Star Trek

I had a different picture prepared for this post, but I noticed while making it that several of my crew members looked almost identical. So back to the tailor for some adjustments to hair styles and uniform…. I made admiral a few days ago. I can’t say I have seen all the game, since I haven’t been able to find anyone with which to do the raid mission. I really need to look for a fleet to join, but I really have no idea how to go about it. The tools in game are primitive, and even when you join an open group, it’s hard to figure out if the people in your group are in fleets. Since after the mission everyone separates and goes their own way, you never really get a chance to talk or get to know anyone. ...

I thought it might be fun to do “playthroughs” of certain MMO missions, to try and give a feel for what it’s like to simply play the game. I play a good variety of MMOs, so what I’m going to do is go through each one of them and do a mission or quest from start to end. For this first one, I will be doing a Star Trek Online “episode” called “The Tribble with Klingons”. Klingons and Tribbles have never gotten along… but why? ...

I’ve come to realize, over the years, that I really suck at MMOs. Easily distracted and easily bored, the sort of long-term, intense concentration that is the mark of the truly successful grinder is impossible for me. I can’t be the only one; the newer crop of MMOs seem made for people with short attention spans. World of Warcraft’s “Looking for Dungeon” tool lets you defeat the ultimate evils of Azeroth half an hour at a time. EQ2’s newest mission maps reward you if you can finish the entire instance before the necromancer is done buffing her pet. ...

Cryptic responded to player concerns about the state and the direction of the game in a huge, long, detailed producers letter that outlines their thoughts on the game as it nears the end of its first month. Will this keep people subscribed while they wait for new content to come online? Just picking a few details from the letter… Some of the few things on the way: Respec Death Penalty Difficulty Slider More open auto-fire Replayable missions Improving Memory Alpha Fixing those Commodity missions Respec is nice. Cryptic took some heat over respecs in Champions Online when they added the respec ability to the cash shop. They also allowed you to buy respecs with in-game currency; I never really felt the sting. Here, though, I can’t imagine someone not wanting to respec more than once as they level through the content, acquire new skills and weapons and so on. ...

This morning I, and likely every other Star Trek Online subscriber, received a survey from Cryptic asking how we liked the game so far, if we were likely to subscribe past the first month, what other games we played, what our favorite parts of the game were (Character/Ship customization), what parts we thought were really ill-thought and crappy (Memory Alpha) and so on. There were no long form questions where we could explain to Cryptic just what I really want from their game. So here’s what I’d say to them – and based on my comments, I think a lot of Star Trek players are thinking the same things. ...

I made Captain in Star Trek Online tonight; that’s level 31 if you’re all crass and number-using. We leave those sorts of things to our holographic life forms. They really seem to enjoy it. As befits a captain, I traded in my Science officer blues for the red of Command. While I was at Deep Space 9 picking up necessary ship supplies, I picked up new uniforms for the crew. All they had were the DS9 uniforms, but that’s fine. Black is very slimming. ...

I am playing too many MMOs, it’s true… but there’s some good gaming out there. In EVE Online, the Ishtar Project saw a minor victory as I sold my two run Ishtar blueprint for 30 million ISK after only a couple of days on the market. That worked out incredibly well. In another stroke of luck, I put another Vexor blueprint in for invention and produced ANOTHER two run Ishtar blueprint. This one I will likely keep to make the Heavy Assault Cruiser of my dreams. ...

The survivors of the destruction of the USS Alvarado had discovered scantily-clad native girls along with an ancient wreck of what appeared to be a Starfleet vessel. Putting that mystery aside, the crew got busy, their work cut out for them. Parts 2-4 were originally one really long comic. I split it into three parts and added a little more to make it easier to read. Next stop for the STO crew: Jita. There is no way they can prepare themselves for the mercantile capital of New Eden.

When last we met the crew of the USS Alvarado, their excursion through a mysterious wormhole had ended in tragedy when an immense ship of unknown origin destroyed their starship, leaving them stranded on an alien world. It’s terrible how “romance scantily-clad, willing, beautiful green-skinned alien girl” is not a dialog option in ground missions in Star Trek Online.

In Part 1, the largely Andorian crew of the USS Alvarado, while exploring a newly-opened wormhole, found themselves trapped in the lawless domain of EVE Online’s nullsec, within targeting range of a Gallente Erebus, a Titan-class ship. Thanks once again to Longasc for the use of his semi-Sovereign class heavy cruiser. The Erebus shots were made with the Show Info tool within EVE Online. Explosions done in Star Trek Online, because it costs too much to explode a ship in EVE. Screenshots taken with FRAPS, collected in Picasa, cropped and composited in GIMP, text and certain other effects added and the whole thing published with Inkscape. Free tools are the way to go.