Category Archives: screenshots

Newly Hatched on Mother’s Day: my Orokeet!

13 Sunday May 2012

Posted by in pets, screenshots

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This morning, I found myself with an Unusual Egg in my posession, courtesy of my ever vigilant banker. She had purchased it from some fleet denizen who needed a quick 40,000 credits, believe it or not.

And thus, I hopped into my spacecraft and returned to Tatooine. Who could have predicted how frequently I’d be finding myself here? I really should have purchased a parking discount card from that Jawa last time I was here…

Thanks to having done my homework on how to hatch my Orokeet, I knew my first course of business was to travel to Jundland and be on the look out for a water tower whose blue panel indicated it was ready for some moisture harvesting.

After I found a water tower ready to give up some moisture and give me a buff, I hopped on a speeder and headed to the far South Western reaches of the Dune Sea. I found the Czerka Archaeological site at -2329, -405 and set about looking for an area that looked like it would get hot enough to hatch my egg.

I finally found two solar panels that faced in upon each other that still had enough room for me to squeeze myself inside. Almost immediately, I could tell that my egg was reacting positively to the extreme heat. At the same time, I started to wish I had a large palm frond with which Khemmy could fan me. After a minute or so, my ability to take the heat was rewarded with my Orokeet hatchling! What a lovely treat to become a mother on Mother’s Day.

And a very Happy Mothers Day to all of you!

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4 Tips to Keep From Crafting Your Way to the SWTOR Poorhouse

09 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by in crew skills, poll, screenshots

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Hardly a day goes by that I don’t hear someone in the SWTOR community say with the utmost conviction: “Crafting is broken. It’s just a huge money sink.”

And while I can certainly understand that the individual making this statement has apparently bankrupted their virtual selves through their pursuit of crafting, I know from my personal experience that statement isn’t a universal truth.

Those of you who listen to me on the TOR Reporter podcast already know that I’ve been able to finance my characters across 4 servers solely through my crafting. While most of them have yet to attain the dizzying heights of Galactic Trade Nexxi, who is so rich Chuck Norris comes to her for loans (thanks Silent!), they have all helped keep me from resorting to grinding dailies or bonus series quests to keep fiscally afloat.

Not surprisingly, I’m often asked what my secret is to having profitable crafting. And thus, I’ve compiled these 4 tips to help you attain a positive crafting cash flow.

Crafting Tip #1: Learn Complimentary Gathering and Mission Skills

I’ve frequently heard people say things to the effect of not wanting to take a gathering skill other than slicing so they can make lots of credits, or not wanting to level underworld trading as a mission skill yet taking synthweaving as their crafting profession. Unless you have landed on a busy server where supply for your crafting materials far outstrips the demand, it is unlikely you will be able to purchase your crafting materials from the GTN more cheaply than running missions on your companions for them.

Further, with an appropriate gathering skill, you will readily pick up a good amount of the base materials for your your profession as you go about your daily activities. Before you snatch up 6 rubat crystals in the GTN thinking you’ve gotten a great deal, remember that you could have gotten 2-3 crystals from a 95c mission, or better yet just from walking around. Not sure which professions go together? Check out this crew skills overview which explains them all in detail, and includes pairings at the end of the post.

Crafting Tip #2: Craft as You Go

I know many folks like to wait and slam through all their crafting en masse, after they hit 50. And these are most often the same people I hear complaining that they are broke and it’s all crafting’s fault. But here’s the thing: crafting didn’t smack you over the head and steal your wallet.

You can train up your crew skills on your first trip to the Fleet, in the level 7-10 range. You can start your gathering profession immediately thereafter.  And as soon as you obtain your first companion, they can be sent to craft for you, or to execute crew skills missions.

If you keep a sharp eye out on your mini map, you can make sure to travel from quest area to quest area via gathering nodes. Or if you are lucky enough to be able to recover materials from your slain foes, you can make sure to always kill an extra few silver mobs instead of sneaky past them to ensure you are keeping up your materials base.

Crafting Tip #3: Give Yourself a Set Crafting Budget per Day

It can be tempting to start sending your companion out immediately to level up your crew skills, but you are honestly better off in taking a look after an hour or two of play at what you’ve gathered, then filling in some missing crafting materials and sending your companions off to craft overnight while you’re safely logged off.

Alternatively, if you want to be sending your companions out on missions to obtain specialty crafting materials as you play, be sure to give yourself a set budget then do not exceed it. Once you get up into missions costing 1500c+, times 4 or 5 companions, you can easily blow through your savings if you are not disciplined about your budget.

Crafting Tip #4: As You Level Your Profession Make Either Cheap Items to R/E or Items That are Hard to Come by

And as you level your skills up, try to strike a balance between crafting inexpensive items you can R/E for mats while obtaining skill points, and the occasional leveling item to sell. I’ve previously covered my strategy for inexpensively leveling synthweaving, so be sure to check that out for ideas.

To identify the leveling items you should craft and sell, go to the GTN and do some searches for the crafted items you could, in theory, make. I bet if you make armor, you’re seeing a ton of items, frequently those for level 43+, in the under 5k range. Maybe even up for the cost of the mats or less. Put these items on the list of things you do not want to be making. Being in a price war on the GTN with someone who prices like Walmart is a great way to go broke fast.

Instead, look for gear that you can make, that players are asking for in general chat or on the forums, or that you don’t see up for sale very often. Now, if you make consumables of some sort, you’ll need to modify this strategy a bit, to be looking for items you see for sale pretty regularly but that sell out quickly.

Each server’s economy is different, and there will be many nights when you have all of your GTN sales returned to you in the mail. That is to be expected. So don’t give up! Learn over time what your personal best sellers are, and focus on making those items. You don’t need to have a discount superstore’s level of selection up for sale to be successful in your crafting!

Share Your Experience with Crafting in SWTOR — Take My Poll:

And please share your favorite crew skills tips, or ask your crafting Qs in the comments!

An Update on the Rakghoul Plague from the Imperial Biohazards Containment Bureau

19 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by in In Game Events, screenshots

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Dear Readers–

As a continuation of my public service efforts around increasing the spread of information on the rakghoul plague, I’ve tracked down one of the containment effort’s leaders, to gain further enlightenment around the rakghoul threat. I do hope the following interview adds to your peace of mind, friends.

cheers,

Anexxia

ANEXXIA: Please introduce yourself to our readers

BRASHART: I am Doctor Corrandus Brashart with the Imperial Biohazards Containment Bureau, a division of the Ministry of Logistics. How may I assist you, my lord?

ANEXXIA: Can you tell us a little bit about your involvement in the containment of the rakghoul plague on Tatooine?

BRASHART: I am presently leading the Empire’s efforts to understand this virulent outbreak to ensure it does not spread far beyond this insignificant dust ball of a planet. My ultimate goal is to develop a vaccine that will render our citizenry immune to future infection.

ANEXXIA: When was the Imperial leadership first made aware of this outbreak? How did we find out?

BRASHART: The plague clearly began within the Republic. Our first indications of its spread came from their HoloNet reports. I personally briefed the Minister of Logistics immediately upon verifying the news was not some ridiculous form of prank entertainment.

ANEXXIA: I suspected this was a Republic-instigated event. Have we made in progress on identifying or better yet capturing our patient zero?

BRASHART: I fear identifying the initial plague carrier will be next to impossible, as this person almost certainly emerged from Republic space and is very likely already dead. At this point, our best hope is to focus on the recently infected and learn what we can from them.

ANEXXIA: There have been baseless Republic rumours circulating that the plague was, in fact, initially manufactured by Imperial scientists as a biological weapon, with further insinuations this outbreak is, in fact, our clinical trials. Can you help put these treasonous rumours to rest?

BRASHART: This is an outrageous accusation, my lord. It is a matter of historical record that the rakghoul plague first began on the Republic planet of Taris over three-hundred years ago. It re-emerged during the Republic’s failed attempt to restore a colony on that world, forcing the Empire to step in and quarantine the entire system. Quite frankly, I believe the Republic created this plague to destabilize the Empire and threaten its innocent citizens.

ANEXXIA: I am certain your suspicions on this will be found out to be true.

ANEXXIA: My sources have been hearing about isolated plague cases turning up on other planets. Do we have any official confirmation of these cases? Are they just isolated instances of contaminated Tatooines making it off the planet and being captured by containment officers?

BRASHART: There have been a few reports of inconsequential outbreaks occurring on other worlds. All were the result of infected individuals fleeing Tatooine. My office quickly responded to contain these emergencies. There is no cause for alarm, my lord. I encourage anyone suffering from plague symptoms to remain aboard their starships and contact the Imperial Biohazards Containment Bureau. We will dispatch a team of trained medical technicians to assist them.

ANEXXIA: I have personally noticed a proliferation of small rakghouls being carried around by otherwise sane Imperials as pets. Is there any threat of plague contamination from these trendy crimson raklings and pale raklings?

BRASHART: Quite honestly, I can’t understand why anyone would want to be followed around by those vicious little beasts. But I’m not a pet person, my lord. Suffice it to say that we are monitoring those creatures very closely and would prefer their owners keep them in cages until more is known about them.

ANEXXIA: What can the general public do currently to help assist in the containment of this pandemic?

BRASHART: For the love of the Empire, please do not go to Vaiken Spacedock if you or anyone traveling with you is suspected of being infected! We’ve received disturbing reports of “plague parties” being attended by clearly suicidal and disturbed individuals. That is simply an inappropriate response to this emergency. Please think of your fellow citizens before taking such rash action.

ANEXXIA: How terribly uncivilized. Is there anything else we should be aware of?
*cracks her fingers, readying up a nice purpley shock should that be necessary to extract more information*

BRASHART: My Lord… I guarantee you will be the first to hear of any new developments.

ANEXXIA: Thank you so much for the informative conversation today, Doctor Brashart. That will be all…for now.

Be My SWTOR Valentine

14 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in screenshots, silly

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ALthough you can’t send your SWTOR sweetheart a box of chocolates or a bouquet of flowers as a declaration of your love on Valentine’s Day, there are a few easy-to-procure items that still say “Be Mine”:

  • A shiny new speeder. So they’ll think of you as they zip along the planetary byways.
  • A pretty new moddable gear set. If you can’t make these items yourself, head to your local GTN station, search for your beloved’s armor proficiency, with the search parameters of 1 to whatever level your sweetheart is currently at, then sort by the left column, rarity. This will pop up all the empty moddable gear for your browsing enjoyment. Be sure to preview what the clothes will look like by choosing Control+click.
  • Courting Gifts. Sure, they won’t be able to use them if they aren’t actively pursuing the affections of a companion, but it’s a charming gesture nonetheless.

If you are more the experiential gift giver type, consider the following:

  • Take them on a trek to one of your favorite scenic in game spots and whisper sweet nothings in their ear.
  • Give them an IOU for doing their dailies for a week.
  • Make a pledge to do an hour of PvP with them each week until they get the one item they really need (*cough* purple lightsaber*cough*) from the PvP goodie bag.

Happy Valentines Day!

Why the Rush to 50?

10 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by in opinion, screenshots

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…or more specifically, why the rush to end game?

This week, my Inquisitor hit 50. And somehow, she even had enough cash on hand to buy her level 3 speeder riding and speeder! And to clean up a few gear pieces. And thanks to an unusually awesome RNG, she got an epic headpiece out of her first PvP commendation bag. Not bad progress in a game with about 100 hours of playtime that only officially launched on December 20, in the midst of the holidays.

It’s sort of hard to believe that I’m at the end of my class story, and now ready to embark upon the many max level activities that lie ahead. I’ve got PvP matches aplenty to do, to farm for the elusive purple lightsaber. I want to do the max level versions of all the flashpoints no one wanted to do during the mad rush to 50. I want to maximize my number of daily quests so I can pick up the daily commendation level 3 speeder.

I was poised to take some time and bask in the glow and ease in to end game. I love raiding, as can be attested to by the volume of raiding related posts on the other blog, but I was honestly feeling as though there was plenty for me to do for a week or two or more before jumping in. So while I was excited about a raid this week, it wasn’t on my “it better happen or else” list.

I think I had a solid 5 minutes before I started to hear from folks that we were falling behind. And last night, I actually had my first /gquit from someone who had signed up to raid with us tomorrow night (our first official guild raid! huzzah!) because “we’re taking too long to do end game.”

o.O

I have to tell you I am honestly a little bit floored. I’ve watched my significant other talk to numerous guildies about raiding, including a good amount of pre-50s. He confirmed days and times that seem like they’ll work. Has had strats up on our Wiki for a week or more so everyone can be on the same page. And just this week we finally had enough tanks and healers publicly express interest in raiding that we’re going to give Karraga’s Palace a shot.

But it’s still not fast enough for some folks. Which just proves the adage “you can’t please all of the people all of the time.”

So, we’ll see how it goes. And you can bet I’ll report back here.

Making Friends with Khem Val

05 Thursday Jan 2012

Posted by in companions, screenshots

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When Khem Val and I were first thrown together by fate, we got off to a bit of a rocky start. At every convenient juncture, he made sure to let me know just how dissatisfied he was at being requested to do my bidding. This grumbling was interspersed with the occasional not-so-veiled threat to eat me alive.

But the will of a Sith is not easily swayed. I was not about to put up with that sort of insolence. And I certainly wasn’t afraid of my loin-cloth wearing new buddy. Even though he could probably crack me in half with ease if he was operating at his alleged former capacity.

Slowly but surely, as I took Khemmy out into the TOR universe, and he saw my bravery, and got to eat many evil doers, he started to warm up to me. I am pretty sure the occasional companion gift helped as well, but it was mostly his seeing my bravery in battle that did it. And as my Dark Side points have pushed into level IV, he’s only become more of my champion.

That’s not to say all is rosy in our relationship mind you. He still talks about his former master entirely too much. If he was sooo amazing, then why isn’t he here right now, Khemmy? Hmmm? And when I show that despite being an uncompromising bad ass I still have manners and acknowledge and thank others for their collaboration in my missions, well that all raises his hackles. But it’s nothing a little punishment (or a killing spree) doesn’t take care of.

It warms my heart when he calls me his little Sith now. But what really pleases me is when he threatens to eat anyone who crosses me or doesn’t treat me with the respect that is due a Sith Lord of my stature. We’ve come a long way, Khemmy!

A Sith Inquisitor is Born

14 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by in leveling, screenshots

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Anexxia, Sith Inquisitor, Relaxing Upon the Imperial FleetI woke up this morning to find the most pleasant of emails in my inbox: my invitation to the Star Wars: the Old Republic early game access. I’d preordered the first week the game was available but had not realized I needed to add my code to my account details on the website until almost two weeks later. So I was crossing my fingers I would get in today.

I jumped online and created Anexxia, my Sith Inquisitor, and marveled at how many guildies we already had online (36 or so at once during our peak today.) My SO hopped on his Sith Inquisitor and we spent the better part of the day questing our way through the origin world, including grouping with my new guildies, and getting to learn our way around the finer points of Sith (in)civility. And I loved almost every minute of it.

So let me get my gripes out of the way:

Gripe #1: As per my BETA experience, Bootcamp and SWTOR do not like my Apple bluetooth keyboard. I had to change it out for another keyboard before I could do even my first quest. This bums me out quite a bit since I love my regular old Mac keyboard. But I am grateful my SO anticipated this happening and ordered a spare keyboard I could use.

Gripe #2: for the first time in my gaming life, I had to ratchet down all my graphics settings in order to play. I was horrified that my iMac, which could even allow me to raid with gorgeous graphics settings, was choking on SWTOR’s graphics. I ended up ratcheting down the resolution and turning of shadow to give me the level of FPS I am used to.

Those technical annoyances aside, my trek to level 11 today was a fun one. My surly companion Khem Val has already started to grow on me. He’s moved beyond threatening me with dismemberment to threatening to eat others in my vicinity. I appreciate that in a companion.

First and foremost, today has been all about the lightning. The beautiful, sparkly, shimmering purpley lightning to be exact. As soon as I hit level 10 and spec’d into the sorcerer advanced class, I tossed those pesky light saber attacks aside and filled my action bar with more delicious force lightning attacks. Considering how much of my WoW game life I spent as a shadow priest or on my elemental shaman, it’s no surprise I have such a strong kinship to the purple lightning. But enough about the purple lightning.

I found the inquisitor class story to be incredibly compelling, and overall being an excellent path to easy dark side points. With the exception of one tricky quest whereby your taking someone’s money, then sabotaging their quest for someone else actually earns you light side points of all horrid things. And in case you are unclear as to how this Inquisitor feels about light side points, ask my guildies about the hypothetical diseased orphans. That’s all.

My first flashpoint, Black Talon, was made up of 3 guildies and myself. And all of us were intent upon trying to out evil each other in our replies to the quest text. It was delicious. We tore through the instance quickly, and were amused when our guildie Irish somehow ended up with a bag full of loot only he could have used at the end of the run. The RNG, my old nemesis!

The lack of luck with the dropped loot encouraged me to work a bit on my professions. Unlike my BETA experience, I didn’t find any archaeology nodes to mine while out questing today, and none in the instance either. Though I must note I found about 4 chests in the flashpoint. So I had to spend much of my questing earnings on sending my companion on archaeology quests in between my synthweaving crafting sessions. I ended the day’s playing with synthweaving at 56, which isn’t too shabby. And I was able to make myself a couple of greens. No blues mind you b/c those Underworld Trading cloth reward quests kept failing on me. *shakes her tiny sith fist in the air*

Tomorrow, I shall work towards obtaining my ship, and continuing through my class storyline, and exploring the new world that lies before me. It’s hard to believe that after all this anticipation, the game is finally here, and I’m actually playing it, with a character I get to keep!

And last but not least, last night Amazon gave a shipping update for all of us who preordered through them: the game will be shipping in time for us to have it in hand by the 19th at the latest, so we will not be waiting around on release day for our product codes, itching to play. Love how this is all coming together.

I can’t wait to start hearing from all the other folks I know who have not yet gotten in to the EGA to hear how their first days go– I hope everyone has as smooth of a start as I’ve had. Once I get farther in to the story, and come up for air, stay tuned for some guides and other content to help make the most of the first few levels of getting situated in game.

cheers!

Reflections on a SWTOR BETA Weekend, Pt. 2: Professions

12 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in BETA, companions, crew skills, screenshots

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spaceshipI had 2 big goals for my BETA time, in addition to just getting a feel for caster game play and gaining familiarity with companions as party members: 1) to see how far I could get with leveling my professions, and 2) to earn my spaceship. Happily, despite having to work for half the BETA weekend, I was able to make great progress against these goals.

As soon as you complete the first portion of your class quest, and get sent off to the Fleet, at level 10 or so, you are able to start training your professions. Special note: if you go ahead and talk to all the trainers as soon as you arrive at the fleet (only accepting those skills you actually want to train, mind you), you can earn a nice chunk of experience. There is a great visual that shows the best skills to pair with each other to maximize your leveling ability. You may only train a total of 3 crew skills per character, which may be any combination of gathering skills, a maximum of 1 crafting skill, and mission skills. I went with Synthweaving, Archaeology, and Underworld Trading.

Crafting Skill: Synthweaving

In other games, I’ve often taken up tailoring, so it was no surprise that I chose to go with Synthweaving for my cloth wearing caster. I like having the ability to craft gear upgrades for myself, and have typically found the rare or better crafted gear to sell pretty well, especially in the early days of a game/expansion.

I ended my BETA time with a skill of 160 or so in Synthweaving (I had an annoying keyboard not recognized problem as I was wrapping up my BETA time and neglected to write down my final #.) I was able to easily finance this leveling, at level 16, through selling a few world drop items, and making 6 blue quality belts and gloves, which I put on the auction house for 1200-1500 credits. Despite buying a few rare quality cloths from the auction house in order to do this crafting, I ended up with 8500 credits at the end of my professions leveling spree.

My primary tip is to reverse engineer every green quality item you make that you do not need for yourself or your companion. I found that I usually got 1-2 power crystals back for every item reverse engineered at the lower levels, which came in handy. I always made the most inexpensive item that was available to craft, but that had not yet been greyed out (once a pattern is in grey text in your skill window, it will no longer give you a skill point for crafting it.)

I also suggest making a blue quality item that will give you skill points whenever you have the special materials on hand that are required. You can obtain those special materials from some of your more expensive Archaeology and Underworld Trading missions, however, you will soon run into Fibrous Nylite Solution, which is an item you can purchase from any Crew Skill Trade Vendor, as is Thermoionic Gel Suspension.

Gathering Skill: Archaeology

One of the nice things about Archaeology, is once you get out into the world after level 10, you should be seeing crystal nodes as you go about your everyday questing. Although I did spend a good chunk of time sending my companions out on Archaeology missions to get up to 100 or so in skill, I also raked in a ton of power crystals as I walked around completing quests.

You are able to send your companion out to complete archaeology missions whenever you’d like. I personally kept my companion at my side for questing, so I could more effectively handle large packs and heroic quests by myself. But whenever I was zooming back to a capital city, I sent him off on an errand. Who knew bossing around my minions would be so much fun? Ahem. I mean, it was a very rewarding bonding experience to allow my companion to do my bidding. Oh nevermind– I think you are already seeing why I am going Sith.

There are two key factors that will help you decide which missions to send your companion out on — the cost and the potential end result. The cost to send my companion out on the mission started at 95 credits, and topped out at 295 credits. You receive new missions to send your companion on as you increase your character’s level, starting with 4 missions available to you at level 10. I found that I eventually had an archaeology skill level above the level of items available to me for completing the missions, but that was only due to some serious focus on profession leveling.

The third factor to influence what mission you send your companion on is what the potential reward will be. A few examples of how entry level quest yields are described:

  • Moderate Yield: Grade 1 Color Crystals
  • Moderate Yield: Grade 1 Power Crystals
  • Bountiful Yield: Grade 1 Artifact Fragments

Moderate yield missions can result in a return of 1 or 2 items upon completion. Bountiful yield quests were often 3-4 items in total. But it is important to note that on occasion, my companion would come back empty handed, especially when sent out on a bountiful yield (and more expensive I might add) quest.

Mission Skill: Underworld Trading

Underworld Trading was the more vexing of all the crew skills for me. Mission times started out being relatively short (3 minutes) and increased to 6 minutes over my small leveling journey. Now before you say “Aw, Anexxia, you are just too impatient!” let me remind you that these quests can fail. And somehow, it seemed it was always the 275 credit 6 minute quest that would fail.

In the BETA stress test weekend, quests would note that they could result in either Underworld Metals  or Grade 1 Luxury Fabrics. Under that design, I found I most often ended up with metals, and had to buy my cloth from the auction house. I believe the last minute professions fine tuning has broken the rewards down to separate them out, which will be helpful for maximizing your mission time and credits to enable you to obtain the raw materials you want for crafting your preferred items.

Due to the longer amount of time and greater credit cost per mission (starting at 95 but quickly headed into the 200s), this was the skill I got the least far (only mid 40s.) I have a feeling I’ll end up falling a little behind on this one as I level, but the upside is I think there will be a good auction house market for the cloth and metals if I don’t need to put them to use in my synthweaving.

Final Impressions on Professions

Overall, I found the professions to be easy enough to level, and without breaking the bank. I didn’t make my 10k credit goal (I wanted to buy a sandcrawler vanity pet from the lightside vendor), but I made a serious dent in my synthweaving leveling and made myself and my companion a few nice pieces. I think a lot of folks will be tempted to skip over the professions leveling in a mad rush to get to max level, but I would caution against that. You will not want to be sitting around in a capital city just sending your crew on missions, as a huge money sink, making items you can’t use at max level. In the long run, it’s a lot more efficient — and personally rewarding– to add the crew skills missions into your daily pace. And if you happen to be working from home and on a conference call, which prohibits you from actually being out and about completing quests with your character, crew skills leveling is a great multitasking activity. but don’t tell your boss I said so…

See you in the game soon!

dancing fools

Reflections on a SWTOR BETA Weekend, Pt. 1: Leveling

02 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in BETA, crew skills, screenshots, space combat, spaceship

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SWTOR BETA weekend screenshot

Like many of the gamer folks I know through twitter and the blogosphere, I participated in Bioware’s Star Wars: the Old Republic BETA weekend stress test over the long Thanksgiving weekend. The TL&DR Version? I absolutely loved it and only had a few, minor hiccups.

Choosing a Class to Test

I wanted to get a feel for what it would be like playing my Sith Inquisitor to be, but didn’t want to spoil the story for myself on a character I’d have to give up. Thus, I chose a Jedi Consular (Sage talents once she could specialize), who you can see in the above screenshot. Although I did my first level or two by myself, I was soon joined by my SO on a Jedi Knight, so we could check out the effects of grouping on leveling.

I’d decided pre-BETA that I wanted to focus my time on just 1 character, versus trying out a number of them, since you don’t get a true feel for the class characteristics until you hit level 10. I hoped to be able to make a significant dent in a profession or two, and to get to experience space travel. I was able to accomplish those goals pretty easily, despite working for 2 of the 4 days of testing.

Leveling Together as an Advantage

My SO and I have leveled together in World of Warcraft a number of times over the years, and more recently, leveling from the starting areas onward in Aion, Rift, and LoTRO. Inevitably, leveling together would end up feeling a little frustrating, with our having to kill twice as many mobs for quests in order to get the required number of quest items, one or the other of us running off to complete a class specific quest or a non-shareable quest we thought the other of us had also grabbed, etc.

It was thus a pleasant surprise to see that leveling together in SWTOR was actually an ADVANTAGE. Having an omnipresent second party member meant we were able to easily tackle the heroic quests/bosses we came upon in our questing travels. Once we both had our companions and got to Coruscant, we decided to 2-man the Esseles flashpoint. In retrospect, this was probably the smartest thing to have done at level 10, as it allowed me to really spend some time thinking about how to maximize use of my companion, and my crowd control skills. Other than my falling through the floor at one point, and dying on our first attempt on the first boss due to a lack of a healer (I later filled in on that role) it went pretty smoothly.

Other leveling pluses included being able to Holocron in for NPC conversations when one of us found a quest giver, versus having to wait for a slow runner to catch up, and getting to peek in on another class’ class storyline events as a guest.

How Can 3 Hours Have Gone Past?

I think my biggest surprise as we went through the leveling was how engrossing the story was. Hours would pass as I went through my class storyline and other starting quests, without feeling like it was taking a long time to progress.

This was due in large part to the participatory dialogues with the quest givers, but also with the way the questing itself was organized. For instance, when I would be out in the world on a specific quest, I would inevitably kill a mob or three on my way there. Often, these collateral kills would result in a “bonus objective” of killing X number of said creatures. If I was feeling particularly like smacking them around, I would complete that side quest before returning to my objective. But if I was especially intent on what I came out there to do, I just continued upon my original path, and once I completed the quest I came out there to do, the side quest would come off my quest list. Not having to manually go in and clean up quests in areas I was done exploring was a nice touch.

Once we hit level 10, my SO and I split up on our testing objectives (he went on to level up a total of 3 characters past level 10, to test out PvP on all of them.) I continued on in the hopes of getting a good feel for crafting leveling and with the goal of getting my spaceship, which you can see from the below screenshot, I accomplished.

Bug Report

As a Mac user who has to use Bootcamp in order to play SWTOR, I was crossing my fingers that there wouldn’t be too many glitches to report. And overall, until the end of testing, there were relatively few issues I encountered, and most of them minor. Those included:

  • All my screenshots were black. I put in a ticket on this but did not get a suggested fix. Once I thought to ask twitter, however, I was able to resolve that issue by unchecking the Exclusive Full Screen mode in the graphics options.
  • Unfortunately, unchecking Exclusive Full Screen mode in the graphics options meant I could no longer minimize the game. It also coincided with the game deciding to no longer recognize my Mac bluetooth keyboard. Having my keyboard flit in and out of usefulness is actually what put a stop to my BETA testing on Monday. After a lond day at work the last thing I wanted to do at home was fight with the computer over recognizing my keyboard.
  • When crafting, the list of required materials for a recipe would sometimes…blank itself out.
  • Mail in the mailbox seemed to often take 15-30 seconds and a number of clicks to open.

I had one crash to desktop, one server restart but no queues for login over the 4-day period. Not bad for a BETA test.

It's my ship and I'll fly if I want to...

It's my ship and I'll fly if I want to...

Next up: an overview of my crafting experience, space combat, and my search for vanity pets.