One to Beam Up

In case you’ve been away from the internet for a few days, Star Trek Online went into open beta. A lot of good information has already been posted, so I’m not going to repeat it here. Instead I just wanted to give my impressions from the closed beta and my expectations for open beta, and my plans for launch and the live game.

My Bias

Like Werit and Pete, I’m a fan of Star Trek. I’ve seen all of the shows (although I’m young enough to have watched TOS in reruns only) and the movies. My favorite two series are TNG and Enterprise (except for that crappy opening theme music they did). My favorite captain is Picard, my favorite character is Data, and I never hated Wesley Crusher. I’ve played (I think) all of the Trek computer games, but I most enjoyed Star Trek: Armada.

U.S.S. Grace

Closed Beta Experience

I got my CB invite on November 24th, and have been able to play in most of the testing sessions the Cryptic has held between then and now. I played a Tactical Officer up to Lieutenant 6 (level 6 basically) twice and did a variety of patrols, episodes, and open missions. The space combat has been exactly what I wanted from day one. The ground combat was just ok, I didn’t hate but I didn’t love it.

Again if you want more details there are already quite a few good posts linked above.

Open Beta Expectations

Open beta started on January 12th, and two days in the game is under some epic level stress testing. For a game so many people claimed not to care about, there are a lot of players logging in. This makes for an excellent test for the February launch day flood, but I’m sure is frustrating for people getting their very first impression of the game. I hope and expect that the lag issues will clear up during the first week, both from players who were more interested in sight-seeing leaving and from Cryptic improving the code and server infrastructure.

I never saw any of the open beta day 1  issues of loading into a planet instance as your ship, or into space as your captain, or beaming to a surface without your away team, in closed beta even when a new influx of players was causing lag and disconnects. My assumption is that these issues are caused by a massive influx of open beta players. This seems to be correct, since on the second day of open beta most of these issues weird loading seem to have gone away. Now I’m just seeing disconnects, some slow loading screens, and some rubber banding.

Plans for Live

I am happy with what I’ve experienced so far in closed and open beta. There are still bugs and rough edges to the game, but it feels no less complete or buggy to me that Fallen Earth was when it released a few months ago. Based on my closed beta experience, I’ve pre-ordered the Digital Deluxe edition from Direct2Drive. I’m planning to spend at least six months on the game, maybe more depending on what kinds of subscription deals Cryptic offers. The only thing I haven’t decided is if I’m keeping my EVE subscription during that time.

If you’re in the open beta feel free to send me a tell or a friend invite, Captain Kae@bluekae.

Leave me a comment if you have any questions about the game or are curious about how it compares to another MMO.

Epic Volume 2 Marathon

We had a kin event scheduled on Saturday to get a those of us you just finished Volume 1 through the Drums of the Deep (2.5.5) in Volume 2. The instance runs went very smoothly, thanks to Gorandir, Azzbuk, and Mortermeer (from the Weathertons kinship) for helping out.

After finishing, Tele, Phebe, and I decided to push on into Book 6. We got all the way to the next big fellowship instance, and we must have been feeling especially motivated because we picked up Berniard from our kin as guide/healer and recruited Thomborn and Mercatio from lff chat.

Even with a full party of 65’s and one 64, we wiped twice getting to the end boss but strangely had no problems with the last two big fights. The Cloak of Flame and Shadow dropped and I lucked out to with the roll (which usually never happens). Unfortunately Mercatio was bugged somehow and didn’t get credit. So we may be getting a rematch against 2.6.8 sometime soon.

In the end, I stayed up playing until nearly 5 am and finished Book 7 up through Chapter 6.

Questing for Fun not Profit

Grey quests get a bad wrap. Lots of players don’t understand why anyone would “waste” time on a grey quest since they don’t get any XP or likely any item upgrades, but I think that grey quests can still be rewarding. You still get to experience the content and occasionally you can still be challenged (if you’re into that sort of thing). Plus if you’re MMO offers cosmetic slots, like LotRO and EQ2, you can also still get some use out of any quest rewards that you just like the look of.

Sometimes a quest will go grey while languishing in your quest log because you need a group and can’t find one. Sometimes you move to  another area and forget to come back soon enough. Sometimes you find  an area you missed while exploring. This happened to me in LotRO once with Echad Candelleth. I’m not sure if I just missed it since I didn’t spend much time in the Trollshaws beyond traveling to Rivendell and doing the epic quests there, or if Turbine added it to the game after I had out-leveled the area. Regardless, I was exploring the Trollshaws and saw a quest icon on my map which led me to the camp of Echad Candelleth. All of the quests were grey to me, but I decided to pickup them all up and see where they led me. I’m very glad that I did too, because if I hadn’t I wouldn’t have bothered with The White Hart, which starts out pretty generically, but begins a quest chain culminates in the first appearance of Gollum in the game (that I’m aware of).

The epic quests in LotRO are another good example. There is a lot of story told through quest text, in-game cut scenes, and session play (to allow for alternate points-of-view), making it well worth completing at least once, even if you’re 15 levels above the quest level like I was when I finished.

So if you’re the kind of gamer who enjoys lore, story, and experiencing content don’t just skip a quest because it turned grey. You might be missing out.

Skirmishes

Sometimes I have pretty limited time to play LotRO. Before the Mirkwood expansion, I would have picked out a quest or deed on my main character that I could finish quickly, or maybe logged in on an alt. While I’ve always had fun doing that, any traveling required or remembering where I was at with an alt would cut into my already limited playtime. Now I can run a skirmish instead. Skirmishes add another option for secondary activities, just like crafting or going to the Moors for creeps versus freeps.

So last night, when I logged in to see what was going on in the kin, I ended up joining in a small (3-player) fellowship running Skirmishes.  With an hour to play, we were able to complete Ford of Bruinen and Stand at Amon Sûl. When I was done I had a bunch of Marks to use on upgrading my dwarf protector, who had been ignored and neglected during my recent quest to finish Volume 1. Doing skirmishes also meant we didn’t have any logistical issues of meeting up or traveling (even though that’s rarely a problem for a hunter). Just join the fellowship and then insta-travel into the skirmish instance.

Skirmishes still feel fun and fresh to me, which is good since I’ve run through maybe a dozen total, and I have no intention of grinding them. I’ll keep using them for quick play sessions when my time is limited or when I’m waiting for a kin event or raid to start and have some time to kill.

Brynulf, Bearer of Hope

Bearer of Hope

As I mentioned on Twitter last night, I finally completed the Volume One epic quest in Lord of the Rings Online. Council of the Secret Fire members Azzera (loremaster), Kelmric (captain), Phebe (hunter), Telebrethil (warden), and Brynulf (myself,  hunter) joined up with Narmeleth to defeat Mordrambor and Mordirith.

fellowship_1_15_12
left to right: Telebrethil, Brynulf, Phebe, Azzera, and Kelmric

Having Volume 1 completed is a great feeling of accomplishment, very much like when I first hit max level. Incidentally I also hit 65 last night, but the novelty has worn off of that experience since this is the third time I’ve hit max level with Brynulf.  Finishing Volume 1 was fun and rewarding for me, not because of any difficulty involved, but because of the amount of time I had invested. I’ve been chipping away at Volume 1 since the game launched, which also means that I’ve had at least one quest log slot dedicated to a Volume 1 epic quest for the life of my character.

So now it is time for Brynulf to make a victory ride on his new white horse back to Moria and tackle Book 5, Chapter 5 of Volume 2.

brynulf_on_a_white_horse

Looking Forward to 2010

If the release schedules and expectations hold, 2010 will be an interesting year. There are the two huge science-fiction IP’s coming via Star Trek Online and Star Wars: The Old Republic, Blizzard is doing something of a reboot of the Warcraft world, and the DC/SOE juggernaut is expected as well. SWTOR is also interesting since it marks Bioware’s entry into the MMO genre, and I’m very very interested to see how well they are able to bring a focus on story over to a massively multi-player environment.

My biggest concern for 2010 is a repeat of the Warhammer effect on SWTOR.  Warranted or not there seem to be a lot of players who are expecting SWTOR to revolutionize MMOs, kill WoW, and possibly cure cancer. I hope I’m wrong, but I think that most of the gamers disappointed with 2009 will also be disappointed with 2010.

So here are my bullet points for the coming year. (more…)

Looking Back at 2009

I think 2009 was a good year for games, even MMOs. Sure WoW is still on top, Warhammer continues to struggle, there’s not been any revolutionizing innovation in the MMO genre, but I don’t really care about any of that. All of the games I started the year playing (EVE and LoTRO) I still enjoy, and I found a new game (Champions) that I like an expect to be playing through the whole of 2010. (more…)

2009 Q4 – Followup

Back in October I posted my goals for the remainder of the year. The short version was:

  1. Have a Drake in EVE for my main Blue Kae, Gallente Jack-of-all-trades.
  2. Max level hero in Champions.
  3. Finish Volume 1 of the epic quests in LoTRO on my main, Brynulf.

How did I do?

EVE

Blue Kae has the skills and certificates to fly a Drake, but not the money.  He has 4 million ISK in his wallet, and the current market price for a Drake in Sinq Laison starts at 25 million ISK. That’s not counting insurance and fittings. To be honest though, I’d completely forgotten that I’d set this goal until I started this article so I’m happy that my skills are met. I’ve been in skill training only mode for the last few months, although I did do a bit of mining recently.

Champions

This is another goal that I forgot I set for myself. Max level in Champions right now is 40, and my main hero, the Silver Hunter, is at 32. He’d probably actually be 40 by now if I hadn’t started two alts in November: the Ant (level 12) and Deadaim (level 17). Still, I’m not disappointed about missing this goal. I’m still enjoying the game and I’m sure that Silver Hunter will get to 40 soonâ„¢.

LoTRO

So I didn’t hit this goal either (which make me 0 for 3), but I got so close. Volume One has fifteen books in it and I’m on Book Fifteen which has twelve chapters. Want to guess what chapter I’m on? Yup, Chapter Twelve. To be completely honest, though, that’s much farther than I expected to be. I was only on Book Ten at mid-December. I happened to volunteer to help some kinmates out with an instance, which turned out to be part of Book Ten (but past where I was). After that instance, the kin group helped me get up to the same chapter and then we continued on to finish Book 10, then 11, then 12, all the way up to 15. So a big thanks to for all the help to Phebe, Telebrethil, Kelmric, Lylariel, and Daevin. I should actually finish Volume 1 this weekend, we have a kin fellowship planned for tonight so I may get to check this goal off only two days late.

So while I was 0% on my goals for the last three months of the year, I did have a great time gaming. I made more progress in LoTRO than I truly expected, and I’ve joined a great kinship (more on that later).

What’s a Blue Kae Anyway?

Curious about why I use the name Blue Kae as a handle on various games and as the name for this blog?  Wondering if I picked random Scrabble tiles, or there’s some deep dark Dan Brownesque mystery?  Scarybooster has the full story go check it out. [Note, I’ve inserted Scary’s original post here since he lost the original during a horrible blog upgrade accident.]

Yesterday, I had a post about playing a hero in real life and games. I don’t consider this post playing a hero, but it is a way to help a person get noticed. Brian aka Blue Kae is one of the nicest virtual buds I have “met”. I enjoy reading his blog and talk to him over Twitter daily.

I try to do post like this not to draw attention to my blog or force other bloggers to link me, but because I like to get to know my bloggers. I want you to know what I know. For me, blogging is a great social network. This is my Facebook. I enjoy these type of posts the most, because I feel like I am getting to know a friend. I don’t treat my blog as a competition between other bloggers for hits. I won’t ever tell you how many hits I get or how many comments I have, because it doesn’t matter. What matters is if you like what you read. That is why I have stars at the end of each post. I don’t need you to comment, but I do like it when the stars are filled out so I can gauge if you liked the post or not.Anyway, this post is not about me, it is about Blue Kae. He is great guy. Check him out on Twitter or his Blog.

I bought an Xbox 360 two years ago to play Mass Effect. I also got a Zune 80gb about the same time. I knew when I signed up for a Live account that the nickname would be attached to both devices and I had never been happy with the nickname I had on the original Xbox. Mostly because it was so forgettable that even now I can’t remember what it was. I didn’t want any l33t speak or other garbage and I’m not a big fan of names like xx_killa_xx. I think names are very important, especially in online spaces when that’s your first impression of a person. Unfortunately in most MMO’s I pick names based on the background lore and for Xbox Live there is none.

So here’s the criteria I had:

1. nothing stupid
2. nothing too long
3. something that could be shortened easily that I would still like
4. something that I could use in other online spaces beyond Xbox Live and Zune

Of course a lot of the names I tried out on Xbox Live were already taken.

I ended up looking at two word combos as a way to have something easily shortened. My intials are B K and my favorite color is Blue. I also thought Blue would work out good as a shortened version. Kae, I made up. I liked it because it sounds like the letter and I’ve always liked the ae vowel combination (yes I know that’s weird). So I checked online and Blue Kae was free on Xbox and on Gmail.

In September of last year when I was thinking about starting a blog, I couldn’t come up with any clever titles I liked. So instead of something clever like Bio Break or Dubious Quality, I just went with my gamertag and registered Blue Kae

… Treat others as you would like to be treated.

While you’re there be sure to check out my three most favorite Scary posts [links removed since they’re all broken now, see above for why]:

  1. Suck It!
  2. Aion Character Creator
  3. Playing the Hero