Would any dev or community manager be able to offer a comment on the plans for 7.0? Is this something in the next year or so, or a few years down the line still? Just curious as I was looking at the following content release dates:

1.0 - December 20th, 2011

2.0 - April 9th, 2013

3.0 - December 2nd, 2014

4.0 - October 20th, 2015

5.0 - November 29th, 2016

6.0 - October 22nd, 2019

Would seem like 7.0 should, or could, be right around the corner. With EA abandoning Anthem and citing directly this game as a reason to pull resources from Anthem; to develop more content for their existing titles, it seems fitting to inquire about a roadmap for the path of swtor at this point.

Also, dropping the refer a friend (RAF) news today, and the subsequent news of buffing cartel coin earnings in game will inherently reduce the coins being bought directly off the store since it becomes easier to earn up to 4k every 3 months, which is a decent amount, It almost feels like a "sunsetting" of the game itself, to quote the post on RAF. I never participated in selling my link for creds to boost my cartel coin intake monthly, so my motives for asking aren't there. Just more concerned about the health of the game from a future update standpoint. When's 7.0, will it have a new raid out the gate with NiM difficulty, how many raids? etc...

Thanks in advance for dev/community manager response.

Something "big" is happening for the 10-year anniversary which occurs at the end of this year. That's all we know.

For roadmaps and predictions, BW doesn't give us details for things happening much more than 3 mos in advance. We found out about 4.0, which was the biggest expac for this game, in June or July of that year.

Logically, EA should be investing in this Star Wars product as it's probably their biggest money maker out of all of their Star Wars products and especially because Star Wars is popular again. But they aren't going to tell us much on these forums until something is very imminent.

They don't believe in roadmaps for this game.

I think it's because they have no concrete idea on what they will be able to deliver due to budget restraints (money diverted to other Bioware/EA games), lack of employed developers and programmers (small staff), and executive grandstanding decisions to pad their own resumes ('Forget working on XXX, I want this design change put into the game just so I can say I did something for this company'). I could be wrong but I've yet to see them counter that argument. Their silence is admittance.

I really hate that I've become so pessimistic and vile.

Something "big" is happening for the 10-year anniversary which occurs at the end of this year. That's all we know.

 

For roadmaps and predictions, BW doesn't give us details for things happening much more than 3 mos in advance. We found out about 4.0, which was the biggest expac for this game, in June or July of that year.

 

Logically, EA should be investing in this Star Wars product as it's probably their biggest money maker out of all of their Star Wars products and especially because Star Wars is popular again. But they aren't going to tell us much on these forums until something is very imminent.

lol EA is most certainly not making even close to what they make off their sports titles which are their real bread and butter. They don't care about this game. It's been surviving off the cartel market alone. And I don't get this logic people have that because Mandolorian or Bad Batch exist that translate to popularity for swtor. It does not, people don't watch a tv show and instantly think "I want to try an mmo", especially not one who still to this day has quite the bad reputation as far as mmos go, and will never shake such a reputation, even most of the actual Old Republic era fans avoid this game like the plague and pretends it doesn't exist. Even the move to steam didn't contribute much. It peaked at 26k players on release, and it lost 10k of that number in the first 2 months, now it can barely average 5k from Steam, meaning more than half of the people steam brought over, dropped the game.

Something "big" is happening for the 10-year anniversary which occurs at the end of this year. That's all we know.

Translation: There's a new annoying equipment system.

Translation: There's a new annoying equipment system.

New gearing system #2137 > New Content

Profit

Relax, the referral program going away is not sunsetting the game as much as some people will try to argue it is. The system has been heavily exploited these past few years so its honestly surprising it took them this long to address it. As for roadmaps, even when we used to get them we only knew things a few months in advance. Like Savej mentioned here.

For roadmaps and predictions, BW doesn't give us details for things happening much more than 3 mos in advance. We found out about 4.0, which was the biggest expac for this game, in June or July of that year.

What I think we can expect is likely another major patch in summer, and perhaps a minor one in fall with the expansion coming on winter. Though that is purely my own speculation and not a confirmation of anything.

lol EA is most certainly not making even close to what they make off their sports titles which are their real bread and butter. They don't care about this game. It's been surviving off the cartel market alone. And I don't get this logic people have that because Mandolorian or Bad Batch exist that translate to popularity for swtor. It does not, people don't watch a tv show and instantly think "I want to try an mmo", especially not one who still to this day has quite the bad reputation as far as mmos go, and will never shake such a reputation, even most of the actual Old Republic era fans avoid this game like the plague and pretends it doesn't exist. Even the move to steam didn't contribute much. It peaked at 26k players on release, and it lost 10k of that number in the first 2 months, now it can barely average 5k from Steam, meaning more than half of the people steam brought over, dropped the game.

You're comparing apples to oranges, SWTOR is still profitable but it'll obviously not be as profitable as their sport titles. I do agree the casual watchers will be unlikely to want to put in the effort into playing an MMORPG, though I'll disagree on this one having a bad reputation. Outside of KOTOR extremists, I think most SW fans that did engaded with it have enjoyed it and even people who aren't into MMOs seem to enjoy the story. As for the move to steam, its not uncommon for games to peak really high like that then fall to lower numbers, plus the game does get more populated when it releases content. Steam gives them another revenue into getting new players, which will be good in the long term.

It's not uncommon for games to fall after their peak. But for an online game, that fast? Not so common at all. Unless the devs either did something, or the launch was a disaster.

It 100% still has that reputation in general. Most of the mmo content creators and juggernauts in the community don't even cover it. It gets barely any views on stream. Star Wars fans don't even mention it when discussing on-going "good" SW content, and when they do it's always "They made this instead of Kotor 3". The possible remake or remaster of Kotor or a Kotor 3 being developed gets more buzz and generates more hype by content creators than this game does. I think it attracts a sub-section of people who just need star wars content atm, regardless of the actual quality. Which I would say has not been so great outside of the vanilla stories. Which is pretty evident by the expansions almost killing the game completely after so many left during them.

It's not uncommon for games to fall after their peak. But for an online game, that fast? Not so common at all. Unless the devs either did something, or the launch was a disaster.

Nope, pretty common. If in addition to that we had an overwhelming negative review on steam then I'd say we could've called the steam launcher a disaster, though whether or not is a success from Bioware's perspective relies entirely on what their goals were with it. Maybe their goals were reached... maybe they weren't, chances are they won't tell us.

It 100% still has that reputation in general. Most of the mmo content creators and juggernauts in the community don't even cover it. It gets barely any views on stream. Star Wars fans don't even mention it when discussing on-going "good" SW content, and when they do it's always "They made this instead of Kotor 3". The possible remake or remaster of Kotor or a Kotor 3 being developed gets more buzz and generates more hype by content creators than this game does. I think it attracts a sub-section of people who just need star wars content atm, regardless of the actual quality. Which I would say has not been so great outside of the vanilla stories. Which is pretty evident by the expansions almost killing the game completely after so many left during them.

It really doesn't, SW fans do mention it sometimes, I've actually seen a rise in positive youtube videos getting into my recommended feed in regards to SWTOR and people who tried it out as opposed to the usual "is SWTOR dead" videos. Sure, there are still the KOTOR extremists who would be glad to kill this game for KOTOR III and there always will be, their opinion is quite frankly irrelevant because regardless of the quality of the game they'll never try it out and will just cling to hating it for the sake of hating it despite the fact KOTOR 3 had been canned before SWTOR even entered production.

As for the remake rumors. Of course, lies usually spread fast. Star Wars canon is starving for good RPGs right now, Jedi Fallen Order is a step in the right direction but people want a new single-player RPG experience and anyone can write an "article" about a "KOTOR remake" coming along. Doesn't mean one will come anytime soon, as these kind of rumors spring about every year each time with less substance than the last, yet they always spread like wild fire because people are desperate for a new SW RPG.

As for the claim of quality, I disagree, I think the latest expansions had good quality in terms of story though Onslaught's will rely on how well they develop the current story arc. The class stories are still my favorite, but that doesn't mean the expansions are bad. And as far as "expansions killing the game", I would argue that the lack of endgame content during vanilla is what hurt the game the most, I don't think any expansion save for KOTET with the Galactic Command gearing system came close to killing the game. And thankfully, we've recovered from that. Begs the question though, if you're that displeased with the current storyline and if you dislike the expansions... why are you still here:rak_02:

I'm very active in the community. It's not on most people's radar at all. I've personally defended the game (mainly some of the vanilla class stories) only to be blasted or "lol'd" at by other SW fans in the community. The same people who support swtor now, are the same people who always supported it in the community back when it was actually tortanic status, so nothing new there. People were defending even Andromeda when it was absolutely disgaceful at retail. I still like aspects of the game, i'm just not delusional about it's status. It's not popular by any stretch, nor is it bringing in these big bucks or gaining significant populations like some of the players keep trying to convince (there's literally only 2 NA servers, 5 in total, unheard of for actually popular mmos), but that's ok.

And the fact of the matter is if the xpacs DID have good quality they wouldn't have driven away a large percentage of the fanbase, wouldn't be looked back on as terrible expansions, and the devs wouldn't have had to cancel the model completely and rush to end the entire arc lol. As for me being here, I am one of those who left. Only came back recently to see what's what. And now I hear they're possibly trying to bring back another villain (Vaylin) after echoes pretty much wrapped the valkorian famly up AGAIN. Smh, Vaylin of all people? We can't do better than that?

EA always announces things very late. It's not new. Just look at the Sims - you know of an expansion less than a month before it hits...

I'm not sure why. Sometimes I wonder if it's to give people less time to get all hyped about it and get inevitably disappointed when it comes out.

And at the same time they announce new games years in advance. Go figure.

I'm very active in the community. It's not on most people's radar at all. I've personally defended the game (mainly some of the vanilla class stories) only to be blasted or "lol'd" at by other SW fans in the community. The same people who support swtor now, are the same people who always supported it in the community back when it was actually tortanic status, so nothing new there. People were defending even Andromeda when it was absolutely disgaceful at retail. I still like aspects of the game, i'm just not delusional about it's status. It's not popular by any stretch, nor is it bringing in these big bucks or gaining significant populations like some of the players keep trying to convince (there's literally only 2 NA servers, 5 in total, unheard of for actually popular mmos), but that's ok.

I've had the opposite experience. People are more receptive towards SWTOR than they were when I started playing, I fail to see how Andromeda is related to this discussion too. But I guess nothing I can say or will convince you of the opposite.

And the fact of the matter is if the xpacs DID have good quality they wouldn't have driven away a large percentage of the fanbase, wouldn't be looked back on as terrible expansions, and the devs wouldn't have had to cancel the model completely and rush to end the entire arc lol. As for me being here, I am one of those who left. Only came back recently to see what's what. And now I hear they're possibly trying to bring back another villain (Vaylin) after echoes pretty much wrapped the valkorian famly up AGAIN. Smh, Vaylin of all people? We can't do better than that?

I'll repeat myself, nothing I can say will be able to convince you otherwise.

EA always announces things very late. It's not new. Just look at the Sims - you know of an expansion less than a month before it hits...

I'm not sure why. Sometimes I wonder if it's to give people less time to get all hyped about it and get inevitably disappointed when it comes out.

And at the same time they announce new games years in advance. Go figure.

So the Sims also suffers from lack of roadmaps? Well that's sad. I do think timing is probably important when it comes to building hype but I think you could draw a lot of players back in the game if you announced the expansion quite a few months in advance, especially if you have content coming (such as 6.3). At the same time if you announced it too early the hype might fade away and those players might need yet another reminder in case they end up leaving the game again.

Either way I don't see us getting an expansion announcement until at least EA play, which I believe is June... or July? I can never remember. But since usually they tend to do xpac announcements 4 or 5 months in advance I wouldn't expect us to hear anything about that until at the very least summer. Perhaps it would've happened earlier had Star Wars Celebration happened, since that was when they also announced Onslaught.

Something "big" is happening for the 10-year anniversary which occurs at the end of this year. That's all we know.

Star Wars-Anthem-Mass Effect crossover game in VR-only, with $100 "micro" transactions.

Star Wars-Anthem-Mass Effect crossover game in VR-only, with $100 "micro" transactions.

A Mass Effect and Star Wars crossover doesn't sound so bad, I'll finally be able to determine whether or not my SWTOR protagonists would win against my Shepards and my Ryders:D

I agree that other games make more than swtor, especially if you only look at any given 6 month or 1 year time period. My point was only that I don't think any other SW game has made as much as swtor (well over a billion $ at this point) has over the lifespan of the game. And this game still pulls in $10s of millions in income even with a relatively negligible budget. That's one of the strengths of MMOs - even mediocre ones don't die and don't require a lot of money to maintain.

As for xpacs and the major movie releases, they were both shown to result in significant subscriber bumps for 4.0 and 5.0 even if they were only temporary (going by statements made by Charles Boyd and numbers gleaned on SuperData). The main question is how to turn EA's investment into returns (either big short term returns or significant long term ones or both). If EA gave BW $50-100m for an engine upgrade and one year later was still making the same amount of revenue or only a little more than they did before the upgrade, they might suppose that money was wasted. Investing in current long term customers just to make them happier probably doesn't compute with them.

People are still hoping for an engine upgrade? It's not happening lol

I've had the opposite experience. People are more receptive towards SWTOR than they were when I started playing, I fail to see how Andromeda is related to this discussion too. But I guess nothing I can say or will convince you of the opposite.

 

 

I'll repeat myself, nothing I can say will be able to convince you otherwise.

It was just a small example of how fans can sometimes defend objectively bad things. The same situation that happened with Cyberpunk most recently. Anyway I loved some of the vanilla stories, some were really good, but i'm curious as to what the actual good expansion content releases were, since vanilla. Because it seems like with each expansion they either royally wrote themselves into a corner, or damaged characters so bad they had to spend the next content release trying to redeem them and fix the story. SoR had decent moments but overall was a disaster for Revan. RothC was completely throwaway. Kotxx almost killed the game and had to be rushed to completion. Don't even get me started on how disastrous Nathema was, the pointless deaths of many characters showing up after hiatus just to be killed, the total assassination of a character and the macguffin that was pulled. What content release since vanilla storywise ever did more good than harm? lol

People are still hoping for an engine upgrade? It's not happening lol

We will get an engine upgrade when we get hood toggle.

Only came back recently to see what's what. And now I hear they're possibly trying to bring back another villain (Vaylin) after echoes pretty much wrapped the valkorian famly up AGAIN. Smh, Vaylin of all people? We can't do better than that?

I"m praying with every fiber of my being that people are wrong. I am so sick of the whole Valkorian melodrama!

Charles promised he wasn't going to bring her back, but he seems fickle and easily swayed. There is so much potential for quality storytelling by harking back to the novels with Aryn Leneer, dredging up yet more #$&% Valkorian *%^&$ would ruin it.

Nope, pretty common. If in addition to that we had an overwhelming negative review on steam then I'd say we could've called the steam launcher a disaster, though whether or not is a success from Bioware's perspective relies entirely on what their goals were with it. Maybe their goals were reached... maybe they weren't, chances are they won't tell us.

 

 

It really doesn't, SW fans do mention it sometimes, I've actually seen a rise in positive youtube videos getting into my recommended feed in regards to SWTOR and people who tried it out as opposed to the usual "is SWTOR dead" videos. Sure, there are still the KOTOR extremists who would be glad to kill this game for KOTOR III and there always will be, their opinion is quite frankly irrelevant because regardless of the quality of the game they'll never try it out and will just cling to hating it for the sake of hating it despite the fact KOTOR 3 had been canned before SWTOR even entered production.

 

As for the remake rumors. Of course, lies usually spread fast. Star Wars canon is starving for good RPGs right now, Jedi Fallen Order is a step in the right direction but people want a new single-player RPG experience and anyone can write an "article" about a "KOTOR remake" coming along. Doesn't mean one will come anytime soon, as these kind of rumors spring about every year each time with less substance than the last, yet they always spread like wild fire because people are desperate for a new SW RPG.

 

As for the claim of quality, I disagree, I think the latest expansions had good quality in terms of story though Onslaught's will rely on how well they develop the current story arc. The class stories are still my favorite, but that doesn't mean the expansions are bad. And as far as "expansions killing the game", I would argue that the lack of endgame content during vanilla is what hurt the game the most, I don't think any expansion save for KOTET with the Galactic Command gearing system came close to killing the game. And thankfully, we've recovered from that. Begs the question though, if you're that displeased with the current storyline and if you dislike the expansions... why are you still here:rak_02:

KOTOR remake isn't lies, it's fact.

Aspyr currently has the rights to remaster several older SW games, only KOTOR they are remaking not just remastering. Aspyr has no reason to lie about it, infact doing so would likely be damaging to their current projects.

People are still hoping for an engine upgrade? It's not happening lol

Lol if you were going by my post which mentions them, I pretty much spelled out why an engine upgrade is very unlikely. And I was only mentioning them as an example to illustrate how investments in this game are probably handled by EA and BW execs at this point. There was no implied hope there. I would love it if it happened but an engine upgrade is a wish not a hope.

And I don't get this logic people have that because Mandolorian or Bad Batch exist that translate to popularity for swtor. It does not, people don't watch a tv show and instantly think "I want to try an mmo",

I beg to differ, and feel free to disagree. Shortly after The Mandalorian came out, I saw an influx of new people.

Investing in current long term customers just to make them happier probably doesn't compute with them.

I've seen EA do this before over and over. They buy a different gaming company for the IP then drop development spending to a minimum and just let things rot and make money off what's already developed. EA has a good IP with SWTOR and if they actually pumped money into it and advertised it, they could make more but the investors don't want to see money put into anything. "Oh, it's fine how it is, we're getting a return through the cartel market so that's good enough for us."

This thread is exactly what I was thinking, since Anthem obviously failed my assumption is they should put more resources into getting us better content and a lot faster. SWTOR has been holding it's own all these years and still continues to be one of Bioware's only games that hasn't crashed yet. It deserves more attention than it receives ...

Except the resources have already been moved to other projects, not here.