SWG vs SWTOR (2016)

klash2def · February 2016

TLDR AT BOTTOM

We hear all the things people want to champion about SWG but if I can be honest, SWG lived a little bit longer trying to become what SWTOR is today. Had they had all that stuff in the game at launch who knows, they still might be here and there would be no SWTOR.

This isn't popular opinion but I will explain.

Before CU and NGE, SWG was already going down, that's why they added all that stuff because WoW had all that stuff and was doing incredible. SWG PRE CU had a lack of direction, no real content to drive the player, hard to understand combat system, bugged out quests, etc etc..

Well guess what happens a few years later.. TOR comes out with all that NGE and CU stuff in there, less bugs, and content that would drive the player..

Where TOR and SWG begins to differ is the depth of the gameplay itself.

Let's forget for a second that in SWG you can be a Wookiee Bounty Hunter that sells droids on the side (my character). Lets forget for a second that In TOR you can be a Cyborg Sith Assassin that sells weapon mods on the side (also my character.)

What's a eye opener is how long it takes to do any of these things in both games...

SWG is huge. Lots of class combinations and deep crafting, but everything just takes too long to do. Cant be a Jedi, can't be a Bounty Hunter, can't do anything iconic until you amass a insane amount of skill points to unlock the paths that will eventually get you there. You can't count on it happening in a quick or even reasonable amount of time.

JESUS OF NAZARETH it takes soooo long to do anything in SWG. The world size is huge buuuuutt planets are just as static as SWTOR tbh even more static than TOR just a lot bigger. In SWG you can't just heal yourself, you have to get healed by a medic and get your buffs from a entertainer.. cool ideas but give us the option to buff and heal without having to depend on other people. TOR gets you right into the action from level 1 you feel important and feel as if you are going to have a place in the galaxy, I admire that even if it is a little bit shallow.

SWG was just too deep for its own good. I wanted to make my wookie and jump right into catching bounties not spend 3 weeks shooting at random wompa rats in the desert to level up my carbine skills.

I did enjoy the fact that if you are a certain faction the other faction will automatically shoot at you or try to kill you in their zones, but this is also true of TOR.. the difference is in SWG you can switch factions at any point which is also very cool.

I'm not saying TOR isn't shallow at times outside of the awesome story, because for sure it is. But it is still pound for pound the better star wars mmo.

The two games are very different, like apples and oranges. If you want to jump straight into iconic star wars action play TOR.. if you are looking for a sandbox in Star Wars skin then get SWG.
My wishlist

SWTOR:

Add Races: Wookies, Droids, Trandoshan

Add Class: Entertainer

Add: Free Flight in space

Fix: PVP Imbalance (*this is every mmo but tor is really bad) add more open world PVP

Allow: Players to Defect to the other side of the war. (Jedi become Sith, Sith become Jedi, Bounty Hunters take jobs from Republic etc)

Add: Planet exploration. Basically make each planet about 50% bigger.

Fix: Crafting, make it more meaningful AKA some of the best gear/mods can only be crafted

SWG:

Stay dead and let SWTOR absorb the few cool parts of the game.

TLDR: I dont get all the hype about swg being the best ever mmo when it made all these changes to become more like what TOR is today. SWG would have killed to be what TOR is right now.. the key difference is one is themepark, one is sandbox but the general public is all sandbox is automatically better. Buzzword here is sandbox.. idk why folks get so crazy over the word.

"WHOA SANDBOX GAME I CAN MAKE THINGS AND IT TAKES FOREVER TO MAKE THEM SO GAME IS DEEP NOW , GAME IS CLASSIC"

Thorkune · February 2016

I would rather have SWG on its worst day than to have SWTOR on its best. I bought the collector's edition of SWTOR hoping to get that Star Wars vibe from it and I lasted long enough to get a max level character and a few alts started and I quit due to the closed world, horrible crafting, repetitive quests for alts, same old themepark grind at max level, etc...

In SWG, I would spend hours just crafting. If I got bored with that, I would go into space and just fly around doing space missions and take in the beautiful views. If that got boring, I would go PvP in Restuss and I am not a PvPer at all. I loved the PvP in SWG because it had the Rebel vs. Empire feel. If I got burned out with that, I would spend hours decorating my house or just exploring a wide open world.

To me, there is no comparison. SWG was to me the greatest game ever made.

GeezerGamer · February 2016

I wonder if this thread gets shut down

Medium Infractions

At the discretion of the moderator and/or the Community Manager, the following infractions will be classed as either minor or major infractions and appropriate penalties will be applied.

Unofficial Servers
- Discussing or advertising unofficial servers or emulators for MMOs is not permitted on the MMORPG.com forums. These servers are against the Terms of Service of the original game, and violate the intellectual propriety rights of the game's publisher and developer.

klash2def · February 2016

GeezerGamer said:

I wonder if this thread gets shut down

Medium Infractions
At the discretion of the moderator and/or the Community Manager, the following infractions will be classed as either minor or major infractions and appropriate penalties will be applied.
Unofficial Servers
Discussing or advertising unofficial servers or emulators for MMOs is not permitted on the MMORPG.com forums. These servers are against the Terms of Service of the original game, and violate the intellectual propriety rights of the game's publisher and developer.

Actually nowhere did I promote anything. I mentioned a mmo that I am playing. If that's the case every single person who mentioned the word "MODS and SKYRIM or FALLOUT 3 MODS" should be banned also correct? Because according to you just mentioning it is promoting it? Give me break dude.

EDIT: wow thats fast, are you FBI? If it's that serious i can re-post and take the word SWGemu out. You act as if it's life or death for you, if it is then I understand. I fixed that for ya. It was in there twice you can breathe now.

Thourne · February 2016

Once you know what your doing most classes can be stared and finished within 1-2 days tops.

SWG is a sandbox or open world design (depending on which definitions you choose to use) and SWTOR is a combat based game.

The planets are not as static as Swtor. The spawns are dynamic. In swtor if you kill an X and stand there for a minute another X will spawn. You destroy a squill lair on Tatooine in SWG and maybe nothing spawns but maybe a Eopie lair spawns.

You bemoan the fact that you need others to buff or heal you. That is called interdependence and it builds community. It is essential in sandbox games to have a strong community of people that rely on each other.

Yes TOR does get you into the action from level one but TOR is only about the action. It is a combat based game. It dose not treat crafting equally and it doesn't even have non combat support roles.

You are right they are apples and oranges, SWG is a nice crisp and juicy Honeycrisp while SWTOR is a bitter under ripe orange.

Kopogero · February 2016

SWG enjoyed it for every second while I played it for 1½ years. SWTOR never installed it. That pretty much sums it up. SWG allowed me to be truly part of a Star Wars world, go through so many professions and finally unlock the force, journey through it. Hide my visibility from the public, feel the thrill of being hunted by bounties and their covert allies as well as going through the jedi trials....all of this pre-cu.

What SWTOR has done for its players? Gave them some non important stories made for the mainstream media that can be found in those single player games.

klash2def · February 2016

Thourne said:

Once you know what your doing most classes can be stared and finished within 1-2 days tops.

SWG is a sandbox or open world design (depending on which definitions you choose to use) and SWTOR is a combat based game.

The planets are not as static as Swtor. The spawns are dynamic. In swtor if you kill an X and stand there for a minute another X will spawn. You destroy a squill lair on Tatooine in SWG and maybe nothing spawns but maybe a Eopie lair spawns.

You bemoan the fact that you need others to buff or heal you. That is called interdependence and it builds community. It is essential in sandbox games to have a strong community of people that rely on each other.

Yes TOR does get you into the action from level one but TOR is only about the action. It is a combat based game. It dose not treat crafting equally and it doesn't even have non combat support roles.

You are right they are apples and oranges, SWG is a nice crisp and juicy Honeycrisp while SWTOR is a bitter under ripe orange.

I'm not against anything here, but dude static is static. Just because something dies and respawns in a different skin does not make it Dynamic.

It's still just waiting to die. Both games are static in this sense.. It would be nice to actually see NPCs doing stuff.. enemies that patrol, emote and move around. At least in TOR this is true to a point. SWG NPCs just stand there. literally. There is still a long way to go in this area.

klash2def · February 2016

Kopogero said:

SWG enjoyed it for every second while I played it for 1½ years. SWTOR never installed it. That pretty much sums it up. SWG allowed me to be truly part of a Star Wars world, go through so many professions and finally unlock the force, journey through it. Hide my visibility from the public, feel the thrill of being hunted by bounties and their covert allies as well as going through the jedi trials....all of this pre-cu.

What SWTOR has done for its players? Gave them some non important stories made for the mainstream media that can be found in those single player games.

But you haven't even played SWTOR.

This is what I'm talking about.. people just bash SWTOR without even playing it and say it's worse than SWG, when SWG was actually trying to become SWTOR.. but failed at it.

Thorkune · February 2016

klash2def said:

Thourne said:

Once you know what your doing most classes can be stared and finished within 1-2 days tops.

SWG is a sandbox or open world design (depending on which definitions you choose to use) and SWTOR is a combat based game.

The planets are not as static as Swtor. The spawns are dynamic. In swtor if you kill an X and stand there for a minute another X will spawn. You destroy a squill lair on Tatooine in SWG and maybe nothing spawns but maybe a Eopie lair spawns.

You bemoan the fact that you need others to buff or heal you. That is called interdependence and it builds community. It is essential in sandbox games to have a strong community of people that rely on each other.

Yes TOR does get you into the action from level one but TOR is only about the action. It is a combat based game. It dose not treat crafting equally and it doesn't even have non combat support roles.

You are right they are apples and oranges, SWG is a nice crisp and juicy Honeycrisp while SWTOR is a bitter under ripe orange.

I'm not against anything here, but dude static is static. Just because something dies and respawns in a different skin does not make it Dynamic.

It's still just waiting to die. Both games are static in this sense.. It would be nice to actually see NPCs doing stuff.. enemies that patrol, emote and move around. At least in TOR this is true to a point. SWG NPCs just stand there. literally. There is still a long way to go in this area.

At least you could target everything in SWG and most other MMO's. In SWTOR, there are NPC's that you can't even target. They are only there for visual art. That cheapens the game for me. And, I hate places like Nar Shaddaa in SWTOR because I can see the vast city, yet I can't visit any of it because it's just art. I'll never forget the first time I went to Tatooine in SWTOR. I got on my speeder and head out to explore the vast area and hit a boundary marker. I was livid and made my mind up right then that I was a short timer in SWTOR.

Thourne · February 2016

klash2def said:

Thourne said:

Once you know what your doing most classes can be stared and finished within 1-2 days tops.

SWG is a sandbox or open world design (depending on which definitions you choose to use) and SWTOR is a combat based game.

The planets are not as static as Swtor. The spawns are dynamic. In swtor if you kill an X and stand there for a minute another X will spawn. You destroy a squill lair on Tatooine in SWG and maybe nothing spawns but maybe a Eopie lair spawns.

You bemoan the fact that you need others to buff or heal you. That is called interdependence and it builds community. It is essential in sandbox games to have a strong community of people that rely on each other.

Yes TOR does get you into the action from level one but TOR is only about the action. It is a combat based game. It dose not treat crafting equally and it doesn't even have non combat support roles.

You are right they are apples and oranges, SWG is a nice crisp and juicy Honeycrisp while SWTOR is a bitter under ripe orange.

I'm not against anything here, but dude static is static. Just because something dies and respawns in a different skin does not make it Dynamic.

It's still just waiting to die. Both games are static in this sense.. It would be nice to actually see NPCs doing stuff.. enemies that patrol, emote and move around. At least in TOR this is true to a point. SWG NPCs just stand there. literally. There is still a long way to go in this area.

then you missed the patrolling troopers, the mock charging animals. the stalking animals.

klash2def · February 2016

Please people dont disregard the fact that Star Wars Galaxies was a failure pre-NGE. That's why there was a NGE in the first place. There were some things about it though that could dramatically improve SWTOR as a mmo experience.

Not that SWTOR isn't a good game. It definitely is .. it's just a tad below what could be achieved if the market would allow it. That being said, we can't pretend like SWG was something it wasn't.

Thourne · February 2016

There was an NGE because they were unhappy with the sub numbers compared to the new juggernaut WOW.

For the time 200k subs was something most games would have loved to claim.
And around 200k was what they were down to by the time the NGE launched. Granted the CU had already caused a minor exodus.

Let me put it this way, you can't compare numbers or figures from pre 2005 and post 2005 for the purposes of success. The markets aren't similar. PC saturation is different. High speed internet penetration is different.

Thorkune · February 2016

klash2def said:

Please people dont disregard the fact that Star Wars Galaxies was a failure pre-NGE. That's why there was a NGE in the first place. There were some things about it though that could dramatically improve SWTOR as a mmo experience.

Not that SWTOR isn't a good game. It definitely is .. it's just a tad below what could be achieved if the market would allow it. That being said, we can't pretend like SWG was something it wasn't.

The NGE was created by greedy people that wanted to give another a space version of WoW to players that didn't want WoW. And, SWG was something to me and my guild full of players from the launch of SWG. SWTOR can never be improved on because Bioware decided to use the worst game engine in the MMO industry. So, you will always have the cattle chute maps that you can never fully explore. If you like it, cool. But, unless you played the original version of SWG and invested years building your world, you will never know how truly awesome it was.

HellboundHeart · February 2016

GeezerGamer said:

I wonder if this thread gets shut down

Medium Infractions
At the discretion of the moderator and/or the Community Manager, the following infractions will be classed as either minor or major infractions and appropriate penalties will be applied.
Unofficial Servers
Discussing or advertising unofficial servers or emulators for MMOs is not permitted on the MMORPG.com forums. These servers are against the Terms of Service of the original game, and violate the intellectual propriety rights of the game's publisher and developer.

Social Justice Warrior at it's finest.

A little advice, don't be a tattletale.

Sorry, fair use.

If I can get it in a store, ios, android, windows, then we can discuss it freely. SWG is long since gone and I hate that damn game to death but, dude can say what he wants. The dudes running the SWGemu are allowed to do such as they have permission. If not, then we wouldent have this conversation now would we? So yeah, there's that.

Besides, he obviously was not promoting it as he likes SWTOR more.

klash2def · February 2016

Thourne said:

There was an NGE because they were unhappy with the sub numbers compared to the new juggernaut WOW.

For the time 200k subs was something most games would have loved to claim.
And around 200k was what they were down to by the time the NGE launched. Granted the CU had already caused a minor exodus.

Let me put it this way, you can't compare numbers or figures from pre 2005 and post 2005 for the purposes of success. The markets aren't similar. PC saturation is different. High speed internet penetration is different.

I agree with you. I'm not comparing the market just the game, if you wanna talk about markets then people shouldn't compare any of these games at all because WOW came out in a totally different market than today which is a HUGE part of its success.

I'm strictly talking about gameplay. Its comparable because you can play them both and compare them.

EDIT: I never once mentioned sub numbers or anything of that nature.

danimal425 · February 2016

Ive played both but SWTOR gets boring so fast and you are limited on what you can do and like someone else in this thread already mentioned,the boundary marker/fake area art makes the game seem so fake and cheap...SWG was limitless with possibilities even if it was buggy as hell at least you could explore the dang planets...SWTOR is nothing like SWG and will never compare due to the fact that the engine is built around a WOW concept whereas SWG was an entity of its own and never again will there be a star wars based game like it....R.I.P

Thorkune · February 2016

danimal425 said:

Ive played both but SWTOR gets boring so fast and you are limited on what you can do and like someone else in this thread already mentioned,the boundary marker/fake area art makes the game seem so fake and cheap...SWG was limitless with possibilities even if it was buggy as hell at least you could explore the dang planets...SWTOR is nothing like SWG and will never compare due to the fact that the engine is built around a WOW concept whereas SWG was an entity of its own and never again will there be a star wars based game like it....R.I.P

Do you mean you don't miss the rubber banding? I would be heading out of Mos Eisley to go to a vendor outside of town and would rubber band back 1000 yards. Or, when you called your speeder on Naboo and it fell from the sky. It was annoying at the time, but I miss it.

Thourne · February 2016

klash2def said:

Thourne said:

There was an NGE because they were unhappy with the sub numbers compared to the new juggernaut WOW.

For the time 200k subs was something most games would have loved to claim.
And around 200k was what they were down to by the time the NGE launched. Granted the CU had already caused a minor exodus.

Let me put it this way, you can't compare numbers or figures from pre 2005 and post 2005 for the purposes of success. The markets aren't similar. PC saturation is different. High speed internet penetration is different.

I agree with you. I'm not comparing the market just the game, if you wanna talk about markets then people shouldn't compare any of these games at all because WOW came out in a totally different market than today which is a HUGE part of its success.

I'm strictly talking about gameplay. Its comparable because you can play them both and compare them.

EDIT: I never once mentioned sub numbers or anything of that nature.

You cited it as a failure. That would be indicative of sub numbers, as subs was the income and the only measuring stick for success.

Thourne · February 2016

klash2def said:

Thourne said:

"WOW came out in a totally different market than today which is a HUGE part of its success. "

Absolutely a huge part of it's success.
Timing paired with an existing popular IP that had a large existing online player base, is why it skyrocketed.

Thorkune · February 2016

Thourne said:

You cited it as a failure. That would be indicative of sub numbers, as subs was the income and the only measuring stick for success.

This /\

When SWG shut down, all of the same people, that I played with daily, were still there. Tarquinas had a healthy population, even when they merged servers. I think they mostly did it for maintenance purposes and the fact that SOE gave SWG a skeleton crew. I honestly think Smedley knew about SWTOR way before SWG shut down.

Burntvet · February 2016

SWG was a fun and dynamic but somewhat buggy/unfinished world.

TOR is a shiny and well put together shallow oil painting of a game.

In SWG you were part of the world and could affect things in a number of ways.

In TOR, you just get to see the sights as you walk on thru.

Totally different games, and it is likely that the fans of one will probably not be a fan of both.

(As for being a "failure" SWG most certainly was not, it paid for itself 3 times over for SOE, according to Raph Koster, it was very cheap to get through primary development: somewhere between $30-$35 mil. TOR on the other hand cost what? $400 mil for development plus launch advertising? Plus, people forget that 3 of 4 of the senior execs in charge of TOR at EA were "fired". )

klash2def · February 2016

One more thing about numbers:

Why I didn't mention it is because it's not fair to mention numbers when SWG came out in the early 2000's and TOR was almost a decade apart. But let's be honest here.. TOR has more numbers right now than SWG ever could and it's not even at its highest peak number.

SWG wasn't a market failure in its time but it wasn't a huge success.. when the competition was less than it is now. (MMOs were still niche)

SWTOR is a market success in its time.. when the competition is every other game is a MMO and most of them have decent sized fan bases.

If we want to look at it honestly.. if TOR came out in the early 2000's it would have been bigger than WoW or right at the same level because there would have been nothing on the market like it. The only reason people feel that loyalty to SWG is because it came out first. It's a SW game.

If TOR as it is had a 2003 release there would be no SWG. Maybe no wow still today.. that's how big the SW IP is.

It just so happens wow was already a decade in when TOR dropped.

That's my 2 cents on numbers without going full into specific mode.

EDIT: fixed typo

Thourne · February 2016

MMOs are still niche.
The niche is larger but it's a small cut of gaming.
Don't delude yourself.
We are a pitcher of water compared to the pond.

Thorkune · February 2016

To be really fair, SWTOR was tanking bad before they went to F2P and SWG was a sub game doing well with consistent sub numbers. I loved the game so much, I had three active accounts because of the two character limit.

klash2def · February 2016

Thourne said:

MMOs are still niche.
The niche is larger but it's a small cut of gaming.
Don't delude yourself.
We are a pitcher of water compared to the pond.

I disagree.. almost every single game adding MMO elements not on just PC but on console as well.

DLC itself is a MMO thing.

Almost all games are playing online with friends hitting quest hubs. That's MMO..

we are pop-culture now and have been for a while.. where have you been bud?

GeezerGamer · February 2016

HellboundHeart said:

GeezerGamer said:

I wonder if this thread gets shut down

Medium Infractions
At the discretion of the moderator and/or the Community Manager, the following infractions will be classed as either minor or major infractions and appropriate penalties will be applied.
Unofficial Servers
Discussing or advertising unofficial servers or emulators for MMOs is not permitted on the MMORPG.com forums. These servers are against the Terms of Service of the original game, and violate the intellectual propriety rights of the game's publisher and developer.

Social Justice Warrior at it's finest.

A little advice, don't be a tattletale.

Sorry, fair use.

If I can get it in a store, ios, android, windows, then we can discuss it freely. SWG is long since gone and I hate that damn game to death but, dude can say what he wants. The dudes running the SWGemu are allowed to do such as they have permission. If not, then we wouldent have this conversation now would we? So yeah, there's that.

Besides, he obviously was not promoting it as he likes SWTOR more.

"Social Justice Warrior at it's finest. " ?
Obviously, you don't even know what one is or what that means.
The fact that we cannot discuss private servers on these boards has nothing what so ever to do with social justice.

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