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Can we stop with the credit sinks and find a way to build up the game's community?


Ecaj

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I love TOR, I love MMOs, but I am by no means a "power" player and I know i'm not alone in this. Credit sinks have never stabilized a gaming economy they've only ever done 2 things that I've ever noticed, 1) limited the spending ability of players with RL jobs and families who can't play several hours a day every day. 2) encouraged gold/credit farmers.

 

I think the Legacy system was a great idea and it was sold to us as this cool thing which will let us unlock perks for playing multiple classes, questing, ext. But then it goes live and it's suddenly, "Oh it unlocks a few things but the really cool stuff you have to pay for...." C'mon 5,000,000 credits to unlock full rocket boost????

 

Then they release per character unlocks... "Oh remember how we told you Legacy will let you unlock cool things for all the members of your Legacy? We changed our mind, now you have to buy the really handy ones on EVERY character."

 

I love TOR... it's by no means perfect but I love playing a Star Wars MMO again, but things like this are keeping casual players away from the game, trying to lure and keep the "Oh shiny!" crowd never works, they get bored too fast and move on to the next new thing they find.

 

Bioware you've got to find a way to keep players invested, a sense of community, pvp is very popular (even if i suck at it since I won't keybind, I still enjoy it most of the time) but won't keep members around forever. I hate to bring up SWG, people get so upset/touchy when it's mentioned, but they did a lot of great things that kept players loyal even to this day. How many other MMOs after closing down or changing drastically have a small legion of players rebuilding the game they loved with the open source code?

 

I'd love to see a new profession added that would allow players to redesign other player's images. It'd help keep things fresh (Who hasn't rolled a character then later decide they'd rather have a different look?) and give players a new way to interact. Don't like your hair or that piercing you selected when you selected when you rolled that Marauder at 3am? Find a player with the ability to change your looks, meet a new person, tip them credits for the service, have a unique and fun experience. Call it something like Underworld Surgeon or some such.

 

I don't know, rambling a bit now but just tired of playing this game and having all the cool stuff way out of reach for most of your player base, I'm all for having elite rewards and goals, but don't sell us on a Legacy system and then add exorbitant credit costs to unlock them...

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I"m an adult long time mmo veteran myself and have seen what you're getting at many times. But it doesn't apply to this game.

 

1) There are 0 gold sellers in this game. Haven't seen one since day 2 or 3 after launch. It just isn't profitable in this game. Kudos to Bioware for setting it up this way.

 

2) There's been rampant deflation since F2P kicked off. Not inflation. Everything you want on the GTN is getting cheaper, so the credit sinks elsewhere are easier to deal with.

 

3) They've taken out the credit sinks on Legacy stuff if you prefer to pay with cash instead. As a working adult this may be appealing to you.

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I"m an adult long time mmo veteran myself and have seen what you're getting at many times. But it doesn't apply to this game.

 

1) There are 0 gold sellers in this game. Haven't seen one since day 2 or 3 after launch. It just isn't profitable in this game. Kudos to Bioware for setting it up this way.

 

2) There's been rampant deflation since F2P kicked off. Not inflation. Everything you want on the GTN is getting cheaper, so the credit sinks elsewhere are easier to deal with.

 

3) They've taken out the credit sinks on Legacy stuff if you prefer to pay with cash instead. As a working adult this may be appealing to you.

 

I agree 100% on #1, I've seen a few try it in the early days of the game but haven't since, sadly I think it has less to do with Bioware than it does with there just isn't enough demand to pay for game currency as there are on other games, regardless it's nice not getting, "Buy gold cheap" spam and game mail.

 

as for #2 that again has little to nothing to do with credit sinks, the prices are "dropping" only because players were asking (and still are) insane amounts for items that are now flooding the GTN but you're still seeing items listed for 2-3 million.

 

As for #3, I may be a working adult but I don't like being told we're getting legacy system that will allow us to unlock perks and then being forced to either grind endless hours to pay for the perks after "unlocking' them or having to shell out more money (I am and have been a paid subscriber since launch) for these things. Just my opinion, to each their own but it just irks me to keep seeing credit sinks in a game where it's not needed and doesn't help.

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My guess is that Junior is running the economic infra-structure of this game and intends to run it into the ground.;)

 

The current system in game is workable. I'm having no issues with my characters and I have Biochem on all eight level fifties. Pretty much a non-profitable crew skill.

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Not really a good idea. Think about it, you want to take away credit dumps from people who have and make lots of money. Will it increase the buying power of the little guys? Sure, for a while. Then you'll see rampant inflation as the average and higher wealth players use their increased buying power to buy more items for less cash. Which triggers a run on items with a finite supply. You end up with highly inflated prices on basic items as supply can't meet demand.

 

Instead, you should consider the following.

 

How do I spend my money?

Do I need every character perk on every character?

How can I improve my cash flow with out increasing my play time?

Should I buy now or wait till the item drops in value?

 

Just to throw this in, I study full time and work part time. I hardly have any free time to play, yet I'm able to make several hundred thousand to a million credits on a weekly basis.

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the game needs credit sinks or needs to reduce the credit gain from dailies by 75%

 

i've seen what happens when the in-game currency means nothing to the economy. when top tier items never get listed in the AH/GTN because they cost so much they need to be traded other valuable crafting mats and gear

 

it's just not good for any new player that's trying to get into the game. they had/have an economist working on this game's economy to keep inflation down. let them do their job and not worry about what you may or may not think is too many credit sinks

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You cannot "code in" community in an MMO.

 

Community (good or bad) is self-inflicted.... BY...... the community itself.

 

Your issue with with the community, not Bioware.

 

As for credit sinks, if a game developer does not drain credits out of an MMO, rampant inflation over-runs the MMO. Even with MMOs that do extraction well, they still get over-run with inflation eventually.

 

There are literally no credit sinks in this game that a player cannot manage with mindful use of personal credit management.

 

Note: there will always be "poor" and "wealthy" in any MMO... just like in real life. The enterprising person finds ways to accumulate virtual wealth for all their playing needs, and honestly this MMO makes it easier then most.

Edited by Andryah
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1) There are 0 gold sellers in this game. Haven't seen one since day 2 or 3 after launch. It just isn't profitable in this game. Kudos to Bioware for setting it up this way.

 

I've seen a few since release... far less than any other MMO tho and mostly it's done by mail rather than spamming general chat... tho it is nice every time I get one they also mail me 1 credit with the letter for some reason.... only need to get like 999,990 more credit farmer mails and I could buy myself something nice off them

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