There is STILL incredible potential for SwTOR in the MMO market

i'm sorry for SwTOR not reeling in the numbers like WoW does, but i'm thoroughly convinced that it can reach that level still with this incredible core game it's already gotten, especially with the story/class story. This is the only game that I have felt is closest to playing a movie, and it's still got incredible appeal. Get a better publicist BW, there are so many cool things for players here, it needs a really cool way or events of making more people know.

You need a serious expansion and a re-launch event, one that has nearly the same explosive impact the original announcement of this game had, kinda like what the EQ people were doing that became EQ2, but instead of a brand new game, one big game effort, timed extremely well - target the launch of the new Star Wars movie. - to really get it buzzing

People really like this game, a lot of returning players a lot of new players, have much more praise than criticsm - maybe it's becuase i don't read the forum much, but i'm always chatting with people i group up with and sometimes in general chat over my various characters. They love this unique and well polished feel, they love the stories, and those who don't love the action and the raids, Seriously /BW, you're not exploding big out there because there is a very false and bad perception of this game that really isn't true that is stopping the wider group from a major influx , you need to re-launch /refresh. Newcomers like ESO and WS while each having some cool aspects, still don't have some really cool things that this game has and people are beginning to really notice. Those that scoffed SwTOR and left in frustration after they played it like crack for 6 weeks are opening up again, but you need a big promo and excellent publicity coupled with a huge effort.

Don't get arrogant like the last time, do a thorough and great job.

Something with the following Level of Effort /Improvement will have the impcat you desire;
I would say aim for:

• A 10 level expansion.
• 3 planets for each faction (2 shared, 1 exclusive to a faction - to be opened up later to the other faction)
• 2 Acts of player stories
• New reel of animations with cool moves very Star wars like: e.g. Movement: give everyone a fatigue bar, everyone gets exfiltrate, cover altho only Gs/Snipers have class mechanics, give a crawl modify sprint to use the fatgigue bar instead of being toggle - lets have some cooljedi/sith back flips, acrobatics etc. After knockdowns, force users flip back up rather than slowly get up.
• New classes - I would expect more like hybrid classes: e.g. we have Sage and Shadow, develop the base Consular class as a hybrid of the 2 so you don't have to create a separate story line, either that or allow certain class combinations.
• More pronounced racials: e.g. racial animations substitute soem animations and are auto triggered on certain occasions like human cheer after boss defeat, Cathar would roar for taunt on a tank class some of the attack animations would occassionally substitute using hte weapon for a race special e.g twi'lek might instead swing their lekku for a hit instead of doing a rifle butt - you know like those old hit on stun/incapcitate abilities that were removed. Cathar could ravage with their claws instead.
  
• 3 New Operations
• 2 new flashpoints
• Greater Character Detail; new height weight builds [tall slim male, overweight female]Advanced options, more faces, more hairstyles, more facial hair
• e.g: facial hair thickness slider (advanced), male body hair option, male adam's apple necks
  
  
  Extend Current Systems:
• 3-D space: Extend GS now, you can free fly in space: space loads to different destinations or use your ships flight map.
• A host of planets that players can make wars over, fight over, develop, build settlements, protect with an armada, the means is based on your class, e.g. for the smuggler it would be his rogue armada, for the Agent it would be his secret grou of spies. The idea is that this content players develop. I see planets as just being one environment zones with perhaps a lnading pad, and the plaeyrs can do what they want on it, just give them tools to do it.
• New Space Battle FIghts: a) Guild ship battles, right now GS is only fighter jet vs fighter jet - b) include some space war options
• New class ships: you get these after level 55, all new convos can happen on old ship or new ships, whichever you prefer.
• Fit your class ship for use in GS
  
  Legacy updates:
• New Heroic Moment abilities for each advanced class now.
• Legacy features that allow you to access things like companions of other toons, view inventory and quip items for your other alts without switching, access their crew skills - so you can have them do stuff, but you can't gather for them.
• How cool would it be if you could sometimes use your alt to accompany you in addition to or instead of your companion - a legacy unlock
• Loading Screens: Make travel convos for all journeys that require a loading screen: show ship leave atmosphere, enter orbit, go to light speed, flying through hyperspace, can even show snap shots of the crew going aout business whiles in hyper space, show exiting hyper space, going to orbital station or flying into planet, flying down into spaceport: leaving/entering spaceport can be done really well as it can show an aerial view of the settlement.
  
  See the new Makeb / Oricon /Fleet /Kuat Drive - fly in videos? - do something unique around each planet that will be seen when players are transiting - e.g. Balmorra would have this huge weapons system, Cooreilla this huge space yard, Belsavis this space defense shield barrier that chields the planet, Coruscant/Drumond Kass excessve space travel to and from, Hoth would have ship wreck with pieces constantly falling to the planet.
  
  Other Application:
  • Browser version of the game, you can do to manage your stronghold - maybe the conquest space game mentioned earlier doesn't have to be a fullly visualised aspect, it could be text based, like going on missions are.
  • SwTOR Space Combat App: the pvE space combat is so basic, you can have this available on a mobile phone App.
  • GTN and Crew Skills phone App: You can access live game servers, their general/trade/pvp channels, guild channel, GTN network for all your characters, and ofc, Crew skills. You can constantly dos

Okay, I got carried away with my wet dream. The idea is do something incredible. You need to bring a host of revamps together along with a new levelling experience, make it big, publisze it as a reload, The Galaxy has never been so Exciting or Dangerou sor some other catchy phrase like that.

Hi,

this is my first post and im new to swtor.

I have been playing my sage for a few days now and i LOVE this game.

I have played alot of WoW in the past and some other mmorpg like lineage, ultima online (the older will know ;D ) and after a long break of mmo, i came back to WoW with the free trial and got bored really fast. (and the expensive price of all those expension turned me off)

So i started looking for a 'free' mmorpg and i fell on swtor. Being a big fan of SW i gave it a try... (no need to say at level 10 i got my subscription)

I think this game is really good, and better in a few aspect to WoW.

The only few things i would change would be the queue for pvp game...it would be nice to [check] the map/mode you want to play, because honestly they are not all that great. The ball game for exemple, i cant play that map, its way to complicated....
For the rest, i see alot of people talking about the lack of endgame content, but imo i will have alot to do before i complain with all those quests and stuff to do. (just got my crew skill and damn thats complicated )

So i just want to say this game is beyond my expectation, and as a completly new player, i love that game.

cheers

yes, I'm not sure if Bioware realise how this is one of the most predominant and false perceptions of the game out there. On my discussions in other forums, when SWTOR is mentioned there is a lot of bad mouthing that hasn't changed it's rhetoric since that initial influx deserted the game. They are still saying the game has no end game, is a single player game and a large number of B/S reasons. It really is turning back a huge amount of curious people, cos when they check on those game forums, the ex-players really bad mouth your game. They never mention they were hooked for 6 weeks to get to the end game that wasn't there, nor do they believe there is any end game even though when I can I point out that there has been so much more added.

This is why I've been saying they need a re-launch, you're not going to change peoples perceptions by making public statements, it won't be enough, you need something really attractive to announce, a big event like a big expansion and re-publisize the game. And yes, even with WS and ESO upcoming, I still think this has winning potential, .. but which developer/producer/director will believe me?

oh and thegreatmoon, I felt exactly like you did when i firs tplayed this game, I no longer play any mmo regularly apart from this one, it went beyond my expectations, when I started playing there were no bad vibes, just hyper excitement, i wasn't that interested, quite happy with WoW and it's upcoming MMO, I bought swtor on a whim to try it out, and couldn't put it down.

The story, the character detail, the abilities, the environment and music were just WOW! I've always felt as they give better raids, more pvp maps, and fix smaller details, they shoudl also improve on their strongest details, more story lines, more fly-in scenes, more and better animations, more character details (body hair, facial hair, adam's apples, more size options) etc In addition to more playable content, not apart from.

All of these suggestions are amazing, great and I would welcome all of them. That said, It'll never happen.

Sad to say it probably wont happen, unfortunately that boat has gone I think. They would have to attract back a lot of players and get them subscribing. Something in the region of what happened last time, and I don't see it happening, as an example WoW doesn't attract that kind of resub from its huge base. to do what you are asking would probably cost BW in the region of 50-70m (remember that what you are looking at there is similar to about half the original release at least), I just doubt that they could generate that kind of revenue. You are right coinciding it with the new movie would make some sense, however would most players not expect the characters from that series, rather than some lore from the past?

They already produce that scale of revene/ CM alone profited last year 135 million.

What has that profit got to do with anything? It is not a charity where people reinvest money. Money will only get invested where there is a payback. If you believe any different you are going to be really disappointed sorry to say.

Not exactly the kind of players that make for a good MMO though, IMO. Any player that is going to actively work a gaming forum in a negative light for a game they clearly do not play, and have not played since shortly after launch =/= players to be craved and desired by the game company or other players. Further, riding around on 2 year old rhetoric about a game you do not play is complete nonsense.

We don't need numbers without exceptions. We need good numbers of good players with a mature understanding of the nature of playing virtual games online for fun. Why? Because that represents the core of game play in an MMO...not the cry babies who don't actually play, and in fact are lying via use of dated and obsolete rhetoric. Let them stay over in WoW or GW2 IMO.

And we DO NOT need any sort of crazy convoluted "relaunch" under new marketing hype.

The game is fine. It has lots of players and continues to be stable and growing overall for more then a year now.

NOT ALL MMOs need to be WoW-sized to be successful. There is plenty of diversity and choices in the MMO market for players to play. Personally, I expect that a majority of players actually play more then one MMO.... so this whole "exclusivity based" exceptionalism you are pitching is just normal competitive label mashing IMO.

Game is NOT perfect. Never will be. Then again.. it does not have to be either.. and given we have north of a million active players ongoing in the game..... clearly the game is good enough to play, good enough to retain a stable population level now, and good enough to continue to thrive, despite all it's imperfections and facing widely varying player desires/demands for content to play.

Point. An MMO does not need to have a subscriber base as large as WoW to succeed.

However, this game does need quality of life work if its going to retain the amount of people it currently has. Most of those features would be welcomed by every player that plays the game and even lots that don't.