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

exciting upcoming MMOs

If BioWare and EA can work these changes into upcoming content, wed have a lot greater incentive to return to this galaxy far, far away. These wouldnt have to be reserved for a full-blown expansion either delivering them via constant patches would be the best way to go. Theres so much potential lying dormant in SWTOR, and wed hate to see it go to waste due to dwindling interest and a shrinking playerbase.

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.

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.

tiny Tauntaun pets

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.

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.

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.

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.

Rakghoul plague 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?

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 well gladly forgive any strange force teleportation explanations in exchange for increased convenience.

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.

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.

If youre a diehard SWTOR looking for things to do, theres 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.