to get the Spiral Sallet and left. I'm pretty sure we still get a bunch of TF2 players who just want that hat and leave, which horrendously skews the statistics. Then there's the ridiculous amounts of unused alts that are floating about as well.
Still, those numbers are still pretty discouraging.
@Kitty-Softpaws
I kind of agree with you about players playing by themselves and getting bored by it. This game has that really annoying Party Finder where you have to PAY to join one or take your chances trying to form your own. Plus most players are beyond the point where newbies need them to join missions, so they really are playing by themselves.
A system where newbies can call for aid from the vets would be great, where the vets going back to help on old missions wouldn't have to pay for the elevator or get a bonus of some kind. It'll get newbies to really appreciate the game since they can see the awesome gear they can get, plus it'll help them get to know people at the very lonely starting point of the game.
@Yukariyakumo
Be careful yourself because you also have to consider that people want to spend their CE on an elevator. The elevator tab system doesn't take into account the difference between CE and ME, it'll just display that they still have energy if they have any of either.
A helpful feature that would help with this and for saving your ME or CE when crafting or taking the elevators, would be an option to "lock" one or the other so it can't be used. That way if a player has CE they're saving for crafting but still wants to be tabbed, they won't get yelled at because of it.
Party Finder is kind of like that, Zopyros-II
It applies to both missions and the arcade.
Party-Finder also works at finding awesome parties for party people.
You go spend CE on elevators then. It's your energy anyway.
That's why I ignored the 90% that didn't even make it past T1.
I doubt people would make a new steam account just for an alt. I just made a new account on the site for mine, at least.
@Kitty-Softpaws
Not exactly what I meant? I know what the Party Finder does and doesn't apply to. What I was saying was that it's just harder for a knight fresh from the Rescue Camp to find a party to travel with through the beginning missions and to show them the ropes. Most players are stuck at a Hall of Heroes trying to craft their next gear set, so there's hardly ever anyone running the older first missions, which might be hard for newbies without knowledge of the game mechanics or attack patterns. By the time they reach the Missions that people are running (RJP and IMF for example), they tend to be pretty terribad. Not knowing basic shielding, shield bumping, or enemy attack patterns and generally weighing down the party they're with.
Making it possible for older players who know the game to go back and help the newbies for a reward of some sort would greatly help the overall quality of the community. A good example from another MMO, Vindictus, is the training stage where new players can call in higher leveled players with the same character class to come and show them the how it's done and ask them questions and such.
@Canine-Vladmir
/Zopyros throws confetti in the air! PARTY! /dance
@Yukariyakumo
It is kind of their fault that they got themselves into that situation, so I can kind of agree. But if I have the extra energy, I don't mind bringing someone along for a little bit. Makes you feel good.
@Zeddy
Oh. Sorry, didn't notice you did that. That makes your numbers even more discouraging...
What could OOO add into the game to hook the newer players before they hit that point where they want to leave though? It looks like most are leaving before they even made it into Haven. What I'm curious about is if the majority of the players who left are from before or after the Mission system. THAT would be an important bit of information.
Oh, and never underestimate the amounts of extra accounts that the TF2 community has made. Though that hat isn't craftable, so maybe I'm exaggerating...
@Yvanblo: I've tried that, but my computer isn't that good so I can't play with the lag I get from having two SK screens up at once.
Note that 1) these numbers may only apply to Steam and 2) there may be a darn LOT of alternate accounts happening. Remember the steam mask? You get it by inviting 5 steam people into SK who get past the rescue camp. What if a lot of those people getting into the camp are just people and their alts?
@Autofire
Well it's also kind of worrying that more than 20% of players don't even make it to the Rescue Camp. I know there's probably a lot of people who've downloaded the game and realized that their computer can't run it, but I don't think that I'd make up that huge of a number. What's stopping people from even reaching the Camp?
Looking at the Haven achievement, there's barely 50% of the players making it to there. The game is a little slower paced towards the beginning, but it shouldn't outright kill off the interest of half the people playing. I don't want to say that it's the Energy system's fault, but there are a LOT of people that hate it and how it restricts play time. But I really like the Energy system. The Elevator Passes screws it up a little in my opinion, but it still works for what it was intended for.
Then there's the 30% achievement rate for reaching the first Clockworks Terminal is kind of understandable with OOO's ridiculous focus on the Missions system, but is worrisome nonetheless. Are new Knights not even trying the Clockworks anymore because of the Missions or did almost half of the players who reached Haven stop right there?
Occasionally people sells 10 CE for 750 crowns.
Way more expensive than the average CE prices.
Unless the CE prices rises again!