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6 Years In, Compare SWTOR to SWG? Story VS Sandbox?


Aylisis

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To be honest, I'd take SWG in it's last year over this crap we get here now. Bastion is dead, Harbinger is littered with downtime and lag.

 

No open world PVP

No reason to do Ranked PVP let alone a Que to even participate

Ops are outdated

Raiding based guilds are gone

Gearing is a joke

Story is becoming so gobbled around it's hard to follow.

 

Writing is beyond terrible, lets look at the newest release:

 

Going through the story, My character (Sorc) is an all powerful ghost binding SUPER Sith endowed with the lightsaber super stick of destiny empowered with Darth Marr's essence and Grand Master Shan's presence, who absorbed the Immortal Emperor and literally destroyed him with nothing more than my mind, all while killing off both of his force gifted children and taking control of the most powerful fleet since the Rakata, and then we go to.... Lokath? To deal with a super weapon? One we can't seem to get working and oh the one Jace Malcom, a non force using hamburger faced commando can boot up and operate without much difficulty while my supreme being Sorceress does nothing to stop him? As the sitting Eternal Emperor you would think I should have been able to look at him and his hamburger face and he simply explodes out of existence. .

 

Why should an all powerful Sith need monitoring of my team? With the ability to walk both sides of the force, and at this point, should be as powerful or even more than Valkorian was, you would think I'd have the ability of foresight or ability to sense deception in my ranks. This works for the non force users, but not for the Sorc, who is probably story wise the most powerful force entity in the universe at this point.

 

Where can this story possibly go? They are going to do something stupid where you lose all your power through some misfortune and make you regain it some how. Common plot, and where they have backed themselves into I don't see much challenge.

 

This new robot, how is it possibly a threat? I can one on one with the great one, and not this stupid rage-bot? MEH...

 

At least with SWG we had something to do and an active open world pvp community. Say what you want but I'm pretty shocked the route this game has taken. SWG was no gem, but I could find more group content there then I can on the Bastion these days.

 

Not that I'll leave, but still it's not what we thought we would get. It's one bad decision followed up by another. Maybe they will turn the ship around but most have jumped already. I'll just keep logging in to do new content, and then log off for a month, then come back and do it again.

 

I guess we will see what this year brings but I doubt it's going to get any better.

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If it can only last 2 more years then it would have out lasted Swg, also I heard that Swg had another 2 year lease contract but since Swtor was coming I guess they decided to get rid of it, Swg would've shut down in 2013. Edited by Theeko
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Love how this game is living longer than Star Wars Galaxies, going to be some angry vets around here replying to this.

Galaxies lasted 9 years,that's quite a good run for a mmo,and I would still be playing it if was still going.

I tried the EMU on Stella Bellum and it brought all the old memories back,what fun we had back in the day.

You can't really compare the 2 games,both are totally different,only thing in common is Star Wars and mmo.

If I was pushed to choose what was a better game,Galaxies wins hands down.

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"Most powerful in the galaxy" these words are overused in everything star wars,which contributes to the problem.

No one knew about Iokath, yet, they have been going around killing Trillions of people for billions of years lol. And somehow there technology, which is millennia old, is way, way, superior to ours, some 500 trillion years in to the future lol.

 

The Iokath story is just one big mess, and is mostly relevant to non-force users.

 

They need to tone down on the "power" that they give villains, weapons, and our characters.

 

Anyone noticed how Dorne drew her blaster, but never fired a single shot, and Theron missed Jace, at close range lol, and you just stood there while he tried ot activate the "superweapon".

 

I'm just tired of this ****.

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Speaking honestly i would prefer a middleground, swg crafting+sandbox with swtor vanilla story, the best of both worlds, to me. Just needed a server with no open world pvp.

 

This would be nice, definitely priority to the story and companion aspect of the game, with all the crafting and versatility that came with SWG. I personally don't care about pvp, but for those who do, let them have their own server and let the pve'ers have their own.

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Speaking honestly i would prefer a middleground, swg crafting+sandbox with swtor vanilla story, the best of both worlds, to me. Just needed a server with no open world pvp.

 

Pretty much this. Don't give two s**** about pvp. They could take it out of the game for all I care. Make a pvp server and let them tear each other apart there. Don't need them on pve server.

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Love how this game is living longer than Star Wars Galaxies, going to be some angry vets around here replying to this.

 

I don't post much anymore, but let me break it down for you:

 

1) Last time I checked, 8.5 years (SWG) is longer than 5 (SWTOR).

2) Even IF SWTOR outlives SWG (which it very well might), that's no gauge of SWTOR being "the better game" of the two because of many different variables. SWG still had a healthy enough and profiting sub population when it shut down... far healthier than many MMOs that are still existing today. It was shut down because what was LucasArts at the time (before the Disney merge), from a business standpoint, obviously didn't want to segregate the Star Wars player-base, i.e it's more profitable to have ALL Star Wars gamers in one game than it is to have them split between two games. SWG was shut down for this reason. It's not a coincidence that SWG went offline on December 15th, 2011 and SWTOR launched on December 20th, 2011, just 5 days later.

3) Google is your friend. Use it before you post.

4) Yes SWG is the better game despite its problems... and that's not my opinion. Objectively, SWG, by the purest definition of what an "MMORPG" is, is the better game just by the fact that it's deeper and more feature rich in MMO design (huge focus on community, player-driven economy, be anything you want, do anything you want, reliance on other players, etc.). SWTOR is a single-player RPG with the option to do group content via a lobby... It's more like Global Agenda was than anything.

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Played a few months of SWG, and despite being a huge Star Wars fan it utterly failed to hold my interest so I dropped my subscription.

 

SWTOR, on the other hand, has kept me subscribed and generally pleased with the game ever since Beta.

 

Over the years there have been individual design choices / aspects of the game that I've disliked (e.g., replacing Skill Trees with Discipline Paths, removing certain 'breadcrumb' missions, no appearance customization for new companions, the 'nostalgic' missions with the PCs un-voiced), others that I've felt could have been handled better (e.g., having the Oricon mission chain with require Ops, the implementation of the solo mode FPs, some elements of the KotFE/KotET story), and others that I personally never minded but I can understand being frustrating to others depending on their play-styles (e.g., Galactic Command, extended periods of time between new Ops or PVP content), but in the end the good has always outweighed the bad by a significant margin for me - unlike in SWG.

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4) Yes SWG is the better game despite its problems... and that's not my opinion. Objectively, SWG, by the purest definition of what an "MMORPG" is, is the better game just by the fact that it's deeper and more feature rich in MMO design (huge focus on community, player-driven economy, be anything you want, do anything you want, reliance on other players, etc.). SWTOR is a single-player RPG with the option to do group content via a lobby... It's more like Global Agenda was than anything.

Yeah that's not how "objectively" works.

 

First there is no universally accepted definition of what a "real" MMORPG is - it is not a legal definition or scientific classification, it's a branding term used in entertainment development and marketing. A person who says "World of Tanks is not a real MMO" is neither objectively right nor wrong, and neither is a person who says "Hearthstone is an MMO".

 

Beyond that, there is no way to objectively differentiate when changes and variations within a genre (such as emphasizing the solo experience in an MMO) are deficiencies as opposed to innovations. Genres evolve over time - things like automated group matchmaking, auction houses and even minimaps weren't always part of MMOs as anyone who played Everquest can tell you - and such genres are often broad enough to include individual games with radically different focuses. Objectively, there is no 'purist' approach to be had.

 

Again, I'm just pushing back on the notion that SWG can be called "objectively" better - it's an entertainment product, so its quality is, by definition, a subjective measurement. If you like SWG more than SWTOR, that's a perfectly valid opinion, but there is no need to try to play that opinion off as objective fact.

Edited by DarthDymond
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Yeah that's not how "objectively" works.

 

First there is no universally accepted definition of what a "real" MMORPG is - it is not a legal definition or scientific classification, it's a branding term used in entertainment development and marketing. A person who says "World of Tanks is not a real MMO" is neither objectively right nor wrong, and neither is a person who says "Hearthstone is an MMO".

 

 

MMORPG is "massive multiplayer online role playing game". There's your definition. Neither Heartstone nor WoT fall into it. Both SWG and ToR do.

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Patiently waiting for that special someone to ineviatbly criticize the OP for mentioning or comparing this game to SWG or other reason.

 

That being said, it's good to compare this game to others, It's a shame this game didn't learn from SWG. SWG had such a fantastic community.

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This game exceeds SWG in every meaningful way except crafting, IMO. I played SWG from about one month after launch until a few months after the Jedi rollout - in other words, very pre-NGE - and mastered Commando and Bounty Hunter (and all the required professions to get those hybrids) so I was pretty experienced, and I still consider it to be one of the most tedious MMOs of its era.

 

It did nail crafting, though.

 

I totally do not understand the reverence people look back on it with. I can only assume it's rose-colored glasses. That game was a classic Sony grind. Jedi village quest, just lol.

 

Obviously YMMV :)

 

Edit: oh, it also got bonus points for having Trandoshan be playable :)

Edited by stoopicus
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This game exceeds SWG in every meaningful way except crafting, IMO. I played SWG from about one month after launch until a few months after the Jedi rollout - in other words, very pre-NGE - and mastered Commando and Bounty Hunter (and all the required professions to get those hybrids) so I was pretty experienced, and I still consider it to be one of the most tedious MMOs of its era.

 

It did nail crafting, though.

 

I totally do not understand the reverence people look back on it with. I can only assume it's rose-colored glasses. That game was a classic Sony grind. Jedi village quest, just lol.

 

Obviously YMMV :)

 

Edit: oh, it also got bonus points for having Trandoshan be playable :)

 

I would say SWTOR has SWG by far in the GFX department hands down. Story? Yeah no doubt. But then again that's what I loved about SWG. You were a nobody, not a supreme being. You were just making your way along in a enormous universe. You didn't make galaxy changing events, nor were you really a part of them. You just kinda did your thing, however you felt like doing it.

 

I knew people who were literally never in combat, they had strict crafting characters and made billions of credits, and provided a service long forgotten in a game like SWTOR. SWG had a player based economy, and EVERYTHING of worth was made by a player. Not some loot drop from a boss. If there was a loot drop, it was in the form of a schematic that a player had to craft for you.

 

I don't want to compare the two, and that's not the point of this post. It's simply stating that between the two, knowing what I know now I'd still be playing SWG and would have left this behind long ago.

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I would say SWTOR has SWG by far in the GFX department hands down. Story? Yeah no doubt. But then again that's what I loved about SWG. You were a nobody, not a supreme being. You were just making your way along in a enormous universe. You didn't make galaxy changing events, nor were you really a part of them. You just kinda did your thing, however you felt like doing it.

 

I knew people who were literally never in combat, they had strict crafting characters and made billions of credits, and provided a service long forgotten in a game like SWTOR. SWG had a player based economy, and EVERYTHING of worth was made by a player. Not some loot drop from a boss. If there was a loot drop, it was in the form of a schematic that a player had to craft for you.

 

I don't want to compare the two, and that's not the point of this post. It's simply stating that between the two, knowing what I know now I'd still be playing SWG and would have left this behind long ago.

 

Yeah - the crafting and player economy in SWG was indeed some of the best that has ever been done. The only game that has topped it for that is EVE, and that's totally apples and oranges.

 

My crafting friends used to call SWG their Moisture Farming Simulator as a joke - and they loved it for that.

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Yeah - the crafting and player economy in SWG was indeed some of the best that has ever been done. The only game that has topped it for that is EVE, and that's totally apples and oranges.

 

My crafting friends used to call SWG their Moisture Farming Simulator as a joke - and they loved it for that.

 

I think the best thing is the game promoted an economy based on players, which kept the markets fresh. I LOVED the fact that for you to buy my goods, you had to come to my store, in my city and that was all completely open world. No instanced housing nonsense. Player cities that populated the maps. Decoration and collecting was a big hobby of mine and there were actually items worth collection unlike SWTOR were everything is useless 3 months after it's debut. There isn't much a market for displaying items you collect or decorate in any real way. Just plop it down on the pre assigned tile. I won't complain too much about housing though. At least they took the time for it and I enjoy it a bit but not even close to SWG housing.

 

Wars were fought around player cities and player placed faction bases. It wasn't uncommon to have 3 or 4 8 player groups on each side battling for control of a faction base.

 

Also the GCW invasions. They promoted EVERY class to participate and made differences on the world they happened on.

 

I could go on and on and we all know that. I just wish SWTOR would look at the community and create a environment that promotes friendship, guilds, and working together to accomplish something worth accomplishing.

 

If you could give me back my account from SWG, on the day they announced the shut down I'd gladly pay $15, or even $30 a month to go back and have our game the way it was.

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Okay yes SWG was fun and it was fun.

But my boyfriend and I went back to SWG (Legends-NGE) and thought we would enjoy it again. We didn't. Sure we missed some things like having my crafters and my entertainer again and even being able to decorate without hooks but it wasn't the same.

 

People that played SWG would say it was the community well when we went back the community was actually worse than it is here. If you didn't fit with the "In crowd" you were ignore and if you said something that was not what everyone wanted to hear you got jumped on to the point you stopped talking.

 

Sure here not everyone agrees but for the most part they don't jump on you like they did there and the roleplay was nonexistent or it was way in left field that wasn't even Star Wars anymore.

 

Neither of us could get back into it again. For me I missed the story and the cutscenes on the missions, Yes it can get tiring but when you have done of it you do actually miss it. The graphics are horrible and even though you can craft the outfits and stuff it is eventually the same thing, nothing really new, which can be boring after a while.

 

The missions were a bit boring as no voice and really not that fun. Try to suggest that they add something like that and lord you think you committed a crime.

 

Sure this isn't swg but we came back here as SWG Legends was not something we could get into. Maybe one day SWTOR will add a few things but even if they don't right now this is a bit better (not perfect) than what I endure on SWG Legends in the past year.

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SWG was depth wise vastly superior in every way to SWToR.

 

Ironically SWG did well what the SWToR developers want SWToR to do...Which is keep players busy with little to no "Large content releases".

 

When you have a game with systems as deep as SWG had you only need to tweak and balance and add content occasionally and people never got bored, at least myself and no one I played with did.

 

I spent months alone just capturing and raising/training creatures. Occasionally we would get a few people together and go hunt Rancor on Dantooine when the meat/hide/bone was high quality for crafting and spend an entire day just setting camps to chill and then going back to hunting...

 

I spent countless days setting up merchant shops and crafting factories and scouring the galaxy for high quality resources.

 

I think my favorite thing to do was to travel on foot and hunt for extremely rare spawn animals that dropped over the top special crafting components..Like Krayt dragons, Giant Kimoglias and so on...was the most fun I have ever had in any game to date.

 

Forums were just people arguing over getting rolled in OWPVP :) Because balance was nuts because it was more based on crafted or looted weapon strength which could be absolutely insane if the Stars Aligned.

 

The point is SWG was so deep in it's systems that content was welcomed but in between releases people were so busy they didn't have time to look up from the screen...

 

Problem with SWToR is all its systems are so incredibly shallow that they don't draw anyone in at all...for any length of time...Unless you count the timers...Which serve no purpose that I can understand besides erroneously delaying people.

 

I would take Original SWG as a game with SWToRs setting and graphics (or better graphics) and that would be the perfect Star Wars game imo.

 

That said I could not go back to SWG for a couple reasons..One, I actually preferred the original version of SWG and two, EMUs don't cut it for me.

 

SWG was by far the better game and even though it is quite old it was well more advanced in its ingame systems than any game to date.

 

Mind you when they changed SWG the last time to a class based system I left and never went back. My Sig. is to imply that the SWToR developers are making willful critical mistakes (5.0) that are prematurely killing their games population just like the NGE did for SWG.

Edited by Soljin
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+1, SWG was the better MMO. I think most of us veterans are at the same point, we just log in , do the new content in an hour, then log out for weeks at a time. Meh, another star wars game will come along eventually.

 

I never thought about this way, but you are absolutely right. That's scary.

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Speaking honestly i would prefer a middleground, swg crafting+sandbox with swtor vanilla story, the best of both worlds, to me. Just needed a server with no open world pvp.

 

Yeah I've often said that an awesome Star Wars mmo would be one that fully combined SWG and SWTOR into a single game.

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Speaking honestly i would prefer a middleground, swg crafting+sandbox with swtor vanilla story, the best of both worlds, to me. Just needed a server with no open world pvp.

 

I agree with there being a middle ground. Sandbox simply does not appeal to enough players to support a large MMO, and theme park seems to get boring early and easy for some players. Personally, I find sandbox to be quite boring, and given all the people that demand Bioware step in and code-override any in game feature or experience they do not like.. I wonder how such players could actually cope with a Sandbox game.

 

This MMO has planetary boundaries for content, so I would like to see them make an actual planet with a planet specific set of sandbox rules. I bet, if they did... most players would ignore the planet entirely since there is "nothing to do" and they have to create their own fun... but it would be a great innovation experiment for SWTOR. I would want a side team added in the studio to do this, so as to not drain resources from the core of the game.

 

The problem here is I do not think a middle ground approach where there is both sandbox and theme park content will actually work well with today's MMO player base. But I would like to see that proven with a real life attempt.

 

SWG was a great advance in MMOs in it's day.. but it is primitive by today's standards, and does not represent state of the art in Sandbox (that would be EVE Online that holds that priviledge). If you launched it today, it would fail, and fail hard.

Edited by Andryah
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