Is the Republic doomed?

[Teriz]

I think the Sith Empire is going to have a much higher population than the Republic side. Let's face it, they have the cooler archetypes. They the Vader archetype (Juggernaut), the Darth Maul archetype (Assassin), the Emperor archetype (Sorcerer) the Bobba Fett archetype (BH) etc. Vader, Darth Maul and Bobba Fett on one side in a Star Wars game is almost overkill. This is going to have a very adverse effect on PVP. I picture the Sith dominating PVP matches most of the time, and its going to be very hard for Republic players on PvP servers.

Glad I'm playing a Smuggler. Its going to be open season on Jedi.

[Ebbikenezer]

I am playing Republic, Jedi Consular, simply because... I feel it is going to be the less played side, and that's where I like to be.

Sure, it's gonna be tough at times, but I also think it'll work itself out in the end.

As far as open season on Jedi: Meh, PvP is PvP, if people are insistant on going after only Jedi, I don't even know why they'd PvP to begin with, do they think they'll never run into any other class in the future? Tuning your PvP skills works best against everyone, not just hunting one type...

i.e.- If I only killed Shamans in WoW, and only really went after Shamans, I would be horrible at dealing with warriors, rogues... and every other class.

[Nev12]

Maybe, we'll see about that. Not everyone is lurking around these forums(or any forums for that matter). In my opinion the population will be more or less balanced, there will be more force users around though.

[Karteli]

Lop-sided factions on PVP servers would definitely be an issue for world PVP. The faction minority will have a tough time moving about.

But for WarZones .. ah tough call. Big factions usually have a larger hit-or-miss when it comes to PVP. Smaller factions seem more closely knit and focused. This probably isn't always the case, but just a phenomenon I observed.

When WoW first released with battlegrounds (before faction changes), especially in TBC, Horde dominated the games for the most part, as the minority. They received faster queues, since there was fewer of them, and, in turn, got more practice. This had a snowball effect, allowing the side with instant queues to get geared faster and dominate sooner. Both sides had good players for sure, but the side with the most time spent playing seemed to have the advantage.

HuttBall is going to give both sides equal play time, but for the other SWTOR games, the large faction may very well have the disadvantage again.

Age of participants may be a factor, but for this, my info is very limited. It only pulls from younger relatives I have who would only play cute good races & factions, and not the ugly ones (like horde). When raiding on both sides, I did notice many more younger voices in vent from the Alliance. This all changed when faction transfers were allowed.

So, game enthusiasts with the background of the cool aspects of the Empire may very well go for that, for reasons you listed. I have this feeling though there will be a bunch of people joining (probably post-launch) who want to join the Republic, because they are "cute", "good", and from the movies, definitely considered the winning side.

[Saj9010]

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=124706 Looks like its about even but of course you'll always have those servers where one side dominates the other. Small sample, hopefully it will stay close to even.

[mystik]

it will even out. I can see Smuggler fun, you'll be under the radar and then you can kick people in THE JUNK

[ptwonline]

If the storylines are good and not overly repetitive, I think people are going to end up trying most of the classes across the 2 factions anyway.

However, I suspect we'll see something similar as what we saw in WoW: serious gamers will tend to go more often to the Sith/Empire (like they went to the Horde), and casual gamers will tend to go more often to the Jedi/Republic side (like they went to the Alliance).

[Wugan]

The Republic was also kind of "doomed" at the beginning of Episode IV, but that seemed to turn out OK.

[Deleted]

hopefully bioware will give incentives for rolling a certain faction to help balance things out, or do something like soft cap's which only increase once both sides hit the cap / come close.

there was a poll done the other week.. which ended something like 50% empire, 39% republic, 11% undecided. i know its not even close to being accurate but it was nice to see one side didnt just dominate the poll. personally rolling republic jedi shadow

[Tomhvk]

Ok so, I think you are underestimating the casual gamer,e they will pick up the game and play a Jedi. Same reason I feel none sabar users will suffer aswell.

(Casual in this sentence means 'doesnt follow the game, and will buy off the shelf')

[Sunseeker]

Yeah, but the Republic has the Obi-Wan archetype, arguably the only sane, and possibly the coolest character in the entire franchise.

From the polls on the forum, I think the factions will be pretty balanced honestly.

[Saverem]

The sample size here is much too small to paint an accurate picture Just because 400 or so people voted here doesn't mean that the 2million+ population will follow suit.

[ati87]

You simply cannot underestimate the amount of "cool kids" playing the bad side faction. I enjoy killing players of the bad side faction in MMOs, because I know there is a high chance this is behind the screen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=682kuejphjo

Well or this but it's far less satisfying: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R55e-uHQna0

I thought with WoW it was the other way around...at least during TBC when having a character on a different faction was something special and thats why only a few people had it.

[Deleted]

MMO-champ poll, swtor forum poll, facebook poll, unofficial fansite polls have mostly all been quite equal. I wouldnt be worried. I know most people are towards evil, cool empire but theres enough people to be goodie rebuplic guys too. Oddly. Well WoW turned just fine (yes yes horde isnt "evil" but most not knowing lore thinks so etc)

[Blznsmri]

Vader, Darth Maul and Bobba Fett on one side in a Star Wars game is almost overkill.

But they lost. Vader and Boba lost because of some punk kid who just learned that he could use the force. Darth Maul lost against arguably one of the greatest jedi of all time.

[ptwonline]

Darth Maul lost to a padawan. All that training and insanity and scheming to lose to a padawan. The dark side, what a laugh.

Movie Rule #1: never get into a fight with a character whose actor's name is one of the largest fonts on the movie poster.

At any rate, he took out one of the more powerful Jedi in the process, so he wasn't a total loss.

[Karteli]

Darth Maul lost to a padawan. All that training and insanity and scheming to lose to a padawan. The dark side, what a laugh.

It wasn't a fair fight. Qui-Gon Jinn vs Darth Maul was fair ...

... but Qui-Gon Jinn wore down and tired out Darth Maul before being slain. Then that pesky padawan went in and got credit for the (now easier) kill

[Gentlepenguin]

all i know is to beat every sith i just need a good foot or two of the high ground. gonna carry around a footstool to defeat the entire sith empire.

[ptwonline]

all i know is to beat every sith i just need a good foot or two of the high ground. gonna carry around a footstool to defeat the entire sith empire.

Obi Wan defeated Darth Maul with a significant disadvantage of ground. Heck, he even beat Darth Vader by allowing Vader to kill him. How can you compete with that?

The obvious answer is: to win, be Obi Wan Kenobi.

[Zachyveng]

Heh Darth Maul got cocky, I mean he beat Obi-Wan by throwing him into the giant hole easily enough. Only problem was he started to play with him afterwards /shrug.

Anyways, I don't think it'll be a problem too much. All the polls I've seen, ones from SWTOR.com, here, and other not-large sites, have been relatively even. Besides like many have mentioned I think the average person (the ones who doesn't follow the game so avidly) will pick TOR up off the shelf and most likely go Republic because "well the empire loses in the movies,why be on the losing side?".