I was recently listening to the latest episode of the podcast and their discussion on the Republic verses the Sith Empire made me think. I wonder which faction will be the 'dominant' one once the game is well off. We all know how World of Warcraft turned out with the Horde and Alliance and I hope it is much more even with The Old Republic. I am personally an Alliance player on WoW and I plan on playing a Republic, Jedi Knight with SWTOR. I do agree with Zach on that from what I have been hearing, there will be a lot of players who gravitate towards the Sith Empire, simply because it displays itself as the 'bad ass' faction out of the two. Though the Horde ended up catering the majority of elite players in WoW, I believe the Republic will house the elite players in SWTOR. Agreeing with Zach. I know we will not know for sure until we are all well into the game but it is still interesting to speculate. What do you think?

Disclaimer: By no means am I saying either faction is going to be better than the other. No matter which faction holds the majority of elite players, there will always be exceptions on both sides.

I think this could possibly be a potential issue if the servers aren't balanced. Assuming the sith turn out to have far more players, I could even see it being an issue for que times for possible PVP or PVE events (assuming that you would have to que for "battleground" type events), as well possible skewed economies. I would love to see a push for having an action house style economy in a neutral "black market" type location that would link both factions together rather than each faction to have their own auction house exclusive to that faction's side.

I haven't even thought of auction houses. Yeah, That would be a good idea and the 'black market' term would fit the universe quite nicely.

I also agree with Zach. The Sith will more than likely attract some of the more 'kiddie' and (*shudder*) 'emo' Star Wars fans for the desire of being evil, mean, and killing babies. I fear that this could also cause a lot of problems for Sith players trying to group and do quests together. I foresee a lot of "lolz! i betrayed u!" Hopefully there will be something to avoid grouping with these kind of people.

I definitely plan on making some Sith characters (after reading the Darth Bane series I can't help but have a different respect for the dark side), and as such expect people to back stab me and try to take advantage of me if the opportunity presents itself - however, do it in a tasteful way, don't just do it because you're an ****. Maybe that's just too much of the role-player in me coming out though. I could even see new players looking for help having a hard time finding it due to everyone around them being 'evil' and trying to build power for themselves.

I see the Republic having more mature players, with people trying to help each other and overall being more team and group oriented. The only issues I could see here are kids just wanting to be running around with a light saber while still being a good guy. I think the biggest issue for the Republic being new people wanting help, begging for it, and being extra discouraged when a "good guy" doesn't go out of their way to help them.

Overall I think force characters will have the lowest average maturity - there are going to be some of everybody playing these classes, just because they are such a staple to the Star Wars universe, they are going to attract everyone.

Obviously, this is a lot of speculation to be doing so early on, it is just based off of what I have seen from the few MMO's I have played in the past. But, as constantly being pointed out: It's fun to speculate.

I think that both sides are going to have their share of new players as well as the unfortunate D-bags and, well, dicks. It is the unfortunate side effect of having that many people in the same place at the same time. Since the size of this game is going to be obviously HUGE, then I don't think it will be a problem avoiding unsavory players. I also have been one of those "New Player Helpers" and in fact I love helping the newer players. It always helps me understand the game better as well, even though it takes me out of RP mode.

HI all my first post on Mos Esiley Radio

Yes I this would bring smugglers a new side of play style , hey even group missions to smuggle bit for the black market or sith or republic planets!

P.S. love the show , keep it up guys , i cant wait for episode 17

I think everyone has hit the nail on the head here...and really resonates with the discussion we had on the show. Like JawaBane said, there's no way for us to tell until the game hits its stride, but from the talk I've heard in a number of places, our conclusion that the older, more mature players will likely gravitate towards the Republic is true.

However, one of the many things that SWTOR has going for it that WoW doesn't is the emphasis on story and, more importantly, Bioware's desire to show how things are exactly as they seem. What do I mean by this? Basically what Daniel Erickson said in his discussion with Ars Technica: The "bad guys" aren't always bad, the "good guys" aren't always good, and there are reasons that each side makes the decisions it does for a number of reasons. Now I know for certain that the first class I'm going to roll will be a Trooper, but these "more than meets the eye" storylines could easily see me rolling a Sith Empire class to see what everything is about.

The other thing TOR has going for it is the lore and the nature of the Star Wars universe. Like Zach said, back-alley trading between "factions" is common and we know that all the staples of MMOs, including things like an "auction house" or some form of player-based economy, will be in the game. There are almost limitless opportunities for the lines between allegiances to be blurred. I say this with the hope that all of these things will prevent the situation in WoW where each side attracts vastly different types of players, and can cause heavy server imbalances.