Merrily tripping our way onwards from Star Trek Online Open Beta LiveBlog Bonanza Part 10.
Or you could start at the beginning (It’s a very good place to start) with Part 1!
2:02 pm GMT, Day 10
Last night we finally had the major patch that we’ve been waiting for. Patch notes here. Amongst the highlights, the beta level cap has been removed, and all zones have been opened up for visiting. Today I’m going to go in search of the changes the patch has wrought.
The first thing I notice when logging in is that I now have another character slot to use, a 3rd. This was supposed to unlock when you unlocked Klingon, but had not been doing so until now.
Logging Arkturos Reh in to the Vulcan Sector I am greeted by Leonard Nimoy giving me some backstory to the area. Pretty cool.
Many of the NPCs you speak to have changed in appearance. Admiral Quinn is looking much smarter in his Admiral’s uniform as he offers me some more missions that he did not have for me yesterday, both of which, I note, make a point of saying that Starfleet is not all about combat.
I also have a new contact called “Bridge Officer Requisitions” who gives me two new Bridge Officers. They have green names, so I assume they’re somehow superior to the white names ones you acquire through normal channels. I don’t have room for that at the moment, and I am unwilling to delete any of my current crew, so they’ll have to sit in my candidate section for a bit.
The Patch has changed much.
You can also see in that picture how the general UI has been shifted about, especially the top right area. It’ll take a bit of getting used to, but I think it is an improvement. Many skill and inventory icons have changed for the better.
I’ve popped back to Sol’s Spacedock to see if it has changed. The NPCs are a bit more chatty, and I see them talking about other players. Previously I only saw them speaking about me. They do seem to be having trouble figuring out peoples genders though, calling a passing male human officer “she”. Their uniforms seem to have improved also.
Next, there is somewhere else I must visit. A pilgrimage if you will.
2:43 pm GMT, Day 10
The various NPCs you speak to for travelling between sectors have also been properly dressed and equipped now, and there are much improved loading screens between each zone.
The maps too are far better. The Galaxy map actually tells you where you are, and the Sector map is properly labelled so you no longer have to click on a star or POI to find out what it is. Other players and enemies also appear of the Sector map.
Arriving in the Beta Ursae Sector Block, I find myself on the far western side of it, as if I had entered from the Zeta Andromedae Secotr Block. I should have appeared on the far eastern side of Beta Ursae.
And I’ve arrived!
Ba Ba Ba Baaa, Baaaa Ba Ba Baaa!
Deep Space 9, home to my personal favourite Star Trek Show. It looks more or less right, though I was slightly sad that it didn’t play any themes from the original opening when you entered the zone. Lets make up for that oversight now.
Imagine hearing that as you approached the station. It would be beautiful.
Once on board, I excitedly run about the Promenade, looking for things I recognise. They’ve tried, I think, but the limitations of Cryptic’s engine really show through.
For instance, Quark’s Bar, once I found it, is instanced rather than part of the station. That’s OK, but Quark’s was also on three levels. You might remember the spiral stairways that wound up and down between the levels. they were within the bar itself, and often used for scenes. Unfortunately the engine can’t deal with something like that, so they’ve been removed, and replaced with this: a huge passageway that is the only way between the three levels, winding its way in lonely fashion around the outside of the bar.
Stairs are hard.
I guess that is a small point, but it does demonstrate how poor the engine is when this is the solution to a problem as simple as going up some stairs.
To be fair, they have tried. I suspect the artists just ran up against engine limitations.
Quark's Bar on Deep Space 9
Nobody sits down at Quark’s these days. Maybe business was so bad they has to sell all the decent chairs. Even Morn’s stool has gone :(
The promenade is better done, but like everything in STO, it is as if it they doubled the scale. Jake and Nog would break their necks if they fell from up there!
Deep Space 9 Promenade
Oh well. That’s what I get for expecting things to be like they look in the shows. Let us return to game related things.
4:40 pm GMT, Day 10
One of the new quests Admiral Quinn gave me, “Scientific Mandate”, is to speak to Lt Commabder E’genn at Memory Alpha in the Teneebia Sector in the Alpha Centauri Sector Block. It is only a level 4 mission, so I’d better go sort that out. May well be a part of the tutorial.
Missions in your mission journal now have an expected rank, rather than just a level number, which is a nice touch. As I enter the Alpha Centauri Sector Block for the first time, Spock gives me some backstory on the Romulans.
Beaming down to Memory Alpha, the first person I meet is Lt. Kirayoshi O’Brien, son of Miles and Kaiko. Good to see the O’Briens are still hard at work!
Oops, turns out E’genn is back at Earth’s Spacedock. I was only supposed to talk to him ABOUT Memory Alpha. Oh well. While I’m here I have a look about. It looks like this is the main site for turning the bits and pieces we get from anomalies into upgraded gear. It’s a nice looking place, though like most locations so far it suffers from being too big and empty.
I pop back to Sol to see E’genn, and he gives me some samples to deliver to Memory Alpha! Gah! That’ll teach me to read my missions properly!
I deliver the samples to Commander Jenna Romaine at Memory Alpha. I think until this patch she was standing in the middle of Sol spacedock, as she seems very familiar, and has the same recipes for anomaly-fueled upgrades.
Alpha Centauri Sector Block is otherwise much too advanced for me, so I head back to Sirius Sector Block to sort out the other of the Admiral’s new tutorial missions which involves heading back into the Delta Volanis cluster and doing a few more explorations. I won’t bore you with the details of those unless something has changed.
On arrival in Delta Volanis I am surprised to see a great number of player ships, but no anomalies. Ordinarily most of those ships would be inside exploration missions, but it seems something has been done to the anomaly spawn rate, or perhaps they are just single use now before despawning. Now when an anomaly appears, everybody has to race to it to be the first person to go where no-one has gone before. I manage to get into one after a few minutes, but this aspect of the game has become much more frustrating now. (Update: This is apparently a bug and will be fixed!)
Scanning is vastly improved (unless you enjoy roaming empty space looking for the last objective that you just can’t find.). Now when you use your scanner, it points vaguely in the direction of the nearest objective to you. Like so:
There's something on the long-range scanners Keptin!
As I find out on down on the planet, it works just as well there too. I’m on a forest world, and I’m quite taken by how nicely done this particular planet map is.
When we're done with the Orions, let's have a picnic!
Next I do a space combat exploration. It *might* be luck, or my imagination. These things are very subjective. But I am finding space combat much easier than I did yesterday, and loot seems to be dropping more often. Not sure if that is a good thing in the long run.
7:32 pm GMT, Day 10
As things stand, today’s patch has increased the chances of me playing through my free month. What there is to STO is more polished now. I still suspect that I’ll find the lack of an economy, and the repetitive nature of the missions to be a block to me subscribing further.
Looking through the STO forum, it seems that the perception that the game has been made too easy by the patch is shared by a lot of people. Since the patch I have not needed to use any of my shield boosting powers, rendering them a little pointless. As usual, there are some people who think that the new difficulty setting is much better, but in my experience they are not the sort of people that stay with a game for very long.
Much Later
There has been another patch, hopefully sorting out the anomaly situation in the exploration clusters. Patch notes can be found here.
A bit later than that.
A further patch, this time to rectify the overly easy combat.
As ever, this Liveblog continues in Part 12!
Related posts:
I’m pleased to see someone else who has a thing for DS9 :-) And yes, I’m disappointed to learn that the theme doesn’t play when you’re on approach to the station. I’d settle for having it play just once, the first time you enter the vicinity…
I’m trying to figure out what it is about Cryptic that makes them want such absurdly high ceilings everywhere. Are they claustrophobic or something?
I’m beginning to wonder if Q has secretly shrunk all humanoid life.
Ha! I’d buy that if they actually somehow slipped it into the game! It could be funny (or awful, depending on how it was handled. My suggestion: hire John DeLancie, let him make it up as he goes along, record it, and run with it :-D ).
I actually just twittered them about it, because I’ve really wondered since I first saw screenshots. I’m prepared to accept that this is The Future, even relative to Star Trek, and maybe new ships are being built with lots of headroom because of some change in design aesthetic, or just to show off.
But if they’re going to show us the interiors of familiar ships and stations, they ought to be reasonably proportioned!
I have no proof, but my guess would be something to do with the camera system. Even so, I’d rather some clipping with smaller spaces.
By the way, thanks for the screenshots, it is nice to be able to see some of the updates (like the scanning) while I’m stuck at work.
Hey, no problem! I’m just glad folks read this stuff!
You’re right, that ground map is pretty. It’s the first map I’ve seen so far that approaches the richness of the more mature MMO’s I’ve encountered (mainly WoW, to be honest). It gives me hope! :-)
I’ve really enjoyed these posts, btw.
Also, don’t know if you caught it in the forums, but the thing with the Exploration mission having relatively few items to get and having to pounce on them rapidly is a bug, and they’re working on it:
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?s=ab55438b9b30c140f18517823d4e8039&p=1568523#post1568523
Ahh, thank goodness. I’ve made a note.
I’ve enjoyed making them. It helps enhance my own understanding when I try to go through things a little more methodically than I normally would do.
I think I might do this for every Beta I get into. Folks seem to like ‘em even though it’s probably like watching paint dry half the time. :)
How are you taking the screenshots during scan, etc?
The Printscreen Key.
That saves a picture to your STO screenshots folder. However, it won’t show the UI.
For the UI shots, I open up paint, and CTRL-V to paste from the clipboard there, then strip out everything outside my STO window.
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