Star War Galaxies was a MMORPG - This was virtually a living breathing world where players made the HUGE difference and the content.

Star Wars the Old Republic MMO - This is a Linear Themepark on the rails game. You character doesn't mean squat in this world unless your guild is counting on you to be there to complete the same dungeon for the 1000 time. You can throw this on any console and get a few kicks for a month or two. Jump into a BG, kick someones ass or get your ass kicked and log out.

2 entirely different mmo's.

Originally posted by eddieg50

Originally posted by Demmi77

the difference for me was that i could log into swg and do whatever i wanted.

i spent an entire month straight never doing anything but working on my house.

 

I spent 6 months making a name for myself as a crafter, providing very specific items. SWG made some very big mistakes but it was and always will be a true sandbox.

 

I also whole heartedly agree that it was a more mature community. The reason is because it wasn't a "on the rails" game. People chose what they wanted to do. Seriously an entertainer was a profession, you could enjoy the game just entertaining and living in the cantina.

Swtor refused to listen to it's star wars fanbase, they further refused to create an immersive game after you level. 

 

That said, swtor is the best single playre game i've ever played. Once i hit 50 i left. I came back for f2p and just unsubbed again. No depth to this game at max level.

  I can certainly appreciate the fact that you liked SWG, but to spend a month working on my house would cause me to commit suicide, you are a sand box person and like many of mmorpg.com posters you like sand box games and that is fine, but when I play I want good combat and SWG had about the worst combat and the lag was bad---best part of SWG for ME was JTL

There were plenty of people who *never* did this.  The point is that you could do what you wanted.  Some people just used their housing for storage, while others painstakingly created some amazing places for others to visit.  Players *added* content to the game that the devs had nothing to do with.  I remember going to regularly hang out in a player's house that was converted to a Jedi Temple using nothing but game drops, and imagination.  The same went for shops, hunting lodges, crafting malls, and just about anything else you can think of.  

Even if you weren't one of the creative types, you likely experienced and appreciated player made content on a regular basis.  This was the magic in that game for me and many others. CHOICE.  No, not the choice between a few classes and professions, but the choice and the tools to do all kinds of things the developers never even thought of when they built the game.  The choice to be anything from a 100% social or crafting player, to 100% PvP or PvE, and that's to say nothing of the whole space combat game.

These newer themepark games attract a very limited scope of people and personalities, and you can see it reflected in the type of community you end up with.  That was part of the magic of SWG.  The people mattered, and the people made the game what it was, despite flaws in the game's code.

Originally posted by mmoDAD

Star Wars Galaxies was better.

Hmm. Let me try to choose my words carefully. SWG seemed like it was made for adults, whereas SWTOR felt like it was made for 6th-9th graders.

SWG was deeper in almost every aspect, e.g., exploration, crafting, economy, world size, social environment. SWTOR, however, was deeper via story & lore.

SWTOR felt like I was watching a movie. SWG felt like I was making a movie.

^this.

Originally posted by Blazer6992

SWG was the original sandbox.

 

Wrong.

Originally posted by grimal

Originally posted by Blazer6992

SWG was the original sandbox.

Wrong.

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...."

UO was out before.

anyone else here beta SWG? If so remember the "hands on healing"? It was in in beta build 2 I think. In other words the medic 's toon had to be within realistic touching distance to heal a player in combat. Thank God that never made it to release, but it sure was a battle to convince the Dev team that the idea sucked in a major way

I betaed ToR also but canceled my pre order a week before launch. Bought it in back in March and played a couple of months. BW screwed the pooch major with the roller coaster space combat. I made sure I trashed space combat daily from thefirst build it  launched in and nothing would convince the Dev team that space combat on rails sucked and was just not  fun

Originally posted by grimal

This thread is particularily amusing if one was around during these days:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/125565/Would-anyone-come-back-if-this-game-became-free.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/104218/The-current-state-of-the-game.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/100039/2-hours-into-the-14-day-trial.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/166822/Dead-Game.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/189517/Never-seen-fans-like-this-before.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/191586/One-Month-into-my-SWG-return-and-game-is-losing-its-luster-fast.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/197252/Pretty-Sad.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/94574/My-God-I-found-a-game-worse-then-the-NGE-lol.html

Rose tinted glasses.

Nostalgia.

 

The problem with this is that i believe most of these are post-nge. I think most people here are missing pre-cu not so much the nge, and again you are off base when you compare the inital praise of SWG pre-cu to the inital praise of Swtor. Pre-cu lasted for a couple of years and was enjoyed greatly, people hated the nge and thats when they started to complain. SWTOR hasnt changed from its first two months till now.

Originally posted by Jackdog

anyone else here beta SWG? If so remember the "hands on healing"? It was in in beta build 2 I think. In other words the medic 's toon had to be within realistic touching distance to heal a player in combat. Thank God that never made it to release, but it sure was a battle to convince the Dev team that the idea sucked in a major way

I betaed ToR also but canceled my pre order a week before launch. Bought it in back in March and played a couple of months. BW screwed the pooch major with the roller coaster space combat. I made sure I trashed space combat daily from thefirst build it  launched in and nothing would convince the Dev team that space combat on rails sucked and was just not  fun

Yep.  I did beta 3.  Was really looking forward to it.  But very disappointed.  Didn't end up getting the game initally.

Originally posted by Gribster48

Originally posted by grimal

This thread is particularily amusing if one was around during these days:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/125565/Would-anyone-come-back-if-this-game-became-free.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/104218/The-current-state-of-the-game.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/100039/2-hours-into-the-14-day-trial.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/166822/Dead-Game.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/189517/Never-seen-fans-like-this-before.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/191586/One-Month-into-my-SWG-return-and-game-is-losing-its-luster-fast.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/197252/Pretty-Sad.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/94574/My-God-I-found-a-game-worse-then-the-NGE-lol.html

Rose tinted glasses.

Nostalgia.

 

The problem with this is that i believe most of these are post-nge. I think most people here are missing pre-cu not so much the nge, and again you are off base when you compare the inital praise of SWG pre-cu to the inital praise of Swtor. Pre-cu lasted for a couple of years and was enjoyed greatly, people hated the nge and thats when they started to complain. SWTOR hasnt changed from its first two months till now.

Read my follow-up post.

Only 2 years (25%) of SWG's life was during the pre-cu.  This is the positive time you are referring to.  The rest was post-cu and NGE.

During the first two to three (17-25%) months of TOR's release, popular opinion for it was generally favorable.

So I am taking roughly the same fraction of time for each game...the inital 1/4 of it's life.  So I don't really think I'm too off base.

Granted, I am ignoring small details like SWG was universally panned by critics while TOR was praised.

Originally posted by Crucial
SWG because SWG was a virtual world.

So is Second Life.

Originally posted by grimal

Originally posted by Gribster48

Originally posted by grimal

This thread is particularily amusing if one was around during these days:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/125565/Would-anyone-come-back-if-this-game-became-free.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/104218/The-current-state-of-the-game.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/100039/2-hours-into-the-14-day-trial.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/166822/Dead-Game.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/189517/Never-seen-fans-like-this-before.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/191586/One-Month-into-my-SWG-return-and-game-is-losing-its-luster-fast.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/197252/Pretty-Sad.html

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/6/view/forums/thread/94574/My-God-I-found-a-game-worse-then-the-NGE-lol.html

Rose tinted glasses.

Nostalgia.

 

The problem with this is that i believe most of these are post-nge. I think most people here are missing pre-cu not so much the nge, and again you are off base when you compare the inital praise of SWG pre-cu to the inital praise of Swtor. Pre-cu lasted for a couple of years and was enjoyed greatly, people hated the nge and thats when they started to complain. SWTOR hasnt changed from its first two months till now.

Read my follow-up post.

Only 2 years (25%) of SWG's life was during the pre-cu.  This is the positive time you are referring to.  The rest was post-cu and NGE.

During the first two to three (17-25%) months of TOR's release, popular opinion for it was generally favorable.

So I am taking roughly the same fraction of time for each game...the inital 1/4 of it's life.  So I don't really think I'm too off base.

Granted, I am ignoring small details like SWG was universally panned by critics while TOR was praised.

Ok what im trying to say is pre-cu and nge were almost two fundamentally different games when it came to playstyle. What i think people are trying to say is that they miss the pre-cu swg not so much the nge. The fallout over SWG came from the nge, while SWTOR has remained the same game and had fallout because people realized that over the long term that SWTOR wasn't so great.

Originally posted by grimal

Only 2 years (25%) of SWG's life was during the pre-cu.  This is the positive time you are referring to.  The rest was post-cu and NGE.

During the first two to three (17-25%) months of TOR's release, popular opinion for it was generally favorable.

So I am taking roughly the same fraction of time for each game...the inital 1/4 of it's life.  So I don't really think I'm too off base.

You can't really say first 2-3 mths of swtor is the "initial 1/4 of it's life" because it has not die yet (It may but it may also drag on for a few more years).

Your assumption is based on it ending now, which it is not.

It is not Tabula Rasa.

Also, positive time of SWG is not just pre-cu - it was rebounding after jump to lightspeed and the expansions. The unrecoverable negative only came AFTER nge.

Originally posted by grimal

Originally posted by Crucial
SWG because SWG was a virtual world.

So is Second Life.

 

Second Life is exactly what the title of the game implies....

SWG was a virtual world but it was still a Game..

Originally posted by Arglebargle

Originally posted by Jonoku

Originally posted by Arglebargle

Originally posted by Jonoku

So what your saying is SWTOR is a Massively Multiplayer Online Game. Wrong, it ain't massive.........

Its a Multiplayer Online Game.

So, what number makes it 'Massive'?  Is it 100?  1000?   422?

 

Or are you hair-splitting?

Seeing people running around, 50+ in one area etc. Making things instanced makes yourself feel alone.

Oh, totally subjective then?   I personally find it very un-immersive to see four groups sitting, waiting for some mob to spawn so they can get some game ticket punched.

Thats not the point.

SWG...by far far away is the better MMO of the two for me.

I rather have a decent story / lore / char so SWTOR for me.

Originally posted by Jackdog

the rudest and most unhelpful customer service  of any company in the history of MMO's

Yea, unlike TOR's Customer service where you wait for 5 hours and be told they can't help you when the website stated they could. Yea, that's friggin' awesome Customer Service.

I never had problems with SWG's customer service, except Virrago is a dick.

Originally posted by Blazer6992

SWG was the original sandbox.

 

Nope.

Originally posted by Jackdog

Always amazes me how people look back on SWG with rose colored glasses. I will always remember the bugs and crashes at launch, completely unfinished and never finished classes ( Bio Engineer anyone). They had epic database issues, I lost a million credits worth of guns when my vendor went poof one day and CS told me tough s***. The epic failure grinding professions for datacrons with the original jedi scheme. Flavor of the week overpowered class's . I betaed the darn thing for several months and figured it would be the be all and end all of MMO's buyt Koster and SOE managed to screw up royally what could have been the perfect game. By November when the vendor dissapeared I was ready to call it quits anyway. Went on to beta and play Horizons which was another epic POS

I retried it later on when they added space combat and found everyone and his brother was now a jedi and thousands upon thousands of abandoned houses

SWToR is not perfect and I only played it March through July before I was bored with it but it sure had a heck of a better launch than SWG ever did. Bioware seems to be channeling SOE in their free to play plan, I patched it but did not even log in my account is so crippled with the restrictions unless I want to shell out cash. I have pretty much had it with MMO's in general though so pay no attention to a bitter old man

 

What alway's amazes me is those silly comments about rose colored glasses. They make no sense. It's as if people can not understand that certain games can be allot of fun towards gamers. What people like Jackdog also seem to NOT understand is that everyone who enjoyed SWG (pre-cu) was well aware of all the bugs and issue's. Yet even with all the bugs and issue SWG to me still gave me the greatest MMORPG experiance of all MMO's played. And yes I played most of them, starting with Meridian59 which I wasn't even aware of it being a MMORPG at the time, same with UO, it was around the time of EQ1 that to me the name MMORPG started truly.

I do play SWtOR and enjoy it as a singleplayer online-co-op action rpg, but it's so incredible limited in the things to do within the game it often makes me feel sad why this genre has become so combat oriented and limited.