I’m still playing SWTOR, I should note. And I’m still thinking about it, but it’s generally in the context of the rest of the MMO marketplace, and the other games I’m playing, and thoughts about the MMO genre in general.

And in particular, crew skills in SWTOR have not turned out to be the deep and engrossing crafting system they promised us — at least, not by my standards of why I enjoy tradeskills or what makes a crafting system great.

So. Rather than continue trying to beat a dead horse — which would end up with me resenting SWTOR and blogging (and probably the horse) — I’m bowing out gracefully. CrewSkills.net is officially retired. It’ll stay alive and in place, though, since some of the reference content may still be useful.

However! You can’t shut up a blogger that easily. I still have plenty of thoughts about MMOs in general, including SWTOR, and I’ve been talking about them over at my general MMO blog, Siha Games! There won’t be crunchy googlebait guides over there, but I hope the content will be interesting, and I hope to see some of you over there. I really enjoy talking with the rest of the MMO blogging community, and I don’t intend to stop any time soon.

Thankyou all for listening, and sharing SWTOR fun with me. See you around!

…wearing your great-looking gear set to that night’s operation…

…and scoring a Columi legplates token.

Yay? I think? ;)

So in commemoration of Siha’s brief-yet-much-loved DPS set, here it is to the right. That’s the TT-15A Echelon Body Armor (from Maelstrom Prison), Commando Elite Greaves (craftable), Ultrachrome War Gauntlets (from a Belsavis quest) and a Heavy Exoskeleton Belt. (Outside the shot, she’s still wearing the Heavy Gunner’s Boots she’s had since L27, since moddable boots seem to be fairly scarce and un-ugly ones scarcer still.)

(No, I don’t know why “suspenders” are a sensible choice for heavy armor. They look kind of awesome though, so I’m not complaining.)

To use Cybertech as an example, we Cybertechs make three broadly-useful items: Armoring, Mods and Earpieces. (Plus some fun sidelines: droid upgrades, consumable grenades, and self-only vehicles.) Our very best craftable mods are only on par with what you can get from a daily quest at level 50, and our very best Armorings and Earpieces are actually worse. (The best craftable mods are Armoring/Barrels/Hilts 22s, and you can buy 23s with 8 daily commendations each.) This is approximately the case for most crafting skills, except Biochem, and there’s been a lot of unhappiness on the forums about it.

The good news is that Bioware’s listening, and they’re not done improving the crafting system. Yesterday, Georg Zoeller said

“We want to create significant incentive for players to engage in the crafting economy – as provider of goods or supplier – without requiring players to take up a specific profession as a ticket into endgame.”

and he also said

“As stated, we are working on making all crafting professions fully endgame viable. We’ll talk more about specifics, like Armstech or Synthweaving when we have specifics to announce.”

Based on what we know already, you can expect the following upcoming changes:

In patch 1.1.2:

• Biochem: Energized and Exotech stims and adrenals will no longer be Biochem-only.
• Biochem: Rakata stims will remain Biochem-only, but will be reduced in power to match Energized-level consumables.
• Harvesting droids and creatures will now return slightly fewer resources.

That’s a fairly significant hit to the appeal of Biochem, but I do feel that it’s necessary to give other crafting skills a chance; until now, Biochem has been widely considered the only option for endgame play.

In patch 1.2:

• “Basemods” (Armoring, Hilts and Barrels – the mods that give an item its rating) will be extractable from Artifact-quality gear.
• Custom armor will be crittable to give augment slots.

These two changes, between them, will allow endgame players to wear the set of custom (i.e. fully-moddable) armor they prefer without sacrificing any stat effectiveness. You get a purple drop in an Operation, you pull the mods out of it, and put them into your carefully-assembled stylish custom set. Presto – all the tasty stats, none of the tedious sameness. This won’t help Cybertechs or Artificers, since the mods will come from Ops drops, but it’ll help Armstechs, Armormechs and Synthweavers who can make receptacles for said mods in the form of armor and weapons.

Also in patch 1.2:

• More BoE schematic drops for artificers (and other professions).
• “Increased relevance of augments”, whatever that means.
• Better reverse-engineering chance.

All good, as far as it goes.

And here we have a ray of hope for the mod-crafters, from the same topic, 11 pages in:

Rephlexie: “Please I beg of you add some Artifice schematics for us 50s to play with. Even just 23 rating ones. Give us some purpose in gearing out our guilds a bit.”

GeorgZoeller: “Yes, among other things.”

Excellent news! If they do this for Artificers, I can’t imagine they’ll leave Cybertechs or Armstechs out in the cold.

Obviously, there’s more news yet to come — but this is certainly enough hope for me to resist the urge to drop Cybertech and pick up Biochem.

• When to Bug Your Crafting Friends (or Alts) from Eltatorship. Perrin talks about the different classes of crafting mats and when each type of crafted gear changes mats.

• Companions List from Psynister’s Notebook. Psynister gives a great guide to all the companions by class, covering the romantic interests, the planet you find them, and their roles and bonuses. Super-useful!

• Link Love – Spreading the SWTOR from All For The Wookiee. Kristalys gives an introduction to the rapidly-growing SWTOR blogosphere.

• Scary of Scary Worlds has a very entertaining take on PvP in SWTOR — and an argument as to why even people who don’t like SWTOR shouldn’t hope for it to fail.

Go! Read, comment, think, enjoy!

Here we have the Amazing Chameleon Shirt, a.k.a the Temple Watchman’s Vest. This is the Medium +Strength chest purchasable with Tython commendations (and there’s a craftable custom armor equivalent, the Aspiring Knight’s Vest, which behaves the same way). On male characters it has long sleeves and wrappings around the waist, whereas on female characters it’s a sleeveless midriff top.

However, its magical ability to change is even more pronounced than that! To wit, it changes colour depending on who’s wearing it!

On Miraluka and Zabraks, it’s black. On Humans and Twi’leks it’s dark grey. And on Mirialans it’s a lovely powder blue.

Datacrons

Datacrons are small cubes hidden all over the game; they give off a coloured glow, and getting to most of them usually requires some tricky exploration, or platforming and pipe-jumping the likes of which nobody’s done since playing Mario Brothers. (A couple of them involve forcefields and similar shenanigans and you’ll need to take a friend.)

When you find a datacron it has the glowing quest triangle icon above it, though that doesn’t show up on the minimap, and using it will give you one of two things: either a small permanent bonus to one of your stats, or a matrix shard. Every planet has at least three datacrons; some have as many as five. Discovering a datacron also unlocks a new lore entry for your codex.

If you’re interested in chasing down all the datacrons and want to find them for yourself, I recommend a few things:

• Play with game sound turned up – datacrons make an ambient sound that’s hard to describe, but very recognisable. It’s sort of an echoey “fizzing” sound. Kind of.
• Whenever you enter a new area, pan the camera around a lot and look up on ledges. Even if you can’t see the datacron itself, its associated coloured glow is often very visible from a long way away.
• If you see things that look climbable, or jumpable-on, or run-up-able, try climbing them, jumping on them or running up them. I’ve found more than one datacron just by thinking “hmm, this looks suspiciously datacronny” and running up a ramp, following a ledge, jumping through a hole and so on.

Alternatively, if you’re not an explorer type, you can use Reddit’s Big Ol’ Datacron List, or SWTOR-Spy’s Datacrons List & Walkthroughs, but this will pretty much take all the fun out of it if you’re an explorer. (There’s still plenty of challenge left in actually getting to most of them, though.)

In addition, although it’s not listed in the guides, the Republic Fleet has a +10 All Stats datacron, and I’m assuming the Imperial Fleet does as well.

Matrix Shards and Making Relics

About 20% of the datacrons will give you a matrix shard, rather than a stat boost. The matrix shards can be found in your Mission Items inventory, and come in Red, Blue, Yellow and Green flavours. They’re no use for anything until you get three of them; then, you can combine them in a special machine to create a relic item.

This machine, the Matrix Shard Assembler, can be found in the special assembly chamber available to each faction. For the Republic, the chamber is inside the ruined Jedi Temple complex on Coruscant; for the Sith Empire, it’s in the Dark Temple Approach area on Dromund Kaas. Inside the chamber, there’s the aforementioned Matrix Shard Assembler, as well as three Shard Input Panels and a Matrix Cube Disassembler.

Creating a Relic

To make a relic, go to each Shard Input Panel and click on it; you’ll get a dialogue box to select a color shard. Pick one shard for each input panel; the shard ‘recipes’ are listed below, so make sure you’re using the right combination of shards for the relic that you want. It doesn’t matter which order you input the crystal colours, only that you’re using the right ones.

Once you’ve entered all three matrix shards into the input panels, go to the Matrix Shard Assembler, and use it. Confirm that you want to initiate the assembly sequence on the dialogue that follows, and you’ll see the machine making your Matrix Cube. Once it’s all complete, click on the cube and you’ll receive your shiny new relic. (Note that when you collect it, it goes into your Mission Items inventory, like the matrix shards.)

This is a video guide to the process:

(If the embedding doesn’t work for you, you can watch the video on YouTube instead.)

Disassembling a Relic

There are only a limited number of Matrix Shards available – see the list below for where you can find them – and if you’ve already used some of them to make a relic, you’ll need to break that relic down into shards again if you want to make another.

You can disassemble a relic in this same chamber, using the Matrix Shard Disassembler. However, you’ll need one extra item to do this – a Reconfigured Disassembler Core, sold by a Jawa vendor on Tatooine. (It’s not BoP, so low-level characters without ships can get their cores from higher-level characters.) The Core costs 8,000 credits; Republic players can buy it from Kitpth, the Stims Vendor at the sandcrawler just north of Anchorhead, while Imperials can buy it from Pitkth, a vendor just near the exit of Mos Ila.

To disassemble your relic, make sure you have a Reconfigured Disassembler Core in your inventory, along with the Matrix Cube. Inside the assembly chamber, all you have to do is go to the Matrix Shard Disassembler, click on it, and pick “Yes” when it asks you to choose your input. The machine will do its thing, using up the disassembler core and leaving you with a burned-out core in your inventory, and returning the matrix shards to your Mission Items. From there, you can make yourself another cube with a different recipe.

Note that the Reconfigured Disassembler Core is used up in the process; every time you want to break down a Matrix Cube, you’ll need to buy a new core from Tatooine.

Matrix Cube Recipes

The following recipes can be used to make various relics. Note that you can only have one Matrix Cube at a time, so if you want to make a new recipe you’ll need to disassemble your previous one first.

NB: Ignore the Augment slots on the tooltips. Sadly, Matrix Cubes don’t have Augment slots in-game.
NB2: Some of these recipes appear to double up on stats; it may be that some of the cubes haven’t been re-itemised since the beta. I don’t yet have all the shards myself, so I can’t test out every recipe. I’ll correct this and note any updates as more correct info comes to hand.

Level 15 Matrix Cubes: 3 different shards

• BYG: Matrix Cube M2-W0 (Endurance/Strength)
• RBY: Matrix Cube M2-W3 (Strength/Endurance)
• RYG: Matrix Cube M2-W1 (Willpower/Endurance)
• RBG: Matrix Cube M2-W2 (Aim/Endurance)

(Note there are no Cunning matrix cubes at this level.)

Level 24 Matrix Cubes: 2 Yellow/Blue shards, 1 of another colour

• RYY: Matrix Cube M3-O1 (Endurance/Strength)
• YBB: Matrix Cube M3-J2 (Endurance/Strength)
• RBB: Matrix Cube M3-V2 (Endurance/Willpower)
• BYY: Matrix Cube M3-J1 (Endurance/Aim)
• GBB: Matrix Cube M3-A2 (Aim/Endurance)
• GYY: Matrix Cube M3-L1 (Cunning/Endurance)

(Note that the two Strength cubes appear to be duplicates; the stats may have since been changed.)

Level 32 Matrix Cubes: 2 Red/Green shards, 1 of another colour

• YRR: Matrix Cube M4-L0 (Endurance/Strength)
• YGG: Matrix Cube M4-02 (Endurance/Strength)
• BRR: Matrix Cube M4-V1 (Endurance/Willpower)
• BGG: Matrix Cube M4-A1 (Endurance/Aim)
• GRR: Matrix Cube M4-B2 (Aim/Endurance)
• RGG: Matrix Cube M4-B1 (Cunning/Endurance)

(Note that the two Strength cubes appear to be duplicates; the stats may have since been changed.)

Level 50 Matrix Cubes: 3 of one colour
Force Users

• YYY: Matrix Cube M7-Y3 (Endurance/Strength/Defense)
• GGG: Matrix Cube M7-G0 (Strength/Endurance/Crit)
• RRR: Matrix Cube M7-R3 (Willpower/Endurance/Crit)
• BBB: Matrix Cube M7-B3 (Aim/Endurance/Crit)

(Note that the all-blue cube appears to be an Aim cube even for Force users.)

Tech Users

• YYY: Matrix Cube M7-Y3 (Endurance/Aim/Defense)
• GGG: Matrix Cube M7-G0 (Strength/Endurance/Crit)
• RRR: Matrix Cube M7-R3 (Cunning/Endurance/Crit)
• BBB: Matrix Cube M7-B3 (Aim/Endurance/Crit)

(Note that the all-green cube appears to be a Strength cube even for Tech users.)

Where To Get Matrix Shards

These are the planets where you can find the different Matrix shards you’ll need. Note there’s only three of each colour, so you don’t have much choice about skipping the shards you need. If you want to know exactly where to get each one, check the Reddit and SWTOR-Spy links in the Datacrons section above.

Red

• Ord Mantell (Republic) or Korriban (Imperial)
• Hoth
• Ilum

Green

• Taris (Republic) or Balmorra (Imperial)
• Corellia
• Belsavis

Blue

• Hutta (Imperial) or Tython (Republic)
• Tatooine
• Corellia

Yellow

• Coruscant (Republic) or Dromund Kaas (Imperial)
• Nar Shaddaa
• Ilum

…take a drink.

Anyone got any others? Let’s get this party started!

In most non-sandbox MMOs, you’re the hero; you’re a cut above the rank and file, and you get sent where there’s trouble, because only someone with your skills can save the day.

In most MMOs, similarly, you get sent pretty much all over the place while you level. The only areas you don’t see are usually the home turf of your enemy’s faction, or far-off lands of mystery that your civilization has little contact with (i.e. they’re fodder for the game’s next expansion). And because you’re sent to every part of the map as you level, the overall impression is that this place is in big trouble. There are no peaceful lands that aren’t war-torn or in great danger; everywhere you look there’s trouble and strife.

Think of WoW’s Azeroth as an example (and apologies to those readers who aren’t familiar with it). During the course of your levelling, you’re sent all over Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms; there’s no part of either continent that isn’t in dire need of a hero or ten (million). Every single zone has evil cults, rampaging elementals/undead/demons/dragons, political conspiracies, maddened wildlife, or factional conflicts destroying any hint of tranquility for the people who live there. And this is the case for pretty much every square inch of both continents; there’s nowhere on the map that could reasonably say anything other than “Here Be Dragons”. Which really makes you feel, as you grow through the levels, that your entire civilization is doomed.

SWTOR’s setting has a very different feel. Sure, you get sent all around the galaxy to a dozen different hotspots where your skills are needed, but there are many many more planets in the galaxy where you’re not needed. They’re right there on the galaxy map, thousands of little points of peaceful light spread out across a huge galaxy. And even on the planetary level, the zones are restricted to trouble spots; the implication is that outside those districts, you’re not needed, because life is going on more peacefully there.

Sure, a lot of this is for practicality’s sake – obviously Bioware’s not going to develop each of the millions of inhabited planets in the Star Wars galaxy, just so we can go there to sightsee – but on a planetary level Bioware could certainly have developed the whole of each planet and physically spread the content out. The fact that they didn’t doubtless had practical considerations involved, but the net result to me as a player is a setting that feels much more stable and less ridiculously apocalyptic than the majority of MMO worlds.

As the champions of our respective factions we’re all running around fighting the good fight, putting out fires, making a difference, and so on – but there are billions of Galactic citizens whose lives have barely been touched by the war. Their taxes may rise, the odd political figure or military leader gets assassinated, and some manufacturing facilities start churning out tanks instead of bulldozers, but for most people life goes on pretty much as normal.

After the high-tension constant near-apocalypses in many MMOs, it makes a relaxing change.

Siha dings 50...

And here’s 50, a month after the game officially launched. Of course, my progress was slowed a lot by the fact that Bioware’s preferred downtime is usually smack bang in the Australian evening, i.e. prime playing time for us Antipodeans. Still, it could be worse: every SOE game I’ve played had daily maintenance, usually an hour a day at 9pm my time.

Siha’s progress to 50 was further slowed by my resolve to smell every flower I could find. I wasn’t deliberately avoiding levelling – and in fact I found soloing in SWTOR much more fun than in any previous MMO – but after six straight years of WoW and a fair bit of endgame burnout, I was in no hurry to race to Operations. It seems many of my guildies felt the same way – I’m only the eighth to hit 50. Now I’m looking forward to seeing what the SWTOR endgame offers, going back and polishing off all the bonus quest serieses (which I skipped at the time, except Tatooine’s), and wallowing around in a whole slew of alts.