Star Wars: The Old Republic PvP Preview and Interviews

To complement their hands-on PvP impressions, the guys at Darth Hater have posted two separate interviews with BioWare Austin's lead PvP designer Gabe Amatangelo. A snip from the first interview:
Can you describe the different types of PvP rewards besides XP and some of the innovations you are using in the reward system?

We have a Valor Rank system which players throughout all PvP activities will earn Valor and they will go up in Valor Rank as they hit different Valor thresholds. The Valor ranks are going to award titles as well as other PvP privileges. For example, when you are in a Warzone, whoever has the highest Valor rank in the pre-match is going to be the leader of the Warzone group. So you'll be able to mark targets and that kind of thing. We're going to allow for prestigious sort of privileges for high Valor ranks.

Additionally, you're going to earn Valor Tokens which you can cash in for PvP armor, PvP consumables, and other types of PvP gear like trinkets and things of that nature. But the Valor Rank isn't going to restrict (these items) except for a couple pieces. Generally speaking, it isn't going to restrict what PvP gear you can put on. If you can afford to buy it with Valor tokens, then you can put it on.

And an excpert from the second Q&A:
TORWars: Few months after launch, you're going to have some guys who are in the PvP zones who are really well established and in other MMO PvP, the noobs get out there and they just get buttered, they don't' stand a chance. Do you have any mechanics in place to maybe help them along or keep them from just being fodder?

Gabe Amatangelo: So the mechanic, the bolster will come in at 80%. Those people typical also have, as you say in other MMOs, better gear so they are one or two shotting people, so that's one element. The next element is that the matchmaking system tries to put premades against premades cause that's another element that I think with people who know their solid game plan in there, is usually coordinated and communicating and it's a premade. So we try to match those against each other, but of course as time goes on then it will alleviate some of those things and it'll match half premade against half premade and half solo's, those kind of things. So I think those two mechanics are going to go a long way with that. Then the badges will be carroting people to do the right behaviors. So I think as a whole the community will play better as a whole because they're going to be rewarded for playing better, as opposed to kill a thousand people, I'll just keep killing a thousand people and ignore all the objectives and we lose, avoiding that type of behavior.