Real life =/= Game life

 

To say that 'grinding' real money should grant you benefits in a game is just as ridiculous as saying completing Denova HM entitles me to a pay rise in my job.

They are completely different and un-related worlds.

 

I can complete sonic the hedgehog without losing a single life, so i should have the option to buy full campaign gear in SW:TOR with all those gold rings i collected

you obviously didn't read what this was about. Bring back the White Crystals!!

Real life =/= Game life

 

To say that 'grinding' real money should grant you benefits in a game is just as ridiculous as saying completing Denova HM entitles me to a pay rise in my job.

They are completely different and un-related worlds.

 

I can complete sonic the hedgehog without losing a single life, so i should have the option to buy full campaign gear in SW:TOR with all those gold rings i collected

Does it invalidate people's existence if someone spends an hour's worth of cash on an item they spent days grinding fake cash to get? Or just make them think about how much time they actually spent on that grinding and if it was an efficient use of their time? Why is someone threatened by others having their shiny objects?

Nuuuuu~

I spent my 2.5 mil and have one. Make them never return!!! XD

Alas, they'll probably come back someday.

Does it invalidate people's existence if someone spends an hour's worth of cash on an item they spent days grinding fake cash to get? Or just make them think about how much time they actually spent on that grinding and if it was an efficient use of their time? Why is someone threatened by others having their shiny objects?

Does it invalidate your existence if someone has an item in a game that you can't get? No it does not. Silly point you made really since nobody is questioning their existence based on someone wanting what they currently can't have.

Personally I'd like to see them brought back. Not through a vendor or the cash shop, but maybe through legacy. Have it require a high legacy level, maybe 30 or so. Have it cost the same as the crystals did before, maybe a bit more, and stick it under the tab for individual characters rather than server-wide character unlocks.

 

I could go along with that. Same price as before and a very high legacy level.

 

But not just as a hand out for a few cartel coins.

 

I think this is an excellent solution. Using the legacy system to bring them back would be an interesting way to allow current players a chance at acquiring them. The point is to have the crystal back but not in a manner that would seem too unfair to those who got them already. I think items that are 'no longer available' should be limited to the world events only, there is no real need to remove these (and even those korrealis speeders and yes I have one). I would like to see them brought back, maybe as a rare drop and/or for a fair, though reasonably large, cost of credits/comms/coins. There are many ways this could work. I would like to see this happen.

Look my main point I'm trying to get at is, there are not enough rare awesome items in this game! So it becomes a problem for everyone else that they cannot be unique like some people. Why should some people be more unique than others? Everyone deserves to be unique , they are devoting tons and tons of hours/money just like everyone else. Like I said, THIS IS WHY WE PLAY THE GAME! Doesn't have to be about bringing back the white color crystal, just throw some super rare gear/items every month or extend the crew skills levels maybe so that if you work long/hard enough you'll get that rare sweet gear. That should weed out the average player from the die hard players. Something along those lines.

If everyone's unique, then no one is.

I asked Jason Attard (Senior Game Balance Designer) about whether or not we intend to bring the white crystals back. He said that we do intend to make this crystal available again in the future, but we do want it to remain very rare even when we do.

It's going to cost upwards of $25 worth of cartel coins then. Maybe even double that. Hopefully it has better stats than the original for that price.

It's going to cost upwards of $25 worth of cartel coins then. Maybe even double that. Hopefully it has better stats than the original for that price.

...you just made up a random price, doubled it, and then told us what stats it better have, given the cost...

I sometimes wonder if players get carried away with setting their expectations for this game.

...you just made up a random price, doubled it, and then told us what stats it better have, given the cost...

 

I sometimes wonder if players get carried away with setting their expectations for this game.

It was more predictive than expectation-setting, honestly.

I asked Jason Attard (Senior Game Balance Designer) about whether or not we intend to bring the white crystals back. He said that we do intend to make this crystal available again in the future, but we do want it to remain very rare even when we do.

We were told that white crystal would not return for a "long, long time". So I guess that meant for like a month or two until everyone started crying? Can I have my 2.5 million credits back???

"That's a one-time opportunity during patch 1.1.5 that will likely not return for a long, long time."

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=3521820

but we do want it to remain very rare even when we do.

STOP that. Make some of the crystals themselves rare, but never make the colour rare. Statless colour crystals of every colour should be availiable for credits from a vendor on the fleet.

STOP that. Make some of the crystals themselves rare, but never make the colour rare. Statless colour crystals of every colour should be availiable for credits from a vendor on the fleet.

Amen to that. I really dislike when a basic aesthetic choice becomes something that's ultra rare and worth extorting other players over. I don't want a white crystal for uber stats, I don't play the game enough for that to matter, I simply like the color option

...you just made up a random price, doubled it, and then told us what stats it better have, given the cost...

 

I sometimes wonder if players get carried away with setting their expectations for this game.

Poe's Law is in effect.

STOP that. Make some of the crystals themselves rare, but never make the colour rare. Statless colour crystals of every colour should be availiable for credits from a vendor on the fleet.

Agreed, we should be able to buy any colour crystal at lvl 10. Make them stat-less if you have to.

STOP that. Make some of the crystals themselves rare, but never make the colour rare. Statless colour crystals of every colour should be availiable for credits from a vendor on the fleet.

Heck no. No way no how. Some of us put a lot of effort into at least trying to be different. For some of us, it's the main appeal of this game. I worked the economy hardcore to get my two white crystals with the expectation that they'd stay extremely rare, To this day I've only see a handful of them. Stats are ridiculously easy to come by and to me the colors of the sabers are already too easy. Purple should have been harder to get, and don't get me started on the black core stuff. Jeez.

Never bring back white crystals, IMO. They also should have kept the magenta cryastals rare. I'm scratching my head on that one.

We were told that white crystal would not return for a "long, long time". So I guess that meant for like a month or two until everyone started crying? Can I have my 2.5 million credits back???

 

"That's a one-time opportunity during patch 1.1.5 that will likely not return for a long, long time."

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=3521820

Um. 5 months (and that's right now, it might be many more months before we can actually get it) is a pretty long time, sorry to break it to you.

I don't know how you got 1 or 2 months, buddy. Probably should get a calendar.

Wonder what the point of making things so rare or expensive is? It makes no sense to me.

I paid for the game. I pay a monthly fee to play it. So, why the need to not let me get the things I want after all that money spent? Why make things so "rare"? I'd rather they be like the Vehicle quests where you just have to do certain things to earn them. Not grind for a month, because I was under the assumption games were supposed to be FUN, not boring.....doing dailies over and over and over and over.

PLUS, add a QUE FOR VEHICLE, WORLD BOSS, AND RARE ITEM QUESTS PLEASE!!!!

I asked Jason Attard (Senior Game Balance Designer) about whether or not we intend to bring the white crystals back. He said that we do intend to make this crystal available again in the future, but we do want it to remain very rare even when we do.

Thank you for the response, Allison. I am glad to know that they will return and remain as a rare obtainable in the game. Such is the least I could ask for and here's to seeing it implemented.

...you just made up a random price, doubled it, and then told us what stats it better have, given the cost...

 

I sometimes wonder if players get carried away with setting their expectations for this game.

who wants to take bets on whether or not the white crystal ever appears in the in-game cash shop?

It's going to cost upwards of $25 worth of cartel coins then. Maybe even double that. Hopefully it has better stats than the original for that price.

25$ for a vanity crystal ?? are you crazy .... WoW must have really screwed with peoples heads and made them completely unaware of the 100's of other games that do MTs properly.

I dont know about what games you have played but the hybrid model only works if store purchases are balanced properly and made inexpensive enough to convince people for mass purchaseing. they way the business model works is make the items ...

A) Consumable : this way you use it and are forced to buy more when you want them example -- Biochem stims that currently require biochem to use (rakata stims) will be sold on Cartel for 1$ each

B) Vanity driven : Outfits that are extreamly hard to get in game or out right not available through play ... orange gear is going to be there highest selling items ... but this game uses 14 item slots 7-9 of which are customizable and likely to be sold on Cartel for a single item cost of 4$ each or some discount if you buy all of them at once (instead of almost 40$ it would be like 25$)

C) Content purchase : for instance raids will not be a part of free to play ... so its very likely if a free to player wants to raid they will have to either buy a guest pass to the raid OR if its available purchase the raid pack ... in DDO guest passes are something like 1$ for 1 hour of game time which if it expires DURING a quest allows you to stay in it ... if you wipe and exit however ...you have to get a new pass. And purchase of the pack depending on what its grouped with can be anywhere from 5-15$ example -- EV alone 5$ or 1$ /hour guest pass but Ultimate endgame pack (EV KP and EC and including LI and Kaon) 15$

D) unlockables/convinence : to save people time and energy from the grind ... so crafting ingredients, maybe even some rare schematics, race unlocks, new class unlocks, etc .... these are all things that can be obtained by being a subscriber for free but that free to play players will never get a chance to get without purchaing from store (or buying raid packs)

-------------

Is this for sure what they are doing ... if they are smart and did there market research and looked at the biggest successes in the hybrid (aka North american/Turbine style) Free to play market like DDO, DCUO, LOTRO and COH/V.

Of course who knows what EA marketing will try to get away with .... but the truth is until they screw up you have to assume that they will go with something similar to the success stories rather then attempt to do something completely different and run the risk of losing what little subscribers and interest they have left in this game.

who wants to take bets on whether or not the white crystal ever appears in the in-game cash shop?

if they want it to be rare it would make sense not to ....

That being said i think it will ... but i also think it will be a limited time thing ... it will be 5$ for a +41 white crystal (power, crit, endurance and who knows maybe even main stat cyrstals or force/tech the darkside is hard to see)

and be available only for 2 weeks out of the year to build hype for it, like now, for the people who didnt want to pay for it when it was last available but some reason now are vain enough to want more of them.

IF they dont want to break this game (and they have said it in interviews at gamescom that there will be nothing game breaking in the cartel only convinience and vanity) the crystals sold in shop will not be even 1 point higher then ones found in game.

Could you change white crystals to bind to legacy? I have one and I can't transfer it to another character, that's too bad

Well, if you picked up one of the Bowcasters during the Chevin event, then you can transfer them around via one of those.

Did you earn it? Or was it only around 200k along with the top speeders in the game? To me you have no room to speak because 5 million credit took 1 hr to get back when the game first came out. And don't tell me people didn't take advantage of those glitches! Do you understand that anyone that starts SWTOR today has to work 100x harder (than what you did to get a white crystal) just to get a cyan/purple light saber...?

 

My point is you are a selfish person whether you admit it or not. Have you ever thought about the people starting to play the game now and how they have to look at all these awesome light sabers/speeders that don't exist anymore? Don't you think you'd want one if you didn't have it? Don't you think they deserve one as much as you? Do you think it is fair? I honestly doubt you can comprehend any of that.

 

I am just saying this, bring back the white crystal and keep it rare so people can work hard to get one and all you hipsters can still be happy. Or make every person with a white color crystal in their inventory ineligible for the next rare color crystal/speeder. That would be a great idea in my opinion cause it would make everything fair for everyone. It's just not fair that players these days can't be unique as well. THAT IS WHAT EVERYONE PLAYS THE GAME FOR!

How is it in Communist Russia this time of year?