There is apparently a lot more to EQ2’s GU55 and Sentinel’s Fate expansion than I expected that is going to affect those of us not at max level.
I’m particularly excited about the Butcherblock Mountains and Kaladim revamps. I hope there’s lots of lovely new quests waiting there for me. Tier 6 Kaladim has been retiered, down to a T4 heroic dungeon. That makes a lot of sense, with it being in the T3 Butcherblock zone. My only concern is that in the process quests might have been removed, beyond the reach of Maltheas for evermore!
A more immediately important change is that stats are being streamlined. Currently priestly damage spells are improved by intelligence. This will be changing to wisdom, which already governs our healing spells. Intelligence will become a bit of a pointless stat for a priest, which is going to mean that we’re going to have to look for a whole new wardrobe! It’ll be a bit of a pain in the short-run, but with one less stat to worry about, once we find new gear it’ll make us much more powerful than before. Maltheas has already started looking about for new equipment.
This is how the good folks from the beta server are describing the stat changes:
Fighters
* Strength (primary) – determines your max power, increases your damage (including spells if you have them), and determines how much you can carry.
* Agility – improves your chance to avoid melee attacks, adds a crit mit bonus.
* Wisdom – improves your resists against spell damage.
Mages
* Intelligence (primary) – determines your max power, and increases your damage, adds a crit mit bonus.
* Wisdom – improves your resists against spell damage.
* Agility – improves your chance to avoid melee attacks.
* Strength – determines how much you can carry.
Priests
* Wisdom (primary) – determines your max power, increases your damage (both spell and melee), and improves your resists against spell damage.
* Intelligence – adds a crit mit bonus.
* Agility – improves your chance to avoid melee attacks.
* Strength – determines how much you can carry.
Scouts
* Agility (primary) – determines your max power, increases your damage (including spells/poison if you have them), and improves your chance to avoid melee attacks (adds a crit mit bonus).
* Wisdom – improves your resists against spell damage.
* Strength – determines how much you can carry.
I’ve just started getting past the point I got to in the Open Beta. Since last I wrote, STO has become a great deal more stable, and less buggy. Just in time, I might add!
 The new Character Selection Screen for STO. This time around, instead of going for a Science Vessel, which are the most heavily shielded, and of middling manoeuvrability, I have gone for an Escort. Escorts are much quicker on their toes, and have most of their weapons facing forward, so are a bit better at putting out damage. I’ve not found them to be overly fragile, as yet. STO’s version of public quests, Fleet Actions, only seem to score you for damage done, so playing an escort seems advantageous for now.
The set missions are well put together. Like Champions though, there are not so many of them that you won’t be doing every single one on your journey to Admiral, which does hamper replayability somewhat. You do have the option of doing exploration missions, but as they seem randomly chosen from a list of premade missions rather than being randomly generated at the time, once you do a few of them you start recognising which one you have just from the first couple of lines of mission text.
The vanishing Bridge Officer issue that I wrote about last week seems to have been finally squashed, and today the Klingons have been given access to a bit of extra higher-level content, which is certainly worthy of a toast of blood wine. So my list of gripes with STO is shrinking. I’m still far from convinced I’ll still be playing when my month runs out, but I am enjoying the time I have, and perhaps the first solid content patch, especially if it contains new features, will sway me.
General
* The Admiral promotion mission will now complete if players choose a fleet escort as their reward. This is not retro-active. If you’re an Admiral with a dangling promotion mission because you chose an escort, please submit a ticket to CS.
* Cardassian “Empire Defense” mission maps are now open to Klingon players.
* K7 station has been decloaked and returned to the sector map. Alleged perpetrators are being interrogated.
* The “Abandon Ship” power is now only available while in combat.
* General server optimization to increase performance.
A good bug-squashing attempt, most notable for the research changes. Until now, I don’t think anyone ever managed to get past the first researcher.
Also, the code left over from Champions Online that was allowing people to choose colours for their weapons has been removed. No more being blown up by fuscia coloured disrupter beam wielding Klingons for me!
Continue reading Star Trek Online ST.0.20100202a.2 patch notes, 4th February 2010
 Maltheas and the Cloak of Pie. I like pie. Pie is good. So is cake. Also pud.
We’ve all received this marvellous cloak (and 250 station cash) today for reaching the silver mark in the ConnecDing promotion. Just a few more thousand Facebook Everquest 2 fans, and we should get the gold reward, which involves a furniture item that allows pillow fights within your home. And whackiness ensued!
The cloak can summon a pie, which I believe is intended for throwing at people. Of course, Maltheas would never do such a thing, as wasting pie is against the teachings of Rodcet Nife. Especially cheese pie, which Maltheas insists is what his cloak depicts.
Just received this in my email, and it makes me rather sad. PotBS appears to be in dire straits.
Ahoy, Pirates of the Burning Sea Captains!
Population density has been the topic of much debate in the community over the last few months. What we’re hearing is that Pirates is an awesome game that you really enjoy playing, but that it’s a lot more fun when there’s a critical mass of other players around to play alongside or against. Through feedback from the players and evaluation of server populations, it has become clear that key game features require higher density in order to function at optimum levels.
To push things in the right direction, we’ve decided to condense the current population onto two servers. On March 5, 2010 at approximately 12:01 AM PST, we will close the following servers: Blackbeard, Defiant, and Rackham. Beginning on February 5, 2010 at approximately 12:01 AM PST, you can transfer your characters from the affected servers onto one of the two remaining servers, Antigua or Roberts. At this time, character creation will be disabled on the Blackbeard, Defiant, and Rackham servers. We hope these changes will provide you with an even more enjoyable Pirates experience.
My server, Roberts, continues its charmed life, having survived several rounds of server-merges.
Pirates of the Burning Sea is a good game which doesn’t deserve this fate. It dared to try something different, and while it made a lot of mistakes along the way, what it came up with was engrossing enough to keep me happy for six months and more. I might have been a bit harsh about it from time to time, but compared with MMO releases since, it was a shining pearl.
If you’ve not sailed the Burning Sea yet, there’s a 14 day trial available here. Folks between games at the moment could do far far worse. If you enjoyed the ship combat of Sid Meier’s Pirates,especially, you’ll find a whole lot to enjoy.
It’s also interesting to compare PotBS to Star Trek Online. Both games have a dual existence, on both land and ship, but PotBS is a game with much more depth, and is much more sandboxy, with RvR that changes the game world, and a complex economical system. There are too few sandbox MMOs out there, and I fear PotBS’s floundering is not going to make developers more inclined to work on one.
Also worth noting, we ex-players are receiving a free month of playtime:
Between February 5, 2010 at 12:01 AM PST and March 5, 2010 at 11:59 PM PST, accounts of former players that were closed between January 22, 2008 and January 15, 2010 will be reactivated for up to twenty-nine (29) days of free play*, which will allow you to transfer your characters to the Roberts or Antigua server and try out new features that we have implemented since you last set sail.
 I be Cap'n Arkenor Oakshadow, and I approve this here message. Yarr.
A lot of folks have been wondering where the playable Klingons and Ferengi were for the Federation side. Well, they’ve just turned up, in time for launch day.
They’re so super-duper awesome that they’re not included in the price of your game. You have to pay extra. Putting an existing Klingon or Ferengi model in a Federation uniform is just such a hard task it couldn’t possibly be included in the 60 dollars, or however much, you paid already.
 Cryptic shows Epic Greed in charging for launch content. I’m disgusted by this. The level of greed Cryptic is showing is extraordinary, and I fear that we are going to be expected to pay over and over again in order to get a fully featured game. If you want any of the other game features that were supposed to be with us at launch, you can expect to pay through the nose for them too. Some people have just laid down 300 dollars for a lifetime subscription to Star Trek Online, and now they must pay further, before the game is even launched, to have full access to everything.
Champions Online just announced that is was going to be charging for a single zone content download, when it had possibly the least amount of content of any MMO at launch in the history of MMO. Recently Cryptic seems to release half-finished games, and then take advantage of any loyal customers willing to stick with it.
Cryptic may be living by The First Rule of Acquisition: Once you have their money, you never give it back.
But they have forgotten the 57th: Good customers are as rare as latinum. Treasure them.
Syp is equally unimpressed though a little less filled with fury.
Brenlo just twittered this without comment. I *think* it must be the player housing for the upcoming city of New Halas in Everquest 2. Not sure why else he’d want to show us an empty room!
 New Halas Player Housing in Everquest 2 I particularly like the window! Also, if there’s an outdoors through the window, there’s potential for using the teleporter trick to get outside and build there too :) Then again, given how often we request gardens for our homes, this new home might come with one already. All in all, a classy looking place to live, and Maltheas may well consider moving if Halas isn’t too far off the beaten track, travel-wise. I hope it comes in various sizes, including something comparable to the Qeynos mansion. I need the space!
It’ll need a good few log fires, and an extra blanket on the bed, that’s for sure!
New Halas won’t be coming out along with Sentinel’s Fate, having been delayed until GU56. A bit of a shame, but hopefully it’ll not be too long a wait.
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