TallGuyCalif's Computer Gaming and Entertainment Site

Tag: MMO

  • Star Trek Online: Making a Fat Bajoran on Risa. Adventures of Lt. Cmdr. Fatass

    I decided to experiment with the character editor to make my Bajoran Female character look more like the reality of myself and many other ‘Muricans with a little (or a lot of) extra weight. Unlike all the other avatars I see in their tiny swimsuits on Risa, Lt. Cmdr. FatAss here has as large a belly and legs and torso width as I could make. It makes her more representative of most of us playing the game, I’d suspect, and I couldn’t stop laughing as I flew her around Risa and compared her to all the petite lovelies that everyone else uses. I’m surprised her floater was even able to lift her! That being said, she’s at the limits of the fatness scale of the editor, so she looks stout, but not enormous like the stereotypical fat person we all know or see on TV. Admittedly, it is a game, so we don’t want it to reflect reality too much, but it sure was fun being different from everyone else on Risa!

  • Star Trek Online Graphics Bug: Flying Without a Floater

    Even with yesterday’s patch, my studly Joined Trill Admiral in Star Trek Online is so badass that he can fly in the Risa events without a floater. Or at least he’s pretty good at hiding his floater (the jetpack thing used on Risa). The video below shows it. I think it is the outfit he is wearing, because when he was in his boring old uniform, the floater was visible. But now that he’s trying to relax from his stressful job as an Admiral in Starfleet, he changed into relaxing off-duty robes (and, no, he won’t say if he’s wearing underwear, ladies), and his floater has become a fancy stealth unit.

  • Star Trek Online Swimsuits on Risa

    I’ve been enjoying the Star Trek Online Summer Festival on Risa, working towards the “pearls” needed for both the Risian Corvette and the Risian Cruiser. I’m also busy earning “favors” to get swimsuits for my two female captains. Now that I’ve achieved that (see below), I will look into better jetpacks and even shorts for my one or two male captains that are participating.

    My Bajoran female captain looks pretty good in a swimsuit:

    screenshot_2014-06-10-19-58-28As you can see, the STO devs have done a nice job lovingly modelling her curves and how well her bikini fits. All the pictures here are 1920×1080, so click them to zoom in for a better view. She looks good from the back, too:

    screenshot_2014-06-10-19-58-43

    The only problem with seeing her in a swimsuit is when she’s flying around in the jetpack. In this state, she is viewed from behind and often slightly below, particularly when climbing. I don’t like the angular and exaggerated calves visible in the next picture.

    screenshot_2014-06-10-19-58-07

    I bought a different swimsuit for my Klingon female captain. It looks pretty good on her:

    screenshot_2014-06-10-20-35-50

    Interestingly enough Klingons apparently have a strange-looking ridged spine, perhaps to go along with their brow ridges. It is clearly visible in the picture below (again, click to zoom in).

    screenshot_2014-06-10-20-35-13

    While I admire the attention to detail by the STO devs, I don’t think that spine is very attractive. If I had know about it, I would have considered a swimsuit that has more of a back on it to hide the ridges. But you may like it, and now you are aware of it.

     

     

     

     

  • Sexism in the Star Trek Online Graphics Engine?

    I really like the relatively recent update to the initial character screen in Star Trek Online. It shows your heroic Captain as well as the 4 main Bridge Officers (BOffs) with your majestic starship up above. I recently broke my long tradition of only playing male characters in MMOs by creating a Klingon female Captain (I also created a Fed one even more recently). That’s when I started noticing that when my female Captain was drawn in the character screen, her boobs would come in first, then her outfit top, as shown below:

    Klingon boobs

    Notice that her BOffs’ boobs are also there before their clothing is. Then I noticed that my other Klingon Captain has an Orion BOff, and her boobs showed up before the top:

    Orion boobs

    Finally, I saw that some of my Federation BOffs showed up with teeny little panties (not part of their uniform, as far as I know) before their skirts popped in:

    fed panties

    Now this isn’t horrible or anything, but it doesn’t seem to happen with the men. They don’t show up chest first, then uniform, nor in boxers or briefs (at least as far as I’ve seen in my not-very-extensive study). A movie of the character screen that these stills were taken from is below so you can see how it all works:

    I’m not offended by this, but it also isn’t they way I need to think about my BOffs and Captains – I’m not James T. Kirk, for God’s sake! If I wanted to play a sexy game, I’m sure I could, but I find the starships sexy in Star Trek Online, so I don’t need to see my crew in their undies. I also wonder if some of this isn’t intentional. It sure looks like that. There’s no real call for teeny panties, since there’s no viewpoint where anyone could look up my BOff’s skirt. So I’d prefer it if the graphics engine treated men and women the same and didn’t draw boobs and panties, but instead only rendered parts that were fully ready.

     

     

  • We are not the chosen one! Why I like the narrative of #LOTRO and #STO

    Ars Technica has a very interesting commentary on The Elder Scrolls Online, an upcoming MMO set in the Elder Scrolls universe, like Oblivion and Skyrim. One of the points I found most interesting was that the game uses the old “you are the chosen one” story line, which is a little odd, given that there are thousands of said chosen ones playing an MMO. (Paraphrasing from the article)

    This is one of the reasons I like the Lord of the Rings Online so much. I am not the chosen one in LOTRO. Frodo is the Ringbearer, and Aragorn is the King, and I’m just helping out. Same with Star Trek Online: There are thousands of us Captains, and we’re helping the Federation, or the Klingon Empire, or the Romulan Republic (funny how my spellchecker knows “Klingon” but doesn’t know “Romulan” – must be weak Star Trek fans making the word lists), but we won’t rule them or otherwise change the leadership, for example.

    I don’t mind being the chosen one in single player games, so I enjoyed Skyrim, Oblivion, and Morrowind, but in an MMO, it does seem a bit much. We are not the chosen ones, dammit, so make games where cooperation and heroism can work together!

  • Two #LOTRO Videos: Mounted Minstrel and Michel Delving Horse Race

    I took two videos in LOTRO recently and thought I would share them.

    The first is very short. I was experimenting with NVidia’s ShadowPlay in LOTRO and happened to turn it on just as a not very bright mounted orc started attacking me. I’m posting this to show how dangerous a mounted Minstrel can be. I was able to take the enemy down in seconds even from a full stop, though he was higher level than my Mini. I’m really liking the Minstrel class for combination of damage and healing, though when I managed to get a bunch of enemies attacking at once, he died. However, he was able to take down the Craban Master Warband near Garsfeld solo, even though it’s a small fellowship one.

    The other video is the horse race near Michel Delving. This run got my Hunter enough Fall Festival Tokens that he could buy the Spooky Caparison of the Bat to decorate his War Steed.

     

  • Thirst for Power LOTRO kinship website removed

    I’ve taken down the Thirst for Power website for lack of use. All it seemed to get were spam posts advertising fake designer bags.

    Since the kinship is similarly a ghost town, I don’t think anyone but me will miss it.

  • My fourth character through Great River discovers new quest line in #LOTRO

    What the heck?!? My Lore Master, who is a completionist and has done pretty much every solo and most small fellowship quests in LOTRO, didn’t see it. My Hunter and Warden also went through Great River, but were rushing to Rohan and didn’t do all the quests, so they didn’t see it either.

    Last night, after my wimpy Minstrel became Friend of the Eagles (if you’ve done the quests, you know what I mean), he was given a letter that recalled him to Stangard to start a whole quest line, involving Sithric, treason in the Eorlsmead Tower, and more. I was utterly shocked that I’d never seen this quest before, but I was wondering what that tower was there for. Admittedly, my Lore Master ran through Great River right when it came out, so perhaps the quest line wasn’t in place yet, but I was floored!

    Of course, it was given to me at the secret place where the eagles were based, which apparently everyone must know about, because I was sent there originally by a guy at the camp north of the Cuthstan, then a guard from Stangard came to deliver a letter while I was in the cave rescuing an eagle. So that’s a little silly – the secret is out…

    This new (to me) quest line is good – I enjoyed it and I especially enjoyed putting Sithric in his place. I am at a loss about the tower, though. I showed there was treason there, so I expected to be sent by Stanric to clear it out or at least set them straight, but nothing of the sort happened. Maybe I missed that too?

    Finally, a question: My Minstrel seems pretty wimpy for level 74. His Will is good, and Fate is OK, but his morale is only about 4,000. That’s even less than my Lore Master was at that level by quite a bit. Before I go off deeding to get Vitality traits, I wonder what a level 74 Mini’s morale should be? Please either tweet to me or use the contact page (you don’t need to put in a real email address).

  • The slow, sad death of a LOTRO kinship

    My LOTRO kinship, Thirst for Power, has had a long, interesting lifespan with serious ups and downs, and is now down for the count. I am the only regular player that has been on for weeks. Sure there are one or two others that leave alts in the kinship, but no playtime logged except for me.

    I was recruited into T4P when my Lore-Master was still hanging around Combe and Staddle by a very nice guy who helped me a lot, but declared he had an addition to the game and quit cold turkey, never to be seen again. I met a number of friends in the kinship and we played together for years. Some were a little flaky and jumped out of the kinship, then back in, the back out, etc. A core group of us played through thick and thin, building our characters as we went. Then there was a mass exodus fromT4P to another kinship whose name I forget. Almost all of us went, because it was a big, happening kinship with a charismatic, fun leader and a diverse set of players.

    Meanwhile, the old T4P leader had been offline for so long that the game offered leadership to one of my buddies who left one alt in T4P. I put an alt there, so I was 2nd in command. And then our new kinship’s leader decided he was bored of the game and disbanded the kinship. So it was lucky that we could fall back to T4P. We rebuilt T4P with most of the old members and many new ones and had great times in Dunland and the end game instances around Isengard.

    Then came Great River. We all raced through Great River and started doing the Limlight Gorge stuff, when many of our top-level members decided it got boring and simply stopped logging in. We survived with just a few members until Rohan came along and added great new content, but the damage was done. With just a few of us, we weren’t able to get groups together to do the end-game instances. Finally, my last friend in the kinship decided she needed a more active place and jumped to the kinship of one of the other ones that was in T4P when I first joined and was with us for a long time, but eventually left to join a raiding kinship. I have recruited a few people into the kinship, but they see how dead it is and either stop logging in or just leave.

    T4P has maxed out lifespan and a nice kin house, so I will likely keep it with some lowbie alt running it, but I may look into joining active kinships for my characters when they get near 85. My LM, who is 85, would be a good choice, but nobody wants a lousy LM in the end game instances and raids. I’m working on getting my Hunter, Warden, and Minstrel to 85, because at least they will be needed by others. In the meanwhile, T4P is a member of an alliance, so I can help others and join groups fairly easily.

    But it is a shame to see Thirst for Power fade away.

  • LOTRO: Snowbourne Mounted Daily

    Today’s mounted daily mission video (and this is the last for a while, so you can relax and stop being bored by me) is the one given at Snowbourne, a large city in the south west of the playable area of Eastern Rohan. This is my favorite of the mounted missions because we need to kill more enemies (16 vs. 6 or 10 in the others) and the enemies are a little wimpier, so I can often kill them in one shot, which makes a wimpy Lore Master feel kinda studly. The video is less than 3 minutes.