…across the universe, etc. etc.
I actually did the unthinkable this holiday season: I re-subscribed to STO to bridge the month before it goes free to play. Me! Re-subscribed! I’m not sure that I’ll spend any more money on STO past this subscription, but I was so impressed by the changes to the game that I wanted to throw some cash Cryptic’s way, and this way I get to keep playing prior to January 17th. Which I have been. I have even given running missions Klingon-side a try, trying to see how much I can level between PvE missions and Duty Officer management (which are so much more amusing than the Fed-side DOff missions) and no PvP whatsoever.
Despite the furor on the forums about the Star Wars-inspired glowing lirpas and bat’leths that Ferengi!Yoda was handing out until earlier this week, I was a bit disappointed that they didn’t look more like the lightsabers they were decried as. One of those “all this kerfuffle over this?” moments, to be sure, but I find that is often the case on the official STO forums, where if you aren’t angry about something, you’re a fanboy.
Aside from making Mr. Randomessa extremely jealous over being able to play the game while he waited until he couldn’t justify paying $15 for as many days of subscription, I have also dipped into the Foundry missions (a whole new level of fun) and have been catching up on STO podcasts. I have also found possibly the only Star Trek Online forum that isn’t full of bitter naysayers at the Trek BBS (my home on the internet when my husband and I were mainlining DS9 a couple of weeks ago).
Oh, and I’m trying out the diplomacy missions for the first time and am still running races in Q’s Winter Wonderland, which, again, goes to show how much I appreciate non-combat and non-competitive options for gameplay. I tried popping in to Guild Wars’ Wintersday celebrations and popped out again rather quickly for that very reason. Tis the season not to fight anything, for me.
I have to say that unlike most MMOs where I do like being in the thick of pre-orders and the surge of new players embarking on their first journeys together, STO was one of those games where you didn’t get a whole lot out of being an early adopter (unless you were a lifetime sub from the start) and coming in later means I have so many parallel paths of advancement that I don’t expect to run out of things to do for some time. Of course, this also means that all of my content stories will be old news to those who ranked up to Admiral last year. Oh well; time to delve deep into the Foundry, I suppose.
I picked up a 10-day STO code off of Alienware’s promotion, since I’ve never played STO before. So far I’ve only gained a few levels on two characters, one Trill engineering career and one Ferengi science career. Looking over the f2p features, I’m thinking i should push one up to the level that unlocks the Klingon if I can, so that I won’t have to wait to 25 to unlock it as an f2p. Beyond that, I don’t see much I need to do before the f2p conversion.
Hopefully I will see you in game after Jan. 17th then! Are you having fun?
My ten days ran out before I unlocked Klingon, sad to say. 15 more days and I shall return! Overall, I quite liked my time so far. The space combat takes a couple of rounds to get used to, as managing arcs of fire really means you get the best effect by flying at angles to your target to bring multiple arrays to bear. But that’s very thematically unique, so they shouldn’t lose that. After a half dozen or so fights, I started getting the hang of it, and you can do okay even if you just come head on. Choosing good angles just takes them down faster. I don’t understand why the default UI stacks ship control boxes on top of each other so you can’t reach some of them, but re-arranging it was mostly painless once I hit escape and saw the option. It looks like they’re going to be heavily simplifying the skill system for the f2p launch, and I’m unsure if I’m happy or slightly sad about that. I can understand *why* they’re doing it, as it’s more than a bit confusing as it stands and f2p usually brings more casual folks (like me) who probably aren’t going to devote hours to reading to figure out the best skill combos.
And I’d love to link up with you in the game once I’m back. It’s nice to have someone you actually know when in-game. Despite hordes of ships about, some of which are probably fleeting together, there’s really nothing in the first few levels that points you towards grouping up or even how to find a group (permanent or temporary).
As things stand, I have a horde of games on my machine with so many f2p offerings, but it looks like my top ones will likely be: LOTRO, Pirates of the Burning Sea, and Star Trek Online, in that order. City of Heroes is likely to place a distant fourth.
I would enjoy reading more on your exploits in STO… even a spoilerific post with an indepth, detailed account of a run through a particularly fun or interesting mission would be great.
Not sure if that is something that would be appealing to you, but if it would be fun for you to do a “first person” in-character narration of a mission run I think it would be a lot of fun to read. Oh, and please take a few screenshots too if you can…
If it’s more work than fun then please disregard the request, and I hope you both had a happy holidays. 🙂
I’ll see what I can do…. I tried taking screenshots during the last few missions I ran, but not all of them came out (much to my disappointment), so it might be some time in coming.
Oh, and I hope you and yours had happy holidays, too :).
I’m waiting for FTP to jump back in myself. I saw a lot of potential in the game for the brief time I was subbed and the amount of improvements that have come since is truly impressive. Every blogger I read that mentions it is full of praise.
Yeah, “full of potential” is such a common thing you hear when talking about STO, for better or worse :). See you in game after FTP, I hope!