HK-55 for non subscribers

[lightSaberAddiCt]

I have a feeling that same thing will happen with DvsL companions.

 

Oh you know the day after, people will be SCREAMING on the forums about how it isnt fair, they're being punished for having a real life. How they deserve the companion and it should be put on the CM etc.etc.etc...

 

Then the SAME people on this thread, will be spouting the same talking points about how its best for the game to give in (I will bet a million credits Tux will be on page 1 lol).

[rklontz]

Oh you know the day after, people will be SCREAMING on the forums about how it isnt fair, they're being punished for having a real life. How they deserve the companion and it should be put on the CM etc.etc.etc...

 

Then the SAME people on this thread, will be spouting the same talking points about how its best for the game to give in (I will bet a million credits Tux will be on page 1 lol).

 

There will be and to some extent they are correct

I personally will not finish it on time. I have one character at 65 on Chapter 9 and the other is only level 43 and I might have 6 of the flashpoints done. Now after saying that I will not jump on the gimme free stuff band wagon because I am capable of comprehending the rules

[TUXs]

Cool. I too play the game - I've been here since closed beta. I was also there at launch when the game had 50+ servers. The game is no more dead now than it was three months after launch. The only time we'd see increased population was with the release of a new expansion. There is always a slow period when there is no new content at all.

 

The problem is you are likely playing on a dead server and attribute its failings to the entirety of the game. I've been on every single server and at least four in North America are active during peak hours of play time everyday. When KOTET releases, the game will have a huge influx again and slowly the population will decline. The difference is it's not declining as rapidly as it was before because there are more incentives to remain subscribed.

214 servers. The "slow period" came for a full year+ of MONTHLY story updates...if your assumption were accurate, we'd have the largest population we've ever had right now...but we don't...we have the lowest.

 

My server is not "dead", in fact, it's regarded as the "busiest" server the game has - Harbinger. Unlike you, I've never seen an exodus like I have since DvL started.

 

Man, there are already ~10,000 group things that (I assume) most players are not interested in. This game is about story. Always has been. They finally got back on track. Maybe not in the way that many people wanted, but KotFE is still (IMO) 10X more useful and relevant than a new OP.

 

It's not about leveling. It's about smashing some mobs and watching the story. That's what this game is. That's what this game was when it released and that's what it is today. Not everyone blows through the content in one day. And even if they do, I bet there are plenty of those people who are happy to do that and then wait another month to do it again.

 

I suspect BW discovered this. They also know that those who stick around between story chapters have nothing better to do than play dress-up with their characters. Guess what? That works in their favor! They can drop new packs and enough people will want a new look or whatever that the packs sell and then people play the story.

 

I'll be honest. I play this game several days each week. BUT... I'd be just as happy to play it 3-5 days/month and still pay a sub. There are A LOT of things to do if you do not burn yourself out in a week or a month or whatever. (This is one of the major failings of DvL. They are encouraging people to do that and that's bad.) This game is built on and for casual gamers who don't care about $15/month and want to use a lightsaber when the mood strikes. They don't want to be bothered with grinding for gear or spending 2 hours running an Op with people they happened to get grouped with. If you are looking for anything remotely "hardcore" you need to look elsewhere.

 

That's what this game is and it works just fine. In fact, I think it's a great alternative to "other" MMOs out there. It's easy, it's fun, and it is interesting. But even more than that, it is just good entertainment. I applaud BW for carving a new niche in the market and running with it.

You're applauding them destroying their game. Like you, I play 2-3 days a week only. Like you, I still have plenty of things I would like to do in-game. Like you, I consider myself a "casual" player. Like you, I'm not burned out...but unlike you, I can be honest about what I'm seeing. DvL combined with the content drought we're going through is causing irreversible damage. The players we're losing today, are the ones who supported the game in the past...if they were being replaced, maybe I'd see your point...but they're not.

 

We 100% disagree on KOTFE's usefulness. In no time, it'll be another Makeb...forgotten, ignored and skipped. Hell, even Ziost is skipped by most. I only did it twice because of the DvL achievement. And the worst thing, once you start KOTFE, EVERY quest prior to it is locked out to you...4 years of stories, gone just to start KOTFE.

Edited August 24, 2016 by TUXs

[TUXs]

Then the SAME people on this thread, will be spouting the same talking points about how its best for the game to give in (I will bet a million credits Tux will be on page 1 lol).

Hell yeah I will. Bioware would be foolish not to sell the alternate companion. If people wanna buy it, Bioware should absolutely let them. Their goal is to make money after all...

[rklontz]

That's exactly how I feel Jamtas. They 100% blew it imo...people who I've played with since launch, are no longer playing at all. People who swore they'd never play W0W, went there after DvL was exposed...not 1 or 2 people, closer to 8 from my guild did.

 

I admit it I have been seriously contemplating going back to wow and probably will after their expansion launches.

It's one of these things, keep grind leveling toons in a game with no foreseeable group content or go to a game that will have group content.

[Tsetso]

Oh you know the day after, people will be SCREAMING on the forums about how it isnt fair, they're being punished for having a real life. How they deserve the companion and it should be put on the CM etc.etc.etc...

 

Then the SAME people on this thread, will be spouting the same talking points about how its best for the game to give in (I will bet a million credits Tux will be on page 1 lol).

 

Probably won't be on this thread since it'll probably get over the max number of posts.

[AlienEyeTX]

You're applauding them destroying their game. Like you, I play 2-3 days a week only. Like you, I still have plenty of things I would like to do in-game. Like you, I consider myself a "casual" player. Like you, I'm not burned out...but unlike you, I can be honest about what I'm seeing. DvL combined with the content drought we're going through is causing irreversible damage. The players we're losing today, are the ones who supported the game in the past...if they were being replaced, maybe I'd see your point...but they're not.

 

We 100% disagree on KOTFE's usefulness. In no time, it'll be another Makeb...forgotten, ignored and skipped. Hell, even Ziost is skipped by most. I only did it twice because of the DvL achievement. And the worst thing, once you start KOTFE, EVERY quest prior to it is locked out to you...4 years of stories, gone just to start KOTFE.

 

I didn't say I was applauding them. Unlike you, I see the game for what it is, not what I wish it was.

 

Yes, everything is locked out once you start KotFE. Nothing would make sense to go back and do. Actually, that's not even fair, because it is just the chapter-type stuff that is locked out. Planetary missions are still available. Heroics are available. FPs are available. It's not as bad as people make it out to be. Those things are gone once you play them, anyway.

 

And you know what? When KotET drops, if you skip class or KotFE and go straight to it, the same thing is going to happen. They will make decisions for you and lock out the part of the story that "already happened."

 

But now I've gotten lost... what does this even have to do with HK and sub rewards?

[TUXs]

I didn't say I was applauding them. Unlike you, I see the game for what it is, not what I wish it was.

Did you spell appalled wrong?

I applaud BW for carving a new niche in the market and running with it.

[AlienEyeTX]

***EDIT***

 

That was mildly rude. All I really meant to say was...

Edited August 24, 2016 by AlienEyeTX

[Rolodome]

I read everything you type with particularity, friend. You may not agree with my retorts, but I'm not missing anything. You use charged rhetoric such as "vehemently" and "rant" to try and discredit my position. That's your prerogative, but attacking my grammar rather than focusing on the substance of the argument only makes your stance that much weaker and harder to take seriously.

Look, all I can say is, if you're going to accuse me of using rhetoric, you should stop using the word entitlement because that's one of the most obvious and overused rhetorical devices in gaming forum discussion. It's incredibly rare for the word to actually apply, legitimately.

 

I get a little pompous and showy with the language I use sometimes, but I do my best to keep things focused on the arguments and when I resort to using a word like "rant," it's because I feel that I just read something that is literally a rant, i.e. an impassioned, angry display, usually with more regard for rhetoric or strawman arguments than the actual discussion in question.

 

I have never intended to imply that everything you're saying is a rant and I don't believe that most of it is. There was literally like one or two moments when I felt like you were ranting.

 

The fallacy in your argument is this assumption that the subscriber rewards need to be "recycled." According to who? Last time I checked, nobody was asking for the "Internal" title, or the "Unyielding" title, or the "Founder" title to be recyclable on the CM for folks to be able to buy. Certainly, no one is asking for that content to be reused in any capacity. Does that make it poor future proofing on BioWare's part? Your argument is making less and less sense.

If you have even basic development tools for a game like this, creating a title is probably something in the range of a 5 minute job for one guy, not including any testing, which will be minimal because it's just a text entry being added to a list, with some kind of check put in place to see if the player gets access to it.

 

Creating an entire bonus chapter of story content most likely required tens of people and tens of hours over weeks or months of development time.

 

I have not made any assumption that subscriber rewards need to be recycled. I'm fairly certain I didn't use the word need. In particular, with the chapter, the point is that BW cannot gain anything from it in the future (unless they re-release it in some other form). Which is generally a no-no in the game design of MMOs because you want to make stuff that people can be playing a year, or ten years, down the road. If they're ok with that in this case, that's their prerogative, but I'm not going to say it's a good business move or a good MMO design move.

 

Handing out a Founder title or a single special edition pet or something, is usually about on the level of giving out pens and staplers to college kids at orientation. It's not supposed to be expensive or require a lot of development time. It's just a minimalist way to give people a gift/incentive and make them feel like they are part of a special moment.

[lightSaberAddiCt]

Hell yeah I will. Bioware would be foolish not to sell the alternate companion. If people wanna buy it, Bioware should absolutely let them. Their goal is to make money after all...

 

Well thankfully Tux, BW runs this game, not you. So I get to sit back, and eat popcorn reading all the little complainers whine about them missing out...

 

And considering this game has remained profitable, even after multiple conspiracy posts about it doing otherwise, I think they have a little more experience running a game then the arm chair businessman (who probably have never ran a business) and armchair developers.

Edited August 24, 2016 by lightSaberAddiCt

[TUXs]

Well thankfully Tux, BW runs this game, not you. So I get to sit back, and eat popcorn reading all the little complainers whine about them missing out...

 

And considering this game has remained profitable, even after multiple conspiracy posts about it doing otherwise, I think they have a little more experience running a game then the arm chair businessman (who probably have never ran a business) and armchair developers.

And thankfully, when they do sell it on the CM, I'll be able to sit back and smile.

[azudelphi]

And thankfully, when they do sell it on the CM, I'll be able to sit back and smile.

 

I wouldn't be happy... it basically sends the message to not do anything in the game. But they're going to have to announce a lot of changes for it to impact me either way

Edited August 24, 2016 by azudelphi

[TUXs]

I wouldn't be happy... it basically sends the message to not do anything in the game. But they're going to have to announce a lot of changes for it to impact me either way

One is going to be given away for free...what's wrong with selling the other one? I do far worse things for "free" stuff...

[lightSaberAddiCt]

And thankfully, when they do sell it on the CM, I'll be able to sit back and smile.

 

Uh huh...and when was the last time they offered a exclusive companion or story on the CM? Oh right....never.

Edited August 24, 2016 by lightSaberAddiCt

[azudelphi]

One is going to be given away for free...what's wrong with selling the other one? I do far worse things for "free" stuff...

Sorry, a misunderstanding... I thought we were selling the one given for free.

 

Eh, if it sends another dollar to development I am on board

[Nempo]

I really don't understand why people complain. Subs got all kinds of free stuff other's couldn't get. The companion is only a small part to it (those HK hand guns people seem to be envious of as much as the companion) and frankly if they put him on the CM for the cost of a hypercrate I'd be ok with it. After all, I got it for free as I stay subbed for the perks and not having to care about how much is in my escrow while you had to spend money on it.

[Aowin]

...

 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OjDoV1cnK0k/TwlmXiD-lEI/AAAAAAAAAWA/wAtWGImkwYA/s1600/Game+Tips+And+More+-+Star+Wars+The+Old+Republic+2012+-+North+America+Server+List+.jpg

 

There were never "214" servers. I said we see peaks in population when an expansion releases. KOTFE released almost a year ago. It's normal to see a drop in activity during the waiting period. The point is this new approach to expansions has provided more longevity and led to players maintaining their subscriptions for longer periods rather than just a month or two pre-4.0.

 

Harbinger is probably the worst server in the game for how toxic it is. I've been on it multiple times and it's literally the worst community. As I've already stated, it's normal for server populations to decline during this period. You also seem to forget that all servers were normalized. We can't even see the population of servers now. This is part of the reason Harbinger was always overcrowded because newcomers would choose the highest populated server.

 

That doesn't happen now. Thus, Harbinger isn't likely to get the same amount of traffic it used to. If all you care about is how overly-stuffed Harbinger is to start, then you fail to see what actually matters in an MMO. It's not the quantity of the people, it's the quality. Harbinger has never been known for quality. A decline in its population doesn't mean an end to SWTOR. There are more servers than just Harbinger, and far better ones at that.

[Rolodome]

Well thankfully Tux, BW runs this game, not you. So I get to sit back, and eat popcorn reading all the little complainers whine about them missing out...

 

And considering this game has remained profitable, even after multiple conspiracy posts about it doing otherwise, I think they have a little more experience running a game then the arm chair businessman (who probably have never ran a business) and armchair developers.

You know, there is a lot of armchair commentary that goes on and I'm a part of it.

 

But... some of us do have experience in business or have experience in game development. And sometimes there are things you can point out, without having experience in either, that are just common sense 20/20 hindsight critique.

 

It's sort of like when people point at movie critics and say, "Hah, you think you're so smart. Why don't you try making a movie like that!" But you don't need to be a vetted filmmaker to critique movies. Certainly having experience in filmmaking helps you become a better critic, but most of the critiquing skill comes from watching a wide variety of films over a long period of time, not making them. Similarly, there are people who have a lot of experience playing games or being a customer, but not necessarily making a game or running a business. And there can be valuable insight from them.

 

Thankfully most companies seem to understand this and don't blindly shut out criticism on the basis of it not being from "experts." Mind you, this doesn't mean most companies blindly operate on the instructions of amateurs either. Feedback is just one part of a complex, ongoing process.

 

As a writer, one of the things I do when getting feedback is I generally go with the assumption that if somebody had a problem with X, then there may be something about X that is not working as intended. It doesn't mean I need to do exactly what they told me to do with X. It just means there might be a problem with it. On a larger scale, such as with this game, you would probably want to do it more based on numbers... as in, if the number of people having an issue with X passes Y threshold, it may be worth looking into. Just as a matter of practicality, since there's so much feedback data to sift through and so many potential changes you could make.

 

I find that looking at it in this way takes the unknowns out and makes it clear that as a player, the whole thing is just a process that you can choose to participate in, if you so desire. The debate that goes on can sometimes put a subject in a new light, which can be a benefit to that process. It can also go on needlessly, but there's really no way to tell where the value begins and ends, so my philosophy is usually to expect nothing from it and participate if the motivation strikes.

[Tsetso]

I really don't understand why people complain. Subs got all kinds of free stuff other's couldn't get. The companion is only a small part to it (those HK hand guns people seem to be envious of as much as the companion) and frankly if they put him on the CM for the cost of a hypercrate I'd be ok with it. After all, I got it for free as I stay subbed for the perks and not having to care about how much is in my escrow while you had to spend money on it.

 

It's not about HK-55 anymore. It's about bonus chapter and the general trend of BW gating contend behind exclusive sub rewards.

[TUXs]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OjDoV1cnK0k/TwlmXiD-lEI/AAAAAAAAAWA/wAtWGImkwYA/s1600/Game+Tips+And+More+-+Star+Wars+The+Old+Republic+2012+-+North+America+Server+List+.jpg

That's the problem with unofficial sources...they sometimes are incorrect. I prefer to stick with facts we know, not sites we don't...

This guy seems to think it was 218 servers:

SERVERS BY TYPE

PvE 112

PvP 82

RP PvE 18

RP PvP 6

Total 218

I didn't bother to count, but here's the official listing from Bioware themselves.

[ikinai]

BIOWAAAARE JEEENKIIINS!

 

at least I got HK-55.

[Aowin]

...

 

I used a screenshot from the server selection screen... You are the one who is using "unofficial sources."

 

There may be that many if you included European servers. I was focusing on North American servers as you are specifically talking about NA servers dying (Harbinger is an NA server) and I'm telling you most of the servers have been dead since launch.

 

Either way, as with everything on the forums, most things are blown out of proportion and players claim the sky is falling generally for ulterior motives. SWTOR isn't dying anymore than it has been for the past five years. If anything, things are better now as BioWare has started to maintain and stabilized its subscriber base, which hasn't been stable since the game went F2P.

 

Just because you don't like the changes doesn't then mean the game is "dying." You =/= the entire SWTOR community.

[peter_plankskull]

I used a screenshot from the server selection screen... You are the one who is using "unofficial sources."

 

There may be that many if you included European servers. I was focusing on North American servers as you are specifically talking about NA servers dying (Harbinger is an NA server) and I'm telling you most of the servers have been dead since launch.

 

Either way, as with everything on the forums, most things are blown out of proportion and players claim the sky is falling generally for ulterior motives. SWTOR isn't dying anymore than it has been for the past five years. If anything, things are better now as BioWare has started to maintain and stabilized its subscriber base, which hasn't been stable since the game went F2P.

 

Just because you don't like the changes doesn't then mean the game is "dying." You =/= the entire SWTOR community.

 

So you take a stab at people who blow things out of proportion over negative things, yet do the exact same thing saying its in the best shape in three years without proof? Yeah they admitted they had more players in three years around Christmas in 2015, but nothing about financial reports being better than since the game went f2p.

 

Just because you do like the changes doesn't mean the game is doing well. You =/= the entire SWTOR community.

[azudelphi]

I used a screenshot from the server selection screen... You are the one who is using "unofficial sources."

 

There may be that many if you included European servers. I was focusing on North American servers as you are specifically talking about NA servers dying (Harbinger is an NA server) and I'm telling you most of the servers have been dead since launch.

 

Either way, as with everything on the forums, most things are blown out of proportion and players claim the sky is falling generally for ulterior motives. SWTOR isn't dying anymore than it has been for the past five years. If anything, things are better now as BioWare has started to maintain and stabilized its subscriber base, which hasn't been stable since the game went F2P.

 

Just because you don't like the changes doesn't then mean the game is "dying." You =/= the entire SWTOR community.

Le sigh, they upped the number of subscribers for KotFE. I genuinely fear that the people who gave them the benefit of the doubt for KOTFE will not do the same for KOTET. And you are delusional if you think the game is in better shape aside from revenue.