Not enough people here played Knights of the Old Republic

....and as a result, a lot of people didn't really know what they were getting into with this game.

Most of the complaints/demands being posted in here are "things WoW has" which, for better or worse (depending on your point of view), aren't in SWTOR (yet). I guess it was to be expected, since this is the "next big MMO" and a lot of players from WoW are trying it.

However, some of the complaints are simply coming from ignorance of the KotOR/SWTOR universe. I have a hard time believing that a KotOR veteran who enjoyed those games would make complaints about these things:
1) Excessive cutscenes/dialogue: this was kind of the backbone of KotOR
2) Companions: KotOR used a party system; you always had 1 or 2 with you almost all of the time, and like SWTOR they were crucial to the story
3) Lack of an "open world": Did people really think they were going to be able to fly around an entire planet 17 different times?
4) Light/Dark side choices: this was central to KotOR, as it affected your appearance, who among your party stayed with you (or survived) until the end, as well as the actual ending of the game

If you didn't like KotOR, you probably wasted your money on this game if you even bought it in the first place. If you didn't play it at all, I'm not sure you really knew what to expect.

I can remember a developer quote (don't remember the source) that SWTOR is like "KotOR 3 through 8 released all at once". While some gameplay changes have been made to allow for the change from single-player RPG to MMORPG, SWTOR is still pretty much a sequel to the original KotOR (not the second one I don't reckon, as I've seen no references to the Exile or Darth Treya anywhere yet; it wasn't developed by Bioware anyways).

That being said, I have thoroughly enjoyed the MMO additions to the KotOR franchise. Seeing people out in the world, grouping for quests/flashpoints, PvP warzones, groups of Imperials showing up in Republic questing areas to get it on......it's been fantastic.

Understanding that this game is (in many ways) a sequel to the original KotOR and not just "WoW with lightsabers" is key to one's expectations of SWTOR, and unfulfilled expectations lead to lots of complaint threads . I (and many others) could have told you 3 years ago if you wanted "WoW with lightsabers" you were probably looking at the wrong game.

I will admit, I am interested in seeing how Bioware handles "endgame content" in the future. While I like most of what makes this game "not WoW", using a WoW-type model for expansions in terms of new planets, new warzones/flashpoints/operations, a new "Darth So-and-So" to beat down, new space battles, new companions, new races/classes (maybe a Grey Jedi class treated like WoW plans to do the Pandaren) wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

Be thankful they didn't.

I could only imagine the furor that would happen when they realized what BioWare did to the stories of those two games and the characters that were in them.

I have to agree. I love the fact that the game ties in with the original KOTORs so well. I finally got to see what happened to the people of Taris trying to find the land of paradise or how my actions with the rakghoul serum actually had an effect three hundred years later

I think I read somewhere (again, no source) that Bioware used the Light-side ending of KotOR as the "canon" for SWTOR.

They did. It was mentioned in one of the quests about how Bastila turned Revan from dark to light.

That is because the light side ending IS canon for the star wars universe.

OP, you're 100% right. If you play this game as though it's a single player game then it's absolutely amazing. If you play it because it's an MMO then you are let down because it doesn't have any of the quality of life features an MMO is supposed to have.

They basically created an incredibly amazing single player game, added a ton of time sinks and then slapped on the most basic MMO functionality they could to qualify it as an MMO.

Personally, I'm just playing it like it's a single-player game and I'm really enjoying it. I will not be playing it months down the road though unless they make some dramatic improvements to the MMO aspect of the game.

Good post OP. Thanks for the explanation. But in my opinion, no one wants to listen to anyone any more. So hard to please everyone. Why bother?

I agree completely. SWTOR is exactly what I expected and wanted. A never ending KOTOR experience.

It was always very sad when I finally had milked KOTOR 1 & 2 for all their worth. Played through both games so many times choosing every option just to see the outcomes. So many memorable moments from those games I'll always cherish.

Really sucks so many people don't understand or even get what's happening. That this game isn't like WOW. It's KOTOR in MMO form. It isn't a PVP or raid(end game) oriented game. What KOTOR has always been about is the story and the game is meant to be played through many times.

Anyone who hasn't played KOTOR 1& 2 should really go back and play them through. What's funny is I didn't like KOTOR when I first picked it up long ago. Then I tried it again and it was like some epiphany and fell in love with it.

Don't understand this complaint.

It's a single player game because you are playing it like one. If you want to group up you are rewarded for it. There is not much if anything that discourages grouping in this game and there is plenty of group content to be had here.