Crew Skills Explained in the Latest Friday Update



This week's Friday Update spills the beans on Star Wars: The Old Republic's Crew Skills system. A new video is up on the official site with an in depth explanation by BioWare's Dallas Dickinson. The game systems section is also updated with a substantial amount of information regarding the different facets of the system. As we already know, Crew Skills are divided into three different areas: Gathering, Crafting, and Missions. These are then each divided up into their own subsets. Not all of the subsets have been revealed as of yet, but currently we know about Bioanalysis, Scavenging and Slicing within the Gathering skillset, Armormech, Artifice and Biochem within the Crafting skillset, and finally Diplomacy and Treasure Hunting within the Mission skillset. For more, you can read our recent interview with BioWare Austin's Lead Writer, Daniel Erickson.

Additionally, we received the official introduction of Stephen Reid, the new Community Manager for Star Wars: The Old Republic. We were lucky enough to meet Stephen last Wednesday and hope everyone will join us in welcoming him to the community.

You can read Stephen's official introduction, official video, and the Friday Update forum post after the jump.


Alyson Bridge
The galaxy is full of resources and opportunities for your character to benefit and profit. The Crew Skills system allows you to gather those valuable resources, craft a wide range of useful items, and send your crew out on their own missions to retrieve rewards. With Crew Skills, you'll be able to do all these things while your character stays in the action or even if you have to log off!

Crew Skills are a unique approach to a crafting system, built to suit the tastes of a broad range of players and to maximize your time spent adventuring and experiencing your character's story while still earning useful benefits. Put your companions to work and get the most out of the galaxy's myriad opportunities!

Learn more details about the inner workings of the Crew Skills Game System on the new Crew Skills System page.


Stephen Reid
Hi. My name's Stephen Reid, and I'm your new Community Manager.

Like probably all of you, I've been a Star Wars fan for almost my entire life - starting with the original Star Wars in 1977. When that Star Destroyer came thundering into frame, the unforgettable John Williams' score blasting out in futuristic Dolby Stereo... well my 5-year-old mind was well and truly blown.

Fast forward to 1999, and I made a pilgrimage to Portland, Oregon (of all places) to see The Phantom Menace on opening night - midnight showing, natch. When Darth Maul's double-bladed lightsaber ignited... well, my 26-year-old mind was blown again.

Fast forward to 2003, and from my bedroom in a south London flat, I experience BioWare's Knights of the Old Republic on Xbox. When I realized exactly who I was playing... well shoot, wasn't your mind blown? I also knew without a shadow of a doubt that with BioWare, Star Wars was in good hands.

Which brings us on fast forward right up to last week, when I arrived to work at BioWare Austin and saw - well, we're not ready to discuss that yet. All we can say publicly right now is that it involved minds and... actually let's just move on in case I get my own intro thread deleted.

So, let's get the vital info in before the lock: I've worked in the games industry, and in various types of content and community management roles, for about 12 years. I'm a huge believer in the power of online communities to bring the creators of games closer to their fans, and vice versa. Quite frankly, I have one of the coolest jobs in the world, and that's before you add the Star Wars factor.

In other words, I'm absolutely thrilled, excited, privileged and humbled to be here and working on Star Wars: The Old Republic. It's an incredible opportunity to serve you, the community, and to help make what I know will be a landmark MMORPG.

There's still plenty to do, to see, to talk about and of course to debate about that galaxy far, far away that we're preparing for you to explore. I think it's going to be an amazing journey. And I hope you're ready to come along.

Thanks for reading.

Comments

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  • #35 EarinShaad
    Stephen Reid surly has a great way of introducing himself. I like him allready. :)
  • #34 EightyEight
    This might have been mentioned somewhere else, but the official SWTOR.com mainpage scrolling image for the Crew Skill reveal shows what appears to be a Sith Pureblood in Inquisitor-ish gear. It's clearly a different Pureblood from the one we've seen previously, since this one has hair, while the other is bald. I know Vette is a Sith Warrior companion and all, but since those scrolling images are usually heavily doctored, I thought I'd mention it.
  • #31 edgesarmy
    Good deal. The crew skills add what I liked about EVE Online (gaining skills and/or crafting while off-line) to TOR.
  • #30 Odin_Kira
    Hey DarthHater is the big guy from Goonies in the video a Hut?

    Huts grow worm like as the build wealth and influence, in their younger years they are bipedal.
  • #32 RogueJedi86
    Nope, that's a Houk, named Skadge. As seen in "The Clone Wars", baby Hutts are just shorter and fatter and cuter. Houks are big, rivaling Wookiees in strength. The Aurebesh on Nem'ro the Hutt's page mentions that he uses Houk bodyguards and that he betrayed Skadge, leaving us with an idea of some of the plot involving Skadge.
  • #29 smugglerfrtyto
    This just totally blew me away. This will finally merge Farmville with MMOs. Heh j/k. But serioulsy this is a tremendous feature to me, I can't wait to get my crew together and start scouring the galaxy for loot and crafting my own custom Smuggler gear.
  • #27 ArcherAvatar
    A hearty welcome to Stephen "Rockjaw" Reid...

    It was a relief to see that BioWare handled this transition with their usual class, and instead of "knee-jerk" reacting to get someone, anyone, into the position, they took some time and brought in a fellow with alot of great experience... An outstanding addition to an already great crew.
  • #26 Keshrin
    I'm betting that gathering materials will not necessarily be difficult/time consuming but the actual crafting will take hours and will tie up that companion and make them unusable until either the item is crafted or you stop the crafting which means you would have to start the crafting process all over again.
  • #25 DarthShnooky
    This is pretty much some of the best news ever with this game, thus far. I love crafting in games, and this seems like a great step forward in how it is done.
  • #21 Eslates
    I HAVENT EVEN SEEN THE VIDEO YET AND THIS STUFF IS SO GOOD
  • #19 MechaGodzilla
    tat looks so good...
  • #18 Drom_CZ
    Finally new CM! :) It was mess without Sean.
  • #16 Deden
    A new official post:

    "To be more precise, players can have up to three crew skills but only one of those can be a crafting skill. The fictional reason is that you only can have room for one crafting table on your ship, but the real reason is that we don't want all players to be self-sufficient.

    We call the system Crew Skills because they are skills possessed by your amorphous crew as a whole. If your crew can go treasure hunting, you can order any of your crew members to run treasure hunting missions. Vette may have a bonus to treasure hunting (being a native treasure hunter and all), but to be honest we currently have these bonuses set to be relatively mild - we don't want people to choose NOT to take their favorite companion out on the field with them because the economic bonus to keeping them on the ship is that much greater."

    http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=225043
  • #13 SteveConnors
    What race is Skadge?
  • #33 RogueJedi86
    Houk
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