This game DEFINES shallow.

Leveling: You can hit max level in less than 24 hours time played.

Combat: Clearly designed for a controller with 10 buttons, you can only have 8 abilities equipped. (most mmos have at least 20-30 abilities per class) More abilities = more depth and requires more knowledge of your class and when to use certain abilities.

End game: Raiding, arenas, duos, legends... thats it. everything you do at end game is quened for... you could sit in the hall of doom/hero city and never have a reaosn to leave at level 30.

This game was clearly designed for casual console play not sure why they even released it for PC but im sure they made money off of it and its SOE so nothing new there.

Ugh... wonferful. I knew SOE could f*ck up just about anything under the sun... but jesus I never thought theyd find a way to keep themselves from getting their greedy hands over my subscription dollars.

I just talked with bank of america and they said that everything is working fine on their end... Thinking its SOE at this point

Every time I try to subscribe to the game I get: We're Sorry. Unfortunately, your payment provider was unable to complete this purchase. These issues can be common with some payment providers. Please retry your purchase, or if issues persist, contact your payment provider directly to resolve this issue. You may also reattempt your purchase with a different method of payment. (Error: PT-104)

Anyone else having this or do i have to call the indians at bank of america?

WHat happens when you guys try to log on? It says unable to login check username and password for me not sure if im entering the wrong pword or if the login servers are down?

I've been playing mmos for quite a while now. I started playing when star wars galaxies was released and I've played just about every mmo that has been released since then, both f2p and p2p.

After such a long time I've really started to lose hope for this genre. I used to get all excited about the prospects for new mmos as I heard more about them prior to their launches, but when these games launched I have always quit the game disappointed every only a few months of play. Why? Because the game didnt live up to its hype, it wasn't anything different, it was the same crap, the same formula that i'd been playing for years. Since the launch of world of warcraft there has really been nothing new in this genre. Some low budget developers have shown creativity and created some conceptually interesting games over the years, but these games lacked polish and content as a result of their small budgets.

I'm not excited for SW TOR despite my roots in SWG, I'm not excited for Tera, I'm not excited for FFXIV, and im not excited for rift. I've been reading the same hype for 8 years now and at this point its pretty obvious when I'm being fed the same BS.

But... I just read up on this game for the first time over the last few hours, I had pretty much ignored it for the past few months and really had no knowledge of it despite the fact that I did enjoy guild wars quite a bit.

From what I've read, im really excited for this game, I think that this is hype that I can buy into because arenanet isnt promising the same old crap with a few twists. They're promising innovation and a different direction. THAT is what this genre needs and that is what I've been waiting for. I'm sick of grinding for the sake of grinding, I'm sick of farming for gear. I'm tired of games giving such huge emphasis to leveling and neglecting the end game content that actually keeps people playing the game, and I'm really excited to see arena net taking a different direction. It seems that they're making an effort to make a solid game with solid content that gives long term playability instead of making a game with crappy core content and building a massive grind around that to keep people playing.

I'm not gonna proclaim guild wars 2 the next big mmo or anything, but from what I'm hearing I have hope for the game and I haven't really been able to say that in years.

Now its just time to wait and see if arenanet comes through.

Originally posted by generals3

Didn't like the movie and tbh, wouldnt like it as an IP , would be really hard to implement it correctly

Why didnt you like the movie? I think it had its weak points. It was definitely far from perfect, but I enjoyed the concept behind it and some of the visuals were really awesome. I thought they made it a bit too confusing. I understood it fine, but there was a bit too much to think about nearing the end.

I think it would be an interesting IP granted not the best. Obviously it would be incredibly hard to implement well which is part of the reason why it will probably never happen.

So I saw the movie inception a few days ago (which was a great movie that I definitely recommend seeing to anyone who is capable of folowwing it)

Anyway, I think that the concept of inception could actually create a really cool mmo. If you havent seen the movie I'm not really going to bother explaining it, sorry.

While I know the chances of an inception mmo or mmo based on the same concept will probably not exist any time in the forseable future, I thought it might be fun to discuss the concept a bit.

Basically the game would revolve around the dreams of different individuals including your characters. Each dream would essentially be like a "zone" that you see in most mmos these days. Inside of the dreams would be really quests some of which would be unimportant and others would be the primary storyline that is occuring in the individuals dream.

I think the combat would be best as a third person shooter in some ways similar to that of APB, but more polished and less crappy...

Players would also spend time outside of dreams in the real world where there would also be quests and missions to do although they would of course not have the abstract and impossible elements of a dream.

Players could create their own dreams which would be the dreams of their own characters. These dreams could be accessed by other players. Players could customize their dreams, build areas using models provided by the game, and create quests and storylines.

PvP could take place in several ways. Perhaps players could choose to be a "subconcious" or a human. Subconcious players of course would not be able to access the real world and therefore would need some kind of dream world equivelant. Subconcious would be able to identify and attack human players within a dream, but only if those players interfered with the dream itself (this concept is described in the movie). Alternatively all players could be human and could choose between two warring factions. There could be objective based PvP dreams where players had to fight to accomplish certain tasks and keep their opponents from accomplishing their tasks.

There could also be dreams within dreams as there is in the movie. You could be in a city based environment for one part of a mission and suddenly have to travel to a desert or snow capped mountain for the next. I think that concept could provide for some AMAZING content. Imagine raids with complex objectives that take you into multiple different environments fighting completely different and abstract enemies.

As for classes I don't really know how it would work. There could be a few different classes like architect, sabatour, assassin, and forger. Architects would be able to change the dream environment (within the constraints of the game). Sabatours would be the most adept at stealing information and physical items within a dream. Assassins would be combat based characters built to kill subconcious players/npcs and keep their team alive. Forgers would be able to mimick other players and npcs and appear to be someone completely different. Imagine being in PvP and walking past your teammate then realizing they were a forger as they light you up from behind.

Anyway, what do you guys think about this concept in general? Got any more ideas? Its fun to think about these things despite the fact that it isnt going to happen anytime soon.

It's quite good for a one man job in such a short time. The game doesn't have a lot of depth, but you cant really get much with just 1 guy working on it. That being said, I've only played it for a day so maybe I shouldn't judge yet. I can say that the initial few hours of gameplay are pretty straight forward. It's a progression game. You progress with gear and karma instead of levels.

Overall it is suprisingly pretty entertaining. I don't see myself playing it for longer than week but I also have a very short attention span and rarely play an mmo longer than a month.

I would normally be put off by graphics like this, but the game is fun enough to compensate. You've done an amazing job for making it by yourself and in 90 days. It would be cool if the game was more deep, the graphics were upgraded, gear showed on your character, and there were animations for walking and such.

As for the depth, something that might be interesting would be player cities/guilds. If people could craft buildings that have different functions and offer benefits to their guild that would be cool. They could build walls, market buildings, and essentially found their own towns. Buildings would be attackable by other guilds, but NPC guards could spawn in the city after they build some kind of guardhouse/barracks building. perhaps guilds could also build better barracks or stables and other unit spawning buildings that take more and more resources as another progression incentive. You would need to incentivize attacking cities however to make it worth it for other players/guilds.

Right now the biggest problem with the game is just lack of players. It is really quite a decent game so i encoruage you all to try it.

Props to pinkdaisy. Fantastic work considering the circumstances.

EDIT: forgot to mention one more thing that could use some work. The interface. I may have just not figured out how to do these things, but if they aren't in game they should be: Players should be able to click to move, using wasd gets really tiring after treking around for several hours. There should be a replacement function when equipping gear. In other words you shouldnt have to drag off your current equipment then drag on what you want, you should be able to double click an item to equip it and replace whats in that slot.

Also there needs to be something to do with white gear. It just clogs inventory space.

Sorry... the game isnt going to come out in january. I don't find the article linked in the other thread to be substantial. We don't know exactly how Sean was referring to that article when he cited it.

Currently beta applications have just begun to be taken, and we still know of only 50% of the classes that will actually be in the game. Bioware is still releasing information on the game such as classes, planets, etc and generally when a company is announcing such major parts of the game it is still far from release. That being said I do believe bioware is taking it slower than usual in terms of releasing information. January 1st is really only two months away and I don't see how anyone in their right mind can expect the game to come out then when beta invites won't be going out for at least another month and that is only for closed beta which will likely last at the very least 3 months.

The game won't be out until late spring/early summer at the very earliest.

I really don't get how anyone can actually believe that this game is coming out in January considering that beta applications were just opened in the last couple of weeks... but whatever floats your boat.

I'm not saiyng its proof. But I would bet all of the money I have that it will not be highly successful. Only players who have played to 30+ understand that the game is quite grindy. Those who haven't made it that far will tell you "I quested to level 20 so stfu"... 1-20 is a walk in the park. 30-50 is when the grind begins, and the time require really grows exponentially  from level 25 onward.

             Aion has been hyped just as much as any other mmo before it. Warhammer was hyped to be great, Age of Conan was hyped to be great, they all were, and they all did some things right, but many things wrong. Aion is in many ways no different.

Let me talk about Age of Conan and Warhammer first. What was the issue with these games that caused them to fail as they did? I think that most people unanimously agree that both games were not polished, lacked content, and were released too early. Both warhammer and Age of Conan did some things well. Most would agree that AoC had an innovative and entertaining combat system despite some flaws, and many would agree that Warhammer had fairly good PvP gameplay, and that the ability to level through PvP made the process of leveling much less of a bore.

Both games had potential from the start. What killed them both was the fact that both products were released before they were ready, and that both games were in an "infant" state so to speak. Realistically nobody expects a new game to have the same levels of content as an established game like world of warcraft, and age of conan and warhammer did not have content that could compare to WoW. I think we all understood that both games could compete with WoW if more promising content was added as the game aged, but players are presented with a choice. Does a player want to play WoW, or Warhammer/Aoc. We all have access to all mmos if we pay the price, so why would we choose warhammer and Aoc over established, polished, and content rich games? The only answer that makes sense is "Because warhammer and AoC show promise in the future, and X player is willing to wait it out and see what content is added".

This is what kills new games. WoW was no different when it was released. It lacked content, and it was bug filled, but it and EQ2 were the first of a new generation of mmos, and therefore there were really no other games with richer content for players to choose. This gave developers precious time to expand their games and polish them eventually leading to the solid games that exist today.

Is Aion different? This is a question that every knowledgeable gamer has been asking him or her self. Aion has an advantage that AoC and War did not have. Aion was released in korea and china, and has been polished and expanded there before being introduced to the North American market. This is a huge advantage and eliminates the issues that plagued AoC and Warhammer, but does that mean Aion will succeed? In my opinion it does not. Aion has good content, Aion is polished, but Aion is not original. Warhammer and AoC both had a lot of original concepts, they both offered something new. Aion does not. While flying and PvPvE have been marketed as innovation, they simply are not. Flying only offers so much excitement, and creates a plethora of balancing issues that would not othwerwise exist. PvPvE is simply a term created to label a previously existing concept that exists in most other mmos. PvPvE is a PvP enabled zone... nothing more. The abyss is a zone filled with mobs in which you can PvP. It is not an amazing new concept dont let yourself be convinced otherwise.

All of those points do not make Aion a bad game, Aion is not a bad game. Aion is a niche game. Why? Because Aion is grindy. Why did Aion have such success in eastern markets? Because eastern gamers enjoy grinding far more than us westerners. This is a general statement please do not give me individual cases as I understand that there are americans who enjoy grinding more than some koreans. That being said,  it is essentially fact that most NA players do not like to grind for long periods of time. In Aion you will HAVE TO grind for long periods of time. Level 30-50 involves extensive amounts of grinding. It is not nearly comparable to games like lineage 2, but it is still grindy, and that will still deter many many players. Aion will fail for this reason alone.

The future of mmos does not involve grinding. In the future grinding will be nonexistant. What the genre needs is a way to level that is entertaining, but does not sacrafice the sense of accomplishment that you get from leveling. There are many ways to accomplish this, one of which has already been introduced by warhammer.

The next mmo that will become as succesful or nearly as succesful as WoW will involve several ways for characters to level all of which are appealing to different types of players. Grinding doesn't need to be eliminated as many players enjoy it, there simply needs to be alternatives. On top of this the games need to be developed and launched with more care and patience. We all know from AoC and War that releasing a product too early leads to disaster. Developers need to take more time to both polish their game, and expand it's content. The combination of patience, polish, content, and diverse paths to leveling will lead to a great mmo, and a next generation mmo.

Oh gawd wall of text run.

It isn't odd... Any source that stated a date or even timeframe for open beta was purely speculative as no information regarding open beta was or has been released for the moment. All we know is that an announcement is scheduled to be made this week, and we know that open beta will be using the 1.5 patch. We also know that the 1.5 patch will be distributed through torrents, and that the file is roughly 4 gbs (if you already have the 1.0 client). Because the patch is so large I expect the patch to be released at least 3 days prior to the open beta servers coming up. Today being tuesday and the lack of an announcement at this point makes it seem unlikely to me that beta will start until either next weekend or late next week. It could even start the week after that depending on what ncwest decides, but I expect the weekend after this one open beta will be up.

Look for an announcement this week though. I would guess it would be made on thursday or friday. 

I agree with some of the things that you said. I don't consider myself an Aion "Fanboy". I do intend to play the game, and I do thuroughly enjoy the game.

I don't believe that Aion is an amazing game. Aion is a good game, maybe a great game. It is smooth, polished, and has a relatively good amount of content. Aion borrowed a lot from other mmos, including WoW, but WoW also borrowed a lot from other mmos. Every game borrows a lot from other games. WoW didn't really have any revolutionary features either. WoW turned the industry in the themepark direction, but its not like there was never a quest in an mmorpg before. WoW was never an incredibly innovative game.

Aion isn't an innovative game either. Aion is your basic mmo with your basic features and the same content that we've seen over the last few years. What is good about Aion is that there is a lot of said content, the game is as polished as they come, and it is overall well thought out and well built.

Don't get me wrong, I love aion, and I hope to god that it takes a large chunk of market share away from WoW, but don't let anyone tell you that AIon is an amazing game, or a game that brings new things to the table. Aion is a good game, maybe a great game, but it isn't going to change the mmo industry and it isn't going to change the way that companies develop mmos over the next few years. PvPvE is a load of crap I'm going to tell you that right now. People are probably going to say that I'm an aion hater or w/e... Again I love this game I loved CB. I'm going to play it at launch and I hope it beats out WoW because I hate WoW. PvPvE is not a new feature however. In Aion there are certain zones (the abyss) where PvE mobs will spawn, and in these zones PvP is enabled. It is really no different than a PvP server. PvPvE is simply a zone that has mobs in it and that you can PvP in. The same exact thing exists in 50% of mmos, and the fact that NCsoft is packaging this as some kind of revolutionary feature is simply a marketing gimmick. Don't get me wrong the abyss is an awesome zone and it is a lot of fun to play there, but PvPvE is not some new feature that has never been done before. It's quite common in this genre to PvP in a zone that also has mobs.

There are a lot of cool features in Aion. The abyss is a well thought out zone, and the fact that there are different layers of the abyss makes the zone feel even cooler. Flying is quite a fun feature, but it has its positives and negatives. I forsee flying to cause some significant balance issues, because not only do classes need to be balanced in land combat, but the developers now also need to balance these classes in the air as well, and the fact that 90% of abilities that are used on the ground can be used in the air, is going to cause balance issues down the road. That being said the game has been out in Korea for a while now, so balance wise it is most likely further along than your average brand new mmo.

The graphics in Aion are great. I disagree with the OP on this front. The reason why I believe the graphics are great is because the game does not lag. The graphics look good (they don't look amazing like age of conan) but what makes them great is the fact that you can run the game on high settings without having a super computer.

In conclusion. Aion is a great game, and I highly recommend picking it up when it is released, but it is not going to change the mmo genre in the slightest. It is the same old mmo with some new features here and there, very polished and entertaining gameplay, and good graphics. It is not revolutionary however, and don't let any fan boys or NCsoft tell you otherwise.

I'm thinking about starting a guild in champions online, and I am looking for players who would be interested in helping me to get it off the ground. If you have experience as a guild leader, know web design, or are just looking for a guild in champions online, then please contact me. On xfire my username is mcdaniels92. If you don't have xfire feel free to either PM me here, or send me an email at jacksonAK90@yahoo.com Thank you.

So I have read that open beta is scheduled to be august 17th. I am assuming that this phase of the beta will be open to any and all player who wish to participate? I think this is generally assumed of an "open" beta, however I read the information regarding the pre order for the game on gamestop.com, and they list "open beta access" as one of the perks to pre ordering, and they go on to say "get guaranteed access to the champions online beta test set to launch on august 17!" This leads me to believe that the so called open beta is in fact a closed beta. Can anyone clear this up for me? Thank you.

 I'm looking to talk to someone who knows a lot about Aion and has participated in the beta events. Please add McDaniels92 on xfire! Thanks.

           There has been a lot of argument revolving around MMOs, and games in general for that matter, as to whether or not they're addictive. There isn't a yes or no answer to this question. It really depends on how you define addiction. I've been playing mmos since I was 11 years old, and my parents never put any restrictions on me. This was a terrible decision on their part, because I don't have the willpower to make myself work when I was playing mmos as a young kid. SWG was my first mmorpg, and it was incredibly when I first began to play as a young kid. It was like nothing I could have imagined.

            I've always known I was using my time poorly in mmos, or in any game. When I wasn't doing my homework because I couldn't bring myself to stop playing such a fun game for such a boring task, I knew it was damaging my future. The problem is that I don't have the willpower to choose my future over having fun right now. I'm a very ambitious person, and I know that if I spend all of my time playing games my future will be bleak, and when I'm older if I'm not succesful, and my life isn't what I wished it to be, I will be severely depressed. 

             I started to finally move away from gaming in the spring of this year. I'm going into my senior year of high school, so gamging has already made its imapct on my grades which obviously has an effect on the colleges that I apply to. I almost stopped gaming entirely this spring, and I was very happy that I finally could bring myself to do it. I was enjoying being away frm the computer. I spent hours and hours reading which is something I haven't really done in almost 10 years.  Everything was going smoothly until two weeks before summer vacation. One of my friends told me he played Star Wars Galaxies. This brought back good memories. For a week I didn't start playing it, but the next week I decided to download it and play I told myself I would only play for an hour or two a day... That didn't happen. 

            I had set a goal for myself to learn photoshop and dream weaver this summer, and its been 2 weeks already and I've made no progress what so ever.

           So I'm asking for all of your help. I believe I'm addicted to gaming in the sense that I fully understand that i am wasting my time, and I fully understand that i am destroying my own future, and already have severely damaged it with gaming in the past, yet I can't bring myself to stop playing. I KNOW that if I keep playing and keep wasting my time I will not be satisfied with my life as an adult, because, as mentioend above, I'm a very ambitious person.

           Obviously I don't have the willpower to just stop gaming. If that were the case I wouldn't be asking for help. Nor do I have the willpower to just play a few hours a day. I told myself I would only play a few hours per day when I started playing SWG two weeks ago, and now im spending 12+ hours.

           I want to stop gaming altogether, and I want to make sure that I can never play any games again. Yes... it is that bad for me. Getting to the point here... Can anyone thnk of any ways for me to do that? In all seriousness the only way i can think of is to throw my computer out the window... But I need my computer for school work, and I need it ot learn photoshop and dreamweaver. My parents would also be pissed if i tossed a $2000 computer which they bought out the window.

Can anyone think of any solutions to this problem? I am completely serious about this, and I don't mean to say that gaming is a negative thing, but it is a negative thing for me. I admire you guys who can play and still bring yourself to take care of real life first. I wish I were that way, but unfortunately I am not. 

 In reponse to the people saying that "TOR is not like SWG, and isn ot the kind of game that would support player housing"... you're probably right. In fact there is a 99.9999999% chance that you're right, but the reality is this... That kind of a game is not going to take market share from WoW, and that is what lucas arts as well as bio ware wants. TOR will be a themepark game like WoW, Lotro, AoC, and every other mmo since WoW. Developers don't realize that that is not what is going to take market share from WoW. Will TOR be profitable for them? absolutely... WIll it take over the industry? absolutely not.

Some people in this thread said that "Tor is a hero game" it is about being a hero, being powerful, iconic battles, etc. TOR will not be a simulation like SWG was, and this is an unfortunate fact. TOR will be nothing new. Lets just be honest here... Bioware is hyping their story lines for each class... but come on lets be realistic. That isn't anything new its just a quest line like in any other game. TBH if the best thing that they can think of to hype about the game is a quest line for each class then I'm pretty confident there isn't going to be anything special in the game at all. 

Themepark games are not going to take over the mmo industry. Why? Because a themepark game already controls the industry, and we all know which game im talking about. WoW has a huge player base, and every developer wants to get their hands on it. They have determined countless times since WoW's release that the best way to go about such a task is to simply copy WoW and throw in some new mechanics here and there. It is pretty obvious that this approach does not and will not work. Look at WAR, Aoc, Lotro, etc... They were all hyped just like TOR, but a month after release half of the playerbase was back to WoW. 

Something new is the only way to take market share from WoW. It's been years and countless cookie cutter themepark mmos since WoW's release, and WoW is still domintaing the market, but every developer seems to think that they can do just do it better. I love Bioware. I love their rpgs, they're a great company, but they aren't going to do it better. TOR might be better than WoW, but it isn't going to be so much better that it will cause an exodus away from WoW. 

I feel like I've said this a hundred times, but players need something new. Lets take a step back here. Think about SWG when it was launched. When you think about the amount of content in that game it is absolutely ridiculous. SWG had and still has way more content than any game releasd since then. The complexity of the game is far beyond that of modern mmos. The industry has been moving backwards unfortunately. There have been some indie developers working on sand box games, but they don't have the funding to do anything big. The next developer that gets sufficient funding and brings out a quality sand box game will take market share from WoW... nothing else will. It has been ages since SWG was launched, and with the jumps in technology the possiblities for a new sand box game are unimaginable.

Unfortunately I don't see the release of a sand box game by a big developer happening in the next 3 years or so. You can call me an SWG fanboi... and I am an SWG fanboi...  SWG is probably the most advanced mmorpg ever made in terms of the amount of things you could do, and the complexity of the systems. How can you not want to see that kind of game created with the more advanced technology available today? Even if you didn't like SWG, it would at least be something new. Everyone will get sick of playing the same old themepark "kill 10 rats" move to next zone "kill 10 wolves" move to next zone "kill 10 bears" move to next zone 'kill 10 dragons"  eventually....

 I know this is a delicate topic. Many players that will be enterting SW TOR when it is released will be migrating over from SWG. On the other hand many players will have never played SWG, and will most likely be veterans of more recent games like WoW. For those of us who played SWG, including myself, housing was almost unanimously one of our favorite features in SWG. To me that relaly was the one feature that made SWG great. There has never been a game where you and your friends can build your own cities that actually have purpose. Most more recent mmos have instanced housing if they have housing at all, and the housing really serves no purpose. In SWG players could open up shops, malls, and create unbeleivable works of art using every day items found throughout the game. This is what made housing in SWG special.

Now everyone who played SWG knows that it had its down sides also. The entire galaxy was covered in houses, and there were few areas where you could go out and adventure without seeing houses sprawled out every 10 feet. I think we can all agree that that is annoying. 

SWG veterans do not want instanced housing. Instancing housing takes out everything that SWG vets liked about housing. We liked having a house that was actually PART OF THE WORLD, and we liked having people come visit our houses, even if we didnt even know them. It is a very good feeling when you're just sitting in your house doing w/e it is you do in there, and the next thing you know some complete stranger walks in and you have a nice conversation. This can't happen with an instanced house. Furthermore SWG veterans want to be able to place our house where WE WANT. we don't want to have an instance housed that has the same cookie cutter instanced location as millions of other player's houses. I remember way back in SWG I placed a house in the middle of nowhere on a mountainside overlooking a river. It really was a beautiful view, this is what made SWG housing special.

Let me get to the point here. What TOR needs is a way to incorproate housing without ruining the environment of the game, but without instancing it which would ruin the purpose of housing all together. I know the prospect of using a ship as a house has been brought up. This is all fine and dandy, but a lot of players want to have an actual house as well. I've thought about this problem for quite a bit, and I think there are actually several solutions that could give both sides of this argument satisfaction.

Solutions:
 

1. Partition the planets into separate areas. I will use tatooine as an example. There would be two sides or areas of the planet. On the west side there would be 3 or 4 NPC cities like Bestine, Mos Espa, Mos Entha, etc. This western side of the planet would be created specifically for adventuring. It would be your standard themepark zone as seen in many other recent mmos, with quest lines, iconic areas for players to adventure, etc. 

On the Eastern side of the planet would be the sand box zone. This zone would have several NPC cities like the Western side did, but this side of the planet would be devoted to player housing and organizations. Players would be able to place their houses anywhere on this side of the planet, as well as start cities. It would not, however, be a simple massive flat area. There would be some iconic locations as well as geography that provides for interesting places to build cities and houses.

2. Create two verisons of each planet. I do not like this idea as much as the first, but it is none the less a posiblity. Two separate zones or instances would be created for each planet. Each would have the exact same geography, and each would have places of interest and iconic locations in the same corresponding areas in each zone. One zone would be devoted to adventuring and would not permit player houses to be placed. The other would permit player housing, and players would be able to place houses anywhere. This idea has some consequences though. In order for these two zones to be identical there would need to be a lot of flat land and a quite massive area for players to build their homes and cities, and because of this, the zone would lose its theme park feel. Also iconic areas and quest objectives would have to be spread quite thin because the size of the zone would need to be large to allow for the housing of thousands of players, and as such it would call for a lot of boring speeder drives or walks through the zone.

I know neither of these ideas will be realized because I'm sure TOR is already far into development, too far to consider such a demanding idea, but I thought i would share it anyway. I look forward to TOR, but I am quite skeptical of it. The screenshots and videos that I've seen look like the same theme park zones we've seen over and over agian over the past 6 years. I'm personally ready for something new, and although I hope TOR delivers this, I do not think it will. 

 Hello everyone. I started playing SWG the weekend that it came out. It was my first mmorpg, and i was in love with it. Pre-cu was amazing. The amount of freedom that players had to do anything within the world of SWG was unprecedented. Then NGE came along and took a lot of what the players loved away from the game, and as we all know this caused a mass exodus away from the game. I personally hated the changes, but I still loved the game. I chose to leave once so many of my friends had gone. A couple years later i came back for a little stint in the game that lasted 2 or 3 months. Once again I left. The game lacked content at the time. The only thing to do really was to farm comms in Restuss.

Two weeks ago I came back to the game for a second time... And this time I'm amazed. I've been having a blast in the game, and I've never had this much fun since i first started playing back in 2003. SOE has added a lot of great content to the game since i last played. They added heroics to the game which are the new group instances. These instances are relatively easy, but they're all quite fun, and are very rewarding to complete. Furthermore SOE also added battlefields to the game recently. Battlefields have some flaws, but they make getting into the action of PvP much easier, and there are also some really cool rewards that you can earn from battlefields. 

The trading card game was also added since I left. I have mixed feelings on this subject. I personally really enjoy the trading card game, and i'm  one of the few players who actually play it. On the other hand I dislike how SOE added SO MUCH awesome content to the game, but they put it all through the card game instead of giving it to crafters... but that is business... The trading card game is actually quite well done though, and if you like that kind of thing you should definitely try it out.

I believe this month every account gets a free month of SWG including those that haven't been active in years, so this is a great oppurtunity for you vets to try the game again . I was skeptical when I came back 2 weeks ago, but I've been having a blast and there is no way I regret it. 

Unfortunately a lot of servers are dead now, but there is a free character transfer service in effect until september, so I highly recommend transfering over to Starsider or Bria if you start playing. I transfered to Starsider and there are tons of players here.

All you vets should really try the game again. It really is a lot better than it was before. Maybe not quite as good as Pre-cu, but it is very good, and better than all of the other trash themepark mmos that keep coming out every year and always disappoint.