I'm not going to make the playing with friends argument because that isn't my issue with this, nor is this a conversation I want to get deeply involved in.
Nobody was prompted to sign up or stack the teams on our side, people just individually saw the announcement and picked the team that they actually wanted to play on. I think the only person I shared it with was Lex because he doesn't frequently check the forum.
This isn't Team Fortress 2 and we aren't just playing Red vs Blue here. This is a faction based, roleplaying game where lots of people are going to favour the side they have built characters around and are more personally invested in. If people are going to be forced to play for a faction that they don't want to play for the sake of a few complaints then that's not something I want to be involved in.
We'll just make our own event where people are interested in playing both sides.
@Pepe, I appreciate your input, and you are one of the few remaining people that I would consider to be a consistent force for good in the community, and you always have an excellent attitude towards the game. But how exactly do you define what an ace is? And how do you put a precise value on an individual player? It's subjective, there are already choices Durandal made when crafting his list that some of us would question, it's a topic that you could argue about for months and never come to a conclusion.
Regardless, we still wouldn't have actually cared if the other side had been given more fighters. Some of us are used to fighting in those conditions and actually enjoy it.