They should have kept developing the "fourth pillar"

The development strategy of concentrating on story failed.
The development strategy of being able to solo everything has failed in every MMO except WoW.

Those development decisions were made years ago based on the assumption/gamble that TOR would be a huge hit and thus story content would be an essential element of all MMO's that followed. You can pretty much bet that had TOR's dud status been known 2 or 3 years ago, nobody would be putting story and cinematics in the games.

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

A huge issue of TOR is that the story, while being good (1) is not, by a huge margin, the most important part of the 1-50 experience.

Non storyline quests tend to be....welll...bad.



(1) Just ''good''. I might be getting old, but I find TOR story just ''good''. I have bought every single SW book ever released (except the ones by Karen Traviss), and frankly, the TOR ones are not, by far, my favorites. Some storylines, like the JK one, are not very imiginative to say the least. To be honest, I found TOR storylines a notch below Dragon Age, Mass Effect and especially KOTOR.

LOL well, if they had known that, they wouldn't have made the game to being with.

I know pre-launch, BioWare was mocked a bit for always talking about story anytime they talked about this game. The most common criticism you heard about SWTOR before it launched was that it sounded like a single player game with co-op content thrown in. That MMO gamers wouldn't buy off on that, and that they are mostly concerned with progression. As in, gearing up their characters once they get to max level.

This has proved to be a double-edged sword. Though hindsight is always 20/20, it's clear that if BioWare really did want to do something different or tweak the MMO model, they should've by and large ignored MMOers. I've come to this conclusion after playing a Jedi Sentinel to 50, and then being consigned to the dailies/hard mode flashpoint grinds.

SWTOR became instantly unfun to me. I even made a thread about it a few weeks ago about how I don't enjoy being 50. However, I recently started playing a new character who is now only level 17, and I'm having a blast again.

Why?

Because of the story. This game shines from 1-49. This game becomes like any other MMO at 50: boring, tedious, and redundant. MMO'ers will always demand content. And they will always demand it at an unrealistic pace, and then once that content is released, they will consume it much faster than any developer cam make new content.

In this way, the game becomes a never ending self fulfilling prophecy of doom. People will always complain there's not enough to do and that the game is boring. And developers will always continue putting out content that is essentially more of the same in different skins. You hear this in nearly every single MMO out there today, including WoW.

SWTOR could have - and still can be - different. Because what it needs the most right now is not another raid or warzone (though I know that's what we are getting.), but Chapter 4. That's what it needs right there - Chapter 4.

You advertise a game as being all about story and the fourth pillar, and create a really enjoyable experience while leveling. Why, then, are you surprised that no one is sticking around when the story ends? This could have been the best way to make SWTOR have longevity and truly do something a bit different than anyone else on the market. By putting out new content that is focused on your hero's continued journey. Flashpoints, warzones, operations, all that stuff is fine and dandy, but these play into MMOer's hands, a fickle demographic that is a) never satisfied, and b) always says they want something different when in fact, they only want more of the same.

Not saying you can't focus on those things: we have to gear progression and all of that, but end game is truly a different game than the journey.

And SWTOR is probably the first MMO I've ever played where the journey was truly what the adventure was all about..

And the current strategy of concentrating on endgame only is working?

Classic endgame doesn't appeal to everyone and without further story content and/or sandbox features/exploration I don't see this approach working either. If the current "endgame only" / "raid or die" direction is the future of SWTOR, they won't expand their playerbase and most likely continue to lose players. For now, we'll have to see what Makeb brings and whether it really introduces new systems to the game.

In an ideal world Story progression would be a regular thing, the problem is I don't think it can be streamlined to the point where "episodic" story-based content can be churned out at a reasonable time-frame (to most players, let alone the hardcore story-pursuers), I think the game would need to grow much larger in player-base for that amount of investment to be economically viable.

I think Horizontal progression and depth would be best served by an expansion of system-based gameplay, more world-building & further sand-boxing of the game, once players have a stream of content they themselves help generate the burden upon keeping players engaged lessens enough to perhaps divert some resources into creation of a continuing narrative with tangible content for players.

And SWTOR is probably the first MMO I've ever played where the journey was truly what the adventure was all about..