Darth Hater

From this post: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=5597641#edit5597641

Quote from StephenReid
As Georg is not in the office right now, I'll answer on his behalf (and with his words) - the answer is no, not at launch.

As always with an MMORPG, things may change in the future, but player bounties are not planned for the launch of The Old Republic.

It's nice that he's leaving it open for possibility later, but here's actual hard confirmation of what many people suspected, and many others hoped wasn't true.

Damn shame it won't be in at launch though.

Not that surprising though since they have a bunch more important stuff to get done first.

It is a shame, I think BH marks on players are really more of an EndGame item. we can look forward to it in a patch later on down the road. Lets just get into Beta for now :)

I am sad that it won't be in at launch but I expected it.  Hopefully in the first expansion.

It might not necessarily be an expansion we get this in, but instead could be a patch. If they make it a part of active PvP, then we probably wouldn't have to wait 2-3 years for an expansion to get it.

They'll probably just hold 6/7 months before installing something like that in the game. Bounties will probably go towards end-game, and for end-game there must be 'end-gamers', so they'll put it on hold until a reasonable number of players are high-level. I suppose. I hope.

I wonder, how exactly would the mechanics of a player bounty system work? tried to do some research on it, but nothing concrete came up.

any ideas, or some info?

In SWG, in its incarnation that allowed bounties on anyone(not just Jedi), it worked like this. If someone killed you in pvp, you'd get a box onscreen asking if you'd like to put to a bounty on your killer's head(which you could decline to if you wanted), and you'd put in an amount of credits that you'll give for the bounty, between 25k and 150k credits. After that I assume the mission for that player showed up on a bounty hunter mission terminal with the reward being the amount of credits you put up. Then any BH could go pick it up(but only one person could have the mission at a time) and go hunt your mark using a combination of probe droids and seeker droids(probe droids to find the planet the target is on, seekers to find the exact location on the planet) to find the target. The target is attackable by the BH even when they're not PvP flagged, so they can't hide in by staying unflagged in cities. Some players would hide in their player houses and lock the doors(making it private so only certain people can get in) to avoid being killed, but the BH could just wait them out. Anyways, BH kills the player, gets the money, done and done.

Simple system, and non-abusive since the only way to get yourself marked for bounty is by engaging in PvP, showing that you are open to PvP. A lot of it would have to be tweaked for TOR(removal of the droids to find the target since TOR worlds are far less huge, the accounting for the killer always being the opposite faction and not any of SWG's 3 options of Rebel, Neutral/Unaffiliated, and Imperial), but the basics(pvp kill=bounty on your head) could work for TOR.

*edit*
To add a bit more info, I don't think the bounty poster gets notified when the target is killed, or at least I didn't in the few times I posted bounties, though it's possible my targets simply weren't killed. So you don't get notified if your killer is killed by a BH, but I'm not 100% on it so someone else could still back me up on that.
*edit again*
And if the BH died to the mark, his mission would be dropped for someone else to get. And the mission terminal doesn't say the mark's name, so it can't be used to abuse specific people. You only got the name of the player when you got within visual targeting range.

There's always ways of doing a player driven bounty system. Once the game is out, if someone is annoying you or something, post on the forum for your server how much you'll pay and who you want dead and ask for some proof like a screenshot or something and do the whole bounty system like that.

The limitation of course would be it would have to be a member of the opposing faction but that at least lets everyone get in on it.

I know this is a bit off, since both games have almost nothing in common, but for a minute, remind yourselves of GTA:SA Multiplayer. You could put a bounty on a player, and some others (those of a specific class - can't remember its name, but it's something like "assassin" or "hitman" or alike) would hunt that player down for a cash prize. I think that a bounty system CAN easily be created following these lines.
Of course, this can - and probably would - lead to unfair deaths, unfair hits, etc etc etc. This could be avoided by putting restrictions on how you place a bounty. These restrictions could include a huge amount of credits (depending possibly on the "bountee"'s level), minimum level required to place bounties, etc.

Bottom line, in my opinion, a bounty system would be pretty simply to create and install, but probably would create some unfairness, even with all the restrictions imposed. Nevertheless, it would be a great add to a already great game.

Please have this some time! :)

We can only hope they have it later, loved it in SWG. :)

So. I hate to point out the elephant in the room here, but wouldn't Player Bounties be a very one-sided affair since only the empire side has bounty hunters?
What would be the republic equivalent? troopers? I don't really see that happening. Smugglers? I doubt that.
To be honest, I hope player bounties doesn't make it in the game ever. Simply because it would be so one-sided.

Also, I'm gonna be a bounty hunter in the game, so I'm not biased.

ps. im assuming i got the "grammar/formatting" infraction warning for using three dots after some sentances? If so, i refer to this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis

I think this will be a great addition later on. The SWTOR designers have a lot more on their plate then adding this in the game. I am very excited to see it in game down the line.