Epochlss Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 If Bio-Mal-ware continues to give it's loyal customers a gigantic middle finger at every turn, I'd say no more than a year. This game is at the point of needing server merges (AGAIN) and yet Bioware still doesn't value it's customers. If it weren't so ridiculous, I'd say they are purposely trying to tank this game... I 100% agree, I swear this is the same cluster crew as who developed SWG, its has the identical approach of handling SWTOR. From having ongoing glitches since beta to gear that looks generic, to over hype of mediocre content. The choices given to player are mere affection for comps, and does NOT affect the story at all. Sure Koth can leave you, for an example, but the story is the a same. Face it folks every player, every alt does the exact story line. Chapters should have multiple endings determined by a player's choices that's storytelling. BW had a good year to develop KoTFE yet they copied and pasted WoD from WoW. Where a player is a "commander" of an alliance and does missions for set alliance. This jumping on the developing for the power gamer teen who can not afford a MMO model. When Blizzard did this around lich they lost excess of 65% subs including myself, they had a reason of to focus on other games. What's BW's reason other than to copy WoW? SWTOR doesn't have the player base to loose. As a power gaming teen I meant as develop a MMO for how good a player can slam his/her fist on keys like chimps. Whether or not these players are under aged or college age these players usually cannot an 14.99 a month certainly not ongoing. In contrast, vanilla WoW, Precu SWG the average age was 30+ old school paper rpers that a MMO attracts and can maintain multiple account subs for years, spouses, kids all play as families. That how WoW got the ten million subs. We want more team play as in a raid the group decides how to kill a boss in various ways. Actual team play in pvp, not a bunch of AoE, stun fest, kill farming. Changing storylines upto the player choices, class, LS/DS. Also ongoing glitches cleaning. The question is when is BW going to actually develop SWTOR, or how long will EA keeps BW as a tax write off? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrazyOldMystic Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 Like the other guy said no one can, but what I can tell you is a few things I have noticed since my return.... First it is summer no game on the planet has high pop levels during the summer, that is a fact of life. Second they are working on a new star wars game but will not say what it is, so if anything is going to happen, its going to happen in 2018 when said game is released. Third talked to some old friends of mine, and essentially they are bored, they have done it all. They really haven't added any new wowsers fps or ops. So they are here for the new chapters but thats about it. Conclusion who the heck knows in swg we did not know when the game was shutting down until about six months before, thats how gaming companies do things. They will play it close to the vest right up to the end. I hope that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jedimasterjac Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 SWTOR is the #4 top-grossing MMO currently in the market, I can't imagine it being shut down anytime soon. https://www.superdataresearch.com/blog/us-digital-games-market/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Setta Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 I'm not a psychic and this is just my opinion but, when looking at some things. 1) Disney gave the rights to Star Wars video games to EA. So no one else is really going to do it. 2) It takes to much money to make an MMO, and they're not as popular as they once were. So it's unlikely another SW MMO will come out in the foreseeable future. It's just not a good investment. However there is still a market for it, that makes keeping this game alive worth it. Plus with MMOs you usually hear about them being made years in advance, to get people excited about it, and there's been no talk of another SW MMO as far as I'm aware. 3) Disney is focusing on a number of SW movies, and rumor has it that after episode 9 is done, they're already talking about 10-12. That's not to mention other spin offs like Rogue one, and what ever else they have in store. Those movies usually bring people back into games. As for instance when episode 7 was coming out, we had an influx of people in the game. I'm going to bet my last dollar, the same thing will happen with other SW movies as well. 4) Assuming #3 continues to hold true, that means there's going to be a lot more money in this for EA. I mean look at all the people that spent hundreds of dollars each on packs, just for those stupid vented light sabers, and the new people that will keep coming in because of the movies, or even returning players for the same reason. There's a lot more money to be made, because of the movie synergy both on the cosmetic end, and because people are just psyched for SW. 5) In my opinion, even though there haven't been a lot of content lately (other than story mode stuff) SW has kind of gone through it's rock bottom phase already. With the extra cash that will be coming in in the near future it should only get better in theory. Which means Bioware might even hire extra people to move **** along. I'm not going to hold my breath on this last part, but it's a possibility I guess. All in all I'd say the game has quite a few years left in it, but ya I suppose I could always be wrong, it just seems highly improbable at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blackardin Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 It's already dead according to the internet experts. It died right after it launched. I was there. I saw it with my own eyes. It died again with the first expansion. I saw that too. Died a third time when it added FTP, or was that something that saved it? Not sure, it's died so many times. The point is that it's still here, and it's still doing well. When it will end is anyone's guess, but for now, for the next year or so, its here. Enjoy the ride. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrewFromPhilly Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 KOTFE, in my honest opinion, does nothing but highlight the weaknesses and shortsightedness of BioWare. Players who have played through Mass Effect or Dragon Age will know that although many choices are presented in those games, the consequences are largely an illusion as you will still be playing through the same areas with perhaps an abstract consequence presented to you in a cut scene. Everyone is commander Shepard or the inquisitor though. In SWTOR, they started out OK. Multiple class stories that allowed for varying and differing characters with clearly defined backgrounds. An inquisitor sitting on the dark council or a republic special forces commander, etc. Then they narrowed the story into just Republic vs. Empire, and now unfortunately just into the "outlander." The scope of SWTOR's story content has regressed into a linear path that often makes no sense given the multiple possible backgrounds of player characters. The end result is that it feels like lazy writing, as your character's background is ignored and you are shoehorned into this role. Throw in the fact that they have been devoted to this "content" for nearly a year and will continue to be for the foreseeable future and I don't think it's hard to see why people are calling this game dead. Actual MMO content has been thrown on the backburner, and we are expected to pay for these chapters over the course of a year or more (over $100 in sub fees) for badly written and lazy story chapters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrdrsenorpeanut Posted July 4, 2016 Author Share Posted July 4, 2016 I just hope they at least keep catering to the endgame community otherwise a large number of people are going to leave. I know Zorz and a lot of progression raiders already went to WoW. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roalmo Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 ...... It's actually not all that common that big name MMORPGs get shut down for no reason at all. There are only a handful of examples I can think of. Warhammer Online was shut down because the game was absolutely horrible. Not even Warhammer fans wanted to play it, and the game was a bugfest if close to no content for two years. ... Tad off of plumb with this. ROI for owners of the WARHAMMER name dropped, so they pulled the license at renewal time. No license: can't use the name/characters, etc. So the Warhammer game closed down. If ever EA can't pay the yearly fee to Disney out of the income from SWTOR a "readjustment" will be negotiated or Disney will pull the license, or(big IF) if EA just ponies up the money from corporate coffers not related to SWTOR, Disney will continue to allow EA to use the license. Or at renewal Disney can do anything they want, including pull the license. Once the license is gone the game is gone, there is over 5years left on the license. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rolodome Posted July 4, 2016 Share Posted July 4, 2016 KOTFE, in my honest opinion, does nothing but highlight the weaknesses and shortsightedness of BioWare. Players who have played through Mass Effect or Dragon Age will know that although many choices are presented in those games, the consequences are largely an illusion as you will still be playing through the same areas with perhaps an abstract consequence presented to you in a cut scene. Everyone is commander Shepard or the inquisitor though. In SWTOR, they started out OK. Multiple class stories that allowed for varying and differing characters with clearly defined backgrounds. An inquisitor sitting on the dark council or a republic special forces commander, etc. Then they narrowed the story into just Republic vs. Empire, and now unfortunately just into the "outlander." The scope of SWTOR's story content has regressed into a linear path that often makes no sense given the multiple possible backgrounds of player characters. The end result is that it feels like lazy writing, as your character's background is ignored and you are shoehorned into this role. Throw in the fact that they have been devoted to this "content" for nearly a year and will continue to be for the foreseeable future and I don't think it's hard to see why people are calling this game dead. Actual MMO content has been thrown on the backburner, and we are expected to pay for these chapters over the course of a year or more (over $100 in sub fees) for badly written and lazy story chapters. I disagree that it's badly written. I just think it doesn't play well to a segmented format and there was a point at which it lost its thread for me, which I'll explain below. I got the most enjoyment when I more or less binged all of the existing chapters (particularly 1-9). I think it started to suffer for me at: Odessen. It became too much about repetitive recruitment missions and recruitment mixed into "arcann has a thing that we should attack" missions, that didn't feel foreshadowed at all and just kind of sprung up out of nowhere. I get that it's a war effort and it takes time, but that's what the side content of Odessen is for, IMO. The Odessen story should have been more focused on the kind of evolution 1-9 had. A progressive A leads to B leads to C kind of storytelling. Instead, Odessen and on feels, for me, more like, hey, we got a Z over here. And what do you know, intelligence revealed there's a W. Oh wait, gosh, now we got a G yo. Maybe we'll find an R next. The GEMINI plot is perhaps the only real through-line in the whole Odessen storyline that I can think of. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrewFromPhilly Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 (edited) To me there is a few parts that stood out as clear examples of lazy writing, the most prominent being things like non jedi/sith classes being handed magic force guns simply so the same dialogue and sequences could be used in that chapter. Or, light and dark side choices in the initial fight with arcann both resulting in exactly the same outcome, him falling out of a tall building....which he somehow survives without a scratch, and it never even bothers to explain that. But the biggest problem with KOTFE (imo) is that it simply has very little replay value. Regardless of your character or your faction or your alignment, KOTFE will be identical with every playthrough. The entire point of an mmo is to keep players invested long-term and while releasing episodic content may keep some excited about what will happen next - they are not excited about MMO content, they are excited about single player content that will quickly become irrelevant and unappealing to all but the most diehard of story-focused fans who don't mind slogging through KOTFE in all of it's entirety with every alt. Releasing such content and having it be the only content in an MMO for 2+ years is, in my opinion, a tremendous mistake. It's also completely opposed to the game's legacy system and the current ls/ds events that encourage players to make alts. Why bother with that, if every character will be treated the same in future content? Edited July 5, 2016 by DrewFromPhilly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kilekrn Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 I have an educated guess that SWtOR will die at approximately 7:00 A.M. PDT tomorrow, but it will be resuscitated shortly thereafter at 9:07 A.M. PDT. I then predict that it will live for another week or two and then it will die on a Tuesday morning once again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaximusRex Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 It's hard to say, but we know there will be a season 2 (KOTFE being season 1) so at least 2 more years. But that is a very conservative and safe bet. There are multiple MMO's out there, still running, over a decade old, that are, and have always been, much smaller that SWTOR is now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cool-dude Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 (edited) It's hard to say, but we know there will be a season 2 (KOTFE being season 1) so at least 2 more years. But that is a very conservative and safe bet. There are multiple MMO's out there, still running, over a decade old, that are, and have always been, much smaller that SWTOR is now. Where are you guys getting this " there will be a season 2"? All I have seen is just rumors. Edited July 5, 2016 by cool-dude Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clone_Enforcer Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 I could be wrong, but my guess would be around or at the end of the year 2017. Unless Bioware/EA says otherwise. Or if something happens where it got to the point where the company would go to court because of financial reasons like the kind of money they are earning from this game and how they are getting it. I'm not saying the company is bad, but who knows. That, or they aren't earning enough investment on this game because of the lack of audience members. Or they got to the point where they lost the spark/interest of some sort on continuing this game. Just a few guesses from what I've learned or witnessed from articles and other news feed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clone_Enforcer Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Where are you guys getting this " there will be a season 2"? All I have seen is just rumors. There were some streams about this from on Twitch from Bioware. I just wished they uploaded these on youtube. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
annabethchase Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 The educated guess would be 2023. There is a 10 year license for Star Wars games held by EA that was signed in 2013. So even if they were to stop making new content for this game, it is unlikely they would turn off the servers until 2023. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimmorrisson Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Just because EA/Bioware for the foreseeable future doesn't mean TOR will last the length of said license. If Disney or EA/Bioware wants another Star Wars MMO that could certainly have an impact on TOR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarthDymond Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Where are you guys getting this " there will be a season 2"? All I have seen is just rumors. Among other places, it was mentioned in Ben Irving's producer letter: The two most exciting things to share are that our writers are deep into the plot summaries for the next season's worth of chapters and we have started the early design phase for new, non-chapter, content. You all know the drill here, I can’t talk about any of the specifics (yet) but what I can say is that we have some REALLY cool stuff to talk about later this year and the whole SWTOR team can’t wait to announce it. Soon. TM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Holocron Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Just because EA/Bioware for the foreseeable future doesn't mean TOR will last the length of said license. If Disney or EA/Bioware wants another Star Wars MMO that could certainly have an impact on TOR. In fact EA could very well be working on a new sw mmo that is in the time line of the movies. Which would also explain a lot of the current dev team actions and recycled content. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MTCason Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Bioware has the exclusive contract for Star Wars MMOs until 2021. SWTOR isn't going anywhere any time soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MTCason Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 Just because EA/Bioware for the foreseeable future doesn't mean TOR will last the length of said license. If Disney or EA/Bioware wants another Star Wars MMO that could certainly have an impact on TOR. Given that SWTOR is EA's biggest regular revenue stream after The Sims, yes, it does mean TOR will likely last the length of said license. Why re-invent the wheel when it's still bringing in money hand over fist? And rightly so. I am hardly a whale in SWTOR terms but I regularly spend $3-500 every time a new cartel pack comes out. That's far more than I would have spent on this game had it remained subscription only with no microtransactions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jesira Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 10 year license extension, at the very least as long as that lasts, and if EA/BioWare make any new Star Wars games its likely that license will continue even further. So a long time unless it stops being profitable in any measure, which it's showing no signs of since it's in the top 5 most profitable online games right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psikofunkster Posted July 5, 2016 Share Posted July 5, 2016 (edited) No, no one can. People can pull figures out of their.... Hat... but that is about it. Exactly, apparently the season + cartel market combination is working for EA despite de servers being more or less most of the time empty (green status). Im missing 3 classes still so i'm gonna resub this week and try to get the legendary status still what i loved the most about this game were operations. Edited July 5, 2016 by psikofunkster Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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