Petition - Save the Future of our Class Stories...

[convivial]

It would be great if in the Bounty Hunter Class, you had actual bounties you had to chase down like In Galaxies. Imagine having to track a bounty that was hiding out in Republic territory or more dangerous locales such as Oricon, Makeb or Ilum. Even better, if one of your bounties was a player of another faction and was constantly moving.

 

We need more class specific challenges.

[jamiemulv]

/signed

 

Class stories are the best stories

[ThirdDementor]

Class stories are what made this game better than other MMORPGs.

 

/signed

[JacksonMo]

Class stories are what made this game better than other MMORPGs.

 

/signed

 

If you're talking about introducing NEW classes with new abilities, then yes.

 

Past lvl 50 most content is designed for groups. Class quests are designed to be soloed.

It takes resources to add content, so class specific content would require four times the resources per faction. And you've already established yourself as the Republic's/Empire's go-to person, so why then work up four separate story lines?

[AhsokaTanorules]

In the spirit of the new continuing forged Alliances story I was coming up with an idea of what a 3.0 class story thing could be like particulaly if they decided to actually have 3.0 revolve around the culmination of Forged Alliances. Story speculation ahead which could be construed as spoilers I guess.

 

 

They made references to the Revanaites and the Rakata Infinite Empire. From what I understand, Raven found a Star Forge and other legacies of the Infinite Empire during his early days. Here are some speculations for what I thought could happen if they try a class story route:

 

JK - Discover that Revan is actually alive. Maybe finally get him to join you.

 

JC - Find another Star Forge. Perhaps encounter the Rakata that helped you on Belsavis.

 

Smuggler - Assist Jakarro in meeting with his contacts and perhaps root out revanite supporters in the Hutt Cartel. Recruit Theron Shan?

 

Trooper - Clash with the new Infinite cyborg troopers and deal with Jarok.

 

SW - Deal with Arkous. Bring the Emperor back.

 

SI - Deal with the Revanites or even gain control of them. Recover long lost Rakata lore and tech for the empire. Recruit Lana Beniko?

 

BH - Sent after key figures of both the Revanites and even the Hutt Cartel (since they allied with the Republic). Final showdown with Shroud? Recruit Thana Vesh :-)

 

Agent - Infiltrate Ravenites. Deal with Jadus once and for all (snce he never dies in any of his endings). Bring back Imperial Intelligence?

 

[Orien]

/signed

 

This was basically the one saving grace this game had when everything else was an utter travesty at launch. I understand the decision that was made at a time when the financial success of the game was in question.

 

Now that there is evidence that the game is financially successful (I believe it's been reported the game made has made 176 million in the past year or something like that... this is probably not totally accurate as I can't remember the exact report or period of time that money was earned over but nonetheless it's clear the game is doing fine financially now) there is no reason not to put money back into putting out quality content especially the type of content that set you apart from the rest of the genre.

 

Just take Makeb for example... it would have been so much better if it had Class Story to go with it and people would actually take their alts there if it did so they could see the different aspects of the story. Instead people tend to play one character from each faction and then just skip it after that. The changes that have been made to Makeb can do nothing to change that either. I hope going forward they will seriously consider bringing class stories back.

[StrixHiraeth]

If you're talking about introducing NEW classes with new abilities, then yes.

 

Past lvl 50 most content is designed for groups. Class quests are designed to be soloed.

It takes resources to add content, so class specific content would require four times the resources per faction. And you've already established yourself as the Republic's/Empire's go-to person, so why then work up four separate story lines?

 

I've seen that discussed before; it actually wouldn't take four times the resources, because class missions would only be a fraction of the missions available from quest hubs.

 

I had another thought. Instead of adding levels to provide enough content for another chapter to class stories, they could just spread the missions out across different planets... but I like the idea of levelling up as the story progresses, since it correlates with the idea of the character getting stronger/better.

 

To be clear, I do want the stories continued as much as anyone else does. I just don't think the expansion content thus far can support a whole nother chapter yet.

[Dasem]

/Signed

 

Look... I know it's more time and effort to continue class stories instead of creating more "universal" content, that "larger conflict" he spoke of.

 

But that's why we play the game, right? Isn't that its biggest selling point?

 

I understand they need the actors to record more dialogue, etc. I understand it, I do.

 

But I think if they released a new expansion pack, with these things, and charged... $15 for Subscribers and $25 for F2P for it, they'd make their money back and then some.

[LyraineAlei]

In the spirit of the new continuing forged Alliances story I was coming up with an idea of what a 3.0 class story thing could be like particulaly if they decided to actually have 3.0 revolve around the culmination of Forged Alliances. Story speculation ahead which could be construed as spoilers I guess.

 

 

They made references to the Revanaites and the Rakata Infinite Empire. From what I understand, Raven found a Star Forge and other legacies of the Infinite Empire during his early days. Here are some speculations for what I thought could happen if they try a class story route:

 

JK - Discover that Revan is actually alive. Maybe finally get him to join you.

 

So sorry to tell you..

Flashpoint The Foundry tells us what Revan had been up to. It's not a pretty one for either faction.

 

 

But the Rakata and Infinite Empire are really interesting though...

Edited August 23, 2014 by LyraineAlei

[AhsokaTanorules]

So sorry to tell you..

Flashpoint The Foundry tells us what Revan had been up to. It's not a pretty one for either faction.

 

 

..

 

I have Imp characters so I know what happens. They even reiterate it after you complete the current Manaa dungeon but if you read Wookieepedia's article about Raven's

serial immortality than him coming back isn't too farfetched and is probably just the type of OMG plot twist they would probably implement if they did continue storyline.

 

[Sillyfish]

While I haven't completed my class story, I can tell you that I will be EXTREMELY sad to see it come to an end. I was hoping that future content would continue the journey of my characters.

 

/signed for what it's worth.

[GothicArchangel]

/signed.

Most mmo's have abandoned there roots. Which is massive problem. But swtor had its unique story set, with the almost "single player" story, for your class. To take away that "unique" feature away. Is bassicly saying Bioware doesn't care for stories anymore. I don't care what they think. But forge alliances, yes are interesting. DO NOT replace the feelings I felt, Being betrayed by Baras, Used by Zash. Or confused like IA. It would be almost pitiful to see Bioware slope to the level of grinding debatchery, with no story. ick

[JacksonMo]

I've seen that discussed before; it actually wouldn't take four times the resources, because class missions would only be a fraction of the missions available from quest hubs.

 

I had another thought. Instead of adding levels to provide enough content for another chapter to class stories, they could just spread the missions out across different planets... but I like the idea of levelling up as the story progresses, since it correlates with the idea of the character getting stronger/better.

 

To be clear, I do want the stories continued as much as anyone else does. I just don't think the expansion content thus far can support a whole nother chapter yet.

 

Makeeb...

You don't need four separate story lines to achieve your goals. Eight actually...

It DOES add up, whether you admit it or not. This game cost TONS of money to produce in the beginning specifically because of all the voice acting.

[AhsokaTanorules]

Hire cheaper voice talent then.

[Darth_Wicked]

Hire cheaper voice talent then.

 

We already went through that.

 

They already said that the VA is not the issue.

[Callaron]

We already went through that.

 

They already said that the VA is not the issue.

 

Yup. And besides, voice acting is becoming more and more commonplace among MMO's. SWTOR, TSW, ESO and Defiance all have it. From what I've briefly seen while trying Firefall, I think it does as well. (possibly AoC as well, but I only played the starting area)

[ellesjames]

Smaller story updates might be fun. New companion characters that open up new worlds/zones or new quests in old places. Except these companion characters are for Imperial side or Republic side in general. A lot of people know from playing some of the characters you run into were meant to be companions, that weren't at the last minute. There's even a codex entry for one on the imperial side.

 

They could even work in features they left out like the in depth girl/girl boy/boy relationship or something. So far all we have is HK and Treek. Which are great but something deeper would also be cool. Plus on there side it would be easier and cheaper to do if it was custom tailored to each class so they can reuse a lot of what they create.

[Samy_Merchi]

Well, I just cancelled my sub and the main reason I gave in my exit feedback was the lack of class story and companion story progression.

 

It'll probably just be a drop in the ocean and not worth their time. But I'm not going to keep paying to fund other people getting stuff and me never getting any of the stuff I want.

[thatPERSON]

as of right now, if you have finished you class story, the "new story arcs" do nothing in terms of character progression. i know its faction progression but one can do nothing to further themselves for so long before it gets boring. the way i see it, it was a strike team on makeb made up of the 4 classes on each faction (whether you grouped for it or not) so there was no character progression there. Oricon WAS a strike team (whether you grouped or not, and if you went farther than the dailies you had to group) so again, no progression there. i wanna see the seedy things the agent ended up doing to get the empire where they are (after chapter 3 arcs were finished of course). Edited September 5, 2014 by thatPERSON

[AhsokaTanorules]

Seriously the way I see it, all of 2.0 could have been broken down into separate class stories in certain respects.

 

Republic Makeb could have easily been the Smuggler storyline where the Hutts are either convinced or blackmailed into joining the Republic. Imperial Makeb could have been an Agent storyline with the Empire secretly obtaining the Isotope 5. The whole Darvannis raid dungeon could have easily been a BH storyline what with taking out an army of mercenaries hired the the Dread Masters.

 

Meanwhile the force using classes could have done most of the Oricon and Dread Master related stuff. Maybe even have the Trooper focus on the Dread Guard.

 

Thinking about this, if Bioware wants to do this right, they should take the obvious upcoming storyline of Forged Alliances and carefully dissect it into 8 separate storylines for 3.0 where certain classes engage in storylines related to Forged Alliances but still make sense for their class. Maybe the SW goes after Arkous while the trooper goes after Darok. Maybe the JC uncovers the attempted return of the Rakata Empire and the BH faces off aganst the new cyborg army. Stuff like that.

[Zyrious]

Yup. And besides, voice acting is becoming more and more commonplace among MMO's. SWTOR, TSW, ESO and Defiance all have it. From what I've briefly seen while trying Firefall, I think it does as well. (possibly AoC as well, but I only played the starting area)

 

I would also like to point out that back before launch, we brought up this problem and i believe it was Erickson who pointed out that a lot of the dialogue and a huge amount of writing for future content had already been done. They said they did a lot of writing for all the class stories in advance so all they had to do was make the content.

 

This was in response to our worries of them getting back the voice actors or the writers. How much was done in advance i am unsure, but he implied quite a bit. Writing doesn't take much time or resources, same with VA, so theoretically they could have completely written the class stories to their conclusion, the content just has to be made.

 

And generally speaking, typically a writer knows how his story is going to end. So i imagine at the very *least* they have an outline of where things go for each class and its various paths (some classes being easy, like the SI or JK or SW, others more complicated, like the IA).

Edited September 7, 2014 by Zyrious

[wepeel]

Well, I just cancelled my sub and the main reason I gave in my exit feedback was the lack of class story and companion story progression.

 

It'll probably just be a drop in the ocean and not worth their time. But I'm not going to keep paying to fund other people getting stuff and me never getting any of the stuff I want.

 

By the looks of it, this is exactly what I will do once I've finished the story content of the classes I find interesting. Not trying to sound jaded but I've spent a fair amount of time with other MMOs, and the traditional endgame approach of doing group content like ops repeatedly and slowly grind out better and better gear just isn't appealing anymore. The same goes for building a stronghold or a guild flagship - they feel like temporary diversions at best, but nothing like the feeling of a personal storyline.

[Galdos]

Personally. I would be fine with if they just personalized the quest more.

 

ie. For Makeb, instead of the Supreme Chancellor contacting me and giving me the briefing, have Garza do all that while my Jedi Knight gets Satele.

 

Meanwhile i would like on Imp side my Agent to have been contacted by

Ardun Kothe who gives me the mission to pretend to be loyal and do what is ask and than inform the Republic of what is happening. Which is something I assumed my agent did anyways.

 

 

and the conclusion of these story arcs would be debriefings from those same people

[bigbassman]

/signed

 

Another option would be to create some additional character classes and weave them into the current levels.

 

But we do need to have some sort of New class stories to continue to support this game.

[ellesjames]

I agree. They could even just keep everything 99% the same and change the order of the quests with conversations being unique with a check for class. After that it's just maybe one or two instanced unique areas for the start and finish of the stories and done. They could even make it start on your starship instead of that for even less work.

 

It seems small but even that little bit would help personalize the game experience more for each unique character class. And that really adds something. I know that's one of the things that killed Warcraft for me. Them taking out a lot of the class specific flavor quests and things to do. Makes every class feel generic and the same. Very boring.

Edited September 16, 2014 by ellesjames