Blasters, Beggars & Credits: The Alt Stable, or Mules Incorporated – A Subsidiary Of Momus Corporation

Some players do it for glory. Some do it for infamy. Some like to accumulate the most points, or explore the far reaches of the worlds they inhabit. This, however, is not a column for those people. This is a column for those people who, quietly or not, enjoy making money so that their digital avatar can sleep on large piles of cash.

The concept of the mule is one older than MMOs – it’s a dummy that’s carrying your valuables, usually not aware of its purpose (whether running illicit material through customs or holding on to those nice crafting mats). Frankly speaking, they are a valuable addition to your repertoire, as well as a source of fun. Who doesn’t like a bank alt in a tuxedo and pimp hat, for instance?

However (and this point might be controversial for some with limited time) I would make the case that your mules can do more. While a low-level bank character is nice (and, as an aside, everything leads me to believe your bank toon will be level 8 or so at best), even better is one who is a high level crafter. The hardest part, of course, is the time commitment – it’s no small matter to level characters. If you enjoy the process, so much the better – but, all-in-all, you will be a happier auctioneer if you have multiple areas of crafting to pull from.

Look, if you aren't buying, I'll just go get my Bio-chemist and make a truckload of dough there. No, really - talk to the hand.

I don’t think I need to delve into diversification and why that’s a good thing – but I’ll talk about why sticking with one profession is a bad thing. According to our latest BM&C, a very high amount of people are looking to do artifice. That doesn’t necessarily make it a bad decision to go with the profession, but it does make it difficult to make money from it, as the competition and supply will likely be high (though the demand might be as well).

However, if you have an alt with Synthweaving, or Biochem, you stand to make a larger sum of money from that, simply because those 2 crew skills will have high demand (Synthweaving is the Force-user armor and Biochem will be making the potion/flask equivalents) and lower competition. Of course, that’s all the more reason to do it on your main; but if you plan on having alts, then the amount of crew skills you have access to increases, as does your potential profit.

For me, personally, I plan on linking crew skills to my alts that make sense – and that poll changed my opinion. Here’s my plan currently:

Jedi Shadow – Synthweaving, Archaeology, Diplomacy

Jedi Sage – Biochem, Bioanalysis, Underworld

Jedi Guardian – Artifice, Archaeology, Investigation

Gunslinger – Cybertech, Slicing, Treasure Hunting

Vanguard – Armormech, Scavenging, Slicing

Commando – Armstech, Slicing, Treasure Hunting

That covers everything, with some overlap – Slicing is supposedly the way to get rare schematics (aside from reverse engineering), so it’ll be a powerful addition to any repertoire. I may not take it on that many characters, but returning rare schematics from gathering is a nice return regardless. I do need some more info to fully flesh out everything (such as, are slicing returns of schematics limited to BoP / related to the crew skills of the character doing the mission), but this list is probably more or less complete. My view is a take-no-prisoners approach to crafting – have everything ready to go. You can, of course, drop the mission skills in favor of gathering, but I don’t think I want to have a simple gather-only character. That may also change.

“But Momus,” you say, “you work all the time! And all these other games are coming out, and I…I…don’t have the time!”

This is an eventual plan. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to, by the first content patch, have 2 characters at max level – that’s probably 3 – 5 months post-release. Thinking back to my WoW days, I used to either afk or farm for 75% of my playtime in vanilla – I could easily have had 2 or 3 level 60s by BC release. That I didn’t was a choice to play only one. While I do plan on being something like a hardcore raider, don’t mistake that with a conflict. The goal, of course, is to put up a level a day – if you do that, level caps are 50 days away. If you do 2 levels/day (not a hard goal to hit in WoW, even before all the XP buffs), that’s 25 days, which is less than any month, including February. If I can keep that clip up, that means I’ll have six max level toons in six months.

I couldn't afford a helmet, the Armstech market crashed - so I got these sweet tatoos instead.

The fun part is that you probably don’t have to be at max level to max the crew skills out. They might have schematics be limited, but attaining maximum level of the crew skill itself shouldn’t be too hard. I imagine it will be somewhere around 40 or 45 where you can hit. From there, you can decide if it’s worth it to grab those few levels or not.

Beggar’s Tip: Why on earth would anyone spend their time doing this? Well, it lends itself to making money well off the market. When you can literally ramp your production and resources in any direction you want, it means you will make money. Selling on an MMO auction house is about casting a net – you cast a small net, you’ll catch few, if any, fish. Cast a really large net, you’ll catch fish, sharks, dolphins, a few tires – you get the picture. The more you can make, the more you can sell.

It also more or less makes you immune to market upheaval. Say, for instance, that the blaster market dries up. If you have one character with Armstech, then you’re hosed – you can’t make money if no one is buying. However, if you have an alt with biochem, and that market is heating up, then all you do is shift resources (remember, this includes your time – that’s a resource like any other) to biochem and make money from that. Having all crew skills covered means having all the bases covered. A real corporation usually can’t do that – but we can. Momus Corp – my way to a better future (for me all of you).

Also, there’s the psychological aspect of having all those characters – you can literally play what you feel like. So my Shadow will be my main raiding character – but if, on Thursday, I feel like PvPing after my crafting sessions, I can – and I can literally pick which character I want to do that with. It also saves a bit on respect costs – if I want to play a Force caster, I don’t have to subject myself to the potentially expensive AC change costs.