Video games

Improving sector space in Star Trek Online

Oliver Brown
— This upcoming video may not be available to view yet.

Perhaps I should just go ahead and rename my blog “Star Trek Online Forum Highlights”…

Pendra37 on the STO forums has come up with the first idea to improve sector space in Star Trek Online that actually seems it could be done without majorly overhauling the game engine.

The coolness basically boils down to one change: “If you hit the Drop out of warp button, you drop out of warp. A random deep space instance map loads up. The map may be completely random.” For more detail, read the post Sector space makes sense.

This reminds me of the fantasy RPG Rings of Power on the Genesis/Megadrive. In that game, for most of the time you controlled and oversized character walking through the landscape. At any time you could press B and the map essentially zoomed in showing you were you “really” were (and that the oversized character was just you represented on a map). Most of the time there was nothing interesting around, but there were things hidden in places that you could find and some quests required you to go to specific places.

The Voyage Home and BOff Story Arcs in STO

Oliver Brown
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The Voyage Home

Another pair of interesting ideas for STO I found on the forums.

The first is “The Voyage Home”, a framework around exploration type missions based on the story of Voyager.

The second is Bridge Officer Story Arcs, missions based around your bridge officers, after you set up some personality options (most importantly, sympathies to certain factions and vendettas against certain factions).

BOff Story Arcs

EVE breaks PCU record again

Oliver Brown
— This upcoming video may not be available to view yet.

Yesterday EVE Online broke the peak concurrent user record again for an online game with 60,453 players online simultaneously.

Just for the record, the reason World of Warcraft doesn’t hold this record (despite having by far the most subscribers of any MMO) is because of it’s sharded nature. All sixty thousand EVE players were in the same game world.

Star Trek Online Gold Edition going cheap at Zavvi

Oliver Brown
— This upcoming video may not be available to view yet.

Yes, it seems I’ll be obsessed with Star Trek Online for a while…

For those of you (at least in the UK) who would like the chance to become obsessed, Zaavi are selling the Gold Edition of STO for £17.95 £23.95 (oddly enough the normal version is £29.95).

The Gold Edition comes with loads of extras including a T-Shirt and download code for DS9 style uniforms. Of course you should try the free Star Trek Online demo first :P

Star Trek Online minigame ideas

Oliver Brown
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A few people on the Star Trek Online forums (notably ThomastheCat) have come up with ideas for minigames (discussed here). The idea is that they would replace the “find an item and press F” mechanic with something more interesting and situation specific.

The forum post has more detail, but a lot can be communicated with just the mockups that have been made:

And if you’re not already a player, remember you can get a free trial of Star Trek Online.

Some cool ideas for Star Trek Online

Oliver Brown
— This upcoming video may not be available to view yet.

I’ve been playing Star Trek Online since the open beta at the end of January and my opinion of it is generally positive. That isn’t to say there aren’t problems, in fact I agree with most of the complaints about it (and the forums have a lot). The difference with me is I still think it’s fun to play in the mean time (I still think the space combat is the best any Star Trek game has ever had).

I recently came across a series of ideas to improve the game posted on the forums by the player Daren Kitlor (although many others were involved in developing the ideas). This is my attempt to make a few more people read them and hopefully support them (since they are all really good).

Here they are, in my order of liking:

1.Iconic Worlds Proposal : “Create large, exterior world maps for various factions. These maps would be populated with many short missions” 2.Explore the System Proposal : “Creating new challeges to add variety to existing exploration missions.” 3.Intel Missions and Urban Settings : “Urban Environments, Espionage Mission Archetypes (to include Co-Op and Solo)” 4.Memory Alpha Tweaks : “Most items have an attribute in [blocks] for each level of rarity it gains. Why not let us select what attributes we’re looking for, based on the tier we have unlocked?” 5.Territory Control Proposal : “Help create persistent, PvP territory control without drastically changing the PvP Queues themselves” 6.Fleet Starbases and Fleet PVP : “The construction of Fleet-constructed starbases or space stations. Sieges of Fleet-constructed starbases.” 7.Ground Combat Proposal : “Star Trek Online has some great space combat. However, the ground combat is often criticized as being lackluster.” 8.Socialization Content Proposal : “Enhance the game experience through role-playing or to enhance the role-playing through a game experience.”

And remember, if you’re not yet a player you can play a limited demo for free (sadly without the cool ideas above yet).

Play Star Trek Online for free (for a bit)

Oliver Brown
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Cryptic Studios have just launched the Star Trek Online referral program. They encourage old players to bring in new players by giving them free in game stuff (specifically the future Enterprise from All Good Things with three warp nacelles as a ship option). To make it easier to persuade people, referred players get to try a demo of the game for free. It does seem the demo will be made freely available in the near future anyway though. The demo has the following restrictions:

  • Cannot trade player-to-player, send items via mail or use the Exchange.
  • Cannot send in-game tells except those on the friends list (but can receive all tells)
  • Cannot participate in zone chat
  • Cannot send a friend request, or team/fleet invites (but can receive and accept them)
  • Cannot play beyond level 3, or access missions other than “Stranded in Space,” once outside of the tutorial Episode

The last is the important one really. Anyway, if anyone wants an invite, send me an email (each player can only have five pending invites).

Salvaged Relationships in the Neutral Zone

Oliver Brown
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There is a mission in Star Trek Online that is causing no end of problems. It caused problems in the beta and people assumed it was bugged. It was the same in headstart, and it is the same now. Everyone assumed it was just broken. But apparently someone submitted it as a bug and got a reply saying it was working as intended. It’s just confusing :P

This mission is called “Salvaged Relationships in the Neutral Zone”. It’s in the Ker’rat system in the Eta Eridani Sector block. It has two parts, the first part is to scan 8 Borg encryption nodes. This part is easy and fine. The next part is to destroy 4 Repair Hulks. This is where it gets confusing. There are many Borg vessels around as well as several Repair Hubs. The problem is Repair Hubs are not Repair Hulks. Destroying 4 Repair Hubs leads to the mission being failed (at least for Federation players).

Apparently (although I haven’t seen it myself yet) destroying enough Borg Cubes leads to the Repair Hulks warping in. So hopefully someone will search for this mission, find this page and learn how to do the mission. You see, the mission is a large arena style mission with up to twenty players, and if just one of them goes off destroying the Hubs, the mission fails. So I’ll just post in big letters here:

Repair Hulks are not the same as Repair Hubs. Don’t destroy Repair Hubs (at least if you’re Federation)!

PS - Since I’ve never seen the mission complete this is all just a theory at the moment. Except that destroying the Hubs ends definitely the mission without success…