SWTOR

[Lantyssa]

I believe SWG had the Rebels outnumbering the Empire by a fair margin.

People want the pretty races first, such as Humans then Elves.  If appearances are similar or races are split between factions, then the one perceived as 'good' is favored.  Once all that is settled and players have a chance to see how things function, then they start drifting towards the one perceived as more powerful.  Looks still play a large factor though.

[Crumbs]

Speaking of which, I'm eagerly awaiting the announcement of Wookiees as a playable race in SWTOR.  That's pretty much the only thing that'll get me to try it   If not I'll remain content to log on to swgemu for 10 minutes a week and sit on a bench in Coronet.

[Count Nerfedalot]

I believe SWG had the Rebels outnumbering the Empire by a fair margin.

People want the pretty races first, such as Humans then Elves.  If appearances are similar or races are split between factions, then the one perceived as 'good' is favored.  Once all that is settled and players have a chance to see how things function, then they start drifting towards the one perceived as more powerful.  Looks still play a large factor though.

I honestly remember very little about the PvP folks in SWG, so I'll have to take your word at it.  I and pretty much everyone I know or had contact with in the game avoided flagging for either side, as it just got in the way of business. 

After thinking about it, I seem to recall AO had a larger population of Clan than Omni on most servers, in spite of Omni having some definite perks.  Not sure either side qualifies as "good guys" in that case though.

[Fordel]

Are there ANY examples of a PvP MMO setting where the bad guys did not outnumber the good guys?   It seems pretty obvious to me that a whole lot of people like to to a walk on the dark side in these games.  I mean, you get to wear black and kill people without worrying about conscience or consequence!

DaoC had Albion with by and far the largest population on just about every server. Midgard and Hibernia were always well behind them in players.


Not that either realm was clearly good or evil though.

[Ratman_tf]

PvE players gravitate towards pretty races.

PvP players gravitate towards tough races.

Not an absolute rule, of course. Pwning someone with a pink haired girl gnome character tickles some people's funny bones.

[Ingmar]

Are there ANY examples of a PvP MMO setting where the bad guys did not outnumber the good guys?   It seems pretty obvious to me that a whole lot of people like to to a walk on the dark side in these games.  I mean, you get to wear black and kill people without worrying about conscience or consequence!

DaoC had Albion with by and far the largest population on just about every server. Midgard and Hibernia were always well behind them in players.


Not that either realm was clearly good or evil though.

Midgard had trolls and kobolds and an early quest where you killed some escaped slaves to teach them a lesson for escaping. So I guess we were what passed for 'bad guys' in that game, although for the most part DAOC tragically failed to capitalize on any of the great lore available to them with more stuff like that.

[Kageh]

Albion was, uh, Camelot and stuff? Who cared about the others being bad or not. If you do a middle-ages game losely based on historical fact, the one single personality that is going to outshine every other hero of that time in the english-speaking world is Arthur. You might get different results if you were a french publisher making a french game or a spanish team on a "El Cid" epic, but nearly every other nation, Arthur it is. Heck, half the world doesn't even know who Charlemagne or William the Conqueror were, but everyone knows Arthur.

About Horde vs. Alliance demographics in WoW at launch:

Most PvE servers were easily 3-4:1 Alliance:Horde. Explanation see above, people going for the pretty and "tolkienesque". And bouncy elves.
 
Most PvP servers were about 2:3 Alliance:Horde, often tighter. The explanation for that used to be that the rather hardcore and serious gamers looking for competition weren't really bothering with looks, racial advantages for Horde and the general image of "badass" for Horde being more appealing to the Bartle killers.

I did lots of number research on WoW early faction imbalances back in 2004-2006 as I moved server due to that a couple times, with most of my numbers coming from warcraftrealms.com. I know the data wasn't accurate, but it is the best we have, aside from the ubiquitous "There are always more of them than us" gut feeling everyone has.

Oh, and on SWG I was Imperial on Tarquinas, and we were constantly getting our butts kicked. I can't tell you how many times I ran into <random city> on Naboo, just to see Rebels wtfpwning everything. I admit I'm not sure how it was on the other servers though.

Coming back to the Sith vs. Jedi debate, assuming this game will cater a lot to the explorer/socializer demographic and not as much to the killers, I stand by my prediction of the faction split generally favoring Jedi and the Republic. If it turns out to be competitive heaven, hell yes, then Sith are going to be FotM, assuming they don't totally suck.

[Ingmar]

I'll go ahead and predict that at release bounty hunters will outnumber actual Sith, too. Eventually people will gravitate to whichever classes are overpowered but I'm guessing the Boba Fett wannabees will outnumber the Vader ones.

[Fordel]

I predict Assassin Droids will outnumber both!

[Ingmar]

I predict Assassin Droids will outnumber both!

Don't tease me like that.

[Sjofn]

There's a scoundrel class, right? That will be me. ONLY ME.

[Nonentity]

There's a scoundrel class, right? That will be me. ONLY ME.

You're more of a Rapscallion class.

[Fordel]

There's a scoundrel class, right? That will be me. ONLY ME.

Yea, I showed you it before. It's special ability is Jimmy kickin.

[Triforcer]

If SWTOR has PvP servers- Imperial Agent and Smuggler will be most popular, since they have stealth.  Jedi and Sith will be surprisingly low pop on PvP servers, since they are melee and melee exist only to get AOE raped when they get bored with the Hillsbrad shuffle (plus, the devs will overcompensate against calls of "JEDI R OVERPOWERED" by making them chronically underpowered).

[Fordel]

That would only hold true if Jedi lacked gap closers.

[WindupAtheist]

Dressing in black and choking people will never go out of style.

[Triforcer]

That would only hold true if Jedi lacked gap closers.

So the Jedi closes the gap, starts swordfighting someone, and gets AOEed to death by bright wizards (er- bounty hunters) in three seconds.  Meanwhile, the rest of the Jedi's team hesitated and hung back into the Hillsbrad shuffle.  

tldr- if you are the one to break the Hillsbrad shuffle as a melee, you get raped.  Hence, the best decision is always to never move and wait for the mythical team charge that never happens.  

And WUA- that ability LOOKS cool but will be ass in anything but 1v1 pvp (and would probably have a long cooldown there too).  In PvP  at melee range, 5 seconds-plus of immobility where you can't activate any other skill is an extreme liability.

[Kail]

So the Jedi closes the gap, starts swordfighting someone, and gets AOEed to death by bright wizards (er- bounty hunters) in three seconds.  Meanwhile, the rest of the Jedi's team hesitated and hung back into the Hillsbrad shuffle.  

Seems a bit premature to make that kind of a judgement to me.  As far as I can recall, according to the lore, Jedi are hugely versatile: melee DPS, healing, ranged CC, possible tanks, everything.

And even if they are relegated to melee, so what?  Are you saying that melee characters always lose to ranged?  There are some vicious melee classes in WAR, and a bunch of gimpy ranged ones.  The QQ classes of the year in WoW are both melee (DKs and Paladins).  It's more about the balance of the specific abilities (which, as far as I know, haven't been announced yet) than just "guns > swords".

[Morat20]

PvE players gravitate towards pretty races.

PvP players gravitate towards tough races.

Not an absolute rule, of course. Pwning someone with a pink haired girl gnome character tickles some people's funny bones.

Cracks me up every time, I admit.

Of course, I'm the guy at pen-and-paper games that wants to play the dwarf mage, or the elven barbarian, or the half-orc bard. Or, occasionally, the mentally unstable, absolutely homicidal half-elf ice sorceress who mostly just wants to purge the world of anything 'warm' and who haibtually kills anyone who claims she's not lawful good.

[WindupAtheist]

So the Jedi closes the gap, starts swordfighting someone, and gets AOEed to death by bla bla bla etc.

Dude, what the hell? It's not fucked because it has melee combat, like no MMO has ever had that before. (Hey I'm getting kited, better Death Force Grip him over here!) It's fucked because it's a glorified single-player game with a lobby and shit tacked on so they can charge a subscription fee.

 

[UnSub]

As far as I can recall, according to the lore, Jedi are hugely versatile: melee DPS, healing, ranged CC, possible tanks, everything.

Things I will enjoy about SWOR:

 - Complaints that Jedi / Sith can't rape face hard enough to meet the lore.
 - Compalints that Jedi / Sith are overpowered.

It's too early to say who will be under / overpowered, but SWOR's PvP is going to be one hell of a crazy fun ride. Has BioWare [Imitation Brand] ever done any competitive titles / titles to build PvP experience on?

[Nonentity]

If i'm not mistaken, Damion Schubert (Shadowbane, M59) is their Lead Combat Designer.

EDIT: As far as pedigree is concerned, I figured I'd bring that up.

[Triforcer]

I know Shadowbane was horrible fail at almost every level, but was the 1v1 or small group PvP grossly unbalanced?  I'm kinda afraid some single-player-experience only executive at Bioware is going to say "hey, Jedi SHOULD have more power, that's the lore.  People will enjoy playing underdogs for the story."  I hope they have enough MMO people to tell them that that is fucking insane.

[Merusk]

All I remember from Shadowbane was stealthers were powerful, but had a nice counter in scouts and one of the healer/mage hybrids raped face in the early days.    After that it's all "oh yeah, bugs."

[HaemishM]

Shadowbane had the best character creation and advancement system of any DIKU-based MMOG ever, as well as the most flexible interface. The rest was face-fucking buggery.

[LK]

Did I just read someone say that Jedi as melee would lose to ranged?

[WindupAtheist]

Shadowbane had the best character creation and advancement system of any DIKU-based MMOG ever, as well as the most flexible interface. The rest was face-fucking buggery.

Is anyone else going to do it, or shall I?

[Surlyboi]

Shadowbane raped my children, you insensitive fucks.

[Megrim]

sb.exe

















(too soon?)

[Triforcer]

Did I just read someone say that Jedi as melee would lose to ranged?

If by "would" lose, you mean in canon, then usually no.  If you mean in SWTOR, then yes.  Jedi will not be any more powerful than your average blaster-carrying pimp in a gold llame cape. 

[schild]

Did I just read someone say that Jedi as melee would lose to ranged?

If by "would" lose, you mean in canon, then usually no.  If you mean in SWTOR, then yes.  Jedi will not be any more powerful than your average blaster-carrying pimp in a gold llame cape. 

Reason #1,372 that Star Wars is the best setting ever for an MMOG.

[tkinnun0]

So is this going to be a PvE game or PvP game?

[Cyrrex]

So is this going to be a PvE game or PvP game?

Magic 8 ball says:  Try Again Later.

[UnSub]

SWOR will feature PvP. Launch will be all about PvE, but as the time lengthens between content updates due to all that voice recording more dev time will be devoted to PvP. Arena-style duels, I'm guessing. I can't see major character story lines revolving around PvP battles.

[Mosesandstick]

WOW with lightsabers?