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.
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?
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
Swtorcrafter is a crafter at heart, dating back to the start of the Ultima Online beta. It was there that he developed his love of massively multiplayer online crafting systems, in game economies and fan site creation. It was there in that realm that he was first introduced to what it was like to play online with other people instead of just a single player PC game.
It was a grand six years, the longest he has been in any one MMO since.
He has searched countless realms searching for that feeling again, sometimes finding satisfaction, sometimes not.
Now as he grows older he decides it is time to “go all in” one last time to try to find that perfect anvil, the crafting system of his dreams, and the community to share his thoughts and insights with.
*Enter stage right*
The Game: Star Wars The Old Republic MMO by Bioware.
It is Holiday season and if anything we expect to see less news. Instead, we get a Thursday update (and the power in charge are promising a Friday update as well!). I guess Santa is making his rounds and visiting SWTOR fans as well :). Check out the video that was released on Gamespot a few hours earlier showcasing the Republic Trooper class.
Several major gaming magazines and web sites have participated in a special event held by Bioware, where they were able to sit down and play Star Wars The Old Republic for 5+ hours and experience the game the way MMO is supposed to be experienced (not 15-60 minute gameplay sessions we heard about so far). Reviews are generally favorable and most of the reviewers finally confirm what Bioware has been emphasizing for so long – story does bring a new dimension into the gaming experience and it does make this game stick out.
Things to note from all the articles I’ve read so far is that you get to forge your own lightsaber at level 10 and are faced with a mini boss encounter at that point (like we saw in that PAX video). Some of the reviewers even managed to leave Tython and get to Coruscant. There is a flashpoint while traveling to Coruscant where you are faced with a moral dilemma to save some engineers and take a harder route in order to save the attacked ship, or flush the engineers into space but repair the ship faster. All of the flashpoints can be played with a group and the content scales with the group’s size.
Here are some quotes and links to articles I found more interesting out of the bunch:
I often find myself concerned with being “hooked” by early starting experiences after the Age of Conan debacle in which 1-20 was amazing and then the rest of the game lackluster, but Tython felt like a small sampling of an even greater experience. It easily rivals the Goblin and Worgen starting experiences found in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, and in some ways tops them thanks to the questing system.
I’m told by one Jedi trainer to keep an eye on a young couple. It seems they might be in love, an emotional bond considered dangerous amongst Light Side saber-wielders. I track them down, learn their love to be true and am faced with a decision. If I turn them in, I get the standard quest reward and Light Side points. But if I decide to keep their relationship a secret, I get the bonus of a lightsaber crystal. Since there’s no reloading the game in an MMO, these decisions are permanent, and I find I’m actually spending time thinking about how I want to treat these characters instead of blindly focusing on amassing money and experience.
It was not an easy fight, and it really proved to me that they can make the one on one battles feel heroic too. At one point I charged towards him and used my “Force Wave” ability in the hopes of pushing him back and down to the ground, but at the same time he stomped on the ground! The result was my companion, him, and I, all hurling back in opposite directions just like Obi-Wan and Anakin in their duel on Mustafar. I eventually took him out, but not before getting down to around five percent health even after using a stim pack during the fight.
