An excuse. Don’t believe a word I say.

Well I’m back after E3. By ‘back’ I mean I never left I just wasn’t posting. With the Blogosphere and in general the entire internet spamming E3 news constantly I decided to take a leave of absence until E3 was said and done and I had something else to talk about.

Let’s get to the first piece of news, something from E3…wait…dang. Well here it is anyway:

Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium Online! I don’t want to get too excited but I’ve wanted this since WAY before they announced the Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning MMO. I’ve always thought the 40k universe was one of the more in depth, rich, and deep space settings and I would prefer it (if done well) to Star Wars or Star Trek.

Some people are already complaining that it looks too colorful! These are the same people that complained that the Diablo III trailer looked like unicorn farts. It seems the only way to make a game dark enough for them is to turn off the monitor. I see the art design as a sign of hope. It looks good, and it means that its graphics might age slower than those of, say, Age of Conan. That game is already beginning to show it’s age, and while it still looks good, it is nowhere near the technical marvel it was in the MMO space at the time.

Haters gonna hate!

I finally finished all three seasons of The Original Series the other day! I went right to Netflix to start in on Season 1, Episode 1 of The Next Generation only to find out that it is not available for streaming. In fact none of the Next Generation is available. I couldn’t find it anywhere (legal and in good quality at least) so I’m kind of stuck. I don’t have the money to pay for them all, and my Netflix que is packed and I don’t want to spend the next eight years with my que full of seven seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation. If anyone knows of a place to stream it, throw me a link in the comments or in email.

I did decide to watch all the Star Trek movies involving the original crew. Luckily Netflix had all of those movies for streaming except one. The first one. I skipped it for now and I watched both The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock. Both of them were really enjoyable, and it was great to see Khans return. It really surprised me that they never actually saw each other until the end, at least not in person, but I liked it.

The Search for Spock seemed REALLY out of character, seeing as how Kirk didn’t really believe in a ‘Soul’ and didn’t understand Spocks “mind transfer before death” thing. It seemed like he just went insane and stole a ship with four people (and if Scotty can rig the Enterprise to run with four people in an hour, WTF do the newer ships needs all these people for? More impressive casualty numbers?).

I’ve got more to say on more topics, but I’ll leave those for later blog posts. It feels good to be writing again.

New Rank and the Death Rattle of a Computer

That’s right, Amuntoth is now Commander 2. I only had about an hour to play last night after classes but I managed to get in a really fun mission. It was a raid on a Romulan planet that started with my team infiltrating, taking out some space resistance, transporting to the surface to rescure some Starfleet officers, one of whom you will see at some point on here. We then had to destroy some weapons they were making, then transport back to the ship and join over 15 NPC Starfleet ships against the same number of NPC Romulan ships.

Overall I had a blast with the episode and it reminded me why I am playing Star Trek Online at the moment. I’ve also started playing World of Warcraft again with my wife (probably going to switch between this and LOTRO, which is what we tend to do). I usually have one MMO I’m subbed to with my wife, usually WoW or LOTRO, and then one for myself, which at the moment is STO. You won’t hear much WoW related from me on here, unless it is in relation to another topic, as that is pretty much covered in other blogs and I’d hate to run my readers away.

Sadly though her computer is having some serious issues and may not be around much longer. I’ve done most of what I could and it MAY or MAY NOT be fixed, depending on the whims of whatever spiteful deity that has decided to house itself in our computers and cause all kinds of problems.

In the past three years I have had two different computers ignite in flames, both in different houses with different power cords and different everything. Hopefully that’s not going to happen this time. We’ve done all the usual and it appears it might be here graphics card. I currently have hers in my computer and mine in hers. I’m hoping that it’s just some weird conflict with her other hardware, but I’m pretty doubtful. I expect the dang thing to die any minute now so if you don’t hear from me for a day or two and then I upload a huge rant, that’s probably what it is.

That or the penguins HAVE risen up and started their invasion of human occupied lands. In that case may God have mercy on our souls, and our computers.

This is the only thing I see when I close my eyes…

Some STO Wallpapers

I decided to make myself a wallpaper and ended up making several, so I thought I’d share them with you all. I hope you enjoy!

***EDIT*** Things seem to be fixed. Enjoy your STO Wallpapers :)***EDIT***

Let’s Play Star Trek Online: Captains Log 2

Captains Log, Stardate 87863.07.

My name is Captain Amuntoth of Clan Teklik, Ensign in the Federation. I’ve been ordered to return to Earth Spacedock 1 as quickly as my warp engines can get me there. I’ve just had one quick stop to make on the way.

Ensign Selvok: “Sir, we’re approaching Javus IV Sir.”

“Of course we are Selvok, of course we are. Tell me, how goes the skin grafting?”

Ensign Selvok: “Well Sir, though I’m still not certain that this is within Starfleet regulations…”

“Selvok what did we talk about?”

Ensign Selvok: “That my Vulcan heritage counters my emotions, thus making me a genetic freak in need of purification Captain.”

“Precisely, and that is why we grafted some of my skin onto you, in order to purify your flesh as we are working to purify your mind.”

A Few Good Stories

 

I have been known to post a few stories based on my game characters. It’s really gun and if I keep up on it really makes me enjoy the game more. Not only that but I hope at least a few people out there receive some kind of enjoyment through reading them.

I’ll have the next installment of my Star Trek Online story up soon but I’ve been a little busy. Partly with college classes starting again, partly with playing Star Trek Online, and partly with reading OTHER peoples stories. I thought I’d take the time to include two of my current favorites:

First up we have Captain Nezi over at Warp Core Breach. Adventure Historian, as the writer and Fleetmate calls himself, is a wonderful writer. In the first episode he has crafted so many interesting and compelling characters that I can’t wait to come back for more!

But Star Trek Online, and indeed fantasy MMOs, aren’t the only stories I read. My tastes in almost everything are what you might call…eclectic. This next story is a Sims 2 Legacy done by the ever amazing Yams over at her Livejournal.

The Breckenridge legacy is not her first (her last one ended with the death of her old computer) but it is the current family. It’s still on the first generation but I am loving the characters, especially one named Galen who you can’t help but enjoy.

I’m looking forward to more updates to both of these stories in the coming days and you should be too. Go check them out and you’ll see why I don’t want it to ever stop.

A New Fleet = A New Game

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.

Worried about The Old Republic

I was reading a recent Kotaku article in which Brian Crecente got a hands on with The Old Republic, the new Star Wars MMO coming from Bioware. I have been excited about this game since I heard it announced, like most people I would imagine.

Quest immersion is something Nomadic Gamer has been talking about a lot lately, and it’s something I imagine coming in The Old Republic thanks to Bioware. Now I couldn’t care less about the voice acting because, while it will be nice to hear the NPC’s all speak, I’m going to get frustrated after a while that I can’t just skip it I would imagine, especially if EVERY TIME I have to kill 10 space boars I have a 10 minute conversation before hand. Not to mention the money and time increase it’s going to cost to get new content added into the game JUST because of the voice acting. Give me old fashioned text and make the story epic.

The main  thing I am worried about is the combat. Now I didn’t play it, but from that Kotaku article it sounds almost exactly like a mix between Champions Online and Star Trek Online. From starting with a channel attack to rifle butting enemies to close it just strikes me as a Cryptic game. Now that isn’t necessarily bad, especially since Champions Online’s combat was fun and more abilities would have made it even more fun.

Let’s Play Star Trek Online: Captains Log

Ensigns Log, Stardate 63631.9.

My name is Amuntoth of Clan Teklik and for the last year I have been a Starfleet officer. Things weren’t looking up merely an hour ago, and I’m not sure how I like the current turn of events.

Amuntoth D’Teklik. It’s okay to drool.

As of ten minutes ago I was being escorted to the brig. It turns out Starfleet isn’t very keen on it’s officers recruiting enlisted into what they deem “cult organizations”. Thankfully, maybe, I’m no longer on my way to the brig. You can thank the Borg for that.