As for a neutral faction... You can't write a stroy for someone who "rides the fence"
Why not?
For example - Smugglers and Bounty Hunters don't care about ideology, they care about who pays them. If anything they're interested in conflict continuing so that there is more work.
BH's yes, but their service to the imperial side makes sense as that side is more likely to take ruthless action against their enemies, like hiring assassins.
Smugglers though are actually far more concerned with the disruption of their trade networks, as that's what pays them. Which that disruption would most likely occur by imperial hands who want to control all rather than let systems govern themselves. It makes sense they would side with the republic who allows systems to govern themselves and doesn't set up planetary blockades all over known space.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
First of all, I agree with the 2 side battle strat that Bioware is going for, but for those who argue its the only way too go, then your very mistaken. Especially depending on the ERA of the gameworld, Mandalorians had a much bigger presence then anyone else, then theres also the ERA where the Vong were fighting against all force/technology lovers, theres the Trade Federation, then of course you have all the underworld factions who are always featured in the lore but never spotlighted such as the Hutts, and Bothans.
First of all, I agree with the 2 side battle strat that Bioware is going for, but for those who argue its the only way too go, then your very mistaken. Especially depending on the ERA of the gameworld, Mandalorians had a much bigger presence then anyone else, then theres also the ERA where the Vong were fighting against all force/technology lovers, theres the Trade Federation, then of course you have all the underworld factions who are always featured in the lore but never spotlighted such as the Hutts, and Bothans.
I do agree that there are neutral factions in the lore, it is also mostly present that most of the neutral factions are typically manipulated by either the empire or republic throughout much of their history. Either way you can find lore that supports either a two sided conflict, or three sides with one side typically working with one of the other two. I would have preferred that the non-force users started out as neutral with the option to join either side, but this would have required alot more resources to produce.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
This is exactly the most sceptic part I have about SW TOR; polarization due to only 2 sides.
From a decade of personal experience, MMO's with 2 sides/factions seem to end up in a mess where "everyone" flocks to the "strongest" side on each server, which in turn leads to whining from both sides:
The "strongest" side whines about low population/too few to fight and/or long waiting time for BG's.
The "weakest" side whine about low population too, and the struggle to find fair fights.
If there were 3 or more sides/factions, there would always be hope for the weakest one as they will always ally wit the 2nd strongest side against the strongest.
This is exactly the most sceptic part I have about SW TOR; polarization due to only 2 sides.
From a decade of personal experience, MMO's with 2 sides/factions seem to end up in a mess where "everyone" flocks to the "strongest" side on each server, which in turn leads to whining from both sides:
The "strongest" side whines about low population/too few to fight and/or long waiting time for BG's.
The "weakest" side whine about low population too, and the struggle to find fair fights.
If there were 3 or more sides/factions, there would always be hope for the weakest one as they will always ally wit the 2nd strongest side against the strongest.
The main issue is almost all 2 faction games are based on "mini game" pvp. While DAoC which imho is the best 3 faction example had no such thing. Battlegrounds were persistant areas... as was the Fronteir and Darkness Falls.
While from my personal experience the absolute best PvP I ever saw in an MMO was Ultima Online... Which only had the factions the players decided it had.
To be honest I don't see any benefit for PvP with the 3 faction design. Its no better than the 2 faction design just because there is a third faction. There is no guarantee that by having 3 factions population spreads more evenly. Just as there is no guarantee that the two weaker factions team up to take on the stronger faction. There was in DAoC quite often where the 3rd faction absolutely killed any and all realm action... You know where you had a very long boring time span and finally something was going on. Then all the third faction did was go around cutting all the ports till everyone logged...
There is a LOT wrong with the general PvP design of most games. Which is not solved by simply adding another faction. I mean lol there is a LOT wrong with the general core design of most MMO's pvp or not... design something better and then worry about the faction numbers.
Ok its star wars people there are only 2 factions in the star wars universe.
Sith and jedi usually for a while it was the vong vs everyne else. Republic and empire those are the factions why dont people understand that.
U cant just make up factions in a known universe. with known lore that supports only 2 factions. IN tor it has nothing to do wiht pvp it has everything to do with the ip.
Oh and dont go making up classes that dont even exist in the star wars universe. Droid handlers? Beast masters dont exist in star wars anywhere.
Also while there are multiple force other then jedi and sith in star wars like the dathomire witches and a few others that luke has found in the fate of the jedi series. They usually stay on there home planets and never ever go out into the world at large.
So u cant just make up classes and factions in an established ip just to suit some idiotic need for a third faction.
Ok its star wars people there are only 2 factions in the star wars universe.
Sith and jedi usually for a while it was the vong vs everyne else. Republic and empire those are the factions why dont people understand that.
U cant just make up factions in a known universe. with known lore that supports only 2 factions. IN tor it has nothing to do wiht pvp it has everything to do with the ip.
Oh and dont go making up classes that dont even exist in the star wars universe. Droid handlers? Beast masters dont exist in star wars anywhere.
Also while there are multiple force other then jedi and sith in star wars like the dathomire witches and a few others that luke has found in the fate of the jedi series. They usually stay on there home planets and never ever go out into the world at large.
So u cant just make up classes and factions in an established ip just to suit some idiotic need for a third faction.
There are a few factions though you can add to any mmorpg to make it better. Demons immediately comes to mind, or zombies or cowboys. Then once you get a faction like that, it opens you up to the counter factions, such as Demon hunters and zombie Hunters, and indians to counter the cowboys. You can do anything really in a fantasy world. We all know how great RvR can be there is no reason to limit it to just dark side versus the jedi's.
For all the talk about the lore, not needing it, only light and dark, etc... it all misses the point: for a roleplaying game, the more options you give your players, the more fun it is. Clearly independant smugglers and merchants whose goal is profit, working either or both sides would be viable and fun.
blurring the game's concepts of right/wrong isn't going to help the game much if people have a natural gravitation towards believing certain things are inherently wrong
that would be like trying to impose something on others that just doesn't fit.
This is exactly the most sceptic part I have about SW TOR; polarization due to only 2 sides.
From a decade of personal experience, MMO's with 2 sides/factions seem to end up in a mess where "everyone" flocks to the "strongest" side on each server, which in turn leads to whining from both sides:
The "strongest" side whines about low population/too few to fight and/or long waiting time for BG's.
The "weakest" side whine about low population too, and the struggle to find fair fights.
If there were 3 or more sides/factions, there would always be hope for the weakest one as they will always ally wit the 2nd strongest side against the strongest.
did daoc have one weak one? Human nature gets people moving to a stronger faction. You are not saying much.
If you look at people who play the board game Diplomacy very seriously you will see that despite 7 sides in the game you see the stronger sides working to eliminate the weaker ones. It's the smartest play.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
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the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
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i mean really..why not have a bunch of differant factions / races hateing eachother..im sure everyone in this so called "world or starwars" dont like eachother so why not have more than 2 factions..why not 3 . 4 . 5 ..i know light vrs dark is the main story line..but what if you dont want either of the 2 sides..how about a merc. faction were you pay both sides sortta like the did in eq2 with errants or umm ..idk what they called em ..but if you know maybe you see my point..what do you guys think? should there be more to choose from than light / dark or are you just satisfied with A / B?
This isn't the game you are looking for.
Move along.
He has a question so he should move along?
A) Dead Milkmen are a great band
He's quoting the movie "A New Hope" where Obi Wan uses an "old Jedi mindtrick" to get past the Imperial Stormtroopers in Mos Eisley. On a Star Wars based forum, one would hope I'm not the only Star Wars nerd on here who gets such references.
But not with this IP, Star Wars is all about Dark versus Light...
I would really say it's about Dark vs Neutral... The Jedi are about cold self control and impassionate balance really.
'Light' (as in love and compassion) has never really been represented by a SW faction I think, that perspective has usually been restricted to individuals (Leia probably filled this role in the original films).
I am sure a SW nut who knows far more then me about the expanded universe will come along and say otherwise though, and thats fine
I wouldnt call it light vs. dark at all, just simply the Republic vs. the Empire, there's a ton of people on both sides who does not represent anykind of "light" or "dark" in the universe.
Also, 3rd faction in a fully voiced mmorpg would mean 1/3 more work put into the product and if TOR truly has deep and long storylines it's propably just impossible considering the time it would need and money it would require. I rather take 2 well made and voiced factions than a 3-faction game with walls of text = no storyline at all like every wall of text mmos.
This is exactly the most sceptic part I have about SW TOR; polarization due to only 2 sides.
From a decade of personal experience, MMO's with 2 sides/factions seem to end up in a mess where "everyone" flocks to the "strongest" side on each server, which in turn leads to whining from both sides:
The "strongest" side whines about low population/too few to fight and/or long waiting time for BG's.
The "weakest" side whine about low population too, and the struggle to find fair fights.
If there were 3 or more sides/factions, there would always be hope for the weakest one as they will always ally wit the 2nd strongest side against the strongest.
The main issue is almost all 2 faction games are based on "mini game" pvp. While DAoC which imho is the best 3 faction example had no such thing. Battlegrounds were persistant areas... as was the Fronteir and Darkness Falls.
While from my personal experience the absolute best PvP I ever saw in an MMO was Ultima Online... Which only had the factions the players decided it had.
To be honest I don't see any benefit for PvP with the 3 faction design. Its no better than the 2 faction design just because there is a third faction. There is no guarantee that by having 3 factions population spreads more evenly. Just as there is no guarantee that the two weaker factions team up to take on the stronger faction. There was in DAoC quite often where the 3rd faction absolutely killed any and all realm action... You know where you had a very long boring time span and finally something was going on. Then all the third faction did was go around cutting all the ports till everyone logged...
There is a LOT wrong with the general PvP design of most games. Which is not solved by simply adding another faction. I mean lol there is a LOT wrong with the general core design of most MMO's pvp or not... design something better and then worry about the faction numbers.
Obviously you havent played enough to understand the huge difference between 2 and 3 or more sides. You just have to go Anarchy Online, which is one of the first MMO's om the marked to see that's a game where powers shift between 2 sides just because of 3 factions (neutral in the middle evening it out).
There WILL be polarization in SW TOR, that is 100% sure. If they don't get this right, and will find ways to balance sides, it will be a SURE reason for me to leave.
1. The "standard" is 2 factions (in other words; its what most people are used to).
2. Its less complicated with 2 factions, balancing for instance.
3. It takes more resources to develope more factions, especially in a storydriven game.
Thats it really, no brainsurgery involved.
I fail to see how you can "balance" 2 sides better than multiple. Please elaborate. If you can. 2 sides in WoW was the main reason I left the game; knowing all the love Blizzard have for Horde, while stupid me got stuck with Ally... sigh.
All MMO's have more than 1(or 2) factions, but miltiple playable faction are an issue.
From a purely cannon view:
For an exicting IP you need to have multiple fleshed out factions which the SW universe doesnt really have, yes there are allot of other factions which fall into different catagories of nutrality, but those factions are pretty much streotipical. And in a class based MMO like SWTOR it is pretty much impossible to flesh them out into a playable faction.
Lets take the Trade Federation for example and all droid faction? The hutts? so all the players will be giant obeese worms? Even if you would accept that none of these factions with in the constraints of the IP has sufficeint power to be a true player with in the universe, thas they either rellay on their nutrality or alliances with other factions.
Think of Star Trek, do you really belive for example that you can make the "Ferengi Fedartaion" a playable faction with in the cannon? they mabye got enough latinum to buy a quadrant, but they have no real power or infulence with in the IP.
From a game design view:
As mentioned here above in a class based MMO you cant have "Politcians" "Clerks" "Traders" "Sexsalves", Vanguard tried to implement a SandBox type of classes that rellied on "diplomacy" and other SandBox like elements, but at the end it was only a gimic and those skills were either useless, or a pretty names for CCer/Debuffers arch classes with a crappy metagame and mechanics. So for all those partially fleshed, or streotipical factions it is pretty much impossible to assign classes to them unless all faction use the same generic classes. IE Bunty Hunter, Assault BOT, Spy, etc, and then again it will be meaningless since no faction will be unique or intresting and the only diffrence will be some starter quests and setting.
Plus since unlike many sandbox games SWTOR will be devided to multiple servers it is pretty much impossible to balance the population of multiple factions, even games like WoW are constantly struggling with population issues, dead servers and daed factions. The more you add the more issues you have, that imo was one of the major downfalls of Warhammer Online, besides the fact that the game had no intresting PVE content, a broken outdoor quest/raiding mechanic, and a horribly unballanced and forced PVP.
And for a general ballance POV, the more classes you have, the more faction you have, the more complicated the system gets thas its harder to balance it. and FvFvF PVP zone/arena for example is much harder to ballance than a FvF zone/arena. And what do you don in such case where 2 factions desided to gang on the other one?
Multiple factions only work well in Sandboxes or inherently factionless games where the players create the factions them selves by team up and forming guilds/corporations/alliances w/e, in games like Eve it works great, in GuildVsGuild type of MMO's it works great. in FvF MMO's its doomed to fail...
1. The "standard" is 2 factions (in other words; its what most people are used to).
2. Its less complicated with 2 factions, balancing for instance.
3. It takes more resources to develope more factions, especially in a storydriven game.
Thats it really, no brainsurgery involved.
I fail to see how you can "balance" 2 sides better than multiple. Please elaborate. If you can. 2 sides in WoW was the main reason I left the game; knowing all the love Blizzard have for Horde, while stupid me got stuck with Ally... sigh.
Oh, I just took it as one example of complications, for instance class balancing (if the sides have somewhat unique classes/mechanics), or zone layout (should be different for different factions, but still have close to equal difficulty/reward).
More factions => more work on these areas, and more resources spent. If it gets skewed somewhat you'll end up with the "Blizzard loves Horde"- thingy again, and its more likely to happen the more factions there are (Like the paladin/shaman situation back when they were alliance/horde only: imagine having 5 factions with a unique class each => serious headache).
First of all, I agree with the 2 side battle strat that Bioware is going for, but for those who argue its the only way too go, then your very mistaken. Especially depending on the ERA of the gameworld, Mandalorians had a much bigger presence then anyone else, then theres also the ERA where the Vong were fighting against all force/technology lovers, theres the Trade Federation, then of course you have all the underworld factions who are always featured in the lore but never spotlighted such as the Hutts, and Bothans.
One problem with your theory. The vong came back when there was no sith or empire. There was only the republic. So only one side to fight sure u have nutral factions in star wars but u never have 3 fighting and to have a 3 faction pvp u need 3 fighting factions and that has never existed in star wars.
The trade federation was all just part of the sith plan to take over the galaxy they worked for the sepertists and count dooku at the time u only had the republic and the seperatists. Which the trade federation was part of. Mados have no allegiance though in tor time they are part of the empire.
That said in the rest of the books they exdist as mercinaries only so they dont really work as a pvp side. Either fighting for one side or the other the hutts are also nuetral tending to work with both sides to make a profit.l
So for a pvp perspective there can only be 2 sides in star wars. Cause in star wars thats all u ever really have even in fate of the jedi when u abeloth and the lost sith empire. Abeloth is one entity not a faction and so u jsut have jedi sith.
Also in an established ip like star wars u cant create things that dont exist. This isnt some fantasy world u create and can create what u want there are established lore and patterns devs must keep to.
Lucas arts has to approve anything they do in the story also. There is no whay the let u create mages and druids in there universe.
Comments
BH's yes, but their service to the imperial side makes sense as that side is more likely to take ruthless action against their enemies, like hiring assassins.
Smugglers though are actually far more concerned with the disruption of their trade networks, as that's what pays them. Which that disruption would most likely occur by imperial hands who want to control all rather than let systems govern themselves. It makes sense they would side with the republic who allows systems to govern themselves and doesn't set up planetary blockades all over known space.
To SB fans, please stop making our demographic look bad.Stop invading threads that have nothing to do with sandboxes.
SW:TOR Graphics Evolution and Comparison
SW:TOR Compare MMO Quests, Combat and More...
Because its star wars. There is only just 2 sides in star wars. Its always been and always will be sith vs jedi.l
They have other factions like the chiss and hutts who are nuetral but all star wars has always been jedi vs sith.
Republic vs sith empire. Thats what star wars is there is no 3rd faction in star wars universe asking why just shows u arent much into star wars.
They have ever only had a conflict between good and evil , jedi and sith ,republic and empire thats it.
No offense but adding a 3rd faction would ruin all star wars lore and cannon from lucas cannon to eu cannon
NO way was bioware gonna do that.
First of all, I agree with the 2 side battle strat that Bioware is going for, but for those who argue its the only way too go, then your very mistaken. Especially depending on the ERA of the gameworld, Mandalorians had a much bigger presence then anyone else, then theres also the ERA where the Vong were fighting against all force/technology lovers, theres the Trade Federation, then of course you have all the underworld factions who are always featured in the lore but never spotlighted such as the Hutts, and Bothans.
Mess with the best, Die like the rest
I do agree that there are neutral factions in the lore, it is also mostly present that most of the neutral factions are typically manipulated by either the empire or republic throughout much of their history. Either way you can find lore that supports either a two sided conflict, or three sides with one side typically working with one of the other two. I would have preferred that the non-force users started out as neutral with the option to join either side, but this would have required alot more resources to produce.
Cheers!
MMO Vet since AOL Neverwinter Nights circa 1992. My MMO beat up your MMO. =S
This is exactly the most sceptic part I have about SW TOR; polarization due to only 2 sides.
From a decade of personal experience, MMO's with 2 sides/factions seem to end up in a mess where "everyone" flocks to the "strongest" side on each server, which in turn leads to whining from both sides:
The "strongest" side whines about low population/too few to fight and/or long waiting time for BG's.
The "weakest" side whine about low population too, and the struggle to find fair fights.
If there were 3 or more sides/factions, there would always be hope for the weakest one as they will always ally wit the 2nd strongest side against the strongest.
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!
The main issue is almost all 2 faction games are based on "mini game" pvp. While DAoC which imho is the best 3 faction example had no such thing. Battlegrounds were persistant areas... as was the Fronteir and Darkness Falls.
While from my personal experience the absolute best PvP I ever saw in an MMO was Ultima Online... Which only had the factions the players decided it had.
To be honest I don't see any benefit for PvP with the 3 faction design. Its no better than the 2 faction design just because there is a third faction. There is no guarantee that by having 3 factions population spreads more evenly. Just as there is no guarantee that the two weaker factions team up to take on the stronger faction. There was in DAoC quite often where the 3rd faction absolutely killed any and all realm action... You know where you had a very long boring time span and finally something was going on. Then all the third faction did was go around cutting all the ports till everyone logged...
There is a LOT wrong with the general PvP design of most games. Which is not solved by simply adding another faction. I mean lol there is a LOT wrong with the general core design of most MMO's pvp or not... design something better and then worry about the faction numbers.
Ok its star wars people there are only 2 factions in the star wars universe.
Sith and jedi usually for a while it was the vong vs everyne else. Republic and empire those are the factions why dont people understand that.
U cant just make up factions in a known universe. with known lore that supports only 2 factions. IN tor it has nothing to do wiht pvp it has everything to do with the ip.
Oh and dont go making up classes that dont even exist in the star wars universe. Droid handlers? Beast masters dont exist in star wars anywhere.
Also while there are multiple force other then jedi and sith in star wars like the dathomire witches and a few others that luke has found in the fate of the jedi series. They usually stay on there home planets and never ever go out into the world at large.
So u cant just make up classes and factions in an established ip just to suit some idiotic need for a third faction.
There are a few factions though you can add to any mmorpg to make it better. Demons immediately comes to mind, or zombies or cowboys. Then once you get a faction like that, it opens you up to the counter factions, such as Demon hunters and zombie Hunters, and indians to counter the cowboys. You can do anything really in a fantasy world. We all know how great RvR can be there is no reason to limit it to just dark side versus the jedi's.
For all the talk about the lore, not needing it, only light and dark, etc... it all misses the point: for a roleplaying game, the more options you give your players, the more fun it is. Clearly independant smugglers and merchants whose goal is profit, working either or both sides would be viable and fun.
blurring the game's concepts of right/wrong isn't going to help the game much if people have a natural gravitation towards believing certain things are inherently wrong
that would be like trying to impose something on others that just doesn't fit.
I want to own property too
Normally I am all for 3+ factions but for this setting 2 is pretty much what it calls for?
I am not familiar with the tons of books or other things out there though so maybe there are other factions possible?
did daoc have one weak one? Human nature gets people moving to a stronger faction. You are not saying much.
If you look at people who play the board game Diplomacy very seriously you will see that despite 7 sides in the game you see the stronger sides working to eliminate the weaker ones. It's the smartest play.
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Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
A) Dead Milkmen are a great band
MMORPG = MASSIVE Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game
Focus on "Masses". And to reach the masses, the game must be very very simple and appeal to what the players know already.
Players are used to two factions, so two factions it is. Any other number would confuse players and thus cause them to quit playing.
Also, more than two factions is more complicated to design, which means it costs more. And costs are bad.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
Three reasons:
1. The "standard" is 2 factions (in other words; its what most people are used to).
2. Its less complicated with 2 factions, balancing for instance.
3. It takes more resources to develope more factions, especially in a storydriven game.
Thats it really, no brainsurgery involved.
I wouldnt call it light vs. dark at all, just simply the Republic vs. the Empire, there's a ton of people on both sides who does not represent anykind of "light" or "dark" in the universe.
Also, 3rd faction in a fully voiced mmorpg would mean 1/3 more work put into the product and if TOR truly has deep and long storylines it's propably just impossible considering the time it would need and money it would require. I rather take 2 well made and voiced factions than a 3-faction game with walls of text = no storyline at all like every wall of text mmos.
Obviously you havent played enough to understand the huge difference between 2 and 3 or more sides. You just have to go Anarchy Online, which is one of the first MMO's om the marked to see that's a game where powers shift between 2 sides just because of 3 factions (neutral in the middle evening it out).
There WILL be polarization in SW TOR, that is 100% sure. If they don't get this right, and will find ways to balance sides, it will be a SURE reason for me to leave.
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!
I fail to see how you can "balance" 2 sides better than multiple. Please elaborate. If you can. 2 sides in WoW was the main reason I left the game; knowing all the love Blizzard have for Horde, while stupid me got stuck with Ally... sigh.
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!
All MMO's have more than 1(or 2) factions, but miltiple playable faction are an issue.
From a purely cannon view:
For an exicting IP you need to have multiple fleshed out factions which the SW universe doesnt really have, yes there are allot of other factions which fall into different catagories of nutrality, but those factions are pretty much streotipical. And in a class based MMO like SWTOR it is pretty much impossible to flesh them out into a playable faction.
Lets take the Trade Federation for example and all droid faction? The hutts? so all the players will be giant obeese worms? Even if you would accept that none of these factions with in the constraints of the IP has sufficeint power to be a true player with in the universe, thas they either rellay on their nutrality or alliances with other factions.
Think of Star Trek, do you really belive for example that you can make the "Ferengi Fedartaion" a playable faction with in the cannon? they mabye got enough latinum to buy a quadrant, but they have no real power or infulence with in the IP.
From a game design view:
As mentioned here above in a class based MMO you cant have "Politcians" "Clerks" "Traders" "Sexsalves", Vanguard tried to implement a SandBox type of classes that rellied on "diplomacy" and other SandBox like elements, but at the end it was only a gimic and those skills were either useless, or a pretty names for CCer/Debuffers arch classes with a crappy metagame and mechanics. So for all those partially fleshed, or streotipical factions it is pretty much impossible to assign classes to them unless all faction use the same generic classes. IE Bunty Hunter, Assault BOT, Spy, etc, and then again it will be meaningless since no faction will be unique or intresting and the only diffrence will be some starter quests and setting.
Plus since unlike many sandbox games SWTOR will be devided to multiple servers it is pretty much impossible to balance the population of multiple factions, even games like WoW are constantly struggling with population issues, dead servers and daed factions. The more you add the more issues you have, that imo was one of the major downfalls of Warhammer Online, besides the fact that the game had no intresting PVE content, a broken outdoor quest/raiding mechanic, and a horribly unballanced and forced PVP.
And for a general ballance POV, the more classes you have, the more faction you have, the more complicated the system gets thas its harder to balance it. and FvFvF PVP zone/arena for example is much harder to ballance than a FvF zone/arena. And what do you don in such case where 2 factions desided to gang on the other one?
Multiple factions only work well in Sandboxes or inherently factionless games where the players create the factions them selves by team up and forming guilds/corporations/alliances w/e, in games like Eve it works great, in GuildVsGuild type of MMO's it works great. in FvF MMO's its doomed to fail...
Oh, I just took it as one example of complications, for instance class balancing (if the sides have somewhat unique classes/mechanics), or zone layout (should be different for different factions, but still have close to equal difficulty/reward).
More factions => more work on these areas, and more resources spent. If it gets skewed somewhat you'll end up with the "Blizzard loves Horde"- thingy again, and its more likely to happen the more factions there are (Like the paladin/shaman situation back when they were alliance/horde only: imagine having 5 factions with a unique class each => serious headache).
Too many here are locked in the "class box". Classes are THE worst feature of any game. It just makes it even worse when the MMO have only 2 factions.
Make us care MORE about our faction & world pvp!
One problem with your theory. The vong came back when there was no sith or empire. There was only the republic. So only one side to fight sure u have nutral factions in star wars but u never have 3 fighting and to have a 3 faction pvp u need 3 fighting factions and that has never existed in star wars.
The trade federation was all just part of the sith plan to take over the galaxy they worked for the sepertists and count dooku at the time u only had the republic and the seperatists. Which the trade federation was part of. Mados have no allegiance though in tor time they are part of the empire.
That said in the rest of the books they exdist as mercinaries only so they dont really work as a pvp side. Either fighting for one side or the other the hutts are also nuetral tending to work with both sides to make a profit.l
So for a pvp perspective there can only be 2 sides in star wars. Cause in star wars thats all u ever really have even in fate of the jedi when u abeloth and the lost sith empire. Abeloth is one entity not a faction and so u jsut have jedi sith.
Also in an established ip like star wars u cant create things that dont exist. This isnt some fantasy world u create and can create what u want there are established lore and patterns devs must keep to.
Lucas arts has to approve anything they do in the story also. There is no whay the let u create mages and druids in there universe.