Weekly Spotlight: Crafting in SW:IF, part 1

Hey again guys! Glitch here with the first of a series of weekly design spotlight posts, where I'll be sharing with you the big changes in design that are happening in the transition from SW:KoD to SW:IF. Today's spotlight: Crafting.

In perhaps one of the most jarring (but also, we believe, most necessary) changes from KoD to IF, the engineer class is being removed entirely from the game. We feel that the engineer as a *class* has very little gameplay associated with it, and as we want to make the game very quest-oriented and provide a lot of end-game PvE and PvP content, we feel the engineer class has little to add to that type of gameplay, and would be a sort of odd-character-out that won't be a desirable choice to join any party.

As such, rather than have engineering be its own class, it will now be a sort of side-game available to anyone regardless of class - very similar to in most modern MMOs. You will still have to level it up (which will be much harder), you will have to gather resources (which will be harder), and we will be adding multiple types of engineering that a person can embark upon. (For example, one person will be able to craft armor, another will be able to craft weapons, etc. No one person will be able to craft everything.)

I know what you're thinking... won't this make it even harder to get all of your gear? Well, yes and no. It will make it harder to have all the best gear in the game, and this will be intentional, as gear will become leveled and you will have to achieve maximum level and find a lot of rare items to get the best possible gear in any given category. And it will require interaction with multiple characters to make this happen.

But as a concession, we will be altering some rules on alt transfer. And by altering, I mean removing. Every account will have a multi-character shared bank, so if you have all engineering types leveled up on different characters, you can make your own gear when you can't find anyone else to make it for you.

Also, Skye, yes... ship crafting *will* be one of the professions you can follow.

More details on exactly what professions will be available, and what each one will be able to craft, in the future.

And one final thing: If you can make it, you can repair it. That is all!

More updates to come! Thanks to all of you for your support during our transition from KoD to IF!

-Glitch