Originally posted by ignore_me

They Shut this down on the official forums, so I thought I would bring it over here. I didn't put it up originally but thought it was interesting.

They shut it down in no small part due to its clear bias.  For example:

"15 Which has a better end game during its final build? "

Their Aphreudian slip is showing.  Seeing as how SWTOR never HAD a final build, they're clearly expecting the polltaker to come to the same conclusion that they do.  Subconciously, they worded the question to fit their answer.

"20 Do you think you'll build that kind of relationship with SWTOR community members?"

Didn't have to go much further:

"21 Does having companions hurt the need for community building?"

And I'll just end with this and move on:

"45 Do you wish SWTOR's space battles were off the rails like SWG?"

As I mentioned above, this poll was built to support and provide legitimacy for the author's conclusions, NOT to get down to actual opinions. 

As for my opinion, I liked alot of things about SWG, many of which I realize I recall with both rose colored glasses and from the perspective of someone who had few choices on what to play at the time.  But to say it was a better game...

...is to forget that the player base consisted largely of Composite Armor wearing clones seeking the flavor of the month while riding their "speeders" which moved at about 20 MPH and rubberbanded all over the place, killing nests full of wildlife(how Star Wars is that???) where without Doc buffs you might sweat a couple local stormtroopers, but BUFFED, you could DESTROY a half dozen Rancor with your bare hands...

...all in a world that was bug ridden and 2 dimensional, with horrible collision detection... 

...and no quest content, which gradually evolved into a quest system that's even inferior to what Eve offers, which is far less a PvE game than SWG was.

TOR certainly has its issues, some of which are philosophical design faults and can never be fixed.  But what it does do, with the exception of OW PvP, it does pretty solidly.  Yes, the endgame is balls, and I'd even say that indefinite subbing is unlikely for any but the most hardcore of fans, but I'd say that of any game in the MMO market, and if pre-NGE SWG still existed to this day, it would ALSO certainly be on my list of "HAD" played's. 

Originally posted by jtcgs

That is  false.

Raph Koster was SWGs problem.

LA had nothing to do with worlds that were randomly generated...or no 3D X/Y axis that allowed shooting through the ground/walls/no jumping/ hovering mounts that stopped on a pebble. LA had nothing to do with randomly placed waypoints that spawned in homes not only blocking entry but also preventing completion of the quest...LA, had nothing to do with the poor database handling in the game causing them to have daily downtime...nor did LA have anything to do with the 100% sandbox portion of the game.

The changes that came to SWG later came from Sony thinking rightly that the game would have far far far FAR more players if they closed some of the glaring gaps in it...and yes, they destroyed the game in the process, it just wasnt possible to do because of the core of the game design.

As bad as SWTOR is, it was designed in a way that would allow virtually any kind of expansion to it...since its just a bunch of instances leading to instances. You can add an open world planet to it, or a very large open instance to the current worlds, crafting can be vastly expanded easily just by adding items and resources. The glaring lack of RPing items can take care of both the crafting and the RPing aspects missing. A player created design function can be added easily as well since the game is instanced. music playing, dancing, pazzac playing, mounted player v player races...all can be added easily.

I agree that the lack of a 3d Z axis was an issue, but random waypoints? Youre going to hinge your argument on mission WPs being in unreachable terrain! Even when this happened with a Bounty it was at most a minor inconvenience. Even the random fuckups of SWG were better than the unchanging plastic piece of shit lands in SWTOR. Lots of times missions spawned close together and made it a challenge, or the mobs would fight each other.

And if they actually make crafting more complex in SWTOR I'll be amazed. Crafting in SWTOR at it's best is not even like making a tertiary subcomponent in pre-CU SWG.

Originally posted by Dredphyre

Originally posted by Darth-Ninja

Originally posted by mrw0lf

You can't view the results?

It says votes show 67% SWG over SWTOR

And you're surprised by this after it being posted here? lol. Also, see my post above about push-poll.

I'm pretty sure it's just for fun homie. Don't put it in any papers or try to publish it.

Originally posted by mmcguire2

SWG is the best MMO to date... pre-CU and NEG...

 

without a doubt

Originally posted by Xthos

TOR has pluses in it, if just due to it being more modern in the survey.

 

I think the biggest problem for SoE was Lucas Arts, when you have a IP, and they have ultimate control and final say, it can be like a football team with a owner that thinks he should be the GM/Coach.  This plagued SWG, and to be honest, I would not be suprised if it doesn't hit (may have already to an extent) TOR.

 

The problem was not Lucasarts. Lucasarts actually was pretty well hands off at first. It wasnt until the NGE that they started getting involved because of all the hate mail they were receiving. SOE basically said they needed it to be more like EQ II because they did not have the resources to maintain all the different class posibilities. They wanted to focus more on EQ II than SWG and that was SOE not Lucasarts.

http://furiousfanboys.com/2011/12/soes-smed-feels-sorry-for-swgs-nge/

Found this earlier today about Smedly who was a complete butthead towards the community who had a petition signed of over 250k players asking them to roll it back. In which he gave us the bird and said he knew best and it was not going to happen.

Originally posted by ignore_me

http://gemtrix.com/2012/05/star-wars-an-empire-divided-vs-star-wars-the-old-republic-a-gemtrix-survey/ 

 

They Shut this down on the official forums, so I thought I would bring it over here. I didn't put it up originally but thought it was interesting.

I took the survey and found it interesting that 60% of the folks surveyed found pre-cu better.  That includes me.

SWTOR is a pale comparison to the nge,  and i'm not sure whats better the nge or the swtor.

Yes and I bet they shut it down on the official forums, one thing they don't want at ea/bioware is any type of criticism.  It has gotten to the point on the server merge thread and the way did you leave thread that the corporate shills are now bashing folks for speaking out.

Originally posted by Rikus25

Originally posted by mmcguire2

SWG is the best MMO to date... pre-CU and NEG...

 

without a doubt

/Sign

SWG was better hands down. WAY better. Heck, it was probably the most fun MMO I ever played!

Originally posted by eagle4x4

Originally posted by Rikus25

Originally posted by mmcguire2

SWG is the best MMO to date... pre-CU and NEG...

 

without a doubt

/Sign

Dear George Lucas,

Give money to ArenaNet to build SWG2 with the sandboxiness of SWG1, and all the other great gameplay/design elements of GW2 (i.e. Branching story that starts at character creation, great dynamic events, awesome fun active combat system, the list goes on...).

Originally posted by mmcguire2

SWG is the best MMO to date... pre-CU and NEG...

 

NGE was trash...but yes pre-cu was amazing.  That said...the EMU is a joke at this point...I mean really?  Look at the graphics compared to todays game.

Originally posted by afhn2110

Originally posted by mmcguire2

SWG is the best MMO to date... pre-CU and NEG...

 

NGE was trash...but yes pre-cu was amazing.  That said...the EMU is a joke at this point...I mean really?  Look at the graphics compared to todays game.

Who cares about the graphics? besises it looks pretty decent maxed. What matters is Alpha server is a month from launch, and the code is finally stable.

I find this interesting, because I can recall clearly in those days that SWG launched and afterwards, that generally SWG was considered something of a disappointment and a bit of a failure by the majority of MMO players. Too buggy, too empty and little to do, just didn't give that Star Wars feeling that many had hoped for. Nowhere near the hype and enthusiasm that arose in the general MMO playerbase when WoW got launched.

Is this some kind of MMO history revisionism or rosy glasses effect, or is all this praise mostly coming from hardcore SWG fans and sandbox fans? I'm not saying that SWG didn't have its merits, but I'm pretty sure that SWG was in those days itself considered nowhere near the gift from heaven that many now claim it was. Back then it was overall more of a 'meh' response of many, also in comparison with the enthusiasm that people were able to muster for other MMO's in those days.

Originally posted by cutthecrap

I find this interesting, because I can recall clearly in those days that SWG launched and afterwards, that generally SWG was considered something of a disappointment and a bit of a failure by the majority of MMO players. Too buggy, too empty and little to do, just didn't give that Star Wars feeling that many had hoped for. Nowhere near the hype and enthusiasm that arose in the general MMO playerbase when WoW got launched.

Is this some kind of MMO history revisionism or rosy glasses effect, or is all this praise mostly coming from hardcore SWG fans and sandbox fans? I'm not saying that SWG didn't have its merits, but I'm pretty sure that SWG was in those days itself considered nowhere near the gift from heaven that many now claim it was. Back then it was overall more of a 'meh' response of many, also in comparison with the enthusiasm that people were able to muster for other MMO's in those days.

At the end it was good, and compared to SWTOR it was "the gift from heaven"

Originally posted by cutthecrap

I find this interesting, because I can recall clearly in those days that SWG launched and afterwards, that generally SWG was considered something of a disappointment and a bit of a failure by the majority of MMO players. Too buggy, too empty and little to do, just didn't give that Star Wars feeling that many had hoped for. Nowhere near the hype and enthusiasm that arose in the general MMO playerbase when WoW got launched.

Is this some kind of MMO history revisionism or rosy glasses effect, or is all this praise mostly coming from hardcore SWG fans and sandbox fans? I'm not saying that SWG didn't have its merits, but I'm pretty sure that SWG was in those days itself considered nowhere near the gift from heaven that many now claim it was. Back then it was overall more of a 'meh' response of many, also in comparison with the enthusiasm that people were able to muster for other MMO's in those days.

I don't know anyone who loved precu SWG that referred to it as a gift from Heaven.  I could spend 8 to 10 hours a day on my days off, playing my characters though.  

Did I occasionally make a post complaining about stuff that I thought could be improved or bugs that could be fixed...sure.  Rose colored glasses?  I would consider that, but then I've played hundreds of games since the 1980's.  A handful stand out above all the others.  For mmo's, Precu  SWG was my favorite. If I was wearing rose colored glasses with anything from the past, why is it that out of hundreds there are maybe 5 that left a lasting impression.  So no, I think the rose colored glasses is not true.

Originally posted by prodigaL_son

This is the division in the MMO world that keeps us from being able to play the perfect game.  Typical Sandbox vs. Themepark discussion.

SWG was a better game... for me.  I dont like RPGs.  I don't like linear gear grinds where I am constantly trying to convince myself that the story line is interesting and my character is important.  Thats me.

I like pulling into a city and seeing houses out front and speeder bikes parked at the cantina.  I liked having to run to my ship and dock it.  I hate that I can whip a mount out of my pocket, or that my ship will always be on the planet I am on.  I hate going to planets and seeing creatures that are way past my level because I am "past that stage".

RPGs are lame to me... never got into them.  They are like a bad movie litered with errands.  That is what SWTOR was to me, and trust me, I wanted to like that game so much.  I LOVE Star Wars. 

Every MMO is way too similar.  run to green dot, kill ten rats, run back to green exclamation, blow the quest givers mind with your obvious rat killing talent and witness as he showers you in buttery amazement.  get a substantial reqward for a mindless peice of button clicking, because "HEY!  I deserve iT!"

This is the mistake.  I don't need a lightsaber at level 10.  that is stupid.  Jedi are supremely powerful.  more powerful than most bounty hunters or smugglers, or imp agent/other BS PT class they invented to make it Rock, Paper, Scissors WoW style.  I should have to work a long ass time to my light saber... ha, I said work.  I didn't mean that.  I mean't click a lot of buttons, complete a lot of quests, learn a lot of skills, etc... you know... fun!

Ill stop charging up my rant before I "discharge' it all over everyone.

SWTOR was simply not immersive.  No new MMO really is, but SWTOR was especially artificial.  What were the beasts I was killing?  Wasn't the world of Star Wars a world full of large, half empty planets (much like earth now)?  Does a lvl10 made up beast sitting in a group of 3 on the side of the road in a lvl10 area really give you immersion?  You must be great at lying to yourself.  Teach me, Yoda.  I need this skill.

My lvl10 light saber, the horrible story line (no, it wasn't good, it was corny and stupid and didn't feel Star Warsy-search your feelings, you know it to be true), The generic list of moves.  Come on!  Not to mention, when did the Jedi become a bunch of Emo pansies speaking in horrible pseudo-poem?  The great man-band, LFO once said "Billy Shakespeare wrote a whole bunch-a sawnets"... yeah, well Bioware could have used him, because there script was atrocious.  I found myself cringing and cringing.

Then I am presented with a ship, slaves, I can only pick 3 skills, my "MOUNT", blah blah blah, same old same old. 

SWG was different.  I was building the world, I was exploring the planets, I had to get my ship and move it around and buy a mount that I couldn't just micro-machine into my pocket and it was hard to be a Jedi.  I would walk into cities and see people drinking at the bar (I would disrobe and put on a glorious nude dance show display-yeah, im that guy), I would see people dancing in the cities (I would slap on my birthday soup and rain silky dance grooves all over tham... yeah, im that guy), and it was fun.

I could play out my pathetic Star Wars fantasy.  I wasn't training along on some pre-determined tracks.  I was "Building a Mystery" of fantasmal dreams.  Then some awful company known as Lucas Arts did unto SWG what they did onto all things Star Wars... Mr. Lucas spread his pimply, hairy, but cheeks apart and dropped heaping loads of diah all over SWG. 

Point is... MMOs shouldn't be like RPGs.  The players should shape the world.  They should have the opportunity to live out their fantasy in a video game.  Cyber Larp.  If you want linear story lines, go play an RPG.  Sure, not filling empty space with pointless "MOBs" may, to the moron, make landscapes seem more empty, but if you get back to the initial purpose of the MMO.  the ability to have it be as real as fake can be and you can live there, you'll find out how much substance is there.

MMOs are dead, they wont return, because WoW decided that everything you do should grant you a reward.  That the whole point of the game was to hit max level so you can 50 man gaid at end game (zomg dont stand in the blue circle!).  There is no END GAME in a sandbox.  You just keep building.  SWTOR is done because they took a completely amazing world, a world that has different flavors for everyone, and they said... NO, this is how it is.  Well... F U.  EA and Bioware made their money and they care not what I say, but it is a damn shame we can't get a decent Sandbox Star Wars game.  Too bad SWG2 doesn't rescue us all from 14 year olds and Theme park helL!

May the farce (<--- yep) be with you... always

 You know, I read this and I never played SWG preCU or NGE, I didn't play UO when it came out.  I've only started playing EVE six years ago,

But in spite of never playing SWG preCU or NGE, and in spite of the fact that my first MMO expeirience was City of Heroes and not UO, I cheered.

I didn't play UO with my brother for no other reason then I didn't like the way it looked, but I got it.  I understood it and it made sense to me.  I played Paladium, Heroes unlimitted, and Rift with my friends, I was always the GM.  When my brother told me what UO was and tried to get me to play it, I grasped why he liked it so much even though it lookd horrible to me. 

City of heroes obviously isn't a sandbox, but for a guy that has collected comic books for as long as he can remember, who invested his entire life from the moment he could grasp a crayon to teaching himself to draw and paint pictures of places he dreamed of, who spent his evening constructing compaigns to play in Heroes unlimited, CoH was a dream come true.  It was a place to live out my super heroe fantasies, even though it wasn't a sandbox.

You don't live out your fantasy in MMO's anymore, you live out the developers fantasy.  Preconstructed, contrived stories in this massive online world were you somehow are the heroe even though every other person you meet is a heroe as well.  How exactly is everyone a heroe in a world full of heroes, shouldn't that mean we're all ordinary people then?

Not virtual worlds any more, but virtual roller coasters were we buy our tickets and ride the ride until it bores the utter shit out of us, and then move on to the next ride. 

Unfortunetly i can only imagine what it would be like to play in a vitual world sandbox with the polish and attention to quality of a World of Warcraft. 

Because for some reason, at some point, a bunch of people took it upon themselves to tell everyone else that something that had never been done before in a modern MMO wouldn't be enjoyable.  How much BS is that?

While I never played SWG pre NGE, I can say that I'd resub to it if I could before I ever purshased ToR.  Thank god for EVE.

Originally posted by jtcgs

Originally posted by apocoluster

I think the biggest problem for SoE was Lucas Arts

That is  false.

Raph Koster was SWGs problem.

LA had nothing to do with worlds that were randomly generated...or no 3D X/Y axis that allowed shooting through the ground/walls/no jumping/ hovering mounts that stopped on a pebble. LA had nothing to do with randomly placed waypoints that spawned in homes not only blocking entry but also preventing completion of the quest...LA, had nothing to do with the poor database handling in the game causing them to have daily downtime...nor did LA have anything to do with the 100% sandbox portion of the game.

The changes that came to SWG later came from Sony thinking rightly that the game would have far far far FAR more players if they closed some of the glaring gaps in it...and yes, they destroyed the game in the process, it just wasnt possible to do because of the core of the game design.

As bad as SWTOR is, it was designed in a way that would allow virtually any kind of expansion to it...since its just a bunch of instances leading to instances. You can add an open world planet to it, or a very large open instance to the current worlds, crafting can be vastly expanded easily just by adding items and resources. The glaring lack of RPing items can take care of both the crafting and the RPing aspects missing. A player created design function can be added easily as well since the game is instanced. music playing, dancing, pazzac playing, mounted player v player races...all can be added easily.

 no 3D X/Y axis that allowed shooting through the ground/walls/no jumping/ hovering mounts that stopped on a pebble.

Shooting through ground/walls was a problem in places but didn't happen everywhere. After playing a while you knew where this happened and could choose to avoid it or just get on with it.

No jumping... why did you need to jump anywhere?

Mounts stopping on a pebble... I think you exaggerate A LOT.

In fact, you seem to exaggerate almost entirely through the whole post.

randomly placed waypoints that spawned in homes not only blocking entry but also preventing completion of the quest

Seriously, how many times did that happen to you? Once, twice... in how many years?

the poor database handling in the game causing them to have daily downtime

I have never played a game since with more stable servers and uptime. Where are you coming from?

The rest is just praising SWTOR for what it  COULD BE.

Fact is SWTOR is/has none of those things!

And that's your argument against SWG?

Originally posted by Terranah

I don't know anyone who loved precu SWG that referred to it as a gift from Heaven.  I could spend 8 to 10 hours a day on my days off, playing my characters though.  

 Sigh. A gift from heaven is ofc not literally but figuratively, should be obvious. But even if a number of posters didn't use those exact words, the words and comments with which they talk about SWG pretty much comes near to SWG being the best, most awesomest, etc MMO that existed and that they ever played.

Did I occasionally make a post complaining about stuff that I thought could be improved or bugs that could be fixed...sure.  Rose colored glasses?  I would consider that, but then I've played hundreds of games since the 1980's.  A handful stand out above all the others.  For mmo's, Precu  SWG was my favorite. If I was wearing rose colored glasses with anything from the past, why is it that out of hundreds there are maybe 5 that left a lasting impression.  So no, I think the rose colored glasses is not true.

We're talking about the difference of personal perception and taste, and general perception. If SWG did it for you, nice for you, each person should have their MMO they can pine dreamily away with, thinking of the blissful days they had in it.

However, that's far from what I recall the general perception was of SWG among the overall MMO playerbase in those days itself. That wasn't anywhere near SWG being the awesomest, most splendid and gloriously entertaining example of an MMORPG around. The overall reaction back then was more of a 'meh' and 'somewhat disappointing as a Star Wars MMO', in contrast to the huge enthusiasm and praise for it of some people now; the average MMO gamer back then was a lot more moderate and neutral about SWG, and showed more enthusiasm and excitement for some other MMO's around. It's this divide between overall perception of the MMO playerbase back then and the view of some people now about how SWG was, that I was curious about.

Originally posted by cutthecrap

Originally posted by Terranah

I don't know anyone who loved precu SWG that referred to it as a gift from Heaven.  I could spend 8 to 10 hours a day on my days off, playing my characters though.  

 Sigh. A gift from heaven is ofc not literally but figuratively, should be obvious. But even if a number of posters didn't use those exact words, the words and comments with which they talk about SWG pretty much comes near to SWG being the best, most awesomest, etc MMO that existed and that they ever played.

Did I occasionally make a post complaining about stuff that I thought could be improved or bugs that could be fixed...sure.  Rose colored glasses?  I would consider that, but then I've played hundreds of games since the 1980's.  A handful stand out above all the others.  For mmo's, Precu  SWG was my favorite. If I was wearing rose colored glasses with anything from the past, why is it that out of hundreds there are maybe 5 that left a lasting impression.  So no, I think the rose colored glasses is not true.

We're talking about the difference of personal perception and taste, and general perception. If SWG did it for you, nice for you, each person should have their MMO they can pine dreamily away with, thinking of the blissful days they had in it.

However, that's far from what I recall the general perception was of SWG among the overall MMO playerbase in those days itself. That wasn't anywhere near SWG being the awesomest, most splendid and gloriously entertaining example of an MMORPG around. The overall reaction back then was more of a 'meh' and 'somewhat disappointing as a Star Wars MMO', in contrast to the huge enthusiasm and praise for it of some people now; the average MMO gamer back then was a lot more moderate and neutral about SWG, and showed more enthusiasm and excitement for some other MMO's around. It's this divide between overall perception of the MMO playerbase back then and the view of some people now about how SWG was, that I was curious about.

average MMO gamer back then was a lot more moderate and neutral about SWG, and showed more enthusiasm and excitement for some other MMO's around

I see little difference in the perceptions of players back then vs now.

They still swamped the forums with complaints about balance changes, patches, bugs etc.

They still criticised 'exciting' new games... Vanguard release anyone?

SOE took a beating over the NGE and rightly so. From what I see of SWTOR, players are clammering for MAJOR changes.

Who got it right, at least once... and which player base actually cared?

Many people were hurt by SWG. That came from a deep love of the game which will never happen with SWTOR.

Originally posted by afhn2110

Originally posted by mmcguire2

SWG is the best MMO to date... pre-CU and NEG...

 

NGE was trash...but yes pre-cu was amazing.  That said...the EMU is a joke at this point...I mean really?  Look at the graphics compared to todays game.

The graphics are dated now, but still appealing.

They weren't even at full settings since I played on a slow laptop at the time.

Originally posted by jacklo

I see little difference in the perceptions of players back then vs now.

They still swamped the forums with complaints about balance changes, patches, bugs etc.

Many people were hurt by SWG. That came from a deep love of the game which will never happen with SWTOR.

From what I see, it's the same back then and now: a small, very active group of SWG fans have an extremely high devotion of SWG that will probably last till the day they die, while the majority of MMO gamers back then and right now couldn't care less about SWG and found it 'meh' or were/are neutral and indifferent about it. Meaning that the high, nearly ecstatic praise for SWG of that small, unrepresentative group of MMO gamers that are SWG fans doesn't reflect nor ever has the opinion of the majority of the MMO playerbase.

Not saying that it's wrong that they liked SWG so very much and thought it awesome and maybe even the best MMO made, just that it wasn't a viewpoint that was shared by every MMO gamer, not even the majority, back then nor now.