Conjecture on Future of SWTOR

A reproduction of this Reddit post claiming to be inside knowledge of what’s happening over the next couple of years in SWTOR. Fantasy or fact – you decide:

Star Wars: Prelude to Darkness

A bunch of us ended up being privy to some meetings that were meant to be kept secret from us, so I should be safe and anonymous enough to share this information. I’m only doing this because I love this game and I think the plans to keep all of this secret until the last moment are only to the game’s detriment. I’m not actually a super lore-nerd, so I might miscommunicate some of what I heard—I tried SO hard to get this accurate and to remember as best as I could for you guys.

1. EA and Disney have a brilliant plan for SWTOR. It will be upgraded to canon in the next expansion and will have some subtle tie-ins with Star Wars 7. (Specifically, a certain planet will be used and lord Vitiate will be an off-screen influence on the main villain of 7). The first step, although it won’t be obvious how, to SWTOR’s ending has begun in Forged Alliances.
2. The storyline for SWTOR is going to end in about 3.5 years, and the sequel is already in development. These next 3 years are going to see an increase in funding as the game is brought back in line with initial expectations. There is a fun plan to let SWTOR run for as long as players want it to, with dynamic and scaling end-game content, but focus will shift to SWTOR 2. It will run on the Cryengine 3 Frostbite 3 (sorry I was excited and they look similar to me), so your first preview of how the game might look/run will be Dragon Age 3 later this year.
3. The personal stories of SWTOR will continue in the next major Xpac, and they will each have an “ending”. YOUR character from SWTOR will appear in the as-yet-unnamed SWTOR 2 in various forms. Force Ghosts, holocrons, etc. As of right now, only one class appears to be able to survive until SWTOR 2 (Sith Inquisitor), but that might change. These will use your appearance settings and dialogue based on the actions you chose in the game. I will detail what I could gather about the plot later on in this post.
4. There will be a newgame+ option added to SWTOR, some big bonuses for players who use it, and some major tweaks to the leveling experience and early planets. For example, coroscant lets you turn in most quests via holocalls rather than walking back. Newgame+ will be important as some characters that were not previously able to will become companions if certain story options are taken, and same gender romance will be added. It appears LucasArts was the one behind not allowing them in the first place. There will be some hefty rewards and updates to the original game that make going through newgame+ for that new companion romance feel less painful if you don’t want to. For example, a “rocket boots” type move for each class that is specific to each class (SI get to ride the lightning), and a class specific mount granted at level 15, that upgrades to a better appearance at level 30.
5. The engine will be heavily revamped, and with the expansion, the game will be brought to consoles as a buy-to-play title with a cartel market. The goal will be to revamp all existing game systems so that everything fits nicely into place as one coherent whole game.
6. New species—Torgruta, some other ugly thing

Gameplay/expansion features:

-Most level 60 content will involve cross-faction queues, when story appropriate.

-There will be some cross-faction planets where you can work cooperatively with the other faction. On PVP servers, you can flag yourselves PvP on these planets anyway.

-New action mode that allows mouselook and changes some of your move to macros to reduce your number of keybinds.

-Can use appearance changer on most companions, including species change.

-Same sex romance for most companions, including a few new romance options (Jaesa Lightside is one)

The Ending of SWTOR:

-Lord Vitiate has regained his power for the most part. His 300 year link to Revan allowed him to subsume Revan at the end of Foundry. (The two are now one, mostly integrated personality, although both sides will have chances to flash to the forefront). He has also been able to absorb power from the “deaths” of many powerful force users. (Spoilers: Darth Thanaton, for example, and Lord Baras if you’re on a Sith Warrior who didn’t spare him, same thing for Syo Bakarn and many other characters, Jadus, etc. You kill a lot of powerful Sith, and apparently the Emperor had their essences on tap. Choosing to spare various Sith will make Vitiate a bit weaker for your account).

-Vitiate has assembled a host of what are basically all the enemies that have been fought in SWTOR—Directive 7, some dread stuff, some cosmic horrors. Not all of them realize they are directly controlled by him, instead acting as puppets, but they serve his purposes.

-NEW CLASS STORIES: Each of the 8 characters will take on a major role in opposing Vitiate’s new attempt to absorb all life in the galaxy and become a God. Interesting, many characters and companions will appear in each other’s stories, and will make the dialogue choices that your character would based on LS/DS alignment. Some combinations will even have flirt options and such, which is fun, and some dialogue options will change based on how your characters are placed on the family tree (for example, rude options chosen if they are a rival, some indication of family/alliances/relationships between others. No, you wont be able to flirt with family, even if this is star wars).

Story spoilers:

The planetary story arcs will all deal with differing elements of fighting Vitiate and what he is doing. Many planets will be returned to for new level 55+ content

Korriban and Tython are important because Vitiate gets some powers from these planets, and some ancient droids/force-weapons.

-IA story will deal with infiltrating elements of the Republic AND Sith fleet that have been secretly taken over by the Emperor. A long series of manipulations will lead to the two sides of Vitiate’s stolen fleet fighting one another while the IA assassinates most of the leaders of Vitiate’s Navy.

-The JK storyline will be very dark, with one companion being forced back into Vitiate’s sway at intervals. The Emperor will also be closely connected to you, and try to take over your mind at times. This will lead to the Jedi Council trying to reign you in and keep you from going on missions—forcing the JK to ask mostly without the support of the Jedi or Republic. The JK will attempt to assassinate Vitiate and fail, losing a companion’s life. There will actually be a branching story where the JK can turn to the dark side if he is not already, or gain enhanced DS power. At least one companion will turn with you. The JK will then focus on defense—using powerful force artifacts to create barriers to Vitiate’s attempts to drain all life from the universe. These arcs will be assaulted by the most powerful enemies Vitiate can muster, and it will be the JK’s job to defend them. Vitiate WILL get to begin his ritual, and it will be the Jedi Knights job to protect the primary Arc—located on coroscant. Lightside choices allow the Jedi Knight to sacrifice themselves—they become a force ghost that can still take corporeal form. The Dark Side choice allows the arc to be destroyed instead, but the JK gains access to powerful dark-side alternative visuals for some moves.

-The Sith Inquisitor will hunt down various artifacts, force-users, and even some ghosts that are aiding Vitiate’s power. The SI will have no choice but to take this power for themselves, leading to visions that show the SI taking Vitiate’s place as sort of God. As the story progresses and Darth Marr is killed, you take over leadership of the Empire. You have multiple options to waste resources by attacking the Republic to your own benefit, or could allow for an alliance that leads to Vitiate’s destruction. The SI gets an option to take Vitiate’s place and become a cosmic force entitity—killing all those that Vitiate would kill, but taking the power for themselves instead. The SI passes off this choice to others by saying Vitiate did it.

-The Consular will lead the Jedi Council’s efforts in the war. You can make peace with the Empire or launch several surprise attacks and take some of the Empire’s forces for yourself. You will focus mostly on macro level conflicts, and getting all the chess pieces in place for the final assault on Vitiate. You will have the option to destroy Korriban.

-The Bounty Hunter is the one who actually gets to kill Vitiate as he is in the middle of his Dark Side ritual. Building up to this point, you get to assassinate a HUGE amount of important characters in both the Empire and The Republic—anyone standing in the way of destroying Vitiate efficiently and effectively will be eliminated by you. The Voss will aid the BH in becoming resistant to force attacks prior to the showdown with the Emperor.

-The Sith Warrior gets the option to play in support of Vitiate, however, at the end of the story, he betrays and attempts to kill you, so you don’t actually get to help him fully destroy the Universe. There are some arguing internally for non-canon endings to allow some stuff like this. Basically, you will be wrapped up in the Emperor’s Orders and organization, and have the LS options to betray him as much as possible, at some cost to yourself, or the DS option to simply act as his hand. You will come under attack from MANY sides, including some aggressive attempts by the Sith Inquisitor and Bounty Hunter.

-The Smuggler will essentially serve as an evacuator, as many planets fall to Vitiate, you will extract essential personnel from both the Republic and the Empire—or just their information on how to defeat him. Helping a powerful light-side sith early on will get your ship the ability to ignore many of the force-barriers and powers Vitiate will use. You will get to save the lives of 2 of the other player characters at various points in the story and will get the option to have T7 join your crew. You will also seek out some of the parts and designs that allow the Arks that will resist Vitiate to be built, and be charged with some essential backups of information that will help rebuild the universe if all else fails.

-The Republic Trooper—this one is a bit confusing. The trooper is sent to help the Empire prepare for the attack, since the Republic learns of it first. The Sith Inquistor charges him with the defense of Korriban from one of Vitiate’s first attacks. The trooper gets multiple options to weaken the Empire, or keep their forces to help fight vitiate. Throughout the story, you basically earn the respect of Imperial Citizens, oppose and can even kill Sith Lords who seek personal power or craziness instead of fighting Vitiate, and you end up leading many combined forces of Imperial and Republic forces against Vitiate. Your character becomes the main reason the two sides can work together on the missions that are surprisingly successful against Vitiate, and which allow the other characters to conduct the business as they are. This character gets referenced in many of the planetary quests.

–So, basically, the way the story ends is that Lord Vitiate is about 25% successful with his plans. Most planets near the core experience significant loss of life, except for the ones that had force artifacts shielding them via some of the story lines, the ones that had some sort of protection via deception (IA gets a planet to pretend to be allied with Vit to protect it). The arcs are successful depending on light-side/dark-side options.

-Elder game content will involve rebuilding the galaxy, as the Republic and the Sith Empire have basically crumbled, and the galaxy will now be lawless.

-The final patch of the game will involve Warlords rising to power. This will be to set up the next Star Wars MMO, which will take place about 100 years later, in a time period where the Republic and Sith Empire do not exist as they do now. Players will instead choose between multiple factions that have various relationships with each other. The Republic will be a monarchy that exists mostly only on Coroscant with influence on few other worlds, but will be able to be partially restored as the next game progresses. The Sith forces will be divided into multiple factions.

-The coolest thing will be seeing YOUR character get imported into the next game. Some scenes will just be via recorded holos—such as the BH taking down Vitiate. But some of the characters will have a major role. The Sith Inquisitor character will remain alive and well due to absorbing Vitiate’s power, and will be a major player on at least one planet of the next MMO. The JK Force Ghost will be influential.

There’s so much more, but I’m tired from all this typing. Enjoy!