Some of the rooms in SWTOR’s upcoming Copero stronghold will only be unlockable with Cartel Coins, setting its cost apart from every other Stronghold that came before it.
Update: Broadsword published a little FAQ about the new It turns out that players will be able to purchase those additional rooms for credits like normal. I still feel they would have been justified in doing so (read on for why), but I am glad they opted not to. Here is the full text of their FAQ:
Can we use credits to purchase the additional three room unlocks?
Yup! The initial 6 room unlocks are on the F2P and Sub tracks of season respectively as noted during the stream and then the other 3 rooms can be unlocked like a normal room in a Stronghold with either Cartel Coins or Credits.Do I have to buy the modernized Utility Bundles?
Players who have the OG utility bundles do not need to purchase the modernized ones, they will just be updated with 7.4.1 launch.Will we increase the SH limit?
The limit is set as 20 and will not be increased at this time.Will Guilds be able to set the new Copero stronghold as their Guild Stronghold?
Only Strongholds that can be purchased through the Stronghold terminals can be set as a Guild Stronghold. As the Copero Stronghold is acquired through the Galactic Seasons system, it cannot be used as a Guild Stronghold.Will players be able to acquire the Stronghold when Galactic Seasons 6 ends? Possibly with Season Tokens?
We intend for the Stronghold to be available after the GS6 ends and purchasable with Galactic Seasons token.If the Stronghold is available to purchase post season, will all the rooms be available for purchase by anyone, or will the F2P and Subscriber limitations remain in place?
The Subscriber room unlocks will be available for purchase via Galactic Seasons tokens after the season ends; however, they will still only be available to players who are Subscribers.How do Galactic Seasons Strongholds work when you transfer a character? Are they available on the new server or do they need to be purchased again using Season Tokens?
The rooms will not transfer over. However, players who unlock additional rooms in the Copero Stronghold and transfer a character to a new server will need to get a key unlock from Collections and use it at the doors to reactivate them.Will the story NPCs in the Stronghold permanently remain in the Stronghold? Can we move them?
As these NPCs are tied to story and narrative, they will remain in the Stronghold and will not be moveable.Will 7.4.1 or parts of it be going up on the PTS?
Jackie Ko, SWTOR Community Manager
We will not be opening PTS for 7.4.1. However, when we are ready to test features for Game Update 7.5, we will be opening up the PTS. More details to come at a later time!
Since EA moved SWTOR’s development from BioWare to Broadsword sometime between 7.3 and 7.4, the amount of content released per update and the frequency of those updates has remained unchanged. It’s clear that well over half of the devs working on SWTOR at BioWare Austin continued to work on SWTOR at Broadsword, and this is supported by statements from BioWare’s general manager and SWTOR’s executive producer that were made all the way back in September.
For better or worse, the experience of playing SWTOR hasn’t really changed either, and the consistency and regularity of SWTOR’s updates during these uncertain times have been comforting. With each passing update, it feels more like the shift to Broadsword was just a new building with a new sign out front. That said, one aspect of the game has undergone noticeable changes since then: monetization.
Since switching to Broadsword, the (possibly new) money-men seem to have taken a more active role in actually making money off the game. The most noticeable examples are the steep prices of the recently-released, uncollectable, consumable Enhanced Dyes and a more thoughtful, informed, and aggressive approach to Cartel Market (CM) sales.
Now, as part of the 7.1.4 Livestream, Broadsword announced that the main reward for Galactic Season 6 (GS6) – “Building a Foundation” is a breathtaking stronghold on Copero.
A stronghold as a reward to earn throughout a Season is fine in and of itself. After all, it will likely be available for purchase with GS tokens after GS6 ends.
The monetization concern comes into play because, unlike all other Strongholds in the game, some of the rooms in Copero can only be unlocked by paying Cartel Coins (CC), not credits, even as a subscriber.
Initially, I was upset about having to pay CC for my #1 pick for a Stronghold and was worried we’d be heading into P2W territory. I still am.
However, as I’ve spent some more time thinking about it today, I think it’s pretty reasonable, and at least in this specific case right now, with their resplendent creation as the pinnacle of GS6. The economics check out, both theirs and ours.
Broadsword knows they’ve been handing out a bunch of CC each season to subscribers (2000 per server per account). Selling several rooms in a Stronghold is a way to claw back the coins that would have been spent to unlock all of the companion-related rewards in collections and effectively reduce the number given in the first place.
I’m not an environmental artist, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but I would be shocked if this Stronghold didn’t take a fair bit of additional developer resources (time and money) to create compared to a new companion.
It does reuse a lot from the Copero Flashpoint, but it’s clear that they made new assets. On top of that, all of the assets created for the Stronghold can be reused far more easily than those for companions.
Decorating stands apart from other SWTOR gameplay because it isn’t character combat-oriented whatsoever. Operations, Flashpoints, PvP, and Leveling/Questing/Story appeal to different players, but they are still connected to each other through combat. Decorating is the only type of gameplay in SWTOR that is actively supported outside of the character combat mainstream.
At the same time, decorating gameplay is already directly linked to the Cartel Market, and the free vs paid divide for the Stronghold is similar to that of decorations.
Given that all 3 (soon to be 4) of the most recently released strongholds are part of Galactic Seasons, it’s clear that the devs at BioWare have been moving in this direction for quite some time, long before they moved into their own new stronghold, Broadsword.
Decorating is more separate from the rest of the game, so it makes sense to monetize it differently and more separately from the rest of the game. Why should we be paying for content with our subs and such that are so far outside the realm of the rest of the game?
On top of that, Copero is significantly larger than the ones released on the GS vendor thus far, and those already cost close to the cap for GS tokens. Since Galactic Seasons is directly connected to game monetization, the whole point is to get you to subscribe out of FOMO, so it is more reasonable to charge Cartel Coins exclusively for a few of the rooms.
Casual players, as in those that aren’t following the game as closely as a Gand-eyed reader of VULKK.com, such as yourself, aren’t gonna notice these changes either. Most will only see yet another battle pass system and know that such systems have a significant time sink and charge IRL money, not in-game currency. SWTOR isn’t deviating from those trends.
Even beyond being part of the monetization scheme, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to provide an option to charge credits right now in this economy. The APAC server Shae Vizla exists, so the buying power of credits is now super consistent across servers, and it will not be consistent on an individual server for quite some time either as the economy rapidly deflates.
Given how the number of credits in circulation has been dropping precipitously over the course of less than a year, Broadsword would need to charge significantly more credits for these rooms at the beginning of GS6 than they would if they were to release the Stronghold at the end of GS6.
They can’t afford to hold such a significant amount of dev resources in reserve until after the economy has reached equilibrium either, especially when it directly affects their monetization scheme.
Don’t get me wrong. As a proud Space Barbie Dream House propriétaire, it is absolutely frustrating that I have to pay Cartel Coins to unlock what appear to be some of the coolest rooms in the Stronghold. I don’t want it to be this way going forward and I hope this has everything to do with the rapidly deflating economy.
Still, I recognize that Broadsword has numerous reasons directly related to the broader economics of running a game as a self-sustaining service to charge money for part of the Stronghold.
All of the sound arguments on the other side boil down to fears of encroachment into P2W territory, though I would argue Broadsword hasn’t crossed into that territory yet.
If you don’t like it, it’s up to you to vote with your wallet. Broadsword might not make any immediate changes, but who knows?
Maybe this is a temporary measure. Maybe they are planning to let you unlock those rooms for credits once the economy has deflated sufficiently. Maybe they will change tactics with Galactic Seasons once again and try monetizing something else. Even if they didn’t do as much as I think APAC players deserve, they still significantly improved the Shae Vizla transfer costs and limitations.
I would vote with my own wallet if I could, but alas, as someone who has remained subscribed to and actively played SWTOR since launch, my vote was cast a long time ago. And even if I could vote now, I’m pretty sure Broadsword was reaching directly into my pocket with this one.
They will probably claim they were just feeling around for my wallet, but coming from a guy who has already shared that his island paradise in Animal Crossing: New Horizons is literally named Copero, I think it’s safe to assume that the lovely folks at Broadsword grabbed something else on this Valentine’s Day instead. My heart.
If you missed the stream, be sure to check out our 7.4.1 Livestream Recap and stay tuned for future coverage of 7.4.1 and 7.5! P.S. Please support my campaign on the forums for the Copero SH to use Fleet Gen Chat instead of what will likely otherwise be the Gen Chat for a single Flashpoint.
