Jeff Hickman and Bruce Maclean now on IGN with details on story

I certainly understand being... skeptical of their metrics, but they've got numbers on how many people are playing the end-game content vs how many are playing through missions and story (and not just how many are at level [X] with mission [Y] in their mission log, but how many are actually spending time playing through those missions and advancing their stories, heck they have metrics on whether people are spacebarring through the conversations or actually watching them) and they're using those metrics to adjust there model to 'give players what they want'.

We'll see if they're right about it.

I think this is going to be the question everything hinges on. $15 is the price of a movie ticket, so if I get a movie's worth of enjoyment out of each month's new content, plus the ongoing option to PVP, GSF, etc periodically in between, I'm probably going to be on-board with the new model.

Operations only keep me occupied for about two to four hours each month, max - they're just not a big part of how I spend my game time. If these new chapters add in a few hours of playable content every month, I'm going to be getting more bang for my buck.

No one is saying "You! Player [X]! You should like this new model", if it doesn't fit an individual player's play-style, then it doesn't fit, and it makes sense that BW's going to lose that person's subscription over it. The question again is whether there are enough players out there that this model does mesh well with, so that the net result leaves the game doing better than it was before.

TBH I think something else is going on. For them story is simply easier. That is their comfort zone. I would bet a weeks salary that when this launches in October the 7 remaining chapters are already finished and in the can, they aren't going to be calling voice actors back month after month. On top of that having all that time spent in a cinematic makes the game itself "feel" bigger even though it is not playable content, because they are a time sink. The fact it is not playable content means that you don't need bug fixes, don't need to retune mobs (like when silvers were hitting MUCH harder than golds) etc. which adds another layer of simplicity to everything.

EA wants something HUGE to coincide with the new movie. BW feels that they can't do MMO huge but they can do story story huge. So for the short term gain of doing as ordered they have gone the story route.

Also this differentiates themselves from battlefront. I would wager they want to see how many players jump ship to that game. It wouldn't make much sense to pour a whole lot of resources into PvP say and then find out most of your Pvpers left for battlefront. So focus on the story to try and keep people interested and then see what you have
left when the smoke clears after battlefront's release.

The new CEO over at EA has NO problem killing existing games, let alone games simply in development. They just saw a MAJOR example of this with the shut down of Shadow Realms. That was a HUGE shock to them, no one there saw it coming. So they are likely in "panic mode" to an extent, on top of everything else, in all honesty

I doubt the chapters are finished as in good to good when 4.0 launches. Of course they wont call voice actors back every month or something. The story has already been written and the voice acting is done.
But they have a history of working on content just until it goes live, they even pushed untested Versions of patches unto the live servers.
Creating so much story content at once would suggest massive development ressources besides the teams which build SOR/Ziost. Even which the Shadowland devs, i dont see it. And its totally unneccessary too. No harm in finishing the last chapters of the story in 2016.

Cinematics as a time sink dont work. 99% of the players just spacebar on the second or third playthrough. They never understood that however, its the same with DragonAge and Mass Effect.

Less bug fixes might be a valid point though.

Overall, i doubt we get story because its simpler and they lack resources. I actually believe them when they say, they want to expand on it because they think the players want it. I think their assumption is flawed and they are making the same mistake they made before launch, but it has nothing to do with resources.
They have a ok sized dev team, it only got bigger as of late do to Shadow Realms. EA seems to be willing to invest a fair amount of money into the game. I see little to no reason not to focus on endgame besides believing that players want story.
Its on B W Austin if this fails and noone else, not even EA.

Its a nice line but i dont buy it. Its not the originial dev team anymore, many of those guys have worked on other MMOs before. Same goes for the management.
Also, they can do an MMO, saving Swtor after the first year proofed it. They just truly believe the players want story and nothing else.

Thats vaild point. Another major SW Game might actually hurt Swtor much more than all those AAA MMOs which launched since the game begun.

Actually afair, BW Austin made the decision to scrap Shadow Realms, not the EA mangement.

Last point... the manger of BW Austin was actually surprised, the order came from EA... Now as a division of EA, BW Austin's manager will say "we are" but this was not something they expected. If I remember right they got the news only about a week before they made the official announcement here is a good article as to the possible why's.

http://www.vg247.com/2015/03/18/shad...-lot-of-sense/

You are right it is not the original dev team anymore but these guys are ALL much more comfy in the "stroy arena" whether it be Shadow realms, DA:I the new Mass Effect title etc. We all have our comfort zones. If you are under the gun to make a lot more content you do what you know know best. This is the way it is in any industry really. This is a small bit though, I think the main bit is Battlefront tbh. They want to see what happens when the smoke clears.

As for it being in the can... They are almost going to have to launch with the "world" intact. All the Chapters are going to be is the "story" that gets us through the world.

We are only talking 5 levels here, it's not going to be a whopping big world... it's going to be a small to medium sized world where we are slowed down because we have to wait for chapters 10-16.

I laughed when they went over the carbonite/future bit; because it appears that when that happens I'll be queuing for the same old WZs and experiencing nothing new for PVP in the brand new world.

is just a huge slap in the face

My thoughts exactly. Not that I was expecting much in the way of PvP, it just seems that 61+ PvP will really stick out continuity wise.

So to carry on playing SWTOR instead of Mass Effect Online I should cancel my subscription now?

Focusing on story and releasing a new chapter every month is interesting but ditching the previous stories and saying "you step out of the freezer and everything is different..." is just a huge slap in the face. I have probably 1 character (of 8) that deus ex machina might actually work for but the others no way.

I think I'll keep my sub running till I get the rewards and then cancel on launch day.