Ships as in is delivered to the players aka released. This has nothing to do with physical ships.

 

I totally miss read the when as with my bad would have like new ships though!

Why can't I sell some of this junk that is worthless on the GTN?

We are examining that possibility, and even if we did so, we would likely make the sale price negligible, to avoid having too harsh an effect on the economy (I don't want buying Cartel Packs to be a particularly effective and reliable way to get credits).

Some items, like the speeders for instance, have a sale price listed when you go to a vendor. For the speeders, it is 25,000 credits. So are we supposed to be able to sell them to vendors and there is an error preventing that? Or is the listed sales price the error and they were never intended to have any sale price or be able to be sold to vendors?

....

....

bunch of stuff

....

McRib

....

....

 

 

You had me at 'McRib'

Question for you: Do you feel that Cartel Packs are a dishonest way of getting the maximum amount of Money out of players by having them gamble for items they want.

 

Rather than go into the cartel maket and spend a set pre-determined amount of money on an outfit or speeder or pet or whatever you decide to put the most sort after items such as the revan mask or other outfits/pets/emotes in the Cartel pack. Hoping to take advantage of incredibly bad odds that they will try again and again and again like any gambling addict to finally get that item or even just come away good on their loss. After all you would never be able to sell a pack of 10 worthless crafting components, a purple companion item, a banner and credit box or whatever else junk that clogs the GTN. The vast majority of these boxes are junk and not worth the money spent on them. Instead the chance to get a rare item is what is really being sold. And in no way an up front and honest of providing value for money. Even Casinos have to tell you what the odds of winning are.

Question for you: Do you feel that Cartel Packs are a dishonest way of getting the maximum amount of Money out of players by having them gamble for items they want.

 

Rather than go into the cartel maket and spend a set pre-determined amount of money on an outfit or speeder or pet or whatever you decide to put the most sort after items such as the revan mask or other outfits/pets/emotes in the Cartel pack.

 

Sure it increases money gained by a lot but at the same time it is also a mechanic to limit the distrobution of certain items. If they put the Command Throne, Nihilus Mask, or White Crystals for sale directly everyone in the game would have them and there would be no uniqueness to those. So while it can lead to greed and revenue it also has some benefit to the game world. At least I believe it does.

There are a few questions raised in this thread.

 

Any chance you will comment on the ACTUAL rarity of the items? Or, offer clearer ways for us players to see the true scarcity? For example, all three Revan armor pieces share the same rarity symbol, yet the Mask is clearly the rarest of them.

Real shame that Mr. Schubert didn't include the metrics of other gold-quality items, which most of us tend to get. I am speaking of all the useless colour crystals and such. I have opened 50 packs and I ne'er found a single item mentioned by him. None of my items found was worth more than 200k.

Real shame that Mr. Schubert didn't include the metrics of other gold-quality items, which most of us tend to get. I am speaking of all the useless colour crystals and such. I have opened 50 packs and I ne'er found a single item mentioned by him. None of my items found was worth more than 200k.

 

You have horribly bad luck then I have got and sold the Nihilus mask and Revan Mask and sold them for 2/2.5 million on the GTN. I have also sold several Blue-Cyan crystals for 200k-250k each.

You have horribly bad luck then I have got and sold the Nihilus mask and Revan Mask and sold them for 2/2.5 million on the GTN. I have also sold several Blue-Cyan crystals for 200k-250k each.

 

I am serious. My rarest items were the new colour crystals, endurance ones... Once I got a set of both Revan's armor and robes but that was post the hype and high-prices. :l

Thanks for answering some questions, Damion. I like seeing this kind of communications from the powers that be (regardless of whether everyone agrees with the answers or not)

 

I certainly hope the last point is true. Maintaining a positive outlook on the future of the game is something many are struggling with recently. We have yet to see the "fruit of the harvest", so to speak.

There are a few questions raised in this thread.

 

Do items put in the Galactic Trade Network sell?

Yes. We have metrics, as well, on what sells, and for what price, which we compare to their drop rates. This gives us a great idea on adjustments we should make for future packs (the drop rates and the pack contents themselves) - which means that our next round of packs will be better, and the ones after that will be better again.

 

Here are some fun stats

* The White indestructible crystal Median Buyout price = 1.4 million credits

* The Overlord’s Command Throne Median Buyout Price = 1.75 million credits

* The Dominator’s Command Throne Median buyout price = 1.50 million credits

* The imperial banner Median buyout price = 250 credits

* Ruddyscale Kowakian Monkey-Lizard median buyout price = 500,000 credits

* Elegant Loungewear Top median buyout price = 22,000 credits

 

This is interesting, in that the thrones are much less rare than the crystal. The metrics we have on what sells and what doesn't are excellent, which means that we should get better and better at pushing our resources towards things that players actually want.

 

 

Are there any truly absurd prices out there?

Absolutely. I can tell you one person bought an Imperial Banner off the GTN for 310000 credits.

 

 

Are we aware that some items can't be sold on the GTN (i.e. the game won't let you)?

Yeah, those are bugs, and in the case of the lightsaber crystals, ones that we should have caught easily, since it's happened multiple times. In every case I can think of off the top of my head, these are unintentional bugs, and should get fixed. It's not our intention that people should be standing around spamming the fleet about these.

 

 

Are you guys aware that there's a ton of dupe items clogging our inventory?

We totally are. This is particularly true of the more common bonus items that are repeated through multiple packs. We are constructing our next round of packs (i.e. the round that will start when Rise of the Hutt Cartel ships) with a definite eye on reducing this level of suck.

 

 

Why can't I sell some of this junk that is worthless on the GTN?

We are examining that possibility, and even if we did so, we would likely make the sale price negligible, to avoid having too harsh an effect on the economy (I don't want buying Cartel Packs to be a particularly effective and reliable way to get credits). That being said, there's a very good chance that some of these items may be retired in the future - an Imperial Banner or Dominator Throne that enjoys a certain value now might find that value greatly increased once the packs that sell these disappear - so you might want to selectively choose some of these to bank, rather than junk. This retirement may be permanent, or a temporary removal from service (like the McRib or the Disney DvD releases) That being said, we are still developing our strategy for how these items are retired and/or cycled into service. Once we have a plan, I will be sure we communicate it to the community at large.

 

 

It sucks that the Cartel Market/Cartel Packs takes away resources that could be spent on (my pet feature)!

It's quite the opposite, actually. The success of the market (and it has been quite successful) has given us the time and resources to do some ambitious things on Makeb, and plan some very ambitious things beyond. The success of the Cartel Market means that there will be more good stuff for ALL players, paying, subscribers, and free.

 

Damion, first off, let me reiterate something you said, and try to add a little to it from my perspective.

 

It makes me happy to see that you are thinking in terms of the Cartel Market supporting THE ENTIRE game, and not just more Cartel market items. For my own purposes, that is exactly how it is being used. I have purchased a number of cartel packs, armor sets, and other items from the Cartel Market. But for the most part, although I was happy to get these items, I DID THIS TO SUPPORT THE GAME OVERALL, INCLUDING MORE CONTENT FOR OUR CLASS STORIES.

 

Please remember this, for it is the utmost importance. We're buying these items from the Cartel Market so that you all have the cash on hand to keep developing the game. Please do not let things degrade into a situation where you're just using the funds from the market to create more baubles for the market ad infinitum.

__

 

Second, let me thank you for so much detailed info here. I really appreciate your answers and collating this data for us. The median buyout prices were pretty cool.

 

That said, are you all planing on giving US, the players, more access to those data metrics? In another MMO I've played, they had such detailed stats that you could look at any item, hit a "Market Details", and then get detailed graphs on sale prices, markup prices from normal value, how many sold, all going back up to 10 years or more.

 

This was so enriching for using the markets because anyone could tell almost immediately whether a product was being sold for a legitimate price or whether it was being overpriced. It gave buyers and sellers both extra ammo to use in their pricing and negotiations.

 

And since you already HAVE the data, it'd be nice to get access to it in-game through each item so we can do this stuff on our own in the future!

The packs are annoying, ive gotten stuff I will never use like mats for crafts that I dont use, a crystal for pvp which I never ever do and gifts whats with all the gifts you can get the same sending companions to get them. Its annoying when you see someone going around in something you really want but it never drops and if you want to by it its rediculously over priced ie the mask of revan or nihilus is in the mills Ive been playing for a year and have never gotten past 150K.

Thanks for answering some questions, Damion. I like seeing this kind of communications from the powers that be (regardless of whether everyone agrees with the answers or not)

 

I certainly hope the last point is true. Maintaining a positive outlook on the future of the game is something many are struggling with recently. We have yet to see the "fruit of the harvest", so to speak.

 

I totally agree. It's so great to finally see developers talking to players from time to time. I assure you, it definitely raises the mood and bolsters the faith in the game so much!

 

Thanks a lot for the time spent posting here!

There are a few questions raised in this thread.

 

Do items put in the Galactic Trade Network sell?

Yes. We have metrics, as well, on what sells, and for what price, which we compare to their drop rates. This gives us a great idea on adjustments we should make for future packs (the drop rates and the pack contents themselves) - which means that our next round of packs will be better, and the ones after that will be better again.

 

Here are some fun stats

* The White indestructible crystal Median Buyout price = 1.4 million credits

* The Overlord’s Command Throne Median Buyout Price = 1.75 million credits

* The Dominator’s Command Throne Median buyout price = 1.50 million credits

* The imperial banner Median buyout price = 250 credits

* Ruddyscale Kowakian Monkey-Lizard median buyout price = 500,000 credits

* Elegant Loungewear Top median buyout price = 22,000 credits

 

This is interesting, in that the thrones are much less rare than the crystal. The metrics we have on what sells and what doesn't are excellent, which means that we should get better and better at pushing our resources towards things that players actually want.

 

 

Are there any truly absurd prices out there?

Absolutely. I can tell you one person bought an Imperial Banner off the GTN for 310000 credits.

 

 

Are we aware that some items can't be sold on the GTN (i.e. the game won't let you)?

Yeah, those are bugs, and in the case of the lightsaber crystals, ones that we should have caught easily, since it's happened multiple times. In every case I can think of off the top of my head, these are unintentional bugs, and should get fixed. It's not our intention that people should be standing around spamming the fleet about these.

 

 

Are you guys aware that there's a ton of dupe items clogging our inventory?

We totally are. This is particularly true of the more common bonus items that are repeated through multiple packs. We are constructing our next round of packs (i.e. the round that will start when Rise of the Hutt Cartel ships) with a definite eye on reducing this level of suck.

 

 

Why can't I sell some of this junk that is worthless on the GTN?

We are examining that possibility, and even if we did so, we would likely make the sale price negligible, to avoid having too harsh an effect on the economy (I don't want buying Cartel Packs to be a particularly effective and reliable way to get credits). That being said, there's a very good chance that some of these items may be retired in the future - an Imperial Banner or Dominator Throne that enjoys a certain value now might find that value greatly increased once the packs that sell these disappear - so you might want to selectively choose some of these to bank, rather than junk. This retirement may be permanent, or a temporary removal from service (like the McRib or the Disney DvD releases) That being said, we are still developing our strategy for how these items are retired and/or cycled into service. Once we have a plan, I will be sure we communicate it to the community at large.

 

 

It sucks that the Cartel Market/Cartel Packs takes away resources that could be spent on (my pet feature)!

It's quite the opposite, actually. The success of the market (and it has been quite successful) has given us the time and resources to do some ambitious things on Makeb, and plan some very ambitious things beyond. The success of the Cartel Market means that there will be more good stuff for ALL players, paying, subscribers, and free.

 

I just wanted to say thank you for providing a clear and honest answer to the player questions. It's much appreciated.

Do you have a pre-set number of packs and items set up ahead of time for a certain period of time?

We develop a set of these packs (we call them a 'Shipment') at one time. Shipment 1 will have 4 packs associated with them (not counting the cheap pack), with one additional pack coming out before Rise of the Hutts. After that, a new shipment will come out, likely with a new name (instead of 'Cartel Packs', they will be 'Contraband Packs', for example).

 

Developing a shipment has a long lead time. Most of the art for shipment 2 is already complete, and we are currently in planning stages for shipment 3. This is not to say that we can't slide things around, or pull something forward or get something in a hurry if we see a great idea or if something on the market really sells. But the capacity for this kind of movement is very limited.

 

We also want these packs to have a reasonable life post-removal. As a result, we philosophically resist actually adjusting the internal math of these packs (i.e. what's in them, at what drop rate) after they've been released, so that the value of the packs is a known quantity. This is not to say we never would do so if there was a serious problem -- but we really don't want to. Short form: there likely will be a time in the future where the GTN is the ONLY place to buy a Skip Tracer's Pack.

 

 

Are you afraid that greed will corrupt the game?

The cartel market funds the ability for players to play for free, which has allowed a huge number of players who couldn't or wouldn't play the game to do so now. This has resulted in more dev resources, and larger, more vibrant communities. And we've done so while still making market transactions mostly optional. I'm pretty much in the camp that we're on the Light Side on this, so far at least.

 

 

Why do these items currently have a price if they are unsellable?

Some game systems require a value for parts of the game to work. As an example, the GTN needs it to know what base price to set things to (and IIRC, doesn't let you put things up for sale that doesn't have a value). These items are currently hardcoded to not be sold to NPC vendors, despite their internal credit value.

 

Great follow-up and awesome information I think I am going to have to run out and stock up on a few packs and hold onto the for the future now.

Maybe you can please answer these questions then.

 

With the higher costs of some of the stand alone armor sets (such as the valiant Jedi set), why are they bind on equip and not bound to legacy? Also, are there plans to add in bound to legacy armor and weapons in the future?

Don't let greed corrupt the game Damion, I've seen it happen to other games.

These packs are a dangerous path you're taking.

 

They need money to pay the salaries of the designers and programmers who work on improving the game. It's not going into BioWare's CEO's pocket.

Hello Damion Schubert,

 

Clearly you read this thread. You have addressed the "suck" of repeat items in the Cartel Packs. Obviously this was your intention to have repeats throughout the packs and it is not a bug with a certain Cartel Pack file as I had maybe thought. I would like to point out another thread to you Damion that shares many feelings that I will be repeating:

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=584051

 

Now you can also go back and look at the description of the pack in the Cartel Market Update. "A unique assortment of items from across the galaxy. Each Pack contains rare bonus items found nowhere else!" It is just not true. Endless Banners, Intimidate and Menace emotes, Ball Toss, and Covert Torso Energy Armor are most definitely found elsewhere. I am not happy about the old rare contents of this new pack.

 

Let me point out again a few of the descriptions of the product that is being sold in the "More Info" window of the Skip Tracer's Cartel Pack in the Cartel Market:

 

1. Each Pack contains rare bonus items found nowhere else!

2. Two Rare bonus items with the chance of a Super Rare.

3. This Pack contains Rare bonus items not found in any other Cartel Market Pack

 

So if a person reads this description and buys the Skip Tracer's Cartel Pack, what is it that a person should expect from the Pack? I believe that a person should expect two(2) items, Rare or Super Rare, that are not found in any other Cartel Market pack. So do the following items meet that requirement?

 

Ubrikki Sand Devil

Ubrikki Crimson Crawler

Emote: Menace

Emote: Intimidate

Republic Banner

Imperial Banner

Ball Toss

Covert Torso Energy Armor (other people have gotten many of the CTEA, but not myself from the Skip Tracer's. The rest of the items that I listed I received one or more of.)

 

No, these items do not follow the requirements of the description of the Skip Tracer's Cartel Pack. Therefore, I would really appreciate the compensation of a total worth of 6 Skip Tracer's Cartel Packs, because I opened 12 old items throughout 16 new packs, and each pack is supposed to include two(2) new rare/super rare items. I would also be happy with 6 x 360 Cartel Coins = 2160 Cartel Coins. 3 of the packs contained no new items at all.

 

My first ticket #7713218 was closed with no response. My second pending ticket is #7806897 if you want to personally address the ticket. The other thread isn't getting anywhere, and perhaps my tickets aren't either.

 

Now can you address why it was your intention to have old items in new packs, when if we wanted old items we could buy old packs? I know you said all packs probably won't be around forever, but that doesn't justify repeating items in new packs. If you're going to discontinue a pack, you are discontinuing the items inside of them. Otherwise you are just regurgitating packs with a new name and a few new items. It further does not justify what I call "false advertising" whether it was a mistake or not to have the description of the packs be what they are: misleading, untruthful, incorrect, a mistake(I hope). It isn't my fault that the description is what it is. Why should I have to get something different than what I thought I was paying for?

 

I appreciate that you are changing the contents of future packs to reduce this "suck" level, but I feel that all new packs should contain all new items. Perhaps you should reconsider discontinuing old packs, because of this reason, not that you have committed to doing so.

 

I love this game, and have loved it for the past year, but this issue I really have a gripe with. I apologize for my repetitiveness throughout this post and the thread I linked.

 

Thank you Damion for your time and responses!

It sucks that the Cartel Market/Cartel Packs takes away resources that could be spent on (my pet feature)!

It's quite the opposite, actually. The success of the market (and it has been quite successful) has given us the time and resources to do some ambitious things on Makeb, and plan some very ambitious things beyond. The success of the Cartel Market means that there will be more good stuff for ALL players, paying, subscribers, and free.

 

Makeb was supposed to release last year so please don't write such blatant lies that you've got MORE time to do "ambitious" stuff. If anything, the F2P move stole Makeb from subscribers last year, and you're making us pay for it a second time this year through our subscription AND a fee.

 

The market effectively stole time and ressource from Makeb. Period. That's why it's still not out while it should have been.

And the market will be stealing more time and ressources from other projects in the future because you only got a fixed amount of ressources and you're spending them on the market because of the easy money from star wars fans and gambling addicts.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Oggthebase

Interresting how they do plan to take the packs out of roulation at some point, which I personally don't mind.

 

I'm not sure whether the decision to not allow the items to be vendored is actually a good idea though. They don't give as good a means to earn some extra credits as other cartel shop items anyway, like unlocks, which can yield a 1CC = 1000cr exchangerate if you look into it. An unopened cartel pack sometimes gives a similar exchange rate: 360CC for ~350,000 credits.

Now let's take those Ubrikki speeders as an example. They have a vendor value listed of 25,000cr. On the GTN, they sell for 6-7k. The effect of this, is that people rather buy a speeder from the GTN at lvl 15/25 than one of the vendor speeders, since the GTN speeders are just as cheap, but you won't ever need to buy another speeder again when you get the GTN one. 25k would actually be a pretty good price for the GTN, since it encourages people to actually make a decision which one to buy. Right now, it's a no-brainer.

 

Making the speeders vendorable means the exchangerate of an OPENED pack containing one would be about 25k. Still way less than the 350k you could get for an unopened pack, but:

-It will reduce cargobay clogging

-It will rebalance speeder values on the GTN while making vendor speeders more useful as well

-It will give those who get a speeder some more sense of satisfaction, reducing the complaints about the packs overall!

Ya know, I actually wonder if the game has some sort of a system which is recognising when players opened packs bought directly from CM and when they bought them off someone using credits. I have reasons to believe that it does since most of the packs I opened were bought for in-game credits. I have never received an item worth more than 200k in like 50 packs I opened.

 

I have reasons to believe that second-hand packs have lower drop chances for rare stuff.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Alec_Fortescue

Interresting how they do plan to take the packs out of roulation at some point, which I personally don't mind.

 

I'm not sure whether the decision to not allow the items to be vendored is actually a good idea though. They don't give as good a means to earn some extra credits as other cartel shop items anyway, like unlocks, which can yield a 1CC = 1000cr exchangerate if you look into it. An unopened cartel pack sometimes gives a similar exchange rate: 360CC for ~350,000 credits.

Now let's take those Ubrikki speeders as an example. They have a vendor value listed of 25,000cr. On the GTN, they sell for 6-7k. The effect of this, is that people rather buy a speeder from the GTN at lvl 15/25 than one of the vendor speeders, since the GTN speeders are just as cheap, but you won't ever need to buy another speeder again when you get the GTN one. 25k would actually be a pretty good price for the GTN, since it encourages people to actually make a decision which one to buy. Right now, it's a no-brainer.

 

Making the speeders vendorable means the exchangerate of an OPENED pack containing one would be about 25k. Still way less than the 350k you could get for an unopened pack, but:

-It will reduce cargobay clogging

-It will rebalance speeder values on the GTN while making vendor speeders more useful as well

-It will give those who get a speeder some more sense of satisfaction, reducing the complaints about the packs overall!

 

Yea, except all the credits that you get from Cartel packs right now come from other players which means no new credits entering the economy. When you sell something to a vendor you are creating currency in the game world which is wholly different.

The metrics we have on what sells and what doesn't are excellent, which means that we should get better and better at pushing our resources towards things that players actually want.

 

Oh, not these metrics again. You already ruined PvP balance by using these metrics. Please, play ur game not metrics!

 

Also, GTN prices does not show lack of popularity, but abundance of goods...

Makeb was supposed to release last year so please don't write such blatant lies that you've got MORE time to do "ambitious" stuff. If anything, the F2P move stole Makeb from subscribers last year, and you're making us pay for it a second time this year through our subscription AND a fee.

 

The market effectively stole time and ressource from Makeb. Period. That's why it's still not out while it should have been.

And the market will be stealing more time and ressources from other projects in the future because you only got a fixed amount of ressources and you're spending them on the market because of the easy money from star wars fans and gambling addicts.

 

Sometimes plans change. In this case, we all benefit. The CM is allowing them to do more stuff in Makeb than they would have been able to do previously. Presumably, there is enough new content to justify selling it as an expansion, rather than just a content update. We get better content for a small price. BTW, it is a much smaller price than most MMO expansions and that is likely due to it being subsidized by the CM.

 

This is a good thing.