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.

Ah springtime, when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of… number crunching?

Gabe Amatangelo, SWTOR’s Lead PvP Designer and purveyor of mirth, stopped by the forums today mostly to quash the fun we might have otherwise had PvP’ing in the buff, but also to shed some rough insight into how Bolster may work in practice.

Those who dreamed of fighting bravely in their skivvies may want to take a few deep breaths before continuing… Continue Reading »

Georg Zoller made, what is probably, the funniest post on the official forums in weeks (or evah!). It was a response to one of the people that commented something about Stephen Reid cutting the swimming feature out of the HERO engine while Bioware modified it for SWTOR. I don’t know if the person that made this “accusation” ever again appeared on the forum, since I can’t think of a comback to this post.

Let me fill you in on a secret.

Stephen, in his function as Community Manager, prints the source code of the game engine we are using onto giant paper sheets. Daily. He then proceeds to personally use a pair of oversized, green scissors to cut out vital parts of it. We then scan the results, run them through optical character recognition, synthesize the output into wave files and feed them to the lip synching program that outputs the result using a mockup of Admiral Ackbar placed in an empty test level.

Our valiant IT department has set up a webcam pointed onto a giant 50′ monitor, focused on Admiral Ackbars lips. The image from the webcam is translated to a programmer equally skilled in COBOL and lip reading, who inputs the resulting source code directly from the screen into the source code repository, where it is stored on magnetic cards that are swiped by several dozen interns and flown via pigeon to London, UK, to deliver the latest and greatest demo to the showfloor.

This estemeed gentlemen and ladies, is how games are made.

(In other words – Stephen didn’t cut anything, and decisions on swimming were made long before he even arrived in the building.)

It was as I had foreseen,  for some unknown reason the power of the darkside has failed me.

As soon as the second game began I had to watch as my trusty sidekick Jango Fett (my son) has met his match.  On the third turn he was lining up his star craft to make a run at the GO and the prize money, unfortunately for him he rolled too big.  Back to the same Millennium Falcon hovering over Echo Base on Hoth  he has hit 3 times already!  With only 50 credits, and all of his properties mortgaged he is down for the count.

I tried to explain to him that the darkside was a fickle master, but he would have none of it.  He was convinced that there was a plot against us by the rebel scum.  4 turns later I am starting to believe him.  As I carefully work my way around the board I am starting to sense that the makings of a final blow are about to be dealt to me and my minions.

Through the giggling and the whispering, Han had somehow convinced Luke to trade him two yellow ones for one green one.  Conveniently that gave Luke possession of Endor and all of the green ones, while just around the corner Han had somehow gained access to my death star and has control of all the yellows and the Cloud City and the reds now!

As I line up my fury to make a run through the Endor region, I roll the dice and feel the power of the force from my *daughter Luke, beckon me to come to the surface in the Endor Forest to settle this once and for all.  I have finally realized that it’s a trap, and that the dark side has failed me.  To the Endor Forest to make my last stand Vader goes.

High fives all around between the girls, (Mom was secretly watching from the kitchen and had to get one as well.  It was evident at this point that there were plans against us!)  My master plot was for me and Jango to secretly team up to overthrow the Rebel scum.  How dare they have a master plan to counteract my master plan!

When Mom joined in on the high fives Darth Vader and Jango Fett caught each others eyes and at that moment, we both realized who was really in control of the plans.  Luke and Han were just pawns in *her elaborate scheme to see us fall.  This is most disturbing, I will have to contact my master and tell him of this new disturbance in the force.

As I make my escape I give one last moment to a snarky comment directed at her to let her know I am onto her and known her game, she replies with, “I got your force power right here you geek”

Oh noes,  it burns, she got me.  🙂

It played out just like always, I play Darth Vader or I don’t play.  Yeah I know sometimes I can bring the drama, but really, I play Vader.

My trusty sidekick my son, pronounced that he was going to be the bounty hunter, specifically Jango Fett, because he wanted to be aligned with me from the sith side. (I can always count on him to be at my side)

At the sound of this declaration the two girls sitting across from me made their intentions known (rebel scum, I should have known).  My oldest daughter decided upon Luke Skywalker, (she would have rather had a Anakin figure cause she thinks he is cute).  My middle eldest daughter chose to be Han Solo cause she said him and Luke were best friends.

So there we have it, a sith warrior and bounty hunter combo vrs smuggler and jedi knight, this ought to be interesting.  Based on what I think I know about SWTOR game mechanics, even though it seems balanced with some dps/dps-heal combo I am still betting heavily on the dark side at the start of this one, the force is strong with me after all.

We started the game and immediately my oldest daughter within 4 turns had all of the light blue properties.  This is not going well.  Vader and Jango were having a run of bad luck and between the docking tax, and letting the wookie win we were slowly loosing our chance at available property.

Of course on her next turn she immeditley put up 3 Millenium Falcons, rebel scum!  We proceeded for the next few turns where me and Jango began a viscious cycle of having to stay in them every time we went by, we are almost out of credits and we now own barely more than a few utilities and some random property that we cant make work between us. Things are getting dire for my command of this unit.

All the while on the other side of the universe my youngest daughter now has control of all the yellow and is starting on the reds as well!  Who knew that Han Solo could keep his dealings so discreet and fly under the radar like that?

I am not even sure if they will be able to see the master plot unfold in front of them like I had planned.

They may have thwarted me before I even got started.  What started out as a secret plot between Lord Vader and Jango, to destroy Luke Skywalker once and for all and end *her reign of terror (she has won three games in a row) has turned into a what looks like a complete wipe for the forces of the Dark side.

As we start the game for the second night I now have 300 credits and my partner has about the same.   I am not sure that the forces of the darkside will prevail because as it stands now we can barely roll the dice on the board because of all the credits stuck under the rebel side.

I am starting to think about making my way to the escape pods, I will hold on for just a little bit longer…..

Read the continuation of this story in the second part entitled “Confessions of a Star Wars Dad, Vader’s last stand at Endor“.

Thread on the official forums dedicated to Daniel Erickson MeMe we started a while back has had some new hilarious entries and I just wanted to show them to our visitors as well. In honoring this epic thread I also wanted to make another contribution and also add to the forever growing debate of Star Trek vs Star Wars. I bring you an animated gif: Mr. Spock vs Mr. Erickson. It is rather big, but I think it is worth waiting for it to load.

Here’s a couple of user created MeMes:

posted by notinvited

posteb by EtharionTurambar

posted by Droolmouth

Welcome to another Monday community watch. I will be trying to make this our regular thing so you have something to read at work to beat the Monday blues :).

Following this Friday update about the sounds and music of SWTOR, community got very excited and a lot of fansites discussed this topic. I would like to especially single out Galactic Holofeed podcast with their vast knowledge of all things Star wars and awesome voice impressions the podcast hosts do. You can enjoy Suzina’s and Kalvod’s podcast if you click here.

Mos Eisley Radio opens their podcast with the Binary Sunset (some know it as the Force) theme (even it is the Family guy version). I always get goose bumps from listening to this theme, don’t you? In any case, you can listen to the guys celebrate their one year of covering TOR by discussing game design, their worries about this being Bioware’s first MMO and the sounds and music of SWTOR along with their guest host, Jeff Cannata of “Totally Rad Show” and “Weekend Confirmed” fame. Listen to the show here.

In the meantime Ithoirans.com has Exclusive leaks from deep inside game testing. They are saying that:

Several players deep undercover in Star Wars: The Old Republic testing have confirmed several revolutionary new MMO features to Ithorians.com.

Specifically:

Another player, who would only identify himself as DarthTerriosity, said that when in game, he had the option to “fight” other beings within game world.

You can read the whole hilarious article here.

If you want to win something this week visit Darth Hater. They are celebrating their 1 year anniversary with a “Choose Your Side Giveaway”. All you have to do is post “HATE ON! GALACTIC REPUBLIC” or “HATE ON! SITH EMPIRE” in a comment in this article before 9:00 AM EST Monday, July 26, 2010. Even Bioware sent them an awesome background image as a gift for their anniversary.

Yesterday was highlighted by two things for me, the World Cup finale (gratz Spain!) and release of more leaked beta footage from SWTOR. None of which I’ll talk about here! World cup is for some other news site and leakz will get you perma-banned.

Instead, I want to tell you about a couple of articles I came across on another fan site – swtorstrategies.com. They wrote an excellent and fun article to commemorate the World Cup finale by humoring the idea of playing football (its called football not soccer) in SWTOR. As a result of the mix they created some images of Star Wars characters playing soccer. Make sure you check out the full article here.

While we’re on a topic of mixing – there is a fan made audio-visual mix posted on Youtube that combines a lot of previously released videos into one cohesive entity. You can watch the video here. News spotted @ SwtorStrategies.

TOROcast has released its 60th episode (!) named “This is NOT a Demo”, which you can listen to just below:

That’s it for now. May you have a great week.

So I am going through some tweets from a bunch of TOR related people. I come across this tweet by one of the SWTOR Community Managers. Apparently, there is a poll on the official forums asking who would win in a fight: Darth Malgus or Sean Dahlberg. For those of you that are not good connecting names to actual characters … Sean Dahlberg is the main community manager for the game and Darth Malgus is our main bad guy in the game, Sith Warrior of great power and malice and a star of both cinematic trailers released so far. Sooooooo … who wins – Sean or Malgus? Cast your vote here (if you have the official forum account, and if you don’t you should!).