One possible reason we still don't have a Chapter 5/Level 60

[JFrombaugh]

Rise of the Hutt Cartel launched quite awhile ago now, and there have since been two "mini-expansions" that are more focused one expanding the game's features than adding additional leveling and story content. Galactic Starfighter gave us PvP space battles, and Galactic Strongholds will give us Player Housing. Galactic Strongholds is billed as being "3.0", but as far as I know, there's no level cap increase or new planets (at least not with launch), else they'd have announced it already.

After just now finally starting to play through the Maekeb story myself, I have one theory on why they've decided to hold off on raising the level cap again and giving us new planets.

One of the most defining features of SWTOR's leveling (at least for me) is the class storyline. Each class has a feel and personality all its own, and your dialogue options reflect that.

Unfortunately, for RotHC they made the decision to merge the storylines and just have a Republic and Empire version. Ilum kind of made sense as an "endgame" planet where people could go for "something to do" after reaching 50, be it PvP, dailies, or whatever, but once you set foot on Maekeb you leave your class story far behind, and the stuff you do is pretty much just basic military operations. Not that it's a "bad" story or anything, it just doesn't have the "personality" that the class storylines have. It makes me think that the most "canon" classes for everything that isn't class-specific (sidequests, RotHC story, Galactic Starfighter, and so forth) are the Trooper or Smuggler for Republic, and Imperial Agent for Empire.

After all, why would Darth Nox waste his time and energy dealing with these pesky Republic soldiers when Imperial Intelligence is so eager to handle the job? Why would the Jedi Council risk losing a valuable member like the Barsenthor to the dangerous potential threat that is the Hutt Cartel when a healthy supply of cannon fodder is ready to volunteer in his place?

I think it would have been much better if they'd given all of the classes some reason to be there, but still kept some of the more interesting missions as sidequests.

But if Bioware decided they felt the same way and are going to extend the class storylines at some point, it'll be no easy task of course, so that might be a possible reason why they're holding off in favor of expanding the amount of activities at endgame.

[Tyris Flare]

There's no need to theorize: the reason is because creating individualized content for 8 classes is incredibly inefficient. It's the same reason no other games (that I'm aware of) have bothered with personalizing stories.

That said, they should be announcing more details about the coming expansion within the next couple weeks. Given that they've made it a lot easier to get gear (increasing reward tiers and stuff), it's very likely they will be raising the level cap and dropping a bunch of new FPs/OpS. I would love to see another chapter for each class, but the odds of that happening are incredibly low. The more likely scenario is another couple planets with Pub and Imp storylines.

[Tesket]

There's no need to theorize: the reason is because creating individualized content for 8 classes is incredibly inefficient. It's the same reason no other games (that I'm aware of) have bothered with personalizing stories.

That said, they should be announcing more details about the coming expansion within the next couple weeks. Given that they've made it a lot easier to get gear (increasing reward tiers and stuff), it's very likely they will be raising the level cap and dropping a bunch of new FPs/OpS. I would love to see another chapter for each class, but the odds of that happening are incredibly low. The more likely scenario is another couple planets with Pub and Imp storylines.

^ granted they love star wars, but their #1 objective is to make money. And even if they spent thousands of dollars adding whole new chapters for all 8 stories, the no-lifer player base would grind through it all in a month then complain about how their's nothing to.

[Edge-]

There's a reason why story content is pushed far less heavily than content like housing, open space(ish) PvP, and raids: It's got far smaller returns on investment.

With story, since they're only doing one storyline per faction now (though with nods to your class in the story), once you go through it, that's pretty much it. There's not a whole lot of replayability for it and it's relatively time consuming to create given the need to write, record, animate, and create the actual questing content. Compare that GSF which will provide players with dozens upon dozens of hours of replayability (sure, not all players, but a good chunk) or a new FP/OP which will provide players with a ton of replayability as they farm it for gear.

Story will probably only really come as part of the occasional expansion. I'd expect more expansions to focus on building out the game with new features and systems a la GSF and housing. Though I'd be willing to bet the expansion later this year will include some story content (may have read that somewhere, which is why I'm thinking that).

[JFrombaugh]

I guess what I'm trying to say is, for me, the business side of it is where I get frustrated more than anything.

I'm not saying that Galactic Starfighter and Strongholds AREN'T good features (in fact I am very much looking forward to SWTOR's take on Player Housing), but I have always felt that it is a shame that once MMOs get old enough to warrant major upgrades, that they lose that intimate feel that so many of us fell in love with in the first place.

[Edge-]

I guess what I'm trying to say is, for me, the business side of it is where I get frustrated more than anything.

I'm not saying that Galactic Starfighter and Strongholds AREN'T good features (in fact I am very much looking forward to SWTOR's take on Player Housing), but I have always felt that it is a shame that once MMOs get old enough to warrant major upgrades, that they lose that intimate feel that so many of us fell in love with in the first place.

What was that "intimate feel", though? Was it class stories? Because unfortunately that was never a feasible content model for the game, even if it had done well at launch. Creating content for 8 unique classes is a huge undertaking, and very expensive. It was never going to be something that was viable as a long-term model.

[JFrombaugh]

What was that "intimate feel", though? Was it class stories?

Actually, I was referring more to anything from class stories to revamped zones, things like getting rid of the old talent trees, character development for the sake of it, etc.

For example, a lot of people (myself included) felt that Cataclysm lost a lot of charm from the original Vanilla WoW. Sure, Vanilla's content WAS getting on in years, and many people were getting tired of the same old quests when leveling alts, but I have to say that for the most part I really enjoyed Vanilla's questlines and found them to be mostly suitable for all races and classes, which I honestly can't say the same for Cata's Levels 1-60.

In SWTOR's case, class stories were one of the main draws of this game, because so many games these days, even MMOs, follow a "one size fits all" approach to story, even though all classes were not created equal in my opinion. And even if it was never feasiable to continue each class's story each expansion, I still have to applaud Bioware for having the guts to do it at launch to begin with.

And really I think you partly missed my point. It's not that I don't understand that it would have been too difficult to continue 8 separate class storylines each expansion, it's that unlike the Flashpoints and the Sidequests from 1-50 that are also Faction-specific rather than Class-speific, for some reason Maekeb's story so far to me just doesn't really seem to make sense from the viewpoint of certain classes. It's hard to explain exactly why...

I think what I would have done as a sort of compromise would be to add just a few class-specific quests here and there to sort of "set the scene" for each class. Not really "continue each class's storyline" per se, but have some cutscenes to establish why each class is on Maekeb fighting the Hutt Cartel. For instance, instead of having everyone be sent there under the Republic Chancellor's orders, maybe the Trooper goes there under military orders, while the Jedi Knight maintains contact with Satele Shan throughout, but ultimately still follows the same Faction questline.

I haven't gotten to 55 yet, do they have things like that?

[WoWGoneBad]

You know with today's editing software you can take the audio of the voice actors and combine them into some semblance of conversation. Will this take time yes, BUT they would not need to HIRE the actors again for the conversations just create the script and data for it.

The tech is there but will require effort and man hours and with the assLOADS of cash they are bringing in they can hire a few temps and interns to craft the convos. And with the interns and temps its win win. The people get a job for a few months and interns get experience and BW gets a workforce at decent cost.

[Tyris Flare]

You get a few vague references to "hey you are the one who [finished class storyline,] but that's about it. Still, I've never felt like any of the classes shouldn't be at X place with the exception of the BH and Smuggler, because they aren't really a part of their respective faction.

E: also hiring the VA is not the expensive part. It's the cutscenes, writing, setting aside terrain on planets, etc.

That said, having a few extra conversations would go a long way and cost very little. Professional VAs can put out a lot of dialogue in a short period of time.

[Kelimbror]

The original game design simply isn't sustainable nor affordable. It would be the most amazing singleplayer MMO experience ever if they could keep it going, but it just doesn't work that way.

[Derah]

I don't see why people think that class stories take such a long time to develop. I recently power-leveled another inquisitor through those new scenario-like dungeons, and only really began doing my class story after lvl 45 or so.

Wanna know what I saw? each planet had a whopping total of FOUR quests for my inquisitor, and the rest of the quests were generic empire quests equal to everyone else.

If they can create a planet like makeb why should it be so hard to create 3 or 4 bloody quests for each class? is quest-design so ultra-time consuming that 4 quests take such a long time? Just sacrifice some of the more generic quests to make space for these ones and presto. After all makeb is a RIDICULOUSLY LONG planet. Seriously, it took FOREVER to finish that one. Must have well over a hundred quests. Just sacrifice 20 of those to give each class 5 quests for their chapter 5. OMG THAT'S SO HARD!!!!!!!!! (except its not)

Its not like each "Chapter" is made of hundreds of hundreds of quests, in fact the entirety of chapter 3 for the inquisitor is made of a staggering TWENTY SIX quests. And this is all of chapter 3. Why couldn't they make smaller chapters of 4 quests each for every class? I have no idea, but its not due to time constraints or resource development. Its not like creating a quest is as hard or as timeconsuming as creating the starfighter game or the homes.

Its also not like the cutscenes are state-of-the-art-cinematic-masterpieces. 80% of them are incredibly generic with just people talking or doing extremely limited fight scenes. Most of the cool scenes are strictly at the start, and end, of each chapter, with a few cool ones in the middle. But otherwise most are just a bunch of people talking, or waving weapons without actually using them.

Gimme a break.

[Edge-]

I don't see why people think that class stories take such a long time to develop. I recently power-leveled another inquisitor through those new scenario-like dungeons, and only really began doing my class story after lvl 45 or so.

Writing 8 individual class stories (each of which would need to be at least 5-10 quests to be "meaningful"), voice recording/editing 8 times, creating 8 unique cutscenes. It adds up. Instead, you can write a 2 storylines for everyone, with brief nods to each classes story as a part of the dialogue.

From a financial/time standpoint, there's simply isn't enough of a return on investment. It's pretty expensive to create, and it's not going to occupy that much player time and poses a challenge in terms of monetization.

[Kelimbror]

I don't see why people think that class stories take such a long time to develop

You probably don't, but it's only because you aren't making a game like this for your job. The stories are not wantonly created plot devices to make your character feel epic, they are quasi canonical, interwoven stories that have to be equally rewarding for 8 different versions. They have to be voice acted by the best in the business and they have to be laid out against overall planetary designs that the quest design/writing teams can work with. Companions would need to have some involvement, even if just dialog responses or appearances in cutscenes. And let's not forget all the cutscene work itself.

It would actually be a monumental task to do that. If the very least was imagining makeb questing and multiplying it to 8 instead 2 stories, it would still take too much time and money. They aren't going to throw out the quality of the original experience just to provide fan service, poorly written character stories. It was incredibly disappointing when they made the shift, but also completely sensible.

[Tyris Flare]

There's probably another small factor which no one discusses, which is that they would rather do nothing than do something "meh." I mean, they could probably put in one class quest on a new Makeb (like Quesh, each class gets one quest there) without a ton of trouble, but that would be incredibly underwhelming and maybe even create a backlash. They probably either want to make a new chapter (spanning 2-3 planets and probably at least 10 quests) or not bother at all.

I don't know, it's a lot of hand-waving given that (presumably) none of us work there and actually know the cost/time details.

[Edge-]

There's probably another small factor which no one discusses, which is that they would rather do nothing than do something "meh." I mean, they could probably put in one class quest on a new Makeb (like Quesh, each class gets one quest there) without a ton of trouble, but that would be incredibly underwhelming and maybe even create a backlash. They probably either want to make a new chapter (spanning 2-3 planets and probably at least 10 quests) or not bother at all.

I don't know, it's a lot of hand-waving given that (presumably) none of us work there and actually know the cost/time details.

Indeed. It's better to not do something and slightly piss people off, then do a really poor job and really piss people off.

[Derah]

If the very least was imagining makeb questing and multiplying it to 8 instead 2 stories

This is where your mistake lies.

As I said before, take a look at a pre-makeb planet. ANY pre-makeb planet. How many quests in those planets are Class Story quests vs regular Republic and Empire quests?

At most 20 per planet are dedicated to the classes. 25 is the ultimate maximum in a planet like Belsavis, but for the rest, 20 are class quests and the rest are generic quests.

Makeb had like a hundred quests per side, was it really that much to just cut out 20 of those per side to create 4 quests for each?

And don't think for a second that "4 quests is too little to make a class chapter" because its not. The way they are integrated and staggered in the other planets makes them feel longer, but if you cut out all the side-missions, and actually look at each planet with a magnifying glass you can see that they really do have only 4 or 5 quests per class each. Some have even less, Quesh has 2 for crying out loud.

When they make a new planet, rather than make 200 republic quests and 200 empire quests, they could easily do 170 republic and 170 empire so they can make 6 quests for each class.

And let's not forget all the cutscene work itself.

What cutscene work? they can make cutscenes for non-class quests. Why would class-quest cutscenes be any harder? again, if you look at all the cutscenes on each chapter only a few at the start and end of each chapter has any complexity to it, the rest are just people talking. If they can do those cutscenes for regular quests, they can do them for class quests, all they have to do is reduce a tad bit the regular quests and presto. Its not like the class quests are these BIG ULTRA LONG QUEST CHAINS. Nope, if you look at each planet, each class has like 5 quests on them and that's it.

That's not really that much to ask is it? 5 quests? come on.

[Sunseeker]

I'm just gonna throw it out there that I'm in NO RUSH, at all. I've completed one full class story since launch. I've got toons ranging from lvl 10 to level 50.

I really disliked the GW2 model where if you were out for a week, you might miss a huge portion of the story, it's one of the reasons I don't play it anymore. In F2P games I take casual to the extreme, I might log in once a week, get one level on one character and log out and since I'm not paying for my time, I'm cool with that.

So I'm certainly not worried about another 5 levels to grind out anytime soon.

[RohanV]

My theory is Bioware was okay with multiple class stories in the original game because they had a mistaken theory about how people would play. I believe they thought that people would play one story to the end, then start an alt and play another story and so on until they had seen all the stories. This way, making multiple stories is not a loss because every player would eventually see all the work.

But what I think happened is that after launch Bioware found that most players don't behave like that. Instead they play one character to max and stick with it, only having one or two alts. Under this model of player behavior, multiple stories are far less cost-effective. If the majority of players only have one character, it's a far better use of resources to make one longer story than 8 short stories. If the average player only has one character, this offers the maximum amount of content for that one character.

[zoefschildpad]

When the idea of a first expansion came up I was looking forward to new class story and new flashpoints, but I was very disappointed. I don't have much interest in pvp or ops and I have instead leveled 5 classes to 50 for the class stories. I'll play the game again if there are new class stories and if there's some way to at least significantly speed up Makeb to get there, because I'm not looking forward to grinding through that on every single character without variation...

[moff]

yeah, gotta agree with everyone else here.
Its basically the same reason why valve doesnt do half life 3, although everyone wants it. but creathing a single player game costs so much more effort and money for a game that most people play maybe once or twice. on the other hand multiplayer content costs probably less and people play ot over and over again, countless times. so thats what they are doing, even if everyone wants class stories, just like everyone wants hl3.