With Star Wars: The Old Republic, so much emphasis was placed on Story that everything else suffered. Story was supposed to be the fourth pillar. Well they practically smashed the other three pillars. And story only extends as far as the content that is written to deliver it. I don't raid. I don't PvP. So when the story ends in TOR, the game is over for me. ZOS needs to understand that endgame is not just raids and PvP. They need to ask themselves, what will keep those who like neither system playing beyond the story?

The answer:

Non-combat roles and social activities surrounding TES lore.

TES is the most lore-rich CRPGs I've ever played. Even as early as Arena they had fleshed out background on holidays and festivals, which if brought into TESO effectively, would add regular social events to the calendar. Social gatherings like festivals with their own "traditional" costumes (player-craftable) that allow the player to unlock a single-use buff for the completion of any social activities would give players of all types a reason to attend the festivals.

Non-combat classes such as crafters would serve as excellent support classes. Whether it's cooking or armorsmithing, being able to make things for fellow players to use can go a long way towards extending the life of one's subscription to an MMO.

And for those who aren't into social events or non-combat roles, As long as there are plenty of randomly generated quests to go on that do not require a group with the ability to find useful max-level items, it will be well.

Also, some sort of user generated content mechanic would keep things entertaining in terms of story...

The most attractive MMOs are the ones that offer stuff for all playstyles, not just one or two. So an endgame that caters only to raiders and PvPers and leaves out soloists, social players and crafters will not be appealing to me. Others will have playstyles that they would be just as disappointed if left out of endgame.

I know that they confirmed crafting and Alchemy are in the game so there are some non-combat related things in the game.

I doubt however that there is a non-combat only class.

Well, I use the term class loosely. If we can take a combat class and a noncombat class, we define a role for ourselves in both aspects. So I'm a Knight who dabbles in blacksmithing on the side.

What I am hoping for is that crafting won't be meh like it is in many post-WoW MMOs where crafted gear is always subpar to looted gear. I don't want crafted gear to be the BEST gear. I want it to be equal to looted gear. That way, players will have a choice of going out and getting random loot and hoping they find something they need, or turning to a player-crafter and commissioning the forging of exactly what is needed.

That lead into http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1372124-in-game-economy/

Agreed, I like your ideas here. (Including TOR :/)

There has to be more to do than bashing things constantly to keep the game involved and working.

You could be a crafter or perhaps do something like that.

My main character in Star Wars Galaxies was a crafter and it was by far my favorite class (played from launch until closure, 8 years). Then again though, SWG had the most expansive crafting system I have ever seen in an MMO and I doubt that TESO will have anything related to dedicated noncombat. Unless the crafting system is complex enough to deem it worthy of its own class, we will probably be stuck with crafting as a secondary skill. This is all speculation though; who can really know at this point? (Is my bias towards SWG showing? I can't tell )

I played SWG as well. I quit after SOE started producing more content attached to the virtual trading card game than they did for the core MMO. Crafters begged for new stuff to be able to craft and were told repeatedly that they didn't have the staff to produce it, then they released new stuff that you had to get through TCG loot cards.

I wasn't even an actual crafter. I dabbled in it, but I chose to be an energy farmer. I maintained a full cluster of BER-18 Fusion Ion Generators, and I moved them every time the resources shifted. I made enough money in energy sales one cycle to pay for my guild's city maintenance with a single 10% donation, and they had a good bit to spare. The city was at metrompolis level, by the way. So for one person to pay all expenses without even denting his funds was not bad. I know some of you are scratching their heads wondering what energy resources were good for... They drove the crafting industry in that game. Everything was consumable. Even Weapons and Armor, so crafters ALWAYS had orders to fill. Being able to buy reasonably priced energy resources meant the difference between placing down 8 factories, or 7 factories and an energy generator. My clients chose to buy energy from me and were able to place that 8th factory and maximize their production.

My character was RICH. And i got there by pricing my resources low. How I priced them was to add up their stat values and divide the result by 1000. That was the credit per unit price. Poor quality resources always ended up being cheap, while high-quality ones still remained reasonable. Many resource sellers priced the same resources at something like 10c each, where mine sold for like 2.5c I was always selling out. I'd even take orders for resources and go out and harvest them for people.

Then the crafting economy was decimated by the NGE...

All that to say this: MMOs which offer alternatives to just going out and killing anything that moves have the strongest player communities. Especially if the game is designed where a symbiotic relationship exists between playstyles. Not classes, but the styles of gameplay people choose. If each playstyle can contribute something to the other playstyles, then all playstyles are validated and remain valid. Marginalize a single one, and your game is broken from the start.