Star Wars: The Old Republic anticipation thread.

[Reverend]

Owain Taggart wrote:

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That would be fun, but I don't think all of us are on Jedi Covenant.

Yeah, unfortunately all of my characters are on Red Eclipse and even those are mostly below Lvl30. I only just this week got my Sith Assassin up to lvl50.

Incidentally, is it just me, or is the Ilum "event" just a mindless grindfest? There's no story quest that I can see and the rewards aren't terribly enticing.

Jono wrote:

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Just came back to TOR after just over 2 months (I think I stopped just as it went F2P) without touching it and have a bunch of cartel coins. What's worth spending it on if you're a sub?

My advice is to buy the Account Artifact Authorization and mail it it one of my characters!

Seriously now, I've been waiting for ages for one to be put on GTN for something below the credit cap and no dice. You'd think people would twig that if you want to sell unlocks that only non-subs can use, it might be an idea to not charge an amount greater than non-subs are physically capable of posessing? I'm starting to suspect they know full well and are just trolling.

[CorporalClegg]

Jono wrote:

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Just came back to TOR after just over 2 months (I think I stopped just as it went F2P) without touching it and have a bunch of cartel coins. What's worth spending it on if you're a sub?

I'm pretty much in the same boat. There just isn't a lot to buy for subs. I bought the ship parts for one character and it's seemed kind of wasteful. I'm not too big on vanity stuff especially when there's so much of it in the game already. Besides, most of the shells on the cartel market are just palette-swaps of stuff you can find in-game, anyway.

Most of what I spent mine on were legacy stuff to save credits like XP boosts for new characters and race unlocks. And I still have about 2500 left that I have no idea what to spend on.

If you haven't bought them yet, I'd grab the rocket boots (legacy wide) and the field respec for a few characters. Both are extremely useful and are a bit costly if you buy them with creds. The field respec is great since subs get free skill resets now. It's basically a pseudo multi-role spec option. The only pain is you have to move your quick bar around each time you do it.

Reverend wrote:

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Yeah, unfortunately all of my characters are on Red Eclipse and even those are mostly below Lvl30. I only just this week got my Sith Assassin up to lvl50.

I made the suggestion with the implication some people would have to re-roll (myself included). I figure it would just be for fun and pressure-free so people could just play those characters whenever.

It would at leave give F2Pers some extra character slots and give everyone who wanted a group to do some light raiding with--like a few SM Ops a month or something. We could even plan ahead and choose roles, so people could decide what they want their character to be.

ncidentally, is it just me, or is the Ilum "event" just a mindless grindfest? There's no story quest that I can see and the rewards aren't terribly enticing.

It's definitely weaker than past events. But it's primary purpose is PvP, or rather, to re-ignite dead Illum PvP. It's a blast on PvP servers.

They added an unnecessary PvE element to appease those players and obviously didn't spend a lot of time planning it.

Seriously now, I've been waiting for ages for one to be put on GTN for something below the credit cap and no dice. You'd think people would twig that if you want to sell unlocks that only non-subs can use, it might be an idea to not charge an amount greater than non-subs are physically capable of posessing? I'm starting to suspect they know full well and are just trolling.

The problem is the exchange rate for CC to credits is pretty standard across servers.

There are a few things that only F2Pers can use but the relative cost of which exceeds the credit cap. It's a ridiculous paradox EA created because they didn't think ahead.

The problem is, if people start under-cutting the exchange rate for F2Per's sake, the value of the more expensive stuff (that subs do buy) will plummet causing a huge devalue of credits. People will start buying stuff up like crazy only to ultimately result in massive inflation. Then the price of those unlocks would be more expensive then they were to begin with. It's a messy slippery slope that most F2P MMOs inevitably slide strait down.

I do think they should raise the credit cap a little--just enough so F2Pers can buy that stuff. In the long run, I think it would only result in more CC sales.

As noted above, most of us subs have excess laying around. I'd be more than happy to supply the demand to make some extra skin on the side. A couple of those things would pay my re-spec costs for a month.

[Owain Taggart]

CorporalClegg wrote:

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I made the suggestion with the implication some people would have to re-roll (myself included). I figure it would just be for fun and pressure-free so people could just play those characters whenever.

Well, in that case that sounds pretty good. I don't mind re-rolling. I still have trouble in some spots where I do need to grind, especially in the later stages, where grouping would make a difference and be more fun to complete things together. Still, I have both of my characters on JC already, so I may not have to re-roll.

[Reverend]

There are a few things that only F2Pers can use but the relative cost of which exceeds the credit cap. It's a ridiculous paradox EA created because they didn't think ahead.

Thing of it is though, if a sub finds themselves in possession of one of those unlocks, the only way to see any return on it is to sell it for a price F2Ps can afford. Otherwise it'll just sit in their cargo hold being useless. I suppose a sub might buy a few of these up if they intend to let their subscription lapse so they'll be able to regain most of the features they're used to when their account goes over to preferred status, but I can't see that happening often enough to be worth the bother of re-listing the same items day in, day out.

But hey, if you're game I have a character on Harbinger who's sole function is to generate credits to buy unlocks. Should have around 200-300K this weekend.

I made the suggestion with the implication some people would have to re-roll (myself included). I figure it would just be for fun and pressure-free so people could just play those characters whenever.

It would at leave give F2Pers some extra character slots and give everyone who wanted a group to do some light raiding with--like a few SM Ops a month or something. We could even plan ahead and choose roles, so people could decide what they want their character to be.

Oh hey, I'm game, I was just saying I wouldn't be much help for higher level stuff outside of my main stomping grounds.

Perhaps we should all sound off with our preferred serves and congregate where the most people are already set up?

So I'll start: On Red Eclipse I have a Lvl19 DPS/healer Merc, Lvl20 DPS/healer Sage, lvl25 Guardian, lvl27-ish Maurauder, Operative & Gunslinger, lvl30-ish DPS/healer Commando and a lvl50 Tank/Assassin.

Like I said, I do also have a Lvl20 Operative on Harbinger, along with a Lvl 10 or so Sentinel.

[CorporalClegg]

I literally have characters everywhere, even EU servers. And I can do whatever.

Are you sure about the credits thing, though? I thought CC purchases were server-bound, no?

[Reverend]

^You have to be on a server to use the store and unlock things, but if you look, some of the unlocks can be purchased just for that server or for the whole account. It does work since so far I've been able to buy a bunch of unlocks on the Harb GTN (hide head, unify colour, extra cargo bay, companion customization etc.) and they all work on Red Eclipse and every other server I've tested it on. One naturally assumes that the "(Account)" versions cost more CC. Not sure how much the difference in price is though.

The only bugger of it is that as far as I can tell, the race unlocks are all tied to the legacy system and so are indeed server specific.

[CorporalClegg]

Yeah. The race unlocks are for sure server bound. Honestly, I think everything should have been account wide.

It was a hot issue in beta and in the early live days. Account Legacy was something everyone wanted and from a logistical sense, was the best approach. I guess, from an economic stand point (EA's) it was better to not do it that way.

[Reverend]

^Clearly EA had monetisation in mind a lot earlier than they let on.

[CorporalClegg]

Oh, I have no doubt. One thing that should have been a dead give-a-way was, at one time, everything was a shell save for garbage loot stuff. That is to say, you could mod everything. It wasn't until September/October 2011 that they took all that out and replaced it with the current "orange" system.

In retrospect, that should have been a total warning sign.

[Owain Taggart]

The moddable stuff isn't bad, actually. I kind of like the fact that they're quite rare as it makes them feel more unique.

So, since I'm nearly 40 with my JK, I'm thinking it would make more sense to re-roll my Smuggler. He's level 15 right now. He's a cyborg, but I thought the scanning skill would be more useful than it is, as a combat skill rather than a social skill. But I like the look of him, so I'll likely go with the same look.

[CorporalClegg]

Owain Taggart wrote:

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The moddable stuff isn't bad, actually. I kind of like the fact that they're quite rare as it makes them feel more unique.

Maybe. But it was nice because if you ever found something you thought looked nice, you could keep on using it. It was essentially just a robust appearance tab.

So, since I'm nearly 40 with my JK, I'm thinking it would make more sense to re-roll my Smuggler. He's level 15 right now. He's a cyborg, but I thought the scanning skill would be more useful than it is, as a combat skill rather than a social skill. But I like the look of him, so I'll likely go with the same look.

Yeah, the social skills don't really do much (as to not give one species an advantage over another). The only one I can think of that has any real quantitative application is Mirialan, and all that does is give you an alternate resting animation.

[Owain Taggart]

So, unless I read your earlier comments wrong, are F2Pers allowed more than two characters as long as they're on different servers? I didn't think this would be possible, but from your comments, it seems like it is. I'm a little confused on that.

[CorporalClegg]

I actually don't know. But that's how it is in every other F2P game that has character limits, so I can only assume.

[Reverend]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the character limit is 2 per server. It's a bit hard for be to be sure since I had 8 characters on the account from one of the free weekends last summer. Even after the game went F2P I had access to them all. At least up until Novermber/December-ish when they started enforcing the character limit and most of them got locked out. It was at that point I upgraded to "preferred" and the limit jumped to 6 per server. I spent most of the coins on the two extra character slots I needed and the rest on legacy rocket boots. I've since added a few extra slots by buying the unlocks on GTN. I'd have done that from the outset but I didn't realise the character slot unlock worked across all servers.

Out of curiosity, what is the approximate CCs to in-game credit exchange rate? I really want to get that artifact unlock, but i have no intention of spending any more real money on it. I figure since nobody is likely to put it on GTN for a sane price, I need to find a sub willing to trust me enough to pay them in instalments and wait while I regenerate my cash reserves.

[CorporalClegg]

I asked a guldie who buys a lot of stuff and said 1000:1 is a general rule of thumb. It fluctuates depending on supply/demand obviously, but from what I could tell (checked different items on a couple of servers) from my simple math, things seemed to range in the 800-1200 area. So that sounds about right.

I saw a couple of account artifacts on Harbinger for 700k. I would've bought one for you but I'm flat broke. I've been wasting money on crafting materials to max out my recipe books. But if you want me to, I can gold farm and probably have it by Tuesday.