Lead PvP Designer and sauve and debonair fellow Gabe Amatangelo - Gamescom 2011
BioWare’s Stephen Reid and Gabe Amatangelo held a quick fan Q&A session from Germany this morning via Twitter. Below are the results – read ‘em up!
Q: (Phantys) “Are purple lightsabers limited to the Sith?”
A: (Amatangelo) No purple lightsabers are not limited to the Sith.
Q: (Att1cusPh1nch) “Will we be able to test in-game guild functions during the beta weekends?”
A: (Reid) Yes you will be able to test Guild functions, it is part of the reason we want guilds in testing.
Q: (MarkAM93) “I was wondering if the loot bags for defeated bosses are a operation only thing, or are they included for flashpoints as well?”
A: (Amatangelo) We’re considering the possibility of loot containers for Flashpoints, but no final decision yet.
Q: (internet_champs) “Is your team designing hard-mode operations with more of a challenge in mind or more towards accessibility for all?”
A: (Amatangelo) Operations in ‘hard mode’ will require proper co-ordination and team work from all group members!
Q: (Mad_JaviPH) “How long do you need to wait until repeating an Operation? One week like other multiplayer games? Thanks 
”
A: (Amatangelo) The length of time for an Op lockout will be on a case-by-case basis, but Eternity Vault is currently 1 week.
Q: (slambit) “How does BW look upon players killing quest npc’s to block pve players on pve servers?”
A: (Reid) Players cannot kill other players’ mission-giving NPCs.
Q: (joshuajamesbh) “Are Operations only limited to normal mode and hard mode or will there be more than two difficulties?”
A: (Reid) Yes, we’re in the process of working on additional difficulty modes for Operations.
Q: (Berkilak) “Could you provide detail regarding whatever PvP advancement system is in place?”
A: (Amatangelo) Quick answer – we have a Valor Rank system, players earn valor in PvP to rank up. Higher ranks unlock stuff. 
Q: (Bel_Garan) “Will we see a pre-launch character creation tool like Bioware did with Dragon Age:Origins?”
A: (Reid) A pre-launch character creator is not currently planned.
Q: (Xuijing) “The game is released in limited numbers.Is this generally limited or more per area?I.E Having 90% of US playing, 10% rest of world.”
A: (Reid) Varies by area, but we can’t talk about specific numbers. Nowhere near the ratio you’re suggesting.
Q: (MrWarlock_) “With the beta weekends in September will the European contingent be gaining access beta at the same time as those in the USA?”
A: (Reid) EU folk will be playing in September, however large scale ramp will happen in US first, then EU close after.
Q: (libchh) “Hi! Any chance you’ll change the animation of the Project ability? Any form of telekinetic mumbo would be more appealing…”
A: (Reid) Check today’s Huttball video update carefully. Like, frame by frame.
Q: (DHCatalan) “When you design Operations, what are your main inspirations behind the content. From a functional & artistic perspective?”
A: (Amatangelo) Our main inspirations are the original trilogy (with a KotoR flair!)
Q: (mantas91) “Will Operation of 16 people give more/better reward than the Operation with 8 people”
A: (Amatangelo) There will be more rewards for 16 players than 8 -pretty much double- but ‘better’ is reserved for hard modes.
And with that the team headed off to the Meet & Greet which is going on in Cologne as I write this. Have fun everyone!
TORWars Podcast #152: The Terrors of Nuturing the SWTOR Community
This is terrible, 16mans should require more coordination and give better loot. all this catering to people who do less work is rediculous.
I think normal 8s and 16s having the same loot is not a bad thing. I think BW wants the limitation to be skill based and not whether or not you have a big enough group to complete the larger op.
Play hardmodes champ
Required level of coordination should be based on difficulty, not player count. I think it’s fair to base the quality of loot on the difficulty of the Flashpoint, just as the amount of loot will be based on player count. Seems fair and intuitive. Each individual is responsible for their own actions, so from an individual’s perspective, there should be no more ‘coordination’ required for an eight-man or 16-man Flashpoint. The more difficult and rewarding challenges will come in the form of difficulty selection. Small and large groups should be able to tackle a Flashpoint as they wish within the confines of difficulty settings put before us.
16-man raids being harder (and thus deserving of more reward) assumes that the content is EXACTLY twice as hard as an 8-man. And this can be hard to balance. There are advantages to having twice as many players, even if the content scales. True you could have more bad players in the group, but you could have more good players as well.
I like the multiple difficulty levels, not just 2. And the fact that loot will be the same for both 8 and 16, just more of it. I like it so that people who choose to go with 8 don’t suffer because 16 gets better loot. Can’t wait for the game.
I think they are saying there will be 8 and 16 mans both can be normal or hard modes.
8 man normal = normal loot
8 man hard = better loot
16 man normal = normal loot x 2
16 man hard = better loot x 2
I think it’s fairly balanced. I mean, aobviously 16 player hardmodes will give the most/best rewards of all. So what’s to worry about?
On a totally different off-topic note, the recaptcha feature that’s supposed to “stop spam” on this channel is GETTING ON MY NERVES. Most of the time, i can’t even read the darn words… -_-
Good point – players should not be punished for playing within a smaller group.
Then if 8 and 16 man group sizes will have the same quality of rewards, is there a specific reason why should someone form a 16man guild? More ppl, more headaches. It is way more easy to gather up 8 decent players than the double.This policy forced 25man guilds in WoW into dying. In cataclysm we were trying to find ppl for our core team in our 25man guild but we couldnt cause noone was intersted in 25mans anymore. So we were forced to turn in 10 man and i quitted.It seems BW is shooting at 16man guilds before the game is released. Maybe i should check that GW2 thing a little more…
[...] Stephen Reid and Gabe Amatangelo straght from Germany. You can check out the full transcript at Tor Wars [...]
[...] this was soon remedied as the overexcited geeks happy and enthusiastic fans were allowed inside. Stephen Reid, Gabe Amatangelo, and other BioWare celebs were all in attendance, and there was an overabundance of talk of The [...]