None of this has to do with the pont that "no one gives a toss about crystals" which is the point that I was answering. People do care. Whether it's too hard for you to make the stuff they want is a different point that has nothing to do with demand for your products. It's funny. Crafters often like to say they should be able to make raid quality items for people who don't want to raid, but often seem incapable of imagining that they could sell things to people who don't want to PvP. Curious. What you can't make is irrelevant. People want all the colors that you can make, give or take the ones that are more likely to be restricted on your faction.

The problem isn't that there are skill requirements, that's fine, and keeps low levels from using high level stuff that they just got grinding missions. The problem was that "everyone" decided that at max level, Biochem was the way to go. They decided this because biochem got the best consumables, and no one else could use them. One common answer to that was that there were other consumables that anyone could use, and those were as good as the biochem-only ones. So, the argument went, you don't have to be a biochemist -- you could go, say, synthweaving and just buy stuff from the biochemist. That makes sense -- up until the part where they seemingly took the things that other people used to buy from biochem and made them biochem only. Now it looks like that sythweaver has even more incentive to drop it and go biochem. This is because if he goes biochem, then he can just buy stuff from a synthweaver, because there isn't (allegedly) anything compelling available that *requires* synthweaving to wear. This is at odds with BioWare's stated goal that one of the reasons that Biochem got nerfed is because so that it isn't automatically regarded as the "best" profession to take.

Sure. Slight correction: You might be happy if none of the stuff you could grind was better than any of your stuff. I say that because some of the stuff you make already is as good or better than stuff you can grind, and yet people aren't happy. Again, just a slight correction/clarification: you would be able to appeal to more of the market. Many crafters who post here seem to conflate the lack of a specific market that they want with the lack of any market whatsoever. No, it wouldn't, assuming that it isn't on par, which is debatable. It also might not be an issue if people could transfer the stats of tionese gear into custom items made by crafters, which is one short-term issue that is being addressed.

My apologies for quote splitting, but I had to address this point. It is, unfortunately, a logical fallacy. Putting aside the ancient numbers, all they show is that 60% of the playerbase at that time hadn't attemped the raids. Those numbers can't gauge "appreciable interest" because there were other barriers to entry besides interest. For example, raids required 40 people in Vanilla. That was considered more forgiving than Everquest raids, which had up to 72-person raids at one point. We have no idea how many of those people wanted to try them but felt overwhelmed by the requirements, or even how many of those people who didn't want to try them might be willing to try a "raid" of 8-12 people. (To that end, numbers that discuss the popularity of WoW's 10-person format would be more appropriate, but we don't have them).

1. Killing deathwing isn't the same as raiding. How many people have participated in some form of raid? How many have done it more than once? Even if they didn't win, did they enjoy it enough to want to try it again? If they didn't like it, was it because it was too confusing? Too hard? They didn't get the reward they wanted? It was just easier to grind out some heroics? There are a tremendous number of variables that don't lead to the same conclusion that you did. 2. How many people have maxxed out a crafting profession? How many of them found it rewarding? Did they do it so that they could make things, or because of a "perk?" Even if we accept the conclusion that people in general do not like raiding, it does not follow that they therefore must like crafting more.

That isn't soloable. At least one component requires a drop from a world boss, which is the "raiding" that people love to hate. But let's assume for the moment that the entire mission arc was soloable. It certainly would be precedent for solo-player epic content. But it would also be precedent for the idea that large-group content and solo-player content can coexist, because the Magenta Crystal Arc doesn't invalidate the operation-dropped schematics. So then, why the hate for the simple fact that some schematics drop in operations? Plenty of schematics don't. That to me, is the kicker. People are upset that a handful of schematics can be obtained in large-group content. I can understand why people might not think the crafting system is rewarding as a gameplay experience (it's not interactive, for example), but I have no idea why having some schematics drop in an operation is what makes it that way. If the crafting system is unrewarding, then it was unrewarding before anyone found out about the op drops, right? That's why some posters are calling shenanigans. The only way this argument makes sense is if the "reward" from crafting comes from the fact that people who raid can't get schematics from them, or at the very least if everything they get is something you can get without doing raids. If the reward was in making things that players use, then people would care a lot less about why those people want them and more about the fact that people want them to begin with. There are numerous posts from people who say they are having success (and more importantly, fun) with crafting, and they immediately get drowned out by responses that basically amount to, "that's because everyone on your server is too stupid to realize that everything you make is worthless." How is that any less elitist than anything the raiders say? Why aren't my credits worth the same as Joe the Elite Raider? As a crafter, is it your job to judge why I want to pay for ship upgrades? Are you unable to find it rewarding to sell your wares to anyone but the fanciest of proverbial pants? Okay, but those other things took a lot of time to develop. Not everyone seems prepared to pay the same costs to make that happen. The system you describe might have delayed the game another year or more, particularly given that, as people are fond of pointing out, no one has ever done it before to everyone's satisfaction. Even if they are working on it right now, it's unlikely that it's going to be done anytime soon. So what happens in the meantime? Do they make schematics not drop in operations while we wait?

Being different just for the sake of being different isn't courageous. This rests on the assumption that the status quo is bad. To understand the dilemma, imagine something in a game that you like. If you can't imagine anything in this game, then picture another one. Now imagine that the developers just changed it. Do you applaud their courage? How about if they change it into something that you think is worse? Still applauding? What if you consider that the most-maligned game on these boards (I'm sure you can guess what it is) is doing things "differently" than it used to, despite it's historic success? Not everyone is applauding their courage. And all of that still begs my question. It's easy to say, "do something different and better than what everyone else has done." I think every developer should do that. Heck, I think everyone who does anything should do it better and more awesomely than the way previous people did it. It's a lot harder to imagine what that might be. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" may be trite, but like many trite things there's some truth to it. The developers at BioWare are talented people, but they are still people. They aren't magical creatures. That's perfectly valid feedback. You should recognize, though, that lots of people like them. Your "something new" shouldn't ignore them, or you end up just trading one group of disgruntled people for another.

It doesn't matter that players prefer the player-made consumables to vendor ones. In fact, they should. The problem was never that biochemists gave better benefits than vendors. The problem was that in order to reap those benefits, you couldn't just buy from a biochemist, but you had to become one. And maybe I don't understand the patch notes, but it seems like they made that part worse, by putting a Biochem (400) requirement on things that used to be available to anyone. That seems to put even more pressure on people to drop their existing skill and train biochem.

If controlling the rate that gear enters the game were the only concern, then yeah. But it's also about balancing risk v. reward. Week long companion missions and hours of heroic 2s farming don't carry the same risk as operations do. There's the rub. It's easy to say "come up with something better" while ignoring the fact that they designed a system to where they didn't have to. They made crafting require no skill on purpose -- and I don't mean that as a knock on crafting. It requires time, patience and a slew of other things, but it doesn't require player interaction or strategy in the same way as operations. People say "side game" as a perjorative, but it's hard to escape that crafting was designed that way pretty specifically. None of that should mean that it's less worthwhile, but we have to be realistic about some of its limitations. In particular, asking them to shoehorn the rewards from a system that is designed entirely differently onto crafting is a bit much in light of that.

The overwhelming majority of custom items come from crafting. The proposed changes will make custom items more attractive an option to people who do endgame content, because they will be able to take their end-game bonuses and put them into whatever items they want, which was a very significant damper on demand for custom items from that crowd. Opening up custom items to a previously unserved market increases demand for custom crafted items, and increased demand for custom crafted items is a benefit to the people who craft those items. That is how it is about crafting.

Suppose someone typed this: "Sigh. Yet again an MMO has raiding as a limited sideline, not as a viable entity which has it's own progression separate to other activities. And so, yet again, raiders are forced to partake in things like crafting to progress. Bioware, I know you copied a lot from SWG and EQ2, but seriously, did you really need to take it to THIS level?" How would that be any better? Many of the ideas in these types of threads would lead to just that, and that's the difficulty facing the designers. On paper, having a "separate progression" for crafting makes sense, but the devil is in the details. Running an operation requires bringing together different players with different skills and coordinating them against common foes. There's skill involved in using abilities and knowing mechanics and luck involved in getting loot. How do you duplicate that same effort in crafting? Do you make a "crafting OP" where you gather multiple crafters in a group? How would that work, especially when the craft model in SWTOR has *nothing* to do with skill, because it is purposely designed not to require much player interaction (the companions do all the work offscreen)?" If you make the crafting progression "different", then you run the risk that it is viewed as too easy (or too hard) compared to the other ways of progressing. Raid schematics may not be the most elegant solution, but the beauty of them is that at the very least, no one can argue that the crafter had an easier time than the raider, because they both did the exact same thing to get their respective items. Moreover, they aren't required to "progress" in any way except in getting access to raid level abilities. You aren't raiding to get schematics for droid customizations or speeders. You're raiding to get access to raid-quality items. While imperfect, it doesn't seem like too much to ask.

How could he "realize" something that is an unsupported assertion? You don't have information on what the majority of people "hate" doing. At best, you have information as to what people actually do, without further information as to why they do (or don't do) it. At this stage, we don't really even have that.

Immature markets have immature (and unreliable) prices. As more money enters the economy and people get a better sense of what things really are worth, then prices stabilize. Not only that, but what seems expensive now won't seem so expensive when you have more credits than you can spend. Remember, unlike real life, you can effectively print credits at will, and you don't have to worry about taxes and many other expenses. Consumables are one of the only things that consistently require expenditures, and they have in-game competition. Vendors sell stims and medpacks too, which places competitive pressure on biochemists. A biochemist probably won't be able to charge 5x the price of a vendor item for 10% more benefit (just an example, numbers are made up).

What does that have to do with anything? I was answering his point about being unable to sell things because no one was interested. Just because he can do EV doesn't mean everyone else can. Plus, "better" is subjective, because some people want particular stats in a particular color, and the vendors don't have the same variety.

You know there are people with more credits than badges, right? People will take the path of least resistance. If I have the choice of spending an hour getting 8 badges or 5 minutes buying the same thing from the GTN then I'm going to just buy it, unless the price on the GTN is set so high that I think that getting the badges is a better use of my time. Plus, there are other things that badges buy. For some reason people think that everyone is out to deliberately avoid buying things from crafters, even if it means I have to do more work to get other things. I think there's a speeder available for 200 commendations or something. So again, if I want that speeder, why wouldn't I buy a hilt from you and save my commendations for that? What do I gain from wasting commendations on something that can be obtained with credits, which are (don't tell anybody!) just as easy to get as commendations are, if not easier?

No, I don't. I mean the other colors people are talking about, and the other stats in the existing colors that can't be found on any vendors anywhere.

I don't know about the lightsabers being weaker, since they seem to be just as moddable as the other ones. I've seen screenshots of crafted ones with augment slots, so they can be more powerful than other custom drops. My main issue with crafted sabers (or even dropped sabers) is that I have no idea what they look or sound like before equipping them. The preview pane (which is terrible enough as is, with blurry low res textures) doesn't seem to show weapons. Generally, it is more difficult than necessary for customers to find items, know what they look like, or know what the alternatives look like at this stage of the game. That's pretty critical for the market in custom items to develop.

The people posting in the massive threads about rare color crystals would disagree.

How is this less elitist than the arguments that you're answering? You don't know whether the "master crafter" has spent more man hours doing something than an entire guild of people did. People can powerlevel professions pretty quickly. It's not always easy to organize successful raids or guilds. If you don't want people to devalue your work, then don't devalue theirs. What exactly are you going for? In this example, the raider is the game show contestant who ostensibly lucks into something and the crafter is the "car specialist" that worked hard. That's fine, but it doesn't apply to what people are talking about here. A BoE schematic means that even the crafters who don't work hard can learn the craft. It would be like if the "car specialists" in your example went to Barnes & Noble and bought, "car specialization for dummies" for a ton of money, and in an hour they could make the best car in the world. All the current system does is make the effort to get an operation-level drop equalized across the two systems. It takes the exact same effort to get an item drop from boss x as it does to have a schematic drop from boss x. One alternative would be to try to have an alternative system that was equal in difficulty, but that is problematic too. One, the debate would never end over which one was actually harder. Two, it's actually hard to design a "crafting operation" that would be identical in difficulty to an operation because the two are apples and oranges. You're reading too much into the argument. If he wants to PvP sometimes, there's ways to get PvP gear. If he wants to do flashpoints, he already can make gear that is more than appropriate for those. If he wants to "look cool" that's subjective, and it's unclear that the raid schematics will do that any better than what he already can access. The question is why do crafters need to make gear that is useful for raids if they don't want to attend them. The question is why anyone would bother with raids if they could just buy the same stuff from crafters, or make it themselves, after spending enough credits. The reality is that people need incentives to do things. It's not really an elitist thing. Put the shoe on the other foot. Suppose there was a way for me to go into an operation and get an item that would teach me, a biochemist, how to make a piece of armor that a synthweaver had to learn the traditional way, completely bypassing traditional channels. Wouldn't that bother you? Would you be satisified if I asked, "how does this affect you personally, besides making your achievements feel less validated?"

Why do people think that mods change more often than items? I may need more of them at once, but I don't keep putting them in unless better ones come out. Moreover, I'm just as likely to pull old mods out of an item and put them into a new one that I get as I am to pass up on buying a new item because I like the look of my old one. It's a common misconception that the existence of moddable gear early on means that no one will want to change how they look. I have a moddable robe right now that I think is okay, but I would upgrade to a different one that I thought looked better. Of course you don't know what I like, and I don't know what is or will be available, so that is a bigger barrier to trade than the actual game design. The dev tracker post doesn't address every problem, but it addresses one: the "I would buy this better looking orange from the GTN but I don't want to lose my set bonus on this horrible-looking tier gear" problem. The tier looks are limited, and the custom looks are much more varied, so there's a larger audience for that stuff once they make it so that you aren't downgrading to use it.

You listed a bunch of stuff that have equivalents in this game (potions, flasks, elixirs = biochem), plus not all of it was obtained from professions (at least not when WoW launched).

There are several, but just as one example, the article talks about the competition from mod vendors for artifice at the end game in terms of hilts, but doesn't mention the lack of competition from vendors for crystals, which apply to a larger audience anyway.

This helps crafters, because they have the largest variety of custom items available. One of the reasons that people say demand for orange items is lower at the high end is because the best items have bonuses that can't be transferred.

That analysis suffers from the same analytical flaws that many of the posts here suffer from. I'm not sure why the fact that it's on a different site makes it any more important.