The Cartel Market is live on the PTS! Darth Hater has a wonderful write-up about it, as well as a bevy of screenshots. It looks ... well, to be honest, it looks quite interesting!
It's been no secret that this Free to Play stuff has worried me greatly. We all know EA; we saw what they did to Warhammer Online. I feared the same for SWTOR, and justifiably so. But after perusing the Market ...
Guys, this thing is going to be a homerun. Seriously. The prices aren't ridiculous. The items are neat. They are all fluff, save for the armors (which we can talk about in a bit), and they're all fun, useful, or just downright cool. Most gamers seem to be coming down hard on the 'Cartel Packs,' basically randomized loot bags, but I think they are BRILLIANT. Bioware has basically copied the same system from the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer mode; you buy random packs of stuff and you're guaranteed a couple of drops that are rare or even super rare.
An exclusive sample of the finest goods from the Cartel. Each Pack contains very rare bonus items found nowhere else! Two rare bonus items with a chance of a Super Rare! Chances of a Super Rare bonus item are greater than from a Black Market Cartel Pack. One boost item, for either Experience or Social Points. One crafting material of at least Prototype quality. One companion gift of at least Prototype quality.
That's an example of a Cartel Pack. That's available for 360 Cartel Coins. Other packs are priced similarly as well. Guys, those look like fun. You can even earn titles from packs, like Blockade Runner, Crime Lord, Space Pirate, Cartel Collector, and Skip Tracer! Speeders aren't $20! If the 1:1 conversion rate for pennies to coins is used (as we think it'll be), the speeders are about $7. Armor is $12. Boosts and bonuses are $1-$2. This isn't the insane pricing structure I was expecting. The armors are a minor gripe in this; they are statted but the mods can be removed. They are recolors of existing armor, but we were expecting that anyways. Most of them are adaptive, so that's good. All in all, the statted armor sales irk me a tad but not nearly as much as I thought it would. Overall, the Cartel is ... well, it looks like fun.
Guys.
Guys.
GUYS.
They've made the Cartel Shop into something fun.
This is a GOOD thing. It's not mandatory. It's not required. It's for sheer fun. Some of the items in the packs have bound decay timers. That means after 3-5 days, they are no longer bound to you. That means you can put them on the GTN. My god. It'll go crazy.
I'd be hard-pressed to argue a Free-to-Play user isn't getting sort of shafted. They have to spend money to unlock certain sections, to unlock warzones for a week, to unlock species, flashpoints, etc etc. I guess that's the downside of playing for free; expect to be nickel and dimed ad nauseam. To get around most restrictions, they'd need to subscribe.
This is a GOOD thing. It's not mandatory. It's not required. It's for sheer fun. Some of the items in the packs have bound decay timers. That means after 3-5 days, they are no longer bound to you. That means you can put them on the GTN. My god. It'll go crazy.
I'd be hard-pressed to argue a Free-to-Play user isn't getting sort of shafted. They have to spend money to unlock certain sections, to unlock warzones for a week, to unlock species, flashpoints, etc etc. I guess that's the downside of playing for free; expect to be nickel and dimed ad nauseam. To get around most restrictions, they'd need to subscribe.
And to be frank, it'd be a good deal.
I think that was Bioware's plan all along.
Bravo, Bioware. You could have gouged us. Instead you chose to make it fun. You chose to take our side. For the first time in a LONG time, I can look at SWTOR and say, "Yes. You are on the right track."
Bravo, Bioware. You could have gouged us. Instead you chose to make it fun. You chose to take our side. For the first time in a LONG time, I can look at SWTOR and say, "Yes. You are on the right track."
Feels good, man.
