What is the point of my $15 a month?

In that other game you had to buy the $50 expansion to get the other race. In this game you can get that race with the free tokens they give you each month.

You only have to pay extra for the race if you don't manage your tokens.

Exactly this. The OP and all the other people QQ ing about paying need to grow up, and learn save their allowance for that shiny new kitty they want to buy.

False premise.

Your statement was true when the game operated as a subscription only game. It's no longer a subscription only game, so your premise is no longer valid. I get that it is the way you "feel", but from a business and commercial standpoint.. your feelings do not apply.

Look.. the subscriber only MMO business model in the marketplace is dead. There will be no new successful MMOs that are launched as subscription only MMOs. Even those that launched over the last 15 months have all converted their business models to flexible access (SWTOR, TSW, TERA.) Rift is holding on by a thread to the subscription only model and will probably convert before 2014 (Trions newest MMO launched recently is Buy-2-Play+DLC). Only a handful of the old encumbent MMOs remain subscriber only.

Plus.. the business model is reinforcing itself in terms of success. MMOs converting from subscriber-only to flexible access models consistently improve in terms of player populations, server activity, and profitability and sustainability when they convert. The alternative was to dig in, and die... which is bad business for everyone.. players, company, genre.

The business model is dead in the industry. Period. It's just that all the old subscriber MMOs are not yet converted or buried in dirt. Either adjust to the fact that MMOs will now operate under a variety of flexible access business models.. or consider giving up MMOs IMO. You don't have to like it.. but you have no control over it other then to stop playing MMOs.

IMO... this is the elephant sitting on the couch in the living room that nobody wants to talk about. People cannot or will not manage their budget.

Or credits.

Your $15 a month include 500 (or even 600) CC, meaning you can easily afford that cathar race change (or just the unlock if you want to start a new character) using the CC that you got those two months it took from the release of RotHC to the release of the cathar race (according to your calculations).
So what are you whining about?

Well, it seems you are whining because you would have to use those precious CC on that instead of other stuff you might want.
But thats not Biowares fault.

DELETED. MEH mods will say that's "political" even though it's just a rip on people who can't manage their own finances. Or even cartel coins in a stupid game. Sigh.

You bring up a valid point.
But...
You may have just stirred up another issue for some.

Basically people are going to say those of us that had purchase the RoTHC should already have Access to the new race. It should have been part of the Expansion to begin with. If it was there would not have been any complaining about it. Yet they have decided to remove New Races from Expansions and sale them Separately. So we are now paying Extra for them on top of paying for Expansion.

Now is about the time that people will say the cost of the RoTHC Expansion was a lot less than a normal Expansion. That is true. But does removing a Race make up for the amount of content that is missing from the a True Expansion? A new Race is just a small fraction of content in an Expansion. Definitely not $30 worth, which is the Price difference from $50 to $20. The RoTHC was just a very small amount of Content. Story wise, area wise, and feature wise. So even with the removal of the new Race the Expansion would still only be worth about $20 in comparison to what we see with other Expansions for other games. I have seen many think that it was just a Glorified Patch.

Truly though. Who here can set a value on a new Race in other Expansions? I suggest we look at other Expansions and take out the new Race. Then calculate what you think that value of that Expansion is worth. Does it add up to the value that BioWare has set for the Cathar Race? If so then fine, but if not then what?

My personal Opinion.
In the end BioWare should have left new Races to be added in with Expansions if they wanted to avoid upsetting the community. Tossing new Races on the Cartel Market just adds to the Nickel & Diming nature of the Cartel Market. Basically they are lessening the value of things (like Expansions) and trying to get as much money as they can from them. Instead of giving a real expansion they want to lessen there work load and break apart the pieces of the normal Expansion and sale it off piece by piece because they think they can make more money that way.

You know what I fear. That sooner or later they are going to completely break up Expansions completely and start charging us for every aspect of them through the Cartel Market piece by piece. Like access to new Planets, new Quest, new features, and so on. That in the end we will be paying more for it than it is really worth. I know that sounds like a silly fear, but it is what I see this heading towards. The more they want to decide to increase the value of each individual thing and are able to get away with it the more they will start looking at other areas to take away from in order to do so. Tearing part Expansions and removing them completely is the ultimate end to it. That everything will be done through the Cartel Market and the price of Gaming will skyrocket.
That is how I see this ending up.

I think the word I am looking for to sum up some of the posters here is 'fanboys who do not know the value of money' . I have been in a few betas and played over 237 days on all my characters. I had quite a bit of time on my hands since the game came out and I recently cancelled my subscription. My decision, amongst other things, was based on how my value as a subscriber is in a continuous decline since the cartel market and the FP2 model.


First and foremost, let us look at the service we are being given. I pay my subscription, I get cartel coins, I get access to the game and all eldergame content. I used to log on TOFN and the following would happen : launcher would crash randomly, blank server list, fleet lag, chat lag, guild chat lag, 16 man ops horrendous performance, broken warzone pops where we would stay for 1 hour with no pop or if we would get a pop we would end up kicked out of the game. I see some of you fanboys frowning and want to tell me I have a **** computer. What do I have?

1. i7 CPU @4.0GHZ
2. Asus RIIIE
3. 24GB RAM G-Skill
4. GPU 4x5870 XXX
5. 3xDell U2410
6. 2x Samsung SSD 840 pro Raid + 2x OCZ Vertex 2 RAID + 5 TB of extra space.
7. Creative Titanium / Fiio E17
8. Speed? 200 MBit download with 50 Mbit upload.


So we settled that my computer, eventhough old, should have no issues running Star Wars the old republic. The truth of the matter is that I had many issues, with this game, and these problems haven't been solved. So I pay a subscription to play a game with the same bugs and even more now than it came out are not being fixed. So I pay 15 dollars a month to crash at the end of esselles, to walk from my consular pvp vendor to the pvp terminal and feel the powerpoint presentation not the force, etc. Now all you eagle eye peeps will, for the esselles, say 'but, but alt+tab when the cutscene starts and you will not crash'. I ask, why should I do this? I am a customer paying for a service, I am not the one who needs to find solutions to make it work. The 6 months esselles bug is just one example of the hundreds of issues this game has.


So we established so far that my 15 dollars/month subscription gives me access to a a game where bugs are introduced at a faster rate than they are being fixed and that fanboys will always cheer the bad programming because they do not have anything better to do. How can i forget the days when the Rebublic Fleet was invaded by invisible walls and my sage salvation after being casted took 45 seconds to appear on my screen? Oh yeah, sub me baby one more time .



The cartel market, what benefits do I have as a subsriber? I get 600 cartel coins a month which apparently are free. I guess I did not get that memo because as far as I am concerned, these are coming my way because I am PAYING 15 dollars a month and I BOUGHT a security key. So how are these coins free then if I am paying for them? I like the people in this thread you say that SUBSCRIBERS get free cartel coins. They are contradicting themselves and do not even see it. So apart from 600 cartel coins, which I pay for and are practically useless for things, as a subscriber I do not get anything significant from the cartel market compared to a free to player.

Good. That's the only option you had, and it was the correct one to take. You aren't happy, move on. Good luck finding a game that you like.