Star Wars: The Old Republic - Currency Caps
This post is a public service announcement. One that I’m making because of a lesson I learned the hard way. I am talking specifically about the two currency caps as they currently stand in the MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic. I’m sure many long term players will be aware of the current status quo. However, there may be many others who are not. If I can stop someone from making the same mistake that I made, so much the better. I would also like to highlight how developer’s BioWare has done very little to address these in-game issues. When using a vendor in SWTOR, if you are approaching the currency cap, you do get a message in the chat window. If you are not aware of the currency cap, or do not see the message and you’re moving Credits between characters then there is scope for problems. There should be a far more clear in-game alert.
Free-to-Play and Preferred Players (those who have previously subscribed then cancelled or bought Cartel Coins) have a Credit cap of 1 million Credits. Anything you earn over that is held in Escrow. This is pretty much standard practice for most MMORPGs. The important factor here is that there is an Escrow facility, so that surplus Credits are not lost. However, a subscribing player can hold a maximum of 4,294,000,000 Credits in their inventory. If a player is selling items or moving Credits between characters by in-game mail, then they need to be aware of this cap. Once you have hit the currency cap, if you open an in-game mail and remove any attached Credits, they will be deleted. There is not any form of Escrow in this case. I was not aware of this and opened several mails recently, transferring the Credits directly to my character’s inventory. I ended up deleting a substantial amount of Credits, much to my annoyance.
According to a discussion on the SWTOR forums, this issue stems directly from the way the game was written in 2010. “It is a programming limit. The highest possible number in a 32 bit integer is 2^32-1 = 4,294,967,295”. I’m quoting here as this is not my field of expertise, however, I have no reason to doubt this explanation. I’m sure this limitation was perfectly reasonable when the game launched over a decade ago. Inflation is always an issue with MMO economies and you only have to look at prices of high end gear or cosmetic items on the Galactic Trade Network (the auction house) to see how costs have spiralled. Hence, it is not unusual that dedicated players of SWTOR have substantial amounts of Credits that they’ve built up over the years through trading and speculating. In the meantime, it is unlikely that BioWare is going to address this issue, which raises the question as to whether there’s a workaround?
Legacy Stronghold Storage that players have in their Stronghold does not have the same limitations as the player inventory. Through reading the SWTOR subreddit, it would appear that the Legacy Stronghold Storage is “likely a 64 bit float, so it can hold ridiculous numbers but starts rounding down the lowest digits once you're past 15 zeroes”. Hence players who wish to store more than 4,294,000,000 Credits, need to transfer them from their inventory to their Legacy Stronghold Storage in suitably sized increments. For convenience it may be wise to place one’s mailbox close to the Legacy Stronghold Storage in your Stronghold. Although it can store larger sums, this doesn’t address the practicalities involved in moving around Credits, nor the trading of items with a price over the Credit cap. High value items have to be sold face-to-face and payment made in multiple parts. Again, BioWare and the game does little to appraise the player of these restrictions, so be aware and act with caution.
