after opening over 80 packs i meneg to get over lord comander tron and 2 bays of usless junk that sale at no more then 40k on gtn tbh the lotery is a joke defo not buying more packs i probebly have beter chanse to win looto then somting good of the packs

after opening over 80 packs i meneg to get over lord comander tron and 2 bays of usless junk that sale at no more then 40k on gtn tbh the lotery is a joke defo not buying more packs i probebly have beter chanse to win looto then somting good of the packs

 

Maybe you should buy a spellchecker ....

 

Pack are luck of the draw. I managed to get an Overlords Command Chair on my very first pack ever, and then junk. Random is as random does.

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.

 

Then explain why the Covert Chestpiece has been in all the packs to date.

 

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.

 

Wow. Way to be honest. Kudos!

 

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 appreciate that you don't want to change what is already out there (the phantom and spymaster thing had a HUGE backlash). So I will sit and wait and watch. Thanks for dealing honestly with us and I'm kind of hopeful that good communication like this will happen in the future.

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.

 

I hope they are looking in to that transaction, sounds like someone getting gold from a gold farmer to me. Buying a stupidly overpriced common item is one of the standard ways that they try to transfer money to characters without getting caught.

Note here that someone who said ''I'm unable to sell stuff on the GTN'' is stupid, but people that buy dozens of cartel packs are seen as normal.

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.

 

Mission accomplished by bioware lol. They got the fish hook imbedded into you.

I am disappointed by the packs as well. I have spent about $100 on coins to buy packs. I have learned so far to not spend real life money to buy the packs. Yeah I get I'm buying random chances at stuff, but they really don't seem random either. One day I get nothing but droid customizations. The next revan's chest and legs. Then crimson claws and sand devils. It really doesn't seem all that random. The latest pack is dropping items from the first pack which is disappointing. The model for the packs is getting tiring too. The same dancer outfit just recolored again. It would be cool to have some more invisible gear because sometimes the bracers and belt take away from a character's look. Then again that's what they are doing with end game gear as well. The gear on the cartel market seems kind of disappointing as well as most are already in game. It seems like they are just taking existing gear and making it adaptive. I just don't see the over $10 price tag as worth it. The white crystal being in the packs was disappointing too. Around 1.2 a dev had said white crystals would be back in the game but that you would have to earn it or something like that. I would have rather got a white crystal from the HK quest than HK himself. I have found the legacy and character perk unlocks to be the only thing I like about the Cartel Market.

Though I like the idea of random items in the packs, I'm just tired of getting the same items from previous packs. Isn't the point to the new packs to have "new" items? I posted something similar in another post about this. For example: if you're going to put speeders into the packs, make those speeders unique to that pack, don't have the same speeder drops in the newer packs. spice it up a little, and make the more rare type of speeders drop a little bit more then making someone who is spending real money on newer packs have over 50 copies of the same speeder. But this isn't just for speeders, I'm talking about all items in these packs need to be different then the last pack, that way they will actually sell and not clog the GTN because those "common" dancer outfits from page 1 to 50 because that's always dropping.

 

Random means random...not once in the blue moon new pack random and get the same random thing from the Black Market Pack random. And if you need a idea of what type of random items then the Black Market, throw some random commendations in there, some lvl 50 Armor, Mods, or Enhancements, more Black-miscellaneous color crystals..etc...just give us new random common items. I have thrown away so many banners, emotes, some type of boost pack it sicken's me.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Sinnfein_Winters

I hope they are looking in to that transaction, sounds like someone getting gold from a gold farmer to me. Buying a stupidly overpriced common item is one of the standard ways that they try to transfer money to characters without getting caught.

 

That is exactly what happened. It is obvious, and a shame, that Bioware can't recognize such a blatant and obvious gold-seller transaction. This method of transfer happens in every single MMO and is one of the easiest to identify as an illegal transaction.

 

Shame BW. You need to play more MMO's, or try even playing the one you created. If you did then this would not have been missed.

Edited January 18, 2013 by Klarick

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.

 

I'm not disputing that plans can change.

I'm disputing that Makeb was already being developped and paid for by last years' subscription and that EAware is selling it a second time to us subscribers.

I'm also disputing your claim that they've added more "stuff" in Makeb than originally planned and announced by James Ohlen, as everything else (HK-51, FTB, Ancient hypergates) is exactly as announced.

 

Therefore I disagree with you. It's not a good thing that EAware has become so greedy that they're gouging their most loyal supporters, the subscribers.

Their business model has evolved into exploiting gambling addicts and star wars fans, instead of building a game out of passion for the star war universe that people would be willing to support with their subscription.

There are a few questions raised in this thread.

 

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.

 

I bet it's from the same account both the seller and the buyer...

anyone see the prices, of course, when something is first released you probably don't know the price and could buy it for more or less than it's after a time... also, after some time the rare stuff that dont sell anymore becames more and more rare and thus more expensive... but yeah... not buying someone buying an imp banner for that price for nothing...

the only way they will fix these packs so they do not give the same 4 items is for people to stop buying them. i hope people do stop buying them so they fix it.

I bet it's from the same account both the seller and the buyer...

anyone see the prices, of course, when something is first released you probably don't know the price and could buy it for more or less than it's after a time... also, after some time the rare stuff that dont sell anymore becames more and more rare and thus more expensive... but yeah... not buying someone buying an imp banner for that price for nothing...

 

 

It's probably credit sellers using the trash cartel items on the GTN to transfer the credits.

We are constructing our next round of packs with a definite eye on reducing this level of suck.

 

Hehehe!

 

I love a Dev that isn't afraid to admit that some of his team's work is terrible!

Not sure if someone else stated this but you cannot sell them right away. There is a time period during which they are bound to you. My apologies if you already knew that I was having a hard time determining if you meant you did not find a buyer or thought you were literally unable to sell.

I like the cartel stuff, even though i havent bought a single item!

 

Why? Cause all of a sudden I see A LOT of cool armor around me, gone are the days where all players of the same classes looked all the same. It gives a lot of life and variety to the game and the universie we got in there

Edited January 23, 2013 by andreas_barth

Cartel Packs piss me off. I can't understand people actually paying real money for this uninteresting boring junk.

It's not that much BW doing bad job with them as such. It's just that unles you go to honest-to-god pay2win route, WoW clones make a completely impossible soil for items exiting enough to ask real money for.

 

Packs like these can work great in a dynamic sandbox MMO. Take Ultima Online for example. That game has absolutely, completely insane amount of sheer DEPTH in itemization. Amount of genuinely different types of items with genuinely different purposes in Ultima Online is completely and literally incomprehensible to someone who has only ever played TOR or other WoW clones. In such environment, I can perfectly well understand a cash shop.

 

In Ultima Online, there are just so many different types of items with so many varyingly fun and exiting uses that it gives such shop a purpose. Unless taking the PaytoWin road, TOR(and other WoW clones) can never have an item interesting enough to ask real money for.Not in my books. Hurrr imma pay 10 bux for a change to get the mask Revan had durrrrr. lol.

 

In TOR, an item can only exist in three places.

- In loot window of some kind. (Killed enemy, Mailbox, Vendor, GTN)

- In your inventory (or bank)

- On your character, ship or companion. (Includes gear, mounts, token player pets)

 

Literally only items in this game that you can actually see in game world (besides as lame icons in inv) are stuff you can equip, mounts, stupid pets. That's it. If it is not a new bath robe, new weapon, new space motorcycle or some stupid space puppy the item essentially can not exist.

 

You can not even drop a gosh darned item on ground in this game. (Obviously I refuse to count stuff like ..Banners that have 30 min cooldown and make some..hologram on ground for 30 secs..I mean..come on. ) Items in this game don't exist in any meaningful way. You can't actually see or manipulate them in any meaningful way anywhere ever.

 

Ultima Online, an MMO developed and released at dawn of Internet, is miles ahead of WoW and her clones in this. Guess what happens to a chair you put on ground? It actually..like..appears on ground:O In game world:O

You can then actually sit on this chair:O:O:O:O It would actually be very difficult and time consuming to properly describe just how much value and purpose to items something like this gives.

 

 

 

Yet, game like TOR gets 200+++mil budgets and Ultima Online gets.. uh, no visibility at all. Angers me.

Edited January 23, 2013 by Stradlin

 

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.

 

so finally you can release a blaster that does not sound as if the batteries were empty outside of the cartel packs?

These are generally better than the STO gambling packs in that there is plenty of cool stuff from top to bottom. The one exception and this really angered me was the Skip Tracer pack. That was too much like one of the gambling packs: really cool high end, the low end is all junk.

Instead of deleting items you don't want, how about running a quick trivia contest on Fleet using your 'junk' as prizes?

Hehehe!

 

I love a Dev that isn't afraid to admit that some of his team's work is terrible!

 

it's just pure PR cow dung, because they designed it that way.

Else they wouldn't be gambling pack if you would get what you want everytime.

Yeah I get I'm buying random chances at stuff, but they really don't seem random either. One day I get nothing but droid customizations. The next revan's chest and legs. Then crimson claws and sand devils. It really doesn't seem all that random

 

You might want to check the meaning of the word "random".

[...] Take Ultima Online for example. [...] In Ultima Online [...] Ultima Online [...] Ultima Online [...]

 

Nice advertisement. Wrong forum maybe?

Nice advertisement. Wrong forum maybe?

 

Forget it. That guy has no clue how exponentially more complex a fully 3D game world is and why therefore a few features of the old 16 bit era are nearly impossible to do today.

Forget it. That guy has no clue how exponentially more complex a fully 3D game world is and why therefore a few features of the old 16 bit era are nearly impossible to do today.

 

Impossible? Then why are there 3D MMORPGs out there with most of them?

 

SWG had a lot even.

 

SWTOR is even simplified from Everquest 1 in many ways, and that was the first real 3D MMORPG.