SWTOR or SWG?

[BapaJones]

I'm not going to ask which is better. They are two different beasts. However, I know a lot of you played SWG. I was just wondering if we could do a thread comparing the two. Which aspects of which game do you like better, etc? Maybe, what would you like to see added?

[Tezeretz]

sandbox> linear gameplay

old rep era> GCW era

[PiElord]

I really liked early SWG, but this is the first MMO I've liked even more than that. I tried playing WoW once on my brother's account, but I just got bored with all the "Bring me 20 Bear Asses" quests.

 

The full voicing of SWTOR really keeps me hooked in and interested, even if they are asking me to get them 20 Rakghoul asses. The voice acting and all the story, both main and side quests, is just so captivating, I'll gladly collect as many asses from as many species as they want, just to hear all the other things they need.

 

Seriously, I love this game. I played for 18 hours the first full day I had it, and only stopped when I was too tired to keep looking at the screen.

[Riji]

5 year SWG vet, Europe Chimeara right here.

 

Simply thing is the following:

 

PVE: TOR

PVP: TOR

Timeline: TOR

Social Aspect: SWG (Due to more emotes, and other things. I'm sure TOR will develop them as time goes on)

Housing: SWG (Ship is cool, but no one can beat player owned cities and furniture)

Guild Feature: SWG (TOR is still a baby, so I'll wait to see as time goes on)

Quests: TOR

Story: TOR

Space Combat: SWG (Free roam beats tunnel shooter any day)

Music: TOR

 

This is just a hand full of things. There is more, but these are my personal favorites.

[PiElord]

^^^

I'll agree with you about the space combat, but I still like what they did with it in the end. In any other game, I would hate it, but since this is in the KOTOR series, it just feels like it fits better with the game style of the first two. Slightly closer to using the Ebon Hawk's turrets to shoot down Sith fighters.

[Tezeretz]

5 year SWG vet, Europe Chimeara right here.

 

Simply thing is the following:

 

PVE: TOR

PVP: TOR

Timeline: TOR

Social Aspect: SWG (Due to more emotes, and other things. I'm sure TOR will develop them as time goes on)

Housing: SWG (Ship is cool, but no one can beat player owned cities and furniture)

Guild Feature: SWG (TOR is still a baby, so I'll wait to see as time goes on)

Quests: TOR

Story: TOR

Space Combat: SWG (Free roam beats tunnel shooter any day)

Music: TOR

 

This is just a hand full of things. There is more, but these are my personal favorites.

 

 

 

This guys sums it up nicely.

 

Also...i miss being a TK. Shoulda been a class option lol

 

 

I too am a vet of SWG. Mastered 28/32 professions to get my jedi...

still my all time favorite game...Sucks they ruined it.

RIP SWG

[wiggycat]

Things I liked about SWG:

 

Open Worlds to explore

Player Owned structures/towns

Space Combat/Ships

Crafting

Having to work to be a Jedi

Vehicles

Speech Bubbles

 

Things I like about ToR:

 

Conversations (voicing)

Flashpoints (If you can ever get in one)

 

Overall I thought SWG was a much better game, but doing ToR like they did was a super smart move on BioWares part. SWG required patience whereas ToR is instant gratification. (Light/Dark side comparison anyone?). Nobody today seems to have an attention span of more than 5 seconds so a SWG 2 would have failed. ToR will do well because it gives everyone what they want right away (Jedi, epic space battles, super snarky fighting moves ect...). I personally feel that epic games where it takes time to level and build your character are better, but my viewpoint is apparently only shared by a select few.

 

I will say this much in defense of ToR however; despite a number of features that a lot of people are complaining about, the game is pretty rock solid for a new release MMO. Definitely more so than SWG. Even many single player games when released have more bugs. Kudos to them for that.

 

It will be interesting to see what else may be added in future expansion packs, and what direction the game will take from there.

[Vandrel-Blitz]

5 year SWG vet, Europe Chimeara right here.

 

Simply thing is the following:

 

PVE: TOR

PVP: TOR

Timeline: TOR

Social Aspect: SWG (Due to more emotes, and other things. I'm sure TOR will develop them as time goes on)

Housing: SWG (Ship is cool, but no one can beat player owned cities and furniture)

Guild Feature: SWG (TOR is still a baby, so I'll wait to see as time goes on)

Quests: TOR

Story: TOR

Space Combat: SWG (Free roam beats tunnel shooter any day)

Music: TOR

 

This is just a hand full of things. There is more, but these are my personal favorites.

 

I agree in full

 

 

8 year SWG vet here

[Jeffor]

All things considered I would almost have to give the edge to SWG. TOR is new. THe graphics are better and there is more attention payed to PVE. That being said SWG had better PVP, better housing, better crafting, player driven economy, better planets to explore, the original skill-based system is better than the standard WoW model etc.

 

Don't get me wrong the SW nerd in my enjoys TOR but, face it, they are going for straight mass appeal which is, oddly enough, what killed SWG. SWG at least tried something new and took some chances. TOR is about as vanilla as it gets and that tends to be a turn off for me personally.

 

Also, how could you say that TOR music is better? They basically use the same music and the original music I've heard in the game is good but not superior to the film score where SWG music came from.

 

Just my 2c of course.

[BapaJones]

Excellent responses guys. This is exactly the sort of constructive discussion I was after. I realized I forgot to add my opinion on the two.

 

Things I liked better from SWG:

 

Free World Roaming (I'm not really a keep on the path kinda person)

Early Speeder Availability (I have limited play time each day. Running is a waste of my efforts).

Just About the Best Damn Crafting Model of Any Game (Tell me I'm wrong)

Player Driven Economy (Made it enjoyable to play a crafter)

Player Owned Housing/Ships (I can only hold so much swag in my inventory)

 

Things I like better in SWTOR:

 

Immersive Storylines with a True Star Wars Feel (this is one thing that was missing from SWG)

Obviously, Graphics/Detail (wonderful)

Different PVP options/war-zones (Although they need to work on some banding - new characters shouldn't be fighting fully-kitted 50's)

 

 

Just my humble opinions. This game is great though, and I am sure it will only continue to get better.

Edited January 12, 2012 by BapaJones

[snakeIL]

5 year SWG vet, Europe Chimeara right here.

 

Simply thing is the following:

 

PVE: TOR

PVP: TOR

Timeline: TOR

Social Aspect: SWG (Due to more emotes, and other things. I'm sure TOR will develop them as time goes on)

Housing: SWG (Ship is cool, but no one can beat player owned cities and furniture)

Guild Feature: SWG (TOR is still a baby, so I'll wait to see as time goes on)

Quests: TOR

Story: TOR

Space Combat: SWG (Free roam beats tunnel shooter any day)

Music: TOR

 

This is just a hand full of things. There is more, but these are my personal favorites.

 

I agree.

[TSCarter]

I'm not going to lie, I miss SWG(Pre CU). The leveling system in it and all.

 

 

If anyone made a SWG2 with upgraded graphics and such, and a player base. I'd play it in a heart beat.

 

 

 

I enjoyed the 1 player only rule per server, and the fact you can change factions/classes at any time.

 

 

I enjoyed the 'leveling' system as well. You gained your skill by doing that of your class.

 

 

 

The player cities and crafting were also very enjoyable for me. Sure, it got a bit excessive towards the end where outside of any major city, was a non stop array of houses/buildings.

 

 

The crafting system was fantastic as well. The fact that you could experiment with different types of materials for better stats.

 

It was nice to see a GREAT version of an item, and an EXTREMELY BAD version of it as well. Based off of experimentation and the materials used.

 

I remember when composite armor came out, there was a line of about 80 people lined up for 2 or so people who were handing them out.

 

 

I remember sitting on Corellia as a Master Doctor and charge $10k for buffs, and there was a line of people there waiting.

 

 

The PvP was decent, but the rest of the gameplay was fantastic.

[AyleenaDee]

I agree with most of you on the differences, but I would also add.

 

Better in SWG: Non-combat classes (entertainers). The only MMO I know of that had that.

 

Better in TOR: The combat and quest system. SWG, even in the pre CU days, was a lackluster combat system to say the least. The quest system was even worse. Of course, WoW did alot to re-invent how questing worked in MMO's, and that format is used in almost every game Ive played since.

[austringer]

The thing I really enjoyed about SWG crafting was the idea you had to survey for the materials, take samples and decide if it was worth dropping an extractor. To much work for most of these kids that are on here complaining.

[Benggal]

I'll be honest: I'm somewhat disappointed with TOR and have been since beta, so my opinions are coloured to a degree.

 

For me, the best aspects of SWG outshine the best aspects of TOR. As so many have mentioned already, the Space portion of SWG was amazing and I miss it sorely. I had had hopes that it would be revived ins ome form with TOR, but this "rails" shooter style completely deflated my enthusiasm. Even more so after discovering that higher-level space missions are just copies of the first missions with slightly harder enemies and objectives. Lazy!

 

The crafting system in SWG was also exemplary. Those who REALLY worked at it excelled above those who didn't, and that's how it should be. You were rewarded for putting effort into it, rather than in this game (and most other MMOs) where you send companions off to gather your materials for you and then have another companion craft it--and about 20 different items can be made from the same types (and often the same amounts!) of materials. Again, lazy!

 

The player housing in SWG was almost a game in itself. And it only began when you plunked down a house on a plot. Then you could decorate the interior! Move anything anywhere you wanted, find rare collectibles/weapons/oddities and display them proudly on your walls/floors/ceilings. And you could bar entry to your house(s), make it public, or even charge an entry fee. So much thought went into the player-owned housing in that game. I fondly remember my BH and his large naboo house full of exotic animals and a hand-built "waterfall". In this game you have your ship, which you can't do anything visually appealing with, and the cantina of your choice. Bleh.

 

TOR has decent voice acting...but once you've leveled through a large amount of content you realize that 1) a LOT of the voice acting is done by the same three people and 2) they tend to say essentially the same thing over and over (I can't count the number of times my Jedi said "It is both an honor and a duty to serve", despite what the text said on the choice I picked). The voice acting overall is a nice addition...but I feel too much time and money was spent on it that could have been better spent elsewhere in the game. SWG didn't have any at all, however, so this one's a win for TOR.

 

TOR's storyline missions are, for the most part, very fun. I believe I definitely enjoy questing more in this game than I did in SWG, and most of the quests do seem to "fit" more with your characters main agenda, but there are a LOT of quests that are essentially "collect 20 bear flanks"-type quests but are dressed up slightly so as not to come outright and state it.

 

The dungeons-er, Flashpoints, that I've experienced thus far, and that number is admittedly small, have been fairly enjoyable. Having the characters roll for dialogue choices is a new and interesting mechanic (though I don't think you should be rewarded double points just because you lucked out on the roll) and the stories are entertaining enough. I don't even remember grouping up for anything in SWG that wasn't PvP related, so I'd have to award this one to TOR as well.

 

Community, thus far, is a push as far as I'm concerned. There were plenty of bad apples in SWG, but I usually fell in with a group of nice people who enjoyed helping each other out and focused on having fun playing the game. I'm sure the same will happen here, but thus far it's been about a 70:30 ratio of good encounters versus bad. I would really like to see a tutorial implemented that showed people new to MMO's what "Need before Greed" means, for one thing. Being told "Well I needed it because I need the money from selling it" sours one on grouping with strangers. Also, General chat in some areas is quickly becoming Barrens chat 2.0.

 

Graphics are indeed better than SWG, but I'm not terribly happy with the art direction, nor the fact that though the graphics in this game are far from the top tier of complexity, they still tax even high-end systems at times. I'm not sure enough optimization passes were done. I have a middle-high-end system and turned graphics down to the mid-point at the start (below recommended) just because I was more concerned about smooth gameplay than choppy slideshows...and still my system hiccups more than occasionally. If I play for more than a couple of hours at a time things get dismal indeed, and a crash is generally on the horizon. There are still memory leaks to be plugged.

 

And then...bugs. Sure, EVERY MMO has bugs at launch, so TOR was bound to be no exception. But some of the bugs were so painfully obvious it's more than a little disconcerting that they weren't fixed during beta. Cutscene bugs (tiny Satele, T2's stationary third leg, etc.) abound, and while they are minor when compared to gameplay bugs, they are no less annoying in that they really take you out of the immersion. I reported several of these during the beta, and I noted that not one of the ones I had reported had been rectified. I doubt I was the only one to have pointed them out.

 

Being stuck in various bits of landscape for no good reason, being crippled in a fight because certain abilities suddenly decide not to work, CTD's, etc....all of these are to be expected and are common in any MMO. But I think a triple-A title like this one should have been a bit "cleaner" at launch, certainly if they are charging a monthly fee when so many other MMO's are either adopting the F2P method or will be starting off that way. This is not an "I'm paying good money so you better fix it!" statement. It's just an observation on what being a top-notch MMO title should aspire to.

 

Speaking of MMO's, that's one more thing I need to be critical about: The bulk of the time this does not feel like an MMO. It has more of a KOTOR 3 with multiplayer tacked on as an afterthought to me. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as I DO enjoy this game (despite my grievances). I just rarely see the need to group or even be social. Between levels 30 and 50, for example, there was never more than 5 people on the planet I was questing on, even during peak hours. The "LFG" spam that plagued General chat in early levels cut off quite abruptly and was replaced with thundering silence. I can deal with that for the most part, but given that I'm now at level 50 and the only things I CAN do are either grind dailies (YUCK) or try to find a group for one of the Flashpoints.--in which case I usually spend 2 hours docked at Carrick looking for a group before logging off in disgust or to an alt with a sigh of resignment--things need improvement.

 

Oh, and the "hearth" system in this game is amazing, but it HAS to be amazing given that, though most of the planets are huge, they are largely full of nothing in-between quest hubs, which adds up to hours of pointless travel time. Don't even get me started on what a horrible, horrible planet Corellia is to try to get around in. I realize there's a war going on and everything, but having to go 3 1/2 sides along a rectangle, get dismounted going through a largish building, then going another 3 1/2 sides along a larger rectangle to get from the quest hub to where you need to quest is agonizing.

 

Please take all of this with a grain of salt. I really, really wanted this game to be fantastic and amazing and better than anything else out there. I just truly don't think it is any of those things yet, though it could be. There is, however, a LOT of work to be done.

 

I also fear I may have strayed somewhat from the original topic of this thread. Chalk it up to my passion for good games. Erm, okay, TL;DR version:

 

SWG best in space, crafting and housing.

TOR best in Voice acting (kinda), storyline and Graphics.

 

I think overall I felt more like I was in a Star Wars universe in SWG than I do here in TOR. Probably just because it was more of an open fully-explorable world and there were so many "landmarks" to discover and patches of landscape where you just thought to yourself "I am IN this world!"

[LarekGunstar]

5 year SWG vet, Europe Chimeara right here.

 

Simply thing is the following:

 

PVE: TOR

PVP: TOR

Timeline: TOR

Social Aspect: SWG (Due to more emotes, and other things. I'm sure TOR will develop them as time goes on)

Housing: SWG (Ship is cool, but no one can beat player owned cities and furniture)

Guild Feature: SWG (TOR is still a baby, so I'll wait to see as time goes on)

Quests: TOR

Story: TOR

Space Combat: SWG (Free roam beats tunnel shooter any day)

Music: TOR

 

This is just a hand full of things. There is more, but these are my personal favorites.

 

I absolutely miss the player owned cities, houses you could customize and bring other players to, and surveying/placing your own equipment to gather resources. I think those features were incredible and really hope they are incorporated into SWTOR at some point.

[Riji]

I agree with most of you on the differences, but I would also add.

 

Better in SWG: Non-combat classes (entertainers). The only MMO I know of that had that.

 

Better in TOR: The combat and quest system. SWG, even in the pre CU days, was a lackluster combat system to say the least. The quest system was even worse. Of course, WoW did alot to re-invent how questing worked in MMO's, and that format is used in almost every game Ive played since.

 

I agree with you fully as well. Non-Combat classes were amazing to have around. It not only added a relaxing class people could use who weren't interested in combat, but added a class that throws in an entire new scenario of RP. Entertainers back in SWG were many things. In TOR, it'd be much better.

[kaoticdrake]

A lot of people have said a lot of good things comparing both games. I'm actually surprised this didn't turn into a flame war yet to be honest. As most people that I know are still PISSED that SWG devolved and was destroyed by what happened to it.

 

As for my personal outlook:

 

- Crafting: TOR could learn from SWG but it shouldn't change too much. I like being able to send out my companions when I'm not online, in fact I think they should expand on that using current technology to allow me to have them do stuff via a phone app or something. Sure it's not really rewarding you for effort at the moment as much as SWG was, and I think they should change some of that, but it's a different ballgame with a less open game like this.

- Combat: TOR wins hands down. SWG had abysmal combat from my perspective.

- Open World: That isn't how Bioware does games so I understand that it's not SWG open world. I really think we shouldn't even be comparing these two games because the two developing companies in charge have a whole different way of making games.

- Multiplayer: SWG was a lot more fun in terms of player created stuff and player interaction (thus far) BUT you didn't need to group up for anything other than PvP, ever. I've ran into quite a few situations in TOR where I couldn't get further without grouping up.

- Graphics: Let's just leave this one to what everyone already said.

 

All in all, like I said when talking about Open World. My personal belief is that we shouldn't compare the games. Sure they're both MMOs and they're both in the Star Wars galaxy, but honestly they're entirely different. They don't have similar goals at all, as evidenced by their styles of gameplay. To me, TOR feels like a game trying to stay true to the Star Wars vision created by George in that it's about telling a story with dynamic characters, one that YOU are involved in now. It is YOUR dynamic story. SWG was all about playing in the sandbox that George created, it wasn't about being dynamic or story. It was about the sandbox.

 

Just my 2c though.

[Cegenaus]

sandbox/themepark - SWG

open world PvP- SWG

warzones- SWTOR

player housing/ decoration- SWG

classes- SWG (pre-cu)

space- sucks

questing/instances- SWTOR

crafting- SWG

chat- SWG

forums- SWG

 

6 year vet from naritus/scylla btw

Edited January 13, 2012 by Cegenaus

[Cegenaus]

accidentally hit quote instead of edit Edited January 13, 2012 by Cegenaus

[Riho]

Player cities, player owned bases(that could be destroyed), player city shuttleports, the best crafting system that a MMO has ever seen.

 

Would be nice to see some of these things 'migrated' into SWTOR but it's not going to happen, they're sticking with the WoW model for now. Heck, we can't even get server forums..

[firequill]

Player housing:

 

Swg: cool, but utterly destroyed the scenery, it was ok in the beginning, but just got insane.

 

Swtor:

If anyone remembers anarchy online, swtor can do the same thing, namely add apartments.

All the coolness of a home you can furnish, none of the clutter.

 

 

 

Crafting in swg was awesome and was made to be a viable way to spend the entirety of your gametime doing from the get go.

however, without a playerbased economy and no item-damage makes all hope for such things in swtor a lost cause.

It was never planned for in swtor, but a fun thing to do on the side while you level.

thats ok too for me.

 

swg had huge resources devoted solely to keep crafting exploits and imbalances in line, so much they had to redo the game engines database system to cope at one time..

( 90% composite armor anyone?) a sort of y2k syndrome.

It delayed development on planned features on more than one occasion.

 

 

 

In swg, You created the content, and if you tried to go lonewolf, you'd be bored to tears with pretty much nothing to do.

Community was everything.

there were excuses and reasons for Roleplaying everywhere, and that's what most folks did.

 

Don't get me wrong though, swg had a fair share of FOTM-whiners and exploiters, in all sorts of ugly ways, makes these forums seem peaceful in comparison.

 

i remember the dreaded TK/combat medic with sliced 90% composite armor being pretty much everywhere for a while and "usuck" unless you did the same.. lol.

 

I went master rifleman, donned my stormtrooper armor,rolled around tatooine with an at-st and my homeboy squad of troopers in tow and just patted down people with cavity searches when i was bored.

 

a whole new meaning to player harassment

 

 

Sorry for the nostalgia.

that game is gone, the memories live on, but i hope i never have to experience the horror of that game's lifespan again.

[Lexlo]

TOR has its irritating oversights and bugs, but at least its playable. It's 10x more Star Wars(y) than Galaxies ever was.

[lenzio]

sandbox> linear gameplay

old rep era> GCW era

 

^ This

[Arch-Mothmon]

How anyone who played early SWG can say that TOR PvP is anywhere near the level as SWG is beyond me.

 

 

SWG is/was better in every single aspect except single player story mode. Better crafting, better graphics (even back in 2003), better social gaming, better classes, better fighting, better npc's, better housing, better worlds, better emotes, better loot...just better.