I realize that many people are probably going to be against this, but... Why not design another Galen? I mean, there are multiple Vaders, multiple Lukes... What's wrong with another Galen?

I suppose the only problem is a new way to design him, and the fact that this is probably a bad idea.

yeah there is no reason you cannot ever make new versions of peices. As long as the design team would leave time in between the newer version. To me that would a good idea with alot of other pieces. Sure i know the goal would be to make a good version of the piece that works well and is well represented, but as gamers sometimes we try to make something out to be far more powerful than it should be. Also not every version that comes out has to be the same. Case and point is Kyl Katarn: for the most part all 4 pieces are drastically different. though you maybe right that he will be a tough concept to build without over costing or breaking the game.

That would be cool. Maybe one or two new people could have access to the design thread? There could be a contest, or a tournament to earn that spot for each V-set.

+1. Maybe people don't know or realize this, but there has been at least 1 new designer on every single V-set so far, including set 7. In fact, of the 7 sets with designers so far, there have been 14 different people designing; an average of 2 new people per set! Also keep in mind that each set only has 3-4 designers, so that's a lot of new blood regularly getting involved. If we added many more new people, we would have to either increase the size of the design team (which would be a bad idea, because you quickly run into the issue of having too many people involved, and everyone knows that too many cooks spoils the stew), or have design teams of entirely new people (which would be a bad idea for, well, obvious reasons).

Yes, make that a +2. There are really (IMHO) two extremely important things when it comes to designing:

First, you absolutely MUST have a good grasp of the competitive SWM game and understand the power and impact of various strategies and pieces. In other words, you've gotta know "the meta." Without this, you'll either make pieces that are overpowered or completely irrelevant for the game. Honestly, you need more than "a deep love for the game" in order to do this job well: you also need to be a highly skilled player. If you're going in for brain surgery, would you rather have a clumsy new surgeon or a proven and skilled surgeon? Similar thing (though slightly less critical) with the work of SWM design: you've simply gotta know how to play SWM at the highest level.

Second, you have to have the time and energy to commit to it. It might sound exciting and even romantic to work on the design team, but I'll tell you from experience that it's no picnic. There's a LOT of work involved--grunt work. You will have to keep track of dozens of different designs at once, while keeping an eye on the current pieces as well as the other pieces in the new set that may influence the impact of a given piece. Plus, matters of differing personalities can arise, which can make things more stressful. And don't forget the deadlines. So if you want to be a designer then you've got to be willing to put the time in. And how do we know that you'll put the time in as a designer? You guessed it: your performance and reliability as a playtester. If you look at the list that Fingersandteeth wrote, you'll notice that all of the designers were highly involved in playtesting (plus other things) and had already proven themselves to be reliable and dedicated before they were designers.

There may be more critical factors than these two when it comes to criteria for being a V-Set designer, but IMHO these two are foundational.

crazybirdman,

Seriously. Do it. If you're involved enough, they'll find work for you - eventually to the point of being on the committee.

I can't/won't make it there. I'd love to be more involved, but as I mentioned I typically only play 4-8 games a month. Not enough to be a good playtester. Plus, playtesting isn't so fun... you get to see stats early, but often the pieces are underpowered - not fun - or broken - even less fun. That's the point of playtesting, of course. But the process of making a piece fun is not necessarily fun itself. In most cases, I'd rather play a scenario and play with established pieces. There you go - I'm less competition for you if you want to earn your way onto the design committee eventually.

Are you aware of how competitively viable huge are? That is to say not at all. At least, that's how it was before Sevrance.