Star Wars: The Old Republic may never live up to the lofty expectations many had for it before it launched back in 2011, but the game seems pretty healthy despite all the initial setbacks. 2015 is a new year and with a new year comes new possibilities. Let’s take a look at some things we’d like to see in SWTOR this year.
New Species: Togruta
While new species are likely costly to develop, the addition of something other than Cathar could really spice things up. I was glad when BioWare released Cathar, but only because this meant it was open to the possibility of adding other new species down the line. So far, we haven’t seen anything come out on this front, but we’ve heard that BioWare is working on Togruta as the next species for SWTOR and I couldn’t be more excited.
Sure, Togruta are visually quite similar to the Twi’leks we already have in game, but they’re also different enough to look quite exotic. For whatever reason, I never got around to watching the Clone Wars series until last year and I have to admit I’ve got an itch to create a Togruta Jedi Sentinel due to the series’ amazing padawan to Anakin Skywalker, Ahsoka Tano.
Galactic Starfighter Improvements
Galactic Starfighter isn’t exactly what I wanted when I heard BioWare was working on a ‘super secret space project’ for Star Wars: The Old Republic, but it’s still an enjoyable and worthwhile addition to the game. The problem is that GSF is underdeveloped and needs some major improvements to make it an enticing activity for all but the most devoted GSF players. There’s a ton of room to grow. If BioWare makes some crucial improvements to the feature, perhaps more players will partake in the activity and warrant continued development from the SWTOR team. Everyone wins.
At the top of the list for me is the system’s matchmaking. Jumping into GSF as a newbie is a frustrating experience. Queues are long, and when you do finally get a match, you’re more than likely to be matched with players who are fully tricked out and have tons of experience. You have to accept this and push on through it if you want a chance at improving yourself and the quality of the ships you take into combat. It’s just not newbie friendly. Matchmaking is likely loose due to a low number of players queuing per server, so the most obvious goal here would be to get cross-server queuing into the game.
Another major sticking point is the hangar. Why isn’t the thing legacy wide? Who wants to go through the arduous progression of GSF on multiple characters? This is an easy win for BioWare that needs to happen in 2015.
Finally, how about some more ships? Maybe some less ugly ones? There’s a ton of great Star Wars ships out there for inspiration, but for whatever reason, many ships in Galactic Starfighter are a real eyesore. I’d love to see some new ships (visual), ship types, and maybe some sort of group ship if possible. Duo queuing with a friend in your turret sounds like a hell of a lot of fun.
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Alternative Activities
The vast collection of Star Wars media out there features tons of interesting activities that would make for great minigames in a title like Star Wars: The Old Republic, yet for one reason or another, none have materialized thus far. Activities such as swoop/pod racing, dejarik, and sabacc could be fun little diversions, or even fully embraced gameplay features depending on how well BioWare can execute on them. Yes, yes, I’m sure there are many technical hurdles to getting something like this done, but so what? Figure it out. If Square Enix can put out as much content as they have for FFXIV: A Realm Reborn and also deliver a Gold Saucer full of side activities, then BioWare should be able to figure out how to get something like sabacc or dejarik into the game.
What would you like to see BioWare add to SWTOR in 2015? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
