How many gaming hours are there in SWTOR?

I'm purposely not including endgame in this discussion, because by the nature of it, MMO endgame can vary from infinite amount of time, if you enjoy it, or a very short time, if this doesn't appeal to you. I think it's meaningless to even try to count endgame hours of play.

As far as the leveling game, counting an average of about 1.5 hours per level (less for lower levels, more for higher levels), getting a character to level 50 takes about 75 hours. Characters for the same faction advance through the same zones, so each zone content can be done once for completely unique questing experience. However there are more quests than needed to reach the next zone level.

I'm currently playing 3 characters, Imperial Agent Operative, Sith Inquisitor Sorcerer and a Bounty Hunter Mercenary. Why these 3? Because they are all healers and personally I love healing in MMO and I like to try out high level healing with every class before I decide which one is my favorite. 2 of these are close to 40 and the 3rd is in his high 20s. I've never repeated a single quest with 2 different characters, there are simply too many things to do for me need to repeat quests.



The questing zones are about 4 levels apart, however there is much more content in each zone than required to be high enough to move to the next, so the the zones can be devided between different characters. My original plan was to alternate zones between 2 characters. You get a unique main quest that gives you about 1.5 levels, if you start a zone at the beginning quest level, you end up about 2 levels over the zone max if you do all quests, add to that the 1.5 levels of your class quest at the next zone and you are ready to move to the following one without doing a single side quest. For example: my Sorcerer got to Balmorra (level range 16-20) at level 16, by the time I finished all quests I was almost 22, I moved to Nar Shaddaa and just did my class quest, getting me to level 23. Completely ready to go to Tatooine. Saving Nar Shaddaa questing to my Bounty Hunter.

But that's not all, Bioware added a lot of additional content beyond this to let you uniquely level even more characters. Nar Shaddaa completely optional bonus series for levels 32-34 gives you 2 more levels outside the "normal" planet progression, Quesh is just a 2 levels zone, making it much easier to skip with different characters than the one you decide will quest there, so you actutally get even more content than you need to uniquely play 2 characters.

Wait, there's more, you don't have to just quest with all your characters, let's see what other activities are out there to keep you entertained while advancing your characters:

1. Space missions: these give you ton of experience points, various missions to try, ship upgrades, fun diversion that can be done in chanks of 5 minutes. Don't like space missions? No problem, it's completely optional.
2. Flashpoint: Get a group, pick your job and play some content that isn't soloable. I guess I don't need to explain too much why this is interesting to many people, grouping is one of the MMO pillars since the days of Ever Quest. Don't like Flashpoints? No problem, it's completely optional.
3. PVP: take your character and join groups fighting other groups of players, capture objectives, out think your opponent, use your skills to the fullest to make the other group regret ever trying to go against you or your group of friends. PVP gives you experience points at about the same rate as questing in SWTOR. Don't like PVP? No problem, it's completely optional.
4. Questing while making different decisions: Playing as an evil character? How about trying the same quest with another character, only this time instead of killing the quest objective, convince him to join your cause? Or let him leave peacefully? SWTOR is packed with decisions in quests that although will not change the flow of the entire plot, will present you with different dialogs, different outcomes and different experience. Don't like to try the same quest differently? No problem, it's completely optional.
5. Different classes: You did the quests as Bounty Hunter aoe-ing everything to death, how about trying a sneaky Operative, avoiding fights, backstabbing and melee fighting. How about a force user Sorcerer, or a dual light sabre weilding Sith Marauder?

There are definitely ton of things to do while you advance your characters, just pick the gaming that you enjoy while you keep advancing the incredibly deep and interesting stories of the different classes.

All this is of course multiplied by 2 for each faction.

Another thing to consider is the legacy system that is currently completely integrated into the game and promised by Bioware to have benefits soon to be included. This is intended exactly to give players the ability to play different characters and receive bonuses to make them advance faster and not make them repeat content they don't want to repeat.

So now we can actually take a look at the numbers. Around 70 hours leveling 1-50 with a single character, another 70 for a second character doing quests skipped by the first character, giving you another completely unique experience, another 70 hours leveling a third character doing some of the acitvities I mentioned that you find enjoyable and want to explore. At this point you can probably add another 25 hours for the 4th character, using the future legacy benefits, resting experience and basically making sure you minimize leveling time just to experience the plot. 70 x 3 + 25 = 235. There are 2 factions of course, so this is doubled. 470 hours of gaming of mostly questing, RPG single player like gameplay.

I recently found this site: howlongtobeat.com pretty nice one to give you a general idea of how long it takes to beat various games. Let's take a look at some recent single player ones considering median completionist gaming style which add many hours, my description of SWTOR gaming here is pretty completionist too, so it makes sense to look at this number.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: 140 hours
Dragon Age: Origins: 83 hours
The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings: 47 hours
Mass Effect 2: 48 hours

You see my point? No game, ever, got even close to the amount of gaming content SWTOR has. Even if you cut my numbers in half you are way over anything done before.

This entire discussion doesn't touch the point that being an MMO many gamers consider level 50 as the point where the game starts and spend countless of hours over periods of years playing beyond the point of my hours calculations.

However even if the end game isn't that great, even if it can't last, even if it falls short of other games, even if Bioware doesn't add and expend what is currently out there, the existing content can keep even very busy gamers entertained for months. Seeing the level of investment they put in the game and watching the developers blogs and "comming soon" comments, I think they'll manage to keep me playing even after these 470 hours. I really hope they will and this type of gaming is where the industry will go to in the future.

There are many pure MMO gamers who I know won't agree with me. These gamers wouldn't even think of picking up a single player RPG and are just interested in the MMO aspect of gaming. That is perfectly understandable, "fun" is a subjective term and what can keep me entertained for 470 hours can be a boring experience for someone else. However this doesn't change the fact that the scope of unique gaming experience in SWTOR is much bigger than anything done before.

If people will be interested in this blog, I'll also take a deep look at the pure MMO aspect of SWTOR in future posts.