It’s been awhile since I’ve put out an edition of SWTOR Today, due mostly to the fact that I wanted to get through all of the Eternal Throne story content first, then see where I stood following. Well, I finished it weeks ago and I still don’t know where I stand. I’ll go over the finer points momentarily, but again I find myself still completely in love with the story and the sub-universe they’ve created, and I really really want to be able to enjoy the endgame content, but time is, yet again, my enemy.
Edit: Yeah, okay, so it’s a day late. Blame my real-world job.
Okay, so let’s talk about the story. Without too many spoilers, because I really do want people to either play through it or watch the cinematics on YouTube, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The plot holes, questions, and cliffhangers from Fallen Empire are answered with aplomb throughout the course of Eternal Throne. In fact, so far, where the main story of KOTET ends, we’re not left with any kind of cliffhanger. The story is complete (to a point). It feels very much like the end of Return of the Jedi versus the end of KOTFE which, very much on purpose, was more like the end of The Empire Strikes Back. There’s definitive resolution which is something we haven’t seen before in SWTOR.
If we look at the various class stories from vanilla SWTOR (for non-MMO people, the term “vanilla” refers to the original version 1.0 release of the game), they all end very much like a TV series season. There’s certainly resolution, but they leave it open to more. In fact, we were expecting more. We eventually got it in Rise of the Hutt Cartel expansion, which then ended with the return of Revan, which lead to the Shadow of Revan expansion, which ended with the loose Republic-Empire alliance going after the just-having-fled Emperor, which brought us to the beginning of Knights of the Fallen Empire. Fallen Empire ended with the final showdown between the Outlander and Arcann being somewhat up in the air with multiple betrayals happening. Knights of the Eternal Throne’s ending is very much done. Sure, we’ll see more content, but I have no idea where it’s going to come from.
One of the reasons I am somewhat doubtful about its future is because, following the start of 2017, we know we’re going to be seeing a renewed focus on endgame content. This is something that a loud majority (minority?) of players have been clamoring for, the lack of which has long been decried as a sign that the end is nigh. For MMO people, having new grindable content is a must. If you’ve listened to ANY of our recent SWTOR discussions on any of our shows, you know that Leo and I are very much not part of the MMO crowd. Leo used to be, and I always wanted to be (I can thank The Guild for making it look awesome), but these days, we care so much more about the story aspect and not so much for the endgame group content. We are CLEARLY the target market for their recent focus on story and CLEARLY not part of the community that rail against it on the SWTOR forums and subreddit.
Where does this leave the game, not looking at my own preferences? MMO’s need to make money to stay alive. Since they introduced the Cartel Market, they’ve had a steady stream of incoming cash and, up until 2015, they’d introduced at least one Operation with a couple Flashpoints each year, keeping MMO people subscribed. From November 2015 to current, with the HEAVY emphasis on story, we haven’t seen either new Flashpoints or Operations. We also haven’t seen any new Warzones, but PvP arenas have been an ongoing struggle across all MMO’s for a decade-plus. They did introduce a lot of single-player grinding content, but that’s not really enough to satisfy the MMO people who actually have guilds and like to do content that furthers their personal and guild goals (get better gear, improve guild performance, fight bigger monsters, repeat). This is the audience that they desperately need to appease if they want to move the game forward.
It’s certainly easier said than done, it seems, since they had to put the MMO development aside in order to create a wonderful almost-KOTOR-like experience, which is exactly what we wanted (well, not EXACTLY, but close enough). Following the end of SWTOR 2.0 and through 4.0, they did manage to do some story (admittedly not as good) while also doing plenty of MMO group content (arguably some of the best of any MMO), but then again, the weak story was hard for me to get on board with.
It’s a difficult balancing act that I think will eventually be too much to keep the game going for much longer. What people like Leo and I want is a strong single-player RPG that we only have to pay once for (I’ll buy all the DLC honestly), and what the MMO crowd wants is a grinding machine with a never ending ladder. I think the latter group could find what they’re looking for in any other MMO, especially with World of WarCraft: Legion. From what I understand, Legion manages to bring back a lot of what really worked with vanilla WoW. I’m still waiting to see what comes after the upcoming live stream on 1/26, but knowing that it’s going to be endgame group content, it will probably lose me again. Right now, I’m working on getting my Empire characters to the end of their respective original class stories. Yes, I have never gotten ANY Empire characters even to the end of the vanilla stories. I can actually get it done thanks to the super fast story levelling due to being a Premium player, but without a REALLY compelling story with high-drama like we had in KOTFE/KOTET, I don’t know that I’ll stick around. I love the game, but again, time and money are my constant enemies.