magicwalnuts0, keep in mind that because of lucasarts direct involvement in their work, which includes both SWG and this new TOR, they have learned from their mistakes. Evidence from the interviews with the developers says that they can take from certain connected things, such as SWG or even WAR, because it's owned by EA. This means that Bioware has even more tools than just their general awesomeness to make a kickass mmo.

when I think about the effect i have on my own world because of quests, i think of fable 2. and because I think of that, I think of the terrible ending it had. and because of the terrible ending it had, i come to the conclusion that maybe the story is more important than the environment around me. that's why kotor rocked, because it was an epic story. not much ever changed by way of atmosphere or environment. and in terms of some nob asking for gold, well the /ignore function is ever crucial, and frankly, as long as i get to run an epic, kickass story with my best buds (another fable 2 attempt that led to epic fail) in the star wars universe, i'm sold.

SWG BEFORE it got nerfed was awesome...not that KotoR didn't rock my socks off as well. But I think that because of WoW, we won't be seeing an open-ended roleplaying expereience, but rather a well crafted mechanism for mindless fun. Both are good, but which do you prefer?