131563-lets-talk-about-population-exiles-vs-dominions-page-2

Page 1, Page 2, Page 3, Page 4, Page 5
== Content ==
			
{| class="blockquote"
Hopefully it will stay that way. Even if it does work, what if the population shifts and Dominion is the popular one? How do you explain taking away a bonus that they've had for a long period of time just because their side is unbalanced because of factors players themselves can't control?
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
You're looking at things too narrowly.  The Chua may not be nuanced themselves, but they provide nuance to the Dominion.  
----
			You guys are going to get this thread moved again. Do you want to argue lore (every. single. time.) or do you want to talk about ways to balance the population?	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
There are lots of ways in which the Exiles can be painted as the bad guys, without actually *being* the bad guys, while the Dominion can play the hero.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
You guys are going to get this thread moved again. Do you want to argue lore (every. single. time.) or do you want to talk about ways to balance the population?
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
In all fairness, the first sounds way more interesting and involving than the latter.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
They actually take it away by sheer virtue of their inclusion, because the Dominion is not making any attempts at all at re-educating the Chua into a civilized and peaceful species (by your definition of 'Dominion peace', anyway). They are a race of murderous hamsters who see it as okay to kill each other as a means of societal and political advancement, that destroy planets for spurious reasons and who have no regards for their safety or that of others. No orderly society would accept them without trying to tone down their sociopathy. There's no indication that the Dominion is doing this. In fact, judging by how every Chua character acts in the game, the Dominion doesn't care as long as they provide them with their industrial expertise. That's the opposite of nuance, I think.
 
The only reason the Chua work conceptually into the Dominion is because they are the cartooniest villains in a collection of cartoon villains.
 
Edit because I missed a word. Oops.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
WTB WS version of Sylvari in GW2. Which were actually my favorite race in that game lol.
----
			Sylvari style new race for Dominion would be awesome.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 id be cool with that if i could have a cyber punk version of my norn mesmer...and just as tall :D
 
Nothing is going to change much for players decision to pick a faction if they can't properly pick a race and class they want to play.. I dont think carbine realizes how much these race/class restrictions are hurting the game. I can quickly make one faction look less appealing over the other because they have to go with the second best race to go with the class they want to play.. if it was open on this front players might be more invited to more tolerable of the factions since they can play what they want.
----
			
I just want to point out, that Aurin are not as over populated as some in this thread state... according to Carbine themselves... If my Google-Translate-Fu is accurate.. Youmukon is saying there are more Humans on Entity than Aurin, and about the same on Jabbit..
 
https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/131628-pourquoi-si-peu-de-gens-sur-le-serveur-pvp/?p=1364033
 
Translated relevant bit:
 
For XIV, it is to want to isolate European statistics, but it is a minority of players, if you add North America and you weighted, the result is not the same. The West, not Europe. For WildStar I was curious, I looked on Entity, and there are 15 Humans (Exiles) more than Aurin, so same result as Jabbit Wholesale (again, only characters level 50 and active) .	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 id be cool with that if i could have a cyber punk version of my norn mesmer...and just as tall :D
 
Nothing is going to change much for players decision to pick a faction if they can't properly pick a race and class they want to play.. I dont think carbine realizes how much these race/class restrictions are hurting the game. I can quickly make one faction look less appealing over the other because they have to go with the second best race to go with the class they want to play.. if it was open on this front players might be more invited to more tolerable of the factions since they can play what they want.
----
			
Carbino already stated that there are currently no plans to make changes to race/class combos. (To illustrate I believe it was TT who said it requires a lot of work to create the new animations)
Moreover, even if we had new possibilities and free faction transfers tomorrow or with F2P, I don't believe it is a solution as the damage is already done. There needs to be an incentive for new players to roll on the less populated faction, and it needs to be cheap and not require a lot of time and resources to implement.
			
				
	Edited September 16, 2015 by Plexieglas	
----
			
So I ask again, what "incentives" do you think would be not only fair to the larger faction, but enticing enough to lure both established and new players over?
 
Therein lies the crux of this entire discussion, and it's been woefully short on truly equitable suggestions.
 
If we're not getting new races, racial unlocks or even account-unlocked pets and mounts - what else is going to make it worthwhile to move?
 
I didn't bat an eye at just packing up and sides, even after over a year on Exiles, with four level 50s and tons of money, dyes, mounts and pets - but not everyone is so willing to leave all their hard-earned stuff behind.
 
And we can't just rely on new players to "make the right choice" because no matter what, the Exiles are still going to have loli-catgirls. Regardless of any evidence to the contrary, the Aurin Appeal is something that has to be taken seriously - mostly because there is no similar appeal on the Dominion side.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
So I ask again, what "incentives" do you think would be not only fair to the larger faction, but enticing enough to lure both established and new players over?
 
Therein lies the crux of this entire discussion, and it's been woefully short on truly equitable suggestions.
 
If we're not getting new races, racial unlocks or even account-unlocked pets and mounts - what else is going to make it worthwhile to move?
 
I didn't bat an eye at just packing up and sides, even after over a year on Exiles, with four level 50s and tons of money, dyes, mounts and pets - but not everyone is so willing to leave all their hard-earned stuff behind.
 
And we can't just rely on new players to "make the right choice" because no matter what, the Exiles are still going to have loli-catgirls. Regardless of any evidence to the contrary, the Aurin Appeal is something that has to be taken seriously - mostly because there is no similar appeal on the Dominion side.
----
			We are already getting an XP increase with F2P.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Carbino already stated that there are currently no plans to make changes to race/class combos. (To illustrate I believe it was TT who said it requires a lot of work to create the new animations)
Moreover, even if we had new possibilities and free faction transfers tomorrow or with F2P, I don't believe it is a solution as the damage is already done. There needs to be an incentive for new players to roll on the less populated faction, and it needs to be cheap and not require a lot of time and resources to implement.
----
			
Hi everyone. I'd like to add a perspective to this discussion: the one of the (hopeful) masses of people that will be flooding into Wildstar with the F2P release.
 
A little background on me: I played Wildstar during the early beta and, while I thought it was awesome to see a sci-fi MMO getting prime time and loved the general concept, I wasn't too excited by what I played though and found things too grindy for my taste, so I left before open beta and didn't come back. Fast forward to now and, with a random inclusion to my Humble Bundle from a while back and with the concept of F2P, I decided to register and give things a look over, both before and after the conversion.
 
While I don't represent everyone, I wanted to add the voice of someone who is generally clueless about WS lore and story except for what I've seen in promotional videos and the basic tutorials for both sides. I'm also coming at this from my tendencies to play either cutesy or strong women characters and tend to play the "good" side, so I think that puts me squarely in the camp of "default-exile-aurin". As such, I want to mention what I would like to see that would make me give the Dominion more than a passing glance. 
 
(FYI, most of this has been said in one form or another earlier in this thread, but I still wanted to put it into words directly from one of the new folks giving WS a look.)
 
First, I think that the lack of attractive options within the characters of the Dominion. I've noticed that the lack of distinctly "feminine" options are missing from most of the races in the Dominion (There are more bald-head options for one race in the Dominion than for almost all of the Exiles.) Similarly, many of the faces seem to suffer "perma-scowl". Trying to create female Drakan that looked the way I wanted reminded me of trying to create a female troll in WoW: only one face available that wasn't "evil", and then most everyone using the exact same face. While some folks have mentioned adding a new race similar to WoW's Blood Elves would be a step in the right direction (I agree on this as well), even just adding more options to the current races would make it easier for folks to create the characters they want. (I managed to run across an old design schematic for female mechari faces that included almost 20 different variations, but only 7 made it to the final game, most of which don't even have a recognizable face.)
 
And yes, adding female Chua (or at least more female hairstyles/fur colors/voices) would help.
 
Secondly, what's my motivation? Thee's a lot made in the video trailers about what the reason for the Exiles fighting is (run off by the Dominion, found a new home, protecting new home from Dominion) but, from everything I've seen, the only motivation the Dominion seems to have is "chase exiles." I'm never really explained what reason I have to care about why the Dominion is on Nexus, or what the goal is. I'm a sucker for a good story, and I don't mind playing the bad side to get it (Hello, SWTOR's Imperial Agent) but the way I see it, the opening of the game is supposed to sell me on the story the side offers, and the Dominion's story seems to be (based off the new PTR intro area) "We chased Exiles to this planet, and then we want to beat them up and take the planet because reasons! EXCITING PLANET BELOW!!" Is there some impending thing that is happening on the planet? Some new rare resource to fight over the planet for? Some super weapon to turn the tide? By the way, why are we chasing these Exile guys? All of these aren't really addressed in those first crucial levels. If they are explained later on, then that's a shame because I'm not as likely to put up with a bad story if the intro doesn't hook me from the beginning. (I think this could even be added in at creation. They added videos for classes and paths, why not factions?)
 
Thirdly, I do think that having very clear bonuses for factions with less members would be an incentive from a gameplay standpoint. While I may play an Exile, I'm much more likely to also roll a Dominion if there is an advantage due to having less people around. This can be as simple as an XP boost or faction buffs (earn more gold? better success at crafting? HP/Damage buffs bigger/lasting longer). I'm not sure how the PvP system in WS works but, if there are rewards or tokens for PvPing, give more to the side with less people. Make these things adjustable with the population imbalance so that, should aurin take over the world, killing them all on your chua becomes a highly profitable venture. Adding specific faction rewards would also be great (FFXIV has had problems with getting players to play as tanks, so they created exclusive mounts for players that played a certain number of instances as a tank.) Having these benefits listed each time you log in, or listing them at creation would make sure players are aware of the bonus they'll get.
 
Unfortunately, most of these things are not things that can be changed without some major content additions and development time, and definitely not changed prior to F2P launch. However, I put these suggestions there in the hopes that, should WS be planning for content additions/expansion packs in the future, these will be looked into to help level things out, and waiting for these expansions isn't ever too late. (When WoW launched, Horde was always gainfully (4:1 on some servers) outnumbered, but adding Blood Elves evened out the population a lot, even that late into the game).
 
Granted, this is just my opinion, but I always like the underdogs (even if the underdogs are the mighty galactic dominion) and hope things change to give me and mine an incentive to pick the red pill over the blue.
 
TL;DR: Adding more feminine character races/options, better defining the Dominion story to new players, and providing clearly-defined benefits to being in a smaller faction would help convince some players to join the Dominion instead of the Exiles.
 	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
* would have heard the awesome holocrypt more because esper freeze and cast is like asking for death and difficulty (esper has been adjusted, we are talking early game, first 3 months)
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Can confirm. My first 50 was a Chua Esper.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
TL;DR: Adding more feminine character races/options, better defining the Dominion story to new players, and providing clearly-defined benefits to being in a smaller faction would help convince some players to join the Dominion instead of the Exiles.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
My first beta character was Aurin esper. I just really wanted Mechari so I became Mechari engi after 2 betas. It was night and day, not even funny.
----
			Still think Rift's strategy works the best to solve faction imbalance: cross-faction grouping/guilds/instances/etc.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Still think Rift's strategy works the best to solve faction imbalance: cross-faction grouping/guilds/instances/etc.
----
			Add a bonus to XP, Gold, CREDD, Reputation, whatever the case may be for the lower pop side.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Still think Rift's strategy works the best to solve faction imbalance: cross-faction grouping/guilds/instances/etc.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Hi everyone. I'd like to add a perspective to this discussion: the one of the (hopeful) masses of people that will be flooding into Wildstar with the F2P release.
 
A little background on me: I played Wildstar during the early beta and, while I thought it was awesome to see a sci-fi MMO getting prime time and loved the general concept, I wasn't too excited by what I played though and found things too grindy for my taste, so I left before open beta and didn't come back. Fast forward to now and, with a random inclusion to my Humble Bundle from a while back and with the concept of F2P, I decided to register and give things a look over, both before and after the conversion.
 
While I don't represent everyone, I wanted to add the voice of someone who is generally clueless about WS lore and story except for what I've seen in promotional videos and the basic tutorials for both sides. I'm also coming at this from my tendencies to play either cutesy or strong women characters and tend to play the "good" side, so I think that puts me squarely in the camp of "default-exile-aurin". As such, I want to mention what I would like to see that would make me give the Dominion more than a passing glance. 
 
(FYI, most of this has been said in one form or another earlier in this thread, but I still wanted to put it into words directly from one of the new folks giving WS a look.)
 
First, I think that the lack of attractive options within the characters of the Dominion. I've noticed that the lack of distinctly "feminine" options are missing from most of the races in the Dominion (There are more bald-head options for one race in the Dominion than for almost all of the Exiles.) Similarly, many of the faces seem to suffer "perma-scowl". Trying to create female Drakan that looked the way I wanted reminded me of trying to create a female troll in WoW: only one face available that wasn't "evil", and then most everyone using the exact same face. While some folks have mentioned adding a new race similar to WoW's Blood Elves would be a step in the right direction (I agree on this as well), even just adding more options to the current races would make it easier for folks to create the characters they want. (I managed to run across an old design schematic for female mechari faces that included almost 20 different variations, but only 7 made it to the final game, most of which don't even have a recognizable face.)
 
And yes, adding female Chua (or at least more female hairstyles/fur colors/voices) would help.
 
Secondly, what's my motivation? Thee's a lot made in the video trailers about what the reason for the Exiles fighting is (run off by the Dominion, found a new home, protecting new home from Dominion) but, from everything I've seen, the only motivation the Dominion seems to have is "chase exiles." I'm never really explained what reason I have to care about why the Dominion is on Nexus, or what the goal is. I'm a sucker for a good story, and I don't mind playing the bad side to get it (Hello, SWTOR's Imperial Agent) but the way I see it, the opening of the game is supposed to sell me on the story the side offers, and the Dominion's story seems to be (based off the new PTR intro area) "We chased Exiles to this planet, and then we want to beat them up and take the planet because reasons! EXCITING PLANET BELOW!!" Is there some impending thing that is happening on the planet? Some new rare resource to fight over the planet for? Some super weapon to turn the tide? By the way, why are we chasing these Exile guys? All of these aren't really addressed in those first crucial levels. If they are explained later on, then that's a shame because I'm not as likely to put up with a bad story if the intro doesn't hook me from the beginning. (I think this could even be added in at creation. They added videos for classes and paths, why not factions?)
 
Thirdly, I do think that having very clear bonuses for factions with less members would be an incentive from a gameplay standpoint. While I may play an Exile, I'm much more likely to also roll a Dominion if there is an advantage due to having less people around. This can be as simple as an XP boost or faction buffs (earn more gold? better success at crafting? HP/Damage buffs bigger/lasting longer). I'm not sure how the PvP system in WS works but, if there are rewards or tokens for PvPing, give more to the side with less people. Make these things adjustable with the population imbalance so that, should aurin take over the world, killing them all on your chua becomes a highly profitable venture. Adding specific faction rewards would also be great (FFXIV has had problems with getting players to play as tanks, so they created exclusive mounts for players that played a certain number of instances as a tank.) Having these benefits listed each time you log in, or listing them at creation would make sure players are aware of the bonus they'll get.
 
Unfortunately, most of these things are not things that can be changed without some major content additions and development time, and definitely not changed prior to F2P launch. However, I put these suggestions there in the hopes that, should WS be planning for content additions/expansion packs in the future, these will be looked into to help level things out, and waiting for these expansions isn't ever too late. (When WoW launched, Horde was always gainfully (4:1 on some servers) outnumbered, but adding Blood Elves evened out the population a lot, even that late into the game).
 
Granted, this is just my opinion, but I always like the underdogs (even if the underdogs are the mighty galactic dominion) and hope things change to give me and mine an incentive to pick the red pill over the blue.
 
TL;DR: Adding more feminine character races/options, better defining the Dominion story to new players, and providing clearly-defined benefits to being in a smaller faction would help convince some players to join the Dominion instead of the Exiles.
----
			
I think there are many interesting opinions and suggestions here.
Too bad the outcome is very similar to this reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/WildStar/comments/39un03/repopulating_the_dominion_post_your_ideas_here/
 
Let's just hope someone at Carbino has put this issue on their map and intends to tackle it after F2P, untill then I'm afraid the Dominion needs to sit tight!	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Hi everyone. I'd like to add a perspective to this discussion: the one of the (hopeful) masses of people that will be flooding into Wildstar with the F2P release.
 
Thirdly, I do think that having very clear bonuses for factions with less members would be an incentive from a gameplay standpoint. While I may play an Exile, I'm much more likely to also roll a Dominion if there is an advantage due to having less people around. This can be as simple as an XP boost or faction buffs (earn more gold? better success at crafting? HP/Damage buffs bigger/lasting longer). I'm not sure how the PvP system in WS works but, if there are rewards or tokens for PvPing, give more to the side with less people. Make these things adjustable with the population imbalance so that, should aurin take over the world, killing them all on your chua becomes a highly profitable venture. Adding specific faction rewards would also be great (FFXIV has had problems with getting players to play as tanks, so they created exclusive mounts for players that played a certain number of instances as a tank.) Having these benefits listed each time you log in, or listing them at creation would make sure players are aware of the bonus they'll get.
 
 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
The part I have an issue with is the part I didn't snip. Mainly: Making the proposed buffs 'adjustable', that would be hard to do mainly because taking away incentives because they decide population is balanced would cause a table flipping riot on the forums. People would be outraged. (Take away someones damage buff? Seriously?)
 
Have you seen what the XP rate is going to be with F2P? or bonus weekends for XP?? It's close to being too fast now and during the F2P betas I had to skip huge portions of the game to remain even close to the area levels.
 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I don't think there would be table flipping over losing a 1% xp boost while levelling because the factions are balanced.
I share your concern about XP rate being too high and levelling too fast through zones, obviously numbers can be (easily?) tweaked to work around this. I still think this is the proper way to balance factions. I invite you to read my post at https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/131563-lets-talk-about-population-exiles-vs-dominions/?p=1364593for a concrete example.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 
 
XP 2%
Rested bonus ??
guild XP 8%
XP Flasks ??
Authenticator 2%
 
That's a lot of XP gain (sorry I'm at work could someone please fill in missing data??)
----
			
I remember back before The Burning Crusade was released, the Alliance outnumbered the Horde. Blizzard knew that the reason why Alliance was outnumbering the Horde was, because they had the adorable/hot/beautiful races, while the Horde got the animal (tauren) en the monster looking races (Troll/Undead/Orc) . To lure the players to go join the Horde, they gave them a beautiful race and gave the Alliance a tentacle face creature. Everyone that has played from TBC untill now, probaly knows that the Blood Elves made the Horde faction very popular, soo popular that Blood Elves is one of the most played race in the whole game.
 
I do not know how they are going to fix the faction imbalance, but its proven in most mmorpgs, that players like playing a beautiful creature that looks alot like a human. This is why Aurin is soo popular. So I have to agree with alot of the people here that maybe adding the Wildstar version of a Blood Elf might be the cure to fix this imbalance.
 
Unless they add a new race or lock character creation (never going to happen) untill both factions have a 50/50 amount of players (Aion did this when it was released.) I doubt we are going to see a fix. I reckon we should wait untill the F2P has launched and hope that majority of the new players are not Aurin lovers (not going to happen XD.)	
----
			
 
{| class="blockquote"
Ok, ok, maybe table flipping was a slight exaggeration  :P  but the truth of the matter is that people will rage quit over some pretty insignificant things and taking away something that they 'always had' would be bad.
 
XP 2%
Rested bonus ??
guild XP 8%
XP Flasks ??
Authenticator 2%
 
That's a lot of XP gain (sorry I'm at work could someone please fill in missing data??)
----
			
Once again you take away from someone. How is that fair?
 
I really do understand the issue, we've been talking about this for a long, long time. I've been here since November 2012 and there are plenty of people that have been here even longer.
 
You cannot take away from one and give to another or simply give to one and nothing to the other. Well, actually you could but it sounds totally unfair.
 
Personally, I believe the issue to be the races looks on the Dominion side, coupled with the rather in-your-face 'You must obey' that turns people off. The Exiles have much better looking races. Once you get outside Whitevale there is no real difference in the factions.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
The Exiles have much better looking races.
----
			
 
 
{| class="blockquote"
Once again you take away from someone. How is that fair?
 
I really do understand the issue, we've been talking about this for a long, long time. I've been here since November 2012 and there are plenty of people that have been here even longer.
 
You cannot take away from one and give to another or simply give to one and nothing to the other. Well, actually you could but it sounds totally unfair.
 
Personally, I believe the issue to be the races looks on the Dominion side, coupled with the rather in-your-face 'You must obey' that turns people off. The Exiles have much better looking races. Once you get outside Whitevale there is no real difference in the factions.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Where does this even come from? Such a weird claim to make. :P
----
			
They put Aurin in one basket. Then they added the elf race in that same basket. 
 
There is no way to fix this imbalance without being "unfair" to the more populous side. 
 
A new race that is much more attractive for Dominion while releasing a neutral average option for exile can be seen as not fair to exiles. 
Xp or gold bonuses, same thing. 
 
Abolishing factions partially to allow PvE cross faction queues will not solve things. Why? Because what you're lacking is guilds and friends to play, is not enough to just have more people to play with that you can't make friends with. A dead server does not get revived by having the ability to cross server queue, seen that before. Similarly unless you make guilds and guild chat cross faction, cross faction queue won't be a large enough incentive. And that part seems to make people throw up. 
 
There is no way to make everyone happy. Carbine has to man up and come to a solution that will help and live with the fact that it will probably get them grief and anger from all sides to some degree. 
Or they can have a very low faction and pvp players can suffer. Cause on a PvE server it's bad enough, but same faction pvp doesn't solve open world pvp dilemmas. We haven't had to deal with those yet cause the pvp server died hard. 
 
Either way, like a parent, someone is gonna hate you no matter what you do. Can't win in this one. And it's nobody's fault but Carbine's. Time to man up. 
 
I don't see things being amazing and fixed by f2p. I do foresee them trying to do things too late. When people are already 50 and nothing but a new race will tempt them to restart on the other side.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Also suspect that over time some Exile players will get bored of space bunnies and start moving over. That could create a snowball effect of renewed interest in the Dominion as a kind of 'unexplored' side of the game. But that might take a long time to happen, if it does.
----
			
To chime in with my relatively short opinion on this (which i thought I posted before, but seems not):
 
IMO, the main hope Dominion has is that the Exile side becomes unstable with the influx of new players, and most of them decide to come to the side that has less lag because of fewer people around.That isn't to say we're screwed if we continue to be low pop, it's actually way better for us now than it was around drop 3 (the dark days). In fact, if you're thinking about checking Dom out but fear we're a ghost town, it's not that at all— we actually have 30-40 players in the WSRP channel on a given night, which is saying a lot. But as far as 'balancing' populations, I believe it's gonna take performance issues to equalize things, not cosmetic or lore changes.
 
Also suspect that over time some Exile players will get bored of space bunnies and start moving over. That could create a snowball effect of renewed interest in the Dominion as a kind of 'unexplored' side of the game. But that might take a long time to happen, if it does.
 
 
also: Chua have WAY cuter animations than Aurin. You people are nuts. :p
			
				
	Edited September 17, 2015 by EsperXIV	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
To chime in with my relatively short opinion on this (which i thought I posted before, but seems not):
 
IMO, the main hope Dominion has is that the Exile side becomes unstable with the influx of new players, and most of them decide to come to the side that has less lag because of fewer people around.
 
That isn't to say we're screwed if we continue to be low pop, it's actually way better for us now than it was around drop 3 (the dark days). In fact, if you're thinking about checking Dom out but fear we're a ghost town, it's not that at all— we actually have 30-40 players in the WSRP channel on a given night, which is saying a lot. But as far as 'balancing' populations, I believe it's gonna take performance issues to equalize things, not cosmetic or lore changes.
 
Also suspect that over time some Exile players will get bored of space bunnies and start moving over. That could create a snowball effect of renewed interest in the Dominion as a kind of 'unexplored' side of the game. But that might take a long time to happen, if it does.
 
 
also: Chua have WAY cuter animations than Aurin. You people are nuts. :p
----
			I play both sides  :ph34r:	
----
			
Would definitely continue playing Dominion if they made some sort of Dark Aurin.
 
At this point it looks like I'll pick up Exiles when F2P hits.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I remember back before The Burning Crusade was released, the Alliance outnumbered the Horde. Blizzard knew that the reason why Alliance was outnumbering the Horde was, because they had the adorable/hot/beautiful races, while the Horde got the animal (tauren) en the monster looking races (Troll/Undead/Orc) . To lure the players to go join the Horde, they gave them a beautiful race and gave the Alliance a tentacle face creature. Everyone that has played from TBC untill now, probaly knows that the Blood Elves made the Horde faction very popular, soo popular that Blood Elves is one of the most played race in the whole game.
 
I do not know how they are going to fix the faction imbalance, but its proven in most mmorpgs, that players like playing a beautiful creature that looks alot like a human. This is why Aurin is soo popular. So I have to agree with alot of the people here that maybe adding the Wildstar version of a Blood Elf might be the cure to fix this imbalance.
 
Unless they add a new race or lock character creation (never going to happen) untill both factions have a 50/50 amount of players (Aion did this when it was released.) I doubt we are going to see a fix. I reckon we should wait untill the F2P has launched and hope that majority of the new players are not Aurin lovers (not going to happen XD.)
----
	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Also suspect that over time some Exile players will get bored of space bunnies and start moving over. That could create a snowball effect of renewed interest in the Dominion as a kind of 'unexplored' side of the game. But that might take a long time to happen, if it does.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Cross-faction guilds...pardon me while I vomit at the thought. I don't know if that was a well-timed pregnancy-induced nausea, or what, but yeah...
 
Edited to add: I wouldn't mind if they could queue into dungeons/etc with both factions, that's probably a really good idea that'd help immensely, but not the guilds...that thought just, yeah. Ew. It's the same with cross-faction housing, in my mind. I don't mind if it's a thing, but let me choose if I want Chua in my forest.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Where does this even come from? Such a weird claim to make. :P
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
The levelling stories from Whitevale on are pretty much identical.  The only incentive I can see for doing it is because there are people you want to play with on the opposing faction.
 
I already have a level 50 Dominion toon and have banished one of my other Dominion alts to Warhound to make room for another Exile.  Don't see myself switching back to Dominion.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
You may not like it, but no amount of XP or bonuses are going to convince people to switch factions. And established imbalances are incredibly hard to counter population-wise, because new people want to play where they have the most opportunities (read: the most people).
 
The most impactful and immediate solution that will also continue to work indefinitely is to remove the faction barrier from content. And guilds need to be included in that, because so much of this game's content completion, culture-wise, revolves around premades. People complete dungeons in premades. You can't queue into raids, so if you want to be able to take advantage of the benefits of cross-faction grouping, you need the structure of being able to be in the same guild.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Naunet i agree with ya 100% on this no amount of buffs can save a declining faction.. no if you want the dominion to have a good and strong following there has to be a hook that players can identify with an a larger scale. If not players will be turned off by the overtones of such a fraction. Lets face it the exiles feel more sci fi than the dominion since they seem to strongly reflect firefly mottra. The dominion need an equally strong hook to get players interested especially if this game is going to grey out what is good and evil between the fractions. No in order to find balance in this current state there needs to be the offering of a 3rd fraction and a reason why some would leave the exiles .. the dominion already has their excuse why some would stop supporting their ventures.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 .. the dominion already has their excuse why some would stop supporting their ventures.
----
			
A third faction would just make the situation even worse. A game with an already small population cannot afford to fracture its effective population even further.
 
1-2% XP gain is not going to be enough to motivate people to play on a faction they perceive to be less populated and thus less able to support their end game interests.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
A third faction would just make the situation even worse. A game with an already small population cannot afford to fracture its effective population even further.
 
1-2% XP gain is not going to be enough to motivate people to play on a faction they perceive to be less populated and thus less able to support their end game interests.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
A third faction would just make the situation even worse. A game with an already small population cannot afford to fracture its effective population even further.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 
Do we have any statistical sources to back up the claim that exiles actually outnumber dominion or is this anecdotal? My main is on Warhound, the population of which is 3 tumbleweeds and a rowsdower, so I don't even get to see exiles. 
----
			
introduce two new races and give the Dominion the cute one.
 
 
 
and get rid of the aurin.
			
				
	Edited September 17, 2015 by Mental Surge	
----
			
Maybe in some future 'expansion' there could be some changes in the factions attittudes. Like, we could discover some secret Eldan message in Nexus, pointing that the actual Dominon emperor corrupted the faction to serve his own interests and both factions try to stop him, resulting in his death and opening up some space to change the whole 'evil' thing that is associated with Dominon, making them to have just different opinions and plans, instead of just this "we own everything" rage.
I'm still trying to learn more about the whole lore of the game, but I think this kind of change would be more accepted than making a whole new faction or neutral race.	
----
			
As an Exile player, I personally feel bad for the dommies but don't pretend you are the only ones with que issues, most of the time NA exiles from lfg chat groups as well.
 
Now to the Aurin, I am a furry, don' hate. But *cupcake* I don't see how that should completely influence my choice of race. UGH, I really dislike Aurin not because of the race, but because it angers me how so many *cupcake* people play them. IMO they are to small, have boring lore, a shit ass queen. and Whatnot, but ZOMG they got dem sexy talls and boobs so I guess that means everyone must play them.\
 
 
 
 
 
 
GAAAAAAWD.
 
Clarification: I do not hate people who play Aurin, I just wish less people did.
			
				
	Edited September 18, 2015 by GorenKillChua	
----
			
When I started playing it came down to which looked better (to me) Mechari or Mordesh female.  I went with Mordesh.  After a year I tried the Dominion in the ftp beta.  Ended up liking what I saw and rollling two Draken females and a Mechari on live.
 
Carbine could give the Dominion side a "beautiful" race without having to create a new race.  I don't know if it would fit into the lore, but they could "find" an enclave of Mordesh that either avoided or were vaccinated against (or genetically resistant to) the contagion.  If I understand correctly, the Mordesh were quite beautiful before being afflicted with the contagion.  Wasn't the contagion the reason the Mordesh were kicked out of the Dominion?  Put in the original, pre-contagion Mordesh and the Dominon is convinced that group cannot get the disease.  The animations could stay exactly the same.  The Mordesh on the Exile side would stay there because there is no cure (yet) once infected with the contagion.  There are humans on both sides so why not Mordesh.
 
I have no idea what to add to the exile side.  Maybe a unisex counterpart to the Chua.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I have no idea what to add to the exile side.  Maybe a unisex counterpart to the Chua.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
introduce two new races and give the Dominion the cute one.
 
 
 
and get rid of the aurin.
----
			
I dont think giving them XP or currency bonus will convince the majority of newcomers to join the Dominion, I am new to the game and If I read this forum or found out that the Exiles outnumbered the Dominions by alot, then I would join the faction that would provide me the best chance to enjoy the game. The fact is when you have a big population you will easily be able to find: a guild, people to play around, server wont feel empty, stuff on the marketboard, a group for raiding and PvPing.
 
I can not speak for everyone else, but as a newcomer, after reading this thread, I am most likely to join the Exiles, even though the Dominions are the faction that I was planning on playing. Past experiences have taught me that low population factions are a pain in the ass, you can not do anything and you can not find anyone.
 
If they want to fix this, they need to give Dominion a new race before F2P (not going to happen) or merge the factions toghter and make it so the faction stuff only happens during PvP. Otherwise I see no solution, because people might join for 5% XP bonus, but they will not stay.	
----
			
we need something like blood elves on Dominion Side.
I remember Burning Crusader where everyone suddenly rolled Horde cause the blood elves were there.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Maybe in some future 'expansion' there could be some changes in the factions attittudes. Like, we could discover some secret Eldan message in Nexus, pointing that the actual Dominon emperor corrupted the faction to serve his own interests and both factions try to stop him, resulting in his death and opening up some space to change the whole 'evil' thing that is associated with Dominon, making them to have just different opinions and plans, instead of just this "we own everything" rage.
I'm still trying to learn more about the whole lore of the game, but I think this kind of change would be more accepted than making a whole new faction or neutral race.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
There are sources which rely on some form of evidence, but none of them are absolute in leading to a conclusion. Most often it's [who] comparisons across different locations (generally leveling zones and capital cities), screenshots of major social hubs, number of guilds, activity within guilds and difficulty of recruitment, number of player events, PVP queue times, etc. etc.
 
The evidence is there and it's pretty damn hard to ignore, IMO. I'd also point out that this isn't a case of one side being a bit larger or seemingly more active... I'll jump on Doms in the morning and see maybe 5-10 people in all of Illium. I'll go to Thayd next and see like 30-40. That doesn't correlate to a direct x3, x4, x5 kind of difference in numbers, but overall I would guess the Exiles outnumber Dominion somewhere in the 2:1 realm, maybe a bit less.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
we need something like blood elves on Dominion Side.
I remember Burning Crusader where everyone suddenly rolled Horde cause the blood elves were there.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
As an Exile player, I personally feel bad for the dommies but don't pretend you are the only ones with que issues, most of the time NA exiles from lfg chat groups as well.
 
Now to the Aurin, I am a furry, don' hate. But *cupcake* I don't see how that should completely influence my choice of race. UGH, I really dislike Aurin not because of the race, but because it angers me how so many *cupcake* people play them. IMO they are to small, have boring lore, a shit ass queen. and Whatnot, but ZOMG they got dem sexy talls and boobs so I guess that means everyone must play them.
 
 
GAAAAAAWD.
 
Clarification: I do not hate people who play Aurin, I just wish less people did.
----
			
lulz.....aurin are not what real furry want.................they want chua. they are not animal enough they are just humans with tails and ears stuck on.
 
 	
----
			
Guys, I think it is impossible to balance factions around highly subjective things such as attractiveness of Aurins or Chuas.
Even if by some miracle both factions were equally attractive and new players joined both factions equally, the gap in population as it exists today would not be closed.
What we need it as scalable solution that increases the incentive to join the faction with the lower population as the active faction's playerbase drops. (comparing to the other.
 
And before you suggest it: Making Dominion races very attractive and scaling them to be more ugly and evil as the population evens out is not realistic.
 
 
 
{| class="blockquote"
1-2% XP gain is not going to be enough to motivate people to play on a faction they perceive to be less populated and thus less able to support their end game interests.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Why the Aurin hate.. Carbine has said that they're not the most populous race anyway..
----
			
It's not Aurin hate and it's not any kind of bias. You guys keep coming back around to that, and except for those folks who are obviously just teasing or being funny, no one is "hating" on Aurin.
 
I mentioned (maybe in this thread, maybe a different one, we had a couple going there for a while), that back at just before launch (the Open Beta period, when the servers and forums were PACKED every day), the numbers were something like 62-63% of the entire player base were Aurin. I'm not making that up, and I know there are more than a couple of old timers who were around back then who will back me up. Now, that's obviously changed a bit as the year+ has worn on, but if the first launch was any indication (and there is no reason to believe that the second launch will be any different), then the chances are pretty good that something very, very similar is going to happen.
 
We've already heard from several folks in this thread who are petty much sold on the Exiles for NO REASON other than cosmetics. I promise, once the floodgates open to the legions of credit-cardless teenie-boppers and other no-money-having young players, the ranks of the Exile-Aurin are going to burst at the seams.That's not being hateful or biased. It's flat out experience, from someone who's been here and seen it happen already.
 
You say we're putting "too much emphasis" on cosmetics ... but let me ask you, what's the first thing you do when you start a new game? Make a character, right? And if you know absolutely nothing about this game except the character select screen, how do you choose what to be?By what looks good and/or appeals to your sense of aesthetics. In other words, the cosmetics.
			
				
	Edited September 18, 2015 by TexArcana	
----
			
I wouldn't choose based on xp boosts, personally. 
 
Looks. 
Class choices. 
Principles/lore/concept	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
It's not Aurin hate and it's not any kind of bias. You guys keep coming back around to that, and except for those folks who are obviously just teasing or being funny, no one is "hating" on Aurin.
 
I mentioned (maybe in this thread, maybe a different one, we had a couple going there for a while), that back at just before launch (the Open Beta period, when the servers and forums were PACKED every day), the numbers were something like 62-63% of the entire player base were Aurin. I'm not making that up, and I know there are more than a couple of old timers who were around back then who will back me up. Now, that's obviously changed a bit as the year+ has worn on, but if the first launch was any indication (and there is no reason to believe that the second launch will be any different), then the chances are pretty good that something very, very similar is going to happen.
 
We've already heard from several folks in this thread who are petty much sold on the Exiles for NO REASON other than cosmetics. I promise, once the floodgates open to the legions of credit-cardless teenie-boppers and other no-money-having young players, the ranks of the Exile-Aurin are going to burst at the seams.
 
That's not being hateful or biased. It's flat out experience, from someone who's been here and seen it happen already.
 
You say we're putting "too much emphasis" on cosmetics ... but let me ask you, what's the first thing you do when you start a new game? Make a character, right? And if you know absolutely nothing about this game except the character select screen, how do you choose what to be?
 
By what looks good and/or appeals to your sense of aesthetics. In other words, the cosmetics.
----
			
Oh, the Chua were absolutely Number Two most popular back then, and yes, I remember entire Chua PVP teams, just as you do.
 
And absolutely the thematic elements of the Factions are going to play a huge role. The "Firefly" feel of the Exiles is more than enough to lure away everyone who isn't into the loli-catgirls. Heck, that's what brought me in to begin with and kept me there for years.
 
The Dominion just flat out does not have the same combination of alluring races and themes and, at this point, pre-relaunch, there is likely nothing to be done to help things out except a massive PR push by the actual player base to encourage newbies to go Dominion.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Oh, the Chua were absolutely Number Two most popular back then, and yes, I remember entire Chua PVP teams, just as you do.
 
And absolutely the thematic elements of the Factions are going to play a huge role. The "Firefly" feel of the Exiles is more than enough to lure away everyone who isn't into the loli-catgirls. Heck, that's what brought me in to begin with and kept me there for years.
 
The Dominion just flat out does not have the same combination of alluring races and themes and, at this point, pre-relaunch, there is likely nothing to be done to help things out except a massive PR push by the actual player base to encourage newbies to go Dominion.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 
 
EDIT:Question for posterity: Which do you mean brought you in? The firefly theme or the loli-catgirls?  :P
----
			
Whenever I've started a new game in the past, I usually try to look up what trailers/lore I can find about the story/races/etc...but sometimes, I don't feel like it and I just wanna jump in and make a character. That's the point where I spend 4 agonizing hours on the Character Creation screen, trying to decide what I want to play. Most times, if there's a faction choice, I go with what my husband plays because we enjoy playing together...but he doesn't play WildStar. It's not the classes that influence me most, not even the lore (though that's a huge point)...it's how the character looks. If I'm going to "be" this person, I want to be comfortable/happy with their appearance. Not in a sexual/lolicatgirl/omghe'ssohot way (zomg boobs and tails... <_<) but in a purely aesthetic way. Is that race too tall? Too wide? Too short? Are they awesome, lore-wise but their customization options suck hard? (I love love love Mordesh...but they're too tall. I adored gnomes, but they're too tiny. Dwarves are awesome but the females look so egh. Humans are humans are humans. Trolls are wonderful in both genders but females only had one good face. Tauren are awesome in almost every way, but I won't be happy playing a cow person for very long. And on and on...) What if I find that perfect character combo but it ends up that their animations are awful and it ruins it for me? I'm pretty sure a lot of F2P-ers won't bother to look up lore/trailers/etc before making their choices. They'll probably just log in and see what class/race/appearance options they like the look of best.
 
I'm a costume/housing nut, so appearances mean a lot to me in games.
For myself and a lot of my friends who feel this same way, an exp/rep/renown/etc bonus to the "losing" faction would mean absolutely nothing. Especially with the already 2% bonus from 2-step, not to mention the coming subscriber bonus, and the flasks and settler bonuses, etc. Not to mention how easy it is to lvl in general, especially on the PTR. We'll play what we feel comfortable playing and that's that.
 
I will admit, if the Dominion had some race that didn't look so goofy to me, or if the human females at least had some better hair options (I never play Male. I'm not one myself and I just feel no connection to any male character I ever make) or maybe if the Draken did, I might get over my bias and try out the Dommie side. Would I like Chua still? Cupcake no. But I'd be willing to give that side a chance...unfortunately, I just can't seem to make one I'm happy with. That's not to say I've not seen some fugly Aurin, Humans, Mordesh, etc. before...there've been plenty of times I've seen another character and wondered how someone could be happy playing that...but that brings back personal opinion again. We've all got different tastes.
 
It's not even just that the Exiles are easier to relate to/lovable. In SWTOR I played Sith side. I did both light side and dark side, and the Republic was so...boring, even though I'm more of a "good guy" at heart. There's just something about the Dominion that I can't quite describe that pushes me away. I'm sure they're not all cartoony evil whackamoles, or sinister, or justs world dominating blowhards. In fact, that's probably not that many of them at all. Every faction has its grey side, and I've seen some Exile NPCs/Players who were quite decidedly not "good" guys. I've tried making Dommies before...but that animation on the character screen...they look so...so snooty. That instantly turns me away all over again.
 
All I can say is maybe add some better customization options or a "better" race, or something. At least some new hairstyles or faces or something.
 
Edited to add: There was a time when I absolutely loathed the Aurin purely because of the RPers who played them...you might remember. The time when all the females (who are supposed to be the leaders of the race, strong-willed, etc. and yes, I know there are always exceptions but when EVERYONE is the exception...) were all stuttering know-nothing teenagers who couldn't speak a word w-w-w-w-w-ithou-ou-out sou-n-n-ding l-l-ike -thiiiiiiis. There were also the Aurin players who fully embraced the Love-everyone-no-matter-what lifestyle, and openly cupcaked on people who dared to RP as not liking the Dominion who...yknow...ruined their home planet and killed their families, but no, we had to love them or get poo'd on because that's how the players wanted it to be.
 
I almost deleted all of my Aurin just because of them. I didn't wanna be at all associated with it.
			
				
	Edited September 18, 2015 by Kavi	
----
			
And here I was instantly attracted to the Dominion because of the snootyness :P
 
I vote for more snooty! :D
			
				
	Edited September 18, 2015 by ZuberiGF	
----
			
Got a response from TT on today's stream!
 	
----
			
Damn 12 pages....
 
I don't really trust population responses like that ^  ever since back in the day when we all had ghost servers and the response we finally got after months of silence was that "it's not as bad as people say it is." Looked around on Rowsdower NA (PvP) and saw 5 people in Illium.... (tumbleweed)
 
EDIT: This isn't me saying I don't trust the Devs, this is me saying I don't trust their tailored responses that someone higher up fed them to feed to us.
			
				
	Edited September 18, 2015 by henzilla	
----
			
While I haven't followed WildStar from the very beginning, I was around watching trailers and the like before the first launch. Based on the Exiles and Dominion trailers, I instantly knew that Exiles would be the more popular faction. This was actually one of the main reasons why I wanted to join Dominion. I think my boyfriend tried to argue that some players like intentionally playing the bad guys, but I could just tell by the trailers that Exiles would be the more numerous. Now what made me fall in love with Draken was the Warrior flick. There's a scene with a blonde Draken fighting in shorts, and I just knew I wanted to be a blonde and pink Draken. I didn't really have fun playing as Warrior though so I'm now a Stalker.
 
As for actually playing the Dominion, I get the feeling that our faction is a bit of an afterthought to serve as a antagonist to the main faction. I mean the reason we're fighting on Nexus makes sense, but the 300 or so years spent chasing the Exiles when they clearly wanted to be left alone just seemed ridiculous to me.
 
One thing that I think would really help Dominion is to have more storylines from the perspective of the Lowborn. I mean, we get Toric but that's about it. I would like to learn more about how Lowborn feel and why they wouldn't just run off and join the Exiles.	
----
			
There's really no shame in not trusting the devs when they give an answer that could mean almost anything.
 
I'm pretty sure they could give us %Exile vs. %Dommie were they inclined to actually let us see the numbers and have an informed discussion.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 
 
I'm pretty sure they could give us %Exile vs. %Dommie were they inclined to actually let us see the numbers and have an informed discussion.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
One thing that I think would really help Dominion is to have more storylines from the perspective of the Lowborn. I mean, we get Toric but that's about it. I would like to learn more about how Lowborn feel and why they wouldn't just run off and join the Exiles.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
But that would actual, statistical, numerical information ... and Lord knows, Crabino has never, ever been forthcoming with any actual, statistical, numerical information.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
If I remember correctly, Hycrest Insurrection, the first Exile Adventure, is almost exactly that (at least during one of the paths chosen) and you're helping a bunch of Dominion Farmers escape their homes/fields/soldiers
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
While I haven't followed WildStar from the very beginning, I was around watching trailers and the like before the first launch. Based on the Exiles and Dominion trailers, I instantly knew that Exiles would be the more popular faction. This was actually one of the main reasons why I wanted to join Dominion. I think my boyfriend tried to argue that some players like intentionally playing the bad guys, but I could just tell by the trailers that Exiles would be the more numerous. Now what made me fall in love with Draken was the Warrior flick. There's a scene with a blonde Draken fighting in shorts, and I just knew I wanted to be a blonde and pink Draken. I didn't really have fun playing as Warrior though so I'm now a Stalker.
 
As for actually playing the Dominion, I get the feeling that our faction is a bit of an afterthought to serve as a antagonist to the main faction. I mean the reason we're fighting on Nexus makes sense, but the 300 or so years spent chasing the Exiles when they clearly wanted to be left alone just seemed ridiculous to me.
 
One thing that I think would really help Dominion is to have more storylines from the perspective of the Lowborn. I mean, we get Toric but that's about it. I would like to learn more about how Lowborn feel and why they wouldn't just run off and join the Exiles.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Ellevar is one of the biggest reasons I tried the Dominion way back and never returned. Our faction is responsible for AWFUL things there and I had a tough time eventually plowing through it to get to the better parts, where I felt like a hero, not an impotent witness to genocide.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
EDIT: Maybe that's why I had an easier time getting through Deradune. You fight Exiles there pretty quickly, and the Mercenary Granok is doing terrible things while you hunt him down.
----
			
Too deep for me. 
I wanted to play robots with t&a. 
I find good guys boring, firefly boring and stuffy empires hilarious. 
Also sleeping in dusty tents isn't my speed.
 
Edit. Also everything is character bound. So I can't ever take any alts seriously with all the dyes and mounts and gear on Daemona. Just no. 
			
				
	Edited September 18, 2015 by DeaHamlet	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
It's been way too long since I did that quest chain buuuuuuuut... IIRC you're chasing him because he escaped while being used as bloodsport for a Luminai.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
*Gasp* Those are fighting words, Ma'am! Fighting words!
----
			
Well, to each their own, I suppose. Although this...
{| class="blockquote"
Am I gonna end up being some bodyless Mechari head on a stick now?
----
			
With the mention of the Dominion being engineered more as a foil to the Exiles, I feel more and more like the Dominion is going to see a rebellion story line, and I'm hoping it's sooner than later that it happens.
 
I've mentioned it before, but I feel pretty confident in it now: Nexus Dommies are going to realize how big screw-ups the Eldan were, and the rest of the Dominion is going to scream heresy and things'll go to shit from there. Nexus Dommies can totally still be snooty, it's kind of in their blood, but it will give them the opportunity to become good guys in their own right. Maybe the anti-heroes of the story, because honestly, anti-heroes have always been one of my favorite tropes. See: pre-Cata Sylvanas. I feel like this would fix the major problem people (like me) have with rolling Dominion.	
----
			This thread is somehow still going.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Except they have the most important fact wrong: the Eldan did not ascend to godhood. This is made very clear across the game's plot* and even on the Vigilant Declaration story, where the Mechari and the Luminai have no idea what the silence after 'Yo, we are gonna become gods. Cya' meant at first. They only concluded it meant what they thought it meant because they failed horribly at logic (or for ulterior motives that aren't specified: specifically, cementing the Luminai as the ruling class because of 'divine rule'. Why they needed to do that is anyone's guess).
 
There's also another problem and is that, even if the Eldan ascended to godhood, does that make everything they did BEFORE becoming gods divine retroactively? This is, once more, shown in the game datacube entries to not be the case at all. This is the second biggest and most glaring flaw in the Vigilant Declaration (the first one being the lack of logic). If the Eldan weren't gods before, how can the Luminai be closer to the gods than anyone else if the Eldan weren't gods at the time the Luminai were created? By all the Vigilant Church nows the Eldan could have ascended into a form of cheese.
 
A third problem arises from the question 'what if there are other gods?' Because if there's more gods out there (and there could be, as the Vigilant Declaration stablishes that a race of people can ascend to godhood somehow) then...doesn't the whole 'we must rule the galaxy because the gods told us' facade kind of crumbles down? What if there are other, bigger gods who ate the Eldan? What is those other gods gave their own mandates to their own races? Who owns the galaxy?
 
No matter how you look at the Dominion, the only way to accept them as the guys 'on the right' is to ironically fail at logic just as Jarec the Vigilant did. I'm not sure how Carbine could fix those problems without having the Dominion enter a reform period where they conclude that the Eldan weren't as peachy as they thought they were.
 
* Unless you dance around the technicality that the Drusentity is made out of 6 Eldan and that totally counts for 'the Eldan achieved godhood'.
----
			So I made a Mechari engineer and she doesn't give a danm about eldans or any other dead people, she is all about punk rock and robots and you can't tell me otherwise. And with that I fixed all my problems with the dominion. RP is the answer to EVERYTHING	
----
			
Answer by @Youmukon (French Community Manager) about this situation on the French forum :
 
{| class="blockquote"
Pour moi cette discussion arrive trop tôt quand on sait que la version gratuite arrive dans deux semaines et que la population va complètement changer. Par contre si dans le mois qui suit la sortie (le temps que les choses décantent un peu), on voit encore un très gros décalage entre les factions allant jusqu'à causer des problèmes de recrutement, alors là oui il faudra agir. Mais il ne faut pas mettre la charrue avant les bœufs  :)
 
Je compte bien suivre les chiffres toutes les semaines au moins après la sortie et je serai le premier à crier s'il y a des gros problèmes. Après je ne prends pas les décisions, donc cela ne dépendra plus de moi (tout comme pour Luminaï...).
 
Encore aujourd'hui sur WildStar, je viens de regarder les chiffres et il y a exactement une Aurin pour un Humain Exilé sur Jabbit. J'ai regardé uniquement le nombre de personnages de niveau 50 et actifs et... il y a 10 Aurins de plus au total, pas 10%, 10 personnages, autant dire rien.
 
Et le plus important n'est pas d'avoir un équilibre parfait, mais d'avoir assez de joueurs de chaque côté pour que les deux factions et/ou serveurs soient assez peuplés, c'est tout. Parce qu'avoir 3 000 joueurs d'un côté et 2 000 de l'autre c'est beaucoup mieux que d'avoir 800 joueurs de chaque côté... même si dans le premier cas c'est déséquilibré et que dans le second c'est équilibré. (J'ai pris des chiffres au pif pour illustrer).
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Answer by @Youmukon (French Community Manager) about this situation on the French forum :
 
 
 
They will wait the F2P to see if there is a problem or not about population.
 
If there is a problem, they will do something (too late ?). For them, population should change after F2P...
 
Other thing, he said that the problem is not Aurins because for example there are only 10 more Aurins than Human exiles, not 10% but only 10 characters (active players) in EU Jabbit. No number about Aurins vs Chua or Exiles vs Dominions :/
 
For the moment no merge of servers between PvP and PvE, F2P should grows up the population inside this 2 servers (well we will see...)
 
The most important is not to have a perfect balance between populations but enough players in each factions.
 
Source (in french) : https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/131628-pourquoi-si-peu-de-gens-sur-le-serveur-pvp/
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
It's been way too long since I did that quest chain buuuuuuuut... IIRC you're chasing him because he escaped while being used as bloodsport for a Luminai.
 
Then there are one or more datacubes sprinkled around discussing how the Luminai aren't entirely mentally stable.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
I already cited it... for all the 'Carbine doesn't say anything about population' complaints ... the response showing that all the "Aurin outnumber everyone!" complaints are bogus.. was completely ignored... facts will not be factored into the ongoing "Blame Carbine" discussion apparently.
 
Even when Carbine flat out says the population imbalance isn't as bad as the doomsayers claim (see someone asking TimeTravel earlier in this thead).. it's ignored as "Can't trust Carbine! They're lying about it!"
 
So, why would they continue to respond/acknowledge the perceived issue.. if when they do... they're ignored or brushed off as lying to us?
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
But, more than that, I think Youmukon is actually providing more credence to the Aurin problem, not less.  If you compare Wildstar to other MMO's statistics, Humans are typically the most played race:
 
WoW: +3.75% (US & EU average, though this isn't official data)
FFXIV: +4% (MIdlander & Highlander Hyur)
GW2: +17%
 
The only MMO I could find where another race outnumbered Humans was FFXI with Tarutaru +2%, but that's been back and forth.
 
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
 overall population is more important than balanced population.
----
			
The point would be that even with imbalance, if the population grows it will ameliorate queue problems on both sides unless that imbalance is SO severe that it's 100% Exile/0% Dominion. Which pretty clearly it isn't.
 
As for "the Aurin problem", as far as I can tell, the complaint is that a lot of people like to play them and a few other people want those people to stop doing that.
 
This does seem like a problem, but not one having much to do with Aurin.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
only if you never, ever use the group finder.
 
this weekend i made a new char on both sides. on exiles i got a protostar after 15 minutes, several times. on dominion it never once popped over 8 hours of gameplay. roles chosen: healer+dps
----
			RPers tend to prefer being the good guys, so there's that.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
RPers tend to prefer being the good guys, so there's that.
----
			Honestly if Carbine would just make the game more alt friendly with cross faction mail, account abil/ amp unlocks and acct wide rep, the faction balance would take care of itself.  As for me I think I'll be switching to Dom for the pvp.  Have a Draken slinger and Chua engie already.
			
				
	Edited September 22, 2015 by Sixgun387	
----
			
I'm new in here, already playing beta.. can't wait for full f2p lunch so I can jump in PVP server finally.
I will definitelly support dominion side :P they rocks!	
----
			Get rid of Aurin and we will be perfectly fine.	
----
			
Dominion here is not like Imperial side for swtor. you can't be a "good" dominion player.
 
removing aurin wouldn't change that.	
----
			
They just need a cute humanoid type of race, a Aurin like race. Polls and census have shown mmorpg"s players prefer to play a race that they can relate to themself, that is why the most human looking races like Elves and half animals (basicly humans with animal ear and tails) get picked alot by gamers.
 
I think Carbine was hoping on Chua being THE RACE to lure the OMG SOOO CUTE! crowd and as someone who is part of that crowd, they did lure me to the Dominion. Then I tried Exile and met the Aurin and went OMG SOOO CUTE!
 
 
Personaly, I wish we picked the factions and not the races. Just open all races to all sides (its common in a war to have traitors) and let us pick the faction based on lore.	
----
			Dunno why Aurin are so popular. I prefer Human/Cassian ladies.	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Dunno why Aurin are so popular. I prefer Human/Cassian ladies.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Dunno why Aurin are so popular.
----
			
The problem with the savage race...I love Draken females...is the limitations on class.  I want to be an Esper Draken.
 
I've decided to give Dominion another try once it goes F2P so I can avoid the tutorial.  I'll do a draken stalker.
			
				
	Edited September 22, 2015 by Alaricsevgirl	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Get rid of Aurin and we will be perfectly fine.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
If you think people threw a stink over the holocrypt and sprint changes...imagine the uproar this would cause XD
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Dunno why Aurin are so popular. I prefer Human/Cassian ladies.
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Well, yeah ... but it's for the betterment of the entire community! ;) :lol:
----
			
But what if you let people play what they want to, and they decide to play something other than what you want them to play?
 
;)	
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
But what if you let people play what they want to, and they decide to play something other than what you want them to play?
 
 ;)
----
			
{| class="blockquote"
Anime.
Cosplay.
Conventions.
Furries.
Neko-Catgirls and their fans.
Loli Fans.
 
And then there is the assorted oddball like me who made an Aurin, but role-plays her as a Lopp, since that's the closest I could get.
 
Meh. I try not to judge. As I've said, my only beef with Aurin is their existence makes any kind of faction parity impossible, since the cutesy race will always draw more people than the savage race.
----