So, this is a tough one. The empire may have more resources but that also means more territory to defend. The first order knows where the empire lives, and the empire (I assume) has no idea where the first order is coming from. The first order has nothing to defend, and the empire has nothing to attack. In war, the only way to win is to be on the offensive. To destroy your enemy you have to destroy their ability to counter attack, or take the initiative against you. War can only be won through successful assault. Supply lines, raw materials extraction, war factory's, shipyards, etc. An army march's on it's stomach, but a general decides where that stomach march's based on intelligence reports. Not to hard to find Kuat shipyards, but where does the first order lay their keels? A terrorist guerilla force has already taken the empire apart once. It was fat, decedent, over confident and lazy. it's enemy was not. However. Killing the emperor did not destroy the empire. Defeated, yes. Destroyed? Nope. So how would the first order accomplish this task? If the first order could manage to pull a Palpatine and bring the moffs under it's influence then force them to fight each other they could roll in unchallenged. The moffs would be individually weakened and unwilling to work together. The short answer is. I think the First Order would win.

I may be cynical, but when I see in these changes amounts to "Open cartel crates for crafting materials".

Ya, because Han's blaster worked so well against Vader. Look, you can dream all you want about non force sensitives somehow being able to stand up to jedi / sith but it's just not cannon. The only time it's ever worked is when one jedi had ten thousand of them shooting them in the back. And that's about what it took. A thousand or so clones per jedi. Even then, they still couldn't manage to take Yoda or Obi. Hell, Yoda and Obi walked right into the jedi temple post order 66 like they where King and Kong. Legendary jedi / sith vs non jedi / sith is like superman vs joe from accounting. In KOTOR 1 you had one choice at a certain part of the game. Same for KOTOR 2. Be a jedi. It did not give you the option to keep your initial class and go save the galaxy from the sith with your dinky blaster. Because that would be stupid.

They made the wrong star wars game, on the wrong engine with the wrong focus. Eight fully articulated story arcs was always a terrible idea. Cloning wow instead of making the game feel like Force Unleashed in it's game play was a terrible idea. Including classes that are not jedi, was a terrible idea. It should have been jedi / sith and then Sentinal, guardian, consular with sith mirrors. Branching skill trees to allow people to customize the abilities and combat strategies to their liking. As it is, you have a wow clone that has never really FELT like Star Wars, in a universe that is known mainly for it's massive scales (including battles) on an engine that is incapable of massive scale of any kind, pitting Han Solo and Random Republic Storm Trooper number 3821 against the toughest Sith Lords in the galaxy. Of course the dev team is going to have a high turn around. People probably just come in to have a big project on their resume while looking for a game that isn't flawed right down to it's bones. Tell me, how the frak are you going to play the "Outlander" as a Smuggler with a straight face? The only reason this game is still floating is because it's the only star wars to be had. Any port in a storm.

No, the word I was looking for was "Predecessor" because slipfeed was my first sage on a different server I never maxed out, before I moved to Jedi covenant to start Hotstreak, who I did max out, then deleted. After the mergers, my old server (Hyperspace canon I think) was gone, and my level 45 sage Slipfeed was in limbo waiting to be assigned a new world to live in. But thanks for playing.

I approve of this necromancy. Long live the force slayer or what trype.

Now that these changes have basically been rolled back, two years after the fact, I NECROMANCER SLIPFEED hereby declare victory over the idiots that argued for the changes made back then. Devs knew the changes where crap almost instantly, and for some reason took this long to straighten it out. SO GLAD THEY DID. My sage is fun again. Thank you Bioware. Also N-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n-n- NECROTHREAD. P.S. R.I.P my old sage, Hotstreak. Your predecessor Slipfeed carys on your legacy.

Odd, I go for maximum dps on my companions, because the only thing I ever do with companions is daily's, and I want those daily's done as fast as possible. Hence, HK is my bestest friend, because oh god that dps. And a one shot kill on a silver every other pull. Murder machine. Don't really have an issue with downtime even on my guardian tank doing daily's cause he doesn't have to bother healing up till he's below 50%. So like, once per yavin run lol.

I"m going to say what everyone is thinking, and no one is saying here. Running ops in this game means dealing with total A-Holes. Usually beta's trying to be alpha's. That person that is always arguing just for the point of arguing, and constantly moving the goal post when he's backed into a corner. That guy / girl that will fly into a fit of rage if you don't find a way to let them feel like they "won". Won what you ask? Who fraking knows. This game seems to have a much higher concentration of those people than other games we play. And so, these individuals are not asking for BIS gear without running ops, but some kind of (any kind of) content based upgrade end game. Because the point isn't to have the best stuff. The point is to keep playing the game without having to deal with "that guy".

Reporting in.

I can get behind this if it follows the GW2 model for combat and has WvW zones for faction wars on each planet. Also, fewer / bigger planets on release. Like three planets where you can level to max without ever having to leave the one you're on. The new jedi order would be there, so it would be entirely possible to have jedi / sith. You could just re-work the emperor's hands / inquisitor's and Joris Cboth into a "Breaking the rule of 2" Sith academy on Byss. Screw cloning Palpatine. I always felt that whole story line was a cop out. Palpatine is over, and there's no more to say about him.

They built the game using a freeware engine. The Hero 1 engine. http://www.heroengine.com/ The company that made the game engine for SWTOR is currently selling a service that includes an upgraded version of the SWTOR engine, and a bunch of publishing features for $99.00 per YEAR. I guess what i'm saying is, it's a cheap *** generic game engine with terrible optimization and bottle-necking network code from 10 years ago, that they didn't have to pay for. It's so bad, there is a "maximum number of targetable objects" cap where in anything beyond that point starts to break the engine (because of how it handles memory blocks). Developing around this pile of bantha dung must have been frustrating, and considering what the devs where given to work with they did a great job. They even managed to bridge two process's in order to counter act the 1.5GB memory limit that was forced on them by the engine (Yes, you heard, the engine is only capable of taking advantage of 1.5GB or ram without a jurry rig). But, that Jurry rig has a price. Its amazing this game is as good as it is, but don't expect the sprawling vista's of WoW or the immensity in scenery you get from GW2. The engine simply cannot handle anything that large, on a fundamental level.

Lots and lots of people are now just streaming into the enemy alone in starfighter, to die as fast as possible, loose as fast as possible, and re-queue as fast as possible. I could have told you that would happen. Grinders' gunna grind (and also ruin games).

The only problem I see with this line of thought is that it requires the vast majority of the money made on the game to be spent paying people to improve the game, instead of that capitol being handed over to EA investment bankers to be spent on Yacht's and Tia Ladyboys.