We have been waiting for the new Featured Episode arc for a year. The fleet — Federation News Service, supplier of embedded journalists to Starfleet — was logging in more and more, getting ready to do whatever would be asked of us. Fleet mates were watching the relevant Deep Space 9 episodes. We were totally there.

We even specified uniforms of the day (four variations) so we’d be dressed appropriately. Because while the poor, doomed residents of Deep Space 9 didn’t know what was going to happen — we did.

I shouldn’t say that. I think the current Deep Space 9 commander knew, because he got out alive, leaving his XO to die. But we’ll get to that.

We gathered outside Deep Space 9 — I, Talyn, Azz, Galo, and Kermoon. Well, I shouldn’t say “together”, since we were in three of the many instances outside DS9. And we weren’t ready to start, even though we all had “Start Second Wave” buttons, because you get those whenever anyone has gotten the quest. One of us had gone to the Episodes screen and gotten it, we all had the button, but only one of us was going to get the end rewards. ANYWAY. We all entered the mission — and found ourselves on Deep Space 9.

Well, most of us. Talyn got his own instance.

We were called up to Operations, where the station XO greeted us and apologized for the commander being away, making preparations for the quadrant-wide conference on the Borg invasion. Perhaps if we could go find the delegates and tell them there was some delay…

I was reading (this is sort of parenthetical) recently that Star Trek was a futuristic depiction not of our society, but of Victorian society — tall ships, a love of old books, a complete absence of social technologies — a future where our present had never happened. Not surprising, since the tall ships of the Horatio Hornblower Sail Age stories were an explicit inspiration for Star Trek.

Anyway, the point I’m making here is, why can’t they just use their comm badges to inform everyone of the delay? Or send an ensign? I’m a VICE ADMIRAL. I should be ATTENDING this conference. Which eventually does happen. I’m foreshadowing again.

Well, we could have just chatted with the delegates and continued on the quest, but each delegate also had a task to perform. The Cardassian ambassador wanted some Bajor slave wine from the occupation. The Deferan ambassador wanted to get his freak on in a holosuite. The Andorian ambassador wanted some ship repairs (completed as Duty Officer missions) if you were a Federation captain. If you were a KDF captain, the Klingon ambassador (a Gorn) wants your crew to help with some espionage (again as Duty Officer missions). Many of those missions have sub-missions. Basically, you run around and complete meaningless tasks.

I’m really not sure what the point of those was. With a full group running around, it was hard to keep track of who was doing what to which quest. This portion was clearly better for one or two people — Bryn and I did it over as a duo and it worked well.

Anyway, mini quests done and delegates notified, we took the turbolift to the conference room and took a seat at the table.

The conference started immediately. The Klingon ambassador (who was a Gorn) trumpeted that that Klingon empire was strong and would never accept defeat (the Gorn, remember, are a conquered race. Talk about your textbook Stockholm Syndrome). The Deferans proposed to do nothing and let everyone else help them because that has worked so well with the Breen and the Borg. The Cardassians aren’t big fans of anyone else. The Federation ambassador promises to keep the entire quadrant safe, eventually. They’re really working hard. A solution is just around the corner. Your words may be assimilated by then but help is on the way.

This discussion isn’t going anywhere. The station commander asks for our input. If your diplomacy skill is high enough, you get the decisive arguments and can select them. Otherwise you have to drill down into a conversation tree. Your arguments are either persuasive or miss the mark. I think you get an accolade if you sway all of them to your side.

That’s when the wormhole opens and a Dominion fleet streams through. They quickly strike through DS9′s defenses and beam Jem’Hadar troops into the promenade. The delegates must be brought to safety, by us!

The turbolift drops us onto a promenade in ruins. Jem’Hadar troops are everywhere. Tactical officers can take a gun from a fallen security officer and give it to the Gorn. Engineering officers can unjam a bulkhead and free a security officer. Science officers can heal a security officer. Doing all three gets you an accolade. It’s a running fight down to the ship docks, and we needed both energy and melee weapons to take the Jem’Hadar down. Several Cardassian Lock Boxes dropped, and quite a lot of Ketracel White.

I, as a fabrication engineer, was a little depowered because I could not make most of my devices, like turrets and stuff. Fab engineers are not allowed to make their devices on DS9 because they are considered spammy. Fine, but I felt underpowered on our trip to the docks. I was able to call down some Orbital Bombardments now and then. I don’t know from where, or how it hit without blowing a hole straight through the station, but there you go.

We eventually made it to the docks, cleared the area of enemies and boarded our ships, splitting the delegates between us, apparently.

(I just realized I took no screenshots of the space battle… sigh… well, it was kind of busy).

The space around DS9 was sick with Jem’Hadar fighter ships and boarding parties. The station shuttle fleet was hemmed in. We made short work of those ships — there must have been twenty, easy. But we were up for it.

From the wormhole came a new Dominion battle group — several battleships, a squadron of support ships and heavy escorts, and an enormous Dreadnaught. We were going to need help. Four Federation starships were in the area, dealing with portions of the attacking fleet. We had to go help each of those ships with their battles so they could be free to help repel the battle group, while also opening a path for the refugee shuttles to escape to Bajor.

Just as we finished that, the vanguard of the Dominion battle group reached DS9.

My name is Loriss, and I speak for the trees. Er, Dominion.

Cutscene as a Jem’Hadar beams in to DS9 Operations and kills the XO, leaving the station commander (who escaped on the Defiant) squawking on comm about what was happening. A Vorta woman beams in and announces that she is Loriss, and is claiming Deep Space 9 on behalf of the Dominion.

You can either warp to Bajor at this point, or stay behind and kill the battle group. There doesn’t seem to be any reward for sticking it out. Plot-wise, the battle group made it to the station, after all.

Warping out brings you to Bajor orbit, where you release the delegates to their delegations and receive your reward (if you remembered to get the mission before starting it. I had to go back and do it again.)

Loot is one of two weapons, some Jem’Hadar pistols or a Jem’Hadar rifle. The rifle is part of a set, the set which will clearly be completed by other episodes in this arc. So get that. Do it again for the pistols if you like. The other rewards are consumable weapon power-ups. Presumably future episodes will need these weapons, so look for more ground missions in this arc.

Krontar! Of House Krondor!

Here’s my Klingon captain modeling the rifle. Look at his spindly legs and laugh! Laugh! Ask him about his smooth forehead! See how he cowers in fear! He is no true warrior! Hahaha!

Anyway.

Having now done the episode four times (twice for T’pral, once for Tipa, once for Krontar), I can say it works best with one other person. One person has to run around a lot in the meaningless task portion (which is optional, I have to point out). Two people can do it far more effectively, and are also sufficient to clear the promenade and take on the battle groups outside the station. Five — a full group — is too many for the pre-conference stuff (which should be skipped in a group that size). I guess three captains, one of each specialty, would be best in order to pick up the accolade in the promenade. High diplomacy is helpful, too.

We know the plot going forward; the summaries for all the remaining episodes have been posted. What we don’t know is — are any of the episodes going to require a full group? Previous feature episodes — the Breen arc, especially — have taken great advantage of full groups. Some, the Devidian Arc, have been balanced between the two.

I would really like to know ahead of time what sort of group we should be bringing to these things. Knowing what I know now, with our full group today, I’d have skipped the subquests, but we really had no idea if they were important to the plot or eventual reward in some way. I’m still not sure.

But whatever. I do know now, and now so do you.

See you next week!

This has been T’pral Zarek reporting for the Federation News Service.

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Khitomer Accord (Space)

It was pointed out to me at some length in an elite STF tonight — Infected — that while these STF walkthroughs are fine for the normal mode task forces, elite task forces take slightly different strategies. Those strategies would work in normal mode, too, but nobody bothers with them. In normal mode STFs, these walkthroughs work fine.

Khitomer Accord is the most complicated of the space task forces. The Borg are attempting to go back in time via the time portal and arrange the past and present more to their liking. Probes are going to warp in on the two gateways and head (slowly) to the time portal. If ten get through, the mission fails. If even ONE gets through, the optional objective fails. Every one of the gateways, generators and transformers must be destroyed within 15 minutes, or the optional is failed.

Once all those are destroyed, an assimilated Reman Scimitar — Donatra’s Scimitar — warps in. Once her ship is destroyed, the mission is won. The optional rewards and the mission rewards spawn above the time portal.

Let’s take this step by step.

Playbook for Khitomer Accord (Space)

There’s a tactical cube guarding the time portal at the start of the mission. Destroy that.

ONE SHIP needs to head over to the complex on the right. This is usually a tactical ship. This ship will destroy every probe and sphere that warps into that gateway. Those ships will head slowly toward the time portal once spawned. It is IMPORTANT that NO PROBE gets through. They don’t have much health, they die fast. Spheres will spawn occasionally as guards; they must be destroyed as well, but probes always die first.

Some groups leave a ship in front of the time portal to take care of probes from both sides, but in my opinion, this lets probes get too close to the portal.

When the lone right side guard isn’t killing stuff, it should be taking out the nanite generators around the transformers. It’s important to always be shooting something in this STF (in all of them, actually).

Everyone else goes to the left side. Another tactical ship could be dedicated to taking down the probes, but it’s no hardship for the team working on the generators and gateways to just take them out as they spawn. As long as someone does it.

The left and right complexes are copies of the complex from Infected, and die the same way. Kill the generators around one side, then the transformer, go to the other side and take down the matching generators and transformer, then the gateway.

Once the left gateway is killed, the RIGHT gateway will spawn a patrol of four probes and two spheres. Everyone should be headed there at full impulse to deal with the spawn, then take out the right complex as was done with the left. Spheres will continue to warp in to defend the complexes; it’s important to keep those in check, but it’s also important to get the gateways down before the optional timer expires.

Once everything is dead, Donatra’s ship warps in near zone in. She does considerable damage and also occasionally spawns tractor probes to keep you in place. Every so often she will cloak and move away. When she decloaks, she will charge up her thalaron weapon and fire it, doing massive damage to everything in a cone in front of her. There will be lines showing her firing arc; move out of it if you’re in it. Use evasive maneuvers if you need to. Best strategy is to keep generally behind the Scimitar as it is very weak from behind.

Once she’s dead (and there’s no timer at this point, take as long as you need), fly up above the time portal and grab your reward.

If you’re new to Khitomer Accord, just stay with the main group and you’ll do fine — if you see some probes and you’re in a position to shoot them, shoot them. If spheres are dogging you, pull them back to the group and get everyone shooting it. Don’t be flying 20km out trying to solo it; the STF needs your weapons on the mission objectives.

Khitomer Accord (Space) is actually easier than Infected (Space). Being responsible for the right side while the rest of the group is doing the left side is a real lift. But if someone flies up and tries to help, let them — head back to the main group.

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It'll cost you to open this box.

At the winter holiday event. Cryptic dangled a Jem’Hadar starship in front of the players. “Run the race in Q’s Winter Wonderland,” went the line, “and you will win a gift box that could contain this highly desirable ship!” The chance of that race dropping one of the red gift boxes was less than 1%. The chance that the red gift box, once obtained, would have a ship inside was far less than 1%. You could _buy_ gift boxes for $1 each. On the forums, people reported spending between $50 and $200 for red gift boxes until they obtained one of those ships.

Most ended up with stacks and stacks of useless items, and no ship. I was one of those; I only spent about $30 on red gift boxes. That was my wake-up call. All that money for nothing. Never again.

At least there was a really, really small possibility of obtaining the ship for free.

Along with the new feature episode this weekend comes the Cardassian Lock Box. This will drop as loot in the game. The lock box can contain:

• A box with a Cardassian Galor class cruiser starship.
• A box with a powerful cross-faction starship console.
• A box with a Crossfire Tribble.
• A Duty Officer Pack just like the ones sold in the C-Store.
• A Large Commendation Boost
• A smaller Commendation Boost
• A Skill Point Boost
• A box with a shuttle pet.
• A box with a Dilithium Horta companion pet
• A box with a Sehlat Cub companion pet
• A box that when opened unlocks the Deep Space Nine Federation Costume Pack for the account.
• A Shield Pack box. This box contains a random blue or purple quality shield for a starship or personal shield for ground use.
• A box with a stack of Gamma Quadrant commodity items for use in Duty Officer missions.
• A box with a stack of double bonus consumables

More detail on these options at this link, but it boils down to boxes containing the ship, and boxes not containing the ship. You can certainly expect you will open boxes not containing the ship hundreds of times before opening a box that contains the ship, the Cardassian Galor-class cruiser.

The boxes drop for free. But opening them costs cash — 100 CP per master key. That’s a bit over a dollar per try. How much is this ship worth? A week’s wages for something that is pretty comparable to the Excelsior-class ship already in the C Store.

The Cardassian Galor-class cruiser

it’s not a bad ship, the Galor (full details here). It’s appropriate to put it in the cash shop, the game having gone free to play, after all. What I object to is the lotto aspect of it. If you think the average player will spend $100 (random number pulled from the air, likely on the low side) on this ship, put it in the cash shop, charge $100 for it, and everyone who wants one can send the benjamins your way.

Trying to _trick_ players out of their money, though — that’s low. Yes, it’s done in lots of other F2P games, and it’s low for them as well.

The forums are, predictably, on red alert. 61 pages of stunned and angry players as of this writing, many still reeling from the Red Gift Box scandal and wondering how Cryptic could pull the same stunt twice in a row. They’re hoping to trap the new F2P users, say the conspiracy theorists.

Longasc of the German fleet Rhodanjugend (not the real fleet name) plans to sell the boxes on the exchange to people with too much money, and perhaps earn enough to BUY the ship outright from those who choose to sell them after they finally win them. Sounds like a plan to me.

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Who are “the 2800″? They are the 2,800 ships in the Dominion fleet that was swallowed up in the wormhole by the Prophets during a crucial point in the Dominion War. Their elimination gave starbase Deep Space 9 time to complete mining the mouth of the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant, and was the turning point to a long, protracted war.

Now, they’ve apparently returned to continue the war.

This weekend, Saturday, February 12th, the Klingon Empire and the Federation will reluctantly join forces once again to battle the foe that nearly destroyed the Federation once before.

The Federation News Service will be there with a full report.

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Admiral T'pral's crew

I noticed today I’d gotten my monthly allotment of C Store points in Star Trek Online (I get some each month for being a subscriber). There wasn’t anything I particularly wanted to _buy_… I have all the ships I need. Maybe some of the uniform options.

There are _lots_. Most of the time, you’re the only one who sees your bridge officers. How they’re dressed has no effect on the game. But it’s _fun_. I broke down and bought the Bajoran militia uniforms that Odo and Major Kira wore on Star Trek: Deep Space 9.

Then I decided I really needed a changeling on my crew. I brought my Romulan bridge officer kicking and screaming to the tailor, lightened his skin, shaved off a lot of sharp edges, partially melted him, and I had me my changeling.

All the males on my crew got Odo’s uniform. All the females got Kira’s, but in Starfleet section colors. You can see all my bridge officers above. Not all of them are thrilled with their new look. I guess they liked the regulation thigh-high boots of the old uniform.

T'pral's Fleet

Not much of an admiral without a fleet; after collecting all the bridge crew together, I thought I should do the same for her ships. My science admiral has an entirely different fleet, and my Klingon yet another. This is T’pral’s. Mostly escorts. I scaled them to the relative sizes of the ships according to the Memory Alpha wiki. The Akira came out larger than I expected.

So; pictures.

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Most MMOs, if they allow it at all, make changing your avatar’s appearance a time consuming and possibly expensive task. In Star Trek Online, a trip to in-game tailors on any space station allow you to change everything from your uniform, to your hairstyle, to the smallest detail of your appearance. You can store up to five appearances at once which you can swap with a keystroke at will.

No other MMO offers that.

In my Vulcan engineer’s long career in Starfleet, the years and the burdens of command have taken her from the fresh enthusiasm of a newly minted ensign to the grizzled veteran of years of campaigns against the Breen, the Borg, the Devidians, the Romulans, the Klingons and all the other myriad enemies of the Federation.

Thanks to the tailor system, not only has her appearance changed — making her more distinguished with age and authority — but all her previous appearances are saved to my local hard drive. I can load them up at any tailor.

If your characters are more than just manikins on which to drape raid gear with increasingly bizarre shoulderpads, you might like what you can do with them in Star Trek Online.

Bonus feature: You can do the same with every member of your bridge crew and away teams as well. Want to make your crew change from the young crew of the original Star Trek series to the aged geriatric crew of Star Trek V?

That can happen.

(By the way, I designed the uniforms T’pral is wearing).

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Infected Space (Elite)

Infected (Space) is very simple. There’s only one thing you have to do. And that is all focus and kill the nanite spheres and probes when they pop. That’s all. Infected (Space) is a test of teamwork. If someone goes off on their own, the optional is all but lost.

There are two optional objectives. Complete the entire task force in fifteen minutes, and don’t allow any nanite sphere or nanite probe to heal one of the transformers. If any nanite probe or nanite sphere gets close enough to heal a transformer, the optional is instantly lost.

The strategy is pretty simple. If you see a nanite sphere or nanite probe, kill it. One ship can easily take the probes, but unlike Khitomer Accord, they don’t come alone. They come mixed with tougher nanite spheres and very tough sphere escorts. Additionally, random spheres come to defend the transformers.

Kill the transformers in order. Trying to kill both at once will launch an unkillable wave of spheres and probes.

Infected playbook

There’s a lot of different strategies to winning Infected, especially the elite version, where the transformer guard spheres are replaced by cubes. I’m going to write down the way it’s normally done in normal mode.

You start facing a tactical cube threatening a Federation starbase, Starbase 82. Like all tactical cubes, it has very strong shields, strong hull, strong weapons, and heavy plasma torpedoes that can take down an unprotected ship in one hit. It has two sphere guards which will try to tractor you so the cube can kill you.

It’s pretty annoying.

Once the cube and the spheres are dead, move to the transformer marked with a (2). It is healed by four generators. Kill the guardian sphere (or cube in elite), the generators and then the transformer.

While this is going on, nanite spheres, nanite probes and regular spheres will arrive through the gateway. Break off and kill them. Seriously. Continuing to damage the transformer may cause another wave of probes and spheres. If any of the nanite spheres or probes heal the transformer, it will instantly lose the optional. Additionally, since they are healing damage to the transformer, it will take longer to finish the mission which means more waves of spheres until you have half a dozen circling around.

So when you see a sphere or probe while you’re killing a transformer, take a break and help kill them. Position yourself in front of the transformer. Burn it down. When enemies come, swivel 90 degrees, kill them, turn back and continue the assault.

With that down, go to the transformer on the right side (3) and do the same thing.

The cube and gateway

With the transformers down, a tactical cube will arrive to guard the gateway. Both the cube and the gateway must die to get the optional. The cube takes longer to kill and does more damage, so I would kill the cube first, then kill the gateway. Some suggest killing the cube right at the gateway, so that the cube will damage the gateway, but that’s pretty hard to arrange, and it puts ships in range of the gate’s guns. Getting on the far side of the cube keeps everyone out of the range of the gate guns.

If everyone works together to kill the adds as they spawn, this special task force comes down to raw damage. Unlike Cure and Khitomer Accord (walkthrough still to come), nobody has to do a special job, Just kill enemies, then kill the gates, repeat until finished.

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Killing the Cube

Before Star Trek Online implemented the PvE queuer, getting into special task forces was a matter of sitting in Gamma Orionis, spamming for groups. And the people wanting to fill groups would have insane pre-qualifications, like specific classes and builds, and they would kick you out if you didn’t fit their narrow requirements. You also were obliged to stay for all parts of the special task force, all space parts and all ground parts.

The PvE queue splits the ground missions and space missions apart, gives separate rewards for each, and does all the role balancing automatically. Nobody is going to kick you out of an STF. But they will expect you to know what to do. They themselves might have no idea what to do, but they will expect YOU to.

The secret is: they’re easy once you know what’s happening.

The easiest space mission is The Cure. If you can master this one, you pretty much have all the skills to do Infected and Khitomer Accord.

Map for "The Cure"

In “The Cure” space STF, the captain and crew of the IKS Kang were sent to the Vorn system to check up on Borg movements but no word has come from them since. Our job is to head in, save the Kang and destroy the Borg.

The optional objectives (for the normal mode) are to make sure the Kang doesn’t drop beneath 75% health, and to destroy all the Borg and hail the Kang within 15 minutes.

The Borg are using the Vorn system to assimilate and launch a Borg/Klingon armada. Their first target: the IKS Kang. There are three Borg cubes constructing and launching ships at the Kang. Each cube is being healed by four nanite probes. Each nanite probe is being healed by a matching nanite probe.

One ship needs to take charge of protecting the Kang from ships launched by the cubes marked 2 and 3. Usually a cruiser or science ship is best for this. Many people choose to tank the ships right at the Kang, but this is a mistake. Assimilated ships that are within weapons range of the Kang will fire upon it, so it’s best if they never get that near. The assimilated Klingon ships move VERY SLOWLY for a reason. Secondly, if the protecting ship gets blown up, it can respawn and full impulse to intercept the ships before they finish making their way to the Kang. If they are already AT the Kang, they can likely do enough damage to ruin the optional before you get back.

If you’re new to STFs, you’ll probably want to follow everyone to the cube marked with a 1. That cube will have already launched a couple weak assimilated Birds of Prey. Kill them on the way in. It’s the responsibility of the kill team to make sure no Borg ships escape to cause more trouble for the protector.

Kill the bottom nanite probes, then the upper nanite probes, then the cube. Head immediately to the Kang, as the other two cubes are launching more powerful Negh’Var cruisers and the protector ship is going to need help clearing the swarm. Once all the enemies are dead, the strike team moves to the cube marked 2, while the protector moves between cube 3 and the Kang.

After cube 2, the strike team helps clear the newly launched Negh’Var warships and then kills the third cube, ignoring the weak raptors that are launched. The protector still deals with those. Once the third cube is dead, kill all the remaining Borg ships, fly to the Kang and hail it.

The Assimilated Carrier

Optional objectives should be done at this point if the cube killing went fast enough and the Kang didn’t take significant damage. It is very hard to get the optional objective if there’s more than one ship on intercept duty, or that ship can’t take the damage. If you are a cruiser or science ship captain, it is your responsibility to ensure you have a lot of shield and hull heals because dying is bad. Interceptor ships should also be able to kill the two Borg birds of prey easily (they have almost no hull).

Once the Kang is away, an Assimilated Carrier will warp in. It’s a tank and spank; burn it down. It launches fighters, drones and BoPs which will die to any cannon scatter or beam fire at will or can just be ignored. Don’t get distracted by taking down the weak ships, just kill the carrier.

You can pick up your optional and mission rewards where the IKS Kang was parked.

Be sure to roll NEED on any Encrypted Data Chips or Rare Borg Salvage that randomly drop. You need EDCs for ship gear (40 per piece if you go for the Mark XI/Veteran stuff, and you should) and Borg Salvage for requisitions with which you can buy Mark XI weapons which are uniquely powerful against Borg ships. There is a very rare Borg Tech that can drop here, I can’t remember which one, but it can be turned in and instantly get you a ship bit worth 40 EDCs.

If this is helpful, let me know! If it can be improved, definitely let me know!

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Fully functional

I had a run of luck; I got the rare borg deflector tech drop which went to replace my Mark XI MACO Deflector with an Omega Force Mark XI deflector; winning just five missions got me the rest of the Encrypted Data Chips (EDCs) I needed, 40 total, for the Omega Force Mark XI engines, and I already had the Omega Force Mark XI shields, so… full Kellerun Infiltrator set. 2 pieces give a boost to tetryon damage, and 3 pieces gives a power that makes enemies unable to turn for five seconds.

Not INCREDIBLY useful, but there you have it. Only my assimilated Borg console remains of the Borg components of my ship, but mostly the ship is clean once more. All good clean Federation/Klingon tech. I had a bunch of generic Rare Borg Salvage so I replaced all my non-tetryon ship weapons with tetryon ones for more damage.

Thing is now I have to do ground missions to finish my MACO armor set. And then I’ll be done. Game over. Until the next feature episode. I came back to Star Trek Online and leveled a character from lieutenant to vice admiral, got the best escort I could afford, learned the tricks and what’s left? Elite missions, I guess, but those take a really long time and I’ve only ever won once. So most of the time, no reward whatsoever.

Maybe now that Star Trek Online has gone free to play, it’s time to stop paying.

The problem with pickup groups is nobody wants to step up and lead the group except for the jerks. And THEY’LL only speak up when you haven’t done anything according to their secret unspoken plan. One guy made it his mission to rag on me. He apparently, during a Khitomer space, was hoping to kill both the transformers together by getting one to 1%, then the other. I only found out about this when I destroyed the first one.

So anyway, tonight I figured I’d start off with a quick description of what the optional objectives were (most people never bother to look). And we won that one, optional included. Next time we were coming close to missing a timer and I begged people to ignore the non-vital targets and help me burn the gate, one said, “we know, child. we have time.” And they were right, we did and we won the optional again.

Has anyone noticed that the optional rewards have largely started to suck?

I figure it doesn’t hurt to say something. I just don’t want to be the kind of person who starts getting angry and yelling and stuff. It’s supposed to be fun. And it really doesn’t matter that much to me, but I just think that people sometimes just are too embarrassed to admit they have no idea in hell what they’re supposed to do, but aren’t bothered enough by it to actually find out on their own.

Look out for future posts on how to win the STFs… and adventures in ground missions.

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My lizard, Leapster

When you think about it, Fae are just the right size to be eaten in one gulp by the EverQuest 2 jumping lizard mounts. I’m too terrified to dismount, and so I leap from place to place within Lesser Faydark, death from above for the invader Tier’Dal who nonetheless managed to drag me from my mount last night and slaughter me.

Experience is slow in the Lesser Fay. Every EQ2 story I read tells of people hitting 60, 70, 85 before they realize it, in just a couple days, but I’ve been working on this zone for months, with breaks to do quests and some seasonal events. Clearly, this hasn’t been my main game.

I cashed in all my station points to buy a month of “gold” membership, then almost immediately went back to Star Trek Online. STO, though, has become a mission grind to earn tokens from the three Borg space special task forces to equip my starship with the best gear. I’m just six missions from earning new engines. I’ll finally be able to lose that worrying plasma leak.

The USS Manchester is ALMOST de-Borged

Last night was the first night of Star Trek Online’s “free to play”. Everything was busy. The STFs were AWFUL. One went pretty well, but the other two — I don’t want to insult anyone by suggesting that they have no idea what they are doing. But some of these people had no idea what they were doing.

All the STF missions have the main thing you’re supposed to be doing, and some other things that someone needs to be in charge of. In “The Cure” space mission, someone needs to destroy the ships that the Borg shipyards keep launching while the rest of the group is destroying the shipyards. When a shipyard is destroyed, the other shipyards send out more powerful ships. This role is usually handled by a science ship, who can keep the NPC at the center healed. The rest of the group heads back to the center after each shipyard to take on the tough ships before proceeding.

Imagine my shock when four of the five of us stayed behind to take on the easy ships while I was the only one working on a shipyard. Imagine my further shock when they proved unable to kill them all speedily.

I guess this is my hint that I should be working on elite missions, except most of the elite missions I have tried have been with people just as clueless, except the enemies are much stronger.

And the reason I say nothing is because I don’t want to be “that player” who makes all the other people in a random pickup group feel bad by dissecting their mistakes.

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