The Republic Ep118: Gannon Meltdown

Written by: QuintLyn Bowers (@QuintLyn) | December 29, 2012 6:40 am

66 Comments

In this week’s episode of The Republic, Gary Gannon, Massively SWTOR columnist Larry Everett and Darth Hater’s Justin Lowe discuss Star Wars: The Old Republic’s first ever expansion, The Rise of the Hutt Cartel. The expansion comes with five new levels, the planet Makeb and will cost non-subbed players $20. Subbed players will pay $10

Is this a fair deal or just a money-grab? Find out what the guys think in this episode of The Republic.

One thing’s for certain. This may be the first time people have wondered if a whole planet is worth $20.

Hosts’ websites can be found here:
Larry Everett –> http://massively.joystiq.com
Justin Lowe –> http://darthhater.com

1:22:33

World of Warcraft

Legendary Ep126:
Raiding Ra-Den Revelations!

This week the Legendary crew are talking patch 5.3, raiding, and more with World First raider Treckie!Read more »

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45:25

Guild Wars 2

GuildCast Ep71:
Blue Flowers

The Secret of Southsun update has arrived, a Guild Wars 2 expansion has been confirmed, and more.Read more »

25 comments
57:02

Live Call-In Show

After Dark Ep32:
Could Bolvar “Lich King” Fordragon Return?

Could the Lich King return to help defend Azeroth against the Burning Legion?Read more »

13 comments

http://www.facebook.com/gerald.buel Gerald Buel

it was 4 euro for me the expansion…… It’s not much
Chad VanEtten

Calling it an expansion is NOT an excuse to charge real money as opposed to Cartel Coins. I’ve gotten the last few expansions in LoTRO with my free Turbine Points I get from having a lifetime sub. This is a cash grab trying to recoup costs to develop this game, plain and simple..
David Alcon

Man…I was waiting for a Gannon Meltdown, and I’m sory…Gary had a meltdown last week, not this week. =p
http://www.facebook.com/eric.soprano.50 Eric Soprano

if you are bored of wow.. swtor is a pretty good game.
http://www.facebook.com/eric.mcindoo Eric McIndoo

Did WoW players have to pay for Pandas? Is there an episode at Legendary where they are accusing Blizzard of cash grabs?
- http://www.facebook.com/davidallmighty David Cohen
  
  So a days worth of content is worth 10 bucks, so you would pay 300 a month as a sub? Even if it is a weeks worth, you would pay 40 a month for a sub? Cause that is what you are saying. It is nowher near the content WoW puts out with its xpac… lol it is like a starter zone in WoW.
  - http://www.facebook.com/people/Jim-Bergevin-Jr/1393526370 Jim Bergevin Jr
    
    The fact of the matter is that we still don’t know exactly what or how much the content will contain. Quite frankly, when Horse Armor was going for $10 several years ago, and pure cosmetic armor for the same in GW, then $10 for a bunch of actual content isn’t really that out of line.
    - Chad VanEtten
      
      You can’t compare cosmetic armor which isn’t required to progress in the game, and completely optional, to an “expansion” that is require to progress in the game and more than likely required to continue doing anything “endgame.”
  - http://www.facebook.com/eric.mcindoo Eric McIndoo
    
    How is this any different than other expansions in other MMO’s? How long did it take to level through Lich King? A few days if you put your mind to it?
    
    BW is doing what every other company is doing. The new expansion probably has as much content as any other 10 dollar DLC, not to mention new skills, new itemization, new race (Cathar), new talent trees, etc. The price seems in line with all other games, IMO.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/KZHZ6B6S7YQP3IF6FE4SNHC27I DavidK
  
  actually pandas were free. the race was unlocked when mists launched but you didn’t need the expansion pack to roll one.
  
  where does it say new species for rise of the hutt cartel? i haven’t seen any details on this. the lack of a release date is also what is making me think this is a cash grab. only “spring 2013″. well spring ends on june 20th, so it could be a looooong time before we get to see this “expansion”
  - http://www.facebook.com/eric.mcindoo Eric McIndoo
    
    Panderia was not free to anyone, including subscribers. New zone, new levels, new skills, new talent trees, new race (Cathar), possibly a new operation or flashpoint . . . sure sounds like an expansion to me, and at 10 dollars a cheap one at that.
    - http://profile.yahoo.com/KZHZ6B6S7YQP3IF6FE4SNHC27I DavidK
      
      pandaria the continent was not free, but you said pandas…the pandaren race was free for everyone. the bioware official pre order FAQ says 5 new levels and 1 new planet. none of the other content is mentioned.
      
      oh and the $10 price is only for current subscribers and only until jan 7th. after that it’s $20 and bioware doesn’t care if you have a subscription or not.
      
      so if don’t have a current sub, you have to decide if paying $15 to save $10 makes sense to you.
    - http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
      
      No, Pandaren race is totally free up to level 20. Now if you want the new Monk class you have to purchase the expansion.
      
      I would recommend a Pandaren Warrior or Padaren Hunter. Currently leveling a Pandaren Warrior, loving the animations, gives it a samurai feel.
- http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr
  
  There are a few episodes of MikeB predicting Mists would be free. He seemed a bit hurt went it wasn’t.
http://www.facebook.com/davidallmighty David Cohen

Damn it Larry… you let your fanboi shields drop last week, but up they came to defend this xpac….. oh well
- http://www.facebook.com/michael.dean.50702769 Michael Dean
  
  How? Larry agreed with Gary when he said bioware and EA are pick pocketing their fans.
http://twitter.com/JimyOnce JimyOnce

I was banned
http://twitter.com/JimyOnce JimyOnce

I was banned from SWTOR for 5 days for posting on the SWTOR General Discussion forum that Jeff Hickman was out of touch with the player base, due to the Holiday Mount (Silly ass low level speeder with christmas lights lazily strung about it. “just wait till you see it!” he said) They banned me for “Directly calling out a Developer on the forums.” If you want to point a finger at anyone at EA/Bioware, for making present and future terrible decisions for SWTOR, point at Thin Skinned Jeff Hickman.
http://www.facebook.com/davidallmighty David Cohen

If it is a 1-2 day thing then even 10 bucks is a rip off
http://twitter.com/AisarGaming Aisar

I have not even hit play on the episode yet and I am so excited about it. I don’t know what it means but you have really hooked me Mr. Gannon. Well played.
http://www.facebook.com/davidallmighty David Cohen

This xpac is just to FORCE subs to pay 10 more bucks because I doubt you can level to 55 w/o it and then you cant do any new content w/o it. So it is not an option for anyone. You must buy it to keep playing.
azurrei

It’s not an expansion…

Not all expansions include a level cap raise, but MOST expansions do and MMO players generally relate a level cap raise with an expansion.

EA Suits: “Ok Bioware, how do we try to justify this as an expansion so we can charge for it?”

Bioware Devs: “Add new abilities to classes and raise the level cap”

EA Suits: “Good idea, so raise the level cap so we can charge for this content pack…err expansion I mean.”

Bioware Devs: “The problem is that we don’t have enough new content to justify a level cap increase – just a new planet and some story missions.”

EA Suits: “Find a way to justify calling this an expansion, we need to charge for it.”

Bioware Devs: “I guess we can just scale some of the old content so that it is still relevant at the new level cap.”

EA Suits: “Whatever, just get it done.”
Shadowtalis

You cannot… In any way, shape or form, compare this to a real MMO expansion.

The added levels are simply a smoke screen, trying to hide the fact that this is, at best, a decent content patch. Nothing more.

I can see F2P players being charged something, but not paying subscribers. It’d be like Blizzard charging for the Thunder king patch.
dysfxal

David Cohen, you feverishly smoke the poles of blizzard/arenanet. The comedy’s amplified by virtue of the fact that you frequently post in “The Republic” comments. I find that sub-par games aren’t worth commenting about, which is why I don’t comment on “Legendary” or “Guildcast”.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Shawn-Hargrave/100003202374593 Shawn Hargrave

We need a poll put up asking what do you consider rise of the hutt cartel? Be interesting to see how that poll would go.

My friend who i gave my account to told me this morning lol that he got a mail saying heres free level 50 tionese gear when he went to get the gear it said he had to sub on my account to be able to wear it lol. So they send him free tionese gear he couldnt wear. You also cant file a support ticket on f2p. Either im glad i gave him that account b/c thats a joke of a f2p.

They should have gotten that space revamp out pronto instead of this crap planet that is just content thevye been sitting on that should at least be given freely to subbed people ffs thats just lolz.

Glad to see you coming around gary all the past carebear cuddliness didnt pay off as you can see. Still need to be more harsher on them lol
Shadowtalis

Subscribers are annoyed because they know the difference between an expansion and a content patch.

And let’s not forget… The entire reason TOR is in this mess is because most of the people who purchased it didn’t think it was *worth* subscribing to. EA/BW should be falling over themselves to cater to the paying customers.

Otherwise it’s only a matter of time before this game crashes and burns.
dysfxal

“Ripping through the content” (of Makeb) if a toon happens to be particularly geared, i.e in campaign or dreadguard gear seems like a complete non-issue for me at least. ToR is the only MMO that I have played in which I’ve rolled alts that didn’t feel like a numbing grind. So in my particular case, though my main is bis dreadguard gear and would/should have a buttery path through Makeb, MY 11 ALTS will eventually likely have a bit more of a challenge for them as they eventually progress through with recruit PvP gear on.

With my alts I level through their story lines, but spend most of the leveling experience in lowbie WZs. My buddy meanwhile, as a current progression raider in WoW, is busy grinding pets from “pet battles” (out of sheer boredom I imagine) as well as doing punishingly mind-numbing dailies to stay as relevant as possible to bis while progressing. He has yet to roll another toon through Pandaria given the grindy, annoying nature of leveling in WoW. Of course, neither he nor I have wasted anymore time in GW2 or Rift for a lack of any meaningful vertical progression (in the case of GW2) or difficult-to-pinpoint lameness (in the case of Rift).

I feel that criticisms of EA in general are justified, but through Bioware’s creation, they have a legitimately solid game on their hands.

$10 is nothing for a planet I’ll likely run through a total of twelve times within the next couple of years, whether or not it’s called an expansion makes no difference to me.
ToR, while flawed and associated with EA, is the only MMO on the market I find worth spending my time in.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/KI7Q7KTG4XGQQ2NOM7N4IMFAIM Rae
  
  there are 2 storylines.
  I’m not about to run those more than twice, unless it’s really good,
  and not buggy, either.
  
  Which is more than unfortunate, for us with multiple alts.
http://twitter.com/Cpt_Badger Cpt.Badger

What on earth are you wearing Gary ?
- Depravity
  
  I’ve been saying it for ages. He’s a modern day Jedi. Those robes are some serious Corellia shit.
Sulac0

20$ if only… its 25$+ if you live in Denmark -.-

I dare to think what the Aussies must pay : (

WTF is wrong with some mmo developers today? why are some customers treated like second rated gamers ?

So listen up single minded mmo developers, look at Trion they get how things should be!!

And you guys are so right WTF is up with EA/Bioware and not being able to buy the “expansion” for CC…
- http://www.facebook.com/lord.ashar Lord Steve ‘Ashar’ Spain
  
  Aussies paying less atm, as the Australian $ is worth more than the US $. What I am more interested is the $ for content worth, and ti seems on that basis this “expansions” is just a rip off. Look at the competition, that is the basis for which this should be understood. Look at Rift is the expansion three times the content of swtor, hell yes! Indeed this is when you start understanding how much these controlling companies do not understand rewarding loyalty.
http://twitter.com/Deadalon Deadalon

The real issue here is that Bioware doesn’t even have a content in this “expansion” for 5 lvls. The story has been done long time ago and had nothing to do with 5 lvls. Sounds to me its just gonna be endless grind for F2P to force them to sub after they spent 20$.
dysfxal

If it works out that way, sounds perfect. Subbing will be the best thing F2Pers will do in the new year, ’cause they’ll be stripped of their shackles to WoW, Rift, or the free, albeit time leech, that is GW2.

p.s.- Makeb is new content Deadalon.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Miguel-Crespo/501398647 Miguel Crespo

Bioware needs to pull a SE and come out and say “Sorry but we failed” and rebuild swtor from the ground up
- David Alcon
  
  Bioware would never admit failure.
  - http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=747725054 Carlos Navarretti
    
    It’s not about admiting failure I believe. These things cost millions of dollars from investors. They want their money back and in light of the game not making that much money they wouldn’t invest MORE into it. So Bioware has no choice but try to make due with what they have.
    - http://www.facebook.com/lord.ashar Lord Steve ‘Ashar’ Spain
      
      @Carlos – I believe what you are discussing has been shown to be wrong, possibly on the site (ie Where is the money made/spent in a MMO). Investment return (or not) is largely made in the initial sales etc. Moreso, between development phases is cream/gravy. That the company failed to understand their market is compounded by the stupidity of trying to get the consumer base to pay for that failure.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1209653272 Robin Gort

It’s about the same value as any DLC, price-proportional… Not that I’m a fan of that nickle-and-diming scheme.
http://www.facebook.com/marco.antelope Marco Antelope

Wow, Justin has now drank way, way too much of the ole EA kool aid.

GW not in the same league? Well, i suppose that’s correct but to say that GW2 offers LESS that what you get from SWTOR is just plain insane. No, the are not in the same league…not even close, swtor does not even come close to the value for you dollar that GW2 is right now. This is coming from someone who does NOT play GW2 either, but my eyes are not clouded by blind fanticism.

This “expansion” is a joke and nothing more than a money grab that does nothing but push former subscribers like myself further and further away from wanting to come back.
- David Alcon
  
  To be fair, GW2 is not some holy grail of gaming. I got bored with it after a few months and could not even bring myself to get a single character to 80. The PvP got dull after a few weeks as well, which is sad considering I bought that game primarily for its PvP. As a story, the 2-characters with splash art talking to one another with terrible dialogue does not compare to SWTor. So, I can see Justin’s point. That being said, I think the SWTOR team just keeps making bad decision after bad decision.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/2ONNJ6IC42YKDOZ7EPLBSW7P7A Kim
    
    GW2 is a AAA MMO in the best quality,,player numbers prove that
    SWTOR is a buggy relic in comparison,,they had to go F2P to get ANY
    new players,,let see how long they can survive on that model
    i think they will close it before next christmas,,,or put it on total
    maintenance like warhammer
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Alex-Mac/777995513 Alex Mac
      
      I don’t explore the game world any more at 80 in GW2 and I don’t level alts, that’s for sure. The only thing that gets me in Guild Wars 2 in WvW. Not even the holiday events do as much for my interest in GW2 than the fact that WvW is fun. Imperfect as heck but fun.
  - Jant0n
    
    I agree it’s not a holy grail, no game ever will be; I also agree with the story comments. I can’t really comment on PvP, as I don’t play GW2 for PvP. I believe the main point of what Marco Antelope was saying is that the amount of content offered is much higher in GW2, with a good release schedule since the game launched. In comparison SW: TOR has had more infrequent updates and only recently has been o getting out content on a regular basis; the only reason they can do this, in my opinion, is because of the long period without new content and because they are breaking up what used to be one patch into two or three patches now.
- http://www.facebook.com/eric.mcindoo Eric McIndoo
  
  For me and many others, the lack of instanced multi-group raiding is a major problem. SWTOR does have raiding. This makes SWTOR the better value by far, at least for those who want to raid. At the same time, for those who don’t like raiding GW2 is probably the better deal.
- http://darthhater.com/ Justin Lowe
  
  The wording “in the same league” was probably not the best choice of words which I later clarified. Just meant that they’re not structurally the same so to compare the two games is a little unfair.
http://twitter.com/Sh1ngara Sh1ngara

I totally agree with gary, this is bullshit. Hickman is cash grabbing as much as possible and i wouldnt be shocked if its cos disney are looking at an mmo on there own terms.
http://www.facebook.com/UfunkAlpha Uriah Funk

You never got any of those previous content updates for “free” you paid your sub. I stopped buying into the “subs pay to keep the servers running” along time ago. People need to stop swallowing everything they are spoonfed.
http://twitter.com/Khelendross Chris Black

The amount of content they have announced THUS FAR (it important to emphasize this) is about a tenth of the content fielded from Storm Legion and Pandaria. I didn’t pay for Storm Legion btw, as a subscriber I got it for free. On top of that its 10 bucks a month for me to sub. Pandaria for example you got a massive amount of space at a fairly high cost of course but also alot of raid and dungeon content. But to bring up GW2 you get content equal or more to what they have announced THUS FAR in GW2 every month! I think this would all be a non issue if they weren’t gouging the existing subs. Cause frankly if the game was F2P I think 20 bucks would be fine. Its the 10 dollar cost to the already dwindling sub base that makes me cringe.
Jant0n

“When you are six hours into playing Battlefield and you run out of ammo
in your clip and we ask you for a dollar to reload, you’re really not
that price sensitive at that point in time,” he stated.

So essentially what ends up happening, and the reason the play-first,
pay-later model works nicely, is a consumer gets engaged in a property.
They may spend ten, twenty, thirty, fifty hours in a game. And then,
when they’re deep into a game, they’re well invested in it.

At that point in time the commitment can be pretty high. It’s a great
model and it represents a substantially better future for the industry.” ~ EA’s CEO John Riccitiello
theunwarshed

the two biggest issues with this “expansion” are that they are charging subs for the content and not allowing them to use their cartel coins for it. everyone in the industry plays the word game these days (BW has been especially notorious for it imo), but it should really be called “DLC” like their DA game’s additional content-a minor marketing gaff to go along with all their other embarrassing BW/EA-speak.
http://www.facebook.com/tudor.simu.9 Tudor Simu

The fact you guys even discuss if the game is going to allow leveling past 50 without the DLC/Digital Expansion/w/e you want to call it is making me yell at you guys: ARE YOU F**IN SERIOUS? It’s a vertical MMO with end-game progression. I can’t even imagine being able to level to 55 without it. At least argue about the right things. This is beyond ridiculous now. You should look at some of the less known “F2P” MMos out there. This kind of “digital expansion” pack payment plan already exists in several games. And seriously.. stop comparing the various MMOs between them when they have close to nothing in common. “Professionalism” at its finest, typical journalism burning stuff up for the ratings. I’m truly disappointed in you guys. Especially Garry. You stopped “talking” to the smart people, the ones that truly understand these things, and are doing exactly the same thing you are criticizing, bleeding views by any means through dodgy titles and lots of drama.
InvaderMig

Half way through the show and decided to go on the TOR forums and the thread from last weeks show and this weeks show are on the front page and hot topics of discussion. I don’t play anymore, but glad to see the show is still going strong, and hope it will continue on. With the dumb crap EAware keeps doing, seems like there will be lots more to face palm about until it finally circles the drain. Love you guys.
http://twitter.com/Stone_LX9 Stone LX9

John Riccitiello needs to be fired.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Alex-Mac/777995513 Alex Mac

Depends on the true scope of the content. Gary’s indignation would be more acceptable if the price was not a pittance. As it stands, he honestly would be better served no having this show. Does he play? Does he care about the game? Is the show even entertaining? Dead Horse took a new meaning months ago with this man. Just give it up already. Do us all the favor.
- InvaderMig
  
  Do yourself a favor and stop watching. People still enjoy the show and people still watch. Until that is no longer true, there is no reason to stop making a show. It doesn’t matter how little you think the price is, it’s complete and utter bullshit to not allow subs to use their coins to get this content. How about you do everyone a favor and stop being a Biodrone.
- Jant0n
  
  “It is basically the biggest non-expansion pack piece of content that, I think, any online game has ever released at one time. It is a whole planet. I never heard of that being released, um, except in something like an expansion pack. It shows how much we really care about giving our fans what they have been asking for.” ~ James Ohlen at E3 2012
  
  It is the fact that they relabeled something even the developers don’t consider an expansion pack just to make a quick buck that is upsetting people.
http://www.facebook.com/nathan.anglin Nathan Anglin

Man Gary I love just the raw truth and emotion. I would love to see more meltdowns! Alot of times things are sugar coated, its great to just call it.. bullshit! It seems like there is a curse on Star Wars MMOs… They both turned into total money grabs and threw the fans to the curb.
http://profile.yahoo.com/KI7Q7KTG4XGQQ2NOM7N4IMFAIM Rae

You cannot buy this “new content” with cartel coins because the investors are getting a little more than “nervous”.

My heart goes out to the devs that poured their heart and soul and sweat into this world, only to be thwarted by Greed, and it’s ugly brother, Fear.
- http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.hornsby.7 Jonathan Hornsby
  
  You mean the devs that were told to “just make WoW with star wars characters”, yes? I don’t think anyone involved were in this to make a great original game.
Joseph Legemah

lol, one little planet(zone) for extra? i bet by the time it comes out tsw and gw2 will have each added more than one explorable area for no charge. level cap is nothing if it doesn’t come along with at least 100 hours of new content like normal mmo expansions….
http://www.facebook.com/people/Shawn-Hargrave/100003202374593 Shawn Hargrave

there is a 3rd solution projectswg and the swg emu’s seriously if more people supported the emu’s and disney got on board we could have the ultimate star wars mmo i.e swg sandbox with questing and atmospheric flight and creature handler and more. Seriously google swg atmospheric flight (gb wont let me link in here) And screw tors secret space project when you can laready have REAL star wars free roam space right now this minute in the projectswg and the emu’s.

Look it up people swg atmospheric flight projectswg is looking to put this in the game.

The only people who dislike the show are carebears still clinging on to hope EA will take their heads out of the sand. Ea was voted number 1 worst company in america for a reason. Im glad to see a real show about the truth of a game rather then everythings fine here people move along lol
http://www.facebook.com/people/Robert-Caliolo/100003765889295 Robert Caliolo

If you are going to call this an expansion I would have expected a couple completely new playable species to have been created. Duros and maybe Rodian even.Torgruta not just a planet. Especially since it has been a year now. All that said $10/20 for the amount of the content sounds ok for the value.
integerx

What people should be wondering is if there will ever be a true expansion.
http://www.facebook.com/tudor.simu.9 Tudor Simu

i was refering to the smart people WATCHING these shows…
I guess this is the moment we try to figure out if you’re included or not.
You even failed to read the forbes news you linked. Even the writter says he doesn’t think EA is the worst company but instead the most hated. And that’s a WHOLE different story.
You really are making a case for my point. This used to be a show for smart people or at least generally older in nature, that played games and were shunned before it became all mainstream and “cool” but still focusing on the titles that are “in” now. However it seems to have slowly turning into a typical TV series selling fiasco and drama for subs.
It’s kind of like your link.. I can’t say what they are doing is “bad” as that’s what Media generally does these days, but i sure as hell HATE the path they’re are going on.
- Key Foster
  
  1000% agree. I was basically going to type the same thing lol.

The Republic Ep118: Gannon Meltdown

Legendary Ep126:
Raiding Ra-Den Revelations!

GuildCast Ep71:
Blue Flowers

After Dark Ep32:
Could Bolvar “Lich King” Fordragon Return?

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