Poll: Star Wars The Old Republic: Which side do you choose?

[artanis_neravar]

What happened to neutrality.

I WANT MY ALLEGIANCE TO LIE WITH THE HIGHEST BIDDER, DAMMIT.

Well as a person for hire, (Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, etc) You side with the Republic, they win you get some credits, they lose the Empire kills you. Side with the Empire, they win you live (and probably end up with credits) or they lose and you go back to your Bounty Hunting ways. Which seems like a better deal to you?

 

[Laser Priest]

What happened to neutrality.

I WANT MY ALLEGIANCE TO LIE WITH THE HIGHEST BIDDER, DAMMIT.

Well as a person for hire, (Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, etc) You side with the Republic, they win you get some credits, they lose the Empire kills you. Side with the Empire, they win you live (and probably end up with credits) or they lose and you go back to your Bounty Hunting ways. Which seems like a better deal to you?

Do bounty hunters pick their allegiance in the game or are they assigned to one side?

Because frankly, I want to side with the Empire.

 

[artanis_neravar]

What happened to neutrality.

I WANT MY ALLEGIANCE TO LIE WITH THE HIGHEST BIDDER, DAMMIT.

Well as a person for hire, (Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, etc) You side with the Republic, they win you get some credits, they lose the Empire kills you. Side with the Empire, they win you live (and probably end up with credits) or they lose and you go back to your Bounty Hunting ways. Which seems like a better deal to you?

Do bounty hunters pick their allegiance in the game or are they assigned to one side?

Because frankly, I want to side with the Empire.

Bounty Hunters are Empire, Smugglers are Republic lol

 

[Laser Priest]

What happened to neutrality.

I WANT MY ALLEGIANCE TO LIE WITH THE HIGHEST BIDDER, DAMMIT.

Well as a person for hire, (Bounty Hunter, Smuggler, etc) You side with the Republic, they win you get some credits, they lose the Empire kills you. Side with the Empire, they win you live (and probably end up with credits) or they lose and you go back to your Bounty Hunting ways. Which seems like a better deal to you?

Do bounty hunters pick their allegiance in the game or are they assigned to one side?

Because frankly, I want to side with the Empire.

Bounty Hunters are Empire, Smugglers are Republic lol

Yes, yes! Bounty Hunters!

Then Empire it is, hands down.

 

[Ghengis John]

Eh, I dunno. I don't know if I'm even going to get it yet as I'm on the fence(anyone feel like trying to convince me? ). As for which side, I agree with the OP that villains are more interesting than heroes....when done right. A lot of times they're one-dimensional and bland, simply a cardboard cutout stand in for the heroes to rage against or evil for no other reason than being evil. Though, this is Bioware, so I suppose I should give them the benefit of the doubt.

Edit: The one thing that will piss me off more than anything is if I play Sith and the amazing, wonderful, in-depth storyline the whole game is supposed to have turns into "Herpderp ill kill you cuz im ebil" Being evil for the sake of evil is boring.

You can be a dark sided republic class or a light sided imperial class. They have companions for both alignments. The bounty hunter (sith empire) for example gets a kind hearted mercenary who likes their light side decisions but charges the people you help through the nose for you so you don't walk around like a penniless sucker. The Jedi Knight (republic) on the other hand has a sith companion who joins your cause to overthrow the other other sith and rewards your evil actions.

Sith, probably. Like you said - villains are always more interesting.

Yeah of course you would say that.

As for me, I don't see a reason not to play whatever class appeals to you. You can run them anyway you like. In fact I think it'd be pretty interesting to play as a sith or jedi who by all rights should get booted out of their order. I'll probably try the bounty hunter at some point. Because well...

 

[mau5trap]

I'm definantly going to be horde err I mean the Sith, thats exactly what I meant to say.

 

[Tanis]

Probably the Sith.

Jedi have always reminded me too much of the Catholic Church...and, yeah.

 

[Asita]

I on the other hand am actually a big fan of how Bioware made the Sith - especially the light side options. The idea of playing a Sith who is not really inherently evil is awesome, to me. And I really like their voice acting - the agent, especially. But I've just always preferred the aesthetics and motives of the Republic.

Spoiler: A spoiler tag to reply to your own spoiler tag...

I actually like that they gave you a light side slave companion. She might react badly to things but if you're evil why would you care? Just zappy zap her. Affection is abritary anyhow. Btw, spoiler in a spoiler, don't read on if you haven't gotten too far with the Warrior storyline. You can sleep with a lord's wife and force Vette to stay. You lose affection, yeah, but who cares? It's hilarious!

:O Congrats good sir, you have just convinced me to get it. They basically gave a light/dark side paths to both sides? So basically instead of just hero/villain, we have hero, anti-hero, anti-villain, villain?[/quote]

Sorta. I rolled two characters during the beta: one Republic (Miraluka Jedi Knight), one Empire (Twi'lek Sith Inquisitor) both on the light path. You can make any choice you want and have that reflected, but the tricky part comes into play when you grab a PUG.

Dialogue/storyline choices ('Flashpoints' and otherwise) are chosen based on what looked to me like a voting system (everyone makes their dialogue choice, and then everyone sees one of the choice made by one of the characters in the group as the canonical event for that quest as far as your group is concerned. Playing a compassionate Sith, this was rather frustrating. The light-side points of a given choice would register for my character, but I still got to deal with the aftermath of my allies killing a starship captain because he had valid tactical concerns about the mission. That said, my character's choice to spare/imprison the target rather than execute him did override the other three players' dark-side exeution choice (much to their shock), so I'm not exactly sure how the group-dialogue works. I do not anticipate similar frustration though if you're a bit more discerning with your group, and I definitely had no problem finding republic players who made light-side decisions.

On a more general note, I found it a very fun game, and I will miss both of my characters greatly (Much as I enjoyed it, I avoid subscription games as a rule). I have a great deal of respect for them for apparently voicing every bit of quest dialogue (main and side alike), and while you may say what you will about the stylistic choices of the game, it is animated beautifully (watch how the tatoos on the Zabrak NPCs shift as they talk. That takes devotion). And the writing...well, it's a Bioware game. Enough said.

 

[sir.rutthed]

Let's see here, whiney self entitled preachey gits with their heads stuffed up their asses or warriors raised from birth to crush their enemies but at the same time are taught that they can do literally whatever they want (including being a good guy) as long as they're strong enough to fight for it. Empire all the way, bitches.

I'm definantly going to be horde err I mean the Sith, thats exactly what I meant to say.

You might as well have a t-shirt that says "I don't actually know anything about this game". Good job, guy.

 

[Simon Pettersson]

I am going to play Republic first and then move on to the darkside

 

[Mitchell Grubbs]

I would go for both as they have classes that I want to play.

 

[Nalbis]

My choice was made via friends, we was going Sith originally but a group vote swayed us over to Republic because myself and a few others didn't want to be Sith. When we did the vote it appeared that most of us preferred the idea of Republic.

 

[Woodsey]

To be honest, I'm on the fence and I really wish they had a neutral choice, ie make it jedi vs sith and have bounty hunter, mercenary, etc as a neutral faction.
My general problem with the starwars universe is that they like to paint things as very black and white, you're either the anal retentive lawful good jedi who follows the rules so strictly that it cripples you, or you're the demonic sith lord who beats old women to death with the corpses of their husbands and eats babies for a snack.
Sadly the choice on most pvp servers will be to go Sith.
Unless you're insanely masochistic and want to get camped and ganked to death.

This may tip your mind a little. You can play a light side sith, or a dark side jedi (or any of the other classes.) It's a very interesting mechanic that means you always feel like your own moral choices are relevant, and you're not simply RP'ing as Sauron.

Yea, but the sad part is (at least from my impression from the beta) is that you're basically forced to go one way or the other in order to reap the best rewards, they kind of take away your choice in a case by case basis. Once you choose light or dark you pretty have to stick with it for the best stuff.

They've got stuff prepared for people who are 'grey', wasn't in the last beta build though.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

I was empire in SWG and I will continue that in SW:ToR, but after I am finished with Sith I move over to Republic since Bioware has made each class with its own story I can't imagine any class being dull.

 

[VladG]

Well, the alliance starting area is a nice green lush forest while the horde gets a fairly crappy red mesa/canyon thing so I'd go fo... wait, we're talking SW:ToR here...

Well, the Jedi start in a nice green lush forest while the Sith get a fairly crappy red mesa/canyon thing so I'd go for Jedi... (yeah, this is StarWars... I can go shoot guns and hide in cover in other games, I'm swinging Lightsabers in this mofo so Trooper/Smuggler not a choice)

 

[Togs]

Sith- after seeing some of the inquisitor gameplay my decision was made very quickly.

 

[feebstalicious93]

for some reason i always choose the light side. this time im going to choose both. but light side first.

 

[Ryank1908]

I'm only going Sith because my friends guild is going to be Sith. My heart lies with the Trooper.

Same here. If I get dragged into the game by a friend I'll end up on the Darkside because they will be. However I will sneak off when noone is looking to play my Femshep Trooper instead.

I've not been too taken with some of Bioware's handling of the evil characters. Some of the Sith tend to come across as campy when they're meant to be scary and...

Spoiler: small spoilers about Sith Warrior companion

...if you go darkside as a Sith Warrior the conversation sequences can be frustrating, given that Mission Vette will react negatively to just about every darkside option you're given. Go lightside or kiss goodbye to gaining any affection with this companion appears to be the message, which I felt was unduly manipulative for the first companion of the class.

I on the other hand am actually a big fan of how Bioware made the Sith - especially the light side options. The idea of playing a Sith who is not really inherently evil is awesome, to me. And I really like their voice acting - the agent, especially. But I've just always preferred the aesthetics and motives of the Republic.

Spoiler: A spoiler tag to reply to your own spoiler tag...

I actually like that they gave you a light side slave companion. She might react badly to things but if you're evil why would you care? Just zappy zap her. Affection is abritary anyhow. Btw, spoiler in a spoiler, don't read on if you haven't gotten too far with the Warrior storyline. You can sleep with a lord's wife and force Vette to stay. You lose affection, yeah, but who cares? It's hilarious!

:O Congrats good sir, you have just convinced me to get it. They basically gave a light/dark side paths to both sides? So basically instead of just hero/villain, we have hero, anti-hero, anti-villain, villain?

Yep, precisely. Sith and Republic are, generally, evil/good respectively in terms of their leadership, but I've seen plenty of opportunities for 'bad guy' Sith players to reject killing and do the honourable thing.

Some examples for you;

Spoiler: Sith Light-side example

In one mission you are asked to find some plans for weapons turrets. You meet a protocol droid who begs you not to retrieve them, as they are essentially torture devices that the droid wants neither side to have. You can simply tell the droid to follow orders and take the plans, getting dark-side points, or remove the restraint on the droid and allow him to destroy the plans.

Spoiler: Jedi Dark-side example

A colony is besieged by simplistic tribal monsters, and you meet a small group of Twi'leks near a Jedi temple. One of the Twi'leks is force sensitive and powerful, deciding to use his powers to destroy the raiders. You can look the other way and allow this Twi'lek to fall to the dark side and wipe out these raiders, or you can use your weight as a Jedi to get some defence for the Twi'leks and stop the dark side colonist.

The thing I love about these choices is that, despite what some people have said, your choice will not necessarily negatively impact your reward, and while there are certain items that only a dark/light side user may use, they are NOT the 'best' items. It's mostly aesthetics - for example, light side Sith warriors may use blue/green sabers, or you could make a Dark Jedi with a red saber. It's all very cool.

Edit; As someone also said above, there are items specifically for neutral (grey-side?) characters as well, but they weren't ready in the open weekend build.

 

[DustyDrB]

So a question for the people who've been in the beta. If you go it alone in the game, how much does The Old Republic feel like Knights of the Old Republic? Because I really like KotOR as it is (just finished another playthrough of it today, actually).

 

[darkonnis]

Spoiler: small spoilers about Sith Warrior companion

...if you go darkside as a Sith Warrior the conversation sequences can be frustrating, given that Mission Vette will react negatively to just about every darkside option you're given. Go lightside or kiss goodbye to gaining any affection with this companion appears to be the message, which I felt was unduly manipulative for the first companion of the class.

Not much of a drama to be honest, you get your next companion pretty much straight away. Further more whilst she drops "loyalty" if you like, your others will gain quite quickly. Companions don't drop or gain loyalty if they arent out for that conversation, also gifting a companion is definitely cheap enough to offset the conversational issues.

I made the mistake of playing BH first... everything else sucked by comparison. All good stories yes, but BH just owned start to finish. I tried all the others saving imperial agent for last, just not liking the cover system.... but again for that story line, i'll eat sleep and drink cover. Nothing compares.