Ahhh, the Red Shirts. Just like the expendable Star Wars clones and droids, red shirted Starfleet officers were created solely to act as the “casualties of war” during away missions. During the Original Series, they were the security officers, but then the Next Generation broke with that tradition by having red uniforms being that of tactical and command. At least they kept part of the original tradition by sacrificing a few red-shirted officers every now and then!

There has been quite a bit of buzz around the upcoming release of the new MMO, Star Trek Online. Both good and bad reviews. A majority of the complaints I’ve been reading is surrounding whether or not Crytic has captured the true “Star Trek” feel. Does it feel like you’re actually in Star Trek or is it just a combat oriented shooting gallery with Trek-style cutouts?

Another complaint is that Cryptic did such a good job in the space battles, that the ground missions seem
clumsy, awkward and sluggish. Could it be that we as MMO players are just so used to the “kill ten rats” scenario and running around on foot that the space battles are a new refreshing break from that typical model?

Speaking of “Kill ten rats“, a few folks have stated their dissapointment that the Borg are your initial default trash mob (albeit “broken” Borg). I can understand Crytic’s reasoning for this as the Borg appear to be the primary threat in space at this time in Star Trek history. Since there are no rats or boars in space, it makes perfect sense to me to use Borg!

Now I should note, I’m a fan but not one of those die-hard extreme fans of Star Trek. People who know me would know I am not fully versed in Klingon and I would not know the Star Trek timeline to heart. – Or you would have noticed I have one of the ensigns holding a non-standard issue rifle that doesn’t occur from the Original Series era

However, I do know the meaning on the phrases: “Make it so, Number One” and “Dammit Jim! I’m a doctor not a physicist!“, and the humour in the word: “Sabotage“.

I know enough of Star Trek to understand the aliens, the ships, and the pop culture. I’ve watched the shows
with a passion (DS9 is my favourite) and I can say I’ve been to at least one Star Trek convention (although not in costume).

Either way, I’m enough of a Star Trek geek to go out and purchase the game regardless of the complaints from Open and Closed Beta. As many have said, Cryptic can count on many people like me to base their decision solely on the fact that its Star Trek and that alone. For myself, I’ll give it at least a month or two of playing to see how the game develops. As a Star Trek fan, I HAVE to experience exploring space in my own ship. I HAVE to walk through Deep Space 9. I HAVE to see where Cryptic takes this game after release. They have already stated that they plan to do a further content release 45 days after launch. I think for many, this will be the tell-tale time for Cryptic to step up to the plate and show us all what they’ve got.

I have even avoided ruining my impressions of the game by not participating in either of the Beta tests. I did
get an Open Beta key, but I decided to wait for release and experience the game as Cryptic intends it. I’ve done that in the past where a game has come out and I’ve already had frustrations with bugs and errors from beta. LOTRO was one case of that, although their release went fairly smoothly overall. For me, I’ll be approaching this game knowing it will not be perfect on release, but willing to see how the game evolves after release.

The timing couldn’t be better for Cryptic as well. Now that we’ve been told not to expect Star Wars: The Old Republic until 2011, Cryptic has a huge window of opportunity to gain some subscribers over this lull in the MMO market. Even Cataclysm won’t be released until most likely the fall of this year, so that gives Cryptic a good 6-7 months to perfect the game and provide enough incentive for players to stay.

Want to stay up to date on Rackham’s posts? Follow me on Twitter @RackhamGreg

© Posted by Rackham for Im Talkin Games with 2 comments on 01/16/2010.
Posted in: Comics, Featured, Funny, Misc Tags: Cryptic, Star Trek Online

The Blood Moon Patch

I still happen to be subscribed to Champions Online, but have not been playing much. I’ve been waiting on this update to see what it does for the game, and will report my findings in my next report. This all looks very cool, can’t wait to jump in and get with the zombie slaying!

Pro Tip: Translate your text to make your game look like a finished product.

As evidenced by the image to the right, the patch didn’t go all that smoothly at first.  There were some pretty big issues, like the PVP instance not being available to people to participate in.  The quest events were not starting correctly in some places, as well as UI errors where generic “untranslated” text was shown.  By the time you read this, most of these things are likely to be fixed in a patch.  Pretty standard fare for an MMO.  Basically, the patch needed a patch to patch what the patch added.  Wait, what?

Zombies in the City and Werewolves in the Desert
So how was my time under the Blood Moon? Well, I started in Millenium City after reading an in-game email from some NPC police chief.  I never found him.  I accidentally deleted the email that was sent to me and couldn’t find the NPC. Since emails are tied to your account and not your character, I couldn’t log into another character and read the email again.  Granted, I did not work very hard to find the NPC that sent the email, but it really felt like there was no easy way to jump into the Blood Moon content.  I just didn’t feel like I was pointed in the right direction and it wasn’t easy enough to partake in whatever was happening.  This is a problem that has plagued Champions Online since its launch, and it has not improved with the addition of the Blood Moon content.  I could see the new Blood Red moon in the sky and hear the sounds of werewolves howling, but that was about as exciting as my evening got.  I never saw any of the new NPC’s shown in the video above.  Maybe it was my fault for a lack of effort, but it is still my opinion that Cryptic did not do a good job of guiding players to the new content.

The Millenium City zombie stuff didn’t do it for me, so I felt it was time to move on to another zone.  I left Millenium City for the desert and some werewolf hunting.  I finally got someone to tell me where the hell the werewolves were, or at least the general area.  I teleported out to the prison in the desert zone and found a few packs of werewolves that were gray con (under my level) and killed them.  After the 3rd pack, one managed to get a debuff on me that did…something.  I got some interesting dark borders around my screen but couldn’t tell if I had actually turned into a werewolf or not.  I don’t think that mattered, since I never saw another player the whole time I was out there.  I’m pretty sure I wasn’t in the right area, but I had no idea where the right area was, and got irritated. My werewolf hunting was done, and now I considered the werewolf content to be pretty bland as well.

Celestial Quest Blockage
I then went to the new and improved power house, but wasn’t able to get any Celestial powers as I think they must be unlocked with some quest or something.  /sigh.  Couldn’t they just be made available like the other power set?  Why do they have to be unlocked with some aggravating quest?  Maybe my tolerance for this stuff has dropped since I haven’t been playing MMO’s over the last few weeks.  I think Pete was right, the further you step back from MMO’s, the more you can see how angry people generally are with their MMO game of choice.  This is the kind of thing that makes this MMO gamer crazy, as there are always “design decisions” that wind up just flat out irritating the player base.  I could easily launch into a tirade on MMO design here, so I’ll reel that in and get back to the story at hand.

So there I was, unimpressed and kind of irritated with the new patch.  I didn’t want to have to do research on the event just to participate, and I logged off.  This time, probably for good.  I spoke to Syp on Ventrilo (of course he was in the Fallen Earth channel getting his apocalypse on) and told him I’d give him the scoop.  Instead, I wound up going the same route he did.  The funny thing is that when I went to cancel, it was already canceled since I had switched banks recently and forgot to update my billing.  I had 6 days of play time left, which I will not use anyway, so it all worked out in the end.

I didn’t just ragequit, mind you.  I was on the verge of canceling my CO subscription going in, and was sort of halfway hoping that the Blood Moon event would be so much fun that I would have to stay subscribed.  At level 28 the questing and leveling had gotten to the point where the action of the combat no longer made up for it being relatively boring.  Fallen Earth and Aion decimated my guild’s population, and I wasn’t really motivated to do the work to find another one, so I stayed solo.  I had already made a ton of characters and explored all the power sets.  I had a very powerful character that could mow through even the toughest of enemies.  I’m sure I’ll be back to check it out some day, and that decision might be easier if CO went free to play (permanently) ala Dungeons and Dragons Online.  It already has a micro transaction based store, perhaps it is already primed for such a transition?  Maybe that is fodder for another article as well.

Blood Moon Doesn’t Redeem
To those of you having fun with CO, understand that I realize I didn’t put that much effort into making the most of the Blood Moon expansion.  1 play session of a few hours (and solo the whole time) is probably no way to try to experience new content in CO.  However, that’s kind of my point.  I’m at a place where I can’t (or just don’t want to) put in alot off effort to have fun, I feel like it should come easier.  It might be that I have more of a problem with level grinds right now than anything, and that this content expansion is alot better than I give it credit for.  Hopefully it is, so try it for yourself.  For now, I’m hanging up the spandex.

- br3ntbr0

© Posted by br3ntbr0 for Im Talkin Games with 3 comments on 10/31/2009.
Posted in: Impressions, Opinion Tags: Champions Online, Cryptic