I'm getting really sick and tired of the "Credits are so easy to get exaggerations".

I do understand what you're saying here. At one point, I tried suggesting decreasing the base price of obtaining the flagship, and increasing the unlock price, as a way of bringing the "two sides" together.

Of course, that was before the unlock price was revealed as costing credits + 2-5 frameworks.

Let's say you're not a guild that can farm the Commanders, and you are trying to unlock the rooms with crafting. Dulfy's math shows 54 frameworks requires 2700 dark projects, which requires grade 7 mats to the tune of:

8,100 Self-Perpetuating Power Cells
16,200 Alien Data Cubes
16,200 Biometric Crystal Alloys
8,100 Rakata Energy Nodes

Now, let's pretend that there were this many mats on the GTN (which there aren't). Currently, these mats are running from 10k to 100k each. For the sake of the argument, let's pretend they are all 10k each.

That's 486 MILLION CREDITS worth of Grade 7 mats. This doesn't include the green mats, or the additional 75 million credits for the unlocks!

50 million for the base flagship unlock suddenly doesn't seem to bad by comparison, does it?

Clever way to look at it.

But, seriously, who has BW designed this content for? I'm all for working for stuff (I promise!) and I'm all for having some rare stuff in the game (seriously!). But, this just seems over-the-top for guild content. I mean there are really only a handful of guilds per server that could hope earn those even over a long period of time. And that's why they shouldn't make it so hard to get started. Well, that's my thought, anyway.

At the 50 million base price, at least that'll pay for itself in a year for a guild of 22 players within a year(assuming that they never win any guild conquests and valuing the scrap and decorations at 0).

The total unlock price starts to get into crazy EvE online scale.

Given that they just nuked all the threads regarding this from the PTS forums, seems to be "working as intended".

You keep saying that. I feel like there should be another couple sentences or paragraph after that explaining why, especially considering the alternative viewpoint has done that with literally pages of posts.

Otherwise it seems like it's an incredibly indefensible position.

http://i.imgur.com/ULUdyPv.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/7iUBaiA.jpg

This guy thinks making credits is hard, too. This is just one of his alts he's buying and selling with. Won't even post screenshots of the other alts ^^

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest they did that because they changed the pricing of everything around (everything that was subject of deleted threads) and deleted them because they want fresh feedback.

We'll see when PTS comes back up, right?

In many posts recently you've opined that people in the forums are not "casual", and therefore their response about the cost are invalid. (Quotes yours.) Maybe it's a tone thing, but it seems like you are basically dismissing opinions on the cost as irrelevant because the people in question are too "hardcore" (quotes mine this time) to understand "casual", yet somehow you do.

In my mind, this makes your definition of casual relevant. The fact that it's limited to people who have never posted on the forums relevant, and the debate about cost as it relates to these unrepresented masses also relevant. Basically what it comes down to, I guess, is that under your definition your opinion about what "casual" is, you're own opinion on what they want or think is also irrelevant, right?

(ouch, now I've made my head hurt)

Anyway, yo answer your question (well, both, since I'm not sure sure which you were asking):
Casual players are any players who play the game strictly for enjoyment, don't mind that they will never reach the top tiers of anything, and understand there is content they will never experience because they just don't care enough to put in the effort required to get that.

I consider myself more or less casual. I will never reach Valor 100, but I don't begrudge the dedicated PvPers cool rewards for being good at it. I also will never do Nightmare Op content. I probably could if I really wanted to, but I don't have the time and energy to put into the game to get there. Heck, I may never run every op, since the only time I do run them is with guildies on our Op night. (When I have time.) I will almost certainly never reach Legendary rank in most of the events, because although I enjoy them, I never have time to run them more than once or twice per week they are live.

As for the question about why I think the people you describe won't care about the content, it;s this. If they play that seldom, and aren't in a guild at all, they will never want to participate in conquests anyways in the same way I and my guild will never do Nightmare content. We simply don't care to because it requires more effort than we are willing to put in.

The funny thing is I actually agree (and always have) that 50 million is a high cost for guild ships. However, I don't think it's a barrier that will prevent anyone from getting there if they want to. It might just take longer for some groups than others, and I disagree with the pace of acquisition Bioware has set up. Personally, I would have like to have seen a lower entry cost, with scaling costs as you upgrade.

That said, I don't believe the cost is going to hurt the game long term. Players in very casual guilds may never experience it, but it will by choice, since by choice they can slowly work towards it and get there eventually, or individuals can quit and join another guild. It's a choice.

My guild, which is a mix of players you or I would both define as "Casual" and "Hardcore" as well as every area in between, will most likely have a flagship when they launch. Upgrading it, however, will be a long term project, and may never actually happen. If it doesn't, it'll be a choice we make to not pursue it, and I do think that's a good thing.

I don't think that's what's going to happen. They're closing the PTS in preparation for bring 2.10 to the PTS on the 14th.

They're done asking for feedback.

I agree with that conclusion.