Well, I can honestly say I'll be sticking to STO. Now before you call me presumptuous, let me explain.
I participated in the most recent Beta Testing Weekend, and it was rather terrible. Yes, it is a Beta, but it is a late Beta, and should be more polished.
Getting past all the bugs, and unpolished feel of the game, I have another problem with it. It is World of Warcraft, with a different skin. No, I'm not joking. I used to play World of Warcraft, and ToR screams of being a WoW clone SO MUCH. It feels like I'm playing World of Warcraft, but with Lightsabers.
Now you might say, "But World of Warcraft was successful, why not copy its success?"
Well, that's the problem. I've PLAYED World of Warcraft. I don't need to play it a second time. And I think that many of those folks who think they'll be leaving World of Warcraft for NEW AND EXCITING ADVENTURES in the OLD REPUBLIC are sadly mistaken. They'll find that it feels just like WoW. In the first several hours of the game, I had already done 10+ "Go here, kill these, come back" missions.
It's just... boring to me. Now... STO has had a content drought for a year+ now, but I am holding out some hope that it will recover from this in February, with the new Featured Episodes, and hopefully some Klingon Content, because I sure as hell don't plan on going to ToR, or God forbid, back to WoW.
As an mmo, TOR will not hold my breath for long. But It will do as a bit of a star wars themed fix.
We're not supposed to have chainsaws for testi..... uh oh.....
For me, i Love me some Trek, but i also love the star wars, but as far as games go, it was TOO Generic. Take out the lightsabers, and change the words Jedi, sith, and force, and it could be ANY other Game out there. There was no Innovation, and from the look of it i doubt they really cared. They sacrificed way too much in the name of Story, which in some cases, was just not that great. and seeing how they're less than a month away, there are still way too many bugs for a game that's been in development this long.
To make matters worse, a lot of what i read on the forums that the fans want, the devs ignore. "no, you can't choose how you holda lightsaber because of story" "no you can't use that any iconic Species because it's wierd to see them get romantic" "no, you can't have customization because it's not how we want you to play" The customization and character creation is in fact so bad and bland that they refuse to even talk about it either on the forums, the site, or at the live events.
they don't care about the property, they don't care about the fans. Just like with Lucas, star wars has become nothing more than a way to make a quick buck, and TOR is a perfect example. It's too late to cancel my digital edition, so i'll play my free month on the one story line i DID like, and after that, maybe i'll just wait for the patches and updates.
Just an FYI guys, if you want to play around with the skill trees ahead of time and plan builds they have some nice TOR community sites popping up. I used www.darthhater.com and planned my whole trooper build.
I'm glad I can learn the skill trees because they're a bit more intricate than these.
Just an FYI guys, if you want to play around with the skill trees ahead of time and plan builds they have some nice TOR community sites popping up. I used www.darthhater.com and planned my whole trooper build.
I'm glad I can learn the skill trees because they're a bit more intricate than these.
FYI, apparently the official early access is now early early access, and it starts on December 13th. Great news, especially for the people who preordered early.
You know it is really funny how people are saying how ToR looks too generic and looks like WoW with lightsabers and oh I almost forgot the one who said " take away from the lightsabers and what do you have..." Lol IT IS STAR WARS PEOPLE! What do you expect a Sith, Jedi or even a Bounty Hunter to have? Hmm maybe we should just give Sith and Jedis some good old warrhamers and Bounty Hunter some phasers. I mean really? That game is base off Star Wars so for you to come and even begin to say that you find it kind of sad because of those is moronic. And lets not even talk about the graphics, I run a high end computer yet i do not think in such a selfish way. I understand 100% why bioware didn't give all the high end graphics and details in game like AoC or even like this game. Because first of all if you add the background plus actions of NPC and the graphic model plus the whole full VO then you have tons of information that will not play on people who are using low end graphic cards can deal with. People learn to get over yourselves Bioware did that for a reason and a good reason in that respect. Lastly lets talk about those who think that this game has problems within it. I will just ask you one question: Do you know ANY MMO that didn't hell the game is not even out just yet and people are bashing the TRIBBLE out of it because of these minor details. It is so funny how many will not just play the betas for what they are and that is for testing and not for bashing the game but giving information back to the company. Don't pass your opinions on the game give it a chance to grow and I am sure the game will be great for what it is a great Star Wars MMO
Quick question, did anyone try out a ranged sort of tank or DPS build? I would think ranged characters have a slight advantage in combat as opposed to saber/Force wielders. I was curious since I was planning on a trooper with my first character.
Heretic, it's funny. I was playing through some of the other character builds, I had a Smuggler-Gunslinger that I loved, and stopped playing because I was about level 16 and didn't want to ruin any more of the story.
So I started an Imperial Agent, and quickly realized that that might be one of the best characters in the game. So I stopped that one too.
I figured Trooper would be the one I would like the least in the final game, so I picked that one, and boy was I wrong.
I LOVED my Trooper. I specialized as a Commando and just loved every minute of it. Especially once the companion jumps in, and I had both of us with our heavy assault cannons shooting up the place.
Will definitely be rolling a Trooper when the game launches. I'm wondering which server I'll wind up on. I started out with Whitebeam Run and switched to Darth Malak in the second weekend when Whitebeam was offline.
Best things about TOR to me are:
1) The IP content is very well done. All the favorites are here from the weapons, the armors, characters, ships, environments.
2) The planet areas are large and expansive and look like they'll be a lot of fun to explore. The various taxis really give you a grand feel for the environments.
3) Seamless gameplay, with the effortless switching from game mode to fully-voiced cutscenes. I loved how the voiceovers affected the gameplay. The immersion factor was incredible.
4) Soundtrack is awesome and only helps the immersion.
5) Hell I even liked the ships and the space component. I got up to my X-5 Freighter with my Smuggler, and got up to the BT-7 fighter for my Trooper. Loved them both, and my annoying little droids. Even the space combat is acceptable. No, it isn't full control like STO is, but I like the variance in game play. Space combat in STO is a good deal the same as ground combat in TOR. Tab-select, spam some keys to fire weapons. But the space games allow you to do some fast targeting work that I find missing from STO, even in the Peregrine fighter or the shuttles.
6) The pure variety of characters. Every class has its own storyline built for it. And although each class shares its starting planet with another class, the quests are varied to the point where it does seem like you're playing a different story, rather than the same story missions with a different toon. In addition, when you add the differences of Advanced Classes, which further bifurcate each class into two sub-classes, now you're talking 16 different stories and game play modes. Add to that the fact that simply rolling the same character type, but choosing the other gender means you'll have ENTIRELY new voiceover content, and now you're up to like 32 separate and interesting ways through the game. And now compound that with the Light/Dark Force angle and you can possibly have 64 significantly varied game experiences all from one game and one set of 8 classes. Remarkably done, and arguably one of its strongest assets as a game.
Biggest drawback I could see was really the character creator, but that is by no means a deal-breaker. In fact I find it incredibly ironic that the STO character creator allowed me to create an alien which looked very much like a Mon Calamari (except for my beloved fish eyes, tsk), but TOR's CC doesn't even let me get close.
I found very few bugs and they were minor... no issues with UI problems or getting stuck in missions or quests.
I've got my Lifetime sub here in STO, so I'll always be around.... but come a week or so, I'll be shifting headquarters to a galaxy far, far away for a while.
I have a life time account so I may return to this game when it gets some actual content in instead of fluff. I got to play beta the past weekends. After which the only thing really sto does better is character customs and space combat other than that...So that said come the 13ththis game will be collecting nothing but dust on my table for the time being.
Some nice responses the last few posts. TY TY TY to Kuber for the trooper info, as that pretty much validates and cements my choice for a first character. Now I am really excited!!
General FYI to our STO TORinos (hehe, TORinos): looks like the forums and site will be down periodically until the 13th, and they have stated that the forums are being wiped and restarted to customers only. So if you happened to post at the official site, just know that it will be a brand new place come Tuesday.
Other than that, looks like it will be a new era for some of us next week, and a lot more in 10 days on launch. I hope I get to play with my fellow STOers, because by and large, we are one of the most nice and close knit communities in gaming.
I cancelled my collectors edition, after playing the beta for 3 months I changed my mind about it. Its not worth more than 60 bucks, I may or may not pick it up after it launches. I didnt like the direction they took it in, I would have preferred it was set in the classic timeline...with non stylised graphics. I think the stylised graphics ruin the Star Wars feel, I just cant take it seriously. The voiceovers are over acted and the scripting is immature...it just left me feeling sour.
I'm definitely getting it, then when Cryptic give us 5 minutes worth of new content every 12 months with STO I'll come back and play for 5 minutes finish it and go straight back to TOR since they'll never have a 12 month content drought.
I cancelled my collectors edition, after playing the beta for 3 months I changed my mind about it. Its not worth more than 60 bucks, I may or may not pick it up after it launches. I didnt like the direction they took it in, I would have preferred it was set in the classic timeline...with non stylised graphics. I think the stylised graphics ruin the Star Wars feel, I just cant take it seriously. The voiceovers are over acted and the scripting is immature...it just left me feeling sour.
Sorry to hear that, Morgomir. I can understand though, because while the KOTOR timeline and era has its fans, many Star Wars fans want a setting in the classic timeline. Perhaps we can still meet up on there in the future if you get it, my friend.
That's great that people want the classic timeline, but the problem is at that point, you would only really be a Rebel Alliance soldier or a Smuggler or an Imperial soldier or Bounty Hunter.
Forget having hordes of Jedi and Sith running around causing havoc, because the only ones would be Darth Vader, the Emperor, Yoda and Ben Kenobi.
And most who want to play Star Wars want a feel for the Jedi/Sith action. That means The Old Republic.
That's great that people want the classic timeline, but the problem is at that point, you would only really be a Rebel Alliance soldier or a Smuggler or an Imperial soldier or Bounty Hunter.
Forget having hordes of Jedi and Sith running around causing havoc, because the only ones would be Darth Vader, the Emperor, Yoda and Ben Kenobi.
And most who want to play Star Wars want a feel for the Jedi/Sith action. That means The Old Republic.
Well SW Galaxies worked fine beside those "canon breaks". And originally you had to go through A LOT of efford to become a Jedi wich made it rare.
Of course its not perfect but to a lot of people it was still fun.
Also: They could easyly set the story up after Endor where more Jedis trained by Luke can run arround as much as "Sith" trained by... anyone who survived.... the Extendet universe offers enough possibilitys.
I cancelled my collectors edition, after playing the beta for 3 months I changed my mind about it. Its not worth more than 60 bucks, I may or may not pick it up after it launches. I didnt like the direction they took it in, I would have preferred it was set in the classic timeline...with non stylised graphics. I think the stylised graphics ruin the Star Wars feel, I just cant take it seriously. The voiceovers are over acted and the scripting is immature...it just left me feeling sour.
That's great that people want the classic timeline, but the problem is at that point, you would only really be a Rebel Alliance soldier or a Smuggler or an Imperial soldier or Bounty Hunter.
Forget having hordes of Jedi and Sith running around causing havoc, because the only ones would be Darth Vader, the Emperor, Yoda and Ben Kenobi.
And most who want to play Star Wars want a feel for the Jedi/Sith action. That means The Old Republic.
Well we still have SWG for a few more days....that was our classic timeline.
The reason why TOR looks the way it does is to that people can relate to KoTOR 1 and 2.
I've got several gigs left to download... so by the time I get it downloaded, I will have the money to buy the retail key. :x I just have it preordered.
Well we still have SWG for a few more days....that was our classic timeline.
The reason why TOR looks the way it does is to that people can relate to KoTOR 1 and 2.
Also...1 day away !!!!
The thing is...it doesnt relate to KOTOR 1 or 2. It looks far more inspired by the prequels...nothing in the game feels old tech. Notice the sith warships look like Star Destroyers? And the stylised graphics make it look less like any kind of Star Wars. But whatever, people have their opinions. Also notice how there are no loose clothes in the game, almost everything is skin tight...its like the art team couldnt figure out how to implement loose clothing with the graphics style.
I played SWG for 5 years...why? I dont know...I made memories, maybe I just met the right people and did the right things at the right time. But I developed an attachment for that game regardless...hell, id resub if it wasnt being shut down.
The thing is...it doesnt relate to KOTOR 1 or 2. It looks far more inspired by the prequels...nothing in the game feels old tech. Notice the sith warships look like Star Destroyers? And the stylised graphics make it look less like any kind of Star Wars. But whatever, people have their opinions. Also notice how there are no loose clothes in the game, almost everything is skin tight...its like the art team couldnt figure out how to implement loose clothing with the graphics style.
I played SWG for 5 years...why? I dont know...I made memories, maybe I just met the right people and did the right things at the right time. But I developed an attachment for that game regardless...hell, id resub if it wasnt being shut down.
SWToR is set like 200 years after the end of KotOR 2, so it is related in most ways, even the class stories have many many references to what happened in both KotOR and KotOR 2, you even get to meet some of the original characters.
Also about the loose clothes the devs have already said that are adding some into the game, but atm with this new game engine they are using it is currently causing quite a few game breaking bugs, but we can look forwards to more clothing and armor variety within the first 2-3 main updates.
Personally I would have rather had Bioware handling this game instead of Cryptic, but that cannot be changed now, However I look forwards to SWToR much more than this cash cow of a micro-transaction wallet eating game.
Go Team SWTOR, see all of you there who are leaving this to play that, to everyone else who is staying here, good luck and no hard feelings, hope the game turns into something you enjoy before Perfect Worlds and Cryptic continue with Atari's path of destruction with this IP.
The thing is...it doesnt relate to KOTOR 1 or 2. It looks far more inspired by the prequels...
It's heavily inspired by KOTOR 1 and 2. The story in SWTOR owes a great deal to those games, most obviously with the entire setting of a returned Sith Empire against the Galactic Republic.
As far as ships and tech go... Ships in those games looked more or less the same as ships do in SWTOR... which also look more or less like ships in the prequel trilogy... which over time came to reflect more and more the designs of the original trilogy. Technology in the GFFA has essentially been stagnant for thousands of years.
Thought I was out by a bit, but I'd rather by 100 years too early than a 100 years too late, still though it's going to be a great game for quite a while imo, if it manages to hold most of it's subs after the first 2 months I think it will only go from strength to strength, just hope EA does not betray the trust of it's player base unlike cryptic does on a regular basis lately.
It's heavily inspired by KOTOR 1 and 2. The story in SWTOR owes a great deal to those games, most obviously with the entire setting of a returned Sith Empire against the Galactic Republic.
As far as ships and tech go... Ships in those games looked more or less the same as ships do in SWTOR... which also look more or less like ships in the prequel trilogy... which over time came to reflect more and more the designs of the original trilogy. Technology in the GFFA has essentially been stagnant for thousands of years.
Roughly three hundred years, actually.
Still, upon first glance you wouldnt know it was set in the distant past unless you already knew the backstory. Because it doesnt look it. Also, ive heard the technology excuse a thousand times. No, the devs were just outright unoriginal and wanted to create a familiar look for the game for the typical every day individual.
The above ship was a great design, and is no where to be seen in SWTOR. They should have evolved around this design. The SWTOR themes are riddled with cliches, its just an unoriginal and predictable game. I think Bioware is one of the most over rated companies in the gaming industry. They released KOTOR 1 and ME 1, but thats 2.. 5 star games, the rest were hit/miss.
I think it's pretty clear that the entire dev process was about creating a game that spoke to the traditional Star Wars mythos and environments. Trying to reinvent everything to be "brand new" and significantly altered in look and feel from the original trilogy and the prequels would just be a recipe for disaster.
Instead, playing to the traditional Star Wars themes leverages the entire Star Wars fan base around the world. You immediately tap a much larger market of fans (and consumers, and hopefully subscribers), and satisfy the needs of the players who want to either go the troop/smuggler route or the Jedi/Sith route, while still remaining in the general canon of the stories.
The former glorious Republic was referenced in Star Wars. The stories that would come later, such as the Jacen/Jaina Solo storylines and so forth that would come after Return of the Jedi, were not mentioned. Seems a no-brainer that you'd go back to the peak time of the galaxy at the moment when it had two significant factions pitted against each other in a balanced arrangement, when there were numerous Jedi and Sith, as well as Republic and Imperial players.
______
As to the clothing, if you go back and watch the movies, most of the clothing outside of Jedi/Sith robes and royal costuming was fairly skin-tight. Think Han Solo's outfit in Episode 4, Luke's pants and boots outside of his baggy tunic, Leia's outfit on Hoth, the Hoth rebel troops (even with cold-weather gear, they were still pretty tight-fitting), and so forth.
And for the Jedi and Sith characters as well as others, even my Trooper had access to flowing garments that he could wear, along with the cape type chest pieces and even robes for the leg areas.
And finally, as to the "stylized" nature of the graphics, I'm just fine with it. It's clear they made an effort to keep the demands on the PCs low so that they could tap a larger audience of players. By contrast, you can take a look at what happened to Entropia Universe, when they moved from their older game engine and upgraded to CryEngine 2. It seems a large portion of the game population were essentially blocked out of the game, and many never returned. The graphics are beautiful, and the game base suffered as a result.
Comments
As an mmo, TOR will not hold my breath for long. But It will do as a bit of a star wars themed fix.
Sorry I had to...
For me, i Love me some Trek, but i also love the star wars, but as far as games go, it was TOO Generic. Take out the lightsabers, and change the words Jedi, sith, and force, and it could be ANY other Game out there. There was no Innovation, and from the look of it i doubt they really cared. They sacrificed way too much in the name of Story, which in some cases, was just not that great. and seeing how they're less than a month away, there are still way too many bugs for a game that's been in development this long.
To make matters worse, a lot of what i read on the forums that the fans want, the devs ignore. "no, you can't choose how you holda lightsaber because of story" "no you can't use that any iconic Species because it's wierd to see them get romantic" "no, you can't have customization because it's not how we want you to play" The customization and character creation is in fact so bad and bland that they refuse to even talk about it either on the forums, the site, or at the live events.
they don't care about the property, they don't care about the fans. Just like with Lucas, star wars has become nothing more than a way to make a quick buck, and TOR is a perfect example. It's too late to cancel my digital edition, so i'll play my free month on the one story line i DID like, and after that, maybe i'll just wait for the patches and updates.
I'm glad I can learn the skill trees because they're a bit more intricate than these.
Nice resource.
Heretic, it's funny. I was playing through some of the other character builds, I had a Smuggler-Gunslinger that I loved, and stopped playing because I was about level 16 and didn't want to ruin any more of the story.
So I started an Imperial Agent, and quickly realized that that might be one of the best characters in the game. So I stopped that one too.
I figured Trooper would be the one I would like the least in the final game, so I picked that one, and boy was I wrong.
I LOVED my Trooper. I specialized as a Commando and just loved every minute of it. Especially once the companion jumps in, and I had both of us with our heavy assault cannons shooting up the place.
Will definitely be rolling a Trooper when the game launches. I'm wondering which server I'll wind up on. I started out with Whitebeam Run and switched to Darth Malak in the second weekend when Whitebeam was offline.
Best things about TOR to me are:
1) The IP content is very well done. All the favorites are here from the weapons, the armors, characters, ships, environments.
2) The planet areas are large and expansive and look like they'll be a lot of fun to explore. The various taxis really give you a grand feel for the environments.
3) Seamless gameplay, with the effortless switching from game mode to fully-voiced cutscenes. I loved how the voiceovers affected the gameplay. The immersion factor was incredible.
4) Soundtrack is awesome and only helps the immersion.
5) Hell I even liked the ships and the space component. I got up to my X-5 Freighter with my Smuggler, and got up to the BT-7 fighter for my Trooper. Loved them both, and my annoying little droids. Even the space combat is acceptable. No, it isn't full control like STO is, but I like the variance in game play. Space combat in STO is a good deal the same as ground combat in TOR. Tab-select, spam some keys to fire weapons. But the space games allow you to do some fast targeting work that I find missing from STO, even in the Peregrine fighter or the shuttles.
6) The pure variety of characters. Every class has its own storyline built for it. And although each class shares its starting planet with another class, the quests are varied to the point where it does seem like you're playing a different story, rather than the same story missions with a different toon. In addition, when you add the differences of Advanced Classes, which further bifurcate each class into two sub-classes, now you're talking 16 different stories and game play modes. Add to that the fact that simply rolling the same character type, but choosing the other gender means you'll have ENTIRELY new voiceover content, and now you're up to like 32 separate and interesting ways through the game. And now compound that with the Light/Dark Force angle and you can possibly have 64 significantly varied game experiences all from one game and one set of 8 classes. Remarkably done, and arguably one of its strongest assets as a game.
Biggest drawback I could see was really the character creator, but that is by no means a deal-breaker. In fact I find it incredibly ironic that the STO character creator allowed me to create an alien which looked very much like a Mon Calamari (except for my beloved fish eyes, tsk), but TOR's CC doesn't even let me get close.
I found very few bugs and they were minor... no issues with UI problems or getting stuck in missions or quests.
I've got my Lifetime sub here in STO, so I'll always be around.... but come a week or so, I'll be shifting headquarters to a galaxy far, far away for a while.
General FYI to our STO TORinos (hehe, TORinos): looks like the forums and site will be down periodically until the 13th, and they have stated that the forums are being wiped and restarted to customers only. So if you happened to post at the official site, just know that it will be a brand new place come Tuesday.
Other than that, looks like it will be a new era for some of us next week, and a lot more in 10 days on launch. I hope I get to play with my fellow STOers, because by and large, we are one of the most nice and close knit communities in gaming.
Sorry to hear that, Morgomir. I can understand though, because while the KOTOR timeline and era has its fans, many Star Wars fans want a setting in the classic timeline. Perhaps we can still meet up on there in the future if you get it, my friend.
Forget having hordes of Jedi and Sith running around causing havoc, because the only ones would be Darth Vader, the Emperor, Yoda and Ben Kenobi.
And most who want to play Star Wars want a feel for the Jedi/Sith action. That means The Old Republic.
Well SW Galaxies worked fine beside those "canon breaks". And originally you had to go through A LOT of efford to become a Jedi wich made it rare.
Of course its not perfect but to a lot of people it was still fun.
Also: They could easyly set the story up after Endor where more Jedis trained by Luke can run arround as much as "Sith" trained by... anyone who survived.... the Extendet universe offers enough possibilitys.
However... I'll take what I get.
Well we still have SWG for a few more days....that was our classic timeline.
The reason why TOR looks the way it does is to that people can relate to KoTOR 1 and 2.
Also...1 day away !!!!
The thing is...it doesnt relate to KOTOR 1 or 2. It looks far more inspired by the prequels...nothing in the game feels old tech. Notice the sith warships look like Star Destroyers? And the stylised graphics make it look less like any kind of Star Wars. But whatever, people have their opinions. Also notice how there are no loose clothes in the game, almost everything is skin tight...its like the art team couldnt figure out how to implement loose clothing with the graphics style.
I played SWG for 5 years...why? I dont know...I made memories, maybe I just met the right people and did the right things at the right time. But I developed an attachment for that game regardless...hell, id resub if it wasnt being shut down.
SWToR is set like 200 years after the end of KotOR 2, so it is related in most ways, even the class stories have many many references to what happened in both KotOR and KotOR 2, you even get to meet some of the original characters.
Also about the loose clothes the devs have already said that are adding some into the game, but atm with this new game engine they are using it is currently causing quite a few game breaking bugs, but we can look forwards to more clothing and armor variety within the first 2-3 main updates.
Personally I would have rather had Bioware handling this game instead of Cryptic, but that cannot be changed now, However I look forwards to SWToR much more than this cash cow of a micro-transaction wallet eating game.
Go Team SWTOR, see all of you there who are leaving this to play that, to everyone else who is staying here, good luck and no hard feelings, hope the game turns into something you enjoy before Perfect Worlds and Cryptic continue with Atari's path of destruction with this IP.
As far as ships and tech go... Ships in those games looked more or less the same as ships do in SWTOR... which also look more or less like ships in the prequel trilogy... which over time came to reflect more and more the designs of the original trilogy. Technology in the GFFA has essentially been stagnant for thousands of years.
Roughly three hundred years, actually.
Thought I was out by a bit, but I'd rather by 100 years too early than a 100 years too late, still though it's going to be a great game for quite a while imo, if it manages to hold most of it's subs after the first 2 months I think it will only go from strength to strength, just hope EA does not betray the trust of it's player base unlike cryptic does on a regular basis lately.
My friend, I hope you were WHINING when you said that.
Still, upon first glance you wouldnt know it was set in the distant past unless you already knew the backstory. Because it doesnt look it. Also, ive heard the technology excuse a thousand times. No, the devs were just outright unoriginal and wanted to create a familiar look for the game for the typical every day individual.
http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/b/b0/Kotor_screen098.jpg
The above ship was a great design, and is no where to be seen in SWTOR. They should have evolved around this design. The SWTOR themes are riddled with cliches, its just an unoriginal and predictable game. I think Bioware is one of the most over rated companies in the gaming industry. They released KOTOR 1 and ME 1, but thats 2.. 5 star games, the rest were hit/miss.
I'm just here for the chicks.
-raises eyebrows-
Instead, playing to the traditional Star Wars themes leverages the entire Star Wars fan base around the world. You immediately tap a much larger market of fans (and consumers, and hopefully subscribers), and satisfy the needs of the players who want to either go the troop/smuggler route or the Jedi/Sith route, while still remaining in the general canon of the stories.
The former glorious Republic was referenced in Star Wars. The stories that would come later, such as the Jacen/Jaina Solo storylines and so forth that would come after Return of the Jedi, were not mentioned. Seems a no-brainer that you'd go back to the peak time of the galaxy at the moment when it had two significant factions pitted against each other in a balanced arrangement, when there were numerous Jedi and Sith, as well as Republic and Imperial players.
______
As to the clothing, if you go back and watch the movies, most of the clothing outside of Jedi/Sith robes and royal costuming was fairly skin-tight. Think Han Solo's outfit in Episode 4, Luke's pants and boots outside of his baggy tunic, Leia's outfit on Hoth, the Hoth rebel troops (even with cold-weather gear, they were still pretty tight-fitting), and so forth.
And for the Jedi and Sith characters as well as others, even my Trooper had access to flowing garments that he could wear, along with the cape type chest pieces and even robes for the leg areas.
And finally, as to the "stylized" nature of the graphics, I'm just fine with it. It's clear they made an effort to keep the demands on the PCs low so that they could tap a larger audience of players. By contrast, you can take a look at what happened to Entropia Universe, when they moved from their older game engine and upgraded to CryEngine 2. It seems a large portion of the game population were essentially blocked out of the game, and many never returned. The graphics are beautiful, and the game base suffered as a result.