Not me forgetting 25 people off the OG list 😭😭It should be said: I STILL make SWTOR stuff on the second channel. I still log in to redo stories over and over again. I’ll PvP too, but I can’t in good conscience not speak up about how different the game is. And how it’s driven a lot of players away from the game. Everyone says the game is dying.. it’s not dying. It’s in permanent stasis.. which makes me want to play it, but then I remind myself that it’s not the game it was. This game is a toxic relationship you can’t get out of 🤣
Onw thing that made me finally uninstall was 90% of my guild leaving the game due to real life circumstances. I don't miss the game since we mostly played it as background noise while we hung out, still it's been 12 years for me now and I hate what it's become.
I still play usually on Saturdays, just story only, though last Sunday i got in a large Ops Group that went planet to planet hunting World Bosses which was fun.
As you said, what made the game special were people we've met and played with all those years ago. Sadly time flies and eventually all of us grew up and slowly moved on from the game. I lasted longer than most, but was also one of them. I do still come back once every year or so to see what is new and what changed, but it never lasts longer than a week. I never searched for new people whenever I came back so eventually SWTOR became an empty world filed with only nostalgia of good old days of PvP-ing super late in the night from across the Atlantic. 😅
Absolutely fell in love with this game my main was an operative & sentinel. World pvp was so good man. I remember guild wars 2 & archage too in their prime
My dream is that one day a team of talented people could make some "Classic+" server for SWTOR that follows on from vanilla, ROTHC, or SOR. Its very unlikely but it would be awesome to see some form of continuation to the original vision of the game, similar to what some WoW servers do. The current game is just too far gone.
There’s a team that’s working on preserving the game for when it inevitably shuts down. They already have planned additions and features that they would want to implement. Custom servers etc. I’d rather play that vs feeding game dev that haven’t done much the last few years.
I used to enjoy gaming with my wife when you shared your experience it made me tear up a bit. She's gone now but I'll always have the games we played together to go back relive those moments
SWTOR is to this day one of the most overlooked mmorpgs ever. it has better strony than wow post-pandaria and guild wars 2. its basically KOTOR 1 but mmo. one of the last biowares best narrative games
I feel like the Jedi Knight storyline is the closest thing we’ll ever get to a proper KOTOR 3. Back when BioWare still had a lot of their original talent.
As a Sith Warrior that stuck with this game since release and watched it change over the years, this video makes me feel very emotional. It really was a different time, it really was a good time. Goodbye Swtor, I will always remember you fondly...
The "wonder" of swtor is the best way to put it. The 8 class stories, the epic story lines and amazing lore and setting. The ability to make any character concept you can think of in star wars, exploring the planets and enjoying the quests. Vanilla swtor truly is amazing
@@NoblePlays that's the way I've played the game for the past few years as well. I make new characters do everything single quest through illum, maybe makeb and shadow of revan, then stop. It's my favorite part of the game.
I've said it for years. SWTOR's Vibe died when Ziost died. KotFE was a great story, but it completely killed the universe SWTOR had built itself. Even today, the world of SWTOR feels so much smaller and less coherent than it did in 1.0. I'm barely interested in the plot, characters, or planets we visit. 80% of New Content is just Cartel Market sets, which aren't even "Inspired By" anymore, they just straight up take outfits from Disney+ shows and put them in the game. SWTOR has lost its feel, aesthetic, and lore all down the drain since KOTFE, and it's only got worse since.
@@Heinrich.Heine. Like I said, KotFE it a really good story. I love the worldbuilding of Zakuul and all the stuff it builds up to. It's KotET and the fact it completely fumbled the follow up that makes it leave a massively sour taste. (Behind the Scenes Infodump below for anyone interested) The original story following the destruction of Ziost was never Knights of the Fallen Empire. KotFE was hastily forced onto the Writing Team for various reasons (some believe it came as a result of Disney de-canonising TOR, but idk if the development timeline supports that). The original story following the Ziost stuff was going to be a continuation of the Satele and Marr sections of the Empire and Republic continuing to hunt down The Emperor. Eventually, this would lead to a Civil War on the Imperial Faction, and a strained relationship between the Republic Senate and the Jedi, which would've lead into the Expansion following the scrapped one. The Fallen Empire story was originally going to be 3 Expansions of 16 Chapters Each. However, due to a mix of Budget, VA Complaints, and Player Feedback, the rest of the story was cut down into 9 Chapters. The original story of KotET was reduced to chapters 1-6 of what we got, and Chapters 7, 8, and 9 were a rough version of what we would've got in the expansion after. Needless to say, it certainly shows in the expansion that it's a speedrun of the rest of the Fallen Empire arc, and the ending 100% forced the writing team into a dead end, which was made even worse by the fact a lot of the SWTOR Writers left due to creative differences with the Higher Ups after KotET was written. War for Iokath up to Jedi Under Siege was written by a patch-up team of writers that remained, and then Onslaught up to present day was written by the New writing team. [Source: An interview an insider had with members of the SWTOR Writing Team after they left in 2019(?). If I find a link to it I'll post it here] The problem with KotFE is that it dismantled the carefully built universe that SWTOR had created to put a new one in its place, and then completely fumbled the ending, and then the game tried to do everything in its power to make you forget about it, while being unable to completely ignore it. Our characters are currently in this weird state of "We beat the most powerful guy in the universe, we're back with our own faction but not really, and we're struggling to beat a bunch of non-force sensitive guys while Darth Malgus (who is completely acting out of character) waffles about vague stuff in a chair". I haven't met a single person who is remotely interested in the Mandalorian Arc (which has been the on-going story in SWTOR for 5 Years now, not an exaggeration). If we had continued on from the story set up after Ziost, maybe we wouldn't be stuck in this weird limbo of surface-level storytelling with none of the nuance or worldbuilding of the base game.
I don't think I've ever watched a video that hit so close to home. I genuinely understand the sorrow and pain you feel, because this game has also taken a very special place in my childhood memories. This also made me realize just how badly I miss my childhood, the days when things were just different and a lot simpler. I've been really sad about SWTOR just changing its path ever since Shadow of Revan. I just wish they could do classic servers... just bring back the beautiful masterpiece of a game they've once had, I am sure there would be quite a few people coming back for it. Thank you for this absolutely amazing video that just took me through a rollercoaster of emotions.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! It’s been really cool hearing everyone’s stories! Classic servers would be a fever dream, I’d honestly never play anything else again.
One of my fondest open world PVP moments was leveling up a character on tatooine and being ganked by a high leveled character, then summoning my guildmates to protect me while i did the missions, only to start a massive war between factions with each taking turns in spawn camping the speeder bike stations. Recently i was leveling up a character on tatooine and found myself missing the fear that came with wandering the dune sea, always keeping an eye out for high level pvp'ers trying to gank and avoiding them, now a days its just a big open area where nothing happens coz everyone is forced to be the same level
IMPS At Thorozan!!! Yup kinda boring now. with no PVP servers (Thanks Ben Irving)...even w/the PVE servers you could flag for PVP but too much crying i guess
So many great memories I remember just vibing at my sith trainer on hoth and a whole army of republic pvpers came in and just starting taking everyone out and fighting all the npcs. Hanging out in my spawn in Tatooine just to get randomly one shot by a high level shadow. Trying to get to a high level spot on Voss just to be stopped by a couple pubs. Then asking the Gen chat on the planet for protection. It created that variability that you just don’t see with the game anymore. I do miss it
@@SuccubiSageong I remember being new on my light side character watching a sith juggernaut sitting on a chair on a hill starring down at the speeder area and if u walked up a bounty hunter and assassin would gank u 😂
It took around 100+ hours to hit level 50 at launch and you had to do every single faction and planet quest along with the main story, and grind flashpoints a bit on top of that to make up the gap. I signed up for a prelaunch guild, played in early access, and everything. It was so hype, and then crashed so hard. From 200+ servers on launch day down to just two today (do they still even have two in NA these days?) Rerolled to Harbinger around a month in when my launch server became a ghost town. This was long before cross-server queues --- it took six months after launch to even add a group finder at all, lol. When they ran the extended 12x XP event one summer (yes, a literal 1200% multiplier) I was so thrilled that I deleted my entire legacy and rerolled 16 characters, eight on each side, just to play through every story again. (This was back when you had to commit to an advanced class at level 10 so you needed twice as many at max level to cover every AC on both sides.) Then there was the time I decided to level a new Vanguard tank by chain running random flashpoints skipping quests until max level. Had the longest friends list in any game ever by the time I was done. Good times. The best really. There is nothing else quite like this game before or since. It's sad to think that we probably will never see anything like it again in our lifetimes.
I do miss Vanilla SWTOR, you needed to actually play missions to level up and you needed groups of 2-4 to complete Heroics and Flashpoints i made some decent friends that no longer play the game anymore.
I wish SWTOR could go back to vanilla. It was the star wars mmo I wanted. We got it and then it turned into crap and became a singleplayer game with an online component for mtx. I wish they would just say, "sorry, this isn't an online game anymore. play offline now. have fun." at least it would feel more genuine than what we got right now.
Thanks for mentioning the "Trooper-only guild doing patrols on Tattoine" at 3:00, we in Alpha Company had a lot of fun with it. The game took on a whole new level of fun after I moved to the PvP-RP server and joined up. Over the years I wound up as one of the guys running it, but by that time the game had lost the flavor that it had when I was an NCO. Most fun I had was unplanned World PvP, usually on Tat, but every now and then a wild event would crop up, like the time we had a series of barefisted fights with the Imps in the Black Hole or the King of the Hill match on Hoth right before the 1.3 patch nerfed Mortar Volley.
It is fascinating to see how SWTOR affected the younger generation. It reminded me of the Star Wars Galaxies MMO that came before it. I loved the social and roleplay aspects of it, the grouping up, the guild activities, and the PvPing, but after it got shut down SWTOR came into its place. Fundamentally SWTOR is a linear experience, in which you are playing as someone special, someone written into the universe. At the same time, in SWG you were simply a spacer, nothing, a simple background extra. When I moved to SWTOR, I played it day 1, even got myself the collectors edition, and teamed up with my old buddies from SWG, but we didn't stick together for long. Perhaps it was the game's linear nature, or perhaps we missed how it was in SWG. In the end, I stuck around and I still play it as a single-player experience. I understand what you are going through, and do remember that these are truly special memories that will live with you until the end of time.
I loved SWG. It still is one of the fewest MMORPG's that allowed you to put down a house and decorate it with anything in the world that you could put in your inventory. You could spend days just decorating and not got outside lol. I miss the community. I have never found anything like it since. The chat bubbles above the character allowed you to know who was talking as well as auto emotes playing out with what one said instead of a chat box in the corner going 1000MPH. SWTOR is pretty but nothing like SWG. You could be a crafter and never shoot a blaster. Every item you crafted was dependent on the resource value. No two weapon, unless a blueprint, were the same. Now it's just add a flower and a bottle and everyone has the same potion and its value.. sad. I'm still amazed no one has even tried to make a modern version of some of the mechanics SWG had. MMO's in opinion are just Cookie Cutter. No one or anything is unique.
SWG still exists through SWGEmu, sadly the oldheads that still remember it enough to play it are getting lost to the retirement homes with each passing year. It's really funny seeing the new generation talk about SWTOR in the same way oldheads would talk about SWG back in the day. The more things change the more they stay the same.
This was something I needed to see, I’ve had such a mixed relationship with SWTOR lately and this spoke to almost everything I’ve felt about it. It holds some of my favorite moments in gaming, like going out with my guild buddies killing players on Tattooine & Alderaan at RotHC’s inception, capitalizing on the period where the safe zone sentries were still level 50 with our newly leveled 55’s. The massive pvp battles that would erupt on Voss (especially at the temple). The whole Korriban group chat going ballistic for someone’s first time beating Baras or Thanaton. It was just magic. It felt good sharing in that nostalgia here, thanks for this. I think I want to finally finish the Trooper and Consular stories so I can properly put it to bed, it’s been a goal for ages and it’s probably time now
When Carrie Fisher passed away there was a lot of game message and website chatter about everyone meeting at House Organa on Alderaan for - if memory serves - her birthday. I remember logging on that day after work and making the journey to the destination and seeing a ton of player characters gathered outside the building and even more mingling inside the main hall. It was incredibly moving and it still affects me to this day, even as I'm typing this. It remains one of my most favorite video game moment memories, now and forever and I'm so glad I was there for it when it mattered. Back when Star Wars still meant something. When we still had stories and characters that we could celebrate. Before the dark times. Before the acquisition. I miss those days. Granted, I still play present day SWTOR when I get the whim, though I tend to take long lapses of unsub time. I too remember the early days and how once upon a time in a galaxy very close to home this game was a masterpiece and beloved by all. I remember it for what it was and I still enjoy the roleplay aspect of it. I'm not a nitpicky completest when it comes to every quest and flashpoint and all things in between, and I'm sure I'll get bored with this current playthrough at some point and will set it back on the shelf once again. But in my heart I will always know that this was my - and our - Star Wars. And I'm grateful to have taken the journey. ✨
Played this game so much for two years after launch and it was honestly the last thing to happen with MMOs that I was seriously hyped for. Nothing matches vanilla SWTOR for sheer narrative sci fi fantasy RPG goodness. It had its flaws and they were many but getting Legendary and Living Legend back in the day still is hands down the peak of MMO gaming for me.
Bro I miss Acoy so much. Was definitely the best RP-MilSim guild I've ever been in. I was so frustrated when they removed the classic TH-15A armor set in 4.0. Nothing will ever beat that uniform. Thanks for all the fun memories. It is actually super random that this video popped up on my recommendations. I can tell that you're a good content creator by the quality of the video and how you present everything. It really is a shame what the game turned into in the later years.
@@reidarG.thank you my friend, I appreciate the kind words! I really do miss the classic game. The current is fun, in the aspect that the story lines can be redone and the PvP is solid,
I had this exact same feeling with Destiny/Destiny 2. I played Destiny since 2016 and loved it. I joined a clan at the beginning of 2020 and it was the greatest thing that happened to me. Since lockdown happened I wasn't able to be around the few friends I had outside of gaming, so having a group that I love and still keep in touch with to this day was amazing. It was sad watching the game grow into something unrecognizable. After the last expansion, myself and almost all of my clan have left the game somewhat permanently. It honestly broke my heart knowing that something I loved and that gave me such amazing friends was a shell of what it used to be. This was an awesome video and it really resonated with my own experiences.
Man we're the same age. Started playing in 2013 when Rise of the Hutt Cartel first came out. It definitely felt more alive and purposeful back then. Story bosses were difficult, the gear was cooler. It feels so soulless now that I can't even go back anymore.
Wow man. This was a great video. I started playing day one of early access with my older brother. We were both living at our family home at the time, our computers set up right next to each other. We used to only level up when both of us could be on at the same time. We ran troopers for the first year of playing the game. We did all class missions, PvP, and the Outlaw's Den PvP when we were high enough level. Those were some of the best days of my life. I will always have a strong connection to this game because it was me and brother's way of bonding and gaming together. Thank you for the nostalgia and good memories. 👍
My man's spitting facts for 20 minutes straight.. I might not have been a die hard swtor fan as you were, but I loved this game and have many hours in it! For me it also all really started to change after shadow of revan. They did a lot of changes to the game which soured the experience for me a lot. I stopped playing after that, eventually picking it up again for some time, then stoping again.. and repeat. The game has a soft spot in my heart. Whenever it's the music, the trailers or just the gameplay: It makes me want to come back to the game. But at the same time I know its really just a feeling of nostalgia that wants to be satisfied. SWOTR won't ever be the same as enjoyable again for me, because the game has changed and I have changed too. I really wish the day never comes, but eventually they will take down the servers and all that will be left then are great memories. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this!
Thank you for this tribute! I’m also haunted by the nostalgia of the game before KotFE, even before 3.0 (though I loved it at the time.) Open world PVP went CRAZY. I’ll NEVER forget some of the crazy stories that naturally developed because one dude through a grenade at some other dude on Tatooine or Oricon. Not to mention the original leveling experience was INCREDIBLE, and probably what I miss the most. Thank you for highlighting how fun and social it used to be.
I know that your favorite part of SWTOR was the community and playing together, but story does play an important factor in why this was such a great game. I know you said that the game fell off after The Shadow of Revan, but you can't deny the AMAZING story that was KOTFE and KOTET. IMO, one of the best stories ever made for Star Wars.
Those definitely had good stories. My issues was the solofication of the game. All they needed to do was keep making ops, fps and warzone maps. And needed to keep the roles in flashpoints locked.
I remember the day it launched. My son and I had 2 copies so we could play together. And my original guild was the best friends I had. We played together for years. Some of us even moved over to The Division franchise together. Just recently, we lost one of our Knights. Chris passed a little over a week ago. RIP brother. I have been considering coming back to SWTOR to relive some of those good times.
I completely agree. I started playing from Open Beta until 4.0 like you. I still have excellent memories of the launch of SWTOR, which was right around Christmas and which 2 IRL friends and I spent together in a galaxy far far away. Our group was composed of me (Scoundrel Healer), a Vanguard Tank and a Jedi Shadow DPS and the most incredible thing for the time was that we used Aric Jorgan as our 2 DPS and with that we made almost all FPs up to lvl 40 without having to look for a 4 player. I was the team's Armormech, the vanguard was the armstech and the Jedi was the Cybertech. With that we made interesting gear for Aric and between us. It was really fun! And I'm grateful to have lived this moment with my two friends.
Same here. This game was part of a pivotal part of my life and kept me content when I was going through hard times. It stopped being the way it was a long time ago and we’ll never get it back but like you I’m grateful to have partaken in its glorious early days.
After seeing the disappointment called Episode 7 I wanted to have the Star Wars feeling and started SWTOR again. Was part of the open beta and a player of the first hour with my female Chiss IA as my main.
It's nice to hear your perspective on this, as it was exactly what made SWTOR for me as well. My life was very different back then, too, and I agree - it's been lost by now. Lots of great memories.
I love vanilla swtor back in the day it was fun and honestly for me my favorite character story was sith warrior because that story was really awesome and badass and the vette love story between my sith warrior and her was super sweet in my opinion.
This all resonated so much. I grew up with this game and I’ve gone back to it every few months the last year or so but it’s not the same anymore. The ol days were fantastic - still miss my old guild out there
Still love swtor, but it needs a legit expansion, a multi chapter, eternal throne scale. People are sick of waiting 3 months to play 30 minutes of content that likely undoes all of their previous work. As for pvp, guilds absolutely need a revamp. I lost both of my guilds that I ran for years because they force us to stay subscribed, no loyalty whatsoever to long time players. It is an amazing game that needs to properly adapt and build what makes us go back in the first place. Most of all, Operations and World Bosses need Single Player variants that replace other players with npcs that fit into the story, there is way too much reliance on other people to play the most basic of content which has been the biggest drawback, because lets be honest: people that consider themselves the vets of SWTOR 90 percent of the time end up being rude as hell and just want to scream at people on discord. They have time to fix things, but not that much time. At the very least they need to consider a full single player conversion that saves your legacy characters, so even when the servers finally go, this legend of a game survives.
Making the game even more soloable will not save this game. I understand that you’ve had bad experiences with veteran players, and I’m sorry about that. But making everything solo is a mistake. If you want don’t want to interact with people, maybe don’t play an mmo? I’m not saying that to you specifically, just a general statement.
@@NoblePlays I feel like this can't apply to swtor, unlike a lot of other mmos it never sold itself on it's multiplayer aspect being the highlight. It was always the solo stories and the planet quests. Compared to a lot of other mmos, swtor never made it mandatory for you to play flashpoints or operations to progress the main quest which worked to its advantage for players that just wanted story. Until Shadow of Revan included solo flashpoints, this was always the formula where people who wanted to interact with people had a way to do so. However I do think Fallen Empire is where the problem for the whole population started since they focused on an expansion that only offered solo content with no flashpoints, pvp or operations to go with it. If the devs had been more efficient they would have done as other mmos still do which is to release a good size of group content alongside the solo story.
@@NoblePlays cmon dude really? I should just go play another mmo, I don’t know if you are trying to be snarky but the nerve 🤣You can’t possibly sit there and tell me it’s easy to assemble groups capable of taking on harder ops, and it isn’t some isolated incident with these aggressive players it’s almost every single time. No I dont think I need to “play other games”, I think they need to fix this one and make the entire game at least accessible for solo story players because that is the majority of players now. I haven’t even done the mountain queen op, dxun, and a few others. It is atrocious. Not saying they shouldn’t expand on the coop and community aspects, clearly stated they should be expanding guild systems and PvP, it’s just I’m not only thinking about the one part of the game I like. You don’t have to play solo or even like solo, but that doesn’t mean other people don’t want or need mechanics like that. Used to help my buddies with disabilities play and it got too difficult for them to continue for this very reason. Should they just give up games they like too because you think the game shouldnt be adapting for solo and only multiplayer?? Seems kinda selfish.
Shit makes me cry im ngl, swtor was my life where i could scape from shitty parents, depression, anxiety, dysphoria, I could escape and play a character that I put love into. There was a point in my life where my parents saw me playing a female character and made me delete all my toons (unbelievable right?) I was 12 when I started in 2012, the base game was the most fun I ever had. Im now 25, 2 kids, wife, I still tear up when I look at the original toons I got to keep, I used to want to end it all so much, I like to think my toons can see me, they’re proud of me and there for me despite of who I am and what I cant change. Swtor has been there for me where my parents werent.
I relate to this, too. I had a MONSTER of a father and my mother enabled him. He abused me and my older siblings in every way imaginable, and my 2 older brothers and my older sister all wound up in prison before I hit 18 for attempting to take him out of this world. I am a woman on the Spectrum, with an Intersex condition. SWTOR and RuneScape were my main sources of escape from my father, and they allowed me to socialize and make life-long friends to this day. I was one of the original 2000 players in RuneScapae and became quite famous in it, and I began playing SWtor at launch. SOO many good memories from both. Sadly, I haven't played either of them since 2014. When I was 19, my father was going at my mom again, and I decided to intervene. We got into a massive fight, and I fortunately grabbed a metal bat. It saved my life, but my father didn't survive the encounter. I pretty much went into a rage after everything he'd done to us. Wound up getting arrested of course, and the World News compared me to the Menendez kids, simply because my father was a millionaire Stock Broker and Wall Street Executive. It never had anything to do with money, though. Thankfully, the Judge refused to go along with the DA's desire for 57 years to Life, and sentenced me to 10 Years Flat. I came home within the past year. I actually had some friends from both RuneScape and SWtor, whom I had never met in-person but had thousands of hours of video-chats with, write me letters AND even kept money on phone accounts to take my calls while I was locked up. When I came home, they invited me to a Discord server that day, and when I went in, ALL my old friends from our RS and SWtor guild/ clan were on it, and they all welcomed me home and said they'd been waiting a decade for me. Several of us cried, especially me. It was so special. People don't realize how much these games help those of us with unfortunate circumstances and/ or on the Spectrum, etc. I will forever be greatful to both games.
Great video. What you said was so true. I remember the happiness and excitement when I first got the game way back in early access and played all those years ago. The fond memories are so great. Thank you for reminding me and for sharing your experience.
KOTFE and KOTET are the best story-wise expansions actually. The peak of this game's storytelling I never cared much about pvp or grouping with others (except for the raids, for which I have a guildmates) so I still enjoy this game, it always has something to do in it for me. Long live SWTOR
Kotfe ruined it for me. It only made sense to play as a force user. Once I beat it on all of my characters I just found no reason to play. Maybe I'll fire it up again soon to check it out
Great work. Really hit the nail on the head. My experience was more with Star Wars Galaxies but I also lived through the life of SWTOR from beta to now.
@@NoblePlays you should play swg. plenty of private servers around to try it out. You'd love the game in either format. If you liked swtor's style, do the post-cu. If you want a more rpg style, pre-cu. and SWG is just infinitely better. You can do so much without needing to fork over money to remotely enjoy the game is awesome.
@@NoblePlays swg was my favorite game of all time. it had its issues but my characters story was my own. you should for sure check it out. loads of private servers for it. i still play it today.
All right, you got it. I will play it again. I went into this mmo back in 2016. This was the mmo that hold me tight mostly than others mmos due to the story driven element as well as friendly content that does not start at level 80 or endgame. However, most of my crew is no longer here with us and some moved on. Still, I go back to re play mi old tons as well as creating new ones. Now, that this mmo is getting some kind of remaster overall on the planets, it seems the best time to come back. Great video, right in the feelings.
While I understand the desire to return to the days when you first started, much like WoW Classic the reality is that there are very good reasons we left most of that behind. PvP for example. The reason PvP shifted from open world to match-based is because the balance was TERRIBLE. The Ilum zone got shut down in the first year because there were so many Empire players, Republic players just stopped showing up. Companions are another. Very few players ever want to return to the days when Companions had locked roles, AND had to be geared seperately. It made some classes feel like a drag to play trying to get to their healer or tank (because the vast majority played DPS). Heroics became more playable because at the 2 year mark, Bioware discovered they were the least used type of mission. Players either did solo content, Flashpoints or Ops. So they made Heroics solo-able just so people would use them again. Flashpoints are pretty easy to get a team for, thanks to improvements to Group Finder, but you'll still need a Guild to do Ops. Overall, I think the game is in a far better state now than at launch. More options, more content and more freedom on how you want to play.
Except for anyone likes PvP and challenging content. All of that is gone now. I understand that there are more quality of life improvements, I don’t mind those. But make the game challenging again. Give it more meaning. (edit for more context) They removed ranked PvP, which is one my main activities. They made everything too soloable. The MMO expect fades away with almost every update. You brought up companion gearing, that didn’t bother me. The role locking of companions did. They took away incentive to explore. They stopped making Ops They stopped making it necessary to have the actual roles in flashpoints. It’s a boring dps farm now. There have been a lot of improvements but they took a lot of things away. Thats people liked..
Yeah, I'm sorry, but I'm one of these people who bought the game before launch, and while the game lacked in end-game content during that time, the leveling and flashpoints were probably the most fun I had in an MMORPG since the early days of World of Warcraft. I've played this game on and off for the last decade, and one of the most enjoyable parts of the game, the dungeons and quests, have been so watered down that nothing is challenging anymore. You just smash on your keyboard and you will easily get to level cap since you receive so much XP and the enemies are a joke. Just by going through the main quest, there is nothing fun about it; besides experiencing the story for the first time it's just a chore at this point. There is nothing about this game anymore that has made me interested in logging in for the last 2 years. If they ever release something like SWTOR Classic i will be one of the first ones to return but i'm kinda done with it at this point. Sure, it sucked that companions were locked to roles, but it made you naturally start to team up with others to level faster and easier, and that has been made completely redundant, which is good now because of the low player base, but these changes were made during a time with a lot more players. It killed the need to communicate with others in an MMORPG which creates bonds with people. You can get to Level Cap playing through this MMORPG without ever saying a word to another human.
I was also 14 when SWTOR came out, I remember getting the E-Mail where I was allowed to play a few days before release day. What a great time it was! My first character was a Republic Trooper and I chose Lord Adraas as my first server.
@@NoblePlaysYou need to try WoW or Final Fantasy XIV because those are the top MMOs and they'll show you how a real MMO plays and thrives. Both of those games predate SWTOR and they're far healthier both as a populated social space and as an ever growing gaming experience. Personally, I'd like think you'd love WoW for the PvP and the open world but the story in FFXIV is more like Vanilla SWTOR's class stories.
@BaithNa WoW players complain up and down about that game too. OGs hate the queue system for example because it Removes the need to chat on Gen or Trade to find people. WoW is as static as TOR is, it just reached bigger peaks player base wise. TOR was special because it was Star Wars, people like me who never cared for MMOs joined it more than a decade ago and when I left I did not play other MMOs.
@@noha112I’m Star Wars fan first and an mmo player second. Doesn’t matter if WoW was better from the popular perspective, SWTOR will forever be the greatest game I’ve ever played.
I played beta and well into the end of Vanilla (EU Nightmare Lands server). This was a nice trip down memory lane thanks for sharing. Countless hours of pvp in Illum! With about 3fps… but didn’t care. I’ve got some old pvp vids on my YT though set to private so I don’t lose them
I never leave comments but this was an awesome video man, hit me right in the feels. Dont lose those relationships on those friday night game nights just cause swtor changed, lots of fun games to play with groups like that. Wish I had stayed in touch with my old gaming friends from around that same time 10-12 years ago... I also had a Sarah, thanks for the nostalgia o7. I think you made me decide to finally play the story through
Glad you enjoyed the video! We definitely still get together on Friday nights to game and hang out. I’ll jump in swtor every now and again. I’ll be here until the game goes down.
The first time I played this game back in 2015, I started off as a Smuggler on Ord Mantel (I think that's how it was spelt), and was getting my butt whooped by enemies in heroic missions. Because I had no subscription, leveling up was very difficult and taking on heroic missions or even flashpoints was pretty much impossible for me, but during those hours of grinding I found out other people where also in the same boat when exploring local community hubs. In an act I have never witnessed in any other MMO game, we had all banded together and went on from Ord Mantel, to Coruscant, then Taris (oh god) and so much more, sticking through the experience together to the very end, enjoying everything each planet had to offer. I remember fondly waiting to get out of school and rushing to get home so I could join up with everyone and continue on our journey, making more friend along the way and taking on even bigger challenges. When you say SWTOR has changed, you are absolutely right to such a degree it saddens me to even think about what new players are now joining into, and whom will probably never get a chance to experience the community back then like we had. I genuinely miss those days and I wish to this day I knew what I had, for I would have cherished it even more then, but as Dr. Seuss once said, "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." Thanks for the vid my friend, cheers to the good ol' days.
The game means a lot to me in a similar way. While I did and quite enjoyed some pvp on my own, I didn’t have the community aspect you did and I wish I did, but the fact that I’m so emotionally invested in it even without that shows just how good it is. However, since my connection with it is in the single player content I know I could always go back and having a similar experienxe
Fair enough. I still go back and do the class stories again. But it just feels like nobody is around anymore. It’s like returning to an empty house you grew up living in.
MMMos are such a social experience. I treasure the times and friends I made through MMOs, but one day the realization hits you that you can't go back. The game's changed, but you've changed also. It's a sobering and sometimes depressing realization - it can feel like a profound loss; but you don't lose those good, golden times. They will still stay with you forever - but you can't go back.
The first minute is speaking directly from my soul. I was also 13/14 years old and SWTOR helped to find some very like-minded people to escape into a galaxy far far away. Vanilla SWTOR was much more about experiencing the world, when levelling up was actually quite the task and when group content had to be mastered as ... a group. Problem now is, that it became more of an Online Single-player game with some group content rather than the opposite. I hope Broadsword gets that feeling back, that this game focuses on social interactions and extending the world to explore. Great video, the force is with you!!!
3:06 The good ol days of holding the line at Outpost Thorazan. The most fun I ever had in SWTOR and generally, in any MMO (and still get Nostalgia everytime I'm back at that area). Never forget the Bastion server :c
Awsome video m8 .. this brought so much memories .... first start playing Swotor in BETA ... and watching this video gave me such a nostalgia hit ( in a good way ).... Darth Malgus collector edition figure agrees with me aswell :). Ty for this .. didnt knew i needed this :). much love
I’m glad you enjoyed it! A lot of people like to shit on the game now. Which is understandable, but I wanted to remind everyone how special this game was, and still is to many people. Including myself.
@@NoblePlays ….. i quit on the game maybe 6 Years ago … i pop in from time to time, but those first few Years … that was the best MMO Experience i ever had
I’m in the same boat here I bought the game as a young kid thinking it was just a normal Star Wars game I had no idea what a MMORPG even was. Me and my cousin grew up together playing this game and meeting so many people I have memories with. I still come back to it here and there, probably my favorite game ever tbh.
The exodus of player hit me pretty hard because when i started playing I met a bunch of players who helped me better understand how to play the game as I was a kid who was a complete novice when it came to MMO ( I was literally under leveled and broke back when there was no level scaling aka the good old days and money was actually important to travel) but I ended up moving irl and for reasons I couldn't play for more than a year and when I came back, they were all gone. Literally all the friends I had made had just stop playing the game while I was gone and I only ever met 1 of them again a few years later who told me how he and others simply lost interest after Shadow of Revan and simply moved on. I for myself continued to play since I had not completed any of the class stories yet but now that I have completed all of the main stories and basically played through everything I could play through as a free to play character I kind of lost interest because I don't want to spend money to unlock KOTFE and beyond. If they one day unlock KOTFE and beyond for free to play players like they did with the other expansions a few years ago I might play them but to be honest quest that aren't class based don't interest me because they are just repetitive, and I already know the story. I find more enjoyment in starting a new character just to recall the nostalgia of the beginning of the game and enjoy the visual updates they introduced. I wished they introduced a play back system for the class story so I could enjoy some of the epic moments of the original stories again. It is very sad that such of great game is basically dead but, in many ways, SWTOR is the personification of the Star Wars franchise as a all: a franchise that was once quite something on its death bed being kept alive and protected by the love of some of the fans while a corporation, who is itself nothing more than a soulless shadow of something great, tries to milk it for every little bit of profit until the curtain finally fall. This is all quite depressing to think about.
It was awesome, I played through the closed beta up to the second month after launch. Really enjoyed the game. A year later couldn't force myself to play for more than a few days....
I was a beta tester and Founder of SWTOR. I left the game so many years ago and just jump back in when my son wants to game together. One of those returns saw me trying to play it like it was Vanilla and learning so many things had changed.
You get it man, you get it. My experience with Vanilla SWTOR was just like yours, down to running home to my room to play right after school, only I played a Sith Inquisitor. It was a magical experience, something I've been chasing ever since it stopped feeling the same, and something very few games have ever managed to recreate for me. I'm definitely a solo player, but SWTOR's cinematic solo-story elements blended so perfectly with the MMO socialization back then. Back when the levelling experience *was* the game. Excellent video. By the way, do you remember when you couldn't pick a sub-class until level 10? Something about that was so fascinating to me as a young teen, the feeling of *earning* it, and both paths looked so cool I would agonize over which one I wanted to do. Picking it from the start just isn't the same.
I was in beta and then there for launch, after coming from wow there was nothing like swtor for me for years! Vanilla swtor was the perfect experience, it’s so cool seeing nostalgia for this. Great vid pal just subbed
Thank you for helping me to finally move on as well. This game for me is everything it was for you. I redownloaded and even started up the game again, but ended up uninstalling immediately after because, well, it's never going to be the same again, as you said. I started when i was 12 or 13. Wish i kept more screenshots, oh well. I truly hope they make another game like this in the same time as this one, but who knows.
Played at launch for about 3 months and it was such a magical experience. Dove back in a few years ago and played for 4ish months. Had an absolute blast again, playing through the main stories still hits hard. This game will sit in my heart forever.
You pretty much hit the nail on the head. I also started playing the game as a kid when it came out (I was 11), and I have had much the same experiences. I played this game religiously up until the end of SOR and then I became a little more on and off from there. I always come around to playing through the class stories again maybe once every year or two, since the og class stories are legitimately some of the best storytelling ever made in a game period. I am still on one raid team, but that's all I ever log in for now. Until fairly recently I still would log in to play pvp a couple times a week, but even that has died out for me over the last year or so. It pains me to think about what the game has become over the years but I am eternally grateful for all the amazing memories that I have from both pvp, raiding, and the original class stories all these years. A classic server is something I have dreamed of for years (even though it would realistically be more dead than the retail version), but man what I wouldn't give to relive the game of my childhood and developmental years. Also, I miss the old skill trees so much, they were one of my favorite parts of the game back then and I never understood why they got rid of them.
SWTOR was special for me too and I resonate with so many points in this video. There is a magic that the 1st 3 years of SWTOR had that I have been chasing in a game ever since. My guild was a big part of that.
I've played the game one-and-off since 2019 (Idk which patch, but it was during Fallen Empire), so it's interesting to see the perspective of people who've played it since the beginning. Personally, as long as the game doesn't completely die or change beyond recognition, I'll still be playing it as much as I can. (LS Sith Warrior still the goat tho) I do with more group content would come back tho, from everything you've shared.
SWTOR launch was awesome, but my friends were split over a dozen servers on top of order vs empire. I'll never forget me (jedi shadow) and my buddy (jedi sage) fighting at the Tatooine balloon Datacron Jawa walker thing, 8 sith kept trying to kill us, dying, respawning, full on 20 minute battle that ended with me knocking three off the walker to save my friend and he force gripped me onto the balloon as it was leaving, one sith corpse stayed on the balloon.
Thank for this video! It's so interesting to hear about how the game was back then. I for sure never played during the MMO time I only have ever done the single player story and flash points and I agree it's so easy to play solo the story is so ez to beat. What I love about SWTOR is the cinematic trailers. So flashy and cool. I am sad and sorry that the game changed in that way. I am playing Hunt Showdown nowadays mainly and I really dislike the direction they are going. Feels bad.
This took me back. I only started in 2012 and played sporadically before 2018 or something, but the first guilds, the people I met there still stay in my mind to this day. Nostalgia. The good old days. Thank you!
As someone who played SWTOR since it's release this video really hit close to home, even though I played the game in a different way (PvE and story) and that's why I managed to stick around up until Onslaught released, I still quit for pretty much the exact same reasons as you did. I will never forget the feeling of old SWTOR, too bad they decided to slowly kill the game instead of doing something more with it. Great video man!
My first character in Swtor was a Sith Inquisitor. I remember watching every developer video and being unbelievably excited to finally play as a Sith. I played with lots of friends and family members, I remember racing them to get to level 50 and like you said it felt incredible to finally hit that max level. Finally finishing the story, earning the title Darth, is a gaming high I doubt I'll experience again. I cant believe I had almost forgotten about great things like the Gree event and the open world PvP. Thank you for reminding me of just how good this game was
It's shocking how much this video resonated with me. I started playing when I was 13, just after RotHC dropped. I found the game by accident when I was rewatching Clone Wars and Google autofilled "star wars the" and directed me to SWTOR. I played on a terrible laptop at 20fps and loved every second of my laptop catching fire during 16M raids. I started with a guild called Zann's Empire, which was a weird blend of RP and casual PVE but it just brought us all closer as a community. To this day I'm still in contact with members of ZE and my fondest memories come from this time. After this, I learned to raid more seriously and eventually worked up to HM and NiM progression for a time until IRL got in the way and I couldn't commit to a consistent schedule anymore. After a good break, I came back to the game and joined an RP community called the Risen Empire. While the childlike nostalgia was gone by this point, I ended up connecting with this group and have met some of the members IRL.That was the last I enjoyed SWTOR for an extended period. We've tried multiple times to remake Risen, but it was never truly the same and that original culture was lost in translation. Recently I've been playing class stories with my friend, letting him pick the story then picking the one that pairs with it so he can see both and we're hoping to get through all of them. He played a bit as a child but never got hooked like I did, so it's been great experiencing some of that magic through his eyes. Unfortunately, the community aspect is entirely lost and the closest we get is grouping with two randoms for FPs. While he can see the classes play out, he'll never understand how it felt to be apart of Zann's Empire as a teen looking for a group to identify with.
Gosh, so many memories... I started playing the game since launch. I always knew my first character would be a Sith Sorcerer. I too introduced the game to my partner and together we spent countless months in the SWTOR universe. Still one of my favorite games ever.
I have played since the very beginning. And watching your video hit all the FEELS. I think I play the game off and on for the same reasons. The Nostalgia of what once was, all the friends that were made, raids we ran, pvp we did... It's nothing like that now. It's a single player experience that once was an mmo. Now it's just a husk on micro transaction life support.
Man I feel you on this one.... I had a long running youtube story series for my Imp Agent and halfway into KOTFE i just... could not do it anymore. It lost that feeling that caused me to preorder SWTOR back when it came out. But even so, I played SWTOR mainly solo or with one other person (who also lost interest). My last watershed MMORPG was the ill fated Star Wars Galaxies... the original Star Wars MMORPG. Thankfully I still have the friends I gained in real life from playing that game for 8 years. Games today just do not have that same... vibe.
Played at launch back in the day all the way and got to end game raiding after a while with my friends, fond memories and friends made. I planned out my original character before launch and was going to a be sith warrior, but the week before launch I decided to switch up completely and do something from left field (for me) and I chose imperial agent. Best decision I ever made. There were VERY little agents back in the day. In fact, I was the only one in my guild and ended up getting geared out quite fast because of that. To this day, it remains one of my favorite Star Wars stories though, no regrets.
Fully agree man. Felt like vanilla wow. One of my best memories was just getting ganked in a little open world mini dungeon where we had to cc and play tactically or die horribly because of respawns. A small moment but I'll remember it forever because of the hilarious fails and final success. The single player focus, op companions and many ways to devide players is what killed wow too.
This video brought back a lot of fond memories. I was a day 1 player (even managed to get into the beta) and joined The Fatman server for no other reason than it was a funny name, as most people who played there. I was a terrible altaholic at the time, and kept making new characters just to experienced the story for each. I remember I would make sure to grab every Holocon, and do all the elite quests for the tokens in order to exchange them for blue armor pieces from the vendor. Anyone remember the subclass trainers you were sent to talk to when you first arrived at the fleet? Finding a group for Black Talon or Essedes through inviting people via fleet chat? If there was a SWTOR vanilla private server that wouldn't get taken down within a year I would join in a heartbeat. Hell with the success of Classic WoW, I live in hope that BioWare will relaase official vanilla servers, but I highly doubt that would ever happen. It's a real shame too because SWTOR back in 2012-15 was a completely different game than it is now, and I would love to go back and experience it again!
I've got about 2300 hours into the game atm, I sadly missed the game fully until just a few years ago. Today, the game is amazing for the story, but like you say, it feels like a single player game for the most part. But it is really fun for me even now. I am going to try and find a passionate group to make a social guild where we can make our own content in the game, by doing guild events etc. But I've noticed that it will be a hussle as many don't care about it any more.
I wish I could say that I have the same amount of fun in it as I did all those years ago. I love replaying the class stories, and doing warzones. It just feels so off now. But I’m glad you’re enjoying it :) it’s a great game with a lot of heart! EA just took its soul.
I hope this message finds you well. I was known as Nefaras, and I had the privilege of being one of the top 20 parsing Guardians during the 2.X-3.X era of Star Wars: The Old Republic, with additional experience dating back to the 1.X period. I wanted to express my agreement with the insights you shared. SWTOR has a special place in my heart, i played it with my Girlfriend, now my Wife. Particularly the Hardmode flashpoints point hit me and that the game dropped after 3.0. Hardmodes were a core part of the game’s challenge and community experience, and I fondly remember the enjoyment and camaraderie they brought. I can remember the adventure i had with my guild, all the challenges we overcame together. Unfortunately, I feel that the current version of the game has lost much of that original depth and charm, and I share the sentiment that it has become a shell of what it once was. Thank you for taking the time to create such thoughtful content. It’s a reminder of the amazing journey we had with SWTOR, and I hope and that hope is slim that we see a return to those foundations in the future.
I've played from day one and it's only been the last few months that I havent logged in anymore. The cinematics are the best of any game you'll ever see and the 4k,8k versions are insanely good. It is actually very sad as the operations were some of the best raiding times I've ever had on any game. The pvp was brutal and we used to group up for hours on end.I have 16 max lvl characters, 8 of each class ,both imp and pub. I bought the 2014 Sideshow 1/6th Darth Malgus just recently as my farewell to this once great game. This video truly made me relive the times I had on this game.
I don't think I've ever commented on a video before, but this hit me so hard in the feels. I haven't played in years, and I've been dying to scratch the itch again I've been rebuilding my computer and this makes me so sad to hear. I remember those moments playing the gree event and seeing all the packed planets. Seeing it empty makes me want to cry. This was such a pivotal moment of my teenage years as well. Thank you for making this friend. I really hope we get some old Republic content on Disney plus to revitalize this game. People need to stop being introverts and talk to each other. We need more communities like this again. the world is just depressing now. It's so sad to see my old escape look so sad and empty. It's heartbreaking.
I know im a bit late to this but this is EXACTLY how i feel, i have always been obsessed with star wars, then when i went to college as a teenager i focused on that, came back to SWTOR and then combat was overhauled, open-world PVP was gone, social talking was gone, discords empty, its heartbreaking
I'm brazilian, and I'll give you a word that everyone who learns portuguese loves, the word is: Saudade, it means to miss someone or something, so in portuguese you could say: "Eu sinto muita saudade dessa época."
Im a founder of the game, I started as the Bounty Hunter to. The companions were way different to, you had to arm them and it all mattered. It was a very challenging game at the beginning to. Wish they would add some new classes, love the main stories.
Sadly I did not get to play during the glory days, yet I still log in from time to time and start leveling a new character while wandering around the different planets. To me, this MMO has a certain charm and atmosphere that none other has been able to match. One can only hope that we get a faithful Star Wars MMO within our lifetimes, as unfathomable as that sounds.
Not me forgetting 25 people off the OG list 😭😭It should be said: I STILL make SWTOR stuff on the second channel. I still log in to redo stories over and over again. I’ll PvP too, but I can’t in good conscience not speak up about how different the game is. And how it’s driven a lot of players away from the game. Everyone says the game is dying.. it’s not dying. It’s in permanent stasis.. which makes me want to play it, but then I remind myself that it’s not the game it was. This game is a toxic relationship you can’t get out of 🤣
Onw thing that made me finally uninstall was 90% of my guild leaving the game due to real life circumstances.
I don't miss the game since we mostly played it as background noise while we hung out, still it's been 12 years for me now and I hate what it's become.
@@DefaultName-du3kr this ^
I still play usually on Saturdays, just story only, though last Sunday i got in a large Ops Group that went planet to planet hunting World Bosses which was fun.
As you said, what made the game special were people we've met and played with all those years ago. Sadly time flies and eventually all of us grew up and slowly moved on from the game. I lasted longer than most, but was also one of them. I do still come back once every year or so to see what is new and what changed, but it never lasts longer than a week. I never searched for new people whenever I came back so eventually SWTOR became an empty world filed with only nostalgia of good old days of PvP-ing super late in the night from across the Atlantic. 😅
Absolutely fell in love with this game my main was an operative & sentinel. World pvp was so good man. I remember guild wars 2 & archage too in their prime
Great game. It arguably created the greatest cinematic trailers for star wars ever.
For real
oh man they were soo good!! It rivaled the likes of League of Legends and World of Warcraft!
These trailers were better than the sequels
Arguably the greatest animated starwars
Those trailers are better than anything Disney put out there - or ever will.
My dream is that one day a team of talented people could make some "Classic+" server for SWTOR that follows on from vanilla, ROTHC, or SOR. Its very unlikely but it would be awesome to see some form of continuation to the original vision of the game, similar to what some WoW servers do. The current game is just too far gone.
It’s my fever dream 🤣
@@NoblePlays 😂
Sadly that will be a cat and mouse game, much like galaxies private servers have been, and you cant rely on a codebase leak like with city of heroes.
There’s a team that’s working on preserving the game for when it inevitably shuts down. They already have planned additions and features that they would want to implement. Custom servers etc. I’d rather play that vs feeding game dev that haven’t done much the last few years.
@@Definitelynotasamnew devs now and owners
Hey hun, Sarah here. Way to make me cry so early in the video. I am so glad I met you in this game and have you in my life. ❤
Wouldn’t be here without you ❤️
Wholesome
@@grahamhill676 +++
This is so friggin' sweet. I'm happy for both you and @NoblePlays
❤❤❤❤❤❤super sweet, happy for you two
I used to enjoy gaming with my wife when you shared your experience it made me tear up a bit.
She's gone now but I'll always have the games we played together to go back relive those moments
Damn man I’m
Sorry I’m sure it’s hard dealing with that I hope you are doing good
SWTOR is to this day one of the most overlooked mmorpgs ever. it has better strony than wow post-pandaria and guild wars 2. its basically KOTOR 1 but mmo. one of the last biowares best narrative games
For real 🔥
You mean wow post-wotlk?😆
I feel like the Jedi Knight storyline is the closest thing we’ll ever get to a proper KOTOR 3. Back when BioWare still had a lot of their original talent.
@@stevequincy388I disagree. I feel like the sith empire failed the mysterious, ordered aesthetic ngl
I dont believe its a good continuation of K2
Damn bro really has 12 year old footage. An OG for real, this was a cool video to see!
As a Sith Warrior that stuck with this game since release and watched it change over the years, this video makes me feel very emotional. It really was a different time, it really was a good time. Goodbye Swtor, I will always remember you fondly...
Pain 💔
The "wonder" of swtor is the best way to put it. The 8 class stories, the epic story lines and amazing lore and setting. The ability to make any character concept you can think of in star wars, exploring the planets and enjoying the quests. Vanilla swtor truly is amazing
I keep making characters and just restarting after I hit 50 and finish the story haha
@@NoblePlays that's the way I've played the game for the past few years as well. I make new characters do everything single quest through illum, maybe makeb and shadow of revan, then stop. It's my favorite part of the game.
Same loool
With just so much content, it ended up creating a lot of junk.
I've said it for years. SWTOR's Vibe died when Ziost died. KotFE was a great story, but it completely killed the universe SWTOR had built itself. Even today, the world of SWTOR feels so much smaller and less coherent than it did in 1.0. I'm barely interested in the plot, characters, or planets we visit. 80% of New Content is just Cartel Market sets, which aren't even "Inspired By" anymore, they just straight up take outfits from Disney+ shows and put them in the game. SWTOR has lost its feel, aesthetic, and lore all down the drain since KOTFE, and it's only got worse since.
Agreed. I stopped playing then. The game was at its best when it was Republic vs Sith and Vitiate was just the Sith Emperor
capitalism truely kills
Completely disagree! I think Kotfe was the height of old republics storytelling
@@Heinrich.Heine. Like I said, KotFE it a really good story. I love the worldbuilding of Zakuul and all the stuff it builds up to. It's KotET and the fact it completely fumbled the follow up that makes it leave a massively sour taste.
(Behind the Scenes Infodump below for anyone interested)
The original story following the destruction of Ziost was never Knights of the Fallen Empire. KotFE was hastily forced onto the Writing Team for various reasons (some believe it came as a result of Disney de-canonising TOR, but idk if the development timeline supports that). The original story following the Ziost stuff was going to be a continuation of the Satele and Marr sections of the Empire and Republic continuing to hunt down The Emperor. Eventually, this would lead to a Civil War on the Imperial Faction, and a strained relationship between the Republic Senate and the Jedi, which would've lead into the Expansion following the scrapped one.
The Fallen Empire story was originally going to be 3 Expansions of 16 Chapters Each. However, due to a mix of Budget, VA Complaints, and Player Feedback, the rest of the story was cut down into 9 Chapters. The original story of KotET was reduced to chapters 1-6 of what we got, and Chapters 7, 8, and 9 were a rough version of what we would've got in the expansion after. Needless to say, it certainly shows in the expansion that it's a speedrun of the rest of the Fallen Empire arc, and the ending 100% forced the writing team into a dead end, which was made even worse by the fact a lot of the SWTOR Writers left due to creative differences with the Higher Ups after KotET was written. War for Iokath up to Jedi Under Siege was written by a patch-up team of writers that remained, and then Onslaught up to present day was written by the New writing team.
[Source: An interview an insider had with members of the SWTOR Writing Team after they left in 2019(?). If I find a link to it I'll post it here]
The problem with KotFE is that it dismantled the carefully built universe that SWTOR had created to put a new one in its place, and then completely fumbled the ending, and then the game tried to do everything in its power to make you forget about it, while being unable to completely ignore it. Our characters are currently in this weird state of "We beat the most powerful guy in the universe, we're back with our own faction but not really, and we're struggling to beat a bunch of non-force sensitive guys while Darth Malgus (who is completely acting out of character) waffles about vague stuff in a chair". I haven't met a single person who is remotely interested in the Mandalorian Arc (which has been the on-going story in SWTOR for 5 Years now, not an exaggeration). If we had continued on from the story set up after Ziost, maybe we wouldn't be stuck in this weird limbo of surface-level storytelling with none of the nuance or worldbuilding of the base game.
@@nikosantos1172 so does socialism. Pick your poison
I don't think I've ever watched a video that hit so close to home. I genuinely understand the sorrow and pain you feel, because this game has also taken a very special place in my childhood memories. This also made me realize just how badly I miss my childhood, the days when things were just different and a lot simpler. I've been really sad about SWTOR just changing its path ever since Shadow of Revan. I just wish they could do classic servers... just bring back the beautiful masterpiece of a game they've once had, I am sure there would be quite a few people coming back for it. Thank you for this absolutely amazing video that just took me through a rollercoaster of emotions.
I’m glad you enjoyed it! It’s been really cool hearing everyone’s stories! Classic servers would be a fever dream, I’d honestly never play anything else again.
One of my fondest open world PVP moments was leveling up a character on tatooine and being ganked by a high leveled character, then summoning my guildmates to protect me while i did the missions, only to start a massive war between factions with each taking turns in spawn camping the speeder bike stations. Recently i was leveling up a character on tatooine and found myself missing the fear that came with wandering the dune sea, always keeping an eye out for high level pvp'ers trying to gank and avoiding them, now a days its just a big open area where nothing happens coz everyone is forced to be the same level
I feel this in my soul 😭😭
IMPS At Thorozan!!!
Yup kinda boring now. with no PVP servers (Thanks Ben Irving)...even w/the PVE servers you could flag for PVP but too much crying i guess
So many great memories
I remember just vibing at my sith trainer on hoth and a whole army of republic pvpers came in and just starting taking everyone out and fighting all the npcs.
Hanging out in my spawn in Tatooine just to get randomly one shot by a high level shadow.
Trying to get to a high level spot on Voss just to be stopped by a couple pubs. Then asking the Gen chat on the planet for protection.
It created that variability that you just don’t see with the game anymore. I do miss it
I remember that shit 😭 I used to hate it but I'd give anything to have it back now
@@SuccubiSageong I remember being new on my light side character watching a sith juggernaut sitting on a chair on a hill starring down at the speeder area and if u walked up a bounty hunter and assassin would gank u 😂
It took around 100+ hours to hit level 50 at launch and you had to do every single faction and planet quest along with the main story, and grind flashpoints a bit on top of that to make up the gap.
I signed up for a prelaunch guild, played in early access, and everything. It was so hype, and then crashed so hard. From 200+ servers on launch day down to just two today (do they still even have two in NA these days?) Rerolled to Harbinger around a month in when my launch server became a ghost town. This was long before cross-server queues --- it took six months after launch to even add a group finder at all, lol.
When they ran the extended 12x XP event one summer (yes, a literal 1200% multiplier) I was so thrilled that I deleted my entire legacy and rerolled 16 characters, eight on each side, just to play through every story again. (This was back when you had to commit to an advanced class at level 10 so you needed twice as many at max level to cover every AC on both sides.)
Then there was the time I decided to level a new Vanguard tank by chain running random flashpoints skipping quests until max level. Had the longest friends list in any game ever by the time I was done.
Good times. The best really. There is nothing else quite like this game before or since. It's sad to think that we probably will never see anything like it again in our lifetimes.
12x XP was crazy times! That’s how I got 30 of my 102 characters 😭😭🤣
I do miss Vanilla SWTOR, you needed to actually play missions to level up and you needed groups of 2-4 to complete Heroics and Flashpoints i made some decent friends that no longer play the game anymore.
I wish SWTOR could go back to vanilla. It was the star wars mmo I wanted. We got it and then it turned into crap and became a singleplayer game with an online component for mtx. I wish they would just say, "sorry, this isn't an online game anymore. play offline now. have fun." at least it would feel more genuine than what we got right now.
Thanks for mentioning the "Trooper-only guild doing patrols on Tattoine" at 3:00, we in Alpha Company had a lot of fun with it. The game took on a whole new level of fun after I moved to the PvP-RP server and joined up. Over the years I wound up as one of the guys running it, but by that time the game had lost the flavor that it had when I was an NCO. Most fun I had was unplanned World PvP, usually on Tat, but every now and then a wild event would crop up, like the time we had a series of barefisted fights with the Imps in the Black Hole or the King of the Hill match on Hoth right before the 1.3 patch nerfed Mortar Volley.
I joined on a character “Robert-Sven”. It was a great time while I was in it.
@@NoblePlays I don't remember that name. But maybe you were with us the one year I didn't play with Acoy.
I used to be in Alpha Company on Jung Ma back in the day. Are any of you left/playing the game?
@@imitchthekidi3481 Dont think many are left playing Swtor. We occasionally play other games together and we have a discord
It is fascinating to see how SWTOR affected the younger generation. It reminded me of the Star Wars Galaxies MMO that came before it. I loved the social and roleplay aspects of it, the grouping up, the guild activities, and the PvPing, but after it got shut down SWTOR came into its place. Fundamentally SWTOR is a linear experience, in which you are playing as someone special, someone written into the universe. At the same time, in SWG you were simply a spacer, nothing, a simple background extra. When I moved to SWTOR, I played it day 1, even got myself the collectors edition, and teamed up with my old buddies from SWG, but we didn't stick together for long. Perhaps it was the game's linear nature, or perhaps we missed how it was in SWG. In the end, I stuck around and I still play it as a single-player experience.
I understand what you are going through, and do remember that these are truly special memories that will live with you until the end of time.
I loved SWG. It still is one of the fewest MMORPG's that allowed you to put down a house and decorate it with anything in the world that you could put in your inventory. You could spend days just decorating and not got outside lol. I miss the community. I have never found anything like it since. The chat bubbles above the character allowed you to know who was talking as well as auto emotes playing out with what one said instead of a chat box in the corner going 1000MPH. SWTOR is pretty but nothing like SWG. You could be a crafter and never shoot a blaster. Every item you crafted was dependent on the resource value. No two weapon, unless a blueprint, were the same. Now it's just add a flower and a bottle and everyone has the same potion and its value.. sad. I'm still amazed no one has even tried to make a modern version of some of the mechanics SWG had. MMO's in opinion are just Cookie Cutter. No one or anything is unique.
SWG still exists through SWGEmu, sadly the oldheads that still remember it enough to play it are getting lost to the retirement homes with each passing year. It's really funny seeing the new generation talk about SWTOR in the same way oldheads would talk about SWG back in the day. The more things change the more they stay the same.
This was something I needed to see, I’ve had such a mixed relationship with SWTOR lately and this spoke to almost everything I’ve felt about it. It holds some of my favorite moments in gaming, like going out with my guild buddies killing players on Tattooine & Alderaan at RotHC’s inception, capitalizing on the period where the safe zone sentries were still level 50 with our newly leveled 55’s. The massive pvp battles that would erupt on Voss (especially at the temple). The whole Korriban group chat going ballistic for someone’s first time beating Baras or Thanaton. It was just magic. It felt good sharing in that nostalgia here, thanks for this. I think I want to finally finish the Trooper and Consular stories so I can properly put it to bed, it’s been a goal for ages and it’s probably time now
When Carrie Fisher passed away there was a lot of game message and website chatter about everyone meeting at House Organa on Alderaan for - if memory serves - her birthday. I remember logging on that day after work and making the journey to the destination and seeing a ton of player characters gathered outside the building and even more mingling inside the main hall. It was incredibly moving and it still affects me to this day, even as I'm typing this. It remains one of my most favorite video game moment memories, now and forever and I'm so glad I was there for it when it mattered. Back when Star Wars still meant something. When we still had stories and characters that we could celebrate. Before the dark times. Before the acquisition. I miss those days. Granted, I still play present day SWTOR when I get the whim, though I tend to take long lapses of unsub time. I too remember the early days and how once upon a time in a galaxy very close to home this game was a masterpiece and beloved by all. I remember it for what it was and I still enjoy the roleplay aspect of it. I'm not a nitpicky completest when it comes to every quest and flashpoint and all things in between, and I'm sure I'll get bored with this current playthrough at some point and will set it back on the shelf once again. But in my heart I will always know that this was my - and our - Star Wars. And I'm grateful to have taken the journey. ✨
Played this game so much for two years after launch and it was honestly the last thing to happen with MMOs that I was seriously hyped for. Nothing matches vanilla SWTOR for sheer narrative sci fi fantasy RPG goodness. It had its flaws and they were many but getting Legendary and Living Legend back in the day still is hands down the peak of MMO gaming for me.
Im Right there with you friend 🔥
The Gree Event part hit hard… I remember being so hyped to PvP all night with my guild (alpha company at the time)
Bro I was there for a time. I’ll never forget the uniform
Bro I miss Acoy so much. Was definitely the best RP-MilSim guild I've ever been in. I was so frustrated when they removed the classic TH-15A armor set in 4.0. Nothing will ever beat that uniform. Thanks for all the fun memories. It is actually super random that this video popped up on my recommendations. I can tell that you're a good content creator by the quality of the video and how you present everything. It really is a shame what the game turned into in the later years.
@@reidarG.thank you my friend, I appreciate the kind words! I really do miss the classic game. The current is fun, in the aspect that the story lines can be redone and the PvP is solid,
Always neat running into other ACoy vets. @synic6996 @reidarG what names were you guys using?
@@Galaar Kirby 😎
I had this exact same feeling with Destiny/Destiny 2. I played Destiny since 2016 and loved it. I joined a clan at the beginning of 2020 and it was the greatest thing that happened to me. Since lockdown happened I wasn't able to be around the few friends I had outside of gaming, so having a group that I love and still keep in touch with to this day was amazing. It was sad watching the game grow into something unrecognizable. After the last expansion, myself and almost all of my clan have left the game somewhat permanently. It honestly broke my heart knowing that something I loved and that gave me such amazing friends was a shell of what it used to be. This was an awesome video and it really resonated with my own experiences.
I remember building my first PC just to play this game. I would stay up all night questing zones.. Man the memories!
I attempted to build my first PC for this game too. Unfortunately I must be stupid cause it wouldn't start and I bent some of the mobo/cpu pins.
Man we're the same age. Started playing in 2013 when Rise of the Hutt Cartel first came out. It definitely felt more alive and purposeful back then. Story bosses were difficult, the gear was cooler. It feels so soulless now that I can't even go back anymore.
Noble crushing it with another SWTOR vid 😎
The crippling nostalgia it gave me while making it was crazy 🤣
@@NoblePlays You did awesome! Just saw the Gree segment you added in, love that as well man. I really miss those days :(
Dude made me cry
Wow man. This was a great video. I started playing day one of early access with my older brother. We were both living at our family home at the time, our computers set up right next to each other. We used to only level up when both of us could be on at the same time. We ran troopers for the first year of playing the game. We did all class missions, PvP, and the Outlaw's Den PvP when we were high enough level. Those were some of the best days of my life. I will always have a strong connection to this game because it was me and brother's way of bonding and gaming together. Thank you for the nostalgia and good memories. 👍
I’m glad you enjoyed it! I could have made the video an hour long but hey, maybe I’ll do another one haha.
My man's spitting facts for 20 minutes straight..
I might not have been a die hard swtor fan as you were, but I loved this game and have many hours in it!
For me it also all really started to change after shadow of revan. They did a lot of changes to the game which soured the experience for me a lot.
I stopped playing after that, eventually picking it up again for some time, then stoping again.. and repeat.
The game has a soft spot in my heart. Whenever it's the music, the trailers or just the gameplay: It makes me want to come back to the game. But at the same time I know its really just a feeling of nostalgia that wants to be satisfied.
SWOTR won't ever be the same as enjoyable again for me, because the game has changed and I have changed too. I really wish the day never comes, but eventually they will take down the servers and all that will be left then are great memories.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this!
I’m glad you enjoyed the video! It’s always cool hearing other peoples experiences from back in the day.
Thank you for this tribute! I’m also haunted by the nostalgia of the game before KotFE, even before 3.0 (though I loved it at the time.) Open world PVP went CRAZY. I’ll NEVER forget some of the crazy stories that naturally developed because one dude through a grenade at some other dude on Tatooine or Oricon. Not to mention the original leveling experience was INCREDIBLE, and probably what I miss the most. Thank you for highlighting how fun and social it used to be.
I know that your favorite part of SWTOR was the community and playing together, but story does play an important factor in why this was such a great game. I know you said that the game fell off after The Shadow of Revan, but you can't deny the AMAZING story that was KOTFE and KOTET. IMO, one of the best stories ever made for Star Wars.
Those definitely had good stories. My issues was the solofication of the game. All they needed to do was keep making ops, fps and warzone maps. And needed to keep the roles in flashpoints locked.
I feel like it threw what K2 hyped in the trash bin.
I remember the day it launched. My son and I had 2 copies so we could play together. And my original guild was the best friends I had. We played together for years. Some of us even moved over to The Division franchise together. Just recently, we lost one of our Knights. Chris passed a little over a week ago. RIP brother. I have been considering coming back to SWTOR to relive some of those good times.
Nice story, sorry to hear about your buddy. Get back in there and relive some good memories.
I completely agree. I started playing from Open Beta until 4.0 like you.
I still have excellent memories of the launch of SWTOR, which was right around Christmas and which 2 IRL friends and I spent together in a galaxy far far away. Our group was composed of me (Scoundrel Healer), a Vanguard Tank and a Jedi Shadow DPS and the most incredible thing for the time was that we used Aric Jorgan as our 2 DPS and with that we made almost all FPs up to lvl 40 without having to look for a 4 player. I was the team's Armormech, the vanguard was the armstech and the Jedi was the Cybertech. With that we made interesting gear for Aric and between us.
It was really fun! And I'm grateful to have lived this moment with my two friends.
Dude I remember being a kid and buying the book before the game itself too. Very fond memories from so long ago.
@@NiteXD the pain of nostalgia 😭😭😭
Same here. This game was part of a pivotal part of my life and kept me content when I was going through hard times. It stopped being the way it was a long time ago and we’ll never get it back but like you I’m grateful to have partaken in its glorious early days.
Classic was really great. Even that first raid tier was iconic, I still remember it.
Exactly 🔥
I'm french but that game transported me as much as it has do with you. it is really a magnificent video.
After seeing the disappointment called Episode 7 I wanted to have the Star Wars feeling and started SWTOR again. Was part of the open beta and a player of the first hour with my female Chiss IA as my main.
It's nice to hear your perspective on this, as it was exactly what made SWTOR for me as well. My life was very different back then, too, and I agree - it's been lost by now. Lots of great memories.
So many great memories
I love vanilla swtor back in the day it was fun and honestly for me my favorite character story was sith warrior because that story was really awesome and badass and the vette love story between my sith warrior and her was super sweet in my opinion.
Vette is always a community favorite :) I’m going to reply that story this weekend! As you can see I’m lost in nostalgia 🤣
@@NoblePlays lol I can agree with that and honestly she’s my favorite romance too growing up especially playing this game back in the day. 😊
This all resonated so much. I grew up with this game and I’ve gone back to it every few months the last year or so but it’s not the same anymore. The ol days were fantastic - still miss my old guild out there
Still love swtor, but it needs a legit expansion, a multi chapter, eternal throne scale. People are sick of waiting 3 months to play 30 minutes of content that likely undoes all of their previous work. As for pvp, guilds absolutely need a revamp. I lost both of my guilds that I ran for years because they force us to stay subscribed, no loyalty whatsoever to long time players. It is an amazing game that needs to properly adapt and build what makes us go back in the first place. Most of all, Operations and World Bosses need Single Player variants that replace other players with npcs that fit into the story, there is way too much reliance on other people to play the most basic of content which has been the biggest drawback, because lets be honest: people that consider themselves the vets of SWTOR 90 percent of the time end up being rude as hell and just want to scream at people on discord. They have time to fix things, but not that much time.
At the very least they need to consider a full single player conversion that saves your legacy characters, so even when the servers finally go, this legend of a game survives.
Making the game even more soloable will not save this game. I understand that you’ve had bad experiences with veteran players, and I’m sorry about that. But making everything solo is a mistake. If you want don’t want to interact with people, maybe don’t play an mmo? I’m not saying that to you specifically, just a general statement.
@@NoblePlays I feel like this can't apply to swtor, unlike a lot of other mmos it never sold itself on it's multiplayer aspect being the highlight. It was always the solo stories and the planet quests. Compared to a lot of other mmos, swtor never made it mandatory for you to play flashpoints or operations to progress the main quest which worked to its advantage for players that just wanted story. Until Shadow of Revan included solo flashpoints, this was always the formula where people who wanted to interact with people had a way to do so. However I do think Fallen Empire is where the problem for the whole population started since they focused on an expansion that only offered solo content with no flashpoints, pvp or operations to go with it. If the devs had been more efficient they would have done as other mmos still do which is to release a good size of group content alongside the solo story.
@@NoblePlays cmon dude really? I should just go play another mmo, I don’t know if you are trying to be snarky but the nerve 🤣You can’t possibly sit there and tell me it’s easy to assemble groups capable of taking on harder ops, and it isn’t some isolated incident with these aggressive players it’s almost every single time. No I dont think I need to “play other games”, I think they need to fix this one and make the entire game at least accessible for solo story players because that is the majority of players now. I haven’t even done the mountain queen op, dxun, and a few others. It is atrocious. Not saying they shouldn’t expand on the coop and community aspects, clearly stated they should be expanding guild systems and PvP, it’s just I’m not only thinking about the one part of the game I like. You don’t have to play solo or even like solo, but that doesn’t mean other people don’t want or need mechanics like that. Used to help my buddies with disabilities play and it got too difficult for them to continue for this very reason. Should they just give up games they like too because you think the game shouldnt be adapting for solo and only multiplayer?? Seems kinda selfish.
Wholesome vid. I remember feeling the exact same as you when SWTOR first launched. I played for hours and hours.
It was the greatest time of my gaming life.
im still sad that there is no private server scene about that game
All they need is SWTOR classic
@@NoblePlays yes but usually companies never do it, its a miracle blizzard did it but still managed to fuck it up
You summarized how I felt playing this game. Thank you so much for this.
Of course my friend :)
Shit makes me cry im ngl, swtor was my life where i could scape from shitty parents, depression, anxiety, dysphoria, I could escape and play a character that I put love into. There was a point in my life where my parents saw me playing a female character and made me delete all my toons (unbelievable right?) I was 12 when I started in 2012, the base game was the most fun I ever had. Im now 25, 2 kids, wife, I still tear up when I look at the original toons I got to keep, I used to want to end it all so much, I like to think my toons can see me, they’re proud of me and there for me despite of who I am and what I cant change. Swtor has been there for me where my parents werent.
The amount i can relate to this is criminally scary. ❤️ we made it bro 🔥
I relate to this, too. I had a MONSTER of a father and my mother enabled him. He abused me and my older siblings in every way imaginable, and my 2 older brothers and my older sister all wound up in prison before I hit 18 for attempting to take him out of this world. I am a woman on the Spectrum, with an Intersex condition. SWTOR and RuneScape were my main sources of escape from my father, and they allowed me to socialize and make life-long friends to this day. I was one of the original 2000 players in RuneScapae and became quite famous in it, and I began playing SWtor at launch. SOO many good memories from both.
Sadly, I haven't played either of them since 2014. When I was 19, my father was going at my mom again, and I decided to intervene. We got into a massive fight, and I fortunately grabbed a metal bat. It saved my life, but my father didn't survive the encounter. I pretty much went into a rage after everything he'd done to us. Wound up getting arrested of course, and the World News compared me to the Menendez kids, simply because my father was a millionaire Stock Broker and Wall Street Executive. It never had anything to do with money, though. Thankfully, the Judge refused to go along with the DA's desire for 57 years to Life, and sentenced me to 10 Years Flat. I came home within the past year.
I actually had some friends from both RuneScape and SWtor, whom I had never met in-person but had thousands of hours of video-chats with, write me letters AND even kept money on phone accounts to take my calls while I was locked up. When I came home, they invited me to a Discord server that day, and when I went in, ALL my old friends from our RS and SWtor guild/ clan were on it, and they all welcomed me home and said they'd been waiting a decade for me. Several of us cried, especially me. It was so special.
People don't realize how much these games help those of us with unfortunate circumstances and/ or on the Spectrum, etc. I will forever be greatful to both games.
Great video. What you said was so true. I remember the happiness and excitement when I first got the game way back in early access and played all those years ago. The fond memories are so great. Thank you for reminding me and for sharing your experience.
Of course :)
KOTFE and KOTET are the best story-wise expansions actually. The peak of this game's storytelling
I never cared much about pvp or grouping with others (except for the raids, for which I have a guildmates) so I still enjoy this game, it always has something to do in it for me. Long live SWTOR
hard disagree. 4.0 took the game in a really bad and weird direction it now struggles writing itself out of.
Kotfe ruined it for me. It only made sense to play as a force user. Once I beat it on all of my characters I just found no reason to play. Maybe I'll fire it up again soon to check it out
Great work. Really hit the nail on the head. My experience was more with Star Wars Galaxies but I also lived through the life of SWTOR from beta to now.
Glad you enjoyed the video :)
Star Wars Galaxies was a far better MMORPG, and it couldn't be more different from SWTOR.
Only got to play for like 3 weeks.
@@NoblePlays you should play swg. plenty of private servers around to try it out. You'd love the game in either format. If you liked swtor's style, do the post-cu. If you want a more rpg style, pre-cu.
and SWG is just infinitely better. You can do so much without needing to fork over money to remotely enjoy the game is awesome.
@@NoblePlays swg was my favorite game of all time. it had its issues but my characters story was my own. you should for sure check it out. loads of private servers for it. i still play it today.
All right, you got it. I will play it again. I went into this mmo back in 2016. This was the mmo that hold me tight mostly than others mmos due to the story driven element as well as friendly content that does not start at level 80 or endgame. However, most of my crew is no longer here with us and some moved on. Still, I go back to re play mi old tons as well as creating new ones. Now, that this mmo is getting some kind of remaster overall on the planets, it seems the best time to come back. Great video, right in the feelings.
While I understand the desire to return to the days when you first started, much like WoW Classic the reality is that there are very good reasons we left most of that behind.
PvP for example. The reason PvP shifted from open world to match-based is because the balance was TERRIBLE. The Ilum zone got shut down in the first year because there were so many Empire players, Republic players just stopped showing up.
Companions are another. Very few players ever want to return to the days when Companions had locked roles, AND had to be geared seperately. It made some classes feel like a drag to play trying to get to their healer or tank (because the vast majority played DPS).
Heroics became more playable because at the 2 year mark, Bioware discovered they were the least used type of mission. Players either did solo content, Flashpoints or Ops. So they made Heroics solo-able just so people would use them again.
Flashpoints are pretty easy to get a team for, thanks to improvements to Group Finder, but you'll still need a Guild to do Ops.
Overall, I think the game is in a far better state now than at launch. More options, more content and more freedom on how you want to play.
Except for anyone likes PvP and challenging content. All of that is gone now. I understand that there are more quality of life improvements, I don’t mind those. But make the game challenging again. Give it more meaning.
(edit for more context)
They removed ranked PvP, which is one my main activities.
They made everything too soloable. The MMO expect fades away with almost every update.
You brought up companion gearing, that didn’t bother me. The role locking of companions did.
They took away incentive to explore.
They stopped making Ops
They stopped making it necessary to have the actual roles in flashpoints. It’s a boring dps farm now.
There have been a lot of improvements but they took a lot of things away. Thats people liked..
Yeah, I'm sorry, but I'm one of these people who bought the game before launch, and while the game lacked in end-game content during that time, the leveling and flashpoints were probably the most fun I had in an MMORPG since the early days of World of Warcraft.
I've played this game on and off for the last decade, and one of the most enjoyable parts of the game, the dungeons and quests, have been so watered down that nothing is challenging anymore. You just smash on your keyboard and you will easily get to level cap since you receive so much XP and the enemies are a joke. Just by going through the main quest, there is nothing fun about it; besides experiencing the story for the first time it's just a chore at this point.
There is nothing about this game anymore that has made me interested in logging in for the last 2 years.
If they ever release something like SWTOR Classic i will be one of the first ones to return but i'm kinda done with it at this point.
Sure, it sucked that companions were locked to roles, but it made you naturally start to team up with others to level faster and easier, and that has been made completely redundant, which is good now because of the low player base, but these changes were made during a time with a lot more players. It killed the need to communicate with others in an MMORPG which creates bonds with people.
You can get to Level Cap playing through this MMORPG without ever saying a word to another human.
I was also 14 when SWTOR came out, I remember getting the E-Mail where I was allowed to play a few days before release day. What a great time it was! My first character was a Republic Trooper and I chose Lord Adraas as my first server.
I miss the early days.
You need to play more MMOs
Nah I’m good. I already play GW2 and I played ESO for 4 years.
@@NoblePlaysYou need to try WoW or Final Fantasy XIV because those are the top MMOs and they'll show you how a real MMO plays and thrives. Both of those games predate SWTOR and they're far healthier both as a populated social space and as an ever growing gaming experience. Personally, I'd like think you'd love WoW for the PvP and the open world but the story in FFXIV is more like Vanilla SWTOR's class stories.
@BaithNa WoW players complain up and down about that game too. OGs hate the queue system for example because it Removes the need to chat on Gen or Trade to find people. WoW is as static as TOR is, it just reached bigger peaks player base wise.
TOR was special because it was Star Wars, people like me who never cared for MMOs joined it more than a decade ago and when I left I did not play other MMOs.
@@NoblePlays lol no wonder you think this is the greatest ever
@@noha112I’m Star Wars fan first and an mmo player second. Doesn’t matter if WoW was better from the popular perspective, SWTOR will forever be the greatest game I’ve ever played.
The best of times. Core memories for sure. Also, thanks for the shout out. I’d play anything with you brother! Holla at ya boi!
Anytime brother!! I’ll definitely hit you up over the holidays and we can run it back 🔥
@@NoblePlays I think this is your best video. It’s for sure my favorite. Excellent work.
I played beta and well into the end of Vanilla (EU Nightmare Lands server). This was a nice trip down memory lane thanks for sharing. Countless hours of pvp in Illum! With about 3fps… but didn’t care.
I’ve got some old pvp vids on my YT though set to private so I don’t lose them
I never leave comments but this was an awesome video man, hit me right in the feels. Dont lose those relationships on those friday night game nights just cause swtor changed, lots of fun games to play with groups like that. Wish I had stayed in touch with my old gaming friends from around that same time 10-12 years ago... I also had a Sarah, thanks for the nostalgia o7. I think you made me decide to finally play the story through
Glad you enjoyed the video! We definitely still get together on Friday nights to game and hang out. I’ll jump in swtor every now and again. I’ll be here until the game goes down.
Very thoughtful and wholesome Video and i would agree the Moments and Memories we made out of such Games are the best we could have gotten :D
Very true 😊
The first time I played this game back in 2015, I started off as a Smuggler on Ord Mantel (I think that's how it was spelt), and was getting my butt whooped by enemies in heroic missions. Because I had no subscription, leveling up was very difficult and taking on heroic missions or even flashpoints was pretty much impossible for me, but during those hours of grinding I found out other people where also in the same boat when exploring local community hubs. In an act I have never witnessed in any other MMO game, we had all banded together and went on from Ord Mantel, to Coruscant, then Taris (oh god) and so much more, sticking through the experience together to the very end, enjoying everything each planet had to offer.
I remember fondly waiting to get out of school and rushing to get home so I could join up with everyone and continue on our journey, making more friend along the way and taking on even bigger challenges. When you say SWTOR has changed, you are absolutely right to such a degree it saddens me to even think about what new players are now joining into, and whom will probably never get a chance to experience the community back then like we had. I genuinely miss those days and I wish to this day I knew what I had, for I would have cherished it even more then, but as Dr. Seuss once said, "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."
Thanks for the vid my friend, cheers to the good ol' days.
The game means a lot to me in a similar way. While I did and quite enjoyed some pvp on my own, I didn’t have the community aspect you did and I wish I did, but the fact that I’m so emotionally invested in it even without that shows just how good it is. However, since my connection with it is in the single player content I know I could always go back and having a similar experienxe
Fair enough. I still go back and do the class stories again. But it just feels like nobody is around anymore. It’s like returning to an empty house you grew up living in.
MMMos are such a social experience. I treasure the times and friends I made through MMOs, but one day the realization hits you that you can't go back. The game's changed, but you've changed also. It's a sobering and sometimes depressing realization - it can feel like a profound loss; but you don't lose those good, golden times. They will still stay with you forever - but you can't go back.
The first minute is speaking directly from my soul. I was also 13/14 years old and SWTOR helped to find some very like-minded people to escape into a galaxy far far away. Vanilla SWTOR was much more about experiencing the world, when levelling up was actually quite the task and when group content had to be mastered as ... a group. Problem now is, that it became more of an Online Single-player game with some group content rather than the opposite.
I hope Broadsword gets that feeling back, that this game focuses on social interactions and extending the world to explore.
Great video, the force is with you!!!
May the force be with you as well!
3:06 The good ol days of holding the line at Outpost Thorazan. The most fun I ever had in SWTOR and generally, in any MMO (and still get Nostalgia everytime I'm back at that area). Never forget the Bastion server :c
Vanilla SWTOR was awesome. Thanks for the video mate. Brought back some great memories.
Of course! Glad you enjoyed it 🔥
Awsome video m8 .. this brought so much memories .... first start playing Swotor in BETA ... and watching this video gave me such a nostalgia hit ( in a good way ).... Darth Malgus collector edition figure agrees with me aswell :). Ty for this .. didnt knew i needed this :). much love
I’m glad you enjoyed it! A lot of people like to shit on the game now. Which is understandable, but I wanted to remind everyone how special this game was, and still is to many people. Including myself.
@@NoblePlays ….. i quit on the game maybe 6 Years ago … i pop in from time to time, but those first few Years … that was the best MMO Experience i ever had
I’m in the same boat here I bought the game as a young kid thinking it was just a normal Star Wars game I had no idea what a MMORPG even was. Me and my cousin grew up together playing this game and meeting so many people I have memories with. I still come back to it here and there, probably my favorite game ever tbh.
The exodus of player hit me pretty hard because when i started playing I met a bunch of players who helped me better understand how to play the game as I was a kid who was a complete novice when it came to MMO ( I was literally under leveled and broke back when there was no level scaling aka the good old days and money was actually important to travel) but I ended up moving irl and for reasons I couldn't play for more than a year and when I came back, they were all gone. Literally all the friends I had made had just stop playing the game while I was gone and I only ever met 1 of them again a few years later who told me how he and others simply lost interest after Shadow of Revan and simply moved on. I for myself continued to play since I had not completed any of the class stories yet but now that I have completed all of the main stories and basically played through everything I could play through as a free to play character I kind of lost interest because I don't want to spend money to unlock KOTFE and beyond. If they one day unlock KOTFE and beyond for free to play players like they did with the other expansions a few years ago I might play them but to be honest quest that aren't class based don't interest me because they are just repetitive, and I already know the story. I find more enjoyment in starting a new character just to recall the nostalgia of the beginning of the game and enjoy the visual updates they introduced. I wished they introduced a play back system for the class story so I could enjoy some of the epic moments of the original stories again. It is very sad that such of great game is basically dead but, in many ways, SWTOR is the personification of the Star Wars franchise as a all: a franchise that was once quite something on its death bed being kept alive and protected by the love of some of the fans while a corporation, who is itself nothing more than a soulless shadow of something great, tries to milk it for every little bit of profit until the curtain finally fall. This is all quite depressing to think about.
It was awesome, I played through the closed beta up to the second month after launch. Really enjoyed the game. A year later couldn't force myself to play for more than a few days....
I was a beta tester and Founder of SWTOR. I left the game so many years ago and just jump back in when my son wants to game together. One of those returns saw me trying to play it like it was Vanilla and learning so many things had changed.
You get it man, you get it. My experience with Vanilla SWTOR was just like yours, down to running home to my room to play right after school, only I played a Sith Inquisitor. It was a magical experience, something I've been chasing ever since it stopped feeling the same, and something very few games have ever managed to recreate for me. I'm definitely a solo player, but SWTOR's cinematic solo-story elements blended so perfectly with the MMO socialization back then. Back when the levelling experience *was* the game. Excellent video.
By the way, do you remember when you couldn't pick a sub-class until level 10? Something about that was so fascinating to me as a young teen, the feeling of *earning* it, and both paths looked so cool I would agonize over which one I wanted to do. Picking it from the start just isn't the same.
I really do miss the advanced class days 😭😭😭
I was in beta and then there for launch, after coming from wow there was nothing like swtor for me for years! Vanilla swtor was the perfect experience, it’s so cool seeing nostalgia for this. Great vid pal just subbed
Thank you so much! I really appreciate that!
Thank you for helping me to finally move on as well. This game for me is everything it was for you. I redownloaded and even started up the game again, but ended up uninstalling immediately after because, well, it's never going to be the same again, as you said. I started when i was 12 or 13. Wish i kept more screenshots, oh well. I truly hope they make another game like this in the same time as this one, but who knows.
Glad I could help 😭😭
Played at launch for about 3 months and it was such a magical experience. Dove back in a few years ago and played for 4ish months. Had an absolute blast again, playing through the main stories still hits hard. This game will sit in my heart forever.
For real
You pretty much hit the nail on the head. I also started playing the game as a kid when it came out (I was 11), and I have had much the same experiences. I played this game religiously up until the end of SOR and then I became a little more on and off from there. I always come around to playing through the class stories again maybe once every year or two, since the og class stories are legitimately some of the best storytelling ever made in a game period. I am still on one raid team, but that's all I ever log in for now. Until fairly recently I still would log in to play pvp a couple times a week, but even that has died out for me over the last year or so. It pains me to think about what the game has become over the years but I am eternally grateful for all the amazing memories that I have from both pvp, raiding, and the original class stories all these years. A classic server is something I have dreamed of for years (even though it would realistically be more dead than the retail version), but man what I wouldn't give to relive the game of my childhood and developmental years. Also, I miss the old skill trees so much, they were one of my favorite parts of the game back then and I never understood why they got rid of them.
Old Skill Trees hit different 😭 so much variety and meme builds. I loved that shit
SWTOR was special for me too and I resonate with so many points in this video.
There is a magic that the 1st 3 years of SWTOR had that I have been chasing in a game ever since. My guild was a big part of that.
I've played the game one-and-off since 2019 (Idk which patch, but it was during Fallen Empire), so it's interesting to see the perspective of people who've played it since the beginning. Personally, as long as the game doesn't completely die or change beyond recognition, I'll still be playing it as much as I can. (LS Sith Warrior still the goat tho)
I do with more group content would come back tho, from everything you've shared.
I just wish we got annual or semi annual operations
SWTOR launch was awesome, but my friends were split over a dozen servers on top of order vs empire. I'll never forget me (jedi shadow) and my buddy (jedi sage) fighting at the Tatooine balloon Datacron Jawa walker thing, 8 sith kept trying to kill us, dying, respawning, full on 20 minute battle that ended with me knocking three off the walker to save my friend and he force gripped me onto the balloon as it was leaving, one sith corpse stayed on the balloon.
Thank for this video! It's so interesting to hear about how the game was back then. I for sure never played during the MMO time I only have ever done the single player story and flash points and I agree it's so easy to play solo the story is so ez to beat. What I love about SWTOR is the cinematic trailers. So flashy and cool. I am sad and sorry that the game changed in that way. I am playing Hunt Showdown nowadays mainly and I really dislike the direction they are going. Feels bad.
First 40 seconds of video - the story of my life (even same age), I understand you so well, bro.
I knew there were others out there like me 🔥
This took me back. I only started in 2012 and played sporadically before 2018 or something, but the first guilds, the people I met there still stay in my mind to this day.
Nostalgia. The good old days. Thank you!
I’m glad you enjoyed the video :)
As someone who played SWTOR since it's release this video really hit close to home, even though I played the game in a different way (PvE and story) and that's why I managed to stick around up until Onslaught released, I still quit for pretty much the exact same reasons as you did. I will never forget the feeling of old SWTOR, too bad they decided to slowly kill the game instead of doing something more with it. Great video man!
I was around 10 years old when I started to play the game. I'm 20 now. It's my childhood.
My first character in Swtor was a Sith Inquisitor. I remember watching every developer video and being unbelievably excited to finally play as a Sith. I played with lots of friends and family members, I remember racing them to get to level 50 and like you said it felt incredible to finally hit that max level. Finally finishing the story, earning the title Darth, is a gaming high I doubt I'll experience again.
I cant believe I had almost forgotten about great things like the Gree event and the open world PvP. Thank you for reminding me of just how good this game was
Yeah of course my friend :) glad you enjoyed it!
It's shocking how much this video resonated with me. I started playing when I was 13, just after RotHC dropped. I found the game by accident when I was rewatching Clone Wars and Google autofilled "star wars the" and directed me to SWTOR. I played on a terrible laptop at 20fps and loved every second of my laptop catching fire during 16M raids. I started with a guild called Zann's Empire, which was a weird blend of RP and casual PVE but it just brought us all closer as a community. To this day I'm still in contact with members of ZE and my fondest memories come from this time. After this, I learned to raid more seriously and eventually worked up to HM and NiM progression for a time until IRL got in the way and I couldn't commit to a consistent schedule anymore.
After a good break, I came back to the game and joined an RP community called the Risen Empire. While the childlike nostalgia was gone by this point, I ended up connecting with this group and have met some of the members IRL.That was the last I enjoyed SWTOR for an extended period. We've tried multiple times to remake Risen, but it was never truly the same and that original culture was lost in translation. Recently I've been playing class stories with my friend, letting him pick the story then picking the one that pairs with it so he can see both and we're hoping to get through all of them. He played a bit as a child but never got hooked like I did, so it's been great experiencing some of that magic through his eyes. Unfortunately, the community aspect is entirely lost and the closest we get is grouping with two randoms for FPs. While he can see the classes play out, he'll never understand how it felt to be apart of Zann's Empire as a teen looking for a group to identify with.
Gosh, so many memories... I started playing the game since launch. I always knew my first character would be a Sith Sorcerer. I too introduced the game to my partner and together we spent countless months in the SWTOR universe. Still one of my favorite games ever.
I have played since the very beginning. And watching your video hit all the FEELS. I think I play the game off and on for the same reasons. The Nostalgia of what once was, all the friends that were made, raids we ran, pvp we did... It's nothing like that now. It's a single player experience that once was an mmo. Now it's just a husk on micro transaction life support.
Man I feel you on this one.... I had a long running youtube story series for my Imp Agent and halfway into KOTFE i just... could not do it anymore. It lost that feeling that caused me to preorder SWTOR back when it came out.
But even so, I played SWTOR mainly solo or with one other person (who also lost interest). My last watershed MMORPG was the ill fated Star Wars Galaxies... the original Star Wars MMORPG. Thankfully I still have the friends I gained in real life from playing that game for 8 years.
Games today just do not have that same... vibe.
Played at launch back in the day all the way and got to end game raiding after a while with my friends, fond memories and friends made. I planned out my original character before launch and was going to a be sith warrior, but the week before launch I decided to switch up completely and do something from left field (for me) and I chose imperial agent. Best decision I ever made. There were VERY little agents back in the day. In fact, I was the only one in my guild and ended up getting geared out quite fast because of that. To this day, it remains one of my favorite Star Wars stories though, no regrets.
Fully agree man. Felt like vanilla wow.
One of my best memories was just getting ganked in a little open world mini dungeon where we had to cc and play tactically or die horribly because of respawns. A small moment but I'll remember it forever because of the hilarious fails and final success.
The single player focus, op companions and many ways to devide players is what killed wow too.
This video brought back a lot of fond memories. I was a day 1 player (even managed to get into the beta) and joined The Fatman server for no other reason than it was a funny name, as most people who played there. I was a terrible altaholic at the time, and kept making new characters just to experienced the story for each. I remember I would make sure to grab every Holocon, and do all the elite quests for the tokens in order to exchange them for blue armor pieces from the vendor. Anyone remember the subclass trainers you were sent to talk to when you first arrived at the fleet? Finding a group for Black Talon or Essedes through inviting people via fleet chat?
If there was a SWTOR vanilla private server that wouldn't get taken down within a year I would join in a heartbeat. Hell with the success of Classic WoW, I live in hope that BioWare will relaase official vanilla servers, but I highly doubt that would ever happen. It's a real shame too because SWTOR back in 2012-15 was a completely different game than it is now, and I would love to go back and experience it again!
I've got about 2300 hours into the game atm, I sadly missed the game fully until just a few years ago.
Today, the game is amazing for the story, but like you say, it feels like a single player game for the most part.
But it is really fun for me even now.
I am going to try and find a passionate group to make a social guild where we can make our own content in the game, by doing guild events etc.
But I've noticed that it will be a hussle as many don't care about it any more.
I wish I could say that I have the same amount of fun in it as I did all those years ago. I love replaying the class stories, and doing warzones. It just feels so off now. But I’m glad you’re enjoying it :) it’s a great game with a lot of heart! EA just took its soul.
I played 2012 - 2018 and feel the same as you. All we have are the memories❤️ Met so many cool people
I hope this message finds you well. I was known as Nefaras, and I had the privilege of being one of the top 20 parsing Guardians during the 2.X-3.X era of Star Wars: The Old Republic, with additional experience dating back to the 1.X period. I wanted to express my agreement with the insights you shared.
SWTOR has a special place in my heart, i played it with my Girlfriend, now my Wife. Particularly the Hardmode flashpoints point hit me and that the game dropped after 3.0. Hardmodes were a core part of the game’s challenge and community experience, and I fondly remember the enjoyment and camaraderie they brought. I can remember the adventure i had with my guild, all the challenges we overcame together. Unfortunately, I feel that the current version of the game has lost much of that original depth and charm, and I share the sentiment that it has become a shell of what it once was.
Thank you for taking the time to create such thoughtful content. It’s a reminder of the amazing journey we had with SWTOR, and I hope and that hope is slim that we see a return to those foundations in the future.
I've played from day one and it's only been the last few months that I havent logged in anymore. The cinematics are the best of any game you'll ever see and the 4k,8k versions are insanely good. It is actually very sad as the operations were some of the best raiding times I've ever had on any game. The pvp was brutal and we used to group up for hours on end.I have 16 max lvl characters, 8 of each class ,both imp and pub. I bought the 2014 Sideshow 1/6th Darth Malgus just recently as my farewell to this once great game. This video truly made me relive the times I had on this game.
Damn i missed you so much man,hope you're happy in your life and i hope we'll see uploads more frequently.
Much appreciated friend! You can find my mmo content in @nobleplaysmmos. When I post swtor stuff it’ll go there
I don't think I've ever commented on a video before, but this hit me so hard in the feels. I haven't played in years, and I've been dying to scratch the itch again I've been rebuilding my computer and this makes me so sad to hear. I remember those moments playing the gree event and seeing all the packed planets. Seeing it empty makes me want to cry. This was such a pivotal moment of my teenage years as well. Thank you for making this friend. I really hope we get some old Republic content on Disney plus to revitalize this game. People need to stop being introverts and talk to each other. We need more communities like this again. the world is just depressing now. It's so sad to see my old escape look so sad and empty. It's heartbreaking.
I know im a bit late to this but this is EXACTLY how i feel, i have always been obsessed with star wars, then when i went to college as a teenager i focused on that, came back to SWTOR and then combat was overhauled, open-world PVP was gone, social talking was gone, discords empty, its heartbreaking
It really is sad…
Dude this brought a tear to my eye. It was good times back in the day playing the OG SWTOR with the guild. Good times indeed.
Indeed
I'm brazilian, and I'll give you a word that everyone who learns portuguese loves, the word is: Saudade, it means to miss someone or something, so in portuguese you could say: "Eu sinto muita saudade dessa época."
Im a founder of the game, I started as the Bounty Hunter to. The companions were way different to, you had to arm them and it all mattered. It was a very challenging game at the beginning to. Wish they would add some new classes, love the main stories.
great video man! this game was awesome in 2012! ur vid really made me tear up 😢
Thanks for this, never really reflected on it until now. Time flies
Indeed it does
Sadly I did not get to play during the glory days, yet I still log in from time to time and start leveling a new character while wandering around the different planets. To me, this MMO has a certain charm and atmosphere that none other has been able to match. One can only hope that we get a faithful Star Wars MMO within our lifetimes, as unfathomable as that sounds.
@@ok3029 I think we may get 1 more in our lifetime.