New Subscriber Rewards. What will it be?

[quras]

Check it here or the official site.

We should learn what they are hyping about new subscriber rewards during today's live steam.

https://twitter.com/SWTOR/status/669561993339265024

[Treeba]

Subbing through December will earn you a shiny pair of Niko Okarr's boots! If you stick around through January you'll get his jockstrap... just in time for V-day.

Less sarcastic... I'd be happy with more coins per month or the sub reducing the cost of collection unlocks/character recustomization significantly (even more significantly in the case of recustomization.) I have a feeling it's going to be more reskinned gear/mounts and companions that have little/no story. Although I'm not sure why they would need a stream for that.

Super optimistically... it will be a rewards program like Rift/FF14 and probably a bunch of other mmos. Every X number of days you're subbed gives you a different level of reward. It would be nice if it was retroactive, but there is almost no way they do it.

[quras]

Subbing through December will earn you a shiny pair of Nike Okarr's boots! If you stick around through January you'll get his jockstrap... just in time for V-day.

Less sarcastic... I'd be happy with more coins per month or the sub reducing the cost of collection unlocks/character recustomization significantly (even more significantly in the case of recustomization.) I have a feeling it's going to be more reskinned gear/mounts and companions that have little/no story.

Super optimistically... it will be a rewards program like Rift/FF14 and probably a bunch of other mmos. Every number of days you're subbed gives you a different level of reward.

After the whole Nico coat thing and just how bad of a reward that was, I can't see them going that route but damn if game companies don't like to repeat mistakes.

But like you, on a more positive note, I'd love to see some of the things you mentioned as well as something like Rift/FF14. I really don't think we will see a PLEX type system or even something like WOW subscription for credits/gold.. I don't see SWTOR doing that.

However, I'd love to see subscribers get a bit more storage in both legacy and normal cargo holds. I had hoped the outfit designer would actually hold the gear as to get it out of my inventory but alas that didn't happen. More cargo space would be nice. I just can't bring myself to get rid of some gear that I can't get from the collections again. Space can get a bit tight.

[Edge-]

So did anyone actually catch what it was?

What tidbits I'm gathering...

You get to play a mission as HK55 and then use him as a companion IF YOU SUBSCRIBE FOR 9 MONTHS STRAIGHT? SO MUCH FOR CHOICES MATTERING (even if we had none with him) AND COMPANIONS DYING AND SHIT! We're waiting until January for Chapter X (2 months, yay!)? Subs get 2 days early access to the updates?

Wow man, this is hilarious. Absolutely fucking hilarious.

Edit: Ok, actually saw the full thing...

Chapter X: Launching February, so no content after FE launches for 3+ months.
Sub during Jan: Get HK-55 as a permanent companion which is fucking bullshit given the story
Sub from Jan-August: Get to play as HK-55 in a bonus chapter. So basically telling people that they need to spend roughly (granted, I know this gives more than just this content) $120 or so for this one chapter.
Sub before chapters are out: 2 days of early access.

Yeah, the world wasn't ready. For how massively underwhelming this information is -__________-

[catcommando]

The official announcement:

http://www.swtor.com/fallen-empire/rewards

Color me an unenthused meatbag. $120 for HK + story chapter. All subsequent monthly sub rewards are HK related. I'd rather watch that particular chapter on youtube and just fire up KOTOR instead. I was expecting 12x XP or something that speeds up alliance grind.

[Treeba]

Feb 9th is Chapter 10 (if you sub early) if not you have to wait until Feb 11th.

If you're subbed in January you also get HK-55 back. Kinda what I expected. The HK chapter will be cool, but I don't know that I want to stay subbed that long. I'll definitely be primarily playing Legion once that releases. But I guess if I can continue to play WoW for "free" with the token I'll keep my sub going here. Disappointed it wasn't more of a new, long-term program though. This seems pretty lame. 8+ months of HK-55 related perks? YAWN. He's cool, but I'd give up every single one of these new companions just for Kira, Doc, or even Gus. At least Vette will be back soon...

http://dulfy.net/2015/12/01/swtor-de...ream-coverage/

http://www.swtor.com/fallen-empire/r...kt-t-us-hp-221

[quras]

Originally Posted by SWTOR

Hey folks,

Here is a wrap-up of the things we talked about on the Producer Letter Livestream…

Chapter 10 – Anarchy in Paradise will be launching on February 11th. Along with Chapter 10, will be Game Update 4.1 which will include Fighting for the Eternal Championship, Bowdaar as an unlockable Companion through Alliance, and updates to Crafting. We will have more details on those changes in January.

We have a whole host of new subscriber rewards for you as well:
Be a subscriber on January 11th and receive HK-55 as a playable Companion when 4.1 launches on 2/9.
Be a subscriber continuously from January 11th through the launch of Chapter 16, and receive an entire bonus Chapter where you will play as HK-55!
Be a subscriber on the 1st of each month, and receive 2 days of early access to any Chapter which launches that month. This includes Chapter 10 in February.
There will also be additional monthly subscriber rewards throughout Season 1, most of which will be themed around HK-55.

Throughout the month of December, we will have plenty of things going on as well. The Gree, Rakghoul, and Bounty Contract events will each run for a week. Log in any time from 12/8 to 1/5 to receive our 4th anniversary rewards, including an HK-51 Stronghold Decoration, more information later this week! We will also be running Life Day and Double XP, more info on those tomorrow.

We hope you enjoyed the stream and want to thank you all for tuning in. If you have any questions about the stream or anything else, throw them in this thread and I will work with Ben on getting them answered. Thanks!

-eric

For those that don't go to the site.

It's a bit of a disappointment as far as subscriber rewards goes.

We got something like 22 companions now that are all so generic, one new one doesn't mean jack shit.

New chapter not coming till February. So that's 2 more months of running 1 to 4 year old OPS content as well as running 4 year old heroic 2+ content in the new massive alliance grind.

Subscribe for 9 months and get one bonus chapter. I guess that's not teerible but it so dependant on how the story plays out between now and than its not a big, draw you in kind of reward for subbing.

2 days early access on a chapter that will be done in an hour or so play time. WTF was BW thinking on that crap.

And monthly he-55 rewards? Companion rewards for a rather useless companion now because I have a level 50 companion already that I wouldn't give up to use HK or level another companion through the new affection/influence grind.

I had the bar set pretty low and BW has still managed to disappoint.

[karumayu]

Subscribers rewards are always fluff and not entirely essential for the game. Given the precedence of the rewards going into KoTFE, it should not be of surprise. I was under the impression that the chapter x will be released in early 2016 and not quite sure where people have got the idea that they will be releasing it from January. They could have toned down the announcement tweets a bit though.

Now for the interesting bits:

In chapter 10 we will be seeing something called the Eternal Championship. Gladiatorial matches akin to survival mode game play. If its anything similar to Brawlers guild from WoW then it should be quite fun.

Playing as HK-55 in the new bonus chapter: If I'm correct there are no instances of us playing anything other than our characters currently. This should open up for some new questing / game play options.

[WoWGoneBad]

All I can come up with is .......................................................................................... .......................................................................................... .......................................................................................... .......................................................................................... .......................................................................................... ...............

I am just sooo disappointed for the way this game has turned out.......

This news just makes me want to give this game up all together.

[Super Kami Dende]

HK isn't that important to me, I was hoping a "major" announcement was going to be something different in the game like new content to do or overhauls to something.

Kind of...ehhhh

[Edge-]

We got something like 22 companions now that are all so generic, one new one doesn't mean jack shit.

Yeah, companion overload (especially with how influence works, essentially making your companions with lower influence useless) is a big problem. I've little clue who basically my whole "secondary" set of companion crew folks are.

[Fencers]

Whoever does the marketing for The Old Republic should be let go at this point. I don't say that lightly but the way this was hyped and delivered is some serious disconnect.

This is a CM failure. Guys, I am not even joking.

[Treeba]

Subscribers rewards are always fluff and not entirely essential for the game. Given the precedence of the rewards going into KoTFE, it should not be of surprise. I was under the impression that the chapter x will be released in early 2016 and not quite sure where people have got the idea that they will be releasing it from January. They could have toned down the announcement tweets a bit though.

Now for the interesting bits:

In chapter 10 we will be seeing something called the Eternal Championship. Gladiatorial matches akin to survival mode game play. If its anything similar to Brawlers guild from WoW then it should be quite fun.

Playing as HK-55 in the new bonus chapter: If I'm correct there are no instances of us playing anything other than our characters currently. This should open up for some new questing / game play options.

They shouldn't have even made these type of hype-creating comments. They should've merely said they had a live stream planned for the 1st. Or better yet they could've told us some of the minor things and then sprung the HK chapter on us as a big surprise. It would've went over better, imo.

The concern for a lot of people is that there was still no mention of a new raid in this Feb. update. The Brawler's guild type content will be fun, but probably over pretty quickly. At my gear level I expect to fully clear it in the first week with little issue. I'm still enjoying my time in KotFE, but what's in game now isn't going to carry me to February and Brawler's guild in SWTOR won't hold me very long either. Hopefully they just haven't announced some of the big things in this next patch.

- - - Updated - - -

Yeah, companion overload (especially with how influence works, essentially making your companions with lower influence useless) is a big problem. I've little clue who basically my whole "secondary" set of companion crew folks are.

I think somewhere along the line they either misinterpreted players asking for "more companion stories/class stories" as "give me a boat load of companions with no story." They are, or seem to be, saving most of the more interesting companions to be part of the main story companion group, but I'm not sure we needed to be given access to so many through the alliance system.

I'm also concerned for how it will play out a year from now. Assuming all/most of the main love interest companions become main story companions we're going to end up with 20+ of those as well. A lot of the main story companions are going to end up with about as much screen time as the alliance companions.

What people really wanted was advancement of the story between their character and the handful of companions they already had... not 934899 new ones that will probably never speak again. I don't know if they just misunderstood that feedback or just thought this was a suitable alternative.

The play as a companion technology does open some interesting doors for them down the road. Hopefully it doesn't go to waste.

[Deleted]

I watched the stream and was extremely disapointed.

- 3 freaking months of waiting until between KOTFE launch and the next chapter. 3 months of absolutely no new content besides the mind-numbingly boring grind of Heroics, 4 year old Ops and doing the Alliance crates crap.

- "amazing" subscriber reward: yet-another-companion. Companion that I will likely never use, because I can't be arsed getting another comp to 50 influence after maxing out Lana.

[Edge-]

Whoever does the marketing for The Old Republic should be let go at this point. I don't say that lightly but the way this was hyped and delivered is some serious disconnect.

This is a CM failure. Guys, I am not even joking.

I mean, on the one hand the marketing is great. Because I guarantee they made a boatload of money from subs for this expansion.

But from a consumer perspective, it's pretty shit. And the community team all around are awful. At this point, and I rarely advocate this, Musco should have his ass kicked to the curb along with whatever remains of the current community team and a brand new one brought in. Their general lack of communication followed by their pretty awful miscommunication when they do communicate are terrible.

Kinda feel really shitty, because I went from mad hyped and praising BioWare in the months leading up to the expansion/first week or two to now being back where I was before; highly critical of them and not even remotely interested in giving them any more of my money. Though I know I'll sub once the story is finished so I can finish my playthrough on my sage at least. Was kinda looking forward to maintaining a sub and playing the content a it's released, but with this kind of nonsense I'm going to nope right the hell out.

Oh well, more time for Just Cause 3!

[quras]

HK isn't that important to me, I was hoping a "major" announcement was going to be something different in the game like new content to do or overhauls to something.

Kind of...ehhhh

Playing as a companion sounds good on paper. Just like vehicles in WOW sounded good on paper or playing as a dragon in the Oculus.

We found out pretty quickly the majority of our raiders disliked having their skills taken and replaced for some boss fight. It sounded good at first but ended up as a gimmick none of our gamers cared for.

I see the same thing happening in SWTOR. A POS gimmick, limited in it's likability because it takes players away from the toons they like to play and gives them a cheap mechanic that does nothing but increase the learning curve on a boss fight so that it just takes longer to complete. Adding little, if any, actual fun or entertainment.

I don't see it working out well. WOW had a hard time making it stick. SWTOR wont have a chance in hell.

The Brawler's type guild thing coming February for SWTOR. Another copy of something that was never all that great to behind with even after it got revamped. Another thing I don't see bringing gamers back or really retaining them.

I think gamers were hoping for a major announcement and all we got was some mediocre companion. Who is dead in the story and will no longer interact. (and hell, thats what made him enjoyable to have. HK-55 just being a companion that doesn't interact with the on going story is pretty shitty)

We're going into a major holiday and SWTOR doesn't have any real good player retention devices in play. They are going to be new games bought, new things that pull gamers in every way but SWTOR and BW are relying on this messily announcement to hold gamers along with 4 year old content.

They deserve all the negativity they get for not knowing better or trying harder.

[Katchii]

I mean, on the one hand the marketing is great. Because I guarantee they made a boatload of money from subs for this expansion.

But from a consumer perspective, it's pretty shit. And the community team all around are awful. At this point, and I rarely advocate this, Musco should have his ass kicked to the curb along with whatever remains of the current community team and a brand new one brought in. Their general lack of communication followed by their pretty awful miscommunication when they do communicate are terrible.

Kinda feel really shitty, because I went from mad hyped and praising BioWare in the months leading up to the expansion/first week or two to now being back where I was before; highly critical of them and not even remotely interested in giving them any more of my money. Though I know I'll sub once the story is finished so I can finish my playthrough on my sage at least. Was kinda looking forward to maintaining a sub and playing the content a it's released, but with this kind of nonsense I'm going to nope right the hell out.

Completely agree with you here.

Was super hyped about this because KotFE so far has been awesome. The companion influence grind sucks and they're adding even more companions? If they all can do the same thing now, why the hell would I ever NOT use the one I've already maxed out?

Completely underwhelmed and disappointed with the announcement yesterday, no fucking way I'm subbing for 6 months to get ONE extra chapter for a companion that doesn't make sense for being usable in the first place.

I'll just wait a year sub to get the chapters that came out and play through em all within that month and call it a day. They'll need to do a shitload more than this to make it worth the sub.

think gamers were hoping for a major announcement and all we got was some mediocre companion. Who is dead in the story and will no longer interact. (and hell, thats what made him enjoyable to have. HK-55 just being a companion that doesn't interact with the on going story is pretty shitty)

We're going into a major holiday and SWTOR doesn't have any real good player retention devices in play. They are going to be new games bought, new things that pull gamers in every way but SWTOR and BW are relying on this messily announcement to hold gamers along with 4 year old content.

They deserve all the negativity they get for not knowing better or trying harder.

Quoted for truth...

[Darth Belichick]

I cancelled my sub when they nerfed comps and I'll keep it unsubscribed until the new story. I'm sub for the month and then let it fall off. These subscriber rewards are awful and in no way make me want to spend that kind of money for one chapter.

[NoiseTank13]

New Subscriber Rewards. What will it be?

A whole lot of fucking nothing.

[George Costanza]

no surprise.