(Had no idea where to put this, so...)

 

I play World of Warcraft and I am an absolute fan of its lore. I also play SWTOR and the kid in me will never, ever let go of Star Wars because it has always been a great part of my life, my fandom, if you will (seriously, birthday parties, costumes, lightsabers, wanting to be a Jedi, toys, you name it, I was that guy... Still am). I do love Star Wars lore in general, but this game's rocks my fanboyness and then walks away from me and makes me sad and empty-like; without a Star Wars thing, I guess, is how I would explain my situation.

 

One think I love about Warcraft in general is that I can go back and play all of the games, experience the stories all over again (I am a roleplayer in WoW and I solely play any game out there for story), then move on to the next piece and experience that again and feel awesome... Over, and over again. Then I can get in the shoes of an Alliance warrior or a Troll death knight and find replay ability in my own mind with that, heck, I can even go on at cap level with roleplay stories because the player character is left out with nothing planned ahead for him/her. The player character in WoW is an open book to write in.

 

However, in SWTOR, we have class stories that define each playable class, full with alignments and even voices that one grows to love and hope to hear. I have not found the need to find my place in SWTOR as a roleplayer because Bioware has done a tremendous job finding my smuggler's place for me and making me love her, and her personality and voice, for it. I don't have to roleplay to fulfill my fantasy needs because I don't need to pretend when I can literally see my story and hear my characters' voices, right? And if I want to roleplay a wizard I have WoW to do that.

 

It is my strong opinion that Bioware's story telling is worlds better than Blizzard's, but it's so good that I cannot get enough of it and that is my problem. There came a point in this game's vanilla stage (just only re-subbed to SWTOR) when I got to 50 and geared up, did Operations, PvP, etc., but then I realized that I missed my smuggler's voice. I actually told myself that that was a bit odd, but decided to run old Flashpoints to hear her voice again-- Flashpoints/dailies are NOT the best way to satisfy voice-need. I stopped doing that and decided to make another smuggler, maybe a male instead-- nope, not the same. Made another female smuggler-- not the same, she just wasn't MY smuggler, yeah?

 

After all of that I decided to go hang out in my ship and do all the companion stuff... That satisfied me for a while and made me happy, but then I got done with them also. Eventually, I'd log in to stare at my character select screen, specifically to stare at my smuggler's freckled cheeks and good-natured, blue eyes, wondering when I'd be able to get more of her. Then I'd log off.

 

When Rise of the Hutt Cartel came out, I was happy, got my smuggler to 55 and that was it. Unsubbed the week after. Why? I asked myself that question, hadn't I heard my smuggler's voice in RotHC? Yes, then why was I not satisfied? Then I realized that it was because RotHC wasn't really about my smuggler like 1-50 was. RotHC didn't focus on my character's ambitions, hardships, heroics, feelings, wittyness-- no. I was extremely bummed out and I could only shake my head at my smuggler and hope that my account wouldn't get hacked and my smuggler ransacked during my time away from SWTOR.

 

I got curious and clicked on some videos about the one class-specific quest chain available in Shadow of Revan and got hopeful for the future. I know, I know, it costs a lot of money to give everyone a full blown class story in every expansion, I get that, but I wish it didn't. But the problem I'm surprised hasn't been solved by Bioware is the nostalgia problem.

 

I, along with people around, want a hard mode personal storyline. Like a replay of what one did specialized as a smuggler/Jedi/Sith/whatever 1-50, but at max level. Perhaps even make it hard enough (or timed, I don't know) to the point of awarding some nice gear (not over the top good, but around raid entrance level) at 60, a mount, title-- I don't know. I am just really itching to relieve my smuggler's rise from zero to hero without having to go through all the side quests to get to the next step in my story. That way I would be experiencing the character I've grown oddly attached to (even after all these years her pixels kinda make me smile, good times) all over again to calm the nostalgia and do it all over again whenever I feel like it, just like I can go back and play KOTOR I and II a hundred times each unhindered.

 

My point is, there really is no point in rerolling essentially the same character from scratch if it really isn't the same character you loved. If it doesn't feel the same it's just going to feel empty and... Quiet. I felt silence after Corellia and Ilum, honestly. Of course that won't stop me from rerolling as dark side, but again, my smuggler is my prized possession in this game and I do not want to bring her down to shelf level.

 

It's a good problem to have that you can make people's characters become a part of their internet-fantasy-sci-fi-nerd life with your stories, Bioware, but it's called a problem because people like me feel too much silence coming from the MAIN characters we're supposed to be hearing the most from. Ironically, even though we play them a lot, we don't hear them as much as we do our level 1 alts on the starting worlds.

 

I see two solutions: continue class stories in full, or at least triple what you gave us in SoR, or give us hard mode personal class stories that we can replay over and over. Or both. I'd prefer both. I like both.

 

TL;DR: WoW comparison, love SWTOR, Bioware story > Blizzard story, don't see the need to roleplay in swtor with fantastic, personal storylines, not enough class story, want hard mode class story, no class story makes me sad, nostalgia, blah, blah, blah, Light side female smuggler <3, more class stories pls thx, crying, may the Force be with you.

 

What do you guys think? This could have also been added while I was gone and I'm just blind, be free to correct me on anything if I am wrong. Sorry for wall of text.

Edited January 5, 2015 by Joluka

Just finished reading this. Took me about 3 years.

 

I know exactly what you mean. I won't bother retyping all of the points you already placed out there, but I'm letting you know that I agree pretty much 100%. I have a male smuggler and the story & voice acting is fantastic. The expansions don't focus on the character at all and rather focus on saving the galaxy and other silly antics. I feel your pain, man. It sucks. Saving the galaxy is great and all, but I'd really just like to go back to being a smuggler. I want to relive the wit and the cunning and all of the great personalities of the smuggler and people you encounter along the way.

I also agree with you on this one 100%. That being said, I recommend that you put something in the suggestion forum under General Discussion. Shorten up what you're thinking and just get real fact of the matter about it. I for one, would love to re-run my jedi knight class story. It's been a LONG time since I've seen it (being as it was my first toon and I'm coming up on about two years playing), and I would love to see it again, just with my character that I've grown to love. I don't wanna create another knight just because I wanna see the story again. Too much work lol

Pretty much what I have been missing from SWTOR as well.

 

There will most likely some negative Nellies posting that this is a MMO, you shouldnt concentrate on singleplayer aspects blah blah. Well, there are near infinite number of other ways to interact with other people and this game (like pretty much every other so called MMORPG) has chosen one of the weakest. So unless that will be improved upon (seems next to impossible by now) then devs might as well give us more of the things that made me pick up the game in the first place.

I like it to BUT there is an issue.

 

All the cut scenes, the voice acting, individual scripting (both dialogue and multiple choice consequences) cost A LOT of money and time. That means things have to give.

 

So with SWTOR the game launched with an engine that wasn't complete (this was the first game published using the Heroengine), it didn't allow for branching and wasn't designed to handle the 300 person crew. The size of the crew created its own problems as Bioware had never worked with a staff that large so you had internal pissing matches. As such they decided to just focus on the story. As such there wasn't enough end game content, certain key social mechanics weren't ready and to make matters worse players were finishing the story far faster than the Devs planned and contrary to what some may think, most players don't have altitis. They fiddle around, find THE character with the class/faction/story they like and stick with em. (All per Bioware's James Ohlen back in 2013 when he spoke of the rise (launch), decline (starting 1 month in) and rise again (when they went f2p).

 

Yes it is an MMO. To survive as an MMO you simply can not go to far into the Single player realm. For proof you need only look at what Ohlen spoke about, regarding this game specifically, at GDC 2013. I know this reality doesn't make some players happy but these games are about making money and they have finite budgets. Now Bioware's initial focus on story over MMO endgame was as much a product of necessity as choice...they HAD to focus on something because of the limitations and hurdles they were encountering and they naturally chose to focus on what they were most comfortable with (story driven Single player Content). That focus hurt and almost crushed the game though.

Edited February 12, 2015 by Ghisallo

Wholeheartedly agree, though I'll be honest I think a hardmode version would be really fun - At first I just wanted a regular replay so I can deck people in the story and pretend like my character really is unstoppable/prophesized/whatever

I just want to replay it without making a new char, starting from scratch. Hated that in every MMO and I dislike the concept of alts, the only reason I'd play different classes here is because I'm a raving star wars lunatic.

Still dislike starting from level 1 no matter what, call me spoiled

Rambling at this point but yes, let us replay it