Why I feel a little miffed.

Well, I feel a bit miffed.

Up until this point, I had the unbelievable luck and honor to be a beta tester for nearly a year, I bought my two Collector's Editions in July the day they became available for preorder, I stayed subscribed even when I didn't play for months at a time, I bought the Taun Fawn and the disappointing hat they gave out at PAX, and I even bought the "Best Deal!!11!!" $40 package of Cartel Coins, even though there's really nothing I wanted to buy in the market (I ended up wasting them on useless Legacy /emotes, unlocked every race even though I have every class represented, and other random Legacy unlocks).

I wanted to support a game I believed in.

In the past month, this game has turned into a completely blatant cash grab. It seems like EA is straight out calling us out as wallets and nothing more.

Almost all the content that has been added to the game recently is exclusive Cartel items. The Legacy system seems to have completely stagnated, prices are all over the map (a 10k credit unlock can cost the same amount of Cartel Coins as a million credit unlock), they lowered the Legacy level needed for everything, but hey, you can buy it all with Cartel Coins!

While every single other MMO had some kind of holiday event, TOR simply said "Hey, there's no event, but you can buy festive Life Day items in the Cartel Market for $25!" Why would you? If you only play the game, you'd never even know what in the world Life Day is, because it's not in the flipping game. Well, except in the Cartel Market. Be festive!

Bugs, memory leaks, and other assorted problems that need to be fixed (and have been acknowledged by the development team) are still prevalent after numerous patches. You know what gets a patch every week? The Cartel Market. If something Market related is glitched, it gets fixed that day.

Armor. Let's talk about armor. All the tiers look alike. There's a megaton of armor that has been shown in every video since TOR's inception that had to have been in the game at some point, but you can't find it anywhere in the game, so we all look like clones. How about that armor on the god forsaken character creator screen? People want that. A cloak where you can have the hood down? That'd be nice. Do you know where you can get all new sets of armor? Nope, not in a new op or FP. You buy them with Cartel Coins in the Cartel Market! Whee!

On a similar note, the Security Key, VIP, and Collector's Edition vendors have had the same inventory since day 1. One of them has one item. A speeder. That's it. Tons of Cartel Market specific pets, mounts, /emotes/ toys/ etc. continuously spewing out though every week or two.

The new "mini-expansion" just rubs me the wrong way. 1 planet, no class quests, no new races, no new classes, but hey, 5 more levels to gain! To me, that just sounds like a nice little update. A new patch. Nope, EA can't call it that because they said updates will always be free to subscribers, hence the "expansion whoo!" going on. You have to buy it with real money, and you can't even use the fakebucks from the Market to buy it.

This game is not getting the attention it needs. EA is completely focused on the fantastic plan of selling everything, making a crapload of cash short-term, then the game will completely die off because all of these ornately festooned characters riding their $18 Xmas light speeder will get tired of nothing to do. I can't overstate this enough, this is why everyone left in the first place two months after launch.


Listen, I understand. They spent hundreds of millions of dollars to make WoW with lightsabers to get that sweet, sweet WoW money. They failed, and EA wants the money they promised themselves when they backed this game. I understand that, and I know that the Doctors and most of what makes up Bioware have left the company. Everyone that's left has to focus on bringing in cash so they can continue to describe themselves as "employed". I know this. However, following this business plan will find you unemployed or working on the next Sims cell phone game within a year.

Can you just tone it down a notch? We want to give you money. People are blowing hundreds of dollars on those stupid gambling packs, because it scratches multiple OCD itches, but sweet jesus, can you give us something to make us want to give you money without making your attempts to suck the playerbase dry that has supported you this whole time so blatantly obvious? Those packs are fun for a month or two, then everyone will realize the spending/reward ratio is, and everyone will leave.

I feel like EA is openly taunting us, testing our limits, and seeing what we will fall for, and I morally can't support that. I actually feel dirty logging in nowadays.

Jesus, Blizzard and all of their shenanigans are downright endearing compared to what TOR has turned into.

Sorry for the random whining, people still love the game, but I find it harder to say I do, and I see it as that girlfriend you once had and cared for, but she ran away to be a BDSM slave and got in over her head. You want to help, but she made her choices, and she only sees you as client #366504. I don't want the game (or the imaginary ex) to fail, but they're hauling *** down that road with no brakes.




TL;DR: I'm a whiny self-entitled rich kid, and I'm bad, and I should feel bad. Also, I smell like poo.

I know right? Its like they're trying to run a business or something.


Oh.

I read your whole post and I agree for the most part....except that EA is nickel and diming the playerbase. No one is forcing you to stay and play and be all loyal, pining after your cheating girlfriend.

While I do totally understand where you are coming from that they are WAY over the top with the cheesy cartel market, in my mind, it's just good business.

Your TL;DR made me LOL xD

While that point is extremely valid, I do want to stay because I loved this game. The leveling experience was better than any other MMO, it has so much potential and I want it to succeed without screwing over the playerbase.

Because successful business ventures have to rape and pillage your client base?

It's funny how DDO, LOTRO and STO can keep themselves afloat with a tenth (or less) of TOR's subscriber base, without being as blatant about their cash grabs.

The excuse that TOR needs more to stay afloat because it's fully voiced doesn't pass anymore. How much new voice content have we gotten over the last year? Right.

Good post. About sums up how I feel as well. Problem is that EAware are not going to 180 away from this no matter how much we protest. I also have little hope that any of the money they earn off the cartel market will actually be reinvested in genuine new content. So far they are only releasing things that were completed a long while back with no news of anything genuinely new. My guess is when players get done dumping loads of cash in the cartel market and the profit dries up as people come to their senses then you will see the development really stall. The outlook, though I hate to say it, is grim.

They're not going to 180, no. But with big enough outcry, maybe there could be a 30 degree shift, a slight readjustment on just how much focus to put on the cartel store.

And everyone said this game was so much better than swg, seems to be headin in the same direction...

Well, the USA is better than Ancient Rome, what with penicillin and electricity, but it's still heading in the same direction.

Being a better version doesn't mean you can't still make the same mistakes and end up in the same graveyard.