Should I try out Star Trek Online?

[RogueIce]

I'm a little wary about becoming a reviewer because of the warning they give you about seeing stuff that might be offensive. I mean, this is the internet and their are a lot of twisted people out their, so I'm worried I'll end up reviewing someone's creepy porno or neo-Nazi fanfic. So, this may sound like a dumb question, but just to double check since it isn't clear to me- if I sign up to become a reviewer, I don't have to review anything I don't want to, do I?

No, you still have to manually pick whichever Foundry mission you want to play. It's not a mandatory thing, just an option to let you access the missions that haven't been fully "rated" yet.

[The Romulan Republic]

That's what I figured, but I thought it couldn't hurt to check. Guess I'll become a reviewer.

Edit: Also, Undine drone. That was a tough opponent (probably not as tough as the rogue changeling though). I like that they've made the Borg a bit more threatening in some ways, though I feel like they've made the appearance of the female drones weirdly sexualized, which I don't like.

[Lord Revan]

That's what I figured, but I thought it couldn't hurt to check. Guess I'll become a reviewer.

Edit: Also, Undine drone. That was a tough opponent (probably not as tough as the rogue changeling though). I like that they've made the Borg a bit more threatening in some ways, though I feel like they've made the appearance of the female drones weirdly sexualized, which I don't like.

btw some of the "review" missions (uncluding mine it seems) don't clearly state where starting door is (and there's alot of those), in my case it's the wall panel at conference room near Amd. Quinn's officer (opposite the bridge officer still trainer).

And I don't like the fem drone design either, now the male redesign is good it looks just like creepy cyborg zombie as Borg are suppose to, but the fem drone design misses the point of the borg in an effort to be "sexy" (or sexist). To quote the borg "sexiness is irrelevant".

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, I've had a heck of a time finding the starting point for your mission. But I've got it now.

Also, I played a Fluidic space mission with Tuvok. Nice to see the old Voyager characters. But it seems to be a bit odd that Voyager would still be in service after this long.

[The Romulan Republic]

Played your mission and posted a review Lord Revan.

[Lord Revan]

Played your mission and posted a review Lord Revan.

yeah I saw that.

When I said it was dark I mean by trek standards, I mean TUC is dark by those standards.
Spoiler

After all I have starfleet admiral who not only goes renegade but attacks a civilian transport unprovoked. Sure it's not WH40K grimdark but by trek standards that's pretty dark.

Also I'd like to know what you meant by "intresting twists", I know what was my intention but I wonder if there was something I didn't intend there (note that this isn't a bad thing I'm just curious).

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, I don't know if its a twist, exactly, but I think the Spoiler

ship full of floating bodies

was a surprise (and impressively macabre for Star Trek), even if it creates a slight suspension of disbelief issue with Spoiler

how my men are walking around normally. A line of dialog before hand about how my men are using some sort of artificial gravity device

would have been nice for the continuity nitpicker in me. That said, the story wasn't terrible dark overall. Like I said, Spoiler

its comparable to Star Trek 6

. Also, I suppose the ending, with Spoiler

the survivors on the villain's ship switching sides because they were in it against their will, could come as a surprise if you went in expecting you were facing straight up bad guys as usual.

Also, while I didn't have space to include all my thoughts in the review box, I appreciated the Star Wars references. Spoiler

Eclipse class Federation cruiser.

Edit: Added spoiler notifications.

[The Romulan Republic]

One more thing: I got a sort of Spoiler

"former love interests" vibe from the rogue Admiral and the Starfleet admiral who assigns you the mission (I forget his name). Its just the way he talks about her I guess.

Was that deliberate or am I seeing something that isn't their?

Edited to fix spoiler notifications.

[Elheru Aran]

Huh, just realized I haven't rolled up a Delta recruit yet. Should get around to that. I think you still get the bennies once the event has passed... just have to actually HAVE the recruit on hand!

[Lord Revan]

One more thing: I got a sort of Spoiler

"former love interests" vibe from the rogue Admiral and the Starfleet admiral who assigns you the mission (I forget his name). Its just the way he talks about her I guess.

Was that deliberate or am I seeing something that isn't their

Spoiler

they are very close friends but were never romantically involved.

Admiral Heriksson was the chief engineer of the USS Protector when Admiral Rauha was in command of that ship. it's thru that history and the shared experiences from the Delphic Expanse campaign that they know each other so well.

think less lovers and more war veterans of the same unit

Spoiler

Eclipse class Federation cruiser.

I cannot claim credit for that, it's the official name for that ship class. (granted it was my idea to pick that class).

Spoiler

how my men are walking around normally. A line of dialog before hand about how my men are using some sort of artificial gravity device

that's actually a limitation of the foundry or possibly the game itself Spoiler

all 3 decks actually have "low gravity" global weather effect but you don't notice that unless you jump

[The Romulan Republic]

I think I did notice that the jumps were a bit different, now that you mention it.

[Lord Revan]

I think I did notice that the jumps were a bit different, now that you mention it.

the "low gravity" weather effect makes it so that you jump higher and fall slower, it's the closest you can get to what I was going for in that mission.

[The Romulan Republic]

I recently finished the New Romulus/Iconian gateway mission with Worf. While I found the plot a bit implausible and awkward even by Star Trek standards (how were my men so readily able to use Iconian technology, for example), it was epic and helped connect a lot of the stories. Plus their was Worf in what's possibly the best canon character appearance so far. Its such a pity the Federation and Klingons are at odds. And the Iconian base floating in a void reminded me a lot of Thanos's/the Chitauri's domain from the Marvel films. However, the Romulan Republic did not look very good in this affair.

[The Romulan Republic]

So, now their are cybernetic war dinosaurs. That's new.

[Elheru Aran]

Oh, yeah. Voth. Those are... different. Tough. Something of a handful.

The Romulans were pretty pointless in that particular exercise. About all they managed to do (IIRC) was fuck up their Iconian Gate. It was nice to get to play with the Obelisk Carrier for a while though even if that thing moves like a sick whale...

[Elheru Aran]

Well, I rolled up a Delta Recruit. You *have* to take the tutorial, apparently, or you get zero benefits. But so far it's not too bad. I don't remember my original Starfleet tutorial going quite like this but I've managed to survive so far. Really missing my rear torpedo launcher, though...

[The Romulan Republic]

Getting kind of tired of the Federation story right now. It may be a good time to go back to my Romulan character (who's still at a pitiful level 12) and/or use my remaining character on a Klingon. I'm thinking a female Klingon science officer because its so atypical for a Klingon character, though I haven't decided for sure yet.

[Simon_Jester]

Re: Elheru:

Yeah, it's definitely a different tutorial scenario, among other things to create an opening for the scene where Cadet Recruit encounters their future self. Speaking purely about the Federation tutorial, they deliberately tied it into the old tutorial by having both scenarios involve the Borg attack on the Vega colony... but from different perspectives.

The one thing I don't like is the idea that people who are explicitly graduating as cadets from Starfleet Academy are supposed to progress to flag rank over the course of a one-year tour of duty. I can actually imagine "promoted to captain," recollecting the events of the 2009 Star Trek movie, where if you are really good and impress everyone they give you your own ship.

But admiral? NO.

Then again in my gut I'd be happier if they'd capped the rank structure at commodore- say, Jr. Lt./Lt./Lt. Cmdr/Captain with Level 50 being "Senior Captain" and Level 60 being "Commodore."

[RogueIce]

18 months. Which is much more reasonable! But at least we can have the PC call them out on it.

Actually if anything it makes more sense for the Romulan PC. I mean maybe not Fleet Admiral (do they even have any NPC FADMs? Maybe that Kererek guy...) but I could justify in my head the original VADM.

Not that I ever have my PCs display anything beyond Captain (Commander) though.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, I made a Klingon tactical officer as a Delta Recruit since I don't think I had a tactical officer character before. Currently fighting the Federation in the tutorial.

[Lord Revan]

I always justified the Starfleet and romulan promotions as temporary with their "true" rank being Captain or Rear Admiral at most, but starfleet is in such a need of good commanders that you get "prematurly" into the higher flag ranks so that they can have good fleet commanders for the current crisis. As for Romulan Republic fleet they are starting from essentially from Scratch.

With KDF it's easier to explain as rapid promotions aren't anything new.

[Elheru Aran]

Oh God. They're gonna bring Tom Paris into STO as part of the Iconian War in Season 10.

[The Romulan Republic]

Yeah, I saw that announced on Facebook. I'm pretty happy about it. On the whole, I liked Tom Paris. And they're getting Robert McNeill to voice him again.

[Elheru Aran]

See, now, that wasn't a happy 'Oh God'.

I mean, it's nice they're getting more actual actors from ST into the game.... but could they do, I don't know, Jonathan Frakes? Brent Spiner? They did manage to snag Denise Crosby and Michael Dorn, after all. I guess Riker would probably be getting way up there, and Picard is probably right out, but Data is totally an option. We did discuss this previously. I guess I'm mostly just way over the Voyager thing. Obviously we probably can't count on ever getting anybody from TOS (though I'm sure George Takei would probably be happy to give it a spin, he seems like a cool guy) apart from time-travel shenanigans like they pulled with the Devidian story. But there's enough TNG actors still around that they're (mostly) an option. I guess they've moved on for the most part, though.

Ah well, if wishes were gagh...

[Lord Revan]

it could be matter of the age of the characters as well, I mean only human character (from the canon main casts) we've seen so far is Harry Kim, Seven is a borg, the Doctor is a hologram, Tuvok is vulcan, and Worf a klingon and both Harry Kim and Tom Paris didn't seem that old to me, probably still in their 20s.

while Riker was 30 IIRC at the start of TNG so he'd be in his 60s or 70s during STO.

while it wouldn't be impossible to get to be a part of the story it would be hard, also I think Tuvok at Rear Admiral (lower half) is the highest ranking cannon main cast member actually present, I think they even mentioned that Riker is Fleet Admiral (or 5 "star" admiral), though certainly an admiral of some rank I can't remember if they said his full rank or just the short form.