I think on a several levels that picture can sum it up for you.
People like shine things (zomg Jedi, lol!!).
In reality, though, there are a few things which might attract players to the game. In my mind, though, MxO always had quality over quantity.
- SWG has a linear, but guided, and sometimes engaging Legacy quest chain, which will get you from the low levels tot he higher levels rather quickly (not too fast, but fast enough and with rewrads along the way).
- SWG has high-end raid-ish content in the form of large instance battles (popular in many MMO's today)
- SWG has Star Wars as it's backbone franchise which Lucas and company keep making sure stays up and 'cool' regardless of how much they sell out or debase the franchise.
- SWG gets a lot of advertising and in several formats (SOE e-mails, site presence, new TCG card game, etc, etc.)
- I've heard that some like the PvP aspect, but I cannot comment on it since I have not ever participated in it aside from one-on-one duels during any point in my career in the game
Now I'll list some reasons I have liked it over the years:
- Crafting. This game has had some of the most intricate crafting I've seen in MMO's. It allows you to personalize items and makes crafting your products well something to aspire to than simply a finger exercise. I haven't played recently so I can't comment on any recent changes, but when I was more active that was my opinon.
- Character customization. Between outfits and unique physical attributes, the game allowed for some pretty good customization on the character's end.
- Duality in game-play. You had ground-based activities and space-based activities. You could be a pilot and/or a ground adventurer. I really did enjoy this aspect ever since they released the Jump to Lightspeed expansion.
- Housing. They had some of the most free-form player-housing that I've seen in any game. It truly was something that you could make unique in your own way.
Those are the most basic reasons. The game is not utterly deplorable, but it has fallen from it's former self in my mind. Between anger at SOE for what happened over the years (most especially the NGE), general disillusion as a result of those times, and the lost of class-customizations that we had before (replaced with a cookie-cutter-esque class system), I fell out with the game and it has never been able to re-capture me in the same way (only way I might re-subscribe now is to play along-side some very good friends of mine...but that would be the only reason). I found, when I did go back, that the fun didn't last as long as it had for me before and ended up leaving the game all over again a couple of months later.
In reality, I always liked MxO better and always will. Despite it's short-comings, I found it a superior game experience in my mind.
