Bioware is Crossing that Line.

[Severith]

I wonder why a for profit comany would EVER copy a system that other for profit companies have had success with.

 

Gee, I'd rather just continue until this game is a faded memory instead.

 

And thank you, Themanthatisi!

 

I posted this as a joke in the announment thread, but since you missed it, I'll repost it here.

 

Good News Everyone!

 

The Big Announcement is here! The expansion is going to be renamed to reflect the current direction of the development strategy at Bioware. Welcome to SW:ToR 2.0....

 

RISE OF THE CARTEL MARKET: Cartel Coins Online

 

"May the Fluff be with you!"

 

Will you have what it takes to gain rep with all the new cartel vendors on fleet? Who will be the first to own that rare and ugly speeder before fleet is crawling with thirty slightly diffrent colored versions of it? Will you survive the horrific conditions of your bank tabs overloading with useless garbage? With Cartel Coins Online, the adventure is here! (In your wallet.)

 

This is what happens when a game starts to copy a credit card company. Who pays for a reward program that a credit card company uses to entice you? The consumer pays. The retailers pay. But not the CC company.

 

Oh, and good news for you. Each new pack released is going to have a seperate reputation with a seperate vendor. Have fun spending 150$ every month to try and max each one as they come out.

 

I'm not against the Cartel Market, I'm against the Cartel Market being the focus of the game. Thats where this is heading.

[Thylbanus]

Oh, and good news for you. Each new pack released is going to have a seperate reputation with a seperate vendor. Have fun spending 150$ every month to try and max each one as they come out.

 

I'm not against the Cartel Market, I'm against the Cartel Market being the focus of the game. Thats where this is heading.

 

Why on Earth would you spend $150 per month just to get reputation? That tells me that YOU have the problem, not the program. There is no requirement to spend money on these items, only your desire to spend money on these items.

 

The focus on the Cartel Market means that we have growing content. These programmers and designers don't work for free. This isn't a charity. This is a job. The subscribers pay to keep this game going, the Cartel Market keeps updates and content coming. EA has stated that SWTOR is not a priority for them. It ranks in around sixth or seventh in their games. So if you want the Cartel Market to go away, consider that they would have to reduce their aggresive six week update schedule and content will come more slowly.

 

So the question is, what do you prefer?

[Severith]

"The focus on the Cartel Market "

 

Yeah, you said it. Thats the game, thats the content. The Cartel Market.

Edited March 16, 2013 by Severith
misquote

[shefflad]

My gas station rewards card fits into this. So does my restaurant frequent dinners points. My air miles. My bagel shop's every 6th free program. If you are spending the money specifically for reputation, then YOU have a problem, not the system. I don't go to my gas station, restaurant, airline, or bagel shop more just to get points for their program, why would you spend money to get reputation?

 

All in all, this has been a fun exercise for the conspiracy theorists, but I think it's run it's course.

 

But most of these don't charge a monthly fee to have the card.How would feel if your gas station said we will charge you $15.00 dollars a month for the card and if you spend another $400 on gas we will give you a free oil can. This is what EA are saying to there subscribers. But a F2P player only as to spend the $400 dollars. This is not fair to the subscribers.

Edited March 16, 2013 by shefflad

[Monkeyshi]

It all boils down to the new marketing strategy applied to most MMO's. The new business model, which generates more money for ther designers(Aware in this case) is make the game F2P but use micro transactions to make money(Caryel market). You don't have to like it, but it's the way MMO business is now. Edited March 16, 2013 by Monkeyshi

[JenseitsvonBose]

Every Subscriber deserves the same chance at achievment, and progression within the game.

 

The Cartel Market should be cosmetic alternatives, fun toys, weird stuff.

 

The Cartel Market should never be the sole manner in which to raise a reputation bar, gain a huge advantage in lowbie pvp, or any other game mechanic. Let them know, as subscribers, that the Cartel Market should have no tangilbe effect on your character sheet.

 

Seriously? I'll never max out my CM rep bar. Maybe I'm just complacent, because when reputation first came I thought, "space missions, really? Guess I won't be a completionist, in this case..."

 

I think I understand, but I can't really relate to these complaints. I saw someone running around earlier with the space rep title, and thought, "good for them... they spent a lot of time doing something no one could pay me to do..." The title's neat, and all, but to suggest that it has a "tangible effect" on how you play the game is... uh... well, it just seems off to me.

[JenseitsvonBose]

I know it was a long OP, but clearly some people didn't bother to read it before typing out a reply.

 

Which means they don't know what they're responding to. Which is pointless.

 

As I said in the OP, in case you're one of those people who didn't read it, is that this is a mild infraction against the fairness of the game. Right now, it's just rep with one vendor.

 

The problem is, this is a bad direction for the game to go in.

 

Trying winning a lowbie duel against someone using 2 +41 crystals, without using any yourself. Try the new space missions without using the grade 7 parts. The only thing preventing those from not being game breaking is the fact you can buy them on the gtn, but they make sure someone ended up paying real world cash for those somewhere along the line.

 

And now there is a reputation vendor that involves bind on pickup tokens and certificates. Using your "free" subscriber tokens to attain that would take literally years. At 200-300k a pop, we're talking tens of millions of credits in order to attain the reputation with in game currency, and if lots of people actually tried to do that, it would drive the prices of the packs on the GTN even further upward.

 

I could care less about the vendor, or that particular reputation. It's the direction of the game that I do care about. Paying real world cash for reputation gains, and not getting a community backlash for it, might just make it seem alright for Bioware to keep doing it in the future. Next time it might be more than just fluff at stake.

 

If they ever put anything in game where buying something from the CM is a prerequisite for accessing / clearing such-and-such material, THEN I'll complain. As things stand, there's nothing like that in-game, and I see no indication that things are headed that way. Even with your duel example; I didn't see anyone complaining when the legacy birthright or whatever gear was introduced; and, seriously, who actually considers lowbie dueling to be a significant part of this game -- twinks who can't hack it at max level? Cartel market has done NOTHING to violate the "fairness" of this game. Bads are still bads, no matter how much money they dump into the market; good players are still good players, no matter how little they dump into the market. I don't really see what all of the fuss is about. OH NOES, I HAVE COMMENDATION BARS FOR BM/MERCENARY COMMS THAT I'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO FILL, WHATEVER SHALL I DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO?

[Caelrie]

What's the issue? Those vendors don't sell anything that makes your character stronger, so how is it pay to win? It's pay to be prettier.

[Katszc]

they said (BW) this game whould NEVER go P2P, guess what!!! this game did go F2P(atleast part of it)

and now this

Litle by litle this game is coming P2W, litle things like ship parts grade 7, a speeder with better immunity to knockbacks,etc

Sure this things are not a very big deal, but litle by litle, patch after patch they will introduce P2W stuff

I hope not, because i like this game, but i will not play a P2W game

Cartel market should be cosmetic stuff only, new armor(empy shell) new weapons(empy shell), speeders(equal effect already in game) and some fun stuff like orbs, flares, emotes, normal itens that we can find on CM, but not things that are upgrades already in game

 

Did you even look in the vendors?

NOTHING gives stats, they are all empty shells with the exception of the lvl 41 top armors that were in the CM before.

And correct me if I'm wrong, the ship parts craftable in game are BETTER than the one's in the CM.

A speeder with better immunity to knockbacks, who cares? Run away from the mobs and mount up again.

[Severith]

If they ever put anything in game where buying something from the CM is a prerequisite for accessing / clearing such-and-such material, THEN I'll complain. As things stand, there's nothing like that in-game, and I see no indication that things are headed that way. Even with your duel example; I didn't see anyone complaining when the legacy birthright or whatever gear was introduced; and, seriously, who actually considers lowbie dueling to be a significant part of this game -- twinks who can't hack it at max level? Cartel market has done NOTHING to violate the "fairness" of this game. Bads are still bads, no matter how much money they dump into the market; good players are still good players, no matter how little they dump into the market. I don't really see what all of the fuss is about. OH NOES, I HAVE COMMENDATION BARS FOR BM/MERCENARY COMMS THAT I'LL NEVER BE ABLE TO FILL, WHATEVER SHALL I DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO?

 

Why did you bother to quote me when you clearly don't understand the actual issue at stake? You're better at hitting the quote button that reading, evidently. I'll keep it simple, just for you.

 

 

As I said in the OP, in case you're one of those people who didn't read it, is that this is a mild infraction against the fairness of the game. Right now, it's just rep with one vendor.

 

The problem is, this is a bad direction for the game to go in.

[MGriffith]

Every Subscriber deserves the same chance at achievment, and progression within the game.

 

Increasingly the age of the playersbase of MMOs is climbing upwards.

The games respond by shifting attention away from 'buying' progress with time (8 hour raids and 1278 hours of grinding through endless waves of Rakghouls) to doing so with money.

Simply because these days more players have disposable income than they have disposable time.

 

And as long as they understand that swapping time for money through the ingame markets is an essential part of the equation then the system works very well. The vendor reputation tokens may be bound, but as long as they make sure the items you buy from them are not then players with money can buy the access and the items with money, and players with time can grind out the game currency and use that to obtain those items from the IGN market.

 

This swap only breaks down if the amount of money in the game continues to climb and the grind for enough of it to buy anything on the market remains in reach of the reasonably dedicated player. If the equivalent of a 500 credit item is for sale on the market for 50,000,000 then the amount of time to grind out that much money becomes too onerous and both the IGN and the CM shops become pointless wastelands.

[Paokzu]

I don't really care about the cartel rep thing but agree with the OP because of what this could mean for the future of the game. For that he gets my vote.

[Josewales]

I blame that damn speeder:P Good thing I make a crapload of real $$ for a living.

 

But seriously, BW has to do what it has to do for their investors and bills. So they in theory are creating a 'have' and 'havenot' community. No different than someone playing 24/7 having more than someone who can only play a few hours some nights. In the cartel pack model...folks like myself who belongs to the upper income class, we get our turn:)

 

So if you dont have daddy's credit card, kids will have to wait months. Hey thats what us casuals always had to do for endgame templates in many MMOs. But at least this is only about eye candy, so whats the big deal?

 

Suck it up and enjoy your hardcore stats instead:)

[LadyDrusilla]

Oh, another of those threads, splendid.

 

First of all OP, who appointed you spokesman for all subscribers? I subscribe and seldom buy cartel packs and I'm fine with this new cartel reputation faction. The fantastic new skiffs even prompted me to buy cartel coins for the first time to buy a 24 pack. I didn't get a skiff but whatever, luck of the draw.

 

Everything the rep brings is cosmetic.

 

You can buy the +41 crystals on the GTN. I belive there are some on the pre-order vendor too.

 

You can buy grade 7 starship components with fleet commendations, you can also get the starship schematics and make them.

 

There is not even a whiff of disadvantaging subscribers or pay to win about the cartel market. If you don't want to spend money you don't have to, but please stop the petulent, ill-informed, ill-considered whining.

[Thylbanus]

But most of these don't charge a monthly fee to have the card.How would feel if your gas station said we will charge you $15.00 dollars a month for the card and if you spend another $400 on gas we will give you a free oil can. This is what EA are saying to there subscribers. But a F2P player only as to spend the $400 dollars. This is not fair to the subscribers.

 

Huh? Really? The gas station doesn't charge you for gas? The difference between use of a timed service vs. a situational use is minor and for all practical purposes, irrelevant. Or are you suggesting we need to go to an hourly rate as China does?

 

Let's put this in a different light. Cable is a great example. You have cable and get various channels that you subscribe to. Plus there is Pay per View. Would it be cool to be able to get Pay per View loyalty points? Purchase 10 titles and get the 11th free, or have early access to upcomming titles?

 

And it's not unfair to subscribers anymore that it is unfair in the previous example for those who pay for HBO, Cinemax, etc, vs those who have basic cable. The difference is the level of service subscribers receive vs F2P. One has nothing to do with the other, nor should it.

Edited March 16, 2013 by Thylbanus

[Thylbanus]

"The focus on the Cartel Market "

 

Yeah, you said it. Thats the game, thats the content. The Cartel Market.

 

Yea, I know. Launching Makeb is free, right?

[oaceen]

i'm just not sure how the new faction is any different from the cartel market in and of itself.

 

 

most of the stuff (and almost all of the most expensive stuff) you get from the new rep is old stuff from the cartel market which you had to buy anyway.

 

so essentially, you still have the option of buying most of it on the GTN anyway.

Edited March 17, 2013 by oaceen

[jedip_enguin]

It's amazing how many people in this thread complaining that the CM/Rep system is pay2win do not actually understand what constitutes pay2win...

[Severith]

Told you guys. It was a slippery slope, and you, as EA/Bioware customers, didn't put a stop to it. Now look what you did.

[doelow]

Told you guys. It was a slippery slope, and you, as EA/Bioware customers, didn't put a stop to it. Now look what you did.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZHvd0ks7Es

[Liquor]

Troll Necro 5/10

 

 

Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design. Your subscribers, up there on the sanctuary moon, are walking into a trap, as is your Preferred/F2P fleet. It was *I* who allowed the Dataminers to know the location of the PTS generator. It is quite safe from your pitiful little band. An entire legion of my best devs awaits them. Oh, I'm afraid the 5.0 changes will be quite buggy and over powered when your friends arrive.

 

 

Give yourself to the SOE Side. It is the only way you can save your EA income. Yes, your thoughts betray you. Your feelings for them are strong. Especially for... subscribers. So, you have veteran subscribers.*

 

Your feelings have now betrayed them, too. Bioware was wise to hide them from me. Now BW's failure is complete. If you will not turn to the SOE Side... then perhaps they will...

[Severith]

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9149760#post9149760

 

I give your copy paste a 3/10. The good news is copy paste is so easy you didn't waste any time or effort.

[AshlaBoga]

Told you guys. It was a slippery slope, and you, as EA/Bioware customers, didn't put a stop to it. Now look what you did.

 

Hey, that's not fair. I've tried to stop it every step of the way. I even unsubscribe after churning through thin, shallow content that lacks real substance (so I was unsubscribed for half of KOTFE).

 

What more can we do other than filling the forums with our concerns?

[Liquor]

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=9149760#post9149760

 

I give your copy paste a 3/10. The good news is copy paste is so easy you didn't waste any time or effort.

 

You'll have to go back further to see the original copy

 

 

I've been banned, silenced, had threads and posts trimmed all while warning the community what was coming.

It didn't do anything. Everything we have mentioned in previous posts came true. No point dragging it up again.

 

It will be buried again with balance issues, exploits, and subs postings their unsub threads anyways. Just sit back and enjoy the failure and watch BW follow in SOE footsteps

 

Hint: it's been going on since patch 2.7

Edited December 6, 2016 by Liquor

[DarthFletcher]

Cartel Market should be only used to sell us the following;

 

- None achievement unlocking Adaptive armour

- None achievement unlocking Pets

- None achievement unlocking Mounts

- None achievement unlocking Decoration

- Unlocks for Mail, Bank, Task Bars and Credit limit for F2P

- Racial Unlocks

 

Cartel Packs should contain the following;

 

- None achievement unlocking Adaptive armour [iconic Sets ie Revan, Malgus, Vader]

- None achievement unlocking Pets

- None achievement unlocking Mounts

- None achievement unlocking Decoration

- Companion Gifts

- Jawa Scraps

 

The removal of the them stupid boost pack would be ideal but we would be spiting the F2P lot that already have their XP nerfed to grinding alt so these boosters should have a limit on "will not work for premium players" because we already have enough experience boosts as it is.

 

It is increasingly worrying that cartel market is veering into territory like the GC XP booster being place on there giving 25% increase to amount of rewarded GC XP and I am one of those people that like to buy the packs to see what fun stuff I can have to lighten my game and make a few creds on the GTN for the stuff I don't find interesting.

 

I am all for a Pay to Look Good system but would also like the basic Cartel Market armour designs to be in game like the Destroyer set being the Section X armour albeit a different colour.

 

SW:TOR was based around a Subscription model but how they seem to be going, their Cartel Market might be only thing keeping this game alive, they have veered so far from the original game that it is pushing it a bit to call it an MMORPG.

 

Unfortunatly now matter how much concern we raise about it, the £/$ will be what EA and BioWare see and care little about us that show the love and support for the game.