Crafting for reals, I am serious!
Finally SWTOR is released and operating, the NDA is not a problem anymore, and I have had time to experience and digest the crafting system in SWTOR. It has been a long drawn out time of waiting for this game and to find out if I will be pleased or not based on what they have created as their crafting system and dubbed “crew skills”.
Since it is the holidays, and we are coming up on Launch Week, we will all start obsessing about ONE thing…
FOOD!
…What? You thought I was gonna say something else? What are you…gamers????
Well… even gamers need high-quality, easy-to-fix (or just tasty) morsels to fill their bellies between the slaughtering of the evil (or not so evil) in the universe
We are going to start with EASY in this installment. And, as a reminder, I would love to hear what you cook for gaming. Continue Reading »
In our last look at Crafting, we examined how Reverse Engineering adds a new layer of refinement to SWTOR’s crafting. Today, we’re going to take a look at how the current skills interface with one another. Even if you had a chance to play with an earlier revision, some changes have been introduced resulting in certain skill pairings that were not previously in place. Fret not though, for we’re here to explain how things are implemented in the current build!
One thing to bear in mind is that, while certain Crew Skills benefit each other greatly (e.g., self-sufficient Armormech crafters would likely take Scavenging to provide their own materials), there is nothing that forces you to do so. On the contrary, if one were so inclined, they could take 3 Gathering skills, or 3 Mission Skills. The only limit to the system is that you can only take one Crafting Skill. Other than that, it’s completely up to you.
Like in other games, once you hit a certain level of crafting in SWTOR, you’ll go to your nearest Crew Skill Trainer and learn a number of new recipes. In this regard, crafting in SWTOR hasn’t broken any new ground, but BioWare has an ace up their sleeve in this department. Crafting has undergone a number of iterations throughout Beta, but one aspect that has crafters excited is the ability to reverse engineer our goods. There have been changes made to this mechanic as well, to expand its role in how crafters will approach their trades.
Do we have your attention yet? Excellent. Now here comes the fun part.
Dumbing Down!
As a person who is still not in beta testing at this time I have the freedom to speak my mind and theorize on certain in game mechanics in SWTOR because legitimately I do not know for sure what some of them truly are like. I have not as yet been infiltrated and absorbed by beta testing knowledge so I am still pure in my speculations and ramblings.
Take crew skills and crafting in SWTOR for instance, they have released a lot of general information in the past from mainly one dev diary and a lot of fansite interviews and some various Q&A’s found on the internet at different sites.
There is information out there, but it is just so up in the air right now what with all the rumors and hub bub I have been hearing floating around about how they are changing so many things about the crafting system at this time.
While I understand that they must change things as a result of feedback from the testers and actual time people have spent kicking the tires and such, the things I am hearing are worrying me to no end.
Why you ask?
Well OK, you twisted my arm.
Have you just about dried up and blown away from the lack of information released on crew skills in Star Wars the Old Republic MMO?
I feel your pain and that is why I come to you today to preach the word and let you know to have faith, information is coming!
Monday the 19th TORWARS one of my favorite fansites focusing around SWTOR released an interview they had with my hero on the SWTOR developer team, Lead System Designer Damion Schubert.
In this interview Damion had some nice nuggets of information for us such as this when asked about what system he can’t wait to see players mess with,
Crafting. Yes crafting. The all elusive, god forbid, sucks to level, identical item, farm your ass off, kill a ni-hao slinging bot for a node, shoot your best friend in the face for a plot on dantooine… crafting. I will admit it. I was a crafter. Yes. the man you look at today, whom rated a whopping 4 in the wow arena system, the lord of murder, Flagg, the god of pvp carnage and utter destruction was a crafter. All jokes aside, In SWG. I loved that shit. LOVED it. Lived for it. Hell, I’ll admit it. I sold gold (credits) to websites, that resold my gold. I sold so much of it, i lived on it for 2 years….. no joke. 2200.00 a month. It was heaven. Then it all changed… wait…what the fuck am i babbling on about now…. Oh the glory days. Back to it then… Crafting.
I really want to get back to it. I want an inquisitor for leveling (my full video on ustream thingy) but for gods sake, I want to grind and level a jedi knight crafter. A “Force Architect”(@flagg20011-2099). if you will. The crystal making , lightsaber wielding mofo. The man with the plan. Or whatever.
The thing is, after reading a few 1/2 assed reviews on the crafting, then reading one post beta guy.. Shit, I cant wait. He ranted and raved about it, being a crafter from swg himself. Good god that’s tough optimism to try to break. He went on about how engaging it was, how wonderful it was to craft sex droids, how exciting it was to kill jawas and use their soul to fuel his deadly machine based one demons from….oh wait, wrong game. The point is he loved it. And I’ll be honest here. I know a lot of people who talk out of school and said the same. The crafting system is fun as hell, unique, and phenomenal.
You know how hard it is to find a game with good engaging crafting? How utterly mindbogglingly hard? Impossible is the proper term. It’s so bad it almost seems as if these days most companies throw it in as some sore-ass abused after-though of some overworked department full of burnouts. Not so here, I hope. How do you guys feel? This week is my monthly questionnaire, first (and most likely only month) to do this before Derek and Serge shut me down like cancer in a radiation lab.
Q: Are you excited about crafting? If so, give 3 reasons. If not, Post a link to a picture of a cool jawa.
Q: Have you ever thought about drawing or animating a sexy alien chick. Even after a drug fueled binge of “heavy metal” and peyote? if not, please tell us your favorite color, and a 300 word essay on what makes that color whup monkey-ass.
Q: Is time travel possible. Seriously. I want to know.
Q:Do you play “World of Tanks” and when you kill a tank do you yell ” You underestimate the power of the dark side!” IF not, explain why you like 90210 in less than 7 words.
Q: Ever get in an argument over your Halloween costume…after you turned 20?
Q: Is the only reason you like Harrison Ford at all: A: HAN SOLO / B: INDIANA JONES ?
Q: Is there a way to travel faster than light? Think, tachyon…
Q: Do you love swtor?
I eagerly await your ramblings!
/Flagg/
P.S. Notice the sarcasm and fucking lack of fucking cussing i did in the fucking article. Wo-fucking-rd to your mothers uncle.
/Flagg/
Love you all. Seriously….
/Flagg.
This is not just an opinion but a known fact, the best loot in-game should come from large group content END.
I could leave the statement like that and move on. But this is not my way, I will list pros and cons from both sides of the fence and push my hopes forward in the what I see as a better way forward for MMO’s on the whole.
What we know now, and I will stress to leave out as much WOW references as possible. for in my eye’s WOW broke the loot-tread-mill system to no end.
“Clears throat”
So what tends to happen in MMO’s atm is that the highest loot possible comes from end-game large raids.
You and your fellow gamers will run the same instance time and time again. With a small chance to drop your class specific items and you then you have a chance to roll on that very item. These are the best items you can find in-game and the only way to acquire them, is in those larger raid groups.
With the hands on time in Austin it went a long way to settle many of the nagging concerns that I have about TOR. I’ve also got to the point that I no longer threat about space combat. Sure it’s not what I was hoping for, but I do not see with the utter contempt that I once used to view it with.
Though the crafting system still has me very worried. This may be due to the fact that I’m somewhat of a traditionalist when it comes to crafting. I cut my teeth in Ulitima, then continued on in SWG and Eve.
Think what you will of these games, but I’m sure everyone will agree that these had and continue to have the best crafting you can still find out there atm.
TOR is heading from taking the player out of the crafting. You get to have a say at what you want then pass it on to your minions.
Many will see this as a great leap forward. Crafting after all is not for everyone. It takes real-time to gain your skills, and as such you forgo some of the other activities. You will have to cut back on raids and scale down on PvP when you want to be the best crafters.
This in turn sees many a player having to choose what they like to do more.
First off let me start off this little article with the props so due to SWTORCRAFTER and SERGE for the awesome interviews and hands-on reports from the fan summit. I was as happy as a Sarlacc full of Boba when I got all those articles and reports. Well done guys. Remind me to send you both a nice can of nuts, and a $50 space hooker for Festivus this year.
Today’s topic of whine: Game systems. That’s right. You read it right. I’m gonna go off on a tangent about something I have absolutely no clue about, have never heard about, and have never seen. Why you ask in a perplexed and angry tone? Simple: I have way to much time on my hands and very little to do. I also enjoy bitching about crap for no good reason.
Need moar epic SWTOR rant? Click here to read the full article
