I'm feeling Nickel and Dimed by Makeb

[TheSkate]

 

 

As I said the price is about right (well not sure about the F2P price), but it's still an "adventure pack" not an "expansion".

 

Makeb will have been in development for at least 1 year by the time it is released, content to development-time-wise that's not exactly speedy.

 

Sure I suspect we'll see a lot of new gambling packs and $15 outfits in 2013, but I'm not so sure what other content SWTOR will see.

 

Do you realize that other MMOs work on expansions for longer than SWToR has been out? It was over 2 years before World of Warcraft's first expansion. Blizzard, which has a WoW development team MUCH bigger than the entire BioWare company, typically works on an expansion for WoW for 18-24 months. There are more people testing the expansions on the test servers than ever subscribed to SWToR.

[bahdasz]

I cannot believe you people have been at this for 11 pages and are still going at it.

 

Cheapcheapcheapcheapcheapcheapcheap

[ryathal]

Do you realize that other MMOs work on expansions for longer than SWToR has been out? It was over 2 years before World of Warcraft's first expansion. Blizzard, which has a WoW development team MUCH bigger than the entire BioWare company, typically works on an expansion for WoW for 18-24 months. There are more people testing the expansions on the test servers than ever subscribed to SWToR.

 

you do realize that the wow expansions are nearly as comprehensive as vanilla swtor right?

[DigitalDreamz]

I cannot believe you people have been at this for 11 pages and are still going at it.

 

Cheapcheapcheapcheapcheapcheapcheap

 

If anyone purchases ANYTHING after they were told it would be free to them.

If anyone purchases ANYTHING with knowing no information.

If anyone purchases ANYTHING from EA and has faith they'll deliver a product.

 

If anyone posts in this thread knowing nothing about the arguments of others.

 

 

Stupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupidstupid

[DigitalDreamz]

10 bucks... really? oh my god...you will go hungry for ... 3min.. shoo rectal monkey shoo

 

And you too. Shoo go away.

 

Your condescending tone without knowing why others feel the way they do does no good. You guys pop in, think you say something witty then leave. Does nothing but make you look bad. Especially the insult at the end, are you five years old?

[CrazedScotsman]

Will there be new Flashpoints and Operations that is equal to the new level cap or are they going to rework the old Flashpoints and Operations to match the new level cap forcing players who don't want to buy this "Expansion" to buy it to be able to play the game?

 

As a subscriber, we pay for access to the servers and all content, but once this thing comes out, we are no longer allowed access to all content without paying extra.

 

It's just bad business even though people will pay for it. If enough people pay for it and EA/BW is laughing all the way to the bank, I'm afraid subscribers will start being charged for patches. But what's .99 cents right?

[KyleDanva]

What's all the fuss about really... you pay a few euros and get an entire expansion. Perhaps not so big an expansion as you are perhaps used to from WoW, but still big enough to be worth paying a few euros.

 

What we know we will get so far:

- new planet Makeb ( my guess is that this planet will be huge, since you are expected to level 5 levels here?)

- increased level cap to level 55

- new species: the Cathar

- 2-seat speeder

- new pets

- new vanity items (new color crystals etc.)

- new flashpoints

- new gear/ mods

 

Possible?:

- new companion? some leaked information on the internet lists the Ewon as a new obtainable companion

- Nightmare mode for TFB ?

[Durasturan]

Will there be new Flashpoints and Operations that is equal to the new level cap or are they going to rework the old Flashpoints and Operations to match the new level cap forcing players who don't want to buy this "Expansion" to buy it to be able to play the game?

 

As a subscriber, we pay for access to the servers and all content, but once this thing comes out, we are no longer allowed access to all content without paying extra.

 

It's just bad business even though people will pay for it. If enough people pay for it and EA/BW is laughing all the way to the bank, I'm afraid subscribers will start being charged for patches. But what's .99 cents right?

 

I don't know if you've read the new State of the Game by Jeff Hickman, but he talks about retooling "elder game" content so that it is still relevant at 55, essentially powering up the mobs in FP's and OP's so that they are now relevant for L55. Now he doesn't say if that means adding something like another tier of difficulty on to them so you can do them at either 50 OR 55, but my first instinct would be to say... now.

 

Also, how they work the brackets for PVP has the potential to completely ruin PVP for ever. Imagine if 55 is its own bracket and 1-54 is now the Bolstered bracket. Can you imagine some L54 in fully auged EWH fighting a L10? GG.

[DigitalDreamz]

I don't know if you've read the new State of the Game by Jeff Hickman, but he talks about retooling "elder game" content so that it is still relevant at 55, essentially powering up the mobs in FP's and OP's so that they are now relevant for L55. Now he doesn't say if that means adding something like another tier of difficulty on to them so you can do them at either 50 OR 55, but my first instinct would be to say... now.

 

Also, how they work the brackets for PVP has the potential to completely ruin PVP for ever. Imagine if 55 is its own bracket and 1-54 is now the Bolstered bracket. Can you imagine some L54 in fully auged EWH fighting a L10? GG.

 

They'll probably keep:

 

1 - 49

 

Add:

 

50 - 54

 

and add:

 

55

 

My guess.

[Durasturan]

What's all the fuss about really... you pay a few euros and get an entire expansion. Perhaps not so big an expansion as you are perhaps used to from WoW, but still big enough to be worth paying a few euros.

 

What we know we will get so far:

- new planet Makeb ( my guess is that this planet will be huge, since you are expected to level 5 levels here?)

- increased level cap to level 55

- new gear/ mods

 

I erased the things that it doesn't actually come with. So far they have no announced any of that other stuff so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for them to put it in the game. Actually I'm not sure that they CAN add that stuff as how would they justify making F2P people spend $20 for Ops and FPs that they can't actually go in to without ANOTHER unlock. That would be super shady.

[Durasturan]

They'll probably keep:

 

1 - 49

 

Add:

 

50 - 54

 

and add:

 

55

 

My guess.

 

No matter how they slice it up its going to be terrible. It means that instead of having 100% of the players in 2 separate queues, we now have them in 3 separate queues. And what about ranked? Is ranked going to be L50 AND L55 or just one or the other or both? It means that we're going to have far fewer people in queue than before. I don't see how as a player anyone can say that putting this content behind a paywall will be good for the health of the game.

 

Just off the top of my head I'd have to say that 10% of people will just quit over this whole ordeal, seems to be the magic number from the other big PR hiccups. Another 20% will just not buy it as that seems the magic number of f2p'ers in my warzones. This means the likely number of L55's available to do content with will be lower than the original number of people on server before the second round of server merges. Yech.

Edited January 6, 2013 by Durasturan

[ivanhedgehog]

I think its more worrying that it went from JO saying it was a large content patch, to gabe saying its fully fledge and pretty far along, and he thinks same sex whatever is in makeb and now hickman says its an expansion but we now know hardly anything about it.

 

It comes down to the devs piss poor communication skills..and the attitude that they dont have to actually advertise..the suckers will buy anything star warsish

[supafreak]

So, you would pay $40 for something about 3x bigger then Makeb, but paying $10 for Makeb feels a bit unreasonable.

 

lol yep

[supafreak]

No matter how they slice it up its going to be terrible. It means that instead of having 100% of the players in 2 separate queues, we now have them in 3 separate queues. And what about ranked? Is ranked going to be L50 AND L55 or just one or the other or both? It means that we're going to have far fewer people in queue than before. I don't see how as a player anyone can say that putting this content behind a paywall will be good for the health of the game.

 

Just off the top of my head I'd have to say that 10% of people will just quit over this whole ordeal, seems to be the magic number from the other big PR hiccups. Another 20% will just not buy it as that seems the magic number of f2p'ers in my warzones. This means the likely number of L55's available to do content with will be lower than the original number of people on server before the second round of server merges. Yech.

 

Ive never had an issue with queues in either bracket so one more tiny segway bracket wont hurt. Ranked will probably shift to 55 only, I dont see much point in 2 brackets of ranked since everyone will be busy lvling 50-55 and farming regular comms to care about 50 ranked anymore

[Durasturan]

lol yep

 

As has been pointed out before, it's not 3 times the size it's more like ten times the size.

 

Take a planet like Tat, Hoth, etc. These planets have 150-180 quests TOTAL.

 

Then you look at WotLK which added 1700 quests, 850 unique quests per faction.

 

Then you add on the fact that WotLK added 3 raids, 7 dungeons, 3 battle grounds, an open world pvp zone, a new class, new profession, new crafting recipes for all the professions, new tiers of gear, etc.

 

And then Cata was even bigger than that, about 30% bigger.

 

And now MoP just as big.

 

Now I understand it's not fair to compare those Expansions to RofHC because MoP took nearly two full years to develop and cost $40 at release. But BW is the one making the comparison by calling their product an expansion. If they don't want them to be compared then they shouldn't call them the same thing lol. WotLK, Cata, MoP all came with about 10x more content than RotHC and cost about $30 more.

[Durasturan]

Ive never had an issue with queues in either bracket so one more tiny segway bracket wont hurt. Ranked will probably shift to 55 only, I dont see much point in 2 brackets of ranked since everyone will be busy lvling 50-55 and farming regular comms to care about 50 ranked anymore

 

What server are you on? Because on the Bastion Prime time queues are up to 5min for PvP or PvE and ranked is virtually non-existent already. Cutting away 20-30% of the player base is going make a major impact on the game and our experience playing it. Putting content behind a paywall is going to hurt as both as consumers and as players.

[supafreak]

you do realize that the wow expansions are nearly as comprehensive as vanilla swtor right?

 

really? burning crusade inroduced what? one area the size of one of our big planets? and a race per faction, (basically our cathar) 10 lvls that take the same time to lvl as a few in swtor. some instances and raids. flying mounts. As compreensive as Swtor? really? I loved BC but we know **** about Makeb and it's already almost as big as BC

[Altyrell]

really? burning crusade inroduced what? one area the size of one of our big planets? and a race per faction, (basically our cathar) 10 lvls that take the same time to lvl as a few in swtor. some instances and raids. flying mounts. As compreensive as Swtor? really? I loved BC but we know **** about Makeb and it's already almost as big as BC

 

Yeah but BC came out 3 years after WoW was first released back in November of 2004. TOR was released back in December of 2011, and TOR has only be live for 1 year, 16ish days.

Edited January 6, 2013 by Altyrell

[Anosa]

Yeah but BC came out 3 years after WoW was first released back in November of 2004. TOR was released back in December of 2011, and TOR has only be live for 1 year, 16ish days.

 

this guy^

[DigitalDreamz]

really? burning crusade inroduced what? one area the size of one of our big planets? and a race per faction, (basically our cathar) 10 lvls that take the same time to lvl as a few in swtor. some instances and raids. flying mounts. As compreensive as Swtor? really? I loved BC but we know **** about Makeb and it's already almost as big as BC

 

Whoa someone's been double dipping into the Bioware kool-aid here^^

 

BC introduced:

 

Ten new levels.

800+ new quests.

New profession.

Increased previous professions with new patterns.

professions go from 300 to 375

Introduction of heroics.

flying mounts.

Arenas

Achievements

Horde Paladins

Alliance Shaman

Draeni and Blood elves

New battleground

Socket jewels into gear

12 new zones total.

Updated talent trees.

New spells.

4 new starting zones.

New rep factions

Redesign of their stat system.

New mounts

wPvP objectives in Hellfire, Zangarmarsh and Nagrand.

New badge gear for items.

level 20 - 60 revamp.

Voice chat.

Mac movie capture.

Druid flight form.

Revamped honor system.

Dark portal opening event.

Tons of bug fixes.

 

New zones:

eversong woods, ghostlands, azuremyst isle, bloodmyst isle, hellfire peninsula, zangarmarsh, terrokar forest, nagrand, blade's edge mountain, netherstorm, shadowmoon valley

 

New dungeons:

 

Auchenai Crypts, Hellfire ramparts, Magister's Terrace, Mana Tombs, Opening of the Dark Portal, Sethek Halls, Shadow Labs, The arcatraz, Blood Furnace, Botanica, Escape from Durnholde, Mechanar, Shattered Halls, Slave Pens, Steamvaults, Underbog

 

*All above also have heroic difficulty*

 

New Raids.

 

Gruul's Lair, Karazhan, Magetheridons lair, Serpentshire cavern, Sunwell Plateau, Tempest Keep, The battle for mount hyjal, black temple and zul'aman.

 

Arena maps:

Ruins of lorderan, Blades edge arena, Nagrand arena

 

Battleground:

Eye of the storm.

 

Roughly two thousand new items.

 

Each BC zone landmass wise is the size of about three SWTOR planets combined. Each BC zone also had dedicated areas for 70s with flying mounts that normal 58 - 69s couldn't enter. Even more functionality within each zone.

 

 

 

 

When it's all said and done. Makeb won't be a tenth of what BC was and still is.

Edited January 6, 2013 by DigitalDreamz

[Goretzu]

Do you realize that other MMOs work on expansions for longer than SWToR has been out? It was over 2 years before World of Warcraft's first expansion. Blizzard, which has a WoW development team MUCH bigger than the entire BioWare company, typically works on an expansion for WoW for 18-24 months. There are more people testing the expansions on the test servers than ever subscribed to SWToR.

 

Makeb will have been in development for at least 1 year by the time it is out.

 

Most MMORPGs roll out an expansion ~18 months.

 

 

But then Makeb isn't an expansion, it's an adventure pack that they are calling an expansion for some reason.

[Elyxin]

To me It's an industry trend. Just like f2p, companies are realizing that splitting up the cost of a huge expansion into chunks is easier on their pocketbooks, easier to keep and maintain subs, and keep the content rolling out. Even console games are going to DLC's.

 

Personally, I have no issues with splitting a 40$ expansion into 4 10$ expansions...As long as im getting my 40$ worth. My only concern are the larger game impacting developments that can't/won't fit into a smaller section. like a new planet is easy to fit into a 10$ DLC. however, expanding the class stories + new combat mechanics is very different...those can take years of development time, and are hard to piecemeal out. plus, QoS control is easier when you have a year to check and perfect the material. so there are some things that Should just be in a larger expansion.

 

But aside from that, I think the DLC's are just fine. I'd rather get it a quarter at a time (if it's really a quarter), then have to wait a year for the full monty. I mean really...if you are agreeable to 100% of an expansion a year down the road, why does getting it every 3 months at a quarter of the price sound bad? we'll have to assume that we'd get a 1/4 of the full expansion though...if your assuming you won't get your money's worth with 10$, why do you think you'd get your money's worth of 40$ a year down the road? If it's trust were dealing with here, the money amount doesn't matter...we shouldn't be arguing about the mini expansion, we should be arguing about Bio's development of the full game.

[Goretzu]

really? burning crusade inroduced what? one area the size of one of our big planets? and a race per faction, (basically our cathar) 10 lvls that take the same time to lvl as a few in swtor. some instances and raids. flying mounts. As compreensive as Swtor? really? I loved BC but we know **** about Makeb and it's already almost as big as BC

 

BC was/is much bigger than Belsavis.

[Ilayas]

When it's all said and done. Makeb won't be a tenth of what BC was and still is.

 

There are a lot of things on that list that are pretty damn redundant or deliberately deceptive. Like you mention pretty much the same things just in a different way (i.e. the mounts crafting the starting zones ect.. ) Nor do I agree with you about the size of a lot of the zones either. That said yea you are right BC was bigger then this expansion will be but it's was also considerately more expensive and took forever to come out. I'd be sad if it wasn't bigger.

 

I pre-ordered mine last week and I'm pretty sure I'll get 10 bucks worth of material out of it. Considering I paid more then 10$ for BC 6 years ago; comparing BC to this x-pac seems like comparing apples to oranges. But if you are hesitant to spend your 10 (or 20 i suppose now) dollars on Rise of the Hutt Cartel that's fine wait and see what all is going to be in it and make a choice then. At this point we know so little about it that it's kind of silly to declare that it's not worth it when you don't even know what all it will entail. You do know what all was in BC because you've been able to play and experience it for 6 years. Like I said apples and orange.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Ilayas

[Altyrell]

Makeb will have been in development for at least 1 year by the time it is out.

 

Most MMORPGs roll out an expansion ~18 months.

 

 

But then Makeb isn't an expansion, it's an adventure pack that they are calling an expansion for some reason.

 

MMO's I can think of that have had Expansions/Adventures Packs

 

SWG - June 2003 // Jump To Lightspeed - October 2004 = ~ 1 Year, 4 Months = ~16 Months

EQ - March 1999 // RoK - April 2000 = ~1 Year, 1 Month = ~13 Months

WoW - November 2004 // TBC - January 2007 = ~ 3 Years, 3 Months = ~ 39 Months

TOR - December 2011 // RotHC (AP/Expansion/Whatever) - Spring 2013 = ~ 1 Year, (3 Months - 5 Months) = ~(15 - 17 Months)

Perfect World International - ~September 2008 // The Lost Empire - December 2008 = ~3 Months

EQ 2 - November 2004 // The Bloodline Chronicles (Adventure Pack) - March 2005 // Desert of Flames (Expansion) September 2005 = ~4 Months (Adventure Pack) // ~10 Months (Expansion)

 

==============

 

Basically for the ones I listed, the shortest was ~3 Months (PWI) while the longest was a little over ~3 Years (WoW), so in other words, there really isn't an "Industry Standard" so whether you call it an Adventure Pack or an Expansion, it would still, regardless of whatever name you want to call it, be the first MAJOR Update to the Game as opposed to Patches.

Edited January 7, 2013 by Altyrell