So.... it's been leaked that we get a new lockbox and a new rep system. Biiiiig surprise.....
The problem I really start seeing is that Cryptic is running towards a dead end. Just think about it. What's next? Every time we get a new lockbox, two new ships, traits, doffs etc., and the icing is a new rep system. You can't continue this without end. It just gets boring for older and very frustrating for new players. This game is on the verge of needing some innovation. Maybe not for Season 9 but for anything that comes afterwards.
So.... it's been leaked that we get a new lockbox and a new rep system. Biiiiig surprise.....
The problem I really start seeing is that Cryptic is running towards a dead end. Just think about it. What's next? Every time we get a new lockbox, two new ships, traits, doffs etc., and the icing is a new rep system. You can't continue this without end. It just gets boring for older and very frustrating for new players. This game is on the verge of needing some innovation. Maybe not for Season 9 but for anything that comes afterwards.
For the Reps.... well I still think they are a good Idea, but I also think they should slow down on that part.
They iron out the Reps we have themselves a bit more...
For the Lockboxes.... Not only do I hate those things with passion, I have kind of a morbid curiosity about those.
The thing is: Cryptic seems to believe that EVERYTHING is about ships. So they throw out new ships and new ships and new ships and I thing STO will very soon be oversaturated with ships, if it isn't already.
I mean I wasn't a fan of the anniversary event-grind, but mainly because it was a dump activity and because it was time gated.
But throwing new ships at us isn't a good touch either. They should slow HEAVYLY down on giving out new ships (although, kind of contradictionary to that: some faction specific ships especially on KDF side are in need), and they should only add them as something to work for on the long run. IN the game, not via C-Store.
And they should find something new to work on...
I really wonder what happens when they run out of ideas on that side...
The thing is: Cryptic seems to believe that EVERYTHING is about ships. So they throw out new ships and new ships and new ships and I thing STO will very soon be oversaturated with ships, if it isn't already.
Yeah I noticed that too. I guess their metrics tell them that is is indeed all about ships. It's what sells. They even hired an additional ship artist according to an interview.
The problem is that all this ship, lockbox and rep stuff is what makes the money according to their metrics. Unfortunately you can't continue milking that forever. I certainly hope they manage to create something new and innovative before people get too sick of the repetition and leave.
Yup.. something with the scale of the "Legacy" Expansion except that there won't be a new playable faction, but for that an update/enhancement of the exploration and crafting systems, new sectors(!), enemies, npc-races, etc. - I really think STO needs definitely more exploration.. much more planets that one can visit and unique missions that can be solved in many different ways other than just "shooting". I know.. FOUNDRY (which I really love btw), but there also should be more official stuff like that and the (new) systems/mechanics would have to be implemented "officially" anyway. I'd be totally willing to shell out the same like I did for Legacy for such an expansion and I'm virtually certain that I'm not the only one
"We might get pretty singed at that range, but not as singed as they're going to get. Engage."
- Captain Six of Nine aka Ashley "Don't Call Me Ash" Campbell
Even the few - admittedly very good - story missions we get nowadays are in some way just there to showcase the next shiny ship, and advance the story just enough that the new themed grind may commence.
The thing is: Cryptic seems to believe that EVERYTHING is about ships. So they throw out new ships and new ships and new ships and I thing STO will very soon be oversaturated with ships, if it isn't already.
not everything, but ships play a big part, people like ships, its a space game, you can bet flying cool looking spaceships are one of the top reasons people play this.
problem is that cryptic can't give people enough to do, no matter how hard they try, they should give players greater range of tools in the foundry, its pretty damn obvious they aren't capable of putting forward enough content to satiate the playerbase.
it also wouldn't hurt if they drastically improved the randomized mission system on exploration sectors.
i honestly don't get how a game made in 1999(starfleet command) had better random missions than STO, i really don't, and why can't cryptic try to copy some of the ideas in it.
Even the few - admittedly very good - story missions we get nowadays are in some way just there to showcase the next shiny ship, and advance the story just enough that the new themed grind may commence.
Yeah that's something anoying, too.
I what more "normal" missions, utilizing my bos and my ship. But more on that in my sigs link^^
not everything, but ships play a big part, people like ships, its a space game, you can bet flying cool looking spaceships are one of the top reasons people play this.
problem is that cryptic can't give people enough to do, no matter how hard they try, they should give players greater range of tools in the foundry, its pretty damn obvious they aren't capable of putting forward enough content to satiate the playerbase.
it also wouldn't hurt if they drastically improved the randomized mission system on exploration sectors.
i honestly don't get how a game made in 1999(starfleet command) had better random missions than STO, i really don't, and why can't cryptic try to copy some of the ideas in it.
Yeah of course. I didn't say that adding ships is wrong in general. Just not focussing everything in that and throwing them out like smarties.
Because while people like ships they at some point have enough. They stop caring about another grind, another lockbox and start ignoring that.
Also at some point there is nothing new to add about ships. Then new ships will be overpowered or un creative.
They should just slow that down in favor of something different, not stoping ship production in general.
In total agreement. It seems as though they are grasping for straws now, which is a clear indication the think tank is running empty, money making is getting into desperation mode and most of all the beginning trend of a dying game...
In total agreement. It seems as though they are grasping for straws now, which is a clear indication the think tank is running empty, money making is getting into desperation mode and most of all the beginning trend of a dying game...
Which is ironic since I can think of many things that they could do which would increase longevity of the game, bring in new and old players alike and make money at the same time - primarily, a new faction.
You're just a machine. And machines can be broken.
Which is ironic since I can think of many things that they could do which would increase longevity of the game, bring in new and old players alike and make money at the same time
...so could I....
- primarily, a new faction.
That's definitely NOT one of em.
We just had a new faction (as much as many consider it not to be one) less then a year ago. So considering that game survives another 4 years, how many factions should we ultimately have at that rate?
We have another underdeveloped faction.
Also there isn't really anything left in the st universe that would work and has enough people ingested in playing it.
Another faction is IMO an extremly bad idea.
STO need more well designed queued events. Story missions are nice, but how long do they keep you playing? 3-4 hours perhaps, if it would be a very long and well designed episode.
What STO really needs is more PvE content, that is actually worth playing. If you look at the long PvE Queue list, you see, that people basically play the same 5-6 missions: Infected Space, Khitomer Space, Starbase Fleet Defense and the Crystalline Entity. Then there are a few other missions, that have a few player now and then and then there is a long list of events with 0 players almost all the time.
If people had like 20 interesting, rewarding and fun PvE queues, than you would have something to do and wouldn't need to play the same 4 or 5 missions over and over again.
Endgame content is generally a problem for every MMO and almost all of them end up being some form of grind. Grind dungeons, grind daily missions etc.
Cryptic : No-no , trust us , it's Endgame content ... and so are ships that you can use in Endgame content . They are content too ! Think of Ships + Reputation as two sides of a Win-Win coin !!
Us : How about STF's ? PVP ? Foundry ?
Cryptic : No-no ... , those are too much work ... , but you can never know , when there a snow storm in hell perhaps ... .
Us : FE series ?
Cryptic : See the above answer .
Us : Come on ... what happened to all that "we're staffing up" and "now you'll see what we can really do !" ?
Cryptic : Well that did happen ... , but then we figured out that we can pay our artists the least $$$ while getting them to make what looks like the most 'content' , so ... that's where we are .
The rest of the guys are hanging out next to the cooler or tinkering with the back end numbers for the skills & traits for the 150th time or something like that .
But we know that you guys still love Star Trek , so it's cool right , we're cool ?
Lets look at other games that keep people logging in very night and spending money. BSGO is one of them with it's territory control. A non-stop war every day back and forth with great PVP. Can STO pull it off? Perhaps. Taking over sectors and building starbases in them can be something that can save this game. But this game cant decide if it's a PV or a PVE game. Can it do both well. History says no.
I agree that there's a perceived lack of innovation in STO. Cryptic found their comfort zone with churning out power-creep ship and grind-heavy reputation system, but as the frequency of complaint threads would suggest, I think we've reached as far as those aspects of the game can take us. There is little for players to do outside of queues and slider filling since we don't have a robust crafting system or some form of random content generation worth investing time in.
When I look back at games that kept me playing week after week, I recognize that those games made significant use of emergent gameplay mechanics--things like robust player crafting with resource gathering (passive and active), customizable housing with displayable collections and trophies (we started to get that in STO, but they stopped), and other gameplay mechanics that allowed players to express themselves and tell their own stories (like bounties and trade). All of these things are severely lacking in STO because the emphasis became less about a great experience and more about Star Trek fantasy fulfillment.
What this suggests to me is that Cryptic has relied way too heavily on metrics, and have therefore dismissed aspects of play that never got much attention to begin with. They're also chasing easy money instead of developing systems that will maintain the game in the long term.
I am laughing at the word innovation and Cryptic in the same sentence myself.
Cryptic have always been quite innovative, and they've always been quite good at making engaging combat, their problem has always been more in areas like polish, bug fixing and actually making enough content.
City of Heroes was incredibly innovative in many ways (not least in being the first superhero MMO) and had some stunning technological features (e.g. the ability to fly and fight - consider that in GW, a later game with a great engine, you couldn't even jump, and most MMOs flight was a special "on rails" feature just for travel, not actually part of the gameplay itself, i.e. not a reflection of the capability of a game engine to keep track of player input and movement in full 3-d space in an MMO). The insane customizability of characters in CoH was itself also an amazing technological feat for an MMO engine for the time.
Take Champions Online - awesome combat when it first came out, way ahead of the curve in terms of the action-MMO feel that most MMOs are striving for nowadays. Everyone loved the game. For about a month. Trouble is, it was too small, waaaaay too small, there simply wasn't enough there there.
Even our own, dear STO: partly because of the high quality of the engine, this is an MMO in which you can have well developed realizations of ground and space combat. It's really quite a feat that no other s-f MMO has managed (note the difficulty CCP had in trying to introduce ground-based stuff into EVE - it's actually not that easy to do both with one MMO engine, again, partly because tracking stuff in 3 dimensions with continuous player input, across the internet, in a full-blown MMO, with customization, etc., is not a trivial problem).
The real problem with Cryptic so far, or at least the perceived image of Cryptic that I pick up from my travels on the interwebz, is the story of games with great perceived potential that never really see their potential fulfilled because Cryptic leave them half-finished and move onto the next one. That may be a bit unfair, in that it's probably not so much a cynical move on Cryptic's part, as it was overestimating what they could do - so actually the result of a bold over-reach. But whatever the reason, it's given them a bit of a reputation.
However, they are by no means the worst developers out there, and their reputation isn't that bad, and considering how incredibly difficult it is to make MMOs, the fact they have 3 on the go is an impressive feat in and of itself and a tribute to the quality of their engine. Neverwinter was pretty well received, and indeed shows a bit more polish and attention to detail than either CO or STO had at launch.
Cryptic have always been quite innovative, and they've always been quite good at making engaging combat, their problem has always been more in areas like polish, bug fixing and actually making enough content.
-snip-
Now that I've gotten the tears from rolling in the floor laughing for 5 minutes out of my eyes- thanks, I needed a good laugh and you delivered in a major way.
Now that I've gotten the tears from rolling in the floor laughing for 5 minutes out of my eyes- thanks, I needed a good laugh and you delivered in a major way.
I'm sorry but I have to agree with him.
STOs concept feels pretty innovative in many ways. Ground AND Space combat, the space combat itself is flawed but pretty unique ect ect.
The problem is that the current development doest not build on STOs actual strength.
STOs concept feels pretty innovative in many ways. Ground AND Space combat, the space combat itself is flawed but pretty unique ect ect.
The problem is that the current development doest not build on STOs actual strength.
If you look at Space Combat in other MMOs, then STO's is far better. SWTOR uses a rail shooter while Eve seems to be more point and click. The new changes to SWTOR's space combat seems more interesting, but that is only for PvP and you can only play 3 space pve missions per week unless you subscribe or purchase a weekly pass. The one thing that STO has gotten completely right is space combat.
As much as I hate to agree with nay-sayers, I think you guy's might be on to something here.
I also have to agree with OP. I try to think of myself as objective, but in this particular case... I have to say I agree.
This is like an assembly line Cryptic has going. That isn't the Cryptic I know. What happened to taking risks, taking gambles? The Mission Architect for CoH was one of the most ambitious features an MMO had ever undertaken at the time, for instance. You shook up the MMO industry with that. You were turning heads.
You guys are turning into the game developers Cryptic prided itself on not being. You are working in a factory, following money-generating procedure down to the science PWE has given you.
Your artists are being held back from what STO is truly capable of delivering. Your game designers are wasting their college educations on the same bread and circuses instead of expanding their horizons, and thinking outside the box -- the same traits that got you guys where you are today.
Cryptic has some of the most talented people in the industry, but this factory assembly line process is turning your company into something it was founded on not being. In a way, I feel like Cryptic has given up on pushing the limit and redefining industry trends.
Cryptic have always been quite innovative, and they've always been quite good at making engaging combat, their problem has always been more in areas like polish, bug fixing and actually making enough content.
City of Heroes was incredibly innovative in many ways (not least in being the first superhero MMO) and had some stunning technological features (e.g. the ability to fly and fight - consider that in GW, a later game with a great engine, you couldn't even jump, and most MMOs flight was a special "on rails" feature just for travel, not actually part of the gameplay itself, i.e. not a reflection of the capability of a game engine to keep track of player input and movement in full 3-d space in an MMO). The insane customizability of characters in CoH was itself also an amazing technological feat for an MMO engine for the time.
Take Champions Online - awesome combat when it first came out, way ahead of the curve in terms of the action-MMO feel that most MMOs are striving for nowadays. Everyone loved the game. For about a month. Trouble is, it was too small, waaaaay too small, there simply wasn't enough there there.
Even our own, dear STO: partly because of the high quality of the engine, this is an MMO in which you can have well developed realizations of ground and space combat. It's really quite a feat that no other s-f MMO has managed (note the difficulty CCP had in trying to introduce ground-based stuff into EVE - it's actually not that easy to do both with one MMO engine, again, partly because tracking stuff in 3 dimensions with continuous player input, across the internet, in a full-blown MMO, with customization, etc., is not a trivial problem).
The real problem with Cryptic so far, or at least the perceived image of Cryptic that I pick up from my travels on the interwebz, is the story of games with great perceived potential that never really see their potential fulfilled because Cryptic leave them half-finished and move onto the next one. That may be a bit unfair, in that it's probably not so much a cynical move on Cryptic's part, as it was overestimating what they could do - so actually the result of a bold over-reach. But whatever the reason, it's given them a bit of a reputation.
However, they are by no means the worst developers out there, and their reputation isn't that bad, and considering how incredibly difficult it is to make MMOs, the fact they have 3 on the go is an impressive feat in and of itself and a tribute to the quality of their engine. Neverwinter was pretty well received, and indeed shows a bit more polish and attention to detail than either CO or STO had at launch.
You are forgetting something.. SWG (Pre-NGE)
It had both space and ground combat. In many ways it was a direct predecessor to this game in terms of how space functions (maps as sectors with entry and exit trigger boxes). From a mechanics perspective there really isn't much different between the two.
The core difference is SWG was far superior (pre NGE) in every way. You could even build your pwn player cities and while their system of object placement was a bit, eh, experimental.. at least you could decorate those locations by dropping an item and then moving it to approximately right where you wanted it. It took patience because you had to "click" to "step" the location of a dropped item.. but in the end you had a building that looked exactly how you wanted it too.
Comments
Maybe it's time they consider only doing a new rep every 2 seasons or so...
For the Reps.... well I still think they are a good Idea, but I also think they should slow down on that part.
They iron out the Reps we have themselves a bit more...
For the Lockboxes.... Not only do I hate those things with passion, I have kind of a morbid curiosity about those.
The thing is: Cryptic seems to believe that EVERYTHING is about ships. So they throw out new ships and new ships and new ships and I thing STO will very soon be oversaturated with ships, if it isn't already.
I mean I wasn't a fan of the anniversary event-grind, but mainly because it was a dump activity and because it was time gated.
But throwing new ships at us isn't a good touch either. They should slow HEAVYLY down on giving out new ships (although, kind of contradictionary to that: some faction specific ships especially on KDF side are in need), and they should only add them as something to work for on the long run. IN the game, not via C-Store.
And they should find something new to work on...
I really wonder what happens when they run out of ideas on that side...
What you mean like Expansion #2?
Yeah I noticed that too. I guess their metrics tell them that is is indeed all about ships. It's what sells. They even hired an additional ship artist according to an interview.
The problem is that all this ship, lockbox and rep stuff is what makes the money according to their metrics. Unfortunately you can't continue milking that forever. I certainly hope they manage to create something new and innovative before people get too sick of the repetition and leave.
Yup.. something with the scale of the "Legacy" Expansion except that there won't be a new playable faction, but for that an update/enhancement of the exploration and crafting systems, new sectors(!), enemies, npc-races, etc. - I really think STO needs definitely more exploration.. much more planets that one can visit and unique missions that can be solved in many different ways other than just "shooting". I know.. FOUNDRY (which I really love btw), but there also should be more official stuff like that and the (new) systems/mechanics would have to be implemented "officially" anyway. I'd be totally willing to shell out the same like I did for Legacy for such an expansion and I'm virtually certain that I'm not the only one
not everything, but ships play a big part, people like ships, its a space game, you can bet flying cool looking spaceships are one of the top reasons people play this.
problem is that cryptic can't give people enough to do, no matter how hard they try, they should give players greater range of tools in the foundry, its pretty damn obvious they aren't capable of putting forward enough content to satiate the playerbase.
it also wouldn't hurt if they drastically improved the randomized mission system on exploration sectors.
i honestly don't get how a game made in 1999(starfleet command) had better random missions than STO, i really don't, and why can't cryptic try to copy some of the ideas in it.
Yeah that's something anoying, too.
I what more "normal" missions, utilizing my bos and my ship. But more on that in my sigs link^^
Yeah of course. I didn't say that adding ships is wrong in general. Just not focussing everything in that and throwing them out like smarties.
Because while people like ships they at some point have enough. They stop caring about another grind, another lockbox and start ignoring that.
Also at some point there is nothing new to add about ships. Then new ships will be overpowered or un creative.
They should just slow that down in favor of something different, not stoping ship production in general.
Which is ironic since I can think of many things that they could do which would increase longevity of the game, bring in new and old players alike and make money at the same time - primarily, a new faction.
...so could I....
That's definitely NOT one of em.
We just had a new faction (as much as many consider it not to be one) less then a year ago. So considering that game survives another 4 years, how many factions should we ultimately have at that rate?
We have another underdeveloped faction.
Also there isn't really anything left in the st universe that would work and has enough people ingested in playing it.
Another faction is IMO an extremly bad idea.
What STO really needs is more PvE content, that is actually worth playing. If you look at the long PvE Queue list, you see, that people basically play the same 5-6 missions: Infected Space, Khitomer Space, Starbase Fleet Defense and the Crystalline Entity. Then there are a few other missions, that have a few player now and then and then there is a long list of events with 0 players almost all the time.
If people had like 20 interesting, rewarding and fun PvE queues, than you would have something to do and wouldn't need to play the same 4 or 5 missions over and over again.
Endgame content is generally a problem for every MMO and almost all of them end up being some form of grind. Grind dungeons, grind daily missions etc.
Us : No , not really .
Cryptic : No-no , trust us , it's Endgame content ... and so are ships that you can use in Endgame content . They are content too ! Think of Ships + Reputation as two sides of a Win-Win coin !!
Us : How about STF's ? PVP ? Foundry ?
Cryptic : No-no ... , those are too much work ... , but you can never know , when there a snow storm in hell perhaps ... .
Us : FE series ?
Cryptic : See the above answer .
Us : Come on ... what happened to all that "we're staffing up" and "now you'll see what we can really do !" ?
Cryptic : Well that did happen ... , but then we figured out that we can pay our artists the least $$$ while getting them to make what looks like the most 'content' , so ... that's where we are .
The rest of the guys are hanging out next to the cooler or tinkering with the back end numbers for the skills & traits for the 150th time or something like that .
But we know that you guys still love Star Trek , so it's cool right , we're cool ?
Us : ...
Cryptic : Iconians ?!
"There is no problem in the universe that can't be solved with a bribe, a paid assassin, or an overpowered fighter." - Chubain from Jumpgate Evolution
I agree that there's a perceived lack of innovation in STO. Cryptic found their comfort zone with churning out power-creep ship and grind-heavy reputation system, but as the frequency of complaint threads would suggest, I think we've reached as far as those aspects of the game can take us. There is little for players to do outside of queues and slider filling since we don't have a robust crafting system or some form of random content generation worth investing time in.
When I look back at games that kept me playing week after week, I recognize that those games made significant use of emergent gameplay mechanics--things like robust player crafting with resource gathering (passive and active), customizable housing with displayable collections and trophies (we started to get that in STO, but they stopped), and other gameplay mechanics that allowed players to express themselves and tell their own stories (like bounties and trade). All of these things are severely lacking in STO because the emphasis became less about a great experience and more about Star Trek fantasy fulfillment.
What this suggests to me is that Cryptic has relied way too heavily on metrics, and have therefore dismissed aspects of play that never got much attention to begin with. They're also chasing easy money instead of developing systems that will maintain the game in the long term.
Cryptic have always been quite innovative, and they've always been quite good at making engaging combat, their problem has always been more in areas like polish, bug fixing and actually making enough content.
City of Heroes was incredibly innovative in many ways (not least in being the first superhero MMO) and had some stunning technological features (e.g. the ability to fly and fight - consider that in GW, a later game with a great engine, you couldn't even jump, and most MMOs flight was a special "on rails" feature just for travel, not actually part of the gameplay itself, i.e. not a reflection of the capability of a game engine to keep track of player input and movement in full 3-d space in an MMO). The insane customizability of characters in CoH was itself also an amazing technological feat for an MMO engine for the time.
Take Champions Online - awesome combat when it first came out, way ahead of the curve in terms of the action-MMO feel that most MMOs are striving for nowadays. Everyone loved the game. For about a month. Trouble is, it was too small, waaaaay too small, there simply wasn't enough there there.
Even our own, dear STO: partly because of the high quality of the engine, this is an MMO in which you can have well developed realizations of ground and space combat. It's really quite a feat that no other s-f MMO has managed (note the difficulty CCP had in trying to introduce ground-based stuff into EVE - it's actually not that easy to do both with one MMO engine, again, partly because tracking stuff in 3 dimensions with continuous player input, across the internet, in a full-blown MMO, with customization, etc., is not a trivial problem).
The real problem with Cryptic so far, or at least the perceived image of Cryptic that I pick up from my travels on the interwebz, is the story of games with great perceived potential that never really see their potential fulfilled because Cryptic leave them half-finished and move onto the next one. That may be a bit unfair, in that it's probably not so much a cynical move on Cryptic's part, as it was overestimating what they could do - so actually the result of a bold over-reach. But whatever the reason, it's given them a bit of a reputation.
However, they are by no means the worst developers out there, and their reputation isn't that bad, and considering how incredibly difficult it is to make MMOs, the fact they have 3 on the go is an impressive feat in and of itself and a tribute to the quality of their engine. Neverwinter was pretty well received, and indeed shows a bit more polish and attention to detail than either CO or STO had at launch.
Now that I've gotten the tears from rolling in the floor laughing for 5 minutes out of my eyes- thanks, I needed a good laugh and you delivered in a major way.
I'm sorry but I have to agree with him.
STOs concept feels pretty innovative in many ways. Ground AND Space combat, the space combat itself is flawed but pretty unique ect ect.
The problem is that the current development doest not build on STOs actual strength.
If you look at Space Combat in other MMOs, then STO's is far better. SWTOR uses a rail shooter while Eve seems to be more point and click. The new changes to SWTOR's space combat seems more interesting, but that is only for PvP and you can only play 3 space pve missions per week unless you subscribe or purchase a weekly pass. The one thing that STO has gotten completely right is space combat.
The space/ground combat thing was done before STO, though it was thematically different. Pirates of the Burning Sea.
I also have to agree with OP. I try to think of myself as objective, but in this particular case... I have to say I agree.
This is like an assembly line Cryptic has going. That isn't the Cryptic I know. What happened to taking risks, taking gambles? The Mission Architect for CoH was one of the most ambitious features an MMO had ever undertaken at the time, for instance. You shook up the MMO industry with that. You were turning heads.
You guys are turning into the game developers Cryptic prided itself on not being. You are working in a factory, following money-generating procedure down to the science PWE has given you.
Your artists are being held back from what STO is truly capable of delivering. Your game designers are wasting their college educations on the same bread and circuses instead of expanding their horizons, and thinking outside the box -- the same traits that got you guys where you are today.
Cryptic has some of the most talented people in the industry, but this factory assembly line process is turning your company into something it was founded on not being. In a way, I feel like Cryptic has given up on pushing the limit and redefining industry trends.
Prove me wrong.
You are forgetting something.. SWG (Pre-NGE)
It had both space and ground combat. In many ways it was a direct predecessor to this game in terms of how space functions (maps as sectors with entry and exit trigger boxes). From a mechanics perspective there really isn't much different between the two.
The core difference is SWG was far superior (pre NGE) in every way. You could even build your pwn player cities and while their system of object placement was a bit, eh, experimental.. at least you could decorate those locations by dropping an item and then moving it to approximately right where you wanted it. It took patience because you had to "click" to "step" the location of a dropped item.. but in the end you had a building that looked exactly how you wanted it too.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Campaign: The Battle of Neverwinter - NWS-DOQXFA4ZD
Prologue: A not so simple plan - NW-DCJG75B9D