Is it safe to say there will be no more class stories?

[Jedi_Boba]

^

I've read here on the forums they said there won't be. Then I've read some posts where there might be. In my opinion that's what this game is all about. That's why I play it. If there is no future story wise what separates this game from other mmos? Lets be honest. This game failed heck if it wasn't for the cartel market this game wouldn't exist. I just wanna know if the time I'm spending is worth it to help this game grow more and more. Or is EA just milking its customers as much as it can till the new onslaught of mmos like FF14,ESO,Wildstar and EQnext come along. This is a game I love and I love it for its story as well as its mmo features. Does anyone have any info that's been announced etc?

[Rousso]

I think (in the short-term at least) extra story content will be via the cartel market in encrypted data cubes, kind of like The Secret World sells its story content via "issues". I hope future expansions will contain significant class-based story content though, otherwise non-hardcore MMO grinders have very little future in this game.

[Jedi_Boba]

I think (in the short-term at least) extra story content will be via the cartel market in encrypted data cubes, kind of like The Secret World sells its story content via "issues". I hope future expansions will contain significant class-based story content though, otherwise non-hardcore MMO grinders have very little future in this game.

 

So pay for a sub then pay 2100 cartel coins probably for story.

[Rousso]

So pay for a sub then pay 2100 cartel coins probably for story.

 

I'm obviously just guessing here, but yeah. I'd expect subscribers would get a discount, as well as their monthly cartel coin allowance to help - but essentially, yeah you'd have to pay to play.

 

Not saying this is right by the way, just saying what I think will happen.

[Hessen]

None of us know. But educated guesses from the majority would say it's highly unlikely that class stories will ever progress on an individual level like 1-50, and instead story content will be more like Makeb in the future.

[Copperheadr]

Go here

 

See Nr. 7

[Kilora]

I think (in the short-term at least) extra story content will be via the cartel market in encrypted data cubes, kind of like The Secret World sells its story content via "issues". I hope future expansions will contain significant class-based story content though, otherwise non-hardcore MMO grinders have very little future in this game.

 

Incorrect. They've already stated that they will not be adding any more of the data cubes because of the reaction the community had to them.

 

I highly doubt you will see story content in the CM again, but I also doubt we will see the individualized class stories like 1-50.

[Toweleeeie]

Go here

 

See Nr. 7

 

Which is PR spin for "We don't have the man power or money to keep up that kind of quality"

 

1 through 50 is Fing amazing. They can't/won't do it again.

[TravelersWay]

Incorrect. They've already stated that they will not be adding any more of the data cubes because of the reaction the community had to them.

 

I highly doubt you will see story content in the CM again, but I also doubt we will see the individualized class stories like 1-50.

 

Indeed. As was mentioned in a recent Q&A session, their focus now more on overarching planetary stories than advancing each of the 8 class stories.

 

Much to the detriment of the game, IMO. One of the very reasons many, if not most, of us got into this game was the 8 different stories. That was the main selling point/feature of the game. It's a mistake on BW's part to ignore that, regardless of the state the studio is in right now.

[Rousso]

Indeed. As was mentioned in a recent Q&A session, their focus now more on overarching planetary stories than advancing each of the 8 class stories.

 

Which is VERY unfortunate, considering the lengths they went to to encourage playing alts. Doing the same story arc 8 times? I'm pretty sure that'll be a resounding "no thanks!" from most of us.

[CosmicKat]

Indeed. As was mentioned in a recent Q&A session, their focus now more on overarching planetary stories than advancing each of the 8 class stories.

 

Much to the detriment of the game, IMO. One of the very reasons many, if not most, of us got into this game was the 8 different stories. That was the main selling point/feature of the game. It's a mistake on BW's part to ignore that, regardless of the state the studio is in right now.

 

2 million of the 2.5 million who bought the game originally did not think enough of the class stories to subscribe or continue to subscribe after a few months.

 

Apparently it's power as a selling point is greatly exaggerated.

[Arkerus]

2 million of the 2.5 million who bought the game originally did not think enough of the class stories to subscribe or continue to subscribe after a few months.

 

Apparently it's power as a selling point is greatly exaggerated.

 

Apparently as a SELLING point it worked great. They made mistakes post launch and they had retention problems. That's not selling. That's retaining a customer.

 

The F2P model is a much better model for your average casual consumer who doesn't even like MMOs but wants to have a KOTOR-like experience. They want to play the class stories and thats it. Its a perfect model for that and by the numbers I would say its working.

[Mercurial_Harpy]

To answer your question, no, there will be no more class stories for the foreseeable future. Although EA has not given a "hard no" when posed the question, they've given plenty of "soft nos" in various interviews and most recently in the Germany Cantina tour.

 

You won't get a "hard no" from EA on this. That would mean being honest with all the people who continue to sub in hopes of funding more class story. All SWTOR will get going forward is Makeb style planetary arcs, as they are the cheapest to produce and they likely already have the small amount of voice acting for each class needed already recorded. Personally, after the first run-through, getting my alts through Makeb was a slog, and I have zero interest in continuing with this game if that's what's on the horizon.

 

However, the most compelling support for the position that there will be no more class story is that when I canceled my sub after reading the Germany Cantina Tour transcript, one of the reasons you can select for canceling is:

 

There are no more class stories.

 

So, that's pretty much that. EA and the player forum drones can spin it any way they like. It is what it is.

 

It's very sad. I'm sad to leave this game. But when SWTOR went F2P, EA fundamentally changed the direction of the game, and it's no longer what was promised at launch. Instead of continuing class story with the individualized adventure where choices matter, we get short, planetary quests where our choices have zero consequence, and all choices made prior to that are essentially forgotten. Oh yeah, and reskinned speeders in the Cartel Market and Nightmare Mode Athiss. What a waste.

 

P.S., to get to that selection in the cancellation menu, I believe you choose:

 

 

*Game was unsatisfactory (or wording like this)

*Unhappy with endgame

*No more class stories

 

 

 

* * *

[CosmicKat]

Apparently as a SELLING point it worked great. They made mistakes post launch and they had retention problems. That's not selling. That's retaining a customer.

 

The F2P model is a much better model for your average casual consumer who doesn't even like MMOs but wants to have a KOTOR-like experience. They want to play the class stories and thats it. Its a perfect model for that and by the numbers I would say its working.

 

That might be the perfect model for someone who only wants the class stories without paying a dime for them. For everyone else, it's useless. Non-paying customers are useless for anything except padding those player numbers.

[Andryah]

2 million of the 2.5 million who bought the game originally did not think enough of the class stories to subscribe or continue to subscribe after a few months.

 

Apparently it's power as a selling point is greatly exaggerated.

 

It's power as a selling point was fine.. but not as a retention element.

 

The class story lines operate pretty much like a play_and_discard single player game. AND.. not surpisingly....it attracted a lot of sales to SWTOR fans who are indeed play_and_discard single player game fans. They bought.. they played. and then they discarded it, many after running though one or two class story arcs. I recall quite a few comments in the early months of the forum along these lines.

 

This is also why class story is a bad return on investment for the game today. It does not by itself retain the kind of long term MMO players a company relies on and they have the core 1-5 story content and freemium model to attract new players to play.. and some will stay.. some will not.

 

I know a lot of people are upset about them not pursuing (right now at least) class specific stories.. but not many will actually quit over it and if they do.. then they were not destined to be a long term player of the game anyway.

 

It's an investment decision.. and not one that they have said categorically that they will not change in the future that I know of.

Edited August 26, 2013 by Andryah

[Icestar]

Adding more class stories would mean gather all the voice actors again.

 

Since a voice actor needs time to prepare to find that edge in the voice for each different character they perform I find that not likely to happen.

 

They have probably recorded some more then has been released though, notice how the new area have the same voice actors eventhough content was released a few weeks ago.

[ZionHalcyon]

Its pretty damn disappointing.

 

Class Story continuation is one of the #1 items people want. I just wish the devs wouldn't blow smoke up people's butts and say the group experience is better when people want Class stories as well.

 

 

What really burns my arse about this is that there is a compromise to be had here. So many of the class stories led to such specific conclusions and endings that to just make everything group content and ignore what actually happened in the class stories other than some lame throwaway lines before your next group quest just feels so damn lazy and inconsiderate to those who play the game FOR the story (you know, STORY, SWTOR's MAIN SELLING POINT?)

 

But the compromise is simple - develop group content, sure. But mix in class stories with that group content!!

 

No one is saying there has to be a continuation of the 1-50 levelling process. But if you could just plan at least 2-3 class missions per "group experience" release that tie back into your class story instead of pandering to the 1-50 with cheap pointless lines (that make no sense in some cases given the context), you have a shot to make a lot of people happy. I mean, in context, there is no way Makeb even makes sense for the Sith Warrior or the Imperial Agent in terms of how contact was established and how marching orders were given given the context of how they ended (actually 3 potential decisions at the end of the agent storyline - Makeb makes sense for 1 of them but not the other 2).

 

Thats what I feel the devs don't get. The group content, while nice, and yes, please do make it, shouldn't be pissing all over the class content like Makeb did, as entertaining as Makeb was.

 

Instead, the class stories SHOULD continue, but the focus past 50 should be on levelling through group play, with class stories a part of the overall group story, similarly how in Empire Strikes Back, you could say that started out as a group story (Han (smuggler), Leia (trooper?), and Luke (knight)), at the end of Hoth Luke (Knight) split into his own class story, while Han and Leia progressed with the group story, then Han had his own class story (ending with him frozen), then Luke to cloud city, rejoins in brief the group story, ends up finishing his class story, and then rejoins the group story again post Vader duel.

 

You could view Star Wars as this interweaving of class stories in and out of the larger main group story. The group story takes the main focus, but the class stories still continue to develop the characters.

[Hessen]

It's power as a selling point was fine.. but not as a retention element.

 

The class story lines operate pretty much like a play_and_discard single player game. AND.. not surpisingly....it attracted a lot of sales to SWTOR fans who are indeed play_and_discard single player game fans. They bought.. they played. and then they discarded it, many after running though one or two class story arcs. I recall quite a few comments in the early months of the forum along these lines.

 

This is also why class story is a bad return on investment for the game today. It does not by itself retain the kind of long term MMO players a company relies on and they have the core 1-5 story content and freemium model to attract new players to play.. and some will stay.. some will not.

 

I know a lot of people are upset about them not pursuing (right now at least) class specific stories.. but not many will actually quit over it and if they do.. then they were not destined to be a long term player of the game anyway.

 

It's an investment decision.. and not one that they have said categorically that they will not change in the future that I know of.

 

I would argue that the single player story was a large part of what separated it from the competition, the more they move away from that and make the game more generic MMO, the more the main difference is purely the IP.

 

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing from a corporate point of view, the game is sustainable and makes money and the people playing it are happy. But a different audience, aren't.

 

Is it better to have 200,000 generic MMOers, or 100,000 Star Wars/Bioware story loving players. Better depends on company goals and values. But it's like Sony moving away from selling albums from alternative artists to selling One Direction t-shirts, it makes more business sense, but the result is lack of backed innovation and the consumers being fed the same stuff from 10 different suppliers.

 

It's the gaming equivalent of drowning your steak in ketchup so you can't taste the original flavour anymore.

[AlaricSevGirl]

Go here

 

See Nr. 7

 

I think they are wrong there. It's not group content. People are still leveling alone because doing group means dealing with RNG and most people don't like that.

[Mercurial_Harpy]

I know a lot of people are upset about them not pursuing (right now at least) class specific stories.. but not many will actually quit over it and if they do.. then they were not destined to be a long term player of the game anyway.

 

You know, I was about to get all hopping mad about this, then I saw who was posting it, so I just laughed. Like a good friend, Andryah enthusiastically supports EA's position even when they are wrong. They aren't wrong all the time, but I believe they are wrong on this. Andryah disagrees, and that's fine too.

 

As far as your claim that not many people will actually quit over discontinuation of class story, 1. Only EA knows how many will for sure, so you have no basis to make this determination; and 2. Since they added the reason to the selections when you cancel, they are obviously interested in collecting metrics on it.

 

As far as your claim that players who were expecting more class story "were not destined to be a long term player of the game anyway..." obviously, that was just your attempt at a derisive swipe at anyone who is voicing their unhappiness at the discontinuation of class stories. I can only speak for for myself. I'd call almost 2 years paying a sub to an MMO a "long term player." You may disagree. And again, that's fine. Numbers only mean something when they are assigned a value, any mathematician will tell you that.

 

As for what impact the discontinuation of class stories will have on the sub numbers overall, only time will tell. In the long term, that is.

 

* * *

[Jedi_Boba]

I canceled my sub because of it. Even if TOR is a generic MMO that combined with Story is enough for me. What is TOR without story? It sucks, this game was by far one of my favorite mmos well actually favorite of all time because of the combination of the two.

[Andryah]

You know, I was about to get all hopping mad about this, then I saw who was posting it, so I just laughed. Like a good friend, Andryah enthusiastically supports EA's position even when they are wrong. They aren't wrong all the time, but I believe they are wrong on this. Andryah disagrees, and that's fine too.

 

As far as your claim that not many people will actually quit over discontinuation of class story, 1. Only EA knows how many will for sure, so you have no basis to make this determination; and 2. Since they added the reason to the selections when you cancel, they are obviously interested in collecting metrics on it.

 

As far as your claim that players who were expecting more class story "were not destined to be a long term player of the game anyway..." obviously, that was just your attempt at a derisive swipe at anyone who is voicing their unhappiness at the discontinuation of class stories. I can only speak for for myself. I'd call almost 2 years paying a sub to an MMO a "long term player." You may disagree. And again, that's fine. Numbers only mean something when they are assigned a value, any mathematician will tell you that.

 

As for what impact the discontinuation of class stories will have on the sub numbers overall, only time will tell. In the long term, that is.

 

* * *

 

I'm not defending Bioware.. I am discussing the topic presented and providing my opinions accordingly.

 

Like I said.. if you quit over class story.. there was no way they would hold you anyway. It's a broad appeal MMO. Anyone that requires one element over any other in a broad appeal MMO is going to complain and quit. Most MMO players however are more mature then that.. so personally I don't think many will leave over it. Some.. sure.. so what. No MMO is for everyone. Play an MMO for what it offers, not what you demand, and play what you love. If you don't love it.. don't play it. There are plenty of MMOs to choose from. But... this one will always be the best for story content.. so there is no competition really. So it's a silly reason to leave IMO. But hey.. everyone has to make that decision for themselves.

Edited August 26, 2013 by Andryah

[DarthDymond]

They need to find a "sweet spot" between the added cost that goes into developing unique/separate content for the different classes and the monotony that comes from every class's content being the same going forward. I actually thought that the dialogue differences between the classes in RotHC did a much better job than I expected of making it feel like you were playing a unique class, even through the quests themselves were the same throughout (that may have been due to low expectations on that point though).

 

Say you release an expansion pack that has 25 new quests to play through the storyline of a new planet. If you make the quests faction-specific, like in RotHC, then you have to make a total of 50 quests' worth of content. If you make all the quests class-specific, continuing the class storyline through their own unique quests, then suddenly you have to develop 200 quests' worth of content!

 

The sweet spot would be somewhere between those two extremes: where you get the greatest sense of a unique experience, with the least amount of additional development work going into it. My thoughts would be that this would be done through RotHC dialogue differences for a majority of the quests, with every fifth or sixth mission (depending on the size of "Chapter Five") being one that includes a class-specific twist:

Say the Empire is gearing up to attack a Republic stronghold, all the quests leading up to this point could have been the same for the faction (secure a landing zone, defeat the locals, kill an enemy commander, etc.) with class-specific dialogue like we saw in RotHC, but when you get to the 5th or 6th mission, the quest-giver tells you there is a concerted effort going on to set up the attack, and your part is:

 

Bounty Hunter: We need you to track down and capture a Republic commander who's deserted his post, his security clearance may still be valid and he will know the security procedures in the base.

Imperial Agent: We need you to infiltrate a nearby Republic outpost that is networked into the main base and slice in a virus that will deactivate their automated turrets.

Sith Warrior: We need you to wipe out a Republic squad patrolling near the base, if they're not eliminated they could reinforce the base once our attack begins and flank our forces.

Sith Inquisitor: Something-Something-Darkside

 

Scatter just a few of these throughout the overall course of a planet's quest chain, especially if one or two involve utilizing or deploying your companions, and BioWare can give the feel of a unique class experience even though 90% of the content is shared between all classes of the faction.

[Quoting a post of mine in another thread on a similar topic]

[CosmicKat]

They need to find a "sweet spot" between the added cost that goes into developing unique/separate content for the different classes and the monotony that comes from every class's content being the same going forward. I actually thought that the dialogue differences between the classes in RotHC did a much better job than I expected of making it feel like you were playing a unique class, even through the quests themselves were the same throughout (that may have been due to low expectations on that point though).

 

Say you release an expansion pack that has 25 new quests to play through the storyline of a new planet. If you make the quests faction-specific, like in RotHC, then you have to make a total of 50 quests' worth of content. If you make all the quests class-specific, continuing the class storyline through their own unique quests, then suddenly you have to develop 200 quests' worth of content!

 

The sweet spot would be somewhere between those two extremes: where you get the greatest sense of a unique experience, with the least amount of additional development work going into it. My thoughts would be that this would be done through RotHC dialogue differences for a majority of the quests, with every fifth or sixth mission (depending on the size of "Chapter Five") being one that includes a class-specific twist:

 

[Quoting a post of mine in another thread on a similar topic]

 

Umm... Class Specific story quests account for maybe 10% of quests, probably less. The other 90% are generic to faction. Many of those are mirrored on the other faction. They may not be exactly the same, but they share identical maps.

[TUXs]

Yes, that is a safe assumption.