Summer Is Done, Playtime Is Gone.

Bathing Beauties.

Work (and school) start on Monday the 12th. I spent way too long at the beach yesterday with my family and am paying for it right now.  Way to send the summer out with a bang! Monday is coming too soon and my burn will be a painful reminder of how much fun I had Friday.  Never fails.  I always go back to work burnt.

Don't take my picture!

I'm out of time on World of Warcraft.  It's OK, really, I wasn't playing anyhow.  Usually, this period of WoW ennui happens in the middle of summer, but this year it waited a little longer.  I have been playing a lot of Star Wars Galaxies Emulator, and a little Draw Something 2, with some late night Candy Crush (mostly because I am addicted, not because I love it or anything) and Tiny Tower. SWG:EMU is on even when I am not actively using the keyboard, because a lot of my game time is macro'd so that I can enjoy the end game and miss the drudgery of some of the grind.  Playing music for 11 points a flourish is tedious when you are trying to get 350,000 experience points, and crafting instruments for 125 point per practice run is only slightly better when I can be at the keyboard.  Besides, if I am at the keys while this macro is running, I can chat with the other entertainers that are at the keys.  This is only fun when there are other entertainers present, as most of them are AFK macro bots and will remain that way when they master their dance and music trees so that they can AFK buff people while their second toon is off scouring the dark mountainous areas of Dathomir for Night Sisters.

Lot of guildies hanging out in the cantina with me this night!

SWG really did an MMO right.  Players being able to train others in skills they had already learned, players needing other players to gain the necessities of life in game.  Sure, you can get your health and action buffs from an afk Doctor-bot and your mind buffs from another afk entertainer-bot, but for most things you would want to min-max your toon, you need to interact with a player.  Here, take for example my crafter, Eromee.

Crafting cloth for special clothing.

That enhancement slot on the recipe is optional. but the option is something I want to start providing.  Bio-engineers create enhancements that will add skill modifiers directly to the clothing I produce, which will make them more attractive to the end game players than all the cool colors and styles in the galaxy.  Eromee needs to find a Bio-engineer badly.  Unfortunately, the only way to master this profession right now is by finding faction bases and using their skills on a terminal inside it.  So, until they make sampling DNA live(it is on Nova test center now!), the best tissues are a dream.  Still, there are useful tissues that can be made.

Click to see larger.  The fine print in the rectangle at the bottom tells all.

Above is just an example of what can be added.  Those fibers can be added to another cloth I make called a Reinforced Fiber Panel.  There are other tissues that enhance Wound Healing for dancers and musicians, Mask Scent and Camouflage for scouts, add bleed defense for all classes, Injury and Wound healing skill for doctors, medics, and combat medics, Warcry and Intimidate for brawlers, and so many more.  It is possible for Eromee to get the supplies to add, for example, 14 to dance and music wound healing and with four sockets for skill tapes, the dancer could add more of the same to the cap of 25 points, or add something different, like a modifier to pistol accuracy (most entertainers are purely entertainers, but some like a little excitement, so this is possible!).

This SWG emulator allows for two toons from an account to be on at a time, with up to 10 toons per account.  A person can only have one account, and special request must be made to have another account log in from the same IP address (for family or roommates who play).  So, even if you could make another character, you would not be able to fill every anticipated need.  Some of the things you need have to come from other players, because not many of us can devote a good chunk of the day to grinding out a skill tree just to get a few things it offers.  Now that I have said that, let me introduce you to Jenmo, my master Teras Kasi artist, and future Bio-engineer.

Going to train another box in Bio-engineer. Look, a butterfly!

Eromee buys some of her resources from other players, because she can't be bothered to dig them up herself most of the time.  Jenmo is the workhorse of the team, going out into the wilds to kill large animals and bring back hides to use in crafting, and the money from the missions that spawned them.  Since she was already out there, she is now also harvesting the meat and bones to use in her tissue crafting.  Money gets siphoned into Eromee for upkeep on buildings, vendors, the few resource extractors she bothers herself to plunk down (right now she has small flora harvesters on Dathomir harvesting evergreen wood and a larger flora harvester down on some fabulous fungus on another planet or moon), and to buy more of the resources she isn't gathering.  Thankfully, Eromee can use any resource, regardless of quality, to make her items.  Jenmo needs quality and potential energy and flavor, so Eromee passes the good stuff to her, and Jenmo will, in the future, pass quality tissues back. All so she can make fabulous outfits that people want to buy, like this.

Lizards might buy this?

I had a better screenshot of a skinny green Mon Calamari girl wearing a darker green revealing skirt and a light bustier, but things go missing in my screenshot folder. I think it has something to do with taking screenshots on one screen and then on another.  Screenshots get replaced by one of the same name.  Oh well.  The outfit above has room for 2 modifications, which is nice, as two cloths pass the 25 points allowed (the rest are not counted) as a skill modifier. If both items had four sockets each, that would leave room for many skill tapes, and since it's a challenge to find higher point skill tapes in what any toon would need, the more sockets, the better.

So, that is only a small bit of what I have been doing in SWG:EMU.  I'm enjoying it so much, and old friends keep popping up to play all the time.  I missed this MMO so much!  Glad that the EMU team is working on this.  As soon as I have some cash that isn't being used for gas or toilet paper, they get it.

What have you been playing?  Got anything that excites you about it?  Comment below.  Until the next time I drag myself out of my game to share my fun, I hope your virtual vacations are as great as mine!