“We have left the dock and are pulling out of the Sol system.”

The Captain stood beside her and watched the receding Earth with the sun behind it. After a while the star enveloped the planet and neither could be distinguished from the other.

“Set a course for the Sierra Sector. Warp five.”

H’Soe repeated his order while typing in the coordinates with his clawed hands.

“Sierra Sector. Warp Five.”

“Take us out.”

As the ship hummed up and released, the stars on the viewscreen shifted from steady pinpricks to thin smears that trailed along the dark like bright raindrops at night. Jameson sat at his station, waiting for Four Fifty-one to take a seat before addressing her.

“Three days was not long enough, but it was good to see Ti even if he had to return to Earth so quickly.”

“It was. Did you get a chance to visit?”

“Took Three-Twelve and Three to meet the parents.”

“I’d imagine that was quite interesting.”

“Uncomfortable for all involved. But I think my father was grateful I didn’t come back with an alien.”

Four Fifty-one couldn’t help but give a small smile as she settled back farther in her seat.

“At least she gets to stay on the ship. I’m assuming the MACO detachment is permanent.”

“As permanent as these things get. My security chief is not happy about it, but I think on a professional level he’s glad to have the extra firepower wherever we go.”

“What’s in the Sierra sector?”

Jameson tapped a few buttons on his chair, bringing up a mission outline from Starfleet.

“Agrama System. We’ve been asked to mediate a trade dispute between a few of the Romulan factions.”

“Romulans asking for Federation assistance. Seems unlike them.”

“The times they are a-changin’, Commander. Between the falling Cardassian government, the destruction of the Romulan homeworld and the Klingons pressing hard against Federation borders and the Orion Syndicate, it looks like this whole Quadrant is about to get turned on its head.”

“I was under the impression that the capture of the Klingon fleet’s flagship was successful.”

He shrugged.

“Depends on your definition of successful. It staved off conflict by a few years maybe, but most of Command is convinced that a war with the Empire is inevitable.”

“And what do you think?”

“I think that when both sides agree that a conflict is going to happen, then it’s just a matter of who’s going to fire the first shot. All we can do is make sure it’s not us.”

The Captain leaned forward on his armrest towards Four Fifty-one cuing her to do the same. She did so, listening to his lowered voice.

“I bet you didn’t know this considering recent circumstances, but this is an exploration and diplomatic vessel. I intend to return it to such.”

“We agree.”

Jameson moved back to his original position and took a deep breath. After a moment he stood and made his way to the Ready Room just off the bridge.

“You have the bridge, Commander. Don’t shoot anything unless it shoots first.”

“Aye Captain.”

“Let’s try to make some friends. We could use them.”

Table of Contents

so what have games have i been thinking about / pottering about in?

lotro:  currently on the back burner,  mixture of being in a quiet (yet lovely!) guild, our weekly small fellowship not being able to happen at the moment combined with alt burnout.  (after stupid amounts of alts in eq2 I CANNOT face the same in lotro, so the alts I do have are crafting slaves )  I do want to continue a comic adaptation I started over on My Middle Earth Net and I do want to explore the new region so may well be tempted back in soon

eq2:  well I never got Tanzi to level 90 and never got my little guild up to being able to have a guild hall, so i’ve been pottering about a little there.  If, at any point in the future, I am forced to open an account with Alaplaya I will stop playing completely.  still disgusted by that.

minecraft:  I made a little jungle home that I want to finish and have a couple of ideas that I’m playing about with.  such a cool game

star trek online: I downloaded and got very excited (absolutely LOVE DS9!) but the space combat is just beyond me at the moment.  It makes me feel like a stereotypical girl so I may have to go back just to beat it

rift: I thought I’d give the first 20 levels another go (its free for those levels) but I had to stop downloading and the whole thing cancelled when i was halfway through.  have been too annoyed to re-download as yet.

skyrim: currently not playing, though there is a new patch with new kill animations so I may well be back stealthing and sniping away soon  still love the game and fully intend ‘finishing’ it at some point

dragon age: although i started again i can’t really face going through the whole thing so more occasional pottering here  there is talk though of more in the series – yay!

so there you go – plenty of potential gameage but not really in a gaming mood at the mo.  so have been doing lots of other non-computery stuff over the last month or so

although usually when I write a post like this, I get my game back on and blogging resumes  we shall see

There were rules on the forum. When somebody broke a rule, I sent them a private message informing them about the fact. I always pointed them to the rules and added an explanation why we have this rule. Did I have to? Nope. I could’ve just told them off. But I wanted them to understand why we did something in a certain way. “No, you cannot write in 1337″ often led to people feeling provoked to do exactly that and go against what I had said. When I added the explanation that we have people from all over the world whose native tongue isn’t English and that writing like this makes reading and understanding what they want to tell us difficult or even impossible for some usually led them to understand and respect the rule. Later on, I even saw some of the “early troublemakers” turn towards new members and explain to them the rules and why we have them. Always brought a little tear to my eye seeing how they had ‘grown up’ to be responsible community members and how my behaviour (and that of the other moderators) could influence others and, consequently, our whole community.

Now, on to something less happy. I guess lots of us have been there when ArenaNet announced the Collector’s Edition and their game’s prices. We’ve seen it a lot of times before: The dollar sign just gets exchanged with the Euro sign et voilà, the European price. The Collector’s Edition costs $150 and €150. The latter translates to $200. ArenaNet isn’t the first nor the only company to do the pricing this way and as always, there was an outcry. The only reason I’ve ever seen mentioned when companies explained their pricing was “it’s European taxes. They’re higher!” – but how much higher do the taxes have to be for such a difference? We only have 19% VAT so that never made any sense to me.

And then I saw a link to a post on Steam by Double Fine Productions. After having read the posting, it became much clearer. I never knew that in the US you don’t have to pay VAT for online purchases. Nobody ever explained that to me. It still doesn’t explain the whole difference but it gets a lot closer, at least! And it did calm me down and stop me from sulking so much. ;) – By the way, in case anybody is wondering: Yes, I want the Collector’s Edition. But that’s not difficult to decide because I’ll get it as a present. ;)

Back to the topic of educating the masses… Another rather good example is Star Trek Online. Ever since they went free to play, their server (you only have one big server and aren’t divided like you are in games like World of Warcraft, Star Wars: The Old Republic etc.) has had problems and kept crashing every few days. Naturally, players don’t like this behaviour. So they explained what the issue is. Now I don’t understand too much about all this stuff. But I get the part with “trying to find where the bug is” and adding code to get logs (had to do that with my thesis where I had a web-based training and when the students watched an animation, I was supposed to get time stamps on when they do what – pause, play etc. – and that had worked during all tests I’d done but when it went live, it sometimes didn’t work. Turned out that simply uploading the whole course fixed the issue. We still don’t know what it was but at least, it was fixed! ^^). I wasn’t among those flaming or even ranting when STO’s server crashed again. But I, too, was wondering why it took them so long to “upgrade the server” or do whatever necessary, so it could handle the load.

Oh, and because this just came in and fits rather well: ArenaNet released another blog entry on a rather controversial topic – Mike O’Brien on Microtransactions in Guild Wars 2. So far, they have positively surprised me with the way they have communicated about their design decisions and I hope we will always get such in-depth postings even after the game’s release. ;) In today’s post, there are explanations in there for why they’ve made the decision to allow the sale of gems which are bought with real money and I can only hope it works. Namely: The goal would be to reduce the incentive for gold farmers. You all do know that gold farmers are the ones responsible for hacking your friends’ accounts and stealing all the items they had? Making them jump through a few hoops before they get their account restored (depending on the game and quality of support)? Blizzard actually wrote a nice article about this issue some time ago: Purchased gold comes at every player’s expense. Sorry for only linking to it indirectly. I can’t find the original website anymore. So Waybackmachine has to do. But I remember telling a friend about this after she had told me that she sees no harm in spending money on gold so she could get things faster in game when she doesn’t have as much time as others to actually play the game because she has to go work in order to earn money. I told her about hackers and that this is where the gold she bought could have come from. She hadn’t known until then!

I know that those games aren’t made for a few hundred people like our community was. It is much more difficult and time-consuming. You can’t send every forum poster a private message with details and explanations about what they did wrong and why it’s wrong. Also, our forum wasn’t there to earn money for its owner. Those gaming companies, however, need to earn money in order to afford their staff, offices, etc. ;) And with that probably come lawyers, marketing, PR who all want to have a say in what the company can or can’t talk about in detail or even mention to its customers. Although I really wish they could be a bit more open especially when it comes to decisions that cause outrages (like the US-EU pricing usually does). Educate us, please! Explain to us why you’re doing things the way you do them. It might not stop all people from hating, flaming, trolling. But it might make a few understand.

I’m normally not one to hop into the middle of a conversation, so I kind of just sat there, reading the text as it flew by. I was amused and interested by the out of character conversations people were having and I quickly picked up that this channel was for arranging and discussing the setting up of potential RPs. I started to chip in and then I started to poke around the galaxy looking for particular duty officer assignments. Apparently this was a global channel, so I was able to stay tuned in while I did my thing. After a fashion, someone mentioned role playing at Deep Space 9, so I figured, why not?

Upon my arrival at DS9, I discovered that the Walk function wasn’t mapped on my keyboard, so I remapped the K key to walking… and also discovered that it wasn’t a toggle and I had to hold it down as long as I wished to walk. Oh well, it felt better than jogging everywhere if I was going to be in-character. I walked my way over to Quark’s bar and settled in at the bar. As far as I could tell, there are no chairs programmed for sitting. You have to awkwardly hop onto a chair and use the “sit (chair)” emote. After a failed attempt there, I returned to the bar, and managed to strike up an in-character conversation with a fellow Starfleet officer that was quite interesting and fun!

This was my first encounter with in-character role playing in Star Trek Online. Typically I don’t actually do such a thing, but for the most part, I’ve beaten the game and I was looking for something else to do. Now, I have, recently, role played in Star Wars: The Old Republic on an RP server, but in all my MMO experience before now I haven’t role played.

I have to admit, it’s refreshing, it’s interesting, and it helps to underscore my attachment to my character. By fleshing out some social interactions, I genuinely feel like I’m not just moving through the game, but I’m a part of it. It’s exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time. Mostly because I’m terrified of making mistakes in the conversation. I think I did okay last night, but it wasn’t until later that I figured out how to emote properly and even then I’m still kind of clumsy with it. At least I spoke well. Further, I know a lot about Star Trek and am perfectly willing to look up more. Last night I was conversing with a Vulcan and, as an Andorian, I remained conscious of that… you know, thanks to the distant racial issues between them. It never came up, but I was prepared nonetheless.

Anyway! I think I’m going to be looking for more role playing content to get involved in. I’m worried about getting too committed to a group, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. I think the hardest part was just to do it!

Until next time!

- Elorfin

P.S. “Our characters are the result of our conduct.” – Aristotle

Odyssey Class vessels are the largest vessels ever created by Starfleet. The Odyssey Operation Cruiser’s massive size makes it very resilient, but its turn rate is reduced by the bulk of the vessel. The Odyssey’s unique split saucer pylon reduces subspace turbulence which allows higher warp speeds and increases the duration the ship can maintain Slipstream   Drive.

The Odyssey Class is designed as an extreme long-range vessel, and can operate for long periods of time away from support. Because of this, it is the most versatile cruiser ever developed by the Starfleet Corps of Engineers and features Universal Lieutenant Commander and Universal Ensign Bridge Officer Stations that can by operated by any Bridge Officer class.

In addition, the Odyssey Operation’s Cruiser features a Chevron Separation universal console module. This console allows the ship’s Chevron saucer and stardrive sections to separate. The Chevron will follow the stardrive and attack your targets. While separated, the stardrive gains a boost to weapons power and increased speed and maneuverability.

The Chevron Separation universal console module may be equipped on the Odyssey Science, Tactical, or Operations Cruiser in any console slot. It may not be equipped on the standard Odyssey Cruiser.

Note: Unlocking the Odyssey Operations Cruiser unlocks this ship for every Federation Vice Admiral character on an account.

Minimum Rank: Vice Admiral
Crew: 2,500
Weapons: 4 Fore, 4 Aft
Device Slots: 4
Bridge Officer Stations: 1 Lieutenant Tactical, 1 Commander Engineering, 1 Lieutenant Science, 1 Ensign Universal, 1 Lieutenant Commander Universal
Console Modifications: 2 Tactical, 5 Engineering, 3 Science
Hull Strength: 42,000
Base Turn Rate: 6 degrees per second
Shield Modifier: 1.15
Impulse Modifier: 0.15
Maximum Warp: 9.996
+5 Power to All Subsystems
Advanced Quantum Slipstream Drive

Everything was everywhere, like the room had been vandalized by someone very interested in baby clothes. The furniture was also rearranged. The bed, dresser and couch formed a small fort-like structure in the corner. Three was not to be found and Three-Twelve gave no indication as to her whereabouts.

Ti wrapped his arms around her, pinning her arms in much the same manner he had done to Four Fifty-one. She seemed less uncomfortable with the gesture, relaxing and looking off to the side until he was done.

“Where is she?” the doctor said as he pulled himself back.

Three-Twelve raised a finger to her lips and then pointed to the small cubbyhole of a room off to the side.

“Please be quiet. Its sleep patterns are erratic.”

Ti lowered his voice to a whisper.

“Can I see her?”

“If you wish.”

The doctor made his way to the small room, leaving the two sisters staring at each other. They took the stance of two gunslingers preparing for a showdown.

Three-Twelve broke eye contact first, moving to the replicator in a slow, labored manner. The words rolled out of her mouth like they’d been practiced.

“Nothing for years, and then I show up on your ship and you still ignore me.”

“I had no intention of ignoring you. We both had much to deal with. I am here now, aren’t I?”

“Yes. I suppose you are.”

She picked up the drink and headed back towards Four Fifty-one. Without slowing, she pulled a datapad from a shelf with her free hand, spinning it upright and turning it on.

“But, I’m not the one you should be seeing.”

Three-Twelve placed the pad in Four Fifty-one’s hands. An image took up the entire screen, a sculpture of some sort.

“He made that of you. And this one, and this one. There’s a dozen or so more but I stopped taking pictures.”

With each swipe of her finger across the screen, she was presented with another picture of herself as a bust. The first few were terrible, but they progressed until by the fifth, he looked to have gotten the art down.

Three-Twelve leaned over the top of the pad, her strands of hair hanging in front of Four Fifty-one’s vision.

“Wish I had a brother who idolized me like that. Barely even speaks to me.”

With that, Three-Twelve ripped the pad out of her hand and poked her hard in the chest with the finger from the other. The glass sloshed a bit, but didn’t spill.

“I don’t know if you remember what the L.A.F. was like, but he’s been there for years, alone waiting for you to send him a message, anything. But you’re too busy being important.”

She spoke in such forceful hushed tones that Four Fifty-one felt that she was being yelled at. In some ways, she wished that were true. She opened her mouth to respond, but was interrupted by Ti returning from the other room.

“Oh, she is just gorgeous. I can’t wait until she’s-”

He stopped when he saw the standoff. Three-Twelve pulled back her hand and threw another angry glance at Four Fifty-one.

The doctor looked quickly back and forth between the two.

“Is something wrong?”

Three-Twelve shook her head.

“No. I was just asking the Commander to leave. I’m very tired and she has a communique to send.”

Ti moved to them, holding them together in a group hug that the sisters did not participate in.

“It’s so good to see you two again, together. I’m so happy for both of you.”

He released them and headed for the door, Four Fifty-one following behind.

“Commander.” came the voice from behind her.

She stopped and turned back to Three-Twelve, who hadn’t moved, save for crossing her arms.

“Do not confuse my anger for hatred. Two-Twenty is not the only one who misses their sister.”

Four Fifty-one acknowledged her silently and returned to the hall, where Ti was waiting. Though he quite obviously had an idea of what had just happened, he did not ask for anything further, simply throwing out one piece of advice like it was entirely unrelated.

“Be nice to your sister. She’s the only one you’ve got.”

She didn’t have anything to say to that, but it didn’t matter. They both knew he was absolutely right.

Table of Contents

Odyssey Class vessels are the largest vessels ever created by Starfleet. The Odyssey Tactical Cruiser’s massive size makes it very resilient, but its turn rate is reduced by the bulk of the vessel. The Odyssey’s unique split saucer pylon reduces subspace turbulence which allows higher warp speeds and increases the duration the ship can maintain Slipstream   Drive.

The Odyssey Class is designed as an extreme long-range vessel, and can operate for long periods of time away from support. Because of this, it is the most versatile cruiser ever developed by the Starfleet Corps of Engineers and features Universal Lieutenant Commander and Universal Ensign Bridge Officer Stations that can by operated by any Bridge Officer class.

In addition, the Odyssey Operation’s Cruiser features an Aquarius Escort universal console module. This console allows you to separate the aft mission pod of your starship, which will deploy an Aquarius Escort. The Aquarius is a small attack craft that will follow the Odyssey Tactical Cruiser and attack your targets.

The Aquarius Escort universal console module may be equipped on the Odyssey Science, Tactical, or Operations Cruiser in any console slot. It may not be equipped on the standard Odyssey Cruiser.

Note: Unlocking the Odyssey Tactical Cruiser unlocks this ship for every Federation Vice Admiral character on an account.

Minimum Rank: Vice Admiral
Crew: 2,500
Weapons: 4 Fore, 4 Aft
Device Slots: 4
Bridge Officer Stations: 1 Lieutenant Tactical, 1 Commander Engineering, 1 Lieutenant Science, 1 Ensign Universal, 1 Lieutenant Commander Universal
Console Modifications: 3 Tactical, 4 Engineering, 3 Science
Hull Strength: 42,000
Base Turn Rate: 6 degrees per second
Shield Modifier: 1.15
Impulse Modifier: 0.15
Maximum Warp: 9.996
+10 Power to Weapons; +5 Power to Shields and Auxiliary
Advanced Quantum Slipstream Drive
Aquarius Escort

TOR – I have both my characters in the mid-20′s now.  I grind out about a level a week, which is pretty normal for me.   I just hit Tattoine for the first time last night and it felt…weird.   Landing on Tatooine as an Imperial Agent just felt so *not* Star Wars.  In fact, the whole Empire thing is starting to wear on me a bit.  I may have to let one of those two Imp characters lay idle for a bit so I can scratch the Republic itch.  I will wait until update 1.2 though – the Legacy system means that my Republic alts, all at level 10 on another server are basically useless to me.  And I am not running through Tython for the umpteenth time without Sprint if I can help it.

World of Tanks – I’ve spent the last week doing my runs on the Test Server, which has been a breath of fresh air.  The Russian players are actually quite nice, and much more skilled than their American counterparts.  I have wondered lately if I was just bad at WoT or if the teams were so bad it was hard to excel, and its definitely the latter.  In all the matches I’ve played on the test server, I’ve only once seen the team deploy poorly, without watching the map.  As one EU player said after a match, “we didn’t get beat because we made bad choices, we just got beat because they were better than us.”  I don’t get many of those matches on the regular server.   Much as patch 1.2 for TOR will turn it into what it should have been at launch, patch 7.2 will certainly do for WoT.  The new tanks are excellent, and the graphical and game updates are all well done.  The M18 Hellcat is almost all that we wanted it to be (it can’t quite hit 89 kph, and the option of the 105mm howitzer is missing).  Time to learn some Russian and make an account on their server I think.

Sandbox Vistas – I’ve shelved this for the time being.  The remaining options just don’t appeal to me all that much, and the announcement that Dawntide was shutting down, while somewhat expected, was ultimately very disheartening.  At this point, unless I get the itch to try Ryzom or Wurm, I’ll probably just keep a keen and interested eye on ArchAge instead.

Star Trek Online – Yeah, I know.  But a friend has been begging me to run some missions with him since it went F2P, and I was just a few points shy of my Akira and Nebula.  So I logged in last night and did one mission.  And I have a few things to say:  one is – who killed the graphics?  Its like a whole new engine in there, and it looks like crap, even with all the settings dialed up to max – which, by the way, is something I could not do with the original game.  Balancing that out though – praise the Alpha Quadrant, they actually fixed ground combat to make it manageable, and the skill system to make it less of a headache of WTH, and changed the progression to the point I breathed a sigh of relief.   I did one mission to finish up the jump from 19 to 20.  That same amount of skill points would have required me to do 3-4 missions when I was in the game before.   So now its time to claim that long awaited Akira and learn about that whole “duty officer” thing.  Its like the bizarre crossbreeding of TOR’s companions with your Bridge Officers and a far future version of Pokemon.  I feel like I have to catch them all!

And decide if I want to shell out some real bucks for that Nebula.

He came up in the third group, right after two dockyard engineering cadres. His temples had started to gray considerably, clashing with the the dark skin on his friendly, but sagging face. Smiling as soon as he saw Four Fifty-one, the doctor made his way towards her, swapping the small suitcase in his hand to the other side.

“Four Fifty-one!”

The older gentleman wrapped his arms around her, pinning hers to her side. She uncomfortably tapped a hand on his leg, the only place she could reach with her limited range of motion. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the transporter personnel smirking.

“Dr. Ti.”

“Oh, come now. Do I really deserve the cold, formal greeting?”

The doctor leaned back, clasping his hands to her shoulders and giving her a light shake. He looked like he might cry.

“Commander Four Fifty-one, First Officer of a starship.”

“That is accurate.”

“So proud of you.”

He gave her one more quick shake and walked into the hall on his own. Four Fifty-one quickly moved to catch up, taking the lead.

“We can drop your luggage in my quarters for now. When an appropriate room opens up, you can stay there.”

“Sounds good.”

“How long will you be staying?”

Ti shrugged, switching the hand holding his suitcase yet again.

“When do you leave?”

“The repairs are minor, but we must wait for other, more critically damaged ships before we can dock. We are estimated to depart in about three days.”

“Then that’s how long I’ll stay, assuming you don’t get sick of me. Not a lot of call for old Starfleet doctors on Earth. Miranda probably won’t even notice I’m missing.”

Four Fifty-one stopped in front of her door and waited for a few seconds while it verified her identity and opened. Normally the door did not lock, but since they had taken on so many extraneous crew, she felt the extra security was necessary in the short term.

They proceeded inside, Four Fifty-one gesturing to the small table in the corner. Ti placed his things on it and took a quick look around. After a good once-over, he pointed to the pads laying around in small piles.

“Project of some kind?”

“Several. I doubt you would be interested in the particulars.”

“I’m interested in everything you do. It’s been so long since we talked, I’m sure you have a lot going on.”

The doctor took a seat at the table with his luggage, resting his arm on it and gesturing for Four Fifty-one to take the chair across from him.

“A command under Jameson of all people. How’d you swing that?”

“A coincidence of circumstance. I was leaving my previous ship at a time when he required a new First Officer.”

“That worked out in your favor.”

Four Fifty-one finished clearing the seat of all the datapads and sat down in it, resting her arm on the table as well. Ti’s eyes did not deviate from her, like he’d not seen her in a thousand years.

“Yes, serving under Jameson has been rewarding thus far. I hope it will continue to be so.”

“He’s a good man. How he got caught up with that stubborn woman he’s with is beyond me.”

“They seem quite fond of each other.”

Ti chuckled out loud.

“I’m just joking. I love Three-Twelve and her bullheadedness.”

“She does have a mind of her own.”

“That she does. Speaking of which, when do I get to see the new addition?”

“Jameson is currently on duty, however Three-Twelve has been moved back to her room. I would guess that she is available as she is not permitted to return to active status for another month.”

The doctor slapped the table as he stood, readjusting his shirt. He waved his hand out the towards the door.

“Well then, let’s get going. What’s the little one’s name?”

“Three.”

Four Fifty-one stood and followed him out into the hall, having to reassert her lead once again. She’d never seen him so excitable. He’d probably go door to door on his own if she let him.

“That sounds just like Three-Twelve.”

“We agree.”

Table of Contents

Yes, you too can have this for 25 dollars! (Or equivalent in Dilithium)

  Looks like I was dead on the money for the price point for the C-Store versions of the Bortas and Odyssey cruisers in Star Trek Online.  I predicted 2,000 Cryptic Points; that is exactly what it is.  There is a special bundle being offered, though, allowing the purchase of all three variants of a ship for 4,000,  a 33% reduction.  So for slightly less than the price of the recently released Mass Effect 3, you can get three ships-mostly identical, except for consoles.  All six of the new ships for 8,000-a pittance at 100 dollars!  Obviously, this can be alleviated with Dilithium trades for C-Points, but I predict that the trade value is going to shift in a big way (in the short term) toward the C-Point’s favor:  it’s a seller’s market.

  For all the venom I’ve tossed over to the Cardassian Lockboxes, and the Christmas Event gifts, at least they lived up to the concept of microstransactions.  You can purchase a helluva lot for one hundred dollars elsewhere-and get real value.  Sure, you could save stipend for this, but that’s almost two years of savings.  The most rational way to deal with this-well, the rational way to do so with speed-is to use a combination of methods to get the C-Points:  stipend covering a portion, the Dilithium Exchange for a portion, and real money for a portion.  For those of us who have gotten to the point of swearing off spending money for Cryptic these days, it’s a longer slog.  It’s always possible there could be a sale at some point, but ever since going Freemium, Cryptic’s more or less abolished sales.  I think I’ve seen one over the last several months.

  In comparison, we have City of Heroes, which offers sales weekly.  Of course, the difference is that their sales are targeted sales on specific items, while the rare Cryptic ones tend to be off on everything in stock.  On the other hand, they have been known to have some humdingers in their market, too.  Case in point:  celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, we get the leprechaun.  It’s price point is 800 Paragon Points, about ten dollars in real money.  For comparison, that’s the price you’d see on a new powerset like Titan Weapons.  So obviously, the leprechaun should have some serious bang for the buck, right?

It's to fool's gold I'll be leadin' ye!

  No, I’m afraid not.  It’s a vanity pet.  Oh, and it gives a slight buff to the rate you get Influence (the in-game currency) for defeating enemies and such.  And that’s it.  There’s your big deal for 800 points.  Is this value?  Would a customer have to have more money than sense to pick this one up?  I’ll leave that to the reader.

  Somewhere along the line, the concept of microtransactions seems to have given way to macrotransactions, because there isn’t anything micro about these.  I don’t have a problem spending money on microtransactions if they’re reasonably priced; supporting the games I play is a reasonable thing for me to do.  But when you throw prices like this up for things that aren’t worth it?  I mean, honestly?  A leprechaun that gives a minor buff to a currency that’s easy to obtain in game as it is?  Three versions of the same ship with minor differences for the same price-all expensive?  There was a big scream and outcry when World of Warcraft slapped up its 25 dollar pony; have we gotten to the point where folks view it as no big deal anymore?

  But in the end, I have to accede to reality.  These two games are Freemium games now.  They no longer consider subscriptions their primary revenue stream-and the idea of nickel and diming everyone to death is their preferred method of doing business.  And that’s the way it’s going to be going forward; these games and others like them will just keep pushing the envelope to see how much they can get for how little effort.

I am far from catching up with all the episodes thus far released by Cryptic for the Trek mmo, but I did manage to get through the tutorial. My toon Jack O’Lantern was promoted to Lieutenant and given command of the U.S.S. Summers, but I forgot to save after my last mission, and will have to (annoyingly) run through it again. At least I know where everything is on the map of the starship I beamed to the other night.

I learned one thing about this game: Starfleet Academy is very life like, or at least what it would be if it existed in real life, but alas that zone is very laggy, perhaps so much foot traffic on the servers, or perhaps my crappy rig, can’t tell, either way, not going to be spending much time there since there appears to be very little to do there in the first place.

Since I am way too tired from work to actually elaborate on a full post I will just leave you with some snapshots of my toon’s recent adventures. Sure felt good to move up in rank, at least soon he may get more than one bridge officer.

We can only hope.

Starfeet headquarters in S.F. the view is awesome, the zone not so much, pretty laggy.

I’ve held off talking about this series — The 2800 — until I was done with it, but now that it’s over I’ve got a bunch of thoughts.  It’s the first STO featured series I’ve ever experienced, and overall, I liked it quite a lot.  Believe it or not, STO has some of the most interesting mission designs I’ve seen in MMOs, and if you stick to the featured episodes and series, it almost never feels like you’re grinding out FedEx/Kill 10 Rats tasks.  The writers come up with a lot of variety within these missions, and The 2800 exemplified this.

The story takes a hanging thread from Deep Space 9 and runs with it: What if the giant Dominion fleet that got detained in the wormhole by the wormhole peeps was allowed to continue on to the Alpha quadrant, many years after the war was over?  The answer would be: Chaos and the rebirth of a war that nobody really wants to fight.  As the Federation’s forces are spread thin on multiple fronts, they’re powerless to stop the takeover of DS9, and only one person — and one ship — can make wrong things right.  Unfortunately that ship is off on another mission, so it’s up to you.

Speaking of variety, during this series the game had me:

• Pandering to diplomats by making them happy
• Fighting through a jailbreak
• Going on a spacewalk across DS9′s hull in a suit
• Going into the Gamma quadrant in a shuttle
• Flying into the interior of an asteroid
• Getting to know the life and times of Bajor’s people
• Fighting a Changling in hand-to-hand combat
• Engaging in an epic space battle that was pretty tough at times

Apparently the fate of future Featured Series development is up in the air at this point, and that’s a shame because the team did such a great job with this that I was literally looking forward to the next installment each and every week this ran.  It had a great Star Trek feel that wasn’t just about mindless combat, but it had you thinking through situations, solving puzzles, and approaching problems through a variety of means.

My one big complaint, however, is the voice acting.  Now, I know people defend STO’s voice acting (such as it is) by saying that it’s probably done in-house, but whether it is or not, it’s almost uniformly awful.  Overacting and hammy deliveries with Shatner-worthy pauses all over the place coupled with disjointed lip synching awful.  I mean, I’m glad they made the effort — voice is much more involving than just text — but it was a weak spot in an otherwise strong series.

I won’t complain about the rewards, however.  We got lots of purples for the chain, including ship items and weapons.  Probably the two best rewards were a purple Jem’Hadar bridge officer and an item that lets you project two holographic copies of yourself to confuse enemies in combat.

Star Trek Online remains a casual MMO for me, but I’m almost always glad to go back to it when I do.  I’m looking forward to trying out some of the other featured series when they come back up on the rotation so see what I’ve missed.

After they’d dispersed their excess engineering crews to the ships that could have their warp capability restored, they’d set a course for Earth Spacedock. The refugees from the vessels that weren’t so lucky remained in the cargo bays on bed rolls, while the crew and senior officers were given quarters.

Placing cots and doubling or tripling occupants to a room, they’d only left about a hundred still in the holds. Thankfully, the trip back to Earth was a relatively short one, a day or so at most. It would have been shorter, but one of the nacelles was a little rickety after taking a disruptor blast, and Jameson refused to let the ship exceed Warp 3. Even though the risk of a structural failure was low, she agreed. To survive that entire battle and then blow up on the way home would have been an ironically tragic end.

She had used the eight hours spent on the bridge getting to know her new crew. Most of her work was done through personnel profiles, since not many seemed to want to talk with her outright. However, a few had struck up conversations.

One in particular, a blue-faced Bolian, Ensign Mal Brett, talked almost incessantly about every topic under the sun. He seemed to annoy the other bridge crew, but Four Fifty-one rather enjoyed his company. The Ensign seemed congenial enough, and he knew when to stop for something more important.

While she didn’t like talking much herself, the Bolian’s stories were usually amusing and filled the silence that most found uncomfortable. Also, he was as transparent as could be, always speaking his mind and totally blunt. Both things Four Fifty-one could admire.

Ensign Brett was the polar opposite of their brown-haired Science officer, Yukiko Anagnostou. She spoke almost as much as Four Fifty-one, hardly at all, and in a soft tone that almost lost itself in the hum of the ship. The woman seemed friendly, and if what Brett had to say about her was true, a complete pacifist.

Though she held no official Starfleet rank, Yukiko still had a place on the bridge. Her knowledge in space-faring life forms and training in a variety of other disciplines tended to make her most valuable contributions at a station.

Anagnostou was signed on as a research scientist, but said little about her work when she did speak. Four Fifty-one assumed that she most likely would rather be spending the extra time in the labs. If she felt this way, however, she gave no indication of it.

The turbolift doors opened and Jameson entered, fiddling with the cuffs of his uniform as he made his way to the center chair. Four Fifty-one stood at attention

“Captain on the Bridge.”

He waved his hand and took up his spot beside her.

“As you were. You need to stop doing that.”

“It is protocol.”

“Yes, but it’s unnecessary.”

She gave a quick nod and sat down with him at their stations.

“Duty does not commence for you for another two days.”

“Yes, but I hear that you have someone coming up from Earth to meet you. Besides, I’ve nothing to do right now.”

“You have a new child.”

Four Fifty-one leaned back in her chair as she spoke, and examined the grizzled Jameson. Just looking at him, you’d think he was the one that gave birth.

“I do, and I also have a mother on my hands who won’t let me help her with anything.”

“Three-Twelve is very self-sufficient.”

“I was going to say ornery.”

The Helm officer, a large furry Caitian by the name of H’Soe pivoted in his chair to announce their arrival.

“Arrival at Earth in fifteen minutes. Slowing to warp one.”

The Captain leaned over to Four Fifty-one, his finger on his poorly shaved chin.

“You’d better get going.”

“Thank you.”

“Think nothing of it. Wouldn’t want to keep the old man waiting, anyway.”

Four Fifty-one stood and headed to the turbolift, placing her back against the side farthest from the door.

“Transporter Room Three.”

The computer closed the door and chimed back in response as she began her descent.

Table of Contents

In this document, he covers the following issues briefly;

• Consoles, Theta radiation, and the general goodness of the AOE skills.
• Science ships and the new Skill tree and concerns.
• Tetryon glider and its impacts, Tachyon drones.
• Disruptor-Plasma beams and cannons.
• Trait Respec, and the Importance of Elusive and Accurate.
• Colored icons would it perhaps be a good idea to add these to the default game?

Still I have managed to do some occasional sporadic gaming. My friend Mike has got me back into Star Trek Online, and just recently the 14 day re-enlistment trial had me rolling another toon in my favorite game, possibly of all time: Dark Age of Camelot.

Yet, I have blogged about DAoC quite a bit in the past, so I will save that for another day because I want to start focusing on STO. In STO, being now f2p, for some time, I have a very addicting game, especially if you are a fan of the Trek universe and lore, which I am, and with it, I found a willing playing partner, as Mike seems to be thoroughly addicted to the wonders of it himself.

This was a game I never considered getting back into, mostly because I thought the requirements on my vid card would not support it, and I would have to wait to play it until my computer upgrades, but I was wrong, it runs just fine with default or lowered settings and in windowed mode.

So if you never played STO before, I have to warn you, you may get a thrill when you first see your character traverse through his first starship. I rolled an Andorian (don’t ask me why, always liked that race of Trek aliens) and lacking any imagination whatsover, I called him Jack O’Lantern.

Ensign Lantern first entered the world aboard the U.S.S. Summers (named after a certain heroine of fiction who slayed vamps like no other) and he single handedly defended the vessel against a Borg attack!

Star trek Online's opening mission is a satisfying thrill

Yes I did have a nerdgasm when I walked onto the bridge, and seeing that Borg cube on the viewscreen. Apparently in this version of the Trek universe, the Klingons are at war with the federation and the Borg have redeployed themselves, and it’s some new strand of Borg clone, don’t ask me, I was paying more attention to the pretty visuals than to the storyline.

And so I was having a lot of fun, until low and behold, there was space combat! Yet it was time to take over as acting captain of the U.S.S. Summers, under a full blown Borg attack and defend her against the scourge of the galaxy. This is where at first the fun slowed to a crawl, because space combat and maneuvering of your vessel takes some practice, it’s not something you easily pick up. well it might be something you easily pick up, but I was pretty baffled by it at first.

Somehow, I managed to get through the combat tutorial, just as I was starting to get frustrated over the fact I kept overshooting asteroids on my way to rendevouz with another of stafleet’s finest.

Oh I should probably mention that in this game, you go up in rank as you experience and as you do and play the game more, you build together a crew, so after the first mission I got my very first crewmember, whom I named Lil bit in honor of Buffy’s little sis. Her full name was Dawn Bratty, but ‘lil bit for short. I think I will just keep giving my characters Buffy allusions, because it’s a fun little game within the game I like to play. Hey don’t judge me, could have been worse, I could have picked more arcane nomenclatures. But I digress…

I recall the knock on this game upon release a few years back was the lack of a Klingon campaign and the lack of any enjoyable quests. That and the fact it didn’t feel like Star Trek. I don’t really know what people meant by that, this game sure feels like Trek to me, right down to the technical babble and iconic imagery, though I read that there have been many changes, additions and improvements since launch.

It sure does feel like this game has been improved. I had a lot of fun playing, will I be going where a lot of players have gone before for the long term? Well, I don’t see this game becoming my main mmorpg or even main game of choice, but I do feel it has staying power.  A quality no one could ever accuse Trek of lacking.

Your turn: Do you play STO? If so what are it’s best features? What are the most fun classes to play and why?

What can the developers do to improve the game if anything? Why haven’t I ran into commander Data yet?

It sure looks peaceful from this perspective, but trust me there was a full blown battle with the Borg raging in the background.

]]> http://headburroantfarm.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/sto-a-burro-boldly-going-9/ Wed, 07 Mar 2012 11:49:32 +0000 HeadBurro Antfarm http://headburroantfarm.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/sto-a-burro-boldly-going-9/ As I type this post on my wee netbook, my desktop is downloading the Star Trek Online client as I’m moving over to that game (which is free to play) to see if I’ll like it now that LOTRO & I are in the middle of a frosty divorce. I didn’t even consider Star Wars The Old Republic because I don’t much like the SW universe and have always preferred ST instead*.

I’m still going to play LOTRO, but not for a while and not in any meaningful way until my feelings change towards it. In the meantime, and before Guild Wars 2 launches, I intend to join Star Fleet and explore the universe for a while

* There are a couple of reasons for this, the first is that I watched all the original Kirk & Spock episodes with my Dad when I was a nipper so I have a huge amount of love for something I shared with my old man. This obviously isn’t SW’s fault but what I have always seen as a terrible lack of ambition in SW is. ST was always about exploring, finding new things, repelling huge alien invasions and it always gave me a heroic image to aspire to. SW is essentially a fight between dull characters in the middle of a bloody a trade dispute. Christ, paint me pink and call me a pony but that bores me silly.

Four Fifty-one took up a spot beside him but remained quiet, putting the datapad in her hand on the thin counter in front of the window. The little girl had Three-Twelve’s features, that much was certain. Her little sprouts of black hair, big brown eyes and lightly tanned skin gave some indication as to her sister’s original genetic makeup. Three-Twelve certainly would have looked different in full human form.

The Captain leaned over to one side, placing his shoulder against the glass and addressing his First Officer. He did not take his eyes from Three.

“She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Just like her mother”

“I concur.”

He turned his head back towards Four Fifty-one, looking at her with a large uncontrolled smile on his face.

“And I suppose you are here to tear me away from my new little angel.”

“I’d do nothing of the sort. There are things that need attending to, but I have them under control for now. The rest can wait.”

Jameson returned back to the child who had fallen asleep quite suddenly. Three’s tiny mouth remained open while her chest rose and fell with small breaths.

“You know, I thought I was going to be prepared for this. I thought I’d played out this moment a hundred times in my head. The reality is quiet different.”

“It usually is.”

He pursed his lips in agreement, still mesmerized by the creation in front of him.

“The doctor’s report stated that she has a few nanoprobes in her body, but its so little that it almost doesn’t even register. I’m relieved, but I’m not sure how Three-Twelve is going to feel.”

Four Fifty-one nodded and crossed her arms.

“How is she?”

“Unconscious at the moment. Nell says that she’s recovering extremely quickly, probably be up and around within a few days.”

“A few days is quickly?”

“After childbirth? Oh god, yes. That’s practically jumping out of bed afterwards.”

The Captain sighed and pulled himself away from the wall like he was going to leave, but was denied. He hovered in the middle of the hallway, not straying his gaze far from Three.

“How are the recruitments going?”

“I thought you said you did not want to talk about work?”

“Indulge me for the moment.”

Four Fifty-one picked up the pad and began to thumb through it. She stopped at the list of assignment requisition forms she had been slowly making her way through over the past week.

“I’ve gotten ten of the thirteen to fill out the reassignment paperwork. I think we’ve caught a choice selection of science officers.”

She handed the digital pad over and waited for him to continue scrolling through it.

“All four of the Ensigns are Liberated.”

He stated it like a fact, but meant it as a question for her to answer.

“Yes. Adjusting to life on a starship can be difficult. I have taken the initiative to recruit the few Liberated that have come our way. I assure you they have solid records.”

The Captain tapped down the list, approving each one individually before handing it back to her. He did not let the pad go when she grabbed it, using it as leverage to get her attention.

“We all have our causes Four Fifty-one, but make sure this ship and crew are your first priority.”

“You can trust that I will.”

Jameson released the pad.

“Of course I do, or I wouldn’t be approving them.”

Dr. Nell had somehow come up on them unnoticed, startling Four Fifty-one when he spoke.

“Captain, Commander.”

He gave them both an unidentifiable hand gesture before returning to Jameson.

“Is she bothering you with work already? The Liberated are a busy bunch, aren’t they?”

“No, doctor. It was at my own request. You needed something?”

“Yeah, I’ve got some paperwork for you to fill out on your newest crew member. Fair warning, once you sign these there’s no turning back.”

The doctor gave a glance at Four Fifty-one for recognition of his joke. Receiving nothing, he returned the Captain who was looking at Three.

“Yeah, I think I’ll take her.”

Dr. Nell slapped him on the arm and headed back into the Sickbay. Jameson followed closely behind, starting a sentence just as the door closed, cutting it off before it was intelligible.

Four Fifty-one leaned down in front of the little girl, who was waking up and falling asleep in spurts. She raised one of her gloved hands and gave a brief wave to Three and accompanied it with a smile. The child opened its sleepy eyes, returned the wave in an awkward fashion and smiled back.

Four Fifty-one had never envied her sister more.

Table of Contents

     When Star Trek Online finally went free to play I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to continue the journey I began during the beta and, of course, start it again since beta characters don’t save. So I downloaded the game and made my character. I chose pink hair, which is a first for me, since I didn’t find a red.

     Star Trek online is a pretty hefty download. It’s a big game, about as big as you’d expect for an MMO like this. I think it is definitely worth the time to download it.

     The game gives you plenty of options for creating your character. You have a myriad of choices for species. I chose Betazoid. You can outfit yourself with a handful of different uniforms and each one can be mixed and matched. You also choose your career path (Engineering, science or Tactical) and your traits.

     I didn’t get to play much of the game but from what I have played, both recently and in the beta, the gameplay is broken up into two types, ground and space. On the ground you and your away team, armed with phasers (and a few other choices), travel by foot to complete various missions. The ground gameplay is very similar to any other MMO. If you have ever played WoW or any game like it then you should know what to expect. The combat seemed a bit slower than WoW. Which to me is a good thing. I felt like I had time to make choices. That may have just been because I only had a few choices of things to do this early on.

     In space the main goal is to keep the enemy ships at your flank so you can fire forward and rear weapons at once. You can divert energy to your shields or even thrusters to increase your speed, though I think that last one isn’t intended for combat. When you have more officers on your ship you get to unlock special abilities which aid in space combat. I found space combat enjoyable. I should mention that space combat feels a bit more like a dogfight than a battle between two massive ships. That can be either a good thing or a bad thing.

     My name is Captain Theresa of the U.S.S. Nebuchadnezzar and I highly recommend Star Trek Online for any fan of space or sci-fi. That is especially true for Star Trek fans. I watched TNG when I was younger and being able to pilot my own ship is awesome.

The room was filled with the officers of various ships sifting through, scanning and organizing pieces of wreckage that were being beamed in. Spotting the two she was looking for, Four Fifty-one made her way there, weaving through the haphazard piles of twisted metal and broken computer components.

Melissa waved as she approached, giving Darren a brief tap on the shoulder at the same time.

“Commander Four Fifty-one. My, that new pip looks nice.”

“Thank you, Ensign.”

“So, what brings you down to the dungeon?”

Four Fifty-one divvied the two pads up between them.

Darren was the first to speak.

“You’re reassigning us to the Áo Dài?”

“If you wish. These are requests to be assigned to this ship. You are under no obligation to accept them, but if you do, they will most certainly be approved.”

Melissa pressed her thumb at the bottom, scribbled a signature and returned it to her.

“Well, I’ll join. Where else am I going to go where I’m in good with the First Officer?”

They both turned to Darren who was scrolling down the text reluctantly. He stopped when he realized he was being watched.

“I’m not going back to Gamma shift, am I?”

Four Fifty-one shook her head.

“No, you will be lead on Beta Shift. I’m placing you just under the Chief Engineer.”

He signed and fingerprinted the pad, holding it out with a wag.

“Then you’ve got me.”

She took it and placed it under the other in her hand.

“How is the salvage operation going?”

Melissa threw up her hands.

“Who knows? They keep bringing it in, and we keep pulling out isolinear chips. Seems like it’s never going to end.”

Four Fifty-one turned to Darren.

“And why are you here?”

“Oh, just helping out.”

She took a brief glance at Melissa who had grown a knowing smile on her face, before returning to the Lieutenant.

“That was charitable.”

“Well, figured I had the free time, and all.”

“I see.”

There was an uncomfortable length of silence before Darren started up again. He latched onto the only piece of conversation he had left, launching into it headlong.

“How’s your sister?”

Melissa looked at her with her head cocked to one side.

“You have a sister?”

“I do. I have not spoken to her since I arrived.”

Darren shook his head.

“Well that’s no good. You two not on speaking terms?”

“Not as such, though she has many things going on. I feel that I would be a hindrance.”

“I bet you wouldn’t, but you probably know your situation better than I.”

“Most likely. I must be going. I have other crew members to recruit, and you look to have a lot of work to be do.”

Four Fifty-one turned to walk away, but stopped and came back.

“Also, while attendance is not required, I would appreciate you two showing up to the funeral ceremonies for the crew of the Avarayr tomorrow, specifically Gonzales.”

They both nodded back to her.

“We will.”

Melissa waved at Four Fifty-one as she left. Darren returned to the burnt circuit panel he was examining on the floor before they were interrupted.

The Ensign squatted next to him and pulled out her tricorder.

“I didn’t know she had a sister.”

“Her sister’s pregnant.”

“Pregnant?”

“With the Captain’s daughter.”

“The Captain?!?”

Melissa ducked down when she realized how loudly she’d exclaimed that last part.

“What have we gotten ourselves into?”

Darren continued to pull chips out of the green and blue glowing board in front of him.

“Nothing boring, that’s for sure.”

Table of Contents

Nightclub City : Continuing to expand the existing clubs, still playing, not a lot has changed since this post.   Never received a reply to my request for a refund on facebook credits.

Star Trek Online :   Still advancing a bit in this one.    Seems I log in long enough to work duty officers, then log off again.    And I’m missing some nights.     There’s no rush, the game is fantastic, and there’s no reason to pay money to them.

Support eventually got back to me and confirmed that Cryptics are not shared if they are rewards; cash-backed Cryptics are.    Thanks for giving me that at least.

Everquest 2 : After frantically reaching level 89, I began to work on clearing out the quests in Tez’s quest log.    After several nights of doing so, he’s at 49% towards 90 and holding.    The thing about doing pinked-out quests, is they award much more AA XP than regular.    Worked through a fun set of Barren Sky quests about missing fae and arasai brothers and sisters – ended up with a reward that lets me shape change into a Fae.    Keeping that one !

Currently working on a few things in Kylong Plains and logged out last night having started the “Fistful of Metal” quest.     Tlaloc is a level 85 provisioner and still moving up.

World of Tanks : Starting to rack up the games again, at over 6200 right now.    It’s a bit slower going without premium, but I have so many tanks all I need to really do is concentrate on getting daily doubles – and play extra matches when I’m doing well with any particular tank.    Have managed to bring a few elite tanks up over 100% of crew skills, and moved forward on eliting more tanks.

• My T29 is at 27k towards the big gun – the 105mm.    I need about 41k.
• A few more matches and I get the big derp gun for the KV.
• My Tiger now has the ugraded turret and guns, working towards upgraded engine.

Am looking forward to the 7.2 update which should come around the end of March.   Crew skill options sound like a lot of fun.    Should open up the play for my MS-1 once again !      There is currently a sale on heavy tanks, but I’m not going to buy anything this time due to both lack of credits and a surfeit of tanks in my garage.    And finally, the World of Tanks Assistant, aka Android app, is now available.     If you’ll excuse me, time to download it and get a good look at it.

Edit :

Forgot one extra metric I’ve decided to track – just how much (or how little) am I blowing on games each month ?     February is just the $15 fee for EQ2.    That fits with where I want to be – low cost entertainment !