could SWTOR pull a FF14 and re-launch as SWTHR

[cuafpr]

First I think the game is great, and have been playing it over anything else lately.


But i wonder if with the coming high republic era of stories/movies if they could end SWTOR and re-launch as SWTHR with a new engine and modern features like account-wide chat, mounts, etc... (honestly the engine hurts it the most...)

[kenn9530]

First I think the game is great, and have been playing it over anything else lately.


But i wonder if with the coming high republic era of stories/movies if they could end SWTOR and re-launch as SWTHR with a new engine and modern features like account-wide chat, mounts, etc... (honestly the engine hurts it the most...)

would probably take too much money and effort to make it possible, would end up being better off with a newer generation MMO being made around star wars instead

[Dakhath]

No chance.

[xenogear3]

I don't think so.
It was very high budget. No way EA will invest more money on it.

Japanese (such as SquareSoft) has high honor.
It wants to redeem itself. I doubt EA cares.

[Shibito]

SWTOR is great ff14 is just not good i get people wanting it to be a good mmorpg to fight wow but it really isnt a good mmo SWTOR is way better.

[quras]

Sadly, not a chance at this point.

The game is too old. The engine used has been an issue since launch and I can't see any company putting in the effort with the current product given the original 8 class stories is the best this game has to offer still to this day.

What you have now is very likely the best you can ever hope for with SWTOR.

[Gallahadd]

Nah. While I DO think we'll get some High Republic games, they'll more than likely be gatcha heavy iOS games, rather than conventional MMOs.

Easier to make, far higher profit margins.

[jermo22]

Naw, like everyone else is saying, id say 0 chance at that. The original cost of development was upwards of 500M$, a "relaunch" would probably use all profits this game made its lifetime. They might do expansions but i think were more likley to get seperate games.

[Darththeo]

No chance.

They aren't going to throw money at SWTOR right now to do that.

And honestly, the High Republic (set 200 year pre movies) just launched ... it is hard to know exactly what long lasting impact the High Republic is going to have.

[Swnem]

I think that would be a different game.

Don't worry though, the people on this forum are mostly haters. There is something big coming for the 10th anniversary they have been teasing. The game is definitely getting more attention with the last expansion and patches with lots of back end changes. They are definitely preparing something.

I don't think it's a relaunch, but the people giving you a certainty here are giving a certainty they don't have to give cause they are out of the loop for many years.

SWTOR was mentioned as one of the games Bioware is supporting in deference to Anthem. Anthem was being developed at Bioware Austin as is SWTOR. Mass efffect and Dragon age are in Edmonton. So, it is likely the resources got shifted to SWTOR. Not that there were that many people still working on it.

Also, recently this new intro was added to the game.


It is clear the game is back on EA's radar.
Of course, it doesn't mean they will do an ARR on it. I doubt that will ever happen with EA with any game. But, they have realized that there is still potential on it and there is momentum with the Onslaught expansion and the Steam launch.

- - - Updated - - -

Naw, like everyone else is saying, id say 0 chance at that. The original cost of development was upwards of 500M$, a "relaunch" would probably use all profits this game made its lifetime. They might do expansions but i think were more likley to get seperate games.

Utter BS!

In an earnings call to investors in October 2019, Electronic Arts announced that Star Wars: The Old Republic was closing in on a billion dollars in lifetime revenue, making it a huge financial success based on the reported $200 million development budget.

[Zig Zug]

Japanese (such as SquareSoft) has high honor.
It wants to redeem itself. I doubt EA cares.

This is really it.

The overall approach is different, EA doesn't give a shit as long as they look good on the quarterlies. They'll take excellent IP, and then use it to ship crap.

SquareSoft (and really the Japanese people in general) don't really deal well with public / professional embarrassment, and will (usually) take great strides to correct it.

And for the thread - fuck yeah I'd love a new engine, but that ship sailed a while ago.

[Edge-]

This is really it.

The overall approach is different, EA doesn't give a shit as long as they look good on the quarterlies. They'll take excellent IP, and then use it to ship crap.

SquareSoft (and really the Japanese people in general) don't really deal well with public / professional embarrassment, and will (usually) take great strides to correct it.

And for the thread - fuck yeah I'd love a new engine, but that ship sailed a while ago.

Star Wars isn't a key internal franchise for EA the way FF is for Squeenix, so there's not quite the same stakes for both.

And yeah, the Hero Engine seems fine for ESO (still don't think they ever moved to a pure in-house engine), but the early beta version SWTOR uses is still kinda meh. It's a lot better than it used to be, but it's just more evidence that BW's bigger weakness often lies in the tech/engineering side of things.

[Eosia]

The problem was, at launch, Bioware copied World of Warcraft enough so that players could easily jump in and play without having to relearn movements, ui, etc. They didn't copy WoW enough with things like group finder and other features World of Warcraft has added that players seem to be expecting. I remember lots of threads asking about that, macros, ui modification addons, etc.

Then they also decided to cut costs. They stopped writing for 8 main classes and started writing 1 story line for each faction which went against one of their stated selling features. They also never indicated they were evolving the game on the back end with things like scaling and such so you could have your own leveling path versus having to got to the same planets, in pretty much the same order (with the exception of 2 being transposed between the factions).

[Trumpcat]

The shortcomings of SWTOR are fundamental and have been discussed at large many times. Starting from a 32bit engine (?!?) and ending with lack of content development. Could it pull a comeback? No, they tried a few course reversals, it didn't work. The game won't be overhauled firstly because of its technical limitations and secondly due to lack of financial justification. The game has been doing well for what its role has been for years: milk the franchise with minimal investment.

We are far more likely to see another Star Wars game with strong online features in the next few years, might be co-op, might be pvp, matchmaking, cosmetics. Definitely not a new Star Wars MMORPG and definitely not a SWTOR overhaul.

At best they will be scaling old content for the 100th time for the anniversary or announce an "expansion" with the size of half a WoW content patch.

[Fkiolaris]

The way I see it, no chance unfortunately. They would need to practically reset the whole game and that would piss off the existing long-term players, without a guarantee it would attract bigger numbers and convince them to stay on top of that. At this point, the best bet for a "better" Star Wars MMO or multiplayer game is a new game altogether.

[Gaidax]

It's an old game with a lot of baggage.

You can't "relaunch" a 10 years old game. You can make a "classic" version or some such, but not relaunch 10 years of progress.

I think Bioware/EA could totally pull out a brand new MMO based on Star Wars and maybe if they and Disney have balls for it - make it for the rumored new trilogy remake time period.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

My biggest reason for doubt is the MMO fad seems to have ran it's course. New ones are a lot less common these days than 10 years ago when every 4 to 6 months you had the next "Wow killer" releasing.

But yeah, those two companies and the IP COULD do it for sure. The better question is should. Hell they probably poop out mobile games for pennies on the dollar of an MMO and post record profits on it. Sucks for people like me that would love a deep Star Wars MMO. But it is just how I see it. They just don't want to spend the money to do it, to maintain it, and to continuously add new content. You can even see it in the expansions of SWTOR. It goes from craziest MMO story telling ever in the original game to mission hubs and dailies really fast in expansions.

My bet, not want but bet, is they just keep to the norm here. Drop an expansion or mission update once in a while. Maybe make some seasonal stuff and do whatever it takes to keep the shop going strong and let it ride.

[crusadernero]

My biggest reason for doubt is the MMO fad seems to have ran it's course. New ones are a lot less common these days than 10 years ago when every 4 to 6 months you had the next "Wow killer" releasing.

But yeah, those two companies and the IP COULD do it for sure. The better question is should. Hell they probably poop out mobile games for pennies on the dollar of an MMO and post record profits on it. Sucks for people like me that would love a deep Star Wars MMO. But it is just how I see it. They just don't want to spend the money to do it, to maintain it, and to continuously add new content. You can even see it in the expansions of SWTOR. It goes from craziest MMO story telling ever in the original game to mission hubs and dailies really fast in expansions.

My bet, not want but bet, is they just keep to the norm here. Drop an expansion or mission update once in a while. Maybe make some seasonal stuff and do whatever it takes to keep the shop going strong and let it ride.

Yeah probably this.

Lets not forget that just the name "Star Wars" could sell anything. Slap the name on it and it sells. Question is, how much profit?

Making a MMORPG in todays market is a really though one. I think we gotta wait several years before the MMORPG genre gets a new boost like it did when wow launched. The market really is saturated and whatever the next big MMORPG is - its gotta be really good.

[Dakhath]

The content drip for SWTOR has been really rough since Onslaught came out. Yeah, world wide pandemic and all that, but that hasn't stopped the big MMOs from releasing a lot more stuff. The base game of Onslaught took 2-3 hours, then there was a literal 10 minute content patch, and I guess they've added a new flashpoint since then. It's enjoyable game if you're starting from the beginning, but I don't know how it retains people who have been playing for a long time other than the fact that it's the only Star Wars MMO on the market.

That said, it still makes money so as long as EA has the go ahead to maintain the game, it will continue to chug along.

[justandulas]

I, too, love swtor but it’s 0% chance for several reasons

1) the engine is notoriously awful to work with. They can’t even get the ability delay properly fixed ever, how will they rebuild everything?

2) Bioware of today is not the Bioware that built swtor. Swtor, in many ways, was the final act of the real Bioware.

3) ea isn’t going to sink 100-300 million needed to revamp this title. It isn’t that successful to warrant that

The reason it worked with ff14 and wouldn’t here quite frankly, is because SE couldn’t afford for it to fail so had to spend to make money. Swtor is irrelevant to EA’s profile in many ways, and EA is not dependent on swtor for survival so it makes investing a lost cause when they could just cruise control to more cash as they are