That’s right, I’ve officially joined the Starfleet News Service fleet in STO. I wasn’t playing the game very much before this, just messing around really, but ever since I joined it’s like an entirely new game. The fleet chat is flying by on busy nights and still pretty active in the mornings.
This has got me to log in more and kept me logged in. It’s allowed me to get up to Lieutenant Commander rank 6 and also to delve deep into the great parts of the game, of which there are many. Sure there are negatives but they have been covered elsewhere and they aren’t big enough to dampen my enjoyment.
Graphics wise the game is beautiful, even if the bloom can be a little much sometimes (they have a slider to lessen or heighten it in game). The ‘classes’ are each interesting and being able to respec now and try out different ship styles is a blast.
Cryptic has included some really amazing tools to mess around with in here, not the least of which is the ability to talk to friends who are logged into their other game Champions Online. Blue Kae of Blue Kae fame plays both and it’s great to be able to continue talking to him. The bridge customization is lacking but still kind of fun and the ability to “clone” yourself and send it to a friend so they can use it as one of their Bridge Officers.
Well with all this playing you can expect another Let’s Play real soon, schedule permitting.
Disclaimer: While most of the fleet may be bloggers, twitterers and the like anyone is welcome. You do not need to be anything but friendly. Other members of the fleet are: Adventurer Historian, Blue Kae, Tipa, MMOGamerchick, Longasc and many more now that I will add when I remember to copy down their websites, twitter links or just names.
On a side note I’ve taken a page from Caylinn’s (MMOGamerChick) playbook and started watching Star Trek The Original Series. I’ve only ever seen the odd episode of any Star Trek, and two or three movies in passing. I know almost nothing about the Trek universe. Thankfully my wife is a Trek fan and she’s helping guide me through it. Oddly enough she’s not the biggest fan of the game, but the game is finally making me appreciate Star Trek, which is what she has always wanted.
Manifest Pixel 
I know what you mean, I’ve been staying logged in quite a bit more recently as well. Partly just because it’s nice to have a group to chat with during missions, and also since I’ve hit max level in Champions it’s now time to spend a bit more time on my Starfleet career.
You don’t have to understand everything in the Star Trek Universe to be good at the game. Yet the more you do know of the Star Trek Universe via the various series and all the odd things in it the more sense allot of things make in the game to various degrees. It can go both ways.
Too true, although I sometimes feel like I am missing out when someone in the fleet says “Hey! Did you guys to this quest? You see the thing with the whatsits?” And everyone talks about how cool that was, but I have no idea what an Undine is, for example. It’s not critical, but it’s not as “oh wow!” for me yet.
For someone like me who has seen most of the television series, but doesn’t have an eidetic memory, Memory Alpha is a great resource. It’s not quite the same as experiencing the full shows but it’s a great place to go to find out about races and people and what not.
http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Portal:Main
That is an awesome site Blue, thanks.
Yeah, I like the way you can still chat with your friends who are on Champions Online. What’s really cool is you can talk to people on the Tribble server too.
Enjoy TOS, I know I did. The second season had some of my most favorite episodes 🙂
I didn’t know that about the Tribble server, makes it even more enjoyable to try out the test server.
I’m excited about TOS. Sadly YouTube TV watching is total crap, but I’ve found a nice site that gathers all of the TOS episodes and links directl to CBS:
http://tv.blinkx.com/show/star-trek-the-original-series/pXwsr3lO_BqjXerEgxRAqavwxHc#s1e5