style="width: 630px; height: 60px;" alt="Exclusives"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/80735">
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/advanced_combat_tactics">Star
Trek Advanced Combat Tactics
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto"> style="font-style: italic;">For those who want to
really pump up the volume
though, there are many ways to add spice (and extra damage) to the
combat combos. Today we look at some options for adding more punch to
your party both on the ground and up in space.
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/federation/starfleet_training">Star
Trek Online Interactive Class Skills Pages
Whether you're a
freshly
appointed Lieutenant just starting out or an
established Admiral within the fleet, our new interacitve class skill
pages have all the information you'll ever need to make those choices
that best fit your playstyle. -
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/media/images/thetraveler_epidsode1">The
Traveler's Guide -
Episode One
The universe is an
awfully
big place and it would take more than a
human lifetime to see it all. Luckily for you we smuggled none other
than The Traveler onto a Federation ship to bring us weekly virtual
tour of the Star Trek Online universe!
style="width: 630px; height: 60px;" alt="Captain's Log"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/80732">
style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">One
week in and our fearless leaders continue to march into unchartered
territories
(with maps?). Welcome to another edition of the Captain’s
Blog which highlights
our voyages through the universe of Star Trek Online. Within these
columns we
will review what’s hot and what’s got us hot and
bothered. So join us each week
as we review what’s happened and turn an eye toward the
future to see what’s
coming down the line for Star Trek Online.
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/80810/preview">
style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">
All
hail Medeor, THE lieutenant
commander of the USS
Goodrow, escort ship patrolling a sector near you. Yes, I donned the
new rank
which preceded a ton of hemming and hawing over which ship to get.
Ultimately I
went in the direction of damage dealer. In most other MMOGs
I’ve played a support
class, but this time it’s all about tearing people apart and
hopefully the
scientist can keep me healed.
style="">The
Week That Was
The
first official week of STO is
in the books. Beyond the continued joy of people screaming about
pre-order
issues and missing C-Store credits, the community appears to be getting
into
the game and from what I’ve read, enjoying it. I am having a
good time and look
forward to logging in so I can outfit my character, ship and bridge
officers.
For instance we could note here that I am in fact ahead of Dalmarus in
rank and
thus he should be reporting to me, but I wouldn’t do that in
such a public
forum.
style="">What Would You Change?
There
is a
href="http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=102017">lengthy
forum
post in the official forums that
the developers have stickied asking for
short term, medium term and long term changes the community would like
to see.
Many of the usual suspects are there, and the leader seems to be the
desire for
Klingon content. I have not started a Klingon, and if truth be told I
don’t
have any need to start one. The PvP centric gameplay doesn’t
really appeal to
me and I’ve heard that Klingons have small hands (you know
who you are
Klingons). Thus I’ll stick with my pretty boy Starfleet gear
and let all of you
who desire more of a guttural existence to head on over to the other
side. Let
me know how it goes over there Bekk Stubby Digits.
style="">Exploits and Gold Spam
It
took almost a whole week, but
apparently some exploits are making their way out into the interwebs.
Ramming
Speed and Abandon Ship are the two skills in question and those of you
who are
being bad know it, so just stop it (unless you share in the rewards
with me). Last week I was extolling the joy
of playing gold-spam free, but of course it was not to last. The amount
of spam is only a fraction of the issue that it is with other games,
and I can honestly say that it has not diluted my enjoyment of the
game.
style="">Skill Point Conundrums
I
still suffer from analysis
paralysis when it comes to spending skill points and officer points.
Luckily
Dalmarus loaded up an
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/sto/federation/starfleet_training">interactive
guide for skills, but
it’s not the information that stymies me, it’s my
typical end-game future-proofing concerns. I’m always
concerned that a decision
made today will screw me up later. I allay that fear by not spending
points and
thus gimping myself. It’s an ugly cycle and I should seek
therapy, I know.
Luckily the game makes me spend the points before it awards me the next
rank,
thus I had to spend those last 1,900 points to get to Lt. Cmdr.
Speaking
of skill point issues, I’m
assuming that later in the game I will be gimped to a point of
ineffectiveness
if I continue this habit of skill point hording. It can be expected
that the
early game would be easy enough to just muddle my way through without
any skill
bonuses. Later on though, if the combat remains easy enough for
non-optimized
ships and officers to blow through content, the game may be too easy.
Did I
mention that I have yet to spend an officer point?
style="">Pack Rat or Cash Cow?
Now
that we’ve all been out
gathering loot from downed enemies and collecting harvest nodes, our
inventories and fleet banks are probably filled to the brim. Not mine
this time.
Nope, I’m selling everything. Cash is king and I’m
going to be the, well the
king or some close facsimile thereof. I am collecting the materials for
Memory
Alpha, but all of the extra batteries and things that I just
won’t use, are
going right into my wallet.
style="">Communication Breakdown
style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">For
me MMOGs need to be social. I’m a social
creature and I like to chat. For most of my gametime in STO,
I’m struggling to
fill that need. I played Auto Assault and its biggest issue (aside from
people’s concern with the avatar mobility) was the inability
to be in combat
and carry on a conversation. The same issue plagued Hellgate: London
(not a
real MMOG) and Tabula Rasa. With the amount of commands I have to issue
to
shields, guns and bridge officers, there is no way I can have a
meaningful
conversation to set up a strategy prior to a fight. Some people in our
forums
blame this on the attitude of the players, but I think this could
become a real
problem moving forward. The length of fights so far allow for some
communication
between fights and Sector Space makes conversations easy, but battle
chat is
going to be a problem. Am I sounding an alarm unnecessarily or will we
need to
start setting up our Vent servers?
style="width: 630px; height: 60px;" alt="Weekly News"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/80733">
-
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/80412">Scheduled
Maintenance on
February 5th, 2010 -
href="http://startrekonline.com/node/1081">Star Trek
Online Tops PC
Sales Charts in the UK -
href="http://startrekonline.com/node/1007">STO Makes
Guiness World
Record Attempt in London on Feb 14th
border="1" cellpadding="10" cellspacing="2">
style="width: 610px; height: 55px;"
alt="Star Trek Drink of the Week"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/80734">
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/80326">
style="border: 0px solid ; float: right; width: 150px; height: 184px;"
alt="STO - USS Hammer"
src="http://www.tentonhammer.com/image/view/80811">
Tribble style="margin-left: 0.5in;">1 oz. Reynka Vodka style="margin-left: 0.5in;">1 oz. Peach Liqueur style="margin-left: 0.5in;">3 oz. Orange Juice
style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif";">
Mix and serve in a tall glass with ice. If you
drink too many (or was it too few?) you’ll see Tribbles
everwhere.
To read the latest guides, news, and features you can visit our Star Trek Online Game Page.
