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The Refer-a-Friend Program


KeithKanneg

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--snipped pointless drivel--

 

The biggest difference between you and I as that I do not care that we, the people who make our referral link known, are losing the free CC's. My primary concern was always the loss of the bundles and 7-days of premium time. Your concern is clearly that you will now lose out on all those free CC's, with which you likely buy hypercrates and sell for far more than you hand out in free credits.

 

Did I buy hypercrates with my free CC's. Absolutely. Then I would open them, keep what I wanted, and then sell the rest on the GTN for cheap or give away for free on the starter worlds.

 

I guess we know which one of us is the Sith in this equation.

 

 

We can argue about this, till the cows come home, it's not going to change anything...

 

Agreed. This change is happening. It is a pity that BW chose to kill it rather than reform it, and it is unlikely that we will see a replacement, but the silver lining is that the chat link spammers and the thread necro link spammers will also die with the program.

Edited by ceryxp
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I totally missed that this was happening. My self imposed vacation from the forums has led me to missing some news like this.

 

When it first started, it was a cool novelty of a system. Invite 5 friends, get some cool stuff, including a mount that made it more difficult to get knocked off of. It was ugly, but functional. I think it was default Mount speed 3 too, regardless of training. Can't be sure, that was a LONG time ago.

 

Then they started attaching CC and giving the "friend" a bunch of mostly useless stuff. The idea is to create a subscriber, and all of the unlocks you get as a subscriber. The CC items they get to activate them are bound so they can't sell them...the only useful one was the inventory unlock...it saves you a whopping 250k if you use it on the last slot.

Now...250k per character...that adds up if you make TONS of alts.

 

You also used to get a free server transfer. Which was useful when there were a lot of servers.

Now I'm not even sure that part of this even still works.

 

6-12 months ago people were spamming, trying to buy "friends" for 4-8 million.

in the last 6 months I've seen up to 50 or 60 million.

 

What???

 

the rewards didn't change.

 

People found a better way to scam the system.

 

I don't know what it is, but it must work, and it must be in the established rules, and the devs clearly don't like it.

Hence the change.

 

In my opinion they should gut the whole thing, doing what they're doing, and go a step further and stop any recurring grants.

 

Leaving a bad system in place (why change it otherwise) and just closing the door on new people being allowed to participate is a REALLY BAD DECISION.

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Did I buy hypercrates with my free CC's. Absolutely. Then I would open them, keep what I wanted, and then sell the rest on the GTN for cheap or give away for free on the starter worlds.

Which shows how honest your arguments are. You know how much hypercrates are, you know how much cc a click gets you, and you can see what I give out, yet you say I'm selling hypercrates and getting more credits than I give out.

 

You on the otherhand are buying hypercrates and giving out bupkis :rak_09: How are you affording multiple hypercrates anyway? they're 5.4k a pop, that would wipe out more than half of my cc. Are you secretly a link spammer?

Edited by ShardTosk
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They can't just cut people off, as the system in place stated that as long as x is a sub, you will get the reward. Cutting it off could cause issues (maybe even legal issues, not sure as I'm not trained in that) but with them stopping it now, and putting it on a sunset (or whatever terms was used), they'll probably phase it out, as people stop subbing, or maybe when it goes to a certain point, they give a bonus lot, then cut it off.

 

They need a ref program, because it's what brings people in to the game, or better yet, it gets old players to return for a bit. Helps pref players get a week of a sub, and some do get drawn back in and sub. Not all, but some.

They should have kept to the mounts, droids, and added to that, instead of the cc's

 

You're probably right with the possible legal issue.

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You on the otherhand are buying hypercrates and giving out bupkis :rak_09: How are you affording multiple hypercrates anyway? they're 5.4k a pop, that would wipe out more than half of my cc. Are you secretly a link spammer?

 

Except for the free stuff I hand out on the starter worlds.

 

And how am I buying multiple hypercrates? Because every few months I spend a hundred dollars on CCs in addition to the 700 per month I receive for my sub and security key. Would you like to see my transaction history?

 

 

They need a ref program, because it's what brings people in to the game, or better yet, it gets old players to return for a bit. Helps pref players get a week of a sub, and some do get drawn back in and sub. Not all, but some.

They should have kept to the mounts, droids, and added to that, instead of the cc's

 

Completely agree.

Edited by ceryxp
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I see this is making a lot of people upset...which sucks, I can only hope whatever is replacing it will make people happy, or be worth it. Ive said it before, I'll say it again. SWTOR has become FashionTOR lol
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Another dumb decision, this program is what kept bringing back people, they'd get a free week, and be hooked again.

Even if they didn't sub, a lot came back and played as preffs, then eventually subbed. The reasons for a lot of us to sub have become less, and less. Someone joked once that BW was trying to kill of this game.....it's not funny anymore.

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Firstly, that payment is only a benefit if it actually happens, and as we have seen scamming on that front has been rampant. Further, if actually delivered, that payment does not compare to the benefit that the referrer receives. Second, that was never the purpose of the program. It was intended to give new players a jumpstart when starting out and give preferred players a way to jump back into the game.

 

If the rewards to the referrer had always and only been cosmetic are you saying that you would not have bothered with giving out referrals? If so then that says more about you than me. On more than one occasion I have explained to people how to get the most from the program, and I did so without any expectation of gain on my part. I would have done so even if the rewards for the referrer stopped after the mount and mini-pets, were purely cosmetic, or even just a pat on the head.

 

Frankly, although I am disappointed at the loss of the bundles and the premium time, if ending the program puts an end to the chat spam from the people fishing for clicks then so be it.

Well said! Sadly, money is the only language many people understand.

 

 

They can't just cut people off, as the system in place stated that as long as x is a sub, you will get the reward. Cutting it off could cause issues (maybe even legal issues, not sure as I'm not trained in that) but with them stopping it now, and putting it on a sunset (or whatever terms was used), they'll probably phase it out, as people stop subbing, or maybe when it goes to a certain point, they give a bonus lot, then cut it off.

 

They need a ref program, because it's what brings people in to the game, or better yet, it gets old players to return for a bit. Helps pref players get a week of a sub, and some do get drawn back in and sub. Not all, but some.

They should have kept to the mounts, droids, and added to that, instead of the cc's

You're probably right with the possible legal issue.

 

 

If someone sued over that, then they obviously have plenty of money to spend on CC and are being a miser. The purpose of the sunset is to gradually let people down. You see the outrage in this thread over that alone. The speeder and pet rewards should've stayed, but the grandfathered CC rewards should not stay for long.

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If someone sued over that, then they obviously have plenty of money to spend on CC and are being a miser. The purpose of the sunset is to gradually let people down. You see the outrage in this thread over that alone. The speeder and pet rewards should've stayed, but the grandfathered CC rewards should not stay for long.

 

Sadly, there will still be people who have 10’s thousands of CCs still coming in from the sunset. I read on discord that swtorista has something like 2 million CC’s. Wether that’s true or not, I can’t say. But I could imagine the major influences all have massive amounts of CC’s from referrals and will continue to get many residual CC’s unless bioware cut the sunset early. It’s just another case of the haves and the have nots.

 

And to be clear, I’m not complaining they have them or even complaining Bioware are doing what they are doing. Just pointing out that this change will have no affect on those sorts of players who’ve had a following in swtor. While newer players of players who’ve never bothered with the referral program will have no opportunity to try it out now.

 

At the end of the day, this change is going to severely impact the games economy and GTN.

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If someone sued over that, then they obviously have plenty of money to spend on CC and are being a miser. The purpose of the sunset is to gradually let people down. You see the outrage in this thread over that alone. The speeder and pet rewards should've stayed, but the grandfathered CC rewards should not stay for long.

 

Except some people could, it could be a t***** issue. Basically because they said you'll get x for as long as y is subbed, if they change that it 'could' cause legal issues. Again, maybe there's a clause in the ToS, that allows them to do whatever they want, and negate this, but it's always a possibility

Personally I agree, they should have left the mount, etc. Or better yet, they should never have started the CC's for it.

What's done is done, we'll just have to wait and see the fallout from it :(

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Another dumb decision, this program is what kept bringing back people, they'd get a free week, and be hooked again.

Even if they didn't sub, a lot came back and played as preffs, then eventually subbed. The reasons for a lot of us to sub have become less, and less. Someone joked once that BW was trying to kill of this game.....it's not funny anymore.

 

So I used a referral link simply because I can't after their maintenance, I refuse to put the game back on my computer. I left the game almost a year ago, raided endgame content and was more dabbling PvP by the end (Australian, so it was actually more frustrating than fun there). I've had no desire to play, I watch Twitch streams to keep up with friends who still play and to watch the community. Last time I came back was on the back of a seven day click and Bioware yet again got me paying a subscription.

One person suggested Bioware simply wants to make people sub straight off. Their decision, I simply know I'm still not interested in playing again because of a lot of their decisions. It might have eventually happened because of friends asking me to come back for a few days and low resistance being back in it.

 

That will never happen now. I have so many things I'd rather spend money on than immediately subscribing for nostalgia, I'd rather buy a game they're playing on the side or buy them something.

 

Yes, people were scamming and spamming referral links. When I got CCs it was because I posted in the forums, was helpful, contributed and the like. They prefer people paying for Cartel Coins, their choice but about wanting to bring in new players over current subs hitting links- the game has to be worth something for people to play and subscribe.

 

And you can't keep making bad decisions, bleeding players and expecting us to come back. The seven day sub being gone is probably good for a lot of former subs breaking the cycle of returning to this game.

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so far i have see on my account it seems there have close the refer a friend link all and make then all useless now more.

 

now is the funny part that will come later how long it will take before somebody in the general chat in the game is keep trying when there not have read this thread all.

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Except some people could, it could be a t***** issue. Basically because they said you'll get x for as long as y is subbed, if they change that it 'could' cause legal issues. Again, maybe there's a clause in the ToS, that allows them to do whatever they want, and negate this, but it's always a possibility

Personally I agree, they should have left the mount, etc. Or better yet, they should never have started the CC's for it.

What's done is done, we'll just have to wait and see the fallout from it :(

Doubtful, those ToS are like iron-clad contracts. You'd need a really good lawyer to even attempt to find a loophole.

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Already noticed many CM items have gone up 100-200% in price on the GTN since last week.

 

Extra Server slots are now double the price they were two weeks ago as are many other things.

 

darn, although thankfully I still have my 'ill-gotten' gains and can afford to buy them from the gtn if needed :D

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darn, although thankfully I still have my 'ill-gotten' gains and can afford to buy them from the gtn if needed :D

 

I’m kicking myself for not buy up big on the Server slots when they were 70 million each last month before this announcement.

 

I’ve still got 5000 CCs, but I use these to open up new outfits or gear in my collections. And seeing as we won’t be getting more from referrals, I want to use these sparingly

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Yeah, I bought a lot of server slots back in 2.0 - 3.0 when they were selling for 90k. That was the best era for buying stuff from the GTN; I bought pretty much every subscriber account unlock during that time, which is my account has 50+ slots per server even preferred, on two servers.

 

The main thing I bought during these 7 day referrals were the outlander tokens, which i used to remake characters I'd lost during the last merger. They had been steadily, drastically increasing in price, I think I bought the last one for 245M and it was an outlier, most cost 300M+ and are likely even more expensive now. There hasn't been a sale on them in a long while.

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I’m kicking myself for not buy up big on the Server slots when they were 70 million each last month before this announcement.

 

I’ve still got 5000 CCs, but I use these to open up new outfits or gear in my collections. And seeing as we won’t be getting more from referrals, I want to use these sparingly

 

I'll be hoarding mine for the unlock sale too...lol, or decos, they are my main weakness...lol

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Already noticed many CM items have gone up 100-200% in price on the GTN since last week.

 

Extra Server slots are now double the price they were two weeks ago as are many other things.

Character slots have been going up since September. I'd say they've had the biggest increase in price out of anything...and practically everything has gone up since then.

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I'm hoping they do bring it back, but without the cc's, or if they do have cc's, maybe a limit on how many you can have active. It was handy for a lot of people, and I know people who subbed (or came back) , just because they got that free week

 

is it not better to fix the problem about getting CC then remove it?

 

we know that the problem with the refer a friend program was that sub players can use the refer a freind link will that not is mean for.

more for pref and free to play players was it mean for to become sub 1 week and not that somebody that was all sub can use it to give the other guy free CC.

 

i think still fixing the problem is much better then what there have done now by remove it.

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De***? I let my sub run on and on without actually playing. Now wanted to go back, ask a friend to hop on as well and searched for 10 minutes for the referral link only to see it not beeing a thing anymore? big YIKES. welp, 12k CC and i cant even have a friend play with me. big brain energy once again, my itch playing this game has gone as fast as it came.
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