I could probably buy those promo items if I felt like it since I no longer have reason to craft items and thanks to the elevator pass not blowing off my energy playing gates.

.... Maybe they could add weapons and guns to the shadow lair items besides just armor and helms? Give me a reason to go make something again OOO :V

And they certainly don't affect the game for F2Pers, who aren't buying the costumes anyway. To use a real-world example, fine art is ridiculously expensive, but since I'm not in the market for fine art, I don't have to care, and nothing's going to make me.

Meanwhile, the people eventually buying these hideously expensive costume items are raising the crowns to do so by, you guessed it, selling CE! And when a lot of people are selling CE, the price goes down, which is actually BETTER for free players! The only way new CE wouldn't be coming into the market would be if people bought the promo items from Boost, which they won't because real players will ALWAYS offer the items below the game vendors' price ceiling.

TF2 uses the kind of system you're talking about, where you have to drop actual money to get competitive items, so I can see where your paranoia's coming from. But Spiral Knights isn't like TF2 in that way. The moment OOO puts a game-relevant item in a promo (as in, not a costume and not a forgettable 1* thing), I'll think about agreeing with you, but they don't seem to have that philosophy. Look at the Shadow Lair items, which are effectively paid content: they look pretty and are very desirable looks-wise, but are mechanically comparable or even WORSE than existing sets!

I think this thread should be moved to Off-Topic, since obviously it isn't General Discussion material.

Ren, can you explain more on how ce will cost more crowns? I understand that people will use ce to buy such rare promo items, but isn't the value of ce based on the market? People are willing to pay a certain amount of cr per 100ce and stuff like that.

Is it overinflation of ce thats the problem? Because i was under theimpression that overinflation is good for f2p ce consumers.

Is it rich players shelling out tons of ce to directly buy promo items? Unless more promo items come out as a ce sink, how does the ce disappear? My impression was that promo items were crown sinks, not vice versa.

I'm honestly wondering here. And if I am wrong on any points above, please correct me.

The price of CE is directly related to how many crowns there are in the market and how much CE there is in the market. Item sales between players don't affect those values at all. If someone is charging an obscene price for a limited edition item and nobody buys it because they're charging too much, then obviously nothing's happening. If somebody DOES buy it, then the person who bought it loses just as much CE as the person who sold it gains. The new CE isn't being conjured up out of nowhere, nor is it being sinked out of the market unless you assume rich people hoard their CE for lulz and never spend it. But even rich people buy things.

Promo packs drive the price of CE down by dramatically increasing supply, and then unbound nature of the items causes greedy people to buy more of them, thus driving the price of CE down more rather than up.

Spiral Knights is a free to play game. You CAN pay, but you can actually access the entire game without paying a cent, as I am sure somebody will helpfully chime in about within the next few posts. How many things that have shown up in the featured auctions or as promo items are actual items and not cosmetic? Exactly one item, the Scissors Blade, and it is just a reskinned Levi Blade. The game is not pay to win (although paying money does help if you want to buy high end UVs instead of ragecrafting) and never has been, and unless something drastically changes in the future I do not foresee it becoming like that. You want to see a game that is pay to win? Go check out Runes of Magic.

The simple fact is OOO is a business, they need people to drop in money or the game becomes a loss of profit for them, and then it gets shut down.They're not stupid, they know they can offer low level and costume items in CE packages and the community will not only be fine with it, but actively encourage it. If they offered 5* items it would piss off their player base. People like shiny new items, even if only cosmetic and it is a fantastic way for a F2P game to make money without breaking their own economy by effectively giving away high end items. WoW is a fantastic example of this with people forking over hundreds of real dollars for a limited edition mount on Ebay that does nothing different then the basic one they already have. It's a cosmetic change, nothing more, but it works.

Promotions do not cause CE prices to rise, they do the exact opposite, they lower it. It is a temporary lowering, the price will slowly rise back up to its common price (seems to be around 7k per 100), but it lowers it for a while. The only thing I've ever seen that actively raises the price of CE are the Power Surge weekends, and those have not happened for a few months now thankfully.

~Gwen

Your kidding me? Large amounts of CE coming in and crowns being lost in the auction house means that the price of CE will go down. CE won't reach 8k. Now, the price of these promo items will inflate, but the ce to crown ratio is fine. I can understand you wanting purchased items to be bound, but there are reasons against it. I've already spent 40$'s on this game, and I'm still intrested in some of the new promo items. I'm not gonna spend more than 40$'s on any game, so if I spend my money then I'm done since I won't be able to continue getting things like the stranger hat. People would lose interest after some time, and at some point just stop playing.

"If you didn't get it, too bad, you didn't pay attention to your opportunity"
So let me get this straight; if we want promo items, we need to wait untill they come out. So if OOO wants people to spend money, they have to release promo items. So for OOO to continualy make money, they will constantly release promo items.
Yet in your original post, you said there were too many promo items. See what I did there? You just turned around and bit your tails tails off.

How many people actually buy these things off Boost with CE when they can either pay money and get them with the pack or buy them on AH for a lot cheaper?

When one player buys another player's promotional item with CE, the CE isn't destroyed. It's not lost. It stays in the market. Transferring it from one player to another has little effect on the value of CE, except if one player values CE significantly more or less than the other. Of course, players who horde promo items for later sale tend to be ones who purchase a lot of CE anyway, putting them at the "values CE less" end of the scale. A transfer of CE from a player who values CE more to a player who values CE less actually helps to devalue CE, though only a small amount.

Now, it's true that purchasing the current promo items from Boost removes CE from the market, but keep that in perspective: first, they're the only promo items so far that cost players CE rather than coming with CE. Second, they're horribly overpriced, and I really doubt many people are buying them from Boost anyway.

So far, promo items have pretty much exclusively helped to depress the value of CE, since they've come into the game along with CE purchases. The sale of promo items for crowns through the auction house has also helped depress the value of CE by removing crowns from the market.

You, OP, are really just wrong. The promotional items have consistently reduced the price of CE. There is no corresponding and subsequent rise in CE prices due to resale.

Promo can ruin economy as much as it wants, fact is that CE won't go past 7,5~8k at abject worst, then the market will crash again and we'll all be happy with cheap CE for a while before it goes back to 6~6,5k as usual, and thus will determine the price of...pretty much everythin' tbh.

No ce destroyed, gone, or removed from the game? Then where is the problem? I thought the problem was a lack of ce on the market, thus forcing people to pay for more. If there is ce circulating, where is the problem?

"You don't understand. When I said that CE was wasted on promotional content, I never said that it was deleted from the game. A large amount of energy spent on one cosmetic item is a waste, when you could be using that energy to progress through the game. One person gains a great profit, the other might have ran out of money by making the transaction, money that could have been spent on a better purpose. And so, the economy becomes unstable."

And the person who makes the great profit can then in turn spend it on progressing or adding the economy... which would amount to the same effect that the buyer could have made, had he never bought. It makes no difference.

You keep assuming that once a person profits from the promotional items, that the CE they make never gets used. They can put it up on the market to help reduce prices, they can buy gear for themselves or their friends and progress through the game, etc etc.

Whats the difference? There isn't any.

I still don't see how your theory holds together.

I fail to see any reason behind your points that rebutt the simple fact that "If things are too expensive, people will not buy them." "

Regardless of supply and demand, people will hoard promotional items and their prices can and will go up."

FIrst, @Promotional items can be hoarded until they're uber-valuable. Nick recently (okay, a couple months ago) re-released the old rose regalia into the Featured Auctions. When asked about this, he cited a fast food restaurant re-releasing a deal, like a McRib at McDonalds, etc (too lazy to find the original post, but it's there). A simple re-release is possible and will easily counteract this situation, IF it ever arises. IF, since I highly doubt the demand will ever rise that high.

Second, @ "Can and will go up," the new rose regalia is a direct contradiction to your point. Honestly I see no reason to explain this counterpoint further.

Sure, people in the endgame may be dishing out hoarded crowns on these new sets, and as such, the richer get richer and the poorer get poorer. But that is how it has been, and how it always will be. Problem? Not really. Players can attempt to influence CE prices in the short run, but in the long run, supply and demand is hardwired into the number of players and the number of buyers. And promotions increases the number of buyers. Just sayin'

TL;DR Hipster Reaganomics what?

@Everyone who thinks promotional items will skyrocket in value

http://forums.spiralknights.com/en/node/36307, post 16.

This economy has been marked as a capitalist market.

Therefore rise and fall and eventually stabilization of the market well exists.

What you're saying is that buying 100 CE from the energy depot will cost us well over 9k in the future if this promotional item thing became rampant.

My counter:

Firstly:
RJP paysout about... oh idk... 6-7k?

If CE prices really were to be driven to such extreme prices, OOO would starve out its T1 and T2 fanbase. (Snarly Lair and RJP/JK would not cover for a run anymore)

This means less players for players will more than likely ragequit from the extreme tedium of attempting to get up to 4* gear at a 400+ CE cost per item, running only on 100 mist, meaning they are effectively depleted to about... oh idk... 1 runs a day. And with such high market costs, the only chance for Spiral Knighters is to take a run every day for about a month to pay for the CE costs of crafting.

Less players means there are less people to buy anything in the first place.

This forces prices to be driven down by economic policy (whether it be by people desperate to sell or make a quick profit, or people seeing they are loosing big time due to listing fees, or maybe people seeking to undermine the market for their own gain, idk).

This drops costume prices, and inevitably, CE prices. (Playing off the already flawed logic that these promotions directly affect the market economics in the first place)

Players start resurging, prices either rise again and recreate the cycle, or the lesson is learned and prices stabilize.

The prices will probably stabilize, simply because driving CE prices above 7k will result in plenty of T1 and T2 ragequitters.

Tl;DR: CE Price Hike --> T1/T2 starveout and perpetual ragequitting --> Lack of customers ---> CE/Promo Item price fall due to lack of demand --> Eventual return of more players (Most games have a +, not -, influx of players) --> Either a continual rise/fall economy (Unlikely. This is a game economy, not the frickin stock market) OR A stable economy where prices still remain at 6k.

Secondly...

OOO will instantly recognize that lack of customers equates to lesser profit (who's there to buy the stuff anymore?), and (according to your thesis that OO doesn't care about suggestions unless they give profit.) they would do something to stabilize the economy and boost profit margins well before any major CE price hike occurred... Lest they lose potential customers.

So the equation in this case will go like this:

Loss of Customers --> Loss of Profit Margin for OOO ---> OOO reacting to loss of profit ---> Measures taken to stabilize economy (Additional crown sinks or ways to stabilize the promotional economy) ---> Again, a stable market economy.

You predict an apocalypse that will:

A. Simply not happen because as others have said, in the 10+ posts above, your logic is terribly flawed and on bad base.
B. Will be short lived and quickly recovered from due to customer loss which would indirectly lead to a market re-stabilization again centered around the 6k margin. (Whether this is based on the player fanbase economy's reaction or OOO intervening before the game is perpetually destroyed, I am uncertain.)

This is however, my line of thought, and I highly expect this to just be tossed aside without a thought or address from the likes of you, with maybe a flame or two to tack on.

Oh well. My try at persuasion.

What's wrong with going down the path of TF2? TF2 has been hugely successful and Steam is making a fortune from it. The SK population also pales in comparison to TF2's. Why would OOO not want to head that route?

First off, no one noticed the completely contradictory statement I highlighted, so reposting that;
"If you didn't get it, too bad, you didn't pay attention to your opportunity"
So let me get this straight; if we want promo items, we need to wait untill they come out. So if OOO wants people to spend money, they have to release promo items. So for OOO to continualy make money, they will constantly release promo items according to you.
Yet in your original post, you said there were too many promo items.
So they need less promo items, but promo items are the only time for people to buy.
So you basicaly said you want OOO to make money less often.

And onward;
" But if a promotional item costs a lot of CE, energy will be wasted when people purchase said promos. "
Are you reffering to the sonic suits that boost is selling? That's the only way this promo eliminates CE. But think about it; Anyone who immediately bought CE would have gotten the sonic suit. So why would they spend their CE on another? They couldn't sell it, becuase they wouldn't beat boosts price. So IF you are saying that boost selling the suits is throwing all the new CE out, that's flawed. The only people who would use that are people who grinded for a buttload of CE.
Though you did say;
" Listen pal, I never said CE was destroyed. "
So... huh? I'm confused. Are people just somehow just misplacing CE?

" I'm done, go ahead and argue all you want, I've already won because you're going to see the truth in the end."
What? Is that hit and run? And once again, that makes no sense. You've won becuase of something that hasn't happened yet. Now if you said "I will win", that would be feaseable.

The only way I could see this rasing CE is if all the people who buy CE sell their suits for CE, so alll the rich elitest players hold the money and artificialy inflate the price. Now that IS covered by spiral-hipsters comment, but it would make sense to say. I'm not really going to call you out untill you write clearer posts.

That's one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life, thank you good sir.
Time to share it!

I call for mass derailment of this thread or letting it die.

EDIT: notbeingserious.jpg

I know you're just joking, Vescrit, but derailing threads should be discouraged, and threads will eventually die when people lose interest in it. *shrug*

I also find it extremely.. distasteful to try and kill threads you don't like. These forums are for everyone, not just the conversations that pertain to your interests.