They should have kept developing the "fourth pillar"

I have to agree with the OP, the leveling experience in SWTOR is extremely fun, especially the class stories (the sidequests unfortunately suffer from the "bring me 10 droid butts"-syndrome and are rather annoying when leveling a second or third on the same faction). However, at 50 the game turns into a mindless gear grind which is something I have zero interest in.
They really need to focus more on the game's strong points, though they can't completely neglect the other aspects.

Always felt they lost faith in the game very early on, especially the story part

It's not about what's waiting on the other siiiiiiiiiide......... it's the cliiiiiiiimb. Come on you Miley Cyrus fans WOO! hehe But yes, playing new low level alts and new stories is becoming more fun than playing a 50.

People left for bigger reasons than no new story my friend.

They spent the past 12 months developing everything BUT story and 2 out of every 3 people left the game. Maybe the things they have been giving folks aren't what folks are actually looking for here.

BW can not compete by releasing raids and PvP. They will never be as good at it as that giant gorilla over there in the corner (WoW for those of you who are confused). BW needs to do what BW is best at. That is what the game was advertised and sold as. That is what the people that came here wanted.

I think they started listening to that vocal minority that plagues every MMO. The ones that demand content and complain there's nothing to do at endgame.

Then the numbers started coming in and BW saw the sub numbers dropping. So they figured since numbers don't lie, this vocal minority must've been correct: players were leaving because they didn't feel paying $15 a month was worth the small amount of content available at max level.

What BW didn't seem to understand was that a majority of people were leaving not necessarily because there wasn't more raids and FPs (though I'm sure some certainly did.) but because there was NO MORE STORY.

That's what this game was advertised as, and that's clearly where the game shines. The focus on SWTOR should have always been on that so-called fourth pillar.

Again, hindsight is alway 20/20, but I feel like the best approach to the game should have been:

• Make your personal story the main thrust of the game. Put all the excellent VO and cinematics here, where it belongs.
• Make the rest of the game more of a sandbox experience where the players generate their own content, including cantina events, swoop racing, pazaak, and perhaps even guild cities.
• Do away with standard questing in the open world. Meaning players wouldn't have to go to some NPC to pick up a quest and sit through more VO or even text that essentially tells them to kill 10 rats. Rather, these types of quests would automatically go into your log as soon as you enter the zone, very much like the Black Hole District, where as soon as you enter it, you get the quests to kill X amount of bad guys. You would turn in your quest to a mission dropbox.
• Flashpoints, Operations, space combat, dailies, crew skills, world bosses and especially warzones all feed directly into your faction's war effort against either the Republic or the Empire. It could be something similar to what Mass Effec 3 did with their Galaxy at War content. Each time you successfully complete a flashpoint, Operation, down a world boss, or win a Warzone, you add a certain percentage to your faction's readiness. Remember, the galaxy isn't at official war yet, but war is coming. It's inevitable. Therefore, everything you do in-game goes towards supporting your readiness.
• Whichever faction gets to 100% readiness would receive a variety of really cool perks and bonuses. But this readiness is always in flux and could always swing both ways.
• Your character's personal story is neverending. Chapters or smaller episodes are continuously added.

These are all just off the top of my head, and I think if the game went in this direction, it could have been more successful.

No matter how great the leveling experience is it will not save this game, i would have thought by now that bw would have realized that an mmo without a true endgame will not be successful and an mmo that undermines its own end game will do even worse.

It amazes me that someone at bioware thought it would be a good idea to allow people to just buy end game gear off the auction house. It might have not been so devistating to the end game if the appearance gear you got from end game raids were desirable, but they undermined themselves in that department too by making lower level and cartel gear better looking.

Chasing the carrot on a stick is what keep mmos alive, when you listen to the dolts that just want to be able to buy their carrots instead of achieving them youre ruining your game because even those dolts will buy their gear then quit out of boredom, they are just too ignorant to realize it before hand.

Agree. I do like some of the things you propose. Not necessarily the questing thing, I think talking to NPCs is vital, but the rest I can agree with.

It doesn't have a true levelling game either.

An MMO that anyone could play from 1-50 without ever playing with, grouping with, or in any way interacting with another human player is not an MMO.

If all chat and grouping options were removed from the game tomorrow, it would still be entirely possible to level from 1-50. That is a giant problem for any MMO.

this is a extreamly black and white veiw and in no way correct. is there a concrete deffinition of a mmo? or is it just whiney entitled mmo players who think they are important because they are on the internet

but they did wait for the story to end before they left