I never played SWG but from what I have read before the Combat change update to the game, I think it would have been a much better game. dont get me wrong I love SWTOR, however something about having to work to become a jedi by playing for months sounds awsome, being able to permenently kill someones jedi sound cool, jedi being super tough and hard to kill sounds awsome, being able to have a toon that doesnt do combat and is just a merchant sounds cool, open space combat. Being able to build a house or a town, this sounds cool. being able to place bountys on jedi.
From what I have heard from peolpe who have played it, is that it was amazing before it got a complete change from how it orignaly was, the main reason it was changed is it was to complicated for people to play since it wasnt just a hit the mouse button and watch game. I think this game would have been awsome and I wish I would have played it before it was changed. Things that I think the game prolly would have lacked since it was a sand box. Purpose I prefer SWTOR over any other MMO I have played because of the story line quests and the talking to NPCS. It just gives me the feeling that my toon means something in the world, vs game's like wow where I just felt like an avatar walking around getting quests not caring about what the quest was for just wanting to finish it and get the XP. Now with SWTOR i feel like I am part of the story as if it has meaning I really like this, and dont think that if you combined the two games I would get this feeling.