Head Start - day 4

I've now played Star Trek Online for about 20-25 hours, and have played a Federation and a Klingon character into Tier 2. However I'm sad to say that I don't think I'll be playing much longer. Certainly not past my free month of playtime. Having nothing to do with the somewhat rocky launch, and having everything to do with the state of the MMO I have simply come to the realization that Cryptic fumbled this development horribly. I have no way of knowing what internal pressures there were to get this game out the door in it's current condition, let alone what drove the developers to make the decisions about the game-style and game-play that they did. The end effect is that an extremely rich intellectual property is wasted and it will be many years before if can be re-used in another MMO effort, if at all.

What I had anticipated was a true MMO that not only offered in-depth character development, but also encouraged group play but didn't out-right require it. In short, I had anticipated a theme-park style MMO that was grand in size and style featuring a series of worlds through which your character could progress. These worlds would have served as quest hubs, with dozens, if not more, space and ground based missions to complete -- call them story-arcs. Perhaps even being able to reenact episodes from the various shows along the way.

I had envisioned a game that allowed a player to choose a meaningful career path and made a difference having made that choice. I think the decision to limit career paths to Tactical, Engineering, and Science was a sound decision, but I would have liked to have seen more differentiation between the career fields, and most especially specialization. Star Trek is as much about technology, and the creation of the new, as much as it is about exploration and I would very much have liked to have seen a exploration be a real focal point in the game as well as gathering of knowledge and technological specimens through that exploration. I would have liked that knowledge to have then been able to be utilized in a scientific innovation/invention system.

I envisioned the game being steered by the developers over time, with the initial launch focusing on creating the foundational alpha quadrant stories behind the the original Star Trek factions -- Federation/Vulcans, Klingons, and Romulans. Add in additional important alpha quadrant factions over time such as the Cardassians, Bajorans, and Ferengi to flush out the overall story and to introduce additional elements to the game. The original Star Trek was dominated by the wars between the Klingon and Romulan empires, and the strife that was almost continuously occurring along the neutral zones and I think the game would have been served better by adhering more closely to the direction the original series, and TNG took.

The "meaning" of Star Trek is a topic that is open for great debate, but to many the best part about Star Trek are the iconic space battles that have occurred at various points in the shows and the movies. I have to admit, I fall in that camp, so the allure of real PVP between the factions was a strong draw for me. I'd envisioned integrated PVP system that consisted of open "world" pvp in the neutral zones that gave strong incentives for continued participation and a Battleground system. I'd also envisioned space battles being strategic with plenty of offensive and defensive capabilities to ensure that battles were not over in moments and that what individuals did in battle in concert with others, as well as by themselves truly mattered in the long run. I envisioned a PVP system that encouraged thought being put into group makeup, but that also didn't out-right require you to group in order to participate.

I envisioned a game where the "end-game" was truly about the ultimate aims of the faction you played. Which of course all amounts to the same thing, just in different words. I could very easily see "raiding" being a part of Star Trek, with space and ground "raids" being delivered over time. A central, "shared" raid could have been a Borg scenario in which the faction intercepts and beats back a Borg raiding party above a planet (phase 1), but not before a group of them beam or shuttle down to the planet to assimilate some key piece of technology or race. You, of course, must beam down and stop them.

Another raid scenario I can envision involves the neutral zones and would involve "skinning". In other words, same scenario, just different factions involved depending on who is running it. From the Federation perspective it could be the Klingon or the Romulans breaking out into their neutral zone and bent on stream into Federation territory. From the Klingon side it of course would be the Federation acting provocatively in the neutral zone. Likewise with the Romulans.

Additional raid scenarios could be added over time and could very easily react famous battles in any one of the series. Wolf 359? Later on the first encounter with Species 8472? And of course there would have to be ground only raid scenarios. Or boarding parties to take back a ship that was boarded by Klingons, or a what have you.

What we got was something all together different. While there are some story elements in the current game on the Federation side, there is virtually none on the Klingon side of things. And of course the game was launched with only two factions, though Crytic has announced plans to add in other factions over time. Unfortunately they won't matter in the grand scheme of things because Star Trek Online is a game without a real reason. There is no centralized theme or plot that I can deduce. The game has every evidence of having been thrown together haphazardly and released a great deal of time before it was truly ready for a flooded market. Other than the name, there is nothing in STO that should draw and keep hundreds of thousands of players, let along the millions that it would take to make this an MMO never to be forgotten.

Cryptic was not the company to develop this IP. It's only other developmental history was with City of Heroes/City of Villains and Champions Online, which is to say it has more experience than say Bioware (now developing Star Wars the Old Republic), yet it's never shown any true innovation. It never established itself as a company that pursued polish over "good enough". And Star Trek is not an IP that you simply waste on "good enough". And good enough is what I think we see right now. It'll keep the rabid fan base pleased, though I have no idea why. But it won't attract many MMO players from other games for very long. It'll be yet another game in a pile of MMOs that have been released in the past three years that limp along into obscurity.

Most disappointing in STO is that it really isn't an MMO. Not in any sense of what an MMO has come to mean in the market place today. It's more akin to an RPG with coop, though a poor one at that as there are few elements of typical RPGs to be found. The gist of the game is to run completely randomized missions over and over again and allocate talent points that increase various capabilities. Some of which are only pertinent to the ground system and some that are only pertinent to the space system. There isn't even a strong reason to interact with, group with, or participate with anyone else at any point that I have yet seen. You can just as easily solo the game as you could group up with some random stranger on whatever it is you are doing at the moment. And that brings up another point. There is no linear progression. At all. You can be running a random mission one moment, participating in a PVP match another, or.. well, one of the other two again the next moment. There is simply nothing that takes you from one zone to another in any scheme of progression we've come to see in numerous MMOs up to this point. There is no reason to even run missions as you can level completely through PVP in the random battlegrounds where you don't even need, much less have a reason, to group with others. For an IP that stressed "community" that is a far cry from it.

PVP. What can be said about it? It's random pew pew. No strategy, no coordination. Nothing but mashing buttons as they come off cool down and no rhyme or reason to push any of them except that he who deals more damage most often wins. The aspect of the game that was the biggest draw for me is completely devoid of any reason or value.

All in all, if you are looking for an immersing experience this is not the game for you. If you are looking for mindless and meaningless play for a while give STO a try. At $14.99 a month it's probably not something you'd want to try much longer than the free month of play, but it might be worth the purchase price of the box if you just want quick space or ground combat. And if you truly love Star Trek you might just want to steer clear of this all together.

Head Start - day 3

Day 3 is much like day 2, except the server isn't crashing and staying down for hours. Instead the server just grinds to a halt and you get stuck at loading screens for 5-15 minutes, then everything is fine again. If you not traversing between zones or instances I assume everything is fine, but if you are traversing you probably are hating things right now. I know I am.

The lag seems to be a little bit better, but I'm not sure given the trade off whether I'm better off or not at this point.

[Update 1 - 1:27pm EST] Oh, never mind. The sever did crash. No wonder why I was stuck at the loading screen for 15 minutes. I didn't get disconnected, just got stuck and never would have gotten out of there. I'd decided to close the client and log back in to see the notice by Cryptic about the server being down "unexpectedly". That's become something of a joke to the players, by the way.

[Update 2 - 2:18pm EST] Servers are back up.

[Update 3 - 6:40pm EST] Announcement that the servers are being brought down for 1.5 hours for maintenance.

Welcome to Arathi Basin, STO style

I chuckled a bit to myself after the first couple times I ran one of the space battlegrounds called "Hostile Engagement - Capture and Hold - Space - Salvage Operation" and realized it was Arathi Basin in space. The battleground features five nodes which have to be captured and held, with one central node. Imagine the abandoned space station in the middle being the Blacksmith, and the four remaining nodes being the stables, lumbermill, farm and gold mine. Even the number of nodes line up. Once held those nodes give you points, though unlike in Arathi Basin, you points count down instead of up. Both teams start off at 1200 points and the more nodes each team has the faster the other team loses points. There are some missing pieces that would complete this battleground however. Like some sort of indicator on the map that shows who is in possession of each node at the moment. Right now you look at the map and it just shows you that. Auto-grouping would be nice too, though not strictly necessary as grouping gives you no benefit over flying solo. And I would love to see timers and influence indicators. As I said, you have to capture the nodes, but you have no indicator how long it will take to capture individual nodes so you end up sitting there. I've sat on a node for 1-2 minutes and they never changed so it's either a bug or something else was going on. Some kind of influence/possession indicator would help with that.

As far as battleground go, there is some terrain to maneuver around, though obviously it's very limited. The name of this game is travel in small packs and like in Arathi Basin, cap those nodes. Capping is everything and you are killing the opposing forces as a consequence to capping. Traveling alone is not a good idea as you can be jumped by multiple forces at any time. The physical lay out of the nodes -- one central node, with one node on one side and three lined up on the opposite side of the map -- tell you all you need to know in how you should fight this battle. You want to hold the side with the three nodes and keep the central node if at all possible. Essentially all you need to do is keep to one large group, or perhaps two smaller groups. One protecting the central node and reacting to the other smaller ones, and one roaming the smaller nodes and reacting to the central node as required.

Once you get the strategy down you will see that the Klingons seem to have the advantage in the Tier 1 level. Cannons are better than the default phaser banks on the federation ships, and all you need to do is make yourself into a turret with your impulse set just high enough to maneuver and snipe. Staying grouped helps tremendously as you can focus down someone very quickly. If you do get caught off alone and jumped by multiple forces, make sure you are keeping your shield up and shift over to your speed setting then hit evasive maneuver for a quick get away. Head toward friendly forces obviously. Of course dieing isn't at all a big deal in STO as you will respawn in about 10 seconds and can be back in the fray even before the other guy you were just fighting even recovers. It's an issue in PVP that I think needs to be addressed at some point, because there is zero impact in dieing. You die, respawn and get right back in the fight.

I've only run one ground battleground, but as I'm primarily interested in the space aspects of Star Trek I ignore those battles now. The only other space battleground I've gotten into is the "Cracked Sphere" battle, where the objective is simply to kill 15 opponents. The first to 15 wins. The strategy for this battle is very simple. Stick together and never stray apart. If you are Klingon, just pick a spot and let the Feds come to you as it plays toward your firepower advantages. If you have voice comms let the leader pick a target and the entire group focus it down in a few seconds. Rinse and repeat to 15. If you can get this battleground to pop regularly it's the best battleground for points in my opinion as the battles are very short.

I'm very close to LCDR right now where I'll get to experience Tier 2 ships and battles. So it'll be interesting to see how things shake out at that level.

STO Headstart started

The STO head start period started yesterday at 1pm EST and I was there. Helps to actually know what to expect, so I made LT6 by yesterday evening after only about 5 hours of play time. As soon as I made LT6 I logged out and logged back in to create my Klingon, who then made LT5 in all of about 30-45 minutes. Talk about a leg up! And I've already hit LT8 this morning just running PVP queues, which is entirely what the Klingon faction is all about, game-wise. Unlike the Federation faction, which has stories and missions to run through, the Klingon faction has none of it. Any "quests" you get from Klingon faction NPCs relate directly to PVP of some variety.

While I think that makes some sense in a Star Trek way, I have to wonder how much of that was driven by the very tight time line within which Cryptic had to produce this MMO. If you look at it from a simple developmental standpoint, the Klingons were announced late last year. And as you walk around in the early minutes of the game on the Klingon site you can't help but notice how stark it is compared to the Federation faction. Which quite honestly, isn't all that busy to begin with. As I mentioned, it took me something around 5 or 6 hours to make it to LT6 on the Federation side, but on the Klingon side of things it's a simple matter of walking around in the station for 30 mins before you hit that mark. I don't buy the premise that the developers were just slingshoting Klingons to the point where they could PVP. It smacks too much of cut corners to me.

As far as launches go, the head start actually didn't start off too badly. There was some lag which caused rubber banding and the such, but much better than I had believed I would be seeing given Cryptic's track record with previous MMOs. The server has crashed only once that I know of, though I'm going to be very interested to see how things hold up on the 2nd when the bulk of the player population logs in.

[8pm EST Update] I spoke way too soon. The server went down for hours today, and finally came back up, only to now go back down after an hour. The official forums are turning into a mudfest.

"Interesting" design premise of upcoming MMOs

Notice anything similar between the two largest upcoming MMOs? I've mentioned my recent thoughts on the Star Trek Online (STO) MMO, but hadn't really gotten into the amount of instancing it does. Almost everything is an instance in STO. From the public quests, to the quests, you will jump from instance to instance and only interact -- however limited -- with other players in the sector zones, space stations, and whenever someone ventures into the same public quest instance as you. For all intents and purposes, outside of that you are screaming through what can only be said to be an RPG. Replete with NPC party members, AKA bridge officers.

A lot of this has been available through other sources, but this recent IGN video about the Old Republic (SWTOR) certainly cements things together in a way that I don't think has been done previously anywhere else. Like STO, SWTOR will be repleat with individual instance environments where you will spend a majority of your time.

Star Wars: The Old Republic at IGN.com

Bioware has said cities will be open zones, which can be equated to the space stations in STO. And it struck me that this design premise has become more prevalent lately and seemingly started with Age of Conan. Only now it's been taken to the Nth degree and represents a large departure from traditional MMO design. I'd already remarked how the feeling to me in STO was that I wasn't playing an MMO, but rather a simple RPG that just happened to have some other people in it (rpg w/coop) and I'm really wondering at this point if SWTOR will not feel the same way. Interaction with others is important in an "MMO", yet in these two MMOs that interactivity is specifically and intentionally limited. And I have to wonder what would be driving this design premise. Whether this is a reaction to years of failed bids to dethrone WoW, or reaction to a common design problem in other MMOs; that low player base destroys much of the playability of the game; we can only surmise.

End of Star Trek Online Beta

The servers are down right now, which in effect means the end of the beta for me as it's a WoW raid night tonight. All in all I think I was able to get in around 12 hours of play time but would have liked to have been able to put in many more as I was still short of LCDR rank. Only having risen to LT 5 there was still much of the game I never gained access to, though I poked around every nook and cranny I could see. My earlier impression about the game being more akin to a first person RPG still stands. While you may see other people running around in sector space you never interact with them, except in the smallest way -- i.e. joining in on public quests, etc. Reinforcing that feeling are the limited communication abilities. Perhaps I am wrong, but I never discovered any specific communication channels created when joined with others. In fact in whatever public quest I was running at the moment I hardly noticed I was actually grouped with anyone else at all as there didn't seem to be any tools to help coordinate the various ships joined together.

I also didn't get to participate in any PVP. I had really wanted to level to the point where I could create a Klingon and see what that was all about, but evidently fell short. The unfortunate aspect of the horrible AI evident in both the ground missions and the space missions makes me want to PVP all the more, where I'm thinking the real gem of this game may reside. At least that's my thoughts on it now and freely admit I may be wrong. If getting into PVP proves to be too hard then I really can't see myself staying around very long. The missions you're asked to run are of the most inane sort imaginable. Other than the sure amount of damage you can take from missions there simply is nothing difficult about them (in general) and they tend to become very boring very quickly. It's a simple matter of rotating your ship to preserve shields, using bridge officer skills and equipment to buff shields, limit the enemies ability to target you, and wear down their shields to kill them. Yet the enemy NPCs never seem to use any strategy or special abilities when combating you. They simply fly around in circles and shooting at you.

There is still the very nagging question in my mind regarding what the end goal of this game is. Perhaps that's simply a question of me being too low to discern, but the available information on the STO website and ingame certainly doesn't clear it up either. You complete missions and kill targets to accumulate different "currencies" and skill points. The skill point system looks interesting, but the currency required to "requisition" higher level ships seems pretty steep. The open question in my mind is is the purpose of the game to level up and acquire more currency to buy a better ship? Only to level up more and but a better ship? Eventually you'll get to the point where you're an Admiral and are flying around in that monster heavy Cruiser, or Fleet Escort ship. Then what? In WoW we have raiding. What does STO online have to occupy the players at the higher levels? Really wish someone could answer this question for me.

In any event those questions will all have to wait until the game launch. The beta was of the typical sort -- which is to say buggy, unstable, and ever changing. However one thing I was greatly surprised that Mythic did not have in place early was a queue system. A great deal of the instability over the weekend was due to the number of people logged in. There wasn't anything in place to keep players from logging in and making the servers unstable, requiring a hardware upgrade on Saturday and a queue test yesterday. These are the sorts of things that make me look back at previous Mythic MMOs and groan hoping those problems aren't to be had here either. Only time will answer this question as well.

Star Trek Online beta

I've been able to spend a couple more hours playing in between the frequent server crashes. Unfortunately the server is crashing a couple times an hour now and I've taken all of that I can today. However I can say that yes, the fleet actions do become a bit more strategic. They're still fairly fast paced, so by strategic I mean you need to be able to ascertain how to rotate shields away from an enemy and utilize the skills your bridge officers give you to minimize damage you're taking and maximize damage you deal out. I'm in the middle of Lieutenant now and I would have died several times over if I hadn't paid attention to those sorts of things. A few of my fleet mates did -- evidently because they didn't.

I really wish Mythic could keep the servers in a more stable state, but the common statement on the forums from real "fans" is "lawl this is a beta". Not sure what that has to do with anything, but there it is. I had a mission that took me to a sector that I simply couldn't figure out what I was supposed to do it, and would have liked to have given it some more time tonight. Oh well, perhaps tomorrow.

U.S.S Aries

I really wasn't planning on participating in the beta and had considered skipping STO all together since most of the beta reviews I've seen have been more on the negative side than positive. Yet I couldn't stay away. I had to see for myself what this game was all about, and I've spent the better part of today playing for the first time -- something like five or six hours so far. That isn't enough time to tell you anything substantive about the game, but it's enough time for me to relay some impressions on it.

First, I'm a starship captain! U.S.S. Aries is mine. I think I completed all the tutorial missions, though the server crashed so I'm not entirely certain of that. I'll know more when they can bring it back online and I can complete talking to the two NPCs at the Earth station I need to talk to. It was kinda shaky at first as I tried to figure out exactly what I was supposed to be doing, and how. Most confusing is how to find specific NPCs you are supposed to talk to -- say like on the Earth Station, and how to find specific ships in zones you need to find. In stations they definitely need to add some functionality to the map or some sort of a pointer along the floor to lead you to NPCs attached to missions you currently have. I can see the names of the NPCs I'm supposed to see on my map, but can't tell you where they are in a three dimensional environment. In the zones, where it tells you to get close to U.S.S. Whateveritis, they should add a colored pointer on the mini-map, or a colored directional arrow on the screen to point you in the right direction. You'll experience this problem very soon in your career as the first set of space missions will have you interacting with a Science Vessel that asks you to beam off crew members of four different ships. Finding those four ships in a very busy battle was a bit on the difficult side for me, and then I ended up having to find the original ship that gave me the mission again. Surely this can be done better.

The ground missions are somewhat lacking, most of which have been of the "rescue 6 scientists", "talk to 6 miners", or vanilla kill raiders variety thus far. I found all the missions where I actually had to shoot things to be extremely easy. Something along the lines of shoot one NPC, watch them swarm, and target whichever comes after me first. Knocking them down and stunning them while shooting is the way to go it seems. I'd be just as happy if the away/ground missions were never included in STO because quite honestly I think most people are more interested in the space aspects of STO.

Speaking of the space aspect, I realize that I'm still in the uber noob zone but there isn't really much to space battle I have seen thus far. Simply target and shoot. I like the idea and implementation of weapon arcs, which has been the sole aspect of battles where I've had to do any thinking what so ever. That being which way to point my ship. I'm really hoping that battles become a bit more strategic as I get into real content later on otherwise it will devolve into whoever has the biggest, hardest hitting weapon will win no matter what, and you might as well just sit still and slug it out.

Something else I'm trying very hard to discern is what the "end-game" goal is. What is the over-arcing theme of the game, and that simply hasn't been anything I've been able to tell yet. Unfortunately the information available through the Mythic website is extremely anemic. So far my impression is this is more akin to a first person PC game than an MMO.

Cryptic could be the doom of STO

A friend of mine had scaled back his WoW playing time to play Champions Online, which he played in beta and paid for a life-time subscription. Is he playing Champions Online today? No. In fact, he canceled his life-time subscription and got his money back because of horrible customer service, and bait-and-switch tactics that Cryptic used during the release period. His experience was so bad with the company that he has vowed to me that he will never play another Cryptic developed game again. I have no experience with Cryptic, but I watched the hubbub over Champions Online with great interest as I looked forward to the release of Star Trek Online. And my worries about the game have become more manifest as I watched a very similar hubbub that occurred around the Champions Online release, happening in the STO beta. Let us just say that my hopes for this game are low at this point. Especially considering the extremely short beta period.

As of this point I don't see myself rushing out and buying this game at release. If I do play it now, I'm thinking I will wait for a good period of time after release in order to make sure I get a full view of the opinions out there. And most likely will wait for a free test period in any event. My opinion of Cryptic is just that low, and I really don't want to give them my $50 unless the game is just that fantastic.

Anyone else think this?

I noticed on Massively last night that Cryptic has announced when the public, open-beta would take place for STO. I was already thinking that the beta period was far too short, and the announced release date was perhaps too aggressive, but this public open-beta period of 12-26 January makes me really wonder how STO is going to look on release day. Lets be honest here, Cryptic isn't the company with the best reputation, so I'm thinking cutting a beta period that short isn't going to work in their favor.

Captain obvious to the rescue

It's been all over the place that Star Trek Online will be released in Feb 2010. That after STO beta recentaly began. Which I might add, I still have not received a beta invite to. Today, my good friends at Cryptic send me this email just to make sure I had seen this tid bit of information.

Coming February, 2010

Greetings Captain!
We at Cryptic Studios just wanted to share the good news with you: Star Trek Online has an official release date!

You can begin boldly going where no one has gone before on February 2, 2010, in North America, and February 5, 2010, in Europe.

Be sure to drop by www.StarTrekOnline.com for more information, and for the latest Star Trek Online updates from across the universe.

Thanks, and we’ll see you soon!
- The Star Trek Online Team

Thanks Cryptic! I'd really love to be in there now seeing what the beta is all about, particularly because of the very speedy process Cryptic is using to push this MMO out the door. Some would say too quickly, but proof is to be had in the beta right now. I wonder how much news of other MMOs and expansions that are to be released in 2010 are driving this? In any regard, though I would love to be seeing for myself the answers to all the questions we've posed about STO on this blog over the past many weeks, but I guess letting me know what I already knew is close enough :)

When will people learn?

Seriously. If there is just one aspect of our lives that you would truly think people would learn from, it would be the MMO market. Considering how much time we all spend within it. Yet, every new MMO that comes down the pike is trumpeted to the tunes of the "WoW-killer" or the "best MMO evah!", or the like. Every. One. I would like to point the community to the dictionary and ask that you all look up the word "lemming". Then I would like to direct your attention to the axiom that a "fool and their money are soon parted".

Aion is apparently beginning to feel what other games have experienced in the recent past, if you believe what players are saying. Games such as WAR, LotRO, AOC, and Aion were marketed at a fanatical pace, and game sites and blogs galore spoke glowingly about each of them . Seldom was heard a disparaging word about any of these games in the months leading up to their release, and the people who frequent those game sites and blogs ate up the praise like it was mana from heaven.

Though the community at large bears a very healthy helping of responsibility for the mess that is now the MMO market, I think another healthy helping belongs to sites like Massively, MMORPG, Ten Ton Hammer, Eurogamer, and others. These sites quite often act as mouth pieces for the developers and hardly ever critique or offer critical analysis of a game during development or beta. True, many things often change during development, but the point is the community at large do not think critically and if you are going to take on the roll of a journalist, then you must also take on the responsibility of one as well. You have a responsibility to point out the downside while also pointing out the upside or else, in my view, you lose a level of credibility.

And that is something I strive very hard to maintain here at Iggeps Realm. Despite my love for the Star Wars franchise, I have been quite vocal about my concerns with the Old Republic. Likewise with Star Trek Online. And anyone can see my often scathing criticism of Blizzard for it's handling of various issues with WoW. I may not be as large, or command a following of loyal readers like many other blogs out there, but I can assure you that no level of notoriety will ever change my core beliefs. I will not sell glowing coverage of any game for a free beta pass or comp subscription.

How is it doing?

Tobold asks a good question. One in which I think I would normally be saying "just fine" about this time of year, considering the Summer is over. Yet it's not. At least not that I can see. My guild is still limping along and I have all but given up on ever getting into hard modes, let alone finishing content that is actually somewhat difficult. Perhaps that has to do more with the typical player in my guild, but there are still a handful of people that left back in May and haven't come back yet.

You might have noticed from my recent blogging that I've dipped back into EVE. I don't typically play more than one MMO at a time, and for years now that has been WoW. Doing so now has entirely to do with the lack of raid progress we've been able to attain and the fact that questing/achievement attainment and endless pvp gets kind of boring after a while. You simply need something else to do. And I'm not the only one in my guild that I know are playing other games. One friend is playing EVE, two more are playing Champions Online, and a few more are still playing AION. In years past people would be back from their Summer fun and would be raring to go.

I still like WoW, but I know I am personally looking for a little more than raiding one or two nights a week. Particularly when you can't even get past the first boss on Heroic mode. Makes for rather long nights of wiping. Makes baby Jesus cry. EVE is fun, but I've already been around that block a couple times now and I know over the long term I most likely won't stick to it. It's a game that almost requires large group participation, and if you either can't find that or can't handle the costs associated with the real content in EVE, then you aren't going to be able to do anything really.

The games I am really waiting for -- The Old Republic, and Star Trek Online -- are still many moons away from final release. Star Trek Online just announced the official beginning of their beta program, but since I didn't get an invite (yet) it's not something I have a great deal to either talk about, or learn about as of yet. Still so many questions unanswered about STO in any regard. Largely the same with TOR, which has either started early closed beta, or will soon. TOR is probably the game I am most looking forward to, but as with STO, there are still so many unanswered questions.

In the mean time I will probably bounce back and forth between WoW and EVE. Something I've never done before and probably says everything that needs to be said all by itself.

Star Trek Online Beta has begun

A little earlier than I think I had anticipated, but good news none-the-less. Nope, no email yet!

We're happy to announce that we've entered Close Beta as of today, October 22!

If you've signed up, keep an eye on your email, as we'll periodically be inviting people to join in and share their feedback. Additionally, if you look to the right of the page, the "Closed Beta" application graphic will change to indicate you've been accepted, if you've in fact been accepted. (It'll read "ACCEPTED" in big, bold letters.)

If you haven't signed up yet, head on over to the preview application, create an account if you haven't and sign up!

Star trek Online Q1 2010

This is good news because it should mean a LOT of information should be pouring out onto the net very soon. Cryptic has been very forthcoming with information related to space, and to a lesser extent, land combat. But what about the larger questions about the MMO like "end-game", economy, sand box elements, and all the rest? That is the sort of information that really tips the scales as to whether someone ultimately is interested in an MMO and I think, we are all waiting for at this point.

Star Trek Online Time Line

If you haven't seen this video yet, check it out now. I am really enjoying the additional fleet engagement tidbits that have been trickling out lately, and this video has plenty of game footage that shows the iconic space battles that we've seen in the movies and shows, and which I think most of us are wanting to participate in the most in STO. Between this video and the preview information here, it sounds like Cryptic has indeed put a lot of thought in the mechanics that manage it all.

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It just doesn't pay to be a red shirt

a few new details have been trickling out regarding the "crew" in Star Trek Online, and the Bridge Officers. I like how the basic mechanics are sounding, so I'm looking forward to more information in the coming weeks and months.

This week's Dev Chat is also very interesting and worth a quick read.

will we be able to visit Quarks at DS9 ?

Yes, You will be able to visit Quarks on DS9. Our environment team is working very hard to replicate certain areas of the series that translate well into our game.

Can we get a hell yeah?

Upcoming MMOs that I'm finding quite interesting

My mind has been turning more and more often to upcoming MMOs these days. I’m getting restless with WoW again, and frankly Cataclysm doesn’t impress me as much as BC and WotLK did. I just don’t have that feeling of anticipation for it like I had with the previous expansions. Don’t get me wrong, I still like WoW very much, but outside of raiding (2-3 times a week on the main, and what I can get into on an alt) and constant PVP there just isn’t much to do. And frankly I’m getting a bit bored.

A friend of mine is largely in the same frame of mind and has started playing EVE Online, while only logging back into WoW for raids. And I have a few other friends who are playing AION on non-raid nights as well. I’m not at all excited by AION and have already cancelled my account, and I’m only somewhat interested in EVE any more. Which leaves me longing for greener pastures. My problem is that the games I’m most interested in right now aren’t set to release until sometime next year.

Star Trek Online looks interesting, not only because I’m a Star Trek fan, but also because it offers huge iconic fleet battles with familiar ship classes. I’ve read reports of hands-on testing from PAX in September which mention being able to manage energy utilization during battles (transfer all available power to forward deflectors!) which should make any Star Trek fan happy. Especially because tactical considerations in battle matter. Larger ships will have a harder time with smaller attackers, meaning not only will you have to pay attention to how, and where you pilot but will also have to closely monitor and manage your tactical systems to ward off smaller, more agile attackers. It’s something I wished was in EVE Online. Take too much damage to dorsal shields, roll and keep your attacker on the opposite side while they regenerate or are strengthened.

Cryptic is giving each “Captain” a crew to manage as well. The crew are NPCs that you manage and can utilize semi-autonomously and who from what I’m reading, have a relatively high level of AI. That’s interesting because it’s a mechanic that isn’t often utilized in MMOs -- Guild Wars, The Old Republic (reportedly) for examples – and seemingly would allow a greater ability to solo play in a cooperative world. It’ll be interesting to see how Cryptic flushes this out as the release date comes closer.

I’m definitely interested in Star Trek Online, but ultimately whether I play this MMO or not will revolve around details that haven’t been discussed to any great degree as of yet. Star Trek Online will reportedly have PVP and PVE aspects, but I’m primarily interested in the PVP content. Unfortunately I know from experience that games that focus too much on one aspect, to the detriment of another do not fare well in the market. And once a population level falls below a certain level the game quickly grows stale and boring as you spend more and more time looking for something to do. Fighting NPCs often becomes tedious and offer little in the way of competition.

How will PVP affect the universe? Will PVE content be varied and difficult enough to offer true entertainment?

Star Wars: The Old Republic is another game that I am closely watching. And quite frankly, most interested in at this point. I’m finding more of my previous concerns have either been vaguely answered by Bioware, or are still being looked at. So I have great hope that SWToR will be a true MMO and will be immersive enough, with varied content and sandbox elements that it’ll have strong legs and staying power. Most frustrating for me is that I’m not really expecting this to be released until sometime late next year, so it could be a year from now before I can even play this.

Since no other current MMO really interests me, that leaves me still playing WoW with PVP as my primary daily activity. Unfortunately, as anyone who PVPs in WoW will know, it’s no where near balanced. I have 800 resilience, 31k health in Bear form, and can (and often do) get killed inside a single stun by Ret Pallies. Hunters and Ice Mages are a pain the butt, and many others depend on whether I get the jump first or have cool downs available. Would that I could just got to sleep tonight and wake up a year from now!

Now that is a space battle

When one thinks of space combat, I would find it hard to believe that most people don't have Star Trek come to mind. Having been a Star Trek fan all my life I've watched the news about the impending Star Trek MMO with great interest. And when I saw this video I was very much relieved that the visual and visceral aspects of space combat are well in hand there.