I’m wanting to try out a Star Wars RPG, and noticed that Galaxies and Knights are roughly the same price (minus Galaxies’ monthly fee, of course), and am wondering which game is better, in your opinion. I’ve heard very good things about Knights, but I’ve not heard anything at all about Galaxies after it came out, except that some classes were extremely mundane to build up. So, I call forth the RPG playing Dopers to assist me on my quest for the best Star Wars RPG. Please insert your input now.
I really enjoyed Galaxies, but for different reasons than many people. I don’t enjoy combat, so I became a dancer and a medic.
Exploring the different worlds was amazing . . . when I think back to my Atari system, I’m just floored by what we can create now: an entire universe!
It really depends on what you like. Becoming a Jedi is really hard, but you can have a lot of fun without being one. The game really offers it all: you can be a warrior, or open a store, you can play around with various professions until you find the one you like, and the people are really helpful and kind. Newbie helpers are everywhere, and most anyone is happy to answer a question or two. (And trust me-- you’ll have plenty.)
It entirely depends on what type of game you’re looking to play.
If you want an epic story-based adventure in the Star Wars universe with a team of interesting characters with detailed back-stories, cool weapons and fighting moves, a story that changes based on your actions, a combination of familiar sights and new worlds and characters, a battle system that is engaging and interactive without being overly twitch-heavy, outstanding voice-work, and an outstanding attention to detail throughout, play Knights of the Old Republic.
If you want to be miserable and catch syphilis and have your friends abandon you and your pets die, then play Galaxies.
Seriously, Star Wars Galaxies is a drag. Apart from a few rare “Hey, look! That’s a dewback!” moments when you first start playing, it doesn’t feel much like Star Wars at all. Mundane and tedious if not downright hostile to the players. My earlier description of the game was that it’s not for people who watch the movies and think they want to be Han Solo; it’s for people who watch the movies and think they want to be the guy who tells Han Solo that he can’t go out on a tauntaun because it’s too cold.
Never played Galaxies, but if you are a fan of RPGs in the slightest, you MUST get KOTOR. It’s amazing stuff!
The best thing about KOTOR is that the sequel is being done by the same team that did Fallout and Planescape: Torment. I predict it will be very buggy but completely kick KOTOR 1’s arse in the storytelling and character department 
And that’s even taking into account that Kotor is really, really good.
I haven’t played Galaxies, but in the online game communities in which I participate (City of Heroes, World of Warcraft), there are numerous complaints about it.
I have played KOTOR, on the other hand. It is one of the best games I have played in the past couple of years. It’s an amazingly well-done game, a great fusion of the Star Wars universe and the D20 (AD&D) ruleset. It offers you fairly open-ended gameplay within the storyline, interesting options for character development, and a storyline that plays out differently depending on your actions.
Add in the fact that it’s an actual good Star Wars story, something that Lucas hasn’t managed to pull off in either of the most recent movies, and it did a lot towards renewing my faith in Star Wars.
So I heartily recommend KOTOR. Galaxies I can’t speak to personally, but based on the recommendations of others, I would (and have, and intend to) give it a pass.
I’ve been playing video games for 25 years, and I don’t like RPGs. The great majority of them, in my opinion, suck ass. I didn’t expect a lot from KOTOR. The reviews were great and I was still skeptical, but EB has that 14-day return policy so I figured there was no real risk.
I loved KOTOR. I thought it was just a magnificent achievement, one of the great achievements in the history of the video game industry. I was staggered by the quality of the story and the voice acting - the story was vastly superior to any of the recetn Star Wars movies, and in fact you could make it a successful and critically acclaimed movie if you wanted to. The levels were great - not puzzly but challenging. The combat just gets better and better until some of the final battle scenes just leave you exhausted and sweaty and thrilled and terrified all at the same time. The interface is sharp and easy to use. The side missions are varied and original and numerous. The characters are great. The graphics and sound and soundtrack are tremendous, really delivering the Star Wars atmosphere.
Of the thousands of games I have played it is absolutely one of the three or four best, in any genre, on any platform. A wonderful game and an absolute joy to play.
There’s no possible way Galaxies, given what I’ve heard, can be half as good.
I played both. If you are going to choose one and don’t care if it’s single-player or multi-player, go with KOTOR. This is a ground-breaking game and deserved the game-of-the-year honors that it got. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and am looking forward to replaying this game.
On the other hand, Galaxies had some great ideas, but also had some pretty big problems, too. The dealbreaker for me on Galaxies was when I had invested a lot of time and effort in personally crafting some expensive, high-level enhancement meds. It took forever to track down the myriad rare ingredients scattered across the galaxy and earn the money to pay for said ingredients. The knowledge required to put together this stuff was like a college term project. After spending about a month at it, I finally finished a big batch that would last me and my buddies for years to come.
Soon after completing this arduous chore, the developers decided to change the game as to make all of this medicine worthless. Even though their policy was to never alter existing items (only change what can be created henceforth), they broke this policy in a pretty blatant manner.
Now, my character cannot use the medicine I created, and it could not be sold for anything near its previous value. Furthermore, when pressed, their customer reps said that while this change caused a regrettable but unforeseen consequence, it was impossible to fix back. :dubious: I believe to this day that was an outright lie, because basically they coded a specific check in the game to make the medicine worthless.
So, am I really the only person here who though KOTOR was a pretty middling game? Good voice acting, good story, but bogged down by dull, repetetive, and generally unchallenging combat and poor level design that made exploring a whole new planet feel like walking down a series of narrow, underpopulated corridors? I mean, it’s an okay game, I don’t regret the time or the money I spent on it, but I don’t get why so many people hailed it as the Second Coming of Fallout. There are so many RPGs out there (most of them several years old) that are light-years ahead of this game in terms of plot and character interaction, and more than a few Star Wars games that are simply more fun to play.
I’d have to say that I’m with Miller. In my experience, Bioware make good engines and good RPG’s and then Black Isle use the same engines to turn out really really great stuff (Icewind Dale 2 aside). Which is why I’m looking forward to KOTOR 2 so much!
That was done long before your old Atari system. Look up “Elite” sometime- you’d be amazed.
except by the graphics
It’s not the best RPG ever made. It’s not the best Star Wars game ever made. But it is the best Star Wars RPG ever made. And it feels more like Star Wars and conveys the whole epic scope and ancient world of it than any videogame that’s been released in years, and more than the prequels even.
Sure, the levels are limited, a lot of the dialogue is iffy, and the attempt at romance is just embarrassingly bad. The overall experience, however, is still an outstanding game.
Ugh… this still upsets me when people call KOTOR “ground breaking” or anything to that nature. It is simply a dumbed down version of baldur’s gate, with shiny graphics set in the Star Wars universe.
Yes the game was very polished and deserves an A+ on quality. But on originality I’d give it a C-. If you compare it to another D&D game, it really lacks exploration, story options, equipment variety, and skill variety. And yes it was so incredibly easy I thought I was on God mode the entire time. I found the entire game very under whelming yet still enjoyable to an extent. Basically it’s the summer blockbuster of RPGs.
I think what affects my opinion is that I started playing KOTOR directly after I finished Baldur’s Gate 2 and its Expansion. In KOTOR it felt like I was always doing the exact same thing level to level. This seriously never happened in BG2. Sorry I could go on and on. I guess for anyone who hasn’t played one of the great old D&D games you would really enjoy KOTOR.
Anyways it comes down to this. If you’re really set on playing a Star Wars game then go with KOTOR. SWG is just complete garbage. You will kick yourself for wasting 50 bucks on it. However if you just need an RPG fix then go with BG2 or any of the other classic CRPGs of a few years back.
Yeah, it’s the best Star Wars CRPG ever, no argument. But being the best Star Wars RPG doesn’t mean it’s a good RPG overall, especially when the only other Star Wars RPG is Galaxies. And, yes, it certainly was better than the prequels, but c’mon: what isn’t better than the prequels?
That said, KOTOR was a fun game, and one that I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to anyone looking for a easy way to kill a couple afternoons. I certainly didn’t find it outstanding, though, and one of the reasons for that was specifically the lack of an epic scope. Unlike virtually every other Star Wars video game I’ve played (even trash like Rebellion) I never felt like I was part of a larger world, that there were greater forces than me operating in the galaxy, or that I was part of a military struggle on an interplanetary scale. The game felt very constricted and narrow, hemmed in by too many clearly artificial decisions based purely on game mechanics, and not on the demands of the story.
Take, for example, your party: you’ve got nine battle-hardened mercenaries, killer droids, and Jedi masters in your ship, but at any given time, you only take two of them with you, no matter how dangerous the mission. Assaulting a Sith fortress? Three people should be able to handle that, no problem. The rest of you hang out here on the ship and play Sabacc until we get back. And, of course, the fact that those three characters are more than enough to storm the Sith fortress and slaughter every dark Jedi inside makes it hard to take the bad guys seriously as a credible threat to the galaxy. Which is hardly a problem unique to this game, but somehow it felt especially egregious here, to the point that it seriously damaged my enjoyment of the game.