Darth Hater

Did the "early access" pre-order incentive influence your decision to pre-order the game?

Nope, would have pre-ordered this game a year ago if given the option. The Early Access part was, for me, a given, when you look at other recent launches, e.i. Rift, the early access can greatly help reduce server load and 'origin world' load in particular for launch, which is vitally important to a smooth launch.

What is your take on "loot bags" being given to every raid member upon a successful boss kill?

In a word, 'Awesome' and should apply to flashpoints as well, a much much better way to do loot IMO.

If selected for the September Beta Weekends, will you play the class you intend to play at launch?

Tough one, voted no, but really would say undecided, I plan on using the betas (if I get in one) as a guage of sorts to determine which class to play at launch, so I'd probably play both the Jedi Knight and the Consular to see what I want to go with.

What do you see as an ideal size for raids?

16. 4 groups, great mix of people, not so big that it's overly hard to coordinate, but not so small that you don't have options for composition.

Will the voice actors revealed at SDCC 2011 have any bearing on what class you will play?

None whatsoever.

Can you attempt to tell us everything you know about the Region Blocking. Are they stopping people from playing outside the US if they imported the game, or are they only stopping sales of the game in certain countries..

I think the only thing bioware has confirmed so far is that A) the Game won't be sold in some places, do to time constraints, etc. and B) Anyone can play on any server. That doesn't directly answer if you can play from, but I'd say signs point towards yes.

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=7936206#edit7936206

"There have been other key questions, and we've tried to answer them for you. There are no plans to 'region lock' or 'IP block' players from the game. You may experience some latency issues if you're not playing in a launch region. In addition, we'll accept credit card payments for subscriptions. These seem to be the key questions for those who choose to potentially import the game, and hopefully we've answered those." - Stephen Reid

I like loot bags in SWTOR just as I liked them in WAR Online. I Would like to see 2-3 item drops off the boss IN ADDITION to the items from the bag and that would go a little something like this.....

I have a chance in a loot bag of the following:

I get bag A and it has credits and a Token.
I get bag B and it has credits and a Token and a random green.
I get bag C and it has credits and a Token and a random blue.
I get bag D and it has credits and a Epic Set Piece.(woot)

The corpse of the boss contained 2 Epic Set Pieces (from a loot table) and one Epic (Other, eg: Epic Wep Mod, Bio Mod, Inlay, Weapon etc) Epic items not associated with a set.

This gives the guild leaders the ability to direct better gear towards carrying classes such as a main tank or main healer more reliably then waiting for them to find it in their loot bag.

I think a lot of how the bags actually play out will depend on what if anything is bound how.

I personally love the loot bag idea, there's nothing worse then running a dungeon/raid multiple times and finally see the item of your dreams drop, but then get your heart crushed when you got outrolled by someone else. No one likes loot-ninjas.

It also sucked when no one could use the loot. Back before tokens I remember items being dropped for a Paladin, having no Paladins in the raid and then having to shard an item in a 25 man raid. Individual items that you can use or commendations will reward everyone for taking down the boss.

Generally I'd have to say whoever the voice actor may be it wouldn't affect my class choice. HOWEVER, should Steve Blum (aka Spike) voices the BH I will most definitely be making a BH if for nothing else than to here one of my favorites in action.

On a side note, I love the personalized loot bag concept. I always hated running raid after raid after raid after raid and being one of the last to complete a set to move on in WoW. And I was a raid addict! Can't wait to see how this will pan out.

My question: In your short playtime with PvP so far, how important has healing been? I've seen it mentioned that the battles are long and not bursty from hands-on, but how was the healing scaling compared to the DPS?

I definitely like the loot bags idea. It hopefully will take a lot of the drama out of raiding by eliminating ninja's and whining about losing a roll. While I may not be a hardcore raider, it will definitely make me more interested in actually doing raids.

It also makes it easier for the leaders in the guild to not have to keep track of a DKP system and just lead the raid. Drama is usually what took a good guild and caused it to split.

I like the loot bags idea, it just seems that overall there's more reward for taking part. You're always going to get something good, even if it isn't what you're after.


Also, SNAAAAKE!! So glad David Hayter is voicing the Jedi Knight.


Question: Would you guys like to see more sandbox elements integrated into the gameplay? Specifically PvP (player city PVP etc) in future expansions.

I voted "yes" on loot bags, because I have yet to hear a single legitimate concern expressed that isn't already a problem with the classic loot system. And honestly, most of those concerns are things that can be remedied with intelligent programming, and they're things I'm sure BioWare has at least thought about (i.e. drop rate of items, amount of badges in bag, what kind of items the badges can be used to purchase). Really, anyone fighting this is just either a.) cynical about BioWare's ability to create an MMO (understandable) or b.) stuck in antiquated MMO trope thinking (not understandable).

As far as the other questions:
- I was pre-ordering regardless, and once I saw the Darth Malgus statue and game soundtrack, I was sold on the Collector's Edition.
- If I get access to the September Beta Weekend, I would play as a Smuggler Scoundrel. This will give me the ability to get a taste of a class story I'm interested in (albeit not playing any time soon) while also getting a chance to feel out the gameplay style of my starter character, an Imperial Operative healer.
- In terms of raid sizes, I selected 20, just because I'm a sucker for round numbers. However, the only raiding I'd be doing is really only hard-mode 8 man raids. If I end up doing more than that, it means I've done something wrong and have more free time than I want (no offense to anyone else, I just have a lot more responsibilities now than when I was in college and raiding 2-3 nights a week).

If I get chosen for the Beta weekend, I doubt I'd play an Imperial Agent. It would be either a Sith Warrior (Marauder-Annihilation) or Jedi Consular (Shadow-Kinetic Combat). I'm leaning towards Sith Warrior because I want to play a Pureblood.