Patch 2.1 Customization - Cathars & more

[Armourboy]

erm editing

---------- Post added 2013-05-08 at 12:40 PM ----------

Well from everything they said before they were always making money even when it was just sub based. The reason for them to go into a F2P mode wasnt so they could make more money but so more people could enjoy the game and was never said so they could make more money so they had the chance to add to the game.

You seem like you just forget everything they said before. That was 500k subs to break even. Then at about 1.3 million subs they started working on a F2P model. Why was that if they were making over 2 1/2x the money they needed to break even, not to mention all the staff cuts they also added.

If a business man was making over 2 1/2 times the money to break even with a monthly payment plan then there is no reason he would change his method to a pay as you go service to new people and to his existing contracts.

Problem with that though is we know it was all a bunch of bunk. They didn't go F2P because they wanted to share the game, they went F2P because they wanted to make more money. Odds are if they actually were making much of a profit at the 500k-750k players they still had, it wasn't nearly as much as they had predicted they would make. That doesn't surprise me because these are the same guys who thought the leveling would take months.

Also the timeline is slightly off, they were well below 1.3 million players by the time they started working on F2P ( at least publicly anyways). The only reason that number stayed as large as it did was because they had a bunch of open dead accounts by giving away free time ( I was one of them.) If you remember, the F2P whispers from EA started coming out shortly after that time ended ( came about because of the upper brass guy bringing it up and the email poll they sent out). I know by the time they announced it I had long stopped playing and even being counted.

[katta]

erm editing

---------- Post added 2013-05-08 at 12:40 PM ----------




Problem with that though is we know it was all a bunch of bunk. They didn't go F2P because they wanted to share the game, they went F2P because they wanted to make more money. Odds are if they actually were making much of a profit at the 500k-750k players they still had, it wasn't nearly as much as they had predicted they would make. That doesn't surprise me because these are the same guys who thought the leveling would take months.

Also the timeline is slightly off, they were well below 1.3 million players by the time they started working on F2P ( at least publicly anyways). The only reason that number stayed as large as it did was because they had a bunch of open dead accounts by giving away free time ( I was one of them.) If you remember, the F2P whispers from EA started coming out shortly after that time ended ( came about because of the upper brass guy bringing it up and the email poll they sent out). I know by the time they announced it I had long stopped playing and even being counted.

I know they didnt go F2P except for the only reason to make more money.

I believe F2P first poped up in apr/may and I do believe on that call they said 1.3 since they said 1.7 in feb.

I am just saying that all the people that think the way the CM is working and F2P is going is OK because the company is making money means nothing to think that improvements will be made to the game as a result. The only think that cartel money does is make them more money and no matter how much that is that it would not transfer into game improvements. The only think it will do is add to more cartel market items.

[Kelimbror]

I love how he says they design the Cartel Market with the subscriber stipend in mind, then follows up by saying having 'more choices' on what to spend your stipend on isn't bad.

I guess everyone's missing how he is directly saying they think long and hard about how to best screw the subscriber so that their stipend is relatively worthless. Not to mention that none of these 'choices' includes the expansion. Regarding the new features, subscribers should receive a free account service every month on top of their stipend at the very least. None of this discount bullshit.

Also, turning the collections items into account wide should also be included in a sub. Otherwise all their doing is further negating the value of a subscriber's stipend with the illusion that they are providing more choice (at an even further extra cost to yourself) in order to extort more money from everyone. If anyone thinks these 'amazing' features are for the good of a single customer of theirs, you are absolutely insane.

[Deleted]

Oh look, another reskin of the humans.

They look retarded, like they've been to an 8 year old's birthday party and had their face painted lol.

And they're charging extra for that crap? Oh you Bioware ^^

[Armourboy]

I know they didnt go F2P except for the only reason to make more money.

I believe F2P first poped up in apr/may and I do believe on that call they said 1.3 since they said 1.7 in feb.

I am just saying that all the people that think the way the CM is working and F2P is going is OK because the company is making money means nothing to think that improvements will be made to the game as a result. The only think that cartel money does is make them more money and no matter how much that is that it would not transfer into game improvements. The only think it will do is add to more cartel market items.

Nah F2P popped up later than that, my account was no longer active when it started being discussed and I was still active until sometime in early May. Now among the players it was starting to be a hot topic because you were getting all of the people talking trash about the game saying it was going to go F2P, but it didn't start leaking out from the company til after I was gone. It seems like the actual announcement was made in late summer, but I may completely wrong on that, it all runs together sometimes.

I remember that 1.3 million earnings call because everyone was arguing that it wasn't a true number either because they still had lots of players with 6 month subs that still hadn't burnt their free time yet. TBH I think the only number they ever threw out that was an honest one was probably the initial sales figures and the initial 1.7 million number. Thats not to say other companies don't do the same thing, but thats how it goes.

And you are dead on about the money they make from the Market, very little of it will ever go into anything other than someone's pocket or some other way to make money.

[notorious98]

And you are dead on about the money they make from the Market, very little of it will ever go into anything other than someone's pocket or some other way to make money.

Isn't that common practice for nearly every business known to man? Where else is the money supposed to go except somebody's pocket or to maintain/increase revenue? Unless you're saying the CM money will only go to the CM, which is probably true. However, stating it the way you have just sounds weird because that's how business works.

[WarpedAcorn]

Isn't that common practice for nearly every business known to man? Where else is the money supposed to go except somebody's pocket or to maintain/increase revenue? Unless you're saying the CM money will only go to the CM, which is probably true. However, stating it the way you have just sounds weird because that's how business works.

Thanks to the recent success with the Cartel Market, we are happy to announce that our creative team received the greenlight to being working on their next big project...BROWN Toothpick!

[notorious98]

Thanks to the recent success with the Cartel Market, we are happy to announce that our creative team received the greenlight to being working on their next big project...BROWN Toothpick!

If we sell enough Hypercrates, we'll start our work on the Striped Toothpick. Having two colors requires more resources, so we need more moneys.

[RoninaThorstone]

If we sell enough Hypercrates, we'll start our work on the Striped Toothpick. Having two colors requires more resources, so we need more moneys.

And we will finally honor our promise to give founders more exclusive items... The yellow-black core toothpick!

[Kelimbror]

And we will finally honor our promise to give founders more exclusive items... The yellow-black core toothpick!

For a discounted fee as a subscriber...but you still have to pay for it.

[notorious98]

And we will finally honor our promise to give founders more exclusive items... The yellow-black core toothpick!

Which will be randomly placed into the NEW! Cartel Packs exclusively for Founders. They'll only be sold in Hypercrate form and subscribers will enjoy a discount. 1 Hypercrate will only cost 3,000 CCs.

[Gereorth666]

Hey everyone,

I wanted to specifically address the concern of “what is a subscriber getting in an all Cartel Market update?” Game Update 2.1 brings a whole lot of customization and convenience features to the game which have been requested for quite some time, such as character name changes etc. As we have stated in the past, we always design systems like this knowing that subscribers will be receiving Cartel Coins each month, and certainly more options for your monthly Cartel Coin grant can’t be a bad thing!

I think the core of some of your frustrations is that you feel like Game Update 2.1 is “eating up a slot” for our regular content cadence, and because of that, you won’t actually be receiving any new content in this “cycle.” I figure the best way to address that is to lay out a bit of a road map of what the next few weeks looks like! This will help especially if you are only looking at what you are getting within one “content cycle.” As I have done in the past, I need to make it clear that everything I am about to say is our current plan and that it is subject to change, but I want to give you as many details as I can! Here is our current plan:
Game Update 2.1 will release on Tuesday, May 14th
Game Update 2.2 will release on Tuesday, June 11th
If you are keeping track and we hit those dates, Game Update 2.2 will releasing 8 weeks and 2 days from the time we released Rise of the Hutt Cartel (so basically around our 8 week cadence that is often referenced). What that means is that even though I can’t yet tell you what is in Game Update 2.2, you are getting two Game Updates within that period. I will say this: Game Update 2.2 has no new Cartel Market features… Also, both of these Game Updates will come with the usual bug fixes, quality of life improvements, etc. which you have come to expect (reference the patch notes for more info).

I know many of you will reserve full judgment until you see what happens over the next few weeks. I hope getting a little bit more information on our timeline will help alleviate your concerns. I have stated before that our Cartel Market and content teams are two very different things internally, which is why we can have these two Game Updates release so close together. Hopefully that provides some insight into our plans!

TLDR – If you’re concerned that Game Update 2.1 is taking up space in our content cadence and only contains Cartel Market stuff, fear not, Game Update 2.2 is coming sooner than you would expect!

-eric

PS – The Gree Enclave wanted me to pass on that they will be returning soon…

That is taken from 'darthhater'. Quite an interesting post, but I'm not putting too much hopes on it (glad to see a release date for 2.1, but they are talking about 2.2 so positive already).

[notorious98]

That is taken from 'darthhater'. Quite an interesting post, but I'm not putting too much hopes on it (glad to see a release date for 2.1, but they are talking about 2.2 so positive already).

I didn't get that from that post at all. They didn't really say anything about 2.2 aside from it not containing new CM features.

[Psychlon]

I know they didnt go F2P except for the only reason to make more money.

I believe F2P first poped up in apr/may and I do believe on that call they said 1.3 since they said 1.7 in feb.

I am just saying that all the people that think the way the CM is working and F2P is going is OK because the company is making money means nothing to think that improvements will be made to the game as a result. The only think that cartel money does is make them more money and no matter how much that is that it would not transfer into game improvements. The only think it will do is add to more cartel market items.

You surely seem to believe a lot.... , F2P was announced much later... (31.07.12) when SWTOR was bleeding subs because nothing was going on in the game, content was delaaaaaaayeeeeeed etc. . If SWTOR makes money, it's much more likely that Bioware will get the support by EA to continue rather than let it die out, no matter if whatever money earned via CM is actually going into making new content (something which you don't know but I'm not suprised that you take arguments from somewhere far.... far away, as usually). What does it even matter if they us their earnings purely from the CM for content? The only thing matters is that they are going to release new content which btw. is going to be 8 weeks after the last "patch" was released so the argument that they sacrifice "content" patches for CM patches is another wrong assumption, as is that we are going to see only CM patches in the future.

[Redblade]

The only thing matters is that they are going to release new content which btw. is going to be 8 weeks after the last "patch" was released so the argument that they sacrifice "content" patches for CM patches is another wrong assumption, as is that we are going to see only CM patches in the future.

Remember the promise of 6 week content cycle...didn't last very long.

[Psychlon]

Remember the promise of 6 week content cycle...didn't last very long.

Why didn't you point out the 8 week cycle over christmas? Damn.... they need holidays? for what?

[Redblade]

Why didn't you point out the 8 week cycle over christmas? Damn.... they need holidays? for what?

Didn't pay attention to it, if they are to stand up and say that they are doing 6 weeks cycles then I'd expect them to keep it, if they can't they shouldn't say anything in the first place.

Either way it was just an observation I found funny, very expected but still funny.

[Gereorth666]

I didn't get that from that post at all. They didn't really say anything about 2.2 aside from it not containing new CM features.

The fact they already got a release date. I'm doubting they will stick to it.

[Deleted]

Didn't pay attention to it, if they are to stand up and say that they are doing 6 weeks cycles then I'd expect them to keep it, if they can't they shouldn't say anything in the first place.

Either way it was just an observation I found funny, very expected but still funny.

You're about 7 months late. Bioware announced it would be 6-8 week content cycles back in November and have repeated that timeframe every single announcement since. There are current lamentations to be had with SWTOR but the '6 week promise wasn't kept' one is so 2012

[Redblade]

You're about 7 months late. Bioware announced it would be 6-8 week content cycles back in November and have repeated that timeframe every single announcement since. There are current lamentations to be had with SWTOR but the '6 week promise wasn't kept' one is so 2012

It's about as old as calling a cash shop only patch 'content', just sayin'.