Is it Time for a Big New Story Drop?

[JakRoanin]

All I'm saying is that more Marketing would be GREAT! Personally, I get sick of the Gaming Ads on my YouTube because I'd never play them too gory. I'd love to see SWTOR ads on my feed instead. However, that is not @JackieKo job! The woman has enough to deal with.

[JenaSalton]

6 hours ago, OlBuzzard said:

Then have a really good reason for the announcement ...  like maybe a new XP coming down the pipe with a fresh new story???

I'd really love to see marketing for the APAC server (and the whole game tied to this). Once the release date for the next update has been announced do a whole bunch of advertising - new expansion, new server, updated/improved lighting and graphics, Life Day, stronghold for 12 credits, (hopefully a collections unlock discount) - and maybe some fun bundles that include one of the new dyes and/or a free server transfer.

I know a lot of people have aren't thrilled with parts of the game, which is understandable, but I think there is still a lot to be excited about especially right now and it would be wonderful to see the team capitalizing on that. (Plus, there are all those rumours that the KotOR remake is dead (RIP) so I feel like the Old Republic era is in the news/social media a decent amount right now and so more SWTOR advertising could pull on that as well.)

[TrixxieTriss]

24 minutes ago, JenaSalton said:

I know a lot of people have aren't thrilled with parts of the game, which is understandable, but I think there is still a lot to be excited about especially right now and it would be wonderful to see the team capitalizing on that. (Plus, there are all those rumours that the KotOR remake is dead (RIP) so I feel like the Old Republic era is in the news/social media a decent amount right now and so more SWTOR advertising could pull on that as well.)

There is a lot to offer new APAC players & even those that stopped playing 10 years ago when the original servers were closed. 10 years of game development would nearly seem like a whole new game for those old APAC players. 

[BulbulusTheGreat]

21 hours ago, SoyElSenado said:

 

Onslaught was excellent story imo and it felt like original vanilla stories again in a lot of ways. They should focus on the fundamentals of republic vs empire. Having regular people mixed in is great, I think everyone loved the class story quest on rishi where orgus has you help out normal people and that’s sort of mixed in to “also saving the galaxy.” Even though it’s already been used a ton of times, resource rush type things can work for that so it’s not just a simple “here’s the war again.” Maybe darth nul’s research is discovered by patch 7.6 and the next xpac starts with the two factions fighting for control of it. Whatever, I’m not a writer nor am I very creative but all I know is I want more story like onslaught and less like kotfe/kotet and legacy of the sith where everyone is against the same boogeyman. 

to be fair Empire and Republic aren't against same boogeyman currently, its not same as zakuul where we literally joined armies to fight common foe, in the fp where we capture malgus we get a republic spec ops team trying to do the same as well as trying to kill us so yeah it was like two factions fighting each other and then malgus who was just one person being chased by both, and then theres whole mando stuff and voss/gormaks mixed in but empire and republic are very much at war right now.

in fact i hope that next update being ord mantell there will be a lot of imp vs pub considering its technically rep planet so any imperial there is an invader by default, separatists will be involved too obviously.

Edited November 21, 2023 by BulbulusTheGreat

[OlBuzzard]

12 hours ago, JenaSalton said:

I'd really love to see marketing for the APAC server (and the whole game tied to this). Once the release date for the next update has been announced do a whole bunch of advertising - new expansion, new server, updated/improved lighting and graphics, Life Day, stronghold for 12 credits, (hopefully a collections unlock discount) - and maybe some fun bundles that include one of the new dyes and/or a free server transfer.

I know a lot of people have aren't thrilled with parts of the game, which is understandable, but I think there is still a lot to be excited about especially right now and it would be wonderful to see the team capitalizing on that. (Plus, there are all those rumours that the KotOR remake is dead (RIP) so I feel like the Old Republic era is in the news/social media a decent amount right now and so more SWTOR advertising could pull on that as well.)

Agreed!  IMO it's one of those opportunities that comes around once in a blue moon!  It's a win-win for the entire community!

[MotherCrusher]

I just hope it isn't like voss (and that we are allowed to skip the quests on voss and just talk to the council)

We seriously don't need more content padding with repetetive fetch quests and 3 alien lines playing in a loop

 

Imo bring back the focus on the actual war.

Edited November 21, 2023 by MotherCrusher

[DWho]

On 11/21/2023 at 1:20 PM, MotherCrusher said:

I just hope it isn't like voss (and that we are allowed to skip the quests on voss and just talk to the council)

We seriously don't need more content padding with repetetive fetch quests and 3 alien lines playing in a loop

 

Imo bring back the focus on the actual war.

I can see how skipping would be a benefit but it should have some restrictions. I'd vote for a legacy based system where you could skip content you had already completed. For example, if you had completed the vanilla storyline on a Jedi Knight, you could skip to RotHC with a Jedi Knight but not a Sith Warrior (until you had completed it once on a Sith Warrior). The skip points should also be to the start of the expansion (2.0, 3.0, 4.0, etc) and not sub-releases (7.1, 7.2, 7.3, etc).

As far as content padding goes, that is why we get 30 minutes of story every 6 months (one extremely linear and very short storyline add-on). There needs to be some padding to extend the play time and make an expansion feel like more than a one-trick pony. More variation on the types of missions would be preferred but the content does indeed need some padding.

[TrixxieTriss]

1 hour ago, DWho said:

I can see how skipping would be a benefit but it should have some restrictions. I'd vote for a legacy based system where you could skip content you had already completed. For example, if you had completed the vanilla storyline on a Jedi Knight, you could skip to RotHC with a Jedi Knight but not a Sith Warrior (until you had completed it once on a Sith Warrior). The skip points should also be to the start of the expansion (2.0, 3.0, 4.0, etc) and not sub-releases (7.1, 7.2, 7.3, etc

Agreed 👍

[DeannaVoyager]

11 hours ago, DWho said:

The skip points should also be to the start of the expansion (2.0, 3.0, 4.0, etc) and not sub-releases (7.1, 7.2, 7.3, etc).

I think that's what they are doing, about. But it doesn't work very well, because an expansion can be mostly fine, but then there is something like Echoes of Oblivion that makes me want to quit the game. I don't know which "expansion" that was, but I'm fine with playing before and after it, just not through it. Not a fan of having to skip everything just because of one piece of "story" that should have never been released.

 

[TziganeNZ]

1 hour ago, DeannaVoyager said:

I think that's what they are doing, about. But it doesn't work very well, because an expansion can be mostly fine, but then there is something like Echoes of Oblivion that makes me want to quit the game. I don't know which "expansion" that was, but I'm fine with playing before and after it, just not through it. Not a fan of having to skip everything just because of one piece of "story" that should have never been released.

 

If we could choose which individual chapters we could skip, that would be brilliant. If they broke up EoO into 2-3 chapters, that would work brilliantly - I'd definitely skip the last bit, but I don't actually mind the early part of the expansion.

[MotherCrusher]

12 hours ago, DWho said:

I can see how skipping would be a benefit but it should have some restrictions. I'd vote for a legacy based system where you could skip content you had already completed. For example, if you had completed the vanilla storyline on a Jedi Knight, you could skip to RotHC with a Jedi Knight but not a Sith Warrior (until you had completed it once on a Sith Warrior). The skip points should also be to the start of the expansion (2.0, 3.0, 4.0, etc) and not sub-releases (7.1, 7.2, 7.3, etc).

As far as content padding goes, that is why we get 30 minutes of story every 6 months (one extremely linear and very short storyline add-on). There needs to be some padding to extend the play time and make an expansion feel like more than a one-trick pony. More variation on the types of missions would be preferred but the content does indeed need some padding.

im all fine with some degree of padding, but an entire questline, where your character is unvoiced, with 3 alien lines playing on a loop, and filled with boring fetch quests, inserted into your MAIN STORY, is going way too far. It is bad enough that i do not wish to do it on any future characters.

now don't get me wrong, when i mentioned skipping, im purely reffering to voss and the boring fetch quests that you have to do to meet with the three - there is absolutely nothing relevant to the story in that section and absolutely no reason to force it upon your characters. its the same as if you were forced into doing the unvoiced manaan and ruhnuk questlines to continue your story, thank god you dont have to.

Edited November 23, 2023 by MotherCrusher

[Desrao]

Weird that this is a sentiment. Or anyone would believe this as anything more of revisionist history. When the game launched over half a million (I’m being incredibly conservative here) left the game when all the game offered were 

 

*checks notes*
 

The best story content this game has ever had. And the reason they all left was.. there wasn’t an endgame.

 

The second big spike that happened was 4.0, and things looked up as there was a lot more endgame content to retain players and returning players had a backlog of it that was somewhat relevant. Then 5.0 hit another huge story drop, the introduction to rng loot box progression gearing (what a joke) and people didn’t stick around long enough for the devs to justify finishing their story lmao.

 

so if you take that into consideration and think “man I know what the game needs! Just story”, you are beyond reasoning with. HOWEVER, I will say that at this point the game needs everything, a solid story beat to draw folks in and a robust endgame to keep them playing and interested. The issue I see is that the dev team is too small to deliver on all fronts simultaneously, and like was mentioned earlier in the thread. A big proper, traditional, tried and true PAID MMO expansion is the only conceivable way to deliver that. 
 

i have hope for the game, I truly do. I have wanted this to be my main game since it was announced, and I had to leave my home on Star Wars Galaxies. The problem is I think the game is too profitable for the amount of low effort it takes to keep it sputtering along so in a business sense why would you invest any more? Why take a huge risk to revive the game when it’s already making a ton for the little investment you put into it? (This is the part that I hope the Twitter thread 6 Mos ago where Chris Schmidt said that BioWare was redtaping any real progress from a passionate dev team was correct.) I’m waiting to see, but without a roadmap we are all left to speculate. (Which is probably more bad than it is good.) I have come and go and will leave again if they don’t provide a fun multiplayer experience that keeps me wanting to play with friends, and since I do that I am not as jaded as long time fans and subscribers that have been slighted for years now. 
 

***Edit: I want to make sure I clarify, when I say “low effort” I don’t mean the devs. I mean the investment. Devs are as capable as their workforce, talent, and budget allow, and most of the factors that determine those things have to do with management and not the actual devs making the game. Too many idiots armchair dev and throw around “lazy”. Game devs deal with a lot more restraints and don’t get

to just decide what they spend their time on, management does.***

Edited November 23, 2023 by Desrao

[Lord_Malganus]

19 minutes ago, Desrao said:

The issue I see is that the dev team is too small to deliver.

long time fans and subscribers have been slighted for years now. 
 

 

The cow has been milked dry.