Subscription: Advertisement vs Truth

Subscribers get a monthly grant of cartel coins and we were told MONTHS in advanced Cathar would be on the cartel market. If you as a subscriber feel ripped off by Bioware then it is YOUR fault for not researching. You will have to wait one month to get them for free.

Cathar wasn't ready to be released with Makeb and the rest of the HC content, else they would have done so.

This is a poor defense for features that almost every MMORPG have for free... Also the monthly cartel coins wouldn't be a thing if it was not for the game failing EA/bioware expectations or atleast not to the state of everything being cartel only now... We don't even get much a month even if say you make 700 cartel coins each months for the cost to get anything a subscriber may actually desire since the pack are horribly random or gear is overpriced. They intentionaly take ingame gear out that was once accessible and add more cartel items instead.

Most of the recent quality of life content has almost all been cartel only and nothing for subscribers ingame...

Funny, apply that and just replace Bioware with the word "Cryptic" and it completely applies.

They had a trailer teasing the cathar, hk 51, and 55 cap all together a year ago... Maybe if they thought things through before announcing stuff or making false promises, people would not have the right to be angry then...

People were going to be angry and rage no matter what they do. I suspect that they've given up even trying to even pretend to give a damn what the perpetually pouty players on these forums think.

They could give Cathar away for free to subs and F2Pers alike and within a day, someone would be on these boards complaining about how LONG it took them to get Cathar out.

Oh wait, you're already complaining about that, aren't you?

Damned if they do, damned if they don't. So, why should they care if you get pissed? You're still paying them.

A fair point, but when comparing the game and what it offers to other games on the market I think the companion play and extended voiced mission sets counter that loss of value in standard game features. Not by much IMO mind you, and they still have quite a ways to go with respect to providing casual content (achievements went a long way toward this, and actually the system generates coins in limited form instead of costing them), but overall the value and balance ration compared to other games has improved.

We will see what the future holds.

Yes, but by the same token Bioware was far too dismissive early on and payed the price for that arrogance.

Perhaps not all feedback is wise to follow, but it seems that the community really did know what they game needed all the way back before launch, and Bioware ignored it at their peril.

People were going to be angry and rage no matter what they do. I suspect that they've given up even trying to even pretend to give a damn what the perpetually pouty players on these forums think.

They could give Cathar away for free to subs and F2Pers alike and within a day, someone would be on these boards complaining about how LONG it took them to get Cathar out.

Oh wait, you're already complaining about that, aren't you?

Damned if they do, damned if they don't. So, why should they care if you get pissed? You're still paying them.

That's a far too simplistic summation. This game was plagued from launch by the desire to try and do 'everything' before they were ready. To make it worse, they had some pretty bad bugs that persisted for months and made everyone angry.

It wasn't a matter of 'ignoring the community', it was a matter of 'priorities'. But, the community has shown itself to be fickle and impatient and when things didn't get fixed in a hurry, they abandoned the game in droves. This only compounded the problem by denying them a stable revenue stream with which to fix the problems that remained.

Only by going F2P and introducing the CM did they get that revenue stream back and since then, the game has steadily, remarkably, improved.

What they learned was that the subbed community will abandon ship at a whim or in a fit of pique, while the CM provides steady income with minimal resources expended. Personally, if I were them, this is exactly how I would continue to run things, with an emphasis on the things that bring in the cash and not much thought or concern put into a small crowd of players who threaten to quit at the drop of a hat.