The Empire seems to have better writing

Actually, I have spent 2 full afternoons reading through their database.

It's simply impressive what they have collected there. More than impressive. It's like Elementary School For Writers.

EVERY DEVELOPERS should be SENTENCED to read through that BEFORE making any game !

Yes. This is very visible oce you've managed to get a look for it.

It also applies to architecture. Just take a look at the Fleet Station :

Empire : Stylish, very good design, colours that fir into the overall look, decorating design elements - and on top of it all that moving thing hovering the mittle circle !

Republic : Mud-brown (just don't want to use a really bad word for that kind of colour) everywhere, a few colorful advertisements - that's it.
Less cargo bays, less decorating elements, less overall good-lookung design, the crafting stuff traders stand just around on the Republic Fleet meanwhile in the Empire's Fleet they have full carts, everything's just lackluster in general. Plus, meanwhile the Empire manages to create a certain feeling of gloom with the overall design of the Fleet Station, the Republic Station hasn't got any feeling. Everything just looks and feels so bland and lifeless. There is no feeling generated by the - wait - non-existing overall Republic design.
And then there's Dromund Kaas. Great jungle-like planet vibrating with life and endless explorer possibilities - Coruscant = mass hack & slay. No exploring necessary or even wanted.
And the last straw was for me the giant temple on Dromund Kaas. Just great. Republic ?Destroyed (Jedi Temple). That says it all.

The overall design philosophy for Empire vs. Republic is so much open/clear (just a little bit exaggerated) :

Empire : At the height of their power, grand desins, full of life, excellent design, everything just in great shape.
Republic : Losses, destruction, the Republc is almost done. They even have no money for painting the fleet in colours. No life, they are drained from people, and what people are there ( = refugees), must be killed, too (Coruscant hack & slay).

This implies that - to show that the Empire is on the height of its power - the Empire was done first, because it didn't suffer ANY war losses or war destruction, which means that everything is richly detailed, great in design, nothing disturbed whjatsoever.

And the Republic . Needless to put any work into that, because everything's been destroyed, Republic has lost everything, people have fled, and they've been running out of money.

This becomes so clear if you know what the background decistions are. And - you can see it everywhere.

I think all the stories are pretty solid on both sides. The Consular has the worst story as it doesn't make sense when played dark side. Anyway the story does have it's low points but finishes off fairly nicely I thought.

The Sith Warrior and Jedi Knight's definitely have the most classic Star Wars experiences and surely intertwine more directly than other stories do. For this reason I put them above the rest, but all of them are pretty solid for the most part.

In terms of the beta we were actually able to test Republic stuff prior to Imperial. So it seemed to indicate the opposite, but sad truth that the Republic was intentionally designed to be "boring" in comparison - not because they were out of time/effort.

You can still see this on Korriban actually (the last starter world to get implemented) where if you don't use any xp boosters you barely (and sometimes don't) hit level 10 before leaving the planet. Compared to Hutta or the others where 12 is regularly possible.

I have 8 characters, 4 in each faction in mirror classes (juggernaut imp = sentinel pub and so on).

I have to agree imps have better writing, the reason? Pubs setting is all wrong.

The starting planets are the 1st time (and not the last time) we are shown "the dark side of the republic", we are introduced to:
- soldiers having refugees, who they are supposed to protect, run through a mine field for food...
- the Republic putting the war front above the needs of their people
- stealing medicine back from refugees and letting them die.
- a man building his own drugged up harem out of widows.
- destroying a padawan's future as a Jedi because his master was such a d-bag he didn't make the test clear at all.
- separating two lovers
- betrayal of a famous military group because they were left for dead in a previous mission.
and so on.

Clearly the Republic is a better place to be in then the Empire...

While questing on the imp side we face our lot of evil deeds, but no matter how bad they get (and they get pretty bad) those are "expected" of the evil empire out for universal conquest, which makes playing light side on the imp side very rewarding. A single quote from Alderaan says it all: "I have more light then you'll ever have *and* I love".

Playing pubs light side with the background of duplicity and corruption of the Republic makes you look like a hypocrite and dark side like "one of them".

In contrast, playing a light side imp is downright heroic and going dark side is "normal".


In conclusion: if the good guys are just a little less evil then the bad guys storytelling for the good guys is gonna suffer in emotional resonance.

Nope, not in the game, was removed at the end of the beta. Regardless how light or dark you go, every Knight gets the title of Master.

Your not wrong. The empire deffinatly has some better class stories. I think they might have done that on purpose to avoid everyone wanting to play the republic.

My Rank for the Best Class Stories; (top 3 Empire)

1. Agent
2. Warrior
3. Inquisitor
4. Knight
5. Smuggler
6. Bounty Hunter
7. Trooper
......................
22. Jedi Consular

It think it's pretty hard to argue that the devs hate the Republic when the Republic pretty much spends the entire story marching from triumph to triumph. I mean really, Satele must be thinking "man, what was I worried about? We should've attacked these pansies years ago."

If the Empire seems cooler it's just because it's actually a unique and novel society, instead of America in Space.

Maybe.

But what matters is not the essentially manual labor of making the models and painting the textures. It's the very early design decisions, even prior to making the design documentation, that define this distinction. Big time developers don't make decisions as they go, these have to be all written down early on, all you can do later is maybe trim some stuff.

There is a lot of things that just click better on the Imperial side. Overall story, naming for combat moves and mechanics, some animations. Maybe subjective, but Rage built up in combat makes more sense than Focus; the RT/BH management makes more sense as Heat than as Ammo. They even had to redesign Ammo eventually.


You can cauterize a cheek scrap.
You can't cauterize a chopped-off head.

European Union in Space.

Not America, which is a pretty interesting society by modern standards. Other than their lower moral standards, the Republic is far more like the EU.

Ja. I've spent much much more than two afternoons on TV Tropes. It's a fantastic site.