Okay... protest after protest, complaint after complaint, cancellation after cancellation and SOE refuses to get it. And this time they have gone too far. I'm talking about loot cards. For years, SOE has told its customers that they do not have an active art team available to work on in-game content for SWG. And yet every few months, SOE's Denver office releases a new set of virtual cards for their online trading card game. Among those cards are the loot cards which grant those who have the good fortune of getting them an actual in-game item that can only be traded if the lucky player would have happened to have BOUGHT the cards. With real money. There are four professions in the game centered around crafting and trading of goods, and for years, they have only gotten a handfull of new items to craft and sell as part of the core game that their players pay $14.99 per month for.

And here's the thing... The in-game art for the TCG loot and the coding needed to make it work is designed by SOE's Austin team... The team that is supposed to be dedicated to the core SWG MMO. And about a year ago, it came out when one of the Denver office people stated on their forums that SOE austin develops the loot item and sends them screenshots, and a loot card is based upon it. Which means that contrary to SOE-Austin's original statement that the TCG is an entirely separate entity that will in no way take development resources from the Austin team, where it matters, it has done exactly that.

What's got my goat is that four of these loot cards grant the player items that can be combined to make an 8-man vehicle. So it's like SOE is saying, "So you crafters want to craft, do you? Well spend your money, by booster packs and you'll have a chance of getting the components you need to do what your character is designed to do."

The really sad thing is that the overall plot of the latest TCG expansion is actually pretty cool. The plots for all of the TCG cardsets are cool. The thing is, if they can come up with cool plots for the TCG sets, complete with awesome art, and even in-game items, then why can't they just release mini-expansions every few months, apply the potential scenarios to the Chronicles system and charge $10 for them, and let anyone who is interested just buy them. This way, the core game maintains primary focus. People have been begging for new expansions for years now. And hey... they can still do the TCG thing.

SOE still just refuses to get it. Most of the people who pay a fee for SWG want to PLAY SWG, not the TCG. And most of the peopel who do buy booster packs and decks do so not because they care about the TCG, but because they want the loot they can use in SWG. I would rather they make the TCG loot items available through an actual microtransaction if it can't come into the game via the crafting system. Anything is better than the gambling method that is in place now.

the TCG and things like the stupid purple ewoks with cupid wings and hearts on their chests are the reasons why I refuse to spend a dime on the game. SOE doesn't take it or its customers seriously, so they do not deserve my money. If SOE cannot find a way to make the core MMO compelling and entertaining on its own merrit, then they need to do one of two things:

1 - Fire their writers and replace them with people who understand Star wars. Heck, there are tons of people in the player community who have put forth some awesome ideas that make use of existing resources that would make SWG awesome, even in its post-NGE state. Hire some of them. Then they can save face by saying that the idea came from SOE employees, and not be upstaged by... eww... CUSTOMERS.

or

2 - Just pull the plug on SWG and let it die. As far as I am concerned, it's on life support laready, and has been that way for some time.

Unfortunately, they will do neither of the above. They'll go on milking the community for every penny they can get for as long as they can, while ignoring the still-very-present potential to make SWG the greatest MMO on the market, in spite of being as old as it is. All it will take is someone new at the helm who will not be afraid to say, "We know we've made some mistakes in the past. But I'm here to put SWG back on track. We're not rolling back to pre-anything, but we're going to take what we have to a whole new level. We know what you as a community want out of the game, and it is our goal to bring itb to you. So that you can finally live the greatest Star wars story ever told... YOURS!" If they would just come out and say this, and actually follow through with it, the constant "SWG is dead" posts will stop. The forums will cease to be verbal war zones, and peoplen will actually spend more time in Rebel vs Imperial battles in the game. And every profession will have a function... And a lot of the peoplen who have abandoned SWG, like me, due to the stupid decisions SOE has made in the past, will return.