What wonders does the in box of mystery hold for us today? Cryptic announces veteran rewards for players who keep an active subscription to Star Trek Online. Saith Cryptic: “Skill point bonuses, titles, costume pieces, character slots… Veterans will be rewarded every 100 days! Rewards will be retroactive, too!” Nice of them! They’ve also announced a “Come back to STO” weekend and a “Recruit a Friend” program; all these kick off May 7. ...
The Federation News Service (our fleet/guild in Star Trek Online) had its first fleet event tonight. Organized by Longasc, Commanders, Captains and Admirals gathered to take on some fleet actions. We headed to Tortig in the Regulus sector block and — Well, that didn’t work. Level banding meant we couldn’t all join the same instance. We decided to see if we could do some damage in some Deep Space Encounters, and “encountered” our SECOND mess-up; there can only be five ships in a DSE. Who knew? So if someone else was already in the encounter, some people would be sent into a new instance. I could have SWORN there used to be room for lots more ships in DSEs…. ...
IP-based games have a significant downside. If someone doesn’t like, say, the Twilight books and movies, news of your new Twilight MMO isn’t going to get them excited. Or even worse – the game could be so focused on shoehorning every bit of the IP into the game that it forgets to build any fun in; ALL it is, is the IP. This has long been a weakness for IP-based videogames from the Empire Strikes Back Atari 2600 cartridge way back in the 80s. You just kept shooting AT-AT walkers on Hoth, again and again and again. ...
I logged into Ironforge and pressed the screenshot button. Didn’t move, didn’t turn. Three sparkly ponies! Suddenly my epic mechanostrider seemed rare and unusual. Vanguard may be the only game I have ever played that lets you make such elaborate ships. I believe Ultima Online let you make them, and I know Darkfall lets you, and of course Pirates of the Burning Sea and Florensia have ship building as a big part of game play, but does any other game let you launch your ship and then walk away, leaving it docked in the world? ...
Unlike other offer walls, this one probably won’t infect your computer with anything TOO harmful. Like watching pretty alien spaceships blow up in all sorts of interesting ways? I do! I bought Gratuitous Space Battles the day it came out and every now and then, I build some fleets and watch them get crazy on the devious (but not as devious as me) enemy. Positech Games sent me a 25% off code for the game, good for seven days only, and two of those days have already passed, so if you’ve been wanting the game, be the first to use up this discount code when ordering: BNXP00099. ...
It took a lot of waiting around, but on this stardate, the Federation News Service (thanks, Ark, for the awesome name suggestion!) became the latest fleet to roam the space lanes, seeking out new adventures and stories and so on…. Now that we have a fleet, maybe it’s possible to get enough people to do the raidisodes? If you’d like to become a part of the Federation News Service in Star Trek Online, hunt up one of the senior editors – @Caylinn, @BlueKae, @Tipa, @Vannikar, @khaaaaaaan!, @Aurangzeb or @camenecium – for an invite!
Tuesday is typically not a gaming night for me; Tuesday is American Idol night! So you’ll find me planted in front of the television with a cat, a bowl of pistachios and a glass of Diet Coke, rooting for Crystal Bowersox. This year, anyway. We’d discussed this awhile ago, but @Longasc asked me on Twitter this afternoon if I had a good picture of my Star Trek Online character I could send him; he wanted to (with my permission) have my character be a bridge officer on his star cruiser. ...
The games in the title – EverQuest, Lord of the Rings Online, Star Trek Online, Dungeons & Dragons Online. Three of the four have “online” in their name. It’s Lord of the Rings, except ONLINE! It’s Star Trek like you never imagined it – ONLINE! Throw away your pencils and dice because D&D is ONLINE! EverQuest is just – EverQuest. Online is all it knows. That’s the power of having a pre-existing IP for your game; its name is its best feature. ...
Actually, STO wants to sell you bridge PACKS. 120 Cryptic Points will now buy you three new bridges for your newbie ship, and 200 will get you four new bridges for your top-of-the-line Federation or Klingon cruisers. These are still (for the Feds, anyway), the cavernous flight deck hangar-sized bridges. So now you can invite your friends to your ship, and everyone can pretend that the bridge consoles do something or the viewscreen works >< Well, they DO look nice! I spend a lot of time on the bridge of the USS Monterey because, dammit, that’s where you SHOULD be! ...
I sat in front of my computer the other night, not really feeling a pull toward any MMO. I was watching Zombieland, and I couldn’t think of any MMO that would be more fun than watching the best comedy zombie movie since Shaun of the Dead. Blahblahblah. This isn’t a post about quitting MMOs. This is a post about WILLING IMMERSION. I talked a little about this yesterday. Immersion can seem like a quality of a game, but it’s really a quality of the player. Even the best game is nothing like reality; it’s as far removed from reality as anything can be. To make it important to us, we have to willingly fill in the lines, paint the walls, paper the ceiling and give it a place in our reality. You might argue that games can help immersion by having fantastic graphics, amazing sound design and killer animations, but I have been immersed in books before. I have immersion to spare; all I really ask of a game is that it doesn’t BREAK my immersion. ...