Wrong, most of the imp armors look terrible and the rep side ones look much better. I always have to switch mods into other orange gear.

 

I take it you are a fan of brown robes?

Wrong, most of the imp armors look terrible and the rep side ones look much better. I always have to switch mods into other orange gear.

 

So I -finally- got to 50 on my Sorcerer and got the Tionese gear this weekend.

 

Then I looked at him riding his speeder.

 

And I thought, "OMG I'm a freaking flying squirrel!"

 

There's bad armor all over this game. The Republic side by no means has the monopoly on it.

Edited March 11, 2013 by DarthTHC

1. I assume I can agree on this point, many people roll Imps just because they want to be bad
   
2. Disagree, Jedi can be played pretty emotional and saracstic, if you so choose (think renegade shepard from ME}
   
3. Not going to comment, both sides have cool armor and horrible looking armor
   
4. empire has Balmorra, which is also full of going back and forth. Not to mention they too have Taris, which is equally long
   
5. Anakin was horribly written at some points, he suffered from major case of Wesley Crusher syndrome at several points in the movies. But Luke and Han are awesome
   
6. Rep fleet is much better, Imp is garbage and hard to navigate in
   

 

2) Players can play Jedi however they want, true. But the writers are pretty restricted in their Jedi stories compared to the Sith side, therefore the Sith quests tend to be more interesting.

 

4) Balmorra is long too, granted, but it doesn't have the same feeling that you are doing exactly the same quest over and over. Haven't gotten to Taris on the Imp side yet.

 

5) Luke, Han, Leia, Chewy and the goodguys in the real SW movies are all great, it's the prequels where the goodguys are terrible characters. Many of the players in TOR grew up on the prequels so that's what they relate to more.

I think the whole debate is pointless. I prefer the republic, but I main on the imps. Why? Because that's where I found the better guild.

 

Although I will say there does seem to be more hardliners on the imp side. I hear more "I will never roll republic" from imps than I do the opposite. Some people are just too metal, I guess.

My main toon is on empire... Why? Bounty Hunters and Boba Fett. But what bioware has never considered is the fact that, even though i love boba, i actually connect more with most light sided toons and i hate the trooper and its boring armour and animations. They gave all the cool stuff to the empire. Jet packs, rocket wrist guns, lightning (over throwing rocks whoopdi do), knives vs fists on agents and smugglers. Even republic star ships look terrible (aside from the smuggler ship).

 

Bioware really do need to rethink how to make the republic 'cooler' it just has 0 appeal right now.

And since SWTOR is the second largest MMO and arguably the second most popular game on the market today, do you think it has finally obliterated the myth that that good side will always be the most populated?

 

What? You for real? That's... So good to know! 0_o

The trooper ship is actually my favorite ship on the inside. They have an armory, a cool brief room, and their barracks is pretty legit too. But yeah the jedi ship sucks. There isn't even a crew quarters and that cargo bay is just stuck in some random pointless room.

It has nothing to do with good vs evil but more what is seen as appealing vs boring.

 

Remember that all of the coolest and most iconic figures in Star Wars are on the Bad Side.

 

Boba Fett, Darth Vader, Darth Maul and so on. Look at the good guys

 

Qui Gon - borning, Obi Wan - Boring, Luke - boring until Ep3 and then cool because he was wearing black and sort of evil. Even anakin started out as boring and gradually became cooler as he became more evil. Han Solo was also at the peak of his coolness in a New Hope - when he was lawless.

 

Then also take a look at how they marketed this game. Every trailer has a sith or bounty hunter beating the crap out of the good guys. Even the main guy on the loading screen died before we ever played the game. No one wants to play the loosing side.

 

Absolutely this. I've found in Star Wars lore that the Jedi tend to be very boring, while the Sith are much more interesting to me. For example, now that Disney has announced there will be many more Star Wars movies, the books I find I can't wait to see made into a movie are almost all Sith-centric (such as the Bane trilogy) while I could care less what the Jedi are up to.

 

In this game specifically, I made a Sith Warrior and Jedi Knight when I first started playing just to try them out, and quickly found that the Empire side was much more fun than Republic. It seemed like this is how the missions tended to go:

 

Empire Mission: Run amok through a camp of people destroying everyone in your path in hilarious fashion, burn everything to the ground, and be a total ******** while you're doing it, all while punting kittens.

 

Republic Mission: Help ten Jedi Padawans with their math homework.

 

Obviously, this is something of an exaggeration, but you get the point.

 

I also think there's a fair amount of people who lean toward the "bad" side in MMOs simply because you get to pretend you're doing things you would/could never do in real life. For example, if a coworker pisses you off, you largely have to grin and bear it. When playing a game, many people will choose the side wherein, if a coworker pisses you off, you get to melt his face, rather than do the exact same thing you do in real life every day.

The real myth is people leaning to Empire because they want to play the "bad guys". Other than the smuggler's story line, all reps class stories are so "cheesy" and appears like last minute works. The costume design and battle animation looks so far superior on the imp side. For instance, I really wanted to know who was the smart one to think up commando healing with a highly visible beam. It's like an automatic "kill me" sign running around in pvp. Seriously, it completely tips mercs healing to have more survivability over commando in pvp.

I take it you are a fan of brown robes?

 

Nope, Dark Black robes with hoods.

Nope, Dark Black robes with hoods.

 

There's a lot more of those Sith-side. Mind you, most have satellite dishes, wings, spikes, or other assorted accessories that make you look like the love child of a Transformer and Pinhead.

 

The Jedi ones are more "normal" looking, if you consider normal for a Space Knight to be standard 14th century Earthling monk robes.

There's a lot more of those Sith-side. Mind you, most have satellite dishes, wings, spikes, or other assorted accessories that make you look like the love child of a Transformer and Pinhead.

 

The Jedi ones are more "normal" looking, if you consider normal for a Space Knight to be standard 14th century Earthling monk robes.

 

Ya thats why I think all the imp armor looks terrible, I've only liked the CE imperial trooper armor and the imperial agent suit with those red and blue marks representing their rank in the military.

I do find it odd that much of the SWG community is here and they were Rebellion leaning, so yea. It's a bit of a surprise.

 

Then again, with the current political, social, and economic conditions, it shouldn't be a surprise. If the things start looking up in the next couple of years, you probably will find the Republic population will rise in response.

 

Just a theory.

Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the blaster. Edited March 11, 2013 by TheNevet

Then also take a look at how they marketed this game. Every trailer has a sith or bounty hunter beating the crap out of the good guys. Even the main guy on the loading screen died before we ever played the game. No one wants to play the loosing side.

I take it you did not see Hope and Return trailers then? In those, Republic Troopers, smuggler, and Jedi kick plenty of sith and imperial arses

Good? Bad? I'm the guy with the blaster.

 

Groovy.

I don't think it's a myth that other games (especially WoW) had faction population imbalances that skewed "good".

 

In this game specifically, I think people are drawn to the Empire because it was initially more mysterious and similarly the dark side of the force is more mysterious than the light side. However, after playing 7.5 class story lines and all planet storylines, I would say there is not a significant difference in story quality between the two sides.

TGood examples of "cool" good guys:

 

1) Indiana Jones - This guy kills loads of people without a second thought, "robs" tombs for previous artifacts and practically rapes a woman in last crusade. Yet, we love him and think of him as a good guy!

 

2) Han Solo (yes, i know, 2 Harrison Fords..) - He is a smuggler who traffics narcotics and other illegal goods around the galaxy. He works for anyone who can pay, also kills without thought and is very humerous. We also love Han Solo!

 

3) Constantine - Chain smoker, rude, committed suicide, yet he looks cool and fights demons and other ethereal entities. He's pretty ****** but yet he's a good guy.

 

4) Riddick - Serial killer, locked up and escaped from numerous prisons, again, no compunction about killing anyone or leaving friends behind. Yet, he makes a great hero in Pitch Black and Chronicles of Riddick.

 

5) James Bond - Kills people all the time, massive womaniser, steals from other nations (all in the name of England ofc) and generally cocky, arrogant idiot. Yet, the world loves him!

 

6) The Transporter (Jason Statham) - Again, works for massive crime syndicates transporting drugs, money, stolen goods and human cargo, helping with bank robberies etc. Essentially, a bad guy. Yet, he makes another good hero!

Congratulations! You just listed characters that I either a. haven't ever heard about or b. hate from the bottom of my heart. (Though, I hate pretty much everything that is acted by Harrison Ford or Keanu Reeves.) Especially that Bond should be punched in the face.

 

But anyway, there are cool "good guys" out there. E.i. V from V for Vendetta. Guy is a total anarchist and terrorist and runs around slaughtering people and blowing things up and probably isn't all that sane, but you still like him. I mean, look at this. That fighting is like Maul with daggers.

 

But at TOR... Let's take a look at Black Talon and The Esseles. In Black Talon, you can get dark side options with the idea of "suicide was deciding that you can ignore your superiors" and "You are no use to me alive". In The Esseles, the dark side option is to kill a bunch of guys and then being all oh, we shouldn't have done that or this was very costly, we should not let it go to waste. But in the Black Talon, the light side options are just fine, even though the general whines a little about how he will be treated in custody.

 

Also, I have 6 level 50s, and imo the best story of the rep side (smuggler) is only equal to the worst story on imp side (inquisitor). Hardly even that. Warrior and Imp agent stories just beat up everything republic has to offer.

The lag of good dialogue just makes rep less fun for me. I mean, there was this sergeant (or was it lieuatenant? whatever) on Alderaan bonus series that starts to telling my character (trooper with the rank of major) what my character should do, and there wasn't an dialogue option like "you are out of line, soldier" or "who do you think you are?". But at imp side, people actually treat the sith they are supposed to treat the sith.

I dunno I roll both Republic and Empire. Course I prefer the Empire side since I was a fan of Vader since I was 6. WoW I rolled nothing but Alliance and most other MMO's I have normally rolled the "good" side.

WoW is pretty even when it comes to Horde and Alliance. Just go to wowprogress.com and it shows you the ratios. I only did US cause I don't really care about overseas. My main has always been alliance since vanilla and I tried Horde for a short period during ToGC (in Wrath) and honestly didn't like it so I switched back to Alliance.

 

Here I went Sith because the guild I was joining with at launch and signed up with chose Empire. I would have gone either but my main is Empire but have 2 lvl 50 alts Republic and it is fine. I kind of like Empire a little better though. I like my Sorc. better then the Jedi counter part.

 

SWG I was republic also.

 

Overall though I still kind of like the good guys better, but if I plan on playing with friends it doesn't bother me and I will go with the majority on which side they want to play.

...that most people will always roll the "good" side in MMOs? I mean, since way more people play Empire than Republic because everyone thinks being evil is cool. WoW was an anomaly on so many different levels. But when blood elves were added in TBC, look what happened to the horde population.

 

In Warhammer Online, most people played Destruction as well.

 

And since SWTOR is the second largest MMO and arguably the second most popular game on the market today, do you think it has finally obliterated the myth that that good side will always be the most populated?

 

Hey Lium,

 

We can't give exact numbers, but Empire has a very, very, VERY slight lead over Republic when it comes to population. However, this varies from server to server.

Hey Lium,

 

We can't give exact numbers, but Empire has a very, very, VERY slight lead over Republic when it comes to population. However, this varies from server to server.

 

Cool, I figured that!

What are the numbers based on, though? Average number of players online or the created characters on a particular server? Or perhaps something else?

 

Most of the times I see a difference of 50-100 players between Republic and Imperial fleets on my server! On my old server, Lord Calypho, it was always 50-70 players difference most of the time.

 

If you're counting up thecreated characters than that's not accurate, in my opinion. I have plenty of Republic characters while my main and the one I spent most time with is an Imperial. Despite having a larger number of Republic toons I am a proud Imperial follower.

Hey Lium,

 

We can't give exact numbers, but Empire has a very, very, VERY slight lead over Republic when it comes to population. However, this varies from server to server.

Is that count for main characters only? I think many players will have characters on both sides, but still mainly play on one. If you count all characters, it will likely be more even, but if you only count the main characters, it may be quite lopsided, at least on the servers I play on. Edited March 12, 2013 by Glzmo

Uh, I don't think it has anything to do with good or bad. Most people would want to be a Jedi, of course. But the some of the stories on the Republic side are terrible. They can get really boring quickly. Some of the zones are uninspired, especially their fleet ship. And there is relatively no mystery on the Republic side, where as the Sith have a lot mystery about it.

 

In WoW, I played on the Alliance mostly, because I like the characters and the general story. Aion I was the good people because they had better character models. It's more than just good and bad, there are a lot of reasons why some one would play one side over the other.

 

So many good points in a brief post.

 

1) Why does the rep fleet look like a freaking penal colony?

2) Save for the iconic trooper armor (minus the days of rainbow brite mismatch troopers abound) the republic gear is so painfully boring. Brown robes I get and expect, but they don't even do those right. And why do I keep seeing people in fleet with a friggin bell on their head?!

3) Smugglers can be fun from a story/attitude standpoint, but there is nothing endearing (for me) about playing Jedi in this game. I went dark on my Jugg and light on my inquisitor and both were not only fun but made sense. You're either a cold blooded killer or a calculating, manipulative mastermind. Playing a light sentinel was soooo boring that I had to switch halfway through. I didn't enjoy playing a completely out of character Jedi any more than I did a tattletale. I simply had an "IDGAF am I 50 yet?" attitude ... And mind you I played hard core Reb all through SWG. I went dark on my vanguard after rerolling my 44 unplayable commando, and it was mildly amusing being a dirty cop.

4) After hitting 50 on my sin I attempted to play a sage to change it up and be a caster, but there was nothing even slightly cool about my primary channeling spell being a full shop vac on reverse. Hah take that! Now you're all dirty. And you're not really dead because I'm a goody two shoes Jedi who wouldn't dare do that. No. Instead you are simply shamed and humiliated to the point of submission. I wil now call you Pig Pen.

 

I could go on, but it's all been said and I won't. The only fun part about playing Republic in this game is getting into a warzone with Wook and dominating Imps who you know can't deal with losing based upon previous experience as one of the unfortunate Imps dealing with "this team sux" spam. (No, I'm not in Wook)

 

 

Hey Lium,

 

We can't give exact numbers, but Empire has a very, very, VERY slight lead over Republic when it comes to population. However, this varies from server to server.

 

As for this, I think it's a poor measure. So many current 'Pubs won't be playing 'Pub once the expansion comes out. They're just killing time until they have a reason to play their mains (see Imps) again.

Edited March 11, 2013 by uramu