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Star Wars: The Old Republic General Article: Questions From A Gamer
In a perfect world, MMO development companies would answer all of the questions players have right up front. This not being the case, MMORPG.com Star Wars: The Old Republic Correspondent Christopher McCarty writes this tongue-in-cheek questionaire for the developers at Bioware, providing the questions and why he thinks they're important.
By Christopher McCarty on April 30, 2009
After I go through all the great stories and epic quests you'll have, then what?
Bioware makes single player RPGs better then anyone else. Those games have a beginning, a middle, and an end. With an MMO, you'll have a beginning, but we won't discern the other two parts unless something gets screwed up. MMOs are persistent worlds and players will chew through your content much faster then you will be able to produce new stuff, especially since you'll be creating separate content for each class. So when I run through all the content, what am I supposed to do then? What is going to keep me playing while I wait for the expansion pack? I guess what I am really asking is, what is your end game? Theoretically, you could try and just out pace the players and create content faster then we can experience it. If you can manage that, you go girl! If you try it that way, just realize that adding content isn't the same thing as lowering drop rates and lowering mob spawns so we have to go through the same instance or quest fifty times. Barring mass content or some alternative idea no one else has thought of then it's down to either raiding or PvP as your end game. If it's raiding tell me now so I can give notice at work, if it's PvP then how good is your hardware going to be?
How are you going to handle death in your MMO?
Death is fairly straight forward in a single player RPG. Hit reload, cuss a bunch, come up with a good excuse how it wasn't your fault. In SW:tOR I'll need you to either provide some mechanism that prevents me from being stupid or at least have the game provide me with some good excuses, "You have died. . .but it wasn't your fault. . .you lagged". The best way to have death mesh with story and immersion is, in my opinion, permanent death, but most MMOs can't really get away with that. Am I going to have to retrieve my body and items or take an experience penalty? Am I fully lootable, will I be ported to a far away bind point, or are you doing a timed skill or stat based penalty? How about resurrection, can those Metachlorians bring us back to life? Will you put restrictions or penalties on player resurrection?
What's the space travel going to be like at launch?
;)
This isn't necessarily an MMO related question, it's more of a question about science fiction themed games, but a very important one nonetheless. Notice I asked what it would be like 'at launch' because every MMO player knows that even if you never plan on doing any space flight or combat that the actual answer will be, "we want to do it and we have some great ideas, but it probably won't make it to launch." So at launch will we see a simple loading screen, a short video when traversing between worlds, or will there be anything substantial? Ok you caught me, how long before I can fly the Millennium Falcon?
How much emphasis will the player run economy have?
I want the big dog, head cheese lightsaber. Am I making it myself, am I doing a quest for it, is someone else making it, or is Jabba the Hutt holding it for me? It's my opinion that a player run economy can never be complex enough. I always thought EVE had it covered not so much in practice but in deeming it important enough to hire an economist to run it. There's a bunch of different opinions on this subject. On one end you have people that think all equipment should be player made and there shouldn't even be merchant NPCs. On the other extreme there's people that think that player crafted items should exist merely as decoration. Where do you want your game to fall? Will you have auction houses? Will you have banks? Are they universal or local? Are resources universal or local? Will crafting stations all exist near the bank/auction house? On top of all of those questions, we have yet to cover bindable items. Will any of the higher end items be tradeable? Will items degrade or have durability and need to be repaired? Any plans to have unique items ACROSS a server (meaning one per server)? Will there be maker's marks, dyeable items, different qualities of items? Just on a personal note try to avoid what Anarchy Online did; instead of coming up with different names and graphics for the items. When I finally got an upgrade to my IEC Flashpoint Laser Rifle Quality:67 it was an IEC Flashpoint Laser Rifle Quality:95.
What is your plan for balancing the various classes?
;)
The first question that springs to mind when I want to know about class balance in a game using the Star Wars universe is this; how are you going to balance Sith Lord/Jedi Knight as playable classes versus the other classes? Will Jedi Knights and Sith Lords just be more powerful and considered easy mode? Are you planning on having Bobba Fett be equal in power to Darth Vader? Are you going to come up with arbitrary penalties to put on Jedi and Sith to 'even them out'? After we learn how you plan on balancing the Percieved differences in class how are you planning out the overall gameplay between classes? Bioware mentions that the game will be 'largely soloable', does that mean the game will play like my (entirely self-sufficient) Priest of Mitra in AoC where I could pull, heal, crowd control, and AoE damage everything to death all solo? Or will your approach be more akin to Everquest where my warrior couldn't solo pride lions past level 12? Have you come up with any alternatives to the tank/DPS/Heals group mechanic so often employed by MMOs of the past? How about PvP, are you going to attempt to balance classes head to head? Will you attempt any balancing among the various group makeups that may exist for group PvP? When it comes to balance no one is ever happy, that's why it's important to know how the developers plan to attack it in theory. If you don't think that 1v1 PvP balance is important, then let us know so I can have a built-in excuse for when I lose. . .err, I mean so I don't focus on 1v1 as a main motivating factor in my game experience. Class balance isn't just who can beat who 1v1, it covers multiple forms of PvP and multiple forms of PvE. I don't want to lose 1v1 because his class has better crowd control, I don't want to get passed over for PvP groups because I'm spec'd wrong, I don't want to miss the raid because we need nine healers, and I don't want to level ten times slower because I picked the single target DPS class. In a perfect game world, nobody has these problems, in an actual game world I'm scared Darth Vader is rolling a Bright Wizard.
How will my character progress through the game?
;)
Am I going to be leveling my character with experience points, weeding my way through skill trees, or some kind of combination of the two? If I need experience, how are you going to combat the grind feeling? If it's skills, what are your plans to combat macroing? Will my character grow, age, or change appearance as I go through the game? Am I going to see quest hubs presented in a linear or tiered progression or will you spread out the appropriate content among other content that I may or may not be ready for? In other words, if I go to a small village and talk to everyone will I ever need to come back there? How are you going to disperse the content across planets? Will Tatooine be for level tens and Coruscant be for level twenties or will there be a reason or need to go to both planets at both levels? I always thought that developers wasted a great deal of time constructing the lower level zones considering I saw them for a total of two hours. I'd like to see less linear progression and more freedom to progress where you want to. A popular, although stereotypical way to address the issue would be to ask, is your MMO going to be more sandbox or more amusement park?
How will the game world change?
At minimum, an MMO should give the illusion that the game world can be affected by players and seem alive or moving. This goal goes a long way toward successfully immersing the player into the world. Having said that, here are a few questions: Will you have weather? Will the weather simply be visual or are there any in game effects or penalties? Will any NPCs have schedules, move, interact with anything else aside from player initiated conversation. For example, could NPCs interacting with each other follow one another and move in a pack? Will housing be in? If so, will it be in a separate zone or integrated into the game world? Will storyline choices affect anything beyond my own character? If you answered yes to the previous question then 1)How did you do it? and 2)Will you offer lifetime subscriptions?
I do not feel the author of this quite understood the setting of the game accurately.
I also do not feel the author of this reviewed all the available information before setting out to write this.
...Much like IGN, the quality of the Collumns acceptable on websites has declined sharply in the past 2-3 years.
EDIT:
I think what I meant to say was:
This would be acceptable as a blog on the site you linked to... less so then official news posting.
Well, since you believe you understand so much more about the game than the author, why don't you clear up some of his questions for us.
Also, I would like to know if crafting and other non-combat gameplay features are going to be non-existant or feel and play like tacked on afterthoughts as they are in all the other quest themepark mmo's on the market in the past 5 years.
The best questions ever! And now...I want the answers!
Well, since you believe you understand so much more about the game than the author, why don't you clear up some of his questions for us.
Also, I would like to know if crafting and other non-combat gameplay features are going to be non-existant or feel and play like tacked on afterthoughts as they are in all the other quest themepark mmo's on the market in the past 5 years.
I second the motion, especially on the crafting part. If you have some factual knowledge that the rest of us don't, please do tell. As it stands, Vogel's documented interest in crafting leaves little chance that'll be anything more than an afterthought with respect to overall scope. And the crafting aspect is the only thing I'm interested in. Played the action hero (jedi, BH, Smug, Soldier, blah blah blah in all the other SW video/computer/tabletop games.)
I would love to see these answers, but i doubt we will see them.. Please note, I have no proof or information in regards to the reality of what Bioware is doing.
After I go through all the great stories and epic quests you'll have, then what?
We at Bioware realize that a storyline must continue for players otherwise we would have rolled out another single player game. We want the story arc to branch and evolve and even sometimes flashback. If there is an epic encounter which incapacitates you and your team, you do not grind the instance again. In fact, you are given another story path perhaps giving you an opportunity to acquire a clue to overcome your enemy. Maybe after a few steps into this path you are given a chance to encounter the enemy again. It will not be the same instance, or same map. You are armed with some personal experience now and perhaps additional tools and skills to change the outcome. Remember, many Star Wars encounters were not resolved in one event. We at Bioware want to keep in tune with this theme. No worries if you fall short again, we will provide you with an alternate story arc or you may join a similar story arc that gives you more experience and tools to make another challenge to your pesky foe. We also have prepared an expansion that should be released in a timely manner to keep fresh content going.
How are you going to handle death in your MMO?
We are considering two modes of gameplay. Standard gameplay is the mode whereby if you are defeated, your avatar is incapacitated. They are either knocked unconscious from a concussive impact of a laser/ physical attack or force power, exhausted from loss of stamina, or they lose a body part from a lightsaber. The game creates a cutscene where an ally pulls you out of the fight, gets a droid to stabilize you as you are travelling to a trauma center. After a brief recovery period, you can fancy your cybernetic limb or body part (no you won't get beheaded) and hop back into the fray via travel method such as speeder, mount, ship, etc. You suffer some experience debt and perhaps some durability wear on your gear. You won't lose any abilities, but death will sting enough to make you want to play wisely.
The new option is permadeath. This is a mode for players who want to take the risk/reward ratio to the maximum. Your character can suffer more than the standard gamer, and suffer death blows. This means there will be no return to battle unless the following happens: - You are resuscitated by a medic player. Medic players require signifcant resources and funds to bring a dead player back, so take care of your Medics! You discover an object which can provide life. These are rare to discover, only can be used once. If the black market has them, expect them to cost a lot of money. The final option is to pay us more. A nominal charge of $5.00 per rez is fair and will be put on your card as "SWTOR NOOB DEATH" In return, for your risks we will increase your reward tables and also increase your skills to make your survivability a little better. Characters who have died cannot trade, but they can be looted in PvP. More on that later.
What's the space travel going to be like at launch?
At launch ships will mainly be used for travel, though we may offer space combat instances. In our first expansion we are going to allow players to operate and have ship battles. We will have starship interiors unlike other Major MMO titles. We will take this burdensome mantle of starship interiors innovation and make it our own. The millions we will get in revenue from the subscribers will revive the US economy by itself.
How much emphasis will the player run economy have?
We see no reason why we should not have economy. Gold Farmers will sell you all the money you need. Just kidding!
Make crafting worth while and not an afterthought. Reward those who wish to delve into your minigames instead of doing what everyone else is doing. Swinging a lightsaber around. Make it interactive so it is difficult to macro, make it entertaining so players want to do it, instead of have to do it. Crafting doesn't always have to be making things. Maybe small story arcs on collecting rare components. Send the player into seedy brothels, reclusive areas or make them do hilarious acts of batering, begging from other NPCs. Survivor makes players eat maggots. Lets make your Jedi pick through some dung from Jabba's ancestors in hopes to pick out that rare engine cog for an NPC. Item degradation yes.
What is your plan for balancing the various classes?
A Droid can kill a Jedi as well as a Bounty Hunter. Just have to know what you are doing and know your surroundings. We did tell you there will be destuctible environments in this game, right? Let's say a Jedi wants to force push you off a cliff? Fair enough, we give you, Mr. Bounty Hunter, Droid or other non force sensitive player, a jet pack. Can't deal with that light saber cutting your arms off? Enter gas bombs, flamethrowers or your own lightsaber.. Surely you don't think we can't make things interesting for you? That also means each player can accomplish their objectives with prudent gameplay.
How will my character progress through the game?
Skills - I say this because I am sober. If you read anything else, it was from some hacker who calls himself Tasos or Smedley or something along those lines..
How will the game world change?
Expansions will take you to new area, but stories can take you anywhere. The game is story driven, so the world won't change in a earthshattering way for each individual player, but Public Missions are a great way to give players a sense of contributing to changing the way an area is. Yes, weather and all that. Housing? what game had that?
PvP ?
yes, we need that! battle objectives that mean something. Rewards for planets won and discoveries made that contribute to the war effort. We are learning much from this RvR mistakes we see and we will make them better.
This kind of thing is embarrassing for the author.
Wait and see. Grow some patience. The game will come out and everyone will chew apart the things they don't like about it and the next MMO will get announced where these same questions will get asked again. Repeat cycle.
Wait and see.
Is it because I drank to much vodka... or isnt there a single answer? Is answering questiions with questions fashion now?
I am confused. What was this article about? I mean...yes, good questions. basically questions you ask about any game that you are looking forward to.
What was the point of writing them down and putting them in a nice article?
Eventually, the answers will be there. Until then....well, asking these questions in a pretty article is not going to do much good beside...stating the obvious?
It's premature to call anyone out on this. You know when you need the answers? Some time near release when the game is about to be available for purchase. Patience, especially from a writer for a major mmorpg site would be a bit more professional. But you are going to get some free publicity out of this and some high fives from other impatient gamers.
What is the point of this? xD
I agree with this post 100%.
What did this actually fall under, interview, article or someone dreaming about giving a interview?
They really need to hire a gamer that isn't stuck in EQ with lightsaber mode (he rehashed the same questions asked on the Bioware forums), reading this was a real waste of time and eye ball strain.
I don’t know, I tend to agree with the author of this article. The game is in development and the videos/screenshots and write-ups lead me to the same questions. Yea, I think the questions are important enough to ask at this point of the development. Had I known such answers regarding such games as, (dare I speak the name) Darkfall my hype would have been halved. Imagine if you would, had “other” games provided such information a player would be able to decide to follow it or not.
Do not get me wrong, I very much look forward to this game and forking out the cash upon release would be a lot easier if the questions were answered. Perhaps it is I, is there some kind of Top Secret deal going on here where these questions would be replicated in another game if released? I would be satisfied with a simple, “we are still negotiating these questions” as an acceptable answer. One thing is certain, as the author mentioned, in a perfect world these questions would be answered as they developed.
There is a simple reason for why BioWare are not answering all those questions in details. Or rather 2 of them.
1) You -CANNOT- please gamers. It's impossible. If you start giving out answers to some stuff, they will whine and bitch about other stuff. If you release a few screenshots, they demand videos. if you release videos, they demand more attention to that or this in videos. If you release Dev-Blogs, they complain about not enough information. Etc. etc.
2) Things are not set in stone. If you are going to believe BioWare (and BW is the only company I still trust, since they have never failed me so far), then they will only announce something when it is guaranteed to be in at launch. So instead of promising a whole lot, and tossing out ideas they might have, they keep to themselves and simply tell us what is absolutely decided. Full stop.
Personally, I don't see what the big problem is. The game is months, if not years from release. What good would come of them telling us some vague ideas of what they want to do when they have not finalized things yet?
Honestly what was the point of this? I always thout of mmorpg.com asa good and reliable sourse for mmo's.If you guys want to throw us a a bone go and take a real interview form biowere guys and see what you can squeeze outThat's what i call journalism..I can put myself question regarding what will be or not be in a un released game,no need on 2 pages of dreams for that.Guess we all can do that easily.
I got a question, and I guess it wont be answered, but Ill ask it anyway:
I played SWG for 3 years. In the time before the devestating NGE the gane was fairly well. Will this game be like SWG: Nge from the start? I am then thikning about the new stupid controlsettings the NGE ruined for the game. The limitations of the classes, making jedi standard, absolutely ruining the playerrun market etc etc etc etc et.........
Will we be able to have a merchant class? and fullblown crafter class? Can we have our own shops we can decorate? What about the social aspect? I would like to remind you that Age of Conan was a superb game graphic wise, but it still fell from its height. Mainly because of the shallowness of gameplay!
Got more questions too, but these are the most important atm. Hope you can answer them fully!
Thx.
Nothing worse than speculating on content in a game that the author knows nothing about. Talk about a completely useless article, You want speculation, the web boards on this game are full of it. Write something when you know more about it.
This article was a perfect example illustrating the reasons why companies don't answer questions like this. It's because "gamers", are obnoxious people who fail to recognize the spirit of things that are marketed directly AT them. And that makes me sad. I would never ever want to deal with the gaming public without a sledgehammer. The fact that those TWO PAGES pass for an acceptable article that would [in theory] be dealing with Bioware shows what is very wrong in our world, these days. I will lament the state of our failing society, no further. Instead, I will say that this "piece" should have been a blog.
The intro was cut due to space I believe.
Bioware - a game company with a great history for making great games, Star Wars - the intellectual property that practically coined the term 'intellectual property', and MMOs - the only drug with no 12-step program. When Bioware announced Star Wars: The Old Republic I knew that was the recipe of a great game (and me being single again) so I loaded up the SW:tOR forums and started scouring them for information. I watched the first video diary and learned they would make storyline a big part of the game experience. If there was ever a bunch of guys that could make storyline work in an MMO it would be Bioware, that's one of the things they always got right, storyline and soft core porn. When the next Friday update comes through the site with screens of naked. . .blue. . .alien. . .ass, I'll be sold! Wait, what? Oh, whoops, sorry, Fox News is only three channels away from G4 on the Comcast. . .my fault. After I watched the videos, downloaded the wallpapers, and read through the forums I came to a souring realization, the forums sounded exactly like the last eight MMO forums prior to their releases. A truck load of player opinion and discussion. A community moderator closing the thread when the player housing discussion shifted to whether or not my mother's house should have a lock on the door. And a few links to interviews where every third answer is, "We really can't talk about that yet", apparently the only thing holding back the rise of Soviet Russia is that they don't quite know if they'll be able to drive a land speeder or not when the game goes live.
I want this game to succeed, I want to give you my money for a few years, but I'm not watching your game because I'm a Star Wars fan, I'm watching because I'm an MMO fan. MMO fans lately haven't been treated all that well; Age of Conan (Fox News doesn't mind topless characters at level one, it's only offensive when you have to play through 50 hours of the story first), Warhammer Online (we love large scale PvP with hundreds of people, just don't stand very close to anyone when you do it), and Darkfall (I'll bet if you check right this very minute, the online store is 'temporarily' closed. You got the Greek translation wrong 'perpetually' is the word you were looking for there). I guess us MMO types have been into a little S&M lately, the really sad part being that we all still have running subscriptions for at least two of those games.
I want to get the weekly updates, video diaries, and blogs. I wait for them and talk about them on a bunch of different forums. In fact, we need all the prequel stuff for background information on the new setting. But I'm not worried or concerned about the fourth pillar, your Bioware, no one will do the fourth pillar as well as you. I'm worried about the other three pillars because it's not as if past game companies have those nailed down. So in an effort to get some MMO type information, and to give people some insight into what kinds of theories and ideas Bioware has planned for SW:tOR, allow me to ask you way too many questions about your game Star Wars: The Old Republic, the massive multiplayer online game.
Players come to this site to find answers to questions, not more unanswered questions. We have the official game forums for that. Sorry, I know you are starved for info just like nearly everyone else following this game, but these people are upset because it kind of fooled them into thinking there were actual answers in there. I know you're hoping your ploy makes some Bioware dev break the code of silence, but I highly doubt that will ever happen.
II've been playing Online rpgs since 1994 with the original Neverwinter Nights on AOL. I've seen the development phase of nearly every major MMOG. And I can tell you this, you will not find out the answer to half your questions until beta testing of this game begins. And by the time the game is released, over half of those questions will have new answers.
Just enjoy the wait, go play with some Star Wars figurines or replay some of the KoTOR games. We will get our answers when Bioware is ready to give us some. Until then, as long as you do a bait and switch like this, you are going to have rabid fans ready to rip your heart out for getting their hopes up. So just batten down the hatches and put on your flame-retardant suits for the next few days.
Come on mmorpg.com. You don't write an article without some *information.*
I second that. As well as a whole bunch of the other comments above that go in the same direction. I am dissapointed not to have any more answers then before reading (partially reading) this.
I like the idea of putting a lot of valid questions that most gamers would ask in one place. So instead of bashing the author without even reading the sub-title, I'm going to try to list what I'd like to see as the answer to some of these questions.
After I go through all the great stories and epic quests you'll have, then what?
First and foremost: Lots of end-game raid content with challenging encounters and sick gear and lots of strat to work out and NO EASY MODE. We spend our lives at end game and it would be a HUGE mistake to not put in at least one decent raid dungeon at launch. Even if it takes guilds 3 months from launch to get leveled and geared you HAVE to have something for the hardcore guilds to set their sights on.
And also hopefully more great stories and epic quests.
Having some sort of "Story Mode" you can go back to at different points of leveling would be good to break up the grind and give you ways to develop your character.
Ultimately, though, I would have lots of end game epic quests that took you to different areas and yielded some kind of epic reward/title/trophy upon completion.
Some could be easy and solo-able and focus just on your characters story.
Some should have challenging group encounters and take time (I'm talking multiple steps that you really have to put time into) but give better rewards. Make it a way to introduce people into any end-game group dungeons that may be in the game.
Let's face it...we spend WAY more time at end-game than leveling so I'd hate to see all the good quest/story content be confined to lower tiers.
How are you going to handle death in your MMO?
PvE deaths should have some kind of consequence. It shouldn't kill an hour's worth of work though. A small amount of XP loss and/or temporary debuff that can be cancelled out by retrieving your tombstone.
PvP deaths shouldn't have any penalty beyond possibly having to repair your gear every so often.
How much emphasis will the player run economy have?
I guess a lot of this will depend on the depth of the crafting system. In my perfect MMO:
NPC merchants would be there to provide any basic neccesities and basic (read crappy) armor and weapons.
Players should be able to craft top tier gear. This would require some kind of in-depth harvesting system as well. Crafting quests for item upgrades perhaps. Player-crafted-items should be the biggest source of readily available gear.
There has to be an Auction house. Banks with upgradeable storage space. Crafting stations in major towns.
How are you going to handle PvP?
This is a BIG one. I love FFA PvP. A lot of people don't. If it were up to me there wouldn't be many safe zones. Keep crafting areas safe. Make respawn points and binds safe. That's about it. Everyone's red. Jedi vs. Sith (Faction vs. Faction) would probably be more appealing to the masses.
You can cater to most by having different servers with different rulesets. Faction PvP: Jedi vs Sith. FFA PvP. I suppose you could put a level cap on certain zones so lowbies would have a place to enjoy the game with out getting ganked by max-level players. There shouldn't be a PvE server in a Jedi vs Sith game.
Putting in instanced PvP like WAR's scenario system would be good. Some kind of sieging for larger scale PvP.
Contested PvE raid content FTW.
Thoughts?
Yeah, I know when I think "Star Wars", I think about "sick gear" and "raid dungeons". They go hand-in-hand.
It's an MMO. If there's no end game raiding then what do you suggest they do instead?
Well, they could have a story. A plot that unfolds as the character progresses. Finally, it can culminate into some kind of epic adventure which can lead to an epic reward. And by "epic adventure" I don't mean 40 people versus 1 monster. To me, that's not very epic.
What you're describing sounds exactly like any single-player RPG ever made. Maybe the MMO part just isn't for you?
Go play KOTOR or KOTOR 2 if that's what you want.
I can answer your questions easily, no SW:TOR will be absolutely NOTHING like SWG.
People are expecting too much from Bioware imo.
I'm expecting a solid themepark.
If you think TOR will have crafting classes and Open Ended type ffa pvp your going to be very, very upset when this game releases.
Also if you think people won't just burn through TOR's content and be sitting on their hands waiting for a another buyable game pack you're kidding yourself.
Not one MMO themepark has been able to keep players entertained at Endgame unless they added a major gear trend mill.
I would rather the content just end so I can play through a totally new story with a new class than be stuck in a required pve grind.
I have no problems unsubbing for a couple months and coming back for the new content.
Graphics don't make gameplay, although they can enhance it. Anyways I played SWG from launch (day 2 cause of server crash) up basically to the NGE with a few breaks in between. The NGE was a complete abomination and here is why:
SOE lied to their customers - I was a Squad Leader and was promised a revamp for 2 years, got one and then got destroyed.
NGE Systems were very alpha - It's been said that the NGE started shortly after the bad receiving of the CU. The FPS type of combat COULD have worked if there was proper physics. They said it was going to be hiding behind things and have jumping which never happened because SWG's engine doesn't have a Z axis, and it's too shitty of an engine to make that work.
New Player Experience - This is where I will say the NGE at least attempted something right. In the original versions, you were left with a weapon and a melon. A lot of players were lost and probably quit because the learning curve was hard. Although I think it was a bit cheesy at least it was a bit better then the original tutorial.
Community - This is the #1 best thing about SWG. If it wasn't for the community, I would have left many times and never returned. I still game or talk with a lot of friends on met on my server. Hopefully SWTOR will do this with having cantinas in the game where you can gamble and other social activities.
They reduced professions to cookie cutter, everyone of a class was the same, a lot of classes even had identical abilities - Probably SOE's poor attempt at balancing, yes it helps, but no class is unique and boring combat.
About the Merchant / Full Crafting class - A very cool aspect of SWG I will add, however, in SWTOR this isn't happening, and it's been stated that this isn't SWG2 and it is a very combat focused game. IF you don't like that go back to SWG.