Star Trek

I’ve just learned that Star Trek Online is now in Open Beta! The weekend closed beta patch is being backed out, I guess it wasn’t stable enough. There will be a less sweeping patch before Open Beta goes live. The title of this post is an in-joke referring to the odd, unexplained times when Leonard Nimoy’s voice would pop out of the speaker with his heartfelt congratulations. Tomorrow will be Star Trek Online day here on WestKarana.com. There’ll be articles throughout the day talking about the game’s basics, space combat, ground combat and the PvP-heavy Klingon Empire. ...

I’ve been playing a bit of Earth Eternal since it went into open-closed beta yesterday. Since I think we’re still unable to actually show the game, here’s a picture of the upcoming stop motion/cgi film, Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. Now, I don’t KNOW that Sparkplay’s gonna close down to go to the premiere, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Should kids gamble on the Internet? Evil Theurgists wonders why KingsIsle is encouraging kids to blow their parent’s moolah spinning the virtual wheels of Wizard101’s new slot machine – where you spend 15 (and up) Crowns to win the usual prize of 20 gold. You get 15 twirls a day and the rewards are minuscule so… let’s hope this is one feature that doesn’t make it out of testing. ...

“It would like them much; but an ye wot how dragons are esteemed, ye would not hold them blamable. They fear to come.” – “Well, then, suppose I go to them instead, and—” – “Ah, wit ye well they would not abide your coming. I will go.” And she did. She was a handy person to have along on a raid. – Mark Twain, “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” ...

Guy just keeps popping up everywhere, don’t he? I am playing Runes of Magic now because, hey, WoW is coming out with a new expansion that I probably won’t play, so why not reminisce about good times in WoW by playing some other game? Runes of Magic only allowed me to pick from two races, Elf and Human. I thought they had some short folk in the character concept art, but I guess those were just meant to be children. It’d be kind of cool, by the way, to start of as a child in an MMO (optionally, anyway), and play children’s games of crafting, socialization, war and magic while slowly aging and learning more of the wider world and your place in it. ...

I’ve gotten a bunch of emails telling about updates et al to a lot of games. Rather than write an article about each one, or ignoring them entirely, I thought I’d just combine them into a single post. Windstorm Studios, brainchild of ex-Age of Empires and Halo Wars dev Dusty Monk, has just released two bits of concept art from his unannounced evil giant super death robot massacre game, Citizen Kabuto. Just kidding. The cries on everyone’s lips, where is Ultraman? … still just kidding. Check out the awesome art and bug him for more info! ...

I got a spam comment today which mentioned, while complimenting me on explaining some vague idea to them, that they were unsure of this blog’s update schedule. Geez. When even SPAMMERS wonder why you don’t update every day, it’s getting out of hand ;) Fact is, most of the time I am doing boring stuff. CrazyKinux linked to a blog once that insisted nobody wants to read about someone running mission in EVE Online, so once I read that, I stopped posting about my adventures in EVE. I’m leveling up a character in Wizard 101 so I can do Grizzleheim with level-appropriate characters, but that takes time. I do fit in little bits about what I’m doing in EVE and Wizard101 now and then in these blogrolls… but they don’t seem worthy of entire posts! ...

Well, would YOU bet $200 on a game that nobody but press is allowed to talk about, a month before it’s released? When Lord of the Rings Online offered the same deal – A Benjamin and his identical twin for a lifetime subscription – you had a month to think it over. Not so with Champions Online – if you insist on playing before committing, the offer goes away. Probably the best thing about the offer – access to the Star Trek Online beta, and Mirror Universe outfits for same. So, if I want to play STO and get all the best goodies, I have to toss two c-notes Champions’ way? ...

Only 178 days till Christmas! With 2009 halfway gone now, I thought you’d want to know. I predicted this year would be one of the best ever for MMOs, with some high-profile releases and expansions, but with many titles delayed and some now not due until next year (like Star Trek Online and EQ2’s Sentinel’s Fate expansion), 2009 just might lose the “best year ever” crown to 2010. My being bad at predicting was harshly lit when I predicted last year that the expansion that would turn out to be Shadow Odyssey would be Odus, and this year, when I predicted Velious, it really WAS Odus… and what’s worse is that it really is about what you’d expect from a generic expansion. ...

It started out like a normal day. Then Turbine announced that it’s Dungeons & Dragons Online MMO was going Free to Play, and Twitter ignited and MMO bloggers the world over ran to their keyboards to pound out the news. Subscribers were now VIPs! And the new “unlimited” players were (by comparison) NVIPs! Or VUIPs! (Sorry if I didn’t link to the announcement on your blog; after awhile I stopped saving the announcements). ...

Working on a first impressions piece about Mabinogi. Will keep the self-flagellation to a minimum but really, I only do it because it feels good when I stop. On to the blogs! Are persistent henchmen the new groups? Syp thinks they might be. Star Wars: The Old Republic will have them (echoing the party you gathered in Knights of the Old Republic). Guild Wars has their henchmen. EverQuest has their mecenaries. Star Trek Online has their bridge crew. Have MMOs truly come full circle back to their single player, you+your crew of helpers, roots? Is it truly not worth the trouble anymore to be part of a group that includes other living people? ...