It's not statements like that that caused BioWare to change direction (again), after kotfe - it was several reasons, not the least of which people weren't buying (figuratively and literally) into the corridor grindfest and monthly bug filled playsessions. They have had plenty of time to write satisfactory returns for each and every companion, so there is absolutely no reason to believe what we would have gotten had they continued on would have been any better. The fact that one of the most obvious and necessary choices for the interaction with Ashara is missing is proof of point. I came to this game because of the names associated with the project (EA notwithstanding), and stayed because of the stories and leveling content. The stuff we got with 4.0 and beyond was utter tripe.

I didn't quit specifically because of the change in direction, there were several other factors that made me unsubscribe and stop playing the game, including the fact that the story that did come along was complete garbage - and I enjoyed this game the most for the story and leveling portion of the game prior to 4.0. However, I did have a PM conversation with Keith a while ago and he indicated that playing through kotfe and kotet would not be required for any future story content. But he did make it sound like there would be pre-set choices made for your character in future story content, much like the insta-level tokens do, which I'm not to happy about as I would rather these two expansions have zero influence on my character in future content.

Unfortunately, the corner was written into when they decided to go the route of the boorish "Keeping up with the Valkorians". A distinctly un-Star Wars side trip story. Anything that comes afterward now is going to be unsatisfactory because of this. The only way out is to retcon the last two expansions and remove any influence the story had between 3.0 and 6.0.

That is equally as good as my Dallas Dream Season idea. I give it a +1

You can thank EA's influence for that. Short term solutions for short term financial goals. There are two methods of monetizing a F2P game - the Playercentric method and the Companycentric method. The Playercentric method operates under the assumption that if a game provides an enjoyable enough playing experience, then players will be willing to spend additional funds to enhance that experience. The Companycentric method operates under the assumption that players won't pay any additional funds in a game unless they are forced to in order to enjoy the experience. It's not hard to figure out which method EA has always focused on.

The reason they did it is twofold: First, they want people to spend as little amount of time in the "free" portion of the game, so they are rushed to max level through vanilla, so they are forced to start paying/subbing to get additional content. Second, by not highlighting the side quests by default, it hides the fact that 4.0 and 5.0 have little in terms of content, and what is there is essentially a shallow grindfest.

Well, now that we are finally ridding ourselves of the yawnfest that is kotfe/kotet, the only way I would even consider touching any content coming afterwards is if this whole garbage fiasco of a story line turns out to be nothing more than a bad dream of our characters and we wake up as if none of it ever happened, a la the Dallas Dream Season.

But look at a couple of examples we do have. An Arcann scene that is horrendous, never mind the fact he never should have been romanceable to begin with, and a scene with Ashara that does not permit for a key and obvious response to her actions. It's like the SWTOR writers were trying to make the story of The Last Jedi not look as bad in comparison.

The same reason that SWG wasn't more popular. The same reason why not one Star Wars game is in the top 10 for all time in terms of profit. Just because someone is a Star Wars fan doesn't mean they are a gamer. And if they are a gamer, it doesn't mean that they will like any of the Star Wars games.

IKR! The end to this nonsense hasn't come soon enough. These last two expansions have been a blight upon this game and some of the worst and most contrived storytelling from BioWare that I have ever seen, and only rivals The Last Jedi in awfulness. The only thing that would be better is them writing in that the whole Eternal Empire garbage was just a bad dream and our characters wake up and it's the next day after the end of the story in 3.0.

That's a crock. Since the inception of this game they have done nothing but make it easier to play solo, and pretty much the entirety of 4.0 and 5.0 were geared towards solo players and content. I'm all for making MMOs more solo friendly, but at the end of the day, this is an MMO, and group content and rewards should always be the main focus if development. I have been, and always will be a single-player gamer at heart, by the way.

/5char Can't put it much better than that

And why is the current sub cost preventing that? There is no reason to think that we would get any more than we are right now with the CM and the subscription than we would with just the CM on it's own. This whole thread makes no sense. If people want a change to the amount of content we get and the quality of said content, then we need to change the development company, not the business model.

Well see, that's the problem. After the vanilla leveling, the story was no longer about our characters but about the story of people and things that BioWare wanted to tell, even if we don't give one whit about them. The interaction with Ashara is the perfect example of what is wrong with all of 4.0 and 5.0.

You see, this debate is exactly why we can't have nice things in games, and why the gaming community still has a negative reputation as a whole with the rest of the world. All this amounts to on both sides of the table is the piddling issue of semantics. You know, the term "entitled" is thrown around a lot on every gaming forum under the sun, but that's all I see here with this debate. Somewhere along the way the gaming community got it in their collective heads that we should be rewarded for spending $15 a month to play a game. Truth of fact is that the only thing we are entitled to is access to the servers to play whatever content that the developers deems to fall under their service. And the developers have every right to change that at will. The problem here is that people think these promotions are about rewarding loyalty. Like I said before, they are not. These are simply methods for the company to meet a certain financial goal. Nothing more and nothing less. Using a bit of logic and common sense, it is perfectly natural for one to operate under the assumption that these two companions were exclusive to the previous promotions and that they would not be offered again. Likewise using a bit of common sense, it's natural to assume that the current promotion is designed to get people not subscribed to the game to pay for a subscription, and for those that are already subs, to continue to subscribe at least until the date for the promotion ends, regardless of the exact wording. That being said, once again the company is free to run this and any future promotion and offering how it deems fit, and we as a gaming community are entitled to nothing more or less than what they offer.

That's not really the case, if the other MMOs who have done something like this are any indication.

Exactly. If you look at the history of this game, all of these rewards were created so that BW could hit a goal in sub numbers for their next fiscal report. It has nothing to do at all with rewarding subs and everything to do with pleasing the EA Overlords. It's just a short term idea to satisfy a short term goal, whereas a proper sub reward system is a long term process that actually rewards support. That is something companies like EA don't understand outside of the long term income they look at for their yearly console sports titles.

This is the problem with any type of limited time only rewards. "Be subscribed on such and such a date" does nothing to reward long term subscribers. It essentially just rewards people for being in the right place at the right time. A true reward is one that would reward you for being a long term supporter, regardless of when that support occurs. Be subbed for 6 contigous months and get this; be subbed for 12 contigous months and get that. Miss a month and start back at square one or even the last tier you qualified for.

And there's your reward. You get to enjoy unrestricted access to the game. Whereas people like me have to unsubscribe and leave our guilds in addition to using the WAM to get anywhere close to the normal leveling curve we had prior to 4.0. Oh yeah, for the record I have both companions and really don't care. I haven't even attempted to unlock them with a token or in the game.

I would be all over that. There should also be no XP events nor Life Day on the server, either. The game was most enjoyable back in the early days without that nonsense.

Nah, I wouldn't do it with joystick support. Mouse and keyboard were fine for me. As others mentioned, it's the current overall design that hurts GSF. The only way I would come back to it is if they made all ships stock models and do away with minmaxing upgrades, and separated the playerbase based on time/skill played, so noobs can only fight against other noobs, and vets would only be matched with and against other vets.

They've been doing it since 4.0, actually. I had hoped Keith would be able to turn things around, but unfortunately too many bad decisions were baked into 4.0 and 5.0, and we lost a year of viable content additions and upgrades to the game because of it.

Ditto. It's time for the referral program to end, I think. It just doesn't work the way a true story referral program should, as I have experienced in other games, and it is just too easy spammed and abused here.

As is saying that the IP is a license to print money in the gaming industry - especially the MMO genre. To use one of the OP's own sources, not one of the top 10 grossing games of all time is a Star Wars game. None of the top 3 are an MMO. WoW launched in 2004, when the genre was still relatively fresh and certainly not at the point of oversaturation, which we have now. The Korean game doesn't appear to be a true MMO, and there is a $4 billion difference between it and 3rd place. Can there be a successful Star Wars MMO? Of course, but it by no means is a guarantee to be more financially viable than what we already have, nor will it compete with WoW in terms of overall popularity and numbers in today's MMO environment. And once again, it will not be released under EA's supervision. We have to wait until another company gets a license.

You do realize that EA bought Bioware in 2007, right? This game was EA/BW from start to finish, practically speaking. As for another SW MMO, it's just not going to happen under EA. The genre doesn't give the ROI that EA is looking for in their current business model. They are all about games as a service, and there's a lot more ROI in the mobile platform and in models similar to Battlefront. The IP is a gold mine in only the right circumstances, let's remember that the only two MMOs to exist with the Star Wars IP fell far short of expectations, let alone printing money. The OP makes several leaps of faith rather than with logic in regards to some of the facts he put out there, and ignores many other mitigating circumstances that would affect this sure bet of a new Star Wars MMO.