Happy 10th Birthday, SWTOR!

Today, Star Wars: The Old Republic turns ten years old! And I've been both a player and a subscriber for that entire time...

I wonder if Bioware's going to send me a statue of Darth Malgus as loyalty reward? But then, people already got those with the collector's edition back in the day - not that I have one of those...

Anyway, this was supposed to be a time of pure celebration. Legacy of the Sith was supposed to be out, and I figured I was going to be talking about how awesome it is (because I think it will be), but... well, it's been delayed until February, and as much as I want to be supportive of that decision, I figure it's left those of us who aren't active on the PTS shuffling our feet a bit.

I also tend to use this annual post as an opportunity to look back at the game's big content milestones from the past year, and with the expansion having been pushed back into 2022, well... We got Secrets of the Enclave, which was awesome, and we got the first Galactic Season, which was... something. Then there were a couple of small updates that featured brief chats with characters on Odessen, like the return of Zenith - which again, was very nice but not very substantial... and yeah, that's pretty much it. I made sure to go through all the patch notes from last year to make sure I hadn't forgotten anything, but they mostly consisted of items like bug fixes or notes that they made a change to the amplifier window... not the most exciting stuff! Hopefully 2022 will be all the better to look back on, with the expansion and lots of other stuff being added.

Even without the hype of an expansion launch though, I'll say that it feels pretty cool to think that both the game and I are still here ten years later. SWTOR wasn't the mega hit it was supposed to be at launch, but neither was it ultimately the total failure that many made it out to be during its first year. It's found its audience and niche, and continues to churn out content - at a slower pace than in the early days for sure, but not significantly diminished in quality, which I consider no mean feat. I see no reason why this couldn't easily continue for at least another ten years.

The devs also seem happy right now - Bioware isn't exactly a small indie company, but I do get the impression that the SWTOR team is comparatively small and scrappy within the larger business, and full of people who're obviously doing a job that they love - which is something that I do think affects the final product in a positive way.

If you want to look back on what I've had to say about SWTOR on its previous birthdays, you can find links to those posts here:

Happy Birthday, SWTOR!
Happy 2nd Birthday, SWTOR!
Happy Third Birthday, SWTOR!
Happy 4th Birthday, SWTOR!
Five Years of SWTOR
Six Years of SWTOR
Seven Years of SWTOR
Eight Years of SWTOR
Nine Years of SWTOR

To the next ten, but for now, just bring on that expansion already!

EDIT: There's also an official anniversary news post, which supports what I said about the devs loving their job and talks a bit about what's coming up.