Swtorcrafter Bounty Hunter!

(A topic suggested by my loyal blog reader Daelda, thanks!)

The question I want to pose to you today is:

How can a guild best support their crafters in SWTOR?

One of the things I absolutely hate to see in a guild group is a lack of optimization of equipment.  When I see guild groups in game and I mouse over their equipment and they are wearing shoddy, mismatched gear that is tiers below the optimization that I as a crafter know is available, it makes me sad.

It could be this way for many reasons, either they don’t know any better, or possibly their guild crafters are failing in gearing up the guild.  If it is the latter then possibly it stems from a lack of support from the people they need to be gearing up.

Continue Reading »

Tags: auction house, beta, bioware, classes, companions, crafting, crew skills, gameplay, group, guilds, mats, resources, star wars, swtor, video

Despite being a Fan Friday, this Friday update also brought us another Q&A with the developers section. Along with that, the developers have been very active on the forums lately and they have been answering various questions from the fans. Here’s a compilation of the most interesting Q&A from all of these sources.

Q: I would like to see an option to merchant sell all gray loot items in your inventory at once. Going a step further, if there was a way to mark items in your bag as you loot them so that when you sell them off everything that was marked is sold.

A: In TOR, you indeed have the option to command your faithful (or scornful) companion to make a trip to the nearest market to lighten your backpack and fatten your wallet by selling objects of purely monetary value.
Answered by: Georg Zöller, Principal Lead Combat Designer
Source

Q: I really hope they give us access to on-ship storage. Our personal vault should be there rather than some imaginary bank system for items that we access from everywhere in the universe.

A: Your ship’s cargo hold is, indeed, your bank.
Answered by: Damion Schubert, Lead Combat Designer
Source

Q: I hope Bioware has a Beta test just for PvP, I’m worried about balance…

A: Have no doubt, we aim to ensure every Advanced Class has at least one spec that has its place in competitive PvP. The PvP team is already diligently tuning classes based on testing results and will continue to do so as new functions come online. By functions, I mean things like enabling Smugglers in cover to be immune to ‘charge’ and ‘pull’ abilities.
Answered by: Gabe Amatangelo, Lead PvP Designer
Source

Q: Will armor be HP based? wich means you can loose your armor due to wear and tear?

A: Armor takes damage during gameplay, but still offers full benefits until such time that it is completely broken. Armor can be repaired for credits. No, we are not looking at permanently destroying items.
Answered by: Damion Schubert, Lead Combat Designer
Source

Q: In this game, we know the reasons why the Jedi hate the Sith so much. And most of us recognize that the Jedi are a pretty “good” organization. But what hasn’t been talked about a huge amount is why the Sith hate the Jedi. How do the Sith view the Jedi? Why do they think they would make better rulers? Do the Sith actually think that the Sith themselves are “evil”? Do they believe that Force has two sides, a dark side and a light?

A: Sith are evil.

The Sith philosophy is evil and encourages evil in its participants. We can get into endless philosophical discussions about whether anything is actually evil or actually good but if we are speaking from our modern, western view on the concept of evil then the Sith clearly qualify. They are encouraged to put the personal over the group, power over compassion and to judge everything’s worthiness to survive on its ability to fight for that survival. Mercy, sympathy, generosity, these are seen as weaknesses. Anger and rage are seen as strengths. These are not people most of us want to work with or have as neighbors.

That does not mean, however, that the Sith see themselves as evil.
…
In the Star Wars universe, followers of the Sith philosophy genuinely believe that these things we deem evil, are actually in the best interests of a society. They look at the disorder, corruption and infighting of the Republic and they scoff. “What those people lack,” an Imperial thinks, “is strong leadership.”
…
It’s equally important to remember that you don’t have to believe in any of this to play on the Empire’s side in The Old Republic. You can be the exception to the rule. You are merely making a choice to be someone who was born on that side of the fence. Or, in the case of the Bounty Hunter, someone who tends to work in that part of space. The light side Sith who works tirelessly to make his Empire a better place is a deeply compelling character.
Answered by: Daniel Erickson, Master of the Universe
Source
Editor Note: I highly recommend you go and read all of Daniel’s answer because, as always, he was very detailed in his explanation.

You can read the full Q&A from last Friday update by following this link

Tags: Damion Schubert, Daniel Erickson, dev, developers, Gabe Amatangelo, Georg Zöller, Q&A, questions, Rich Vogel

Past two official Friday updates concentrated on the group content in the Old Republic. Bioware decided to call its small group content Flashpoints, but if you hear people saying instances or dungeons they are talking about the same thing. Here is all the information I could gather up about this game mechanic so you, our readers, can know what to expect.

We first were introduced to flashpoint content back in 2009 at E3 and Gamescom. The next big group content was revealed last year as a multiplayer demo that was played by Bioware staff (at E3) and fansite members at Pax. At Pax 2010 we also saw a video called “Mysteries of Knights of the Old Republic” showcasing a late game flashpoint/dungeon that hints at an old enemy – Darth Malak – known as the villain in the KOTOR game. With the addition of the two Friday updates solely dedicated to the flashpoint mechanic we now have enough information on what to expect from small group content in SWTOR.

Important Flashpoint Information

• Maximum number of players that can enter is four (plus companions).
• Flashpoints are repeatable.
• Flashpoints are much more challenging than single-player missions, but they offer valuable loot and rewards.
• There might be choices associated with a flashpoint (save the captain/kill the captain). When running multiple runs of a flashpoint it is still not 100% clear whether the last choice you made counts, or the first choice you made counts. This feature is being fine tuned in the game testing.
• Based on your dialog choices and bonus objectives you perform, the flashpoint can change so that you get access to more bosses or more ways of beating the dungeon.
• Types of enemies, AI and mob abilities are connected to the story the flashpoint is trying to tell.
• You will be able to take companions into the flashpoint, which means that if your group has no healer you can have 4 healing companions to compensate.
• There will be heroic versions of Flashpoints

Flashpoints that are known to be in the game so far

• The Esseles – Republic Only, early level
• The Black Talon – Empire Only, early level
• Taral V – Republic Only, mid game, ~90 to 120mins for completion, Level 32+
• Boarding Party – Empire Only, mid game
• Directive 7 – Both, late game
• (unofficial) Darth Revan’s Complex – higher level flashpoint

Important Links

• Official Flashpoints page
• Official article on how flashpoints are built by World Designer Jesse Sky
• Taral V flashpoint video
• E3 Multiplayer demo

Flashpoint gallery

Tags: Darth Revan, Directive 7, dungeon, Esseles, flashpoint, group, instance, multiplayer, Taral V

My question to you today is:

What if the class you choose affects your crew skills ability?

In past games that I have played I have found that sometimes the class I choose to play affects the potential I have to use the crafting system to its fullest amount.  By using certain mechanics of a class system sometimes you can gain advantage over other aspiring master craftsmen looking to advance to grandmaster craftsman status.

Some examples of this to let you know what I mean would be like one of the characters I used to have in Ultima Online. 

Continue Reading »

Tags: beta, bioware, class, companions, crafting, crew skills, group, MMO, skills, space combat, star wars, star wars the old republic mmo, swtor

My question to you today,

What can we do to make crafting more fun in SWTOR?

For some people in MMO’s today crafting can sometimes be looked at as simply more than a utilitarian function, a means to help the overall leveling process.  As something you do as merely a side thought when you need some type of item in-game.  Some people would go so far as to call crafting “boring”, or something they do out of boredom.

To us that thoroughly enjoy these types of systems in MMO’s, we know them to be capable of so much more.

So what can we do to make crafting more fun in SWTOR?

Continue Reading »

Tags: beta, bioware, classes, companions, crafting, crew skills, Daniel Erickson, game, gameplay, MMO, speculation, star wars, star wars the old republic mmo, swtor

February 1. was a big date for EA shareholders because that was the day when Electronic Arts Q3 2011 Earnings Conference Call was held and EA CEO John Riccitiello and CFO Eric Brown gave reports on how the past quarter went and what can be expected in the upcoming period. Among other things The Old Republic was discussed. TOR fans were expecting to maybe hear a more precise estimate of the release date in the form of we are expecting a rise in profits in this quearter because TOR gets released that day but none of that happened. The best we got was that TOR will ship in Fiscal 2012, but calendar 2011. Translated this means April 2011. – December 2011. Tell us something we didn’t know, eh? Here is a summary of other TOR related statements:

• EA is incurring significant development costs for the Star Wars MMO
• I will say the following things though, one is we previously described to folks that half a million subscribers or so the game is substantially profitable but its not the kind of thing that we would write home about it, anything north of a million subscribers, it’s a very profitable business.
• The second thing that I would tell you is that the game is looking very good, a number of you will have seen it in a variety of our consumer shows, it’s only gotten stronger, we feel very good about the title. We’re currently testing it with a wide-scale consumer type thing but not sort of at the beta scale level-wise over the coming months.
• Western markets, you know we estimate that the leading competitor has six-ish million subscribers, paying subscribers, and that they’ve got approximately half of the market that seems to be growing in the five percent per annum based on the number of subscribers. So call it 12 million people paying for subscription based gaming in the way that we review as competition. We’ve previously indicated that sort of a million subscribers or more rings our bell, that’s very well for us economically. So it’s our view that we can be very successful without fundamentally challenging the market leader, cause we think we’ll probably hit the smaller competitors harder when we get out there. Of course we have no particular ambition to be a distant number two, our ambitions are higher than that, but we’ve throttled back a little bit relative to our financial projections
• I think what you’re pointing to is it might be getting tired after so many years. I don’t know that to be the case. I have not seen them announce that their western market numbers are coming down. But I do think that the market would be absolutely receptive to something fresh and new and differentiated. If you will, lightsabers vs. swords. I think there’s a marketplace for us here and we’re going at it aggressively

I would also like to reflect on a few things here. First is the best quote of the year “lightsabers vs. swords“. The second thing is something that I did not include in the important list above as it generally is not important, but I find it interesting in “the way industry works” sense. Here’s the quote:

… a fair amount of what you’re asking about is either subject to NDA with our partnership with Lucas …

Lucas Arts obviously has a great deal of control over what information gets released when. Keep that in mind the next time you whine about lack of information and blame it on George! I can’t remember where I read it but someone said that the best thing George Lucas could do to the Star Wars franchise is leave it to the fans and get his greedy paws off of it (opens his flame retardant umbrella and prepares for impending DOOM from fanboys).

You can actually listen to all the most important parts of this conference on the Tor Syndicate site here.

Ask a Jedi had a live blog event about the conference and you can read some of their notes here.

News spotted via Corellian Run Radio – thanks Kathy.

Tags: EA, John Riccitiello, release date, shareholders

Game business site MCV reported a few days back that “development sources” told them that Star Wars: The Old Republic will be released worldwide this September. In the comments section of this very brief and unsupported news item we see Michael@MCV (supposedly chief at MCV) repeating several times that their source is not EA Louse and that their source was credible enough for them to publish this. Here’s a quote from the comments:

We heard a date. We added context around what is looking like drawn-out, perhaps challenged, production. That’s it. You’re just reading too much into it, and being strangely defensive over the suggestion that it might be later than Spring, or delivered earlier than the end of EA’s FY2012.
September may well change, yes. But currently, that’s the target.

Just a day later Tyler Rowe of Bioware wrote on the official forums that Spring 2011 is still the target. You can read the thread this was posted in here.

Personally, I am a big fan of release when it is done philosophy of game development. If this means that the game needs more time to be completely done I am all for delay and do not find it a bit disturbing – fanboy or not. I think MMO gamers are sick and tired of rushed out releases.

I am guessing that Pax East will be the place to be at to hear next big news about SWTOR anyways. Until than this is just heresay speculation, but we had to report on it since a lot of major news outlets have also reported on it.

The question I want to pose to you today is;

What will your worth be as a crafter in Star Wars The Old Republic MMO?

I think on this subject a lot because to me it is very important.  I derive great pleasure from being able to learn all the details about a crafting system in a massively multiplayer online game that I call home away from home.

I then achieve even more pleasure when I am able to take that knowledge and produce the finest items available to me as a master of that craft, in the most efficient manner.  Provided that the game system I am in will allow the crafters to produce top-tier items.  When I do however find a game that allows this, it is a joy to be a crafter because I know the fame that awaits the diligent, the methodical.

I have been called a “min-maxer” before and that’s ok.  To achieve greatness and fame in a crafting arena one must be efficient, and creative.  One must use a crafting and in-game economy to maximum effectiveness to be considered a true master.

Continue Reading »

Tags: beta, bioware, community, companions, crafting, crew skills, Damion Schubert, Daniel Erickson, dev blog, developers, gameplay, patrick mallot, speculation, star wars, swtor

From the last blog post I did we looked at the developer blog “closer look at crew skills” by Patrick Mallot.  It was this piece of it that inspired this blog post and a lot of personal joy from me.

These are my personal opinions anyway.    🙂

“It’s worth noting that players will definitely need to be directly involved in the process when learning rare schematics”

That tells us that there will be such a thing as rare schematics, and that we as a player will have to be directly involved in the learning process.  Learning the schematic won’t be something that the player can pass on to the companion because the schematic will need to inscribe itself into the players learned items database so that the player can access the recipe later when he wants to craft that item from that certain crafting skill.

Continue Reading »

Tags: Artifice, beta, bioware, classes, companions, crafting, crew skills, Daniel Erickson, darth hater, gameplay, group, interview, massively, massively multiplayer online, star wars, star wars the old republic mmo, swtor

With the first blog that I will post about the crew skills system in SWTOR I wanted to reach back into a dev blog from the main site and show you why it was that I decided I was going to partake in this crafting system they are creating.

from the dev blog entitled  ” closer look at crew skills” written by Patrick Malott

You can find what I am referring to there.   I wanted to take just the first part because to me it says enough to let me know I like where this is heading…

Continue Reading »

Tags: armormech, armstech, Artifice, beta, biochemist, bioware, companions, crafting, crew skills, dev blog, Diplomacy, gameplay, mission skills, schematics, star wars, star wars the old republic, star wars the old republic mmo, swtor, treasure hunting