So much for not charging subs for Makeb

[H-aTreD]

I am not surprised. It has been MMORPG convention that when content comes with a "level increase", it is usually with a paid expansion. The expansion is inexpensive and subscribers get it for half off.

 

I am waiting for diffinitive word concerning "class story". I suspect we won't see it with this expansion. I hope I am wrong.

 

Pretty sure Hickman said it was a no on class story in the live stream Q&A.

[Mercathode]

$10 is not going to break anyone. If you like the game then spend the money. Realize that this stuff costs money. I ran a business for 8 years. You want quality, you have to pay for it. You want free, what do you think you'll get? Just b/c this is virtual and not a tangible product does not mean these rules do not apply.

 

Never played any other MMO so I have no reference other than SWTOR. I only play this one b/c it's Star Wars and it's the Old Republic and I was a huge fan of the originals. So i really can't speak for the other MMO's. If I want an overdone fantasy setting I'll play Skyrim...thanks.

 

It's a great game that they are trying to market to everyone. Me, casuals, Star Wars fans, H.C. MMO players, etc. Some are not going to be completely satisfied no matter what you do. The problem lies wherein that small minority thinks they are in the majority. They are not...they are just more vocal. If they were this game would have no where near the subscribers it has.

 

That being said, I would like Bioware to put in Pazaak. How cool would it be to go to Nar Shadaa and go into a casino and "gamble" your credits against comp opponents AND other players? Maybe even have "scenarios" where if you win too much you pi$$ off one of the players and they attack you. Or you can have a "cheat" mode where you can cheat and so can others....etc.

[Goretzu]

Pretty sure Hickman said it was a no on class story in the live stream Q&A.

 

He did, in the context of 8 seperate stories as we saw from L1-50 (Ch1 to Ch3), if they have something called Ch4 in Makeb it is one story (or maybe one story per faction) which is basically world story for some reason being called "Chapter 4".

[Urael]

Pretty sure Hickman said it was a no on class story in the live stream Q&A.

 

That is unfortunate. So basically there will be 5 levels of meh. Reminds me of having to now grind thru BC content as fast as I can in WoW. I hate the outlands. Let's hope that Makeb can hold it's own and it is written in a "timeless" style so as not to have the feeling on replay of "didn't this happen in the past". Class story is the reason I play. Pretty much the only reason.

[A_nonymous]

$10 is not going to break anyone. If you like the game then spend the money. Realize that this stuff costs money. I ran a business for 8 years. You want quality, you have to pay for it. You want free, what do you think you'll get? Just b/c this is virtual and not a tangible product does not mean these rules do not apply.

 

Never played any other MMO so I have no reference other than SWTOR. I only play this one b/c it's Star Wars and it's the Old Republic and I was a huge fan of the originals. So i really can't speak for the other MMO's. If I want an overdone fantasy setting I'll play Skyrim...thanks.

 

It's a great game that they are trying to market to everyone. Me, casuals, Star Wars fans, H.C. MMO players, etc. Some are not going to be completely satisfied no matter what you do. The problem lies wherein that small minority thinks they are in the majority. They are not...they are just more vocal. If they were this game would have no where near the subscribers it has.

 

That being said, I would like Bioware to put in Pazaak. How cool would it be to go to Nar Shadaa and go into a casino and "gamble" your credits against comp opponents AND other players? Maybe even have "scenarios" where if you win too much you pi$$ off one of the players and they attack you. Or you can have a "cheat" mode where you can cheat and so can others....etc.

 

So, if we have to pay for every update, why subscribe? Our subscriptions are paying for the development of stuff that we are then asked to pay for again. ***?

[macumba]

the main problem I have with this mini xpack is, that its a mini xpack.

 

1. comparability (this is most probably intentional)

it's hard to compare it to a full blown expansion to evaluate the value you get for the 20 / 10 bucks.

(they actually do this with mass effect etc dlc's instead of proper xpacks for maximum exploitation of customers)

 

2. end game content

5 levels while not much is enough to make all actual raid-content obsolete und that needs to be replaced properly.

a mini xpack most probably means mini content. assumption: so you're 55 now and greens from makeb are better than current dread guard gear.

running old raids won't kick it nor does any level 50 stuff do. even though its only a mini-expansion you will still need proper and enough content for those who are 55.

so that may not be mini or swtor is going to run into the same problems it has been in since release --> not enough content. you need flashpoints, you need operations (notice the plural)

or else people will get bored. leveling 5 lvls = not a big job, but everything you can do now becomes useless non the less.

Edited December 18, 2012 by macumba

[Urael]

So, if we have to pay for every update, why subscribe? Our subscriptions are paying for the development of stuff that we are then asked to pay for again. ***?

 

As the model is set up you pay a subscription not to be PENALIZED (I know such a great F2P model ).

 

Your subscription doesn't go to development costs for the game. Your subscription is to pay to access the service that is SWTOR. It's like paying your internet, cable, electric, water, etc. bills. It's up to EA as a company to provide the capital to fund development costs. They then recoup their investment via revenue generated by the games they produce. Perhaps in a "backward" way we do "fund development" but, that is not how it is viewed in practice.

 

I am not upset. It has a level Cap increase. If they ever try to charge us for something that doesn't come with a level Cap increase, then I will be angry.

Edited December 18, 2012 by Urael

[Rogoo]

I surely hope they will fix AMD Crossfire issues by then.

 

Hell, 6 months wouldn't be nearly enough time for it.

[Durasturan]

$10 is not going to break anyone. If you like the game then spend the money. Realize that this stuff costs money. I ran a business for 8 years. You want quality, you have to pay for it. You want free, what do you think you'll get? Just b/c this is virtual and not a tangible product does not mean these rules do not apply.

 

Never played any other MMO so I have no reference other than SWTOR. I only play this one b/c it's Star Wars and it's the Old Republic and I was a huge fan of the originals. So i really can't speak for the other MMO's. If I want an overdone fantasy setting I'll play Skyrim...thanks.

 

It's a great game that they are trying to market to everyone. Me, casuals, Star Wars fans, H.C. MMO players, etc. Some are not going to be completely satisfied no matter what you do. The problem lies wherein that small minority thinks they are in the majority. They are not...they are just more vocal. If they were this game would have no where near the subscribers it has.

 

That being said, I would like Bioware to put in Pazaak. How cool would it be to go to Nar Shadaa and go into a casino and "gamble" your credits against comp opponents AND other players? Maybe even have "scenarios" where if you win too much you pi$$ off one of the players and they attack you. Or you can have a "cheat" mode where you can cheat and so can others....etc.

 

You're right, you've never played any other MMO before. That's what BW is counting on, the fact they dragged a whole bunch of first time gamers in with super low expectations because "OMG IT'S STAR WARS!" It's the same thing Lucas did with the prequels. So you don't know that you're being screwed on the deal and ignorance is bliss.

 

But the fact is that no one expects to get it "free." I've spent hundreds of dollars on this game. CE, and now 12 months of sub. We were told that Subscribbers would never be asked to pay for additional content and now they are saying "WHOOPS SORRY THAT'LL BE TEN BUCKS."

 

There is honestly no reason to stay subbed to this game any longer. MIght as well just spend whatever CC I have on unlocks and cancel my sub. I refuse to pay $15 a month for NOTHING and be nickle and dimed on every other little thing in the game. This is getting ridiculous. No one expects things "for free" as your straw man argument suggests. What we expect is that the $15 we pay every month has some type of VALUE attached to it, and with every "patch" since f2p they have proven that it has less and less.

[A_nonymous]

As the model is set up you pay a subscription not to be PENALIZED (I know such a great F2P model ).

 

I am not upset. It has a level Cap increase. If they ever try to charge us for something that doesn't come with a level Cap increase, then I will be angry.

 

Honestly, I don't see how you really get penalized for an F2P. I mean, you can unlock everything that paid subscribers get for a one time fee and subs have to pay for the extra content anyway. Why sub?

[CrazyCanukk]

I surely hope they will fix AMD Crossfire issues by then.

 

Hell, 6 months wouldn't be nearly enough time for it.

 

are you sure the crossfire issues are on the game engine side or AMD driver side.

 

Last year everyone was blaming a developer for their game not shutting down properly and having to manually shut down process in task manager ..it turned out to be an issue with an Nvidia driver causing it.

 

I use SLI myself and have for many many years and know that many issues with SLI are fixed by Nvidia and their drivers more so then something on the game side.

[Mercathode]

So, if we have to pay for every update, why subscribe? Our subscriptions are paying for the development of stuff that we are then asked to pay for again. ***?

 

Subscription is for maintenance, servers, managing, current content, "free" addons, employees, taxes, buildings, the janitor, company cars, what have you...and hopefully at the end a little profit (or allot depending on who you talk to).

 

Did you pay extra for the recent updates? Section X, etc.?

 

How is this hard to comprehend? They are in business to make money. Something is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. Whatever you do to make money, do you do it just to break even?

[Durasturan]

As the model is set up you pay a subscription not to be PENALIZED (I know such a great F2P model ).

 

Your subscription doesn't go to development costs for the game. Your subscription is to pay to access the service that is SWTOR. It's like paying your internet, cable, electric, water, etc. bills. It's up to EA as a company to provide the capital to fund development costs. They then recoup their investment via revenue generated by the games they produce. Perhaps in a "backward" way we do "fund development" but, that is not how it is viewed in practice.

 

I am not upset. It has a level Cap increase. If they ever try to charge us for something that doesn't come with a level Cap increase, then I will be angry.

 

Way to have super low expectations, I swear to god kids these days are all to happy to roll over and take it from megacorps without so much as a "gentle please."

 

five levels and ONE planet that does not continue our class stories is NOT an expansion. It's nothing. It's a single day's worth of content. It's BH and Section X put together, MAYBE. It's not worth $10 and it's certainly not worth the hate and negative hype they are getting over it. My bet would be this single act costs them more subs than the Ranked bait and switch in 1.2 and the Ilum fiasco put together.

[Urael]

Honestly, I don't see how you really get penalized for an F2P. I mean, you can unlock everything that paid subscribers get for a one time fee and subs have to pay for the extra content anyway. Why sub?

 

So you don't have to pay to unlock things because things are unlocked. You do know that Freeples don't get any quest rewards if they don't unlock right? Imagine not getting your orange modible gear rewards or your comms to mod your modible gear. Yeah .. thats why I stay subbed so as not to be nickled and dimed to death. $15 a month is nothing. If you add up the costs of paying for fast food or any junk that we all need to cut out of our life, you prolly blow thru more than that in a day. The sub option is the most cost effective (you also get CCs effectively lowering the sub if you wish to participate in the CC store).

Edited December 18, 2012 by Urael

[A_nonymous]

Here's the thing w/BW. They promise great things if you pay more money/spend time playing. Then they give those away to other people for nothing.

 

Once upon a time you paid more than $100 for the CE and you got access to special CE stuff. Now you just pay $5 and you get the same things. You can pay 1,000,000 creds and get access to the lounge stuff as well. There's nothing special you get. Then they introduced legacy and you got special unlocks for spending time leveling your toons or spending creds. Now you can get the same things for nothing using the free CC they gave you. Legacy is now meaningless. We've been screwed so many times it seems pointless to continue subbing just to get screwed again.

[DarthChavez]

I like those people who are so fast to forget dev stated subscribers won't get charged for makeb. But i guess i'm in the minority of people for whom word still means something. Oh well i guess world is heading in direction where what comes out of persons mouth is worth as much as what comes out of their backside and majority people are actually fine with it.....

Evidence please

[Durasturan]

Subscription is for maintenance, servers, managing, current content, "free" addons, employees, taxes, buildings, the janitor, company cars, what have you...and hopefully at the end a little profit (or allot depending on who you talk to).

 

Did you pay extra for the recent updates? Section X, etc.?

 

How is this hard to comprehend? They are in business to make money. Something is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. Whatever you do to make money, do you do it just to break even?

 

Well since the game is actually free to play now, sub money doesn't go to those things. we get those things for FREE. So if we get those things for FREE then what exactly does sub money go towards. As a consumer, what are you paying for. You can't say "access to the servers" because we get that for free. You can't say "access to free addons" because we get that for free.

 

There are a limited number of advertised perks to being a subscriber, they are very few and ever diminishing. The huge number on biggie was "subscribers will never have to pay for content." And it was just thrown out the window.

You can't fault people complaining when their "you pay $15 a month every month for this list of perks" gets one crossed off from it any more than if your ISP decided to throttle the bandwidth that you pay x-money for. You paid for it, it's not fair to go and change what you're paying for after you paid for it.

[mavsynchroid]

Except they mentioned a few times they weren't sure if they were going to charge for it or not since it was a large chunk of content.

 

For $10? I can live with that, since thats a piece of DLC from another game that i can skimp on for a while

 

No.

 

They first said Makeb was going to be free, then later, once they realized SWTOR isn't nearly as successful as they thought it would be, said "we're unsure if we're going to charge subscriptions". Around the time they announced F2P.

 

So yes, they did say it was going to be free at first. Saying something like this to a customer, and then reneging on it is NOT good business. He has every right to be upset about that.

 

I want to know what I'm paying 15 bucks a month for. As of right now it seems as though I'm just paying for Ops/HMs. Besides that, it's no different from a f2per. I could spend a chunk of money on the unlocks and never have to pay a sub again.

 

My main point is it feels like subbers aren't GETTING anything for subbing.

Edited December 18, 2012 by mavsynchroid

[islander]

for the record, I am perfectly OK with this. 10 bucks is nothing. 20 bucks is nothing for an expansion this large.

 

I think they priced it perfectly. Remember when expansions actually cost 40-60 bucks in other MMO's?

[Goretzu]

Subscription is for maintenance, servers, managing, current content, "free" addons, employees, taxes, buildings, the janitor, company cars, what have you...and hopefully at the end a little profit (or allot depending on who you talk to).

 

Did you pay extra for the recent updates? Section X, etc.?

 

How is this hard to comprehend? They are in business to make money. Something is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it. Whatever you do to make money, do you do it just to break even?

 

In a Freemium model a subscription is in many ways even more valuable to Bioware EA than in a totally subscription based model.

 

It is month in month out money they can rely on, and in the case of 3 or 6 month subs, money up front too.

 

SWTOR subscribers can't be feeling valued with all the nonsense Bioware EA has thrown at them in the last week, in fact they are more likely to be feeling like they been mugged (again).

[mavsynchroid]

Evidence please

 

Lol look it up yourself. Not his fault you weren't paying attention back then.

[H-aTreD]

Evidence please

 

Posted twice L2Read

[Durasturan]

So you don't have to pay to unlock things because things are unlocked. You do know that Freeples don't get any quest rewards if they don't unlock right? Imagine not getting your orange modible gear rewards or your comms to mod your modible gear. Yeah .. thats why I stay subbed so as not to be nickled and dimed to death. $15 a month is nothing. If you add up the costs of paying for fast food or any junk that we all need to cut out of our life, you prolly blow thru more than that in a day. The sub option is the most cost effective (you also get CCs effectively lowering the sub if you wish to participate in the CC store).

 

The cool guy shades after literally EVERY post let me know you're trolling, so after this post you're ignored...

 

But I just want to point out first that a one time payment to unlock some aspect of the game is far cheaper than paying than paying $15 every month to limited access. after the announcement that subs will be required to pay for additional content in direct violation of their previous marketing promises, there is literally no reason to stay subbed. your sub buys you NOTHING extra.

[ImperialSun]

I finally did find it:

 

http://db-ptr.darthhater.com/items/57138/chapter_4_rise_of_the_hutt_cartel/

 

However, it is still a little ambiguous. Not necessarily Chapter 4 class story but not necessarily "Not" either. Good ole' BW. Again, all the more reason to wait till more information to be released.

 

Nice one I knew it was in there somewhere

 

Yeah I agree its still a bit vague lol...

 

/fingerscrossed for Chapter 4 ^^

 

Driz

[Mercathode]

You're right, you've never played any other MMO before. That's what BW is counting on, the fact they dragged a whole bunch of first time gamers in with super low expectations because "OMG IT'S STAR WARS!" It's the same thing Lucas did with the prequels. So you don't know that you're being screwed on the deal and ignorance is bliss.

 

But the fact is that no one expects to get it "free." I've spent hundreds of dollars on this game. CE, and now 12 months of sub. We were told that Subscribbers would never be asked to pay for additional content and now they are saying "WHOOPS SORRY THAT'LL BE TEN BUCKS."

 

There is honestly no reason to stay subbed to this game any longer. MIght as well just spend whatever CC I have on unlocks and cancel my sub. I refuse to pay $15 a month for NOTHING and be nickle and dimed on every other little thing in the game. This is getting ridiculous. No one expects things "for free" as your straw man argument suggests. What we expect is that the $15 we pay every month has some type of VALUE attached to it, and with every "patch" since f2p they have proven that it has less and less.

 

No need to insult the Star Wars fans.

 

Something is worth whatever someone is willing to pay for it.

 

If you're not willing then don't pay it. No need to get all angry about it.