TallGuyCalif's Computer Gaming and Entertainment Site

Tag: MMO

  • Currencies and Store Integration in Star Trek Online

    Having been a Star Trek Online player since the beginning, I’ve seen the evolution of currencies and stores in the game. Initially, there were energy credits that were used to buy things in in-game stores, like weapons and gear for your characters. There were also Cryptic points, which were bought with real money to buy goodies, like ships and things. There were also other special purpose currencies, like ship tokens that you got when you earned a new ship through leveling up, and medals for PvP stuff that I had no familiarity with because the PvP mostly sucked.

    Now, the developers have somewhat simplified currencies and stores, though they’ve added some. There are still energy credits, earned for missions, and they can be used in the Exchange (like the Auction House in LOTRO) where players buy and sell excess gear, as well as for most stores in the game for weapons and gear. The medals and such have now been replaced by dilithium, which is earned by doing daily missions, PvP, and in other ways that I don’t know about yet. Dilithium Stores tend to have higher quality gear that can only be bought with dilithium. There are also some Ferengi crystals that show up from time to time. These are fairly rare, but allow the purchase of nifty and rare items, though I don’t yet have enough crystals to buy anything, so I haven’t done so.

    The most impressive thing is the seamless integration of Cryptic Points into the stores in the game, particularly the clothing and new ship stores. Now, when you want to equip your Bridge Officers or yourself with a new outfit, the store shows lots of items that are only available if you pay with Cryptic Points, the real-money currency. Same with ships: if you want a niftier ship, you can get one if you pay with Cryptic Points (you still can’t go above your level range, though). Very nicely done and a clever way to exploit (and I mean that in a good way) the Free-to-Play model that Star Trek Online has adopted.

    Overall, the currency and store integration in Star Trek Online is well done and should serve as a model for other games in the future.

  • Star Trek Online, LOTRO, Saints Row 3, and Infamous – lots of gaming, little time

    I finished the main plot of Saints Row: the Third last week (as noted here), and even did the other version of the ending (which killed Shaundi, yet I still seem to be able to call her up when I need Homie support, so it’s all good). Therefore, what am I still doing playing the game?

    Well, the game is so fun that I am enjoying collecting all the collectibles, wiping out rival gangs, doing all the side missions, etc. I did some of those things, especially the collectibles, solo, but the others are best with a friend. I had a great time doing co-op missions with friends, and will keep the game handy so I can continue to do so!

    I also played a bit of Star Trek Online and am enjoying it. The early missions are mostly unchanged from what I did more than a year ago, but the game is generally more polished. There is a new Duty Officer system, which adds complexity, but may provide some bonuses, though I haven’t quite figured it out. The crafting is still pretty bad, though is better than it was at game launch. The biggest issue is lack of clear explanations of where to get blueprints. I presume some are for sale from the vendors on Memory Alpha, but in the tutorials, everything is given to you, so it doesn’t exactly make it obvious.

    I also played a bit of LOTRO and was very pleased to find some of my kinship-mates online. I did some missions with my level 40s Minstrel and my 75 Lore Master. LOTRO is a very comfortable game to play, though playing with my Minstrel in the North Downs reminded me of the slow and annoying travel system in many areas (though it is better in the new areas). There must be a fine line for the developers: they want us to spend as much time in-game as possible, yet don’t want to piss us off so we quit.

    I also spent a short time in Skyrim, gathering the Crown of Barenziah and killing a dragon or two.

    Finally, I spent some time playing Infamous on the PS3. I like the game mechanics and am very intrigued with the story, but aiming stinks (at least for me) and the penalty for dying is pretty high. I will likely continue to play the game occasionally, so I can figure out the story line.

  • Star Trek Online Videos

    I’m enjoying Star Trek Online so much that I made a couple of videos. I bought the Constitution class cruiser upgrade, so I wanted to show it off, too.

    The first clip is sector space leaving Sol and heading to the Delta Volanis cluster.

    The second, much longer, clip shows one of the random encounters that occur in clusters. In this case, I got to fight some Orion pirates. You can see that the cruiser is not very maneuverable, but gets the job done. You can also see me pick up some of the “anomaly” crafting materials, including the frequency matching minigame.

    If driving starships around and blowing stuff up sounds like fun to you, try Star Trek Online.

  • Impressed by Star Trek Online improvements, but new bug annoys

    I played a bit of Star Trek Online yesterday and an mostly impressed with the improvements since I last played more than a year ago. Since STO is now free to play, there is no reason not to try it if you are a Star Trek fan. It looks like the strategy may be working, because space seemed more crowded than I remember it.

    The interface has been cleaned up a bit and made more shiny. The mission log is nicer than I’ve seen in other games, MMO or otherwise, so that’s an improvement. There are a few things that I’m sure used to work and don’t seem to now: dragging items into your bridge officers’ inventory doesn’t seem to work well, but I will keep experimenting. It certainly isn’t completely intuitive and obvious.

    For those not familiar with STO, bridge officers (BOFFs) are your helpers that you can train and upgrade. They provide abilities both on your starship and in ground combat and are generally a good thing. You earn BOFFs through some missions and as you level, so in the end, you can have a significant cadre of helpers. Most ships only have a few BOFF slots, so you can use skills from 3 or 4 of them on the ship. You can also take 4 BOFFs with you on away missions, so pick ones that can heal you or provide buffs or combat abilities. Because you can eventually have lots of BOFFs, it is possible to have a completely different group in the ship’s stations from the ones you bring along for away missions. This lets you allocate skill points among more of them so you can promote them as you rise in rank.

    Then you get a BOFF, you can customize the appearance. Well, at least you could a year ago. Now that mechanic is broken, so when I got a new BOFF, it showed the appearance of the last BOFF I got (or in some cases, my first one). That is a nasty bug that is unfortunate, since changes in MMOs are permanent – you can’t just reload a save file if the game has a problem. I hope they fix that bug soon, or else many teenage players will not be able to give their BOFFs huge boobs and skimpy outfits.

    Because the game is free to play, the money grubbing is more apparent than ever. There are now several forms of currency: Energy credits, which you earn in game; Dilithium, which you apparently also earn in game and is new since I last played, so I don’t know what it is for yet; and Cryptic Points, which you buy with real money and is the way to get cool ships and such.

    I have managed to recover most of the XBox 360 controller settings for the space missions, but am still working on the ground ones, so I’m a bit hampered there.

    Overall, the game has continued to get better since the beta version and is now a pretty polished thing. I’m disappointed by the BOFF customization bug and not sure how the developers haven’t caught it, but I’m sure it will be fixed sometime. So try STO – you’ll probably like it!

  • Finished main quest in Skyrim – Time to Move On

    Gaming has been odd for me lately. Many of the people in my kinship in LOTRO have dropped out of playing, as grinding for gear at level 75 gets old really fast. I have been on LOTRO a few times in the last couple weeks working on my lower level characters primarily, but my heart isn’t in it.

    Meanwhile, I’ve been enjoying Skyrim a lot. Mostly… There is a huge amount of content in Skyrim, some of it dynamically generated, so I could go on playing for ages, but it gets a little tedious. So I finished up the Skyrim main quest line over the last couple days. I’m already the leader of the Companions, the Mage school, and the Dark Brotherhood. I saved the Thieves Guild and fixed up the Bard guild. I haven’t chosen a side in the war yet, mostly because both sides are scumbags, so neither appeals to me in any way.

    So I’m going to step away from Skyrim for a while. I see there is a new update (1.6) that will allow mounted combat, which sounds kinda cool, but is only beta for PC, so I’ll wait until it is final. I also had the thought of trying a speed run through Skyrim to see how how low a level I could be to complete the game. I imagine it could be done at level 20, but am not sure. Could be fun to try. But not just yet. And, of course, when Dawnguard comes out, I’m sure I’ll have to send even more money to Bethesda (via Steam) to check it out, though I don’t really have any desire to be a vampire.

    I think next, I will try to finish Uncharted 3, then maybe move on to either Saints Row 3 or Final Fantasy XIII-2, all on the PS3. And I also think I will get back into Star Trek Online. I haven’t jumped back into STO because I lost my gamepad setup file when I rebuilt my PC (oops, forgot to back it up, because it was buried in the Program Files folder of STO), and I have been reluctant to spend the time to figure it out again.

    I will keep LOTRO on the back burner for now. I may end up buying the next expansion dealing with the Riders of Rohan, but not until release date nears.

  • Are Fantasy Game Developers all Conservative?

    I’ve played many of the most popular fantasy/RPG games and I’ve noticed a very common theme: the past was always better than the present. So does that mean all the game developers are conservative? I don’t mean political conservative, which I’m sure most aren’t, but believing the past was better and it’s too bad it changed and got worse kind of conservative.

    In so many games, the past was “more powerful” and otherwise better than now, so the protagonist has to run around lots of ruins and find powerful ancient artifacts and secrets to fight the current evil. In Dragon Age, the Wardens were powerful in the past and rode flying mounts. In Elder Scrolls (Skyrim, Oblivion, etc.), the Dwemer had amazing technology and the heroes of the past had amazing powers. In the Lord of the Rings, Men and Elves of the past were greater and could make rings of power, an art long since lost. Even in the Harry Potter universe, the witches and wizards of the past could make artifacts well beyond what could be made today. There are many more examples, but I don’t want to bore the reader. Think about the games you’ve played – if they were set in a fantasy world, wasn’t the past better and now the ruins of the past hold the secrets that will solve the current problems?

    Sure, there has to be some sort of goal in the game, and it is easy to come up with some powerful artifact from the past that will solve the problem. But that doesn’t reflect real life, so why would it be appropriate in a fantasy world? In real life, technology advancements make things better than the old ways, so how about a game where the player has to invent new powers or abilities based on old abilities? Sure it could all be scripted out and such, but wouldn’t it be better for the protagonist to come up with something new that nobody had ever seen rather than “oh, you’re a Dragonborn. Go talk to those guys and they’ll train you up…”?

    So, game developers, the past is typically NOT better than the future, so quit pining for the old days and make games that properly look to a brighter future (as appropriate to the period setting of the game). Then we will all be shocked and surprised about an original plot!

  • My new favorite website name: Kill Ten Rats

    I ran across a website about MMORPGs called Kill Ten Rats, which I think is an hysterically great name.

    For those that don’t play MMORPGs (or RPGs in general), very often the early quests involve killing many rats or similar wimpy creatures, which is why the name is so appropriate.

    The site seems to mainly focus on Guild Wars, a great game that I used to love to play, and the upcoming Guild Wars 2. But based on the name alone, check it out!

  • LOTRO Forges of Isengard solo instance

    This is a long video of a mission to clear Saruman’s minions in the Forges of Isengard. This is a solo instance that is not too difficult, but has some tough baddies and lots of loot, particularly reputation items and some legendary items. I nearly bit off more that I could chew at the start, because I pulled 4 enemies, but survived and breezed through the rest.

  • LOTRO Tour Part 7: Bree

    This is a tour through Bree, starting at the west gate, then showing the Prancing Pony, the crafting hall, the town hall, jail, auction house, hunting lodge, and finally ending at the skirmish camp beyond the south gate.

     

  • LOTRO Lore Master Menagerie

    Lore Masters in Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings Online can summon many companions from nature to help fight or even just as decoration. The gallery below shows most of my pets, though I can’t show one without serious re-traiting, so it is omitted.

    My favorites are the Snow Crest Eagle, because Eagles can revive you if you die in battle (by sacrificing themselves), and Slynxy the lynx, which has an awesome stealth attack that can kill some weaker enemies in one shot. BigGrowly is also a good tank and can grab aggro away from the poor squishy Lore Master… DuskyKitty can deal damage, sometimes against groups, so he’s a good choice in some situations.