Can we get a developer dialogue going on why class stories are not in the cards?

how about they cut down developing side Quests and Daily's? and work on story quests. they don't have to be long, two or three things to do per new planet.

i really want more class stuff, i played all planet story once for each side and thats it. honestly i never found them to be that engaging to want to repeat twice, let alone eight times

honestly makebs story wasn't really that great, while i did like how different they were on each side. i have no real desire to do it again

That's the crying shame of it. But don't say that - enough people complain and vote with their wallets, it certainly CAN change. I've seen devs, even in this game, thinking something is so unimportant and quite frankly, be so clueless as to why the players would care about something, only for the outcry to be so loud and so constant that they cave because at the end of the day, its about serving your base.

The error some people make here is immediately assuming their opinion is automatically the public opinion, when a lot of times, its a vocal minority.

Its why I waited on making this thread. But after seeing story coming up again and again at each cantina tour, and seeing it come up again and again here on the forums, its hard to ignore that this isn't a vocal minority but a vocal majority.

Even if they don't do full class quests like 1-50, they need to start getting on board with SOME class quests to continue the story, even if you piggyback them into the planet quests with a new planet. (ahem, Item 2, original post).

The thing is, they claim going forward they are going to have planet stories with class influences: claiming "we need to understand that an inquisitor wouldn't solve a problem the same way as a smuggler".

The problem is they already have shown a real lack of creativity with Makeb and how the integrated that into the class stories (see Item 1), so all they could really be saying is they are going to toss in some lazy, cheap, and tacky throwback lines to your class quest like they did for makeb and then just do their whole group thing, with no variance in the quests other than some pointless dialogue meant to try to trick the player into thinking he actually is getting some class-specific content, when its the same crap, just a different dialogue.

It just feels doubly insulting, that not only are they ignoring the huge outcry for more personalized stories and a continuation in some way of your class story, but that they are willing to treat players as idiots with lazy writing and lazy class story "shout-outs" than actually trying to continue the story.

And don't even get me started on the heinous retconning they are trying to do on the Emperor, Emperor's Voice, Darth Malgus and Revan....

100% agree with you. I tried to play through Makeb tonight cause I was bored, this would be my 6th time through it, and I got about half way before I wanted to bring bodily harm to something or someone.

I want more individual class and companion stories as well, I've been pestering on and off these forums for months. If there are no more individual class and companion stories on the way, or no player housing coming, then what's left? I really don't need another place to do dailies. I have 22 toons on one server alone, and there is no way I want to go back to Makeb, having already done it 5 times. I just can't stand it.

The individual class stories brought me here, and kept me here, but without more individual class stories, there is nothing really holding me to this game anymore. I want to hope they'll work on it, but after the last few things they've been spouting on their merry trip around the world, I don't hold out much hope.

What else are they supposed to do? They're a business that's there to make money. People voted with their wallets and left en masse, which told them that players aren't patient enough to pay for content while they wait the long development time it takes to make class stories. Why would they make that same mistake again?

Story content flat out takes a long time to develop. It took them three years to create the class and world stories that we already have and people blew through them in months. Those writers who made the content you love? They don't work for bioware anymore, because they either quit or got laid off. Making more class specific stuff (even shortened versions) would be really slow now since they'd have to rebuild their entire team since they're all gone. And then, even if they did that, once it got released (assuming that players would be patient enough to continue playing while it was developed - which I doubt), players would burn through it super fast and then ***** that there wasn't more to do.

This isn't really Bioware's fault. It's the players who did this to the game. And now we're left with what pays the bills and provides fast,easy to create content that gives immediate satisfaction with little story bits thrown in like Makeb or the occasional new companion. And no, I don't think even throwing in a few class specific quests into something like Makeb would work - I actually think it would only piss people off more and all they'd hear would be whining about how it's not enough.

This is the game now. Seriously, folks. And they're not going to come out and talk to you about it in a forum thread. The dialogue that mattered happened already when people voted with their wallets.

This is how the dialogue would go:

Us: "Why devs, why, why?"
Them: "No tengo dinero..."
Us: *tear*

Hey,
since there is no Developer reply and we're open for speculation, here is what I think: there are not gonna be any new class stories in a year or so. The BioWare reasons would be:

1. They don't have the team. After the launch disaster they sacked the team, and there are simply no people to handle the class stories

2. There is the corporate thinking. They made a huge game based on story which cost a lot. Several months after the launch people started leaving the game, because there was too much story and not enough group/endgame content. After this failure, which resulted with change in the management staff and going free to play, anyone in BW that comes up with "let's do another class story" gets a polite pat on the back, with the bosses thinking "you stupid schmuck, didn't you learn anything?". I bet nowadays the class story theme is a taboo -you dont talk about it in BW, you dont even think about it, or you risk being fired for irresponsible ideas. Class story in their mind was a mistake.

3. The guy that got promoted recently (forgot the name) has a prodigy status as he saved the game (I am thankful). He doesn't like the class stories, so his point of view is BW point of view. Class story=bad and costly, Cartel Market, group content=good profit. BW isn't a company to make a good games, but to make profit (from possibly good games, but profit is on the first place). This is not an accusation, this is capitalism.

4. Let's look at the player base, the subscribers and free to players as BW view them. In my opinion BW tend to think that there are people that love Star Wars and their characters so much, that they will never leave this game. There is another group, that they have to fight for. Like those American "swinging states". People who leave if any other MMO has better mechanics or is cheaper. This are the people that finished class stories in a month and started to leave the game. If they don't give group content to the swinging players, they will leave.
But ignoring the first group might prove foolish. These are the people that take their time finishing and role playing their stories. But when they finish all 8 they will stop playing. I personally think it might be happening now. I myself have 4 more characters to go, and expect to finish the game by next spring. I wonder who will play the role of the new BW prodigy, to save the game from failure due to class story players leaving.

The players attitude is something worth discussing. I have a strong feeling this game is now being developed for hardcore MMO players, not traditional BioWare clients. But they can't win with the competition. A lot of new, possibly more advanced games arrive on the market -hardcore MMO players who don't care about the stories will go where they please

5. Finally lets discuss SWTOR stories. Maybe there isn't that much to fight for. I like the stories, but this is no KOTOR, no Mass Effect. I played 4 stories and haven't seen anything close to the Revan revelation, or when you finally realize what the Sovereign really is. I like the companions, but I LOVED Garrus or Wrex or Canderous. See what I mean? There is something missing with SWTOR stories. So maybe leaving the game in a few months, after I finish the last story isn't such a bad idea?

Questions are: Are they gonna realize that they need new class stories to keep the game going in a long term? and are they able to create better story content

Again, sorry for my bad English -not my native language

EA is terrible at managing MMO's. They really are. They care too much about fast and imediate money and MMO's are labors of love. WoW didnt have 8 million subscribers at launch or on year one. It grew by improving the game and adding more to it.

Seeing as the problem is money theres only one way to solve this. A reboot of the game like it happened with FFXIV or a new exciting retail expansion. Get a new engine, make what is essentially an expansion. Get all those features ready at launch like group finder and the end-game content in big quantities. Limit class story content to a minimum if necessary but get it in there.

Who am i kidding. I dont have any hope on EA/Bioware to try and turn it around at this point. The game is fun, but without a bigger development team we are just gonna drag on.
Maybe now that Hickman got promoted the team might get bigger financing... we'll see, but above all, this game is still alive. I dont know how many subs and how much money the game makes, but im sure it does make money. The team needs to be revitalised. And most of all, we need to have more feedback from the developers and have them listen to us.

What grinds at me is none of this to be honest. Its not the ability failure bug, or the lack of story content (though both are important). What grinds at me is that there is no words on the future of this game. We dont know if theres gonna be expansions, if only small patches, if there will ever be more story, more new systems. All we know is that we got a patch coming next month with arenas and 2 new operations and that a space project is beeing worked on. When 2.4 launches we will virtually know NOTHING about the future except for the space project.
Cmon... the communication with the community is DIRE. You need to take care of this... seriously. You dont make a sucessful MMO by ignoring your costumers.
For example, even though i think FFXIV:ARR is slow and grindy, i still feel safer playing it cause i know theres gonna be massive content updates every 3 months and an expansion is already beeing planned. The game has a future, even if its outdated and boring for me. SWTOR is fun and interesting to me, but Bioware tells us nothing about its future, if there is one, so i dont feel safe investing my time in it.

Have you ever seen anyone from BW/EA on the general forums or suggestion box ?
Just keep talking noone listens and noone cares.

Most of us could live with that sort of delay as long as we knew it was coming. A year for new class stories? Hell yes, At least something to look forward to!

Even if it was class stories integrated into the planetary stories, I could live with. Just as long as it wasn't the same lame *** writing of Makeb like "Hi Dark Council Member! Now go do Imp Agent work because we said so, and because when players ask why, our dev team will make the excuse that it was 'really really important!'". If the writing was good enough, it would have made sense and been self-evident.

The writing for this game has taken a sharp dive since the layoffs.

I understand that doing a Chapter 4 is rather involved, all the voice work and making new areas, yet they don't have to do them all at once. They could release a major patch with X content and then, say, Ch4 of the Agent story. Then next patch, add another story.

I know people will complain that theirs wasn't done first, but the simple way to do it would be to start on the most played clasas and then work your way down. It may not be fair, but at least it would be something to follow.

As far as funding, EA has the funding and could do this if they really wanted to. That new live action trailer wasn't cheap, instead of releasing that they should of diverted those funds to non-market development.