SWTOR's End Game - The Cartel Market

[JimG]

For all of the people complaining about the Cartel Market, you'd be playing a different game if it weren't for the Cartel Market. The game would have gone out of business. You should be glad people are spending money on the market because they are subsidizing this game. Why do they spend effort on the Cartel Market? Because it's what is funding this game. They have been working on Makeb and 2.0 for a year. The Cartel Market has only been around a few months. The re-investment of money from the Cartel Market into development of new content is not something that happens overnight.

[Zainichi]

Well, what can I say?

 

Not much apparently. Lost for words? I guess sometimes the truth hurts too much. Cheer up!

[Master-Nala]

When you're done with a game, it's time to go, OP. Nothing to be sad about. MMO players are the only ones that think something failed when they've enjoyed it for over a year. The game doesn't have to be your whole life, you don't have to play all the time. Take a break, come back in a year or two. Play other games.

 

This game is what it is. If that's not for you, you are right to quit.

[cycao]

I just hope my hope for this game is not ill fated in I still think they will use all this revenue that they are getting from the CM and put in some real features in the game like more warzones, FP, operations or more content in general.

[TUXs]

I just hope my hope for this game is not ill fated in I still think they will use all this revenue that they are getting from the CM and put in some real features in the game like more warzones, FP, operations or more content in general.

 

Ah...hope springs eternal for some

[Keffeine]

It's exactly how I felt today, with this patch. Initially I was excited but now I feel completely alienated.

 

I'm going to bookmark this thread and come back and read this to remind myself why I won't be playing any more.

[KorathTheCool]

I am also ending my sub. I understand the use of the cartel market but it seems to me that they take our money and use it to add more items to the cartel market.

 

I'm done.

[Genophage]

The combat system has been running for over a year and about 2 seconds nothing happened before the character hits. Thanks to the new Cartel Fraktion, I say goodbye, something may not be supported. The prices are in Cartelmarket something of outrageous! In future, only Bioware single player games will gamble!

[Arkerus]

I'm the lone idiot from my group of friends that I've gamed with for 10+ years that still plays SWTOR. I've always enjoyed SW lore, and with the options of other MMO's that are out right now, I haven't really felt the need to go anywhere. I participate in all aspects of this game. I've cleared all the raid content*, gotten the Warstalker title, done dailies, maxed out all professions across my various alts, was one of the first Valor 100's on my server, participated in the original Ilum, have rank 100 on alts, 2500 rating in ranked warzones (before the queues dwindled down to two teams left queuing and 37 faces coming and going from my ranked team as people quit the game), etc.

 

And while my core group of gaming buddies are off playing other games, they ask me all the time why I like SWTOR so much. They ask me if they should play it, they ask me what the end game is like. And for the life of me I just can't bring myself to tell my friends to play this game anymore. I don't even attempt to convince them.

 

The end game question is the real kicker for me. What is the SWTOR end game? The more I think about it, the end game in SWTOR is truly the cartel market. It's the only thing that's updated with any frequency. It's the only true source of new and 'exciting' gear that gets pushed into the game. Mounts outside of the CM are few and far between. Pets outside of the CM are few and far between. I mean, you name things that standard MMO's get from within the game itself, and the only real source for it here is the damn Cartel Market.

 

I mean, for my friends that are primarily PVE'ers, what do I tell them? Come raid months old content with me, for drops that are really just shells that you probably won't use (since the CM holds the majority of good looking gear), that you'll really only need the armoring from for the set bonus. You see guys, you'll kill these bosses, and none of them have a chance at any neat, thought out drops. You're going to get a token, and only a token, and that token is guaranteed, and you're going to turn that token in to the same vendors you saw over a year ago, and get an item. You're then going to rip the armoring out of that item, place it in any item you actually want to wear (probably from the CM market), and then buy a mod and enhancement off the GTN (since the base itemization is garbage) and voila, you're done.

 

*Wonderful. They don't want any part in that, and neither do I frankly. Then they have this system set up that gives me flashbacks of Planes of Power from 2002. You see, you had to flag for the elemental planes. Then you had to flag for a place called the Plane of Time. The problem is, flagging in the elemental planes required 50+ people. Once you finally got flagged for time (using those 50+ people and a lot of effort), you got to zone EIGHTEEN of them into time with you. Awesome! Flash ahead 11 years later and now you have a raiding paradigm essentially setup around 8 man guilds (16's are few and far between). Then you build your roster around those 8 raiders, but wait - there's a boss requiring 24 people to kill. Wonderful. Then you get an item with those 24 people, but guess what, you're only zoning 16 into TFB with you to kill the next boss! It's just a disaster all around.

 

Then what do I tell my PVP buddies? Yeah dudes, come PVP with me in one of the most unbalanced PVP games you'll ever play, where class adjustments that would be made on the fly anywhere else are left to fester in the game for months on end. Come play ranked with me man, it's still pre-season one, yeah dude, the same pre-season that started 6 months ago. Matchmaking? Nope, non existent, we're going to roll this poor team that decided to see what ranked is all about a few times and then they'll quit. Then we'll sit in queue for 2 hours while we log in our Imp alts to get the only other worth while team to queue against us for a few games.

 

Seriously, there's nothing left for me to say to anyone. The cartel market is the end game of SWTOR, and this latest cash grab just shows the true direction of the company behind the game. 2.0 doesn't exactly bring any changes to the base principals behind this game. There's going to be a raid - that raid is going to have bosses drop the same tokens with a new name. You're going to take those tokens to the same vendor area on fleet and once again, turn them in for an armoring with a set bonus attached to it. Then you're going to min/max your gear in whatever tedious way they design because their itemization will continue to be garbage. There will be no imaginative, human/developer created loot at all. Then you're going to go to their new daily hub and do dailies for more comms - take those comms to the same vendors on fleet and buy the same crap you're buying now with slightly higher stats. No imagination there either. Then you're going to zone into some warzones, discover who the new FOTM is, then see them rolling around for a few months since no changes will come in any timely fashion. The queues will remain server only. The ranked season will probably be called pre-season 2. The matchmaking won't be changed.

 

And one of the things they actually did right with this game from the get go, is going to be completely left behind in 2.0 and probably beyond - class stories.

 

There's my rant - the same one that everyone else posts when they've finally given up. But I had to do it, because I tried so damn hard to enjoy this game for what it could have been, but I no longer enjoy what it's going to be: SW:TCM.

 

If you have that much time on your hands and have beat everything in the game then take a break. For God sakes man, go do something else.

 

You don't need to come here to justify your boredom. The cartel market? Don't buy anything from it if its not to your liking.

 

PvP is unbalanced? Fine. Everyone MMO on the planet has a very vocal minority who say the game is grossly unbalanced. It doesn't matter what game it is. WoW, war hammer, LoL, whatever. Just because you used hyperboles like "most unbalanced game" does not make it true.

 

I have some advice for you. Get a new hobby. Play a new game. Read a book or play a sport.

[Theeko]

This is what the cartel market has been duped too and no ones doing anything about it, hacks dupes stolen ccs I dont know whats going on but take a loot at this.

 

http://i46.tinypic.com/59u928.jpg

 

^ Tell me thats not fishy, and btw they also get restocked every 30 mins - 1 hr.

Edited March 12, 2013 by Theeko

[KyaniteD]

When you're done with a game, it's time to go, OP. Nothing to be sad about. MMO players are the only ones that think something failed when they've enjoyed it for over a year. The game doesn't have to be your whole life, you don't have to play all the time. Take a break, come back in a year or two. Play other games.

 

This game is what it is. If that's not for you, you are right to quit.

 

Yes, that's the only rational conclusion I reach when I start feeling bad. The game is changing, the player base is changing ("OMG new CM items off to max out my credit card!") and BW is accommodating them, it's a self-feeding spiral. Just because I'm not part of it doesn't mean it has to be bad. (And I just don't feel like I'm part of it anymore if all that a sub is buying me is not a rich experience but merely a basic experience free of restrictions.)

 

The game was unable to hold the first wave of players, it's trying to survive on the resources it has and I guess for those of us who were hoping for a different path it's time to give way to the new generation who is enjoying the game as it is and for what it is.

Edited March 12, 2013 by KyaniteD

[grombrinda]

This is what the cartel market has been duped too and no ones doing anything about it, hacks dupes stolen ccs I dont know whats going on but take a loot at this.

 

http://i46.tinypic.com/59u928.jpg

 

^ Tell me thats not fishy, and btw they also get restocked every 30 mins - 1 hr.

Guess some one learned how to dupe items ^^.

 

Is it the same guy posting items??

[Theeko]

Guess some one learned how to dupe items ^^.

 

Is it the same guy posting items??

 

Yeah same guy just diff names all lvl 7s with grey gear as usual.

[Majspuffen]

There are far more issues with this game than just lack of PvP and PvE.

 

For instance, for a story-telling MMO I feel completely disconnected to the story. The class stories are great for what they are; a means to reach max level. A very enjoyable journey. I do not demand more class stories, since I thought most of them had a nice, proper ending. What I want at level 50 is an overall story arc to get involved with.

 

For example, World of Warcraft has always done this. World of Warcraft has had interesting enemy factions with interesting lore characters. Kael'thas, Illidan, Kil'jaeden, C'thun, Yogg-saron, Kel'thuzad, Arthas... those characters were incredible. And getting to fight them was awesome. We've had nothing like that in SWTOR. Because the game was advertised with the republic vs empire conflict. The class-stories delivered, and the quests on every planet pitted you against the enemy faction in one way or another.

 

The flashpoints and operations feels so disconnected from the rest of the game. We have no intriguing enemies to fight in PvE. Who was Karagga anyways? Some fat hutt with a machine. I didn't feel as though I killed some essential character when I first fought him. The trandoshan on Denova is such an uninteresting character that I cannot even recall his name. The giant monster in terror from beyond, while a visually amazing encounter, was just some mindless space worm summoned from lord knows where.

 

And then to make matters worse is that Bioware introduces new content that is not star wars. The rakata in the first kotor game were an awesome species. They are being overshadowed by the Gree who has extremely lucklustre lore behind them. They are also very annoying to listen to. And they give us equipment that does not suit the star wars IP. No matter how awesome the gree supposedly are, I find myself not giving a damn about them. Heck, why do the Empire cooperate with these aliens anyways? It's such an uncharacteristic move from the empire side. The empire should seize the gree technology and capture the pathetic little aliens, not... volunteer for gree research...

 

Imagine if we had an operation on alderaan, where reps stormed the Thul palace, and Imps stormed the Organa palace. The interiors could be the same but with a palette swap. Then we'd fight in an area with familiar lore. I think that would be much better than continuing the main story of the game through flashpoints and operations. The story for Denova was fine... but it would have been better if they'd actually given us Denova as a planet, with quests surrounding the trandoshan mercenaries, so that we can get involved with the story outside of the operation instance.

 

TL;DR

Bioware got the star wars IP and they give us gree.

Edited March 12, 2013 by Majspuffen

[Glower]

can agree 100% with op... super sad.

 

the feeling is really growing and growing that they dont care about other stuff besides the market.

 

My guess is they rereleased the gree event only as a cover up so we wont notice its all about the cartel market.

 

^this

[Theeko]

Guess some one learned how to dupe items ^^.

 

Is it the same guy posting items??

 

Here's another pic just took 2 mins ago

 

http://i45.tinypic.com/2r3v6g2.jpg

[Blackavaar]

I'm the lone idiot from my group of friends that I've gamed with for 10+ years that still plays SWTOR. I've always enjoyed SW lore, and with the options of other MMO's that are out right now, I haven't really felt the need to go anywhere. I participate in all aspects of this game. I've cleared all the raid content*, gotten the Warstalker title, done dailies, maxed out all professions across my various alts, was one of the first Valor 100's on my server, participated in the original Ilum, have rank 100 on alts, 2500 rating in ranked warzones (before the queues dwindled down to two teams left queuing and 37 faces coming and going from my ranked team as people quit the game), etc.

 

And while my core group of gaming buddies are off playing other games, they ask me all the time why I like SWTOR so much. They ask me if they should play it, they ask me what the end game is like. And for the life of me I just can't bring myself to tell my friends to play this game anymore. I don't even attempt to convince them.

 

The end game question is the real kicker for me. What is the SWTOR end game? The more I think about it, the end game in SWTOR is truly the cartel market. It's the only thing that's updated with any frequency. It's the only true source of new and 'exciting' gear that gets pushed into the game. Mounts outside of the CM are few and far between. Pets outside of the CM are few and far between. I mean, you name things that standard MMO's get from within the game itself, and the only real source for it here is the damn Cartel Market.

 

I mean, for my friends that are primarily PVE'ers, what do I tell them? Come raid months old content with me, for drops that are really just shells that you probably won't use (since the CM holds the majority of good looking gear), that you'll really only need the armoring from for the set bonus. You see guys, you'll kill these bosses, and none of them have a chance at any neat, thought out drops. You're going to get a token, and only a token, and that token is guaranteed, and you're going to turn that token in to the same vendors you saw over a year ago, and get an item. You're then going to rip the armoring out of that item, place it in any item you actually want to wear (probably from the CM market), and then buy a mod and enhancement off the GTN (since the base itemization is garbage) and voila, you're done.

 

*Wonderful. They don't want any part in that, and neither do I frankly. Then they have this system set up that gives me flashbacks of Planes of Power from 2002. You see, you had to flag for the elemental planes. Then you had to flag for a place called the Plane of Time. The problem is, flagging in the elemental planes required 50+ people. Once you finally got flagged for time (using those 50+ people and a lot of effort), you got to zone EIGHTEEN of them into time with you. Awesome! Flash ahead 11 years later and now you have a raiding paradigm essentially setup around 8 man guilds (16's are few and far between). Then you build your roster around those 8 raiders, but wait - there's a boss requiring 24 people to kill. Wonderful. Then you get an item with those 24 people, but guess what, you're only zoning 16 into TFB with you to kill the next boss! It's just a disaster all around.

 

Then what do I tell my PVP buddies? Yeah dudes, come PVP with me in one of the most unbalanced PVP games you'll ever play, where class adjustments that would be made on the fly anywhere else are left to fester in the game for months on end. Come play ranked with me man, it's still pre-season one, yeah dude, the same pre-season that started 6 months ago. Matchmaking? Nope, non existent, we're going to roll this poor team that decided to see what ranked is all about a few times and then they'll quit. Then we'll sit in queue for 2 hours while we log in our Imp alts to get the only other worth while team to queue against us for a few games.

 

Seriously, there's nothing left for me to say to anyone. The cartel market is the end game of SWTOR, and this latest cash grab just shows the true direction of the company behind the game. 2.0 doesn't exactly bring any changes to the base principals behind this game. There's going to be a raid - that raid is going to have bosses drop the same tokens with a new name. You're going to take those tokens to the same vendor area on fleet and once again, turn them in for an armoring with a set bonus attached to it. Then you're going to min/max your gear in whatever tedious way they design because their itemization will continue to be garbage. There will be no imaginative, human/developer created loot at all. Then you're going to go to their new daily hub and do dailies for more comms - take those comms to the same vendors on fleet and buy the same crap you're buying now with slightly higher stats. No imagination there either. Then you're going to zone into some warzones, discover who the new FOTM is, then see them rolling around for a few months since no changes will come in any timely fashion. The queues will remain server only. The ranked season will probably be called pre-season 2. The matchmaking won't be changed.

 

And one of the things they actually did right with this game from the get go, is going to be completely left behind in 2.0 and probably beyond - class stories.

 

There's my rant - the same one that everyone else posts when they've finally given up. But I had to do it, because I tried so damn hard to enjoy this game for what it could have been, but I no longer enjoy what it's going to be: SW:TCM.

 

Can't disagree with anything stated here. At this point I am ashamed that I play this game.

 

[Sixthy]

If you have that much time on your hands and have beat everything in the game then take a break. For God sakes man, go do something else.

 

You don't need to come here to justify your boredom. The cartel market? Don't buy anything from it if its not to your liking.

 

PvP is unbalanced? Fine. Everyone MMO on the planet has a very vocal minority who say the game is grossly unbalanced. It doesn't matter what game it is. WoW, war hammer, LoL, whatever. Just because you used hyperboles like "most unbalanced game" does not make it true.

 

I have some advice for you. Get a new hobby. Play a new game. Read a book or play a sport.

 

I probably play for an average of two hours a day, it directly replaces television for me as I don't really watch too much of it. I have plenty of other things to keep me busy, but it still saddens me to walk away from the only SW themed MMO out there knowing it could have been so much more. It's as simple as that. There are other options for games, but it's just recycled lore from the DnD games with a few twists here and there.

 

And yeah, I don't have to buy anything from the cartel market, but that doesn't change the fact that the majority of the content added to the game is all based around the CM. Makeb has been in production for over a year (according to the dev post in the other thread), and what exactly does it bring to the game that isn't already here? Nothing expansive in terms of functional game elements. Just rehashed everything; more of the same thing. No new WZ's, no Ranked changes, one new raid (which I touched on as far as my issues with the imagination behind the PVE side of the game), etc.

 

And yeah, I can thank the CM for keeping the game alive and getting us to the point we're at today, but I can't help but think that the majority of the money made from the CM just goes towards adding more content to the CM. It's just a cycle and residual money that ends up elsewhere is probably minimal, at least it seems that way - considering the most basic of technological functions in this game is non existent, i.e. server transfers, cosmetic character changes, cross server queuing, game responsiveness, ability delay / GCD skips which still exist since the launch of the game, and terrible desync issues (characters and NPC's not being where your display says they should be). The list goes on. And like I said before, the one unique and well done thing (outside of peoples gripes about a disconnect from it all) are class stories, and they're all but left behind moving forward in the game. So where's the CM money really going? Sorry, I just feel like the CM is making money so the CM can continue to make money.

Edited March 12, 2013 by Sixthy

[jedimasterjac]

Actually, F2P and the Cartel Market saved Star Wars: The Old Republic. Without it, they would be losing players, income, etc. EA can't accept a low amount of income. If you ask me, the Cartel Market is good. I recently went to my worst-geared toon, my very first character, and was able to use Cartel Market Gear to make him on-par with other characters. This made me happy, and it was finally able to get to level 40.

[ARIZONAMAN]

Yawn.