Thanks for this thread because I've been having the same problem...finding a game close to pre-CU SWG in a post-NGE world.  Guess I'll be trying out Ryzom too.  I was looking forward to Vanguard but now that SOE's got their hands in the mix I just don't know.

I too went to WoW but the more I play it, the more I miss what SWG was and wish WoW was more like that rather than SWG having become more like WoW.  I don't see WoW having a very long lifespan for me because it is so quest based that, although a person can have many characters on the same account including up to 8 (I think that's the limit) on the same server, I don't see leveling up many characters all the way to 60 because it means doing those same quests over and over again. Another HUGE thing I miss about SWG that I haven't found in WoW is the socialization part of the game and the ease at which I found good guilds in SWG.  Areas in WoW are so level based and it lacks the "common meeting grounds" that SWG cantinas and player cities provided.  My first character in SWG was an entertainer/artisan.  The guilds my characters joined were the results of cantina meetings (I played on 3 different servers during my time with SWG, only 1 out of 4 guilds that I joined was due to joining it because a "friend" had, the other 3 were because I met the leader of the guild while playing on one of my ent chars, on every server I played I ended up with at least 1 ent char and 1 CH char....yes, I was one of those multi-account, alt loving peeps that ended up with 3 accounts by the time I left the game).  Another thing I got spoiled to on SWG that I realize the more I play WoW is something that would seem rather small but it was the huge amount of emotes. I still get the urge to /poke someone who is just standing there or /pet my animal (surprise, surprise, to have started copying WoW, SWG took away one thing that WoW does have--the ability to have a pet and use it in combat...although that was another area that SWG once excelled in...CH could have a lot more animals in inventory, hunters in WoW can only have 1 pet at a time and must pay to open a slot to "stable" others) and remember that I'm no longer playing SWG with all the emotes it had.  I also with that WoW had more interacting ability between Alliance and Horde, I'm use to the ability for imps and rebs to interact and can think of some roleplaying value in being able to interact.  I also miss the ability to create a story for my character and put it in the character page.  I was hooked on /examine in SWG and reading what people had written.  Performing in a cantina and reading people's stories..../sigh, I miss those days. So here I am, still looking for and waiting for some mmorpg that comes close to having what SWG once had...player cities, non-combat professions that are necessary, the ability to tailor make professions and change those skills with ease, the huge range of being able to customize the looks of one's character and change those looks as often as one wished, easy to use controls/communication systems, ability to customize HUD through changing color scheme and moving objects around your screen (although the screwed that one up with NGE, as I found out when I couldn't get my character to move and realized that it was because I was use to having a separate guildchat window, if I combined chat windows I could move, if I had 2 I couldn't move), etc.

Some say that WoW set some kind of standard just because it had a huge amount of players.  I say SWG was the one setting a standard because of its uniqueness in gamestyle.  To me, the true test for WoW will be in how long it can keep the players it has.  I think if SWG had not messed up the game, it could have kept veterans for many years.  Is it better in an mmo to have huge amounts of players for a short amount of time, or have players for a huge amount of time?  I'm not an expert in the financial end of mmos so I don't know although I guess I can speculate based on a lack of taking care of the customers one has in order to grab new ones.

Also people say SWG was geared for the "hardcore" player.  I'm not sure what people mean by "hardcore" but, if they mean someone who is an expert at playing games, I got into SWG rather easily, it pointed me in the direction to go, I could find missions close to a city and did not have very far to go when I cloned to get back to my missions, the learning curve for SWG in the pre-CU days was not that big and what questions I had, I found more experienced players willing to help me out.  If by "hardcore" people mean someone who plays games a lot and can play/is will to play for long amounts of time versus the person who wants to play for 15-20 minute segments, then WoW is more "hardcore" than what SWG was...in SWG, one could get on and grab a mission or 2 close to town if the person played a combat prof and be done rather quickly or one could entertain/heal/craft within that 15-20 minutes...server cities usually had everything you needed fairly close by or you could find a player city that was well set up.  In WoW, it is quest based and even doing one quest may take you more than the 15-20 minutes esp. if that quest takes place in instances or requires getting a group together to be successful (killing elites).

I agree with the article.  SWG did not take care of their existing player base.  When I first joined SWG, it did need a little tweaking but not what CU then NGE made of it.  In looking for other mmorpgs to play, I have found none so far that live up to the potential of what SWG could have been -- the combination of combat and non-combat roles (not just making things but the entertainment and medical professions that also existed) with non-combat serving a needed function (if player wanted to be healed, equip the best armor, etc. the player had to visit BOTH entertainers and medics), the ability to use skill points to mix and match professional skills, the large amount of choices in creating a character along with the ability to change those choices (eye color, skin color, hair color, sliding scales to adjust the size and angle of many different body parts, hair/lekku/horn styles which increased by visiting Master IDers once one started the game), the ability to create player cities and to use player cities to meet all one's needs esp if one had an active guild/town (join a guild and move into town...buy what I need from the vendors in town, go to town cantina to get ent buff, go to town medical center to get doc buff, use town mission terminal to level up, use trainers in town or guild members to learn skills)...then CU and NGE came along and killed much of this along with nerfing planets and dungeons/caves/etc. to the point that things that were once "feared" became noob training devices.  It's sad that SOE gave up that which they once had.  I hope another game will one day come along and meet the standards that SWG almost set.