To all those demanding for more story content...

[Machine-Elf]

As a Marketing Major I can tell you its not MMO trope. Try every other industry in the world as well (Sales, Marketing, Business Development, etc. for any industry)

As someone who flunked out of five different universities, I cannot for the life of me see how the term "horizontal", or "vertical" development would have any kind of practical application in, for instance, the film, music, or high-tech industries. I'm not trying to be cheeky here, I genuinely don't see it, and would love you to illustrate an example.

[annabethchase]

Umm, absolutely more content is the way to go. I've yet to see even a game hindering bug, much less a game breaking one.

[chuixupu]

I've been done with most of the content in this game for some time, so yes, more content. If they fixed every bug in the game, it would just be fixes to things I've already done. I'll deal with the bugs, I need more reasons to log in.

[AsheraII]

...Operations, flashpoints, class missions, etc...

 

I just want to let you know that the more they feed us this stuff, the less liable they are to refine the existing game.

Also, the less likely we are to ever see new classes (Sith Alchemist, Voss, what have you...).

 

So which is it? Perfect what we have currently in place, or demand for more of the same?

I sure HOPE they invest into expanding the existing class stories instead of making entirely new classes. I simply do not see the necessity for creating new classes, while I definitely see the advantages of expanding the existing stories. (for one, it's probably easier to get former players back with a new story for their character, which they can pick up right where they left off instead of starting a character from scratch again).

 

Creating additional Advanced Classes is something I can imagine though. The existing classes do give that room, and storywise, it'll be cheaper to expand the existing 8 stories than writing an entirely new story from scratch AND adjusting all existing world-arcs and flashpoints to fit in the new classes as well. Additional Advanced Classes simply don't have that problem.

[DigitalDreamz]

Their fault not mine. Simple as that.

 

MMOs are a long term investment in both time and resources. Continual support, patching, content, security and gameplay over the course of several years are the nature of MMOs nowadays. They CHOSE to include aspects into their game such as VOs and class stories. To willfully include this into an MMO KNOWING FULL WELL in the future they cannot support it any further than from release is foolish and quite frankly embarrassing for the leadership of this game.

 

What's even more embarrassing and speaks volumes is that what we see now is exactly how Bioware and Electronic Arts wants it! They look at the state of the game and are actually pleased! They laid people off, downsized the staff, went F2P and programmed in a real money cash shop. They know the game has failed even their own expectations. Their trying to milk as much money from their current subscribers as they can before this MMO goes into retirement ala Warhammer Online.

 

EA issued a press release stating that they had high hopes for this title, it's fallen short and so it's been placed behind Tiger Woods Golf on the priority list. Folks, Tiger Woods's last game came out a year and a half ago. Shows how much they care.

 

So the expansion coming up is the biggest and most content you will see for 2013. You'll get nothing else mark my words in terms of progressive content. Bug fixes will be so few and far between unless it applies to the F2P -> subscriber conversion OR if it's to fix the Cartel Market. This is as good as it gets and it's only going to go downhill from here. Remember folks EA is driving this car and they wrecked the last one pretty bad.

Edited January 10, 2013 by DigitalDreamz

[Machine-Elf]

You may be right, but I have see threads asking for more story content, and warzones, and swoop racing, and pazaak, but I don’t remember seeing any asking for new classes (not counting this one). In fact I do remember some threads talk about how some players didn’t want to play a new class and go back through all the planet missions just to see the class story. Now I’m not saying that there is no demand for new classes, I’m just saying that I haven’t seen them.

Use the search function to look for "new classes". There are many, many threads pertaining to this issue.

[Listerman]

...Operations, flashpoints, class missions, etc...

 

I just want to let you know that the more they feed us this stuff, the less liable they are to refine the existing game.

Also, the less likely we are to ever see new classes (Sith Alchemist, Voss, what have you...).

 

So which is it? Perfect what we have currently in place, or demand for more of the same?

 

I won't say no to more polish on what we have. There's so much more they could be doing to make the game we have more enjoyable.

As great as the story stuff is, some times I log in, I don't WANT to do Flashpoints or Operations, or the same Black Hole/Section X dailies.

 

I want Pazaak, I want better sitting animations, I want to go fishing (I know I know), I want ship customization, I want speech bubbles, I want all the things we've been clamboring for, and instead we get more Operations. More Flashpoints. More PvP arenas. I feel there is a demographic of SWTOR players that are direly being ignored.

[Goretzu]

Umm, what we already have failed, and failed hard. Doing more of the same and expecting a different result.... well, there's an old analogy about that.

 

Story content is nice, but has clearly shown it is not a viable alternative to actual MMO gameplay in an MMO game. Move the "story team" back to making officially solo games and hiring people with actual MMO design experience would be the logical path to take.

 

I do think it is a shame they've given up on class based story.

 

It may have been inevitable, but it was SWTORs big strength and it is a shame.

[DataBeaver]

As someone who flunked out of five different universities, I cannot for the life of me see how the term "horizontal", or "vertical" development would have any kind of practical application in, for instance, the film, music, or high-tech industries. I'm not trying to be cheeky here, I genuinely don't see it, and would love you to illustrate an example.

I'm having difficulty applying the concept to film and especially music industries as well. Movie sequels are kind of vertical, except they're often made so they can stand on their own so not really.

 

High tech is a pretty broad term, but let's take a company that makes computers. Horizontal expansion would be introducing new models with different specs, each of which is a product on its own. Vertical expansion would be selling addons to existing products, like memory upgrades or software packs (note that I'm assuming a big brand manufacturer here, not an independent retailer selling generic parts).

 

Many tool and industrial machine manufacturers also offer options to enhance the functionality of their products. These are also vertical expansion.

[_Darkstar]

2 Main voice actors (male and female), 3 dialogue options per dialogue choice x hundres of dialogues (+all the shared quests/flashpoints in the game) + 5 unique companions and their voice actors + dozens of unique NPCs in the story + their voice actors. ( + different languages ex: German )

 

Cutscenes/instances/battles need to be written, designed and created. Fleets/orbital stations/spaceports need new docking bays for each new ship. Starter planets, new animations, new gear, new armor, new weapons

 

I could go on but I am stoppping here...

All of these things get done for the planet quest anyway, which is many times longer than the class quest.

 

The class quests only really need a few voices and some cutscenes.

[Fornix]

As someone who flunked out of five different universities, I cannot for the life of me see how the term "horizontal", or "vertical" development would have any kind of practical application in, for instance, the film, music, or high-tech industries. I'm not trying to be cheeky here, I genuinely don't see it, and would love you to illustrate an example.

 

Well, in high-tech industries for example such as Intel I could imagine they'd use it for their CPU development. With vertical progression for example being pentium 1 --> pentium 2 --> pentium 3 --> pentium 4 --> core2duo --> core2quad --> i3/i5/i7.

 

Whereas more horizontal development could simply be the addition of yet another model within the same line, such as i7-3930, i7-3820, etc.

 

 

I do think it is a shame they've given up on class based story.

 

It may have been inevitable, but it was SWTORs big strength and it is a shame.

 

I think the main problem which they faced is that many players weren't glad with the notion of having to roll alts, as a form to get their additional content.

 

As such, developing more class story chapters is of course a nice addition to the game, however will not deliver the quantity of content players may desire. If after all you only play through 1 of those storylines anyway, 7/8th of the content of each patch would go unplayed by you, and the first complaint given would be how little there was to do.

 

That makes it a much more logical choice to throw out the class specific quests, but rather focus on factional quests (so only half goes to waste) or perhaps even cross-factional quests included (<50% going to waste).

 

That decision will give a much greater bang for buck for the average player.

[AsheraII]

New Base Class

• 2 New class storylines from 1 till cap (2x50 levels = 100 levels of content)
  
• 4 New voice actors for the new base classes
  
• 10 New voice actors for the companions of the new classes
  
• Dozens of voice actors for the storylines of the new classes
  
• Adding new class-areas to existing content in a non-obstrusive way (yes, many in-game areas will require an overhaul!
  
• About a hundred voice actors having to return to say a few words for all the world arcs where players are directly adressed by their class (happens in about every mission chain)
  
• Yet more voice actors having to return to redo flashpoint and operation conversations, since class references exist there as well
  
• Ballancing 10 different classes, or 20 different advanced classes or 60 different talent trees (avarage maintenance!)
  

 

New Advanced Class

• About a 16 voice actors having to return for the overhaul to the "pick your advanced class" missions
  
• Ballancing 8 different classes, or 24 different advanced classes or 72 different talent trees (highest maintenance!)
  

 

New Class-story / levelcap increase

• 8 New class storylines from 50/55 till new cap. (Let's say that takes 10 levels: 8x10 = 80 levels worth of content.)
  
• A few dozen voice actors for the storylines of the new class stories
  
• Ballancing 8 different classes, or 16 different advanced classes or 48 different talent trees (lowest maintenance!)
  

 

Each has its own benefits and drawbacks, but I think it's pretty obvious that additional classes are definitely more expensive than either adding new advanced classes or adding new class stories or raising the level cap. Even the development of those put together is probably cheaper than adding a new baseclass, though the maintenance cost to keep the game ballanced will probably be highest.

[Goretzu]

I think the main problem which they faced is that many players weren't glad with the notion of having to roll alts, as a form to get their additional content.

 

As such, developing more class story chapters is of course a nice addition to the game, however will not deliver the quantity of content players may desire. If after all you only play through 1 of those storylines anyway, 7/8th of the content of each patch would go unplayed by you, and the first complaint given would be how little there was to do.

 

That makes it a much more logical choice to throw out the class specific quests, but rather focus on factional quests (so only half goes to waste) or perhaps even cross-factional quests included (<50% going to waste).

 

That decision will give a much greater bang for buck for the average player.

 

 

No I agree class stories were probably doomed since before release, as wading through the same 80% of content just to experience >20% Class Story content got very, very repetative.

 

But it is still a shame, because it was done well, I think where it was let down was in not being at least 50% of levelling content......... of course that would have made it even more expensive and time consuming to make.

 

But I wonder if maybe they shouldn't have cut down on the class story, to say 2 per faction (Force Users and Non-Forcer users) and upped the % Class Story from there.

[Fornix]

No I agree class stories were probably doomed since before release, as wading through the same 80% of content just to experience >20% Class Story content got very, very repetative.

 

But it is still a shame, because it was done well, I think where it was let down was in not being at least 50% of levelling content......... of course that would have made it even more expensive and time consuming to make.

 

But I wonder if maybe they shouldn't have cut down on the class story, to say 2 per faction (Force Users and Non-Forcer users) and upped the % Class Story from there.

 

Ultimately by making it less class specific, there becomes less reason to do a class specific story. But rather they can stick to a better quality faction specific quest line.

 

We'll have to see what they do with Makeb, but if they play their cards well they could do it in such a way that all of the quest content on that planet, has the same level of quality as the current class specific quests, rather than just the mediocre grind-quests making up the quest hubs.

 

For example recently having done chapter 2 and most of chapter 3 on my imperial agent within two days, after leveling up that character primarily through PvP, it really shows of the quality of the class stories well. Much better than playing it mixed in with all the other quests. In my view, Makeb questing should feel exactly like that.

[aeterno]

I don't think story is what is holding TOR back, in fact I think it's what it's keeping it afloat.

 

By all accounts hard core raiders and pvp-ers moved on. TOR is now the quintessential causal game of people lapping up the story and leveling content.

 

That's about the only thing that it has going for it. The vocal minority on these boards moaning for new elder content isn't really representative.

 

Stuff like Makeb is what lands perfectly for the vast majority of this games demographics but that's just a small tie over. TOR is gonna continue developing all manners of story or it's gonna go bust as soon as the general gamer pool gets done with what vanilla provided.

 

It sure as heck can't stand on the merits of it's pvp or pve endgame and it doesn't look likely it ever will. If it ditches what's keeping the majority of people here ATM to try and do a "NGE" in terms of it's overall focus it could get ugly for them very fast.

 

So I either expect ambitious story expansions (which include continuation of class story or new classes) cos EA/BW realize they gotta spend money to make money OR this game going the way of SWG sooner rather than later.

[Fornix]

By all accounts hard core raiders and pvp-ers moved on.

 

As a raider myself, I definitely do not believe that's entirely true. As on common raiding days it's not unheard of to see for example 15+ instances of TFB or EC, even if only 8 people would be in those instances, we're still talking at least 240 players raiding at prime time on a single server then. As however the number of players in instances goes beyond 8, the true figure will undoubtfully lie even higher.

 

Sure, not all will be hardcore raiders, but there's still quite a number which do. Beyond that, also non-hardcore raiders will still seek new raiding content from time to time.

[Revanchis]

Umm, what we already have failed, and failed hard. Doing more of the same and expecting a different result.... well, there's an old analogy about that.

 

Story content is nice, but has clearly shown it is not a viable alternative to actual MMO gameplay in an MMO game. Move the "story team" back to making officially solo games and hiring people with actual MMO design experience would be the logical path to take.

 

If they do that then the new people they brought to the market will leave. They'll be left with nothing but traditional MMO players, who they'll have to compete with every other MMO for. Being part of that new market, and this being my first MMO, I know I'll leave without more story. Considering the story is the interesting part to this game.

[Terro_Fett]

Well, in high-tech industries for example such as Intel I could imagine they'd use it for their CPU development. With vertical progression for example being pentium 1 --> pentium 2 --> pentium 3 --> pentium 4 --> core2duo --> core2quad --> i3/i5/i7.

 

Whereas more horizontal development could simply be the addition of yet another model within the same line, such as i7-3930, i7-3820, etc.

 

Close but not quite. Say you have CPU's as your primary product line.

 

Vertical progression would be adding the next level of CPU to your product line. Whether those are larger jumps such as going from i3 to i5 to i7, or smaller jumps such as the i7-3820 to i7-3930, it's all vertical.

 

Horizontal would be like adding different types of products such as Motherboards, Servers, etc. These are completely separate and unrelated to your other product line (CPU's). They are additional products that are not progressive with your previous products. They can, in fact, have their own progression (vertical) chain.

 

Taking this back to TOR, adding additional class stories, Ops, etc. would be vertical as they build off an existing system. Adding Pazzak, Swoop Racing, etc, would be Horizontal as they are their own separate entity. These seperate entities might end up having vertical expansions of their own however.

Edited January 10, 2013 by Terro_Fett

[Machine-Elf]

Well, in high-tech industries for example such as Intel I could imagine they'd use it for their CPU development. With vertical progression for example being pentium 1 --> pentium 2 --> pentium 3 --> pentium 4 --> core2duo --> core2quad --> i3/i5/i7.

 

Whereas more horizontal development could simply be the addition of yet another model within the same line, such as i7-3930, i7-3820, etc.

But why would it be termed thusly? I'm sorry, but it still doesn't make any sense to me. Pentium 1, 2, 3, and so on screams of the word "horizontal", a left to right kind of thing (you even used arrows to illustrate the example!).

 

Similarly, improving the same product line has vertical connotations for me: like stacking building blocks atop each other without changing the foundation.

Edited January 10, 2013 by Machine-Elf

[Goretzu]

Ultimately by making it less class specific, there becomes less reason to do a class specific story. But rather they can stick to a better quality faction specific quest line.

 

We'll have to see what they do with Makeb, but if they play their cards well they could do it in such a way that all of the quest content on that planet, has the same level of quality as the current class specific quests, rather than just the mediocre grind-quests making up the quest hubs.

 

For example recently having done chapter 2 and most of chapter 3 on my imperial agent within two days, after leveling up that character primarily through PvP, it really shows of the quality of the class stories well. Much better than playing it mixed in with all the other quests. In my view, Makeb questing should feel exactly like that.

 

 

Planet story is fine, however it means that the SAME CONTENT IS ALWAYS EXACTLY THE SAME with each character run though. Which gets old quickly.

 

The only saving grace of content from L1 to L50 is the 8 seperate class stories.

Edited January 11, 2013 by Goretzu

[_Darkstar]

As a raider myself, I definitely do not believe that's entirely true. As on common raiding days it's not unheard of to see for example 15+ instances of TFB or EC, even if only 8 people would be in those instances, we're still talking at least 240 players raiding at prime time on a single server then. As however the number of players in instances goes beyond 8, the true figure will undoubtfully lie even higher.

 

Sure, not all will be hardcore raiders, but there's still quite a number which do. Beyond that, also non-hardcore raiders will still seek new raiding content from time to time.

Even if they were all 16 man raids that is only 480 people, there are 20 (?) servers? Which is 9600 people. For a game which I assume has at least 500000 subs that is not many (Less than 2%).

[AsheraII]

As a raider myself, I definitely do not believe that's entirely true. As on common raiding days it's not unheard of to see for example 15+ instances of TFB or EC, even if only 8 people would be in those instances, we're still talking at least 240 players raiding at prime time on a single server then. As however the number of players in instances goes beyond 8, the true figure will undoubtfully lie even higher.

 

Sure, not all will be hardcore raiders, but there's still quite a number which do. Beyond that, also non-hardcore raiders will still seek new raiding content from time to time.

 

Even if they were all 16 man raids that is only 480 people, there are 20 (?) servers? Which is 9600 people. For a game which I assume has at least 500000 subs that is not many (Less than 2%).

TFB or EC.

Fornix is doing only one of those two him-/herself at a given time, can't be in two places at once. So 2% of the population is doing the same OPS at the same moment, Other players will be doing other ops at that moment, or do those ops at different moments.

While definitely a lot of people spend time rerolling and leveling up, the amount of people doing ops is definitely a bit higher than 2%. Maybe not as high as in other games, but still, the amount is much bigger than that sample would suggest.

[Machine-Elf]

I maintain my opinion regarding the horizontal/vertical thing.

[Rezakh]

You do realize how the make up of game companies works right? Content designers don't do bug fixes, and coders generally don't design content. Companies have both, so both get worked on, not one or the other.

 

^ This

 

I was going to explain it with many more words/examples, but why bother. This covers it nicely.