Concerning Mega-Guilds and the Conquest System.

Well I'm not a game designer, they are paid for find this kind of thing.

In first place a solution can be to divide the planet conquest in "squadron" (you join a squadron on the base how many players/account you have in the guild).
Every guild that lead the squadron will gain the lead of the planet with the other ones.
You can have 3/4 squadron, for example every 20 account you change the squadron you have.

Remember that conquer a planet give only achivments and the possibility to use the mount, nothing more.

Plus the rewards at the end of the week.

I would've like planets to be sectioned off. Making it hard for a guild to spread their strength so thin against all of the other guilds. This would give more of a fighting chance to the smaller guilds IMO, and give the rewards based on top 10 and which/how many of these sections are controlled.

Last but not least, there are rewards to be gained for completing the personal and guild conquest objectives This is a weekly you can do only once per conquest per character. To receive the rewards, you must earn 35,000 points before the time limit (1 week) expires. Once you have completed this weekly, you cannot get it again until the next conquest but you can still contribute points to the guild leaderboards, you just won’t get more rewards for doing so (it is currently unknown if the points above 35k gets transferred to the next Conquest weekly but is unlikely).

1. Is this Top 10 Leader Board thingy per planet conquered or for all planets? I.e., if there are 8 planets to be conquered, is there a single list of the Top 10 Guilds, or could it be as many as 80 Guilds (assuming each Guild only conquers one planet)?

Top 10 is for every planet in the event. Example on the PTS there are three, so three top 10. But from what they have mined there will be max 3/4 planet each time, this mean you will have the planet for a long time... we don't know if you can leave a conquested planet and join the second event.

2. I take it the Top 10 is determined each month? (Grammatically, the only proper answer to this question is, "How should I know? I can't read Thoronmir's mind!" I realize I could have just edited the question to ask, "Is the Top 10 determined each month?" But I decided that is far too explicit and concise for the internet.

Nope each week at the end of the event, and this guild will conquer the planet they have landed.

3. How is the Top 10 determined? From the comments in this thread, it seems like there is a 35k-whatever target for each character, and the Guild with the most members who meet that goal wins ...? /quizzicalshrug

Farming point on several way. WZ, WB, FP, MOB, DAILY, ETC.

4. Would it mean that I'm too much of a college football fan if I admit that, upon reading the OP, my first thought was that all these prophesied "Mega-Guilds" are like the "Super-Conferences" we seem lunging towards, and all the "small Guilds" are the Division 2 (technically now called FCS) of SWTOR? Because FCS has its own championship. Maybe an equitable solution to any actual inequality we see after release is to create "tiers" of Top 10 lists based on Guild size ...?

Because the point you can score are gained in this way a big guild with lot of people doing FP, and so on have really more odds to win.

It depends on how many Guilds are actually out there and how many Mega Guilds end up forming.

Whatever the case may be, if we end up with a situation where the same Guilds end up taking the same spots on the Leader Boards week in and week out, then we'll know for sure that the system isn't balanced. I was merely pointing out the most likely thing to happen(Mega Guilds dominating) based on what I've seen happen in other MMOs.

Really?

I guess we should make sure that any Olympian who wins any event cannot participate in any other events in that Olympics or any of the next three Olympics. After all, it's not fair that the best athletes have a huge advantage over the little guy. The little guy should be able to win that gold, too, even if we have to keep banning everyone better than him until he does.

Honestly, the best action is to LET THE CONTENT LAUNCH FIRST so we can actually experience it with REAL server guilds and REAL server populations, instead of pretending we know everything already.

I confess that I haven't paid much attention to the Conquest issues. My Guild is not exactly small. Not if you look at our roster.But I can count on one hand the number of players who actually log in each week for any appreciable time. It seems almost everyone has "taken a break" or "is busy in the summer" or "am just trying this new game ... seriously, I'll be back" or "am dealing with personal stuff" the past few months. So ... it's not likely that our friendly but dwindling band of renown will conquer anything. /teardrop

Rather than waste my time researching developer posts and videos and previous threads to glean the nuances of Conquest for myself, I'd rather waste everyone else's time by asking them to spoon-feed me select cutlets of information in response to the following questions about how the system is expected to work so I can better understand the issues and debate in this thread:

1. Is this Top 10 Leader Board thingy per planet conquered or for all planets? I.e., if there are 8 planets to be conquered, is there a single list of the Top 10 Guilds, or could it be as many as 80 Guilds (assuming each Guild only conquers one planet)?

2. I take it the Top 10 is determined each month? (Grammatically, the only proper answer to this question is, "How should I know? I can't read Thoronmir's mind!" I realize I could have just edited the question to ask, "Is the Top 10 determined each month?" But I decided that is far too explicit and concise for the internet.

3. How is the Top 10 determined? From the comments in this thread, it seems like there is a 35k-whatever target for each character, and the Guild with the most members who meet that goal wins ...? /quizzicalshrug

4. Would it mean that I'm too much of a college football fan if I admit that, upon reading the OP, my first thought was that all these prophesied "Mega-Guilds" are like the "Super-Conferences" we seem lunging towards, and all the "small Guilds" are the Division 2 (technically now called FCS) of SWTOR? Because FCS has its own championship. Maybe an equitable solution to any actual inequality we see after release is to create "tiers" of Top 10 lists based on Guild size ...?

If the OP's prediction proves accurate (in this case, OP meaning "Oracle Post"), the effect would be that some players would be cutting off others from certain rewards. While such results result every time you PvP, in the OP's scenario of a Category 10 Guild-nado (you know ... like a Sharknado ... but with giant guilds), it would like the same players winning every darn time in PvP (maybe that happens too). I'll be curious to see how this aspect of the game works in actual practice.

TL;DR: READ THE DARN POST! I spent time writing it!

1. Top 10 is per planet. There is a different amount of planets in each event. However, one guild can compete only for one planet
2. Top 10 is determined for each event. Event run for 6 days (not sure if there is a time between them)
3. It is determined by simply adding all points guild earned
4. No idea about football (nor American handegg), but the Top 10 here is from all guild that commit their ships into orbit of that particular planet

Nope the guild reward is give to you just if you are in a guild and reach the 35k points.