So are the NC supposed to be the bad guys?

I'm trying to understand if the NC were given really bad weapon feel in order to keep them in the role of content for the other two factions rather than an actual contending force, or if it's just really bad game design. I can only assume that the VS are considered the "heroes" and the TR are like their rivals but still considered good guys.
I'm thinking the shotgun theme is especially telling, as it's a troll weapon in most games. The NC are also rolling with pretty old tech for the most part, kind of like how you give the bad guys the old cars so that they don't look as cool as the good guys, visually differentiate them.

Does anyone know if this was their purpose for designing the factions in the way they play out?

Not sure what is Heroic about forceful Zealots. TR has super strong ties to their military and tend to try and Empire conquer so they aren't necessarily good. NC is as close to Corporatism as it gets. Nothing free about them but they are blissfully ignorant under the guise of Freedom. All painted as "this way is life". So story wise, the VS would be Catholicism when they crusades were going down. TR is basically the Roman Empire, conquer all and live by the military. NC is literally in a nutshell the United States. All inherently evil to their cause.

You are joking right? NS has probably the best guns. Yes hardest to use -- but highest skill ceiling by far!

Everyone older than 12 should know there's no good and evil...

Nice. Quote me some Nietzsche with your space **** post. gottterdammerublunnngh and all that

Whut?! NC has the best guns out there! I can literally doubly my K/D by switching to my NC alt!

Not that K/D is a particularly useful metric, or anything, but it is faster and easier than a proper statistical analysis!

Well there's no good anyway.

There is no real good or evil in PS2.

But i remember reading they originally wanted NC to be terrorists, until they changed it for obvious reasons (9/11). Ironic that they have become the "space america" faction.
And they sort of are terrorists, but they are also fighting for "freedom". They can be both good and evil depending on how you view it.

I also liked the PS1 version of VS better. Atleast there you could understand their reasoning and call them "good" if you wanted.
It also felt more badass.
PS1: Renegade scientists who split off from TR to further advance dangerous science at all costs, without having to worry about their laws.
PS2: Space-cult zealots who for some reason worship a dead alien as a god.
Somewhere along the development someone went "Lets change them from badass to religious in PS2, that will be great"

TR is also good or bad depending on how you look at things.
Back on Earth they stopped a 2 decade long world-war that may have wiped out humanity by uniting everyone.
Fun fact about TR. They are actually a democracy, electing a new president every 4 years despite common belief.
In PS2 they tried very hard making them a "brutal" millitary people, so no wonder they can be viewed as an "evil" faction.

All in all, i liked the PS1 lore better. None of the factions had anything really bad or evil about them.
And that made it harder, because you had to pick a side.
Here is something from the wiki about TR rising to power on earth after the wormhole opened:

Nothing evil there about TR. Not sure why they wanted to change it to become some sort of brutal dictatorship.

All factions have good and bad qualities.

Anyone with a reasonable mind can see the merits in all the factions ideologies and how they could help if applied well

They did seem to re-write the PS1 history prior to the PS2 launch.

In PS1, TR were a dictatorial military force, with NC and VS vying for freedom (NC via strength, VS via technology)
In PS2, the backstory goes that the TR were just trying to quell a rebellion from NC corporate interests, and VS seem a bit of a side show. Pretty much I see it that NC are a bit shadier in the PS2 version.

They did release a series of short story excerpts once upon a time, can't find the links now though. Wasn't an amazing piece of story telling, so if you've not seen it, you're not missing much.

If you read the whole lore, you'll see that the Terran Republic from that quote died long ago. In the present day:
"Meanwhile, the autocratic Terran Republic—now resembling the transparent democracy of Earth in name only—failed to rescind the curfews they had claimed would be only temporary aboard the fleet..." -wiki
i.e the TR of Auraxis is a totalitarian regime. All those things you listed about the Earth TR are, according to the lore, everything the new TR isn't.

Same goes for the NC. The NC of Auraxis are not the same as the NC of Earth. Everyone says NC are 'corporate slaves' because the Earth NC was a business conglomerate. Generations later, though, faced with the oppression of the TR, the NC name was essentially revived as a flag under which to fight for freedom, not business rights.
"The ideals of free enterprise and open markets espoused by the former executives of Earth and their hired guns and workers changed over generations into a general desire for freedom from the iron rule of the Terran Republic, which grew stronger and more possessive with each passing decade. " -wiki
Think about it; there are no known corporations on Auraxis other than the 3 or 4 weapons manufacturers. So what exactly would NC fighting for other than freedom?

And Vanu? Well, they're just crazy spandex spacepeople.

So if you ask me, it's:
TR: Bad. Clearly. Not many redeeming qualities except "Peace through subjugation."
NC: Good. Not perfect, but still clearly the 'good guys.'
VS: Crazy. Fanatical. Spandex.

NC are the poor misguided freedom loving slaves of the corporate oligarchs, who rule them.
VS are either crazed religious alien worshiping cultists or mad scientists.
TR are communistic totalitarian jack booted soldiers of a state that is millions of light years away.

Or

NC are freedom loving people who have risen up against the totalitarian state that was oppressing them and don't trust those crazy alien loving VS.
TR are the only force for law and order on a crazed alien world facing multiple insurgencies from a bunch of deranged pseudo cultists and corporate terrorists.
VS are the mad scientists (cultists) with a vision of the future that the other two empires are too stupid or cowardly to see and have through the actions of the NC actually taking up arms against the TR escalated the conflict of ideologies into actual warfare and are now merely defending themselves now, whilst trying to nudge the other two empires closer to their vision if only on the battlefield.

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. It is all about viewpoint. NC weapons are super-good btw. Just different from TR and VS weapons.

The intent i think is to provide more realistic and more balanced opinions of the factions instead of a good/evil split some games have. each faction having both a good side and a dark side gives the game a bit more depth.

The problem was though whenever they would promote PS2 you guessed it NC biased, which means NC get most of the fresh meat and a good chunk of them graduate from NC and join TR or VS.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how a superbly biased player can work him/herself to the point where there are no negative aspects of their chosen faction, and no redeemable qualities of the others.

You will do well to remember this and avoid this sad fate if you have any desire to remain objective in your views of a game's lore.

Unless they quit.

I'm of the opinion that the NC bias in all marketing material the SOE ever released combined with their clearly white-washed lore on first glance, has helped funnel the majority of all fresh players into the NC faction - the faction that now have the least kills, most deaths, least wins and highest T/K ratios in the game.

Faced with this fact, NC players either A) endure long enough to reach the few capable NC outfits and stay around long enough to hit BR 100 and then remain in the game, or B) leave for TR or VS and make a hard-switch to their new faction for any number of reasons, or finally C) get turned off PS2 completely because of the lower average performance and thus leave the game for good.

I think that, had the lore been more shades of gray at first glance and not so clearly biased (TR comes off as bad at first glance, VS comes off as weird and bad, NC comes off as respectable if misguided at worst) and the marketing more balanced (it has a serious NC slant right now and have had this for years) we might see an overall better performing NC population with less transients/quitters. This could only have been good for PS2 overall.

NC has the most diverse and effective arsenal any faction has. Problem is, the rock 'n' roll scheme and the Lego Armor 2012 attract gamers who don't know the difference between blue or red.

Go on, explain. I play all of the factions, by the way, because I don't care if I'm playing as the 'good' or 'bad' guys.
But according to the official lore, I'm right.
So either post a constructive rebuttal or stay quiet.

The first Planetside was designed before shioguns where considered cheese.

TR are the good guys, it's the human race.

The rest are insane or just plain scum.

That is all