I quit World of Warcraft in 2010 after playing for roughly 9000 hours over a 6 year period; that sounds like a lot of time and it was, but I literally played no other videogames at all over that time frame and I'll bet atleast 30-40% of that time I was AFK making diner or watching a movie while the game ran.

This isn't me going back to WoW; I'll never let myself get sucked back in like that again; but I did buy Star Wars: The Old Republic back when it came out and it has been sitting on my shelf staring at me all these years, and with the new movies ramping up I have an overwhelming urge to get into Star Wars stuff so figured now is the time.

First off I played the beta for SWTOR for all of about 2 hours and hated it, it was just a goofy space WoW knockoff that didn't offer anything new or interesting. I still think that was true at the time, but my experience with the current game has been much better for one single reason I can identify. I don't know when Bioware made this change, but in the game right now, they have tuned the leveling progression to 100% match the completion of the main story line. There is no more need to grind out inconsequential busy work missions, just play the story and you will make your levels and get your gear.

I honestly can say that the way the game stands now, it is pretty much KOTOR 3 with 8 distinct stories you can play which I think is pretty much what everyone wanted in the first place.

The only catch is that you have to subscribe to get the enhanced leveling experience, the game comes with a one month subscription, I made it to the end of the story in roughly 50 hours so I think with that 1 month you could easily get 1-2 stories done and pay for a few more months if you'd like more.

Other things I enjoyed:

The dungeons that contain story content can be run in solo mode, you get some interesting boss battles with an AI tank/healer paving the way for you.

The companions are actually very helpful and each one you get through the normal story progression brings a lot of new gameplay possibilities to the game.

Things that I didn't enjoy

The game seems really empty before you hit the level cap, there are so many different planets and areas that you rarely see other people at all while you are leveling.

The combat is very much traditional mmo combat, waiting for cooldowns on all your abilities, I don't think the combat in KotOR 1 or 2 was very good either so not really a deal breaker but it doesn't compare to say Mass Effect.

There is an overwhelming amount of stuff to this game, I figured with the amount of time I played WoW I'd acclimate to this game fairly easily, but there is a lot of stuff that I just haven't figured out and don't care to.

I think this game has come a long way and its a good single player experience now for subscribers and anyone can jump in and give it a shot for free now.

I think the key to your experience is subscribing. I also played the game when it first came out and played the game under the F2P model. The story cues and cutscenes in itself I thought were cool and probably alone worth checking out. The idea of locking everything else up including experience gained through a paywall is something I just couldn't justify. I honestly feel like there's something broken with that games F2P model and they should maybe take a long look at that stuff again, or maybe they just don't care about it and are just there to appease those that are still subscribing.

I wonder if your time with the game has made you want to check out the expansions for the game? I think there was 2-3 at the moment that increased the level cap and story.

@i_stay_puft: The Hutt expansion seemed to be free, I played up to level 55 and through all of the Hutt content then I stopped gaining experience when I was starting the Reven prelude and couldn't figure it out for awhile, I ended up buying the Revan expansion because I was still enjoying the story and it was only $20.

You are absolutely right, I think this game would be a miserable slog if you aren't a subscriber and I doubt I'll play past my free month, but I think the game is well worth playing through once with that free month they give you.