Been buying quite a few packs and items lately and it's not been a smooth experience.

Was wondering whether I was the only on.

Things that hindered the will to buy more:

• Inventory management
  
• Locked items
  
• GTN duration
  

First I don't know how people can buy the 24 packs crates at all. Those simply don't fit in my inventory, especially unpacking them.

I considered buying a couple of the late hypercrates but hell... Just considering the mess a few crates already creates I can't imagine going through that with 24*6+ items.

Now after buying a few crates and unpacking them, I'm being stuck with items staying both my inventory, or already quite full banks tabs, this for as long as it takes for them to be unlocked.

Now say I got a shiny item... can't pass it to an alt. it's not like I paid for that, with real money, yeah sure....

Finally I was tempted to make a few creds out of items I got from the packs themselves: what a pain...

Did I say I had to wait for the timer to cool down yet, having the items sitting in the inventory or bank?

Then most the items link parsing for searching current price on the market doesn't work because the search doesn't work when you have 1 or 2 single letter in the name of the items.

Might not be an issue in English as you rarely get a "a" or "of" but I assure you in French most of the names have "de" "du" "la" in them.

Exemple: Pack Forteresse de gardien de la porte

So it's shift click, find out search is grayed out, look out for the parsed name to clean it from single letters or 2 letters or ":"..

Adding to the already annoying broken search function not only the search field doesn't display the full names, as too small, but you can't CTRL) + (Left/Right arrow) to move to next words.

So it's click, click click till you find the correct position and delete the letters.

Then we can't use wildcards either for searches

Now say I posted the right item with a price looking good versus others vendors I might consider me happy...

There comes a guy who bought a gazillion of same items and not only undercut everyone (fair enough) but also post like 10 of the item you where trying to sell...

So bit later on the item comes back in the mail not more than 2 days later, unsold.

Then you got dozens of items in your email and you're going to need to go through all the search, name editing and posting again, one item at a time.

As it's easy to criticize, here's what would have made way smoother experience and made me willing to buy more packs.

• Until unlocked (CD) all items are stored in a proprietary storage, same would go for further on opened armor crates (or better remove the CD altogether)
  
• At any time a player can click on any locked item to redeem it to his current character (vs the one who bought the crate)
  
• Players can post an item for as long as 7 days
  
• Reposting an item keeps the last posted price.
  
• A check box is added to automatically undercut the cheapest price by a player chosen %
  
• Stock piles prices can be set by unit price and the stack price is calculated automatically
  
• Search now either automatically removes tags that aren't accepted or now accept them
  
• You can use wildcards in search
  
• (Optional) There's now a real Auction House system with bidding, and buyout price
  
• (edit) Directly display the 3d items of gear/decos in CM instead of having to always click preview
  

Seems fine the way it is IMO... In fact it is better than other games AH. But maybe that's just me,

Which tells me that the other games suck too...

This isn't rocket science, it just isn't the core game function and hasn't really been touched much in a long time.

Unit prices were added, but otherwise it is about how it always has been.

Now say I got a shiny item... can't pass it to an alt. it's not like I paid for that, with real money, yeah sure....

Are you complaining that you cannot pass it to an alt immediately? Because you can pass it to an alt as soon as the temporary bind timer expires.

Some good points and suggestions from the OP here, many things that also bother me ( though not a lot ) one MAJOR pet peeve is the 1-2 character limit of a word in a string phrase. This is a bug that should get fixed ( anything with the word 'of' for example ). If I remember for once I may raise a bug report for it. Basically as the whole string isn't ONLY 1 or 2 characters then it should be fine.

As for the under cutting well it is what it is, market dictates this.

Are you complaining that you cannot pass it to an alt immediately? Because you can pass it to an alt as soon as the temporary bind timer expires.

Exactly, not to mention you can even Sell the item on the market, other then EQ with Krono, and wowzers with one cosmetic pet . It's kind of an amazing thing even with a timer....

Seems fine the way it is IMO... In fact it is better than other games AH. But maybe that's just me,

Fair enough!

Just wondering how many crates do you usually buy at the same time?

I mean maybe not an hassle with one or two crates in the pipe but more gets annoying if not bit tedious IMO.

Fair enough!

 

Just wondering how many crates do you usually buy at the same time?

 

I mean maybe not an hassle with one or two crates in the pipe but more gets annoying if not bit tedious IMO.

Hmm well I get a discount on CC not sure how many others do....

But I can get about 6 a day so... It would fill 5 cargo bays, but I usually trash the pet gifts

Prior to purchasing a Hypercrate, I have to prepare my inventory.

If my intention is to open them, it means emptying it entirely into my bank.

After opening, I move what I can (Jawa Junk) to alt's and then wait out the timers. Because of this wait time, I'll typically open Hypercrates on characters I'm not actively playing at the moment.

If anything, CM sales hurt game design in that we get less and less 'playing the game' content and more recolored items or armor ripped from KOTOR stuffed in boxes filled with lots of worthless junk.

I certainly don't want Bioware spending a bunch of resources to update the game just to support more CM crap.

BTW - I think the timer is to help with their fraud prevention so someone doesn't use a bunch of stolen CCs to buy packs, convert to credits, and sell credits for RL cash.

It would be nice if the bound timer was attached to legacy - that way you could still pass stuff to your alts.

And improvements to the GTN interface or having actual auctions would be nice, as would anything that would globally improve inventory management.

Absolutely agree with a lot of OP's ideas w/ respect to the GTN interface. Being able to set your price either via total price or via unit price, having the search function just ignore words of less than three characters (rather than it blocking the search) and enabling wildcards would all be welcome tweaks. Having a longer maximum length for posting items would also be nice, especially since a lot of players may not sign on every 48 hours.

While I think the "automatic undercut" button smacks of a bit too much handholding IMO, that's a person preference, and I wouldn't be outraged or anything if it were implemented.

The "Proprietary Storage" idea sounds like a good idea to me, although I wonder how much 'under the hood' work implementing something like that would take.

However, I don't think the GTN needs to be reworked into an Auction House rather than the straightforward market setup we have now - I think that current fundamental design works well as-is.

However, I don't think the GTN needs to be reworked into an Auction House rather than the straightforward market setup we have now - I think that current fundamental design works well as-is.

I'm torn on the AH. It might lead to really nasty prices although with it people could set up low starting prices for items they want to get rid and see how it goes.

For example I was lucky to get a Razalon FC-1 out of a pack and been unable to sell it for quite a long time

I know I would have gotten a fair price out of it with an auction and made a player happy as there are like 1 to 5 up on the GTN at a time but no more.

Then there are stuff that would sell but not with a fixed price as people keep undercutting others and mass posting.

With an AH those stuff would sell as people would base their buying for cheap item on the ending time too.

Now you'd have to keep posting again and again and keep being undercut making it tedious for everyone.

I'm torn on the AH. It might lead to really nasty prices although with it people could set up low starting prices for items they want to get rid and see how it goes.

 

For example I was lucky to get a Razalon FC-1 out of a pack and been unable to sell it for quite a long time

I know I would have gotten a fair price out of it with an auction and made a player happy as there are like 1 to 5 up on the GTN at a time but no more.

 

Then there are stuff that would sell but not with a fixed price as people keep undercutting others and mass posting.

With an AH those stuff would sell as people would base their buying for cheap item on the ending time too.

 

Now you'd have to keep posting again and again and keep being undercut making it tedious for everyone.

Well instead of a timer on items the could set a timer on the GTN and to let it be competitive have no buy out and no max bid... But allow a threshold price that "you" think the item(s) are worth. Also have it tradable between characters on your legacy. But to stop mass trade Chanel flood only way to transfer to others is by timed mail OR GTN, just an idea ...

Well instead of a timer on items the could set a timer on the GTN and to let it be competitive have no buy out and no max bid... But allow a threshold price that "you" think the item(s) are worth. Also have it tradable between characters on your legacy. But to stop mass trade Chanel flood only way to transfer to others is by timed mail OR GTN, just an idea ...

You're thinking eBay

Not sure for the threshold if it's invisible for others as it might annoy people finding out they lost a bid because it was too low vs the threshold when they might have it from someone else instead.

You're thinking eBay

 

Not sure for the threshold if it's invisible for others as it might annoy people finding out they lost a bid because it was too low vs the threshold when they might have it from someone else instead.

And what's wrong with eBay?

If we're going to have a CM, why not go ahead and have an auction house in addition to the GTN?

I think that allowing the temp-bound XP boosts to be stackable alone would go a long way towards helping CM inventory management without negating the reasons why the bound timers exist. Say a hypercrate and a few miscellaneous packs purchased from leftover coins drop 5 each of 7 kinds of XP/social boosts. What's the harm of allowing the opening character to condense them into 5 inventory slots rather than bloating it up to 35, if the entire stack remains bound for the duration of the timer?

If merging timers is the issue, just have the merged stack use the longest bind timer from the items that were merged (so if you merge a just opened XP boost into a boost that was only bound for 18 more hours, it would reset to the full day and a half).

And what's wrong with eBay?

 

If we're going to have a CM, why not go ahead and have an auction house in addition to the GTN?

Nothing, until i get sniped by the last second bid.

Nothing, until i get sniped by the last second bid.

Just like on eBay, bid what you're willing to pay. If you win, great. If not, then you didn't want it that much.

I never understood people who bid and bid and bid on eBay. What is the point? Bid what you want to pay and move on.

I think that allowing the temp-bound XP boosts to be stackable alone would go a long way towards helping CM inventory management without negating the reasons why the bound timers exist. Say a hypercrate and a few miscellaneous packs purchased from leftover coins drop 5 each of 7 kinds of XP/social boosts. What's the harm of allowing the opening character to condense them into 5 inventory slots rather than bloating it up to 35, if the entire stack remains bound for the duration of the timer?

 

If merging timers is the issue, just have the merged stack use the longest bind timer from the items that were merged (so if you merge a just opened XP boost into a boost that was only bound for 18 more hours, it would reset to the full day and a half).

Only the general minor and major XP boosts have bind timers, the GSF and space and WZ and FP boosts have no bind timers. Neither do companion gifts and a few other items.

I can easily buy 24 packs since I don't clutter my cargo hold with useless items on my main.

I have two full bays of empty space.

And my Inventory is empty too.

A full 24 pack usually doesn't fill up that space.

Not to mention that alot of the filler stuff is sellable immediately (like xp boosts and gifts), so that doesn't have to take up any space at all.

As for whining about having to wait 1½ days to pass on a "shiny" item to an alt, I'd just say you need to grow some patience.

There are almost no items that have a 1 or 2 letter word in them. I've encountered it twice so far since the cartel packs started.

And it's as easy as shift-clicking the item and then clicking next to that word and pressing delete. You make it sound like you have to randomly click until you find the right place.

It's not like it's a long and ardeous process to remove the word. You're just being lazy.

The majority of the items you get from cartel packs have an extremely low posting fee, so if someone posts 10 items with a lower price then yours, just remove your item and list it for 1 credit lower than him.

Or, again, grow some patience.

It seems to me that most of your whini... eeh... complaints, are about you being lazy and wanting everything handed to you on a platter.

Honestly, if it's too bothersome for you to click in the right place on a series of words, you might want to look to yourself for the source of the problem.

Only the general minor and major XP boosts have bind timers, the GSF and space and WZ and FP boosts have no bind timers. Neither do companion gifts and a few other items.

I do remember opening a hypercrate and getting 8 of the minors, that must be why the issue stuck out so much to me. That's almost a full row just for the damn XP boosts...

I do remember opening a hypercrate and getting 8 of the minors, that must be why the issue stuck out so much to me. That's almost a full row just for the damn XP boosts...

Those GSF/Class/Exploration/space boosts have become so utterly worthless that I just delete them on sight. It's time for Bioware to seriously re-examine that particular item roll slot. Instead of XP, how about reputation/comms/credits/mount speed buffs?

I can easily buy 24 packs since I don't clutter my cargo hold with useless items on my main.

Sorry man, but this is not possible for many of us.

A raiding main gets a lot of 180-186 gear drops, which are far from useless. That character's gear has to be thoroughly optimized for the exact best combination of stats, often in more than one set.

This leaves a lot of loose item modifications, that are needed for alts, companions, alts' companions, upcoming alts being leveled.

Just active inventory takes up about 1 cargo bay. It's a pain to recalculate itemization on every relevant alt every time you get a couple drops, so a passive inventory builds up for another half a bay.

A main will always craft, and it takes a minimum of one bay to keep every relevant mat. More now with conquests, but fortunately there's a legacy storage for multi-skill mats.

Miscellaneous items - stims and adrenals, crafted stuff, cartel shells and mounts, packs themselves, reputation tokens saved up for next weeks - take between half a bay and a full bay.

You need to clear up the inventory before opening packs, taking another half a bay. This realistically leaves about 1-1.5 bays that a raiding, crafting, PvPing, GTN trading main can spare to fill up without risk of ending up stuffed.

Oh, and that's using guild bank (XP boosts, companion gifts, mats from old packs aren't bound, so go there) and mailbox (not claiming expired listings or purchased items until needed) as additional storage.

The only way to get more that I see involves immediately putting loose modifications below 186 into temporary legacy gear and mailing it to bank alts, but that ends up incurring additional considerable costs of pulling them more times than needed (for a full set that's half a million down the drain).

Either that... or raiding less and crafting less.

What I end up doing in practice is instead open hypercrates on a fresh level 1 bank alt, teleported into a stronghold to use his cargo bays, leaving me to wait 1.5 days before I can use any stuff that's not legacy-wide on any real character. Can live with that, but it's still stupid.

I know a few guys in my guild who are hardcore collectors when it comes to the collections screen. Every time a new CM pack releases they all buy a certain number of Hypercrates, and then shop the GTN to fill in the gaps after they have traded between each other to fill out the collections as much as possible.

Anyways, I once asked them how they managed to do this in regards to their available inventory space. What they explained is that they are equipping the items one at a time until they unlock the set or individual item in collections, then they destroy the item so that it doesn't take up any inventory space. When they want to use it later, they pull a copy of it out of their collection.

The small items like XP boosts and such they all just donate to the guild bank in a tab that anyone in the guild can withdraw from. Reputation items are consumed until they are at max rep, then those go in the guild bank as well. The bits of junk that are traded to the Jawa vendors they use to buy crafting mats and make war supplies for conquest points.

They said it can be a bit tedious at times, and it does take at least 1 or 2 empty cargo hold tabs to hold the items while they are trading with other to fill in gaps for the things they didn't pull out of a pack, but at the end of the process they usually have just as much inventory space left as they did when they started.