Well, the Prequel time period suffered from the same thing that all of Star Wars suffered from. A character based story set in a universe that is nebulously painted in broad strokes for characters who are the focus. It got the heavy 'extended universe' treatment with books and games and cartoons because it was the biggest deal in Star Wars at the time. So the Prequel period is (like all Star Wars) defined and fleshed out by the Canon and Non-Canon, which can be at total odds with each other.

Diminish? No. Sign a death warrant? Yes. Remember, when Old Republic came out, the only place you were going to have a coherent and uncluttered narrative for Star Wars was in the Old Republic time period. Prequels were a mess of cannon and non-cannon, after Return of the Jedi things get messly and of widely varied quality fast. There was no way to make any kind of grand story in either period that EA/Bioware could write and maintain and keep a fanbase as diverse as the one for Star Wars happy. We see a lot of arguments about what's cannon, what's not cannon and just what the extended universe should be. A lot of people love it, a lot of people hate it. It's a minefield that Bioware wouldn't have wanted to wade into with LucasArts, especially since they probably couldn't even count on LucasArts to give them a coherent idea of what's going on at any period with Lucas's constant 'revisions'. So they went with an MMO in the most open period of time, a few thousand years before the movies ever happened. Galaxies was already around, but it was on the severe downswing, so they had a wide open playground, especially with the popularity of KotoR which was probably the biggest thing to happen in Star Wars gaming. So Bioware went with their MMO because things were simply locked down, there weren't going to be any stories past Return of the Jedi that Lucas would consider Canon, so what was the point of trying to come up with an MMO for there, the original trilogy felt stale and old and probably didn't fit the demographics for some cubicle jockey at EA, and the Prequels weren't popular enough with fans to warrant that big a commitment. Now...well, now Disney has major plans for a Star Wars universe that's post Return of the Jedi. We've got a Trilogy coming out, along with individual films based around characters coming out for years, and EA has a game licence for a decade. That covers the Trilogy probably. The Star Wars universe has been opened up and all the mess from the Extended universe got pruned away for Disney to create events and stories how they want to. So the utility of Old Republic existing in a relatively clean slate has vanished. Now it's hanging around, a remnant of the Extended universe. We've had conversations on here about EA giving up on Old Republic, but maybe it's the other way around? Disney wants to get rid of something that's a decent but not exceptional game, because the need for it has passed, they want to make their own MMO set post RotJ to capitalize on the momentum that the films are going to create, but EA sank a lot of money into the Old Republic project with Bioware and they want to continue with the returns they've probably planned on having for multiple years. Perhaps it's Disney pushing for all the reductions we're seeing as a concession to EA. Basically "Fine, you can keep it for x number of years, but we want to see progress on the following..." So no, it's not diminished Old Republic because the two have nothing in common really, but the Force Awakens has instead completely eliminated the need for it.

I'm in favor of that, I've heard people talking about how they were supposed to be having you do multiple Companion missions when the game was first starting out. But Bioware never did that for unknown reasons. I've run a Flashpoint with my Companion and the Droid, so they've already done it. IT seems the most elegant solution to the whole fiasco especially if the difficulty stays the same and the rewards for players drop depending on the number of companions. That way the 'playing for self worth' crowd gets their bragging rights and the easier 'playing for escapism' crowd get's their easy runs with fun times. Everybody wins by using something that Bioware already has you doing in Flashpoints.

Or...maybe let us bring more than one companion along that's a little more fleshed out that "pick one of these three options!". You want a 'challenge' with your Lvl 65 character with max influence and a full assemblage of abilities...go for it. But those characters without the edge of having every ability unlocked and a massive amount of money/data crystals/ cartel points dumped into companion gifts and max level gear, they could still run around and access a fair amount of the content. More companions means a lower reward for the Heroic or Flashpoint, but if you're not able to do the thing because you're not running a maxed out character, it's better than nothing. But it would let you play the game as a 'casual for fun' or a 'hardcore for pride' player.

I'm not gonna flame, but I had fun with this game for the first time since I started for the past couple weeks! I re-subscribed less than a month ago because I wanted to give the game a try since I cancelled my subscription and stopped playing back before the Strongholds expansion came out. Old Republic was my first (and ONLY) MMO. Never played any others, and I'm probably what you'd consider a casual, back when the game first started there was enough language going about that I had no F'ing clue what it was, so I didn't want to party up with anyone because they knew what they were doing and I was at best dead weight. So I slogged along with little quests and the storyline, trying to claw my way up in levels so I could do my own quest line. The game was slow, grinding and even having companions didn't help (no healer companion, good luck!) back then. Imagine my surprise when I break down and re-subscribe after hearing about Bioware's 'Re-focus on story', that's why I play Bioware games! It's why I played Old Republic back when it first came out! I was ecstatic. I come back and suddenly companions are excellent to have! They work great! You can do Heroic quests and feel like someone who's...you know... ...HEROIC... Now they nerf it and castrate everything that makes me excited to play, everything that I had FUN with. It's a grind again, it's just a slog to try and level and do something that's moderately challenging, but fun in the end. So congratulations Bioware! You fooled me again! Take my money, then leave me disappointed. Bravo.

Well, I'll throw in with an odd perspective. I stopped playing SWTOR back before the introduction of Strongholds. I just couldn't keep up with the game and felt like things just weren't engrossing and kinda felt like it was a grind, exactly what I didn't want to do in a game. I canceled my subscription and tried now and again at various times to play in the FtP mode, but with so much common stuff locked behind a pay wall, it just wasn't fun. I broke down about a month ago and resubscribed to bring back my characters since the new storyline seemed interesting and I was told that 'now your companions are stronger' and 'Bioware really moved back to storytelling'. And I'll be honest, after muddling through the changes, and finding everything different I was a bit taken aback, but I did find something to be excellent; The Companions. I could do Flashpoints and Heroics with just my companion set as a healer, and it felt wonderful! I was having fun with the game that I hadn't had before. Now the companions get nerfed with this new patch and now I'm working on trying to play heroics that I was working through fairly respectably, but now I'm getting slaughtered. I read a lot of comments that just say 'do the story mode' and that's a ludicrous concept, you want me to pay for a game that I can only play a fraction of? Now all of a sudden, the game that I come back to find extremely enjoyable has suddenly become that grind again that has a massive amount of content leveled out of my reach without trying to group up with random strangers who are running around. Lovely design choice there guys, now I'm thinking of canceling my subscription again because if I want to play an aggravating game, I'll fire up Dwarf Fortress, because at least that gives me enjoyment and massive open world storytelling with the aggravating grind.