TR Population - what gives?

Veteran · 2003-12-12, 12:27 AM

It's been the subject of some debate, but at this point I'm willing to go on record and say that TR's population is generally lower, if not significantly lower, than the other two empires. I play night, day and early morning and everytime I do a /who teams, TR is hanging around 24% to 28%. I play on the Emerald/Konried fusion server. Yes, there are times when TR has comparable population. They seem pretty rare. I might also mention that when TR has its fair share of people, it is a rather fearsome force, and I suspect it's because they have learned to make due with less, and therefore have become leaner and meaner.

I used to play my br20 Terran, but since the patch and the timer, I can't play him without locking my NC n00b, which I enjoying playing very much.

So what is it? Is TR's gear really third-rate? Is it because 'all TR suxx0rz k3k3k3k3'? Is it because NC has a positive message (freedom) and TR has a negative message (oppression)?

I have the utmost respect for players of all empires. I'm just curious why TR's population seems so consistently low.

No flames, please. I'm not making any accusations, insults, threats or derision. I know I've got a history of bias towards TR and also criticism towards several of TR's empire assets, but I'd like to keep that out of this for now. I honestly think TR is playing with a handicap, and in this case, it seems to be population.

Katanaboy · 2003-12-12, 12:38 AM

Same happens on Joharkov, except that it's usually the Vanu in the 24% zone. But yea, i hear you, I consistently see TR the least populated on Konerald (or maybe it should be emeried?).

Liteshow · 2003-12-12, 12:47 AM

A look at the military philosophies of the different empires may shed some light. You alluded to the differing philosophies between the empires themselves, such as NC for freedom and TR for status quo. It must also be mentioned that the NC have the hard hitting gear, the VS have the agile gear, and the TR have the high fire rate gear. I think people have always had a fascination first and foremost with who's got the biggest hand-cannon, followed by the speedy fellow you can't hit. The hail of bullets doesn't hold as much appeal as the widow-making triple barrel shotgun to most people.

Liteshow
Shadow Company (formerly Black Company)
Johari -> Markov

Veteran · 2003-12-12, 01:09 AM

I wish they'd lift that stupid timer for your empire characters. As long as you log into your sanctuary when you switch characters, I think the risk of people 'joining the winning side' is pretty slim. Who wants to stop levelling their main so they can log in a n00b to rake in 1500 BEP? It just isn't worth it. The real xp is in the killing, and spies are a dime a dozen anyhow.

If the timer didn't exist, I could take a nice several hour break and play my TR. I think the timer is actually causing a lot of the empire population imbalance, not fixing it.

Flammey · 2003-12-12, 02:08 AM

Well, ever since the merger, I don't play my TR character anymore, except to give out weapons. *Winks* I don't like playing two sides on the same server. kinda defeats the purpose of fighting for hours on one side, only to go to the other side, and fight back. Plus I don't like fighting against players I've fought along side for months. Perhaps I'll make a new TR character on Werner, then I would have a character on alkl three servers, and no crossing over.

Firefly · 2003-12-12, 06:53 AM

Not to mention, Konreid was the home of a huge NC presence and with the server merger you saw their overstrength merge with the occasionally-equal populations.

Manitou · 2003-12-12, 07:28 AM

The Dragon Wolves only allow Terran Republic members. We ask our troops to make a choice - if it is not TR, they are asked to leave. If we find out they are playing in a different empire, we boot them.

Firefly · 2003-12-12, 07:36 AM

Same with Black Widow Company. We don't tolerate switch-hitting on the same server. Before the merger, we didn't care who did what on other empires on other servers. But now that you can switch-hit and play for the other team, there's no more of that.

We call it the Smiley Rule.

Ed the MAD · 2003-12-12, 07:41 AM

to be totally honest. TR equipment is better than NC. the prowler Tank has a faster fire rate, and although it's projectiles do considerably less damage, if the driver can avoid a direct hit, he can survive a straight up fight with a vanguard. the Mini"Chain"gun is an amaseing weapon. i actually prefer it over a Jackhammer. due to longer range. the Repeater is just a trophy i like to grab and shove in my locker, but i can honestly say that in a straigh up fight, the TR will kick the NC's ass. souly because of one fact. numbers.

there are more NC than TR. because they defected from the TR when it's equipment started to suck. but many stuck with the TR, and they were rewarded with an overall better soldier. the TR are outnumbered, outgunned, but never outclassed...exept when put into a fight with the VS. those assholes are simply demons on the feild.

you Terrans have earned my utmost respect. most the time you find yourselves outnumbered, and yet you still put up a magnificent fight. anyone who says "TR SUX LOLWTF K3K3K3K3!!!!!1!1!1@1!!2!!!!!!!!" is an idiot who is only bitter because his "1337 5killzzzzz 2d /\/\4XXXXX" are proven to be nothing more than smoke and bullshit as he becomes repeatedly owned by some random TR soldier. don't listen to people who cannot form a complete sentence.

all in all you TR do what you can with what you have. and although you often lose the battle, you manage to preform very well. i can't even begin to describe how many times my Vanguard has been shot out from under me due to you guys. i salute you all.

scanda · 2003-12-12, 07:44 AM

Whats with this side switching stuff anyway? Did someone whine to Sony or is this only because of the merger and they didn't want to delete someones character? Why did they make it 12hrs instead of 24hrs?
My .02 cents....its bad for the game.

Manitou · 2003-12-12, 08:16 AM

I say it's good for the game and good for Outfits that honestly want to further their Empire's goals.

Let's face it - if they didn't limit the switching, you would have some llama who would abuse the ability to be dishonorable and flip-flop back and forth revealing information that might be vital to an Outfit's operations. I understand this is only a game, but we Dragon Wolves take our ops serious. We want to be able accomplish missions, make efficient battle plans and see them through to either victory or defeat or a standstill by the tactics themselves and not some bozo who decides he or she wants to jump from Empire to Empire with the frequency of a cheap ham radio.

The devs have my respect for leaving it where it is...

Stellerence · 2003-12-12, 08:24 AM

Strangely the last few times i checked the population on Werner it was either all 33% or within a percent...i just hope its not coincidence and remains so balanced

InfiniteStorm · 2003-12-12, 08:35 AM

I have noticed that the TRs population has been dropping as of late and the VS's on Emerald has been rising. The TR always give us a good fight and your empire is just going through what the VS went through for many months. Seems to be the natural cycle of things. I don't think the NC have ever had a substantially low population of Emerald. You get used to just fighting for your home continents over and over again. I remember spending about a month straight going to nothing but Amerish because everytime we turned around it was under hack by NC or TR.

You'll find in the end that you'll have a better core group of soldiers. Even the noobs on the trials will become battle hardened as opposed to zerg follow zombies. All things being equal, I think I'd rather fight the NC than the TR, and it seems that most of the VS leadership thinks like this because in the past few nights I've been on, we've only attacked NC continents. Everytime we go to Ish or Forseral, we stall. You'll get through it, just keep fighting.

ORANGE · 2003-12-12, 11:08 AM

I think alot of it has to do with n00bs not knowing just how good tr weapons are they aren't willing to learn to learn to use the weapons effectively they just see a gun that gets a big cof quickly and they run to NC for the nooblammers. Before people yell at me I play as NC and TR.

dscytherulez · 2003-12-12, 11:18 AM

Originally Posted by scanda

Whats with this side switching stuff anyway? Did someone whine to Sony or is this only because of the merger and they didn't want to delete someones character? Why did they make it 12hrs instead of 24hrs?
My .02 cents....its bad for the game.

Why? Because why the *fudge* would having it 24 hours make any god *darn* SENSE?! Do you really think battles go on for that long? The longest I EVER saw was eight hours. I think 12 hours is also too much! If you are planning to find your friendlies ams then switch servers and os it, in 1 hour or sometimes even less do you really think its even gonna still be there? I think 2-5 hours would be a good timer.

Main concern weapon switching? Well what about the people who log on to TR in the first place and just give weapons to all their NC buddies? They dont even need to switch for that. Besides, its even easier to just loot it off some corpse.