We don't know what Anthem is. Not to mention, it's gameplay is nothing like Destiny. It's more similar to Mass Effect Andromeda. Secondly, I seriously doubt Lucasfilm has that much oversight on SWTOR. It's not canon anymore and they likely don't care very much about this game. It's the new games that fit into the new canon that are bogged down in development because of Lucasfilm. Visceral's Ragtag game was scrapped largely because Lucasfilm was so slow to approve everything related to the game. I think the problem is more so a lack of budget, resources, and man power. BioWare Austin has been seeing its staff shrink consistently since the game launched. What is left is likely no more than a skeleton crew just trying to keep the lights on. The only facet of the game that continues to get "content" is the Cartel Market, as that's all EA really cares about anyway. We'll see what this alleged "expansion" will bring whenever its announced, but I wouldn't be surprised if this MMO is nearing its inevitable demise. Lucasfilm would likely prefer a new MMO that fits into the new canon anyway.

If you've been following his remarks rather consistently in this thread, he only cares about raids and nothing else. No, I don't believe SWTOR would ever be successful solely catering to that play style. Why? Largely because most of those players left years ago and woulldn't come back for scraps. This game needs to focus on what it does well, not what it does poorly. Truth be told, if all I cared about was raiding, I wouldn't be playing SWTOR. I'm not sure why some alleged raiders here are still begging for that content when it hasn't been good or frequent for years.

Truth be told, MMOs have been dying, as we know them, for a very long time. While a lot love to claim they are all about "group content," that's not really the case anymore. That's how MMOs started out 20+ years ago, but the genre has become far more solo-friendly and accessible over time. In Star Wars Galaxies, there was no such thing as "solo play." If you did not group, you could not play the game. That is not the case for SWTOR, as the game, even at launch, was built around a solo experience. The group content was optional. The biggest mistake BioWare could ever make is isolating solo players and only appealing to group players, and this is coming from someone who loves to PvP most of the time. I'd wager the amount of solo players from SWTOR far outpaces the amount of group players by miles, and that's the trend this genre has been moving towards for the last 15 years. The reality is this game is far more likely to succeed catering to the solo experience than trying to appeal to group players, whether it's a new raid, a new flashpoint, or a new warzone. As you said, especially regarding raiding, it's a huge time sink that not everybody has time to commit to or is willing. That makes solo play, in many cases, far more desirable. That's not to say that further group content should be eradicated, although I think raids should be cut for practical reasons, but the focus should always be on the solo experience. When most gamers think about what SWTOR did well, it's the class stories that come to mind. It's not the raids. It's not the dungeons. It's certainly not the PvP. It's a no-brainer what BioWare should invest in if they want this game to remain relevant.

Technically, Karagga's Palace was released at launch (Bonethrasher was available, but he was broken). The rest of the bosses to complete the raid did come in January. Either way, you are spot on that there are a lot of inconsistencies in his/her dates regarding content releases. We can only speculate based on ex-BioWare employee actions and the direction the game took. Since there was a mass exodus of employees and the studio made a pivot to story, that would lead one to believe SOR did not meet financial expectations. If I had to guess, considering it was also the largest expansion and the longest one in development, it was BioWare's last chance from EA to finally release a successful expansion. It under-performed, and EA forcibly turned the game's direction into something else. I didn't personally care for the expansion myself, so it doesn't really surprise me others share my views on that. The lesser of the two evils, in my opinion, is 16 story chapters, mission alerts, star fortress, and don't forget the one wz map and arena map. Not being able to release a full op in one year is unacceptable. Dailies, in my opinion, are a waste of resources. Flashpoints are only worth developing if they are good, and we haven't had a good, new flashpoint in a while. Some might argue otherwise, but I felt KOTFE's post-release content strategy was far better than what we are receiving with KOTET's post-release content strategy.

Yep. Something has definitely changed, and we are purposely being left in the dark. Quite a lot, actually. As I've stated several times already, we've had an expansion release on an annual basis since 2012. We also knew many months ahead of time before a new expansion released. This is why it's unlikely that a new expansion is coming Spring 2018, as some are hopelessly praying for. There just doesn't seem to be any cohesive plan for this game, and we've never had this kind of drought in the six years this game has been online. Something is definitely different.

Most of that is for this year. The scraps are for "early 2018," as I already pointed out. I'm talking about beyond what the road map obviously already illustrated. We don't know anything, other than empty promises that BioWare has made. Again, until we actually know more than what's coming in the next few months, this game looks "dead" from a development standpoint.

Incorrect. KOTFE concluded in August of 2016. KOTFE launched in October 27, 2015. In other words, Gabe left the studio a few months before the studio's pivot to story, which they had been obviously working on KOTFE for many months before its release and Gabe's departure. As someone else had indicated earlier, there was a massive exodus of BioWare staff after the lackluster showing of SOR. EA pivoted SWTOR to focus more on the Cartel Market, and a lot of BioWare employees left as a result. This would lead one to believe that any sort of endgame team was likely dead shortly after SOR's release. That might also explain why the two operations for SOR were in such pitiful shape as well. For whatever reason, Gabe stuck around, even well into KOTFE's development. He probably assisted with the Odessen WZ, the Rishi arena, and perhaps Star Fortresses and the Eternal Championship. Outside of that, he left (or was removed) shortly before KOTFE released.

I see that quite a few posters are getting hung up on semantics of defining "death" for this game, so I'll make it very simple. MMOs are a living, breathing service. In order for an MMO to continue to thrive and progress, it must continue to be updated and receive content. An MMO that stagnates content-wise, even if it is not shut down, is as good as "dead" from a development standpoint in most cases. No, I'm not counting updates with re-used assets on the Cartel Market as "content." The reason this thread was created, and the questions I was posing, is whether this game has a legitimate future regarding content updates. Next to nothing has been confirmed for early 2018, and there is no official confirmation of an expansion. This is rather troubling, as we've had an expansion on an annual basis since 2012. Until we actually know that a "6.0" really exists, this does look like a "dead" MMO in terms of development.

SWTOR's direction is like a candle in the wind. It's unpredictable and it sways one way and then back the other. It's a game with a constant identity crisis, and because it refuses to commit to anything it fails at everything. There was a strong pivot to endgame group content with ROTHC and SOR, which backfired. Then there was a strong pivot to KOTFE and initially KOTET, which seems to have backfired. Then again, KOTET hasn't really produced much of anything, so it's difficult to really know what's going on at the studio. Perhaps its just internal politics, studio turmoil, and publisher pressure that's causing this stagnancy that we are all feeling. We'll never be able to know the full story, because BioWare and EA don't want us to know. If we truly had a sense of what the future of this game looked like, it would make it far easier for all of us to determine whether to remained subscribed or not. Instead, it's far more lucrative for EA to keep us in the dark and to nickel and dime as much as they can until they cut the power. That's not to say that amazing won't come at some point in 2018, but I doubt we'll see it in the next six months at this point. We are being hopeful and optimistic about a Spring 2018 release date for a potential new expansion, but history has shown BioWare generally only releases expansions in the fall. I also would expect BioWare to market an expansion either at E3 (June 2018) or whenever the next Star Wars Celebration is held. To my knowledge, none of these expansions have just released without a big ramp up in marketing to advertise and promote the game. This is why a Spring 2018 release, especially since we still haven't heard anything, seems like a long shot at this point.

I discredited you regarding what, exactly? If you are referring to Visceral's game, we don't know how that's going to turn out. It's too early to tell and that game has been indefinitely pushed back from being released. That's true, although it won't necessarily protect SWTOR from an untimely fate. Especially if Anthem ends up being a huge success next year, EA might just pull the plug on SWTOR and expect most to either play Star Wars: Battlefront II or Anthem until potentially the Visceral game is released. This is of course assuming the Visceral game is going to be the kind of experience that could, in theory, replace SWTOR.

This is a really good post, and it doesn't just apply to raiders either, but also PvPers. BioWare has never truly cared. Lazy and uninspiring raid design that pales in comparison to other MMOs. Horrible instanced PvP with terrible class balance, not to mention the removal of open world PvP on Ilum and 8v8 ranked. Lets not forget "resolve," the dumbest CC immunity mechanic in an MMO that has never worked well. BioWare attempted to cater to raiders and PvPers because they felt they had to. WoW tried to cater to everybody, so SWTOR had to do the same if it was going to be a "WoW killer." But the truth is, raiding and PvP was never BioWare's concern. In fact, BioWare had nothing to do with either. They brought in the endgame content team from Mythic to handle operations and PvP. BioWare did what they knew: story. In hindsight, it really shouldn't be too surprising why things turned out the way they did. BioWare wanted to make a theme park MMO, but they weren't truly committed to making a good one. They thought they could just focus on story, and the Mythic guys would handle everything else. Too bad Mythic hadn't made a competent MMO since DAoC released in 2001. Now we find ourselves in a situation where barely any content is being added for anyone. Raiders won't be pleased even when this raid is complete. PvPers have been begging for class balancing for over a year... What does BioWare focus on? "Galactic Command" and now server merges, which aren't going to help things anyway (most players transferred off of dead servers years ago). I don't believe BioWare is truly capable of supporting an MMO, because they've never had to actually bother until now. Maybe the illusive "6.0" will just blow us all away, but I doubt it. BioWare is riding this project out until EA shuts it down and replaces it with something else. I won't be surprised if BioWare Austin is shut down in a year or so with EA only keeping BioWare Edmonton afloat for Anthem. If that game tanks, then I think BioWare may be going the way of Visceral, and that will truly be a sad day for all BioWare fans in the world.

He was arguing that because so many characters did not have player ships, that meant that most players at launch apparently didn't go through the class story. That somehow translates to them not caring about story and only caring about endgame. Of course, if he was actually there at launch, he'd know the class story was the only decent way to actually level your character. Not to mention the fact that this statistics sheet was created in 2014, three years after the game had been launched and after it went F2P... In other words, it means nothing and was a pointless attempt at trying to say "everybody left because of no raids."

Assuming it's not shut down. It wouldn't surprise me if EA was planning on replacing SWTOR at some point. Not necessarily with another WoW clone, but "games as a service." Destiny 2, and games similar to it, are the current trend. With what just happened to Visceral Games and its Star Wars game, I won't be surprised if SWTOR is shut down in favor of something like that.

That's possible, although it's too early to tell. I'm sure Amy Hennig is not happy either way. This game was essentially supposed to be Uncharted, but Star Wars. Who knows what it's going to turn into now.

No. This won't be an MMO. It probably just means it won't be focused on the scoundrel main character that was leaked, and they'll make it a more general and broad Star Wars experience. That's definitely a bummer. Visceral was one of my favorite studios.

I think my point flew over your head. What I am suggesting is most F2P players did not complete the story, let alone get to the second planet. I know from personal experience a friend that I suggested try out the game. He barely got off Tython before quitting. Your assumption is that these stats are supposed to somehow reflect that most players at launch ignored the story, proving your point that players left because of "a lack of endgame content." I am providing further context by explaining why these stats do not help your argument that most players at launch ignored the story. Going through the story was the fastest and most efficient way to get to level 50 at launch. Anybody that was "rushing to the end" was going through the story.

Forgive me for pointing out the obvious, but there's one thing horribly deficient about your "data." That statistics chart was created in November 2014. Why is that significant? That means it takes into consideration all of the F2P accounts that were created and discarded just to try out the game since September 2012. Why does that matter? Considering plenty tried out the game to see if they'd like it or not, of course most of those accounts never finished their second planet. In other words, your "evidence" is worthless. We'd need actual statistics from only the first three months of the game's existence to truly tabulate what players were consuming and what they weren't. Given that going through the story was the fastest way to level 50, it's a given that's how most people played the game. So yes, many people left because the story they went through had ended.

Speculation and unsubstantiated conclusions. 70% of the player base left because they exhausted the story and more wasn't coming anytime soon. I'll certainly agree that some left because of a "lack of endgame," but you are foolish to believe most, or all, left because of not having enough operations. I was here at launch. I talked to many players on my server. They wanted their class stories to continue. When they realized BioWare had no plans to add more story content in the immediate future, they bailed. While I'm sure TFA built awareness and interest, it's silly for you to try and equate that film's popularity to propping up SWTOR. Not all Star Wars fans play video games, for one. Not to mention, Star Wars Battlefront (2015) likely benefited more from TFA than KOTFE did. Rogue One was also a huge financial success (earning a billion dollars worldwide) and that did not help KOTET to succeed. The reality is many were interested in the pivot back to story, which is why they returned. Once that story was exhausted, and given how poorly the monthly chapters were handled, folks bailed again. There is one simple explanation to take away from all of this. When this game focuses on story and does it well, it succeeds. When it tries to ignore story in favor of more traditional MMO tropes, it suffers. We have enough evidence from this game's six years of existence to reach this conclusion.

Perhaps you don't remember how dead half the servers were prior to KOTFE, but it was really bad. I've had characters on every single North American server. POT5 was dead long before KOTFE even launched. That was also the case for various other servers. KOTFE actually revived some of these servers for a time, but those numbers quickly dropped back to pre-KOTFE numbers after players exhausted the story content. Again, enough with the revisionist history. ROTHC and SOR were both jumbled messes. Sure, they added plenty of new group content. Most of it wasn't memorable and often times BioWare just further simplified and streamlined a game that did not need it. I didn't like ROTHC at all and SOR completely butchered my favorite Star Wars character. Not to mention, the fps, operations, and dailies were all bad. I prefer quality over quantity any day of the week, and quality was lacking in those two expansions. KOTFE was a soft reboot for the SWTOR brand. It was a way of enticing old players to return and tell them "we stopped with that group content nonsense and made story like you've wanted for years." It was incredibly successful for its first month or so. It led to the highest concurrent subscribers in any of the expansions. Unfortunately, BioWare did not thoroughly plan how the expansion would play out for the proceeding year. As with all expansions, there will be an inevitable drop off. Bad pacing in the monthly chapters, and not the structure itself, led to some folks losing interest. Not to mention, the fact that one could just wait for all the chapters to release and sub at the end also harmed subscription numbers. The subscriber rewards weren't enticing enough, although the HK Bonus Chapter was excellent. I don't disagree that GC certainly is not helping things. However, the focus on group content has amounted to nothing and this game is far more dead than it's ever been before. No, you can't blame story as the cause for this. It's clear story was the only thing keeping this game active since KOTFE.

No. He's wrong. If ROTHC and SOR were the huge financial successes some are claiming they were, the pivot to a focus on cash shop would never have been needed. That approach to expansions wasn't working, which is why EA forced BioWare's hand. The folks that left due to outrage had no one to blame but themselves. They did not deliver. EA took matters into their own hands. That's business. Again, enough with the revisionist history.

I understand your point about unsubscribing if one is bored. I've done so several times with this game in the past. My point is this game has never had a content drought this severe or this long in its six years of existence. I'm glad you can find ways of occupying yourself with the content that currently exists. Unfortunately, it's all largely years old content and things a large portion of the player base has done several times over. Agreed. I enjoyed doing the DvL event, even though it was all content I had already done before. Regardless, it did give the impression that something large and incredible was coming around the corner. That obviously did not happen. If BioWare was ever dumb enough to redo the DvL event and make CR 300 a requirement for all eight base classes, I'd permanently unsubscribe and never look back.

Semantics. This game encourages players to replay through the same content we've had access to for years (some of it almost six years old). Perhaps you weren't around for the DvL event, but the entire point of the event (I received Legendary Victor status) was to replay through most of the content in the game. That means all the class stories, KOTFE, all the flashpoints, some of the raids, crews skills, wzs, gsf, sh, you've got the picture. Considering I have been playing since closed beta, have 30+ characters that are mostly max level, and have done virtually all the content this game has to offer, I mean it when I say there is "nothing to do." This game is suffering a content drought worse than it ever has before. It's a serious problem, and one that I hope BioWare fully acknowledges. Folks, like myself, aren't complaining just for the sake of complaining.

I know a lot love to be nostalgic for the "good old days" and believe ROTHC and SOR were so wonderful, but ultimately this comes down to numbers and player retention. BioWare tried for two years to do the traditional MMO-style expansion. It did not work. Whatever revisionist history you want to use or explanation you try to create to explain why it would have worked, it did not. KOTFE only happened because ROTHC and SOR did not work. It was meant as a soft reboot for a game that had been losing subscribers consistently for years. As far as how successful (or not) the monthly chapters were, we don't know. What was abundantly clear is that a very vocal minority, especially in the developer live streams, would consistently spam Ben, Eric, and Charles with messages to bring back group content and get rid of story. Just to placate these players, I think that's why KOTET was ultimately created. The story folks got their nine chapters at the beginning, just like KOTFE. The group content folks got their content for the rest of the year, which was not the case in KOTFE. It was an attempt at appeasing two different demographics, and it failed miserably. Story folks got bored because there was nothing to look forward to, and group content folks got bored because they are receiving scraps and those scraps aren't even that great. Where should BioWare go from here? Considering how successful KOTFE was initially (far more successful than any of the other expansions), I think that would be a good place to start. As far as what they try to accomplish for the rest of the following year (monthly chapters or otherwise), they need to figure out a way to incentive players sticking around. This "group content" pivot in KOTET did not work. The game is far more dead now than it has ever been before. It's a serious problem that I hope BioWare addresses with the rumored "6.0," but it's difficult to determine what they'll do given how they tend to have commitment issues.

Agreed. It really doesn't matter whether you are on The Harbinger or Prophecy of the Five. There is nothing to do, thus many players will leave regardless. You need more than an active server to keep the game interesting.

*SPOILER WARNING* You may or may not know this, but all of those characters you just listed can die due to player choices in KOTFE or KOTET. Not to mention, Kaliyo is heterosexual due to the Imperial Agent class story limitations. As a result, none of them will actually be capable of being legitimate romance options going forward. The moment any companion can potentially die, they are automatically irrelevant in the future.