Experiencing the same thing.

I can see the benefit to the player base. But I can also see the harm done to a subset of the play base, who have incurred a significant cost that the rest have not. Those costs were SIGNIFICANTLY higher than those incurred by the non-early access player base, and were only in a position to be disadvantaged by the situation because they had pre-ordered the expansion early. It's not even like they got early access to a finished product! (not really relevant to this discussion, but still...)

Yes, and it introduced a new issue that has not been addressed. As for the future expansion, you're probably right - it's highly likely there will be more. But it's folly to measure benefit/harm done against expansions that haven't yet been announced.

Again, there has been no remedy offered. The free training change was a solution to a totally different problem, and I take no issue with that. There's not guarantee there will be a future expansion. And even if there is, I will always be ~5 million credits worse off than I would be if the change had been announced - not even implemented, just announced - at the same time that the expansion went live.

We'll have to disagree on this I think - I think it would be pretty straightforward to do, or at least should be. The current situation only provides any kind of benefit if a player is likely to incur any future training costs. If he's trained up all his alts, then what is there left to train? I'm not going to start a new character just to gain some benefit from it.

I think this is where the confusion lies. My issue isn't with the high training costs. It's that the high training costs were only present for a couple of days (at least, without knowledge they were to be removed) so ALL of the non-early access players will never see them. Which is great - but there are a small group of players who have spent a LOT of credits on training skills without any reasonable expectation that they would be free any time soon. As many have pointed out, skills costing money was expected. So for the problem of the skills costing money for only 3 days before the free skill announcement, no the free skill announcement is not a remedy - the announcement (or rather the timing of it) is exactly the problem.

But I believe there IS a solution that could make everyone happy. Make the free training change retroactive to since the launch of 3.0. It makes sense to have such a significant change launched at the same time as a major update. And I'm led to believe that this is technically possible. It's fair for all, and negates any disadvantage some had by training in the first week of the expansion. Remember that these new skills/skill levels were only introduced a week ago - it's a pretty small, but costly, window we're talking about here.

They haven't offered any remedy. Nothing has been said since the announcement of the removal of training costs, which is what indirectly created the problem in the first place.

I apologize for the unkind reply there. I am just irritated by people seemingly posting on this thread to simply say I should not be upset, and insisting I'm complaining about a different issue to the one I am. I shouldn't have taken it out on you.

I've never implied or thought that it was done on purpose to upset or disadvantage people. And yes I've made mistakes. But a) I've done my best to rectify them (refunding credits spend on training since launch of 3.0 would do exactly that) b) I've acknowledged that I've upset someone, and apologized for it. Is that the point you were trying to make? Let me dumb it down for you. The made a mistake by having 3 days of high training costs for a subset of players, before removing them. They have not acknowledged this mistake, nor offered any remedy. I am NOT against removing training costs. At all. [EDIT: I see you've edited your original post to remove the "Let me dumb it down for you part" - please ready mine as if it is also removed]

I'm not asking anyone to join me on a crusade. Thank you for informing me you won't be joining me on such a crusade, but really that's not necessary. As for "alternative perspectives", the deepest any of them have gotten is "you're wrong". Gee thanks, way to help me see things differently. I'm not asking you for anything. I don't know how long I'll stay bitter about this, but you telling me not to be bitter probably isn't going to help.

The 55-60 training costs are actually what the complaint is about. So pretty a pretty valid factor here. The snarky response what due to your reply apparently not understanding what the complaint was about. And to re-iterate, I'm not upset about the training costs, or about them now being free, but the terrible timing of the decisions, releases and announcements that have left some players feeling screwed over.

I'm not seeing any empathy or attempt to help others. All I'm seeing is "suck it up, waaaa". Which isn't really that constructive. As for hyperbole, perhaps you can point out where I have resorted to hyperbole, because I'm not sure I can spot it. I'm continuing to post to try and.... actually I'm not sure. But I'm pretty annoyed by this and... whatever .

Did you actually read the words in my post? In order? With the understanding of what sentences are? Because it's pretty obvious I'm referring to the issue of the 55-60 training. If you DO understand that, then all you're really saying is "it doesn't matter because not many were affected". Thanks for the valuable input there. (In case your comprehension skills really are lacking, that last part was sarcasm)

If this was a change to a long standing situation, I might agree. But they introduce a large credit sink, accessible only to those who pre-order, and remove it (or at least announce they're removing it) 3 days later. That is NOT normal. That is NOT standard for an MMO. Surely it's perfectly understandable that those affected are upset by this? Also, as a former drunken sailor who has enjoyed shore leave in Taiwan, virtual items in a virtual economy is far too sensible a thing to spend money on to make that analogy work...

Yes I expected training costs to be reinstated. I'm even OK with them being expensive. But does annoy me is that those who leveled in the first week - and only those - had to pay the high costs for the 55-60 skills. I'm not asking for a refund of all skill training of all time. Hell, I'm not really expecting a refund of anything at all. What I am asking for is and apology to the only group of people hit with the very high costs for a single week - those who pre-ordered. Even the tiniest amount of foresight would have allowed them to announce the free skills a mere 2-3 days earlier and avoid all this angst. I'm really struggling to see why you're so adamant there's nothing to be upset about. This situation has been poorly handled by BioWare.

You clearly lack the ability to understand what you are reading. Having training costs removed is not a problem. Expensive training costs isn't the problem. It the combination of the two and the terrible timing of them.

Your analogy is flawed. A better one would be that they hike the price of fuel, while simultaneously draining your fuel tank. Sure, you can not fill up again, on the of chance that it'll be cheaper for free in the future. But what are the chances of that happening? Oh wait, three days later... I'm all for removing the training fees. A great move - they're not a particularly effective money sink as they're no recurring. EXCEPT in this instance, where we had to pay for skills we had owned previous to the patch. Yes, it's virtual currency, but that takes time to gather. We pay for that time. It has value to us. Finally, on to the personal attack. Don't you dare tell me that I don't know what victimization is. You have absolutely no idea what my background is, or what I've gone through. Please keep your condescension to yourself.

This.

Personally, it's not about being deserving - I was just trying to appeal to EA/BioWares love of profit by pointing out that they "most loyal" (and presumably most valuable) customers are the ones that have been disadvantaged the greatest.

No, an apology because the terrible timing of the combination of the launch of 3.0 to early access (introducing HUGE training costs for both leveling and purchase of skills you previously had for free) and announcing removal of the training costs AFTER a bunch of people have spent significant amount of credits on them. If they were already considering removing these costs, surely they could have seen that this would leave a bad taste in the mouth of the players that lose out because of this? For the sake of a few days, couldn't have come to this conclusion slightly quicker? And now that the mistake has be made, and turning back time isn't an option, at least acknowledging that they've upset the group of players who pre-ordered the expansion by apologizing. I'm 99% sure this wasn't done deliberately, but it is hard not to feel victimized by this. Not against free skill training at all, but I am annoyed by the handling of the situation.

Stop being sensible and correct please, you're ruining my point.

Mainly because I've already paid them. Not sure how that's a benefit... I understand that it's technically difficult/impossible to refund players who have spend credits on training since 3.0 went live, but surely it's easy to see how irritating this issue is? The most dedicated players, who were the first to pre-order the expansion and spent the most time leveling multiple characters, your BEST customers, are not just expected to spend a huge amount of money on new skills, some of which they already had without cost before the patch - in the most hardcore players across multiple characters - and that from Tuesday onwards that cost is simply removed, but that they shouldn't expect any sympathy? That's particularly harsh, and I have to say the timing of this decision is absolutely terrible. If this topic was already under discussion, the release of 3.0 (and this is supposed to be Early Access, not Beta) is the perfect time to implement it, not after a week during which your most dedicated customers have already shelled out. While disappointing, I think a refund is unlikely, What I would like is an apology. EDIT: It's not even like the Early Access works properly...

Why does the first name need to be more unique? Why can't the legacy name be the unique ID on an account per server, or even account wide?

There's a very simple solution - make players chose a legacy name when rolling their first character, and postpone the rest of the legacy system till the end of Act 1. Hardly rocket science.