Posted by Momus | 2 Comments

Blasters, Beggars & Credits: The 10-49 Brackets Mean 10-49 Gear Is Back

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.

PvP has never been a great focus of mine – though currently I am playing it a lot more than I participated in previous MMO titles. I have found it fun without the awful side effects that so often plague it – though it’s far from a perfect system (see Bags, Champion).

However, many players have made it their main focus. Some of them are 50 and at the expertise cap, and some of them are still at low levels. And today, we are going to specifically zero in on the 10-49 bracket.

Recently level 50s were given their own PvP bracket, with all the other levels in their own. This segregation has, of course, come as a relief to the many lower-level players and alts who enjoyed pvp but found it frustrating to fight level 50s who were doing fantastic amounts of damage.

Now, however, they have their own non-expertise and non-50 bracket, where the higher levels have an advantage in abilities, but everyone is pretty close with the bolster mechanic. And there is a market to sell to these folks, provided you can make armor, mods, or weapons at the right points.

The first big one is level 49. Level 49 is where many of the PvP players will focus an entire level, both to farm valor and have enough commendations to purchase gear. However, that creates a market of people that could have a major advantage. As a Synthweaver I have lots of level 49 patterns that can easily translate into much higher pvp damage. Many of those remain viable into the end-game and are about as good as the tier 1 gear, which, of course, has created a nice market for me.

Mod-able gear is another possibility (sadly, I haven’t tried it). Selling a few cosmetic pieces could potentially net some money as well. In general the materials are quite simple to gather for them, such as the Jedi Initiates Vestments. There’s also a noticeable change around the 30s for leveling, and I would highly suggest selling anything in the 30-38 range if you can; 42-49 is also a nice range, but I would focus more on mods until the 49 gear.

Now, there are a few other levels (10 and 14 being rather big as well) that you could focus on as well. Some people will level alts to do the same. There are two level ranges to stay away from: level 20 and level 40. The gear that can be had from the pvp vendors at those levels is quite good, and competing against commendations is a losing battle. However, as a Cybertech you should look into selling mods that are 2 – 6 levels higher than that gear, especially the artifact-quality (if you have the time and resources to commit to getting it).

The twinks are coming; some are already there. Keep this in mind while leveling professions – anything with high endurance is a great bet to reverse engineer to get a better version.

Beggar’s Tip: I see a lot of people bemoaning Synthweaving and Armormech as being non-moneymakers. Yes, I can say our potential was behind a bit at level 50 initially; Cybertech, with all its toys and ship parts, made a few individuals incredibly wealthy. At least on Jung Ma Republic side, the spaceship business has gotten a little cut-throat and made it slightly less efficient as a money-maker (although my friend reports that his armorings and mods are selling quite well). However, if you didn’t guess right at the start of the game, don’t fret – you can still make money.

Now, competing against slotted gear doesn’t work so well – if you get lucky and get something with an augment slot, by all means run up the price and sell. But there are two slots where slotted items are rare to the point of being non-existent: waists and wrists. As a synthweaver, I have focus almost exclusively on wrist patterns for RE and do my best to maintain a stock. It’s especially helpful that a lot of those patterns are level 49, but they sell extremely well because, until someone gets into the end-game, there isn’t a better option.

Esseles/Black Talon hardmode drops the Columi token, as does Karagga’s Palace, but judging from the guilds on my server, not a ton of people are running them; similarly, the PVP bags don’t drop tokens in any pattern and are unpredictable. So yes, make wrists and waists and reap the profits (at least, until people come in here and read this column).

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Posted by Momus | 8 Comments

Blasters, Beggars & Credits: Missions, Gathering and Crafting!

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.

Today is a day where we talk about relative value. I will actually use some basic math, so if that turns you off, let me get you hot and bothered in another way: some people do not think things through when pricing their sales on the GTN.

Some of that has to do with not understanding how things work. In the interest of promoting a healthy server economy, let me show you something us robber barons have known for some time.

Underworld Trading produces, without a doubt, the highest demand items on the GTN. The reason? Three professions (Cybertech, Armormech, and Synthweaving) pull from its materials, and all three use the Underworld Trading metals. So the metals are used by three of the six main professions, and it serves all the crafted armor and the crafted armoring and mods to everyone.

That’s a lot of people it’s going to need to go to. Unsurprisingly, the material demand is quite high. There are two metals in particular, the artifact-quality of the 300 and 340 level, that you should pay attention to – these are Promethium and Mandalorian Iron.

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Posted by Momus | 10 Comments

Blasters, Beggars & Credits: Buff Slicing

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.

This article was supposed to be about how overpowered Slicing was, and also how good it was for the economy and crafters in general. It was also supposed to be posted last week.

Unfortunately, BioWare decided to read my mind during Beta and nerf it now. Now, after release, when the window for reducing it in a way that didn’t harm the economy has ended, they did nerf it. However, the nerf is not as bad as you would think. What the nerf does is remove the incentive to send companions on missions and return almost twice the cost in profit, which is a change I think they should have made one month ago.

However, the gathering aspect remains intact as a solid source of income while leveling. It’s not as much, but you can still gather lockboxes with great returns in addition to quests. The major part of this nerf really hurts the PvP community, which now relies solely on the credits from winning or losing a match to make any money. They can no longer rely on sending their companions to do Slicing missions to make them rich.

And I’m fine with that. Except that now, Slicing, instead of having a good amount of people doing it, is being abandoned faster than Google+. All the people who picked up the profession to make quick bucks are now going back to actual gathering professions. There will actually be fewer slicers than if the change had been made in the General Beta Test, which is going to have an adverse effect on the in-game economy.

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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 Momus | 6 Comments

Blasters, Beggars & Credits: I Love Ilum – Observations from the Summit

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.

A lot of details have been making their way out of the Fansite Summit, but perhaps most tantalizing of the recent items is the sudden openness about Ilum, the hostile and frozen planet of open-world PVP.

Of course, it’s the duty of this columnist to attempt to find some manner of profit in it all, so a quick run-down on the features and how we might make find some opportunities.

First, the most obvious one: the highest-level nodes of resources spawn here. As with other games that had high-level zones that encouraged world player-versus-player, players will be fighting over the best grounds for farming materials. However, unlike other games, the zone does not have a reset or timer. Instead, while farming, you will constantly be under threat, and it will be far more likely that you will encounter a hostile intent on preventing you from harvesting that sweet, sweet cheddar. Full-contact gathering certainly has its place as a sport, but it also cuts into profits. In general, if you yourself are not a PVP (at least in combat) enthusiast, I would recommend going at off-peak hours, unless it turns into the only place to acquire some rare material – in which case, fight on!

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Posted by Shockum | 14 Comments

Blue Milk & Cereal: Should All Classes Be Able To Fill All Trinity Roles?

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!

One thing that’s always guided me towards my class of choice is what combat roles I could fill with it. I like options, and the more options you give me, the happier I am. In World of Warcraft I primarily played a Paladin and a Druid. With just a quick change in talents, I could go from healer to tank, or ranged to melee DPS. I didn’t like being tied to one role, and with these hybrids I didn’t have to be.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is taking it a step further. For the most part, (save high-end content) nearly every class will be able to fill more than one role ably. This allows the player to play what they want to play, and not roll an entire character for a specific for a role. Going back to the age-old MMO adage, take the player, not the class.

So the question is, do we want all the classes to be able to do everything? It might sound nice on paper, but doesn’t seem logical. Think of it this way: would you expect Darth Vader, knowing the kind of character he is, to heal you? Can you envision Han Solo tanking a Rancor while you shoot it in the ankles?

Where do you stand? Do you think all classes should be able to fill all three trinity roles? Or is it best to stick to the idea that classes have specific combat roles?

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