Mod Edit ~ Remember people this is an opinion based discussion. Keep it civil and respect one another. While opinions may differ both sides want a successful game.
I have now been playing pretty much since release and here is my summary of what all ToR did right and wrong, some of this mistakes will turn out to be the arrow in ToR's knee.
Things ToR did well or better than others:
1) Story-telling: No one even comes close to ToR on this. The cinematics don't have the cheap feel like uldum and the class storylines, especially deserve accolades
2) Casting animations: Every movement feels fluid, it must have taken a lot of work to make the light saber hit single bullets and deflect them but it is very well done. Some spells etc have amazing animations as well.
3) Vehicles level progression: I think they got it spot on, the timing for the first speeder is good and then we get to go faster at 40 and 50 works well too.
4) Storage system: Well done, no complaints
5) Levelling experience: This is again a good one, mostly because of the story telling aspect.
Things where ToR failed:
1) UI : There is absolutely no excuse of making such a UI in this day and age. I ahve seen the video for the "so-called" customisation coming too. It just has one slider which makes everything on your UI smaller or bigger. What if I want my map to be big and rest small or something like that. This is what ended the game for me because BW are just behaving like control freaks. It's not a point of 'they will fix it', it's a point of how could they release such abomination of a UI, I know I am not the only one who will quit because of this.
2) Lack of Competitive raiding: Again related to UI. in competitive raiding, people like to know how they are doing, they like to run numbers and get the best out of the team. Not allowing combat logs is a big mistake. It means that everyone is just playing in the dark with no idea if they're doing well or not.
3) Lack of Macros: Again, how can this be absent from a game released in 2011 is beyond me and this yet again points to a very "control freak" attitude on BW's part. Do things as we want you to, you can not come up with any ideas yourself.
4) Environments: I am primarily comparing the environments to those in WoW. personally i would pick storms peaks over Hoth any day. Most environments just feel not so heart warming. Even alderaan looked so much more beautiful in movies, it does not give me the same feel in the game. Same goes with things like night and day and weather changes, come on BW, this is not 1990...if you want to give immersion, dialogues is not the only thing to do. make the world feel real and changing.
5) Your actions do not seem to have any impact on the world, outside of your tiny green phased room: This is a big gripe, even WoW despite it's age has been trying so that when people do something radical in game, the environment around them changes, again soemthing that one should not have to ask for in a game of this generation.
6) Things that should have never made it to live: Things like camera reset to max zoom out at random, minimap randomly zooming in all the way, Too many black dull screens (it's not that hard to slap a small portrait indicating what one is upto), companion pet mission windows popping in, no matter if you are ina boss fight or at 200HP in a fierce PvP battle (how did BW not see that no one cares what the companion came back with, when we are in combat?)
7) Auction House Design: All I can say about this is "What the F*** were they thinking". Things like this making it to live gives the game a very unfinished and rushed feel.
8) Music: WoW, Dragon Age, Skyrim...they are all better than ToR. Also, really that hard to make loop music? Many wil say 'that's what itunes is for' and thats good for you, I played WoW with WoW music because I loved the music so much, I do not see why it is blasphemy to expect a game to have good music. Music is important to many people.....I have not played WoW in ages but still sometimes I like to hook up the soundtrack and just chill out, that is quality music.
I understand that many people will disagree with a lot of my points and some will brush them off as being not a concern but these are things that many people expect from an MMO. Only making a good story and having voice actors is not enough. People want to play as they like it. Whena company starts imposing it's own wishes so hard on users from get go (such as in UI, macros etc), it feels that one is playing as the company wants them to and not in a way that we find fun.
I think BWs biggest failure was not to learn from WoW's high points. Things such as customisable UI, dual specs, raids like ulduar which have multiple kinds of environments withing one raid.
BW could also have tried to lessen the number of load screens, it is very annoying, get out of ship in a load screen, run a 4 metre corridor, load screen again.
While many will jump on my throat about giving the game time and what not, that is valid to say, however One can not deny that First Expressions go a long way. What I have listed above are not bugs, these are mostly features that deserved more attention and features that are game breaking for many people.
I was very very excited for this game and I must say if GW2 is not upto scratch either, it might just be time to leave the MMO genre all together because the companies really seem to fail to understand what their consumer wants.
In summary, it is a good concept but rather poorly executed and they game is playable and enjoyable at times but it's not a game I will fall in love with.