$10-$15 for armor sets/crystals? Really?

[Hambunctious]

I sit on my ship, and camp the gtn. I have a ton of the purple cc gear that people put up for default gtn prices.

 

Other than that, you honestly have to have no self control at all if you spend $15 real money on a outfit, or crystal. It's no wonder this country is broke. Too many living here blow through money like it's nothing.

 

It's not even the $15, it's the principle. You literally get nothing for the money, and keep wasting more money on something insubstantial.

[xomnow]

Well, I've yet to see a $70 space monocle so things can't be that bad...

[kirorx]

They are pretty expensive but this can be fixed,

 

These items need to be bound to account on equip rathr than bind on equip.

If i can share the items i bought with my other toons, its not such a bad price. When its 15 dollars for an item i can only use for one character, then its too much.

 

I have the mask of Nihilous but i wont equip it because it would be bound to that one character.

Edited December 6, 2012 by kirorx

[noodlehaus]

I sit on my ship, and camp the gtn. I have a ton of the purple cc gear that people put up for default gtn prices.

 

Other than that, you honestly have to have no self control at all if you spend $15 real money on a outfit, or crystal. It's no wonder this country is broke. Too many living here blow through money like it's nothing.

 

It's not even the $15, it's the principle. You literally get nothing for the money, and keep wasting more money on something insubstantial.

 

i just spent around $120 on cartel coins last night and i'm satisfied. i play swtor and wow on my free time to unwind if i'm not outside with friends. money you spend on gaming is money you want to spend on gaming, not money you wanted to spend on food or clothing or other necessities. that logic is just simply flawed.

 

if you don't have the budget to spend on games then by all means, hold out on cartel coins, it's your right, your money, your choice. but for people who has money to spend to enjoy the game, like i said, it's their money, their choice, and their right.

[kaug]

Based strictly on what I see on the players and on the GTN... I disagree with you. LOTS of the armor is being purchased. I see it regularly on the players and I see a truck load of it on the GTN. There is some of the armor sets that I think are not selling well, but given how ugly they are.. I can see why.... but I'm sure there are people that like them and buy them.

 

Personally, I have aquired most of my cartel armor off the GTN.

 

Now, based on GTN listings though... I do think the market for the cartel packs has peaked and is declining quickly.

 

I think you are talking about armor through cartel packs, where as I'm talking about the rest of the overpriced junk and armor sets on the actual cartel market. I'm not talking about anything listed on the GTN which is where the confusion creeps in, but whatever the point is still the same the cartel market items are way to expensive and you will find just about everyone agrees. Sure there are a few people that bought new sets of armor sets at launch directly off the cartel market, I just attribute that to the opening of the cartel. Hopefully discounts will start to creep in for armor sets and crystals as not many people will pay those kind of prices. I'd love to see the data on it, I bet the sales for armor and crystal purchased direclty off the cartel market have declined rapidly since launch. Hence why you can start seeing these discounts.

[Andryah]

I think you are talking about armor through cartel packs, where as I'm talking about the rest of the overpriced junk and armor sets on the actual cartel market.

 

NO.. I am talking about the actual purprle cartel armor with mods in them. I see lots of player characters wearing them and there are dozens of pages of them on the GTN right now on Harbinger and have been for some time now. These ALL had to come from people buying the actual armor off the cartel shop in order for player characters to wear them or for players to list them on the GTN. So there is a keester load of sales going on within the player base.

 

Now, what I do see drying up on the GTN is the armor and weapons from the cartel packs. Leads me to believe the cartel pack frenzy is over.

Edited December 6, 2012 by Andryah

[kaug]

NO.. I am talking about the actual purprle cartel armor with mods in them. I see lots of player characters wearing them and there are dozens of pages of them on the GTN right now on Harbinger and have been for some time now. These ALL had to come from people buying the actual armor off the cartel shop in order for player characters to wear them or for players to list them on the GTN. So there is a keester load of sales going on within the player base.

 

Now, what I do see drying up on the GTN is the armor and weapons from the cartel packs. Leads me to believe the cartel pack frenzy is over.

 

I doubt its that many at all, not compared to the subscription base from my visual observations, then again I am on Asia pacific, so we have a rather stunted view thanks to our poor numbers. But anyway discussing metrics we don't have against what you visually perceive is pointless with no data, and we are moving off the topic of the majority want the prices of cartel market lowered. You can conduct a survey if you like ask in general chat. who thinks the price of cartel armors and crystals is too high, take several surveys the amount of people that have already bought matters not the answer will be the same. Also who would like to equip various armors for visual effect without having to re-mod them.

[AnHero]

i bought four of the armor sets

 

some people will buy them OP.

[rlionherz]

i just wish those armor would be bound to legacy Edited December 6, 2012 by rlionherz

[stabbygayle]

The prices for items on the cartel market is just way too high. Do you really expect people to pay ten to fifteen dollars for an armor set or color crystals? These prices need to be somewhat reduced. The cartel conversion from cash to cc is fine, but lower the price of actual armor sets and crystals a bit.

 

I loled. Your suffering and QQing brings me great amusement Would you expect any less from Sith player?

Edited December 6, 2012 by stabbygayle

[MSpectre]

Yes it's overpriced but it's optional.

 

I've been tempted a few times but fortunately for me they haven't quite made anything unique enough to catch my attention. I just keep reminding myself it's a suckers market and wait for my complimentary coins.

 

Here's an idea BW/EA, create an item that allows you to make ANY armor piece 'Adaptive'.

Edited December 6, 2012 by MSpectre

[LordArtemis]

I think most of the prices on the market are fine at the moment, save the armor. I think it should run about half what they are charging at the moment, but I'm not sure I would push them to change it right now.

 

If the market can support these prices than I say let them be where they are. Right now I'm more concerned about health of the game. And if there isn't enough interest in the armor sets due to the prices being too high the prices will be adjusted by a lack of demand I would expect.

 

So, if they are truly too high they will probably lower the prices in the future.

[Jumajin]

This was exactly the sort of thing that I was worried about when SWTOR decided to go F2P. Subscribers shouldn't have to pay extra atop their subscription to have access to any in-game content. Now, it would be one thing if all these items were available in-game (at a reasonable chance of acquiring them) for in-game credits for Subscribers, and they could optionally pay Cartel Coins for things to give them access to them swifter (ie currency/experience "boosters", or "licenses" that make some items available below their normal requirements in game, such as an item that cuts the price of mounts and driving licenses in half etc...), but I find it repugnant if someone paying $15 a month is told they have to buy a 320 Cartel Coin "lottery ticket" to have a CHANCE to get the Sith Meditation Throne; and that is the only way to get in in game. Its preposterous that the "neat stuff" should be denied to those who are already paying the full subscription fee per month unless they pony up more cash.

 

At absolute minimum, I think we as the community need to insist that

 

1. ALL items, cosmetic and otherwise, should be available through a reasonably accessible in-game method for subscribers.

2. The "Stipend" needs to be much higher to encourage both F2P users to subscribe, and subscribers to play and enjoy their included bonus Cartel coins by spending them on "boosters" for various things.

 

SWTOR ended up with the "TORTanic" and necessitated its switch-over to F2P because of cutting corners, lack of content added at a reasonably swift manner and more. Huge numbers of players played at the start and found that it just didn't hold up to other MMOs and not enough was being done to improve and make the game a better value. The answer to getting renewed interest in the F2P model is not to put all the "cool stuff" and updates that many of us paid our $15 expecting to see on the way, behind an additional paywall for those who are willing to actually subscribe!

 

I'm so bloody tired of the greed. The model that allowed MMORPGS to rise to prominence in the West (including WoW's meteoric rise to millions of new subscribers, all before they started offering pets/mounts that were not charity-donations) was the "All you can play subscription model". You pay your monthly fee, you get complete access to the in-game experience. Cosmetic items were accessed through in-game means; you didn't need to pull out your wallet again. You paid, you played as you wished. If that meant you raided the biggest bosses, fine. If that meant you wanted to find every posh set of clothing in the game, fine. There was no bias, no tax on players that wanted to enjoy cosmetic items etc... Now, we're seeing developers who want it both ways. The playerbase needs to show this isn't acceptable, but sadly thus far they keep opening their wallets again and again. You should not put up with being nickled and dimed...or rather "5-dollared" again and again atop your subscription fee for ANY kind of in-game content! Until people stop and vehemently reject this paradigm, I don't see many changes coming. I hope it is early enough in the process that for SWTOR at least, these elements can be tweaked and "reconsidered".

 

You are correct. In F2P hybrid games, subscribers no longer receive the All you can play subscription mode. The normal expansion packs aside (as they have been around since the hey-days of EQ1), the F2P-Subscription hybrid model that we use here in western MMOs means that subscribers are going to pay extra cash as well for items put into the cash shops, or else wait a while as they save up their monthly stipends to get them. It's a model that has proven very successful for Turbine, SOE, and Cryptic, and now more companies are embracing it.

 

Greed is corporate business as usual, to be realistic. That isn't going to change in the gaming industry. Hell, it hasn't changed in the banking industry, even after the meltdown they caused. But once a game goes F2P, you can expect to (1) ignore the cash shop as a subscriber, (2) get items from the shop slowly as you save up those stipends, (3) pay for a subscription + virtual shop cash to get the items you want, when you want them. And the stupid lottery packs have proven successful in several MMO cash shops over the past few years. I don't think a western F2P MMO knows that better than Cryptic, either.

 

Until the model burns itself out one day, that's the F2P model companies are embracing. And, as you said, as long as people spend extra money in those shops (and they do), it isn't going to change. EA would no sooner change it without the bottom first dropping out, than Turbine, Cryptic, SOE, or the others would do so.

 

As a business owner in the tabletop RPG industry, I can't blame them. Gamers, by psychology, have addictive personalities (I've been one for over 30 years, and also fall into that mentality). I see it in the purchases my own customers make and how I price things. I ran several pricing experiments in 2010, and they even bought the over-priced source material in droves. If anything, the MMO industry has simply, finally, started implementing a model to cash in on the gamer personality. Hell, took them long enough considering I have business friends at Cryptic, Blizzard, and SOE that all also publish tabletop RPGs, and know full well how to get money out a gamer.

 

Video games, tabletop RPGs, Kickstarters, and even the MMO cash shop, purchases are emotionally driven. They are easy to tap into.

Edited December 6, 2012 by Jumajin

[Moaky]

No one is forcing you to buy them ya know.

 

This

 

 

If they dont sell, eventually BW will adjust the price.

[Alec_Fortescue]

The prices for items on the cartel market is just way too high. Do you really expect people to pay ten to fifteen dollars for an armor set or color crystals? These prices need to be somewhat reduced. The cartel conversion from cash to cc is fine, but lower the price of actual armor sets and crystals a bit.

 

I know they are strangely expensive. Luckily I did not have to spend a single coin on all my gear and I have a mate with lots of spare real life cash who's willing to buy me cartel items for credits. He's a bad credit maker and I discouraged him from using gold selling sites that way. If you're not with glad with the prices, like me, I recommend you try doing the same for Bioware intentionally gave us this opportunity.

 

In some EU countries you can often get a rather fresh, top shelf game for that much. You can feed a small family for over a week, too. Regional scaling of prices would be interesting. But still 10 + quid for an armor set is excessive anywhere. Someone is buying them but is it enough? Why would most of us buy those sets if we can get newly released game for the cost of 3 such sets? And those are digital items - it's not like they need to get raw materials everytime they sell you one set.

 

10+ quid for each set is not reasonable, especially for the following reasons:

- They're simple recolours

- They still look bad (as in they're not anything new in terms of design)

- Many of them are already existing stuff just turned adaptive with no faction restriction (red Sith robes, pilot outfits etc)

- They are not legacy bound. Most of us won't spend 10 quid on outfit for one character

- Past, long-term subscribers' money (very likely) might have went into their development, instead of proper bug-fixing and promised and regular content releases (Famous James Ohlen's "It's gonna be exciting..." quote?)

 

Most people I know who "bought" those things used their complimentary coins. I am afraid that the future cartel pack season rare items will be much more expensive (in terms of credits) and tougher to find as people will have to buy the overpriced items with coins they don't have for free anymore. Friend got me E30 worth cartel packs and the only gold thing I found in them was... The pink-purple crystal.

 

I think the costs should be lowered or they should be patched into legacy, not character bound gear. The monthly allowance of cartel coins is only able to get you a single cartel pack. In my opinion it should be increased to 1200 coins a month so you can, at least, get yourself a one set a month if you're not willing to pay extra. Especially if youre a long-term subscriber and was waiting for new armor sets for months.

 

Let's see how Bioware will fare with those items in the few future months. I actually wish people did not buy them. "You want to see this game die?" argument is not valid for unreasonable pricing of digital fluff.

Edited December 6, 2012 by Alec_Fortescue

[Screaming_Ziva]

I sit on my ship, and camp the gtn. I have a ton of the purple cc gear that people put up for default gtn prices.

 

Other than that, you honestly have to have no self control at all if you spend $15 real money on a outfit, or crystal. It's no wonder this country is broke. Too many living here blow through money like it's nothing.

 

It's not even the $15, it's the principle. You literally get nothing for the money, and keep wasting more money on something insubstantial.

When you go to the movies and spend $15 you get two hours of enjoyment. What substantial item did you get from your 2 hours at the movies? If you spend $15 on an armor or item that you're going to use in game for more than two hours, you're actually getting more enjoyment out of your game spent $15 than you did out of your movie spent $15.

[Screaming_Ziva]

This was exactly the sort of thing that I was worried about when SWTOR decided to go F2P. Subscribers shouldn't have to pay extra atop their subscription to have access to any in-game content.

I bet if you checked your server's GTN, you would find just about every single item from the Cartel Shop there. You have access to all of it for credits. You don't have to spend any real world money on cartel items if you don't want to.

[MarkoJinn]

After seeing the prices of some of the pay to play games on the iPad and the "extras" in free to plays, I'm not surprised at all. It's 5-10 dollars for 1 decoration in Smurf Village that I play with my son. When I cruise through other people's villages, some have clearly spent $100s just to decorate.

 

And that's the irony of the world we live in. There are people in Africa that don't have drinking water or food but we here have money to spend on a decorations for a virtual smurf village... Think about that for a second...

 

Boy does this planet need a serious CTRL+ALT+DELETE reset....

[pudim]

And that's the irony of the world we live in. There are people in Africa that don't have drinking water or food but we here have money to spend on a decorations for a virtual smurf village... Think about that for a second...

 

Boy does this planet need a serious CTRL+ALT+DELETE reset....

 

Survival of the fittest,

You say that as if the guilty was all "ours", but nature itself has it's own ways to get rid of the "weak"

[Aleeha]

What's really comical about this is that you can have a level 50 run you through a few low level zones, get all the moddable gear FREE and then use THAT until you're 50 and start replacing it.

 

But, then again people will pay 15 bucks to play dress up, just look at Barbie sales around Christmas time, people pay a freaking lot more than 15 bucks to play dress up.

[HarleysRule]

IMO crystals are overpriced at 900CC, considering a 5 piece set of lvl 31 purp modded armor is 1200CC. Obvious solution is to not buy them. IMO orange/yellow crystals are ugly as sin, so I wouldn't buy them if they were half the price, even for shield/focus/generator slots. Now if I could get regular purple, that might be different.

 

At between 500 and 700 free CCs a month, it doesn't take long for subbers to get anything they want without spending a dime. I bought one of the willpower armor sets for an alt because I liked the look and there was absolutely nothing else in the shop or coming to the shop (AFAIK) that I wanted.

Edited December 6, 2012 by HarleysRule

[MandFlurry]

Who gives a damn if freemium players have to pay $10-$15 bucks for armor sets and color crystals. Serves them right for not subbing.

 

Subscribers won't have to pay anything to get those items. They can easily save up their monthly stipends and get anything they want for free.

 

I made the bad mistake of useing some of my 3100 CCs on an armor set that was about 4 levels below what lvl I was and thought it would make the other armor I have for my Sage Obsolete even though my looted armor could be upgraded. So when I went to put on my armor I saw a bad sign that the armor I bought out of the 3100 CCs, not with money, that the armor I got from CCs was a lot inferior to all the armor I had on already and wasted a lot of CCs. So I had to take the mods from my existing armor and put it the armor I got with CCs which costed me a lot of money to switch mods and augies from existing armor to the armor I really didn't need.

[DarkkChaos]

This thread is funny....

 

All those items that were $10-$15...are worth squat now. There are so many items flooding the GTN, it's amusing.

 

You can get a full gear set for less than a million credits.....I don't know why people freaked out about this. It's simply common sense - every time there is a new item, give it a week or two...and those high prices are cut in half!

 

The Mask...the Throne - both of which were fetching over 7-8mill/per - are less than half of that now.....relax people. If your THAT desperate to get the items the DAY they come out...then ya, go blow your money - otherwise, have some patience.

[Alec_Fortescue]

This thread is funny....

 

All those items that were $10-$15...are worth squat now. There are so many items flooding the GTN, it's amusing.

 

You can get a full gear set for less than a million credits.....I don't know why people freaked out about this. It's simply common sense - every time there is a new item, give it a week or two...and those high prices are cut in half!

 

The Mask...the Throne - both of which were fetching over 7-8mill/per - are less than half of that now.....relax people. If your THAT desperate to get the items the DAY they come out...then ya, go blow your money - otherwise, have some patience.

 

Patience? You realise that there won't be another 2k complimentary coins for the next cartel pack season? There will be much less of those items. :/ I had 16 packs in total and the only gold item i found was a pink purple crystal. that's like 30 euro-worth of packs.

[Tfranco]

Appearance affects gameplay a lot.

 

Not really, an enemy won't die any faster if your wearing cartel armor.