I believe I have come to the end of my adventures in Azeroth, at least for now given I am spending more time on these boards than in the game, so am looking for a new game.
I had settled on Guild Wars2 because it was the first fantasy game I saw where I liked the setting, character models, ect (FF14 is too anime and ES is too… bleak).
However, my niece has suggested SWTOR a few times, I finally looked at it tonight and while I am not hugely into scifi for games, I did like the look.
For folks who have played both, ignoring theming, which one did you find the most entertaining and why?
And how did your preference compare to WoW?
Neither. Both are ran on engines less cared for and outdated than WoW’s.
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SWTOR for story and leveling experience, the base game is S+; the Valkorian expac was fantastic. (hands down, by far and away the best leveling experience and story)
GW2 is better with gameplay and just a solid fun game… I tend to lose interest though with the expansions.
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When I play Swtor, I play it like a solo game. I recently started the Bounty Hunter story and on my way to become a Mandalorian. I really like it. I delivered a guy’s head to his wife… how cool is that.
Can’t talk about GW2, I played it like 2 or 3 hours max.
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I started playing GW2 about a year ago and I can totally recommend it, it’s a good game.
I also played SWTOR for about 300 hours when it was first released many years ago things must have changed in the game since then so I can’t really have a strong opinion, the game was not bad but also nothing special, WoW is better. GW2 is the way to go if you want a fresh game.
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Both are a bit dated (and don’t update themselves in a way that keeps them from feeling that way like WoW).
I don’t have much experience with SWTOR, but I can heavily recommend GW2… as a once-through story game.
It has no meaningful endgame power progression, so I REALLY don’t care about playing it long-term as a “main” MMO. It will always be an occasional side-game jaunt for me because of this. Also, its meta builds are ALL group boon spam builds, which pretty much means PvE meta is “stack on top each other at all times and maintain max buff stacks at all times or you’re bad”. Which isn’t fun to me.
But, as I said, its worth playing at least once for the story/quest content IMO.
The Heart of Thorns expansion was my favorite. The base game focuses a bit too much on the presentation of story for its climax at the expense of gameplay. Heart of Thorns has a solid climax with an actually solid boss fight to cap it off (heavily recommend playing through it as Sylvari, as well, as theres unique interactions here and there if you do). PoF is in between. Its closer to HoT in how its designed, but doesn’t pull it off as well IMO.
Its zones / exploration and world events are all very solid, too. Its also like the poster child for good jumping puzzles. It fails hard in FFXIV and WoW because the jumping mechanics aren’t made for it. It’s good there.
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Swtor is at it’s best during the elder game storyline, it’s vanilla wow storylines. That is the lvl 1-60 leveling experience. It’s one giant story told through the eyes of every class through their own unique storylines as they traverse through mostly the same planets. Both Republic and Empire side have this feature so it’s about 8 different storylines to enjoy(Imperial Agent is the best imo.)
After that the rest of the game is bad. The expansion storylines are mostly very shallow(except the Shadow of Revan storyline) and endgame is just grinding the same set of dailies every day for lootboxes that drop when you gain a new prestige level. Those lootboxes drop anywhere from normal-mythic level gear as well as crafting mats and a low chance of collectibles(which you have to pay for to make available to your entire account.) It’s set up as a series of prestige milestones that allow better gear level items to drop.
Raids are occasionally announced and given roadmaps for… because they need to outline when each boss will be added since raids are added to the game via a piecemeal system after the first 3 or so bosses. Added in after months btw. During that down time you can farm old raids but what you’ll really be doing is farming legacy dungeons along with their version of BfA Warfronts to keep up to date with your prestige levels.
All of that happens alongside their cash shop that sells anything from the best weapon skins, armor mog sets, mounts, and collectibles to Exp and renown boosts, character customization options, exotic player races, account wide unlocks, and even an extra stipend from your ‘Escrow’ account which is where all of your extra earned credits go since if you’re f2p you are capped at holding a max of 1m credits(about 100k-ish WoW gold.)
The game is so close to being p2w that you will be feeling it in just about anything you do except player power(even they’re not that dumb.) So if you do play then cough up a month sub to experience the leveling storylines as comfortably as you can.
Edit: I only played GW2 for a vaguely short amount of time when it first dropped so I don’t know much about it.
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Swtor is my other go to game. It’s end game is not that good but if you like pvp it has some fun warzones(bg’s).
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I haven’t played SWOTOR, but I can comment on GW2.
I love it, it’s a great game, but it’s very different from normal MMOs. There is lots to do and collect if that is what you like, and it does respect your time, but it’s a pretty sharp turn in design from games like WoW. It’s my go back and play for the story now and then game. Or just play with the mounts because they’re fun. If you like to collect stuff though, and don’t really want to bother paying outside the price of the game, you can’t beat it.
Eh, I mostly play FF14 at this point myself. I am looking forward to Dragonflight, but the thought of another year in Shadowlands is… not great. 
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GW2 has superior combat, skills, character customization and better alternate advancement type stuff. The engine though is super bad and hasnt been touched at all
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I think they fixed the engine problems with the latest expansion. Before the Dx11 update, I was getting around 50 fps and now I have around 100 fps, my hardware is R53600&RX5700, and the settings are ultra at 2k resolution.
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SWTOR you can grind out top gear with out 20 people and the story’s are worth thee time.
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When I’m not playing WoW, I’m playing GW2. Solid, fun game. 
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Swtor is much more closer to WoW mechanically speaking, it’s strength is in it’s story experience despite it deviating radically from the original premise it still holds more water than WoWs story these days.
GW2 is radically different and far more complex to master in my eyes as it’s currency system doesn’t follow the same kind of rules as the other games do, without knowing insider trade information about trading and selling certain items.
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GW2’s combat is fun. SWTOR has better stories.
I pick gameplay over story since I can YouTube the story for Star Wars.
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Swtor’s base game is great, somem of the expansions may be a bit boring.
Solo dungeon runs are a thing
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All this could have been done with you just quitting instead of trying to shill for a completely different game. Narcissistic behavior is toxic
I think 7.0 ruined SWTOR. I would try out GW2 first.
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My friends who play Star Wars loved it until a recent expansion. I love the idea of playing a Togruta. I played a tiny bit and I actually really like the quest format, seemed like every quest was voice acted.
I think GW2 is a beautiful game? I played it at the beginning of launch. Love my engineer. Every main city is gorgeous and very robust with NPC activity, I like the ambience. The classes are pretty cool and spells and ability’s are cool and pretty.
Yep those are my metrics for what makes a good game 
I feel like either way you can’t lose
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If you want a game very similar to WoW go SWTOR. If you want something a little different go GW2. Personally, I like GW2 more.
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