Off-Week Update (for Ep. 16)
Ok, that was an unexpected rush. Well. Ok, it was a little expected, considering how many people asked me to look at the game.
I tried to field some questions about the STO review through Formspring and didn’t get many results back. At least nothing I didn’t answer. Honestly, I really mean it when I say I know pretty much nothing about Star Trek. I did watch parts of the new movie when it was on SyFy last week. I do want to see all of it. That counts for something, I hope…. probably not.
A major thank you for everyone who clarified the issue with character slots. The game made it seem like I had no more than one slot per account, and wasn’t clear on the system of how it was supposed to work. For those who watched it early on and didn’t rewatch it, I stated that one slot meant you’d either have to buy a new character slot, or possibly delete your original character. THE TRUTH is that you have 2 character slots, but the second is only unlocked once you reach level 25, so you can make a Klingon. Character slots in general are still quite limited, though. Sure, every “class” in the game pretty much extends to “guy with a laser gun”, but it’d be nice to give a quick look to all available bridge specialties.
I also had a lot of people informing me about the differences in the Klingon missions and ships. While I did outright state I wasn’t going to look at the Klingon side at all, I’m not entirely opposed to making a supplemental review to go along with this one once I reach level 25 and try out Klingons.
…but considering the next game I’m playing that might pose a problem… HOLY HELL this game is addicting. I picked it simply because I knew there wouldn’t be too much to explain and I’d be able to knock it out in a few less days than normal, considering it wouldn’t have nearly as much to talk about. But I have been pumping HOURS into it, and I don’t think I’ll be able to stop. Such a simple game, but such an amazingly interesting system. Oh, it’s not for everyone, I can assure you, but it’s something that you can pick up and drop at your leisure… provided you can drop it. The video SHOULD be out next week, but I really need to peel myself away from it. It’s that much fun for me.
Any other questions about the STO review, please ask them here. If not, let me know if you’d be opposed to me possibly doing a vlog version of the off-week update. I have some ideas on how I’d do that.
Posted on February 22, 2012, in News and Updates. Bookmark the permalink. 21 Comments.
MMO Grinder 
@Joflyer
The reason I don’t hold a game to its company is the same reason I don’t fault a console game to it’s publisher… and also why I credit both the publisher and the developer. I don’t expect the efforts of one company to go unrecognized because they publisher is trash. This holds specially true to the MMO Market where games can change hands at any time, and occasionally you have to option of forgoing one publisher for another. I really liked Kart Rider, but they didn’t support it at all so it vanished.
Audition used to be in the hands of Nexon, until they ended up going to Alaplaya in Europe and Redbana in the US, finally getting actual licensed dance songs, instead of the Christian Rock and generic hip-hop tracks Nexon shoved on it.
Maybe if you’re lucky, they’ll give Dragon’s Nest to someone who’s willing to give it better attention.
After you’ve played like 80% of their games and despise how they handle each of them, you join the “No, I’m going to DESPISE Nexon and their games 100%” crowd, heh.
Atlantica Online and Maple Story still sicken me even thinking about them..
Anyways, vlogs couldn’t hurt I guess, serve the same purpose right? Although I think people might enjoy the replies to comments more then another video probably.
Not sure where to but this, so I’ll stick it here so you can know.
My man, I have just learned, the hard way, why you hate Nexon. While I still love the game, I’d suggest you stay away from Dragons Nest. It’s a great game, don’t get me wrong, but it doesn’t have the company to back it up. It’s just issue after issue after issue.
Ah, well. Time for more TF2.
I may despise what Nexon is, but I’m able to look past a company if the game is good, and I’ll be willing to admit it.
To bad said company won’t get off it’s ass and find a way to fix the constant server issues. In this case, looking past the company isn’t an option. The company’s laziness is making a good game bad.
I JUST WANNA LOG IN, MAAAAN!!!!
As a big Vindictus fan myself, I can say their customer service quality has gone down a bit. When I started playing, bug reports got responses pretty quickly. Now I get e-mails about how they have a high number of tickets… for a bug reported back in August. The game is good, if slightly buggy, but at least playable.
I know that feel. Mabinogi has been a plethora of issues that instead of fixing we get more cash shop junk that unbalances the game and economy. It is receiving NO love from Nexon and it breaks my heart that such a great game is bogged down by an incompetent company and horrible community.
I would say go for the Vlogs for two reasons: one is it probably takes about just as long to write one out as it would to do a Vlog, and second is it gets you more views, which can get you more money. We’re all willing to help there.
The whole character slots thing remnds me too much of Mabinogi. They give you one free character slot, and then that’s pretty much it. I don’t think you can eve delete the human character and get a new freebie card, although I could be mistaken; I’m not brave enough to try myself. (And yes, when the new races were added, you could befriend one of them and get a free card of either elves or giants, but it’s not the same as remaking the character.)
You could delete the character and get another. As long as there are no other characters on that account, you get one free basic card of a race of your choice.
looks like you liked what you saw on my email ^_^
Well I did, but I don’t work that fast. I usually have the next game I’m going to review installed by the time I even finish the current one.
I actually played that (Realm of the Mad God) before. The game I’m talking about is different.
I don’t think I could do a full ep on Realm of the Mad God, but I’m considering doing it as a “quickie” episode. Although I know MegaGWolf is highly considering doing the game as a freebie as well.
ahh, i see, thanks for clarifying. im enjoying it too ^_^. maybe we could play there sometime. looking forward to whatever it is your reviewing next.
One thing I would like to ask you or anyone here is how did you felt about the representation of the traditional Roles of tank, DPS, healers in Star Trek Online. To me it felt like it was a bit tacked on where anyone can do the job with the right equipement especially when it came to ships. Also I notice you didn’t touch on the PVP or “dungeon” aspects and how they are handled since they are a bit different and would like to hear thoughts on those.
I don’t think they’re tacked on. In fact, they don’t even really apply, and that’s part of the appeal of STO to some people. You don’t have those traditional roles, and you can play what’s the most fun for you. Anyway can do a bit of healing, or tanking, or dps, you don’t have one assigned person to do any of that, but you still need to work together.
In the end game, doing Special Task Force missions, the equivalent of heroics in WoW, you can’t solo them, but even teams of nothing but Tactical Officers can complete it. They still need healing, but in that case, I imagine they brought a lot of hyposprays..
I did want to make a joke about the classes all boiling down to “dude with a gun”, and even Lewis told me that while the ships do somewhat follow those guidelines, it depends more on what skills and equipment you choose. Personally, I like the idea of have the option to focus one way with a ship or character, but not being outright shoehorned with it. It’s a problem with a lot of fantasy MMOs, WoW especially. Players in that game don’t want you as a player they want you as a set of numbers and gear pieces. I was saddened the day I say someone looking for “a Fire Mage 10/5/40” for their raid guild, and I was chastised for thinking it was stupid. BC brought out a lot of that in people, but that’s a rant for another time.
I didn’t mention PvP much because I didn’t really get to experience it. Even joining queues only led me into that weird Borg fighting area. I was probably doing it wrong. I DO like the ideal of PvP being contained in dungeons, because I don’t see the “thrill” of minding my own business only to be killed by someone who’s pissed they got called a dork in school that day. Not that my Lineage 2 review didn’t illustrate my issue with that at all. I really don’t like exploration and PvE heavy games to have any essence of a PK system, so keeping it contained like that is perfectly fine with me. I don’t hate PvP, considering my next game is NOTHING but that, but it all falls into “time and a place” for me.
To be honest, I didn’t feel the dungeon aspect differed enough from the regular gameplay to be worth mentioning. It just had more people in it, took a long time and you got a reward at the end. …actually besides the multiple people it was exactly like regular gameplay.
But Space Fleet Actions were 1000x better than Ground Fleet Actions.
Linkara’s right about the ships, definitely. I also really like how the class you pick doesn’t shoehorn you into flying only certain ships, although many people new to the game (and even some long time players) seem to think so.
For PVP,, while I typically hate PVP in most games, I actually find it a ton of fun in STO. Though like WoW, there’s a few different types. What you experienced was STO’s equivalent of the classic version of WoW’s Alterac Valley. You have a PVE objective to complete (against the Borg in this case), and Klingons can interfere if there are any around. You also have Arena type games (straight up death matches), and Capture and Hold, which is basically Arathi Basin in space. (The ground version of it in STO are assault maps, which work a little more like the Assault maps in Unreal Tournament.)
Having played WoW myself since about a month after launch, and continuing to play it to this day while still playing STO since open beta, I definitely do enjoy STO’s freedoms. Not having to worry about specific class make up is nice.
As far as STO’s “dungeons” the closest thing is the Special Task Force missions you don’t have access to until late game (though they open up before max level). While you can run any regular mission with extra players, and the game will scale up the enemies accordingly, the STFs are the only ones where you need extra people. They’re basically a cross between WoW’s heroic dungeons and raids in terms of difficulty and strategy required, and there are both space and ground ones.
I sure would love to play STO with you and Linkara, or at least be available to help out with questions or missions, but I know Lewis mostly plays solo, and you may not continue to play STO at all. And neither of you probably want to share your handles anyway. (I did look up @ChaosD1 and @MMOGRINDER handles after the Lineage II review came out, but neither were active. :) )
Why do you make it sound like you’re talking about World of Tanks, I’d love that to be true though.
Your STO review got me interested in the rest of your videos (Since I started playing STO just recently and already found myself with a lv50 character on starfleet, two extra characters on starfleet both lv10 and a lvl 22 Gorn (Klingon side) character. All while playing World of Tanks and holding a job aswell… God of multitasking indeed.
Something you might find interesting about starting a Klingon character is that you start out at lvl 20 rather then lvl 1, and you are given a bunch of weapons and skills to sort out almost inmediatly.
Vlogs are cool as long as it doesnt become the norm with the occasional review once every 3 or 4 months.
Silly Jon, Bejeweled isn’t an MMO.
:D
I think a vlog of the off-week update would be good.