Cathar race and items in cartel:

[jkaraus]

Hey everyone,

 

There is clearly some frustration around this but I believe there are also some misconceptions about Cathar and our intent for subscribers so I wanted to hopefully clarify some of that for you. One thing we have stressed before and one thing we will continue to do with the Cartel Market is to use it for customization and convenience options. Another goal we have stressed for the Cartel Market is to not use it as a method for pay to win.

 

Game Update 2.1 does introduce entirely new customization options, like the Cathar, which will require Cartel Coins in order to gain access to. Although I understand your frustration around this, we always take into consideration when pricing Cartel Market items that all subscribers receive a monthly grant of Cartel Coins. For example, if you are currently a subscriber who has a security key active on your account, you will be able to outright purchase Cathar with just one month’s worth of Cartel Coins. We also try to give you as much notice as possible around new features like this so that if it is your desire to purchase these unlocks, you will be able to do so solely through saving your monthly Cartel Coin grant.

 

What I think is a misconception is that this is setting a precedence that we are going to take things away from subscribers. I cannot stress enough that this is simply not something we ever intend to do. The features and functions that you pay for right now as a subscriber will remain in place. We would not, for example, suddenly require you to pay for an unlock to run more Flashpoints. On the flipside of this though, the intent of the Cartel Market is to continually add new and fun cosmetic and convenience features and in some circumstances, subscribers will have to pay Cartel Coins to access these as well. I just want to specifically call out that we will keep these cosmetic as we would certainly not want to place any of our players at a disadvantage for not spending money, AKA not implementing pay-to-win.

 

One thing I do want to call out for Game Update 2.1, which you will see more details on in the future (from both us and from fan sites) is that subscribers will see a substantial discount on some of the features being implemented in Game Update 2.1, such as Appearance Designer. Not only was your monthly grant kept in mind when pricing the items themselves, but overall things are far cheaper for you as a subscriber than a free-to-play or preferred status player.

 

I know that just the principle that subscribers are being charged for Cathar is causing some of your frustrations, but I hope that I could at least explain a bit about why and to help alleviate any concerns that we would ever take something away from subscribers.

 

 

I read all this and really I understand that it is not pay to win. But still yet there are things that I got as a sub ( Even before the game went F2P) that I find rather insulting. For example I got a purple crystal when the crystal vendor was there and paid alot for it. Now I see all kinds of purple crystals every where from the cartel market packs Really? I know they are not the same (by name) but still yet I got mine and paid the amount thinking that it was making my toon unique. Now they are not. Same for those who got the white crystals and you all stated they would never be in the game again except the ones who bought them on the vendor (this also turned out to be untrue as there are white crystals in the packs, different names but still white) and those players got ripped on that as well. I unfortunately cannot afford to buy cartel coins all the time, and there are F2P running around with toons that look better than mine and I sub. I have the security key, deluxe ed game, and all that and only get 600 cartel coins a month. that doesn't even buy not one of the decent looking outfits in the cartel market (meaning full suits). I have to wait for someone who buys cartel coins by large amounts and places them on the gtn for an ungodly price, then I go out and do what is needed to earn the credits to buy it. There is no unique thing for subs. you all do not even have a vet reward system in place to even show that us players who have had the game since launch and stayed with you guys. Yes you have given us a title that says founder.... how about some rare items you only get by being a sub for durations of time like rare looking gear, weapons, etc.? This way we vets can at least have a unique look from this gear as well as it being something that unless you are a sub you cannot get. I personally do not have the collectors edition but I know several who do and I feel bad for them as they paid alot of money for it and they hardly have anything to show for it except the items they got in the box. I personally think that the monthly grant for subs of cartel coins should be increased to at least allow the subs to buy a full outfit instead of having to save 3 months to get one. A new race is considered game content and to put it in the cartel market is going back on your word that subs will have access to all, again I say ALL game content. If this is not game content then take all the races out of the caracter creation except human and make us pay for the rest, why not? thats pretty much the same thing, besides it should make no difference which race you start out as. It's just cosmetics as you say. Just my input on it all.

[ikazekazash]

As a player of many MMO's what your doing with the cartel is wrong and very shortsighted! The OP gave a great example of that with the collectors edition purple crystals! You are alienating your subscribers which is your bread

butter! When I first heard about Cathar I was excited! That excitement came with disappointment when I found

out that to get it you would have to purchase it via the cartel market. The Cartel market should ONLY be for adaptive

armor, consumables and trinkets or customizations for your characters and companions. Unlocks for F2P players and prefered accounts. Subscribers should get new content as part of their subscription. This is unacceptable and bad form!! Every MMO I have played...SWG,EQ1,EQ2,Age Of Conan,Tabula Rasa,WoW,and many more do not charge for expansions like ROTHC or new races UNLESS they are part of a MAJOR expansion like say WoW;s Wrath of the LIch King or Mists Of Panderia. Those came with new zones,new races,new classes,new gear,new level cap,new dungeons,raids etc! Poor implementation on your part guys seriously. You will continue to lose subs because of this.

The game has so much potential! The storys great,arts not bad, combat needs help game mechanics need help. Space man ya'll dropped the ball on space!! Look to SWG for how space should be done! If this game had SWG style space, Player housing and Guild Cities,Crafting more like SWG with harvesters and resource nodes like SWG oh and make jump worthwhile its a joke! Im a friggin jedi i can jump what 2 feet lmao!! Back to the topic the Cathar being a Cartel Market Item. I read the Argument of the Post about it not being a grab for Pay to win...that its not I mean obviously your race doesn't affect your stats or anything game related but its a slap to the face to every subscriber to this game and an insult to our intelligence. Time to rethink it all though im sure you wont. Maybe if we talk with our wallets and unsub collectively that may do something! Ive been in the game since beta and launch plan on staying but this kind of thing is what drives people away from the game!!!

[sabiscat]

I am assuming that the top portion of the post was a cut/paste from another source, and the bottom run-on paragraph the words of the OP. If such is the case, some kind of indicator of what is sourced and what is OP would be nice, along with some information identifying the referenced material's source.

 

When I first heard that there would be a new race added to the game, my first question was "Will it be expansion or cash shop?" I never had any illusions about it being freely added, and I am actually rather surprised that anyone else ever did.

 

When looking at pretty much any other game out there, be it MMO, SP, MP or Console, there is a definite trend towards such actions. To pull examples from each category... MMO: EQ released races in expansions which had to be purchased, WoW the same. SP (single player) to grab a few more well known titles Elder Scrolls released new areas, races (werewolf) and the like for some of their games (Morrowwind in this example) in the form of an expansion (Bloodmoon). Baldur's Gate did likewise (the PC version added Druid with an expansion I believe though the name of it escapes me). MP (multi-player) same as single. The aforementioned Baldur's Gate falls into this category, as does Sword of the Stars (2 or 3 expansions in all each with a race) Fable (another SP/MP title) specifically II and III, released their new content in the form of DLC. Pure MP's such as Battlefield 1942 and others of its ilk dropped the new content into expansions and add-on packs. Finally for consoles, we see the DLC model come to the front, with some games (such as the aforementioned Fable) building rather extensive catalogs of purchasable content much of which is just as, if not even more, trivial than what we are are looking at here; cosmetics with no real gameplay impact sold for money.

 

I have seen new content released free to the player base as well, but such instances have been few and far between, and I do not think I have ever seen a race (even when it is only cosmetic) given to the player base for free. Rather than expecting new content to be free I always assume it will have a cost, because that is what history has taught me. But perhaps I just haven't played the right games... if anyone knows a game releasing this type of content without charging its players, I would like to know its name.

 

@ikazekazash

Your post confuses me... a lot. If you have played many MMO's (and looking at the list you provided I see nothing but games I have played as well) in what way do you feel they have the cash shop wrong? Going right down the list of the MMO's you have on your post... SWG (no cash shop), EQ1 (no cash shop when I played), EQ2 (cash shop featuring map/quest access *dlc packs*, races *the vampire made its debut here*, race abilities *many of the vampire perks were sold separately*, mounts, equipment... lots of non-cosmetics there on top of the cosmetic stuff), Age of Conan (no cash shop when I played. It has one now but as I have not viewed it personally I will not comment on it further...), Tabula Rasa (this one died so fast I don't remember if it had a cash shop), WoW (cash shop featured mounts and other non-cosmetic content). So the games where we see a cash shop, there was in fact content that was not F2P unlocks. So how exactly is it unacceptable or bad form for SWTOR to use the same model? None of those games listed above had a 'all new content is free' approach. Those without cash shops released new content via expansions. Those with them made liberal use of them.

 

And about not charging for expansions like ROTHC unless they were part of a "MAJOR" expansion... Umm... Where to start... SWG JTL or JTLS if you prefer. No cap raise. New planets but compared to the existing worlds these were mini-dungeons not new planets. Next expansion, no cap raise again, and no races either. And only one new area, much like those in JTL... essentially an entire expansion to sell a dungeon. EQ1, now here is a list. We have 19 expansions to look at for that one, so to shorten this SoV no races or other 'major' features. Just new areas. Same goes for LDoN, GoD, DoN, DoD, PoR, tBS, UF, and RoF. In EQ2 the additions in tSO and DoV were fairly minor compared to the expansions previous and prior. No impact on level cap, no races or classes added... So the first 3 games on your list had no problem "charging for expansions like ROTHC". WoW has indeed been fairly consistent in keeping the content of their expansions substantial, but making just 4 expansions in the same amount of time that EQ2 published 9 tells us why. Personally I would rather pay to pick up smaller more frequent content releases than play the same crap over and over for a few years so they can bundle up a whole bunch, but that is just my opinion. AoC only released one expansion which, as far as I know, did not include new race or class options and didn't impact the level cap. The last game from your list, Tabula Rasa, didn't last long enough to launch a single expansion, so I'm not sure why you put it on a list of games that "do not charge for expansions like ROTHC"...

 

ROTHC did contain a level cap increase, new areas, new gear, etc... pretty much the usual list of expansion features that I have come to expect from an MMORPG. If we take these features and consider none of them sufficient to mark an expansion as 'major' and thus by your standard something other companies would not charge for, we can add another dozen expansions to the list above, expansions that those companies did in fact charge for.

[DarthFletcher]

Own a collector Edition, been a sub from start and I totally agree with you here, we Subs and long term players need a reward for having active long term accounts.

 

SWG had this nailed on 1month, 3month 6month 12month etc and you choose a reward befitting the length of service to the game so Founder could have been the 1 month reward, the speeder for "referring a friend" could have been 3months reward and have unique items that show off your loyalty to the game.

 

I don't mind playing the Cartel Market and the packs to bolster my in game creds, in a way the only item that stood out as Pay 2 Win per se was the crystals rightly said before +41 was Lv50 only even the black-yellow from pre-order vendor is Lv50 so lower character are getting an helping hand.

 

Those that read the board and report back to the Devs please explain to them that your pre-order and long term player base wants rewarding not just luring to a microtransaction after sales service!