Will anything actually retain customers?

EQ still around if you're missing it.

this is a hands down, put in perspective, kick butt post. love it OP

I'd like to pretend that I'm not a fickle fan myself. But I loved Lotro and CoH, and I left them both and I've already left TOR once and come back. Lifetime MMOing just isn't for me. And to be honest, even if there was monthly updates, with great open RvR, a fantastic character customisation option and friendly and funny community. I'd probably still get bored after a period of time.

I don't know why. Maybe it's just the type of content that's in these types of games, because I still play Rollercoaster Tycoon 2, Civ 4 and Football Manager 2007 regularly and throw a lot of hours at them whilst enjoying them so i'm not just after the latest shiny thing.

MMOS might not be your thing. I cant stand single player games anymore because Im used to the social aspect of MMOs. No shame in that at all.

I love the social side a lot, I guess I just don't really like RPGs. The whole gear grind, and levelling up points thing doesn't really interest me. I want to run around with 3 other people in trooper armour looking like a proper squad, or have 4 level 50 "Darth" titled Sith Warriors go on a fishing trip. etc. whilst talking about our favourite chocolate bars or which 80s cartoon had the best intro.

Heh, yeah this game could stand to be a little more open world and maybe have a touch of sandbox in it. But I like it. Ive quit and come back but to me its better than pandacraft and GW2. Played the SWG EMU for about a month and realized in a total sandbox it can get rather boring rather quickly.

Keep on playing the EMU, keep in mind that EMU has very little content at the moment. That will change over time and the more people that play the faster we may see some of those changes, currently its very much in it's infancy and you shouldn't judge that game by the content, alot of content can be placed into the sandbox element, it just offers the freedom to choose which content you want to enjoy and when.

For now EMU is all about just enjoying that open feel, some day/night and dynamic weather. A little break from our mundane fleet.

Pure speculation on your figures. This is what you throw at anyone on here who comes up with some guess. A sub is a sub...sure the payment methods may vary in other countries and the amount will vary..but they are still "subscriptions" and are technically correct in counting them as such. What we can only count as officail are what they release in thier quarterly reports. Same for TOR..correct? Only last time no sub figures were released for TOR. Only a curve ball statement of " well above 500K". You said those subs which are in Asia remain active for life? How come Blizz themselves said in thier last quarterly report most of the 1.1 million subs lost where from the West/Asia?

I believe there is something to what you are saying here. Pusing out LOTS of crap, is still pushing out CRAP. So, while I agree that they need to develop regular content expansions (which they haven't been doing fast enough), we don't need a lot of cookie-cutter filler pushed on us.

I think the ultimate thing that swtor is lacking is content that is fun to replay over and over.
-Developing different level'd areas on planets, repeatable quests that have usuable rewards, etc would be a good start. Having a reason to go back to worlds, and reasons for devs to expand on those worlds.
-Having meaningful minigames would help; monthly pod racing, with prizes for the top 10% fastest racers each month; Pazaak torniments monthly prizes; etc.
-Having world events 4+ times a years.

Having replayable content that is meaningful and fun to get involved with would build community, invest players in the game, and give players something to do inbetween meaningful content expansion (which should be regular, but not so often that it lowers standards and becomes just a timesink).

Content that is fun to replay will save swtor is anything can. I think they seriously underestimated how fast players can chew through content and get bored (and start whining). The only real solution is to have lots of replayable content that is fun and rewarding to get involved with. Pushing tons of cookie-cutter crap just cheapens the game, and focusing too much on f2p cash shops just turns it into a high school community (look at me!..I am better than you!).

As long as they don't panic and destroy the game with an NGE-like makeover, they will retain 300-350k customers plus a churning froth of F2P casuals dipping in and out.

Nothing, not even sending every player a canned ham and a teddy bear, will retain the number of customers that the developer, publisher and licensor deluded themselves into hoping for over the last couple of years. There is no such market of that size, not for a Star Wars MMO.

In that sense, the fate of this game has been written since well before release.