A question to the people who have played both: How do they compare?
They are entirely different.
SWG allowed you alot of different freedoms, one of which was to own and decorate your own house, ship and character. You could build a reputation as a crafter, and it had one of the most intricate crafting minigames in the industry but this was also a drawback as it could become timeconsuming and bothersome to craft large quantities of goods. The high end group action in SWG was not allways easy to get into as you could be discouraged by the perceived entry level requirements for stuff like PVP or high-end group PVE.
Most of those requirements was set up by other players though, and did not allways reflect reality (for example, I've had fun in mass PVP as an Officer without any kind of armor). The entry level requirements were usually set up by players that werent very experienced, to keep them from realizing that the reason they had been defeated was due to their own inexperience or failures. Alot of the game play routines was set up as an MMO, meaning you would need help from other people on occasion.
SWTOR has easier accessability for alot of the activities, but less customizability. As a result, you'll be able to log on and dive right into some action.