I'm sorry to say this but I enjoyed watching the LOTR movies more than the SW ones. *hides*

I've also never read any SW books (in fact, I rarely read books but anyway...), what would be the ONE book you would recommend a person like me? I like books that have a certain degree of closure at the end, so I don't have to buy the next book in the series.

Part of the attraction of fantasy is it's ability for epic settings (LOTR) and there's a degree of romanticism involved in fantasy, some might imagine escaping to the realm of fantasy because they feel that these were times when life was more natural and simple. Sci-fi carries with it the baggage of our generation and progeny, so we tend to think of all the evil things that are associated with us. Thus, fantasy has a virgin/untouched innocent feel about the world it is set in; whereas sci-fi has a darker, more corrupted world where technology stands in the place of nature. Until we get some epic space battles where spaceship missions involve multiple players, or until we're thrown some epic war involving the slaughtering of thousands of Jedi/Sith, or whatever it takes to give SWTOR that 'Massive' in MMO... the allure of going on a quest to destroy the ring will always seem more attractive than the single-player focus we've got here in SWTOR.

Star Wars is actually part fantasy (science-fantasy I'm told). A quick google search of "star wars science fantasy" will give you all the information you need on that - point being that SWTOR would probably not fulfil your sci-fi desires. Anyway, that's still an interesting question and I think part of the reason is that the fantasy model is tried and tested so it's easier for people to come up with new content without having to think of all the background story and rationalisations that a true sci-fi game would have to. Just like novels, fantasy is probably also more well established.

It's fascinating how people would rather everyone have to check their schematics manually than give those who don't want to do so the option of having an automatic checker (I use manual transmission, so must you!). I hope the day comes when you have to sort through thousands of schematics. The point is: what's there not to like about having the game tell you that you've learnt the schematic?

WoW's raid/party interface is much easier to click (everything in WoW is bigger and more clickable); also, in WoW the raid/party interface is at the left side while your own portrait and your target is on the topleft, so your eyes just need to focus on that portion of the screen; in SWTOR, portraits are at the bottom while the raid/party interface is at the left. I'll have to play WoW again to confirm this but I've always felt that clicking your allies in WoW had a more substantial feel to it, that it was fast/responsive and I could always select with confidence without having to double check; even if I've become too used to WoW, it could still be that WoW's interface is just much more natural and intuitive.

The argument against this seems to be on the lines of: "every MMO is like this, deal with it" See the problem?

Ahh.. so that's why clicking targets feels so awkward in this game. Not only is it slower and harder for us to switch targets, clicking is difficult too because of everything in this game being smaller in size (compared to the other MMO). I wonder why they didn't just increase the target's selectable area, or why didn't they just make targeting "on press" instead of "on release"? There's probably a game-mechanic or combat reason.

I don't play Rift, but you the premise in your argument is that we can only play 1 game. Is it not conceivable that many people play multiple games and in that process find all games somewhat lacking, so they jump from game to game from time to time when they get bored? Playing different MMOs gives you some perspective as to what are the things you'd like to see in a game; so you might like Rift's frequency of patching, but you actually find SWTOR's voice-over questing engaging... why can't we expect both in a single game?

It seems I have failed to convince you, and tbh I'm outta ideas. Here's a (rhetorical) question: what, in your opinion, proportion of players in SWTOR are SW fans (and were probably drawn to this game just by the word SW); and what proportion of players in WoW are warcraft fans?

Why do MMOs deserve to be in a special/exceptional class/category?

That may be true; but I'm always reminded of the fact that the sale of BioWare was done voluntarily with eyes wide open to the consequences.

When I paid for the game. Maybe I have higher expectations; my expectation was that the original content would last at least 6months to a year. (im sorry I'm not a big fan of legacy/alts)

I agree, they're definitely making a lot of money; but just like *cough* Blizzard, how much they re-invest into the game for the players' benefit is another story.

I really empathise with this; but imagine an MMO without gear, where would the motivation come from? It would be too similar to a FPS (even battlefield 3 has 'gear'). Gear is what makes people committed to the game. When everyone has the same gear, is that still gear? I'm not trying to flame here; and I really hope that someday a balance can be found.

I realised it's like this for most games; it's like they're always the exception to the rule. From a commercial point of view it can get frustrating.

in Star Wars, the most advanced technology comes from the past, and it seems that the universe is generally regressive. the normal rules of sci-fi do not apply in SWTOR. (I find it easier to cope if I think of SWTOR as science-fantasy)

I'll make a simple comparison. In SWTOR when I hit 50 I had practically finished up with all the planets (bonus series included), except for Corellia and Ilum. In WoW when I hit 60 (which took much longer), I probably still had half of Azeroth unexplored (not that I really bothered with doing those quests, but the fact is... it's there). I didn't even raid in WoW cause there was enough stuff I could do other than raiding (in this respect, I prefer the SWTOR model because it finally makes raiding accessible; but making it accessible also means that people are gonna clear them at a faster rate, which means they have to roll out content at a faster rate too).

I don't see how hard it would be to add fishing... you don't even need to make it 'useful'. Lots of people get by in WoW without doing fishing; lots of people get by in WoW without doing all the fluff that WoW has; but the fact is... at least WoW has all that fluff.

There will come a point when almost everyone is a battlemaster, I wonder what will happen then. Relatively speaking, that means everyone is on par again.

Agreed. (maybe he thinks the devs will friend him on facebook)

Not gonna completely disagree... But people didn't really whine for Starcraft 2 and Diablo 3, and Starcraft 2 came out really fine. Responsiveness is not a minor issue. And the real gripe people are having is the low variety of content they have at lv50. If the game was released early, but such that the devs were able to keep content released at the same pace of people's leveling then maybe there wouldn't be so much 'whining'. (For most players, it takes (only) a month to get to 50 and I'm sure they were aware of that).

You really believe that the SW story we have in SWTOR is inherently different and so unique that the game is inseparable from the franchise? That's like saying WoW without warcraft isn't WoW. SWTOR is fundamentally just an MMO and if you think that there aren't any sci-fi franchises that are capable of replicating it you're probably mistaken. MMO = pick up quest, kill X pigs, profit. Then you wrap whatever story you got around that. Even if you can't fathom that, then just think of the game in-terms of the combat and mechanics.

Shouldn't intuitive tab targeting be something that should have been implemented right at the start? lol, going thru 7 years of content in 3months, aren't you contradicting yourself? tbh, for a game like SWTOR, the content of patch 1.2 should have been implemented right at the beginning.

if we took out the SW and put in its place some generic sci-fi franchise. (tbh, while many people say the storyline is SWTOR is awesome, all it takes to beat it for someone to get a decent sci-fi novel from the library)