Our latest MatchUp article will put 2 huge franchises head-to-head, seizing on the everlasting competition between Star Wars and Star Trek via their respective MMORPGs Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) and Star Trek Online (STO). The rivalry of both titles goes far beyond the MMORPG market, dividing sci-fi enthusiasts since ever while the franchises’ own pulling power is certainly one of the greater attractions for players of either title. 2 huge MMOs belonging to 2 huge brands, but when it comes down to it which is the better one and moreover has more on offer for those who want to play for free?
It should be pointed out right from the beginning that none of both titles was released with a free-to-play business model but a classical subscription-based one. STO almost endured two full years before adopting the F2P model, which happened at a tiem when other MMORPGs and the rest of the market were already strongly biased for free-to-play MMO titles. SWTOR in contrast only launched nearly two years after Star Trek Online switching to free-to-play and despite the up-and-coming free-to-play model it was believed to be sufficiently strong to ask gamers for a subscription fee, courageously trying to go against the flow of the rest of the market. How wrong they were in the beliefs. With hundreds of thousands of players abandoning the game, Star Wars: The Old Republic experienced a larger mass exodus of subscribers throughout the initial months after release than any other MMORPG. The decision of implementing the free-to-play business model was just made sufficiently in advance to prevent the title from being an absolute failure. From then on, EA managed to recover their lost player base, and SWTOR has grown tremendously popular.
Regarding gameplay, both titles share some similarities but also differ enormously. We personally think Star Trek Online stands out a bit more for it aims at being a pioneer in the genre, trying new things and implementing new features and systems, while even pre-release and from the initial launch SWTOR always felt like a re-skinned World of Warcraft with too many similarities (including the idea that they could get players to be subscribers…). Side by side comparisons are a bit more difficult to make, while STO features three playable classes in comparison the eight classes SWTOR offers, both handle character classes completely differently where STO potentially offers a much more customisable career path for their classes, SWTOR went for the more traditional WoW-esque talent tree approach for each class. Same thing with the available races/ species, SWTOR players are limited by both choice of faction and character class (WoW...); STO, in contrast, divides some races by their respective faction providing players with bonuses for that chosen race. They are alternatively able to recreate races for any faction as well as create other unofficial/ unsupported races with the powerful character customisation.
This customisation level is continued with the players’ ships; both MMOs allow players to customise their ship through a variety of upgrades, though in STO ships really act more like a player’s gear so instead of wielding a powerful lightsabre, players will pilot a Klingon Warbird and upgrade both it and their crew. The manner in which players use their ships differs as well, the majority of actual in-game content for players in STO takes place their ship’s interior part, though players are able to walk around as their character to take on missions, explore worlds when they go planetside and does have character/ground PvP, the majority of the content is geared towards space and the players’ starships.
SWTOR, however, is principally a ground-based MMORPG where each player earns their own ship at later levels, the type of ship depending on their chosen class (six unique ships in total in comparison to the 300 available in STO). The ship acts as a hub for the player’s gathered crew/ companions, a place to craft, store items, travel to other worlds as well as an area for story-driven plot content. The PvE space mission content was only introduced later to SWTOR and the previous expansion also added some arena-style PvP; nonetheless, space still remains an enormously instanced and contained experience (although extremely well done). It’s pretty obvious that space content is an add-on and still just a small portion in comparison to the much larger ground-based game filled with PvP battle arenas and huge planets to explore.
SWTOR’s major issue is that the game never felt like anything new, but as if all the things people appreciate with popular MMORPGs were taken and put into the game, not even necessarily putting any unique twist on them that we haven’t seen in other MMORPGs throughout the years. The greatest point with the title is the distinct story arcs for each of the classes, with the BioWare-style gameplay facing players with multiple choices throughout the game during their quests with various options to choose from, such as choosing a dark side option (kill) or a light side option (mercy) when facing a particular enemy, which is quirky and definitely personalises the story slightly to each individual player. The problem is that the game still falls into the traditional theme park style MMORPG with level-locked quests, content and planets and often the different options players can choose in quest dialogue still can lead to the same result so that it’s just the illusion of choice.
STO offers in-depth riches of customisation, from characters, ships to even the ability to create your own environments and quests using the powerful Foundry system (also used in Neverwinter, Perfect World’s other MMORPG title), which allows players to create their own instanced locations, from outdoor planetary expeditions, unique personalised ship interiors to other weird and wonderful creations that can be used for role-play purposes or actual quests where the creator can place NPCs and even attackable/ aggressive enemies. This type of feature is a huge boon to the MMORPG world and something we can only hope more MMORPGs try to replicate in the future instead of copy/ pasting the same overused features we’re getting bored of seeing.
So when it comes down to it what do both titles offer for "free"? While having an F2P option, STO and SWTOR alike present non-paying gamers with a variety of restrictions, first and foremost on aspects like chat and trade (undoubtedly in order to make it more difficult for gold sellers and spammers to abuse free accounts), as well as a few occasional tweaks on gameplay. Although having some limitations on several of its core features, STO presents very few outright restrictions, which is an extremely glaring contrast to SWTOR that limits lots of its most popular features in a pretty rigorous way or not allows free players to access them at all. However, you may fully explore the content up to level 50 for free, meaning the game’s core is still available and it’s rather PvP, raiding and space features that non-paying users have to go without. Moreover, players are provided with the option of tailoring their F2P accounts by making purchases of specific features without having to pay a subscription fee. This allows them, for example, to fully access PvP Battlegrounds while doing without PvE raid Operations in case they’re not that much interested in the latter.
The subscription option of both competitors is identical in price but widely differs as to what is provided for your fee. Both offer the same incremental price increase for their three packages ($14.99, 13.99, 12.99 per month) but the amount of days customers get for their cash vastly differs with STO being 1 month, 2months, 3 months, in comparison to SWTOR’s hugely improved 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, meaning that, side by side, SWTOR has the better subscription plans on offer. While both games enable players to slightly upgrade their free accounts by simply making a single purchase in their respective cash shops to loosen some of the limitations, Star Trek Online additionally offers a lifetime package for $299.99 which grants a subscription-free account with full access to everything plus its own sets of bonuses and perks.
So which one is better? Regarding the content, both titles offer completely different experiences that will appeal to different types of players. Therefore, loving the franchise alone won’t probably be enough to have somebody carry on playing one game or the other in case they don’t appreciate the core features. Concerning the monetary aspect, STO puts in place less restrictions for F2P account holders, but its subscriptions are a bit more expensive (especially in regards to the fact that subscribers don’t get that much more as the free account already offers quite a lot). SWTOR, in comparison, faces F2P players with a lot more limitations, only making its core questing/exploration/ story-arc gameplay entirely available, meaning players aren’t exactly lacking. In addition to the cheaper and more rewarding subscription options, it’s pretty obvious how EA have cleverly pulled in all the subscribers they originally lost by offering players a lot with the free content, a few tasters of key features that are limited and providing a low financial pay gate to access more content. This is ultimately going to come down to individual taste on the type of MMORPG you prefer, but both have a wealth of pros and cons to them.
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