Last week, Mr. Randomessa’s excitement got the better of him and he, too, re-subscribed to Star Trek Online to join me in boldly getting ahead of the free-to-play launch.
Of course, then Cryptic opened up access to anyone who had previously held a subscription as of January 5th. D’oh! It would just be our luck.
Since then, my husband has gained a rank on his Klingon and he and I have quested together Fed-side, and even done a couple of the PvE scheduled events together Klingon-side. I have been going to bed earlier the past few nights, so my own gameplay has been spotty, but the wonderful thing is – no worries; I just match his rank when we group and all is well!
He is also very enamored of the Duty Officer system and is taking it extremely seriously. Tipa has referred to Doff management as Facebook-style “cow clicking,” and I have never played a FB game so I can’t comment on how close that comes to the mark, but at any rate, it’s helped me set a new criteria for what I’m looking for in any future MMOs I play. In fact, one of my only existing concerns about Guild Wars 2 is that all of the minigames I’ve heard about so far involve competitive gameplay of some sort (bar brawl, keg rugby, shooting gallery) and what I really want is something with a non-combat focus and in which I do not need to compete against other players, but can still advance my character. I don’t need it to be all of the time. Just some of the time.
More and more I’ve been thinking about the MMO features I prefer and how they affect my enjoyment of the games I play, such as how greatly world travel and level-gating has impacted my husband’s and my enjoyment in LOTRO. These are old issues, familiar enough to MMO players that we have our cute slogans and practices, our static groups and our spousal leveling contracts, but something about wanting to enjoy my time in Tolkein’s universe and feeling thwarted instead of welcome every time I tried to share my gameplay with someone outside of a PUG made me snap, and I have decided I just won’t put up with these kinds of things anymore, no matter how intriguing the subject matter or setting of an upcoming game. I think this is what made it so easy for me to pass on the launch of SW:TOR after one beta weekend, my other reservations notwithstanding.
If I were to have a New Year’s Resolution this year (I haven’t made any), it would be: I will not participate in another spousal leveling contract.
There was an excellent forum post put up at MMORPG.com recently, called The Tao of Arenanet, that explains Guild Wars 2’s features in light of ArenaNet’s design philosophy and thus attempts to show why GW2 is not merely a collection of features that may or may not be represented to some degree in other MMOs such that they are interchangeable. I have been arguing this in a more or less incoherent fashion, here and in forum and blog comments, for the past two years, but this post says it so much more eloquently that I now tip my hat and say, “QFT.”
Casual Is As Casual Does 
The pre-f2p for past subscribers was an unexpected boon for me, of course, as it came just after I’d finally decided I was just going to wait for f2p launch. I logged in the day it came out long enough to re-do my skills, though I’m not sure if I’ll end up liking my choices. We shall see. I didn’t try any missions with the new skills yet, as I only had a little time to work with. I did acquire a Klingon tactical bridge officer for my Ferengi Captain though! It wasn’t a store buy; there was one available at the bridge officer requesition. Wasn’t expecting that, but I quickly took advantage of it. The rest of my brief login was spent tinkering around trying to figure out if the Enterprise clone could be repainted, which apparently it cannot. 😦
Hey, if you ever catch me on, say hi! I’m @randomessa. I try to log in at least every couple of days, even if it’s just to manage my DOffs or do the Klingon Academy event with my husband.
I’ll definitely keep an eye out for you. I’m still not sure how I feel about the @ system for usernames. I first encountered it on Champions Online. While it’s useful to be able to chat with friends no matter which alt they’re on (and not have to keep a score sheet to remember who is who), the idea that all my alts are instantly identified as me with no control on my part does bother me. It’s a far cry from LOTRO where I have 9 alts spread across 5 kins and can log into an alt without feeling obligated to say hi to anyone but the kin channel to which it belongs. :>
I was surprised by the pre-F2P opening and also started playing again. I enjoyed my earlier time spent in STO, even if it wasn’t that long. Not sure how the Klingon side was handled before, but I was surprised to find my Klingon and Gorn characters (newly created just before I stopped playing last year) are now my highest level ones. 🙂 Having a fun time with the Duty Officer system, doing up new ships for all my characters, and giving the revamped ground combat a try, but still would rather stay on my ship, to be honest. When wandering around your ship they should at least replace all the generic crewman with your DOs (that aren’t on assignment) and actually create some reason to visit them. Something optional of course, but it would be great to enhance the feel of being in charge of a starship, which I feel the DO system has helped with. Maybe visit sick bay and reduce the time for injured ones. Give them a temp buff or such.
Heh, you’re the opposite of me in that I would be happy to stay on the ground all of the time. Mr. Randomessa prefers the ship combat as well, though. I, too, hope they add the ability to have DOffs present on the ship. I want to be able to check in on my ensigns and tell them to “carry on” and other captainy stuff.
I seem to recall that they were planning on it, but with Cryptic one never knows.
Regarding officers on the ship, while I find walking about the ship quite cool, I did find it hilarious when I had just 3 bridge officers and discovered the ability to visit my bridge for the first time to find that every bridge officer was identically named twins, one at a console and one standing up elsewhere.
“The Tao of ArenaNet” (by Meowhead) was a fantastic read, and I can’t thank-you enough for directing me towards it Randomessa. You’re absolutely right about it being eloquent in it’s description of ArenaNet’s design philosophies.
“More and more I’ve been thinking about the MMO features I prefer and how they affect my enjoyment of the games I play,…” “…and feeling thwarted instead of welcome every time I tried to share my gameplay with someone outside of a PUG made me snap, and I have decided I just won’t put up with these kinds of things anymore, no matter how intriguing the subject matter or setting of an upcoming game.” – Randomessa
^ This paragraph had some eloquence of it’s own imo. Of course, you’re “preaching to the choir” on this subject to me (a self-identified MMO gamer with over 10+ years of experience in a half a dozen different games who has not logged into an MMO of any type in roughly a year and a half because I can no longer tolerate all of what I’ve come to recognize as serious design flaws that are common tropes in the genre.) Kill stealing, resource node competition, PVP in “god-mode” gear, etc, etc, etc… it’s a freakin long list – one which ArenaNet appear to be at least attempting to address on a point for point basis.
So many of the changes to STO sound especially intriguing to me, perhaps in part due to my long absence from any MMO login screen, and even the brief description of your interaction and grouping with Mr. Randomessa in STO remind me fondly of why I enjoyed games in this genre for so many years.
I think it’s very likely I will end my long drought in the very near future when the barrier to entry for STO drops to zero, and I can at least take a first-hand look at the game without having to make an enormous financial commitment first. Regardless, I’m a long-time fan of the IP, and whether I take up play in the game or not, I’m looking forward to future accounts of the two of you enjoying the game together here.
Oh, come, now, you make me blush! 🙂 As ever, I appreciate your feedback and I do hope that if you pop in to STO you have an excellent time, and that you’ll send me a hello (@randomessa).