The Rumor Mill: 8 man raid size?

There have been recent whisperings around the water cooler lately, mostly about the size of possible raids in SWToR.  There has been speculation because of recent screen shots that have been released showing a group of 8 players taking on a possible raid encounter.

This has opened up discussion within the community about if this size of a raid is acceptable or not.  Many guilds who are currently recruiting and preparing for the release ahead of time may be frustrated by this news.   Since the smaller raid size would make it difficult if they had a large player base.


This brings up many questions though.  Will there be other raids for larger groups released at some point?  Or will ToR adopt ideas used by other MMO's allowing for both small and large sized group going into the same flashpoint/raid and completing the content.


It also has people expressing their opinions on the matter on the community forums.  Many believe that having smaller groups is a good thing.  There would be less room for failure since groups would not be able to bring in undergeared players.  It may also help establish a sense of camaraderie among guild mates.


Others use some of those same points as cons for the small group size, stating this means smaller groups would need to be more focused and would not be able to have poor players brought along.  That they wished this information had been released sooner so they could change their recruitment strategy.  Many also feel that this goes against what a true MMORPG is all about, feeling that it takes the Massive out of the equation.


The fiery debate has raged on for well over 30 pages on the community forums, with Bioware not saying much in response other than:

StephenReid General Discussion -> Max raid size - 8 man?

Yes, you might very well be reading too much into one screenshot.

As you can tell from the article, you'll see more of the Eternity Vault next week during E3.

I am taking a "wait and see" mentality.  I have raided many different size raids, from 40 mans to most recently 10 mans.  While I miss the grand scale of the old 40 mans in WoW, I also do not miss the fact that 25% of the people in that raid were being carried.  However now in smaller groups while you must ensure every person is doing their job to their fullest, it's more challenging to balance a raid by bringing specific classes.  While this is a challenge in itself, after awhile it becomes more of a job at times.


While it appears the smaller raid groups have more of a challenge fight wise, it does seem to be a fair bit easier for larger raid groups to walk in and achieve success.  I do not feel they should be rewarded for that though with better quality gear, as I feel this promotes elitism.


For now the only thing we can do is to wait and see what is released next week at E3.  Until then let us know what you think about the issue?  What are you in favor of and why?


UPDATE:


Earlier Gamespot released an E3: 2011 Preview video detailing what would be shown this year.  At the end of the video it briefly mentions Raids, and shows two short clips of a raid group taking on the encounter.  I was able to take a screen of part of the raid portion, blew it up and was able to count most of the players that were shown.

As you can see I was able to pick out 14 players.  This would lead one to believe you can have different amounts of players.  Hopefully more information about group size will be released during E3.


~Oria