For the millionth time, why so many players here say this is a single player game

What, you didn't enjoy that trip for the 150th time? To WoW's benefit I have to say that I much rather watched the loading screen when changing continent that wait 15 minutes for the ship to travel...

Some of the later planets are really quite large. ie. Belsavis which is really quite huge but of course it has subzones so people can still complain about it.

I agree, the lack of a seamless persistent world totally murders the MMO aspect of this game. As of right now it's like a singleplayer game with multiplayer aspects and social lobbies. I'm willing to tolerate that for a while, but if there are ever significant changes to the few things I am enjoying I will definitely seek out a new MMO.

Good post. I am not as bothered by this phenomenon as some people, but I understand where they're coming from. I get most of my MMO on in chat and instances anyways, being able to find a quiet place on my own ship or not having 50 guys fighting over the same spawn is a worthy sacrifice in my book.

However, this is a valid complaint if this is the sort of thing you like. Indeed, it's why many people stay locked in to MMOs. They love the persistent world's they are set in.

They are idiots.

So you should be able to walk up to a mountain pass, walk through, and BAM be on a different planet?

Tbh it kind of annoys me that people say this is a single player game. I certainly would not pay a monthly fee for that. I could go play Skyrim which has a one off payment and then I have a ton of single player story to shift through. SWTOR is a story driven MMO which means it values an individual's story but that doesn't mean its a single player game.

Good point from the OP.

Not true. Exhaustion exists in WoW too. Also huge mountain ranges that block your way.

Right, you only mention starting planets and cityscapes.. Try Alderaan, Hoth, Belsavis (which is huge) and Voss.

Guess you could try to use your escape pod when you orbiting a planet... I rather have my own ship with companions and interesting visitors than wait for glorified interplanetary buss for 5 minutes with other rabble.

This is the reason why no one has ever read the WoW quest texts but you are right about grinding. It does feel that since they have no meaning and no continuity.

Yes, it's called storyline. But you can skip that and just hop in the planet and start grinding mobs since that seems to be your thing. Or you can just sit in fleet and do flashpoints until you are level 50. (yes, you need to get past the quick ship getting part which takes at least as long as WoW's starting zones. ... ...)

I have alt that has been leveling solely on space missions since they are fast to throw in between rl stuff. Takes like 5 minutes and then back to doing something else than gaming. It's not fast leveling but it's just alt and I still find space combat for some strange reason relatively entertaining.

that used to give me time to go to the bathroom or do some sit ups. Maybe check my email.

And MULTITUDES of people had the same complaints about those games so what's your point? Actually so many people had those complaints that Warhammer is almost completely dead and AoC had to go free to play. Ever Quest, Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online and Asherons call all had like 6-7 consecutive subscription based years and they are all still in service after nearly 10 years. They all went for big open world and immersion as much as the technology of the time would allow. Every game YOU mentioned is WoW or post-WoW which is exactly what we've been saying, that games post WoW have gotten off the original MMO track. MMOs have a HUGE failure rate post-WoW and there are more people playing the MMO genre than ever.

Why are they failing? Because they aren't offering anything someone couldn't get in a single player RPG like Skyrim or Fable 3 or KotOR, EXCEPT: A monthly fee and a chat full of hundres of people. Games like Dungeon Siege and NWN offered multiplayer group questing. So LFD windows and 4-whatever man instanced raids do not offer significantly more than a game like DS or NWN.

How much attention you can get in chat does not make it massively multiplayer. Sharing the the actual world with thousands of people does.

The most unbelievable, unMMOish thing to ever defile this genre are multiple instances of the same town/area. The fact that a game like LotRO breaks up Breetown into various instances of the entire town on the same server is blasphemey to the genre.

People have some really strange ideas of what an MMO is, clearly only based upon playing WoW.

The jumpgates in EVE would no doubt drive them nuts. Particularly if jumping into a busy sector.
And no game has successfully ever done that without massive lag, both latency & GPU to the extent of it being a slide show. EVE, WoW, LOTRO, all of them when you get more than about 100-150 people in the exact same area, they all drop off dramatically in actual playability. Go ask the fleet players in EVE, the only MMO where you can PvP in the thousands, about their experiences.