Will anything actually retain customers?

People want PvP like in WAR, but they left WAR.

People want sandbox elements like in SWG, but they left SWG.

People want community and character customisation like in CoH, but they left CoH.

People want the amount of end-game content of WoW, but they left WoW.

So even if SWTOR was some ultimate MMO force, bringing together all of these features together and adding in some fully voiced class stories. Would it actually retain a larger amount of people for very long?

content content content! BW has to start pushing out content like clockwork

We need more hug a chiss dailies.

Nope, it wouldn't have skill shots, or be realistic enough, or difficult enough, or easy enough, or have enough mini games, or include Master Chief, or enough humor, or balance, or big enough, or better voice protocal, or less lag, or more friends, or less computer spec requirements, or linux support, or real money auction house, or work on an iPhone, or not be apart of EA.


I think you get the idea...

The only MMO that pushes out content like this is Trion's Rift. there is an event every other month or so, so many that it actually irritates some folks. people will come and go during MMO'S some for raids / dungeons / FP'S and some for xpacks.

What retains my sub is the story / lore. my only beef i guess if you could call it that is it is not a sandbox, there is no single player dailies, or real reason to go back to the planets after you hit 50. which is sad because of all the work they put into it. dont get me wrong the heroics are fine but having regular single player dailies / hubs gives players a convieniece of doing them any time they want to even when other player dont.

Pretty much this.

Their only option is to say "#$%& popular opinion. Let's go oldschool and turn TOR into a modern EQ!"

Well, probably not... but it's nice to dream.

Its not even the amount of content so much as the rate of it imo. The wait 3 months and receive 1 ops/warzone(assuming no gaps for feature updates) leads to a sort've weird cycle of repeating the same thing over and over for a long time and then suddenly having a lot to do.

If they can handle the 6 week between smaller updates schedule they set for themselves post f2p I think things will work out.

I completely agree with you.

We need diverse game play, along with all those features the op brought up, our toons need to feel like they live in the world and not just playing through it, content is great but we need different types of content, not just another war zone or another op this is not new content just more of what we already have, can't keep adding ferris wheels to the theme park and expect people to keep coming back the park over an over, we need some play grounds and roller coasters.. I really think the f2p model is more of a band aid than a fix for the sub lose problems, f2p folks can get bored as well. Scripted content can only get you so far.

The trends in mmo's and online games have changed so much since game like wow and swg launched, for one there are tons of games to play now and with the transient nature of mmo'ers these days maybe the companies just make content to satisfy the nomads of today's mmo's.

I did read some research about a year ago that said modern mmo players only stay in an mmo for 3 to 6 months, sure seems like the mmo industry makes these games with that in mind these days, which is sad, I like to stay in an mmo for years and have done so in the past. But find the new generation of mmo's does not give me the feeling that my toon lives in the world, just playing through.