We examine the best and the worst Star Trek Online has to offer — and everything in between — each and every Thursday. Or at least until I replace my emotion chip with a dance champion chip. Then I’m off to conquer Dancing with the Stars.
This week, I’ve had a change of heart. I was in the middle of writing about grouping, loneliness and the new squad system in STO when the universe — as the universe is wont to do — mucked that up. As I ran around trying to take a few screenshots for the grouping column, poor Captain Gil found himself caught in a seemingly endless string of ground-combat missions. And so, if for no other reason than because I snapped a bunch of guys-shooting-each-other-with-phasers pictures, this week’s Captain’s Log introduces some of the basics of ground combat in STO.
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Catelet Star Trek Online
The trouble with making Star Trek Online is that there are a lot of parts that work great in a dramatic television series that don’t necessarily work as well in a game. As much fun as it might be to have your bridge officers get together for a poker game, there’s a dearth of useful ways to integrate it into gameplay in a meaningful sense. That having been said, the team at Cryptic is clearly interested in trying to add as many iconic elements from the series as possible, as spotlighted in the most recent set of Ask Cryptic answers on the official site.
A prime example are individual bridge officer stories — they want to add them, but there are so many variables that the effort winds up feeling more generic instead of more personal. However, there are ideas and hopeful plans for adding more personalities to bridge officers, as well as the potential to respec your officers (although that also runs into minor problems). There’s also some information about the upcoming Diplomatic missions to help spice up exploring the nebulae around the galaxy. Star Trek Online players are encouraged to take a look at the full list of answers, which covers quite a bit of space in both design and lore.
Kiuperli Star Trek Online
Star Trek Online players are in for a treat today as Cryptic’s next content patch hits the servers. Titled in such a way that we think they’re going to count to 10 eventually, Season One: Update Two (Mark Three, Variant Four, Version Five) comes bundled with a number of new features and quality of life improvements for all to enjoy.
The premiere features of this patch are the new Accolade and Squad Support systems. Accolades are your basic MMO achievements with a Star Trek veneer, although if you collect enough of them, you can earn real benefits for your character (such as passive resistances) in addition to titles. All we can say is that if there isn’t an accolade for the number of “Picard Maneuvers” you’ve done, then Cryptic needs to get on that and make it so.
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gmaxwell Star Trek Online
Greetings, fellow officers! Welcome to another edition of Captain’s Log, your weekly dispatch from the far reaches of Star Trek Online. I hope everyone had fun tooling around the cosmos with the developers on Monday. Sadly, technical difficulties prevented me from accessing the Tribble test server. So I’m making all my engineers wear red shirts on away missions for the rest of the week — that’ll learn ‘em.
This week, I thought we’d cover one of my favorite aspects of STO: starships! More specifically, I’ll offer some tips and information to help you choose your first ship when you reach that magic Lieutenant 11. Remember, you pretty much have to live with your decision for 10 levels, so let’s make sure you choose wisely.
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Catelet Star Trek Online
The team for Star Trek Online has been working on cleaning up bugs, deploying new features, and generally getting the game prepped for the upcoming Season 1.2 patch, which promises a variety of additions and improvements to the game. In order to help facilitate the testing of new features — and to enjoy getting into the mix with the players — the development team is going to be hosting one of Cryptic’s frequent play nights with the general populace.
Unlike normal, this night isn’t taking place on the live servers, but on the Tribble test server. From 4-6 PM PST (7-9 PM EST) on May 24th, the developers will be on the server, taking part in PvE content as well as on the PvP maps. Whether you want the developers to hear about your great idea for new task forces, want to tell them how much you want the game to have new content, or are just still recovering from the series finale of Lost, any player with an active Star Trek Online account is encouraged to mix it up with the development team.
Castiglione Star Trek Online
Memory Alpha
Okay, so now that you understand crafting materials, it’s time to discuss using them. At level 4, you should receive a mission to deliver anomalous data from Earth Starbase to Memory Alpha, which is where all crafting takes place. Head to the Teneebia Sector of Alpha Centauri Sector Space and scoot on over to Memory Alpha.
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Kins Star Trek Online
Attention, Starfleet! It’s time again for Captain’s Log, your favorite Thursday Star Trek Online column. After last week’s roundup of incoming changes and improvements, let’s discuss the latest much-needed upgrade to STO: the Memory Alpha overhaul!
I am so excited about this change. Crafting in STO definitely got short shrift at launch. The system itself was not engaging, and progression was a confounding mess. While Cryptic Studios haven’t fundamentally altered the former, last week’s update to the Season 1.3 patch made such changes to the latter — it implemented a dedicated crafting window and actual progression — that I almost don’t care. After bidding a brief farewell to the previous system, allow me to explain the basics of crafting: materials, missions and Memory Alpha.
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Kocherberg Star Trek Online
There have been a lot of ship designs in Star Trek over the years, so it’s understandable that not every design was in Star Trek Online at launch. The game’s division of ship tiers into customizable batches is no doubt part of the reason, as well. But that doesn’t mean that the developers aren’t well aware of the gaps in ship classes, and that’s the reasoning behind the latest poll on the official site, asking players which ship design they’d like to see enter the game next, quite possibly as a lower-tier ship.
Of the classes available, four are past or future designs for the ubiquitous Enterprise lineage, including the often-seen Excelsior class and the rarely-seen Ambassador class. There’s also the far-future Enterprise-J design and the far-past NX design, both seen in Star Trek: Enterprise. The other two classes are somewhat less flashy but somewhat more notable omissions — the Nebula class, a frequently-seen workhorse design that resembles a pared-down Galaxy class, and the Oberth class, a general-purpose medical and scientific vessel from the same area. The Excelsior class is currently in the lead, so Star Trek Online fans are encouraged to vote for their favorites.
Catherine Star Trek Online
It’s been an interesting process to watch the growth of Star Trek Online over the past few months, with Cryptic clearly making a concerted effort to pack a great deal more content into the game as fast as possible. They’ve stated prior that they would like to go no more than three months between major content updates, with smaller updates happening on a monthly basis. In the most recent Engineering Report on the official site, we get more details about what’s being planned and worked on for the near future — and the many players eagerly awaiting ship interiors don’t have to wait that much longer.
The report outlines the rough plan for the next three months, for the Season 1.2 patch, the followup 1.3 patch, and the Season 2 update planned in July. 1.2 is aiming at adding a “sidekick” system a la City of Heroes, new playable races, and social improvements. 1.3, targeted for June, is adding Dabo, the option to trade bridge officers, and weekly episodes. And as could be expected, Season 2 is packed to the gills with new features — including Klingon episodes, “neutral” episodes for all factions, and ship interiors. Take a look at the full report for more looks at what’s on the table and being tested for Star Trek Online.
Kins Star Trek Online
While speaking about Cryptic Studios, the company’s chief operating officer Jack Emmert revealed that its latest game, Star Trek Online, has more than 100,000 subscribers.
Emmert revealed the figure during an interview with The Big Freaking Podcast, while talking about the game’s reception when it launched last month.
Despite the huge IP, or maybe because of it, the game didn’t live up to many fans’ expectations, as reflected by the number of subscribers; 100K might sound alright, but when you consider Age of Conan and Warhammer Online are barely getting by with a rumoured 300K each, STO’s numbers must be a concern for Cryptic.
According to BioWare, its upcoming MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic will need at least one million subscribers per month just to break even.
Last month, Cryptic made a press release announcing that it had over one million registered accounts following the launch of STO. What a shame not many of them actually subscribed to the game.
Castille Star Trek Online
Amidst all this GDC 2010 news is a great one-day-only sale over at Amazon, where you can pick up Star Trek Online at the low-low price of $27.99. If the mood strikes you, there’s also a one-day sale on the collector’s edition. While the CE may still be $47.99 it’s a good deal cheaper than the regular cost of $79.99 and it comes with a bunch of in-game items, too.
Whatever you end up deciding, the sale just goes to show that a patient gamer can save a lot of money in the end. Of course, missing out on five weeks of boldly venturing out into space may not be worth the wait, for some.
gmaxwell Star Trek Online
As Eliot pointed out yesterday, when Cryptic announced that they had reached one million registered accounts, it paid to look at the announcement a bit more closely. What exactly is a registered account? Does a registered account mean that someone purchased Star Trek Online? Is it a beta tester? Maybe just a forum account?
We weren’t the only ones wondering about this. More than one reader was curious about the phrasing the press release: “Already, over 1 million Star Trek fans have created accounts at the official websites.” IncGamers was able to get a response from Cryptic regarding the specifics of the release, minus the lingo.
While the phrase “Star Trek fans” led many people to assume that the press release referred to Star Trek Online accounts only. The press release actually referred to Cryptic accounts — which are required to play not only Star Trek Online, but Champions Online as well.
One million registered accounts is a milestone worth mentioning in any situation, but it’s always helpful to know for certain what we’re congratulating.
gmaxwell Star Trek Online
If it’s not too dated, you can feel free to do the Dr. Evil voice as you read the announcement in your head. Star Trek Online has reached one million registered accounts, an impressive milestone for any game. The announcement follows in the vein of Cryptic’s announcement that players had created over one million characters in Champions Online, which was also an impressive milestone… well, until you started to do the math and ask why they were counting the number of characters created rather than players.
There are similar questions to be asked about the latest Star Trek Online announcement, if you’re the suspicious type. In short, we don’t know the criteria that is being used to get the figure being thrown around. One million accounts could refer to open beta and head start accounts, or it could refer to everyone registered on the forums, even if they’ve long since stopped posting. It’s an odd metric to use.
Still, it’s a sign of how strong the IP of Star Trek still is after all these years, and as one of the few major launches planned for the year it’s bound to attract quite a bit of attention. Congratulations to Cryptic, and here’s hoping that those million accounts stick with the game after a few months.
gmaxwell Star Trek Online
Not everything in Star Trek Online is fighting when it comes to space. Sometimes, you turn and a lovely sight such as the one captured above will greet you. While this image was captured during the open beta, these types of stunning views are still there, waiting to be discovered by Star Trek Online’s players.
Today’s One Shots comes to us from Sjohn, who writes in to give us some context: I was doing a mission in the Pico System where I was patrolling the mines located in the rings around one of the planets. Saw this view and couldn’t help but save it for later!
Castillans Star Trek Online
The last patch for Star Trek Online is now available to be downloaded and installed via the Cryptic Launcher. According to Cryptic Community Manager Stormshade, the patch will be the last one before the head start begins. The head start is for players who purchased a pre-order — if you haven’t purchased the STO pre-order and are interested in it, there is still time to do so. More information is available from Cryptic.
If you have been participating in the open/closed beta, your client just needs to be patched up to the latest version. There is no need to download and install an entirely new client. If you want to copy your game installation to another computer to run, just copy the folder across via normal means — again, no need to download an entirely new client. This patch which you’ll get is about 60 megs and is a quick download right now, although that is likely going to change once the masses get to it.
It’s also worth reminding people that their beta character has been deleted, and you’ll need to start anew.
The head start begins today at 10:00 a.m. PST.
gmaxwell Star Trek Online