Up Up And Away, Team...

So, we are Lt. G9 or so, and I have been a lot less angry playing on the Federation side. I can go wherever I want and I seem to have no problems finding quests other then PvP.

I am currently floating about the Remulos sector of space, finding missions, scanning for stuff that I have no clue what to do with, and finding out just how stupid my away team is.

First thing, is that if World of Warcraft would give you an "Away Team" to come and do Heroics with you, I would throw STO in the trash right now. Since that's not going to happen lets go to Fear's story of the week.

I think the away team idea is totally too cool, but while traveling to strange new worlds, I found myself wanting to slap the Bajoran out of my away team. I spent some time the other night making sure that everyone had Mk II or Mark Two gear and weapons so I was not going to get killed as easily anymore. I found that if I could give them an Mk II brain, it might have helped even more.

My biggest problem is when they get stuck trying to find me, or the occasional, wander off on their own for long periods of time. My first officer, Ryu is a total nut case when it comes to staying in the ranks. I find myself wondering "where the hell is this guy?", and looking at his distance from the group. Ryu is always far, far away, doing what I can't imagine. If Ryu was William Riker, I would assume he is just getting a little lovin' from the local females, but Ryu is a dorky looking guy with not much chance of love.

I was on a mission where I had lost one of my away team in a huge exchange of friendly phaser fire, and when I found her body, I wasn't sure how to get her back into action. I used the "P" Powers Key, to see if there was yet another hidden power I had to bring someone to life. I did have something called CPR or similar and I pushed that sucker. It worked. It was my Medic that had fallen, so I guess the game expected the captian to take charge of bringing the away team back to life. When she is alive and well, I am pretty sure she handles all of the healing and reviving duties without my help.

I like the fact that I can sort of tell them what to do as far as targeting and stuff like that, but mostly I just let them go wild. The healer heals, and the rest all shoot the guns and pop their special attacks when needed. Not much in the way of dissapoinment there.

My biggest issue was in a mission where they had fire on the ground in places. Well, you guessed it. Old Ryu and my Medic were the first two to go down. Not once, but three times they ran into a fire and were killed. I was getting very angry, but I found a solution. There were fire extinguishers hanging around that I could grab and equip to put out the fires! WooT! Well, now I just had to make sure I got there first before Ryu and Spin jumped in them. Well, needless to say, we made it through that tragedy, but I am seriously thinking I need to trade some officers in.

My Trill science officer seems to be the smartest, always right there with me, never misses a beat, and has a lot of tricks she uses to get things done. I haven't really done much else with them except make sure they all have stuff, and I equip them with food or hypos so they can live longer. I am pretty sure they just waste the stuff though.

Anyway, I like the away team concept. I just want to get them a little more under control and that may happen as we progress in ranks and levels.

Princess said "Don't Play Klingon. Problem Solved."

Ranting to my girlfriend about STO, I went into my story about how my Kingon character was difficult to play because of all the issues I had and my girlfriend, aka Princess simply said, "Don't play Klingon. Problem Solved." There was a sort of divine truth in that response. It makes sense, but in a strange, "why didn't I think of that?" kind of way.

Anyway, I went back to the Federation side and I have been running more quests. I have noticed my attitude is a bit different today. The only thing I am grouchy about today is that the missions take a long time when they have you doing the "campaign style", space, ground, and chase the bad guys. I mean, it's nice to have a bit of a story, but it was like 2 hours to do this one mission, and I was wore out.

I think I hit Lt. Grade 8 last night, and I am anxious to see what the Tier 2 ships look like. I know there is a place that shows you, but I like to discover on my own sometimes. I need to re-do my main character a little bit. He looks too much like Anthony Castoro for my liking.. I guess I should get the two pics and show you what I mean. hehe Don't get me wrong, Anthony is a great guy, I just don't like watching him on my screen all day.

Okay, speaking of Anthony, I just realized he has a new Facebook App out called Platinum Life... I guess all the old schoolers are going Apps. I installed this, but the first thing I noticed is there weren't any white DJ's??? What the hell Anthony? Eminem would be sad...

Anyway, thanks to Princess for the heads up, and I'll see you all in STO. Woot!

So, Ummm, Yea. I am basically correct. Star Trek Online Is Teh Suck.

Many things that I have been bitching about the last couple of updates have been answered somewhat in this Q&A with the Star Trek Online Devs...

Here is one of the finer points.

"MisterMiracle: The biggest drawback right now to Klingon faction play is a near total lack of immersion. This is in part related to the limited customization options, and in part due to the lack of a strong (or really any) overarching storyline for your Klingon character. The repetitive PVP queuing produces a character more like the protagonist of a shooter than a fully realized RPG. What plans do you have to give players a greater sense of immersion while playing Klingon faction?

Ship customization will start to come out in the next update. More ship and character customization will follow shortly after that. There is also a new tier 2 battle cruiser set for release in the next update. Due to the community’s demand, we are also releasing more PvE content - fleet actions, Special Tasks Forces, Star Clusters and, down the road, unique episodes. Eventually you will be able to play a Klingon character to General with PvE alone."

So basically they know this is a major issue, and are almost working on it. Total lack of just about everything is the real problem. Why are these guys even in there? You can play an Orion HOE, now shut up you sniveling Klingon bastards! PvE content with quests would be really nice, but offer a new battle cruiser after I got that stupid Raptor?? Someone has to die!

On the up-side, I have seen some really huge Klingon vessels flying around and I am totally jealous. I mean, I though my ship was farily big, but they got some seriously huge machines out there. I guess I have little man syndrome or something. I just don't like it. Hey when can we leave fricken Klingon Space? That's what I want to know.

That's all I got...

Still Trekin' It... And Hatin' It... With Passion!

Even though I am still confused about a great many things, I have decided to give this one a try for awhile and see if there is anything I am missing.

I am Lt. Commander Grade 1 on the Klingon side, and still Lt. Grade 8 or so on the Federation side. You can tell which one I play more I suppose. I am not sure why though, the Klingon's are stuck in these two zones and can't do anything except for PvP, but somehow I find that darn cloaking just too much fun. I imagine they will let me out someday, but I am annoyed that I have to stay in a limited area.

It is so obvious that they really just kind of threw the whole Klingon thing in there to give us someone to fight with, but if you plan to do any exploring or gathering or questing, you better keep that Federation ship up-to-date. Everywhere I try to go with my Klingon ship tells me I am not cleared for Federation space. I may be missing something, but I have tried to warp out at every exit, and just get the same response.

There are not as many rewards out there that drop like there are on the Federation side that I can find. My Federation guys are full of items I don't need, but my Klingon inventory has always been empty. I can't figure out what the heck you are supposed to do except fight, and that takes alot of time, and pisses me off. Bottom line is that the game is horribly unfinished, and really not even finished enough to be worthwhile. If you want to feel like you got to the theatre and in the middle of the movie, the action just stops, and repeats over and over, then you have found your game.

I got a new ship when I hit Lt. Commander. I think it is called a Raptor. Lots of guns, and comes without consoles, so I just stole the ones off my other ship. Great fighting machine, but you always have to be facing forward which kind of sucks. My Fed ship has some serious arc weapons and I can fire in any direction I choose. I just don't have enough money to do much of anything right now except PvP or I have still been finding quests on the Fed side to do. Some of them are sort of long and I sometimes just want to abort the mission and do something else.

STO went with the "badge" system for getting items, and again, I am less then pleased. They also change the badges for each rank, so if you have leftovers you have to eat them or convert them, but I haven't found a place to convert the Lt. badges to Lt. Commander badges.

Anyways, they are down for maint, so I thought I would drop in and say hello! Maybe some day someone will say hello back. lol

That's all I got...

Star Trek Engaged Captian!

I installed and have been playing a bit of Star Trek Online. Here's a few thoughts for you guys. I am just going to touch on things briefly, because I am not ready to hammer this game just yet.

It's not what you think! I was somewhat disapointed with how the game laid out. It is very similar in my mind to a watered down shooter coupled with a space game from the 80's.

Not to say it's not playable, but the curent state has me wondering how the hell these guys got this thing out the door. Its very limited right now, and some of the things I think should have already been implemented are not there.

For example, one thing that bothers me is that absolutely everyone talks to you on the communicator screen. Normally, wouldn't bother me, but in Star Trek, when the bad guys talk to you, they are on the "big screen" in some menacing fashon that makes you either get scared or want to kick some ass. I think they need to spend a little more time on the dramatic effects of encountering an enemy.

The second is that you don't really get to walk around the ship. You can go to the bridge and look around, but there is no real interaction with the crew or anything. It's just like having a room to waste time in for a bit if you want. It is very important to have the crew and other people interacting inside the ship. Especially on the federation side of the fence. You should be able to do things on the ship and interact with other people or crew there.

I am only a Grade 7 lieutenant and I am sure I haven't seen too much of the big picture, but the game is sort of laid out in a fashion that they introduce you to the game, give you several ground and space quests, and then thrust you into PvP. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of higher level questing other then several dailies that are somewhat boring because it takes a long time.

The battleground system is very similar to WoW, but there are some problems with the que system. Often we find ourselves in a battle we can not win or the other team just leaves and you sit there waiting for more people to show up that never do. They also need to offer us a random battleground and reward us for doing things we don't want rather then making us wait in the que forever.

Once you get to a specific part of space exploration, then you can play the Klingon side. Now this is the side I had the most problems with. One thing that I was okay with is that you basically have to fight a couple of people real fast and boom, you are a class 5 lieutenant on the Klingon side. The part I didn't like is you are basically thrust into PvP at that point and there is no real questing going on like there was for the Federation.

Some of my major bitches with the Klingon side is that the cursor represents the "Federation" insignia or logo. It looks like the "A" on Federation uniforms. When playing the Klingon side, the cursor should be that factions insignia. I know it has a name, but I can't remember it at the moment.

The next thing is the voice-overs for discovering new sectors and congratulating you should not be Nimoy on the Klingon side. When we are Klingon, we do not want to hear from some Vulcan about our progress. Get that crazy Klingon lady team from the Next Generation and put their voices on there.

Most MMO's give you the same progression for both sides. Different quests, but same basic principal. STO just skipped all that and send you right where they want you to be, and that's in the PvP arenas.

Not that I am against that, but there should be a whole lot more options for either side. They say it is possible to get to Admiral strictly doing PvP, and I am sure that this was their only real path they wanted you to take in the first place. There is no other path except for gathering, and we know there isn't a huge number of people out there willing to fly around on grids just to collect stuff right?

The combat is not all that compelling, especially in space. The graphics are nice, and the cloaking on the Klingon side is just too cool, but the battles are just a gank fest. It is almost impossible to kill someone one-on-one. So, everything is a zerg. The ground combat is mostly the same, but they want you to get behind your opponent to deal flanking damage. It just makes me think of a room full of Rogues from WoW engaging you in PvP.

My suggestion is that if you haven't purchased this game yet, then don't. It's not ready. Wait for a year or two like I did with WoW, then I think they will have what Star Trek Online needs to be a successful IP.