Posted by Zlatto | 9 Comments

Zlatto’s Bazaar: Biochem – The Non-Crafter’s Crew Skill?

Zlatto’s Bazaar is the one-third Wall Street, one-third criminal empire and one-half gossip rag. You need to keep up on the Bazaar if for no other reason than to keep an eye on your competitors. Don’t be a Ho-tah and visit often. Your comments are encouraged, especially if they make me credits…

I know the title is a bit vague, but the concept came to me as I was checking out ways to make credits from my Consular’s Biochem skills. So far, we all know that Slicing will be an easy money maker. From what I have seen, once the skill has been leveled to 150 I was averaging a net gain of 20% just sending my crew out on lock box missions. As of today I have not been able to see what the GTN will be like for profit margins on Augments, but I would guess that there are going to be plenty of players looking to take a short cut to leveling their skills and we all should look to profit from it.

But back to Biochem and my goofy article title.

As you might have been able to tell, I am a bit of an OCD crafter (which might be why they let me spout my crazy here at AAJ). So as soon as I started leveling my character I was gathering on Tython before I could even craft. When I finally got my first companion I was able to craft up Biochem to the mid 20’s with just what I had in my inventory. As a testament to my disorder – I mean really who needs a level 8 purple item when you will craft past it in just hours – I worked up Reusable Compact Medpac to test a theory itch that I needed to scratch. Now look carefully at the image below:

I grabbed the image from Torhead as my screen shots in game are a bit challenging due to the strange Windows 7 64 bit craziness (that’s the last time I buy a gaming laptop from a Jawa). The image above differs from what we see in game as it does not have a “Requires” statement. In game, the Reusable Compact Medpac requires a player to have Biochem level 1 along side the actual character level of 8. “Why do I care about this Zlatto? I could have lost a quick game of Hutball in the time I have wasted reading this article”. Give me a another few paragraphs and a few questions to you and I will make it worth your while.

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Posted by Momus | 8 Comments

Blasters, Beggars & Credits: Money Matters

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.

Some people probably read my little columns (absent for a time, and for that I apologize) and snicker to themselves – “What a sucker, he’s revealing his strategy to everyone!”

Well, not really. Due to circumstances, I have been unable to play straight through the last two days, so I’m neither very advanced in level (hit 22 late last night) or in money (I’ve peaked at around 30k before training costs hit). But there is a plan.

They Drew First Blood

Every day we get a new amount of players crowding the scene, a new wave of people getting into the game. And these people are, in general, going to be less hardcore about news, and blogs, and fan sites – and very unlikely to read any column of mine. Much to their sorrow!

I periodically have been checking back at the GTN, and later I’m going to give a small tutorial. But for now, for those avid money-makers, here is what I am doing to amass a small fortune before advancing too far in level.

Flipping has been working quite well for me. Many people are posting things for ludicrously small amounts of credits. For instance – someone put 6 Red Amorphous Crystals on the GTN for 10 credits each. I turned those around for 75 credits a piece – that’s a 650% ROI. Every day I check the Archaeology tab, and every day I’m amazed to find stuff for under 40 credits.

Remember folks: 10 credits is nothing. It’s not worth auctioning something for that much. I turned 30 credits into 450 without so much as batting an eye.

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Posted by Lethality | 8 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: What Do You Think Of The GTN Auction Cap?

No day would be complete without the breakfast of Jedi: Blue Milk & Cereal.  Every morning, the team at Ask A Jedi will get Force-induced thoughts coursing through your head with delicious issues from around the galaxy! Join in the discussion below to make your voice heard!

Now that the game is out and more players are pushing the fringe of what’s possible or allowable, we’ll likely start to see some things that need some adjustment. One of these things is the apparent 50-sale limit on the Galactic Trade Network.

I don’t think anyone expected Star Wars: The Old Republic to inherit the crown as king of MMO crafting from it’s predecessor, and for the most part the Crew Skills system is innovative enough and engaging. But by having a limit on the number of sales 1 player can have active, it most certainly dampens the spirit of players who like to the idea of merchant character, even in a game where it isn’t a true sandbox/player economy.

On the other hand, it’s pretty easy to understand what BioWare is trying to do. They want to head off any potential market domination by any one player, essentially causing grief for other players. It can be frustrating for the average player to face a GTN market where they can’t reasonably compete, or afford to buy what’s there.

It’s possible this is a temporary thing during the launch phase, but where do all of you aspiring crafters and economists sit on this? I know that Zlatto and Momus will be chiming in on it soon. Do you think this is a good thing, or a bad thing?

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Posted by Zlatto | 12 Comments

Zlatto’s Bazaar: Doing Nothing Is Profitable

Zlatto’s Bazaar is the one-third Wall Street, one-third criminal empire and one-half gossip rag. You need to keep up on the Bazaar if for no other reason than to keep an eye on your competitors. Don’t be a Ho-tah and visit often. Your comments are encouraged, especially if they make me credits…

When it comes to playing a merchant class style character, you face some grind like any average player. A player’s skill progression in most MMOs depends on the money, effort, time and skill. In most games, these dependencies have always created a feeling of toil and effort over being a hero. I was fortunate to be able to spend a lot of time testing out crafting mechanics in Star Wars: The Old Republic during beta. The numbers can always be adjusted but the concepts behind them should still be in play now that the game has launched.

Doing Nothing Is Profitable?

Ok, so I cannot state with certainty that the economics in the game will make all crafting professions profitable. Heck, the only guarantees right now might be Slicing and maybe certain Treasure Hunting selections. The mechanism of a truly profitable MMORPG economy are high-brow topics covered by Momus and all his crazy spreadsheets over at Blasters, Beggers & Credits. But there is more to profit than just credits my impatient  scrag-enders. Remember the famous Toydarian saying, “Time is Money.” In this regard I can clearly state that crafting, in its current iteration in TOR, is profitable.

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Posted by Cormeister | 0 Comments

Wild Space: Choice, Item Mods, And Gameplay

It’s a big galaxy our there, and Wild Space can be a dangerous place. Worry not, explorer – each week we’ll navigate you safely through the lost hyperspace routes of the Deep Core and track down the great articles and entertainment from around the SW:TOR fan community, all in less than 12 parsecs, of course!

TORWars

Our good buddies over on TORWars turned me on to the fansite SWTORFace.com, where the crew has been churning out several great video guides for how to do different things in TOR. The most recent video describes how the item modification system works.

BioWare has stated that you could use your first lightsaber from when you get it, all the way up to level 50 just by swapping out item modifications to improve it’s stats. Check out this helpful video that explains how this process works from SWTORFace, as well as their many other guide videos on their YouTube page.

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