Interview: Daniel Erickson on Crew Skills

Interview: Daniel Erickson on Crew Skills



We caught up with Star Wars: The Old Republic's Lead Writer Daniel Erickson after last week's EA Winter Showcase and asked him to explain in his own words what the Crew Skills system is. He was gracious enough to provide us with expanded insight regarding the unique crafting system that BioWare Austin's Lead System Designer, Damion Schubert, hinted at during our interview in October.

Update: Part 2 is now available.
Interview


The crafting system in Star Wars: The Old Republic we call Crew Skills is something we worked on literally for years trying to solve some of the big puzzles. There are a lot of us who are big crafting fans, including myself, but we really wanted to make sure we preserved some of the core concepts around SWTOR such as you play a hero of Star Wars. You are doing big, heroic, and exciting things. You are not sewing. You are not making shoes. You are not hanging out trying to get some thread together.

We went through a lot of versions of how we work with this, and one of the things we kept coming back to was companion characters. One of the issues with companion characters in past BioWare games has always been that you have a limited set of who you can bring in your party at one time. For most people, they pick the couple of companions they really like, and everybody else ends up back on the ship. These came together into a great kind of synergy for us and became the Crew Skills system, which is a combination of wanting crafting, but we don't want to make your character mundane and we need something for your crew to be doing. So alright, we have a perfect match.



The Crew Skills system is three sections. Gathering is going out and grabbing stuff from the environment and your typical harvesting skills, but with a Star Wars flavor. You're doing bio analysis, actually scanning things, getting DNA sequencing from things, etc. One of the interesting things when we talk about missions is that there are also missions for gathering. I can gather in three ways: I can be right there physically, and I can see something and pick it up. Or I can say, "Hey Vette -- you pick that up and I'm going to do something else" while I keep fighting.

One thing that is really fun is when you're in a combat area that is pretty dangerous, and you're able to distract someone. Let's say there is someone in the area that you couldn't normally kill; you could throw yourself into combat and fight with them to keep them off your companion character while they harvest something you wouldn't normally be able to get... and then run!

And the third way of gathering is... actually, every gathering skill comes with a mission skill for gathering. Let's say I don't have Vette and I have someone else with me; I can actually call back to my ship and say, "Hey Vette! Why don't you go find me some of this material? I don't care where you get it -- just go." So that is gathering. The second part of the Crew Skills is crafting and that is really the traditional crafting system. You have a crafting table which is on your ship. Up to five of your companions can work on it at once. You say to yourself, "I have all the components I need. I now want to make something. But I'm not going to make it -- my companions are going to make it."
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Comments

  • zechio's avatar
    Dark Lord
    • Posts: 391
    #114 zechio Posted 11/13/2010 2:17:21 AM
    Or I'll bet if theres nothing around, you can both gather different nodes at the same time too. Hey vette, go check that pile of scrap over there..I'm going to see if I can salvage anything from this busted speeder over here:)
  • CRR_Kathy's avatar
    Nerf Herder
    • Posts: 22
    #96 CRR_Kathy Posted 11/12/2010 9:06:23 PM
    The more I hear about this crafting system, the more I am liking it. The whole Mission/Diplomacy aspect is FANTASTIC...farming for Dark or Light side points? Wouldn't even have thought of combining crafting with faction points, brilliant.

    I am also amused by the Affection Rating thing....another reason to make sure your companions are happy!

    I also like that you will still be able to go out and gather if you want to. I think that those who get mats the old-fashioned way, rather than just queuing up an offline gather, should be rewarded with a higher yield. That would give the crafty peeps who put in the hard work a leg up in the economy.

    Thanks, guys, for this interview. Another great contribution to the SWTOR community from the DH crew.
  • emlaeh's avatar
    Dark Councilor
    • Posts: 995
    #110 emlaeh Posted 11/13/2010 1:20:13 AM
    Thanks Kathy!

    There is more coming from us on this topic hopefully next week... and we might reveal my top secret interviewer method to getting Daniel Erickson to talk for ten minutes straight. ;)
  • CRR_Kathy's avatar
    Nerf Herder
    • Posts: 22
    #122 CRR_Kathy Posted 11/14/2010 4:27:30 PM
    Hahaha I am definitely interested in such methods in case I ever encounter any of these guys face to face.
  • Vanlan's avatar
    Dark Lord
    • Posts: 368
    #95 Vanlan Posted 11/12/2010 9:05:25 PM
    Looks like there's going to be even more info on this in a few minutes:

    http://www.swtor.com/info/systems
    There's a crew skills button now, but the target is not found yet

    http://www.swtor.com/info/systems/crew-skills
  • RogueJedi86's avatar
    Dark Councilor
    • Posts: 3,411
    #98 RogueJedi86 Posted 11/12/2010 9:46:44 PM
    The crew skills page works now, along with a bit on swtor.com/news, but you found that ahead of time, very perceptive. :P
  • Peterisjustok's avatar
    Spice Runner
    • Posts: 247
    #99 Peterisjustok Posted 11/12/2010 9:46:53 PM
    It's up now. : D Very exciting.
  • heybarn's avatar
    Spice Runner
    • Posts: 240
    #102 heybarn Posted 11/12/2010 9:52:58 PM
    Nice! I see the BH has 3 Companions on display: Mako, Skadge & 2V-R8.
  • abner_ford's avatar
    Dark Councilor
    • Posts: 662
    #105 abner_ford Posted 11/12/2010 9:53:44 PM
    Thanks for the link. I've kinda stopped going to the main site until Darth Hater tells me to hah.
  • darthuser2796's avatar
    Gamorrean Thug
    • Posts: 34
    #107 darthuser2796 Posted 11/12/2010 10:02:11 PM
    Thnx for the link! as abner said, I also check the mainsite only when DH says I should
  • Kennerish's avatar
    Gamorrean Thug
    • Posts: 41
    #94 Kennerish Posted 11/12/2010 8:58:58 PM
    Love the new info! I usually find crafting incredibly annoying and time wasteful, but forced to do it for economic reasons. This system might actually be fun! I'll be interested to see how they balance crafted and dropped gear. That will determine a lot of the utility of the system.
  • taupeto's avatar
    Nerf Herder
    • Posts: 16
    #91 taupeto Posted 11/12/2010 8:49:15 PM
    Was I the only one to get an image of being The Monarch, rising from my command chair screaming at the top of my lungs "Minions!!!! Execute plan 37!"

    Of course going with that idea means that I have minion 21 and 24 asking quietly, "What's plan 37?"

    Mobile apps for this system would cause me to go out and get a Droid phone ASAP. Heck if Verizon has to pay Lucas for the license to pay for the word Droid, I might as well go ahead and add to the kitty. I hear they have an R2-D2 version.

    For those that were wondering, plan 37 is where I send people off to gather mats for med kits for tomorrow night's raid.
  • ArcherAvatar's avatar
    Dark Councilor
    • Posts: 554
    #97 ArcherAvatar Posted 11/12/2010 9:07:14 PM
    LOL... this was a little piece of awesome that made my day...

    Have to agree about the smart phone + apps for staying on top of your crew... might have to look into that.
  • zechio's avatar
    Dark Lord
    • Posts: 391
    #115 zechio Posted 11/13/2010 2:40:21 AM
    Yea. The Droid 2 has an R2-D2 version. Honestly though, I wouldn't recommend it. Right this moment I would recommend the HTC Incredible ( which I have, it's awesome! ) but Android isn't restricted to 1 single cell phone manufacturer...so theres a new one coming out every couple of weeks. Theres supposed to be 1.3 ghz dual cores coming out pretty soon.
  • flem1's avatar
    Dark Councilor
    • Posts: 865
    #76 flem1 Posted 11/12/2010 6:54:25 PM
    Great. And as somebody mentioned below, this really does have "mobile app" written all over it.
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