Can anyone shed any light on this? By differences I mainly mean technology. It seems to me that there being a ~3000 year gap between the setting of TOR and the Clone Wars that there would have been major technological advances in the SW universe.

In my opinion, the original KOTOR was very modest. E.g. Republic and Sith troopers had very generic, basic armor. Republic capital warship designs looked rough and unadvanced. But with TOR, a few hundred years after KOTOR, things have just exploded. There are huge powerful battle droids, fancy ships, highly advanced armor that predates what I thought was 'unique' Republic/Mandalorian clone armor. Now it seems as if nothing changed in those ~3000 years preceding the Clone Wars. I'm a keen reader of SW books and lore and I am very curious of how to explain this. Obviously, anything can happen in Star Wars - it's a completely different world to our reality - but still...I would have thought that TOR would be more sensible and aligned to it's name The 'Old' Republic. Not that I'm complaining.

Case in point: whatever happened to the battle droids first introduced in KOTOR, and featured many times in TOR? They sort of look like grey, oversized droidekas. Very common. They are tough and some deploy shields. And I thought droidekas were like the be-all, end-all of battle droids in that pre-Clone Wars era. But no, droids like the ones in KOTOR aren't seen in the movies, instead there are 'advanced' B1 droids that break after one hit.

As I said, I'm not complaining, but curiosity gets the better to me - what happened in those 3000 years? Why were the armies of Republic and Sith just as advanced as those in the Clone Wars, Galactic Civil War etc?

To be fair the galaxy had been at peace for a thousand years before the clone wars and peacetime governments generally don't spend much money on weapons development.

Also Star Wars has never been very consistent when it comes to weapons. Just look at the blasters of clones in EP3 and then look at them in EP4. The EP3 ones are in some scenes practically full on machineguns while the EP4 guns shoot horribly slow.

Can anyone shed any light on this? By differences I mainly mean technology. It seems to me that there being a ~3000 year gap between the setting of TOR and the Clone Wars that there would have been major technological advances in the SW universe.

 

In my opinion, the original KOTOR was very modest. E.g. Republic and Sith troopers had very generic, basic armor. Republic capital warship designs looked rough and unadvanced. But with TOR, a few hundred years after KOTOR, things have just exploded. There are huge powerful battle droids, fancy ships, highly advanced armor that predates what I thought was 'unique' Republic/Mandalorian clone armor. Now it seems as if nothing changed in those ~3000 years preceding the Clone Wars. I'm a keen reader of SW books and lore and I am very curious of how to explain this. Obviously, anything can happen in Star Wars - it's a completely different world to our reality - but still...I would have thought that TOR would be more sensible and aligned to it's name The 'Old' Republic. Not that I'm complaining.

 

Case in point: whatever happened to the battle droids first introduced in KOTOR, and featured many times in TOR? They sort of look like grey, oversized droidekas. Very common. They are tough and some deploy shields. And I thought droidekas were like the be-all, end-all of battle droids in that pre-Clone Wars era. But no, droids like the ones in KOTOR aren't seen in the movies, instead there are 'advanced' B1 droids that break after one hit.

 

As I said, I'm not complaining, but curiosity gets the better to me - what happened in those 3000 years? Why were the armies of Republic and Sith just as advanced as those in the Clone Wars, Galactic Civil War etc?

In-Universe Reason: Technology has sufficiently matured to the point that no major advancements occur.

Real Reason: Messing with the aesthetics too much would lose the iconic look from the films.

In-Universe Reason: Technology has sufficiently matured that no major advancements occur.

 

Real Reason: Messing with the aesthetics too much would lose the iconic look from the films.

This.^

Though if you go take a look at the earlier comics (early 90s) from this time, you would see a big change from the ships that the displayed and the ones in the game.

Actually even technology in the KOTOR is too much advanced. If you get a chance, try to get (or just read) a comics which first introduced that SW era, e.g. Tales of the Jedi: The Sith War. There are ships and weapons how they could be expected a few thousands years before EP 4. Totally different. Just be prepared that these comics are very old (there were not even EP 1-3 in that time) so they can seems a little odd nowadays.

I guess that it was need to bring KOTOR technology closer to movies, so game will be better recognizable as SW. Where KOTOR still held back (like personal equipment), TOR went ahead and directly took things from Clone/Empire era. For MMORPG was probably even more important to give players a sense of being part of commonly know SW universe.

Summarized, originally there was great difference in technologies which was gradually lost with games.

Regarding movies it is better to not think about small things (like are touchscreens with detailed holograms everywhere in the EP 1-3 contrasting with low resolutions monitors in the EP 4-6).

To be fair the galaxy had been at peace for a thousand years before the clone wars and peacetime governments generally don't spend much money on weapons development.

 

Also Star Wars has never been very consistent when it comes to weapons. Just look at the blasters of clones in EP3 and then look at them in EP4. The EP3 ones are in some scenes practically full on machineguns while the EP4 guns shoot horribly slow.

Plus, the Republic didn't even have an Army in EP 2, thus needed the clones. Well, that or they just had one but wasn't large enough to match the Seps