SWTOR creative director Charles Boyd shared some insights about the last 2 expansions to the game as well as how well the different approaches to the Chapter Based Story were accepted by the players. You can find his full post here: Charles Boyd on SWTOR Story Chapters and Returning Companion. The following are some of my thoughts and concerns about what can and should we hope for in the next 6 months that remain from 2017.
In a lengthy forum post he describes the big differences between KOTFE and KOTET and also hints at the possibility of a third expansion continuing the story of the Eternal Alliance / Eternal Empire. He also talks about returning companions – in KOTFE the companion based chapters were not very well accepted, but at the same time the community’s demands for more of the classic companions to return ASAP remained very strong. As you know, KOTFE was split into 2 parts – 9 chapters released all together with the expansion in the end of 2015 and 6 more chapters, released on monthly basis. The more resent KOTET used a different approach – 9 chapters only, no returning companions, no monthly drags and huge focus on resolving the Vitiate conflict and the Valkorion Family Drama.
I can’t quite come up with a decent explanation as to what, how, when and IF a 3rd expansion will appear. At this point we have absolutely no mention of what the next SWTOR Expansion could be, nor when should we expect it. With the (obvious) delay to the Gods from the Machine Operation Bosses releases, I am a little worried when and how would the Dev Team be able to fit in a new Expansion in 2017. My hopes do remain strong, though! Maybe not in October and November (because the Ops wont be completed yet and Battlefront II will take all the attention of the whole world), but perhaps for Christmas? Do you remember, that SWTOR originally launched on 21st December (depending on your time zone :P).
It wont be the first time that the game wouldn’t receive an expansion, but the last time it happened is now way in the past. Bioware has never released a full scale expansion, but what they have been giving us in the past few years has always been decent quality for no extra cost. At least not to me, as I have always been a Subscriber or as EA insists on calling that status now – Premium. Woohoo, I am a Premium! Pff… EA!
With only 6 months left before the end of SWTOR’s 6th year since release, I am starting to think of the possible outcomes for a new expansion. There are a few top theories that I have crafted in my own mind and the following rows are a brief description of each one of them. Which is your favorite, that is for you to decide.
- Worst case scenario – No expansion at all in 2017 or first half of 2018. Instead Bioware focuses on monthly or bi-monthly stories to bring back as many of the classic companions as possible. The War for Iokath was a good example of how that would happen. This new story ark isn’t just about companions returning, which is great. The issue I personally have with it is that it was too short and release cycles are too far apart. The continuation is expected in Patch 5.4 this August. That’s more than 2 months.
- Bioware completes the Iokath Operation in time (somehow) and releases the 3rd season of “Knights of” story based expansion with another 7-10 chapters, focused on the epilogue of the Eternal Empire/Alliance.
- Bioware fails to release all Gods from the Machine operation and has to delay the next expansion for Q1 of 2018.
- Bioware had it all planned from the beginning – the final boss encounter in Gods from the Machine will be tied in somehow with the next expansion to the story. That would explain how can we only have 1 boss out of 5 from the Operation and it’s now end of June. Releasing an expansion before the 5th boss is out and available for killing, though, would mean that the Devs would have to re-balance all encounters for lvl 75. That would be a good move, though, because we will have the full Operationi available in one package. The way Operations are supposed to appear. D’OH!
There can be more… I could probably name at least 2-3 more possible outcomes, but I think those are enough for now. What do you think? How do you imagine the next expansion and what would you like to see in it?
