Greetings friends,
I'm one of the players that played this game at launch, then after about 6 months left for other ventures. I have since returned do to the new expansion - and I have to say I'm loving the changes.
I've been trying out both the Empire and the Republic the last week to get a feel for which side I want to play. The thing I've ran into is folks seem to be friendlier, chattier, and overall decent players on the Empire side. I even engaged in some great spontaneous Role play on Korriban with an Operative and Bounty Hunter trying to recruit me to spy on the Sith Lords. Me being a young sith apprentice, I declined of course!
I've found my time on the Republic side running into way more silly names like Xxpunisherxxp, I-eat-babies, and such. Also, the few groups I have ran have been in seem to be filled with very new players (which isn't a bad thing, we were all new to MMO's once).
What really got to me was when a heavy RP / PVP guild Republic side was recruiting on Ord Mantell. I politely whispered them with ( ) that I both love to rp, and mainly PvP...though I do enjoy running operations too.
He replied back that he was sorry, but my name is not a RP name. I was O'shotty - smuggler soon to be scrapper, and my title read Captain O'shotty. Has a nice ring to it.
I ask him how so? He replies what would we call you? I'm like, O'shotty? Then I even gave him a spontaneous Rp story to the name (I hadn't given it much though yet) that my first name is Orville, which is quite embarrassing, so I go by O'shotty - which is indeed the character's last name.
He replies, sorry - doesn't work. It bothered me so bad I spent 1k credits to change my smuggler's name.
Anyhow for those of you that have played here for a while, is it just easier for a stranger/new player to break into the scene on the Empire side?
Also I really like to PVP. I have read that the Empire side has way more PvP'rs, but I was considering to try and PVP on the Pub side because it would be easier to get to know the smaller crowd. I was wondering if the queues for unranked PVP (all I'm concerned about for now since I'm a lowbie) are much longer on the Republic side do to the smaller PvP crowd.
Sorry for the long post. I'm very glad to be back to Swtor. I hope everyone has a great day!
P.S - no time to proof read - Heading out the door. =)