Damned if they Do, Damned if they Don't

They made a bad choice. They could have corrected the situation numerous ways, with the same effort without pissing off new people.

While Bioware is damned if they do screw people over, they are not damned if they "don't".

I agree that it is a bad idea to ever change a cosmetic piece after you have sold it to someone. That's bait and switch. The exception is fixing bugs (like clipping issues). But even those should not be fixed if the method of fixing changes the appearance in a significant way (such as just adding in re-colored revan's shoulders on top of everything)


Bioware is charging an absolute premium price for their cosmetic changes. They are charging 12 dollars for one armor appearance on one character. Virtual items are impermanent enough without the developers changing them to inferior models.

Same here brother, I did the same, original phantom looked sick on agents/smuggs...now..../facepalm....I switched to playing my Sorc again I was sooooo disgusted

More like, "No matter what you do as an MMO developer, you will always piss off someone, and that someone will be utterly convinced their distress is the most important issue facing the game at that moment."

That, they did. They should pay more attention to the items they put in the game, especially since there is currently only one source for new gear, the Cartel Market, and that is gear people might pay actual money to get.

However, the reaction to it is nothing new in this forum. Bioware adds something that some people want, another group of people will whine til Kingdom come about what they want to see in the game not being included yet. When they added TFB, people complained that they don't care about PvPers. When they announced that they'll include SGR in Makeb (in the form of an option to flirt with an NPC), people filled up the forum with angry threads regarding the lack of Pazaak. I guarantee you that if they ever add Pazaak, another group of people will complain about hood toggles, or being able to sit in chairs or chat bubbles etc etc being easier to implement and yet still not in the game... and the list just goes on.

In this case they tried (albeit, unsuccessfully as it turns out) to appease those people that actually wanted what was advertised. Those that liked the "wrong" look, are pissed (and maybe rightly so, seeing as this fix took so long to come).

But what it all boils down to, is that people have larger-than-life expectations of Bioware and a weird notion that Bioware should cater to every single one of their needs, because they are "paying customers" (as if the people who disagree with them aren't).

They should allow people to get the old look for free - whether that's through a BoP item through mail (which again some people will not like, trust me) or through an in-game vendor. But the bigger picture here and what I find more interesting than a simple chestpiece is how people react when they don't get exactly what they want all the time.

Other people that paid money based on the Cartel Pack art requested last month that it be fixed.

What makes you more special then them?

art is almost never reality. herp.



people tell me, how many games have you played in the past where the look of gear - gear people PAID for - was changed afterwards?


it's not like the new look of the phantom piece is super special, either. it's basically a black version of robe that is already part of one of the normal sets (the ones not in a bag)

the old look however was completely black, looking elegant, had no shoulder pads and most of all it had no hood at all, neither with headpiece on - nor without. THAT made it worth something.

No, it's money I'm talking about. I used REAL MONEY to get those pixels. Had it been ingame credits I'd be miffed, but I'd toss the item in cargohold and move on. This was no ingame credits though; it was my real money.

Maybe that should help you find some perspective.

I also completely fail to see why so many are VEHEMENTLY against there being TWO armor sets, one that looks like the armor originally looked, and one that looks like the armor looks now. BW then allows for an exchange and both items can be bought, with real money, moving into the future. EVERYONE wins.

People aren't ever going to be universally happy about a decision. However, that doesn't mean the upset in this case isn't justified. Some people are buying these outfits with real money; others are spending lots of time in game making credits to buy them off the gtn. The changes to the outfits are bait and switch, whether intentional or not.

People are generally excitable and easily upset. That doesn't mean that sometimes they're not allowed to be upset.

The real issue isn't that they fixed the gear.

It's that they took so long to fix it that people decided that this was the appearance it would keep.

Rather than making 2 sets all they had to do was fix it within a week of releasing it. That way the number of people inconvenienced would have been much less. How many days did this take? Does anyone know? 20? 25? ...30?