Could've been great but dev's totally screwed this one up.
I was also beset by enormous lag. I had top of the line system yet anytime I entered a city my system bogged down due to sloppy programming. To top it off... there was no pathing for npc's. Players were making red con monsters stuck in world geometry and levelling off them since the npc's couldn't path to them.
This was the case pretty much throughout the game world.
Initially, I was kept interested simply because of the star wars theme but that quickly faded. I played with a friend and made a combination of a scout, creature handler and would later become a creature handler/bounty hunter.
I loved my pets. New players will never experience them because sony for some reason removed creature handlers from the game. You used to be able to train baby monsters and raise them. I still remember the day I managed to capture and tame a Swamp Stalker.
For those who first experienced SWG they all were probably killed by super tough feline creatures, such as Sludge Panthers, Swamp Stalkers, & Narglatches. They ran at burst speed and hunted in packs. Swamp Stalkers were extremely rare, and tough, they were small but packed a punch and had 90% resists.
Usually you'd find only one here or there. One day I left Moenia and where one normally spawned there was a (baby) Swamp Stalker. I couldn't believe it and even though it was aggro tried repeateldy to tame it failing everytime, gaining aggro and died a few times. Another player tried to kill it disregarding my plea's luckly he died... and I managed to train this cat and it turned out to be the best pvp pet ever.
Here's a pic of me with my Swamp Stalker named Dread;
http://www.geocities.com/gr_stew/mastergunfighter.htm
It was the only one on the server, and nobody else on the CH forums seemed to have one. They even removed the swamp stalkers from the game and I was the only one with a tamed on in existence.
Then Sony removed creature handlers from the game.
This was only one of the many slaps in the faces by this company to players.
Here's a few of them briefly summarized.
1. At the start all weapons did full dmg in pvp. They nerfed pvp damage 75%, which was actually a good change.
2. The first combat revamp. This initiated the first in a long series of major nerfs to classes deemed too powerful. 3. Pvp was a joke at release. Imperials for the most part absolutely sucked at pvp but they didn't have to be good because they could get AT-ST pets which did 1000+ dmg a shot. They could even have two up at once. 4. Implementation of the jedi. Sony claimed they were in game since live but the area's which dropped holocrons never did previously. I know since I cleared them. Previously you had to obtain holocrons which told you to master a specific profession. Then you obtained another which told you the next profession. The third one you had to guess, out of like 24 professions which was the secret one that allowed you to open up another character slot that was force sensitive.
5. Sony turns around and makes jedi a starting class. So here all these people spent months trying to uncover their jedi characters, who were somewhat rare at this point, and become unique when they do... and they give it to EVERYONE at the start.
6. Second combat revamp. They remove almost 90% of the professions and narrow them down to just 9. Sony claimed that most of the population played these specific classes but that was because to succeed in pvp you had to be a combination of one or other of these professions. Usually rifleman/combat medic were the best. So everyone who played anything else... sorry.