SWTOR vs SWG

[BlazingShadow]

SWG was lovely, even post-NGE. I miss it very much.

[Zekkau]

Intersting why are you not playng now swtor ? in my swg time i mean swg no nge i never used the board for nothing in years zero thread zero reply but you still here lol

 

Huh? I've been playing SWTOR since Beta, and since Early Access...

 

The forums here really aren't worth anything, they are exactly like every other MMO that has ever existed, full of whining and complaints.

 

I like to come on here to see the constructive things, and to maybe try to contribute some ideas to discussions, but I spend the vast majority of my time in game.

 

Currently I have 1 level 50, 1 Level 28, 1 Level 19, 1 Level 18, 2 Level 10s and a Level 1...

I'm trying to get my level 28 up, but I'm playing him casually and enjoying the storyline.

 

I don't play my level 50 as much except for raids and the occasional PvP, but the PvP is frustrating at the moment since all rewards require winning a game, and I'm on a server where the Republic is typically outnumbered 2:1 most of the time. I'll PvP a lot more once 1.2 comes out and I can join guildies in an 8 man group and don't have to focus so intensely on winning, but just having fun.

Edited April 5, 2012 by Zekkau

[sambeta]

What I'd love to see in TOR is reformed space combat (PVP in some form) a greater use of the community and something other than just grinding. I love MMOs and games that immerse you in the world.

 

TOR to me feels empty despite being on the red eclipse server. I'd love it if you could build your own palace as a sith or at least build a home hub other that the fleet. I don't want to replay the same FPs over and over and wait for people to group with.

 

In all honestly the game as it is now feels more like a single player with a few people along for the ride. I'm hopeful that they'll build upon what they have already but my faith in bioware isn't all that strong at the moment.

 

I'm also not so sure about this legacy system but time will tell.

 

They also need to start merging servers and allowing character imports over servers. I've got 5 characters on Dxun Circle (void of all life past level 30) and I'd love to use them on the Red Eclipse server.

Edited April 5, 2012 by sambeta

[LemmingLeader]

bloodfin

 

You PvP maniacs of old school Bloodfin server

 

I was an Ahazi player.

[rickyard]

Did either of you play the same SWG I played ? hrmmi belive my first quest was on tsarni station go to mine and kill X . I land on Tat Quest for speeder. Go pick up these parts at this waypoint click and come back. Fast Forward to legacy Jabba's place go kill X and Y and come back ! Hey lets do Heroics ok Go kill IG88 X times for this many tokens along with 3 other instances to get one peice of heroic jewlry and you can only do it once a day. Hrmm ok.

 

Lets try pvp in swg goto restuss. Goto rep/imp base pick up pvp quest kill 5 imp players kill 20 npcs and destroy antenna wow omg that is soooooo original.

 

OMG NO WAY Invasions goto city invasion craft X and Y for defenses then omg wait for it here it comes something new and never done before yes its Kill X and Y to win the invasion.

 

All NGE thats all I played from about 04-10 ! But lets see pre-nge go kill random spawns X and Y for hours to get skill points train and go back and kill more. grind random classes for jedi doing what ? Killing X and Y random spawns ? Oh ya.

 

Now tell me how any of that is different then this game ? Oh wait you can randomly roam around in swg more then you can on this game. Oh dont forget decorating lol. Crafting yes I give swg crafting it was great Seriously. You could monopolize entire spawns that happend once every year and screw new crafters.

 

Sorry take the rose colored glasses off and see swg for what it was !

 

In SWG I NEVER did nothing that you explain here. First time I played i had an entertainer, my first class missions were to go to a place to learn the basics of dancing, then dance in another place to learn some new movements that did buff better our comrades, then try to use your aesthetic skills to learn new hairstyles that your comrades KILLED to have... That's exactly what made SWG great, you could do all that shooting that you have said, but if you wanted you DIDN'T HAVE TO. So, as you had an experience similar to SWTOR, we could conclude that SWG has SWTOR xperience plus all the other things you were able to do, so it was bigger, and didn't had an END. AND i have only talked about the entertainer class. There were much more classes that didn't need to fight or kill x as you say. BUT if you wanted, you could be the serial killer you dream to be.

[rickyard]

I think the main difference was in endgame. There was no such concept in SWG. Because the idea of being storydriven makes the game very immersive but when you put such efforts in story you realiza that stories have a THE END entitled. That's why MMO's SHOULD BE sandboxes, because the main object of an MMO is to last for years, and the main goal is to have something to do always. If you are always depending on developers to have something to do or to have fun, you will always be playing more quickly than they are creating new content, so you ALWAYS will have times when there's nothing to do. With a sandbox you got tools to do whatever you want. What I find is TOR is a great game, has great graphics and voice acting is superb, but i feel like this features are not suitable for a RPG. Some examples, if you got wonderful graphics in starcraft 2, there's no problem, but the MAIN idea for this kind of game is to be STRATEGICALLY CHALLENGING. So that's why you can still see cheap copies of STARCRAFT ONE, the first one, in videogaming stores, because they did a great game, that you still feel like playing no matter the years. Returning to our SW games, i feel that the approach of a sandbox is better suited to keep playing after a couple of months, it allows you to use imagination.

 

My experience in SWG in all the years I played

 

-Begin with a Mon Cal spy, do a lot of hardcore fighting, kill x, destroy x... then having a spaceship... then earning an x-wing... then do some mechanical progress... then try to obtain a better engine for my x-wing. Commercing with crafters to obtain better spacesuit.

 

- Tired of being a pilot-spy i tried an entertainer. Learn dancing, even didn't need to have a blaster, i used to buff people in Mos Eisley cantina, they pay me and i use the money to obtain wonderful new hairstyles to be done on characters that paid me... then obtained a wonderful slave dress that made my twilek dancer stand above everyone. Then bought an speeder. Then bought a house and commerce with other players to obtain furnitures. Resuming: Nothing similar to my first approach to the game.

 

- Third reroll, i am wookie crafter, using my ability to search for ore and minerals i begin to earn credits. After hard working, I manage to buy some harvesters and begin to design great pieces of robes and pants that sell really well in my own store, where i placed a droid to attend my costumers while i did harvesting and crafting...

 

 

And so on... all those things made me forget even i had some class quest.

Of course quests were not all kill x. but it didn't even matter, you had many things to do other than do quests.

 

SO: THERE WAS NO END GAME CONTENT because the game was NEVER ENDING

 

That's how a game can last years.

[Aximand]

In this thread, disgruntled SWG veterans complain about how TOR isn't exactly like SWG.

 

If you don't like the game, don't play. We won't miss you.

[sambeta]

In this thread, disgruntled SWG veterans complain about how TOR isn't exactly like SWG.

 

If you don't like the game, don't play. We won't miss you.

 

That's such a bad attitude. It's not like people can just go back and play SWG again. We're all star wars fans here and it's a star wars game... It just doesn't quite live up to what was expected. I think a lot of people were expecting it to be a step forward. Hopefully with time it will expand and use the community it has to become more immersive. At the moment it just doesn't do that.

[Aximand]

That's such a bad attitude. It's not like people can just go back and play SWG again. We're all star wars fans here and it's a star wars game... It just doesn't quite live up to what was expected. I think a lot of people were expecting it to be a step forward. Hopefully with time it will expand and use the community it has to become more immersive. At the moment it just doesn't do that.

 

It doesn't live up to what they expected, but its exactly as it was advertised. Its not BioWare's fault that so many old SWG players had a pipe dream concerning how this game would be.

[rickyard]

That's such a bad attitude. It's not like people can just go back and play SWG again. We're all star wars fans here and it's a star wars game... It just doesn't quite live up to what was expected. I think a lot of people were expecting it to be a step forward. Hopefully with time it will expand and use the community it has to become more immersive. At the moment it just doesn't do that.

 

Couldn't agree more. Technically TOR is a step forward, that's all. You have included aestetics features and have get rid of gameplay features. Was it worth?

[sambeta]

It doesn't live up to what they expected, but its exactly as it was advertised. Its not BioWare's fault that so many old SWG players had a pipe dream concerning how this game would be.

 

It was expected to be a step forward, not more of the same. I know when I saw this game talked about MANY years ago (just after KOTOR) would be like. Instead we get a dated space combat system that belongs in an old arcade and a class quest that may as well make the game a single player. The Empire story lines are the only stories that are great from the start, fit star wars lore and also give you early reference to KOTOR. I've got three toons on the rep side (guardian, shadow and commando) and honestly they're all very boring stories that don't give much reference to the previous setting. Not to mention that the NPC's hold most of the power in terms of items.

 

The only way to make money in game aside from grinding is the galactic trade market? Really? Ebay in game?

 

This thread is more of a thing of nostalgia, people are remembering what they loved about a dead game. SWG wasn't perfect much like TOR. But it grew because of the fan base and community it had. It died because of sony and lucasarts screwing with the formula and not fixing things.

 

Hopefully bioware focuses more on fixing things and slowly grow outwards.

Edited April 6, 2012 by sambeta

[jarjarloves]

I think the main difference was in endgame. There was no such concept in SWG. Because the idea of being storydriven makes the game very immersive but when you put such efforts in story you realiza that stories have a THE END entitled. That's why MMO's SHOULD BE sandboxes, because the main object of an MMO is to last for years, and the main goal is to have something to do always. If you are always depending on developers to have something to do or to have fun, you will always be playing more quickly than they are creating new content, so you ALWAYS will have times when there's nothing to do. With a sandbox you got tools to do whatever you want. What I find is TOR is a great game, has great graphics and voice acting is superb, but i feel like this features are not suitable for a RPG. Some examples, if you got wonderful graphics in starcraft 2, there's no problem, but the MAIN idea for this kind of game is to be STRATEGICALLY CHALLENGING. So that's why you can still see cheap copies of STARCRAFT ONE, the first one, in videogaming stores, because they did a great game, that you still feel like playing no matter the years. Returning to our SW games, i feel that the approach of a sandbox is better suited to keep playing after a couple of months, it allows you to use imagination.

 

My experience in SWG in all the years I played

 

-Begin with a Mon Cal spy, do a lot of hardcore fighting, kill x, destroy x... then having a spaceship... then earning an x-wing... then do some mechanical progress... then try to obtain a better engine for my x-wing. Commercing with crafters to obtain better spacesuit.

 

- Tired of being a pilot-spy i tried an entertainer. Learn dancing, even didn't need to have a blaster, i used to buff people in Mos Eisley cantina, they pay me and i use the money to obtain wonderful new hairstyles to be done on characters that paid me... then obtained a wonderful slave dress that made my twilek dancer stand above everyone. Then bought an speeder. Then bought a house and commerce with other players to obtain furnitures. Resuming: Nothing similar to my first approach to the game.

 

- Third reroll, i am wookie crafter, using my ability to search for ore and minerals i begin to earn credits. After hard working, I manage to buy some harvesters and begin to design great pieces of robes and pants that sell really well in my own store, where i placed a droid to attend my costumers while i did harvesting and crafting...

 

 

And so on... all those things made me forget even i had some class quest.

Of course quests were not all kill x. but it didn't even matter, you had many things to do other than do quests.

 

SO: THERE WAS NO END GAME CONTENT because the game was NEVER ENDING

 

That's how a game can last years.

no sandbox MMOs are a niche for a reason.

 

as much as you might not to hear it SWG was FAILING hard long before the NGE and CU

 

It was bleeding subs at a rate of 10k a month

[rickyard]

no sandbox MMOs are a niche for a reason.

 

as much as you might not to hear it SWG was FAILING hard long before the NGE and CU

 

It was bleeding subs at a rate of 10k a month

 

And what is you opinion about my explanation? Do you think a game that needs stories that need update constantly are better suited to last years? How many exciting and original stories can you create per month to have everyone waiting for next upgrade? After Legacy, what else?

So, what would you do? keep this way? would you change anything to the game?

If you don't, let me guess why you pay monthly.

instead of giving numbers of a 12 years old game you can explain why you think all sandboxes are niches.

The Sims is a sandbox, and it is the most sold videogame ever. And you can find still stores where you can purchase. And it was so well done that even didn't need upgrades (althought it had), why? because PEOPLE created their own contents. Because it allowed you to do WHATEVER you wanted. Because you had freedom to create yout own story, so replaying it a hundred times was a pleasure. Anyway sims online was a failure, does it means it was a bad game?

[Recnal]

I would drop SWTOR so fast if SWG - post NGE SWG even - came out again - and I despise SOE whereas I love Bioware. Yes, SWTOR's graphics and story line are amazing - much better than SWGs - I admit it. But, I like to craft. I came from SWG way of crafting - it was my first MMO. Crafting here in SWTOR is so amazingly bad, the auction hall, i mean, the galactic trading system was so poorly designed I'm surprized people have actually figured it out, and when you craft in SWTOR you aren't doing it - your crew is. and you have to pay them to do it. I know, I know, TANSTAAFL, but still...

 

Gods, I miss SWG crafting. prospecting for resources. setting up harvesters, experimenting with schematics, planning factory runs, putting up vendors in actual housing and having people come from all over the server to buy your pet food as it's the best on the server.

 

Now I'm depressed. So depressed that I'm going to go to work early and stay late.

[jarjarloves]

And what is you opinion about my explanation? Do you think a game that needs stories that need update constantly are better suited to last years? How many exciting and original stories can you create per month to have everyone waiting for next upgrade? After Legacy, what else?

So, what would you do? keep this way? would you change anything to the game?

If you don't, let me guess why you pay monthly.

instead of giving numbers of a 12 years old game you can explain why you think all sandboxes are niches.

The Sims is a sandbox, and it is the most sold videogame ever. And you can find still stores where you can purchase. And it was so well done that even didn't need upgrades (althought it had), why? because PEOPLE created their own contents. Because it allowed you to do WHATEVER you wanted. Because you had freedom to create yout own story, so replaying it a hundred times was a pleasure. Anyway sims online was a failure, does it means it was a bad game?

 

The sims is a sandbox..... with expansions added on a regular basis because it constantly needs new content. Of course it also has stories and plot.

 

The topic is of course Sandbox MMOs so back on topic

 

Look at all the sandbox MMOs that have come out. Darkfall, Sims Online, SWG, Shadowbane, EVE. All of them are niche games. EVE having the hishgest population but still a niche.

 

Clearly the games that need story and constant update DO last the longest. EQ and WoW are the two of the longest running MMOs both of which are story driven and have expansions added on a regular basis (Ok wow is a little slow but EQ has added at LEAST 1 expansion every year)

 

So yeah the succesful MMOs are the story driven (the term story driven has changed with SWTOR but the old MMOs are still primarly story driven) with the constant need for new content. While the vast majority of sandbox mmos are complete and utter failures.

 

Oh and yes SIms Online was a bad game.

[jarjarloves]

I would drop SWTOR so fast if SWG - post NGE SWG even - came out again - and I despise SOE whereas I love Bioware. Yes, SWTOR's graphics and story line are amazing - much better than SWGs - I admit it. But, I like to craft. I came from SWG way of crafting - it was my first MMO. Crafting here in SWTOR is so amazingly bad, the auction hall, i mean, the galactic trading system was so poorly designed I'm surprized people have actually figured it out, and when you craft in SWTOR you aren't doing it - your crew is. and you have to pay them to do it. I know, I know, TANSTAAFL, but still...

 

Gods, I miss SWG crafting. prospecting for resources. setting up harvesters, experimenting with schematics, planning factory runs, putting up vendors in actual housing and having people come from all over the server to buy your pet food as it's the best on the server.

 

Now I'm depressed. So depressed that I'm going to go to work early and stay late.

 

it is out go google SWG EMU

[Bluerodian]

it is out go google SWG EMU

 

Broken and far more incomplete than the live game could have ever hoped to have been. It's a good effort, but not a suitable replacement.

Edited April 6, 2012 by Bluerodian

[jarjarloves]

Broken and far more incomplete than the live game could have ever hoped to have been. It's a good effort, but not a suitable replacement.

 

so its' just like SWG at launch

[mattgyver]

so its' just like SWG at launch

 

It's only in Alpha atm. Too soon to see what full build will be like

[mattgyver]

The sims is a sandbox..... with expansions added on a regular basis because it constantly needs new content. Of course it also has stories and plot.

 

The topic is of course Sandbox MMOs so back on topic

 

Look at all the sandbox MMOs that have come out. Darkfall, Sims Online, SWG, Shadowbane, EVE. All of them are niche games. EVE having the hishgest population but still a niche.

 

Clearly the games that need story and constant update DO last the longest. EQ and WoW are the two of the longest running MMOs both of which are story driven and have expansions added on a regular basis (Ok wow is a little slow but EQ has added at LEAST 1 expansion every year)

 

So yeah the succesful MMOs are the story driven (the term story driven has changed with SWTOR but the old MMOs are still primarly story driven) with the constant need for new content. While the vast majority of sandbox mmos are complete and utter failures.

 

Oh and yes SIms Online was a bad game.

 

you might want to take a look at how many theme park games have failed as well. The big names are still there but a lot of theme park games have died as well. There is a rate of attrition that applies globally to the genre.

[xXJayeDubXx]

Yes, everyone go play the SWG EMU and then maybe the rose colored glasses will come off and you will realize just how bad the game was back in the day. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the heck out of SWG and sunk a lot of hours into the game, but it was not a good game at all.

[mattgyver]

Yes, everyone go play the SWG EMU and then maybe the rose colored glasses will come off and you will realize just how bad the game was back in the day. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the heck out of SWG and sunk a lot of hours into the game, but it was not a good game at all.

 

Having played recently on the EMU I can tell you that the combat and UI will shock you with their slow, clunky badness. You have to tweak the UI just to make the game playable, and the combat que will cause drool to come out of your mouth (and not in a good way). Textures are pretty bad but you can go really high with the screen resolutions.

The gear is restrictive compared to modern games, so it's really about static gear that has to be crafted and has decay (no appearance tab).

 

BUT

 

when you take off across that big open world you will probably be pissed. I say this because the instant comparison to the worlds of SWTOR is like a kick in the nuts. There is weather, day/night, old but realistic art design, and the pathing is totally open. There are also sounds and music out in the world. There are seperate cities in the world that lok like their own viable entities, not just a poorly disguised hub. World design and activities were where old SWG soared.

[jarjarloves]

you might want to take a look at how many theme park games have failed as well. The big names are still there but a lot of theme park games have died as well. There is a rate of attrition that applies globally to the genre.

 

oh I completely agree there are a ton of theme park MMOs that failed however you need to take a look at a few things such as

 

 

Percentage of failure. The percentage of Sandbox mmo failures is much higher

 

Percentage of success The percentage of Theme park MMOs is much higher

 

Level of success - no sandbox MMOs have ever come close to the success of even Everquest 1

 

Length of success - again no Sandbox MMO has ever lasted as long as Everquest or Ultima Online.

 

Initial sales - Theme park MMOs seem to always have a really high initial sale. We have never really seen that with Sandbox MMOs.

 

 

Most Theme park MMOs fail due to them being rushed out so they have high initial sales and then fail because the game isn't finished.

[mattgyver]

oh I completely agree there are a ton of theme park MMOs that failed however you need to take a look at a few things such as

 

 

Percentage of failure. The percentage of Sandbox mmo failures is much higher

 

Percentage of success The percentage of Theme park MMOs is much higher

 

Level of success - no sandbox MMOs have ever come close to the success of even Everquest 1

 

Length of success - again no Sandbox MMO has ever lasted as long as Everquest or Ultima Online.

 

Initial sales - Theme park MMOs seem to always have a really high initial sale. We have never really seen that with Sandbox MMOs.

 

Most Theme park MMOs fail due to them being rushed out so they have high initial sales and then fail because the game isn't finished.

 

Well I agree with what you are saying about the overall trend, but it does diffuse the equation a bit if you consider all games in market. Theme Parks throw off the mean because WoW was able to tap mainstream players.

Not sure what you mean about failing because they are not finished, if the quests are in a theme park how is it not finished?

 

Don't most theme parks allow you to repeat quests as well? That is another thing about SWTOR that limits it compared to other games. The only way to redo many of the quests is to make an alt. The heroics are repeatable, but the regular quests are not to my knowledge. So if you want to do a quest with a friend there is no mentor system, nor repeatablility to staple quests. So even considering regular theme parks you have design issues.

 

Finally, SWG became a theme park. Almost all new content after a certain point was Theme Park content. Because this invalidates the Theme Park = success argument, I have to conclude that there is a generalization fallacy at work here.

Also a straw man in the form of the SWG failed so that design must be doomed to failure, so we must not use its features even though some of those features are being requested by some customers.

[jarjarloves]

Well I agree with what you are saying about the overall trend, but it does diffuse the equation a bit if you consider all games in market. Theme Parks throw off the mean because WoW was able to tap mainstream players.

Not sure what you mean about failing because they are not finished, if the quests are in a theme park how is it not finished?

 

Don't most theme parks allow you to repeat quests as well? That is another thing about SWTOR that limits it compared to other games. The only way to redo many of the quests is to make an alt. The heroics are repeatable, but the regular quests are not to my knowledge. So if you want to do a quest with a friend there is no mentor system, nor repeatablility to staple quests. So even considering regular theme parks you have design issues.

 

Finally, SWG became a theme park. Almost all new content after a certain point was Theme Park content. Because this invalidates the Theme Park = success argument, I have to conclude that there is a generalization fallacy at work here.

Also a straw man in the form of the SWG failed so that design must be doomed to failure, so we must not use its features even though some of those features are being requested by some customers.

 

I'm talking about games like WAR, AoC, Tabula Rasa ie the theme park mmos that where released and they are broken badly on day 1.

 

 

lets take a look at AoC.

 

 

that is a little montage of bugs that where in game 3 months after launch.

 

Throw in other game breaking bugs like members of the opposite team being completely untargetable in PVP (this bug stayed in for almost 4 months after launch) and you start to see why it failed PVP bugs are a big problem in a game that is PVP based.

 

 

Add in the fact the game completley changes after level 20. It went from having a pretty polished level 1-20 to completely broken 20-80 experience. After level 20 they had 0 voice overs and the quests all consisted of go kill 30 of these guys then come back.

 

 

That is what I am refering to as unfinished. Now AoC in its current state is pretty good. If it had launched in its current state it would have done much much better.

 

 

As for themepark MMOs I can't think of a single one that allows you to repeat quests. True there is no mentoring system but very few mmos have one and those that do tend not to have one at Launch. I haven't played WoW in years but I'm pretty sure it doesn't have a mentoring system.

 

But again more quests is something that is added in content updates and expansions.

 

 

I agree completely that SWG became a themepark but it in no way invalidates themepark = success (thats not the arguement i'm making anyway so not sure where you are getting that from)

 

SWG failed at a themepark MMO (well it did do better overall as a themepark MMO it had more subscirbers) but anyway it failed because they changed it

 

1. 3 weeks after releasing a major paid expansion pack without telling anyone.

 

2. They completely changed the game after launch. That was the stupidest idea ever especially with a game people are paying for.

 

No game could survive that not even WoW. Can you imagine if Blizz said.

 

"ok WoW is now going to become a Turn Based MMO and we are going from 10 races and 15 classes to 4 races and 6 classes"

 

People would riot. I honestly think Blizzard would be burned to the ground.