Patch 2.1 Customization - Cathars & more

[Valeron]

Doesn't Lara Croft have longish hair? She is a modern hero woman.

[Deleted]

Yeah but she's Lara Croft with vest and tight shorts and all....she's special.
Anyway she has it pulled back in a pony tail, it may as well be short

[WarpedAcorn]

I want Nariko hair NAO!!! >: (

[Edge-]

Think of the practicalities!!!! You are hero action girl you don't want your hair getting in your eyes or all sweaty and matted to your head! Long hair is also too high maintenance, you can't spend 30mins with a brush and blow drier out in the field for days on end. Nope short and practical is the way forward for the modern hero chick!

I don't play games to be practical. I play games to look fabulous. FUCKING FABULOUS, DAMNIT.

[Ixator]

patch notes r up! om nom http://www.swtor.com/patchnotes/2.1.0/customization

[Kelimbror]

Oh haha...remember when we were praising them for allowing you to withdraw your own earned currency from escrow? Just kidding, you have to pay cash for that too.

[RoninaThorstone]

Oh haha...remember when we were praising them for allowing you to withdraw your own earned currency from escrow? Just kidding, you have to pay cash for that too.

Wait, really?

[Kelimbror]

Wait, really?

Yes.

• Escrow Credit Transfers are now available for Free–to–Play and Preferred Status Players. Package denominations are available for 50K, 150K, and 600K . Each Package is a consumable that will immediately transfer the Package's set amount of credits from the existing Escrow Balance as listed in the Currency tab of the Inventory Window to the Inventory credit balance. This transfer does not affect Inventory Credit Caps. Therefore, newly acquired credits will go into the Escrow Balance as normal. For example, if the player has a Credit Cap is 250,000 / The player has 100,000 in their Inventory. The player purchases a 600K escrow package bringing their Inventory credit total to 700,000. Until the credits in the player's Inventory drop below 250,000 (the Credit Cap), the newly acquired credits will be funneled into Escrow. Cost:
  
  • Small Package – 40 Cartel Coins
  • Medium Package – 80 Cartel Coins
  • Large Package – 240 Cartel Coins

Inb4 "but it's only x amount of Coins, that's like a box of cracker jacks and other useless metaphors that aren't the point.

[RoninaThorstone]

Yes.


Inb4 "but it's only x amount of Coins, that's like a box of cracker jacks and other useless metaphors that aren't the point.

@ 1:08

"don't like it? Walk out. We still have all your fucking money"

[Skulljin]

The lack of class balancing in the patchnotes is making me cry everytime I look at new patch notes for this game. Mostly because they simply do not exist. Like this time.

[Morros]

The lack of class balancing in the patchnotes is making me cry everytime I look at new patch notes for this game. Mostly because they simply do not exist. Like this time.

I don't think the team that works with the Cartel Market updates does game balancing. What you're looking for will be in 2.2 patch notes if at all.

[Edge-]

Inb4 "but it's only x amount of Coins, that's like a box of cracker jacks and other useless metaphors that aren't the point.

On the bright side it's relatively cheap (I can purchase a small and medium pack with CC I have from achieves alone), but it's disappointing that they went this route. I was hoping they'd have a one time fee to let you access your whole escrow at once, then lock it back up till you wanted access to it again.

[Kelimbror]

On the bright side it's relatively cheap

On the bright side they are double charging you for your own 'money'. There is no bright side to that. Instead of being a player servicing feature, it was an attempt to extort more money.

[Edge-]

On the bright side they are double charging you for your own 'money'. There is no bright side to that. Instead of being a player servicing feature, it was an attempt to extort more money.

Where's the second charge? You purchase the escrow thingamabob and you can pull that many credits out of your escrow.

I'm not a fan of credit caps, but SWTOR is far from the only game that does it (DCUO, EQ2, EQ1, Vanguard, AoC, and I think there are others). IIRC there are ways to get your escrow currency in every one of those games too.

It's a shitty practice, but BioWare is hardly being unique or worse in their handling of this when compared to other games with hybrid business models.

[Kelimbror]

Where's the second charge? You purchase the escrow thingamabob and you can pull that many credits out of your escrow.

I'm not a fan of credit caps, but SWTOR is far from the only game that does it (DCUO, EQ2, EQ1, Vanguard, AoC, and I think there are others). IIRC there are ways to get your escrow currency in every one of those games too.

It's a shitty practice, but BioWare is hardly being unique or worse in their handling of this when compared to other games with hybrid business models.

I didn't say anything about having a credit cap as being a problem. You pay twice because you earn it with your time like everyone else, but then have to pay to use it. It's like a shitty bank that you direct deposit your checks, but they still charge you every time you want to use an ATM.

The difference in the models, at least from one game's example (LotRO) is that you can easily remove the cap forever for a similar small fee or combination of activities. Just going to their version of preferred status basically negates the currency cap. In SWTOR they focus on making sure you can never have anything permanently as a free player.

The only other games with escrow I've heard of let you take your money as you like, at no extra cost, just with the limit on how much buying power you can ever have.

[Psychlon]

Ehh...some games have a lot more in terms of customization included at no cost. Rift has a pretty bang up in game customization for in game currency, WoW at least has hair and accessories for in game currency (though you're right on the other services).

Even though it has been common, I don't think doing 'the same as others did before' is a blanket reason to not provide a better service. Well if Blizzard can screw people for race changes, we can too! Like many other archaic implementations, they should have been opportunities to distinguish themselves with better services.

Unfortunately their decisions side with whatever makes the most money and any 'perks' to those systems feels like an afterthought. And this is being 100% honest and not overly negative game bashing...just saying it's kinda undeniable that they would rather stick to bad customer practices that other companies have developed than step out on their own and provide better service.

It's not something unique to this market or company either.

I was talking about body/ name changes, not about face cosmetics... however, going through the patchnotes...

New Appearance Options are now available in the Cartel Market. Cost:
Human Hairstyles 1 – 240 Cartel Coins
Human Hair Colors 1 – 180 Cartel Coins
Mirialan Tattoos 1 – 90 Cartel Coins
Chiss Customizations 1 – 240 Cartel Coins
Human White Eyes – 100 Cartel Coins

/facepalm

I doubt that there isn't a thread already but if there isn't, I've got to create one. There is so much they can do but this is just again another stupid decision.... frankly a fucking stupid decision.

/settomad

[Forsedar]

I didn't say anything about having a credit cap as being a problem. You pay twice because you earn it with your time like everyone else, but then have to pay to use it.

But before... you couldn't earn it thus you couldn't use it. One of the major complaints was that the credit cap stopped players from doing a lot of things. Now you can actually earn more money than you had before and choose to get a hold of it with cartel coins. Honestly, this isn't too bad compared to certain games now on the market... where a respec costs $6.

I doubt that there isn't a thread already but if there isn't, I've got to create one. There is so much they can do but this is just again another stupid decision.... frankly a fucking stupid decision.

I'm not quite sure whats stupid about paying a small portion of cartel coins to change your appearance? We already knew we had to pay. Its 450 coins for less than $5. I can't count how many times I've race changed, which costs like $15.

[Edge-]

You pay twice because you earn it with your time like everyone else, but then have to pay to use it.

That's paying once. You earn it through play, then you pay to gain access to it.

The only other games with escrow I've heard of let you take your money as you like, at no extra cost, just with the limit on how much buying power you can ever have.

I'm not sure how all the others handle it exactly, but I know DCUO keeps you on a cap and you have to pay to access your escrow each time you want to. There are ways around that (as there are in SWTOR) such as keeping a certain number of expensive vendor items in your bags that you can sell off if you need to make a few large purchases at once. It's still a loss, as the vendor price is lower than the purchase prices, but it works alright.

Looking through how other games handle it though...

EQ2 removed the gold limit. Free players can get as much as they want.
Vanguard had the gold limit removed for free players as well.
EQ1 likewise had it removed. I don't think SoE even allowed you to access any money that would be in your escrow.
AoC only lets you access your escrow if you're a subscriber, you can't unlock it a la carte.
DCUO charges $1 for four 1k withdraws, $2 for 20k, $4 for 25k, or $5 for 7 days of unrestricted access to it.
LOTRO/DDO I need to check on, I'll update as soon as both games are fully updated on my computer so I can peak at the cash shops.

So SWTOR isn't terrible, but it's not good either. It could be like AoC and not let you access it at all, but I'd much prefer something like DCUO since that's a pretty flexible set of price points.

Unrelated: Well, their strategy of nickle and diming seems to be working so far, so I guess they aren't going to bother to come up with a more consumer friendly strategy. I'm just wondering if they're going to get to the point where they start to piss off too many subscribers, because it seems like they're doing more and more to make the subscription less valuable over time : /

---------- Post added 2013-05-13 at 10:32 PM ----------

Honestly, this isn't too bad compared to certain games now on the market... where a respec costs $6.

The cash shop in Neverwinter is fucking terrible. Every single secondary system in that game is overmonetized, overpriced, and fucking terrible. If the core gameplay wasn't so good, I wouldn't bother with it. As it is, it's going to be another game that I will play but refuse to pay for due to their shitty business practices.

It's not great when the best you can say for a games business model implementation is, "Well, at least we're not as bad as that guy." : /

I'm not quite sure whats stupid about paying a small portion of cartel coins to change your appearance? We already knew we had to pay. Its 450 coins for less than $5. I can't count how many times I've race changed, which costs like $15.

Every single one of these new systems in 2.1 is intentionally designed around that stipend. While it's nice that they're at least keeping it in mind, they're also deliberately making sure that you will be spending your stipend on new features, rather than simply adding them into the game for free and allowing you to purchase cosmetic armor sets etc.

So it's not necessarily bad, but I'd hardly call it good either.

As for $15 race change...the price of everything in WoW's cash shop is fucking banana's. I have no clue how the fuck Blizzard still gets away with charging that much on top of a subscription. It's fucking highway robbery and is beyond disrespectful to their players. I totally faction changed/race changed/gender changed when I played, but I never liked the price of it. Eventually it bothered me enough that I stopped doing it because I couldn't justify paying Blizzard all that money on top of my subscription.

[Psychlon]

I'm not quite sure whats stupid about paying a small portion of cartel coins to change your appearance? We already knew we had to pay. Its 450 coins for less than $5. I can't count how many times I've race changed, which costs like $15.

I still don't understand why subscriber don't have all moods unlocked/ added new moods. Can you tell me why?

Changing your hairstyle/ color is a "light" change, changing your bodysize/ race isn't which is the reason I kinda agree with one being behind a paywall but the other shouldn't be. It should be added for everyone to be available when you create a character.

[Forsedar]

To be honest, I am still with everyone in saying that F2P restrictions should be lessened by a lot and the cash shop just needs to not be focused on. It doesn't help Bioware when the Cartel Market is one of their things listed as 'big news'. I'll put up with it because I enjoy the game, but its still not how I want it. On the bright side, its not how I don't want it either.