My Star Trek Online Wishlist

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One of the best MMORPGs on the market right now, in my opinion is Cryptic’s “Star Trek Online“. Not because of the IP, but because it’s a really well-developed game! Sure, the name “Star Trek” is what first attracted me, but it’s the game play that has kept me subscribed for the last year.

After all, a good IP does not guarantee a good game. Take Star Wars Galaxies for instance, or Star Trek Armada. Both had great IP’s and majorly suckage games.

So, what makes STO stand out from the rest? Well, to begin with the game is always improving. The developers care enough about this title, to go to great lengths to keep it from getting stale. Things are always being added, or improved. In fact, STO has only been out slightly over a year, and already the game has seen more advancement and improvements than any other MMORPG I have played. They have remastered older episodes to add cut-scenes and voice overs, and to make the missions more involving and epic.

Not to mention the foundry which allows you to create and share your own star trek missions with the game community. This means there is a constant stream of new content being added daily, from some very creative minds.

Is the game perfect? No, of course not, but it’s well on its way to getting there! Here are a few things that could be added that would increase my enjoyment of the game.

1) More factions: Currently you can play Federation and Klingon, but I would love to see some other playable factions. The Romulans, Cardassians or even the borg.

2) More visitable iconic planets: Currently you can beam down to a handful of iconic star trek planets. Like Andoria, Vulcan and Risa just to name a few, but I would love more! Ferenginar or Earth for starters! Sorry, I don’t count Earth Space Dock as earth.

3) UGC Slots: Some more slots for making UGC in the game would be nice. It would be a shame if people started deleting some of the great missions available, so they can make new ones.

4) Non-STF mission versions: This probably seems really stupid to people, but one thing I would like to see is versions of the end game missions that don’t require STF. Maybe have the Non-STF versions not give rewards or drops, but there just for the story. Fact of the matter is, I play games for the stories and in an STF(Raid) people tend to rush, which means others who might not have experienced it, miss out on some kick ass storylines. If they had a non-STF version with no rewards, people could play through it for the story, and then play the STF version for the epic lewtz while everyone is rushing around like mad-men.

5) More Q!: Come on, who doesn’t love Q? How about some Q love?? Give us some Q missions, or a Feature Episode series starring Q.

6) Favorite Authors: Since the arrival of the Foundry, the STO community has been blessed with some great missions and authors. Some authors create incredible Feature Episode style missions as well. So, it would be nice if there was a way to tag an author as a favorite, so that you can be notified when your favorite content creators publish a new story for your gaming enjoyment.

Anyway, those are just a few of what I would like to see.

Pirates of the Burning Sea

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Recently there has been a whole slew of Pay-to-play MMORPGs turning to the Free-to-play market, One of the more recent titles to adopt this change is an MMORPG called Pirates of the Burning Sea. Since this game turned Free-to-Play, naturally I downloaded it and checked it out.

Right from the get-go, it’s obvious how much work was put into this game, the visuals are stunning and the audio is perfect. The basic controls of the game leave much to be desired however, and the writing is very poor.

All in all, the game just didn’t appeal to me on any basic level. I didn’t feel sucked into my role as pirate captain, and the story arcs all seemed boring and repetitive.

I am not saying the game’s horrible, just that it didn’t work for me. Perhaps it’s due to the fact that I am not, nor have I ever been a huge fan of traditional pirate tales. The only pirate movies I have ever seen are the Sinbad movies, Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy and a few pippy longstocking flicks, and I seriously doubt any of those count as real pirate movies.

As you can tell, most of my pirate knowledge comes from Fantasy type pirate tales, whereas PotBS deals with traditional historic pirates. You won’t find yourself battling skeleton crews or krakens, but what you will find yourself fighting is captains of other ships. Over and over and over again. If you love pirate tales, this might be for you, but it certainly wasn’t for me.

DCUO Beta Play

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So, you applied for Beta for DC Universe Online, and haven’t heard anything yet? You might have, and just missed it! Be sure and check your spam folder, especially if you use Gmail as your mail address. The reason I suggest this, is because this happened to me. I had received Beta information awhile ago, but was unaware of it, because the Gmail filter labeled the letter spam and tossed it in the spam folder. If I hadn’t been going through the spam folder to clear it out, I would never have noticed it.

However, I did notice it and have since begun downloading the PS3 Beta of DCUO. Which I will tell you is a HUGE download! We’re talking 15 gigs here, and about a 5 hour download. So, unless you have five hours to kill, I suggest getting the download started before going to bed, so it will be all ready for you when you wake up, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Anyway, as I said, I began downloading the game, and have since been playing it, and to be honest, I am just not that impressed. Actually, that’s an understatement. I hate it! I would rather play City of Heroes with an ice pick shoved in my head, that subscribe to DCUO.

The game sucks! At least for me, chances are most gamers will enjoy the game! It plays very much like the ultra-popular Everquest game series, and that did alright for its self! For me though, it just lacks too much to hold my interest. Like all SOE MMORPGs, it’s basically a grindfest. Which appeals to a lot of people, but just not to me! If I am going to play a game, MMORPG or not, I want to encounter a fantastic story, an epic tale. I want to feel like I am a part of something major, and that’s just not what DCUO does for me.

Like I said though, most gamers will probably enjoy the game, and I encourage you all to try and get beta access. However, keep in mind, that like all beta games, this isn’t the finished product. You will encounter bugs, you will freeze up a lot. I froze every 15 to 20 mins. You will have trouble reading the text. You will get frustrated with the game. However, that’s what beta is for! It will all be fixed by release date, and most likely before.

In the end, I think I can safely say I won’t be playing the game when it’s released. In fact, I have already canceled my pre-order from Amazon. I think I will just stick to Champions Online. However I wish SOE and DCUO all the best and good luck. I hope they do well, and who knows, after a while I might decide to give it another go in the future. Lord knows I have a habit of restarting subscriptions to SOE games. I can’t tell you how many times I have resubscribed to EverQuest, EverQuest II or Star Wars: Galaxies.