As more and more MMOs’ release, it is evident that World of Warcraft’s success has been an anomaly. Remember when SWTOR was strutted as the next “WoW killer?” But ultimately a large exodus occurred, and layoffs followed. Many have since begun questioning the success of any subscription based MMO to follow. If Bioware is struggling with a subscription model when they have the biggest IP you can attach to an MMO, what hope is there for any other MMO that follows the same model? Essentially, Bioware needs to convert to the Free-to-Play model if they want to increase their profit and player base.

With the level of changes going into 1.2, Reverse Engineering (RE) is something you need to be on top of.  The best gear in the game will be crit crafted Orange custom gear with Augment slots.  

But how do you get that gear, the Augments, and the modifications to put into them?

Click Continue Reading to find out!

Since the launch of Star Wars™: The Old Republic™, the Crew Skill system has been incredibly popular. Every week in-game, 52 million items are produced or harvested, 4.5 million item mods are installed and more than 35 million items change hands. Players actively participating in the Crew Skill system are generally better geared and have more credits in the bank than pure consumers.

That said, we still believe the Crew Skills can be made better. Without further ado, here are some of the things you can expect for your profession when Game Update 1.2: Legacy goes live.

Developers say things.  But sometimes they say things that make you stop and go, “WTF?!”  In recent interviews at the Guild Summit George Zoeller and Daniel Erickson said the following:

Georg Zoeller: (Source) We’re also hoping that by giving people access to the combat log, they actually get a better sense. Look at sithwarrior.com, for example. They say a lot of theories that are just plain wrong, and to be fair, how would you know better?

Daniel Erickson: (Source) They want to surface a huge amount of the information for the game. They want to be a place that you can trust the source, that they can feed stuff out so we have a standardization so people know where things are going there. I think the long term plan is sort of to be the one stop resource for all of your questions and anything that you actually want to know or need to find out how you’re going to figure out about The Old Republic.

There are some very interesting things you can take away from these quotes when looking at them together:

• Dev’s actively research and monitor player theory crafting of their game.
• They have plans to centralize the game community so players can come to them for game information.
• They are aware of respected sources having incorrect information and don’t always inform the player base.

The Star Wars Universe is one of frantic dogfights in space, battles of good and evil, and even the seedy underbelly of the many worlds and their crime organizations. The Old Republic allows you to take on some of the most famous archetypes in this universe and explore some unique stories. In Role Play, however, players do not need to be restricted by these archetypes. If a smuggler doesn’t interest you, why not an entertainer? If following the Jedi code is not your cup of tea, why not play as a Republic politician?

There are many roles in this galaxy, and not all of them are offered by Bioware. With a little creativity any roleplayer can have a unique and off-beat character to play. Click past the cut to explore some potential concepts.

Those who have played World of Warcraft will remember that crafters were able to link their entire crafting list into the chat window for potential customers to browse.  A feature that is extremely useful for themselves and other players to facilitate trade.  A feature that seems to be missing in The Old Republic.

Except it is in the game, from a certain point of view.  While linking a crafting skill to chat might not be in the game, there is still a way to view the schematic list of another player.  Just target the player who will be doing the crafting and right click on their portrait.  Scroll to “Additional Commands” on the window that pops up, and a second window will appear.  This window allows players to inspect each other, add friends, ignore others or report spammers, and last but not even close to least, View Schematics.  Click on that one, and the crafter’s schematic window opens for perusal.

The Synthweaving crew skill is another one of the six crafting crew skills that you can learn while adventuring in SWTOR. The SWTOR official site says that Synthweaving is “the art of creating lighter outfits and armors that are imbued with supernatural qualities.” However, it’s important to note that synthweavers also make heavy armor. Continue reading after the break to learn more about what makes the synthweaver such a valuable crew skill and to see if this is the crafting skill for you.

In Star Wars: The Old Republic you’ll find that there is a very unique crafting system that has been built over the typical crafting and gathering system that you find in most other major MMORPGS. At it’s base, you have your typical gathering skills and crafting skills that everyone is familiar with, except in SWTOR you are not doing the busy work, your companions are. Because of this crafting skills are referred to as Crew Skills. By the time you reach level 50 and have completed your character’s story line, you’ll have six different companions to run your Galactic sweatshop!

Crew skills are broken down into three different categories: Gathering, Crafting and Missions. Gathering and Crafting should already be familiar with most MMORPG veterans. Gathering allows you to procure materials while Crafting uses those materials to make stuff. The new addition to the crafting sphere are Mission Skills. These skills are essentially fetching and gathering abilities where you gain a myriad of odd things like schematics (recipes), mission discoveries, rare materials and gifts for your companions.

Today’s Pro-Tip is a simple one. When you’re out in the field gathering materials or sending out your companions out on gathering missions you begin to accumulate a ton of stuff in your inventory taking up precious space. Here’s the tip: whenever you’re in your capitol city or on the fleet, put all your crafting mats in your cargo hold (bank). Whenever you have your companions craft something for you, they take the mats directly from your cargo hold! You no longer have to hold on to mats in your inventory to craft them!

Now we just need to be able to command your active companion to go run off and put something in the bank for you just like he or she can sell off vendor junk.

Let’s hope that in the future, with the Legacy system, you can share cargo hold space across all characters so if you can have a gathering alt easily share materials with everyone in the “family”.

The Cybertech crew skill is another one of the six crafting skills that you can learn in SWTOR. This skill is focused on “the technical expertise to construct gadgets and components for Droids and high-tech armors.” Cybertechs will be able to create a vast array of different types of items in comparison to all of the other crew skills. Keep reading to learn about everything this exciting crew skill has to offer.

Once you get past your first planet and onto your faction’s fleet you come across your first set of crew skills trainers. This is where you get to make another important decision that will affect the rest of the game for you. You get to decide what crew skills you want to specialize in. If you decide to choose the Cybertech crew skill it is suggested to also take the gathering crew skill called Scavenging. This will allow you to gather the needed materials to craft your Cybertech items. You will also be needing to pick up a mission skill which will provide you with the more rare materials needed for your crafting. The mission skill that is suggested is called Underworld Trading.