Quick thoughts on BioWare's direction with this game.

You (and by you I mean Bioware EA) only make money with the F2Pcashshop option if you sell (they usually aim to sell ~$15 a month in the cashshop to the average player).

So if they don't or can't sell story then they HAVE to sell other things.

Lol so just cut out all that development...right? You do realize, this game HAS PvP servers...right?

But hey, let em just find that other meaningless stuff in other games...no biggy.

I agree. They are making their main feature free (story from 1-50).

Let's say this game going F2P attracts loads of new players who wanted a KOTOR 3 but don't want to pay a sub. They will play their class story without restriction and most likely leave after hitting the cap. They came and left without spending a single cartel coin. (granted that one player not spending money won't change anything lets imagine half of new players don't.)

Bioware/EA will definitely without a doubt increase the variety of the cartel market.

I don't want to see them gimp or skimp on anything anyone is interested in. Just don't go cheap on the thing that makes you special. In my opinion that's story and immersion. More please

Good post, OP. I agree! Story is what TOR does better than other MMO's, and there are a lot of people that are really drawn to it. It is certainly my favorite aspect of the game!

I think Bioware kinda designed themselves into a corner with this though -- I guess they knew these fully voiced stories would be expensive, but figured it would be doable as they expected to have a ton of subs thus making the expenditure worthwhile. But now that the game has less subs than they had hoped for, they seem to be going for "safer" less expensive content additions. Let us hope that if F2P is a success, and the game becomes more profitable, we will see them focus on story content more.

But if you think about it, emphasis on story could go really, really well with fluffy cash shop items. With story in this game, you see SO much of your character, up close and in beautiful cut scenes. They have a voice and can really feel like "characters". People who like that sort of thing and get attached to their characters may also be drawn to cash shop fluff such as exclusive character customization options, playable races, vanity armor, vanity pets, companion customization kits, and stuff like that that lets you make your character more unique and "yours".

Mind you, this is just my 2 cents. And I am crossing my fingers that story won't be forgotten.

My major concern with the forward development of the game is the lower priority on story. Certainly I would like to see more group content, but not to the exclusion of story. Story (and the voiced cinematics with dialogue choices) are what makes swtor different, and better imo, than the other mmo's out there.

If you are looking for more story etc. then hate to break it to you but mmo's aren't for you. This is an MMO not just a single player RPG. If you want all story go play console games. They need to focus on putting a high quality Operation and re-vamp PvP for those who PvP. There is enough story right now. Granted I did enjoy the storyline, but I mostly was excited for the Operations/end game raiding. It has been a let down in the sense of how extremely short they were and fairly easy. They were pretty good in the actual design of them as it felt like an actual raid from WoW until it ended so quickly.

When did I say just story? but every update we have had and have heard of since release has had nothing to do with Story (no legacy does not count), enough of the PVP/PVE updates, over half a year has been dedicated to that, story needs some attention, serious attention.

Also, did you miss the memo, story is the main drawing point for SWTOR.

I agree with this. In actuality, in beta, you could kill off your companions or piss them off. They changed it because too many people complained they didnt like the permanance. IMO its those choices that made the game more interesting. Having consequences makes the game more real. We have consequences in life. If you cant live with your choices then perhaps you should have thought about it before you acted. It makes you think and thats a good thing.

Besides... they could have put a system in to aquire new companions instead of just scrapping out what they had.

Im sure they initially planned to. They just didnt expect people to cancel so quick. Now they arent making enough money to do so. They made alot of poor decisions and released a very vanilla product, by todays standards. That just doesnt cut it anymore. It was way too quick to level and it was way way way too quick to reach the carrot. I dont think they understood how to do the gearing process. The gearing process is what gives alot of gamers longevity. When you can completely skip flashpoints and do a raid, get geared in two weeks time... its too fast.

Anyhow, the story is very expensive to create and too many people quit so they dont make money anymore. It also takes a long time to develop it. Im sure you will see some but I doubt it will be the quality of the vanilla release.