I don't think there was a plan really though. They saw CM sales increasing as the economy inflated. The only decision they made was to let it go (sort of no harm no foul in their eyes). I don't think they planned to introduce hyperinflation to drive CM sales, they just took advantage of it. Then someone on the sales team looked at the numbers and saw something distressing in the declining sub numbers, and reading the complaints on the forums, they decided the hyperinflation was doing more harm than good, so they changed direction.

This is what, up until now, they have been unwilling to do because of player complaints (just look at how poorly the suggestion of having items become bound to legacy after a player to player trade was received). The players do bear some responsibility in the overheated economy because they disliked the things that could have cooled it down. If they sold something neat for a billion credits, how long do you think it would be before someone came to the forums to complain how unfair it was that only rich players could afford it. It might even drive credit sellers more if it was particularly desirable. They've been hurt, but they are still sitting on lots of credits.

But what was driving players away were the prices they were seeing on the GTN. Most players don't have any idea what things sell for off the GTN (effectively for most players if it isn't on the GTN it isn't for sale). Increasing the GTN limit would just have made it more obvious how out of control prices had gotten. It wouldn't have done much to cool off the economy (the current taxes are disincentivizing trading off the GTN which is exerting a downward pressure on prices)

One of the reasons they ignored it was that it actually drove CM sales but that was something that was going to be unsustainable. They reached a point where the CM sales weren't covering for the loss of subscribers and finally had to break down and do something.

Well, if we are going to shift the discussion to fees instead of taxes (whether GTN or Trade taxes) then I agree with you at least for the first couple planets. Once again, the issue is that you are not earning enough credits in the missions to pay for travel and repairs (which is a little at odds with your assertion that the game is rewarding too many credits) This was exactly the point I made in several posts about travel fees only to be told that players can easily make enough credits to afford the fees. I disagreed with that assessment then and still do. The low level planet experience is what brings players into the game. If you make a few high level characters cross about taxes it has less impact than a bad initial impression. Those players with billions aren't going to just up and quit, they went through the trouble of gaining their billions and won't give them up that easily (unless of course the can sell them for real world money)

What exactly are you buying as a newbie that the taxes (not the travel and repair fees) are significant? The restricted number of credits you earn from the missions is what causes problems unlocking things (there are no taxes on those). The travel fees were a different argument and simply removing them from the starter and capitol planets would fix the issue for just about everyone and yet have insignificant impact in the number of credits removed from the game. This I actual agree with. I would add that putting gearing behind a huge grind also led to people running content over and over and even with the reduced credits it added up. Someone not participating in the gear grind finds themselves pretty poor as the class and planetary missions and even heroics don't reward that well relative to the cost of things on the GTN. I've more than tripled my credit totals just from selling low end crafted cosmetic items (stuff selling for 25K or less) just since 7.0 (that's effectively more credits than I earned "playing the game" in 10 years)

Step 1: Get a character to level 80 (in the vid she even says its not worth trying to accumulate credits before then) Step 2: Gear that character (completing content efficiently requires good gear which you have to earn at some point) Step 3: Get tech fragments (Heroics and flashpoints generate a pathetic number of tech fragments - even less than deconstructing the gear drops) Step 4: Sell stuff on the GTN (this is and always has been the best way to acquire credits because all the credits don't have to be earned by the same player). Players with a few million each from playing the game buy low level stuff from a player who converts those credits into higher value stuff. Rinse and repeat)

You are wrong because you are defining farming content as normal play. The dialing back of the rewards had no impact which was why they had to go to the taxes. And the taxes have had the desired impact of cooling the game economy.

The taxes have almost no impact on newbies. The stuff they can afford to buy with the credits they earn while leveling is at most an 8% GTN tax, assuming they can't just gather/craft them for themselves (gathering/crafting is what everyone currently selling those items on the GTN did). Travel costs and repair costs are a different story and those do impact "newbies" disproportionately. If you want to argue for newbies you should be arguing about the stuff that has a greater impact. No newbie needs a CM item that costs 10 billion credits (in fact almost all those items are reskins of something already in the game that cost much less - you're paying for the name attached to it) and if they really want it that bad, they can buy it from the Cartel Market (If there is something that should be returned to the CM there is a whole section of the forums for requesting that) I play the game every day and am impacted by the trade taxes not at all.

Sorry Trixie but this just isn't true. I have played the game many times through and never ended up at max level with more than a couple million credits (a far cry from the billions you needed to buy a lot of items even a few months ago). The problem was farming specific content not overall rewards (Dailies, just certain ones and not all of them, being the biggest source of repeating, especially with Stealth characters). The rewards from Conquest did add up to a lot but this is also only farming specific content. Running the same flashpoint/heroic/daily dozens of time a day is not normal gameplay. Besides, they removed most of those rewards over the years and it had no impact on inflation (heroic rewards were slashed, conquest rewards were slashed, selling of dropped gear was slashed and still GTN prices went up.)

Credit Sellers were to blame since they kept credits in the game that would otherwise have left (only farming mats became irrelevant, not their business of buying credits from players permanently leaving the game). Bioware took a hammer to them right before the taxes and it had a significant impact on the overall credit supply. How long they stay irrelevant is the question.

So if there are no credits and no items included, it is automatically bound to legacy? I assume then that if credits or items are included, the full tax would be due for the transaction to proceed (whatever the current tax for the items traded are) and the item would remain unbound.

I agree with you on that approach. The legacy binding is a requirement for any sort of "free gifting". Perhaps a check-box in the transaction window. If you allow the item to bind to legacy, the transaction is tax-free. If not, you (the receiving party) pay the full tax. People giving away items shouldn't have to worry about the tax then and it's all on the receiving party on whether they want it bound or not and pay the appropriate price. That takes care of CM items, and with that under control, runaway prices on some mats and crafted items should also decline.

Substitute any alternate currency you like then (mats, hypecrates, etc). If you tax only credit including transactions, the big boys stop using credits use something else and it is those big boys that drive up the price of everything with their virtually unlimited credits. Not charging a fee for expensive item "trades" does not remove enough credits from the game (people already know far too well how to avoid those credit taxes and it is the ones that are doing that, that are the heart of the problem with the economy). There may be a time when that approach can be taken but it isn't yet. All trades, regardless of whether they include credits must be taxed in some way or people will just stop using credits for purchases and alternate currencies will flourish making the problem of controlling the economy much more difficult. Gifting is a really small part of the total number of transactions, certainly not enough to risk undoing the progress that has been made in cooling down the economy.

What is it then when Player A gifts Player B 4 billion credits and Player B gifts Player A a cartel market item shortly thereafter. It's this loophole that is the issue with "gifting". It would be abused by far more players than would legitimately use it for gifting. The binding of CM items to legacy after the first trade/sale following their purchase from the CM is the only real solution (though you still get the "no tax" trade the first time) to prevent flipping of items which drives up prices. Gifting should be allowed but not for everyone all the time. Perhaps a 30 minutes to 1 hour unlock that you purchase with credits (or longer if purchased with CCs) where you can trade things tax free . Still exploitable but it does put a damper on "free" trades. Despite the complaints, the taxes have been very successful in bringing down prices. Perhaps they can be lifted at some point once prices have stabilized at a more reasonable level.

Still prohibited from traveling to stronghold in this entire area. Also add to the list the Jedi Temple (Main Floor) area on Coruscant

Silly question perhaps, but do you have an open character slot on Star Forge. If there is no open slot, the transfer will fail.

Based on them not having developed any games of their own in 10 years and supporting only EA MMOs, it seems likely they are not truly independent. Basically all of their income is coming from EA. I've worked under situations like this where you leave on Friday working for one company and come in on Monday working for another. Nothing really changes except for the signature on your paycheck. This is what I think Broadsword is, not a wholly owned subsidiary, but pretty close.

It's the same publisher, EA. The Dev team is the same dev team just under a different name, Broadsword.

Or it could be purely financial. Keeping all three "servers" in the same server farm is cheaper than spreading them out to different locations (as opposed to moving them all to a different location). The benefit you get from spreading them out only arises if the game population rises significantly and one datacenter can't manage the full "workload" and the population using the server becomes more dispersed.

Were you logged in when you made the transaction? You usually have to log out then back in for it to show up.

Yes, but if I play a "weak" character vs a "strong" character (ie more challenging), the rewards are the same. If you create separate versions of the content then you can include things that do make it harder and the increased rewards are justified. You can't do that in a milieu where different rewards are being applied based on your selection of level sync. The KotFE and KotET veteran modes are more than just lowering your stats through level sync. How much harder is it really for a level 80 character with 40 levels of reduction than a level 30 character with 10 levels of reduction doing missions on Coruscant (or any of the first 3 planets or so). Should that level 80 character get better rewards just because he is taking a bigger level reduction than his lower level counterpart even though the content may still be easier of him because of his level based abilities. What about someone with all of the legacy datacrons collected vs someone with none. On low level planets the datacrons do make a difference. Should the person with fewer datacrons collected get better rewards?

Again, the problem is this is a very subjective determination. It needs to be completely objective if you are going to add increased rewards. Running the same level character through certain heroics using stealth is much easier than running a glass cannon DPS. How do you differentiate between them when they may have the same overall stats and levels (the equation becomes complicated very quickly).

The problem is that level sync is no longer a hard cap and better gear and more levels will always make the content easier. How do you define what is "hard" enough to qualify for increased rewards. Reducing a level 80 character 8 levels while they are wearing 336 gear might still be easier content than reducing a level 40 character 2 levels while wearing 226 gear in the same content. Since 7.0 your gear matters. You would have to base it on the actual stats themselves (which aren't gong to be consistent based on the level sync "level") plus an adjustment for the abilities the character has (levels) in order to make it equal and that is probably beyond the ability of any player to determine (or even Bioware/Broadsword to determine as even the class you are using can impact the difficulty - stealthers for example) what actually constitutes "hard" enough for the xp/reward bonus.

Seems like everything is fine as it is now then. The few people who do it get reported. The problem is clearly being exaggerated.