I have a simple answer for why I dislike WoW: It looks cartoonish. Period, that's it. I just don't like how it looks and never have. I don't hate it or hate blizzard.

Playing LotRO, not because it is in the least sandboxish, but just to chill out with some friends and enjoy the sights and landscape of Moria.

I might get briefly sucked back into EVE to help some old mates out with the Alliance Tournament again, but I won't stay; can't really stand where the game is at and think CCP has abandoned the sandbox in favor of spoon fed dev-driven content.

I'll check out Darkfall when it launches but I am expecting to be massively disappointed and will be waiting for Empire:Total War after that... 

I have to agree, I nearly fell over laughing when I saw that massive PR splurge interview on fixing avatar combat. I'm not going to rehash everything that is horribly wrong or broken in PotBS, but Avatar combat was way way way down the list of things that needed fixing.

It's like some ship steward running up to the Captain of the Titanic as she is sinking and saying, 'Sir, we've replaced that dirty towel in the bathroom of state room 55B"

Totally irrelevent to why the game is sinking / has sunk and meaningless to nearly everyone.

Well here is where I deliver my pessimistic best, at the launch + 3 weeks mark.  Bear in mind that while I love the genre and wanted the game to be great, I have just cancelled and left.

First The Good:
The game is still running, basically stable. No massive rollbacks, exploits, hacks or show stopping bugs.
There is a certain satisfaction to conquering planets and whole systems in well coordinated military operations.

The Bad:
There are a *lot* of minor little nuisance bugs, many of which affect gameplay. The company is squashing them slowly, but has very very limited resources.

The game lacks a whole host of management tools needed to control multi-planet, let alone multi-system entities. I currently have 4 main production/research colonies and over 50 feeder colonies spanning 3 systems and managing my holdings is a nearly full time job.

The "learning curve" is more like a brick wall. The tutorial is basically useless and a lot of game mechanics have to be discovered by tripping over them. The support team is there 24/7 and frequently helpful, but even the company reps often don't know how some mechanics work.

The Ugly:
There are serious, nearly catastrophic, underlying issues with the game mechanics/design system which have been plastered over and taped together - but which will only get worse with time. See EGO of lead Dev and exceptionally poor relations with beta testers who actually tested to see why.

Baffling company policies on this like replacing units lost to bugs (see lead dev again - my way or the highway!) - as in they don't, even when it was clearly a bug and a "known" issue at that. These sorts of things aren't helping customer retention any.

Player Retention: A disturbiing number of the initial players seem to have thought they were signing up for the civilian version "Beyond Trade Agreements" and have whined most piteously when myself and others descended upon them with pulse guns blazing. (As a note, the game mechanics leave little to no reason to actually peacefully coexist - no benefits, all risk)

All in all, a very very mixed review. I cannot in good conscience recomend this game to anyone; unless you are really really bored and have the money to burn.
 

While I will not deny that SWG launched with a ton of bugs and some very very very poor design decisions, the previous poster who claimed it was the "worst launch ever" was totally off his rocker. It had bugs, balance issues, exploits and problems from day one - but it was also playable, something games like AO and WW2 Online could only dream of on launch day.

As for what SWG "had" pre-NGE that made it special?

One of the best crafting/resource gathering systems ever deployed in an MMO, massively player driven primary and secondary economy. Skilled crafters known by *name* hand crafting precision weapons and armor for the best of the best at a premium, mass marketers making "grind" grade gear sold directly, in shops and resold across the worlds in Malls

The widest range of non-combat driven professions and play options ever seen in an MMO. You had actual groups of people playing non combat characters full time! Crafters, sellers, resellers, miners, explorers, entertainers, bio engineers etc. Hard to think of an MMO where you knew someones name not because he was a leet dungeon raider or pvp master, but because he ran the best MALL in the galaxy.

An incredible range of housing, construction and business options. One of my most memorable nights in ANY MMO was a party thrown by a merchant to promote his new location. He hired dozens of dancers and musicians to entertain and a team to create a fireworks display. In what other game have you ever had a tailor? Literally - a person you knew and interacted with solely because they made you clothes? Or went shopping on the way back to town from a long day hunting rebels to make sure you had a collection of new gowns and necklaces to tip your favorite dancers with?

A skill based profession system which while imperfect, allowed amazing flexibility in defining just "what you were" and which you could evolve over time easily as your play changed. My "main" started life as a mostly ranger/prospector who lived in the wilds, progressed through Commando hunting rebels and ended up as a BH/Carbineer hunting whoever I was paid to.

Now, like I said, I wasn't blind and I am not a fanbois - there were a ton of problems with game balance, PVP was totally borked, the entire Jedi system sucked in every incarnation; but the game had a lot else going for it - all of which met the wrecking ball which was the NGE.