Jan 17, 2012

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Blue Milk & Cereal: Are All Crew Skills Created Equal?

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!

The Crew Skills system is intended to bring “a variety of  benefits and rewards”  to players of Star Wars: The Old Republic. Without a doubt, that’s exactly what they do. But then we need to ask the inevitable question: are all of those benefits and rewards equally spread across all of the Crew Skills, or are some more beneficial than others? Does a player truly have the freedom to choose the Crew Skills combination he or she wants, or are some so good that they feel almost mandatory if a player wishes to have end-game success or an easier time leveling?

It seems as though this is something BioWare is currently wrestling with, as we see some major changes coming to Biochem and Cybertech in the upcoming content patch Rise of the Rakghouls. These particular Crew Skills had attributes that were beginning to be deemed mandatory for a successful Operation run, and BioWare wanted to nip that perception in the bud right away. There are also some great, detailed suggestions on the forums on how to make skills like Armstech and Synthweaving more appealing to people.

Being a 400 Synthweaver myself, I personally do not feel the same level of benefit and reward as a 400 Biochem player that had the chance to level with a constant buff to their stats and has access to self-made Medpacs. Yes, Synthweavers make armor that should provide similar statistical benefits, right? My opinion is the gear players can produce during leveling is extremely limited and are often bested by orange gear with upgraded mods accessible to everyone.

It’s hard enough to balance combat, but then when you through the relative benefit of a crafting skill in, it becomes even more challenging. What do you think? What did you pick? Are you satisfied with your Crew Skills choices? Do you feel like all the crafting skills are equally rewarding? Let us know below!

Do you feel all Crew Skills are balanced fairly?

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Jan 8, 2012

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Blue Milk & Cereal: Are You Happy With Customer Service?

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!

In an ideal world, there wouldn’t be a need for customer support. Things would all work perfectly, and provide an experience just as the customer imagined! However, in the real world and especially in the world of online games, customer service is an integral component of the overall experience. BioWare was always adamant on the fact that they not only wanted to build a great game, but an even better service.

Most of us will eventually run into some bugs, glitches or problems that range from minor annoyances that are easily ignored all the way to issues that can ruin the game for the player. What is crucially important is not how “bug-free” the game is, but how efficiently the customer service addresses the issues the player is having.

Personally,  I’ve reported about 10-12 issues related to things like Collector’s Edition items being lost, mission rewards not being given and mail attachments disappearing, and I have received a reply at most 2 days after the original submission. Kudos for that, BioWare. However, all of my submissions returned the following reply:

“…Your report has been forwarded to the relevant department, who will investigate further. We regret we will be unable to provide you with further updates on this issue, but recommend checking future patch notes for any up to date information”.

While it is nice to hear back from support fairly quickly, I feel like the the support staff should be able provide a resolution more directly. Perhaps return my items, or provide compensation, which I am basing on my previous experiences with other games. Maybe BioWare will try to address issues on a more “global” scale and return the items/rewards upon the arrival of the next patch.

The question for today is the following – if you contacted BioWare’s customer support or used the ticket system in-game, how satisfied were you? Was your issue addressed and resolved? Let us know what you think and share your experiences below!

How satisfied are you with the customer service for Star Wars: The Old Republic?

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Jan 2, 2012

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Blue Milk & Cereal: How Strict Should Rule Enforcement Be In TOR?

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!

Any gamer that has played online games long enough knows that regardless of what genre the game is, there will always be a number of players who choose to cheat, exploit, grief or simply put, break the rules of the game. The variety of offenses ranges from game to game and from genre to genre.  The MMO genre in particular is plagued by the so-called “gold farmers” and an assortment of exploits that can undermine the in-game economy, game balance and other aspects of the game.

Since no game is completely immune to being exploited in some way, there needs to be an effective and responsive system that punishes the offending players. For Star Wars: The Old Republic, BioWare is responsible for keeping an eye on the activity of players and the reports of various offenses. Even with these systems in place, it is extremely important to be as fair as possible and to minimize any “false positives.”

Recently, some players revealed that their account was temporarily suspended for taking a low-level character to a level-50 zone – the planet Ilum. BioWare has yet to publicly issue a statement on the matter, so for now realize that we’re only hearing one side of the story so far.  If it’s indeed a bannable offense to bring a low-level character here, then it should be systemically locked from being able to do so. Or perhaps it really shouldn’t be a bannable offense at all.

This obviously raises a few important questions, especially at this nascent stage of the game’s lifecycle.  What should be considered a bannable offense? How strict should BioWare enforce the rules and how many warnings (if any) should a player receive prior to a long-term (or permanent) suspension?

What’s your opinion on the matter of policing the game? And if you’re one of the players who was allegedly banned, we’d love to hear from you!

How strict should rules enforcement be in Star Wars: The Old Republic?

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Dec 26, 2011

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Blue Milk & Cereal: Should TOR Have An External Crew Skills App?

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!

As more and more of us finally get into the game and become familiar with our Crew Skills, we start to wonder about the best way to improve our crafting, gathering and mission skills. If you’re unfamiliar, BioWare created a very interesting system that allows the player to send his or her companions to complete these tasks, rather than the player himself. Although, you as the player can still get harvest a resource node out the wild, should you so choose!

While some crafting tasks may only take a minute or two to complete, other missions may occupy tens of minutes or longer which causes many players to queue them up while they take a break or even head off to work or school. Due to the relatively passive nature of the Crew Skills,  some players choose to level their skills in windowed mode while doing other tasks. Whereas other players use remote-client applications to access their main computer running the game from their mobile devices such as an iPad or iPhone.

What if BioWare actually expanded on what these players are already doing? What if we had a web-based “Crew Skills Client” that allowed players to give orders to their in-game companions while they were somewhere other than in the game? BioWare could even go all the way and create a fully integrated smartphone application that acted as a communicator between the player and the companions, reporting on the mission outcomes? This would definitely give the Crew Skill system a truly innovative dimension.

So what do you think? Should TOR have an external Crew Skill application? Do you think it would have a positive or negative effect on in-game economy? Let us know below!

Should TOR have an external Crew Skills app?

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Dec 19, 2011

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Blue Milk & Cereal: Have You Chosen Your Crew Skills For Fun Or Profit?

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!

While many of us are already on the servers, progressing through the story and leveling our characters and Crew Skills – there are still those waiting to play TOR on or after the launch date (tomorrow, December 20th)! Even for those of you who may not be in game yet, you’ve probably spent some time thinking about your upcoming Crew Skill choices.

For many, the Crew Skills will be the primary source of income as well as creativity. For others, they will be the optional thing to do for fun. There are already players who are speculating on what is the “best” leveling combination and which Crew Skills are the “easiest” to level. While most of the information is speculative, one shouldn’t ignore it as it may bring some insight and turn out to be very successful. R2-Db’s has a nice page on Crew Skills to suggest what things might go together – check it out. This shows the recommended combinations of the crew skills in order to maintain the full production line on your character – from resource gathering and missions to the final stages of crafting.

Some players decide to go another route – they pick up three gathering skills and flood the Galactic Trade Network with their harvested materials up for crafter’s grab. At least for now, all combinations are highly viable and useful – so my advice to you if you haven’t decided on Crew Skills yet – pick whatever seems like fun to you. But at the same time, don’t be afraid to experiment as they can be unlearned and new ones picked up free of cost!

So with all of that in mind, we want to know – how will you choose your Crew Skills? Based on fun, or the potential profit you can make? Discuss! (Oh, and visit the columns from Zlatto and Momus if you want more in-depth reading the topic!)

Do you/will you choose your Crew Skills for fun or profit?

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