TallGuyCalif's Computer Gaming and Entertainment Site

Tag: Star Trek Online

  • Done with Destiny, Back to LOTRO and STO

    Between griefers and trouble finishing a Heroic Strike while wearing a Speaker mask, I’m just done with the frustration of Destiny and the Festival of the Lost. I’m tired of doing pointless quests for a random chance at crap. So I’m taking a vacation from Destiny (in fact, I nearly deleted it out of frustration, but held my temper in check).

    Now I’m going back to explore the last 2 years of content that I’ve missed in LOTRO. I’m also going to catch up in STO, too. And, frankly, I’m looking forward to getting back to significant story lines and (hopefully) fun quests. Sure, neither have combat that compares to Destiny, but they have atmosphere and are fun.

    Destiny, screw off!

  • Star Trek Online for PS4 is pretty good!

    Star Trek Online for PS4 is Star Trek Online. Sure, the controls are different from the PC version, and it’s a little dumbed down, but the basics of the game is still there and it is still fun. It also looks pretty good, so they’re taking good advantage of the PS4’s graphics capabilities. There were a few bugs that I ran into, but none game-breaking, and I can’t link my Arc account for some reason (perhaps because I have a lifetime subscription on the PC version), but the game was entirely playable. If I didn’t have so many hours invested (is that the right word for a game?) in the PC version, I’d play it more in a heartbeat.

    The control scheme is the biggest change from the PC version. In space, it uses the gamepad sticks very intuitively for ship control and camera control. Since the gamepad only has a few buttons, we only get a few powers that we can use, but the L1 button (left bumper for you Xbox folks) can be held down to bring up a radial menu of powers, it tends to work out. R2 (right trigger) fires phasers, while R1 fires torpedoes if they’re bearing on your target. Switching energy profiles is easy with the D-Pad, as is speed control. The ground controls are similar, but it uses “shooter” mode rather than RPG mode (options in the PC version). L2 is Aim Down Sight. Overall the control scheme is simple and works well.

    I’ve been using a gamepad with STO on PC from the beginning, and I have lots of powers mapped by using triggers and bumpers as modifiers for the ABXY buttons on my Xbox 360 controller. On the PC version we’d be at a severe disadvantage if we could only access a few powers, so we’ll have to see how the console version compensates for that.

    The early missions are a bit of a mash-up of the original Borg invasion missions from the early days and the more current Star Fleet Academy stuff, but fairly well done and a nice introduction to the controls and to the game. Loot drops are auto-looted if you get close, which is a nice improvement. I’ve never spent much time in shooter mode on ground missions on the PC, but I see that works pretty well on the PS4.

    It looks like the Temporal Agent start isn’t available on the PS4 version, which is a bit of a shame, given the tie in with the 50th anniversary of Star Trek, but perhaps it will come later.

    I did pick up the free (yesterday) 23rd century costume pack as well as a nifty Andorian Escort ship that was also free. That ship rocks – it’s almost unfair how quickly it stomps enemy ships to the curb. I don’t know if it was a mistake or not, but I’m happy I got it.

    My biggest disappointment is that I can’t link my Arc account to the PS4 version. I get to the Link Accounts screen, press the button, then the screen just reloads each time I press it. I’d sure like to be able to link my lifetime account and thousands of Zen to the PS4 version. I don’t actually want to play my PC characters on the PS4, but I’d sure like the unlocks I’ve earned over the years. If I can’t do that, my play time with the PS4 version may be at an end or at least very minimal, since my best experience with STO is going to be on the PC.

    If you’re an existing STO player, there probably isn’t a compelling reason to play on the console version, but the console version is probably much better for people that are new to Star Trek Online.

  • Fun and Frustration in Star Trek Online

    I’ve been playing a lot of Star Trek Online recently. In fact, I’ve played more in the last couple weeks than I played in the previous couple years. The Risa Summer Festival is what got me back in, because I wanted a nice new ship (and it is a nice Escort class ship), but the recent release of Agents of Yesterday also brought me back in. This is a terrific way for the game to tie into the Star Trek 50th anniversary and to have our characters run around in 23rd century uniforms, including the short skirts for the female characters. It also added voice talent from wonderful Star Trek actor Walter Koenig, as well as Christopher Doohan and Vic Mignogna from Star Trek Continues. They also had some Leonard Nimoy voice acting, presumably from the game’s launch when he played a major role, so Spock was present too.

    So I started a 23rd century character and progressed through the time travel story. It was fun, but the bugs were a little frustrating. Many times, a mission would end, but the next mission wouldn’t start, so I had to search for available missions to continue the story. Since I’ve been playing Star Trek Online since the beta, I know to how to do this, but a newbie that joined casually would be stuck and frustrated, which may lead them to quit the game. These tutorial areas need to flow better to keep people engaged.

    Once my new character finished the timeline missions (i.e., the tutorial), she was unceremoniously dumped into the STO main universe and timeline to do the same old missions all my other Federation characters have done (boring). So then I jumped to a level 50 Vice Admiral to see what other time travel mission are available. I did those missions (in my fancy new ship I got from Risa), and it was kinda neat, including a visit to the JJ Abrams “Kelvin” timeline. But the stories came to an abrupt end with no real payoff, so that was disappointing.

    Another annoying thing is that they’re trying their best to break the gamepad support in the game. Since STO is coming out for consoles, thus requiring gamepad support there, the devs must be experimenting with gamepad support on the PC. Well, they made it so any pull of the left trigger or left bumper along with any other button locks out the joystick controls, so you can’t turn the ship or the camera. This only happens in space mode, not on the ground, but it is annoying. I have found a workaround by unbinding the left trigger and the left bumper, which leaves them free for use in my control scheme mapping. But annoying, nonetheless.

  • Finished Witcher 3 DLC, back to Dragon Age Inquisition

    My poor non-multitasking brain can’t handle playing too many games at once, mostly because I get the controls mixed up, so I tend to try to finish a game, then move on (MMOs excepted). So I just finished the excellent Witcher 3 Blood and Wine DLC, and had to decide on a new game. Finishing the Witcher 3 missions was both good and bad. I loved the game and hated for it to end, but had played it for many, many, many hours. I was in denial for a while, so I backed up to play another ending (I was only able to produce 2 endings to Blood and Wine, so I may have to look if there are more). I found a couple of extra missions that seem to have been unlocked by the ending, but other than that, no more quests. I cleared all the “unknown” spots on the map in Toussant, then went to Velen and did the same. I had maybe 16 on Velen’s map, and cleared all but one bugged bandit camp that just won’t clear. Then I went to Skellige, and found 80 question marks on the map (the map counts them, so I didn’t have to)! And they’re all out in the ocean, so tedious to get to, kill the sirens, grab the loot, become overburdened, and repeat. So I did 4 of them and gave up. Sure, I may come back when all other games disappoint me, but for the moment, I’m done with Witcher 3.

    I recently bought the Dragon Age: Inquisition (DAI) Game of the Year edition on sale for $20. I already owned DAI and one of the DLCs, but buying the 2 remaining DLCs would have also cost $20, so I just bought the GOTY edition, which had a few more goodies. Origin very nicely dropped the 2 new DLCs into my existing game files, rather than making me delete it and download the whole thing, so kudos to the EA Origin team.

    I’ve now started playing DAI’s 2nd DLC, The Descent, and must admit to being a little disappointed. While the surface DAI areas are open-world-ish, this is strictly linear so far, and involves tediously looking for gears to open doors. The combat and banter is still great, but coming from Witcher 3, this feels constraining. I also miss Witcher-Sense – even though there is Inquisitor-Sense, it isn’t quite as good.

    So I’ll work through DAI’s DLCs, but I’m also busy doing Star Trek Online’s summer event activities on Risa, because I want this year’s ship! Of course, I will still occasionally pop into Destiny and The Division when friends are online.

  • Still gaming, just not writing enough

    I’ve been too silent on here for too long. I’ve been playing lots of games, but I haven’t been writing my impressions of them, and oh boy do I have impressions to share. So I’ll try to write more frequently about some of the games I mention here.

    I’ve finally broken Destiny’s hold on me, so I am playing other games. I still check in on Destiny a few times a week, but no longer have the compulsion to play it to the exclusion of all else. I’ve even done some good things, including killing Skolas in the level 35 Prison of Elders (I was helped greatly by two players that were very good and knew what they were doing). I also helped a friend’s husband conquer Hard Mode of both the Crota raid and the Vault of Glass (well, I participated and killed things). So those were good accomplishments.

    My newest addiction is Elder Scrolls Online. I got it on sale for PS4 and I really like it. It isn’t so epic as Lord of the Rings Online, but the combat is great, and the crafting is pretty good, and the story is fine so far. Every chance I get, I pop online and work on one of my three characters.

    Speaking of LOTRO, I still play it a couple hours per week. The story is great, so I want to finish exploring the end game areas. I must admit, however, that I have little hope of getting all 8 of my characters through the end game and level 100. Too much repetition…

    I also bought the Borderlands Handsome Jack collection for PS4. I’d already played Borderlands 2 on PC, so I started with the Pre-Sequel, which I’m enjoying. However, I started a Borderlands 2 character, since some friends are playing that, and I realized that Borderlands 2 is a much better game. The Pre-Sequel seems to be puny in comparison, and I’m near the endgame of it.

    I’ve also been playing a tiny bit of Dragon Age: Inquisition. The problem is, I’m just about to start the end game, and I don’t want the game to end. I’m invested in the story and the characters, and I don’t want to be done with it, just to be able to play a few bolt-on DLCs later. So I’m taking it slower than I probably should.

    Finally, I’ve actually started up Star Trek Online a few times recently, mostly because of the giveaways to build excitement for the new season. I realized that there are game mechanics that are new and I need to learn them. So when I get done with Borderlands or Dragon Age, I’ll take some time and get back into STO. I have a lifetime subscription, so I don’t feel too guilt about stepping away for a year, but it is getting to be time that I should come back.

  • Fretting about what games to play!

    I have an odd problem, though probably not so unusual these days when people have Steam libraries that number in the hundreds of games as well as consoles full of PS+ and Games with Gold “freebies”: I can’t find a game that I want to play.

    I’m still playing Destiny more than is healthy, and I sometimes dip into LOTRO and Star Trek Online, all of which I enjoy, but I feel like I want something different. I don’t think I want another MMORPG, and if I did, I have Guild Wars 2, but never got into it. No, what I really want is a space game.

    Some of this came about because Elite: Dangerous became available on Steam, so that got me thinking about the genre. I love the X games from Egosoft, from X2 through the various incarnations of X3. I bought X: Rebirth some time ago, but just couldn’t get into it. I started it again last week, since many patches and expansions have claimed to have “fixed” and improved the game. As far as I can tell, nope. X: Rebirth’s universe seems at once more crowded, yet more tedious than those of the other X games. Travel is done via space highways, which seems restrictive compared to the time-accelerating travel mechanism in the other games. I presume they want to make the universe more connected and continuous than before, but so far, I have the opposite impression. And since stations are now massive conglomerations of modules, you have to hunt for places to dock rather than just approaching the station and asking to dock. Even after I’ve visited a station, finding the docking areas is still a huge pain. Maybe it gets better when I add more gear to the ship, but so far, the game remains almost unplayable.

    So looking through my enormous Steam library, I saw that I had bought Galaxy on Fire 2 HD when it was on sale some time ago. I also have it on my iPad, but the controls were pretty bad, so I hoped the controls and graphics would be better on my PC. Well sort of, but it is still a tedious and not fun game. It is basically a space dogfighter with little to no aim assist, with a little bit of trading and mining thrown in. In essence, not much fun. And, frankly, that’s what I’m worried Elite: Dangerous will be like. I would hate to spend $60 for a game that is by all  accounts half baked and have it not be much fun either. The reviews are suggesting that I’d like it, but who knows?

    So for a change of pace, I figured I’d try Baldur’s Gate 2 EE that I also bought on sale on Steam. I never played BG2, but I loved Neverwinter Nights, so I figured it would be good. Well, no, I don’t have time to manage the spells and attacks for a whole party through a tedious interface. In Dragon Age Origins, your party members act appropriately for the role you assigned, but in BG2, they seem pretty useless unless you micromanage them. Well, since computers are better at tedious micromanaging than I am, I think the computer should have done more.

    So I will not be continuing with BG2 or GoF2 since they are bad at letting the computer do things it should be doing. I may end up giving X: Rebirth another shot, but I don’t think I can justify $60 for Elite: Dangerous when I could hate it.

    Oh well, Destiny is calling, as always.

  • 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.