Gear from content, not from market!

As long as people keep buying the stuff on the cartel shop they will keep selling it....

The whole F2P concept came from people buying gold from gold farmers.... Game companies are just giving people what they wanted.... Enjoy your Utopia...

Yes. Many people would take easy route and just buy the gear they want (which is fine), but those who subscribe and want to play the game to acquire new stuff could also do so. Why subscribe when you still have to pay (via GTN or CM) instead of play to get the cool new stuff?

Selling items and making a profit is easier for EA than dishing out finance to create more content just to give away content to players that are already paying the monthly fee wheter the content is there or not.

In other words, what would be the incentive for the company to give stuff away for free when we will pay almost 20 bucks for a recolored piece of armor.

QFT

What's interesting is anyone at all that didn't expect this to happen. It's the F2P model and it's not like EA/Bioware was hiding what their intentions for the game were. We all still have the same choices, live within the F2P model or go find another form of entertainment. How F2P works for making money isn't going away, it's the cartel market not "earning" anything in game as the OP put it.

A lot of people here made good points and hit the nail right on the head.


Why is Bioware doing this free to play cash shop gear thing? Because there are fools out there and that will buy it. That's what they want and they are happy with it. The game changed into exactly what they wanted. The people who hated it have already left. Why is the forum filled with negative posts? Because some are hoping for a change that will never come.

I love Star Wars, I wanted this game to be so much. I didn't cancel before because I kept hoping it would swing in the direction I wanted it to but it's not going to happen. They will keep doing these silly things as long as the money keeps dropping into their pockets.

I have been thinking about this a lot for the last couple weeks and that is why I just canceled my account before posting this message. The way the game is going isn't going to change. It will not change. The rest of you will either have to come to this conclusion yourself and decide to deal with it or let them know with your sub and leave. It's just not worth it at this point anymore.

I personally have no issue with pay 2 look cool. I don't get performance gear from the cash shop anyway (except the crystals ... I feel they need to revisit that) and my monthly subscriber stipend will cover the cost of pretty much anything I want from there. Every piece of gear I have for 15 characters across 3 servers (3 of 'em are 50s doing end game) was obtained via drops, rewards or crafting. If gear from the market is all a player sees then they really need to get their heads out of there and actually play the game.

I don't know where this thread is up to as I only got as far as this post before having to reply. I thank the gods there is not much of this type of grind in SWTOR, there is enough of that vomit-inducing gameplay in other current MMOs, I would hate to see it repeated here.

I do understand the OP's point and have sympathy for it, but at the same time whether by (long) quest or by Cartel Shop the effect in game will be the same either way. However, if putting iconic items on the Cartel Market means additional income for Bioware, then that is a good thing for all of us. Support has to go both ways and more power to them I say.

I hate to say "I told you so," but, well

I told you so.

As soon as the cash shop was announced, I knew this was going to happen. They will probably keep the end-game players happy by MAYBE adding in an exclusive raid mount or two, maybe a raid pet, but the majority of the cool items will end up in the cash shop. Guaranteed.

I know, it's a total scumbag way to do things, but what did you expect? This is Bioware/EA we're talking about, who thought it was perfectly fine to release ME3 with different color fireworks and call them "endings", and then finally added rubbish DLC to appease angry fans. Yeah, you had to pay to fix their rubbish ending. This coupled with their gross mismanagement of an MMO that should have been a surefire hit (Star Wars is a HUGE IP, how could they screw it up so badly?) and it's pretty clear that they are in this to make a quick buck, and hopefully recoup their development losses from SWTOR.

Again, what did you expect?

^^^^^

Well, it's better than having them be exclusive to Ops. At least with a cash shop everyone has equal access to them without gating them behind a ******** minigame that only a portion of people play.