commendation vendors ruin economy/crafting

[sskinzz]

Why should the economy be necessary?

 

i guess its not

 

maybe im one of the few that is interested and enjoys the idea of crafting, RE and playing the gtn? i dunno

 

like i said earlier, i didnt play WoW - and i guess i just assumed that crafting was an important part of mmorpg's. i enjoy crafting and the idea of a player based driven economy really interested me.

 

now that ive learned a bit more about how the commendations vendors work, im a bit let down. like i said, it now feels more like a single player rpg as far as economy goes and the fact that people can just go get most of their gear from an npc vendor.

 

the decisions made by the developers actually feel quite in line with the way games are being made nowadays.... make everything easier and more accessible to everyone so that everyone can have great gear .... god forbid people have to actually struggle and work at getting what they want.

 

between crafting being irrelevant, everything instanced and the story somewhat linear...the more i learn about swtor the more it feels like im playing a single player rpg

Edited January 6, 2012 by sskinzz

[ErrantMercenary]

Why should the economy be necessary?

 

You mean why do we need a unified system by which players can trade and create goods that doesn't involve trading three hens for two sexual favors and selling six eggs for a shirt to wear?

 

I will hand it to you, every day on these forums I think I've read the stupidest thing that has ever been said on the internet, and every day I'm wrong.

 

 

MMOs have an economies because inevitably, players will end up with stuff other players want, and since humanity did us a solid and proved how slow and inefficient the barter system is some millenia ago, we use currency.

Edited January 6, 2012 by ErrantMercenary

[TheRealDestian]

Just curious you don't consider crafting to be ez mode? It requires nothing but an investment in time. I'm sorry that people can't make a million credits while afk but hey if you actually play the game you can make a load of credits. Just my opinion.

 

Who's AFKing and making a million credits?

 

I'm grinding Cybertech and trying to RE to every recipe possible and it is FAR from easy. I've been running around farming mats nonstop, and when I'm not doing that, I'm figuring out what materials I need to buy off the GTN to craft what I need to craft.

 

More to the point, if crafting is going to be a huge timesink like this, you should be able to make SOME money off of it at later levels. As it stands, crafting is worthless at lower levels.

 

Also, crafting is far harder than grinding some mobs for commendations and just buying the gear you need.

[Zennshi]

Commendations are not ruining the economy, over inflated prices are.

 

It's expensive leveling up. Repairs, new skills, crew skills, etc...

 

Not to mention that I am not going to spend a ton of credits on a piece of gear that is going to get replaced in a level or two anyway. Maybe if crafters started putting items up at REALISTIC prices it would change. But as long as people are putting up sub-par items at 10,000 credits when I can go get a better piece for commendations, why would I spend credits?

 

Commendations make it easy to keep your gear current while saving your credits for other things that you really need.

 

Are you high? There is no 'over inflation', it is price gouging and people trying to make SOMETHING off of their professions.

 

Commendations are ****** the economy by giving out everything that crafters make barring very expensive purples!

 

You just confirmed what we are trying to say here! No one will buy crafted items because they will be replaced and the alternative is to get cheap oranges and fill them with commendation items. Making those purple quality mods aren't cheap at all.

 

The fact that anyone feels entitled to getting superior quality items at dirt price for questing is amazing. These mods shouldn't be so freely available and if anything, mods that are = to green playermade mods shouldn't even be sold.

 

If we were able to sell you the green or blue mods, we would. But for 2 commendations we just get screwed sideways!

Edited January 6, 2012 by Zennshi

[Drewser]

What's the problem.. oh you mean it's a problem for you... It's funny people talk about not being able to make money from their profession, they've got it all wrong. I make plenty of money from my profession, I'm a bounty hunter. Armormech is my hobby. I make enough to help out my friends and keep my companions geared.

Also do you really think BW didn't realize this? Think about what that says about crafting. It's a diversionary mini game like space battles. The only people seem to be bothered by it are the folks who can't make a mint while being afk.

 

You are missing the point. Other than biochem they are pretty useless end game.

 

Bad game design.

[TheRealDestian]

Are you high? There is no 'over inflation', it is price gouging and people trying to make SOMETHING off of their professions.

 

Actually, I think he meant that the cost of skills and other game-set items are way too damn high so no one has any money left over to buy the crafted gear.

 

Which is true.

[TrevNYC]

In order to turn a profit not only do you have to include the price of materials but also a portion of the training cost, the GTN fee, and cost of RE

 

That is what I meant when I said the cost of learning the schematic. For green items the cost is the trainer cost. For blues it is the cost of RE'ing greens. For blues it is the cost of RE'ing blues. For oranges it is the cost of buying the schematic on the GTN.

 

But many crafters make mistakes. One is that they learn everything from the trainers without regard to whether they ultimately will sell those items. Another is that they make and RE everything they know, again without regard for demand. Yet another is they try to recoup investment costs in large chunks. Still another is that they don't scope out the competition to see what the holes are (yes, this includes commendation vendors. They don't actually sell everything, despite what these threads say).

 

So let's say I want to level and profit from Armstech on the Republic side without making these mistakes (and yes, I actually *did* make all of those mistakes when I first trained armstech). Here's what I do: I go to the trainer, and learn techblades as soon as I can. I don't focus on any other weapons. I might learn one of the barrel schematics if the techblades aren't available first. I either queue up a bunch of one type of barrel, or techblades if I can make them. Why techblades? Because none of the commendation vendors sell any, and jedi consulars' first companion uses them exclusively. I don't bother with imp-only weapons like sniper rifles and vibroknives, for obvious reasons.

 

As each techblade appears in my inventory, I RE it. As soon as I learn a prototype, I stop the queue and cancel all pending items. I keep track of how many techblades I made so I know the amount I invested (training, mats). I do the same thing with the prototype. NOTE: I can stop right before this step and start making money if I want. I don't need purple techblades to make money, because as I mentioned earlier, none of the commendation vendors sell them. Blues are better than anything available from vendors so I can start selling here if I want. Truthfully, the greens are better than the vendor greens of the same level so I can sell those too.

 

But, I'm bold, so I keep going until I learn "purple techblade of awesome purpleness", assuming that it's not taking so many REs that I start to get nervous. If it does, I quit trying for purples and start trying to make my credits back on blues. But let's say I'm lucky and get the purple reasonably fast, after about 10,000 credits worth of materials. I'm almost ready to get to crafting. The next step is to check the GTN for the cost of purple mats. The first time I check I only see a couple metals listed for 10,000 credits each, and my recipe uses 2 of them (making this up, btw). That means each purple techblade I make would have to be priced at over 20k credits.

 

No way. That's too rich for a lowbie's blood. I remember what it was like when I hit level 10 and I had maybe 6k credits tops. I do a mission to see if I can get epic mats cheaper than that. As these missions come back, I end up with blue mats. I'm on the bold plan, so I don't use these. I sell them. If a mission costs 200 credits and yields 2 blues, I sell each one for ~150 credits. I'm making money already. It's not a lot, but I'm more interested in defraying costs. I may test the waters to see if they sell more, but that involves watching the GTN.

 

I also check the weapon vendors to see what green techblades go for. They are around 500 credits, so I figure even the most stingy player would pay 1.5-2k credits for a purple techblade, and that doesn't break the 6k "average bank" of that level player.

 

After a few days of checking the GTN, I notice that the price of purple grade 1 metal is more reasonable. They are going for 250 credits each. So now I pick up 2 (or use 2 that I have gotten myself). NOTE: Even if I got epic metals from missions, I haven't used them until I was more sure of what the market price was. There is no point in using them for a techblade if the metal really sells for 10k each, I'm better off just selling them and building a war chest to fund later crafting.

 

But that 10k price was nonsense, and the market stabilized. I make my first techblade, for the cost of ~600 mats (including non-purple mats). Now I RE'd 10k worth of stuff so I have to factor that in. I'm not swinging for the fences here, so I'm not going to price my techblade at 10,600 credits like some people. I want to get that back, but not all at once, and some of it I already got back from selling excess blue mats.

 

Instead, I price it at 2k, which I figured was within a newly-AC'ed characters budget, especially for something that will last quite a few levels. That is 1400 credits "profit." After roughly 7 sales, I will make back all the credits I put into learning the schematic, and any sales after that will only be profit. So I ask myself, "do I think that I will be able to sell at least 8 lowbie techblades to jedi consular players over my time on this server?"

 

I think that seems like a reasonable assumption, so I start crafting. I make similar decisons at each "tier". BAM, I'm making money, even at extremely conservative price points. The commendation vendors ain't got nothin' on me.

[deserttfoxx]

I dont know what the hell bioware was thinking making commendaiton gear superior to EVERYTHING, here i thought you would need crafted gear just to get into raids, turns out its all bull, you just need to do 1 day of dailies and you get tier 1 mods.

 

GG bioware.

[sskinzz]

Actually, I think he meant that the cost of skills and other game-set items are way too damn high so no one has any money left over to buy the crafted gear.

 

Which is true.

 

therealdestian - i respectfully disagree. i dont believe that the cost of skills and other game-set items are to high.

 

i think people dont have money left over to buy crafted gear BECAUSE nobody can make much off of their professions. the reason alot of people cant make money off of their professions is because everyone goes to the damn commendation vendors to get all of their gear instead of buying crafted items and putting money back into the swtor economy.

[L-RANDLE]

The point is BioWare does not like gold farmers because they upset the economy. Slicers claim they do the same thing as gold farmers by pumping much needed credits into an economy - only without discriminating against those who have no RL money. I agree with this point.

 

But then why would BioWare like the pre-nerf slicers if they already don't like farmers (who with or without the slicing nerf will flood our economy with credits to anybody who can afford them)? LOL

 

(farmers actually pay for multiple subscriptions and don't complain about the nerfs! They seem like a much better customer base LOL)

 

 

Exactly Velsael. You can't stop gold farming. Only slow it down. Nerfing slicing did not nullify farming, and that was BW's "intention". It now has lead to them increasing the RL profits, not only because the farmers now need multiple acounts, but the "real" player has to keep playing longer to acheive the same goals pre-nerf (which also leads to more RL profit). But the damage is already done, now that they turned off the ATM machine, I would suspect gold farmers are now making more RL money than they did pre-nerf (which is opposite of what BW stated they were trying to accomplish).

 

 

Mats=credits and vice versa. I would suspect that now instead of credit farming, they will start material farming and selling for RL money. It is a much slower than the credit thing, but now you have many that will be trying for few resources. I am more than sure that people are still on the servers farming drops (to stay ahead of the nerf bat) and just trading them straight up for RL money eventually.

 

 

Moral of the story for "real" players: Save or sell (GTN) your mats, buy storage instead of High-Level Speeder Training (only 10% speed increase)/Skills you dont use in-game, farm materials for stuff YOU need (mods/stims/meds which all can = credits if you sell them to vendor or AH), and make stuff that YOU (or friends) will use.

 

This will help you be a nasty slider to the nerf bat and will give flexibilty to still make money to function...

[sskinzz]

im just glad to see that some of you agree and also see that the commendation vendors really are "choking" the economy. it makes it really tough for certain crafters to make a living when an npc down the street gives away the same thing for free.

 

make commendation vendors blue item bop gear for companions only and all the crafting skills and the swtor economy will start to breath.

[Pherdnut]

@profitable slicing for non-crafters: Pay attention to the topic. Orange items + commendation and cheap vendor mods are all you need to stay reasonably current. If you don't really want to craft, you don't really need much money to get by in this game but you'll have a lot more money for not crafting as you level at this early stage in the economy than if you did unless you really know what you're doing on the market which most of us don't.

 

@Topic:

 

The problem is, nobody's selling (or maybe buying) augmentation items yet. If Purple mastercrafts + the best possible augments don't offer possibilities for builds that oranges with equivalent quality/level mods don't, there is a problem. But we just don't really know until people have sorted the old beta info from what's actually achievable in crafting now, Cybertechs start selling more augments, and players start buying them.

[Zennshi]

Actually, I think he meant that the cost of skills and other game-set items are way too damn high so no one has any money left over to buy the crafted gear.

 

Which is true.

 

That isn't inflation, that is called poor game balance or intentional imbalance to draw out gameplay.

 

Which might be what the commendations are for, but even with that in mind... WHY CRAFT IF I GET NOTHING OUT OF IT?!

[Darcmoon]

im just glad to see that some of you agree and also see that the commendation vendors really are "choking" the economy. it makes it really tough for certain crafters to make a living when an npc down the street gives away the same thing for free.

 

make commendation vendors blue item bop gear for companions only and all the crafting skills and the swtor economy will start to breath.

 

It won't really help however. Most people will still just use the items they get from quests or that drop off mobs when they are doing quests. Yes, more items would probably sell but you still won't create the demand you are looking for, for the crafted gear.

[Drewser]

@profitable slicing for non-crafters: Pay attention to the topic. Orange items + commendation and cheap vendor mods are all you need to stay reasonably current. If you don't really want to craft, you don't really need much money to get by in this game but you'll have a lot more money for not crafting as you level at this early stage in the economy than if you did unless you really know what you're doing on the market which most of us don't.

 

@Topic:

 

The problem is, nobody's selling (or maybe buying) augmentation items yet. If Purple mastercrafts + the best possible augments don't offer possibilities for builds that oranges with equivalent quality/level mods don't, there is a problem. But we just don't really know until people have sorted the old beta info from what's actually achievable in crafting now, Cybertechs start selling more augments, and players start buying them.

 

Slicers get augments. I have only gotten end game purples from the 340 slicing missions which are hard to come by and they give a +28 to various stats.

[Zennshi]

Exactly Velsael. You can't stop gold farming. Only slow it down. Nerfing slicing did not nullify farming, and that was BW's "intention".

 

Until I see an official post that claims this, you can kindly stop talking on their behalf.

 

 

By the way, I have a made a post that covers these issues http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1165256#post1165256 and then some.

Edited January 6, 2012 by Zennshi

[DaShuk]

I have yet to use a commendation vendor for really anything in terms of mods or gear and at lvl 26 already have an orange level chest, legs, gloves, and head piece all just from drops and flashpoints.

 

The bigger issue to me is the crew skill schematics you learn from the trainers costing so much along with your class skills as you level. I am broke more often than not from just leveling up and having to upgrade my skills and pick up new ones, not to mention the cost of training for speeders.

 

The only time I have ever had an abundance of credits was just after clearing Tython because I used only drop/quest reward gear and only bought a few medpacks and stims along with my skills. I got to the republic fleet with roughly 10k credits after doing that, but after picking up crafting skills that was quickly blown through.

[L-RANDLE]

Until I see an official post that claims this, you can kindly stop talking on their behalf.

 

lol there is....

 

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=120099

 

 

Read between the lines: I'm a cynic at heart, but I only can act upon what they have officialy posted...

[TrevNYC]

therealdestian - i respectfully disagree. i dont believe that the cost of skills and other game-set items are to high.

 

i think people dont have money left over to buy crafted gear BECAUSE nobody can make much off of their professions. the reason alot of people cant make money off of their professions is because everyone goes to the damn commendation vendors to get all of their gear instead of buying crafted items and putting money back into the swtor economy.

 

The game has been officially live for 2.5 weeks. There isn't anything that "everyone" or "nobody" does yet. Things are all over the place. In particular, the number of people who are just sinking credits into professions and not getting anything back is exaggerated. People tend to stop doing something if there aren't returns on it.

 

What seems to be happening is that some people entered crafting with certain assumptions, and when those didn't immediately bear out they started claiming the sky is falling. I think a more likely reason that people aren't spending as much as you want them to is that they don't know the value of credits yet. Is 1000 credits a lot? A little? What do I need them for? If I spend 5000 credits on more inventory will I have enough for a speeder? When do I get a speeder anyway? How much does it cost? These are still questions people ask every day, multiple times.

 

You have crafters afraid to set prices below a certain level because they want to recoup money fast, and you have consumers afraid to spend above a certain level because they don't want to run out of money at a key time.

Edited January 6, 2012 by TrevNYC

[TheRealDestian]

therealdestian - i respectfully disagree. i dont believe that the cost of skills and other game-set items are to high.

 

i think people dont have money left over to buy crafted gear BECAUSE nobody can make much off of their professions. the reason alot of people cant make money off of their professions is because everyone goes to the damn commendation vendors to get all of their gear instead of buying crafted items and putting money back into the swtor economy.

 

If people could buy gear that was on par with commendation vendors for less a low enough price point, they'd do that instead of collecting commendations.

 

I assume the prices he meant also include mission prices to acquire blue/purple materials for the best items.

 

I think that seems like a reasonable assumption, so I start crafting. I make similar decisons at each "tier". BAM, I'm making money, even at extremely conservative price points. The commendation vendors ain't got nothin' on me.

 

The player you're describing (the one who would buy your techblades) is an exception and not the rule.

 

I see exactly where you're coming from with this and it's sound logic, but upgrading companion gear is going to come 2nd to upgrading a player's own gear. Also, quest rewards do provide companion upgrades.

 

Meanwhile, players are saving for skills, speeders and the vital necessities.

 

Your logic definitely makes sense for players who are leveling alts and have cash to spend (and god willing, we'll see more of those sooner rather than later), but at this point in the game, the economy is extremely hazardous to crafters.

 

Maybe it's just my server, but my experiences have steered me away from crafting as anything except fun and something to help guildies.

[Velisael]

Until I see an official post that claims this, you can kindly stop talking on their behalf.

 

 

By the way, I have a made a post that covers these issues http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1165256#post1165256 and then some.

 

*sigh* My question to you Zennshi (and yes I did read through your post and I don't believe it answered this question) is this:

 

Why do you think BioWare does not want gold farmers in their game as inferred in Stephen Reid's response?

 

http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/19839-stephen-reid-clarifies-recent-banning-on-ilum

 

First, action was taken against a number of accounts for what's commonly known as 'gold farming' - or in our case, credit farming. These accounts were found to be exploiting the game in a variety of ways to maximize their credits in order to sell them to other players. Our Terms of Service team took action against these accounts and removed them permanently from the game.

 

Second, a smaller number of accounts were warned or temporarily suspended for exploiting loot containers on Ilum. To be completely clear, while players may choose to travel to Ilum earlier than the recommended level (40+) and may loot containers if they can get to them, in the cases of those customers that were warned or temporarily suspended, they were systematically and repeatedly looting containers in very high numbers resulting in the game economy becoming unbalanced.

 

None of these accounts were banned for their actions and no accounts have been banned for travelling to Ilum while still relatively low level. By comparison, the number of accounts that were warned or temporarily suspended was considerably lower than the number of accounts banned for 'credit farming'.

 

I don't have proof of BioWare's intention (as you wave around as your godly shield of protection), but I do know other prominent developers of other prominent games state Gold Farming has the potential to upset the currency balance on any one server if allowed to run unchecked.

 

Maybe you have another idea... but I think you know where this is leading.

[sskinzz]

The game has been officially live for 2.5 weeks. There isn't anything that "everyone" or "nobody" does yet. Things are all over the place. In particular, the number of people who are just sinking credits into professions and not getting anything back is exaggerated. People tend to stop doing something if there aren't returns on it.

 

What seems to be happening is that some people entered crafting with certain assumptions, and when those didn't immediately bear out they started claiming the sky is falling. I think a more likely reason that people aren't spending as much as you want them to is that they don't know the value of credits yet. Is 1000 credits a lot? A little? What do I need them for? If I spend 5000 credits on more inventory will I have enough for a speeder? When do I get a speeder anyway? How much does it cost? These are still questions people ask every day, multiple times.

 

You have crafters afraid to set prices below a certain level because they want to recoup money fast, and you have consumers afraid to spend above a certain level because they don't want to run out of money at a key time.

 

trev - i agree with you in that its only 2.5 weeks. my complaint is not that all these professions arent making money and that the economy isnt established yet... i understand that it is still in its infancy.

 

my gripe is the "systems" that are in place .... its pretty much right there in black and white that these crafting skills arent going to be needed as people can just go to the npc commendation vendors to get all of their gear for free.

[CaliJoe]

That is what I meant when I said the cost of learning the schematic. For green items the cost is the trainer cost. For blues it is the cost of RE'ing greens. For blues it is the cost of RE'ing blues. For oranges it is the cost of buying the schematic on the GTN.

 

But many crafters make mistakes. One is that they learn everything from the trainers without regard to whether they ultimately will sell those items. Another is that they make and RE everything they know, again without regard for demand. Yet another is they try to recoup investment costs in large chunks. Still another is that they don't scope out the competition to see what the holes are (yes, this includes commendation vendors. They don't actually sell everything, despite what these threads say).

 

So let's say I want to level and profit from Armstech on the Republic side without making these mistakes (and yes, I actually *did* make all of those mistakes when I first trained armstech). Here's what I do: I go to the trainer, and learn techblades as soon as I can. I don't focus on any other weapons. I might learn one of the barrel schematics if the techblades aren't available first. I either queue up a bunch of one type of barrel, or techblades if I can make them. Why techblades? Because none of the commendation vendors sell any, and jedi consulars' first companion uses them exclusively. I don't bother with imp-only weapons like sniper rifles and vibroknives, for obvious reasons.

 

As each techblade appears in my inventory, I RE it. As soon as I learn a prototype, I stop the queue and cancel all pending items. I keep track of how many techblades I made so I know the amount I invested (training, mats). I do the same thing with the prototype. NOTE: I can stop right before this step and start making money if I want. I don't need purple techblades to make money, because as I mentioned earlier, none of the commendation vendors sell them. Blues are better than anything available from vendors so I can start selling here if I want. Truthfully, the greens are better than the vendor greens of the same level so I can sell those too.

 

But, I'm bold, so I keep going until I learn "purple techblade of awesome purpleness", assuming that it's not taking so many REs that I start to get nervous. If it does, I quit trying for purples and start trying to make my credits back on blues. But let's say I'm lucky and get the purple reasonably fast, after about 10,000 credits worth of materials. I'm almost ready to get to crafting. The next step is to check the GTN for the cost of purple mats. The first time I check I only see a couple metals listed for 10,000 credits each, and my recipe uses 2 of them (making this up, btw). That means each purple techblade I make would have to be priced at over 20k credits.

 

No way. That's too rich for a lowbie's blood. I remember what it was like when I hit level 10 and I had maybe 6k credits tops. I do a mission to see if I can get epic mats cheaper than that. As these missions come back, I end up with blue mats. I'm on the bold plan, so I don't use these. I sell them. If a mission costs 200 credits and yields 2 blues, I sell each one for ~150 credits. I'm making money already. It's not a lot, but I'm more interested in defraying costs. I may test the waters to see if they sell more, but that involves watching the GTN.

 

I also check the weapon vendors to see what green techblades go for. They are around 500 credits, so I figure even the most stingy player would pay 1.5-2k credits for a purple techblade, and that doesn't break the 6k "average bank" of that level player.

 

After a few days of checking the GTN, I notice that the price of purple grade 1 metal is more reasonable. They are going for 250 credits each. So now I pick up 2 (or use 2 that I have gotten myself). NOTE: Even if I got epic metals from missions, I haven't used them until I was more sure of what the market price was. There is no point in using them for a techblade if the metal really sells for 10k each, I'm better off just selling them and building a war chest to fund later crafting.

 

But that 10k price was nonsense, and the market stabilized. I make my first techblade, for the cost of ~600 mats (including non-purple mats). Now I RE'd 10k worth of stuff so I have to factor that in. I'm not swinging for the fences here, so I'm not going to price my techblade at 10,600 credits like some people. I want to get that back, but not all at once, and some of it I already got back from selling excess blue mats.

 

Instead, I price it at 2k, which I figured was within a newly-AC'ed characters budget, especially for something that will last quite a few levels. That is 1400 credits "profit." After roughly 7 sales, I will make back all the credits I put into learning the schematic, and any sales after that will only be profit. So I ask myself, "do I think that I will be able to sell at least 8 lowbie techblades to jedi consular players over my time on this server?"

 

I think that seems like a reasonable assumption, so I start crafting. I make similar decisons at each "tier". BAM, I'm making money, even at extremely conservative price points. The commendation vendors ain't got nothin' on me.

 

Wow! Are you a car salesman irl? LoL!

[L-RANDLE]

*sigh* My question to you Zennshi (and yes I did read through your post and I don't believe it answered this question) is this:

 

Why do you think BioWare does not want gold farmers in their game as inferred in Stephen Reid's response?

 

http://www.darthhater.com/articles/swtor-news/19839-stephen-reid-clarifies-recent-banning-on-ilum

 

First, action was taken against a number of accounts for what's commonly known as 'gold farming' - or in our case, credit farming. These accounts were found to be exploiting the game in a variety of ways to maximize their credits in order to sell them to other players. Our Terms of Service team took action against these accounts and removed them permanently from the game.

 

Second, a smaller number of accounts were warned or temporarily suspended for exploiting loot containers on Ilum. To be completely clear, while players may choose to travel to Ilum earlier than the recommended level (40+) and may loot containers if they can get to them, in the cases of those customers that were warned or temporarily suspended, they were systematically and repeatedly looting containers in very high numbers resulting in the game economy becoming unbalanced.

 

None of these accounts were banned for their actions and no accounts have been banned for travelling to Ilum while still relatively low level. By comparison, the number of accounts that were warned or temporarily suspended was considerably lower than the number of accounts banned for 'credit farming'.

 

I don't have proof of BioWare's intention (as you wave around as your godly shield of protection), but I do know other prominent developers of other prominent games state Gold Farming has the potential to upset the currency balance on any one server if allowed to run unchecked.

 

Maybe you have another idea... but I think you know where this is leading.

 

Thank you for that verbal chin-check

[Zennshi]

lol there is....

 

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=120099

 

 

Read between the lines: I'm a cynic at heart, but I only can act upon what they have officialy posted...

 

Oh I misread what you said. I thought you were claiming that nerfing slicing helped to stop it.

 

My bad brother in arms