So https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=1008123&page=6, we have an admission that credit sellers get their credits from run sellers. Credit sellers sell their credits to buyers, who in turn pay the run sellers again. It is a continuing cycle that is all fed by selling runs. Because the run sellers determine the prices, they determine how many credits they can sell to the credit sellers and keep them in stock.

The buying and selling of credits for real money is against the TOS. It's time real action is taken. Large credit transfers can be flagged and traced easily. Those would be the ones associated with buying credits to pay for a sale run or paying for one. No tradable item costs as much as a sales run, so those should not get flagged.

The price of sales runs is directly tied to inflation because those same credits are also being used to buy items at ever increasing prices. Not because they believe that to be their actual value, but because they are buying things at stupid prices to get under cap to get paid more credits. Remax creds, sell some for real money or buy things in game for stupid prices. It just keeps going and going.

Enough is enough. It's time to do permanent bans for buying and selling credits for real money. At the prices sales runs are listed for now, people are buying credits to pay for them, which just feeds into the cycle again.

Inflation happens in MMORPGs because of an imbalance between the money that players acquire (quest rewards, drops from monsters, monster-dropped junk items that are sold to vendors, etc.) and money that players spend on stuff offered by the game (ability training, modification-removal, fees for crafting (Runes of Magic charged gold for using crafting stations, SWTOR charges credits for white materials), and so on).

Credits paid *to* run organisers aren't the cause of inflation. They just move credits around. Credits sold to goldsellers aren't the cause of inflation eithern because that, too, just moves credits around.

Credit inflation comes from that imbalance that I mentioned above combined with the occasional credit-producing exploit (things like being able to buy an item from a vendor for one credit and immediately sell it back to the vendor for 100 credits)(1).

(1) That example produces 989 901 credits per cycle if you can buy a full stack of 9999, in a matter of seconds. There was an example of that that happened long ago, an exploit involving the "Basic Temple Chair" (? name, but definitely a Temple Chair).

So https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=1008123&page=6, we have an admission that credit sellers get their credits from run sellers. Credit sellers sell their credits to buyers, who in turn pay the run sellers again. It is a continuing cycle that is all fed by selling runs. Because the run sellers determine the prices, they determine how many credits they can sell to the credit sellers and keep them in stock.

 

The buying and selling of credits for real money is against the TOS. It's time real action is taken. Large credit transfers can be flagged and traced easily. Those would be the ones associated with buying credits to pay for a sale run or paying for one. No tradable item costs as much as a sales run, so those should not get flagged.

 

The price of sales runs is directly tied to inflation because those same credits are also being used to buy items at ever increasing prices. Not because they believe that to be their actual value, but because they are buying things at stupid prices to get under cap to get paid more credits. Remax creds, sell some for real money or buy things in game for stupid prices. It just keeps going and going.

 

Enough is enough. It's time to do permanent bans for buying and selling credits for real money. At the prices sales runs are listed for now, people are buying credits to pay for them, which just feeds into the cycle again.

Signed. It's unhealthy for the community.

I didn't see an admission there. I saw some people saying that is what happens but none of them saying that is what they do. It is no different than if I say that the reason credit sellers get so many credits is because they hack the servers.

They removed the post where ZUFHB admitted sale runners are selling their credits to credit sellers for real money. I guess we are not supposed to let the players of the game to know why we have this inflation.

Ask the community managers about the post, they know it was there and can confirm he admitted it.

Inflation happens in MMORPGs because of an imbalance between the money that players acquire (quest rewards, drops from monsters, monster-dropped junk items that are sold to vendors, etc.) and money that players spend on stuff offered by the game (ability training, modification-removal, fees for crafting (Runes of Magic charged gold for using crafting stations, SWTOR charges credits for white materials), and so on).

 

Credits paid *to* run organisers aren't the cause of inflation. They just move credits around. Credits sold to goldsellers aren't the cause of inflation eithern because that, too, just moves credits around.

 

Credit inflation comes from that imbalance that I mentioned above combined with the occasional credit-producing exploit (things like being able to buy an item from a vendor for one credit and immediately sell it back to the vendor for 100 credits)(1).

 

(1) That example produces 989 901 credits per cycle if you can buy a full stack of 9999, in a matter of seconds. There was an example of that that happened long ago, an exploit involving the "Basic Temple Chair" (? name, but definitely a Temple Chair).

Payment to "sales run" organizers promote the purchase of credits from credits sellers (since it is by far the easiest way to acquire billions of credits and there is almost no possibility of being punished for buying credits). This provides an incentive for goldsellers (and others) to run bots to farm resources. It is this that leads to inflation since they have no intention of spending it on "in game" sinks. Guilds are one of the few places you can stockpile enough credits to make selling them to goldsellers "profitable". It is an almost guarantee that there are one or more guilds on each server dedicated to housing gold seller's supply of credits and their stable of advertisers and farming bots. The average player (even the dedicated player) won't even come close to the credits generated by credit sellers and their suppliers.

Both buyers and sellers need to be punished harshly and Bioware needs to a better job of investigating large transactions (particularly those done outside the GTN). Perhaps any player or guild with more than 10 billion credits should be "audited" to see if they are linked to goldselling.

They removed the post where ZUFHB admitted sale runners are selling their credits to credit sellers for real money. I guess we are not supposed to let the players of the game to know why we have this inflation.

Maybe removing the post is an indication they are taking the situation seriously. One can only hope.

combat inflation by creating credit sinks.

No matter what the devs do, people will find a way around trading credits. The only way to completely eliminate the sale of runs via credits is to make credits so worthless no one will accept them as a medium for trade.

You want the economy fixed? The devs have to be given enough resources to create working credit sinks players will use and there has to be enough time for those credit sinks to effect the economy. That is the only way to fix our current inflation issue.

Covering things up is kinda their MO. Everyone knows credit selling has been going on for years. And yet we keep getting the spam messages in chat and in in-game mails. Someone freely admits about selling to the credit sellers and it gets deleted. So unless we get a response saying this is under investigation and the appropriate action is being taken (permanent bans since they are violating the ToS), then I don't think they're taking the situation seriously.

Doing a sale run is not against the TOS. However, how the funds get there and what happens to them after is where the violations occur and contributes to inflation. Buying items at inflated prices to get under cap is the equivalent of laundering money. So for some time now, this behavior has been allowed to run rampant. It's time it ends.

So https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=1008123&page=6, we have an admission that credit sellers get their credits from run sellers. Credit sellers sell their credits to buyers, who in turn pay the run sellers again. It is a continuing cycle that is all fed by selling runs. Because the run sellers determine the prices, they determine how many credits they can sell to the credit sellers and keep them in stock.

 

The buying and selling of credits for real money is against the TOS. It's time real action is taken. Large credit transfers can be flagged and traced easily. Those would be the ones associated with buying credits to pay for a sale run or paying for one. No tradable item costs as much as a sales run, so those should not get flagged.

 

The price of sales runs is directly tied to inflation because those same credits are also being used to buy items at ever increasing prices. Not because they believe that to be their actual value, but because they are buying things at stupid prices to get under cap to get paid more credits. Remax creds, sell some for real money or buy things in game for stupid prices. It just keeps going and going.

 

Enough is enough. It's time to do permanent bans for buying and selling credits for real money. At the prices sales runs are listed for now, people are buying credits to pay for them, which just feeds into the cycle again.

Guilds selling credits to credit farmers just doesn't make a lot of sense (to me at least). Looking at one guild's discord, they are currently offering a full clear of NiM DF for 96b which, according to one of "those" sites, costs about $150. The farming site has to make a profit so they're not buying those credits for $150. If (big if) they pay 80% of that cost that's $130 divided by seven players and that's $17 each.

Let's say one player on that raid team raids three times a week. That's $51 per week or about $200 monthly. Is someone going to risk getting their account banned selling credits for $200 a month? Maybe but I would guess probably not.

Guilds selling credits to credit farmers just doesn't make a lot of sense (to me at least). Looking at one guild's discord, they are currently offering a full clear of NiM DF for 96b which, according to one of "those" sites, costs about $150. The farming site has to make a profit so they're not buying those credits for $150. If (big if) they pay 80% of that cost that's $130 divided by seven players and that's $17 each.

 

Let's say one player on that raid team raids three times a week. That's $51 per week or about $200 monthly. Is someone going to risk getting their account banned selling credits for $200 a month? Maybe but I would guess probably not.

So just 1 run will pay for your sub for a month. Doing it many times a month adds up in the long run. When you are continuously at max credits, you have to do something to get rid of them so why not sell them? These guys are not typically philanthropic. So it's either buy things in game and just have them sit there, or sell credits to the credit sellers. In the long run, even if they get their account banned, they're good enough to rebuild on a new account, if they want to. Admittedly, their skill is there and they can, if they so choose, so it doesn't really matter to them if they do.

So https://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=1008123&page=6, we have an admission that credit sellers get their credits from run sellers. Credit sellers sell their credits to buyers, who in turn pay the run sellers again. It is a continuing cycle that is all fed by selling runs. Because the run sellers determine the prices, they determine how many credits they can sell to the credit sellers and keep them in stock.

 

The buying and selling of credits for real money is against the TOS. It's time real action is taken. Large credit transfers can be flagged and traced easily. Those would be the ones associated with buying credits to pay for a sale run or paying for one. No tradable item costs as much as a sales run, so those should not get flagged.

 

The price of sales runs is directly tied to inflation because those same credits are also being used to buy items at ever increasing prices. Not because they believe that to be their actual value, but because they are buying things at stupid prices to get under cap to get paid more credits. Remax creds, sell some for real money or buy things in game for stupid prices. It just keeps going and going.

 

Enough is enough. It's time to do permanent bans for buying and selling credits for real money. At the prices sales runs are listed for now, people are buying credits to pay for them, which just feeds into the cycle again.

How exactly does this cause inflation? Player A giving 96B to Player B. Player B sells Player C the 96B. Player C sells that 96B to one or more people. There is still 96B, it just floats around. You mention people using all these recirculated credits to buy things. I did not see you post anything supporting that. Is that just your opinion? How do you know player A would not have done the same thing if they didn't sell the credits to player B? I see no link to inflation, and you have provided zero evidence to support your theory.

Inflation has not affected everything in the game. I still pay now what I paid back when 7.0 came out. How does your nefarious scheme factor that in?

Inflation started on cartel items when the referral program was ended. It was very clear supply went way down. Perhaps you don't spend any time on the gtn, but those that do know this. Add to all that a huge influx of easy credits into the game from conquest and other things. That's basic economics in my view - less supply and more credits into the game = higher prices. On top of that there were no meaningful credit sinks to remove all that inflow. Seems pretty basic to me. Perhaps you have something against the sales, which is fine, but offer some proof if you are going to make accusations against some of the player base.

How exactly does this cause inflation? Player A giving 96B to Player B. Player B sells Player C the 96B. Player C sells that 96B to one or more people. There is still 96B, it just floats around. You mention people using all these recirculated credits to buy things. I did not see you post anything supporting that. Is that just your opinion? How do you know player A would not have done the same thing if they didn't sell the credits to player B? I see no link to inflation, and you have provided zero evidence to support your theory.

 

Inflation has not affected everything in the game. I still pay now what I paid back when 7.0 came out. How does your nefarious scheme factor that in?

 

Inflation started on cartel items when the referral program was ended. It was very clear supply went way down. Perhaps you don't spend any time on the gtn, but those that do know this. Add to all that a huge influx of easy credits into the game from conquest and other things. That's basic economics in my view - less supply and more credits into the game = higher prices. On top of that there were no meaningful credit sinks to remove all that inflow. Seems pretty basic to me. Perhaps you have something against the sales, which is fine, but offer some proof if you are going to make accusations against some of the player base.

^ +1 Exactly, too much sense. OP<---(alleged) correlation isn't causation: Statistics 101. This thread reeks of the OP's personal bias against sales runs as the OP set up a blatant straw man fallacy. Nope, not buying it OP -1

Good to see Braxton is the one with common sense.

So, I'm gonna weigh in as I'm the one in charge here.

We currently have no systems in place that allow buyers to buy credits from our sellers. Even if we did, I value my account over the small amount of money I'd make off it. Its simply not worth it to us.

I know of a former team member who used to do it as his primary source of income, but he is no longer with us.

I'd like to reiterate this as well. We are also not responsible for how buyers obtain their credits, and keep in mind sale runs don't increase the amount of credits existing in the economy. Its simply passing them around. Many of those who replied to this thread were people I recognized as my buyers as well, those who were in support of sales.

I'm assuming this thread was created by a player who was upset about not being able to afford sales, and wants them gone.

How exactly does this cause inflation? Player A giving 96B to Player B. Player B sells Player C the 96B. Player C sells that 96B to one or more people. There is still 96B, it just floats around. You mention people using all these recirculated credits to buy things. I did not see you post anything supporting that. Is that just your opinion? How do you know player A would not have done the same thing if they didn't sell the credits to player B? I see no link to inflation, and you have provided zero evidence to support your theory.

 

Inflation has not affected everything in the game. I still pay now what I paid back when 7.0 came out. How does your nefarious scheme factor that in?

 

Inflation started on cartel items when the referral program was ended. It was very clear supply went way down. Perhaps you don't spend any time on the gtn, but those that do know this. Add to all that a huge influx of easy credits into the game from conquest and other things. That's basic economics in my view - less supply and more credits into the game = higher prices. On top of that there were no meaningful credit sinks to remove all that inflow. Seems pretty basic to me. Perhaps you have something against the sales, which is fine, but offer some proof if you are going to make accusations against some of the player base.

You don't pay the same thing you paid at the beginning of 7, much less before that. For example, hypercrates are pretty much a good indicator of how bad inflation has been. Before the referral program ended, those were going for like 500m (about the cost of a sale run). Then seasons came and everyone got CCs to get things on their own instead of buying them on the GTN. The number of sales runs before 7.0 went live was quite large. Come 7.0, hypercrates were suddenly about 2B. Now they are about 5B. If you look at the prices for sales runs along the way, they followed the same jumps in prices, and in some cases (7.0 specifically), preceded the inflation jump.

Inflation occurs because prices are being fixed upwards as a means to launder credits. Even other people with max credits are hoarding items as well because they have to keep buying things to keep under the cap. Hypercrates don't lose value, it will always go up. So they are a good means of storing credits. Dyes, czerka crates, certain weapons, armor, mounts, and mats are also good ways to store credits. Those items sitting in storage and not getting back out is what causes inflation. Technically there is a supply, but it's not in circulation. I've spoken to several people with maximum credits who are not on sales teams and this is what they do.

The people with max credits are sales runners and gtn whales. They have the means to continue this trend. The prices of a sale run are now quite high. 30B+ for a single boss, almost 100B for a full clear. No one is gonna drain themselves for that, so what will happen is the buyers will buy credits with real money. Those credits will be distributed to the sales team. Then the sales teams can either buy items and just leave them in storage or sell their credits back to the credit sellers for real money, because they know they can always make more from the next sale run or the one after that and so on. One of them confessed to it earlier publicly and his post was deleted, good thing i have my own pic of it. He went on to further say that others sold their credits as well.

If people cannot buy or sell credits without being banned (like they are supposed to), then the cost of sales runs would have to go down to something people could afford without having to buy credits. The runners would then have less credits coming in from their greed. Those items they have sitting in storage would have to come out of storage, and over time, the prices of items would fall because more stuff would be back on the market.

So, I'm gonna weigh in as I'm the one in charge here.

 

We currently have no systems in place that allow buyers to buy credits from our sellers. Even if we did, I value my account over the small amount of money I'd make off it. Its simply not worth it to us.

 

I know of a former team member who used to do it as his primary source of income, but he is no longer with us.

 

I'd like to reiterate this as well. We are also not responsible for how buyers obtain their credits, and keep in mind sale runs don't increase the amount of credits existing in the economy. Its simply passing them around. Many of those who replied to this thread were people I recognized as my buyers as well, those who were in support of sales.

 

I'm assuming this thread was created by a player who was upset about not being able to afford sales, and wants them gone.

The prices you set create the demand for buyers to spend real money on creds to pay for sales runs. Creds can only be finitely passed around (by built in credit caps) before your team has to resort to some means to get rid of credits to get more. So you say you don't sell your credits to do so, then that means you're sitting on a hoard of items to stay under the credit cap. If credit sellers are eliminated, will you lower the cost of your runs? If so, will you then release those items back into circulation?

They removed the post where ZUFHB admitted sale runners are selling their credits to credit sellers for real money. I guess we are not supposed to let the players of the game to know why we have this inflation.

 

Ask the community managers about the post, they know it was there and can confirm he admitted it.

I lol'd at the bolded.

Maybe removing the post is an indication they are taking the situation seriously. One can only hope.

I also lol'd at this. Check back tomorrow and I would be surprised if *this* thread is still around, much less a post that even indirectly addresses removed posts. They do it for the same reason many corporate HR policies forbid low level employees to ask each other how much they make. That's not specific to this topic, it applies in general: you can't talk about the forbidden subject, even hypothetically, because it threatens their power. Or for a pop culture analogy, it's like fight club. What's the first rule?

That being said, they typically forget to remove posts that quote the removed post...for example, in that thread. Keep scrolling.

You don't pay the same thing you paid at the beginning of 7, much less before that. For example, hypercrates are pretty much a good indicator of how bad inflation has been. Before the referral program ended, those were going for like 500m (about the cost of a sale run). Then seasons came and everyone got CCs to get things on their own instead of buying them on the GTN. The number of sales runs before 7.0 went live was quite large. Come 7.0, hypercrates were suddenly about 2B. Now they are about 5B. If you look at the prices for sales runs along the way, they followed the same jumps in prices, and in some cases (7.0 specifically), preceded the inflation jump.

 

Inflation occurs because prices are being fixed upwards as a means to launder credits. Even other people with max credits are hoarding items as well because they have to keep buying things to keep under the cap. Hypercrates don't lose value, it will always go up. So they are a good means of storing credits. Dyes, czerka crates, certain weapons, armor, mounts, and mats are also good ways to store credits. Those items sitting in storage and not getting back out is what causes inflation. Technically there is a supply, but it's not in circulation. I've spoken to several people with maximum credits who are not on sales teams and this is what they do.

 

The people with max credits are sales runners and gtn whales. They have the means to continue this trend. The prices of a sale run are now quite high. 30B+ for a single boss, almost 100B for a full clear. No one is gonna drain themselves for that, so what will happen is the buyers will buy credits with real money. Those credits will be distributed to the sales team. Then the sales teams can either buy items and just leave them in storage or sell their credits back to the credit sellers for real money, because they know they can always make more from the next sale run or the one after that and so on. One of them confessed to it earlier publicly and his post was deleted, good thing i have my own pic of it. He went on to further say that others sold their credits as well.

 

If people cannot buy or sell credits without being banned (like they are supposed to), then the cost of sales runs would have to go down to something people could afford without having to buy credits. The runners would then have less credits coming in from their greed. Those items they have sitting in storage would have to come out of storage, and over time, the prices of items would fall because more stuff would be back on the market.

Clearly you did not read my post. Cartel market items are not THE economy. They are part of the economy. Some people buy them and some do not. Your post is just some observations with conjecture to try to draw a connection between the two. Google false equivalence. All these techniques are popular on shows like Ancient Aliens and some media where they just keep repeating things until some people start to believe it. Do you have some proof?

Hypercrates and the other cartel market items all started going up in price after removal of the referral program...completely unrelated to these sales. I know some of the people who buy a lot of hypercrates and they are no part of these sales. Again, its basic law of supply and demage and there is more demand.

Signed. It's unhealthy for the community.

 

They removed the post where ZUFHB admitted sale runners are selling their credits to credit sellers for real money. I guess we are not supposed to let the players of the game to know why we have this inflation.

 

Ask the community managers about the post, they know it was there and can confirm he admitted it.

Since that person is still alive and kicking (as in forum activity) and being more obnoxiously elitist ever, I guess it's really invigorating to know that Bioware encourage that sort of deals. Then again, I guess they have good reason to feel superior since they earn real life money from the game while we loss real life money to the game lol

So, I'm gonna weigh in as I'm the one in charge here.

 

We currently have no systems in place that allow buyers to buy credits from our sellers. Even if we did, I value my account over the small amount of money I'd make off it. Its simply not worth it to us.

 

I know of a former team member who used to do it as his primary source of income, but he is no longer with us.

 

I'd like to reiterate this as well. We are also not responsible for how buyers obtain their credits, and keep in mind sale runs don't increase the amount of credits existing in the economy. Its simply passing them around. Many of those who replied to this thread were people I recognized as my buyers as well, those who were in support of sales.

 

I'm assuming this thread was created by a player who was upset about not being able to afford sales, and wants them gone.

I tried to tell them... I tried. I know for some people I used to sale with they sold their credits because of logistics, yes you could buy endless BB and Datacrons, but then you have to resell them in trade chat and honestly they didn't want to.

They sold them cuz they wanted to raid, not to make profit. There is no good way of storing large quantities of credits that go over 100b.

So, I'm gonna weigh in as I'm the one in charge here.

 

We currently have no systems in place that allow buyers to buy credits from our sellers. Even if we did, I value my account over the small amount of money I'd make off it. Its simply not worth it to us.

 

I know of a former team member who used to do it as his primary source of income, but he is no longer with us.

 

I'd like to reiterate this as well. We are also not responsible for how buyers obtain their credits, and keep in mind sale runs don't increase the amount of credits existing in the economy. Its simply passing them around. Many of those who replied to this thread were people I recognized as my buyers as well, those who were in support of sales.

 

I'm assuming this thread was created by a player who was upset about not being able to afford sales, and wants them gone.

I didn't create this thread, but majority of raiders wouldn't even buy sale runs. I may not have cleared everything in nim yet, but I've earned all my cheevos legitimately. People who have bought runs is semi-public knowledge, and everyone knows they got carried through content. Good luck trying to find a serious raid group with that reputation.

Personally I'd like to eliminate sale runs because the current gearing system has been designed to support the elitists who are selling, and who do not deserve anything from their toxic behaviour towards other players. BW allows them to troll the forums, spread disinformation and personally attack everyone who disagrees with them. BiS gear is gated behind content that only a handful of players can complete so that they can continue sale runs.

Of course it benefits BW too: not everyone buys their credit from 3rd party sellers, some will buy cartel coins and convert those into hypercrates and game credits. It's not difficult to understand why BW caters the elitists at the expense of the rest of the raiding community. It's also not difficult to understand why it's not in their interests to end it.

People who need the gear are not getting it, while people who don't need it get it so that they can do sale runs and milk the community while adding up to the inflation.

People who need the gear are not getting it, while people who don't need it get it so that they can do sale runs and milk the community while adding up to the inflation.

People who don't need it will always get it, this makes no sense.

I saw on DMalgus that one of the sale run guilds lost 6 members of their team when 7.0 dropped as they hated it.

Sale runs in no way cause inflation, like others have said, it's just a movement of credits. Even if the person wanting the run had purchased the credits from a Gold Seller, those credits would already be in the game. They haven't generated via code the credits.

After 10 years, a massive amount of credits have been generated through the game engine, not just exploits that some used, also just playing the game and receiving the rewards.

I saw on DMalgus that one of the sale run guilds lost 6 members of their team when 7.0 dropped as they hated it.

Sale runs in no way cause inflation, like others have said, it's just a movement of credits. Even if the person wanting the run had purchased the credits from a Gold Seller, those credits would already be in the game. They haven't generated via code the credits.

 

After 10 years, a massive amount of credits have been generated through the game engine, not just exploits that some used, also just playing the game and receiving the rewards.

Credits from credit sellers are all gained by nefarious means, whether that be bot-farming or people selling them credits. Anything that has a high cost is great for the credit sellers because it creates a market and there are always people willing to take a shortcut. If everyone had to earn all the credits they used, there would be a lot less inflation.

Sales runs contribute to inflation in two ways. They create a demand for large numbers of credits, which benefits credit sellers. With a higher demand for credits, credit sellers are encouraged to use more nefarious means to acquire the credits (various cheats and exploits along with bots) thus increasing the supply in game which drives inflation. Second, with the credit caps on characters and guilds, sales run guilds find themselves in a bind for storing credits. To clear space for new credits, they buy crazy expensive items on the GTN (and through other sources) thus lowering the supply and increasing the demand which also drives inflation. It is also very likely that some sales run guilds are actually selling credits to credit sellers to "empty" their coffers.

The other issue with sales runs is that it breaks the idea of players earning the best gear and items by doing the hardest content. You don't have to be good to "earn" the "best" items, just rich (or willing to violate the TOS since there is little to no penalty for selling or buying credits).

Sales runs in and of themselves aren't responsible for inflation but they do feed into the problem. No amount a reward reduction is going to control inflation as long as gold sellers exist and sales run guilds are ripe for abuse in that arena.

A few days ago i had a very interesting conversation on Discord with a person advertising run sales at Republic Fleet on Darth Malgus server. Basically, they told me their guild will run Dread Fortress NiM for me, in exchange for 90 b credits, all payable in Cartel Market items or via credit card.

I pretended to be interested and asked for more details aka " what's in it for me, besides a title? " and they answered : " well for starters, people's respect. just take a look at the Fleet, at all the people with Brontes's jetpack and mask, people respect them, don't you want that? besides, how many of them do you think earned the titles, mounts and masks fair and square? I'll tell you, only a few, during and before 6.0, the rest of them payed for everything "

Needless to say, i was shocked, because i always imagined the people with NiM related items/titles gaining them by working hard..

To stay on topic - i don't see any solution to end this very dishonorable practice ( well call me old fashioned, but i don't want to pay for NiM items and titles, but earn them correctly) .

Limiting the amount of credits a player can have ( inventory, legacy bank) to 100 mil might do the trick, but again, i'm no expert in economy.

A few days ago i had a very interesting conversation on Discord with a person advertising run sales at Republic Fleet on Darth Malgus server. Basically, they told me their guild will run Dread Fortress NiM for me, in exchange for 90 b credits, all payable in Cartel Market items or via credit card.

 

I pretended to be interested and asked for more details aka " what's in it for me, besides a title? " and they answered : " well for starters, people's respect. just take a look at the Fleet, at all the people with Brontes's jetpack and mask, people respect them, don't you want that? besides, how many of them do you think earned the titles, mounts and masks fair and square? I'll tell you, only a few, during and before 6.0, the rest of them payed for everything "

 

Needless to say, i was shocked, because i always imagined the people with NiM related items/titles gaining them by working hard..

 

To stay on topic - i don't see any solution to end this very dishonorable practice ( well call me old fashioned, but i don't want to pay for NiM items and titles, but earn them correctly) .

 

Limiting the amount of credits a player can have ( inventory, legacy bank) to 100 mil might do the trick, but again, i'm no expert in economy.

There always has been and always will be those who find " loopholes" of some sort in order to take "shortcuts". IMO this is more of a reflection of "bad guilds" giving good ones a very dishonorable "name" (so-to-speak). And as long as I'm being perfectly candid about this (in spite of how I feel about "group participation") this should not be a negative influence against those who DO LIKE and PREFER that sort of playing SWTOR.

This is an example of exploiting others when it gets right down to it. Those that are providing this "service" to others (for lack of a better term) know how bad a lot of players what the better stuff. They also know that there are a lot of players loaded with a LOT of credits. AND they are using this scenario as a very larger carrot to wave in front of someone (for a price tag of course) in order to get it! To me this takes away a lot from those who DO play it right and HAVE earned it as well.

IMO it's kind of like the insistence of players doing PvP in order to get stuff. You can find numerous threads of PvP (solo and groups) complaining about those who were showing up and not caring about HOW it affected the outcome of other players as long as said player got the credit they wanted in order to have access to (insert said new item or requirement hidden in PvP content).

I don't pretend to have a good answer for this situation. I feel bad for those who really are honorable players in raid groups or good guilds (and there are several out there ... no questions about it). I might butt heads with them from time to time on this forum board ... but that does not mean that I don't respect and support those who enjoy that sort of thing and believe in " doing it right ".

I hope this makes sense.