It would be absolutely stupid to put NM on PTS (or live for that matter) during a major US holiday week when most people are on vacation.

Didn't say the loot was mediocre; I said it was mid tier and non-essential. Nightmare will be the highest tier, and you can get the 4 piece set bonus from EC loot. Boots aren't mandatory, therefore the open world boss is optional. And yes, as new tiers of loot are released, the importance of the prior tier diminishes. I used the term loot piñata to denote something that was available anytime, once per week, and without any involvement of open world PVP. No one is talking about the difficulty of the encounter. If you want an easier time of it, roll on a PVE server and coordinate with another guild. People can still same faction grief you, which is really the only major issue because there isn't a PVP solution and the developers should address it via addition of mechanic or heavier CS involvement. You're complaining about a two hour lockout timer that can easily be worked around: get there earlier, wait two hours, or coordinate with other guilds in your faction. Guild coordination promotes good community.

No fight in this game requires 3 tanks.

World bosses are meant to be contested. They need to have something to make them worth the effort of larger guilds and faction coordination. These kinds of things promote community development and get people off the fleets into the open world. And it certainly isn't mandatory -- the loot is mid tier and not essential. Otherwise it would be another loot piñata in an instanced area.

This x100. One idea that might dissuade same faction grief: if you are the same faction but aren't in the same ops group as the person who spawns it, you get 1 shot instantly if you taunt/hit NP even with the stim on. The other thing is that the area NP is in doesn't have natural choke points designed around it, and the ridge behind the item you click to spawn him needs to be higher (or move the spawn item further away / extend the leash area a bit). Otherwise, everything else including itemization (you can get four piece bonus from EC alone without the boots) and the generous respawn timer is fine. I think people forget that in other games, respawn timers on world bosses were multiple days. Two hours is very casual friendly.

I wouldn't say that at all. The impression I got was that he understood how we're all feeling, what guilds are dealing with, and they are really trying to avoid putting broken stuff live. It needs to be solid. From what I understood, it's not just an added mechanic and more health for Nightmare, but they might change their minds on that too. I personally don't want to see a return of early Eternity Vault, but at the same time, I want to have good competitive 16 man Nightmare community so I'm on the fence about the decision to put it for public testing. At this particular point with everyone basically stating attrition is taking its toll, there is no way to have that until after server transfers are in place. It would make zero sense to put Nightmare out there without server transfers because even with few exceptions, the majority is going through the same thing. Maybe it will give a chance for guilds to merge with one another across servers and a bit of practice before it hits. I am really curious as to how it will shake out. Just my $0.02. ETA: Yeah, he confirms it again (it was part of the presentation we saw) that they are going back and redoing Nightmare for Tier 1. His stated reason behind it was that simply wasn't hard enough. I expect this will also provide an upgraded loot table, and going back to the server transfer thing, it will give a bit of familiarity to people who may have unsubbed and came back again, but not appear super stale for those people farming the thing since December. The whole approach to Nightmare is being changed. You should be able to look at someone and say "that guy does Nightmare." That was the whole itemization fail for Tier 1 -- there was little point to doing Nightmare except for the bragging rights (which you couldn't verify because the same loot dropped in Hard, just less of it). The mount should've been it, but the content was way too easy. Ops need carrots on sticks. He probably used the Warzone example to hit on that topic because he needed a specific example of bugs affecting timing that people could relate to. Or he just wanted to use that example and I'm reading too much into it. All I know is that we deliberately avoided asking questions about rated/cross server PVP because we just did an interview on that not too long ago, and anything different or changed, they'll just put a dev blog on it anyway. I think he got a lot of flack when they pushed back rated due to the bugs they experienced with it, and I'm sure he isn't going to promise a date for Nightmare on test or on live in case they find something really game breaking with it like loot tables all screwed up or something (just a hypothetical to illustrate the reason why he would use that example).

Here you go.

Here is a small preview of Darth Hater's interview with Daniel Erickson: On that note, are you going to be putting Nightmare Mode on the public test server? Daniel Erickson: Yeah, we have to. The full interview will be up on Darth Hater relatively soon with a fairly lengthy explanation and speaking directly to this very issue.

All nightmare mode content is getting revamped. A ton more answers for everyone but need to get on a plane home.

You'll notice how the two mobs path before the pull, and it should be fairly obvious where to have your two tanks stand 30m apart without moving. 45m is too much.

Keep your tanks stationary. There are very few mechanics in the fight that require you to move. The exception is melee moving out of AOE/rocks, and of course, the red circle phase. Your tanks should never have to move if positioned correctly. I see so many guilds unnecessarily running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

This is not a bug. The solution is not to get a second DD. It is completely avoidable.

Don't get a second DD. This works perfectly fine as long as you execute properly like calling out DDs. There isn't a single fight that requires three tanks. Everything else you posted doesn't require a tactic change, but slight positioning, organization, and player skill adjustments. The fight isn't overtuned, and having a good comp makes it easier but isn't required. Plus it gets infinitely easier as your guild gears up. The fight is fully doable with mostly Rakata geared players. Don't call a wipe for enrage. If you do it correctly, then there is a perfectly viable tactic to win even through an enrage. Look around at the kill videos the top ranked guilds posted.

8 man hard is nowhere near the difficulty of 16 man hard mode. Nada. No way. All the math and other reasons explained: 8 man is in Siberia and 16 man is in Rhode Island. Although the fight is immensely fun and challenging right now, I fully expect them to nerf the tank fight once Nightmare is out because the gear simply does not scale to the demands of that encounter in its current form.

Please do not post the video until we see about 10 more reports of 16 man hard mode kills. Ignore the trolls & keep the raiding community a good competitive one.

The problem is that we don't have an API to verify kills with -- all this stuff is volunteered information that we then have to confirm for WFs (which we don't mind doing, but it does take time and some level of trust from guilds submitting private vids to us). At the same time, we do want to help people form their server raiding communities, so even though there is the whole WF debacle, any guild should be able to report their kills to a central spot. We need a volunteer or two from a server to maintain that aspect. Actually, if anyone is seriously interested in helping sort this out and maintain it, please apply to do it on DH.

You can question whatever you want. I am not in Irae AoD and cannot speak for them. Darth Hater will post their nightmare kill videos as soon as another guild reports their kills to Darth Hater. We're honoring their request because we agree with it -- it is good for the raiding community to figure things out on their own.

Creating a new chat pane largely fixed this for me, but still can't get general or trade back. This may be a feature and not a bug, on second thought...

A few of us did 36 hour sessions. It isn't the most enjoyable way to level in this game by a long shot. Still has nothing to do with the fact that many of the raid mechanics are very familiar, which is appropriate for any entry level raid. Learning the fights on normal should take a guild a four hour night or two.

First, we verified all of Irae AoD's nightmare kills & they were legit. If you don't take the five mins max to report them to us, nothing we can do, obviously. Second, I will say from my own experience that the first time you encounter something new, you might think it is bugged. In reality, it isn't, and you should exhaust all possibilities. Legitimate bugs are the unlootable chests, stuck in combat, etc.