10 ways Star Wars: The Old Republic can spark a new hope for players

As we mentioned earlier, there are plenty of awesome exciting upcoming MMOs to look forward to. As avid force junkies, we thought of ten ways SWTOR can improve its appeal to MMO diehards and casuals alike to keep up against the stiff competition. And no, we didn't list Natalie Portman.

If BioWare and EA can work these changes into upcoming content, we’d have a lot greater incentive to return to this galaxy far, far away. These wouldn’t have to be reserved for a full-blown expansion either – delivering them via constant patches would be the best way to go. There’s so much potential lying dormant in SWTOR, and we’d hate to see it go to waste due to dwindling interest and a shrinking playerbase.

Nearly every other MMO on the market allows the player to choose which game type or PvP map they want to play. Star Wars: The Old Republic needs to promote the same options and flexibility. We love Hutt ball just as much as the next combatant, but playing it randomly round after round makes us want to embrace our darker sides on everyone and everything in the office.

Selective queues will let us play the modes we want, when we want. So if we're craving capture points or Hutt ball goals, we're guaranteed to get them - along with other bloodthirsty PvP junkies that share our disturbing passion.

SWTOR's mixture of gathering and missions along with companion perks gives a unique depth to making a pair of force-imbued knickers. However, we want something a bit more engaging that can be used to kill time or acquire unique rewards. Secondary professions often serve this purpose in other MMOs. Skills like fishing, cooking and survival all give players an extra way to add depth to the game and their characters.

We'd like to see the Star Wars equivalent like ice fishing on Hoth or an engineering profession that lets us build fun cosmetic tools. How about allowing us to be the person that goes on those interesting material missions, rather than being just another slave driver in the galaxy.

The tiny Tauntaun pets only made our desire for cute baby space animals all the stronger. We want mini Rancors, tiny Nerfs, adorable Banthas or even a small x-wing fighter that buzzes around behind us.

Adding more miniature pets to the game is a great way to encourage codex achievement farming, or give those extra hard quests an added incentive. Grinding out all the heroic quests in the galaxy sounds dismal – but throw in a squealing green Acklay and it'll be our new favorite activity.

PS: If someone does add an X-wing to the game, it should totally remind us to stay on target.

Every MMO needs a collection of mounts. We like to look impressive and daunting while we zoom around from quest to quest. Speeders do have decent variety already. You can buy anything from something that looks like a space lawnmower to a vehicle specifically designed to make clicking an NPC the most frustrating part of another player’s evening. But it’s high time that we got more organic, creature-based mounts to majestically ride around on.

SWTOR should have Tauntaun or giant lizard mounts as we've seen them in the movies years ago. Even if the mount concept isn't rooted in the lore, we'd kill for an armored rancor that occasionally feasted on other player's pets. Much like mini-pets, these can add a lot of incentive for players to work with the tougher aspects of a game.

The Black Talon Flashpoint is still one of our favorites because it has so much more depth than most MMO dungeons. Moments that encourage us to take pause and participate in group dialogue make the slaying of immobile groups that much more interesting. Unfortunately, as we leveled and neared the end-game, that depth disappeared, leaving higher-level players wondering what happened to the game’s great story.

Flashpoints should be self-contained episodes fill with action, pumping adrenaline into our warrior or bounty hunter's veins as we fight our way towards the next piece of story. Every Flashpoint should make us feel nearly as epic as the story of our characters. It's a large undertaking, which would require additional voice acting and an interesting script, but this is a must have for an MMO built around space action and drama.

We’ve all thought it at some point: space missions should incorporate more players. Sure, expert pilots like Han Solo did a few solo suicide missions, but the majority of Star Wars revolved around group space fights. One of the best ways to make a player feel like a master of the force is to give them witnesses to their superiority. Or, alternatively, some allies (for those light-side carebears).

The on-rails formula is a surprisingly fun distraction, perfect for gaining some XP after finishing up a planet full of quests or an afternoon of PvP. It would be better if crewmates on your ship could join you, and it would give real-life questing buddies a nice way to spend time working at stuff as a team. Perhaps someday we could even fly missions that were designed specifically for multiple players and vehicular PvP.

The Rakghoul plague event was infectious, pulling tons of players back into the game to help spread disease and decay across the galaxy. Community events are a great hook, because they almost always promise unique rewards that players are excited to earn. Rewards like social gear, titles, and more mini-pets really evoke that feeling of excited anticipation when logging in. Wrap them all up in a fun story and we will gladly invite our buddies or resubscribe. Nothing mixes up MMO monotony better than a well-implemented event.

Events also get us looking forward to holidays and other annual celebrations. SWTOR may not have Christmas (terrible spin-offs aside), but who says there can't be a festive celebration featuring red-nosed Jawas?

Playing with other people is what MMOs are all about. We love playing with friends - but only if they’re on the same planet. Traveling between the fleet, your ship, space stations, and planets is an irritating and time-wasting process that acts as a roadblock to enjoyment. Bioware has improved half the problem, allowing players to teleport directly from a shuttle door to your ship. Alas, the journey down to the planet still requires you to stop and run across a space station at a snail’s pace.

We'd like to see a better solution that allows players to move with more freedom. Perhaps clicking on the shuttle door would give you a list of planets that you can choose to travel to, bypassing the ship and space ports altogether. Or maybe even an ability that allows you to teleport to where you party is, regardless of the planets. Help us play together without the travel time – we’ll gladly forgive any strange “force teleportation” explanations in exchange for increased convenience.

Rift set the bar awfully high for additional content, and we want to see SWTOR clear it. Rift’s excellent example might be our favorite styling of MMO content development: small-but-frequent updates that consistently offer new and old players fresh content to churn through and enjoy. Whether it's a new low-level Flashpoint, high-end raids, or a novel and interesting PvP mode, we want to constantly wonder what gem is just down the pipeline.

The larger patches for SWTOR have been consistently adding improvements to the game, but we'd like to see the frequency of patches bumped up. It doesn't have to be a major overhaul of a system or something ambitiously huge like the Legacy system. We just want to have something new every month besides bug fixes.

As recently as two years ago, “free-to-play” was a label most MMO players reserved for a less-than-stellar game that revolved around a dreadful grind. Today, the term has almost transitioned to a positive connotation. SWTOR has been consistently offering free weekends for players to try out the game, and many existing players are awfully interested in seeing the game drop the subscription fee altogether.

Frank Gibeau, EA's President, told Gamesindustry.biz that "ultimately, some day, we can move in and embrace that model. It's all a matter of timing and thinking things through." However, James Ohlen, SWTOR's game director, reminded us in an interview with PC Gamer that "there have been games that weren't free-to-play from the start, and transferred over to becoming free-to-play, that have worked as well. But it's definitely not something that's super easy to do."

Either way, it sounds like F2P might be in the future for SWTOR, and we believe it can only do great things for the game.

Those are our recommendations for how best to improve SWTOR – take heed, BioWare! There’s plenty more we want to see, even if it’s a lower priority or far off – Pazaak, new classes, same-sex romances, and the like. What would make you most excited to try SWTOR, or re-up your subscription to check out new content?

If you’re a diehard SWTOR looking for things to do, there’s no better place to start than our datacron locations guide. Never played this MMO? Read the Star Wars: The Old Republic review to get up to speed.