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.

 

After the player has acquired the schematic and learned it he can then however set his companions on a crafting task of making what ever item the schematic taught the player as seen by this quote from an interview massively had with Daniel Erickson:

Daniel Erickson:  “So [in SWTOR], I’m the crew boss. I decide what we make. I’m the guy that knows all the recipes. I’m the guy that knows how to do everything. And then I’m putting all of these people to work as my whole crew, into one unit — your companion characters are all a unit with you.”

So your crafting skill will determine what types of items your crew can work on, and the schematics you currently have in your arsenal will determine what specific items you can make.

What types of items might we be able to find rare or elite schematics for you say?

From the article that Darthhater did on the Jedi immersion day we learned the following:

Darthhater  “The inventory slots are as follows:

Ear, Implant, two Relic slots, Waist, Wrists, Head, Chest, Legs, Feet, Main Weapon, and Secondary Weapon.”

Now factor in items like stims, possibly ammo, weapon enhancement mods, droid parts, droid enhancements, etc.  The list could be huge!

then going into details about the exclusivity of some schematics he had this to say:

Daniel Erickson:   “can’t talk too much about it, but you are going to be able to make stuff that is among the top stuff on the entire servers. And there are going to be people who know things that almost nobody else on the server knows how to do.”

When I hear statements about how we might have the opportunity to have schematics that very few people on the server know how to do, that excites me.  Not since the early days of UO have I felt truly needed as a crafter.

There was a time in that game when people would hunt my crafter main character down and beg me to make them items because word had got out that I was the best at maxing the stats on Valorite plate mail, or that my LRC suits or “lower reagent cost leather” suits were some of the best finds around in the armor game.

Those days have escaped me since and the last MMO that even came close to the fame and notoriety that I felt in those early days of UO was in Star Wars Galaxies.  My “leet” blasters were a hot item and before the dreaded NGE,  I enjoyed the fame I was garnering from them.

Alas, my joy did not last long before that dream was crushed, but that’s a topic for another blog as I have already hated on that in the past enough for one lifetime.

A question or two later they ask the question:

Massively:  “So we would get recipes that are super rare”

Daniel Erickson:  “Yes. There are elite, rare recipes.”

Then from an interview Darthhater had with Daniel Erickson he had this to say when asked:

Darthhater:  “How do you the player craft in Star Wars: The Old Republic? Are there recipes you loot or you learn from other people in the galaxy?”

Daniel Erickson:  “The beginning stuff you do when you learn a crafting skill… you get a number of recipes. There are also recipes that you can discover out in the world. There are recipes that are very rare. One of the important overall goals that we haven’t talked about Crew Skills is that there will be “go to” people. You will be able to craft items that are the top tier of things in the game. It is going to be very possible that there are only one or two people on the server who know how to craft specific things. There is a whole lot of discovery involved.

People who want to be a master at crafting — and really want to be those who are the go to people on the servers — they are going to put a ton of work into it. We’re not going to talk quite yet about how you get some of these recipes but suffice to say, they will be in demand as crafters and it will not be something you can casually do.”

All around these interviews that I have been reading I see terms like “put a ton of work into it” or “our crafting system is very deep”.  This also excites me because when it comes to absorbing a crafting system there is nothing more I like than a challenge!  I say bring it on!

I want the system to be deep, I want the system to be challenging I am tired of click and craft as seen in most games these days.  I want something so deep that I have to develop a spreadsheet for it so that I can squeeze the last bit of juice from it’s smoldering husk!

a question or two later he said:

Darthhater:  “Does your character learn recipes for multiple uses, or do you consume them each time?”

Daniel Erickson:   “The general approach is that once you learn a recipe, you know it. There may be exceptions.”

So it seems that there will be rare, “elite” recipes and possibly one-time-use, sort of mechanics as seen in other games.  Not sure if  in that last quote he was hinting at a one time use and then the schematic is consumed or possibly a one-per-day use schematic on a 24 hour cool down or something to that effect.

Or possibly it refers to what was stated somewhere else that if you choose to master another crafting skill than the one you currently have selected on your character at the moment you cannot access your schematics you had in the first skill until such a time as you re-learn it, back up to that schematics level.

All in all, I can say that thinking on the glory that awaits me in Star Wars the Old Republic MMO as a “go to guy” gives me the giggles like a little school girl.

Long have I waited to feel that kind of accomplishment in my MMO of choice as a top-tier crafter, a craft master, long indeed.

Thanks for 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