Posted by Momus | 15 Comments

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.

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Posted by Lethality | 21 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Which Crew Skills Will You Choose?

 

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!

Crew Skills are shaping up to be one of the more innovative systems in Star Wars: The Old Republic. The ability for your companions to assist in helping you craft items and gather materials, independent of what your main character is doing, is a boon to those who love crafting but can’t devote the time to do it themselves. Heck, your companions can even be working for you while you’re offline!

The Crew Skills page was recently updated, revealing all of of the available skills. They fall into three categories – Gathering, Crafting and Mission skills. Your crew can be trained in any 3 of these, so long as only one of them is a Crafting skill.

While we don’t have much else to go on, the descriptions on the Crew Skills page provide just enough info to get the ball rolling. Indeed, based on your class choice, you can now being thinking about what Crew Skills would help your character. Earlier this week, our own Zlatto gave a run down on his reasoning behind the Crew Skills he’s choosing. Now, we want to hear from you.

Which Crew Skills will you choose? What are the reasons? Or do you need more info to play your hand?

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Posted by Zlatto | 41 Comments

Zlatto’s Bazaar: Choosing Your Crew Skills

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’m fairly certain that it’s not against the NDA to state I had more free time this past weekend than I had “hoped” I would.  In Hutta terms I got krolped.

So I’ve decided that it was time to sit down with all the information we have seen/read/heard about the crafting opportunities in Star Wars: The Old Republic and finally pick my path. Since I have set aside so much free time and nothing to spend it on, of course. (See reference to getting krolped above).

As many of you know I am Toydarian. By default, my hope is to cheat off of someone else.  So I will go ahead and outline some of my thoughts and hope that someone who has done more homework than I have will post something I can put into play when the beta weekend invite I SO RICHLY DESERVE arrives in my gmail account come next Wednesday.

Now, my decision making process may seem counter-intuitive. I do recognize it might be seen as such, but I will explain.  Without access to schematics, I find it very difficult to just select a Crew Skill strategy, and then back fill the options.  That would be the easiest way right?  I mean once you choose a crafting path you are locked into your options, but I wanted to take a different approach.  So here are my thoughts.

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Posted by Lethality | 3 Comments

gamescom 2011: Gabe Amatangelo Interview

The-Force.eu was able to corral BioWare’s Lead End-game Designer on Star Wars: The Old  Republic Gabe Amatangelo to ask him a few questions during gamescom last week.

Gabe talks about operations and even Crew Skills during the piece. Again, it’s a must-watch for the TOR faithful!

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Posted by Lethality | 10 Comments

Remaining Crew Skills Fully Revealed

Thanks to our bud Swtorcrafter over at Swtor-Life, we learned that BioWare has ninja-updated the Crew Skills page, revealing the remaining crafting, gathering and mission skills!

For many fans, this is an exciting step forward, as the Crew Skills system represents what can truly be one of the innovations that TOR will bring to the genre.

Here’s the full list for your convenience, or you can hop on over to the official page to check ’em out!

Gathering Skills include:

• Archaeology – the ability to seek out imbued items like Lightsaber crystals and ancient artifacts
• Bioanalysis – the practice of collecting genetic material from creatures and plants
• Scavenging – the art of recovering useful materials and parts from old or damaged technology
• Slicing – a skill in accessing secured computer systems and lockboxes to acquire valuable data and rare schematics

Crafting Skills include:

• Armormech – the ability to work with hard metals and electronic shielding to construct all types of personal armor
• Armstech – the skill of constructing blasters, blaster rifles and upgrades
• Artifice – the delicate work of constructing Jedi and Sith artifacts
• Biochem –the engineering of performance-enhancing chemical serums and biological implants
• Cybertech – the technical expertise to construct gadgets and components for Droids and high-tech armors
• Synthweaving – the art of creating lighter outfits and armors that are imbued with supernatural qualities

Mission Skills include:

• Diplomacy – the art of conducting and managing negotiations
• Investigation – the skill of examining evidence and following clues to discover valuable secrets
• Treasure Hunting – the ability to track down and recover valuable items by investigating a series of clues
• Underworld Trading – expertise in the trading of illegal goods and services

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