Blue Kae

I pre-ordered the standard edition of SWTOR from Amazon. I wanted the digital version but it’s only available from Origin.com and I’ve already talked about how I feel about that. I’ve also applied to the Multiplaying group’s guild, Delusions of Grandeur. It feels odd to me to be applying to a guild for a game that I can’t even play yet but apparently it gives the guild some kind of benefits so I went ahead and pitched in.

All in all, that is the most attention I’ve given to TOR in months. Now that there’s a release date, of sorts, I feel like I should be excited. I feel like I should be impatiently waiting for the December. But I’m not, I’m much more excited for the upcoming Arkham City. It’s odd because Star Wars was my first scifi love. I was incredibly excited for SWG when it came out. It took me weeks after watching the Phantom Menace to admit to myself that i didn’t like it.

Maybe it’s prequelitis? I gave up on them after watching Attack of the Clones. I’ve never seen Episode 3 and can’t even tell you what the movie title is, or care to Google it. I did watch some of the animated Clone Wars series and enjoyed it but a lot of the magic was lost. Fumoggin midichlorians.

Maybe it’s trust? I was a huge fan of KotOR but never played the sequel after reading about all of the bugs and half finished story, so I should be ecstatic that BioWare is doing a real sequel. Maybe if TOR were a single-player game I would be, but it’s not and I’m not convinced either BioWare or EA are up to the challenge of managing an MMO after seeing how poorly DragonAge’s patching and community were managed.

Maybe I’ve gotten too good at countering the hype?

In the end it doesn’t really matter. I’ve pre-ordered, I’ll be playing at launch, and I have friends that are excited enough for ten of me.

Starfleet Academy was up on Tribble yesterday and is now live on Holodeck. Just warp to Earth and then you can beam down to San Francisco.

The map is gorgeous. There’s tailor, exchange, and mail services on the map right now. According to Dan Stahl (here) there are plans to use the map for a ground Fleet Action and as a starting zone for neighborhood missions. Eventually it will also be the starting point for the new tutorial.

Part of the fun when I was on Tribble last night was the party happening on the roof of Building Two. There’s a glitch where if you log out while standing on top of the plaque over looking San Francisco, then when you log back in you’re on the other side of the fence and can literally get behind the scenes. It takes a little running, but it’s possible to get around the edge of the map and up onto the roofs of the building.

Cryptic and CBS unveiled the new Odyssey-class Enterprise-F design today on StarTrek.com in a blog post written by STO Executive Producer, Dan Stahl. I still like the design, but I have mixed feelings about how the reveal was done.

I like seeing the ship textured as I finally have an idea of the scale of the ship and it does indeed seem massive. I also like that the ship’s class name references journeys and exploration over combat.

I don’t like the angle chosen for the initial screenshot. It makes the ship look whale-like by over-emphasizing the secondary hull and dish and marginalizing the dual necks. Were this the only image I’d seen of the new ship I wouldn’t event realize how different the overall design if from the Sovereign. Besides the bad angle, the image itself is not very large and I’ve found no links to higher resolution images, or to additional images from other angles.

My guess as to why they did the photo this way is that they want to keep the ship still partially under wraps until it’s revealed in-game for the first time. That’s understandable but it doesn’t give a good first impression. Fortunately we still have this image.

…MMO players, as a whole, do not do activities for fun’s sake if a better reward for equal effort lies elsewhere. – Justin “Syp” Olivetti, Massively

So true and yet so sad. Personally, given a choice between two activities, I’ll take the one that’s more fun regardless of any in-game reward. I understand the min/maxing achiever mentality about as much as I do morning people. *shudder*

I keep meaning to roll a Klingon faction character, but I never quite get around to it. While I think Klingons are an interesting species, I’ve never cared much for them as a faction. For me Star Trek has always been about the Federation. A month or two ago my interest in the KDF was rekindled when Matt Highison, Lead Character Artist for STO, posted some art for the new Gorn coming in Season 4. I’m sure TOS fans don’t like them, but I really like the new design.

I hopped onto Holodeck a few days ago and rolled my first KDF, Rress the Gorn.

He looks okay, but not great. He just doesn’t have the bulk and menace I expect from a Gorn.

This is what he looks like after the Season 4 update. Now, Rress looks like he could rip the arms of a Wookiee.

I missed posting about the second Dev Diary regarding the new Enterprise, as it came out during my Android obsessive period a few weeks ago. It’s worth reading though if you have any interest in Trek starship design. Part three is out now though and features a beautiful in-game model draft of the ship. She’s going to be a cruiser, as expected, and a Vice Admiral level ship. I now have quite a bit of motivation to get my Engineer Nal working hard for promotion (he’s only Lieutenant Commander now).

It’s here! It’s here! It’s here!

Even though I’ve been playing quite a bit on Tribble over the last few weeks, it’s still really good to have the ground combat update on Holodeck. It’s completely a perception issue on my part, but knowing I’m playing on Holodeck gives me more of a sense of permanence that’s just not there when I play on Tribble. Tribble is like Vegas. You go there to have fun and goof off, but it doesn’t count.

I logged in on my main Bryn and headed out to Gamma Orionis. One of the things I’ve been waiting to do is replay Assimilation. This mission is part of the Undine front missions and includes the Universal Assimilated Module, which was added as part of the Borg equipment set after I’d finished that chain of missions.

Pre-Season 4, Assimilation was one of my least favorite of the story missions. There’s a ton of Borg ground combat in that mission, and I remember dying while playing it. Possibly it was just because I was Science, possibly I wasn’t doing something correctly, but I think it was because of the way ground combat worked. Melee enemies tended to run up on me, so battles largely consisted of running backwards in circles trying to shoot enemies. Not fun.

Now that Season 4 is here, I picked up the replay from my Ready Room console and headed to NGC-4447. After completing a few space objectives, it was time to beam in with Bryn’s team. I started playing the mission completely in shooter mode but part way through I had to change that to just toggling into shooter mode before starting combat after accidentally clicking my mouse a few times and shooting Borg’s in alcoves. Turns out they don’t like that.

The new content was fun enough that I started out just clearing out all of the Borg I ran across  even if they weren’t hostile. I only started switching my Boffs to passive mode and leaving Borg alone once I saw how late it was.

I had a lot more fun than the first time I ran the mission. I made it all the way through the mission without dying once, although I did have to resuscitate my two tactical officers a few times. The pacing was faster, the battles were more engaging, and dodging behind walls worked well to break aggro and give my personal shields time to recharge. The kits are much more effective as well.

I hadn’t really noticed on Tribble, but I was using a Physicist Kit and dropping an Exothermic Induction Field (EIF) on a group of Borg did a noticeable amount of damage. Pre-Season 4, most of the DoT’s in Science Kits seemed more like bonus damage than actual attacks. Often, I would just use the roots and shield debuffs and that was it. Now though, using EIF or Hyperonic Radiation, has a noticeable effect. There were several instances where DoTs killed Borg that were down to a quarter of their life who had adapted their shields before I was able to remodulate my weapon.

I know there are issues with Season 4, especially for the Foundry, but I’m still really happy with the update. I’m really looking forward to leveling up my alts now that I can look forward to both types of combat in the game.

Star Trek Online is coming down for maintenance tomorrow morning:

We will be bringing down Holodeck on 7.7.2011 from 6:30 AM to 9:00 AM PDT (2330 – 0200 UTC) in order to perform maintenance and apply the Season 4 patch. We will provide an update once the maintenance has been completed.

Patch notes for Season 4 are significant. There’s a few surprises on there too (my comments in blue):

• Whenever you join a team or fleet, you will automatically be added to a voice chat channel. I didn’t realize we’d be able to use voice for fleet chatting, I just assumed it was for teams like in LotRO.
• All existing characters will get a free respec token due to the significant changes to ground combat. I still have some saved from ranking up, but one more won’t hurt.
  
• An auto loot option has been added to the options screen. This will be nice to have, I always seem to fly to far from loot and have to make a second pass to get it after the battle.
  
• A ship selector has been added to all ship/shuttle transporter rooms. Players can now swap ships without having to fly to a starbase. This will be nice to have. No more having to go back to a starbase to switch to a shuttle for doing sampling missions.
  

There’s a lot more in Season 4 and I highly recommend checking out the section on ground combat changes so you understand what the new keybindings are. Even if you don’t intend to use shooter mode, you’ll want to know how to toggle it off if you accidentally engage it (press B).

I’ve actually been holding off on doing anything with my two alts since I saw the ground combat upgrades on Tribble, and I’ve been itching lately to get back to them. Hopefully I get a chance to check in with them tomorrow.

I just saw the news via PC Gamer that City of Heroes is going free-to-play. I can’t say I’m surprised. I’m sure that NCSoft and Paragon Studios have been looking for ways to renew interest in the game and saw Champions Online’s renewed success. I’m just glad that NCSoft didn’t shutdown the game as they’ve never been shy about that before, although admittedly for much younger games.

Free or not, I’m not planning on going to go back to the game. Just like with Age of Conan, the subscription isn’t what keeps me from playing. It’s time.

Unlike Conan though, I do like the Paragon City setting and lore. I played back when a comic came in the mail every month and I enjoyed the two books that were released. But the lore doesn’t offset the aging character models and combat system. I prefer the combat pacing and mechanics better in Champions Online, as well as the open power system and newer graphics. The only reasons I’ve gone back to CoH in recent months have been for nostalgia during free reactivation weekends.

The F2P plan itself is a pretty standard hybrid subscription model with an in-game store, VIP members getting point stipends monthly, and separate tiers for free players, those who’ve spent some money in the store and subscribers. The most interesting feature is that they are creating a VIP only server and giving VIPs one free transfer a month.

Hopefully the new model works just as well for Paragon Studios and NCSoft as it has for Cryptic and Turbine.

As promised yesterday, I’ve uploaded a couple of videos to Youtube.

Not ground combat related, but here’s a quick peek at the new animated loading screen. It’s a minor thing, but I like that it adds a bit more Trek feel of the game.

Next, here’s two quick snippets and one longer one of the new ground combat. The first is from Stranded in Space, the remastered mission where you rescue the crew of the Azura. The second and third are from Collateral Damage,a Borg mission on Hotep IV in Gamma Orionis.

Finally, I cut together a series of clips showing the new FX for the different weapon types. I didn’t try to rotate through all of the different damage types, so most of the clips are for Tetryon and there’s two Antiproton, but it does show all of the new primary and secondary attacks.