Call them bad guys, call them the antagonist, or call them the villain – they are what keeps a story from being as about as “exciting as Bucharest on a Monday night” (one no prize to the first person who can tell us where that quote comes from and where the term “no prize” comes from as well).

The Star Trek Universe has had every sort of antagonist from the bumbling Cyrano Jones ranging all the way up to the three depicted above: Khann, Shinzon, and the Borg Queen – and Star Trek Online (STO) has them as well.  In considering Jonathan Morris’  comments to our earlier article Re-Crossing the Troll Bridge I too am beginning to wonder if some of Cryptic’s detractors are playing the same Star Trek Online as we all are.

To wit (I sort of like that expression, kind of like the detractors are on trial) we are amazed by the crap we hear about there not being any story line in STO, the mistaken impression that all missions are alike, that they are all randomly generated, that there is nothing to do beyond the level of Lieutenant Commander and that ilk (there’s an expression that Mr. Scott might have used).  Have you ever even heard of Ambassador B’Vat? Have you traveled in time? Have you saved Spock’s life (as voiced by Leonard Nimoy himself)  and in turn had him save yours? If the answer to any of these questions is no then you haven’t run out of missions  And you also haven’t completed the mission arch “City on the Edge of Never” – and if you haven’t, my only guess is that Admiral Quinn doesn’t trust you with the mission because you have been bitching about STO so much.

[Webmasters Note: Warning, Warning Will Robinson, spoilers from the City on the Edge of Never story arch ahead]

I’m Captain Moogie. On my home world I was downtrodden by a race of misanthropic, misogynistic, small lobed backward gits that tried to keep me out of business, and out of clothes. The 48^thRule of Acquisition says “The bigger the smile, the sharper the knife” – and my smile is always very big. There is an old earth adage that says “speak softly and carry heavy dual phaser cannons” or something like that.

Bvat, the Kuvah’Magh, saving the Enterprise, saving Spock, finding out where Klingons got ridges and how they lost them… what a long strange ride it’s been. And I have the feeling it’s only getting started.

It all started with a mission to a place called The Treasure Trading Station, to rescue a Klingon informant.  Every time I think about it I still laugh…a Klingon who needed rescuing by five Ferengi. That’s where I first heard about B’Vat or “ambassador” B’Vat.  This guy’s a pip alright.  I still have the recording of what the informant had to say about this guy:

“He’s smart and he’s a planner. Wheels within wheels. He has half a dozen things going on, and I barely know the half of it. Ancient weapons, time travel, outlawed science…if there’s a way to get what he wants, B’vat will do it.  Things normal people wouldn’t even consider, B’vat already thought of it and figured out how to make it work.”

Me? I figured that rescuing Miss Prissy Pants would be the last time I ever heard of this B’Vat guy. Hah! Not even close. I ended up chasing him across time itself.  On the other hand I will take any chance I get to let loose of a little fire power.

Now if you’ll pardon me I have some gagh I would like to try while it is still alive. We can continue this story later.

(posted by The Webmaster for Julie Whitefeather)

Along with the picture above, I also found a nice little story to go with it.  I wanted to reprint the entire story here just incase it went away from the web site I found, you can read the original story (same as below) here:

Nanny Goat Gruff and the Internet Trolls

Jan 23rd, 2009 | By Stephanie Zvan|

Once upon a time, there was a nanny goat who lived to wander from field to field, tasting the grass and bushes as she went. It was a simple life: wander, taste, chew, wander again. Sunshine and air and a million flavors were her world.

What does it mean to be top dog?

Every industry has them – I had a teacher who at one point could have picked up the phone, called the White house and the President of the United States would have taken the call.  I have known been friends with someone who was once a common sight on television, until one day she “moved on to bigger and better things”.  I heard from her years later, asking for recipes so she could “write a cook book”.  Back in the military a first sergeant threatened to shove a telephone up my ass if I hung up on him, which I promptly did – again. It seems the first sergeant didn’t like me questioning the ability of his commanding officer to bring legal charges against a soldier.  It was a good thing I did.  The first sergeant stole a firearm from the armory – not a happy little thing to do when the armory happens to belong to your favorite “Uncle Sam”.  Twenty Four hours later the first sergeant and his records were spirited away.

There is an expression in the theater that says “Be nice to the people you meet on the way up…you will meet the same people on the way back down.”  How true this is.  In a very real way being “top dog” has a lot to do with karma – both have a nasty way of coming back to bite you in the ass.

Another writer once wrote the following words to me (below). I will save the writer the embarrassment of naming him. With enough digging you can find out on your own.

“If a writer who gets paid to play and evaluate MMO games sees such striking similarities between a promotional video and a prior title, don’t you think the average gamer might have trouble differentiating?”

The writer in question obviously wanted those reading his words to take them as meaning more than anyone else’s.  Why? Because he was (and still may be for all I know) paid to write them.  Ask yourself how much weight the quote above holds.  Do words matter more if someone is paid to write them? Is a game better when it is developed with the force of one of the largest game publishers in the world behind it, or just 40 people working out of their own homes?

Many people, like Brenda Starr in the excerpt from this mornings comics (the most important part of the paper) consider the words to hold meaning, truth, or some kind of weight if they see print somewhere.  At this point we could debate how many magazines have closed up show to reopen on the Internet.  I could point out the words of a senior producer of our acquaintance who spoke to us on the subject – explaining to us how developers tend to heed the words of bloggers more often because they actually play the games and are part of the community.  In fact some of the most moving words I have ever read where by someone who was never paid to write them.  In fact they never saw the light of day until well after her death.  Now they have been translated into many different languages and more than a hundred years later are still studied. The author was a french nun, and her words were called “The Story of a Soul.”

Like that nun, someone of the nicest people we have met in the gaming industry, or any other for that matter, or those individuals whose names you will likely never see or know – the “unsung heros”.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

Meanwhile back at the Tribble ranch many of the rustlers who where angry and said they weren’t going to play star trek online any more have actually “not played star trek online” any more. Of course there is also the possiblity that they decided to let Klingons be Klingons and let the rest of enjoy our game in peace.  However it works out, the den of inquity that is normally a hive of scum and villany has actually been an interesting place to go for information, especially if you take a gander at the Star Fleet Academy sub-forum here.

The most interesting revelation of late is that it is actually possible to be a Tribble Rancher in the game. All you need is a tribble to start with (the common ones drop at random…I get mine from dead Klingons).  Drop the tribble in your bank vault, leave a little food for them to eat (you can buy it on your ship with your replicator – the button is on your inventory screen).  When you come back a short while later (in my case about an hour) and you have more and varied Tribbles.  Now if the cute little gits had a market value I would be all set.  What I have done with  my Tribbles is give them to members of my away team.  The result is that when the shooting stops, the Tribble cooing starts.

There is a wonderful guide to Tribbles on the forums created by Miuramir and is available  here. In an effort to preserve said information I will also include a copy after the break.  The Star Fleet Academy forums also include links to Suircata’s Ship charts and Suircata’s Star Charts.

I have also found a little gem describing just how to create a Cardassian, in a little guide that was not, saddly,  “Stickied” at the top of the forums. I will include this little gem after the break as well.

But all is not fun and games in Tribble Town…

I am happy to report that in Tier two several times this morning the team I was on where beaten soundly by the Klingons.   Why happy you might ask?  Because that means either 1.) The Klingons are much better at fighting now or more likely 2.) The  Star Trek Online team over at Cryptic has been working at balancing pvp.  And as anyone who enjoys good pvp knows, pvp that isn’t a bit of a challenge isn’t fun pvp.

But there is a dark shadow on the horizon and that belongs to power levelers – team set your phasers on aggravation.  There is a pathetic trend I have encountered more often, and that are teams of suicide intent power levelers.  Since you get some experience for losing as well, teams of Federation players go out to battlegrounds intent on losing as quickly as possible.  Unfortunately, once you are in the same battleground with  said cretins you can’t join another if you leave.  So your options is to put up with it, try and fight the battle on your own (five against one odds) or quit the game and log back on to reset everything.

The sad fruit of the power leveler’s efforts were apparent when a group of us where waiting for an instance to restart so we could fight the “Crytaline Entity”.  Before the instance reset, a rear admiral drops out of warp and makes the instance his home…Killing the Crystaline Entity repeatedly before anyone can get in a shot.  This seems to be little more than a player, having reached the upper levels found himself or herself in need of people to impress by their virtual prowess, or should I say stupidity, at having managed to buypass most of the game. Now I could care less how fast players level up, I only begin to care when they begin to ruin the game for other players, myself included, in the process. After all, this may be Star Trek, but there are still plenty of banks to sit in front of – all of which seems nearly as foolish as the spammers who ofter to play the game for me if I will pay them. 

Amazing.

I bought a lifetime subscription because I enjoy the game so much and said spammer thinks I should pay him to play the game on myaccount? Still, given enough time I am sure that the good folks at Cryptic will get the gold spammers/power leveling service spammers to crawl back under the rock they crawled out from under in the first place.

See you online,

Julie Whitefeather

Tribble FAQ – Tribble Breeding for Fun and, well, Loss

By Miuramir

Introduction

Tribbles are an iconic part of the Star Trek franchise, first introduced in the famous 1967 episode The Trouble with Tribbles, set in 2268. Subsequent references occur throughout the franchise, as both incidental background props and entire episodes revolving around the creatures.

Tribbles are formally Polygeminus grex, with a variety of sub-species, breeds, and colors. They are originally from Iota Geminorum IV, and under optimal conditions can breed astoundingly rapidly, with doubling times normally associated with microscopic organisms. Please see the Memory Alpha entry for a variety of other details.

Due to the forum limitation of 11,000 characters, this FAQ has to be split up into multiple posts. This post or its successor will remain the general intro and source of miscellaneous info, with other sections split out as the information available expands. Sub-posts are all linked here for quick reference, as well in their appropriate sections:

Primary FAQ (you are here)
Tribble Powers
Tribble Breeds

Game Representation

In STO, the differing types of tribbles represented are described as “sub-species”, which have a one-to-one correspondence to colors or patterns. Tribbles are activatable equipment, and can be placed in your character’s hot bar, your bridge officer’s hot bar, your inventory, your personal bank, or a fleet bank. Activating a tribble provides a small bonus of some sort, and is represented in game by an animation of the character taking out the tribble and petting it, with appropriate cooing sounds. Tribbles have an official NPC sale or replicator value of 0 (zero); since breeding one requires consuming a food item with non-zero value, you are guaranteed to loose money breeding tribbles unless you can manage to sell a rare one to a fellow player.

Tribble Powers

Detailed info on Tribble Powers

Known base tribble powers include Healing (the most common), Resistance Buff, Damage Buff, Regeneration Buff, and Combat Skill Buff. Some tribbles have powers that combine multiple effects. See Detailed info on Tribble Powers for additional info.

Types

Detailed info on Tribble Breeds

A wide variety of tribble sub-species (or breeds) are known; as of this writing 14, with more reported daily. The solid-color tribbles are generally common, and include susilo (white), stahl (cream), sparkes (tan), dotson (brown), thompson (black), and vitales (gray). See Detailed info on Tribble Breeds for further info and the more exotic types.

Obtaining Tribbles

The primary way one gets tribbles is by breeding tribbles, and some types may only be available through breeding. See the following section for details. However, there are a few other ways to get a tribble:

* As a drop: Some NPC Klingon (and allies) ground enemies that you fight as a Federation character have a chance to drop a tribble as their loot. This is a bit odd, see some thoughts in the Notes section below. Details are currently unknown, but there are cases of them dropping in ground missions as early as level 4. At low levels, these are usually, if not always, single-color tribbles with the Healing activation. Most reports are of drops from actual Klingons, but Orions and Gorn have also been reported.

* As a pre-order bonus: A tribble pet is available as a pre-order bonus from several retailers. Currently known: Best Buy (US), Game AU (AU), Gross Electronic Silver Edition (DE), HMV Gold Edition (UK), Micromania Silver Edition and Micromania Gold Edition (FR). The subspecies is reported to be Polygeminus grex rivera, unusual in both color and powers (see sub-species FAQ for details); it is unknown whether it breeds true or enables other rare breeds.

Tribble Breeding

Tribble breeding can occur in your active power bar, in your inventory, or in your Bank (Fleet Bank testing still pending). You only need a single tribble to start, although some breeds may require multiple tribbles present. They will consume any “food item” in the same location category, replacing it with the new tribble.

Items considered “food items” seem to include all of the consumable out-of-combat regeneration items, including beverages in glass bottles and whatever 25th Century Field Rations are packaged in. It does not include “Provisions”, the non-consumable trade item (or at least the chance is very low). Details are still scarce, but it appears that uncommon food items (gotten from drops, not available from the replicator) are required or at least improve the chances of getting the less common tribble breeds.

The timing and odds of tribble breeding is still being researched. At the moment, it appears that a check is made when you change maps or zones, and at unknown times while on ground missions. Tribbles placed in your bank with food seem to breed very quickly compared to tribbles in your inventory; this might be because Space Dock is actually multiple zone maps, and you are changing back and forth as you run errands, or to represent the “tribbles eat everything in storage” effect, or due to a bug.

Stopping Tribble Breeding

Historically, one of the first questions people ask about tribbles is “How do I breed them?”. Shortly thereafter, many people come to the follow-up question “OK, now how do I STOP them from breeding?”, quite possibly followed by “Hey, that was my booze!”

While data is inconclusive, at this point it appears that tribbles only breed when there is a “food item” (see above under Tribble Breeding) in the same location category as an existing tribble. For instance, if you have a tribble equipped in your Bridge Officer’s item bar, it will not consume food in your own item bar. In general, having equipped (usable) tribbles and equipped (usable) food is not long-term compatible. However, you can have an equipped tribble in your item bar, and as long as you are careful to not have any in inventory, you can store food in your inventory. You’ll just have to equip the food and use it promptly when needed.

Notes

Trivia: the names of the breeds (officially sub-species) seem to be the last names of Cryptic developers in at least some cases.

Trivia: It is rumored that the public test server for STO will be called “tribble”.

Hypothesized missing breeds: From symmetry, it may be that there is a second Resistance Buff tribble not yet listed; a guess might put it at Brown with an equatorial Tan stripe.

Why do they drop from Klingons?: Based on what we know about tribbles in the franchise, it seems unlikely that a Klingon would be carrying them for buffs or cuddle factor. There have been a few suggestions made as to why Klingons drop tribbles as loot:

* Their ship or base has an infestation; the Klingon thought they were carrying some food, but it had been eaten by a tribble when they weren’t looking.

* Despite the noise and dislike, it might be a cheap way to tell a real Klingon from an Undine who is shapeshifted into a Klingon appearance; in effect the reverse of the incident from the original episode.

How to make the “ASCII tribble” as seen on the forums, (¯) : This is actually 3 characters with some vBcode, optionally colored:
([u]¯[/u])
That’s an open parenthesis, an underlined overbar (Unicode U+00AF (175)), and a close parenthesis. To color it, you can add [color=value]([u]¯[/u])[/color], where “value” is a vB recognized color. These are believed to match or be similar to HTML colors. See the listing above for some examples.

If anyone has detailed breeding tests, please post as much info as possible.

Last updated 2010-02-03, with info from Live (Holodeck)

How to: make a Cardassian.

By Jaime

So let’s do this thing.

Head:

Category – Humanoid.

Head Type – Humanoid 1. (Or the rare, Humanoid 2 Asian Cardassian. O_O)

Skin Type – Access your color palette. Move your cursor to the bottom left corner (16 rows down). From here to the bottom center, there are 13 color squares. Personally, I would only use 7-11. Use these colors for the remainder of your Cardassian.

Re: Row 16, palettes 7-11 counting from the left.

Overall Pattern – Solid Color.

Base Complexion – Neck Scales.

Forehead Detail - Scaled Spoon. Full effect for starters so you can see your Cardassian coming together.

Nose Detail – Scaled Length. Full effect for starters.

Tattoo/Scars – Whatever you want.

Eyes – Humanoid. I would stick to white corneas and black-grey irises.

Ears – Long Scales.

Hairstyle – Try to stick to receding hairstyles. Darker colors, most often black. This isn’t because all Cardassians age quickly, it’s because of their ridges.

Shininess – I went with none, but it’s preference.

Eyebrow – None.

Mouth Accessory – I would say none, but it’s w/e.

Eye Attach – Whatever you want.

Head Attach Organic – None.

Body:

Pay special attention to your Cardassian’s neck. You want to bulk it up a bit to simulate their stretchy neck. Try 4ish or so bars. (4/5).

For length, stick to 3 bars. (3/5)

Cardassians are normally pretty tall. Try for 6′2″+.

http://i46.tinypic.com/xlmtg8.jpg

Compare.

http://en.academic.ru/pictures/enwiki/68/Damar.jpg

Female Cardassians:

Follow the male Cardassian guide and I’ll quickly go over the differences here.

First of all, their Scaled Spoon forehead detail is usually a blue hue as opposed to the grey shade males have. Still, I would keep it light and inconspicuous. A bright, baby blue hue detail won’t really cut it.

A suggestion:

Quote:

Their hair color can range anywhere from the usual black to brown.

Hairstyles should still include a high hair line. I don’t believe the female hairstyles are as accommodating, so just try to keep their hair out of their faces.

(In-game screenshot coming soon. Cryptic’s hamster passed out again.)

Originally Posted by Kinthok

Male:
Zax Narale
Almor Karn
Koman Waka
Drokkan Sarat

Here is an example the the original poster gives to go by.

“Here, have a cookie. I promise when you finish eating it you’ll be feeling right as rain.” Gloria Foster as “The Oracle” in The Matrix

If there ever were a place that can be described as a “hive of scum and villainy” the official forums for any given game will often embody the phrase.  There are, of course, exceptions. Still, it is little wonder to me that Mark Jacobs, former head of what used to be called “Mythic Entertainment” (I am not sure what they are calling themselves these days) initially refused to have official forums for Warhammer Online. We have had a number of community managers on the show lately, most recently from Quest Online Studios and in an upcoming show the community managers from Funcom.  As a result we have been fortunate to talk with each of them about the work they do for their companies.  The overwhelming impression I get is that such a job must truly be a “labor of love” – especially where Cryptic Studios is concerned.   Reading through the official forums for Star Trek Online (STO) during closed and open beta I got the feeling that the community manager must feel like someone dipped them in blood and dropped them in a shark tank.

The comments range from helpful to hostile, and as expected, there are more trolls then there are under bridges in fairy tales.  Most interesting are the comments made by those individuals who regale us all with how horrible Star Trek Online is, and then continue to play it.  I can only suppose they do so as a form of self discipline – sort of like self flagellation.  Mind you, I play STO because I enjoy the game and have been waiting for it to see the light of day for quite some time.

I was pondering this thought as I was making the rounds of the No Prisoners, No Mercy news feeds when I came upon something written by Keen from Keen and Graevs entitled “Astral Ships: As Amazing and Unique as You Can Imagine!” As I read through the article, a sentence or two struck a chord – you can read the entire article here:

It’s different than something like STO or even Darkfall where you can sail ships.  The depth that this type of gameplay can add to exploration is immense.  While Allods has done an extraordinary job, I can’t help but imagine the power this could have in future games.

Who would have thought that Allods Online, a free to play game, could accomplish what so many have wanted for years? 

Let me say at the outset that I have played Allods, enjoyed it, and agree with everything that Keen has to say on the subject of Astral Ships…with one small exception.  I can’t say that the experience that Keen describes is what I have “wanted for years.” Tobold once described Alganon as “not making a very good WoW”, to which I responded with “it also doesn’t make a very good Air Craft Carrier Nimitz.”  Both the forums and the “Blogosphere” are filled with seemingly carefully considered assessments of Star Trek Online and the game that Cryptic has not created, rather than consider their artistry (and make no mistake it is art that has been created) on its own merits.

It is a common mindset of course.  We each have our own experiences and it is that environmental conditioning that makes us part of who we are.  We each have our own definition of what we consider a “good game.”  There is an expression in Buddhism that says “there are many paths up the mountain but they all lead to the summit.”  The paths that lead to what we each look for in a game may intersect in places and they may not.   There are places in the creative process where both CCP and Cryptic Studios intersect.  But there are also places where they are widely divergent and I am grateful for both.

More than anything else, Star Trek Online brings to its participants the Star Trek experience. Cryptic does that very well.  Perhaps that is why I enjoy the game so much…I play it for what it does do, rather than focus on what it doesn’t do. There will, of course, continue to be those individuals who try to persuade others to see the work done by Cryptic Studios on Star Trek Online in a negative light.  To those individuals I will give the same advice that the Oracle gave to Neo in The Matrix – in fact it is the same advice that someone gave one of the forum trolls in STO:

“Have a cookie. I promise when you finish eating it you’ll be feeling right as rain.”

See you online.

Julie Whitefeather

(posted for Julie Whitefeather by The Webmaster)

Life and death in the solar winds – you can see it above in the picture from late closed beta. My ship is the Tier One Federation ship you see above…the one that is still in one piece.  Now being a project manager rather than an astrophysicistI have no idea if said solar winds actually blow through space or not.  The only blowing through space I am certain of is the space immediately following our Boston Terrier. We call her the gaseous anomaly, and with good reason.  But blow the solar winds do and right through the pvp arena in Star Trek Online.  This particular arena is one of my favorites. In the picture above you can see a Klingon Bird-of-Prey appearing (or disappearing) right after having blown a Federation ship to bits.

The reason for the picture above brings to mind an issue. Keen from Keen and Graev (a former guest on our show) has a nice discussion on death penalties in general which you can read here.   Where Star Trek Online (STO) is concerned the death penalty has been one of debate during the closed and open beta.  Mind you the official forums of any game is sort of a dangerous place to go for any sort of a decent discussion on an issue.

The discussion seem to range into areas such as “STO can’t even call itself an MMORPG” to people happy the way it is all the way up to things such as insults based on dubious parentage and being told to “know thyself” in the biblical sense. If you are one of those individuals who think the death penalty is fine like it is, it seems that the executive producer for Star Trek Online agrees with you and here is why:

“Well, first and foremost, it’s a game. We thought of a whole bunch of different ways to do interesting things for respawn, but it really came down to getting players back into the action. You don’t lose your ship [if it blows up]; you just respawn at the beginning of the map with a little damage done to your systems. But overall, we don’t want you to spend 80 hours getting that Sovereign class vessel, get owned, and then lose that ship.”  – Craig Zinkievich

Personally, I couldn’t agree more.  One of the more irritating aspects of Eve Online is the risk of “losing it all” in one match (and that usually happens in Eve Online PvP).   There may be some people who feel that particular aspect of game play gives Eve Online it’s “white knuckles” feeling. While that may be true, what it generally means is the person with the biggest gun wins, and the match is almost never a fair measure of anything but time spent training and money spend on ships.  I do understand that there may be a bit of balancing to do where the pvp is concerned, and that is only natural as it is, after all, only the first day of the official launch. In the end, the pvp in Star Trek Online will be more of a measure of tactics taking place on a level playing field and that means alot more fun.

It was not that long ago Keen made a comment in a beta impressions article wishing whoever took Ferengi out of the game…well lets just say that the wish would have been very painful had it actually been carried out.  Well Keen will be one happy man today as he will no doubt find out that he and his brother can go back to role playing Ferengi.  The only catch, of course, is that it will cost 80 Cryptic points to do so.  Since Cryptic points currently run 500 for $6.25 that mean it will cost all of a dollar to play your favorite character. Is  it worth it? If you like Ferengi is sure is, and if it helps keep the game in the black I am all for it.  Now through in the ability to make a living hauling goods and defending those goods with your freighter and I will be the first one in line. Until then you will see my Liberated Borg online.

See You Online,

Julie Whitefeather

(posted by Webmaster for Julie Whitefeather)

When I was a child I played a game called “telephone”. It’s a common game and I am sure that most of you have heard of it.  The idea is that one person starts with a story.  It is repeated around the room quietly and you see how it turns out at the other side.  Invariably there are so many different versions of the same story that it bears little resemblence to the original.

“From what I gathered, you’re complaining at the people that are complaining at the people that are complaining.” – Night04

The quote above is something I found on the Star Trek Online forums which, thankfully, will be wiped for the launch of the game tommorow.   Still, somewhere between the ludicrous threats of class action lawsuits by slighted gamers and those who put Cryptic on pedastals so high you couldn’t reach the top with a hook and ladder truck – lays reality. There is little doubt that Cryptic was as surprised as they say they where at the interest in the head start.  While there are those in the blogosphere who will sneer at the downtimes over the last weekend, my mind went instantly to a show we had not to long ago with Saylah from Mystic Worlds as guest.  She pointed out that she didn’t mind ques to get online because that meant that when she was online there would always be someone to game with…and like it or not, Star Trek Online is popular.  Heck, the Star Trek genre is older than many of it’s fans.

Even thought I played in the closed beta, and the open beta the launch of a new mmo, especially this mmo, is exciting.  There may have been a few problems during the head start days. On the other hand anyone who claims to have seen an MMO launch with out any difficulties at all is likely living in some fantasy world.

Like Craig Zinkievich once pointed out, there is alot of ground they can cover with the game, and years of exciting times ahead.  As the hours tick away toward the official launch of the game the line delivered by Simon Pegg in the recent Star Trek movie comes to mind.

I think it’s exciting.

See you online

Julie Whitefeather

(posted by the Webmaster for Julie Whitefeather)

“STO can’t even be labeled a MMORPG. It is multiplayer but beyond that, its arcade, nothing more.” – STO forums

“I am not whining, I am demanding companies produce a quality product, not complete fluff then attempt to market it as something it is not. Cryptic is on the verge of ruining any chance of getting a quality Star Trek game, one that involves tactical thinking, like a Star Trek game should be.” – STO forums

“Maybe it’s just not for you, and others will enjoy it. Maybe even you will enjoy it…” – STO forums

“Right now all you do is die and repsawn over and over under you complete the mission, nothing is hard because you can’t lose anything. EVE Online makes you really pumped up for combat because you can lose everything that’s on you and man it just makes the whole game exciting. – mmorpg forums

“Sorry, most people don’t want to lose days/weeks/months of work becauser they died, have fun torturing yourself though.” – mmorpg forums

“I don’t think we need to go to the point of EVE or Darkfall. Losing everything you’ve gained is no fun. The only time death should be tough is in PVP, and IMO the best way to solve that is to be kicked out of the battle until it is over. As others have said, you have other gaming options if you get an adreniline rush from harsh death penalties.” – mmorpg forums

“Space combat is very much like the shows. It’s not a dogfight—you’re not zipping around. You’re in huge 1,000-meter starships with hundreds of crew onboard. In the shows, it’s all about tactics and positioning. It’s about bolstering a shield that’s taken damage, transferring power from your deflector dish to your weapons or engines at the right time. It’s about knocking your enemy’s shields down with phasers and taking them out with photon torpedoes…” – CZ

“Well, first and foremost, it’s a game. We thought of a whole bunch of different ways to do interesting things for respawn, but it really came down to getting players back into the action. You don’t lose your ship [if it blows up]; you just respawn at the beginning of the map with a little damage done to your systems. But overall, we don’t want you to spend 80 hours getting that Sovereign class vessel, get owned, and then lose that ship.”  – CZ

Quick…of all the opinions above, which one counts – we mean really counts.  If you ask the authors of all of the above statement more than likely each one will probably think their opinion counts. What about this? Whose opinion doesn’t count?  If you find out that “CZ” stands for Craig Zinkievich, executive producer for Star Trek Online the first thought (at least the first reasonable thought) might be that only his opinion counts. But does it?

Home of the un-silent minority…

This last weekend we read through the Star Trek Online (STO) forums. Mind you this is a dangerous habit at best to anyone who actually enjoys the game to which the forums belong. We say this is a dangerous habit because the forums are where what our own Julie has dubbed “the un-silent minority” resides. These are the individuals WHO USUALLY TYPE IN ALL CAPS – no doubt because they feel the rest of humanity lacks the attention span necessary to grasp the meaning of their words otherwise. These are usually accompanied by the individuals who threaten legal action, such as the individual, bereft of any understanding of tort law, who threatened a class action lawsuit for being denied some of their gaming time this weekend, or having to wait a few hours to play his “liberated Borg character”.

Home of the wise (or should we say wizened) blogger…

One of the more irritating habits that players in any mmo have developed is whipping out the “e-peen” meter.  Sister Frances talks about this on our next show where some mage proudly displayed his dps meter during a raid and denounced the good sister (who was playing the tank role) for not doing enough damage. The catch (or two) of course, is that it is the tanks role to take damage. And if the mage manages to dish out enough dps to rival an atom bomb the old mmo adage “you spank it you tank it” comes in to play.

But mmos participants aren’t the only ones who like to whip out e-peen meters. Every now and then a blogger likes to whip out a meter that measures “numbers of unique hits” on their web site.  If said blogger manages to reach an number that would fill a small school auditorium sometimes said blogger will begin to pat themselves on the back and like Tevia says of “the rich man” in Fiddler on the Roof “think they really know.”  The result will be an individual who sometimes catching the briefest glimpses of beta gaming, or sometimes actually playing the first level or two of live release, will pronounce their edict as if they are the Almighty Himself, relegating the game developer and publisher to gaming Heaven or hell mere based on their whim.

The biggest stick

American president Theodore Roosevelt once said “Speak softly and carry a big stick” – but who really has the biggest stick here? Is it Craig Zinkievich? After all, he is the executive producer of STO.  In the short term perhaps his opinion does matter the most. But even he reports to someone.  Keep in mind here that no matter who Craig Zinkievich reports to, Cryptic Studios is owned by Atari (the other name on the screen when you log on to STO). Taking it a step further even Atari is owned by a French corporation named Infogrames, by some estimations the largest manufacturer of games in the entire world.  So this must mean that the CEO (chief executive officer) of Infogrames has the biggest stick – right? Well maybe not.

The wheel turns…

Julie often says that her grandmother used to describe a “big wheel” as something that “goes around and around in circles, never gets anywhere and little dogs pee on it.” We couldn’t agree more.  We have noted that the more successful the developer or publisher the bigger their “britches” (and sometimes head) seems to get. Mind you this isn’t always the case but believe me there are plenty of examples. (perhaps this is why we love independent developers so much).  But in the long run even the big 800 pound corporate gorillas can be slapped back into their cage and told to beg for bananas for a living.  A heck of a good example is General Motors. They have required not one but two bailouts by the United States government.

“A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.” – Tommy Lee Jones as “Agent K” from Men in Black

In the case about the reason that General Motors needed a bailout is simple enough; not enough people bought their cars.  The key word in the last sentence is people, not person.  There may be a very verbal minority that voices their opinions very loudly in the Star Trek Online forums that feel that STO is doomed, DOOMED I SAY,  because Cryptic has had enormous gall, the massive chutzpa, to create the game and institute a virtual death penalty without consulting them first.  The truth of the matter is, of course, that such a concept is ludicrous.  But while a person or even small vocal group of people on the forums may be inconsequential people are dumb, panicky dangerous animals. Taken as a while people can bring even the greatest game, and the best developer or publisher to its knees; but a person, can’t do it, no matter how much they think of themselves.

So in the end, who has the biggest stick? Well it seems to us that in the end analysis no one has the biggest stick. Game development and publishing is just like everything else – it is just like life…it is one big enormous circle.

See you online,

The No Prisoners, No Mercy Team

But wait…there’s more. Don’t the pictures we use in our articles always have something to do with the theme of the article? Well in this case the picture is related only in that it is from STO. It’s just something we noticed the first time we saw an “enemy signal contact” in sector space – the very first thing we thought of was, as you can see, the Eye of Sauron, from Lord of the Rings.

Grilka: Hi there stalwart readers, my name is Grilka of  House TOG, and this is my crew. Say hello boys.

Crew: (as one) Hello boys.

Grilka:  (rolls her eyes)  They might not be too much on smarts, but they are  great to look at and when we win battles there is competition for who will be taken my prisoner.

(A banging is heard on the  door to the bridge.  The door opens with a woosh to reveal an angry mob of human males between the ages of 12 and 18)

Angry Mob:  ARE YOU INSANE THIS HAS BEEN THE WORST WEEKEND EVER!

Grilka:  Well the boys and I had fun.

Angry Mob: We didn’t get our liberated borg character on time!!!

Grilka: I did, and here I sit, a liberated borg klingon surrounded by my “liberators.” Isn’t that right boys.

Crew: We think it’s time to “liberate” our commander again.

Angry Mob: The servers kept going down all weekend!!!

Grilka:  Thus forcing you to take the occasional break – how horrible

Angry Mob: We aren’t going to stand for this, we’re revolting!

Grilka: I’ll say you are…

Angry Mob: That’s not what we mean. We are going to take legal action; A CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT.

Grilka: and sue  for the five dollars each you had to put down on the pre-order? It will cost you more than that for the gas money to get to the court house.

Angry Mob: WE PAID A LIFETIME FEE!

Grilka:  You paid a lifetime fee?  So you are all paid up for the rest of the game’s life, or yours, whichever comes first – so there isn’t much of a hurry is there.

Angry Mob: Well…

Grilka: And the game hasn’t really launched yet. It doesn’t lauch until February 2nd.   You in the back there…the short one. Weren’t you the one complaining about how poorly the crew tracked? Didn’t they fix that? And label the maps like you asked, and fixed the crew so they beamed down with you all the time, and fixed the broken ground battle quests, and the fleet action?

Quiet female voice in the back of the crowd: Well yes…

Grilka:  And what have you actually lost? What service that you paid for hasn’t been rendered?

Quiet female voice in the back of the crowd:  I lost part of my weekend; I lost some time.

Grilka: You lost some time.

Angry Mob: WE ALL LOST TIME!

Grilka: Do you know the TIME it was when the average Cryptic employee was at home to do anything but eat and sleep?

(a brief but meaningful silence)

Grilka: Last Tuesday.  And how many of you have actually launched a massively multplayer game.

(half the hands in the crowd go up)

Grilka: …of more than four people

(most of the rest of the hands go down)

Grilka: And a paper and pencil dungeons and dragon campaign doesn’t count

(the rest of the hands go down)

Grilka: So those of you that want to play the liberated borg character had to wait a few hours and got your character anyway.  You got to play this weekend, but had to take a break now and then.  At one point you were in a long que but then Cryptic let you all in anyway.

(only mumbling is heard)

Grilka: I thought so. Now let that nice woman in the back through…its time for the boys to “liberate the Borg Klingons” some more.

I have 4 toons actually, an 80 DK (death knight) Blood Elf, an 80 Troll priest, a 72 Blood Elf Warlock, and my latest toon, a 60 Tauren Warrior (tank spec). Well, the toon I’ve had the longest has to be my warlock, she is over 4 years old. WoW just recently had their 5^th anniversary, and she was created after WoW had been around for about 8-10 months….so she’s definitely my oldest toon. I remember when Sr. Julie and I first started the pod cast, and we were discussing Death Knights because they were just added to WoW, and we were talking about that quest you have to do as a Death Knight, where you have to kill a bunch of villagers. I was appalled! I was saying how “I could NEVER do THAT!” Julie just laughed at me and said “how can you justify being a nun playing a WARLOCK then?” and I replied that my warlock is like “Glenda the good witch!” much to the amusement of Sr. Julie and our listeners. I played my warlock and I enjoyed it to a certain extent. What I didn’t like was being so squishy that I got “one shotted” all the time in battlegrounds, and if a boss ever hit me it was over. Battlegrounds were actually such a sore point with me that a few times, I ranted pretty bad in battleground chat, and got myself kicked out of whatever guild I was in! I guess you can’t use the “f-word” in WoW without someone noticing (needless to say, no one knew who was actually saying those words, or they would be horrified)! It got to the point with me and guilds that every week I was in a different one. Plus it didn’t help that in every patch WoW was nerfing Warlocks into the ground. Then with that whole “keying” thing [EDITORS NOTE:  For those new to WoW she is talking about getting the keys to instances in outlands] and everyone pulling out their measuring sticks and shouting at me that I was supposed to be the top of the dps chart and wasn’t, well that didn’t help me want to play my warlock any either.

So, maybe 2 years ago, as a reaction to all the grief I was getting, I rolled up a Drenai Warrior. I liked seeing the new Drenai lands, but once I was out of the new lands into the “old” lands grinding away, it was hell. It got so bad that I abandoned my warrior completely when DK’s came out. Well, I got over the whole killing the pixels/villagers thing and rolled up a Death Knight. I rolled Blood Elf, in the new, “good” guild I was in, The Older Gamers, or TOG as known to many. I was REALLY happy with my DK! Finally, I had STAMINA, AND STRENGTH, AND PLATE ARMOR!!! Woo Hoo…I could even TANK instances and not get us killed!!! I was having fun, especially in Battlegrounds! But then Blizzard went and nerfed DK’s to the point where they make terrible tanks, and their dps is usually the lowest compared to mages and warlocks…so here I was again…stuck without a tanking toon. So, I went back to my “old” Drenai warrior. Almost as soon as they allowed faction changes, I went from Alliance to Horde. I do think that Horde is the side where it seems more reasonable people play. I have run into a few pugs that want to make kick them all in the butt, for the most part however, I really am happy I changed to Horde. Plus I changed from a Drenai to Tauren.

I had tried Tauren when WoW first came out, but didn’t like them so much. But with my Warrior, it’s different. Taurens LOOK like Warriors/tanks! They are big, they have that stomp ability that stuns the targets – it just works. I was also leveling up my priest, which I still play for raids, since priests are ALWAYS needed for raids. But aside from raiding with my priest, I’m playing/leveling my warrior. I never realized that the toon I really wanted to play the most was a tank. Now that I’m horde, in a good guild, and playing a tank, I’ve never had so much fun in WoW! I’m sure that other Warriors will tell me the drawbacks to being a tank, but so far, I can’t see any. Probably the ONLY thing that irritates me to no end is when I do PUGS and they pull out the measuring sticks. I’m always second to last on dps charts. But then last night I had a realization…tanks are supposed to TAKE damage, NOT GIVE damage. They need to hold aggro, which can be a challenge with some of the AoE happy mages/warlocks out there, but once I realized that, it didn’t bother me about them pulling out the measuring sticks. And what I have found is that when there are others who want to “off-tank” or more like “be the tank” but don’t have the stamina, gear, or talents for it, I just back off and let them tank…see how long they last…usually it’s not too long resulting in the complaint that I “didn’t hold aggro”! Well I’m not the one who charged in there wearing cloth armor, am I? The best part about being a tank, is that I just don’t have to put up with the BS that pugs give. Too much BS from someone in a pug and I’m outta there…faster than you can say “pug”!

You know, I have thought about it, and it seems to me that each of my 4 toons in WoW have some part of my own personality…I can be, and have been a healer in my life. I CERTAINLY have been a witch a time or two! I’ve got a side of me that I don’t like to show, which is the vindictive Death Knight side. But who knew, that I would most like, and most relate to being a Warrior/Tank! Years ago, I was going through probably the most difficult period in my life. I had been dumped by my fiancé who left me for a married woman he worked with, who’s own marriage was failing. I had dreams of being a wife and mother, and a graphic designer…it just all crumbled to the ground like old buildings in an earthquake. I remember very fondly, my mother who I had a strained relationship with before, came to my rescue. She couldn’t walk very well, she couldn’t breathe very well, and here she was at my Chicago apartment, struggling, puffing, up 3 floors of steep stairs in order to help me clean out my apartment and move back home with her. She helped me pack, she washed and cleaned, she held me while I cried, she was this tiny, frail, thin, sickly, monster-warrior soul of a woman who just would NOT let life’s troubles beat her down, nor her precious daughter! She put up with so much abuse from me in the past, yet here she was by my side, fighting off the depression that might have killed me if she had not been there. She showed me then, how much she loved me. But it wasn’t until I was her caregiver in the last 5 years of her life, that she showed me what a TRUE warrior is…she suffered ailments, and humiliations because of those ailments that would make most people crumble into a pile of insanity! Yet, she handled it all with such Grace as I have never seen. Yes, she had her bad days. She even yelled at me in a restaurant one day, something that made me burst into tears. But I realized that I was the ONLY safe target she had to unload on. All the suffering that life was throwing at her, she had no way to unload it, except onto me, the daughter she loved and fought with, and fought FOR …for so long. I forgave her; because she forgave me for all that I had done to her. That’s what a warrior is…someone who can take a beating and still smile – Someone who can take a beating and realize that we are all only human. Someone who knows that forgiveness is NOT just an option…it’s a shield, not just for the warrior, but for the person who’s hitting as well. So, of all my characters in WoW, I think I like being a Warrior/Tank the best, because I was shown by my mother, what it means to be a good warrior, to fight the good fight, and not let the sadness or suffering make you bitter and angry and mean.

To my mom, the best warrior I’ve ever known. Mom, I only hope that I can one day, be as good a warrior as you were! I love you.

Sr. Frances

Below are just a few things that I got sent via email, I thought they were really cute and might cheer someone up! Enjoy!

KIDS IN CHURCH
3-year-old Reese :
‘Our Father, Who does art in heaven,
Harold is His name.
Amen.’

A little boy was overheard praying: ‘Lord, if you can’t make me a better boy, don’t worry about it. I’m having a real good time like I am.’

After the christening of his baby brother in church,
Jason sobbed all the way home in the back seat of the car. His father asked him three times what was wrong.
Finally, the boy replied, ‘That preacher said he wanted us brought up in a Christian home, and I wanted to stay with you guys.’

One particular four-year-old prayed, ‘And forgive us our trash baskets as we forgive those who put trash in our baskets.’

A Sunday school teacher asked her children as they
were on the way to church service, ‘And why is it necessary to be quiet in church?’ One bright little girl replied, ‘Because people are sleeping.’

A mother was preparing pancakes for her sons, Kevin 5, and Ryan 3. The boys began to argue over who would get the first pancake. Their mother saw the opportunity for a moral lesson.. ‘If Jesus were sitting here, He would say,
‘Let my brother have the first pancake, I can wait.’
Kevin turned to his younger brother and said,
‘ Ryan , you be Jesus !’

A father was at the beach with his children
when the four-year-old son ran up to him,
grabbed his hand, and led him to the shore
where a seagull lay dead in the sand.
‘Daddy, what happened to him?’ the son asked.
‘He died and went to Heaven,’ the Dad replied.
The boy thought a moment and then said,
‘Did God throw him back down?’

A wife invited some people to dinner. At the table, she turned to their six-year-old daughter and said, ‘Would you like to say the blessing?’ ‘I wouldn’t know what to say,’ the girl replied. ‘Just say what you hear Mommy say,’ the wife answered. The daughter bowed her head and said,
‘Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?’