This game could learn from SWG

Multicrew vehicles I've got nothing against personally. Battle pets however, yeah I'd outright stop PvEing and PvPing cause of those. Just ruins the experience for me. That'd have a high probability of having me unsub, and just go f2p to check out the continued class story of my 50s.

I'm not sure that pet battle is any different than companion assist, but I digress. I think personally that when people think SWG and the features that made it great pet battles is not at the top of the list.

Open space, gear customization, interior decoration mechanics for housing, crafting, droid and ship construction, pet training for use as mounts...I think these are things they think of.

Here is another question. What is it SPECIFICALLY that you do not want added and why?

See I don't mind either of those. I never got to see the character class that could make them because it was locked out by the time I started playing. I did however see some of the pets people had, like rancors and such. I thought it was pretty cool.

But we are not the same and you probably like stuff I cannot stand and hate something I love. Meh. Individualism for the win It does not mean "some" of those things should not be added, just because you don't like something. As long as it is nothing that gives people an advantage over others I think it's fine.

Difference between combat pets and companions for me are these two things.

1. Pets remind me too much of Pokemon. Admittedly I very occasionally play a Pokemon game, like maybe every 4 years, but I'd feel overloaded on that if there were little critters helping me fight everything.

2. Companions can't be used in Warzones or operations. Pets currently can be brought into those both. If pets became a real in game combat advantage, well I would just find raiding and pvp unplayable.

Another thing I would note is player bounties. This was debated endlessly pre release and I think still has its own thread. Seems like an invite to griefing to me, but it would probably not cause me to unsub, though it would detract from my experience unless done extremely well.

Animal mounts, unless they moved slower than speeders, would detract a bit from the realism of the game for me. Again not something that would cause me to unsub, but detracts from my experience.

Other things from SWG(minus the horrible balance) largely would not detract from my gameplay experience. I would love open space. I don't care about chat bubbles one way or the other. More gear customization options are always nice. I would pay extra money in this game if I could customize my ship(I love my ships).

These things all fall somewhere on my personal priority list. Ship customization is high up there for me personally because it wouldn't have as massive a trade off as open space(which is comparatively lower because of how much PvE and PvP content that could be designed with those same resources).

Why would it detract from the game to have the extra features found in SWG? I can see maybe a creature handling system not working as well in this game as in SWG, but how would the other things actually detract from other people's playing experience? Adding gambling for instance, is an added mini-game. It doesn't take away from other play styles (which at the moment, seem to be 90% running operations).

I would never say SWTOR = SWG, or that SWG was a perfect game, but I have to agree with the original poster that the key sandbox aspects of SWG are what made it exciting, and what made the game last as long as it did.

If you want any useful interactions between players in SWTOR, learning what made SWG a tight-knit community could not hurt.

But I already know that in these forums, any mention of the word "SWG" is immediate grounds for argument.

But hey, that game got shut down for this one, so you may as well put up with ex-SWG players! Bioware wanted us here after all

I think the biggest issue is that there simply aren't many other venues for SW game fans to get their fix. those that come in and talk about SWG were part of the small niche of people that loved SWG, and was looking for a replacement after NGE killed it. it's not surprising that many landed here!

And I agree that there are some aspects of MMO's that Bio could learn from SWG. but your being narrow minded by saying that these things were a SWG specific thing. many MMO's throught the past had many of the elements you are talking about. you just found a balance of them that you liked in SWG.

Which is fine. I won't berate that here, can't really....SWG sounds like it was a fun game. but it was far in it's coffin before I ever heard about it.

the biggest issue is, aside from some of the more basic requests (player housing, better space battle, etc.) many of the aspects of SWG that you loved were based on the game mechanics, and to replicate them in this game would take more dev time then it's worth. it's like trying to turn a toyota truck into a ferrari...though they are both cars, they're intent and design is so far different that the cost of trying to make the truck perform like a testarossa isn't even worth it.

many people who played SWG loved the class system. isn't feasible here. They'd have to drop everything the put into the class game as it is and rewind the clock do that. although I'd love to see improvements in space battles, creating an open space universe to fight/rob other players/smuggle in would be tantamount to making a whole new game. isn't gonna happen.

But many of the examples are great. open worlds, more customization, faster speeders (and multiple passenger ones as well)...these are all simple changes and additions that are fine, and would make the game better. but SWG didn't invent this stuff. it was in Evercrack, LotRO, many others, some of them before SWG was even an idea. so it's not really a good comparison. the things that made SWG different and unique among the other MMO's that offered many of these surface things you mention is its game mechanics...which will be impossible to implement from a resource point of view.

So yea, this game could use many of those changes. and many of those things were in SWG....along with many other MMO's. so although I agree with some things, this post is really looking like a "I miss SWG and you should be it's replacement and your not Bio! shame on you!" thread.

SWG had over 1 million subscribers at one point (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_Galaxies#History) and did not lose them until they made radical changes in the game (i.e. the CU, followed by the disaster of the NGE). Please learn your history before spouting pure ignorance, especially since at it's height that game did better than this one because it was able to maintain its 1 million strong subscriber base for a longer period of time. This game sprinted farther ahead, but it lost the race due to its inability to endure.

As for the features you don't care about, that was one of the great things about SWG. What you didn't care about didn't impact you, with the exception of not being a social player. The only optional parts of SWTOR are PvP and crafting. Everything is mandatory if you want to be able to enjoy the game. You have to raid, you have to grind, you have to roll alts. In SWG, you didn't even have to play a combat oriented class if you didn't want to. Personally, I thought non-combat oriented classes were boring, but they were available and there were people who really enjoyed them due to those classes ability to interact socially with others in the game. In this game, more than 20 players in the cantina and the FPS gets flushed down the toilet.

As for the game learning from SWG, it would be more accurate to say that SWTOR could learn, period. There are a lot of things wrong with the game, many of which are the result of bad decisions made during its initial development (if you want a laundry list of them, search them out on the forums, I've gone on about them ad nauseam and even I'm sick of it). My primary complaint is simple: due to the poor design, it actively discourages social game play and it is not an MMO. You can pick any other MMO on the market as an example for it to learn from.

Pretty much got it in 1. I loved all that stuff and it would make this game EPIC if some if not all of it was added.

For open space I really would just like to see a BF2 style space battleground, with a persistent battle raging 24 hours a day.

As to the pet in PVP issue, I think if companions are not allowed pets would not be either if they were combat pets...Really, we are just talking about adding more companions here with no story requirement. They would still gain affection through actions, and could still assist in combat. Probably not as effective, but the one plus with a mount pet is that you could use it for combat AND as a vehicle.

Mounts could be slower than speeders (and probably should be) but would have other advantages...storage perhaps. Not to mention the combat ability.

Same with combat droids. No need for a story, but not as effective as full story droid companions. Perhaps they could do other things, like repair armor and provide buffs as well as heals.

Ship customization is also very important to me.