SWG crafting was like nothing ever seen. Never mind cookie cutter templates. Never mind forced end game gear paths that involve raiding. It was you, your good relationship with suppliers of the best harvested materials (players that lived and died in the aim of resource excellence), your crafting station, time, effort, and perseverance.. You could become famous on your server for producing weapons like no other. Complete one offs Unique. Never mind walking around with a raid gained Lore named item (Thrall's left bollock) People were struting around with a weapon with your name on it. that only you could make.. People were examining you and going "omg dude, you have one of xyz's Punchers!" xyz was you!!! you called it Puncher and made it famous..! Though experimentation, the more effort you put in, the better the weapon was. Hard working crafter we able to produce weapons so powerful, the dev's had to admit, they had no idea such results were possible.. I'm sure other folks out there can cover resources in detail.. and detailed it was.... Resource shifts (spawns) tracking the perfect copper (from the 15 different types) for weeks across different worlds. Turning up at your gatherer and freaking because overnight a 1 in million chance had occurred. That perfect metal had resource shifted under your gathering spot. There's no comparison to WOW or TOR as far as crafting in SWG pre NGE.