I find, these days, that I don’t make that much of a distinction between online RPGs – even Massive ones – and offline, single player RPGs. The only real difference is who I am playing with. Offline ones, I tend to chat with people about the game as I play on Twitter or somewhat slowly via this blog. Online, I chat with people about the game in game. ...
Having saved the Undine from forced assimilation at the hands of the Borg in the previous episode, Assimilation, Starfleet believes the Undine might be convinced to form an alliance with the Federation to remove the Borg from the galaxy AND from fluidic space, forever. Scout ships have reported a number of anomalies forming in the center of a nearby star ckuster, and the USS Monterey is to investigate them. If a safe portal to fluidic space is to be had, we are to enter it and make contact with the Undine. ...
Yes, desperately catching up on all the posts I should have made this week, but did not. Undine Front: The Return is the second of the two episodes given you by Starfleet as you embark upon Season Two. It opens similarly to the other mission, Undine Front: Assimilation, with a sudden congregation of Borg ships causing some concern in the quadrant. Not only that, but there have been reports of non-Borg ships in the area as well. It would be terrible to lose such a fine crew, Starfleet assures us, but we need to head in and do what we can. ...
I started last night on the main plot missions for Star Trek Online’s Season Two. Season Two is all about trying to find a way to form an alliance with the Undine. The Undine don’t have much respect for the beings of normal space, but the Federation hopes we can find common cause with them against the Borg. ...
Want to see what a Rear Admiral, Upper Half looks like? Just like that. My character is sporting the new Veteran’s uniform top and the fleet insignia for the Federation News Service on her left shoulder. Season Two, which arrived yesterday after considerable anticipation, brings with it not only fleet emblems, new uniform bits and six new levels, but also ship interiors, diplomacy missions, dabo, additional transwarps, holographic ship cloaking, three new elite ships, the vice admiral rank, and a series of missions that put you up against the only foe that scare the Borg – Species 8472, the Undine. ...
Season 2.0 is out on Star Trek Online’s test server, Tribble, now, and they’ve just stuffed the game with new goodness. Five new levels, which bring you from Rear Admiral, LOWER HALF to Rear Admiral, UPPER HALF. As @Longasc noted, get them together, you end up with one WHOLE Admiral, or maybe a FRONT Admiral. Yeah, that title is silly, has got to go. With the new levels come new missions that bring you to the realm of the only creatures that can scare the Borg, Species 8472, AKA the Undine. Creatures who come from a universe where there is no vacuum, no stars or planets, only a weird, dense infinity of force lines known as fluidic space, and the strange life forms that swim among them. They hate we puny beings made out of inferior baryonic matter. ...
I resisted the original sparkle pony in World of Warcraft, felt no urge to get the Cash Cat in EverQuest 2, nor the Stationbuck Steed in EverQuest. Everyone has their price – mine was the Galaxy Dreadnought (AKA Galaxy X) cruiser. It can cloak! It can equip phaser cannons! It has a unique weapon – the spinal phaser lance! It can crush your enemies. Riker flew one in an alternate future timeline in the “Star Trek: The Next Generation” series finale. It is a futuristic update to the standard TNG Enterprise-D, which in this alternate future, was not destroyed by the comical yet bumbling crew in “Star Trek Generations”. ...
Exciting MMO news lands in my inbox; I pass it along. Cryptic is dropping prices in their “C-Store” for the holiday weekend on existing items. Emphasis on existing; they also announce that the Galaxy X/Galaxy Dreadnought class cruiser will soon be available in the shop. This is the three nacelled Enterprise-D variant that Riker commanded in the future segment of The Next Generation’s “All Good Things”, and in particular is the ship that @Longasc has been trying to earn via getting people to sign up. Well, it’ll be in the store soon. ...
In Dungeons & Dragons Online, Kasul and I finished our trip through all the Korthos Island instances on Elite mode, giving each of us the maximum amount of favor you can get from those quests. Misery Peak, the one where you don’t kill the dragon, was its usual platforming mini game of jumping around a multilevel maze looking for levers and fighting ice spiders. Since it was his first time, Kasul didn’t know you were supposed to pretend you were actually killing the dragon for uber screenshots. Next time. ...
MMO devs fire broadside press releases at my inbox, and I inflict them on others. We’ll suffer together or not at all. Actually, let’s start off with a non-MMO offer. The Humble Indie Bundle from Wolfire Games collects five acclaimed Indie games (including the addictive building game World of Goo, underwater fantasy Aquaria, innovative platformer Gish, rabbit beat’m’up Lugaru, and horror adventure game Penumbra Overture. Until Monday, you can get all of these games AND donate to Electronic Freedom Foundation AND Child’s Play … at any price you want, divided between charities and the developers any way you want. This is a can’t lose deal – I was up till 2AM last night playing World of Goo… on my Linux box. ...