If loot crates had existed during SWG....

docminus2

All these discussion about "grind" in context of SW BF2 loot boxes and the pay-to-win made me wonder:
Imagine if loot crates had existed already during SWG days (lets say preNGE, not that it really matters). 
Two scenarios of a) loot-crates having been already then "standard" in the industry or b) introduced as one of the first games having them.
Buying boxes with holocrons.... Or XP boosts.... Or rare crafting materials.
And as the case today, there would have been outrage and some people silently buying it anyway.
Aside from UO, SWG was one of the games with gold-farmers selling for real money. Power-leveling services. Owning multiple accounts... I don't think people were unwilling to pay extra even then. Though one thing would certainly be different. Loot crates are random, compared to the (moral or legality aside) gold-farmers, etc.
Myself, I had three accounts at some point, to play multiple classes. The side-effect was additional in-game resources of course. I have known people with 5 or more accounts. That is not an unsubstantial cost per month.

Would the game still be alive? Would it have died even faster?
How big would the outrage (if any) had been?

Would be fun to hear your opinions!

Iselin

Sounds to me like you're not up on how loot crates work in the MMOs that have them or you wouldn't be comparing them to the extra resource advantage from having multiple accounts and subs.

1. Loot crates give you a lot of useless junk and a very low chance of getting something meaningful.

2. Things that are in loot crates that are also in-game drops have their world drop rate nerfed into a kind of rarity that is never seen in games that don't use loot crates.

Loot crates are not about spending extra money to get a shortcut to game power, wealth or prestige - that's what the regular cash shop is. They are all about a ridiculously low chance to get those things on the cheap with no guarantee whatsoever that if you spend say $25, you'll get the $25 mount other games will sell you straight up.

Loke666

I don't think SWGs problem was the lack of lootboxes.

The game released in terrible shape, it was a bit too hardcore to become truly popular and it screwed over it's playerbase rather badly with the NGE and the paid expansion you only could play for a few days before the entire game suddenly got revamped and the expansion completelly useless.

There is just a limit on how much you can screw your playerbase, and screwing them even more with lootboxes would not have helped. Besides, there is no way SOE could have kept the license for a relatively cheap game ($12M) when EA/Bioware wanted it for a game with at least 10 times that budget.

EA isn't really the sharing kind either, they wanted it exclusive.

It is too bad, many of the mechanics and the community was really good. 

docminus2

Yes, I know how loot boxes work. What you @Iselin are describing is a snap-shot of the most popular games. But that is not the point really. You could of course take the comparison with free to play MMOs and the different models as well, but I purposely focused on loot boxes. 
Just wanted to put a scenario out there, no one knows, can know, will know.

SWGvohplayer

you  could also give https://swghope.com/ a try new server small community. NGE and has a very helpful playerbase that will even get you off you're feet. but im glad loot crates were not present