Okay and now for the part you’ve all been waiting for, the one thing I’m sure many of you have been wondering…how does it stack against the biggest MMO of our time….World Of Warcraft. Before I truly begin with the comparisons I would like to let it be known that I am indeed a dedicated WoW player, but at the same time a huge Star Wars fan. I’m not talking about the standard “oh yea I’ve seen the movies, they were great!” type of fan, I mean I’ve read 95% of all the books that have continued the story and even the prequels so I know about Star Wars probably just as much as WoW.

Let’s start with the absolute obvious first, that being the graphics and SWTOR absolutely beats WoW in that battle 100% of the time. It also didn’t have a choice in the matter due to the fact that if their graphics weren’t better than WoW then it had no reason to even attempt to beat it. The zones are absolutely stunning; the characters have a much more realistic look to them, even when they have giant horns sticking out of their head. While WoW has a very colorful and even cartoonish look to it that’s what it’s supposed to be about! You don’t want to be a regular old human in a game based on fantasy; you want to experience it as a something different, something exciting! The races of SWTOR, while they look great, there isn’t anything about them that really stands out. Where’s the lore behind those people? A race you choose to play has to look good and also have a great background for me.

Ready for a doozy? If you were to ask any WoW player “So what happens after you kill the last boss of the expansion?” The answer is most certainly “Hmm I don’t know I have to wait for the next expansion to find out”. My point is that we don’t know the story of Warcraft; it’s not over even after seven years of leveling, questing and raiding those bosses over and over again. I can’t say the same about Star Wars because no matter what quest I’m doing or the Flashpoint I’ve just finished there is only one thing always bugging me…why am I doing this? I know how it’s going to end. Anakin turns into Darth Vader, Luke kills Vader and all the other Jedi are dead. I know what you’re thinking “that’s not for another thousand years, just enjoy the game for what it is now and don’t worry about it!” But can you really enjoy a story when you already know the end? This is the part about SWTOR that I do not enjoy when compared to WoW, knowing how it ultimately ends.

Time for questing comparisons! Quests are abundant in both games but one thing that sticks out for me in SWTOR over WoW are the conversations you have when picking up quests. It’s not just a simple ‘click here for quest, click on quest and boom start it’. You have the opportunity of actually talking with your quest giver and finding out a bit more about why you are doing this quest for this person you might not even know. Now as much as I enjoy the voice acting of the NPC’s I can also see how after a while you wish you could just click and go on those quests and forget about why they are giving them to you.

On the topic of quests and leveling you may as well include gear, something that obviously every MMO must have, but I must say that the look of the gear looks absolutely atrocious in SWTOR, nothing stands out to me, and nothing says “I have epic gear because I took down this “raid”. The gear you loot can often be purchased from a vendor, or at least something similar to it. It was kind of disheartening to see so many classes and their companions looking so similar. WoW has a track record of making the gear so that it matches up with the current content or specifically for the class that is wearing it, and it’s something that many people are always looking forward to.

Personally, the lack of add-ons and customizations are a disappointment for me in SWTOR. In WoW I have the ability to completely change my UI, but so far nothing has been said if SWTOR will ever be customizable to the extent that many other MMOs have let us achieve. Honestly, WoW has had seven years of experience out in the market collecting feedback from millions of gamers so they could perfect all these little details, so SWTOR should be launching with a game just as good and with all the functionality as the last updated version of WoW. I expect the patches will start rolling out soon fixing all these annoying bugs and oversights. The look of gear, functionality enhancements, and everything about the game will change the more people play it and people are going to be playing it. This is Star Wars after all and it’s going to be here for a long time.