...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?

I thought they did that with the guild summit last year. BW released hard numbers that shown more people leaned Empire.

I joined WoW when BC was released. And the guild I played with in CoX were on the Horde side. Now they always claimed to join the "underdogs" and I was like ***? They explained that BC caused the Horde population explosion. lol

 

But they knew the writing on the wall as they were Republic before they all left this game.

This was not the myth...Everyone knows that most kids will want to be the bad guys.

 

Horde is the more popular faction in WoW, I believe Rift's bad guys are more popular, everyone rolled Empire here, etc.

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.

I would say that the populations are more or less balanced, but leaning slightly in favor of the Empire.

Strange that so many people want to be on the side that is bound to lose the war

At first, I thought it was a generational thing. Many of us that saw the original trilogy in our youth, leaned towards the light side, identifying more with the jedi. The generation that saw the prequel trilogy in their youth, identified with the sith, as they were portrayed as more bad-*** than the jedi

I've since changed my mind, having rolled some empire toons. IMO, the empire story lines seem like they had more time and though put into them. It almost seems like EA pushed for the game to be released earlier than scheduled, and because of that, the republic class stories were hastily finished. Granted, this is a huge assumption, with no factual basis. Just a gut feeling, having played several toons on both sides.

"Good" or "bad"... depends greatly on our own point of view. Especially in Star Wars.

Here I thought people rolled empire because the devs give empire all the good stuff.. better powers, better looking armor..

Too many writers have simply forgotten how to make the good guys seem cool.

 

Its not that people gravitate towards the evil side, its that people gravitate towards the cool side. Game developers in general have lost the ability to promote the good guys because they follow stupid social conventions. Why would you want to be the squeeky clean good guy in a robe when you could be a ****** with awesome armour and a humerous attitude?!?!

 

 

Writers / designers need to get rid of this stupid "good = clean, bad = evil and funny" mentality.

 

 

What they need is everyone to be "grey"!!! No good person is 100% good, and no evil person is 100% evil. From their own points of view, everyone thinks of themselves as the good person and all others as evil. We only make the distinction so that we know who to like and who to hate. In reality, we're all the same. So, we need to give some of the humour to the good guys. We need to give the bulky armour, the dark colours etc to the good guys too. It's easy to make both sides equally appealing, its just the designers being lazy and/or conforming to social expectations.

 

 

 

Good 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!

 

 

The point im trying to make here is that it is possible to make the good guys seem as cool as bad guys. The developers need to adopt a "the ends justify the means" philosophy as that is essentially what we, as an audience, buy in to. We're happy for James Bond to kill people, rob them, torture them, break the rules etc because in the end, he's working for the safety of England and that is a worthwhile cause. Squeeky clean is not cool, which is why the good guys are often outnumbered in MMOs

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.

Luke - boring until Ep3 and then cool because he was wearing black and sort of evil.

 

Yeah him being a baby was pretty awesome!

 

It's personal preference, but for the most part I think a lot of people like to play the bad guy cause they get to live out a fantasy life of things they know they could never get away with doing in real life. For me I prefer to be the good guy, but always end up rolling the bad guy to play with my friends because more people roll the baddies, here and in WoW I found this to be the case.

This was not the myth...Everyone knows that most kids will want to be the bad guys.

 

Horde is the more popular faction in WoW, I believe Rift's bad guys are more popular, everyone rolled Empire here, etc.

 

Horde is most popular in WoW because Blood Elves are pretty and vampiric. It wasn't most popular until Blood Elves came in.

Horde is most popular in WoW because Blood Elves are pretty and vampiric. It wasn't most popular until Blood Elves came in.

 

Yeah I'm sure that's it

 

None of my old guild back then had a blood elf and all of them played since vanilla. If you want to play a vampire, wait for the Twilight MMO.

People play the cool / good looking races first.

 

As far as good = boring, and thus less played, you're right. Good-aligned should be this mild-mannered personna in the beginning, until something happens in the plot and they piss him off, and then suddenly he's Yoda, kicking Dooku's ***.

In Warhammer Online most people rolled "bad guys" at the start too. Only after class balance favored the "good guys" a few patches after launch did the population shift the other way.

In Warhammer Online most people rolled "bad guys" at the start too. Only after class balance favored the "good guys" a few patches after launch did the population shift the other way.

 

So you mean to tell me that MMO players will play what ever has the advantage and is the cheapest? Say it isn't so!

 

MMO communities just suck. That's the reality with these games. Just pick a group of good friends and roll with it. The rest is miserable.

I thought they did that with the guild summit last year. BW released hard numbers that shown more people leaned Empire.

 

Damit, I should have known I was doing it wrong. 10 level 50's here and 7 of them are Republic..........ggrrrrr.

 

Not really, I like being the good guy. I am in fact a little uncomfortable with taking dark side choices and doing evil things even though intellectually I know it's 'just a game'.

...that most people will always roll the "good" side in MMOs?

 

Um...wasn't it the other way around?

I always thought people choose the "evil" side because it's cooler.

Several things lead to this in TOR...

 

1) PvP: The badguys are always more popular in games with PvP because weasely players think being a "badguy" gives them free reign to be bad. Technically this is known as "I'm not a jerk, I'm roleplaying a jerk!" syndrome.

 

2) The goodguys (Jedi) in SW lore are laughably unrealistic. They are modeled on ultra-pure Arthurian Knights that only existed in mythology to begin with. The story is thus severely limited on the Rep side. Same problem with Superman vs. Batman. One is pure white and boring, the other is grey and interesting.

 

3) The Imp-side armors are way better looking than the Rep-side ones.

 

4) The Republic has the Land O' Endless Quests otherwise known as Taris.

 

5) The goodguys in the prequels were stupid, useless, neutered, boring, non-sensical characters. The primary hero was also played by a child-shaped block of wood, and then an adolescent-shaped one.

 

6) The differences between Imp and Rep fleet are huge. I mean, come on now. Rep fleet is pure garbage, Imp one is far cooler because it is flipped 180 degrees!

Too many writers have simply forgotten how to make the good guys seem cool.

 

 

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!

 

 

Ypu were doing so well (and making a good point )till you included the biggest waste of space ever commited to a roll off film stock.

3) The Imp-side armors are way better looking than the Rep-side ones.

 

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 rolled Empire, but it had nothing to do with good and evil. I prefer playing a class where I feel as though I follow my own rules/motivations so I went with a BH though I was thinking Smuggler for my main. Truth is, I've sampled both the trooper and both jedi classes and I just feel like a mindless drone of the Republic. I know there will be those that disagree, but that's how I felt so in effect it leaves only one Republic class I fancy playing.

 

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?

 

I lol'd.

 

Also, Horde are not the bad guys in WoW, anymore than the Alliance are the good guys. Both sides have their upsides and downfalls, and both sides have done things that can easily be constructed as good, and evil.

Several things lead to this in TOR...

 

1) PvP: The badguys are always more popular in games with PvP because weasely players think being a "badguy" gives them free reign to be bad. Technically this is known as "I'm not a jerk, I'm roleplaying a jerk!" syndrome.

 

2) The goodguys (Jedi) in SW lore are laughably unrealistic. They are modeled on ultra-pure Arthurian Knights that only existed in mythology to begin with. The story is thus severely limited on the Rep side. Same problem with Superman vs. Batman. One is pure white and boring, the other is grey and interesting.

 

3) The Imp-side armors are way better looking than the Rep-side ones.

 

4) The Republic has the Land O' Endless Quests otherwise known as Taris.

 

5) The goodguys in the prequels were stupid, useless, neutered, boring, non-sensical characters. The primary hero was also played by a child-shaped block of wood, and then an adolescent-shaped one.

 

6) The differences between Imp and Rep fleet are huge. I mean, come on now. Rep fleet is pure garbage, Imp one is far cooler because it is flipped 180 degrees!

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