Over yonder there's a lot of new articles up as well:

Trooper impression

PVP (Huttball & Alderaan)

Companions & crewskills (With some nice bits of info I hadn't read yet)

Overall Impression (with a video interview with the guys who played it)

The cool stuff about crafting from the third link:

"Once you have a crafting skill, items that you can theoretically craft -- say, lightsabers and bracers for Force users as an Artificer -- can be "Reverse Engineered." By clicking a button in the inventory menu, eligible items are highlighted. Then it's just a matter of clicking the items you want to break down one at a time. The items will vanish from existence and you'll get a small fraction of their original resource cost in return.

This is significant because you can break down items you create, and each self-created item you Reverse Engineer has a chance to teach you a recipe to create a better version of that item. You may, for example, create a shield-generator with some strength and endurance. Then you break it down, and you learn a recipe that is identical, except it also increases your defense, or maybe it increases your damage-absorption rate. It makes item-crafting somewhat of a slot machine, and gives you a reason to craft the same item a dozen times that isn't strictly for skill-ups, sell back to vendors or put on the Auction House

That random element of chance also applies to item creation. Occasionally when your companion comes back from a crafting outing, you'll get a message saying something along the lines of "They did an exceptional job!" Check your inventory, and you'll find that your usual crafted item is actually a little unusual. You may find that it now has an enhancement slot, meaning you can attach an upgrade to your item, increasing its stats and effectiveness. For items that can't get enhancements, an exceptional crafting session may produce more of the item than normal. In my case, I got two Lightsaber for the same resource cost of one.

These small, luck-based events add a great deal of enjoyment to what is otherwise a simplistic crafting system. And it's addictive. Sitting at my desk, I found myself regularly queuing up jobs for my companions to do while I stood there completely inactive. Add to it the fact that you can send your companions off anywhere and at any time -- I was sending them away in the middle of dungeons, PvP and while I was just browsing through vendor merchandise -- and it's a system you can have running in the background constantly, giving you regular rewards regardless of your activity.

Overall, it's a system that I think I will be using regularly, perhaps even compulsively. I can see every spare credit going towards advancing my crafting skills, and every item I create being broken down in the hopes of learning a more potent version. "

There's a ton more of beta impressions out there in the media. A poster on the SWTOR forums did a good job at accumulating them: < clicky 4 mani impreshuns heres >

Hadn't read that yet, sounds interesting as I am a big fan of crafting - when the system in place is decent to do so.

So for me this is akin to killing mobs rinse and repeat until one finally drops the elusive item I need.

Luck in crafting, where the fortunate get the perfect item and the unfortunate lose their hair.

Woot. :/

Originally posted by cinos

So for me this is akin to killing mobs rinse and repeat until one finally drops the elusive item I need.

Luck in crafting, where the fortunate get the perfect item and the unfortunate lose their hair.

Woot. :/

Beats churning out 20 "Simple Copper Breastplates" and selling them to a merchant to be elligable to make "20 Simple Bronze Breastplates"; i.e. leveling your crafting through a very predictable, linear trajectory with all items you make having fixed stats.

I can't really fathom why anyone would object to chance mechanics like this; not only gives it crafters the option to specialize and to be different from other crafters with varying recipe portfolios, but it also means much more variety in (crafted) itemization; When you decided that you need to get a "Studded Belt of Painful Beatings", you still have to pick which one / with which extra stats or slots and perhaps look for a specific crafter that can make the perfect one for you.

That + the modding system which supposedly allows you to pick the look you want and still be effective sounds damn awesome to me, man.

Thanks for the post didnt see that info yet , realy cannot wait anymore for the game to release now ! :)

Crafting system is waaay too simple to be something serious, rather a nice lottery-style minigame. Lotteries are addictive, so likely lots of people will find it a nice distraction. Since I had no hopes for better crafting, I'm content.

Originally posted by DarkPony

I can't really fathom why anyone would object to chance mechanics like this

because once again it is a system that requires absolutely no skill on the part of the player and encourages grind and time investment rather than actually knowing how to do something well.

the system has the potential to be interesting if it isn't limited - if the process described can be done for EVERY item in the game and better and unique items can be achieved.  however, if i had to guess, i would guess that this system will be limited to only a certain (lower) tier of items and that despite all the luck in the world, one would simply be able to hit a flashpoint or operation to get a better item, which then would NOT be upgradable via this system.  that's pure speculation on my part though.  If i could get a raid item and then use this system to make more improved versions of it, that would be pretty awesome.  no way in hell i see it being allowed to happen though.

A problem I always had with crafting was that the items you could make would eventually be made redundant because of easier to aquire BOE items after a major patch. Then there was the stupidity of requiring materials that were far too hard, expensive or time consuming to aquire to make it even worth crafting in the 1st place. Then finally the fact that you'd have to make loads of the same item to "skill up" and usually these items were sold for next to nothing on the AH or just vendored.

I like SWTOR's mini game approach & the referse enginieering sounds good.

Originally posted by arieste

Originally posted by DarkPony

I can't really fathom why anyone would object to chance mechanics like this

because once again it is a system that requires absolutely no skill on the part of the player and encourages grind and time investment rather than actually knowing how to do something well.

Well ..................... *insert more dots here*

"Skill" isn't much of factor in crafting in any mmorpg (that I played). There are however, in SWTOR, often choices to make though: Which companion to give which crew skills in the first place, which missions to send them on, (will you send away your main pve companion on long crafting missions or will you be needing it in pve?), which items to sell for profits and which to reverse engineer for a chance on a recipe proc, etc.

That management aspect and those choices should make it less of a "dumbed down gameplay alternative" I suppose. And much better than crafting as we've seen in the themeparks where it had been added as an afterthought like AOC and WAR.

 the system has the potential to be interesting if it isn't limited - if the process described can be done for EVERY item in the game and better and unique items can be achieved.  however, if i had to guess, i would guess that this system will be limited to only a certain (lower) tier of items and that despite all the luck in the world, one would simply be able to hit a flashpoint or operation to get a better item, which then would NOT be upgradable via this system.  that's pure speculation on my part though.  If i could get a raid item and then use this system to make more improved versions of it, that would be pretty awesome.  no way in hell i see it being allowed to happen though.

Yes, but they said that crafted gear goes as high as the second best gear in the game. If you factor in modding and less importance to the stats on the item itself compared to most other themeparks and potentially, crafted gear will be very important for all people for a very long time.

Originally posted by MyGarona
Hmmmm,"skill on the part of the player" who is clicking a mouse button - amazing. Consider acquiring a real world skill if you need this much reinforcement.

Have you considering acquiring a real world skill of fencing instead of playing a mmorpg? :)

Honestly, people. It's ALL mouseclicking. If some mouseclicking may imply skill, other may imply it too. While I'm wastly prefering crafting skill in real life, I'm a woodcrafter, but any activity in the game, including crafting, should have some level of some skill involved. After all, all of it is just mouseclicking.

Originally posted by eluldor

Hadn't read that yet, sounds interesting as I am a big fan of crafting - when the system in place is decent to do so.

 The only game that I have enjoyed crafting in was EQ2. Mostly because the little mini game was fun as well as you got orders from NPCs for a group of items. The Star Wars system sounds different at least.  

Originally posted by catlana

Originally posted by eluldor

Hadn't read that yet, sounds interesting as I am a big fan of crafting - when the system in place is decent to do so.

 The only game that I have enjoyed crafting in was EQ2. Mostly because the little mini game was fun as well as you got orders from NPCs for a group of items. The Star Wars system sounds different at least.  

Agreed about EQII's crafting system.

Originally posted by arieste

Originally posted by DarkPony

I can't really fathom why anyone would object to chance mechanics like this

because once again it is a system that requires absolutely no skill on the part of the player and encourages grind and time investment rather than actually knowing how to do something well.

 

the system has the potential to be interesting if it isn't limited - if the process described can be done for EVERY item in the game and better and unique items can be achieved.  however, if i had to guess, i would guess that this system will be limited to only a certain (lower) tier of items and that despite all the luck in the world, one would simply be able to hit a flashpoint or operation to get a better item, which then would NOT be upgradable via this system.  that's pure speculation on my part though.  If i could get a raid item and then use this system to make more improved versions of it, that would be pretty awesome.  no way in hell i see it being allowed to happen though.

You don't have to invest time in grinding materials at all. Your companions can do all the grinding for you which is a very welcomed adition. Plus this reverse engineering thingy is a nice touch in my opinion. It gives crafting lower level items a meaning rather than someone simply having to craft 30 pieces of item A in order to be able to craft item B.

And what exactly are you meaning by "..rather than actually knowing how to do something well." ?

Breaking down items for crafting componenets is nothing new.  Its been in many games.  Its pretty rare that its all that useful.  I have played one or two games where it was very useful.

In Champions Online its very useful.  It gives good stuff AND it trains your crafting skill.  Anyway nothing special out of Bioware really.  But  I like it when crafting system have this feature.

Originally posted by Xondar123

Originally posted by catlana

Originally posted by eluldor

Hadn't read that yet, sounds interesting as I am a big fan of crafting - when the system in place is decent to do so.

 The only game that I have enjoyed crafting in was EQ2. Mostly because the little mini game was fun as well as you got orders from NPCs for a group of items. The Star Wars system sounds different at least.  

Agreed about EQII's crafting system.

I did have my moments with EQII system but man did have it's problems at launch.  The furnace was the second ranked killer of PCs on my server. 

Seeing toons drop at the furnace really added somthing extra lol! 

I really hope crafting in TOR will be worth it in the long run. I really do like crafting in games but I usually pick the worst one and the one that has the least amount of money making.  I guess I need to stop picking armorsmiths!

Having beta withdrawls come on 12/20!