Gamescom Interview with Jeff Hickman about the future of SWTOR

I just came back from Gamescom where I conducted an interview with the new Executive Producer of Star Wars: The Old Republic Mr. Jeff Hickman. It was very interesting to talk to the man that will be leading SWTOR forward about the future. I asked several questions about F2P and how things are changing and I hope you will find this info useful.

You can watch the interview here:

http://www.swtor-life.com/video/the-...nterview/7112/

UPDATE: The transcript has been added to the original post.

Here's a recap of things discussed

• Introduction of Mr. Jeff Hickamn and his previous work as well as his tasks in the future
• His thoughts and plans on how to make the Free to Play model a reality
• When will Free to Play launch?
• Correlation between announced content (new warzone, raid etc.) and launch of Free to Play
• Once Free to Play goes live, will subscribers ever have to pay for anything (like a big expansion/content pack)?
• Will Makeb increase the level cap?
• How do you introduce a cash shop into a story MMO?
• What is your stance on “Pay to Win”
• What did 50+ mean when new space missions were announced
• Number one community question was “When will our story continue”. Can you tell us more about that?
• Why the space missions and not Makeb?
• What is the future of SWTOR in Mr. Hickman’s words?

Selling gear? What?

Nice interview, he's cool, lots of info.

Nice interview.I dont mind them selling gear 1-40 range like AoC do but they better not sell strong gear at endgame !
Only cosmetic gear at endgame.Just wish that team he was talking about that is working on space was actually working on free flight space combat all this time.And i sure hope Makeb will be free to paying subs.

Pretty good Interview.
One thing I wish you could have asked more on was the Space Content. What I got out of that interview was that it is just going to be more missions for level 50+ and no new improvements to how Space is actually done.
At around 15:50 he goes into talking about Dev Teams. he mentioned three types of teams. A Frequent Content Update Team, a Space Team, and a Team working on Makeb. Now when he started talking about the Space Team (around 16:15) he mentioned went on to mention that they have literally been working on the Hard Mode Space Missions for months. If all they have bee working on is Hard Mode Space Missions then that sort of dashes my hopes for them adding Free Roaming Space in some form to the game. I hope that is not the case. I hope they have a separate team or that this team would also be making a free Roaming Space Content for the game. The Tunnel Shooter aspect of the game is just bad, in my opinion. Space can be so much more.

Next time you or anyone else out there has a chance to do an interview with Jeff Hickman or anyone else in SWTOR, please ask more about Space content. Especially about Free Roaming or the chance for them to break free of this Tunnel Shooter.

Other than that the Interview was great. It was just lacking the one main thing I am interested in knowing about the game. The Future of there Space aspect. When ever I think of Star Wars I always first think of Space and the ability to have my own Ship and what it would be like. So when I think about a Star Wars MMO that is the First thing I personally look at. How is Space going to be done and will it be any good. Right now it is Blah and it has the potential to be so much more. But this Tunnel shooter just doesn't cut it. So again please someone ask more about Space next time you have the chance to do an interview. Thanks.

Hmmm....I'm only a few minutes into it, and the first thing I noticed is how they have backed off the "November" date.

"...and we think we can hit the fall."

The fall? Generally when you fall you hit the floor...

Oh wait, he's American, isn't he? He must mean autumn.

"Will subscribers ever have to pay for future content?"

Excellent question.

IMHO, scary answer.

So we are to see smaller free updates, but the "larger" updates are still being discussed...like Makeb.

"Still being discussed".

"I think you guys will be really happy with what we have planned."

It honestly doesn't seem he has any idea what's already been said.....

Fall/Autumn is considered September/October/November.. so its possible it could be sooner than November.

It's also goes until the third week in December.

But to me, it didn't sound like he was confident in that. (Also, it didn't seem like he had a clue that November was mentioned. He actually looks over and asks someone "What have we said?".)