Shae Vizla Launch Updates

[Duck_Cider]

On 2/13/2024 at 12:55 PM, Engeopathichero said:

I don't think prices are going to go up as much as you think, in fact I think the extra supply will drive prices down.

Not with the new 15m limit. Even ignoring credit sellers and free/discount transfers, there's too much easy profit in bringing creds to SV to buy cheap stuff, just using 1000cc transfers. That easy profit only disappears once the price gap between SV and other servers shrinks. It won't match other servers, since there's still a credit limit, plus a cost for some transfers. But I think GTN prices going up 500% by the end of the free/discount transfer period is more likely than any deflation. Maybe more, if there's a lot of free/discount transfer use. Disappointing, but I suppose that gives the devs a third data point, to see how new player behaviour and retention is affected by a new set of prices, after hyper-inflation servers plus original SV.

(Just so we have some data to work off, cartel packs, OEM, and RPM were 5-600k each before the 15m announcement - let's see where they go.)

 

23 hours ago, TrixxieTriss said:

Personally, 25 million is my sweet spot because 25 x 16 = 400 million. But I’m not a raider & some of those guys want/need more. So I don’t want to speak for their needs.

Assuming the 1m/wk estimate of repair costs for a couple nights of NiM raiding a week was roughly accurate, the original cap of 32m (16x2m) would have covered over 7 months of repairs. The devs could have looked at how SV played out with those credits, and adjusted NiM repair costs based on that. The new cap, 240m (16x15m), covers over 4 1/2 years' worth. Unless a raider can say why they'd need 400m or more, for raiding, all on day 1, I'd say "raider's needs" are more than covered at this point.

 

22 hours ago, FrontLineFodder said:

• 1 free APAC player transfer for FTP
• 2 free transfers if Preferred
• More free transfers for those who sub by an announced date (set in future from the announcement)

Never for f2p, credit sellers would love that. Time gates for everything else too, actually, just like the 90-day one, so there's no extra incentive for them to mass-create accounts. Maybe only accts created before SV launch date, with spending history before then. Maybe APAC-located on that date as well, if they have that data, to prevent people faking their location just for this.

Aside from that - yeah, I argued for more free/discount transfer options for APAC-located players myself. We got a discount, but so did everyone. Even if the devs want people to spend coins for bulk transfers, I think it'd be good business to offer a free SV transfer to APAC-located players with spending history (so subs or prefs), especially with regard to lapsed players.

- An email with "free _ (expires soon)" gets more interest than "discount on _ if you sub".
- "1 free transfer" wouldn't be significantly less effective than "2/4/8/16 free transfers" at getting lapsed players to try the game again, but doesn't cost the devs as much, in terms of potential lost cc sales.
- Even if they can't go straight to endgame, if they're giving SV a trial run, they'd hopefully have a better experience with their transferred 75/70/whatever than they would with a level 1. More abilities, more group activities to join. Getting access to the transfer discount then counts as their extra incentive to sub.

Edited February 16 by Duck_Cider

[TrixxieTriss]

25 minutes ago, Duck_Cider said:

Assuming the 1m/wk estimate of repair costs for a couple nights of NiM raiding a week was roughly accurate, the original cap of 32m (16x2m) would have covered over 7 months of repairs. The devs could have looked at how SV played out with those credits, and adjusted NiM repair costs based on that. The new cap, 240m (16x15m), covers over 4 1/2 years' worth. Unless a raider can say why they'd need 400m or more, for raiding, all on day 1, I'd say "raider's needs" are more than covered at this point.

But it isn’t just Raiders or Raiding repairs that needs the credits. Reopening all your strongholds & rooms costs a lot too. Also you have to repay again to setup your outfits because they don’t transfer over. And the higher your character lvls, the more it costs. I have 20 outfits per character to reestablish. Then add on guild costs because you have to reestablish those from scratch too. Guild banks+ bank tabs & Guild Ships and to open GS rooms. Then add Raiding on top of all that & 32 million isn’t close to enough. And that’s assuming you want to transfer 16 characters. What if you just want to transfer 1 or 2 characters. 

Edited February 16 by TrixxieTriss

[emperorruby]

@KeithKanneg @JackieKo @TrixxieTriss @Nommaz @JohnnyGatt hears what i would have done differently for the 16 free transfers first players should not be blindsided second the hard cut off points/subscriber rewards should forward dated not backdated at this point i would announced a subscriber reward for the 16 free transfers for march (the dev team and higher ups agreed with this in advanced) as a last chance call and give players time to subscribe it beat having players mad at being blindsided and the apac server fails due to lack of players         

[DeannaVoyager]

On 2/15/2024 at 4:47 AM, Nommaz said:

It should be from the date it was actually announced, as 90 days is too long there make it 30, it's not rocket science, all they are doing is digging a deeper hole with the APAC community

This. 30 days sub from the time transfers were announced should be enough. That would bring subscriptions in immediately, instead of people moving on to other games when they realize they are not qualified. Once those people are subbed for a month, they will play at least for a month, and some of them will renew their sub. But the people who didn't meet the requirements will not be playing, and they will not be renewing their sub. They will never come back. 

[FrontLineFodder]

5 hours ago, DeannaVoyager said:

This. 30 days sub from the time transfers were announced should be enough. That would bring subscriptions in immediately, instead of people moving on to other games when they realize they are not qualified. Once those people are subbed for a month, they will play at least for a month, and some of them will renew their sub. But the people who didn't meet the requirements will not be playing, and they will not be renewing their sub. They will never come back. 

This is not enough, yes they have announced now that you need to be subscribed since November 17, now Jan 02. these are all in the past, it does not help a player that lapsed the day before the announcement was made.

Why would or SHOULD a player subscribe now when it is just sending money down a drain with none of the benefits they are looking to get. Hopes and Prayers are not a reason to give a company money.

Broadsword can play it three ways, 1 being totally scummy, 2 being better, 3 being the best

1. the status quo with backdated requirements. lol dude, you needed to be subscribed already, sux to be you.
2. Transfers are coming in March, you need to be subscribed before transfers open to qualify (unknown date, subscribe now to benefit)
3. Subscribe by Feb 31st to qualify for the free transfers (don't use a fictional date, but one that is announced in advance)

 

Edited February 16 by FrontLineFodder
clarification Should -> Is

[emperorruby]

5 minutes ago, FrontLineFodder said:

This is not enough, yes they have announced now that you need to be subscribed since November 17, now Jan 02. these are all in the past, it does not help a player that lapsed the day before the announcement was made.

Why would or SHOULD a player subscribe now when it is just sending money down a drain with none of the benefits they are looking to get. Hopes and Prayers are not a reason to give a company money.

Broadsword can play it three ways, 1 being totally scummy, 2 being better, 3 being the best

1. the status quo with backdated requirements. lol dude, you needed to be subscribed already, sux to be you.
2. Transfers are coming in March, you need to be subscribed before transfers open to qualify (unknown date, subscribe now to benefit)
3. Subscribe by Feb 31st to qualify for the free transfers (don't use a fictional date, but one that should be announced in advance)

 

february has only 29 days my money is on 1 or 2 if they do the announcement today but i hope its 3 in the end

[FrontLineFodder]

9 hours ago, Duck_Cider said:

Not with the new 15m limit. Even ignoring credit sellers and free/discount transfers, there's too much easy profit in bringing creds to SV to buy cheap stuff, just using 1000cc transfers. That easy profit only disappears once the price gap between SV and other servers shrinks.

You can't transfer off Shae Vizla, so the only people they are selling to are the players on Shae Vizla. There is not a great opportunity there to profit.

you are either afraid of people profiteering off your items on the GTN or you are trying to spread FUD.

Personally the limited (yes limited even at 240M) credits being allowed in will be reserved for playing the game, not the GTN.

 

9 hours ago, Duck_Cider said:

Never for f2p, credit sellers would love that. Time gates for everything else too, actually, just like the 90-day one, so there's no extra incentive for them to mass-create accounts. Maybe only accts created before SV launch date, with spending history before then. Maybe APAC-located on that date as well, if they have that data, to prevent people faking their location just for this.

Credit sellers do not use FTP accounts, you cannot transfer credits off them. A returning player who created a character years ago however may want to bring it over, I say let him.

There is no advantage from "mass creating accounts" a new account has no characters to transfer, nothing to be gained from restricting them (and wasting dev time implementing such system)

Limiting it to accounts created prior to SV launch however is a good idea, players who joined for SV created characters there and have nothing to transfer.

 

9 hours ago, Duck_Cider said:

Aside from that - yeah, I argued for more free/discount transfer options for APAC-located players myself. We got a discount, but so did everyone. Even if the devs want people to spend coins for bulk transfers, I think it'd be good business to offer a free SV transfer to APAC-located players with spending history (so subs or prefs), especially with regard to lapsed players.

Why restrict transfers at all based on location, I say if a man like general Ortol wants to fight for our server, it would be selfish to deny him that privilege.

I want as many players on Shae Vizla as possible, but my personal desire is that they are there to play on the APAC regional server, not as some kind of mutated / restricted fresh start server.

A fresh start server needs to be

• located where the majority of the players demanding that are (NA)
• Announced specifically as a fresh start server from the beginning
• No character transfers in ever to avoid tainting of the "economy" 

(yes I quoted the word economy, I do not care about the GTN or what players price things on there for. People throw around the word as if it means more than just the GTN, it does not)

 

My previous post proposal:

On 2/15/2024 at 10:27 AM, FrontLineFodder said:

They need to stop alienating APAC players.

a first step to do this is to stop backdating these subscriber requirements.

TrixxieTriss had a good idea that should be adopted, granting free transfers depending on your subscription term.

I adopted this proposal elsewhere, which went like this:

• 1 free APAC player transfer for FTP
• 2 free transfers if Preferred
• More free transfers for those who sub by an announced date (set in future from the announcement) for example:
  • 4 for 1 month sub
  • 6 for 2 month sub
  • 8 for 3 month sub
  • 16 for 6 month sub (or past 90 days of current subscriber term)

the more players on the server, the more activity, the more likelihood the server will be sustainable.

@Duck_Cider It sounds to me like you would be against any benefit for FTP players, That's fine, I was just making a proposal, It may make sense to say no and encourage them to subscribe.

But the time gates you propose do not encourage anyone to subscribe today, nor do they encourage anyone to subscribe after they were first mentioned (the 19th). as per my more recent post, 

Quote

Why would or SHOULD a player subscribe now when it is just sending money down a drain with none of the benefits they are looking to get. Hopes and Prayers are not a reason to give a company money.

 

reminder, NONE of the players who are not subscribed will post here (they can not) they can read the posts, and they see the announcements. No announcement so far gives anyone reason to subscribe or resubscribe to SWTOR.

the proposals we are suggesting are looking to get players back and to resubscribe in order to get character transfers onto the APAC regional server where playing the game is such a better experience for APAC players than playing on the NA or EU servers.

We are not looking to restrict players from playing on Shae Vizla. No player or BroadSword employee should be looking to restrict players.

[JohnnyGatt]

5 hours ago, emperorruby said:

@KeithKanneg @JackieKo @TrixxieTriss @Nommaz @JohnnyGatt hears what i would have done differently for the 16 free transfers first players should not be blindsided second the hard cut off points/subscriber rewards should forward dated not backdated at this point i would announced a subscriber reward for the 16 free transfers for march (the dev team and higher ups agreed with this in advanced) as a last chance call and give players time to subscribe it beat having players mad at being blindsided and the apac server fails due to lack of players         

I completely agree I've worked in social media Marketing for twenty five years before that it was just sales and marketing (My first sales job was selling franking machines yes I'm that old)   And the decisions they've made make no sense whatsoever. It's like they don't want to encourage players to subscribe and commit to playing on the new server. Throwing rewards (Free Transfers) at pre established players that were happily subscribed to US servers is just baffling. The goal should be to attract people back that they lost when the APAC servers closed The current rewards will only move their current player base around for a short time Until the fresh-start on high ping novelty wears off. I guarantee you nobody in the US is going to be trying to raid or PVP with 500 pings long term. I'm not saying that current subscribers shouldn't get free transfers but it's an amazing opportunity to attract new subscribers and it's like they don't care...

[Nommaz]

9 minutes ago, JohnnyGatt said:

it's like they don't care...

Exactly how I feel

[emperorruby]

1 hour ago, JohnnyGatt said:

I completely agree I've worked in social media Marketing for twenty five years before that it was just sales and marketing (My first sales job was selling franking machines yes I'm that old)   And the decisions they've made make no sense whatsoever. It's like they don't want to encourage players to subscribe and commit to playing on the new server. Throwing rewards (Free Transfers) at pre established players that were happily subscribed to US servers is just baffling. The goal should be to attract people back that they lost when the APAC servers closed The current rewards will only move their current player base around for a short time Until the fresh-start on high ping novelty wears off. I guarantee you nobody in the US is going to be trying to raid or PVP with 500 pings long term. I'm not saying that current subscribers shouldn't get free transfers but it's an amazing opportunity to attract new subscribers and it's like they don't care...

their should be a subscriber reward for the newer player too but i don't know what would make them sub

Edited February 16 by emperorruby

[AleksandarKey]

Instead of making visual improvements, dye, and stronghold, etc etc do something with the ENGINE itself. In 2024 running OPS or anything with 8-16players in one area is causing low frame rates. 20-30 FPS during OPS is not fun with AMD Ryzen9 5900X, 32GB DDR4 Ram, RTX 3x and Samsung EVO SSD.

Edited February 16 by AleksandarKey
edit

[Nommaz]

12 minutes ago, AleksandarKey said:

Instead of making visual improvements, dye, and stronghold, etc etc do something with the ENGINE itself. In 2024 running OPS or anything with 8-16players in one area is causing low frame rates. 20-30 FPS during OPS is not fun with AMD Ryzen9 5900X, 32GB DDR4 Ram, RTX 3x and Samsung EVO SSD.

What does this have to do with the APAC server?

[FrontLineFodder]

1 hour ago, emperorruby said:

their should be a subscriber reward for the newer player too but i don't know what would make them sub

yes it is hard to know what would encourage someone to subscribe, but it is easy to know rewarding them with nothing will actively discourage them from subscribing.

I agree that we should reward them for subscribing, and have made a proposal here: 

On 2/15/2024 at 10:27 AM, FrontLineFodder said:

They need to stop alienating APAC players.

a first step to do this is to stop backdating these subscriber requirements.

TrixxieTriss had a good idea that should be adopted, granting free transfers depending on your subscription term.

I adopted this proposal elsewhere, which went like this:

• 1 free APAC player transfer for FTP
• 2 free transfers if Preferred
• More free transfers for those who sub by an announced date (set in future from the announcement) for example:
  • 4 for 1 month sub
  • 6 for 2 month sub
  • 8 for 3 month sub
  • 16 for 6 month sub (or past 90 days of current subscriber term)

the more players on the server, the more activity, the more likelihood the server will be sustainable.

 

What do you think of this, how would you change it ?

Edited February 16 by FrontLineFodder
clarification on nothing

[emperorruby]

1 minute ago, FrontLineFodder said:

yes it is hard to know what would encourage someone to subscribe, but it is easy to know nothing will actively discourage them from subscribing.

I agree that we should reward them for subscribing, and have made a proposal here: 

 

What do you think of this, how would you change it ?

not bad but the devs might find it to hard to program or their too lazy easier for them to have 16 free transfer pick a date in march and call it a day about brand new players that are already on shae vizla with no transfers they should get a subscriber reward to balance it out 

[TrixxieTriss]

2 hours ago, JohnnyGatt said:

And the decisions they've made make no sense whatsoever.

If you haven’t guessed already, it’s because they probably dont employ a marketing department on swtor anymore. And the team doesn’t have anyone with any marketing experience or even basic salesmanship. If they did, this whole thing would have been handled much differently from when & how they launched the server to now. 

Edited February 16 by TrixxieTriss

[FrontLineFodder]

2 minutes ago, emperorruby said:

not bad but the devs might find it to hard to program or their too lazy easier for them to have 16 free transfer pick a date in march and call it a day about brand new players that are already on shae vizla with no transfers they should get a subscriber reward to balance it out 

Ahh so if I understand you right, You would like to see players on SV getting a reward if they are a subscriber.

Someone early in this thread suggested a special edition kangaroo mount which I thought would be absolutely awesome (mechanics of the mount could be a bit much though, not like other mounts in the game)

I would be opposed to it being only SV subscribers, perhaps any subscriber that had created a character (past level 20) on SV before X date would be granted the mount (much like the Onslaught Subscriber reward of the Umbaran Patrol Tauntaun)

[emperorruby]

1 minute ago, FrontLineFodder said:

Ahh so if I understand you right, You would like to see players on SV getting a reward if they are a subscriber.

Someone early in this thread suggested a special edition kangaroo mount which I thought would be absolutely awesome (mechanics of the mount could be a bit much though, not like other mounts in the game)

I would be opposed to it being only SV subscribers, perhaps any subscriber that had created a character (past level 20) on SV before X date would be granted the mount (much like the Onslaught Subscriber reward of the Umbaran Patrol Tauntaun)

all subscribers get the reward it just we should encourage them

[FrontLineFodder]

[TrixxieTriss]

Just now, FrontLineFodder said:

I like this idea. But the hopping mechanics might be a bit hard to implement. How about a Battle Emu? It would be able to use any of the running mechanics already developed for other running mounts? 

 

[FrontLineFodder]

GIMME A BATTLE EMU NOW!

[FrontLineFodder]

though this is taking us off the topic of getting character transfers to as many players as possible, and avoiding any restrictions to growing (now reviving) the Shae Vizla server population.

[emperorruby]

34 minutes ago, TrixxieTriss said:

I like this idea. But the hopping mechanics might be a bit hard to implement. How about a Battle Emu? It would be able to use any of the running mechanics already developed for other running mounts? 

 

the old apac players before the shae vizla server became the cassowaries forced to move to the usa for 10 years and are now endangered the bad ping has taken a heavy toll they were once emus forced to evolved or die out now they return ok i had my lore fun any idea for apac transfers    

[Gabriaye]

To those in Broadsword (made by America) Australian and Asian ppl are nothing, shows how racist they are, not letting us have the currency we have on our servers because their ALTS want to stay in the same league.

Our mains are not allowed to have the same as them, the same one they have had for YEARS, a home with FAIR ping and all their stuff.

Broadsword failed this launch and the APAC people.

Trust is LOST, If you want this server to succeed

1: No Credit limit --- we are not asking for full legacy transfers (stronghold and all ect.)

2: Free Transfers for ALL APAC people Pref and subscribers. ( I was planning on only 6 coming over out of my 30)

Do the above and advertising would be word of mouth.... and you would get APAC players on the APAC server... not US and EU just playing for season, they are alts farming CC not mains living on their home
 

[emperorruby]

26 minutes ago, Gabriaye said:

To those in Broadsword (made by America) Australian and Asian ppl are nothing, shows how racist they are, not letting us have the currency we have on our servers because their ALTS want to stay in the same league.

Our mains are not allowed to have the same as them, the same one they have had for YEARS, a home with FAIR ping and all their stuff.

Broadsword failed this launch and the APAC people.

Trust is LOST, If you want this server to succeed

1: No Credit limit --- we are not asking for full legacy transfers (stronghold and all ect.)

2: Free Transfers for ALL APAC people Pref and subscribers. ( I was planning on only 6 coming over out of my 30)

Do the above and advertising would be word of mouth.... and you would get APAC players on the APAC server... not US and EU just playing for season, they are alts farming CC not mains living on their home
 

i agreed trust is lost but 1: No Credit limit not going to happen broadsword wont let that happen 2: Free Transfers for ALL APAC people Pref and subscribers unlikely to happen best case scenario they announced a subscriber reward for march that has the 16 free character transfers  

[Gabriaye]

ALL the APAC players I know, that are LOCATED in APAC region... have UNsubbed...  may as well move shae to the US as it aint gunna last here....

 

Take your server out of Australia, if you want to treat us this way BroadSword.... take your server out of our country, we don't treat ppl like this, and I HOPE the APAC community treats all your local players the same way you treat us.... like second-class citizens begging for scraps.... but then I realize... you just treat us like the HOMELESS, build us a home, that you once destroyed, say we cant take our money there, then keep the high tax rate built for those that have it all already...