The link says it all, be sure to read the last paragraph of the dev response.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5985167#edit5985167

Yep, in game now and it even says it in the reputation information for the faction. It also has a 36k weekly cap, so they are encouraging people to really spend all their money. *facepalm*

The important question is whether the stuff you can get is cool or as pointless as the SX/Voss stuff.

It's their way of rewarding people who spend a lot of money on Cartel Packs. Most complains about CM are they usually get only useless craps out of the pack,and this is to give them something useful.

Yea...."useful"....all the stuff you can get from the vendors is cosmetic stuff that was originally sold on the cartel market itself. The only new things are some okay looking armor, an eyepatch, a crown-thing, and a cool looking Aratech speeder, but nothing NEARLY worth the amount of money that would be neccesary to get the required rank of reputation.

Lyra wrote:

Yea...."useful"....all the stuff you can get from the vendors is cosmetic stuff that was originally sold on the cartel market itself. The only new things are some okay looking armor, an eyepatch, a crown-thing, and a cool looking Aratech speeder, but nothing NEARLY worth the amount of money that would be neccesary to get the required rank of reputation.

People buy packs to get the new items in the packs , the rep shops are just an extra nice thing that BW added for those who have bad luck with cartel packs like "Oh,you bought our packs and got nothing? Here are some tokens,you can use it and buy some cool items in the rep vendor". Rarely anyone would spend money and buy packs to only get a certain rank of reputation.
It is just an extra benefit on top of having a chance to get cool items for cartel packs.

Shinjiro wrote:

Lyra wrote:

Yea...."useful"....all the stuff you can get from the vendors is cosmetic stuff that was originally sold on the cartel market itself. The only new things are some okay looking armor, an eyepatch, a crown-thing, and a cool looking Aratech speeder, but nothing NEARLY worth the amount of money that would be neccesary to get the required rank of reputation.

People buy packs to get the new items in the packs , the rep shops are just an extra nice thing that BW added for those who have bad luck with cartel packs like "Oh,you bought our packs and got nothing? Here are some tokens,you can use it and buy some cool items in the rep vendor". Rarely anyone would spend money and buy packs to only get a certain rank of reputation.
It is just an extra benefit on top of having a chance to get cool items for cartel packs.

Believe me, I fully understand the point of the new rep shops. I realize that it is just a little extra something to benefit people who already spend money in the cartel market. The problem is, the majority of the items on the vendors is just stuff that people could have already bought from the shop by this point, or gotten through just buying them with in game credits anyway, without have to spend extra real money. There is very little on the vendors that was aquired through the packs themselves, so even people who had bad luck with the packs really aren't getting a full consolation in that respect.

Also, it requires you to buy the new packs to be able to get the reputation required to even get the vendor items. So they are are saying, "Oh, you spent all that money already? Well here is your reward: spend even MORE money and get some items that you could have bought for less by just buying them outright previously instead of getting packs now!"

I bought a new pack with some leftover cartel coin grant. I got one blue rep item, which is 630 rep. Provided that you are given one rep item in a pack (probably blue or purple with the more expensive pack), that would mean to buy the actual new stuff that is sold on the vendors, you have to spend a ludicrous amount of money on cartel packs just to even have access to these items. I realize it is something that is built over time, a reward for buying multiple packs over time, but it is still not a reward that is nearly worth the amount of real world currency that is required.

Shinjiro wrote:

Lyra wrote:

Believe me, I fully understand the point of the new rep shops. I realize that it is just a little extra something to benefit people who already spend money in the cartel market. The problem is, the majority of the items on the vendors is just stuff that people could have already bought from the shop by this point, or gotten through just buying them with in game credits anyway, without have to spend extra real money. There is very little on the vendors that was aquired through the packs themselves, so even people who had bad luck with the packs really aren't getting a full consolation in that respect.

*People who buy Cartel Packs usually don't have many in game credits.(whoever has the time to do daily + stuffs for credits wouldn't spend a lot of money on Cartel Packs)
*They could have already bought the items but the shop provides a cheaper price and they can also have a need for more of them for alts.(especially stuffs like Revan's mask if they didn't get it yet)

Also, it requires you to buy the new packs to be able to get the reputation required to even get the vendor items. So they are are saying, "Oh, you spent all that money already? Well here is your reward: spend even MORE money and get some items that you could have bought for less by just buying them outright previously instead of getting packs now!"

*Can't buy any things outright if they have bad luck , GTN is not an option if they don't have enough credits.

I bought a new pack with some leftover cartel coin grant. I got one blue rep item, which is 630 rep. Provided that you are given one rep item in a pack (probably blue or purple with the more expensive pack), that would mean to buy the actual new stuff that is sold on the vendors, you have to spend a ludicrous amount of money on cartel packs just to even have access to these items. I realize it is something that is built over time, a reward for buying multiple packs over time, but it is still not a reward that is nearly worth the amount of real world currency that is required.

*The 70-80% part of the rewards for buying the packs are in the cartel pack itself , so you're looking at 30% of the money compared to the reward from the rep vendor.

I still stand by my personal viewpoint that the amount of real money required to obtain some of the items far outweighs their value. Maybe people who can whitfully throw around hundreds of dollars see otherwise, but I personally cannot justify it, and believe that it is completely irrational.