My Post-Launch Update

22 Thursday Dec 2011

Posted by in administrivia

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Now that we are midway through the first week post-launch, I thought I’d take a breather to update on how I’ve spent my Early Game Access time and the first few days post-launch.

My Sith Inquisitor Sorcerer Anexxia has, as expected, been my primary time and credit sink. The credit sink, more specifically has come in the form of keeping her crafting profession current, as previously noted. Pleasantly, the bugged nodes have thinned out as I’ve leveled, so I am now at the point where my crafting is a little bit ahead of my ability to wear my craftables, which makes me happy.

Another happiness bringer is zipping around on my speeder. I ended up just shy of purchasing it when I hit 25 thanks to not noticing that my one trainable skill cost me 7k. Oopsie! But thanks to my SO, I was able to get my speeder before we touched down in the sand waste of Tattooine.

This financial instability led me to push my Bounty Hunter alt up to level 10 so she could be easily parked in the Galactic Trade Market while her companion went out running slicing missions to fill my coffers. Yes, it’s cruel to put her to work as my own private merchant services coordinator, but they didn’t name me Lord Anexxia at level 30 for nothing, now did they?

In addition to the shiny title at the completion of Chapter 1 of my class story, which was much shiner than the title I earned from hitting Dark Side level 3 earlier in the week, I also got to set my Legacy name. This also means I got a new huge, barely scratched legacy bar at the bottom of my screen underneath my level progress bar. That’s right, much like achievements in other games, your legacy bar will monitor your progress in the game across all your characters on the same server. Every time you kill a mob or complete a quest you’ll earn a few legacy points. I encourage my alt-loving friends to try to push through Chapter 1 one at least one of their characters so their alting will count towards their legacy level.

I’m still getting used to the eternal vigilance that is necessary for thriving on a PvP server but am dong a fair job of it thus far. I am a little concerned, however, that the debilitating lag I’ve encountered in the open world on Alderaan is going to get me killed. Repeatedly. I’ll also be interested in seeing if the lag carries over to Operations. It’s been a huge adjustment going from having gorgeous high quality graphics and great computer performance to low resolution graphics and having subpar performance. I’ll continue to cross my fingers that Bioware eventually decides to make a Mac native client for the game, which I expect my year-and-a-half old iMac would be able to stomach just fine.

How have you been spending your first week or so of playing SWTOR?

SWTOR Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

19 Monday Dec 2011

Posted by in administrivia, FAQs, SWTOR

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With the launch of Star Wars: the Old Republic underway, you may be finding that the same questions keep popping up with each new recruit who logs in and joins your guild. With that in mind, I’ve started this handy FAQ of the questions I am most frequently seen asked, and their answers. Feel free to point your new players this way to get their questions answered.

Is there a Guild bank?

No, there currently isn’t a guild bank. But it is on the developers’ “to do” list.

What do I do with all my crafting materials and extra gear then, if there isn’t a guild bank?

Store your crafting materials and extra gear that you intend to use at some point in your cargo hold. And use gchat to find a home for any items you don’t intend to use. You can also try selling some items in the Galactic Trade Network, but economies are still pretty soft on most servers.

I don’t have my ship yet, so how can I access my cargo hold?

Go to a major city and look for Cargo hold access, noted with a key on your map.

But if I leave my crafting materials in the cargo hold, how can I craft anything?

Your enterprising companions actually use the workbench next to the cargo hold on your ship for their crafting activities. They are able to use any materials you store in the hold to complete the items you ask them to craft.

When do I get to choose my advanced class?

You get to choose your advanced class after you finish the first part of your class storyline. You will have a quest that will hook you up with the NPC that will help you choose your preferred class. Characters are in the 8-11 range when this occurs, depending upon how many heroic and bonus quests you decide to complete on your starter world.

Where do I go to train up my advanced class skills?

Your same class trainer will be able to train you in your advanced class skills; just click on the second tab to see those trainable skills.

When I open the guild window, it only shows 2 people but we have 20 folks on. How can I fix it?

Hit Ctrl+U twice to reload the UI. You should know be able to see your full guild window contents.

I didn’t get a chance to pick my quest reward before the window closed so now I can’t get my reward!

Don’t panic! Look at the upper right corner of your screen. You should have a pending box flashing at you that will allow you to pick your reward.

I picked my quest reward and didn’t get it. And my inventory is full…

Go and clear out some of that bag space. You’ll find that the item you selected from your last quest turn in will show up when you make your next quest turn-in.

Can I fast travel to my ship?

No. At best, you can probably fast travel to the spaceport in which your ship is docked.

Why should I care if my companion likes me or not?

You end up with different interactions with your companion depending upon their affection level, including the possibility of romance with some of them. It should become clear very quickly what kind of answers make them angry with you; avoid that language to win points with them. And give them companion gifts that match their interest to increase their affection level. The SWTOR loading screen tips also note that companion affection level also affect the speed and quality of the crafting they perform for you.

How do I split this stack of [consumable/crafting item]?

Hold down shift and right click and drag to an open slot in your inventory. This will pop up a window that will allow you to split the stack into your desired quantities.

Where is the speeder piloting trainer?

There isn’t one. When you hit 25 and can train speeder piloting, visit your regular class trainer. They will train you on it for 40,000 credits.

Where do I buy my first speeder?

If you purchased the Collector’s Edition, you’ll have a special speeder. For the rest of us, the speeder vendor is available on the fleet. The starter option is 8,000 credits, putting your total cost for your first speeder at 48,000 credits. This is an attainable goal just from questing provided you loot and cash out on all your grays, and don’t spend your credits on gathering and mission skills quests. Your speeder is your ground mount.

When do I get a faster speeder? How much does my second speeder ost?

At level 40 you can train speeder piloting level 2, which will cost you $210,000. Purchasing your faster speeder will cost you $25,000. This puts your total at $235,000 to get faster ground mount speed.

When Does (Class Y) Get Their Ship?

Again, this is tied to your class quest. You’ll get this in the middle-to-end of the quest line on the second planet. If you’re sticking solely to your class quest and ignore all others you’ll get this around levels 14-16. If you’re doing all of the quests and/or mixing in some PvP action while you level, then you may get it closer to 16-19.
(Thanks to @Psynister for this addition!)

Why doesn’t [insert action/activity here] work like it does in World of Warcraft?

In case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t Azeroth. Furthermore, you shouldn’t assume all your fellow players are WoW players taking a vacation in SWTOR. The Star Wars franchises have a large fan base that don’t necessarily overlap with other MMOs. I personally know several folks who haven’t played MMOs in the past who are really excited about SWTOR and planning to play after the game launches in the US on the 20th.

It was so easy for me to [get the credits for my speeder/ defeat that boss/ do some other game activity] so anyone who can’t do it must be a Noob.

This is one of the most vexxing POVs to deal with. Guess what– your fellow players may have never played an MMO before. Or they may be playing on a Mac with Bootcamp and not used to Windows commands. Or a thousand other variables you can’t possibly know. So before you jump to thinking someone you are playing with is an idiot, you might want to back up a few steps, and chill it out. No one cares how easy it was for you. Rubbing it in someone else’s face that you had no problem with something that they are asking for help with just makes you a jerk at best or a bully at worst. Instead, show your expertise in the game world by helping them out. Maybe you’ll even make a new friend.

When Does (Class X) Get Their Companion?

This is also tied to your class quest, and not all classes are created equal. Warriors get theirs right before the “hardest” part of their class quest on the starting planet. Inquisitors get theirs in the middle of the hardest part of their quest chain. Troopers get theirs at the end of their class quest on the starting planet. The level at which this happens will vary anywhere from 8 to 11 depending entirely upon whether or not you’ve primarily focused on your class quest chain, or have been doing a bunch of other questing.
(Thanks to @Psynister for this addition!)

I can’t find my companion. What do I do?

If you were just on a taxi, it is possible that your companion was left behind. Click on their portrait window in the lower lefthand column of your screen to resummon them. If you were just in an intense firefight and they were killed, you need to go and retrieve them and resurrect them. If none of those options work, if you are at the point where you have 2 companions, summon your other companion then resummon the one you wish to be playing with.

I still can’t find my companion, what do I do?

If you need to resurrect your companion but can’t click the body, you can just click the competence “Resurrect companion” in your skill book (P), General Tab.
(Thanks to @Zahiouninette for this tip!)

None of that worked– my Companion is Still Gone!

Normal flashpoint and heroic group sizes are capped at 4 members, which includes your companions. If your companion’s portrait is pushed over so that you only see the right-most edge of it on your screen, it’s because your party size is maxed and you cannot summon them. Note that in a group with 3 players, one player will get to keep their companion out.
(Thanks to @Psynister for this addition!)

Do I earn rested XP when I am logged out?

You earn Rest XP by entering a Cantina. You continue to earn Rested XP over time if you log out in a Cantina. Rested XP is currently capped at a level’s worth of experience. When you are playing with rested XP in your bar, you earn double XP from any creature kills. Rested XP does not currently contribute to any other sources of experience (completing missions, exploration, codex discovery, etc.) Logging out in your spaceship gives you rested XPas well, but you do not received the rested notification upon entering/exiting your ship which you do receive upon entering/exiting a cantina. Rested XP gains seem to be a percentage of the amount of XP needed to complete your current level, not a constant number.

Do I have to sit here and wait while my companion goes out on that crafting/gathering/missions skills quest? And do I have to queue my crafting items one at a time?

You sure don’t. You can queue up to 5 crafts for your companion by clicking multiple times on the “Make” button. And although you can not queue up a series of missions skills and gathering quests, you *can* send your companion out on a quest and log out, or log onto another character. When you next log on to your character, the results of your missions will be waiting for you.
(Thanks to @Zahiouninette and @Psynister for this addition!)

When Can I Send My Companions On Mission Quests?

Any time you’re logged in. You can send them on missions while you’re in PvP War Zones, running PvE Flash Points, or kicking back in the VIP Lounge. They will return on time to report back with their success/failures, and you can send them right back out on the spot. If you happen to be in the middle of an activity that doesn’t let you accept them turning in the mission results then you should have the window pop up for it after you finish that activity. If it doesn’t, again look at the top right corner of your screen for a flashing “Pending” message which will pop it up.
(Thanks to @Psynister for this addition!)

Can I grab a ride with someone in my party to head to a new planet?

You sure can! Let them enter the hangar first then follow them in. Feel free to poke around on their ship, then settle in to the cockpit and enjoy your free ride to the planet!

How does the Light/Dark side point system work, exactly?

In your interactions with NPCs, you’ll often be given a choice between three options, with 1 being a neutral response, on giving you a red dark side emblem when you mouse over it, and the third showing a sparkly light side circle when you mouse over it. You will want to decide if you want your character to be going for the dark side points or the light side points pretty early on as your alignment to one side or the other will affect your ability to use some crafted and commendations vendor gear that requires either light side or dark side of a specific level. There is not currently equivalent neutral gear in game, so being middle-of-the-road in your decisions may cause you to miss out on some gear. Your fleet will have light and dark side vendors that have a variety of items including relics, gear, and a specific vanity pet.

Does my light side/dark side affinity affect anything else?

Yes, if you are Dark Side aligned you will start to notice some physical changes as your dark side points rack up. You will start to appear as though you haven’t gotten much sleep, and have sucked some of your vitality and life out of you. Must have been all that purple lightning you’ve been throwing around…

How can I see what my Frames per second (FPS) is running at?

Ctrl+Shift+f will bring up a tiny FPS indicator in the lower left of your screen.

I searched for the items I put up for sale in the Galactic Trade Market, but I don’t see them. What happened to them?

If you have sold the items, there will be a mail for you w/notice of the sale and/or your credits. Credits come to you an hour after your item sells. Otherwise, check the Sell tab at the kiosk to see the items you currently have up for sale. They will not show up if you search on the buy tab as you can’t buy from yourself.

Why can’t I log in to the game today? I’ve been playing fine since I started my early game access started.

The grace period ended this morning at 2AM Central. To continue playing, you must log in to swtor.com and enter a Product Registration Code (ie, the code that came with your box or digital copy) and set up a subscription in order to continue playing. Setting up the subscription seems to be the step many folks have not completed. Even though 30days of play time comes with the game, you can not play without setting up a payment method for the recurring subscription.

What do I do with these commendations I see listed in my currency tab?

You can trade in commendations at the specific planet’s commendation vendor. They can be used to purchase gear, modifications, and weapons. You can find the vendors in the main town on each planet or on the fleet.

Can I trade in my commendations for one planet to get commendations for another planet?

No. The vendor that allowed you to trade commendations in BETA is no longer available.

Where/How do I repair my gear?

Any vendor can do this for you. Choose the repair all button in the lower left of their window, or go to the repair tab to repair only specific pieces of gear.

This post will be updated with new FAQs as the game progresses. If I forgot one you keep hearing let me know in the comments. Enjoy your adventures!

I’m Synthweaving my Way to the Poorhouse!

16 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by in crew skills, synthweaving

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Anexxia and a holodancer

Perhaps I can take up Cantina dancing to pay for my speeder?

I ended my SWTOR adventures today at level 20, and no closer than 1/3 of the way towards the speeder I’ll want to purchase at level 25. This vexes me because in that other MMO I play, I’ve never had a character be unable to purchase their transportation at level, even with keeping my professions leveled up with my character.

/cry

This is a symptom of my crafting affliction. I absolutely *HATE* to have my crafting not keep pace with my character’s leveling. Why? Because it sucks to not be able to make items I might actually want to use, that’s why! I’ve made a solid dent in my crafting thus far, and can actually make a few items my guildies might want to wear (see my crafting rare patterns list for details on what I can make.)

But as of now, I am going to have to hoard my credits until 25 to see if I can make it to being able to purchase my speeder training and my speeder. Most unfortunately I think I will just be fast walking my way around, getting the smackdown handed to me.

This really should not be the case. But I have had to spend cash on archaeology missions due to the sheer volume of bugged archaeology nodes I’ve seen in my travels. I get excited about a node on my map ,clear my way too it, then find it’s not able to be collected. Rinse and repeat for about 60-70% of the nodes I saw today on Balmorra.

I do have an evil plan for how to address this gap. I plan to make some sacrificial alts this weekend, and funnel all of their earnings to my main. It’s cruel, but I am going for maximum dark side points, now aren’t I? Which reminds me I shall have to track down that silly woman who was responsible for those 50 light side points. Truly unacceptable…

For those of you crazy enough to follow in my synthweaving leveling footsteps, I do have a few tips:

1) Skip out on the Underworld Trading missions unless you are dead set on making yourself one of the low level fully moddable clothing items and need the special materials.

2) Stock up on the fibrous nylite solution when you visit your first crew skills vendor. You are going to go through this stuff like mad, so buy 20-30 the first go round so you have it on hand.

3) Go out of your way in search of archaeology nodes whenever one pops up on your mini map. Yes, many of them are bugged, but you will need every mat you can scrounge up, so worst case scenario, you’ve gotten a few more credits and a smidge of XP.

4) If you get stuck, use your archaeology missions judiciously. I suggest saving them up for when you need the artifact fragments, or when you are in the transition phase between level 1 and level 2 crystals.

5) Free up your bag space by storing your crafting materials in your cargo hold. Your companions can easily access them for crafting but they won’t keep you from picking up all the grey trash you can find to finance this little venture.

I have to also note that companions are supposed to be able to go and sell your greys for you, but it has been my experience that more often than not, my companion will not, in fact, toddle off on this task. The request seems most likely to fail when underground or in a special quest area. I believe that is a known issue so cross your fingers our little minions are back on taking out our trash soon.

And now for a poll…

Anexxia’s Rare or Better Synthweaving Patterns (levels 1-49)

15 Thursday Dec 2011

Posted by in crew skills, gear, synthweaving

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I’ll be listing all the rare or better pre-50 synthweaving patterns I can make here, which includes a number of moddable pieces. Following this up with a separate post for my Level 50 patterns.

Available to Coconut Monkeys on Th Bastion server with your mats. Items are listed with lowest level items at the top of the list, with item level in parens.

Note that the databases do not yet have all the variations on the patterns. Sometimes, when crafting and reengineering crafted items, you learn a blue quality version of an item that adds an additional stat upon it. Those items are denoted as follows:

  • Critical versions of a green item have +Crit as a third stat.
  • Overkill versions of a green item have +Power as a third stat.
  • Redoubt  versions of a green item have +Defense as a third stat.
Please also note that some pieces of gear require light or dark side alignment, and a few are for Republic characters; make sure your character can wear an item before I craft it!

Light Armor

Medium Armor

Heavy Armor

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

SWTOR Early Access Now Starts 12/13, However, YOUR Early Access May Not…

08 Thursday Dec 2011

Posted by in official announcements

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SWTOR Early Access emailTwitter lit up like a Christmas tree yesterday as folks started receiving the above email prompting them to download the Star Wars: the Old Republic client to be ready for early access. Unfortunately a lot of folks were confused about the email’s content, interpreting the announcement that early access now starts on December 13 as meaning they were now confirmed for December 13 early access.

But close reading of this email, and follow-up comments online from SWTOR staff notes that you will be receiving an email invitation on the day that early access is available to you. The email we all received yesterday is just to prompt you to be ready “to play when your Early Game Access invitation arrives.”

Before you start shaking your pitchforks in Bioware’s general direction, stop and give this some consideration: much like with the BETA stress test, they are looking to have smooth onboarding experiences for all the pre-ordered players. By adjusting the flow of early access invitations on a daily basis, they can moderate the flow of new players into the game, and hopefully minimize queues and server downtime. Yes, we’re all salivating and ready for this game to come out already, but can you imagine how upset everyone would be if we all got early game access on the 13th and had day long login queues, servers with unplayable lag, and crashed the forums?

For more details around Early Game Access, check out www.swtor.com/early-access

As folks were digesting Early Game Access starting two days earlier than expected, we were also hit with a number of updates around the transition from Early Game Access to launch:

  • No grace period. Once the early access closes 10 p.m. ET on 12/19, you may not play the game again until you have your game code in hand and enter it into your profile on swtor.com.
  • Earlier European release. EU folks can pick up SWTOR in their local retailers starting on 12/15. Quite a change from them initially getting SWTOR a few days post North American launch!
  • Origin orders also earlier than expected. Digital orders for #SWTOR from http://Origin.com will be emailed Game Codes starting December 16, 2011.

Personally, I ordered the regular old SWTOR pre-order, with game day delivery from Amazon. I hope that unlike my Wrath of the Lich King pre-order, the SWTOR box will arrive before 8 p.m. on launch day. *crosses fingers* If I’d known that Origin orders would be able to validate their accounts early, I would have definitely gone that route. I’ll definitely keep that in mind for future game expansions, should I again decide to not pony up the cash for the CE.

TL&DR: In less than a week, you and/or your friends are going to start playing Star Wars the Old Republic!

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.

SWTOR Professions: What to Choose for My First Character?

24 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by in crew skills

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Crafting is always one of my key motivators when leveling a character. I get excited about finding or training new recipes, and improving my character as a result of my crafting profession. And over my years of playing World of Warcraft, with my and my SO’s army of alts, I’ve gotten really used to having all my crafting needs covered in-house. But, since you can only pick a total of 3 skills (across Gathering, Crafting and Mission Skills) for your crew to take on, it will be quite a while before that’s the case for me in the Old Republic. Which means deciding what profession to pick up first takes on some significant weight.

The Crafting choices:

  • Armormech, working with hard metals and electronic shielding to construct all types of personal armor (for non Force users)
  • Armstech, constructing blasters, blaster rifles and upgrades.
  • Artifice, constructing Jedi and Sith artifacts, including crystals to change your lightsaber’s color, and item enhancements.
  • Biochem, engineering of performance-enhancing chemical serums and biological implants.
  • Cybertech, constructing gadgets and components for Droids and high-tech armors, including earpieces and armor upgrades.
  • Synthweaving, creating lighter outfits and armors that are imbued with supernatural qualities, for Force users.

The Gathering choices:

  • 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

The Mission Skills choices:

  • Diplomacy, conducting and managing negotiations
  • Investigation, examining evidence and following clues to discover valuable secrets
  • Treasure Hunting, recovering valuable items by investigating a series of clues
  • Underworld Trading, trading in illegal goods and services

You are limited to a total of 3 Crew Skills, with only 1 allowed to be a crafting skill. For this reason, I am thinking I’ll go with Aracheology, Synthweaving and Diplomacy Underworld Trading on my Inquisitor. I always like being able to make myself (and my friends) good quality gear at max level. Both of my max level shadow priests in World of Warcraft are tailors, so I am used to the cloth grind and the money sink. Thankfully, through reverse engineering of my completed goods, anything I don’t end up wearing can be ripped apart to recover at least some of the materials it took to make it.

My SO is thinking of going with Artifice for his first crafting skill, which makes me happy. I hope to see a purple lightsaber crystal in my near future…

I’ll be participating in the BETA testing this weekend, and hope to actually have a stable enough server to get a character up to the 8-10 range so I’ll make it to a town with profession trainers to get my first hands-on look at the professions.

The SWTOR BETA Tester’s Guide to Strategic Thanksgiving Leftovers Deployment

24 Thursday Nov 2011

Posted by in BETA, food

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(U.S. BETA testers, this post is for you.)

Today, at some point between lunchtime and dinner, you will likely be expected to step away from the computer and spend some quality time with the family. Make the most of this with strategic selection of leftovers to bring home with you to fuel your BETA testing weekend.

Emphasis is on food you can eat with one hand, without reheating. Enjoy!

DO BRING HOME:

  • Rolls
  • Turkey
  • Sweet potato bake
  • Pie
  • Cheese plate remainders
  • Pumpkin bread
  • Fruit salad
  • Deviled eggs
  • Baby carrots and other veggies with onion dip

POLITELY DECLINE:

  • Green bean casserole
  • Gravy
  • Cranberry sauce
  • Artichoke dip
  • TurDucken
  • Stuffing
  • Mashed potatoes
  • Cheesy rice

Pretty much everything in the decline list requires reheating at best, and has a drippy sticky element at worst that is likely to get all over your keyboard.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!