I always wondered about that too! I have got the impression that the troopers sort of look a bit storm troopery at times depending on what they wear. Notice there are no real storm trooper classes on the imperial side, the agent is more like an operative and dresses alot like military officials (like nida etc) rather than cannon fodder. on the other hand It could be that the rebels in the original trilogy remember this time as a I won't say better time but at least a prosperous time for their neck of the galaxy in terms of political strength. Therefore they may want to evoke that image to gather strength for what they were fighting for. As for the Clone wars era republic, I'm not exactly sure why they would start to look like their former enemies but It could have something to do with Palpatine or It could just be an enormous coincidence. Even worse than that, It could be after the fall of the empire, it was either forgotten about or even raided, taking their military ideas

I always wondered about that too! I have got the impression that the troopers sort of look a bit storm troopery at times depending on what they wear. Notice there are no real storm trooper classes on the imperial side, the agent is more like an operative and dresses alot like military officials (like nida etc) rather than cannon fodder. on the other hand It could be that the rebels in the original trilogy remember this time as a I won't say better time but at least a prosperous time for their neck of the galaxy in terms of political strength. Therefore they may want to evoke that image to gather strength for what they were fighting for. As for the Clone wars era republic, I'm not exactly sure why they would start to look like their former enemies but It could have something to do with Palpatine or It could just be an enormous coincidence. Even worse than that, It could be after the fall of the empire, it was either forgotten about or even raided, taking their military ideas

LOL! I always liked them because Im not always locked by having to be a goody two-shoes. I also like smugglers and troopers like that. Don't get me wrong I love my jedis but everyones so nice to them its hard for them to really be mean. MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD I really enjoy being the sith inquisitor and letting my anger out. I kinda had it in my head that my Sith Inquisitor really liked that girl (corey? something like that) who she calmed when they first met and was later killed, and after that sorta let it fester in her head until she had nothing but hatred for everyone and everything around her. Think about it slave plucked from nowhere to face almost certain death or be killed by some a-hole guy she doesn't even know. I bet she's really sick of her life being in other people's hands. So the first chance she got to let it out was torturing that guy projecting her hate on him, and found out she enjoyed it. Then forced to go on boring repetitive quests to tombs adds to her frustration, setting her up, and dealing with incompetent men and women who command her, She'd probably like to slap every pureblood ever, and kill anyone who ever called her slave in the begining. I think its fun because anger is an emotion everyone can understand. We all have anger some daily, we even have anger at hard or boring missions. Its great to have your char reflect that and not be forced to do good for people who treat you bad. (My smuggler even though a slacker girl who cares mostly about money, is still out of place being mean but better as a jerk with a heart of gold.) Its really satisfying to treat stuck up commanders and self loving showoffs with no respect and then kill them without remorse. You don't have to be a conventional hero with perfect morals and even can be black and grey if you want. There's also tons of room for char development if you're not into the whole inner peace only persona. You also get a good amount of control of people around you, people gravel before you, you choose the fates of prisoners, even spooky lords don't scare you, and even can evoke eyerolls. I personally take pleasure in seeing my scrawny little twi'lek reduce powerful masters to sniveling cowards. Lastly the empire is a bit more mysterious, and a lot more simple. Everyones secretive, every thing is a new mystery. And yet it doesn't require tons of red tape morality. People tell you things you either Believe them or you don't. Empires/dictatorships are simple, the big guy/girl says the people do. Its somewhat comforting in a disturbing way not to always have political debates on ethics. Just care about you and saving your hide and rising above the idiots. Because you know what you want, and even better its encouraged for you to take what you want from life. Its an intriguing prospect that doesn't work in reality but can be experienced in games like this. Its a great way to expirience stuff that would horrify any sane person and be in control of some of it in a safe way. Its a challenge for people like me who pretty much cover my eyes during horror movies and wish the victims would just chop up the guy with the axe instead of the other way. Thats what my sith inquisitor is, the victim who was pushed too far. And its revenge time

It's funny because on my bounty hunter, Adidia, It seems almost inevitable that she and Mako would get together, and even strange to think they wouldn't. I set it up that she is absolutely heartless to everyone, except Mako. She can kill people in front of their kids, refuse to help desperate people, make fun of disenfranchised people, and hold a gun in the face of someone who looked at her funny but if mako wants anything at all it's hers, and if she wanted to disrupt important business for anything even going to the bathroom Adidia would smile and let her. I'd kinda like to see that blossom into something more than my HEAVILY implied romantic interest in her. I could see Adidia as a nurturing gf calming Mako down after a tough fight sharing her secrets and killing anyone who would dare look at her mako with hatred. It'd be really cute in a dark sort of way. Kira's also a good match for my innocent niave twi'lek jedi. A bit of an opposites attract but I always felt a hidden deep longing there. Kinda a "I tease you because I love you" thing. It'd be the reverse of Adidia.

Sorry for this long post but I kinda like to get into review mode here. For me as a roleplayer and lover of storylines They each have their merits. STO has char bio spaces which I really miss here and places to write bios for each crew. The customization in STO is also incredibly detailed down to eye spacing nose length shinyness of hair,etc, and to top it off you can make your own species. (beware though if you hit random you may wind up with something waaaay too far into the uncanny valley for you not to have nightmares!) However you are stuck being part of starfleet. No chance for cool sassy rogues or grey morality since in the ST universe all heroic captains are ones with merits and expirience. Klingon side is more of my style with my Orion girl who constantly goes behind the empires back and sells off her crew to slavery. The new Romulus side is also more of a ragtag band of rebels with some familiar plot points. However every time you play the story will be the same for your faction. So replay value is annoying to go through all those things again. Also while the romulans have a passionate and well written underdog storyline, most of the federation missions involve killing 10 gorn ships or tagging satellites where at each one the same band of 3 ships attacks. You also don't get a lot of choices of things to say during the dialogue which is something I really enjoy here. I like getting to choose what my char would say based on her persona but in STO I'm usually forced to say something really dopey. Sometimes you can choose. The romulans have slightly more choices, and I won't reveal too much about the awesome mind control scene. They also added a bit more voiceovers especially on your half npc first officer Tovan who while annoyingly unfireable, adds to the plot by being something other than a dumb bridge bunny who gets confused by everything or somehow presumes to order you around even though you're the captain. The Klingon faction is a source of many a complaint for lack of content and story. A lot of the story involves you working side by side with the enemy faction and basically saying "we won't bow to them" then doing just that. You start to think that the crazy radical Klingons that claim they're becoming lapdogs during the treaty were totally correct. You even wind up going back in time to save a federation station, help mccoy and scotty who seem to think you're a starfleet officer (regardless of race, even gorn or klingon who they know are not in starfleet), and even stop a plague that could have pre-emtively destroyed starfleet and saved them a lot of trouble. Not to mention the fact that you mostly fight other klingons for no reason whatsoever. A poorly constructed area is Nimbus III. A planet where all factions can go (and get the exact same quests). It makes perfect sense if you play a romulan but if you play a Klingon allied char especially an orion it makes no sense at all. You attack you're own syndicate, claim orions to be a blight on the world (even if you are one) and save a bunch of people you don't give a crud about while ignoring the chance to shoot Federation players. This would be a PERFECT PVP zone if it had been done right, and would have been great if you had a chance to help the syndicate decimate the town of whiners and racists but alas no. And to wrap it all up your first officer is given Tovan's voiceover so even if its a girl it'll talk with a guy voice...ummm scary!! On the upside the space combat is pretty fun and you can modify your ship scrambling its appearance with other classes of its type and painting some crazy patterns. You can also get a bunch of ships that are race specific for instance my Orion has a orion ship. There are also gorn ships vulcan ships andorian ships nausicaan ships reman ships and you can try to dig out rare expensive cardassian and ferengi ones as well as some festival rewards like breen and even risian. However my favorite thing about STO is the foundry, where if you gather enough dilithium (obtainable in game) you can create your own missions for other people to do. Some people have actually come up with some pretty creative stuff some great plots some humorous ones, and some puzzle based ones too. I spend a ton of time in there just messing around too making different npcs testing out plots, building rp background scenes etc. And of course you don't have so many things you need to subscribe or buy although you can get a bunch of cool outfits ships and stuff. It seems they make all their big money through their lock boxes which spew out random (sometimes but rarely great) items or just a bunch of equivalents to minor potions, when you buy their little keys from the store. (aha!). Some major issues reside on the side of maintenance and crowd control. First of all the game faces glitches with every update every patch every little thing. Most of these issues wont be fixed until patched again creating different sets of issues. Also if you gripe on the forums they will act snarky to you with a "why don't you try it" reply. The foundry was broken for about a month while the seemed to adamantly refuse to fix it. When it came back it did gain some nice costumes and settings but it did lose the save a costume feature because it had a minor bug where the game crashed if you loaded a character into a starship slot (makes sense in context). again they threw the baby out with the bathwater but oh well. The graphics will also glitch around alot creating fuzzy computer displays even on some good computers. The other major issue is that some areas are overrun with trolls that harass players especially female players. It's actually no surprise that there are very few females playing that game as opposed to here where I found plenty to hang out with. I probably have been hit on on every toon at least once often forcefully and often by obviously-trying-too-hard desperate nerds. As with any MMO there are people who think the dumbest things are funny and will not stop until you do too. But thats to be expected with groups of young children about. Easy to avoid if you simply switch instances and shut off zone chat like I do so I don't vomit. But anyway now that I went off on tangent lol, as a storyline/rp lover (cuz thats the only perspective I can give), SWTOR has like I said more choices for char developement in the game plot, The light/dark thing, The ability to be in your ship while it moves, and the RP servers (sto has only one server for all and no chance to indicate you want to rp not just get talked too about some CW show.) So to make this short if you skipped my post I like both games, STO has more things to do, but SW has better lore and char developement as well as much less repetative combat. It also believe it or not has better PVP because in STO all PVP is designated to challenges or special maps.