TOR SWTOR Update 2.1: Customizations

The Cathar are coming!

http://www.gamingface.com/interview...e-cathar-player-race-with-patch-2-1-in-swtor/



1) General Info

• Unlockable via the cartel market for cartel coins (600 cartel coins - although species/race change is another 800 CC ). You can convert either an existing character or reroll a new character.
• Unlock is account wide rather than just legacy wide (i.e. applied to all servers, all your legacies)
• Available to all eight classes (both factions)
• Both male and female
• Cool new fur patterns, new hair styles
• Great social emote for your Cathar pride
• Trooper companion Aric Jordan will be have his appearance adjusted to bring him inline with the new Cathar models. He will be utilizing the new fur technology and better reflect how Cathars will look.

2) Album showing off the Cathar models: http://imgur.com/a/BRCgD

Armor Dyes and Appearance Kiosks!



http://dulfy.net/2013/04/26/swtor-armor-dyes-and-appearance-designer-kiosk-details/

The TL;DR version:

Appearance Designer Kiosk

• Allow you to change your hairstyle, your haircolor, eyecolor, species, scars, tattoos
• Cartel coins only but there is a permanent discount on all appearance designer kiosk options for subscribers – up to 50% on a lot of options such as species change.
• Charging on a per slider basis – if you just want to change your eye color for example, you can just jump in, change it right away and just get charged for that.

Armor dyes

• Two portions of your gear are dyeable: primary color and secondary color (i.e. for Havoc squad armor, white would be primary color and orange would be the secondary color).
• Dye modules come in primary only, secondary only, and primary & secondary mixed.
• You will see them in the cartel market for direct purchase, in future packs (i.e. contraband packs and beyond), a certain amount of colors are available through crafting (no details on the crew skills involved but you can RE them), and some unique colors from the security key and Collector’s Edition vendors. Expect more colors to be added in the coming months.

 

Well there is one way to sum up this update: Blatant Cash Grab

The Cartel system isn't a bad idea. But when it becomes the sole source to acquire features, something is wrong. In order for the game to be successful, it also needs a decent in game economy. But the Cartel system has systematically reduced the need for crafting. Lower demand = lower supply and just like a real world economy, it suffers.

Worse, the Cartel system has devalued the in game currency. This update made that crystal clear as changing one's appearance can only be done via Cartel coins. And if you as subscriber don't have enough (and unless you haven't used any since it started, there's no way you do), you're pretty much paying to change your appearance. Other MMOs allow you to change your appearance at the cost of in game currency. Here, you are paying real currency for these modifications which can range from minor (beard, hair style and color, armor dye) to major (species change). It's a bit annoying really. Afterall, I spent some credits to unlock the Chiss species for all characters in my legacy, but if I wanted to change my current character to chiss, that's 700 cartel coins. And if I then want to change the hair, face, beard, eye etc. It can be close to 800 credits. So that's about $10 to change my appearance. Why would I want to do that. Also, if you want to unlock the Cathar species, that's 600 cartel coins. So almost another $10 for that given you can only buy a certain amount of cartel coins.

Apparently "credits will do fine" doesn't work on EA either.