What makes a MMO an MMO and how does SW:TOR stack up in this regard?

And for me being MMO has nothing to do with PvP, demonstrating the futility in trying to define the term.

Though I myself do not consider SWTOR to be a tru MMO in my eyes.... it is the fact that no matter what server you play on or what the population is like.. tha same game covers all... if the game only allowed 1 player to play out every quest from 1-49 then that to me has to be a SP game.. but SWTOR offers grouping in whatever shape or form from single player to multiplayer OPs.. that does not alter from server to server if your version does then you have purchased a hacked up game from joe swindler down the road...
Sure I dont think it is MMO friendly and the server pops dont allow many players to realise some of the MMO experience.. but that is entirely different and blame can be aportioned to whichever reason / person / company you see fit... but if there are 2 players online on that server they have the option to group up and run content in a multiplayer experience... the massive part is purely a number that can be vastly different to everyone but SWTOR allow for a massive population to play at once on your server... unfortunately like my home server, for whatever reasons players left it and diminished the massive part....

Agreed....

And even if the game was soley about PvP.. SWTOR have provided Openworld PvP areas in the game even on non-PvP aligned severs... its just down to individuals to make PvP happen in them... it is not for BW to force you to PvP in those areas if you dont want to... but by design that function is included as are pre-made Wz's and PvP servers.

But SWTOR is not just about PvP and niether is the term MMO.

I think what we are realising in this thread is that everyones own interpretation of an MMO is actually based on personal experiences in playing them... but not what the MMO actually mean by design... I am one of these people who fail to look beyond my own interpretations when I call foul on what SWTOR deleivers me in "MY" MMO.... I have often posted how I feel its nothing more than an SPRPG... and for what I want out of it, thats how it feels.. but reality is the M M O all have the boxes ticked even though it doesnt necessarily feel like it.

Actually Guild Wars 1 isn't an MMO, even the developers said it wasn't an MMO, they called it a CORPG which had 2 meaning: Competitive Online Role Playing Game or Cooperative Online Role Playing Game. One of the must defining features of an MMO, is a persistant world, which Guild Wars 1 did not have, but Guild Wars 2 does.

You are right, it isn't WoW, but that is the problem. Bioware/EA specifically set out to clone WoW, they specifically set out to out do WoW. The problem is, they made a 2006 version of WoW in Star Wars instead of competing with 2012 WoW. The problem with SWTOR is they literally tried to clone WoW, and it is failing because they didn't include all the advancements that WoW has made in the last 8 years. What do you expect people to do? They have 2 competing games that are almost identical, it is like seeing 2 cars from difference companies, both the same exact price, but one is from 2012 with all the advance features of today, and the other is a 2006 Car with the advance features of 2006, which car do you think most people would go with?

Technicially SWTOR is an MMO, that is a fact. Currently it is missing players to have a sustainable MMO experience though.

Of course TOR is an MMO.
I come from the days of pen and paper DnD back in the seventies. When having 20 players together was considered 'massive'. And, as a designer for one of the most popular Neverwinter Nights (1991) servers, felt deeply the joy of multi-player possibilities. So, for me, an entirely empty online game, devoid of any players at all, that has the potential to support thousands of players... is an MMO.

But enthusiastic elation waned swiftly to despair. To quote: "It's the economy, stupid!"
Sure, you can have millions of players. But without the vital component of interaction...

Back in the day... the whole idea was for people to work together. (raids, killing that nasty thing over there)
But, especially if they never saw each other. (i.e. The Economy)

I still have high hopes for SWTOR, but it has to get back to the community. A relevant bit of Star Wars lore:
Yoda: I am wondering, why are you here?
Luke: I'm looking for someone.
Yoda: Looking? Found someone, you have, I would say, hmmm? "chuckles"

Ask yourself this: What is the point of playing an online game (MMO or otherwise)? The obvious and most simple answer is "to play with other people." Using this as a foundation, we can then judge how well SWTOR allows us to do this...

As was mentioned earlier in the thread, the lack of open-world dynamics--like PvP--are severely lacking in SWTOR. I myself only had a single open-world PVP experience while leveling, and it was a pretty shameful happening on Hoth in which I lured an unsuspecting Pub into some AoE and then promptly stomped them. I felt awful, but the good news was that I never came across another Pub in my travels to 50. Or is that bad news?

The space game is fun for what it is, but chat is completely blocked out during the experience. Good luck trying to continue a conversation with your guild while blasting away Imperial fighters. Whenever you have to say something like "brb space" before doing an activity in an MMO, you have to ask yourself, "What part of this experience requires me to be online with other people?" If the answer is "nothing," then you might want to reconsider why you're paying a subscription.

Crafting is consistently lampooned as a watered-down and uninspired feature. Look at the GTN. Stacked with loot, not so much in the crafted department. Not that it would matter; crafting in SWTOR is a single-player affair. You can gather your materials with your companions, whip out a few items, reverse engineer them for a few more materials, rinse and repeat. You can do all of this without needing to interact with another player.

The galaxy was boiled down and distilled into a walled, instanced collection of boxes. Each of those boxes only allows so many players to occupy them at a time, and none of them are connected to others by global chat. When you're on Dromund Kaas, the game suddenly becomes DKO--Dromund Kaas Online. The rest of the galaxy might as well be playing another game because you can't interact with them outside of /tell and guild chat.

Finally, the leveling experience (read: class stories) is a completely single-player affair. You can invite another player along, provided they don't mind spoilers (in case they haven't played your class yet) and don't mind the strange you-have-to-split-up-or-repeat-same-class-content decision by the developers. See that green wall? Your smuggler is gonna have to part ways with his smuggler friend because they can't occupy the same class story instance. That is unless you don't mind repeating the same story missions. Sorry!

At times I feel like SWTOR goes out of its way to keep people from playing with each other--which is of course the rub when it comes to an MMO. We're here to play with each other, not apart from each other. Despite this, SWTOR hampers group play and community development because all of its eggs are in one basket--single-player content like story and rail-shooters.

All of this, mind you, without referencing the population decline--a problem which only gets amplified by the game's single-player mechanics.

So while SWTOR might technically be an MMO, it isn't very good at being one.

This whole post (I'll spare you the full quote) hits the nail on the head for me. SWTOR is technically an MMO, but only technically. It feels like a single player game.

My biggest gripe against SWTOR is that in an MMO I expect to be able to think up the character I'd like to play and then use the game to help me play it. In SWTOR I'm pretty much given a choice of 1 of 8 characters, about which everything has been predetermined by the writers. Essentially, all creativity is taken out of my hands and I end up feeling like I'm playing a single player game. A very good single player game, it has to be said.

SWTOR's big selling point was story. After a few months of playing it, it feels to me like story has become its biggest problem. So many things in the game are hindered and limited because they are slaves to story.

Of course, this could simply be explained as SWTOR just not being the game for me. I can accept that. The trouble is though, falling subscription numbers seem to say that it's not the game for a heck of a lot of people. There comes a point where fanboys cannot simply keep saying, "it's not for you, move on." and have to accept that the design of this game is what may be putting off such a large number of players.

World PvP is lacking because, 'you" the players aren't doing it. Next questions is why? Simple answer, because in world PvP you don't get any reward except for the gratification of killing another players. Seriously, does every game being made need to hold peoples hands in order to get them to do anything anymore?