New Testingstan

Yesterday I got into a fistfight with George Washington on top of a giant pyramid

You pre-empted me by four minutes, damn it

Losonti Tokash wrote:Yesterday I got into a fistfight with George Washington on top of a giant pyramid

SPOILERS COCKSUCKER!

Losonti Tokash wrote:Yesterday I got into a fistfight with George Washington on top of a giant pyramid

What game was this in? I must play it now

I would hazard it might be AssCreed 3's DLC. Dunno for sure though.

Diablo III gold exploit happens and my daily phishing emails imploring me to login to my account suddenly cease. Not that I even have a diablo III account lol.

So the Legacy of Romulus expansion for STO launches in a week from today. I have to admit, I'm pretty excited. I've been playing the new content on Tribble and I've greatly enjoyed it thus far. It's really some of Cryptic's best work, and I'm looking forward to seeing the (relatively) finished product (because we all know they'll screw something up and have to patch it )

For the Romulan game, you get to choose an alliance with either the Federation or Klingons. From what I've seen it makes a difference in terms of Boffs, ships (you can fly Romulan ships as well as whichever faction you pick), the ability to visit the "home sectors" of either side, PvP (I suppose, but I don't care about that), probably Doff missions (Diplomacy vs Marauding, but I forgot to check that out), and of course you get different uniforms for each side. So here's an example:
(Minor spoilers, as these Boffs are the ones you'll pick up as you play the introductory campaign)

Also I'm showing off the new character select screen. You'll see your ship above them but I cropped that part out (and they broke it in the second patch, though when I logged off they were bringing the server down so it may come back; I only leveled each up to LCDR 11 though so you'd just be seeing the same ship anyway).

Overall I like it. I won't go into story details, but as noted above in my spoiler warning you pick up your Boffs in the course of the story, meaning they actually have some character and a sort of bond with your Captain that the Federation method of "Hello I'm Boff #4325 can I join your crew?" is rather lacking. So I like that. I'm not sure all the Boffs are like that, but you at least get an Away Team's worth of actual characters instead of random people, so I like it. Two of them even have an ongoing story of sorts, which includes the first one you'll pick up, who you can't discharge, thus he's going to be with you for the whole story. It's not too bad though, as he's Purple quality though I don't know if you can do Trait Respec on Boffs or just your Captain.

Oh that's another thing. Remember those traits you picked at character creation and probably forgot about? Well now you'll be able to gain more as you level, and you can buy a Trait Respec token on the C-Store if you don't like what you picked.

They also revamped the KDF missions, so you can do a full 1 - 50 character. And their intro mission series is pretty cool and involves someone you know quite well from your Federation adventures, but I won't spoil that for you.

And the best part is, this whole expansion is free. All you'll have to do to play with a new faction and enjoy all these updates is download it after it launches and whenever the inevitable server rush dies down and you can actually log in. That's pretty awesome IMO, and a nice contrast to a certain other recently F2P MMO that's making you pay for their much hyped expansion that apparently isn't much to write home about.

Why is that second romulan purple?

Alien PC probably. You can only play as Romulan, Reman, or Alien (i.e. fully customisable) as part of the Rom Republic.

Why not?

I just started playing Lost Odyssey and damn this game is old school as hell. Between the amnesiac main character and Nobuo Oumatsu it's practically FF7 all over again.

Losonti Tokash wrote:Why not?

I just started playing Lost Odyssey and damn this game is old school as hell. Between the amnesiac main character and Nobuo Oumatsu it's practically FF7 all over again.

What system is it on?

Infinity Biscuit wrote:Why is that second romulan purple?

Losonti Tokash wrote:Why not?

Because she's not a Romulan.

To explain: STO has the various species you'd expect (Human, Klingon, Romulan, Vulcan, Trill, etc) that exist in the Star Trek canon and/or Cryptic pulled out of their asses. But they also give you the "Alien" species option, which is pretty much a free build, make whatever you want within the limits of the engine...which is pretty damn flexible IMO and one of the things the game does quite well.

The purple chick with the green hair is an example of that. The Romulan faction itself will have Romulans (duh) and Remans (unlockable either automatically as a subscriber, if you buy the Romulan Legacy Pack, or if you grind up to Level 5 reputation with New Romulus) as the default species, and of course Alien so you can go nuts. I went with an Alien chick because I already made a Romulan dude, and I was curious to play with the costume differences between the genders as well.

Plus the boob slider.

Stofsk wrote:Alien PC probably. You can only play as Romulan, Reman, or Alien (i.e. fully customisable) as part of the Rom Republic.

Damn you for posting that as I was typing this!

Oh well, my post was fairly informative so I'll keep it anyway.

Hey Stofsk have you been doing any Romulan stuff on Tribble or are you waiting for launch?

Flagg wrote:

Losonti Tokash wrote:Why not?

I just started playing Lost Odyssey and damn this game is old school as hell. Between the amnesiac main character and Nobuo Oumatsu it's practically FF7 all over again.

What system is it on?

360. Even has 4 discs for that PS1 nostalgia.

Losonti Tokash wrote:

Flagg wrote:

Losonti Tokash wrote:Why not?

I just started playing Lost Odyssey and damn this game is old school as hell. Between the amnesiac main character and Nobuo Oumatsu it's practically FF7 all over again.

What system is it on?

360. Even has 4 discs for that PS1 nostalgia.

Might have to check it out. FF7 is like my favorite game of all time.

RogueIce wrote:Hey Stofsk have you been doing any Romulan stuff on Tribble or are you waiting for launch?

Haven't done anything on Tribble, in whole or in part due to my unwillingness to find out how to access the Tribble test server.

The forums on STO's website is almost universally positive over it though. I wish I could afford the Legacy pack, but honestly the only ship I really want to fly is the D'Deridex. Or the T'varo warbird, but one of my KDF characters already flies a B'rel retrofit so that might be redundant (which, may be an odd thing to say given I'm an altaholic). I also don't know if I want to play more than one Rom character. I know that everyone get's a free Rom character slot, and I have one KDF character I could happily bin to make a second, but I'm not sure if I want to make a 2nd Rom character or do a new KDF character to play the tutorial.

If the tutorial is available for mission replay like every. Other. Mission. In the goddamn game, then I might just replay the tute with my existing KDF characters.

The emphasis on unique boffs that you meet in the tutorial and who stick with you throughout the game and have their own character and story is such a great idea that I wish they'd thought of that 3 years ago when I made my first character. Oh well.

Flagg wrote:

Losonti Tokash wrote:

Flagg wrote:

Losonti Tokash wrote:Why not?

I just started playing Lost Odyssey and damn this game is old school as hell. Between the amnesiac main character and Nobuo Oumatsu it's practically FF7 all over again.

What system is it on?

360. Even has 4 discs for that PS1 nostalgia.

Might have to check it out. FF7 is like my favorite game of all time.

It's got a neat little thing where some of your party members are literally immortals and can't be killed. They'll run out of hp and get knocked unconscious, but after a few turns they'll stand back up. The regular humans don't have that luxury but whaddya gonna do.

Stofsk wrote:The forums on STO's website is almost universally positive over it though. I wish I could afford the Legacy pack, but honestly the only ship I really want to fly is the D'Deridex. Or the T'varo warbird, but one of my KDF characters already flies a B'rel retrofit so that might be redundant (which, may be an odd thing to say given I'm an altaholic). I also don't know if I want to play more than one Rom character. I know that everyone get's a free Rom character slot, and I have one KDF character I could happily bin to make a second, but I'm not sure if I want to make a 2nd Rom character or do a new KDF character to play the tutorial.

You might or might not want to do a second Rom character, just because of the choice in alliances. That said, I have no idea if it actually will have an impact story-wise to be worth it. Pretty much everything I listed is mostly cosmetic, like the different uniform options. Or else gameplay you'd get from being a Fed/KDF character anyway.

Stofsk wrote:If the tutorial is available for mission replay like every. Other. Mission. In the goddamn game, then I might just replay the tute with my existing KDF characters.

They're apparently revamping pretty much all of the KDF stuff. Some of it didn't feel that different past the tutorial, though TBH I never played much Klingon anyway so I'm going off pretty old memories. Guess you could look and see what the forums say about whether or not it's really a "new" experience and might be worth it to roll a new toon rather than clicking replay on everything if you've already got a level 50 toon.

Stofsk wrote:The emphasis on unique boffs that you meet in the tutorial and who stick with you throughout the game and have their own character and story is such a great idea that I wish they'd thought of that 3 years ago when I made my first character. Oh well.

Yeah. That is much needed. Really there's only one Fed Boff I can say that has any kind of character or value to me, and that's the one you pick up in the tutorial. And that's purely because you rescued them off the USS Khitomer and they helped you fight the Borg and have kind of been there since the beginning. I went with the Andorian Tac one and that lady is still my First Officer to this day.

Picking the rest up literally via mission rewards or the exchange just makes them very generic and interchangeable. Heck one went from being an Away Team "Marine" to being my Chief Medical Officer purely because the Duty Officer system gave me the ability to assign Department Heads.

Although I will RP to a fault. My primary Fed toon has something like...shit, more than ten Boffs. I have a dedicated Away Team, unique officers for each Department Head position, a MACO "Commanding Officer" who literally does nothing but take up space and another couple of officers who are similar and exist purely as flavor. Well that and at first it was an experiment to see if I had enough Boffs, would they all take up a seat on the bridge instead of some generic NPC?

The answer is: they don't, sadly. Some of my Boffs don't even show and I still have generic NPCs manning stations.

Of course the really sad thing is that if I ever finish grinding Omega Force, I'm going to give that MACO armor to my current Away Team (which means getting five sets)...and then I'll buy more slots so I can have four Boffs in Omega armor (which means grinding out five sets of that) and I'll get some Mk XII fleet armor and weapons so I can have four Starfleet Security Away team members.

Oh and another couple of Boff slots on top of that because I need someone to serve as my Omega Force CO.

You're an altaholic, I guess I'm a Boffaholic?

RogueIce wrote:You might or might not want to do a second Rom character, just because of the choice in alliances. That said, I have no idea if it actually will have an impact story-wise to be worth it. Pretty much everything I listed is mostly cosmetic, like the different uniform options. Or else gameplay you'd get from being a Fed/KDF character anyway.

I'm curious to see what kind of story the Roms get before you have to choose an alliance. I wonder (and hope) that you have various experiences in the lead-up to make the choice an interesting one.

As a general rule I tend to favour getting a ship for a character, and keeping them together. So my first character is a tac flying a Defiant, my eng is in a Sovvie-refit, my sci is in an Intrepid-retrofit, another tac is in an excelsior-retrofit, and my two KDF characters (the ones I like) are in a B'rel and Vor'cha. (the seventh character is a KDF sci in a Vo'quv carrier, a ship that is probably the worst ship in the game if you don't count the Failaxy).

They're apparently revamping pretty much all of the KDF stuff. Some of it didn't feel that different past the tutorial, though TBH I never played much Klingon anyway so I'm going off pretty old memories. Guess you could look and see what the forums say about whether or not it's really a "new" experience and might be worth it to roll a new toon rather than clicking replay on everything if you've already got a level 50 toon.

Honestly the new tutorial sounds like it would actually be fun to play unlike the dreck that Cryptic foists onto the KDF faction currently. The only wish I have is that it can be replayed like all the other missions. But then I can just kill one of my characters (who I will probably kill regardless) and roll a KDF character just for the tutorial, if they don't have mission replay available.

Yeah. That is much needed. Really there's only one Fed Boff I can say that has any kind of character or value to me, and that's the one you pick up in the tutorial. And that's purely because you rescued them off the USS Khitomer and they helped you fight the Borg and have kind of been there since the beginning. I went with the Andorian Tac one and that lady is still my First Officer to this day.

I really wish I could redo all my characters just so I can keep that Andorian boff. But I could easily just get an Andorian female boff off the exchange and write up a bio.

I tended to get rid of all my leveling boffs because they were common, not realising that a) rarity only matters for the ground traits and b) you get a lot of boff slots simply by subbing for a month and then cancelling.

Stofsk wrote:Honestly the new tutorial sounds like it would actually be fun to play unlike the dreck that Cryptic foists onto the KDF faction currently. The only wish I have is that it can be replayed like all the other missions. But then I can just kill one of my characters (who I will probably kill regardless) and roll a KDF character just for the tutorial, if they don't have mission replay available.

Well, most of the missions are, of course. But the tutorial itself isn't, just like how you can't go back and do the Fed tutorial again. Basically, you wouldn't play the mission where you get your ship. But that mission is pretty awesome and the way you earn your command, well...

I'd think it's worth it to roll a KDF character for that.

Stofsk wrote:I really wish I could redo all my characters just so I can keep that Andorian boff. But I could easily just get an Andorian female boff off the exchange and write up a bio.

I tended to get rid of all my leveling boffs because they were common, not realising that a) rarity only matters for the ground traits and b) you get a lot of boff slots simply by subbing for a month and then cancelling.

Actually the Andorian is green quality, I noticed. So uncommon at least. But yeah, I have all my leveling Boffs, and pretty much all of them are manning the Boff stations on my ship. I pretty much redid all their skills, though. I do have better quality I got from various places but as you said, it only matters really for ground traits.

And honestly, not that much. Sure I might have wiped a couple less times if I had better ground Boffs, and could try my hand at Elite difficulty on the story missions. But once you hit endgame it's mostly stuff you have to team for anyway, so what's the point? I was never much of a min-maxer anyway which is probably why raiding is so disinteresting to me.

RogueIce wrote:Actually the Andorian is green quality, I noticed.

What's her name?

But yeah, I have all my leveling Boffs, and pretty much all of them are manning the Boff stations on my ship. I pretty much redid all their skills, though. I do have better quality I got from various places but as you said, it only matters really for ground traits.

You've got no choice but to redo their skills in a lot of instances. Some of the higher level skills - lt commdr and commdr - can't be trained either by you or the skills trainer. Aux2SIF3 is a commdr skill that comes on a boff already or not at all. Torpedo Spread 3 comes on certain rare boffs (I think it comes on the Jem'hadar boff you can pick up in the 2800 FE series) but Torpedo High Yield 3 can be trained by a tactical player with points in projectile weapons. THY is better than TS though, IMO.

And honestly, not that much. Sure I might have wiped a couple less times if I had better ground Boffs, and could try my hand at Elite difficulty on the story missions. But once you hit endgame it's mostly stuff you have to team for anyway, so what's the point? I was never much of a min-maxer anyway which is probably why raiding is so disinteresting to me.

Elite STFs are a lot of fun. Some are harder than others, Infected space is the easiest even with PUGs, while I'd put Cure space as the hardest of the space ones, though I haven't played Hive at all.

For ground I'd go normal with PUGs and don't get attached to winning the optional. One day I'd love to play the ground elite STFs with a team over skype or something.

Some of the fleet actions are fun too. Fleet Alert and Blockade are nice, quick and simple FAs. Starbase Defence pushes even my PC to the breaking point, although that might be mitigated by turning down all the settings. But fuck that.

Stofsk wrote:What's her name?

Tallasa or something like that is the default, and seems to stick for every Fed character I've run through.

Stofsk wrote:You've got no choice but to redo their skills in a lot of instances. Some of the higher level skills - lt commdr and commdr - can't be trained either by you or the skills trainer. Aux2SIF3 is a commdr skill that comes on a boff already or not at all. Torpedo Spread 3 comes on certain rare boffs (I think it comes on the Jem'hadar boff you can pick up in the 2800 FE series) but Torpedo High Yield 3 can be trained by a tactical player with points in projectile weapons. THY is better than TS though, IMO.

Pretty much all my stuff is bought from the Boff Skills Trainer on ESD. I suppose I could get some nicer things if I ran through my rather large selection of Boffs awaiting assignment (I think I have almost as many of them as I do active officers) but I've never bothered to look that closely.

Stofsk wrote:For ground I'd go normal with PUGs and don't get attached to winning the optional. One day I'd love to play the ground elite STFs with a team over skype or something.

Some of the fleet actions are fun too. Fleet Alert and Blockade are nice, quick and simple FAs. Starbase Defence pushes even my PC to the breaking point, although that might be mitigated by turning down all the settings. But fuck that.

Well I am in the SB Fleet so I could just use that instead of relying on PUGs.

TBH outside of my crazy need for RP the only thing I really care about is the Omega Armor. Because it looks like this:



Yeah buddy.

I've been falling asleep playing Mass Effect 3. Because I play from like 2130 at night and get woken up by my son at 0500 or so... At about 2230, unless what I'm doing is really engaging it's hard to stay awake. And when it's endless poorly scripted conversations on the Citadel to try and wrap up plotlines? Oh man, so that guy was actually working for Cerberus, but he didn't really get shot because that lady from the bar in Mass Effect 1 hacked the villain's gun? And you're all explaining this in a terribly transparent, stilted way where I can see the stitches holding it together? But hey, go off and make your remarkably smart dumb babies together.

people getting mad that jokes are silly

Oh, there's some great moments too (night clubbing with Jack and her calling you out on dancing). It's just there's a few scenes where they've gone "shit, how do we call back to X from ME1/2?" and drop in the most awkward and badly written bit to do it. Because they literally have to go "HEY, REMEMBER ME, I'M THAT PERSON THAT YOU DID X/Y/Z WITH? And now I just helped you out with this because..."