I’ve just been reading about some of the latest MMO games and expansion around and it seems FF are building on more success with the latest one.

https://www.cgmagonline.com/reviews/final-fantasy-xiv-shadowbringers-review/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

The amount of effort and love and money that goes into this game with the “sole” purpose of player enjoyment is why it’s still gaining more players after all these years after an extremely rocky start at launch. They now have over 16million players and growing.

Now I ask you all to imagine if Bioware were to start following the FF model instead of the WoW model. Not only could this game be better, it could be epic.

This is Star Wars, arguably the biggest and most famous IP of all time across many media platforms. The fan following would be in the 100’s of million and stretches across 42 years.

This game’s development since launch and EAs lack of funding has lacked vision of what this game could be.

There have been great SW games in the past and swtor could have been a WoW and FF killer if it had been given the support and talent and drive to make it happen. Instead, because it wasn’t a WoW killer out of the gate, EA decided it was a failure and quickly fired or moved talent away from it. Then made it a F2P model without even giving the game a chance to turn itself around.

FFXIV was an even bigger flop when it was released and nearly killed the franchise. But they didn’t give up, they listened to their players and made the hard decision to remake and relaunch the game. Now it’s one of the most successful and best MMO’s of all time because they made that hard decision.

Now I’m not trying to detract from the current swtor team. They can only work with what they are given and within those confines. They have to work with a broken system and engine that throws out more bugs than it should everytime they try to improve the game or add new content.

What is needed is someone in EA to have the guts and vision to say, “swtor should be the best MMO on the market. What do we need to do to make that happen?”

Then get the funds, the talent and management to make it happen. If that means remaking it on a new engine, then so be it. If that means making swtor 2 because swtor is a dead horse, then they should go for it.

Imagine if all that money, resources and talent that they threw into Anthem over the years had instead just come to swtor and Anthem never happen.

IMO Anthem has been a monumental failure and mistake.

Bioware already had a rough diamond in swtor. If they’d just kept at it, it could have been the best MMO around.

Anyway, I just wanted to highlight what another game company was able to do to resurrect a dead game and make it arguably one of the most successful and best MMOs around because they had the will to do so.

I mean, common Bioware. This is Star Wars. This game should be the gold standard of MMOs and should have the support and funding to make it happen.

I know the guys who are working on it are passionate, but you can’t expect them to build a skyscraper with some sticky tape and a few used off cuts of wood. Passion alone can’t make this game greater than it is. You need a bigger team and more talent with the funds to make a game that concentrates on fun for the players and not the bottom line. It’s like the old saying, “if you build it they will come”. Make a game the players want and deserve and financial success will follow.

But Hey, 2023 is right around the corner...

EA isn't going to lose the license, not as long as Bob Iger is in charge of Disney.

EA isn't going to lose the license, not as long as Bob Iger is in charge of Disney.

Found this

In April 2019, it was announced that Iger will depart from his position as CEO and chairman of Disney when his contract expires in 2021

I’ve just been reading about some of the latest MMO games and expansion around and it seems FF are building on more success with the latest one.

https://www.cgmagonline.com/reviews/final-fantasy-xiv-shadowbringers-review/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app

The amount of effort and love and money that goes into this game with the “sole” purpose of player enjoyment is why it’s still gaining more players after all these years after an extremely rocky start at launch. They now have over 16million players and growing.

 

Now I ask you all to imagine if Bioware were to start following the FF model instead of the WoW model. Not only could this game be better, it could be epic.

This is Star Wars, arguably the biggest and most famous IP of all time across many media platforms. The fan following would be in the 100’s of million and stretches across 42 years.

This game’s development since launch and EAs lack of funding has lacked vision of what this game could be.

I stopped following the comment after this point because it just won't happen. I said it on another thread, EA isn't a charity case, they won't throw untimited funds into a game which for all intents and purposes hasn't seen much activity over the last few years and yes as someone else said, it was badly mismanaged (Galactic command is the biggest of those mistakes and decisions).

Don't mistake my reaction for someone who doesn't care about the direction of the game, i want to see SWTOR continue and do well, but unless EA changes tack and get the game and Bioware out of this hole, for now this is all we got to deal with unfortunately.

EA/BW was repeatedly warned during beta about the fundamental issues the game was facing by those of us who closed tested the game. While they might’ve had the talent and muscle back then to put large scale ideas into reality, they lacked the leadership to make sound decisions. We warned them the game needed some major changes/additions and, at minimum, an additional six months of development time. The original Ilum was awesome, but needed to be fleshed out better; it needed more late/end game testing and less early/mid game testing; it needed more content at endgame for both pvp and pve...too much focus was on “hey just level these classes to 50”.

After launch, the holes that we pointed out began to leak with a couple weeks. It earned the nickname TORtanic and hemorrhaged subs. Rather than fix great ideas, that unfortunately had some flaws, they scrapped them entirely (looking at you Ilum); or promised to reimplement them in short order and never following through. This caused even more subs to be lost. The early dev team while talented, was inept. Potentially even worse than inept, they were untrustworthy. In a market that had become saturated with MMOs, players weren’t going to hang out simply because it was Star Wars. They moved on. It’s unfortunate as the game truly does have so much potential. But as you said, as soon as it was dubbed the TORtanic, EA essentially stopped supporting it in a short period of time.

I personally believe that the game has the potential of growth and doing well.

Potential: having or showing the capacity to become or develop into something in the future

or:

latent qualities or abilities that may be developed and lead to future success or usefulness.

And while some blame EA and BW primarily for the difficulties I question that up to a point. IMO there is enough blame to go around. BUT IMO... there is perhaps another issue at large. IMO.. none of us see it. I personally believe that those who are doing the day to day grind of work ... ( I mean the RL stuff .. not game grind for stuff we want) really are talented and are doing the best that they can with the time and resource that they have available. I can't help but to wonder how much of Disney's overshadowing affects things in game.

BW ... IMO = a lot of hard working folks like anywhere else. They're just doing their respective jobs.

EA ... unknown .. but definitely with a substantial amount of control over the purse strings and consequently the bottom line.

This game has a huge potential. And for the record... I've seen this exact same scenario at least twice before.

Hopefully this time the game can grow past the politics** (see note) that seemingly overshadows so much and get back to where the game and having fun can once again become the real priority. If I didn't think it wre possible.. I wouldn't be here right now !

** (note):

Definition:

poly: origin, Greek: Much or (polli) many

tics: blood sucking insects !!!

So for history of the game, understand that BioWare at the time of beta wanted to postpone launch but was forced to go through with it by EA. The BioWare of that time knew there were issues.

So launch kicked off, didn't go as well as EA wanted, and EA demanded that BioWare stop doing class stories because it was too expensive.

Under that pressure, the two founders of BioWare quit. One resigned and never made games again while the other went on to be head of a different Studio but much smaller.

EA then put one of their Bean counters in charge. From that point those who did not get with the program or let go and there was a massive bunch of layoffs. Every single person who was still fighting to keep class stories in the game was let go.

It's been in this sort of way for a while now with Bean counters running things.

However, Keith is not a bean counter and he is the first one they have put in charge who isn't. If you know anything about MMO development schedules, plans that are made typically take a year to implement. Ossus was a preview of Keith's work and Onslaught will be our first really good look at what Keith is about.

However, looking at the changes they already have announced, and also given the quality of Story for Ossus, I would say the game is finally headed in a proper direction again although how far he can take it we will see. I think what has helped in the matter also is EA's failure to put out decent Star Wars games combined with a lukewarm reception for anthem.

I think that gave a perfect storm for someone who cares about rebuilding the brand like Keith does only way to do what he needs to do to make this game better for the fans.

As it stands now, because of decisions made oh, there are some things that need to happen to get this game really squared away:

* if class stories can never come back in their entirety, then future expansions should follow the pattern set by shadow of Revan and allow for a couple quests to continue that personal feel for each class story.

* companion stories need to matter again. Even if that means weaving companions into the main story, companions absolutely are part of the heart and soul and DNA of what made SWTOR popular. They can no longer just be a rent a bot.

* the developers need to go through kotfe and kotet and rebalance the placement of mobs. It isn't Fun fighting tons of waves of Sky Troopers down a hallway only they have to fight them the same way on the way back. It's tedious and mundane. Less Troopers who awarded more XP is needed. And turn off the damn stealth detection. If a player wants to play his way by sneaking through all those waves as an imperial agent or a Smuggler or a shadow or an assassin, LET THEM.

* on the Polish side of things, all vanilla cutscenes need to be Revisited. We have cutscenes one-way leading up through shadow of Revan and ziost, and then another type of cutscenes and chapter introductions from kotfe onward. It makes the game look disjointed. Go back and revisit the old cutscenes and put them into the kotfe style. That will make the game at least feel more cohesive.

Past those things, I am just eager to see what Onslaught brings us, as they are adopting a play your way mentality for players and I think that can only be a good thing going forward.

Everybody always has their own idea of what would make the game great - usually though "great" for themselves.

Or they have there own idea of what is killing the game.

And they just keep posting, over and over and over.

Everybody always has their own idea of what would make the game great - usually though "great" for themselves.

Or they have there own idea of what is killing the game.

And they just keep posting, over and over and over.

And there are always people there who exist only to crap on everything those people say while never putting forth any ideas of Their Own...

I'd rather have the free thinkers who like to come up with ideas. At least it shows they give a crap.

Ummm I hope I'm not on that list of players that some of you consider as detrimental to the game. Not that it change my opinion on matters. I tend to chart my own coarse... and I'm not on the end of anyone's political chain.

The one suggestion I have made ( and I hope it works) .. I tried to make sure it was well rooted in SWTOR lore.

At any rate: back to OP .. I think we agree for the most part ! IMO ... none of us will agree on every aspect 100%.

Here's to hoping for the best in 6.0:

In PvP ...

In PvE ...

and beneficial to BW as well. (hey ! let's face it... If they DON'T turn a tidy profit... umm that's just not cool! )

It would be Amazing if EA would Reinvest in earnest at SWTOR however I think they have twice already and by now consider *Both instances as failures. EA paid for the upwards of 250,000 lines of Dialog, the 8 class stories (Considering most contemporary games feature only one) and overall budget estimated at 300 Mil plus or minus.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2012/08/01/five-lessons-learned-as-swtor-surrenders/#16d0aaeb1b62

I also Believe the Zakuul stories were a Resurgence in SWTOR from EA considering their effort, money spent, planned tenure of that story line and picking up a very different narrative from what everybody already knew of SWTOR. EA has a very Nasty reputation of Dumping companies they consider "Non Profitable" sometimes Keeping remnants they deem useful ($) in future projects. As for now like before Zakuul I would imagine EA sees SWTOR as a low maintenance income machine. With all the "Star Wars" buzz right now and the overall "Star Wars" IP it's very possible this games time may come again (3rd time) its just not for now. SWTOR brings in more then EA spends maintaining it so it may well persist long enough to get that chance.

"Rebellions are based on Hope."

In my view, for them to inject life into the game at this point, they'd basically need to hire on about double the people and have those extra people work on refurbishing old systems and creating new systems of QoL that make the game more attractive to those who aren't hardcore fans of SW and KOTOR. And perhaps more importantly, do something about the codebase that gives them the reputation of being ridiculously incompetent at doing anything with this game. It's tiresome hearing excuses about how they can't do A through Z because of how things were/are designed. Hire some people whose job it is to fix those things! I know this is not an easy 1-2-punch to do, but it could pay dividends in the long-run. Unless the plan is just to let the game slowly decay with little resources put into it, which is entirely possible.

I think the reason the ship has sailed on this game for such a major reinvestment is because EA doesn't see the MMO market as a lucrative place anymore. And any AAA game publisher who operates on a similar level of "profit > all" (which is most of them) would probably act much the same.

Edit: I also think EA in general is kind of floundering in its own morass of bad choices bed that it made for itself. It doesn't have all that many solid IPs left after all the studios it has bought up and shut down, and some of those, like FIFA, are under attack from legislation regarding lootboxes. In terms of finances and resources, I don't think they're a very healthy company in general and it bleeds into the studios under them. It may be that part of the reason SWTOR hasn't gotten more of a reinvestment is because EA management is risk averse to investing in just about anything. SWTOR was given a lot of initial funding and as I understand it, it made that money back. But EA management clearly has the sort of people who want all of the money, not just some of it, so they aren't looking at it the way you and I do. They're looking at it in terms of bare-bones, most profitable. And paying lip service to the concept of fun to try to seem like they care about that sort of.

I think it's kind of ironic that people are talking about the ship having sailed, when we are on the cusp of a new expansion that gives the players who wanted back into the rep-sith war what they wanted, while opening up gear acquisition and also directly addressing fan concerns, all while EA has been under heat the last 2 years for mismanagement of the SW ip AND while 1 or 2 major gaming publications gave SWTOR a shout out on being the best mmo to revisit.

So I have to wonder, are some people blind or just bad at connecting the dots?

I think it's kind of ironic that people are talking about the ship having sailed, when we are on the cusp of a new expansion that gives the players who wanted back into the rep-sith war what they wanted, while opening up gear acquisition and also directly addressing fan concerns, all while EA has been under heat the last 2 years for mismanagement of the SW ip AND while 1 or 2 major gaming publications gave SWTOR a shout out on being the best mmo to revisit.

 

So I have to wonder, are some people blind or just bad at connecting the dots?

You make that all sound like it's a series of incredible feats. They are attempting to make better the system of gear acquisition that they broke in the last system. They are going back to rep-sith war after the other stuff wasn't received very well. They are addressing "fan concerns" here and there, but it's obvious how piecemeal it is and how little resources they have to devote to any of it. And some of the most important things they are "improving" are things that they broke that were fine as they were before they broke them.

I give them credit for trying, but for heaven's sake... blind? An expansion that fixes some issues they created in the last one and adds a bit more new content is not going to inject new life into this game. If done well, it might bring back some old life. It's a step forward (assuming it's done well), but the rate it's taking to address stuff is way too slow.

At the moment the only revival I can see is the SWTOR2 game..

This game has lived out it's time and there is nothing more to do here story wise....

A new Star Wars MMO in the same era would have a lot of opportunities to explore and make a better game by using their experience from SWTOR.

Gonna happen ? Of course not....

We just have to enjoy what we get. It's still one of their best games from the last decade after two bigger failures ME Andromeda and more recently Anthem.

I think it's kind of ironic that people are talking about the ship having sailed, when we are on the cusp of a new expansion that gives the players who wanted back into the rep-sith war what they wanted, while opening up gear acquisition and also directly addressing fan concerns, all while EA has been under heat the last 2 years for mismanagement of the SW ip AND while 1 or 2 major gaming publications gave SWTOR a shout out on being the best mmo to revisit.

 

So I have to wonder, are some people blind or just bad at connecting the dots?

We aren't there yet, two and a half months at most. I really want to see this Expac do well, i'm sure you and a number of others here want to see this go well but attacking others without first knowing anything about what will come in this expac is a bit premature and unwarrented.

You can brag about how good it is after launch if it is that good or you can head to into hiding, either way right now looking for a fight won't help a damn soul here. You mentioned people should contribute here? then contribute.

I think it's kind of ironic that people are talking about the ship having sailed, when we are on the cusp of a new expansion that gives the players who wanted back into the rep-sith war what they wanted, while opening up gear acquisition and also directly addressing fan concerns, all while EA has been under heat the last 2 years for mismanagement of the SW ip AND while 1 or 2 major gaming publications gave SWTOR a shout out on being the best mmo to revisit.

 

So I have to wonder, are some people blind or just bad at connecting the dots?

My OP wasn’t to detract from the current team who I’m sure will try to give us the best they can with the expansion.

The issue is funding and bringing more talent and resources on board. Unless EAware have recently hired a 100 new staff to just work on swtor, then we have the same small team we’ve had for the last 18 months. There is only so much they can do with such a limited team, which also limits the amount of talent they have onboard,

When they originally made the game, they had 8-10 writers of high caliber like Charles to write each class story and the over all canon of the game. Now we just have 1x Charles and maybe a few offsider interns or newbies (not saying they don’t have talent, just that there are limits and experience to consider).

There is also the question of QA. I don’t think anyone could disagree that QA and bug testing is more amateur or skimmed at best. It’s plainly obvious they don’t have these resources to find the bugs and then fix them. Even bugs found on the PTS or after things go live, they don’t have the resources to fix them all or even half most of the time. Some are never fixed and other seem to take months.

Then you have the problem with the actual game engine. There is absolutely nothing this team can do about working with such mish mashed system. They have admitted themselves that they have to try and work out what the original coders did. I think this is one of the main reasons for all the unforeseen bugs and breaking thing that weren’t broken before.

If EAware really wanted to invest and make this game the gold standard it deserves. They would need to deploy a new game engine, which is a monumental job and would probably take a 100 people to do in a timely manner,

I believe it took Square Enix 18 months to rebuild and relaunch FFXIV and 9 months the game was off line,

It would probably be better and maybe easier to make SW:TOR 2 and reduce development of this game even more. But they would need to announce to fans their intention to do that. I can’t imagine anyone would be too upset if they knew all future resources were going into SW:TOR 2 or a total game engine port / rebuild + new story and features.

It’s my opinion that it would have been better to do that than make Anthem. SW is a known IP and entity, even if it’s a flop, it’s still got the IP behind it to allow it to be fixed. Anthem was an unknown and people have abandoned it faster than the titanic. The launching an unknown IP and another clone (of another game) was always going to be riskier than making this game better or making SW:TOR 2.

I give Anthem a few years and it will go the way of Wild Star (closes down), which was arguably a better game than what Anthem is or can be.

The Star Wars old Republic story still has so much to be told or expanded on. They could go 100 or more years past the current game’s timeline.

You’ve got the rebuilding of both the Repubilic, the Empire, the Jedi, the Sith, the Hutts and the Mando’s. These stories could be the basis of where a new game could start.

You make that all sound like it's a series of incredible feats. They are attempting to make better the system of gear acquisition that they broke in the last system. They are going back to rep-sith war after the other stuff wasn't received very well. They are addressing "fan concerns" here and there, but it's obvious how piecemeal it is and how little resources they have to devote to any of it. And some of the most important things they are "improving" are things that they broke that were fine as they were before they broke them.

 

I give them credit for trying, but for heaven's sake... blind? An expansion that fixes some issues they created in the last one and adds a bit more new content is not going to inject new life into this game. If done well, it might bring back some old life. It's a step forward (assuming it's done well), but the rate it's taking to address stuff is way too slow.

I'm sorry. Care to tell me which expansion that was made under Keith's direction you have played that was so "piecemeal"?

Because curiously, Onslaught is his first and it's not even released yet, so I have to wonder where your feedback comes from, if not your own biases?

My OP wasn’t to detract from the current team who I’m sure will try to give us the best they can with the expansion.

 

The issue is funding and bringing more talent and resources on board. Unless EAware have recently hired a 100 new staff to just work on swtor, then we have the same small team we’ve had for the last 18 months. There is only so much they can do with such a limited team, which also limits the amount of talent they have onboard,

 

When they originally made the game, they had 8-10 writers of high caliber like Charles to write each class story and the over all canon of the game. Now we just have 1x Charles and maybe a few offsider interns or newbies (not saying they don’t have talent, just that there are limits and experience to consider).

 

There is also the question of QA. I don’t think anyone could disagree that QA and bug testing is more amateur or skimmed at best. It’s plainly obvious they don’t have these resources to find the bugs and then fix them. Even bugs found on the PTS or after things go live, they don’t have the resources to fix them all or even half most of the time. Some are never fixed and other seem to take months.

 

Then you have the problem with the actual game engine. There is absolutely nothing this team can do about working with such mish mashed system. They have admitted themselves that they have to try and work out what the original coders did. I think this is one of the main reasons for all the unforeseen bugs and breaking thing that weren’t broken before.

 

If EAware really wanted to invest and make this game the gold standard it deserves. They would need to deploy a new game engine, which is a monumental job and would probably take a 100 people to do in a timely manner,

I believe it took Square Enix 18 months to rebuild and relaunch FFXIV and 9 months the game was off line,

 

It would probably be better and maybe easier to make SW:TOR 2 and reduce development of this game even more. But they would need to announce to fans their intention to do that. I can’t imagine anyone would be too upset if they knew all future resources were going into SW:TOR 2 or a total game engine port / rebuild + new story and features.

It’s my opinion that it would have been better to do that than make Anthem. SW is a known IP and entity, even if it’s a flop, it’s still got the IP behind it to allow it to be fixed. Anthem was an unknown and people have abandoned it faster than the titanic. The launching an unknown IP and another clone (of another game) was always going to be riskier than making this game better or making SW:TOR 2.

I give Anthem a few years and it will go the way of Wild Star (closes down), which was arguably a better game than what Anthem is or can be.

 

The Star Wars old Republic story still has so much to be told or expanded on. They could go 100 or more years past the current game’s timeline.

You’ve got the rebuilding of both the Repubilic, the Empire, the Jedi, the Sith, the Hutts and the Mando’s. These stories could be the basis of where a new game could start.

Here is why I find that assessment curious.

Everyone just assumes that Bioware still has the same small understaffed team.

It's almost like a comfort blanket, a go-to when players want something to fall back on without needing to think in terms of their dissatisfaction with the game.

The problem I have with that is two-fold.

The first is that it is usually said not as an accurate representation but merely as a symbolic dissatisfaction at the pace of things. The other is that the players who usually make the statements do not keep track of whom BioWare hires.

So let me let you in on something:

When Keith was put in charge, BioWare Austin started hiring again. Now the team will never be as big as it was at launch. That's just the nature of MMO's. However the team is larger if the Spate of now hiring listings BioWare Austin had is any indication, then at any point post vanilla team. And those BioWare Austin ads were not for anthem. There were others for Anthem absolutely, but these were all specifically for swtor.

Is someone who can connect the dots, they were hiring to bring on staff to develop for Onslaught. Which means they didn't have to barebones the expansion themselves but got help.

That is why I'm having a hard time with this thread. There is ample evidence out there that BioWare Austin did indeed beef up their staff and were allowed to do so by EA, when Keith took over.

That doesn't mean the expansion will be good. One thing I don't know is how many writers they have, but Charles Boyd is my least favorite given his penchant in the past for pissing all over the vanilla game and it's stories, Be it kotfe or the meaningless companion reunions stories where are companions who we've missed end up is window dressing after a tiny cut scene, who are the Nathema conspiracy, which was mostly used tie up Loose Ends from the vanilla story so they could be finished and forgotten about in the laziest manner possible.

The quality of the writing frankly is the one thing where you and I have a shared concern. But having played through Ossus a few times, that helped alleviate some of that story anxiety.

Let's just wait until Onslaught before we start making these proclamations.

I'm sorry. Care to tell me which expansion that was made under Keith's direction you have played that was so "piecemeal"?

 

Because curiously, Onslaught is his first and it's not even released yet, so I have to wonder where your feedback comes from, if not your own biases?

KOTET came out late 2016. It has taken them nearly 3 years to produce another expansion. Do you get where the word piecemeal comes from now? Every other expansion had about a year in-between.

That you can look at such and say I'm biased and blind for not agreeing that Onslaught waves away any concerns about the game's decline is mind-boggling.

It would probably be better and maybe easier to make SW:TOR 2 and reduce development of this game even more. But they would need to announce to fans their intention to do that. I can’t imagine anyone would be too upset if they knew all future resources were going into SW:TOR 2 or a total game engine port / rebuild + new story and features.

It’s my opinion that it would have been better to do that than make Anthem. SW is a known IP and entity, even if it’s a flop, it’s still got the IP behind it to allow it to be fixed. Anthem was an unknown and people have abandoned it faster than the titanic. The launching an unknown IP and another clone (of another game) was always going to be riskier than making this game better or making SW:TOR 2.

I give Anthem a few years and it will go the way of Wild Star (closes down), which was arguably a better game than what Anthem is or can be.

 

The Star Wars old Republic story still has so much to be told or expanded on. They could go 100 or more years past the current game’s timeline.

You’ve got the rebuilding of both the Repubilic, the Empire, the Jedi, the Sith, the Hutts and the Mando’s. These stories could be the basis of where a new game could start.

SWTOR 2 won't happen for the same reason SWTOR itself isn't getting what it needs. resources, time and effort. Bioware was cut in half a few years ago, Bioware employees reassigned within the EA machine. Assuming such a thing were to happen, to build a new engine takes years, especially one for the mmo scene. Then building up the game, these days it could take anywhere from 6 years to a decade to complete, if SWTOR 2 used the latest Frostbite engine then a few years would be knocked off the top.

then you got to get the whole world sorted out, individual stories, graphics, audio, voice overs and the like, it would probably cost more than SWTOR ever cost to put together and SWTOR is using an engine from 2004 with improvements made over time.

If SWTOR 2 was ever to come, it won't be with EA, but another AAA game development/publishing company that is willing to throw hundreds of millions into such a game and have all the right people in the right place, along with the IP. So long as EA holds on to that contract, there isn't much else to be done.

Actually I think the story is confused, going back to republic versus Empire. My pubside toons know Acina dies, Vorwaan however it’s spelled, leads the Empire, Mace leads the Republic. My Empire toons follow Acina, I guess the Republic is leaderless.

Ossus didn’t fix any of that. It’s one thing to know either Torian or Vette died, whichever one survived, both of their stories likely ended. Except, while that should be true about Koth, fact is Koth got a cutscene, is alive. Theron seems alive too. My point is, they’re not following their own story. And here comes Malgus, again. I was sure he was dead.

That gives me doubt. Of course, if Maul being cut in half didn’t kill him, surely the fall did, but he lived. Seems it’s just Star Wars in general. Why exactly would I believe Valkorian is dead?

Who is winning Dantooine? Anyway, I know we could be moving to just another new badder bad guy, but is that worse than just fighting the same old bad guy and second and third time.

I’d love to see our stories moving forward again. End the alliance, or use it. If the alliance is just gonna defensive posture, then end it. Give me my army, then I will know if Dantooine was won or lost.

Move forward. KoToR has been milked for all it had. Quit writing this both sides won nonsense. Don’t keep pulling Koth and Malgus on us. Dead or alive, but not both.

I am looking forward to Onslaught, but I can’t quite get on board this new hope for the future ride just yet.