Reading Crew Skill Mission Text

Bhagpuss has been writing about being fascinated by EQ2's new Overseer system. As far as I can tell from his descriptions of how it works, it's very similar to the "waiting" mini-games that many MMOs have added to their optional gameplay over the last decade or so, and which often involve directing minions or hirelings of some sort. When I asked Bhag in a comment what he found the most interesting about it, he responded that he was surprised by how well the whole system was narratively integrated into the rest of the game.

SWTOR has of course had its own version of this sort of thing since launch, in the form of crew skill missions, even if they are very much on the simple end of the scale: You're always dealing with the same small number of missions, they don't tend to take a lot of time, and the only real way to influence the outcome has been to raise your companions' affection/influence level. I guess nowadays we also have guild perks and amplifiers to improve success rates and crit chance, but those are universal, passive buffs that don't really change the way you look at any given mission.

Bhag's comments about story integration made me pause and think though, mainly because they made me realise just how long it's been since I actually read any of my crew skill missions. These days I only really look at what they're supposed to reward, and maybe the duration/cost - but the actual "story" is something I skim right over.

So of course the next thing I did was to sit down and actually read the text for some of the missions that I've been spamming day in, day out - which just ended up reminding me of something that annoyed me whenever I had read them in the past:

You see, my main has diplomacy as her mission skill, the one mission skill that can award both light and dark side points. What has annoyed me in the past is that in recent years the text has rarely matched the alignment gain (as far as I'm concerned anyway)!

An Alderaanian noble who shares lineage with a renowned smuggler would like to see this particular relation quietly escorted into exile and "forgotten". - So you're basically asking me to abduct/potentially murder someone... and it awards light side points!?

Yet here's the counterpart of the same level: An allied smuggler was recently arrested for customs violations. Send a companion to ensure the smuggler is free to continue assisting the cause. Surely helping an ally is not a bad thing? But no, this one gives dark side points. And so on and so forth.

But okay, that's just diplomacy - let's look at some other profession that isn't tied to the alignment system in the same way. How about some slicing missions?

Taerab Starship Manufacturing is rumored to have a hyperdrive prototype that will cut fuel costs in half. If your companion slices into their files, you could reap the benefits of their research.

Ruthless financier Herron Morvis VII claims to have "confidential personal information" on dozens of corporate heads across the galaxy. Have your companion slice into his secure servers to find out what he knows.

Okay, none of these may be officially tied to the alignment system, but they do all sound a bit dodgy to be honest! Maybe that's another thing that's subconsciously been discouraging me: that I don't much like the thought of my character being tied up in these situations, so I just want to get the rewards without considering potential in-world consequences.

More seriously though, I think in practice it's just down to how basic, repetitive and inconsequential crew skill missions are. Most of the time their duration can be counted in minutes instead of hours, and you might well end up running some of them hundreds of times without anything coming of it other than you slowly growing your stash of crafting mats. How invested can you really get in that on a narrative level?

Then again, you never know when something will suddenly turn into an Easter Egg. For example there is an old diplomacy mission that has been in the game since launch and goes like this: The Sith Lords Anathel and Xarion are battling in the Stygian Caldera, disrupting Imperial trade. Your companion could persuade them to take their feud elsewhere. For years and years, these were just two random names... but then Onslaught came around and suddenly Anathel and Xarion were part of the story and on the Dark Council. So you never know!