There is no reasonable end-game.
To tell your player base to get 1 character to 50 and then have them roll characters over and over again is NOT the reason why people play mmo's. Who ever told you that should be fired or be taken off of whatever friends list you had them on.
No matter how many ways a person can play the game, they all have the same out-come. Give the player a reason to get to 50 and continue with that character to make that character feel important in the game world. Right now all people do is follow the story as fast as they can hit the space bar. very few people will actually play through on 4+ toons to 50 and stay with the game.
I know you are tracking everything all characters do and yes I might be ranting a little. But If Bioware wants to make an amazing MMO that stays thru the test of time then the first thing you have to do is not reinvent the wheel.
Story is awesome - and I'll give you 2 examples
#1 Grand Theft Auto ( the whole series )
It's a pretty big game that keeps a very narrow path but gives the gamer the ability to explore at will anywhere in the world they want. For them the issue is that the game world (npc's and environment) will not start events without the player creating them from the current available mission(s). They made an improvement on this by adding multiplayer game modes and types that brought others together that liked the ipo as well.
So you have a pre arranged story with no options going from point a to b with no other opportunity for any changes. yet there is growth in both single player and in multiplayer for areas to expand upon even now. Several expansions later in less than 3 years and they have a huge following of millions.
#2 Skyrim (Bethesda)
Quite possibly one of the greatest gaming stories to date in my opinion. They give you a single character to then create your very own adventure with. --Do you remember the adventure books from the 70's and 80's?... maybe not you might be too young.
I can take my one character and go on a huge adventure randomly going hunting for 60 hours of game play if I wanted. Why? Because its available for the player as an option. I could follow the entire story line and beat the game and be done or stop half way through and literally go do whatever I want (almost) and still have total control over my characters and the game.
I use these two games as examples for you only because they are staples in the gaming industry as successful games for their genre. No they are NOT mmo's . That may make you say "well then why bring them up?" They sell and are still selling and will continue to sell and keep their players coming back for more.
SWToR as a whole is an adventure book gone horribly wrong. I make one character and then all of a sudden my character hits 50, completes all available content and then I am told as a player that in order to see additional progression I need to pop out a couple kids and get more toons to 50. The idea of game progression stopped the second my character hit 50. Yes I made allot of other toons to many other levels. And not once did I ever feel like my "family" was doing anything other than creating body heat for the other players on the freezing cold and bland space stations.
After my first character hit level 50 the entire adventure of this game was lost. There is not viable reason for me to continue playing this game when there is no body or feeling to the content.
Throughout the development of this game I spoke Biowares praises to the masses. I brought in over 50 subscriptions. everything from family members to co-workers. Now that they have all seen what SWToR is really like and had the opportunity to get to 50 and try to continue, there is only ONE left. At that the last time he was online was 15 days ago.
anyway. I love bioware and I love Lucas Arts (except those a-holes from Sony who joined the team YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) there are some things you don't mess with. And trying to change something that is already so popular with so many millions of people is a very hard thing to do. In my opinion this game was done wrong in many ways.
I have high hopes for the future but I don't see a good outcome unless something is changed very fast. You can't tell me that you guys are happy with only 1.2 million subs. I know it's a profit but even rift has higher numbers
