Will anything actually retain customers?

Simply THIS!

F2P is NOT the answer to a game that starts to go downhill due to "old school" nonsense, you CLOSE the hole that opens, not put a paper sheet above it and pretend it's not there.. People will still fall inside..

In any case, I see comparisons with other games in this thread, like CoH, WAR, WoW, SWG.. Yeah, they have some amazing features in them.. CoH's customization, WAR's RvR combat. WoW's..... and SWG's "freedom"... Still, people are forgetting something disturbingly important :

This isn't the early 2000's, it's 2012.. Simply copying stuff from OLD games to add to a NEW one, will eventually cause players to say "Yeah, i've been there, i've done that, i don't want to re-do it in a new game, no matter how polished it is".. I'm sure those games had something extraordinary back at their peak times, but hey? Check the dates! People have been doing all that <@#$!?> for MORE than 8 years now, i think it's time for something new, unique, and lasting..

BioWare was amazing with the voice add-on to the game.. It was the first time people saw such a thing in an online game, and it definitely added "points" to the game.. I Myself said that i've found my new MMO due to this, and i still love it, even now..

But behind that? NOTHING new! Same skill collection, and GEAR HUNT! Especially at 50's.. We do the SAME things day after day, and for what? For us to get a disgusting looking high class armor to use in OPS cause you can't do them without it? An armor which will be plain useless when they decide to increase the level cap? For us to re-grind all over again for the next level cap raise? And why? Cause it's "How things are" according to some morons with their brains above the clouds?

By creating something brand new and exciting, you'll attract more players, and even those who are literally sick of "traditional" MMO's.. There's NO Tradition in Video Games, you just try to be unique and create something never seen before..

It's just, that, simple..

lol what? there's no single player dailies? There aren't many dailies in the game that require more than one person.I dont know if you're playing a different game I'm playing

It does sound like you just want a sandbox game. More power to you though, good luck changing the game to suit your needs.

I think they should try to advertise this game a lot more. People leave mmorpgs all the time. To replace them they need new players. Star Wars is a big IP sure, but currently they dont bother to tell anyone about this game. All those podcasts, twitters, facebook things work only for the people who already know about the game. Interviews in game blogs and magazines will reach people who already play a lot and most likely have already heard about the game. Where are they getting new players?

Other problem with not advertising is that there are currently a group of ex-players in various forums ready to repeat their rant about how this game is a total failure every time someone mentions swtor. When they actually start advertising, their potential audience has already been warmed by these parrots. Just think about a stand up comedian who's jokes are all about the silly things his wife does and who tries to do his act in some aggressive feminist convention...

Other than that, more various different content to different playstyles. Just dont try to please everyone with a single content or you end up pleasing no-one.

well for APAC players a server transfer service will retain and possibly bring back players.

1. Still in Alpha.
2. All the old schoolers are coming back from Intrepid, Bria, and Starsider.
3. It will be the place to RP and do all that sandbox community stuff soon ( and not Soon!!(™) ).

You represent the "new" MMORPG player. Impatient.

They advertised like mad for SWTOR, it was everywhere.

There problem is retention, simply because the game core isn't well designed for it, they should have had more sandy features in from launch and they need things like RvR (or RvRvR) in yesterday too.

Today's MMORPG player is capricious. TBH, not sure any company is going to be able to make "the MMORPG" that will satisfy the current customer base.

Truer words have never been spoken in this forum.

What continues to surprise me is how much people are in denial about the nature of the broader playerbase in MMOs today. They keep wanting to blame the game producers, when in fact much of the problem of retention rests with the very nature of the player base in 2012. People pontificate about how this is not the early 2000s (or 1990s) and an MMO must offer x, y, z, at launch.... but the reality is that MMOs have evolved a lot from those earlier times, but so has the player base (and not in a good way in the context of retention). Players are largely nomadic, selfish, and consumption based. It's the Mongol Horde, only in virtual form, moving across the plains of the MMO portfolio, killing and conusming everything in it's path. Nomads do not settle down anywhere long enough to leave any lasting impression.

Because WAR was only PVP. It was a Shooter with a dressing room.
SWG had bad timing- (EQ wasn't dead enough for a new MMO yet- especially a new one by the same company) and it had too much sand, not enough box.
Can't help you there, I didn' even try CoH. Had nightmares of people playing the Batman-who-wasn't-Batman or Wolverine-who-wasn't-Wolverine for weeks...
People didn't leave WoW or EQ for any reason other than the life of the game... both of them ran their course, they aged beyond their graphics engines, people knew the ins and outs of the combat engine. aside from tacking on more and more adds, with more and more hp to grind through, they weren't making the encounters harder. Though WoW still has some room for that, given they got a late start on raid non-combat mechanics.

I think, barring a miracle, you can stick a fork in SWTOR as well. It's going to be labeled a bust by going F2P. People don't usually stop/avoid an MMO because of money... $15 a month is cheap for the time spent playing. Time is why they avoid it. They don't want to spend time developing a toon on a game that isn't going to involve them for years, especailly if the next great thing could be coming down the pike at any minute (Whether it is, or not, or evern rumored to be) and they want to be free to get in the door on day 1.

I suspect F2P will do more harm than good to SWTOR. Too many people can make throw away accounts to be a tool somewhere somehow and not care... Too many will quit becuse "F2P games have a lower quality and support level" and they won't get as many new free players and subs to overcome what they lose when they get the stigma of F2P.

I don't buy that there has been this massive social change to humanity since 1998 (when you look at the history of humanity, humans behaved the same way they do now 10,000+ years ago). People are still people, give them what they want and they'll be hooked.

What has changed is game companies spending exponentially more cash to deliver less innovation and length of play.

Titan will be interesting, to see if Blizzard just try to make WoW 2 or make something new and different.