CHARACTER CREATION
Species selection:
This stage depends on how much you have already planned the path of your character. If you know what professions you want to go into right away, then you may want to pick your species based on bonuses that a specific race gets, if you really wanted to. You can see the bonus when you click on the species, its fairly hard to screw this up. DO NOT THINK YOU HAVE TO. ANY species can work well for any profession. Remember, think about stats (health, strength, ect) in terms of a total, not a part. You can change any stat point over to any other stat, any time in game. (Although it takes a while.)
If you don't know yet what you want to do, then pick the species you like best, based on description, looks, or whatever. As long as your happy with being that species, you will be fine.
[NOTE: If you start as a wookiee, you will not be able to talk to people who do not understand the wookiee language. And nobody except other wookies start off knowing it.
However, it is both fairly easy to teach friends the language, and to emote things you need. For example, if you enter a Cantina and want to find a group, you could type /emote looks around, searching for a group to go hunting with.]
Looks:
Your on your own, here. Everything is easy to understand, (just sliders) and you can get a very custom look. More so then in any other MMORPG I have played. Remember, if you want to change later on, you can always get an image desiger to change the way you look.
Profession
This is your starting profession. If you know what you want to do, then go ahead and pick that. If you don't, then I suggest you start with the Scout. They start with both brawler and marksman weapons, and a basic camp and trap. They may also start with a general crafting kit, and some survey tools. (That might be changed, may may already have been changed.)
Now. My advice to you: Pick up every starting profession as soon as you get in game. The manual that comes with the game should cover training in new skills, and doing delivery missions for cash, so I won't list that again. By picking up every starting profession, not only are you much more useful, you can see what you like to do. Who knows, you tough bounty hunter may like to do a little exotic dancing on the side. The point is, you won't know unless you try.
And remember, you can forget any skill with the press of a button, if you need the skill points back. So really, there isn't any real downfall to do that. The 500� you need to train in all 6 professions is so little that in a week, you will be giving double that as tips to people who randomly heal you as you walk by.
So your finally playing SWG
Ok. So, when you finally are happy with your character, you may now enter the newbie tutorial. DO IT. DON'T SKIP IT. At least the first time. And remember, that pirate isn't such a bad guy when you get to know him. He just had terrible emotional issues as a teen.
Anyway.
You finished the tutorial, and are ready to pick a starting planet? WAIT! There is one last thing you have to do. Open you character information window, and click the button that says �Stat migration�. This will let you change your stats instantly, instead of over time, the way you will when you get in the real game world. The stats will look like this:
Health
Strength
Constitution
Action
Quickness
Stamina
Mind
Focus
Willpower
The easist way to remember what each one does is this. Take the first three: Health, Strength, and Consitiution. They all effect, in one way or another, the first of your the bars on the HAM. (Health Action Mind bar. This is your HP bar in game. When ANY of them gets to 0, you become incapacitated. So its important to keep that from happning.).
The first, Health, is the direct ammount you have in that bar. So if your health is 1000, you can take 1000 worth of damage in that bar. The second, Strength, is how much an action will cost you to do. Thats right, when you perform an ingame action, like a special combat move, it will lower your HAM bars. The higher this is, the less it will cost to do those moves. Constitution, on the other hand, deals with health bar rengeration rates. If you get this high, you will regen very fast. If you skimp on it, and leave it low, you will regen very slowly.
They all work like that. Example, Quickness works like Strength does, only for action. Willpower works for mind the way Consitution works for health.
Now, what should you set your stats to? Well, that all depends.
If you want to do any combat professions:
For combat, the number one thing you must do is not leave yourself crippled in the HAM. All three bars should be close to equal, or at least above 800. Since an enemy can target any one of those bars, any can be your weakness. A common PvP tatic is to find a newbie who has high action and health, and very low mind. A even a newbie rifle user could kill you instantly then. So make sure you get it balanced. The other two types, regen and point useage, would be a good thing to balance at first. You will learn what works best for each profession and skill type as you get in game, and its fairly easy to pick up. Remember that you can change your stats in game whenever you want.
For support classes:
If ALL you want to do is be an entertainer or a crafter, then you can skip out on the health related stats. Instead, pump up action, and mind. The thing dancers use most is action. Crafters and straight, non-combat medics use mind. As a starting crafter, you will have a lot of trouble surveying well without any mind regen.
If you want to do a hybrid class, or if you want to try all 6 the way I suggested, then its best to go with a basic combat layout, and adjust your stats the way you like.
Picking a starting planet
Your finally ready to enter the game. Some advice on the starting planets:
Tatooine:
Its sandy. A low level planet, most things are fairly easy here. A great planet for newbies. Lots of low critters for you to whack at first, and plenty of medium stuff for later on. Not to mention that it is by far one of the most �Starwarsy� planets there are. Lots of story, Jabbas Palace, and who knows, you may even see Han and Chewie hanging out at the local cantina.
Naboo:
A nice, green world. Very green. Like Tatooine, fairly easy stuff, although persononally, I didn't find it as interesting as far as SW stuff goes. Yes, they have gungans. And some beautiful architecture.
Corellia: Ahh. A very nice planet, although you may find it a little boring eventually. Lots of low level stuff, not as much high/medium level stuff. Home to the Agrilat swamp, a place you should see in your galatic travels. (Although I found it horribly depressing to live there...you can't see the sun. )
Talus: Can you say giant dinosaur world? This place is fairly nice. However, it is nowhere near as populated as the other planets, and with only 2 cities, travel can get difficult. One of the sites you should check out are the giant tourtons. For the hermit type.
Rori: Personally, I have never been there. However, Tyndaleon, a good friend of mine, had this to say about it:
Rori is probably the hardest planet to describe to be honest....I mean, the terrain is very...different. In some ways it's like an Arizona desert only with yellow and green vegetation instead of sand or pure rock
Mobs that I *saw* (and mind you I wasn't on Rori a GREAT long time, just long enough to make it to the battlefield there and then make it back to a city) were simliar to that of Talus actually. Some cat type mobs, they have torTONS, which look pretty much the same as Talus' torturs....rasp-like mobs I think, hmm...hard to remember beyond those
Whatever you select, good luck on your journey!
Part Two...what to do when you get ingame, and how to do it.
One thing about this guide to remember: Its not a guide for the hardcore, l33t p0w3rGm3r. This is a guide for someone who just wants to have fun in the game, and isn't sure how to do that. And also remember, there are LOTS of ways to do that, aside from the basic ways to get started I will be listing.
We shall start with the basic way to gain exp in the 6 starting professions. Most of them have more then one way, and most of them have not only several exp types for skills you can work on, but also have several ways to get that exp.
Shooting stuff: 101. (Novice Marksman)
Yay! You get to shoot stuff. Lots of stuff. You will be starting with the basic CDEF pistol. Just a quick reminder, that pistol sucks. Its very low damage, and not that great. However, it will do for a little while.
Remember how in EQ you had to spend the first 4 hours of your gameplay killing rats in the newbie zone? Well, in SWG...you can if you want to. But you don't have to, although I would recommend nailing a few little critters at first to get used to the combat system.
You should have a few special abilities after gaining novice marksman. (You got that in the tutorial, if you started with it. Otherwise, you should head to a trainer and get it, before you fight anything, if you want to be effective in combat.)
Now is a good time to configure your toolbar. Open up your commands window, shortcut Ctrl-C. Drag any commands you think you will be using on a regular basis, to the bar.
[TIP: You can drag the lower right corner of your toolbar to get another row. This is very useful.]
Remember to get your commands from the non combat part of the commands list, too. Especially the positions. (Prone, kneeling, standing). Set up your bar however you find comfortable to use. I recommend that if you plan on using more then one weapon, or a ranged weapon and unarmed, that you drag both weapons to the bar, so that you can switch easily in combat.
Now, you can either head out of the city and shoot stuff, or take a destroy mission and blow stuff up. If you want to take a destroy mission, look around for a glowing orange terminal. They shouldn't be too hard to find.
[TIP: When moving around in cities looking for stuff, remember that you can hit Ctrl-M to bring up an overhead map, and use Ctrl-up and Ctrl-down to zoom in and out. /find can also work well for navigation.]
When you find the terminal, double click to use it. Then, you can see a list of missions. Hit �describe� to see more info about the mission. Remember to take a low difficulty one, since you won't have any advanced skills. Once you have one, just hit accept, and the mission will be loaded to your data pad. After a few seconds, a glowing orange arrow will show you the way to your objective. Once you get there, kill whatever your supposed to, and destroy the objective.
[TIP: Whenever you go outside the city, USE YOUR RADAR. I recommend you have it set to 64m or more at all times. There are wild animals out there, and some of them will attack you. Basically, a good tip till you know what is what, is to avoid everything you can't kill (use /con). Even no aggressive critters may attack if you get close to the nest.]
Anyway, if you either went to get a mission, or decided to practice on the little animals outside the city first, you should now be able to start real combat for the first time.
Select your target. ALWAYS take its difficulty level, (Use /con and the little colored circles by its name to tell) and if it has friends or not, into consideration.
Get in range of the creature, and start blasting. Overcharge shot, kneeling, kiting (shooting it as you run away, to avoid getting hits) are all valid tatics. Experiment. The newbie monsters shouldn't be that hard. Tatics are important in this game. Some may say that you should just �spam your best damage attack�, but if you learn to use tatics, it will help you much more in the long run. Remmeber, if your using a pistol, get in close range. Carbine, meduim, and rifle, long.
Being a Brawler
Whew. Glad I don't have to type all this again. Read the marksman section, and suppliment the last paragraph with this:
Get close to the creature, and whack it. Use special attacks. Unlike a marksman, you won't be kneeling or prone. Consider getting some armor later on, it helps. Tatics are just as important, and the more special moves you get, the more effective you will be. Eventually, if you master an advanced melee profession, you will be very powerful. Till then, you gotta watch out, and keep an eye on your health when you fight.
Making stuff: The Artisan way.
Mmm, Artisan...not only do they make nifty stuff, they taste great on toast with butter.
As an Artisan, combat won't be your main priority, unless you decide to make a hybrid character that does both. (Such characters are a lot of fun, IMO.) Crafting is a guide in of itself, so I'll only touch up on the basics here. If you want to really learn some good stuff, you might want to check out some fan sites, for some in depth guides.
Anyway, when you start off, you should have some important tools: A General crafting tool, and survey tools.
Every thing in SWG is made using tools similar to this. Your survey tools are what you use to get resources to make things.
Now, when you start, you will be in a city. Although you can sample for resources in a city, its kinda laggy, and staring at a building gets boring. So head outside and hit the dirt. (or slime, grass, or sand, or whatever the local terrain happns to be made out of.)
Now, open up your datapad. Hit the tab that has your schematic listing. You will see nice little pictures of everything you can craft at the moment. Pick one. For the purpose of this guide, lets make some Bofa Treats. (Mmm...bland...)
As you can see, they require:
8 Cereal
3 Organic
Now, open your �Floral survey device�, and look at the list. If your lucky, you should find some �Cereal� type resources in the list. If not, that means that there are none on that planet, and you will have to make something else. (Unlikely)
Pick the first on the list, and hit the survey button. You should see some colors and lights go out from you, and the map part of the window should display some percentages. This is how much of the resource is in that area. The higher it is, the easier it is to sample for it, and the faster harvesters (machines that gather resources for you) will work.
If the number is fairly low, below 50, survey for the other �cereal� types on the list, and pick the highest one. Now, normally, if you are wanting to get a lot of this resource, you would travel to the place with the highest percentage, and survey again, till you get the highest number you can. (Remember, use the radar to avoid combat, if you want). If you have a decent number now, though, just hit �sample.�
You will kneel and start gathing resources. Now, an organic, if you didn't know, is any material that came from a living creature. That includes plants, and stuff made from animals, ect. So our Cereal will work for that, too. So once you get 11 units, you can stop surveying, if you like.
Open you Gen crafter tool, and click the �food� tab. Then, click bofa treats. Add your resources to the slots, (You can double click them, faster then dragging.) The tool will prompt you with what to do next, and before you know it, you will have made your first item. Mmmm...
(If the �Are your sure� prompts get annoying, you can disable them in the options window�)
Now, there is a lot more to crafting then that, like experimentation, crafting stations, harvesters, ect, and I really recommend you check out some advanced guides. But for now, that basic process should get you started.
Whew. 3 down, 3 to go.
Scouting...an outdoor profession.
My favorite profession. YAY!
Ok.
As a scout, you have 3 different exp types, and unlike a Marksman and Brawler, you will most likely be working on all three at once, if you want.
The three types are:
General Scouting � Used for the exploration and Hunting lines.
Trapping � Used for trapping. (Duh.)
Wilderness survival � Used for the foraging/camps line.
Getting general scouting exp is easy. Kill an animal. Select the �Harvest� option from the radial menu, and choose a resource type to harvest.
Tadaa! Not only do you now have a bunch of Bones/hides/meat, you also have some scouting exp. Although there are other ways to get scout exp, (like using mask scent to sneak past aggro mobs) this is the way you will get it the most.
Trapping exp: Well, first you have to make a trap, if you don't start with one. (I am fairly sure you do. But you should make some, anyway). To make the trap, use a general crafting tool, like artisans use. Just add the bones and hide, and you should get some nice traps. To use them, you just throw them at the mob during combat. (The easiest way to do this is to put them in your quickbar, and click on it.). The trap will either hit or miss the target, and if it effects it, you will get some trapping exp. Traps are very useful, if you get good ones.
Wilderness Survival: This relates to making camps. You make one like you make a trap. To set one up, just double click it. (You must be out of a city, and out of a no-build area). Traps are places to heal wounds, and to call stored pets out. Every group that brings along a medic will also want to bring along a scout who can make camps, so that when people get wounded, they can heal out in the field.
Scouts get more skills later on, but thats all you have at the moment. Enjoy your skills, and don't forget to donate some of those organics you will be stacking up to medics, when they heal you.
Healing those nasty blaster wounds....the Medic
So, you want to be a medic? Good for you, the world needs healers.
Keep in mind that the medic profession is still being balanced, so it will be changing some.
Now, when you start off with novice medic, you have the /tenddamage and /tendwound skills. I wouldn't use them overmuch, because they will give you mind wounds. However, they are nice in an emergency, or when you are just starting out.
The real healing is all done with stimpacks, and woundpacks.
Stimpacks: If I remember right, as a novice medic, you can make your first line of stimpack: Stimpack A. (Fascinating name, eh?) To do this, you will need some organic elements, and some inorganic elements.
Now, what stimpacks do, is heal normal damage. So, while you won't find a lot of damaged people out in the city, you will find them out hunting. So, if you like, survery for the resources, like an artisan does, (You may need to pick up novice artisan to do that) and make some stimpacks. Make lots, at first. Stimpack A comes in stacks of 10. Out of the 1k or so health/action most people have, A single Stim A will heal about 40-150. So its good to carry lots. A good way to start getting medic exp is to go to a cantina, and heal the dancers. (Remember, since special moves use up HAM points, you can heal dancers, since they will slowly lose points as they do the special dance moves.)
Now, when you get organic Chem I, you can make wound packs. When people go into combat, they get wounds. (Damage that can't be regenerated, or healed with stimpacks.) These must be treated with wound packs. Construction is basically similar to stimpacks, at this point. To heal a wound, you must either be in a hospital, or in a camp. A GREAT way to get a lot of medic exp is to go in a hospital, and heal those with wounds. Remember, you will still want to have lots, because if you run out in the middle of healing a patient, they will most likely seek healing from another medic.
Now, people SHOULD tip medics who heal their wounds, but they don't, always. So feel free to remind them, and most people will. Also remmeber, that if you don't want to spend a lot of time surverying, its good to accept donations of organics and unorganic elements that you use in medicine crafting, instead of cash tips.
You can dance...You can dance...but remember to wear some nice pants...(Entertainer)
Well now. The one profession I didn't do that much in. Basically, the role of the entertainer is to...entertain people. And to heal Battl fatigue and mind wounds.
How do you do this? By dancing! And playing music.
Basically, to dance, you either click the icon, or hit �start dance�. You will be asked to choose a dance type, and then you start dancing. When people watch you, you get exp, and they get battle fatigue and mind wounds healed. Now, your basic dance is boring, so liven it up with some flourishes. There are 8, and you will have icons for all in your command window. They all do different moves, and they change when you do a different dance/song.
You get more exp and people get more healing when you do flourishes, so do them. The same applies for music. With practice, you can make some VERY cool music and dance moves.
What music/dance profession would be right, without the chance to start your own band?
To start a band, just group up with some like minded entertainers, and hit the command to start the band going. You will all play the base music/dance steps in synchronoziation, and when you do different flourishes, it looks nice. You can also type /bandfl # to have everyone do that number flourish, all at once.
And get some good clothes, then next time a Tailor stops in. Remember, you want to look good, to get people to watch you dance or play music.
Remember, as an entertianer, you should entertain people. Talk to them, make them feel at home.
And people, please, remember to /tip your enterainers! They need money too, ya know!
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