There is STILL incredible potential for SwTOR in the MMO market

There is no "saving" TOR.

The MMO market isn't what you think it is. The MMO market is basically WoW and everything else. You could probably separate EVE Online out of everything else given its structure and economy in the game and real world, but that's about it.

Actually stop for a second and look at the MMO market from WoW forward, ie Age of Conan, Lord of The Rings, Guild Wars, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, TERA, TOR, Neverwinter, etc, etc, and realize that they're all basically the same.

I say the same in the sense that they all have alot of people playing them at launch but then over time go (or start) F2P and find a stable audience that never really grows or shrinks.

Now combine that with the fact all of these MMOs put out about the same level of content at about the same rate too. For instance none of them are putting out full retail boxed expansion packs. They're doing content updates every few months and cash shop options every few weeks.

The other part of it is that no matter how much money these post WoW MMOs are making from micro-transactions only a small fraction of that money is going back into development of the game. The majority of it is going back to the publisher (EA, NCSoft, Perfect-World) to do whatever with.

The MMO market will continue to be/stay this way for awhile too and we probably won't see any sort of major refresh to the genre ala "the next WoW" until the genre dies down a bit. For instance look at fighting games, they were super popular in the 90s but in the early through mid 2000s there were far less of them and they weren't making as much money. Then Street Fighter 4 comes along and breaths some new life into the genre that hadn't existed in years. Adventure games also followed this pattern too, same goes for a few other game types as well.

You don't seem to understand the fact that what you're describing and asking for is only going to satisfy current TOR players, ie the audience they've already got.

EA could dump another 100 million into TOR and it would NOT see a drastic increase in subs. That's not how the world or market works. Everybody made up their mind(s) about TOR or X MMO back when it came out and have since moved on.

The old model of millions of players playing any one game for years doesn't really exist anymore because everybody is always eager to move onto the next thing and/or try something else. People consume something and move on. That's just how it is now. You can not change that aspect of society no matter how much of a genius you think you might be.

WARNING: Wall of text ...

While no one game excels at every possible MMO aspect, most excel at something while the really good ones excel at multiple things. WoW's numbers became WoW's numbers because it was the right model in the right place at the right time - not because it was groundbreaking or had everything that other MMOs lacked. There's something to be said for timing.

There was no shortage of MMORPGs when WoW launched ... SWG had been out for almost a year and a half, both The Sims Online and Earth & Beyond had been out for 2 years, DAoC had been out for 3 years, Everquest had been out for 4 ½ years (with EQ2 shipping the week before) and Ultima Online had been out for just over 7 years. UO, SWG and TSO were sandboxing world builders, and SWG didn't really become a "Star Wars universe" until the JTL expansion released a month before WoW launched. Earth & Beyond was way ahead of its time and (personally) I was surprised BW didn't incorporate that game's space PvE into TOR. DAoC was an open world MMO heavy into PvP, and Everquest was the king of linear adventuring.

So how did WoW become a 600 lb. gorilla? The answer is easy imho - it singlehandedly jumpstarted the MMO modding community. Modders gave WoW something no other MMO franchise had ... a franchise. The modding community became WoW's full time volunteer field applications engineering and marketing presence. Modders spawned the likes of DKPsystem, WoWhead, WoWwiki, Armory, Curse, Elitist Jerks and TankSpot that practically sold the game for them 24x7. I believe THAT is how WoW got so big.

Bioware opening their doors to modders would not have a similar effect on TOR because the circumstances aren't the same. Modding isn't new anymore. It will take the discovery of a fresh & burgeoning yet similarly powerful & pervasive community - and incorporating it into an MMO's landscape (not just as addon authors either) - to create the next "one." Realistically I don't see "the next one" on the horizon.

Except for one possibility (which according to Blizzard is an improbability): World of StarCraft. If they were to migrate Starcraft II after Legacy of the Void matures into an MMO like they did Warcraft after Heroes, and turned the game's arcade loose to the game's subscribers, it would explode the MMO market the way WoW did. Blizz would essentially be reinventing the gaming community as we know it. The eSports industry (which the original StarCraft practically invented) would provide the Hollywood glitz because that aspect of the game wouldn't have to change in the least. A WoS MMO with the Arcade sandbox in full swing would be a game changer imho. I could also see it being a huge QA nightmare.

Wildstar looks fun as hell but it is essentially a GW2 meets Team Fortress 2 MMO that focuses heavily on player housing. It is genuinely cartoony (in a cool and cute way) and overtly promotes itself as a sandbox MMO aimed at SWG faithful. Like GW2, Terra and Galactic Starfighter it uses the mouse for turn L/R & aiming. Which means one cannot freely move about and drink a beverage at the same time. Though it looks like it will have native PC Gamepad support.

Destiny is essentially Halo online. The Repopulation looks like a traditional Sci-Fi MMORPG that appears to mimic traditional MMORPGs ... just substitute Nations for Guilds. And Planetside is Tabula Rasa with Crysis-candy skins.

Star Trek Online will be kept alive by the Trekkers who are okay with the industry's worst ground combat system because the game's fleet actions, ship & crew advancement system, open (somewhat) space combat and lore are ever present and well oiled.

TESO will be relying on its ES fan base, as well as its emphasis on PvP, to carry it I think. It too appears to mimic traditional MMORPGs, but with a multi-level console-style UI menu system and a mouse-steered combat/movement system similar to Guild Wars & Galactic Starfighter. It too will have native PC gamepad support because there will be PS4 and Xbox One versions releasing this summer.

Lastly is Star Citizen, a hardcore "space simulator" MMO from the same guy that did Wing Commander and Freelancer. Think Wing Commander space combat, Freelancer story and Eve Online's wide open (and cutthroat) economy system. It too uses the mouse for turn L/R & aiming, though space flight & combat are designed around joysticks & yolks. The game is also being developed in concert with the Oculus Rift haptic system. Oh ... it ain't a cheap date either.

None of these are in SWTOR's space, which is good for Star Wars. But as you accurately pointed out, the overall player pool is dilluting from the sheer quantity of games coming out. Bioware is lucky the game released when it did, affording it time to get a foothold in the industry before all hell broke loose. Then again, maybe the game was intentionally released 6 months early because Bioware saw that window closing and had no choice but to pull the trigger when they did.

Yep, you're right, it is unlikely and would be a lot of work. But given the opportunity to ride the hype created by the movie they want to do something big. Something unexpected.

And it is a little bit different from adding more class specific content. There would only be two sets of content to create rather than eight (although it would make creating new class content in the future even more difficult), and it would last the player longer than any new content because it blends in with all the existing content.

The reason they said no to more class content was the cost/benefit of it. It would certainly be costly but how much benefit there is is harder to say. They would have some idea by knowing how many classes the average person ever tried. It would likely help to sell more character slots.

Personally it is what I want most, but if the class was something I was not really interested in it would be much less appealing (although I would still try it). I would like to see a droid class with free will although I could understand others not liking that. The story could be about "waking up" and discovering your purpose and maker. The character could be gender neutral so they could save on voice actors, possibly even use the same one for republic and empire. Share the same starting planet/area/space station with more areas that open up later.

I believe, in time, it will be bigger at some point. Remember, Rome wasn't built in a day.

If anything, the old model of ~100-300k subs is still dominant within the industry. All that changed are the number of players who will try a new MMO, leading developers to sooner chase box sales than subscription revenue.

I think you're underestimating the role video streaming offered, ie youtube.

Late comment, but I just wanted to say that nothing in the OP would bring me back to this game as a subscriber. Something did, but none of the things there.

I said millions, not a couple 100k.

Actually - if they want to get their 'niche' going - they'd have to go the route "If you are a Star Wars fan, and you have never played swtor - you are no star wars fan".

So: Redoing the already done: Meh. Ok, always demanded, but just the same thing over again.

Doing "Star Wars" in it's very core. Going the class-story way has potential. Not the "everyone in the world or warcraft will like it" but the "every star wars fan likes it". There are a lot of those.

In my personal opinion, the thing they should do to take advantage of the hype for the next Star Wars trilogy is advertise, advertise, ADVERTISE!! Advertise the game on radio. Advertise the game on movie screens. Advertise the game on TV. The general public cannot play a game if they do not know it exists and most of the people I know out in real life don't know what MMOs even are, let alone SWTOR.

Advertising, man. Advertising is the key.

Not entirely true. I had way more options than I have now when I was playing Freelancer and I still played it for about 3 or 4 years. Left only when the actual server and in general the unmodded servers became scarce and only modded ones became prevalent, otherwise I would have stayed longer.

The key was that "X-Factor", or that something that kept dragging me back from the core of the game. As long as a game can find that "something", it will keep players for years.

And, as much as nobody is willing to admit, microtransactions and fluff ain`t it.